John Cheever

Here is an article about John Cheever the writer: Vodka for Breakfast: On the Melancholy of Cheever's Journals.

I found Cheever's Bullet Park in a now-closed secondhand bookshop (isn't that the fate of all secondhand bookshops now though?) about 20 years (!) ago. In the blurb on the back was a line about sex and secrets in suburbia that led to me buying it, little knowing that I'd be taken on a ride more mental than I'd ever imagine.

Anyway, I thought I had a book by a writer who had that one book in him, but I was clearly wrong. Journals and autobiographical writings are actually my thing. I like reading about the minutiae of another person's life. It's probably part of being a voyeur. One of the things on my wishlist is a telescope, and I'm not into astronomy.

Dreaming

I don't think I've ever written about when I was in my last year of secondary school, i.e., Form 5, and had no idea what I'd do afterwards.

Everyone seemed to have a plan or knew what they'd study after Form 6. Most of it seemed to involve studying accounting in Australia and/or working there. In fact, virtually everyone (that I knew) with a plan involving Australia has settled there.

As for me. I was particularly taken with a manga I was reading at the time (Harlem Beat). One of the supporting female characters was a ne'er do well type, as far as you can be a ne'er do well in your last year of high school. She told those who asked that she would be a vagabond after she finished school. (Japanese university entrance exams being what they are, maybe that isn't too farfetched an idea...)

I thought that was a fine idea, and imagined myself living out of a van, travelling where the road would take me each day. I'd wash up at highway rest stops and cook over a camp stove. To make money, I would write! And no one would tell me what to do!

It was the perfect plan... only I sucked at driving in manual, and didn't have a van, a laptop, a camp stove, or a clue where I'd go.

For more irony, I haven't renewed my driving license.

Stating the obvious

The thing about Facebook and Twitter is that brevity is of the essence. So you just shoot from the hip and post without a second thought because who reads past the first 2-3 lines anyway? And if you change your mind about the post, then you can delete it as easily as you'd posted it.

(Yes, everything stays on the internet, but at least it doesn't appear on your timeline anymore.) 

I was just wondering why it's easier to tweet or post a Facebook update than to actually write a blog. Duh.

Of course, this overlooks the people who tweet images of text to get around the 140-character limit and who write blogs in their Facebook updates anyway. So it's really just down to user laziness, isn't it?