In the land of make believe

I submitted to existential writing crisis number 8,739,486,596 this weekend, because of an enormous amount of ambivalence around working on my memoir. My "Drunk Book" as it's now lovingly called has been an ongoing project since I started my MFA in 2004 and has (so far) two distinct incarnations. Neither of them are the book I want to write. The writing and revision process of both of those drafts brought me such emotional distress that concerned friends recommended medication. I pushed myself through it, both because I wanted to finish my degree and because I wanted to be closer to done with the material.

Last summer, I wanted to write a third draft of this book, send it out, and be done with it. Then I accidentally got single and bought a house instead and everyone told me to not worry about it. "Not right now, honey." They'd say. "You've got too much on your plate. You can write it later."

Then I worked like crazy for an academic year, flopped into summer vacation, napped for three weeks, and guess what: that darn third draft still isn't written. In the past two weeks, I had one good day working on it -- a day followed by that same exhausting emotional distress, those pesky mood swings, and some good, old-fashioned, self-abusing depression.

That is not the writing life I wanted. But it's a kind of writing life I trained myself to have. This is where I cut my teeth in the land of nonfiction. I started this blog so I could tell you about me. And in the telling, I revealed. I spoke of inner conflicts and outer ones. I wrote myself to tears, time and again. I divulged, I confessed, and I learned. I learned how to write. I learned how to tell stories. And I learned about the consequences of everyone on the online knowing my inner thoughts and bringing that into "Real. Life."

Oy. And now, I'm a nonfiction writer who still kinda wants to spew like a 7th grader about my feelings that aren't all sparkle pens and unicorns as well as a writer who understands that privacy is a precious commodity these days. And this project, the one upon which I've been hanging all my hopes of success and writerly accolades has me stalled. Not because it's revealing, either -- just because it's still too painful both to sit with the material and to create something I'd want to read from it.

So I've given myself permission to put the Drunk Book on the shelf. I have several other projects that have been nipping at my heels this year and I'm going to dig into those instead. It's summer. If I want to be a writer, I should write every day. Stay organized. Play. And not let my creative life depend on one bad relationship that may be better lost or forgotten than documented for the world to read.

Enough of this crying business.

Has anyone ever built a castle out of waffles?

playing with food

If you were going to build a model of a building with food from the breakfast/lunch/dinner table, what would you use as your materials?

Happy Independence Day!

Have fun watching things that glitter-kersplash up in the sky!

Things about châteaux. And me.

I've had an obsession with the Middle Ages for as long as I can remember. Or maybe obsession is too strong a word. A penchant for things medieval. I've always loved looking at photos of fortress castles and wondered about the majestic lives of kings and queens, lords and ladies who once lived there. Rich red and blue tapestries hanging on stone walls, a fireplace in every room, sumptuous gowns dripping with jewels, feasts where large animals are skewered onto spits and slowly roasted over days, a tiara or circlet or crown on every head. . . Armies to be conquered! Songs to be sung of glorious victory! Oh, the fantasies I'd have about how much more wonderful it would have been then -- any kind of better than the bad I had in a whole lot of past "nows" would have been preferred. Because seriously - what kind of fantasy land doesn't have castles?

So as I've learned more about the actual Middle Ages and discovered that the scoundrels outweighed the chivalrous, the disease destroyed most everyone by the age of 45, and the lack of running water meant that no one, no matter how rich, took a bath more than once every few months, my interest has done nothing but increase. I find myself inexplicably drawn to anything château every time I go to France. Or maybe I should be more specific: Anything château fort. Large, imposing, thick-walled piles of hand-cut stone on vertiginous outcroppings. Places that housed people who made decisions and ran armies that scurried back and forth across the lanndscape, stealing food from each other and beating the snot out of anyone who got in their way.

I remember being dismayed when I learned that vintners were allowed to call a manor house on a piece of vineyard-containing property "Château (insert last name here)" because I always thought that a castle had to be large and imposing and magestic. In order to compensate for my disappointment, I instead now own this particular strategy. I've called my own home Château Michèle since day one. (My last name just doesn't have the right ring to it -- and my first name has an accent, which is consequently Way. More. French.)

So the writing friends I have around me have gently suggested that I spend more time writing -- even on days I don't feel like writing about alcoholism and Rachel and the book I hope to publish about it. And I've re-discovered my love for the stories of scoundrels and heros and saints who lived in the 11th - 14th centuries. These photos, for exampe, are from Château Des Baux in Provence. (There's an amazing panoramic view on the website - you should check it out. And no, I wasn't there when you could try out the giant catapult, but I'd have LOVED it.) I wish I'd have taken notes while listening to the audioguide, because I have only vague memories about one of the former Lords of the castle whose favorite entertainment varied between dangling invaders over the moat for target practice and feeding them to the savage dogs on the wall. I'm just sick and twisted enough to want More! Information! About the SCOUNDRELS!

Anyway. That's that. I like castles. I thought I'd share.

On Believing

I believe that unlike the body, the mind can be in two places at once. When I'm walking around the lake early in the morning and listening to whatever upbeat 80s something happens to be wailing in my headphones, it's more like three places at once: Memory, imagination, and desire.

I believe that there is no shortage of somethings around to worship: often something less than divine -- like a cup of coffee -- takes center stage in my priorities and my focus is so exclusive I don't have room for any other thoughts.

