I realize now I don’t get out much. And when I’m out I’m not sure how to get back in. In Denver I experienced what I will call a problematics of place I will italicize it because that seems more writerly. Where are you from? they all ask and I must answer truthfully, sometimes: outer space. I once read a book that was about these first questions of identity and how fraught they are wired over with hidden meaning of whether you are worth second question, third question, a serendipitous glance at your nametag hanging pendulous like your (my) breasts. The book was called Frame Analysis by Erving Goffman. I should do a Frame Analysis of AWP except I am tired and terrible at dialogue. We are all tense and emotional like the large overgrown puppy I share a wall with in Akron, we are overgrown and overblown and yelping hysterically.
I am deeply closeted about currently living in northeastern Ohio and it is not where I’m from and I want to say: I am from deep shudders of failure in my childhood I am borne out of the toxic waste of niceness I have stripped off the strip malls and here I am.
The real identity question the nametag answers—your institutional affiliation. Bedlam, Bellevue, darling. I am from Valium U. Why should this affect me? the namedropping of place, position, it’s a conference dealing with writing programs and I now think sitting in the airplane heading back to the place where I am not from, from the place I wasn’t really at, that maybe it’s strange to have been at such a conference and not having gone for school for creative writing and having taken one class in creative writing, ever, maybe now 13 years ago and haven written a story about a girl who worked as a callgirl and it was ripped to shreds for its lack of realism but I didn’t really pay attention I was zonked out on my desk from having gotten no sleep the night before and being shredded I was shredding myself like I was a piece of paper I wasn’t a writer I was a piece of paper I was a character.
And then I think, maybe I’m not a fiction writer, maybe I’m a fictional writer.
This has nothing to do with Denver, I’m realizing. I am miles high. And this is supposed to be a blog about literary musings and nothing is literary about these musings.
I am an idiot. Because I just checked to see whether I could get Wi-Fi while flying, and I know that is really fucking retarded, and I know I’m not supposed to use the word retarded, and even though I knew it was fucking retarded, I still did it. I have actually checked for Wi-Fi about five times while being up up in the air. I am in a strange place right now. Where are you from? Where are you going? Where have you been? Is this a title of something? I think it is. Is it something good or something bad? I don’t know. I think it’s like the title of a Miranda July story collection.* If it’s not it will be in the future, most likely.
My cousin was mentally retarded. He wasn’t really my cousin but you know. I tell my students not to say that. I am very politically correct with my students. There is another term to use and I have been in transit I am transitioning and I have forgotten it. Mentally disabled. I am obviously emotionally disabled. No, nonneurotypical. No, fuck, that’s autism. I don’t know. Mentally challenged. I certainly am.
Waiting in the Denver Airport around my gate I looked around me and thought—Oh, fuck, I live with these people.
This whole fucking week has made me burst at the seams my jeans are burst at the buttons I am bloated my stomach’s a wreck from the food to be purchased on the 16th Street Mall everyone charges like $3 for a fucking bottle of water I am wearing men’s jeans and I walked around with my jeans unbuttoned sometimes without realizing it I am always fingering the buttons to make sure they are buttoned sometimes I slip my finger through and feel the hairs popping through my cotton underwear it comforts me I get this from my father I put my hands down my pants especially when I read. My mode of reading is masturbatory.
My cousin had a large large man’s body yet he was always in the third grade. His was the first cock I ever saw that I remember. We were sitting in his father’s living room on an orange shag carpet and he was playing Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out with my brother and he had his hands down his pants sitting crosslegged and he opened it up and showed it to me and it was HUGE. I mean, he was like 25 or something. And he was big big fat big large tall big. In lieu of writerly adjectives I will use simple ones many times. I was like 8 maybe. But he was 8. But he was 25. And I said in a prim voice, like a schoolteacher voice, Mikey you shouldn’t do that. Or Mikey put that away. He grinned at me. He knew what he was doing. That it was naughty. That he put something out that he should put back in.
OK, here’s the thing. I am beginning to think I’m not a writer. That’s what AWP has taught me. There is something about being a Writer that I fail at, miserably. For being a Writer is more than just writing. That is what I mean. I am a writer I write therefore I am right? the cog-i-to but I am not a careerist writer or wouldn't be very good at it an institutionalized writer. But even the writing. I even looked at O Fallen Angel or thought of myself looking at it thought of the pages and I thought, well, no, this is not writing. Most people would think this is not writing, I think of it as writing. But in that world. No. I think sometimes I’ve written like a paragraph that might count by some as real writing. I am looking at Jeanne Heuving’s Incapacity it’s a Chiasmus title and that, that seems like real writing, in the most marvelous way. Poetical. Not a word. Poetical. Still not a word. Poetical.
