Fiction would have failed these people, so I chose the other.

� Amy Bloom, in "Writers on Writing: Trading Fiction�s Comfort for a Chance to Look Life in the Eye" (NYT yesterday)

(I wrote this yesterday evening and when I brought the slaptop downstairs to move the file to my PC, I discovered that my COM ports had mysteriously ceased to recognize it. I messed with it for about an hour to no avail � and no bath. This means that my writing isn�t mobile and I have to do it in the basement/Rebecca's office until my sister sends me the laptop, which considering the yelling sobbing fight she picked with me last night minutes after the entry was done I don�t know when it�s going to be, maybe not even for ladyweekend. Also, I had one of those terrible dreams early this morning, the kind where something so good is so vivid that you wake up and it seems more like a memory than a dream, you forget the real situation for a while. But I�m trying not to think about all that for the time being. I�m just going to retype this, get to gastro, and figure it all out later.)

I would, of course, like the record to show that although I agree with Bloom, I think that the implied dichotomy of the article�s headline, the comfort of writing fiction vs. the brave engaged determination that non-fiction requires, is unfortunate, and since I like Amy Bloom so much I like to think that that some blowhard editor is responsible for its making it into print. Another example of this sort of thing is one Vanessa pointed out some months ago, the movie "Real Women Have Curves." One appreciates the gesture at a certain type of inclusivity, but they think us bonier broads are going to pay money to see that, after the filmmakers have left us out of the category of real women? Not bloody likely. (N.b. I am not implying that Vanessa is bony.)

I feel regret in me like a tapeworm today. I am hip to the program and I do recognize that some of that is probably PMS, but I think I would be remiss in my duties as your hostess if I didn�t warn you that this is not going to be my best week. This right here, in fact, is an example of my neglecting some other things and spending some time writing to cheer myself up.

I forgot to mention last time, Sherman Alexie was also funny on the subject of mentors. Someone asked him who his had been, and he said that he objected to the dynamic of power and intelligence implied in the use of the term, which suggests one person who complacently oozes his or her writing ability and another who is like an empty vessel into whom it trickles. He said that this sort of thing is reductive and devalues the contribution of both parties, and that it plain old made him uncomfortable. "Every time I hear the word mentor, I smell leather," he said in a tone of distaste. So of course I went out on Saturday and bought one of his books, "Indian Killer," the first six chapters of which were the best bathtub reading I�ve had in a dog�s age, and I also got another by Pam Houston, whose unmistakably singular voice and set of experiences are the best argument against the fiction-focus dichotomy that I can think of right now. And Tom had an interesting idea that would never have occurred to me, so, Tom, yeah, while I may think it marginally odd that you saved that e-mail all that time, I can hardly say I�m sorry you did. Late last summer, I think, I wrote here about a book I�d read and liked a lot, and shortly after I had, its author was doing a Google search for reviews of it and found my page too. He sent chatty e-mail and I wrote back, and really I must say that he did not seem to think that I was an idiot. You can see where this is going � Tom suggested that I should get in touch with that guy and ask him if he�d be willing to write a letter on my behalf. But I don�t think even Tom realizes what a weirdly non-preposterous idea this is, because the writer in question, let us call him DH, is someone who I imagine would understand what Amy Bloom is talking about, who has kept diaries, the minutiae of whose life fascinate him as narrative subjects and also drive him to (fascinating) self-criticism about why he�s so fascinated. Now, I am not going to go Just like meee or try to lay claim by association to anything DH has or has done, as far as writer cred goes I�m a scrub and I cheerfully admit it. But this is something I�ve actually been thinking about for the past few weeks � I don�t know if I want to write fiction anymore; now that I�ve had the experience of the major and whiner dramas of my real life playing out here, now that I�ve made myself tell real things even though later I know they will make me look foolish or worse, and now that after the foolishness has come to pass I am still not sorry I told them, I�m just not hungry for fiction, or, no, it�s like I�ve been a vegetarian for a while and although I�ve had some excellent cheeseburgers in my life, I have now lost my taste for them. In the Monitor once I was writing about Jo Ann Beard�s "The Boys of My Youth," how I wasn�t strong enough to get that close to the bone about things that had happened in my real life, how unlike Beard I was a hider and not a seeker, thank goodness for the anonymity of Diaryland and the fact that nobody I know in real life is reading the things I�m writing unless I want them to, etc. I know: ha ha. And that�s kind of the point: after the shock wore off, I realized how little there was in the Monitor that I was truly mortified to have people who knew me know was mine. I mean, sure, occasionally I was venting or sulking, but in reading some of the entries again and trying to understand them other than as their writer, I saw, no brag, how ironically reader-friendly they were. That was a shock too. I assumed I was crabbier and more sarcastic than my own diary demonstrated me to be. My experience of myself � I steal this locution from a philosophy major I used to know � was often as a ridiculous flounderer. Reading the old entries not only disproved this but reminded me how unridiculous I had felt writing each one of them. Writing, it didn�t occur to me to feel ridiculous. And, see, it also never occurred to me not to write.

