Spring Beats

I'm listening to my lastfm library right now. I will write each song that comes on while I prepare this blog post. Right now, Best Coast's "Happy". On March 30th I read with my fellow graduating writers at our Word. World. celebration. My family came from out of town. B was there. Two of my closest friends showed up. Three of my other closest friends showed up right when I was wrapping up my reading. I tried to dress like a priest for my reading because I thought my story was like a sermon. Before the reading began I ran into my dad and his girlfriend. I was really out of it and nervous but glad to see them. I flashed back to this memory of my dad coming out of his room (our room) at our Cottage Way house. I was about 9 or 10. He was getting dressed to go out dancing or something. He came out into the living room and threw his arms out and said, "Do I look sharp?" He smelled nice and he looked really cool, I remember thinking. So now every time I dress nice I think of my dad then and I either say "do I look sharp?" or I think it in my head. When I ran into my dad before the reading I wanted to ask him if I looked sharp, but I was so nervous and out of it, I forgot. B was also down the hall and I didn't want to keep her waiting for me. I don't know why I worried about that. My dad sat me down and pulled out a gift: a powered messenger bag with all sorts of bells and whistles that only recently have I figured out how to use. My dad's voice became sort of solemn and serious. He said he was giving me the bag as a way to say congratulations for graduating (though I haven't actually graduated yet) and just to say 'good job'. I flashed back to another time when I was a sophomore in high school. It was in the fall, at the cross country section championships. It was raining. (Ride's "Leave Them All Behind") My dad and I stood beneath a hallway near the race course. He pulled out a white envelope and inside there was a small necklace with a gold medallion of some saint, I forget now, and a letter my dad had written. It said something like he was really proud of me and that the medal belonged to my (deceased) grandpa. Then my dad pinned the medal to my running shorts and said that when I ran my grandpa would be with me. I ended up winning that race and the sophomore championship. I'm pretty sure this is the only race I've won.

All of us readers sat in a row off to the side of the audience so I got to stare at my family and friends as they listened to the other readers. When I took the stage I was still very nervous. The lights were very bright; I could only see the very far left side of the audience which was only 3 or 4 people... all former peers incidentally. But, that was good I could see them because I felt like I was speaking to my friends, though because of my story I mostly had to read from my pages. I read my story in a way that I've never read before and I think it was much different than the other readers. I didn't know at the time if the audience would pick up on this or not, or if it was just something I sensed. This particular story cannot be read so much as performed. After I was finished I talked to Kevin Killian (one of the teachers here that I haven't worked with yet... or ever will since the year is over, but maybe some day) about the performative aspect of my reading. He liked all the hand motions I made and even suggested I turn it into a type of dance. We were speaking mostly in jest, I think. Kevin brought over Dodie (Bellamy) and we all shared a laugh about the little dance Kevin and I made up for my story. It seemed that most people liked my reading and they really enjoyed the hand motions that I made while reading. (Cut Copy's "Where I'm Going") Some people thought what I was doing was funny and some thought it was serious. Thankfully, B knew that I am mostly always serious and earnest in my writing and understood, later, my frustration that people laughed while I read - though I guess I have to admit I did throw in some 'funny' parts. On the other hand, people laughed at parts which I don't think are funny. The biggest surprise was that here I thought I was explaining this extremely complicated concept and I was really worried people would not understand me, but it seemed as if people did understand what I was reading and that made me feel good because part of the project of this story is to be understood, what it means to understand others, to be understood by others. And then all of the sudden, here I was, after the reading, and it turns out I made sense to people! In classes, a few days after the reading, classmates even reference some of the language from my story in class - like I had introduced this whole new way of talking about things. Obviously, I didn't, but it feels good when people talk about what you have written, especially when they don't have to or aren't forced to by the workshop environment. (Jonsi's "Animal Arithmetic" - my favorite song of 2010)

