I wish I read faster. I'm sure I read fast enough, fast as most anyone; I guess I mean I wish I could read more. Lately I've been actively reading at least three things at once. I wish I could process more quickly: there's so much I want to assimilate. Yes, also, that's significant, my motives for reading, but not now: I'm determined to write a light, uncritical entry tonight.

I am morbidly under-read, however, and I really kick myself now for spending most of my teen years reading Soap Opera Digest exclusively. Couldn't even be bothered to read what substance was assigned me in class. And now look at me, I know nothing.

Interesting, though, because I do attribute good writing to depth of reading, and I consider myself a good (if unimaginative) writer. So I think I'm still working off the Beverly Cleary, A Little Princess and Charlotte's Web I read at a prodigious age. Interesting and also a shame -- who knows what I'd be if I continued this into favoring Austen or Salinger over young adult romances.

When I call myself unimaginative I mean in a purely, literal creative sense, and I'm not sure if anyone would try to argue with me here (because the truth of it seems so obvious to me), but please don't. Most of my life I wanted vaguely to creatively write: up until 8th grade it was mostly "when I grow up I want to be a writer," and then I lost confidence and revised to journalist, and then I -- not regained confidence -- became utterly obsessed with mass entertainment and revised to screenwriter. I wrote quite a lot as a young girl, actually -- Nancy Drew knock-offs; tried to write a sequel to Jurassic Park before Crichton got to it. Tried to elaborate some assignments from class, which always went above and beyond to start with. (I really wish I still had my old stories.) Then I turned exclusively to fan fiction and by the time I could recognize the crap I turned out for what it was, I just stopped writing altogether rather than work at improving, and I revised my career plans entirely.

So on that count, too, I kick myself now. Should have really worked at the substance, instead of falling in love with the way I could manipulate a sentence (in all ways, I was then complicated on purpose; a code to decipher, not all that well encrypted). In high school all the electives I tooke were English, so that I had enough credits to opt out of 12th grade language arts. Idiot. Should have taken AP English anyhow. I was so lazy. Didn't matter that I loved it. I wanted two study halls, the better to worship Kreiner with.

Anyway, it just seems to me that my life is coming around to a path I might have been on anyway if I could ever have stuck with anything; and though the detours have in some ways been illuminating, they have also been stunting. I could have done so much more, and I would have been so much better by now. Oh, you know me, I don't fault experience for anything, but in this one sense, it feels like wasted time.

Well, I'm here now, and now I'm currently consumed with de Beauvoir, Woolf, Plath & Wharton. And--

ha, the next point might have followed quite logically, but I am compelled to write a sidebar here on Virginia. I have to admit, for the longest time I have been afraid to read Virginia Woolf. I have at the same time wanted to delve head first into her collected works and I have sensed (no, I know) that she would be (is) one of my favorite writers; I have called her my favorite writer without having read very much of her work. I started Mrs. Dalloway immediately after finishing The Hours; I have now started Mrs. Dalloway three times. Each time marvelling at every word, but terrified all the same. I did not feel somehow ready for Virginia Woolf. Oh, I just think she is the most impressive, challenging, stimulating writer: I wanted to properly adore her. So I own many of her books, and I've read much about her. The summer I meant to devote entirely to her I turned instead to her buddy Forster. I didn't trust myself yet with Virginia.

So now I am reading her diaries, which seems a good introduction -- and working up the courage!

(Again, with my motives) I am not yet cool enough for Virginia Woolf, but (I flatter myself) I will be.

So somehow I was going to gracefully lead into the future and imaginative/creative writing. A few months ago (lord, it was barely two) Josh told me about an idea for a novel he was mulling over and pulling together over smoothies at the mall. I only vaguely remember what was said, but as I recall he had good ideas and I had good advice. I marvelled at the creative process inside his head. I really sat in awe even as I thought of some objective suggestions. And then he asked about me -- Josh, I wish I remember what you said, for it really caught me off guard! Didn't I have the same thing, see these visions that demanded to be recorded on paper, feel that visceral need to create?

I confessed I didn't; but in that moment I knew I wanted to. I wanted to feel that passion he did, a sort of passion which I believe only exists creatively. And now I think I did once feel that way, or could have if I'd nurtured my aspirations with any commitment. I killed all those instincts in me, either through laziness, a misguided shift to an ultimately empty sort of prose, or silly goals based on television shows. But lately I have started to feel it: a need to create, though this need remains utterly without direction. No, I don't yet have a clue what use I ought to make of it, but it's starting to feel like the only worthy course..

Well, I will think of this as a sort of experimental phase. I don't think there's a novelist inside me in the way there definitely is in Josh. But I want to feel my way around people and words for a while. Lani and I have a vaguely-defined project we're vaguely working on. And, you know, we'll see. I want to start writing more and about more things; it just feels like something I need to work on right now; it feels intense, crucial, and personal.

In any case I feel I've so well defined "my voice" that it's becoming static. Which is a terrifying adjective to direct at any part of me, so it's a good time for this.

Along the same lines -- I'm a bit envious of Josh & Lani as they shop for a violin and bass respectively. No, I'm no more disciplined now than I was a year ago and this I know is not the time to think of taking up my instrument of choice again. But I do have a long-term ambition of learning the guitar and writing mediocre self-revelatory songs. So that remains in the background.

And I want to put some serious effort into Spanish before I take up French in the fall. I am really quite excited about both. Languages don't seem to have any definite place in my life or future, but it feels somehow of great importance -- passionate importance.

And on a completely unrelated, or possibly contradictory, note -- at least today I feel if I can't go straight to grad school I wouldn't mind working in a completely mind-numbing desk job for a couple years. No, really -- I've proven here to have an enormous capacity to fill completely useless hours and not mind so much not really doing anything with my time. If I have to work, I want a job with as few responsibilities as possible. I want to do data entry. I'm so not even kidding about this. An utterly worthless 9-5 job, and then come home to my naturally awesome apartment in Columbus, eat something that barely passes for a meal and read VW all night. The nights and weekends will be mine, and I can do the things I want to do while abandoning my days to pointless, soulless mediocrity. It's not at all like me -- a terrible project, yes -- but I could keep it up for two years.

In either case Columbus feels like the place. Two hours still feels like the perfect distance from home, and it is unquestionably the least lame location two hours from home. And I cannot in good conscience remove one solid liberal vote from this conservative-but-there's-always-a-chance state. I like Columbus. It feels like a place I could call home for a few years. Yes, if not London, Columbus will do.

So -- a few more pieces --

I rather believe that the nice people feel more temperately & universally than we do -- and with none of our passion.
VW