Muchness and Light

So anytime somebody needs you, don't let them down, although it grieves you.

"Let's be friends."

Those are the most ludicrous words after a break-up. 

It's not that I think men and women can't be friends.  I have lots of male friends, running the gamut from casual to intimate.  (Poor Hammer knows waaaay more than he'd probably like to know.)  While I do tend to gravitate toward women for those very close friendships, there are and have been a few exceptions over the years. 

Even within the bounds of Stephanie-Dude friendships, sometimes the lines have become blurred by deep emotional or spiritual connection.  Sometimes by both.  If there's also a sexual attraction, the relationship can become complicated rather quickly.  Sometimes I've been able to pull back from that and maintain the platonic relationship.  Sometimes not.)

Usually what happens, though, is that I go through this experience with whatever man, and the relationship is damaged by sex and love and what has most often felt like compromise that was unevenly anchored to my side.  Hot Pocket would toss in the words "unevenly yoked" right here.  Moonshine might suggest something about unbalanced equations.  My therapist would kindly and gently advise me to determine what I'm willing to accept to maintain a healthy relationship and where I can confidently draw my lines—with the mindful acceptance that I must defend those boundaries if push comes to shove. 

Bounder and I went back and forth for days that turned into weeks about how and where our relationship was going.  He says he's not an alcoholic; I still question it openly and to his face.  Almost regardless of that, there's still the issue of my caring about him.  He is special to me.  Tierney says it best, to Alex, during one of their last conversations in Persona Non Grata:

"Look, I don't love a lot of people.  I don't like a lot of people, and all these people in my life have really hurt me over the years.  I have reasons to be wary of letting people in.  When I do, and especially when I choose to let them in far enough to love them, they're special.  You are a very rare breed of human being that I both like and love, and not just because I have to.  That's why I get so mad about it all.  That's why it feels so unfair.  I don't want that to have been a waste of my energy."

Part of the issue for me is this idea of being compartmentalized, of feeling like I'm being shoved and cajoled into a box that keeps me away from the other person.  Yes, it is something men tend to do more than women; it seems to be an innate coping mechanism for them.  Again, Alex and Tierney discuss this early on in their relationship:

[Alex Wheeler]  "That's how I am; if someone makes me mad or bothers me too much, I'll just ignore them—won't answer their calls or texts or emails.  I'll just stop."

"Are you that way with everything?  Do you just ignore what you don't like?"

He thought about it for a moment.  "Yeah.  I compartmentalize everything.  I have to, in some ways, being on the road all the time.  It helps keep me sane.  I'm really good at keeping everything in its own neat, little box, where I can deal with it or not, as I choose.  I'm probably too good at it."

"I think that's a guy thing," I commented.  He nodded in agreement.  "I think it's much harder for women to take their feelings out of the equation.  Men are much better at tucking their feelings out of the way."

When a relationship is ending for whatever reason, what do you do after you've been through an intense period of time with this person whom you both like and love (on whatever level), with whom you've shared deep intimacies, and without whom you feel a little lost? 

While I still occasionally have very platonic contact with Absolem, he was always an exception to the rule—though that was no real surprise given the nature of our relationship.  I know damn well that I will always have that tie to him, that weird connection that brought him in and out of my life as a catalyst to upend me and bring about my own transformation.  I owe him so much, and I owe him nothing.  But I know that even if I weren't to hear from him for twenty years, he would know within moments of making contact exactly how and where I was in my head and my heart and my soul.  We are, in so many ways, two sides of the same coin. 

I made the break, privately and publicly, from Bounder, but he didn't disappear.  It was confusing.  It started with the careful arguing and the constant discussing of what this relationship had meant and was supposed to mean and how impactful it was for each of us and why, along with where and when what went wrong—like an emotional debriefing with the only other person who could truly understand it because they'd lived it with me.  The inner circle was great about listening and advising and letting me cry when I needed to do so, but ultimately the answers and solutions would only come from me and from Bounder. 

Our relationship could stop or move forward in myriad ways.  We could take the leap of faith and delve into this and see what happened.  We could agree to part ways for some period of time and plan to meet back up, if the time was right.  We could date slowly for a while and move along at a more reasonable pace, ignoring everything that had pushed us together in the first place.  Or we could just say our goodbyes and be done. 

Eventually it was plain that we were tired, dancing wide, serpentining lines around this place and time that wasn't yet right for us.  No matter how drawn we were and are to each other, here and now wasn't going be ours.  Not like this.  And the seeming pressure of divine intervention felt yet again like Fate had played a cruel trick, taunting me with, "Oh?  You want this?  Too damn bad!  You can't have it!"

So, again, I told him no, that I can't do this, that I can't watch him from some nebulous place of distant care and be flirty witness to his life.  I am worth more than that; at least on this we agree.  I told him to find me if and when he was ready to accept the whole of my affections and to reciprocate healthily in kind.  I wished him well. 

"You haven't given me a chance to tell you what I want out of this right now," he patiently stated when he called. 

Well, I've given you plenty of opportunity.  It's not my fault you've refused to take it when it was offered.

"So what is that you want?" I asked, feeling a little defiant underneath it all. 

"I want you to be you, and I want to be your friend.  I want to still see you and talk to you and blahblahblah."

"So you still want me in your life and want to maintain that connection with me?  But you can't commit emotionally, no matter how badly you say you want to be able to?  And maybe you want to have sex with me, if it feels like the right thing to do?"

"Yes."

What the fuck?

