I Don't Freaking Have To

Publishing Resources

2011-12-15T14:44:00.000-08:00

I keep getting questions about publishing, and I'm hoping to put together a few posts on different areas of publishing over break. In the meantime, I've compiled a list of resources for getting started learning about publishing:

LITERARY MAGAZINES
Here is a list of the best literary magazines, ranked by the number of Pushcart Prizes their stories have received: Perpetual Folly

Here is a link to an alphabetical list of most of the literary magazines in the country, with breakdowns by genre, electronic submission, and links to websites: Literary Mags

Poets & Writers also offers a list of grants and awards that are upcoming: Grants and Awards

BOOKS AND PUBLISHING BLOGS:
Nathan Bransford, an author and former literary-agent-turned-CNET-reviewer, has one of the best-known and most helpful blogs regarding the process of landing an agent and publishing a book. From a query formula to weekly book news, this is probably the best all-around resource for writers interested in publishing a book: Nathan Bransford

The very first agent blog, this site is no longer running, but all of the archives are still available. Some of this info is dated, but it's a great and hilarious crash-course in the world of publishing, thanks to the infamous Miss Snark.

Janet Reid is another great resource, and she also runs the great site QueryShark in which she dissects and helps revise selected queries from an agent's point of view (for free!).

Hope this helps; more to come later this month.

This Never Gets Old

2011-12-07T11:36:00.000-08:00

So happy to announce that my piece, "Gymnopédie Paris," has been published by The Fiddleback. This magazine is a) awesome, b) easy on the eyes, and c) has some really great poetry in this issue alongside my piece. Check it out if you get a chance.

Just...I Don't Even Know: An Ode

2011-11-09T13:32:00.000-08:00

The human ability to live, sometimes for whole lifetimes, in contradiction to one's real desires is a thing I will never understand. Doesn't it hurt people to be separated from what they love? I spent three years pretending I wanted to do something with my life other than be a writer, and it was the most miserable three years of my life. I was a motherf*cking mess. I lied, I hurt the people I loved the most, I spent time trying to love all the wrong people, and more time trying to be loved by all the wrong people (which is an exercise in terrifically painful guaranteed failure, btw, just in case you ever want to experience misery to its fullest (and also, "the wrong people" can be simply defined as everyone who doesn't already love you which means, guess what, you don't need to try at all)), my hair went grey, I slept with my hands curled into fists or didn't sleep at all, and nothing was ever enough for me. I don't know how to explain fully what I mean without going into the details--but all of the things I said and did were in direct contradiction to what I really wanted, and I didn't even know it. I found ways to obsess over the details of other people's philosophies and actions in order to avoid thinking about my own. I positioned myself against ideas to try to define myself so that I didn't have to say the simple sentence, "I want to be a writer and I'm scared that I won't be very good at it."

But for the love of God, it was painful. Anytime I experience that kind of pain, now, I know to shut the f*ck up about whatever I think is bothering me and have a little chat with myself. And sometimes it takes me a few days or weeks and in the meantime I do stupid sh*t, but after a while I remember to ask: What is it that I really want, from myself, that I am not doing or giving or creating? The answer never has to do with other people. If that's the answer I come up with, I'm wrong. Have I been forgetting to spend time alone? Have I been spending too much time on work that isn't writing? Have I been cold to people I really care about because I am afraid of what they will say or do in response? Am I getting enough g*ddamn sleep? (Sometimes that's all it is, which is when I feel really stupid.)

And, even though I know that it is out of my control, and that I have been there before, and that really it doesn't matter and I need to be a loving and kind person to them no matter what, sometimes I get really mad when the people I love are obviously not doing this. Sometimes I really just can't fathom how they can live in that kind of psychological pain and not see that it hurts. I consider all of my own discomfort and loathing during those three years to be the greatest blessing, not because it was fun, but because it made me stop doing sh*tty things that I didn't like doing. It was the rusty nail that made me stop running around junkyards barefoot. And even though I know that it took me years to figure that out and learn to see it that way and that I was lucky I figured it out at all, some small part of me is constantly crying out, "Holy sh*t, man, your leg is broken, STOP RUNNING ON IT!!"

If it hurts, that means stop. If you think your life sucks, and it's other people's fault, or that if you could just get this one thing to happen or this one person to love you or achieve this one goal and then you will be happy, or that "that's just the way it is and I can't do anything about it," or that the system is like totally f*cked and you're just a cog in a wheel and we need change, or that people are inherently evil and/or apathetic, or that it is your destiny to be lonely or never to get what you want, F*CKING STOP. Just stop. It's not true. None of it's true. What do you want? What would you want if you didn't have any obligations or limitations at all? Who would you call right now? What would you make? Okay, now go do that.

In Which I Fall Short

2011-08-16T11:47:00.001-07:00

Why do I keep writing about love?
I read Les Miserables and cried when a good man died and rejoiced that he did not die alone; I thought, there is something more here I must get at.
Then the next day I sat down and wrote about love.
I don't want to write about love; I want to write about the condition of the human heart. I want to write about Mexicans and the way Americans say the word "Mexican" like they used to say "nigger." I want to write about children and they way they still smile at butterflies in a net even when they didn't get enough to eat that morning and have bruises on their wrists where someone grabbed them. I want to write about my classmates and they way they go out on Friday nights and inundate all the cells in their body with poison and rub their genitals against metal poles while a strobe light flashes and how on Saturdays they call it fun.
Then I come home and write about a boy in a brown workman's jacket and the way his fingers look on a guitar.
I don't want to write about love; I want to write about women and their secrets and the stupid vanities they commit in the name of what other people call love. I want to write about failure and the men I knew and the way the American Dream has become a father's imperative, the way their good grades dictate their law school acceptance letters and the way they turn around and run back to the bars and old-fashioned manual labor in the face of what they are supposed to be earning.
I don't want to write about long nighttimes talking about nothings with a person whose pheromones hit your nostrils in just the right way.
I don't want to write about love; I want to write about the way a man can look another man in the face and then put a gaping hole right through the middle of that face and calmly wipe the bits of brain off his forehead and walk away. I want to write about heros and how to be a good man and how to grit one's teeth and grimly complete the task set before one, and expect no thanks.
Then I come home and I write about the pain of separation from a man who doesn't return my phone calls.
I don't want to write about love; I want to write about why it is stupid to write about love, why love is an old wives' tale that gets lost anyway in the boring realities of running a household and not getting enough or the right kind of sex and spending too much money. I want to write about how fourteen-year-old girls' grades drop drastically because they have begun to learn that it isn't pretty or sexy to get good grades. I want to write about how the packaging industry is the biggest industry in America and there are people who dedicate whole lives to making sure that packaging isn't dented on the train ride from a manufacturing plant and then we expect them to die happy.
Then I come home and fail, and write about love.
Some part of me insists that it's because love is the redeeming factor in a world full of pointless labor and murder, but I have seen nothing that isn't set in black and white in twenty-six roman characters to suggest that such a belief is true. I suspect that it is the fourteen-year old grade-dropping part of me that whispers such blasphemy in my ear while I am trying to write about something important. No one dies for love outside of novels, anyway; sometimes bouncers step in front of strippers when a crazed gunman enters a strip club, but more often your spouse will have a psychotic break and kill you, your children, and then himself--always the wrong order. If you put love on a scale against an income and a working vehicle, I'll tell you which one any sensible person will choose, and I can show you the looks on the faces of your friends and mother if that fourteen-year old sucker for psychologically-backed advertising makes you choose wrong.
God, I would like to stop writing about love!

The Small Thing I Know

2011-07-31T23:59:00.000-07:00

I keep learning this, over and over, in so many small ways: that the trick is to stop thinking about the externals of myself, like how I am perceived and how to get what I want, and to start thinking about my real self. Who am I? And what can I do to shape myself into a person I love?

Dear Phoenix: It's Over

2011-06-27T17:07:00.000-07:00

This is a breakup letter to a city I never thought I'd leave. In the words of Neko Case, "I'm sick of doing your dishes, town--I'm out."

   Dear Phoenix,

   This isn't working.
    I'm tired of having to make new friends every three years when your economy turns over. I'm tired of your dead downtown and your 1800 identical Walgreens. I'm sick of your white-collar hamburger values and and I can't stand your perfect f*cking freeways for another minute. I'm sick of having to carry around a sweater in July to deal with the schizophrenic difference between your indoor and outdoor climates, and I'm sick of you getting dark at four o'clock just when your outdoor temperature finally becomes tolerable. I'm sick of the cum trees.
    I'm sick of your quaint little goat farms getting bulldozed for tract housing and not being able to go to a single restaurant that I went to when I moved here because you can't put together a functional community. I'm sick of trying to talk over your terrible music on your terrible outdoor patios at your terrible dank-lit bars to your terrible dank-lit temporary residents. I'm tired of you trying to pass off "shitty" as "ambiance."
    I'm tired of your contradictory politics and your platform flip-flops. I'm tired of you trying to cover up your B.O. with citrus body spray. I'm tired of your classist snap judgments and the way I can't use the sidewalk to go anywhere without you making me feel weird. I'm tired of all your goddamn trucks.
    I'm sick of the way you spend so much money on psuedo-midwestern landscaping but you won't lift a finger to help out the arts or your city parks. I'm sick of your HOAs and also all your empty downtown dirt lots. I'm sick of your ugly-ass autoplexes and your terrifyingly homogenous apartment complexes. I'm sick of the bars you put down the middle of your city benches.
    I'm sick of the fact that it takes your public transportation TWO HOURS to get me from one suburb to another, and then you complain about the gross brown pollution cloud. I'm sick of your bitching about the heat. It's the desert. It's f*cking hot. STFU about it already. At least we don't live in a barren cultural landscape devoid of any neighborly feeling---oh, wait. Yes, we do.
    I'm sick of how hard you try to be like L.A. without investing in any of the things that actually make L.A. kind of sweet. I'm sick of your obsession with new cars and big houses and fenced-in yards. If I see another cement-block wall, I might throw up. I'm sick of your weird fusion chain restaurants and your uncomfortable seating. I'm sick of your disgusting man-made turquoise lakes, and your total waste of potable water in the form of misters and decorative fountains.
       In short, Phoenix, I got to know you better than almost anyone else, and you kind of suck. Good luck with all that.

            Hilary

This Week's Book/Music Choices: 6/12

2011-06-12T21:09:00.000-07:00

I've been desperately wishing for one of those books that come along only every few years and change your whole worldview. (In order, since high school, mine are: The Great Gatsby; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; The Will to Power; The Hero and the Crown; Eat, Pray, Love (Dear Elizabeth Gilbert, it annoys me that I have to change all my commas to semicolons in order to accommodate your book in a list); and Loving What Is). Last week I dropped $40 at the bookstore in search of the next one, the results of said shopping spree being $30 of FAIL, because apparently if you buy a book by Michel de Montaigne you're really just buying an abridged version of Seneca, although the Kurt Vonnegut/Lee Stringer dialogue by Seven Stories Press was fun. Though not particularly enlightening.

So I mentioned to my father today that I was going to go read Seneca when I got off the phone, and he was like, "Oh, who is that again?" which was strange because my father is a philosophy professor. I told him he was a Roman stoic philosopher and I could really probably use some stoicism in the face of my recent breakup, to which he (my father) said, "Yes, good idea. We did the stoics in my class this past year." And a bell went off in my head (yes, I get bells in my head when something important is happening, or else when I'm in Amsterdam and the weed's really good) and I said, "Epictetus? Is that right?" and he said, "Yes, the Encheiridion," and I promptly hopped right on the Amazon website and downloaded the (free!!!) Kindle version for my phone and pretty much spent all day reading it. Yes, on my phone. And it's AMAZING.

If you're up for it, it's here.

I'm only halfway through it, but basically, Epictetus argues that the one thing in our possession is the will, and we are free because the will is both our only possession and the one thing that cannot be possessed or influenced by others. He then proceeds to draw from that statement an entire line of reasoning about which events and actions are under our control (anything having to do with our own will) and should therefore concern us, and which are not (everything else), and should therefore not concern us. And he also, and very importantly to me right now, argues that our will should always align with reality, because "where a man is against his will, there he is in prison." In short, our freedom and contentedness is contingent upon using our will to maintain said freedom, as the will is the only thing we actually possess. And in the meantime he drops in some great enlightening insults:

"Wretch! You bear God within you, and know it not."

"How will I be received? How will [this great man] listen to me?"

"Slave! Just as it pleases him. Why do you care about what belongs to others?"

On to music. This is probably a tiresome place to begin a weekly music commentary for those of you who know me well, but we're starting with Bob Dylan. First of all because I just bought f*cking awesome tickets for his show in Tucson, and secondly because I'm revisiting him after a few years away.

Playlist For When You Are (Somewhat) Voluntarily Stripped of the Company of a Favorite Friend:

1. "Most of the Time," off of Oh, Mercy

2. "I'm Alive" by Kenny Chesney, with Dave Matthews

3. "Girl from the North Country" by Bob Dylan, with Johnny Cash, off Nashville Skyline

4. "Smoke a Little Smoke" by Eric Church

5. "Wonderwall" by Oasis (yes, I did)

6. "Come in from the Cold" by Joni Mitchell

7. "Red Ragtop" by Tim McGraw

8. "Bartender" by Regina Spektor

9. "Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight" by Emmylou Harris

10. "Smile When You Call Me That," by Jakob Dylan

11. "I Don't Want to Talk About It" by Crazy Horse

12. "One More Cup of Coffee" by Bob Dylan, off Desire

13. "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" by Crosby, Stills, and Nash

1. I don't need to say anything about this song, really. It speaks for itself. Even if you don't do the whole playlist, listen to this song.

2. I just really like this song, and even though I have a vendetta against Dave Matthews I really enjoy his vocals on this; in general, this song is about being content where you are (personal theme for this, um, year?)

3. I love this version. It really brings home that the memory is from a long time ago, and it always sounds to me like the young man who loved this woman and the old man who remembers her are singing it. And yes, that's Bob Dylan, and yes, he can sing.

4. This song is about a breakup but that's not apparent at first (kind of like Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi), and it's also relevant to my theme of being content where you are.

5. Shut up.

6. Oh, God, this song is just so beautiful, and that intro line has stuck with me since I was five and my mom listened to this album while she was making dinner. Also it's about--well, not regret, exactly. Trying to find what you want and never quite succeeding.

7. This song has been on my mind because I went to Tim McGraw's concert last week. The banjo part just kills me, and it's one of my favorite songs to cover. But it's also a song about loss, and how decisions you make sometimes force you into choosing what you didn't want. Also, country song about abortion as a real life decision=win. Yay progress!

8. Just a really great viewpoint on a common theme, and a pretty melody from a great singer.

9. Love. This. Song. Reminds me of my hometown. This is a remake, but she changed the very last line (from a repeat of "The highway goes on forever" to "There ain't no way to stop the water") which I love contemplating. Also her version is way less jug-playing country.

10. My other favorite, Neko Case, sings backup vocals on this album, and it's a gorgeous country album by Jakob Dylan. This song is about post-breakup bad blood, and the lyrics are phenomenal. THIS GUY SHOULD GET MORE CREDIT FOR BEING BRILLIANT.

11. Apparently Rod Stewart did a version of this song, but I hope to God I never hear it.

12. Gypsy country, by the Bobster. What can I say? I'm a sucker for the violin.

13. This is basically the whole breakup process rolled into one song with some snappy Brazilian dance music thrown in. Classic.

This Is the Part That Sucks: Hitting the Relationship Wall

2011-05-31T18:25:00.000-07:00

There is a point in every relationship which I call "hitting the wall." It's the point where you have gotten to know this person so well that you also know all of the bad things about them. And it's the point where you have to decide if the bad things outweigh the good things. It's sink or swim time.
I've hit the wall with quite a few people--in one case, my wall lasted for nine months--enough time to build a brand new human being to replace the original one. But we still made up. We still missed each other so badly that we wound up being friends again, with better boundaries in place, and with better awareness of who the other person is, and, I'd venture to say, with more love. Because now we even love the sh*tty parts. Now we know how to deal with the sh*tty parts in a loving way.
Hitting the wall takes away a lot of the fun stuff. Inside jokes dissolve, sex lives go sour, routines get dull, and the fun, different things about this person you love so well are suddenly the most f*cking irritating things you've ever had to deal with, and you know they are doing it just to piss you off, and if they would just stop and go back to being that person that got up in the morning to put your dishes in the dishwasher for you---
We've all been there.
And this is the part that sucks. This is the worst it gets. Isn't that great? This is the worst part of your relationship, and all it is is irritating. No one's beating you (hopefully; if they are, you should leave. That's beyond suck.). No one's dying. You are getting to know them. The real them. Just like you always wanted. When this sucky part is over, you will know this person so much better, and you will know how to deal with their sh*tty parts, and you will love all of them--not just the parts that seem fun. You will really, truly love them. Isn't that great? You made it to the part that sucks!
Some relationships make it two weeks. Some relationships make it to the part where you go to Vegas and they convince you into gambling away your next month's rent. Some relationships don't make it past a second date. Yours made it to the part that sucks.

Obviously, one of my relationships is currently hitting the wall. Today I remembered something I said to him a long time ago: "I can't wait until this gets hard. I can't wait to know you that well." Well, it's hard now. It's probably going to stay hard for a while. But I still love him. And I still want him around. Hopefully he's still going to want me, too.

Where I Write

2011-05-30T21:01:00.000-07:00

The hilarious INTERN inspired me to talk about where I write. I have a day job that occasionally requires nights and weekends, so the short answer is, "wherever I can freaking manage it." But last summer, which I spent mostly alone and writing, I alternated primarily between these two spots:

This is my desk, where I am supposed to write. It's really clean right now, which means I rather obviously haven't been writing as much as I should be. Cute, though, right?

However, unless it's one of those Phoenix nights in July when it's over ninety degrees and my palms are sweating all over my keyboard, between the hookah and the stars I usually end up writing out here:

It comes complete with a super adorable cat and plants that are stressing from the sudden temperature change. Note my unused bicycle in the background.

Maybe I'm just getting nostalgic, because I'm about to move to Tucson, and leave this apartment where I've lived for two years now (the longest I've lived anywhere since I moved away from home). I put down a holding deposit on a basement apartment near the university, and plan to put my desk between the two painted glass windows. It's such a good writing space that I'm making the bedroom my office, and the front room my bedroom, because I'm a writer and that's how we roll. Prime real estate goes to book overflow and manuscript boxes.

Luckily, the cat is portable.

I Wish The Haters Were Really This Funny

2011-05-26T15:58:00.000-07:00

I kept getting e-mail notifications on my phone today that turned out to be only advertisements for Barnes and Noble or Orbitz or NaNoWriMo, and thoughtlessly expressed a wish on twitter that I would get a real e-mail today, even if it was only a rejection letter. At which point my friend Justin sent me this glorious beast, which is now officially my favorite rejection letter of all time:

Dear Ms. Hilary Gan,
You are hereby rejected.

We know that you really want to go to school here, but honestly you are just too damn out there. Yes, I know that we call this program "creative writing" but we expected your personal statement to be a bit more normal. Less edgy. Less... creative. We really want someone a bit more normative, who won't question our own authority and power in this program, who will be creative within the nice little padded confines that we have established here. You are not that person.

We wish you the best of luck (you'll be needing it) on all of your future (*ahem*) creative endeavors.

Thank you for your time,
The Admissions Hacks
Not-so-creative Writing Program
Big Name U

Jigsaw Falling Into Place*

2011-05-23T21:54:00.000-07:00

This is a story about how I got into grad school for free, and how to get things to start going right for you.

It starts way back when I was a freshman in college, and my dad learned that Ron Carlson would be teaching a freshman-level creative writing class, and encouraged me to take it. I told him, "Dad, you can't learn how to write by taking a class." My dad said, "Just sit in on the first class, and if you hate it, you can drop it." So I agreed.
I went in to the first class, and one of the very first things that Ron Carlson said that day was, "You can't learn how to write by going to class--you have to just write." Obviously, I stuck it out for the rest of the semester, and loved it.
I took a couple more writing classes, which I enjoyed, and sent two stories out, which got rejected, and then I had to choose a major and I chose biology and kind of forgot about the whole writing thing. After a semester-and-a-half of med school students and professors who were maddeningly, albeit understandingly, more interested in their own research than in expanding the minds of their undergraduate students, I had a small meltdown and declared my intention of dropping out of college to become a musician.
Yes, really.
I think what I was unconsciously doing was testing the waters for declaring my love for writing--but doing it with a subject I didn't care about quite as much as I cared about writing, and books. If I failed at or was ridiculed for making music, it didn't matter so much. Needless to say, I am not a musician now. It kind of fell through.
While I did not, in fact, drop out of college to become a musician, I did write some not-that-sucky songs, and I did change my major to an interdisciplinary degree in bio and philosophy, which I enjoyed. I graduated with a firm sense of "f*ck you, The Man" and the understanding that if I wanted an experience like college to be a freewheeling, mind-expanding ride, the only person who could make it that way was me, and no one else was going to guarantee it for me.
I spent six months working as a line cook at a health food restaurant, having romanticized the life of the purposely not-rich, discovered that restaurant work was restaurant work no matter how hip all the servers were, and then went on a road trip to visit all my ex-boyfriends--and started writing again, in the meantime. And it just kept coming.
Then my father suggested that I apply to Iowa, because he knew somebody who knew somebody who worked there. I looked at all my writing, saw I didn't have any short stories I would really consider submitting, said, "Balls," and spent the next year writing short stories so that I'd have something to apply to school with.
Which I did. And in the meantime I got a story published, and the lovely, lovely magazine that is Jersey Devil Press nominated it for some awards. Like the Pushcart Prize. And this beast.
I did not get into Iowa, or Columbia, or Stanford, or even ASU (weird list of rejections, right?), but I was waitlisted at U of A. I wrote off the waitlisting, thinking that it didn't mean anything, and cried when I got what I thought was my fifth and final rejection.
And then U of A e-mailed me to say they were offering me a place. They didn't have any money for me, but I was accepted.
I thought that was very nice, and planned on not going because I wasn't about to pay for my MFA, but I drove down to sit in on a class and talk to the department head about funding options, and when I told her I did outreach for a living, she said, "Oh, well, there's a field trip intern position open at our poetry center--why don't you run down and talk to the coordinator?" So I did.
And she called me and interviewed me, and I liked her a lot, and then three days later she offered me the position as a field trip intern, and turns out it came with a full tuition waiver and a small stipend (small meaning big enough to pay my rent for the year).

Meanwhile, back at my job, they decided to start expanding the outreach department to include satellite positions in other cities. Like Tucson. So guess what I'm doing this fall, part-time, while I'm in school?

And yesterday I drove down to check out apartments, and my car nearly overheated and I had to park it in a garage and wait for the engine to cool so I could add coolant, and then, on my way back to my original destination, I took a prettier side street, and stumbled upon a cute little set of studio apartments. I called the owner today to ask about the place, and he said, "Well, it's [this awesome price in your price range] per month, no pets"--
   "No pets?" I asked, disappointed.
   "Well," he said, "what kind of pet is it?"
   My heart leapt. "A cat."
   "How big?"
   "Eleven pounds. But he's neutered and everything."
   "Does he stay indoors?"
   "Yes."
   "Well, that would be alright."

   I'm headed down to look at the place on Friday.

   The main point of this long, rambly narrative, is that if you give in and let that thing you love the most have some room in your life, other people will make room for it, too. Things and events will start falling into place, like magic. But it's not magic--it's only love, that awesome, enthusiastic, childlike kind of love that you have for discovering new things about yourself and your world. It's still there. You haven't lost it by getting older. I promise.
   I left out a lot of the parts about how f*cking scared I was to try to be a writer. But the thing I did right, I believe, was that I cared more about the writing than I did about the outcome of the writing. I wrote because I loved it, and I accepted that I wasn't going to make any money doing it, or get good at it quickly, and I did it anyway--and now I'm about to make money doing it. I'm actually earning a living for the next two years because of my writing--an incredible thing to me. But it is possible. I am not special, or particularly lucky--I am just a person who allowed myself to give in to my enthusiasm, and to value a process above any hope for reward--to find the reward in the process, itself.
   What is your enthusiasm? What terrifies you the most to think of losing? And what would happen if you just--
   gave in?

*Just for the record, In Rainbows is awesome, but I actively loathe all other Radiohead albums. It's like some kind of allergic emotional reaction I have to them which causes me to become a raging depressed b*tch wh*re. Like, more so than usual.

An Easter Treatise

2011-04-24T21:27:00.000-07:00

I am not, technically speaking, a Christian, but I have had the opportunity this week to reflect on Jesus' teachings, and I thought I would offer what I learned here, in case it is of use to anyone.

"The Kingdom of Heaven is a condition of the heart...: Not something 'above the earth.' The Kingdom of God does not "come" chronologically-historically, on a certain day in the calendar, something that might be here one day but not the day before: It is an 'inward change in the individual,' something that comes at every moment and at every moment has not yet arrived--"

"With that, 'Christ on the cross' had to be interpreted anew. This death in itself was not at all the main thing--it had been only one more sign of how one ought to behave in relation to the authorities and laws of this world: not to defend oneself-- That had been the lesson."

-Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, pp 99-102

I have always held the belief, as I think most people do, that relationships are a thing of give and take, of exchange. But when is one supposed to give, and when should one receive? If I am not getting what I need in a relationship at a particular point in time, do I stop giving until I start receiving again?

I think, perhaps, the answer to the last question is a definite no, and the answer to the first is more complicated, depending on circumstances, but generally boils down to: "Until you can't anymore." And if that is true, then relationships, and love, are not exchanges, but gifts.

Jesus said, and I'm quoting from memory here so please forgive any lapses, "If you love those who love you in return, what thanks have you? For the evil also love those who love them."

Loving someone in expectation that they will love you back is a payment for services rendered--and I, at least, don't like that definition of a loving relationship. Am I not willing to suffer, to go without, in service to the people I love, with no expectation of return? I want to be the kind of person who is willing to do that. And if I am willing to suffer, and to give with no expectation, then my definition of a relationship has to change.

There is, of course, a point at which you can't give anymore--but it is not anyone else's job to recognize that point, or to reimburse you for what you have given away willingly. It is your job to decide when you have given enough. In order to decide that well, you should determine what you can afford to give without reciprocation. This is true if we're talking about money, and it is also true if we are talking about time, and emotional investments.

So this week I have been thinking about how much I am willing to give, without return, to the people I love. If I love them for who they are, and not because of what they do for me, then everything I do for them, and all the love I express to them, is a gift. And I have been pleasantly surprised to find just how much I am willing to do, and how full I actually feel when I let go of the belief that I need to be loved in return. It is more than I would have thought.

In my secular version of the Jesus story, I don't think that Jesus expected to save anyone's soul. But he died rather than retaliate, rather than defend himself against those who would hurt him, and what greater strength and generosity is there? Maybe we are not that strong and generous, but I think we can be more generous than we normally allow ourselves to be. I think we can approach that kind of generosity. I think we can do more than we would have thought.

The Grad School Saga: Final Update

2011-04-13T09:28:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to get an internship at U of A's Poetry Center conducting field trips (aka mini poetry workshops) with school groups. My graduate school experience is now fully funded. I am going.

Conundrum solved!

AND I AM SO FREAKING EXCITED

Also, if you have any poetry recommendations for me, please let me know.

Writing Is Writing

2011-04-08T11:14:00.000-07:00

I was waitlisted at the University of Arizona; on Thursday they wrote to tell me that I'd been accepted, but that funding was not guaranteed.

