Ready.
Champagne is in the fridge.
My broken heart has healed from 2004.
I’m ready for change.
Uncategorized
In the Fridge
1 bottle of champagne.
VOTE.
The Title Says It All
Go.
THIS is How I Got Over Writer’s Block
How Do You Get Over Writer’s Block?
I’m in a major writing assignment; the kind that is not based on facts, but on how deep your perspective is and how clearly and well you are able to set it on paper. It’s my favorite kind of writing. It’s also the most difficult.
As G. Anzaldua wrote, “Put your shit on the paper,” I am having difficulty because more shit has come up than is required for this essay. The question is, “What does your writing mean to you?”
I mean, how about asking how I feel about my right arm when I am right handed? Or ask how I feel about my heart beating regularly and my lungs working properly? That is the same kind of relationship – a mindless need. And the thought of being without it is beyond crushing, beyond life altering. Without writing, I’d be a foreign soul to myself.
But, the clock is literally ticking on my screen and I need to get my shit out ASAP for this deadline. I hate that word, by the way. DEAD and LINE. Who in the world thought to put those two words together to come up with a word that means BE READY BY THIS TIME.
DEAD.
LINE.
That’s not helping my block.
What gets you through a brick wall to your green pastures of brilliance?
This Conversation is a Good Reminder…
Me: I don’t know how to do this, this whole follow your hear slash dreams slash self slash whatever. I don’t know what the world needs me to do.
Amanda: I’ll tell you what the world doesn’t need is another person doing something that they don’t feel passion.
Are you doing what you’re passionate about?
Peering Over America’s Reading Shoulder
There are only a few things I genuinely care about in this world and books are one of them. Books, not articles, are a true test of endurance and intelligence. Books reveal personality, aspiration, values. To borrow a yoga term, they reveal your core. They can provide testament into the interests – however playful, however serious – of the reader.
Today I was looking at New York Times Bestseller list and I found two interesting books on the much coveted list of creative non-fiction. At #8, right in the dear company of Christian Lander’s Stuff White People Like (yes, the website turned book deal) and presidential possibility Barack Obama, is I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max and is described by the New York Times as “life as a self-absorbed, drunken womanizer.” (Let me guess, the cover is black – yep.) All of that with a cover for $12.95. To balance Tucker, we have (at #26) My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler which is described as “a memoir of one night stands.” (Let me guess, there’s pink on the cover – yep.)
Now I haven’t read Handler’s book. I read a chapter of Max’s potty mouth when I was sick with the flu in my brother in law’s apartment and it was laying next to me on the couch with his promise it was an old Christmas present. It was every bit as disgusting and riveting as one can imagine an author described as a “womanizer” could be.
I heard Jessica Valenti has a new book coming out entitled, “The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Woman.” I thought the title was interesting, but my reaction to Valenti’s title is the same reaction when I see these two other books about casual (at best) and destructive sex (at worst) hitting the top of the NY Bestseller List. Three words: failed sexual exploration (America’s – not necessarily yours).
Let me explain.
I believe it’s more America’s stigma against healthy sexual expression and exploration that tie BOTH women and men to sexual polarized poles. Once people hear “sexual expression” they think nudity, experimentation, or sexual orientation. That’s part of it, but there’s so much intimacy with the sexual self that I believe gets lost in the study and literature of sex. Sometimes I feel like now matter how many books are published in women studies or queer studies about expanding thought around sexuality, in the end, most people still think of a hetero couple having sex in a bed, in a bedroom, lights out, curtains drawn. For as sexualized our nation is, our creativity tends to run dry.
Enter: creative non-fiction paperbacks about one night stands and a drunken womanizer and they soar like rockets. The fact that these books are being proclaimed as exciting is a bit concerning. What’s going on between the sheets should definitely be more exciting than what’s between the pages of #8 and #26. What is it with our obsession, not with purity, but with the lives of out-sexing-truthtelling-nonapologetic heterosexuals?
I’d love to read about the uncertain, the moments of experimenting with one’s self, or a first time you had REAL love making (which, rumor has it, doesn’t happen till women are in their 30s) and shirked old conceptions, similar to Jennifer Jason Leigh in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
I’m not saying I don’t think there shouldn’t be dirty stories and ridiculous memories retold of taking a picture of your parents doing the naked samba, I’m just saying that the glorified sleepover stories turned NY Times Bestsellers are saying something about America in the bedroom. I just hope that our cheapening sexual stories aren’t indicative of a cheapening of sexuality.
I wish that at, say, #4 (or, dammit, let’s get ambitious – #3), there was a creative, non-fiction truth telling nonapologetic witty book that talked about the crazy tales of getting lost in your own sexual self before you try and “have sex with a black man…from ChocolateSingles.com”
(anyone else smell racist sexualization of the black male here?) and get lost in someone else. It’s funny, I would have thought that in this day and age, the Molly Ringwald lessons would be ringing true for Gen-X: you won’t find yourself in someone else; let alone your sexual satisfaction.
Quests for sexual intimacy, knowledge, confidence, artistry…mhm, now THAT’s entertainment. Short stories about blow jobs, hangovers in Austin, Texas, and midgets are old news. I’m waiting for America to write a new chapter on sexual exploration.
Ouch, Rejection Hurts
Sometimes I feel like rejection doesn’t just take your breath away.
It feels like a full swing axe wedged in your lungs and vinegar bathed onions in your eyes.
Media. How do you find your place in the world?
Where does one find a home for one’s writer’s voice? How exactly does a “full scale background in heavy journalism and resume of accomplishments” (as a newspaper editor just emailed me) fit for a young womyn of color like myself who doesn’t have the finance to go back to school, has a passion for journalism, but can’t seem to find a way to make headway.
I’m not asking or looking for an easy way, I’m looking for a chance.
Perhaps this why I admire make/shift, Colorlines, Left Turn, and Utne so much. They not only feature, but RELY upon independent voices and fresh blood. Perhaps this is why I need to wake up and stop hoping that big media is going to change and, rather, change MY expectations and look elsewhere for my work, my voice, my trembling tree of reason.
I understand that in any discipline – media, counseling, health – one must acquire experience and trust in a field before she is relied upon to exercise independent judgement and open wings. That’s not what I have a problem with though: what happens when those experiences are not available to you? Where do you go when doors are shut at the entry level? What happens to young women who change their minds and want to be heard but are told they are too late? Too late at 29 years old.
I am too late, apparently.
Spread the Word
I’ve got a blog make-over going on.
I feel like it’s time to change things up a bit and decided to go with a little pink, a little yellow, and a lot of Disobedience.
If you’re a hasty reader and didn’t see the gigantic poll that sits up front, scroll back up and answer a very simple question for me. As I continue to both participate and observe the feminist blogosphere, I’d like to know (and potentially pass on to other bloggers) what exactly ARE the most pressing issues for readers and what can (bloggers) potentially do to cover those voids and better work together?
So, pass a link, answer a question, and put a lollipop in your mouth. Thanks.
Think of voting as the least you can do
Mamita Mala SIZZLES at the What Women Want Speakout.
H/T to BFP and CripChick