Do feel free to just read John's column, my original point of this post, or skip to the end where I quoted him. My blatherings just popped out. It's 7:35 a.m. and I haven't had my coffee yet, so forgive me.
I always think John DeVore does a great job with his latest Mind of Man column, "How to Get Over Bitterness," and when people ask me, "Why aren't more men writing about sex?" He is someone to look at as an example and inspiration (I published one of his columns in Best Sex Writing 2010 and hope I get that chance again). This one was especially relevant to me, not so much because I'm bitter; I feel lighter and lighter every day, in my feelings toward others but, most especially, myself. I'm the kind of person who needs the very lowest of low moments to recognize what I have to be grateful for and, well, there have been a lot of extremely low moments in the last two years where I couldn't see a way out, a future, I thought I should just give up and I'm not sure what because despite my self-sabotaging efforts I love what I do, but I kept going and amazingly, there were kind people waiting on the other side who believed in me no matter what.
When it comes to relationships I know I'm nowhere near ready for one, and maybe I won't ever be, and I'm okay with that. I have so much growing up to do, remedial adulthood that I never learned, and whereas before I used to just yell at myself about it, in my head, and feel stupid and guilty that I was so "behind" in the game of life, now I'm finally ready to just accept myself where I am, supremely flawed but open, ready, not waiting for the next steps to be given to me or someone else to save me from myself (as if, right?) but ready to take them, with plenty of trail and error. But in the professional realm, I can't go it alone, I do need other people or I'd be, uh, blogging for free (not that there's anything wrong with that!) and not advancing or being able to afford all the things I need to afford. Speaking of which, and I know I've utterly gone off course, for those who want to read about money from a very different perspective, check out the work of Tara Gentile (is it any wonder I'm about to look into ADD medication? I can't seem to stay on one topic. Ha!).
It's a slow process and much of it for me is about recognizing where I've veered off course and trying to correct that, slowly but surely. And, soon, drugs, but that is another post (which is in the works, about mental health care and money and value). I do believe in trying everything that might work until you find something that does. The impatient side of me, which is pretty much 100% of me, hates that so many of the things that help me move forward are simply slow and daily practices. They are meeting, again, remedial adulthood goals, ones that I actually had to type into a list of "2011 goals" like "turn off the light before you go to sleep." And "don't bounce any checks." But again, I'm trying to be lighter on myself, to recognize that while I'm a remedial adult in so many regards, there are other things that come easier to me and I need to value and nurture those. That's why I fell for Priscilla Long's The Writer's Portable Mentor, because she is not just giving writing "tips" but lifelong writing practices, like building your lexicon. I'm not just taken with the idea, I need it for a project I'm working on whose language I'm not immersed in yet. She is not saying, "You're a bad writer," but "you need to grow as a writer and here are some ways you can." I almost always hear the former when I get a rejection, and am trying to be the kind of person who hears the latter, and seizes those opportunities.
So two passages I especially liked from John's column:
The story of your life is not the story of what your heart got, but what your heart didn’t get and how it kept on beating.
and
Recently, I have been afraid and exhausted and wondered if I will ever be in love again. I have laughed at that ridiculous thought, because it doesn’t matter if I’ll ever find love again. Love has tackled me before, many times, and I am thankful for first kisses in the middle of snowy roads and promises that were whispered at midnight, even if they were never kept. What will happen next for me? I have no idea, but I’ll probably blog about it. Life is a minefield: you take a step and there’s an explosion full of fire and smoke. You take another step and there’s another explosion, but this time candy rains down.
I also like that he takes what I guess could be called criticism and answers back, not with bitterness, but with our greatest tool, honesty.
Read the whole thing
Showing posts with label The Frisky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Frisky. Show all posts
Sex With a "Top Chef" essay at The Frisky
I wrote this essay for The Frisky, “Sex With a ‘Top Chef.’”
