Bali Day One

My fiance and I just spent a week in Bali, Indonesia. This is from the travelogue that I did not keep past the first day:

After 30+ hours of travel, we arrived on Sunday night to the Bali airport in Denpasar to broken ATM machines and difficult decisions about whether to declare Gabe's oranges. For brief moments I was terrified we would spend the week in Bali without a way to get cash. But we found a working ATM and for probably the only time in our lives, we got to view bank balances in the tens of millions. After an hour and a half drive to Candidasa, we did little more than pick at the delicious traditional Balinese meal, then fell into a hard bed in sticky heat with only a single three-blade fan to cool us, and had the best sleep of our lives.

Ryan warned us we would wake with the sun, around 6:30am, and his prediction was vindicated, for me at least. Gabe was still deeply asleep beside me as I rose, found the villa's promised yoga mats, and padded outside to the postage stamp lawn. The sun rising to my left, I faced the ocean and practiced five rounds of sun salutations. It was the most peaceful and beautiful I have felt in so long.

It is impossible to write about the events of today without overshadowing them with our accident. John, Ryan, and Gabe rented scooters. I was too afraid, as is usual for me, but rather than stay at home, my compromise was to wrap my arms around Gabe's belly and ride on the scooter behind him. I was terrified at first, but seeing Gabe's pleasure and exhilaration at driving gave me pleasure and exhilaration. Driving in Bali is nerve-racking for so many reasons, and the rain--which I assume we will face daily (as it is the rainy season)--exacerbates them all. After riding many hours to visit the Taman Ujung Water Palace and the Water Temple at Tirtagangga,  we were mere meters from home, when, having missed what we thought was our turn, Gabe attempted a turnaround on a slick incline out of a parking lot. The bike slipped out from beneath us and sent us skidding over the gravel.

Immediately, we were surrounded by people who wanted to help. They got us to our feet and aimed hoses at the dirt that stuck in our wounds. Gabe had landed squarely on his shoulder and suffered a deep contusion, but thankfully no dislocation or breakage. He had a deep, large scrape on his elbow and is already proud of the scars he will undoubtedly grow. I was not as injured: a big scrape on my knee and cuts on my right hand, with minor scrapes on my elbow, arm, and shoulder. Gabe seemed to have a tear in his eye when he told me how thankful he was that I wasn't badly hurt. I knew the feeling.

The Australian owner of the Bayside Bungalows took good care of us, strangers. He sent one of his staff for iodine at a nearby "dokter," then sent two more to see us home: one to drive us in a van and a second to follow with the fateful rented scooter. Our brains mush from the accident, we mumbled apologies to the driver as we stared desperately, trying to remember where we were staying in this new town that had not even known us 24 hours. Finally, we were relieved to find our road, which Gabe will attribute to me, but what was really a lucky accident of our driver. We paid the scooter owner 100,000 rupia for the damaged bike (about $9USD), then limped home to Villa Nilaya.

This was our first day in Bali.

One Year; Year One

It’s been a long time since I’ve written something very personal on this blog. I feel the urge today. Perhaps it’s because I’ve developed a recent addiction to reading personal essays by women. Perhaps it’s because I’ve always had an affinity for dates and anniversaries. Perhaps it’s because autumn makes me introspective. Perhaps it's because September 17th, 2012 was the beginning of the rest of my life.

One year ago today, a significant aspect of my life was flipped upside down. I know it was today because I wrote it down in my writing journal. “September 17th, 2012, ----- --------- broke up with me.” It was a single line in the margins between notes about the book projects I had in progress at the time.

My “partner” of 6½ years, with whom I had been living for almost 2 years, unceremoniously broke off our relationship one Monday morning. It was the first day of a week I had taken off work to dedicate to my writing. We'd had a fight the previous night when he came home too late and lied about who he was with. He woke up in the morning, showered and dressed for work, came out to the living room where I was lounging in my pajamas with a book, leaned against a piece of furniture, and told me it was over. He didn’t even sit down to tell me this.

