In Cold Blood

I'm reading In Cold Blood, and it's great. We watched Capote not too long ago, and I've been interested in reading the book ever since. I want to write a true crime novel! I want to investigate a story, interview the perpetrators, get obsessed and become an expert!

Maybe that's what I'm doing with this blog...investigating my husband's substance abuse from all angles. I always mean to write a memoir, and maybe this is my starting place. As I'm becoming less and less frantic and there's less and less to say about addiction, heroin, and my relationship with my husband, maybe I will start to use this as a forum to record this weird, weird relationship I've got myself in...maybe I can use this space as a building ground or a sketch pad for my life history.

I'm not sure about some things in my life--like whether or not they are worthy of being written about--but the story of the love affair between my husband and me is definitely worth some literary attention. It's really complicated and spans years and involves countless characters with all kinds of grotesque personality quirks...it's really an amazing story. There's a pharmacy robbery (or two, or twenty...no one knows for sure what the final count is except my husband, and he tells lies), insane relatives on both sides, drugs, drinking, whoring, law school, pit bulls, guns, love, nakedness, a leather couch, inflamed ovaries, and endless fun!

Writing out some of our history might help me stop being so angry, and so obsessed. I sometimes wonder if I should stop writing about heroin and his using and reading and reading and reading and reading about heroin all the time. It helps me in a lot of ways, but it also makes me fixate. Just as much as his using is reductive of his personality, my focusing on it is reductive of our relationship.

One thing that's a little scary about In Cold Blood is the way that the killer that fascinated Capote most, Perry, reminds me of my husband in a lot of ways. He's one of those introspective, charismatic, sensitive sociopaths...apparently writers love these guys?

I'm loving reading things that aren't substance-abuse related lately. I need to go book shopping again...book recommendations are welcome!