Writing Diarrhea

The most annoying thing about writing I always find is that it’s true. Once one gets going, one is apt to discover that one has acquired an acute case of diarrhea of the fingers, as it were. I mean, I say this with the utmost respect to Ms. Morrison, but not everyone is her. Not everyone is in their twenties when they have children, feeling frustrated and paled in the way of one’s ego, by the vicissitudes, hell, demands of motherhood, and then still feel fresh and healthy enough to stay up into the wee hours of the night cribbing out in longhand all these crazy feelings into a cohesive, if not coherent, singular narrative. 

I mean, I don’t know about other people, but if I stay up much past eleven, I fall spontaneously asleep. I’m liable to fall on my cute little pert nose—I’ve got one of those because, like most American-Chinese, I’ve not got a high bridged nose—in an episode of spontaneous snoring. I don’t snore, certainly not, but I think you get my drift. 

In fact, I am overly fond of sleep, not the least of which reason is I actually get so little of it, what with a toddler sharing my room and all. And a husband who, when tired, snores. I wear ear plugs, but after all, those only cancel out so much noise.

So I’m constantly tired. I mean the kind of tired that could be, and indeed has been, diagnosed as Chronic Fatigue and that sort of thing. In other words, I’m clinical. No, don’t go there. I’m trying to be clever with my words now. 

Of course, this is why writers get together with other writers. To essentially buck each other up, copy each other’s styles—yes they do, think of Mr. Narnia and his crew, Ginsberg and that whole murder mystery in real life, and Woolf and her gang—writers like doing that sort of thing. Mostly. And we all know that each one of those bastards would go home, smoke a ciggie and think, “What shit so-and-so wrote!” which would spur them on and make them feel eminently better about their own drivel.

It’s what writers do.

Except this one. I’m not a joiner. Not in the least. I’ve got a writer. I live with him. Have done for years. When we first began dating, his attempts at being my “writer group” failed so miserably, not the least of which reason is I hate criticism. I hate it. I don’t care. Thin skin. It’s because of racism. Yes, yes, you simply must hear this. 

Racism is something no white person in this country will ever understand. Not unless they go, at a young age, to some country where they look down on white people. So, like Japan. Not China, Japan. They think you’re amusing, will adore you to your face but never let you in. It’s not like sexist discrimination. Not like gay-bashing. Not like fat-bashing. It’s like nothing any white person will ever experience. Why not? Because at the end of a very long day of some kind of bashing, they can still go home and know that you know what? Their people subjugated, exploited, raped and pillaged countries and rebuilt the borders of whole African nations. That for hundreds of years, their ancestors did this. It’s embedded in global history. No other discrimination has done this. None. And because racism is embedded in this country of the United States, you fear for your life from the moment, the moment, you step into social life when you are the victim of racism. Not so with any other kind of discrimination. 

So having grown up with racism, you get a really thin skin. Oh, you learn to deal with the fear for your life, from when you are conscious, you learn to smile, take it. But you have a thin skin. Because you know suffering. You know pain. And if you’re like me, being cursed with empathy and insight from that same time, your skin is even thinner. 

So I hate criticism. Like the racism, I deal with it. But I hate it. and I certainly don’t like it when I disagree with it.

So I crib on my own. Deal with my own writing. Edit. Critique. Do the worst. And I’m smart enough to be able to mimic a lot of different styles. If I read a book of Bill Bryson’s, I can do his style after. I can do Dava Sobel, though less well. I can do E.M. Delafield and that writer of Jeeves and Wooster, Wodehouse. I can even do a bit of Maureen Howard, that mercurial writing that seems so deep, you’ve got to read it five times and you still don’t get it. I can’t do Pat Barker, but then I don’t want to. You see where I’m going? I’m smart enough to absorb the style and I’ve got the insight to do it. 

It’s just that I’ve got this pain. This pain they don’t have. As white people in white countries, they haven’t got it. My husband said it best, “I can never know it. I can sympathize. But I can’t empathize. Because I have privilege that I know I don’t even know I’m enjoying most of the time. Until you point it out.”

And that’s what it’s about. The hyper-vigilance. That is something Euro-Americans don’t and will never have. They aren’t born into circumstances that make them need it. They’re privileged. And they don’t even know it.

