3/27/2021

some news updates: my daughter got into berkeley. it's strange. she was really down because she hadn't gotten into ucla and another school. she had gotten into scad, this college in georgia, but that wasn't exactly her first choice. meanwhile, a lot of her friends were bragging and gloating about getting into other colleges. my daughter was feeling like she hadn't measured up... even though, as a result of the pandemic, and as a result of the throwing out of standardized test scores by certain colleges, the playing field was paradoxically even more competitive than it had been in years... she was resigning herself to having to attend uh west oahu, which was something that we had recommended, had things not settled enough to allow for a safe experience at a distant college... so, my daughter simply wasn't checking her emails. she didn't want to find out if she got into berkeley or not (which was her dream school). maybe she felt that by not knowing, she would not experience the disappointment... that was when my wife kept urging her to check. when my daughter finally did, and came down giddy with excitement, i had to suspect that my wife was somehow "in the know." she didn't. but she said that she had a strong intuition... i feel like she is strange and powerful in that sense, in her certainty of things...

in any case, things are not all that "certain." getting in is one thing, being able to pay for it is another. we're sort of considering the options, how much we're able to front to pay for my daughter's education...

*****

in other news: i developed an abscess on the back of my shoulder. it was large and red and swollen, about the diameter of a tennis ball... it had grown to the point where it was becoming sore due to the pressure. so i "popped it." it was... surprising how much and how violently some of that stuff came out. at first, mostly the "white stuff," but at one point, a spurt (which got all over the bathroom mirror) of something resembling ketchup mixed with mayonnaise (i'm sorry if this grosses people out). anyway, i was okay with just squeezing out as much as i could and cleaning it up... but my wife insisted on me going to the doctor. so i did. and i got some antibiotics to address the underlying infection...

i felt pretty tired afterwards, so i've been off and on napping this afternoon...

*****

as far as writing is concerned... i felt a deep despair about continuing my story. it just seemed as though i had written myself into a corner, and i couldn't get out... actually, it's not so much a corner, as this infinite stretching out into nowhere, and i'm running out of paint. what's the point, i felt. i mean, in a larger sense, there is little point, as no one would ever want to read these stories. there's nothing particularly happy or redeeming or even meaningful in them. i lost the heart. i lost the feel of the story. it has all been, or largely been, the squeezing of an empty tooth paste tube. i really don't have much left to say. maybe all i have to say are just momentary spurts: like the abscess on my neck... or cumming... (okay, going into gross territory again)...

i had an idea of giving up, and just writing little snapshots of me and my brother. at least they would be real, or semi-real... and then framing them with a discussion of "mimicry." but...

since, i have just had the idea of reexamining the story as a whole, refining the plot. perhaps making it tighter, in the sense of having the trials occur with greater rapidity. i think i got so lost in the machinations of the plot line that i forgot the heart. i also think that, for a story about my brother, he hardly appears in it... and i have to do something about that. also, as salman rushdie says, even minor or trivial characters shouldn't be "sketches," that you need to apply the same attention to detail that you grant to the main characters as you do to the unimportant characters... and yes, i think that my story is lacking in that sense. i mean, i try to give characters distinct voices, but i frankly didn't really think through a lot of their backgrounds. their motivations. i just gave them jobs, basically... so bottom line, maybe i won't walk away from the story just yet...

i keep thinking about people who have (overtly or covertly) expressed that they wouldn't want to read my story, and i think that that brings me down. but who cares? it's not really about them, now, is it?