Day 12: A room of my own

Stolen from WebMD

While I wish I could write about vaginas every day, that's not very realistic, is it? Not everyone wants to read about vaginas. I've been told so. One old friend unfriended me on Facebook because I shared my blog posts about vaginas there. So tonight I shall gaze at my belly button, and you may join me if you'd like. Virtually, of course. It's too cold to sit around with my shirt up. Not that anybody wants to see that anyway!

Here we go. Have you ever had an idea that simply won't leave you alone? You poo poo it and send it away, but it simply won't give up? I have an idea like that. It has come to me in different forms, but it's still basically the same idea: I want a room of my own.

That probably sounds strange coming from a person who has an entire house. I have nine rooms of my own, not including bathrooms. One of them is an office, of sorts. It's where my desktop computer lives, as well as a work laptop for tech editing jobs. It's not a room that inspires creativity, I have to admit. I'm not sure why, but it doesn't.

And I have this living room where I'm sitting now. I have my laptop on my lap and the fireplace going on Netflix. I write most of my blog posts here, and I also do my watercolors here. It's inspiring enough, I suppose, but it's not my creative space.

I also have a dark dining room, which is where right now I have another art station set up for doing mixed media and abstract art. I hate using my dining room, because by the time my eight-year-old granddaughter Coraline and I both get out our art supplies, it looks like mess. Added to that, I store my art supplies under and around a small antique drop-leaf table, so even when it's all put away, it's still .... there. I hate the visual chaos. It's like a small stone in my shoe.

However even in this big house, I simply don't have a space where I can store and use art supplies, and were I can go to write with no other distractions. I want a room of my own.

A couple of years ago the house next door to me went on the market. I got excited because it had been empty for at least four years, a rental before that, and I thought it would go cheap. Turns out the owner was upside down on her mortgage and couldn't sell it for what I thought it was worth. And when I got a chance to look inside it, it was far rougher than I'd expected. It took almost six months for the new owners to rehab it. I had no desire to take on such a project.

My plan had been to make it into my creative space and a writers/artists retreat. Maybe rent out studio space in the bedrooms. Hold the bootcamps for writers/artists that I don't do enough of here in my own house there. Take out the fence between the two properties and have a decent yard instead of just a dog toilet. It wasn't a reasonable dream on my income though.

The idea left me alone for a while. Then my mom passed away a little over a year ago. At first I thought she had left a small inheritance, one that I could use to rent a studio in one of the converted factories near my house. I wouldn't have had to use all of it, and I think my mom would have loved the idea.

Turned out my youngest sister got to Mom's money first and ended up owing the estate far more than she was able or willing to pay back. After over 14 months we still haven't probated the will. By the time it happens, the lawyers and the executor will probably get more than any of the rest of us. And that's the way that goes. I can't let the loss of that money create yet another burden in my life, so I just try not to think about it. But the idea won't go away. It's like one of those flies that keeps landing on your head and won't leave you alone no matter how much you swat at it. Or a stray cat you fed that keeps coming to your door hoping for more. Or those last five ten twenty pounds .... well, you get the idea.

And that's how I think of the idea. It's a bother. I don't really think I deserve an office space or a studio. I'm not a good artist; I just like to do it. I'm a pretty good writer, but I spend my time writing these blog posts that will never bring in an income. I doubt anybody would be interested in supporting it if I put this blog or any other behind a paywall like Patron. I've always wanted to write books, and friends have cajoled me to do it as well, but do you know how hard it is to get a book published? And would those same friends actually buy my book? My doubts are usually enough to push the idea away.

A few months ago though my friend Chicken Grrrl, who is an amazing artist, rented one of those spaces to share with some friends who play together in a jazz/blues trio. And the idea came back even stronger. Like a regret waiting to happen.

So I'm thinking about it again. And what I'm thinking is that maybe I could commit to renting the cheapest space I can find -- $300-400/ month EEEK! -- for one year. Just one year. I could move my art supplies out of my dining room and keep the mess there in its own place. I could focus on writing without the nagging of chores that need to be done at home. And during that year I would commit to writing that brings in some income. Hint: It's not this blog. And do art simply because I love to do it, but it creates too much chaos in my house. And the goal would be to bring in at least enough income after a year to pay for the studio. Or I might find out I don't have it in me to make even a small income from writing and art, and then I would finally know and I could give up.

I worry though. I worry that I wouldn't be able to spend enough time there. Being a single parent and working several part-time jobs takes most of my time. Am I kidding myself that I could give enough of what's left of myself to make it worth the money it would cost? I could do a lot of other things with what that studio would cost for a year. Or would it be like the stacks of books I buy or check out at the library that I never get to? Would it sit there cold and lonely while I'm at my jobs and Girl Scouts and piano lessons and car pool and vet appointments and grocery shopping and ... ? I'm afraid it would.

Have you ever had an idea that wouldn't leave you alone? One that is so appealing and yet feels like a risk too big? I need some stories about taking the risk, whether it worked out or not. Or I need for this idea to go away for good.

Thanks for looking at my belly button with me. To be honest, after writing this out, I'm left with two thoughts about this first-world problem. One, it doesn't seem like a good idea. And two, I should have written about vaginas. But it's 1:00 am and my alarm clock goes off early in the morning.

