What is your obsession as a writer?
Trying to stop myself from being so desperately aware that I’m a writer. Or maybe my obsession is figuring out how to pay for healthcare when my only income comes from being an Adjunct English Instructor. Or maybe it’s me obsessing over obsessing about the fact that I need to apply for my MFA like today but not doing it because writing new poems is better than putting old poems together in a packet with some stamps on it. Or maybe it’s watching the doctor try to figure out the right cocktail of medication so I don’t sleep nineteen hours in one day. Or maybe it’s trying to watch Felicity in its entirety as quickly as possible (a little over two weeks, I believe). Or maybe these aren’t my obsessions as a writer but my obsessions as me but I’m a writer so I think it fits.
At the Skylight Reading the bookstore person who was MC-ing it asked me and Kate afterwards what our process was like. And I was like, half-jokingly "Well I used to wake up at dawn and write for five hours or I wasn't complete, but now I lay around all day and watch stuff on my computer like Pretty Little Liars." But oh Felicity. I LOVED Felicity.
Now I have to go bang out this motherfucking outline if it's the last thing I do.
i like the pictures a lot. looks like a great reading. also, the dress *is* flattering. also, i remember really loving Felicity but I can't remember why. She had a journal, I think, or a therapist she would write letters to? plus really gorgeous hair. plus she looked like my therapist. xo
ReplyDeleteYOUR THERAPIST LOOKS LIKE FELICITY?!!
ReplyDeleteThat is amazing.
She had a tape-recorder diary that she sent to her friend Sally, but that abandoned that I believe after the first couple of years. She went to a faux-NYU and worked in a faux-Dean and Deluca, or maybe she worked at a real Dean and Deluca.
She had gorgeous long curly hair, which she cut short, which people connect to the failure of that show.
Plus: I need a therapist. I really fucking need a therapist. But one that won't try to change me. Too much.
ReplyDeleteOr charge me. Change me or charge me. Or rewire me. Or rewrite me.
ReplyDeleteI obviously have issues with therapy. Fuck.
well, felicity looked like a young version of my therapist who, yes, is gorgeous. that same bone structure, smile. yes, i remember the hair cut. vaguely.
ReplyDeleteyeah well therapy is a problem. i think i prefer acupuncture. these days i do.
well i like acupuncture as well. quite a lot. although here in nc it's super expensive and i couldn't afford it anymore. even though acupuncture makes me calm, i still need something else. the absolute gnawing sadness - i don't know where it came from but it won't leave. and sometimes it overtakes me so much i'm paralyzed.
ReplyDeletei guess this is a rather flip thing to address in comments section. but i think it's possible i'm totally losing it. or it's simply rewriting the book, and the pressures of touring, and when that's over i'll be fine. but i feel things are getting worse and worse. some days i feel calm and okay. usually days i'm productive. it's so intricately linked to whether i'm productive. i am beginning to wonder what my identity is, outside of being a writer.
i should also add i got put on hormones right before my surgery. that could be making everything more intense right now. it's really hard to know.
ReplyDeleteI am enjoying your internet presence this week, I think I like being around people when they are stuck at their computer, trying to work on/complete a project, and are just on the internet, avoiding, or revving the engines, or whatever it is, like BWAH.
ReplyDeleteAs opposed to faux NYU, which was not called NYU, the faux Dean & Deluca WAS called Dean & Deluca. And it's exterior was NOT faux, it was the actual original Soho Dean and Deluca store at Broadway and Prince, but the interior was faux, and did not resemble actual Dean and Deluca even remotely.
ReplyDeleteOnce, I dared my friend Robin to go inside the Dean and Deluca and ask for Felicity, and she did it, and they were befuddled. Also, we used to see Scott Speedman occasionally, hanging out near Washington Square Park, which seemed appropriate.
I am not sad he is not famous anymore. I am glad Scott Foley is still sort of famous, and that in the past several years, he has been more frequently shirtless than he was during the Felicity days. Daze.
I was obsessed with Felicity for about two months my junior year of high school when I renounced my past obsessions with science fiction and musical theater and soap operas an announced I was only interested in television and books about REAL LIFE. So, Felicity. Also, Once and Again. BILLY CAMPBELL, SWOON. If only I had been able to escape my mother's older-men-are-predators conditioning enough to pursue so dreamy a daddy in real life.
Tim - Thanks for what you're saying about this blog and this week. I feel a persistent desire to go on my blog this week, and I think it's procrastination. I think my blog is actually my best friend. That is maybe sad.
ReplyDeleteRight I am picturing the inside of their Dean and Deluca, versus other ones. I think I've only been to the one on the UES. Yes Scott Speedman and Scott Foley and Keri Russell will always get a gigantic pass for me for that show. I wish my college years were like Felicity. I wish my life were like Felicity.
I am realizing my life would be much better if it were actually inside a television show.
I have been feeling something similar re: therapy, altho my problem has always been anxiety and not sadness. I am tired of talking about my parents and where things come from, that well feels dry. It was useful before, but not so much now, I don't think, especially with the cost. I don't think I am concerned about changing or being changed. I would like to change, perhaps change endlessly. I would like to not worry so much. I am trying to develop a practice of breathing whenever I feel the desire to fidget in my limbs and extremities, and so far, it is surprisingly helpful and informative. ...We have a nice community-based sliding scale acupuncture project in Chicago now called the Sage Community Health Collective, I have been meaning to try their services, I have never done acupuncture.
ReplyDeleteI think acupuncture is very good for treating anxiety. I definitely have issues with anxiety, and I think they're so comingled with my depression it's hard to parse them out, but my anxiety unlike my sometimes crippling depression seems treatable, when I actually force myself to do healthy behavior. Like yoga or acupuncture or taking walks or showering or forcing myself to leave the house.
ReplyDeleteThere was a community sliding-scale place in Durham I went to that wasn't very good. The guy who ran it wouldn't put any needles in my stomach or torso area, because it was public, so for me, that kind of defeated most of the purpose, except for the head/anxiety needles. I like that sound, that feeling, of having the needle put into your head.
I would like to be less of a high-stress person. I would like to use more coping mechanisms. But I actually have learned coping mechanisms over the year - for a long time I was in cognitive-behavior therapy, although I haven't been to any real therapy for ten years. In Akron I tried to go to therapy, which I write to in the book I'm working on, and it was really bad mall therapy. I would like to find a way to leave the house more, to have it not be so difficult. I would like to be less paranoid and negative in my relationships with others, I would like to get less depressed and overwhelmed after social encounters. But I am reluctant to take medicine, as I have an extremely bad past in terms of taking medicine.
Gosh, I'm totally oversharing today.
No problem with oversharing! I felt like I did that too, and also felt bad whining about anxiety stuff that is ultimately not that big a deal, esp compared w/ the intractable or chronic or recurring depression issues a lot of my friends have faced.
ReplyDeleteAnxiety stuff is a big deal, and can be crippling. Don't feel bad. It's not whining.
ReplyDeleteYeah, depression I think is like my mistress. I honestly don't think there was a time in my life when I wasn't depressed. I'm not sure who I would be under those circumstances.