I stare at the blank field, fingers poised above a keyboard too posh to be considered a writer's tool. I rack my brain for something interesting in my life to tidy up and toss into the universe-at-large.

I tell myself it'll be easier if I pretend nobody reads this. This opens me up to write things I would otherwise worry about being judged for. It also makes me wonder why I'd be writing something nobody's going to read.

Some people write in journals or diaries, if there is a difference in definition other than the typical gender of the one using either term. They pour their lives onto ink-soaked pages and lock them away in nightstand drawers, never to be read.

"It's just for me," they might tell themselves or anybody both near and interested enough to inquire.

These people are bad writers.

I give up on trying to recall a recent event worth writing about and instead try to conjure some opinion or observation salient enough to craft into a lazy essay. I pause for a moment to reflect on the word salient and wonder if it shares a root with saline and somehow means salt.

No, it comes from salire -- which I somehow know is Latin for jump.

I wonder both how and why I know so much Latin. The sheer number of Latin phrases that have snuck into common English is pretty annoying. Per se, id est (i.e.), exempli gratia (e.g.), et cetera (etc.), and e pluribus unum, ad infinitum. These are the old standbys, sure, but there's also quid pro quo, which everybody knows because of Hannibal Lecter, and things like sine qua non and post hoc, ergo proctor hoc which I would be perfectly fine with not knowing.

After, therefore, because of.

I'm not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar, I don't need all this dead language taking up valuable real estate in my brain.

I wonder if this is enough for a post. It's not much, and it's a pretty lay-person angle. I could call it something like veni vidi vici or I, vox populi. It's all about the cute titles for me. I'd be fine with a perfectly mundane story about how dogs are better than cats (they are) so long as it could be adorned with a clever title like "Reining cats and dogs." Who cares if it doesn't entirely make sense; I substituted "raining" with "reining;" I'm like a genius.

No, that's too showy. It'll come off like I just want to flaunt all the Latin I know, dressed up like a complaint. Like, oh man, what am I going to do with all this cash I have? Don't you hate it when you have SO MUCH CASH.

I wish I had as many dollars as Latin phrases I know.

I realize that most people probably don't know that the word "agenda" is a straight Latin word. It's the plural of "agendum," a task needed to be performed. I also bet most people probably don't care in the slightest. Maybe I deserve to know all this useless Latin, taking such absurd joy in it.

I decide to drop the whole idea.

Maybe I could write some kind of little story. No, I'm too wrapped up in my final-edit of Mind + Body to let more stories swim around in my head. Besides, there's no such thing as a "little" story once I have a go at it.

I remember poor Jack Gerrardo and his pending adventures in Normandy, and hope I sometime remember to put another week into that sad tale. I'll do it once I remember what the metaphor was supposed to be in the first place. I think the "falling" was supposed to represent something. Death, or life, or war, or baggy pants.

I take a few laps between the my desk and the fridge. I'm thirsty but it's too late for something heavy like juice or one of the many of man's finder brewed beverages. I consider yet again abandoning this venture, writing something on my stale website.

I could go to sleep, probably. I'm most likely tired enough by now that all the ideas, concerns, and conversations I need to have with myself wont get much traction in my brain as I lay in bed and stare into the insides of my eyelids.

I really should write something, though. Maybe some kind of reminder that M+B will be finished and published soon. No, they're probably tired of me stringing that one out. I don't want to be like Chinese Democracy or Duke Nukem Forever.

I wonder for a moment if the ever-pending Chinese Democracy album is some kind of... statement. Like, there will never be democracy in China, so there'll never be that album. I stop, though, because I know so little about music that when I try to analyze it I only embarrass myself. Duke Nukem, however, I can speak with all kinds of authority on.

I retreat to my closet where my libations are stored, stare blankly at my collection of booze from when I'd turned 21 and decided that if I was going to drink at all I'd have to be an expert at it. The hobby was quickly abandoned on account of such little payoff, but it always bothers me that I've got this fancy liquor that I never use. I've had this bottle of Glenlivet for over a year and I bet plenty of pennyless alcoholics would rape a goat to get a hold of such a drink.

I smile at myself and the goat phrase, knowing I could never use such a thing on my site because of my imaginary audience of 11-year-olds and stubborn, middle-age prudes.

I pop the corked cap from the bottle of Glenlivet and take a small swig, for old time's sake. It's pleasant at first, I don't grimace uncontrollably like I did when I first tried whiskey. I detect the subtle, woody notes and, like always, wonder if there's just a hint of apple in the recipe. Just as quickly, though, I remember why I always regret scotch. As it goes down, there's that burning sensation down my throat that is far too reminiscent of the feeling of having very recently vomited. Perhaps this is the fault of my spectacular sense-memory, or perhaps I just have a certain distaste for vomit that I don't share with the average drinker.

Back to my chair, fingers over the keyboard once more, I am completely out of ideas.

I sigh a slow, deliberate sigh. An actor's sigh. A stage sigh, like a stage whisper. Not for my benefit, but to let anybody who might be watching know that I'm hopeless.

I resign myself another no-post day for me-dot-com. I close the tab and scour the internet, looking for some kind of distraction.