One Year Later

I can’t believe that 365 days have gone by since 45 was impossibly and believably elected to office.

I remember my initial optimism on election night. And then the disbelief. And then the slow onset of reality. The moment where I knelt on my living room floor and cried because I had hoped for the best and expected the worst. And the worst had happened.

I look back at the things I wrote then, a constant grappling for some sense of stability, control. Some sense of being able to predict the future. If I could only imagine what was on the horizon — even if it was the worst possible scenario — I would be able to make it. But I couldn’t even do that. I had no idea what was ahead. All I saw was darkness. On good days, I could see apocalypse. Ruin. Something like Mad Max but real.

***

A year later, I can’t believe it’s only been a year. It’s been a year and 45 is, somehow, still 45. We haven’t destroyed ourselves yet, but it feels like it’s getting closer every day. I can’t believe what I have to force myself not to be numb to. I can’t believe there could be a mass shooting where 58 people were killed and over 500 injured, and that it wouldn’t even be mentioned in the news the next week. I can’t believe that there could be so many high profile reports of sexual assault in one week that I would feel a sense of ambient dread and need to stay off social media for two days. I can’t believe we live in a world where powerful people are justifying pedophilia and statutory rape.

I say I can’t believe it, but I can. I always have. These things have always been underneath the surface of our society and culture. It’s just that now, it’s been revealed. The bandage covering the festering wound has been ripped off.

***

A year ago, the way I tried to right my rocking boat was to think about self-care. All I could think about was how to fix my despair or at least live with it. How could I care for myself in a world that didn’t feel safe for me to exist in?

***

I haven’t done a great job of caring for myself in the past year. I fell far behind on my 52 essays challenge. I wanted to get my shit together and revive my 33 Days of Horror challenge. I wanted to have an entire manuscript ready to send out by the end of the year. I wanted to be well-adjusted. I wanted to be a balanced human, in spite of everything. I wanted to have found some kind of hard-earned hope through the shit winds of this era.

Instead, I haven’t even broken into the double-digits of #52Essays. I haven’t revived my horror challenge yet (though I wrote a mini-review of Crimson Peak that I’ll post soon). I don’t have a manuscript ready to send out.

Instead, what I have is a year’s worth of deep and necessary self work. I’ve learned that self- care is not just about survival. It’s not just about filling my cup back up just enough to get myself through the day. It’s not just bubble baths and binge-watching Gilmore Girls and sleeping in (though those things are part of it). Self-care is keeping my cup consistently at least half-full. It’s setting boundaries and knowing my limits. It’s saying “no,” whether it’s saying “no” to another commitment or saying “no” to being treated with disrespect. It’s staying grounded in my body. It’s paying attention to my emotions and making friends with them, rather than ignoring them, denying them, burying them deep.

I’ve figured out at least that much. I haven’t figured out how to do it exactly, but I do know that much.

***

What I also have is a wedding on the horizon. It feels right, that that is the thing I’ve followed through on this year. When I wrote my first essay of #52Essays, I came to the conclusion that I was ready to do this thing. I was ready to finally, actually get married.

And here I am. Here we are. Planning a wedding. Putting down deposits. Trying on dresses. Ordering cakes. And it’s truly exciting.

***

For the most part, the fruits of my year have been intangible. I don’t have much to show for it. But that’s kind of the point.

I wanted my year to end with manuscripts and completed projects. I wanted to prove that I could be productive and functional, even while it felt like the world was coming apart at the seams. What I’ve ended the year with is the realization that productivity and functionality should not come at the expense of my self-worth, my physical health, my mental health.

So I’ve ended up with something else entirely. Something unexpected. Something I didn't know I needed. And it’s cleared the way for those manuscripts and those projects. It’s clearing the way for something I haven’t even imagined yet.

***

And there it is, finally. Hope.

What I did on my summer vacation (2017 ed.)

I've been away from this blog since April. When I look back on it, it seems unfathomable that so much time has gone by, and it also feels like a hundred years have gone by.

I always forget about the rhythms of my writing. I don't know how I forget it, but I do. Maybe it's the 20 years of having a summer vacation that has embedded itself into my psyche. The cycles of hunkering down, working hard, studying, and producing from September to May. Then, when the weather starts to warm up and the days start to feel lazier, I give myself permission to take it easy. In years past, it was a subconscious decision.

This year, it's been a little bit of both. This year is different from all the other years. Every day there is a new tweet to rail against, a new infuriating policy to protest, a new disaster to mourn. This presidency has affected my psyche in ways I'm hesitant to admit, but it's undeniable. I'm living with a cynicism I've never lived with before.

Aside from all the large scale stressors, we're finally (!!!) planning our wedding. Each wedding dress I look at is now distinct from one another (please see 2017: The Year of No Intention), and I have actual opinions on them. I was hoping I'd have an actual strong opinion on our wedding colors, but I still don't. I have days where I'm so excited for our wedding that I wish it were happening tomorrow, and I have days where I avoid looking at the countdown timer on my WeddingWire app because the number of days til our wedding is too few. I've begrudgingly and apprehensively bought two wedding planning books and a wedding planning binder (and also wondered who the hell I am these days). 

This summer, my brother graduated from college after being an extremely hardworking Van Wilder for many years. M and I were there for his graduation. After, we took a family trip to Lake Tahoe, where M learned that when we say Tahoe's water is very cold, we are not kidding.

What else?

I went to Phoenix where it was 110+ degrees. I lay out on a 5th floor hotel rooftop deck at night, and felt homesick for the dry, hot, desert wind. We took M's dad on a surprise birthday trip to St. Louis to watch the Cardinals. The Cardinals lost both games we went to, but the weather was beautiful and the Bud Light Lime hit the spot (I know). I went to San Francisco for the Las Dos Brujas writing workshop, and wrote poems that I'm still working on and love dearly. I saw dolphins while hiking the Marin Headlands with poet friends. I got to show M the Golden Gate Bridge for his first time, and also introduced him to the (also very cold) Pacific Ocean.

This summer, writing has not been a priority. I've written here and there, and made some breakthroughs at Las Dos Brujas, but for the most part, it seems that my subconscious decided it was time for a break. It was time to take a step back and recognize that I have a very large plate, it is very full, and if I am not very careful and very intentional, I will burn all the way out.

I'm asking myself questions about balance and boundaries, about what caring for the self truly means. I'm asking myself questions about how to nourish myself and my writing when so much else in life and in this world seems to take and take and take.

So I'm back now. I don't have a lot of answers, but here we are. Figuring things out. As always.

A Study of Sadness Through '80s Pop

It’s probably safe to say that I was born with at least two things in my blood: exhaustion and melancholy. 

I’ve always been a good sleeper. I’ve always been able to fall asleep fairly quickly, whether it’s nap time or bed time. Once I’m asleep, I can sleep through tornado sirens, typhoons, neighbor noises, M’s snoring, you name it. If allowed, I will always be able to sleep for at least 10 hours. In a perfect world, I would be able to wake up on my own around 11am, no matter how early I went to bed the night before. If you ask me how I’m doing, my answer will probably always be some version of “I’m tired/exhausted,” whether I’m obvious about it or not.  

These things have been true for as long as I can remember. 

I’m not here to write about perpetual exhaustion though. Not today. 

Today, I’m writing about melancholy. 

***

Merriam-Webster (yes, I’m doing it. I’m looking up words in the damn dictionary for this.) defines melancholy as simply, “a depression of spirits” and “a pensive mood.” 

That seems like an understatement, but an accurate one, for this thing I’ve lived with my whole life. 

***

When I was thinking about writing this essay, I mulled over the word that would most accurately express this feeling. 

I thought about depression. When I was in grad school, I remember watching a commercial for some kind of anti-depressant, where they listed off some symptoms of depression. I was only half-listening, but when I heard, “Have you lost interest in the things that used to excite you?” something clicked. I thought, hey, that’s me. I can’t remember the other things in the commercial that I identified with, but the mirror that 30 seconds held up to me was important. It was important for me to be able to name this wild, sad thing that was living in my body. It was important for me to be able to recognize why I felt so out of control, that juggling the pressures of grad school and being thrown into an academic teaching life and just life in general were taking a toll on me. 

Looking back on it, I should have seen a therapist in grad school. But I didn’t. Instead, I thought, Okay. So maybe I’m a little bit depressed. Now I know. And I adjusted. And I got to a better place. Was that the best way to deal with what I was going through? Probably not, but that's what I did. 

More recently, I read Chrissy Teigen’s essay in Glamour about having postpartum depression. It’s a fantastic read. It’s well-written, funny, and so, so real. I clearly do not have postpartum depression, and postpartum depression deserves its own platform and its own conversation. But I found myself resonating with so much of what she was describing that I thought, oh shit. It’s happening again. I’m depressed. Why didn’t I see it before? Of course I’m depressed. Why wouldn’t I be?

I still have a lot to figure out when it comes to my depression. Do I have a functional depression? Do I have Depression Lite (TM)? Does everyone have some degree of depression? Wouldn’t it be weird if I didn’t have some degree of depression with all the shit happening in the world and in my life? 

But depression is not the feeling that I’ve lived with my whole life that I’m trying to write about. 

***

Then I thought about ennui. 

When I first heard the concept of ennui in my British Literature After 1800 class in undergrad, I was elated. I finally had a name for that feeling I’d had for 19 years that was a lethal combo of restlessness and boredom. 

For those who aren’t familiar, ennui is a French term that means “a feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction.” Our English word “annoy” comes from ennui. It’s a word associated with the general attitude in the aftermath of the French revolution. It’s associated with youth and a sense of world weariness and jadedness. It can also be associated with a boredom and weariness that comes from living a life of privilege and “ease.” (Think Ryan Philippe’s character in Cruel Intentions — he’s the pinnacle of ennui. See also: any character in a Jean-Luc Godard film. See also: Monica Vitti’s character in L’Avventura.)

Of course I would feel ennui as a teenager. How could I not? I lived in a small town where there was nothing to do on a Friday night except go hang out at Wal-Mart or spend an hour in Blockbuster trying to figure out what movie to watch. Of course I would feel restless and bored and a relentless itch to do something or be anywhere else. 

However, that feeling has evolved in me. I still get restless, and I still get that relentless itch to do something or be anywhere else. But I would no longer call it ennui. 

Though I love ennui, and I love art that’s imbued with it, it is not the feeling I’ve lived with my whole life. 

***

And then I considered nostalgia. The longing for a past time, for the “good old days" (as if good old days ever existed, especially for anyone who is not white, not cisgender, not heterosexual, etc.).  

My preferred aesthetic, fashion-wise and music-wise and film-wise, is the ‘80s. I was only alive for half that decade, but god, do I love it. When I was a DJ for my college radio station, I would turn up my favorite ‘80s jams, sit in that tiny room, and wish so hard that music still sounded like that. 

It seems like we’re experiencing some kind of cultural nostalgia. We’re remaking movies that should never be remade, but not because they’re bad movies. Movies like The Karate Kid are so good because they tell good stories, but they’re also good because they are of their time. Karate Kid couldn’t be made in any other era. Just like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Just like The Crow. Just like Footloose. You can’t remake these movies successfully. 

Except Footloose. That remake was fun.  

Just kidding. That remake was pretty terrible. 

Nostalgia, though, is wistful. It’s yearning for a time that we remember fondly, that we think of without remembering the dark edges and the pain. (Not to mention the racism, the sexism, the xenophobia, the invisibility of queer and trans folks.) 

It’s wishing to go back to a time that never existed. 

***

And then, because I have a George Michael Pandora station, and it is basically the only thing I listen to these days, this song popped up: 

Weird ponytails and mullets aside, this song was my #1 favorite song of all time. (This was back when I had only experienced about 20 years of life, and could still maintain Top 5 lists with earnest and accuracy.)  

That song could remain at that #1 spot, if I still kept Top 5 lists. 

***

Hearing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” that day awakened the melancholy. A depression of spirits. A pensive mood. It felt like coming home after a long day and curling up in bed with all my fluffiest pillows and blankets. 

Feeling that was a relief. Or a release. Or both. 

It’s strange to think that melancholy is this to me — something resembling home. That a feeling could be so comforting. 

***

When I was in undergrad, I was obscenely busy, but I would stay up until the wee hours of the morning, listening to bands like The Smiths and writing and sometimes crying. What did I write? Who knows. (It was before I had fully accepted that I was a writer, so I probably wrote long journal entries and love letters that never got sent to boys who weren't worth the attention.) 

What I do know was that when I listened to the music, it felt like there was finally a home for all the sadness that lived in me. When I first heard “How Soon Is Now?” by The Smiths, it felt like climbing into the coziest bed I could ever imagine, in a room that understood me without even needing to ask what was wrong.  

***

When I got to grad school, I gradually turned off my melancholy. I couldn’t afford to keep it around because I needed to get things done. I needed to be an adult — I had to teach, grade papers, write papers, write poems, write lesson plans, etc. There was no time to curl up in the cozy bed in the room that melancholy laid out for me.

