Friendship, Neurotic Shyness, Pink Plastic Barbells, and the Extrovert/Introvert Divide

I was pretend-exercising at my workplace gym the other day when a five-year old bearing pink plastic barbells and a tutu took a shine to me and proceeded to tell me all about her life, specifically about her friends: Her friend who just moved to Minnesota, her friend she rides the bus with, her friend whose house she can walk to with her dad, her friend who she shares her sandwich with. I listened with much interest, as I have been thinking about friends a lot lately. It occurred to me recently that if my fiendish plan goes as conceived, I shall soon be able to count four, whole entire women in my posse of official local friends. Since friendships are hard to come by in adulthood, and in Seattle in particular, and I am introverted and somewhat isolationist as it is, a big gaggle of garrulous girlfriends has never been in the cards for me. 

I have always admired people who can make friends easily—in other words, extroverts. The type who goes to the corner store for a bag of Pirate Booty and suddenly has seven new “friends” who they know everything about and who they invite to their next party because they’re all such a hoot, and they just know Sally will hit it off with JoJo, and they have this scarf they’ve been meaning to get rid of that will be perfect for Luanne, who lost one just like it in that terrible snowstorm when she was visiting her mother back East. You know, that dizzying but irresistible type of person without whom us introverted writerly types would never speak a word to another human. 

In fact, if you want an example of what a neurotically shy person I am, it took me a year…a year, mind you, to go up and voluntary say “hi” (just a simple, “hi”), to a woman at my public pool who always wears funny swim caps with colorful plastic daises, and walks back and forth, back and forth, in the shallow end for what seems like hours at a time. I liked her swim caps and I was intrigued by her exercise routine, but I figured she probably didn’t want to be bothered by people. That’s my immediate assumption about everyone—that they don’t want to be bothered by people. So after months of seeing her, week after week after week, one day it was just me and her in the water, and it felt really awkward to keep acting like we were total stranger. So I said, “Hi”, followed shortly by “Do you have aqua jogging shoes on? And why all the walking?” And she turned out to be super nice, and explained the walking thing to my great interest, and offered me her 20% off coupon to Sylvia’s Swimwear! I came home glowing with pride at my new-found ability to make acquaintances. 

I grew up in a military family, and I while we didn’t move as often as is typical of many military families, it was often enough that I sustained no childhood friendships into adulthood, and have little connection to any sense of place. I always thought that in some ways, this is a lucky thing. It means I am free from a past. Growing into adulthood with the same people may provide continuity, but it also causes irrevocable and often unwanted ties to identities that people need to outgrow in order to develop. Often, military children have a reluctance to foster friendships for fear of abandonment, but that was never a lesson I learned. I think that for me, the lesson was, “There’s always a fresh start, something will always happen anew, losing friendships is a natural part of life, and there’s always a new place with other people.” It can be easy to develop a sense of disposability in many things, and in friendships especially. But as I settle further and further into adulthood, I realize how deeply I care for the friends I have. How long it takes to truly form friendships. How much I value long-term, lasting, stable friends that I can trust and be trustworthy for. 

So I am grateful for my dear friend Frankie and our quasi-hippie past, and for my friend who is returning home to Seattle after a long time away, and for my burgeoning friendship with my non-daisy-swim-capped pool buddy, (if you’re reading, you know who you are), and for my friendship with my colleague “up the hill.” I may not be able to breeze into Bartell’s and walk out trailing ten new besties, but the friends I do have mean much to me, and I value them more and more through the lonely trials of adulthood in America.

--Kristen McHenry

The Idle Fretting of a Melancholic Mind

With the upcoming event “Work on Work”, and lots of work in my life lately, (a great deal of it aggravating in nature), I am back to pondering the whole “artistic life/work life” integration scheme I wrote about some months ago. As I was showering off copious work stress sweat this evening, I thought, “I’m not doing such a great job with this whole integration thing.” Then I thought, “Well, hell, Typist, did you expect it to be easy? You are Way Too Idealistic.”  Then I realized this idea that I am Way Too Idealistic was drilled into my head since I was wee one. That thought doesn’t actually belong to me, it was just injected into me so often it created a stubborn neural pathway like an errant record groove, so now whenever I start to have any visionary ideas for my life, it repeats in my head with a mopey, Eeyore-like lethargy.  

