So I managed to get something out of all this academic writing: an essay on David Mamet’s Speed The Plough. It’s not going to win any awards or be cited in future critiques of his work, but at least it’s found some online permanence. The massive theater database Total Theater added my piece to their archives. Now, there are some formatting issues, some missing footnotes, etc., but you can find the full version on my site. Or visit Total Theater. Or do neither.
I find myself missing school these days. The fickle bastard does not disappoint—I complained about how it took time away from writing, now I long for the structure. Did you see this coming? I did. The year is past. I have a desk filled with short fiction and an unwillingness to do anything with it. I had lunch with a (former) classmate and while sitting across from her, watching her pick away at a slice of pizza, I realized how quickly eras become dream-like. The pretext for our meeting was gone; hours earlier I’d been sitting alone in the student union, munching on a bag of almonds, visiting campus for no good (or bad) reason. None of it seemed real. By “real” I mean a part of any grand, linear narrative—school remained separate from my personal life, thus occupying its own timeline. There was class, and there was my home. There was school writing, and my own writing. There were my school friends, and my “real life” friends.
False distinctions? Perhaps. Common among older students? Perhaps. Whatever the case, it all seems like a dream. Now I sit in my living room once more, gazing out the window at the sprinkler on my neighbor’s lawn. Nostalgia doesn’t feel accurate. It’s more like…malinconia.
Comments on this entry are closed.