Productivity thy name is me.

As it turns out, yesterday was a largely productive day and I did indeed get into the writing "groove."

As I'm tackling the THIRD draft (guh) of my thesis script (my Western Masterpiece... at least that's what it's supposed to be) I've been noticing more things about the writing process, and I've been slipping into it more and more naturally. Now when I read older things I've written, not only can I tell what's wrong, I can usually pinpoint how to fix it. Now, as I comb through this script, I'm changing around everything, particularly the characters. As it turns out I'm far too instinctive in my writing, far too much for my own good. I suppose once I figured out I could write well I didn't reckon I needed to think too deeply about how to write anymore-- and I don't mean structure, because that's something I've built my knowledge of. It's something else that I'm just tapping into, something between structure and content-- some sort of logic. I write atmosphere very well, and second to atmosphere is my dialogue. It's usually very natural and conversational, so much so that I let it write itself and it generally sounds good-- but therein lies the problem. With my dialogue and character development I've gone almost totally on instinct-- "well, I feel like he would say THIS"-- rather than observing it logically. And that's fine, for the first few drafts. It makes the dialogue believable, but ultimately the characters, whom I think through very thoroughly, don't develop fully because I've limited them by going by what I feel in the moment that I'm writing their actions and speech. I am NOT going by the logical flow of development that I intended in the first place. I write character biographies and discuss my characters-- with myself-- but their development is not always at the front of my mind, and that tends to come out when I converse about them with other people.

IE one of my major rewrites this time around is the way in which my main character, Jerome, a murderer masquerading as a civil servant, motivated by the concept that there is reward and even reverence for doing what you feel. My intention as I was writing him was sociopathic rehabilitation (and thus, more simply, redemption), however I was so at ease with writing his dialogue that I did not apply my intention to every aspect of his character. Or if I did, I certainly didn't show it, and that's the whole point of a script. You're not telling the reader/audience what the situation is, you're SHOWING them, by jingo. In my first two drafts Jerome is intriguing but far too vague and occasionally nonsensical because his dialogue reads like a typical cowboy from a Clint Eastwood movie. When I wrote said dialogue I just assumed that an audience would pick up on the fact that Jerome is supposed to be sociopathic and is just mimicking social norms depending on who he happened to be speaking to, however after really reading the script one discovers... that is absolutely not the case at all. He kills little kids and also happens to spend most of his time engaging in humorous repartee like Curly from Oklahoma or something stupid like that. Makes no sense, and it doesn't take a genius to realize that that is not going to work. So now I attack him with a much stronger and clearer vision.

One can't simply expect an audience to "know what i mean." Unfortunately. 'Cause then I'd really be considered brilliant. Ah well.

Also, may I just say I've finally thrown myself into East of Eden and it's remarkable. The only Steinbeck I've read up to this point were Grapes of Wrath (which I, unlike the rest of America, do not really like. His writing style is fabulous but eh, something about that story. I like the movie a bit better because their truck piled with stuff reminds me of my family's move from the south to California. anyway..) and Of Mice and Men, which is absolutely wonderful but ever so sad and short. EoE is not short, though I can't count the times I've paused in my reading of it to remark to myself how heartbreaking it is. I don't know how he does it! Damn writers! Damn amazing writers, I hate and love you.

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."

"I'm beginning to feel that no author has the right to tear his characters apart if he doesn't know how, or feel that he knows how (poor sucker) to put them together again. I'm tired - my God, so tired - of leaving them all broken on the page with just 'The End' written underneath."

JD Salinger, 1943

JD Salinger, author of works that have meant much, maybe the most to me, and is without a doubt my greatest prose-writing influence (that is to say, inspiration, whatever, as i don't mean to sound like i'm following his tradition or plan to be his successor or anything), died today at age 91. I've said a few times that I'm rather impatient for his passing as it may make available all of his manuscripts written after his withdraw and seclusion from real life, but I never meant it, and I still don't expect that possibility to come together. the truth is, apparently, i found it very comforting to think that hidden away somewhere was this very brilliant, very weird, probably perpetually Holden-esque character (who perhaps liked and likened himself to young people a bit too much), still alive, still at his typewriter, this last living connection to the Glass family, this last family member. There was the thought, however abstract, that, as Holden with Fitzgerald, I might just call him up one day and have a chat, ask after Zooey (and whether the boy is too old now to consider marrying me), and Franny, and if he ever figured out where the ducks go in winter. But I guess I can't really do that now.


