2002-06-21 - 2:08 a.m.

As some of you may know, Douglas Adams died just over a year ago. In fact, if you know who Douglas Adams is, in any way other than, "Yeah, my friend told me about him, he wrote that Hitchhiker book, right?" then you probably know enough about him to know he died last year. Because the amazing thing about his almost painfully small body of work (small in number, but never in content, quality, impact, or, quite importantly, laughter), is that, if a person is familiar with his work, then they're usually a big fan. I've never met someone who read the books and said, "Yeah, I read that. meh. *shrug*." It's that kind of comic writing force we're talking about. A veritable juggernaut of pure writing genius. Another metaphor that I'm too tired to come up with right now.

Adams died on May 11th, 2001. Two weeks later, May 25th, was declared by his fans at www.towelday.org as Towel Day, a day of memorial and celebration of his work. You participated by carrying a towel with you for the entire day, for reasons rather difficult to explain if you aren't a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fan, and don't need to be explained if you are. But if you don't know it, go to towelday.org, and you'll get a bit of an explanation of it.

Douglas Adams was probably the single most influential writer to affect me on my journey to find my writing voice. I didn't really have a voice of my own. Not a defined one, anyway. My writing would shift around, feel different every time I wrote something. That's when I was introduced to Douglas Adams and Elmore Leonard. Leonard had an effect on the way I wrote some of my settings, but when you get right down to it, no writing helped me get my writing to a point that I felt I could actually be a Writer like the Guide. I'm not trying to say that I think I'm as good as Douglas Adams, or write at all like him (any more, anyway), just that with his own incredibly unique voice, he helped me find my own voice.

So anyway, when Towel Day came along last year, I carried my towel not for one day, but for three weeks. The only reason I stopped was, my friend Molly borrowed it one day to support her back while she was driving, and didn't return it for a couple more weeks.

This year, a few weeks ago, I randomly walked into a Barnes and Noble, and came across the full, hardcover volume of the whole Hitchhiker's Trilogy in one book. I've been meaning to pick this up for years, even though I already have the books in paperback form. So I bought the book, and before even paying for it, decided that starting the following morning, I was going to start carrying my towel again. This time, it would be easier to keep it with me everywhere, because now I carry my backpack everywhere. I got home, put the towel in my backpack, and started reading. Not remembering when Towel Day officially was, I went to the website to find out, and be reminded that it was on May 25th. The day I did all of this? May 24th. Purely coincidental, I swear. I had no idea that the day I was going to start carrying my towel again was the day Douglas Adams fans all over were going to be doing it. I've carried it since then. In true fashion, this writing genius is turning out to be right, even after death, because the longer I carry my towel with me, the more uses I find for it. Right up to my last diary entry, when I used it to sit on instead of the cold steps behind the T stop at Harvard Square while I waited in the rain for Sasha.

But the reason I'm writing this now is, I just finished "The Salmon of Doubt" by Douglas Adams. It's a book compiled of essays and uncompleted works saved from his four Apple computers. While much of it is incredibly funny, what hit me the hardest about the book is that so much of it tells you about the man. He's no longer an ingenious body of work, he's a real, amazing man. His experiences come through, and make him real, and make his death that much more tragic. And today, as I read the epilogue to the book, a lament from a long-time friend, written very shortly after he learned about the writer's untimely death, it finally really hit me. Just over a year later, after feeling like I'd finally been introduced, in a way, to the man who's had so much influence on me, I was closing the final book that will ever come out by him, and it felt like I finally knew what it was like for him to be dead. Because now, he is a man who has died, instead of work that has just stopped.

Worse, shortly after finally finishing and closing his final book, I felt that strange, almost indescribable feeling I've been getting in my chest for years. The one that tells me that something is wrong, but it doesn't go for long enough for me to describe what's wrong about it. The one that tells me that I am, most likely destined to meet a similar fate. The one that tells me I need to start working now, because if I wait too long to make it, I won't get my chance. It tells me that my life will not be as long as most others. I need to work. I don't want to be Douglas Adams. I don't expect to end up loved like that. But I have to be someone. I have to try. And I'm not trying hard enough. If there's something the book has taught me is, life is short, have fun, and bring your towel.

Soon, I hope to actually type up the first chapter of the book I'm working on. Then I'm going to put it online here, in the hopes that some of you will have suggestions for how to improve it. If I don't do it soon, please yell at me or something. I need it.