Bakers’ Dozen Snapshots
I. The Physical Impossibility of Life in the Mind of Someone Living
On October 3rd, 2003 Niall Henry David McGee was born to my brother Joshua and his wife Jennifer. Through no power of my own, I became an uncle. Now I am Uncle Dave. Uncle Dave? This title was bestowed on me as though from on-high, although it came without lands or cattle or anything. Suddenly my brother is now a father, and Jenn is a mother, and I am an uncle, and my parents are grandparents. And I just have to remember to keep breathing, to keep breathing.
II. Dave Eggers, Dave Eggers, Get Out of My Head!
It has been a struggle for me to separate my writing from Eggers’. I read some Neil Gaiman recently, and that has helped to balance the scales as it’s difficult to hack from two authors at once. Eventually, I have been told, I will be able to create an amalgam of all of this, and shed the excess, and truly develop my own style. Until then, I grow weary with frustration at either a) Eggers getting there first or b) me just blatantly ripping him off.
I would guess toward the latter but even that self-doubt is just so Eggersish, right?
III. The World Through a Lens
The city grows dark and bleary. Dust rises from every seeping pore and crevice, the sun is shining as though through a haze that hangs about the city. It is dreary and it is dirty, this London fog is not fog but grime and dust. The world grows dark and darker.
Then I remember to clean my glasses and all is happy and shiny and new again.
IV. Scraps’ Last Tape or Beware of this Enterprise!
I became friends with Scraps this summer, and it feels as though we have been friends all my life. I met him through Owen, who really has been his friend for life, so it’s all circular or whatever. Anyway, Scraps has this uncanny ability to understand people that he’s just met. Actually, “uncanny” doesn’t quite do it justice—it borders on eerie.
“Dave” he said to me one night, sitting on Eric’s couch with empty bottles of beer on the table between us, the sun either just setting or just rising and it doesn’t really matter which—he started just like that: “Dave…” and then he told my what my problem is. Not mean or crass or harsh, just told me in simple terms what my PROBLEM is. And he was right! He was so right! Suddenly I knew! The world became clear!
And fuck if I can remember what he said, but it did prompt me to empty my closet and buy some new clothes.
V. Remembrance of Things Past
Hmm…
VI. The World Through a Lens, Part 2
I take my glasses off and thrust them angrily into the case. I don’t want to live like this! I want to experience the sights of this world with my own eyes, not these artificial lenses! I need to live free of…
And then I remember that I direct shit, which is really just showing life through the lens of a camera or the lens of a proscenium arch. So I calm down and put my glasses back on so I can read without squinting.
VII. Red Mosquito
I am in the British Academy, sitting on a plush sofa during a break in one of my classes. I am listening to Eddie croon through my headphones, staring at a giant reproduction of a Raphael. Jesus bestows the Office of the Keys on Peter, while the rest of the disciples look on. This is what Eddie sings:
“If I had known then what I know now. If I had known then what I know now.”
VIII. Dave Club vs. Neil/Neal/Niall Club
At first there was Dave Club, which I’m sure you all remember. Now suddenly I#m reading Neil Gaiman and Neal Stephenson and my nephew is Niall and now I’m some outsider inside of… umm… Kneel Club. Will that suffice?
IX. The Inherent Voyeurism of Dance Clubs or This Shit is Weird, Right?
I think about losing oneself on the dance floor, a subject I sort of spun into on my last post. I go dancing again, and I just can’t help thinking how weird it is that anybody would choose this as an activity to pass the time. I stand in a room so loud that I literally cannot hear myself think, and shake whatever and move whatever in rhythm to the pulsing of the synthesized bass drum. We stare at the people around us, and we wonder what they are thinking, and we make eye contact and smile, and that is all we will ever get. People drink stuff. And a popular song comes on that elicits a loud “OOOOOH!” from the crowd. It’s too loud to really meet anybody, or to even find out the name of that pretty girl that smiled at me. And soon we will all go home alone together.
X. Scraps’ Last Tape or Beware of this Enterprise! Part 2
Oh yeah! I remember what he said! He said that I don’t allow myself to be found attractive because I don’t find myself attractive. So I present my outer image the way I perceive my self-image. Which is unattractive.
So, yeah, I threw away a bunch of shit and bought a bunch of new clothes. You know just to see if I could fool myself into thinking differently.*
XI. Transatlantic Load-In Guilt
Week 1 loads into the Studio Theatre and I am not there. For the first time since I got here I feel truly truly truly displaced.
XII. On Writing of Raindrops
It has not rained since I got here—which is odd. I thought it rained all the time here. Pervasive fucking rainfall. They (“the English”) keep telling me that this weather is so atypical, that the grass is normally greener on this side of the fence, that there should be more rainfall, that I really ought to buy an umbrella because this is all going to change.
And then I am caught in a rainstorm that pounds and pounds and chills me to the very core. The contents of my pockets and my bag are completely soaked, the water seeps through everything, the wind blows directly through me as I step into it, caught suddenly as London releases everything it has built up against us since we arrived in one fell swoop. It rains and it rains and it rains.
Hasn’t rained since.
XIII. New York as a Metaphor for Innocence
I really miss New York.
*Nope.
