There is a poem that I really like called Flat: Sentences from the Prefaces of Fourteen Science Books. It’s by Bruce Covey. It’s funny. It’s about gratitude.

I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude. This week I found out that my essay, Channel B, would be included in The Best American Essays 2013. I read the email on the sidewalk, on the way to pick up my son from school. I read it again. And again. Since then, there’s been a lot of excitement. A lot of screaming, and bourbon, and jumping up and down, and my five-year-old saying, “Why are we jumping?!” while he’s jumping, and I’m just so goddamn grateful.

As my editor, the mighty Roxane Gay, recently wrote in a tribute to Rumpus editor Isaac Fitzgerald: “There’s always a story behind the writing.” The story behind Channel B involves many people, and I’d like to give them both credit and thanks. To do so, I’m going to borrow from Bruce Covey’s lovely, simple structure.

ZOMFG: Sentences from the Prefaces of Fourteen Love Letters

1. Roxane’s work challenges me to see our beautiful, messy world as something so much bigger than myself. Having her as the editor for this thing – knowing that she was on the other end – made me try to climb higher.

2. Stephen Elliot, Isaac Fitzgerald, and the staff of The Rumpus have created an amazing home for writers and, more importantly, readers. Every day, I am moved and challenged. It has helped me heal. Thank you to all who’ve shared their work there.

3. Gina Frangello is the one who first told me to read The Rumpus. She’s also the first editor, at Other Voices, to show me that my work had value.

4. I wrote this essay, as I write most of my essays, for Chicago’s 2^nd Story storytelling series, where I’ve been lucky enough to work for over a decade. The storytellers there inspire the living hell out me. Here—listen.

5. The Ragdale Foundation gave me what every writer so profoundly needs: the time and space to sit. Quietly. And, like, think.

6. I first read this piece to a roomful of mothers at my son’s school. To have the support of that community, for this subject matter, was a gift. Also: we had a lot of wine that night. It was awesome.

7. I learned how to write from the faculty in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago. The fact that I found this place at nineteen is proof that the universe is magical.

8. I continue to learn how to write from my students in The Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago. Their intelligence, vision, and discipline are contagious. Look out, future.

9. There was this ridiculous moment in Target when I was eight months pregnant, standing in the baby section with my cousin Aaron and his dad, my Uncle Chuck, who was visiting from Alaska. Aaron was like, “Buy Megan a shower gift!” and Chuck was like, “What do you need?” and I was like, “I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT DO BABIES NEED MY GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE.” Aaron took one look at my face and took over. “You need a monitor.” I reached for one with just audio, and he swatted my hand. “OH NO,” he said. “THIS BABY NEEDS NIGHT VISION.”

10. Jeff Oaks has been my reader for many years, and my friend for longer.

11. My husband takes our kid on adventures every Saturday. He gives me what every writer so profoundly needs: the time and space to sit. Quietly. And, like, think. Also: when I texted him to say I was going to be included in The Best American series, he sent me ten different gifs of people dancing. Some of them might have been dirty.

12. I’ve received some wonderful emails from moms who’ve connected with this subject matter. I’ve received emails from dads, too, and people who don’t have kids, yet or ever. Thank you for reaching out across the void. Here is my hand, reaching back.

13. Cheryl Strayed’s words have been a friend to me during some very dark moments. They’ve been a kick in the ass when I most needed it. They’ve taught me, opening the world to ideas and lifestyles and questions I hadn’t considered, and to think that my essay might have the chance to lift even one person in the way that her’s have lifted me is mind blowing.

14. Caleb is five years old now. As I type this, he’s sitting next to me, fighting with the letter N. He dislikes N’s for some reason. He says, “Who needs N?” He says, “How’d the writing go today, Mommy?” He says, “You’re the best thing in my whole life ever.” Or maybe that’s what I say to him.

My friend, the writer Gretchen Kalwinski, recently tagged me as part of an ongoing blog chain called The Next Best Thing, where writers answer ten questions about a project-in-process. First off: I adore Gretchen, and am in the habit of asking How High when she tells me to jump (typically, her telling me to jump means “Read this awesome thing,” or “Look at this awesome art,” or “Let’s immediately meet for many martinis and awesome conversation about reading and writing and changing the world”). Her response to The Next Best Thing is here. Do check her out.