And even though I was in a creative writing program, there was no room for feelings. (Ironically.) There was no room for me and all my stuff in this new life, and so, to survive, I eventually stopped listening to the songs that felt like home. 

***

I should say that my comfort only comes when it’s coupled with the music. Melancholy on its own is unsatisfying. It’s wholly unhomey. Melancholy experienced through music and film and art is the comfort. 

When art triggers something lonely in you. Triggers the loneliness in you. Connects to your lonely self.  

That is comfort. 

***

Maybe the relief also comes from feeling something other than panic, rage, stress, exhaustion. To feel anything else other than those things feels like a luxury these days. 

***

In “High Fidelity,” Nick Hornby writes, “Which came first — the music or the misery?” Are we miserable because we listen to sad music? Or does the sad music come because we are miserable? When I first read “High Fidelity,” I envisioned the answer was a mobius strip of sadness and music, one inextricable from the other. 

But now, when I think about melancholy and its containers, I think I actually have an answer. The sad, good music doesn’t come unless there is melancholy — or misery, as Nick Hornby says. 

I can’t just sit around and be pensive. It has to come out somehow. It has to express itself, whether it’s through the things that I actually write, or the things that I listen to. 

Music is kind of like fashion. We put on a particular outfit and we do our make-up in a particular way because it’s a way to express ourselves. Similarly, if we listen to music because we love it, we listen to the music that says all the things that we wish we could say, or didn’t know that we needed to say until now. 

That’s why mix tapes and mix CDs are such labors of love — each song is carefully chosen, the order is thought out. Every time someone gets a mix tape, they’re getting a little piece of the giver. The mix tape says all the things we’re too shy to say. They tell a story we didn’t know we wanted to tell until we started putting all the pieces together. 

***

(I once had a relationship where we expressed all our feelings and serious thoughts about “us” through song lyrics only. It was like we never spoke to each other — we only spoke to the music. It was wildly unhealthy and I don’t recommend it. If you must communicate your feelings in song lyrics, I advise that you do so with moderation. Try to use your own words in addition to the music. Use the music as a supplement, not the main vehicle. You'll be much better off.)

***

When I first started this essay a couple weeks ago, it felt so necessary. I wrote and re-wrote everything up until this point with urgency and laser focus. I accumulated a list of my favorite ‘80s songs that awakened the melancholy within. It felt so important that I parse out the things I felt, to name them and distinguish them from the other.

And then I left it for an entire week. I didn’t look at it. It was more than the regular letting-a-piece-breathe break. I straight up avoided it. When I thought of how urgently I wrote this, I felt a little embarrassed. I worried that, when I re-opened the document, all of this would just amount to nothing. I worried that everything I wrote would be another Cones of Dunshire situation. I thought, god, is this even anything worth reading? 

I don’t know if it’s anything worth reading, but I do know this now: it is worth writing.

Maybe it’s all a spectrum. The depression, the nostalgia, the ennui, the melancholy. All different shades of sadness. 

(In my Googling, I found this article, which opens up a whole new vocabulary and can of worms, so I’m not even going to talk about it. But if you’re still reading at this point, and you're interested, you should click on the link.)

Maybe what I was really born with is exhaustion and Sadness. (Yes, with a capital letter.) Some days it’s ennui. Some days it’s nostalgia. Some days it’s melancholy. Some days it’s depression. 

I don’t have any answers. 

What I do have, though, is music.

A love letter to mountains and coming home

As I write this, I’m sitting in the Reno-Tahoe International Airport, looking out over the tarmac and into the surrounding mountains. I love this view; I love these mountains. When I come home, I can’t seem to get enough of them. 

***

Yesterday, my Instagram story was comprised primarily of Boomerang videos of the trip my mom and I made to Reno. My brother saw it and said, “Seriously? Just a bunch of Boomerangs of the mountains? Are you kidding?”

It seems silly to my brother, someone who was born and raised out here, and then continued to live here. If you live out here — if you live on the west coast, in general — mountains are a given. If you’ve been surrounded by mountains your whole life, of course an Instagram story of a bunch of mountain Boomerangs are going to seem like a snooze. 

🌄🌄🌄🌄

A post shared by medusaironbox (@medusaironbox) on Mar 21, 2017 at 7:25pm PDT

***

I grew up in rural Nevada. I was born in a small town called Lovelock (population: about 2000), and when I was 5, we moved to the larger town of Winnemucca (population: about 8000). Though our zip code was Winnemucca’s, we actually lived 30 minutes outside of the town itself, putting us squarely in the middle of nowhere. 

When I lived there, I hated everything about it. I hated the landscape because it was always dry and only 5 shades of tan; I wanted lushness and green and trees and shade. I hated Winnemucca itself because it was small and full of conservative foolishness and cowboy poetry; I wanted art I didn’t understand and coffee shops and acoustic guitar shows. Winnemucca is big enough that you won’t know everyone’s name, but small enough that everyone looks familiar. I wanted to get lost in a crowd. I wanted no one to know who I was. 

***

When I graduated from high school, I moved to eastern Washington for college. The landscape felt similar, but with more trees and more people. It was just right for a girl from the country. 

I came back to Winnemucca for winter breaks and spring breaks and summer breaks, and felt the same disdain I always felt for it. As I got older and moved farther away, my visits became shorter and less frequent. And still, every time I came back, I felt that claustrophobia that I had always felt growing up, and the distinct urge to leave it all behind. 

***

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer last fall, I began coming back to Nevada once or twice a month, for a week or two (sometimes three) at a time. I usually stay with my brothers who live in Reno; they live in a cute neighborhood within walking distance of coffee shops and bookstores and restaurants, and they have reliable internet, which I need so I can work remotely. 

My most recent visit was for my mom’s birthday. Instead of staying in Reno, I decided to take a few days off to come back to Winnemucca.

***

Usually, when I come back to Winnemucca, I find it hard to do anything but anticipate leaving. Everything feels like a countdown. I think about all the things I need/want to do to help my parents out around the house, and how many days and how many hours I have to do them. I think about how there is nothing to do in town itself, and I think about my high school best friends who return home as infrequently as I do and rarely at the same time.

***

This time though, things were different. I was different. I am different. 

***

I’ve lived in Indiana for almost 9 years now. (Jesus, it’s been that long?) 

In the spring and summer, it is lush, green, and humid. There are trees everywhere. There is shade everywhere (kind of). It is flat, flat, flat. In the area of Indiana that I am in, there are “mountains,” but they are really just hills.  It is the opposite of Nevada. 

***

The Indiana landscape makes me claustrophobic. It’s flat, but there are so many trees that I can never get a good look at the sky. Looking up at the sky in Indiana feels like I’m looking through a porthole. 

(I was going to insert a picture of some Indiana landscape here, but I found that the last time I took a picture of Indiana was 7 months ago. Half of the photo is the water of Lake Monroe, a third of it is trees, and then there's a bit of sky. That was a different time -- it was summer, it was pre-election, it was pre-finding out my mom had cancer. It feels weird to insert it here now.)

Until I moved to Indiana, I never knew how much I needed to see the horizon. I never realized that mountains shaped me. That they gave me a chance to get to literal higher ground when I felt like I was metaphorically drowning. That mountains can hold you and also make you feel small. That feeling of smallness, of insignificance, is comfort to me. 

***

Winnemucca is located in a region called the Great Basin. It is surrounded on all sides by mountains. The city limits spill into the foothills of Winnemucca Mountain. 

In high school, we would go to the top during the day, explore the abandoned military buildings and climb into the old water towers. From up there, we could see the patchwork of farm land to the east, or the dull spread of the city itself, or follow I-80 as it stretched west toward Reno, or the expanse of sand dunes that lay behind the mountain itself, like a gigantic wrinkled sheet.

Or we would go to the top at night, and look out over the lights of the city. Winnemucca looked beautiful in the dark, sparkling and manageable. It seemed so much smaller from up there. So much easier to escape than it felt. All the feelings and events that loomed large in those days shrunk when I went to the top of that mountain. 

A bad photo of a photo. My best friend at the top of Winnemucca Mountain. 

***

When I returned to Winnemucca this time around, I didn’t feel claustrophobic. I felt like I could finally breathe again and think clearly again. 

I took long walks around my parents’ property and thought, How could I ever feel claustrophobic here?

Because when you grow up in one place, it is inherently claustrophobic. Because it has contained you all this time, and you are growing, and, eventually, you want out of the thing that’s held you close for eighteen years. 

Some people get to leave. Some don’t. Some don’t want to leave. It’s all a journey. 

***

When I come back now, I breathe in that desert air, take in that blue sky, drink in that mountain horizon. 

I would be lying if I say I didn’t think about what it would be like to move back. What would it be like to live in Winnemucca as the person I am now? Would it be bearable? 

I don’t know. I honestly don’t. 

On avoiding writing, trusting my gut, & repetition

I was going to start this essay by saying that I have been avoiding the page, but that’s not true. I’ve been drafting poems and writing morning pages every day for the past two weeks.

I’ve just been avoiding essay 5. 

Why? I’m not sure. 

Sometimes, I think it’s because I’m not sure what to write about. 

But that’s not true. There’s plenty I want to write about — the WWE, country songs, Ink Master, having clutter, Ana Lily Armirpour films, Michael Ian Black, to keep or get rid of old photos, Friday Night Lights and all my nicknames for Tim Riggins, an ode to Coach Eric Taylor. And so on. I have no shortage of material for essays. 

And yet. Here I am. Writing about writing again. Writing about my feelings about not writing again. Writing about the things that I think keep me from writing again. 

And maybe that’s why I’ve been avoiding essay 5. Because though I have so many things percolating that I want to write about, the one that keeps rising to the surface is this one — avoidance. 

***

Every time I sit down to write this essay, I think about Jude Law’s character in I Heart Huckabee’s. He’s a schmoozy advertising executive who tells the same story over and over again about fooling Shania Twain into eating a tuna sandwich she didn’t want to eat. I think about the scene where the existential detectives have recorded every single instance in which Jude Law’s character has told the Shania Twain story, and they play every instance back to him in succession.

At first, Jude Law thinks his story is great; why wouldn’t he tell it every chance he gets? And then, after the 4th or 5th version of the story has been played back to him, he starts to sober. After the 6th or 7th version, he starts to literally vomit in his mouth. 

I love that scene so much. It’s hilarious and it’s sobering and it’s real. What’s realer than realizing that you tell the same story or say the same thing over and over again?

Every time I sat down to write essay 5, I felt like Jude Law’s character, hearing myself say the same thing over and over again. 

So I’d write a sentence, minimize the window, and go eat a cookie instead.

***

Some days, I think maybe I’m avoiding essay 5 because I’m afraid of writing something intimate, personal. Something I haven’t ever written about before.

But that’s also not true. It takes a certain amount of vulnerability and bravery any time we write and choose to put it out in the world — whether it’s publishing something on a blog or bringing a piece to workshop or showing a fresh poem to your partner or sending anything to a journal to be rejected or accepted or writing a personal statement. Whether I’m writing about Buffy or YA horror lit or my general exhaustion or being overwhelmed by the prospect of weddings or writing about writing — it’s all intimate and personal. Because I write things that I don’t usually say out loud. For me, that is writing for the jugular. 

***

Some days, I think I’ve been avoiding essay 5, simply because I’m burned out. I’m exhausted. This world we live in is exhausting and life on its own is exhausting. 

I’ve also withdrawn from my activity on social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter. When I think about composing a post or a tweet, I get overwhelmed. Even thinking about re-posting or retweeting overwhelms me. 

It just feels like there’s too much some days (every day). Too much to say and too much to absorb. How do you choose what to post? How do you choose what to retweet? It seems like a simple thing, but for me, lately, it’s been a conundrum. So I just don’t.

I close the apps, minimize the windows, and go eat a cookie instead. 

***

I guess what I’m trying to say is that maybe I’ve been avoiding essay 5 because I’m trying to find balance. And I’m not doing great. But I’m trying. 

I’m trying to find a balance between a public and private writing life. Between writing for this blog and the #52essays2017 project, and writing in a private space. Both are important. I love this blog and I love the #52essays2017 project and I love my horror project. 

But writing in a private space — as I have been — is essential, too. I’m seeing that now. Practicing writing in private — knowing that I will be the only person for quite awhile who sees this thing that I’m writing — feels good. It feels quiet and important. In a world where I’m bombarded every day by terrifying news and so many voices, it feels necessary to have a space where it’s just me. Just me and my voice and my writing. In that moment and the countless future moments that I will spend with my poems, my writing is no one else’s yet. It is mine until I decide that it’s ready to be someone else’s.  

***

I have to honor and trust my impulse. Writing about writing — about the process, about all the outside things that intersect with the act of writing itself, about where inspiration comes from — demystifies it. Sometimes, I look at prolific writers and think, How the hell are they doing this? 

I don’t know how they do it, but I know how I do it. I’m a slow writer these days, and a percolator. I marinate on thoughts and ideas for essays for awhile before I sit down to actually write them. When I finally get to writing, the words come quickly, but I take some time to revise. 