The truth is I don't want him gone from my life.  He is sweet and funny and smart.  He knows me incredibly well and has seen through my facade of bravado from the moment we met.  Even though he is often willing to grant me the freedom to maintain that glittery face, he also doesn't hesitate to call bullshit on it and on me.  He's one of very few people (especially men) who call tell me no.  I want a healthy relationship with him.  I care deeply for him, and he has impacted me in ways very few men, or people in general, have been able to do.  But I also don't want to spiral back into the dark place of striving for attention, of flustering for a fleeting moment of care and affection. 

I don't want to be told no just because he has the power to do so; sometimes I get to be right. 

And as Tierney sums up later:

Alex had kept me in a box, but within those confines I could expose myself totally, free to explore the ever-expanding boundaries of my soul without fear of judgment.  If he couldn't handle what he saw, all he had to do was close the box.  It was how he handled his own soul. 

To ask this of me, to negotiate platonic friendship with the possibility of an eventual more, is unquestionably an effort to compartmentalize me and our relationship.   I understand that the fragility of this cat is undercut by recent and deep trauma, that he could very well crack at any time.  It's a defense mechanism, undoubtedly, and he has every right and reason to seek that comfort in his world in the hopes that he can heal from what came before me. 

I have every right and reason to say no. 

I'm not going back in the box.

Having lived the life that brought me to this version of Stephanie, I am very wary and sensitive to that kind of one-sided consideration.  I was left on my own for years, emotionally, and tend to gravitate toward people (again, especially men) who are selective in their attentions.  Whether their reasons are emotional or logistical in nature serves only to explain the behavior; there are reasons but no excuses.

Because of my sensitivity to feeling dismissed or ignored, I will never not respond to the boxers.  I cannot ignore their calls to attention.  I know precisely how that hurts and loathe the feeling so much that I would never wish it on anyone I care about. 

I will always be his friend, but right now I don't know that I can be just his friend.  I want and am ready to be special to someone else (though I am not actively seeking anyone to fill that role), and we both thought at first that he was ready for that, as well—that we were both ready to be special to each other.  But intention and fruition don't always fall in line with each other; no matter how much it looked like this was supposed to be here and now, that's simply not how it's working, even though I question his direct role in that creating and maintaining that obstacle.

The thought that I could go through this with him, that yet again I could meet someone who could alter my own path so dramatically, and that he won't be at the end of this leg of the journey with me is simply terrifying.  Right now, while I care about him so deeply and want him to be healthy and content in himself, the risk of seeing him fall for someone else when he's finally ready to crack his own facade for another person... it's just too much.  Maybe it's not me, and it is him, as he's said so roundabout, but it's still me that faces the greatest possibility of being hurt again.  To keep me in his web of care means that I will feel the vibrations of secondary movement.  It could be him shifting slowly toward me, or it could be him scurrying in another direction.  Either way, it leaves me stuck and slowed by his gossamer threads, grappling at my feet.

But to turn away from him leaves my friend in need. 

I don't know where this is going any more now than I did when it started.  The good part is that it has given me an opportunity to understand and accept that, no matter how much influence I may or may not be able to exert on a force, sometimes the situation simply isn't mine to control. 

So for a little while longer, he and I are in this weird, nebulous state of... what?  Friends?  Not friends?  Not lovers?  I don't know, and I'm honestly tired of not thinking and thinking and overthinking.  I will do what I do, be who I am, and whatever comes from that is what will be.  While I won't attempt to unduly influence the outcome of this situation, I'm also not sitting passively by, waiting for Bounder to take me out of the shiny box and play with me. 

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Brother, let your heart be wounded and give no mercy to your fear.

I can't stand myself. I'm being held up by invisible men.

I had on my headphones along with those eyes that you get when your circumstance is movie size.

People come into our lives for all kinds of reasons.  Sometimes they're just passers-by, on their way from one point to another, whose path just happens to cross with ours.  Other times, they're milestones and markers on our journey from Point A to Point Me, an interesting landmark that catches our attention and makes us pause for a moment to examine our surroundings a little closer.  And other times, well, there's a purpose to their entrance into our lives; we are supposed to stumble upon each other and learn some lesson, to find some new meaning in ourselves because of something one of us has to teach the other. 

These aren't necessarily the people who will surround us for the rest of our lives.  That's a very lofty ideal, to find our souls' mates and have them with us ad infinitum.  So often, though, that becomes ad nauseum, and the time comes when the separation has to be made, when those people have to be culled from our lives.  That can be a painful process for one or both sides, but it is sometimes unavoidable if we are to move healthily forward along our path. 

I strive to find the purpose in virtually everything I do.  Experience is often mundane, and there's little hidden purpose in the activities that often fill our days.  Breakfast and transportation and sleeping all serve a very defined and insignificant-though-necessary intent.  It's when people cross my path that I am most intrigued, my overdeveloped curiosity piqued. 

I got home about a week ago from Glittery Girl Week.  This was my first stretch of alone time since the divorce began.  I flew to Chicago to see Tiff for a couple of days, then on to Birmingham to hang with Hot Pocket (née Mandypants) and Growler, plus a few other glittering beauties and glamazons-in-training.  Planes, trains, and automobiles—plus buses and a lot of cathartic walking—took me to new restaurants and bars and clubs and shows.  I took Tierney on a tour of Chicago, where so much of her action begins.  I got my first tattoo.  I watched Persona Non Grata sell at Quimby's in Wicker Park, where so much of Tierney's action begins.  Where so much of my own life began in 2010.

 

"Junkture is what you do. Wonder Woman is who you are." - Tiff

 

It was, perhaps, the craziest five days of my life.  (If you know me, or if you've read Persona Non Grata, you will understand why that's such a huge declaration.)  And I loved every second of it.

