Two thousand eight was the year of Jamie and
of Adri blogs. It was a time when Jamie was still my girlfriend. It was a time
when there were still Adri blogs.
These things were important things, you
understand, to me.
Many others enjoyed my Adri blogs but Jamie
enjoyed them most of all, I believe, until finally, I found myself writing them
just for her.
Jamie said she could not imagine me as having
written Adri’s words. That she could not so much as read them in my voice. That
when she did read them, she heard them in the voice of a woman, and of a woman
who was confident, spontaneous, a little damaged, and nothing at all like me.
And this, it must be said, created a state of
being – or a state of affairs, I suppose, is the correct term – in which Jamie
related to me differently than she related to Adri. Adri, who, it cannot be
overemphasized, did not even exist, really. Remember this.
A time came for Jamie to reach the decision
regarding her father. Poor crazy Matt. We talked about it. We talked for hours
and hours and on this same couch on which I sit right now. I offered her my
ear, my thoughts, my advice, and I believed she had heard me.
But soon afterwards, Adri received a
late-night email from Jamie in which she requested advice on what I had until
then believed to be the settled matter of her father. I responded as Adri would
have responded, in Adri’s voice, using Adri’s logic, and writing in that
confident, spontaneous and slightly damaged way that was nothing at all like
me.
She went with Adri’s advice over my own.
The puppet was more trusted than the
puppeteer!
Now this, surely, should have been an
enormous red flag for me, with flashing warning lights and alarms, whistles, and
oh, I don’t know, old Greek oracles whispering, “Too far!”, but either I did not hear them or else it was already
too late.
Or perhaps Adri really was wiser than me.
Jamie is gone now, of course, and Adri’s
blogs are gone, and I’ll never talk to Jamie again. Adri, on the other hand,
could come back. Theoretically, I mean. Just for a visit.
Here, on this page.
I do wonder sometimes what Adri’s been up to and what
she’d have to say.
As always, you're incredibly good at posing dilemmas that are easier to savour than to solve :-)
ReplyDeleteI want to get back to writing about magic snakes and various cryptozoological crazies, but I figured I needed to reveal some personal stuff first, just to get us started.
DeleteThis is a heart wrenching tale craze incase if this is true.I still regard u as a woman craze.Nevertheless this story touches me with its melancholic,nostalgic mood.Hmm this shows u live in ur characters.
ReplyDeleteHaha, yes, well, maybe live in them too much, at times.
DeleteI used to have a guy who loved the Adri blogs and who - after I finally had to lay him straight about who I was - decided that I had some sort of split personality disorder.
I'm sort of proud of how convincing I can be.
Well, _do_ you have some sort of split personality disorder? I'm asking this in the broadest sense of the world, and I'm probably asking something closer to "do you experience your characters the same way great writers sometimes say they do?" Do your characters take on lives and reasoning of their own, beyond any comprehension you can gain from your own perspective?
DeleteThere have been a couple times (not on the blog) where characters practically started jabbering away and all I had to do was jot down what they said.
DeleteWith the blogs, especially with Adri, I wrote in her voice to an extent where I found myself reaching conclusions and arguments that I would never personally make. Where the whole thing went the way she wanted and not the way I wanted.
That doesn't mean I'm a great writer. It just means I spend too much time doing this!
Certainly every single character in ur writing is a facet of ur own .As u knew about me well,I do think i have different contradictory humans in me.Thats the same for u.There is nothing to worry.U should be proud about it.Fuck u ,u r a great writer,dont lie u r not.
DeleteThank you, Arun. You should get those other humans in you removed. They clog up the works and cost a lot to feed.
DeleteI'd call that crazy, if I didn't know people who made major life decisions based on something a character once said in a tv show or movie.
ReplyDeleteI wish I'd been able to see these famous Adri blogs, which were just before our time. I've heard nothing but great things about them. Mostly from you, granted, but I trust your judgment on such matters.
She was pretty cool. But both Katy and Naz were better.
DeleteAdri was wordy. My characters definitely got more succinct over time, with a more tenuous grasp on the English language.
DeleteI think Jamie had problems.
ReplyDeleteReal problems.
I don't really know what to say more than that. I mean, I had a girlfriend whom you might remember from Multiply days, who actually came to depend on my written stories and articles more than me. I don;t know what I can say that might have made this more sensical instead of nonsensical.
I suppose you should sort of take that as a compliment of your writing, shouldn't you?
DeleteMaybe not. I'm not the best person to weigh these things.
I think you should bring back all your female characters and you, Harry, should have a debriefing session with each. And then write up the results. Some of them may resent you or have other mixed feelings. Somehow I see Katy pulling a knife on you.
ReplyDeleteI think that is a great idea, although it might only add to people's confusion about who I am.
DeletePlus I'm pretty sure that Adri wouldn't like me.
So you say "I figured I needed to reveal some personal stuff first, just to get us started."
ReplyDeleteOkay let me know when you do that. ;)
I'm trying! I feel like I am, especially compared with the way I've written over the last 10 years.
DeleteYou know I am a lawyer who ran for governor, that I used to have a girlfriend, and that I am trying to drink less.
For me, that information is like living in a glass house.
Baby steps?
Your characters were very approachable. That means that either you are or can learn to be. It's a little strange that the puppet's advice was taken, but then I have known a few people that would also likely do that. Spill your guts if you want. You are among friends.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I was just looking at how many of your posts I missed when I was wandering in the wilderness last year. I'm going to dig down into some of those this weekend!
