This morning I stepped outside the apartment to walk the dog and tripped over some dude sprawled out on the doorstep scribbling away in his journal. I don't know who the fuck he was or what the fuck he thought he was doing there but I do know what it's like to have an idea and need to get it down on paper before it gets savagely shredded into oblivion by the frenzy of the daily mind, so I mumbled a quick sorry and kept walking.
Pilot hopped over him like it was no big deal.
Dude never looked up.
Junior singing "Tiptoe through the tulips" while laughing like a crazed hyena.
Not ten steps down the sidewalk I encountered another human. This one was hunched over a huge tube of pink chalk, scooping pretty words out of the depths of her romantic conscious/subconscious and scraping it onto the concrete. The rain washed the words away as fast as she could write them, but that didn't discourage her. She kept at it, pausing every few words to throw an awestruck, inspired glance of gratitude toward the heavens.
I pretended not to see her or her washed-out poetry.
Pilot didn't. He stopped to sniff a rose-tinted puddle. Attempted in his wily doggy way to inquire what the word had been before it melted. I gave his leash a tug. I didn't want to know what she was writing. What if the poetry was better than mine?
Pilot relented.
We forged on.
Lod flipping us all off.
We rounded the corner.
Yeah, we rounded the corner of the block and there they were. Writers. Everywhere. Hundreds of them. And you know what they were doing?
Writing.
Fucking bastards were writing in journals and laptops, on digital pads, on tiny paper pads, on their arms, on the road, on fences, on walls, on each other. Some sat in cars, some on them. One draped lazily across a branch like a late afternoon cheetah. Others sat on soggy blankets in wet grass, or on steps and stoops of neighboring houses.
All of them writing.
Madly.
Passionately.
Effortlessly.
Suddenly, it all became clear.
Junior trying to think of something nice to say after reading one of my old poems but not coming up with anything good. Just be honest, Junior. I can take it.
This was what had happened to my muses. My creative energy. My inspiration. These motherfuckers had tromped over to my block and set up shop right next to my creative outlet. They drained all the power and ran up an energy bill so high it's a wonder I'd been able to get myself out of bed that morning.
But why? Why me? Why my block? The neighborhood had much nicer places for them to hold their scribapalooza. Hell, there was a park two blocks away! Why couldn't they have gone there?
Biggie consulting the Oracle of Tulip about the outcome of the flailing and failing attempt to make a joke about writer's block.
I had to do something. I couldn't just let those people take over. I couldn't simply give up. What a horrible way to end the story.
I wracked my brain.
It needed to be brilliant. Witty. Hilarious, even.
But you see, that was the problem. Is the problem. I don't have any ideas. No funnies or clevers left inside this brain of mine. There's nothing in there but a dense block of wood.
And a termite.
(But that doesn't matter cuz you're just here for the pictures.)
Biggie procuring a nugget of truth from the Oracle of Tulip but not sharing it with me so I guess I'll just sit here all ignorant and shit until I die.
Photos shot with Nikon D7500 and edited in Lightroom.
Blog written by no one, because the would-be writer hasn't been able to come up with anything for days.
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All the stuff (pictures, words, etc.) I put in this post and any of my other posts is mine (unless otherwise stated) and can't be used by anyone else unless I say it's ok.
Junior consulting the Oracle of Tulip and getting all the answers she could ever hope for, because she's Junior and deserves no less, even if she did compared my poetry to dog shit.