Rereading Chuck Palahniuk’s Stranger Than Fiction True Stories for my Lit 150 class. My favorite fiction writers are my favorite creative non-fiction writers. I’m enjoying his essay “Brinksmanship”:
The waitress used to say, “What will you be doing when you’re old men?” I used to tell her, “I’ll worry about that when I get there.” If I get there. I’m writing this piece right on deadline. My brother-in-law used to call this behavior “brinksmanship,” the tendency to leave things until the last moment, to imbue them with more drama and stress and appear the hero by racing the clock. “Where I was born,” Georgia O’Keeffe used to say, “and where and how I have lived is unimportant.” She said, “It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of any interest.” I’m sorry if this seems all rushed and desperate. It is.