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Thursday, March 31, 2011

Dear Sugar, You Deserve Tiny Beautiful Things.

From the couch of AC2, during a manic phase.

I always find the best things when I am supposed to be working. This is a letter of advice, from a writer in her forties to a writer in her twenties who asked for wisdom. It is beautiful. It is exactly what I needed today. It is from Dear Sugar (The Rumpus) which I will be a devoted reader of from now on. (I bolded the bits that particularly resonated with me because it's the equivalent of my mother highlighting the bits of books she likes and we all have to start becoming our mothers sometime.)

_______________________

Dear Seeking Wisdom,

Stop worrying about whether you’re fat. You’re not fat. Or rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat, but who gives a shit? There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her stomach is round. Feed yourself. Literally. The sort of people worthy of your love will love you more for this, sweet pea.

In the middle of the night in the middle of your twenties when your best woman friend crawls naked into your bed, straddles you, and says, You should run away from me before I devour you, believe her.

You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to break your own heart.

When that really sweet but fucked up gay couple invites you over to their cool apartment to do ecstasy with them, say no.

There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding. It’s good you’ve worked hard to resolve childhood issues while in your twenties, but understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again. You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.

One evening you will be rolling around on the wooden floor of your apartment with a man who will tell you he doesn’t have a condom. You will smile in this spunky way that you think is hot and tell him to fuck you anyway. This will be a mistake for which you alone will pay.

Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.

You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.

One hot afternoon during the era in which you’ve gotten yourself ridiculously tangled up with heroin you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She’ll offer you one of the balloons, but you won’t take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do.

Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naïve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you.

When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn’t “mean anything” because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes.

The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.

One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don’t look at her skeptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don’t hold it up and say it’s longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possibly even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn’t say for the rest of your life.

Say thank you.

Yours,
Sugar

____________________

I would paint that on my walls, were they big enough and I wasn't renting.

-AC2

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Bad Cat reminds us why she's named that. Constantly.

And ye, the Mighty Bad Cat was vanquished from the yoga mat, where she did desire to claw all that was dear to the practitioner, climb upon her contorted body and generally make a goddamn noisy nuisance of herself.

-AC2

PS: I (that's AC2) am in the midst of a 40-Day Yoga Challenge. Mostly I've been practicing at home because with two jobs (part-time obviously or I would already be rooming with Andrea Yates in the hill country) and the thesis deadlines looming ever closer, making it to public classes suitable to my practice level is something of a job in and of itself.

Enter YogaGlo, who have an amazing 15-Day Free Trial. I'm falling in love. It's dangerous. I've warned you.

It would be perfect, except for the damn cat deciding yoga time means cat time.

My life is hard.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Daniel Craig would like to drag your attention to a matter

From the kitchen table of AC2.

Today is International Women's Day (I'd never know anything if it wasn't for Twitter. . .no really, I follow several news sources there, in addition to P. Diddy) and is, in fact, the centenial celebration of the first one held in 1911.

What's sad is how far we are from the hopes expressed for equality 100 years ago. Daniel Craig would like you to think about that.



I want to be the person who had to find those shoes for him.

-AC2

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Single White Feline.

From the couch of AC1 writes AC2. That's not confusing at all.

BBC Comedy reveals the startling truth as to why so many cat-owning women remain single:



Oh dear. And here he's just been proclaiming himself as my thesis coach.


-AC2