Author: Avery Sinclair

When my friend asked me if I wanted to write something to post on her blog,  I quickly said yes.  Several months later, I received an invitation to collaborate and I accepted the invitation.  After I registered and I reopened the link that I received with the invitation, there was a blank screen.  While looking at the blank screen, I had an epiphany: I had nothing interesting to write about.   I thought of a number of topics and had waves of words rushing through my head, but I couldn’t write.  I couldn’t imagine anyone that would want to read the blog.  If I didn’t think anyone would read the blog, why should I write anything to post to the blog?

So, I procrastinated.  I called it brainstorming.  I tried to think of  pseudonyms to use because I did not want anyone to recognize me as an author for the blog. I like my privacy, which is very hard to maintain in this age of viral videos and everyone walking around with their phones and quick draw fingers poised to quickly click record to capture something that they can post on Facebook, Instagram, or whatever.  

Then, I realized that with a pseudonym, I could write about anything.  I would in a sense be shielded.  I could tell all the funny stories about my spouse; share details about co-workers that annoy me with their gossiping, gross ineptitude, and pettiness;  and dump all my random thoughts on a page.

Then, I paused again, why would I do that when I could just journal?  Plus, I am a bit paranoid.  I am always in Lalaland  thinking about what if’s.  For example, when I die – who will get into my house first to shred my journal, delete my phone logs, and make sure that my house is clean.  I really have a thing about making sure that I when I die and people don’t come to my home and find it dirty.  It’s the reason why pre-COVID, I could not get out of the house on time for work.  I have to tidy up just enough before I leave home so that if the crime scene investigators, police detectives, etc. have to check out my house and the photos end up in the news or some crime show like Dateline, that the house isn’t filthy. 

Which, now as I write this, I am laughing at myself because it is ridiculous because (1) I would be dead and (2) if I die in some twisted, horrific or salacious manner at the hands of some deranged or evil person, more likely than not, my house is going to be in shambles if it happened at home. Or, hopefully, no one will care that I left a coffee cup in the sink and did not take out the trash.   

Then, when I finished my “brainstorming,” I sat down and typed this, my first post, which I had to include because it made me laugh because it is an accurate representation of me and the whacky things I think about in the middle of the day when I drift off to Lalaland.