I know there are plenty of problems with me, this piece, I know there are always people ready to tell you not to write for free, or not to write about X or Y, but so be it. I'm taking life and writing one day at a time. I have so many things I want to write about, or think I want to write about, and lists upon lists upon lists and clearly, this year has taught me that money is not the motivator, success, approval - I turn those away again and again. I'm trying to change my ways on all fronts, truly, to become someone totally different who I can like and admire, because I have not been someone I like or admire for quite a while. Anyway, just a preface that could go on forever. I'm not proud of myself or my behavior or my faults, but I also, especially this month, have realized that ignoring them and not facing them won't make them go away. Maybe nothing will, but sometimes writing, calling yourself out in public, helps. I'm hoping to write about Cheryl's memorial last weekend, which I've been pondering bigtime. So many things it brings up, about her, about how we are perceived and want to be remembered.
Sometimes I just have to remind myself, on the personal and professional fronts, I can't change the past, and every second I wish I could is a wasted second. I can only live in the now, can only try to live up to my ideals, not anyone else's. I wrote on Twitter that so much of 2011 is, for me, trying to tune out the outside noise, and there's a hell of a lot of it. It's all too easy to get caught up in trying to win other people's approval and breaking out of that bad habit has been tough for me, but I know it's vital. I know I have to work on repairing the damage I've done in the last few years and figuring out how I can meet my goals, and what those goals are. Some are clearer than others, but they are getting clearer. The path to them isn't quite yet, but it will be.
"My Do Not Call List" at The Nervous Breakdown
Showing posts with label essays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label essays. Show all posts
Friday, July 29, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Rejected by Brevity, accepted by Thought Catalog, and yes, I'm a fucking snob: "What is Kale?"
So I was doing this thing that I thought was semi-productive by blogging my rejections from journal-I-really-really-wanted-to-prove-something-to-myself-by-being-published-in Brevity, "Wannabe Housewife" and "Pill Popper." Then I realized even more productive would be to...send them somewhere else. Somewhere that doesn't even charge a fee! That even has cache. Of course I still want to be published in Brevity but I also have come to accept that that's highly unlikely and I am okay with that. I embrace my lack of whatever it is and I am now coming out as a snob in "What is Kale?" It was a snobby reject kind of day and yet I feel happy. Imagine that. Thanks, Thought Catalog! You rock.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Cupcakes and toner and writing goals and belated sex diaries links
Crazy busy these days but you can always keep up with me at Cupcakes Take the Cake, and on Twitter and Tumblr. If Blogger worked on the iPhone...well, who knows? I'm not holding my breath.
I found cupcakes at Sweet (see below and stay tuned to CTTC for a review) this weekend in Cambridge and Boston. And at Lush, where I got the incredible toner you see below; I guess by now I expect, somewhat, to turn around in a store and see cupcakes but it's still a bit surprising, like they are following me or something. I am normally a take-it-or-leave-it toner girl, but my skin is really dry and this feels super refreshing. One of my will-finally-feel-like-a-real-writer goals is to break into the journal Brevity, where all the cool kids are published. It's, perhaps, a slightly petty goal, but fuck it: I'm petty. Full disclosure. I've also decided that in light of last week's awfulness, I'm gonna write whatever the fuck I want, and if you don't like it, I really don't care. That might sound bitchy but it's either that or carry around so many fears way heavier than my bags will ever be. I'm so over that. I'm also planning to submit to Salon's excellent Mortifying Disclosures section, where Lena Chen wrote "I was the Harvard harlot" and Taffy Brodesser-Akner, who I can't believe I haven't been keeping up with (Google News alert was immediately activated after a search of her, who I remember from back in her Mediabistro days, and her excellent essays, who wrote, "Tales of a recovering blabbermouth."
And I owe you a post highlighting the individual sex diaries, but I'd love for you to click on over and check them out (one is coming today, in lieu of yesterday). Some I personally relate to more than others, but they are always an interesting look at someone's sex life in an unfiltered way that stirs up discussion. Working on them has made me realize how rarely many of us get to have those discussions. I'm lucky in that I have them with my close friends and once in a while with strangers, but I too have plenty of things I feel fearful or ashamed of or confused about regarding my sexuality. I'm excited to return to writing fiction after a way-too-long-lazy-loser hiatus. I feel plenty ashamed about that and am hoping this is a productive week; it better be with two books do and submissions flooding in!
The sex diaries run every Monday and I'm the editor and the info is at the bottom of the diary but if you know a New Yorker bold enough to anonymously document their sex life for a week (and get paid for it), have them email me at sexdiaries at nymag.com with their basic story.
