Microfamous

There’s a reason it’s called “falling in love...”

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 16:30:00 +0000

I decided to break the seal on a box of notebooks I wrote when I was in my early 20s (that I had packed and taped up in 1996). Reading my 22-year-old self fervently swear that she’ll never fall in love again makes me feel sad, mostly because she didn’t. Almost, but not really.

At 22, I was intensely passionate about many things—not eating red meat (the hormones! The red dye!), writing, feminism, literature (I had just discovered Anais Nin and Henry Miller, if that tells you anything), and love (again, the hormones!). I believed everyone had a soul mate just waiting for them out there in the world, and it was up to me to find him. Over a five year period, I recorded the turbulence of my love life in painstaking detail on page after page. I wrote about infatuations, crushes, obsessions, attractions, and love. Every time, it was the “real thing.” And every time, passion became my poison.

If these notebooks are an accurate depiction of what my I knew then, I can say I have learned a few things in years since. I no longer believe that everyone has one soul mate; I think we have many, and that people are drawn together by fate and circumstance. I no longer believe that such thing as an easy relationship exists or that the level of difficulty has anything to do with love.

I’ve also learned how to protect myself. After putting the pieces of a broken heart haphazardly back together time after time, I decided that spending the rest of my life shielding a heart of glass wouldn’t be a wise move. And I stopped letting other people in.

Suppose love came knocking on your door. Would you turn it away with a “sorry, all stocked up on that here?” Pretend like you weren’t home? Chase it down the street with a baseball bat? Or would you open the door, smile, and thank it for being so punctual?

What I did was design a complicated mess of a barricade, complete with traps, skill tests, checklists, pulleys, ropes and, I think at one point, even a moat. If someone wanted in, he’d have to run the gauntlet, suffer the proving ground, navigate the emotional land mines, and pass every test. Should he make it through unscathed, I’d make certain he was sorry he even tried.

What I got for my efforts was a series of superficial relationships that never developed any depth or longevity. Or intensity. Or passion. And when they ended, I felt no more than a twinge of regret…a far cry from the anguish I experienced over breakups in my twenties. My thirties were not as melodramatic, but I sacrificed passion for peace.

I am not certain what I expected to find by reading the angst-ridden messages from my 22-year-old self. I hoped to discover that I am better off now than I was then, but I don’t think that’s true. I do mean it when I say I am happy being single, but I’m beginning to understand exactly what I’m missing out on by protecting myself so carefully. Without heartbreak, love and passion are watered-down versions of the real thing. Until now, I didn’t even realize that I missed the full-strength version.

There’s a reason it’s called “falling in love.” At its core is an element of letting go, even if you know there is turbulence ahead, that you’re signing up for an emotional roller coaster ride, and that it might end in tears. The only thing gained by crawling into your shell is, well, a really comfortable shell.

I’ll have to find a happy medium between being head over heels and in over my head if I want to experience the kind of intense emotion the 22-year-old me knew all too well. As for the happy ending, just consider me “in production”—I know that this movie won’t have an ending until I find a way to take heart instead of losing it.

Today I try to do one thing...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 22:31:00 +0000

(photo: Magnus Jälthammar)

Sharing the love and the weird...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 18:02:00 +0000

Aleigh used to write these great blog posts on things her friends said via email (I think that's what it was called). I'm stealing the idea, except with texts. I didn't even ask if I could. The two of us and another friend, who I will call "Erin" (because that's her name), have had a years-long group text exchange. I can't remember when it started...sometime in the year after I moved to Austin...but I know it will probably last forever. I hope it will. They make me laugh like no-one else can.

Also science says having friends is just as important to your health as exercise. I text/talk to these two waaaaay many more minutes than I spend at the gym.

Two notes: 1) none of these texts are work-related and 2) many of the phrases are mine, but I'm not saying which ones; nor am I identifying the others.

You know you're getting older when you spend more money on makeup and food than booze.
Age defy all the things!
Dear god asparagus. Why? WHY? You know that scene in The Exorcist where the priest's mom goes "why Dimi why you do dis to meee?" That's what I feel like saying to asparagus after I pee.
Not that I have ever noticed. Maybe I just can't smell it!
My mother is taking pictures of her TV screen and texting them to me.
I need a million dollars, stat.
Quick get Satan and make a pact.
I used to have him in my contacts but the last time I texted him he was all like "new phone who dis."
Satan is an asshole. I texted that I needed to remove four years from my life that I wasted on shitheads and all I got was LOL GRRRRRL.
You definitely need a lady's maid.
I rang a fucking bell for some cottage cheese and blueberries like an hour ago and bitch still hasn't shown up. I HAVE TO WALK TO MY KITCHEN.
Please save me.
I think if I cried more often I'd be a better person.
Okya I’m drrunka.
Feel free to smack me the very next time you see me if I have become annoying.
Me when it was time to leave work for the holidays:

I love these group text exchanges. I live for them. There's an awful lot of talk about bodily functions, things that shall never be repeated, even if attributed anonymously. I have announced that I was renaming Thanksgiving "Bakesgiving." Once there was a three-day long exchange about malevolent vaginas. And it was funny as hell. But there was also a day-long exchange about the relevance of historic landmarks and whitewashing history (we have these sometimes so we remember that we're smart).

We live states apart, but laugh and cry together as much as we ever did when we lived in the same city. No matter what happens in my life here, these two are always in my pocket. I'm not very good at telling people how much they mean to me, but I have no trouble telling these two lifelines how much I love them. I hope everyone is so lucky.

The funny thing is...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 15:06:00 +0000

Even when you stopped allowing the men in your life to break your heart, the thing that surprised you most was that it could still be broken — by Life, by Loss, by Things Outside of Your Control. Sometimes they didn’t just leave you and go somewhere else; sometimes they really left you and everything else in this world. When that happened, there was no ex. There was no second act, no breakup sex, and no opportunity to wait for him to come crawling back just so you could turn him away one last time.

Instead, you were left begging under the weight of the universe, asking Providence for one more chance, calling Fate at three o’clock in the morning to sob your heart out.

You did what a lot of girls do; you tried to move on. You went out nearly every night, hoping to run into Divine Intervention, or even Chance or Fortune—you weren’t picky then.

But no matter how alluring, no matter how charming, no matter how hard you tried to conceal your desperation, you brought evening after evening to a close with Grief.

Best American Horror Story yet (and I'm going to miss it so)...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 17:22:00 +0000

There were a lot of plot inconsistencies and strange choices this season, definitely not as scary as AHS Murder House or AHS Asylum, but AHS Coven wins "Best AHS" on my list for one reason: Stevie effing Nicks.

Stevie made a guest appearance in one episode as a witch (and idol of Misty the Swamp Witch, see GIFs above), plus the season finale opened with "Seven Wonders" and an intro that harkens back to the olden days of swoony music videos. If you check out popular Google search terms for AHS Coven + Stevie Nicks, you can almost see all of the 20-somethings trying to find out who this magical, shawl bedecked, twirling pagan princess is and how they can buy the music. Here's hoping that Stevie got a huge iTunes bump from the show. Also that wearing black is the new black, because on Wednesdays they wear black.

Did you watch? Do you DIE? Shouldn't Jessica Lange and Angela Bassett be in a movie together? Is there any role that Kathy Bates cannot nail like a boss? Will you keep the Stevie Nicks episode on your DVR until you can buy the whole season online?