The question is, what is “too” idealistic? When is gratitude not a spiritual practice, but bludgeon to keep one from real fulfillment, or a roadblock to seeking a more satisfying life? (And how self-involved is it to want "fulfillment" anyway when the Middle East is on the  brink and children are dying of malnutrition every day?) Do I make everything in my life—my writing, my job, my relationships--harder than they need to be because I believe life is supposed to be grim and difficult? Am I afraid of being happy, so I trap myself in situations where nothing can ever be fully satisfying; where I am bound never to meet my potential in either my artistic life or my work life? Or is all of this just the idle fretting of a naturally melancholic mind?

As an attempt at a little integration exercise, right here, right now--I am going to do something that I learned in a recent management class, and discipline myself to look at observable facts. Looking at facts is not my forte, being a poet and fiction writer and a generally overly-imaginative person whose emotional life tends to actually be my reality. I wonder what looking at facts will do to calm my inner turmoil, (or increase it.) So, here we go:

Work/Artistic Life Integration Fact #1: My third poetry chapbook—about work—has not been picked up for publication and has been rejected four times so far. (Writing potential?)

Work/ Artistic Life Integration Fact #2: My recent fiction was picked up. (Writing potential?)

Work/ Artistic Life Integration Fact #3: I just pulled off a big event at work that received a very positive response from the majority of participants. (Work potential!)

Work/ Artistic Life Integration Fact #4: I may have an opportunity to bring writing into my work life by creating a poetry program for patients in our waiting rooms.

Work/ Artistic Life Integration Fact #5: I am getting some writing done every week, consistently.

Work/ Artistic Life Integration Fact #6: Many of my ideas for that writing are inspired from my day job.

Work/ Artistic Life Integration Fact #7: I am often fatigued due to work, making it difficult to write.

Work/ Artistic Life Integration Fact #8: I am often saddened by the lack of time to write. (Sadness is a fact, right?)

Work/ Artistic Life Integration Fact #9: My day job is important to my development as a person.

Work/ Artistic Life Integration Fact #10: Developing as a person is a key factor in developing as a writer, and developing as a writer is important to me.

Looking at these ten facts collectively does nothing to calm my inner turmoil; it just confuses me all the more. But it’s the path I walk right now, in all of its maddening, contradictory richness, and maybe in the end, the trick isn’t in obsessing over the perfect alchemy of integration, but in exploring the gift of the paradox.

--Kristen McHenry

My Book, "Tender Vessels", is Available on Amazon Now!

Tender Vessels

My short story chapbook, "Tender Vessels", is available on Amazon now! You can purchase it for Kindle today, and in paperback starting tomorrow! 

The book is made up of two short stories, "Grandma" and "Bite Wing". The Kindle version is only $2.99! The paperback version will be coming out tomorrow. You can preview the book here by clicking on the "Look Inside" link.

Thanks to Loyal Stone Press for taking a chance on me with  my first foray into short fiction!

--Kristen McHenry

Why I Hate Chocolate Commercials

“What was The Good Typist thinking about today?”, you were no doubt obsessively wondering. Well, I’m going tell you straight up what I was thinking about. I was thinking about how much I despise chocolate commercials. Specifically, the genre of chocolate commercials that utilize this ridiculous yet pervasive plotline:

Montage of a slim white woman in a tailored suit, dropping off her children, then rushing around a big office nodding her approval at things, clapping her staff encouragingly on the back, talking on the phone with reading glasses on while scrutinizing a graph, etc. Suddenly the light softens and dims. The camera zooms in on a bowl of pre-wrapped chocolates, then back to the woman’s eyes, which have gone all dreamy. Then, a close-up of chocolate-consumption foreplay: the woman reverentially unwraps the chocolate, gazing upon it with dewy desire. Then finally, the money shot as she slowly takes the first, orgasmic bite, usually leaning against a wall, limp with the overwhelming pleasure that this minuscule treat provides her. As we watch the woman staring softly into space, a small, secretive smile on her face, The Voiceover begins: “For all you do for others, you deserve this moment. A moment of luxury and pleasure. A moment to enjoy (Insert Name of Shoddy Supermarket Chocolate Brand Here.)

Everything about these commercials annoys me, from the pre-wrapped servings (portion control, ladies! If they weren’t wrapped, we all know you’d snarf down the whole bag), to the over-the-top yet lady-like expressions of “pleasure” on the actress’s face (chocolate orgasms must be appropriately dainty), to the implication that thirty seconds alone eating a tiny square of third-rate chocolate constitutes adequate self-care for women who are all things to all people 24/7. The underlying message is, “It’s okay for you women to enjoy yourselves, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience anyone, make you fat, or mean that you stop serving everyone else’s needs for any length of time.”

That’s my gripe for the week. It’s Sunday and there are dishes to do and bathtub tile to clean. I’m going to grab myself a Ghiradelli square and get back out there! 

--Kristen McHenry

Post-Script Bonus Irritant: Women Laughing Alone with Salad.

Save the Date! "Working Poet: Work on Work" May 10th at The Good Shepard Center

I'm excited to announce that on May 10th, I will be part of panel poets discussing what it's like to be a writer with a day job. This rollicking night of poetry and conversation was put together by the amazing David Horowitz of Rose Alley Press, and best of all, it's free! Grab a friend and come along to the Good Shepard Center at 4649 Sunnyside Avenue North in Seattle for a truly unique experience. I hope to see you there!

WORKING POET: WORK ON WORK

Poetry, stories, humor, and insight

about working for a living

Poets: 

J. Glenn Evans

Victoria Ford

Murray Gordon

Rebecca Hoogs

William Kupinse

Kristen McHenry

Dobbie Norris

Douglas Schuder

Michael Spence

Joannie Stangeland

Friday, May 10th, 7:00 p.m.

Good Shepherd Center, Room 202

4649 Sunnyside Avenue North, Seattle

Phone: David D. Horowitz, 206-633-2725 

E-mail: David, rosealleypress@juno.com

URL: www.rosealleypress.com

This reading is free and open to the public.

Flaming Arrows and Ancient Sun Queens: My Tomb Raider Review!

Okay, so I’m a slacker loser. I was exhausted with preparations for a large event coming up this week, and while I did dawdle around this weekend trying to attack some writing and bathroom cleaning and such, my heart was in naught but reconnecting with the new Tomb Raider game, which has languished in my system tray barely touched until Friday night, at which point I went on a total bender. I’ve now played enough of the game to feel qualified to review it, so here it is! It’s my hope that even those of you who have never in your life touched the WASD keys to maneuver a pixelated ‘toon can still enjoy this review. Lara Croft has been my hero for many years, so, gamer or not, hopefully you can extrapolate enough entertainment from this to have fun reading it.

Plot Synopsis:

During an exploratory mission aboard the vessel “The Endurance” to find the ancient Japanese island of Yamatai in the Dragon’s Triangle, Lara and her shipmates encounter a storm and end up violently shipwrecked on Yamatai. The island turns out to be overrun with hostile and well-armed male cultists who worship an ancient deity named Himiko, also known as the Sun Queen, who is rumored to be able to control the weather and create storms. Despite numerous attempts to escape the island, a mystical force seems to be trapping the team there. 

