COMPOSITION

Chuck, Jeremy, Ted, and Mike Sokol surrounded me on the sofas in the living room. They began the intervention with the standard fare: we’re only doing this because we love you. Here it comes, I thought. I had spent much of the last month—the last week, in particular—moping around the apartment in a constant state of feeling sorry for myself.

It was akin to that moment in Swingers when Ron Livingston’s character comes to confront Jon Favreau’s character, who has spent a few days collapsed on the floor of his dingy apartment, thumbing through pictures of his ex-girlfriend. Except, in Swingers, the friend brought some O.J. and a sandwich. I could have really gone for a sandwich.

I swung my head from right to left as each of my friends went in succession.

Their critique:

1. Get out of bed earlier.
2. Read more.
3. Get out of the apartment, for God’s sake. Start hanging around the library or Starbucks or Case or the CUDC or Coventry.
4. Stop spending so much time on that damned Internet.
5. Stay away from Facebook.
6. Fall into a daily routine.
7. Apply for grad school.
8. Start exercising.
9. Stop wallowing in your own self-pity.
10. Write as much as you can.

The intervention had shifted from lecture to open forum. Everyone could speak at will. That is, everyone but me.

“You started a new comp. book, right?” Chuck asked me.

I nodded. This was true. I had just begun a new journal in one of those thrifty $.99 COMPOSITION notebooks you can find at any corner drug store.

“Good,” he said. “Try to fill it in a month.”

The comp. book I recently finished had been my first. I bought it as a requirement for a Poetry class last semester. Two pages a day was the regimen. I finished it in 4 months, almost to the day (9/27/06 to 1/28/07).

“I just want you to keep writing, man,” Chuck said.

I nodded again. I liked this challenge. This was something that could prove emotive, productive, and therapeutic all in one breath. And free. It could help me out of the well of melancholy I found myself in. Or maybe it wouldn’t. I didn’t know. Either way, I’d still be writing, and the friction of cheap pen upon cheap paper made me feel good.

The next day, Chuck and I sat in Caribou Coffee on Coventry and chatted about the previous night. I told him that I was a bit offended that Mike Sokol decided to leave in the middle of my intervention. I hadn’t even had a chance to defend myself in front of him.

“What would you have said?” Chuck asked.

“Nothing,” I replied. Apathy had sort of become my M.O. of late.

My new comp. book sat on the table in front of me. I flipped it open. I had only filled 2 or 3 pages, mainly of sad bastard prose. I began a list (for no comp. book can survive without a list every 5 or 6 pages) of that which my intervention group had instructed me to change. At the top of the list—#1: Fill comp. book in a month. I worked out an equation: 200 divided by 30 equals 6.66666666 pages per day. I’d shoot for 7. Seemed reasonable.

My new comp. book was a very gracious and thoughtful Christmas gift. Its giver had left a post-it note inside that simply said write. Frankly, I think it was the best $.99 spent on me that entire holiday season. I’m presently spending hours and hours a day plugging away at this journal. I average around 10 pages/day. For the first in a very long time, I’m ahead of schedule. And it feels really good.