I’m not going to apologize for my actions, because it was a learning experience. A huge one. A game-changer. I came home and though it took me a little while of fumbling and missteps and separation anxiety, I weaned myself off of the people who didn't want me the way I wanted...well, if not them, the way I want a relationship. I was in a few flirtations, shall we say, but none were ones that would lead to what I'm looking for down the road. Not now, because I'm not in a place where I can be anyone's girlfriend, haven't been for a while. I'm in an in between, messy, working-on-myself place. I joked to myself I won't have sex til I'm a size six, but it's not a weight issue so much as a closure issue. I need closure with my body, with my apartment, with my book. I need closure on being this girl I called a "wannabe housewife" in an essay Brevity just rejected. I need closure on a lot of fronts and until then, I am really happy to focus on me. It sounds so selfish even to write that, but it's true. I miss certain things about being in a relationship, certainly, but I think because of that I kept compromising my principles, allowing myself to be the booty call or the second in line or whatever it was. I let myself fall so low that there was nowhere to go but up.
It's not an easy process, because while it's simple enough to say, "That's not what I want," it's harder when there are real feelings for the various people involved. If I could take the best parts of all of them and turn them into one person who magically thought I'd be a kickass girlfriend and baby mama, that would be awesome, but that is not real life. I'm finishing up the memoir The Pioneer Woman by Ree Drummond, which is basically about this totally larger than life romance, the kind that, well, sounds utterly fictional even though I know it's true. The second I decided to stop looking, stop obsessing, stop caring, really, about all the judgments, all the ways I don't measure up, something changed, in me and outside of me. Maybe "the second" is overstating it, but I'm in such a better place than I ever was in that downward spiral known as 2010, where I almost watched any slim chance I have of being a writer disappear, where I made the same mistake too many times to count when it comes to dating. I have a few things I'm proud of myself for in 2010, like getting my tattoo, but this year is the year, I think, I'm really gonna be someone I can look in the mirror and smile at. And that will be worth all the loneliness and wistfulness and nostalgia. That will be worth everything, and the more I focus on what it will take to make that happen, the more I know that everyone else's opinions are pretty much useless to me. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but I absorb them so easily into my skin. I start horrible comparisons to people I'll never hold a candle to. I do it so instantly, instinctively, that I have to fight that urge all the time. Now that my energy is focused on, well, me, I know that I could walk around LA in my sexiest dress, even amidst the catcalls of downtown, and just be happy in my own skin.
I learned not only not to judge someone by their online resume (and not to be in the dark about a Wild Flag show I was missing), but also that I am perfectly happy on my own. I don’t need to be flattered by random attention, whether I’m in New York or elsewhere. I learned it’s not selfish to stay in and enjoy the luxury of a big bed and cable TV. I learned that I would rather fall hard for the wrong people sometimes than be totally stoic. I learned that the right person, should they come along, will not be someone who insists on being right, who wants to tell me what I should be feeling. I learned so much from it and none of it has to do with his identity per se. I am looking forward to being back in LA, where maybe I’ll ice skate and eat grilled cheese and sleep in and write and have some quality time to myself. I don’t plan on going on any dates and I just feel so much better about myself than I did back then, when I was trying to convince myself I was worthy, of Mr. Top Chef, of my ex, of all sorts of people who aren’t me. So that’s my takeaway. You are perfectly entitled to your own. I'm glad I wrote it down, but I don't want to be the girl with stories any more. I don't want to be the drama queen. That's so 2010 and all of a sudden, armed with a plane ticket for 7:30 a.m., I feel ready to let every bit of that drama disappear.
I’m not going to apologize for my actions, because it was a learning experience. A huge one. A game-changer. I came home and though it took me a little while of fumbling and missteps and separation anxiety, I weaned myself off of the people who didn't want me the way I wanted...well, if not them, the way I want a relationship. I was in a few flirtations, shall we say, but none were ones that would lead to what I'm looking for down the road. Not now, because I'm not in a place where I can be anyone's girlfriend, haven't been for a while. I'm in an in between, messy, working-on-myself place. I joked to myself I won't have sex til I'm a size six, but it's not a weight issue so much as a closure issue. I need closure with my body, with my apartment, with my book. I need closure on being this girl I called a "wannabe housewife" in an essay Brevity just rejected. I need closure on a lot of fronts and until then, I am really happy to focus on me. It sounds so selfish even to write that, but it's true. I miss certain things about being in a relationship, certainly, but I think because of that I kept compromising my principles, allowing myself to be the booty call or the second in line or whatever it was. I let myself fall so low that there was nowhere to go but up.
