8.

 

I wake too early like I ‘ve done every day since I was on antidepressants for five years over twenty years ago, and they fucked with my sleep, and even now, even with them clean from my system, the side-effects they introduce remain.

Grabbing my phone from the bedside drawer where my clock radio sits, I check it, tensing as I expect some Lana diatribe. Sometimes she does that, sending me an essay detailing why I’ve behaved so poorly, a guided tour into my inadequacies that immerses me in guilt that overwhelms any equilibrium I have, until all that remains is the doubt that maybe, just maybe, I am a cunt indeed.

Nothing from Lana, but there is from Dom.

Had people come over last night so I couldn’t read the script, he tells me. Will read it in the next couple of days.

This is typical Domspeak. Everybody has Domspeak in their lives – the language of family, friends, and coworkers that says one thing, but truly means something else. The moment it’s employed, you know the outcome.

As far as Dom’s concerned, in a couple of days, something else would’ve come up – his wife, his kids, aliens, or something, and it’ll go on and on, him pushing it farther and farther out until he’s no longer asked or, by some miracle, he finds the capacity to sit down and read the fucking thing.

I type back, Okay, then delete that, because that sounds like I’m buying into his shit. So then I type Fine, but delete that, too, because I reserve the use of Fine when it really isn’t, and being passive aggressive seems about the only recourse. Finally, I settle on, Sure, because it has a double meaning, and could be read either as Okay or Fine, and I’d rather Dom dealt with some uncertainty, because I really wish he developed a little self-awareness, just a speck, and reconcile that everybody sees through his excuses, and if he wants to actually try help get a film up and running, then he needs to contribute meaningfully.

It’s petty of me (<– my self-awareness), but sometimes I just can’t help it.

 

 

9.

I masturbate while still in bed, because it’s a morning sort of thing to do – not specifically Sunday morning, but any morning.

In my twenties, when I was going through anxiety and agoraphobia, one of my big symptoms was shortness of breath – it’d grow so short I’d hyperventilate, and I’d think I’d pass out. My GP assured me there was nothing physically wrong, although that was just verification. Often, my anxiety starts with shortness of breath.

So I’d masturbate to distract myself, either thinking about Playmates who appealed to me (not all of them; they had to have a certain class, or a girl-next-door look, or aristocracy – don’t ask me where any of that comes from) or actresses (largely the same criteria).

Sometimes I imagine myself in superhuman sexual trysts, things that I could never be because of self-consciousness and insecurity (and, back then, anxiety), and other times it’s like I’m playing scenarios in my head, like porn but with actual storylines and I think in terms of narrative.

But now it’s something that’s possibly become a habit, and I appreciate it in terms of frequency, but I bet if I spoke to other guys (I don’t know about women) they would be up around the same regularity.

I wonder sometimes if this has depreciated my interest in sex, whether real sex has become too much effort and is too boring (at least comparatively), or if my thinking (like so much of my thinking) has skewed in some direction that’s not natural – not freakish or dangerous or anything, but just detouring around whatever would be considered normal.

So this morning, I just lay in bed, happy not to go into work, happy not having to produce words, but just being able to be lost in some supercharged sexual fantasy that’s like my imagination unbound, and I go on and on, because I rarely finish – the narrative outlasts my capability, but there’s always another time to pick it up.

 

10.

Every Sunday, I bullet-point what I have to do for that week in an A5 spiral-bound exercise book that sits on my desk.

These bullets fall into one of three categories:

1. 1. Self-affirming reminders, like when I’m working on a book. I’ll list that as the first bullet point, even though I write every day, every week until I finish.
   2. Shit that needs to be done that week, like submit to a competition, or pay a bill.
   3. Stuff that I probably won’t touch that week, but which I want to put on the radar.

Here is my list for this week:

• • Work on book
  • Revise Heritage (screenplay)
  • Read Ethan’s excerpt
  • Meet Ethan Tuesday night
  • Meet Regina Wednesday afternoon
  • Meeting with Olivia?
  • Dinner with the guys next Saturday

When I do something, I scratch it off the list – either then and there if it’s completed, or if it’s something that’s ongoing (like working on a book), then at the end of the week. If I do something not on my list, I’ll add it, then strike through it. That offers a sense of accomplishment to run my pen through a bullet. If something new comes up, I’ll add it.