Just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's not real...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 19:15:00 +0000

All writing is personal. And sometimes the best writing feels awful. I cut my teeth on personal narrative, though I didn't know that's what it was called at the time. I've written lots of fiction too, way more than the occasional short stories published in rather obscure literary journals. I even have a novel in a box, where it will probably live forever. Once I became accustomed to "letting it all hang out" with my writing, I needed fiction less and less often.

A longtime friend and I have a running joke that came from the movie Postcards from the Edge (based on a book by Carrie Fisher). Whenever we have an experience that causes extreme public or social embarrassment, we shake it off with "it twirled up." In this scene, the daughter accuses the mother of inappropriate behavior. Her response? "IT TWIRLED UP."

When I coach writing clients who are working on personal narrative or memoir (or blogs), I often tell them that hitting "send" or "publish" for the first time is going to feel terrible. It's going to feel like your skirt blew up in public and everyone saw your panties. You'll feel exposed and vulnerable. And then you'll get used to it, eventually.

In the past few years, I've written more fiction than I did in college intensives. More than the novel in a box. It was a panacea for feeling like I lost my sense of humor, the tongue-in-cheek voice I had taken for granted for so long. Shit wasn't funny anymore and I had no distance. A therapist suggested I write about everything, but do it in the third person. So I did. And it made me remember why I started writing fiction in the first place.

With personal narrative, especially humor, hyperbole is acceptable and expected. But it's still oops-it-twirled-up honest. Fiction gave me the freedom to tell the story any way I wanted to, to end it any way I wanted to, and the distance I needed so that it wouldn't make me sad. I've heard other fiction writers say that their work has no basis in their own lives, that it's entirely made up, and I believe them. Sort of. I have fiction writer friends who openly admit their stories are thinly disguised events from their lives. Joan Didion's fiction was (though she's better known for memoir). So was Nora Ephron's, Heartburn in particular.

In the spirit of twirling up, for every writer I've ever encouraged to push "send," I'm going to share a cringe-worthy (at least to me) snippet of a short story that was published several years ago in a now defunct literary journal. The story is called "Running Away."

Following suddenly interested in running father to country club track. Watching him on the pay phone from a distance. Healthy, running 5Ks and marathons and away. From my mother, with her quiet cancer. From four daughters with their female neediness. Running away from same, same, same houses on a military base where class mattered less than rank. His poor farming family. An Irish mob of a family in a tiny New York town across the Saint Lawrence River from Kingston Ontario. From dirt and poverty. Weekday mornings in his officers uniform, snapping his collar, snapping at females and poodles and leaving behind a sickeningly sweet cologne cloud.

Weekends, already getting fat at age nine, I put shorts and sneakers on. Followed him out of the house in the early dawn. Ran several yards behind him, knowing he saw me and only that he didn't order me to return home. Running to catch up. Running the miles around the houses on base until he stopped. In the lot of the officer's club. There was a pay phone outside. He held up his hand, motioned for me to turn back, left me behind until he was out of earshot, picking up the phone, cradling the receiver with his back to me. I wait. Stretch. I know. I know everything.

I would prefer this story die with it's out of print, never digitized publisher. It's awkward and weird and I think I was 22 or 23 when I wrote it. But fiction? Sure. Why not? From the age of 11, when my biological father left my mother the day after Christmas to move in with his girlfriend and start a new and improved family, I told people my father was dead. That I never knew him (this is true, and he might actually be dead now because I haven't had contact in years). It was easier than the complicated truth, that he left our family while my mother had just begun treatment for cervical cancer, that the only thing that saved us is that he was in the military and thus forced to pay child support. That he wanted nothing more to do with us. This fiction was the part of me that admitted the hurt and the guilt of knowing just how long before the leaving that the moving on began.

This is a story I will never be able to tell as my own narrative, but it can still be told. It is not something I still grieve over. I've had a lot of good experiences in my life with men, fathers of friends, that showed me that men can love their daughters even though mine didn't. My "daddy issues" are no worse than most. I stopped trying to replace him a long time ago, around the time this story was published, maybe even because it was published.

Writing is how I choose to heal, whether the words are truth or revisionist history. I could have made the story end in a different way, made my father a different man. I could write it three more times and have three different trajectories. But I don't have to because it's out there and it doesn't matter anymore. All of this is to say: I hope you get to know what it feels like, even just once, to let it twirl up.

It's December in Austin, which means...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 21:06:00 +0000

A high today of 87 degrees! It was 55 when I woke up this morning. After four years (end of this month) in Austin, I don't think I'll ever get used to the temperature fluctuations. My windshield keeps cracking. It's something about the laws of physics and sciencey things that happen when hot things get cold and vice versa.

Anyhoochie. I'm not going to apologize for taking a break from posting because it makes me hate myself (the apologizing, not the taking of the break), but I wanted to tell you about the weather. I went for a walk outside this afternoon in the boots I wore to work because it was 55 degrees this morning and now I feel sweaty. When winter comes to Austin though, it doesn't f*ck around. This weekend? Highs of 39 degrees, lows 29-31 degrees, plus 50-60 % chance of rain. Happy we had a cold snap a few weeks ago that motivated me to dig out my winter gear because I'm going to need it.

Speaking of winter gear, here is a photo of my dog in a Snuggie™. She has one. I don't. Because I figured out how to use a remote control and a telephone while being warm and simultaneously covered by a blanket a long time ago. (Snuggie lovers, I do not judge...unless I see you in one at the grocery store because my mother raised me right.)

The cutest EVER, right?

Stay warm wherever you are!

Because we all want to write more better...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Thu, 05 Sep 2013 17:00:00 +0000

I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because if everyone did, I wouldn't be a comma fucker.

I've been a writer since I could string together a sentence. I've been an editor, professionally speaking, for more than 10 years now. I love language, words, sentences, breaking rules, playing with subtext. These things make me happy. What makes me sad also makes me an asshole, a "Grammar Nazi," and apparently, a "comma fucker." I present the evidence, shared by a Facebook friend earlier this week:

So yeah, Finnish: "pilkunnussija" literally translates to "comma fucker," or someone who corrects little or meaningless things.

Over the years I have learned that most people don't like to have their grammar corrected (exception: writers handing over manuscripts for an extended and intentional bout of comma fucking). I still do it silently. I no longer read comments on news stories or web sites. I hide Facebook posts by people I care about because I just cannot with the poor spelling and grammar. I cringe at an erroneous possessive apostrophe. I've sent kind and gentle (my opinion) emails to local businesses with misspelled signage.

In my defense, I don't do these things to feel intellectually superior. I do them because I have a dream. It's a big one, but I cling with every fiber of my being. I dream that every single person in the English-speaking world will complete early childhood education with an ingrained understanding of the difference between "your" and "you're" (yeah, I'm so fucking hung up on this that I once declined a second date with a repeat offender texter). I hope to never again have to explain that the correct idiom is "dog eat dog world," NOT "doggy dog world" (yes, this is a real thing that happened). And someday, in this perfect world, I will never again have to explain to a college graduate the difference between active and passive voice.

Trust me, my own mistakes make me cringe just as hard. I rarely read magazine pieces I've written once they have been published, lest I discover that an editor missed a wayward comma splice, misspelled word, or (gasp) changed my correct language to something less than correct. This blog is full of mistakes. There is a post somewhere around here in which I used "to" instead of "too." I beg your forgiveness, but use this example to illustrate 1) I am not a perfect comma fucker and 2) The fact that I discovered this error in hundreds of pages of archives and still remember it proves that I am harder on myself than anyone else.

