The Sounds of Silence
(16-25 July 2001)
25 July
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-Hm, not so easy...
-History is nothing but repetition.
Endless
opportunity for change, endless rejection of the opportunity, & then the
opportunity dresses
itself up new & charges again. That's what this planet's all about, it
would seem.
One of a few things. But really, at root, only a few.
-"The
cross is in
the ballpark..."
-Halfway through Part Two!! You'll notice that I
started Part Two just a week ago, as
it's FLYing by at almost 7 pages a day. Insane. With current totals at
245p/81,069w, I think a 1 August completion target is looking very reasonable.
Even if
that doesn't happen, being a clean week ahead of deadline is HIGHly probable.
Oh baby,
so tasty!
-So I had some inexplicable desire this afternoon to go to the TRAMWAY
Waffle House.
Beats me. Anyway, once I got there, the waitress looked a little
familiar, but the
gobs of blue eyeshadow prevented me from making a sure connection. It wasn't
till I heard
one of the "regulars" at the counter calling for Rita that I suddenly
remembered my
senior project & a woman named Rita, looking uncannily like this, who was
perhaps my
favorite co-worker at Noonday. Wow. I can't be sure, but I'd say with
95% certainty
at this point. But then I was just wondering. She didn't recognize
me... I was
wearing a hat & my hair's probably 3 times as long as it was back then, &
if she's got
a steady job, she's probably trying to forget the bad old days. Which is why
I felt too
awkward to blurt out "Did you used to do community service at Noonday?"
or some such
thing. But it would've been nice to know. Instead I just left a 40% tip
& wished
her a good day. Maybe I'll go back there before summer's through.
-Then I
went to the
public library across from AA, mostly because I'd never been there, but also
because I didn't
know if I was going to meet JP for basketball at AA or not (turns out not).
Regardless,
I was looking for familiar authors, & they didn't have much worthwhile that I
hadn't read,
but they did have this copy of WD that was the same edition as a Hannukah gift I
gave in '96
(you do the math) & I started thinking altogether too much about where that
edition is now.
It chilled me to think I could be holding it right there. Too bad I
don't believe in
book inscriptions by non-authors. Anyway, yeah. There's nowhere good my
mind could
go with that, but I picked a story at random from the 1999 Best American Short
Stories collection,
which turned out to be a well-written but misdirected piece about deception &
how (if I
recall the quote exactly) "life is full of empty coincidences &
accidents".
Like I said, misdirected.
-Then I drove towards home & listened to old
Wallflowers (not
old old Wallflowers, but old Wallflowers) & watched the God-clouds & felt a
little
somber, but kind of good somber, like I'm synchronized with all that Benevolence
& Sorrow.
Once upon a time, they called me the bleeder.
-In other news, Transmission
(linked above) is back! But with a distinct absence of Archives, which is
unfortunate.
-Also, the APDA website is on
its way back from the dead, & at a new address!
24
July 2001
[from Albuquerque]
-Wanna know something scary? Actually, this will
mean nothing to
any of you, but I'll go ahead anyway. I was sitting here thinking
"Hm... July 24th,
that means SOMEthing, doesn't it?". Well it does. The County
System started
13 years ago today. It's okay, I don't expect anyone to understand, but it
was worth
noting, I thought.
-Summer's fading all of a sudden. It's like today I
really realized
that I'm not in real danger of not finishing the novel, so I came up for air &
suddenly it's
hitting me that school & all that's coming back in about a month.
Sheesh!
-WEIRD dream last night. With a side of fries. Very
very real, even though the
focus was meeting a stranger in a movie theater. Odd. Anyway, it's rare
that I'll
wake from a dream & think that I really want to meet that person in real life.
Hmmmm.
Ah well. Maybe it was so realistic because they actually exist
somewhere. Right...
& maybe there's a REAL explanation.
-By the way, folks, Jaque is okay
in Australia,
& tried to send out an e-mail to "the guys" that apparently didn't
get through.
Just thought I'd give the proverbial heads-up.
23 July
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-If I start a petition to ban Creed & Staind from
radio play, will
anyone sign it with me?
-That wasn't so hard.
-No matter what one does, the
future just
keeps coming. But sometimes, quite remarkably, it comes slower than one
expects. &
that's kinda spiffy.
-Damn songs. Damn timing. Damn.
-Yay!
Redscape is back up! If you want
to check it out, I'm involved in the "Dixhuit" game (as Russia, of
course)...
22 July
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-10 pages in this overnight brings me to 225 total.
That's quite
exciting. I'm on the verge of that point in the novel where I see where
everything, even
the small little things, are going to come together exactly. It's enough
momentum to
really make quick work of these last 50-80 pages, methinks. I don't know for
sure.
But at this point, things are flowing very well as I sail over 70,000 words.
My
spirits are sailing mostly.
