#40: Grizzly Bear, "Painted Ruins"
At first, this thing was called “WErrDD,” which stood for Write Erry Dam Day. Because that sounded stupid, I changed it to “WERD,” which just looks better and stands for Write Everyday, Really, Dam. This fits my vernacular much better.
I’ve taken a few days off from this thing. Maybe I wrote a little yesterday, I can’t remember. But the days before that were New Years Eve and New Years Eve Eve and the day where everyone goes back to work but doesn’t really do anything and the day after Christmas and Christmas and so, no, I haven’t been writing everyday. Which is two words, not one. Really. Damn.
I keep seeing this meme all over the Internet, the one that’s says something about how in the days between Christmas and New Years no one knows what day it is or what they’re supposed to be doing, and it’s true! I found myself back in Dallas after spending time with family in Little Rock, and I had to go back to work but I wasn’t sure if anyone else was, and everyone I knew was out of town except Cameron, and there were all these weird things we needed to do but also nothing at all.
Some days just aren’t real. We’ve decided that, all of us together. That it’s ok to have some days when the weather is starting to get real shitty where we can all skip work, engage in abnormally high even for Americans levels of #treatyoself, create shit tons of garbage for other people to clean up in the form of wrapping paper and champagne corks and confetti poppers, and start drinking at 11am for days on end. And yeah, I could’ve been writing. I am making excuses for letting myself off the hook of my habit. I lost some momentum because of it, and maybe I should have buckled down and made myself take that hour alone every day to practice my craft, like I said I’d do, every. day.
But I kind of don’t think so. I had fun on my break. I got to spend totally uninterrupted time with almost everyone I love the most. I indulged in time for days on end and got to live at a walking pace. And I did it free of any stress or worry or anxiety about what I should be doing or where I should be or any of that because I knew everyone else was doing the same.
I can get concerned and frustrated with how structured everything is for us, like on a large societal scale. How we have so many rituals and seemingly arbitrary “things” that everyone does at a certain time of the day or year or season. You know, the pumpkin spice shit. But I like that we give ourselves these fake days at the end of every year. It doesn’t really matter if it’s because of religion or tradition or celebration or a planet’s revolution around the sun or what, it’s an agreement we’ve all made to just chill for a second.
So some days don’t have to count. I think I can be ok with that. I’m coming at this with the full intention to write every day, but I know there’ll be some days along the way that just aren’t real. Those days where something weird is going on and you’re traveling and just not on your schedule and the day, it counts, it just is counting for something different cause it’s not really a real day for you. And you have those days and you make the most of them and you go to bed knowing on your next real day you’re comin’ in hot right back at it. Cause shit’s real and you gotta do shit. This makes so much sense to me.
WERD. Write Every Real Day. Word.
VERDICT: I don't know I don't really care for it. Not my kind of music. I liked a song or two ok, but I was like very aware of when the album had ended, whatever you want to take from that.
GOOD FOR: Cooking, playing in the background at a party for people who live in vans