I could go on about how texting and social media and a failing public educational system has ruined language, but I don't even use proper capitalization or punctuation in IM or emails to friends, so apparently I don't care. What I do care about: Journalism. Literature. Why media outlets thought it was a fantastic idea to ditch proofreaders and editors to save their struggling print publications, which people like me don't read anymore because spelling and factual errors are too damn distracting. Why e-book publishers charge for editing services, yet every single damn book I've ever downloaded for less than $2.99 (or free) was so full of grammatical inconsistencies I couldn't even tell if the writing was actually good.

Written communication matters to me and maybe I'm tilting at windmills. If so, I'll be quixotic until I draw my last breath. Call me pilkunnussija. Or comma fucker. Just spell it correctly.

*This post was sponsored by Grammarly, for which I received a trial period (but since I was hooked at "context optimized synonyms," I'd be telling you all about it anyway).

Writing about writing again, but sometimes confessions are necessary...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 18:35:00 +0000

“I hate writing. I love having written.” - Dorothy Parker

I bought this from The Rumpus.

I can’t tell if this is too “inside baseball” because many of my friends are writers. We do what writers do: 1. Talk about writing. 2. Procrastinate. 3. Repeat steps 1 and 2.

I AM working on a second book. It has a shape and a focus, but I tend to be “all or nothing” about my projects; if it can’t be perfect, then I don’t want to make the effort. And there are so many important things that need doing. Earlier this summer, I realized I forgot to watch The Wire. So I watched all five seasons in about a month like it was my second job. Then I had to start watching Luther, because Idris Elba.

I put off buying an e-reader forever. I LOVE BOOKS. How could I betray my beloved READING EXPERIENCE with an electronic device? Then I bought a Kindle Fire and it made me feel like I could live without paper forever, even just for the thrill of thinking of a book I once read a million years ago and being able to download it at 1 a.m. and read it. Instant gratification. Writing is not instant gratification. Unless writing a Tweet, which is extraordinarily satisfying. I have written almost 8,000 of them, which in sum total is a book-length work, albeit a boring one.

I still write ideas down in a paper notebook. I also have Evernote on my phone, laptop and tablet. I can’t say that technology has made be more productive (probably the opposite), plus instead of just a notebook full of brilliant ideas mocking me from the depths of my shoulder bag, the mocking comes from multiple sources. I have Tetris on my tablet for some stupid reason. A feed reader of informative blog posts and articles to attend to. I’ve watched 50 episodes of Shin Chan on Hulu in the past three months.

All of this side business (bullshit) means that my notes stagnate, angry, unruly, unattended to: “Hey, um, so…think you’ll get to work on me this weekend? You know, ‘cause you said you were excited about it and all, but here we sit—how long has it been? A month? I know you’ve got all that television to watch and those naps to take and, well, I’m sure that fascinating thing about your ex-boyfriend from a million years ago really needs to get written for your blog. I’m sure all of that takes precedence over, say, the possibility of a review in the Times before you turn 80. Whatever.” My notes are a sarcastic bitch.

It probably doesn’t help that I want my second book to be mine-all-mine, not advice, not for anyone else, my Didion book. And I decided that 45 would be a good age to publish this unwritten masterpiece, which is not right now, but later. Except this one doesn’t want to wait and it isn’t going away. But I push back. I’ve been on central time for three and a half years now and I still can’t get used to prime time television starting at 7 p.m. I have a day job that requires a lot of reading and editing, and it pays the bills, so if I feel like watching four hours of television or staring at the ceiling instead of writing, hey, at least my bills are paid.

Weary of covering my ears and humming every time a new thought surfaces, I set a schedule. I resolved to sit down and use the 5,000 words of notes I have accumulated, turn them into 60,000 words of brilliance, and I will do this for 10 hours a week. Last week, I wrote for one hour (not counting day job related writing or navel-gazing blog writing or Tweets or vaguely insightful Facebook posts). I know it’s bad when things I hate take precedence over my writing schedule: Laundry. Vacuuming, which I do monthly when my dog is at the groomer so she won’t go mental when she sees the Bissell Pet Vac (as in "good for sucking up pet hair," not "good for sucking up pets," but dogs think what they think). Financial paperwork that I don’t care about (someone else can figure out how to roll over my 401(k) into whatever stupid savings thing that won’t cause me to have to pay taxes). Did I already say laundry?

I have coached writers. I know what I am supposed to do when my brain wants to scrub the bathtub and organize the linen closet before I can sit down to write. Those are the thoughts I should ignore. I should sit in front of a blank page and let the words come. I should deactivate my Facebook account. I should stop reading the amazing ideas of others and start writing my own. Physician, heal thyself? I used to think it was weird to see doctors smoking cigarettes or eating fast food, but maybe it’s not weird at all. Maybe it comes down to a choice: Help others or help myself.

So, first step. I will forget the “what ifs.” What if this person gets mad because I wrote a thinly veiled description of a thing that happened a long time ago? What if people judge me? What if I don’t have a second book in me? What if I fail? Then I will find the rational part of me that hates the fact that I am never satisfied with my last great achievement and convince it to hunker down and get to work on a chapter outline.

I’m telling you these things because I need you to know that I am not fragile. You can expect things from me. I won’t flinch, make excuses, or fall apart. This is what we do, my friends. This is what we do, having written. Let's all write like motherfuckers.

Me and my shadow...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Sat, 10 Aug 2013 15:23:00 +0000

A few months ago, on the phone to my mom, I said "we slept in today." My mom said, "WE??" (As in, who is this other person that is a "we" that you've neglected to mention until just this very minute?) The we I referred to was me and my Lulu dog. I don't let men spend the whole night because I don't like to cook breakfast or make morning small talk. And if I did, I probably wouldn't drop it on my mother so casually.

Last week, a friend pointed out that I am "we" with my dog in a way that I've never been with a person, a love, a guy. Then I stumbled across this article on Salon, which puts the woman/dog relationship in such beautiful perspective it made me feel like I knew the person who wrote it because she could be me:

"Tova and I became a "we": We’re moving in the spring; we sleep late on Sundays; we favor cafés with outdoor patios. I’d never been a "we" with anyone else: There had been me and there had been him, and there had always been more him than me. Love meant indulgence. But all those times I made Tova sit for her supper, all those tussles in the dog park that I broke up, all those moments I pulled her to my heel and let the squirrels go by—that was love."
(from "My best relationship is with my dog" by Laura Bogart, Salon.com)

Like Bogart, I have considered that I might be using my dog as armor, as another reason not to get too attached to another person in my life. An excuse not to make room for someone else. Considered, then dismissed. This is what I want from my life right now. I love the simplicity. I'm rarely lonely, and if I am, it's only for a fleeting second. I listen to friends talk about their relationships and, rather than making me wistful and wonder why I avoid intimacy, it makes me grateful for the every day that I have right now. It's easy to live in the moment when you don't have to work to maintain a marriage or long-term relationship. My dog is not a "stepping stone" to a "real" relationship. In fact, I have made real and lasting connections with other people because of my dog; being out and about with her makes it easy to talk to strangers. She makes it easy for my introvert self to put on the extrovert cloak for a while, gives me a reason to smile at people I pass on the street, and she's a hell of a social dog, which makes it harder for me to be antisocial.

