1 february 2001


[dope. guns. fucking in the streets.]

sometimes david and i have conversations. it's nice to not be slugging around the apartment for once, talking about butts and who's hair looks like one. last night we got things sorted over dinner. i really like the idea of that. i think that talking over dinner is great because it gives you just enough time to say whatever you want. there's nothing better than the pause in conversation while you take a sip of your drink. nothing better than the healthy break in dialogue, when the server asks you if everything is okay. you can smoke, be thoughtful if you want, and be just loud enough. second to that is talking over coffee. but for some reason it's become completely overrated these days. you know what i mean.

when david and i talk, i'm always worried that i'm saying too much. or that i'm saying things he knows. i think david knows most things about me already, i would hate to be repeating myself. he knows about my obsessions, which is good, i think. he really knows about my obsession with books, even though we talked about it last night. about how i love to read books. about how i like to just have books around, how i'm always purchasing a stackful even though i've got books i've yet to read from the last time around. it's like buying a bunch of CDs when you've got CDs in your collection you haven't even listened to yet. see, that's a metaphor. well, a simile.

last night, we talked about "catcher in the rye", which is the second time it's ever come up in conversation in the history of david and i. we talked about it briefly, but it was intricate. that was the first time i've mentioned the book since i slipped it over jesse smith's desk in the 11th grade. you just don't realize the global impact of "catcher in the rye" when you've been assigned to read it in your english class. at that point, it's an assignment, something you have to read for a grade. i thought jesse smith should've read it, and people should always be reccommending this book to other people who haven't read it. to this day, it remains the best book i've ever read scholastically, and is one of my favorites.

the thing i noticed about "catcher in the rye", the reason why so many people like it so much is because it's got style. who would have thought i'd be reading a novel with this much style in the classrooms of lassiter high? holden caufield...he just doesn't tell a story to tell a story. he speaks to you, and i don't mean in that "man, he really speaks to me" sort of way. it's like he's conversating with you, talking to you about the things that have happened in his life as opposed to just telling them.

he nodded his head when i told him this. bonzai.

when i started writing a long, long time ago i think i was writing for the sake of writing. i was just writing every day to see stuff on paper, scrawling things in some dumb-shit notebook because kerouac did it. i was being very safe, not saying much, sticking to what i knew was okay. writing about subjects that were written before, making sure things rhymed when they needed to, moral dilemma, plenty of metaphors.

there's a reason why i can't look at everything i did then. there's a reason why i cringe and get nauseous, form angry tears in my eyes when i read that stuff. that wasn't me. that was just me pretending to be someone else, writing things that were predictable and textbook, things i thought would make me a writer. even though i can't read them, i still have them. the other week i placed the stack in a folder, and wrote "BURN THESE WHEN I DIE" on a post it note on the front. back it goes into the depths of my cardboard box.

but i read about jack kerouac and his marathon writing sessions. spending days, weeks in a bathroom writing furiously in the corner. writing on drugs, writing on booze, but writing what was on his mind. what was coming to him at that instant. it was spontaneous, it had no rules. it was diarrhea of the fucking brain and i wanted to do that. he never had to tap the end of his pen to his lip, searching for the things to write about.

i wanted to stop being wax fucking inspired. i wanted to write only when things came to me and to stop when it became boring and bullshit. there was and is no need to write something every day, just to write something. i promised myself at that moment i would always feel this way.

i don't want david to think i'm talking bullshit now, so i ease up a little. i don't want him to think i'm talking shit as much as he doesn't want me to assume anything about him. but i think david knows that i feel passionate about things, i think he knows what i'm talking about.

there are no rules to writing, i've come to realize. things like periods, commas, quotation marks...they help the reader know when to pause, when to stop, when someone else is talking. but what's the fucking point and who cares? those formalities only exist because we are taught that they need to be included in anything we write. paragraphs always have to have 4-5 sentences...with a topic sentence, three supporting sentences, and a conclusion. everything i learned in english 101 is bullshit, really. when i realized you don't have to write that way, you don't have to write like anything, i was liberated. liberated beyond my wildest imagination. because this is me. this my story. my thoughts, my ideas, my feelings. if i don't really own it, then there's no fucking point.

some of my favorite writers, ones that have books that engage me, do so only because they talk to me instead of talk at me. they make me feel that we're involved in conversation instead of it being me- reading their words on a creme-colored sheet of paper. those are the people that inspire me, those are the ones that keep me going.

i told david last night that i am not comfortable with calling myself a writer. calling yourself a writer in my opinion means you are asserting a title: you write, you write well, you do it often, and you stand behind what you do.

i'm close, but i'm not there yet. i can't call myself a writer, not right now.

although i think i've come a long way from those days of balling up notebook sheets and shooting them across my dorm room...i'm always needing to know more, to read more, to do more. that's why i still write, read, take classes, go to movies, talk with people...the learning process is never over. i'm always going to feel the need to hone my writings, to learn new things, to seek out information.

it took me a long time to be honest in my writing. and i'm still not there yet, for god's sake.

even though i'm still searching for things to speak about, still wondering if i'll ever feel like my style has arrived, i definately do know what i don't want to be. i don't want to be safe, textbook, and predictable. i'm not going to write things and wonder if they're "good" by any certain standards. i'm not going to write if i don't feel like it, if i don't have anything to say. i don't want to write things with these false mottos and morals. i don't want to write things because i think they'll deliver some "deep and meaningful" message. if i write about sadness, it's not going to be me looking out a rainy window. if i write about how endless things seem, it's not going to be by way of the slow dripping faucet or the sand in the fucking hourglass.

david nods his head again. bonzai.

even though he doesn't say much, i know he understands me. that's good to know, considering that doesn't happen in this world very often.

i almost forgot: my favorite writer is coming to town tomorrow, to read a passage out of his newest book. i couldn't be happier. i think i've elevated douglas coupland to that of rockstar status. i don't know how i'm going to contain myself.

i dunno, i guess there are some things in this world that mean more to me than others. then there are some times when i write this huge, long fucking entry on my pitas page, only to realize someone X'ed the window out. that happened to me while writing this, i hope that it remained true to the original.