What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.

How sad, we have lost the last "classic" writer, I may be mistaken but I can think of none other, who has had the effect on literary America that lives. And how sad, I have lost the writer of my favorite story ever put to paper. I feel like I have lost a family, the Glass family, they have moved away, and that though they've left behind their memoirs and photo albums I will miss their presence.

How terrible it is when you say I love you and the person on the other end shouts back 'What?'

And this is just the 50th letter I’ve written you, Stanley, from where I am. They condemn me to it, this bittersweet punishment of always speaking to someone just out of range. You will never get this letter, just as you will never receive the next 700 that I am to write, nor the ones after that or before this, but my mind will never stop aching for you to hear my story, all of my stories, the stories that I never told you. I’m sorry, Stanley, and the guilt will most likely consume me for the rest of my time on earth, until, finally, they take me as well. I hope, Stanley, that when they say eternal pain they don’t mean it, and that regret cannot outlast infinity.

leonard.

Leonard came home every day. He did not go out, he did not see friends, nor did he want to; they were all dead.

i like this guy. we might be friends.

"question and answer"

he sat naked and drunk in a room of summer
night, running the blade of the knife
under his fingernails, smiling, thinking
of all the letters he had received
telling him that
the way he lived and wrote about
that--
it had kept them going when
all seemed
truly
hopeless.

putting the blade on the table, he
flicked it with a finger
and it whirled
in a flashing circle
under the light.

who the hell is going to save
me? he
thought.

as the knife stopped spinning
the answer came:
you're going to have to
save yourself.

still smiling,
a: he lit a
cigarette
b: he poured
another
drink
c: gave the blade
another
spin.

--from The Last Night of the Earth Poems

on writing and happiness. i suppose.

I WANT TO WRITE

but i can't even do that right now.

my mind is so full of people; souls storming the gates to be free, but when i pull the latch all they do is stand there and stare- surprised. like any life-long prisoner they don't know what to do once they stare freedom in the face. where will they live? who will they love? most of all- what will be their method for walking out the gate?

sometimes i think i am wasted potential, sometimes i think i runneth over with genius or magic that must be shared, and sometimes, like now, i think that potential was just a dream. a pleasant thought to cling to in order to get through the days. yes, there will always be someone better than you. but what if you're really no good at all? then where will all these souls be? that's the most horrific of all-- would they be better off in someone else's prison, do you think? would someone else be better equipped to take their hands and help them down the steps and into the garden or the spaceship or the courtroom or the river or the studio or where-ever they belong?

today i was so depressed. i reached a point where i just wanted to cease to be myself. and i hate myself for moments like that because i think it's brought on by how we live- we are so selfish. i don't mean children die in africa while we eat mcdonalds and complain about our parents selfish, but how often we turn inwards rather than to our fellow man selfish. i was so sad that i cannot be who i want to be, who i feel i need to be, and that i constantly destroy or am destroyed and all it takes for me to rebuild is me standing up, but i don't want to stand up. but i do. but i don't do it. and oh, i feel so sorry for myself. i have "PROBLEMS". and everyone else, especially the needier, more emotional, sometimes more insightful ones have their problems, and we all have these problems and no one understands us and OH we are so unhappy. these problems are made only worse by how we live, the pigeon holes we are fitted into while we are simultaneously being told that we are individuals and therefore meant to be misunderstood. No one gets us, and at the same time pretty much everyone in America is depressed. Reason says we should at least have something in common, but we are determined not to see it. again, we do not- i do not- reach out. we have forgotten we belong to each other; by trying to care for others our own pain will decrease-- in fact, this depression, this pain which we feel is so individual and so hard to understand to everyone else through empathy for another person will become universal. i know i need to work on understanding that, but i don't know how right now, and i still feel so sad! sometimes i think i was merely cut out to be like this. i'm having alot of struggle with understanding my own power to change, i suppose.

but oh, i want to, i want to write. maybe freeing them will make me happier, or maybe doing them justice, having some satisfaction with their existence, will be the only thing to make me satisfied.

