nothingbythebook
Nothing By The Book
an experiment in unscripted living
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First, burn the Morning Pages, then, burn the body
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I did a very stupid thing this weekend.
I sampled a decade of my Morning Pages.
I didn’t plan to. It just happened. But wait. I’m telling the story badly.
Morning Pages are the foundational practice of The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron’s 12 week recovery program for blocked creatives.
Shut up. I know it sounds woo-woo. It is. It’s ridiculous. There’s too much god in the book, also,…
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The meaning of life, redacted
i
I have a problem.
I’m about to turn 50 and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
That’s the question we inflict on children as soon as they master more than a dozen words. First day of preschool, first time you play with a fire truck or dinosaur: “What do you want to be when you grow up? A firefighter? A teacher? A palaeontologist? An astronaut?”
What, by the way. The…
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Rumour has it, spring is coming
i
It’s not depression, I say. It’s February.
You: Baby, it’s March.
Jane: Look outside. It’s February.
The sun is back, though, and the weather forecast promises above weather zero again, so the prognosis looks good. I will probably make it to another spring.
But I’ve got to tell. you, kittens, the mouth of energy I expend November through February to make sure I see March is…
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On not cancelling my past self's plans
I am trying to not cancel plans.
Past me made these plans purposefully, to try to shake off the “It’s February and still dark and my lover is in Egypt woe is I” blues. On Friday: a High Performance Rodeo play with a hot girl (also, tall, so tall). On Saturday: a walk with an old friend (also tall, but it doesn’t matter so much in this case) and an evening party in the role of wingwoman to…
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Hibernation, in five stanzas
i
January is almost over and I’m still processing 2023 — how about you? It wasn’t a “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” kind of year — well, if you live in Gaza and the Sudan, yeah, it was definitely the worst of times. For us privileged First World Whiners, really, it seems shameful to whimper that it was a hard year. But it kinda was. Maybe not hard. But draining. Was it not?…
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Plot twist!
I’m giving myself a pep talk so that I get inspired and motivated to do more: to write more, to exercise (at all), to make plans with friends. My baseline energy and ability to people is, if not quite in my heels, definitely below my knees. I’d like to get it at least up to my waist – the bra line would be phenomenal.
I’m not sure how because in the past, telling myself “Suck it up and just do…
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What would a cavewoman do?
i
I feel about modern self-help cults much the way I feel about the patriarchy. I’ve written extensively about how I don’t want to be a better person. I’m not going to floss more and drink less coffee (although I do keep an eye on the wine intake), and while I might exercise more, I’ll always do it resentfully, and… well. There it is.
None of this is to say that I’m perfect. Or that I accept…
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Project “The Rest of My Life is More Important Than Work” begins today
So the therapist I’m working with now – wait, before I tell you that, a caveat – the therapist I’m working with now exists only in my imagination, because the last one was so bad. But that’s ok. I have a fecund imagination and I’m a Gemini: magicking up a virtual therapist who disagrees with everything I say, believe and want to do is not hard.
With that caveat – the therapist I’m working with…
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On the price of peace
i
A text from London: “Have you heard, how are you feeling, wanted to check in on you, knew it would hit you hard.”
I haven’t heard. But now that I have, I’m fine. The impending death, current suffering of someone I’ve neither seen nor thought about in twenty, more, years doesn’t pain me
Does it?
Should it?
The feelings come after: some shame and guilt at not joining the frenzy of concern,…
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On not buying a new notebook
I’m on page 136 of 250 in a bright yellow Leuchtturm 1917 hardcover notebook — my favourite notebook type and brand, yes, I’ve just inserted an unpaid product placement in this post, sorry. Each notebook lasts me two to three months. It’s where the Morning Pages and first drafts of posts, skeleton sketches of ideas and occasional texts live. (Yes, I sometimes draft texts longhand, don’t you?…
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18.
Flora is 18 today. It feels like victory – over fate, genetics, the universe, God, whatever you want to call it. She’s made it another year, we’ve made it another year – she made it to 18, dammit, and you can all 18 just a number but socially constructed milestones matter. She can vote, drink legally in most jurisdictions, be tried in adult court, and possibly own a gun.
My girl is 18. She made…
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Happy 2023: Here’s to NOT becoming a better person, again
Happy 2023: Here’s to NOT becoming a better person, again
i
Happy New Year, and belatedly, Happy Solstice, Happy Yalda and also, merry three days until Christmas Eve – I wrote the first draft of this post on December 21, while I was still busy dying, but when it started to look as though I would live and I would not have to spend Christmas in isolation.
The bad news, of course, is that I’m two weeks behind on life during what we’ve managed to turn…
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Anniversaries
Hey, little one.
I remember you, today, always.
xoxo
Mom
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On my recalcitrant reluctance to re-establish a meditation practice
On my recalcitrant reluctance to re-establish a meditation practice
i
I meditated today for 20 breaths.
It wasn’t awful.
Among my dozens upon dozens (hundreds?) of unpublished posts and unsubbed (bad) poems from the last two and a half, three years, there’s a whole category entitled “On my recalcitrant reluctance to re-establish a meditation practice.”
(I know, the title just rolls off the tongue, don’t it.)
I had a robust, twice daily meditation practice…
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The winter of my immune system’s discontent
The winter of my immune system’s discontent
So I’m sick again, sore throat sniffles, probably not COVID but maybe and even if it is, who cares – I feel like death, for the third time since October. Between our three core households, someone’s been sick all fall. I can’t remember if it was like this every fall pre-COVID (it probably was). It definitely wasn’t like this during the restrictions of the pandemic.
Inevitable conclusion: we may…
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It’s beginning to look a lot like (a writer’s) Christmas
It’s beginning to look a lot like (a writer’s) Christmas
The tree – fake, prelit, about five feet tall, $50 on Kijiji – is up. Fifty dollars, tbh, seems a bit high for a hand-me down tree. I mean, you don’t need it anymore because you bought a $300 or $900 new fake tree this year. You should, by rights, be paying me to take this unwanted, inferior tree away from your house. No? You really need that $50 to recoup your original 1990s costs or to offset…
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Untraditionally yours: What sort of Christmas do you want to have?
Untraditionally yours: What sort of Christmas do you want to have?
i
Happy Saint Nicholas Day! Today is the day that children in Poland and other countries touched by the legend look in the boots they shined the night before and find a little present, perhaps some candy, and, in the case of my brother and me, a letter from Saint Nick setting out exactly what level of good we need to reach over the next 18 day to get a gift on Christmas Eve.
My family dropped…
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