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Monday, December 18, 2006

Stephanie Klein's Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp on Amazon and no Kevin Keck at ITF



Surprised I haven't seen more about this upcoming Regan book - Stephanie Klein's second memoir, Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp, which Amazon is listing with a June 1st release date.

She also just gave birth to twin preemies, Abigail and Lucas. I was a preemie, just slightly tinier than her little ones, and I remember looking through the baby book and being horrified. I don't look like a human yet, and I always wanted to know how they could love me like that, all skinny and scrawny and see-though. Now, I get it, completely.

Speaking of which, I wish I had a child that prevented me from doing stupid readings. Not that my reading is stupid, but honestly, part of me is so over all of this stuff. It just seems so pointless sometimes, even though I love them when they're over and that day-of panic kindof fuels me. I just cannot act like I really care about it when my life feels like it's just drifting along into nothingness. I am getting antsy to get far away from New York and start over. I can't, not yet, not till that check comes in, and probably I'd wither and die somewhere else, but maybe, for once, running away and starting afresh would be the answer. In the meantime I have to find a way to make it through, to hide away from the incessant social madness that I'm just not equipped to handle right now. I miss the solidity of writing, thinking, working. I hate the way my brain's been total mush and I've talked myself out of every query, every attempt, every word before I even get it down.

All this to say, I hope you will still come to In The Flesh on Wednesday even though no, Kevin Keck cannot make it, because he's on daddy duty. (Check out his awesome essay about being a dad to twin girls, as well as Lisa Carver's meditation on watching Bring It On! with her 4-year-old, both at Babble.com.) At this moment, I wish I could trade places, could be the one bowing out of truly meaningless events because I have something more important to do. I'm trying to figure out a way to make writing feel meaningful again. I often feel like I've boxed myself into a corner and I envy the anonymity and freedom everyone else seems to have. I feel doomed to fail because I've been too open, too honest, too whatever it is that had led me here. I know, in all honesty, that I cannot be anyone but myself, but sometimes I hate that so much. I hate who I've become or let myself become, hate that I cannot be better, purer, stronger. I can only try and do my best, and lately, I've been doing my worst. I know it and it all came to a head this weekend when I almost, for a second, tossed the contract in the trash. I think I started to feel like if S. rejected me, then that was all I was worth. That no matter how hard I tried or could try in the future, I would still be a failure, so why even bother? Why take money I don't deserve, why try when I'm probably doomed to fail? I know that I'm incredibly lucky, and that's part of the problem. If I knew it was for real, if I knew I was meant to be on this path, I'd believe in it a lot more. Doing Urban Erotika helped restore my faith quite a bit; that crowd was so with us onstage, so in the story, and the performers. WOW. It was one of the best readings I've ever attended or performed at.

Finally, yesterday, I started to get a glimmer of that urge to write. Started some submissions for Zane's anthologies that part of me thinks won't ever make it in, and part of me wants to at least try, needs the push, the challenge. I get scared when too many people are interested, are looking, expect things of me. I don't really want to be the girl with sex furniture adding clutter to her apartment. I don't often want to be any of the things that I am, but I can't turn back the clock and I don't want to go back to being a typist. It's not that I don't love working with words, I just don't love all the baggage that seems to come with it, the judgments and stereotypes, including my own. I hate having to apologize for what I do, for feeling so less than, for still wanting to be a "real writer." I am starting a new journal with my goals of '07, which are largely the same as the ones I've had for what feels like forever. But I will use it to record some of the process so I don't forget the triumphs too, even if they're just as rare as getting a few good sentences down. Trying to turn this movie-like surreality into fiction is probably one of the greatest challenges I've ever faced, especially because I'm not really a fiction writer. But I have to learn sometime, and I'm finally ready to dig it, and welcome the chance to be someone else for a little while. I am also probably getting a new laptop, a Mac this time, as my Dell is dying and I don't feel like fixing it and don't know how. That'll have to by my baby for now, until until until I get to join the big kids.

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