How To Shop and Bathe

Dear Alter Ego,

I don’t even know what that means, an alter ego. Altar ego? At the altar of one’s ego? I don’t know what that means either and there’s no use being clever about it, since there isn’t anything clever knocking about in this mind. It’s been spent, all spent. There’s nothing but desiccation and fatigue. Absolute fatigue. Probably shouldn’t have chosen the meal with the lack of protein. Again. That was a clear mistake. 

Problem is, although I may know that, it doesn’t seem to have any effect at all on my behavior. If I feel that I would like something soft and chewy like a quesadilla with little protein or any other nutritional value for that matter, well then by gum I’m going to do that! To hell with the consequences a few days hence. 

Excuse me...a momentary respite while I engage in more online window shopping. Shoe shopping to be specific. I find that shoes are an even greater draw for me than handbags, though I am a bit obsessive about those used bags. A triumph over price when I can find a used designer bag. 

I digress. That’s me, digression. Digression with a bit of scattered thrown in. Wait, isn’t that the same thing?

I think I’ll get rid of Christy’s number, too. She hasn’t called in ages. She used to do that. But not anymore. And I think that Guy’s observation that there has been no effort on other people’s part goes for her, too. 

Although I’ve tried several times, it has come to naught. So there you are. Down to 73 people on my phone. And whittling away even further. That will be good, at least.

Wait...another momentary foray into the world of online shoe shopping. If it were just one of those average sites hosted in the US, well, there wouldn’t be much of a draw. But the European site. That’s different. 

Honestly, I should stop this. It isn’t helping, this whole writing bit. I’m past that stage of early twenties writing development, when I think that being emotional of the diarrhea-cum-self-pitying variety is equivalent to good writing.

And the idea that writing can replace a good therapist, a la Victor, is a laugh. Ha. See? I laughed. 

This isn’t helping. I’m tired. I’m sweaty. I need to bathe. Purpose. Direction. Going now.

Dear Self, or What Kind of Wisdom Does a 25-Year Old Have?

Dear Me,

So today I thought, “Okay, I’m going to write that four pages a day that some jackass or other told me down through the ages that it’s necessary to write in order for me to be a ‘proper’ writer.” Only I spent that time watching a really bad movie. But I was in the mood for Expendables 3, not the least of which is, it’s fun to practice my lip-reading skills since I can’t watch a film like that with the sound on (it’s all just lots of sound effects). Also, it was free. Also, I didn’t feel like writing.

I mean, come on, let’s face it. I’m over the hill. I’m in my forties now. People just will be enamored of youth. As if an accomplishment at youth is somehow worth more than one that is accomplished during what is now officially my middle age. During that time when I don’t just “get” to focus on myself and be really narcissistic, navel-gazing, and then people will pat me on the head when I actually produce a piece of writing worth reading because, hey! A 25-year old has insight! I mean, who gives a shit? The insight of a 25-year old just doesn’t compare to a 45-year old. It doesn’t. Because, experience + brains = wisdom. 

And I have brains. I’m a genius. No, really. I took, no wait, several, IQ tests, once when I was five years old and they wanted to be certain—since I was only one of two East Asians, hey, Asians at all—in my entire school, which at the time was K-8, and also, because of course! I’m East Asian, I must be a genius, right? Well, turns out I have genius in my family. I have a certifiable genius who now, in his 50s, does nothing. He’s a shut-in. I used to, when I worked in a mental hospital at the ripe and wise age of 19, minister to a 31-year old genius who was a double PhD at the age of 21. One in philosophy and one in thermonuclear physics. Really. They actually do that shit. 

I know this other genius, well, I don’t know him personally, but a friend of mine is bff’s with him, and he works at Cern. Yes, that one. And he probably got his PhD when he was, oh, I don’t know, 12. He snorts coke in his spare time. No, he hasn’t had a relationship. It would probably do wonders for him, but men are notoriously emotionally retarded, on average, and he’s probably worse as he’s all up in his head. So he snorts coke in his spare time instead. 

Anyway, I have brains. And I would drop these pearls of wisdom, shit people would say, “Hey, you’re too young to know that!” and I’d write it down and be all funny and stuff. And guess what? Who gives a shit?

