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2002-02-05 | 5:14 p.m.

Still stuck on this Macrofort assignment. Just wrote to my editor and said I wouldn't have it in on time. He was very gracious. At his birthday party, I confided to Frank that I'm having a lot of trouble finishing work that I used to be able to do. Work I used to do without thinking about it much. (Then I wonder if that is the truth, because I've always had trouble with work. On this question I go back and forth, back and forth, plucking petals from the work daisy: She does me, she does me not.) I know for sure that I backed out of the last assignment I got from Truant. Home finance, blech. I just didn't think I could do it. No----I suppose I knew I was capable of it, but I didn't want to suffer through the long expanse of ever-increasing dread in between each issue of the quarterly newsletter. Ye Olde Roller Coaster of Dread.

Anyway, Frank said this has happened to him, too----not being able to do meaningless work he used to be able to do----and he said, very seriously, as if he were some sort of occupational shaman, that it means you are supposed to stop doing unimportant things and devote yourself to your life's work. He said it three or four times over the course of the evening. I think he had had quite a few beers by that time. Still, it stuck with me.

Was thinking earlier today how hard it is just to be real. It's nearly impossible. At the moment I thought it, I felt that for me, being real would mean taking a vow of silence, because often it seems like everything that comes out of my mouth (and by extension, everything I write) is a lie of one kind or another. It's not because I intend to lie; it's just hard to express essential ideas. Much easier to say a million other things.

The thing is, this idea of utter silence frightened me. So much of my identity is contained in how I express myself, that if I cease to express myself, I would cease to exist in a certain way. If nothing else, my friends would begin to forget about me. THAT scared me. I'm not exactly afraid of being friendless, I'm afraid of being forgotten. It's vanity, you see. But why should it matter to me? I can do the math. I know that we cannot remember the dead. Not 99.9 percent of them, at least. So why do I hope to be an exception? How can I give up on heaven and still cling to this fantasy of posterity?

It's not even that I want to be famous. It's really that I want to be remembered. But I know I may not even live long enough to see my grandchildren. I haven't done anything memorable and am not terribly likely to do so. I won't go down as a great temptress, scholar, or wit. Just a big nobody. If I'm incredibly lucky, I might wind up as a footnote to somebody else's fabulousness, but even if it does happen, I won't even know about it. Because I'll be dead!

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