Worry makes a big shadow...

I wish I was one of those people who worried about giant things that are hard to wrap your mind around, like world peace and global warming and how much longer low rise pants are going to be in fashion so I'll never have to look at the ass cracks of total strangers again. But I'm not. My worries are random and irrational. Currently:

*My mother was sick for the third time in three months and I worry that she has cancer but is keeping it from me. Now I'm also worried that she'll get cancer because I just said that.

*Michael is going on a trip to Montana and I worry that he will fall into a crevasse.

*I worry that I've gotten so used to living alone I won't be able to live with anyone else ever again.

*I worry that I won't be able to find a date in time for my friend's wedding in April.

*I worry that someone has stolen my identity and is ruining my credit, even though I pulled my credit report two months ago.

*I worry that my biological clock will finally kick in...when I'm 40. I hope it doesn't, but I worry that it will.

*I worry that I will accidentally say what I am thinking out loud.

It's crazy-making, all of this anxiety over nothing. Like a dog with a bone, I can't help myself. I gnaw, then gnaw some more. I'm tired and cranky and peevish that I'm the only one who can give me a push when I need it, or celebrate when I'm finished, or be happy that I'm home when the day is done. And now I shall gnaw on that for a while.

The best metaphor for being a writer...

“The best metaphor I know of for being a writer...is in Don DeLillo’s Mao II, where he describes the book-in-progress as a kind of hideously damaged infant that follows the writer around, forever crawling after the writer (i.e. dragging itself across the floor of restaurants where the writer is trying to eat, appearing at the foot of the writer’s bed first thing in the morning, etc.), hideously defective, hydrocephalic and noseless and flipper-armed and incontinent and retarded and dribbling cerebro-spinal fluid out of its mouth as it mewls and blurbles and cries out to the writer, wanting love, wanting the very thing its hideousness guarantees it’ll get: the writer’s complete attention.”
~David Foster Wallace talks about writing Infinite Jest, 1997.

Foster says that the damaged infant metaphor is perfect because “it captures the mix of repulsion and love the fiction writer feels for something he’s working on.” You do not have the same level of freedom as other people, yet you seldom resent the responsibility you must carry because of the love you feel for the child/writing. When you do resent it, Foster says, “you hate it - hate it...because its deformity is your deformity.”
I understand feeling like the work is always in progress. I understand feeling that there are not enough hours in a day to make the work stand up and do its own thing. You want other people to see/read your child/writing and see the beauty and perfection, not the deformity. You spend more time taking ugliness and imperfection and dressing it so that it flows and is beautiful than you do actually writing.

This I understand.

Grudge Match '07: Desired vs. Required

In 1998, I bought this Jenny Holzer sign from the gift shop at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
I've kept it around me for almost 10 years, moving it from office to home office to another office and another. Every time I look at it, it reminds me that it's OK to want things that are bad for me, as long as I don't act on those desires.

By desires, I mean everything from fried food to binge drinking to speeding to getting involved with inappropriate men. These things are bad. You'd think I would have stopped wanting to hurt myself by now, but I haven't. Want and Need fight it out every so often. Last year, it was sugar. Before that, alcohol. Before that, it was him...or him...or him. I can want them, I can talk about them, but I don't need them. I have to protect myself from those desires. I require safety and security and comfort, but what I want never seems to involve any of those.

This is my talisman. Because I will always find something that I'll want to do without a net.

"Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure." ~F. Scott Fitzgerald

New! Sensational! Blogstuffs!

Tinkering with the template again. I made a new graphic for the masthead, changed the background, and updated my links, getting rid of a few stagnant blogs and adding a few new ones.

I also added two new link categories: Micro Writes, links to writing sites I love; and Micro Inspiration, creative and/or art-related sites.

*Am I procrastinating again? YES.
*Would Chuck Norris waste time updating his blog if he had a book due? NO.
*Do I need a kick in the pants? NO. I haven't progressed to the level of procrastination during which I clean the bathtub. I'll let you know if I get there.

Lust wins again...

I got this quiz from Uncle Zoloft's Sunday Meme-o-Rama. Apparently, I'm a lazy whore, but not a greedy one. I must have been lying when I said I'd rather nap than have sex.

Your Deadly Sins

Lust: 80%

Sloth: 20%

Envy: 0%

Gluttony: 0%

Greed: 0%

Pride: 0%

Wrath: 0%

Chance You'll Go to Hell: 14%

You'll die from overexertion. *wink*

How Sinful Are You?

