April 7, 2024

re: re: re:

Welcome to the Sunday post.

JOIN US on Zoom on Thursday, April 18th, 3pm-4pm Pacific, where Jessica Ceballos y Campbell and I will be in conversation with poet Vickie Vértiz about her book Auto/Body. RSVP by replying to this email to receive the Zoom room link.

About Auto/Body: "From odes to drag, to pushing back on the tyranny of patriarchy, to loving too hard and too queer, to growing up working-class in a time of incessant border violence and incarceration, this collection combusts with blood and fuel. In other words, Vértiz writes to dissolve a colonial engine and reconstruct a new vessel with its remains."

Also in the coming days: a LETTER from a READER about PROCESS. Another mini-interview. A subscriber-only post about a writing guru I once passively followed...so:

I was going to write about "how I spent my spring break" but what is there to say except that my family leisurely went up and down the central coast of California, like I have many times before, passing by some of the campsites I frequented as a teen, and this time I kept my eyes locked on the sides of the highway where I knew we'd be driving again one night, to remind myself that there was land on either side, not steep drop-offs like my brain tries to trick me into thinking when it's so dark that the moon draped in fog is the only thing lighting our way home, to a cabin on one side of the highway--the other side, ocean.

We listened to Cowboy Carter start to finish on the winding roads of Carmel Valley amid Spanish moss and green fields dotted with cows, wet with rain. The last day of the trip was the 10th anniversary of my father's death and we were pummeled by more raindrops and hesitant sunlight coming through to the city.

Then two days later it was another Mercury retrograde. I've learned over time to see Merc retro as a time to 1) focus on things like review or revisions, 2) expect all manner of glitches, 3) get a message from someone from my past. And, in this first week of three all of this has come to pass. I had blocked out April for revisions before I even realized it was gonna be a Merc retro, so the project feels slightly charmed. Even more: the revisions are for long-finished projects seeing a new light. I was also tasked with something called an "author questionnaire" in which I have to review these long-finished projects from an outsider perspective, and also ask myself weird queries such as, who do I know again?? and review my contacts to remind myself.

The glitches have been numerous. Someone tried to make a couple of major purchases using my stolen debit card number, so I had to report fraudulent charges on what is known as Easter. My phone's dictation feature mysteriously disappeared and after trying to fix it myself using all the suggestions I could find online, I spent an hour texting with a tech who eventually helped me get my microphone back. The login window on my computer changed location--why? I taught the 13-year-old to how to use the paper shredder and it was one of those moments (there are so many) where I'm like, Holy shit, I have to teach every last thing to this person, who has never seen or done such things. First she was afraid of the shredder, then she got the hang of it, and spent an hour, without complaint, feeding it old papers and receipts. When she saw me take out a staple remover and pry staples, she was amazed, and said she had no idea there was such a tool!, and it underlined my feeling that there are so many things to learn, to teach, and how babies and children are like little aliens who alight on earth knowing nothing and they are amazed at things like a staple remover. Which does look like a little ferocious mouth.

She didn't get far with the shredding in an hour--she was more concerned with getting papers flattened to feed in an orderly way--so this morning I picked up where she left off. And it's good that I did--at the bottom of the stack were countless drafts of writing I've done in the past few years. Six drafts of one essay, an essay that was roundly rejected by several places. My writing and highlighting covering the green-stapled pages (I have no idea why the staples are green). Draft pages from the book project. Printouts from meetings with the editor I worked with. And along with all these drafts, the usual shred pile contents: old checks--and the way my brain trips out when I see them (did I really already deposit this?? Are you sure??), receipts from doctor visits, restaurants, random purchases, old credit cards, random handwritten notes about all kinds of things I just want deleted from the earth.

And, too, a voice from the past appeared--a Scorpio ex who messaged me that he had enjoyed one of my books, having recently finished it, and had just received another one of my books in the mail and looked forward to reading it. I did not engage but to say, Thanks. I'm a part of his Mercury retrograde, I suppose, in that he's reading about an old version of me, and in some part, him, where he appeared in that old life and in my past psyche.

Reflect, reexamine, review, revise, reassess, rewrite, rediscover.

Repeat.