Write and Edit

"Are you drunk yet?" she asked.

"I don't think so."

"Well," she said, "don't start until you are."

I don't know whose idea it was. A pen, a piece of paper, a love letter each, and we weren't supposed to start writing until we were good and drunk. She'd seen some blasted meme, "Write drunk, edit sober," some iffy advice attributed to Ernest Hemingway. She was drinking vodka tonics and I was drinking beers, crushing them quickly, perhaps too quickly, in the way that eating too quickly makes you full before you realize it.

She was looking at me funny. "What?"

"Just thinking about all the things I'm gonna write about you." She winked. She was a good winker. It was quick, sharp, not awkward, and awfully cute. "You better have another beer," she said, "I'm drunk. I mean I'm, like, drunk." I opened another Pilsner. I didn't like Pilsners but she kept buying them for me. Maybe I'd write about that.

After about half of it I told her, "OK, I think I'm good to go." And we started writing.

I was drunker than I'd let on. I was drunk beyond drunk. I was keeping my composure, lying I suppose, as best I could. I was afraid of what I might do, what I might say, the words that she'd read. She was so happy, so eager, to try this out. A fun little thing staying in on a Friday night. An exercise. A workout.

She crumpled my paper in her hand, I remember that much. I didn't get the chance to read it after. I blame the masses, the World Wide Web, the asshole who made that stupid picture that she saw. Ernest Hemingway never said those words a goddamn day in his life.