In Defense of Writing

Well, here we are. I recommit to a new blog every few years and then invariably abandon it, only to start anew with a different URL and an enthusiastic exclamation of "This time is different!"

And yet.

It's been the better part of a year since I created my last post. But hey, at least I am adding to this blog instead of generating yet another piece of online real estate. Progress? This post is important, so I'm happy to be back.

It might sound strange, but I am often (usually in retrospect, I admit) incredibly grateful for the things that make me angry. Like, really angry. You know, fist on a table, curse-inducing, flush-faced angry. The kind you can feel long after the person has left the room. These things reveal, once I spend a few days explicating them and letting the dust settle, what really matters to me.

Like Words. Yeah, capital "W."

I recently found myself fuming, just embarrassingly angry, really, over someone else being censored for a piece she wrote in defense of language. That's right, I wasn't really directly involved in the situation, but I almost ran Kool-Aid man style through a wall in a fit of rage. Now, said censors don't hate language, but they didn't appreciate the writer's defense of language as a pure art. They didn't understand her profound arguments in favor of language unencumbered by the rules of the Internet, nor her unbridled appreciation for sentences strung together with nary a thought of Google. They would have prefered something that championed content written for search bots.

Which is fine.

Except.

Reading and writing are a big. Fucking. Deal. These skills translate to power. Period. So I would appreciate it (though I recognize it's unrealistic) if people wouldn't mess with a writer's defense of the craft she breathes. Or, at the very least, understand the gravity of their request that she somehow defend it less.

My great-grandmother signed her name with an "X." No, she wasn't a treasure hunting enthusiast, she just couldn't read and write. Growing up in Yugoslavia, she didn't need an education. She was a girl. Furthermore, she was needed at home to chase and tackle the sheep--but that's a story for another time.

Lacking knowledge of the written word puts one in perhaps the most vulnerable of positions. Yes, some men are illiterate, but more often than not school deprivation is used as a device to disenfranchise women. Lacking the ability to read and write impacts the ability to drive, conduct banking business, and just plain navigate the world. Job opportunities are scarce to say the least. In corners of the world today, women still fight for the right just to go to school, to learn to read, to delight in the ability to pen their thoughts. So, language is a big deal. Especially on paper.

Writing isn't just my job, it's not a mere hobby. It's a value. A very, very big part of who I am. It's a nod to my great-grandmother, to other female relatives who were lucky if they were put through the 8th grade, to my own power and autonomy.

So, yeah, I take it pretty seriously.

You can take my Swedish fish (from my clutching, white-knuckled hands), and you can even take my merlot. But you will take my love of the Oxford comma and alleged affinity for alliteration over my cold dead body. They're mine, and I will defend them always.

If it took this situation and its resulting anger to remind me just how damn much I love words... thanks for the metaphorical ammo, guys.

TGIF!

#LikeaBoss

Don't let 'em keep you down.

Don't Take No Wooden Nickels...

... cause they won't spend.

The words of a friend's father, and -- in all seriousness -- just maybe some advice we all need.

Don't take too much bull from your partners, friends, or just about anyone. You won't get anything in return but a headache and maybe the warm, fleeting glow of a burning bridge. Can't buy any metaphorical thing with a bunch of guff.

Don't take a job that looks good on paper but doesn't really offer you space to be creative, advance your career, or allow you to achieve your end game. It won't fulfill you; ultimately, that nickel won't spend.

Don't let someone else, anyone else, decide what your value is. Accept what someone else has decided you're worth and there is a very, very small (read: minute) chance that you will ever get what you actually deserve.

You have to tell them what you're worth. And if they don't get it, someone else will.

Examine your nickels, turn them over in your hands, appraise them really close. The wooden ones won't spend, but they don't feel the same anyway, something's off, so you always knew you couldn't really cash them in.

Simmer Down

It's hot in San Diego. We are spoiled by the temperate climate and the rare precipitation or any Mother Nature to speak of, and now it's over 90 degrees. And I have no air conditioning. So.

