A post that is not a list.

Here's a possible first since moving to California: I got out of the house two nights in a row. Both times because of the Editor.

When we first started talking, he'd made a generous offer of sitting down to talk about writing with me. I took him up on it, at least as a first step, because god knows I've written jack shit since college. It was a very encouraging talk, and he gave me a lot to think about and specific things to do, which I'm gonna do. (I hate saying it that way, though, because I keep saying I'M GONNA DO SOMETHING and then not doing it. I have to work on my follow-through.)

Tonight he called me up and said I should come to this deal in Mountain View his paper was having, and despite my usual array of social anxieties, I showed up. It ended up being pretty cool, and I got to meet some of his staffers, which provided further ass-kicking in the direction of not being a lump anymore.

Jesus, that was convoluted. I want to write?

There was also a guy from the local Green Party, who gave us a half-drunken spiel about energy conservation and Green activism and tried to sell us stickers. Another guy, upon hearing my name, complimented it, saying it sounded very East Coast. I told him that was funny, because I'm West Coast through and through.

Anyway, back to the writing thing, since I'm trying to concentrate on it. I need to think about--make a list--of topics I'd like to write about. Story ideas. It's difficult for me to get into that mindset. It was difficult even when it was what I had to do, though not for a living, but for school. So that's task no. 1.

The trouble now lays in my horrible complacency. I may complain about boredom and not wanting to stagnant, but part of me is happy to be in a fairly comfortable--though who knows how ultimately unstable--place, at least for the moment. Then, when I think about breaking out of that mold, I have to confront my insecurities and anxieties, which are numerous, but whose aren't? What's so fucking insurmountable about mine that I can't get over them enough to do something I want to do when other people have?

So there's all that inward-thinking, which, in addition to merely exacerbating the aforementioned insecurities and anxieties, cloud any judgment I have with regard to what's interesting in the world that I could write about. Hah.

I do know that I won't be happy if I stay where I am forever, or even in a place close to it. It's not fulfilling. There's a lot of good in it, but my heart isn't in it. I can only cut my teeth for so long before they start to dull.