I really did think Pride would be at the top of my list, considering the size of my ego. Or Wrath, given the number of people who think I'm a Mean Girl.

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned; it has been [coughcough] years since my last confession..."

Friday Five...

Dang, I miss the Friday Five. I used to participate, the questions got tedious, then they went away. Today I found the new Friday5 site (they've been running them since the middle of last year) and figured I'd give it a whirl. This won't be a regular thing, because I had to scroll back a few months to find interesting Qs.

Talkin' 'bout Tools
Where is your hammer, and what did you last use it for? Under my bed; I can't remember actually using it. I keep it there in case I can't get to my gun if someone breaks into my house.
What is your everyday cutlery like? My fancy and everyday are the same: Oneida stainless with a "non-pattern" called Bergen. I like plain.
What are you using for a toothbrush? The ones my dentist gives me when I have my six-month cleanings.
How particular are you when it comes to writing implements? I go through phases. Right now I'm using Flair pens because my book editor had one when she visited for a meeting. I use regular #2 pencils a lot at work.
What is the most use-specific tool you own? A weird little hex key that opens the a/c vent so I can change the filter that I have to special order because they no longer make that size.

Meme if you like! That's it for today. My favorite Aleigh is coming up from Savannah to visit this weekend and I must mentally prepare (kidding...I haven't seen Al since June when we were in NYC and I've very much looking forward to some Aleigh-time).

What I hear...

when people give me candy for Valentine's Day: This. (sound file, contains "language"). I also hear whatever a diabetic coma sounds like.

If you really love me, buy me jewelry (thanks, boss lady!). I'm worth it.

Often depressed and heart broken we gaze the future motionless...

I'm both mystified by and in love with this site: The home of all post modern urbanite bugs.

We only had a print edition, but teen angst hasn't changed much since I was in high school: Lawrenceville (KS) High School's online literary journal. Life is so full of sorrow. When you're 16.

It often helps to commiserate with others.

Pair off, or die.

Humans aren't the only ones whose hearts can be broken. Robots need love too. I must have one of these.

If you have to ask Yahoo! how to heal your broken heart, you're totally screwed. Or you're in seventh grade.

Be kind. You can't tell who has a broken heart just by looking at them. It would help if we all wore these shirts.

We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love. ~Author Unknown

The last CD I made for him, and why...

Reading Rob Sheffield's memoir, Love is a Mix Tape, brings back a lot of memories. Before CDs there were mix tapes, the pre-CD ones recorded from radio when I was in high school. I once made a tape of nothing but Metallica songs, simply titled "Metallica Rules and You Don't." I pressed "record" every time I heard the opening bars of "Enter Sandman," "Last Caress/Green Hell," or "And Justice for All." I think one whole side was "Last Caress" with different DJ intros. The other side featured five minutes of me talking about why Metallica is the best band EVER. Fascinating stuff. I also had a "make out" tape that was (embarrassingly) heavy with Journey and REO Speedwagon. Every time I gave someone a mix tape or CD, it was loaded with meaning. When my best friend in high school moved to Florida, I made him a tape called "I Will Not Carry On." It was very melodramatic and featured two versions (regular & dance) of "Angel of the Morning" by Juice Newton. I think half of the songs were by The Cure.

When I first discovered Napster it was like Mix CD Heaven. I made tons of "theme CDs," like "Saddest Songs in the World Wallow Mix" and "How Punk Rock Saved My Life in 1989." Then iTunes came along and I fell in love all over again with those 99-cent legal downloads.

When you make a mix CD for someone you love, it's usually loaded with meaning. Sometimes it was the only way I could communicate. Looking back on some of the song lists, I wonder if I was channeling spirits or tapping into psychic abilities; they're just so telling. Why didn't I see it before?

