Note to self: Don’t listen to a blistering live version of “Leper” by Dinosaur Jr. before shopping for groceries.
I came out nearly empty handed. Class was like that too. I successfully kept my mouth shut during the discussion of “The Inheritance of Tools.” Everybody loved it, it’s a warm and fuzzy story. I’m warm in the summer, and fuzzy when I don’t shave, but I’m not a warm and fuzzy guy. Since there wasn’t much discussion, the teacher launched into a “free writing” exercise. I can’t do that. Writing is never free for me. I fight with each word, wrestling it to the page, often only to kick its ass out the door later on.
Revising Talk Talk this afternoon, I noticed that the teacher often questioned my choice of verbs, wanting to substitute “felt,” or some other tense of that verb, for what I chose to express.
Note to self: remove the verb feel from my writing vocabulary. It’s too simple and trite for such a complex experience.
Freewriting is frustrating to me for a number of reasons. First, it literally hurts for me to write longhand. I never do it. I’m a computer junkie, otherwise I couldn’t write at all. Second, I hate writing on command. I like thinking about what I have to say first. I hate being trite; I am, from time to time, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I try to suppress the urge to be too clever. Clever things bother me. I was looking for coffee ice-cream in the supermarket, and they didn’t have any. They had “From Russia With Buzz” instead. Yech. Can’t I just get coffee?
Too many thoughts piled up in a row. Freewriting. The fact that I couldn’t buy both beer and milk and still be able to juggle my Chicago style hot and spicy beef dinner back to the house with my books and papers. Too much weight. Because without cappuccino, writing is impossible, the milk won. Then, I couldn’t find ice-cream that would be good to eat that didn’t have a clever name. Standing in the checkout line, the cashier said:
What’s wrong?
Nothing.
You look frustrated!
It’s nothing, I was born that way.
It had to be the Dinosaur Jr. Yes, I’m sure that was it.
