Disclaimer:
I will be adding each new episode to the original document as they are finished. The videos will be added in the same fashion just below the opening title.
It just seems to be the easiest and most efficient way to keep them together for your enjoyment!
Bon Apatite <3
EPISODE ONE: INSPIRATION
Oh, I am so annoyed….
NOT!
Oh! I am so NOT annoyed…
Oh…. so, I’m NOT annoyed
Again…
Just a few words repeated in different arrangements and yet,
… in the right order,
each held its own meaning.
…
Each screaming the same thing… I needed inspiration, and badly…
I watched the little indicator flashing over the document page to remind me of where we’d both been sitting for over thirty minutes. Standing off. Facing each other down…
The Blinking Stick:
(mockingly) You see the crap you send out my backside?
Can you really wonder why none of it is inspiring anything…
where is your fire… that old pizzazz!
Me:
maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Okay, okay, I get it… time to be productive
…
I look around the room.
I stand up… stretch.
Refill the coffee hopper with all the required goodies.
Slap it shut and open the charming bay window… the only thing big about this small place…
I grab a hot mug of coffee bean juice and shuffle to the window sill. Where I stand and look down over foot traffic and cars piling in as far as the eye could see… so… like two blocks… maybe four in each forward facing direction.
I suck in the brisk morning… suddenly wondering if I’m going about this all wrong. Maybe that’s why the results haven’t found me the way I’d seen them magnetically drawn to me.
The idea leads me over my shoulder, to stare down the back of the laptop screen. I can almost see my shadow in it’s almost reflective, slightly smuggy shell.
I have probably rewritten my short story script seven times already. Each one ending up the same… dragged off in varying degrees to be deposited into the ethereal trash emblem.
I almost felt bad for them sometimes, until I remember how badly they injured me…
Reading them was worse than a chore and what’s more… all my best friends are dead.
I’m also in a brand new place that’s been… less than friendly.
My interactions went from warm and bordering invasive back in my home town… to cold and almost devilish by design… Everyone I pass on the street seems to be throbbing along to the same heartbeat…
Maybe it’s me out of sync… An alien in an alien land… yet again.
I haven’t found a place that felt like home and I was getting ready to spread my wings and fly the coop again. Fall back into the flow of life in order to better understand the pathway I feel I fell into…
I pick up my stiff body and stretch it around.
Lift up my arms and stare at the vaulted ceiling.
deep breath…
I open my eyes and lock them on the heavy support beams, by far, the most charming aspect in the entire studio… I’d fallen in love with the heavy dark-coated bolts keeping them in place. I followed the support to the wall.
Looking around the nest I try to pick out little things that might spark something. Pictures of my favorite people posted up on my full-length body mirror.
I close my eyes for inspiration. Listening to the birds hiding on the other side of my window frame..
I could feel the first light beams knocking on my closed curtains, suddenly… I was imagining myself in Italy, waking to a b.e.a.utiful spring day. I watch as my inner writer dances and swirls this way and that, gathering her sunhat and dark glasses.
I’m wearing the most beautiful white dress. it looks like it’s dancing around me, even when I’m not trying. I reach for my passport and tuck it into a hidden pocket to disappear perfectly into the seam of the fabric.
I’m getting ready to tour a wine garden, and even though I don’t really drink that often… anymore… today I was making an exception…
I opened my eyes and then, the shades making my way to the standing coffee pot for a refill. I needed fuel for the mission brewing, threatening to blow in on the winds of the whims formulating in the back of my mind.
I needed inspiration…
I’d tried to find it inside these cozy walls. Now, I was open to the idea of searching for it externally…
but where could I go?…
I called my mug into action, shifting it silently from one counter surface to another as a piece of dialogue streamed in. At first, it sounded as if I’d turned the dial on an old radio… bits and pieces then fragments. Fuzzy at first, then all at once it rang in clear.
This is it… the moment we’ve all been waiting for!!!!
I could picture a roaring crowd echoing off the grandstands…
I watched a tiny figure emerging in front of the gathering, a tiny distant hand waving up at what appeared to be adoring fans…
Ooo… and who are you? I pulled a spoon from the dry rack and stirred the ingredients I’d mixed into my steaming cup.
My inner writer had perked up immediately, pushing aside my other thoughts, as if the scene clearly wasn’t meant for me…
We both know you can’t sing… This isn’t you… it’s a piece for me… It wagged an accusatory finger out at me.
A smile caught the corners of my lips.
like a small animal at the mercy of an infant the thoughts squeaked out at me.
I closed my eyes and followed the musing. The scene zoomed as I lept to the top of the counter space and took a warm sip of coffee.
The crowd had calmed to a dull roar. The figure on the stage had walked to the center, the other components of the band had risen up on their own platforms. Steam rolled out all around them consuming the lower half of the stage as the lights dimmed. The first chord of the verse struck and my imagination went dark.
I blinked my eyes open… well that was anticlimactic. I tried to pull at the string and came back with a frayed end. My inner writer frowned out at me. Not one bit amused. She tapped at her watch.
Tick tock…
Tick tock what? Seriously, where is my time frame buddy? I’ve got nothing but time, Get out of my head. I watched my inner writer snarling at my defiance against some… phantom of a deadline.
The image of red tape tying me to my little love seat indefinitely while trying to spin up inspiration from the tower threatening to consume me… disappeared. Popping like a little thought bubble and disappearing as I imagined pricking it with a long nail of some sort… maybe a wooden stake… I smiled as I dug into the closet for a fresh towel. all deadlines do is suck the life out of living things trying to accomplish them to standards that often don’t apply to the real world.
The thought stream I was following popped… disappearing to reveal her again… looking at me imperiously, as if she and her thick rimmed nanny glasses were dangerously close to being disappointed.
A sinister smile crossed between us and all she had to do was raise a slow eyebrow to impress the idea that maybe I shouldn’t be so flippant with my time, deadline or not.
I stretched myself out along the way. A yawn followed my reaching arms, forgetting for just one second long enough they were attached to and carrying something requiring attention. I sloshing my hot coffee all over the wood floor and my pjs…
Shoulda started with the to-go mug. My inner writer snarked.
I laughed at the scene in my mind… birds chirping, steaming water, good smells, hot coffee… kill switch engaged and I’m coated in the stuff. I took it off and wiped the floor with it… tossing it into the laundry basket outside the bathroom door.
At least it isn’t carpet, I guess.
I bent down closer to the floor to take a closer look. The last thing I wanted was to be walking later on.
Deep in the zone.
Ready to rock and rumble… ready to pee and get back to the drawing board, only to step and stick to a spot I missed while sloppily getting to it in a past time…
Making my life more difficult where it could have been… so… much easier to handle before it had dried and turned to organic glue. Unwittingly turning to the perfect storm of distraction necessary to pull me out of the zone completely.
I slapped back with a self-righteous smile of my own before diving into a more thorough cleaning.
I went above and beyond just to prove my point, pulling cleaner from the cabinet, more paper towels than necessary and a top off… which I set safely on the bathroom sink counter before going about the rest of the business.
Clean as you go… Clean as you go… I hummed along to the words while penciling them into my mental notes.
I sprayed maybe a little too much cleaning solution than was needed but I’d brought extra wiping material so… I’d just spread it around and clean a little more of the floor than I was going to.
I wiped and wiped and wiped, lost in thought until the paper towels started to drag on the dryness.
To be continued…