Left for Dead

So this break in the posting of blogs was uncalled for.  I really am not doing much with myself, so the very least I could do is to inform the world of that very little.  I like the way the title sounds and I think, just maybe, this post will be about stolen, retrieved, and forgotten parts of myself.  This relates to writing, I promise.

It starts with a road trip to my stomping grounds, those Petalumian fields of green.  The purpose of the trip was to collect and move my things, all those objects that I have collected over the years and after two quick looks in a box have determined still worth my time and energy.  My parents had them stored, for the most part, in our garage.  It is odd to see one's material life in a 8x4 space, duct-taped and stacked.  Makes me wonder why exactly I need it again, as I came here from somewhere, am currently alive, and have survived without all of it for some time.  But it is nice to be home, to have clothes for the cold California winter.

The main aspect of this life of boxes that touches on writing is, obviously enough, all of my books.  I graduated college some 6 months ago, and as an avid (AAAA-lliteration) book collecter I still have almost every single book I bought during that four year process.  I tossed out "Earthquakes and Volcanoes: A Shocking Discovery" though.  That one needed to biz-ounce.  So I have boxes and boxes of these books- Frankenstein, Frances of Assisi, three copies of the Bible, Hesiod, Illiad, etc etc etc.  I was a widespread humanities nut so I have most of classic literature in my parents garage, but the other thing I had, through only one creative writing class, was about ten books on the "Craft of Writing."  Now I'm not one for self-help books, but I wonder why I never read any of these.  Did you, other writers?  Do you read books on how to write a screenplay or the perfect short story or historical fiction?  I have one written by George Orwell.  That sounds like it could be good.

My point is that I have read a lot, but I have read very little on the craft of writing itself.  Part of the reason for that is the mentality that I don't need help, man.  I just need focus and determination, but I can write, thank you very much.  Now I know that is stupid and immature, really I do, but you still won't catch me flipping through "Writing Down the Bones."  I refused to read it even when I was assigned it.  I wonder if famous authors ever read those books; they were asked to write them (some of them anyway), so they must think it is important.

Anyway I think I left much of this part of literature for dead a long time ago.  I don't know if I ever will bring it into my circulation, it just seems to me that I should either be reading what I want to write, or writing it, and neither of those is instructional help.

This was the retrieval.  I went through the charred remains of a past self, collected what I still wanted to take with me into this brave new world, and then rolled on out.  Part of my experience was not simply retrieval, but an immense amount of nostalgia.  The longer I am out of college the more I seem to dwell on what it was like, how open, how each moment was about the next minute or hour or weekend.  I saw old college friends and we all talked about how this new life, this new existence, is really quite hard.  I guess I knew it was all fleeting anyway, but that is so easy to accept when you are sitting in a field under stars or playing Beer Pong in your backyard room called the "murder shack."  I just nodded and said, for sure man, it'll all be gone soon.  Smile, throw, owned.  But now, now it IS all gone.  So I feel as if that part of me was stolen, as if it escaped from my clutches and is now simply a memory.

But these hard feelings are what good writing is made of right?  I have a mentality (I have lots of mentalities, so get used to me saying it) that everything hard in this life will connect the me with what is hard in all people's lives.  And I will channel that, and I will write that, and it will be good. My theories don't include the out to sea feeling involved in experiencing hardship though.

Lastly, plowing through the coast of Cali, seeing old friends, and going through my objectified life, I saw the forgotten parts of myself.  I really do love collecting books.  I really do still own, use, and love my lava lamp.  I really ate pasta like every night from that pot, or cut a bajillion TJ's pizza's with that shiny circular knifey thing.  I used both crates of records and hung the tibetan prayer flags, lit candles and watched all those seasons of TV through BIT torrent.  I'm pretty dope.  That is what I forgot. What what.

I will try and post more! What are topics you want to me to address? I am great with assignments. Tell me what to do.  Please.

p.s.  Other things I left for dead: 20 pairs of old socks, a box of all my college notebooks, two moleskins I had not seem for some time, birthday cards from the past four years, a leather jacket from Italy that I had hoped was totally dope,  TLC's crazysexycool, post-it love notes, my cap (of cap and gown), Magic the Gathering cards, the Redwall series, naivetee, and about six Mars Volta posters.