(And poems? Jesus. Forget about it. I used to be a fairly prolific poem writer, and now I’m the slowest poem writer in all the land.) 

When I write about writing, I’m demystifying the process for myself. I’m writing to bust the myths I’ve internalized over the years in undergrad and in an MFA program about writing and what being a writer looks like. I'm writing to define what being a "real" writer means to me, and me alone. I'm writing to get rid of all those other voices that tell me not only what is acceptable to write, but how to write it. I'm writing to find the rituals I need to make for myself as a writer, as opposed to the ones that are prescribed to me if I want to call myself a “real” writer. 

Part of it is acknowledging that the world and life and exhaustion and emotions affect my ability to write sometimes. Sometimes I just have to take a break. Yes, writing is one of the only places where I feel truly whole, but it can also be exhausting if I don’t balance my private and public writing lives. 

***

Avoiding essay 5 has been a lesson in trusting my impulse and my voice. If an idea keeps rising to the top, no matter how many times I think I’ve explored it, I need to take its hand and follow it into the woods.

A Kind of Ode to Surviving

I am tired. 

***

I woke up with Bikini Kill in my head this morning.

I woke up this morning feeling like I'd only gotten three hours of sleep. The feeling that you've completed a REM cycle, but not enough of them. And I realized that since January 20th, I haven't really gotten a good night's sleep. 

***

I woke up this morning wanting comfort, something familiar. Something shrill, gritty, something that could express my anxiety and anger and exhaustion and 'tude because I'm too fucking tired today. 

I've been trying to be kind to myself this week. I'm behind on so many things. I'm behind on #52essays2017, and I'm embarrassingly behind on my 33 Days of Horror project. I get so ambitious. For some, writing an essay or a post a week is completely feasible. They do it and they don't have trouble doing it. They do it on time. 

That is clearly not me. But I'm trying though. And I'm trying to be kind to myself. Keep in perspective all the plates I have spinning, and tell myself that it's okay for me to write in my Passion Planner that my focus for this week is "Rest and Recovery." That my personal to-do list for this week is "Write Essay #4" and "Mail package." That's it. (My professional to-do list is much longer. Maybe that's the trade-off.)

***

I marched in two protests in the space of 8 days. I seriously contemplated stocking up on poster board because there is no end in sight.

I've started a bunch of books but haven’t finished any of them because I can't figure out what I'm in the mood for. 

I'm not in the mood for any particular tv show, but I've found comfort in watching WWE with M because it feels cathartic to watch some people beat the hell out of each other with no investment in the outcome. Because I know it's not real. The stress put on the bodies in the ring is real, but the drama isn't. For some reason, that comforts me. 

Before going to a No Ban, No Wall protest, I made New Jersey Crumb Buns. The recipe is in the latest issue of Cook's Country, and when I decided to give it a try, I didn't realize that I would be making protest signs while I waited for the dough to rise.

Crumb buns and protest signs. #resistancebaker #NoBanNoWall

A photo posted by medusaironbox (@medusaironbox) on Jan 29, 2017 at 12:31pm PST

***

I'm no good at cooking up a snappy, hard-hitting protest sign. I think too much about it. I want it to perfectly express my sentiments. I'm too much a poet when it comes to the protest sign, I think. M's is perfect -- his is the pink one. It's simple and unequivocally true.

Mine is the green one. Aside from the fucked up "C" in "country," it is inaccurate. This country was actually built by the violent colonization and genocide of the people who already lived here. It was built by people who were kidnapped, put on a boat, brought here, and forced into slavery.  

I thought of that when I was halfway through outlining my letters with a Sharpie. 

***

My mother immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines. My father worked long hours, so in those first few years, it was my mom and me, all day, every day. My mom and me and her friends -- all Filipina immigrants. Though I grew up in rural Nevada, I spent more time with immigrants than I did with white folks.

I never learned Tagalog or Ilocano. I would sit with my mom and her friends and just listen. I never needed to know what was being said, but I took everything in -- every gesture, intonation, eye roll, wrist flick, hair flip, laugh. 

I look back on my childhood and see so much that's familiar and comfortable, so much that I'm nostalgic for. And so much that is untranslated. Unknowable. 

***

A friend saw my Instagram post of my protest signs and crumb buns, and she gently and kindly called me in on my inaccuracy. And I’m thankful for it. 

When I made my protest sign, I didn’t intend to erase our history of genocide, colonization, and slavery. When I made my protest sign, I was thinking of my mother and all of her friends and the people I grew up with. 

***

In the grand scheme of things, the sign I made is not the biggest deal. But I hate to think that I was careless with my words. That with one sentence, I could erase the complexity of history. And that that sentence would be something that I held up at a protest, a place that I believe, at its best, should honor and reflect intersectionality and complexity. 

No one will remember my sign, and anyone who did notice it has most likely and hopefully moved on. And I’m still here, trying not to beat myself up, trying not to be embarrassed. 

This is what I mean some days when I say I’m trying to be kind to myself.

***

I started this essay two weeks ago. Since I started it, I’ve been traveling and working and not diving too deep into social media, trying to keep my head above water. I’ve been surviving, trying to keep myself at a baseline of care. Keeping myself fed, doing yoga when I can, seeing friends because I know I need to, keeping my energy reserves at just full enough to get by. 

I don’t know where to end this. I just know that I’m tired (it’s only been three and a half fucking weeks of this administration), and I’m emotionally curling up next to all the things that give me comfort. 

And I’m trying to get back on my feet. I’ll get there.

For now, though, I'm going to let this essay be what it is: messy, raw, trying to find itself, not quite getting there. And I'm going to let it go so I can move on to the next thing. 

Hump Day Finds: Lady Lamb

I know there are more important things happening in the world, and I should be working on essay 4 of #52essays2017, but I need a break. (Don't we all? Jesus.) 

So I'm here today to spread the good word of Lady Lamb.  

I know zero about her other than the fact that she's been getting me through some of these darker days. Usually, when times get tough, I head straight for the Ace of Base, the George Michael, the '80s and '90s jams that drown out anything but the feeling of a warm, fuzzy nostalgia for a time that probably never existed. 

These days, though, Lady Lamb is where I'm choosing to rest my head. 

I love that this song starts off by taking your hand and then running off into a dark forest without letting go. There are moments that let you catch your breath, but it ends the same way it began -- by running into the darkness.

What I love about "Spat Out Spit" is that it sneaks up on you. Not until she gets to the silence (rest? I don't know any music vocabulary) in the middle of the song and starts singing "Was I born wild? Have I been asleep this whole damn time?" do you realize that you've got a lump in your throat, and you, too, are feeling a little feral. 

The first thing I noticed about Lady Lamb was that her voice sounds a little Feist-y. (Like Feist. YOU know.) But it becomes clear very quickly that Lady Lamb is not the gentle, whimsical Feist . 

***
There's a Twitter account that just tweets Lady Lamb lyrics. M came across it when the account retweeted one of M's tweets about Lady Lamb. We couldn't figure out if it was a bot or a real person who's just obsessed with her lyrics (and her?), but there's definitely a tweet slipped in there about a Sunday plan to get drunk in a car with their ex-girlfriend, see Lady Lamb, cry hysterically for 2 hours, and go to bed feeling lighter. 

Honestly, no judgment. If Twitter had been around when I was in high school or college, that is probably something I would have tweeted, almost verbatim. Except I would have been alone for all of it -- no ex, no friends, no Lady Lamb. Just me, crying hysterically for 2 hours and then going to bed. (Seriously, no pity. I'm fine.)

This song is gorgeous, but I honestly just want to talk about this jacket she's wearing. I would throw down some serious cash for that jacket and add to my collection of varsity jackets that M doesn't think I need. (Please.)

I'm going to leave you with Lady Lamb's entire KEXP performance. It's well worth the 30 minutes, so just sit your ass down, focus, and listen. This will help you get through your day today, I promise. 

(Also, Lady Lamb is touring the country and playing in people's actual living rooms.)

(Oh my god, she also wrote a manifesto to go along with her latest album, Tender Warriors Club. A woman after my own heart.)

(And this t-shirt! Maybe I need to start my own Twitter account so I can just gush about Lady Lamb in real time, whenever and wherever.)

Reflections on the Women's March, unity, & discomfort

Around 3:00pm on inauguration day, M and I decided to join the sister Women’s March up in Indianapolis. It was a decision I made with some reluctance because of all the shit surrounding its inception and organizing, but I finally decided to go.

Why? I’m not actually sure. On inauguration day, I felt unexpectedly raw. I had actually been doing pretty well, emotionally speaking, up until that point. I had hope. I had motivation to move forward. I had a sense of letting go, and an acceptance that, sure, the Cheeto would be our President, but we’d be okay somehow.

I’d also been avoiding all of the Obamas’ goodbye speeches, and all in-depth news about the incoming administration. Headlines were good enough for me. 

On the morning of January 20th, I watched the footage of Obama’s last moments in the Oval Office, and I lost it. I didn’t expect to lose it, but there I was.

***
A lot of people in my life salivate over Obama and romanticize his presidency. I am not one of them, and neither is M (and when it even sounds like I’m heading in that direction, he is there to check my ass). On his watch, more undocumented people were deported than any other president. His authorization of drone strikes have killed hundreds of innocent people in the Middle East.

Obama did some truly great things, but he’s also behind some of the most problematic and dehumanizing events in our history.

***
So there I was, crying tears that I didn’t expect to come.

My reaction was so extreme, not because Obama was leaving — I mean, he’d be leaving no matter who won the election. That’s how it works. Two terms, max.

Instead, I was mourning the beginning of the Trump era.

***
That day, everything felt so quiet. When I went downtown, the energy was subdued, even though there were inauguration protest activities being held. That same feeling of wanting to hide that I felt in the days following the election crept up on me. Everywhere I looked, there were crowds of white folks, and I felt unsettled and unsafe.

M and I had been planning to go to the local inauguration rally and march, which were being held that evening. But I couldn’t do it that day. I couldn’t march or rally in a crowd where I would be one of a handful of brown people.

But we wanted to march somewhere, so we decided to go to Indianapolis. I thought, surely there were would be more people at that march who looked like me. 

***
The turn out in Indy was huge. The local news sources report that around 5,000 people showed up; the organizers say it was 10,000. I don’t know which number is true, but there were a lot of people there.

The signs were clever, and woman-centered and genitalia-specific. I saw maybe one “Black Lives Matter” sign. I saw one “Water is sacred” sign.

At one point, the crowd was called upon to look around, to look at our neighbors, and “see how diverse we are.” I looked around, and I was surrounded by white folks.

***
Sure, we could say Indiana is very white, and that would be true.

What’s also true, though, is that Black folks and people of color do exist in Indiana. To say that a place (like Indiana, or Portland or Seattle, and so on) is very white erases the existence of the Black folks and POC who live in those spaces. Just because they are not visible in white spaces doesn’t mean they don’t exist. It means that white folks are not paying attention. It means that white folks are creating spaces where Black folks and POC are not and do not feel welcome. It means that white folks are creating spaces that are not accessible to Black folks and POC. The same is true of undocumented folks, immigrants, queer folks, Native folks, Muslims, disabled, and trans folks.

What’s also true is that the Women’s March, in general, was largely attended by white women.

***
Now. This isn’t to say that Black folks and POC and undocumented and Native and immigrant and trans and Muslim and disabled and queer folks were not marching. What I am saying is that while the march brought lots of white women joy and hope and uplifted spirits, many of the experiences of marginalized and underrepresented folks were very different.

Many people I know marched wherever they were, white and underrepresented alike. Many people I know opted out of marching. Everyone's reasons are valid for doing what they did.

***

Who Didn't Go To The Women's March Matters More Than Those Who Did

***
I’ve been struggling. With the grandiosity and historic moment of the Women’s March — how incredible it was to see 2.5 to 5 million people out and marching against this new administration. When we came home from the Indy march, I stayed glued to social media because I was amazed by the sheer size of the crowds. I also love snappy protest signs, and there was no shortage of them. In my Facebook and Twitter feeds, people were sharing photos of the local march they were attending. There were some who I never expected to be attending a march and posting, in detail, all the reasons they were marching.

My Filipina mother and my trans parent marched in Reno. It was the first time either of them had ever participated in anything like it. My trans parent said she thought she was the only one who felt this way; the march helped her feel not so alone and the energy she felt as she marched filled her with joy. My mother said the march was “kinda fun” and talked about the little girls she saw giving out daisies.

When I see the march through their eyes, I think, yes. I’m glad for the Women’s March.

***
And I also think of all the marginalized and underrepresented people who were not represented at the more visible marches. Those who marched and were ridiculed and/or disrespected by white women. Those who feel strongly, for a host of reasons, that this march was not for them.

***

***

A couple nights ago, we went to see Roxane Gay read. She was everything I thought she would be, which is to say, she was a badass human who I would genuinely love to sit down and have coffee with.

Someone asked what her thoughts were about the Women’s March, and she said, “I think it’s great.” She acknowledged that some people had behaved like assholes, but that was to be expected when you get 2.5 to 5 million people together. She acknowledged that there were a lot of things to be desired, but on the whole, the fact that so many people came together to voice dissent was powerful.

