January 23rd, 2023 - Wednesday's Child

Dear TNY,

Well, here we are at another Monday and you served up the cold dog turd that is “Wednesday’s Child”.

This story could be summarized as “A woman waits for a train and we are trapped inside her head, chewing through her banal thoughts, until such time the author breaks out his or her most saccharin bullshit in hopes of a fine ending.”

You know, if stories were people, I’d be glad these types of stories existed.  Because if you went to, say, a coffeeshop or the grocery store or school or a bar or anywhere, really, that people congregate, these people would find each other, engage in conversation, and they would relieve the rest of us from having to engage with their pointlessness, rendering the world that much better of a place.  The rest of us, engaging in real, visceral, meaningful shit, would drink our PBRs in the back corner and imagine what kind of life these other fuckers lead.  What color is their miniature poodle?  What is the name of their intentionally ethnic gardener that they intentionally underpay?  Which mountain shall it be for skiing this holiday? 

I just can’t even.

This is about all the energy I can muster today.  I’m pretty fucking tired.  Stayed up late. 4:30?  Was living a life of substance and matter.  Did not muse about shit in a way that was beiger than beige.  Now I’m trying to put this cold brew in body while the laundromat fills my clothes with cat hair and microscopic bits of feces (Cat Hair and Microscopic Bits of Feces was the name of my clarinet duo in college) and am forced to try and understand how literature has lost its way so goddamn badly. 

Ah, shit.  Not done yet. One more thing.  Stories where we live inside a character’s head while they participate in mundane shit, the writing has to be good because the narrative, by default, is mundane.  You can’t have bad writing (in this case, overwrought, puffy, meandering sentences that form paragraphs that never seem to hit a conclusion, instead retreading tired thoughts, rendering them annoying through repetition) carry a story with no “plot”.  There’s no reason to read that.  A perfect example of how this can be done well is The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker.  I know I’ve brought this one up before.  But it works because the writing is good.  It’s the same reason Lolita works (I’ll concede the plot in that novel is interesting in the way watching a car accident is interesting).  The words by themselves are delicious when cooked in this manner, regardless of the meal.

But who am I, you know?  Some kid from New Mexico.  I can’t possibly know anything.

I realized right now I’m dreading drawing the stupid picture for this letter.  I don’t even know what to draw.  Maybe the “birth canal” or a baby whose “suckled at my nipples”.  Who the fuck talks like that?  Dumb dumb dumb.

Later, doodoo babies.

Nick