Grief

This is what I know. I know I'm grieving. I lost my dog Frodo. And for those of you who think, it's just a dog, just stop reading.

Frodo came into our lives 15 years ago. It was 2007 and I was still a big firm lawyer. That's how long ago it was. I spotted him at a pet store. That's how long ago it was. Our eyes met as I walked past a window. A little black and white fur ball of a shih tzu. He sucked a blanket. His black eyes and black nose just fascinated me. He reminded me of the beloved Panda bear stuffed animal I had as a kid. Plus, my cat Leopold had just gone missing and I was just so needy and raw.

Frodo and I played together and I couldn't let him go. Little did I know that in 2022, I would have to. 

We brought him home to our new house. He was my everything for me. Then Chewie came and I had two loves. Frodo was always there. Every day. Every night. Every morning was spent talking to him and Chewie. Feeding them. Walks. Dog parks. Petco visits. Vet appointments.

Then it got hard. Frodo had not been well for about a year. But I did my best. He was on meds. A lot of meds. So is Chewie. But I didn't think. I didn't see it. I didn't understand every day was precious. I hope he knows. I hope he knows how much I adored him. How sad our house is without him. The hole he left is just short of unbearable.

My grief is vast. It is deep and endless. I feel like I felt when my dad died. When I had my miscarriage. Like I can't deal. Like I can't come back from this. 

But I have to soldier on. Chewbacca needs me. As do others. My twin said, "Frodo would tell you to be happy" and she's right. But that's hard to remember as I weep writing this. Just picturing Frodo's little furry face. And how hard that day was when he died.

You see, I don't have human kids. I didn't get that blessing. But I remind myself daily of everything I do have. I do have a lot. But I don't have Frodo anymore, except in my memories. Always on my mind and in my memories. 

The Race

It's been a little bit. I went through a bout with Covid and have been in bed for ten days. Today was the first day I felt relatively normal. It's odd, because I slept so much, but I'm still tired. 

It made me realize a few things. I'm so lucky in so many ways. I don't have kids, but I have a great husband and family and friends. So many people checked in on me. I am also privileged to have a job that offers Covid time. I recovered and tomorrow, I go back to work. 

During the height of the pandemic, I was so scared. More for my mom and mother in law. But when I finally got Covid, it was over two years in and a lot of the fear was gone. Until I started coughing and felt as if my airway was closing. I made it through. But it made me think of the multiplicity of universe theory and I wondered if, in another universe, I didn't make it.

Not the most productive thing to think about and a morbid idea I know...

Still, that fear, of death, of dying, of not reaching my dreams, is what made me finally take my writing career to another level a couple of years back. Because I knew with certainty that my regret would be profound if I passed away before publishing my book. 

So I did it. Finally.

What is next? That is what haunts me now. I really have no clue. I'm asking the universe to show me. Where do I go now with all of this? How do I find my way? It's one thing to publish a book, but how do I find my path to my true passion?

What I have decided, in the midst of my uncertainty, is that I will focus on my body and mind and on taking care of myself health wise.

My goal is to start exercising and cutting down on my vices. Managing my stress. Because wherever this road leads me, the thing I do know for sure is that I want to be able to run the race.

Or at least give a good power walk.

Pizza time

I've written a story or two or three about food and restaurants. I've also written quite a lot about pizza and chicken. In my full length memoir, I have a story about a night at Pizza Hut with my dad. And in another foodie piece, I talk about my dad's love of Pioneer Chicken. The orange crispness that burst in your mouth like fireworks. Their mash with the golden gravy. Their little dessert trifles.

But have I ever written about Shakey's Pizza? Last night, my husband ordered it to be delivered. He got a large pizza, mojo potatoes and eight pieces of fried chicken. I bit into the chicken and it felt like home.

Back in the day, Shakey's Pizza was like church for the Mantz family, My dad would take us to the one in Montclair on Holt Street. They had a mini arcade and my sisters and I would beg my mom and dad for quarters. We would play Pac Man and probably Dig Dug or Burger Time. We would each get the buffet. And a pitcher of A & W Root Beer which we had to sip slowly because there were no refills. The other strategy was to down your first one and beat everyone to go for a second cup.  

My ritual was to first make a salad covered in ranch, cheese, black olives and croutons. Next, I would eat my fill of the crispy chicken and the salty mojo potatoes (dipped in ranch of course). At the end, I would sample each kind of pizza they had out. 