And at first I wasn't even sure what I thought, and I just forwarded the e-mail to my parents and my best friend, and then the next morning everyone was so excited for me that I was ecstatic: I was going to grad school. I would get to spend two years doing what I love best: writing. I went out and celebrated with my friend and told all of my close friends, and I wrote the director of the creative writing program an e-mail telling her I really wanted to go and adding questions and suggestions about potential sources of funding, and everything felt right.

But then it didn't.

Because slowly it dawned on me that even with in-state tuition, I would still have to pay for my living expenses, which would be less, but not much, than they are now. And I would have time to write, but I would also have to dedicate time to attending class and reading a lot of other people's writing. So I would be in the same situation I am in now, except I would be in more debt, with less free time.

And then I realized that what I actually want to do is write. And writing and graduate school, even in a creative writing program, are not the same thing. In order to write I need free time and as few obligations as possible. Going to grad school without funding does not give me either of those things, and in fact, it takes me farther away from them--not only immediately, but in the future, when I'm weighed down by debt.

The real issue at stake is that I have, simply, not been writing. I have been expending my energy on extra projects at work, and on my friends and their crises, and the way that I choose to use my free time is the real limitation on my writing--not what city I live in, or whether I'm going to school or not.

So be careful, when you are choosing your next step, that you know exactly what you want, and what it looks like. If you choose to apply to grad schools in December instead of working on your WIP, you are making grad school your number one priority--and grad school is not the same as writing.

And if you choose to put off your goals until you get a break from your project at work, or until your boyfriend recovers from surgery, or until you make a certain amount of money, you will never achieve your goals, because you have made them secondary to other parts of your life. If you want something, bend everything in your life around it--or else it will be bent around something else.

Now THIS Is a Rejection Letter

2011-03-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

Dear Everyone With the Ability to Reject Potential Graduate Students,

WE APPRECIATE THIS:

Subject: [Name of School] Admission Decision (See? Nice and neutral. Doesn't slam me with rejection in the subject line, so I can procrastinate about opening it if I want to.)

Dear Hilary (personalized and friendly),
Thank you so much for your application for a [redacted] Fellowship (starts with a thank you, which is good because I did PAY to apply to these programs). Unfortunately, we are unable to offer you a place in the program. However, we wanted to let you know that your application was read with great care and appreciation. It is through the vibrancy and commitment of work like yours that the program is able to depend on an applicant pool of immense talent. Every year, after reading the submissions, all of us wish we had more fellowships to offer (Even though this is not directed specifically at me, it makes me feel better about being disappointed, and it is clearly a true statement).
While you may not have achieved your desired outcome in this instance, we suspect that you will be successful on many future occasions in other circumstances. Furthermore, the fact that we are unable to award you a fellowship this year should not be taken as a prohibition of your reapplying, as we look forward to following your growth as a writer (encouragement to keep working and reapply).
We want to thank you for your interest in the [Redacted] Creative Writing Program, and offer you our best wishes for your future work (another thank you, and support for continuing the effort. I actually feel motivated after reading this rejection letter).

-[Redacted}University Creative Writing Program

The Grad School Saga

2011-03-14T20:14:00.001-07:00

Okay, I get lots of rejection letters. I've gotten at least fifty in the last two years, regarding my stories and essays which I put a lot of time and effort and, you know, soul into. Some of them were really disappointing. But this is, quite seriously, the coldest rejection letter I have ever gotten:

Via e-mail:

SUBJECT: [NAME OF SCHOOL] DENY LETTER

March 14, 2011

ID Number: [redacted]

Dear Ms. Gan:

Your application for admission to [name of university] to study in the Creative Writing (MFA) program has been carefully reviewed by your department. Based on their recommendation, I regret to inform you that we cannot act favorably on your application.

If you wish further information regarding this action, please feel free to contact the Creative Writing (MFA) program at:

[redacted]

You may wish to consider other degree/certificate programs at [name of university]. Information and web links are available at [unhelpful website].

We thank you for your interest in [name of university] and wish you success in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,

Graduate College

I'm not super surprised, however, that I got rejected. For your amusement, this is the most likely answer I can give you: my personal statement. (Understand that I took a pretty serious gamble on the fact that it was a creative writing program and that I will never be able to fully shake my, um, aversion to authority figures.)

Prompt: A personal statement including your writing background, intended area of specialization, a brief self-evaluation of recent work, and goals.

My essay:

In preparation for my course of graduate study, I had an existential crisis my junior year of college, changed majors, read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, wrote a thesis on whether or not my self existed and whether it was important if it did, refused to attend my own graduation ceremony, had a cap and gown foisted on me by my boyfriend's mother anyway, read Eat, Pray, Love, broke up with my boyfriend, moved in with my ex-boyfriend Peter, went on a cross-country road trip with Peter to visit all of my other ex-boyfriends, wrote a book about it. I read Franny and Zooey, taught myself to play the guitar, started running again, drank enough Jack and Diets to fill a small lakebed, got a job as a line cook, quit my job as a line cook, fell in with a Sufi Dervish who asked me to move to Boston with him, almost moved to Boston with him until it became apparent that he only needed a supplemental income for his rented room in the Sufi House, tried not to kill Peter when he said, “I told you so,” read The Subterraneans, cried a lot.

I spent a whole summer unemployed, met a new friend, moved in to her old apartment when she moved out, introduced her to Peter, tried not to feel like a third wheel, fell in love with her ex-boyfriend, lost both of them, drove to San Diego to see an old high school friend, experienced my first earthquake, wrote a story about it all. I read Twilight, tried to parse out feminist me from the part of me that loved Twilight, stayed single for a whole year, learned to broil steaks. I read Man's Search for Meaning and Seneca's On the Shortness of Life, realized I couldn't do work I loathed for eight hours a day and still consider myself a functional human being, got a job at the Arizona Science Center, ran a half-marathon along the rim of the Grand Canyon, got a story published and nominated for a Pushcart Prize, discovered the only writer I knew had joined the Peace Corps and moved to Mongolia, and decided to apply to grad school to find more and better writers to talk to.

My weaknesses as a writer are as follows: hot cups of tea, the way the sky looks in any state west of the Continental Divide, double yellow lines, the sound and rhythm of the King James Bible, coniferous forests, wiry men with blue eyes who lean against walls to pack their cigarettes, kittens, Uniball pens, Fitzgerald, 2 a.m., cars with their windows down, Jack and Diets, fireflies, hookahs, cheap airfare, the entire country of France, an inclination towards the term “thing” to help preserve interesting sentence structures, large bodies of water, Annie Proulx, new blue jeans, Highway 61 Revisited.

My strengths as a writer, on the other hand, are such: an inability to tell a lie without extreme physical discomfort; general disdain for all television shows except House, M.D.; a tendency to allow the qualifier interesting to take precedence over the qualifier kind when it comes to choosing my friends; the ability to sit at a desk for nine hours at a time; a temperament that leads me to withold judgment while always believing in the best of people; the most ridiculous good luck; the inability to be told what to do or how to think; a perfectionist streak.

I'd Like To Thank Jersey Devil Press (for like the 14th time)...

2011-03-02T12:15:00.000-08:00

...as they have been kind enough to nominate my story "The Pragmatist" for the storySouth Million Writers Award.

The magnanimity of this magazine with regard to my person has been incalculable. Thank you!

Title Change, and the Post-Valentine-Apocalypse Recap

2011-02-17T18:00:00.000-08:00

In honor of my newest re-realization, I've changed the title of my blog.
I was going to tattoo this phrase on my wrist but I decided I would try it out here first.

As a sufferer of demand resistance, the idea "I don't have to" is the most freeing concept I've found. Statements like "just be yourself" and "enjoy the moment" or any of those happiness concepts that are phrased positively just feel like commands to me, and that makes me feel trapped, and feeling trapped makes me howl in misery and have mini freak-outs. "I don't have to," however, makes me remember that I'm doing what I'm doing because I want to, and makes me feel like I still have a choice.

How this came about: last week was the week before Valentine's Day. My relationship right now is just one of those complicated whatsits that make people hate Valentine's Day. So I was confused.
Normally I love Valentine's Day. Normally I get all my friends presents and make it all about how much I love everybody in my life. But I was not in a giving mood. And I was all, wtf do I do about Valentine's Day? Do I explain to this person that it's important to me? Or just let it go? Can I let it go and then not be mad about it? Maybe I should just get him a present. But no! Why would I get him a present, when secretly I want him to just say Happy Valentine's Day and, like, send me a heart emoticon? And yada yada idiocy.

So I walked into work on Friday and poured myself a cup of tea with all this on my mind and my co-worker, the Godsend MB who is like my own personal life coach and God I hope I'm like her when I'm forty, walks in and goes, "How are y--? Whoa. What's wrong?"
"Monday is Valentine's Day," I snarled, and viciously stirred my tea.
MB sighed. "That's why I hate Valentine's Day. Because of people in your situation."
So I went on to tell her all about the stuff I already told you in the last blog stanza, and then she goes, "Well, you know, you don't have to celebrate it. February 14th doesn't have to be a convenient day for you to express these things."
And it was like f*cking angels were singing at me. Right! I didn't have to. It was not convenient for me.

And I tra-la-laed through the rest of the weekend and right on through Valentine's Day, and the word Valentine never even came out of my mouth, and I legit did not have any expectations, and it was just February the 14th which happened to be a day when it wasn't convenient for me to have an overpriced dinner or exchange delightful pre-packaged sentiments with my loved one, because he is in another state and lately we are both making each other snarl due to the fact that the telephone is a poor excuse for human interaction.

Because there are other, more convenient days, such as December 17 of last year, which was quite a nice one for us, and also February 26th will probably be more fun, and I don't have to have my romances when other people, and especially stupid corporations, suggest that I do. Because guess what? We did not celebrate Valentine's Day, and we are fine.

On the Gender Disparity in Literature

2011-02-09T18:18:00.000-08:00

The latest publishing indignation is that someone has discovered that it's 2011 and there are still more men getting published than women.

1) Duh.
2) The particular article I linked to is claiming that while women read books written by both men and women, most men only read books written by men. And the initial response is that this is due to sexism on the part of the men.
   However, it's equally likely that it's due to sexism on the part of women--outside of the world of literature. Our culture has not made this a place where men can be interested in women's issues without forfeiting their own sexual identity and gender roles. We also live in a culture where fiction is split into "literary fiction" and "women's fiction." Nobody likes men who read p*ssy literature. Not even women.
   This is absolutely no justification for the disparity here. It bothers the sh*t out of me, and as a writer I've seriously considered going by an androgynous pseudonym just so I won't lose my male audience. I like men and want their approval. I want them to read my work. And apparently, the fact that the spermatozoa that fertilized my mother's ovule happened to have an X chromosome in it means my work is less likely to get published. The whole thing blows.
   However. Maybe we all should try not dismissing a man as less than a man if he happens to be holding a book whose cover is pink. Or maybe we shouldn't give only women's books pink covers. When was the last time somebody put out a new edition of a Hemingway book with a neon pink cover? Can we please do that? Instead of insisting that women's issues get acknowledged, maybe we should think about the fact that women's issues are human issues, and so are men's. Let's talk about the way we have managed to begin to redefine women's roles in our culture, and then talk about the way that as a culture we haven't addressed the male role and whether it's healthy or allows men to be complete and actualized human beings. If we want men to be interested in women's issues, maybe we should be interested in their issues, and the gender stereotypes we inflict on them.
3) Everyone, including women, should really read bell hooks' book, The Will To Change, in which she (a postmodern feminist who for reasons I don't understand won't capitalize her name) talks about the harm our culture does to men.

Get Your Glands Out of My Face

2011-02-08T08:28:00.000-08:00

   I want to take a moment to complain about the state of adult literature.
   Specifically, this book, The Magicians, by Lev Grossman, which I am reading, and which I am not yet done with, and probably won't ever be, because I don't want to finish it. (UPDATE: I did finish it, and I'm still right.)
   Now, this book is very, very well written. It's a really good book. The plot is good. I really want to know what happens. In fact, it's so well-written that it's making me depressed and anxious, because the main character is depressed and anxious.

   Which is great. I love talent.

   But f*ck, Mr. Grossman.

   I don't want to read your books about apathy. Apathy and sex and drugs don't make a person an adult. Perhaps apathy and meaninglessness are adult issues, but for f*ck's sake, your character should grapple with these things. There should be striving to overcome. I don't mind if there is failure. But a portrait of a character who is never happy, and jumps from one thing to the next hoping that it will fulfill him, and is never fulfilled by any of it, does not a story make. Maybe it did, the first hundred times I read this story in undergraduate workshops. But I am so tired of adult literature characters who do nothing and say nothing and want nothing and strive for nothing, and I am tired of stories about the failure of a man who failed because he never tried for anything at all.

   I guess I need to make it clear what I mean by trying. I don't mean "doing stuff." Quentin, the main character in The Magicians, went to magic school. He learned things. He met a girl and had sex with her. He moved out and did drugs. He cheated on his girlfriend. He found a magical pathway into the fictional world of his favorite books. But he didn't ever reach beyond himself. He didn't ever try to grow, or become more than the things that he did. He never declared himself on one side or another of the deep abyss. He never strove for greatness. I am on page 387 and I still have no idea what this character wants, beyond a magic f*cking fairy to come render him magically happy. He certainly hasn't desired any of the Faulkner six: love, honor, pity, pride, compassion, sacrifice. Faulkner said that these were the only verities worth writing about, and that if one does not write about them then one writes only of the glands, and not of the heart.

   I am tired of reading books about the glands.

   And while I'm ranting, can we talk Hemingway and Fitzgerald for a bit? Also, Salinger? It took me years to understand these books. For a long time I did not; for a long time I did not allow myself to understand how important the Faulkner six were, either in my writing or in my life. But The Great Gatsby is about Fitzgerald's recognition of the loss of these values--he saw that money and wealth brought only a desire to be entertained, to be sated. To be drunk. The narrator of Gatsby loathed Gatsby, but Gatsby had been the only one of that whole wealthy set who believed in something greater, and Fitzgerald was lamenting Gatbsy's failure to achieve it. Gatsby's fatal flaw was the desire to earn approval of people who didn't enjoy living.
   Hemingway--he wrote about these truths, only he preferred to write about them without ever naming them. He used language as a frame for a picture of the heart of his characters, and let the truths fill themselves in. Which, yes, gets confusing. He wrote an entire story about abortion without saying the words "abortion" or "baby" or "pregnant," and he wrote about courage the same way.
   And Salinger--I have one phrase for you. Unreliable narrator. Holden Caulfield is guilty of everything he accuses others of. He is a phony, and a coward, and the story is about the way a man will put out his own eyes to avoid going to war.

   These stories are about the failure of the heart to rally over the demands of the universe, but they are also about the attempt. And somehow, in this world where it has become funny to laugh at compassion and pity and honor, the narrators of our stories--and also a lot of the real people I know--are more afraid of being laughed at than of failing at living. And I am f*cking tired of it.

   So, writers (and painters and musicians and everybody, really) I would like to request this: do your best to write about the heart, and not the glands. Take that which could hurt you the most, and put it on the page. Stop trying to be clever, and philosophical, and deep, and rich, and for f*ck's sake write about something that matters. I will try to do the same. But give me stories I want to read, and give yourselves a life worth living.

Note to Self

2011-02-06T20:56:00.000-08:00

I spent the whole weekend hiking and hanging out with girlfriends.

I know I harp on about this, but it's really because somehow I always manage to forget it: when my brain does its little maya-based obsessiveness, I must. take care. of my body.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and it all hits me like a ton of bricks: all of the parts of my life that make me uncomfortable rear their ugly heads as future possibilities, and my brain entertains itself trying to figure out how it's going to handle it all: whatif my job stays stagnant; whatif I don't get into grad school; whatif this person does/says/decides this; whatif my mother acts this way. These things are not real, but they feel necessary and important.

So I have to go outside and move my ass.
I walked around a lake today, and it was one of those dyed-green lakes that we have here in Arizona, but it was still pretty. My friend and I hurled rocks at the side of the canal. We sat on the sidewalk around the lake and watched the mallards dive for algae and insects, and every single one of those ducks was different and individual and irreplaceable, and each one of them made beautiful patterns in the water as they swum along, and I forgot about all the stupid shit I made up that doesn't matter and hasn't happened yet and probably won't happen ever.

And then we went for a four-mile walk and climbed A Mountain, and watched the planes come in overhead, and looked out at Phoenix, and my endorphins kicked in and I talked to my friend and everything is okay.

When my mind is hurting me, I need to remember to kick it out of the driver's seat and put my body in charge instead. My body lives in the real universe of stuff that is actually happening, and not in the made-up crap universe of stuff that could possibly happen.

Where Are My Supersoaker Friends?

2011-02-04T20:11:00.000-08:00

It's bad when an XKCD character reminds me of me, right?
Bad.

The Paragraph... Plus Paragraph #2

2011-02-03T07:54:00.000-08:00

Jesus Arturo Alvarez was born on the thirteenth of September in the year of the Lord, after Whom he was named, nineteen hundred and ninety-six. It was a Friday, and also market day in the village of Guadalupe, Arizona, which lay just east of Ahwahtukee and southeast of Phoenix proper. During her most severe labor pains his mother screamed at the nurses for a drink and his father pinched her hard on that soft skin just above the elbow and told her to shut up. She didn't feel the pinch but she told him to go to hell anyway and then bit him on his left hand between the thumb and forefinger. Forever after Jesus' father had a crescent-shaped, dotted-line scar that he would rub absentmindedly with his right thumb during conversation.

On the same day, in a hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona, which lay just north of Tempe and northeast of Phoenix proper, Vicente Juan Nunez was delivered by a male nurse named Sonny. His mother had an epidural and his three aunts and father stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a line down the right side of the hospital bed and took turns telling her to breathe and push. She spent fourteen hours in labor and when, inevitably, she released her bowels, her husband turned to the window and tried not to vomit. It wasn't until Juan grew a full head of hair that his father could look at him without experiencing a small wave of nausea.

This Writing Thing Ain't All Bad

2011-02-02T19:34:00.001-08:00

Ok, now that the voting is officially over and I can pretty well say I lost the popular vote, I am pleased to announce that the first paragraph of the novel I'm working on made finalist in a contest on Nathan Bransford's blog. I'd love to hear comments/criticism from you guys on here!

And, because it's my blog and I can, I'll post the SECOND paragraph tomorrow.

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2011/02/stupendously-ultimate-finalists-as.html

An Ode to Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey

2011-01-25T12:22:00.000-08:00

Taking you to work's taboo
but still I think sweet thoughts of you.
I count on you to resurrect
the remnants of my intellect.
Oh, Jack Daniel's, you're a blast
now for the sake of the sweet lord Jesus Christ Almighty get in my glass!

The Magnolia Tree

2011-01-24T15:01:00.000-08:00

First came the dolphins, at the beach in Newport. M.was out in the water and I was on the sand on a towel reading a book because I didn’t like the big waves; and there were dolphins in the surf, and I knew looking at them that M. wouldn’t be able to see them from where he was and that I wouldn’t be able to swim out to him in time to draw them to his attention, and so I just sat, and watched the dolphins. For the first time in years I was simply exactly where I was: and the sun was warm and the breeze was cold and the sand was dry and dusty under my feet and the towel was red and folded just right against the sand and the smell of salt and brine and water hung in the air and there were dolphins in the surf and I had them all to myself until they were gone.

Then, that same week, came the magnolia tree. M. and I went in to Santa Monica to see his aunt and uncle and niece in their new house. One afternoon we all went out to the yard and M. and his uncle practiced Kung Fu in the grass and the baby held with tight baby fists onto her mother’s index fingers and walked up and down the flagstones from the garage to the house, and I was under the magnolia tree in a green plastic chair and a breeze shook the browning flowers down from their stems to the grass and the white blossoms hung heavy and fragrant amongst the leaves and this tree was the most beautiful tree I had ever seen—I saw it like it was the first tree I’d ever seen, or maybe the last, with its gnarled old branches and thick healthy leaves and so many flowers, so many flowers.
And then I thought, I remember feeling like this before, when I was a child.
And then I thought, I want to keep feeling this way.
And then I froze and a ball of panic formed in my throat and all of a sudden I didn’t know how it had even come to me in the first place, and I didn’t know how to keep that feeling and it was slipping away from me but I didn't want it to! and my body tensed and then it was gone.

It was not possible for me at the time to see familiar objects like I saw the magnolia tree.

I ended up leaving M., because it is hardest of all to bring the magnolia tree to the ones you love.

I left M. the way an adult rips off a child’s band-aid after assuring him it won’t hurt as much; but a child isn’t so weary yet that getting a lot of pain over with quickly is necessarily better than feeling a little pain at a time, slowly. I told M. he didn’t love me the way I loved him; later he said, “You just don’t feel like I’m in love with you, and there’s nothing I can do about that.” I hated him for it when he said it, but he was right.
And I would wake up with my hands balled into fists, more exhausted than when I fell asleep; sometimes I would wake up and cry to think that I had to do it all over again that day. The only thing that kept me going was not a happy thought, which worked because I couldn’t be disappointed by it: I was determined that I would not have sacrificed my relationship with a man like M. only to continue being unhappy.

There were so many things I did to try to get better. I don’t know which was the most important. But I will list them all, and try to explain what each step meant to me. And I will tell you that I am mostly better, and that the work comes easier, but I still must do it, all the time.

I started running again. I had always liked running, and running gave me a choice, a role to play in my own recovery. I could get out of bed and go running and thus make a concerted effort to deliberately feel better. And even if it didn’t work—hey, at least I’d gone running. The endorphins only ever helped, and it made me take care of my body in other ways: if I didn’t get enough sleep, I couldn’t go running. If I didn’t eat right, my run was miserable and I got cramps. But the best thing about running was that it automatically shut my brain up for the length of my run. My body was working too hard to allow my mind to latch onto anything; thoughts came, and they went, and that was all. But this was running at its best only. Sometimes I had to walk. Sometimes I couldn’t run long enough to find a groove for my mind or my body. Sometimes I was tired and bitchy and not even running could cure my depression. But sometimes it did, and that was enough.

I refocused my attention. This is still difficult for me. What I mean is that any time I caught myself thinking about something other than what was directly in front of me, such as the future or the past or what I wanted or what someone else wanted, I refocused my attention onto what was in front of me. I used a mantra: “Shut up and look at a tree;” an especially effective mantra for when I had nothing to do, specifically, to focus my attention on. It was a reminder to mentally explore and experience the world around me, instead of the made-up one that was nowhere to be found. The future is not real, not yet, and maybe not ever. The past did not happen only in the way you remember it happening; the people who were there for an event perceived parts of what happened through the interpretation of their own thoughts, which is not nearly the whole of the event. And that doesn’t even take into account the sorts of happenings humans can’t experience directly, like the way the ultraviolet light looked or the sounds and smells present that you can’t hear or smell. Or, even more importantly, the views of other people which you can’t ever experience. The present, from your point of view, is the only reality you have access to, and it is worth being there for.
I didn’t yell at myself for doing badly at refocusing, but I didn’t let myself off the hook with excuses about how I needed to solve the problem I didn’t currently have. If it wasn’t in front of me, it was not pressing enough to be spending my time on it; or, if it was, in fact, that pressing, I would just put it in front of me. I make this sound easy. It is not. Sometimes I would go for whole days without managing to correct my attention. Sometimes I still do. This becomes incredibly difficult when an issue requires not only present work but an investment in the future—another reason relationships seem to evade the magnolia tree. But the way I describe the process was the goal.

I brushed my teeth and washed my face. This sounds silly. What I mean is that I took care of my body. Without the body, there is no experience, bad or good, tainted or relaxed. Without the body, there is only the mind and what it can do to you as it tries to entertain itself. I am a terribly cerebral person, sometimes to the point that I forget my body is there, except as a vague sort of vessel to cart around this beast of a mind I possess. I bump into things. I get bruises and can’t remember how they got there. I can completely ignore discomfort and pain because I am so caught up in my little thought-universe. But my thought-universe does not exist. It is made up. It is fiction. The real universe is the one my body inhabits. So I flossed my teeth.

I wrote. By this I mean: I took care of my mind. My mind can send me into spasms of invented torture. But it is also an amazing contraption. When my mind is healthy, I am forgiving and honest and creative and compassionate; I can identify the root of problems most people can’t even see; I can perceive the emotional states of the people around me. My mind is enormously capable, and when I ask it to do things like simply walk down a street I have walked down a thousand times before, it rebels at the monotony, and makes up problems it can solve instead, which are more interesting, and infinitely available. So I wrote to try to give my mind something to do. Articulating abstract thoughts is tough work for a mind; examining those articulated abstract thoughts for bias and for truth is even tougher. But such activity uses my mind to full capacity, in a positive way. I would write my thoughts and feelings down, and then they did not twist and turn when I tried to examine them for fallacies. The truth came in baby steps, but I got to know myself, got to know my own tendencies and traps, got to know the best ways to work myself out of those same tendencies and traps. I could create generous, wild hypotheses about the roots of my own behavior, but then I could leave them on the page and not take them with me.

Finally, I learned how to accept myself the way I accepted reality. I still have trouble with this; I am always changing, and reality is always changing, and it is easier sometimes when one is tired and overwhelmed to make believe oneself and reality will remain the same. But I was home at my parents’ house in western New York State, sitting up at two in the morning in my pajamas looking out the tall breakfast room windows into the blue snow and cloudy night skies, going over and over my decision to leave M.: had I made a mistake? Maybe he was the one for me. Would he take me back if I asked? Why had I treated him like that? I had failed at loving him properly; how could there be anyone else as good for me as he had been? And on and on in full detail about our painful relationship. And then again: Maybe I made a mistake.
And then I thought: So the fuck what?
And then I thought: He made lots of mistakes, and I still loved him. Aren’t I entitled to at least one?
And then I felt better, and I went to bed. It wasn’t the last time I had those thoughts; but it was the first time I’d allowed myself to have them without feeling bad. It was the first time I had admitted to a definition of myself that included mistakes, imperfections, reality. It is difficult. There is a person I want to be, and it is important to work towards being her as best I can. But it is also important not to get angry or ashamed or frustrated with myself for failing to be her; it is important simply to correct what can be corrected, and try again.

It is important to sit under magnolia trees.

The Middle Class is Disappearing Because You're An *sshole

2010-12-09T09:01:00.000-08:00

THIS article nearly ruined my morning.

Sample quote:

"Four out of five Arizona high-school graduates do not have a college degree six years after graduating from high school, and just over half haven't gone to college at all, a new report reveals....High schools need to do a better job preparing students for college, and community colleges and universities need to focus more on helping students finish their degrees."

Yes. That's exactly it. High school teachers need to spend more of their grossly underpaid time helping their already-matriculated students pass college courses. Universities need to start handing out degrees like credit card application forms.

Or maybe, just maybe, Michael Crow's New American University, with its focus on job training and mass producing "products packaged in maroon*" needs to put a little more effort into making college worthwhile and enjoyable. You know, like we pay them to do?

*I heard him say that during a graduation ceremony. Seriously.

Ugh.