I put “partner” in quotes because that’s never truly what he was to me. It was only what I called him. I started using that term in our sixth year together, when “boyfriend” was too young an expression and “husband” was something we agreed he would never be. (One of many compromises I made was that marriage and children were off the table.) We had a formal domestic partnership in place so that he could be on my health insurance. I had replaced romance with paperwork, thinking I would take what semblance of permanence and commitment I could get. He never used the term. I’m not sure what word he used to refer to me. I’m not sure he ever referred to me at all. I found out several months ago that his boss at a job he’s been at for years didn’t know I had written a book. He was a photographer who only took my picture a few times, an apt metaphor for our relationship. But despite the many problems, it's hard to overstate the effects being in a near 7-year relationship can have on a person, and even harder to overstate the effects of its sudden end. 

We lived passively together for the next 5 weeks, while we worked with our landlord to find someone to take over the apartment, and I tried to find a new place to live. Our life together was shockingly similar to the way it was before the breakup, a fact that made it easier to swallow the reality and the necessity of the situation.

The immediate effect of the breakup, aside from the traditional cycle of grief (which seemed to spin on an endless loop those first few weeks), was a deep introspection and a consuming need for intense self-care, which I had let lapse for years. I planned a trip to Colorado in an effort to reconnect with my semi-estranged sister, my relationship with whom had been strained in large part because of my ex. I emailed another friend with whom I had been estranged for years; he was ecstatic to hear from me, and we forgave each other for past wrongs. I wrote love letters to my friends. I called everyone I loved and made plans with them. I scheduled every day for a solid month to do something, anything. I dedicated myself to a new [semi]-minimalist lifestyle and gave away, sold, or trashed a significant portion of my possessions. I found a beautiful studio apartment in a neighborhood that scared me; I knew living there would make me grow. Moreover, it was somewhere I couldn’t live with another person, so I knew I would have 18 months of living alone—and that was essential for me.

In the midst of all this, as well as being sad and angry and confused, I reconnected with someone else from my past. He was a would-be suitor from a foray into online dating 7 years earlier. We’d run into each other on Facebook in December 2011, when my book came out, and had been “friends” since then, but one or the other of us had been involved. This was the first time we were both single, and to say I began to notice him is a gross understatement. By the time I was in Colorado, we were texting with each other every day, for almost the entire day. We had our first date on November 3. I threw up that morning because I was so in love with him, and we hadn’t even met yet. That date lasted 2 days. Today, we already have plans for a weekend away for our 1-year anniversary, and are planning a trip to Asia. I could write a book about what meeting this man has done to my heart, soul, and mind. We agree it’s a blessing we never went out those 8 years ago; we needed these years to become the people we are, the people who were meant to be together. I lamented the time “wasted” with my ex and he the time wasted on his own dating foibles, but we reminded each other that we are who we are because of what—and who—has happened to us. It truly feels like my whole life was spent in a run-up to meeting him, again, and having him meet me, and then falling in love with each other.

To spend time thinking about what else the past year has brought is not to minimize my new relationship. It is by far the most important thing to happen. But there has been so much more. Indulge me while I take inventory, in no particular order. 

• I attempted—and failed—to learn French. Relatedly, I learned that learning is harder when you’re older, and that I am not, in fact, good at everything.
• I turned 31 and threw myself a rager of a birthday party to make up for the failed 30^th birthday that had gone forgotten.
• I gained—and subsequently lost—18 pounds.
• My football team won the Super Bowl.
• I put out the second edition of my novel, finished the booktrailer, and threw the most glorious book reading for the best of my best friends and family.
• I gave away almost all my art supplies in a conscious decision to focus my free time on my writing.
• I bought more art supplies so I could draw my first comic. I drew my first comic.
• I decided one day to stop texting my ex first, just to see if he would ever contact me. He never did and we haven’t spoken in 7 months. I deleted his number from my phone. I’ve seen him once, across the street at a festival. I don’t think he saw me.
• I learned to love my body, instead of feeling like it is always a work-in-progress. I started to feel truly beautiful for the first time in years.
• I cut out sugar and grains and have subsequently learned to cook some really interesting foods, like greenola and spaghetti squash.

