cold day warm night

It's another cold day at the lake. It's not as windy but it's still bone chilling cold. It says 53 but feels colder, plus it's overcast, so no sun. I walked along the shore, I could hear the water lapping against the side. There's a surprising amount of tennis balls on the shore. Or not, seeing as I'm sure they were thrown for a dog who never brought it back. The mournful Hallelujah is playing in my ear, sung by various artists. It felt like a sad end to a depressing 2016. And I say this not just because of my year but because of America's year. In a few weeks, a bully will sit on the throne of the highest seat our country has to offer and that's incredibly depressing. It feels like Negan has won. (The walking dead fans will get that reference). 

I walked the shore, backpack on my back, hoodie over my head until the wind picked up and my sniffing from an earlier allergy attack was getting to be too much for me. My fingers were starting to feel the cold and I was starting to question this alleged 53. It felt more like the 30s to me but what do I know? I'm not a weather man or a weather app 

As the wind got even stronger and it had become clear that the allergy medicine I had took was a placebo, I spotted my car and ran for it against the wind. Leaning my seat back in my car has made me more sure than ever that my next car must have a sun roof. No exceptions. I could see this tree out my back drivers seat window, so I took a sideways picture of it. I sat and read one of my old stories I wrote, until the sun that never appeared, was officially set, and the evening was already in full swing.

 

Late that evening under a heating blanket and a warm cat asleep across my chest, I re-watched the movie "the end of the tour."  I remember vividly how much this movie grabbed me and affected me, when I saw it in the theaters last year. I remember sitting in my seat, actively engaged in the dialogue. As if I was the one having a conversation with David foster Wallace, and not the far less appealing interviewer, by the same first name. I am by no means as profound or intelligent as David foster Wallace was. I will never write a book in which people compare me to the likes of Ernest Hemingway. And honestly I haven't even read his book- Infinite Jest, mostly because it's a thousand pages and I'm afraid I'd never finish it... or understand it, not that I'm not ruling it out completely. But I feel this connection and this understanding, to how he feels, or felt. He took his own life 12 years after this interview. It's 1996 and even back then, he was already predicting where the world was headed, from a technology perspective. He talks about how with the way technology is going, it will become easier and easier to disconnect and sit alone in a room and stare at a screen and get all your pleasure from that. And how, like candy, it's ok in small doses but if it's your main staple in your diet, then you will die. And he was right. His direct comparison was to porn, but this could be applied to other things...TV, Facebook, Twitter ect.

When I first saw this movie in the theater, I was the same age as the David foster Wallace that Jason Segel so perfectly portrayed- 34. He talked of being lonely and how it "would be nice to have somebody that you shared a life with and allowed yourself to be happy and confused with." He goes into more on the life of a writer, or his life... and kinda mine, even though I'm not a published writer. I never used to call myself a writer. My friend Amy called me that, about 5 years ago and I was blown away that she'd call me that, but when I thought about it I was like, "yeah, you're right, I am a writer." I don't need to wear it like a badge of honor, but maybe I do sometimes. When he talked about using his newfound fame to meet the singer Alanis Morrisette, it made me laugh because the way he feels about Alanis Morrisette is how I feel about Kate McKinnon. And if I were a famous writer, you better believe I'd use that to get a cup of coffee with her. You're damn right I would!

 

"I don't think writers are smarter than other people. I think they may be more compelling in their stupidity, or in their confusion. But I think one of the real ways I have gotten smarter is, I don't think I'm that much smarter than other people...I just think that to look across the room and to automatically assume that somebody is less aware or that their interior life is somehow less rich and complicated and acutely perceived as mine, makes me not as good a writer." David Foster Wallace. 

So that was my day. I couldn't tell you what else I did. It seems like when you're off this many days in a row, without any places to be, the days all seem to run together. The hours go by fast. You can sit and stare at nothing and 2 hours have passed. It's a very interesting thing. I can't say that I hate it, to be honest. I know I'd get more writing done and maybe I would get closer, quicker, to turning one story in particular into an actual published book, if I could spend all my days like this. I'd like to think so. It doesn't "make" things happen, but time and no job certainly gives you a leg up on that front. It's certainly not the fame I would want, from writing a successful book. Not with the way the internet is nowadays. I'd have to actually cancel my subscription to the internet. And doing readings and signings at bookstores, freaks me out to no end, even if the people there most likely would be ones that loved your book. What I would want is just the luxury of being able to write more books, screenplays maybe. Maybe get my book turned into a movie. If I didn't have to work at my current job, then I could dedicate those "work day hours" to writing and continue on and hopefully improve and get better and better; just because of the fact that I would have the time to do so. I would love that. Sorry babies, I love helping you learn to walk and talk, but the stress of the paperwork and the expectations of the higher ups, is just too much for me sometimes. I'd probably also have stress to "write another amazing book," but at least I could say well... at least now I have met Kate McKinnon.