This is life, comprised to A5 spiral-bound exercise books.

 

 

11.

Dom sets the tone for a shitty day, though – Sundays are always my days for chores, so after the morning ritual of stretches, breakfast, and shower, I throw everything into the washing machine. The cycle takes just under an hour, which is just enough time for me to drive to the local shopping mall and do my grocery shopping.

There are three traffic lights to navigate on the drive, and each one of them is red. Then an idiot in front of me cuts across abruptly to get into the lane that shoots into the mall – either he misjudged which lane he was meant to be in, or his decision to go to the mall was so impromptu it overrode all other etiquette like, you know, the laws of the road, the expectations of decency, and just awareness of safety.

I honk, shout at him, and briefly wish I was rich enough that wiping off a car meant nothing, and I could floor the accelerator and ram the back of his car. Then, when we pull over, I’ll apologise and drily tell him that the accident never would’ve happened if he hadn’t been in front of me, so it must’ve been kinda karmic.

One of my biggest pet hates is the way some people stroll through parking lots oblivious to cars, if not just strolling right into their course, or already being in their course. I mean, what’s a parking lot? Parking spots and the expanse, the lanes, where the cars drive around. Etiquette is people keep to the sides.

But there’s one forty-something couple, idly pushing a trolley that contains something big and rectangular (it looks like a television, now we live in an age where televisions can just be impulse buys packed into a shopping trolley) walking right down the middle of the lane. This pisses me off.

A car once struck me as I was crossing an intersection and had the right of way, leaving me with a broken leg, nerve damage, and a lifetime of pain and restriction. Yet buffoons like this are oblivious to the damage a car, even a slow-moving car, can do.

I wait for them to become aware I’m right behind them, and when they don’t, I honk them. They jump, startled, no doubt so immersed in whatever they’re doing, and then meander out of my way, showing no urgency or apology.

This pisses me off so much – because of what happen to me, it does trigger a rage – when I lower my window and bark at them, “Walk on the fucking side!” I don’t usually use exclamation marks, so me to use an exclamation marks shows just how exclaimy I am.

They say nothing to me, and although I don’t find any parking in that row, I do in the next row. Now, as I get out of my car, I’m in the awkward situation that I could intersect with them, and with my rage vented, I’m not as confrontational. But, apparently, I look scary enough – longish hair flipping out of its ponytail, unshaven, in sunglasses – that they want to give me a wide berth anyway.

Shopping’s pretty straightforward – basic groceries (lactose-free milk, fruits, vegetables, ham, cheese, steak, some toiletries, etc.) but when I enter the confectionary aisle, there’s a blockage: a fifty-something woman stands in the middle of the aisle, her arm out, as she reaches for some Ferrero Rocher chocolates, and behind her, her trolley is turned longways, so it blocks the other half of the aisle.

I can take this two ways:

1. 1. the universe has put a sign in front of me, telling me not to proceed and buy any sweets at all.

      Or

   2. People are so oblivious to everybody else, they would block an entire aisle.

But the latter is today for me – the shit with Lana, the crap with Dom, cars getting in my way, so naturally people come next.  It’s makes me think that they’re fuckwits, it’s their day, and somewhere there’s a Patron Saint of Fuckwits.

“Excuse me,” I say to her, a little bit curtly.

“Oh, sorry,” she says, and she’s so genuinely apologetic as she drags her trolley out of the way, it deflates my rage immediately.

“No problem,” I say, as I grab two blocks of Cadbury chocolate – there’s a special if you buy two, and I shouldn’t even buy one, but then there’s that special that’s too good to deny, even if does mean spending money I wouldn’t have otherwise.

I finish up my shopping, drive home, put everything away, then grab my washing from the washing machine, clear the line of spider webs (this is such a green area, and trees surround my yard, so spiders proliferate, the bastards), then hang my washing.

That’s my morning gone.

As I make myself a cup of tea, and set the kettle to boil, I check my phone, dreading some salvo from Lana. Nope. That doesn’t mean she won’t.

She just hasn’t – yet.

Tea made, I go sit in my study and start my day at noon.

 

 

12.