Second: I truly love this shit. I love reading about other writers’ processes—where their ideas come from and how they get unstuck—and with this blog chain business I can just follow the links back and back and back for a thousand ideas on writing and reading and rewriting (in a somewhat-related train of thought, this reminds me of a game my students told me about called Wikipedia racing, where they all get together with their laptops and see who can get from one Wikipedia entry to another with the fewest links. Like if I say, Peanut Butter and The Death Star, okay, go! you link to Aztec and then endonym and then Istanbul and then gross domestic product and on and on and whoever hits Death Star first wins, all of which is so totally a sign of the times ’cause when I was in college we drank Everclear and Koolaid and played Truth or Dare. People. I am old now). But anyhow! The Next Best Thing!

Happily, I figured out a thing or two as I was writing this in an EM Forster “I don’t know what I think until I see what I say” sort of way, and I love having access to the heads and ideas of so many awesome writers. Thanks for including me, Gretchen!

What is the working title of your book (or story)?
I’m in the last stretch of a new story collection. You know that feeling when you’re so, so close to done? Like, if you reach your hand out, you can touch it? I thought it would be smart to talk here about the particular story I’ve been trying to finish as a way to help me get there. It’s called Every Girl’s Dream.

Where did the idea come from? and Who or what inspired you to write this story? (I’m going to answer both of these questions at the same time)
A friend of mine was biking home and wiped out on the ice. She couldn’t stand, couldn’t move, flat on her back in the middle of the frozen Chicago winter but still, she didn’t call 911 because she couldn’t afford the emergency care. People kept passing her, and of course they’d want to call an ambulance, but she said no. She asked that they call one of her friends instead. She called me like ten times, but I was teaching and had my phone off, a fact that to this day makes me want to cry (my phone is never off now. Never. Never). So finally, she got through to some friends, but when they arrived and tried to help her off the ground, the pain was too much. In the end, after all of that, they called 911 anyway.

She had a broken pelvis. Two months bed rest.

I was furious that she didn’t call an ambulance immediately; that she was out there, alone and cold and in pain; at myself for having my phone off; and, above all else, at the situation that she—and thousands of others—are stuck in due to this country’s broken health care system.

What do you do with all that anger? It’s not something that goes away. After you cast your vote, donate time and/or money, listen to as many stories as possible about the vast, diverse reality of the situation—you’re still just… pissed off. I’d be sitting on the el, thinking about it. Stuck in traffic, thinking about it. I wondered, if she hadn’t gone to the hospital, where would she have gone? Where do people go? In the middle of all of this, my then-boyfriend/now-husband accidentally grabbed hold of a food processor blade (long story) and we went to the ER. I sat in the room with him, holding one hand as they sewed up the other one, the tiny, meticulous stitches.

Later I imagined a seamstress, making a wedding dress. Those same meticulous stitches. One night, she’s working late at her dress shop and a guy shows up with a bloody hand. He’s holding a Big Gulp cup with his own finger on ice inside of it.

Once you’ve got your start, the rest is Q & A.

Q: Why does she let him in?
A: He’s her brother.

Q: What happened to his hand?
A: Drunken game of five-fingered fillet.

Q: Why doesn’t he go to the hospital?
A: No insurance, and they’re paralyzed by bills for their sick mother. Lung disease. Up coughing every night, so the seamstress works late instead of sleeping at home.

Q: Whose wedding dress?
A: Salome Margelius’. Her fifth. The seamstress first made this dress for her when she was eighteen, but she keeps divorcing, keeps gaining weight, keeps bringing the dress back in to be “let out.” Over the years, this has shaped the seamstress’ point of view about dreaming and hoping for something better.

Q: What happens to change all of that?
A: The now-fingerless brother gets into a wicked car accident with a teenage girl, shattering her scapula and forcing the seamstress to re-examine all this hoping and dreaming while she attempts to set bones with her bare hands.