It's not an easy process, because while it's simple enough to say, "That's not what I want," it's harder when there are real feelings for the various people involved. If I could take the best parts of all of them and turn them into one person who magically thought I'd be a kickass girlfriend and baby mama, that would be awesome, but that is not real life. I'm finishing up the memoir The Pioneer Woman by Ree Drummond, which is basically about this totally larger than life romance, the kind that, well, sounds utterly fictional even though I know it's true. The second I decided to stop looking, stop obsessing, stop caring, really, about all the judgments, all the ways I don't measure up, something changed, in me and outside of me. Maybe "the second" is overstating it, but I'm in such a better place than I ever was in that downward spiral known as 2010, where I almost watched any slim chance I have of being a writer disappear, where I made the same mistake too many times to count when it comes to dating. I have a few things I'm proud of myself for in 2010, like getting my tattoo, but this year is the year, I think, I'm really gonna be someone I can look in the mirror and smile at. And that will be worth all the loneliness and wistfulness and nostalgia. That will be worth everything, and the more I focus on what it will take to make that happen, the more I know that everyone else's opinions are pretty much useless to me. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but I absorb them so easily into my skin. I start horrible comparisons to people I'll never hold a candle to. I do it so instantly, instinctively, that I have to fight that urge all the time. Now that my energy is focused on, well, me, I know that I could walk around LA in my sexiest dress, even amidst the catcalls of downtown, and just be happy in my own skin.
I learned not only not to judge someone by their online resume (and not to be in the dark about a Wild Flag show I was missing), but also that I am perfectly happy on my own. I don’t need to be flattered by random attention, whether I’m in New York or elsewhere. I learned it’s not selfish to stay in and enjoy the luxury of a big bed and cable TV. I learned that I would rather fall hard for the wrong people sometimes than be totally stoic. I learned that the right person, should they come along, will not be someone who insists on being right, who wants to tell me what I should be feeling. I learned so much from it and none of it has to do with his identity per se. I am looking forward to being back in LA, where maybe I’ll ice skate and eat grilled cheese and sleep in and write and have some quality time to myself. I don’t plan on going on any dates and I just feel so much better about myself than I did back then, when I was trying to convince myself I was worthy, of Mr. Top Chef, of my ex, of all sorts of people who aren’t me. So that’s my takeaway. You are perfectly entitled to your own. I'm glad I wrote it down, but I don't want to be the girl with stories any more. I don't want to be the drama queen. That's so 2010 and all of a sudden, armed with a plane ticket for 7:30 a.m., I feel ready to let every bit of that drama disappear.
Labels:
Los Angeles,
love lessons,
reality TV,
relationships,
The Frisky,
Top Chef
"My Love/Hate Relationship With Thinspiration Blogs" at The Frisky
I wrote about "My Love/Hate Relationship With Thinspiration Blogs" for The Frisky. Funnily enough, I thought earlier this week, bingeing on Pretzel Crisps and potato chips was the worst of my eating habits this week, but it wasn't. Let's just say, yesterday was a bad day, but today I sought refuge from the storm at the gym and gave my legs and arms a pretty solid workout. I need to work on eating for health and hunger, not emotional eating, and on carving out time for the gym like I did today. One day at a time, eh?
And yeah, lately I'm realizing that it's in the middle of or immediately after my rock bottom moments that I get to that state of writing the most truthfully, because you have nothing left to lose at that point. For me, it kindof releases something in me that maybe I need to access in the worst possible ways, to figure out what sets me off. I don't want to create a pattern of low, low moments, followed by writing that somehow puts a salve on them, but that is often how it works for me. I'm tapping into a lot of my jealousy and hatred around a certain past relationship and unpacking it, and realizing that it's okay to have those emotions; they are mine, I own them, right or wrong, and that not looking at them, not exploring them, just accepting the way I've treated people or the way people have treated me, is the path to disaster. It's a very slippery slope for me from feeling like "This shitty thing happened" to "If someone treats me in a shitty way, I deserve it." That is what I'm unpacking in some of my writing, and it feels like some Muriel Rukeyser awakening.
