my mind has been a wiley rusher, toting nostalgia as its bottomline. the sea floor. unknown desire. a softing pine. regrets honeying in a jalepeno salsa. i have been distracted by loneliness and old dreams.

i dreamt I was in a Writer Brothel, and the Madam, who was dressed as one might expect a Madam to dress, was writing a novel about a woman editor of a gossip magazine. her novel was about how she compiled all the gossip. and she pulled me aside, and expressed her disappointment in me, that i wasn't generating enough revenue (i.e. gossip) for her project. and i asked her about audience - was her audience highbrow or lowbrow. was the woman editor character of her novel writing her magazine for highbrow or lowbrow - was it People or Cosmo she was writing. I told her I didn't know what kind of gossip to collect if I didn't know my audience. She patted me on the head and told me to keep thinking, and then I roller-bladed home through an empty Midway airport (which was closed down for the weekend).

i've holed up for the past couple of days in an extreme way. i've refused to check email or phone messages. i've refused to answer. i didn't want to answer. i didn't want an audience, or an expected audience. i didn't know what i wanted, and i read children's books all day while in between, on the toilet, asking myself why i was writing. what did i expect, after all?

and i came up with the conclusion that i want to be alone for awhile, that i want to find pleasure in writing again. writing whatever i want. writing for whatever. why does one write? it's certainly not communication. no, i don't think it is. i think writing is about finding game, pleasure, joy, in acts of two-part creation. the creation i do solitary for my own game. and the creation the reader may do solitary for their own reasons. reading children's books, i asked myself why i was happy, why i wanted to read. i wanted to read because i enjoyed seeing someone else's life. because i felt sad sometimes, and happy at others, and curious always. about what was happening, about why people reacted the way they did. and mostly, because i wasn't in my own thoughts. i was happy because i was not, for a brief instant, myself, and that was a gift.

so, i think i need to stop writing on the blog for awhile. maybe i will, and maybe i won't, but i know i'm going to stop seeing it as a huge part of my life. this is hard to explain, but i think it's distracting me.

and i want to love writing on the computer, alone, and for no other reason, again. so that's that.