Thanks for listening.

Day 15: The making of a middle-aged porn star

Last night I promised I'd share something I wrote 10 years ago when I sold my first piece of erotic short fiction. I thought it would stand the test of time, but as I read over it late this evening, it mostly shows how much I've changed over the past 10 years. It's hard to believe one little story was such a big deal to me back then. I don't like this piece as much as I did when I wrote it, but it's too late tonight to write something else. I have to be at work at 8:00 am, so I'm going to share it, and please don't judge. I hope I've polished my skills a little since I wrote this. After all, just on this blog I've published almost 600 posts. Have I mentioned that? All that practice must count for something.

Also, if you feel like skipping reading a day, this is probably the one. Old stuff, this. I was even married back then! So much has changed. But OK, I'll shut up. Here it is.

************

I’m the least likely porn star you’ve ever seen. I’ve been a stay-at-home mom forever and I homeschooled my kids for 12 years, although we were the granola-eating, old-hippie kind of homeschoolers rather than the denim-skirted, Bible-believing type. When my daughter went to high school for the first time last fall, it was time to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up. I thought I’d take up fiction-writing. I’ve been an editor and columnist for a homeschool magazine for years, but I’ve wanted to write a novel since I was seven. If not now, when?

About the same time, I was hanging out in my family room with some girlfriends, and we were looking through several issues of BUST magazine, the magazine “for women with something to get off their chests.” Talk turned to the short stories in the back—the ones called the “one-handed read.” I had to explain to a couple of my friends what the title meant. When my 14-year-old daughter informed us she never read the back of that magazine because the stories there were gross, I felt relieved. I want my daughter to be well informed about all matters sexual. and I’ll talk with her about anything, but I’m not that cool.

I said I was sure I could write a story at least as well as what I’d read there. Why don’t you do it then, they said. I picked up the gauntlet. How hard could it be to write porn? Excuse me. I meant to say erotica.

So I did. I reread the stories from the three issues I had and made note of the language they used, especially the dirty words. I got the guidelines from bust.com and sat down at my computer to write. Two hours later, I had a story with a plot, intriguing characters and—I hate to brag—a really hot sex scene. The hardest part—no pun intended—was cutting it down to 1500 words. My first draft came in about twice that. Three fascinating characters had to go…along with the plot. I did, however, use the F word, the T word, the P word and all three C words, sometimes in the same sentence.

I submitted it as soon as I finished and about six weeks later Emily, an editor from BUST, emailed me and said she wanted it with just a few minor changes. All I had to do was completely rewrite the ending and shift the timeline a couple of months.

I was so excited, I jumped up from my computer and yelled, “BUST took my story!”

“Are they paying you?” My husband has priorities and simple recognition by my adoring public isn’t one of them.

From another room my daughter hollered, “Mooooommmm, tell me it’s not porn.”

In the dining room where my twenty-one-year-old son and four of his friends were playing Dungeons and Dragons, I heard utter, but pregnant, silence. I turned around from where I was on my way upstairs and they were staring at me like I’d turned into an elf and thrown a level-seven bolt of lightning at the poodle.

“It’s not porn. It’s e-ro-ti-ca.”

In her most sarcastic teenage voice she asked, “What’s the difference?” The D&D geeks waited for my answer.

How to explain it without photos? Or at least tasteful drawings? “Porn is what dirty old men buy in those stores down in the Oregon District. Porn is what we have to clean off the computer after your brother downloads it and bogs the system down.” My son just grinned at me. His generation expects to have porn at their fingertips. “Porn is vulgar. I write erotica. For women.” I gave the geeks a stern look and they stared down at their many-sided dice until I went on up the stairs.

I made the changes to my story and returned it to the editor about ten minutes later.

Growing up in a small town in southwest Iowa, the closest I came to porn was the rare Playboy and my mom’s True Story magazines, which she kept on top of the fridge under a flyswatter. I wasn’t allowed to read them until I was in high school, only to find out they were nothing but badly written sexual innuendo that stopped before the good stuff. The plots always centered around what happened to either naïve or wild women who did the bad thing for the wrong reasons. Unlike now, when I might open an email to  find a long-haired woman with unnaturally large breasts giving a blow job to a hard-muscled man with a penis that belongs in the circus, our porn consisted of nude blonde girls who shared their pet peeves and future aspirations so we’d feel like we knew them well enough to see them naked. Looking at those photos was naughty no matter what your age or sex.

Once I left home at seventeen, I became marginally acquainted with Penthouse and their porn-fantasy letters, filled with blow jobs on carnival rides and the exploitation of various fruits and vegetables. Somebody showed me a Hustler once but I couldn’t relate to those hot pink gaping vaginas. I was embarrassed for them.

Shortly after I turned eighteen, my husband-to-be took me on a tour of the sex joints in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In the back room of one, we plugged quarters into a movie we watched through a kind of View-Master–like projector. A woman was swinging on a tree swing and her dress would fly up as she flew forward toward the camera. It was an old, grainy, sepia-tinted movie. The quarter ran out before anything good happened. The walls in the front of the store were hung with all manner of odd devices—some I was sure I’d seen hanging in barns--and artificial male appendages. I had no frame of reference for imagining how they might be used. We left without making a purchase.