***

Woman in Viral Photo from Women's March to White Female Allies: 'Listen to a Black Woman'

***

I guess the conclusions I’m coming to are that both things can be true at the same time: that the Women’s March, despite all its shortcomings and issues of representation, was an incredible moment. Everyone marched for different reasons and in different ways, but we were all there together to show the new administration that their asses are on notice.

At the same time, we also have to listen to the voices and experiences of the marginalized and underrepresented folks. Both the folks who marched and the folks who didn’t. Because I guarantee that their experiences and voices will express something that will clash with a white woman’s experience of the march, and it will be uncomfortable. It might temper some joy. It might bring some white folks back to reality.

Oh, that part. pic.twitter.com/pNQHYmJnsh

— ebonee davis (@eboneedavis) January 22, 2017

And that’s okay. I don’t want to hear that voicing dissent or anger is “divisive.” I don’t want to hear calls for “unity” that sacrifice and silence the voices of underrepresented and marginalized folks. Either your feminism is intersectional or it is not feminism. We have to truly and actively listen to each other — in particular, white women who want to continue in this movement must listen to and reckon with those voices who express experiences and ideas that poke holes in the little joy bubbles they’ve been living in.  

Because, white folks, that’s a huge part of working for justice, and it’s just as important now as it was before the human Cheeto took office. Fighting for justice sometimes means hearing hard things and sitting in discomfort. Reckoning with the role you play in systems of oppression and white supremacy. Constantly checking in with yourself and asking, “How have I participated in replicating a system of oppression today? How can I change that?” Speaking up and speaking loudly when you see a fellow white person do or say something fucked up.Educating yourself and not relying on marginalized folks to teach you what you don’t know. Recognizing your privilege. Not shying away from difficult and awkward conversations. 

As Roxane Gay said during her reading, “Why does having an uncomfortable conversation mean that we’re not getting along?”

***

Activist Raquel Willis talks about her reaction to the huge turnout to the Women's March and where to go from here

***

So why did I go to the sister march in Indy?

I’m still not sure. It wasn’t necessarily to feel hope. I already have hope. Because I know and work alongside people who have been organizing and fighting for justice long before the Cheeto administration was a sparkle in anyone’s eye. Since the election, the work hasn’t changed, but our timelines and resources have. For some of us, our tactics have to change as well.

The best answer I can come up with now is that I wanted to witness. I wanted to witness those who were there, and especially witness those who weren’t.

***

Shirley Power

***

Marches and rallies are not the only action we should take. The Women’s March was an incredible energizer and momentum-builder, especially for those who felt terrified, paralyzed, and alone. But the work doesn’t stop there.

The real work for justice often isn’t as sexy as a 2.5 to 5 million woman march. It involves following local and state legislation, calling your legislators. It means being informed and staying up-to-date on what the fuck is going on. It means finding out who’s already doing the work you want to get involved in, and it means getting out there in your community and getting your hands dirty. It means showing up for the underrepresented communities in your town, city, state. It means speaking up when you see something fucked up happen, whether it’s in the office, in the classroom, or on someone’s Facebook wall. 

And don’t be afraid of discomfort. Lean into it. I promise, it will make you a better human.

***

What's Next After All the Marches? Organize.

***

On DNCE and the freight train that is January 20th.

This is my second essay of the #52essays2017 challenge, and I’m very late in posting it. I’m late in posting it because I couldn't put my finger on the pulse of what it was I was trying to say last week (now, this week). What is in my heart and mind for this second essay of 2017 that needs to be said. 

I started writing about DNCE because I’m so fascinated by them, for some reason. Then I started writing separately about George Michael, and then I put the two together, and tried to find a way to braid together my thoughts on Joe Jonas and George Michael and sexuality and sensuality and objectification and sex positivity and some snarkiness about the DNCE bass player who has a mohawk. 

And then it started to feel like a Cones of Dunshire situation.

Yes, that was me, on Saturday evening, looking over what I had written and thinking, "This is nothing, isn't it?" 

So my essay about George Michael is going to stay separate (as it should have always been), but I’m going to follow the DNCE thread and see where it takes me. 

***

Maybe what I mean when I say I’m fascinated by DNCE is that I can’t stop listening to them. It was a slow conversion. Over the holidays, while shopping with my mom, I heard “Toothbrush” in nearly every store we went into (literally). 

Now, when I first heard of DNCE over the summer, I saw their album cover and thought, That guy looks like Joe Jonas. Is that Joe Jonas?  I looked up DNCE and didn’t see any mention of Joe Jonas or the Jonas Brothers at all. (Granted, I didn’t look that hard.)  So, I shrugged and thought, I guess that’s just a guy who really looks like Joe Jonas. I felt like the world was maybe a bit off its axis, though, because that guy really looked like a Jonas brother, but maybe I was wrong. 

When I first saw the “Toothbrush” video, I was like

What went through my mind: 

Yes, that’s definitely a Jonas brother, and it’s definitely the one that wore a purity ring. 

Joe Jonas is making out with a woman with a normal-ass body?! EXCUSE me?! 

WHO is this badass woman guitarist?! 

WHO does this mohawk guy think he IS?! 

Does Joe Jonas not know how to do this, the unchoreographed dancing and being a cool lead singer thing? Why is he so awkward? What is happening right now? 

I thought maybe it was a fluke. All of it. Joe Jonas making out with a normal-sized woman, Joe Jonas not knowing how to be cool. This weird group of people making a song that legitimately moved me to get down in the middle of a Forever 21.

So then, I watched “Cake By The Ocean.” (You should skip to 0:37 because who needs a lengthy intro to a staged cake fight right now?)

(M finds the image of eating cake by the ocean unsettling. I find it delightful. Decadent. Syrupy-sweet. Could I handle that much sugar and sunshine in one go? I don’t know, but I’d be willing to try.)

So, in this video, there are lots of women in bathing suits, and some of them are normal-sized. There are lots of shots of butts, but the women are all wearing functional bathing suits and they're using their bodies in ways that are athletic and realistic. 

Okay, I thought. So maybe that’s not a mistake. Alright, I see you, DNCE. 

And then there’s Joe Jonas. Wearing all white. And still being awkward as hell. (Him saying, "Fucking delicious" -- please. Awkward af.)

So then I thought maybe I was being a jerk. Maybe my expectations for pop band lead singer swagger are too high.

Then I watched “Body Moves.” 

***

There are other things happening in the world. The Republicans are already voting to gut the ACA with no replacement, no plan, no foresight. The President-elect’s cabinet picks are showing how truly inexperienced, ridiculous, and self-serving they are. Total abortion ban legislation has been introduced at state and federal levels. Once the President-elect takes office, he can fill that empty Supreme Court Justice seat with anyone he wants. And he's also apparently going to start building that wall bordering Mexico. How it will be paid for is anyone’s guess and we all know who will be building it. 

The list of things that are looming on the horizon doesn’t end there. It goes on and on and on and…

Every time I think about it, my chest starts to get tight. At every headline that pops up on my phone, I can’t do anything but laugh. Out of desperation, helplessness. It’s a nervous laughter. It’s the kind of laughter that happens when I see something fucked up and I don't want to let the anger take over. My Twitter feed is overwhelming, but also a comfort, at times. 

at this point logging onto twitter is basicaly like holding someones hand at the end of the world

— jomny sun (@jonnysun) January 11, 2017

Right now, it feels easier to be weirded out by how Joe Jonas doesn’t seem to know how to be a lead singer. 

***

Here’s the thing about Joe Jonas. I don’t mind his outfits, and I don’t mind his look. It’s that his look over promises, and his act under delivers. For god’s sake, he’s wearing a goddamn Freddie Mercury outfit in “Body Moves.” Or, I should say, the outfit is wearing him. Joe Jonas does not currently have the swagger to pull it off or pay homage or reinvent. It seems like he doesn’t know how to be in his body. How to use it, how to inhabit it fully. 

He doesn’t know how to be sexy? 

***

The truth is that, aesthetically, DNCE has a template. They know how to perform like rock stars, but without the grit. They perform like boy band stars who want so badly to be bad boys. They lure you in with that sweet boy band voice and those high notes, the lead singer who looks really attractive when he's motionless, funk-ish (?) guitar action, the fun vocal details (like that wolf-y "Ah-woo!" in "Toothbrush"), the ever-catchy hook. 

The “Body Moves” video is full of sex. I get what they’re going for — a fun, sexy, orgiastic video that’s full of youth and nostalgia (for the early '00s, but it's nostalgia, just the same). It’s also full of bodies that are being objectified, mostly women’s bodies, all thin. No normal bodies here. The only Black body that is prominently featured is that of a Black woman, and we only see her ass as she twerks. Also featured in those shots is the bassist, the white guy with the mohawk, with his face next to her ass, with a look of goofy astonishment. 

***

So it turns out that DNCE is just like all the others. The music is so much fun and it’s so catchy. 

And their videos reach toward something refreshing, but still leave so much to be desired. Just like so many others. 

***

We’re about to enter a world where we have a President with no scruples. No experience. No empathy. No idea what it takes to be the leader of a supposed democratic country, not a corporation. The crew that he’s bringing with him are equally unqualified, unscrupulous, and lack any sort of empathy whatsoever. 

This is not to say that Obama was perfect. He is certainly far from it. There are things to celebrate, and there are things to condemn. There is a complexity to Obama’s presidency that I am comfortable sitting in, that is less overwhelming to think about. It feels manageable to me, to contemplate the last 8 years, and to reckon with the things that deserve celebration and the things that deserve closer examinations and calls for justice. 

With the upcoming administration, I am quickly buried under the avalanche of everything that is to come. With all the things that are possible. I am stunned at the lack of nuance in the rhetoric of our President-elect and all those who are banding together in support of him. 

***

I’m not going to stop listening to DNCE. Yes, they’re saccharine, they’re slick, they’re plastic. They’re formulaic, they are filling in the blanks on a template. (That mohawk guy could be a dealbreaker for me, but I just won’t look at him, even though he tries so hard to be different from the rest of his bandmates.) 

But goddamn, is this shit catchy.

***

We have to find joy in whatever we can these days. Sometimes, it feels like joy is an act of resistance. Turning our back on the impending future for just a moment, and finding the light and love within to be able to dance, to smile, to laugh, in the face of so much that vows to crush us. 

So I will continue to crank that business up and sing along as I put on that eyeliner, slick on that lipstick, and get ready to smash the patriarchy every day.

2017 : The Year of No Intention

On New Year’s Eve, two years and six days ago, M asked me to take a walk in subzero temperatures. The sun was shining, and that feels rare in an Indiana winter, so I said, Sure, why not? We went downtown and stopped at a coffee shop we never go to (and haven’t gone to together since) and bought warm beverages. From there, we wandered onto campus and found ourselves at the Rose Well House, a gazebo where M and I had lunch together for the first time. 

M started talking about the history of the gazebo, the legend about it, how it came to be, and what it was made out of. It was all very interesting, but I wondered why he knew all of this and why he was telling me now. 

I knew it was going to happen about 10 seconds before it actually happened. It feels like it happened in slow motion, but I’m sure it was only a few seconds. 

Standing in that gazebo, with both the sun and the moon visible in the sky at the same time, M asked me to marry him. 

I was surprised. In shock. Freezing. 

And I reacted the way most people do in those videos of proposals: I gasped, covered my mouth, and cried, even though it was far too cold for me to cry as many happy tears as I wanted to. 

And I said, yes. Of course. 

A few minutes later, the campus clock began chiming the hour.  

It couldn’t have been a more perfect moment for the two of us. 

***

Even before this moment, New Year’s Eve has always been my favorite holiday. I’m good at celebrating a new year. I’m good at dancing all night, I’m good at counting down, I’m good at drinking champagne. I’m good at cooling my face on the bathroom floor on New Year’s Day. 

More recently, I’ve been good at eating well and hydrating so I can wake up sans hangover on New Year’s Day.

I’ve been good at knowing what I want to work on for the coming 12 months. I’m good at setting intentions, and I’m good at working hard at them and being kind to myself when I fail (usually). 

This year, though, I haven't been able to come up with one or two words to set my intentions for the coming year. I’ve tried to sit down and write out what I want for myself and out of myself, and my body resists it. I feel like I’d rather crawl out of my own skin than write down what I want in 2017. 

***

I love New Year’s rituals. My mom does, too. She’s collected so many over the years, both from Filipino culture and others. On New Year’s Eve, when the clock strikes midnight, she opens the front and back doors to let out the old energy, and lights candles at both open doors. She fills her pockets with silver dollars and walks around the house, throwing silver dollars around the perimeter. On January 1st, she doesn’t leave the house (unless it’s to go to church), she wears as much polka dots as possible, keeps those silver dollars in her pockets, and makes black-eyed pea stew. Her new tradition is to eat 1 round fruit a day for the first 13 days of the year. 