• I started practicing yoga at a studio.
• I allowed myself to grow out my hair because I like it that way.
• I started wearing more makeup because I want to.
• I tried on bikinis instead of one-pieces. (I did not, however, buy one.) I started wearing shorts on the regular for the first time since childhood.
• I decided that I would like to be heavily tattooed, and scheduled 9 hours of tattooing over the next 3 months. I hired an artist to design a tattoo to commemorate my first book.
• I put over 20,000 miles on my car.
• I took my bassoon out of its case, put it together, and attempted to play it for the first time since June 1999. It belongs to my nephew now.
• I reconnected with my sister and spent excellent quality time with my niece, who is becoming an adult faster than I can bear.
• I started spending my money on things that make me—and my loved ones—happy, instead of squirreling it away in paranoia and anxiety. I bought art. I bought pretty dresses. I donated to Kickstarters. I bought plane tickets to Bali.
• I remembered how much I love to walk. I climbed a mountain. I regularly hike through Baltimore just to be sure I am truly noticing all the people and the things there are to see. I replaced driving with walking whenever possible.
• I started bicycling. I am terrible at it, but getting better.
• I took up feminism.
• I realized I DO want to get married and I DO want children, and that I had deluded myself out of those desires because of a man, and fuck that forever.
• I neglected this blog, but I started tweeting like crazy.
• I started listening to more music and less news. I listen to hip-hop without feeling embarrassed about it. In fact, I listen to whatever I want without feeling embarrassed about it. I pretty much stopped feeling embarrassed, because people who make me feel embarrassed don’t count.
• I took a class in religion. I discovered Buddhism and Unitarian Universalism, and started going to church sometimes. These may very well be the answers to the spiritual questions that have been haunting me for a decade.
• I realized I might still like to be a minister some day, and I started looking into it in earnest.
• I decided I don’t need a Master’s degree to feel like a whole person.
• I cut down on drinking alcohol from nightly to once per week, or none at all.
• I finally got over my fear of the dentist and got my teeth fixed. I FUCKING FLOSS NOW.
• I learned that I can’t do everything myself. I learned to let people help me. I learned that the way it makes me feel really awesome to help people is the way it feels for other people when they help me, and it’s only fair that everyone gets to feel that.
• I tried to smile and say hello to everyone I saw on the street. That ended when I realized how much street harassment I was facing. I realized I don’t owe it to anyone to smile at them, so I stopped. I feel very ambivalent about this, but I have become very outspoken against street harassment.
• I went to my 10-year college reunion.
• I networked. Like an adult.
• I go out to eat or to concerts by myself sometimes—not because I can’t find someone to go with me, but because I realized I am friends with myself.
• I Instagram my meals and my cats with abandon because fuck the haters.
• I have more, better sex than ever, and I realized I am no less than one half of that equation.
• I make a concerted effort to see at least one of my friends every week. Depending on your personality, this may not seem like a lot, but it’s a significant change from the way I used to live my life.
• I remembered what it’s like to enjoy things with abandon. I remembered what real happiness feels like. I stopped thinking it was cool to be aloof or critical. I stopped giving energy to people or situations that make me feel bad.
• I’ve made new friends. My boyfriend has made friends with my friends. I’ve made old friends into new friends. I’ve made acquaintances into best friends. I’ve made best friends into family. I got rid of friends-in-name-only. I will never again neglect the people who will never leave me.
• I fell into a deeper, truer, more perfect love than I could have dreamed possible.

There’s more. So much more. What a year it’s been. 13’s always been my lucky number. I guess it figures that I’d be age 31 in the year ’13, and it would be the best fucking year of my life. It took a major shaking up to wake me out of the fog I was living in. It felt like a knife at the time. Now it feels like a gift. 

Suggested Name Replacements for the Washington DC NFL Team

The Red Scans

The Red Skinks

The Ruxpins

The Rad Skins

 

Redd's Kin

And read this mic drop if you haven't. 

A Visit to Fairgos

Have you checked out the book trailer yet? Don't forget to check out the revamped www.warmastersdaughter.com as well!

