Since I’m not performing in a show at the moment, my schedule is fairly routine. I work at my day job from Saturday thru Wednesday; while this affords me a few extra hours on those days, those hours are usually taken up by other commitments, leaving me little time for writing. The bulk of my creative work, along with various errands and housework, therefore takes place on Thursdays and Fridays.
This past Thursday began normally (though, thanks to an especially busy week at work, I did wake up a little later than usual). I cleared out my emails, did my laundry and had a late lunch. I then decided to get a few hours’ worth of exercise at my local gym. By the time I got back, it would be around 5pm, leaving me the remainder of Thursday evening and all day Friday for writing. As I reached my gym, I turned off my cell phone, hesitating for a moment about cutting myself from the outside world, but reasoning that nothing too catastrophic would happen in those two short hours.
Well, silly me. We had a major international incident in those two short hours. One which I learned about by walking past a television in a local business’ window, tuned to CNN, with the chyron reading “Trump refers to Haiti, African nations as shitholes.”
And that was pretty much it for Thursday. I naturally had to check various news sources to try and figure out what on earth was happening (still working on that), and that naturally devolved into an entire evening staring at a computer screen, hitting refresh every five minutes. And the next few days only got worse. Friday added the alleged bribing of porn stars by our nation’s chief executive. Saturday topped even that with a rumor of nuclear war, thirty eight minutes in which citizens of this nation genuinely thought annihilation was imminent, and during which time that same chief executive was golfing.
That’s right. All of those incidents happened in the space of forty eight hours.
And the time I had designated for writing within those forty eight hours? Gone. Lost into the void.
Some say the antics of this administration are simply random and grotesque flailing, while others say it represents some genius sort of fourth-dimensional chess, a brilliant strategy which has managed to outwit and outmaneuver us all. I have a hard time envisioning any of these people as thinking with any long term strategy, but as a short-term tactic this chaos is devilishly effective. Like many of you, I’ve been too busy staring goggle-eyed at what’s been going on to do anything about it – unless you’re being charitable and count the page or so I actually managed to crank out on my days off.
Thankfully, today is a holiday, and I have another chance to be productive and get some writing done. And given this administration’s mindset and priorities, Martin Luther King Day is the perfect day to do it.