I Don’t Want To Write Anymore

On other blogs, I’ve read what I’m about to post right here: I don’t feel like writing anymore!

I’ve fallen again into that sticky web that’s gooing me up with mental syrup. It says, “Irv, you’re boring.”

Thinking this way is like walking into a cocktail party, joining five strangers, starting a story and everyone walks away. That’s what flashes through my mind as I sit down to scribe some awesome shit that no one’s ever thought before. (Is that possible?)

Sure, I’ve been distracted. I’m visiting my folks, both in their nineties, and I have fix-it chores to do in their house, things to do they’ve planned for me, and things to do I’ve planned for them. But all that’s an excuse for what’s really going down in my brain.

It’s those damn neurotic questions again!

• Does anyone care what I think?

• Should I care if they don’t?

• And am I really that jazzed about throwing ideas into the wind?

I won’t answer these questions. If I did, Irving’s Journey would stop in its tracks. But trudging on, I keep in mind that advice I read about getting websites started and how Newbie’s like me have to be patient.

I am patient! (On good days.) Really I am! But I don’t want to be delusional. And boring.

Every year my wife asks me to write one of those December year-in-review tomes we all get in the mail. “Irv, will you? Everyone loves your letters.”

“No they don’t,” I always answer. “Molly in Australia loves my letters. One woman in Perth is not everybody.”

And then I go on to explain that no one but us cares if Junior, our stray cat disappeared, to be replaced by an identical pussy from Who-Knows-Where; or that Uncle Jerry and Aunt Ellie died. Does Mike and Debbie Prestin, or Thom and Doreen know my uncle and aunt? Of course not. Do they care about their passing? How could they? Do I care about Rick and Susan’s Uncle Jerry’s and Aunt Elly? Or Paul Barnett’s?

I don’t. And I’m bored when I read about people’s relatives I don’t know.

(I can say this because none of the people who send us Christmas letters read my blog.)

So I beg my wife, “C’mon… Don’t make me write another banal letter!”

“Irv…” my wife responds, as she does every year. “Everyone loves your letters.”

So I write the letter, hoping someone cares about identical feral cats with squeaky but demanding meows and bad attitudes.

And then I think…that’s it. That’s the last one. No more annual reports. And then one or two comments come back. “I really loved your letter, Irv,” followed by a few more, “I-liked-your-letter” responses.

Two “loved” and three “liked”. Humm… Somebody DID care. Five people decided to trade off watching Wheel of Fortune to read my shit…for maybe…five minutes. Maybe I wasn’t boring.

But damn it!  When writing stops being fun, I don’t want to do it anymore! And that goes for everything in my life!

My wife advises, “Irv, why don’t you just do stuff for fun. You’re always writing-writing-writing.”

Yes I am, even when I’m working-working-working, like on a film for money, which is happening now; even though I took a week off to visit my parents, because Mom’ brother (Uncle Jerry) and sister (Aunt Elly) died a few months ago, and Mom’s heart is broken, and now SHE needs some fun cuz she was Jerry and Elly’s mommy when they were five and two and she was seven, ‘cause her mother got sick all the time and pulled my mom out of class for weekly babysitting, like eighty-plus years ago.

Mom barely finished high school. Didn’t matter. You wouldn’t believe the accomplishments she racked up in ninety-one years. She’s a local hero.

But do you care about that?

I didn’t. Not until I listened to Mom’s stories in detail. Then Mom became a real person in my life and I grew up a little bit more. I wrote about that last week.

Ya know, sometimes we just have to know the DETAILS. But I’ve lost the WOW! about writing them.

So I wanna stop writing for a while and play drums again. I just traded my vintage silver sparkle early-sixties Rogers collection (at the time, the best made drums in the world) for a top-of-the-line DW six-piece drum kit (the best drums of today). I haven’t been this excited about a new toy since I was fourteen!

And I wanna get back into a band and sit behind my array of shiny cymbals and glittering shells and make noise. I just learned the (Bernard) Purdy Shuffle drum groove and I want test drive it inside a song in some biker dive where I play for beer and nobody cares if the band sucks of not.

Now THAT’S FUN! I’m going back to drumming.

So if you’ve read this far, you’ve noticed there’s no revelations. No deep, provocative what-ever’s. I took the week off.

And next week may be the same, and maybe the week after that.

Or maybe Monday I’ll get inspired again and write about God.