Freewriting Exercise

1:08 PM. Here it is day one of this writing course thing and I’ve already failed. Instead of free writing for twenty minutes, I wrote a thousand words about my first Crossfit experience. Oh well. Maybe I’ll clean it up and publish it later. For now, I guess I get to start over.

Free writing. I dunno. It’s not my thing? I don’t like this much self-reflection? So write something else then? Once upon a time there was a prince who lived in a great big castle, named Steve. The castle was named Steve, not the prince. Princes are rarely called Steve. Castles are also rarely called Steve too, but this one was.

Ugh, barf. Here’s the thing I know about why I’m no free writer—I have made more typos than usual. I make a lot of typos, I know, but I feel like I’ve hit backspace as much as I’ve hit space bar in the last few minutes.

I guess this is supposed to be a habit-making thing. If I can spend twenty minutes physically sitting in front of a physical keyboard and physically tap my physical fingers on the physical keys, then surely I can do that when the doing of that has another purpose. Feels like sitting on a bed and spinning my legs in the air so that I can run to the grocery store the next day.

1:13 PM Five minutes done, a quarter of the way there. Yippee Skippy. Speaking of grocery stores, and Skippy: we’re a Jif household. This is important. Long nights sitting on front the computer screen, browsing Reddit and eating peanut butter right out of the jar. Can’t do that with Skippy. Long nights fighting whatever the opposite of insomnia is. But not fatigue. Wanting to be an insomniac. Because then I could get things done.

As it is I get things done in the morning, before the wife wakes up. She’s a nine-hour-a-night-er, and I’m a 7.5-er, but I’m also an always-up-at-5-am-er. No good reason for it. Ugh, me me me. Let’s talk about something else. In two minutes we’ll talk about something else. I mean, I will. I mean write, not talk. About something else. Castle Steve. It’s the only castle in all of France made of wood! Yep, The Prince of Castle Steve is French. I’ve been to France. Twice. Paris twice, as well as parts of not-Paris. But mostly Paris.

It’s not as bad as people say. Parisians are no more rude than anybody anywhere are if you don’t come at them with entitlement and attitude.

1:18 PM Halfway done. This is a chore. I guess that’s the point. The Prince of Castle Steve doesn’t do chores. He doesn’t have to, of course, and even if he did have to do chores, he wouldn’t. Cause what’s the point? It’s not like the Princess of, um, what’s another word for Castle? Palace. Yes. It’s not like the Princess of Palace Cynthia is going to like him more or less than she already does or doesn’t just because he does or doesn’t do chores. Like, what’s he going to do, anyway? Fold clothes? He’s the freakin’ Prince of Castle Steve! He doesn’t know even know where the Laundry Room is!

I mean Royal Laundry room! Just now I went back and added “Royal” in front of “Laundry Room” and then I decided that since I’m free writing I shouldn’t edit, so I went back and un-edited my edit. And I’m pretty sure un-editing is still editing. Two wrongs, making a right. No one has to know. Except for me, who wrote this, who is writing this, and you, the unfortunate idiot who decided to read this screed. Back to TPoCS? Sure. In a minute. Cause that will be the 75% mark. Speaking of editing, am I allowed to go back and correct the typos I’m not catching on the fly? Well of course I am. Who’s going to stop me or punish me or tell me I am doing things wrong? I’m a 43 years-old-man, I’m not going to listen to anyone!

1:23. TPoCS doesn’t do chores, and truth be told, hasn’t ever met TPoPC, or even know if she exists. Nor does she know about him. Also, she does chores. No because she has to, but because we live in a sexist world and women always ended up suffering one way or another, especially in made-up worlds created by men. Which reminds me of something.

I have this memory of a few scenes from a movie where this nerdy type guy (Jeff Bridges) is at a formal party (tuxedos) and tells his friends that if his ex (Elle McPherson) arrives, not to let him go home with her, because she will just use him for sex. And of course she shows up, he leaves with her, and the next morning she is getting dressed and he asks if he can call her and she says, what would be the point of that?

You see? That’s like a male fantasy wrapped up tight in a swaddle of misogyny. I bring it up because I want to look up that movie and see if it was directed by Woody Allen. Because all of his movies are misogynistic. Woody Allen would totally want to produce that story of TPoCS and TPoPC, star-crossed lovers who have never met and never will.

Those chores TPoPC does? I don’t know. It’s 1:28. I get to be done now.

P.S. The Mirror Has Two Faces, directed by Barbara Streisand! Boy, was I wrong! Written by some French dudes though, so there’s that.