Sitting on Tiff's sofa on Friday afternoon, she looked at me and said, "I've never seen you so confident in your life, Steph.  Really.  Ever."

She's right.  I am.  That's why I didn't shy away from the 70-year-old woman in a full-length mink coat who told me my purple-on-blond was beautiful.  I graciously thanked every man who stopped me to tell me how beautiful I was—really feeling the sentiment for maybe the first time in my life.  And when Paul, the 40-something guy I met outside my hotel in Wrigleyville held me up for ten minutes to tell me how and why I was special and beautiful to him, a total stranger, I was happy to give him the coat-open, full-frontal hug that he requested upon the parting of our ways. 

With all of these new people skittering about me, I am watchful for the ones who may mean something.  There was Fragile, a beautiful, young poet from Denver whom I met while boarding my flight from Chicago-Midway to Birmingham.  Her life was so different than mine, but there was an immediate connection and reflection of so many of my own hard-fought lessons in this amazing young woman.  When I gave her a Junkture guitar pick from my purse, she smiled and said, "I've started to affirm the things I'm going to do, not the things I want to do.  I just affirmed that I am going to learn to play the guitar.  This is my first guitar pick ever, and I'm going to use it to learn to play."

I gave her the copy of Persona Non Grata that had traveled with me through Chicago. 

Tierney headed out for Glittery Girl Week.

Tierney going through security at Hartsfield.

Tierney with the Blues Brothers at Midway.

Tierney and Tessa having breakfast at Whole Foods.

Tierney dancing with Mr. Stolichnaya.

Tierney at the Double Door.

Tierney looking for Liz Phair at Reckless Records.

Maybe I am meant to come into someone else's life to teach them something as well. 

There are others who've crossed my path recently, and I'm delighted to realize this stage in my life is about practicing the skills I've learned over the last two years, of bringing those lessons to fruition and proving to no one but myself that the metamorphosis really was what was supposed to happen, that there was a reason I breathed life back into Stephanie, that I met (and left) Absolem, and that my marriage came to its unavoidable and sad end.  While I still have things to learn, I can sense with some of these new acquaintances what those things are—in one specific instance, it is trust in another person in the most intimate of ways— and I am realizing with each encounter that I have something to offer them.

Maybe it's a different kind of trust.  Maybe it's learning how to allay their own fears in the face of certain criticism and lurid judgment.  Maybe it's how to open their mouths and say what they want from me or someone else or their lives.  Maybe it's even how to embrace the truth of their selves and to integrate those truths fully into their daily toil.  And maybe it's something I will never know. 

As I was circled by crows this morning—an omen of being mindfully true to yourself and your opinions, of walking your own talk—I realized that it's safe for me to impactful on someone else, that I can do it in ways that are healthy both to me and to them, without having to resort to the shame of keeping or being a secret.  It is refreshing. 

And I'm sure the learning will be reciprocal.  I can hardly wait to discover what new thing is waiting for me. 

There was that smell in the air of an old place that hadn't seen much daylight in years.

A couple of days ago, I blogged about the things I don't want to take with me into 2013.   I've thinking about this a lot today as I'm packing away the Christmas decorations and cleaning out some miscellaneous stuff from the house.  There was something I left off that list.

I don't want secrets. 

Mine or anyone else's. 

When I was writing Persona Non Grata, converting from the non-fiction Point A to Point Me to the substantially fictionalized story—and I can promise you that two years didn't all play out as depicted in that book—Absolem suggested I title the work Secret Keeper, or something similar.

"That's what you've been, Steph.  You've kept everyone else's secrets, plus your own.  That's who you are."

But secrets just suck.  They can seem alluring, shared or created in intimate moments.  They can seem seductive in their intimacy.  When someone else gives you their deepest, darkest secrets, it can feel like there's a certain level of trust they have with you, like you're the only person who knows them well enough or is strong enough to help them carry this burden. 

When you are the secret, though, that's perhaps the most double-edged of the covert swords.  You're special enough to be hidden away, to be a covert truth to be shielded from prying eyes.  But at the heart of that bond, at the heart of all secrets, is someone's shame.

There are things you keep to yourself or between you and a select number of people.  The privilege of intimacy is sacred and beautiful.  Surprises are wondrous moments sprung unexpectedly with utter delight. 

But secrets are the things that hurt, whether yourself or other people.  Secrets are the things that can only be whispered in the dark, because they are damaging to someone.  Maybe several someones.  To ask another person to keep a secret is to request that they carry the burden of your own shame—whether at your action or inaction or reaction. 

In the process of cleaning out the house since DH unceremoniously left, I have been blindsided by twenty years' worth of secrets.  Things were squirreled away that should've been brought to my attention.  I hid my own shameful truths from him.  Sometimes we hid them from ourselves, which meant we couldn't help but hide them from the other.  And I always find the evidence of those hidden truths in the most unexpected places, at the most inopportune times.  It never fails to knock the breath out of me and to make me cry. 

Had I known the truth of these things in the appropriate time, I probably wouldn't have felt so hurt about their specifics.  But now, when they're coming to light sometimes twenty years later and only through accidental discovery, I am cut more deeply by the surreptitious nature of non-disclosure.  I am appalled in specific and in general that somehow I wasn't worth the truth.  I only know now because things have gone so horribly wrong, and I am stumbling upon the facts of things no one else has had the fortitude or the guts or the fucking balls to face.  I am left to deal with them on my own and to clean up the mess of revelation like so much clutter in the basement. 

It's all right there, along with the mud-caked yard shoes he left by the back door. 

