Guest Blog For Emily Rapp On Little Seal

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Hi Blog Readers. I rarely post links to stuff I write elsewhere, but this one seems more important than most. (So, apologies if you’ve already seen on some social media…) My dear friend and writing mentor Emily Rapp asked me to write a guest post on her blog, Little Seal. The blog is about her son Ronan, who is two years old and has Tay-Sachs Disease–a terminal illness. Ronan and Emily have been a tremendous gift to me this past year, since I met Emily last summer at the Taos Summer Writers’ Conference–where she taught a workshop in memoir that totally transformed my own book project. I was honored, and daunted, when she asked me to write this. Please read and keep your eyes out for Emily’s work–I think she’s one of the most  gifted writers working today. For a taste, check out her New York Times op-ed from this past October about Ronan. Thanks and love. –ET

What I Really Learned in Grad School

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Next week, I’m starting on a new phase in life. I would tell you what it was called if I had any idea what to call it, but that would mean knowing what it will look like/involve/include, and I have basically no idea. So, while we await further information on the future, let’s, briefly, reflect on the past. It’s been three years. I dated some dudes, some more disappointing than others. Here goes.

1. I have a type. Sometimes I wonder if a certain group of men I’ve been involved with are all distantly related cousins. I imagine them as part of a tribe, or team, swaying back and forth in a large, shirtless huddle, arms draped around each other on a dusty field. What do they chant? Oh, I don’t know: “Your art is most important!” perhaps. Or, “Don’t even think about meeting a romantic partner on anything but your terms!” Or, “Compromise is for kids!” Is that wierd?

2. Don’t date your colleague’s offspring. Even if they’re attractive in that dirty, uneducated sort of way. And even if they give you incongruous bedroom eyes in the florescent stairwell of your academic department where they loiter for use of WIFI, being too cheap to pay for it themselves. Probably, it will not end well. And, probably, you will spend the remainder of your career with said colleague feeling certain, each time that they ask to speak to you in private, that they are about to interrogate you about why you are not their future daughter-in-law. (Probably, though, they won’t. Because, in reality, you only went out once and everyone except you has moved on. Probably.)

2a. Go ahead and date your former students. Once you aren’t in class together, your former students have just as swell a capacity to seduce and hurt you as anyone else. I’m not saying it’ll actually work out. But really, in the end, isn’t this whole thing rooted in fantasy, anyhow? Sometimes we need to sacrifice temporary feelings for sustainable stories. Indulge.

3. Don’t Get Hurt. Get Pissed.  Has someone said this before? Anyway. A few years ago, if a guy started off talking about how I was the most special thing since Santa and a month later started treating me like some estranged step-uncle, I would have taken it personally. You know, thought it was because I had too much belly fat and not enough talent. When it happened a few weeks ago, I knew it had nothing to do with me. It’s not that I don’t have flaws (shocker!), but they weren’t what made the guy bail–his own bullshit was. Instead of feeling hurt, I just got mad. Which is still unpleasant, but less profoundly soul-crushing.

4. Because, They Mean It At the Time. Related: dudes say stupid shit. They say it without thinking. “Oh, we should drive across the country together.” “Oh, I’ll come visit you in Albuquerque.” “Oh, I’ve never met anyone like you.” And when they vanish, shortly after, from all things Earthly, one is tempted to feel tricked: “You liar!” one wants to scream. Or, “How could I have been so fucking stupid to believe that shit, again?” The latter of which, may, possibly, at some point, be worth seriously considering. (Or, in my case, considering more in a professional psychiatric context.) But as for the first, not true. I know there are dudes out there who concoct elaborate lies to undo a woman’s pants. But pretty sure those I attract have other preoccupations for their creative energies. They aren’t lying when they say those pretty words. In the moment, they mean them. They just forget about these things (slash, you) much more easily than you forget hearing them. Because that, friends, is the difference between women and men.

5. Date people you yoga with at your own peril. Another cautionary tale. Ideally, when things go sour, they will defriend you on Facebook, find another girlfriend immediately to whom they will propose in two months, and–most importantly–cease going to your studio post haste. (That happened.) However, one–less ideally–runs the risk, post-unraveling, of running into the culprit unexpectedly at yoga, refusing to accept the hug he offers and calling him a jerk because that’s what he is, and then spending the rest of the class struggling with balance because one isn’t sure whether such behavior was really the best choice, energy-wise, before a yoga class, and because he is standing directly behind you and you can’t be sure through your fogged up, sweaty vision whether he’s staring at himself in the mirror or your ass. (No comment.)

