This is my last political campaign. I said that out loud today and I knew immediately that it was true, true, so true. Politics is anathema to any kind of sustained good feelings or creativity. I am going through an incredible period of discipline and work right now and the fucking campaign is diluting it and diluting it with bullshit. Why would they want to start an “enemies file” on Vince Egan? “Where does he work?” they want to know. “What does he do?” Shirley is talking about running for office. “I think I could beat Q. V. Williamson,” she says in all seriousness. And Clint Deveaux has his eye on Congress. I want to understand how people begin to decide that they are the ones we need to lead us and guide us and decide for us what we must and must not do. Joan Didion says a writer is always selling somebody out. She is right, of course. Whenever you tell the secrets or remember selectively or recreate a scene that the person in it didn’t authorize, you are selling somebody out. But who gives a fuck?
I feel good and I feel like I am writing better and better. Please don’t let a dread disease strike me now that it is almost time for my life to cool out.