Paul was a new blog idea, Collecting or Things Found or Index or Users Guide or Field Manual or use a reference from a Siliman poem? or something along those lines. Mostly, a catalog of words/works/media encountered. Like a sentence summing up each Vonnegut novel read. Or a line about each This American Life episode listened to. & some links to things read. & a quote or two from the journals working on. Not a whole bunch of words stacking up in orders and paragraphs and topic sentences about subjects – pointed bits of discourse are welcome – but a collection of comments. Perhaps.

Paul was comfortable with manual labor. Simple instructions; move this there; demo that room; conjugate the verb to fit the proper tense; three 2×4’s from the bile hoisted up to the second floor; get more nails; move the ladder.

 

& lunch from a pail.

Paul was just passing again & again & again.

Paul was wore a tie the first day to work.

Paul was the stand.

Paul was shining.

Paul was a habit.

Paul was reading about starting to write. His book noted techniques for brainstorming such as “free association,” “word webs,” and “listing.” Paul took to listing nouns, adjectives, & other categories such as verbs, or relating to math, question:, kitchen, and time. Life became a laundry list of past happenings, things Paul was or that Paul had done.

Stenonotebooks filled during the morning bus ride, coffee breaks, slow work days, et cetera.

The materials were waiting to be assembled.

Paul was concerned with reading. Meaning: when words are posted they amass a chronological gravity. A book goes from front to back, top to bottom. A blog goes in reverse, so that the beginning becomes the ending, & the ending a beginning.

Details & personal timelines become skewed with an undefined reading order, because one could read from bottom to top, or, scrolling

top to bottom.

Paul was resenting quotes around words such as “free association,” “word webs,” and “listing.”

Paul was a bike ride away.

Paul was

breathing room

between

long

&

short

writings.

Paul was trying too hard.

Paul was brainstorming. How do you start a memoir not with:

            Paul was born on a rainy Sunday.

?

Because while this is the moment of birth, it is not necessarily the defining moment of creation for Paul. Paul had also heard

show don’t tell.

Sometimes Paul thought blogging was the start. But for impact & interest in reading, Paul wanted to start
with an event that could permeate a live with its metaphoric implications.
The curser on Paul’s word processor blinked as time passed between

 present & past &
childhood &
tuna sandwich yesterday
at lunch had sweet relish in it,

 the kind that Lyric
does not like &
keyboard strokes &
what was the name of the
hospital Paul was born at &
a lack of commas &

 & &

 the same grey
sweat pants worn
everyday
after work &
graduation ceremonies
pure impersonal nature &

 breathing air in a
darkened room
tastes different &
digital strain on the eyes &
forgetting where he

started.

Perhaps fabrication was the key. Unnecessary gravity to a singular event. As if

warehousing working after high school started Paul. Money in pocket &
a dream to not live at home anymore. But not to include the desire to separate self from family in the writing

as not to cast a shadow on parents 

so, instead, a taste of capitalistic opportunity, will power, a linking to
summer days  playing Monopoly in the teahouse with
Guy, Loraine & James,

moving away is fun, is a game, is taking chances &

growing up, because a little money from the picking &
packing done at the warehouse build ideas & rent &
a resume & a starting place for a story to begin with connections that could extend throughout his memoir
full of likes, as’s, was’s, an example being like:

life is a continuous search, one that I started to understand at my first job as a warehouse picker & packer. Like finding a starter or alternator part, each day is like a discovery. The sense of completion at finding a part.  When an object I had passed hundreds of time, never noticing it before, surfaces as the vital piece to fill the order. When I know where to go by instinct. When one day it is all heavy pieces. When one day the finding is all small components.  It’s a game, like life.

Paul was add comment.

Paul was lost.

Paul was saying.