The Beginning of Writing - Through my Eyes- And Rabbit’s are also along for the ride.
Years of writing in journals. Age 6-through the rest of elementary school.
When I was in elementary school I was forced to keep journals and every month, we’d turn them into the teacher. One day when I was around 6 or 7, I was eating at a Monterey’s restaurant with my family, and my best friend Kevin and his family on a Sunday afternoon. For some reason, I felt the need to sketch down what had happened the past few days on the back of a kid’s place mat. The main reason I wanted to wasn’t because we were ordered to everyday at school, but because on Sunday’s everyone was too tired to chat. It was either because we’d just lived a long hard week, or that a long hard week was about to begin. I was especially upset. I despised 1st grade. My earliest journals are probably stored away in my garage somewhere, and I can’t bear to read them. I’m afraid that instead of seeing words that I wrote, I’d see a badly dran picture of a RV with fireplaces. Or a narrowly eccentric house with slides leading to the pool. Most of my journal entries were introduced with Joni Mitchell quotes and melodramatic sob stories that end with lines such as “I know now that I must walk alone”. What makes these diaries extra embarressing is the fact that I hadn’t yet gotten pier pressure. I can’t blame other 2nd graders for having me write what they wanted to hear—that was ME talking. I’d like to know what I ate when I was 6 years old? How much did I have to suck up to my parents for them to buy me candy? What did I carry in my backpack, and who did I talk to on the telephone? My earliest diaries tell me none of these things. They tell me not who I was, but who I wanted to be. That person wore a beret and longed to ride in a fancy car with Laura Nyro. He wanted to arrive at parties on theback of a camel, then made rounds at the poker tables like James Bond, speaking to celebritys such as Bruce Springsteen and Christopher Walken. He’d sketch the guests, capturing the look of wonder on their faces as they admired his quiet, unassuming celebrity. I’ve been tempted to destroy these diaries, but the very urge reminds me that I really haven’t changed that much.
One time when my family was taking a road trip from Tennesse to Oklahoma at christmas time. I was in the 1st grade still, so I still was forced to write in diaries. We stopped at a Stadium Pal— An external catheter, currently being marketed to sports fans, truck drivers and anyone else who’s tired of searching for a bathroom. I went into the disgusting bathroom, and saw and read things I shouldn’t hear till I was old enough to understand everything I saw in the movies. My father a.k.a. The Monarch, and two brothers were in the surrounding stalls, and without caution I read aloud what I saw on the wall. Decmber 14th, Age 6, On a Highway road stop on our way to Oklahoma. My first time to drop the F-Bomb, which lead with a terrifying lecture from The Monarch. As soon as we ate a cold Subway sandwhich with extra parmessean chesse, we hit the road, and I added a new chapter to my journal. A chapterthat would send me to the Principal’s office in two weeks.
Throughout the years, I’ve held television and 1st grade responible for my pursuing a career of film and journalism. Lately I’ve been working on a new play with a friend of mine. So far, all we’ve got is the title “The Life and Death of an Interior Designist”- spun off the Death Cab for Cutie song. We’ll get together, throw out some ideas, and then, by the time I’ve started writing something, the character will all of a sudden be blind, or paraliyzed from the waist down. We’re still the phase where the stories changes every hour. I’ll call her with a bit of dialogue, and find that her phone has been disconnected by her rabbit, Herb, who regularly chews through the phone cords. She got this rabbit around 9 months ago, and now her entire apartment has been rearranged to accommodate it’s needs. Herb roams freely from one room to the next. He’ll use a liter box, but only if it’s placed upon the sofa. Great piles of alfalfa, dandelion greens, and parcely are headed upon the living room carpet. He’s got all the carrots and dried food he can eat, he can’t resist chewing the furniture and electrical cords. My friend’ll wake up in the middle of the night to find Herb chewing her hair and fingernails. I left the outline of the first act on her sofa, and Herb wwas kind enough to edit it, chewing away the opening monologue and peeing on whatever is left
