Writer's Block

Picture a dude who tells great witty jokes which you can't stop laughing at. He invites you for a cup of tea, and before you know it you're laughing your head off. Good one, you say. He nods in agreement, and starts rattling off another joke. And before you know it, you're trapped in a never-ending joke fiesta which has outlived its welcome by an hour.
Okay, okay, I'm really inviting trouble for myself by coming up with illustrations like these, but that's quite about what happened to me today. My sleepy, hungry, thirsty, and call-of-naturish self sat through three hours of King Kong. That's the new movie, lest you think I haven't outgrown the zoo.
Perhaps it was the after effects of my sucky day (more on that later), but I didn't exactly have a blast of a time. I mean, there're only so many nail-biting near-death sequences one can take before you realise that if Character X is going to die at all, he'd have died sooner. You know those thrilling climaxes at the end of monster movies where the lead characters have to ward of the Monster(s) Starring In The Movie to stay alive? My gosh, I swear the entire second hour of King Kong was an extended scene of that. Every possible monster, and I do mean every last possible monster showed up to prove that there is life after Power Rangers. Okay, so maybe one or two were absent, but I assure you there was a ridiculously high number of them.
I dunno, maybe the movie was also too long for its own good. I mean, three freakin' hours for this? :

(Spoilers my foot)

a) Dude wants to film movie.
b) Dude and other dudes and one dudette sail to mystical island.
c) Natives capture dudette to offer to some ancient fearsome beast that ain't Godzilla.
d) King Kong likey girl.
e) Dudes enter jungle to rescue girl. King Kong no likey.
f) Dudes manage to capture King Kong to bring home, cos they likey money.
g) King Kong no likey city, breaks free.
h) Humans no likey.
i) Humans hunt down King Kong. Girl no likey.
j) Humans kill King Kong. Me no wakey.

Urghh...okay, to be fair Point G onwards was great to watch, but the rest just seemed a bit too much of a good thing. But hey, I'm not complaining - it's actually really worth your money! Cos for the price of ONE movie, you get to watch loads of scenes which remind you of other movies like Titanic, Jurassic Park, Village Of The Damned, Aliens, Bats, Eight Legged Freaks, They Nest, every Jackie Chan movie ever made, and Home Alone 2 (I'm betting you won't spot this one) =p. Go check it out and you'll see what I mean. Plus, I'm guessing Hazeline Snow is the secret sponsor for this one. You know something subliminal's going on when our female lead's face stays smooth as silk after a dozen treacherous escapades through the wet jungles.

And I did mention a sucky day, didn't I? Well yeah...I was majorly pissed off with myself for putting myself through the dreaded Last Minute Experience again. And by again, I mean more times than you can count. Seriously.
It was my last official college assignment, supposedly due by 1.30pm. Of course, it wouldn't be really "nice" to hand it up at 1.30pm, since that meant the lecturer having to wait four hours for you. And guess what? I only managed to hand it in at 2pm after a couple of apologetic phone calls.
Let me explain to you how being caught in the Last Minute Experience feels. Time starts like normal, but slowly accelerates as you inch closer to the deadline till you know you have to take a minute to cool down, but just don't have that minute to spare. You know your throat is dry, your stomach is hungry and your eyes are weary, but you don't feel it. The feeling only comes after the ordeal is over. As you rush on with your work, you try to concentrate but you can't. All sorts of scenarios are forming in your head, usually revolving around what the person who is waiting for you is doing now. It's doubly worse if you're alone, and the worst thing that can happen is your phone ringing. If you're a jitterbug, this is when your hands might even start shaking. Yup. That bad.
Well, it happened to me today. I'm usually pretty calm in the face of such situations (what can I say, practice makes perfect), but this morning there really seemed to be no chance for me to weasel my way out of this one. At 1.20pm I was becoming the sort of person I always pooh-poohed away - a nervous wreck. I couldn't stop mumbling to myself. My breathing was exactly the sort you hear from horror movie victims. And yes, my hands were shaking badly.
But wait, that's only the Pre-Last Minute ordeal. The Post-Last Minute works in a more long-term way, the sort you don't forget and laugh back at once everything's over and done with.
You feel disappointed when you realise that your labour of love, your work, has been reduced to a half-baked borderline product concocted just to meet the deadline (which is what happens most times). You screwed it all up, you killed your baby not with a lack of competence, but a lack of effort.
Your friends shake their heads at this attitude of yours, asking you what you did with your free time. If it's difficult to give your friends an answer to that, it's far more difficult to give yourself an answer.
The most painful part comes when you look back and realise that it isn't the first time, nor the second time, nor the third time that this has happened. And each time you vow to not let it happen again, it does. You wonder to yourself, what's so hard about meeting a deadline that everyone else could meet? But alas, that's also something that's been asked more times than you care to count.
It's become a chronic illness to me, a drug if you will. Like a struggling addict, I just can't help it. I enter and re-enter rehab, but each time I think I'm making progress, bang! I'm late for something again.
Perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on myself. But deep down, I'm insanely jealous of those who know what exactly they're doing with their time. I'm jealous of those who will not budge from a job till it's complete, and are willing to do whatever it takes to get there. Me? Maybe what I need is time.