What it's made me believe more than ever—looking at his secrets, the ones I kept from him, the ones I kept for other people, and most especially the ones I became—is that secrets devalue a relationship.  They are detrimental to esteem and the trust that is at the core of any kind of love.  They make that relationship worth less than the shame of the secret.

To him and to so many others, I have been worth less than their shame. 

I also know that I have been on the other side of that.  I have damaged trust and love and honesty, in general and in specific, by keeping my own secrets.  One damage doesn't negate the other, though; there's no tit-for-tat in that kind of emotional warfare.  It just creates a mounting pile of broken promises and broken hearts that block everyone's path forward. 

But maybe that's the hardest part of all of this, the trying to see around the damage and toward the future.  It's hard not to get caught up in the vulnerable moments when all I want to do is cave into the crying and the heartache and the blame and hope to Hell that he feels it, too.  Someone told me that eventually he will realize what he's lost, that he will eventually feel the hurt and pain that I'm feeling now.  Whether or not that's even likely is moot—it simply won't matter.  The damage is done, and I hope I will have moved past it by that time, if it ever comes.  There would be no vindication in knowing there are more tears and screaming and sorrow later.  If I'm not worth the grieving and the sorrow now, just like I wasn't worth it six months and a year and two years ago, why will it matter if he feels it then?  In his world, I will never be worth more than the secrets he fought so hard to keep from me, and that definitely makes me feel like I never, ever had a fighting chance at the life I was told we were building.

I have worked hard to feel my own inherent value, to feel not worthless to the world and to myself.  But it's reeling to feel like the person who supposedly loved you the most in the world maybe never saw the value in you at all. 

I don't know what I was worth to DH.  I don't know if he even knows.  I will likely never know, because he will likely never face me to have that conversation.  That's a secret he'll keep to himself, despite both me and himself, perpetuating the cycle of damage that's gone on for so damn long now. 

So, to all of the unavailable men who may cross my path going forward, offering me their addictions and secrets that will passive-aggressively stall my own journey, stay the fuck out of my way.  Take your damage and your destruction elsewhere.  I don't want it.  I have enough of my own tears and burdens to carry, and I just don't have the strength to carry yours, too. 

This is a happy new year, ain't gonna worry me to death.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about all the things I'd done in 2012, about what a momentous time it's been for me.  (I forgot to include both turning 40 and taping a pitch pilot for BRAVO.  Really.  I've done a lot this year.)

But now the year end is approaching, neither rapidly nor unexpectedly—it happens the same way each year.  My therapist asked me to work on a list of things I don't want to carry with me into 2013.  I've been thinking about it for days, writing both in my head and on actual paper that was later burned in the fire.  Now, though, I thought it time to share that here. 

I do not want unavailable men.  Maybe that seems like a no-brainer, but I have this tendency to attract such beings into my life.  Whether logistically or emotionally, I am magnetically attracted to the men who are least likely to be able to share their life or mine.  Maybe it's something about their being inherently broken—a fragile cat.  They're soft and pretty and purr when I pet them, but they can't give what I need or want in return.  I don't want that anymore. 

I do not want stasis.  I don't want to be stuck in the past or in the present.  I'm a creature that likes movement, and I want to continually move forward in my life.  It doesn't always have to be incredibly exciting; there just needs to be momentum.  And I recognize that there are times when I need to sit still, for just a moment, and absorb what's going on around me.  Like a stop on a commuter train, it needs to come and go in its necessity so that I can go on to the next place. 

I do not want addiction.  Mine or anyone else's.  Absolem has always said that I have an addictive personality.  He's right and wrong, of course, like he always is.  His point was that I can easily get wrapped up and a bit obsessive about things—whether life or love or experience.  In my constant quest to understand my life, I do examine the details, over and over, until I have exhausted my understanding.  Sometimes that's just exhausting to the people around me, too.  But this is where I go back to my not wanting unavailability.  I don't want to be caught up in someone else's addiction, whether literal substance or figurative obsession.  I want to healthily carry my own burdens and not enable anyone else's.

I do not want fear.  I've written a lot about finding the impetus to overcome my own fears, usually of myself.  There will always be things that scare me.  I don't want the paralysis that comes with being afraid to make a choice or live my life.  This is probably the root of most of my historical stasis, and I want to be strong enough to swallow it down and move past the apprehension. 

I do not want anger.  There's a lot for me to be angry about, both with myself and with others.  I don't want to hang onto that anger, finding it to be the only fuel to move me forward.  I want to make peace with the past—with the unavailable men and the static and the addictions and the fear—and to let it go.  Not letting go keeps the pain of the past so very present.  I want to be able to look at those things and see them clearly in perspective, from a mild distance where they don't feel so cogent anymore. 

There are also a lot of things I do want.  I want Persona Non Grata to be successful.  (Thank you to everyone who has purchased it and downloaded it so far.  Your reviews and kind comments are incredibly important to me.)  I want to be productive writing the next book, Mantissa, which I started this week.  I want to enjoy my life with my children and to find ways to enjoy this new life on my own.  It's not what I'd planned or expected a year or even six months ago, but it's my life, no matter what.  And I will do everything I can to make my mark on this place in time. 

Thank you to everyone who has supported and encouraged me this year.  You have been often effervescent in your love, and I am deeply appreciative of that.  As big as 2012 was, here's to hoping 2013 is even bigger and better.  I'll let you know how it goes as I live it.

Merry Christmas!

Beginning today, Christmas Eve, and for the next five days, the Kindle version of Persona Non Grata: A Story of Junkture is available from Amazon FOR FREE. 

