My name is Jacob Banco. It’s not my real name but close enough. My girlfriend’s name is Phoebe Harris, it is her real name, incidentally. She is against me writing blogs because she knows I’ll include her and our relationship in my entries, which is only fair since she doesn’t include me in her writing and I resent it. We are both writers. I’m a knuckles-to-the-keys kind of writer and believe writing is work: heat and pressure to get the diamonds. She prefers stream of consciousness, and rarely edits anything. She writes Erotica, something I refer to as porn for intellectuals who don’t want their parents and friends to know they masturbate like the rest of us. I would like to be more involved in her work.

We live together in a small apartment in East Vancouver. Our toilet doesn’t work very well. Sometimes you have to flush it a couple times to get everything down. My girlfriend knows this and doesn’t flush a second time just to get at me. This passed week she left me a post-it note on the closed lid of the toilet: Open and you will see my great work for the day. I opened the lid and a turd was floating in the bowl. She thought it was funny, I did too until I realized the remnants could be interpreted as low self-esteem. It worries me that she may think this way about herself. I asked her about it and she told me I needed to get a new perspective. I told her she needed to flush more often, which brings me to the advice of this entry – editing. Sometimes you have to keep flushing to get the shit out of the bowl. That’s my advice, and I hope she gets it. This morning she left a note: Open and you will see your great work for the day. I lifted the lid and the bowl was empty. I felt elated. She’s finally coming around. Edit, edit, edit.

For Phoebe, may she never know I wrote this.

~JB