June 10, 2006

• I’ve made a decision.  I’m not sure whether or not it’s actually a good decision, but at least I’ve made one.  That’s more than I can say for any other choice I’ve had to make recently.  Usually I settle for the middle, find a way to balance things out.  Nuh uh.  Na ah.  Time to grab life by the horns, Daryl, take the initiative, and other inspiring clichés.  Here’s what I’m going to do.  I’m going to write in this thing every other day.  Every other day, even if I have absolutely nothing important going on in my mind and the only reason I’d even be writing in the first place is to hear my fingers clatter on the keyboard.  Or to get my ‘voice’ back.  Apparently that’s what writers are supposed to develop.  Their ‘voices’ and their ‘styles’.  This is my voice, I suppose.  The thing is, though, I don’t sound like this in real life.  You’d have to break off every other sentence with a seven-second awkward ‘ummm’ and insert a ‘like’ in between every four or so words in order for this to be my real life voice.  One time I heard myself talking on a home video and it was painful.  I bet it would be painful for you too. Really.  Try it sometime.  Because the truth is we’re all living in an unfathomable lie.  I’ve spent the majority of my life thinking I had this really deep, sultry voice.  I also thought I was taller and faster than everyone and that I was a generally intellectual human being.  And then I saw myself on tape.  At first glance, I mistook the scene for just another lame episode of The Angry Beavers.  Maybe even a re-run of another lame episode of The Angry Beavers.  That’s what I thought up until I took another look and realized, to my utter horror, that there was no beaver in that television.  No, no.  That buck-toothed midget thing in there?  Reciting her torah portion for the entire congregation in her nasal munchkin voice?  That, kids, would be yours truly. 

  
  

   

  
  

  Now you all know the real reason I want to be a writer when I grow up.  I go around telling people it’s my passion and proudly recite quotes by Thoreau and Emerson, and then I scuttle off into my little corner and think about my real future, which basically involves becoming a Tibetan monk in a far, faraway land.  So that, like, I’ll never have to speak again.  I’ll just live in my Tibetan village, doing monk things, hanging with my monk friends…not talking.  It’s really a lot more fun than you’d think.  We can play tetherball and stuff.  And don’t forget about the staring contests.  Those are wild. 

  
  

   

  
  

  I guess I could also be ashamed of my real life voice because I’m from Philadelphia.  No one actually knows or cares that I’m from Philadelphia except all the kids I know from New Jersey.  See, New Jerseysians have it embedded into their thick skulls that kids from Philadelphia have Philadelphian accents.  Have you heard of this accent?  Have you heard it in action?  Here is where it’s in action, right here: Laren.  There.  That is the only word in the history of this godforsaken universe that can fall under the category of ‘Philadelphian Accent.’  You say Lauren, we say Laren.  I don’t know if I can handle the intensity of such an outrageous culture clash.  

  
  

   

  
  

  But we can get past all that.  All we have to do is move on and accept the fact that in person I sound like a whining eleven year old boy.  I mean, right now I sound normal, conversational.  I will admit, I just read a page of Catcher in the Rye.  I mentioned this only because it’s relevant to the way I’ve been writing tonight.  Catcher in the Rye is the garlic all of books.  I could read one page of that book and proceed to speak and smell like Holden Caulfield for the rest of the following week.  There’s even a twinge of Holden in my writing right now.  However, I need to say ‘phony’ in order to be a true Holden Caulfield impersonator.  Phony phony phony.  Alright, I’m set.

  
  

   

  
  

  I’m quite exhausted right now since it is nearly two in the morning and I should have gone to bed earlier because I have a driving lesson tomorrow.  That’s right, I’ll be driving. I’ll be ruler of the road, parallel parker extraordinaire, soaring down Millburn Ave. at the respectable speed of ninety miles per three seconds.  Lock up your children and warn the others before it’s too late. 

  
  

   

  
  

  Have an excellent weekend,

  
  

   

  
  

  Daryl.

  • 1:50 am
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