What genre does your story fall under?
Short fiction.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
That’s up the director. My theory is, find awesome people and then get out of their way.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your story?
By day, a jaded seamstress makes dresses that are every girl’s dream; by night, she stitches together the broken and bloody who can’t afford hospital care. One night, a late-night car accident, a shattered scapula, and a teenage girl show her that not every girl dreams of the same thing.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? 
I’ve been lucky enough to work with some really thoughtful, collaborative editors who weren’t afraid of taking risks and who challenged me to be better than I ever thought I could be. Don’t want to jinx it yet, but I think I’ve found such a person for this particular story collection. Like I said: so close I can almost touch it.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your story? 
About a week. It was a god-awful, awesome mess.

What other stories would you compare this story to within your genre? 
I don’t think compare is the right word here, but two stories that have been my guides while writing this particular piece are Kafka’s “Hunger Artist” and “Nice Big American Baby” by Judy Budnitz, both of which are magical and crazy and outlandish, yet very clearly political stories. They gave me ideas about writing a political story that doesn’t feel like a political story. It’s a tricky balance. You want to say something, or in my case, scream something, like NO ONE SHOULD BE AFRAID TO GO TO THE DOCTOR, NO ONE SHOULD LIVE THROUGH CRIPPLING PAIN INSTEAD OF GETTING HELP, NO ONE SHOULD LAY FOR HOURS IN THE ICY RAIN ON A STREET CORNER IN PILSON WHEN THEY CAN DIAL THREE FUCKING NUMBERS—but screaming and yelling isn’t… a story. I wanted a story.

What else about your story might pique the reader’s interest? 
I did a ton of research into how you set broken bones with your bare hands.

Up next: the playwright, Chelsea Marcantel; the fiction writer, Cyn Vargas; and the writer and editor, Robert Duffer, who I hear drives a mini-van. I love all three of them and am excited to hear what they’re working on.

I wrote this for a friend who was going through something hard. Maybe you have a friend in that same boat. Maybe you’re in that boat, too. I know I am sometimes. I’m posting it here in response to Molly Templeton’s call for How-To’s by women. I think the project is genius and I’d like to buy Molly a hundred beers. 

How To Say The Right Thing When There’s No Right Thing To Say

Your friend is going through something hard and you don’t know what to say. There are words and there are words and there are words. Stop saying them. Stop trying. Instead, pick her up in your jeep. Don’t worry if you don’t have one – this is your imagination so you get to have cool stuff. You get to drive a jeep, and wear Marc Jacobs, and super cool aviator sunglasses even though you don’t usually wear sunglasses ‘cause you sunburn easily and one time in college you got a bitch of a sunburn around your sunglasses which left weird raccoon circles on your face for months so now you just squint. Your friend, Sheila—we’ll call her Sheila—has on a black vinyl catsuit (think Trinity) and one of those Marilyn Monroe scarves around her head so her shiny, perfect hair doesn’t get mussed in the wind ‘cause of course the top is down and you’re driving super-fast, fast like Action Movie Chase Scene fast, so fast you left your infant son at home ‘cause even in your imagination it’s irresponsible to drive that fast with a child in the car which is why in real life you have one of those BABY ON BOARD signs suction-cupped to the back window of your Honda because drivers in Chicago have a lot of road rage, yes, they do, and you don’t want any of them fucking around when your kid’s in the car so you hung the sign ‘cause that’ll make them drive nice, right?

You and Sheila hang your hands out the zipped-down windows, your palms pushing against the wind, and in your other hand you’ve got an extra-large caffeinated frappucino. With bourbon. Which means you don’t have any hands on the wheel then, right? If you’re pushing the air and drinking your frosty beverage? So okay then, it’s a magic jeep, and you can drive it with your mind. Or maybe the jeep can talk! Like Kitt from Knight Rider! Maybe the jeep is Kitt from Knight Rider except a jeep instead of a Trans Am and you can talk to it or think at it, thus keeping your hands free for the wind against your fingers and caffeinated alcololic beverages which in real life you’re not currently drinking because you’re breastfeeding but ZOMFG you would so totally kill for a Maker’s Mark right about now.

