Dear all. Please follow me at www.abrokennarrative.com. It is much more lively. We can tumble around or just move into a feedreader. Thank you for the recent follows. Sincerely, Libby.

Email Received

“On Monday, October 10th, a protest is being organized by the SEIU.

They will be gathering at 4pm at the following locations to form five feeder marches:
Federal Plaza – Adams/Dearborn
Daley Plaza – Washington/Dearborn
Hyatt Regency – Wacker/Stetson
Hilton Chicago – Balbo/Michigan
Board of Trade – Jackson/LaSalle
With a step off time of 4:45pm, their target location is the Art Institute.  No routes or gathering location have been clarified. Be prepared for large crowds, busy sidewalks and traffic disruptions during this time.  We will also have additional security officers scheduled to keep our entrances clear.  Please report any unusual activity to security immediately.”

What the hell is the SEIU or whatever and why are they targeting the Art Institute of Chicago? What excitement leaving class shall bring tomorrow.

Here’s the thing about life:

it goes by much too fast. It goes on all of the time. Even when you don’t. Or, don’t feel like you are. It’ll always be there for you in one way or another when you decide to move again, but it will not wait.

The other thing, is we are defined by the people we keep. Life can be either better or worse or neutral because of who we choose to surround ourselves with. But one way or another, even an introvert will be stimulated by an intimate connection. Even they (we) need that. If we are left to define ourselves it is likely going to turn out badly after years of insecurity.

The other thing, is because life is always moving you might think you don’t have time for that person. You might tell them to go away. Or to wait in not so many words. But if now isn’t the right time, when will it be? Life is busy and complicated. That’ll never change. People will, well, not inherently, but their tolerance level. And they might not wait. If you want someone to wait, it is best to make little sacrifices while they are waiting. Call them. Check in. Reassure them you are still there. They may still not wait, but your chances are better. Your chances are better of a happy reunion if you do this checking in.

Reading and more reading.

I’ve just finished Housekeeping vs. The Dirt by Nick Hornby. A book on reading bought ages ago. It is the second book of a series of three. A collection of articles written for The Believer 2003 (?) to 2006.

Despite Hornby’s persistent mentions of the Polysyllabic Spree – the [insert figure here] people, dressed in white robes when not running around naked who ran The Believer during this time and gave Hornby plenty of trouble over his articles – I failed to recognize that I’d missed the first book. Or that that there was a first book at all until I came to the end of this second book. I, of course, immediately ordered the Polysyllabic Spree from an Amazon seller for one penny and 3.99 in shipping. Hornby inadvertently taught me all about the importance of reading the conditions descriptions carefully, while still assuming the book will come tattered.

This reading is the first reading I, and my first adviser, assigned to me. An assignment? Hardly. Finishing a book I’ve been meaning to read for years is not an assignment. I even started from the beginning and the read the essays I’d already read because they were so important the first time I read that I forgot every word. No, really, they are important. Someday I want to do what he does and the only way to do it is to read everything. Everything he’s done (which I basically have), everything everyone like him has done, everything everyone he suggests reading has done (which is why this was a great place to start. A reading list built in) and all the magazines and newspapers and memoirs they all write.

I’m sure Hornby would be surprised to know, as was I, that he is my favorite writer. (I think it’s because his essays are self-deprecating and dry, not pretentious, I-know-everything like Chuck Klosterman’s – the other writer I’ve spent a lot of ‘time’ with). I didn’t realize he was my favorite writer until my adviser, when suggesting things to read at my request, mentioned his name.  ‘I LOVE Nick Hornby. Of course!’ was my response and I remembered that I caught up on his catalog (and have a serious craving to read High Fidelity again, I watched the movie tonight, but it just didn’t do the trick) the autumn out of my OTHER master’s program. For the first time I had to wait for a book to come out. Juliet, Naked hadn’t been published when I finished. (I immediately purchased it upon entering the UK when I came for a long visit in the summer of 2010. Or, at least, nearly immediately. I may have forgotten about it from the winter until I saw it in one of my favorite independents in Bath.)

I’ve spent so much time in school reading assigned work I’d very nearly forgotten how to read for fun, and very definitely had little time to seek out work that I enjoyed (something I now envy about my mother’s collection of romance novels. She never sacrifices enjoyment in reading). Hornby talks about this in the introduction to Housekeeping and I know I’ve discussed this introduction on one blog or another in the past, but reading should be fun. That’s the simple summary, really. Just that. And my miniatures professor said to us to read like writers, ‘If you get bored, stop reading.’

