Fragment

 Even what we most love and admire has huge, insurmountable flaws.

The conservatory you always dreamed of attending

Rejects you. You play no instrument!  The woman you love

Lives in another city and doesn't know you exist. 

You are a "night owl" but afraid 

Of the dark....

***

A cousin of mine, Stephen Mayhew, who grew up on his father's jazz record collection (my uncle "Buddy") went to college with the thought of being a music major, but very quickly realized that you had to know how to read music and play an instrument, etc... I guess Buddy told my dad and he told me about this. I thought of him after I wrote these lines in my head on my walk the other day. It is a hilarious, endearing, and instructive story because it is something I can see myself doing (something along those lines, I mean.) I'm thinking of being a crossword puzzle constructor. I have no idea whether I could do it (I'm sure I could, but I mean whether I have the patience and perseverance to follow through on it.) Other examples: I became very interested in Lezama Lima at one point. What I really like, though, is the idea of Lezama Lima. There are things I really love in him, but then I also get very skeptical and want to not read him any more. I remember some colleagues making fun of me for even trying to understand it.  

Or take my whole profession. I thought people would be interested in trying to figure out how poems work, because that was how I got into it, but this was a mistake on my part. It turns out nobody knows how poems work, it's a complete mystery, and nobody even cares very much about it except me and maybe three other people. This is almost the opposite story of my cousin, because it would be like me majoring in music and being the only person there who could read music.