Ophelia

HAMLET
I think I created you.

OPHELIA (OS)
You did. I created you too. I breathed life into you. That's how love works.

i am bloody shakespeare (and he was bloody, that one...)

woe is the soul forsaken, for my words are immortal, and how they suffer.
-me, so far as i know.

i think that's pretty good.

This is something I am thinking about right now: Thursday night I went to a best-of-the-year honors thing for my school. It was on the 20th Century Fox backlot, which was a treat for me. Actually I can't convey to you the glee I felt as my trashy little geo waited in the ranks of cars to enter through the gates. Better still, the awards ceremony was buried deep within the nest, so I had to wander around the paths to find it. It was wonderful. Night yes, so not much filmmaking going on in front of the naked eye, but do you know that delightful feeling of anticipation that fall brings in, that taste of ambition beginning to dawn on the climate? Christmas is coming, Halloween is coming, soon we'll all have turkey, what will we do and how will we do it? That's kind of how it felt. I was by myself, also, and that always intensifies these moments. It makes me wonder if I should always be by myself so I can understand things better. Anyway, it was strangely wonderful. The ceremony was nice too, I got to see what goodies that the production kids have been doing all year and some famous people were there, too. The one that excited me was Brian Hegeland, the guy who wrote LA Confidential and Mystic River and, one of my favorite movies (don'tjudgeme), Knight's Tale. Anyway, he's apparently alumni, and it was very encouraging to see him. And frightening, too, I suppose.

Senioritis hasn't really hit me, nor do I really think it's going to. At least not as severely as some others. I feel as though I've already had my moments to panic, to worry, to try to make ends meet, that weighty decisions and the idea of being done with school is not frightening in the least. Yes, I like school, I like learning, I'll be sad to see mandatory scholasticism vanish from my day-to-day as well as the comforts that will run away with it, but perhaps it's because I've done this all backwards, because I have no particularly strong social attachment to my school of choice, because I already know what I love to do... who knows, my point is I do not feel the post-grad Dustin Hoffman experience. HOWEVER. I do feel the fear of not being able to be Brian Hegeland, or Clint Eastwood, or Sofia Coppola. I don't care if I have to work two or three jobs for the rest of my life or whathaveyou, but if I don't get to write, if I don't get to create on that level I think I will have a very difficult time surviving. I suppose I define success for myself as quality, and as I was watching one of those stupid montages for one of the editors that was also being honored on Thursday, my eyes started to well up and I thought, damn. I love good film, really good film. What if I fail at that? Oh no, oh no.

So that's what I've been thinking about. I can't seem to explain it to anyone, when I open my mouth all it sounds like is the senior blues or some riff on the American Dream, but I like to think it's different, and I want God to tip the roof off of the coffee shop that I'm sitting in right now and tell me exactly how many great works I will accomplish before I die, and how many people will be affected by them, and how I will know how appreciated I am before death. Only this will make me happy right now, and He knows it, what a tease.

i was slicing up an avocado

me: marvel at yourself for a minute
i was thinking today
that seeing ourselves from the perspective of others could be so damaging much of the time
because most people you are familiar with don't even know you all that well
or want to protect themselves so they color you in negative shades without thinking
so you'd either see a pigeon hole or something not all that attractive
but
occasionally
it could be a very eye-opening thing
Maureen: yeah
dangerous
8:21 PM me: but i mean when it's the people who really love you, or even maybe think you're even more fantastic than reality because they can see your potential.
it would be cool to occasionally be able to put those spectacles on
me: to balance out everyone else. don't you think?

