I got nothing today. I have spent the morning staring at a blinking cursor. And then staring into space. Then at the cursor. Then space. Stare at my phone. Twitter. Instagram. Facebook. Then the cursor, again. Then space. Over, and over and over, for approximately two hours now.

I googled how to earn accreditation as a film critic. It takes two years and one hundred published film reviews of at least three hundred words in length. I googled the accreditation process because I googled how to get on lists to receive review DVDs and that is how you get them. I wanted to get on the lists because I had an idea for a regular writing gig that involved new film and classic film but that idea is I guess now gone because I don’t have two years and/or am not writing for a publication which receives 500,000 unique visitors a month. That’s the other way you can get on lists.

I miss being able to watch classic film whenever I want. I love movies. I really do. I love all kinds of movies. I like James Bond movies. I like Pixar movies. I like movies with subtitles. I like small, quiet, movies. I like movies. But I completely fan girl all over old movies. I love them immoderately. I’m close to seeing everything Katharine Hepburn made, I’m at about 90% of Bette Davis’ work. I am two films shy of all of Cary Grant’s films. And, I’ve seen every film to win the Best Picture Oscar except the most recent winners. The best place to get my fix is a cable channel called Turner Classic Movies. I love Turner Classic Movies. But I can’t afford cable television so no more classic film for me. I didn’t mind the first year but now, after three years, I miss it.

I’ve read three different columns on the goings on in the American presidential primary season. I watched two videos about rescued dogs that were once sad and are now happy. Cried like a baby. Had to get up and hunt down a new box of tissues.

I have drank three cups of coffee. At least I have refilled my coffee mug three times. I know I shouldn’t drink it. I hate what it does to my teeth. I hate my teeth in general, now, but I really hate the combined effects of cancer treatment and coffee drinking on my teeth. But I like the routine and rhythm of coffee drinking in the mornings. I like the mugs. I like the smell. And for a long time during and after chemotherapy, I couldn’t drink coffee because of a thing called dysgeusia. Look it up. It is a fancy word for everything you used to love eating and drinking will taste like dead puppies.

I need to get on with the rest of what I wanted to accomplish today but I can’t until I have this thing done on my list, this thing I am doing right now, which is typing these words and then hitting publish on them. I know it may seem like a silly thing, this thing I am doing every day but in my world, right now, this is the most important thing. In my world, this is the rope I am hanging on to. This is both my road map and my lifeline. I can’t let go of it.

I still having nothing to write about. Nothing important to say. Or even anything silly to say. I hoped if I simply started writing, a topic would present itself. But this did not happen. But I feel okay enough because now I have at least typed these words and done this thing and communicated at least these small things.

It is miraculous how words make sentences and then sentences make paragraphs and paragraphs chapters and chapters make a book. It is the accretion of these tiny, tiny, things that leads us from one place to the next. One step in a new direction and then another and then another and then another and you look up and look back and can’t even see the old path. I love that.