Ten Minutes

This is going to be a throwback undertaking, an old English Major exercise, because when you're stressed and mired and busy and [misc. misc. misc.], it is often helpful to go back to simple and reliable. This is the grilled cheese and Cambell's Chunky Soup of writing exercises: The ten minute writing.

Why? If you are someone who writes, or who occasionally writes, or who thinks of yourself as a writer despite the lack of actual writing, there is no way on God's variously colored earth that you can't find ten minutes every day to write something. Anything. Unfortunately, if you are a human being, there is no way on God's variously colored earth that you can't find between seventeen and forty-six thousand things to do every day besides spending ten minutes writing. This is not an excuse, it is simply a fact.

The idea behind this exercise is that you ignore the backspace key, don't think too much beforehand, kill your inner critic with an axe, and just simply write for ten minutes. The result: something, which is better than nothing in almost every case (the movie "Windtalkers" being a notable exception), so there is no sane reason not to do it. Typically this is not performed before a public audience, but oh well, too bad for you. It's not as though you're taking valuable time away from reading the Wall Street Journal to check out my ramblings.

So. Ten minutes of writing, every day, for (let's start teensy tiny here) one week. Baby steps to the door, Bob.

Begin.

The other day, in a completely sober, well-rested, and otherwise normal state of mind, I said the following: "And then everyone there just standed up and left." Let it be said that I am not an idiot. I hope that you have come to this conclusion by now. And yet, there it came, like a small verbal fart, only not as stinky. Yes. "Standed." What is perplexing is that this was not simply a missed verb tense. No no, I drove right off of Grammar road into Retard Canyon. To my credit, I did catch myself, but it took all of three words to do so ("up and left"). Where oh where does the brain go at these moments? The context of the story is irrelevant (it was about how the band Blues Traveler is horrible in concert unless you really love fifteen-minute harmonica jams), as is the context of the moment (playing poker). Usually, I understand the origin and nature of my mental lapses. I am, generally speaking, extremely forgetful, so that when I enter a one-person public bathroom, lock the door behind me, cross to the toilet, lower my fly, and immediately worry that I forgot to lock the door, it does not surprise me any longer. I regularly forget that I locked the door roughly 1.5 seconds previous. I have a suspicion about why these sorts of things happen: everyone relies very heavily on habit. There are certain things that you do without paying any real attention whatsoever, because you've done them an infinite number of times. Signing your name, pouring cereal into a bowl, logging on to your computer, unlocking your apartment door, etc. These things are a luxury (a word that, by the way, I misspelled in my 5th grade spelling bee "luxurusy" - I am a very good speller, but also a very visual learner, and the "imagine the letters in your head" approach never worked for me. I just got caught up on the lovely rhythm of the alternating u's) for the brain, because while it has set the body on cruise control, it can sit up there and hang out, think about paying bills, look forward to a sunny day, glance at an attractive person, or just sort of go "duhhhhh" for a while. The problem is that if you are an absent minded person, these habits on which you absolutely rely can very occasionally and for no apparent reason be shattered by your own complete idiocy. You will forget to sign your entire name. You will try to unlock your apartment door with your mailbox key, which is not even the correct shape or color. You will pour potato chips into your cereal bowl. These things will only happen oh, say, once every two years, but if you are a dilligent person such as myself (yes, I am both very anal and very absent-minded. And yes, holy God, that is one hell of a contradiction to live with.), you will do all that you can to keep your brain in mind. The result is that there are certain habits that you stop trusting. Despite the fact that I cannot recall ever, even once, being interrupted mid-pee because I had forgotten to lock the public bathroom door, it has for some reason become a habit that I only mostly trust. I think the stakes are pretty high here (accidental nudity being fairly embarassing for both parties), so the anal brain kicks in.

None of this, however, accounts for "standed," which isn't even a freaking word. But that's not the point, exactly. The point is to write for ten minutes (now going on fifteen) and leave it at that. And I will. Tomorrow: ten more minutes. Will we get to the bottom of the "standed" controversy? Will we just move on as though it never happened? Mysteries abound.