Down the street we found a XXX movie theater. When we were told how much it cost to see the matinee, we decided not to. As luck would have it, the ticket seller left to have a conversation with his boss and we walked right by a big German Shepard and went on in.

We sat in one of the back rows. On the screen a giant penis spurted its payload into the air. It was replaced by another penis madly thrusting between a pair of giant breasts accompanied by a soundtrack of female moans and male grunts. Suddenly we realized our seats, which were joined to all the other seats in the row, were rocking like ... well, like someone was beating off. We looked down the row and saw a guy sitting at the other end--a man in (I swear this is true) a trench coat--who had something in his hand that wasn’t a box of popcorn. We were laughing too hard to enjoy the movie so we left. The men who worked there didn’t even seem to notice us.

For a long time, that was about it for my porn exposure, other than the occasional sexy HBO movie and a couple of soft-core films my husband rented from the back room of the local family video store. My life was filled with young children, homeschooling, church and my Air Force officer husband’s frequent and long absences. I was too busy for porn.

Which is why I don’t know what got into me when I wrote that story. Maybe a mid-life crisis. Maybe it was just the changing times and the overwhelming number of venues for erotic images and materials to enter our lives, whether we welcome them or not. Somehow over three decades’ time, porn, erotica, whatever you want to call it, has become commonly accessible by anybody with cable TV or an internet connection.

Still I only told a few people about my story. I wasn’t sure if I should be ashamed of it or proud I’d sold my first piece of fiction to a glossy, sexy magazine.

BUST published my story in the February/March annual music issue under my real name, the same name thousands of homeschoolers see in their favorite homeschool magazine every other month. Coincidentally I had a party in February so a bunch of us who mostly knew each other from church could hang out, drink, play music, eat, talk and get away from the kids. The timing had nothing to do with the story. It wasn’t a coming out party for the erotica queen. At the party only Sally and Joan, who read everything I write, knew about it. They whispered the news to a couple of other women, who were so excited they insisted on reading it. I told them if I got the magazine from where it was hidden in my bedstand, they had to pass it around discreetly and not to the men.

Chicken Grrrl, another homeschool mom who subscribes to BUST but hadn’t read the one-handed read in her new issue yet, sat in my grandma’s antique rocker and read it first. I wondered if there was something perverse about me that I always turn to the back and read Betty Dodson’s sex Q&A column and the one-hander before I read the articles (but after I look at the photos).

Chicken Grrrl passed it on to Cindy, who is a school teacher, and Deb, a PR executive. Before I knew it, even Moe and Bill were cuddled up on the couch reading it together. Moe and Bill both work at a local university and Moe used to be an English professor before he rose to the ranks of administration. I mentally crossed him off my list of people I could tap for a recommendation to the MA program in English. When I said not to pass it to any men, I didn’t think I had to specify that gay men were included.

Because it was taking too long to get around to everybody, several of the women insisted I read it aloud. I resisted. They insisted. I drank some more wine. The guys chimed in. I blushed, drank more wine and tried to change the subject. Eventually I gave in. I decided if I was going to write the story, sell it and cash the check, I should be OK with reading it aloud when I was asked.

So I found myself sitting on my living room couch, illuminated only by the music light on my black grand piano, rhinestone reading glasses perched on my nose, reading my graphically erotic one-handed read to 15 or so of my best two-handed friends, who occupied every seat in both the living room and dining room as well as any available floor space. All I needed was a cigarette in a sleek black holder and a beret. Welcome to a night of beat erotica in lovely suburban Beaver River, Ohio.

Just before I started, Moe and Bill passed through on their way to the front door.  They rarely stay out later than the Philharmonic plays, and nobody was left in the family room anyway.

Bill waved. “Ta ta. Enjoy your porn!”

“Did you guys really read that story?” I asked, stalling.

“Only the literary parts,” Moe said. Bless him. I put him back on my recommendation list.

I tried not to look closely at any one person as I read—especially the men—although I peeked to see if anybody looked truly horrified. Before I submitted it, I had sent it to my sister just to get her opinion and she liked it so much she sent it to a male colleague who told her he was trapped at his desk for ten minutes after he read it. There are no desks in my living room to provide cover. I noticed most people were looking down studiously or had their eyes closed. I was glad they weren’t looking at me.

As luck would have it, I’d written the story in first person, so it took on a disturbingly personal tone as I read it aloud. The protagonist was a musician—a blues guitar player and singer—and most of the good parts took place on the stage after she finished playing a gig. That night I had to put down my guitar and stop singing so I could read the story to my friends. You’ve got to love those little autobiographical elements in fiction that come home to bite you on the ass. As I read, I couldn’t believe I’d actually written those terribly descriptive words. I didn’t remember being that explicit.

Now I have 15 friends who think my life—especially my sex life—is much more exciting than it’s ever been. They tried to guess who the man in the story might be. I assured them it only happened in my head as I sat at my computer in my pajamas at 2:00 AM. They asked how I managed to type with one hand.