Earlier today, M Kitchell (a writer who posts on HTMLGiant often) posted a question about Marie Calloway's new story "Jeremy Lin". So I read the new story and actually enjoyed it more than "Adrien Brody"... though it essentially isn't a "story" so much as a blog post. I thought, this is just a blog post, then I thought about how my mentor here, Dodie, her latest book came from a blog, and everything Dodie was trying to do with "blogging" and being female (I'm grossly over-simplifying Dodie's aims, but please forgive me!). I thought, maybe I shouldn't deride Calloway for publishing a blog post because then that would just be like discriminating against Dodie's book, which I absolutely love. Maybe, then, I'm just being biased and since Calloway is younger than me, and more popular, and hangs out with Tao Lin, and gives readings in New York, and isn't Dodie, I just don't like her. But, then, Calloway, in her new story, doesn't even seem to be aware of what she's doing or how she's doing it, and it all seems so contrived (in a bad way). So I guess I don't know. I like Calloway's new story more than the previous, but still don't understand, again still, why everyone's talking about her writing. This all comes, also, from being part of the 'intellectual n+1-loving' writers who find value in discovering good/bad writing... which apparently Tao Lin hates or dislikes... (Health's "USA Boys"), but Calloway, I'm assuming, doesn't mind. Whatever.

So, now, my thesis has been turned in, and I meet in early May with my committee and then they will tell me if I earned my MFA or not. Barring some anti-miracle, they will say I earned it. (Mirrors' "Lights and Offering") Then, what? The book becomes a book and not a thesis or something else. My other mentor Miranda Mellis challenged me to write a cover letter which I will then, conceivably, send out to agents or houses. When Miranda issued the challenge we talked about what my book is about and it was very enlightening to me. Also, it was the first time I expressed to someone other than B what I was really aiming at in the writing, at least in any cohesive way. I will have to explain it again when I meet with my committee. It was great to hear from Miranda that what I thought I had done was not the complete opposite of what she understood about my book. (El Guincho's "Lycra Mistral")

B took the picture above in my room. (I Break Horses' "Winter Beats")

Exhaustion Report

I haven't posted in over 3 months because I've been working diligently on my MFA thesis. At CCA we turn in our theses to a 3 member faculty committee and then we meet with that committee 2 times to discuss our projects. I've met once so far with my committee (Dodie Bellamy, Donna de la Perriere, Shanthi Sekaran) and it went wonderfully. I had been extremely nervous prior to the meeting but once we all sat down my nervousness went away, and Dodie, Donna, and Shanthi all had really helpful suggestions, and even boosted my confidence. Later, I met one-on-one with Dodie and she took me to dinner, and even though the restaurant had some sort of gas stove malfunction, the dinner was tasty and of course, Dodie offered invaluable comments on my writing.

Since I'm winding down my time as a graduate student at CCA I thought I would express some sense of how lucky I feel to have met the teachers and peers who have made my last 2 years amazingly productive. Just today I met with my mentor Miranda Mellis. We had coffee at Mission Pie. Had I already eaten lunch I might have ordered banana cream pie for dessert! But just a mocha was good. I had never heard of Miranda before coming to CCA; I had never heard of Dodie either, but now I can't imagine my time here without them. I don't think I would have developed how I have had I not been lucky enough to take their classes and be their "mentee". And even better they actually enjoy working with me! What a love letter this is turning out to be. But, it's not just Dodie and Miranda. I've met some really great peers and collaborators. I feel certain some of these people will remain in my life for some time. I feel certain I will work and write with these people in the future. Naturally, some people I will never see again and that's probably not a bad thing.

So I wonder what will we all do when we graduate. Right now I don't know. Certainly, there is no doubt that I will continue writing with the hopes of being published. I think just two years ago there could have been some doubt about that. I wasn't a committed writer. Now, I am. Wouldn't it be great to make living doing it? Or teaching it? Or somehow being involved in the publishing process? Do my peers feel the same? I haven't asked them so I don't know. Do some leave graduate school with an MFA and then never publish anything for the rest of their lives? Is that possible?

While I was on BART this afternoon, I imagined a scene. A fellow passenger would ask me what I did, and I would respond, "I'm a writer." I imagined society's response to that. Or its many responses. How does the rest of the world view what we do? I'm assuming there are no 'non-writers' who read my blog so they might not be able to tell me. Is there some statistic on what people think of writers? And not just economics. Judging how writers are paid, I can guess what people think of them. But, there should be a more emotional view too. Shouldn't there?

I would like to create something beautiful and good. I think I can do that by writing.

