Storytelling

As I listen to the soft sparkling crackle of my diet root beer I consider that I need to work on my storytelling ability. Less so than my homework, but I am in a malaise and do not feel inclined to study. So whatever distractions I can conjure up are welcome.

I think the language I use has its flourishes, but I probably don't elaborate enough. I have been in the world of business too long. In an office people are quite annoyed when you drawl on. The inability to clearly and concisely explain a problem or what you want in an encounter makes you seem foolish and weak. I often seem foolish and weak, but I try to be direct in my own bumbling way. It is a poorly formed skill that only seems to detract from my creative life more than it assists my professional one. The last guy I drunkenly hooked up with was a pretty decent storyteller. Although, I think I had a gin and tonic and a bottle of champagne before he showed up. I might have been an easy audience.

He did not really look like his photo, but in the haze of inebriation that I conduct most encounters with the opposite sex in, he reminded me of my former love- Julian Casablancas. If he were to have sex with a hobbit that looked like Collin Hanks but they were able to conceive a child, that guy would be that child. He was stocky. He had nice hair though. And a decent smile. And after perhaps 5 more gin and tonics his self deprecating sense of humor felt very similar to my own. I wanted to meet his friends, even though some of them have kids, and be regaled with even more stories. One was a lawyer who sent snaps about the legality of paper napkin contracts from behind his desk on Saturday mornings. The people he stayed with in Austin had a pool. But I didn't actually want him to come over when he did. I was morning drunk, had just thrown up, and had to be at work in a few hours. I don't think I realized that I had been out so late on a Sunday. This happens when you drink a bottle of champagne with some orange juice because you're not feeling well. Sometimes I do think that make me sound borderline alcoholic.

Anyway, I didn't want him to come over when he did. I also didn't want to have sex. It's probably for the best that I haven't been dating since.

I think I am not actually a bad story teller, it's just hard for me to become animated. I am a dry storyteller. A storyteller of conflicting traits- curt rambles. Which will be my porn name. Kurt Rambles. The sexually maladroit cowboy. His guns are almost never a-blazin. He's always quite drunk, but he stumbles through life impeccably dressed in power-clashing styles all the It Girls fawn over. His hair in a half mullet, paired with a thick mustache and glassless frames. He's everything everyone hates about life, but his smile is so disarming that he'll never be kicked out of the business.

I am also uncertain about non-fiction. I think if I were spinning yarns that I might be better off. The best story tellers I've heard lately, though, have all been non-fiction. I want to do that but I worry about the consequences. On NPR this morning I heard they would be doing an interview with the woman who reinvigorated the genre of the memoir. They were going to chat with her about how she was able to display her life so truthfully and the way that effected her life with her parents and ex-husband. I imagine it all would have been very smooth. She probably made some enemies for a time, but then gingerly brought them back into the fold by showing them how she really meant to honor their memory and their time together. Or she's an outcast. Her only respite the brief periods inside interviews in which people will talk to her.

The latter is less likely. No one wants to be a Taylor Swift song, but Tom Hiddleston still dated her... people don't leave other people alone too easily or too often. Although, that might be a dangerous generalization.

I did speak to woman today, who had quite a cute twang. She was possibly the most southern sounding woman I had ever spoken to- and she gently chattered away about the concerns she had at the moment. She didn't answer my question, but she was quite glad that I called. The man that she was caring for was on hospice and the hospice company didn't think she needed the secondary insurance she kept for him. They weren't running blood tests either. "Oh, he don't need that- they says."
"If he gets sick we'll treat 'im, we gotta doctor- they said."
"He was only supposed to stay with me a little whyle- he ain't got no family and I just felt so bad for 'im, cause he ain't got no family anymore, account of his wife died a couple years ago...so he was only supposed to stay a little while after the knee surgery and things just went down hill after that."
I think I need to learn more about the correct phonetic interpretation of southern speech.
She was caring for him for free. I told her that was very kind of her. I wanted to pry. I wonder if she just couldn't let another older person deteriorate out of solidarity. Perhaps it was just selflessness. I wanted to pry. I wanted to know why she was involved with him in the first place. Had he just been a neighbor? A close friend? How long had they known each other? What motivated her to spend her day caring for someone whose mind was wasting away?

I'm hardly motivated to care for myself.

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