After I read we wandered back into the kitchen and family room where food and drinks waited. I was surprised the women were more excited than the men and wanted to talk about how cool it was. My reticence about showing them the story was unfounded. Although I was proud to have sold it--the first short story I’d written since high school English class--I wasn’t sure how my friends would see me after reading it. We’re a liberal bunch. We joke about sex a lot. In fact we’re obnoxious about it, but jokes aren’t personal. This story felt personal to me, even though it never happened. It took us beyond harmless flirtation and dirty jokes around the euchre table. I felt a strange mix of pride and shame as I read it to them, but the pride overtook the shame and kicked it to the curb after the reading was over.

Several of the women begged me to teach an erotic writing class so they could learn to do it too. Like one story made me an expert. Yet I was flattered. I’d like to do it. Susie Bright, who edits the Best American Erotica series, wrote a book called How to Write a Dirty Story and Elizabeth Benedict penned The Joy of Sex. If you’ve got a textbook, you can teach a class, right?

They tried to make me promise to write a story for all the parties I throw, at least every other month. I said I’d only read the stories that were published because I wasn’t going to become their personal porn writer. What a bunch of middle-aged pervs!

And yet here we were, this group of men and women who ranged in age from early thirties to sixties, gay and straight, stay-at-home-moms, teachers, librarians, business people, computer geeks and a doctor, and we all let down our guard enough to listen to a taboo fantasy for a few minutes and even admit we liked it.

Later I found out my little brother shared it with my baby sister who showed it to our mom. What was my sister thinking? This story was a far cry from True Story or the little Harlequin romances she passed back and forth with my grandma. Yet when I talked to my mom on the phone, she merely said she’d read it and congratulated me on the sale. I guess she’s read something other than True Story since I was in high school. She didn’t even sound shocked, but I still can’t imagine my dad and her sitting around with their card group reading a story like mine. My imagination recoils.

I’ve been published at least every other month for years now and, except for a few local homeschoolers, nobody I know personally ever reads what I write. But let me sell one tiny little dirty story and everybody wants to read it and pass it around and insist on private readings--even my lesbian friends, who said they did quick gender changes in their heads as I read. Even Bill and Moe, who wear frilly tulle aprons to our annual Christmas dinner, love the symphony and laugh at Emerson like the rest of us laugh at Seinfeld. My brother bought five copies and gave away four to various friends…and he’s gay too! My 21-year-old son (who is not gay) bought a copy for his friend Meagan for her birthday. He promised me he wouldn’t read it and he swears he hasn’t.

Women’s erotica is a hot market. In fact, it’s one of the few thriving fiction markets. Google “women erotica writing” and see how many hits you get. Several of the major women’s book publishers, including Harlequin and Avon, have added erotic imprints to their fiction lines. There are how-to books and websites, associations for erotic fiction writers, and then there are the erotic magazines and books themselves. Believe it or not, this is your mother’s fiction!

I got more attention from my friends and family for those 1500 words than for all the thousands and thousands I’ve written in the past put together. And it was fun. I was surprised to find out how many of my friends, especially the women, enjoyed the story and wanted more. No, I’m not going to become famous like Susie Bright writing erotica, but I’m learning to leave my shame in the 70s and take my place among the other women who are buying up the erotic fantasies and sampling the Lickety Lube at the home sex-toy parties that have become so popular. I’m looking forward to reading my next published erotica to my friends. That’s why last week I sent another story off to BUST…and this time I even included a photo!

Day 12: Coralineisms #5

You guys! Only 6 more posts after this one, and I'll have published 600 posts on this blog. 600! That's a lot, right? That's not even the coolest thing. The coolest thing is ..... wait for it ...... my birthday is next week, and unless I choke on a potato chip and die, I will post number 600 on my fucking birthday! No way! Yes way! I couldn't even have planned that shit to happen. I have no idea what I'm going to do on my birthday yet, but publish blog post number 600 is definitely going to happen. I feel like a fucking magician. No, I feel like the Queen of Magicians.

I can't help thinking that's a lot of fucking writing for someone who's never published a book. I say "published a book" because I did have a contract for a book once years ago. The publisher came to me. I wrote the book. I edited the book. (I'm really fucking good at that shit.) I sent it to the publisher on time. And then the publisher just let .... the .... contract .... run ..... out. Yeah. We're not Facebook friends. Whatever. No, not whatever. Might that book have changed my life? Fuck, yes. I would still be getting royalties from it. Can I hold on to that shit? Fuck no. There's no benefit in that. But when people tell me I should write a book, I say I did write a book. And then I got fucked. So now I write some shit for free here on my little blog. But I'm not bitter. Moving on.....

I thought I'd share some Coralineisms again tonight. She'll be celebrating a birthday next week too, 2 days after mine, and she'll be 5 years old already. If I thought my kids grew up fast that was nothing compared to how fast a grandchild grows up. Anyway, I'll stop talking and give her the mic.

Breakfast

Me (cooking some of my paleo banana pancakes): These bananas must be special or something. This batch of pancakes are super big and fluffy.

Coraline: Mmm. Almost like a good sheep.

Lunch

Me: What do you want for lunch?

Coraline: I want you to make me some chocolate soup.

Me: Chocolate soup? I don’t know how to make chocolate soup.