I never thought I would be a dog person. And now I can't imagine not having mine in my life. And this, this one line from Bogart's piece after meeting her dog, brought me back to the cold November night in 2008 when I met my little one for the first time and she buried her tiny face in my neck and I was a goner: "I have no idea what I’m in for, but I’ve never been more certain of anything."

What I do when I'm not here...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Thu, 30 May 2013 18:45:00 +0000

Not as much as you'd think. I went to a comedy festival last month and wrote about it for The Austinot. Actually, I turned a review of the festival into a weird observation about comedians and mental illness and why I like comedians.

I read a lot of books over a long holiday weekend. I would list them here, but I can't remember all. Here are some:

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler (so good)

The Middlesteins: A Novel by Jami Attenberg (also good, heartbreakingly so...)

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard (my third or fourth re-read)

American Wife: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld (it's been on my list foreverrrr and she has a new one coming soon)

I am leaving off books I began and stopped reading because I lost interest. I never used to to do that; I really felt the need to finish a book even if it was bad, but now I feel like life is too short to waste time hoping something will magically get better. Also I add books to my Kindle wish list faster than I can read them.

Watched a lot of television. It seems counter-intuitive, but I read almost as much as I watch TV. I watched the entire fourth season of Arrested Development. It was fun. I liked it. I'm not a critic. It broke my streak of binge-watching everything in the category of TV Shows That Have Been Canceled Even Though They Are Really Fucking Good. Like Fringe. And Alphas. And Touch (actually I'm cool with this one if Keifer is going back to the world of 24; also never really want to hear him say "Jake" or "sweetheart" a thousand times every episode again).

What else? I had brunch a couple of times. Dim sum. Sat on my back deck and watched a monster thunderstorm with big rain and hail one Friday night. Canceled my Match.com membership (see also: life is too short to waste time hoping something will magically get better) . Watched my adorable neighbors' adorable cats while they did adorable things in Switzerland (and brought me chocolate because they are...adorable). Sent my mom chocolate-covered strawberries. Went to the dermatologist expecting to have things removed and had nothing to be removed (see also: developed crush on my dermatologist). Went to the farmer's market in the rain and returned home with fresh peaches and pruney feet. Had some really good dreams.

There's more in my navel to be examined. I miss you.

An imaginary conversation with Elizabeth Wurtzel...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 22:28:00 +0000

I "get" difficult women. I know a lot of them. I've worked for some and am related to several. I am one. I appreciate the stick-to-her-guns fuck you mentality of not caring (at least, appearing not to care) about what people think about you/her/us.

I read Elizabeth Wurtzel's memoir, Prozac Nation, when it came out. I was in college. It spoke to me. I even saw the movie. It didn't speak to me. In the late 90s, I (still in college) read Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women. You probably heard me cheering about it at some point. I read her second memoir, this one on addiction, a few years ago. I don't remember a lot about it, but I know I identified on some level. I've never met Lizzie (but in my mind I call her Lizzie because I follow her on Twitter and that's what she calls herself and I think if we met in person she'd be cool about it), but in the past couple of years - since she's popped up again writing pieces for The Guardian and New York Magazine - I've been paying a little more attention. She seemed to drop off pop culture's radar for a bit, and I had the sense that she had gone through something similar to my own (hate to call it mid-life because I know I'll live past 80) crisis. A loss of voice. And these pieces, varied as they were, attempts to find her voice again. Kind of like I've been doing for a while now. Except a lot more public. And with comments. On the internet. It feels like an odd question to ask about someone who wrote a book in praise of difficult women, but I also wondered why all the hating on Lizzie?

She's a little bit older than I am, but I consider her a sort of contemporary. And when I read her most recent piece in The Atlantic, "I Refuse to be a Grownup," I promised myself I wouldn't read the comments. Then I read the comments, or the first 20 or so. I wished I knew her in real life so I could tell her that she's doing the right thing, this writing she's doing to get her voice back. And this is the most "back" I've seen her since the 90s.

If you know me personally, you probably know that I rehearse conversations in my head (and come on, you do too, right?). On my way home from work, during that cursed/blessed worst Austin traffic drive time, I had one with Lizzie. It went something like this:

Me: Hey, so good on you for the Atlantic piece. I hope you didn't read the comments.
Lizzie: (leaves her sunglasses on, which is fine because I am kind of the sophomore to her senior in this scenario) Nope.
Me: I mean, I don't know who has time...but the one from the "TL:DR what's the point?" guy...he didn't even read...
Lizzie: I don't read the comments. I don't care what people think.
Me: Hey, that's really great...so, you of you. There was that one "psychologist" who comment-diagnosed you with narcissistic personality disorder and that isn't even a thing anymore; it's not even in the latest DSM...
Lizzie: (icy silence)
Me: I wanted to tell you that I get it. I hate that you have to see criticism all over the freaking internet when you're just being honest, I mean who isn't a narcissist? What's wrong with not wanting to grow up? For those of us who choose not to get married, not to have kids, to remain emotionally...um, I want to say... immature? Why do people care so much?
Lizzie: I don't. So I wouldn't know.
Me: I wanted to say that I'm on your side. Write all the crazy. Just write. Let the haters hate and do it anyway, even if it's just for lines like "I wish people were judging each other a great deal more, and more carefully, but they are not. Knowing this, I have no trouble being myself. It works well. I will die screaming." BECAUSE ME TOO, LIZZIE, ME TOO.
Lizzie: Calm down. (exhales vapor from her e-cig)
Me: OK, so I'll let you go, but just one more...
Lizzie: No.
Me: DidyoutotallyfreakoutthatChristinaRicciplayedyouinthemoviebecauseherforeheadOMGherforehead...
Lizzie: No.

And that was it. She probably wouldn't like me in person. Nor should she. I wanted to tell her about that one time I was on Prozac because my best friend died when I was 23 but it didn't work and how my mom is a therapist and told me the worst thing with mental health issues is to "be in the system" so I always made sure I saw private shrinks, off insurance, sometimes under assumed names, and I think talk therapy is overrated and that most people think I'm younger than I really am too because I don't really have responsibilities, but I do have one cat and one dog just like she does but the cat has hated me for 14 years now and also sometimes I am ridiculous too. When people grossly underestimate my age, I assume it's not based on my appearance, but on my behavior. I don't behave like a person who has the weight of other people's problems on top of my own, rather, I behave like a person who thinks her problems are the only important ones. And, BAM!, right back to narcissism.

Hate her or don't. Hate me or don't. I have had worry. I have had grief. I have had despair. None of these things permanently damaged me. Not even a line on my forehead (yet, but totally fine when it does happen, because it will). So to the critics, to the commenters and trolls, to anyone who cannot follow her stream of consciousness while she reaches for the voice she might think she lost by detouring to law school and relationships and doing things other than writing - pay attention. You're not. She is. And she says it better than I:

"Nothing is more bracing than not being concerned about what other people think. I have no idea why anyone cares. Trust me: No one is looking. I know: I am looking. People are self-involved."

p.s. If you don't know who Elizabeth Wurtzel is or if you were in a coma in the 90s, here are all the Tumblr posts in the world tagged with her name. Enjoy.