I found cupcakes at Sweet (see below and stay tuned to CTTC for a review) this weekend in Cambridge and Boston. And at Lush, where I got the incredible toner you see below; I guess by now I expect, somewhat, to turn around in a store and see cupcakes but it's still a bit surprising, like they are following me or something. I am normally a take-it-or-leave-it toner girl, but my skin is really dry and this feels super refreshing. One of my will-finally-feel-like-a-real-writer goals is to break into the journal Brevity, where all the cool kids are published. It's, perhaps, a slightly petty goal, but fuck it: I'm petty. Full disclosure. I've also decided that in light of last week's awfulness, I'm gonna write whatever the fuck I want, and if you don't like it, I really don't care. That might sound bitchy but it's either that or carry around so many fears way heavier than my bags will ever be. I'm so over that. I'm also planning to submit to Salon's excellent Mortifying Disclosures section, where Lena Chen wrote "I was the Harvard harlot" and Taffy Brodesser-Akner, who I can't believe I haven't been keeping up with (Google News alert was immediately activated after a search of her, who I remember from back in her Mediabistro days, and her excellent essays, who wrote, "Tales of a recovering blabbermouth."
And I owe you a post highlighting the individual sex diaries, but I'd love for you to click on over and check them out (one is coming today, in lieu of yesterday). Some I personally relate to more than others, but they are always an interesting look at someone's sex life in an unfiltered way that stirs up discussion. Working on them has made me realize how rarely many of us get to have those discussions. I'm lucky in that I have them with my close friends and once in a while with strangers, but I too have plenty of things I feel fearful or ashamed of or confused about regarding my sexuality. I'm excited to return to writing fiction after a way-too-long-lazy-loser hiatus. I feel plenty ashamed about that and am hoping this is a productive week; it better be with two books do and submissions flooding in!
The sex diaries run every Monday and I'm the editor and the info is at the bottom of the diary but if you know a New Yorker bold enough to anonymously document their sex life for a week (and get paid for it), have them email me at sexdiaries at nymag.com with their basic story.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
LOST Love party, Sex Rules! with Maria Falzone, The Big Jewcy party at Brooklyn Winery
I'm trying to be more of a homebody these days, but NYC is a tough place to do that. Baby steps...tonight I skipped a party and even skipped a jigsaw puzzle date (yes, that is my kind of date) to chill and have some quiet time to get my head together. And hopefully write about masturbation, booty calls, Bridesmaids and a few other pending topics. And read my friend Robin Palmer's brand-new tween novel, the latest in the series, Yours Truly, Lucy B. Parker: Vote for Me!.
So on Thursday night I'm eager to meet the LOST magazine crew at Lolita Bar (6-9) for the LOST Love issue party (my super sad true essay is called "You," I wrote it as part of a promise I haven't been keeping lately but was doing decently with earlier in the year to always submit, never slack - read Lorne Michaels' advice in Tina Fey's book Bossypants for some good lessons in ignoring your perfectionism and just getting whatever the fuck you're working on OUT THERE - basically another way of saying the perfect is the enemy of the good).
After that I will head over to Happy Ending Lounge (302 Broome Street) for the (yay free!) Chat Lounge with Maria Falzone for Sex Rules!:
Join us on May 19th at 7:30 when The Chat Lounge hosts Sex Rules with Maria Falzone. Afer the overwhelming response we received to Maria’s shortened performance of Sex Rules at MOMENTUM we are thrilled to welcome Maria here in NYC where she’ll perform her entire show.
Maria Falzone is one of the most sought after speakers on safer sex at the college level. Each year colleges and universities invite her back to teach the essential rules to greater and safer sex. Unlike other lectures, Maria shares her personal story of shame and suffering about sex and how after contracting herpes from a friend she was forced to honestly look at her attitude about sex. Her ability to connect with students in a very real and personal way allows her to lay the foundation to explaining the RULES to greater and safer sex.
“We live in a society where we get conflicting messages about sex. Our parents and Society tell us to wait. In the world of advertising sex sells. So we end up thinking that we should just know how to have sex. Parents spend good money for us to go to college to get an education so that we can graduate and go out there and get a good job. But when it comes to sex, which most of us are going to have, (hopefully more than once) we have little to no information. Some of us end up emotionally or physically scarred.” Maria then goes on to explain the rules in a very funny and frank manner. Who do the rules apply to? All of us! If you want to wait till your married GREAT! You still need to learn how to have sex.
Her ability to connect with students in a very real and personal way allows her to lay the foundation to explaining the RULES to greater and safer sex.
If you’re gay, bisexual or transgender the rules are the same. There is another level of shame you have to work through. Society says that if your gay, bisexual or transgender that you are wrong, not sex, you. If you are gay bisexual or transgender work through the shame and live your life out loud. If you have an opinion against someone who is gay, bisexual or transgender keep it to your self. Because opinions are like a**holes! Everyone has one and no one wants to hear from them!
Maria reached headliner status in the top comedy clubs through out the US and Europe over 15 years ago and was invited to perform at the HBO Aspen Comedy Festival where she met Suzi Landolphi, the creator of Hot, Sexy and Safer. Suzi hired and trained Maria to perform her show. A year later Maria created her funny, frank and personal lecture: Sex Rules!
Maria has performed standup on ABC, A&E, Showtime, TBS.
The Chat Lounge is a free event, open to all adults 21 and over, meeting the 3rd Thursday of every month at Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street, from 7:30 – 10:00. The Chat Lounge features a different speaker to guide discussions covering body image, gender, pornography, identity, orientation, love and relationships, the science of sex and much more.
Lastly, on June 15th I'm celebrating with 99 other people being part of "The Big Jewcy," Jewcy.com's annual list of "100 Jews everybody should know and love." Writeups will be posted in June but click here for party details. Awww...