Generally speaking, you know what bothers me about puritans? They entice you with promises of non-alcoholic glee, and then once you've joined their cult they tell you what you're going to do-- nothing fun, that's what. They make you go to your hovel and wear grey dresses. Especially if you're a little boy. Nothing says puritanical like little boys in grey dresses. That's what the Oft Quoted Puritan says, anyway.

truth doodles

I am not strong. I am not the leader I thought I could be. I need people to complete my happiness. Trust?

A truth? What do I know?

There is always hope, and you must never abandon this idea. Hope comes to me in letters. It comes to me from god, but that doesn't mean it can't appear/manifest itself in superficial ways.

Hope is Holden's Phoebe.

ummm things i want to write.

Short Stories

-- San Francisco
-- Dentist "you're still numb"
There's a magazine next to me. I think Liv Tyler's on the cover. I make no move to pick her up, though; I never really liked Liv Tyler and I prefer to make no sudden movements lest I provoke Mr. Sugarsawra's stony looking receptionist. She has scary-looking fingers- good for filing, I presume, but probably not for holding babies or anything like that.

-- Fishing Village story.
The water seems to sympathize, its soft curves look inviting as they embrace and pass through the boat, every wave that follows seems to be perfectly in time as he hears it hit the side. He will always be a fisherman. The rhythm of the sea lulls him, assures him; he will never go home. His love is too big for harbor village. The waves crash in time with his thoughts, coming together and breaking apart, they seem to be saying the same thing, over and over as the boat is pulled deeper into the dark night.

I love you, I loved you.

-- Cancer kid/sister story. "She's real cute bald, too." "I'll bet... wtf?"

--Election Story, Voter Girl Virginity
The fall breeze was heavy with the weight of promises whispered on the winds, sent from the pulpits, called down on us from the giant televisions that seemed to be everywhere on campus. Everywhere seemed to be Election Land, but on campus it was positively inescapable. Even with the surprise of rain over Halloween weekend the posters remained, now with a sort of gritty character as their giant letters bled red white and blue and their faces sagged. Bulletins, wrapped in plastic and attached to sticks, were planted in the ground and in every dorm hallway hand written signs clung to the walls, urging all to the TV-clad study rooms to watch the action unfold. The staunch-looking, elderly conservative or the slick, refreshing democrat? Who would the nation choose to lead us now? We college kids had it figured out, for the most part.

-- The Night Granny Died and Our Friend Amanda Went to Prom

-- Dory's School

-- Funeral Home
The three of them sat there, each feeling as though they were sharing a surreal moment, one they would look back on from time to time like a memory one keeps in a shoebox- an object like a marble or a penny or an eraser shaped like a penguin. There was something so timely about their appearance, their togetherness, their almost perfectly symmetric alignment- two plus one people perfectly positioned on a bus stop. Justine didn’t want to look at either of her benching contemporaries, as a matter of fact- she wanted to believe that their expressions matched hers, that they were at that moment indeed the three wise monkeys; partaking in no evil.

She removed her glasses- just an inch from the nose, then raised her finger to give the left side a tap- but something changed her mind. Slowly, she removed her glasses entirely, dropped them into her purse, and gazed ahead as the three of them wondered in silence if their bus would ever come.

-- The town of Fopstein and Mr. Bailey
He had a dream. One of those odd dreams where you see yourself doing something, but you are also the one doing it? One of those ones. In it, he had created a person, a beautiful Tin Man with round rolly legs and square body- a Tin Man who could move and speak and answer questions.


I want to write a series of essays or stories about 20 of my favorite songs. Somewhat like Nick Hornby's Songbook, which I had forgotten the merits of until today. It will pretty much just be for my sake.

I need to find a good foundation for a novel.

Screenplays:

The Western Hamlet Masterpiece. Oh yes.

