I ended up not going to the book club meeting again. Instead, I played on the computer and lost track of time. When I looked at my watch, it was 7:10 pm, I had to be there by 7:30.

I actually hopped in my car and drove to the Heart of Darkness (AKA New Haven CT), parked in a garage and stood in front of 300 George St.

It was a big building.

Me – “What room is it in?”

I looked at my phone to see it was 10 of 8. It was getting dark. I was hungry, dehydrated, tired and scared. It was only 30 days prior in that exact location where they found a bloodied human torso.

Me – “Walking back to my car will be a bitch. And I’ll be tipsy on wine……it’s scary here. It’s freaking scary.”

In other words, I chickened out. I totally and completely chickened the fuck out.

I posted a message on their website apologizing for not showing up due to tardiness and the organizer responded back with, “Everyone’s late. You would have been in time for pizza!”

While I was on the Meetup website, another group was recommended to me. A writers workshop group. I clicked ADD ME.

It’ll be just another group that I’ll say I’ll attend but never do. The thought of going seems like a wonderful fantastic idea but once I’m home, it’s hard prying myself back out. I’ve always suffered with this affliction. Especially if it entails me having to drive into the Heart of Darkness meeting people I’ve never met before.

And I’ve developed a new system for keeping track of member clients. Well, I didn’t actually come up with it, my new employee did.

But in order to change over to the new improved system, I have countless hours ahead of me with having to go through each member and looking up their history, all their appointments, all the times they’ve been billed – it will take a gargantuan amount of time. Seemingly, an infinite (yes infinite) amount of time.

There’s always shit I have to do and whilst in the midst of getting this shit done I always say to myself, “this will be the only time I’ll ever have to do this. Once it’s done, it’s done.”

But then a completely new shit will arrive. There’s ALWAYS shit!

You want to know the worst shit of all? Sheets. Going to the laundromat to wash sheets.

I. Fucking. Hate. It.

I blocked off tomorrow night for some reason. I wrote in the notes “I have plans.”

I block time off my schedule whenever I make plans so my employee’s know not to schedule me. But I always forget what my plans are – almost every single time I forget.

So, I have plans tomorrow night. Friday night. I’m sure those plans, whatever they may be, are awesome. But guess what those plans are now? Washing fucking sheets. I’m glad I blocked off Friday night – I’m glad so I can wash fucking sheets.

I’m miserable at the laundromat. Everyone knows to stay away from me. I put on my heavy-duty headphones so I can’t hear myself swear.

I have the habit of swearing in my head. “Fuck this, fuck that, fuck fuck fuck.” But when I’m at the laundromat, it’s audible. I can’t contain it.

When I drop my quarters on the floor, “Son of a fuck.”

While I’m struggling with stuffing clean sheets into my sack, “Son of a fuck whore.”

When the sheets take forever to dry, “You’re kidding me with this shit.” I fish out another quarter, shove it in the machine, “Fucking dry already!”

All while listening to my headphones, being completely deaf to myself.

The first thing I must do after fixing my debt is to get my employee’s mother to start washing sheets again. This is URGENT. Other than my impending doom involving the police, washing sheets is the next urgent matter. It’s killing me. It’s turning my nails yellow.

I NEVER swear. You can ask anybody, I’m not a swearer. But nowadays it’s slipping out unperturbed. Audible diarrhea.

I desperately need to write my book.

Every great once in a while (about once a month), I find myself with nothing to do for the day. I’m rested up, fed, everything’s done. That’s the time I ask myself, “what do you want to do today more than anything?”

Write. It’s always write.

I used to love playing alone when I was a kid. I was able to concoct fantastical worlds using pure imagination – my imagination, my rules, my world. I had the best time of my life doing this.

I remember when that feeling started slipping away. When I held an action figure in my hand and I was like, what the hell do I do with this? I tried playing with it, but it lost all magic.

You have no idea how deviated this made me. I was heartbroken. My one true joy in life no longer filled me and it edged a little bitterness into my heart.

I washed this bitterness down with video games. I was around 9 when it happened, close to 10. My aunt bought me a really cool Teenage Ninja Turtle fortress for Christmas and I was looking forward to playing with it, but I couldn’t even when I tried.

But I think it’s because of my love of fantasy, that makes me want to write. To be able to experience that world again, to completely lose myself in its divinity. Oh God how I loved it. I even remember the stories I made up!

2 responses to “I Missed it Again”

Playing alone possible homework- build a mini house, that old school magic may come back to u. This works for me. Plus the massive amount of toys I own. I’m 33 btw. The mini house goes like this… Dig. Dig- I LOOOVED digging holes when I was a kid, always in trouble for it. Dig a hole, then start to scratch out widows in the side… Make mini stairs.. If someone u liked liven is this cave/carved palace- where would yor house be? Next door or across the expanse of the gorge(hole) build a whole dead-sea-scroll-cave-area for you to bunker down in when you and your people need a secret place to live! This crazy? This works for me. This no work for u? I have other suggestions. Actionfigures not needed- use rocks or salt n pep shakers for the people but- the people don’t excite me, it’s the building of a space for myself that makes this fun for me, till it isn’t anymore and by then it’s probably lunch time or dinner time and u fill in the hole and go in

I remember digging holes. Especially with my twin cousins in their backyard. I wanted to dig all the way down to China but my cousins who are a year and a half younger than me, thought we’d hit hell before China. One of them pretended like she felt the horn of the devil and I was like, pfff, that’s impossible. Instead of digging deeper, we filled the hole with water and made mud pies instead. Maybe we were scared to go deeper?

I love the idea of a secret place to go to. An underground waterfall would be awesome. But I used to wish for this underground cave for the sole purpose to be able to play video games without anyone bothering me.

I have a website stored in my favorites about how to built a mini-house. I would love to live in a mini house! I actually looked at small parcels of empty land for sale for me to build on.

I played with salt and pepper shakers when I was a kid, I played with everything. On long car rides when I forgot my toys, I’d play with string and pretend they were people.

You won’t find why the detective was there at my biz. I don’t want anyone knowing what happened yet. It’s still too fresh.