His generational self-awareness was an odd dichotomy: a young man, well-read and cognizant of current events, aware of what is expected of people his age and content to deliver no more than that with notes of a detached, disaffected regret.
( I have rescued the first two paragraphs of this from something I wrote last summer, something begun and never finished. The rest is likewise not a real narrative but rather a collection of stuff, much of which is from a notebook I’ve been writing tiny bits in since last century. It is leather-bound and [...]
And sometimes you have to pack up both of your roommates – Danny the gay singer-songwriter from a Mormon Army family in Utah who looked and sounded like Elton John; and Jay, the CrackerBaller, the white Tupac / King Diamond expert in the mail-order KOOL baseball jersey who said he was from Detroit but was really from Sterling Heights – and go to the 99 Joints album release party in some gutterflat in Allston. Here you proceed to meet some new people, you see that cellist you think is really hot, and then, somehow, you end up dancing on a kitchen island to “The Big Payback” by James Brown at 3 in the morning, all the hours since midnight a black blur.
Update 4.9.08: I added some pieces and removed some others for the second requested proposal.
Added:
The Dick You Can’t Take Back
The Naming of Things
Mine to Give
Removed:
New York City
*****
Last week I wrote a query letter to a literary agent. The reply was positive - short non-fiction collections are a hard sell, but send me a proposal and [...]
I was born in Michigan. My family moved to Texas when I was 4. I have lived in Michigan, Texas, and Massachusetts. I have never lived alone. I still consider Boston to be my home because it is the place I felt and feel the most comfortable.
My life is divided into two distinct phases - [...]