I have a feeling that this program will not stifle my reading. I just wonder when I’m going to get the time to read everything I like.

Stopping.

The day everything stopped.

I hid in the nook of a 7th floor stairwell today. Or, yesterday, as you’re reading it, but for the sake of this post, pretend it’s last night. I hid in the stairwell because, well, because I was scared. So scared I don’t think my body understood it as fear, just my unconscious brain, because I know myself. And I couldn’t move. I chose to take the stairs down from the 8th floor. I got one flight and I couldn’t move.

Today was the second day of classes. I also met with my first projects/process advisor (we have two). For all intents and purposes I had a great day. My advisor doesn’t think I’m terrible. Which is relieving. I know it’s silly, because I was admitted into the program, but do all writers do this? The first time someone new is looking at my work, I’m certain they are going to figure out that I’m a fraud. Well, she’s still none-the-wiser, so for now we’re good.

My first workshop class is awesome. My professor is – everything I want to be someday. Quirky, loud (but in a good way), a bit foreboding, but only because she knows her shit, somehow encouraging at the same time and she says fuck all. the. time. She explained that she swears because she’s a shy person and this helps relax her. I can relate.

This was a great day.

So, why did I find myself hiding in a stairwell? I think right now it would be easier to marry the next dude who walks down the street than it will be for me to commit emotionally to this career. Or admit that I do in fact want this as a career and commit to working toward it. It just got real. So real in fact I’d find it easier to commit to a random person than to this? Being a writer? Whoa, that’s intense. Did I really just say that?

One thing AA has right: one day at a time (hour, minute, whatever works for you). I think most things in life should be looked at this way. (Marriage especially.) But this being a writer business for sure. Just do what I have to do today to be ready for tomorrow, essentially, or something like that, and then that’s it. Forget about the big picture. Forget about creating a coherent set of essays and just write one. Forget about getting paid, and just get a sentence down.

Which is what may class is about. Like I said, Constructing with Miniatures. Yesterday was easy, it was a first year seminar. I knew everyone in the class, or most of everyone, we’d already been drunk together and shared secrets. We are all riding the same waves, but Miniatures is a mix. I think there’s only one first year folk in there. A girl I didn’t meet this week.

And the instructor is namedropping like mad, she sometimes doesn’t finish sentences, she goes off to the left and doesn’t necessarily come back, and I love all this about her. I really do. My friends probably would say some similar things about my speech patterns, but my. head. was. not just swimming, but drowning. It’s little air hole (because my head is apparently a whale, or a dolphin? A whale or a dolphin with no cover for it’s air hole, so when it goes under, it drowns.) It’s little air hole bobbing and gasping for air, but it’s too late, it’s sinking.

She went around the room for introductions. She had a chat with each person. She wanted to know why they’d chosen the class, what they were working on. In the order that she started, I was the last person. Fear like I had never felt it rose in my belly as I waited. I must have looked like I was going to jump ship. (How the whale or dolphin got onto a ship, I’m not sure. And if it did, damn straight it should jump, or, you know, flop around until it finds an edge or sinks the boat – but then we’re back to drowning.)

It turned out okay of course, as it always does. (That moment, I mean; turning in my first bit of work will, of course, cause a whole new set of reactions and probably force me into that nook in the stairwell again.) I definitely feel like the new kid. I don’t remember that happening at Bath. I suppose it was because we were all the new kids. No second year students to look up to, get guidance from or feel inferior to. (For the record, it is not their fault. Everyone I’ve met has been absolutely lovely, this is the reason I officially chose to take a place here. They are all warm and lovely and helpful and welcoming, but I still feel like the new kid. It’s inescapable, I suppose.)

We each have a folder in Dropbox to drop links to things like this. Blogs, published work, photos of crocheted things (she actually mentioned crocheted things. I’m not making this up. I’ll probably put the hat I’m half finished with in there) and I suppose I’ll have to link to here. Which means there’s a possibility someone from class will read this. If you’re here, hello (*waves*), you’re lovely, if you didn’t catch that before, but I still hid in a stairwell. Not from anyone in particular, mind, just to learn to breathe again, maybe even in part from excitement. It’s hard to distinguish sometimes.

The truth is, when I emerged from the stairwell, I think I was breathing again. I think it helped.

Have a nice night, er, um, day.

It’s been a while.

