The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone when we're uncool.

I have never been cool.

I am not sleek, subtle, cool-as-a-cucumber cool, mysterious, secretive. None of that.

No, no, I am more like the golden retriever running in circles, slobbering all over you with my melodramatic chatty-chat and panic this and quasi-crisis that. I am not the person in the corner at the party, quietly sipping on a drink and looking bemused—the person people wonder about—because I pretty much can't hold myself back from putting it all out there.

I've never really wanted to be that cool person, either.

Whenever I've attempted any semblance of being cool, I've fallen flat on my face. Whenever I become too conscious of my writing process, I feel like it shows. When I just go about my life, I find that I have kind friends, supportive family, and my knight in shining armor. When I just write for writing's sake, write to share, write to breathe, I find I do my best writing.

Philip Glass said in his fascinating documentary on PBS that he doesn't really "think up" music. Rather, it's this rhythmic current that runs underneath everything, below in the subconscious, and he's tuned his ear to dip into the water and express it.

That's the first time that another person has articulated my process. I never had the words to explain it before. I almost fell off the couch. How could I have the same process, the same feeling about creation as a FLIPPING MUSICAL GENIUS? I'm not comparing my talent level to his, but suddenly I felt like a had a kindred spirit. Have you seen Philip Glass? He's not cool, either.

When I write, I have hot and cold spots like the springs in the lake my parents' cabin sits on. Sometimes life presents me with rich material. Sometimes it doesn't. The art is to take the everyday and elevate it; after all, that everyday is what people understand.

I won't ever be cool. I am my own stumbling block. I need to get out of my way, be me, and just write. And by that process, maybe something cool will happen.

The Storyteller

"You can search far and wide for the great stories, but in the end, the best ones come to you."

--The Hakawati, Rabih Alameddine, page 99

Stories: I am a bundle of raw nerves. Tensed. Ready. I'm waiting.