Coraline: Mamá, it’s super easy. You take quite a lot of chocolate and maybe some protein, and you pour it in a bowl. Stir it up. And then you put it in something you cook it in and you cook it for an hour. And then you take it out and all the things will turn something like paper.

Me: Paper?

Coraline: Yes. And then you put in raisins and put it in a bowl.

Me: Another bowl? That’s a lot of dishes to wash.

Coraline: This is the recipe. You just put it in the bowl. And that’s chocolate soup. Just make that next time it’s fancy time or lunch time.

Me: Got it. Just have to observe that you aren’t the one who does dishes around here.

Funny is not silly

Me: Did Uncle Drake duct tape your mittens to the arms of your coat so they wouldn’t come off while you’re sledding? That’s super funny, don’t you think?

Coraline (deadpan): Mama, I don’t really like super-funny things. I’m just silly.  That's all. I guess I was just born that way.

Questions I can't answer

Me: Come here and give me a big hug.

Coraline (puts her head against my chest): Mamá, what if hearts sounded like telephones?

That's not a grownup word

Me: My word for the new year is “focus.” So if I'm doing something and you interrupt me, I might say I need you to wait a minute while I focus.

Coraline: What was it last year?

Me: Last year it was a phrase: “Is that really my business?”

Coraline: Oh. My word for this year is play. That word is just for kids. Sorry.

Me: Fair is fair.

That's my kind of cleaning

Me: I need to start spring cleaning. I’m going to start a list.

Coraline: What’s spring cleaning?

Me: That’s when you open up the windows to let in the warm spring air and clean every single thing in your house.

Coraline: I’m going to start spring dancing. That’s when you dance because it’s spring.

Me: I think I'll join you.

NaBloPoMo: Day 2 Brother, can you spare a dime?

Underwater

I'm always flattered when I get a message from someone that says, "Hey, did you move your blog or something? I keep checking and it looks like you haven't written anything." Or when somebody walks up to me at a party or at church and says, "Why haven't you written anything lately? I need some vagina!" I get the seriously warm fuzzies. I do. And I've gotten a lot of that the past few months, because it's been years since I've gone 6 months without writing here.

For several reasons shortly after I wrote my last post I entered into a period of crisis -- not a cry my eyes out, call the therapist (oooh, that's what I need!), hide the knives, she's gonna blow! kind of crisis. Maybe more an epiphany about not just writing here on this blog, but my value in several areas of my life. So tonight I'm going to write about that, and I'm sure I'll sound like a whiny baby, but I need to write this issue and get past it.

Toward the end of the school year, I realized I was going to have to quit teaching at the magnet school for the arts where I was teaching creative writing. I didn't want to. I loved most of the kids, and I'm good at what I do. Too good, in fact, for the job I was in, but that's not why I quit. I quit because I was hired as an adjunct, and what you should know about any job with the word "adjunct" stamped on it is that stamp might as well say "drop 'em and bend over" instead. The shitty life of an adjunct is well documented.

Turns out when I signed the contract to work at an hourly wage for 15 hours/week -- because the school district won't pay any single adjunct for more than 15 hours/week -- I didn't realize I would be expected to work anywhere from 20-30 hours/week. That is, if I wanted to do my job right and well, which I did. Writing teachers carry a heavy grading load. One paper can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 45 minutes to grade. And I assigned a lot of writing. When I figured out how much I was actually making, I was under minimum wage.

After my boss told me I was going to have to take another class for no raise in pay, I knew I couldn't continue there. First, because I felt small. I'm worth more than that. I really am. And second, because that shit is illegal. It's against federal law to require an hourly worker to volunteer extra hours. And it's illegal for obvious reasons. I could say a lot more about that, but I think you're all smart enough to figure that shit out.

So I made the decision to walk away from a job I should have loved. A job that made people think I was something special to be teaching there. And that the kids I taught were very lucky to get to work with me. It was a job that sounded so good rolling off the tongue. Turns out none of that will pay my mortgage.

And then I started looking around at what I do in the rest of my life, and I realized I have a lot of skills, but nobody wants to pay me for any of the time I spend doing those things I'm good at. It wasn't just the teaching of writing I was doing practically for free. I was being asked frequently to do everything else for free too.

For example, music. Hell, the name of our band is Free to a Good Home. We've never been paid for a gig, although at times money as been made from our music. However, I've bought a lot of equipment that we need in order to be a band. And I periodically have to replace that equipment. If I added up all I've spent on being a musician over the decades .... let's just say it's an expensive hobby. And I do it because I love it. Because I can't breathe without it. Because I don't want to live if I'm not playing music. It's not just a hobby. It's a passion. One that other people benefit from as well, without having to pay a dime (except my piano students. Bless them.)

Once I started listing things I do or am asked to do for free, I couldn't stop. There are the people I barely know who ask for free tarot readings. And strangers who want me to officiate at their weddings, which includes writing a custom ceremony, but don't want to pay me as much as they'd pay for a night of pizza and beer. And the people who want me to write their memoirs. Do you know how long it takes to write a fucking book? OK, I turn down most of those requests. But thinking about the barrage of requests made me feel smaller, simply because of the expectation that what I can do has no value as we define value. 