Party is June 15, 6-10 pm at Brooklyn Winery, 213 N. 8th Street (where we held the 2010 Cupcakes Take the Cake anniversary party), Williamsburg, Brooklyn (right near the L to Bedford). Buy your tickets ($10) here.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
New essays up at Modern Love Rejects and Thought Catalog
I have two new essays that, coincidentally, both went up today.
One is at the new site Modern Love Rejects. It's called "The Unlikely Other Woman." It feels dated to me, because it's from a while ago, but as part of my new try, try, try again attitude, I thought it fitting to send a piece that's in part about rejection to a site about rejection.
I thought I was too smart to get hurt, which was my ultimate downfall. There’s no such thing as “too smart” when it comes to love; it’s the great intelligence equalizer. Why else would Nikki Giovanni have a poem addressing precisely this scenario called “I Would Not Be Different.” I grabbed it off the shelf at my local bookstore, one where we’d even had a date, where he’d kissed me between the stacks. I was desperate for a sense of community of fellow women who were not smart enough to evade the charm of the married man. “You sort of see someone/And you don’t want to notice/That ring on his finger/Nor really that sort of happy/Look in his eyes,” she writes. I thought he could be happy with her—and me—and that I could be too.
And that local bookstore is that fantabulous WORD, where I got some amazing books and ogled cute items last night. More on that later. But since it's still National Poetry Month, I'll recommend you check out that stunning Nikki Giovanni book, Bicycles: Love Poems. I kept that book in my bag for a long time and would read it almost daily. Yes, it helped.
The other essay has a crazy long title, and I'm really happy with it. Some of it is about the fact that social media is, well, social, and is a counterpoint to some of the people who think it's not. I described it on Twitter as being about "art appreciation, theater, iPhones, Flickr, 4square, Nirvana, David Carr, technology & more." That pretty much sums it up, I think. Please read it and, if you're so inclined, pass it along. I'm honored to have my work published their because I love what they're doing. Do make sure to check out their Love & Sex section. I have my eye on some pieces for Best Sex Writing 2012 (no decisions have been made on that book yet, as I'm wrapping up Best Bondage Erotica 2012 and madly reading reading reading).
"Why I Had My iPhone In My Hand While Viewing The Nirvana Exhibit At Experience Music Project"
I can contrast my visit to EMP with the other Seattle Center cultural offering I took in, a matinee of the play This at Seattle Rep, a few minutes’ walk away. There were plenty of moments in the play I found noteworthy, from the married man who tells the woman with whom he had a one-night stand, “You invade my psyche,” to the game the other characters play with Jane, whereby she leaves the room and has to guess the story they’ve made up, using only yes and no questions. Only there is no story, save for the one she spins, and she is the last one in on the not-so-funny (to her) joke. Unlike the museum, except for perhaps the video interview sections, the play moved too quickly to capture except by memory.
Both ways of processing and responding to art with simply our eyes and ears, or with the aid of technology, or perhaps pen and pencilæare, I believe are necessary. Any time I walk into a museum, a theater, or even a park, or open a book or visit a website, I am hoping that something I find there will leave me changed and different than I was before I ventured into that space. My photos (which you can see here) don’t tell a whole story, mine or the museum’s, so much as offer a tease, a glimpse into what stood out for me during my two hours in EMP. They aren’t meant to replace or stand in for the exhibit.
Read the whole thing
One is at the new site Modern Love Rejects. It's called "The Unlikely Other Woman." It feels dated to me, because it's from a while ago, but as part of my new try, try, try again attitude, I thought it fitting to send a piece that's in part about rejection to a site about rejection.
I thought I was too smart to get hurt, which was my ultimate downfall. There’s no such thing as “too smart” when it comes to love; it’s the great intelligence equalizer. Why else would Nikki Giovanni have a poem addressing precisely this scenario called “I Would Not Be Different.” I grabbed it off the shelf at my local bookstore, one where we’d even had a date, where he’d kissed me between the stacks. I was desperate for a sense of community of fellow women who were not smart enough to evade the charm of the married man. “You sort of see someone/And you don’t want to notice/That ring on his finger/Nor really that sort of happy/Look in his eyes,” she writes. I thought he could be happy with her—and me—and that I could be too.
And that local bookstore is that fantabulous WORD, where I got some amazing books and ogled cute items last night. More on that later. But since it's still National Poetry Month, I'll recommend you check out that stunning Nikki Giovanni book, Bicycles: Love Poems. I kept that book in my bag for a long time and would read it almost daily. Yes, it helped.
The other essay has a crazy long title, and I'm really happy with it. Some of it is about the fact that social media is, well, social, and is a counterpoint to some of the people who think it's not. I described it on Twitter as being about "art appreciation, theater, iPhones, Flickr, 4square, Nirvana, David Carr, technology & more." That pretty much sums it up, I think. Please read it and, if you're so inclined, pass it along. I'm honored to have my work published their because I love what they're doing. Do make sure to check out their Love & Sex section. I have my eye on some pieces for Best Sex Writing 2012 (no decisions have been made on that book yet, as I'm wrapping up Best Bondage Erotica 2012 and madly reading reading reading).
