scratching the surface

I don’t think I was drunk, but I could not have been sober. I keep waiting for all of the memories to come back, but they don’t. Instead I have to reach for them, screw my eyes tight and really reach, and I never do.

I met a bartender that in my past life was a busboy, and he says things that made me dig deep within myself to find my corresponding stories. Did I remember the bartender with the kids, the line cook with the lisp, the one with long hair that is at a new restaurant, that time he had a seizure in the kitchen and woke up with Mickey holding him. Mickey...which one was Mickey, oh he was the nice one, the tall one.

I don’t remember being drunk, but I hate being drunk. I get tipsy so easy so I even try to avoid that. But there was always beer, and harder, in styrofoam cups. For a while there was always red bull and vodka, so much red bull and vodka, the thought of which makes me want to puke, so I must have, once. Right?

Do I not remember, or did these things not happen?

Now on my way to pick up Lena I drive by restaurants that we used to have friends at. The owners have changed and I wonder if the bars are the same, remember the time we took a bottle of tequila and drove off. Remember the laughing, filling our styrofoam cups with margaritas, drive away, laughing.

I couldn’t have been sober, so I must have been drunk.

***

Lena has been gone one day, and my days are empty, without structure, without purpose.

Was this my life before her?

This is not to say that people without kids have no purpose, but I have found so much purpose with Lena. I think this is a reflection on me. I’m a little weak, on my own. I lack direction and motivation. This must be how I floated through a year not sure whether I was drunk or sober, most likely somewhere in between.

And maybe I would have found something to hold on to---poetry, writing. Maybe science. I hope science. And yeah, so I cheated. I didn’t have to find something to hold on to, find something to ground me. I’ll never know if I would have been strong enough to find it myself. Instead, it was handed to me. Wiped clean and swaddled in blankets, Lena.

Where we started from

I had a conversation with someone the other day about writing more. We talked about ways to trick yourself into writing, and the things that prevent us from writing. (Mine is that, there’s always something else I can/should be doing, and then complete laziness wins out. Mad Men won’t rewatch itself for the 4th time!) We also talked about insurmountable projects. Like, this crazy large idea for a story that I have, that I just can’t ever seem to work on because I have no idea where to start. And then this person said something that I always knew in my heart to be true and I don’t know why I had forgotten about it…"Write a poem." Write a poem. Poetry used to be my life. I loved poetry. I lived poetry. I was a poet. I performed it, I read it. I read a poem in a class once (not one of mine) and the professor liked the way I read it so much that he asked me to read it again. I was in the grocery store once and someone that I didn't recognize at all came up to me and said, “Hey you were the poetry girl, right?” Y’ALL I was the poetry girl in high school. (Also known as “white t-shirt girl”.) And what happened? I grew out of it? I started wanting to write more. I wanted to leave less to interpretation. There was a story I wanted to tell, a world I wanted to build, and I wanted to do that in a paragraph, dammit. I think there’s also a part of me that wanted to grow up. Poetry...I grew up with poetry. Poems were my writing training wheels. I wrote poetry as a self-centered teenager. It was how I processed the world, it was about me, for me. It was so indulgent, so myopic! That’s not what Real Adults ™ do. (Y’all I know this is not true. I read a ton of amazing poetry right now and I can’t even.) So I stopped writing poetry. And you know what I started writing? I can’t even pretend like I write fiction because I have never once finished a short story I started. (Not true, there was one, for a class.) I started writing BLOG POSTS. Jeez, self, if you thought poetry was indulgent, where do blog posts stand on that scale? Blog posts are the molten lava chocolate cake of self-indulgence. High school poetry is like, an ice cream sandwich. Anyways, so this person told me to write a poem. Because you only need to write a few lines. And then when you want to revisit it you just have to read a few lines, change a few words, and you can move on. I can do that. I can totally do that. 2014, more poems, less telling people about the novel that you want to write. Sound like a plan? Sounds like a plan. I'm going back to my roots. Back to where I started from. The irony, of course, that I wrote this all up as a blog post, instead of you know actually writing a poem, is not at all lost on me.

nonsensical musings on muses

You know sometimes you just need like, a muse? So I had this favorite english teacher. I only had him for half a year because he was subbing for the real english teacher who had a heart attack or a stroke or a baby or something. The funny thing is, I have this vague feeling that this guy believed in me, but I don’t really remember him thinking I was incredibly brilliant or anything. In fact it’s almost the exact opposite. I remember not very much of that class (except for his love for Flannery O’Connor) because in that class was the boy that I was madly in love with, and he knew it, and I knew he knew it, and we ended up becoming good friends, and I’m not in love with him anymore, and I can safely say that we've both used each other unfairly at times, which of course is the basis of all good friendships and---what was I saying?