Maybe you've gotten a new Kindle for Christmas.  Maybe you have a new iPad or iPod and can't wait to download the Kindle app.  Even on your new PC or Mac, there's a Kindle previewer available. 

Thank you to everyone who has supported me this year and through this process.  If you've taken the time to read Persona Non Grata (some of you, a dozen times each), thank you!  If you've been waiting, now's your chance.  Please let me know what you think afterwards.  You can even go to Amazon or Goodreads and leave a review of the book.

Merry Christmas!

Well I know you will remember, 'cause the music is forever.

It's been a really busy year for me. 

• I finished losing 115 pounds.
• I had three surgeries to removed 120+ square inches of skin.
• I went to South by Southwest for the first time.
• I got to see both my beloved The Gracious Few and LIVE with their new lead singer on the same night.  (Plus some other band.  I forget.)
• I fell in love with the Mynabirds.  (Missing Patsy Cline song – "We Made a Mountain")
• I finally got to see the Afghan Whigs live and to meet Greg Dulli in a dark alley behind the Masquerade.  (And Ric McCollum and John Curley.)
• I filed for divorce.
• I released my first novel. 

Even with all of that, there's still something missing.

Wednesday night, I will finally get to see Concrete Blonde live. 

"What's the big deal?" you ask. 

Well, let me tell you. 

Sometime during my freshman year of high school, I went one weekend afternoon to the Southside Festival, which was a great little outdoor music and arts thing that used to take place in Five Points South in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama.  Five Points is a funky little area, artsy and eclectic—and it was much less dirty then than it is now.  (At least it seemed that way.)  My friends and I hung out there on weekends and sometimes after school, sitting around the fountain, bullshitting and getting into far less trouble than we probably deserved. 

So this specific day when I was 14, some record label promo people were passing out albums to the crowd.  Yes, vinyl, in the 12x12 sleeve, and for free.  They handed me two: Pleased To Meet Me by the Replacements—who I saw play at Sloss Furnaces a couple of years later—and Concrete Blonde's self-titled debut.  I tromped up the rickety stairs to Charlemagne Records and also bought a Billie Holiday best-of collection, as well as Metal Circus by Hüsker Dü. 

(It was a very eclectic day.  For those in the know, I ran into Broderick Brakefield and Bryan Simmons, who'd missed their ride the night before and had been running around down there, barefoot, for a couple of days.)

I went home and locked myself away in my bedroom, planting myself on the floor in front my stereo.  I might even have stacked the records on the turntable.  I loved them all, each in their own way, but I adored Concrete Blonde. 

It was the first day of a now-26-year love affair from afar with the incomparable Johnette Napolitano. 

As I've discussed before, I'm an alto.  (Really, a contralto.)  I don't have a lot of patience for wimpy soprano voices.  And Johnette's voice was the farthest from wimpy I'd ever heard.  It was deeply female with the most amazing breath control ever.  Ever.  (Those booming notes aren't higher; they're simply bigger.) 

I was blown away.

So this goes on for years, but somehow I miss them live, over and over and over.  I was too young for the clubs they played.  My ex-boyfriend was an asshole who beat me up the night before we were supposed to go to Atlanta to see them.  I lived in Huntsville where they never played anymore.  They broke up. 

I was supposed to see them two summers ago during their Bloodletting anniversary tour.  I had ruptured two discs in my back and was in so much pain that I had to give the tickets away.  (I cried.  A lot.)

So when I went to Variety Playhouse with Growler and Mandypants a few weeks ago (for the Psychedelic Furs, thank you very much), I was thrilled to see that Concrete Blonde would be playing on December 19^th.  Finally, finally!, I get to do this shit after twenty-six years. 

It's the voice and the lyrics and the fact that she plays bass.  She does the most wonderful covers of Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, in part because her voice lends itself to that.  But my favorites, undoubtedly, are the ones with the complicated harmonies, where Johnette seems to wrap her own voice around itself. 

And, ultimately, I owe Johnette Napolitano my life. 

There are a couple of people who know this story.  If you're one of them and you're hearing (reading) it for the dozenth time, I apologize.  This anecdote was in the first draft of what would become Persona Non Grata: A Story of Junkture.  It was cut entirely when I fictionalized the book, though Concrete Blonde still made mention.  (page 81, at the end of chapter 6—you can search inside the book on Amazon, btw) 

NOTE:  This is still incredibly difficult for me to go back to, to put myself in the place where I felt the things I write about below.  I can deal with a lot of my shit, but this is one of the most personally-shameful moments of emotion in my forty years, and I'm not callous about this. 

The horrible ex-boyfriend (Damien) and I had broken up for what would be the last time.  After four tumultuous years with him, I was a mess.  I was devastated when we broke up.  For the third or fourth time since I'd known him, I decided that ending my life was the only way I would ever be able to deal with the pain. 

I had a plan.  I had the implements.  I was crying vicious tears while driving on I-65 north in Birmingham, determined to do it as soon as possible.  My little car had a cassette deck, and my very favorite tape was a home-recorded, 90-minute thing that had Concrete Blonde on one side and Bloodletting on the other—my two favorite Concrete Blonde records.  Bawling my head off, I intended to listen to "Bloodletting" and all of the subsequent tracks from that records, all so dark and somber.  It's an amazing record, but all I wanted was to let my own heart find its reprieve in that sadness. 

Instead, what I got was "True", the first track from the other side of the tape. 

Well when I've had enough

I'll get a pick-up truck and I'll drive away,

I'll take my last ten bucks just as far as it will go.

