the problem is that i’ve been trying too hard. that’s what it is, see? i’ve been trying so hard to make sure everything reads perfectly, sounds exactly the way i want it to. i edit the life right out of everything i write before it’s finished, before it’s even started. that, my dears, is why i don’t write anymore.
instead of writing, i’m going to try typing. i’m just going to sit down here and start typing until i stop, until i’ve said everything i can think of about whatever it is i’m saying. like how on the nights when i know i can sleep in, i always say to my coworkers, “i’m going to go home and sleep until i wake up.” despite the fact that, technically, everyone is asleep until they wake up, my coworkers seem to understand that i mean i’m not going to set an alarm. i’m not going to set an alarm. i’m going to type until i wake up.Category Archives: writing
10/11/2002
from “paradise,” by alison headley, aged 11:
from edwin mullhouse: the life and death of an american writer 1943-1954 by jeffrey cartwright by steven millhauser:
“from the opening words of edwin’s immortal masterpiece we enter a precise and impossible world:“a white crescent moon, wearing a red nightcap that comes down to a long-lashed eye, snores in a blueblack-ink-colored sky above a twinkling town where the purple houses breathe in and out, in and out. one by one the yellow lights go out, each to a musical note. down in the drowsy town the blear-eyed streetlamps yawn and nod, a corner mailbox snores through its mailslot, and shoulder to shoulder on the swaying telephone wires, the purple sparrows huddle in feathery sleep. two black hiccupping cats come staggering along the road with their arms around one another’s shoulders, singing ‘down by the old mill stream’ while up above, the grumpy moon stirs in his sleep, and in the lamplit roadside grass a cricket wearing a tuxedo falls asleep under the eaves of a dark blue mushroom. two glowing fireflies trace the words good night against the dark. now one by one the stars go out, each to a musical note. the world sleeps.
“these familiar images, drawn from animated memories of technicolor cartoons, make up a world that i have called precise and impossible, and are the very heartblood of edwin’s book.”
edwin was better than i.8/27/2002
today in art history class (20th century photography), the professor had us pass our drivers’ licenses up to the front of the room, where he shuffled them and handed them out to us. we were supposed to write a page about whatever drivers’ license photo we ended up with. “analyze it,” he said. “just write about the photo.” i got the professor’s license; here’s what i wrote:
i always found it hard to smile when my drivers’ license picture was being taken. some middle-aged, bored lady behind a counter is aiming a camera for the eight-thousandth time that day; how can i be expected to smile at her? at the wall behind her? at the camera she’s maneuvering with a three-foot pole?
this, perhaps, is why you are not smiling.
your hair looks different in the photo. it’s longer, browner. mine is different too; i’m starting to get strange looks from bouncers and bartenders when they look at me and then at my photo taken six years ago. its’ an odd sort of record, a drivers’ license photo–like a reminder in your wallet of that day you drove to the DPS and waited in line behind a mother and her two screaming children. whatever became of that haircut, that expression? what were you doing that day? did you stop there on your way home from work? on your lunch break? whatever happened to that t-shirt you were weraring? i bet you use it to wash the car, to dust furniture.
a drivers’ license photo is, i suppose, meant to capture the essence, the uniqueness, of a person’s physical being. that we try to do that in a one-inch square with a camera you aim with a pole is rather astounding.
i thought about writing “by the way, i’m an english major” at the bottom, but i think he could probably tell. after all, big-boobs mocha-frappuccino girl next to me was writing “it is a drivers’ license. he is a capricorn. in december. he probably gets a lot of ‘merry birthday’ presents.”
the sign in front of the university center has one of the i s missing, so it looks like un versity center. yep, this is definitely an un versity.