No writing talk...

I'm trying to figure out a plan for the coming year, and not doing too well. I don't want to keep doing what I've been doing...writing in fits and starts while sitting around at home fucking around on the internet...but I'm sort of caught in this stasis where I just can't decide what to do or, if I do think I've decided, get myself to do it. I'm about as weird as it can get, sometimes.

It's become a chore for me to leave the apartment unless I have to, like for a job or doctor's appointment or to get my car looked at, even though I barely drive it now. I even have to talk myself into grocery shopping. Okay, I'm out of DDP and low on milk...so I have to hit the store. Dammit. I guess I should get some food to fix, too...

Can one develop agoraphobia out of habit? I've always been prone to anti-social behavior, which was excused as me being shy...but in focusing on trying to get past it I've found myself locking down when I go too far. And I'm remembering times in the past when I've flat out frozen in place when faced with something I wasn't prepped for.

Like this one occasion when I was in Grad School at UT-Austin...40 years ago. I was taking classes with Edward Dmytryk. He'd directed a host of Hollywood films and was one of the Hollywood 10 who were jailed by HUAC for not naming names. He was taking us through the process of directing a film...a short one, with him at the helm...and I was art director. I got everything together that he wanted and was all set, but one of the characters in the film needed to have tattoos. And since I was the artist of the group, it was up to me to do.

I was all set. Had the designs prepped. I did one tattoo on a female actor's shoulder, another on a guy's bicep. But this one male actor pulled his pants leg up for me to do one on his calf...and I froze. BAM. Couldn't do it. At all. And I have no idea why. Another crew member had to.

There have been other occasions when this has happened, and I cannot find a consistency to them. But they do seem to be more frequent now. Sometimes I can't even get myself to go for a simple walk without a long battle within myself. It's like I get writer's block in my own life.

So I'd like for that to end, in 2022. How? I have no idea, short of getting psychiatric help or a lobotomy. But even that's not promising. I'm just an old man caught in his habits and uncertainty...and sometimes that messes with my writing.

Hard to stop what you know is happening when you don't know why.