Look, figuring out how to get what you want is the easy part. Figuring out what you want is the hard part.

I thunk up this bit of wisdom for Magdalene (The Great Mormon Novel) when I was rasslin’ with this concept way back in 2011. A perusal of my hard drive tells me I’ve been cogitating on this since at least 1998.

Here’s the backstory:¹

I have a Vomit Book. It’s where I dump my brain. I stand at the threshold of my brain and look at its Neckbeard Nest-ness and take a deep breath. Then I start to my right and go around the folds of my gray matter picking up the trash. Then I go back and do a rough sort of like with like. After that I refine.

I fill up a TOPS JEN Action Planner.² It takes however long it takes. I’m on Book 14 since 2011. Before that, I used AT-A-GLANCE DayMinder Executive Weekly/Monthly Planner from 1999 through 2008. I scanned those and Vomit Books 1-4, then destroyed them.

So, I just write. Dump. Vomit. I tried mind-mapping for a while. That didn’t work. When I’m overwhelmed, I just write words, words that come to mind like the die in a Magic 8 Ball. There is no point. I’m just taking out the trash.

I use it for everything: narrative, to-do, dun-did, wins, losses, health/medical, affirmations/quotes, kids. It’s all color coded,³ I also have a template to copy/paste typewritten thoughts, then print, cut, and tape it into the book.

When I get to the end of one Vomit Book, I go back and read what I wrote, and, in the fresh Vomit Book, I recap. I distill sticking points in black, and note my current thoughts in green.

Although a lot happened, Vomit Book 13 took 2-1/2 years. I filed it away September 1 after I recapped.

Now, I’m a creature of habit. I write the same thing year after year, and I have since 1998:

• What do I really want?
• Why am I so angry?
• What brings me joy?
• Why do I feel so hopeless?
• Why am I such a perpetual fuckup?
• Why do I eat?
• Who am I?
• What is my purpose?
• Why do I think I can have success without sacrifice?
• Why am I so lazy?
• Why do I ruminate on past events only I remember?
• Why can’t I remember the good things that happen?
• Why am I fearful of success and fulfillment?
• Do I have any goals and what are they?

Occasionally, there’s something new, like menopause and how it changed me in fundamental ways. With my mom’s ordeal earlier this year, a new thought entered my brain: I am useful, but not valuable.

September 1, when I recapped the previous Vomit Book and retired it, started out no differently. Same colors, same format, same complaints, but this time I did something new. I noted things that I wanted to explore further because I had new, tiny, vague epiphanies, the first of which was “What do I really want?”

I’ve been asking that question for at least 27 years, and I finally realized that that is the wrong question, and of all the questions I’ve been asking, I had never distilled my despair to its essence and defined my terms first:

• purpose
• fulfillment
• success

where I had to determine what I thought I should want/think/feel versus what habits I actually have. You don’t work to change habits you don’t really care about. You keep the habit because it does something for you.

PURPOSE

Useful, but not valuable.

My church teaches that one’s purpose is to serve others. You know what? I don’t like serving others. It stresses me out and I get zero joy out of it. In fact, I resent it, the work, the time, the effort. I get panicky and then once I’m alone, I melt down. Or I can throw money at it. I’m okay with that.

I don’t have a purpose. Never have had a purpose. No calling, no life’s work.⁴ I could take that as a sign that I should try harder, but that only makes me flagellate myself more.

Then it occurred to me: Do I have to have a purpose? Is having a purpose something I thought I should find? How many people actually have a purpose? How many people just go about their lives trying to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table? How many people go to high-paying jobs, slog through the day, go home, and mow the lawn with the occasional vacation here and there ad infinitum?

FULFILLMENT

I had noted that I was fearful of this. I don’t remember feeling this way, but I wrote it down in early 2023, so I did a deep dive on that. After some thought, I was surprised to learn that what fulfills me is so simple:

• listening to music that speaks to me
• looking at pretty things
• making pretty things
• making pretty ebooks out of complex print design
• listening to AI-generated stories read by AI-generated voices while I work
• laying down thousands of words in one long writing session
• walking in the grass in spring
• putting things in order (e.g., filing, computer file reorganization)
• solving problems (e.g., computer issues, plot/characterization blocks, WordPress, HTML/CSS)⁶

That’s it. That’s what I enjoy doing. When I drifted away from what I thought I should want, which were grandiose ambitions, vestiges of a time I wanted to earn my parents’ approval and only recently realized I was never going to get it, to contemplate what I look forward to doing, I … changed.⁷

It took me a minute to figure out I’m already fulfilled. I’m in my happy place when I’m doing whatever I would be doing anyway.

