Tap on the Shoulder

I don't want to think about how long it's been since I've posted here.  I've had so little to say, you see.

And what an incredibly selfish statement that is.

I'm stalled out in the middle of chapter five of Sex and the Pity, frozen in place by fear of more failure.  More, you say?  The advance on acceptance is a spit in the wind.  Angry Fat Girls, now called Eating Ice Cream with My Dog, sold about three copies.  It's probably not my fault but I'm beginning my second quarter of not getting a teaching assignment and I've done nothing to change that situation other than to walk dogs and try to pick up writing coaching gigs.  (Hint!) 

And I've been frozen in fear itself.  What if I can't write this book?  What if it's horrible?  If I move from my bed I'll have to think about my bank balances and the fact that dog walking thins out in the summer.  I'll have to think about my weight.  I'll have to stay awake, which is hard to do when I can't sleep at night but nap all afternoon under the influence of really bad nutrition.  I'll be awake to the fact that I have no health insurance, few local friends, few friends I'm really in touch with.  I'd have to notice how much I need to sweep and clean and bathe.  And as of about Thursday, I'd have to admit that the molar I broke half of a few years ago is now very painful and that the pain is moving into my upper jaw.

Wait.  Is there such a thing as an upper jaw?

I'd have to admit I should know things like that.

So I've been hiding in bed, obsessing my way through a psychoanalytic biography of Hitler (which makes him scarier than he already was), onto the siege of Stalingrad, on to biographies of Churchill, Roosevelt and, now, Stalin.  I sleep.  I don't walk Daisy enough.  I get up and plug at Facebook games, which I've come to loathe but still involve myself in.  I promise each night I'll stay awake the next day and write two pages, get proper  groceries, and/or update my website with the new book cover and an announcement about editing.

With no results.

It's called a situational depression, one that circumstances such as a death or break-up or job loss can induce.  At times I pull it together and am wonderful.  Then I hide in bed for 23 hours of Stalin purging Belarus.

But I got my comeuppance yesterday and I'd like to think the universe tapped me subtly on the shoulder and that today I'm doing my best to respond.

Last night at dusk, I was skanked out from a day in bed and walking Sandy, an elderly golden retriever, on the Promenade.  We visited with a puppyish Bernise mountain dog and then moved on.  I had sort of unconsciously noticed -- sort of/unconsciously should prove how vague I was -- a woman behind us and when she caught up to Sandy and me I assumed she wanted some of Sandy's prodigious golden retriever adoration.  (I call goldens "barnacles" because they latch on to your side and won't let go.)

"Are you Frances Kuffel?" she asked.  "I love your blog."

I was ashamed.  Primarily I was ashamed of having neglected it for so long.  All the other shame -- unbrushed teeth, unbathed body, gained weight, the gray world of my existence -- crept up behind that, but slowly enough for me to thank her, tell her I've done a couple of pieces over at Psychology Today and that I should come back to Car on the Hill.

She didn't really care, I think.  She was forgiving of my absence and mostly wanted to say hello and that I speak to her in my writing.

Whomp!

I have a really hard time with that Frances hanging in my closet who speaks to people through her writing.  It's incredibly difficult for this Frances, in shorts dirty from the dog run, to respond to...well, they are fan letters, I suppose.  The real Frances is grotty and sweaty and scared and sleepy and neglectful of her dog and her father.  The one hanging in my closet is wrinkled from being smashed in with everything else and unused for so long.

But, um, I guess it's these ten fingers on the keyboard that wrote those books and the blogs and somehow they are connected to something that people want to read.

I resolved to write a Car on the Hill blog.  I began to think very very very very superficially about the possibility that Sex and the Pity could -- might -- have meaning for the spinsters among us who are afraid of men -- or the men who are afraid of us spinsters.

That was sort of a double-tap on the shoulder.  I'd gotten an email from a man I was interested in dating who effused about my work and my answer was so diffident that it insulted him away. 

Sorry, Mystery Date.  I need to dry clean the other Frances and sit her down in front of email when contemplating serious communication.  This Frances is mostly on her way to sleep these days.

I finished my walks around 10 and made my bed.  I turned to pick something up and stepped on my Kindle.  There was a crack.  It didn't look damaged but it's dead.  Right in the middle of Stalin's post-war cultural purges.

