i tried to take today as a writing day... completely clear with no outstanding obligations... but now i'm starting to think that i'm only chipping at an iceburg. maybe what i need to do is go away to some hideout in the mountains for 2 weeks and see what comes out then. somewhere where i can't be reached and vice versa, therefore i don't feel guilty for not doing practical things day after day (answering email, etc). maybe it's because i spent monday and tuesday in a totally administrative headspace... i had some bills and accounting to catch up on, more than the norm.... but i find it's generally hard to "switch gears". then when i have a day like today, booked off with a big red "WRITE" on it... i feel like i must produce, produce, produce.... i wrote something this morning but it just felt like a rip-off of something else... then i basically had to face the fact that i have a bit of writer's block. i have that horrible feeling like i'll never write another song again. i'm out of ideas. nothing is coming.

so after flopping around the house in my own misery for a while, i headed out on the street. $50 later i found myself back at home, with about 12 hours worth of dvd rentals and some plants and potting soil. made a mess of the kitchen, but now i have some nice new members of the family.... i brought home a jade plant, which i used to have as a kid... i named it Margurita... and it reminded me of how i used to name all my plants as a teenager. in particular, i remember a pair of english ivy plants that went by the names of beethoven and schubert. schubert is still an especially good name for an ivy plant. all those little leaves scattered romantically across the vines... remind me of the notes of a waltz scattered across a staff.

*sigh*

i'm totally depressing myself today. vodka it is. watched my first 2 movies and found them ho-hum... disappointing. maybe i'll resort to Season 10 of Friends. can't hurt at this point.

(i must insert here... in retrospect, after - or during - a period of extreme busy-ness with touring, business, or whatever, i usually take a day or two of this kind of restless hopelessness before i can get primed to write anything. i need to get used to the concept... but it never gets any easier).


ps: had an interview yesterday that i felt i really bombed on... blah. maybe it was the lack of coffee... maybe it was just my poor social skills. maybe i should have had some vodka first.