A few years ago I read the unabridged edition of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. The last 200-300 pages were exquisitely difficult. The emotional power of the story made it impossible not to cry. I loved the characters and their struggle. I don't think I've ever been so involved in a story. I look to those final pages as the prime example of what I want to do not only for others but for myself. I would like to have that feeling again. Even if I have to create it. I would like to create something beautiful and good. This seems like the ideal outcome.

Words With Friends

As a forewarning, this will likely be a meandering, ponderous post. Let us begin: I'm in Antelope, staying with my mom in her new house which she shares with my aunt. My mom's old house, my childhood home, is somewhere over there. Anyway, I'm sleeping on the couch. At neither of my parents' homes do I have a room. Which makes sense. I just got an iPhone 4. Not the newest one, but to me, it's like stepping into a new century. Privately, I scoff at people who spend their train rides hunched over their phones, fingers noodling the screens, downloading apps. Such an ugly word and term. The internet age is full of silly words. Google. iPad. Zynga. Facebook. Twitter. Apps. Push notifications (I just learned this one). I'm sure people have written about this before. The language of the internet is ugly. I should have said I USED to scoff but now I know I can't because while my mom and I visited with my extended family I lay on the floor and downloaded Netflix, Words with Friends, Yelp, Fandango. Probably another, I forget. Now, I'm unable to sleep and so I'm getting completely annihilated by someone named Twihard Ninja on Words with Friends (for those who don't know this is a scrabble-like game). In between my turns I follow the #occupysf tag on twitter and watch someone streaming the SFPD breaking up an encampment at the Federal Reserve Bank. The guy streaming is clearly upset and then in between some usual ranting he claims that it's the Fed's fault we're in this crisis - or something like that. My immediate response is, "I've heard this before!" END the FED. I google it. It's the name of Republican presidential nominee Ron Paul's book. Does that mean the guy streaming is a libertarian like Paul? I know there's some sort of love affair for Ron Paul by people who are sort of like me. Young, hip, educated. He doesn't believe in war, he wants the federal government to stay out of everything. I don't know. It doesn't feel right.

In 2008 I remember going for a drive by my dad's old house in Roseville. For some reason it was okay back then (for me) to just drive aimlessly in the undeveloped parts of the vast suburb that is Roseville/Rocklin. I remember seeing Paul's "Revolution" posters. EVOL was backwards. LOVE. What did he mean? It was a love revolution? Revolution of love? Against love, for love, etc? I didn't understand it. I preferred Obama's hope and change slogans. They made sense. But, nothing makes sense now. We're off axis, it seems.

My game is about to end with Twihard Ninja. This person is very good. Or not at all and I am just bad. In my last move I had WORLD to put down but there was nowhere to put it.

The picture above is the head of Saint Catherine of Siena. After I read my mom a bit of my book, she told me she had been to Siena. I had completely forgotten her trip to Italy. She said she had seen Catherine's finger. I didn't believe her. Then she showed me the picture. When I looked up the finger I also noticed that the church has had her head. I found a picture of that. You can see her face. The whole time I've been researching this book, never have I seen anything that said her finger and head were kept at her church in Siena. While I write the story I look at paintings of her and in a weird way I start to see her and then I imagine her and then I write her. The picture above though is really her. This is the face of the character in my book. I'll probably sound like some shroomed out freshmen in college when I say this, but isn't it amazing that my life and hers are linked in this particular way?

Twihard Ninja: ~450

Me: ~290

The Thought of the Heart

So I've been insanely busy this semester, since moving back to San Francisco. Thus, I haven't even posted since school started. I took the picture on the left at the California Academy of the Sciences. A group of friends and I were there to see Jens Lekman play some music. Prior to the show we toured around the Academy. I have a special appreciation for primates of all kinds so I had to take this picture. It's a mountain gorilla. I didn't notice until now that the rectangular reflection near the gorilla's chest resembles some tablet or book shaped object. As if the gorilla is reading. All of this resonates with me right now because I'm working on something about monkeys and gorillas and humans really. B read my initial effort and posed some really great questions which provoked creative thoughts. In finding a way around her criticisms I ended up creating an entirely new work that I read in class just the other day. My teacher said it was 'performative'. I like the idea of performing the writing. It's something I haven't really thought about - at least not with that term. Mostly this semester has been about writing 'Catherine' and finishing my thesis - simultaneously discovering a vast amount of forms and content exist for me to take up. The story about the monkeys is really just the beginning of this discovery.

