"Just"

In high school, an underclassman complimented my writing. I was a junior or a senior and he pointed out how well I incorporated a quote into what I was writing. The quote was cited but if it hadn't been you wouldn't have necessarily known I was quoting anything. I'm not sure this is the best type of writing, but it is something I miss when reading students' writing these days. When I taught at the college level, I saw how often students would drop quote without any sort of introduction. I've done that a fair amount in this "radioheadhead" series but that's for artistic reasons. In good writing, at least in my opinion, you introduce all your quotes. For example:

1) Thom Yorke sings, "You do it to yourself."

2) Kurt Vonnegut writes, "Strictly speaking, I was rewriting an old play of mine. But that old play had been written by a right-handed stranger fifteen years my junior."

It's funny what making this an important part of writing prioritizes. Suddenly, you want to know every possible way to say "says." If the person is doing something else than just saying something, you use that. So they sing or they write. In less fanciful moments, they state, they consider, they relate, they find. It's a weird thing to focus so much time on but it feels important.

After writing "You," I had my dad read the prose poem. It's very compounded. It's saying a lot of different things at once. I think it's good and expresses how I feel about things but my dad's reaction was "Oh, it's a poem? That makes sense then, I don't get poetry." I wanted to take "radioheadhead" back in the other direction here so this is what you get.


Sickness ebbs and flows. It's mild, but it won't go away. It's like the bad smell in the kitchen that has you digging through back of the freezer at 3am. "Can't get the stink off, he's been hanging 'round for days." I think maybe I'm getting better and then there's the headache, "comes like a comet" barely lighting up a dark sky. I'll admit I feel pretty silly that I'm the one who got sick. That's selfish, isn't it? But still there's this feeling that it "suckered you but not your friends." Quarantine life is only compounded when you think you are actually sick. TV nonstop and nothing else to do. COVID is a horrible roommate, like a grown up Bart Simpson. You just know "one day he'll get to you and teach you how to be a holy cow." You should be writing, but food and television are the golden calf you worship. "You do it to yourself, you do and that's what really hurts." It's like writing a play while reading a novel, how could that prepare you? The worst part "is that you do it to yourself, just you, you and no one else." Suddenly you are stuck on the play and not sure how to write characters through dialogue. You're dreaming about novels you'll never write, because of the brilliant prose you're reading. It's simple, really. "You do it to yourself." All the while, I have to remember to say to myself, "Don't get my sympathy, hanging out the fifteenth floor." The depression flows. Male, white people, first world problems. Uncomfortable with the use of Karen, yet quick to say Boomer. "You do it to yourself." It's not having anything to do. It's hard to feel like you matter when you just feel fatter and fatter. Try something new, how to fight the blues? "You've changed the locks three times, he still comes reeling through the door." Why not read a play? Maybe it'll teach you something. Maybe the writer will advise you. Appear in your dreams and say, "One day I'll get to you and teach you how to get to purest hell."