THE NEXT BIG THING

Emily Kendal Frey tagged me in the interview project, The Next Big Thing.  Here are my answers to the questions regarding my current project.

1. What is the working title of the book?

Journal of Ruin and Repose

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

Hauntings, love in the ruins, the perspicacity of human emotions, the possibility that one needn't get everything one wants in order to be happy, leaving an inner exile to rejoin the world.

3. What genre does the book fall under?

Poetry, prose poetry, lyric essay.

4. What is a one sentence synopsis of your book?

Fortune's wheel as a turning blue mirror.

5. How long did it take to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Not sure.  The book is divided into sections and I wrote each individual section fairly quickly, in short bursts, but with breaks in between.

6. Who or what inspired you to write the book?

Certain autobiographical considerations, Stargate and self-help gurus, the necessity to examine the reality of the many manifestations of love.

7. What else about this book might pique a reader's interest.

You can read a poem here.  It's from a section of the book called 'Love in the Ruins.'

8. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I hope it will find a publisher.

For next week I am going to tag...

My Definition of Rape

Yr light everywhere gets in the butter my definition of rape also y’re raped in the butter the butter the morning milk.

It isn’t about skirts I said me in skirts to sew up meanings yr light said all over my butter this breakfast I spread the butter just drinking the milk & had phenomenological butter that didn’t feel good doctor throwing my torn leg my green skirt.

It’s about yr crowbar my legs yr crowbar my legs not my skirt yr crowbar my legs my nude legs my nude yr crowbar yr crowbar.

I couldn’t chance not looking foreswearing closures little eye possibilities blue eye little skirt not skirt yr crowbar my between my between my between yr force vector possibly vector yr crowbar yr crowbar not my skirt this rhythm—

                                            until it’s over
                                            torn over.

Who throws us the party at breakfast is fear always happening dark long lane long night breakdown the car smoking car smoking late long dark car smoking always happening my leg my leg always churning this breakfast fucking breakfast yr crowbar butter knife yr crowbar jam spoon strawberry jam viscous strawberry jam.

I’m not not not yr branch my skirt not not not yr my green skirt my short green skirt not not not yr branch jamming me skinny knees skinny knees.

Yr mouth shut up yr mouth shut up yr mouth shut up my blue eye I see you shutting up I see us rising up I see us yr mouth shut up see us spelling out.

We won’t be yr silent allele.  A woman means:

Okay, I Admit It. I Am Related To Dracula.

Bad Vlad

As anyone who knows anything knows, the two greatest exports of Romania are Dracula and orphans. However, if you were a German citizen of the city of Munich, circa 1997-1999, you might have thought there was a third export: ME, Jenny Drai! Isn't that funny?

At first this came as a big shock to me because whenever I asked my Dad what nationality we were--usually in response to some class project that would inevitably end in one student bringing in Lithuanian baked goods to share (LOTS of powdered sugar) and another kid showing up for class in some sort of Balinese get-up--he would just say that I should tell everyone we were American-whatever the heck that might mean.

But what did he expect me to do when it was my turn to present? Sing My Country Tis of Thee as I waved an American flag in everyone's face? In short, the answer is yes.

After all, didn't Grandpa purposefully forget every word of Romanian and shed a vowel from his last name before he signed up to fight in WWII? And before that, didn't my forefathers participate in the greatest fight of all: Chicago's epic battle against Prohibition, by making wine in their bathtub that they sold for rolls of cash to shady dudes who definitely bore relations to the mob?

But nobody in Munich ever suspected the American in me! No doubt this is because the first thing I did upon setting foot in the heart of Bavaria was to lose 20 lbs and trade in my slouchy, oversized wardrobe for cheap Versace and Gucci knock-offs purchased at H&M with cash well-earned from nannying the baddest little boy in the world, to whom I will only refer to here as L. Also I spoke German quite well with only an untraceable accent (mostly thanks to a previous residence in the country in the vast, depressing, it's-always-drizzling Schlesswig-Holstein), somethings most Germans think Amis (as we are called) are incapable of doing.

Luckily, I was able to pick up some great house-cleaning gigs though! Because cleaning women, after all, are another great import!!

Signing off--Jenny Draia (now wouldn't that have been pretty??)

OMG! I Almost Deleted My Entire Blog! And It Felt So Good To Think About Doing It!!!!!! Or, A Few Notes On Humor.

When I first started my blog, it was really easy to be funny. This is probably because my subject matter--the infusion of sex into film adaptations of Beowulf--and a cute little house cat supposedly named after the film actor Gerard Butler, were in and of themselves quite amusing. I do deserve some credit of course. But still.

Lately though, humor has become a trap. Especially humorous indignation. I recently wrote a pretty autobiographical short story about how my mother wouldn't let me listen to music when I was growing up and sent it to a contest at a magazine I have been reading for awhile. I included a line that I will not repeat here, but basically it was pretty hilarious at the expense of my mother. Basically, if she ever read it, I'm sure she would be hurt. Go for the joke! I thought, which I now regret. (The reality is that often callousness hides extreme vulnerability and sensitivity, and I would cop to that on some level.)

