…but I\’m too damn loquacious to fit a good description of Benning Heights into three hundred words, and so I\’ve got writer\’s block. A great way out of writer\’s block: hyperbole. Examination of one\’s creative license.
The problem with these journals is that they really become such a collection of mixed messages; when is writing for writing\’s sake, when is it an accurate portrayal of daily life, when is it hyperbole in order to further explore a goal of artistic expression? When is it for the self (what is the self?) and when is it for the audience (what is the audience?)? How can you tell who is \”real\” and who is a \”fake\”? When is the personal \”art,\” or is it ever? Who can you trust? Does it matter? Truth being subjective and all that, do online \”identities\” cross the line between the performance and the performer, or do they blend it?
As we expand the availability of tools for easily accessible personal expression, each of us who chooses to participate faces the very real concern of the definition of identity and the rules (if there are any) between personal expression and the bonding that may occur between the creator and the consumer.
Anyone who has lived their life as performance, art, or otherwise, knows their choice can effect their personal relationships. Who of any of their \”friends\” can say they really truly knew people like Warhol and Norma Jean — two of the most (in)famous of all personal identity creations. You befriend the performance, and not the performer, because the performer never steps off stage — they just stumble or fall out of the spotlight.
* * *
As Dr. Maude headed out the door to the grocery store earlier tonight, I called after him to bring me back a generous bottle of vodka.
\”Why,\” he asked, \”is all this getting to you?\”
\”This is the summer I become Sylvia Plath.\”
He laughed, but I don\’t think I was joking. At least not entirely.
I\’ve got my hot tottie hybrid in my tea mug, a bottle of sleeping pills that welcomes me every night, and currently Coltrane\’s \”By The Numbers\” is harmoniously resounding the tension that I cannot release from within.
When I fantasize about the future, I become a writer with meaning: a Safire, a Hitchens, an Orwell, an Arendt. Every time I snap out of la-la land, though, I find myself to be just another kid with a blog (god, I hate that word). I might as well be writing poetry, because in reality, I\’m just another self-fascinated neurotic — just another Wurtzel or Nin. One more Plath in the making? Nah. Our oven is electric.