Sometimes I feel like what if Gertrude Stein was sitting at some fucking table at AWP like with a bouncy cord holding her nametag and would she sit and smile patiently one’s jaw hurts from fake smiling fake caring customer service yes like other times one’s jaw hurts.
Gertrude Stein would refuse to sit at a table at AWP. Maybe she’d do a panel. She would totally do a panel.
Maybe I am a writer in the mode of Henry Darger. Henry Darger is still unpublished. Poor Henry Darger. They shredded him too. RIP—they ripped him in pieces, they broke the spine of Realms of the Unreal, they disturbed the order, rest in peace, how do we know he didn’t consider himself a writer first and a visual artist second? I picture Henry Darger coming up to my table at Nightboat I have a fake smile I have forgotten the month my name I would think he’s weird he’s not sexy with hip glasses and flirty eyes poor Henry Darger he would give me shifty eyes and grunt and say he’s working on a manuscript it’s combining text + image oh Henry Darger I will read your 1300 page manuscript send it to my attention of Kate Zambreno: Not Akron.
Now I think any writer I love who is dead would do terribly at AWP. Nervous jangly Jane Bowles. Jean Rhys would want to stab herself. Or maybe she’d be into all the masochism.
It’s very masochistic AWP. While sitting at the Nightboat Table my universe for the past few days was hopping from one table to the next Nightboat to Chiasmus which was almost parallel in the next row for a while I played vaudeville and crawled underneath if I saw someone at the Chiasmus table which was mostly unmanned unless I-womanned I felt like a movie where the guy checking you in at the front desk at the hotel becomes the bellhop, etc. Some movie. Maybe one movie. Or a trope of movies. I’m not sure what a trope is. I think I know but I’m not sure since I wasn’t an English major, which is apparently important.
I know fuck-all about poetry, I announced grandly, in the bar of the Hyatt Regency, I found myself sitting with a group of gay male poets including the Nightboat boys no one was listening to me they had their own dramas. I said embarassing things like that often this week. I think I blurt out and say stupid things when I’m nervous. Diarrhea of the mouth. Diary-hea. No.
The translator of Babyfucker bought a book at the reading and I was way way too jangly and excited about it and he said I should send a book to Jelinek he could get her information and I told him I was so happy I wanted to vomit. Although the reading went well. The only time I felt calm this whole trip was when I was reading my non-writing. Because for a while I could inhabit a world I actually had some control in creating. God, that sounds so fucking pop-psychology.
I said Wow a lot. I said Great a lot. I said Sure a lot. I said Yes a lot. I said I a lot. I a lot. I a lot. I too much. I wince when I think of all the I. All the performance of the I. All the performance of me. My thing I created. Look Mommy at the thing I created. Look look love me love me. This is mine my thing. Mine my process. Mine my work. My work. My work. Fuck me. I need too much validation. I am so invalidated that I look for validation. Wrong for that. I shouldn’t look outside.
And when I get out. I can’t get back in. And when I get out. I can’t get back in.
Put that away.
This is turning into the most retarded blog post of all forever time. And I haven’t actually reported any details.
So yes the masochism. Well for one I have large red bruises on my knees from literally crawling around (we’re not talking even about the metaphorical supplicating postures). I would take a picture of my knees except I don’t know how to upload photos.
In my book— ( see my book my book my book I acted so green like I was special I hate myself when I absorb in myself like a paper towel soaking up all the me all the me me me) in MY BOOK I have the line: On her knees/on her knees/Red impressions.
More masochism/awkwardness/discomfort. I go up to the Graywolf table. Hi, you rejected me. I told a few people I said this. I told them gaily. I was talking about I. All about I. All about me. The eve of me. All about me. I told professionals. I am an amateur. The professionals wince. You do not approach Oz with irony or supplication.
Do planes have outlets? Am I stupid?
I am the highest paid short story writer in the world. I am a professional. You are an amateur Scott said to Zelda recorded in their 113-page transcript of their therapy session.
I recorded for everyone a transcript of my therapy session exorcising the trauma of AWP. I was okay. It was okay. My books sat on the table alone the first day and someone put an empty plastic bottle there and I thought oh oh my debris and I cried in public because all I ever do is cry in public lately like I have melted melted like I am in school again and I am the strange girl who everyday gets overwhelmed and must go into therapy because she cannot deal with all the pressures of her parents school her world and cannot conform no matter how much she tries she cannot conform you are just a square peg in a round hole Katie my mother would say to me lovingly a square peg the strange girl who tries to stick her head into the narrow desk to cry and then she sees horrible things scrawled about her by the cheerleaders yes AWP is like high school and everything was tense and loaded with everyone I had to deal with intimately and it was too much and I spilled red wine on the white inside of my new blazer I bought specially for AWP so I would look professional and I spent the evening in a bar bathroom pouring salt on the stain pouring salt salt on my wounds while soliciting advice from drunk women coming in about how to get a stain out. And then I sat in the back of a cab by myself bawling my eyes out and the cab driver was so worried about me he wouldn’t let me pay.
