I’m not really a writer. Well, that’s not true. I write academically all the time, which is dumb because besides other people who want to read what I write, which is always about what someone else has already written, so that they can turn around and write it too, nobody really likes academic writing. Hell, I don’t even like it. Any book that you have to simultaneously read the dictionary with as you try to cut your way through it is sure to put you to sleep or wish that you’d have some real unfortunate medical emergency so you’d have an excuse to give your professor as to why you never finished reading the assignment. That’s the exact predicament I find myself in right now, I hate this one class that I’m in, mostly because of the reading assignments. And it’s not just that, it’s the lame writing responses that I have to turn in and the subsequent class discussions about the readings and responses. They’re always written and spoken in the same brain numbing jargon that the original reading assignment was written (read copied and copied and copied) in. Makes me feel like a phony or a broken record or something. It’s as if some academic writers are just like ‘fuck it, this shit is so boring I’m going to make it impossible for anyone not named Miriam Webster to comprehend,’ you know, just to be a dick about it because they hate their life and haven’t slept with their wife in like eight months or something.
Nick’s a writer. I really good one actually. Not like a great academic writer, although he probably could be if he gave two shits about that kind of stuff, but he doesn’t so that makes him less fake than most everybody I come into contact with. He’s a poet. He never lets me read his poems though, his friends sure, but not me. Maybe it’s the same thing as when I get nervous about my music choice around him, like after eight years he’ll think I’m uncool because I still listen to Alanis Morriset (or however it’s spelled) and Radiohead. He’s good at telling stories too. I remember Lacey saying something about that ages ago, how she could listen to him tell stories forever because his voice is so smooth, I mean like sooooo smoooooooooooooth, get it? Sometimes I think maybe poems that have such a roundabout way of saying anything are way more straight forward than academic writing, so called scholarly journals. It’s just a pissing contest to see who can use the biggest and most obscure words. But I wouldn’t know much about either, I never understood poetry and as anyone could see; I have problems with the other type. I don’t even own a dictionary anymore; the bed bugs took it a few years back.
I could segment my whole adult life by bugs. Different kinds for different stages. Apartments are fucking filthy. I’m serious, my very first apartment was like that scene in Amityville Horror where the flies come buzzing through the vents to attack the priest. It was sick, turns out that the people who lived beneath us had split on their rent but left their cat behind. It died and the flies that had been eating it flew up through the vents into our apartment. Big fat sluggishly slow flies that flew really low, it sounds like a nightmare I know, because it definitely felt like one. So flies then roaches then silverfish then flies again, bedbugs, fleas, then spiders (not really an insect but who’s counting) and centipedes, now roaches again. In Memphis, everyone has roaches and a really lazy way of talking. This city would fall into the river if it gave a shit about anybody. But it doesn’t so it just keeps on, not thriving. It’s the saddest place I’ve ever been, and I used to live in Dayton! That’s pretty bad. Ugh and the way everyone asks for money! It’s more like they just suggest it, like they’re reminding you that you haven’t given them a handout yet today. Like ‘hey buddy, you got that dollar that you were supposed to give me even though we’ve never met before and I have a nicer cell phone than you?’ Nope, sure don’t asshole, do you mind getting the hell away from my car and letting my husband pump gas. Nick hates it here too, like really, really hates it. He could probably make a fortune bartending because everyone here is so sad they’d spend a fortune to get drunk and not talk to their bartender. But he’s got this thing, he can’t force himself to be nice to anyone here, that’s how annoying they all are, not even Nick can be nice to them and he can be sweet to just about everyone. Instead, he spends time at home with Penny, which is nice because she requires a lot of attention. He’s past the whole boredom part I think. More he’s just counting down the days until we can leave this shit town, like some guy in prison. Maybe I’ll just quit school and get rich doing something that won’t benefit anyone. Like maybe I’ll become one of those cutsie kitschy singers who dances barefoot on stage and struggles to stay in tune. They’ll slap a sticker on the album that says “Indie Rock” and I’ll be famous to a small sect of fourteen year olds for like six months, retire early. Or maybe I’ll become a model, but my boobs are way too big for that shit and I’m pretty sure twenty-six is too old to model. I tried winning the MacDonald’s monopoly game but I can’t stand eating that crap. I’d get fat and ruin my chances of becoming an exotic dancer! I thought I’d write a book about whatever it is that I’m studying (your guess is as good as mine). I could get it published by AAM or Alta Mira and it would say a bunch of the same shit that everyone always says. I could sell it in a multi-pack with a dictionary so that some other poor grad student in the same situation as me can read them together ten years from now fucking hating their life and wishing they lived anywhere besides where they do.
