Brian and Yi Shun have both recently mentioned my writing in their diaries - with very positive reviews, I must add - and I'm really blown away by their response, especially since they're both much more serious writers than I am. It sort of gives me pause, actually, makes me think that hey, maybe I am good at this. I've also had lots of friends (Jill and Shalini come to mind) who have praised my writing as well. I can read some of my entries and see that I've got some talent going on. (Which is really hard for me to admit, actually!)

I think that what gets me is that yep, I've got raw talent, now what? Do I want to stay where I am right now, writing blurbs in my diary, or do I want to challenge myself?

Brian, in his diary, said that he couldn't write about the type of painful stuff I write about in a memoir-style, he'd need to do it in fiction, and that tickled me, because for me it's the fiction that stumps me. I feel like I can write about my own life (especially since only strangers or trusted friends read here) but I don't have the nerve to create. I don't feel like I have the authority or ability to create new worlds, new people. I've written fiction before, but not since I started college. I've been feeling somewhat bitter about how much my forays into academia have stunted my imagination - not that academia's totally to blame, but being in an academic environment so long hasn't helped.

Funny, one of the tasks in The Artist's Way is to list jobs you'd love to have if you could have any job, and the ones that pop in my head are documentary filmmaker, dog breeder, photographer, chef and/or baker, jewelry designer, recapper for Television without Pity, manager or owner of some little shop (something with lots of interaction with others), etc. None of these are "smart people" careers, not the careers I thought I had to have until just very recently. I remember watching the movie Manhunter when I was around twelve or so, and remarking to my mom, "wow, I'd love to do that!" when I saw the forensic scientists working in the lab. She said, "why would you want to do that when you could be the profiler instead?" I betcha she doesn't remember a word of that conversation, but boy did it stick with me.

I think what's really hard here is that deep down I want to do what will make everyone love me, respect me, approve of me. Going to school and getting my master's will do that, at least as far as my family is concerned. Oh hell, of course, if I didn't get it, my family would still love me, but they'd be disappointed. God knows they're already probably disappointed that I'm fat, that I'm single, that I'm not very successful, that I'm sort of aimless. If they're already disappointed, why not disappoint them some more and go wild and do what I really want to do?

And why the hell do I care so much? Why can't I do like Marty and let the decades of negative messages roll off me? Why can't I accept their love and not care about the approval? I'm very frustrated; I feel mired in all this mental gunk, instead of just going out and doing stuff. I think and ponder and agonize instead of just acting.

Although, I will say - Friday I bought my tickets to San Francisco! Just about my whole family thinks I'm insane - why on earth would I want to travel alone???? - but I did it, it's set in stone, and I'm gonna go, and I'm not going to let my negatives hold me back. That's acting.

And being here, being at this page, that's acting too. The more I talk about this - the more I just write - the more I might get closer to being who I want to be.

Unrelatedly, I was on the train to Waterbury on Saturday and there was a kid across from me who looked so much like my old neighbor Jeronimo (pronounced Heronimo) that I couldn't stop stealing glances at him. I don't have the time to go into my whole Jeronimo (or, as Keith called him, Jeroni-ho) history, but I was unnerved on Saturday to be reminded of him, of his body language, of his languid, almost arrogant sensuality, the way he held his limbs and his lips, the way he used his whole body to seduce. He was from Argentina, half Argentinian, half Jewish, and what a combination that was - he had thick black hair and grew sideburns and even thicker lips, everything about him was thick and solid (and yes, if you must go there, everything) yet he moved with such fluidity. I often move as if I were disconnected from my body, as if the real me lives in a little room in my head (sort of like Herman's Head, I guess) and controls my body movements by remote control - no connection, no grace, all inhibition. Jeronimo and I slept together once, and were uneasy and volatile friends after that, and his heavy-lidded gaze and unsubtle sexuality kept me a bit on edge. He had a girlfriend, later on I had a boyfriend, we never did sleep together again, but I couldn't shake that unspoken attraction that always seemed a little too one-sided.