Nostalgia

A few nights ago I shared my writing with a good friend of mine, and looking back on the piles upon piles of papers covered with pen blots and scratched out words, I realized that I have forgetten the joy of putting pen to paper. I have scads of writing from the last 9 years of my life and absolutely nothing from the last year, which has proved to be more like a lifetime rather than mere months.

I used to write everywhere I went. I got in the habit a long time ago of carrying a pen with me wherever I roam and I still do but now my pen's only use is to write down phone numbers I will never call. At work when I was hostessing, I would sit at the front of the restaurant and write about the people walking through the door. I wrote haikus about the regulars. I posed countless questions to myself that were answered only through the act of writing them down. I wrote political theories and rants while sitting on the bus. I wrote about my life while sitting in a tree. I wrote about the people in my life in the bath. I wrote while reading books. I jotted down quotes, one-liners, parts of overheard conversations and I made sure to document those beautiful fleeting ideas that come only from a truly cleared mind.

I was doing character analysis of myself and nearly everyone I met before I even knew what character analysis was. I was so observant and wonderous before I could even recognize those qualities in myself. Now, I feel stagnant. I still watch, I still think, I still compose and analyse and question... and I think it is impossible for me to stop. But the difference is, is that I am keeping it all in my head.

I try to write here, but everything ends up staying in the vault of "drafts" and the crap that makes it out onto the web only shows the drunken/hungover/sex-crazed part of me. I'm not denying that part of myself but I have been denying proper expression of my observant side.

Blogs are a great medium for expression because of the freedom and the guarantee that someone out there will be interested in whatever obscurities you have to offer. But this is not doing it for me at all. So I'm going to get off this computer and unpack my paper and pens and start writing the way I want to. I have alot to say and I want to share that with whatever audience I may have... but I think that it must start out on paper before it ever lands here.

Two of the blogs that I read most are WaiterRant and Gasguy, for their wonderful observations. I used to write in a similar fashion. I want that back.

Today, I begin my work week and before I go, I am going to purchase a book to write in and a sexy pen to write with. And it is going to be everything that it needs to be to me.