So anyhow. You’re driving these precarious winding trails through the mountains, past ginormous valleys and snow-capped peaks, and after a while the road starts running parallel to a train because in your imagination, all trains are on windy tracks through the mountains, like d’uh. You briefly consider hijacking it, getting the jeep right alongside and then jumping aboard with some Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon shit, saving whoever’s being held against their will or stealing back the medicine that someone very  corrupt stole from dying villagers, wouldn’t that be, like, awesome?—but then you look at Sheila, your beautiful friend who at this very monent is trying to slay a dragon so huge and deadly it could engulf a small city with a single exhale.

Sheila doesn’t need to hijack a train right now.

What she needs is a friend.

“Go faster,” you say to Kitt the Jeep.

“Faster.”

“Go faster than this train.”

The tires are screeching now, burning into the asphalt. Sheila’s scarf comes loose and whips away. Soon you’re ahead of that train, far enough ahead to pull over, grab Shelia by the hand, run to the side of the tracks—and wait.

You’ll feel it coming first, the ground trembling beneath your shoes.

Next, you’ll hear it; the whistle, the wheels churning on the tracks.

Then it’s there: the enormous front engine, car after car behind it for miles curling around the winding tracks. It’s coming closer, faster, getting louder, louder, LOUDER, YOU CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING OVER THE IMMENSITY OF SOUND and you’re so close to the tracks, your toes a few feet from the hammered metal, and when it passes you—

You scream.

At first, Sheila looks at you like you’re crazy, which frankly isn’t anything new. She’s been looking at you that way since you were both kids in OshGoshBGosh in the mud in Southeast Michigan; then in college, shaking her head in disgust as you poured Everclear into the Koolaid; and now, screaming your head off over the relentless roar of a passing train—so okay, fine, maybe you are crazy, but sometimes crazy is the only way to get through.

Sheila shuts her eyes. She opens her mouth, and now she’s screaming, too; both of you screaming holy hell as the train pounds past, car after car and you scream and scream ‘cause there’s so much inside that needs to get out: anger and longing and no sleep and time moving too fast and sorrow and fear. You scream so long, so loud, it’s like your throats are bleeding, rubbed raw on the inside, and by the time the last car passes it’s all been drained, like you’re sponges squeezed dry. You sit on the ground, exhausted with the energy it takes to let go, and lay backwards in the grass. The sun shines on your faces, the backs of your closed eyelids glow red. There’s a breeze, and the grass is soft, and you move your arms and legs to make snow angels even though there’s no snow. It feels nice to be so deliciously empty, so open for new things, like spring and laughing and the future and new memories and newly remembered experiences and all the things you’ve been lucky enough to do and the knowledge that you still have, at the very least, this single, perfect day to live.

After a long time, you get up. You hold out your hand to help Sheila to her feet—she is, after all, wearing a catsuit, and it’s hard to navigate in that shit. Her face is dripping mascara from crying, but underneath that, she’s smiling. It’s wonderful to see her smile. It’s the most wonderful thing in the Universe.

You go back to the jeep, except it’s not a jeep anymore. It’s something more practical, but still edgy. Like maybe an Element? Or a Rav 4? In the backseat, your infant son is strapped into his carseat, laughing in his sleep. You and Sheila change into comfy clothes ‘cause couture and catsuits are, sadly, not for R&R, and drive back down the mountain, still with your arms out the windows but now the wind pushes the backs of your hands instead of the palms. After a while, you pass a little café with outdoor seating. You order wine. You watch the sun set over those snowcapped peaks, color exploding across the sky: yellow to red to midnight blue. That’s when you tell Sheila how sorry you are for what she’s going through, that your thoughts are with her and her family. You tell her it sucks sucks sucks and nothing is fair and that sucks. You say words like strength and time even though you know that lots of people have told her those very same words, have told her anything and everything in the hopes that it’s the right thing to say.

It’s not, though.

There isn’t any right thing to say.

So you just stop talking. You hand her your son. He wraps his little fists around her thumbs, and the three of you watch the stars. Stars for real, not like in the city where you can only see one or two, but thousands, millions, millions of millions, and it’s all so goddamn beautiful.

I have an essay up at The Rumpus called A Room of One’s Own in the Middle of Everything, about trying to have a room of one’s own without a room. I’ve been reading The Rumpus nearly every day for a couple of years now. I’m a huge, huge fan, and having my work there among so many awesome writers is so fucking exciting I want to light stuff on fire.

