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An Insiders View of Anxiety By: Brian Webber on 12/15/2006; 4:18 PM My mind is chaos, my hands little better. Two pages of notes, hundreds of ideas flying through my head, nonsensical b.s., a butterfly flaps it’s wings in Thailand we get a hurricane off the coast of Miami, being in my head is like being Boo Radley watching an episode of Who’s The Boss in Esperanto. I start with what seems like a good idea. Stick to what’s worked for me before. Observe a bookstore, just like how I wrote a poem about books that was a huge hit with everyone who read it. So I go to Barnes & Noble on the 16th Street Mall, and walk around, looking for something to observe. What to look at? People? Sections? The Starbucks/Cheesecake Factory café upstairs? First I think New Releases would be a good thing to watch. Just look at which books get picked up the most then posit what that means. I end up not doing that. I try to break the people I saw on Day One down in my notes by race and gender. I make the mistake of not being more specific. The notes are a jumbled mess, though they may look neat. It looks like I know what I am doing, where I am going. I don’t. Thursday’s looming over my head like some mythological omen of impending doom. All I can observe is this computer screen, the mess of wires on my dad’s desk, the ash tray that shouldn’t be here. How many times have I told my father not to do that? The cats like to jump up here and ashes get scattered on the keyboard and on the floor and it’s usually me who has to clean it all up. I sit here in the bookstore, trying to take notes. I write about my planned Christmas shopping. I think about what I know I’m going to get my father (A Dr. Who & the Daleks movie poster), my grandmother (Rent on DVD), my mom, step-father, and little brother out in California (ditto). My notes. My completely useless but rather well organized notes. Where are they? Still in the bag. I guess I should try to gleam something from them so this essay may actually be about something, may teach the reader something other than the rampant instability that defines my conscious thought. It is a diverse crowd on Day One. Men and Women of all races, more Men than Women I noticed. I wonder if this means anything so I turn to my oldest friend and meanest enemy, the Internet. Google. It’s the only way to fly baby. I look up “gender statistics, bookstores.” Nothing useful there; Crime statistics, Vietnam, US Government Bookstore - Browse by subject. Prattle. My fingers twitch now. My stomach turns. The areas of the store I see the most people in provide a possibility. I think maybe I’ll have a good observational essay topic there. The most popular sections of the store, i.e. the ones I saw the most people in were History, the Magazine section, Music, and, lastly, the aforementioned café. Roughly a third of the people I see are there. The café is also where I see the only identifiably non-White/Hispanic/Black people in the whole store that night. They are definitely of Asian decent. I’m seeing a lot of political books on various tables throughout the store. Most of them are the kinds of books I read, those with a Liberal slant. There are few books by Right Wingers too. I groan audibly at the sight of Ann Coulter’s book. I see that James Frey is still popular. Why? The sci-fi/fantasy section. Better not stay here too long, I might buy something. Not seeing many people in the religion section. Might this mean something? Let me type “religion books, Barnes & Noble,” see what I get. Just links to the Barnes & Noble website. Damn. No essay there either. I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open. It’s not that late, why am I tired? I see another table, this one full of copies of All The King’s Men, with the new movie tie-in cover. I’ve been hearing about this movie for almost a year now. I see another movie tie-in cover. Flags of our Fathers is being directed by Clint Eastwood. Is that the book about the guys who raised the flag at Iwo Jima? I might check that out when it comes to DVD. I think about the other movies I’d like to see this year. Probably won’t get to though. Day Two: Tuesday, September 12th. Still nothing on the idea front. I think about sitting down and just watching, seeing how people interact in a book store, but I can’t help myself. I browse like a mad man. Staff recommendations, mystery, graphic novels, sociology, teen books. I look at it all, upset with myself that money is too tight for me to buy any of these for myself. I pick up some of the titles I wish I had. Star Trek Tales of the Dominion War anthology, Overthrow America’s History of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq, The Devil in the White City. I put them all back of course. I sit down finally, in the history section. I look around. I try to observe. I get nothing. I have the notebook in front of me. All I can write is self-deprecating nonsense. I think about Laura. About my cat Piper and how I wish that picture of her sleeping in the basket we keep the microwave popcorn in hadn’t been destroyed. About how cool it would be to get a Star Trek story published for the Strange New Worlds anthology series. I sharpen my pencil and try to force myself to take notes. I suck at taking notes. My handwriting is so atrocious I have to write in block letters or I won’t be able to understand myself, but that takes longer and makes my hand cramp. Maybe I can write an observational essay about my quiet panic attack, I think to myself. Or perhaps I say it out loud. I don’t know. I go home. I’m not sure exactly how long I was in the bookstore. I think it’s darker than it was when I went in, but then again wasn’t it dark when I went in? I worry. I am a walking tube of worry. I eat on my way home. Cheeseburger, no ketchup. I think about my teeth. Why hasn’t my dentist contacted me yet? I hope they don’t schedule my surgery for the week of the mid-terms. The season premiere of Gilmore Girls was very sad. Yet another random thought that isn’t helping me. What can I observe? I see my hair needs a cut. I see my cephaloPod shirt has a hole in it. I see that the veins in my hands are more prominent than I remember them being. Now I hear the sound of a fan oscillating. I hear the clickity-clack of the keyboard as I try and fail to make some sense out of my notes. I hear my breathing. I smell nothing. My sense of smell has been shot for years. I can’t smell anything unless it’s placed directly under my nose. That makes life less fun, I can observe that much. Ultimately, I decide that this anxiety, this panic attack, may not be such a bad observational topic after all. I mean think about it. When you read about panic attacks, what is the context? A dry clinical explanation, or an outsider viewing someone else’s, or perhaps a writer writing the breakdown of one of their characters. Here I have an opportunity to show people who’ve never been nervous before what it’s like.
RE: An Insiders View of Anxiety By: Richard Davidson on 10/24/2006; 10:31 PM I liked the title, and the first line, but then you kind of lost me. So I'm going to start by plagiarizing that, and then moving forward from there. An Insider's View of Anxiety My mind is chaos, my hands little better. I'd tell my mama, but I don't want to upset 'er. I'm writing stuff about Radley; one Boo I'm grooving to the Boss, no wait, it's the Who Tuesday's been looming like impending doom I wish I was still living safe in the womb I sit in the bookstore, and try to take notes I'm crazed like a Republican rancid for votes The areas of the store I see, with most people have most possibility Then I sit down in the history section wishing for caramel or some odd confection (wishing to avoid the campus police's detection) oh crap! I've got an infection Now I heard sounds of the fan oscillating, I wish how I wish this damned place weren't so grating That's all I have for now If I think of anything else, I'll just go ahead and forget it. Thanks!
RE: An Insiders View of Anxiety By: Brian Webber on 12/15/2006; 4:18 PM Final draft
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