8.29.2006
49% of my heart is broken
Conversations With The Ex:In Which We Discuss Each Other's Respective Sex Lives With New Partners
Polemic --
Ex to Miss Hag: "I know you are having sex because you can't be near someone you are attracted to without trying to have sex with them."
(Note: The machine picked "Sexy," as in what I am bringing back.)
I've returned from the Loaf, drunk on Inspiration's orgiastic intoxication. Only to learn that The Ex now has a sex life that includes other people. As do I. We are making ballsy attempts to keep open lines of conversation throughout this new phase of our relationship. Talk about verbal landmines.
Ex to Miss Hag:"Don't be afraid, baby. Relationships are like cable connections, transference of information between two people separated by distance. What we have with other people? Dial-up. What you and I have? Broadband."
Denouement --
Those of us familiar with self-destructive behavior will note that the problem is not just wanting what feels good and also what feels bad. The problem is also not discerning the difference.
8.25.2006
85% of this blog is true
For two weeks, I have been living amongst writers. New writers, established writers, famous writers, people who publish/edit/promote writers. Everywhere you turn on this mountain, people are having conversations about literature. Fiction, Poetry, NonFiction, NonPoetry. Clever contests abound, clustered into ochre colored buildings in the Vermont evergreens. We try to outwit each other, fondle each other's minds.
What interests me is the fact that these are people who write stories. Even the nonfiction people are weaving tales. Someone said to me last night, "We are a seekers of truth in a colony of liars."
It makes me understand how much my own persona is a product of my own creation. I am a woman who can survive on 2 hours of sleep a night and still manage to live as hard as possible.
And yet I am not.
8.23.2006
good to know.
I've been learning so much at this conference, I will not be able to process all of it until I come back to the real world. I mean "real world" so unironically.Anyway, to my emigos y emigas, new and important information was brought to my attention by a wonderful woman I met here. She is a fantastic poet and literary consultant, and perhaps some/all/a few/most/none of you know what I am about to share. I did not know and it will certainly be informing a planned format change to this site.
Anything you publish on your blog, unless sufficiently revised to be an obviously original and new piece, will not be published in print because it is already accessible to the public online. Even if you remove it now, it has been out there and will not be something that a print establishment will want to use since it is not new to the public. Why would they pay for something that you are giving for free?
To that end, you will be seeing this phrase at the end of all my posts. "Interested in learning more? Look out for more in the ____ issue of ______ magazine/literary journal/newspaper."
That last line mostly untrue.
8.18.2006
loaf note
From David Shields's workshop this morning:"Play to your strengths. Disguise your weaknesses. Move on."
Being surrounded by a couple hundred amazing writers in reality is a lot like how I imagine being surrounded by my favorite bloggers would be in real life: Would any of us even exist without the constant affirmation of our endearing companions, blindly stumbling through the same wasteland?
8.13.2006
the way we were.
Earlier this summer, I learned that I got accepted to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference at Middlebury College in Vermont. When I learned of this wonderful opportunity, I decided I would make a vacation of it and take an extra week before the conference to hang out in Maine.My Ex also happened to be taking some vacation time in our old home state, so we decided to do all of the things that reminded me of my childhood summers in Maine. We would go to the restaurant where I got my first summer job and eat maple doughnuts. We would make out in his mom's car on a dirt road while watching the meteor shower. Pick blueberries. Walk in the woods. Take naps.
The other day, while eating fried dough at Palace Playland in Old Orchard Beach I remarked, "Wow. We actually did it. We've done all the things I wanted."
The Ex said, "Why are you surprised about that?"
I thought, "Well, because my memories of childhood are idealized. I know I didn't actually enjoy all these things. At least, not completely."
I never actually had steamers and Geary's Pale Ale on the pier or went running with my boyfriend along the shore of Ogunquit Beach. I never pleasantly strolled the shops in Perkins Cove and ate fresh lobster rolls and sweet corn at a clam shack. Even the fun I did manage to have is distantly unremarkable, as anyone with a predominantly sad childhood knows.