My family and I are in South Padre Island for our first vacation in years. It is relaxing and awesome and beautiful. I’ve done nothing for four days besides play in the sand, drink margaritas, and obsessively read Game of Thrones (crack, those books. Crack). Today we went to the Schlitterbahn Water Park, which I firmly believe is the greatest place on Earth because all you have to do is ride around on an inner tube all day and also there’s a float-in bar. So! My husband and kid and I had the sort of day you’d imagine on a Schlitterbahn TV commercial or brochure – happy, smiling family; screaming down the water slide – except afterwards, now, there’s the sunburn. The OH MY GOD SCREW YOU NORDIC ANCESTRY sunburn. The I SPRAYED ON SPF 80 LIKE TEN TIMES WHY THE HELL AM I ON FIRE sunburn.

People.

I can melt the snows of Winterfell.

Sitting here, boiling, I remembered writing something at some point about sunburns, and a quick search of my hard drive pulled up this little gem from – get this – 2007, written on a plane back from Texas, during which I sorely abused the caps lock key. It’s called Ow. I was such minimalist in 2007!

A few quick updates: my current sunburn is worse than Port Aransas but not near as bad as Whitehall; now that I have experienced childbirth, I can say with great certainty that it does hurt more than a sunburn; luckily, my son inherited his father’s skin and is happily tan and watching the Muppets as I type this; and look at how fancy I got with the parentheticals!

Ow (2007)

The short version is this:

I have an excruciating sunburn, it’s the worst on the back of my thighs, I’m on a plane from Houston to Chicago and I can’t, like, SIT without wanting to scream and OF COURSE they confiscated my Solarcaine during security check because SUNBURNED GIRLS ARE REALLY TERRORISTS and also there’s a very big guy sitting behind me with his head thrown back snoring in a very loud, obnoxious way with much choking and gasping and SNORTING and what I’m going to do now is write about my sunburn in order to distract myself for the next two hours as opposed to the other alternative which is jumping out the emergency exit into the cool blue sky below.

Here is the long version:

When I was in elementary school we were talking about albinos in science class—I have no memory of how this discussion began. This was BEFORE the sheep that was conceived in a test tube (Dolly?) (usually, when blogging about something that I don’t know anything about [re: often], I google it right quick so it APPEARS as though I know what I’m talking about. Which, of course, I don’t. I mention this because under normal circumstances I’d google SHEEP CONCEIVED IN TEST TUBE and then ramble on about said sheep for a while and everybody reading this would be all “She’s full of knowledge!” [or “She’s full of shit!” depending on how well you know me] but the thing is, I CAN’T look up the sheep right now ‘cause I have no wireless up here in the sky) and also BEFORE some farmer grew a cucumber-rutabaga (cucerbaga?) (rutacumba???) or a pumpkin-zucchini (pumpkini?) (which is a good name for a martini. Jeff? New martini at Bistro? I’M A GENIUS) or whatever they did with combining vegetables so my POINT is this: genetic experiments weren’t widely publicized when I was a kid, especially those that a third-grader could wrap her brain around and therefore be used as a jumping-off point for discussion (like that teacher I had who used Seuss’ If I Ran the Zoo as a way into talking about the upcoming presidential election—“What would YOU do, boys and girls, if you ran the zoo?” “What would YOU do, boys and girls, if you ran the country?”—which was an awesome exercise, I think. I have all SORTS of ideas on how I’d run the zoo!) about genetics or genetic mutation or genes in general (gggggggggggg alliteration!!! it’s SEVEN A.M. AND I’VE BEEN UP SINCE FOUR!) so why we’d all be talking about albinos is BEYOND ME. HOWEVER. WE WERE. The teacher described the thin white hair and sensitive eyes and white white skin. “An albino’s skin is so translucent you can see their veins running everywhere!” she said. “Like blue rivers on a map!” and, in unison, thirty-two little heads turned and looked at me.

