Mojo

Apr. 23rd, 2026 12:58 pm
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Maybe I am getting my writing mojo back. Maybe.

On the drive to the upscale supermarket in Middletown late yesterday afternoon, I could feel the words clicking into place like metal filings against a magnet: I bought it so I could save it...polluting the local cripple creeks... (Why "cripple"? 'Cause I was listening to The Band.)

Driving is good for that. It often puts me into a semi-fugue state.

And beyond that, I could feel the ideas drifting across my mind, like a time-lapse animation of clouds on a windy day: The opening paragraph will include Flavia explaining why she bought the Catskills property and a brief imagined history of Riggsville, the paragraph after that will explore Neal's introversion, and the one after that will set up the tension between Flavia and Mimi when Mimi starts twisting Flavia's arm because Mimi wants to move into the cabin. Much of Flavia's section explores her guilt over being so fabulously wealthy when her friends and acquaintances are all struggling, so it's a good idea to set that up early.

I was going to make Daria Part 2. But whatever ideas and momentum I had for that Part 2 evaporated in the three months I spent toiling in the Schlock tax mines.

Flavia has a much clearer narrative arc: Rich girl/recovering Daddy's little angel doesn't know what to do with herself -> dabbles in architecture school (Pratt) -> develops a cocaine habit -> meets Neal -> gets saved from cocaine habit ->has intense physical relationship with Neal (lotsa sex scenes!) -> Neal dies -> feels obligation to take care of Mimi, the most obnoxious and helpless of the Sister Wives.

I'm still not sure what Daria's narrative arc is. Something having to do with the many languages she speaks, the linguistic pastiche inside her head. But I'm hampered in that, since really, I only speak English. How am I going to get inside the head of someone who exists in multiple linguistic dimensions? Now I won't have to for another couple of months!

###

Other than that...

For some reason, I slept poorly last night. No idea why. I did not feel anxious; I was sufficiently exercised, and I was tired. But there didn't seem to be any pathway down into unconsciousness.

So, this morning, I'm feeling clunky and vaguely headachey. Bilgy tummy, too!

I did have plans to go off to New Paltz and garden. The issue with the New Paltz community garden, though, is that it's so vast that wheelbarrowing pulled-up weeds, raked winter ground cover, and such involves transversing significant distances, and I'm not sure I'm up for physical work on just five hours sleep.

They'll be turning the water on at the beginning of May. I have to wrestle with my garden hose! Unlike the Hyde Park Community Garden, the New Paltz Community Garden makes each gardener get their own individual hose. My plot is a good 30 feet away from the spigot, so there are actual logistics to be calculated in the use of said hose.

Meanwhile, seen yesterday on my tromp through the Harried Plateau:



I wanna foster-parent a beehive!!!!
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Night before last, I couldn't sleep. I lay all night in that strange hypnagogic state where you're completely aware of the external world beyond your closed eyelids, but the passage of time is very distorted.

I hadn't had any caffeine since 8 am the previous morning.

I hadn't had any alcohol.

I was anxious, but anxiety is the matrix in which all of us humans live nowadays. Being alive right now is anxiety-provoking! Nothing is going unusually wrong in my little life, & there was no Horrible Thing awaiting me the very next day that I wanted to avoid.

So, my sleeplessness was a great mystery.

When the first light broke around 6 am, I got up from my bed.

You will simply call them at 9 & tell them you can't come in today, I told myself.

I was amazed by how guilty this made me feel! I mean, it's not like I owe Schlock anything but my labor while my ass is in their chair.

But I did feel guilty! What a horrible failure you are, said the little voice in my head. What a perpetual disappointment to all & sundry.

###

This sleeplessness has happened before. Not often—but often enough so that I'm familiar with its manifestation. Usually it happens on nights when I'm anxious about performing the next day.

Thus, it happened during a trip to Baltimore a few years back with a person I didn't know very well at the time (but subsequently became a good friend). Thus, it happened in Ithaca last Thanksgiving when I was about to be trotted out on a round of holiday parties.

It's one of the banes of old age.

Old people just don't sleep very well.