Ophelia

How Wilson Lived

Clara Bow Biopic

Lengthened version of Jackson Hole script

Fixed version of Homeschooler Script

Screenwriting Class Sitcom/Community College

Ok, i feel better now.

so i wanna get your everything

Packing/resorting for the new year, getting kind of excited. Have finally reached a sort of revitalization, even though I'm kind of tired physically. Anyway, found my old 03-06 journal. Tinkerbell is on the cover, but the inside is fascinating. People are fascinating, myself included.

I just wish I could remember if I was earnest back then, or only kidding myself.

edit:

just compiled pretty much the only remaining writing from my rough time, found in another random notebook which I just trashed.. interesting to read it now, it just drips with disconnect and anguish and self-hatred and alienation. man.
-------

An airport is a surreal place to be when you don't even feel like living. (this was scribbled out but i could still read it)

You sit there with your alloted two pieces of carry-on luggage, plagued with the traditional reservations of an non-frequent flier- the chief being "what if I've made a mistake along the way?"-- checking inside your now overstuffed purse every two minutes to make sure your boarding pass and cellphone and ID are all in their proper and accessible place. You're traveling alone- first time, come to think of it, but you really don't think of it because its never been an issue. You're here at Gate 47 and it was all easier than you thought, to be honest, but you aren't thinking of that too much and you're certainly not honest.

What you are is hoping you'll stat thinking about flying alone, making mistakes, sitting next to an ill and or psychotic basket-case with no respect for personal space. Dying, crashing, you almost wish that terrified you.

It doesn't, actually. And you can't for the life of you be afraid because more than anything you're scared of your lack of foresight, lack of anything.

It's funny, you think, to be in a place like this, a palce where previously you'd just casually people-watch and wonder about their personal lives, who they love, who they're going to see, where they're from and if they'd had the same breakfast you had. Now you find yourself consumed with fear about their pasts. What horrible things have you done, mother of two? What was the worst thing you've ever done, and did anyone ever find out?

These people are me, these horrible people are all me and I belong with them at Gate 47. I hope the plane never boards, all we'll leave is each other. Eventually we'll murder one another for linty mentos found at the bottom of handbags and cracker crumbs and juice boxes-- a mere step before we turn to cannibalism and eventually do the world a service by wiping ourselves out.

I hate myself even more for wondering it. Child molester? He's probably the nicest person in the ever. He's probably an angel in disguise, or God, even, testing me. I wish God wouldn't est me, especially when I've already proven myself a failure in His imperfect world.

another day:

This is the point where someone is supposed to call but no one does.

One thing I wish you'd all have told me was I was making your life so miserable. I wish, I knew I had things that had to be dealt with but I didn't know that I was perceived as some kind of psychopath who must be tolerated.

And by the by, most of those times you thought I was trying to make anyone feel guilty, I wasn't.
I just didn't know what to say.

Another day:

Stories with no one to tell them to, the moon, the moon.

The lamp that reminds me of your earrings.... just a billion more to regret.

Another day:

Everyone's an opportunist. I see it in everyone and I hate it.

Punishing schedules and myriad affiliations provide ties that are all too illusory. People experience profound dissonance because they are in the company of others but NOT TRULY CONNECTED TO THEM.

but can you save me from the ranks of the freaks

i'm tired.

the restlessness is fading, though, and i know i have to stop looking for the Divine Push in regards to everyday living and know that i have to start seeking the Divine on His Private Line. i have to stop hoping for people to save me, to say the right thing or be the right comfort or know what it is that i need-- or can distract me enough to shield me from this feeling of lack and empty.

boys do not pay attention to me. they cannot save me.

men do not understand me. they cannot save me.

i will be taking care of my family soon enough. they cannot save me.

friends are to be loved, not wrung of all care. they cannot save me.

i, i who have more issues than readers digest, cannot save me.

one step at a time.

dead start to story.

He did not make use of the dead horse’s remains. He considered them useless, tainted by evil. A beautiful horse, like the other three, he himself had named it, Big Joe, after himself, a kinda joke, but it was dead now and that really didn’t matter. Dad Sir was no longer around to tell him not to waste resources, to tell him what was right, so Joseph vowed to move on instinct. From the moment he saw Dad Sir in a pile, fallen and broken and trampled, he knew things were going to be different. He did not cry, it was not something Dad Sir would have wanted, and Lord knows Ma was doing enough of that for the both of them- for anyone in the whole world.