***

When M and I started telling people we were engaged, the responses varied so widely. Everyone wanted to know when the wedding was. Our joke was, “Oh, we don’t know. One, one-and-a-half, two, two-and-a-half years from now?” To each other, we said, "Isn't it enough that we finally made this commitment to each other? Why do we have to rush this?"

When people started asking questions about dates, the ceremony, dresses, bridal parties, I started to realize how uncomfortable I felt with the whole thing. I wasn’t uncomfortable with my commitment to M — far from it. In those early days of our engagement, it felt like we were in this cozy, private bubble that no one and nothing could enter. The world was what we made it, and we were making it our home. 

What was making me feel claustrophobic and uncomfortable was all the tradition around weddings and gender roles and marriage. When I looked at wedding dresses on Pinterest, I started clenching my jaw and felt a rage cry bubble up in my chest. All the dresses looked the same, they cost so much money, and I just hated them. All of them. When it came to the ceremony, there were so many options, and so many of them were patriarchal nonsense or cheesy or creepy or not reflective of who M and I are. 

I could go on and on about everything that overwhelmed me when I started to think about planning a wedding. I don’t know about M, but for me, it felt like there are so many expectations on every aspect — the wedding itself and how we should do it, and where we should do it, who we should invite, picking the right color scheme. And then even more expectations and projections on who we’re going to be as a married couple — the old “You’ll see when you have kids” routine, the “You think you don’t want kids now, but you’ll change your mind” routine, the old “Is the old lady being a ball and chain?” routine. And on and on and on. 

***

When I sit down to map out my intentions for 2017, I am overwhelmed by uncertainty. It feels like I’ve just been washed up on the shore after being sucked under by a wave and tumbled around violently. It feels like I finally have the ground under me, and I finally know which way is up, but I don’t know where I am and I don’t know what to do from here. 

And god dammit, shouldn’t it feel that way? It should fucking feel that way. 2016 was a real shit show of a year, but the past three years for me have been full of life-razing moments. In the past three years, one of my parents came out as a trans woman, M and I got engaged, I fell into a new career path, I had the privilege of being accepted and able to attend the VONA/Voices writing workshop in Miami and the Pink Door Women’s Writing Retreat, and my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. 

And that’s not even mentioning all the other things happening in the world to marginalized folks that always weigh heavy in my mind and heart. Police brutality against Black folks with no repercussions, mass shootings, stripping away reproductive rights and access, the Dakota Access Pipeline, the weight of daily microagressions, and and and. As I'm writing this, I'm thinking of all the things I'm not mentioning here. It's too much to write out all in one place. 

The results of this election were the thing that finally broke me. 

***

Since the election. I’ve been trying to figure out how to look into the future and still be able to get out of bed in the morning. 

There is so much uncertainty that lies ahead. I don’t know what the world will look like. I don’t know what will actually happen. I know what I’m afraid will happen, but I have (some) hope that it won’t turn out that way. For once, I truly have no idea what lies ahead. Sincerely. 

And it’s terrifying. Because it’s hard not to know what you’ll run into in the dark. 

***

M and I still haven’t gotten married. But we’re close. We’re getting there. I think we’re finally ready to do this thing, and do it our way. 

***

In times of uncertainty — in times of possibility — we turn to ritual to maximize the potential and luck of what will come next. All those new year’s rituals might not have any influence on the future. But who's to say that they won't? 

Coming up with intentions for the new year has been my ritual. And this year, 2017, I’m not going to do it. I can’t. My body won't let me. I have to leave everything I know behind. All the old tricks that worked in the past just ain’t gonna cut it anymore. It’s time to clear away all the old shit, all the old equations. 

This is a time to be radical. To uproot everything that I know. This is a time for revolution. In society, yes, but also in the self. 

It’s time to do something new. To make something new. To be new. 

***

So I won’t set intentions for the year. What I will do? I’m going to marry my guy. I’m going to keep writing. I'm going to write 52 essays in 2017 (this is the first). I’m going to be active. I’m going to care for myself. I'm going to follow my heart, my intuition, and my gut. And I’m going to see who I become and where it all goes. 

The Medusa Ironbox Show & Tell, 1st edition.

I'm back in Nevada for the holidays. Last night, my brothers and I went to Bangkok Thai here in Reno. They have the best damn yellow curry I've ever had. Like, when I want to give up on the world, I think of this curry. When it's cold and rainy, this is the curry that I want to snuggle up with. If I were trapped in a blizzard, I'd want to be trapped with this curry. I've been thinking about this curry for the past 1.5 months, waiting for the next time I could have it.

So we sat down, and when it came time to order, I said to our server, "We're going to have the yellow curry, the pineapple fried rice, and--" 

AND THEN THE POWER WENT OUT. Just in the restaurant. The rest of the block was fine. 

***

We were hungry. So hungry that we didn't know where else we wanted to go for food. It's the kind of hungry where you look at a menu and you get overwhelmed by what's on it, and you don't care what you get as long as it tastes good and you get to eat it ASAP. 

We finally decided to go to P.F. Chang's. My brothers had never been there before, and I felt like it was the only place we could go that would not be a complete disappointment. And it delivered. Those chicken lettuce wraps were A+, as was the Mongolian beef, the shrimp fried rice, and the spicy chicken. We ate everything. 

On the way home, my brothers started talking about a song called "Panda." I, being old and increasingly out of touch with what the young people are listening to, said, "'Panda?' Never heard of it." 

And so, I was shown the song called "Panda." 

***
It occurs to me that a lot of our lives are made up of sharing -- whether it's bringing someone to a new restaurant and ordering food they've never had, or showing someone a new song/band/movie they've never heard of. Many of the things that I enjoy feel like little gifts from the people in my life.

So it's in this spirit of sharing that I want to start this series of posts. 

A show and tell, if you will. 

I'm constantly coming across things on the interwebz that I want to share -- websites that are awesome, indie shops that make ah-mazing shit, articles that make me think of the world a bit differently, poems that make me throw my hands up in the air and say, "Well, fuck. Nothing I write will ever be that good, so I'm just going to quit." So on and so forth. Etcetera, etcetera. 

So, here goes. 

***

• I swear to god, I have been wishing for a website like Hella Pinay for awhile now. And it's here. THANK YOU. 
• This piece by Jessica Luther, detailing the multiple assaults of a ballet dancer, the aftermath, and her survival is so necessary. We need more writing like this, that looks straight at the reality of sexual assault survivors with nuance and compassion. 
• The Safety Pin Box is the perfect, productive alternative to the whole safety pin debacle. Education, self-reflection, accountability, and a little redistribution of wealth? Yes, please.  
• In "She Called It 'White Woman Shit'" fellow VONA/Voices alum, Vanessa M
  ártir, writes about a white woman who took Mártir's words and ideas without crediting her. Mártir meditates on silence, and the necessity of womxn of color taking up space and demanding the recognition that we deserve. So good and so familiar. 
• I'm going to be honest. I haven't read the Indivisible Guide yet, but I'm super fucking excited to dig into this. It's subtitled "A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda," and it's written by former congressional staffers. We need all the help, advice, and perspective we can get.
• Two poems by the inimitable Michelle Peñaloza. 

***

That's what I've got this week, folks. I'll leave you with this Boomerang video (also a new favorite thing of mine) of my brother, Adam, busting some moves. 

Post PF Chang's. @adamgrayt and @origamianimals catch me up on 2016's hottest jams. Because I'm old now, and no longer know what's hip.

A video posted by medusaironbox (@medusaironbox) on Dec 19, 2016 at 8:19pm PST

How to Keep Moving

I started a post a couple weeks ago that was also tentatively titled “How to Keep Moving.” It was two weeks after the election, and I was still reeling but trying not to. The post ended up being about the hours and hours of Ink Master that I watched, and it turns out that I have lots to say about tattoo reality competition shows. Too much for a post that’s supposed to be about how I get my shit together post-election. 

So here we are. (Don't worry, the Ink Master post is on its way.) The election was a little over a month ago. I’m trying to regain my balance. Things are not back to normal. It’s not business as usual. I'm trying to figure out how to live in this world, how to live in uncertainty, how to live in darkness and still have purpose. 

***

I recently wrote in an email thread to some friends, “The only things that give me hope these days are little babes and fluffy animals.” This is true.

I forgot to add that a good pop song can save me on a dark day, if only for as long as it lasts. It's something.

And because I'm a sharer and unashamed of (the broad range of) my music choices, I'm going to share the bubblegum pop songs that are giving me some life right now.

***

I'm going to kick off the jams with an adorable young man named Jordan Fisher. 

I don't know where Jordan Fisher comes from or what he's done in the past, except play an adorable nerd in Grease: Live! (please, do yourself a favor and never watch it). (Seriously. Just watch the actual Grease.)

I DO, however, know that he is now here to make jams like this one and make me feel like the world is worth dancing in again. 

Oh my god, I know. Major Lazer and Justin Bieber??? But seriously, this shit is so good. When you add MØ to the mix, and the badass dancers in this video, you can't tell me that you're not going to turn this shit up in your bathroom/bedroom/living room/kitchen and dance like the gruesome twosome were never elected to office. 

(For those of you who are like me and find that looking at Justin Bieber's face makes you uncomfortable, you have the green light to click play on this video. This video is pure Icelandic landscapes, fireballs, and badass dancing. No JB required.) 

So, M introduced me to Javiera Mena. He was obsessed for a real hot minute. He would play her album any chance he got, and he created a Google Play radio station that was based on her music. I'll admit, I was a little begrudging about liking her, which is weird, and I don't know why my initial reaction to her was 

when inside I was actually like 

but I'm here now. And converted. 

If you have not found the joy that is Lizzo and Caroline Smith -- please, enjoy. Listen to this when shit gets rough, and when Caroline sings, "I wish it was easy trying to work like a boss, but they keep shaking my patience," feel the validation flow through you and know that you are not alone. 

YES, FRIENDS. If you thought for ONE second that I would leave out the latest Bruno Mars jam, you're out of your damn mind, and you also don't know me AT ALL. (YES, is Bruno these days just straight up biting off the great artists of the past or is he paying homage? I DON'T KNOW. M and I disagree about this every time I put on a Bruno Mars song, and the reality is that we'll never agree, and does it really matter? (Yes, it actually probably does. Kind of?) You know you're going to get your ass on the dance floor when this shit comes on, regardless. Just go with it. 

Yes. I'm throwing in another Jordan Fisher jam. It's older, but still so good. I think this song is a breath of fresh air, M says it's mediocre. I don't even know how we're getting married. 

I'll end with Janet. This is certainly not the Janet I grew up with, but she's still a badass, even when she's not being her usual super sexy self. But we could maybe argue that she is still her usual super sexy self -- she's just...different. I love her past self and I love her current self. Let's not overthink it. Let's just enjoy. 

***

Oh no, wait. Just kidding. Bonus track. I want to end the bubblegum pop with something a little savory, a little salty, and a little sweet. I adore MØ because she makes these songs that lodge themselves in your heart/ears. They're sweet with some grit and some salt. They're pop songs, but they make me want to burn down the patriarchy with lyrics like, "I'm a symphony of the world gone wild." 

YES. 

***

In conclusion: dance. Dance whenever and where you need to. Dance when you're getting ready in the morning or when you're getting ready to go out. When you're standing at the bus stop or in your car at a stop light. When you're walking in to work. Dance as you cry. As you make dinner. When you take a shower. Dance with your love. By yourself. With your friends. With a stranger (with consent, of course). 

Dance because you need/want to stop thinking and just feel. Dance all those feelings out -- the sadness, the anger, the despair, the frustration, the desperation, and everything else until you're left with nothing except the music guiding your good and powerful body. 

We're in this shit storm for the long haul, so dance when you can to what brings you joy. 

Meanderings on I Know What You Did Last Summer

I feel like I can't start this post without saying two things. First: the majority of this post was written pre-election. That feels important for some reason. It might not be, but I wanted to say it, so I did. Deal with it. Second: there are spoilers (kind of), for those of you who have somehow gone 14 years without seeing I Know What You Did Last Summer but want to, but just haven't gotten around to it yet. (If you haven't seen it yet, just do it. Please. I mean, I Know is pretty predictable, but..???)

***

I used to be a list maniac. Like, by the time I left for college, I had an entire notebook that was filled with lists. Favorite songs. Favorite song lyrics. Favorite smells. Favorite life moments. Favorite albums. Favorite movies. Lists of all the albums I owned, plus their track listings. Lists of all the books I owned. 

I Know What You Did Last Summer was my first favorite movie, and it was my #1 favorite movie all throughout high school. Up until I Know…, I didn’t have favorites, really. There were movies that I really liked, but there wasn't one that was my favorite. Scream came out the year before, and I liked it a lot, but it didn’t do for me what I Know… did. 

First of all, I Know… was a book first. And I had read it. It wasn’t my favorite book. The cover and the premise were scarier than the actual story. 

