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In 2010, I am going to aim for honesty.
I've come to answer every personal question I'm asked, except (some of) those that are asked by my wife, with flippancies and deflections. I steer all conversations back toward the questioner. I'm frequently insecure, frightened, horny, ugly, depressed, elated, furious, proud, or wistful, but you would never find out by asking me — I answer everything with an equanimous smile and a self-effacing shrug; true questions slide off the smooth, overlapping scales I've come to dress up in. It's a useful skill — there are times when honesty would be deadly, and slick deflection saves the day. But I want to be able to turn it off.
Whenever I encounter a work that moves me, more often than not there is honesty, some personal revelation, supporting it. In recent weeks I've listened to John Hodgman admit how awkward minor celebrity makes him feel in the audiobook of More Information Than You Require, read Amanda Gannon's tentacle porn confession on Tor.com, watched Tim Minchin's Rock and Roll Nerd, and grown frustrated with my own Teflon existence. Do any of you know I was raised by an alcoholic, or that I spent a teenage year as a born-again Christian, or that from kindergarten to eighth grade I used to get into frequent fistfights with my schoolmates, and once stabbed one in the back with a freshly-sharpened pencil? Do you know that I'm constantly terrified that I've pissed my life away, and that I pour all that insecurity into the hours I sit working on my book — but that nobody else has read any of it, so I don't know if I'm a legitimate artist or a monkey smearing shit on the wall? You're my friends, many of you — shouldn't you know these things?
This doesn't mean I expect to become a compulsive over-sharer, either on this journal or in real life. Nobody needs to know about my wet dreams (unless upon request) or the towering conflagrations that rage up because my blood sugar is low and someone had the temerity to double-park in Allston. But I do want to stop wearing different masks for different people, to the extent I can without breaking hearts and causing riots; I want to engage with people and the questions they ask, thoughtfully and honestly, instead of puncturing the moment with something sly and annoying as soon as the risk of intimacy is detected.
To quote Mr. Minchin, I'll always be a fucked-up little dry-heart wannabe rock-and-roll nerd. But the least I can do is dig for the meaning in it.
Also, in 2010, I will finish a book and get glasses.
Andiamo!
I've come to answer every personal question I'm asked, except (some of) those that are asked by my wife, with flippancies and deflections. I steer all conversations back toward the questioner. I'm frequently insecure, frightened, horny, ugly, depressed, elated, furious, proud, or wistful, but you would never find out by asking me — I answer everything with an equanimous smile and a self-effacing shrug; true questions slide off the smooth, overlapping scales I've come to dress up in. It's a useful skill — there are times when honesty would be deadly, and slick deflection saves the day. But I want to be able to turn it off.
Whenever I encounter a work that moves me, more often than not there is honesty, some personal revelation, supporting it. In recent weeks I've listened to John Hodgman admit how awkward minor celebrity makes him feel in the audiobook of More Information Than You Require, read Amanda Gannon's tentacle porn confession on Tor.com, watched Tim Minchin's Rock and Roll Nerd, and grown frustrated with my own Teflon existence. Do any of you know I was raised by an alcoholic, or that I spent a teenage year as a born-again Christian, or that from kindergarten to eighth grade I used to get into frequent fistfights with my schoolmates, and once stabbed one in the back with a freshly-sharpened pencil? Do you know that I'm constantly terrified that I've pissed my life away, and that I pour all that insecurity into the hours I sit working on my book — but that nobody else has read any of it, so I don't know if I'm a legitimate artist or a monkey smearing shit on the wall? You're my friends, many of you — shouldn't you know these things?
This doesn't mean I expect to become a compulsive over-sharer, either on this journal or in real life. Nobody needs to know about my wet dreams (unless upon request) or the towering conflagrations that rage up because my blood sugar is low and someone had the temerity to double-park in Allston. But I do want to stop wearing different masks for different people, to the extent I can without breaking hearts and causing riots; I want to engage with people and the questions they ask, thoughtfully and honestly, instead of puncturing the moment with something sly and annoying as soon as the risk of intimacy is detected.
To quote Mr. Minchin, I'll always be a fucked-up little dry-heart wannabe rock-and-roll nerd. But the least I can do is dig for the meaning in it.
Also, in 2010, I will finish a book and get glasses.
Andiamo!
