velocity

A confession: I am on-campus, in the building named Voltaire. I know, very uncool of me to admit. I'll be uncool any day of the week if it means I can write about it. I will simply say a lady never justifies her actions, toss back my parka-scarf thing and storm of with my hair (which will be long and flowy in this scene) sweeping behind me.

I never got around to writing about campus when I lived here, caught up as I was in running around (why? one may wonder blasphemously in hindsight, but I must warn thee: life was filled with important activities. do not question the urgency of oncampus activities). A sound-check of Voltaire on any given Tuesday for you: the background noise of busy fingers typing away, the rustle of papers, the heavy sighing and in a corner, always, voices carrying on a submerged conversation. A silence all the more interesting for what else it conveys: the passing-through of campus people, the meeting and the greeting, the high-headed breezing past, the abashed moving through, - because Tuesday night is bar night, so why is it everyone is still here, working in Voltaire till midnight before going to the ball, like modern-day Cinderella's?

I had 1000 other ideas to write about but it seems I am out of practice. I just asked my presently-on-campus-friend (also, elementary-school-best-friend, also we-used-to-climb-trees-together-friend, also we-still-want-to-become-pirates-(one-day-when-this-is-over)-friend), I asked her How should I start an email in Dutch without using the word 'ik'? (It's some rule of Dutch etiquette never to start a letter with 'I' and I, I am re-learning to write in this language), to which she instantly replied How should I start a research?

How should I start? How do I start a story that has travelled with me for years? (Another confession: there is a story that has travelled with me for years).

I'd thought I'd tap into some Voltaire-energies; there must be a frequency among all these hard-working vibes atuned exactly to writing. Some say deadlines help; some of my heroes wrote their books in a rush, in a flow, in a warped time-zone-thing. Such as Eggers.

Ah, Dave Eggers. He was such a hype. I love Eggers for throwing the complete irrationality of much of our thinking onto his pages, into our faces, in a book called 'you shall know our velocity'.

One more confession: I have no beginning and no end but I have a flow. I have a velocity and a vibe, I have busy fingers typing away, a parka-scarf-thing to toss behind me and global earth-encompassing ideas to analyze. But first, I am dragging my presently-on-campus-friend of campus for a drink.