Stop Writing Everything That Goes Through That Silly Head.
We all have silly heads.
“Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.” Will Rogers
I’ve always had a problem with writing. What others call a “labor of love,” I call dragging myself through the blood and guts of daily existence. I don’t like exposing myself. I’m an introvert. We introverts aren’t big risk-takers. Exposing anything more than our tongues is an invasion of privacy. I don’t know why we don’t care about our tongues, but we don’t.
I digress. This is about writing, and why people should think before they start mashing words together. By thinking I mean real thought. By mashing, I mean, well, you know what I mean. Mashing, for crying out loud.
Thomas Mann once said, “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” He wasn’t talking about doubt. He was talking about resolution. If writing is hard, it’s because writers are supposed to be resolving something. It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering. Maybe a haircut. We don’t have enough earth-shattering haircut stories.
We need conflict or we’ll end up on the couch eating corn chips.
At least we’d be giving haircuts some serious thought. Not like when someone writes: “10 Ways To Have Better Sex.” If there are ten ways, don’t you think Cosmopolitan would have pointed them out by now? Besides, try telling your spouse you know ten ways to have better sex. After five years of marriage?They’ll punch you in the face. I’ll punch you in the face.
One writer on Medium the other day said that problems are the lifeblood of our existence. We need conflict or we’ll end up on the couch eating corn chips. Truer words have never been spoken. Without problems, we start to imagine problems, then we go to the doctor and find out we don’t have problems, which only makes us wonder if the doctor has problems, which he probably does. Hypochondriacs eat a lot of corn chips.
Which brings me back to stupid heads. We all have them. Throughout our lives, we use our stupid heads to figure stuff out. Some are daily issues like fat-free mayonnaise. Others are ongoing, what doctors and psychiatrists call underlying issues. These are worse than hangnails.
To resolve these issues (or just irritate them), we do the most predictable thing imaginable. We write them down and post them here. Half the time, we don’t know what we’re talking about. But suddenly we’ve got TEN more ways to have better sex, including raspberry-flavored lube.
It could end up inspiring an article entitled “I Ate The Raspberry Lube And Now I Think I’m Addicted.”
Yes, folks, raspberry lube, the choice of fruit lovers everywhere. Rub it all over or, get really kinky and eat the stuff. It could end up inspiring an article entitled “I Ate The Raspberry Lube And Now I Think I’m Addicted.”
What it’s really for, believe it or not, is dry mouth. Nobody likes dry mouth. Sexually, it’s the equivalent of your whole body screaming, “Put on your clothes and go bowling!”
Then there’s this whole business about threesomes. Sure, you tried it back in college. What else do you do when you’ve bonged half an ounce of weed and drank sixteen beers? “Well, actually he was my roommate’s boyfriend,” you explain, “but we were already sharing coffee mugs and dental floss.”
She kept saying, “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” and you felt the same way, and you ended up sitting through your graduation ceremony wondering if you were a lesbo or just sexuellement actif.
So, you did a threesome, but it didn’t feel like a threesome. The boyfriend was passed out, and essentially you were just making it with your roommate. She kept saying, “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” and you felt the same way, and you ended up sitting through your graduation ceremony wondering if you were a lesbo or just sexuellement actif.
Years later, figuring you hadn’t really sorted it out, you tried a threesome again. Only this time without a bong or a supercharger, or some football player named Butch pouring beer down your throat. And guess what? Threesomes suck. You’re not a lesbo or even all that sexuellement actif.
You’re just a regular, heterosexual, waiting for the day when you can write “My Threesome Was The Result Of A Beer Bong.” So, technically, it was a foursome, since Butch was in the room, too, but he doesn’t remember, and the boyfriend doesn’t remember, so all you did — outside of dealing with a bunch of remorse — was tongue your roommate.
