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i am writer, hear me scrawl
February 10, 2005
First... Wow. We're at $555 and more is coming in. OK, scratch that - $1,055. Holy crap. You guys all kick ass. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, please go here.
i flipped open the notebook last night, and it's at least half-full, about 70-80 pages covered in the scratchwork of my thoughts. it made me pretty happy.
see, over the years, i've bought a lot of notebooks, from spirals (lines too small), to small leather-bound journals (too small), even a big chief tablet (too flimsy/scratchy/funky-colored/stupid). i bought them periodically on the premise that a new notebook would encourage me to fill it with words, as i used to when i was younger, before the stupid intrusion of law school.
over the years, i accumulated and recycled a lot of empty notebooks.
all that's changed, thanks largely to the blog, and just some changes in habit: working downtown near a few comfortable niches where i can sit and write (last night, the bar at halcyon); finding a little release in beer; finding a little release in more reasonably moderate amounts of beer; getting back in touch with music with the iPod, and therein, getting closer again to my own soul.
when i began running, i struggled, because i was "doing" running. someone wise told me that the key for me would be moving past the doing, and simply becoming a runner.
it's the same thing with writing. it's become easy again, unlike all the times i sat with the latest notebook, or in front of the computer, and struggled to "do" writing, to force words out. now, whether any of this stuff is worthwhile or not, when someone asks me what i do, i can think of the blog, of the hours spent alone in a bar scribbling like mad, or banging away at a keyboard in the dark. i can think of this notebook full of words, and when someone asks what i do, instead of answering despondently that i'm an attorney, i can answer, "i write. i'm a writer."
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a small, trivial cool moment last night. one of the girls at halcyon asked the other where she should take some people for drinks. i looked up and said, "G&S Lounge." both of them turned to me, impressed, i think, with what the 35 year-old lawyer had just suggested.
i so despise being misread, pigeonholed into an identity by what i do for a living or what i wear when i do it. it's nice when people realize it's not me, that i'm not the attorney, not the starched shirt and tie. don't underestimate me.
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ok, you should have seen what i coughed up this morning. incredible. as crappy as i've felt all week, the byproducts of the annual sinus infections i've had since i got my nose broken are kind of ripley's believe it or not cool...
Posted by Rob at February 10, 2005 10:51 AM