National Novel Writing Month: Long Dark Weekend of the Soul

I had the worst hypochondria all weekend. It might sound weird to talk about hypochondria like it's a disease, but that's exactly how I've come to think of these occasional spells I get (usually on weekends, because I don't have work or anything useful to distract my mind) when every five seconds I feel like another part of my body has contracted an irrevocable disease which medical science doesn't know about and can't cure.

Sampler - I woke up yesterday with a hangover, despite several last-minute-before-sleep attempts to fill my body with H2O. My brother and I went to go and see the movie about Ian Curist, the tragic genius lead singer of Joy Division. Ian Curtis had epilepsy. Of all the possible conditions I've spent a bit of my lifetime obsessing over, Epilepsy is the one that I keep on returning to. A long time ago, a family friend died from it - that's probably where it started. There is something about epilepsy which frightens me more than any of the normal conditions - the fact that it lasts a lifetime and usually ends it, the randomness of it, the imprecise visual of a brain completely at war with the body that supports it. It was uncomfortable watching the film - I think because something about the moviewatching experience seems so close to mental synapse shutdown anyways (the way the outside world disappears, the imprecise flicker of the film screen at 24 frames per second). So then I spent the rest of the day anxiously avoiding using my mind, for fear that one stray thought might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Avoiding using your brain is thankfully simple in the modern world. I went on the internet and surfed wikipedia. My neighbor's wireless connection was particularly good yesterday - no doubt they had better things to do on a Saturday than use the internet - so I managed to catch up on my stories. "The Office" was good, 'Dirty Sexy Money" was better, and then I made the mistake of watching "Grey's Anatomy," which, like all hospital shows, is a nightmare for a hypochondriac. Girl comes into the hospital with weakened bones from dieting - good god, I think to myself, have I been eating right? Old guy with a heart problem is allergic to anesthetic? What if I'M allergic to anaesthetic? That would mean that when they operate on me for my heart/lung/brain/liver/toe condition, I'll need to be conscious! I can't deal with the pressure of having a surgeon's fingers tickling my inner organs! I can barely deal with the pressure of leaving my apartment on a beautiful day!

Another thing that freaked me out about the Ian Curtis film - suicide. I have never once in my life wanted to commit suicide, but since sixth or seventh grade I have thought about suicide, in the abstract - holding a gun to your head, tying a noose around your neck, swallowing a boatload of prescription pills. It freaks me out - the finality of it. And it freaks me out to think that death really is so close. It reminds me of a line from "Arkansas," the book which McSweeney's is publishing in the springtime which is going to win alot of awards and hopefully climb up the bestseller's list if there is any justice in this unjust world - "It was much too easy to kill a man."

I wonder if there are any statistics on who commits suicide more often - people who do believe in the afterlife, or people who don't. And I wonder if they commit suicide because they think they're right, or because they think they're wrong.

It was that kind of weekend. I talked to my best friend, and she expressed the same kind of vaguely depressed ennui. Maybe it's the jump back from daylight savings time, or the inscrutable weather in the Bay Area (three days ago, I can't see out my window for the fog; today, I can see all the way to Napa, and smell the wine on the light bayside breeze).

I think my mind is making up excuses to not write this novel. Which is ironic, because the only time I ever feel really good, and centered, is when I have been writing on a regular schedule.

I need a plot. Right now all I have is a few little characters in a bar. Nothing is happening. I know what happens in three steps, but the next two are mysterious. Solution: go to the local cafe and write until closing time.