calibr-8

I'm feeling like a failure and it's not just the raft of rejections for the story I'm sending around (however motivational rejection may be, it's still a "no").
I want to be a better person, writer, sister, aunt, girlfriend, friend, whatever, and against all measuring sticks I feel like I'm coming up way short.
It's been a tough few days for connections.
It's been a time of loneliness and introspection--not unwelcome visitors for the writer, but still.
It's time to assess, re-assess, calibrate.
*
Good things I have done for myself:
Keep on writing.
Video chat with fam.
Cook up a bunch of golden beets and sunchokes and buckwheat soba noodles.
Oh and these raw cookies made of oats and chocolate and almond butter.
30 minutes of restorative yoga for knees and hips and spirit.
The contemplation, however, is nearly, almost too much. 

beats like woah

New (to me) music!
First up, Le1f. I love everything about this kid--his look is fresh, his sound is catchy, he has style, swagger, a tribal vibe, dance moves that are fluid and referential and new, and some kind of demented eye for fashion. The video for "Koi" is funny and so fun. Swoooon.


Also, Brooklynites ScienZe. Gorgeous, layered beats. This is the hip hop flow I love.
And, local Tacomans ILLFIGHTYOU. Hope to catch them sometime soon in the 206.

writerly advice

Seeking writerly inspiration and comfort, I've been reading from vintage NY Times' "Writers on Writing" series. So far:

Allegra Goodman:
Love your material. Nothing frightens the inner critic more than the writer who loves her work. The writer who is enamored of her material forgets all about censoring herself. She doesn't stop to wonder if her book is any good, or who will publish it, or what people will think. She writes in a trance, losing track of time, hearing only her characters in her head.

Sara Paretsky:
I felt a sort of desperate need to start writing down the lives of people without voices. Instead of princesses who lived happily ever after...I began writing about ordinary people whose lives, like mine, were filled with the anomie that comes from having no voice, no power.

And Russell Banks:
Artists are a lot like gangsters. They both know that the official version, the one everyone else believes, is a lie.

shoegaze

I wonder about my self--my Self--and whether she is or ever will be fully established.
Is getting older the establishment of Self?
Or merely the calcification?
I'm trying to stay fresh and open and confused (yasss Geo Saunders) but such a state can be so painful, no?
I realized that a former shrink passed away last fall, and I hadn't known. Andy was a genuinely lovely person and perceptive, kind, thoughtful listener. In one of our first sessions, I said to him, "I'm shy," and he didn't say a word, just raised one of his magnificently expressive eyebrows and smiled.
The current shrink is no less talented, and this week she probed, and the pain was exquisite. I'm still reeling.
Tomorrow is a day that I dread each year. Eleven years since my mother departed this Earth.
I miss her so.
There were good things this week, too, and I must remember them.
Drinks and giggles and intensity and hugs with a friend in town from California.
Happy hour with another dear girl. A workday visit to KEXP, where we trooped into the herbacious green room and felt like uber-squares.
Getting somewhere with a few stories, slowly, microscopically.
And new (to me) music! Erik Blood, featuring a new friend's vocals. Check it on bandcamp.

dope

See this movie, people: Dope
I loved it and it's not just the cold meds talking.
Straight up brilliant characters, solid acting, lots of surprises and laughs and a killer soundtrack.
Dig it.


Oh and also: I've seen Trainwreck a couple of times. I adored the first half of this movie, but once it lapsed into the uzhe, rom-com idiocy, I wanted to turn it off. Woman up, Amy Schumer. Make the movie you started to make. I liked the party girl (I know that girl-I've been that girl), and it sure looked like the party girl liked herself. She only started to hate herself when she got together with The Doctor. Saved by the D. Whatevs.