101318 I’m afraid I may be an essayist. I never meant to be. I’m not *qualified* to be (he hastily includes; the disclaimer is muscle memory at this point). I’m not sure it’s — that is, I’m pretty sure it’s not — that is, I’m quite sure it’s not what I thought I *wanted* to be. I guess I wanted to be the powerful magician: the novelist. Painting culturally relevant multidimensional mind plays in the popular imagination. Charming everybody on book tours. Being adored, one copy at a time, by doe eyes in aisles of posh bookstores everywhere. You think your failures are concealed from your kids. They aren’t. Welcome to puberty. Again. So instead of being a novelist, I get to be this: ## a writer of essays Which if you didn’t know what those are, apparently they’re this: * 1a: an *analytic or interpretative* *literary* *composition* usually dealing with its subject from a *limited or personal point of view* * b: something resembling such a composition * a *photographic* essay * 2a: *EFFORT, ATTEMPT* * especially: an *initial tentative effort* * b: the *result or product* of an attempt * 3: a *proof of an unaccepted design* for a stamp or piece of paper *money* * 4 *obsolete:* *TRIAL, TEST* (emphases mine, obvs.) OK, maybe I could make that work. Hmm... (gets big head, gets so enamored of own knack that can’t quit daydreaming long enough to lift big head off pillow).... ## limited or personal point of view OK, well, ok, well, ok then: Would you ask a one-eyed man not to tell you what he’s seen? ## obsolete Figures. I was a *printer,* for fuck’s sake. I like *writing.*