Month: June 2018

New (ab)Normal

I probably shouldn’t blog when I’m pissed. I definitely shouldn’t blog with a large alcoholic drink at my side. I’m about to do both. Sorry, but I couldn’t edit my thoughts enough to limit to tweets. I am appalled and disgusted by how many people don’t want to understand just how deep a pile of shit this country is in right now, how deep it’s been since November 8, 2016. No, I’m not talking about 45 supporters, I’m talking democrats, those who consider themselves part of the resistance. Yes, they’re upset. Yes, they’re marching, they’re calling their representatives, they’re gasping at the thought of a hardline rightwing (and likely unqualified, given the other picks from this administration) Republican taking Justice Kennedy’s spot on the Supreme Court…and then they’re saying, well, midterm elections are only four months away. Well, at least we’re in a blue state.

Well, wake up, buttercup, all bets are off. Everyone knows by now this administration chose to separate and cage babies taken from their parents, who came to our borders because they were desperate, seeking refugee status in a nation that was, until recently, a reasonable shot at a reasonably safe life. Now we’re hearing about children as young as 3 years old in immigration court without their parents. 3. In court. Because if they deserve to live here, they’ll pull themselves up by their diaper tabs and orate like Atticus Finch? Stop for a second and think about how completely insane and evil that is. Now tell me how certain you are that living in a blue state, in a country that isn’t red, but black and blue, will keep you safe. If this government can decide to deny due process to refugees, they can decide to deny it to you.

Years ago I entered the world of being a medical needs parent. Not when kiddo was born, but a few years later. That’s when I learned, really learned, the idea of a new normal. Because at first, it’s natural, understandable, and probably healthy, to wait for and expect things to go back to normal. Surprise! That day doesn’t come. And you learn about the concept of new normal. And you think you will adjust. And then another medication fails, and another diagnosis is added, and then another diagnosis is questioned, expectations are adjusted, lather, rinse, repeat, ad infinitum. And then you reach a point where you understand new normal means constantly shifting. Along the way, you understand a lot of the old normal still applies. You still have to do laundry, make dinner, grocery shop, clean the toilet. Now you add more time in the pharmacy than you dreamed possible. Making sure all electronics are charged and ready to go at a moment’s notice becomes second nature. When things are bad, you make sure there are frozen dinners in the fridge in case of emergency, make sure there are always enough clean clothes in case that potential trip to the hospital has to happen right. now. You learn to be patient. You learn to wait-and-see without turning away. You learn how to argue, plead your case, and spend eleventy billion hours on the phone fighting with the health insurance company. Politely. And you learn polite doesn’t mean saying thank you and accepting when needed coverage is denied. You still get to laugh, enjoy good moments as they come along, treasure the people and friendships you make in this new abnormal world, and appreciate those friends from your old world who understand they cannot understand your new normal-abnormal, and hang in there anyway despite canceled plans because of illness, side effects, hospitalizations.

You know what you don’t get to do? Pretend that all this new abnormal is all going to disappear. Not only disappear, but leave no permanent scars on all involved. You don’t get to pretend that a momentary meltdown equals problem solved, or now you can ignore all the unpleasantness for the next month, or week. You don’t get to pretend, regardless of what gets worse or what gets better, that all involved aren’t irrevocably changed, shaped by these experiences, permanently on guard. You don’t get to pretend because this time it isn’t your kid hooked up to a gazillion tubes that the other kid who is there is purely theoretical. That is someone’s child. Maybe someone you know and care about, maybe not, but you know how easily that could be your child. As easily as the little one in a cage, in a strange country, climbing on a table in front of a judge when they’re too young to understand what a judge is, that child could be your child, whether you want to admit it or not.

America is sick. This is a chronic illness, that may or may not be fatal. We don’t get to pretend this illness isn’t insidious and progressive. Not even if neither you or none of those you care about have pre-existing conditions, or brown skin, or faith that isn’t Christian, or a uterus. None of us. It doesn’t matter if you’re appalled or offended. This is where we are, and we can’t possibly slow this descent into rotten banana republic if we’re still pretending the banana is just a little soft.