###

Anyway, I managed to have a fairly productive day with my ass not in the chair.

In the morning, I polished off Remuneration for one client & got a modest assignment from another. If I'm diligent about husbanding resources, I may actually be in better financial shape this year than I was last.

In the afternoon, I scampered off to the New Paltz Community Garden & puttered. My plot is in surprisingly good shape. Whoever had it before me stayed on top of the weeds, and the soil in those raised boxes looks surprisingly good.

In the late afternoon, I dropped by the Gardiner Bakehouse and spent an hour or so nibbling chocolate chip cookies and reading The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, which is the Big New Novel of the season.

I want to like Sonia and Sunny more than I actually like it. It has some surprisingly good insights:

An arranged marriage story, even one that ended six months later in divorce, felt true and false. True because it happened. False because it was feeding the West what it wanted to consume about the East. The audience made it false. Lifting this one story out of all the others made it false.

But I'm finding Kiran Desai's much-praised writing style a bit banal. Her metaphors are pretty word strings but they don't make much sense. And her non-Indian characters make no sense at all.



Claude sent me an email: Are keeping your garden this year . Hope you fine , spring is rite there . Lmk

Claude's spoken English is very good (though it preserves Gallic word order), but he never saw the slightest utility in learning how to write English.

It made me very sad to write back that no, I would not be coming back. I really love the Hyde Park Community Garden, it's just such a beautiful, serene place, and I really like all my fellow gardeners there:



But it's utterly insane to plan on driving across the bridge multiple times each week. The time sink, sure, but also, I don't like driving.

I still haven't decided where I want to move. Ithaca is attractive, but the problem with Ithaca is that just five miles outside the city limits, you're in Alabama except with snow. The Southern Tier is a Trumpy place & getting to anywhere else I might want to hang out (for which read New York City) is a real ordeal from there. Yes, RTT is there, and RTT loves me—but it's not as though RTT would want to hang out with me.

So, I'm also contemplating maybe moving back to Dutchess County. Where I know people. Where I'll be close to Metro-North train stations that can deposit me in Grand Central Station in just under two hours. My old friend Carl A has told me I can stay overnight in the guest room of his apartment on the upper West Side anytime. I should probably take him up on the offer.

Claude wrote me back: It’s sad that u leavin us but we ll keep u in mind for next year u decide to come back . I don’t ve a à person to replace u right now . Stay in touch
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Bad couple of days.

Having trouble with the "falling" part of "falling asleep."

I could physically register how tired my body was, but every time I began to drift off, I was flooded with bad neurochemicals that made me feel unsafe, a chemical lurch that pulled me back into hypervigilance.

Very exhausting.

This winter has been very, very difficult.

It's partly the brutally cold weather, partly the ghastly political situation, partly my sub-optimal personal situation, but also (I imagine) partly my age: Totipotence has always played a huge role in my delusions of my own uniqueness: I can do anything! Maybe not well! But I can do it!

But at 73, I am learning there are things I can no longer do, & moreover, that other people see those limitations and judge me for them. I am no longer really a unique & special person. I am just another aging Boomer.

It's a humbling process.

###

Had my cardiac consultation yesterday. Liked the cardiologist very much! Beautiful young woman of Indian extraction. Terrific bedside manner.

"Cholesterol is mostly a genetic thing," she told me. "Lower estrogen levels, particularly after menopause, lead to increased LDL and triglycerides, raising cardiovascular risk."

My LDL (a/k/a "baaaaad" cholesterol) is 160—literally one point into being high!

But my lentil-and-oatmeal-heavy diet & regular visits to the gym have not succeeded in budging that number.

She wants to start me on statins.

"What happens if I don't take them?" I asked.

She cocked her head & smiled quizzically. "Your chances of having a stroke in the next 10 years go up by 30%. Your heart's in good shape! Your EKG looks great. But, you know. There's plaque in your arteries, and plaque breaks off."

Now! I am not particularly scared of dying, but I am afraid of stroking out!

So, I am going to take those statins.

Sigh...

###

In other news, Remuneration client seems to be on the verge of sending me a new assignment, which would be great.

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