The Breast Question:

Over the last few Tomb Raider games, Laura’s breasts and butt have grown exponentially pornographic in their proportions, which I merely found eye-rolling at first, but got seriously  annoyed by in Tomb Raider: Anniversary, in which Lara’s prodigious rack looked like a major impairment to her agility, not to mention her ability to wield a crossbow. Or walk upright. 

In Tomb Raider 2013, the young Lara Croft reverts to a skinny, ass-less slip of a thing with barely a chest. Which is a nice respite from the previous Lara’s, but distracting in its own way, as she carries a bow, a rifle, a shotgun, a pistol, a climbing pick, and numerous handy and heavy accessories, and she could not possibly weigh as much of the sum total of all of the weapons, ammo and equipment that hang from her thin waist. In spite of the fact that she’s a badass with a bow, she has some serious spaghetti arms—there is nary a bicep visible. It would be nice if the character designers had beefed her up a little, but then again, her hipless frame does work well when she’s slithering in and out of tiny crevices that I personally would get stuck and die of gangrene in. And it makes it all the more gratifying when some steroid-addled behemoth picks her up and shakes her around like a ragdoll, and she still manages to off him by utilizing speed and wit.

Control Issues:

One if the most disconcerting aspects of this game is when you think you have control of Lara, only to realize that you’ve been futilely pressing the forward key for almost minute, and having no effect whatsoever. Then you think, excellent!--the game has taken over and I can just chill, man. But then you hear screams, and see Lara plunging to a brutal death over a craggy cliff because suddenly and with no warning, it was your turn and you weren’t paying attention. It’s very disorienting at first, but after a while you become in tune with it, seamlessly interacting with the AI and knowing instinctively when you’re supposed to take control of the reins and when the game is working on your behalf. There is definitely a learning curve as the game advances and the more complex sequences require some tricky key combos, but fortunately they’re fairly easily learned by repetition. There are some also incredibly annoying rock-scrambling/rope grab sequences that I have yet to  fully master, resulting in more than one rage quit on my part. But, ‘tis a small matter. I just drink a spot of tea, have a biscuit or two, and bravely begin again. 

Smart Girl at the Party:

One the things that I love about this game is that it reconnects fans with the archeology scholar in Lara, which is something that is present in the other games, but not emphasized as much as it is in this incarnation. There is a lot of opportunity on the island to discover artifacts, but unlike in the previous games, these artifacts can be explored in a bit more depth. Rotating a found artifact in the viewing screen will often bring out more information about it, so you actually get some real historical context for them. Lara’s excitement about her discoveries is infectious, and it’s fun to get a little education about say, ancient Portuguese tin currency, and the kind of inscription you would find on ink boxes belonging to Japanese royalty. It serves as a nice a reminder that Lara is not just a stunt artist; that she is primarily a scholar driven by a sharp, curious, and hungry intellect.

Tomb Raider Gives Good Character:

The characters are well-fleshed out and written with depth and sensitivity. The voice acting is top-notch. The writers weren’t afraid to let their core characters be deeply flawed as well as heroic. The friendship and conflict between Lara and her ill-fated shipmates is realistically portrayed; they are in turn each other’s saviors, but they also fight, argue, and blame each other for their predicament. It’s gratifying to watch young Lara earn their respect and eventually emerge as a leader. The storyline is original and has just the right dose of mystical, creepy flair. The rich history of the island unfolds slowly through the discovery of journals and writings of former inhabitants, and paints a fascinating picture of Yamatai’s strange and turbulent past.

Thug Life:

It’s also really fun throughout the game to hear the dumb-lug cultists talk with awe among themselves about how “some girl” destroyed an entire cadre of armed men and single-handedly took down high-ranking cult officials. They speak of tiny Lara with increasing terror as her reputation spreads and her kill count increases. Cries of “get the girl!” ring throughout the game, but as tough and as well-armed as these men are, they’re inevitably slower and dumber than Lara, and they always make arrogant, fatal mistakes. 

