Sorry about the lack of posting yesterday. I actually did get a great deal accomplished in my quest to find gainful employment and other such productivity.

But I have been also having an ailment of epic proportions. Allow me to explain in my own little ciruitous manner.

Not having cable or satellite television has been both a blessing and a hindrance for me over the past several months. I don’t mind not having television since I can watch pretty much every show that I really like on the Interweb or just hassle a friend to let me watch stuff at their house every once in a great while.

But the hindrance has been that I am not coming up with as many ideas as usual for unique blog topics. This has left me with a potentially devastating condition…

Writer’s Block.

Argh.

So in my quest to rectify the situation, I have consulted some of the various pages in the galactic superhighway to try and see what I can do.

Allow me to list a few of those suggestions and my subsequent gut reaction to some of them. And these were all actual suggestions from websites. I'm not making any of these up, as I am usually prone to do.

The Suggestions…

Talk to a monkey.
Um…what? I really don’t even want to know what this one actually means. It is disturbing on so many different levels. What if the monkey throws poo at you? What if it begins to gain intelligence and leads an ape uprising from you tossing ideas at it? There is no winning in talking to a monkey.

Take a walk.
Okay, so not that bad. Scenery can give you ideas. You might see something that you deem interesting or inspiring. But you also might get heat stroke or hypothermia, depending on the season. So be warned.

Take a shower; change clothes.
On the surface, this seems like a really good idea. But here is the problem. You take a shower and change your clothes, what if you feel all sorts of pretty after this and think that the last thing you want to do is sit around and write? Maybe you feel like trolling for bar patrons. Or flying to Paris and walking down the runway with Heidi Klum.

Stretch.
What am I stretching? Because that is the real question.

Add one ritual behavior.
Like a daily touching of myself? Or the morning Bloody Mary? Or periodic harassment of call center people? They need to narrow this one down for me. Give me some parameters here.

Do one chore.
No. That I will absolutely not do. Filth is good.

Make a pointless rule.
Like what? Punch yard gnomes or gerbils? Because I’m not sure that rule would help me write. Feel better? Yes. Write better? No. Unless they mean like some rule that adheres to the writing style. Then maybe. But I’m not sure using the f-word every other sentence would help much with establishing professional credentials or respect. Of course, that style sort of did work for Quentin Tarantino.

Read blogs about your subject.
That one doesn’t do me a lot of good either to remove writer’s block. I would spend the entire day being distracted by others and what they write. And I would probably find out, at least in my own little mind, that what they write is far less acceptable than what I put out.

Visit a museum.
That one is problematic at best. There is only one museum in the area and it is at Bellvidere. And Toad’s is in Bellvidere. So I’d probably just end up at the bar instead. Not particularly productive.

Browse photos.
Also not a good suggestion for me. Because you probably have a pretty good idea of what kind of photos I’d look at. Women, spaceships and funky sci-fi guns.

Look around your house and make associations with inanimate objects.
Do dust bunnies count as inanimate objects? And they appear to be declaring war on the furniture. My money is on the bunnies. They appear to be far more organized than my recliner and couch.

Organize your workspace. A clear desk means a clear mind.
Yes, but a clean desk also indicates a compulsive mind. And I am not compulsive. Even though I have to have the volume on my television in multiples of three. Or eat French fries in twos according to their size. Or never step on sidewalk cracks. But I’m working on that last one.

Take a bubble bath.
Ummmmmm…no. I’m not metrosexual. But thanks for the offer. Unless…an attractive woman is with me. Then count me in. Because then it shows that I can let my guard down and just enjoy frothing, hot water.

Go to a busy place and people watch.
Now, this would be a great suggestion if I lived in a town of more than seven people. But since I don’t, I can’t really just park my butt on a park bench and watch the ones of people walk by over the course of an entire day.

Talk to a kid.
Why? Why would I want to do this? I’d get a barrage of useless jargon and slang that would make me stupider for just being in the vicinity of this person. No thank you.

Stare out a window.
I do that everyday and it hasn’t helped yet. So thanks for nothing Writer’s Block people.

Take a nap.
Again, another thing that I do everyday. And I’m still funkified with my ideas. Stupid suggestions any way.

Meditate.
Isn’t this kind of the same thing as taking a nap?

Dance.
Oh good lord no. That would just make me feel like a jackass. Not because dancing is wrong. But because the way that I dance is wrong. And spastic. And can cause people to go blind from the random arm movements I make that might poke an eye out.

Look at a lava lamp.
And I suppose I should also get myself some illicit substances and ponder the colors of the rainbow.

Lie down in a patch of grass & watch the clouds go by.
This to me, seems a great deal like the nap suggestion.

Eat a stalk of celery.
Why? What would this do? Is celery the magic elixir that will cause genius to spew from my fingers as they whip across the keyboard? Because if it is, I’m buying several tons of it.

Balance your chakras.
Okay……so how do I do this? Do I jab myself with needles? Claim it is acupuncture? Do I drink some herbal tea while slowly caressing myself? I’m confused? How does one balance their chakras? Please, somebody out there tell me.

Change your font or writing instrument.
For some reason, I don’t think that using any of the crazy fonts that I have on my computer would help me. They would just make it harder to read the words that aren’t spewing onto the screen. And changing my instrument wouldn’t help either. Because all of my pens write in the blood of bovines and they are all out. And I’m not killing any more cows this week.

So…after all of that, I still have no creative influence in my body. A day wasted as I tried to find some help from my mental constipation but came up totally empy. I guess I'm left with only one recourse. I’m going to stare out the window some more and balance my chakras.

This is Pete…

Over and out.