Oh yeah.

So I was really lazy in high school. (Just in high school? HA.) All I wanted was to be noticed and recognized for how brilliant and insightful and poetic I was and of course this never happened because being brilliant and insightful and poetic involves 1) a combination of genetics and luck and 2) hard work. And there is nothing I love more to avoid than hard work.

I've had this idea for a long story in my head for a long time. (I call it a long story because calling it a novel makes it sound so fucking pretentious is makes me want to stab myself and I’m having enough problems without that) Predictably, I’m having a hard time sitting down and writing. Because if my first talent is laziness, my second great talent is making excuses. Grad school! Kid! I need to read Anna Karenina! Write a blog post!

Y’all.

I figured out how to get over this. And it turns out, it’s writing for someone. And I found someone to write for. It's this english teacher! I imagine telling him what I’m writing about, how many words I've written. I imagine handing him a draft and a six pack of beer and thanking him for his amazingly constructive criticism and praise of my brilliant first attempt at a novel (HA!).

But, lo and behold, this gets me to write a scene. And then some dialogue. Then background on a character that I didn't like and am now starting to like.

Because 16-year-old me wants to please this 30-something-year-old substitute english teacher. That sounds weird. It's totally not. I mean it is, but it's not.

The other funny thing is I’m not really sure he even remembers me except that recently he accepted my friend request on facebook, and 16-year-old me was like, “My life has been validated!” and 25-year-old me was like, enough of these shenanigans back to work.

Anyway all of this is just to say---You gotta love something that gets you writing, even if it’s something as horrible as bad sex, or great as a good book, or nonsensical as the thought of a substitute-high-school-english-teacher-who-probably-doesn't-even-remember-you-except-maybe-he-does-because-he-friended-you-on-facebook.

writing again

**

racing a train home
feeling oh so very in control with you
feeling oh so very out of control having to write about you

**

in retrospect. so easy in retrospect--if only we could live our lives backwards--maybe that's why we having books? (teachers, friends) in retrospect when i stop writing, it means i have fallen out of love (is this how you like it--i remember being so amazed) and then this is how i know i'm sunk. it's not that my heart races when i see you (it does) that my stomach drops when you're near (ugh it does) that i smell you everywhere (you smell kind of generically, so there's that too) and everything reminds me of you (it's not all that) it's that i'm writing. i'm forever needing to write about you. on the backs of envelopes. sharpie on scrap paper at work i cannot. stop. writing. and i forgot how much i love this feeling (writing, having feelings) it's who i am (can't stop won't stop) feeling something--won't call it love, can't call it love. (it's lust, if anything or just a feeling) but it's the writing i'm in love with, i'm in love with this feeling that makes me want to write. i wish i could just thank you for making me want to write.

not for all the other random shit. that's kind of whatever.

but the words. the words! how thankful i am that the words have returned!

**

What we choose to share

Fall, finally.

Yeesh, it's been so long I don't even know how to begin. I guess I'll just jump right in.

I've been lax about blogging lately for a lot of reasons. I've been busy with grad school apps. I've got a self imposed deadline of November 5th (before I fly off to San Fran!) for having all of my applications finalized, so I can just hand off my CV and my personal statement to my letter writers, and smooth sailing from there. Fingers crossed, knocked wood, etc. 

After that's over, I can get back to my other endeavors which means creeping myself out with Stephen King books. 

I read On Writing the other month, which was amazing. Half-memoir half-writing-on-writing, it was wonderful and inspiring manual for any writer, reader, or liver of life. Which also made me realize that I had never read any of Stephen King's books. Since then I've made my way through Under the Dome and The Stand. (No small feat, The Stand was 1000+ pages.) I've started on The Cell, (cellphone induced zombie apocalypse yesssssss) but then I had bad dreams so I'm taking it as a sign to lay off the Stephen King. At least for a week, and at least for the nighttime hours.

Speaking of writing...

I've been writing a lot more in my journal. I'm not quite sure why--but there are things I'm just not quite ready to share yet. All the quiet smiles, the bumps of mini-heartbreaks. Figuring out what kind of girl I am. This morning, in a split second decision, as Lena asking about her heritage, Am I Chinese? Am I American?  I told her that yes, you're Chinese, you're American, and you know what? You're also half Mexican. 

I am! Lena answers so gleefully, I feel silly even being worried about it. But that's something I was thinking, Gosh, who can I tell about this moment. I don't need to tell anyone...but I just wanted to share it. What we choose to share. Hmm. 

I've been watching this show Nashville, and it's really awesome. I've been listening to more country music now. So...there's that.