lessons from the fluff and fold

I'm always a bit apprehensive when I feel compelled to write after midnight. You know that trepidation you get when your phone rings in the middle of the night? Like you just know it's not going to be good, because happy topics wait for daylight?

It's similar but not exactly like that.

I've been meaning to write. I really have. Insightful things, transparent things, and all things in between. In the past, oh, week or so, I've been kicking around posts on:

• hiking
• how every liquor label releases a new ad campaigns for the holidays
• things I find funny about straight porn
• my not-entirely-serious Christmas list
• motivation
• the new color scheme of our apartment building (hint: metallic silver and lavender)
  
• the means justifying the end

You thought I was kidding, but scatterbrained folk need never exaggerate.

The problem, or part of the problem if it's really a problem, is this random list my roommate dearest found on the interwebs and emailed me about being a better writer. On one line it says to write everyday, but then on another line it says to only write about things you find interesting, because if you're bored, your audience will be too.

I am simply not interesting everyday. Conundrum.

However I do start to feel guilty if I allow for cobwebs to grow on el bloggo, not because I'm delusional enough to think I might miss posting the one day a powerful literary agent goes trolling through the riffraff, but because you can't win if you don't play and this tiny corner of my life is one of few where I'm allowed total control.

Some of those other bullet points, I haven't given up on them yet. But tonight, for whatever reason, this is the last thought on my mind:

I'm thinking about the guy who works at my cleaners, who shall remain nameless because I know him only as Dry Cleaning Guy. He works in the middle of Hollywood, sandwiched between a Subway and a rocking chair store that never actually seems to be open, his every day spent looking across a tiny strip mall parking lot out to stalled traffic on La Brea. This man is happy. And not the forced, I-will-get-fired-if-I-don't-greet-you sort happy. Genuinely excited about life. Every time he gives me my pick-up ticket, me or anyone else for that matter, he presents it like some form of sacred scroll, using both hands like an offering, slightly bowed, not aiming for comedy but sincerely grateful to be handing over the ticket that will eventually allow your slacks back into your possession. Every single time. And every single time I think to myself...I hope I'm on track for that kind of happiness.

I like to think I am.
And hopefully you are too.