Dat Hash

I've had a couple of requests for this recipe so I thought I would toss it up here on the blog. This is my almost famous Brussels sprout hash, which has become a staple of my Sunday brunches. Since I cut sugar and grains from my diet at the beginning of July, I'm doing a lot more veggies, protein, and fat, so my table is probably going to be seeing a lot more of this favorite. It's low carb with enough fat and protein to make it a great way to start the day. To make this vegan, simply leave out the bacon and sub your favorite oil that has a decent smoke point. 

Ingredients:

• 4 slices uncured bacon (Safeway and Wegman's both have delicious store-brand varieties)
• A bunch of fresh Brussels sprouts, quartered lengthwise (Sorry, but I never notice how much I'm buying... I get enough to fill up my cast iron skillet. Probably 1-2 lbs should do you)
• 1/4 - 1/3 c. your favorite nuts, chopped up (I've used cashews, pistachios, almonds, and pecans. They're all good, but I think pecans are my favorite for this)
• 2 - 3 T. balsamic vinegar (Red wine vinegar will do in a pinch. Flavored balsamics are dreamy in this. I like to use the maple balsamic from Lebherz Olive Oil & Vinegar Emporium)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Fry up the bacon in a cast iron skillet over med-high heat until it is about 75% done. Remove from pan and drain on paper towels. Leave the drippings in the pan.
• Add the quartered Brussels sprouts to the pan. I've found this dish is best if the sprout pieces are not uniform. Throw in big chunks, single leaves, etc. This gives you a variety of textures and flavors when it's all done.
• Fry the sprouts over medium heat until they start to turn darker green and some of the smaller pieces begin to blacken. Tear your bacon into pieces and throw it back into the pan. Toss your nuts in now as well.
• Continue to fry over medium heat, stirring frequently to keep it from sticking to the pan. You may need to add a splash of oil, depending how greasy your bacon was. Fry until the biggest chunks of sprout are tender, or until your hash is just about the desired level of char. (I tend toward more char because I love the sweet nutty caramelization on the sprouts when they're really dark.)
• When you're pretty close to being done, go once or twice around the pan with your vinegar and stir. You can be more generous with the vinegar, depending on your taste. Add salt and pepper to taste (go easy on the salt; the bacon may be enough). Cook for 2 more minutes, and you're ready to serve! 

This dish is great with a couple runny fried eggs on top, or served alongside a steak. You can also make it a day ahead. Just don't cook it quite as long, and finish frying it in the cast iron just before serving.

Pictures From the Release Party

Thank you again to everyone who made this a success. Please do yourself a big favor and check out the work by my amazing readers, Laura Bogart and Matthew Kabik. Laura read from her novel-in-progress, and Matt read from his story "The Long Waiting Noise," recently published by Cease Cows. 

This Is Joy

I told everyone last night I had only one goal for the evening: to not cry.

More or less, the goal was met. I choked up for a moment at the beginning, but it quickly subsided, laughed off in jocular self-awareness. This evening, however, as I lay on my couch and stared across the long length of my apartment, I began to weep.

Last night was the celebration I feel like I've been waiting my whole life to have. I published The War Master's Daughter in December 2011, right before my 30th birthday. In the whirlwind of getting the book out, then celebrating my birthday, getting through the holidays, and everything else that life throws one's way, I never got around to having a book release party. It is one of the milestones on every aspiring author's mental wish list: holding the first copy in your hands, getting your first royalty check, getting reviewed, signing copies . . . sipping wine and eating stinky cheese at your release party. Last night, I finally threw the party, pinning my tardiness conveniently on the release of the second edition of the book and the debut of the book trailer, on which my friends and I have been working for over a year.

The party was slated to start at 7pm. At 6:30, my chores complete, I stood aimless in the middle of my apartment, fully dressed, fully made-up, full of anxiety. Would there be enough chairs? Were people going to buy books; would there be enough? Baltimore has been facing a brutal heat wave; would my tiny A/C unit be able to keep 35 people cool in my old, drafty apartment? Was the excerpt I chose too long? Could these people--even though they are my friends and family--stand 17 minutes of my voice, of my own crazy ideas writ down in my own crazy vernacular? I wondered if I was being self-indulgent, grandiose, throwing myself another party. I worried my dress was too tight, my lipstick the wrong color. I worried I hadn't written a proper thank you speech. Oddly, I didn't really worry about fucking up the reading, because that's the kind of thing I'm pretty good at.