Great Graphics:

I have no complaints about the graphics, which are gorgeous and gruesome by turn, although I find myself on occasion slightly demoralized by how disgustingly filthy and run-down everything on the island is, and anxiety-stricken by the increasingly shocking physical risks Lara takes to meet her goals. (See, “Entering the Research Compound”)

The Rape Scene that Wasn’t:

Before the game was released, much was a made of a near-rape scene that occurs early on in the game. Most of the flap seems attributable to a dumb statement by the game’s executive producer Ron Rosenburg, who ran his mouth all about how a sexual assault of Lara would incite a “protective” instinct in male players, an idea I find incredibly insipid. At any rate, it wasn’t nearly as problematic as I expected it to be from all of hubbub that surrounded it pre-release. As I referenced in an earlier post, it was actually a very empowering scene for me.

I was new to the game, and after repeated failures trying to fight this guy off, I started to get really emotional and irrationally angry.  Mr. Typist, video game veteran, saw me getting freaked out and scooted his chair next to me and coached me through it. And when Lara finally destroyed that guy, I actually did cry. It felt right; it felt ridiculously real, and there was something very healing about it. So whether the genesis of that scene started out steeped in some absurd notion or not doesn’t really matter to me at this point. I found that scene to be very powerful, and the game itself to be refreshingly lacking in sexist tropes. 

So, in summary, I feel that I can with full confidence, reclaim my Question To Live By: WWLCD?

Bonus Awesome: 

Flaming arrows, which are exactly as cool as they sound, especially when used in conjunction with barrels of flammable fluid. And damn, there are a lot of flammable barrels on Yamatai! In other words, you get to blow up a lot of shit in Tomb Raider. And that, my friends, after a long and tiring week, is definitely most excellent. 

--Kristen McHenry

Aging Women and Other Horrors: In Defense of Elizabeth Wurtzel

Writer Elizabeth Wurtzel recently found herself at the center of a cranky internet kerfuffle over her recent column in the Atlantic. The article has been criticized as being self-absorbed, shallow, lacking in insight, and condescending. Which it may be, but I still really enjoyed it.

While I don’t like everything Wurtzel writes, I loved this article for exactly what it was, because I understand what she was trying to get at, and I think that the widespread irritation at her is due in part to the fact that she refuses to apologize for her choices, (including the choice not to have kids, which people tend to find exceptionally grating in women), and due in part to the increasingly pernicious belief that one person’s expression of choice is automatically a criticism of anyone else who makes a different choice.

Yes, Wurtzel can be a bit annoying at times, and even a little off the rails. I started reading this article with the idea that I was going to hate it, but I didn’t. In fact, I loved it. I found myself cheering her on: You go, girl, traipsing through New York in short skirts and heels, asking for what you want and need, drinking your red wine and chillin’ with your wolf and panther. No matter how eye-roll inducing you may think her manifesto is, I understand the underlying message to be:  “I don’t have to roll over and play dead because I’m past the age of forty. I’m still a wild person, an artist, a sexual being, a lover of high-heeled boots and jeans, an un-serious person, a vulnerable person, someone who reserves the right to be a fuck-up. A person with fire and appeal and an inner life and a passionate soul and a loud mouth. Someone who doesn’t give a shit what you think of me.” 

She may not have said it perfectly, but I understand that’s what she meant. She’s not fighting aging per se; in her own loopy way, she’s fighting the perception that aging means you become a non-person, that you don’t matter anymore, that you’re “used up” and no longer have the right to access the full range of human experience.

Recently, Salon posted a somewhat related article on their site about women over the age of fifty being invisible. I have heard this complaint from a lot of women for many years now, and I have no doubt that they’re right—in this culture, sexual appeal is extremely powerful currency. Many men simply don’t know what to do with a woman who doesn’t fall into the category of “fuckable”, so they just pretend that those women don’t exist. But the fact is, this invisibility, if you know how to use it right, can be very powerful. I know, and I’ve known this a bit prematurely, because I’ve been both blessed and cursed to be a woman who has never been able to trade in “hotness”. 

