I drag a large white leather couch into the Beached Whale for DeWitt. I think he will like a cashmere blanket, two-tone, purple and blue, so I drape it across the back of the couch for him.

Susan hasn’t arrived so I use my most stilted, awkward question on him to break the ice.  We eat Cheez Its and sip Buffalo Trace.

I said, “The last time I saw you, you were being a writer. Are you still a writer? Or are you a writer yet? Does it have anything to do with what you spend most of your hours doing?”

DeWitt said, “I am not a writer, I just dream. I guess it doesn’t matter too much what you consider yourself since we spend most of our lives unconscious and maybe because I like to dream while I’m awake, I’m more properly asleep.What does it mean to be a writer? Is a writer what I do, what I say, or what I leave? Is it for readers or myself?Writing is the very least of creating. Who wouldn’t prefer writing one important piece to a thousand insignificant ones? Typing words into a document doesn’t take all that long, even if you’re hunting with your pecker.

There is the conception of a writer. The fancy one someone archetyped before people paid for their espresso with an iphone. It’s not appealing except for those who ignore the horrifying effects of syphilis untreated.

This concept tainted the word for me, because most of those people rarely produce anything more interesting than a bad credit rating.

Writing feels really good when it’s good and terrible when it’s not working. It makes it stressful to sit down and try. But if you’re always thinking; if your strategy is to find something interesting and recreate it within the constraints of language; if you masturbate in the bathroom at work a few too many times; if you want to see things differently; if you consider the semicolons: you’re probably are a writer.

Better than that, you’re alive. The need for writers is debatable. Everyone needs to be alive.”

I also installed two blue doors inside my head for my friends for when they want to come and go, and want to come and go at the same time but separately.