why the writing, all of a sudden?

© amy pang

I'm terribly undisciplined when it comes to my personal writing. I get excited by an idea, fall into a pattern of diligently authoring carefully crafted pieces and posts, and abandon the enterprise altogether when my time and energy are needed elsewhere.

Writing something every day is daunting. There are days when I don't have much to say, or I struggle with the words. Sometimes I read something that I've dashed off, and I think, "Ugh. How banal."

Then there are times, like this season, when I'm feeling restless and need to create. And I'm approaching this literary fecundity with the idea that I should stop worrying about the 'carefully crafted' part. Good grammar and spelling are still important, of course. But I don't need to mess around with finding the most artful way to say something; it will keep me from breaking out of my self-imposed hamster ball. I'm trapped within my own relentless need for perfection.

As my boss is fond of saying, "Perfect is the enemy of good."

I had lunch with a friend, who also writes and is a photographer, the other day, and I mentioned that I blog for myself and have one hosted on HuffPo that I've sadly neglected for nearly a year. I had plenty of excuses: no time, no ideas, no recurring themes.

To paraphrase his response: be yourself. Write. You don't need themes; those become stale.

You can't run a marathon well without training. My scratchings here are my boot camp.

taking stock

the setting: it’s an early Saturday morning. the fan is on. the cat is sleeping with his head tucked into the duvet, his pose relaxed. streaming Leon Bridges, whose throwback style is appropriate for unwinding, reconnecting with emotions, feeling good. I heard birds chirping their business outside. 

I have been itching to write and express again. I’ve been lacking the energy and discipline to do so. and here I am trying to jumpstart my motivation yet another time. 

I know better than to make this a goal. I fail at goals because I get distracted from the path when something different and interesting makes me wander to the side. this is the pattern of my life: let the path be the sure and steady, explore the parallels and tangents, then go back to steady ground.

this time, I’ll meander.

I won’t set expectations.

just go.

set adrift on memory bliss

I've been the proud owner of a Mac Mini for more than a year, and I love that li'l white box. Its predecessor was a bondi blue G3 tower with a now laughable 6 gig hard drive. We had wonderful times, the G3 and I. That's a post for another day.

Last night I finally pulled my personal work off the G3 - portolio, tax returns, cover letters and resumes, and the piece de resistance: fiction and columns spanning nearly 20 years. Twenty! I reread the novel, a work in progress since I was 18. I looked at articles written for webzines and friends' websites. I found a chat transcript from 2002 where W. and I were attempting to resurrect our '90s webzine; five years later, we're still talking about it.

I came away with a single happy thought: I found my voice around 2000. The voice hasn't changed, but the writing, I'd like to think, has become more fully realized and complete. And the voice is one of wryness, honesty, rapidfire wit, passion, a "screw it, I'm going to say this, and people can take it in whatever way they want" mentality, a little precious, maybe too much in love with being clever.

I miss writing. Specifically, I miss the luxury of time + energy + inspiration that jumpstarted the flow. Looking over my past work last night has relit the fuse. I've a book in me yet. Or, I'll collect my various bits and bobs and label it a collection of my best of.

to the left, to the left

I'm listening to Beyonce singing "Irreplaceable"*. It is a sterling example of a pop song done right. Catchy melody, girl power theme, kicking bad boyfriend to the curb - what else does one need?

The premise of the song is interesting. Seems that Beyonce's man has been misbehaving - "Because you was untrue/Rolling her around in the car that I bought you" - and he's a kept man to boot. She's kicking him out of her house, taking back all the gifts, telling him, "I can have another you in a minute/Matter fact, he'll be here any minute."

Snap!

Despite all the tough chick posturing, she allows one moment of vulnerability: "So since I'm not your everything/How about I'll be nothing/Nothing at all to you?" That's why we fall in love; we want to be the center of the universe, the locus of our lover's life. And when we fall out of orbit, it's a disorienting feeling. We feel betrayed, unwanted, insecure. We reach the crossroads: do we continue with this person for whom we fell so deeply, or do we roll the dice and find another?

The trade-off for high passion and the rush of being with someone new is tending a slow burning and oftentimes unexciting flame. Let's be honest - relationships are hard work. Otherwise, you wouldn't see as many people giving up as you do. But there are times when something has run its course, and we need to be intuitive enough to recognize it.

Then we can step off to the left and move on.


* yeah, I know this song was released ages ago. And it's still damn good.

eq

Z is now getting into the habit of saying "I love you" at spontaneous moments. I thoroughly encourage this. When she gets to be of a certain age, the ability to say "I love you" without reservation to the love[s] of her life will be crucial.

I didn't grow up in an emotionally open household; to this day I repress a lot of things that I shouldn't. It's plain unhealthy. This is one thing that I don't want to bequeath to my children. The repression, I think, keeps me from being completely emotionally involved in relationships. True intimacy is very scary. When I've tried to be more open with my feelings, I've been shot down, ridiculed, dismissed. And that makes me even more angry and withdrawn and disinclined to be deeply and truly involved.

