I felt so high yesterday, just sitting outside, unable to write much (unable to right much) of anything. But the colors around me were spectacular in their understated way. They glowed. And I felt alive. The cool air without much wind. I love it this way, the way the fall feels. I don't even care much that the leaves don't change here.

Everything heightened and me dreaming of a minimalist desert-scape. The birds are real of course, the city kind. Pigeons and seagulls. None of the beautiful ravens I see in the park or closer to the beach. Still, they're beautiful. The pigeons with their amazing colors, most of them with jewel-tone greens and ruby-reds around their necks. (I don't see the dappled brown-and-white kind around this part of the city much.) I get a kick out of their weird head-bob movements as they stare right back at me, not shy at all but cautious, yes. There is nothing to write. Nothing at all. I'm trying to write a novel. One in particular that matters more to me than all the other false starts. I guess because it's supposed to be a romance and because it's more ambitious than my other ideas.

Speaking of romance, the pigeons aren't cooing at each other just outside of our skylight this time of year.

The novel. Yes, the novel.
What's missing? Villains, or villainous governments. What's missing? Real action. What's missing? Everything so far except a pretty good premise. What's missing? A fucking plot worth following. And these poems just blow it straight out of the water. Not the ones that I'm writing so much as the others.

The future doesn't exist the way it used to. I can't believe in it--or even suspend my disbelief--for long enough to make believe. (Global warming.) That makes me sad. All I want is to write a beautiful novel--the kind I'd want to read. Set in the future. A love story of sorts.

Oh...I guess it's just not fair to blame global warming for my lack of true talent (or my poverty of ideas, or my listlessness).