Do you want to know why they don't graduate? It's not because the work is too hard. It's not because they're not prepared. It's because lately, college kinda sucks. There's a new focus on career training, and becoming active participants in a society, and we don't know what we want to do. Nor do we want to do what you think we should do. The academic side of college goes something like this:

College: Give us your money.
Student: Uh, okay. How much?
College: More than you can afford.
Student: Why?
College: Because we're building a new student union that you won't be able to use because we'll be renting it out to corporations to make more money to build more rentable properties.
Student: Why am I doing this again?
College: If you don't, you won't be able to get a job, or eat, or buy beer.
Student: *Sigh* Okay. Writes check. Now what?
College: Pick your classes.
Student: What kind of classes?
College: Anything. The whole world is at your feet. We can teach you whatever you want to know about.
Student: Well, space exploration is kind of sweet--
College: Oh, God, don't pick that.
Student: Why not?
College: Do you know how hard that is? Do you know how competitive internships are in that field? You'll never go anywhere with that.
Student: I thought I was just learning about it.
College: No, no, we are going to give you your money's worth! You are going to make enough money to make alumni donations in the first year! You will be a qualified candidate! Just don't aim above your skill level, that makes us look bad.
Student: So what should I choose?
College: Anything. The whole world is at your feet. Notice that trite graduation cliche very neatly excludes the known universe.
Alumna comes in, wearing a graduation hat and some newspapers.
Alumna: Hey, College? What about that job you promised me?
College: Bugger off, I"m busy.
Alumna: But--
College: Stuffs Alumna's mouth full of newspaper and turns back to Student. So. Classes.
Student: Okay, what about environmental sustainability?
College: Sure, but then you have to go to grad school here, too, because pretty much the only thing you can actually do with that is teach it to other people.
Student: So what should I take?
College: How about journalism? Then you can't say anything bad about us in the newspaper because we gave you your degree.
Student: You know what? I'm going to go do the dishes before my mom gets home. She works hard, and loves me, and wants me to be happy.
Alumna: HRMFMPRHF
College: No, wait, come back! Don't you want your diplomaaaaaaaa?!
Student: F*ck you.

I Am Happy, But It's Not Because I'm Stupid

2010-12-02T13:26:00.000-08:00

    I work very, very hard at believing in people.
    I know terrible things happen; that there are flies eating out the corners of starving children's eyes and that some women have seen their husbands chopped up by machetes while they were still alive and that there are people born capable of looking a human being in the eye without actually seeing them.
    I have spent whole years sleeping with my hands in fists and waking up more tired than I was when I went to bed; I have stayed awake all night wondering why I continue to eat and shower and work when I will only get older and slower and more bruised, when all of the people I love will leave me or die, when there are no guarantees that anything will ever get better. I have wondered if death is perhaps a perferable alternative to attempting to deal with loss, which will only ever get larger and heavier.
    I believe in God but I do not believe in rewards or fate or a plan of any sort; I think good and evil are constructs of the human mind and that everything is the product of random chance and the consequences of our own choices; I do not think that being a good person has any sort of payoff, or that bad people will or even should be punished.

    But I am a happy person.

    It's not because I ignore the fact that life is difficult and painful. I don't tune it all out and put my iPod on and hope it will go away; I think about these difficulties often. I am not always happy, but I choose to try to be. Sometimes I fail. But sometimes I don't.
   I was unhappy most of the time for nearly five years of my life, and the worst thing about it was how unhappy my unhappiness made the people I loved. I made their lives difficult. I was unpleasant to hang out with, obsessive and close-minded, and I drained them. God bless them, they put up with me anyway, but it was a long five years for everybody. And I don't want to do it anymore.
   I don't want to add to human misery. God knows there's enough of it to go around; and I can't control where or when miserable events will occur in my life. But I can control the way I react to them, and I can control whether or not I hurt other people, so I do. I choose to be happy, and to treat people kindly, and to look for the best in them--not because I believe or even hope that the universe is a benevolent place, but rather because I believe that nobody else is freakin' gonna.
   No one else is required to keep their machetes away from my vital organs; no one else is even required to be happy or polite. If I want someone to be nice, I have to do it. If I want someone in this world to do the best they possibly can, the only real candidate is me.

   So please, in the name of the holiday season, and life not sucking more than it already does, if you meet a happy person, don't try to change them. Don't try to make them see what's "real," and don't assume that they haven't experienced pain. You're not enlightening the ignorant; you're adding to human misery. And for some people, their attempts at bringing happiness to you are the only thing that makes their lives meaningful and worthwhile.  Don't take it away from them.

The Catch-22 of Induction

2010-11-30T09:35:00.000-08:00

"Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness."
-Bertrand Russell

  Induction is the name for the kind of logic that comes from the ground up--where conclusions are drawn from generalizing about groups of isolated experiences.  Induction is the basis for science, and this kind of reasoning is incredibly natural in humans. We use it to get dressed every day: we look out the window, decide what the weather is like, and dress accordingly. If it's cloudy and we know it's January, we put on a sweater because in the past that has usually indicated that it's cold out.
     The problem with induction is that you are generalizing. You can't ever be 100% certain that something is true. Even in January when it's cloudy, it could be 70 degrees outside; it's unlikely, but it could be. Using induction to make decisions is reliable, but it also makes it harder to identify and react appropriately to the abnormalities and outliers; and the truly insipid part of induction is that relying on it too heavily can cause you to change your behavior in response. If you have only ever seen white swans, you may not even recognize a black one. You won't be looking for it, and you won't be able to add the new information and adjust your generalization accordingly.
     Most of the time this isn't a problem; if it happens to be a freak warm day in January you can just go change your sweater. Mistakes due to the problem of induction are mostly negligible. But I want to talk about people.
    What happens when most of your experience has led you to believe that people are bad, or at best negligent, and can't be trusted? Most of the time you will probably be right in your behaviors and assumptions, but you will also, without noticing it, change your own behavior to compensate for your generalization. You will be less willing to go out of your way for others, less willing to accept new people into your life, and less likely to forgive people for their mistakes. All of which are reasonable ways to conduct your life. In many ways these behaviors are probably worth the few exceptions that slip through the cracks in terms of the pain and loss they spare you.
    But what about the real exceptions?
    What about the people who will bring joy into your life, who really do care for you, and who may have a few sad histories they've generalized from, themselves? I don't mean the guy on the street who really did need some change for a bus fare because he just got mugged; I'm talking about the man who really wants to be your friend and support you in all the ways he can; somebody who could be your lifelong friend--somebody who is not worth losing, no matter how many times you avoid being cheated out of your money by others. The kind of friend whose value is immeasurable. How does your automatic behavior affect them?
     Be careful with induction. People are not a deck of cards, and a whole lifetime's experience is not enough to reliably predict a person's shade of grey. Be careful with your money and your time and your heart, but take more care that you do not let your pain prevent your joy. Take care that you do not look only for what you have already found.

Reason #30 Why I Love Bukowski

2010-11-30T09:03:00.000-08:00

"the most horrible thing
I could think of
was part of me being
what ejaculated out of the
end of his
stupid penis."

-From Three Oranges

I almost fell out of my chair laughing at this one

My Very First Publication Ever Got Nominated For An Award!!

2010-11-22T15:02:00.000-08:00

Jersey Devil Press, the bastion of magnanimity that it is, has nominated my story for the Pushcart Prize.

I cried into my eggnog latte at Starbucks, wearing the nerditard (aka the Science Center uniform).

Happy Freaking Thanksgiving!!!!!!!!

Well, I'm No Chilean Miner, But...

2010-11-07T21:17:00.000-08:00

    I just ran my first half-marathon yesterday.
    I ran it at the Grand Canyon with my friend Meg, and I did not get swept by the "You're-Too-Slow" Van, which was pretty much my only goal, since I was running it at an altitude 7,000 ft higher than I'd trained, on a hilly course, at a farther distance than I'd ever run previously.
    I kind of grinned like an idiot the whole time, because it was beautiful outside (and the Grand Canyon was freaking right there through the whole race) and I felt pretty damn good. Every single mile marker Meg and I would take turns making our spectators laugh with our routine, which went like this:
Me: "Hey, Meg!"
Meg: "Hey, what?"
Me: "Want to go for a [insert however many miles we have left here]-mile run?"
Meg: "I sure as hell do!" (or, as we steadily progressed, "Not really," or, "If I do, can I stop f*cking running?")
    And in the last half mile, I discovered that, due to a combination of an entirely downhill last mile and the fact that the girl with the crazy-beautiful calf tattoo who we'd paced ourselves by was gaining on us, I had enough gas left to flat-out sprint to the finish line and finish with a time fifteen minutes better than I'd expected.

    Today, however, I feel kind of lost, and weird.

    Apparently this isn't an uncommon feeling; they call it the post-race blues, and it has not only a lot to do with the fact that you just balls-out ran 13.1 freaking miles as fast as you could UPHILL BOTH WAYS (not joking, it was partially downhill both ways, too, but f*ck) and are now sore in places you didn't know existed, but also with that whole thing where achieving your goals is only a momentary high and then you're all like "WTF do I do with my life now?"

    I think perhaps my weird feeling wouldn't be as weird if I hadn't also had the same thing happen in all the areas of my life in the last two weeks.

In the last two weeks, I have: gotten my very first short story published, gotten a promotion to full-time at work, met a new guy, and run my very first half marathon. I am freaking pooped. I have been busting my ass for the last ten months at work in the hopes of getting this promotion, trying to get published for about a year and a half, and training in 110-degree weather for this race for six months. (I'm not going to talk about the whole guy thing in-depth, because my dating history is sad and sordid and way too long to put here, but you know what "new guy syndrome" is like: no sleeping, on a constant emotional high, and using muscles for various enjoyable activities you sort of forgot you had.) The last two weeks have been awesome. And exhausting.

The Buddhists say you should perform actions for the sake of the action itself, and not for the sake of its outcome: whether you lose or win, they say, doesn't matter--the point is the acting. The results take care of themselves.
    I think I went into my work in these areas with that expectation; I love running, I love writing, and I love my job. I had goals so that I had a focus to my work, but I didn't expect them to pay off anytime soon, and certainly not all at once.
    But I can't seem to remember what the Buddhists say about dealing with fact that your work has culminated in an achievement, whether badly or well. I guess I could set new goals, but that's not really the way I want to approach these parts of my life that I love so very much. I want to keep doing them for their own sake, and not become an achiever. I want to get better to do justice to myself and my talents, and not because I need the high of reaching goals. But it's hard. How do you keep writing just for yourself, when you know you can get published? How do you keep running just to get outside and enjoy it, when you know you've got a not-altogether-embarrassing half-marathon in you? How do you make sure you're going in to work in order to make some third-graders excited about science, when all of a sudden you have dental insurance and 5 extra hours of meetings every week?
   And what in God's name do I do now, when all of my goals have been reached in the space of two weeks? How do I relax and enjoy the fruits of my labor, without forgetting the purpose of the labor?

   For now I'm busting out a quart of cookie dough ice cream, but I'll need some new ideas tomorrow.

My Very First Publication Ever!!

2010-10-26T21:33:00.000-07:00

A link to Issue 14 of Jersey Devil Press, who were kind enough to publish my story, "The Pragmatist,"

here

I feel all kinds of wicked awesome right now.

Writing Advice, Cont'd: How to "Show, Don't Tell"

2010-10-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

Holy crap I can't believe I left this one out when I wrote my post on writing advice. This one is so f*cking important that I'm giving it its own post.

#8: PUT IT IN THE BODY
. Most likely I forgot it because it has become so ingrained in the way I think about writing. My teacher, Ron Carlson, said, "When you don't know how to say something, put it in the body." He was talking specifically about the body of your characters: instead of describing an emotion, describe the way your character's body expresses that emotion. Instead of saying, "She felt defeated," you say, "She slumped in her chair and poured herself a shot of Jack Daniel's." Same emotion, except you can relate, simply because you have once slumped in your chair and poured yourself a shot of Jack Daniel's in defeat, even if you didn't feel defeated by the same situation. Doing this draws on the parallel experiences of your readers instead of depending on the importance of the situation in your own writing. For example, I have never liked Pigs in Heaven as much as The Bean Trees, and I think it's because in Pigs In Heaven Barbara Kingsolver is relying on the inherent understanding of a mother's love for her child. But I don't know what it's like to be a mother, so I can't relate, and she doesn't put it in the body enough for me to be able to relate. In The Bean Trees, the main character is overwhelmed by the experiences she goes through, and Kingsolver describes that very clearly. Plus, I definitely know what it's like to be overwhelmed.
    This is why Twilight was so successful; Stephenie Meyer may have overused her adverbs, but by God she could put an emotion in the body. She knew how to make you feel like you were seventeen and in love, or heartbroken. None of her readers has ever fallen in love with a vegetarian vampire, but they've blushed furiously every single time a particular person looks at them a certain way.
   This is also something Jane Austen totally sucked at, but she was super good at pretty much everything else so it didn't matter. That, however, is a combination of talents unlikely to grace another writer, ever, and so even if you think you're super good at everything else, put your character's emotions in their body, anyway.

    But I have found that this advice of putting it in the body applies to other types of "bodies," as well: your plot should be expressed in the "body" of the world you are building, the setting. Think Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (I've never read it but the entire plot has been actively described for me by numerous persons): as the book reaches its climax, so, also, does the landscape around them climb higher and higher. They reach the continental divide just about the same time they reach the climax. Your setting can do a better job of reflecting the events of your book than probably anything else.
     Your characters should be expressed through the "body" of their world: the objects around them (this is also known as inventory). Hands-down best example of this, ever, is Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. All of his characters are male soldiers, of nearly the same age, and wearing the same clothes, but he lists every single damn thing they own and you come to know them that way. One keeps a bag of weed on him at all times. One carries a picture of the girl he's in love with. One keeps extra food. This tells us more about the characters than any description he could have written: it's a picture, worth a thousand words. When you're limited to carrying thirty pounds, and you only have two or three to spare, which items will you bring? That's what your reader needs to know about your characters; and it will make your readers think of what they would bring, too. Objects are universally symbolic. Use them.
And the emotion of the work, the heart of it, should be expressed in the "body" of the text: the language. This is where tone comes in. If you are writing a children's book about the perils of not cleaning your room, your word choice sure as hell better be different than if you are writing an adult novel about dealing with rape. This is the difference between the following: pranced, ambled, shuffled, strolled. The connotation of each one of these words is different; you should know the connotation of each of them, and use it to your advantage. One belongs in a story about rape. A different one belongs in a kid's book. Ideally speaking, every single word in your book should be the right word for that book. It's not going to happen, but, you know, shoot for the moon and you'll land in a horse's ass. Or however that saying goes.

I can't think of a better piece of writing advice than "put it in the body," because this is what agents and editors mean when they say, "show, don't tell," which is a cute little catchphrase, but it doesn't tell you how to do it. "Put it in the body," however, does.

THIS IS WHY I NEED TO GO TO GRAD SCHOOL

2010-10-11T19:42:00.000-07:00

    I just picked up a copy of my book (draft, not published, obvs, or else I would totally be at a booksigning and have air conditioning in my car) from a friend who was sweet enough to read and give me beta feedback on it. And I've seen enough critiques that I can read between the lines: basically, she liked it, it was entertaining and well-written, but that was all. There was no "this sticks with me" factor. A lot of her comments were "I love this paragraph, I wish more of the book was like this!" on the sections of the book that were more emotional and compelling.
   Which is fine.
   The first draft of this book was a f*cking hot mess of emotional vomit re: The Road Trip which I chronicled as I was going through it; before I rewrote it I sat on it for a year and a half in order to get enough distance from it. It needed cleaning. Over the summer I cut everything that wasn't strictly plot-relevant, rewrote it all in the past tense, and turned it into an actual story with a real plot.
    But I've had a sinking sort of feeling lately that in doing that, I also cut a lot of the emotional urgency out of it. And this copy with my friend's notes confirms it.
    The first draft made a different friend depressed for four days after reading it because she was dealing with the same issues in her life. I wasn't glad it upset her so much, but I was glad that my writing had that kind of emotional resonance.
    This is supposed to be a story about how I went from being a lost 21-year old who thought the men in my life could give me the answers I needed to being a self-contained, if still somewhat blurry-edged, woman who knew that whatever I wanted I had to bring myself.
    But now, it's just kind of a story about a road trip I went on.
    Which is fun.
    But it's not the story that I had needed to tell. It's not the one I want to give to my friend's sister-in-law, a lost eighteen year-old who isn't quite sure how to handle all the changes in her life.

   So, obviously I have to rewrite it. And somehow, four years later, I have to find a way to reintegrate the pain and frustration of not knowing who I was, and also the joy and heartache of figuring it out, into a perfectly functional draft.

   IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE WHO ACTUALLY KNOWS HOW TO DO THIS?!!

My Literary Crushes

2010-10-10T17:40:00.000-07:00

There being a fairly serious male babe drought here in Arizona, since Steve Nash is relatively inaccessible to 24-year old writerly types who can't even afford (nor desire) televised access to Suns games, much less season tickets, I thought I would compile a list of my all-time biggest fictional crushes.

Also, it's Sunday afternoon, and I have two hours to kill before my run.

So.

1. Gregory House
I know he's not from a book, but he's based on Sherlock Holmes, and he's fictional, and I'm insanely in love with him. And yes, I can differentiate between Hugh Laurie and Greg House, and I'm in love with Greg House. As I've already clearly established via my life choices, I am wholly uninterested in a long-term relationship with a sweet, caring man who honestly takes my concerns into consideration, and would pretty much be willing to sell my soul for regular sex with an incisively witty, tortured, gimp genius/ex-drug addict who, deep down, cares far too much for people and can't show it.   The blue eyes and five o'clock shadow don't hurt anything, either, except my heart, which breaks every time I recall that this man is not real. (And can I send a shout-out to the flame cane? HOT)

2. Marcus Didius Falco
     He's funny, he's a genius, he has issues with authority, he solves mysteries, and he wears a toga. And he knows how to use a knife.
    I'm sensing a pattern, here.

3. Prince Caspian
     He is the authority, but he earned it by overthrowing a usurping uncle in an epic underdog battle. He kicked the hell out of some giants and then sailed to the edge of the world on a quest to find his father's lost knights; he got almost to the very edge of the world, but went back in order to fulfill his duty to his country--but he never forgot about his unfinished quest.

4. Ged
     Has scars: check. Bad-boy past: check. Limitless power: check. Hangs out with dragons: check. Strong, silent type: check. Learned to use said limitless power for good after long, drawn-out confrontation with the evil residing in his own soul: check. I'm in love with him: check.

5. Corlath
    Apparently I've been into Corlath since I was five and my mom read me The Blue Sword for the first time. He's stubborn and has a nasty temper and could ride a horse before he could walk; mostly he's just sort of kingly and reserved, until someone threatens his country with demons. Oh, and he can walk through walls.

I Like Running Second Best

2010-10-08T14:07:00.000-07:00

    I was hiking at South Mountain today and thinking vaguely about my writing dilemma, and also about the half-marathon I'm running at the Grand Canyon in less than a month (29 days to be exact, and holy God it's almost here), and the way that a certain friend of mine doesn't seem to actually like running as much as he likes, you know, being done with running. Or having run so-and-so far. He complains a lot about running, especially while he's doing it, and as a person who runs solely because I like the way it feels when my body is in motion and I'm outside in the sunshine, and endorphins are f*cking awesome, his complaining gets irritating.
    Now, sometimes running sucks. Sometimes you didn't get any sleep and you ate crap the whole day before and your shins are on fire and you had to squeeze in your last meal an hour before your run but that's the only time your running partner can go, and you end up pretty much walking your entire run because your gut feels like someone dropped a brick into it.
    Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it is 110 degrees outside at 8 p.m. and your legs feel like jelly and you still have another mile-and-a-half to go and you're all out of water and even when you get home you still have to climb two flights of stairs before you can get any more water, or sit down.
      But the question is, when that happens, do you still like running?
      If the answer is yes, then you are a runner.
      If the answer is no, you need a new hobby. One that's more suited to you and your habits. One where you can answer that question with a grudging, "Well, yeah. I guess. F*ck."
    And while I was hiking up the third hill on the San Marcos de Niza trail at South Mountain, I thought to myself, "The real question is, Would you rather be the worst runner in the world than quit running?"

   At which point I realized that the same was true of writing. When writing sucks--when you sit staring at your computer screen blankly and then write a bunch of stuff, realize it's crap, delete it all, write more crap, delete that, write something else, sit on it for a year and then realize it was all crap and you need to write something else--do you still like writing?
      It was never a question that had even occurred to me, because the answer is "Duh!!!
      And the real question, the one at the heart of my recent issues with writing, is "Would you rather be the worst writer in the world than quit writing?"
      And the answer is, of course, "Yes!!!" The strength of my "Yes!!!" stopped me in my tracks right there on the top of that third hill, and I stood there grinning like an idiot.
      Then I debated with myself about whether I should do the full hike I'd intended to do, or whether I should cut it short, and then I realized I had just told myself that a real runner would rather run than do anything else--
      at which point I realized that the real reason I wanted to cut my hike short was to get home and write this blog post.

     Because I would rather be the worst writer in the world than win the Boston Marathon.

     So I went home.

I Have Performance Anxiety

2010-10-05T20:16:00.000-07:00

I am used to writing for other reasons than publication.

I am used to writing because I have too many feelings and I need to get them out. I am used to writing because I have something to say and my friends are tired of me reiterating my diatribes in new and improved witticism form. I am used to writing because it is one in the morning and I have no one to talk to. I am used to writing because I see an image in my head, or because something struck me in a certain way and I need to get it down to look at it better. I am used to writing because it is easier to judge the truth of an idea if it appears in black and white on a page rather than inside my head.

My blog has ten followers, and most of them are my closest friends whom I've coerced into reading it.

I am not used to writing because other people want to read it.

This is a totally stupid anxiety that I'm having lately, and not even founded on anything worthwhile, because I've gotten one story accepted for publication, and it hasn't even been posted yet. But I am freaking out. All of the whatifs that most people have before they get published are coming out now: whatif I am only a so-so writer? whatif I can never learn to do what I want to do with my words? whatif no one cares? whatif people hate it? Now, suddenly, one of my pieces is actually going to get read by someone other than my mother, and I don't know what to do--and more specifically, I don't know what to write. I have three different ideas going right now and every time I sit down to work on them I jump back up and go running or clean my dishes, because I am skittish. Now I know I am capable of this thing that I wanted, that I am capable of writing something good--so what if, now, I write something bad?

It was one thing if I didn't have it in me.

Now I know I do, and it's terrifying.

How do I forget about all of these things, and go back to writing just because I like to write? Just because I have something I want to get down, something that is beautiful to me? How can I go back to knowing, as William Faulkner said, that "the basest of all things is to be afraid?" How can I stop asking myself, "Now, when will I be blown up?"

Note: these are not rhetorical questions. I really need an answer. Thanks.

The Twilight I Really Want to Read

2010-10-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

I'm really mad that I thought of this because now I wish I could read this book instead of Twilight:

    Bella is the Native American
    (helloooo, minority main character in a story that isn't directly about dealing with her minority-ism (AWESOME #1))
     who turns into a werewolf
     (hellooo, main female character doing something badass instead of sitting around waiting to get eaten by Vampire Pattinson (AWESOME #2))
    when vegetarian vampire clan shows up at local high school/hospital
    (hellooooo love interest being mortal enemy (AWESOME #3 (DEAR STEPHENIE MEYER IF YOU ARE GOING TO USE YOUR HUGE $$$$ TO BUY RIGHTS TO EPIC LITERATURE QUOTES AT LEAST DO IT IN A NON-BORING WAY: I.E., DON'T RIP OFF DIALOGUE FROM WUTHERING HEIGHTS TO MAKE YOUR ROMANTIC POINTS DO IT YOURSELF WITH AN AWESOME REVAMPED* STAR-CROSSED LOVERS PLOT WE WILL GET THE ALLUSION WITHOUT YOU BEATING US OVER THE HEAD WITH IT KTHXBAI))).

Ugh, too bad I think fanfiction is pointless and vampire novels are tired already.

*Yes, I know, but it was the appropriate word choice.

Things I Resent

2010-10-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

1. The institution of tipping.
     Now, I still tip. I tip outrageously considering that I work 25 hours a week on nonprofit pay. I tip 20% whether my server is awesome or completely sucks. Because I know that these servers make $2.15 an hour, and that serving is a hellacious job, etc. etc. But I resent it, and I resent that I can't protest the ridiculousness of this institution without looking like a jerk or inconveniencing an innocent party. I would rather have every single restaurant in the country raise their prices 20% and pay their workers a decent living wage than have the burden of their welfare placed directly on me. It's not my f*cking job to pay them. It's their employers'. This is America. Stop oppressing your own labor source under the guise of a service-oriented business strategy.
2. People who drive automatic cars and assume that you do, too.
    I drive a manual. My resentment is not fueled by a need to feel superior over something trivial (I'm looking at you, everyone who argues about which way to put your TP on the roll. Get over it, you wipe your ass with it either way). No. This is about the assholes who pull out in front of me on a hill when I'm doing 65 in 5th gear and you are doing 55. Sorry that the guy in front of you is doing 52, but for serious you just made me lose my momentum and now I'm going to have to waste half a tank of gas trying to get up this damn thing in fourth, when you could have just waited until I passed you because there was no one behind me. This is about you f*ckers who insist on stopping two inches from my bumper on an incline while we're at a red light. One of these days I won't hit my clutch right and your car is going to get dinged when I roll back, and it won't be my fault, but my insurance rates will go up anyway. God, I hate you.
   On the other hand, maybe I just hate hills.
3. Health and car insurance
     Do you realize that we pay exorbitant amounts of money every single month on the offchance that we will one day contract a life-threatening disease in a completely unpredictable manner OR be involved in some kind of horrific, expensive accident? We are basically gambling on getting our sh*t seriously torn up. Why can't we have some kind of social security savings account, instead? And then, if we don't die of cancer, or get cut off on the freeway, we will not only be healthy and happy but we won't have dropped the equivalent of a whole retirement fund on nothing. A savings account seems a lot less wasteful. Unless you make your money off insurance. Then maybe not.

A Compilation of the Best Writing Advice I've Ever Gotten

2010-09-20T22:54:00.000-07:00

1. Write every day.
      This one came from a number of sources. The way that I've integrated it into my life doesn't require me to sit down every day and write a certain number of words, although I'm sure that works for some people. For me this means: try to write every day, even if it's a to-do list. On those days you absolutely can't bear it, pay attention: find the things that you will be able to use in your writing and carve them into your brain, and then try to write every day. If you write once a week, in five years you still will have written something. My favorite iteration of this concept is: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step."
2. Start your story as close to the end as possible.
     This one I lifted out of Kurt Vonnegut's short story rules, and it forces me to get to the meat of what I'm trying to say. It forces me to identify the end, and the real conflict as opposed to the backstory. Sitting down to consider this rule has saved me oodles of drafts.
3. Get enough sleep.
     This is a weird one, straight from my totally weird and genius writing professor, Ron Carlson. It's possibly the best advice on this list. This advice got me to understand that while doing Hunter S. Thompson-esque author sh*t is an essential part of living, and living is at least half of writing, the actual act of writing requires you to take care of yourself. You can't write when you're hungover; you can only reiterate television plots. Writing is a healthy thing, the thing that sustains you and gives back to other people. Living is what kills you. Know the difference.
4. You have to like it better than being loved.
    This is the last line of a Marge Piercy poem which sustains me when the feeling of author vs. world is overwhelming. This line is beyond the sustaining message of that poem, though. What interests me is that I've found that it's not suggesting there's some sort of moral obligation that your writing should be more important to anything else. It's saying that if you are a real writer, writing is more important than anything else, whether you like it or not. Your writing will be there when no one else is, so you better like it. You will write things that hurt the people you love; you will write things that hurt yourself. You will write until mold grows all over your kitchen counter and you won't be able to help it, and so it better be what sustains you. Which ties back, strangely, to number three.
5. Don't answer the phone.
     This is the one I learned the hard way. It has very little to do with the problem of opening the door and forgetting the dream you were writing down, like Coleridge with Kubla Khan (which is still a famous work of literature despite the interruption) and everything to do with not interrupting the mood that makes you want to write. Interrupters will say things to make you doubt yourself; you'll be tempted to discuss your thoughts and you will talk it all out instead of writing it out; that guy you have a crush on will text you something cute--whatever happens, suddenly you will not feel like writing anymore. Time is your only truly limited resource. Spend it writing.
6. Don't make writing conditional.
    This is a general life rule, as well. Whatever you want the most you will most likely get; if you inflict conditions on it, those conditions take on more importance than the desire. For example: I will write x when I graduate college and have more time. No you f*cking won't. You'll graduate college, because that's what you have turned into a priority by arranging your other wants around it. Write. Do it now.
7. Forgive yourself for not writing (a.k.a. some writing>>not writing)
     This one is a gem of Elizabeth Gilbert's. Sometimes you can't write. Sometimes you'll go through six-month phases of reading, or running, instead. This is also writing. Don't worry about it. Try to write every day, but forgive yourself if you don't. This one also goes back to number 3.

