The writer's life: a portrait of a not so young writer at her first AWP conference

I woke up yesterday exhausted. Not merely tired. Beat. Run down. Haggard. My feet hurt. My back hurt. This is what forty-something looks like.

Work has been crazy, pun intended. As a deputy public defender, I represent incompetent clients at Patton State Hospital as well as probationers/mental health clientele and it was a rough week with one fire drill after another. And, I had to interview for a promotion.

As a result, I missed the first three days of the annual AWP writing conference, a conference that was in LA, a mere hour away. I knew I should have planned it better and took the days off. Of course, my promotion interview would land on the first day of AWP. And a mandatory immigration training on the second day. Doesn't life always happen that way when you are making plans (paraphrasing John Lennon here)?

That said, I had promised myself I would attend on a Saturday day pass. Plus, I had agreed to man the book fair table for VONA.  So, when I woke up at 6 am I groaned. The weight of my pledges to myself and others heavy on my shoulders. But, I took a deep breath and got up, walked the dogs, drank my coffee and got dressed (which consisted of me tying my hair back and putting on some leggings and a punk rock tee with boots) and got on the road. Sometimes you just have to get the fuck up.

I arrived to the LA Convention Center a little early but not too early. My first seminar was originally supposed to be writing the spiritual memoir but I was too lazy to walk over to the Marriott blocks away so I chose what turned out to be the perfect panel, on sex, drugs, violence and rock and roll in YA. It was kismet. I sat through the panel aghast. It was as if God had made a panel built for me. After all, I am a punk rock girl from the IE who writes in child voice and whose family cursed a lot (I mean a lot, the F bomb was a very common occurrence, no exaggeration needed) and who is trying to incorporate music and YA books into her memoir. I even took a deep breath and raised my hand to ask a question. I felt proud of myself afterwards. Maybe I did belong.

The next panel was a reading by queer and straight mujers and again, it was an amazing experience. My friend Liz was reading and she brought down the house along with the four other Latinas. One woman's story was even about trying to get pregnant as a Queer woman and my reaction to her piece was immediate and visceral due to my own fertility struggles. I talked to her after the reading and it was amazing to feel that immediate connection with another writer. To feel the bridges form.

The rest of the day flew by. I ran around grabbing as many of the for sale books as I could, some were even free. I talked to old friends, made small talk with editors of literary journals, sipped on a beer, sipped on a coffee, ate a piece of pizza in a "We Need Diverse Books" panel listening to a VONA faculty member stress the need for change in the world of all white publishing houses. I manned the VONA table at the end of the day and made a new friend, a fellow Inland Empire girl who has read my work and who loves punk rock just like me.

I found myself, saw myself, motivated myself and began believing in myself as a writer at AWP. It was as if I was being reborn. James Joyce wrote Ulysses about the day in the life of one man and for me, my first AWP conference has that same significance.  It means I am here. For good.

In the weeds

Up. Five a.m. My first thought is that it is cold. Last night, the temperature drooped to a chilly forty degrees. The lack of warmth outside matches my insides.

Yesterday was a very hard day.  The modifier very doesn't even cut it. Most people have no idea what my job as a deputy public defender is like, but yesterday was toxic. The kind of day that made me wonder how or why I do the job I do. Am I a masochist immersed in other's misery? What hole is this filling in me? Does the chaos I have to deal with on a daily basis mirror something that might be familiar to me from childhood?

Or maybe I am overthinking it. Maybe a shit day is just that. They say it's how you react that matters. And I reacted badly. Screamed at husband over lunch about something petty. The negative energy had to go somewhere.

When I used to waitress, I had many bad days. I waitressed for almost ten years. I remember the days in the weeds where you were the only server on shift and the hostess sat eight tables at once. I would run around trying to keep up. I would not let the tables drown me. Rush, rush and more rush. It was fun in a weird, miserable way. Fellow waitresses would run in, often late for their shift. How can I help, they would ask? "Can you get that table drinks and get those people's orders," I would ask in a brusque tone. My fellow waitresses never took offense. They knew my "I am busy" voice. "Thank you," I would later say with a smile after I was caught up.

In the legal world, however, everything moves at a different pace and the decorum is much different. People often take my brusqueness for rudeness. They don't understand that I only know one speed. That I am often impatient, but that I am just trying to not let it all bring me down. And down.

Hourglass musings

Another gambling den blog post. Don't say it. You know you're thinking it. Doesn't she ever stay home?

I'm in Laughlin for my husband's birthday and I can't sleep despite the fact that we stayed out way too late.  I woke up with thoughts on my mind and it is better to write them down in case I forget.

Life is odd. We have all these experiences and moments, yet when do we really live? Is it only on weekends? Is it only in the evening after work? I've come to truly enjoy the work I do, but most days, the day rushes by like a film on fast forward. And, when I get home from work, it still flies by. I walk in the door, kiss Adrian and the dogs and then eat and watch some television or read. I'm in bed by nine most nights, then wake up at six to do it all again.

