Sunday, October 27, 2013

until i met you

I went back to the Writer's Festival again this morning with CC, who sent me a message last night asking if I wanted to go.  Although there are times I cannot bring myself to meet up with CC, going to an event is always a better way to package a visit because it gives us both a destination and a frame that imposes a beginning and an end.

As always she was not ready to go when I arrived.  I watched her finish pouring pancake batter in a frypan (which smelled like it was burning), hand off tiny pancakes to her two young daughters, and then we went to the yard to say goodbye to A, who was painting in the garage.  At some point (a while ago) I decided it was hilarious to call A homie.  I don't remember why.  I know it is obnoxious, and it is also clear he doesn't find it funny, but I cannot seem to stop.  Hey homie, I said.  After we left, CC talked about his alcoholism in a way that we rarely talk about it.  At 27 I lost touch with her for awhile because homie's antics were so intolerable.  Five years later or so I was ready to conceed that my opinion of someone else's partner was irrelevant.  Now, with even more time gone by I am ready to listen, and even to share a gentle opinion if asked.  But she does not ask.  I wouldn't either.

At Writer's Fest I was surprised by the fact that the audience was almost entirely comprised of women.  Why should that be?  I was also surprised by how many of these women were willing to sacrifice hearing the writers in exchange for whispered conversations with the wait staff about getting more coffee.  (It was not even particularly good coffee.)  In another life perhaps I was overbrimming with ideas, the kind of person who put pen to paper and cranked out reams of books; in this one I am a thousand false starts and an endless series of chronically awkward attempts at self-expression.




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3 comments:

meno said...

You both puzzle me and connect to me.

Unknown said...

You are the best writer in the world, to me.

Glue the false starts together and become the greatest novelist of "...an endless series of chronically awkward attempts at self-expression"
In the movie 'Sideways', the advice to Paul Giamatti (in the film has written a book), is to, "get it in libraries, let the public decide" hahaha. You love writing, you have to write a novel, even a bad one (i doubt it), even if it is for no-one but your own eyes. I would say from reading your blog, you have plenty of lives lived to pull from.

That way, you could say to yourself, 'fine, I gave it a shot at least, and throw the thing into the sea'

mischief said...

Hi meno, I'm happy to hear from you. Some of the things that resonate with me are simultaneously puzzling. Or maybe that's even *why* they resonate. I don't know.

Paul, thank you. truly very much. I have a lot of beginnings. I even have middles and ends, but they don't go together. I do not really understand how people write novels, only short stories. Long novels, especially, are mystifying. How a person maintains the focus throughout the entire process is one thing... and then there's editing, rewriting, blah blah blah. I can't get my head around it. But I love the idea of it so so much.