Narcissistic Post (without sarcasm or other forms of humor)

i started a new story. here is an excerpt:

In Japan, Matt had a four-room flat, cooked dinner every night, had friends over, drank Japanese beer, and had long, strange conversations about life, existing, living in the modern age, what that meant, what exactly existing was (was it something to do with thinking that one was existing, or was it more of a zen thing, more of a breathing and eating thing?) how to deal with the death of nature, the natural world and the human’s place in it, and other interesting things. Interesting things. Above all, in Japan, things and people had been continuously interesting, fresh. The word clarity was a word he hesitated to use, but in Japan it was as though he was watching his life from some distant place, some clear place, a mountain perhaps, and he saw the way he was living (simply living, with no preconceptions and nothing to stop him) and knew that there was no good or bad in it all.

Looking at this basement, though, things seemed bad. Having to live with his mother, coming home to his semi-boring family, he immediately knew the clarity with which he had seen his life in Japan - that odd and alien view he had of things - was going to leave him. It was depressing. He had felt it flying over the ocean as one feels the first touch of illness. Matt sat on the futon, then laid down, then sat up again and called his brother to tell him he was coming over. His brother’s girlfriend, Stephanie, answered and said his brother wasn’t there. He was on a business trip.

Please don’t say things like that, Matt said.

I know, she said. It’s hard to believe.

I can’t talk anymore, Matt said, and hung up the phone.

this post will be about my writing. i have a book of stories called either Marathon, Ohio and Other Stories, or it's called the name of this blog, which is called, Stories Like Stories You Know. i don't know, i think i might save the second title. i'm in the middle of a novel called Meridian (which, depressingly, i found out is the name of a Toni Morrison novel today). it (mine) is about someone living in Meridian, Mississippi, which is near where i lived for three years. i lived in Hattiesburg, went to the Center for Writers there. i have my book of stories out at one place, i have been rejected by at least ten agents, and now i'm going to submit the book of stories to some more places. i will have Meridian finished in the winter and another book of stories after that, probably. you can publish these if you want to. it would be okay with me, i mean.

also: i don't like that excerpt now. i like it, i mean, but i don't think it shows enough of the story or what it's about, maybe.