The Weight of Blogging and Lightness of Being

I am currently struggling with another dilemma of the writer, the solution of which continues to elude me. How should I choose my audience? It would be one thing if I were writing a fictional novel (which still has its personal hazards, as I will explain later, if I remember), but I am writing that beast of modern computer culture known as a blog, a voluntary submission to what used to be one of the most-feared atrocities in my ten-year old life, the breaking of the fragile little lock on my brightly-covered journal, revealing the emotionally-ridden musings of a mind caught up, inextricably, in a tangled forest of growing pains. Worry not, I have since learned my lesson, and have no plans whatsoever of revealing intimate secrets or painfully embarrassing confessions, as many bloggers tend to do. I am a great believer in the maintenance of at least the semblance of privacy.

Thus, I am not laboring over my audience in terms of whom I should reveal my innermost life to, but rather, and somewhat mundanely, whom I should subject to my ramblings on the outer occurrences of my life, in this case, my month-long stay in Argentina. Another reason I am a disappointment to writers everywhere. I can’t even take the most miniscule step of expanding my readership beyond the count of one—my boyfriend, Alex, who in all likelihood is the only one reading this, and already knows most of what it will contain because I’ve already told it to him. Be patient, though, potential audience. As I have said before, I’m still in the warm-up stage of my endeavor to prove myself worthy of the title “writer,” which I now carry with a certain amount of guilt.

The blog is tricky as far as audience, because if I open the floodgates and make it public, everyone and their dog (which is a lot, here in Buenos Aires… see last blog) will be able to read it, and I’ll be proportionately more self-conscious about what I write, which will, inevitably, quickly and tightly shut off the tap until my stream of written consciousness slows to a trickle, and then back to the comforting, albeit guilt-ridden, silent space of nothingness.

On the other hand, choosing my audience implies an actual process of selection, which is what has me in my current dilemma. It means physically sharing the link with those I have chosen, thus handing them the tiny bronze key to the diary, which also implies having to analyze closely the status of my friendship with them, are they blog-worthy and all that, when I myself am not sure I am worthy to be wasting their time with this blog (By the way, isn’t blog a horribly ugly word? If you think of a substitute, please feel absolutely free to suggest it. Until then, forgive me for subjecting you to its use). Or, for example, should I give the link to my parents, who would find it interesting, amusing, maybe even clever (because sons and daughters are often thought very clever by their parents), or should I declare potential self-censorship and deny them access, at quarter-life, with that old teenage terror of parental surveillance. Which all leads later to the anxiety, once I know I have given a few people the link, with which bloggers frantically check for comments, a two-word to four-line affirmation of their efforts, proof absolute that someone out there is reading, when the original dilemma was whether or not I actually wanted anyone to read in the first place.

You see, this is why I do not write. Or maybe why I have volumes of private journals on my shelves, with lines and lines of creativity I refused to share with anyone but myself. And now refuse to share even with myself, evidenced by the last journal entry, which I’m sure must have been dated at least three years ago, referring with guilt to the previous one, probably written two years before that. I should probably also reiterate the nature of my failures as a writer have nothing to do with the actual act of writing words, seeing as how I just turned in to the Dean of the Graduate School a master’s thesis of about 140 pages. Oh, I write. But it doesn’t count, because although it has to do with me in some metaphysical, psychological or cultural way, my thesis has nothing at all to do with me, the daily me (no, let's not get into that whole debate). The creative writer me. That is the precise stage on which I find myself mute, like in that recurring dream I used to have, in which I had finally won a coveted role in a play, only to realize a moment before going out into the spotlights that I could not remember one of my lines, and in fact had never actually learned them at all. I’m a procrastinator, you see, even in my dreams.

Now that I have most likely lost my one potential reader (sorry, Alex) with my complexes, I will launch into it at last. I have exhausted myself with explanations, and now have no energy to plunge into the cold pool (which I HATE doing, ask anyone) and resort to my usual way of first putting in a tentative toe or two. In that spirit, here are some of the things I am up to today in cosmopolitan Buenos Aires:

1. 1. Listening to/watching the rain. Yes, I am here in Buenos Aires, sitting on my bed, as the rain pours steadily down in serene cascades, slicking the sidewalks, which I promise you, at least in this part of town, were made from something like tile, or marble. Walking in the rain around here implies a constant battle with equilibrium and absolute surveillance of the relationship between the soles of your shoes and the surface of the ground.
2. 2. Listening to Beethoven. I am listening to some of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, currently to the Pathétique, on my iPod, while happily I can still hear the pattering and splashing of the rain outside my open window. This work of Beethoven’s never fails to make me emotional, I warn you, and it’s even worse when I’m playing it myself. There is just something about the way the notes and dynamics work together that reaches in and talks to something inside of me I can’t quite place. I just had to choose between the music and this writing exercise, since the current existence in my bedroom of only one outlet, and likewise one converter in my possession, allows me to only plug in either my iPod or my laptop. The iPod, belong to that first generation of models to come out, has a pretty spent battery, and typical only endures about 15-40 minutes of my musical adventures. The laptop doesn’t last long either, mainly because thanks to the electrical discrepancies across international boundaries, it never charges to its full potential in Argentina, and dies at about the same point as the iPod. As you can see, I have chosen the laptop, at least until the iPod battery runs out.
3. 3. As to my choice of Beethoven over say, the collection called Bella Tuscany (since I am in a classical mood) or some Vivaldi, it is simply because my eye was led to it on the thought impulse suggested by repeated references to Beethoven (a different work of Beethoven's, granted, that I do not possess to my knowledge) in the pages of the book I am currently reading, Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the pages of which I closed reluctantly in order to write, but also in a vain attempt to impede my usual habit of devouring books in their entirety, leaving me with no material for some pleasant plane-reading on my return to Texas in approximately two weeks. It will be a failure, I know it. I am supposed to be reading Borges, as part of my studies here, and I will probably return to him before much time passes today, but I made the mistake of allowing myself to get ensnared in Kundera’s masterpiece, which on top of it all is in English translation (as I have not yet decided to learn Czech) and I can read with great speed and facility, unlike Spanish, which although I can read quite well, I still labor over and must read more slowly. I may return to Kundera at a later point.
4. 4. Postponing my entrance into the outside world. I am still in my lounging clothes, at 2:19 p.m. It is a luxury I am relishing as part of my “working” vacation, a supposedly no-guilt time to relax, as well as sightsee, after the continuous stress of months of thesis-writing and degree-acquiring. However, as you have no doubt deduced by now, guilt is something I find difficult, at best, to purge from any of my activities, and I still have that nagging feeling that I should go get properly attired and venture out, rain or not, into the city I have been walking faithfully for three weeks.
5. 5. Finally, deciding whether or not to write more verbal photographs. My plan was to offer you at least one or two more like the one yesterday about the pooches, but I fear I have overstayed my welcome for one writing excursion, and fear that I will never be read again if I don’t somehow curb the length of my ramblings, held back so long by the fear of writing.

And so, I leave you for now, and I will go outside, at least into the hallway, then probably into the world outside, with a tentative promise to return to you with some delightful written photographs (and maybe even some visual ones, as a tantalizing treat) in a later entry.
Hasta luego!

P.S. As you see, I actually did forget to expand on the hazards of writing the fictional novel, as I said in the first paragraph, as well as about Kundera, not five paragraphs ago. That, also, will have to wait.

My big introduction, errrr... confession

I really must be the worst writer in the history of all writers. Why, you ask? One very simple reason: I DON’T WRITE. For some reason, at times best suited for wild outpourings of creativity, I can’t bring myself to write about it. It’s like I feel it will be spoiled if I start writing about it. At those times, priceless moments I should take down on paper, I only want to take it in, let it seep into my system, enjoy everything about it without having to verbalize or record it. Maybe I shouldn’t even call myself a writer. I get great ideas all the time for things I should write, or maybe I should say that “someone” should write, but I rarely, if ever, sit down and do it. This is my big confession. What could be worse than a writer who confesses that she doesn’t write? Yes, I realize I’m writing right now, but it’s out of sheer cathartic impulse, driven by the guilt of my creative failures. I have seen so many amazing things, been told countless stories that will never be repeated, filed away idea after idea, all lost to the black hole in my mind labeled “Well of Creativity.” Oh, trust me, things go in. But they never come out.

Take my current situation, for instance. I am in my third week of five living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I have had a great time of it here, with more experiences worthy of recounting than I can count, especially since I didn’t write them down. Any normal person of my creative credentials would at the very least write in a journal, or make a blog, SOMETHING. But I just sit there (or stand, or walk by) speechless, sometimes thinking “there’s no way I’ll forget about this” or “wow, I should really write a story about this.” Ah, something else to throw in the well. The purpose of this writing exercise is to somehow warm up into recording at least some of my experiences in Bs.As. before they all disappear, sucked mercilessly into the inner reaches of my mind (where nothing reaches, least of all my creative impulse). I’m very good at critiquing other people’s writing, books and such (if I do say so myself) and have gotten compliments on my reviews, literary essays, etc. And boy, do I appreciate good writing. I even think I’m a fairly good “writer” myself—when I write, that is.