I doubt my teacher knew what she started in that moment. The names I was called. Aaron Stien tracing lines in blue magic marker on the backs of my arms. The movie Powder—but all that’s irrelevant now. What IS relevant is this: I BURN. LIKE A FUCKING RING OF FIRE.

It wasn’t so bad when I was a kid for one reason and one reason only: MY MOTHER. I wasn’t allowed out of the house without liberal coats of SPF 40+ which was reapplied every three hours and/or sooner if I’d been swimming. ALSO: I had to wear hats at all times ‘cause my hair is so thin (the backs of shampoo bottles say FINE which I think is super-funny: HA. HA!) that my scalp burns and I can’t run a brush through my hair without DYING (I’m exaggerating. I don’t DIE. I say OUCH OUCH OUCH and jump up and down, which just is NOT as effective). ALSO: long sleeves. ALSO: socks so my toes don’t fry. ALSO: SPF in all face moisturizer in the winter ‘cause I WILL get sunburned in the winter AND check-ups every six months where I go all hypochondriac and make my doctor inspect every mole. Of which there are a lot. Between the moles and the blue veins my back is a topographical map of … somewhere with many rivers (note: once again, my lack of google up here at _______ thousand feet).

But then! I was eighteen! I was a grown-up! I was out of my mother’s house and away from her watchful eye and free to live my life as I saw fit and what THAT meant, in the early Nineties, was I WOULD GET A TAN.

HA.

It is simply not possible, my dear friends, to document all the sunburns I’ve had over the past decade—we are short time, space and most assuredly patience. To whit: what follows is a brief list of my more MEMORABLE burns. In ascending order of STUPIDITY.

1. Albuquerque, New Mexico; 1994

It was my freshman year of college and I visited my friend Molly for spring break. We went shopping and I got these really nifty sunglasses—big plastic tortoise-shell bug-eyed jobs that made me feel super-cool (as opposed to the book-dork I really am) so I wore them everywhere (without any sunscreen) and at the end of the day, when we got back to her place and I took the sunglasses off, my face was bright electric red except for two ginormous white-white bug-eye squares around my eyes and FYI: when I burn, it does not go away, no, not for months, it’s like a permanent stain on my skin, like Lady Clarion that doesn’t wash out until like the seventy-fifth shampoo. So I spent not only the whole TRIP with white bug-eyes on my face, I spent the last three months of my FRESHMAN YEAR with white bug-eyes on my face, as well as half the summer after several horrible/ill-founded attempts to either A. shade IN the white with make-up and/or B. cover the burn on my face awkwardly with towels and lay out with my eyes closed so maybe the bug-eyes would burn, too; this resulted in several days of near-blinding red whenever I shut my eyes and a face that resembled a patch-work quilt.

2. Gayhead, Martha’s Vineyard; 1994

My boyfriend-at-the-time and I were hitchhiking across Martha’s Vineyard, a truly beautiful place with bright blue ocean and bright blue sky and easily accessible drugs. It wasn’t too long after the bug-eye incident so I was especially cautious: sun block on my face and arms, baseball hat, leggings under my dress. The boyfriend and I stayed up all night and walked for hours, feeling very adventurous, very On The Road, soooo very dangerous hitchhiking across that island of rich people golfing in polo shirts! anyhow, we arrived at the Gayhead cliffs, kicked off our shoes and laid down on giant red clay rocks for a nap. “Do you need more sunblock?” he asked before we passed out, and I (AM SO STUPID!) said no. “I’m wearing this hat!” I said. “And long sleeves and leggings!” except that the leggings were FOOTLESS, a fact I realized three hours later when I woke up and my bare feet were scorched. Tops and bottoms. Peeling up the leggings showed the blue-veined white skin stopping at a perfect line around my ankle and everything below was red-paint red: it hurt to high hell and I couldn’t walk for three days. As though we were settlers and I’d been wounded by a bear, the boyfriend took care of me. He went off to forage for food (Cheetos and root beer from a convenience store a mile back) and I read Tom Robbins novels and listened to the Indigo Girls on my walkman, my feet stained until November with permanent socks.

