Directions

It is 2:30 am and I am wide awake. Frodo woke me up an hour ago. He kept whining to go downstairs. I tried to ignore it, but finally padded down the stairs with him to go outside. He looked confused as he looked at his water bowl. I said, “Drink Frodo... now go outside.” The wind was howling as I opened the door.

Frodo looked at me again. I pointed. He followed my finger and went outside.

We came back upstairs and I tried in vain to go back to sleep. My brain wouldn’t turn off. I am a bit frustrated with a work issue that I need to just let go. It really has no purpose other than to cause me annoyance. Do we suffer because we can’t let things go? Perhaps. Maybe I’ll just turn my annoyance into a fiction story or a character (that is always the risk you run with pissing off a writer).

I spent last night listening to a podcast on the controversy surrounding the book “American Dirt” on Latino USA on NPR. I think the dialogue is important. Yet, similar to my work issue, I am letting it go because I have to. My own book is what’s important to me right now you see.

Maybe that’s what is vexing me. 

Maybe my anxiety over my book is what is really in the back of my mind, my decade long labor of blood, sweat and tears. What if no one wants my book? What if no one wants me?

Hmmmm. 

You see, I just want my stories out there, and they are. But my book, a novella memoir, is a whole collection, rather than pieces. It is a portrait of me. It is me. I am multitudes or contain them as Whitman once said: Jenny, JEM, Jua and Juanita. I am all of those narrators and all of my names. 

I am my stories. 

In the end, maybe I just need to come from a place of gratitude, for how privileged I am that I’m a writer, and that I get to write at all. I need to have a mantra: if you write stories, they will eventually be read, by someone. 

For now, I’m following my own directions and just padding down a path. Where it leads, I don’t know, but I’m on it. 

Backwards

I was looking back through posts the other day and was amazed I’ve kept this blog going for a decade. It all started with a story about me and my embarrassing dance moves at a Christmas party. I did the sprinkler dance ok? Get over it.

I can see how far my writing has come. Like working a muscle, I’ve built it up. It’s flows easier now. But have I come along that far? Have I worked on my soul in the process of the writing? I haven’t really made much progress in the last decade on being nicer or on drinking less.

Don’t get me wrong, I know I’ve documented it all, I’ve been honest, pretty honest, about who I am.

There are cringeworthy blogs that I read now where I was so euphoric about the process of fertility treatments and IVF. So fucking hopeful. I feel like a fool in retrospect, and the barren and cynical bitch I’ve become thinks, you are a fucking idiot.

But at least I tried. Right? It's the same thing with this book, this writing journey and my performances. It’s not like I think I’m that talented. I do a reading and my knees chatter together like fake joke teeth, but I have something to say. I have a voice. And while my voice may not be the prettiest, or the smartest, or the most elevated, it’s mine.

Watching the show Fleabag recently, I thought, I love this. This girl is a real girl, a flawed girl and I will take reality over fake ass shit any day.

Running

Getting back to work has been hard, but oddly exhilarating. I have found more joy in my public defender incompetency work since I came back from a break.

My work routine seems comforting. My obsession with to do lists and efficiency have put me in good stead for the new year. I have a very big trial in February and I’m prepping it while breathing.

I also got involved with a creative project at work involving social media and that’s been super fun and rewarding.

Writing wise, my weekend and early morning and night gig, well that’s a crazy tale. I’ve been on a mission to finish my book which I did. There’s a draft and it’s good. Not perfect of course, but it never will be. What’s weird is that after leaving it for a month, I was able to finish my prologue in a weekend.

Here’s the rub. Being a writer is work. People do not have any idea unless they’ve tried to be a writer. And it’s not just the writing itself. It’s the writing and the submitting, and the conferences, and the readings and promotions.

Everything came to a head in January.

I had to book my trip for AWP, the huge writing conference in March of every year which I had been putting off. I finally got that done. Then, a good friend reminded and urged me to apply to the agent meetup which is due next week too. So that still needs to get done. And it will. Probably after I write this blog because I’m up at 2 am so what the hell!

Next, I am doing a group read in Venice on the 18th of the month so I had to help promote that. Then, there’s a book contest/prize that I want/need to submit my manuscript to so I’m also working on that which is due in a week.

Just when I thought I was on track, I found out I had not properly deferred my online part-time MFA program at UNO which was supposed to start this month. I had to reapply which I did last night. They let me transfer my letters of recommendation and essays so that helped. Maybe it was meant to be that I start my MFA this summer or fall because I’m running right now and barely keeping up. With my demanding job, the needy shih tzus, my husband and of course, my Netflix and music obsessions, well it’s a lot.

Life is short. I’m not beating myself up. I’m just moving forward.

I’m tired. Yet exhilarated. Life is moving and so is my writing. Working full-time as a lawyer for the most oppressed and writing on the side is a lot. But if anyone can do it, I know I can. Thank you for listening.

Hello new year! I’m your.....

It’s a new year, well almost.

