And then. . .

Three years ago I transitioned from saying, "I'm a Department Manager at Nordstrom," to "I'm in Grad school." Each time I said it I felt a little less naked, careerless. A year in, I took a trip to London, and in getting to know two people I'm now lucky to call friends, I was asked what I was going to do. "I'm a writer. I want to write," I replied. The words were still new to my mouth, sticky like caramel, resistant to dissolve and sticking to the back of my throat. I imagined the stickiness in my words wasn't apparent as I chewed them out. Three years have passed and I'm now left with the label, "I'm a writer," and I find that this is one of the labels I've enjoyed the most. I want to wrap myself in all its letters and cozy into them like an over-sized blanket. I want to knit the multi-colored blanket larger with my own words and stories until I'm completely surrounded by them. I want to breath and live wi...

Hardcover, paperback, wrinkled corners and cracked spines. In an age of e-readers, smaller screens, quicker reading... well,                            I don't want quicker, I want to sit back ankles resting against one another, book opened to a perfect 45 degree angle as not to break the spine, and                                          breathe                                                 the                                                       words                            ...

The thing about waiting, for anything, whether in a line at the 24-hour Walgreens or the drive-thru at Starbuck's waiting for your morning Skinny Mocha, is that, well it sucks. No one likes to wait in lines, and in a world where we can do multiple things at once at all times and post how we're feeling to the world in seconds, the waiting seems worse. It seems like, well, we're waiting that much longer. We're standing behind the guy with a shaved head and tattoo's who's moist pasty skin rolls peak out from the rolled edges of his cut dingy t-shirt waiting to get the birth control that will keep us from having his three noisy kids that keep grabbing the bottles of vitamins off the shelves as ten people stand in line try not to stare at the kids like they are monsters.  It's also sitting in our cars Tweeting, Facebooking, Google +ing, Instagraming, What's Apping, all about coffee, then wrinkling ours noses as we notice we forgot to hit the re-circulation ...

Yesterday I went for a walk in downtown El Paso. The older part where they are trying to turn the hood into a postcard where everyone is smiling brightly and sunlight reflects off chemically whitened teeth.  I won't get into how I feel about parts of it: disappointed and choked with things being forced down my throat as the city officials place their hands on the back of my head. Or how I feel about the other part of it: nostalgic with it's restored beauty and I remember my childhood, clasping my grandmother's sweaty palm as we walked the downtown streets. As I walked by Firefighters Memorial Park, a small corner hidden behind tall buildings and homes, I snapped some photos. The sun was bright and unforgiving--it must be called that in El Paso because it's the best description--but I still wanted to look around and get close to the vintage light posts which have replaced the tainted silver ones that used to be there. Beads of sweat were already beginning to surface ...

1. Set a schedule 2. Stick to it 3. Read lots of books. The trashy kind you haven't had time for because of school 4. Work out. Beat him in the P90X challenge 5. Take long baths and stay in until your fingers look like pink little prunes and you think you might drop your book 6. Wake up at 9am everyday, even when you don't have to 7. Write, but only things that don't have anything to do with the memoir you've been staring at for the last year 8. Go see bands, even if they might be bad. El Paso is full of free summer concerts to go to, sit on prickly crab grass and enjoy the cooler evenings 9. See your friends, the ones who have stood by the sidelines cheering as you wrote and wrote for the last few months, the ones who checked on you, gave you the love you needed to finish, even if from a distance 10. Celebrate being married, finishing your thesis, and being at a giant crossroads marked Future 11.  Purge things: all the things that clutter and get in your way,...

I have not written in this space since March when I was bleeding words and had to hold whatever was left in reserve. I'm not sure if I have words now, but my hands so used to flicking at keys demanded I write something. In the background the TV hums, Salome the cat dozes, Drew the cat bathes, and Sami the dog sleeps. Today they all smell of aloe and their fur is soft from their turn in a tub filled with warm water. I sit on my white leather couch in a soft blue cotton gown, typing and smelling of cucumber from my turn in the shower. Many things have happened in the past few months, more than even I think I realize. I am no longer a student, but a master. I keep waiting for my light saber to be delivered. My home has become a cozy family of 6. (I forgot to mention Federico the fish swims, earlier.) I lost some things: baggage, friends, Luna the dog, fear, and my mind for a bit. I found some things: comfort, closure, friends, and my mind. (I left it in the closet). One thing I ...

Hemingway once said, " There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." Until this week I think I only understood that quote figuratively.  It's Thursday, and I have revised 13 stories of my creative non-fiction novel/thesis. I have been bleeding all week. Yesterday I wrote for 12 hrs give or take, and when I went home, I felt as if I had just run a marathon.  I am not a runner.  This week I am bleeding through my finger tips, bleeding the words, I am to afraid to say, the feelings I didn't know were still there until they appeared on the page.  Before medicine evolved doctor's used to bleed the sick, they thought it healed them. I think right now, I am being bled by a phantom doctor who is trying to save my heart, by pulling these words from me, so that I may love without the tenuous fear of betrayal, and so that I may miss without feeling the weight of guilt curving and bending me until I am an unrecognizable figure, like ...