You recognize how at this point I don�t even know if I could put together a statement of purpose for an MFA application. I am just beginning to think about these things, and I don�t know where they go. I have no purpose yet. This week�s issue of the Stranger has some articles in it about the writing scene in Seattle (n.b. I do not do poetry slams). I am going to read them without rolling my eyes, and then maybe I am going to take some tips and get out there and mingle. I don�t know where I go, either, in the next almost-year before it will be time to start puckering up for mentors and assembling a portfolio � we�ll see, I guess. I mean: we�ll see, and I can�t wait to find out.

Also, a guy named Chad signed my guestbook earlier this evening and wrote something that honest-to-god made me teary, an effect of his kindness that I will not diminish in the slightest by referring again to my PMS. Thank you, Chad. Please feel free to come back again and make yourself comfortable. And I will be in touch.

So, yeah, I have a tattoo now. Hey hey! It is about three inches high and a little narrower, and it is the sketch that Popeye drew of the bear from my favorite poem. On my right bicep. I love that I get to have a tattoo based on the artwork of a friend of mine, and what I especially love about this one, I told Catharine yesterday morning, is that the tattoo artist was respectfully true to the strokes of Popeye�s pen-and-ink drawing (though the tattoo is in color), so you�re very much aware of it being inscribed on me, you can�t see it and not somehow think of the *process* of Popeye drawing it and then of the tattoo artist rendering it, of the outlines and crosshatching rather than filled-in spaces that are more about the design than the creation of it. I�m also happy because the emphasis on line combined with the subject matter is reminiscent of a cave painting: the first stories people wrote down for each other, the ontology of documentation. I daresay Delmore Schwartz would be pleased. Personally I think it is the most badass tattoo ever, and I have always been up front about the fact that it was the last night I was out with Todd and Lori that I got the idea for it, we were at Linda�s talking about tattoos and suicide and that Anne Sexton poem and the idea popped into my head and that was it, and so I am grateful. (And by the way, that was a fine old normal old evening as far as I was concerned. I felt underdressed at first, but once we started talking I got over it. Hell, I enjoyed myself.) I borrowed Art�s digital camera and Vanessa tried to take some photos of it Sunday night but the flash reflected off the ointment in which I have to marinate it for a few days, so I�ll try again later in the week � if you want to see it, let me know and I will e-mail you a picture. No, it didn�t hurt. And if you�re in Seattle and in the market for a tattoo, go talk to Christy at Apocalypse. And then after you get it, walk up the hill and take yourself to Septieme, and don�t be in a hurry to get home.

Popeye has a tattoo of the word "temperance." I thought of this on Sunday while in the chair at Apocalypse and wondered if I were to get just one word tattooed on myself, and no proper nouns, what would it be? I am trying to figure mine out. How about you? Tom? Chad? Julie? Anyone?

Rebecca doesn�t like turning the heat on, and the house gets so cold it�s hard for me to concentrate sometimes. My fingers get numb. I think it�s time to get into the bathtub with Sherman Alexie again and then under some blankets with a cup of tea. Goodnight.

P.S. (Tuesday morning, slacking at gastro): It is uncanny how often this chick's life and mine seem to be in sync. Most recently it was the decision to go for the MFA and for therapy. And now she's decided that non-fiction is where it's at, on the same day I was writing about the same thing. Plus she loves my boyfriend David Garza. Reminds me of when I was at Governor's School and there was a girl named Caroline, a ceramicist I think, on my dorm floor. No matter what time of the day or night I went to the bathroom, she was there too, our bladders in perfect harmony. If you want to know what I thought of Governor's School, that's one of my fondest memories of it, peeing with Caroline. So there you go. (P.P.S. Wednesday morning ditto: and today with the one word! OK, not as a tattoo, but still.)