2004-05-06

tense present

fudge. fudge. fudge. fudge.

and not the good kind. I had started an entry, but this ghetto diary program combined with my silly Windows XP habit of opening links into already open browser window occasionally dumps my paltry excuse for writing mid-process. not that I feel my writing is in anyway irreplaceable, it just is a time suck to rewrite. the fact I do my writing at work, whist I should be working, prevents me from spending the time to craft prose to be proud of. instead, you get stream of consciousness drivel between meetings, emails and various online marketing fire drills.

the more I think about it, it's hard to call this writing Writing. it's just moving fingers on the decapitated pyramids of my keyboard. thinking, typing, deleting (rarely), some more mental soliliqy, never followed by a reread or rewrite. it's like comparing jumping jacks to a Cirque du Soleil performance. I'm not just harshing on myself, only acknowledging that this baby step isn't the same as the writing I used to do or the writing I aspire to.

the deleted entry started with a comparison of the sadness felt upon reaching the end of a great novel to what I'm about to do. reading can be a creative act, not just an escape, with its inevitable end. I'm about to read the last month of the first blog I've ever read in its entirety. part of me doesn't want it to be over... not that he's finished, I'm just going to have to wait for the next post and live his life in real time. I've digested three years of another man's life, been inspired by his example and his talent and fantasized about our lives intersecting (for conversation and friendship, not sex and a blog link, though I wouldn't turn down either--were I single).

part of me longs for his celebrity, or the noteriety I project onto him since he seems to be well linked. he lives in a community of bloggers, has readers, is creating a life for himself to lead. this blog maybe has one reader (although I did once email The Author and gave him my blogs' URLs). otherwise I'm alone, left to fend for myself among hackneyed cliche�s and the fear/desire of discovers (preferrably by strangers, not my friends). he spends hours (I assume) writing, and not just in his blog, thinking, observing.

so long as I don't have a computer at home, I'll probably never devote that kind of time to my writing. as an extrovert, type-A, over-booked, eager-beaver pleaser, will I create the downtime necessary to process and think about my life (when I'm not passively watching TV). I truly hope that he keeps writing when he moves across the country for a MFA program.

thank you dog poet for Writing and getting me to write a little bit more.

(and thank you emmalola for sharing him with me.)

earlier - later