Well, no rules about this except I've given myself a pass for the first two months before I have to turn my brain back on. (Have you noticed it doesn't seem to affect the writing, this no brain business?) And by turning my brain on again I don't mean making “to do” lists or anything similarly anal. I'm not looking for some forced expedition into the wilderness where I've got to collect flora and fauna to keep the sponsoring organization happy with my progress. I'm the sponsoring organization and unless you can count photographs of flora and fauna, then there ain't no flora and fauna in my future. I'm looking for some kind of form to materialize out of the mist when the two months are up, some indication of direction and the smallest of enthusiastic sparks.

Lately I've been thinking it would be good to schedule a long weekend somewhere, probably up the coast. Take the laptop and not forget the power supply this time, post from the road, post from the North Coast Primal Forest (from the local Motel 6). What's happening this month “up the coast”? Nothing too extravagant to start with, nothing too strenuous, just something to test the waters. That would be good. I continue to watch the apartment pull itself together as I find myself accomplishing little tasks (I felt an urge just now, for example, to bring the vacuum cleaner out into the living room if only to jog its memory that the living room still exists).

Settle down. You're drifting.

It is approaching three in the afternoon. I got up early, had breakfast at the usual café, returned to take a nap (for some reason I didn't get to bed until midnight), walked down the way to have a cup of coffee (at another impossibly hip café located in the opposite direction), thought about hopping the bus and heading downtown but decided against it and returned to the apartment to sit here at the computer as I listen to the news on NPR. It's three in the afternoon and already I'm cooking!

You've gone over the edge.

Nah, I'm feeling pretty good. (There's been an interlude here where I've run the vacuum over a small portion of the living room carpet. Ms. Emmy would be awe struck if she weren't hiding under the bed looking worried. Yes, I closed the bedroom door, but she knows about vacuum cleaners and it's not considered a nice device back at Cat Central.) For all of these forty days that have passed I still can't quite get my head around the fact I have another forty days coming without commitments other than a planned lunch or two and a need to write a rent check at the end of each month.

You done?

I am just beginning.