Megan Stielstra's Blog

The first time I ever gave a reading, I shook like hell. This was ten years ago, my junior year in college. There were twenty+ other writing students in the audience, a very safe and encouraging environment, and I had this great little story about a cocaine addict who worked in a pizza parlor and mixed up his coke with the flour and all his customers kept coming back every night (uhm … right.). SO. I got up there behind the podium with my two double-spaced pages and made it halfway through the first sentence before I started to shake. Hard. So hard the papers were rattling. I set them down and gripped both sides of the podium to steady myself, but I was still shaking so then the podium was shaking—this big heavy ancient job that’s all banging into the ground and I’m totally mortified because everyone’s watching the podium instead of listening to my genius cocaine story—but still, I kept going. I put both hands behind my back and grasped the elbow of the opposite arm. The shaking didn’t stop, but at least it wasn’t as noticeable, and I made it finally to the end and ran back to my seat. FYI: I have the kind of pale (transparent?) skin that gets blotchy when I’m embarrassed (or excited or drinking) so I was super-red and it was really obvious and horrible and, in retrospect, one of the greatest thing I’ve ever done. If I hadn’t of started there, I’d never have been able to pull off Monday night.

I was lucky enough (seriously, I wish I knew whatever I did to deserve this so I could do that thing again a thousand times) to read for the Chicago Poetry Center’s “No Love For Love” show at the Apollo Theater, featuring Ira Glass (!!!) (I met Ira Glass!!) and also kickass, ball-busting performances by Mary Fons, Jonathan Messinger, Joe Meno, Justin Hayford, Diana Slickman, Joel Chmara, Christopher Piatt, and Scott Woldman, all of whom rocked my world and made me want to rush home and write more stuff, better stuff, bigger stuff!

You can read about it here and here and here.

A note about the Apollo: No, it’s not the “James Brown Live at the Apollo” Apollo. THAT Apollo is in New York. THIS Apollo is in Chicago, on Lincoln, and it’s lucky I’d never been there before because if I had I’d of been very, very nervous ‘cause it seats five hundred people—five HUNDRED—and the night was TOTALLY SOLD OUT (!!!!!!!!) so, like, Oh My God! that’s a lot of people! and they were great. As in, if someone assigned me a fifteen hundred word essay titled, “My Ideal Audience Ever For My Work Would Be ___________ “ I would say, “Fifteen hundred words? Shit, I can do it in SIXTEEN! Check it: The Audience at the Chicago Poetry Center’s “No Love For Love” show at the Apollo Theater!” (yes, I just counted those words on my fingers) who were so supportive, and laughed like crazy, and there’s NOTHING as amazing and contagious as laughing with five hundred people and, NO, I didn’t have pizza on my face or an unzipped fly or anything, they were laughing maybe ‘cause of my story but also because the event was billed as an “Anti-Valentines Day Reading” and nothing is quite as funny as our past love-lives, right?

It’s funny that I’m doing an anti-Valentines Day reading NOW. A few years ago (we can say BC meaning Before Christopher) I filed Valentines Day into one of two categories: “I’m alone therefore Valentine’s Day sucks,” or “The person I am with on Valentine’s Day sucks therefore Valentine’s Day sucks.” BOTH those attitudes are IDEAL to pull off an anti-Valentines Day reading, but now, you know, I am president of the Valentines Day fan club. I have a T-shirt even. Here’s why: my iCalendar for yesterday, February 14th, said the following:

10:00-12:00—office hours
12:30-3:30—class
7:00—YOU ARE BUSY

Christopher wrote that last one. He does this sometimes: goes into my calendar from his computer via wireless connection, like sometimes I am writing in my calendar and things just appear there, like: DINNER WITH YOUR HUSBAND’S PARENTS. GENE SISKEL WITH MICHAEL AND DAVE. YOU ARE WORKING TOO MUCH, TODAY YOU WILL RELAX and, unexpectedly, YOU ARE BUSY TONIGHT or YOU HAVE PLANS THIS NIGHT. Those are my favorites, those little surprises slid into my day-to-day craziness that remind me to slow down, shake things up, remember that life is really so much more than a work schedule.

So, last night I was BUSY, and I was so excited! So OH MY GOSH WHAT’S HAPPENING?! Where will we go what will I wear what’s going ON?!! which, if we’re using me as a case study here, can bring us to the following conclusions about Valentine’s Day: if one is with someone wonderful, then Valentines Day is subsequently wonderful. If one is with someone sucky, ergo Valentines Day is sucky. If one is alone, that can possibly be sucky but not AS sucky as being WITH someone sucky (after doing a reading with so many great poets, I’m really noticing my lack of eloquence, here, people). My point is, I’ve never really had a THEORY about Valentines Day one way or the other: I just go with the flow. HOWEVER, when I started doing some press for this anti-Valentine’s reading, I realized I was supposed to have a theory! And, more importantly, I was supposed TO ARTICULATE THIS THEORY, like, some very intelligent point of view to frame my conceptualization of February 14th as a wider cultural phenomenon. To which I was like, uhm … wha???? Luckily, I got to do a couple of the interviews online which gave me lots of time to craft what I wanted to say (I must’ve rewritten this shit a hundred times):

Q: Why did you agree to be part of this show? Were you the kid who got the smallest pile of valentine cards in third grade? Or were you the kid who sent a card to everyone? Which kid are you now, and why?

