Have You Ever? – Volume Four: The Photo Challenge Edition

Have you ever stopped blogging with words for an entire month, in order to participate in a 30-Day-Photo-Challenge, which was totally-super-fun, and you very much enjoyed meeting new people, because they turned out to be totally-super-cool, and not just because they posted pictures that were totally-super-awesome, but also because they turned out to be pretty totes amazeballs.

And you’d definitely sign up to do it again, because it was totally-super-interesting to use a completely different part of your brain, that had nothing to do with words, and everything to do with the way you perceive visual images. And it was a totally-super-fascinating to experience a new way to exercise that particular part of your cerebral cortex, even though you still don’t completely understand the correct definition of the term outlier. And you’re totally-super-okay with that.

But it was also totally-super-time-consuming, and now that it’s over, you’re totally-super-happy, because seriously, you’ve really missed putting words on paper, especially funny ones.

And you’re REALLY sick of saying “totally-super-insert adjective” because that’s the very term you’ve been abusing, over the past 30 days, while trying to express your reaction to other people’s pictures. And quite frankly it’s enough already.

So you carve out specific time, in your ever-so-busy schedule, preferably during the late night hours, so no one will disturb you, or interrupt your train of thought, just to write a new blog post. Because man, you haven’t told a story to the Internet in like forever, yo. And nothing makes you happier than finding the funny.

As you prepare for your glorious return, to a world filled with words, you turn off your cellphone, shut down your email, and log out of Facebook. You light your favorite candles, brew a fresh pot of coffee, and open a new pack of cigarettes. And for the first time in weeks, you gaze lovingly at a blank piece of paper. And you’re all kinds of excited, and you’re all kinds of jazzed, and you can’t wait to see what humorous ideas will emerge from the recesses of your mind.

Except that you draw a complete blank, because you’re totally out of practice, and, you’re totally burnt the fuck out, and the only thing you have been writing is your totally-super-dark and totally-super-depressing novel, for the past 18 weeks, in a row. And that may, or may not, have sucked all of the funny, right out of you.

[And holy shit. There’s that goddamned term again. Please, for the love of all things bacon, make it stop.]

In spite of your frustration, you try to remain positive, and even hopeful, because you’re fairly certain, there MUST BE at least ONE tiny, little, shred, of comedic material, for you to work with, you just have to dig deep enough, and remember how to string together sentences, correctly.

So you take a deep breath, light another cigarette, and pace around the house.

And pace around the house.

And pace around the house, some more.

And maybe even dust the bookshelves.

And then you wait.

And, wait.

And, wait.

For something.

Anything.

To magically present itself.

But nothing ever does.

Nope.

Nothing comes to mind, even though you’ve picked up a proverbial microscope, and placed it over every single event, big and small, that happened in your life, within the past 30 days, none of which you’ve blogged about.

And you didn’t blog about them, NOT just because you were totally-super-busy with that totally-super-exhausting photo challenge, but MOSTLY  because, for the past few weeks, you’ve also been totally-super-medicated, on totally-super-heavy-duty painkillers, because of totally-super-annoying-medical-conditions, that are totally-super-gross, and totally-super-uncomfortable, such as blepharitis, except that it was nothing like blepharitis, it was more like puberitis, and you definitely do not want to talk about that.

[AND … HOLY HELL. There’s that term. AGAIN. FML]

As you grow increasingly frustrated, you will inevitably morph from ‘David Banner’ into ‘The Hulk’ and that’s when you will begin pecking at the keyboard, violently, stuck in a brutal cycle commonly referred to as the: “type & delete, type & delete, rinse & repeat dance.”

Except that there isn’t any dancing.

There’s only chain-smoking.

And yelling.

And lots, and lots, of vodka.

Eventually, you will panic, because you’ve been working totally-super-hard to construct something worthy of posting, and you’ve gotten abso-fucking-lutely nowhere.

And it’s almost daylight, already.

And you still can’t find your voice.

And clearly, your brain is broken.

And then you realize NO ONE is even going to read this blog post because it’s TOTALLY-SUPER-LONG and you’ve definitely surpassed your “totally-super-insert-adjective” limit about a thousand words ago. And you should probably walk away from the computer right now, before  you lose the last of your readers. And possibly check yourself into some kind of Language Clinic, where you can relearn how to speak English properly, and maybe even learn some new phrases, like immediately.

So yeah…

Has that ever happened to you?