Which brings me to that famous quote of hers: "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open." Trust me, I read about a lot of women's lives, and I do believe in the transformative power of truthtelling. But I think one giant lesson for me this year is that there is something a little suspicious, often, about those who set out to "change the world." I've dated and hooked up with people like that, ones who travel to farflung countries, who are "out there" in the world, far, far from home, and I'm not saying they are not doing good, positive work out there, and being amply rewarded for it. They are. But for me, I never want to be that person who thinks they are "saving" the world but treating the people in their personal worlds like shit. To me, that hypocrisy is sad, and so far from who I want to be that I'm glad I've distanced myself from the people who practice it. I don't admire it and don't want to add to the fawning around it.
I'm not claiming that I act perfectly towards the people in my life; I don't. I fuck up, I hurt people, I am selfish and self-centered. But I try hard to look at those actions, to learn from them, to find ways to satisfy myself first and to still be as good a friend I can be. It took me a long time to learn how to separate those things, to realize that that "good work" might be meaningful, but it doesn't make someone a good person. Ultimately, I think that is something everyone has to judge for themselves, and I used to think it was my job to be judged by everyone around me, to care about what other people thought, and yet there came a point where I realized I'm not in anyone else's head, and I can't live up to their standard or version of who I should be. I can only live up to my version, and that is what I'm trying to do. 2010, in particular the part from 35 on, have been, in a word, bad, so I am eagerly counting the days til 2011.
There is a lot inside myself, and outside, that I don't like, and often my solution to that has been to lie in bed and mope, but I'm trying to fight that part of me, to make concrete changes in how I live and how I take care of myself; obviously, there are blips along the way. I was a wreck yesterday, and realized that there are some toxic people in my life who I need to reconsider spending time with. That is not to blame anyone else for my actions, but again, to go back to self-care, which I think makes me a better person to be around, hopefully, anyway. I know when I am not taking care of myself in the ways I haven't been lately, when I go along with things just for the sake of the experience or to please someone else or because it's the "right" thing to do, I am doing myself a disservice. So, yeah, that was my longwinded way of saying that maybe as I get older my world becomes a bit more myopic, and "the world," in the Rukeyser sense, sounds all too much like hubris. I'm looking forward to going more inward, and there's no way to write that or think that without sounding, to my own ears, utterly selfish, and so be it. I'm ready to relinquish any claims to being not-selfish, and embrace that for what it is--not a path to anything other than learning about myself and going deeper with my writing and whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing with my life.
The other night, I was wading through all the junk scattered around my apartment, starting to panic because I couldn’t find a book I needed to review. I threw out bag after bag of garbage and finally decided to get some dinner, my version of which was a prepackaged frozen entree of organic tofu, vegetables and brown rice, plus a bottle of soy sauce.
No sooner had I popped it in the microwave than I discovered a brown paper bag from Trader Joe’s filled with one giant bag of tortilla chips and one bag of potato chips. I was still lamenting the previous night’s binge on everything Pretzel Crisps (yes, the same ones that pulled their “You can never be too thin” ads earlier this year), but that didn’t stop me from opening the potato chips. I thought I could just eat a few, savor that greasy, so-salty-it-hurts-the-corners-of-my-mouth taste, then throw the rest away. I wouldn’t have gone out and bought them, but there they were, right in front of me. But in the four minutes it took to heat my healthy meal, almost the entire bag was gone, and instead of that pleasant salty taste on my tongue, I felt like a bomb had gone off in my stomach.
Read the whole essay (and, as always, I'd love your comments, there not here) at The Frisky, one of my favorite sites.