Who knows what I would have become if I had been born physically different, but my looks never afforded me the ability to depend on them. Additionally, I was raised Catholic, and taught to hide myself completely in that way. Even if I had had any physical appeal, I never had the slightest clue how to wield it. I like to think that if I were “hot” and knew how to use that power, I would have been a person who would cultivate an inner life anyway; who would have made emotional and spiritual growth a priority. But I also realize that I may have been one for whom sexual power would have been too tempting not wield at the expense of everything else. And then I would be really sad now, at the “devastating” age of forty-three, with nothing but my fading looks between me and a sense of worth.

The fact is, it’s the women who cultivate something besides taut thighs and expensively-smoothed skin in middle age who have the real power. Wurtzel in some ways confuses her fierce clinging to the outward trappings of youth as power, but she doesn’t need to. Short skirts and heels are just signifiers, and she doesn’t need them. She already knows the best secret: “Nothing is more bracing than not being concerned about what other people think”.

Shh. Don’t tell anyone, but us “invisible” women over a certain age have more freedom, more autonomy, more joy, and more power than anyone could imagine. We are influencing things more deeply than anyone suspects. We are happier than young men could ever imagine we have the right to be as “untouchables.” We know ourselves, our wisdom, and our life force, and the value of all of those things. We are legion. But the best part is, no one notices the full scope of the havoc we can wreak, because no one sees us. And that’s exactly how we like it.

--Kristen McHenry

Dream Job

Recently, my friend Frankie sent me a link to this article, urging cubicle monkeys to quit their jobs and strike out on their own, which I read with great interest, because the topic of work is endlessly fascinating to me. At the end of last year, I completed a poetry chapbook entirely devoted to the theme of work—what it is and is not, the meaning we assign to it culturally and personally, how what we are taught about work when we're young affects how we approach it as adults, and so on. I love the subject of work, although I don’t always love working, as evidenced by the fact that I have had many, many jobs, from the professional kind to the paper-visor–wearing kind. Here is a partial list (not in chronological order, because I don’t think like that):

Professional:

• Massage Therapist/Mind-Body Counselor
• Day Spa Manager
• Manager of Volunteers
• Mental Health Outreach Worker
• Accounting Assistant 
• HR Associate
• Props Department Manager
• Receptionist
• Freelance Writer

McJobs:

• Telemarketer
• Barista
• Waitress
• Chicken deep-fryer at a gas station deli
• Sandwich maker at an "artisan" deli
• Pizza Server
• Dishwasher
• Retail Clerk at a wedding gown shop.  (I was fired for being chronically confused about the proper names for different styles of sleeves. This was important, because the dresses were all arranged by sleeve type--a perfectly logical way to group wedding gowns.)
• Assistant manager at Claire's Boutique
• Assembly line drone at a "krab" seafood factory
• Photographer for a mall portrait studio 
• Shoe saleslady. (For some reason, I was really good at selling shoes, and in fact, I kind of enjoyed it. Go figure.)

So, I’ve been around in my forty-three years, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about work its…its….sorry, I’ve got nothing. All that comes to mind right now is that line from Mary Oliver’s poem, Dogfish:

And look! look! look! I think those little fish

better wake up and dash themselves away

from the hopeless future that is

bulging toward them.

*

And probably,

if they don’t waste time

looking for an easier world,

they can do it.

The problem is, I have always dreamed of finding fulfillment through work. I have always imagined some great, shining Career, glowing like a beacon on the horizon—the job that will allow me to self-actualize, that will be in perfect synchronicity with my skills and talents, and indeed, my deepest soul-self. The one the will pulse in vibratory harmony with my biorhythms, and that will enrich my being in every way. I’ve spent my life convinced it’s out there, despite ample evidence to contrary. 