6. Women are awesome. Friends, that is. For all their shortcomings, men are much less drama when it comes to sex and living situations. But without my small army of girlfriends, at this very moment I would be huddled under the awning of some Panda Express, shivering in the 70 degree temperature, begging for beef and broccoli, and yelling at random homeless people in sleeping bags about how men are much less evolved. In other words, I would have packed approximately nothing and have vented my frustrations in far less appropriate ways. Yay, girls.

That’s all I got for now, folks. See you in Brooklyn.

 

Adventures in Texting (Or, Me + Ambien + Beer)

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So, I had a moment. You know those moments; you have them, we all have them—those moments when we briefly behave in some rash, reckless, potentially humiliating way.

They happen. (Particularly when one consumes several beers together with half a sleeping pill. Or, you know, so I hear…)

So, “drunk text” is not a phrase I usually relate to: it always seems to connote content far more lurid and “adult” than my usage ever achieves. Also, I hardly drink.

But I’m not sure how else to describe the series of eight–yes, eight–text messages that I sent to eight (yes, again, eight) different men on Friday night, lying in bed at approximately two a.m., mountain time. In fact, “drunk text” is really just the modifier for my behavior: the primary noun being another word (“rampage”) from which I also, generally, feel rather distant–associating it, as one does, with school shooters and binge Oreo eaters.

Anyhow, whatever the vocabulary and cocktail behind it, it happened. And as I read through them, mouth agape, on Saturday morning, I realized one irony of my dating blogger-hood: my most salacious stories, I usually can’t tell you.

But, these are too good. Too random. I can’t resist. Also, my impending move–as the below will illustrate–has injected me with an inflated attitude of “who gives a fuck.” So, a sampling: featuring texts, responses, and (I’m feeling thoughtful) lessons learned.

1. Sprinkles. I can’t believe I never told you this. It might be the best dating story I’ve acquired in Albuquerque, and–like any excellent dating tale–involves zero actual dates and begins at a bar. He was one of the half dozen New Mexican men who suddenly came onto me in December, right between my entire season of celibacy and month in New York. We traded numbers and began exchanging texts, banal aside from the guy’s–the 30 year old, kung fu practicing guy’s–fondness for teenage girl-style textspeak, a style whose pinnacle arrived when he punctuated one message with “Lol! Sprinkles! (“It’s just added awesomeness lol” he wrote when I asked him to translate.) Friday’s text: “Sprinkles!!” The response: “Hahaha, hey u!! Happy cinco de mayo!” The moral: men are fascinating and bizarre creatures.

2. The Musician. Well, you did hear about this guy–indirectly. He’s the one I met in New York, over break. We had a whirlwind romance; we kept in touch; he promised to visit; he didn’t. We still trade texts sometimes, and Friday night he told me he was in Las Vegas, playing shows. Friday’s text: “I’m driving east in three weeks! Don’t be scared.” The Response: “Lol. Two more shows then home!” The moral: A surprising number of adult males overuse the phrase “lol.”

3. The Former Student. Okay, I dated one. But, for the record, things started months after I gave him a grade, he’s several years older than me, and I only had one inappropriate dream about him while he was in my class and both of us were seeing other people. (And, again for the record, within said dream I felt guilty for even having it.) He asked me out at a coffee shop and came on real strong for a few weeks before turning immensely flaky and announcing that he, in fact, didn’t have time to date me. I was pissed. Friday’s text: “When are you going to Alaska? I had a lot of rage toward you but I’m over it. :-) ” The Response: “The 14th. Glad you’re not feeling mad at me. Were you drinking last night?” The Moral: When you spontaneously text someone at two a.m., they may suspect.

4. The Other Former Student. I never touched this one, I swear. (A good thing, because until some months ago it might have landed me two-five years of hard time.) But, you know, he has piercing ice blue eyes and I may have thought about it. (I’m human! And, really hoping this admission doesn’t strip me of my MFA…) Anyhow, again, some time after I had anything to do with this fellow’s college GPA, we began to engage in an occasional, heady text flirtation on subjects like Allen Ginsberg and the Coen Brothers. Friday’s text: “Hope I see your face again someday!” The response: “Let me know about the next ostensibly educational forum at which our faces might see each other…if you sent me a text in error, kindly ignore my blase conversation and carry on with your life.” The moral: Barely-of-age men sometimes compensate for their years by using a lot of words.