This year, I hosted Christmas. It was so much work. But worth it. We cleaned the house from top to bottom and decorated. The table settings with homemade placemats crafted by myself with glue, stockings and glitter turned out perfect.

Add in my mammoth, slow cooked prime rib eye roast and a karaoke machine and you have a party. Other than a mean shih tzu (Frodo-who believes every Christmas needs a Grinch) who terrorized the partygoers, it was a blast. Oh and there’s a rumor someone hogged the karaoke machine but it’s lies, all lies.

That said, next year we’re going to Hawaii or Fiji.

Putting Christmas aside, New Year’s Eve is pretty much my favorite holiday (other than Halloween). It is a great excuse to get sparkly and tipsy. Too things I’m very good at.

Some people say New Year’s Eve is a letdown, but that’s just an excuse for people who don’t know how to plan. This year, per the usual, we will be at an 80’s party in Las fucking Vegas. I will be sipping on all you can drink drinks and listening to the new wave tunage of the best decade ever.

And yeah, I will be sparkly.

It’s a Mantz Christmas

As you all know, my dad loved Christmas.

Dad would start with the Christmas music in November. Then the decorations. Red, blue and green outdoors. On every tree and bush. On the eves. An old fashioned Santa and Frosty in the front yard. One year, I think he put reindeers on the roof.

Indoors, silver and gold tinsel was everywhere. The tree shimmered with it. His singing bird in the tree was my favorite.

Next, Dad would start practicing making homemade donuts and then, planning his Christmas feast. Of course, there was always his shiny ham, a turkey, stuffing, mash, cranberries and what he called ambrosia fruit salad.

I am not even half as graceful at celebrating Christmas as my dad was. I find it stressful, and I get grumpy and overwhelmed.

This year, we are hosting after taking a break for a few years. But, I feel as if I can’t catch up. Work is crazier than usual. I haven’t cleaned the house and we are leaving for our anniversary weekend.

Worst of all, I work Christmas Eve. Last night, I had a meltdown over it all. I complained and nagged hubby to help me more in a torrent of rants.

What I need to remember, and maybe this blog is my way of reminding myself, is that Christmas is not over commercialized sparkly perfection.

To my dad, Christmas was tinsel thrown sideways. Presents wrapped a bit haphazardly. A chirping bird in a silver ball in a tree. Those homemade sugar donuts. His glazed ham. And Charlie Brown, and Rudolph on the television.

Most of all, Dad would make Christmas fun. Magical. And perhaps, that’s the secret. I need to let go and celebrate family.

And maybe, I need to get a chirping bird.

Underwater

Swimming used to be my passion. In high school, with all of the chaos at home, I would escape into the water. I swam back stroke and freestyle. Although I was never the best swimmer on the team, we had people that went to Nationals, I was passionate about it. Our pool at Chaffey High School was so damn cold, not heated like the richies at Claremont High, and our coach Nora was rough around the edges. But it was fun. I enjoyed the competition. Standing in a swimsuit shivering on the block, then the whistle or shot to go!

When I quit swim team my junior year of high school, my mental health went downhill. I was drinking and smoking. Too young to gamble, I was mirroring my father in the only ways I could.

Nowadays, I try to limit my drinking to one day a week. I don’t always succeed.

And now I’m underwater once again at work.

In over a decade, it has never been this busy. I’m organized, and some might say neurotic about deadlines and my to do list. I get the work done. I’m in court three days a week, prepping days before, reading my incompetency reports, and writing for the Riverside Lawyer Magazine. I have numerous incompetency trials ahead of me in January and I’m prepping those too.

I come home from work and fall asleep. My hubby was mad last night, and said, “You can’t fall asleep, it’s only seven!”

But I did.

I keep telling myself, this too shall pass, and it will. It has to. Right?

To sleep perchance

I want to sleep. I want to awake at ten am not at five in the morning. On Saturday at least.

They don’t tell you when you’re young, how elusive sleep may be later. I yearn for the days in my younger years when I could sleep until noon. My mom would always wake me up. “Get up Jenny! You can’t sleep all damn day!” I would say, “Mom it’s Saturday!”

Nowadays, and everyday in fact, my eyes open at five in the morning like clockwork. And, sometimes as early as four am. I know that much of it is age or hormone related. I’m in the lovely realm of post menopausal women.

My early rising also has much to do with my two evil shih tzus Frodo and Chewbacca (Chewie). They love to wake me up if, by some divine intervention, I do manage to sleep past five am.

Frodo sleeps on the bed and he will kick me. Like a horse with his back leg, Frodo pushes it out and slams it on the bed. Over and over. Chewie who sleeps on the floor on his blanket, whines. If I am so rude as to ignore that, he barks. Loudly. Over and over. It’s the same thing every morning, and like Groundhog Day. I pop my head up, moan, and get out of bed.

Who has trained who is the question?

Regardless, here I am, awake at 6 am, up for more than an hour. Maybe it’s a gift as this early bird does get the writing worm.