It's My Blog, And I'll Vent If I Want To

2010-09-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

That said, I'm going to make my point, and person-who-needed-to-vent-at-me, well, it's my blog and I don't give a sh*t if you still read it and need to text me something else that's designed to ruin my evening and make me feel like the biggest bitch ever in response to this post.

People, when someone asks you for a pizza, don't give her an apple pie. She wants a f*cking pizza.

Whatever your intentions are—and I do concede, intentions are as important as the act itself—fulfilling someone else's wants is about their wants. It's not about what you want to give them. I don't care if you make the best f*cking apple pie in the universe, or how much you know I like both apples and sugar. I ASKED FOR A PIZZA. GET ME A PIZZA. If I asked for a pizza, that means I don't really want apples and sugar; I want garlic and cheese. A calzone would probably do the trick, but a pizza would really be best. If you really want to go above and beyond, here, get me two pizzas, and a gift certificate for more.

I also don't care how many other people have asked you for a pizza when they really secretly wanted an apple pie. Other people's inability to communicate effectively is not my problem; it's theirs. I asked you for a pizza. Assume that I mean what I say. If I don't mean what I say, that's not your problem. It's mine.

Getting someone an apple pie when she wants a pizza not only showcases your inability to listen, it shows that you don't care about what she wants at all. You care way more about the fact that you love making apple pies and are super good at pinching pie crust in cute designs than about making her happy. It shows that you want to be praised for your abilities more than you want to fulfill her needs. If you hand a chick an apple pie and expect her to be all like, “Oh, my gosh, you can bake, too! That's so wonderful! I love apple pie! How did you know I really wanted apple pie when I asked you for a pizza because I felt too bad to ask you for an apple pie which was what I really truly deeply wanted? You are so perfect!” well, you're in for disappointment. Because she asked for a pizza.

This is what will actually happen:

You (covered in flour and slightly sweaty from slaving over a hot oven): Hey, I know you asked for a pizza, but I made you an apple pie.

Her (eyebrows raised quizzically): Wow, um, thanks. I'm just gonna put this in the fridge. Want to come to Buono's with me, so I can get a pizza?

You (stuttering): Unappreciated...made pie...what?! *Your head explodes here*

Thought For the Day

2010-09-14T13:19:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's more important to let people vent their emotions on you than it is to make your point; i.e., sometimes it is better to understand than to be understood.

False Dichotomies Eat Your Soul: The Religious Edition

2010-09-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

I was raised without any particular religion. My mother was raised Catholic and my father was raised Jewish and they both stopped practicing before I was born; obviously I was raised with Judeo-Christian morals, but I was never required by anybody to believe anything other than what I chose. My parents answered my questions about traditions and their own beliefs and then let me think whatever I liked.
The only thing I regret about it was the lack of a community that other people had; otherwise, I am extremely grateful.

I don't quite know how to broach this topic, except to say that in the wake of the idiocy of the Qu'ran Burning News Special, a lot of my friends and acquaintances have professed beliefs along these lines: "I support the right of anyone to have religious beliefs even though I think all religions are dumb and I am therefore an athiest." Which is cool. I'm down with atheism. I dig Sartre.

But what really made me sad is that one of the comments I saw on a fb thread about the whole matter said something along the lines of, "I really want to believe in God, and sometimes I do, but then I'm forced to be logical."

So I wanted to say to this person and everyone else like her, because it seems like no one else ever has,

YOU CAN BELIEVE WHATEVER YOU WANT.

No, really. Just because you understand the limitations and logical fallacies of structured religion, and just because you choose not to participate, doesn't mean that the "logical" choice is atheism. You don't have to believe in God the way other people tell you to. Religion doesn't have a monopoly on God, or on virtue. Just because a lot of religious people say they do doesn't make it true, which you should know very well already. But just because some of the things they say aren't true doesn't make everything they say untrue, either.

I really consider myself a lucky person for growing up in a non-religious household. No one told me I had to believe anything, ever. I never heard anyone I respected and loved tell me that their beliefs were correct and mine were wrong. When I was three one of my little five-year-old friends told me I was going to hell because I hadn't accepted Jesus, but my parents jumped all over that and told me it wasn't necessarily true, and they didn't think it was, but that some people believed it was. Then when I was ten they let me go to Christian camp with her anyway, so that I could decide for myself what I wanted to believe.
I remember I asked one of the church leaders who made God. She pulled off her ring and said, "Do you see an end or a beginning to this ring? God is like this ring. He had no beginning and has no end."
I said, "Yes, but who made the ring?"
I put this example in here to prove that I was a logical person even at ten.

But I believe in God. I believe He isn't anything a finite mind can understand. So I've stopped trying, but I believe. I don't go to a church, or a temple, or a mosque, and I'm not an atheist. I don't let anybody else tell me what to think about what I believe.

That is something that I feel to be valuable about the title "atheist." People who name themselves to be atheists are typically people who have begun to question what other people tell them. But I think most atheists don't question enough. The alternative to "Not Your God" isn't necessarily "No God," just like the alternative to "Republican" isn't necessarily "Democrat." There's lots of stuff in between, and outside! Atheism is usually, as far as I'm concerned, another religion: it's a religion in which people doubt only the beliefs which are socially acceptable to doubt*. And all I want to say to you is: doubt everything, and then choose. If you still think there is no God, that's more than fine. But don't think there isn't a God just because you don't like other people's Gods. You can like your own, if you want to.

*This is a prime time for a bitchin' example of logical reasoning: Some people who are bad at logic believe in God. Not everyone who believes in God is bad at logic.
Alternatively, some atheists are logical. Not everyone who is logical is an atheist.
(Mindf*ck FTW)

The Giving Tree: Hate Is a Strong Word For Excellent Literature

2010-09-09T17:08:00.000-07:00

I found this article lying around on Twitter attached to a message about how much the Tweeter HAAATED the book The Giving Tree (it was one of my favorite authors, which kind of disappointed me).

I do see the problem with the perceived message of The Giving Tree. I get it. As a child, I didn't, really, and I thought that the story was very sad; I still think it's sad, but I don't hate this book. Because books are supposed to talk about these sorts of human behaviors.

Can you, or should you, hate a book? I'm sure I've said that I've hated a book before (hellooooo, The Kite Runner (AKA Gratuitous Butt-Rape Will Solve All Your Plot Problems!)) but on reflection I think this is a really irresponsible thing to say, especially for a writer. A book can be bad: i.e., it doesn't achieve what it set out to achieve, or is executed poorly. A book can have a terrible message: e.g., Robinson Crusoe (message: white people everywhere are superior to brown people everywhere, especially when they manage to find a cabin full of newly-sharpened hatchets hiding in their shipwreck). But hating the book and hating the message are two different things.

The Giving Tree is certainly not poorly executed, nor does it fail to achieve what it set out to achieve. So it's not bad.
But finally, I'm not sure that the message is bad, either. I unfortunately don't have a copy of it handy, so I'm working purely off memory and this article. From what I can recall, though, it's really just a really great character portrayal. The tree gives. The boy takes. The boy is never satisfied. The tree stunts itself by giving endlessly, but is satisfied by that.
But I don't recall any part of the text ever passing judgment on that. Nowhere does the text say, "giving endlessly until you are a stump is a good/bad thing." It lets you say so yourself, one way or another. I never thought the ending was all that "happy." It was just true to the characters.
And for me, that makes it a great work of literature.

As a writer, I feel that my job is to portray accurately the world around me as I see it. I don't feel like my job is telling people what to think. I want people to find themselves in my work, not to forge themselves out of my judgments; I want my portrayal of what I see to speak honestly to someone, and to present the world in a new, fresh way. But expecting a work of art to tell you what to think about the world is lazy reading, and saying that you "hate a book" because of your reaction to a well-executed portrayal of the way love sometimes happens is thoughtless and irresponsible. As far as I'm concerned, if you feel that strongly about a book, that author did his job really, really well. Which makes it a good book.

Finally, and on a totally different note, just because a book is written in cute rhyming verse doesn't make it a kid's book. Shel Silverstein also wrote the lyrics to "A Boy Named Sue." Stop reading adult-themed literature to children, or if you do, make sure you freaking talk to them about what you think it means.

It Has Nothing To Do With You, Parte Deux

2010-09-06T09:36:00.000-07:00

This is a lesson that never gets driven home hard enough: I have no idea of the depth of other people's pain.
Sometimes I run across that quote from Plato: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle," but somehow that quote just rubs me the wrong way. It makes it sound like other people have financial difficulties or an upcoming round in the gladiator ring and that I have the extra burden of kindness because of it; I wish the quote said, "Other people's heartaches are often bigger than yours."
Because it's not financial difficulties or career choices that are plaguing people. Sometimes your boss is going through a divorce and doesn't exactly want to talk to you about it. But if you knew that, wouldn't you have a little more patience for her bad mood?
And even the word divorce isn't strong enough, sometimes, to bring out the compassion. What I really mean is that sometimes your boss is throwing in the towel on a fight that's lasted two years now and her whole family is splitting up and her kids are miserable and crying a lot and this is her husband, the man who stayed up all night with her when she was writing her thesis just to keep her company and nobody did anything wrong but they can't work it out and she finds herself saying hateful things to the people she loves best. So if she's a bit snippy with you in a meeting about something you've been meeting about for months, it probably has nothing to do with you.
And sometimes the reason your friends do confusing things is because they're confused. Sometimes your friend's father is dying and not only does she sort of wish he'd hurry up and do it because watching someone waste away at a hospital every night is not only painful but intrusive, but she's feeling guilty for feeling that way and doesn't think you would understand, and then her relationship with him was pretty complicated anyway because he really wasn't around that much, they never really talked about important things, and this is her last chance to spend time with him but they still just sit around discussing television shows and how can she start having a real conversation with him? So when she doesn't really want to talk about what's going on in her life but does really want to go to Mill Avenue on a Friday night, it might have nothing to do with you.

Point being, other people have wounds you aren't aware of, and sometimes wounds they won't ever reveal. Sometimes your relationship is their Band-Aid and they don't want you to know that, or admit it to themselves. Sometimes your relationship is lemon juice in their paper cuts and they are loathe to say so.

I think if I could have one wish granted, it would be always to be aware of these sore spots, even if I can't know the details. I don't want to blindly go around being compassionate to other people in case they happen to be in pain; I have trouble putting sweeping abstract principles like that into action. But I wish I had better radar for it.

Maybe It's Just My Lucky Day

2010-09-05T11:24:00.000-07:00

     Sometimes I still have problems with plane flights, particularly when I'm not looking forward to where I'm going.
     And this has been, like, the longest, hottest, most stuck-inside summer I've had since I've moved to Phoenix, and I was just at home in New York for a week where everything was lush and shady and green and I went running down by the river every day and the whole place smelled like water and I ate dinner with my family every night, so I wasn't looking forward to coming back to the desert and my one-bedroom place and running on a treadmill.
     And the plane from Buffalo to Detroit was one of those teensy little puddle jumpers and I was sitting right over the wing and we got up into the air and it was all real pretty and green and the sun was setting...and then the engine noise stopped.
      I panicked.
     There was nothing wrong with the plane, at all; it had to do with my perspective and where I was sitting on the plane and normal function in a headwind, but it seriously sounded like the engines had shut off and the only noise was the wind, and I freaked.
    But then the noise started again, and no one else freaked, so I relaxed a little, even though it kept happening; finally we began approaching Detroit, and then the pilot announced that there was a holdup because of the weather and we would be in a holding pattern for the next 25 minutes at 14,000 feet and I death-grabbed at the seatrest and tried not to show that I was about to hyperventilate, because that's not nice to the other passengers.
    Five minutes later, the pilot came on the intercom again and said, "Looks like it's our lucky day, we've been cleared to land and we'll be on the ground in 10 minutes," and then, in a colossal tribute to bad patterns of thinking, I freaked out more. I was thinking, Don't say that! You're going to f*cking jinx us! LUCKY?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
    Then the rational part of my brain looked up and went, "You know, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that things could go well. Maybe it is your lucky day."
     I told my rationality to shut the hell up, and then we landed, and everything was fine.

     The next day, I went in to work, and had a nearly parallel experience: while I was on vacation there was a huge miscommunication, and a video project we'd been working on hadn't gotten submitted before a contest deadline, and it was just as much my fault as my coworker's. I panicked. I called my dad and freaked out and didn't know what to do, or how to tell my boss we'd dropped the ball on something the president of the Science Center had specifically asked us to do.
   My dad (playing the part of the rational section of my brain) said, "Why don't you call the contest people and ask them if you can submit it late?"
   "I guess," I agreed, knowing that deadlines were deadlines and nobody who had been hired to run a contest would be that soft or nice.
   But I wrote an e-mail, explaining the problem, and asking her to please not penalize the kids who had done the video for my mistakes in communication at work and could we please please please still submit the video, and while I was sitting there practicing my resignation letter and trying to remember how to breathe, she responded with,
   "Yes, of course. Just submit to such-and-such a website and send me the link."

   Somehow, I've allowed myself to become the kind of person who expects to die in a plane crash and be denied kindnesses by strangers. My brain is so prepared for my hopes and dreams to be crushed like leaves underfoot that the concept, "Maybe we're just lucky" is foreign to me. Which is way scarier than anything that could possibly go wrong.

So I'm going to go outside now, where it's sunny, and try to find my luck again.

Even The Fail Was Cliche: Missing the Forest for the Trees

2010-08-31T08:03:00.000-07:00

I went and saw Eat Pray Love this past weekend.

Now, I love that book. It was the inspiration for The Road Trip; it got me through one of the nastiest breakups ever; every time I read it I find something new that speaks to my current difficulties.
I love Elizabeth Gilbert. She writes some crackerjack fiction (Stern Men, it's like Jacob Have I Loved crossed with The Bean Trees and you should read it) and she's delightful in person (when she signed my book I teared up a little, because I'm not cool like that), and she wrote a memoir that touched millions of women.

The movie was bad.
And by the movie was bad, I mean the screenplay was bad.

Julia Roberts was fine. Everyone can shut up about her performance. She's great. Loved her. She brought energy to this movie.

But the adapted screenplay was just awful, because they spent so much time trying to squeeze in all the little special moments that people loved about the book that they completely missed the story of a woman who went from being miserable to being happy.

Now, the India sequence was fantastic. You know why? Because it was nothing like the book. In the book Richard didn't tell a story about nearly running over his little boy. There was no elephant. She dedicated her Gurugita to her nephew, not the sweet young Indian girl. Her roommate never took a vow of silence. But the story was true.
My writing professor used to say about fiction, "Did it happen? No. Is it true? Yes." And that's where this movie went wrong. Trying to include accurate stuff in the beginning made Liz Gilbert look like an ungrateful, entitled rich bitch, because they couldn't include all of it; but by including some accurate moments they left out the story of a woman, who was so miserable from drowning in her false self that she couldn't have seen anything good if it whacked her in the nose, finding enough strength to do something she had always wanted to do after losing all of her assets in a divorce.

So this is my message to screenwriters: Fictionalize it if you have to, but for God's sake save the story. I would rather have seen a movie about an entirely different person learning that being honest with yourself will bring you to happiness than an accurate portrayal of events that left out the story.

The Query Letter I Wish I Could Send

2010-08-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

I'm having the worst time writing a query letter. I mean, I knew it was going to be hard, and all, but I didn't think it would be this hard. I wrote the f*cking book. I should know what it's about, and how to explain it in a business letter. But man, it's hard.

So anyway, I thought I'd write a letter that said exactly what I was thinking, just to get it all out, and then maybe after I do that I can go back to writing the more appropriate kind. But I kind of love my awkward brain-barf letter, so I thought I'd post it here for laughs.

Dear Mr. Bransford,

    I read your blog. I read it every time I'm trying to write something and can't. I'm not the biggest fan of the site layout and I don't watch reality T.V., or sports, because I haven't had cable since I was seven, so I totally can't impress you with jokes about the Lakers like that lady in the example query, but you seem pretty smart, and I like smart people. Also it says, “When in doubt, query me,” and I'm definitely in doubt. Not necessarily about your representation preferences, since I researched you as an agent, but I'm in doubt about some things, and you didn't specify.
    I went on this road trip to visit all of my ex-boyfriends in a desperate attempt to figure out whether they had a better handle on achieving a self-made life than I did, and then I wrote a book about it. I called it The Only Cowboy and it has 76,000 words. Technically I guess I can say it's a memoir since you'd need to, like, market and shelve it, but I feel pretty douchey calling something I wrote a “memoir” when I'm only 24. Plus it just sounds like a granny word, you know? Like the way old ladies still say “toilette” or “derriere” when they're trying to say an impolite thing politely.
    My one ex-boyfriend ate a raw rabbit in front of me, once. He killed it at the golf course with a rock. That's in the book. Later he tried to give me a venereal disease. That's in there, too. He was a really sweet guy when we were dating, but I kind of f*cked him over and then he decided the world was a cruel place and he didn't want to play anymore. He tried to pretend he was living his life however he wanted and no one could tell him what to do, but really he was hiding. I couldn't get him to come out of his rabbit hole so I left him there.
    My other ex-boyfriend was a literary genius who liked to send any money he earned straight up his nose. But I would probably still donate my liver to him if he asked. And if we had the same blood type; I guess that would be important, too. When I went to see him on the road trip he was working a shit job and living in his parents' house and that was kind of disappointing, although not as disappointing as finding out that love doesn't actually conquer the combined effects of cocaine addiction, five years' separation, and a preference for being liked over living up to your own enormous potential. People say it conquers all, and that kind of thing, but really it just kind of gets tucked away like an old sweater while the rest of your life goes on.
    Turns out I was the only one who was really doing anything. It was kind of funny, you know? Because there I was, trying to learn from my ex-boyfriends how they made their lives into what they wanted, but I was the one on the road trip, making the effort to live my life and learn about myself. My ex-boyfriends were just really smart drunks.
    Anyway, I don't know if the book is any good. I've never had anything published before so you won't have any other editors you can ask about my writing. But I had a lot of fun writing it so maybe it will be fun to read, too.
           Thanks,

          Hilary

All This 20-Something Bullsh*t Annoys the Hell Out of Me

2010-08-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

At least two of my friends have sent me articles about the crisis of the 20-something, so, of course, I made a list of my grievances:

1. None of these articles were written by 20-somethings, or in conjunction with them, so basically you're writing about us as if we're not there. If you don't let us participate, we can't.
2. Just because we're not the same kind of adult as you are doesn't mean we're not adults at all.
3. There are apparently five milestone markers for adulthood: completing school, leaving home, being financially independent, marrying, and having a child. And since we don't do those things, they're questioning our adulthood rather than the adulthood milestones. People. Learn what a premise is, and learn to check it for validity.
4. The reasons I have thought about moving home have very little to do with my finances, and everything to do with wanting to be a part of a family, for real, and not on the internet. I went to school across the country, and most of my closest friends live in different cities; our society is totally transient because it's so easy to move and travel. And jobs aren't something you keep for a lifetime, now--but family is.
5. And on that note, this is the sentence that made me annoyed enough to write this: "With life spans stretching into the ninth decade, is it better for young people to experiment in their 20s before making choices they’ll have to live with for more than half a century?" Guess what? Life doesn't work that way, and the fact that you insist it does is what makes us terrified and unable to commit! We can do anything we want, for however long we want, and a commitment doesn't have to mean fifty years. PLEASE DON'T EVER SAY THAT SH*T AGAIN!!!!!!!! And aside from me just denying it, that's not how the workforce works these days--we can't count on pensions and we can't count on committing to a company for fifty years. That would be stupidity. Our skills are the only real assets we have. And based on how you all really fucked up your marriages, our observations tell us that marriages don't last that long either. But family does. My parents are my parents forever.
6. I'm sorry we're digging into your pocketbooks. I really am. But you are the ones who taught us that there are more important things than money, and that we should feel fulfilled and happy. So we are trying to do that. You wanted us to have it better than you did; we saw what you gave up for us, and we want to give it back to you, and to take advantage of our opportunities. Please stop criticizing us for wanting something better than a balanced checkbook, or making a half-century commitment to a company like Enron. There is a good reason for wanting a job with meaning, that does something more than make money--pull your heads out of your asses and look around you!
7. You went through this, too. We see the problems with your choices and want to better them--just like you did with your parents. We have a black president now, because of you all. We don't blindly support wars anymore, nor feel afraid to voice opposition, because of you all. Women make more money and have more opportunities than they ever did before--because of you. So we're going to do it even better. Now please shut up.

Why Adults Read Children's Literature

2010-08-15T12:40:00.000-07:00

   Because it's f*cking happy.

   Children's literature is the only place where serious themes can be addressed while still allowing for a happy ending. Especially during a recession, these are the things that people want to read about.
Sometimes I feel like there's an unwritten rule (irony ftw) that in order to write serious literature one has to write depressing literature. I blame this on Fitzgerald, who had the audacity to write the world's most perfect novel about a series of tragic, unredeemable characters. From there literature devolved into stories about characters who couldn't hack it in a world that won't forgive them, or characters who could hack it in a world that is so sick and twisted they won't be allowed to anyway, and that's not what we want to read about.
   Children's literature knows this. Children's literature knows that we want to read about Odysseus, who was so clever and strong that he prevailed against the gods. Children's literature knows we want to read about Harry Potter, who was so good and loving that he prevailed even against the greatest evil talent there ever was.
    Children's literature knows we want the good guys to win, because in real life, they don't.

    If you look back at the past ten years of hugely successful novels--the kind that make writers fantasize about totally unrealistic moneys and Oprah coming back from retirement just to talk to them--you will notice a pattern: they all have happy endings. Harry Potter. Twilight. The Da Vinci Code. Even The Road was pretty happy, from a Cormac McCarthy point of view. And I know it wasn't a book, but Avatar wouldn't have earned that kind of money if we just watched all the Navi get slaughtered in 3D, (which, btw, is what actually happened if you believe all that political commentary nonsense). In all of these stories, there was hope. These characters survived. They kicked evil's ass, and found love along the way.

   These are the things that are worth living for when you are unemployed and your kids have the flu and your hometown just got the f*ck flooded out of it and your husband has PTSD and there's a high pollution warning and the oil spill and holy sh*t we're still at war seven years later and we still haven't captured Osama Bin Laden and oh yeah like now with instant communication we can watch a live feed of people dying in Haiti after an earthquake. That is our real life, and it sucks. So we don't want to read about that bitch in The Elegance of the Hedgehog who finally starts living and then shoves her face right into a semi's grille. That sh*t's depressing. If we wanted to read about that we could open the Christmas letter from Uncle Roger. Or read the paper. We want to overcome the odds, even if it's only for two hours with a cup of tea before bedtime. Two hours of glorious hero-overcoming-all-the-odds-to-win is enough to allow us to get a full night's sleep and then get up and pay the bills late. It really is.

   Literature isn't, or at least it shouldn't be, a self-contained world. No matter how nerdy you were in high school, and how much other kids made fun of you because you liked to read, as a writer you are not participating in some special little club of people who know how to spell antidisestablishmentarianism. You are not isolated. This is not about your art. You are a storyteller. And everybody reads stories--or at least watches them, or plays them on a controller, or listens to them. Stories are metaphors for ourselves, for the way we treat conflict and difficulty. Stories are a very human institution, and they're what allow us to picture ourselves as heroes, as people who don't give up, as chosen ones, when really we are all very small and not sure of what to do.
   So of course adults read children's literature. Because we still need someone to tell us that it can be done. That we are heroes. That even though we are older now, we can still do anything we want to, and be anything we strive to be. These are things we need, desperately. So however important and tragic and well-written All the Pretty Horses might be, guess what? It doesn't give us what we need.

If You Don't Know, Who Should I Ask?

2010-08-12T23:52:00.000-07:00

All while I was growing up, if my mother asked me a question about what I wanted to do, or eat for dinner, or some other volition-based inquiry, and I responded with, "I don't know," she would say, "Well, if you don't know, who should I ask?" (Then she would giggle like she always did when she was pleased with herself for stumping me. Totally endearing. I love my mom.)
Anyway, I only just realized today how deeply that phrase has embedded itself into my psyche.

When it comes to what you want, you should know. AND say it, especially when asked. There is no one else to ask. You should know what you want to eat for dinner, or whether you want to stay inside and read or go to an amusement park, or why what that jackass on the subway said is upsetting you, or what you want to spend the rest of your life working on. You should know this, because nobody else can.

Sometimes these questions are hard. I know. They suck. I spent years figuring out the last one, and even now I'm still not sure all the time. But nobody else knows the answer. It takes time and effort to sort through your own reactions to find what your real preferences are. But no one else can do it.

So if sometimes I am blunt, and say things that other people don't say, it's only because it's one of those things that nobody else could say. This is my job. I am me, and I am the only one who knows what I want, and I am the only one who can communicate that. This is what I am here for.

And if you don't know these things about yourself, then who should I ask?

How To Write Award-Winning Literature (Sponsored by Blood Meridian)

2010-08-11T16:17:00.000-07:00

1. Give your protagonist absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever so that everyone can really relate to him.
2. After the first fifty pages there is no need to mention him. Describing the homogeneous landscape will be enough to remind everyone of his miserable existence.
3. When he does decide to reappear, reveal the history of other characters whom you haven't introduced by making your protagonist listen to long, overwritten stories told in vocabulary far beyond the speaker's (and the listener's) intellectual capabilities. But they shouldn't speak like that unless they're delivering exposition. That's gay.
4. Don't give your characters names, or if you do, don't reveal them until there is absolutely no context by which the reader can understand to whom the name refers.
5. Racial stereotypes count as characterization.
6. Your characters don't need to be distinguishable except regarding the degree of violence with which they are willing to kill each other.
7. Women aren't people, and rocks are more interesting. Write about those.
8. Plot should develop as follows: The group, of which the unnamed and unmentioned protagonist is a member, rides through a desert until the horses are tired, kills something, and then a random character expounds on an irrelevant and Neal-Cassady-esque topic. Repeat with minor variation in available petroglyphs in order to demonstrate movement of said group.
9. Testicles are the only body part of any importance, and cutting them off is worse than killing someone.
10. If part of the action takes place in the Grand Canyon, there is no need to say so, or describe it in a recognizable way. Everyone will know what you're talking about.
11. Once you decide on a title, make sure you overuse all of the words in it throughout the story so that people notice and think it's profound.