You can sleep while I drive...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 15:56:00 +0000

I can't think of anything more comforting than having someone you love offer to take over for a while, even for just a few hours. I love road trips, but not solo. I love the kind of road trip where you have someone to talk to and share driving and take turns napping.

One of my dearest friends visited last week for SXSW and, while we did get out and about, my second favorite thing about her visit (my first favorite thing was just seeing her damn face in person for the first time in a few years) was that she kind of took over. On the first night of her visit, as we sat in my living room eating salads from La Salsa, she looked around and said, "I really want to organize this area." And of course, I said "not on your vacation."

But here's the thing. She really wanted to. She's the kind of person who can take $50 and turn it into a showcase living area worthy of HGTV. She likes order. She cleans her kitchen before she goes to bed because she likes to wake up to a photo-worthy kitchen. So I let her drive. And she spent two days rearranging my furniture, office area, and electronics, plus picked up some globe lanterns (these were a mystery to me) and tab top drapes (and a tea kettle, mostly because she was aghast that I did not own a tea kettle considering the amount of tea that I drink). Let me add that the whole process was not without hilarity, as we resumed the roles in which Erin bosses me around and I let her, see this post from 2006 when she put my bicycle together for me.

It felt like she waved a wand and turned my relatively comfy living space into a showcase, but there was a lot of work and a lot of dust and other things I couldn't explain (like why my TV was in the corner of my living room or why I kept my desktop computer hooked up even though I don't use it). The photos don't do it justice. But here's one:

What this photo does not show: The "mental illness drapes" that had been my mom's in the 70s or 80s that I (literally) NAILED to the wall in a fit of pique my first summer in Austin because THE SUN, THE SUN, IT WAS TOO MUCH. They went into the bin and the trash man should be picking it up today so they will be gone forever.

So my dear friend, who breezed into my life and out again, leaving me this lovely place to come home to every day, probably doesn't know how much this meant to me. Even though I made feeble attempts to explain. What it is, really, is comfort. When I watched this past weeks' season finale of Girls, Hannah said the following mid-meltdown, trying to explain:

You know when you’re young and you drop a glass, and your dad says, like, “Get out of the way!” so you can be safe while he cleans it up? Well, now, no one really cares if I clean it up myself. No one really cares if I get cut with glass. If I break something, no one says, “Let me take care of that,” you know?

When Erin was moving my couches around, she found broken glass. Because months ago, my cat knocked a really heavy lead crystal bowl off of my desk and it basically exploded into a million shards. Some of it went under the couch and, although I swept and vacuumed and mopped and thought I had gotten every little piece of glass, it was still there. So yeah, that's what it was like, having someone come into my life and say "let me take care of that." It made me feel like I could breathe again, like someone had my back, like someone cared if I got cut with glass.

/end sappy

What I do when I'm not here (besides watching TV and painting my nails): I wrote a guest post for my favorite organic beauty blog, Indigo+Canary. You should read it. Especially if you live in Austin.

When politics gets personal...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 18:21:00 +0000

(aren't all politics personal? Just wanted to share something here and then I'll shut up until after Tuesday.)

After I lost my job in 2008, I paid for COBRA for as long as I could legally do so. I did it on a freelancer's salary. I had little savings, which I was forced to use for stupid things like rent and food during the lean months. Then I moved to Austin for a job with a small agency that didn't offer health insurance (but hey, a regular salary and living in Austin? All good).

So in early 2010, my "healthcare" involved crossing my fingers, praying, and skipping medication (I take Metformin for Type 2 Diabetes) and meals to keep my blood sugar down. I lost 20 lbs. in the first couple of months after I moved, some due to stress and some from skipping meals to keep my BG low.

People who oppose "Obamacare" (mostly Republicans but I don't want to say ALL Republicans) think that people who don't have health insurance should just go to an emergency room if they get sick. There are a lot of problems with that logic, including the fact that taxpayers have to eat those costs when the uninsured person cannot pay an emergency room bill. Also, reactive healthcare is NOT THE SAME as proactive healthcare. I found out the hard way in March of 2010 when I ended up in the ER with acute pancreatitis.

I had been sick for weeks with nausea and pain in my abdomen. I was dizzy a lot, but attributed it to skipping meals. I had cut my dose of Metformin in half so I could make it last (my doctor in Charleston prescribed a few month's worth because she knew my COBRA ended the same month I moved to Austin). Even when it got so bad I could hardly stand up to take my dog outside, I didn't do anything. A few days later, I was working in my office at the agency when the pain in my abdomen was so bad I couldn't take a full breath. I called an "ask a nurse" hotline and they told me to get my ass to a hospital immediately.

I drove myself to the closest emergency room, which happened to be in the Catholic Healthcare system here in Austin. I don't remember a lot about it, other than I took my driver's license out of my bag and held it in my hand in case I passed out while driving. I remember parking in the garage, walking through the doors of the ER, handing the woman at the desk my ID, and nothing after that until I woke up with wires all over me hooked up to machines and tubes in my nose.

They took blood and x-rays and scans and finally told me I had pancreatitis. I knew it was something I was at risk for as a diabetic, but I didn't know how serious it was. Acute kidney failure. Respiratory distress syndrome. Heart failure. Before I even saw a doctor, the financial rep from the hospital came in and got my billing info. I was still in so much pain I was tearful, and even more so when I had to tell the money guy that I didn't have insurance. He told me not to worry because they "discount" bills for uninsured patients.

I had been in the hospital for less than four hours when they gave me some medication and told me I needed to stay overnight for observation. No. There was no way I could rack up an ER bill for an overnight stay and still keep my head above water financially. I wasn't keeping my head above water very well as it was. So after another hour of negotiating, they let me sign paperwork saying I wouldn't sue the hospital if I died and sent me home with medication and a three-page bill. For $4,500. I drove myself home and cried the whole way. I slept that night with the deadbolt unlocked and my phone in my hand in case I needed to call 911, but let me say at this point I had been sick and miserable for so long, I felt pretty ambivalent about whether or not I woke up in the morning. Just being honest.

So as a person without health insurance, the hospital also gave me information for one of its clinic affiliates so I could follow up and get medication and lab work for a co-pay based on my salary. I went to that clinic for almost two years, up until just a few months ago when I could use my new health insurance from my job (I had to pay into it for a year before using it because at the time they could still deny anything related to a pre-existing condition, in my case, diabetes). I was grateful to have any healthcare at all, but the healthcare you get at a "free" health clinic is vastly different from what you get when you have health insurance.

It wasn't waiting for hours for appointments, having my blood drawn by nursing students, or never seeing an actual doctor (I saw nurses and physicians assistants the entire time). I was accustomed to following doctor's instructions. When they prescribed a new medication, I took it. I had no other options.

Which leads me to now. Just a few months ago, I was able to make an appointment with a doctor in my preferred care plan with my health insurance. I found out a few things. One: I took two medications prescribed by the health clinic for over a year that are known to cause liver damage when taken together. Two: At one point earlier this year, I took a new medication for a couple of months (the clinic gave me a bag of samples) that my new doctor told me had been recalled in 2011.

I am lucky. I am OK. I have liver damage, but it isn't permanent because the liver is great at repairing itself. I have to give myself shots in my stomach for a month or two or three, depending on how long it takes, but I can afford the medication I have to inject myself with because I have health insurance. If I didn't? $470 a month for the medication, plus needles, sharps containers, etc.

