You ain't gonna get me to eat, drink or swallow ANYTHING!

I complain about everything in this class and I must be driving everyone crazy. I don't want to blog! I don't want to drive to class on game day! But despite all my complaints, I am actually enjoying this class. And I'm learning something despite my stubborn reluctance. The things we learn in this class aren't necessarily something we can write on a note card and memorize. Like authenticity. I didn't really understand what that meant until we started going around in class and reading our work. I realized that authenticity isn't about the honesty in the details of the events, but an honesty in the representation of the teller of these stories. Writing projects the narrator like a hologram. Authenticity is why it is possible that I can picture and remember things I have never seen. A young poet lifting his chin, Irish obsessions, a carved tiger tooth in a Thai bazaar, a cliff prison in ancient ruin, a woman who never takes her sunglasses off through an entire meal, a sexy circus, a blind man on the bus, a worn leather strap on a canvas bag and acrobatics on college trees... These things will always stick with me, probably long after I've forgotten all my formulas. I know that I will see and do things that will remind me of these details. And because I have had the luxury of having met the people who wrote them, they will be inextricably tied to the telling. Thanks for dragging me along kicking and screaming.