Writing on the Run
I write to you today from the Apple store at the Grove in Los Angeles, an over-crowded establishment filled with geniuses, and high-tech consumers jacked on caffeine and the idea of taking a brand new MacBook Pro from the package. It is here that I must surreptitiously write today’s post, a clandestine operation as I pretend my only business here is to identify the body and remains of my own computer which is now officially toast. I start writing about sex and pornography, generating the highest amount of traffic I’ve had yet, and less then twenty-four hours later my machine is dead and gone.
That being the case, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize for any typos and grammatical misunderstandings discovered from here on out, as the aforementioned situation allows only a narrow window for error and proofreading.
I rode a borrowed bike here this afternoon, lent to me by a beautiful blond with a kind and giving heart for said bike was her only mode of transportation and she effortlessly sacrificed it when she learned I was in need, for the bike previously bestowed upon me damn near collapsed mid-ride, rendered immobile shortly thereafter. And all this biking is merely a result of the crushing debt of the LA Parking Enforcement weighing down my vehicle. Not to mention the thing is unregistered and uninsured, begging to be driven off a cliff if only the battery wasn’t cooked and the muffler didn’t sound like a 747 taking off every time I try to start it up.
I am the writer without a computer.
The adventurer without a car.
The romantic without money.
The filmmaker without a job.
But the computer does not make me a writer. For no surface is now safe from the ink in my pen. I will spill my heart on paper napkins from Starbucks, composing love letters addressed to a young lady expressing my gratitude for the bike she has lent and for making me feel alive again. I will write my novel on bedroom walls, dining room tables, and slow moving animals.*
Without a car my adventures will require transportation by way of horse, camel, pack mule, or river boat. My feet seem to be in perfect working order, and I hold a new appreciation for the miracle that is putting one foot in front of the other to arrive at a particular destination – thanking God every morning for providing me with two legs to walk on. And there is always that bike, which, in fact, has brought back memories of being thirteen and riding through the neighborhood with my gang of knuckleheads, jumping curbs, recklessly speeding downhill, and chasing each other. Memories easily forgotten if I was still getting around on four wheels. I feel like a kid again.
And I don’t need money to be romantic, to look good, or instill confidence. No, I just need to be me.
What I am telling you here today is that even though Sallie Mae is breathing down my neck around every corner, shaking me upside down for the loose lunch-money change in my pockets – good thing I’m brown-baggin’ it these days – and even though my mailbox is jam-packed with rejection letters, I don’t always get three square meals a day, and I’m forced to sublet my apartment just to make rent, I am so much more appreciative of life without all it’s comforts. I won’t be stopped.
I am still a writer.
Still a romantic.
Sill an adventurer.
Still passionate.
Because I am relentless.
I am creative.
I am me.
*as recommended by Matthew Desotell
(C) 2010 Make It MAD
