i feel like i can’t remember how i feeI

 

So now that I’ve finally found my voice, I can begin to write that Marginal American Novel.

 

Its central theme will be The Search for Personal Identity.

 

Because, quite frankly, I still haven’t figured out who the hell I am.

 

So, in addition to being the Marginal American Novel, it’ll also be therapy for me.

 

Because I sure as hell can’t afford a therapist.

 

Besides, I already know what a therapist would tell me if I went to one.

 

They would tell me I was still a child and unprepared for adulthood.

 

There, I diagnosed myself.  I’m cured!

 

So anyway, my protagonist [Okay, you might as well say it’s me] is on this search for personal identity.  He strikes out into The World alone.  Tries to break from society’s conventions.  Grapples with the notions of loss of personal control and whether people can change their situations in life or whether they are in the grips of forces beyond their control, blah blah blah…

 

What do I know?  I’ve never written a novel before.

 

But I have read a few here and there.  Every now and then.  Whenever the spirit or martinis moves me.

 

I especially like novels that don’t use many big words or sound like they were written a hundred years ago by some highly educated, overachieving European aristocrat.

 

Okay, so I’m shallow.  Sue me.

The point is, my novel’s not going to have a lot of words.

 

I know most novels are at least a couple hundred pages long, but I just don’t have the time to write that many words.  I’m working a full-time job, and I only have a couple hours a night to work on the damn thing.  By nine o’clock, I’m ready for bed.

 

So you can see my dilemma.

 

And on top of that, I will be forty-five years old in December, so I’m not precisely a wunderkind.  Of course, I’m not exactly a wundermensch, either.  In fact, there’s hardly anything wunder about me at all.  And that’s not easy for a guy like me to admit.  It’s bad enough you got me to admit that I don’t know who the hell I am.

 

Like it’s a crime to be forty-five and not know who you are.

 

Do you know who you are?

 

You don’t even look like you know where you are.

 

I’m in a six-hundred-square-foot subsidized apartment with leaky faucets and a family of mice living inside my bedroom closet wall.

 

Nice, heh?

 

And I keep getting these goddamn bug bites on my legs and arms.  I don’t know if they’re mosquitos or spiders or bedbugs, but they’re really pissing me off!

 

So, many obstacles are getting in the way of writing the Marginal American Novel, which will likely end up being the Marginal American Novella or Short Story or Poem.  Or whatever’s shorter than a poem.

 

A slogan, maybe?

 

Can you write about somebody searching for personal identity through a slogan?

Oh yeah, Nike did it, didn’t they?  “Just Do It.”

 

Okay, well, there’s always variations on a theme.

 

Every writer steals from every other writer.  Shakespeare stole from the Greeks.  George Harrison stole from the Chiffons.  Milton Berle stole from Bob Hope.

 

Me, I think I’ll steal from Moses.

 

Hey, it’s the most incredible story ever told, right?

 

Better I should steal from Moses than from, say, the writers of “Hello, Larry.”

 

I would at least like a shot at being reviewed by somebody at the New York Times.  I don’t care if it’s the obituary writer; I’m not choosey for Chrissakes.

 

I just gotta come up with a plot now.

 

I have a plot.

 

I just have to figure out how to resolve my inner conflicts.

 

Errr, I mean my protagonist’s inner conflicts.

 

Which are…

 

I’m glad you asked.

 

Somebody once told me there are anywhere from one to thirty-six plots in all literature.

 

I have absolutely no idea what they are.  I’ll let you go to Wikipedia to find out more about it.

 

However, because the central theme of my novel is The Search for Personal Identity, I just have to find my identity.  I mean, my protagonist’s identity.  And then I’ll have my novel.

 

Apparently, every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, so…

 

I just have to find the…

 

Whaddaya they call it?

 

Structure?

 

I think that’s what they call it.

 

I don’t want you to think this is easy for me.  It’s not.  At all. I mean, quite frankly, I usually get migraines and boils on my a*s from trying to be creative.

 

I don’t even think Hemingway got migraines or boils on his a*s when he was trying to be creative.

 

But I do.

 

Not that that makes me a better writer than Hemingway.  God knows I’m not.  I’m just saying…

 

I don’t know what I’m saying… probably because I’m drunk… but so was Hemingway.

 

Some of the time.  I don’t want any lawsuits.

 

Besides, I have no money.  I’m a parking lot attendant.

 

I know it’s not the most glamorous job in the world, but it’s better than my last job.  I was a janitor at a porno theater.

 

Talk about a self-esteem buster.

 

Not that it fills me with confidence to be sitting inside a tiny booth calculating parking charges and collecting fees from customers, but it’s a hell of a lot better than mopping up dried semen.