Though I suppose that turned out to be somewhat untrue, at least for me, insofar as I am recalling her here. Though I never did find out her name, nor revealed my name to her during our interaction.

Meaning, in the series of moments she and I were sharing, she would remain, I imagined (as I would remain for her), so nearly anonymous as to recede, once our interaction was complete, into the ether of memories that would likely never be recalled.

I told her that I was heading west, in a voice of mild concern, though I did not really feel the concern that I was attempting to communicate, with my voice, but instead was feigning it, as silly as that might sound, in order to match what I understood was her own sincere reaction to what the weatherman had told us. If anything, the news of the thunderstorm had annoyed me (though not very much), but I did not like to show my annoyance when I was having such a pleasant and commonplace interaction; especially when that interaction was with a stranger or a fleeting acquaintance, which is what this woman seemed destined, for me, to be.

I also drank two cups of coffee, the second of which I’d almost finished when a woman who’d been sitting at a table beside mine, watching the television news, and with whom I’d exchanged some pleasantries (about the quality of the breakfast, which we’d agreed was surprisingly good), asked me which direction I was traveling, because the forecast had just been delivered by the weatherman, we’d both seen it and had heard it, and now we could not help but be conscious of the fact that thunderstorms were predicted to the west of the city that we’d stopped in (she on her way to wherever she was going, and me on my way to where I was).

For breakfast I ate a couple of donuts, some yogurt with granola, a banana, a few sausage links, a waffle that I made in the griddle (using batter that was pre-made, or readymade, whatever the word for it is), and a serving of potatoes that had been diced into little cubes and then grilled, or fried, and seasoned, and served in one of those silver warming trays with the handled cover on top that you lift in order to see what is underneath.

Which isn’t to say that criticism isn’t a ‘creative’ act, in the general sense of that word. It is a genre of creativity.

In other words, one can’t be a talented fiction writer without also being an astute critic of fiction, while one can perhaps be an astute critic of fiction without having any talent for the writing of fiction itself.

Though I do wonder if it is ever the other way around; that is, if ever there is a writer whose creative faculties are superior to his or her critical faculties. Because one cannot really be a good creative writer without also being a good critic, at least of one’s own work. Even if such a writer never happens to articulate his or her aesthetic judgements by way of criticism per se. The consequence of which, to my mind, is that the creative talent of any given artist will never surpass the fineness of that artist’s critical ‘eye’.

Which might seem like a strange thing to acknowledge, in a book that purports to be, to some extent, about the craft of writing, but only insofar as, within a writer’s mind, the critical apparatus is inextricable from the creative apparatus, which I don’t think it is. Meaning, I think the two things are extricable, and can be separated one from the other. So that a person’s critical faculties can be, in some cases, better than, or superior to, his or her creative faculties.

Which is a convoluted way of saying something that could be said more simply, I’m sure. But, as I’ve mentioned, I’m not that good of a writer; meaning, I’m not good enough to always be able to state things as clearly and succinctly, or as eloquently, as I’d like to, though I am good enough to recognize that fact, or to intuit it, as I make my way through the writing of a sentence or a paragraph.

That is, I don’t know how to write about something after saying I’m going to write about it, because to introduce it, or anticipate it, rather than to not see it coming and thus to stumble on it, is to draw from it its power and spontaneity.

I’d said I was going to tell you more about Alida, but I never got around to doing so, and, now that I’m thinking of it, I don’t think I’m going to do so at precisely this moment, even though I’d said I would, because I don’t know how to write about more than one thing at a time.

Around midnight I fell asleep again, and this time didn’t wake till morning, though even when I did wake I didn’t get up right away, or even open my eyes, but lay there in the position in which I’d been sleeping, and listened to the sound of the birds outside the window of my room, which was near enough to the interstate that I could also hear, if I listened intently enough, the hush of traffic, which recalled to me, eventually, the purpose of my trip, and the trajectory of my day, though even then I still did not get up, but refrained from doing so until I’d thought about how far I might drive, and what state I might find myself in, geographically speaking, by the time I stopped again. At which point I did get up, slowly dressed, and went down to the lobby to find some breakfast.

Which seemed to me to be a good thing, or a promising thing, when I became cognizant of it, because I’d been worried, before I’d started this trip, that I wouldn’t have anything to write about, and now here I was, writing, or at least producing the semblance of that which I wanted to describe as writing (I wasn’t going to describe it as such unless it met a certain standard).

I suppose I wanted only to get it down on the page, and figure out what to do with it later. Even if I ended up doing nothing with it.

Most of it did need to be changed, I realized, but in realizing it I didn’t seem to care. That is, I cared about it enough to want to change it, but didn’t care enough to change it right then and there.

After a while I stopped writing, and put away my laptop, and called Alida (as I mentioned earlier that I did), and then, after our call had ended, I fell asleep without intending to, simply because I was tired; and when I woke it was dark inside the room, but was not yet the middle of the night, only something like 11 p.m. So I didn’t continue to lie there, on top of the covers, on the bed, but instead got up and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, though while I was standing in front of the mirror, at the sink, brushing them, I thought of something else I wanted to write, in the document that I’d begun, on my laptop, so that after I’d finished in the bathroom and had switched off the light and had returned to the bed I opened my laptop again, and sat with it like I’d been doing, when I’d first arrived in the room, hours earlier, with the pillows against the headboard, and continued to type, now and then pausing to read what I’d written and to consider whether any of it needed to be changed.

Of course, one’s conscience is all one needs, in a certain sense (not everyone is going to have time for theology). But a conscience can be hidden from oneself, or subjugated, or so abused by the habit of sin that it loses the power to assert itself.

And that is the real guidepost or criterion for me, even if I’m aware that it isn’t that for others.

Or, anyway, to defer to it in instances when I’m not sure.