On being a writer.
There are so many things it pains me to think about every day when I have no paper, when I am sitting at my desk in math and trying to decipher complicated equations and I don’t have time, when I’m at lunch or at the movies or walking the dogs and I see something glorious or think of something fantastic or someone says something beautiful just at the edge of my hearing because always, inevitably, no matter what the situation or how inappropriate it may be at the time I can’t stop myself from thinking…God, I could be writing about this.
My acting group, I could write about them all day every day and it would never get old. Jake the charmingly shy and nervous “classic geek” who even has that nasally nerd voice and stands about wringing his hands and mumbling, and Vicky who wears the same outfit every day and has frizzy hair and beautiful eyelashes and who wants to be an actor and has the best anguished scream I’ve ever heard and who is terminally in love with poor Jake, and Stephanie who is so obsessed with music she makes it her life and has a million fat jokes about herself and who loves a good temper tantrum, and Ericka who has seven middle names and is a proud German and has a twin sister in Arizona and proposed to me with an “Army of One” key ring.
People at school! Stephanie and Sandy who are best friends and will be sitting on their front porch together at age 80 with twelve cats, waving their canes and shouting at passersby and cackling at each others’ jokes. Sandy writes very good chilling slasher stories and Stephanie collects dry erase markers and wears her pajamas to school every Friday. Sadie who is dating either Jake or Alex, who are twins, and no one can tell which one. My best friend Noah, who has a harem of people who think he is the best thing since sliced bread because he totally is, and who speaks three languages and sings in the middle of the lunch room and says “crazy sauce” and whom you can tell is depressed because he isn’t mean to anyone. My girlfriend Mercedes, who loves superheroes and pirates and makes rice for lunch every day and has the cutest smile in the whole world.
My mom who fights her passive-aggressive boss’s fire with fire, and her old boss Fawzi whom she talks about like Italian boys talk about their mothers, and the way she gardens all day and treats her dog like a small furry god and drinks too much Diet Coke and never lets me give up and has an infuriating amount of inside jokes with my little brother. My dad and his job and his incredible people skills and the way he dances like Baloo the bear and loves all kinds of music, and the stories he tells about playing D&D in high school and being that quiet dork on the bus.
And my bus! Otis who sings at random and tells everyone they have permission to love his name and does the best Elmer Fudd impression ever. Skyler who will never stop being nasty to me but whom I am so amused by because he’s an idiot, and A.J. who gets chased down the block by a small poodle every day, and Tia who plays with my little brother’s hair until he gets flustered and tells her to stop.
This town! The grapevines and the houses and the clock on the corner that got knocked over by a truck that they still haven’t put back up, and the six barbershops all next to each other, and that one house that leaves their Christmas tree up every day of the year except for Easter, and the select group of men in their late 40’s who say “flustrated” like it’s a real world, and the crazy one-eyed man who stands on the bridge near the hospital and waves at passing cars and the homeless guy on a bicycle who circle the local convenience store and peers in the windows. The art studio made from an old box factory, the decrepit downtown are being slowly rebuilt into an art district, the people who all know each other and the beaches and the trees.
Animals. People. Places. Friends. Enemies. Loves past and present. Internet and real life. Work. Movies and music. Silly things, important things, family, transportation and recreation and inspiration and everything from the fantastic to the mundane. I can write about it all. And yet I never seem to have any goddamn paper with me when the mood strikes.
Ain’t that just how it always is?