I don't turn down everything though. There's my church, where I certainly don't expect to be paid, but I still give a lot of hours. And other things like TEDx, which takes months of work to pull off. And theater, when I get a chance to do it, which isn't often. The dog-sitting. Writing bootcamps. The requests for time and energy from the neighborhood association; and then the guilt when I don't or can't help out. Mowing the absentee next-door neighbor's yard so it doesn't attract vagrants; boarding up the house on the other side when vagrants broke into it ..... The list could go on.

And since I've quit teaching, my granddaughter is with me at least 5 days a week. Even when I was teaching, I sometimes had to take her to class with me. You have to know, I love spending time with my granddaughter. I never resent her being with me. I miss her if I don't see her for a day. But there's a difference between spending time and providing free daycare with the expectation that I will always be available. Because then I don't get to choose when I do it -- kind of like all those years I was a stay-at-home mom. And I don't want spending time with her to become a burden. It's complicated.

It's complicated because I need to find something to do that doesn't make me feel small and used. Feeling used is quite different from feeling useful. I need to raise my value, even if it's just in my own mind, by doing something well and getting paid for it. Being the perpetual volunteer isn't working for me. Nor would it for most people, am I right?

Back to writing here on this blog. I love hate love hate love writing here. I love it when I do it, but I have to force myself to sit down and do it. One reason is because I don't have deadlines, so I can either do it or I can watch Netflix, or go sing karaoke, or rub one out, or read something somebody else got paid to write, like a book. I am as passionate about writing as I am music. As unable to live without it, although lately I've been satisfied with writing clever Facebook status updates.

So I need to consider whether I can continue to use my writing time and energy here on this blog, where I feel safe and comfortable and can write about vaginas or any other damn thing I want, or whether I need to find ways to make money with my writing. Ways that don't include teaching, because I'm not getting sucked down that drain again.

Somebody said to me after I quit my teaching job, and not in a very kind tone of voice, "Why were you teaching anyway? Was it for the money or for the kids?" The implication was that I should do it no matter how little I was paid because .... "for the kids." I heard that a lot at the school too. That we weren't there for the paycheck; we were there for the kids. The answer is if I'm going to do it, I have to do it for both the paycheck and the kids. We measure value in this country with currency. Money. If I'm valuable to that system, I need to be paid fairly for my time and effort. Who could argue?

I'm at that point with writing too. I can't give as much time to Coraline as I do and still regularly write here at 3:00 am simply for the joy of writing and for the connection with those of you who like to read here. That leaves no time for creating an income stream. So I need to try to create income from writing (which won't happen with this blog) or do something else, which would leave little time for writing here.

If that last paragraph sounds convoluted, I guess that's where I'm at. I'll be writing here every day this month. I've committed to that. And then, I don't know what will happen. If it's just one more burden, one more freebie I'm handing out, then I'm going to set it down for as long as I need to.

As I read back through this post, I realized I could have simply said I need to get a fucking job that pays real money, y'all!  I just had to use all the words instead.

April Fool

Consider this my April Fool's Day post. I was just joking when I didn't post last night.

No, really I'm sick, and all I had energy for yesterday was teaching teenagers and my evening with my 2-year-old granddaughter Coraline, which lasted until almost midnight. I actually feel worse today, so here are my terribly random, foolish thoughts.

*********

In spite of my 3 days of failure last month, I'm trying to decide whether to make a commitment to writing every day in April. The jury in my head is still out. On the one hand, I write more and that's always good. On the other hand, I need more sleep. I guess if there's a post here every day, the decision has been made.

*********

My junior class didn't show up for class yesterday. The bell rang; the seniors left; the juniors across the hall went into their classroom. I sat alone in my classroom .... waiting. I shuffled some papers, looked out the window, drank some water, considered a 30-second power nap. No students. Finally as my co-teacher was closing her door, I walked over to my door and asked if she knew why my students weren't coming to class. I felt, I have to admit, somewhat bereft

She just laughed and looked down the hallway. I stepped out and there on the stairwell were all 19 of my students, being quieter than I've ever seen them. We all laughed pretty hard at their trick, and then I laughed again 10 minutes later when I remembered it was April Fool's Day. Did I mention I'm sick?

When I told my daughter Elvira about it, she said, "Were they late to class then?"

I said, "Probably some of them were. Maybe all. I don't think I went looking until the second bell rang."

"They're lucky you're the teacher they pulled that on then," she said.

"Why?" I asked. "Who wouldn't think that was funny? It's a creative writing class. They were being creative."

"Because at least half of my high school teachers would have sent the entire class to detention for that little stunt," she said. "They must trust that you wouldn't."

"The thought never crossed my mind," I said. "Who wants to be an asshole like that? No wonder you hated some of your teachers."
I've gone over that conversation several times. I don't understand those teachers who would punish an entire class for an April Fool's joke. But I have to imagine that they would think the kids were trying to put one over on them by wasting class time? Or that they were usurping some authority? I don't know how those teachers think. I do know life is too damn short to treat kids that way, and I look forward to seeing what they come up with next year.

*********

I had to miss karaoke tonight. Even with drugs, I couldn't get off the couch except to fix food. I hate missing karaoke. First because every night is different, and I'm afraid I'll miss something interesting, like last week when a guy thought he was going to get a 3-way with his wife and me. He was so wrong. But that's another story.

