Soundtracked

Little Room

"Write down a list of observations from scraps of dialogue you overheard, images you encountered, and thoughts that crossed your mind. Shape your observations into a poem, story or simply your blog entry."

What's good, people? I'm afraid I'm taking the easy way out today, and forming my observations into the shape of a blog entry, for simplicity's sake. Which doesn't sound very interesting, but I'll try anyway.

I had an appointment this afternoon with my Mental Health doctor. No biggie; just a checkup regarding a med change from last month. This was the second time I've seen her; my previous doc left this office because he wanted to work closer to home and took a position making more money. Good for him...I got along really well with him, I trusted him, and I felt comfortable talking to him and listening to him.

This lady? She's nice and all. Certainly means well, I think. But she's...a little dippy? Can I say that about someone? I said it so whatever. I can overlook certain things about people given their situations, and she's been overbooked because Cortland County didn't really give a shit about filling the vacant MH doc's position for months on end. And she's more of a Nurse Practitioner, trying to figure out why my previous doctor has prescribed this or that and what for. My medical history is slightly complicated I guess, but I'm fairly open-minded so I'm willing to see things through with her for the time being.

I waited a half-hour past my scheduled appointment time. It's bad enough I get anxiety about waiting around all morning for these things and I usually show up early because I hope that means it's the start of the whole process ending. I'm glad I didn't show up early today. She comes out and meets me in the waiting room, squinting down at a piece of paper going "Robert? Robert, right?" Those of you who know me know that is not my name. I politely corrected her because my only other default setting might have been nervous assassination on the spot. We proceeded to go upstairs to her office, and along the way she began introducing herself and why she was there in a manner that suggests she's never seen me before. No less than twice did I tell her we met last month. Nervousness and annoyance is not a pleasurable cocktail, my friends...but I'm keeping it together because otherwise I'm gonna get shouty and stupid real fast, and I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt.

My main reason for being there? I needed one of my insomnia meds refilled. I placed an order through the online patient portal a couple days ago, and now I'm totally out. Otherwise, I may have just cancelled the appointment because my anxiety has been making me fucking trip lately and I was in no mood to put on a performance for anyone...I was content to just wallow. But let's not worry about me...this is about her. After about ten minutes of jibber-jabber and her asking me if I remembered why she cut my Ritalin dose in half and me fucking panicking out of not remembering right away why, she finally snapped and was like "Ohhhh, now I remember you!"

Why is this an issue? Because I truly believe this fucking woman has no clue how any kind of technology works. She hasn't looked at my chart or file or whatever because I don't think she wants to admit that she can't use a computer. Half of my two appointments with her have consisted of her seriously mock-typing on her keyboard like a Muppet and then muttering how there's "something wrong with the system" and it's not "letting her in", but she "probably saw my request and probably approved it earlier"...which is bullshit because "the system" alerts me when the request I make is sent to prescriber and when prescriber has sent request to pharmacy. And actually, this is a step up from the last visit, when she looked at me like I was asking her to shove the business end of a hammer up her ass upon my mentioning that I use the office's patient portal for medication refills. Don't fucking ask me what that is, lady, when there are signs all over the doors and reception area touting the portal.

To recap: this woman, who isn't even really maybe not quite my mom's age, doesn't remember me and is technologically deficient...and also, I had kinda no reason to be there when I especially didn't wanna be there but kinda needed to go anyway. And thank fuck I did, or else I probably wouldn't have had much to go on regarding observations for this entry. Also, still no confirmation from the clinic or the pharmacy that I'll have one of my insomnia meds refilled by the next time I'll need to take it. Sweet .

"Talk Tuesday! In Sally 's entry "Invalid Entry" , her use of the term 'writing kit' had me intrigued. Do you have a physical set of tools you rely on (certain pens/pencils, notebooks, etc.)? Different websites you rely on for particulars? Maybe even mood-setting accouterments like music or candles? What's your scene?"

I ask because I'm curious, and I know that to probably most of us blogging is a side-hustle when we're not writing stories or poems or drawing or taking pictures. And like most athletes have certain brands of gear they prefer or carpenters stick with a specific tool-maker, so do we have our own things we like to keep around when we're doing this thing.