Because I just couldn’t stick to it. I was too busy living, you know. Having flings. Traveling by myself to what I thought were very far-flung locales and having grand adventures. Just as a clue, that grand tour everyone used to write about is totally irrelevant. The French? They might have good food but no one gives the tiniest rat’s shit about anything they do. Policy. Military. Economically. Nada. Italy. It’s even worse and let’s not talk about Spain, while we’re at it. There’s a reason all those countries are part of the PIGGS, and the only, I mean the only reason France isn’t part of that is that no one’s figured out a way to add that to the acronym and make it sound accusatory and cool all at the same time. FPIGGS? I don’t think so.

So there you are. Has it been four pages yet? No? Only 1. Well, after all. I’ve got this exceedingly exciting piece to write. Something about a book no one will, wait, wait, now don’t be negative. Something about a book I’m certain everyone will buy. It’ll outlive me. And molder in those university libraries where people years from now will run their fingers over it, see its title and think, “Well, hey, here’s  a book I would never pick up under normal circumstances!” And then they do pick it up, after all, one has to fight against a slovenly nature and appear learned. At least, in the university one does.

Promptly upon returning home with it, said student will throw it onto the couch, pick up a towel, don flip flops and head for the closest beach.

At least, that’s what I used to do. 

No wonder I can’t write four pages. Clearly, no stick-to-it-iveness.

Passage, 3

When I was writing my dissertation, Alisa and I had a conversation that seems more poignant now.

“You know, I’ve always wondered what I would do, teaching all these young girls. What I’d do if I was attracted to one of them.”

She turned to me and smiled. “And what did you conclude?”

“That it is impossible to find anyone else attractive when I have you.”

It was a lie, of course. I found those young girls attractive all the time. One time, my mouth even dropped when one of my students walked in. she was wearing a short skirt with high-heeled sandals. I don’t know what she was doing wearing that to class and I didn’t care. At some point I realized that I’d stopped lecturing.

I could say that later that day, I went home and I had especially vigorous sex with Alisa. Or that I vowed never to look at another woman, no matter how young, again. But that isn’t the point. The point is that I respected Alisa. I knew it would hurt her to know I found other women attractive. So I kept it tightly coiled inside me. That day, I let it out. But after that, I became more vigilant. Wound that tendency tighter inside my chest.

Now, as I drive the fifteen minutes it takes to reach campus, I find myself looking at the women running around its ring. And walking to their classes from the dorms. It does little for me, perhaps because I shut that part of me off so well. Or perhaps because I am mourning my loss. Maybe I just need to give myself some time.

___

Passage, 2

It always starts this way. But when I finally appear, it is only something small she needs. A lightbulb stored in the cupboard just above her reach. I walked slowly towards the kitchen. She stood, leaning against the counter, thin arms folded tightly against her chest.

This time, it wasn’t something trivial. “We need to talk.”

So right there, standing in the middle of the kitchen, in bare feet, an old pair of shorts and no shirt, I learned that my wife of sixteen years was going to divorce me. Not that she wanted a divorce. No. She was going to get a divorce.

They say that this often happens to men. They are blindsided by the torrent of anger. Pain seems to leak from every pore. And the men have no idea.

___

As I stand and survey my new quarters, I realize how much my life depended on Alisa. The details that I took for granted and wondered why it made her so angry when I didn’t put something back in the right place or remember where things went. Now I know. I’m doing it all myself. I never knew that there were so many choices at the store for organizing silverware. So I just decided to forgo it altogether. Now I just open the drawer, a tangle of forks, knives, and spoons, reach in for what I need and quickly shut the drawer again lest their menacing sharp edges threaten more damage than just delivering fat foods to my mouth.

The children are gone, and we only had to work out the custody of the cats. I insisted there. I needed one. At least that. I got the boy, naturally. Alisa was close to them both but even in the midst of her anger, she had compassion. She knew I could not be completely bereft of all comfort. So I got Maxie. I picked him out, anyway, even though he was more attached to Alisa than he was to me. Not anymore. He sleeps with me every night. On top of my back or my stomach, whichever is available. I am an equal opportunity back or stomach sleeper.