Here’s what I’ve learned from writing a book over the past year: It’s hard. And along with being hard, there are a lot of bits that can’t make into the final product for various uninteresting reasons. After talking to my professor, I’ve decided to change the narrator’s age. As a result, there’s a passage I can’t use anymore, but I still like. For my own ego, I’ve published it after the jump.
Whenever I spend time with a couple, I always feel like I’m missing the main attraction. And I am. We can all have a great time, chatting about the latest New Yorker article or judging mutual friends. And then after dessert, we’ll all do the dishes together. Maybe the boyfriend and I will flirt a little bit, but in an innocuous way that feels like chatting up your cousin. Or the girlfriend and I will have a conversation about our childhood pets that feels special as we clear the table. But then, once I leave them alone, I can see that I was just a preamble to their night together. It’s simplistic to think the rest of their night just involves sex. It involves conversations about their lives in a language that I don’t understand. From the outside, it’s impossible to tell what individuals love about each other, or what they love about being a couple together. That’s why seeing your parents, the ultimate couple, fight or have sex is so awful. You get a glimpse of their secrets, and you realize that you’d rather not know them.
July 22, 2008 at 9:59 am |
Wow, I love the passage. It’s a shame you can’t use it. I know that feeling all too well, just never was able to put it so sussinctly.
July 22, 2008 at 6:58 pm |
I love it too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yummy give me more!!
August 6, 2008 at 1:27 pm |
here in berlin and can#t figure out the a symbol to write an email, so i have resorted to reading your blog, which is very entertaining. write me so i can answer you.
i love traveling and seeing another way of life. however, germans are not especially nice or friendly and there arent too many americans around.
dad told me you are seeing Talya and the rest tonight. in case you get this, send my love.