5. The Alcoholic. So, if someone drinks five beers on a first date, does that make them an alcoholic? The definition eludes me more and more, but in any case, this guy did. I met him soon after I moved to Albuquerque, at which time he had a girlfriend, the same girlfriend that he broke up with a few months ago before asking me out via the most complicated text message ever. We went out once, it was fun (his consumption notwithstanding), I didn’t hear from him for two weeks, and then he abruptly messaged me, offering his services as a driving companion for my move. Why, I wondered, was he capable of a cross-country road trip—but not a second date? Friday’s text: “You’re crazy. Just so you know.” The response: “Oh, I do. I can prove it.” The moral: People are often much more self-aware than we expect.

There were a few others too complicated/dull to explain. But I’ll conclude with this exchange, between me and the guy I’m seeing now—who, on Friday, fell asleep early and failed to meet up as he’d said he would.

Me: (Fri night) “Shit is getting wild while you sleep my dear.”

Me (Sat evening): “Hey, sorry for drunk text last night.”

Him (Sat evening): “Oh, I like drunk texts!”

Enough said.

On ‘Girls’, Boys and Bodies

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“I mean, you are beautiful.”

My friend N lay her hand on my shoulder as we leaned against the kitchen counter, having just talked one another into opening a fourth bottle of beer.

As I looked back at her earnestly, our friend B–also the small, MFA party’s host–hustled in looking for wine, prompting all three of us to keel over in booze-addled giggles.

“I didn’t hear what you said,” B assured, laughing as she waved her hands and backed out of the room. “But I could tell you were having a moment. It’s cool!”

“No, stay!” I said. “We were just affirming each other! And talking about how we need to spend less time worrying about our bodies, and boys!”

“Oh,” B said, shaking her head as she leaned against the doorway and turned her face serious. “That’s really hard.”

Specifically, N and I had been trying to remind one another of our worth in tipsy effort to diminish our pesky preoccupations with being thin and finding someone to sleep with. And, more than that, to stop letting those preoccupations take up our time.

The paradox has always bewildered me: the persistent capacity of smart, capable, otherwise well-adjusted women to become uncertain, irrational crumples of insecurity when it comes to matters of their bodies and their relationships.

The body stuff is what angers me most. Lately, I’ve been struck by recent interviews with Lena Dunham in which she describes not being concerned about her shape.

“Hating my body has not been my cross to bear in this life,” she told New York Magazine. “And I feel very lucky about that.”

Lucky indeed. I admire, I envy her that freedom so much–but I don’t understand it. I grew up in the same city as Lena Dunham, around (ahem) the same time, and with parents who–like hers, I imagine–encouraged me to eat what I wanted and not worry about weight. I don’t know how or when it happened, but somewhere along the line societal influences penetrated: gripping me with a suffocating pressure I still feel to be thin. How could anyone have avoided that?

I’ve thought and talked and written about this subject a lot. But I hadn’t thought about it before in terms of how wasteful it is, in terms of how much time so many of us spend worrying about the way we look and whether we are loved, and how much of that time we could be dedicating, instead, to ourselves.

In other words, how much more productive we might be if we were all more like Lena Dunham: I doubt it’s a coincidence that Dunham’s been so successful at such a young age, and that she doesn’t waste energy worrying about her body.

Not that she’s any more immune than the rest of us when it comes to anxiety about men. If not for that, after all, she’d be a lot less long on material. (As B, a poet, put it last night: “If I didn’t think about guys, what would I write about?” “Look who you’re talking to,” I replied.)

We’ll never not worry about guys–or girls, or whoever. It isn’t avoidable, or even desirable. But just imagine what a relief it would be if we thought about them less.

The other night I spent time with a friend who is ten years older than me, and who I tend to think of–in part for that reason, but for others, too–as substantially wiser and more secure. In most ways, she is.

But when it comes to relationships, her struggle is similar. She recently got burned by a guy who, despite his advanced age, wound up pulling the same predictable pathologies I associate with men in their twenties: jumping in too fast and then freaking out; wanting an unstable woman he can “fix” to avoid intimacy. (Seriously: can someone find me a dude with some fresh set of issues? I’m not even thirty and I’m already bored.)

My friend knew this guy wasn’t her equal. And even so, she let herself spend an entire month feeling crushed by him.