Returning back to our hometown dredges up countless insecurites for me. It's a world of car people and I am a girl with her own cabbie. Maine is khakis and sweatshirts. I packed miniskirts and backless shirts.
It's especially uncomfortable when the Ex and I make appearances together. He is the Prodigal Son Returning Home. I am the exotic girl that wore too much lipstick and flirted with everyone. People fawn over him and his rugged Maine charm. Everyone is polite and nice to me, but I always get the sense that I am just something they have to accept in order to enjoy his infrequent visits. They look at me like the horrible dark girl that took him away and never even had the decency to bear him some rugrats.
Perhaps I have finally grown up a bit, but none of this bothered me this time around. Not the nagging, joyless nostalgia or the lingering, judgmental stares. None of it. Because I know that I get to go back to a world full of dirt and passion and abundance and grace. A world where it's always appropriate to be in heels and glitter.
Manhattan.
For once, I can relax and enjoy this place. I can reconcile my daydreams of a happy past with the reality of a satisfying today because it's finally mine to make of as I wish. And, ultimately, to leave, when I am ready.
Welcome to Maine, I think as we hurtle along dark backroads in a red pickup truck, the way life might have been, but thankfully, is not. At least for now.
8.07.2006
I have this friend, see. . .
I have this friend. Uh. Jane.This morning, Jane called me because she had a thought that she needed to share with someone and she thought I would understand.
Now, mind you, Jane just recently got out of long relationship and she's sort of new to the musings of the single folk, so be patient with her. Jane recently acquired a lover that she really enjoys. He's a nice guy and a great lover, but she doesn't want a relationship with him. He is in the middle of a divorce and certainly does not want a relationship, though she's never actually talked to him about that sort of thing.
Anyway, Jane has never been on a date with. . .uh. . .Guy and she doesn't really think she wants to go on a date with him, but she would like to continue having sex with him whenever the occasion arises.
So. This morning, after kissing Guy Lover goodbye and walking away, she turned for a moment and watched him walk in the other direction. She had a most visceral feeling at that moment that wasn't sadness or anger or anything she could specifically name. But the feeling was so strong, she could not help but believe in its truth.
Jane is leaving town for a few weeks and this would be the last time she would see Guy Lover before she goes. And as she stood on the sidewalk inhaling the fumes of August in New York that exact a Hezbollah assault on the nostrils, she realized she would probably not be enjoying this lover again. She felt what she could only ascertain to be the end. The end of the affair.
She called me because she wondered if all affairs have to end. If you know someone that you truly enjoy and like to have sex with but don't ever really need to have a meal with or talk on the phone with. Someone you don't expect anything from except sex whenever it is convenient and available. Does the affair have to end? Beyond scheduling trysts, how do you make it known that you want to maintain a sexual relationship with someone that you don't have any real investment in or know at all without salaciously misrepresenting onesself? And if you feel disappointment that you don't get to have sex with this lover whenever you want, does that mean you care about that person?
Jane, I said, I don't know the answers to these questions. But I'm sure someone in the anonymous internet public would like to comment.
8.04.2006
Gag Me With a Spoon
I took my 13-year old niece to what I anticipated to be a feckless child's movie, Monster House.Dialogue from the movie about a house that is, in fact, a human eating monster.
Little Girl: That's the uvula!
Little Boy: You mean, it's a girl house?
Little Girl: No, it's the uvula. It stimulates the gag reflex. Everyone has one.
Little Boy: I don't!
Wha-aah-aht?
Name:Miss Marisol
Location:Manhattan, New York, United States
"As only New Yorkers know, If you can get through the twilight, You'll live through the night." -- Dorothy Parker
(And by "queer," I mean different, though some are, in fact "queer." But not in the pejorative sense.)
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