manliness, girlieness, dating my writing

Come out on Wednesday to In The Flesh to hear a kindof fucked up story about something stupid I did, about someone even stupider than I am.

Also, if I don't get a real book deal by the end of the year I think I will just retire from writing. Everyone is bitching about their $15,000 and $25,000 book deals and I'm jumping through hoops for fractions of that. No mas. But all that's gonna change for me very soon and there'll also be no more throwing up in my mouth. But, no, I don't speak the "alphabet of manliness" and hopefully never will, and if that means I'm such a fucking girl, so be it. I am, and I'm actually proud of that. I'm so lucky to have people in my life who aren't about playing games or trying to "be" something they're not, and for people who are honest and care about and respect me. The past few weeks I've met a lot of really wonderful people. I've realize that I probably will always be "dating my writing," but it's certainly better than the alternatives, though I'm hoping to move on and actually date real human beings again someday, just not so easy to find anyone I can connect with who actually likes me for longer than a few weeks but I'm over feeling sorry for myself. Been writing my piece for Wednesday and it's super fucking cathartic, one of the first things I've written in a long time that actually made me feel good about myself and not like a loser or a whore.

It's a weird time, when I'm getting rejections or no replies from every magazine I pitch, but have agents seemingly coming out of the woodwork and people asking me for blurbs and things. It's surreal and totally trippy and there's never any time to process any of it, even with vacations here and there. It's just go go go, but I've found that I'm finally tapping into some creativity and am ready to move forward, I think, though that may mean retreating into my apartment for a while and just being on my own instead of the insane mania of New York City where every night it's someone's event and I feel like an awful friend if I can't make it all. I realize that success, on my terms, will have to mean a little bit of passion, not the haphazard fucking around way I've treated my work the last 6 years or so, catch as catch can, grateful for any scrap of work thrown my way. "You could write this in your sleep," someone told me about a book, like that's my goal, to write silly little books that don't mean a thing. Yes, I'm poor and have at least five years more of paying off loans, but that sentence really made me realize where I've gotten myself and where I don't want to go. I found it ironic and amusing, because this is someone who'd told me big publishers won't want anything to do with me cause I have these small press books behind me, even though it was too late, even though I've tried my best with them on miniscule budgets. I was just told that Up All Night did really well and is the book people compare others in that genre to. I know I've done a lot in my own random, haphazard way, but I feel like I'm ready to leave all the bullshit, both personal and professional, behind. To try to be the best person I can be and figure it out along the way, even if that means getting hurt, even if it sometimes means making poor decisions.

But what it really means is picking who I confide in, in finding the right friends. And on that score, save for a few horrible missteps, I do pretty well. I cannot wait for Wednesday, not just to see Miriam and Jessica and Felicia and Judy, who, save for Felicia, I haven't seen nearly often enough, but because they are all brilliant, beautiful women who make me laugh and who are each ingenious and unique and who care about me. Not "Lusty Lady" or about blowing smoke up my ass or whatever, but just me. I feel like I connect with other writers so well, people who'd never tell me I'm "dating my writing" cause they just get it. And for every annoying person wanting me to write a book in my sleep, I've found people who are fabulous and creative and supportive and who get it all, and that feels like a miracle. And if the cost of having to throw up in my mouth a little, to realize that I'm not a baby, but I'm not some unsentimental asshole who gets over things in five seconds, well, I can pay that cost. The painful stuff, the stupid stuff, the things that want to make me run away and throw up and just be anyone else, are all learning opportunities, which I figured out as I scribbled some words on the train, words chastising myself, but also forgiving myself. I need to learn to do that a little more often.