My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

So, I listen to the New Yorker: Fiction Podcast. Every month, a writer from today chooses a story to read that was previously published in the New Yorker, then there’s a discussion about the story. I’ve been listening for awhile, but the one story that really sticks out for me is Day-Old Baby Rats by Julie Hayden, published in 1972. It’s a short-story about a day in the life of a young woman in New York City. She’s an alcoholic, we’re there for her first drink in the morning, we see the city through her eyes, we hear her thoughts on everything she sees, and doesn’t see. It’s a gripping story of a woman, stricken by loneliness and anxiety, surrounded be millions of people.

Julie Hayden created a beautiful story in Day-Old Baby Rats, but Julie Hayden’s personal story is also sadly moving. She lived in New York City, had a story collection published, did regular writing for the New Yorker, she was doing things just about every writer aspires toward, definitely what I aspire toward. Still, today you can barely find a trace of her on google, by the time of her far too early death in 1981 her work was largely out of print, largely forgotten. Anxiety and phobia fueled her own alcoholism, she’d carry a flask, taking nips to numb her worries. Cancer ended her writing and her life. forever. She did these great things, but she still slipped and fell and ended badly. Her sad writing mirrored the sadness in her head, people found it beautiful, compelling, and yet for some reason, she died pretty much unremembered. It scares me how that can, and does happen. We all want our stories to end well, but sometimes, no matter what, they don’t. They just don’t.

I worry about my story.

Well, now that I know of her, I’ll remember Julie Hayden, and maybe this post might put her work in some new minds. It’s not much, but it’s something. She, and her work, are definitely worth remembering.

After thinking about it, I feel like I wasted the previous two posts. If I were quitting this blog, they’d be perfect. They’re just an obscure allusion to British TV that suited my mood at the time, still kind of do. I’m tired lately, but nothing’s finished, the blog isn’t finished. This blog probably won’t be finished until I am, that’s been the goal, anyway. This blog is supposed to reflect me, I’ve called it a live memoir, and I think I’ve been doing what I set out to do. Life isn’t always up, it’s a disturbing roller-coaster, and I think this blog is accurately reflecting my ride. Though, the roller-coaster metaphor is actually pretty stupid, it implies that we have absolutely no control over what happens while we’re breathing. We have free-will, just enough to make things interesting.

I have free-will, I have some control over my current… ennui. I have to get out of this.

It’s finished!

It’s not finished!

I could put down a bunch of words, but they wouldn’t do anything, or mean anything, or change anything. Or I could put down a bunch of violets. Violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets. Either way, it’s the same affect, no matter the words. Whatever I put down is passionless, pointless.

So, I’m back from Cincinnati.

I just want to amend something from my last post. Saying I shouldn’t be thirty, I didn’t mean that literally, or mean that I don’t think I should be thirty. It was just rambling based on doctors a long, long time ago saying I probably wouldn’t tun one. I was being melancholy, introspective, but definitely not literal. I AM thirty, and so, there’s no should or shouldn’t. Like I said, I wasn’t really articulating well.

So, I’m flying to Cincinnati in a few hours, like, seven hours from right now. Their going to re-measure my trach because it’s still not right, but that’s not even the main reason I’m going. They asked me to come back because the doctors at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital had never seen anyone with SMA Type 1 at the age of thirty, they didn’t even believe the diagnosis. I couldn’t have SMA Type 1, it had to be Type 2, or 3, or maybe something else altogether. People with SMA Type 1, they don’t go twenty-seven years without being trached, if they see twenty-seven at all. Well, even though I don’t fit the diagnosis, at all, fancy genetic tests proved that I definitely have SMA Type 1. Maybe I’m some sort of SMA Missing Link, I don’t know. They’re going to run a bunch of tests and study me.

I just feel really weird, for lots of reasons I’m more uneasy than the last time I went to Cincinnati. I’m thirty, I shouldn’t be, but I am. I don’t know, I can’t articulate it just now, but I feel like such a failure.

So, I’m not entirely not writing. Us Mac people recently got the Mac App Store, it’s built into OS X and it’s a one stop shop for buying Mac software. It’s basically just like the iPhone App Store, click, buy, run.  Anyway, the day the store opened I HAD to try it, I get ridiculously excited about these things. The first app that caught my eye was Evernote, it’s this cloud-based notebook app. You can create different notebooks for different subjects, like, I have “Thoughts,” ” Writing fragments,” “Dreams…” All your notebooks are stored online, so you have access to them on practically any computer, or smartphone, anywhere. It’s a really stylish, easy way to turn thoughts into words that you can always keep with you. You can also create shared notebooks that people can read and even write collaboratively. I totally hadn’t planned on writing this little review, I just think Evernote is so fucking cool.

I love the idea of writing in notebooks, pouring thoughts onto paper, it’s very romantic. It’s also something I’ve never been able to do. Aside from blogging, I’ve never kept any sort of notebook or journal. I mean, if I have a little one paragraph thought that only means something to me, I’m not going to blog it, and I’m not going to save it as a single text file. Before Evernote, that thought would simply fade until it disappeared. There are also thoughts, no matter how invested I am in transparency, that I just can’t share right now. Evernote lets me keep all my thoughts in a nice safe place, to be shared, or not. That’s where I’ve been of late.

I’ve really hit a creative, just everything, every part of me, low. I’m so low, or as Tori Amos would put it, way down. I’m supposed to be better than this, I was anyways. Maybe I’m just not, anymore. Who knows?

You wake to lips on your neck, gently caressing, searching. Cold fingers on your chest, sliding toward your shoulders, pinning you down.

Her long dark hair’s in your face, tiny curls tickling your nose, her tongue wrapped around yours.

She’s already naked, already wet for you, from you. Her breasts, her body, pressed hard against you, her legs hugging your waist.

She’s going to take you inside her, she’ll hold you there, deeply. You’ll come deep in her, sooner rather than later, whether you want to or not. She’s taken you past the place of choice.

You can’t breathe, or speak. Her teeth tore into your throat, ripped out your tongue.

You’re inside her and she’s soaking wet, wet with your blood.

You’ve never been with a woman like her, nor will you ever be again.