A: My mom made sure I gave a Valentines Day card to everyone, which was fine by me. I didn’t get that Valentines Day was supposed to be about love (gross gross puke), I was just excited that the cards were Masters of the Universe—He-Man and Battle Cat and Castle Grayskull—which were totally supercool. When I was finally old enough to understand that Valentines Day was about this whole love thing, I remember asking why it only got one party a year. Shouldn’t there be parties for love all the time? I’ve definitely gone through my cynical stage over the years—love sucks, look at divorce rates, reality TV, blah blah—but then this really weird thing happened: I fell in love, and celebrating that is very much a part of my day-to-day. So now I’m right back to where I was as a kid: why is there only one party a year? What are you doing for the other 364—fantasizing for next year’s Feb 14th? I agreed to be a part of the show because I’m interested in the whole fantasy/reality thing, the difference between real relationships and the ones we make up in our heads. Plus it sounded like a hell of a lot of fun.

Q: Can you tell me a bit about what you’ll be doing for the program?

A: Last year, I broke up with Indiana Jones. We’d been together for a really long time and, as you’d probably expect, it was very awkward and horrible. Especially for my husband. So I’ll be telling that story.

(sidebar: I pulled off this story for one reason only, and his name is Miles Polaski. Miles Polaski is my hero. If you see Miles Polaski about town, you should give him a hug and buy him some beer. He’s a sound designer for 2nd Story and also a company member with Reverie and Collaboraction, and because of what he did I was able to actually have a conversation with Indiana Jones. He pulled dialogue off the DVD’s of all three films which allowed me to actually SPEAK to Indiana Jones! AND THE BEST PART is that Miles programmed all of Jones’ dialogue into a little electric piano so he could just press certain keys for certain lines, and—before the show, to calm me down when I was a little nervous—he played me whole SONGS using lines from Indiana Jones. On his piano. Which we’re calling the “Indiano”. Miles Polaski, people. Miles f’ing Polaski).

Q: Why do we need an anti-Valentine’s Day? Are people, despite Seinfeld, SNL, rap music and reality TV gone all soppy and sentimental?

A: I think it’s a lot more complicated. Everyone’s had their heartbreak, their anger, their bitterness just like hopefully, we’ve all had our lovey-dovey crazy joy. What I’m interested in is the stories behind all of it—the ones you tell your friends over drinks or whatever when you’re trying to get through something. You hear the stories and you go, “I KNOW! Me TOO! And it makes it easier somehow, like how a good love song can help. Like you’re not alone and you’re going to get through this. Plus, they’re funny as hell. Heartbreak stories are always funny once you’re over the heartbreak.

Q: Who are some of your favorite poets, authors writing in the anti-Valentine mode?

A: If “anti-Valentine day mode” means writers who are handling love stories in an honest, tender, painful way, I’d say Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His are great, desperate love stories with all their fury and joy. Jhumpa Lahiri’s story A Temporary Matter, too, and Joe Meno and Elizabeth Crane are certainly favorites. If “anti-Valentine” means anger, bitterness and fury, I’d say nothing is as good as Jagged Little Pill.

Q: What does it mean to be anti-Valentine’s Day? Does it make a person a cynic, or just bitter? Can one take an anti-Valentine’s Day stand without sounding like you’ve eaten sour grapes?

A: The simple answer, I think, is the whole cynical bitterness thing. But it’s more complicated than that: it’s creativity, as in expressing how you feel about something in a way that’s unique to your relationship instead of the whole roses and Hallmark thing. It’s hoping people recognize how lucky they are to have love every single day, instead of some obligatory celebration bullshit once a year. It’s not having to spend a ton of cash ‘cause some corporation says that’s what it takes.

Q: Just what is wrong with sappy romanticism? If there hadn’t been a Valentine’s Day in the first place, would we need to have invented one?

A: I’m TOTALLY a sappy romantic! I think that’s part of being anti-Valentine’s Day—it shouldn’t just happen in a day! It should happen all the time!

Q: Do you think this show is the beginning of a trend? What other kinds of anti-Valentine-alia would you like to see grow out of this? What would you like Hallmark to do about it?

A: I think this show should become a trend not so much of its subject matter, but because readings—active, performative, vibrant readings that are challenging and exciting and thought-provoking—are just as engaging (if not moreso!) as a play, a dance, live music, whatever. Among the multiple reasons why the Chicago Poetry Center is so great is because they recognize how much FUN readings are.
As for Hallmark, I'd like them to back off. There's tons of great little indie designers making anti-Valentine-alia (GREAT word, by the way) and I'd rather give them my attention and my money.

Q: Anything else you’d like to add about the varieties of love and hate and how they work in our lives? (Or is that your next book?)

A: I think it’s interesting that I spent nearly a decade writing about all my dating frustrations—the good, the bad and the stupid—and this Anti-Valentines Day reading happens right after I elope.

I hope you all had wonderful, kick-ass Valentine’s Days (and to anyone who might be wondering what my surprise was, I’ll say only this: there are some things that a girl’s gotta keep to herself).