Author: chris

i went traveling last year for about 8 months.  i wrote obsessively, of course, in a moleskin journal.  i write extremely small, i always have.  i filled the journal in about 6 months.  i’ve used it to write other things since i’ve been back in the states, used it to remember things.  it went missing about 3 weeks ago, and i cleaned my entire house looking for it this weekend.  i cleaned my car and looked for it.  where i’m living now i have no friends that i hang out with so i didn’t have to look at any friends’ houses.  i cannot find it.

the feeling you get when you lose something like that is indescribable.  it does get easier after the first time.  i got a small book filled with contacts, about 20 bucks, and many notes and ideas pickpocketed last year in indonesia. it had dozens of people i met and notes about places to go, ideas for stories, characters, things i jotted down when it was inconvenient to write in my larger journal.  when i realized it was taken it felt like someone took something out of my stomach.  i asked the dope dealers on the street if they had it, told them there was a reward.  i looked through all the trash bins on the street. i asked a street kid to help me for money. but i never found it.  i couldn’t sleep that night. 
  
but this time, with this journal, the same one i wrote in when i wasn’t writing in that little pickpocketed pad, i went crazy for a few hours when i realized it wasn’t turning up.  and then, nothing.  i calmed down.  this journal, it’s not replaceable, and i’ll never be able to recover from my memory the things that i wrote in it.  but i said the same thing about the little pickpocketed book, and that was almost a year ago and i’m still living and breathing.  a writer depends on such things, relies on them.  when you don’t have a computer to type on and save your work a journal becomes sacred, it becomes what you cling to. so what happens when you know clinging to things is what makes you miserable?  i was miserable for weeks after the pickpocket stole my ideas, until i asked myself why i was clinging to it.  it’s gone! nothing can be done about that.  nothing will bring it back.  i’ve lost this journal, the journal filled with my experiences and my writing, but why is it ok? because a journal is not what makes me a writer, and a writer is how i define myself.  more writing will come whether i have the journal or not.

how are you? i hope you are well.

this evening i mixed some peanut butter with honey and spread it on some crackers, then ate them while watching a movie. later when laura came in, me devouring these crackers with pb on them, she tells me peter pan peanut butter with the manufacture number beginning with 2111 are being recalled for causing e.coli or salmonella poisoning, one or the other. and guess what our peter pan peanut butter was numbered? 211165100…

well, we’ve had it for about 3 weeks and it’s almost empty, so i guess we’re okay. and on the up side we can get a free big jar of peanut butter (the 56 oz).

i’m doing well, how are you?

i just watched the da vinci code.  if you haven’t seen it don’t read this paragraph.  you should form unbiased opinions.  so….the movie really sucked.  my theory is that, since the producers knew there would be a huge audience pool they wouldn’t have to actually make a, you know, good film, but rather one that basically followed the book, had some crappy but still obviously post 90s animation sequences, and kept much of the same horrible horrible horrible dialogue that the book featured.  which is okay, because it really is often so bad that it’s funny, but that doesn’t make it right, or even palatable.  and then the albino monk…the book made him out to be strong, physically and mentally and morally, which lent him respect.  the movie portrayed him as a bumbling neanderthal of sorts who was often scared, much like a monkey or an ape on the verge of gaining self-realization.  and then the same crappy ending scene in the book.  that was okay, since it was “staying true” to the book, no matter how awful an idea it was in the first place.  so, since you’ve also seen it, what did you think?  (this isn’t sarcastic…i’d honestly like to know.  my fiancee liked it, and she also read the book.)

on to business…i’m thinking of moving exclusively to blogger.com (you can see the spot, which i’ve had reserved since sept 11, 2005 here–although there’s nothing there yet but the template).  it’s much prettier, i think.  though less of a community i guess.  maybe both places? hell, i don’t even know if anybody but a couple of people even read this anymore.  it seems some of the religion remarks may have pissed a couple off…