“I hardly got any writing done that whole time,” she told me over wine and lemonade. “I was too busy trying to figure him out.”

Her words resonated powerfully: there is something singularly sharp in the recognition that all the energy I expend agonizing about flaky dudes could be used writing essays.

“We’re artists!” I exclaimed to B and N, standing between them in the kitchen, placing my hands on their shoulders. “We can’t be spending our time thinking about stupid boys, and whether or not we’re thin! We have to focus on ourselves! We have to do our art!” I was trying to convince myself as much as them.

“I think it’s biological,” B said, laughing. “At least, it makes me feel better to think about it that way!”

N and I nodded. “It’s just so frustrating,” N said, tossing her thick mane of hair behind her head. “Cause the boys we date who are artists don’t think about us, ever.”

“Nope,” B concurred. “Never. If they’re doing their thing, that’s what they’re thinking about. If you’re there, great.”

To illustrate I made a show of glancing at my phone: the screen of which, I informed them, still didn’t feature a text response from a certain artist I’m seeing.

“He’s in the studio,” I explained, bitterly. They shook their heads in sympathy.

“I’m just trying to catch myself,” I announced, relaying the advice my older friend had offered. “You know, when I like, pass a woman on campus and start to compare myself, or get too hung up waiting for a text, I’m just gonna try to catch it“–I snapped my fingers–”and make myself think about something else.”

“That’s good!” they agreed, as we began to talk about how much distance there is between recognizing a pattern and being able to break it.

Eventually, our banter leavened: we started to debate about a guy in our program and whether he would be a better kisser (N) or a better fuck (B).

“But don’t you think he’d be so tender?” B pleaded sweetly.

“Ugh,” I replied. “Can’t imagine either one. I’m sure he jackrabbits like a teenager.”

At that moment a different guy walked past, innocently seeking beer, and all of us looked at him and buckled over laughing, again.

Because among all the things that make us expend energy on our bodies and our boys, one is certainly each other. And certainly, sometimes, thank god for that.

 

The Three Year Rule

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So, here are some things I’ve discovered about Albuquerque in the last few months–after living here the last three years: Golden Pride breakfast burritos. Old Town. Frontier tortillas. A cool guy. El Patio carne adovada. A set of four girlfriends with uncanny chemistry.

I know. This is just what happens when you leave a place: suddenly, you discover everything awesome about it. It’s the universe’s backwards way of generating narrative, or something: making you feel conflicted, in case you didn’t already.

If I were staying in Albuquerque, I’d be dwelling instead on all of the downsides: the present moth invasion (not kidding); the ferocious spring wind; the limited number of breweries that don’t suck.

But since I’m not, I get to spend my remaining time here waxing nostalgic about how fabulous New Mexico is. How unique and beautiful and culturally rich. How the climate is so perfect and the cost of living so low. How I have such lovely friends, such a sweet guy, such a great fucking house.

All things that are surely easier to romanticize due to my impending move. But I wonder if it’s also true that I’ve just now been here long enough to finallly feel happy.

Three years is the exact same amount of time that I lived in Washington–in both cases, just short of three years, actually, by a few months. And as I did in Albuquerque, I spent a large chunk of my time there groaning about all the city’s faults: the oppressive humidity, the plaid khaki saturation, the provincialism.

And, needless to say, by the time I moved away I was smitten with the place: so green! So walkable! So much live music!

Shortly before I left DC, I talked to my mother one weekday night on the phone.

“What are you up to this weekend?” she asked.

“Well,” I said. “On Friday I’m going to a gala. It’s black tie. And on Saturday I’m having a dinner party.”

“Wow,” she replied. “Are you sure you want to move?”

For the record, I’ve been to a black tie gala all of one time. But having dinner parties is something I did do regularly in Washington: especially in my last ten months there, when I lived in an immaculate apartment on Columbia Road with the most attractive and well-appointed private roof deck that I will ever, ever have. (Also, when I had a Very Respectable Salary that allowed me to buy large cuts of meat at Whole Foods without a flinch.)

After years of scampering to leave work early on Friday afternoons so I could make it to Metro Center and catch the bus up to New York, I finally had a social life in DC–one that was fun and dynamic and, you know, earned with many long months trying to make friends and figure out my place.

Some people say that two years is what it takes to get settled somewhere; others say just one. Surely, the city and the circumstance matter: some places are easier to penetrate than others; it’s a hell of a lot quicker to meet people when you move somewhere for school versus a job.