After seeing after Dad Sir’s burial the only logical thing to do was kill Big Joe. Big, beautiful Joe—he knew what was coming to him. He took it like a condemned prisoner, like one of the men Joseph’d seen hung in town, when they used to live in town.

oh the glory that the lord has made

and the complications you could do without/when i kissed you on the mouth.

the more i listen to it- and i think i've listened to it a good 10000000 times, it reaches out for my heart and just destroys it. sufjan, my stalkee (that's not true- i actually want to know nothing about him), is i think the songwriter of the decade, and this song is one of the most perfect i have ever heard. the complexity of it is just out of this world- the sound of it, the arrangement is beautiful and subtle and so easy to listen to, and the lyrics flow like poetry- it IS poetry, it is fine literature. it is also a beautiful unfolding story about first awkward love in a religious community, about growing up, and about death of a young person. He covers his story, his longings, as well as her story, her life cut short. he muses on the concept of pain and struggles with God. even more than that, every part of the story is illustrated so beautifully- described as in a refined novel. it's so evocative. i wish there were something i could manage to say about it that doesn't seem cliche, but right now everything that i have just written sounds old.

i'm just going to keep the lyrics here for quick reference.

Golden rod and the 4-H stone
The things I brought you
When I found out you had cancer of the bone

Your father cried on the telephone
And he drove his car to the Navy yard
Just to prove that he was sorry

In the morning through the window shade
When the light pressed up against your shoulder blade
I could see what you were reading

Oh the glory that the lord has made
And the complications you could do without
When I kissed you on the mouth

Tuesday night at the bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens

I remember at Michael's house
In the living room when you kissed my neck
And I almost touched your blouse

In the morning at the top of the stairs
When your father found out what we did that night
And you told me you were scared

Oh the glory when you ran outside
With your shirt tucked in and your shoes untied
And you told me not to follow you

Sunday night when I cleaned the house
I find the card where you wrote it out
With the pictures of your mother

On the floor at the great divide
With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied
I am crying in the bathroom

In the morning when you finally go
And the nurse runs in with her head hung low
And the cardinal hits the window

In the morning in the winter shade
On the first of March on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing

Oh the glory that the lord has made
And the complications when I see his face
In the morning in the window

Oh the glory when he took our place
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face
And he takes and he takes and he takes

Reading that as I listen to it is really too much.

don't you think we oughta know by now

"the harder you work to attain something the more you change."

quoth me.

"Rebellion is modern heroism"

quoth my favorite teacher, Pendleton, on the topic of the Beat generation.

I love finding old paper scraps. :)

More:

I found somebody's cellphone in the parking lot the other day. Not thegym parking lot, because I never go to the gym. Which is probably why... nevermind. My mother has more muscle definition than I do, mostly from hefting my sister, a retard who can't really mobilize herself without some assistance (or wipe her own ass).

...The science building parking lot. I was only only in that parking lot because my history class is hled in the science building- though I am taking biology, thre. And failing. But that's mainly because I never go, which is why I was in the sicence parking lot after history class and not biology, which would make more sense bu I feel the need to set you straight, you see. It was blue (the cellphone) and one of those that feel like a brick and take up very nearly your whole hand.

between march 22nd and the 23rd something changed.

And then her heart exploded, and love went everywhere. It dripped from the ceiling, soaked into the floor, stained the curtains. it ran into the street, richocheted from the buildings, flooded the beaches, enveloped all of them in its permanence; love love love.