"Why I Had My iPhone In My Hand While Viewing The Nirvana Exhibit At Experience Music Project"
I can contrast my visit to EMP with the other Seattle Center cultural offering I took in, a matinee of the play This at Seattle Rep, a few minutes’ walk away. There were plenty of moments in the play I found noteworthy, from the married man who tells the woman with whom he had a one-night stand, “You invade my psyche,” to the game the other characters play with Jane, whereby she leaves the room and has to guess the story they’ve made up, using only yes and no questions. Only there is no story, save for the one she spins, and she is the last one in on the not-so-funny (to her) joke. Unlike the museum, except for perhaps the video interview sections, the play moved too quickly to capture except by memory.
Both ways of processing and responding to art with simply our eyes and ears, or with the aid of technology, or perhaps pen and pencilæare, I believe are necessary. Any time I walk into a museum, a theater, or even a park, or open a book or visit a website, I am hoping that something I find there will leave me changed and different than I was before I ventured into that space. My photos (which you can see here) don’t tell a whole story, mine or the museum’s, so much as offer a tease, a glimpse into what stood out for me during my two hours in EMP. They aren’t meant to replace or stand in for the exhibit.
Read the whole thing
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Modern Love Rejects has launched
My Modern Love rejection, from The New York Times Modern Love section, but of course, goes up tomorrow at Modern Love Rejects. I hesitated over giving permission, even though I'd submitted it, but then I realized, once again, that fear is the ultimate self-sabotage. That even if my essay is foolish and stupid, even if one could say the same about my actions (feel free), I wrote it. I finished it. I tried. The not trying is what makes me despise myself. So, yeah. It makes me feel a little squeamish, but maybe that's a good thing.
So check out the first three Modern Love Rejects, by Samara O'Shea, Kiri Blakeley and Alisa Bowman, and submit your own!
So check out the first three Modern Love Rejects, by Samara O'Shea, Kiri Blakeley and Alisa Bowman, and submit your own!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Rejected from Brevity: "Pill Popper"
Here is rejection number 2 from Brevity, the second in a making-lemons-from-lemonade blog series I'm apparently doing until I learn to write better. Trust me, I am gonna keep submitting. I know it doesn't pay; in fact, it costs $3 to submit, but if it kills me, I am going to crack this market. My pride is at stake here. And yes, it's a good opportunity to work on myself, work on my writing, improve, blah blah blah. I know that, but right now, I just want a yes. That is my truth; maybe I'll write about it in my shame essay (for a 2012 anthology I'm SO excited about, more on that, uhh...in 2012). Lately I've been so hellaciously slow and I need to step it way the hell up. That was my little don't-fuck-up pep talk to myself. 750 words: on it. Must brainstorm ASAP.
Pill Popper
by Rachel Kramer Bussel
I open my brown suede purse and there, nestled amid the various items that add up to twenty pounds when I hoist it over my shoulder, is a baggie containing four pills. The baggie is clear, pills are white and orange, and, when they catch my eye right, seem to match my multicolor heart-covered iPhone case.
They look pristine, shiny, bright, like medicine, even. They are medicine, for my friend with the prescription, anyway. She had to stop taking them and offered me some and I took them, even though I promptly forgot what they are called (I texted her to ask: Vyvanse). They sound like just what I need: a way out of the hell that is a blank page, a blank mind, or worse, a scattered one, bouncing from website to website until I fear I’m testing my browser’s capacity to keep opening them.
The pills are so small, seemingly delicate, even though they feel like hard plastic. I can rotate them, unscrew the orange and the white to reveal a substance that looks like a cross between baking powder and sprinkles. They have writing on them, in this case, numbers and letters: S489 and 30 mg. But I wonder what else they might contain, where some mad scientist to personalize them just for me. “Courage,” perhaps. “FML.” “Get over yourself.” I imagine every self-help mantra I’ve ever wished upon inscribed in the tiniest of fonts with words that would dissolve on my tongue, work their way into my bloodstream.
I know, though, that words are limited. I have one, “open,” inked in purple on my back. It’s beautiful, my tattoo, and sometimes, when I slow down enough to reach behind me and stretch for it, I will walk my fingers along where I think its loops exist, let those four letters talk to me, tell me the message I thought so important I needed a permanent reminder. Yet that one word did not magically transform me from cynical to sunny in the half an hour it took to get it etched onto my body. I got it precisely because staying open-minded, privileging optimism over my innate pessimism, is the harder path to walk down.
As I contemplate whether I will take the first of the four pills, I know what I wish they could give me: freedom. Though I’ve never taken pills recreationally before, I know I’d take as many as I could acquire if they were guaranteed to give me what feels missing in this moment. Right now, it’s a plan--for my overdue novel, for my messy apartment, for having children. If I had instructions, guidelines, a map to follow like one does a recipe, I’d feel safer, saner. I’d know that even when a day or week or month or year is hard, there is a logical next step, a way out of here and into there. Obviously, that is a lot to ask of thirty milligrams of anything, and yet I want to ask. “It never hurts to ask”--isn’t that conventional wisdom, or perhaps just a cliché, right up there with “There are no stupid questions?”
