haruki murakami said that it is through concentration that he was able to work on novels and complete them. there is a level of talent that one must have to begin with, but i am just going to be arrogant and assume i have it. murakami compares writing novels to running in marathons. there is training, the build up to the actual event, and then there is the event itself. i don’t run, but i understand where he is going with it.

i am lazy and i nvr concentrate on the writing that i am supposed to be doing. because of this i am attempting now to lay out my thoughts in some pattern that could be patched together forming a whole that is greater than the individual pieces.

the things that drive me:

• music
• literature
• a good car drive
• a new experience
• things that become unexpectedly metamorphic

the original intention was that there would be four major events that would divide the piece into four sections.

the events are as follows:

• the reunion
• airports and hotel rooms (the road)
• commuting
• the office

this was the basis of the idea, that a reunion would spark a recall to simpler times. seeing old friends that became nothing, and then realizing that jake had become nothing. attempting to see forward motion as progress, despite how worthless the motion is in the end.

familiar faces and familiar actions, but everything has aged. the joy and rebelliousness of it is merely atavism.

i nvr liked music when i was younger, or at least that is what i claim. i did like music, i always enjoyed listening to what my dad would play during car rides. there was no personal interest, i had no desire to go beyond the times where music was provided to me but not regulated by me.

now that is very different. i have become a water and music is the container that holds me. i conform to the music. this is true with the rare exception that i cannot find any value in the music itself. that is all perspective though and there is no definitive ruling made on the value of the music in general, only a ruling on what its value to me.

• green: events
• red: primary concepts or events
• blue: inspirations
• gray: characters
• yellow: notes on organization
• default: premise

Jake – Jacob: main character, duh.

Jessica – Jess: Jake’s girlfriend. provides prescription drugs. she is the link between high school and adulthood, which makes her somewhat of a burden. it shouldn’t be clear whether he is in love with her, or whether he is with her due to familiarity and fear of change.

7 + eO: burnouts, but they are happy. really happy, true happiness. they don’t need worthless material to clutter their lives with.

Lizabitch – Elisa: fucking her way through the ranks at work. as twisted and fucked up as she always was.

Ohringer – Sean: kids, no education, no hope.

Mikey – Timothy(Tim):

Steve + Alix – Alec + Stephanie(Steph): heavy users, ravers.

Willhite – Andy Kheb: weird as fuck, but mental free. no need for possessions. he has his mind.

here is the rub. jake lives in a world of mediated reality. he spends the majority of his time blurring the real world or running from the real world. even when he does go back to it for short intervals, the real world is unrealistic. it is a surreal nightmare of colors, sounds and lies. there is a sense of in authenticity to it that caused him to run from it in the first place.

this gives rise to two different forms of backlash. they are represented first by his attempt to work within the system, to actively change what is happening in his life and his world through the methods directly available and socially acceptable to him. the second is the realization that those methods cannot work, they are mediated. his entire life is mediated and he begins to recognize that as the problem.