CONTINUED…
Is anyone still reading this?

I mean, I never expected a regular readership… I certainly don't post often enough or of sufficiently interesting content to deserve one. I'm still curious, though, as to who's reading. I put the site up on the Blogger directory, though I honestly doubt that people go through that…

And even if they did, what kind of person is going to want to read random weekly rantings from a college sophomore who spends too much time playing with parafilm, wasting time online, and reading Eggers, Faulkner, Stephen Jay Gould and genetics textbooks for fun?

…of course, if such a person did exist, that would be rather neat.

(My father would say I'm inviting stalkers with that comment. But what the hell. Note to all potential stalkers: I'm carrying Mace.)

Meanwhile, back at Starbucks, I'm amusing myself by attempting to overhear what different people are talking about as they walk by.

"I'm moving to California— the girl's my Mom!" jokes an Indian guy in khakis and a polo shirt to the young woman he's walking back to his car with.

"Mom, why can't I be a statue?" questions a three year old of his parent, his eyes desperately serious over his cup of chocolate chip ice cream. I strain to hear the answer to this ("yeah, Mom, why can't little Jimmy be a statue?"), but to my great regret, they're too far away, their voices carried away by the traffic noise.

It's enjoyable, catching these little fragments of people's conversations as they go by. I'm again reminded of the Wonder Boys game… you know the one, surely I've mentioned it before, where you invent elaborate backgrounds for complete strangers that you see somewhere (and try not to draw too much attention to yourself while doing so).

Great movie, by the way, if you haven't seen Wonder Boys yet. (Tobey McGuire plays a morbid English major who can recite the dates of Hollywood suicides in alphabetical order.) I intend to read the book this summer, having already read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which I very much recommend. Michael Chabon is a fantastic writer (why is it, I wonder, that so many of the artists I really appreciate are very into comics?), and if you haven't already, you should check out his article about my (almost) hometown on his website, here.

Someday I'll get a good version of the Wonder Boys game started, but without anyone else here, I play in my head, inventing ficticious histories for my fellow patrons of Starbucks. That guy walking out right now, for instance, striding purposefully, frappuchino in hand, sneakers, jeans, and a rumpled button down work shirt… he brushes past the people coming in the door without even looking at them, not as though he's in a real hurry, just as though this is his usual attitude towards other people. He… he's a mechanic, but only because he got laid off from his job with a real estate developer about a year ago after that big fight where… well, you know. Let's not mention that again.

And he's here… hm… he's here at Emory as a participant in that study that the psych department is doing on aggression in males age 18-35. He doesn't consider himself overly aggressive, but the questions on that green flyer that's been plastered all over campus matched up well enough, that flyer that his ex-girlfriend left under the door to his apartment as a joke, or maybe a jibe… no matter. He'll take the $300 cash for ten hours of his time, what the hell.

His name is Phil, and his girlfriend's name was Michelle. Or rather, her name is still Michelle, except now she's not his girlfriend… unless he killed her… aha! He killed her! And now he's waiting, hoping almost, each day that he drives out to Emory for this study, that someone, anyone, will see it in his face and realize, ask him, figure it out… He craves the thought of telling someone, envisions himself basking in the attention… preferably he'd let them know before they notice that rancid smell coming from the storage shed by his apartment complex…


I've been rereading A Hearbreaking Work of Staggering Genius over the past few days, which may be coming out in my writing a bit… but this is mostly me, writing here, even if the style's a bit different from the past few entries. I'd like to play around with the structure and style here anyway; all this time talking with Jake and Jen about what they're writing right now, discussions of narrative structure and fragmented chronology and poking fun at what is a memoir, have me thinking more about my choice of words and phrasing. I'd like for this to be more than just a weekly summary of events, an update on what's happened in the intervening time since I've last written, and closer to what I'm thinking at the moment. Don't know how well I've succeeded, today, but at the very least my right hand is in a good deal of pain, which surely must be the sign of a productive hour of scribbling.

And now, back across campus to my car, to Jim's to type all this up (we type up but write down: why is that?), and maybe have some dinner.. I bought stuff to make tacos yesterday… which will make this my third actual cooking-something meal since moving. So without further ado…

The End.
(For now.)