Last night I went to Dodie Bellamy's class at SFSU because Ariana Reines was going to speak to the class about her new book Mercury. In fact, tonight I'm going to watch Dodie and Ariana read in the Mission. It was sort of like a star struck moment for me to meet Ariana. I took a lot of notes when she spoke about poetry and her writing process. Dodie, Ariana, Ariana's book tour partner Stuart, and I went downstairs for tea and chips. Though I feel fairly confident in talking about writing now, I still had the whole star struck thing going and I'm sure Ariana thought I was a bit crazy. One thing I felt and understood about Ariana's writing, which maybe I didn't understand until I heard her read two of her poems, is that a certain type of love is propelling her writing. It seems as if she is writing as an extension of her physical body. And it feels like her extension is an extension of love. Not romantic or sexual necessarily. But love as caring and as wanting to empathize with the recipient of the writing, her community on this earth. My thoughts/feelings on this were echoed this morning when I sat down at the CCA Oakland cafe to eat my cheese danish and coffee. Dodie had given me a book by this psychologist (Jungian/Post-Jungian) James Hillman. I didn't have time to even get past the first 5 pages because I was responding (in writing) to every sentence. Hillman writes about the difference between mind and heart, the origin of philosophy, philos is not a detached reasoning of life; philosophy comes first from the heart. Hillman uses a quote from a Greek writer (I think, I haven't had a chance to check it out yet): "As you speak, so is your heart." The heart is speaking, I am speaking, Ariana is speaking.

The End of the Road

I'm sitting in my best friend Jason File's apartment which he shares with his girlfriend Jamie. I have left Brooklyn and New York. I came home to chilly weather and a comfortable, familiar fog that surrounds me in memories and a sense of progress. I mostly associate the fog and the smell of the ocean so close to the city with my first experience living far from home at school in Santa Cruz. Interestingly, the memories are mostly of driving in to The Cruz in the late night/early morning from Sacramento. I loved driving at night, I love driving at night. I love rolling the windows down, good music on the stereo. I reach into the back seat and feel for a sweater that I've strategically placed on top of my pack. Sweater weather, the moving fog. I don't yet know what my life will be like, I don't have a clear picture of myself as a person, but I know I'm approaching it. All of this feeling is compressed once I leave The Cruz and settles into one image of the Fog and its attending sensations of cold and clarity.

I have left Brooklyn. The only home I've known outside of California. Sometimes I would hesitate to tell B I was "at home" if she wondered where I was. Could I call this my home? Was I home? After a while it was my home and I felt a part of the always bustling city (Brooklyn, not Manhattan). Who knows what the experience will settle into once I've spent time away. It could be dinners with B. Funny experiments with veggie burgers, cold salads, homemade popsicles. Late night walks to the Greenpoint pier and the privileged view of what B liked to think was the center of the world. I don't know if that's true or not, but it sure seems like it. One look at the Empire rising above earth and you must believe that your time on this planet, as a member of this civilization, has meant something. On that pier with that view you see human magnificence. When I look to my left and imagine the Towers I see the price of our magnificence - in the negative, the lacking. I feel B's hand in my mine and my experience as a human feels whole.

The picture above is in our neighborhood. B and I liked to get ice cream after dinner. Most often we would head to Van Leeuwen (towards Williamsburg). I could never decide if I liked the pistachio or strawberry. Finally, one afternoon we walked the other direction and went to the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. I bought strawberry. It was my favorite as a kid and I think that it always will be.

Last night I received emails from my two peer collaborators, Katelyn and Jessica. Katelyn had ordered a copy of our new book. She said that it looks wonderful, a few possible changes might need to be made, but overall it seems like it's what we had envisioned when we first came up with the idea. I'm so excited to hold this tiny book in my hands. Katelyn said that it is a small beautiful thing made carefully. There are so many reasons to want to continue making such things or to have the outcome of your work be viewed as such.