SUCCESS

Most people define this as winning and/or having a lot of money. When one wins, one is usually competing against something else. Except … I don’t like competing. It’s too much effort and risk and not enough payoff. I’m a sore loser and I do want to win, but winning doesn’t do anything for me. No dopamine hit, no feeling of fulfillment or success because what’s the purpose?

Money is a tool. Or, as Giselle puts it in The Proviso:

Money doesn’t solve anything. It just makes surviving less difficult.

It dawned on me that I don’t really care about money. It never occurred to me that the only thing I want money for is my basic needs, take-out, some inexpensive wants,⁸ an emergency fund, and maybe to be able to take off on a road trip at a moment’s notice. In short, not to be in survival mode in perpetuity.⁹

So this is where we get into the weeds of should want versus really want, and again, this is a vestige of what I thought my dad and/or the world viewed as success.¹⁰

I had to redefine success for myself, which was what my teenage and young adult self really wanted:

• to be a published author
• to get married
• to have children

Thus, by that measure, I’ve succeeded.¹¹

But you see, I never looked beyond those things.

• What happens after I get The Call?¹²
• What happens after the wedding?
• What happens after I see the positive pregnancy test?

It’s been 15 days now since I started looking at my life in a whole new way, and I feel free. Free of the burdens of expectations I don’t even know if others held. Free of expectations I thought I should fulfill or thought I wanted to fulfill. Free of expectations going forward. Free to enjoy puttering around. Free to have a job and not a career, and enjoy just having a job that pays for my basic needs. Free to know happiness.

I’m not going to ask myself why it took me so long. I’m just going to enjoy it.

Apparently it was a thing in the ’80s (never saw one then) and is now “vintage.” ’Scuse you, internet. The ’80s was just 4 years ago.

I was googling it to find out about it when I came across Galen Leather and its catalog of wonderful and esoteric things! You know how much I love good craftsmanship. And then, then … I saw this:

MUST. HAVE.

But it’s a frivolity and we are in a position to eschew frivolities at the moment.

Still … my birthday’s coming up and I wanted to give Dude a heads-up as to something he could get me relatively inexpensively (I thought) that I really wanted. What I didn’t know was that it was coming from Turkey (shipping ain’t cheap)!

Anyhoo, he didn’t wait for my birthday (silly man ) and so this happened:

The craftsmanship at every level is exquisite. The box is heavy, tidy kraft. The logo is lovely. The pouch that the coffee and tea packets come in is fine cloth. The envelope that the protractor is in is heavy embossed cardstock (almost chipboard). Everything about this is lovely and perfect.

Protractor: 10/10 cannot regret frivolousness

Husband: 10/10 would marry again

I haven’t written much. I don’t know what I can say that I haven’t said before ad nauseam, and yet, I always forget I said it and continue to say it—at least, elsewhere. In my journals (dating back 21 years), in my doodles (dating back 30), in the two internet communities I participate in now.

My family is preparing to move house and I’m going through stuff. I’m going through my mementos and keepsakes and wondering, “Why am I keeping this?” I won’t Konmari my house, but I will Konmari my keepsakes. “What brings me joy?” Most of it I can’t even remember or remember why I have it. A few pieces are from people from whom I have parted bitterly.

What’s on paper that I have not already digitized, I’m scanning and then I’ll shred. I’ve been reading some of it. I really don’t need all that negativity in my life right now, but it’s important to keep it because it reminded me that I am still the same person, dealing with the same issues, doing the same things I’ve always done using the same coping mechanisms I’ve always used. I went to see a therapist yesterday. He gave me a new tool.

But sometimes … just sometimes … I say stuff on Reddit. Reddit asks interesting questions that make me want to say things I haven’t said before. I don’t really care to have my comments either downvoted or buried in a very long and popular thread to which I am late, so I’ll put them here and say something new for once.

Maybe I’ll even post some things I’ve written in the last 20 years.

★★★

Let me introduce you to Granny. Yes, she IS your granddad’s Oldsmobile. She looks like she’s been rode hard and put away wet, and, like any cranky old lady, she has her issues and she needs a bath (I’ll clean her up before you arrive), but relatively speaking, for a 23-year-old car, she’s awesome.

