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My name is Lloyd.
Not really. But we’ll go with it.
It’s 12:00 and I just swallowed an adderall to really hunker in and get some damn words on the screen. A cup of coffee sits to my left and about fifteen books scatter atop the wooden table in my living room. Those books are there for me to open to a random page and figure out what the fuck writing is supposed to look like.
Page 52 of Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami for instance reads:
“That was when I started to regret what I’d done — or didn’t do — but soon fell fast asleep. My bouts of regret don’t usually last very long.”
So here’s to keeping awake and not regretting this half-cocked notion of a blog.
fly-leaf | noun | a blank page at the beginning or end of a book.
Today I bought tickets to Iceland for next January. It’s July. Granted my heart doesn’t explode or the universe collapses in upon itself, that’s six months of life to live before stepping on the plane. Six months is a great span of time to create arbitrary life goals and expectations.
My new prime motivator is this: Come the day of that flight I want to consider myself — a consideration deeply infecting into my blood and being — a writer.
Hence this blog: The Flyleaf Pages.
For poetic (and pretentious) purposes, I’m choosing to look at this blog, the blank screen with a blinking cursor, a flyleaf. It’s an empty page in a book waiting to be scribbled on with dedications, love notes, homages, and vulnerable revelations of self. A place to collect the missing words on the pages in between. The story not quite making the author’s cut.
I have found that the writing of mine that is most rewarding and engaging is that which makes me the most uncomfortable to reveal. Writing about anxieties, unspoken thoughts, private experiences, insecurities, and emotions difficult to put on paper.
And judge it as you will, but a firm belief occupies my mind: No one ever becomes an artist of worth without exploring uncomfortable vulnerability.
Moving on to a story about adderall…
One year ago I sat in the lobby of a psychiatrist’s office down in the Madison Park neighborhood of Seattle. I tapped my feet like I was playing double bass on a drum set, scrolled up and down the news feed on my Facebook profile, checked the time every 15 seconds, and overall wondered what the hell I was doing there.
The Doctor, middle aged and soft spoken, invited me to follow her.
Do I lay on the couch with my feet propped, like the movies, I think. Or do I pace around the room tossing a stress ball into the air?
Neither. I pulled the chair from across the room to sit a few feet away from her, because I’m deaf and couldn’t hear a damn word she said. Three months of sessions and I’m certain I only heard half the advice she spoke. Maybe I’d have really learned something there if I’d been confident enough to say “Hey lady, psychoanalyze louder.”
She prescribed adderall. It’s no secret I have Hyper-Active Attention Deficit tendencies. Spend five minutes talking with me and it’s clear my focus is far too internal to be present.
Skip a few months forward to Halloween and I’m in Oakland with a few long-time friends. We check into an AirBnB, put on our costumes, and get ready to head out to a much anticipated concert. I pop my daily dose and head out the door. Like an idiot. I never took adderall in the evenings. Mornings as prescribed. And never when I knew I was about to drink a few hours later.
What followed was a hazy night. At least from my vantage point. Speech was like trying to recall the details of a dream. It took too much effort and ended up sounding detached from reality. Memory was worse. And the following two days were hell. Hangover, hangover, hangover.
I quit adderall that weekend.
Here I am nearly a year later, trying it once again. But I’m writing this for a few reasons.
1.) Whatever anxieties that led me to that psychiatrist’s office that day haven’t changed a great deal. It goes in cyclical motion of motivation and doubt.
2.) To keep myself in check. Know where you are.
3.) Accomplish that which I desire in most: Actively pursuing my most inner dreams to become the person I believe myself to be in my mind. A writer. A voice that unapologetically speaks their perspective in a collected, thoughtful manner.
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If you are so inclined, follow me on this exploration of self.
I cannot promise a proper story arc of conflict resolution for this tale. I don’t yet have a clear direction of the blog. Merely be vulnerable. And hopefully funny. Or insightful. And maybe create something worth reading. And develop a talent that sells. We all dream, right?
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Updates | Day 1/179
-Accomplishments this week: Iceland tickets purchased. Finished reading Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis. Started blog.
-Short(ish) term goals: Write a page a day for novel idea “Spectrum”. Do laundry. Buy groceries and stop eating out for lunch to save money.
Shoutouts/Inspirations: Lee Ngo for discipline of craft. Amanda Nichole Hupe for pursuing her passions. Richard Andalora for travels and epic conversations about goals.
-Closing whimsy: I want my tombstone to read “He fell in love with an eccentric girl and they traveled the world writing fiction novels featuring their dog.”
