Yours is The Book generations of women will press to a beat beneath their left tit as they brave college classrooms the first time, or the next time, or the last time even; it’s with them between classes, between sentences, on lunch breaks and trains; they’ll read your book alongside bodies of water and stoking fires and confronting rage; before and after every other book they’re told to read; they’ll slip out bedroom windows, from negligees, from beneath the dead weight  of shame; they’ll read your book around campfires and by flashlight and sitting on benches in the heat of day; they’ll pass it to each other with love notes and lip prints like arrows that point the way. By now, they’ve memorized passages. Words in mind like ink on skin.  

They’re prepared to write-the-good-fight now feeling not only the rhythm your book lent us but the courage you gave.

The day is warm and windy in Republican country. I’m surrounded by churches and liquor stores, desert hugged by mountains.

What does a person’s sexual preference have to do with his or her professional ability, his or her professional integrity? This is the question on my mind today.

Or this one. When is Shanna Germain going to let me court her? I tried once. I mean to seduce her. I’m sure she hardly noticed. I was just so graceless about it. Fumbling. Scared. Shanna is a beautiful person.

Here’s another question. Why did I entertain a sexual fantasy today at work and get myself so aroused? Work just isn’t the place for that.  Jesus. Torture. Because I was turned on. And what could I do about it? Granted, I didn’t fantasize about Shanna Germain or Bradley Cooper or Sam Trammell. (Although everyone should entertain at least one good fantasy about each of these people.) I fantasized about Blake Shelton and called him “Daddy.” Yeah. Wrap your heard around that. No. Let’s move on.

I’m on page 238 of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir, The Chronology of Water. The new bible. My bible, I mean. Because I’m in love with it. And subscribe to it. This book speaks to me. I hear it. Yes. I press my ear to the page, my lips to the words. Speaking. No, really. Soul sweet. Something.

The last book to hit me this deep was The Lover by Marguerite Duras. I read it five times in graduate school then three times after. I have sections of the book memorized. I wrote notes in the  margins. I highlighted certain passages. It’s here with me now at my desk. And I’d like to be buried burned with it whatever. Thank you.

(Taking notes?) 

I wouldn’t say The Chronology of Water is erotic memoir. I wouldn’t say it’s not. Same thing goes for The Lover. Just one more thing to love about both books. Lack of categorization. I get so sick of it sometimes. Categories. Labels. Genre. Life is more complicated than that, okay?

My biological mother died March 20th. Some of you know. She overdosed on meth and died alone in her apartment. Her body went unclaimed 59 days. I finally signed off on a cremation and granted her two friends, Kimberly and Aly, possession of her remains. Why wouldn’t I? They knew her; I didn’t. I was angry with my mother. She abandoned me years ago. My mother, the tweaker. Her name was Lydia. About a month after she died Shanna Germain sent me a copy of The Chronology of Water. Maybe it’s ironic. Lidia. Lydia. Maybe I’m pulling straws. I’m always in search of another mother.

Today, when I got home from work, my beautiful-gorgeous-knock-out-son asked me, “Mom, how long has it been since you worked on your novel?”

Oh shit. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you don’t talk about it anymore. For a while you were like, totally obsessed.”

So I confessed to my son the unfortunate truth, to which he said, “Mom, that just makes me sad.”

My kid. I love him.

Immediately, I went to my computer, turned it on, then went straight to a file called “Big, Bad Wolf,” my 87,000 word work-in-progress and looked at it, gazed upon it, sank back in, and fell in love again. I fucking love my novel-that’s-not-finished-yet-sort-of-stalled. Oh. I love it. So why isn’t it done?

Here’s my list of excuses.

• I’m tired
• The real world.
• I’m tired.
• The real world.
• I’m not independently wealthy so have to work.
• I’m tired.
• Adult ADD.
• Not enough time in a day.
• I’m not independently wealthy and so have to work.
• A publisher wants to publish my story collection.

 

Did anyone else just shit his or her pants when you read that?

A publisher wants to publish my story collection. I never thought I’d say that. Ever. So may I repeat it? A PUBLISHER WANTS TO PUBLISH MY STORY COLLECTION.

Fucking hot damn. A publisher wants to publish my story collection. So I’m distracted. Pouring most my time and energy into that. The time and energy I have. Preening my manuscript, finishing a few new stories. And that’s a bitch. Let me tell you. Because I’m a perfectionist. Jesus. 

A publisher wants to publish my story collection. A dream come true. A fucking milestone. And when I see my Granny in three weeks I’ll tell her, “A publisher wants to publish my story collection.”  Her unwavering faith in me finally pays off. I don’t mean financially. Fuck no. I mean emotionally, spiritually. She believed in me.

That’s what I mean.

And I can’t wait to tell her.

Not only that, if she hangs in long enough, I’ll press a copy in her hand. “Here it is Granny.”

My grandmother had a stroke last year. Some of you know. She’s my Mama Bear. And she’s bedridden, paralyzed on one side of her body, and she doesn’t see as well as she used to, or talk as well as she’d like, and she’s hard of hearing. If nothing else, I’ll sit at her bedside and hold her hand and tell I love her. Over and over and over again.

I’ll tell her thank you.

And. Goddamn. I love you.

Nothing like loving a person who has faith in you. Rare these days sometimes. You know? I really don’t want to lose my grandmother.

So few of us have faith in anyone anymore. I don’t know why. Maybe I know why.

Why?

I’m foolishly and pointlessly (adverb overkill) addicted to a new singing competition reality show called The Voice. Oh no. Fuck yes. Addicted.

The show began with all these singers blindly auditioning for four celebrity judges: Christina Aguilera, Adam Levine, C-Lo, and Blake Shelton. (Yeah, yeah. That explains the sexual fantasy today.)  

Anyway. 

The singers sing to the judges who have their backs turned to them the whole time. Blind audition. All that matters is “the voice.” Right? When a judge hears something he or she likes, he or she hits a button and then his or her chair swings around with these bright white lights underneath beaming, “I Want You.”

Oh, god.

Isn’t that every creative person’s fantasy, every writers? Some uber talented and respected writer you just fucking worship suddenly reads something you wrote, swings around, then says “I want you.”

I want you bad. Awesome.

I believe in  you. Awesome.

And then the uber talented writer you worship mentors you. Awesome. I’m wet for like, the eighteenth time today. Because this could or could not happen. I don’t know. We’re hardwired for hope, you know. Read it in Time Magazine today.

Just remember that.

Hardwired.