But I did worry I would cry.

Last night, I was surrounded by my family and the best of my best friends. These are the people I love the absolute most in this world. They were here with me, in the home I had built for myself after my life was unexpectedly flipped upside down last autumn, and they were giving me the opportunity to thank them for things I can barely put into words. I thanked everyone for being there, of course. I thanked them for the wine and hors d'oeuvres they brought, asked them if they had any trouble parking. I thanked my friends who made the book trailer by reading from the Acknowledgments of the new edition because I didn't trust my emotions to an off-the-cuff speech. I thanked the intimidatingly talented Laura Bogart and Matthew Kabik for sharing their incredible work with my audience. However--and I'm sure no one knows this, because I hardly knew it myself, as full as I was of anxiety and adrenaline and wine--but what I was really thanking them for was for loving me, for allowing me to be a part of their lives, for being my safety net when I thought I would fall forever, for being proud and never jealous, for being there at that moment instead of somewhere else, and for being there at all moments when I needed them. For letting me love them back.

Tonight, I lay on my couch, stripped near bare on this steamy July day. All the furniture is still pushed out of the way, and an echo hangs on the rare words I speak aloud. I look at this space I created, this home that's mine, and I can feel the love that has filled it up. It lingers on the air like the smell of Sunday brunch in the kitchen, or honeysuckle near the mailbox of the house I grew up in. I felt it wash over me and I began to sob tears of joy. I am overwhelmed.

I am overjoyed.

This is joy. This is happiness. This is what you've given to me. If I can give back just the tiniest fraction of this feeling, it will be the only thing I hope ever to accomplish in my life.  

Pre-Ordering for the New Edition Now Available!

Second Edition of The War Master's Daughter

Just a quick update on exciting progress: The War Master's Daughter will be temporarily unavailable in paperback while the second edition is being proofed. The new edition will have a new cover, new foreword, and a new map, which was just completed last week. I'm anxiously awaiting the new proof right now! The eBook is still available via Amazon and Smashwords.

I'll shortly be scheduling a release party where we'll be debuting the new book trailer, which Liquid Squid has been working on for over a year!

In other news, drafting my second novel, Bugged, is coming along swimmingly with the chorus of cicada providing some much needed inspiration. I'm aiming for a 2014 release.

I'm also the proud owner of SMLXbooks.com and will be moving my website from the novel-centric warmastersdaughter.com to a site dedicated to the SMLX Books publishing collective, the model for which I'm designing with some of the most creative folks I know.

Don't forget that you can like SMLX on Facebook for more frequent updates and fun posts about books, and follow me on Twitter for incredibly frequent updates.

Thoughts on Boston

I had planned to spend this evening working on my novel. I’ve written about 12,000 words in the past 2 weeks, with a planned schedule of about a thousand words per day. But today, at the risk of depleting the supply of words I may have for my novel, I am going to make words here about today, about what happened today, about what may be described as a tragedy, definitely, or what may be described, less popularly, as a wake-up call.

First of all, I am terribly hurt that lives were lost or permanently altered as a direct result of the bombings in Boston this afternoon. My heart goes out to all involved. What I have to say here should not diminish this tragedy as a personal one that personally affects so many people. However, it is impossible to regard an incident like this solely in the context of personal tragedy, and therefore discourse about the incident as metaphor is demanded and must be answered.

There is a right way and a wrong way to do this, and a spectrum of ways in between. I would assert that Alex Jones chose the wrong way,  who tweeted these two sentiments in the same breath, “Our hearts go out to those that are hurt or killed #Boston marathon - but this thing stinks to high heaven #falseflag.” I am not sure what I am doing here is the right way or the wrong way. When does the window open when it is not “too soon”; when does it shut when it is too late, when people have already moved on to the next sensation, whether real or manufactured? Perhaps there is no window at all. Perhaps, to some people, it will always be wrong for me to say these things. I’ve already been accused of “turning this political” and being in “bad taste.” Perhaps others are ready to hear what I have to say. Perhaps they have been ready for a long time.

