I thought I'd already written this entry, months ago. I distinctly remember writing bits and pieces of it. But a search of my old entries finds nothing, and a search of that folder on my desktop where I keep drafts of entries finds nothing, so maybe I'm insane. Again. Still. Whatever.

What I want to write about represents a pretty big divergence from my usual drivel. It's also a pretty big divergence from anything that I'm even remotely qualified to write about.

But, as they say, oh well.

I want to write about writing.

Please stop laughing.

Seriously.

Okay, thanks.

Every now and then I'll write something that I like. I mean really like. Every now and then I manage to impress myself, and if you know me at all then you know that this is a precious and improbable feat. Not only because I'm not easily impressed, but also because I know that I'm capable of much better.

In my head I'm a fucking poet beyond compare.

Anyway, what I wanted to write about was one of the components that those things which I like have in common.

Rhythm.

"But Dave," you might say. "You're white! By definition, you have no rhythm."

And I'd have no argument for that.

Maybe rhythm is the wrong word. Maybe flow would be better. Don't ask me, I just winging all this anyway.

These three sentences, for example, they flow. They dance together. They have rhythm.

These two sentences are boring. They just sit here wishing they weren't so lame.

I used to know a girl. Well, maybe I still know her, and maybe I never knew her at all. Whatever. The point is that everything she ever did had rhythm. Every word she said, every move she made, everything just flowed from her onto my soul like syrup onto pancakes.

See that there? That's why I don't like similes. Because I suck at them.

This girl fancies herself a writer. Or at least she used to, back when I might have known her. Now, I gather, not so much. And that's a shame.

I've never read anything she wrote, the reasons for that are unfortunate and numerous and probably boring to everyone but me. I never got to read a single word. And that's a disaster to me.

But I've gotten sidetracked. This entry is supposed to be about me and some of the things that I write. And that rhythm thing.

My heart, like that of most people I suppose, is possessed of a very short and very specific memory. I know that I've written about this before. It will remember the facts surrounding a series of events, but it will not, cannot, remember what it was actually like to actually feel that way it felt when those events took place.

Did that make any sense?

Probably not.

Okay, example time.

In 1988, my mom died. I was sad. I remember being sad. But what I can't do is just conjure up that sadness from memory, except in an abstract and objective way. What I have to do, if for some reason I want to bring that sadness back and experience it subjectively, is I have to relive it. So I wrote an entry about that night my mom died. And now, now I can relive that night and that pain and that sadness whenever I want to.

That entry, I like. I like it because it not only allows me to do what had been denied for almost 20 years, but also because it flows. It has rhythm. It reminds me of that girl that I maybe used to know.

I can read that entry and, in my head, the words dance together. They glide through my head as I silently mouth them. That entry, and a few others, are a joy to read. Though they tear at my soul, they also lift my spirits.

They do this because they have something special that lets them move effortlessly through me. Not ripping and tearing and bullying, but flowing, caressing, soothing.

Man, I'm really rambling now. Oops.

I think, without really looking back and checking, I think that all of the entries that I've written that I really like have been sad. This is, no doubt, partly because most of the shit I write about is sad, but it's also because I think the sad subjects are the ones that I let my heart write instead of trying to force my brain to write about things that it knows nothing about.

Well, fuck. My Internet connection is down. I think, if it ever comes back, then I'll just post this damn thing and get it over with. I've completely digressed from my original point anyway.