My mornings are even more hectic. I get up, let the dogs out, feed the dogs, feed and coffee myself and make my lunch and then walk the dogs before I get on the road. The entire walk I am begging them to poop. Out loud. It's humiliating to admit, but I yammer at them in my doggie talk, "It's time to poop Frodo, come on Chewie, give us one. Good boys." On the days when they refuse, I walk them twice as long imploring them, "C'mon guys, mommy is gonna be late, please poop." My dogs' bowel movements are a big part of my morning obviously and while people are very understanding about a sick kid, try explaining to a judge in a department that you're late because your stubborn Shih Tzu wouldn't take a shit.

I guess my point is that rarely do I bathe in the joy of the sun on my face and their wagging tails. My dogs love that walk every morning, but I can't say I enjoy it like I should. Even now, I am writing but am I appreciating the process? When I get up, will I enjoy going down to the Starbucks to get coffee, past the noisy jangling slot machines? Or will I lumber down grumbling to myself about my headache?

I make a pledge to bask in the joy of the moment, the now, the present. It is all I have. I want to stop the sands of time from slipping through my fingers, at least for a day.

Reality check

I thought I was over it. And then I started watching Big Bang Theory, one of my favorite shows. And I cursed aloud. Fuck. Bernadette is pregnant. I turned the television off and sat staring at the remote. Will I ever be over this? I'm not sure. Right now my heart feels cut in two, each half feels fragile, as if one side is me and the other my lost dream.

Babies are everywhere. A close friend of mine is pregnant and I'm overjoyed for her. I am. I just feel sad for myself. I smile and act like everything is OK but it's not.

Like goes on but it kind of doesn't. Maybe life when you cannot create life is meaningless in a way. Yes, I know what I'm saying is ridiculous. I have so much. A great husband, two beautiful dogs, a lovely house and best friends and my mom and sisters, I know this. Yet, I wanna cry and cry and never stop.

And I'm pissed. Because I love Big Bang Theory. I'm invested in the characters. But, to have to watch a fictional version of what I want and cannot have is too much to handle.

Instead, I take the remote and click, switching to a recently recorded episode from this season of Survivor. Because at this point, it feels like where I am, on this island of me, surviving.

Ordinary World

I just read a woman's blog about wanting to have an ordinary and mediocre life. And it made me itch inside. Because I don't know many things, but I know me and I can't be satisfied with that.

The mundane vexes me. Apathy is one of the worse vices. Being normal is not something I have ever wanted. I would rather be the crazy lady at the park mumbling to herself about her yet unwritten novel than the woman lunching.

As a young girl I daydreamed and read myself into characters. I always felt as if something special was on the horizon, I just needed to climb and overcome that crazy mountain of my family. But, being special requires a deep desire, motivation and luck.

Some may say I have beaten the odds by where I am and where I have been. A high school dropout, despite being an A student for most of my high school career, I waitressed and studied my way back into academic excellence. It was my years at Mt SAC junior college, working two jobs at times and living in a trailer park for a while in Pomona, that proved my fortitude and ambition. I wanted out. I wanted more. I yearned for it and needed it. I willed it into being.

By the time I transferred to UCR, it was almost a certainty that things would change. People complained about the small room with the common kitchen but I loved it. I had wanted the college experience for so long. A too short two years and graduation with a Bachelor's in English Literature. I had taken as many courses as I could in those two years. Then USC Law. Sure law school was hard, mostly because I was broke, but I had known harder times.

Times like when it rains and the roof caves in on your trailer and you have nowhere to go. Or losing your waitressing job and only having your bagel making job that pays minimum wage.  And your car engine blowing up. And someone stealing the money you had saved to fix the car engine. Having no home, no good job and no ride to school which forces you to move back home, into yet another trailer (your parent's trailer down the street from your busted trailer) feeling like an utter failure.

Your dad cooks you fried bologna and eggs every morning and drives you to school or your sister picks you up for class. And you muddle through. But just barely. And the light times are when you are at school. When you are there in class at 8 pm studying Shakespeare trying to stay awake because you are so fucking tired from working all day, yet you relish it. You love the books so much it hurts, and the literary explications move you. Or working late in the news office pasting headlines onto the wax paper, that is joy. So law school was not so bad.

 Next, onto the largest most prestigious law firm in Texas. All the way to god damn Texas. By myself. Eager for it. All alone. I felt as if I was the American dream. I had made it. That is when my story careens off into nowhere. All that hard work and sacrifice, student loans, no partying while in law school and then I made it, and hit a brick wall. Bam!

I quickly found that I hated the corporate litigation world. Loathed might be a better word. It was dreary, soul sapping, superficial and boring. To me, to try and succeed at that life, to be a law firm partner, once I knew what it entailed, surely that life would be ordinary and sad.