Dad could eat a lot and my mom would chastise him, "John, slow down. Remember your blood pressure." Dad would shake his head at her. He wasn't going to let an "all you can eat" buffet be anything but just that. 

Dad always wanted to take chicken home. It wasn't allowed. But that didn't stop him. Dad would hand my mom a few pieces of chicken under the table wrapped in an oil stained napkin and whisper to my mom, "C'mon Judy, put it in your purse." Mom soon learned to bring a big purse with her and dad would fill it up. At home, Dad would wait an hour or two, then open the fridge to eat his pilfered chicken. I would sometimes ask him for a piece of crispy skin and he would always oblige.

Those memories linger for me. They're unforgettable. Good food, family, arcade games and hiding a piece of chicken in a purse. What could be better than that my friends?

Stained glass year

When I lived in San Francisco, I started attending a catholic parish called St. John of God. The church was small and lovely with its own Irish priest who acknowledged that the Bible was a parable. The average age of a parishioner was probably 70.  They did a lot of work on the cancer ward at UCSF. They built houses for people. They raised money for the community. 

I started attending church masses early on Sundays. And then I started staying for the after church socials where adorable old ladies served homemade coffee cake and scones with coffee. And then, to my mom's surprise and delight as I was agnostic for a time, I started attending Sunday school classes to make my confirmation. Finally. 

Yes, I made my Catholic confirmation in my thirties.

I enjoyed the classes. Most of all, I just loved reading the stories and learning about the history of religion. We would debate in class over whether cats and dogs went to heaven. I'm sure they do and won the unofficial debate. At least in my opinion I did. But most of all, church was a community for me. I joined the choir and loved singing, letting my voice soar to the hymns with the guitar and piano in the background. 

The day of my confirmation, my mom, sister and baby Selena drove down to see it. I walked up the aisle, and grinned, knowing that this could happen nowhere else but in a progressive parish in San Francisco. And I felt a presence in the church that day. I looked around at the stained glass windows and felt it. The universe, Buddha, God. A rose by any other name. And it felt lovely and true. Later, my faith would help me through my dad's death.  And through my failed infertility treatments. 

So in the end, that confirmation was meant to be. Like most things. It's not that I needed to conform or anything like that. Like my MFA writing program in many ways, it was something I decided to do just for me.

And it felt good.

The girl is chasing windmills...

My next goal, after I recover 100 percent, is to get my books to the silver screen as well as to the stage. Some days, I sit and daydream of it happening. I can see myself in the theater in the front row, incognito by virtue of being a mere writer. No one knows what Jenny looks like now.

People may think it's weird, odd, or even "crazy" to daydream like this. Or night dream. But dreaming is what got me to my writing career. Although career is a somewhat congratulatory and inaccurate term as typically one makes money from their career. Yet, I have to say that, until recently, I never needed my writing to make money.

But now, well now, I do. I need the freedom money brings. I need the freedom to chase my dreams. I need to see the culmination of it all, which I think will be seeing my book translated as a film.

You see, I've always seen my memoir "Tales of an Inland Empire Girl" as a film cinematically in my head. Music soundtrack included of course. In my mind's eye, I see it, I do. 

Now I know that my book doesn't have much action or even plot, but I can fix that in the adaptation. Plus, some of my favorite movies like "The World According to Garp", "The Squid & the Whale", "The Glass Castle" and even, the very recent, "The Tender Bar", all of which are based on books or true life, are not action or plot driven necessarily, but character driven. 

So call me Ishmael. Call me a fool. Call me whatever you want because maybe I am chasing at windmills. But maybe, just maybe, these windmills are not imaginary but real and attainable. At least in my head.

Paying my dues

Yesterday, someone commented that I had paid my figurative creative writing dues. And yes I have. Oh have I.

Twenty years ago, I started writing creatively while living in Houston. I hadn't written for years and had just graduated from USC Law and I was working as a corporate litigator at the largest law firm in Texas. Late night, staring out the window of a Houston skyscraper, I would write poems. They would pour out of me. It was the first time I realized that I had a writer inside of me, one that was bursting to get out. 

In Texas, that writing voice was compelled by the loneliness and despair I felt in a new place by myself and an unfulfilling job. That's not to say I regret Texas or working at the big firm because I don't. The job was a huge opportunity, one that I'll always be grateful for, and I made friends in Texas that I'll have for life.

