I wrote this entry, and it's all nice, and cohesive, and I like the way it turned out, except that I forgot the whole reason I was writing it was to point out that I've updated my template slightly to include a small section for links to writing I've done that has been featured on other websites. Check them out...three of my best works, really, and that says a lot, because, you know, I'm so talented and prolific. Thought I'd mention it pre-post, rather than screw up the rather nicely somber mood of the post below, once you get into it.

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Dan, the newest regular reader of my blog, tells me the other day that I should be a professional writer, like it's his idea. When I mention it to my newest group of friends, they agree with him in such a way that reminds me how little they really know about me. It seems that I've become so focused on the practical applications of my life that those I interact the most with aren't even aware of my impractical dreams. It's what I've always wanted. But do I have the courage to want anymore?

"You have the talent," Dan says, "Just write a book and get it published."

Sam, later, asks the daunting question, "Well, have you ever tried to be a real writer?"

I'm a little drawn back by the question: what is trying to be a real writer? "You could say my whole life has been one long, largely failing attempt."

"That's not really an answer." He says. Among many, many other things, this is what I love about Sam.


But what is trying for it? Is it going to college as an English major? Graduating cumme laude and getting an internship at some local paper? Surely, the last five years of logging my thoughts in a public way, and a way that's practiced and at least reasonably eloquent, surely that counts as some effort. Surely, the hundreds of pages, the dozens of readers, the things people have felt when they read what I have to say-- does it count for anything?

What is a real writer, and why am I not it?


I guess the reason is that I haven't claimed the title as my own. Haven't committed myself to my desires, have been unwilling to lose control to the passion. There's a story waiting to be written here about the many parallels between my waster literary potential, and my dysfunctional sex life, but I'm not going to write it any more than I'm going to have an orgasm anytime soon.

I've been reading books about how to do the latter, lately. Trying to learn the skill, so advised by the therapist who I have been seeing for the Vaginsimus. The world, or those who accept my invitation into mine at least, might as well known that I can't have a satisfying orgasm any better than I can accept penetration, and that, in the last couple of years, I've experienced a great deal of physical pain with clitoral arousal. Any one of these things is enough to cause a lifetime's worth of frustration; together, the three are a viscious trifecta which is slowly but surely withering away everything it touches: the self esteems of and love between Zack and I, in the most obvious ways. My very ability to function as a person, more subtly.

Sometimes I think it's gonna be a chain reaction. A victory in one arena will trigger progress in another, and at once, there will be a wave of relief running through my marriage, and my life. The creative juices will drip off of me, and, practically mid-coitus, I will write the great american novel, the world's greatest love story finishing with a little death that the main character won't soon wake from.

I think perhaps that it is only then that I'll be able to free myself from this feeilng, this not so petite mortality that looms whenever I find myself momentarily alone, drowning in thoughts of what will happen if nothing is fixed soon. I've been giving out warnings and staring at the soft skin of my wrists. I've been desperately grasping at back-up plans and being as honest as I can, either because lying is a bad idea or because I don't have the strength for it anymore. I've been preparing for the worst, because the worst keeps finding me, as fast as I run from it.

I fear for the safety of my marriage, and, resultingly, my willingness to keep fighting. Fighting to fix what's broken in me. Fighting to make a change in the world. Fighting to realize my potential.


Maybe it seems I'm doing the bitching I've chastised so many for, as of late, but I don't think that's it. It's fair warning, on one hand, due dilligence. On the other, it's me, still scratching and clawing at the fears and the doubts and the pain, the only way I know how.

That, I suppose, is what makes me a real writer. Let's see where it gets me.

On with it.



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