my dad always wanted me to write what he didn't write and wanted to write. he wanted me to write his unwritten novel. he said what i did write was shameful. later, after he had been diagnosed, he called and said, you're talking to a dead man. then he said he was writing again. what, he wouldn't say, but it was at around 20,000 words. on his death it vanished unwitnessed down the same hole as his early novel i suppose, down the bottomless bottom drawer, never to be mentioned again. leaving me wishing, yet with the sickly feeling of invented non-existence. i'm reading jamie kalven's book, and wondering what his dad might have said. suzanne was reminded of the one she burned. my uncle burned a trunkful on mount tam, but no one saw it before the smoke, and only in their mind. i admire the personal stuff, the stuff that does make a difference, if it sees the light of day, and isn't a phantom of ego or burnt ember. i feel like a victim, but i feel like i try. i don't make it up to burn it righteously in shame. i wish i could be clearer. i wish the light could make me healed, whole, who i am. but all i got is that i don't write dad's wish, but mine, i think. dad would not be proud, but he had too much false pride already, and i still want to shame his ghost and say, where's the god damned manuscript, old man? it takes some chutzpah to write personal stuff, even in this day and age, and i applaud anyone who does. if i stopped and waited for my novel to come i'd die unwritten like my dad. i prefer to write my shame, if shame it is, than to go blind trying to read his ghost tome.