Last night was bad.

I've been binging on great contemporary female writers... spent a breathless hour reading Anne Carson's "Short Talks" yesterday at the Westmont library, started in on some Gertrude Stein last night, picked up Sontag this morning. Before that, read books that I just enjoyed, from Winterson, Willett, and Foer--okay, there's a guy.

I swung through a few blog posts on my old LJ friendslist. There are a few girls there who write so fucking well...

The funny thing is, most of them have, at some point or another, been intimidated by ME. It is so ludicrous to even think this. My writing is so... plain.

But maybe my mind is something else. Maybe there's potential. I could see it.

I began to panic and defibulate because my boyfriend is not an intellectual, and here I have no friends deeply interested in culture--but that's not true, is it? Indie culture, certainly, a culture of tatters and poorly glued pieces, a WELL-MEANING culture, lovable for that. Maybe even sexy. But. I miss having someone to disucss books with, or to watch old movies with, or who severely needs to see a play every few months just to stay healthy.

And I began to wonder if maybe I'm just not that sort of person, if that's not really my life, and I began to think that I am not really a writer at all, because I have capitulated to a life that is less deeply felt than the one I want to live.

Dav is health for me, sanity, BECAUSE his feelings run in rivlets, not waves. But can a wave ever understand a rivlet? Can a rivlet ever do anything more than temper and shape a wave, to disappate it under arcs and quivers, energy moving outward in descrescendo lines? Where can I go with this?

Why have I pandered to the lowest common denominator?

Why have I hoped for friendship above glory and joy?

Glory and joy first, then friendship. They will come to that.

And the writing will respire and expand and rise flapping and feathers into a sunburst. I do hope so. Holy shit, I fear my own romantic side.

It is nothing but trouble.