Words being Served

The Martyrdom of Saint Barbara, Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca. 1510 (yes, this photo is crooked)

Let’s talk about words. I was going to limit myself to “C” words, but I think I’m going to throw caution to the wind and use all 26 letters of the alphabet. Special focus though, on c words. Like cage. And f words. Like fuck, I was right, my country is turning into Nazi Germany. Or turn the clock back further, to pre-civil war legal slavery, or the atrocities visited upon Native Americans and their children, all in the name of white makes right. *excuse me while I puke* And yet, even with 26 letters to make an infinite number of words, they are inadequate.

Over the years, this little blog has provoked some reactions. Some, as I talked about the other day, positive. Other reactions have been scolding, “be positive!” “don’t talk politics, you could turn people off, offend someone!” Ah yes, the sword of offense. A few years back that caused me to shrug. If you didn’t like my politics or my honesty, you weren’t my reader–that goes for both blogging and fiction. By now, if you are offended by my discussing politics, I find you to be both offensive and an affront to humanity. I see too many supporting this ugliness, these atrocities promised and being perpetrated by our government. And I see many more hiding behind the “virtue” of being apolitical. Some offering the Bible as proof there’s no need to worry about politics, God is in charge. That isn’t virtue, and in these times, it isn’t apolitical. It’s condoning. It’s support for conspiracy and crimes against humanity; in the names of greed, misogyny, and racism. It’s gaslighting of throwing around the word collusion–sounds so official and yet is meaningless in a court of law. It’s caging babies, turning a blind eye to the internment of thousands of children. It’s a lack of compassion signifying sociopathy spreading like genital warts.

There are those of us who are horrified, appalled by the images and audio coming out of these baby jails, those of us whose hearts are being shredded as we imagine being that mother, that father whose child has been stolen–for the sin of hoping to find a better, safer life than the one they left behind. As we imagine being that little girl sexually assaulted by a deputy, her mother blackmailed with threats of deportation. It helps no one to deny there are also those who are gleeful when seeing those same images, laugh at the audio, can’t imagine the terrified, traumatized child with Down’s syndrome as their own because they see her as damaged. Brown. Other. Not a “real” child. They prefer to snicker about liberal tears, pretend shock and offense at the language of Robert DeNiro and Samantha Bee.

I follow several lit agents on Twitter, and a smattering have always included some politics in their feeds, recently more, and in the past couple of days, a few have made reference to being told they shouldn’t–their response being a wholly satisfying fuck you. Some literally, some more politely. I have nothing but respect and admiration for those who will not make a distinction between their business and their humanity. I don’t care what you write or represent, lit fic, sci-fi/fantasy or erotica, this is the literary world. Telling the stories that need to be told, offering illumination to darkness, offering opportunities for everyone–no matter their life circumstance–to find characters that reflect who they are and who they want to be, say the words they wish they could say, offer comfort to those who need it and provoke those who are too comfortable. Publishing is a business, and the business is humanity.

A nation of laws is only as good as the people writing and enforcing those laws. Laws are not just by virtue of being written. Currently, we aren’t living by the rules of a democratic society. We have a spineless GOP in control that has given away the power inherent in their branch of government, enabling this hateful windbag-in-chief and his misogynist, white supremacist cabinet. An entire administration that defines avarice and corruption.

Sometimes silence is strength. This isn’t one of those times. If we do not speak out, we are sacrificing human beings for the sake of…what? Words are what we have. Right now, they’re about all we have. They are the power of possibility, the power of reason, the power of change. Don’t give away any of them. Especially not the ones that make you uncomfortable.

Oh Sanity, I Barely Know You and I Miss You Already

So. I’ve got a love/hate relationship with this city of mine. There’s a 91,000 word manuscript sitting and waiting for me to decide if I’m going to query it or not, and in many ways it’s my love letter to New York; the dreams it feeds and feeds on, the dreamers (not to be confused with yet including Dreamers) who so often go unnoticed but are the framework. While I hated the unique stressors that have gone hand in hand with raising kids here; the ludicrous public school process, not having the ability to say, “go play in the yard!,” having to lug toys and snacks to the park every day when they were small, it also meant Husband and I found amazing school opportunities we wouldn’t have otherwise explored, spent enough time in museums that each had favorite paintings from the Met, a favorite dinosaur (given names) in the Museum of Natural History, knew the best way to have fun in the Guggenheim spiral without annoying everyone else, and that we spent thousands of those days playing in Central Park, Riverside Park, Morningside Park, Washington Square, etc–not a terrible backyard.

