Explain you to you: Random bits from Journal 265

♣ Saw: (1) Over summer saw squat buildings at Superior, Wisconsin–not sure why that’s on my mind. (2) Saw big pile of cheese on my rice–the last of the zipping plastic bag. (3) Zipping bag whose zipper had broken, and I used a twist tie to keep it shut. (4) I moved green beans from freezer to fridge to thaw for dog dinner tonight. (5) I saw all the dog’s carroty poops, as I tried to pick them up in the zipping bag. Might as well use that bag first because [as a former cheese bag] it’s likely to smell good to pets and they’d pull it out of the pocket of my [dog-walking] vest. [Page 49, Mon. 25 Sept. 2017, 3rd hour]

♣ Did: (3) I like the idea that I’m writing (in my journals) some of what happens between the stories one tells. Saw: (1) [A woman teacher] tell some girl in hallway before 7-8 period that her shirt was inappropriately sheer–and of course I don’t know how the teacher was made aware of this. [Page 165, 31 Oct. 2017, 10th hour]

♣ What else would you describe to someone who hadn’t done it–for example, eating a Snickers? Let’s think about this hypothetical other–someone who really is limited–or, maybe the real (likely) audience is people who already know what it’s like to eat Snickers and you want to impress them with your cleverness or make some philosophical point about comparisons, or about real, lived experience. [Page 71, Thurs. 28 Sept. 2017, 10th hour]

♣ Invisible–like a freshman boy at a dance! Ha, you still may be a little bitter about that, eh? You don’t need to be bitter. There were reasons why you didn’t ever date much–namely, you didn’t want to. [Page 88, Tues. 3 October 2017, 10th hour]

♣ Part of nonfiction writing is getting to know yourself and expressing that–figuring out who you are as a person, as a writer. … An essay defined as your thinking on paper–but unlike an assigned topic, where do ideas come from? From who you are, what you’re interested in, how you see the world. I wanna suggest to you that getting through to yourself is a life-long process. Getting to know yourself may take years, decades. I know myself better now than I did five years ago–and this isn’t just therapy. Knowing what I want to do has changed what I write, well, or at least what I want and try to publish. OK, so, today, write who you are–a self-definition. What interests you? What parts of your life do you enjoy more than others? Write a who I am nonfiction. Now, go question yourself. Why do you like each of these? Why do you say that? Explain you to you. [Page 23-5, 20 Sept. 2017, 7-8 period]

♣ Today’s journaling topic: How’d you get home without using roads or bike path? I’d leave school campus walking northwest … I’d walk from field to field (if there were, say, some kind of military invasion?) … bearing west, and I’d go through the woods there … and  (at 3 miles/hour, 24 miles would be an 8-hour trip!) I’d eventually get to creeks–ford them. Rock River at Byron–I’d take train trestle over–or if not that, a canoe? Or a log? I’d be fearful of the currents. Maybe they wouldn’t be too bad. But what I’m thinking is that there are too many variables–I mean, why would I be doing this without roads? I’m a fugitive? Cars don’t work? Three are foreign invaders? So, would I want to travel without being seen? At night only? Would they be tracking me–in which case, use the creeks, staying away from mean dogs at farm houses. What time of year–iced-over river? Are crops harvested? How badly do I need to get home–or would I meet up elsewhere? How communicate? How important is my escape? Am I a spy? Or could I just die? [Page 57, Tues. 26 Sept. 2017, 3rd hour]

Drawing from page 125 of Journal 265

♣ Verbing nouns. Then you’d have to say there’s a common judgment–like if you say, “you really did that like a freshman would–you freshman’d that quiz,” you’re implying connotation–though I don’t know if “to friend” something connotes. [Page 126, Mon. 16 October 2017, 10th hour]

♣ I read [in a local businessman’s autobiography] his list of things that seem good to have–family, business, lake house–but I don’t get a sense of why he liked any of these, other than that he was proud to have them. Why’d he have a Wisconsin farm, anyway? It’d be a pain to truck equipment there. Was there some tax break or something? It’s as if the world beyond business were invisible to him–and maybe it was. He went to sports events–that’s about it? I mean … I guess I gotta go–Justin’s under his desk with leg screw out. [Page 105-6, Tues. 10 Oct. 2017, 3rd hour]

[Random technique, in contrast to the technique used here, was that the first and last pages of writing in this journal were entered as the range into a random number generator, and the generated numbers were page numbers I looked up.]