The universe had tapped again, just to prove it means it.

Kindle + sugar = all of the above.

I had an Amazon gift certificate so, yes, I'm getting a new Kindle. 

But not until Tuesday.

In the meantime, I found a credit card site that offers a fair deal on medical/dental procedures.  The scariest dogs in the Heights (Ooper will let about ten people touch him and I'm one) need a walker.  Sandy is here this weekend for $120 I didn't expect.  And I hope that what I've had to say here, as whiney-complainy as it is (which is one reason I've avoided coming here, but really only a small reason because I'd have to fucking wake up in order to do this), strikes a chord for anyone who has a wrinkled doppelganger in her closet.

It's OK.  I didn't even iron mine.

Good

I remarked to Daisy and Hero as we walked down Willow Street on Thursday that I feel good.  "Not happy," I added.  "I'm still scared about money and I'm really lonely and I don't know how to have fun and my body is too big.  But I feel...good."

This is my all-time favorite place to be except for being in that place and being abstinent as well.  It's a delicate balance, that place.  I can't think too much about any of those things I'm not and I have to look very hard at what it is that makes me feel "good" despite the negatives.

Late this fall I think I was on the verge of a depressive psychotic break.  I remember walking along and thinking, "I need coffee, yogurt, soup and I wish I wasn't any more."  I'd stop and think, "Hunh??"  I wasn't, in the beginning, consciously suicidal, I'd simply move from one thought to "If it weren't for my debt and Daddy and Daisy..."

After that happened a couple of times, of course, I became aware of what was happening which made it a lot worse.

So when I say I feel "good," the baseline is that I don't feel like that.

I've been working on Sex and the Pity every day and have come up with a dumb device that I like a lot: at the head of each chapter I give a pertinent sexual fact from the animal kingdom.  It's good because it sets the episodes off on a lighthearted note.  It's also good because I got to spend a couple of hours one day searching for these factoids.  We're familiar with the black widow who eats her mate: it's that kind of thing.  They make me laugh.

I have an editing project in-hand and that's always something I like.  It's there when I'm sick of the computer and it makes my brain go on working in writing mode, only it's objective.

Then there are days when I have to study what I need to do to remain feeling "good".  Yesterday I woke up and was really tired.  I'd had a busy couple of weeks with dogs which would end that early evening and I'd been such a Good Girl about writing and editing and getting things on my list done.  When I reckoned I had to write three pages a day to turn this manuscript in on time, I didn't give myself any days off.  That was insane of me.  Yesterday I required of myself that I write one page.  I almost accomplished that.  It will all probably turn out fine in the end.  I'll get a couple of five-page days but I'd better start including some slump days.

I've just realized that walking in the fresh air helps a lot.  Duh!  I know.  I'm an idiot.  It's partly how I get to the Novembers of my life.  In my defense, we're just coming into pleasant walking again after some months of acutely dangerous to miserable walking conditions.

I'm moving through the world with a conscious rule to forgive myself.  I slept in too long this morning, so long that I was kind of hung over from it.  I don't like getting up in the morning because I'm so scared of my precarious bank account and of writing and of time; today I pushed it too long.  "If you don't write early, you'll work tonight," I had to tell myself.

I'm scared of what will happen if I don't take it everything except Sex at a slow pace (yeah, I see the pun), and even that I have to offer up to the blue sky with the attitude that I'm in it for the long haul now and that the mounting page count proves I'm doing what I should be doing.

I don't even feel out of the woods of depression yet.  There are signs around the house that tell me I have a ways to go.  For instance, Wendy, I'm sorry I haven't opened your Christmas package yet.  When I do, I will...have to acknowledge it and you, which will force me to join the human race by another increment.  It will probably mean I have to acknowledge that you like[d] me, ibid. on the human race.  It will probably introduce something nice into my life when I'm still living in this bubble of make-do.

These are not the feelings of a terribly healthy person.

I have several such packages around the house.

There are a couple of spots in the Bat Cave that could use some cleaning...except that would mean I could ask someone to come in.  I'm afraid of letting any one in.

And yet, I feel good.  I feel like I will swat out some words on Sex today.  I washed my hair today.  It's after 3 p.m. so this day doesn't have all that far to go: the fear might not have a chance to take over if I take a constructive step here and there.