I believe in never engaging in an argument I know I'm going to lose. This frustrates some of the people in my life whom I know to be much smarter than I am -- they've got to find someone else to bother. I hate logical arguments. They always come down to who's read the most, and reveal that I spend too much time analyzing fashion and pop culture and not enough with actual news.

I believe in leaving the A/C on pretty much all summer long. I don't believe in suffering unnecessarily.

I have never met anyone who actually believes in UFOs appearing in the sky above Earth, but I totally believe there's life in the "out there." I just don't think we're important enough to bother with.

When I was little, I believed in fairies. These days, I wish I still did. It would explain why I often can't find my keys.

I can't believe how long it's taking me to catch up on my rest -- I still feel emotionally exhausted from this past school year. Maybe I'll follow my 8 year old nephew's advice and treat my summer like one great, big, long weekend.

I believe that chocolate can make people feel better -- if only for about 2.675 seconds. Sometimes, a little reprieve is all you need.

I believe that micronutrients are terribly undervalued and that Americans eat too much high fructose corn syrup. That stuff is like kid crack.

I believe that a well-maintained and fulfilling life should include as much kissing as possible.

I don't believe I've found the answer to the question: What kind of writer am I? BUT -- I keep looking. My BFF told me that I should stop trying to schedule myself and just do the work I feel able to do on any given manuscript today. She also told me that I won't feel tired forever -- but I haven't been able to get rid of this headache that's been bothering me since the last week of school.

Sometimes I have to borrow the faith of others who believe in me, because it's so hard to believe in myself.

a lovely little essay I wish I'd written.

On top of the world, Ma!

Didn't someone tell me that this was supposed to be fun?

My end of the year left me feeling kind of like a swamp thing, screeching and moaning about how tired I've been to anyone who sits still long enough to listen. I can't say this is one of my most attractive qualities, but there just hasn't been much muster. Tired takes a long time to come back from I guess.

I want to be on fire. I want to be primed and pumped and ready to tackle my book again. I want to write.

Creative ideas are going off in my head like fireworks every five seconds. I pick up books from my shelf that look interesting and think -- I want to do a project just like this except different but what a good idea -- where is my notebook. Then I see the gigantic laundry pile at the foot of the basement stairs and know that I won't write a word until my environment is under control again. But I'm too sluggish to do anything other than make the pile bigger and half-heartedly empty the dishwasher and think about cutting up the pineapple on the counter.

I haven't checked out of my classroom yet. That desk and this one at home are cluttered, dirty, and filled with residual guilty pangs for a hundred half-finished projects and a full academic year of, "I really wish I had the capacity to get to that, but I just can't. I'm too overwhelmed. I've got too much on my plate." And we didn't sell enough stupid ^&%*&$@ yearbooks to pay our invoice, so naturally all my money anxiety has driven me to distraction -- even though it isn't "my fault," it's my responsibility to figure out a plan. Trying to get extra money out of a public school is like -- well, trying to get money from somewhere else there isn't any extra money. So I feel bad. And guilty. Which is about par for the course from this entire year.

I just want my life back. A clean desk and no school keys and projects that energize and excite me for summer vacation. I want to be happy about having time to finish my book. Instead, I feel like the kid at the top of the roller coaster, dreading how fast it's going to go and knowing there's a chance that working on my book will be so hard, I might pee my pants from fright. Of course, that'd be better than two summers ago, where trying to reach graduation made me throw up at least once a week.

How many naps am I allowed to take before I really start for real?

drained and strained

Just like those peaches they make into baby food.

That's what my brain feels like today.

Yesterday, when the final bell rang and the last of the students said their goodbyes, I took a deep breath. I looked around my room, put my head on my desk, and cried.

Today, I clean up a gigantic mess.

Clumsy and exhausted, I'm flopping into summer.

Edit: Sometimes I get random hits on my sitemeter from posts I've forgotten about completely. I just re-read this one from 2005 and think it's pretty good.

a parting glass

Dear most excellent and wonderful classes of 2008-2009: I don't know how many of you are reading, but I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for challenging me. For laughing with me. For being willing to learn from me. And most importantly, for being honest and compassionate with me this year. It's been a tough one for me, and I'm grateful for your presence in my life.

I'd like to have something wicked insightful to say, but I don't. So I will share these words with you:

"If you will cling to Nature, to the simple in Nature, to the little things that hardly anyone sees, and that can so unexpectedly become big and beyond measuring; if you have this love of inconsiderable things and seek quite simply, as one who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier, more coherent and somehow more conciliatory for you, not in your intellect, perhaps, which lags marveling behind, but in your inmost consciousness, waking and cognizance. You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within yourself the possibility of shaping and forming as a particularly happy and pure way of living; train yourself to it -- but take whatever comes with great trust, and only if it comes out of your own will, out of some need of your inmost being, take it upon yourself and hate nothing."

--Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To a Young Poet.

home stretch

There are seven more school days left. We got the Yearbooks distributed -- well over half of them, anyway -- and the book has been generally well-received. I know the next few days will be all about what's wrong with it, but I am proud of our imperfect little book.

I'm exhausted.

But I'm feeling more optimistic about life than ever.

And I still want you to vote for Brian and Benji to win their very own dream wedding!