PROs

• 3.8-liter V6, thus much get-up-and-go
• only 174,000 miles
• dependable
• newish brakes <6 months
• newish tires <18 months
• lots of trunk room
• roomy interior
• quiet
• state-of-the-art cassette player
• clean title
• cheap to insure
• good gas mileage for tooling around, great gas mileage for road tripping
• runs cool
• great heater and defroster (the defroster squeals)
• back window defrost
• front-wheel drive
• GREAT SNOW CAR!!!
• power windows
• headliner has been replaced

CONS

• NO AIR CONDITIONING!!! (Now, look. That went out 10 years ago and I thought, “Not gonna spend a ton of money because she’s old and it’s only unbearably hot 3 months out of the year” [you’d think I’d learned after spending only 51 years here]. But if I’d gotten that done then, it would have amortized out at $70 year.)
• buzzing speakers
• fuel door spring is sprung (XY tax deduction did it), so it’s taped shut with clear packing tape (and I will throw in the roll of tape and dispenser for free!)
• front passenger window is off its track
• front passenger floor gets wet when it rains hard because of the above issue
• front passenger door is difficult to open from the outside
• driver’s door power panel fell off and is now Gorilla-glued together
• driver’s door handle (inside) has been replaced (by me) (not well)
• ashtray drawer is sprung (XY did that too)
• cigarette lighter plug doesn’t work
• back windows go down only half way (stupid child “safety” features)
• horn only works at 2:17 p.m. the third Sunday of May, August, November if you hold your mouth right
• shifter indicator doesn’t land in the right spot (i.e., you’re in D but it says N)
• various dents and dings and scratches (the poor teenage girl who hit me was very happy when I told her to forget about it and go about her merry business—she still had to explain HER dent to her parents, though)
• doesn’t lock, like, at all (but … would you really care?)
• she looks like shit and she needs a bath

I am Granny’s 3rd owner. I have been driving her for 20 years, 16 of which I worked at home. When I stopped having to drive to a job, she had about 150,000 miles. She now has 174,000 miles. 25,000 miles. 16 years. Do the math.

She once did a straight-through round trip from Kansas City to Twin Falls, Idaho in 4 days. That was an adventure, let me tell you, but I got a husband out of it.

I believe that was the second or third cross-country trip she’s made, but it’s been 20 years. Why do you expect me to remember everything?!

My point: She can take mountain passes like a champ and yes, I’d trust her to road trip now, but husband says no.

Now, far be it from me to tell you why you need to buy my beloved Granny car, but she is a steal at $500. If I were a frugal young stay-at-home mom and needed a second car for doctor visits and grocery shopping and whatnot, Granny would be perfect. After all, she’s just been tooling around the metro a couple of times a week for the last 16 years.

I love her, but my husband is making me get rid of her. Now we have 3 cars and a truck for 2 drivers and he just doesn’t love Granny the way I love Granny. He says he doesn’t want to pay the pittance in insurance and license/registration for her anymore. Also, my neighbors give me the side-eye, but they’ve only been doing that for 14 years. Also also, my tax deductions are embarrassed that I pick them up in it. Fine. Walk home.

You must understand. I adore my Granny car. I would keep her and drive her until the wheels fell off (not likely, since they’re practically new), but it is time to let her go bless a family who needs a cheap ride with only minor problems (so far as I know). I’m only asking $500, which hurts because to me she is priceless.

If you take her home, you must promise me you will not change her name. Her name is Granny. And I love her. Maybe you will too.

THE VOMIT BOOK

My productivity keeper is a notebook. Not a simple one because why use a 20c spiral notebook I can get at Walmart during back-to-school month when I can get an expensive, hard-to-find notebook such as TOPS Journal Notetaking Planner (TOP63827)? It’s a version of the Cornell notetaking system.

Why do I call it my vomit book? Because I vomit the contents of my brain all over it. The single most productive thing I do is vomit my brain all over the pages of my notebook. I cannot describe how mentally jumbled I get and what a short period of time it takes, and I cannot overstate how much more productive I become once I’ve spent an hour (or 2 or 3) vomiting my jumbled thoughts.

I have depression and anxiety, and I am ADHD and bipolar. My mother was pretty regulated, so she became my coping mechanism growing up without drugs. I am not nearly that regulated (or more likely, what was important to her is not important to me). But the coping mechanisms I developed during my childhood and adolescence, thanks to my mom, got me limping through early adulthood before I found better living through chemistry.

I say this only to illustrate the most extreme of my vomiting: One day, I was so jumbled, I wrote “angry” over and over and over again. Two pages front and back. That was necessary so I could begin to put into words what I was angry about. That journaling session lasted nearly 4 hours, but it was 4 hours well spent.