I might open one of those packages today.  I might --  I've sat here with my chin in my hand for about four minutes trying to finish the sentence with no real triumphs.  But you know?  I don't care.  I feel good.

Chapter One

I hoped to finish Chapter One of Sex and the Pity yesterday but after four or five hours I was three pages short and had no more words left.  At 3 in the morning I grogged awake muttering, "Oh shit," because I realized in my sleep that I had given away the ending in the unfinished chapter.

Which was kind of cool because I couldn't wait to get back to it this morning.  And then five pages fell quickly and magically & funnily into place.

At which point the afternoon y-a-w-n-e-d at me.  I didn't really have the words or ambition to work on a magazine proposal or my novel.  I transferred $600 to checking, which scared the hell out of me.  I set up a new email account for the chronicles.*  I played too much Bejewelled on Facebook.

Days on which I finish a chapter are as hard in their way as the days I have to write and have nothing to say.

Remind me of that the next time I say "this" is the hardest kind of writing day.

So I laid down for an hour and fell barely asleep.  This afternoon's unconscious obsession was my desire for rotisserie chicken and French cut string beans.  So I fed Daisy and we went out to admire the forsythia with the western light behind it, and I was off to procure a sane meal.

After which I explored some Pay Pal options for the f chronicles and feel marginally as though I've pulled the last half of the day out of lassitude.

Chapter One, my worried friends and relatives, is about the men I've had the misfortune to fall in love with and the utter necessity of friends.  Clean as a plate after Daisy's licked it.

I even laughed writing it, as well as cried.

I wish I were one of those people who can finish a chapter at 1 p.m. and be onto another piece of writing by 3.  I have an overwhelming list of things I "ought" to do:

1. Write chapter Four of novel.
2. Outline novel.
3. Outline Sex and the Pity.
4. Redo my franceskuffel.net website.
5. Get in touch with my sponsor.
6. Write magazine proposal about adoption.  Find editors to send it to.
7. Go "live" on the f chronicles.
8. Get out the word that I'm available for coaching.
9. Return 8,000 Twitters and emails.
10. Read a bunch of articles on sex, dating, relationships.
11. Start my series on the new Seven Deadly Sins for my Psychology Today blog post.**
12. Clean my desk.
13. Make reading list for my next nonfiction proposal.

But what I have done since my last post here was finish totaling up thousands of receipts for taxes and write about 20 pages.  

And done some preliminary footwork on the f chronicles.

Which isn't that bad.

And the forsythia, which is not my favorite harbinger of spring, is gorgeous at 6:30 p.m.

* Write me at >thefchronicles@hotmail.com< to be added to the list.  Payment options to follow.

** All the old seven deadly sins are now -- well, I can't say virtues because those are taken, but maybe assets.

[Partial] Answers

My editor, Laura, was as worried by the tone of "Headlights" as you are.  You may have noticed I haven't posted anything there in a hundred years.  That's because I a) haven't posted anywhere, and b) need to stand back and think about the book I will be turning in.  I should take "Headlights" down.  What material I'll use from it will be fleeting and watered down.

I'm working on Chapter One now.  It is rueful and funny.  At this point the cruel things I have to say are, I think, universal.  One cannot write about a thing like looking for love without looking back, and that's what I'm working on now.  So here is a sample that, I hope, will help to allay some of your worry:

Here is another truism: You can only find neutral ground with someone you were in love with when you have the upper hand.

Tim and I have emailed over the last couple of months but each of us reacts like bumper cars when we hit a sensitive spot.  I need a boyfriend named Jean-Claude who teaches philosophy at the Sorbonne, to fit into my flippiest trousers from Lillith, to have a Pulitzer gathering dust to actually show myself to him.  

Jean-Claudeless, there are no ex-loves I am anxious to meet again.

Trust me, I could wax really snarky there if I wanted to.

Professionally, I must turn Sex and the Pity in on time.  And by the way -- Berkeley isn't fond of that title but I think it's brilliant.

Also by the way?  Thank you for worrying because in copying that sample, I made it better.

*

I'm not quite dithery enough to go out and post ads for babysitting, tutoring, dog-walking, editing and grout-cleaning all at once.

But thanks for worrying about overkill.

