I glance at that cloud, it looks like a piano. I think to myself—mention it in some story that a cloud floated by looking like a piano. There’s a scent of heliotrope. I rush to make a mental note: cloying smell, widow’s flower, use it in describing a summer’s evening. I catch my every sentence, every word—yours too—and rush to lock them up in my literary storehouse—maybe they’ll come in handy! . . . I can’t escape myself. I feel like I’m a parasite feeding on my own life. –Trigorin in The Seagull 

I pulled out my moleskine and wrote down a blurb that Jesse had just said that was amusing, “Of course I’m miserable! If I wasn’t miserable I would be unhappy.”

“I always do this. People around me are much more interesting than I am,” I apologised as I wrote.

“Do you know The Seagull?”

“Yeah, but it’s been years.”

“Act Two Nina and Trigorin. He’s talks about writing stuff in his notebooks. The same disease that you have.”

I laughed. “It is a disease. And sometimes, I look at the note and I don’t understand what it means. Why it was so important. Like this. . .” I flipped to a page and read, ‘And I let him speak because he hadn’t spoken in years!’ I have no idea what that is about. Other stuff is good though.”

“Spill it.”

I flipped back a few pages. “Ah. I was walking down 6th and a couple was walking the other way and the man said, ‘Macy’s? Like why?’ and she said, ‘Why? It’s like, an ENTIRE city block. .”

“It is. Have you gone?”

“I’m avoiding it. Nothing good could come of my going inside. Or this. . . this is something that I said but I wrote it down. My friend was teasing me about something. ‘First off. Fuck you. . . Second. What did you say?’ Or this is from Stuart, ‘I never drink at weddings. Only wedding I’ve drunk at was ours.”

Jesse laughed. I flipped back a page. “Or this one is good. I was on the Eurostar coming back to London and there were these two American girls. Couldn’t have been older than twenty. They were going through a Paris Vogue like they were in an art museum and they were talking about London and people they might see and one said with an uptalk accent, ‘I would be more excited to see JK Rowling than the Prince.’”

“Funny. You’ll need to use them. I’m still waiting for a novel or a play or something.”

“I know. I know. . .”

“What was the one line from your play I liked. . . Was this you. . . ? ‘Who will hold me if I’m holding you?’”

I had a strange experience of hearing something familiar yet new. Like when you see a photograph of yourself that you know is you, but you have no memory of it being taken.

“I think it was me. But I don’t remember. Probably from one of those one-acts sitting in a drawer.”

“It’s a good line.”

“It is. I’ll write it down.”

Trackback URL for this entry: http://travelingtreefrog.com/2008/04/13/my-notebook/trackback/