-I never can be sure what some of my friends will
be flattered
by & what they'll be offended by. & before you get all excited, THAT
worry has
NOTHING to do with the novel. Promise.
21 July
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-Hee hee! Lisha went & saw "Happiness"
(read all
about this at the above link). Funny stuff. The biggest problem is now
that she's
written all about it, I've had to think about it again, & that movie is the
popcorn
between the teeth of the mind. Yucko. That one just doesn't go away if
one gets
thinking about it. I remember talking to Ariel about this (she, Decker,
& I saw it
when it was at the Beantown theater... the only time I've been to Kendall Square
Cinema without
a girlfriend who I was within less than a month of breaking up with, incidentally)
& about a
year after we saw it, she said she still thinks about that film. I think
that the main
point is to show how vile humans can be without giving any obvious appearance of
such.
Maybe it's not COMMON, but it's there sometimes & doesn't necessarily
show on the
surface, especially to the oblivious.
-Rita Mae Brown has the ultimate quote of
the
millenium, also related to happiness (this time the concept, not the movie):
"One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory." Truer words
I have rarely
seen.
-Tonight was a really fun night, consisting in (finally!) seeing John,
& hanging
out with him & DK at both DK's place & the Texas Land & Cattle
steakhouse.
I managed to find something to eat... jalepeno poppers & fries, &
the waitress
decided to say that I was the one getting lots of grease! I promptly told
her that I
needed it, which she eventually agreed with, but Kunx & JP accurately wondered
why she
didn't pick on them for their steaks. I guess steakhouses just don't know
what to do
with vegetarians. Ah well. Then DK & I watched some more
non-vegetarians in
"Jurassic Park III", which wasn't terrible, but really had some
problems. If
that's the going rate in Hollywood, I should shift from novels to scripts.
But there
were some classically funny moments too. I just don't think any of the
actors for one
second took it seriously that they actually existed on the same worldly plane as
dinosaurs.
The cell phone stuff was great, though. It was funny & I just
can't stay away
from dinosaurs.
-I don't get out much these days, do I? Well, about 3
more weeks &
if I finish the novel, I'll be euphoric all the time.
-Oh, & I almost
forgot: it's survey time! Schneider claims that no females
like Blink-182. I strongly disagreed, but really only had Fish's sister as a
counterexample.
There must be more! I mean, I'm not saying females like them at the
same rate they
like DMB, but still, it's higher than John thinks, right?
-I'd hate to jinx
myself, but since starting Part Two, I've been rolling along at just
under 6 pages a day, which might actually mean that I'd finish BEFORE deadline
(assuming, of
course, that I keep it up). Yowza.
20 July
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-In case you're wondering where Mesco's Transmission
(linked above) went,
she informed me the other day that it's on a more or less permanent hiatus.
Maybe without
archives. I don't know what to do with the above link per se, but sometime
when I'm
more focused on the web than my novel, I'll get around to doing
something.
-Happy Birthday
Drew! Glad to hear Buffalo's improving a bit. & 24 ain't THAT old,
right?
-If the upcoming 3 weeks equal the output of the past 3 weeks, I'll be
just fine.
To the tune of 300+ pages, basically. Which is right on target, or
even a little
better.
19 July
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-Whoa! Hotmail
got all
crazy-like. Actually, they just changed the whole format, & it actually
looks a little
bit better. Which is groovy, because with my new Diplo
game, I'm gonna be using hotmail much more!
-Part Two begins
tonight!
-Everyone's summer
has just been some downtime, it would seem. Nothing wrong with that. I
dunno.
Mine certainly has, but I haven't been very focused on that with all the
writing I've been
doing. Should be writing more e-mail (still), but I just don't know.
Once I finish
the book, I'll be writing like crazy to everyone. Seriously. Because
(A) I'll have
things to say & (B) I'll want to do writing other than my novel. Right
now, though,
I'm just trying to cruise in another 75-100 pages in the next 3 weeks. Wish
me luck...
18 July
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-No traction.
-In the midst of the badness that was last
night, I wandered upon
this site, which I fear could be a major
time-waster of
mine for years to come, or at least for a while. If you're craving some
Diplo, methinks
that might be the place to go...
17 July
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-DONE with Part One!! This is seriously exciting
stuff. The
final stats (first draft stats, of course) on the book so far (Prologue & Part
One combined)
are 62,144 words which, because of heavy dialogue sections, works out to 197 pages
by the
calculations I've been using. Those of you scoring at home will realize
that, counting the
rest of today, I have 23.5 days to write Part Two, which means that said Part will
be shorter,
which is what I've been predicting all along. Optimism riding high!
Woo!
16 July
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-How I love Waffle House.
-This novel would be a whole
lot more of a
fun process if I didn't WORRY so much!
Introspection, My Worst
Friend* (Current)
Ye Olde Archive (Past)
Tell me this is not the end...*
*-lyrics from an as-yet unreleased song, "The Same Old
Frontiers",
by SWClayton.