[there's an archway between wings of mckay, where the door is. it's about five paces or something. there's a daycare out towards the parking lot, and every other day the kids get taken out on a stroll on the campus. going by mckay is first, so the archway is very exciting. they think it's a tunnel and when they go under it they make as much noise as possible to hear the echo (though there's not really one). so around 10:30 many mornings one hears a group of little voices going "LALALALALA!" it was annoying as hell at first, but I look forward to it now.]

sheik of araby

All afternoon, I, with nothing pressing, felt the weight to write. It came on frantic, as it does sometimes. My brain crafts words in a way that seems circulatory, I desire to shield my eyes from looking at the world because all I want to do is describe everything in any given moment and look for the soul of it, no- it isn't even a want, it feels like a requirement. And then I think about what I want to say, not just on paper but with real words to people that matter, and that's staggering as well. There's so much I want people to know about me, I want to blurt my essence over them like so much vomit, but they would never understand, even if I found a way to do that, they would never understand that it was fair of me to vomit on them because I want the same from them. I want to take a pair of pliers to each of their hearts and crack them open and observe what's been collected inside.

All this to say, I feel like writing so badly sometimes, and it's wonderful but also seems like such a responsibility- to be correct. To have an understanding of what I want to spell out, and to know where I'm going, but that experience is so very rare. That's when I start to wonder, what am I doing? Should I not be writing with intent? Do I really plan on "just writing" like this, for the rest of my life? There's too much to say! But does anyone want to hear it? Does anyone need to? Is it really better to destroy than to create what is unessential?

Walking out of the cafeteria today, I stopped to reorganize my books and things at a nearby table. As soon as I put my bag on the stone, I spotted the word "pier" etched on it. It's strange how evocative any one random thing can be, like we all have well-worn tracks in our mind that words and smells are sent down even before we can properly identify what we are experiencing. "Pier" made me think of the only pier I know, the Ventura pier, at home. It's been rebuilt a number of times, as my uncle reminded me at the funeral. When he last saw it, on a visit to our family, he took great delight in a horn that was situated so that it made noise according to how the waves moved it. The horn is not there anymore. I should know. Now that pier seems to me such a stomping ground. Everytime I'm on it I want to sink my teeth into it and beg it somehow for a reassurance that I'll never lose anyone- which always leads me to the question, did you ever "have" them? This I brush aside, because nobody likes those questions. They don't really have an answer, just an optimistic or cynical response. I am good at giving both, depending on what I feel needs protecting. But anyway.

Once a friend of mine, whose baby fat has since evaporated, clambored out onto the jutting chin of the wooden construction, over the rails. He hung there for a moment, looking over the sides with nothing holding him back. He wasn't even at the end, he would not have been swept away. But in the dark there's no telling with the sea. I don't know what he was thinking about when he did that, exactly, but I'll admit it was somewhat surprising. Now that I look back his swaggering "What?" attitude after he climbed back to our side reminds me of a side of him I was to see often after that, a searching quality that was all too wise to the fact of being lost with good intentions. Nevertheless, we had a conversation a few days after the whole pier incident, speaking in our melodramatic tones that we had come to rely upon in those ridiculous times, and he mentioned to me that he just had a strange feeling as he was looking over the sea, unburdened by rails for once, that even with us watching (or maybe thanks in part to us watching) he felt a weird crazy sense of freedom and calm. Short-lived, of course, but memorable anyway. He began to wax poetic on the subject of the pier- and piers in general, and finally just anything that gives you that "feeling". We then supposed that everyone had a pier in their life, or that we were constantly looking for one- basically, just a place where you can step outside of yourself, watch the sun set, feel excited to live. For some people it's a waterfall in Yellowstone National Park, for others it's a bluff overlooking LA, the top of the Eifel Tower, a desolate parking lot with one streetlight.

Now that I look back on what I considered a sort of sacred conversation, I know that I was and now am inescapably aware of the youthful silliness that surrounded our discussion- we were conspiratal, self-aware, painfully dramatic and overwrought. Everything sucked, nobody understood, and we were going to gather our little troop and live lives so different from anyone else's that by the time we were 21 we wouldn't have to be on the search anymore. Obviously, things just simply are not that way... nevertheless, every time I see the word pier, especially as I did today, I'm reminded of what I think it means, and that I haven't really found mine yet.