*

I wouldn't mind getting rid of tchotchkes if you paid the postage.  It could be kind of fun to put them all in a bag and blindly grab one.  It could the hoarder's version of seeking an answer by randomly opening the Bible and sticking one's finger on a verse.

Although I've never quite gotten that because who would "randomly" open the Bible at Genesis or Revelation?  It seems that as an advice mechanism, you're pretty much gonna be hearing from Samuel  through Luke.*

*

I'm thinking about serializing short stories in the f chronicles: doing so would force me to write some.  But that's not what the chronicles are mostly about, so don't worry.  I'm also thinking about a subtitle for the newsletter: a life without ideas.

*

Note to self:  The hardest part of the unemployed day is evening.

Note to self: When I'm depressed I read chick lit.  When I frightened I read Tudor history.  In the last four days I've whizzed through Elizabeth's Women Friends and The Lady Elizabeth.  Neither have quite the grit I crave.  Must switch to Derek Wilson. 

* So then, of course, I had to try the Bible Answer trick.  I don't know whether to laugh or bawl:

"And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity; and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and shalt be buried there, thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lies."  Jeremiah 20:6

Fear

 Barb!  I'm sorry your response didn't get published!  I got all kinds of spam at one point & closed open comments: sometimes new comments slip by me!

So much good advice, for which I thank everyone.

It was never an option to break my book contract.  I know too well that my real professional future rests on the notion of publish or perish.  My brother means well & wants me to be secure & solvent.  I do, too -- just as soon as I turn this book in.

& I know we are all overwhelmed by blogs -- but I think I will take a chance on the newsletter, which I intend to call the f chronicles.

As well as posting ads for tutoring, editing, dog walking, baby-sitting.

& I'm terrified.

But there is humor in the situation.  What placard, I'm wondering this drizzly morning, would Daisy and I huddle behind begging for money?  "Help a writer finish her book"?  "Willing to work -- later"?

I've also been mulling over how to convince people to subscribe to the f chronicles.  I have a vision of a five-minute infomercial:

In this once-a-week, finely crafted two-to-three page letter you will be invited into process of the Promethean struggle of one woman to combat relapse and become abstinent, battle the dogs of depression and the dogs of Brooklyn Heights, write a book about dating and own up to her failures and possibilities.  For the price of $5 a month, you will have access to a closed blog where you can discuss the chronicles of f, offer her advice that will make her squirm, criticize her choices and ask why she has never trained her dog to heel.  

And if you send your $5 payment to Pay Pal in the next ten minutes, you will have the unprecedented opportunity to sign up for the f chronicles for only five dollars a month.  That's less than a grande latte and is guaranteed to make you ask for that latte with skim milk!

Listen to what readers of the f chronicles have to say:

"Frances Kuffel should shower more often and take yoga -- and I enjoy telling her this on a daily basis!  It's so much fun to boss someone smart around!" - Susan K., Glenwood, IA


"the f chronicles are better than Ambien!" - John M., Jasper, AL

"I hate her food plan but I'll be damned if I let her lose more weight than me!" - Sylvia T., Visalia, CA


Act now and Frances Kuffel will send you one of her very own tchotchkes!

*

OK.  Back to Friday, April Fool's Day & the sound of rain on a sheet of plastic outside my window that is beginning to feel very much like the first round of torture at Guantanamo Bay.

There is some truth here.  Upon reading feedback, I think once a week with time to respond is a good way to go.  I think readers should have the chance to subscribe for one, three, six or twelve months, & I think the prices need to reflect that commitment -- $5, 12, 25, 45?

I can promise there is going to be some tough going because I do not WANT to be abstinent and I do not WANT to go back to the Rooms.  But I have never said 12-step programs are the only prescription and I've never said they are by any means undeserving of criticism.

& I also promise I will cheer the fuck up.  I spent two or three months this winter with unbidden thoughts of suicide tapping me on the shoulder &, at its worst, it was because I'm so tired of myself -- tired of fighting, tired of being alone, tired of being afraid of everything.  I can't live like that any more.  I've have a three-day nervous breakdown, slept a lot, pondered much -- & this post is to announce that I am seeking courage, hope, adjectives &, ultimately, 1,000 subscribers.

We can work out a deal on referrals, too.

Look for announcements here, on Facebook & on franceskuffel.net for further action.

