I don't know which is worse: that you so freely take advantage of me, or that I allow you to.

"Shouldn't let you torture me so sweetly"

Me, myself and I

Everything I write, even when it's not about me, is about me. The words that I choose, the perspective from which I speak, the flow of the language. All of it is uniquely me. Maybe one day there might be one person who could begin to read something and immediately think, "Yes, I know this. I recognize their writing," and they would be talking about me. And they would be impressed, and excited, because they would know, based on my body of work, that the things they were in the process of reading would be nothing but exceptional, because they had become accustomed to my style and decided that they like the things that I produce, no matter how strongly tinged with "me" they are. That maybe, they would appreciate the "me" injected into each piece.

"Every writer is a narcissist. This does not meant that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed."
- Leo Rosten

I want someone to notice. I want someone to be so enthralled in my entire being that they notice things about me that I've never seen. I want you to acknowledge the things that I like about myself, and then point out things that I had never thought to like. Show me that you appreciate me, and every ounce and inch of my being. Be nicer to me than I am to myself, and call me out when I'm not treating myself as well as I should. I want someone to feel all of these things about me and be honest about it.

Please, care.

"blemish, n.
The slight acne scars. The penny-sized, penny-shaped birthmark right above your knee. The dot below your shoulder that must have been from when you had chicken pox in third grade. The scratch on your neck - did I do that?


This brief transcript of moments, written on the body, is so deeply satisfying to read"
- Excerpt from The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

There are times when you can sit in front of a blank page for hours, reading and rereading the prompt, hoping to be stricken by a thought good enough to be immortalized on a page. I find that these are the times when it is most necessary to let the nonsense flow from brain to hand to page, if only to get the spring of ideas flowing. I usually allot the first page or two to gibberish, so that by the time I arrive upon the third page, I am producing things worth keeping.


"There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know 'til he takes up the pen and writes"
- William Makepeace Thackeray

The art of celebration

The celebration of nothing is something that continues to baffle me. People get together, dance, get drunk, have sex with strangers, do drugs, all because they made it to the end of the week. Because these are the things that are "fun" and signal to others that the people celebrating know how to have a good time, and are the epitome of class and luxury and should be admired for their enjoyment of "the finer things". While it seems like many young people enjoy these activities, I have never understood why, because most of them have done nothing and accomplished nothing that would warrant such extreme debauchery. I exist under the impression that only those who have accomplished something are worthy of luxe celebrations. Part of the discord between my understanding of enjoyment and other peoples' is that I have a different idea of what "celebration" and "luxury" are, and I believe that excess involves more than just spending too much money.






"They remained silent, letting the room be filled by the sounds which centuries of men and of struggle had established as the symbol of joyous attainment: the blast of the cork, the laughing tinkle of a pale gold liquid running into two broad cups filled with the weaving reflections of candles, the whisper of bubbles rising through two crystal stems, almost demanding that everything in sight rise, too, in the same aspiration."


- Excerpt from Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand

For those with writer's block...

"If you're afraid you can't write, the answer is to write. Every sentence you construct adds weight to the balance pan. If you're afraid of what other people will think of your efforts, don't show them until you write your way beyond your fear. If writing a book is impossible, write a chapter. If writing a chapter is impossible, write a page. If writing a page is impossible, write a paragraph. If writing a paragraph is impossible, write a sentence. If writing even a sentence is impossible, write a word and teach yourself everything there is to know about that word and then write another, connected word and see where their connection leads."

- Richard Rhodes