Woke up early today because Aneesah woke up early. Tried to prototype something on my phone with mixed success. A little AI muse that I could invoke to ask questions about my writing. Surprisingly good questions, a couple of them. Some unsurprisingly bad ones, too. Based on something Elizabeth Gilbert said in a talk once about “having” a genius.
Popped out for milk and came back with sardines and pastries. Came back with the milk too, fortunately, but it wouldn’t be unlike me to have forgotten it. Made a coffee, flat white, decaf. One of the most satisfying parts of the day, to the extent that I sometimes think about it the night before. A bit sad maybe? Who cares. Sardines on toast because I used to have it as a kid and remember liking it. I still like it, turns out.
Tried to read this journal aloud to practice narration and immediately realized it was the wrong thing. Started reading Dear London by Kerrin-Lee Nell instead. It’s a love letter to a place, after all, so what could be more fitting. Much better, but felt at times like it wasn’t written to be read, or at least not read by me. Time to write something of my own I think.
Listened to the sleep story written by Flossie Skelton (or Florence, internet seems undecided, but it’s Flossie on the author’s site and I suspect that they know best) a few more times. It hits my ear just right. The speech, the foley. Need to transcribe and annotate it, but I think if I try to read it aloud I’ll just be annoyed that I don’t have a beautiful Irish accent. How unfortunate, really, that each of us has the accent that we do.
Will start writing something though. I’ve always said that this project was a love letter to California, but it only dawned on me recently that I might write it like an actual letter. It might simply be a love letter to place, but starting with this place. Anyway, I like reading letters, especially the goofy ones; unserious, but not. I hope I’ll like writing them too.