The Words Didn’t Fail Me, I Failed the Words

I didn’t realize it until late last night, but I didn’t write anything yesterday. Maybe a couple of e-mails, but I didn’t write anything that really matters.
Nearly every day for the past year, I’ve written 750 words a day. It’s almost always more than 750 (sometimes a lot more), but I try to spend some time clearing my head and getting my thoughts on paper. Whenever possible, I try to do it early in the day, as that seems to have an effect on how the rest of my day goes.
Sometimes the writing seems like a chore, but I know there is value in doing it. So I try to do it every day.
And yesterday I just forgot. There were any number of reasons (excuses) why I missed.
Reason #1. I didn’t sleep well on Friday. It was a warm day and was a little too hot in my bedroom to sleep, even with the fan on. So I slept on the couch, which is a great napping couch, but not great for sleeping longer than a couple of hours. I ended up waking up in the middle of the night and heading out to my screened-in porch and caught a couple hours of sleep in my hammock. I’d probably sleep out here more often, but I am pretty sure I would wake up to find my mouth filled with spiders.
Reason #2. I had a couple of errands that had to be run and I wanted to get them done early in the day. So instead of writing in the morning, I got dressed and headed out to run errands. This took a little longer than planned (doesn’t it always?), though, and before I knew it, it was early afternoon.
Reason #3. I had to load my records, turntables, PA, and speakers into my car to set up the gear for a DJ gig on Saturday night. This usually takes anywhere between an hour to ninety minutes.
Reason #4. I spent too much time watching the skies and checking weather apps to see if there was going to be a break in the rain long enough for me to get a bike ride in. I’m riding a streak (pun intended) where I’ve ridden every day for thirty-some days. But the rain kept coming and the promised break in the rain kept getting pushed back. Still, I kept checking.
Reason #5. It was nap time. Gig nights keep me up much later than usual, so I usually try to get a one- or two-hour nap in on the afternoon of a gig so I won’t feel tired while spinning records. Add in the fact that I didn’t sleep well the night before and I ended up taking a positively dreamy two-and-a-half-hour nap.
Reason #6. After the longer-than-planned nap, I woke up with less than three hours until my gig. I also woke up to a promising weather forecast for the next couple of hours. The weather app’s promise of no rain turned out to be inaccurate—at the beginning of my ride it wasn’t quite raining, but it was a pretty steady mist which stopped, then started again. And then it lightly rained before turning back to mist. At a certain point you just realize that you’re already wet and you might as well keep going, so I just kept riding and got my 11 miles in.
Reason #7. By the time I got home from the ride, I had less than two hours until my gig started. I took a quick, cool shower and got cleaned up and dressed (jeans, Ramones t-shirt…so predictable).
Reason #8. I was pressed for time, but needed to eat so I ran to Little Caesars to pick up a pizza. Little Caesar’s Hot-N-Ready Pizzas are a working DJ’s best friend because you can have a couple of slices (or maybe three) before your gig, but what’s awesome is that you have something to eat when you get home at 3:00 in the morning. I am normally not a big late-night eater, but DJing means being on your feet and moving a lot (in a small space) for four or five hours. And after that you have to pack all your gear up and load your car and then unload when you get home. By the time I get home, I’m always hungry. Not starving or anything, but having one slice of pizza while catching up on my online Scrabble games was a nice wind-down after the gig.
And there it was…the whole day came and went and I didn’t write a lick. I am not going to beat myself up about it, it’s just one of those things that happens. I probably miss one or two days a month, for whatever reason (work, usually).
Today I’ll do what I always do the day after a streak is broken—I get up and start over again. Besides, I think I’ll more than make up for it because I have a LOT of writing to do today, spread out across two or three blog posts and some other website copy.
Speaking of which, I suppose it’s time to get to work. But then I look at the skies and at my weather app and this might be the perfect time to get my bike ride in.