I’m not usually like this. My entrance into the outside world is unnerving me and I wear strange clothes and don’t’ act like myself. And I have also reentered the family because of terrible illness. All the wounds I have started to wear my wounds on me like silly star tattoos that everyone gets and thinks they are so original. Those are my wounds.
I need to stop soliciting advice for people about my fucking unpublished manuscripts. Jaw jaw jaw. Hate myself when I do that. See people’s eyes glaze over. Me me me. Me me me.
I am the exact polar opposite of Simone Weil.
This conference I felt like I was running for like treasurer of my fucking sophomore class and I sat at a table with a posterboard I made with like metallic stars and a cheery grin. Vote for me!
(And then noone voted for me.)
You have buzz someone said to me. Because I act worried. About the book. I hate myself. I hate buzz. I don’t want fucking buzz. I do and I don’t. I am pulled in both directions like the beginning of Foucault’s Discipline and Punishment. Drawn and quartered.
I kept on at the Nightboat table while chatting with the poets inventing stupid metaphors for publishing. Vanessa Place: Publishing is like getting laid.** Vanessa Place with her sunglasses. The lighting was enough to give one a psychotic break.Except, I countered, as I repeat myself too much except it’s a lot easier to get laid. Was this the conversation? I don’t’ remember. I was excellent at getting laid. I am not great about getting published. I am also I’m discovering not great at BEING published. I should just sit in my room if I had a home I would do that. 825 Webster Avenue. Like Henry Darger. Sit in my room and write and write and write. But not this. This is nothing.
Buzz. Buzz buzz buzz. We feed on everyone’s remains. All the fucking drama and gossip and hurt feelings and tensions. And moments of bliss and joy. All the schisms. It’s like a cult convention. Everything is like Bruce Boone’s Century of Clouds. I am going to write an essay for THE BOOK if the book is going to happen if it’s not fictional about New Narrative and Century of Clouds and Dodie Bellamy and gossip and Barf Manifesto and friendships and AWP and my loaded situations at AWP but this, this is not the essay. This is nothing. These are the remains.
Bhanu Kapil brought me a pink satchet with one mint teabag inside. To calm me. She came to my reading. But she gave the present to Lidia. Which I thought was wonderful, hilarious, weird. Bhanu.
I finally met in the flesh and voice Bhanu Kapil and Kate Durbin, glorious aliens. Highlight. Kate Durbin who is a Warhollian Superstar. Bhanu whose students love her just worship her. Bhanu who is madmadmad.
My book was a nervous birth. Not sunlit in a tub all natural my skin is glowing. Violent bloody protacted screaming. This is how I go forth in the world.
I see someone I know while waiting outside on the cold slab for the Super Shuttle outside the Hyatt Regency where I was bunking with my publisher at Nightboat she is the head of a writing program she is a big deal in this institutional world because she has a big position and she like everyone I knew before is surprised why I am here and I show her the book and even though I’ve been stingy with copies—at first only those who knew me and pitied my sad face bought copies—I handed one to her and she took it and I stood there listening to our conversation from outside and regretted it.
She said last time I heard (last AWP) you were applying to Ph.D programs. I said, well, yes. She urged me to reapply. She said what about….I said yes, maybe. I realize something. That I found myself, me, me, me, singing the chorus, but this is because everyone there was institutionally affiliated and so deeply wanted me to be institutionally affiliated. Aren’t these all the tenets of a cult? Also too I am too honest. They ask whether I like Akron, Ohio. I say I don’t. And so they try to fix me.
Anyway this tenure track professor asks whether John and I are going to make babies (was this some sort of solution?). I say no. I say definitely not. She smiles and says you’re young. I say I’m 32. I say I’m not so young. She says, well, I didn’t want children until I was 35. I said, I don’t’ want children. I am tempted to say to her: I think I would beat my children, just to get her to shut the fuck up. And then she gives me a small smile (pitying?) and says: Making books instead of babies, right?
If John was absent a cock which I don’t always see it is after all tucked between his legs I wouldn’t get this line of interrogation. Humiliating, somehow. The contents of my worrywomb. I was tempted to tell her that John’s penis actually shot out lemonade not semen, so there was no hope.
Stange time. I haven’t digested it all. And throughout panicked calls from my father about his twin at the Mayo Clinic – terrible abject news I cannot process either.
And this: news this morning as I am writing this that a wonderful woman I met at &Now the French translator of Percival Everett wants to translate O Fallen Angel in French and is shopping it around.
I screamed. I screamed. I wonder if I will get to the point where I don’t experience joys and blows on my frenzied body.
*
oh repat blues reminded me it's of course JCO's most famous story! i have repressed my creepy aunt JCO.
**
