18 november

This annoyed her to no end. Every time someone in the group said I'm really not a writer -- or even someone who wasn't in the group, of course -- although who would really be talking to them about this if they weren't in the group? You'd be surprised. Random strangers all the time, start inserting themselves into groups of people who are already speaking or are clearly meeting with each other. People are so ridiculous. Says a person. Just saying. Just a person. We do what we can. Anyway, the response was always something like “Of course you're a writer, you write.” While this is a strongly felt and deeply held belief among many writers and teachers of writing, coming from him it just seemed fake. It seemed patronizing, even. As if he was saying, Well, at least you try. Or, something like Good effort, bud. How could you ever call a human being bud? A woman I know recently told me that her husband had referred to their son as The Dude. She had asked him, “Do you mean our son?” In fact yes, he had indeed meant their son. I thought it was hilarious, but he's not my son. He's just a dude.