I like the idea of talking to the pills; maybe if I were a different type of person, I’d be more into talking to G-d. I still spell those three letters like that, with the hyphen I learned in Hebrew school, even though that entity, whoever he/she is (or isn’t), is not on my top 5 list of non-humans I want to question. I also talk to my Hello Kitty pillow, ask her things that even if she did have a mouth she surely couldn’t answer. Sometimes, I’ve discovered, it’s truly better not to ask.
Ultimately, whether I swallow the pills or not, whether they help guide and focus me or not, there will still be questions, many of them so big and overwhelming I half wish for a pill to make me the kind of person who doesn’t have questions, ever, who’s accepting, accommodating, easy. Or maybe one that could talk back, respond, even if I didn’t like its answers. If that were ever invented, I’d be big pharma’s bitch in a heartbeat. Until then (or I find that personal mad scientist), I’ll have to write the words I want to swallow to make them part of me, make them real. That’s nowhere near as easy as simply opening my mouth, but maybe the long way out is the ultimate freedom, the mythical shortcut simply a mirage.
Pill Popper
by Rachel Kramer Bussel
I open my brown suede purse and there, nestled amid the various items that add up to twenty pounds when I hoist it over my shoulder, is a baggie containing four pills. The baggie is clear, pills are white and orange, and, when they catch my eye right, seem to match my multicolor heart-covered iPhone case.
They look pristine, shiny, bright, like medicine, even. They are medicine, for my friend with the prescription, anyway. She had to stop taking them and offered me some and I took them, even though I promptly forgot what they are called (I texted her to ask: Vyvanse). They sound like just what I need: a way out of the hell that is a blank page, a blank mind, or worse, a scattered one, bouncing from website to website until I fear I’m testing my browser’s capacity to keep opening them.
The pills are so small, seemingly delicate, even though they feel like hard plastic. I can rotate them, unscrew the orange and the white to reveal a substance that looks like a cross between baking powder and sprinkles. They have writing on them, in this case, numbers and letters: S489 and 30 mg. But I wonder what else they might contain, where some mad scientist to personalize them just for me. “Courage,” perhaps. “FML.” “Get over yourself.” I imagine every self-help mantra I’ve ever wished upon inscribed in the tiniest of fonts with words that would dissolve on my tongue, work their way into my bloodstream.
I know, though, that words are limited. I have one, “open,” inked in purple on my back. It’s beautiful, my tattoo, and sometimes, when I slow down enough to reach behind me and stretch for it, I will walk my fingers along where I think its loops exist, let those four letters talk to me, tell me the message I thought so important I needed a permanent reminder. Yet that one word did not magically transform me from cynical to sunny in the half an hour it took to get it etched onto my body. I got it precisely because staying open-minded, privileging optimism over my innate pessimism, is the harder path to walk down.
As I contemplate whether I will take the first of the four pills, I know what I wish they could give me: freedom. Though I’ve never taken pills recreationally before, I know I’d take as many as I could acquire if they were guaranteed to give me what feels missing in this moment. Right now, it’s a plan--for my overdue novel, for my messy apartment, for having children. If I had instructions, guidelines, a map to follow like one does a recipe, I’d feel safer, saner. I’d know that even when a day or week or month or year is hard, there is a logical next step, a way out of here and into there. Obviously, that is a lot to ask of thirty milligrams of anything, and yet I want to ask. “It never hurts to ask”--isn’t that conventional wisdom, or perhaps just a cliché, right up there with “There are no stupid questions?”
I like the idea of talking to the pills; maybe if I were a different type of person, I’d be more into talking to G-d. I still spell those three letters like that, with the hyphen I learned in Hebrew school, even though that entity, whoever he/she is (or isn’t), is not on my top 5 list of non-humans I want to question. I also talk to my Hello Kitty pillow, ask her things that even if she did have a mouth she surely couldn’t answer. Sometimes, I’ve discovered, it’s truly better not to ask.
Ultimately, whether I swallow the pills or not, whether they help guide and focus me or not, there will still be questions, many of them so big and overwhelming I half wish for a pill to make me the kind of person who doesn’t have questions, ever, who’s accepting, accommodating, easy. Or maybe one that could talk back, respond, even if I didn’t like its answers. If that were ever invented, I’d be big pharma’s bitch in a heartbeat. Until then (or I find that personal mad scientist), I’ll have to write the words I want to swallow to make them part of me, make them real. That’s nowhere near as easy as simply opening my mouth, but maybe the long way out is the ultimate freedom, the mythical shortcut simply a mirage.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
"I Regret Not Finishing Law School" at The Gloss
I contributed to The Gloss's "I Regret Everything" series with my essay on why I regret not finishing law school.
But the part I do regret, and think about every time I log in to Sallie Mae’s website, is that I never paused long enough to allow myself the room to truly grasp that I could exit gracefully, and to the tune of much less than the eventual $150,000 (approximately) tuition and board, plus interest, that I will wind up paying, or just get through it. I chose to leave after having what I’d consider a nervous breakdown after three years with most of my credits, but no degree. I have until 2033 to pay off those loans, and by my estimations will have racked up between $250,000 and $300,000 for a degree I do not have. Or I should have toughed it out, bucked up, even if I knew I didn’t want to take the bar, even if I got Cs, even if the only class I really liked was intellectual property, where we learned about things like negotiating how many seconds’ worth of credit a screenwriter gets on film.
