Flaming Globes of Nonsense

I’m really frustrated this week, y’all.

Two nights in a row, I’ve gone to bed with a BRILLIANT blog idea in my head. It starts rapidly taking shape. I’m laughing just thinking about it. I’m convinced that this idea is going to be my breakthrough, the thing that makes me Go Viral and appear on Ellen and get celebrity endorsements and all of that.

But then I wake up in the morning and it’s gone. Completely gone.

Now, before anyone suggests it, know that I’ve already tried the whole “keep something on your nightstand to write ideas down when they come to you” thing. That doesn’t really work either. Remember that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry writes down a joke in the middle of the night, but the next day he can’t read his handwriting? And he asks all these people to help him figure it out and nothing makes sense until he sees a clip from the movie he had been watching the night before, and then he remembers what he wrote? Then when he finally figures it out, he realizes it isn’t actually funny. That’s been my experience. Except for me it’s less about not being able to read my handwriting and more about wondering what the heck I was trying to say and/or why I thought it was so funny.

No, what I need is some sort of device to record what’s going on in my brain as I’m falling asleep. Actually, let’s record what happens in my head when I sleep too. Then I can play it back later and see what I thought was so awesome.

Of course, there’s still the chance that it would be the same as my hand written notes: completely incomprehensible and not all that funny. But I can dream, right?

(Okay, that was a terrible joke attempt. Sorry about that. Moving on.)

I think the bigger problem with this scenario is the possibility of apocalypse. If sci fi movies have taught me anything, it’s that trying stuff like this will trigger catastrophic events, and shirtless Jeff Goldblum types will lecture me about not playing God. For the record, Shirtless Scientist, I don’t want to play God. I just want to be able to remember good story ideas, thank you.

Anyways, the more I think about it, the idea of hooking some machine up to my brain to record stuff does sound kinda terrifying, even if it doesn’t result in sci fi chaos. So maybe I’d better play it safe and go back to note pads.

I suppose another alternative is actually getting my butt out of bed, firing up the laptop, and actually writing stuff out. The problem with that idea is that it involves getting out of bed. And the answer to that is no.

Sigh. Maybe someday the muse will visit me again during daytime hours. That will be nice. For now, I’ll see y’all next week.