by theresa on July 27, 2010
Over the past few days I had been unusually pissed off and ungrateful. Overwhelmed. Spread thin. Unappreciated. Frustrated. Exhausted. Unable to concentrate. Judgmental. Hard on myself.
It isn’t that I don’t have the time to write. I’m just too distracted. I have been working with a character I love but whom I know nothing about. I have been building her up in my head for years, calling her out to play whenever I had the time, and saddling her with scenes and memories here and there, but haven’t so much as tried to take her out to lunch. It’s been rude of me and so she’s been resentful. She will not come out when I beckon her anymore. I’m always thinking about a million other things, or trying to force this girl to land on the paper like a cat.
Last month, during the residency, my mentor suggested I read a poem every day, like a vitamin for breakfast. I immediately wrote off this idea, as I had long ago dismissed poetry as hokey and sort of chaotic — in general, not really for me — but I had mostly been reading bad poetry back then. Then my poet-friend Bee posted this so I went out and bought a whole book of women poets that featured, in particular, Habitation, by Margaret Atwood. And then I started writing poetry again.
Not because I am any good at it; in fact only because I am not good at it. Because I need to learn how to have fun writing again. To have fun at least some of the time. To let myself fail and be able to say, hey that wasn’t so terrible and I’m still alive, and nobody in my writing program even saw that! It’s a good exercise and, in a perverse way, builds some confidence.
It gets better incrementally, but I still need to take my character out on a date.
In other news, Huz linked up with a homie from childhood whom he hadn’t seen in over a decade. This makes him want to work on his music again — while Hugga is in preschool we spend mornings in the office, making love with our backs to each other and giving birth to new babies before we get back to the bedroom — and has also led him to tell me about past exploits which either turn me on immensely or hurt in that deep, appetite-losing way like when we first started dating, I can’t really decide. Imagining Huz before we knew each other — or without me at times we weren’t dating — excites me, but I can be a masochist in that way. But that being said, I’ve never been more attracted to my husband, even though I’d been feeling inexplicably threatened by this new development in his life.
by theresa on July 25, 2010
Last night was my night off. The homie Nicole was going to take me for a low-key night at a lounge by the beach, but somehow we’d found ourselves at a poolside cabana on the roof of the W Hotel in Hollywood, at Drai’s. Not normally our scene — it was so quintessentially Hollywood and the line was bananas and you know I’m too old for that shit — but a friend of a friend had a table and we never would’ve made the effort otherwise. Tipsy off a single shot and a single drink. Somebody even called me a MILF! It had been a long time since I’ve been out like that, and I so needed it.
Ironically, on the way in, I was confessing to Nicole that the pressure to have another baby now was finally getting to me. I do want another baby but logically I know right now is a bad time for me — I have too many things already going on. But for all the posts I’ve written about how important it is to keep up your roll-out condition, I feel guilty that I’m even factoring in my aspirations. It seems like everyone is pregnant with their next kid and over the past couple of days I had seriously been considering putting all of my shit on hold to do the expected and have another child. I’m not sure I’d ever put an actual word to it before last night, but being in grad school and putting this much thought into my goals makes me feel… really selfish.
If I were on the outside listening to myself, I’d probably smack me. I know it’s silly to feel this way. The past three years have been all about grinding for Hugga. And it’s not like she’s not still My Reason for Everything — my family responsibilities will always be my number 1 top priority. I mean, it’s not wrong to have a life outside of your kids right? To have interests and dreams outside of your family? I thought I was past all this — why am I still asking these questions?
And looking back on my posts, both online and off, I really think I just had a hypomanic episode this month. While settling the family into LA, I have been overwhelmed by new ideas. I wasn’t joking about “freeing the Joneses” — I really do have a newfound sense of freedom, mostly about the direction of my career out here.
There are a billion next steps. I don’t just feel pressure to have the next baby. Even the pressure to get something measurable accomplished in the near future has gotten to be too much. Everything I read these days talks about how “not having time” to pursue extracurricular goals is just a lazy excuse, but I think it mostly applies to people who aren’t already trying reach their goals. Between mothering, work, and school, I have to finally surrender to the fact that there isn’t enough room in my schedule to pursue all of my goals right now. I want to eventually get all these things done, but since moving to LA, it’s like I’ve completely lost my ability to set timelines.
The good news is, it’s forced me to actually write things down on paper, to keep track of my ideas and actually plan out my year. Then hopefully I’ll be in a better position to make a sibling for Hugga happen.
by theresa on July 22, 2010
This morning the most amazing thing happened. Unsurprisingly Hugga fussed all morning about having to go to preschool, which I still tend to feel terrible about. When we got to school, I scooped her up in my arms, reminded her all the great things she was going to do today, named all the fun people she was going to see, and as soon as I set her down, she was done with me. She walked off and sat next to a friend in circle time without a single tear! Amazing progress!
It was a big win, and even if she cries again at drop off tomorrow morning, and even if this is something we have to deal with every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I’m okay with it. I’m still learning how to be a little easier on myself.
