a naked lunch is natural to us…

I’m unsure where to begin. I don’t want to expose myself, my vanity and delusions, but I see no other way out. The grandiosity of the last sentence kills me, but I can’t come up with a concise explanation that scans any better than that. A way out. Of what? I’m in no danger, under no duress. It’s possible that my current mode of life is the best that I have ever experienced, so what then? A deluge of words to avoid the real question. A self indulgence and, as I wrote, a vanity. This isn’t living up to the title, but I know nowhere else to go.

I am twenty five years old. My (only) child (a girl) will be one year old on October 13th. My relationship with her is the most straightforward and least dysfunctional interaction with another human that I have ever experienced. So much so that it causes me to question the basic premises with which I have approached life. A quarter of a century gone and I’m not sure where I’m going with this.

I have always been obsessed with myself. There are going to be a lot more sentences beginning with “I” unless I can avoid it. Other people have always told me that I am a strong/good writer. I have done nothing to prove this and much (in my opinion) to disprove… It is very easy for me to lie, both to myself and others. That statement in and of itself is probably worth several pages. There have been periods in my life during which I have written a lot. It is unlikely that I believe in god. What bothers me is that I’m not sure why. I admire Henry James more than I should, more than I have read by him… as in, I don’t deserve to admire him to the extent to which I do. I used to be a solipsist. I no longer think that this is true.

I will stop and say that I do not have a lot of time during which to write. There are years which I wasted in which I could have been and didn’t, mostly because I was drugged (unwillingly, later willingly). Fitting this exercise into my life with ALF will be a challenge. I also intend to write a romance novel for the month of November (Nanowrimo). I plan a lot of things  which I never realize.

I feel slightly panicked. Not enough time to be eloquent or even thorough. This is no proper beginning. It says nothing and is hackneyed. Not even worth the content of an email. It is going to be very difficult for me to a) keep up with this b) not delete what I do write. It seems to me as if it is important that I do although my reasons as to WHY it’s important aren’t quite clear to me.

I will explain a William S. Burroughs reference. After he killed his wife, he said that he “had no choice but to write [his] way out.” I would like to do that before I take an action of that magnitude. I’m not sure exactly what I’m writing my way out of. I used to be certain. I used to be sure that I was a solipsist (which I have already said that I am not) and that I had some kind of existential dilemma. So many of my “problems” have been alleviated, made irrelevant, or at least mitigated by ALF’s existence that none of my prior statements hold completely true for me. That’s a big change for me. Words are important to me. I’ve repeated the same words in my head over and over for years. I used to describe “it” as a Chinese finger-trap. The obvious solution to a  puzzle of that sort is to stop pulling, maybe that is what I did but I have to figure it out. I have…

This is really bad, imprecise language. I know now that I am going to have to try again and again to explain what I am/was doing in order to get it right. I have to make an effort not to delete. Not to even reread to any great degree, but to soldier forward in the hope that something will unstick.

I have years of self-preservation to undo. I have my whole life in front of me and that is not very long. I have a lot of other things going and it’s going to be hard for me to take this seriously. I am going to try again later. It will be badly put.