I’ve decided that if I ready Henry Miller’s Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, many of the short-term wrongs will be righted in my life. I’ve been looking for something to make me think about writing and somehow think about where I’m at right now. It’s hard to explain beyond that, but I’ve read the first 30 or 40 pages of Sexus today, and it makes a lot of sense to me. Miller starts as a person who has written but who doesn’t write, but is told that he should. It’s in the context of a torrid love affair, and it makes him analyze what writing is, and why he should or shouldn’t proceed. It’s a good dialogue for me to ponder at this point. Plus, reading someone else’s prose for a while usually helps mine. So we’ll see – I might give up by page 47.
I got the three books as a present for being in Bill Perry’s wedding. That was the summer of 1994, and I read them over the last half of that year. I got started on Miller with Tropic of Capricorn at the beginning of ’94, around my birthday. It was when I was starting my transformation from whatever I was to writer. I guess it’s good to get back into his stuff, because I feel another major transformation will be required to get all of Seattle out of my sytem and really become a full-time writer.
I’ve been dealing with a strange depression, which partially has to do with me never leaving the house. I guess I had that when I was in Seattle, but I was so burrowed into my apartment, it felt good to stay in all day surrounded with my books. Part of the depression also probably has to do with not having a car. Because in Seattle, when I never left my house, I would make the 3am run to 7-Eleven for a Slurpee and then drive for 20 minutes or an hour, just for the sake of driving. Now that I am a pedestrian and deathfully afraid of getting lost or mugged or both when I do anything other than walk to the McDonald’s or Radio Shack down the street, it has begun burrowing away at me.
I have been busy – two clients, the book, the trip story, the journals, reading, and assorted cleaning/straightening/organizing which I never seem to get done. But it’s not like when you go to work for 8 hours, and then sit at home for x hours. I guess I’m just whining and babbling about all of this, but it is really starting to take a toll on me. I’ve been waiting for that magic transition period to end so everything is correct and I can do what I planned on doing before I left, which was write full-time and spend the rest of the remaining time enjoying myself. Right now, I’m not writing or enjoying myself, and that’s the problem.
I feel better today than I did yesterday, but I still feel like I was hit by a car. I’m hoping that 12 hours of sleep will knock more of this out of me. Until then, I’ve got a ton of mail to answer and I should do some more reading.