pee run

I sometimes run to the bathroom, when it is morning and the pressure to pee comes on my like a fierce competitor, on my tiptoes, quickly, my arms flailing by my boobs like I'm an impotent, useless, miniature Tyrannosaurus Rex. It is a strange run. Silly and feminine. Yet I growl.

ROWR, get outta the way. I need to peeeeee...

When I talk to my children about Buddhism and compassion and connectedness, I never talk to them about the pee run we all have. That completely unself-conscious run we do when faced with a tiny tank. Desperation and pressure and fear of wetting oneself is the great equalizer, loves. When we hold our water, us humans run silly. We are all under the same great sun, crouching over the same dark hole in the ground.

I've decided that I don't have to write here anymore. You know, just when I feel like it. But I want to write here. I want to paint still, but I don't want the pressure to paint. I feel slightly lost, wandering the hallways, wrist bent slightly in mimic of the pee run. I feel like that--a kind of pressure to get somewhere, but I don't know where. I think in blog post length after years of this writing.

I have organized all my drawers in the last few weeks. My junk drawers dumped and sorted, my utensils decluttered. I took out every piece of food item in my pantry, wiped and organized and inventoried. I checked dates. I cleaned my art studio. I put craft and art supplies in bins according to their use. The kids have had their too small clothes weeded out. My desk drawer, my sock drawer, my bathroom shizzle. I am avoiding writing, you know, the big book. I asked a nun if I could sit and have coffee with her. My main character joins the convent at some point, after years of drug abuse and alcoholism, after she sees God in the desert.

The nun laughed.
"Sure. I'd love it. It is a crazy process to be a nun."
"Can I bring a tape recorder?"
"Sure, Angie. It'll be fun. Can I ask you about writing a novel?"
"It is a crazy process to write a novel. So crazy, I haven't done it yet."

I don't know what to ask. I just want to do something productive towards the end. I have this thing. It hangs out on the computer, and mocks me. "Don't you have something to go paint, lady? I'm not sure if you are disciplined enough to write a whole book. You are like a gnat with an espresso habit. You like shiny objects, and I am dull and I don't make any noises. I don't whirl, or growl, or run like a girl."

I am hard on myself. I have this internal voice that is much like a basketball coach, perhaps Bobby Knight. On a good day, it says, "You can do it, kid. You are money." When it is a bad day, I throw chairs at myself. It is abusive and harsh and reminds me that I am nothing if I don't work. Obsessively, and without pause. That can be both good and bad. I am working on the internal voice. It has gotten nicer since I have gotten sober, which is a cool bonus of not drinking. Still, when I sit here in blogger, rather than Word, I know that my inner Bobby Knight is going to rage.

It makes my bladder weak. And then I have to run.

I have been reading about writing lately. I highly recommend Ann Patchett's the Getaway Car. I find her extraordinary. Anyone else have any good writer-y writing you want to pass on? What have you been reading lately? Any good motivational advice for an itinerate, unmotivated writer? What are you procrastinating on?