But what I can do is not let this manifest in my kids. I've horrified myself by hearing the words "That's not a big deal, stop crying" come out of my mouth. Why not just say, "Whatever you're feeling is unimportant"? Same effect, no? I freely admit it's an ass pain to be endlessly patient, infinitely understanding, but I see in Z now that approaching problems with logic and compassion goes much further than saying "Because I said so." She's a fabulous little girl and goddamnit, I'm not going to hinder her emotional development in any way.

I don't let a day go by without saying "I love you" to each of them. Maybe I overcompensate by kissing and hugging them all too much. But I've never know a kid their ages to turn down a kiss and a hug. Somehow, I'm doing something right.

favorite words

confluence

unclear

mirepoix

allegedly

fabulous

well...

songs that moved me today

Hallelujah / Jeff Buckley

Accidental Babies / Damien Rice

why blog?

I've never kept a diary in my life, save the time when I was eight and wrote about a crush I had on some older guy [he probably was 12 or thereabouts] in Chinese class and my mom naturally read the entry and subsequently gave me a lecture on love crap that to this day makes me go red. Mortification, my soul is yours.

Anyway. Being publicly anonymous has its advantages. I'm speaking to an unseen audience and thusly can be freer in what I want to say. [note: what is the sound of one hand clapping?] I'm not interested in competing with everyone else on Blogger and elsewhere. This is a haven for me and random friends stopping along the way. Some inside jokes, some catching up with the news from my front, some thoughts that generally have no place in everyday conver.

It's also a good place to experiment with turns of phrase, such as "mortification, my soul is yours." My everyday speech is decidedly more pedestrian. Then again, I can't go around talking like a weird 19th century grunge refugee either.

awakening

Since we moved to Chicago, I feel as though I'd been living in a period of dormancy insofar as writing and other creative pursuits go. Now that the kids are less dependent and I've found a cool, new group of friends who are invigorating and awesome in so many ways, the sleeper is awakening. For a month, I've been trying to write something, no matter how short, every day. The blog counts. I viewed my sad posting history; I'm going to surpass 2005 and 2006 with posts from 2007 alone! And it's neat to see the files piling up in their special folder on the hard drive.

I'm still working on the resolutions. Again, what is September going to bring? I need to get working on that time machine.

my favorite new saying, no. 2

"Engage the filter."

Otherwise known as, "Self edit! Self edit!"

the book pile

I have no business buying any more books because the current pile of unread, untouched goodness now includes:

Special Topics in Calamity Physics/Marisha Pessl
Cloud Atlas/David Mitchell
The Omnivores' Dilemna/Michael Pollan
Dreams from My Father/Barack Obama
Toast/Nigel Slater
What is the What/Dave Eggers
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle/Barbara Kingsolver
Arthur & George/Julian Barnes

And I just ordered a signed 1st of Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" (because I love him) and Haruki Murakami's "After Dark". I am going to become the crazy old woman who is crushed to death by piles of unread literature.

Let's not forget the last two Harry Potters AND the new one coming out in July that I've already pre-ordered. Come on, it's a landmark event! The kids will inherit those anyway (except for the special first edition Bloomsbury hardcover. That one will end up on Antiques Roadshow one of these years.). Oh, how I like to justify the addiction.

Someone, please, tell me to stop. But not really.

the nicest thing anyone's ever written about me

I was poking around on Friendster - nice that I haven't looked at it since 2003 and forgot about it. So I updated my profile slightly. And saw Kennedy's comment:

Amy is smart, creative, pretty, and has a
wonderful smile. But don't let that fool you.
She will kick your ass if you get on her bad
side, and you'll be all "what the..." and she'll
be all "that's right, bee-yatch!!"

I heart ya! Mwah!

my favorite new saying

"Stupid should hurt."

Go on, spread the love!

the vocabulary of a 17 month old boy

Our Mr. O has been diligently expanding his vocabulary. Below is a current list of favorite words.

snuh = snow

snah = snack

nana = banana, also a code word for "give me something that's good 'n' tasty to eat because I will expire from hunger in three seconds if you don't"

baba = bottle, of course. Can also be code for "sippy cup"

meh = milk

da = downstairs, also "what's that?", also an all-purpose term for anything for which we don't know the word yet

Mah! = Max, the name of one of our cats

Mah! = Coco, the name of the other cat

Cah! = cat

mama = mama

dada = daddy

duhduh = Zee

Duh! = duck

Cuh! = cow

aaaaaaarrrrrrrr = growling sound, can be related to polar bears, lions, tigers or bears in general. Occasionally related to pirates.

Dun! = done, as in "I'm done with dinner. I'll throw it on the floor if you don't clear my placesetting fast enough...oops, you're too late."

boh = book

baf = bath

No! = No!

melancholy playlist

Not really melancholy, perhaps, but more of a quiet, reflective type of music that you'd listen to on a drizzly Sunday afternoon.

1. Fall at Your Feet / Crowded House

2. More than This / Roxy Music

3. Save Me / Aimee Mann

4. Solsbury Hill / Peter Gabriel