For those who aren’t familiar, I Know… is about a group of teenagers who accidentally hit and kill someone with a car. Instead of calling the police or an ambulance, the teens dispose of the body and vow to never talk about it again. In the film, nearly a year after the incident, someone begins stalking and murdering all the teens who were involved. In the book, I remember the menace being mostly a metaphor for their guilty consciences, which was very disappointing to me. I wanted action, I wanted vengeance, I wanted blood. I didn’t want the moral to be, “Don’t hit someone with your car and then dispose of the still-alive body because your guilty conscience will never leave you alone.” I wanted the moral to be, “Don’t hit someone with your car and then dispose of the still-alive body because someone’s going to come back and kill your ass, and rightfully so.” 

***

Back then, I adored Ryan Phillippe. His character, Barry, was the dickish aggressive jock who started to become a nicer human being (kind of), and then he got murdered. (Oops, spoiler. Sorry.) 

I can’t really remember what else made me love the movie. It took place in a New England fishing town, which I think I liked. Ryan Phillippe/Barry was cute. Maybe I liked the idea that such unlikeable people (Barry, in particular) could possibly change — right before they were murdered, of course — but nevertheless, they could change. That's what made their deaths tragic. 

***

Now, when I watch I Know… Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character, Helen, is my favorite. She’s a beauty queen (literally) who had big dreams of moving to New York City to become an actress. Those plans didn’t work out, and she finds herself back home, working at her sister’s shop and preparing to hand last year's beauty queen crown over to her successor. Helen is supposed to be vain and shallow, but Gellar plays her with nuance. Underneath the vanity and supposed vapidness, there’s a sadness to Helen, and when it comes time for her to die, she fucking fights to the last breath. Helen’s death is the one I mourn the most. 

***

The two main characters who survive — Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) — are the most annoying to me. Julie’s judgy self-righteousness, and Ray’s wide-eyed earnestness are so off-putting.

At the beginning of the movie, there’s a scene where the four sit around a bonfire on the beach and tell a scary story about a murderer with a hook for a hand. After the storytelling, the couples pair off: Helen and Barry, Julie and Ray. Helen and Barry fully embrace their sexual selves and make out next to the bonfire in full firelight. Julie and Ray sneak off to a shadowy cave, where they exchange cheesy words of love (Ray says, “Did you know that the success rate of high school relationships is higher than any others?” then Julie says, “Oh yeah? Cite your source.” And then Ray puts Julie’s hand on his heart. BARF.) and then bashfully have sex for the first time. 

I do appreciate that there is an attempt at a self-aware, feminist lens in Julie, though, especially in the pre-accident scenes. She calls out Barry’s sexism, and delivers a screed on tales used to “scare girls out of having pre-marital sex.” That all ends with the accident.

And even though both Helen and Julie have sex, only one of them lives — the modest, self-righteous one. 

***

Folks of color, where are they at? They’re nowhere. Julie has a Black roommate, who tells her that she needs to “get some sun on that pasty tail.” Because Julie looks like death at that point in the film, to be honest. 

And that is the end of any folks of color in the film. 

***

I imagine that the soundtrack was what some might refer to as "hip," if only for this: 

And I won't lie. I loved this song then, and I still love it now. It feels like a summer song, and it also feels slightly creepy? I don't know, maybe that's just the I Know What You Did Last Summer context talking to me.

***

At the end of the day, the moral of the story is: don’t murder someone, intentionally or unintentionally, and then try to cover it up. Your guilty conscience, literally and/or metaphorically, will come for you. 

Also, be prudish about sex. You can have sex if you want, but be cool about it, I guess. 

And even though you might be a voice of dissent in your group of murderer-friends, but you still go along with the whole thing and don’t tell anyone, you should still be self-righteous about the whole thing. 

And definitely find your courage by spinning in a circle and yelling, “What are you waiting for?” into the trees. 

One Week Later.

As I sit down to write this post, I'm waiting for my Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies dough to chill, so it might seem like things are calming down in my world, like things are getting back to normal. 

This past week has been rough. Yes, I'm wearing my candy cane apron, there's flour everywhere, my hair is up. But I haven't interacted out in public with human beings other than my cat and M in a few days. When we go out grocery shopping or out to lunch, I feel a vulnerability I haven't felt ever before. I want to walk around hunched over and covering my head, as if the sky or bricks are going to fall on us any minute now. With this batch of cookies, my dark purple lipstick, and my indie dance party playlist, I am fighting off the darkness.

While waiting for my butter to brown, a dark-lipsticked rebel baker selfie. 😎🖕🏽🍪❤️☠️

This past week has been waves of nausea, panic, rage, and upset stomach. I've had hours of numbness, of denial. I've had hours of complete depression, despair, helplessness, hopelessness. I've had rage that has typically manifested itself unwisely by unloading on well-meaning folks on Facebook (and if you know me, you know that 10 times out of 10, I don't fuck with internet fights/debates/conversations) about safety pins. 

***

My anger always fuels me. I usually take a day or two to rest, recover, and rebound. This time around, I still don't feel rested, recovered, or the closest bit to being on the rebound. And I don't know how to muster the energy/rage necessary to get my ass out of bed with gusto in the morning. How to approach the day with any kind of resolve. 

I've spent the past 7 days in a state of restlessness. Nothing feels right to me. I tried to read one of my fave romance novel authors in an attempt to escape reality for a bit, but my mind was only half engaged. The other half was cry-screaming into a void. Buffy worked for a second -- when Buffy doesn't cure my ails, it is a sure sign that we're all fucked. So M and I spent our weekend watching Ink Master, because it's easier to focus our disdain on specific aggro dickish white guys than it is to just be in the world surrounded by aggro dickish white guys. 

At this point, I'm only sure of a couple things. 

1. Caring for ourselves and each other is the most important thing we can do. The next four years are going to be an absolute and utter shit show. This country has shown us outright that it doesn't give a shit about marginalized and underrepresented folks. So we have to care for ourselves and our communities. Because if we don't, we won't be able to keep fighting. White supremacy's goal is to keep us spending our energy/time on hustling to keep the lights on and roofs over our heads. At the end of the day, we don't have energy/love/time/thought left for ourselves. We have to fight to care for and love ourselves because the white supremacist patriarchy tells us that we're not worth even that.

2. In the past week, I have found solace and comfort in family -- both blood and chosen. We've sat together (virtually) in shock and tears. We've checked in on each other in the days following, expressing our confusion, disbelief, horror. We've processed with each other the strange ways we've expressed our devastation and rage. For many of us, this world looks so much different, and I'm grateful to have the people in my life that I do. I just have to remember to keep reaching out and asking for help when I need it. 

***

I don't know, y'all. This is all I basically have to say right now. I have some other things to work out about activism and organizing, how to show radical solidarity, how to get ourselves on the road to being co-conspirators rather than self-appointed allies. But that's for another post. When I'm feeling more calm, more clear, more ready to articulate the nuance of the world we're in now, and how we can move forward. 

What I am ready to say is that there is no easy answer. There is no formula to showing solidarity. Wear a safety pin if that feels like a useful thing to do, but make sure that you are also speaking up loudly when you witness oppression and bigotry. The conversations around safety pins are a distraction. It's an easy receptacle to dump our feelings of futility, anger, etc. I'm so definitely guilty of getting sucked into it.

It's easier to get upset about safety pins rather than sit and do the constant self-reflection and examination of what we do and how we act in the world. To ask ourselves: when and where do I hold power and privilege, and how do I use it amplify marginalized voices? How do I participate in white supremacy and how do I replicate systems and methods of oppression in my activism and in my daily life? 

I guarantee that the answers to those questions are hard and humbling. 

***

I'll end with the things that are giving me life right now: John Oliver and Samantha Bee.

John Oliver: "Keep reminding yourself that this is not normal...a Klan-backed misogynist internet troll is going to be delivering the next State of the Union address, and that is not normal. It is fucked up."  The entire 30 minutes is well worth the watch. 

And Samantha Bee. Some of her jokes are too real for a studio audience so soon after the election, but that's cathartic for me. Making a probably pre-dominantly white audience uncomfortable with the truth of being a marginalized person in the U.S. right now is exactly right. Go, Samantha Bee, and so many kudos to your writers. 

The Day After

I thought I'd mentally prepared myself for this. I thought that I'd mentally and emotionally prepared myself for a Trump win, but I hoped -- I hoped so hard -- that I'd be wrong. That I'd be pleasantly surprised by a landslide victory for Hillary. Even though I went to bed at 3am, after sobbing on the living room floor about the Republicans taking the House and Senate, I still had small hope that I'd wake up in the morning and everything would be okay. That Hillary would be our next president, and the Trump/Pence ticket would just be some shit stain in U.S. election history.

I woke up this morning, and the sun was shining. No one had messaged me while I was sleeping to tell me jubilantly that Hillary had eked out a win. There was just silence. So much silence. 

And I am sick. 

***

I'm hearing the words "heartbroken" and "heartbreak" being used to describe reactions to today. Sure. That's probably accurate for some.

For me, though, heartbreak is for when your team loses the World Series.  

 I'm devastated. And so unsurprised. And so fucking surprised. I'm not surprised because I'm a woman of color, and white folks show their asses to me daily. Hourly, some days. And then I look at the numbers -- 

Goddammit, white women. Goddammit. pic.twitter.com/6zaFcljfAp

— Jessica Luther (@scATX) November 9, 2016

-- and I think, Who are the white women in my life who voted for Donald fucking Trump? Who are the white women in my life who don't give a shit about me, my family, my loved ones? Who are the white women in my life who would rather have a rapist and abuser lead their country, than a woman who would protect your right to a safe and legal abortion? 

***

And then I think about everything that this administration will undo. The decades of work that folks have put in to make sure abortion is safe and legal (though access is a different story -- what little access pregnant folks have now to abortion care is going to get worse before it gets better). That folks have put in for affordable health care -- a flawed system, sure, but we have more people insured than ever before. I get my insurance through the ACA. My mother, who has cancer, has insurance through the ACA. I have no doubt that this administration will gut the ACA and leave us all with nothing. 

And I'm just thinking in terms of the every day. 

Last night, I started thinking of all the shit I need to do before the new administration. #1 on that list -- get an IUD.

I guess that's basically it. First and foremost in my mind was how to maintain control over my own body.  

***

The small slivers of light for me: Nevada, my home and heart state, went blue. They went Hillary, and I couldn't be prouder. They also elected the first Latina to the Senate, Catherine Cortez Masto. Fifteen years ago (jesus, was it really that long ago?), if you had told me that my state was going to go blue and be called for Hillary, I would've been in joyous disbelief. 

But that only matters to my heart. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter for this election.  

*** 

The amount of things that will be undone by this administration is massive. It's overwhelming. The amount of bodily danger that so many face is horrifying. Having a violent rapist, racist, misogynist elected to office validates everyone who voted for him to act accordingly. The folks who are low-key racist are, at long last, going to show their ugly-ass faces. Men who are abusers and who rape will continue to do so. (White) men will continue to assault people because we've elected someone who also does it.  

The person we've just elected president is on trial today for rape .

***

Today, I am mourning. Today, I have no tolerance for bullshit or white tears. I am allowing myself a day of grief. 

And then, tomorrow, the fight continues. At the heart of the fight: the words of Assata Shakur: 

It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other. 
We have nothing to lose but our chains.

A Montage as Ode to Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Jesus, how do I even begin to talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I’ve started and re-started this post in my head, trying to figure out how to tackle this. I even briefly considered skipping it, but there’s no way I could dedicate 33 posts to my favorite spooky shit and not talk about Buffy. So I’m trying to make peace with the fact that what follows will be woefully incomplete and will never do justice to Buffy. That’s just facts. 

***

When Buffy came around, I loved everything about her. I loved her outfits, and I loved that she could take care of herself. I loved that she was a teenage girl, that she spoke the way she did, dressed the way she did, and she was kicking ass and literally saving the world every other day. 

My dad, though, had a very different idea of how girls should behave, and Buffy definitely didn’t fit the criteria. So I was forbidden from watching Buffy. (I was also barred from watching Alias for similar reasons.) After fighting with my dad about watching Buffy one night, I remember writing in my journal: “Dad says girls aren’t supposed to act like that. Like what? Being awesome and kicking ass??????”  

***

When I started rewatching Buffy a couple years ago, shit was hitting the fan in my life. To keep from sitting catatonically in my living room and/or crying hysterically, I turned to Buffy and Supernatural. I love Supernatural and I’ll write about it later, but I don’t love the Winchester brothers as much as I do Buffy. I love her even more now, in my third decade on the planet, than I did when I was 15. There are days when I identify with her in ways that don’t even seem possible or make sense. 

***

I thought about writing about all the times Buffy has made me cry, or all the times that I’ve identified with anyone on Buffy, or my favorite moments. It’s just too damn much. 

I’m re-rewatching Buffy with M who is seeing it for the first time. I’m a little jealous — I wish I could see it all over again for the first time. When it comes to my favorite television, movies and books though, I tend to completely forget everything so that when I revisit them, everything is a pleasant surprise. 

The first season and part of the second are fresh in my mind, so I’m going to center mainly on those. There might be spoilers for those of you who have not seen Buffy yet but intend to. Just a warning. 