We (and Americans, I am speaking specifically to you) need to take a moment and consider our reaction to this news. When you heard, when someone told you or you saw the headline, what was your first thought? What thoughts did you have after that? How did your brain feel, your heart, your guts? Did you try to contact people to be sure they were okay? Did you spread the word? Did you research the news to see what facts were real and which weren’t? Did you formulate scenarios, imagine who was to blame, maybe even speak aloud this speculations to see if others agreed?

Did you do the same thing after Newtown?

Did you do the same thing after 9/11?

Did you do the same thing after you heard 16 civilians were killed yesterday in Iraq by bomb, bringing the total civilian body count in Iraq to 187 in April alone?

Or didn’t you know that.

Or didn’t you care.

The thing that makes the Boston Marathon Bombing different, even though fewer people are dead, is that it happened here. Except, what about the 28 people, including 3 children age 13 and under, who were killed by gunshots over the weekend. That happened here. It happened everywhere, all over America. In fact, it happens every single day, all over America.

How does your brain feel reading that, your heart, your guts? Why is it so different than when you heard that there were two explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon?

I believe it has to do with the ideas of safety, expectation, context, circumstance. The problem with 9/11, the problem with Newtown, the problem with Boston is that the people who were hurt were analogs for ourselves, for our friends and families. In our minds, these people are, we are, innocents. We are supposed to be safe. We did not choose the kind of life where death and destruction are a normal circumstance. But in our minds, if it could happen to those people, it could happen to us, and the realization that we are not in control—that no one, not our police, not our military, not even our gods are in control—is frightening on a level that goes soul-deep.

The problem, though, is that when we think of ourselves that way, as innocent, as out of the circumstance of violence, the implicit assertion is that people in those other circumstances—Muslims living in a third world war zone, say, or gangbangers living in a first world war zone—are the opposite of that. Whether subconsciously or otherwise, there is the thought that these people somehow were not completely innocent or undeserving of what they got. Collateral damage in a war zone is not shocking; it’s barely news. It’s a ticker beneath a celebrity nip slip.  Getting the annual homicide rate below 200 in Baltimore is considered a success. Maybe if those people don’t want to get killed they shouldn’t be involved in the drug trade, right? Maybe they shouldn’t be poor. Maybe they shouldn’t be black. Maybe if they lived in a nice Boston neighborhood and could afford to take the day off work to watch people run for fun and not because they’re being chased it would be more gut-wrenching when they died, and people might say it’s in “bad taste” when someone else politicizes it.

You’re not safe, my fellow Americans. Your safety is an illusion. And that illusion is a pacifier that keeps your eyes off the ticker, keeps them glazed over, keeps your mouth shut except when your knee jerks because you have a ready-made sound bite you can throw at something you think deserves throwing-at. You are not safe because you live in an aggressive, hostile bully of a country—except America doesn’t steal lunch money, it kills thousands of innocent people in foreign countries, sends thousands of soldiers to die in foreign countries, and makes the deaths of thousands of victims on domestic soil into a wedge issue instead of a dire fucking emergency.

More people have been killed by gun violence since the Newtown shooting than were killed in 9/11. You want to talk about terrorism? The government has you in terror that you’re going to lose your guns so much that you forget to be scared of actually losing your life. You’re lulled into submission because we spend more on defense than the next 13 countries in the world combined so that you can feel safe, so that “war zone” is a pithy metaphor used to describe two bombs going off in a major American city, instead of your everyday forever reality. So when something like the Boston bombing happens, you get upset because something woke you up.

It’s okay to be upset. But you really ought to follow up that emotion with some good old-fashioned, red-blooded American anger. And then you better fucking do something. The window for talking about this isn’t open and isn’t closed because it doesn’t exist because somebody somewhere made you think it was in “bad taste” to talk about it, because they don’t want you to talk about it. If we want the killing to stop, if we want true safety instead of the mere illusion thereof, we must treat all deaths equally with our brains and our hearts and our guts.

Never forget.

Never forget.

How many commercial breaks until you’ve forgotten? Don’t be one more American Idle.

Here’s my thousands words.