5 hidden to lurk on the furky lake
11. Decent collection of James Thurber fables. Dude had a series of glass eyes he would change out at parties, each one for his drink level at the time, each a little bit more red-eyed. He also had an American flag glass eye. He would go to the bathroom, toss in the flag eye, reenter the party.
5. Holy shit! Jeff either snagged the shark, lost his best spoon, or this:
About two weeks ago I tried living as if I were an indie writer.
Oh, the writerly worries of “going indie.” Though it’s one of those things where genre writers think indie means genre. As if genre is subversive. Or indie. Or that they correlate. Or something. Some tidbits, though, or why would I even yawn it here?
14444. Aimee Bender interview in Guernica.
1. Avant-Garde time capsule found.
9. Is caffeine important to the writer? How much do you use?
Tags: aimee bender, Indie, James Thurber
RE: Caffeine. I seem to have lost the ability to have a decent caffeine buzz somehow. I used to be able to sit and read for hours with my mind being ever more illumined with each successive cup (up to a point). Now, it’s gone. Perhaps this has something to do with quitting cigarettes. The caffeine and the nicotine together may have been the cortical money shot…
Anyone else experience this loss after giving up the cigarettes?
Worse, “indie” in genre parlance just means putting your bullshit up on Kindle and trying to sell it directly to the readers without even attempting to get someone else to publish it.
I rarely ever drink coffee. Or drink pop. Or take caffeine pills. I refuse to use performance-enhancing drugs.
caffeine causes proteins that bind adenosine to accumulate.
caffeine blocks these proteins, mimics the adenosine,
that’s how it “does its thing”.
no one knows what happens next, in neurons downstream.
and every day it diminishes your potency,
coaxing you to pour another pot of tea,
need more molecules blocking those extra new proteins,
the threshold always ascending.
take a week off. five days.
you’ll have headaches.
take a pill, an advil, sleep it off.
do some other drugs.
five is all it takes,
the limbo bar goes up again,
the protein level comes down again.
when you begin again
a single sip and you’ll feel stoned.
i promise you this.
see impromptu poem above,
my intake goes up and up and then i have to stop.
tea, it contains theanine,
a calming and focusing thing,
a molecule that won’t let you hyperventilate.
But careful with those catechins, those tannins,
brew tea too hot and four or five pots will have you hurt,
a sinister stomach.
but drink as much with coffee?
you’d be delirious and panicky.
(in the aforementioned “week off” in my other post in this thread,
i mention heinous headaches.
in a post-caffeine comedown,
i can’t write.
it’s shit.
then take another tea (or wait out the week)
and everything zooms,
the words dance, keyboard keys bounce,
the cursive “f” with my fountain pen
ascends and descends and then
intersects elegantly,
my sentiments speckle eloquently.
it’s a drug, dear, don’t join their denial,
and most of the west seems to be hooked.)
PS > Pendell sez Samuel
Johnson poured pot after pot,
relentlessly, or
rather the maid did.
A manic addict, with tics.
maybe i’m on my way to go join him.