And I’m pretty good at meeting people and making friends. It’s one of my three life skills: that, along with writing quickly and being born with perfect eyebrows. (I usually only claim the first two, but A reminded me of the last during her recent visit and I was too worn out from our three-hour, unexpectedly snowy hike to argue.)

But even so, I feel like I might require three whole years to feel genuinely settled. To feel like I really belong and have a community and know what’s up.

You know: just in time to leave.

 

Variation on a Theme: Pre-Move Romance Angst, Con’t

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“I mean, I’m not going anywhere. We don’t know how long he’s going to be around.”

My friend A and I were sitting across from each other at a restaurant in the University district of Albuquerque, between us two margaritas, one giant plate of carne adovada, and a dwindling number of vegetarian nachos.

One of my dearest friends from college, A was visiting me from Seattle for five days–nominally for a Cultural Studies Conference, but mostly so she and I could afternoon-drink on sunny patios and shop for cheap turquoise. It was the first day of her trip, and–exquisitely accommodating friend that she is–A wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to sacrifice time with the guy I’ve been seeing on her behalf.

“You aren’t getting rid of me in this life,” she said, shaking her head and crunching on a cheese-soaked chip. “Him, we don’t know.”

A’s comment had nothing to do with reservations about the guy himself. She hadn’t met him yet at that point, but once she did it became clear that she would be more than happy for me to stick around the southwest, hitch up with the dude and soon begin making Very Adorable Babies Who Live Closer to Her Timezone and in a Sunny Climate She Loves to Visit.

Rather, she was being practical: mindful of the fact that I’m moving so soon, that there are various aspects of his life that tie him to New Mexico, and various aspects of mine pulling me back to New York. Longevity seems unlikely.

Which is exactly why I told her she was being ridiculous.

I swatted my hand in her direction. “Don’t be silly!” I said. “We hardly see each other! I’m not gonna ditch you to hang out with him. No way.”

A shrugged her shoulder and grinned. “Just sayin’,” she said. “Whatever you wanna do.”

What I wanted to do was hang out with both of them. Which I did. We had dinner together and a tipsy night out that ended with the three of us walking down Central, getting looked at funny because each of my hands was in one of theirs. But really, I wanted to spend as much time as I could with A: time that was already limited by both our grad student obligations. (Grading, grading, and more grading.)

What I didn’t want was to give up my precious quality time with her in order to hang with a guy who–as she said–may not be a part of my life for long.

Except that I kinda did.

Not really. I mean, no part of me wanted to ditch A–not even a little. But I do want to spend time with this guy. He’s smart and fun and interesting and wildly creative in ways I can’t begin to understand.

And I can’t help but feel a little bit guilty about that. I have one month before I leave Albuquerque, and a whole bunch of good friends I’ll be leaving behind, too. Also, as you may know, I spent the better part of this year so focused on writing that I saw no one–besides my dog and fellow yogis–basically ever.

So: isn’t the right thing to do to spend these last with friends?

Maybe. But as far as love goes, we tend not to do things because they’re rational. We do things because they feel good. (And, if you’re me, because they’re distinctly irrational. But we’re not talking about that right now.)

Truthfully, it’s not as though I’m even seeing that much of this guy. But still: as someone to whom friends are as important as anything–not to mention someone who makes it a hobby to manufacture issues in my love life–I feel a little bit funny about giving any time at all to a person I’ve only recently gotten to know.

But, you know, not funny enough to stop.

 

Here We Go Again…

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With a little over a month left til I pack up my things and move across the country, a few things are bound to happen.

One: I will freak out about my general life goals and plans/lack thereof.

Two: I will panic about the size of my book and sweater collections.

Three (you guessed it): I will meet a guy I actually like.

Done. Done. And, done.

In many, perhaps most parts of my life–dry-cleaning, hair maintenance, grading my students’ papers in a timely fashion–I am horribly inconsistent.

But when it comes to this, you can count on me like a Carmelo clutch shot: each time I move, I meet someone who lives distinctly not in the place I’m moving to.

And not just someone. Usually, it’s someone pretty special: a not-terribly-flaky, non-alcoholic, decently-mannered-and-yet-somehow-also-physically-attractive guy who seems to have mutual-like feelings.

Every. Single. Time.

Which, technically, means twice–before now.