Aren't those the scariest of all words to commit to cyberspace: "further action"?

I think I'll start by brushing my teeth.

Daft Idea

Yesterday I was informed that my single course has been reassigned.  I don't think this was due to being an inadequate teacher.  Times are tough and senior/full time staff have first dibs.  My course leader wants to keep me "active" in the sense that if courses are available this summer, he will hire me.

Still, I'm in a desperate situation, made more desperate after a very frank cards-on-the-table talk with my brother last night.  His advice, which is intensely sensible, is to find as high-paying a job as I can and stick it out for two years to pay off all debt and then resume my writing career.  This would include voiding the contract for my current book, the manuscript of which requires me to write three pages a day in order to turn it in by its due date of June 15th.  The first thing I would have to do is pay back the advance.

This is a problem.  I need that third book, Sex and the Pity, which will be more PG than R-rated, because Angry Fat Girls (soon to be released in paperback under the title Eating Ice Cream with My Dog) did not do well.  I must redeem myself as quickly as possible in the cut-throat world of publishing.  That's a reality I don't expect someone outside the business to understand.

And besides, what would I do?  My computer skills have always been limited and I'm afraid they are positively outdated at this point. 

So I began to consider my skills.

1. Pam Peeke recently wrote, "Your words are so amazing Frances.  I know no one who can capture feelings the way you do."  And I have to say I'd along with that insofar as I do a really good job of writing about feelings.
2. I'm a good writer in general.
3. I bake great cookies.
4. I speak Dog.
5. I can relapse like nobody's business.
6. I can lose weight.
7. I can hang on through nightmare depressions.
8. I have the ability and willingness to be an open book.
9. I'm a good teacher.
10. I'm a good editor, from line-editing (thanks to 20 years of teaching composition) to rearranging the parts of a book to finding the idea for a book in the first place.
11. I have a certain amount of wisdom, humor, intelligence, imagination, compassion, empathy.  I spin back what people tell me in ways that they appreciate and can use.
12. I buy nearly perfect gifts.
13. I have good taste in clothes.
14. I take good photos.
15. I'm a good researcher.
16. I've read a lot.

That's an incomplete but decent and random list of what I can do.

I placed a Craig's List ad this morning offering tutorial services.  I'm reopening shop as a writing coach, which I'm very good at.

I'll pick up more dog gigs.

I'll put up signs around the neighborhood for tutoring and dog-walking (on different tear sheets, of course).

But Pam's words and my balls-to-the-wind confessionals began circling in my head as I was dashed out to pick up dog food.

What if...

What if I attack relapse, weight loss, depression, job hunting, the writing process and the odd dog in a closed media.  What if I get abstinent and write about it in a way that will help readers feel what I have always wanted to say: you're not crazy and you're not the only one. 

I am not dogmatic about how anyone should lose weight unless it's clearly insane.  I understand as well as anyone that weight loss is not simple -- I have to combine it with all of the above and other women have yet more complications in their lives.

I have read a lot on the subject and know a number of experts.  I could interview people.

I could create a closed blog in which, with the newsletter subscription, readers can ask me questions, criticize my lack of exercise and gloomy outlook, request more attention paid to whatever topic or aspect they want, and talk to each other.

I would do this as an email newsletter -- daily? three times a week? -- by paid subscription.  If someone wants to receive the newsletter and can't pay, she can refer one? two? subscribers and receive a free subscription/password.

Hell, I'll even try to figure out a way to give readers 10% off either Ice Cream or Sex and the Pity.

So what do you think?  Really: is this a good idea?  If so, how often would readers want such a newsletter and how much should I charge?  Is there anything else missing from what I could write about that would be of use to people (women, really) trying to lose weight or lose weight again?

Please, please: respond!


I think it would be fun.

Information

Yesterday was a bad day.  So far, today is better.  My stomach doesn't have a knot in it, I haven't had to cut up a klonopin, I've proceeded in a logical path through both personal things and work things.  It feels as though there is time to do enough.

My reminder to myself, at least twice an hour, is that if I don't go off my food plan and no dog or human is injured directly by my actions, failure is impossible.  Disappointments, yes.  Crises, judging by yesterday, unfortunately certain.  But I have only two things I can fail at.

This reminding has been singularly helpful.