That night, as I lay in bed, I idle through my phone, telling myself I shouldn’t, that it’s not healthy to be staring at a phone right before I’m trying to get to sleep, or that I should be engaging my mind that way, but I do it anyway.

Emails first.

Film festivals email be unashamedly. I’ve entered short films I’ve made in the past, and that becomes a beacon for so many other festivals to email you, greeting you with familiarity, telling you they’ve heard of your work, and attempting to solicit you to enter. They’ll usually offer a discount waiver, too.

They might be legit – nowadays, I research what their prizes are. Sometimes, there’s cash involved, or introductions to people who might matter, like producers and/or agents. But lots of times there’s nothing but some certificate they’ve probably knocked together in Photoshop and which costs them nothing. When you’re an artist starving for gratification, anything feels like a win.

I reply to them, asking them to please remove me from their mailing list. Usually, that’s the end of it. Sometimes, whoever’s in charge on that end will send me an apology. Unsolicited marketing like this should really be against the law and punishable by death. I know people are doing their job, but it’s a fucking pain.

Then I see it – a response from Veracity Publishing, a boutique publisher based overseas. I’ve sent them one of the manuscripts my publisher rejected as the third book – Wunderland, a story about a twenty-something woman slowly deteriorating into madness as she uncovers a past trauma.

I wrote the first draft ten years ago, and topically it’s probably inappropriate for me to write from that perspective, but fuck it. That’s what writing is:. It’s a story that appealed to me, I wrote it, revised it exhaustively, and started sending it around.

The email doesn’t preview the body of the text, so I don’t know what awaits.  Once upon a time, I’d be buoyant with hope – so buoyant that I was sure once I opened the email (or opened the envelope in the days of snail mail) I’d find an acceptance. But when the ratio is a handful of acceptances and over one thousand rejections, that hope’s as buoyant as Atlantis.

But something remains, some miniscule thing that doesn’t deserve a metaphor, and I don’t want to crush it immediately because for as tiny as it is, it’s disproportionately pathetic, and something so pathetic should really be pitied, rather than transmuted into some worthwhile commodity.

So I go to Words to take the shots in the two games I play. In one game, I have the letters’ A, A, E, I, U, T, and Y, and in the other I get to play a seven-letter word (REVISIT), which could usher in a comeback (I was seventy points behind, and am now only fifteen points behind), but in return I get E, E, E, E, E, S, and T. I don’t know who designed the algorithm for this thing – either it’s really bad at simulating real chance, or they’ve purposely made it bad because they get some kick out of pissing off idiots like me.

Done, I flick through Instagram reels, pausing only to watch stuff that’s mildly interesting – a snippet from some stand-up’s routine, or some guy working on an alligator preserve, or just people hurting themselves (which is always popular) – but I know I should be trying to get to sleep, and that I should really look at the email from Veracity Publishing.

Bracing myself, I return to my mailbox.

Until I open the email, the response could be anything. It’s like Schrödinger’s cat. Schrödinger’s cat, in case you don’t know (and I only learned through a book I edited years ago), is a thought experiment where a cat can be both dead and alive inside a box at the same time. Once you open the box, then the proof exists.

This email could be an acceptance and rejection at the same time. More than that, I think it remains malleable until I open it, and what determines its definition is what I’m thinking, how I’m feeling, and everything else going on in my life.

I open the email:

Thank you for your submission. We enjoyed elements of the story, but unfortunately it’s not quite the right fit for us here. However, we’d love to see more of your work in the future.

And this is my cat: dead.

The email offers a dangerous invitation, but then I doubt whether it’s an invitation or just some overly friendly form rejection.

I leave the email for now – I have a spreadsheet where I document all my submissions and the outcomes, so this can stay as a reminder to update that, but that just shows how pedestrian I’ve become.

All that’s left now is sleep … and to check that Lana hasn’t messaged me and I’ve overlooked it. Nope, nothing. But I do see I never got back to Stan.

Sorry, mate, I tell him. Got caught up with Lana.

It sounds so much like an excuse, and vow I have to give Stan a call, or at least make the effort so these declinations don’t look like brush offs.

He responds almost immediately: That’s ok.

Turning my phone to silent, I place it on the bedside drawers, check the clock radio’s alarm is on, then switch the lamp off.