Dan Auerbach Makes Me Wanna

2010-07-28T16:44:00.000-07:00

   I have recently rediscovered The Black Keys. More specifically, I have newly discovered the deliciousness that is their album Brothers, and which makes me want to sit out on my balcony in black lace lingerie at three a.m. and put out cigarettes in my Jack Daniel's after I use them to light the next one and then drink it anyway.
   I haven't felt like this, sincerely, since I got back from The Road Trip and called up my old Irish Catholic not-boyfriend and had an epic one-up war involving Smirnoff, his girlfriend I didn't know about, Sharpie pens, a stripper, and his best friend's truck bed; or at least I haven't felt like this since the last time I read some Bukowski.
   Now, I am a very serious proponent of long-distance running and fluffy kittens and sunshine, but The Black Keys have me thinking about the deconstructive urge and its validity--and specifically, the dualism of the human experience and its effect on happiness.
    Because there are two halves to human life: living, and dying. And it's good to invest in living--it's good to eat well and exercise and do your dishes and build things, long-lasting things like love and happiness and family and positive social structure and all of the constructs that are allowed only by the existence of human rationality, of communication, of order.
And very little breaks my heart harder than those people who forgo all of those things to chase the romance of their destructive side; who spend all the time and energy and talents they have trying to escape the permanence and risk of choosing which investments are worthwhile. I think everyone knows someone like that. I have probably dated him.
    But I do think (and Arizona's economy will totally have my back on this one) that there's such a thing as too much construction. (Zing).
    We don't talk about dying in this country. We don't talk about destruction in a healthy way, even when it comes to the economy (Dear Lord! We can't let the car companies go out of business! Forget that they haven't made a relevant or improved product in thirty years--DYING IS BAD), and especially when it comes to ourselves. We have this weird mentality that insists on a hybrid of growth and immortality, which, as far as I'm concerned, are mutually exclusive concepts. You can't grow without pruning, at least not into something worth being; and the only things that withstand time are those which change very little. Want to know what both grows infinitely and lives forever? A cancer cell. Yeah. Not very healthy or useful. Infinite growth + immortality= giant blob of parasitic mutant.
     Sometimes, however, the constructs of rationality go stale. You could go your whole life getting up at 6 a.m., running, eating right, working hard, cleaning up, taking care of your family, getting enough sleep, and never actually do anything at all.
     I don't think that the answer to this is a weekend in Vegas, or any of the other prescribed methods offered us for "having fun." I do think the answer is in deconstruction, in taking apart your own life a little bit to let in the more animalistic pieces of your nature, to remember the fact that one day you will not be here anymore and that every day is crap shoot in terms of survival. However you deconstruct is okay, as long as you do it. Getting drunk is the traditional way, and rightfully so, because nothing dulls human rationality like liquor. But that one's dicey, because sometimes it also allows you to forgo the processing part of the breakdown--it can make it harder to connect to yourself, and allow you to continue to ignore the gentle pressure of the darker, lustful parts of your being. Sex works, and so does dancing, and so does cliff diving, and so does anything that lets you into your body, into transience and risk, and out of the mathematics of construction.
I'm just saying--there's a reason you can't name a gritty blues band The White Keys.

What Form Rejection Means to Me

2010-07-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

1. Dwyer better get the hell back from his stint in Mongolia and set up a handle of Jack Daniel's on my patio table
2. Must...keep...writing.... Not...sure...why....
3. There IS a real world, and high school DID prepare me for it
4. There has to be an alternate tactic to increasing my self-satisfaction in proportion to the number of rejection letters in my file. JD is probably not it.
5. JD makes me a real writer, though, right?
6. Seriously, why am I doing this? What is this sh*t? What am I even TALKING about?!
7. We need more heroines like Cher from Clueless. I'm sick of this whole insecure snarky tomboy shindig. What happened to the pretty girls?
8. I know! I'll write a new story! They'll have to want that one!
9. Cher from Clueless + one of Neptune's moons + my literary talent =
10. F*ck.
11. DWYER!!!! YOU BETTER COME HOME SOON!
12. If I start drinking JD by myself, then I'm definitely a real writer. Right? Right?

In Honor of The Rejectionist's Blogiversary

A Comprehensive List of All the Sh*t I Am Managing To Stay Cheerful In the Face Of:

2010-07-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

1. Personal overuse of sentences ending in prepositions
2. That illness last week that knocked me off my feet for five days and made my glands feel like burst potatoes moving into my eyeballs and setting them on what felt like fire (aka viral pink eye FTW)
3. Housesitting. When you are unemployed this sounds lucrative and easy; eventually you will realize that there is an insane amount of driving involved in this, that other people's pets are not anything like your pets, that other people's beds are not nearly as comfortable as your bed, and that you are basically living out of your car because other people do not keep their houses stocked with contact lens solution and a backup pair of yoga pants.
4. A slow tire leak. This could suck a lot less if you don't live in a state where metal air hoses are exposed to bright sunlight and 113-degree temperatures for 8 hours a day. My lifeline has burn marks.
5. 113-degree temperatures.
6. Friends who don't answer their cellular telephones when I am incapable of opening my eyes for long enough to turn over my car's engine after they told me to call if I needed anything WHEN I KNOW THEY ARE SITTING ON THEIR ASSES PLAYING OBLIVION AND SMOKING BLUE MIST SHISHA YES I AM LOOKING AT YOU EX-ROOMMATE
7. An extra project at work with a somewhat-possibly-not-quite-reasonable deadline
8. Bad news about grandpere's state of health.
9. Having to reschedule all of my outreaches for this week. This is possibly the weirdest thing about me: I have a phobia of making phone calls to strangers. I would so much rather talk to someone in person, or in writing. In writing I have enough time to think about what I need to say; and in person I can read their face and mood and respond to that. On the phone people can get mad at me for no reason at all. And I have no idea what they're thinking, or what I'm supposed to be asking. There are no clues! I can't handle it.
10. Dealing with the DMV--over the phone. That said, this may have been the easiest interaction I've had all week, and they totally had an oldies station playing while I was on hold (Breaking Up Is Hard To Do FTW)

A Crash Course In Nonviolence

2010-07-19T11:22:00.000-07:00

"It is better to be violent if there is violence in our hearts than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence." -Mahatma Gandhi

My father is a nonviolence professor. This gives a certain zen-like picture to my home life, but this has been a learned thing for him. When he was a little kid he used to dress up as Zorro and run around putting fake Zs on people's clothing and challenging them to sword fights. And when I was a little girl sometimes he would get into a temper and storm around the house swearing and projecting big huge angry vibes and generally scaring the crap out of me.
Eventually I told him that he was extremely scary to me; around the same time one of our family friends, while walking their son to school, caught my father cussing up a storm in the driver's seat, and laughed hysterically at him.
My father hasn't thrown a temper tantrum since. I literally can't remember one.

One of the things that he comes up against, a lot, when talking to his students and critics, is the idea that nonviolence is somehow weaker than violence. That a person who practices nonviolence, is, in fact, impotent, or scared, or passive, or a number of things.

But from all of my years growing up with my father, and talking to him about his work, and watching him in action, I can testify that this is not the case.

Nonviolence is a commitment to avoiding hurting other people. Nonviolence has nothing to do with getting what you want, and everything to do with respecting life in all its forms--including your own. This is the important part. Your life, and your health and your well-being, is just as important as everyone else's, and nonviolence is a commitment to recognizing that importance in every daily action.
Gandhi said that it was better to be violent if there is violence in your heart than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence. I heard this quote used in an action movie recently to justify one character's decision to return to kicking ass, and that really depressed me. Because that's not really what he meant. He meant, "Don't be passive, or weak, and pretend that you are acting morally when really you are just afraid. It is better to be violent if that is the truth about yourself and how you feel than it is to lie about your commitment to nonviolence." He thought nonviolence was important, but he thought truth was more so.
Gandhi also said, "I can't teach you to be nonviolent--but I can teach you not to bow your head before anybody."
A true nonviolentist doesn't ever let others walk all over him. A true nonviolentist doesn't let a foreign government treat his countrymen as second-class citizens because of the color of their skin. But he also never expresses those views, or insists on his own way, in a way that hurts anybody else.

A true nonviolentist knows that other people act based on their own beliefs and wants and needs, and not on any reaction to himself; and he respects those wants and needs as best he can without slighting his own. A true nonviolentist knows that his own ego, and hurt feelings, are less important than his own inherent dignity and the dignity of others.

A true nonviolentist realizes that expressing anger is not nearly as important as creating a loving and safe atmosphere for his children--and when he realizes this, he never lets himself cross that line again.

I'm finding it hard to see the weakness in that.

Why Bad Things Happen to Regular People; or, It Has Nothing To Do With You

2010-07-18T18:22:00.000-07:00

I am not a person who believes that things happen for a reason.
I'm not cynical and I'm not a pessimist. What I believe is that things happen, and you can choose to find the good in them or not; but I don't believe that good and bad are inherent properties. I don't believe that people are naturally good or bad. Rather, I believe that people act badly in proportion to the amount of pain they've experienced. And so sometimes people do bad things to you, and there's no visible reason--and it had nothing to do with you or your life, or whether you deserved it.
Today I learned that the world really doesn't revolve around me.
I hear this phrase used a lot but it never struck home--I never realized its full import until today.
Sometimes bad things happen for no reason, earthquakes and car accidents and disease and all those other things we can't control. Generally those sorts of things don't happen to me and in that I am very lucky.
Today, however, I came down with a case of excruciatingly painful pink eye while I was housesitting 40 minutes away from my apartment, two hours before I was supposed to go to a driving class on the last possible day before they suspend my license for not going. I couldn't open my eyes well enough to drive myself anywhere and my phone had died. I was pretty well stranded.
Luckily there was a landline at the house and I have some phone numbers memorized, and I got to the ER and then home again with only a few hiccups thanks to some crazy awesome friends of mine, but the point I want to make is that sometimes the good thing that comes out of a situation like that has nothing to do with you.
Sometimes your ER nurse is having the worst day ever and the fact that your case is relatively stress-free is the good thing. You won't know about it and you won't know that there is any good hanging around your pink eye.
Sometimes your pharmacist was only breaking even for the week and your perfectly curable illness pushed her into the black. (I'm making this up. I have no idea if this ever happens, but I assume it does because a business is a business, right? No matter how expensive your BC is.)
Sometimes you get rear-ended and have to pay your deductible with your vacation money, but that person never ever texts when driving ever again. They don't write you a letter to tell you so but they also don't kill anybody.
Sometimes Job loses all his children and cows and gets boils on his ass without even an explanation from God, but every Bible-reader that comes after has a story to turn to for understanding.
And you will lie in bed with one eye crusted shut wondering what the hell you ever did to deserve this--but just remember: there is some good in it, somewhere, but it has nothing to do with you.
Nothing ever does.

What I Want to Talk About When I Talk About Happiness

2010-07-14T14:21:00.000-07:00

    I went home for my and my father's birthday weekend and my mom threw us a giant party. One of the guests was my dad's colleague, who studies happiness for a living (he's a psych guy). And he was standing around laughing and making jokes and drinking a beer and I thought, oh, what the hell, so I asked him, "Hey, Chuck, what advice would you give someone who wants to be happy?"
   He seemed a little astonished that I really wanted to hear about his work; I was slightly astonished that he isn't accosted regularly like a sports med doc at a pre-marathon carb fest. The guy's an expert on happiness. Shouldn't everyone want to talk to him?
    To get him started, I said, "Gretchen Rubin says you should make your bed every day, which I find a little inspirationally lacking."
   He said, "Well, you know, your everyday environment does have an effect on you, but the current literature suggests that happiness is actually an emergent property that occurs when seven or eight factors are present in the right relation to each other."
    That made so much sense that I put my drink down and prepared to be enlightened.    "What are they?"
    He again looked a little shocked (seriously, what are people talking about at parties these days? Sports? Psh.), but then he was kind enough to list them off for me:
    "Well, number one, and probably the most important, is growth. You have to feel like you're growing as a person and that you have long-term goals you can aim for.
    "Two, you need to have work that you find fulfilling.
     "Three, some sort of spirituality through which you can understand your life and the things that happen to you, and possibly a supportive spiritual community.
     "Four, younger, or less experienced people whom you can mentor and provide support for.
     "Five, older or more experienced people whom you can look to for mentoring and support.
     "Six, a group of peers who can provide emotional resonance and who are interested in the things that interest you."

     At this point I interrupted him. "So most of these have to do with relationships with other people."
"Yes," he said, "they do. It can be horribly detrimental to your mental health and happiness if you don't have some long-term, close relationships." He talked a little bit then about his brother who had moved away fairly recently and the large but unexpected impact the move had had on his own family's happiness and feeling of being a family, and on the brother himself. Then he said, "It's really just in our culture that we place so much emphasis on individualism and individual expression, and it's actually not very healthy."
    I felt a little weird about this, because in my family I am the one who has moved away, and it has been detrimental to my happiness, and to my family's happiness, too. I can't be there for them for the little things, or even some of the big things, and I don't really have a place there. And it's a weird sort of problem, because I love Arizona, and being here has provided me with opportunities for personal growth and jobs I would never have had back in my small hometown, but it has also lost me my sense of place among people. I said as much to Chuck, and he nodded sagely and said, "It's really a tough spot to be in."
   "Do you think," I asked, "that people in more family-oriented cultures are happier than we are?"
   He did not even hesitate. "Oh, definitely. It's not even a question."

   Isn't that strange? Our entire culture is dedicated to making people as self-sufficient as possible, to giving them full individual expression and attention, and what that actually does is prevent us from being truly happy.
     So why do we do it?

I Told You So

2010-07-11T23:43:00.000-07:00

Today was, after all my talk, not a "best" day.
Today I talked too much about myself and got impatient and bored with people I care about and situations I was in. And I accidentally left Harry outside on the balcony in 100-degree weather while I went to a bar.
Sometimes this happens when I don't get enough alone time; but I've spent the last 72 hours in bed with all-over bodyaches and swollen glands reading copies of SELF magazine (and also Stern Men, by Elizabeth Gilbert, which was like a small piece of profane heaven), so I'm pretty sure it wasn't that.
(Did you know the cure for unspecific viral illness--in the form of all-over bodyaches and swollen glands--was a slideshow of your running partner's trip to Nicaragua and some b*tchin' Nicaraguan rum? I didn't, either.)
Sometimes this also happens when I'm feeling entitled to something superior than what's in front of me.
If I were actually entitled to something superior than what's in front of me, wouldn't I have it already?
Feeling entitled sometimes happens when some non-related area of my life has disappointed me and I haven't dealt with that.
I really want to go to Nicaragua.
Or India.
Being sick kind of sucks.
My best friend and road-trip partner hasn't been answering my calls or texts. I'm sure it's not for any reason in particular. Which is almost worse.

This was not me at my best, but I'm going to try again tomorrow.

There were monsoons today.
Harry forgave me.
It's all good.

Me at My Best: A Challenge

2010-07-10T21:20:00.000-07:00

   Last week I was talking to a newer friend of mine, and we were drinking and it was late so of course we were having one of those conversations and something prompted me to say, "You've only known me at my worst, which I'm kind of sorry about," which of course set off the truth-moment alarm bell in my head.
There are whole six-month to year-long periods I can recall in which I was acting, most of the time, as me at my worst: selfish and depressed and expecting everybody else to help me without reciprocation. And I wondered what it would be like to be able to point to six months and say, "That was me at my best." I guess I remember the summer between high school and college as being a time when I really felt good about my actions and about myself in general, but that was seven years ago.
   So for the last few days, I've been trying to be only me at my best: whenever I've been feeling down, or lazy, I just ask myself, "Hil, is this the best you've got?" and of course I have to say, "No," and then this somehow forces me to look on the bright side or to do the thing I've been avoiding doing. It's been surprisingly easy, and I'd really, really like to make it to December with this.
   I'm actually kind of hesitant to post this all here because sometimes when I talk about things all of my energy goes into talking about it and not into actually doing it--but that wouldn't be me at my best. So I'll post it, and follow through on it.
   The really nice part about this is the time limit. It doesn't feel so weighty or impossible, because I only have to do this for six months, and then I can go back to being a selfish b*tch if I feel like it.

   So, for the next six months, I will:
   -be as cheerful as possible
   -do more listening than talking
   -keep my promises and commitments
   -avoid making any promises or commitments I don't think I can keep
   -do the things that need to be done, and do them well, even if I don't feel like it
   -be honest with myself about what I want and don't want
   -be honest with others about what I'm willing or not willing to do/put up with
   -give my opinion only if asked
   -make time for my friends and family, and make that time about them and not me
   -write as often and as well as I possibly can
   -pay careful attention to other people and make an effort to recognize and fulfill their wants and needs
-pay careful attention to my surroundings
-make no judgments until there is sufficient evidence; and always allow for exceptions and change
-avoid any action or speech that will cause real hurt to others or to myself
-be open to criticism and willing to change

I thought this list would be longer but I'm pretty sure this covers everything, at least indirectly, that I have noticed and thought about in the past few days.
I know these are things I am capable of; and the best part is I don't have to do it forever, nor perfectly. I just have to do it the best I can.
I'm sort of oddly looking forward to this.

F*ck Inflation

2010-06-30T15:39:00.000-07:00

   Very few things stress me out as much as the idea that I have to do something. I get this idea in my head a lot. For example, I took ten days off running in order to rest my shins, and yesterday was my first day back. Today I came home from work going, "Okay, I really need to cross train today, maybe I should drive down to the gym right now and do some stairmaster; but I could really stand to get a nap in, so probably I should go sleep for an hour and a half and then work out and then I can shower in time for my hair appointment...."
   You get the idea.
   Sometimes I forget that I don't have to do anything. The entire cause-and-effect relationship of getting stuff done is, rather, founded on the idea of "If/then:" if I want this, then I must do this; but I don't absolutely have to do anything at all. I don't have to want anything and I don't have to do the things that would get me what I want.   And in general, if I really want to be doing something, chances are I'm probably doing it already. Chances are you'd have to drag me away from it at gunpoint, and prove to me that the thing is loaded.

    The idea "I have to" has many insipid forms that are a lot harder to recognize. The cross-training idea was one thing, but what really got me started writing this post was the following:

    Tonight, I am going to see my friend play a show at my friendly neighborhood dive bar. I was invited to the show on Facebook, so the guest list was available, and of course I checked it. And it turns out that a guy that we're going to refer to as Mr. Expensive will be there.
    Mr. Expensive stresses me the f*ck out. First of all, I think he's like an eleven on the ten scale of attractiveness (really, he's like second to James Franco), so of course anytime he's in the same room as me I'm a klutzy, dropping-stuff mess. Secondly, he's good friends with my good friend, and I've met him like fifty times, and I'm pretty sure he still has no idea who I am. He has never greeted me by name, doesn't appear to remember details about me, recognizes my face but avoids lengthy conversation. I friend requested him on facebook like two years ago, and it's still pending. As far as I can tell, to him I am, like, mousy.
     My theory on this is that Mr. Expensive likes expensive things.    Things that it requires a lot of work to acquire, or things that are so valuable that they're inherently costly. And I think he likes expensive people, too: people like our mutual talented friend, who puts on a hell of a show with a loop pedal and a violin; or girls who require a lot of work. Now, I'm a lot of things, but I don't really require a lot of work. I'm trusting, and friendly, and I tend to err on the side of too nice.  (He's wealthy and doesn't like me so I feel justified in making these assumptions. Especially because I don't know him at all and can't get him to talk to me for more than forty seconds. Clearly, I have insight into this man's psyche.)
     All of that is not the point. The point is that, anytime I know Mr. Expensive is going to be in my general vicinity, I start feeling like I have to: I have to be cool, have to look good, have to ignore him or have to talk to him, etc., etc., etc. He sends me on an I have to rampage.
    But the fact is, no I f*cking don't.
    I don't have to do a g*ddamn thing. I can show up wearing a lampshade and some artfully placed hedge shears if I want to. I can pirouette around the room all night (assuming I could actually execute one of those, much less dozens, which is doubtful). I can do, quite literally, whatever I want.
    Now, if I want something particular from him, like positive, non-weirded-out attention, then of course there is a course of action that must be taken in order to attain it--but guess what? I have no idea what it is. I don't even know the guy.
    Unfortunately, I don't have any lampshades in my size, but I do have clothes I actually feel comfortable in, and people I enjoy talking to who will probably be there tonight. Not to mention a pair of panties I should probably untwist.

Taking Suggestions and Gold Stars

2010-06-24T14:43:00.000-07:00

     I'm only into, like, week three of my Quest to do one new thing almost every day, and I'm getting stuck. I blame this partly on my shin splints, because now I can't just chart a new place to run three times a week and give myself a corresponding gold star on the Quest Progress Chart. I blame it partly on the fact that these things organize themselves into categories like "new restaurants" and "new books" and "new movies" and that the categories themselves start to get old.
    But I blame this mostly on my friend-drought.

    I was pondering new restaurants to try out and realized that most of the ones I could think of were restaurants I had planned to try with a friend at some point, and never did.
    Then I thought about just how many things I have planned to do with new people in my life that we somehow never got around to, and the longer I thought about it, the more horrified I was. I'm a person who likes to follow through on plans, and a lot of the time I do insist on completing those vague "hey, we should totally..."s. But despite that, it's like I have a whole lifetime I never lived of the things that I intended to do with a brand new person.
Most of the new things I have intended to do were brought up because I had met someone new and we had to go through that whole "meshing-your-view-of-the-universe-with-my-view-of-the-universe" thing, which I think is the main reason meeting new people is so exciting. Meeting new people is like someone turning your house 180 degrees and then you realize just how gloomy the willow tree looked outside your living room window, and how much nicer it looks from your kitchen sink with the extra ten feet of space between it and the house. Meeting new people is not only interesting because you get to learn about someone totally different, but because you realize that they see you differently than everyone else does, too, and you also get to learn about that.
And let's not lie: everyone thinks their own person is the most fascinating object in existence. I'm okay with that. I think it's true for everyone. I think it's the only thing you can ever hope to understand completely, but it's also a neverending Quest to attempt to do so. And I like Quests. They come with gold star sticker charts.

Anyway, for my own amusement, here follows an Abbreviated List of All the Things I Was Supposed to Do With Various People I Don't Really Talk To Anymore, and Never Actually Did:
--try out steak places in Phoenix until we found the valley's best steak (I should still do this)
--go back up to Sedona and check out the sushi place that's closed from 1 to 7 and is next to a tattoo parlor where all the cabinets are shaped like coffins
--open a bar in Australia
--climb Machu Picchu on New Year's Eve
--take a weekend trip to Mexico
--plan and save for a trip to India
--snowmobile up Grand Teton to a natural hot water spring and go swimming in January
--road trip up to the Pacific Northwest and/or possibly Alaska
--Hike the waterfall trail at White Tank
--Hike the Superstition trail
--get together and co-write some songs
--take horseback-riding lessons (still really want to do this)
--go hanggliding

Granted, most of these were rather long-term or expensive undertakings, but still. Isn't my alter-existence exciting?

Any offerings as tasks on my Quest for Newness will be greatly appreciated; all the more so if they can be completed here in the Valley of the Sun.

I Think I Run, I Think I Run...

2010-06-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

I'm becoming obsessed.
I'm reading running blogs, and Runner's World magazine; I'm changing my eating habits and logging all of my workouts on Mapmyrun.com. I went to bed at ten o'clock on a Friday night so I could get up to go running on Saturday before my running partner leaves for Nicaragua. I bought athletic tape yesterday for my shin splints and read a whole bunch of articles on the various causes, and then switched to a different pair of shoes. Then I actually used the athletic tape. I slept in it. That's how concerned I am about my shins.
I love the idea of me as an athlete so much. I think I'm starting to annoy people with how much I talk about it, and I think about it even more than I talk about it.
It's really strange, because I've technically been a runner since I was about twelve, and made the high school track team, but I haven't really thought of myself as a runner until I started training for this race (the half, not the full). I tend to take six-month hiatuses--but apparently, according to all the running blogs and articles I am now reading, that's normal, and the fact is, I always go back to running.
I've just never felt like a runner before.

It means a lot to me right now, because I'm still in one of those friend-drought periods where a lot of my friends have moved away or we have simply fallen apart, and I'm not meeting a lot of people; training gives me something to do. It also gives me something to learn about, and new things to read, and I'm always looking for those.

My father used to run five miles a day, rain or shine. There's a picture somewhere of me when I was about five stretching with him, and looking deathly serious about it, at my grandparents' lakehouse on Canandaigua Lake. And there's another one of me in the same outfit setting out on a run with him along the (highly dangerous and trafficky) West Lake Road where he used to run every summer. I think I made it about five hundred feet and quit, but it's still one of my favorite memories, and the stretching picture makes me laugh every time.
My father's birthday is the day before mine, and this year I asked him, "Hey, Sixty-Two, got any advice for Twenty-Four?" He said, "Exercise." My father is not the kind of person to just throw some random advice out there, so I thought I would take him seriously.
When I was 13 I tore my ACL at soccer practice, and had to take a year off sports for surgery and an old-fashioned recovery (which I resented at the time, because other people with younger doctors were getting out in eight weeks, but when I was still busting ass on the Stairmaster and they came back in with a re-tear, I didn't mind as much). I was desperate to run again. It was the only thing I wanted. And when they finally let me, six months into recovery, my mother would go rollerblading with me on the trail my town had just put in. After our runs she would let me practice driving her stick-shift Toyota Corolla around the parking lot. And now, anytime I come home and the weather is good, she gets out her rollerblades, and we go running.
My grandmother was very athletic, which was something I didn't really know until after she died and everyone started telling stories. I remember she had been very proud of me when I made the track team, and told me she used to win competitions in the standing long jump when she was in high school, but most of the time that I knew her she was limping because of a bad hip. But apparently, when my dad and uncles were young, she used to bike to the grocery store every week, and play tennis quite often. Dad said that it really hurt her not to be able to exercise anymore after her first hip surgery, and that while she was dying she seemed happier than she had been for years because suddenly her body didn't matter anymore. So there is that, too. In so many ways, running, even though I mostly do it three thousand miles away from them, connects me with my family.
Running pulled me out of a mild depression, and it got me through the misguided road trip where I went to see all of my exes, and it helped me learn how to enjoy being where I was instead of always thinking about what was coming next. Running made me shut up and look at some trees. I've always liked running, but I remember saying once, "I'm not a runner, I just run."
But now, I want to be a runner.

I think I could be a good runner, too. Right now my shins hurt, and my times are atrocious, but I've never really worked hard at it. After my injury in high school I was always kind of nervous. On top of that I was a sprinter, and my endurance sucked. But I know a little better now what it means to work hard at something, and what kind of pain needs attention and what kind of pain is just your body's version of whining. I know myself a little better now, and what I'm capable of, and so I'm suddenly (and a bit ridiculously) interested in being a runner, an athlete.
So bear with me while I talk about it too much. It's making me happy.