I’m here, I live here, at this point I don’t expect to live anywhere else. In all honesty, the increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes have tarnished my lifelong beach house fantasy. Still, the constant energy of the city can be…a lot. I still dream about a little house in the middle of nowhere. And a garden. What I have–and yes, I know what a luxury it is–is a little terrace, shared with my neighbor, split by a flimsy partial wall thing. It isn’t big or fancy, but it’s my peace. I’m out there every morning, drink my coffee in my rescued-from-a-local-nail-salon-just-before-it-went-into-the-maw-of-a-garbage-truck chair, and watch the sun rise. I pop out throughout the day and evening with my tea to think about what I’m writing or just breathe. In the spring, I plant–and all summer, I close my eyes, smell the lilies and tomatoes, and imagine I’m in that middle of nowhere.

The other day we got a notice to clear off the terraces on this side of the building, they’ll be doing repair work. All. Summer. Long. No terrace access. I get it. It’s necessary, safety, blah blah blah, we’re lucky this is being done, imagine if it weren’t…. Today Man Child is going to help get it cleared off, most of my plants will go up the block to my mother-in-law’s terrace. Not terrible, right? I’m being ridiculous. Dramatic. But the thought of not having that access for the next three months takes my breath away. I wonder if anyone will notice if I drag my mug, my chair, and my tomatoes to a hidden corner in Central Park.

Squint and Look Sideways

Conch, eyes up and hoovering crap at the bottom of the tank.

Despite approaching each day’s news with a squinty side eye, I feel more like my conch, eyeballs overextended and exposed. Wishing I was more like him, and could go ahead and bury myself under the sand for weeks at a time. Did you think I was abandoning political discussion? Nope. I’m not sorry, either, and don’t understand how anyone can choose to ignore the news these days. I know some are doing so out of necessity, self-preservation bc of mental health needs. Part of me hopes they will be ready to take up the bullhorns when those who have been screaming for two years bottom out. The WH and Congress have been taken over by monsters, but for me, the biggest horror of this never-ending shitshow is the people who support them, and worse, those who just pretend it has nothing to do with them. Yes, I’ve said all this before, but it only gets worse as our elected monsters become more emboldened, and enact more and more inhumane policies. You know where I’m going with this.

Children. Children stolen from their parents and put in the equivalent of dog kennels in kill-shelters. Does that sound inflammatory? Good. We’re told those temporary shelters only hold the children for 72 hours, then they are transported to luxurious surroundings like this closed Walmart. We’re told this is a necessary as a deterrent. These days we’re told a lot of things, most of which amounts to the static of doublespeak. This is what the United States has become. This is an embarrassment, this is certainly immoral, this should be criminal. Parents undertake dangerous crossings and show up at the American borders with their children because they’re desperate. Teenagers leave their homes to try and gain entry because they’re hungry. These are refugees seeking asylum, and our country isn’t just denying them entry, our government is making the calculated decision to ruin thousands of lives by taking the most inhumane action and inflicting the most calculated, permanent damage possible. Yes, permanent damage. These children will not walk away unscathed. The psychological damage being inflicted is permanent, and I’m certain there is physical damage as well; I’m skeptical those patrolling these centers are coaxing the traumatized to eat, making sure any necessary medications are being administered on time, if at all, noticing a child who is ill before they are seriously ill, or one who is injured who is too afraid of what will be done to them if they complain.

America has a long, complicated, and contradictory history. “All men are created equal” is a battle cry sung while we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, yet disparage those all-too-few black citizens who have the wealth and platform (yet still not the security) to take a knee. We say women are equal, girls can do anything, yet cannot pass the ERA. We teach our children Rosa Parks was important because she was tired and wanted to sit. We watch Pocohontas while we build a pipeline on American Indian land. We tsk tsk about how wrong we were to build and implement Japanese internment camps during WWII, yet still allow openly racist, anti-Asian American candidates to run for office. We confuse the cross and the flag, while we reject the basic principles of Judeo-Christian ethics. We brag about freedom of religion while we make faces at a woman in a hijab. A woman in a hijab complains about the black woman next to her. A Haitian-American immigrant disparages the teenaged girl walking down the street carrying a Pride flag. We take to the streets to protest this turn towards isolationism and fascism, yet insist on Democratic candidates passing impossible purity tests. We pride ourselves on being a nation of immigrants as we make it as difficult as possible for the “wrong” immigrants, over and over again.