 

Well sometimes I'm easily fooled,

Take a painful step and I get knocked back two.

I do all I can and it's all I can do to be true.

And if I had the choice I'd take the voice I got

Cause it was hard to find.

You know I've come too far to wind up right back where I started.

And they tell me who I should be,

I'll never let those monkeys make a mess of me.

I am who I am and it's all I can do,

But I'm true.

One more sunrise

Open my eyes up – true

One more sunset

Lay my head down – true

They talk you up and then they talk you down

And you begin to doubt.

Sometimes the reasons seem so very far away.

But I'd stop breathing today,

Cause if I can't walk proud, I'd rather walk away.

I do all I am and it's all I can do,

But I'm true.

I'd give all I am and I'd give it to you.

So true.

That was what I heard, instead of a song of a crack in the mirror and a bloodstain on the bed, about being turned into the walking dead. 

"What the fuck are you doing?" I screamed into the otherwise-empty car tearfully. 

I went home instead.

So every time I get really down, feel really lost and can't find my inner compass, that's where I go back, to that piece of time (still so fresh inside my mind) and remember that moment of pause that saved my life. 

Was it really Johnette Napolitano that saved my life?  Not directly.  But I don't know that I would've been listening to anything else, or that I could've heard anyone else quite so clearly that late afternoon.  But I did hear it, thankfully.

So now, twenty-six years into this love affair, her music is still so often the soundtrack of my life.  And of Tierney's.  Six Concrete Blonde songs were included in my playlists.  All of my friends know how much I love her.  Half of them love her, too, because I introduced them. 

Tickets for Concrete Blonde at Variety Playhouse are still available.  Wednesday, December 19^th, at 8:00 p.m.  I'll be the first show for me and Growler, as well as for Tierney.  Come say hi.  I'll be the glittery Amazon belting out every last song. 

Shut your dirty, dirty mouth.

Like most people, I've had a lot of teachers in my life.  Two, in particular, really stand out in my mind.

The first one I'll discuss, who actually came second into my educational life, was a philosophy professor at UAH.  Craig Hanks.  On the advice of a friend, I took his Ethics class.  I learned a lot—even though I didn't always do the work.  When it came time to do a presentation on an ethical dilemma, somehow I thought it was a good idea to do a paper on the ethics of S&M lifestyle, given that S&M was (is?) still categorized as a mental illness in the DSM-R.  Ultimately I read the paper to the class... but only because he wouldn't let me present the video montage I felt best illustrated my position.  (Innuendo not intentional, though it makes me laugh.)

Honestly, Craig Hanks was just sexy.  There was no getting around it.  He was only a little older than his students, articulate and gently-spoken even when excited.  And he had these piercing eyes that looked straight into your soul the entire time he spoke with you.  It was unnerving but completely riveting.  More impressive, though, was his hair.  Long, dark curls that were always pulled back into a ponytail, until the last day of class when he would unleash them.  I think he had to know that his students—both male and female, alike—would be distracted by that gorgeous hair.  With those eyes and that hair, he looked like Eddie Vedder and Chris Isaak's love child, in the absolute best way possible. 

Before him, though, there was a teacher in high school, Jean Burnett.  I had Mrs. Burnett for 10^th-grade English Literature, then again the next year for AP Lit.  I also had her for two years for Creative Writing.  I was the assistant editor my junior year, and editor my senior, of the school's literary magazine, Counterpane. 

It was a collection of student-produced poems and short stories and drawings and photographs.  At the time, we all thought it was great.  I can remember being so pleased at how many students we'd gotten to contribute that last year, how I'd actually left the next year's editor with money in the account to start the year.  I had a dozen or so poems as a senior—and not just because I was the editor. 

Now, of course, when I go back and read it, it's mostly bad teen angst and convoluted ramblings.  (I know this surprises you.)  I can remember many mornings in first period with Mrs. Burnett (assuming that I hadn't skipped class), sharing pieces for potential inclusion in that year's edition of Counterpane.  She was always very patient, politely stressing the use of constructive critique.  She was incredibly adept at steering heated discussions about whether or not So-and-so's poem was crap.

Originally I had intended two release two versions of Persona Non Grata simultaneously: one that was sexual but tame, and the other that was fully pornographic. 

"Look," Absolem said to me, "women love sex and women love music.  If you write the book where they get to bang the rock star, you'll sell a million copies."

When it came time to revise again and begin the sexualization of the story, I had to write the porn first, intending to go back and cull the tamer version from the graphic one.  As I sent drafts to the inner circle, even the prudest of my readers said the sex was cogent: 

"All the sex, surprisingly, was good for me!  I feel like that gets across even more clearly the emotional states of the characters, no veil, nothing hidden.  It's just all there, all laid out.  I think you will get your characters' thought process out there better with all the explicit stuff.  Nothing held back.  Yes, the sex was exciting to read, which makes it better for the reader!"

"I blush easily, but that doesn't mean I'm not enjoying it just the same."

"Hot damn!"

Their feedback was good, but I still questioned whether or not it was too much. 

And then, I heard Jean Burnett's voice in my head, twenty-five years later, asking me whether or not it was gratuitous. 

"Does this make sense for these characters?  Does it fit this story?" I heard her ask patiently. 

Yes, it does.

So the sex is there, but this is not a sex book.  This is not erotica.  (I know.  I've written plenty of that and will likely do it again for another Junkture book.)  But this is a story about a grown woman who is in love with two men, married to one and having a torrid affair with the other.  She is awakening in her life and rediscovering her body.  Sex is integral to her process of transformation. 