***

One of the things I most admire about Buffy is the intense vulnerability we get to see from all the characters. In the nightmare episode, we see several of her nightmares — being buried alive, becoming a vampire, taking a test but not knowing anything on it. The most acute nightmare is being told by her dad that she is the cause of her parents’ divorce, that she is a difficult daughter, and that her dad is wasting his time when he spends the weekend with her. 

Out of all the nightmares, this is the one that shakes Buffy the most, and it’s the one that no one else witnesses, except us — the viewers. She deals with the emotional consequences of this nightmare on her own, though she must quickly move on from it in order to save Sunnydale from turning into a nightmare world. 

***

And isn’t that how life is? We get dealt a blow — by life, by our subconscious, by our insecurities, our depressions — and we only have a minute to process it and sit with it. We’re not all trying to save the world from literal destruction, but life does go on. Even when it feels like our worlds are ending, we have jobs to go to, bills to pay, mouths to feed. We can’t spend all our time crying and processing the shit that gets thrown at us, or the nightmare world will become our world. 

***

Buffy’s vulnerability is so fresh, and so is every other emotion. Each character wears their hearts on their sleeves. Buffy’s joy is so real because it’s so rare, and each heartbreak is always intense and visceral. Buffy (the tv show) doesn’t shy away from complex or earnest emotion or the ways in which we all deal so differently with devastation or trauma. 

The first episode of the second season, when Buffy comes back from summer vacation and is trying to deal (or not deal) with the trauma of knowing that her death was imminent, and then dying and then coming back to life, is so fucking real to me. She lashes out, making cruel comments to her friends and performing a sexy dance for Xander (her lovable, joke-making sidekick) in front of Angel (a 240-year-old vampire she's crushing on), to a Cibo Matto song, no less — like, fuck. Isn't that how so many of us deal with the big shit in our lives? Push all the feelings down somewhere deep inside until it has no choice but to ooze out in other ways that make us strange to the people who love us. 

***

We — the viewers — see so much of Buffy that her friends don’t see. We’re the only ones who know that she’s terrified that her parents don’t love her because she’s “difficult” — aka The Slayer. In that first episode of the second season, she has gone for months without talking to anyone about what it was like to know that her death was destiny and go out to meet it anyway. And the trauma of death, resurrection, and fear that keeps coming back to haunt her. 

FUCK. 

***

Also, no one can tell me that the arc of Buffy and Angel’s relationship isn’t one of the best ever of all time. I’m so serious. The early stage of their relationship is so much fun and worthy of all the swoons. 

M doesn’t care for Angel very much. Last night, he said, “This guy is supposed to be good-looking? It’s like he’s featureless. He has no distinguishing features.” 

I said, “Okay, Xander,”  and we laughed. I can’t speak to Angel’s attractiveness, but I do think they cast him exactly right. He broods without being obnoxious, he’s mysterious, he has the right mixture of gravitas and humor. He looks young, but also like he could definitely be 240 years old.  

***

And when Xander finally works up the courage to ask Buffy out. Oh my god. It’s so awkward and so genuine. It hurts to watch Xander hope for reciprocation and be met with so much less. And it’s reassuring to see Xander bounce back. To see him recover from taking a chance, to see him respect Buffy’s reaction and continue to be her friend with no malice and no resentment. 

Hello, Nice Guys (tm). Take notes. Xander is an actual nice guy. 

***

This is not the most coherent post I’ve ever written. It’s definitely super gushy, but I don’t care. I don’t know how else to write about Buffy. This is at least a start. 

St. Petersburg, where have you been all my life?

I have limited experience with Florida. I’ve been to Miami, Orlando (kind of — does going to Islands of Adventure count?), West Palm Beach, Vero Beach, and Port St. Lucie. Florida is beautiful, but hasn’t inspired the urge to throw away everything I own and move there. 

Until we visited St. Petersburg.  

Our mini-road trip to St. Petersburg was a spontaneous one. The drive across the flaccid penis of the country is about 3 hours long and took us through for-real rural Florida. We drove past a couple dude ranches, a panther crossing zone, a truck hauling an airboat, citrus groves, and lots of anti-abortion and pro-Trump billboards. (I’m a Deplorable! And I’m voting for Trump!)

We only spent a few hours in St. Pete’s, but we fell in love. Here are the places we checked out.

***

The Salvador Dalí Museum was our main draw to St. Petersburg, and it didn’t disappoint. There was a guided audio tour that I’d say 95% of the museum visitors used (but we didn’t because we’re pretty cool). There were also hourly docent tours in different languages. There was a cafe that sold Salvador Dalí bottled water and delicious little sandwiches.

There was also an outdoor “avant-garden” that had a labyrinth and a giant sculpture of Dalí’s mustache that people can pose in.

The collections are divided by time period, so you get a chance to see some of Dalí’s earliest works and the results of some surrealist games. They have pieces from his anti-art period, his surrealist period and beyond. We got to see some of the huge masterworks, like The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus and The Hallucinogenic Toreador, all of which were incredible to see in person. We spent a good 15-20 minutes in front of each masterwork, just examining the detail and craft in each piece. I don’t know a whole lot about art and how to interpret it, but dang. These paintings were like poems. The more we looked, the more there was to see. 

The rotating exhibit was called “Ferran Adria: The Invention of Food” There was meat to sample, cookbooks to look through, video of a 33-course meal, and more. I’m disappointed though, that while they featured a little bit of Dalí’s work in connection with this exhibit, they didn’t mention that Salvador Dalí had a motherfucking surrealist cookbook. YES. I wish I could have seen that. 

Restrooms: Restrooms were gendered with multiple stalls in each, but clean. I believe there were individual family restrooms. 

Good to know: Admission is $24 per person, unless you are: over 65, under 18, or military/police/firefighter/educator.

***

After The Dalí Museum, we were hungry. Looking at all the phallic and vulvic images is exhausting. So we Yelped restaurants that were in the area, and decided on Thirsty First, which was categorized as a “gastropub.” 

Thirsty First is less a gastropub and more a sports bar with better food. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what we were expecting. We were expecting good craft beer selection and good food, and we didn’t really get either of those. Their logo is pretty great though. 

Items of interest: 

• Boardwalk Bites (blackened shrimp, avocado ranch, jalapeños, cabbage, and avocado) were pretty delicious.  
• The cocktail menu was pretty great. I had the Smoke and Mirrors (house smoked tequila, seasonal shrub, grapefruit, and a splash of lemon lime soda, served with a salted rim) and loved it. When I ordered, I was warned that it was “really smoky” and that is true — it is a little bit like drinking a campfire, but I like it that way. If I’d had the time, I would have tried a couple other drinks. 
• The Miami Weiss Hefeweisen. 

Restrooms: Gender-neutral (individual room with a locking door) and clean. 

***

For dessert and a cup of coffee before heading back across the flaccid penis of the U.S., we hit Cassis Bakery. Cassis Bakery is part of the larger Cassis American Brasserie, which we didn’t know about. The bakery is tiny and cute, and when we went in, there was an abundance of fruit tarts, which are some of my favorite desserts on the planet. I don’t even remember what else was in the case, to be honest. We ordered three tarts with cappuccinos, and sat outside along Beach Drive. The weather was gorgeous and someone, somewhere, was blasting a 70s playlist that included Fleetwood Mac. The tarts and the cappuccinos were delicious. So recommended. 

Restrooms: Gender-neutral (individual room with a locking door) and clean. 

3 delicious af tarts. 

***

Before our parking meter ran out, we took a walk down Beach Drive, took in the sights, and started daydreaming about what life would look like if we lived near the beach. 

We also started planning for a return trip. We’re coming back for you, St. Petersburg! 

Meditations on Fear Street & Horror Lit

From ages 0-5, I watched a lot of after-school cartoons, like Duck Tales and Tale Spin. I even watched Day of Our Lives with my mom. When I was around 4 or 5 years old, while I was watching the intro to Duck Tales, the tv went blank. It wouldn’t turn on or off anymore, I couldn’t change the channel. The tv was done. We didn’t get another one until I was in middle school. 

During that time period, we moved from the small town of Lovelock to the bigger small town of Winnemucca. But rather than find a house within city limits, my family opted to move to a house 30 minutes out of town. We moved to a street that wasn’t even maintained by the county, and it had only one other house on it.

We moved, literally, to the middle of nowhere. 

Without a tv and without even a real neighborhood, there wasn’t much for me to do other than read. I read the usual suspects for a girl my age — The Baby-Sitters Club, Sweet Valley High, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys. And then I read the things that weren’t the usual suspects — Fear Street, Goosebumps, anything Christopher Pike, L.J. Smith, and/or any fictional book that featured a bloody knife or a dead body or anything that looked remotely frightening. What I’m waxing nostalgic about specifically is all things R.L. Stine.

***

People have a nostalgia for Goosebumps. I read them, too, but by the time Goosebumps came out, I had already read every Fear Street book available at the public library. Goosebumps was dismally tame in comparison. 

Goosebumps was too kiddish for me. It was more science fiction lite than spooky, and it didn’t scare me or hold me in suspense the way that Fear Street did. The possibility that my gym teacher or parent could be an alien just didn’t scare me. A ventriloquist dummy that could talk, act, and kill people on its own? Yes, I had a stake in that. That shit was scary. 

***

For my horror reading pleasure, I had some criteria. I preferred the spooky, the supernatural, the unexplained. I could also go for an old-fashioned horror murder mystery — something with more edge/murder/blood than Agatha Christie, but with elements of a whodunit. I liked trying to figure out who the killer was. I needed a little bit of romance and some making out (even if the romantic interest was eventually murdered or turned out to be the murderer). I preferred women as my protagonists, even then. I enjoyed a twist ending as much as the next person. 

***

Now, I said that Goosebumps was more like sci-fi lite. I actually really like sci-fi. I’m not a nerd about it or anything, but I grew up watching the original Star Trek, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine. Obviously, TNG was my favorite because of Deanna Troi, Data, Geordi La Forge, Captain Picard, Commander Riker, etc. (I could probably write a whole thing about TNG, but that’s for another time.)There was a stretch of time when my favorite shows were mostly all on the SyFy channel. I love Firefly and begrudgingly adore Farscape. 

Maybe what I mean is that Goosebumps just didn’t have the edge I needed. I needed something dangerous, irreversible, and final. There needed to be something from which there was no coming back. I needed death or something close to it. 

***

I’m no expert, but to me, sci-fi seems to center itself around exploring questions like, “What does it mean to be human?” and how the answers to those questions can build different worlds, different societies, different ways of being. I love all the different ways sci-fi explores humanity, lack of it, otherness, alien-ness, and the darker side of sentient natures. 

Horror and the spooky explore what it means to be alive. Not human, but simply alive. It dives into the fight to stay alive and what happens when you don’t win. Sometimes horror explores how we deal with grief and loss, or how the way we treat people can come back to haunt us (literally).  

***

Maybe trying to differentiate between the two is futile. They ask the same questions, but explore them in different ways. I do think, though, that sci-fi explores life, and horror explores death. 

***

My love of horror doesn’t seem to translate to the literary world so much anymore. I don’t know at what point I veered away from reading “genre” fiction and went more toward “literary” fiction. Maybe it was becoming an English major. Maybe it was because there was nothing to transition to. After Fear Street, there didn’t seem to be a more “adult” horror alternative that captured the fun of Fear Street.

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25077308 

(Some of you might be yelling, “Stephen King!” at this point. Yes, I know. I actually really love Stephen King as a person and I like how he talks about writing, but I’ve only read The Stand. I KNOW.) 

***

I’m halfway through the horror short story collection Greener Pastures by Michael Wehunt. It’s so fucking creepy, otherworldly, and good. There’s an entire story that’s told in found-footage style, and it doesn’t sound like it should work, but IT DOES. 

Greener Pastures reminds me that horror as literature can be so effective and creepy. It activates the imagination in ways that film rarely can. For me, reading creepy shit transforms normal night noises into potential intruders, ghosts, poltergeists, demons. It’s the images in horror lit that have me avoiding mirrors in any dimly lit setting, and spending as little time in darkness as possible. 

***

I don’t have a good conclusion or place to end. I started out wanting to write about Fear Street vs Goosebumps, and ended up thinking more about the difference between sci-fi and horror, and then horror as literature. 

At the end of this, I’m going to revisit what Fear Street and Christopher Pike books I can. I just discovered that Fear Street is being reissued with new covers. I’m glad for the re-issues, but I wish they’d leave the covers — they’re so 80s/90s and some of my favorite covers of all time. 

After I reread Fear Street and Christopher Pike, I’ll write a follow-up post. (Oh my god, y’all, I’ve forgotten about Diane Hoh and her Nightmare Hall series! WHAT. So many things about myself and my aesthetic are starting to make sense.) 

If anyone has suggestions for more horror for me to read, leave them in the comments below.

P.S. Also, there was a teen horror Christmas book — I think the cover had a bloody wreath on it? or a wreath with a bloody knife? — that I really loved but can’t remember the title or the author or anything about it other than a make-out scene in a theater? If anyone can give me any leads, please. Do. It’s starting to bug me a lot.