Read the whole thing
And if you like it, I'd love it if you liked it on Facebook - any comments, please make them at The Gloss. Many thanks!
But the part I do regret, and think about every time I log in to Sallie Mae’s website, is that I never paused long enough to allow myself the room to truly grasp that I could exit gracefully, and to the tune of much less than the eventual $150,000 (approximately) tuition and board, plus interest, that I will wind up paying, or just get through it. I chose to leave after having what I’d consider a nervous breakdown after three years with most of my credits, but no degree. I have until 2033 to pay off those loans, and by my estimations will have racked up between $250,000 and $300,000 for a degree I do not have. Or I should have toughed it out, bucked up, even if I knew I didn’t want to take the bar, even if I got Cs, even if the only class I really liked was intellectual property, where we learned about things like negotiating how many seconds’ worth of credit a screenwriter gets on film.
Read the whole thing
And if you like it, I'd love it if you liked it on Facebook - any comments, please make them at The Gloss. Many thanks!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
My essay at The Root: "New Interracial-Dating Book Hurts More Than It Helps"
Please check out and pass on/like it on Facebook (if you like it) my first piece for The Root, "New Interracial-Dating Book Hurts More Than It Helps" on JC Davies' book I Got The Fever. "Whitey" was but one word she used that I don't think I've ever heard someone say before.
The very idea that, as white women, we should "broaden our horizons" when it comes to dating assumes that we're only looking for white men to date in the first place. The way Davies positions the groups she profiles, practically pimping them out, suggests that dating outside of our race (or religion) makes us somehow edgy or avant-garde. I'd venture, instead, that if we choose to do so, it makes us human, not in an "I don't see color" kind of way (could there be a more stupid phrase when it comes to race?), but in the sense that we don't limit ourselves to dating one type of person.
Read the whole thing.
The very idea that, as white women, we should "broaden our horizons" when it comes to dating assumes that we're only looking for white men to date in the first place. The way Davies positions the groups she profiles, practically pimping them out, suggests that dating outside of our race (or religion) makes us somehow edgy or avant-garde. I'd venture, instead, that if we choose to do so, it makes us human, not in an "I don't see color" kind of way (could there be a more stupid phrase when it comes to race?), but in the sense that we don't limit ourselves to dating one type of person.
Read the whole thing.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Lost Love and Feminism
Actually two totally separate pieces, but they both went up today. I highly recommend you check out the entire Lost Love issue of Lost Magazine - all our pieces are linked from the cracks in the broken heart! Original art illustrates all our pieces as well.
My short essay for them is called "You." Certainly not the most imaginative title there, or my best work, but it's raw and real and, well, I wrote it.
I posted this last week but it took Huffington Post a while to get it up, it was inspired by Kate Betts' new book Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style, which I actually liked, except for the part where everything was "post-feminist," hence my piece: "'Post-Feminist:' Why Ubiquitous Use of the Term is an Insult to Feminism"
More essays coming this week about jealousy, interracial dating, dermatology and anthology editing, cause I'm versatile like that! Also working on what I'm calling a "mini memoir" plus lots of fiction. The whole not dating thing, plus setting aside Friday nights and much of my weekends for writing, has made me a wee bit more productive.
My short essay for them is called "You." Certainly not the most imaginative title there, or my best work, but it's raw and real and, well, I wrote it.
I posted this last week but it took Huffington Post a while to get it up, it was inspired by Kate Betts' new book Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style, which I actually liked, except for the part where everything was "post-feminist," hence my piece: "'Post-Feminist:' Why Ubiquitous Use of the Term is an Insult to Feminism"
More essays coming this week about jealousy, interracial dating, dermatology and anthology editing, cause I'm versatile like that! Also working on what I'm calling a "mini memoir" plus lots of fiction. The whole not dating thing, plus setting aside Friday nights and much of my weekends for writing, has made me a wee bit more productive.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
"My Love/Hate Relationship With Thinspiration Blogs" at The Frisky
I wrote about "My Love/Hate Relationship With Thinspiration Blogs" for The Frisky. Funnily enough, I thought earlier this week, bingeing on Pretzel Crisps and potato chips was the worst of my eating habits this week, but it wasn't. Let's just say, yesterday was a bad day, but today I sought refuge from the storm at the gym and gave my legs and arms a pretty solid workout. I need to work on eating for health and hunger, not emotional eating, and on carving out time for the gym like I did today. One day at a time, eh?
And yeah, lately I'm realizing that it's in the middle of or immediately after my rock bottom moments that I get to that state of writing the most truthfully, because you have nothing left to lose at that point. For me, it kindof releases something in me that maybe I need to access in the worst possible ways, to figure out what sets me off. I don't want to create a pattern of low, low moments, followed by writing that somehow puts a salve on them, but that is often how it works for me. I'm tapping into a lot of my jealousy and hatred around a certain past relationship and unpacking it, and realizing that it's okay to have those emotions; they are mine, I own them, right or wrong, and that not looking at them, not exploring them, just accepting the way I've treated people or the way people have treated me, is the path to disaster. It's a very slippery slope for me from feeling like "This shitty thing happened" to "If someone treats me in a shitty way, I deserve it." That is what I'm unpacking in some of my writing, and it feels like some Muriel Rukeyser awakening.
