Today’s experiment is kind of bittersweet. Not that I’m in any way sad to do it, but because it’s necessary if I actually want to write something, it would seem.
Clarity? Yes. Always, please and thank you.

I’ve been writing every day, even if it’s just for 15 minutes, which is great and amazing and yay. Today, I finished work, I wandered to the spot where the muses hang out and WHABOOM! I got an idea for a story that was just so completely ideal I can’t understand how it’s taken me so long to consider such a thing. And she’s lovely, the protagonist. I really like her. I’m looking forward to describing the world she inhabits. So I made some notes, thanked and bid the muses a good evening, climbed the hill, wandered through the near darkness of the secret path back to my driveway and turned on the computer.

And stared at a blinking cursor. And made some notes. And looked up classic film starlets for hair style inspiration. Wondered if I should go back to being red. Made some dinner. Taught myself the ukulele anthem. Made a list of things I’d like to write before March 15. Made puking noises looking at all the valentines day gush all over the internet. Wondered if that’s because I’m single and devastatingly alone. Decided it’s not. Wondered if I’m lying to myself about that. Decided that even if I am, who cares, really? Spent some time wondering if there is a way to tie a resurgence of Lupercalia festivities (where women are flogged with goatskins called februars to ensure fertility..it’s true) with all the silliness around the movie that has just come out and is causing a furor, but surprisingly, not because of it’s mediocre content. I hope that become a thing. I hope that one day people just start rioting, demanding an end to mediocrity..hmm..that feels a little judgey. Ok, getting on with it.  4 hours were encompassed in this one paragraph. Including 20 minutes where I looked for, found and removed 2 ticks from Gala. She appreciates. 4 hours! And no story..not even an outline. But determined to write something, if only to keep the flow going, I turn to TODAY’S WRITING CHALLENGE! I think it’s day 9. Yes. Ok. I have to write a letter and complain about everything I can think of. Then I have to write a letter where I express gratitude for whatever…technically, I was supposed to do this yesterday. But I was too busy writing an erotic short story that has no sex or names in it and I’m pretty sure it’s still better than…whatever. Anyhow…

Dear Sir and/or Madam
Please stop killing non-human animals unnecessarily, brutally, cruelly. I’m looking at you, Japan, in particular. No one wants your goddamn mercury ridden dolphin meat and the fact that you tout tradition as being the reason when the whole fucking world knows that you’re picking a couple and selling them to dolphinariums for large cash and slaughtering the rest as a fuck you to the westerners who give enough of a fuck to stand there and watch you do it makes me fucking crazy. I want to wish you ill, you incredibly tiny majority of humanity who represents in my mind a country filled with people who aren’t assholes that I will never go visit because I do not in any way want to condone your barbaric and backwards ways, but I can’t because that would mean I am as petty and misguided as you. And don’t think that because I didn’t mention you, Faroe Islands or you, Iceland that you’re any better than them. You slaughter unnecessarily too. Acquiring food is not an issue anymore. There are so many. Bullfighters, factory farmers, the wankers in Nepal, fucking Nepal!!!! You’re supposed to be awesome and yet you slaughter animals by the thousands because it’s “ritual sacrifice?” Fuck off. Dogfight organzing douchebags, trophy hunters…oh my fucking god trophy hunters, there is a special corner of hell reserved for you. I won’t spoil the surprise but..dismemberment? mmmm, yummy. Shark finners, turtle poachers, rhino horn thieves, bushmeat hunters, all the way down to fuckers who ditch their dogs at the top of a mountain pass and keep driving. Yes, this is me complaining about you. What would I like to do to you? I would like to shift your perspective so diametrically that it feels as though both your head and your underwear are on backwards. I would like you to understand the pain you cause without any reason but your own twisted belief that you have the right and work to remedy that hurt for the rest of your life, if you can live with the suffering you have inflicted on creatures who never ever deserved it. Ever. There is nothing you can say to convince me otherwise. No! Seriously, shut up now. You don’t get to talk because unless ‘holy fuck, I’m so sorry’ is what is coming out of your mouth, nobody here has time for your shit.
To the rest of the world, I would appreciate it if you would get your collective heads out of your collective asses and stop finding joy in mediocre anything. I wish you could understand that perpetuating drivel is causing the median intelligence level to drop further every moment it is celebrated. There is no purpose in celebrating that which accomplishes nothing that engages or enlivens and I have such frustration about this that I’m on the verge of being incoherent. Reality television accomplishes nothing except turning us into a society of voyeurs, opting out of participating in the hope of watching something dramatic happen for real, when it’s well known there is nothing real about it. We buy stuff for the sake of having stuff and we don’t know what to do with the stuff that we don’t use anymore. I loathe that we are so damnably insular and do not encourage mindfulness as an everyday exercise. I hate that we have traded sanity for safety and have such apathy towards the powers that be. We are so easily distracted. We get mad but then we get shiny things and so we forget about being mad. We would do something but what can we do?
The thing that I am hating most right now, is how futile it feels to complain. Seriously, I’m working myself up into a frenzy over here, trying to think of things I can complain about and while they are legion, there’s just so little point. Climate change, zoos and prisons overflowing, education system failing, kids getting killed in wars that have nothing to do with anyone actually involved in the war, women being treated horrifically for merely existing, religious people insisting that their skycake tastes the best to the exclusion of all the other sky desserts, food being turned into something that doesn’t resemble food, an emphasis on money and stuff, an external validation of societal approval encouraging self-worth rather than an internal acceptance determining more healthy social interaction…it’s endless. And sad. I’m skipping to the next one.