This is a list of songs from the last CD I made for him (the last him that I loved) with the not-so-subtle title "Ten Ways I Feel About You":

• "Wish You Were Here," Pink Floyd. Why: We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year...
• "Almost Blue," Elvis Costello. Why: Flirting with this disaster became me...It named me as the fool who only aimed to be...
• "Leather," Tori Amos. Why: Look, I'm standing naked before you; Don't you want more than my sex?
• "I Will Remember You," Sarah McLachlan. Why: I’m so afraid to love you, but more afraid to lose; Clinging to a past that doesn’t let me choose...
• "In Your Eyes," Peter Gabriel. Why: Do I have to explain this one?
• "If You Were the Woman and I Was the Man," Cowboy Junkies. Why: Would I laugh if you came to me with your heart in your hand?
• "Sandwiches," Detroit Grand Pubahs. Why: (it was a joke he would get) You can be the bun and I can be the burger girl...I know you wanna do it and we can make sandwiches.
• "Dancing Barefoot," Patti Smith. Why: Could it be he´s taking over me?
• "Do You Feel Loved," U2. Why: It looks like the sun but feels like the rain.
• "La Vie En Rose," Edith Piaf. Why: Il me dit des mots d'amour, Des mots de tous les jours, Et ca me fait quelque chose. (He tells me words of love, words of everyday, and that made me something.)

See? I think my heart knew he was leaving before he did.

Hang fire...

I'm coming up on a deadline for my book and, though I love deadlines because I don't think I'd get anything done without them, I tend to become the Queen of Procrastination whenever something is due. This weekend, I planned on writing 5,000 words a day. Did I make it? Yes. But I also had many tasks to get out of the way first.

Procrastination: Water plants.
Justification: They need watering.

Procrastination: Read five chapters from Love is a Mix Tape.
Justification: None, other than the fact that it is a really good book.

Procrastination: Anxiety attack. This project is too big. I can't handle it.
Justification: Out of Xanax.

Procrastination: Crawl back into bed.
Justification: Cat is there. I am cold. Must cuddle.

Procrastination: Check MySpace page for new friend requests and/or messages.
Justification: I haven't checked it in the past hour.

Procrastination: Return phone calls.
Justification: Friends will tell me how great I am, which will create momentum and give me impetus to sit down and finish my 5,000 words for today.

"In the sweet old country where I come from Nobody ever works Yeah nothing gets done We hang fire, we hang fire..." (M. Jagger/K. Richards)

When it comes right down to it, it's just sad...

I wanted to write something about Anna Nicole Smith, who died yesterday at the age of 39. Here are the various beginnings and bits I scrapped:
With a mother like that, of course she was f*cked up...
Do you expect better from someone who has always been treated like a commodity? I can't say I wouldn't give up if I became a punch line. I hope I wouldn't, but... ...proof that being in the public eye is not a place for fragile people...
Maybe they'll stop making fun of her now.

One of the saddest things I read today was a quote from my friend MK, who posted it as a bulletin on her MySpace page.

"I learned everything I needed to know in life as a stripper...One man plus two beers equals twenty dollars."~Anna Nicole Smith

What a gal.

What a gal, indeed. I hope you can still be a blonde bombshell in the afterlife.

The only thing that counts...

I finally got around to watching The Last Kiss this weekend. There is a particularly stunning scene (I won't say too much in case you haven't seen it) with Zach Braff and Tom Wilkinson, whose character has been married for 30 years. Michael (Zach Braff) says something like, "you can't say you've never strayed." And Stephen (Tom Wilkinson) is quiet for a long moment, then he says: "What you feel only matters to you. It's what you do to the people you love. That's what matters. That's the only thing that counts. "

It reminded me that I once had a boyfriend who announced—in a bar, at a table packed with friends and acquaintances—that he didn’t see anything wrong with cheating because, as a particularly psychologically advanced individual, he could separate lust from love. Granted, he hadn’t cheated on me (trust me, a woman knows), and he said as much, but his declaration made my blood run cold.

My father was a cheater. He cheated on my mother openly and often, with younger women, with any woman who would have him, until he finally left my mother for one of them. My grandfather was also a cheater. My grandmother caught him with her best friend when my mother was only three years old and divorced him soon thereafter. He later married the best friend. My boyfriend knew all of this, including my feelings of contempt, yet he still thought it was acceptable to declare himself a potential cheater.

The conversation had turned to the topic of cheating because one of my friends said she wouldn’t divorce her husband if he cheated on her. I, being in my early 20s and naïve (not to mention earnest, somewhat optimistic, and emotionally immature), suggested that she’d just given him license to screw around.

“What would you do,” my boyfriend asked, “if I cheated on you?” Without skipping a beat, I said “I’d sleep with your friends and make sure you found out about it” (except I didn’t say “sleep with”—and I might have added something about videotaping it for him).

“But lusting after someone else isn’t the end of the world,” he said.

“No, it isn’t. But acting on it is.” How do I know? Because I've been a cheater more often than I've been cheated on. And my actions spoke volumes.