Hot Seat Update

Got up this morning at my usual time (3:30). Unfolded the laptop. Blocked. Not so much sure if it was blockage or fatigue. Wrote some things about the novel. Journaled to self about novel. Still couldn't figure out motivation of one character.

Blocked. Blocked. Passed out in chair w/laptop running. Woke up. 10 minutes had passed. My eyes ached. Thought of the Green Day song: "Dried up and bulging out my skull." Wondered if there was any irony in the fact that Green Day was singing about insomnia whereas I was experiencing an uncontrollable urge to sleep and yet in both cases the eyes felt the same.

Realized the futility of further resistance. Went downstairs and got back in bed.

In church the minister's sonorous and cultured tones were like a cool hand laid on my forehead. My head dropped and I took a series of seconds-long naps. My eyes always opened again on a stained-glass window that depicted an angel soaring above a line from the gospels: "Glory to God in the highest." The sunlight through the colored lozenges, the way the angel seemed to spring out of the window as a being of pure light, all this was brought home to me in each instant of awakening. Then I remembered that in my split-second dreams I'd solved my problem with my novel and was no longer blocked.

Even though I knew this was a lie I let it soothe me. I let my head dip again, half-hoping that I could drag back that beautiful secret, somehow sneak it past the angel who stood guard over my subconscious, neatly replacing my magical dream-words with that yellow, stained-glass bromide: "Glory to God in the highest."

The minister was finishing. He was benedicting with his palms upraised, his plump forearms emerging triumphantly from the loose folds of his robe. He had a small white goatee which adhered to the underside of his wattling chin. I'd never noticed. I was still freaking blocked.