This morning, I was cagey. This happens to me a lot. It happens to me a lot on the weekends. My family likes to move slowly on the weekends, and my little boy won't even get dressed if he can help it. This is probably because everyone leaves the house for work or school during the week. I don't leave the house. I live here. I work here. I'm here right now. On Saturdays and Sundays, I still live here, but I don't have to work.
“I gotta get out of here,” I said.
“Going on a bike ride?” my wife said.
“Just going,” I said.
Now, I have to tell you that my neurosis comes out in very strange ways. I know this, and I don't care. When I was younger, I would try to explain my habits and behaviors. Now, I just don't care. The particular thing I did today I've done for many days throughout my life. Yes, I was on my way to go for a little walk around the neighborhood, but I felt compelled to bring my notebook and pen with me.
So, here it is. I've been writing furiously for about two months. It all started after a visit with my parents. I started to write daily in my journal. Then In July, Camp NANOWRIMO rolled around. And as NANOWRIMO wound down, I started to write another novel. I started that one longhand.
Yes, I still write longhand. I use a pen and a notebook. This is still the best way for me to work. This is better than typing into a word processor, like I'm doing now. I have never used a dictation app nor have I used AI. Fuck, I am AI and it's nice to be pure Anthony ILacqua and not Artificial or Intelligent.
So, I wrote a new novel, longhand. And as that was winding down, I decided to write another one. I made the decision to write the next one as I was making the last pen strokes on the one before it.
This is a long preamble to a story that isn't very long. So, today, I left the house to go for a walk with my notebook and pen. I've a good 250 handwritten pages in, or at least half way to where the story is probably going to take me. I had no real goal of writing the next 250 pages in the park, but I did want to write a little. It was such a nice day.
So, I knew there was going to be serious Sunday mayhem as I neared the park. There were cars all over the place, which doesn't happen on any day except Sunday. Church was going on, and this particular church has a lot of members and they all seem to drive two, perhaps three cars at a time.
But those people were safely locked away in church.
As I got into the park, there were dozens of people there. They were mostly in groups of one, and occasionally, twos. I've seen this before. They were all staring at their phones. It's a game, and I know it is, I just don't know anything more than that. They come in like gangbusters, do whatever it is they do and then they all vanish at the same time. Fucking weird.
Now, that said, here I was in the middle of them. I had left the house with my clothes on, and a notebook and pen. I did not have any wallet, no identification. I did not have my phone, because I often do not have my phone. So the triangulation, Google, all things electronically known about me still thought I was at home. I did not tell my family where I was going. No one knew where I was, not even all those robo-people in the park who were all around me.
I was so ill at ease with the whole thing. The group of people, my neighbors, my fellow townspeople, my fellow man, were all sorts of absorbed. I quietly walked through them to the outskirts of the park and sat at a picnic table. I was so lonely in the midst of all these people.
When I opened my notebook and started to write, the loneliness ended.
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