Dear world, I appreciate you. I appreciate the trees that create air that I can breathe. I appreciate breathing because I had that bout with asthma when i was younger and not breathing sucks. I love where I live and that I get to go for long walks through the forest where I only see squirrels, birds, beavers, bears, and tiny elf doors. Maybe gnomes, not sure. I love it when it’s muddy and I love it when it’s dry and I love it when it rains twice in the forest. I’m super stoked on science making it possible for my thumb to be reattached that time I accidentally pulled it off so I can pick things up and play the piano, even though I can only ever give anything a 1.5 thumbs up because that joke is funny every single bloody time. I love that I have a sense of humour that is boundless and broad and dark and goofy and clever sometimes too. I love that I have a laugh that has been referred to as a cackle, sinister, madcap, hilarious, contagious, lovely and filled with mirth. I really like that I got to hang out with auberon, he saved my life and gala is teaching me how to sit still, which is ironic because that dog covers more ground than migrating whales. I love whales. I love that marine mammals exist and that they are so completely fucking huge the only place there is room is the ocean and they are the most graceful of creatures and they sing. I love music, playing it, hearing it, having so many friends who are so talented that I get to listen to. Even the friends I haven’t formally met yet, like Amanda Palmer. I love that there is music everywhere, even in math. I love math. I love prime numbers and fractals and fibonacci and tesseracts and tetrahedrons and moebius strips and comic strips and calvin and hobbes. Oh! I love pi. And pie. And I love that even though food has been hijacked to the point where everyone is developing allergies to it, people are just as innovative at developing alternatives to those foods so that we can all eat cake. I appreciate the way the sky looks all the time. It’s a beautiful day, every day, I don’t even need to look outside to know that. I like getting letters. I like writing letters. I like writing. I like stories and poems and songs even when I didn’t come up with them. I love storytellers like Neil Gaiman and Roald Dahl and Douglas Adams and Neal Stephenson and Alan Moore and Steven Erikson and Clive Barker and Patricia Highsmith and Anais Nin and Henry MIller and Richard Morgan and Shakespeare and all of them, all of the storytellers, including me. I love this brain I have, that can be goofy and clever and witty and insightful and batshit fucking crazy and swears in front of kids before I know what she’s doing but someone’s got to. I appreciate that I live in a time when I could make a conscious decision about whether or not I wanted kids but still get to hang out with kids created by people who are smart and funny and compassionate and sane. I love that I know so many sane people. I don’t understand why so many people are so scared, or even what they are scared of but I really hope they work it out because there’s a very small percentage who are making difficult moments for a large group of others. I appreciate the people who are trying to make it easier for others, who are mindful and considerate and know that it can be better and want to do whatever it takes to ensure that happens. I appreciate having been born to parents who raised us to be reasonable human beings, who never closed off sections of reality to us, who allowed us to explore and understand from our own perspectives. I appreciate having a sister who is compassionate and patient and has bailed me out of countless jams and asked for nothing in return. I appreciate my uncle taking a chance and the happy discovery both of us had when we learned I’m good at stuff. I love being good at fixing stuff, from engines to the mixer at work today. I love having a mind that works in tandem with this healthy body that supports me and takes me places and hula hoops and jumps around and plays the ukulele and piano and guitar and sometimes sings. And sometimes sings like a whale, though I do a better dolphin impression. I love the ocean. I love the way it feels, whether I’m in it or next to it or below it. I love to swim in it, I love to surf on it, I love to dive beneath it and pretend I’m a mermaid or a selkie. I love the way it sounds, the way it calls and answers itself even if there’s no one else there. I love the way light looks through it and on it. I love light and colour and sometimes having a job where I get to combine those things and create something whole and beautiful. I am so appreciative of living somewhere that has no light at nighttime, unless I turn one on. I rarely do. Because I have the best laser light show in my yard. I have the entire milky way galaxy and so much more putting on a show for me every night. I love how much there is. I love how vast and far beyond me the existence of everything is and I love how intrinsic I am to that dance because I wouldn’t exist if I wasn’t. I love that too. Oh. And dancing. I so love dancing. Especially tango.