The Misadventures of PEN & M: A RETROSPECTIVE

(she says with flourish, catchy title eh?)

as our 2 year anninversary approaches we'd like to take the time to acknowledge our own hardwork of keeping up a 2 person blog before blogging was cool, but just when it was becoming a fad. i think at the time we started, if you want to check out the beginning October 5th to be exact, we had collaborative expectations- a dialogue if you will of playing off one another and our different strengths. . . our conversation still holds true- Pen still talks about Target and reality Tv, I moan about my jobs and various melodramas, and the necessity of communicating has remained very much the same... we need to write. it is desperately necessary. and it's my darkest fear that i'll one day stop. 3 years out and it still is- is it like a river that can run dry if there is nothing to feed it? me thinks so.

I met Pen in Chicago back in 2000. (No, way! Has it been 6 years). I sat next to her in an intimidating and intense 4 person writing workshop, went to breakfasts with my still favorite teacher phyllis moore- heaping on butter and syrup upon delicious pancakes, walked around the city, watched as we became a 3 person workshop and finally around the 6month mark, Pen began to talk to me... I used to look at her completely unnerved by this quiet, sharp eyed girl wondering what on earth drove her to silence... since I could never shutup- "it's what we call pressure to speak"... and as the year passed, we drank beer, sitting on the linoleum of my dorm, figuring out clever things to say as we left our mark upon some pages- and then she left the program for greener pastures (not necessarily cooler ones ; ) and we corresponded over email. and i think that's when i first really got to know this wry comedic person with a twist of brooding- and as i do, latched onto her and refused to let her go, paragraph by paragraph- absorbing bits of her thru email. i think it took her a lot longer to decide i wasn't too intense or crazy. but she's still here so i feel the love.

it's funny how conversations come and go in cycles- we're still talking about the same things but yet i don't think any of it is boring- the gift and curse of a writer is that we can make anything interesting- barring discussion on whether this post is or isn't withstanding- it's our thoughts that feed the smallest action, illiciting meaning and emotion from an overturned shoe, spilled water, a dead fish or one failed job after the next... i'd like to think it adds up to something.