Awhile back some of us participated in a WDC Live  -type of conversation that we forgot to record where we took turns reading a poem that featured plenty of words that have multiple pronunciations (I forget what it was but I'm sure Elle - on hiatus or anyone else who was there remembers and can link it), and it made for some hilarity. And like these things go, we spent some "off air" time bullshittin' around and chatting with each other...at some point I had a mini freak-out on I think Creeper Of The Realm about notebooks and the amount of them I have within arm's reach of my laptop (answer: a sick number ). I'm not one to just stare at a computer when I'm ready to start anything (I did that once and ended up with "The Computer Age" , which isn't bad but it's not my preferred way of working). I need the physical hard copy first. Let's start with pens, because I'm a nerd.

These are great pens from Staples (they're a big-box office supply store in the US, for the unfamiliar). Nice grip, writes smooth. I'm pissed cuz the Staples in Cortland closed, and I don't remember if the one in Ithaca is still open but at least we pass by it on the way back from my mom's. I'm probably not gonna be pleased if I have to resort to buying them online once I go through my current stash.

Then ya got notebooks...looking around, I see at least four different notebooks and notepads within five feet of where I'm sitting. One's the hard copy of "World By Design" - a CVS-brand college-ruled, spiral-bound thing probably 6"x9" with thicker pages that almost feel like writing on a thin sheet of stone, and one's a little "Fat Book" (no seriously, that's what it's called) from CVS- a 5.5"x4", 180-page more conventional notebook for titles and fragments and whatnot to work from. There's a composition book (those elementary school, marble-colored covers) I use mainly for 30DBC stuff and for other contests and things like that. Then I've got a thin little Moleskine pocket notebook for day-to-day things, like grocery lists that never make it to the store .

Haven't gotten a desk yet- not sure how that's gonna fit in the apartment- so for now I've got my laptop on one tray table and notebooks and various crap on another off to the opposite side of me. Works for now, so there's no urgency in finding a better solution.

When I wanna do this blog thing, I open up all the tabs I'll need in the order I plan to use them...almost as if it were an outline. I get it...it sounds weird and maybe some of you just sorta fly by the seat of your pants and answer the prompt with whatever comes up because that's what works for you, but I can't do that because I forget things and need to be organized and that's my preferred way of doing it. And even then, in the course of my own pants-seat flying, I'll think of like six different other things I wanna throw in, and then I've gotta work those in. I've got two YouTube tabs at minimum up, the Genius.com tab for song lyrics, the Daily Box Score stuff no one reads, plus all the WDC stuff I'll need for an entry. I don't fuck around .

Otherwise, nothing fancy over here .

FORUM

Soundtracks of Our Lives  (E) Sharing the music that makes us original... #2144947 by Lyn's a Witchy Woman

The thing about most of the "WDC Live" appearances I've made is that they took place in the room I was renting around the corner from my apartment building...big enough for a bed and a dresser and me. You could probably fit about three of 'em in my living room now, and my apartment's not all that big either but at least I don't have to eat on my bed (if I don't want to). But I'm struggling to fill up all the open spaces I suddenly have. I don't wanna have things just to have them, and I don't know how long I'm gonna be here, so I don't wanna have too many things in case I wind up moving again after my lease is up.

Sorta the same with ideas and options. Don't wanna have too many, because "no limit" is often limiting at times. I find it not always easy to concentrate when I'm not organized and have too many things to work from. Sometimes scaling down the ambition is the best thing you can do...whether you're writing a novel or a poem, choosing what to wear for the day, or going on a bank-robbing spree.

"Fell In Love With A Girl/Little Room"   -The White Stripes

"Well, you're sittin' in your little room, and you're working on something good.
But if it's really good, you're gonna need a bigger room.
And when you're in the bigger room, you might not know what to do.
You might have to think of how you got started sitting in your little room."

Anyone else use Windows 10? Apparently I saved an article from last year claiming Windows 10 is gonna force users to buy a new computer   in early 2018. Something about a block on certain processors that won't accept updates. I got this laptop right when Windows 10 was launched; it's entry-level like the article refers to, and came with 8.1 I think? I don't remember; that was like 2.5 years ago. It still updates from time to time, so I guess that's good. Last thing I need right now is having to go out and get something new.

Passing this along for the freelancers out there, because I'm a little bit of a big fan of McSweeney's Internet Tendency   (one of my all-time fave books y'all have probably heard me talk about too much is Created In Darkness By Troubled Americans  ): Tips For Getting Published On McSweeney's  .

And finally, oh hey Jack White...heard ya got a new single comin' out tomorrow  . Thanks for making a commercial for it that's basically a commercial of a commercial.

Done here. Done with you guys today. Tired as fuck. Body feels dead, and it's not the usual dead arms; it's everything. You people are wearing me out . Don't worry; I still love all y'all. Peace, it's really good, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!