Later, in San Francisco, with my husband who was in dental school, I kept writing. I didn't write as much because I was working long hours at yet another law firm, and when I wasn't working, I was having the time of my life. Adrian and I spent weekends at Golden Gate Park and exploring the city and the wine country areas of Napa and Sonoma. We started looking for a house to buy, the market was extremely low, and then boom, my dad died. 

It was the defining moment of my life. I totally just dropped everything and moved back home. I quit my San Francisco law firm job and moved to Colton to sleep on my twin sister's couch. I had already interviewed and accepted yet another law firm position. This one in Riverside. Yet, I knew the day I started that it wasn't for me. I still felt like an outsider. 

Flash forward to two years later. I'm desperately unhappy. I dread going into work and often leave early to write at the Starbucks down the street. My husband, who has graduated dental school by then and is studying for his board exams, catches me there one day. He knows I'm unhappy.  But we just bought a big house.

So I apply to a workshop called VONA and it changes my life. I find my writing voice, and myself. Soon, I'm interviewing for deputy public defender positions and after interviewing in Riverside, Orange County and San Bernardino, I'm hired in Riverside. It feels like I'm finally home. It is one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I keep on writing. I'm working on a memoir about my childhood and the stories come out free standing, one at a time, for over a decade. I know there's something there. I go to Macondo. People love the energy and voice. A publisher likes it too but suggests I rewrite it as fiction. 

Finally, I find Los Nietos, and this press likes my memoir as it is and suggests I lengthen it to add more chapters from a high school perspective. Those chapters and the editing and collating takes two years. I finish the final story in a creative writing online MFA program at the University of New Orleans. At the last minute, I add in my poetry (some of the same poetry about my dad's death that I wrote at the Starbucks in Ontario that Adrian caught me at all those years ago). Covid has happened and I've started a podcast and written a hybrid chapbook about public defense and punk rock. My memoir becomes a kind of prequel.  But it all makes sense. It all makes so much sense. 

So yes my dues are paid and I'm marketing the hell outta both my books. For years, and years, I prayed to the universe to give me this, so I'm relishing it. Life gives you a chance at finding your true purpose and you have to grab it when it comes, lest it slip away. And for me, this writer thing, it's here to stay.

Plus size

 I recently did a FB post about what plus size is: 

"What is plus size? Plus size is being large in everything we do. From our aesthetic and fashion to our makeup & eyelashes, to our career & social justice writing. Plus size is being conscious of the way the world will try to fit us in a tiny box. Break free baby! Plus size is everything we do to be our authentic selves. It's champagne & a party in Vegas. Wearing a leopard dress & knowing, we look good. Plus size is sexy. Plus size is punk rock."  Juanita E. Mantz JEM

"Plus size is a big laugh, big plans, and big love!!  And in this Pic, it's a white biker jacket as a blazer and really bad hair 😂😂." Amy Beth Clark-Downing

"Plus size is Hawt!"

"I grew up with elder family women who were plus size, but we didn't have that term then, and we didn't think being plus size was something negative. I admired and respected these beautiful women. And their lonjas appealed to me. Different bodies for different people, that's how I saw it, still do." liz gonzález

"Plus size is more canvas for beautiful tattoos and fun fashion!" Marika Lopez

"Plus size means no cool bathing suits or latest trends. Plus size is us then making our styles and trends. Plus size is walking in a room and people saying, “wow, she’s wearing that, so brave.” Plus size is head up and confident no one else has that outfit. Plus size is women asking where’d you shop. Plus size is taking my pants in at the hips but not waist. Plus size is hemming every fucking pair of pants bc apparently we’re not only wide but over 5’10, NOT!  Plus size is wearing it, owning the look and knowing others are talking about you. Plus size is eating that lunch and not worrying my pants are too tight. Plus size is leaving the store pissed bc the largest size on the rack is a 12! Plus size is telling the cashier, “I’m a big girl with cash, tell that to your buyer.” Plus size is asking the sales girl,” do you have anything for fluffy girls?” Plus size is the sales rep telling you, “sorry we don’t carry your size.” And you thinking, girl how do you know what and whom I’m buying for! Plus size is buying off Etsy bc the designers don’t care what size you are!! Yay, Etsy! Plus size is finding your designers and thanking them for letting you feel “normal.” Plus size is me. Plus size is learning to love myself forever." Geneva Castro'Lichtenstein