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2002-05-08 | 8:22 p.m.

Alice says she isn't buying. I respect Alice, so I cannot buy. But...? I feel that there is something to it. But Alice isn't buying, so I cannot buy. Because I respect Alice.

Frank won't buy; I know that much. Jesus, Frank won't let me have anything like that. I am perfectly normal, Frank insists, as if his own sanity depends on it. He will argue with me until I give up.

Duff will give me a wary look, and at least lukewarm acceptance, but he won't buy. Duff says he doesn't like to see me flailing around, searching for some label to pin on myself that will explain away my problems. He wants me to just accept my problems and work to fix them. Here, he says. He will give me a list of things to do. Captain's choice.

People give me advice. When we had dinner with Professor Bischoff--Jan--Frank and Fiona and me, the subject turned to my (not) writing. Each of them has written at least one book. Bischoff said, "When it comes to writing, I found that it helps to set aside a certain time each day to write, and then just write at that time."

This being the one piece of advice that every aspiring writer knows.

I might have been angry if I didn't like him so much. "Thanks!" I said airily. "I never thought of that." Everyone laughed.

Years before, for him, I wrote my senior thesis in one day. Slid it under his door the night before grades were due to the department. Based my arguments in large part on a book I could never quite bring myself to actually read. Faust.

When I was growing up, there were some people who lived off the alley, just up the street from us. He was a biker, an H.A. Diane knew him. His wife I never saw, because she never came out of the house, but Diane told me she was enormous. Big as a house. She also told me that he, the member, had money. Had a private jet even. So why do they live there? I asked her. "Well, that's the thing," she told me. "He told his wife if she ever cleaned up their house, he'd buy her a new one. But that was years ago, and she's never cleaned it. Not once."

I often think of that woman, whom I never saw. I feel that I know her. I wonder what became of her.

Dr. Wheat wants to know where I lost my confidence. He says he still hasn't figured that one out. He said I should set aside some time to write each day, and try to meet that goal each day. I've heard it all before, but I say yes, I will try. He throws out a line from A.A., and I stifle my instinct to wince. "Fake it 'til you make it," he says.

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