Which brings me to that famous quote of hers: "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open." Trust me, I read about a lot of women's lives, and I do believe in the transformative power of truthtelling. But I think one giant lesson for me this year is that there is something a little suspicious, often, about those who set out to "change the world." I've dated and hooked up with people like that, ones who travel to farflung countries, who are "out there" in the world, far, far from home, and I'm not saying they are not doing good, positive work out there, and being amply rewarded for it. They are. But for me, I never want to be that person who thinks they are "saving" the world but treating the people in their personal worlds like shit. To me, that hypocrisy is sad, and so far from who I want to be that I'm glad I've distanced myself from the people who practice it. I don't admire it and don't want to add to the fawning around it.
I'm not claiming that I act perfectly towards the people in my life; I don't. I fuck up, I hurt people, I am selfish and self-centered. But I try hard to look at those actions, to learn from them, to find ways to satisfy myself first and to still be as good a friend I can be. It took me a long time to learn how to separate those things, to realize that that "good work" might be meaningful, but it doesn't make someone a good person. Ultimately, I think that is something everyone has to judge for themselves, and I used to think it was my job to be judged by everyone around me, to care about what other people thought, and yet there came a point where I realized I'm not in anyone else's head, and I can't live up to their standard or version of who I should be. I can only live up to my version, and that is what I'm trying to do. 2010, in particular the part from 35 on, have been, in a word, bad, so I am eagerly counting the days til 2011.
There is a lot inside myself, and outside, that I don't like, and often my solution to that has been to lie in bed and mope, but I'm trying to fight that part of me, to make concrete changes in how I live and how I take care of myself; obviously, there are blips along the way. I was a wreck yesterday, and realized that there are some toxic people in my life who I need to reconsider spending time with. That is not to blame anyone else for my actions, but again, to go back to self-care, which I think makes me a better person to be around, hopefully, anyway. I know when I am not taking care of myself in the ways I haven't been lately, when I go along with things just for the sake of the experience or to please someone else or because it's the "right" thing to do, I am doing myself a disservice. So, yeah, that was my longwinded way of saying that maybe as I get older my world becomes a bit more myopic, and "the world," in the Rukeyser sense, sounds all too much like hubris. I'm looking forward to going more inward, and there's no way to write that or think that without sounding, to my own ears, utterly selfish, and so be it. I'm ready to relinquish any claims to being not-selfish, and embrace that for what it is--not a path to anything other than learning about myself and going deeper with my writing and whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing with my life.
The other night, I was wading through all the junk scattered around my apartment, starting to panic because I couldn’t find a book I needed to review. I threw out bag after bag of garbage and finally decided to get some dinner, my version of which was a prepackaged frozen entree of organic tofu, vegetables and brown rice, plus a bottle of soy sauce.
No sooner had I popped it in the microwave than I discovered a brown paper bag from Trader Joe’s filled with one giant bag of tortilla chips and one bag of potato chips. I was still lamenting the previous night’s binge on everything Pretzel Crisps (yes, the same ones that pulled their “You can never be too thin” ads earlier this year), but that didn’t stop me from opening the potato chips. I thought I could just eat a few, savor that greasy, so-salty-it-hurts-the-corners-of-my-mouth taste, then throw the rest away. I wouldn’t have gone out and bought them, but there they were, right in front of me. But in the four minutes it took to heat my healthy meal, almost the entire bag was gone, and instead of that pleasant salty taste on my tongue, I felt like a bomb had gone off in my stomach.
Read the whole essay (and, as always, I'd love your comments, there not here) at The Frisky, one of my favorite sites.
And yeah, lately I'm realizing that it's in the middle of or immediately after my rock bottom moments that I get to that state of writing the most truthfully, because you have nothing left to lose at that point. For me, it kindof releases something in me that maybe I need to access in the worst possible ways, to figure out what sets me off. I don't want to create a pattern of low, low moments, followed by writing that somehow puts a salve on them, but that is often how it works for me. I'm tapping into a lot of my jealousy and hatred around a certain past relationship and unpacking it, and realizing that it's okay to have those emotions; they are mine, I own them, right or wrong, and that not looking at them, not exploring them, just accepting the way I've treated people or the way people have treated me, is the path to disaster. It's a very slippery slope for me from feeling like "This shitty thing happened" to "If someone treats me in a shitty way, I deserve it." That is what I'm unpacking in some of my writing, and it feels like some Muriel Rukeyser awakening.
Which brings me to that famous quote of hers: "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open." Trust me, I read about a lot of women's lives, and I do believe in the transformative power of truthtelling. But I think one giant lesson for me this year is that there is something a little suspicious, often, about those who set out to "change the world." I've dated and hooked up with people like that, ones who travel to farflung countries, who are "out there" in the world, far, far from home, and I'm not saying they are not doing good, positive work out there, and being amply rewarded for it. They are. But for me, I never want to be that person who thinks they are "saving" the world but treating the people in their personal worlds like shit. To me, that hypocrisy is sad, and so far from who I want to be that I'm glad I've distanced myself from the people who practice it. I don't admire it and don't want to add to the fawning around it.