Again, I was grateful to have access to ANY healthcare when I was uninsured. I finally finished paying off my ER bill early this year. And I survived. What makes me angry - furious, actually - is the way many people dismiss Obamacare by saying uninsured people can go to an emergency room or free clinic. The clinic I went to wasn't out to murder me, they have such a large patient load that they literally cannot keep up with things like recalled medication or which medications interact negatively with others. The PA I saw probably met with upwards of 50 patients a day. They're doing the best they can under the weight of a huge increase in uninsured patients (job losses = people who cannot afford COBRA, lengthy unemployment = COBRA runs out after 18 months). I am by no means a worst case scenario. I almost died. I was so sick I wanted to die. But other people without insurance really do die every single day because they don't have access to adequate healthcare.

The Affordable Care Act fixes these things at the root of the problem: Insurance and pharmaceutical companies. If it had gone into effect a year before it did, I would have been able to get my own insurance without being denied for having diabetes. I wouldn't have been charged more than a man my age for the same insurance. The medication I need to take would have been affordable. Every damn time I hear a politician dismiss Obamacare by talking about the "uninsured masses" that should just go to an emergency room when they get sick, I think about the people I saw in the waiting room every time I had an appointment at the free health clinic. Sick elderly people, pregnant women, children...I want every politician who opposes Obamacare to give up their own health insurance for one year and try to get healthcare. I want to see them with their sick kids, tearfully waiting for hours to see a nurse who may or may not help. I want to see them give up their fucking Ambien and Viagra and try to get help from an ER when they cannot sleep because they voted NO on a "let's help the poor people please" bill.

I haven't told a lot of people what happened to me when I was uninsured and what I am dealing with now as a result, so I think sometimes people get confused as to why I so adamantly support President Obama and his healthcare plan. To the Republican politicians who dispute the fact that uninsured people often DIE WHILE THEY ARE TRYING TO GET CARE, I say fuck you. Fuck you and your white collar golden fucking parachute health insurance. Fuck you and your salary. Fuck you and your summer home. Fuck you, your private plane, your wife's facelifts, your show horses, and your complete inability to relate to what the American public is going through every single day.

There are a lot of reasons why I voted for President Obama in 2008 and during early voting last week. The fact that he has a workable plan and genuinely cares about what the average person in the U.S. faces on a regular basis is just one. It will probably take more than four more years to fix the mess the Bush administration created, but I know he'll do his level best. For me, and so many, many others like me, it can mean the difference between life and death.

End rant. Thanks for listening. This is just my story and I'm glad I'm still here to tell it.

Yes, I celebrate my dog's birthday...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:47:00 +0000

Every year. And I kind of make a deal about it. Like pupcakes and tiny hats and wrapped gifts. It's not because I wish I had children and I'm trying to fill that place inside of me (shut up) by lavishing my dog with affection and anthropomorphizing her every move. I do it because my dog is pretty awesome. I don't have to be fake maternal with her (because if you ever see me being maternal, I'm faking it). Lulu has happy coming out of her ears. She makes me laugh every day. She gets me out of bed every morning. And today, she's four.

Last month, I attended a super cool event called BlogathonATX (a whole day of blogging and meeting other bloggers and learning from experts...if you don't have something like this in your city, you should start one) and I met Allison from Printcopia, one of the event's sponsors. We had a nice chat about swag and Yelp's fingerless gloves (pretty sure the best goodie bag item ever). After the event, Allison sent me an email and asked if I'd be interested in a promo offer from Printcopia to try one of their new canvas prints (of course I was!).

Since Lulu's birthday was coming up, I knew I wanted a canvas print of her, but because I have a million thousand photos of my babydog, I thought it was going to be a really difficult decision. Then I discovered that you can browse through your own Instagram and Facebook photos during the canvas print design process. Once I linked my accounts, it was easy to preview what they would look like on canvas. I played around with the design options (wrapping, colored borders, even enhancing the image quality). I finally decided on one, placed my order, and hoped it would come in before Lulu's birthday. It arrived just a couple of days after my order, early last week, and I was so excited that I opened it in front of Lulu and ruined the surprise. (Kidding, I actually know she's a dog and she gets excited about me opening anything. She doesn't even really know that it's a canvas print of her.)

The finished print is really beautiful. I haven't decided where to hang it yet because now I want to order four or five more so I can have a favorite Instagram prints collection. I thought about hanging in my office, but I already have it as the background on my computer and I work at home about the same amount of time as I spend in my office. So it's in my home office for now, waiting for a spot on the wall and a few more prints.

Happy fourth birthday to my sweet girl. I can't imagine not seeing this face every day.

Like a bird...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 19:38:00 +0000

I've been working in art journals/mixed media/collages for almost as long as I've been writing. My art journal is where I go when I can't make words that make sense. Making them visual breaks something open in my mind so I can write coherently again. Sometimes I use my art journal to "art" about things I don't want to write about ever, or just yet. (Yes, I will turn any word into a verb if it suits me even if it makes me insufferable. And now I'm going to art about that.)

I follow lots of artist blogs in my RSS feed and every now and then there's a challenge. I have done a few, but haven't shared them. Until now. A Year in the Life of an Art Journal is one of my always-read favorites. Over the weekend, Rachel posted the following challenge:

THE PROMPT: Bird is the word
THE STUFF: yarn, twigs, sticks, feathers, leaves, things you would find in a nest.
THE TECHNIQUE: Doodle/Construct yourself as a bird. You can draw (with or with out color) or paper piece a photo of yourself and some bird parts. How would you look as a bird?

This one appealed to me so much because birds are in and out of my life in weird ways. Dreams of flying. A stranger telling me a story about an ex who murdered her parrot (is it called murder when it happens to an animal? If it isn't, it should be). That I won't eat outside at Whole Foods because I fear the aggressive grackles. I've been chased by ducks, geese and swans both as a child and as an adult. Telling my therapist that my heart felt like a wounded bird some of the time and a frightened bird the rest of the time. That the wings beating in my chest make me feel like I am going to die. Being able to let go by releasing imaginary birds to the sky. Birds are fragile and birds are strong. How my heart feels now, light, light, light.

This is my heart. My fragile, weightless, strong bird.

Can you believe it's been almost three years?

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:30:00 +0000

Since I moved to Austin, that is. I arrived in January of 2010 and I'm still finding my way. But it's easier now. I like my life here. I've shared things here before about exploring the city (which I am still doing), but superficial things; not so much about what my world is like here because there were a lot of things from which I needed some distance in order to write about it.

These days, I am never bored. You know those places in just about every city that are great for people-watching? All of Austin is great for people-watching. Like every single bit of it. I've seen men riding bikes in nothing but a thong. I've seen cars covered in glitter and cars driven by hoarders (no shit, you guys, it is a frequent sighting around here, a CR-V packed with so much crap that you literally cannot see in to any window except the windshield. The first time I saw it, I remained astonished for at least a week). Frisbee golf.

I've eliminated most of the stress, drama, etc. from my life and I can't believe I thought I'd be bored without it. I'm not. I really love how safe it feels, to have so much control over what goes on in my personal invisasquare (if you were here and could see me, this is where I do the hand gestures of drawing an invisible square around my immediate person). I also have some control over what happens peripheral to my personal invisasqaure, but really, who wants that anyway? I love that I can still be surprised, amazed, inspired, shocked, appalled, giddy and guileless.