DeletePeople write their deepest, darkest secrets to someone named "Dear Abby" every fucking day. They know she's not real... or if she WAS real, she's dead as a box of rocks. And yet, they keep asking her advice.
ReplyDeleteWhy would similar behavior toward one of your characters be any different? Hell, I thought I was talking to someone named Katy for two or three years, and thought she had wonderful insights on things. And she (by god) did.
No one we know in "the real world" is exactly who we thing that person is. We all wear a mask, toss up a facade, and we all play different parts depending upon who's in the audience. I've got former girlfriends who still, to this day, think I had great advice about their problems with family members, coworkers, former lovers... when in fact, I was probably just playing amateur psycho-jabber and hoping they'd be so taken with my advice that they'd dash over and go carnal crazy. Have no idea who THAT guy was... geez... some of that shit must've sounded legit!
Where were we?
Haha... Yes, a blog character is probably no worse - and maybe even better - than a magic 8 ball.
DeleteYou're raising a young one right now and probably have insight into the effect words can have that I lack.
Yeah, I guess writing in character puts you in a different head space, and that's the perspective that Jamie needed. It doesn't seem too far fetched. It would be like being catfished, knowing it, and still wanting to hear from the pseudonym that tricked you. On a completely unrelated note, don't even know why I'm thinking about this, but can Katy come and say "hi"?
ReplyDeleteI don't have any control over what Katy does. If she wants to come and talk to you, that's between you and her.
DeleteThe puppet was more trusted than the puppeteer!
ReplyDeleteWhen they were given out the IQ points required to figure out other people I was not in that line. Frankly people puzzle the crap out of me and I have long since adopted a policy of keeping most folks at arms length. As far as you comment about someone trusting the puppet more than the puppeteer I have long since learned people hear only what they want to accept. Many times I have responded to someone asking a question only to be ignored and later have that same person say they got the answer from someone else. It's quite the surreal experience in many ways.
"I have long since learned people hear only what they want to accept."
DeleteHaha. Yes. For almost 20 years now, I have tried to give people good legal advice. What I say and what they hear often turn out to be two completely different things.
Repeating it more loudly doesn't usually help.
It did answered some lingering questions I had and was fun read. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThere are a handful of people around here who have been around since the beginning. Not many, but a few.
DeleteLeah and Torrent were two of my original contacts, and neither of them is around anymore. The seagull guy (Pi/Ling Wu) keeps up but doesn't comment anymore (which might be a good thing).
Hopefully, I'll be able to eventually answer some questions for people!
Go FUCK YOURSELF, you psychotic piece of human garbage!
DeleteYou finally started to right your wrongs after ten years of countless lies. You told me that you were going to write this new blog series for my benefit. I encouraged you to take this step towards recovery, and supported your baby steps. But what did you do when I commented on your first blog entry with such understanding and support? You went back to your psychotic insufferable Schizophrenic and Multiple Personality Disorders, all because you couldn't deal with your own guilt.
Stop sending me chat messages at the middle of the night like last night. Instead, grow a pair of honest balls and find a girlfriend for a change!
You don't manage to get your comments published because you try and post things like this... or worse.
DeleteInsults, inaccuracies, and name-calling are not going to get your comments published.
They're just not.
As I told you many years back, if you don't want to stop by and read things, then don't stop by and read things. That's the way to handle that problem. The solution is not to scream or to threaten to burn down my house or to send me 1,000 emails in a week.
This is the last time I'm telling you this, Shu. Act like a human being or don't comment.
Have a great weekend.
sometimes the revisit works, sometimes not. i know there's been things like this, where a show stops and comes back after a few years, i can't think of a specific one right now,
ReplyDeletenew adventures of old christine? lots of spinoffs like mama and then the golden girls or something?
all in the family and then the jeffersons,
maybe something like that
I think saved by the bell did a saved by the bell new generation with the weird guy as the continuity.
Hi, Sean. "Full House", "Gilmour Girls" and "Arrested Development" all did comeback seasons on Netflix. With Adri, I think it might just be an appearance or two. I've got some fun characters and I'd like to hear what they have to say now.
DeleteMaybe confident, spontaneous and slightly damaged was enough like Jamie for her to relate.
ReplyDeleteI think it might have been all about how decisive Adri was. I don't know. I never did figure it all out.
DeleteWhich just makes it all the harder to get a decent sense of closure.
DeleteThe puppet often lacks the hangups of the puppeteer. Or, like in Jorge Luis Borges' "The Circular Ruins", perhaps the puppet and puppeteer are not all that different, just existing at different times in the same place. It would be nice to know what Adri thinks of all this.
ReplyDeleteBy the day, I don't think I've ever met Adri.
That makes sense! As shown by the rough start this blog has experienced, it is sometimes harder to say something as myself than it is as someone else.
DeleteI think this is all very interesting Harry! I think you are a brilliant writer! I never new Jamie or Adri. Can't wait to get to know you more!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Stacy. I'm going to work at making the writing in this place more interesting. I want to challenge myself more.
DeleteIt's a process.
fPlease remind me to tell you about Leah and Hollywood, as I promised to do a few years ago and didn't. It's not big a deal but most of your current disciples weren't around back on the olden days. It certainly it wouldn't be cool talk about someone in an audience who didn't know them. If you remember, you also helped me a lot concerning torrent. Last point. None of the folks mentioned above ever did anything to me or anyone I know. It's a funny story but I'm not knocking them. Frank
ReplyDeleteWill do, Frank. The best email address to catch me at concerning all things blog-like is katydidknot@gmail.com.
DeleteI sure miss some of those folks!