It Actually Takes 13 Minutes

11:15 pm

I log into 750words.com and once again think that I have to figure out a way to get Chrome to once again remember my username and password for the site. My wife and I have returned from dinner out with friends at The Melting Pot. We have seen my brother off and thanked him for watching our girls while we were out. The dog has been let out to pee and brought back in, closed in our oldest daughter's room. We have kissed both girls as they have slept. Now my wife is in the bathroom brushing her teeth and doing whatever it is that she needs to do before bed while the cat licks her anus at the foot of our bed. Wonderful. Meanwhile I'm just typing.

At dinner, I mentioned that I still had my writing to do before bed. My wife said, "you didn't do it earlier?!" I shrugged. It will only take ten minutes, I told them. My friends thought that was odd. It would take them longer, much longer. I shrugged again. If there is one thing I can do it is to write fast. I wish I could run as quickly as I can type, but I'm happy with the skill-set I have.

11:19 pm

There are times like this when I worry that I won't make the mark prior to midnight. The thing about 750words.com is that it keeps track of the streak of consecutive days a person gets through writing their words. I have a friend who just hit the 500-day mark. Think of that. She has written 750 words every morning for 500 days. Every single day. That's an accomplishment.

She writes in the mornings as a way of working her way into the day. Me, I find that I want some of the day to go by and give me something to write about. Everyone does it differently and no one way is better than the other. It's just about what we need for ourselves.

I don't know that I'll ever make it to 500 days in a row. I'm not that kind of dedicated. At some point I'll likely skip a day by mistake or on purpose. Things like that used to bother me because I thought I had to measure up to the marks that others make. Now, instead of trying to be like my 500-day-streak friend, I'm the guy who types things fast. That'll do.

11:22 pm

Speaking of how people do things, one of the friends we dined with tonight takes pictures of her food with her phone. The pictures are very pretty but for a long time I've wondered why she would do such a thing. Tonight, just because I'm getting to the point when I'm ready to ask questions I asked, "so how come you do that?" She started to apologize and excuse the behavior thinking that I thought it was a stupid act. I told her that it was fine, I just wondered if she knew why she did it.

Exasperated and a little embarrassed, she said, "I don't know why I do it."

I get that because, right now, at this hour of the evening, I don't know exactly why I'm writing this other than to say that I like doing it. I don't know what it is that's enjoyable about it, what there is to savor, but I savor and enjoy it nonetheless and there are things that don't have to be analyzed to be appreciated.

I don't want to look at every picture of food that she takes and she isn't going to want to read every 750-word essay I post. This is exactly as it should be.

11:26 pm

One other thing from tonight is that both teams I wanted to have win in the NFL playoffs lost their games. I found the losses upsetting until I realized something which I phrased in the form of a question: "What the hell do I care?" Unlike when I posed that question about taking pictures of food or writing 750 words, if there isn't a good reason to care about the football games and I'm still letting them bother me, then I'm a fool. So I decided to let that care go. So the Broncos and Packers are all done for the year. It doesn't matter even a little bit in my life. It's so easy to let that stuff go.

11:28 pm

And that's 750 words. I'm going to sleep. I'll wait until tomorrow, though hopefully not until half past eleven, to write on.