The first, of course, was M: a graphic design student who I met on a bus from DC to NY six weeks before I left for Brooklyn. We spent the next month involved casually and the next three years intensely–in a mostly-platonic long distance friendship during which I nursed epic, misguided daydreams about him being my husband. (You may recall reading about them.)

Then, in New York–months before moving to New Mexico–I met Z: a handsome labor lawyer who responded to my Missed Connections post on Craiglist after we eyed each other on a Brooklyn-bound F. I worried that he was too nice before falling as hard as I ever have for anyone, proposing that we try long distance, and almost deciding to go to school in North Carolina so that we could be closer. (A few months later, I–publicly–concluded the chemistry was never that great.)

And now, here I am, having just started seeing someone really damn cool. (And with whom things are very, very new, and about whom, under normal circumstances–non-I’m moving in six weeks circumstances–I would never write so soon.)

But, as it happens, I am moving. And I’m exhausted. And vaguely contemplating how the hell to get all my shit from one side of America to the other while expending my actual energy putting off that pesky grading and all the other life maintenance shit I’ve spent the past dissertation-year neglecting.

All to say: I’m too tired to censor myself.

“Probably, it’s a terrible idea,” I said to my friend J the other night over plates of Thai food.

She nodded. “It might be.”

Moments earlier she had been describing her own imminent departure–one she isn’t sure is permanent–and while she talked I’d fantasized about being miserably unhappy in Brooklyn.

“I mean, it’s just gonna make it harder for me to leave,” I said. “Ugh. I shouldn’t get attached.”

“Maybe not,” she replied. “But…I dunno. It might be kinda nice…and fun…” She tilted her head from right to left.

“Yeah…” I said, spooning some more curry onto my plate.

Needless to say, when I got back in my car and saw a text from Guy In Question, I responded immediately: without a second’s hesitation. Who am I kidding? There is no part of me capable of resisting a quick and exciting chemistry. Not a single, mother-effing part.

And, after all, I’m not alone in my habit: as another friend put it in a recent email, meeting someone before you move is “in the moving rule book.”

“You have to meet the perfect guy before you go,” she wrote. “And then you have to have a long distance romance with him where he flies in for weekends and vice versa, he ends up moving here, and then you break up because, you’re both like, meh… Just kidding. But not really.”

It’s a cute (and often, true) thought. But of course, I don’t have to do any of those things. At this moment, I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to think about my books or my career or the fact I might be foolishly falling for someone I (maybe, possibly) shouldn’t. Again.

At least, not yet. What can I say? It’s what I–perhaps, what we–do.

 

The Trauma of Transition

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“If you weren’t crying about this, you’d be crying about something else.”

That’s what my friend A told me last night, over the phone, as I talked to her, crying about my dissertation defense: an event that seemed to come and go smoothly (even successfully), but with a few (busy, even hectic) days hindsight I had convinced myself was a terrible disappointment that had gone all wrong: I hadn’t said the right things, members of my committee had focused on psychology instead of structure, I hadn’t gotten a chance to demonstrate the knowledge of craft I’ve spent the last three years building up. And: had I gotten the recognition I deserved?

A assured me my concerns might be real. But, she insisted, it wasn’t the only thing driving my emotions.

“If it wasn’t this, it’d be something different,” she said. “Some comment your mother made or some stupid guy. You’re going through a major transition right now and you need to release.”

This is why I call A when I’m upset: because she immediately, effortlessly makes me realize that I am emotional for a completely different reason than I thought, and encourages me to recognize how deeply profound the true reason is, and then to wallow in it as thoroughly as I possibly can.

“You should cry so much,” she said.

The “true” cause, of course, wasn’t the defense. Instead, it was the fact that after three years of living on my own in Albuquerque, and ten years living (mostly) outside New York, I am about six weeks away from moving back there. From moving to be close to my family. From being done with school, switching cities, and entering into a future with lots of question marks.

I’m fortunate that many positive circumstances surround this move: I have a place to stay in Brooklyn for a couple of months rent-free. (A place that is not my parents’ house.) I have a book project to continue working on, a deadline that I can and should meet to try and get it closer to being in the world. I have a handful of my dearest friends living there, in addition to my parents and two of my brothers and their families.

But still. Transitions, for me at least, are always, always, always (always!) traumatic.

