Letters from Meg— July

 
It's been a banner month... ha ha. 

The above photo comes from my community college and cradle of my career, Mt. San Jacinto College. I learned important things there: how to student, how to stand out being chief among them. I had teachers there that changed the course of my life and I'll always be grateful. 

At the same time, it's a humble place. It's two campuses that are 45 minutes apart, so I spent a lot of time of hours-long bus rides between the two. Both campuses are sweltering dust-traps, prone to windstorms, tumbleweed, and days over 110° spent in trailers. The current list of notable alumni includes two NBA players, one NFL player, and a WWE Diva. I hope to one day be part of that list (hey Wikipedia editor friends!), but for now I'm on a banner with my name spelled wrong. Still, it's an honor just to be laminated. 

It's a good summer to be blowing in the breeze and hopefully inspiring the next notable alumna. I've sold stories to Red Room Magazine, Unnerving Magazine, and Fantasy & Science Fiction that I'll be able to share with you soon. I got possibly the best 5 star review of my life from NYT bestselling author and hero to fat women everywhere, Roxane Gay. She was incredibly generous in her feedback and I will never get over it. 

It's a good summer to be blowing in the breeze even if randos on the street cannot handle these thighs and I have to let them hex themselves. 

I've been reading sad things, like Sherman Alexie's searing and incredible memoir, "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me." I've loved Alexie since I was a teenager, and there is no voice like his. It is particularly touching in audio form; he chokes up talking about his mother and the tremble of emotion is so moving and so pure. I've also been reading funny things, like Samantha Irby's "We Are Never Meeting in Real Life," a collection of cackle-worthy essays that I definitely recommend if you fall on the curmudgeon side of life. I picked up Calexit at the comic book shop, because my town is on the cover and the premise of an independent California excites me. My good friend Myles Ehrlich published a heartbreaker of a flash about the death of his dog. If you've had to go through this, you should read it.

I made some time to think about silly things, like which televised version of Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella is the best one. I made some space for sadder things, like screening the classic Knightriders in remembrance of the late George A. Romero, and listening to old Linkin Park songs to honor the recently passed Chester Bennington and the suicides I have known. 

I helped officiate a good friends' wedding in July, and danced for two more. I saw another close friend give birth. I swam in the ocean and let the sun bite me all over for the privilege. 

A part of me is always being bitten by the sun and a part of me is always biting back. I am always swimming back to old friends and setting the table for ghosts. I am always waiting for the summer to end while my banner fades under the white desert sky. I am always finding my way back to the story, living my way in and writing my way out. 

I hope what I write and what you read is helping you find your way. I hope the current brings you home, rather than bearing you ceaselessly into the past. I hope you have to hex nobody, you have a little hometown pride, and your heroes approve of you, too. 

We're headed straight for this season of harvest and eclipse and uncertainty. I'm glad we're going there together. 

Sheaves of pages where there used to be wheat, 

Meg