it's late now, but not as late as i was once used to, not as late as i wish it was, not as late as it could be, not as late as it needs to be, but just as late as it can be.
a lot of people have implored/inquired/demanded inquiry as to why i haven't kept up on this blog, despite numerous promises i've made to keep this alive like johnny five. the thing is: i wanted to blog about my triumphs and curious goings on in this new city and life, but all i have at the moment is failures. still unemployed and dangerously close to bankrupt as a result of recent tax filings. i've been interviewing at many a company and every time i seem to get my hopes up only to have them dashed by the thinly veiled message (veiled, that is, in the technical jargon of human resources professionals like, 'why do you even bother,' or 'everything you say is wrong,' or, 'you, sir, are worse than hitler!') that every choice i've made in my life regarding my employability has been wrong.
there's a very small roach that lives in our parlour (ie, tv room/office) which i've only seen once (and to which i am the lone witness) and which i've just now pounced upon with a wadded ball of tissue, only to retrieve a mere twitching leg, and now i am sure it is recouperating, very pissed off and what's more, knows whom to blame for it's new gimp.
i'm watching conan obrien reruns, in the state of new york at 1am, which seems to imply very little has changed for me since high school. this is an intriguing hypothesis, and brings to mind such evidence as my current list of friends which includes people with whom i went to high school, i am unemployed, i am up late and wondering about this life and what i've done to impede it.
i am so stunted by my own lack of talent, it's staggering. i used to write. i used to write well. i used to have ideas, and what's more, i used to have the balls to write when i didn't have ideas. but that's probably not even true either. i don't think anything i've ever done has been worthwhile and that's stopping me from doing anything else. this is the most depressing feeling in the world.
i'm amazed at anything written down on a page. that is: anything printed, which took countless people countless man-hours to print and set and edit and proof and receive in the mail and write at all. that people have ideas which other people will find intriguing and worth their time is a stupefying situation. i am amazed, in particular, with jonathan safran foer. his career and celebrity seem to be this exalted example of what i aspired to in my former days as a would-be fiction writer, and now i am just a fan in awe of someone very near to my age who has made it and is set for life. his first novel, Everything is Illuminated, was and is amazing, and what's more, was an amazing best seller. in this sense, he never has to go to another interview in which a man with a job asks him, 'if you were alone in a commerical airliner, and you had one ping pong ball in your hand, how would you go about estimating the number of ping pong balls needed to fill the volume of the aircraft?' he wouldn't have to stammer for an answer aloud and in his mind wonder what the hell is the point, and what's the real answer? he'll never have to wait for days to hear the bad news that he'd been passed over, yet again, and that he'll have to start all over again by rewriting his cover letter.
and now that i am older, a very homely 26, all i want to do is be able to sit and write
something worthwhile about life which someone somewhere will ponder someday. a majority of writers are older, did you know that? a majority of them have daytime jobs. what makes you any different? probably sloth. sloth and envy.
i have ideas for plays, and this is a good city to have such ideas. but the correct response is this is a good city to write such ideas. plots have very little to do in literature, as you may know, the real story is what lies underneath the words: the message, the meaning, the revolutionary thing that evolves into philosophy and questions. the thing that will justify celebrity and best sellers.
plus i've been sick, which feels and looks awful. we have received a new couch, though, so that's cool. the cats outside are making love and sound worse than my parents did in their heyday, but not as passionate. the sirens outside my window are all unmistakable signs that someone somewhere is suffering, possibly because they can't write, and when they do, they might as well be failing another one of life's job interviews. but i'm not sad, just pensive and hungry for rice krispies.
