An Analytic Hour

My writing has saved my life. What one comes away with is my total isolation, my fear of people, my panic over closeness, and that's why my real life is so chaotic and my writing is so much more controlled and stable.




It's amazing to me, you know? The interesting thing apart from the obvious sexual guilt that I've always felt is that nothing has changed in my life since I was young. It's years later. I had a shrink then and now I still see a shrink. It's years later, six shrinks later. I'm innumerable jobs down the line. I got fired from my last two jobs. And I still can't get my life in order.

I still fantasize about whores. It's ideal. You pay them, and they come to the house and you don't have to discuss Proust or films or . . .

I don't know what's happening to me. I just have not grown up and I feel . . . I see other guys my age. I think of fucking every woman I meet. I meet a woman in the bank or on the bus. I think: What's she look like naked? Can I fuck her? This is crazy. I see guys I know that are lawyers and doctors with families and houses. They're not so . . . Did the President of the United States, President Clinton, want to fuck every woman he met? Bad example. I don't know. Take Raoul Wallenberg. Did he want to bang every cocktail waitress in Europe? Probably not.

I was so immature in college. I couldn't buckle down. I almost got thrown out of college. I was not interested in college. I wanted to be a writer. Writing was all I cared about. I did not care about the real world. I cared only about the world of fiction.

Now, for the first time in my life I have writer's block. This, to me, is unheard of. I start these short stories and I can't finish them. I finished the novel I was working on for eleven years. So that's done. And I can't settle into something new, a new project. I find I'm taking more pills and medicine and . . .

My last shrink said I expect the world to adjust to the distortion I've become. I don't expect anything. I'm going through something. For the first time in my life I can't seem to write. It's not coming. And for me all l have in life is my imagination.

I'm sorry, our time is up.