2 years!

So, I have been post-college for two years now, and it so happens to be the juncture where I am moving to the next piece of my life. In honor of that, I looked back at my three journals (which were very haphazardly used, much like this blog) from this brief by interesting period of "real-life" (after which, of course, I am retreating directly back into school, just to keep up with my own idealism, I guess) when I worked at S&B and lived in Queens.

JOURNAL ONE

"So maybe I am a writer who doesn't write. OR, maybe I am a writer who WILL write, one day. One day very soon. I can't believe I just bought something for $26. I never spend money like that!" (I find this sort of endearing. How little real sense I had of money until I started, briefly, making some not at minimum wage.)

"So, I should go to sleep but I don't want to because that means I have to go to work tomorrow. I guess I'll have to go to work tomorrow anyway."

"Tomorrow I'm working for 18 hours straight. I suppose I've done that before, but I can't remember any specifics."

"I want: X to write back soon, to have a good weekend, to have tomorrow go by fast, to get enough sleep, to not get fat, to be a great writer, to find an agent, to sell my screenplay for loads of money, to be an artist and a designer, to not sacrifice my ideals, to change something positively." (I like the progression of this little paragraph. It's almost cute, as if I wrote it when I were ten. But I am glad I wrote it less than two years ago.)

"There is a thing with being an artist where you have to choose which voices to listen to. It seems that some of my early short stories were crap, and some others managed the craft quite well. As soon as I was told I can write a normal story -- that was when I should've gone back to doing whatever the hell I wanted. You need to know which advice to drop and which to take -- this is harder than you think. There are tons of would-be-writers out there who are too stubborn or self-righteous to change their craft. Maybe they think they are just doing there own thing and fucking the man, but maybe they just suck at writing. On the other hand, if Faulkner or Joyce had listened to anyone say "make more sense" then they would've been fucked, too. So, alas, it is not so easy to tell which advice to take, which to leave -- that is an art all its own, I suppose."

"I guess I always kind of shamefully regret never actually being put in a mental institution for a brief but writerly, tortured-soul period of time."

"I am on the LIRR and it is night and I like pressing my face up against the window."

"I would never want to go back to high school -- but that pain was so real, and you were so young so it was all the more powerful, and there were so many possibilities for when you were free -- how you'd live differently. It's not quite like that, though. You don't really have all of those possibilities, you are always bound by something -- money, a job, yourself, your family, what everyone thinks you should be."

"What do I want? I must get it. And soon. I cannot wait my whole life to see if it will begin. It has begun, and so I must begin to live it how I want."

JOURNAL TWO

"I don't know how adults deal with life. I mean, at least with education you always, always felt like you were somehow going to the next level, and even if you didn't like what you were doing at a particular moment, there was at least an end in sight. I want to be independently wealthy. My mom always says that, but she makes a good point."

"I am supposed to be talented. I kind of feel like a washed-out Tenenbaum."

"Do you think it's the fact that the day is over that plays the biggest part in evening being so special, or the fact that it's dark? If it's because it's dark, I think I might like a long period of darkness so I can read and write and watch movies. Sometimes it feels very silly doing these things in the middle of the day."

"There is so much about my life to love: my creative celebration of random holidays such as The Oscars and National Poetry Month; my bed, my lime green room, my pink quilt; my mac; my family that loves me [...]"

"Funny how things important to a company aren't actually important at all."

JOURNAL 3

"I am not sure why I can't write a story. It is a bad omen for my future as a writer. GOD! I dislike plot so much. I just want to ramble directionlessly and see where I end up. I don't care if something happens. I don't' want to make some shit plot. Contemporary fiction always does that! Stupid, complicated plots where weird shit happens."

"I was using amazon.com's 'look inside' Sylvia Plath's journals. She wrote like a writer even there. I do not. I feel awkward writing details like that. Also, back then, people seemed to eat and drink things that sound literary, like 'cool sweet milk.' What is sweet milk? I don't even know."

"I'm trying to go about understanding how people manage to write books without big, ridiculous plots."

"Sometimes, when life is getting crazy, I look in the mirror and think: what would it be like in there? I would just crawl in there and live, just me and my room and an empty world, as if my room had been picked up by a tornado and was floating around."

"This is the life I want, I think. No schedule. Bohemian. This really might be it."

"That is am-az-ing. Crap. I am so bad at syllables. What's the definition of a syllable anyway?"

"Two cups of coffee. Today, tomorrow -- mine! How could I want for anything more but the assurance that this could last? Caffeinated on the free, unguarded potential of today."

xoxo,
Maria