I started writing poems in my high rise and the words poured out of me. I couldn't stop them. I had turned on a tap that had been off for too long and then I knew. But not really. I stayed at that soul sucker of a job for almost three years. Went through a deep depression and when I awoke, I took the California Bar and thankfully passed. Yet, I still took another soul sucking job at a big firm. The change of locale helped. Adrian and I found a great deal on an apartment in San Francisco and he went to dental school and I worked twelve hour days and weekends.

When my dad died something broke in me and I moved back home to the Inland Empire. When Adrian graduated, we got married and I found a job I could love at the Public Defender's Office representing the poor. I should have known all along that I belonged there, but sometimes we can't see our own stories clearly until they've unfolded.

And I wrote. And wrote. Pen to paper, fingers to keys. I found and created writing communities. For me, it is everything. Writing transcends. It transports me. It is my very own portal into other worlds. Writing is the antithesis of ordinary and it is where I want to be.

So fuck the ordinary world my friends. Live a strange and unique existence. I know I will.

Starman-my tribute to Bowie

Bowie has always been there for me.  Since before I was born. One of my favorite songs, "Space Oddity" was released in 1969. I came into this world two years later. By the time I was in elementary school, Bowie had morphed again.  He was Ziggy Stardust.  All theatrics. A precursor to punk.  Always a visionary, Bowie's music transcended genres.  He could do punk, pop, blues, jazz, New Wave, and alternative, all without missing a beat.  He influenced all of my favorite artists, Morrissey, Joy Division, Siouxsie, The Cure, the list goes on and on. In a way, he was perhaps my favorite artist.

I was a little girl when Elvis died. My mom cried by the swimming pool when Casey Kasem announced it. She was devastated.  Years later, I know exactly how she felt that day. My heart feels as if it has been ripped apart by tweezers and even though I didn't know him personally, I feel as if I have suffered a great loss.

In the last year, I have become obsessed with Bowie again.  I started listening to all of his work over and over and for Christmas, my husband got me a four CD set that I was making my way through. I say making my way through because I couldn't get past CD 2, the songs were that good.  From Space Oddity to Rebel Rebel to Suffragette City to Heroes to Rock and Roll Suicide to Ziggy Stardust to Young Americans to songs I don't remember having heard like Bowie's cover of Lou Reed's White Light/White Heat (you must listen to his version, you will be amazed and transported).

Last night about eleven, I heard Bowie had died and I did what only a true fan would do. I cried. Like a baby. I tried to sleep but couldn't and as I listened to his music and read the posts about him on Facebook, I cried some more. This morning, I woke up and put on my Bowie tee and despite the flu I can feel still inside of me, another reminder of mortality as if I need one, I muddled through and lit a candle and played his songs over and over. It was the only thing that helped.

And then I watched the music video for his magnum opus song Lazarus, from his album Blackstar (just released three days ago on his birthday on January 8th).  It starts out with the words, " Look up here, I'm in Heaven." For most of the song he is in a hospital bed, blindfolded, two holes for eyes.  But, toward the end, he rises up as if rejuvenated and starts dancing, writing, and creating. After the video/song was over, I looked up as if into the stars and could feel my the tears from the power of my Starman's message.

Life is short. Fleeting. We only have this now. And I waved a figurative goodbye. To Bowie. To my father.  To all who were here and now are gone. And I vowed to create and create until I can't no more.  That is surely the best tribute, maybe the only tribute, I can offer.

The last leg of the famous inland empire playgirl

I'm in Vegas to see Morrissey. This is my last day and night here and Morrissey is playing at the Hard Rock tonight. The last five days have been a challenge. I was fighting a cold and missing my dogs who help keep me sane. I have had a bad case of separation anxiety. My oft posed question to my husband was, "Would it be too weird if I called the doggie hotel to check on Frodo and Chewbaca again?" His response was a head nod many times over and despite his opinion, I texted the hotel more than once. In response, the sweet dogsitter (who obviously owns a dog hotel and thus must be used to the anxious fur parent) sent me pictures of my fur babies that only made my yearning worse.

As a result of my melancholy, I was back in our hotel room by nine p.m. all nights except one. On New Year's Eve, I rallied to stay out until almost two in the morning. It was a struggle to pull it together to party that night and I kept thinking to myself, what is wrong with me? Where is the party girl? Maybe she never existed at all. Vegas is supposed to make you feel young again, but I just feel old.

Clearly, I am slowing down. My party days are likely behind me (I say likely because never say never dear reader, this old grey mare may rally again). I think that is a good thing. I'm tired.

The last days here in Vegas have given me an epiphany. That epiphany being that I just want to be home. Home with my husband (who is here with me but we are discombobulated in Vegas with all the smoke, gambling and alcohol) and our two shih tzus doing what we do on a daily basis.

The lines from an old poem of mine come to mind, "It's the ordinary rote routine of life I crave. What some call humdrum, I name bliss."