I am sucking down strawberry cream soda because that sounded good and it was ice cold. Still, I think the heat is getting to me. I miiiight have called someone a stupid broad in traffic. Yes, that definitely happened. Worse, she was carefully negotiating a right on red turn so she was "technically" doing "nothing wrong" and I'm just a heat stroking maniac.

Stay cool, San Diego. Can you do a gofundme.com campaign for air conditioning?

Enough, Already

"Comparison is the thief of joy."

While I don't find every Pinterest quote to be as deep as the poster would like me to -- nor do I find it conceivable that Marilyn Monroe said as many profound things as are attributed to her -- once in a while I'll be damned if there isn't a gem in there. "Comparison is the thief of joy" is one of them. ("Ignore people who are shitty" is another one, just as a "full disclosure, my standards are not super high" FYI) I am absolutely enough. More than enough. Still, can you ever stop comparing yourself to others? I'd like to try.

Do I make enough money? Do I charge enough for my freelance work? Do I network enough? If I ghostwrite and don't get a byline, is that enough? Am I adventurous enough?

I'm not making exactly making it rain (though, at the risk of being a braggart, I have literally thousands of nickels in my bank account), I charge what I think is fair for freelance pieces, and I don't think I would thrive in a stranger meet-and-greet scenario such as a networking event. Who cares if my name is on everything I've ever written? I've really never given a you-know-what about gold stars, anyway -- I find people who need recognition for every single accomplishment to be self-indulgent at best and totally self-involved at worst. Sometimes doing a good job should be its own reward. Or, you might say, enough.

And, you know what, I don't want to go hiking. Or, (I'm just going to say it) ziplining in some tropical country, which seems to be on everyone's bucket list. It's enough that I like to read and lay in the park. Cause hiking seems hot and pointless and I don't want to pay someone to plummet precariously close to the Earth. I've got nothing to prove, and I'm not interested. Sometimes you just want to watch "48 Hours" on a Saturday night instead of going to the live concert down the road. And instead of being a foodie, sometimes you just want to visit Palm Springs with your friend, drive around looking for a new restaurant, and then give a knowing look that says "Yes, Please" when she remarks: "Hey, there's an Outback."

It's enough. I like "Alice Springs Chicken, hold the mushrooms" and I'm not afraid to say it. I don't need to know what a scallop is or go to restaurant week.

I have health, and a pretty impressive human support system. I have a roof over my head, I'm not a total moron, and for crying out loud it's 70 degrees almost every day of the year just outside my front door. Enough. When it comes to possessions or meeting the temporary, arbitrary, current standard of cool, "I'm just not that into you." Sorry, girl.

If I pay a bill late once or twice, but I finally remember the due date on the third month -- that's enough. If I search for freelance work on Craigslist because it has never failed me, it's enough. When I turn down clients who are being difficult or insulting, rather than sticking it out for the paycheck? That's a good enough choice.

Maybe I will write that bestseller and live in La Jolla. Maybe I'll eat all my words and get married and never do much more than ghostwrite and muse on my blog. Let me be grateful for my blessings, from a simply awesome and supportive family, to friends just as crazy as me. That's all I need. It's enough.

If there is one thing to say about me when I'm gone (having died at age 105 in the midst of an epic Forensic Files marathon), let it not be that I had a coveted pile of money or even a bestseller. Let it be simply "She was really, really loved, and that was enough."

The Trouble is, You Think You Have Time

I keep forgetting that in order to be a novelist you need to write a novel. Or that to become a marathon runner I need to get my ass on a treadmill. Time deceives us. It seems infinite. It's not.

One of the most tragic things I've ever read was an essay from an exceptional graduate of a school back east. She waxed poetic about how she and her classmates were so young and had "so much time." She repeated the sentence for emphasis, which didn't persuade her boyfriend's car not to veer off the road a few weeks later and kill her. Sometimes the universe is unfair.

Reality is a cruel thief of plans, so there's simply no time to wait. I spend all day writing a line for a book here, a perfect metaphor there, and I'll put it down on paper. Later.

Later is too late. So I'm starting chapter 1 tonight with a glass of wine. It might be shit, but at least it'll be on paper.

Maybe this blog can be about me writing my first novel?