I think of it this way: in manners big and small, I depend on comforts that I know how to expect. How something will taste, how it will feel to see or talk to an old friend or get cozy in my bed. I get by not just on the pleasures themselves, but on anticipating them–these known things–going out with a certain crew of friends to a certain bar, going to my 6:00 yoga class on Thursday evenings with Carrie.

Routines may get dull sometimes, but they also allow for a certain kind of sincere (if static) pleasure. And transition means upending them: the routines themselves, and the comfort that comes with their anticipation. It means having to recreate everything: not just the big questions of where to live and work, but the littler things–the smaller rituals of friends and exercise and minor habit–that oftentimes make up happiness.

Which, you know, is overwhelming. The whole freedom thing: opportunity comes with some terror.

So when A told me that she agreed with my mother–that instead of attempting to drive my little rust-free Volkswagon across the country I should just ship all my belongings home and hop on a plane to JFK–I adamantly told her I couldn’t.

“I want to drive,” I said. “I’m not sure why. But flying just feels so abrupt. To just get on a plane and all of a sudden be living in New York? Maybe I need time in a car to adjust. You know, from one life to another. Does that make any sense?”

“Yes,” she said. “Absolutely. It makes all the sense in the world.”

On Lessons (Still Being) Learned

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“So, what do you think you’ll take from this?”

My therapist looked across at me, expectant. I stared at the wall.

“You know, having done this big project, what do you think you’ll bring away?”

Of course, the “big project” she was referring to is my dissertation–whose subject matter includes some exploration of my romantic past.

An exploration that turned up a certain pattern. One which, if you’ve read this blog at all–or, you know, met me–won’t surprise you. To summarize, I fall–impulsively and with superhuman strength–for men with whom I know things just can’t quite work out. Maybe they live 1-2,000 miles away. Maybe they’re addicted to whiskey. Maybe they have the emotional capacity of a toddler or the attention span of a goldfish. I’m flexible.

They tell me I’m the best thing that’s happened to them since beef, and instead of fleeing the scene–like a less pathological person–I cheerfully say “Gee, thanks!” and expect them to stick around.

A full investigation of where I get this impulse will–with a shitload of luck and considerable, continued hard work and dedication–someday be available at a bookstore near you.

Until then, onward.

“So, let’s say,” my therapist continued, mercifully interrupting my radio silence. “Let’s say you move to New York…and you meet a man…and he lives in…” She paused, stroked her chin, contemplated the perfect trap. “Let’s say he lives in…Boston.” She looked back at up at me, wide-eyed. “What do you do?”

I swung my right calf against my left. I darted my eyes around the room.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I mean…I’d like to think I wouldn’t pursue it, but…you know…it’s one thing in the abstract…another when it’s a real person…”

“Sure, sure,” she nodded sympathetically, which she does, which is why I like and continue to see her. “Of course. Well, you’ll certainly have a lot to write about!”

I laughed.

“What?” she asked. “On your blog!”

I proceeded to tell her that I’d considered renaming my blog “Writing in the Odyssey Years” because I’ve written so little, lately, about dating. Mainly, I told her, that’s because I’ve hardly touched a man since the start of basketball season. But it’s also because the longer I write this blog–it was two years in February, ps–the more complicated the whole enterprise seems. You know, the whole dating-while-blogging thing. I may have mentioned it once or twice.

I mean, I suspect that anyone who tries to write about their love life online is gonna encounter some issues. I never thought my problem had anything to do with me: just with the peculiar choice I’ve made to do this thing.

But since talking to her I’ve wondered whether that same impulse–the one that propels me to fall for particularly tortured dudes in the time it takes you to pee–only makes things worse.

I mean, almost all the guys I’ve dated since I started the blog have known me, and therefore the blog, beforehand: I couldn’t control that they were gonna read it, and that I’d have to censor myself, and deal with that.

But what I can control (or, apparently, can’t) is keeping my mouth shut: when I meet someone new, I could resist the temptation to open up so much, so soon. But I don’t.

The last person I dated, I told about my blog the first time we talked. He whipped out his iPhone to note the name. But that was before we got involved, and then we did, and then he changed his mind.

“I started typing in the URL,” he said, “but then I stopped myself.”

We were standing at a crowded bar in Chelsea, and we’d only known each other a couple of days, but things were feeling serious, as, you know, they can.

“I feel like I’d rather get to know you, you know, organically,” he said. “I hope that’s ok!”

“Sure!” I said, remembering how I’d spent the previous evening essentially gang-stalking him on the web: simultaneously googling him with my sister-in-law as we exchanged instant messages to share our findings. “I think that’s great!”