A Non-Gretchen-Rubin-esque Solution

2010-06-15T23:56:00.000-07:00

Since my fated run with Meg, I've been trying to do at least one new thing every day, even if it's only reading a book I haven't read before.
In the last week, I have:
1. Gone to see my very first ballet
2. Called up an old friend and ended up having a super interesting conversation with his friend about the boundary line between loving someone else and hurting yourself, all while sitting in a high-rise condo in Scottsdale eating Chipotle
3. Found a new route to run for my short-run training days that I can get to from my house and which involves a lake I didn't know existed
4. Driven up to Flagstaff for a day and hiked 14 miles
(4b. Limped around and downed like 1200 mg of ibuprofen the next day--OMG I HAVE TO RUN THAT FAR?!)
5. Went to see the new version of The Karate Kid (does this count as a new thing? I saw the old one like fifteen years ago, so I didn't even remember the ending). Is it weird how much I love sports movies? You can always count on them to be uplifting, even if your team loses.*
6. Read "The Crack-Up" by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
(6b. Discovered that in one of his letters, Fitzgerald used "you're" instead of "your," and I felt horribly violated. What a thing to see at six in the morning over coffee!)
7. Got diagnosed with pink eye. This isn't really a new thing, seeing as how I picked one of these babies up when I was ten from swimming in Nantucket and it scarred my cornea, but, hey, I certainly haven't done this in a while.

I feel like this is a cheerful solution to my doldrummy dilemma: if, one day, I don't manage to do a new thing, it won't really matter, but in general I will be trying new stuff regularly, and I think that will make me very happy without making me feel constrained.

*Strangely enough, I don't like real sports. I've decided that this is because real sports are not funny. No one laughs. Ever. Real sports take themselves so seriously that you have to wear suits to be involved in them. That's probably why I don't like politics, either. Anywhere you can't crack a well-placed fart joke is a place I don't ever want to be.

On Doing Things Twice, and Whether I'm a Sad, Sad Person

2010-06-09T17:16:00.000-07:00

    Last night, I went running with my friend Meg (we are training for a half-marathon; doesn't that make me sound so fit? I love saying it so much I've decided to actually follow through on it), and while she was tying her shoelaces she casually remarked on something or other, "I hate doing things twice. I would never go live in Scotland again because I would always be trying to recreate what it was like the last time I was there, and it would ruin all the nice memories I have."
    My truth-moment alarm bell sounded. Sometimes people just say things in the right way and it changes your whole experience of yourself.
     I am always trying to do things twice. I think I've tried to date every idiot I've ever dated twice. I re-read pretty much every book I read almost immediately. When I go to a restaurant, I order the same thing every time. (Oddly enough, though, I hate leftovers.) And in a vague sort of unplanned way, when I get up in the morning I seem to be intent on having a good day twice. I've never consciously thought about it, but when she said that, I realized that my conception of happiness is always sort of in the past, and that I'm always trying to kind of recreate a past happy day, instead of creating a brand new one.
Isn't that just the most awful thing you've ever heard?
Now that I've considered it, though, I don't think happiness is something that can ever happen to you again. Happiness, when you find yourself suddenly standing in it, is always something brand-new.
"But, Hilary," you might say. "What about that coffee shop you go to every single day? Doesn't that make you happy?"
Well, yes. But the thing that is making me happy is the singular, new conception of the extended experience: it makes me happy to go there every single day. The experience of reliability and order makes me happy.
      "Or, Hilary," you might say. "What about when you find that old t-shirt you used to wear in college, and it makes you really happy to see it again?"
      Touche, my friend. However, what's making you happy in that instance is, I believe, the new instance of remembering. You probably haven't thought of that shirt in ages, and you certainly haven't thought if it in the way you are thinking of it now, standing in your closet and remembering all the cool stuff you used to do in it. It's not the shirt that's bringing you joy; it's the remembering.
      So if happiness is always in new things, even a new routine, or a new conception of an old routine, getting up in the morning with the idea that some old day of happiness will just sort of happen over again is probably not the best method for finding it.
      It's like that totally underrated movie Groundhog's Day. That movie is really wonderfully profound (and man do I love me some Bill Murray. All of my favorite movies have Bill Murray in them (although Caddyshack is NOT one of them)). And here I am, still in that scene where he keeps going up to Andie McDowell at the bar and trying to recreate the perfect day with her over and over and over and it just gets increasingly more awkward and desperate.   I am constantly ordering sweet vermouth on the rocks with a twist. And nobody likes that drink.
The worst part is, I think I'm actually just terrified of being uncomfortable. I hate not knowing what I'm supposed to do. I dread going up to a counter in a coffee shop and not knowing the names of all their sizes. Things like that make me ridiculously anxious, because they make me feel like I stick out, and like everybody knows I'm a newbie, when really I just want to be that unobtrusive-writer-who-is-observing-everything-in-the-background. But that's totally ridiculous. No one is going to impale me if I don't order right at a restaurant, and if they do, it's probably part of the experience like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld.   And, really, when the sun is going to implode one day, who gives a sh*t how I order at a restaurant? But these things make me really, really anxious.
      And, apparently, they also prevent me from doing things to make me happy.
      I feel like it's going to take me at least a few days to fully comprehend how to change this attitude without adopting some kind of Gretchen-Rubin-like resolution to "Never Do Things Twice!!!!" with a double underline on a post-it note; but I'll keep you updated. Today I went to my favorite coffeeshop and sat in the way back room where I never sit and read more of Anna Karenina, which I have never read, so I guess that's a start.
It's all about the baby steps.

Step One Towards Complaining Less

2010-06-07T19:11:00.000-07:00

Things that I really enjoyed today:
-I had a pretty smart student, who at first came off as defensive, and a troublemaker, become really really engaged in my outreach because I took the time to pay attention to him and answer his questions. He even offered to help me clean up after the class was over!
-My coworker TBel came back from a vacation and we sat down and talked for a while; turns out he had been saving up that thing to talk to me about because he wanted to hear what I would say. Me. Specifically.
-I changed my sheets, which is Harry's favorite game ever: he likes to crawl under the fitted sheet and get trapped there while I make the bed and then find his way out. I think it's so funny.
-I couldn't decide whether I wanted a sub or sushi for lunch today. So I got both.
-I got to talk to my brother, and he wanted to talk to me about the things that were bothering me in depth, and he made me laugh so hard I cried at least twice.
-I found a blog I LOVE, and had enough time to go through the archives and read all of the posts (http://livewithflair.blogspot.com/). I think this woman's child is a Zen master.
-It hit 108 today. I totally was not prepared, because May was so nice. But this weekend was the first weekend it's been over 105 this year, which is amazing; and also that means that summer is officially here. And who doesn't like summer?
-I'm reading Anna Karenina simply because apparently one should read Anna Karenina, but to my delight, it has turned out to be a totally engaging and enjoyable read.

On Knowing When To Say, "I Can't."

2010-06-04T23:47:00.000-07:00

I'm one of those people who believes that, in general, there are very few things you can do which you will regret, and that the only things you will definitely regret are the things you don't do.
Sometimes, though, the thing you should do is quit, and the thing you don't do is to change the course you are already on.
About three months into my relationship with Ex-boyfriend #6, he decided he wanted to go to Germany for a year, during the following school year. Even though I really, really didn't like the idea, I did my best to try to be reasonable, and to find a way to make our relationship work, and to be understanding of his desires. I was supportive, and encouraging, and suggested having an open relationship while he was away, and invested a year of my time in a relationship I wasn't sure would make it, and put up with all kinds of conversations about how desperately he wanted to leave his current place and circumstances. What I did not do was to think about whether any of those things were okay with me.
And the only thing I have ever really regretted in my life is not stopping and saying, "I can't do this. I can't be supportive of you leaving me, I can't be in a relationship with someone who is nine thousand miles away without a more serious commitment than we have, and I can't figure out a way to make this work with what I want for myself."
And because I didn't admit to my reluctance and my pain, somehow our relationship dragged out for another year and a half, and it only ever got worse, and put the both of us through more pain than I think we would have had if we had ended it when he went away.
I swore I wouldn't ever do that again.

Right now I'm in the middle of a nasty situation with one of my best friends; the details aren't all that important, I don't think, and also I don't think I could relate them without a serious bias. Suffice it to say that I am very sad, and that we have not spoken in nearly two months, and that the fault regarding our lack of communication is equally mine.
And I feel obligated to try to be the best person I can be, and to be reasonable, and understanding, and forgiving, and to put as much effort as I can into a friendship that meant so much to me. I feel obligated to invite her to express her feelings, to ask her to criticize me and my behavior, to listen and refrain from judgment--
but that feeling of obligation in a number of ways seems to be hurting me more than the situation itself.
So I would like to take this moment to say, very publicly, "I can't do this."
Maybe it's just that the other circumstances in my life are making this harder than it should be; maybe I'm a little too proud for my own good. Maybe I am completely and totally wrong. Maybe I need to let go of my sense of self, and some of my requirements when it comes to friendship. Maybe I will regret not taking this step towards rebuilding a relationship.
But I can't.
It hurts, and I can't do it. I am not forgiving enough, or understanding enough, for this particular challenge. I can't put in effort when I don't know if it will be rewarded, and I can't be objective or reasonable. I am too small for this.
I tried, and I can't.

God, that feels good.

On the "Show, Don't Tell" Rule: You Just Showed Me You're An Idiot

2010-05-31T22:32:00.000-07:00

   There's a rule in writing called "show, don't tell." Typically this is construed to mean that an author shouldn't pull a Jane Austen and tell his readers that his character is demure and polite and good-looking; he should put them in an action sequence that demonstrates this. Hemingway was a badass at this: in "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," he never comes out and says that Francis Macomber was a coward. He doesn't even show him doing something cowardly; instead, what you hear is Francis' wife haranguing him about backing down from shooting a lion the day before. This way, not only do you know that Francis did something cowardly, you also get to find out what his wife thinks of that.
   Lately, I've come to believe this rule can be applied to almost all areas of a story, and not just to characterization. Basically the rule is one of physicality: the emotional terrain should be reflected in the physical setting (see "Hills Like White Elephants" and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance); the emotional states of the characters should be reflected in said characters' physical bodies (see Twilight); the overall message of the story should be reflected in the physical events (read: plot) of the story (see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest); the personalities of the characters should be reflected in the physical actions and speech of those characters (see any Hemingway story ever); and, even, the overall emotional resonance of the story should be reflected in the physical language with which it's told (see The Satanic Verses). And today, on the plane back from New York, I read a book that totally hammered this home in an appalling way: The Elegance of the Hedgehog.
   I liked this book a lot--until the last five pages, where it devolved into a big fat mess of contradicting its own message. That's painful to me. That's like meeting the man of your dreams, raising a family with him, and then finding out twelve years later he was a bigamist and was leading a double life the whole time.
   SPOILER ALERT.
   That said, you shouldn't worry about the fact that I'm going to spoil the ending, because the ending SUCKS and betrays everything you thought you knew about the intention of the novel. And the worst part is, I don't think the author did it on purpose.
   Bone to pick #1: I hate it when people who aren't geniuses try to write from the point of view of characters who are. Your characters can only be as smart as you are. If you are wondering whether or not you can pull this off, I'll tell you right now the answer is a big fat NO. Don't mention the level of intelligence of your characters. Just make them what they are; if they're geniuses, people will notice without you having to tell them. And let me just tell you, Ms. Barbery, nobody--f*cking NOBODY--sits down to read Kant for fun. I don't care how many clever schemes you have about eating plums, or whatever the hell that was about, Kant is a bitch to read no matter how smart you are. He doesn't have beautiful prose. He needed a g*ddamn editor, and he also needed to stop inventing terms like "the categorical imperative" when what he actually meant was "logically derived version of the golden rule." So however genius-y your character is, she still doesn't sit down to read Kant like it's this week's New York Times. Especially translated into French.
   Bone to pick # HOLY CRAP I HATED THIS ENDING:
   A large section of this book's space was dedicated to the contemplation of class values. I loved this about the book. This is something Americans don't think about enough, as a whole, and which deserves to be talked about, and all in all it was a great thematic message to write a book around. But basically, what happens is that this incredibly intelligent woman has been hiding her intelligence, and the education she provided to herself, for her whole life, because she equates education with the upper class, and because she learned a nasty lesson when she was younger that trying to be part of the upper class when you are not will get you killed, or at least circumstantially punished.
   But over the course of the book, this highly self-educated lower-class woman forms a friendship with a highly-educated upper-class man, who takes her out to dinner one night to inform her that her fate is of her own choosing, and that what happened a long time ago will not necessarily happen again.
   Then, the next day, she dies.
   Yes. We have just spent two hundred pages learning that the American Dream is a reality, that you can transcend what appears to be the fate of your upbringing through education and sheer willpower, and then our dear Muriel Barbery circumstantially punishes the woman with a brutal death-by-semi
              without realizing she just violated the entire premise of the novel.
   Honestly, I would have been fine with the idea, had I believed that the message of inevitability of class circumstance was really her message.
   I could have handled that.
   But then, the little rich thirteen-year-old genius who had also befriended our dear self-educated lower-class woman decides not to kill herself because, as she learns from the death of said self-educated lower-class woman, there are moments of permanent beauty within transience.
   WHAT?!!
   The woman just got beamed by a delivery truck after attempting to discard her lower-class value beliefs, and I'm expected to think that what the genius girl gains from this event is the knowledge that human beings actually can transcend both their limiting beliefs and their circumstances?
    Right.
    I think the genius thirteen-year-old might have noticed that, in fact, exactly what our lower-class woman believed (that you will be punished for class transgressions) came true. In which case, she probably would have offed herself.
   Reason number thirteen gazillion why your characters can't be smarter than you: you will end up writing what you want to happen, instead of what actually happened based on the physicality of your inventions. Once you set that ball rolling you will be racing to keep up.
So, in summation, folks: Show, don't tell, and I won't have to toss your book in the bin on the way out of the terminal.

Why I Used to Be Afraid of Flying, and I'm (Almost) Not Anymore

2010-05-31T06:22:00.000-07:00

Sometime during my freshman year of college I developed a nearly debilitating fear of flying. I would sit for entire flights in a cold sweat—any time there was the slightest bit of turbulence I would grip the seat handles and panic, and bad weather had me practically writhing on the floor in agony. I would sit, staring out the window, completely pale, for the entire length of a flight, wishing for it to be over. I couldn't read, or listen to music, because I was so panicked I couldn't focus enough to distract myself.

My mother is also terrified of flying, and she claims it's a control issue—that she can't handle a complete stranger being in charge of where she is going and how safely she gets there, and also that the claustrophobia of being confined in a small space with three hundred strangers was just too much to bear.

These reasons, while enlightening, didn't ever strike me as familiar. I played with all kinds of ideas trying to figure out where it had come from—general fear of death projected onto plane flights, other stressful emotions saved up until I could release them all at once, hypersensitivity to loud noises and motion. I even blamed it on ex-boyfriend #2, and general male rejection, since it had started during our relationship, and prior to that I had very much enjoyed flying.

Then I read Byron Katie's “Loving What Is,” in which she claims that all unhappiness is simply interpretation—that you can tell yourself whatever story you want, so why not tell yourself a happy one?—and directs people to isolate these negative thoughts, ask themselves four questions about them in order to determine the truthfulness of the thoughts, and finally to invert them.

So during a four-hour plane ride to Boston, with nothing else to do, or to distract me, I decided to try to figure out which thought it was that was making me so unhappy—and I found it.

The thought was, “I don't want to be here.” Clearly I did want to be there, because I was on the plane. I wanted to go wherever I was going, and I wanted to go there the fastest way possible, so clearly I wanted to be on the plane. So why did I think I didn't want to be there?

Now, I can list probably a hundred things that totally suck about flying. Security sucks, the food sucks, the interior decorating sucks, sitting for the whole length of the flight sucks, turbulence sucks, the fact that if something goes wrong you're totally f*cked sucks, the sitting next to complete strangers sucks, the recirculated air sucks, etc., etc., etc. Everyone complains about these things. No one likes flying.

But you know what doesn't suck? You are flying. The human mind, in all of its glory, has managed to invent and build a structure that can carry three hundred people or more through the air indefinitely—we, the infinitely awkward, fragile, unbalanced bipedal creatures that we are, can f*cking fly.

Then it occurred to me that the reason I'm afraid of flying is actually because I think flying is one of the most amazing things in the world.

Which sounds insane, until you put it in context.

I started to feel afraid of flying when I got to college, and started dating the atrocious men that I date. Which means that I started to feel afraid of flying when I began to feel afraid of what other people would think of me, when I began to worry about whether or not the things I wanted to do with my life were acceptable, or viable, or a variety of other things that don't matter. I started to feel afraid of flying when I started to feel afraid of expressing myself, for fear of rejection; when I realized that other people laugh at enthusiasm. I started to feel afraid of flying around the time I quit dancing. I started to feel afraid of flying when I realized that other people think flying is boring. My psyche was so insistent on the idea that it wasn't boring that it would rather put me in a panicked cold sweat for four hours than buckle under to the dullness of a universe where I could sleep through that kind of miracle.

So f*ck you, universe, and your newspapers, and your angry foot-tapping, and your glaring at your watches, and your bitching about the fact that it's going to take five hours to travel three thousand miles instead of the promised four, and your sleeping through something as incredible as flying—f*ck you and your sneering at the moments that are the most beautiful, your sarcastic comments about the treasures of others, and the way you don't make eye contact on the escalator. I like flying, and you can kiss my ass.

A Step-by-Step Guide to De-Stressing, Part III

2010-05-27T04:14:00.000-07:00

47. Wake up and realize you have to go home.
48. Feel your lungs tighten into a giant knot.
49. Enjoy the musical sounds of a puking cat.
50. Make crepes for Terribly Clever Friend and Neuroscientist Husband.
51. Pack.
52. Stop by Neuroscientist Husband's work to drop off keys to their apartment and become overwhelmed by the magnitude of how awesome his research is, because his lab is a) overlooking the bluffs right next to Torrey Pines, b) researching really cool stuff you can barely understand even though you have a college degree, c) one of the most beautifully symmetrical buildings you've ever seen, d) hosting a Chihuly exhibit.
53. Take Neuroscientist Husband's suggestion and walk down to the bluffs area, where you stand and stare at the ocean for nearly half an hour before conceding to the fact that you may have to go home and feed your cat.
54. Drive six hours back home and feel tension slowly creep back into your neck muscles with every mile.
55. Spend two days at home/work and then take a redeye flight to your hometown near Buffalo via Atlanta.
56. Feel the knot in your chest loosen immediately after takeoff.
57. Realize that it's about to be your birthday, that you have way too many grey hairs considering you've got six years left until thirty, you sure as sh*t needed a vacation, and maybe it's time to do a little reprioritizing--like, maybe, putting yourself first.
58. Watch sun create a color spectrum against the night sky as it comes up and wonder why you ever worry about anything.

A Step-by-Step Guide to De-stressing, cont'd

2010-05-24T18:40:00.001-07:00

26. Wake up at nine. Realize simultaneously that a) you are super well-rested and b) you don't pay nearly enough attention to your body, or the fact that your heart beats seventy times every minute to keep it alive, or in general the fact that it exists.
27. Stretch and get out of bed.
28. Realize you don't know how to use a french press and look up the nearest Starbucks.
29. Discover that the nearest Starbucks is, in fact, within walking distance.
30. Walk there.
31. Spend an entire forty-five minutes thinking about nothing except the fact that your body exists and is currently moving and drinking a delicious chai latte on a cloudy beachy kind of day.
32. Get back to apartment; greet Terribly Clever Friend as she rolls out of bed around ten-thirty.
33. Spend two or three hours talking to Terribly Clever Friend and finishing off the expensive cheeses and corn salsa from the day before.
34. Decide to go to beach.
35. Find decent parking by the Pacific Beach Library.
36. Stop in at an organic pet food shop that Terribly Clever Friend notices; listen to Super Cute Employee enumerate the virtues of ground turkey and non-Proctor-and-Gamble-produced pet foods for Terribly Clever Friend's hyper-allergic cat (note: hyper-allergic cat is, strangely enough, not the puking one).
37. Drag Terribly Clever Friend into a Buffalo Exchange and help her pick out new jeans; find an oversized sweatshirt with a Shakespeare quote on it that is a near-exact replica of the sweatshirt your dad let you wear during the family reunion at Lake Tahoe when you were three and is now sitting in your closet full of holes and paint stains, twenty years later; immediately buy said sweatshirt and do a mental heel-click even though Terribly Clever Friend is kind of grossed out by the fact that the Shakespearian image on the sweatshirt has had his eyes gouged out. Also purchase brown suede shoes with orange and red flowers stitched on them.
38. Go to the beach and sit there in your new sweatshirt and jeans because you are from Arizona and it is seventy degrees out, which we all know is, like, Antarctic; for once do not have a book on your hand and just sit there and look at what is going on around you; namely, clouds, and waves, and good-looking people throwing footballs and frisbees, and little kids falling into the freezing cold ocean and shrieking.
39. Take walk by yourself up and down the beach; convince Antarctically-acclimatized Terribly Clever Friend to go get burritos at La Playa Taco Shop.
40. Go back to Terribly Clever Friend's place, where her Neuroscientist Husband opens the door, because he is back from his neuroscientist gathering where they did skits making neuroscience-y jokes about their neuroscience professors and laughed. Neuroscientistically.
41. Take a shower and clog the drain. Do not realize until the next morning that you just didn't pull the shower switch hard enough and so there is water coming out of the bathtub faucet as well as the showerhead. Worry that you are a terrible houseguest who breaks everything.
42. Pick out outfit and put on awesome new shoes; say out loud that you are not sure if the shoes work with your shirt. Have Terribly Clever Friend tell you to go with your impulses. Realize that you have developed your self-control to a level that is entirely unnecessary just to expedite interactions with other humans who don't give a shit anyway, and change your shirt.
43. Go with Terribly Clever Friend and Neuroscientist Husband to their favorite bar, where everyone is dressed in kicky hats and fleece pullovers and there are tap handles hanging from the ceiling. Drink delicious beer and eat delicious cheese fries with jalapenos and fake bacon; talk them into buying ice cream and smoking hookah afterwards.
44. Have Terribly Sciency and Serious and Interesting Intellectual conversations over hookah and ice cream with Terribly Clever Friend and Neuroscientist Husband; contemplate moving to San Diego and smelling the ocean for rest of life. Wonder if a kicky hat is mandatory for California citizenship.
45. Realize that you managed to spend a whole day without actually knowing what time it was.
46. Rejoice, and go to bed.

To be continued.

A Step-by-Step Guide to De-stressing

2010-05-24T10:16:00.000-07:00

1. Leave immediately after work on Friday, whether or not you actually got everything done that you needed to. One day the sun is going to implode and no one will give a f*ck where you put that receipt. Unfortunately for you, it won't implode before Monday, so it might matter, but oh well.

2. Gold Bar is on the way to the freeway. Go get a dirty iced chai, size uber.

3. Buy an ipod hookup for your car so that you can finally listen to that Jakob Dylan album that he did with Neko Case.

4. Spend the next six hours working on increasing your vocal range.

5. Have your terribly clever friend send you a text saying, "Fair warning: I was trying to decide how presentable I should be and erred on the side of muumuu." Laugh hysterically and praise God that you have intelligent company to spend the weekend with.

6. Arrive at house and hug said Terribly Clever Friend.

7. Discover a wickedly spicy and delicious vegetarian black bean soup on the stove. Have Terribly Clever Friend put cheese on it, and then eat two bowls so that your eyes water.

8. Light your hookah.

9. Have Terribly Clever Friend continue to say terribly clever things until two in the morning. Begin feeling nominally like a human being.

10. Go to bed.

11. Wake up at eight-thirty to sound of cat puking on the desk.

12. Clean up cat puke, laugh delightedly because cleaning up cat puke can't possibly bother you when you can smell the ocean breeze coming through your window, and go back to bed until eleven-thirty.

13. Upon waking, discover that you slept through an earthquake, realize that you were super stressed out by the idea, and now it's funny.

13. Get dressed in most comfortable outfit ever and drive out to a vineyard.

14. Stop at Trader Joe's on the way and buy delicious corn salsa and expensive cheeses.

15. Sit outside at a picnic table and drink wine and eat delicious corn salsa and expensive cheeses. And strawberries.

16. Have Terribly Clever Friend continue to say terribly clever things; then go for a walk and let Terribly Clever Friend take interesting pictures of you and of the Belgian Draft Horses that the vineyard people are rehabilitating. Consider becoming a Belgian Draft Horse.

17. Take the scenic route back to Terribly Clever Friend's house and get dressed to go out to mustache/wig party.

18. Draw a moustache on your index finger in sharpie because you don't have an actual moustache.

19. Smoke hookah.

20. Drive with Terribly Clever Friend, who is wearing a long blonde Marilyn-Monroe-esque wig, to a hole-in-the-wall club to meet her coworkers for said mustache party, and laugh when they don't recognize her as a blonde.

21. Feel slightly uncomfortable because you realize you don't know anyone and also you haven't danced in about eight years.

22. Drink two cosmopolitans. Stop feeling uncomfortable.

23. Dance.

24. Leave club grinning stupidly, drenched in sweat, and walking slightly crooked.

25. Go back to bed.

To be continued.

Sorry, I Have to Vent

2010-05-20T19:00:00.001-07:00

So, I know that if I'm repeatedly getting personalized rejection letters from editors, with specific comments on what I'm doing right/wrong, then I'm very, very close to publication.
I know that the format these letters are taking ("Your dialogue is good, we love the characters, your style is good, you have a way with words, but...") is a good sign.
I know that it's really just a matter of making a few small corrections, or writing just one more story, or even just finding the right magazine.
I will even readily admit that some of the advice I've been given via rejection letter has been immensely helpful, and that I am grateful for it.
I know that every writer has to go through this; that On the Road was shopped around for seven years before someone agreed to publish it, and that one publisher actually had the balls to say, “Kerouac does have enormous talent of a very special kind. But this is not a well made novel, nor a saleable one nor even, I think, a good one. His frenetic and scrambling prose perfectly expresses the feverish travels, geographically and mentally, of the Beat Generation. But is that enough? I don’t think so.” (Article here).
I know that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected 121 times.
I also know that the reason I write is because it is a never-ending trip, that there is always somewhere else to go, and that even if I win like fourteen Nobel Prizes and the undying adoration of Oprah, I can always, always, always get better. I know that's what I love about it.
Really, I do know these things.

BUT I F*CKING HATE REJECTION LETTERS!!!!!!! OMG!!!!

SB 1070 Doesn't Suck As Much As You Think It Does; or, My Only Defense of Utilitarianism

2010-05-19T21:07:00.001-07:00

*Sigh*
I suppose it's time to tackle the whole "Arizona-passing-the-sh*ttiest-laws-ever" problem, seeing as how I am from Arizona, and have a blog, and bloggers are clearly the underestimated source of solutions to all the world's problems. Me being a blogger without a perfectly viable solution to war, famine, and racist bullsh*t would be like me being a philosophy major without a job.
Firstly, I'd like to correct one misconception that the other 49 states seem to have:
WE DID NOT VOTE FOR THIS.
The governor passed these stupid, stupid laws, and we did not even vote for our governor. Obama totally stole our kick-ass governor Janet Napolitano and made her director of Homeland Security, leaving us high and dry with only our non-college-graduate lieutenant governor Jan Brewer.
So technically, this is Obama's fault.
Not that I want him to get fired, or anything. I think he's okay. But he could, like, fix this. Or give us back our governor.