3. Cannes, France; 1995

I did my sophomore year in Italy and spent my last month overseas backpacking around Europe by myself. I stayed alone in hostels most of the time but occasionally met up with people in bars or cafes who I’d travel with for a while, crashing at their flat or in their tent or their Euro-rail car. I ended up in Cannes ‘caused I wanted to see the film festival, not realizing that you needed, you know … tickets (sometimes my stupidity is ASTOUNDING) or something to wear besides overalls, hiking boots and a giant Gortex backpack packed heavy with everything I owned. Literally, EVERYTHING over the past year jammed into one backpack: clothes, books, journals (this was before the laptop, folks, so all writing was done in journals. Technically, this was before I was a writer, as well, or at least before I actually admitted I was one. I just wrote in journals all the time, and read books, but didn’t learn to put the two together until the following year at Columbia. I really need to go back to those journals, now that I’m thinking about it. There’s some good stuff in there. Like the dumpster diving stuff. Can somebody remind me to write something about the dumpster diving in Italy? That’s some good shit, people) sleeping bag, knife (you could travel with knives back then), carton of American Spirits (I was a smoker that year [hi Dad!]. I landed in Italy having never smoked a cigarette and BAM—I smoked. Then I got off the plane a year later in Boston and never had another. Smoking might be my only true regret. I mean, there’s lots of things that were just dumb or whatever, but I can chalk them up to, “I learned something from that,” or, “That mistake helped me realize blah blah,” but the smoking? What a waste). Where was I? Oh yes—unshowered nineteen-year-old Americans without tickets are generally not allowed in the Cannes Film Festival so what did I do? I went to the beach! and built a sand castle (?????) (I would DEARLY love to recall my logic for that one) and there were these two French boys, a really cute one who spoke barely any English and a not-so-cute one who spoke slightly more than that. “He buy beer!” said the not-so-cute one, pointing at the cute one, who smiled very cutely and proclaimed, “RUN FORREST!” After an essentially indecipherable conversation with the not-so-cute one translating what I said to the cute one and what the cute one said to me (if you haven’t seen the movie Bottle Rocket you should rent it immediately. It’s Owen and Luke Wilson before they were OWEN and LUKE WILSON and there are these really killer scenes between Luke and the girl from Like Water For Chocolate where she’s a maid and this busboy has to translate) so ANYHOW I came to understand that the cute one thought either A. I looked like Jenny from Forrest Gump or B. I WAS Jenny from Forrest Gump and could he please buy me a beer? and what YOU should come to understand is A. I’m saying REALLY CUTE but what I mean is TOTAL FOX and B. I hadn’t had sex in like four months (Dad? You should just skip this post entirely) so of COURSE he could buy me a beer! Or two or five! and by the time we were good and sloshed and ready to go back to his place, we’d already been in the sun for like four hours and my bathing suit was firmly tattooed on my back. It was this black strappy number and when Total Fox got me out of it he said a lot of French very loudly and quickly and then put cold washcloths on my back. Which was very sweet. He was very sweet.

What a nice memory.

What ISN’T a nice memory is going back to the hostel the next morning and having to GET INTO THAT BACKPACK.

4. Whitehall, Michigan; 2002 (?)

My friends Casey and Jeremy have a cabin on the beach on Lake Michigan. When I was fourteen and they were sixteen we’d sneak away to this cabin on the weekends—the three of us went to Blue Lake, an arts camp in Western Michigan where everyone wore light blue shirts and navy blue pants and played in the band and made out with each other behind the theater building. Band kids making out! For EIGHT WEEKS EVERY SUMMER! I never made out with Casey or Jer, though. They were my friends, and we’d make out with other people and then go to their cabin and make bonfires and their friend Dave would play Morrisey songs on his guitar and we’d sing along BECAUSE WE WERE DORKS. So we’ve been friends since then; in fact, when my high school boyfriend and I broke up two weeks before the prom, Casey and Jer drove all the way to Chelsea in matching tuxedos and took me. And did I mention that they’re twins? With red hair and freckles? And yes they auditioned for Doublemint commercials but no they didn’t get it and it’s a bit of a sore spot, actually; what I’m trying to say is nothing’ll make you feel better about being dumped than going to the prom with red-headed twins in identical tuxedos. And also Dave came and he made his own tuxedo. Out of newspaper—are those good friends or WHAT? So anyhow, a few years ago we decided to go to the cabin ‘cause we all needed a little R&R and whatnot, so we get there and lay on the beach and, like a total jackass, I didn’t put on any sunscreen at all so I end up fried, like head-to-toe crispy, it’s easily the worst burn I’ve ever had in my life. Now, if you’ve ever been severely sunburned you know it’s not just your skin—you also feel really hot and nauseous and sick and nothing could be worse.

