Daily writing at 750words.com. About 18 minutes: 5 150-word paragraphs.
Wrapped up in a snuggie. An honest to god snuggie. A snanklet. Some people will tell you they’re different, but they’re not. They’re both blankets with arm holes and sleeves. They’re a good example of how the middle class has survived so long. Did you know nothing great ever comes out of the middle class? Actors and artists and multi-millionaires, all of them started ahead of the game or so far behind sheer momentum carried them past the hard parts of becoming successful. The middle class are born nearly comfortable. They strive for, strain for comfort, and when they get it, they becomes complacent. The rich won’t use snuggies, as they’re too tawdry. They will use snuggies, but will overused them into worthlessness, and then go back to regular blankets. Or just being cold. Only the middle class will use a Snuggie to watch a movie or read a book.
A knitted stocking cap, an old busted zip-up hoodie, with the hood up. Maybe a bathrobe too. And fingerless gloves, that match the hat. An old t-shirt, was once nice, sort of, now is not so nice, is the kind for sleeping in now. Thin work-out pants. Thick cotton socks, entirely ineffectual. All of my heat, draining out of my feet, onto the floor, to crawl in tendrils towards the heating vent, to curl around it and wait until the heater turns itself off, and then when its off, to seep down and lovingly caress the throat of the heater and choke it to death. A belly full of cheap-ass candy. Headache, back ache, everything ache. If you put a gun to my head right now and said “make an effort” the only thing that might save me is not being able to make enough effort to say “no, go away.”
Ate something the other day. Who knows what it was. Could have been anything. Could have been bad garlic. Could have been a twice-frozen nutella cookie. Could have been just too many carbs in general. Could have been meningitis. Or a kidney stone. Or an iodine deficiency. Or an iodine overdose. Or an accidentally swallowed thyroid medication. Could have been losing a lot of weight very quickly, or not getting much sleep, or some germ from some little kid at a one-year-old’s birthday party. I ate no cupcakes at that party, drank no beer, and now look at me. Snuggie, old clothes, aches n pains, bad food, tired, bored, stabbing this stupid keyboard out of some dumb obligation to write everyday. All wrapped up and crapped out and eyeballing the word count and it slowly so slowly ticks up. Sick as a dog and twice as ugly and hating every word I write.
The smell of something fried, coming from the other room. Nasto, or some word in some language I can’t speak. A generic word, that means “snack,” I think. So it could be anything. It smells good, to my nose, and absolutely evil, to my stomach. Two days without food and all my brain can think to do is shovel pure sugar down my throat so it has the energy it needs to think. And weird dreams all day yesterday, a mixture of fantasy and reality, every image a visual portmanteau of desire and disgust. All wrapped up in a metaphorical snuggie, blurry and short of breath. Choking down a few half-ounces of boiled seaweed, not out of any kind of need or want but just to placase my caregiver. Thats how I say thanks to my caregiver: I choke down the vile slop slapped into a bowl in front of me.
And on the music player thing, some funky jazz. Not sure of it’s funk with a jazz influence, jazz with a funk influence, or something else entirely and it’s my lack of experience in both genres that leads me to their labels when a wholly different label would be appropriate. Its just what came on when I started the music player, and me too lazy to change it, no idea what to change it to; its just there, anyway, to mask somewhat the clicky-clack of the keyboard, beetle’s feet on tile magnified and multipled a hundred times. A snuggie and belly a sickness a smell and clicky-clacky and some organs n guitars on top of slap-happy drums, me with my aches n pains and self pity, you with these words you probably wish you hadn’t read, and if we’re both lucky you didn’t read at all.