Go Fly a Kite

Hard time jump-starting the random word generator this morning. Partly that's the fault of the day which is beautiful -- faux springtime in the middle of January, the sun lapping the world with a kind of slurpy warmth that produces an ennui vaguely reminiscent of being rocked in amniotic fluid. Not conducive to clear thinking.

Partly, though, my mind feels exhausted as though it's lost all its tone, all its elasticity. I can barely type these words. Some kind of subtext is simmering behind this — fear that language is somehow rationed by one of the minor gods who, frowning down from heaven, has decided I've used up more than my quota because, after all, I'm not a real writer, I'm an ape who reads which means I like to imitate writers. Ugga, ugga. Jonathan Franzen is a real writer. Michael Gruber is a real writer. (Brilliant throw-away description of a merger and acquisitions lawyer in his latest ghosted effort: "When Behemoth wished to mate with Gargantua, Rally Maxwell was there to bless the congress, and to insure that the great greasy organs slid into their appropriate receptacles, whether Gargantua was willing or not, or rather especially if it was not, if the deal was a rape.")

Still stuck on the Universal Identifier story, words squeezing out like Mr. Franzen's talking turds. Want to start on the Dalai Lama novel but am stuck on the opening image, the frozen, discolored figure of the Chinese scientist and the CD he holds in his hand. Meanwhile, common sense tells me that I have to find a job, that this balmy day is a hallucinatory interal, that soon enough the cold winds of winter will blow anew.