It’s amazing how enticing headlines can be. Who wouldn’t read: “My Breasts Don’t Like My Boyfriend”? Here you have a woman desperately in love with her man, but her breasts just won’t have it. Every time he does a swan dive on the bed, her breasts part like The Red Sea. “How can my breasts be so judgmental?” she exclaims, while her boyfriend writes his own blog, wondering why his girlfriend’s boobs think they can go watch television.
The number of men who used to be gigolos is overwhelming.
Of course, nothing whets the appetite like a post that says, “I Used To Be A Gigolo.” The number of men who used to be gigolos is overwhelming. “I was debt-free leaving college,” this guy wrote. Someone asked if there were regrets, feelings of rank self-hatred, depression, insomnia? Not really. He owns his condo, he’s thirty-two. His best friend still owes $80,000.
Bloody hell, I worked in a 100-degree factory catching fence posts off an extruder. I could have been a gigolo. Who cares if her breasts want to go watch television. I’D BE GETTING PAID TO DO SOMETHING I USUALLY BEG FOR!!!!
One of my favourites was an anonymous blogger who fantasized about being a sex slave. “I want to be tied up, forced to do unspeakable things, smothered, teased and called really awful names,” he wrote.
“I call that Saturday,” someone commented.
It turned out to be too much work, mainly because it’s basically impossible to stay penetrated. As someone commented, “There was probably also someone at Mission Control playing The Blue Danube Waltz.”
Sometimes posts go from silly to strangely informative, like the person who wrote: “I want to do it in zero gravity.” This brought out a variety of responses, the best being someone who heard — heard, mind you — that NASA encouraged some astronauts to have sex in space. Strictly for scientific observation, you understand. NASA ain’t kinky (so we’re told)
The experiment turned out to be too much work, mainly because it’s impossible to stay penetrated. As someone commented, “There was probably someone at Mission Control playing The Blue Danube Waltz.”
“What kind of freak are you, anyway?” another person responded.
The explanation went on in further detail, describing how finding leverage in microgravity is a bitch, plus body heat doesn’t disperse.
The astronauts said it wasn’t nearly as much fun as they thought it would be. On the other hand, they found NASAs video hysterical, as did the President, and everyone in the War Department. Missionary wasn’t too bad, but doggy style looked they like they were heading for the escape door.
“Okay, turns out my 8th grade physics doesn’t cut it. Apparently, convection doesn’t happen in microgravity. I still want to bone in space.”
“Air pressure in space is similar to air pressure on earth,” someone stated. “Convection would occur the same way.” He later retracted this comment. “Okay, turns out my 8th grade physics doesn’t cut it. Apparently, convection doesn’t happen in microgravity. I still want to bone in space.”
There you have it, folks. Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about better ways to have sex, threesomes, gigolos and zero-gravity sex.
That’s what our silly heads are writing about. Okay, it’s funny. We’re hoping nobody takes it too seriously, but many will. They’re worried about sex, and their boobs — even microgravity—every day of their lives.
As William Zinsser once wrote in his book “On Writing Well,” “If Thompson [Hunter S.] has consumed only a fraction of the stuff that he claims to swallow, his brain must be pure watermelon.”
My issue isn’t with the subjects. It’s with silly heads thinking this can go on indefinitely. Some people are writing three or four articles a week. How many more personal issues can we cover? And how many personal experiences can we lie about?
As William Zinsser once wrote in his book “On Writing Well,” “If Thompson [Hunter S.] has consumed only a fraction of the stuff that he claims to swallow, his brain must be pure watermelon.”
That could be said for all of us. It’s one thing to bring out the banshees, another to make them disappear. We’re those banshees. If everything entering our silly heads ends up, well, here, it’s going to be a long winter. There won’t be anything left to discuss on the psychiatrist’s couch.
That’s never a good thing. Obviously, we need the psychiatrist’s couch.
Robert Cormack is a novelist, journalist and blogger. His first novel “You Can Lead a Horse to Water (But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive)” is available online and at most major bookstores. Check out Skyhorse Press or Simon and Schuster for more details.