Except: Red Lobster.

For some insane reason, Casey and Jer thought going to Red Lobster would make me feel better and for some equally insane reason, I went along with it. FYI: Whitehall Michigan is not a pantheon of culinary opportunity. There is a Denny’s, a Big Boy and a Red Lobster. Granted, we could’ve driven the thirty miles South to the Dominoes pizza in Muskegon but we were all worried that by then I’d sizzle into ash and blow away, not unlike those movies where vampires walk into the sun. Also FYI: I’d never been to Red Lobster before, nor will I EVER GO AGAIN because as I was sitting there boiling in my own skin, Casey cracked open his lobster—which like ten minutes before had been alive in the tank with fifty other panicky lobsters and now is lying dead and slimy on Casey’s plate and where this REALLY gets disturbing is that sometimes (say, one out of every hundred, we were later told by a very distressed waiter) when those lobsters are taken from those tanks to be killed and cracked open and eaten, THEY ARE IN THE PROCESS OF SHITTING. AS IN, THEIR INTESTINES ARE FULL OF SHIT. WET. GREEN. LOBSTERY. SHIT. And when Casey took the little lobster-cracking pliers or whatever they’re called and broke that thing open, shit poured out onto his plate and my already red-hot nausea just exploded everywhere.

I’ll end the imagery there.

5. Port Aransas, Texas; 2007

(this one might be anti-climactic after the whole lobster shit thing)

What happened was I was lying on the beach reading Miranda July’s new collection and I kept saying, “I’ll finish this next story and then I’ll go in. Okay, I’ll just finish THIS story and then I’ll go in. Okay, okay: ONE MORE, I swear” (Dear Miranda July Who I Love: You’re super great. I read your book and now I am a chicken-friend steak which I have recently learned is very, very Texas. Chicken-friend steak and also chicken-friend chicken which I don’t know about the grammar of that but some things you just need to let go of). Anyhow, people: you can see where this story is going, right? We’d been very smart and coated me with SPF 45, but ONLY FROM THE WAIST UP. Why? I have NO idea. It’s like I momentarily forget about an entire HALF OF MY BODY but I tell you what, that half of my body is making sure that will NEVER happen again. From the little skirt on my bikini bottoms down I am bright, stupid red. Press me with your fingertip and you’ll see your prints, FBI-quality, white on red and people, it HURTS. The mere act of SITTING DOWN feels like the skin on the backs of my thighs is being torn apart—and seriously, I try not to complain. I try to look on the bright side! I can deal with pain! The tattoo on my back took five hours of being bent in a very precarious position and it was all good! And back when I did kickboxing everyday and had to lift my leg up over my head like fifty times consecutively IT WAS FINE. I have Maker’s Mark and a 200 ct. bottle of Advil on me AT ALL TIMES, there’s NOTHING I CAN’T HANDLE!

Except for this.

(and probably childbirth. I don’t know personally but I’ve heard stories)

AND SO: I will complain. Loudly. I will slam these keys! I will overuse the CAPS LOCK button! Also, I will swear! (shut your eyes, dad) like this: when I finally get off this fucking plane I’m going to buy like forty tons of that Banana Boat green-gel aloe vera and put it in a big vat like how that Matthew Barney Cremaster Cyle guy (????? NO GOOGLE ON THE PLANE!) puts all the petroleum jelly into tubs on whale boats and then it coagulates into billion-dollar jiggly sculptures and I’m going to dive in so I’ll be green instead of red and cool instead of hot and even though it’s just my lower half that hurts I’m going to dunk my head down in it, too, so I WON’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO THIS FUCKING GUY BEHIND ME SNORT-SNORE ANYMORE!!! AND DID YOU NOTICE THAT RHYMED??!!!!