Aaron M. Fortkamp

Down to my shirtsleeves:

because I hate being the guy that’s cold all the time, because my sweatshirt wasn’t feeling right, like the hood was tucked into the back instead of hanging free and maybe it was but I never verified the fact I just took it off, because it’s going to be 79 degrees tomorrow and I’m ready for summer, because I just made the bed and then came back into the room with the heater on and felt hot, genuinely hot, though now I’m starting to catch a chill but my hands are still warm so I’m rolling with it

Updating my Apple TV software:

because I’m insecure about not having the latest thing, because I want to play music as I write and this seemed like a barrier to the fact though in fact it wasn’t, because I thought maybe there might be some new Siri features in which I can use my Apple Music subscription and say hey Siri play me some writing music and it’ll do that for me, because I already updated my iPad and my iPhone and I didn’t want to leave the TV outside in the rain peering through the window, because it was a thing to do instead of writing like I already put the food away and made the bed and went to the bathroom and petted the cat and petted the other cat

Drinking a Yuengling:

because I have problem with alcohol, because it makes me feel adult despite understanding it’s a stab at hanging onto youth, because I’m in Pennsylvania, because Yuengling used to be the beer to drink in my social circle back in Ohio because they didn’t sell it there and anytime anyone made a trip east they were duty bound to bring back cases, but now they do sell it there which is just another reminder that sometimes the difficult thing is the most rewarding thing, or more pessimistically, that you only want the thing you can’t have because you can’t have it, because of Ben

Procrastinating on reading more entries for Arcadia:

because it reminds me I need to be submitting, because I spend my time after work talking with my fiancée and deciding or at least discussing our plans and certain things have to get pushed back, because I came across a story that actually has less than five typos and uses a firm vocabulary and seems to have a strategy and I enjoyed reading it but apart from being aware I would’ve made some different choices in the telling I also can’t decide for sure what the story is trying to do, and why it lingered so long where it did, and if I’m missing something, which is another way of saying I don’t trust myself enough to know what I’m talking about currently in terms of fiction

My legs are crossed like this:

because my cat likes to get up in my lap when I’m in the writing chair and he is otherwise not at all a lap cat but for some reason he’s decided this is the optimal situation for receiving my attention and demand my attention he does, which is very distracting from my procrastinating, because I’m on my third Yuengling and I know right soon I’ll have to use the bathroom again and I’m trying to give room for my bladder’s expansion, because I’m bony and my calf/shin area perched upon my knee is causing a small amount of pain that seems necessary tonight, because I’ve never been the type to go fullways, knee on knee, which for me is uncomfortable in the crotch area even though others insist it’s alright

Playing another year of fantasy baseball:

because I was asked, because the longtime commissioner J. who asked me asked in a way I couldn’t say no to, because they’re renaming the league after Ben, because I came in 11th out of 12 last year and so despite knowing how busy this summer is likely to be for me I don’t really feel any pressure to perform, because I do like baseball, because MLB.tv somehow auto-renewed my subscription again this year despite me making sure they did not have my current credit card information and so it seems like fate that baseball will be a part of my life so I may as well give in to it, because of Ben, although I can’t imagine ever feeling like playing Scrabble again, because of Ben

Writing:

because of Ankara, because of the Ivory Coast and Belgium, because someone has to recognize all of these terrorist events are equally newsworthy not just the Western tragedy, because people are dead and I am not, because the mass shooting in Wilkinsburg not five miles from my home disappeared from the front page of the news before the afternoon of the day after it happened, again, because these victims don’t count, because I am angry, because I am sad, because something I never said in the entry about Frank getting shot in the forehead with an AK-47 which is it doesn’t have to be like this

Writing:

because I want to be worthy of my novel, because baseball season is nearly here and I consider this my spring training for the writing of a baseball novel, because the more I write the more the keys feel like they’re speaking to me and not vice versa, because this is me, because this has to be me, because I spend hours upon hours not being me, instead being the person this society deserves but not the one it needs right now, because I need to get clichés and movie lines out of my system, because the me I am is not good enough but the me on paper is a decent likeness of the me I intend to become, because I have to understand things, because it often feels like I’m the only one who has to understand things, because social interaction seems almost universally predicated upon the assumption that you think I already understand everything and I have to keep up that charade or else you’ll think less of me which is a falsity that proves itself time and time and time again whenever anyone is brave enough to ask a question, because good fiction asks questions, because I have so many questions

Taking a break:

because I have to pee

Sweatshirt back on:

because I am who I am and I have to deal with it

Getting married:

because I love her, because I am who I am and she is too, because it is exciting to think about, because I am afraid of the future except when I’m with her, because she is a writer, because she knows how to undo me but never flaunts such power, because I trust her, because I love her for being able to trust her, because she makes me laugh, because she acknowledges the humor in flatulence, because she is predictably surprising, because I am tethered to her by some force I do not fully understand, because she is challenging, because she tries my patience and I never think to give up, like it just never occurs to me, because she is thoughtful and kind beyond all reason, because she loves the hell out of me, because she makes me curious as to how big life can actually be lived, because the idea of a family of my own does not seem pointless and self-indulgent if it’s with her, because she indulges my fetish for technology—to an extent, because she is motivated and impulsive and passionate and cheesy and otherwise just hella fun to be around

Writing:

because Dostoyevsky, because magic, because grace, because censorship, because my high school English teacher Ms. S, because readers, because meditation, because delusion, because hyperbole, because identity, because ladies, because men, because where would I be without it, because now that he is gone it seems even more essential to capture his attention, because I’m not that great a singer, because Vonnegut and DeLillo and that sonofabitch Wallace, because television, because Hollywood, because propaganda, because you are dead and I am not, because Faulkner, because Munro, because truth and hope and beauty, because legacy, because promise,  because I promise, because if the world burns down and dries up and puffs out of existence I would still promise, because I am capable of nothing else but to promise you this