I've met some cool, smart, funny, creative, earnest and kind people. I didn't die from heat exhaustion in the summer of 2011 (a.k.a. "The Devil's Summer"). Fall has arrived. My windows are open. Temperatures drop 20+ degrees at night in this part of the country. I often wear a hoodie when I walk the dog in the early morning or late evening.

So this is me, promising to over share. With stories. Probably with photos. Some of them are going to be of my dog. None will be of my cat. Some of them will be of my feet post-pedicure. Many will be wonderfully weird. You are welcome in advance.

And howdy from Texas, y'all.

If you're happy and you know it...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 23:29:00 +0000

Good for you. Last year around this time, I was looking for it around every corner. Sometimes I found it.

Declarations of happiness are a mixed bag for most people I think. There's a part of me that is very superstitious (maybe Puritan English roots?) and I catch myself being careful about shouting out loud about happiness and good fortune. The rest of me is comfortable saying that I'm happier more often than not these days.

People who know me well, or maybe just the ones who have known me for a long time, have to hold back laughter (or something else) when they hear me say things like this. I'm happy. I feel positive. I look forward to what the future will bring. I'm excited about what will happen next. The angsty sardonic me hasn't gone anywhere. She's been fighting a losing battle for a while and knows to lie low. And it's not like I'm skipping everywhere, whistling, or high-fiving myself on a regular basis. I haven't had a lobotomy. (and am I the only one that sometimes thinks happy people are happy because they're not very smart and therefore never worry about things? Is that just me? Am I a terrible person?) See. Angst. Still there.

It takes work to maintain a positive state of mind. I know when I should stop watching/reading/listening to the news. I know I have to keep the pen moving even if what I'm writing will never see the light of day because that's one of the things that saved my sanity. Speaking of, I'm not exactly focused on maintaining sanity. I think it's overrated. The people I love spending time with most are all a little crazy. They don't mind if I am.

So generalities out of the way, this has really been a great week. It's been below 90 all week, much cooler (low 70s) at night, and for the past couple of days rainy and below 80 degrees. If you don't know what last summer was like in Austin, you are probably underwhelmed. But I'm whelmed and my windows are wide open because it's breezy and cool and feels like fall. I went for a 45-minute walk with the babydog and didn't sweat. At all. Glorious. My neighbor and her dog Sonny went with us and we talked and walked.

Sushi for dinner tonight (if I had to choose a last meal, it would be crab rolls and escolar sushi). Tomorrow I'm joining a bunch of Austin bloggers at the 5th annual BlogathonATX and I'm excited about going (which is so much better than trying to think of excuses not to go). The weather should hold through the weekend. My roommate moved out at the end of August and I love (love!) having my house back. I found a wrap dress at Old Navy that fits me well AND was on sale for less than $20 (in store with 20% off coupon).

If you're happy, please share. The Universe isn't waiting anxiously for your declaration to drop the other shoe on your head. I remind myself every day. And I think I need another adorkable poster for my office. Clap your hands.

From Chick Lingo Signs

On diving into the wreck...and climbing out of it

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 16:25:00 +0000

I've loved the poetry of Adrienne Rich since high school. I discovered her work around the same time as Plath and Sexton and read her poems with the same morbid fascination (and wondering how she survived when the other two did not). When I heard the news of Rich's death in March of this year, it struck me again, how she lived on to write the obits of moody colleagues suffering the same dark disease, diving over and over into the depths, making it farther and longer each time, being the only one who knew how to rise again. She published her last work just a year before her death.

In my own writing, I always knew when it was good. It was good when it hurt, when it felt like hell. I wallow in nostalgia, dipping down and then rising again to find bleak humor in failure, in embarrassment, in broken hearts. Diving into the wreck for material, surfacing to turn words into paragraphs into essays. I've carried a copy of Rich's "Diving Into the Wreck" with me for years. It's what I think of every time I have to do the work of dredging up my own past, and often what I share with writers with whom I work when they are struggling over and over to plumb their own depths. The wreck is always there, I tell them. But you don't have to live there. You don't have to drown.

Rich meant something different, we learned in Lit 101. It's about patriarchy, gender politics, feminine bondage. Says the professor, but I choose to believe that it's a metaphor for returning to our own crime scenes, picking over the husk of memory to find the gold, taking care not to run out of oxygen and become part of the wreck. You can decide for yourself.

Diving Into the Wreck
by Adrienne Rich

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

It has been a struggle for the past few years, trying to find my voice again, wondering if it was gone forever. I spent more time than I should have diving into that wreck, deeper than I had gone before. I set up house there for a while. I sank to the bottom and let the water fill my lungs and take over. I am tearful as I write this, remembering how hard it was to find it and stay whole, the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck.

I wanted to write about the damage that has been done. The evidence of damage. I want to write about what surrender felt like. It was easy to let go. It was easy to live down there, so much harder to climb out. And besides, you breathe differently down here.

But I did. Climb out. And I find it harder every day to go back. By cowardice or courage. I still know the way down. The ladder is always there. I try to stick close to the surface, skimming the water, not allowing myself to sink this time. We know what it is for, we who have used it.

Link love for fall fever

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 15:58:00 +0000

Here in Austin, early mornings are cool and breezy. We're not finished with 100-degree days, but the heat of the summer is mostly just afternoons. I've been getting up extra early to take Lulu for walks and mornings are just starting to feel like fall. Growing up in the south suffering through summers, September is always when we can breathe again. I get "fall fever" like some people get spring fever. I have more energy, sleep less, get outdoors more. There are so many things I love about this time of year:

Back to school shopping and what a new box of crayons smells like.

Pumpkin lattes. Pumpkin bread. Pumpkin seeds. All things pumpkin. My friend Charlie has an annual pumpkin carving party and contest just before Halloween. Last year's entries. I hate putting my hands into the squidgy pumpkin guts, but love eating roasted pumpkin seeds.

My birthday is in November and I love my birthday. Last year, I marked the occasion with a new tattoo. I think I'm going back again this year.

Cooler weather means sweaters. And layers. And over-the-knee socks. And lovely scarves. Since I'm still trying to lose the lbs. I gained last holiday season, I am all about dressing in cozy layers.

More: My favorite slouchy sweater. My favorite tall boots. My old/new Doc Martens. Cozy blankets. The farmer's market is fall amazing. I'm not the only one falling; this Tumblr is all fall, all the time. A Facebook page for fall lovers. ACL Fest (2012 lineup is amazing, Rufus Wainwright and the Civil Wars at the top, more on that later). I could go on. And on. But I spent this holiday weekend cleaning and cleaning and now I'm going to sit on the back deck with a latte and my Kindle (almost finished with Chelsea Cain's second book, Sweetheart). I hope it feels like fall where you are.

Inspiration here, there, everywhere...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:14:00 +0000

While I love my Kindle (the instant gratification got me), I'm still on the fence about buying books. When I moved to Austin, I culled my five bookshelves down to one bookshelf full of favorites and first editions. I love to run my hands along the spines, turning them over in my hands, flipping through paper pages and reading my notes in the margins (yes, I like to underline things and write in my books). Sure, I can keep thousands at my fingertips with my Kindle Fire, but I cannot bring myself to get rid of these last shelves, these paper memories, these literary giants that sit side-by-side in tidy rows. Vonnegut lives here. Hemingway lives here. O'Connor lives and lives and lives again.

