1 – The Pen

How do you write anew? How do you continue to post after a long weekend of stuffing your face with turkey and cranberry sauce, to the point where, by holiday Monday you’re lost in a hazy misconstruction of football episodes, your daughter’s Super Monsters Halloween edition and extra pumpkin pie/pumpkin coffee cake streaming through your veins?

I drove into work this morning feeling like I took a 5 month mental hiatus and that it would take another 5 years to get back to where I was last Friday in terms of thought processes and drive. But this sobering feeling, is it better than the former? Which should I be chasing?

I finally arrived and tried my best to ignore CBC and Stephen Quinn. Parked and ready to nap, Daisy thought frustratedly, “If I don’t get to my desk, I will fall further and further away into this sluggish slump. It will impact the rest of my week in a very negative way. I can’t be doing it this way!”

Dang it. “It’s starting already,” quipped a voice on the radio, when suddenly two of them proclaimed, “I’m not ready to travel! Dang you, dang it, DANG YOU!”

Are YOU ready?

I’ve fallen! This will last for 2 hours, then the clock will stop ticking on October 21st. I only have so much time to regroup and reiterate my success using succinct words and a logical progression of content.

She’s gone again. Don’t worry, she will return!

Daisy looked upward, toward the roof and saw a glowing star leaning on its edge, skirts away from abandoning friends and arriving onto a dust covered pillow. Puffy like an oyster, she rolled over in bed, drawing her arms over her face and pushing down to feel that cozy, cold feeling she longed for throughout the day. Today was bright and sunny. Bold rays peered through large windows, allowing light to enter her Brooklyn studio apartment. The girl was ready for A Day, ready to do the job she did best – ‘social media marketing’ for an up-and-coming TED startup company in the SoHo district of Elevententeen.

Elevententeen was a designated area for a group of bright communications pupils. They had three things in common. One – they were all Bipolar Type 10. Two – they had recently quit ‘drinking’. And three – they lived with the intent to impact the digital landscape, as no previous humans could have done it before them.

Daisy grabbed her pillow and immediately clicked on Instagram. That nagging suspicion to see The Need fed her like a rich, decadent chocolate drink costing tons more than a third-hand Prada bag nabbed off Vestiaire (for Seventeen). She quickly clicked, but then something else happened. It did not open, she did not see the grace of her favorite celebrity and his infantry women. She just heard a sound, a long-drawn, slowly creeping vibration of ‘digital air’. The only thing she could think of was, “The content has become redundant however, I can see the validity in re-writing and re-working the same concept several times. That way it will not become null and void. The success that emerged from it originally will still be there. That’s editing!”

“It’s locked!”, “Were you able to get back in?”

No. So, I decide to just write. Write down your thoughts Chona, write them down and write them down again. Get back to your spot on the list, get back to you, this new you. But sadly, I have already developed a headache from the idea of it. Will she be able to leave the content as it is? Will she usurp the value of its flow by editing it down, editing it all out to make complacent sense? Can you back away and still smile and feel success? That is something Alice from Wonderland would say, “Things aren’t worth that much once you start editing out the originality Miss Chona Fe, but I think this is what you think then isn’t that the way?”

Chona looks inward at her periphery, flips her hair, then walks away.