Yet I keep procrastinating, even now, in a effort to delay the icy plunge into the cold pool of words, images and memories I must somehow keep myself afloat in, force myself to stay in, until the point of comfort (which is also the point of numbness, no? Ah, an accidental Pink Floyd reference. Which reminds me of something really funny. The son of the family in whose apartment I am renting a room, 18 years old and lover of American rock-and-roll, circa 1970/80ish, has been walking around all day singing my favorite Pink Floyd song, “Wish You Were Here,” but in that way you do it when you have headphones on or the music is really loud, and you don’t know the words, so you just say every fifth one you know and mumble or make the sounds of the rest—but he does it all by himself, in complete silence, as if he were actually singing it! I love it, he’s a very plucky fellow. Right in front of us, too. You should really have been there. But not at the other times, when every time he gets home he turns on Aerosmith full blast for at least an hour. Every time. Seriously. I tried to talk to him about music today, with Pink Floyd as a starting point. But apparently the music that is wildly popular here is the old school music in the U.S. For 18-year old boys anyway. He asked if I went to concerts, to which I proudly replied in complete coolness confidence, “Oh, I’ve been to lots of concerts, I used to go all the time.” He asked me to name some, so I did… got nothing. He asks if I’ve been to see Guns ‘n’ Roses. No, I say. Bon Jovi? Um, I have a record… The Rolling Stones. Give me a break, kid, those tickets are pricey. How come? Because they are rock ‘n’ roll legends, silly. Legends as in they have been around FOR A REALLY LONG TIME. Rage Against the Machine? Ah, that I can relate to. But sadly, I have the unused ticket in a drawer, because some jerk who was supposed to drive us, didn’t. Kid walks away. I walk to my bedroom, no longer confident in my coolness, defeated by a list of random bands from 20+ years ago.

Where was I? Oh, right…). So I figured I just need a warm-up, a running start, and the torrents of words will come pouring, spitting out of my fingertips in torrents, slipping and sliding all over the keyboard (but not actually getting wet, since it’s a borrowed laptop) and splashing joyfully over the blindingly white surface of my Microsoft Word document. By the way, don’t you find the Word interface creatively deadening? I hadn’t noticed it much before (since I don’t write), but it doesn’t quite cut it like the handwritten journaling in a leather-bound book, pen scratching out lines in a maddening scrawl to keep up with my thoughts. Which is why I am using the computer. My pen usually can’t keep up with my thoughts, and since the point of doing this is that I’m losing them, why would… oh, nevermind. I do so love to procrastinate. Ask anyone.

One thing I do like is taking photographs of fun things I see, so I’ll start with that. Written photographs, meeting the minimal requirement of at least recording certain events or occurrences that stand out.

Photograph 1: DOGS IN THE PARK
I am starting to think there are more dogs here than people. Or at least a nearly equal amount. They are everywhere. One of the more popular professions for 20-somethings appears to be dog-walking, which to me, looks terrifying. One solitary person holding tightly to the leashes of at least eight dogs, most of them medium size to extremely large. They are pretty docile, following their walker in a pack, waiting patiently at the stoplights. I don’t understanding this strange phenomenon of canine behavior. I do find amusing that in every group I’ve seen, the smaller dogs stay in the middle of the pack. My guess is that they feel protected when the big dogs are on the outer edge. Sometimes you can’t even see the little dogs, which is probably how they like it. I really started noticing the dog phenomenon on my walk to class one day (I walk almost everywhere here, distances I’d scoff at sitting in my San Antonio apartment). My usual route takes me past a little wooded park, of which there are many in Buenos Aires. The second time I walked by, I stopped in my tracks and stared. There, in a circular area marked off by a railing around its circumference, kind of like the ring in a circus, were dozens of dogs. At least thirty, probably more. It was like a big dog party, like a giant play date for every dog within a five-mile radius (although now I know there are more than likely 200 dogs in a five-mile radius here). The majority were tethered in some way to the railing, walking around, socializing, resting, licking themselves, chatting about the weather, doing their business, you know, dog stuff. I’ve never seen anything like it. I was in a rush, so I quickly kept walking, craning my neck to keep looking at the dogs. A few days later I went that route again with my camera, and there were dogs there again, but not as many. I took a picture anyway. I’ve walked by at other times, and there is no one there. Maybe there is a dog-walkers association and they have a set meeting-time in the morning, at that particular park. Quite a sight, I have to say. I am not quite sure whether I should add the actual photograph. Probably not. That will be an excuse not to verbalize. Must not enable myself.

Alas, weariness overtakes me, due to the overwhelming strain of actually writing words. My words. Tangibly. Enjoy, at least with the knowledge of the rarity of the occasion. Adieu!