Secondly (Oh, God, I'm totally going to get skewered for this), this too shall pass. Yes, it sucks. Yes, our state tends towards the side of racist bigotry. Yes, if you inserted the word "black" everywhere that the term "illegal immigrant" appears, Jesse Jackson would be having Arizona's head for dinner. But I'm not totally convinced that these horrible, horrible laws are really a bad thing.
Because now our racism is out in the open.
Now people can talk about it. Now people have to defend it. Now these ridiculous laws that ban ethnic studies courses and give way too much power to law enforcement will have to go before the courts of law. I guess I just feel like it was way worse when we looked like an ideal state with a good handle on the melting pot and our Mexican border, but secretly we elected officials with a loose interpretation of the law and looked the other way as long as they were catching "illegals." Before last year, nobody knew that we practically have a caste system, and that anyone who even resembles a Mexican gets treated like a second-class citizen, because the disparity in income levels and education is enormous (side note: I really think this is actually a class issue, not a race issue; there's a reason that these laws went into effect while we're in a recession. But that's a post for a different day). But now that we've actually put this into law, all it's going to take is a couple of decent lawsuits and these suckers will get smacked down by any judge with a competent grasp of the United States' legal system.
Examples of lawsuits that should occur in order to incite said smackdown:
My friend, who is a native of the United States, but looks like he isn't, works for NASA and has some kind of ridiculous security clearance by the United States. Wouldn't it be awesome if he got pulled over in AZ and didn't have his papers on him (which, btw, is something I have beef about--it's not like I keep my freaking birth certificate on me, or my social security card. I don't have papers, because I'm a citizen. So how is this crap going to work? Anyway--) and then sued for racial discrimination and they decided that the law wasn't constitutional?
The ban on ethnic studies courses also applies to schools on Indian reservations. Wouldn't it be awesome if they sued because now they can't study their own history, and some judge decided that, after all we have taken from them, we probably shouldn't take their culture, too? Ethnic studies courses for schools on reservations are federally funded. I'm pretty sure the claim that it incites resentment against the government of the United States isn't going to hold up in court. Know what would really incite resentment? HIDING THE FACTS ABOUT HOW WE FOUNDED THIS COUNTRY AND THEN REFUSING TO ALLOW THE DESCENDANTS OF THE PEOPLE WE TOTALLY F*CKED TO LEARN THE TRUTH.
Openness and honesty are always superior to evasion and lies. This is why we have the First Amendment. This is why I think these laws might, in the long, run, not be the worst thing ever. Talking about things is important; owning up to prejudice and resentment are just as important as, if not more important than, giving lip service to rights and equality. This is the reason everyone wants to live here so badly, because we allow people to do that here! (Also, our flat screen TVs are pretty bangin'.) Seriously, people. Hasn't anybody read John Stuart Mill's On Liberty? (Oh, right, we have flat screens. I remember.) This reminds me of the time that my brother refused to say the pledge of allegiance, and his homeroom teacher took him out and tongue-lashed him for not paying respect to people who died for his freedoms. My brother, already a rhetorical genius at the age of fifteen, responded with, "I'm pretty sure they died so I don't have to say the pledge of allegiance if I don't want to." (Seriously, I've never understood that argument. "People died to protect your freedom, so please don't use it. It's rude.")
So, go ahead, boycott us. I think that's awesome! That's exactly what you should do, what you have the right to do. And we're going to go ahead and be racist pricks, because we can, until the justice system points out that we're not exactly in line with constitutional principles of equality and innocence until proven guilty and freedom of speech and freedom from discrimination based on things like race or religion or, you know, just the fact that you're poor. At which point we will fix our deviant ways and get with the equality.
Lastly, can I just say that anybody who wants to walk across the f*cking desert in the middle of July with no water and no shade just to get to the United States where they can work a sh*tty job for ten hours a day, seven days a week, should probably be allowed to stay here? I mean, I thought we valued hard work and rugged individualism, here. Let's cut these kids a break.

The Problem of Assumption

2010-05-06T16:28:00.001-07:00

One thing I like to talk about with my kiddos when I'm out on an outreach is the problem of induction. To be fair, typically these kids are in like fourth or fifth grade, so I don't call it that, but when I talk about the scientific method I also talk about the fallibility of science as a method for knowledge. Usually, I say it like this:
"If you ask ten people what their favorite ice cream is, and all ten of them say 'vanilla,' is it safe to claim that one hundred percent of people like vanilla ice cream the best?"
"No," they usually chorus.
"What if you ask a hundred thousand people, and they all say they like vanilla? Is that better?"
"Yes," they usually chorus.
"Now here's the problem," I usually say. "Can you say that all people like vanilla ice cream the best?"
There is usually some disagreement about this.
"Is there a chance that there is one person in the world who doesn't like vanilla ice cream?"
"Oh," they usually say. "Yes."
"Now," I usually say, and rub my hands together gleefully, unless I have a white chocolate mocha from Starbucks, in which case I usually pause significantly and sip from it. "What if you test everyone in the world, and every single person says they like vanilla ice cream the best? Is it safe to say it then?"
Usually, some kids have caught on and say no, but usually they mostly say, "Yes."
"Is there a chance that you have made a mistake, and you wrote an answer down wrong?"
"Yes," they admit.
"Is there a chance that someday, someone will be born who likes chocolate ice cream better?"
"Yes."
"So can you ever know anything one hundred percent for sure?"
"No," they say.
"Does that freak you out at all?"
They usually think about this, and one of them usually says, "A little bit."

It is kind of unsettling, epistemologically speaking. But today I realized that the ability to admit that there is always a chance I could be wrong is possibly the most valuable skill I have gained.
Trusting myself, and my feelings, can sometimes be a good thing, but not always. Taking the time to think about myself and my feelings, and to evaluate them with the possibility in mind that I could be wrong is a good thing way more often, and rarely ever a bad thing.
For a long time, I think I went into most situations assuming I was wrong, which is way different. I think assuming yourself to be mistaken is a bad thing, because it discounts the possibility that other people can be wrong, or that your skills and knowledge are at least equal to, if not better than, other people's. If you are most often accurate in assuming you are wrong, you should probably take a year off and go work on your skill set with a talented shrink. Assuming you are wrong is jumping to conclusions (God, will we ever be able to reclaim that cliche from Office Space? I want it back). Admitting to the possibility that you could be wrong, and taking the time to explore that possibility, is leaving yourself open to all outcomes. It is the habit of never failing to question. It is good science.
But assuming you are wrong is deciding on an outcome beforehand, and it is just as bad as assuming you are right. It leaves no room for possibilities. In most human situations, where we are all as clueless and wind-tossed as the baby Perseus, it is not more likely that anybody is right, but it is very likely that somebody is wrong, and just as likely that it's you as someone else.
It's been good that I've learned to hold my own opinions and needs and skills in higher esteem; but I think lately I've been letting that go a little too far. I've been too judgmental, too sure of myself. And I think I need to go back to being a scientist, and remember to always reevaluate, however long it takes, and however painful it is to me to admit of the possibility of being mistaken. I need to remember to always ask the question.
Besides, I like cookies 'n' cream the best.

Love Stories, and the Hedonists Who Write Them

2010-05-06T16:28:00.000-07:00

I was rereading my previous post in order to check for grammar mistakes, and I got to the part where I was complaining about how Pride and Prejudice totally bores me and then offered possible replacements for The Moste Epic Love Story of All Time, when I realized that neither Persuasion or The Hero and the Crown really does it for me.
I really like Persuasion. It's very realistic. I think it's the best Jane Austen novel because the author manages to keep her nose out of her characters' business. But it's not something I ever want to have happen to me. I can't construct a daydream around the plotline of Persuasion.
Same with The Hero and the Crown. I do really like that one, also, and I adore the male lead, Tor, but the love story in The Hero and the Crown suffers from the same lack of attention as the love stories in most adventure novels; it is secondary to the hero or heroine's task, and so, again, it is not something I can construct a fantasy around.
"Okay," I thought, "So it's not Persuasion or The Hero and the Crown. What is it?" I stared at that stupid webpage for ten minutes and couldn't think of any.
I don't have a favorite love story.
I have hundreds of books in my apartment. I have re-read almost all of them multiple times. I read three or four books a week. I taught myself to read when I was three years old using books on tape. Stories are in my blood. I love stories possibly more than I love my family (no offense. It's really a coin-toss situation). The only thing I really want to do with the rest of my life is write stories so other people can love them, too. How is it that I cannot think of one single story that epitomizes how I feel about romantic relationships?
Twilight was good. It was a fairly impressive story. But I wouldn't want to spend the rest of eternity liplocked with either Jacob or Edward. (I'm totally on team Jacob, since he actually has a sense of humor, but still. Not really doin it for me.) Nor would being a vampire be all that awesome. Or living in Forks, Washington. I'm from Buffalo; I've had enough precipitation.
I can think of characters I'm kind of in love with. Marcus Didius Falco, from Lindsey Davis's series about an informer in ancient Rome. He's pretty devastatingly loveable. Gregory House. Also right up my alley, blue eyes and all. But they are heroes in mystery stories, and women are secondary plotlines. I would like to be the plotline, in my epic love story. I would like to be the mystery.
The only love scene that repeatedly makes me grin stupidly is the one from Sense and Sensibility--the movie--where Edward (man, there's lots of Edwards in this romantic business, huh?), who has, throughout all the heartrending events of 18th-century-rich-people-land("Ohmigod! We have to move to a cottage! And we can only take two servants!"), stuck by the woman he had been secretly engaged to for four years, shows up to visit Elinor and tells her that his fiancee has rather conveniently fallen in love with his brother. He says, "I met Lucy when I was very young," and proceeds to declare his undying love for Elinor, who promptly hyperventilates after her year-and-a-half of holding it all inside and telling no one.
I like that scene.
It's not really like that in the book. Sense and Sensibility bores me, especially because Jane Austen is a master of telling and not showing, and skips over all the good stuff, like dialogue, or action, when getting into people's personal lives. Also because in the book Elinor is pretty sure that Edward does love her, but in the movie she has no idea; and finally because in the movie Edward's fiancee is kind of sweet and clueless, and in the book she's a conniving b*tch, but I think it's way more interesting if the other woman is also worth marrying, and the man picks the heroine instead anyway.
I can't think of another story quite like that one.
Maybe The Witch of Blackbird Pond. It's still not the main plotline, but it's a major one: the perfectly responsible but also frustrating and energetic Nat keeps showing up at all the right times, and when Kit realizes she's in love with him it's the middle of winter and she has to wait all spring before he sails back up the East Coast from Barbados. She starts going to the docks every day to see if he's there and when he finally shows up she hikes up her skirts and sprints down the dock before he even sees her.
I guess what I like are love stories with delayed reaction times. I like stories where someone has to sit on their passion for a year or so before they can do anything about it; not just before they realize it but before they find themselves in the circumstantial/social/geographic position to say anything at all. That's why the heroic tales are running a close second; I don't like the secondary importance of the love story, but I do like that circumstances keep them from even addressing the issue for pretty much the whole book. Why is that? Why is that interesting to me? Is that interesting to anyone else?
And don't try to tell me When Harry Met Sally counts under this category, because it doesn't. First of all, Billy Crystal is so not attractive, and secondly, it's not like they were both in love with each other and just had to wait to say so. It took them like seven years to even figure it out. Boring. Stupid people aren't sexy.
I think the Delayed Reaction Time Love Story is a very rare plotline, as well, so maybe that has something to do with what I like about it. I mean, of all the books I've ever read, I can only come up with two examples of this plotline, and one of them is kind of weak. Are there any books with plotlines like that that I'm totally missing? Turn me on to them, fast!

The Grass is Green on My Side, B*tches

2010-05-01T21:07:00.000-07:00

So, I'm going through one of those phases where I get to spend a lot of time by myself.
You know the kind--where most or all of your friends (Love you, Meg!) suddenly seem to think you have died, or perhaps just that you are a total bitch, or maybe even only that you are way super busy; when in fact you are at home sitting on your ass wishing your friends wanted to do stuff. The kind where you have absolutely no dates lined up, haven't had a decent one in months, and can see the rest of your sexual life as one long, dark, tunnel of gloom and crazy-cat-lady-ness. The kind where, when you call your grandmother to chat for the first time in a while, she doesn't answer or call you back, and your mother has to explain to you that she is down in Arkansas with your aunt doing lots of fun shopping and playing with her other grandkids. The kind where the aerospace engineer you are casually and carefully trying to date freaks out on you because you tried to explain the difference between inductive and deductive logic, tells you that science is infallible and you can go f*ck yourself, and you dump him on the spot and spend the next few weeks irrationally hating gross couple-y love songs. (Seriously, these things happen to me.)
At first this kind of bothered me. Okay, it bothered me a lot. Okay, it bothered me enough that I dropped the f-bomb on the phone with my mother when she tried to give me some advice and I thought she was talking about how all of my friends had disappeared.
Then--maybe it was yesterday, or the day before--I decided I was just going to like it. As an introvert, having a whole lot of time to myself isn't really that awful, and only two or three posts ago I was going on and on about not having enough time to do the things I want to do. I suppose that if I had chosen an area of my life from which to steal some time for myself, it wouldn't have been the "friendship" or the "dating" area, but hey, whatever. Beggars can't be choosers.
And this made me think about just how much we take for granted, all the time.
No one likes being miserable. I have been so grumpy for the past couple of weeks, when really I should be pretty happy that I finally got some time to myself, like I wanted. And there I was feeling crappy about getting exactly what I wished for! I always hated the book Bridget Jones' Diary for that exact reason: Bridget spends all of her terrifically witty English time bitching about not having a boyfriend, and then when she does all she does is complain about him, and then when he dumps her she goes back to bitching about not having one--and meanwhile, all of her friends who have relationships are crying about those. Don't they have anything else to worry about? Isn't there anything nice about having another person sleep in the same bed as you? Is it mandatory that they have to complete you fully as a person, in exactly the same way as Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice (also, I totally do not understand the obsession with that book. It bores me. Persuasion is so much better, but if we want to go with totally epic love stories, read The Hero and the Crown) did for Elizabeth? Can't everyone just be happy with the fact that someone loves them?
And, similarly, can't I just be happy with the fact that, for now, I don't have that, or the millions of obligations that go with it? No one else leaves his dirty dishes in my sink, or leaves the toilet seat up, or makes vaguely disparaging jokes about my cat, or the fact that I'm reading the Twilight series. I don't have to show up at anyone's house when they're having a bad day when all I want to do is take a bath and do some yoga. No one sends me their stupid essays on pro wrestling, and if they do, I can just delete them, instead of pretending to be impressed by their questionable mental prowess. I can go away for the weekend whenever I actually have a free weekend, and I can hang out with whoever I want. I can do whatever I want. Isn't that great? Won't I kind of miss this when I do have someone who leaves his socks everywhere? Won't that be what I'm complaining about then? God, let me never end up like Bridget Jones. I want to thoroughly enjoy being single, so that, when I am not, I can thoroughly enjoy that too, and not be kicking myself over not appreciating my freedom. Spare me from a midlife crisis.
My twenty-fourth birthday is coming up, and I can do whatever I want to celebrate it. I can fly home for the weekend, or stay in and read novels, or go out and have a beer with one of the friends I still have. If I want to have a Wiccan ceremony in my condominium's pool wearing nothing but a tea cozy, I can (at least until the cops show up). And now I have time to devote to all of those Things I Want To Do.
So here is day one of Appreciating What I Have When I Have It, Rather Than Later.
And, by the way, science is totally fallible. That's the motherf*cking point. Science can't "prove" anything, it can only gather evidence that supports a conclusion, and if you manage to find evidence that negates that same conclusion, you should probably correct your conclusion. Science is a method for learning, not a religion. And if you made it through four years of engineering without learning that, I fear for the future of our country.
God, I'm so glad I'm single.

Dear Stephenie Meyer: Here's What Really Happened

2010-04-23T22:13:00.000-07:00

I finally gave in and read the entire Twilight series.
Now, before I launch a defense of Stephenie Meyer's writing skillz, I would just like to say:
these things are POISONOUS.
It's because they're good, and because they resonate, but man, when I'm in the middle of one of those books, I can't stop thinking about it. I am, like, living in Twilight world, and it dredges up all kinds of things I thought I had managed to suppress. These books make every single man I know look like a snivelling, weaselly loser (Which may or may not be the case, but I somehow doubt that Twilight has given me real perspective on relationships). These books make me want nothing more than to sell my soul for love and Romeo. These books make my life look like it's backlit by fluorescent bulbs.
I really can't tell whether that's because I want Vampire Pattinson for all eternity, or simply because I am a big fat sucker for a good story.

People like Stephen King like to criticize Stephenie Meyer's writing abilities. But when was the last time you had to stay up until two in the morning to find out what the hell happens at the end of a Stephen King book? (Answer: never. Stephen King is the Charles Dickens of the 20th century: 500 pages of boring, boring descriptions of a decent 50-page plot.) So clearly she's doing something right.

Firstly, and technically, the woman is a master of POV decisions. Imagine the Twilight series written in third person. Imagine the Twilight series written from Edward's point of view. Massive suckfest.

Secondly, and most importantly, Stephenie Meyer absolutely kills the emotional truth of a seventeen-year-old's first experience with love, and she does it not only by an accurate portrayal of the relationship, but by what my creative writing instructor called "putting it in the body." Every emotion, every desire and denial and fear and worry is manifested in the physical bodies of the characters, so that even if you haven't had that particular experience or emotion, you have felt the physical effects. That's what makes it all so relatable.
And it's also what makes it so g*ddamn painful.

Up until the fourth book, in which there is, of course, a delightfully happy and satisfying ending, I could totally relate. I have felt that intensely for someone, and lost it all, and found solace in a second and better person who doesn't quite evoke the same sorts of emotions, and then I have rediscovered the first person and went through falling in love with him all over again. And in Twilight, not only do all these exciting things happen, but the roiling emotions are somehow sustainable, and have no illusions mixed in. And I hated every time I woke up from the reverie of those books to realize that I have to deal with real men, who have, like, issues, and flaws, and are sometimes kind of smelly in the morning.
The fourth book continued the delicious trend of pure fantasy, but it was also where she lost me, because she wrote what should have happened, instead of what did happen to all of her readers.

If this were real life, this is how the fourth book would go:
Bella, while getting ready for her upcoming nuptials, stops by to see Edward one day and discovers that, far from the perfect being she had originally accused him of being, he actually a) is cheating on her with some totally skanky, human-blood devouring vampire she-fiend; b) has a pretty serious gambling problem, c) has lied to her the whole time about being a vampire vegetarian and is slowly working his way through the neighboring town, d) is, like, so over this whole love thing and would way rather just "hang with the boys" and chase less demanding vampire trim for the rest of eternity.
She then goes and runs to (the far superior and much funnier) Jacob, who, it turns out, has either a) lied about not having imprinted and has actually imprinted on her, so he is perfectly and desperately in love with this girl who just got clotheslined by Edward and for the rest of their miserable lives he will love her uncomfortably more than she loves him, while she pines over the immortal Edward who is still doing whatever he immortally does, just absent her company; or b) has not lied about not having imprinted, which he will then proceed to do with someone else just as Bella is starting to get over the sparkly-skin dickitude of Edward and starting to fall in love with Jacob for real.
At which point Bella has to pick her own broken heart up off the ground, dust it off, and figure out where to put it until she can stand to look at it again.

I'm glad Stephenie Meyer violated the emotional truth of the fourth book to give me a happy ending. Really, I am. That's what stories are for. Happy endings. But it was still a bit of a shocker to be able to relate so well to the physicality and the raw emotion of the first three books, and then find out that, unlike you, this self-sacrificing b*tch gets to have an acne-free eternity with her first love, while you had to man up and get over it and create some sort of steel cage where your heart once lived.

Just sayin'.

Also, update: I finished the second of my stories about my hometown, but exercise has taken a backseat to working overtime at the moment. Desperately waiting for May!

Overcoming "Demand Resistance"

2010-04-11T14:21:00.000-07:00

There are two ways in which I have previously overcome demand resistance. I mean, clearly, I show up to work at the time required of me, and do what I am supposed to do; and when I was running seriously I got up at five-thirty every day, whether or not I wanted to, to run three miles. Both of these were things that are good for me, and that are necessary in order to turn me into someone I want to be: namely, a good employee, and a runner.

The first one is a little bit easier: however demand resistant I am, in order to have a job I have to show up on time and do it. And honestly, the fact that I really like my job is the main motivation there. I used to have a job I didn't like, and, while I showed up, I didn't exactly do awesome work. Sometimes I didn't do any. My job at the Science Center, however, is so much freaking fun that even if I'm having a totally crappy day, showing up to work puts me in a better mood. I enjoy it.
It also helps that the job is sort of on my own time. I mean, the schools are the ones who book the dates and time, but I have a calendar that shows my programs months in advance, and I have the right to cancel if everything I need to do my job well isn't supplied. I am solely in charge of how I present my material, and what needs to be done organizationally speaking. The job is flexible and the structure is designed to help me, the employee.
So, in situation 1, I enjoy the process of the work I do, including the details, and I am in charge of organizing my own time and my material.

Situation 2 is a little more interesting. The desire to get in shape can only get me to the gym for about three weeks at a time, and then I quit because it's boring and I hate feeling like I have to go. What got me running successfully was this:
At the time, I was going through a breakup with Ex-boyfriend #6, and I was also experiencing a bit of a depression. I was sleeping with my hands clenched in fists, and sometimes I would wake up to my alarm and start crying before I had even started my day. Feeling crappy about the way I looked wasn't going to get me to exercise--I felt crappy about everything, and the only thing it motivated me to do was to act like a bitch, and feel crappier.
I started running because it was the one thing I could do that made me feel better and made my brain shut up. For half an hour, I could go outside and look at the trees and the canal that ran past my apartment, and something about my body in motion made my brain keep going, too. Even if I had a sad thought, I was going too fast to hang on to it. Even if I woke up feeling bad enough to cry, all I had to do was put on my sneakers and I knew it would help, at least a little bit. And the endorphins definitely helped. I didn't run solely because of the results that would come from running--I ran because I liked running.
So, in situation 2, I learned to enjoy the process of exercising as well as the results, and it made me feel like I could control at least one thing, even if everything else totally sucked.

So, in order to overcome my demand resistance, I have to find a way to enjoy the process of whatever it is I'm doing, and find a way that it gives me some control over an area of my life.

Sometimes that's really hard. Sometimes running absolutely blows, and you make it halfway through your run before you start trying to suck wind only down your left bronchial tube because your right side has a cramp that makes you want to scream every time you breathe, and you curse the Chinese takeout you had the night before. Sometimes you have to stop and walk.
And sometimes, even at a job you love, your very first outreach by yourself requires you to walk cold into a classroom full of nothing but sixth- and seventh-grade girls--the very subset of the school-aged child population you would have given a kidney to avoid forever--and then go back for seven weeks straight while they catfight each other and stomp all over you and your liquid nitrogen demos. Sometimes you go home from work and eat a carton of cookie dough ice cream and turn on House until you forget your leper-souled existence.
But most of the time, running is exhilarating, especially in March in Phoenix in the mornings when the moon is still out and the cacti are blooming. And most of the time, there is nothing more fun than showing up to a classroom with a portable planetarium and telling some very excited children all about Perseus and Andromeda and how he defeated the sea monster using Medusa's severed head, and how all of it was preserved in the stars for us to remember forever. And most of the time is good enough for me.

That said, yesterday I wrote three more paragraphs of the hardest part of the story I'm working on, and I meditated for ten minutes before I went to bed. The paragraphs were pretty good; the meditation was atrocious, but, hey, sometimes it's like that.

Stuff I Want to Do: the Not-Project

2010-04-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

My last post got me thinking--it seemed sort of disembodied and I didn't really know why I posted it at all. Then I thought, I suppose I could actually make a plan to get some of those things accomplished. And I could probably track it on here to see how it goes, which would also mean I would keep my blog going without having to sit down and think about things too hard.

One of my favorite blogs is The Happiness Project, all about Gretchen Rubin's year (now more than a year, by far) of trying on happiness methods to see what worked. It's very useful, although she's a bit older than me and already has a lot of stuff figured out that she takes for granted: she has a family already, where I am living by myself and trying hard to meet people (here in Phoenix, which is apparently the most difficult city in which to meet people). She also has a successful writing career, while I am still struggling to get (any!) publishing credits, not to mention find time to write while I'm working two part-time jobs for non-profit pay.

BUT.
She knows what's up. A lot of the things on her blog were things that I have slowly been figuring out, but she managed to say them much more succinctly and hammer them into my head, like:
Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do in order to do the things you REALLY want to do; i.e., you have to take physics to get a biology degree, or you have to get knee surgery in order to continue running.
Also, happiness comes in small steps, not in big ones. After breaking up with Ex-boyfriend #6, my mantra was, "Hil, wash your face and brush your teeth," which was my reminder to myself to do the small things to take care of myself while I let time take on the big things. Kind of like that one saying, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step."

My other problem with Gretchen Rubin is she really, really likes resolutions. Every time I read her blog (which is every day) she's got a freaking new one. I don't even know how she keeps track of them, not to mention follows them, and to be frank, I HATE rules. I don't even like suggestions. Forcing me to do something is probably the fastest way to get me to a) hate you and b) never ever ever do whatever it is you want me to do again. When I was three I kicked my mom out of my room in the mornings and insisted on dressing myself, and I never looked back. I don't like being told what to do, even by me. It still takes me an hour to get dressed because I can't just decide what to wear and then wear it. I have to make sure it suits my mood that day.
So when sweet, lovely Gretchen suggested that everybody who reads her blog make their own happiness project this year, complete with resolutions in a particular concentration area for every single month, I thought, "Oh, that's a cool idea. For everyone else." And I never thought about it again.
Then, one day, Gretchen wrote a post on how, somewhere in the universe, there are people who don't like rules, and who might respond badly to the idea of being happier by making rules. I think she thinks we're sort of an alien race, or a mutated subset of the population, but at least she acknowledged us. (She used the term "demand resistant," which sounds fairly accurate.) But then I started thinking about it again.
There are things I want to do with my life, and sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do in order to do the things you really want to do.
Now, in order to do my own Happiness Project, which I will of course refuse to call a Happiness Project because that implies I have structure and/or rules, and a deadline, I am going to have to tiptoe around myself and somehow inspire myself to take the steps to do the things I really want to do without making any rules.
Oh, this should be great fun.

Seriously, Gretchen. I adore you, but the term Happiness Project just sounds so 7th-grade social studies. It makes me itch for recess. It makes it sound like we're all stuck inside, doggedly pursuing happiness, while outside the bees are buzzing and the sun is shining and the 8th-graders are playing dodgeball without us. It sounds like card stock and fluorescent lighting and dried-out Crayola markers.

I think, while I'm thinking up a less sterile name, I can pick a few things that I want to do this year, this year being the vague territory between now and, you know, sometime around the time I turn twenty-five. And I think I can handle breaking those big goals down into the small steps they require. I think I can do this without making any rules.

