In the latest installment of ‘Love, Recorded,’ Matt walks in circles and dreams of literary superstardom.
Summer is over. I try to remember what happened. I can hardly remember the last couple weeks. I once took a memory test that guessed my age at 65.
Since our trip to the medieval fair, Cathreen has been a busy bee. She’s been studying acupuncture. I am supposed to be taking the time to write. I have plans: literary, stupid, grand. I read on a blog about another blog where writers sell themselves short. Are there writers out there who think, I am the shit?
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote his first book to get a girl to marry him. She did.
I come home from work and try to think, I am the shit.
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I have a tiny book called Our Island of Epidemics, coming out in October. It is about an island of epidemics. You know, like memory loss, bad jokes, unrequited love, etc.
My wife does not understand my writing.
I tell her she has to support me anyway, and she does a convincing job of it.
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When I am home before Cathreen, the cat yells at me that I am not her. He demands food. I give him the food. He stares at it and doesn’t eat.
He goes to the door and cries until I play our laser game, where I shoot a laser at the floor and he pretends that it is alive.
At least when he gets bored with the game, he is tired.
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Cathreen and I go for walks. The first time, we go to a track at a nearby school. She says we will walk every night. I say let’s start out slow, four laps. Four laps turn into five. We feel “in shape.” We do not go back.
Other people pass us as we walk. What is the point of walking, I ask her. She says the point is to talk.
I would argue, but at home, the television brightly beckons.
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On Saturday, I make plans to go to Salem for a literary festival. When Cathreen first got to Boston from Korea, I took her to a poetry reading. She is not what anyone would call a fan.
I wake up at 7:30 in the morning to catch a ride with a friend. I tell myself I am awake. I tell myself this will be fun.
We make five trips to Bunghole Liquors, and it is.
The writers here are self-conscious, but then they are drunk.
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The next day, Cathreen and I walk all over Watertown, where we live. We eat at a diner in the Gray Building, which isn’t gray. We walk along the Charles River. The park here comes as a surprise. The weather is a tease of summer. We walk until we are far from where we started, and then we have to walk uphill to get home.
Before we left, Cathreen said it was hot out. I looked outside and decided to wear pants and sneakers.
I was going to wear long sleeves.
She makes a good case that her warning before means I cannot complain now.
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I get back just in time to watch the Patriots lose to the Jets. Each year, I think the losses are starting to bother me less.
But the Jets.
Tom Brady’s hair is getting embarrassing. Later in the week, a reporter asks him about cutting it. He says to talk to his wife, Gisele.
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I am trying my best to think, I am the shit. I am writing. I am writing this. I am working on writing something bigger.
Cathreen is studying and walking to school. She went to a fortune teller once who said we would be rich in our thirties.
I am writing about myths and relationships and fortunes.
Best title ever in the history of the Good Men Project?
Best title ever in the history of the Good Men Project. 🙂
Thanks, Todd, I thought so too.