Not too long ago B and I traveled up to Beacon, NY and went to the Dia:Beacon museum. In my limited museum experience, it is my favorite museum. I'm attracted to the work there. Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Richard Serra, Sol LeWitt. I've mostly been fascinated by Agnes Martin for about the past year but the LeWitt wall drawings and Serra's large iron swirls or whatever you call them really blew my mind. I've seen other Serra works before but these particular MONUMENTS were amazing. B and I walked through them a few times. I wish I had the language to describe the work. I also go to see a spider by Louise Bourgeois. I don't need to explain why a large spider appeals to me.

On the flight back to San Francisco I started and finished Patti Smith's Just Kids. The picture to the left is Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe. I liked this picture the most in the book. In my book WOLF I reference a photograph that Mapplethorpe took of himself, whip hanging from his asshole. I will have to revisit this section of the book. Late last year I read Eileen Myles' Inferno. Smith factors heavily in it so reading Just Kids felt like a dive deeper into the world that created Myles and Acker and eventually the writers who I now love and feel inspired by, Gluck, Boone, Bellamy, etc. So it was somewhat surprising to realize that Patti Smith wouldn't exist mostly without Arthur Rimbaud. My love for Rimbaud always seemed a little out of step with the literary canon I felt a kinship to. Not that I actively searched for him in the New Narrative. But, it just seemed like such an obvious point at which to start. EVERYONE already loves Rimbaud so sometimes it's not even worth mentioning that he has inspired you. Rimbaud, Smith, Myles/Acker/Bellamy/Reines, me? It's curious my own lineage is so heavily female. Maybe it isn't. There are dozens of strands that lead up to me. Some female, some male. Mostly poets. But I guess it begins with Arthur Rimbaud. And really I have to confess to loving his biography more than his poetry. I sense his power in his poems but his life seems more than the writing. Of course, no poem has affected me more than "Sensation". I've borrowed so many ideas and lines from that two stanza poem that it seems like it will always exist as a pumping heart, lyrical blood. Naturally everything from A Season in Hell permeates my conception of words and writing, is the room in which I compose my various hells. Rimbaud's ability/destiny however to strike the earth and transform writing forever appeals to me. I have no great ambition to do the same in the universal sense but in my small way I can transform myself, the only true earth.

Reading of Robert Mapplethorpe's death from AIDS forces me to confront an experience of loss that a specific generation of artists felt. But when I do I can only feel the loss in reverse. They begin dead, come alive and then disappear again. The loss is biographical, not existential.

I took the picture to the left while editing WOLF. In this moment I felt entirely lost. I wanted to capture how I looked. I don't know if my face conveys the sense of fear and incompetence I was feeling. Luckily, good news awaited me a few weeks after this moment. I know this feeling will return at various points in my life, as a writer, lover, father, etc, but also I know that I do have the power to battle against my fear of worthlessness and meaninglessness. There is no goal but to feel less incapable of handling those fears. "There is strength in you, I see it." Thank you William Wallace.

So I'm back in San Francisco. I don't move back into my house until September 1st. At some point I will figure out when I'm supposed to begin school. I've been really bad this semester at knowing when things begin. I will also begin my first stint as a teacher's assistant. My head is full of questions regarding all these new things in my immediate future.

Ahead of me I have rewriting catherine, which fully re-imagined itself over 4 days while still in Brooklyn. Now all I must do is convey its own sense of itself. It's weird to have a story tell you how it is supposed to be written. I look forward to the relief. I've gathered some ideas for a new shorter work, possibly. My novella about the love of my life will soon be finished and hopefully not too long after that available in some form. I will have a birthday too - not for a few months but it's coming.

Somewhere Strange

Some amazing things have happened recently. I will run them down. First, I was offered an internship at Monday Night, a literary journal. My official title is Editorial Intern. I'm very excited about getting the chance to work with the editors. Second, I received an email from an on-line journal letting me know that one of my non-fiction essays would be published in September. Currently, two excerpts from my novel are published on-line. However, for both of these, the person responsible for them being published was directly related to me (a fellow student). I'm eternally grateful for that peer's support, but I will consider this September to be the first time I'm truly published. The specifics of all this shouldn't really matter, but to me, they do. Third, I was solicited to submit to another journal. That's about all I can say about it. I have to write something really special for it. If they accept my submission, it will be a big deal and I will be very happy. Fourth, this morning and early afternoon, I was on the phone with one of my other school peers and collaborators. We were uploading a document to Lulu. The picture to the left is what we were working on. Jessica, Katelyn and I have been working on this collection since May I think and it's finally finished. Once we all approve of the final product, Summer Idea No. 6, by us three, will be available for purchase.