I don’t vomit every day. I do it when my brain is too full, which could be every day or it could be every week or it could be six months from now.

I do use it for lists. In that period when I was so angry I had to write down my morning routine in a list (though it never changes): get up, shower, brush teeth, get breakfast, take meds. During that time, I also struggled with the everyday things like … making a doctor’s appointment.

I had to write down the list: pick up phone, dial the number, ask for an appointment, check the calendar, commit to the appointment. I tried twice to make the appointment, hung up when I got voice mail because the expected thing hadn’t happened, and THEN I changed my list: pick up phone, dial the number, select the right key to go to voice mail, leave a message. And yes, I had to write the message down and read it.

I realize now this was anxiety, for which I am now medicated. But that vomit book got me through some rough times. The rough times might change, but the vomit book is there for when I need to puke up a new pen’s worth of ink.

As I go around the ebook blogs like Teleread and The Book is Dead, a bunch of dissociated rememberies from my childhood plague me. They’re always the same ones, played in different order, but in a loop:

Remembery #1.

The mp3 player was only a Wish when I was a child (think 1970s) with my little panda transistor radio barely capable of tuning in the jazz station, but playing disco just fine and dandy. Rock the boat, don’t rock the boat, baby. Rock the boat, don’t tip the boat over.

I had my Wish in my mind like a jukebox, playing all the songs I loved and none of the songs I didn’t love, all in one place, in the palm of my hand. Even as I got older, I couldn’t afford to buy albums and then, once I got a “boom box,” couldn’t afford to buy cassettes, either. I taped random songs off the radio and tried my best to come up with as clean a version as a K-Tel compilation cassette as I could. It didn’t work and my wish became a longing so intense sometimes I couldn’t bear it. Then I got a Walkman, which was a step up, but my ADD/OCD could not be happy. Why, oh why, was there no way to buy a song at a time? What would that look like? How could it be done?

My Wish: a jukebox in my hand, with all the songs I loved and none of the songs I hated, with the ability to purchase one song at a time.

Remembery #2.

Dark house post family bedtime. Flashlight. Book. Covers. You all know this routine. For my mother, it was hiding in the back of a closet. With a flashlight. And a book. Why didn’t my book come with a light? You know, something handy, that I could clip onto it? That way I didn’t have to give my flashlight a blow job every time I had to turn the page.

Remembery #3.

Jean-Luc Picard sitting in his cabin reading a hardback book. To me, this was nothing until a crew member questioned him. Wesley, maybe? I can’t remember. Too young to know what a hardback book with paper pages was. To Picard, it was an antique. To Wesley, it was a novelty.

DISCLAIMER: I didn’t watch Star Trek much. Not the original, not the Next Generation, not Voyager, or many of the spinoffs (although I actually enjoyed Deep Space 9 because everybody on that show had serious faults and weren’t a bunch of Mary Sues and Gary Stus running around knowing how to deal with every situation). This is why my remembering an STNG episode is so…exceptional. And it had to do with a book and what must have happened to books to evoke the reaction Picard’s hardback paper book evoked.

Something that could store a library in one spot? Like my dream of a jukebox in my hand. Could it be? A library in my hand?

Don’t get me wrong. At that point, I was old enough to know it could be done, but I wasn’t getting my hopes up because the jukebox in my hand hadn’t materialized yet or if it had, I didn’t know about it.

You have to know something about me that makes my need for such things a compulsion (you know, besides my mental disorders): I am an anti-packrat. I hate Stuff. I have Stuff I don’t hate, really, but if it can be condensed, packed, and stored out of sight until I need it, so I can have SPACE, I am more kindly disposed toward Stuff. (Oh, Space Bags, how I would love thee if every blanket we own weren’t in use because it’s as cold as a witch’s tit outside.) I don’t like knickknacks, either. And as I get older, the Mies van der Rohe school of architecture (mid-century modern) gets more and more attractive to me.

The only things I collect and store without driving my OCD/ADD batty is data. And mp3s. And now, ebooks.

(I like lots of art, though, so as soon as the Tax Deductions stop coloring on the walls, I’ll paint and put up my art. It’s difficult to deal with the child who writes her name on the wall and then blames her little brother, who doesn’t know how to read, much less write.)

I haven’t quite figured out how to go completely minimalist, given the life of a family and its needs for Stuff.

But the jukebox-and-library in hand is a good start.