I can't move, my brain is cramping

Folks ask me how I come up with the schlock I spill out on this site. I tell them it's like a constipated poop. Once that first turd comes out, the rest is gravy.

That's how I feel today. It started at 10 a.m., when, while at work I thought I'd write about the inner monologue that lapped my skull during nine of the 10 minutes it takes to drive from work to home. I had my lazy, dough boy self convinced I was too wiped for the gym. My day would be far more productive if I pulled the covers up to my chin and snoozed during those same 90 minutes. It was a good argument. Well reasoned, logical (You're liable to get crushed under the squat thrust machine. How would that look, Pillow Bottom?), convincing. I promised I'd work out the rest of the week - Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I made a deal, nothing but water for the rest of the day; dump ice in a bucket, I'll drink that (besides, didn't I read somewhere that you actually lose weight by drinking water? I'm golden then. Nappy time for Mikey).

For whatever reason, though, I couldn't put enough words together to make a well-structured sentence that was both entertaining and in English. It was right at the tip of my tongue, and yet wedge between my teeth. I was a mile away from the Compound, home to our sweet monkey-love bed and the down comforters that keep my frozen ass warm during these cold Phoenix winter days (that's right, it gets below 65 and I'm bundled up like a North Pole explorer), and then a new voice - I like to call him the a-hole - pipes up with: "Who are you kidding, Panty Waist, you're going to the gym, and you'll like it."

Now see, the words are pouring out as if I just dunked Ex-Lax tabs in a tall glass of Milk of Magnesia. That's writing for me. I ball up my fists, clench my feet, get red faced and grunt out that first paragraph - the plug - so the rest of the words pour out. I didn't say it was a pretting process, and I'm pretty sure I just lost half the readers with the visuals, but I just had to share my mental constipation. Good writers paint pictures with words, great writers make you want a Kleenex to wipethe visual away from your face.

I did make it to the gym, though. And that was the point I was working on all day. I told myself after twenty minutes of writing paragraphs that looked like vomit on a page and then deleting them, that maybe if I did some real work, i.e. lay out some pages for tomorrow's newspaper, I could formulate some ideas on how to best present this inner turmoil, this battle between my weary ass and energized heart, so that the readers didn't feel like taking a nap themselves instead of reading my rambling diatribe that was likely only funny to me.

When I finished with my pages, I had about 20 minutes left in the day. I returned to the empty post, grunted, squirmed, unclenched the butt cheeks, but nothing came out. Fine, I said, I'll think about it in the car as I drive home.

I settle in at Command Central, and shout "It's right there." The cat is the only one home and it doesn't think much of my prose as she turns back on me and the crap I was smeared on the screen. I just couldn't get to the words. Christ on a crutch, what do I have to do to get at those well kept nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and interrogative pronouns? (you got it, I pulled out the thesaurus for that one.) Open sesame. Abra-frickin'-cadabra. Nothing. I can see them sitting there, pretty as a desert rose, just waiting for me to fondle them.

Some writing schmucks call it writers block. That's cop out term for someone who just isn't focused enough to work. That's me, my focus is thin enough to sift horse poop through. I gather myself, stare at the screen as if Salma Hayek was on there beckoning the words from my brain, and uhhhhhh...

Finally, I give up - even Ms. Hayek can't get the words out of me (Ha! you thought something else happened, didn't you? Filthy minded lab rats) - and this is the what I come up with. A blog about writing a blog. It's as original as writing about poop and making sex jokes. Oh wait, I do that even when I'm focused.