I stumbled across this Etsy shop recently and fell in love with the inspired illustrations with quotes from literary greats. I want to buy them all, hang them so they can be seen from where I work most often (living room, couch, laptop).

These two are my favorites, but it was so hard to choose. F. Scott Fitzgerald makes my heart beat faster. T.S. Eliot makes me want to spill all of my secrets. Jane Austen makes me want to write letters that I'll never send.

I went to Barnes & Noble earlier this week with a friend and we ended up sitting on the floor of an aisle in fiction, leafing through paperbacks (even as we looked up e-books on our phones), pulling books from the shelves based on covers alone, putting our faces close to the open pages and inhaling the paper and ink and wondering if we're going to be the last generation who knows what book stores smell like. Will we someday try to describe it to younger people, our reading glasses perched on noses twitching as we struggle to bring the sense memories back, wishing we would have bottled it way back when, closing our eyes as we remember what it felt like to turn the paper pages? I think yes. We writers love our books. We writers are going to have to be curators of paper museums, preservationists of ink smudges, storytellers of the printed word.

Housekeeping? Housekeeping.

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 22:38:00 +0000

After waffling back and forth about whether or not to archive my old blog and start a new one (it felt like throwing away a lot of memories), stop blogging altogether (but I have sooo much material waiting to be loosed upon the world), or do "something" with my existing site to make it fun for me again (it felt so clunky forever and I had gotten in the habit of heading over to Twitter or Tumblr when I have something to say), I picked door number three.

This is my toe in, re-introduction, new beginning, the opening of the floodgates (I like that one the best). It's been three years since I've blogged on a regular basis, and I want to thank my friends Angie Mizzell, Aleigh Acerni, Doretha Walker and all of the blogs in my reader (so many) for inspiring me and inspiring me and inspiring me once more. I've been testing the waters for a long time and I'm ready to get my hair wet (and if you know me well, you understand that this is kind of a big deal because me getting my hair wet in a chlorinated kiddie pool is equal to most other people diving from a high cliff into the ocean).

If you're reading this post in a reader, you are probably confused. Click over to my blog and see the "something" I did with my site. I'd love your feedback, even if you just want to throw out the spirit fingers (Angie). And since the actual work on my part was choosing a designer, let me add that Carrie of CarrieLovesDesign.com is responsible for all of sexiness up in here.

So with renewed vigor and enthusiasm, let the navel-gazing commence!

The magical things we find with no destination in mind...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 05:52:00 +0000

"Golden Glamour" by Vanessa Bley.

Inspired by the documentary film BEAUTIFUL DARLING: The Life & Times of Candy Darling.

Candy was an Andy Warhol Superstar. Chloe Sevigny plays her in the film. It's fascinating. From the web site:

Beautiful Darling, a documentary film, pays tribute to the short but influential life of an extraordinary person -- the actress Candy Darling, born James Slattery in a Long Island suburb in 1944. Drawn to the feminine from childhood, by the mid-Sixties James had become Candy, a gorgeous, blonde actress and well-known downtown New York figure. Candy's career took her through the raucous and revolutionary Off-off-Broadway theater scene and into Andy Warhol's legendary Factory. There she became close to Warhol and starred in two Factory movies that still shock and amuse today: Flesh and Women in Revolt. Candy used her Warhol fame to land further film roles, and her admirer Tennessee Williams cast her in his play Small Craft Warnings. She dreamed of becoming a Hollywood star, but tragically died of lymphoma in the early Seventies, at only twenty-nine.

I wear a lot of black...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:37:00 +0000

But I try once a year, on average, to add a little color to my wardrobe. I honestly couldn't tell you what happened to that pretty emerald green dress or the hot pink ballet flats, but I can share this season's attempt at some color.

The challenge: one complete outfit, no black (or shades of black, i.e. gray). I went with Old Navy for the whole thing because I didn't want to spend a lot with the chance these things might end up living in the back of my closet forever and ever.

So what I'm trying to figure out now is how to wear this to work. Without people keeling over from shock because they've only seen me wear black and gray for most of the past six (okay, eight) months. Even in July. I wear a nude pinkish cape thingy every now and then, but it's a neutral so I don't think it counts. This outfit isn't just "not black," it has "color!" (and I don't use exclamation points gratuitously.)

I'm thinking a gradual introduction (since this is really a "spring" outfit) of color over the next month or so, then break out the whole shebang. I also picked up a bright pink tank, a green cardigan-type layering shirt, and a lightweight spring scarf with pink in it.

So yeah, out of the fashion rut, I rise! (that one was pretty gratuitous).

A playlist for my shoes...

noreply@blogger.com (Kelly Love) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 03:00:00 +0000

Boots, actually. I got my first pair of Doc Martens in high school (oxblood, laces half done) and wore the hell out of them until I was out of college. It was the 90s. We watched Singles and dreamed of moving to Seattle or New York. We loved Nirvana and Mudhoney and L7 and Soundgarden and Sleater-Kinney. We got our noses pierced. We dyed our hair Tori Amos red. We got tattoos. My Doc Marten boots took me all over campus, waded through standing room only crowds at the Music Farm (the old and new one), drank vodka cranberries at AC's (the old and new one), ground peanut shells to dust on the floor of that shitty little club off of market street where we first saw Billy Pilgrim, stood so close to the stage at a Ramones concert that we're still a little deaf in one ear, sat outside the door during hurricane season after hurricane season, fell in love, fell out of love, smoked cigars and sang the blues at that basement club in Savannah, fell in love again and again and one more time after that. And then we grew up. We lost track of our Docs. They ended up with a friend or at Goodwill or left behind in that great second floor apartment on Alexander Street with all of those windows and hardwood floors and a fireplace in the living room and one in the bedroom.

These new boots are not like my old boots, even though they're the classic 1460s. They're black, for one (oxblood is hard to come by these days). I'm not ready to wear them to work, but I wear them almost all the time when I'm not working. They feel like the old ones, but don't make me feel like the old ones. I know the 90s are long over and I'm not sure I could fall in love again, at least, not so hard again. I can feel them pulling, though. They want to go see We Are Augustines next month at Antone's. They whisper, "listen sister, you live in Austin now and there is so, so much you haven't seen and heard." So I made a 90s nostalgia playlist for both of us (links are to individual Youtube videos but you can get the whole thing here).

Mudhoney, "Touch Me I'm Sick"
L7, "Pretend We're Dead"
Concrete Blonde, "Joey"
Nirvana, "Lithium"
Violent Femmes, "Good Feeling"
Mazzy Star, "Fade Into You"
Mother Love Bone, "Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns"
Tori Amos, "Crucify"
Nine Inch Nails, "Closer"
Hole, "Asking For It"
Porno for Pyros, "Meija"
Seven Mary Three, "Water's Edge"

There are things we can let go of and things that become ingrained. My hair isn't quite so red. I wear my nose stud when I remember to put it in. I'm still getting tattooed. My heart is healing. I know it's OK to admit it when I'm scared. I'm just as self-involved. I admit that now too. The 23-year-old me has been painted over so many times it feels like her windows will never open again. But she's there. She doesn't want to wear torn jeans and plaid flannel, but she loves the shit out of our new boots. We can hear the music.

"In one more hour I will be gone
In one more hour I'll leave this room
The dress you wore, the pretty shoes
Are things I left behind for you." (Sleater-Kinney, "One More Hour")