I went back to erotic works I loved: Anne Rice's Belinda and Exit to Eden.  Both books are full of beautiful passages and descriptions non-traditional sex, but those acts are part of larger love stories.  That was what I wanted to do. 

I looked at what Anais Nin and Pauline Reage had done, though the English translations could never do their works justice.  I looked at Fifty Shades of Grey and knew Tierney would never use a phrase like "his considerable length".  (And I still argue that Anne Rice's Sleeping beauty trilogy is the seminal work of love in the guise of S&M.  Fuck E. L. James.)

So Tierney and I embraced her bawdy potty mouth and went for it.  As one of the readers said, "Tierney would totally say cock and pussy.  It's just who she is." 

"Does this make sense for these characters?  Does it fit this story?" 

Yes, it does.

Persona Non Grata: A Story of Junkture is graphic.  It is steamy and sometimes raunchy in ways that are exploratory for the adults in this story.  They're wiser and more adventurous than any 20-year-old would be, and they are comfortable in their explorations.  And those are exactly the kind of readers I hope will read this book.

For all of those reasons, Jean Burnett is the dedication for my first novel.  I always said the first one would be for her, and there's no doubt in my mind that I made the right choice.  I had the distinct pleasure a couple of weeks ago of speaking with her by phone and thanking her for her guidance and influence, even all these years later.  I sent her a signed copy of the book, giving her fair warning of the content, and I hope to hear from her soon with her own constructive critique. 

I promise not to drop an f-bomb when I talk to her again, even if it does fit my character. 

And if anyone talks to Craig Hanks, let him know I have a signed copy for him, too.

Sex, lies, and rock 'n roll!

About six years ago, I finally started writing down sketches of some characters who'd been trolling around in my head for at least six years before that.  There was a girl, Tierney, and her best friends, Tessa and Jules.  There was also a boy, Alex, who was a singer in a band.  They were young—in their early twenties—and had all met up in college, at the University of Montevallo.

Two years ago, I started actively writing again.  I went back to my old Word documents and a dusty, purple journal, to find notes and ideas about these characters.  Tierney Cavanaugh was an Art major, dating a rich boy named Lawrence Neely.  There was a non-specific break-up, and Lawrence got another girl pregnant.  About the same time, Tierney met and fell in love with Alex Wheeler, a burgeoning rock star with a history of cocaine addiction.  The book was titled Junkture, named after the band.

In my head, there was a backstory that the band had chosen that name one night when the guitarist Paul, was doing an impression of Dana Carvey as George Bush, talking about how something "wouldn't be prudent at this juncture."  Alex retorts that it's just a clusterfuck, this junkture, and the band is finally christened. 

I was in rewrites on this book about a year ago, and there were things I just couldn't get happy about.  I really didn't want another insipid young girl as my heroine.  While a lot of the issues Tierney deals with were taken directly from my own past, I was having a hard time relating to her and writing her.  How I saw the world in my late 30s was nowhere close to how I saw it in my early 20s.  I wanted a protagonist who reflected that, and I felt confident that grown women wanted some of the same.  I couldn't be the only one who wanted a woman who was complicated and made mistakes and swore and drank and told dirty jokes with her friends.  I wanted to be emotionally and sexually frank, like a grown woman.  My own friends confirmed that they also loved Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen, but that they really wanted someone like them.

During that process of writing the original Junkture story, I lost 115 pounds.  I came to difficult and hard-fought and sometimes painful terms with my past and my own history.  I had to look my choices in their almost-middle-aged face and acknowledge them.  Why?  Why did you decide to lose this weight?  What made you want to do this?  You should write about that!

Driving from Charlotte to Atlanta in the spring of 2012, the idea of marrying these two stories came to me.  I loved the heart of Tierney and Alex, but I didn't love the actual mechanics of them.  It was sweet, but it wasn't right.  So I changed it.  I wrote what would become the last scenes of Persona Non Grata as I was driving toward the Georgia state line. 

In a whirlwind, I rewrote the book.  Again.  And again.  Every time I thought it was done, something would come along and suggest I change it.  It could be a comment from the inner circle, or maybe even suggestions from my editor.  But it was culled down to the 600-page kernel of story that it now.  And it's done.

Persona Non Grata is fiction, though it does blur the line between realistic fiction and memoir.  Tierney Cavanaugh Johnson and I share the same birthday.  We share the same amazing, purple-on-blond hair.  She likes to raid my shoe closet from time to time.  But Tierney is not me.  She's a painter, whereas I can barely handle paint-with-water books with my kids.  I have a brother; she doesn't.  She's prettier than I am, and I am louder and more impetuous than she. 

No one in this book is exactly anyone else, but I certainly wrote what I knew.  Conversations she has with her friends mirrored exact discussions between me and the inner circle.  I did hours of interviews with multiple musicians to get a feel for the rock stars, to find out the difficulties of their lives as professional musicians at varying stages in their lives and their careers.  Mostly, it's just made up.  It's what I do.

And the music... almost everyone I know has had some band or artist that they just adored.  If they'd been given the chance to not only go to show after show, but to hang out with those musicians and get to know them, they would've jumped at it.  Like me, Tierney is no exception.  Her love of music is integral to who she is. 

But Persona Non Grata is more than a story about a groupie and a rock star.  At the heart of the book is the problem so many women face: how to be comfortable in your life as a wife and mother and a woman, fulfilling all of those oligations while still retaining some sense of self.  That dilemma is part of what led me to start really writing again in 2010, including Muchness and Light.  Finding my own self and my own muchness helped make me brave enough to finish this book and sending it out into the world.