If you are reading this, or my Twitter feed, or used to be a friend and are now thinking, “wow, that Mrs Fringe is a feminazi libtard, a snowflake,” all I can say is this–yes, yes I am. And I’m fine with it, because the alternative is being someone who reduces desperate, hungry, vulnerable children to chattel. I am a parent, and the pain of trying to imagine being in the position of a desperate mother at our border having her child taken as that child screams in terror and confusion is unimaginable. I’m an adult with adult/almost adult children, who remembers and understands the long term effects of having been a child in a tenuous and terrifying non-home. So yes, I have to squint sideways as I watch these news segments, read the news articles and scroll through the Twitter feed. I can spend more than half my days reminding myself to breathe and keep my howling silent. What I cannot do, what I will not do, is look away. I will remember I am a human being, as are these “illegal” children.

What We Bring, What We Take

I’m back! Didn’t realize I was gone? I boiled the water, poured it over the tea bag and…no milk. I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t even read a post without a fresh cup of tea, let alone write one. One trip to the grocery store, one half-hearted clean-out of the fridge, one load and start the dishwasher and two hours later, sitting in front of the laptop again. With tea. I caught the most recent headlines detailing How-American-Democracy-Dies out of the corner of my squint, considered changing what I would blog about, and nope. Not today.

While I was on hiatus from the blog, I kinda sorta started a book club. I didn’t necessarily realize it was going to become *my* book club when I floated the idea to one of the more active tenants in the building. She got it started by posting a notice to see who might be interested, chose a date for an exploratory meeting, and then somehow, I’m the one spearheading it. Me and my big mouth, eh? In all honesty, so far it’s been great. There’s a good mix of interests/ages/backgrounds/and perspectives being brought to the discussions, enough people showing up to keep things lively, not so many that it’s difficult for anyone who wants to to be heard. This weekend I was chatting with a building friend, and she said she was enjoying the book club in unexpected ways because of those different perspectives. I’ve never done one of these clubs before (I know, you’re all shocked to discover I’m not a joiner of clubs), but I have to say I likely wouldn’t be interested in one that didn’t involve a mix like this one does.

Spent the weekend drafting pitches for a twitter contest coming up that I will almost certainly not participate in. As mentioned the other day, I’ve been generally obsessing over whether or not I’m going to try querying (through usual means, no tweeting required) this manuscript I’ve got. Even if the stars align and someone offers me a contract, it will involve lots of rejections first, and then during, and then after. I have to decide if I’m ready for it. What does this have to do with the book club? Perspective. Anyone who’s ever queried anything creative is familiar with some variation of the phrase, “this business is subjective, not right for me, etc.” It truly is subjective, and that subjectivity doesn’t stop with an agent and/or editor. Ultimately, once you produce words and put them out there, subjectivity lies with the readers. Not just the obvious of whether or not they enjoy the story/are glad they spent time with it, but the how and what of that enjoyment, or satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, what stuck with them and what their eyes skimmed over. Their interpretation of the story.

One of my beta readers referenced hope as something she took away from my story. My instinct was to deny it, nope–not about hope. I don’t do hope. Really. Except it is, if that’s what she saw. Because maybe her definition of hope is different than mine. Maybe what gives her hope is different than what might give me hope. What many others think of as dark I think of as honest. Interesting. The bits that ground us, what we hold in common through the human experience. (Yuck, that sounds grandiose, doesn’t it?) What connects us isn’t always love. Sometimes it’s hunger. Fear. The rage of feeling, being powerless in a given situation. The desire to laugh. Or maybe just to be transported for a little while; for a chapter or an hour or 90,000 words, out of our own world and into someone else’s. But when we do, we’re bringing our story to theirs, as sure as the reverse.

The Prodigal Blogger Returns

Hello all, it’s been a minute. How do I work this? How did I get here? Wait. Wrong song, wrong questions. Sort of.

