A Little Bit On Envy

My friend Pooks, whom I have never met and who surprised me a lot by becoming a big fan of The Paperwork, wrote and asked:

Enough of this nonsense.

WHAT KIND OF VEHICLE DID YOU BUY????

I wrote back and said that it was not merely oversight on my part that kept me from mentioning the make and model. I am a big fan of details in writing--the more the better. True, Stephen King does take the use of specific detail to outrageous extremes, but I speak of details thrown in to give the reader a picture, not a shopping list. It is always better to speak of "an elm tree" than "a tree."

I haven't mentioned the type of car because, frankly, one of the 7 Deadly Sins is Envy, and I've felt it enough myself to know that it ain't pretty. Most of the people reading this journal aren't running out and buying new cars, especially if they haven't been working while attending graduate school. I read tons of journals where the writer mentions stopping by the library to get a copy of a book because he or she can't buy their own copy--I have my own personal hotline to Amazon.com. Or, as Pooks reminded me, that Darin and I could set up two households when I first started attending USC.

Things are pretty good around here, and I hate tooting my horn about that. I could take the easy way out and make up stuff to seem more dramatic (DARIN UNEXPECTEDLY MOVES TO SOUTH SEA ISLAND)--but I'm a terrible liar. (A great obfuscator, a pretty good actress, a terrible liar.)

I live a pretty boring existence--on the outside, anyhow. The most exciting things to happen in my life recently have been Carolann's self-destructive explosion and my mother's flame-out at my sister's wedding. Neither of which I particularly participated in, just observed. I'm a pretty placid, well-put-together person. On the outside.

All of my problems are internal: as I have often said, if I were a baseball player, I'd be a left-handed pitcher. (For those of you who don't get the reference, left-handed pitchers are thought to be the wackiest guys out there.) David Frazer, writing from a safe distance in London, assures me that at least on the 1-to-Don Simpson scale, I appear to be doing okay. He read an article about the new biography of Simpson and mentioned to me:

Voyeurs of Hollywood excess are also offered a complete list of Simpson's medicines, including such delights as librium (for mood swings) and depakote (for acute mania). If that makes you wonder whether you're as much of a headcase as Simpson, the answer would appear to be no, because I haven't said anything about his sex life.

Well, it's true: I don't take any drugs (save caffeine and chocolate, and the first person who compares one cup of coffee a day to anyone who's ever had a coke problem gets slapped across the face) and my sex life, while of course spectacular, is happily monogamous and doesn't involve either other people or helpless animals, let alone rafts of hookers. (Believe it or not: the subject of having a couple of hookers stop by for a little late night excitement has never come up!)

On the inside, I am a seething well of melodrama. I am very rarely, if ever, present in the here and now, which makes a)for a great fantasy life and b)it difficult for me to follow all but the simplest of conversations. You wonder why I'm a writer? My answer is always: how could I not be? I have no idea how I started having such a rich and detailed fantasy life--I didn't have a traumatic childhood. I just like making up stories, with me as the center of attention.

I am also scared and fearful and anxious and terrified and paranoid. Probably because I need some kind of opposition and I don't get a whole hell of a lot of it from the outside world. I think I imagine running across obstacles so often because I usually don't.

When asked to describe my life, I invariably say, "Pretty damn good and always getting better." Not a whole heck of a lot of pain and strife, externally. Just remember, if we ever meet: you can always needle me about how scared I am.

People don't want to hear this, so I don't say it. People don't want to hear that your life is really, really good--they want to hear that it's bad, or they wish you ill. If things did turn badly for me--Darin suddenly runs off with the LA Laker Girls, for example--I know that I would get a good does of schadenfreude directed at me. Because people are human.

However, all that being said, I will tell you that the letter "M" is significant in deducing the type of car.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

4.7 miles, gently. I can still feel yesterday in my thighs, and today's just accentuated the pain--more of a dull ache; when I get the sharp, shooting electric pains, trust me: I am the first person to hobble to bed and say, "No more for me."

Despite going gently, I did it in 47 minutes, rather than my usual 49. This makes me happy.