So, here I am, a jumbled path of false starts and off-trail adventures at my feet. And I’m making peace with it, because in spite of my constant ghost-chase for the perfect job, I’m beginning to realize that it just doesn’t matter what I do to make a living.  No matter what I find myself doing for work, I will never be able to escape myself. Whether I’m serving up lattes or heading up a program for heart disease prevention, whether I am selling shoes or managing a team 175 volunteers, whether I am getting to paid to write fiction or paid to mop floors, always, always, there I am—still having to deal with being me, still having to deal with the suffering I inflict upon myself as a result of my me-ness.  The lesson for me around work is not about obtaining any one job or “succeeding” on any singular path. The lesson is  learning that there is no easier world to look for—the problems I have in one place are simply going to follow me to another until I learn to fix them from within. 

Our jobs are not who we are. It’s perfectly honorable to be a cubicle monkey if it’s putting bread on the table and you have time and money to pursue your other interests on the side. The vast majority of us aren’t cut out to be entrepreneurs, and besides, someone has to stock the warehouses and pass the fast food bags over the counter. No matter what you do for money, your personal happiness has to come from a deeper source than a job, a vocation, or even a career. Jobs come and go. Careers paths change. Businesses fail. People start over. And through all of that, our essential selves remain, in spite of how much society identifies us with our methods of earning a paycheck. The fact is, our bliss is not hiding in some career we haven’t discovered yet. If we can't find it in the moment we're in, we won’t find it anywhere.

That having been said, I still keep my one final, end-of-the-line, throwing-in-the-towel-on-any-hopes-of-career-continuity, fuck-you-society job in my back pocket: Being a high-rise window washer. Fresh air and great views of the city all day long—now there’s a dream job.

--Kristen McHenry

All Up In My Head

This last week or so, I have been All Up In My Head, culminating today in a vicious stress headache and terminal indecision at the grocery store, during which I lingered a creepily long time in the meat department, incapable of deciding on steak or pork for tomorrow night’s Sunday dinner. I became someone I hate—a slow mover, a fretter-over-er, a ninny who is so overwhelmed by too many consumer choices  that she seizes up at the meat freezer and won’t get out of the way so I can buy some damn skirt steak. I tend to feel more overwhelmed by the world in general than normal people do, but I can usually execute a simple grocery shopping excursion without a crisis of indecision over protein.

When I was trying to figure out what has me in such a state—thereby exacerbating my already overthinky condition—I realized I’ve been forced into making a lot of decisions lately. Not earth-shattering decisions, but decisions nonetheless. I’m planning a large yearly event for work, and I have to pick colors and centerpieces and paper and flowers and colors of flowers and appetizers and dessert cakes and words and the general order of everything. I’m judging a poetry contest and I can’t choose every poem, only a very a few of them, because they have all these “rules” about how many winners there can be. I have to pick a title for my mini short story collection. I have to decide on new noise-canceling headphones because I broke mine playing Tomb Raider. 

I know these are all very first world-y issues, but confident decision making is not my strong suit. When it concerns anything petty, I worry obsessively about the consequences of the wrong choice. What if the color of the event programs clashes with the tablecloths? What if I pick buzzy headphones? What if I choose a book title that turns out to be linguisticly proven to repel potential readers? You would think that all of this ruminating would translate into better decision-making about things that actually matter, but no. I have a pattern of making major life decisions with impulsive abandon, and expending all of my analytical skills on envisioning the exact quality of unbearable shame that will be brought to bear upon me if I choose the wrong napkins holders.

I’m also all up in my head about writing. I’m super-excited about getting my short stories published, but of course I choose instead to focus on angsting because my third chapbook hasn’t been picked up yet, and could die on the vine. I don’t know if I am now “A Poet” or “A Fiction Writer” and if I should even care. It seems like I should care somehow. It seems like I should be going about this whole writing thing with a lot more intentionality than I do. It seems like I should strive to be more official about it, more “branded”, more marketable. But I find the whole idea exhausting. I don’t want to package myself. What if I pick the wrong box?

