May Have Mercy

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May has only been here for 9 days, but - as I predicted over a month ago - it's been a shit-show.  One bloody thing after another. Fate just won't give up and seems determined to pummel me.

From having no money (seriously, my checking account is beyond overdrawn), and minimal job prospects (who wants to hire a 22 year old college drop-outwith no degree or credentials or lengthy experience in anything? No one.) and my mother being more malicious and vindictive than usual, this month's got it in for me. As in, I don't see myself living past 22 anymore.  I mean, my initial freak-out last month was more panic than anything, but after today. . .

I don't understand how my mother can say the things she says to me.  She seems to make it her life's work to make me feel as small and worthless as possible at every opportunity.  I don't understand how someone who is supposed to love me can say such cruel, painful, paralyzing things and then walk away like I'm nothing more than a problem that won't fix itself.  The things she said this afternoon - saying I'm useless, that I need to quit wallowing and do something productive, that I don't have an excuse for not doing things, and criticizing my cleaning skills (neglecting the fact that I live with a 50 year old man who doesn't understand the concept of cleaning up after himself) - were hurtful to say the least.  The tone in her voice though, like I was something less than human she was disgusted with. . . That left me nearly catatonic but for tears when she finally left.

I sought consolation from my brother, who sympathized but wasn't comforting.  All he said was that as long as I live somewhere where she foots the bill, I have to suck it up and deal. He also admitted that, considering my income and the money I owe various peoples and organizations, I'm stuck here for the foreseeable future.

At the rate Life keeps piling shit on me, I expect Hell will break loose by my birthday - but again, at this rate, I don't think I'll stick around to see it.


Tonight I'll just content myself with a few more scars.

“And I hide because there’s more to me than what you see and I’m not sure you’d like the rest. I know that sometimes, I don’t like the rest.”

—	I Wrote This For You: The Remaining Mirrors

When I Have Fears

It's been an interesting winter, I suppose, but finally, finally, it's turning into spring.  I love this time of year.  I survived the cold dark of fall and winter and now I'm to be rewarded with warm days that last and last.  I can always tel, because the wild mustard is already blooming on the hillsides, and even a few brave poppies have poked up their golden heads before the final frost.

Unfortunately, it also brings my birthday.  I know, it's a silly thing, and I should be excited or something, but the one thing no one realizes is that in truth, I'm terrified.  I know I say that and people laugh but. . . The reason I went so all-out for my birthday last year was because I rather planned on it being my last.

Don't freak out, I don't have any plans. I just - and I realize how ridiculous this is - don't want to get old.  It's a completely irrational fear, I know, but like all my other irrational fears, it comes with a great deal of anxiety.  It's hard to explain where this came from, only I know I've felt like this since I was 14.

I've always been afraid of aging.  I'm not so concerned for vanity's sake - neither my mother nor grandmother look even a decade near their true age - I'm concerned for other reasons.  For years I've felt like 21 was it.  And I royally blew it.  What did I do this year?  I spend a wonderful summer in Salem, OR, I went back to school and dropped out again; I reconnected with R--- and K---, I'm working a dead-end job for my father and have little more than a high school education.  Not much to show for 21 years on this earth.

And that's what I'm afraid of.  When we're young, we're starry-eyed dreamers, but we're gradually robbed of that as we get older until we're nothing but shells of who we once were.  I don't want to wake up one day and realize that I'm 40 with a husband and 3 kids and haven't lived my life.

I mean, how many 40 or 50 year olds do you know who are genuinely happy with how their life turned out?  Who rejoice in their aging? I've been told time and time again by people I love not to get old.  I know they mean it jokingly but. . . I genuinely don't want to.

Maybe it's just the Big D talking but . . .  I've been worrying about this for a while.  It's more than just worrying about not living fully or "making my dreams come true" (whatever that means...), but I can't quite articulate it.

I mean, I feel like this is it.  My friends and I are growing up, we're running out of things to connect us.  I know that's a normal part of growing up, but I want a do-over.  I didn't do high school right, I royally fucked up my college "experience" and all I can think is that I'm running out of time to do all the living I have to do before I'm conned into giving myself up and forced to grow up.  The unfairness of it is so bitter and vile.

I look at Kenzie and how wondrous the world still is to her and feel sick when I think that in 15 short years, she'll probably be as disillusioned as me, if not more so.  And in 15 years, I'll be 37.


Am I a horrible person for feeling so trapped? I've heard all the "it's never too late to do what you've dreamed of" that I can handle.  I just want to know what my options are.  I'm really worried where I'll be in a few more weeks. . .

Word After Word After Word

"I have so many word-thoughts rattling around in my head, but my hands aren't fast enough to copy them down. I feel them streaming out my ears, running down my arms and pooling on the floor, cascading into a puddle of incoherency... It seems the well has sprung at last."

That was running through my head just a few moments ago, and thus became my Facebook status. There's so much I could (and would like to) say about words, books, writing, and other such things, but for tonight I have something specific to discuss.

See a few weeks ago, R--- called me up and invited me out to The Press with her. I'd never been, but basically it's like a cafe/coffeehouse by day and a bar&grill/open mic by night. It was actually really fun, and after a few drinks and the amusement of some exceptionally drunk people in the ladies' restroom (including Madame Sake Bomb and High-Waisted Skirt Girl) we wound up walking a very deserted Claremont Village. While we walked, we talked about our current (or lack thereof) creative projects, and drifted to my writing. And it got me thinking. And then it got me writing.

I spent 45 minutes compiling a list of over 80 books I want to read before the end of the year. One of the things R--- urged me to do was to get a library card. I live within walking distance of the La Verne library so why the hell didn't I think of that? It's the broke-girl's bookstore (I have ZERO money these days after paying bills and other such grown-up type things). But the list includes mostly modern classics by authors I should have read in college but didn't, and books I've always wanted to pick up but never bothered to.

How are the two preceding paragraphs connected? Well, a very intelligent screenwriter once lectured me thus: "If you're a writer, write. But in the same way that you can't run a marathon without having eaten plenty of nutritious calories, you can't write without having ingested words. Writers read - they read far more than the average person or the above-average reader. If you want to write for an hour, you have to read for at least half an hour. Bare minimum. And magazines don't count. You'll put out what you put in, so make it count." (Paraphrased, of course.) The man was a genius and had zillions of such epithets.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I'm trying to write again. I have a number of projects going on that require tinkering, fiddling, and other such edits, and they deserve my attention. I deserve to write, well and in excess. I haven't touched my Venice Story in months, I have no further notes on my Tattoo Book and nothing short of a few  half-finished sections and a rough outline on my Babysitter's Guide. (Yes. I'm writing a babysitter's compendium. Shut up.)  And I'm going to write letters. So if you know I have your address, be prepared for a potential onslaught and don't you dare throw them away - my words will be national treasures someday, just you wait.

And to those I scared, worried, or otherwise caused concern to a few weeks/days ago: I apologize. I am not and have not been in a good place as of late, especially with my birthday and some mysterious psychological "deadline" approaching in the near future. But it'll get better. Right?

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