Thursday, November 16, 2006

things i never knew about the man i knew

B- sent me an email today. it was a link to his newest article, a review of nbc's 'earl'. i don't think it was sent to me, personally, as some kind of sign or anything. it was probably just a mass email to folks he has in his address book.

but i'd never really read his writing in any close way. since the link was there, what harm would there be? what could i discover about B- since we'd stopped sleeping together?

you know how you read certain authors and you instantly have a sense of where they come from - they're authors of a Place and you'll always associate them with that? like, flannery o'connor is a southern writer; edith wharton is new york; steinbeck is california. well, B- is san antonio. you read him and you can taste the tecate, you feel the dry heat, you smell the dirt. his writing about his hometown should have been all the conversations we never had. the holes in his biography were filled: his sister is a well-known poet and spoken work performer and activist; his father was not just a crazy vietnam vet; he was raised by his staunch baptist grandparents; he may have been well-educated at stanford but he was in contempt of it all. he has a soft imaginative spot for petty criminals, con men, hustlers and winos.

there's nothing about me - and there shouldn't be. but there is a short piece called 'hello, walls,' roughly around the time we stopped seeing each other, and i can't help but remember this day we spent together.

anyway. i thought that was interesting.

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