I’m honestly overwhelmed by all the things I want to get accomplished. Being in LA and living in a neighborhood of professional creatives (on our block we have two Hollywood types, a graphic designer, an interior decorator, and a photographer), I’ve been bitten by the ambition bug. I want my MFA, I want a successful freelance career, I’m starting to get the itch for another (possibly our last) baby, and yet I still have to give my day job a full eight hours. There aren’t enough hours in the day or money in my pocket to pursue everything I want right now.
I got my mentor’s feedback on my first packet today. Completing this program is near the top of my priority list (being a present mom and not getting fired from my job are my first two priorities). This is something I genuinely want to be successful at. While my mentor had some encouraging comments, there were a lot of obvious weak spots in my first story — and what disappoints me most is that I knew that going in. I just didn’t have time (least, that’s my excuse) to go hard at it this month. It’s just painfully clear that I need to spend more time on my fiction.
More than that, I need to just enjoy the act of telling a story again. For too long now, writing has been about getting published, getting paid, getting into an MFA program, getting on people’s good sides, getting to call myself a writer. It’s been such a long time since I’ve allowed myself to be creative purely for the joy of it.
I’ve needed a check-in, like a serious deep-thought check-in with myself, for a long time. Things are great right now. We have a successful cross-country move behind us, my husband and I just celebrated nine years of knowing each other, my kid just had her first truly enjoyable day at preschool, and my life is pretty much everything I’d hoped for. I’m just flying a little too high right now — I’m almost trying to find things to stress out about.
by theresa on July 21, 2010
We’re not big on dates, but nine years ago on this day, I met the man who would eventually become my husband! Yes, it has been a rough ride (we didn’t spend all those nine years together, after all), but today the love is stronger than it’s ever been. I’ve actually never seen a house where “I love you!” is yelled out as often as it is in ours. We laugh every single day and we probably have a better sex life than most other couples with young kids (isn’t this part of what preschool is for?). We are also the most badass couple in our neighborhood. I love this man!
So we are officially celebrating our anniversary today instead of on the day we actually got married, October 2, mostly because our wedding anniversary falls smack in between our birthdays, so we just assume it’ll be a two week long celebration. We both have the day off, and we have dinner reservations at Fogo de Chao, for which I probably should’ve stopped eating two days ago in preparation.
Anyway, even though we aren’t celebrating our wedding anniversary, Consumerist posted a story on avoiding the wedding industrial complex, and I thought it’d be as good a day as any to talk about how we did it. I’ve written about it before, but I never really got into the logistics.
Neither of us are into big ceremonies, really, and I already knew that if I ever got married, a big, expensive to-do would just piss me off. I’m just not good at event planning or project managing and I was actually really against the idea of having guests, mainly because I don’t truly don’t know anybody who doesn’t talk shit about the weddings they go to. I don’t like it, but it’s just what people do, and I didn’t want to plan my wedding under the pressure of having to please all these people.
Still, we both wanted more than a courthouse wedding — I had never seen pictures of my parents’ wedding (it was arranged and in the Philippines and my mom didn’t even want to marry my dad) so it was important for me to just do a lil something special and have pictures for Hugga to see. So it took us about a month to put together, and we left Hugga with my mom for the weekend to fly to Vegas.
Altogether, our ditty cost under $5K, including plane tickets, hotel, ceremony and chapel, limo, attire, rings, and photography. We got married at Chapel of the Flowers and I wore a little $200 dress from Jessica McClintock that obviously made my legs look amazing. I love everything we did, and I’d do it all again exactly the same way in a heartbeat. The only other thing I really would’ve loved was to have Hugga and our moms there (but money and scheduling were an issue).
We didn’t announce it until we got back, and my mom just planned a little surprise brunch with some family, which was nice and stress-free.
For me, eloping was absolutely the way to go and I have no regrets about it. Maybe one day we’ll have a party for a vow-renewal, but it’d only be an excuse for me to either go to Hawaii or wear a flowy pink and purple cupcake gown.
by theresa on July 20, 2010
I know I usually do these things on the weekends, but I needed to get it out there today.
List Sixteen: Things I Spend Too Much Time On.
- Blogging. I try to keep this space as updated as possible — I like writing here — but it usually takes me an entire day to polish something enough to a point that I’m willing to publish it. And it usually only takes me away from my other writing responsiblities.
- Facebook. I had to bring back Leechblock just to get myself to stop feverishly refreshing the page. Instead of something useful or at least enjoyable, THIS is what grouts my time.
- Google Reader. It’s not as bad as Facebook, as this is usually how I stay current on what’s going on and I find a lot of inspiration this way, but I don’t need information overload 24 hours a day. Again, better things to do with my time.
List Seventeen: Things I Want to Spend More Time On.
- Playing with my kid.
- Reading.
- Working on writing that actually has deadlines.
- Basically shit that isn’t Facebook or Google Reader.