Damon Salvatore & the Supernatural Bad Boy

When I tell people that I watch The Vampire Diaries, I usually qualify it with this: I loved the books when I was in high school. I loved The Vampire Diaries more than a decade before it was a tv show. I’m a little bit of a hipster about it. 

Even before that though, I loved L.J. Smith’s trilogy, The Forbidden Game. 

The story centered around Jenny (blond hair, blue eyes), her boyfriend Tom (he might be on the football team, I can’t remember), and Julian, a bad boy wizard type (his eye color is described as the blue of the sky just before the sun rises) who has a big crush on Jenny and a penchant for sadistic survival board games.  In the first book of the series, The Hunter, Jenny buys a carnivalesque board game at a creepy little shop. Once she begins playing the game with her friends, they’re all whisked away into a life-sized version of the game. 

Yaddi yaddi yada, Jenny finds out that Julian, has been watching her for her entire life from another dimension, and he’s fallen in love with her. Which is not creepy at all. 

And it turns out that by playing the game, Jenny has unwittingly agreed to play for her freedom from Julian. (He wants her to be his queen.) 

And she also has to try to save her friends from death traps. 

Super romantic, right? 

***

After The Forbidden Game, I headed straight for The Vampire Diaries. 

In the original story, Elena (another blond, blue-eyed teenager) falls in love with Stefan, a brooding and serious guy who turns out to be a vampire. Things get complicated when Stefan’s brother, Damon, comes to town and starts causing a ruckus. Namely, he begins threatening Elena and also seducing her somehow (???), and so — a love triangle is born. 

***

I also loved The Secret Circle, which features a coven of teen witches. The main character is a girl named Cassie (if you guessed that she’s also blond-haired and blue-eyed, you’d be correct), and the coven is made up of both men and women. There’s also a love triangle in this series, but I honestly don’t remember it that well.  

***

I had a friend who also devoured these books and talked about them at length. Mainly, we talked about which boy in the love triangle we would choose. These talks always posed conundrums for me. 

For example, in The Forbidden Game, Tom (as I remember him) was a sweet, safe guy. He was perfectly wonderful, respected Jenny’s independence, and supported her ambition. But he just didn’t appeal to me as much as Julian. 

Yes, I preferred Julian, the wizard-stalker from another dimension with white hair and eyes the-color-of-the-sky-just-before-the-sun-rises. 

What was it about him? Well, he was gorgeous, clearly. He was also lonely. He had a lot of angst about having to live in this other dimension, with the object of his affection so oblivious to his existence and unable to reach her. He had never experienced affection or love or a healthy relationship, so the only way he knew to court Jenny was to imprison her in a game of death traps and make her play for her freedom. 

Endearing, right?  

*** 

In all seriousness, looking back on those books, and my inclination toward the “bad” or “darker” sides of the love triangles, speaks to L.J. Smith’s ability to write muddy characters. In The Forbidden Game, the clear “right” choice is Tom. Humanizing Julian and making him a sympathetic character (at times), makes the choice less clear. 

The same goes for The Vampire Diaries. I don’t think I ever really felt the same affection for Damon that I did for Julian. He had his human and complicated moments, but he never really hooked me. But making him a more rounded character made the choice less clear. 

What ultimately makes L.J. Smith’s “bad boy” characters untenable as the “right” choice is this: they don’t change. They reveal their softer sides, they make themselves vulnerable, they reveal emotions. But in the end, they continue to commit acts of violence and generally terrible behavior. The constant back and forth between softness and vulnerability to violence are classic tools of real life manipulation and abuse. 

***

When I found out that The Vampire Diaries was being turned into a TV show, I lost my shit. Past Rachel was beside herself with excitement. 

The first few episodes of the season followed the book pretty closely, and then the show’s writers began taking the storyline in a much different direction. And for the most part, I’ve loved it. 

Initially, what I loved was how each episode started off like a scary movie. And I loved that Elena is played by Nina Dobrev, a brown-haired, brown-eyed woman. That seems like a low bar, but… you know? We can’t all be blond, L.J. At first glance, I thought the casting choices for Stefan and Damon were too pretty, and I was terribly, horribly wrong. Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder are perfect for their roles in every way. 

What else have I loved about the tv series? The evolution of Caroline, played by Candice King. She has grown to be one of my favorite characters of all time. (YES.) In the books, Caroline was mostly just a mean girl who is easily manipulated. In the tv show, she turns into a badass girly-girl vampire, and I love her. 

The other thing I love about the show: Damon. In the books, Damon is terrible and horrifying. In the show, Damon has a centuries-long history of being completely irredeemable, but his character arcs toward redemption and learning what it means to be a ‘good’ person. His evolution really hinges on these questions: when you have spent centuries being one of the worst and most murderous vampires in the world, how do you begin to be a better person? How do you atone for your violence? How do you begin to forgive yourself? How do you begin to believe that you are worthy of love? How do you embrace the darker parts of yourself and still be a “good” person? What does it even mean to be a "good" person?

I love that journey. I love those questions, and I love how complicated the answers are. 

***

In real life, I have zero tolerance for abusive behaviors. I believe that abusers can be rehabilitated. I believe that people can change. But they rarely do, because they aren’t given the tools and support to create change within themselves. Because there is no reason for abusers to change their behavior. Because we live in a society where one of our presidential candidates can brag about sexually assaulting women, and nothing happens to him.  Because this same presidential candidate can try to use physical intimidation and bullying on his opponent (who happens to be a woman) during a debate on a national stage, and nothing happens to him. Because a man can be found guilty of assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster, but only have to serve 3 months of his ridiculously short 6-month sentence, and the world cries about how his swimming career is over. 

And so on, and so on, and so on. 

***

So maybe that’s the thing. Maybe L.J. Smith’s bad boy characters are initially appealing because they’re mysterious, dark, supernatural, charming — like so many bad boys in actual life. But despite the magic, they’re just as human, just as unchangeable as an abuser. 

Ian Somerhalder’s interpretation of Damon explores what a reformed abuser might look like. He’s white and never been oppressed in his life. He’s exerted power and control and violence over so many people throughout his centuries of living. And he lives in a world where he is supported in self-actualizing toward being a better human. 

Imagine if everyone had that. Everyone. 

***

Of course, as with most things, it's never that simple. 

I believe that people can change, that people are ultimately good. But we haven’t created a world where every person is supported and nurtured into being the best people they can be. We haven’t even created a world where trans folx can use a public bathroom without fear for their safety. Or a world where trans folx of color don’t fear for their lives every single damn day. Or a world where a womxn — cis or trans or queer — can walk down the street at night — or any time of day, really — without fear of violence or death. 

And so on, and so on, and so on. 

Damn. 

We’ve got a lot of fucking work to do. 

Horror & Me

When I first got the idea to blog about horror for the entire month of October, I needed a healthy distraction. I got real excited, real fast, and immediately plotted out an entire 33 days of content. My plan was to post every day in the month of October, starting with October 1st and plowing right through October 31st and beyond. I even started writing posts well in advance. Like an entire month in advance. 

Even with all that preparation and enthusiasm, I haven’t started off October with 33 Days of Horror as I envisioned. 

***

I don’t know how to write/blog right now without acknowledging the larger context of my current life. Coping and survival mechanisms were the subject of my last post, and instead of being vague about my life, I’ll just talk about it. 

Recently, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. In stages, we found out that it had metastasized to her bones. Most recently, the doctors found that it’s spread even further. As I write this, I’m on a plane back home to be with my family as my mom gets her first radiation treatments to target the small tumor that’s made a home in her brain. 

The doctors have said that my mother’s cancer is incurable and terminal. 

***

My first horror movie memory is a scene from Friday the 13th. I couldn’t tell you which one. All I know is that hockey-masked Jason is chasing a young woman through the woods. She screams as she runs through the trees, and Jason ambles along after her, his long strides somehow closing the distance between them. 

That’s all I remember. I must have been maybe 4 or 5 when I saw this. It was probably on in the background at my mom’s friend’s house. Even though I was so young (too young), I wasn’t terrified or scared. I was too young to know what was going on or to be worried about death. 

***

While death and mortality were not things that worried me as a child, what actually did terrify me was the banshee in Darby O’Gill and the Little People. 

I was in second grade when I saw this scene, and second-grade Rachel was like

I couldn’t go outside after dark by myself for quite awhile after the introduction of the banshee into my imagination. The facelessness of the banshee, its alarming electric blue color, its ear-splitting shrieks. 

When I watch it now, it seems a little (a lot?) hokey. But it still stirs some fear in me.  

***

By the time I hit middle school, I was no longer crouching in the dark, covering my ears and eyes, just in case the banshee decided to pay me a visit. 

Instead, I was running full-speed toward the spooky shit. 

I loved ghost stories and always had my ear open for a ghost anywhere — the school bathrooms, the abandoned property next door, the janitor’s closet. I read Nancy Drew and kept returning to the ones that seemed supernatural. I was always so disappointed that Nancy’s ghosts were always just people, trying to get away with their crimes. 

And then I found Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. And More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. 

Not only were most of these stories fairly horrifying, the illustrations were the stuff of nightmares.  I would read the stories and find myself simultaneously repulsed and drawn toward the accompanying images. 

The story I remember most clearly featured a girl who thought she had a gigantic pimple on her face. It got bigger and bigger until one day it burst and thousands of tiny spiders leaked out of her face. 

On its own, this story is pretty silly. The illustration gave me nightmares. 

There was another story about a fleshy lifelike scarecrow named Harold. Another about a hairless dog a girl picked up in Mexico that turned out to be a flesh-eating sewer rat. 

The illustrations are imaginative, earthy, dark, oozing. There are no defined edges, where the image ends and the white page begins. It’s as if the figures are appearing onto the page, and hovering there. They make your neck feel itchy, your toes wiggle. 

I loved it all and I wanted more. 

***

My original goal with 33 Days of Horror was and still is to dissect my love of horror, the supernatural, the spooky, the dark. Sure, it’s an escape from reality, but I think that’s an overly simplistic understanding of my inclination.

Because though I love horror, not everything I love is necessarily feminist or feminist friendly. Because when shit hits the fan, I want to curl up with my favorite scary movies. Because even though I love horror, I hate real-life violence and gore.  Even though I love horror, death-too-soon in real life is too much for me. 

***

My mother’s diagnosis is one of my worst nightmares come to fruition. When we first found out, I couldn’t stop crying. And then I went into survival mode (see previous post). I’m still in survival mode. 

The older I get, the more acutely aware I am of mortality. Even before my mother’s diagnosis, on a weekly basis, I thought something along the vein of “One day, your parents will not be around anymore” or "I will die someday" or "I could die tomorrow" and it was enough to scare the shit out of me. Or, at the very least, bring a sense of gravitas to whatever I was doing at the moment.

For my mother’s sake, I want to say that I’m done with the weeping. The last time I spoke to her on the phone, I had a runny nose. She thought I was crying again and said, “Don’t cry so much, okay?!"

So here we are with 33 Days of Horror. 

***

Now, let’s get a few things straight.

First: Violence and death in real life makes me sick and angry, but in horror movies I can (sort of) tolerate it. Just because I love scary movies doesn't mean I'm desensitized to violence. I close my eyes during violent and gory scenes. And I’m not here for torture flicks, like Saw or Hostel. I know Saw is iconic, but I’ve never watched it and probably never will. I watched Hostel and kept my eyes closed for 80% of the film. Not into any of it.

Second: I am not an expert. I’ve seen a lot of scary movies — both good and bad, mainstream and indie, classics and B-movies — but I definitely have not seen everything. There are films and shows that I should probably see, if I’m a self-respecting horror fan. There are things that I haven’t seen that will probably shock some people, but they’ll just have to deal with it. I’ll get to American Horror Story eventually.  

Third: While I’m not an expert, I’ve still seen and love a ton of shit. My 33 days of planned content crams in as many of my favorites as possible — at least 40 films — but I’ve forgotten to include so much. For example — I completely forgot to squeeze in Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hitcher anywhere, and I’m a little panicked by it. But I can always write about them later. 

Fourth: I want to explore my favorite spooky films and books. I want to dig into why I love them so much, and why I’m drawn to the things I’m drawn to. Not only that, I also want to examine how my favorite horror rates on the Bechdel test, how they’re feminist or not, how they treat people of color, and how they treat queer folks, even though those folx are few and far between in my favorite flicks. As Ani Difranco sings, “We have to be able to criticize what we love, say what we have to say.” She’s talking about free speech and being an American. I’m talking about horror. Both contexts are legit. (Right?)

***

I don’t know where I’ll end up by the time October finishes. I originally planned daily posts, but, obviously, that’s not going to happen. I’ve got 33 days of content planned out, though, and I haven’t been this excited about a project in a long time. So I’ll go with it, and see what happens. Maybe I'll be writing about the spooky shit well into December and beyond. I'm okay with that. Excited about it, even. 

So here goes, y’all. Day 1: complete.