Winking at Meezer

This will be brief (whatever “brief” means as it relates to my manic verbosity). I just finished the first round of ARC edits for Transference (next book), and I’m feeling good.

This is what the glamorous life of a writer post-editing her second book looks like. Just as I imagined it would when I was a girl. Yeah, I’m in bed. Had to get those edits done. When needs must . . .

The other day, my friend Sally called me a “Go-Forward Confident Middle-Aged Woman,” and I looked at her and said,
“Sal.
That was the most awful thing
anyone has ever said to me.”

She laughed really hard, and so did I, but my god.
Call me a dyke. Call me a fag. Call me a lezzer. Call me a cracker,
call me a bitch, a cunt, a cocksucker or a fool, but please, can no one ever
call me a “Confident,Go-Forward Middle Aged Woman” ever or ever again amen? Like that’s a sick thing to say. That sounds like an ad for Easy Spirit Pumps (where my Gen-Xers at? Remember those ads?). That sounds like an ad for a menopause drug that sounds like something capitalists say to women over forty in America to get them to buy whatever they’re selling. (Sal, if you’re reading this, I love you, and I’m totally just giving you shit.)

Also “middle-aged” — ha! Like my busted up ass is going to live to 90.

I do feel this way when people call me “middle-aged.” Look at my life, fuckers. You think I’m going to live to be 90? Miss me with “middle-aged” — I was “middle-aged” when I turned thirty, and even that might be generous. Even if you don’t have cancer, you will die someday, too. So laugh. Go ahead, have a laugh at death’s expense.

So I finished the edits.
The writing life is very glamorous. When I finished the edits for my first book, You’re Not Edith, I finished them of an evening and then proceeded to drink spirits until I was drunk. When I finished edits for Transference, my second collection, I did so from bed, in my underwear, with a cup of coffee and our Siamese cat named “Meezy” staring at me. After I sent the edits off to my publisher/editor, I winked knowingly at Meezy.
I winked knowingly
at
a
cat.

I think I even gave Meezy a “nod” with my “wink.”

When I was courting Sarah (mi esposa) I didn’t realize that her love of cats runs so deep that she finds things like this (which are hilarious) deeply offensive to cats. Anyway, this is hilarious still and i sent it to her when we were a courtin’ and she didn’t think it was funny at all. But it’s funny because it’s true.

This is an improvement from yesterday. Yesterday, I went to one of my alcoholism meetings of anonymous origins and then I laid in the hammock and listened to shoegaze from my youth and cried and cried and cried. Wracking, whole-body sobs.
Shoegaze and existential sobbing.
Just like the 90s.
Why was I crying?
I don’t know.
It wasn’t all “sad crying.”
For Chronic Criers like myself, there are many reasons I might be crying.
Maybe I spilled a whole cup of tea that I just fucking made for myself goddamnit or maybe I’m crying because I got bad medical results or maybe I’m crying because I love my new school so fucking much I can’t even stand it (this is true) or maybe I’m crying because Abe is so cute or the rain is so beautiful or maybe I’m crying because I’m so scared and thrilled and happy and terrified and full of joy and clarity and maybe I’m just crying because it’s so awful and absolutely wonderful just to be alive.

In short, if you see me crying, please do not presume I am “upset.” Or “sad.” Or “heartbroken.” I might just have seen a beautiful baby or a cloud that made me think of my grandmother. Or maybe I remembered a line of poetry that I thought I had forgotten.

I feel you, little sister.

Tomorrow, I will have been in recovery from alcoholism for 150 days.
Some say you’re an “ex-drunk” or some say you’re always a drunk or always an alcoholic or always an ex-alcoholic, or always a recovering alcoholic or just always a plain old alcoholic and honestly I really don’t care what you call the disease I only know I am glad that God saw me through to an opportunity where I could reclaim my life from the spiritual abyss that is alcoholism.
Now, if someone can help me figure out a way to be free of my other fatal disease — cancer — please hit me up.
I have the drive, desire, I have admitted that I have breast cancer,
I just don’t know how exactly to fix this.
Prayer and meditation are great, but I think there’s a science component that neither my MFA nor my study of Buddhism has equipped me handle on my own.

Xo,

Gruber