1. I would like to be less stressed. This means a few things: a) I would like to eat better. b) I would like to exercise more. c) I would like to have more time to myself. d) I would like to learn to organize my time so that I am only thinking about work when I'm at work.
2. I would like to get published. This means pretty much only one thing: a) I would like more time for writing. I don't need to make time for sending things out and researching literary magazines, because I will clearly do that while I'm procrastinating writing.
3. I would like to meet new people and do more new and fun things. But, in the spirit of someone who is "demand resistant," I hate clubs and organizations. I don't want to have to show up for a meeting every second Thursday of the month and have a book read by then. What if it's the second Thursday and I've worked a ten-hour day and I'm tired and all I want is a cup of tea and a different book? I don't think I could even put a bunch of random cool stuff in a jar and pick one whenever I have time, because what if I don't feel like doing that thing? So Thing I Want #3 needs only two things: 1) time in which to do more new and fun things and 2) the motivation to go find something new and fun (Gretchen calls this "letting the door shut behind you." She normally uses it to refer to exercising, saying that if you have your sneakers on and you shut the front door behind you, you will exercise, but I think it will work here.).
4. I want to spend more time with God. To do this, I would like to a) learn to meditate, b)read more books about what other people think of God, and c) possibly find an organization/person who can help me better than I can help myself.

So, in summation, I need: a) to eat better
b) to exercise more
c) to organize my work/leisure time more effectively
d) more time to myself
e) more time to write
f) more time to do fun stuff
g) more fun stuff to do
h)more time to practice meditation
i)more time to read books
j) a teacher
I'm seeing a pattern here.
Luckily, in about a month or so, I will be all done with the bird job (minus extra work that I'll be putting in voluntarily on the write-up), and I should only be working 25 hours a week at the other job. So I will have more time.
But I don't think I should just wait a month until I have more time--I've fallen into that trap before. When the hell else will you have the time to do the things you want to do, if not now?
In general, I think, if you aren't so excited about something that you make time for it even in a ridiculously busy schedule, then you don't actually want to do it, and maybe you shouldn't.
But I guess that's a problematic attitude when it comes to those things you don't want to do that you have to do in order to do the things you REALLY want to do. Like meditation. It does make me feel a little bit better, but I'm also atrocious at it, and it's so hard to do when I'm tired, and it's not always successful, and yada yada. Same with serious books. Serious books are just so serious. I really prefer fantasy novels. So how, when I am so "demand resistant," can I make time for those things, without rules?
Taking suggestions, and possible alternatives to the term Happiness Project

Things I Would Like to Spend My Life On

2010-04-08T12:20:00.001-07:00

1. I want to record an album. Just one would do, but I want some time in a real recording studio with a violinist and a drummer handy, and nobody else around unless I ask them to be.
2. I want to write a collection of short stories about my hometown. I have one finished and am halfway through another one, but I think a collection is at least seven.
3. I want to get some kind of degree in psychology/counseling and learn all about the ways in which gender affects the psyche
3.5 I'd like to then take my degree and spend a whole lot of time counseling people on the ways in which gender is affecting their psyches
4. Going to Iowa Writer's Workshop wouldn't suck. Or Breadloaf. Breadloaf would do.
5. I'd love to take a photography class and own a real cool camera
6. I want to see the Himalayas
7. I'd like to come to terms with my own mortality and learn how to meditate properly

On the "Rocky" Method of Dating

2010-04-01T00:18:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, I blocked ex-whosit number bazillion. Not with the middle school attempt at trying to get him to talk to me about why he's a douchebag by blocking him on AIM and then talking to all of his friends; I full-on blocked all methods of contact. I filtered my e-mail so his e-mails get sent directly to the trash; I de-friended and blocked him on pretty much every social networking tool available; I deleted his phone number and then went through and erased all calls and text messages to and from his phone, and then I sent him an e-mail telling him exactly why I was doing it and further instructions not to attempt to contact me for at least a year, and the addendum that after a year the only possible reason he could want to contact me would be nostalgia, which is "not worth the price of a long-distance phone call." (Yes, I said that. Isn't it terribly clever?)
The reason I did this was because, despite at least four conversations in which I literally begged him not to talk to me about other girls he was now seeing, he insisted on doing so. He did it very sneakily, using the method of pretending to talk to me about my life, mostly talking about his life, and then telling me how important I was to him and how much he really desperately needed my advice. I may be slow on the uptake, but after four conversations of this I finally caught on to the fact that he does not actually give a shit about me. These conversations almost always occurred immediately after he had been dumped by someone else, and almost always ended with him desperately trying to keep talking to me while I desperately was trying to end the conversation. And sometimes with me crying.
Today, however, I checked my e-mail's trash, because I have been waiting about three months to hear from some literary magazines, and I wanted to make sure they didn't accidentally get marked as spam, just in case. (I think this is a typical procrastination method for writers who are stuck at the pivotal scene that kind of freaking scares them to put on paper, but I could be wrong.) And in it was an e-mail from ex-whosit number bazillion. I probably should have deleted it permanently without reading it, but I used to be in love with the guy, so of course I opened it.
Now, clearly, my life is NOT an episode of Sex and the City. Peter likes to argue that it's really a lot more like an episode of Seinfeld, with me as Elaine Benes (hair included), and the rest of the world as the scary place that is Larry David's mind. So, of course, this was not some kind of love e-mail filled with poetic sentences about how perfect I am and how sorry he is and how much he has changed and never wants to live without me again.
No. Instead, this is what it contained:

Hilary,

I know you don't want to hear from me, but I couldn't resist. Hope you enjoy.

-[ex-whosit number bazillion]

What Fascinates Me About Professional Wrestling:

[rest of e-mail redacted to spare your sanity and also because I didn't read it; I totally stopped when I got to "professional wrestling" and then took a really long shower]

I am so not even kidding. This actually happened. He seriously broke the silence I imposed on him in an attempt to rescue my wounded heart from the depths of narcissistic amour in order to send me his random f*%$ing essay on professional wrestling.
I'm going to assume my readership is at least nominally garnered in the IQ department and skip ahead to the part where I am now very carefully and extremely casually dating an aerospace engineering student who takes me mini-golfing and offers to change the oil in my car.
CAN EVERYONE NOW UNDERSTAND WHY I HAVE RANDOM FREAKOUTS ABOUT TRYING TO DATE NEW PEOPLE? THIS KIND OF SHIT HAPPENS TO ME!!!!

I really, really don't ever want my past failures to affect my belief that one day I will be able to find someone who is not only nice but who might actually support me in most of the things I want for myself and maybe even give me an orgasm once in a while. But I really am beginning to feel like I am not ever going to win this fight, and lately I can't even come up with a reason why I should keep getting back up after I get knocked down. I have stories that can totally top this one, like the one about genius ex-boyfriend number two and his coke habit that I didn't know about, or the one about ex-boyfriend number three and the time he killed a rabbit at the golf course and ate it raw (yes, really). Or what about ex-whosit number bazillion and two, and how we hung out regularly, just as friends, for six months, and then one beautiful December evening he asked me to stop seeing other guys, spent the night at my house, and then never talked to me ever again?
But I don't want any more stories about narcissistic bunny-killing yeo-licking soul-destroying men who really could have been something but, you know, weren't. I just want someone to hang out with on Friday nights. But lately even thinking about something as simple as that is enough to make me curl up in bed and suck my thumb. How many times do I have to get back up before they at least ring the goddamn bell?

I Like Lists

2010-03-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

Ways in Which I Wish My Life Were More Structured:
1. I wish I had an actual weekend. Not the kind where I have to sometimes work on Saturdays, but only when marketing wants us to do a liquid nitrogen demo at the Ostrich Festival; or where it's a last minute accidental weekend because it's raining, but I still have to call my boss and tell her it's raining and discuss rescheduling, and it stresses me out more because then I just have more crap to do. I wish I had the kind of weekends where I could, like, plan stuff. Or sleep in. Today I actually contemplated officially joining some religion so I could practice a Sabbath.
2. I wish I got 7+ hours of sleep every night. But sometimes I start work at five-thirty in the morning, and other times I start work at five-thirty at night. My circadian rhythms are f&%$ed.
3. I wish I could go hiking 4 days a week. Lately it's been only one or two. I wish this was scheduled. I wish I could go in to my work's Google Calendar and block off two hours from 7-9 a.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and write HILARY NOT AVAILABLE, BUSY PREVENTING HEART DISEASE. Alas, this doesn't fly in nonprofit work. Which seems really weird to me.
4. I wish I could stick to my budget. Specifically, I wish I had stuck to a budget for the last five years and now had a savings account that I could drop on vacations and car repairs. Or maybe a house.
5. I wish I made the time to write for an hour or two every day.
6. That's pretty much it, but while I'm wishing, I wish I lived in Norway and had six weeks of paid vacation. And that Norway looked like Arizona.

Ways in Which I Wish My Life Were Less Structured:
1. I wish I had some screwdriver buddies. These are the guys you would never ever even think of calling if your car broke down on the highway at one a.m., but you always think of calling them when it's Friday and you just found a bottle of tequila hiding in the back of your freezer. These are the kids with at least one MIP, a pickup truck, and no filter on their offensive-joke thought-to-mouth pathway.
2. I wish I could randomly find myself with three-hour chunks of nothing to do except sit at home and read the new Robert Jordan (which, incidentally, since he's dead, was written by someone else, who happens to be a better writer (don't kill me!!) and managed to write an entire book while eschewing the word "cleavage").
3. I wish my job were a lot more like college classes where it didn't really matter if you showed up every single time as long as you, you know, got your shit done.
4. I wish I didn't have a dress code. As sexy as khakis and a polo are, it's frustrating when I show up in civvies at work parties and people don't recognize me.

Hmm, that list was shorter than I thought it would be.

Ways in Which My Life is Totally More Awesome Than it Was at This Time Last Year:
1. I LOVE MY JOBS
2. I stopped lying to myself and finally dyed my hair so that I'm not grey at 23. I had at least five of my ex-boyfriends tell me how awesome I'd look with grey hair, but I don't feel very awesome with grey hair, and anyway, you're exes. That means you're automatically idiots. I look more awesome with pretty shiny brown hair. (Thanks, Meg)
3. My apartment is all mine. (Roomies, I loved you, but I love you more from my one-bedroom apartment.)
4. I can now recognize the symptoms of myself under stress and put a stop to it before I turn back into a raging selfish crying tense pile of bitch.
5. Peter and I are speaking.
6. My new awesome INFJ best friend, K.R., who, like, gets it.

Things That Still Kind of Suck:
1. I still haven't been published
2. Dwyer is in Mongolia.
3. I still trip over everything.

The Wicked Awesome Norwegian-Speaking Parrot

2010-03-20T08:48:00.000-07:00

Update: The wicked awesome Norwegian-speaking parrot totally started nodding his head in rhythm to "Two More Bottles of Wine" by Emmylou Harris. I freaking love this bird.

John Mayer Is an Idiot, For Other-Than-Obvious Reasons

2010-03-10T18:13:00.001-08:00

I like John Mayer, and I think he's very talented and that he makes good musical decisions. And I also think that people should lay off him for having the same sense of humor as any immature twenty-something idiot kid. If Family Guy had made any of the same jokes that John Mayer had, everyone would be talking about how funny the last episode was. Blah blah blah all you want about how as a celebrity he needs to set an example, but John Mayer is the epitome of twenty-something male culture, lack of discretion and all. John Mayer's not necessarily a big fat jerk, our culture just encourages jerkism.
But today I was listening to his song Heartbreak Warfare, and, man, John Mayer is such an immature twenty-something idiot kid.

Lyric excerpt one: "If you want more love/why don't you say so."
Right. Chicks totally do that all the time, and it totally goes well:
Girl: "Honey, I really need you to love me more."
Guy: Pulls flowers out of his ass. "Baby, I was just waiting for you to say so."
You can't straight up ask for more love! What does that even mean?! It's hard enough trying to ask for different expressions of love. For example, even saying something as simple as, "Hey, sweetheart, I know that when you buy me all this shit I don't need, you're really trying to tell me you love me, but is there any way you can just give me some backrubs instead?" tends to cause a lot of conflict. Is it really going to go over that well with you, John Mayer, when your girlfriend comes to you and says, "Hey, I don't think I'm really getting enough love here. Can I have some more?"
But I like this whole "I'm sensitive and take criticism well" angle. Let's see where this goes.

Lyric excerpt two: "How come the only way to know how high you get me/is to see how far I fall?"
Hmm. Toughie. I'm gonna guess it's because you never show it at any other time. This is just a shot in the dark, but if your girlfriend has been reduced to making you jealous in order to prove your affection for her, I'll bet that you've stopped even slapping her ass when she walks out of the shower naked-- forget about things like telling her how high she gets you, or how much you love her, or, you know, doing nice things for her. Like, as much as it sucks that when you're an idiot kid who never manages to adequately express your emotions to the person you love best (except months later on a multiplatinum record that she won't be able to stand listening to) your girlfriend tends to make you jealous to pry these emotions out of you, well, unfortunately, that's the most effective way to go about these things, because you're just an idiot kid who can't express himself. Heartbreak warfare, indeed. More like crowbar on a rusty tin can.

That said, it's a good song, and I really dig the guitar solo.

Laws of Ecology Research

2010-03-09T14:38:00.000-08:00

Ground zero: Duct tape is your friend. Buy a holster.
1. Basically, no matter what contingency you plan for, something else will go wrong.
If you string your irrigation lines thirty feet above a wash so that the summer monsoons won't destroy them, coyotes will chew on them.
2. No matter what contingency you plan for, it will go wrong anyway.
Even if you string your irrigation lines thirty feet above a wash so that the summer monsoons won't destroy them, you will still find them a hundred yards down river entangled in an uprooted tree the day after the first monsoon.
3. You will never have enough money to do what you actually need to do.
Five full-time undergrads and three brand new computers to record your data and run statistical analyses? Hahahahahaha, you're cute. Come back when you've been published in Science.
4. You won't need at least half of what you buy in advance.
$2700 worth of soil monitoring equipment? Useless, unless you have five full-time undergrads to refill the ionized solution at sites sixty miles apart every single day (see rule #3).
5. You will need at least twice as much money for unplanned expenses as you think you do.
Your ecobus lands on chance. "Due to the ceaseless chewing on your irrigation lines by coyotes, you have to encase all of your lines in PVC pipes and pay some undergrads to bury them all below ground. In the desert. In the summer." F*$%. Maybe you can pay them in beer.
6. You will fall headfirst into a cholla at least once. If you don't, you are the one who has to do the data analysis.
Seriously, I still have the scars.
7. If there are any computers involved, they will crash at least once.
I think this one is self-explanatory.
8. When all of your results are in, and you've paid out of your own pocket to recover the data from your sad, sad wreck of a hard drive, your committee will be sure to ask you why you didn't control for the effect of the temperature change on the water caused when you buried your irrigation lines.
But...the beer...!

Zeus Was a PIMP

2010-03-01T21:06:00.000-08:00

Occasionally I feel like the entire human condition can be reduced to the habit we have of folding laundry, only to wear it and get it dirty again.

Today I had an outreach training session with T-Bel, and we drove out to Happy Valley Road, which is as lovely as it sounds, to take our portable planetarium into the seventh grade classroom at a K-8 school.

I was reviewing the phases of a star out loud, and there was some really lovely desert mountain landscape drifting by the window, and T-Bel chose that moment to inform me that while, at the moment, our yellow sun was happily converting hydrogen into helium, eventually it would work its way down the table of elements and produce iron, and turn into a brown dwarf, but that at that point it would have grown so large that its outer edge would be where Mars is now.

I had a small panic attack. “Sorry,” I said, clutching at my collarbone like I do when I'm feeling uncomfortable. “That seriously freaks me out.”

“It's okay,” T-Bel said, “at that point we'll have been dead for billions of years, and there won't be any life on this planet anyway.”

I looked out the window and horribly imagined the toxic methane extinction of all of my beautiful desert plants, and the crumbling of the Earth's tectonic plates into flaming iron dust, my own bones having long been fossilized and destroyed, and a complete lack of culture, human or otherwise, to remember and cherish what is probably not even going to be any major contribution to society of mine, realized that it wasn't really my imagination but that it was actually going to happen someday, and that the only thing I could do about it was to go about my life and sit through four hours worth of explaining Greek mythology to seventh-graders while wearing a blue polo and khakis. Then I had a large panic attack. (Like, not only will this be gone, this will be gone, too!)

This isn't an unusual experience for me, by any means. Probably once every couple months or so, particularly when I am very tired and just getting into bed, I start drowning in the realization that I am going to die one day and that my whole life, in the scope of things, will have been completely insignificant. I mean, when the universe is infinite, and space is so large that we can't even see into the next galaxy with any kind of accuracy, the idea that I really need to get my finances in order suddenly seems pretty f*#&ing dumb. Even my big dream of being a writer and managing to create something that reaches out to other people on an emotional level is only a very small comfort against the idea that the sun will one day implode, and no one will be there to notice. Much less read my novel.

Does anyone else ever have panic attacks about this?

Why am I forced to breathe in and out of a paper bag when thinking about this, while T-Bel can somehow make jokes like, “Well, hopefully by then we'll have figured out how to travel to other planets, or else they'll have legalized euthanasia.” Am I a freak? Why is everyone else just happy to do their laundry?

This particular panic attack took a while to subside. Most of the time I can suppress my abject fear of dying in insignificance by making a to-do list incorporating all of the stupid forms I have to take into the payroll office and the clothing items I should donate to Goodwill, but today when I tried to do that all I could think was, “This is so stupid! The sun is going to implode, and here I am trying to inflict order on my universe with a laundry list. THERE IS NO ORDER!! ALL IS CHAOS!!! IT'S NOT FUNNY!!!!”

And I'm laughing at myself now, but this seriously scares me.

So suppression wasn't about to get me through my day, because things like doing my job and washing my car and even having mind-blowing sex on the stove with whosit number bazillion-and-one were not even close to being reasons to keep on living in the face of entropy and Neptune's liquid nitrogen lakes boiling away next to a toxic supernova that used to be our lovely sun.

But then I thought, "Well, what else is there to do?"

This is what my life is. I am small, and relatively powerless, and human, and I get paid to tell seventh-graders about the exploits of Zeus and his mortal lovers, and I do my laundry so that I can have clean clothes the next day, and that is what I am supposed to do. I remembered a quote from one of my favorite children's books*: “Making food, eating food, clearing the things away afterward—this is what life is about.” And it is. You eat your grandmother's chicken soup, and you fall in love with all the wrong people, and you sometimes spill your seed trays all over the front seat of your car, and you travel to all the places you always wanted to go, and when they die you bury your pets with little brick headstones in some semblance of trying to make something permanent to say, “Hey, I was here, and so was Harry, and he used to fall asleep on my sternum,” and, by God, you fold your laundry just so you can get it dirty again the next day. If I could somehow force the sun to keep burning, I would, but I can't. So I fold my laundry.

I think I'm okay with that.

*Wise Child, by Monica Furlong. Epic!

No...not Harry!

2010-02-26T19:08:00.001-08:00

Evolution is the pits.

My Friends Got Me Roses for Valentine's Day. What Did You Do?

2010-02-24T16:05:00.001-08:00

Today it occurred to me that love requires structure and rules.
Maybe this is really obvious to most of you, but let me just reiterate that throughout my last major relationship I referred to the guy as "whosit number bazillion." I have issues.

Ex-boyfriend #6's parents had this dog, a 90-lb. American Bulldog named Elvis. I hated Elvis. I complained about Elvis incessantly. He used to jump on me whenever I walked in the door, shove his slobbery face in between my legs at the dinner table, jump on top of me whenever I went swimming in their pool, and bark at me incessantly. Once Ex-boyfriend #6's dad took Elvis alongside for a bike ride, and when Elvis saw the next-door neighbor's dog in the yard, he knocked the bike over and launched all 90 lbs. of solid bulldog muscle right at the poor little terrier. Ex-boyfriend #6's dad then yelled at the neighbor for not keeping the terrier on a leash.
I hated Elvis.
But the question I asked myself today was this: Did I really hate Elvis, or did I just hate the fact that he had no rules? How could I blame a dog for doing whatever he wants when there are no rules? And in the same way, how can I blame men for treating me however they want to when I have provided no rules, and no consequences for breaking them? And of course men have more control over their own actions than dogs do, but the idea is the same.

So here are my rules:
1. No sex for the first month. I don't really like this one myself, but there seems to be no way around it—it's a basic respect necessity. If I'm not worth waiting a month, it's over.
2. If you don't call me when you say you're going to, it's over.
3. If you give me a big lecture on commercialism and misogyny when I mention Valentine's Day, but you still use the words "whore" and "fag" casually and buy video games as soon as they come out, it's over. I want flowers. Get your damn wallet out. (Side note: I do reciprocate on Valentine's Day. This is my favorite holiday, and it's a personal thing, and I give presents to all the people I love that day, including my friends and family, so if I explain how important it is to me personally and you still can't be bothered, well, I hope you enjoy lying on your deathbed alone.)
4. I need alone time, and one-on-one time with my friends who aren't you.
5. I would like you to come with me occasionally to do the things I like to do, even if you don't want to do them. Not always, just sometimes.
6. If you're not nice to my cat, it's over. I have made a lifelong commitment to my cat. Have you made one with me? No? Then be nice or get the f*&% out.
7. Clean up after yourself in my place. Put your dishes in the sink or the dishwasher. Don't leave food wrappers around. Hang your towel back up. I'm not your mother, and she probably wouldn't put up with that crap either.
8. We go dutch on everything. If you insist, I will object twice and then I will let you pay. But then it's a gift and I don't owe you a damn thing.
9. I would like to go out on dates. Dates do not involve hanging out at your house or your friend's house watching you play video games/smoke pot/get wasted/watch TV.
10. If you don't like to read books or at least newspapers or magazines, please go away and don't come back until you're literate.
11. I like presents. They don't have to cost money, but they do have to involve you thinking about me. Do my dishes before I get home. Leave a cute note on my car. Offer to help me take my cat to the vet. Make my life easier and more enjoyable because you're in it.
12. I'm not living with you unless we're married. Until I can check the “married” box on my tax forms, I'm still single. In which case, my money is mine, my apartment is mine, my car is mine, my cat is mine, and my life is mine. And I can pay for all of it. If you can't, call your parents.
13. Slowness, in all applicable areas, is appreciated.
14. When you're talking to your friends, you're not “f*cking” or “banging” or "screwing" me. You're having sex with me. Get it right. I suppose “doing” is acceptable, but just barely.
15. If you ever non-jokingly insinuate that my intelligence is subpar, it's over.
16. And you won't even get as far as buying me a drink if it becomes apparent that you haven't thought seriously about gender roles and women's rights. You want to play stereotypes? You're a sexist, horny slob and you better run to the ATM so you can take care of my tab when I walk away.
17. Two words: birth control.
18. If you can't figure out how to make me come, ask. If you can't figure it out and you don't ask, it's over.
19. If we are in a serious relationship, the things which are allowed to take precedence over me are: your own well-being and happiness, God, and your family. I make allowances for emergencies with friends, work, and pets. If you are always having an emergency, it's over.
20. If you are not interested in getting married, then I am always going to be looking for someone else who is. Game over.

Adventures in Bird Research: Episode Suck

2010-02-21T14:12:00.000-08:00

So this week I had to turn my paperwork in for the bird job in order to start getting paid.
I got a very abrupt e-mail from the (I'm sure very busy and hassled) HR lady in the department with the forms and instructions to turn them in as soon as possible, and preferably that day or the next. I would just like to point out that she sent the e-mail at three o'clock on a Thursday.

But whatever. I figured I'd turn them in the next week, because I was fairly busy training at my other job.

Monday rolls around and the (I'm sure very busy and hassled) HR lady sends me an e-mail saying only, "I just found out you haven't turned in your forms yet."

Have I mentioned I haven't had a day off in going on four weeks?

But I write a fairly polite e-mail back saying, "I'm sorry, I'm transitioning between two other jobs right now and I'll get them to you at the latest by tomorrow afternoon." But I plug my printer into my computer and start printing the forms out. And nothing happens. I spend fifteen minutes trying to get my computer to recognize that my printer exists to no avail.

"That's cool," I thought. "I can print it out at work tomorrow." I was kind of in a hurry because I had to go feed a Norwegian-speaking blue macaw, who promptly pooped on the rug as soon as I let him out of the cage. Unfortunately I don't know the Norwegian word for, "SERIOUSLY?!"

So at work I try to print it out, only to discover that the printer is out of ink. The Science Center is a nonprofit organization, and if you've ever worked for one of those you know that when you're out of ink it probably won't be reordered until the next business quarter. So I e-mailed the (I'm sure very busy and hassled) HR lady to say, "Sorry, I'm having trouble getting access to a working printer, but as soon as I do, I'll get you the forms."

She replied, "You can fax me this form but make sure the other form gets delivered in person."

To which I almost replied, "Yes, I wasn't illiterate the first time you sent me an e-mail," but restrained myself.

So finally S., my terribly nice grad student boss, offered to print the forms out for me, and so I filled them out and took them in to the payroll office, where they charge for parking and where the payment station doesn't accept anything except exact change, or payment for less than an hour of parking. I spent five minutes trying to force-feed a five-dollar bill to the machine for a one-dollar charge, then gave up and went back to my car and dug out some loose change. When I finally made it inside, a stern-looking lady with a mustache asked me, "Are you a rehire or a new employee?"
"A rehire," I responded politely, looking at her eyes and not her mustache.
"Has it been over a year since you worked for us?"
"Yes." I couldn't help it. I looked at it.
"Well, you'll have to fill out the entire new employee packet instead. Was it someone in the department who gave you this form?"
"I have no idea."
Mustache lady glared at me. "Sometimes they have no idea what they're doing."
"Well," I said, looking at her eyes again, "I really don't have time to fill out the whole packet here today, so I'll bring it back tomorrow."

Which I did. Filled it out and brought it back the next day, and paid another dollar for parking. Turns out it wasn't that the machine didn't accept exact change--it didn't accept bills. Even in the slot that was made to accept bills. I had come prepared for this, however, and had replenished my supply of quarters in my car.
This time when I went in, a very friendly young college student was working the desk. "Can I help you?" she said.
"Yes, I just wanted to turn in my new employee packet and do my identity verification."
"Do you have an appointment?" she asked. Nicely.
I looked around at the empty waiting room. A tumbleweed rolled creakily past the entrance. "No," I said finally. "Can I make an appointment?"
"How about two o'clock tomorrow?" she asked.
"That sounds fantastic," I croaked.

The next day I went back at two o'clock for my appointment and walked in to find a completely different lady sitting at the desk.
"Hi!" she said brightly. "Can I help you?"
"Yes, I had an appointment at two for an identity verification."
She looked confused.
"I'm just turning in my new employee packet and I brought my passport to do my I-9," I added, waving the packet at her.
"Oh," she said. "Well, you don't need an appointment for that. We can just do that right now."
"Great!" I said, an octave higher than I meant to.
"You must have come in yesterday when we were having our meeting and the girl from next door covered the desk," she said.
Evidently.

Briefly, I'd also like to mention that, because I am employed by ASU, I'm technically employed by the State of Arizona, and so I had to sign the "Loyalty Oath," on pain of them withholding any monies or compensation for my services:

I, ______, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of Arizona, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and defend them against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of the office of ______________ according to the best of my ability, so help me God (or so I do affirm). (w.hr.arizona.edu/03_hire/forms/loyaltyoath.pdf)

I'm researching bird foraging. In that little space to list which office you will defend from all enemies foreign and domestic, I had to put "part-time lab tech." This isn't f*%&ing NASA, here, people. This isn't even park service at a national monument. These birds don't even have avian flu. I really don't think I'm going to have much opportunity to be putting myself between a bullet and the Constitution, if you know what I mean. Untangling extension cords, yes. Putting out trays filled with birdseed, check. Sometimes I might get to stop off at Starbucks for a white chocolate mocha. Not so much on the uncovering evil plots by foreign dictators, though. That's all I'm saying.