I had a post all set for this week about mom guilt and forgiveness. But then my dear friend Judy Katz signed up for a founding member subscription late last night. And to tell you the truth I was feeling discouraged and depressed this week for a bunch of different reasons. But there she was. Saving me. Yet again. She was the first person to tell me I was a writer. Oh. My. God. Judy. I dedicated my first book to her and anyone who’s ever had the good fortune to sit in one of Judy’s classes knows why. She is a goddess.
I wrote Chaise after completing my MA at Goddard College where I met Paul Hughes, the owner of the indie publishing company, Offense Mechanisms. A couple of weeks ago Goddard announced it was closing down. A dear friend and fabulous writer
(you MUST check out her writing. She. Is. Spectacular.) also from Goddard reached out a couple weeks ago and we’re going to Zoom chat this Friday. She was the only person I could hang with at Goddard and just kinda be me. Because I dunno. I just didn’t feel cool enough to be there. LOL. Why? We talked about mental breakdowns and walked through the snow together and ate Tempeh.And so I dunno. I’m feeling a little nostalgic about this first book of mine. And how my hands shook all that winter. And how I was so utterly exhausted that laying down on a couch for the rest of my life felt like a dream come true. So I wrote about it. And that book saved me. So here’s an excerpt from the first chapter. My writing has evolved. But here is where it started. Well, no. It all started with Judy. In English 101.
Before there was Grand Central Station, there was Brooks Brothers—Brooks Brothers advertisement, 2003
I live on my couch because I want to believe in magic. Pan-roasted turkeys. Marriages that stick. Cookies that don’t. Dads who disappear in one episode but return in the next. It’s sort of like a Christmas Eve special when the fake Santa is drunk and you don’t have faith, but you wait up anyway because you want to believe in something other than folded Gap turtlenecks and shrink-wrapped Baby Phat.
I believe I’ll wait, you say.
You do a shot every time Cindy Lou Who says “who.” You feel sorry for the Grinch because he doesn’t have presents and his heart is small. And so it goes. Then one day you see that unused gifts are all there ever was, but you keep working to fill the space. And your heart constricts. Attacks.
So there you are, hanging upside down on the monkey bars. The sky is blue. Your Hubba Bubba mouth chews out words like Tonka Truck, Schwinn Bike, Cabbage Patch Dolls. Knees slide from the rung. You fall chest-first to the ground. The air gets knocked out. You suck and suck but there is nothing. The bell rings. Recess is over. You come-to on a gurney or in a padded room and you think to yourself I was closer to the clouds upside down.
The whistle blows.
You blot a bubble test.
The whistle blows.
You take the SAT.
The whistle blows.
You index reports.
Your files collapse.
The whistle blows.
You spill onto the tarmac.
Things go upside down.
Your skin turns blue.
And it is OK. good. At least the clouds are visible and you can put down the razorblade. So begins the day of all days.
And this is how it started. It. This day that melds into the lexicon gibberish of the next. And you’re not sure what chunk of minute turns that corner of Monday into Tuesday. One day. It’s all one big long fucking day.
My Moleskine says it’s been 156 weeks since I lay down on these velvet cushions. 26,280 hours since I pasted on this dead Elvis smile. 9,608,000 seconds of tapping away at this couch lair. I am a leather-tailed beaver gnawing my own fibula into branch tunnels.
The hole in the wall is clouded with moss and beaded teeth. I put pieces of me under pillows for fairies and lovers.
Every day I think about all the nailing and sitting. I think about Dr. Bob Jones, who can’t help me. I think about my mother, who tells my aunts that I’m actually a missionary in India working to convert Hindus. I think about Jerry and Dan from Kelley’s Pub, drinking Jaeger. I think about Heather and Rosalie from Juniata, questing to sell pheromones and change the world.
My friends used to call every day but right around the second year, they dropped down to only ringing on holidays. Their messages warbled into my background like cracked 8-tracks and Chaplin movies. They weren’t real. Nothing was real but the additions to my couch. The fluffing of cushions and the newfound ability to stick to a solitary goal of never getting off.
I hammer shelves along the back chintz section and I think.
I think about the way I don’t miss getting flipped off on I-95 or skipped in line at Whole Foods.
I think about the unfortunate lives of my kids. I imagine they say, Poor mom, crazy mom, poor her. Then they turn to eat white pizza with Rolling Rock. Do they pretend I exist outside? Maybe they explain me to new lovers who will not understand a mother who has been sitting on a couch for three years. Maybe four.
She’s a voluntary psycho. A 302 commitment. I bet that’s what they say.
This is what I mull at 5 am, in the ass-crack of my life. The holding pattern I’ve chosen spins circles and laps up layers of ventricle and knuckle. I see shark fin implosions. I flip on the movie Jaws just to see the way girls and boys get chewed and stuck between huge plastic Spielberg teeth. I see that. What it feels like to be flossed out for the next scene.
If only I could stop thinking so much. I mash every little thing into rice dust.
How is a cereal box big enough to hold the Cap’n Crunch maze?
I can’t stop.
I have mental Tourette’s. But worse. Like that. Screams mean nothing beyond the sound bounce, which is why I think myself into corners. And I can’t see a way clear of this un-blued place. This triangle will require body surfing if I decide to step out.
Fake fat, botulism lips, and boob jobs. Henry Kissinger, Descartes, and Pac-Man. I want to create a Camel philosophy. I will sit here until I’m the new think tank IT KID. I wonder if they smoked some kind of camel butt shit in the desert to keep warm. Is that where the idea of Camel cigarettes originates? I mean, who the fuck sat there in some ad agency or smoke factory and said, Camels—let’s do camels?
A frustrated salesman? I suppose.
I get the Marlboro cowboy thing. The slinky-sex Virginia Slims thing. Yes. But Camels? I don’t get the connection.
Camels hump what they’ve hoarded. They plod on forked hooves. Survive sandstorms. Where is the smoke link? The hazy thing I’m missing? I think this as I curse my Harley lighter, which I’m always losing. I scrounge with my pinkie toe.
Yeah, a camel in a tuxedo with hooves crossed like arms. Call up Vogue, Cosmo, Playboy. Full-page ads. I’m sold.