This was tall ship day at Navy Pier.

Here is a long over due update: I need to clip my finger nails. You know how when they get a bit longer and you can feel them on the keyboard? Maybe you don’t. Maybe you always keep them short and this has never happened to you. Maybe you keep them long and you’re used to the sensation. Well, I keep my nails short, but they grow fast, and before I know it they are a little bit long and touching the keyboard before my finger pads touch the keyboard, and it really bothers me.

I meant to clip them before I left my apartment (the new apartment I rent in Chicago) but I forgot. I got caught up eating apples and cheese and an egg for lunch, which happened at 3 pm because I can’t force myself out of bed until 11. Other than that, not much is new. I’m back to watching Friends pretty incessantly. I need to start watching 30 Rock because I didn’t know that I should be obsessed with Tina Fey until I started reading Bossypants a few weeks ago. I’m looking for a job in my new town (Chicago). I start school next week (in Chicago). And choosing submissions for Ginger Piglet is going rather smoothly. It won’t be out until December, but I’m very excited about this issue.

Next time I will write on my confusion and disdain for vanity lights. Until then.

Paper Darts on Book Purgatory

Great guest post at Paper Darts on the collection of books we will never read. You know you have them, probably shelves of them, books you’ll never even break the binding.

Ginger Piglet Press Website

Dearest readers,

Ginger Piglet’s first issue is nearly finished. I will be taking a look at the proof today and then ordering copies! Peeing myself.

In other GP news, we have launched a website. This is a temporary website until we can find a gracious soul to build us one, but for now visit gingerpigletpress.wordpress.com for news and excitement. We are currently open for submissions, so please, rush over and send us something.

Love,
Your editor, Libby Walkup

Jumping on the Sex and the City Bandwagon

I never jumped on the Sex and the City bandwagon. Probably, in part, because I didn’t have HBO. When the movie came out I skipped it not having watched before. But honestly? Why would this chubby, awkward looking girl in Fargo want to watch four gorgeous well-dressed women in New York City get laid? I suspected that the show played on traditional female stereotypes of women and sex. I suspected that Samantha, Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda sipped there Cosmopolitans front row at fashion shows and made out with fit dudes, while I drank PBR at dive bars and went home alone.

By some happenstance on two separate sittings I ended up seeing the beginning and the end of the first movie. Had I misjudged? Yes, there is fashion. Yes, they are gorgeous women. Yes, they have hot sex. Yes, the dudes are fit. But, maybe, this show, at it’s base, is about four ladies trying to make it through love and relationships and life together. Seeing as TV shows with close-knit groups of friends make me warm and fuzzy and talking sex, singledom and relationships has become a hobby, I wondered, after all these years, why I had a personal boycott on Sex and the City.

Not to mention, I would give my left pinky toe to be Carrie Bradshaw. She’s my dream version of myself. She’s cool, she’s funny, she looks hot in sweats, and she writes a column, and not just any column, but one that people read. She works from home in a smokin’ apartment. And her picture is on the side of a bus. She is, for all intents and purposes, a literary rockstar.

The basic friendships in the show are indicative of today’s culture. People are waiting longer to get married and rely more heavily on friends (at least according to Not Quite Adults: Why 20-ssomethings are choosing a slower path to adulthood, and why it’s good for everyone, which I’ll talk about in a later post). The brilliance in Sex and the City is the combination of these four independent ladies’ approaches to sex, love, and relationships. Samantha: the modern man lover; confident, overtly sexual and ready to screw at any time, but on her terms. Miranda: severely independent; reserved, career-driven and skeptical about men. Charlotte: adorably optimistic and relationship-oriented; Charlotte is the bright-eyed bushy tailed girl dreaming of a family, with the occasional realistic insight, she’s not vapid, she simply has faith. And Carrie: the observer, the reporter, the level-headed advice-giver; nothing surprises her, but she’s pretty, say–average–it seems, in bed, which is okay for a first person narrative. (Never trust your narrator’s observations of herself. Never.) And, they talk about sex, unabashedly and from a woman’s perspective.

Sure these ladies can be stereotypes and Kim Cattrall may forever have to play ‘Samantha’ on I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter commercials. But sometimes in fiction, especially when aiming for a large demographic, it’s necessary to start with stereotypes and build from there. It’s a way to give the audience something they can relate to, something they understand. It gives your characters room to grow. Let’s be honest, the book wasn’t high-end literature, it was chick-lit. Chick-lit is supposed to be entertainment, an escape, fun. Chick-lit done well is those things while also containing an element of depth. It’s well-written and relates to a large demographic. What I’m saying is, chick-lit has its place.

