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Zen Mind, Squatters MindNovember 30, 2005 See, this is the real problem in this Fall of Working Excessively: no time to work on, or much energy to think about, Squatters' Speakeasy, the simmering second novel. It's rocking back and forth like an egg trying to hatch (do eggs hatch? Go figure), rattling in the basement like Marley's Ghost (whose season is fast approaching), leaking like a barrel of toxic waste, radiating static like those signs of possibly intelligent life way out in the universe . . . You get the idea. Every time I walk by the new house a-building down the street, I think "Bubo," as in "Bubonic plague." This is followed by "But [owner of house] is a nice person," which is followed by a list of Nice Person's shortcomings and then an inquiry into the worth of "nice" -- like who benefits from the social obligation to be "nice"? I come home from chorus rehearsal raging and grieving because (more or less) the Island Community Chorus is turning into another "year-round summer people" enterprise (big surprise: guess who's running it), and I can't articulate why I'm so distressed or bring myself to Just Say No (i.e., bail out) because it means giving in to Them, and besides They are so nice and They mean well, is it Their fault that They're so clueless? Well, yeah, it is their fault that they're so clueless: they benefit from being clueless, and it's in their interest to remain so because otherwise they'd have to think about, and maybe take responsibility for what they're, ever so nicely, doing. I wish I could return to the state of cluelessness, but I had to go poking around and turning over rocks. I'm feeling, what's a good word? -- inchoate? Ungrounded, maybe. All this restless, dissatisfied, grieving, pissed-off energy is yearning to get back to the Squatters' Speakeasy, because that's what novel #2, The Squatters' Speakeasy, is about. (I think. So far.) And that's what writers are supposed to do with their restless, dissatisfied, grieving pissed-off energy: channel it into the writing. (I think.) Almost 20 years ago I stage-managed a production of Medea. A guy who wasn't in the play but who had occasion to drop by the theater from time to time said that over the rehearsal period the energy inside the theater got scarier and scarier; as a man, he felt the impulse to close the door and go back down the street. I'm getting to the point where I almost don't dare open the door to my own head. The restless, dissatisfied, grieving, pissed-off energy is radiating through the walls: I can feel the heat, hear the roar, see the flashing lights.
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