Now I'm launching my Kickstarter campaign, to help release Persona Non Grata: A Story of Junkture.  You can go to my Kickstarter page and watch the video, check out the rewards that are available, and maybe you'll even decide to make a pledge to donate to my campaign.  It's a great way to pre-order the book and maybe even get yourself some Junkture swag while you're at it. 

 

Here's the thing, though: if I don't get the minimum amount of $1,200 worth of pledges by the time the Kickstarter ends, I don't get any of the money.  I have to get at least that amount to get the funds.  If I get more, great.  There are a lot of things to pay for to release this book—ISBN numbers and copyright fees, printing and conversion to eBook.  I believe in this project and am willing to take on the entire cost.  I'm hopeful that I won't have to.

If you're interested in seeing what Persona Non Grata is all about, you can download a free six-chapter teaser from my Junkture store.  Use coupon code PNGTEASER.  If you like what you read, consider pledging.  Also share it with your friends!  Chances are, if you like it, so will they.

She fills up every corner like she's born in black and white.

I was talking to Growler today, relaying some lascivious detail of some antic or another, when she paused. 

"My god, you are ballsy!" she laughed.    

Why, yes.  Yes, I am. 

But I wasn't always.  I've talked many, many (manymanymany) times about how my fears held me back.  Or rather, how I let my fears hold me back.  But even in my seclusiveness, I had moments of letting that all out—especially if I was comfortable with my surroundings.  Hanging out with my friends, I could always be loud and bawdy and brash.  It just wasn't always apparent to the general public. 

The biggest apprehension, for me, about being so open and sometimes brazen is that what I do will be bad.  Take my writing for example.  It's easy for me to hide behind my words.  I can use them like a big, decorative shield—to either protect myself or to distract the other person from the underlying emotion.  I can spin the words lovingly into some never-before-read combination, but that doesn't mean it's good. 

That's the fear I'm facing with Persona Non Grata. 

I admitted online a couple of days ago that I'm afraid it's really bad and that no one's had the heart to tell me. 

"I would find a way to very gently tell you, if I thought it was terrible," Tiff assured me.  "It's not.  It's good."

She's pretty exacting and finicky, though she's also been my BFF for a really long time.  She's not afraid to tell me when something I'm wearing is bad ("That dress is doing you no favors.  Toss it."); why would I think she would let me spend a year working on something so difficult and personally poignant, just because she didn't have the heart to tell me it sucked?

Some of the inner circle readers have been only gushing.  (I totally love the ego boost from that, by the way.)  Some have been more politely critical about specific aspects and issues that really did need to be addressed.  And my editor has been incomparably patient and honest in her critiques. 

But there's still this chance that it gets out there and everyone thinks it's bad.

There will be people who don't like it because it's not their style of story.  There will be people who don't like because they don't like me.  (Suck it.)  There will be people who don't like it because they don't like anything.  (You have met the internet, right?)

My hope is that there will be people who like it so much that they recommend it to their friends.  Or they go on Amazon (when it's available) and leave a nice review.  Or they just send me a message to say they loved it. 

But what I hope, more than anything, is that someone who doesn't know me says it's good.

For a long time, I could write what was in my heart and head but not actually say the words.  My spoken voice didn't usually flow as easily as my typed voice.  That's not so much the case now.

"I can always tell when you're writing," Mo said one afternoon on the telephone.  "Your vocabulary gets huge."

Indeed. 

Something about the process of spinning the big words make me even more willing to say exactly what I'm thinking and feeling and to ask for what I want.  I'm more likely to be that direct, loud, ballsy girl, knowing full well that there are some people who just won't like it. It's just part of my muchness.

But I also know that the real good is in having learned how to do that, how not to let my fear stop me from stepping out from behind that golden, glittery shield.  When those words are spoken in confident candor, I have the victory, regardless of what anyone else thinks. 

Coloured lights and ideas stacked up high. Where's the diamond in my messy mind?

I finished my revisions.  Again. 

I'll get a couple of copies printed and delivered where they need to go for reading and proofing.  I'll let my copy sit for a few days and try to step out of the headspace of Tierney Cavanaugh Johnson, as hard as that may be.  There's a lot of me in her.  Her head is, in some ways, my head.  But there's also a lot that's fiction.

When I started this project, to write about my crazy journey of self-discovery, I intended it to be non-fiction.  Given the massive weight loss and the health changes and the amount of baggage I had to unpack to even start to deal with those things, I was often asked about what drove me to make those changes.  Honestly, I got tired of talking about it and thought it would be easier to write.

But the story was limited.  There were things that didn't make sense if you didn't live in my life and in my head.  (That's a cacophonous place to be, so maybe you should be glad you're not there all the time.)  So it was suggested that I fictionalize it.

I went back to some characters I'd started writing a couple of years ago, in what was the original Junkture story.  I repurposed them for this, and it worked beautifully.  There was a confluence of energy that lent Tierney and Alex Wheeler and the rest of the band to this story. 

But every time I think I'm done, something comes along and whispers quietly that I should tweak it one more time. 

Hopefully this will be the last major rework.  There will be typos and inconsistencies to fix, errors to rectify.  But the cover art has been mostly decided.  It will soon be time to format and finalize the details that will bring this project to fruition.  And then I'll be on to the next story.

In the meantime, I will wait for the inner circle to patiently read one more time.  I will let it sit, let Tierney rest, then wake her to have her tell me her story yet again, so I can make sure I get it right. 

She and I may be napping for the ne xt few days.  And listening to lots of music.  If you can't reach us, it's because we likely can't hear you with our earbuds in our ears.  Just give us a day or two.  We'll catch back up soon.