I can excuse the stereotypes, is what I’m saying, because the dynamic they create is intriguing and the girls aren’t unbelievable or over-the-top. The first season covers lady issues likely never talked about on a TV series: dry spells and masturbation, anal sex and baby showers, small dicks and flaccid ones, the singles vs. the marrieds, having sex ‘like a man’ and choosing a commitment. They rely on each other to make sense of men, they have girl nights in and they watch the neighbors have hours of sex. Sex and the City brought a message: Women talk about sex, we like sex; some sex is relationship sex and some sex is not; some sex is good and some sex is bad, but almost all sex can be better if everyone’s willing to be adaptable. (Boys, it’s probably a good idea to take some tips. If I’m honest, very few of you are even awesome kissers right off. Just sayin’.)

The truth is, this show represents the relationship I have with my friends at nearly thirty and single. We talk about everything. (I apologize to the young men reading who don’t yet know that.)We are our own brand of Sex and the City. We need each other, and it’s not about gossip or badmouthing men, it’s about emotional support and ensuring that we’re–in a sense–”normal”. We need our gal friends and we need their varying perspectives to keep our heads on straight even if we don’t always listen, because good friends always know when it’s the right time to say, “I told you so,” and when it’s not.

What’s in a Fortune?

and an old friend and a good meal, is simply more than words.

I had a fortune from a cookie once that told me in order to do something I must first be something, or, something to that effect. I grappled with this cookie for some time. Months even, every time I saw it still on my half bed (exposed boxspring) in my not room with the mold.

I realize geniuses don’t write fortune cookies (though I have had some good advice and insight, and one even quoted (the internet tells me) Vi Putnam, “The entire sum of existence is the magic of being needed by just one other person,” Who is a writer in Ontario, apparently? And one that told me my awesomeness had attracted a secret admirer, followed, weeks later, by one that told me a new relationship would develop by the end of the month. Essentially, the second came true, which leads me to believe, based on the circumstances, that the first one was also true. Lucky me.). Despite their often bad grammar, bad syntax, platitudes and balloon feel goods – my ginger friend and I have spent a lot of time eating bad chinese buffet to stave off hangovers and have long chats. We always crack open our cookies at the end of the stay (three or four hours – long enough to eat a second meal, and well after the staff starts worrying, and then scowling) and have a laugh or express our concern over sentences not making any sense. Sometimes it seems appropriate to throw in an ‘in bed’ after the cookie is read out loud. And sometimes I’m too full to eat mine – so I save it for later.

This cookie, the one that didn’t sit well with me, I went back and forth about it – but how do youbecome something without doing something? Doesn’t one have to keep moving and doing in order to form an identity? What is it you mean, Mr. Fortune Cookie, by this? I found that arguing with a fortune cookie is fruitless, so I tried to ignore it instead.

But I’ve been thinking about this cookie and my laundry list of back up plans: Teach English in Asia, Peace Corps, Teach for America, AmeriCorps, Holden Village, Hospitality work in Puerto Rico – anything that takes me out of Fargo and gets me doing something, anything, preferably for (even) a small amount of money. Something that might do some good for some people or give me experience. Something that allows me to travel, pay off bills. Anything.

Things to kill time.

But the only things I’ve ever succeeded in filling out the applications for, or put any effort into, are the things related to writing. The rest are just back up plans. They are the things that I’ll do if I don’t know what else to do. If the writing doesn’t succeed. If I get so hard up for cash. If I need to run away.

I’m afraid of the writing too, though, and I never quite pull through on projects (at least not yet), because I’m still trying to retrain my head into believing that writing is in fact a career and a career I am capable of. (Dangling preposition?)

So, once I stopped arguing with this cookie, I’m wondering if the point might be to stop and listen to what it is you actually want to do – and go from there. Clearly I can write anywhere, but maybe I should be a writer first (whatever that means) and then worry about the doing, rather than doing things haphazardly just to fill space and time.

To be fair, some may be more lost than I ever was. Writing’s what I’ve wanted to do for a long time, I just never thought it was a possibility. Maybe others aren’t so lucky. Maybe flailing about is what they need. Lots and lots of doing until they figure out what they are, or that they can be what they want, or have enough money to not do anything in particular at all.