Inner and Outer Demons

Have any of you ever heard of Lynda Barry?  She's a total goddess.  If I was straight, I'd beg her to marry me.  She's the total # 1 genius cartoonist/author/playwrite/professor of my world.  I put her link on the left   ----->  

Anyway...I attended a workshop with her a few weeks ago and she inspired me to start this blog.  She talked about the diaries she kept as a kid  -- and how little insight they provided her at that time in her life.  The problem is that we record our feelings ... and not the actual details.  On our death bed, we will remember the way the morning sun looked on our favorite coffee mug more than we will remember the nasty mood we were in because we got stuck in a slow elevator on a Tuesday in February 1988.

Follow me?

Her advice was to write down twenty snapshots of your day -- quick words of what you see as you go about the process of being alive.   I am going to try that now:

1. red light on the air conditioner telling me to clean the filter

2. dog hair on my arm

3. the front door with such a bad stain job

4. ashes on the bathroom floor

5. cats sitting in the window -- loving it because I opened it last night.

6. dinner knife with butter on it

7. paper plate with red stain from the steak I thawed on it

8. caller ID with an "unavailable" number

9. the plastic bag with Bongo's flea medicine in it

10.  the lush tree in my backyard I never notice

11. plastic hanger on the hook on my closet door

12. TV Guide with two hot-looking people posing on the cover

13. KC Royals manager Tony Pena spitting sunflower seeds

14. the red dot on my nose

15. silver foil packet of Benadryl...not solid silver...there were tiny dots

16. a commercial about suing the makers of Accutane.  I took that.  It cured my acne, but now I have a red dot on my nose. Fuckers. I want a million dollars.

17. a receipt from Red Lobster..all crumpled.  Did I even remember to record that in the checkbook? 

18. tiny slivver of the face soap I use. I have such goddamn sensitive skin that I can't use the soap normal people use.  I need a chromosome transplant.

19. Bea -- the turtle --  getting excited because I turned on the closet light next to her tank.  I don't know how to connect with this reptile - plus I think she's a male based on the contour of her(his) bottom carapice.

20. blue freezer bag

I think that went pretty well. 

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• #2 Comment from bgilmore725 
  12/31/07 2:24 PM | Permalink

  So before you eliminate your past from the journals, I thought I'd skip back a few years and read your first entry... you named your turtle Bea? How did that ever happen? Do you still have her/him?
  
  I disagree about the benefits of journaling... the diaries we kept as a little kid provide insight into my life as it was back then... I kept one beginning at age 14.  Journal content changed as I went to college, got married, gave birth, raised a son, became a teacher.... my only problem now is that I don't have time to read them all, and why would I?
  
  Occasionally, I have a need to remember something, how I felt at a particular time, following a particular life-changing moment, what was going on around me.
  
  I think writing the details and the feelings are important, because our feelings in response to daily events, both personal and global, will change, depending upon one's perspective, and that would be determined by our age/sex/religion/location and other dynamics.
  
  Do you really want to erase it all? Could you save it to a disk and put it away? The words are yours, the drawings are yours. Surely someone in your family, or a friend, would treasure holding a piece of your heart, mind, and soul. What drives you crazy now may well be the ladder to your rescue someday.
  
  You don't have to look back now. Store your journals away in a trunk. That's what I did. You are still a young fellow... the older version of yourself may well appreciate what you are feeling and experiencing now... if only he could one day look back and remember.
  
  Good luck, and I hope 2008 is a better year for you. You have been in grief for the past year. It's been a hard one for you. A Happy New Year to you, Russ. bea
• #1 Comment from mosie1944 
  6/27/04 6:00 PM | Permalink

  Well, I did a search in the journals on Kansas City and got you, so I'll see what I can learn from you.  Keep on writing and I'll keep reading.  
  
  http://journals.aol.com/mosie1944/MYCOUNTRYLIFE