Surreality

No, not Cereality.

Yesterday, at a hotel in New Jersey, I got to revisit my youth in the form of a chess tournament, and it wasn’t pretty. I read all these memoirs where the author walks you through their dorky adolescence, or their quirky one, or whatever, and as I sat there reading Hillary Carlip’s Queen of the Oddballs, I realized I couldn’t have picked a better title. When I was little, from probably about 10 until 16, I played chess all the time. I went to tournaments at least every other weekend, took chess lessons, went to chess camp. I still pretty much sucked at it cause I was lazy and didn’t like to study, I just wanted to play, but I did okay, won some trophies, squeaked by on luck and perseverance. Because there sare such huge ratings disparities between the sexes, I got to go to Brazil in 1991, for the US Under 16 World Championships. My friend J and I wound up playing chess for maybe 2 hours a day and spending the rest of it exulting in the fact that we could buy beer at the local supermarket. It was fun, a little adventure filled with drinking and boys and dancing and waterfalls. But being stuck back in that environment made me kindof recoil at just how big of a nerd I was, how much time I spent doing something I have no interest in now. It was all very surreal. I saw a few people I knew, and the manesia kicked in a few times. I had just come out of the main from checking on my dad’s game, when Susan Polgar came up and said hello. She greeted me very warmly, even though we’d only corresponded via email when I interviewed her. It was surreal—especially when I was growing up, the Polgar Sisters were famous. Big stars. Untouchable. Judit, Susan’s little sister, was in Brazil when I was there and I barely glimpsed her. They were so cool, so glamorous, so to have this internationally famous chess player come up to me and say hello was already surreal, but cool. She was very nice, wasn’t playing in the tournament but was observing and meeting with people. Then this guy came up to me and clearly knew me, and I just as clearly had no idea who he was.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?” he asked, even though the look on my face said that plain as day.

“No, I’m really sorry,” I said, giggling a little to try to soften the blow.

“Guess who I am,” he said, and then I felt totally put on the spot. I suck at guessing things like that. I am the kind of person who will remember something from 20 years ago if I can, if it comes to me, but often can’t remember vital things I need to do today or what I did last week. My memory is very selective. So anyway, finally he told me his name and I think I know who he is/was, but I’m not totally sure.

Then, later, I was standing talking to another guy who I hadn’t seen in probably 10 years, who I wouldn’t have recognized, but he was really nice and I knew he’d gone to law school and he goes, “Yeah, this guy I went to law school with is a writer,” and before he said it I just knew he was gonna say Tucker Max. It was the weirdest thing—a month ago, I probably would’ve given him a blank stare, but now it feels like the man is everywhere. He even had 3 boxes of Tucker’s book in his car when he gave me a ride home, so we dished about that for a while. In the middle of all this another guy I didn’t recognize came by. He also seemed a but upset that I didn’t remember him, and I thought I knew him from chess, but it turns out I met him playing trivia at Baggot Inn a long time ago.

I think maybe it’s New York; people drift in and out of your life. You’re super close, best friends, email every day, want to know every detail of what’s going on with them at all times, and then, suddenly, you just don’t. You’re on their email list or see them at a show sometimes or read their blog, and that’s it. That’s fine, I realize it’s kindof a natural life cycle, but lately I’m trying to focus on my real friends. The ones I can tell anything to. The ones who are there for me. The ones who want to know more than what I write in some super lame blog. The ones who make me laugh, the ones I want to travel with, the ones who get the things I don’t say just as much as the things I do. So all these random people, like the ones I ran into, it was just weird. I felt totally out of place, so I dug into my book, and it also sucked cause I had errands I’d wanted to do and didn’t get home till 11. I hate being in places where I can’t escape easily. Where there is no public transportation and I’m at someone’s mercy to return home, especially when there’s little communication around when I will get home.

It makes me treasure being within my little world of Brooklyn and Manhattan all the more. At least we have subways (well, sometimes). I know that probably makes me a horrible snob, but as I was waiting around for hours I realized that writing is no long that little hobby I do once in a while. I mean, it is, of course, as I send out umpteen query letters and never heard replies I realize I’m still pretty much a nobody in the writing world, but still, I do have things I want and need to get done, things I want and need to get done, and have to really start making more time for them, even if that means putting everything else aside. It’s like being back in law school, having to skip the fun stuff, and watch from afar as everyone dodgeballs and goes out every night and I’m home. But at the end of the day, I feel like the biggest loser (not in any good way) when I let deadlines slip, when I fuck up, when I disappoint people, when I disappoint myself. When I make pretend “I’m writing a book” when really that’s just the biggest pipe dream ever. When I watch other people doing exactly what I want to do and just look at them as longingly as I do when cute babies get carried by in their parents’ arms on the street and I have to keep staring until they’re out of my line of vision. I hate this feeling of waking up and hating who I am, what I haven’t done, what I’ve become. I hate that, and yet only rarely do I step in and try to change my behavior. Very rarely do I step in and take responsibility and actually just cut the bullshit and do the work. But I’m trying, and I know this isn’t the place for it, because I don’t expect people to necessarily understand. It’s so internal, these amorphous goals, but I do have them. They’re so easy though to give up on, to assume that everyone else is smarter, knows more, has a master’s, gets it, that I will never achieve what I want to. But then something will happen, someone will out of nowhere show some incredible sign of belief in me, and even though I know it’s all supposed to come from within and fuck other people, I still need that. Because it’s not like I’m gonna be self-publishing this thing. So I have to try to remember those moments and pick myself back up, whether it’s from an unexpectedly long day in my home state or a night, day or week where I don’t get as much done as I’d hoped. I know I have to give myself some slack—it was a week of heightened debauchery, heart-pounding stress, a reading, a performance, deadlines, drama. Not every week will be like that, but I need to be more prepared, not so behind. I need to be ready for anything, as the book I read in Turkey advises. I need to take a little of the spirit of the Hillary Carlips and Tucker Maxes—of not trying to be like everyone else—and use it to believe that I can get there, even if it’s a few years later than planned, that my life won’t always be the way it is now, that tomorrow will be better than today. I believe those things, yet I also have to remind myself, a lot. And hey, I could be my utterly dorky 13-year-old self again. I will take 30, with all its unique challenges, charms and dilemmas, over 13, any day, even on my worst day.

I’m also working on things like taking responsibility for my actions, but not apologizing for things that aren’t my fault. More another time on how Fridays have been pretty sucky days lately (though seeing Grey Gardens with girlynyc was a delightful exception), but recently someone was pretty rude to me about something that I know was not my fault, but I felt so bad about it anyway. Maybe because I was kindof horrified that someone I had previously admired was so caustic towards me, when I hadn’t done anything wrong and it really didn’t seem like that huge of a deal to me, but after walking down 8th Avenue and almost bursting into tears (I settled for just a bit of tearing up, probably because I then had to go meet some people at a bar), I realized it was her problem, entirely, not mine. I mean, I did my best to rectify it, but at the end of the day, trying to take on everyone else’s drama is a surefire way to send me into big trouble. That’s also something I used to do and am trying to be a bit more of an adult about. I don’t pretend I’m all that mature just cause I’m 30. I feel as lost and confused as ever much of the time, but sometimes I can find ways to overcome that. Like writing, how funny, or not, how rarely I actually use writing to help me get over my inertia and freakedoutness. Not this drivel, but other stuff. I even wrote two stories this week, called “Animals” and “Feeder,” that might even get published if I’m lucky. Okay, now I must try to use my remaining weekend time wisely, especially because unlike almost everyone else I know, I have to work on Monday.