Ultimately, we are going to end up here; it may take a while.
In the begining...
My first college English class was 205, Art of Literature, with Dr. Marie McAllister, a woman who loosely veiled her brilliance behind nervousness and the kind of fast-talking one learns in Nassau county. She would take these amazingly well planned pauses when she spoke, and her inflection would change slightly when she started to to speak again. She had carpal tunnel syndrome, and couldn't write long comments on our papers, so instead, she would give us audiotapes. One my first tape, she told me that she wanted me to be an English major--finally, validation!
A component of her class was going to be contemporary fiction and non-fiction, accomplished through a 13 week subscription to The New Yorker. I remember two pieces vividly--one was a piece of short fiction called "Stitches," which changed my very understanding of what 7 pages of Times New Roman could do. The other was something about the ethics of modifying genes in children and selectively aborting undesired fetuses, which forced me to start thinking about something that i may never find my own precise, defined answer to. Anyway, I was hooked. I still get The New Yorker, though now my source is less predictable than the mail, but way cuter.
Next...
I start writing, feverishly, at some undisclosed, unremembered time. I fill the notebook Katherine gave me with the ugly portrait of Shakespeare and the Joni Mitchell quote inside with fragments of poems. I fill notebook after notebook with fragments of thoughts. I never find a notebook that I love to write in, though. At some point, during the summer of Blue House, Majkin introduced me to my first Moleskine. It's the perfect notebook. I wish that I could have a job that paid me to write in moleskines all day, and to hide the produced writings. It amazes me how I am able to find tactile pleasure in writing on these pages with a certain pen--archival, of course.
Also of note, in addition to Majkin, who became my BFFFFFF this summer, possibly the most interesting person I've met--aside from me, that is--uses one too, and even bought me one, and fills it with the same lists that I do.
Background...
Probably the best English class I ever took was 3somethingsomething, Asian-American Women's Semi-Autobiographical Fiction, with Mara. Cynthia and Akash and Brian and I sat up front and dominated. I developed an infatuation with literary representations of menstruation. I said sexy things about women's bodies serving as texts. One day, I read a book that changed my life, and threw me onto the path of socially active-thought and vegetarianism (which i had to break recently due to health concerns) which I lived/live by--a book called My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki. I could talk about this book for days, but what I would prefer to do is to instruct you to read it first, then find me and we'll discuss. Perfect.
One of the artifacts that holds Ozeki's book together is Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book, a collection of lists filled out in notebooks one thousand years ago in Japan. The first personal documentarian, I think, or I'd like to think, at least. Shonagon made lists of things like "Words That Look Commonplace but That Become Impressive When Written in Chinese Characters" or "Things that Make the Heart Race." This taught me how to write for myself, the private, non-blogged, not poetry that means the most to me, that i carry around in my moleskine.
sometime later...
I start this stupid blog-type thing. I read other blogs, mostly in search of inspiration and attractive design elements. I find a blog--several, actually--dedicated to moleskines. On one of these sites, I find reference to a familiar sounding name, an author who wrote a new book...
flashback...
When I worked at Starbucks, I would always take a copy of the Sunday Times from the recycling bin. I read the Book Review and the Magazine, and sometimes the Arts and Leisure section.
more recent flashback...
I remember reading an article in a NY that Sarah gave me about personality and intelligence tests.
other flashback...
Blink, Don't Think. That had to be the most interesting headline I'd ever come across in the Sunday Times. I clipped it out.
summation.
so, indirectly, the following people lead me to find this book, which i haven't even read yet: Majkin, Sarah, Mara, Ruth Ozeki, Sei Shonagon, my father, Dr. McA, and countless others.
Wednesday, as part of the Festival of the Book, Malcolm Gladwell will be discussing his new book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, as well as, perhaps, the countless articles he has written for The New Yorker.
this made sense to me.
you see, i stopped believing in coincidences when i started believing in everything else--every coincidence is actually a tiny destiny, i think/hope, and it makes much more sense that way.