The second reason I hate missing karaoke is because I've gone 11 weeks in a row, according to Foursquare, and I wanted to continue my streak. I was tempted to lie. Karaoke is close enough to my house to come up on the list of possibilities. I could just check in anyway .... but I didn't. I'm a fucking Pollyanna, I am.

Have you ever lied on Foursquare?

*********

Since I turned off my internet, which I haven't missed one tiny bit so fuck you TWC, I've been on a House of Cards marathon ... if a marathon can last for several weeks. And I've come to a decision. 

My new alter ego is going to be Claire Underwood. I know I'll never be a tiny, fit blonde woman with a pixie (do they still call short haircuts pixies?) who runs for miles and can wear 4" heels for 17 hours without limping or slipping them off under the table, but I'm sure some version of that woman lives inside me ready to out-maneuver anybody who tries to fuck with me or the Vice President of the United States.

So if the temperature drops to below freezing when you're with me, you'll know this hot-blooded redhead just went Claire Underwood on somebody. Put on your hat and mittens.Liquid nitrogen is a soak in the hot tub compared to Claire Underwood and me.

*********

A student was caught on camera and suspended for receiving a blow job in the stair well. It's not my job to judge my students' personal lives, only their writing. However, in spite of the stunning notoriety he will receive in addition to that blow job, I do think he was a fool to get caught. And because he got caught, he deserves every zero he gets. Some lessons learned in school have nothing to do with academics.

*********

Finally, one of the requirements for all of my students this quarter is that they submit a piece of writing somewhere. A large part of my junior class plans to submit to a local literary magazine -- a freebie that comes out a couple of times a year. Most of them are excited about it.

When I contacted the publisher, who used to teach at the same school and who is a personal acquaintance, to get some back issues, she said she expected me to submit too. I hadn't really thought about it, but I agreed that she was right.

(And then I immediately fell into the pit of insecurity that surrounds every writer and thought, What if a student, or students, gets an acceptance email and I get a rejection? What then? And my response, as I climbed up out of that fucking pit once more, was, I'll be

(thealchemistskitchen)

proud as hell, that's what. Every teacher should want her students to surpass her, and I certainly do.

That doesn't mean I want a fucking rejection email just so I can put my largess to the test though. I'm not that free of ego, nor will I ever be.

So now I'm down to the deadline, which is Friday at midnight, and I have no idea what I want to submit. They accept any genre, but they especially want nonfiction, which is mostly what I write these days. I'm sure I can send something I've posted here, but the fact is, I've been functioning barely above the minimum this week.

The piece should probably be G-PG, because they take submissions from all ages. That should narrow my writing down to almost zero, right?

Help me out here. Have you read anything here you think might work? Something that's not about vaginas? (Or maybe, since I can send 3 pieces, I should try to sneak in a vagina piece?) What do you think?

Last post of September: The courage to write

This is the final post of September. My commitment to post every day in September was ..... well, it was a failure, I suppose. I missed either 3 or 4 days. I don't care. Perfectionism is over-rated. I'm satisfied with the month's output, and I hope you are too.

One post in particular, "Censorship Down Under" -- a post I almost didn't publish -- got significant attention. A lot more people than usual responded to it on Facebook and in the comments section, and several people wanted to talk about it in real life.

And then late last night an editor at Blogher, a huge women's blogging network where I occasionally cross-post, picked it as the editor's choice on their Love and Sex page. I was so flattered and honored I blushed right here at my computer when I read the email from the editor telling me she'd chosen it.

I've answered a few comments there, and as of 2:45 am, the time I'm writing this, there were over 2500 reads. That's a shit-ton for me. Later this afternoon, she added the Great Wall of Vagina section of last night's post, which I uploaded this morning. I theorized if she liked one vagina post, she might like another. She did.

I will say it's odd having somebody else edit my writing, which she also did. She also took out the photo of naked vaginas that I agonized over including in that post, and used one that's not so graphic. But you know what? I was a magazine editor for 10 years. That's the way the business works. I'm just grateful that she highlighted that post, and not just because it made my ego swell up to the point I had to have an emergency brain drain put in, but because it started an important conversation with both women and men.

And that's what most writers pray for every night when we get on our knees beside our beds -- right after, "Please let me win the lottery let at least one person read what I wrote tonight."
*******

I've been substitute teaching in a friend's creative writing class at a magnet school for the arts recently. I've taught there twice, and I'll be teaching another 11 days in the next month.

I teach both a senior and a junior class, and creative writing is like their major. It's what got them into the school, which requires an audition for the 7 magnets in the school.

Friday I had them write on an index card whether they felt safe -- because I think it's terribly important that students feel safe in a writing class. I asked them to tell me why they didn't feel safe if they answered no.

The senior class is small, only 9 kids: 7 boys and 2 girls. All of them said they felt safe. They are comfortable sharing their writing with each other and with me. They support each other, and so far, I haven't seen any bullying or mocking. Good-natured teasing, but no meanness.