I've finished the rewriting of WOLF. I'm quite relieved by this. It's amazing how much I cut out from the 2nd draft to the 3rd draft. Around 6500 words. From the first draft to the second I cut about 5500. So by draft 3 I was to 12000 words. I kept track of all of this just because this is my first novel and I want to record everything that I do at every point so that I can hopefully make the writing of the next one less difficult. Though probably from book to book the process is always different. What I've discovered is that I didn't write enough for the first draft. Perhaps that's not true though. I did edit while writing a lot of the time because I would receive workshop critiques from peers. However, overall, I didn't edit that much during the creation of the pages. I tried to just write as much as I could because I knew I would be able to rewrite everything later on. All that said, I don't think I wrote enough. I would like to maybe have another 10k words to have. As it is, WOLF has shrunk to below 100 pages. Given the story's major plot-line, this seems understandable. The good news is that in beginning the rewrite of catherine, I've discovered that there is a lot of room to expand catherine, or Part Two of the novel. My original concept for the novel was for WOLF to be the significantly longer part which preceded catherine, the shorter part. Now, it seems that they might end up being around the same length. I will just have to see about that though.

Two of my best friends in the world are getting married. Their happiness surrounds me.

Adult Dazed at the Beach

On Friday, B and I took the trains and a bus to Jacob Riis Park for some beach swimming. It was a much needed rest for both of us since next to all of our energy is poured into our respective academic/artistic pursuits. I was happy to discover

that I'm not so far removed from recreation that I need to accustom myself to being at the beach. My mind quickly unwinds and I can forget my troubles quite easily. The picture to the left is of B walking past the Riis art deco bathhouse.

Aside from the pleasure of lying out on the beach and once or twice catching a good wave and body-surfing, my favorite moment of the excursion was the bus ride back to the trains. It's actually indescribable. A series of words will have to suffice for a narration or description. Youth, sand, vibrant, happy exhaustion, warm skin, cool air, infinite, expansive, light, summer memory, nostalgia.

A few days later B made Vegan Sloppy Joe's for dinner. And they were amazing! There they are to the left. There was actually a little more salad with them but I ate most of mine before I took the picture. The link above is the recipe B used. I don't think she changed or altered it in any way, except that we used Kaiser rolls instead of hamburger buns. The last few weeks I feel like my stomach and mouth have been the recipients of the best food I've had in my life. Or at least the best food for the particular moment for the longest stretch of time. B and I have had nearly every flavor of Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, strawberry, cinnamon, pistachio, ginger, in pints and on cones. We've had pizza slices from South Brooklyn Pizza. Homemade veggie burgers with bleu cheese and fake bacon, chipotle veggie burgers with all the best condiments, homemade hummus, salsa, pasta salad, gazpacho. Fresh salad dressings and salads, plums and apples and bananas, berries and almonds. Moist coffee cake with red berries, crumbly coffee cake with banana. It gets me to thinking about a previous prejudice I had when I was in undergrad at UCSC. Every once in a while in a creative writing class someone would end up writing about food. Descriptions of food. I never understood them and for some reason I viewed them as a weak and unintelligible way of describing a character. How does what one eats add to the readers' understanding of a character? What does food tell us? At the time I thought NOTHING. I was adamantly opposed to including any description of food into my own writing and felt bored by writers who did. Strange that eventually the book I'm working on would have to do with a character's complicated relationship to food - at least part of the story would be about that. Even as I wrote WOLF/catherine I had reservations about describing food. It still looks a little funny to me on the page, all the names of fruits and vegetables. But I knew I would have to include food into the narrative. Until recently I wasn't aware of how to do that, but in the last few books I've read, the authors have included great descriptions of food. When I say great I don't mean after reading them I wanted to run into the kitchen and fire up some veggies. The mere mentioning of food by these writers brought the life of the characters further into focus. I can't really directly identify exactly what has been brought into focus for my writing, but I feel like food and descriptions of food can now be present in my writing. It is something people do and is worth mentioning.

Don't expect recipes in my next book or anything, but you know, soon I might be traveling to 18th century Versailles and food could play a role once I'm there, we will see.