I'm not claiming that I act perfectly towards the people in my life; I don't. I fuck up, I hurt people, I am selfish and self-centered. But I try hard to look at those actions, to learn from them, to find ways to satisfy myself first and to still be as good a friend I can be. It took me a long time to learn how to separate those things, to realize that that "good work" might be meaningful, but it doesn't make someone a good person. Ultimately, I think that is something everyone has to judge for themselves, and I used to think it was my job to be judged by everyone around me, to care about what other people thought, and yet there came a point where I realized I'm not in anyone else's head, and I can't live up to their standard or version of who I should be. I can only live up to my version, and that is what I'm trying to do. 2010, in particular the part from 35 on, have been, in a word, bad, so I am eagerly counting the days til 2011.
There is a lot inside myself, and outside, that I don't like, and often my solution to that has been to lie in bed and mope, but I'm trying to fight that part of me, to make concrete changes in how I live and how I take care of myself; obviously, there are blips along the way. I was a wreck yesterday, and realized that there are some toxic people in my life who I need to reconsider spending time with. That is not to blame anyone else for my actions, but again, to go back to self-care, which I think makes me a better person to be around, hopefully, anyway. I know when I am not taking care of myself in the ways I haven't been lately, when I go along with things just for the sake of the experience or to please someone else or because it's the "right" thing to do, I am doing myself a disservice. So, yeah, that was my longwinded way of saying that maybe as I get older my world becomes a bit more myopic, and "the world," in the Rukeyser sense, sounds all too much like hubris. I'm looking forward to going more inward, and there's no way to write that or think that without sounding, to my own ears, utterly selfish, and so be it. I'm ready to relinquish any claims to being not-selfish, and embrace that for what it is--not a path to anything other than learning about myself and going deeper with my writing and whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing with my life.
The other night, I was wading through all the junk scattered around my apartment, starting to panic because I couldn’t find a book I needed to review. I threw out bag after bag of garbage and finally decided to get some dinner, my version of which was a prepackaged frozen entree of organic tofu, vegetables and brown rice, plus a bottle of soy sauce.
No sooner had I popped it in the microwave than I discovered a brown paper bag from Trader Joe’s filled with one giant bag of tortilla chips and one bag of potato chips. I was still lamenting the previous night’s binge on everything Pretzel Crisps (yes, the same ones that pulled their “You can never be too thin” ads earlier this year), but that didn’t stop me from opening the potato chips. I thought I could just eat a few, savor that greasy, so-salty-it-hurts-the-corners-of-my-mouth taste, then throw the rest away. I wouldn’t have gone out and bought them, but there they were, right in front of me. But in the four minutes it took to heat my healthy meal, almost the entire bag was gone, and instead of that pleasant salty taste on my tongue, I felt like a bomb had gone off in my stomach.
Read the whole essay (and, as always, I'd love your comments, there not here) at The Frisky, one of my favorite sites.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Why I Got The Word "Open" Tattooed On My Back
It's been a whirlwind week between my tattoo, running all over heat-waved LA and taking a 9-hour redeye flight home (we had to stop in Salt Lake City to refuel). I'm writing again for Lemondrop, with two very exciting interviews lined up, but this latest piece is about why I got my new tattoo. It's by Joy Rumore at Twelve 28 Tattoo, recommended to me by Audacia Ray, which, needless to say, I recommend.
I'd always thought that I wasn't a tattoo person. There wasn't a single image I felt I had to have on my body. But when my friend Sheela and a bunch of other cool ladies I know made plans to get tattoos while we were all in Chicago, I decided I wanted in on the action.
I still couldn't come up with an image that worked for me, until I realized that I'm not a visual person so much as a word person. As a writer, words are what matter most to me; I stay up late at night reading, not watching TV. I remember quotes and song lyrics more than I remember movie scenes.
Once I decided I wanted a word, the one that came to mind was "open." I tend to be extremely pessimistic, and when something goes wrong in my life, instead of trying to fix it or make it better, I assume there's something wrong with me and that's why the problem is occurring.
Read the full essay here. And if you like it, please repost, comment and/or Digg it (on my tech to do list is figuring out how to get an exact Digg link - working on it!).
I'd always thought that I wasn't a tattoo person. There wasn't a single image I felt I had to have on my body. But when my friend Sheela and a bunch of other cool ladies I know made plans to get tattoos while we were all in Chicago, I decided I wanted in on the action.
I still couldn't come up with an image that worked for me, until I realized that I'm not a visual person so much as a word person. As a writer, words are what matter most to me; I stay up late at night reading, not watching TV. I remember quotes and song lyrics more than I remember movie scenes.
Once I decided I wanted a word, the one that came to mind was "open." I tend to be extremely pessimistic, and when something goes wrong in my life, instead of trying to fix it or make it better, I assume there's something wrong with me and that's why the problem is occurring.
Read the full essay here. And if you like it, please repost, comment and/or Digg it (on my tech to do list is figuring out how to get an exact Digg link - working on it!).