2003-10-30 - 3:02 a.m.

I can write anything I want here.

That's so weird--what people write. It's interesting what different people choose to say, and so are the methods they choose.

I dunno. I just discovered used book stores--I can get paperbacks (I hate hardcovers) for like two bucks a pop, and they're like new. No more blowing $12.99-$16.99 a chance taken--I don�t have to read a Proust-lite 600 page Jonathan Franzen novel every time I read a book.

I'm reading one right now about a college chick that goes around trying to sell vacuum cleaners to people. And it�s cutsie in an American Eagle kind of way, I guess, and it�s definitely grad-school-workshop quality. There�s a blind cat in the mix for seemingly no allegorical reason, it�s written in the present tense, and the chapter titles read like yearbook photo captions. There are tons of hints that the character is a lesbian, but her sexual orientation in no way affects the plot. Every time anything becomes remotely uncomfortable, the next paragraph is

Gulp.

I�d say the most interesting thing is that nothing bad happens to the main character, or anyone else, for that matter. She just goes out on wacky adventures, no more than two pages each, where she gets to meet a different wacky character each time, who always ends up buying a vacuum from her. I�m not used to this type of book--there�s no foreshadowing �cause there�s nothing to foreshadow, so I keep reading too closely and it�s throwing me off. I keep waiting for someone to flip out on her while she�s giving a demonstration, or at least be mean to her, or for her to get mired in a slump, �cause that�s what happens in books, but it just doesn�t happen.

I mean write what you know, and maybe the author of this book has never had anything bad happen to her, but I�m amazed that I�m amazed that you can write a book where nothing bad happens.

I have no way of knowing if this is an intentional defiance of a convention that�s been drilled into the heads of every person on this planet who has ever heard a story, but I�m going to assume it is deliberate, because, frankly, I can�t otherwise internally justify the fact that I haven�t abandoned the book.

I�m just amazed that (aside from those who work with children) nobody has thought of this before--I mean, there has to be a balance in the world, right? Countless people labor, and a few are rich, right? Maybe countless wounded and bright folks write brilliant books, and a few write happy ones.

The main character is doing the vacuum thing as a summer job, and is also nearing graduation but hasn�t decided what she wants to do, so maybe that�s how the book will end--she derives some sort of insight learned cumulatively from the characters she met, and then her lover comes home from her study abroad thingie (the details are a little shaky here), and then she knows what she wants to do.

I�m hoping that doesn�t happen.

Gulp.

I�m not saying that I want something bad to happen to the character--on the contrary, I hope she keeps her winning streak intact. Absolutely nothing on the line, no indication of any type of conflict whatsoever, she makes yet another vacuum cleaner sale that�s no more important, plotwise, than the rest, and then the book just abruptly ends for no reason other than because it just ran out of pages.

Wouldn�t that be so counter-culture?