Greg, NOW.

A friend of mine wants to know about me NOW. That’s his emphasis. I don’t use caps for emphasis. That’s me NOW. News flash—Greg NOW doesn’t use CAPS for EMPHASIS.

He does, however, sit at work, bored. He does actually take a moment to breathe every once in a while. The benefit of only having one job now and all manner of spare time is that he looks forward to work now. He does things, things that are part of his job description, when he goes to work. He doesn’t feel any better or worse than when he slacked off most of the time.

He has been thinking about his slipping morality, the fact that lately he’s done things he wouldn’t normally do. He stole from the theater, got busted, returned the item, and realized just how badly he’d fucked up and that, well, he did something highly uncharacteristic. He violated something sacred to him and didn’t blink until he was confronted with the reality of those words. He has been bothered by this for a month.

He’s looking forward to the end of the summer, so he can get to work on getting out of here. He can work on Murder in the Cathedral in earnest. Then again, the book list for this summer is ridiculously long and he’s pleased to get a crack at that. He’s reading old books and new books, plays and theory on theater that will serve him well. Reading time is nice, especially when it’s reading for himself and not others.

He is looking into local places to get poetry published and is coming up short. There’s a journal from in town—Poetry West—that he’s going to go after. Submission deadline is June 1 for the October issue. He’s gonna grab six of his favorite poems and send them in. Any suggestions?

He got drunk and wrote a sappy letter last night. He wants to write more letters. He loves letters. Getting them in the mail is one of the most nostalgic and delighting experiences in his life. His address is on his profile. Send him a letter, please. He will write back. He promises.

He saw a composition paper he wrote a while back where he shamelessly referenced Vonnegut, Sarte, and Derrida. He got an A on the paper. It was about “standard English,” and it was well put-together and deserving of the A. He wonders where all that panache for writing went.

He misses a woman he loves, he misses the women he’s screwed over because of that love, he misses the friends that remind him of that love, and he misses the friends who’ve shown him other loves. He misses loving, and there’s not a lot of that going on in his life. He has been very nostalgic lately.

He found an old love letter that called for the devastating comeback of love letters. It also requests that I “come over and fuck [her] until she falls asleep from exhaustion.” I asked her, when I got the letter, if the offer was still open. It was, and I did. I miss those days constantly.

All of these reminders of her keep popping up. I found pictures of she and I from last 4th of July. We went to Memorial Park, walked around, watched the fireworks and laughed at all the trashy women and dirty children. We tolerated the dew soaking through our blanket on the ground, listened to the music we could barely hear, and held one another as the fireworks exploded in the sky. I’d kiss her forehead and think to myself that this was everything I ever wanted.

Some of the people reading this know exactly who and what I’m talking about, but most don’t and probably never will. That’s okay. Brendon wants to know who I am NOW, but he doesn’t want to hear about any of the very serious things that brought me here. “A flash of interest,” he says, and he’s right—they’re not interesting, really, to anyone but me. I’m supposed to care, somehow.

Who I am now is a lonely, cynical, drunken asshole who is finding less and less to care about in the world as the things he does care about become more and more impassioned and fervent. The quantity decreases but the quality increases. He’s lazy and unmotivated for meaningless but necessary things (work, school) and ambitious and driven about meaningful but pointless things (acting, playing cards, etc.)

You know all of this. What more do I need to tell you about me? What else is there to say? When do I stop being insightful and start being redundant when it comes to understanding myself through writing? These aren’t rhetorical questions—I expect an answer.


I won't get them.