Obviously, if someone I was seeing wrote a personal blog, there’s no way I wouldn’t have the link instantly bookmarked, plant myself permanently on the page, and click refresh once every twelve seconds. And, probably, that wouldn’t be a good thing.

What might be a good thing would be to date someone like that guy: someone with more rational, disciplined impulses. Someone who doesn’t so desperately try to connect as much as possible, as quickly as possible.

Even better, to finally try and rein it in myself.

Working on it.

 

 

 

 

In Between Times

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Yesterday, about twenty minutes after dropping off my dissertation manuscript at Kinkos, I sat at a coffee shop and talked to one of my best friends on the phone.

“Congratulations!” she said. “You must feel so great!”

“Are you kidding?” I snapped back. “I feel like a wreck!”

“What are you talking about?” She asked. “Aren’t you so relieved?”

“No!” I said, going on to explain how I had spent the whole night stewing awake in bed, fantasizing about the eight hundred typos I convinced myself I’d missed on the first two pages. Probably, I told her, I’d misspelled my adviser’s name. Probably, I’d be instantly humiliated and destroy my credibility with him and everyone else in the literary world. (Nevermind that I could have looked at the document to assure myself otherwise–too frightenened. And nevermind that there are a total of four members of the literary world who give a shit about my dissertation.)

“Not to mention,” I went on, “I feel so behind in my entire life. I have to plan my creative writing class. I have to do my taxes. My car is falling apart. And in two months I won’t have a job.”

“Can you please,” she begged, “just take half a day to celebrate? You’ve done so much work.”

“Ugh,” I said. “I’ll try.”

I did. I forced myself to get a pedicure. To meet a friend for excessive helpings of frozen yogurt. To pick up a six pack of beers and drink half at a friend’s barbecue last night.

But let me tell you: it wasn’t easy.

Here’s the thing: that manuscript, the nearly 300 pages I got printed and copied and all-fancy-coil-bound yesterday, has consumed me–my mind, my energy, my emotions, everything–for the past year. Everything I’ve done–I mean, everything, even my trips to the bathroom–have felt charged with a terribly coherent sense of purpose.

And at times it’s been daunting: managing this much material is a new and persistently challenging task. (Does this paragraph on p. 158 echo a sentence on p. 12? Or does it develop that thought, bring it somewhere new? Did I forget a physical description of this character, or that one? What happened to that sentence I wrote three drafts ago and impulsively threw out?)

But, mostly, it’s been a huge relief, a comfort, crutch, even, that, no matter what I was doing at any given moment–I always knew what I should be doing.

Now, suddenly, I don’t. As I moaned to my friend, I have no shortage of things to catch up on. Fairly urgent things, among them a wayward rearview mirror and 20 beleaguered undergraduates who haven’t seen a calendar since January.

But it isn’t, actually, those stresses themselves that are nagging at me right now. What’s nagging at me is that I don’t know what I’m going to do on Tuesday.

I mean, a week ago there would have been no question: I would spend Tuesday at some combination of coffee shop, library and home–writing. I would have taken a break for yoga, another for a walk, made some quick meals. But there was no real decision to make: I had to devote most of my day to writing.

This Tuesday, what am I gonna do? I could grade papers. I could deal with my car. I could buy or make one of the many thank you gifts I owe. I’ll try and make myself productive. But I’ll have to decide how. And as someone who has a terrible time making any sort of decision, I would honestly prefer last week’s predicament to this.

My adviser warned me this would happen.

“Enjoy it!” he’d say, whenever I complained about feeling overwhelmed by the many demands of my project.  “It’s better than the alternative.”

What he meant was that, as daunting as big projects can be, at least they give you a long-term focus. As soon as you finish one thing, you have to figure out what’s next. And that uncertainty presents a whole different kind of angst.

Fortunately, I don’t actually have to fathom that angst quite yet. As I’ve been explaining to the few friends and family asking to read my book project (bless their hearts for wanting to): it isn’t, really, done. This is just a draft on which I’m getting feedback from a committee of writers, and with which I’m earning my MFA. Many more drafts will come between now and when I’m ready to show it to the world.

So, really, I should relax: this in between time, this period of having to actually make plans for Tuesday, is just temporary. In a few weeks, I’ll be back to ignoring my taxes, my check engine light, my physical health and uncertain future.

Thank God.