The junior class -- 18 kids -- is just the opposite. Most of them said they don't feel safe. They are reluctant to share their writing in class or with each other in groups. They said they don't want anybody to see their vulnerability. Some of them will share, but many won't. I've heard some of the girls in the class are bullies. They don't pull any shit in front of me, but I probably know which ones would if they thought they could get away with it. I suspect they are intimidating even when they aren't doing anything. I know all to well how bullies function.

I told that class today if they didn't get over it, they would never make it as writers. Or actors or dancers or musicians or artists. I said if they couldn't get over their own fear of showing vulnerability through their words with their friends and family or their classmates or even with strangers, they would never make the connection people need to feel in order to invest their emotions in the writing.

I told them if they ever wanted to be writers, they had to learn not to give a shit about what other people think. Yeah, I'm a hypocrite, but the caring is why we do it and the not giving a shit is how we manage to put it out there one more day.

I was probably banging my head against a brick wall with most of them. That's what teaching is like. The ones who got it, probably already had it. The ones who are afraid will still be afraid.

Although I want to, I'm not sure whether to tell them about this experience -- partly because I'd have to talk about vaginas in a high school writing class. I'm not even sure if that's appropriate. Partly because they can google like nobody's business, and I'm not sure I want them reading my blog. Boundaries. It's not like I post photos of my own vagina -- although that was suggested today -- but I'd still feel a little funny if I knew they were reading here.

But I would like to tell them about how I took a risk, and it paid off. Not in dollars, but in emotional connection with people who read and understood. I want to tell them about how I couldn't sleep after I published that post in the middle of the night, because I had admitted I didn't really like looking at those naked vaginas, that they made me uncomfortable. And about how I worried I'd lose readers for posting the photos or for being a bad feminist or for writing about vaginas too often.

Not that I'm beating myself up about worrying. I'm not. Plenty of people understood and acknowledged why it was a risk.

I just want every one of those kids to write something uncomfortable and then share it -- with strangers, classmates, friends, family. I want them to experience cutting themselves open and examining their feelings and reactions in words, even when they don't like what they see. And even when they don't know how other people will react. And even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.

I guess it's not something that can be forced. I just hope someday they get to experience writing something difficult, sharing it, and receiving back the gift of understanding, conversation, reassurance and connection like I did this week.

That will give them a reason to keep opening up and keep writing.
*****

Thanks for reading this month. I'll probably take a break for a few days so I can get a couple of good night's sleep, but I'll be back soon enough. Stay tuned!

What it means: the purpose

I was on the phone with my friend Cydney a couple of weeks ago, and I said I needed to make a new MySpace page to replace the musician's page I had with Don. But I said I couldn't think of a cool name for it. Her partner, Brett, who was listening to her side of our conversation, suggested "reticulator." I liked the sound of the word, but realized I didn't really know what it meant. Something to do with a snake's spine? A bonobo's fur? Or maybe the veins in an oak leaf? Yep, that last one turned out to be pretty close, and it was just the right word for me. (Brett said he just pulled it out of...thin air, and since he doesn't know me that well, I believe him, but it was, nevertheless, the perfect word.)

Why is it perfect? Two reasons. The first is that I'm all about patterns and connections and networks. It's how I think. If there's a pattern to be found, I'll see it. If not, I'll go crazy until I find it. Everything is connected. I'll be writing more about that.

And I love connecting people too: connecting them to each other or to things they need or to information they need or to doing what they need to be doing. I'm like Alice Piaszecki on The L Word, only I don't stop at lesbians who sleep with each other. I connect everything.

The second reason is that one of my great loves, writing, is all about making connections. "Entering the conversation" we call it in our English 101 classes. And for some reason, it's a hard concept for my students to grasp. Yet, how often do we write in a void? Not often! We almost always write in response to something else that happened or something someone said or did.

Which means there's this invisible web connecting everything we write to everything else that's been written...oh! Here I get such delicious existential angst! Imagine. My writing is connected to Plato's (wouldn't he hate that!) and to Susan B. Anthony's and, yes, even to Nietzsche's. And to Margaret Atwood's and Barbara Kingsolver's and even, dear reader, to yours. It's heady company I keep.

Of course, we recognize these connections when they're personal. The Internet has made our writing connections so much more obvious. I've been friends on an email list for years (before yahoogroups) with women all over the country. We started out homeschooling and we've maintained that connection--mostly through writing--all these years as our children have grown and our families changed through divorce, death, war, and birth, and even through the death of one of our own.

And then there are social networking sites--which is where this whole thing got started. MySpace--when my son found out I had a MySpace, he said, "What are you, Mom? Twelve?" And Facebook. I only opened the Facebook account because Cyd and I were looking for a way for students to post essays for a week-long class we were teaching. It didn't work out for that, but soon students from my next class had found it (and a year and a half later are still on it) and then those women from the email list and colleagues from the Academy (where I teach and go to school) and friends from church and even my baby sister...and so it goes. Unintentional reticulation.

What is intentional though is this blog. It's a place where I can share ideas for writing that is intentionally reticulated, networked, responsive to something someone said or did. And I'll share my own writing here too. Finally, I hope hope hope you'll post some of your own ideas and writing, especially if you find the prompts motivating.

That's the purpose. Stay tuned for the first prompt. (Clue: it will be delicious.)