And yeah, lately I'm realizing that it's in the middle of or immediately after my rock bottom moments that I get to that state of writing the most truthfully, because you have nothing left to lose at that point. For me, it kindof releases something in me that maybe I need to access in the worst possible ways, to figure out what sets me off. I don't want to create a pattern of low, low moments, followed by writing that somehow puts a salve on them, but that is often how it works for me. I'm tapping into a lot of my jealousy and hatred around a certain past relationship and unpacking it, and realizing that it's okay to have those emotions; they are mine, I own them, right or wrong, and that not looking at them, not exploring them, just accepting the way I've treated people or the way people have treated me, is the path to disaster. It's a very slippery slope for me from feeling like "This shitty thing happened" to "If someone treats me in a shitty way, I deserve it." That is what I'm unpacking in some of my writing, and it feels like some Muriel Rukeyser awakening.
Which brings me to that famous quote of hers: "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open." Trust me, I read about a lot of women's lives, and I do believe in the transformative power of truthtelling. But I think one giant lesson for me this year is that there is something a little suspicious, often, about those who set out to "change the world." I've dated and hooked up with people like that, ones who travel to farflung countries, who are "out there" in the world, far, far from home, and I'm not saying they are not doing good, positive work out there, and being amply rewarded for it. They are. But for me, I never want to be that person who thinks they are "saving" the world but treating the people in their personal worlds like shit. To me, that hypocrisy is sad, and so far from who I want to be that I'm glad I've distanced myself from the people who practice it. I don't admire it and don't want to add to the fawning around it.
I'm not claiming that I act perfectly towards the people in my life; I don't. I fuck up, I hurt people, I am selfish and self-centered. But I try hard to look at those actions, to learn from them, to find ways to satisfy myself first and to still be as good a friend I can be. It took me a long time to learn how to separate those things, to realize that that "good work" might be meaningful, but it doesn't make someone a good person. Ultimately, I think that is something everyone has to judge for themselves, and I used to think it was my job to be judged by everyone around me, to care about what other people thought, and yet there came a point where I realized I'm not in anyone else's head, and I can't live up to their standard or version of who I should be. I can only live up to my version, and that is what I'm trying to do. 2010, in particular the part from 35 on, have been, in a word, bad, so I am eagerly counting the days til 2011.
There is a lot inside myself, and outside, that I don't like, and often my solution to that has been to lie in bed and mope, but I'm trying to fight that part of me, to make concrete changes in how I live and how I take care of myself; obviously, there are blips along the way. I was a wreck yesterday, and realized that there are some toxic people in my life who I need to reconsider spending time with. That is not to blame anyone else for my actions, but again, to go back to self-care, which I think makes me a better person to be around, hopefully, anyway. I know when I am not taking care of myself in the ways I haven't been lately, when I go along with things just for the sake of the experience or to please someone else or because it's the "right" thing to do, I am doing myself a disservice. So, yeah, that was my longwinded way of saying that maybe as I get older my world becomes a bit more myopic, and "the world," in the Rukeyser sense, sounds all too much like hubris. I'm looking forward to going more inward, and there's no way to write that or think that without sounding, to my own ears, utterly selfish, and so be it. I'm ready to relinquish any claims to being not-selfish, and embrace that for what it is--not a path to anything other than learning about myself and going deeper with my writing and whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing with my life.
The other night, I was wading through all the junk scattered around my apartment, starting to panic because I couldn’t find a book I needed to review. I threw out bag after bag of garbage and finally decided to get some dinner, my version of which was a prepackaged frozen entree of organic tofu, vegetables and brown rice, plus a bottle of soy sauce.
No sooner had I popped it in the microwave than I discovered a brown paper bag from Trader Joe’s filled with one giant bag of tortilla chips and one bag of potato chips. I was still lamenting the previous night’s binge on everything Pretzel Crisps (yes, the same ones that pulled their “You can never be too thin” ads earlier this year), but that didn’t stop me from opening the potato chips. I thought I could just eat a few, savor that greasy, so-salty-it-hurts-the-corners-of-my-mouth taste, then throw the rest away. I wouldn’t have gone out and bought them, but there they were, right in front of me. But in the four minutes it took to heat my healthy meal, almost the entire bag was gone, and instead of that pleasant salty taste on my tongue, I felt like a bomb had gone off in my stomach.
Read the whole essay (and, as always, I'd love your comments, there not here) at The Frisky, one of my favorite sites.
