I came downstairs and turned on the tree. First day of Christmas break, off for two weeks. Sunrise just shy of 8, but hard to tell when it really starts. The shortest day of the year—and thank god for electric light.

Thirty-three years ago now, I got this cassette by Gene Loves Jezebel. I only knew one song from the radio and took a bet on it, and it paid off. I even identified with the music, newly 16, a time when everything seemed to matter. It was like I’d just discovered the scale of life, that there was more of it than I could ever consume. And that filled me with a lust to devour it, there was just so much.

So I started writing it down and documenting it, every small bit. I went so far as to record it on a tape player, one night in the bath tub. The past series of days had been really tough, getting dumped by Marie. I went on and on, but when I listened back to the tape my dad’s voice cut in (he’d clearly listened to it, and then recorded himself saying “pompous, pompous, pompous!” at the end). And the sound of my mom in the background giggling, saying oh, stop! And then it cuts out.

The bastard! He was right! And I sank back and knew it, and never did that again. Not even on my blog here, 33 years later…and counting.

Categories: identity, musings, writing

Tags: blogging, creative nonfiction, humor, journal writing, Memoir, short form, William Pearse writer