You know you’re a writer when you start looking at
- the moldy tiles of the fusty subway escalator,
- the hardened pieces of artificially colored gum stuck to the furry, plaster ceilings and
- the decaying coffee breath of the business guy with a business coat too long for him who thinks it’s hilarious to speak to his friend through you about his fresh, innovative take on how “You know that every girl just takes a Halloween costume idea and puts the word “slutty” in front of it. ‘Slutty cat, slutty devil,’” – as if no one had ever heard that one before – and
- you take all of these and store it away for later.
- Instead of being utterly disgusted by them, you notice them. Which perhaps is the biggest step – noticing the sticky touch of the Caribou coffee counter.
But maybe you’re also a writer when you see the things that people aren’t saying, doing or being. Like that guy with the long business coat – perhaps he doesn’t have enough ‘funny confidence’ to use anything but cliches because his comedian father committed suicide on his 11th birthday before teaching him how “to be funny” or perhaps that other guy wasn’t actually a friend, but a boss he was trying too hard to impress.
Jock thinks I’m a bit nuts when I go on these tangents about people and what “could” be happening with them – but I just say, you never know!
He’s right to an extent. Sometimes what you see is simply what you get, but many times there’s more to it than appears to be true and we can’t possibly know what another person is going through. I just try to give people the benefit of the doubt as they scream at me and shove their middle finger in my face. Kill ‘em with kindness, as my mother always said.
My dad once told me about Paradigm Shifts. I thought I knew what one was because it was a popular buzz word in the 90′s, but in fact I had no idea. On the link above, I linked to a yahoo question forum because I honestly couldn’t find another website that better described it. Read the one about Stephen Covey and you’ll get the idea. It’s just easier to judge than to take the time to understand.
Maybe all this just means I’m a human.
