Sputnik Sweetheart полностью

myself, and the grass grows back almost as fast as I can cut it. Today I’d cut over here, tomorrow over there… By the time I make one complete round of the pasture the grass in the first spot is as tall as it was in the beginning.

But since I met Miu I’ve barely written. Why is that? The Fiction =

Transmission theory K. told me does make sense. On one level there’s some truth to it. But it doesn’t explain everything. I’ve got to simplify my thinking here.

Simplify, simplify.

*

What happened after I met Miu was I stopped thinking. (Of course I’m using my own individual definition of thinking here.) Miu and I were always together, two interlocking spoons, and with her I was swept away somewhere—someplace I couldn’t fathom—and I just thought, Okay, go with the flow.

In other words, I had to get rid of a lot of baggage to get closer to her. Even the act of thinking became a burden. I think that explains it. No matter how tall the grass got, I couldn’t be bothered. I sprawled on my back, gazing up at the sky, watching the billowy clouds drift by. Consigning my fate to the clouds. Giving myself up to the pungent aroma of the grass, the murmur of the wind. And after a time I couldn’t have cared less about the difference between what I knew and what I didn’t know. No, that’s not true. From day one I couldn’t have cared less. I have to be a bit more precise in my account here.

Precision, precision.

*

I see now that my basic rule of thumb in writing has always been to write about things as if I didn’t know them—and this would include things that I did know, or thought I knew about. If I said from the beginning, Oh, I know that, no need to spend my precious time writing about it, my writing would never have got off the ground. For example, if I think about somebody, I know that guy, no need to spend time thinking about him, I’ve got him down, I run

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the risk of being betrayed (and this would apply to you as well). On the flip side of everything we think we absolutely understand lurks an equal amount of the unknown.

Understanding is but the sum of our misunderstandings. Just between us, that’s my way of comprehending the world. In a nutshell.

*

In the world we live in, what we know and what we don’t know are like Siamese twins, inseparable, existing in a state of confusion. Confusion, confusion.

Who can really distinguish between the sea and what’s reflected in it? Or tell the difference between the falling rain and loneliness?

Without any fuss, then, I gave up worrying about the difference between knowing and not knowing. That became my point of departure. A terrible place to start, perhaps—but people need a makeshift springboard, right? All of which goes to explain how I started seeing dualisms such as theme and style, object and subject, cause and effect, the joints of my hand and the rest of me, not as black-and-white pairs, but as indistinguishable one from the other. Everything had spilled on the kitchen floor—the salt, pepper, flour, starch. All mixed into one fine blob.

*

The joints of my hand and the rest of me … I notice sitting here in front of the computer that I’m back to my old bad habit of cracking my knuckles. This bad habit made quite a comeback after I stopped smoking. First I crack the joints of the five fingers of my right hand— crack crack— then the joints of my left hand. I’m not trying to brag, but I can crack my joints so loud you’d think someone’s neck’s getting broken. I was the champion knucklecracker in elementary school. Put the boys to shame. When I was at college, K. let me know In no uncertain terms that this wasn’t exactly a skill I should be proud of. When a girl reaches a certain age she can’t be snapping her knuckles all over the place. Especially in front of other people. Otherwise you’ll end up like

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Lotte Lenya In From Russia with Love. Now why hadn’t anybody ever told me that before? I tried to break the habit. I mean, I really like Lotte Lenya, but not enough to want to be her. Once I stopped smoking, though, I realized that whenever I sat down to write, unconsciously I was cracking my knuckles all over again. Snap crackle pop.

The name’s Bond. James Bond.

*