I came home yesterday afternoon clutching myself with the need to get to the bathroom twelve minutes earlier.  My stomach was in an uproar.  It can take a while to adjust to my food plan, with all its salads and fiber, and it's not always my timing.  I had plans to meet a friend to see Twila Tharp's Come Fly with Me and had about an hour to get ready.  I showered.  As I was trying to decide on something to wear, my phone rang.  It was my agent.

She had news I was expecting: my publisher is offering eight-five percent less for my next book than it did for Angry Fat Girls.  If it wasn't for being a really good writer, they would not be offering me a contract at all.  I already knew this.

But I had a melt-down.  It wasn't the money, it was my agent's badgering about what I should do next, in terms of Sex and the Pity, my novel, making a living, moving away from New York.  I was gasping for breath and for words as she rushed on with ideas -- movetoMontana, proctorbookclubs, writethreesamplechaptersandanoutlineofSPandsubmititelsewhere.  These are not tenable ideas and having to reject them, one by one, made me feel I was being horribly negative and sullen.  I felt trapped.  I felt...

...exactly how I felt in my last job, when Alix would call me into her office with an itemized list of everything I was doing wrong or not at all and would then demand to know what I was going to do to fix it.  I never had words for her in those moments.  I needed time to figure out what to do or felt a "yes" was a sufficient answer when what she enjoyed was watching me twist at the end of my employment string.

My agent wasn't doing that.  She was probably trying to give me options and probably trying to assuage her own disappointment by giving me a sense of future.  But it felt just like sitting in that floor-to-ceiling windowed office, twenty-nine floors above Central Park, being nipped and badgered by the gnats of failure.

This used to be my business.  I understand my agent's position and I understand my publisher's position. When I was an agent, I used to tell writers not to think they could work in their pajamas.  I've gotten a seven-year free ride in my jammies.  It's coming to an end.  I didn't need my agent to point that out.

But the sense of being ambushed was horrible.  I canceled the theater because I knew there was a good chance I'd cry through the musical comedy.  I though desperate things.  Then I took off my fancy duds, put on my shorts and laid down with Daisy and the telephone.  I called my best friend and she was outraged for me when I had no energy to be outraged for myself.  I tried to call my editor to clarify a couple of things but she was gone.  Mostly thought, I laid there with Daisy's paws on my shoulder, holding me, and let my mind go blank. When I got up, forty-five minutes later, I thought about having spent many years as an adjunct writing professor, the couple of articles I want to submit, the fact that, unlike most dog walkers, I'm available at night and on Sundays.  I can squeak through this year if need be.  I can take actions.  I can trust that I'll be OK, just as I've hit this financial impasse before and lived through it.

My therapist, Dr. Sometimes-It's-Not-Just-a-Cigar, calls it post delayed stress.  I'm embarrassed by it.  Soldiers can have PDS.  Abuse victims.  Not someone who cowered in fear and muteness through two years of a bad boss.

And yet, there I was, Alix-ized. 

Somehow the quiet time both calmed me and presented an opportunity to me.  I will accept their offer but I will also tell my agent how I felt in the conversation.  I will not discuss what I'm doing to make a living with her.  I'm not sure I can even discuss this book with her because she has not found any humor in what I've done, a fact I brought up as a significant factor in staying with my publisher.

The biggest opportunity that fifteen minutes and forty-five minutes of recovery offered, however, was to see that it's really true that I if I don't eat and dogs and people are uninjured under my watch, I can't fail.  Sometimes I miss the lesson in being abstinent but yesterday I was able to get to a point at which I saw that exchange as information.  Given certain circumstances and a certain mode of address, I flash back.  When I feel my life is pulled out from under my decision-making, I flash back.  Flashbacks definitely make me want to run to sugar but they do so because A) that's my default setting, and B) flashbacks are uncomfortable. 

But it passed.  And I knew my boundaries had been crossed and I knew that to dither about accepting the offer and looking for the next financial chapter in my life would only make my feeling of being out-of-control worse.  No one promised me I could live in my jammies but what I choose to do when I get dressed has to be my decision.  And I cannot allow anyone, ever again, to have the power over me that Alix did. 

She had it because she had my job.  I've put in seven years of being my job.  Maybe it's time to simply get a job.  Not be it, not be under the yoke of it.  Just a job.  Because really?  I can't fail.