Because I Can… the random thoughts of Marc Scott

I’ve often thought it would be cool to write a book.  Actually, I suppose “author” a book would be a more appropriate term.  I really haven’t literally written since I got my first computer.  I’m not entirely sure if I’d even remember how.  So it would be cool to author a book.

I don’t really know what my book would be about.  I don’t feel as though I have anything book-worthy to say.  Even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t expect that I’d be able to fill an entire book.  It seems to me that if you want your book to taken seriously, if you want it on the bestseller list, it needs to be big.  It should be thick and grand, brimming with hefty words.  The greater the number of syllables, the more eloquent and intelligent it would sound.  I don’t know if I could write a book like that.  Perhaps I’d be best to begin a little further down the literary hierarchy .  Maybe a short book.  I could use large print and double space.  Perhaps I could throw in a few illustrations to increase the content.

I get lost in daydreams when I think of my book.  I picture a man, middle-aged.  He is sitting in the park.  He’s wearing slacks, tan, like they just spent a week on the beach in the Caribbean.  A white, short-sleeved shirt is covered by a sweater vest, not unlike those worn by Mr Rogers.  It’s blue.  Not blue like the sky mind you.  You know the color of blue that the oceans are when you see earth from space?  A deep, rich, bold kind of blue?  It’s like that.  He has a hat.  A wool plaid cap and he’s smoking a pipe.  He wears glasses.  Thick rimmed, black.  They rest on the end of his nose.  The way somebody wears them when they want to be able to look down and through them, or up and over them.  He looks distinguished.  Intelligent.  Like a professor or something.  The kind of guy that you’d go to if you needed the answer to a really hard question.

The air is warm, a light breeze takes the edge off.  The grass is green and thick.  Children are playing in the distance.  People are rollerblading and cycling along the paths.  There is chess table, like the kind you see in the movies.  Two elderly gentlemen are sitting at it playing.  My professor though, is sitting on a park bench.  He’s leaning a bit, left leg crossed over the right.  With his right hand he holds a book, with his left hand he works the pipe.  It appears as though he is unaware of the world around him.  Whatever this piece of literature is he holds in his hand, it has consumed him.

In my daydream, my professor is reading my book.  I like to picture it this way because it makes me feel good.  If such an intelligent looking man would spend his afternoon in the park with my book, then it must be good.  After all, such a man wouldn’t devote his time to pages unworthy.

Women would read my book too.  But I don’t put near as much imagination into the type of woman that would read it.  Men watch sports in my head.  They don’t really read books.  It seems like only certain types of men would, and that is the type I picture.  Of course, I read books and I don’t look anything like that.  But I read books in hopes that one day I can be deep and profound and articulate.  Then, perhaps, I’ll be perceived as intelligent, even if my high school transcripts say otherwise.

Women though, in my opinion, are generally smarter than men in many ways.  Maybe not in the greasing the chainsaw sort of way, but in most other ways.  So I don’t need to picture a specific woman reading my book.  I picture all women reading it because I just assume all women read.  I don’t mean to sound arrogant by saying I picture all women reading my book.  It’s not an ego thing, like my book is so great all women will read it.  It’s just more of me picturing all women reading books, so they could, theoretically, all read mine.

I can lose myself in this daydream for a long time.  Is it still technically a daydream if it happens at night?  I’ve often wondered about that.  I get lost in my thoughts a lot.  But it definitely happens to me most often while I’m in bed.  I’m not asleep mind you.  I think it’s just because I’m quiet.  Darkness is my blanket.  There is no TV, no radio, no computer.  Just the gentle whirring of my refrigerator.  For the record, that’s not in my room.  My apartment is just small and so I hear it at night.  So I lay in bed and think and dream, I’m just still awake when I do it.  I think about my book and about people reading it.  Then I think about how much my fridge runs and wonder if that’s normal.

I never expected I’d be writing a blog.  I really don’t know what brought that on.  It just seemed like the thing to do at the time.  I had some stuff to say, the internet is free, I already had my own web site.  So why not start a blog?  I’m not on the NY Times Bestseller list, that’s for sure.  Maybe it’s practice?  That thought has crossed my mind.  It’s a good dream though, even if that’s all it is.  I love dreaming about my book.