I’ve been writing. And writing and revising and writing and revising. When I first began Mrs Fringe back in 2012, it was for all the lovely esoteric? ridiculous? reasons: a spot to be me, blah blah blah. It was also to see if I could get back to the discipline of writing. Which I did. In addition to the blog, I wrote a novel. I was pleased to have written it, queried it briefly, but I kind of hated it. I liked the very kernel in the center, but it wasn’t me. Not as a person, and not as a person who plays with words. Then I wrote another novel, which I loved. I queried that one, got an unexpected and deliciously exciting number of requests based on the query and opening chapters, but no offers, no hey-your words suck, please stop, no fix this-not that. I was fucking crushed, never going to write another novel, etc. Then I thought about going back to that other one, ideas for how I could rewrite it in a way that was me, but maybe include the potential to be commercially viable.

I started writing down notes on those ideas. Then in November 2016 the unspeakable but unignorable happened in the US, and I was crushed in a different way. At that point I took a break from the blog, feeling like America had voted for me to shut the fuck up, no-one was ever going to want to hear my words; not through Mrs Fringe and not through my fiction. Came back, blogged sporadically when I couldn’t stop the awful from spilling onto the keyboard, started seriously rewriting that manuscript. Too much awful, stopped the fiction, still blogged sporadically, then decided I needed to finish that novel. Talk about ludicrous. I had adult child telling me Mrs Fringe wasn’t fun anymore so obviously my answer was to write 90,000 words of political satire. Proof that no whips or chains are required to fulfill masochistic tendencies. This was also a different process for me. By nature, I’m a linear writer. First chapter, edit, second chapter, edit, and so on, until I reach the end, go back and edit the whole thing. I thought hey, this will be easier, I’ve got the bones from that original manuscript to use as a blueprint. Can’t speak for anyone else’s process, but for me, it was much harder, and I didn’t have enough words left at the end of each session to also blog. I will never do this again. Would I go back and revise an old manuscript, if there was a specific reason (ie: interest from someone in the industry)? Sure. But this? Nope. Seriously, I’d rather face the blank page.

Still tweaking, but it’s been written and revised and edited and edited and sent to beta readers and edited and edited. I even have a query letter. Because I’m Mrs Fringe, and the last manuscript (magical realism) was maybe a little too weird, naturally this one is eight times stranger. What can I say, I’ve got my own way of looking at the world, and my fiction explores that perspective. As always, the response from beta readers was split between positives “yes, send this out! I love your words! but maybe fix this first, and oh god what is it with you and commas?” and “wtf, Mrs F?” I’m having a hard time deciding the genre, I definitely veered left from magical realism, thought new weird might be right, but I’m not sure that’s a thing anymore (unless you’re China Miéville), so I’m getting used to using the term speculative fiction. It’s absurdist, kind of a fantastical satire set in near-future New York. Just the thing everyone is clamoring for, eh? Now I’m not sure what I’m going to do next. There are a couple of bits I want to add/clarify, and I’m not quite happy with the query, but I’m finding myself dragging my feet on fixing these, because I don’t know if I actually will query. If it’s as finished as I can/know I need to make it, I’ll have to decide. While it isn’t autobiographical, and maybe not the bookofmyheart that the last one was, it’s…Fringey. Much the way Mrs Fringe–eclectic as it is–has focused on what it is to live on the fringe of this city, this story explores the cracks of NY: who lives there, what they’re dreaming of, and how they survive.

I’m back here today because I’ve been thinking about blogging a lot. I broke the rules with Mrs Fringe. I don’t have one specific focus, I’m an expert on nothing yet have been forthcoming with my .02 on everything. I’m anonymous. I’m not consistent with content nor post production. I *gasp* don’t keep it positive. In almost six years of doing this, I haven’t built a huge following, but I do have a following. I think. Are you still there, readers? It’s me, Fringey. (I really did let it lie quiet for months this time.) If I was going to hit it “big” with thousands of followers, I figure it would have happened by now. But on a semi-regular basis–even during periods where I’m on a break and not posted anything–I get notes/messages from readers, maybe asking where I am, or telling me my weird words made sense to them, some have been generous enough to thank me. Every one of those notes has been amazing to receive, felt like both validation (yes! someone likes my words!) and bonus (it’s a blog, I have no expectation for anything to come of it). Can I find the same with my fiction? For all the years I’ve been playing with words, the question hasn’t changed: are my words good enough? Am I enough?