All of this, along with a lot of pent-up creative energy, has caused a persistent throbbing headache, unresponsive to Advil. I am going to take a long, lavender-salt bath and read some chick lit. I hereby declare that to be my official last decision of the evening. 

Oh, in case you were wondering, I picked ham.

--Kristen McHenry

It's All About Me: My Week in Stuff

WWLCD?

What I Have Been Shilling this Week:

In conjunction with another one of my short stories, "Bite Wing" has been accepted by Loyal Stone Press. (Happy dance!) So, I will be removing it from this blog over the weekend. Thanks to all of you who read the series! I had a lot of fun writing it over the last six weeks.

What I Have Been Reading This Week: 

"You're Not Doing It Right: Tales of Marriage, Sex, Death, and Other Humiliations" by Michael Ian Black--so far, very funny, with the added emotional depth and honesty of a more grown-up, reflective and world-weary MIB than the one who wrote "My Custom Van" (although that was also hilarious.)  

What I Have Been Vaguely Contemplating Reading this Week: 

"Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead" by Sheryl Sandberg. I downloaded a sample on my Kindle. I like what I've read so far, but I'm not totally sold on shelling out for the full version yet. As far as all of the heated controversy goes--I don't really get it. This book is written for a very specific audience (of which I am decidedly not a part.) It is emphasized repeatedly in the book that it is geared for a very specific audience. If you are a struggling single mom with three kids, working nights at a truck stop diner and just barely holding your head above water--this book is probably not going to speak to you at this particular moment in your life. If you are, say, a writer by night with an arts degree and a meandering career path, who happened find yourself plunked down into a job managing volunteers at an urban hospital, and you spend a good deal of your work day breaking up fistfights over the courtesy phone, the ground covered in this book is not your bailiwick. But if you are a determined, hyper-educated, highly experienced professional woman approaching the height of your career in hard-driving corporate America, then yeah, you're on the list. Read away. Sheryl will give you helpful tips for not shooting yourself in the foot.

Bonus Tip: No matter what stage of life you're in, negotiation is an important skill. There is a great video up on the Lean In website about how to negotiate effectively as a woman. (Yes, you do have to do it a little differently than a man, thanks to that whole, pesky "women are penalized for appearing aggressive" bugaboo.)

What I am Playing this Week:

The long anticipated, just-released Tomb Raider 2013. Oh, my chickadees, it is heavenly. Heavenly. The best Tomb Raider ever! (Except right now I'm stuck repeatedly getting Lara impaled to death on tree limbs during the parachute sequence. But no worries! Mr. Typist promised he'd help me get through it before I am taken away in a stretcher with PTSD by proxy.) I will write a more in-depth review soon, including the details of my extremely emotional/cathartic/empowering moment during the infamous near-rape scene. (Spoiler alert: I cried while doing it, and it took 34 tries, but I kicked that raping bastard's ass! Ha!!)

What Ails me This Week:

Those beautiful pink Cherry Blossom trees!! Oh, aren't they just gorgeous??? Don't they just make you fall in love with Spring? Excuse me while I pry my swollen eyelids open and squirt enough inhaler into my chest to wheeze out a heartfelt "Shut the hell up!" to those of you who think Spring is just wonderful. I am giving you a death-glare with my red-laced, streaming eyes in between honking my raw, dripping nose into yet another scratchy tissue. 

Adding to my seething, allergy-laden resentment is the fact that Mr. Typist believes he is practicing a helpful form of  "tough love" by gloating about the fact that he got shots 20 years ago and has nary a symptom now, and if I would just buck up and get them too, I wouldn't be having these problems. The only thing that has halfway saved me from ending up on a respirator is that it's been just rainy enough to wash the majority of the pollen out of the air over the last few days. I hate Spring--deeply, fully and with all my adrenaline-injected heart. 

Do tell--what have you been up to this fine March week?

--Kristen McHenry