(As you can tell from the featured image, I don’t write a damn word unless I’ve got my Scandinavian design book, fancy coasters, water with lemon, and my marble topped coffee table from West Elm. Non-negotiable, bitches.)

I’ve been complaining recently about blogging and how I have no ideas left.

That’s not literally true. I believe in the creative process and that if you sit down to write, something will come. I’m just starting to worry that the thing that comes might be really boring and I don’t want to waste anyone’s time with it. I had a stockpile of topics that I wanted to write about here and used most of them. I blew through those like your savings account your first months in New York. I’m also starting to recognize my own thought patterns and I find myself thinking, “Wait, have I written this before?” The answer is usually yes.

And the people that I’ve complained to, rather than capitulating to the whiner like he wants with a hearty, “I know! It’s so hard for you!” have asked, “Well, why did you want to do this in the first place? What was your intention?”

My intention? With writing every day? It was to, uh, write every day. I think that’s as far as I thought it through.

I guess I just love putting stuff out there and I wanted to challenge myself. I didn’t write for almost half of last year and it didn’t feel good. Creating something feels good. Letting a creative project lapse gives you that pint of ice cream, Netflix, couch feeling. At first it’s like a beautiful retreat from the world but after a few hours it’s a downward spiral of sloth and you start making plans to steam vegetables and get to work early the next day.

My original intention for daily writing was to pay attention. I remember a game from improv and it was just to describe something beautiful that you saw that day. That was it. A sunset, a baby, a painting, or something else that’s not trite as hell. I thought I could look at the world that way and write that way. Today I saw… something.

Harder than it sounds, kids.

Sometimes Mondays are Mondays and the beautiful thing is my morning coffee or the happy thing is my improv rehearsal and I already wrote about both of those things in, like, February. At least I think I did. I can’t really keep track anymore.

There are parts of writing every day that I really love. I’m less precious about my ideas. If I think of something, I just write it. I don’t procrastinate and I don’t have time for perfectionism. But I used to write longer pieces and now I scramble for anything.

What I’ve realized having done this for almost four months is that I really do love writing short essays and sharing them with people. I want to keep doing it. So, with some good advice from my blogging class teacher, I’m going to try to come up with more evergreen ideas. Stuff that I can repeat. I’ve repeated a few, like Snapshot of a Day or A Number of Thoughts on a Movie. But I need more.

I’ve been brainstorming a few possible evergreen posts or desk pieces if I were a late night host.

Penty ‘o Laughs! (Alternatively Penty’s Corner!)

This would be a chance for me to just let loose with some zingers! What’s the deal with Donald Trump’s hair? And what’s up with reality TV? Just some down home, good old fashioned laughs. Doesn’t everyone love to laugh? (I’ve wanted to try to write more humor here but when you know people who write for Reductress and The New Yorker and McSweeney’s, the pressure gets to you a bit.)

Grumpier than Andy Rooney

I could just bitch about stuff. “When I was in the army, if you typed one hundred and forty characters on a typewriter, no one gave you a trophy, they just said, ‘keep writing, your article’s not done.'” I kind of feel like I was born a curmudgeon so this could work for me.

The Lexapro Diaries

I take you through a day’s particular anxiety episode, whether it’s an in-depth revenge scheme on the stranger who bumped me on the subway on the way to work without apologizing or the step by step path to homelessness I invent when I’ve realized that my mind has wandered in a meeting.

Tonight’s Fuckin’ Seinfeld Re-run

I’ll just summarize tonight’s fuckin’ Seinfeld re-run. It’ll be for posterity. Easy peasy.

What’s Rob Getting from Pret Today? What Pair of Vans is Rob Going to Wear Today? Which Actor That Rob Took Improv Classes With Did Rob See on TV Today?

I don’t know if any of it will work but I will be trying some stuff out.

And you, dear reader, if there’s anything that you’ve liked that I’ve written that you want to see more of, could you help me out and say so? In comments, over email, wherever, I’d appreciate it.