Some uber-man I'd make, I'm barely a vapor

[raybear]

I had a dream that I was at sinsense's house and I was crashing at her place because I was drunk (she was too, I believe) and when we went to bed, there was a possible question of us having sex, and then she left the bed and I could tell she was uncomfortable with the idea of us hooking up, but also didn't want to hurt my feelings and was waiting for me to just fall asleep so she wouldn't have to tell me. (Its funny how in dreams how my reading of tone and body language skills are amazing, i.e. I'm psychic). But I was waiting for her to come back to the bedroom so I could say, its totally fine, it was an accident, let's just go to sleep. I ended up getting out of bed and wandering around all the rooms of her apartment trying to find her, but I knew she was there because we were still having a conversation and her voice was echoing everywhere and throwing me off. In my dream, I was very sleepy and it was 5 am. Its weird to be tired in a dream.

I got up because I had to, I was supposed to meet someone in the morning, but they just texted to cancel, so now I'm wanting to go back to sleep, but there is a bit of sunshine, so I should probably do something like go for a run or walk. Yesterday at therapy, he was giving me the hardline about keeping up exercise, finding a solution to do so all winter, to help manage the cyclical/seasonal depression, and I was like yeah, yeah, I know, and maybe he thought I was giving him the brush-off, except at the end of the session, I was leaving and he said, oh you rode your bike here? On this cold drizzly day? Yes, I did. I think he realized I was maybe okay and that made me feel good too, like hey, I'm maybe okay. I felt super bleak today, but I rode my bike anyway. The physical depression feelings are there, but its like I'm standing next to them, not inside of them, unable to move.

I sold my old bike last night to a guy from Craiglist. Hey, did you know people are on there looking for stuff that isn't sex? I got $50 for it, which is about half of what I paid for it initially a few years ago, and he's planning to pretty much replace everything, so he was really just buying the frame. It made me happy to know it was going to get revamped and ridden around still. Also, while he was taking my bike for test run, I was looking at his biked on the stairs and he had a sticker that said something Ridedaily: The Antidepressant and had a stick figure on a bike inside a giant pill. Yeah, its not for everyone, but it might be for me.

So I had just mentioned two days ago my lack of enthusiasm for Raymond Carver, and the book I was specifically reading that prompted it was "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love". Today, the NYTimes posted this: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/Carver.pdf
which is all about how his editor carved up the majority of the stories and made them so oblique, and they posted the endings of the old version and the new version, and sure enough, the unedited version was much more appealing to me. But, the old title of "Beginnings" is weak, I definitely prefer What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, which is actually a favorite title of mine, no matter that the material itself, I don't love.

Note to self: when you decide to revisit Carver in a year, read Where I'm Calling From instead. (which is also on my shelf).

Comments

overlap! clearly the earlier case was overstated

[unscrambled.livejournal.com]

"What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" is one of my favorite story titles of all time, too. I feel like that title influenced the titles of about a bazillion other things. Me and You and Everyone We Know (which is a Raymond Carver inlfuenced film, too) is the first one that comes to mind.

I like "Where I'm Calling From" the most of his collections. Fuck! Another book I used to own. What happened to so many of my books? Oh well.

[sinsense.livejournal.com]

Oh my sweet Jesus. That was totally not me! I would have made out with you, for sure. Er. Is that inappropriate? Oh well. I like the idea of you wandering the apartment; it reminds me of Jo in Little Men, the way she would never sleep and would wander around the house. I always made it spookier in my head than I think Alcott intended.

Speaking of titles (which you weren't, really), I've always been in love with How Late It Was, How Late, and I don't want to read it and find out that it's not as good as I was hoping. I've never finished Heart, You Bully, You Punk, for the same reason.

hello, my comment is longer than my post.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

it kinda wasn't you in my dream either. i mean, granted i've only seen a picture of you, we've never met in real-life, but the dream version of you wasn't even terribly accurate to the pictures. also, when i woke up, it took me a long time to think of your real name. i just kept thinking "sinsense", but more as a concept, not like i was saying it outloud as your name. if that makes sense. i guess that's sort of how 'handles' work, right? um, anyway. i also wasn't offended by our decision to not hookup. it was fairly mutual. like one minute we were drunk and sort of like, hey, its something to do, and then the next we had sobered up and were both like, um, this could lead to something weird. i think this is related to my general thoughts recently on trying to move away from sex as a "something to do" category in my life. ok, that sounds weird when i write it out like that. obviously my strategy isn't fully formed yet.

and hey, i was totally speaking of titles. my friend loves that book, "how late it was, how late", so it has been on my general long, to-be-read list. i would generally trust this person's opinion of books, in that, i might not love it, but i doubt i would hate it. but still, if you want to love something and only like it okay, that is still disappointing.

i am horribly at coming up with titles for my own work. they tend to be nondescript and bland, like i have a story about a guy named arthur who sells all of his belongings to buy a famous painting and at the end he disappears into it. the name of the story? "arthur". so i'm trying to be bold and work on more creative naming, but it is still awkward, as evidenced by my recent discovery that i temporarily renamed a short story "the need of badly wanting". what?!? it doesn't even make sense. i was (and am) horrified, and i'm pretending i was high when it happened. even though i wasn't.

Re: hello, my comment is longer than my post.

[sinsense.livejournal.com]

I've always been vaguely attracted to the idea of dream traveling, or the idea that I could be in people's dreams as me, whether I was conscious of it or not. So I suppose I'm disappointed at this faux-me?

You're right, though, that is how handles work. I find LJ handles particularly hilarious, since I so often adulterate them in strange ways. (For example: you are Ray in my head, though sometimes Bear, wearemany is Wear Eh Many, even though I figured out long ago that it's supposed to be We Are Many.)

I looked at a few pages today, feeling daring. I may even tackle it, since you say you have a trustworthy friend who likes it. I think I will only be disappointed if it is totally problematic on some level, which I doubt. I live in hope, hey.

Titles are awful. Awful. I hate coming up with them. Mine are usually one word (fiction) or completely and descriptively wretched (academic work). Aggh.

Re: hello, my comment is longer than my post.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

oh isht, its the book written in scottish dialect, right? ok, now i remember picking it up at the library, reading the first couple pages and thinking, i will never get through this.

your lj name is totally just a symbol to me. saying the words out loud feels like i'm speaking another language. and i'm realizing, that is how i think of many lj names -- they are like icons, in the shape of letters.

i have one ljer named lakenaiad, as in lake naiad, but for the first several months, i thought it was Lake-N-Aid, and i still say it this way in my head.

its somewhat helpful that i picked my lj name back when no one i knew in real life (or even my nascent virtual life) knew my blog existed, so i didn't really care that it was kinda my real name. i used to joke though that if my livejournal is ever suddenly deleted, or every entry made private, it's a clue i've gotten some sort of big book contract, but i think now that so many celebrities have blogs, and they are just as inane (usually moreso) than us non-famous folks, i don't even have to worry about that anymore.

also, i apostrophize wearemany, so it's We'reMany. but i like Wear Eh Many.

[fuzzilla.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I feel like a plain title is better than a stinker that tries to be clever and fails. Kinda like, "would it *really* be funny if I did a Pavarotti impression on my answering machine, or should I just stick with the standard name and greeting so I don't sound like a total dork?" You're very right, though, that quirky titles are much more attention grabbing so, that said, I'm all for being bold and daring with titles...