Thursday, July 24, 2014

Time

Since I have all this time on the couch...
Once again I am bed-ridden. I got surgery on my right knee, some cartilage under my knee cap was warped. It is most likely residual from my car accident, to injure that particular area of cartilage you need to hit the knee cap pretty hard. Isn't that funny how I now claim ownership to something that was completely out of my control. My car accident... I wonder if my blog should now revolve around my injuries. That may be a depressing blog. Anyways...this go-around is really mild compared to other surgeries I have had and I guess I am grateful for that. Only 6 weeks recovery! Woohoo! I wonder if the sarcasm shows...
So, I guess I have time.
And time is such a funny thing...
I think this is such an interesting time for me. "Interesting" being a euphemism for "really freaking strange." I fluctuate from feeling so optimistic about all the things ahead of me to down-right depressed because I'm still unemployed...I think the youth right now is kind of in a strange position. I think we grow up now to feel more entitled, like we deserve more than we have. I especially feel that with my education I am somewhat worth something even though I have never even had a real job. Anyways, as I try to quell the raging storm of thoughts that go through my head during my couch time, I really always end up with the conclusion that everything will probably be alright.


Professional Endeavor

Careers are just that
do they use you?
can you be jealous of job pursuits?
really knowing is by being aware.
Charity skewed.
Kicked to the curb.
and you just run
and fuck
and sometimes smile.

Success is in the eye of the beholder.
abandonment.
and holdings.
and age.
Time may be the professional endeavor...

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Can't Stay Away

I need to write. Even if I use this space for a personal diary; it is a place where I can muse and reconsider, make assumptions or claims free of judgement. It keeps me from talking to myself out loud. Writing is cathartic. Blogs can be an online journal. Sometimes it scares me that it is public but if someone needs to hear my writing voice, this can be an option.

I have been going to a writing group, a workshop, here in Austin. People applauded my voice. They liked my narrator, me. They like me, they really like me! I think I will edit some of my stories from the hospital with the group and the compile them into a small memoir. We talked a bit about selling books in this market (some people in the group have published books.) They say that the most difficult thing with sales is that the consumer doesn't know who the hell you are. We talked about how important social media and marketing is with authors. Authors are now expected to basically sell themselves and their work through social media. They must tweet daily, update Facebook statuses, spit out blogs, pin and post pictures on Instagram. All in between actually producing work and most likely having a job that produces steady income.

I think I have important things to say and I will use this space to say it. Yes, blogs are narcissistic. Yes, social media is just reinforcement that you are someone important and people "like" you. But this is the world we live in. All art is in itself a form of narcissism, really; the author, artist, dancer just wants to be recognized as brilliant and necessary. They just want to be liked. Artists are really just people with low self-esteem and need constant validation. And that is the way it has always been.

I have lately been preoccupied with reading about the moderns and the women behind them. I read The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, a historical fiction written from the perspective of Ernest Hemingway's 1st wife, Hadley. I just finished Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Ann Fowler. Both books overlap with the stories of both couples in Paris in the 1920s. Both books are fantastic. Both books really dive into what life would be like married to each of these literary moguls. Both Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald were extremely self-conscious; bad reviews of their works would literally throw them into deep, drunken depressions. I think that period of literature is fascinating and Paris in the 1920s is irresistible reading. And the women behind these great men are so important to everything that was produced in that period of art. Talk about artists with low self-esteem...

I also have been letting my trip to Southeast Asia really sink in and am realizing I am missing it already. I am missing the history and just traveling in general. I miss having to plan trips, deciding what sights to see, what activities will be memorable. Oh, to be rich enough to just travel all the time. Here is a quote from Z; "There is a word for people who move from place to place, never seeming to be able to settle down for long: peripatetic" (Fowler, 142).  I have been thinking about this quote a lot and really think that I could live anywhere. I want to live in so many more cities around the country. I want to live in Europe. I want to have a life like the Fitzgeralds or the Hemingways in the '20s- moving from Paris, to summer homes by the French coast,  to the mountains for the winter, back to the U.S. That's what I want. But one day at a time. Here are pictures of the inspiring women behind amazing authors and then another few to quell my travel nostalgia.




Hadley and Ernest Hemingway

Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald


Women
By, Mateja Lane

Now that we are us
that we have a place in society, 
an important place,
is it more difficult?

Is it harder to keep tradition
while we push to modernity?
The women in the past
struggled to find their
voice.
meaning.
direction. 

But aren't we still there?
Swimming upriver,
running in sand, 
trying to find our place 
in time and space.