But the plot thickens.

Recently I was at a party and something happened that really bothered me to the core, which I then turned into a supposedly humorous joke for my blog. I was reading a book of poetry that very specifically discusses the U.S. military occupation of Guam, and I had at that time the book in my purse. Randomly, a woman I met just that night started saying some things about the native Chamorro people of Guam that I thought lacked insight, compassion, and any sense of wisdom.

But please don't misunderstand me. I wasn't shocked because she said something I considered off-color. Like I've never said something 'off-color.' And probably every white person my age has at the very least had to deal with the disappointing racism of his or her elders, whether it be an otherwise much-beloved grandfather dropping yet another n-bomb at the dinner table or fave-author Sylvia Plath's degrading portrayal of the "negro" orderly who brings two kinds of beans to the hospital dinner table in The Bell Jar.

What bothered me was that I couldn't think of anything to say. I was chewing a mouthful of Doritos at the time, and I think my mouth may have opened up a little bit, a situation which I tried to frame comically in my now deleted post.

I think it was because I had the book in my purse.
Something about the nature of proximity.

Every so often I get the feeling of hives rising up all over my body. Standing in the shower room at Dachau was one time. Finding out that a place named Psycho Donuts in Campbell, California had come into existence while featuring an atmosphere that purported to mimic "a fun, zany mental hospital" [HELLO! THERE IS NO SUCH THING!] with donuts named after diagnoses from the DSM-IV was another time.

At Dachau I burst into tears. After Psycho Donuts I walked around for two weeks and thought everyone was staring at me. After the comment about Guam I just felt dislocated and inarticulate and tried to push the event into a familiar framework. Everything about the incident was commonplace and mundane. The humor of the commonplace and mundane has thus far been the theme of my blog. But really, maybe humor is sometimes the wrong note.

Finally. The wrong note. Something I have in common with the brainiacs behind Psycho Donuts.

Lately I have been a bit off. And sort of sick of social media. Sort of sick of all the things I am 'supposed' to be doing as an aspiring novelist to get myself published. Of creating something to say just to prove that I have said it. Oh look! Relevance!

I am currently thinking that I would like to try to work on something that directly looks at the cultural/psychological aspects of mental illness (anxiously awaiting the July release of Bhanu Kapil's Schizophrene from Nightboat Books on that note) as opposed to the hold contemporary psychiatry and its deeply entrenched ties to the drug industry presently have over our current methodology of treating the mentally ill.

I think this will take the shape of a novel that will require some research and tenacity and OMG horrifying concepts like extensive outlining. (Up to now, I admit, I have always just planned a chapter ahead of time.) And I am pretty, pretty sure, that although it may be warm, maybe even sometimes funny (because, Virginia, hallucinating in the bathroom at work can be funny depending how you look at it--as long as there's no donut named after it), I will not be going for the joke.

How Are You? I'm Having A Great Time!

Since my last post (awhile ago, I know, so sue me), I have learned that I too can make a restaurant style chicken salad in the comfort and privacy of my own home. The only problem is that I burned the outside of the chicken before the inside got cooked. Actually, it wasn't burned, it was caramelized. Also, when I was transferring the chicken breasts to the plate, one slid out from between the slippery metal prongs of the ginormous tongs I was using and plummeted to the floor below. I am not even going to tell you when the last time I swept the floor was.

Okay, I will tell you. It was not recently.
Obviously I am no Martha Stewart.
I am pretty sure that 'hi-jinks' do not ensue when Martha Stewart cooks.
Thank you.

Tired And Bored With Myself

But then how do you think I made it out to California?

A Few Words About Jane Seymour

Such wholesome, good fun.
Even when she's naughty.

I Sure Am Having Fun Spellchecking My 313 Page Novel, Which Does Seem To Have A Lot Of Errors. This Is Taking For-Eeever!

Aah…conformity.

Seriously. Proper spelling is for people who think inside the box.

Oh well. I guess this is what I get for turning off that red squiggly line thing that corrects while you type. But it was getting so distracting! I mean, I am not just a bad speller, I am a bad typist, just so you understand the situation here. I miss a lot of letters.

Mavis Beacon, you did me no good, although maybe that was because I never took you out of the box.

If I Got My Mom A *Really* *Good* Christmas Present Last Year, Does That Mean I Can Give Her Nothing This Year?

A skein of the luxurious wool yarn (in delicate mauve) that I used to hand knit my mother a scarf for last year's Christmas gift.

How am I supposed to top that?
Also, that is mauve, isn't it? Does anyone besides interior decorators really know what mauve is? All I know, it is definitely my mother's color.
Also also, do you need any mauve yarn? I have leftovers.

Kitty Kat Time

A post-holiday nap is always better with a trusty sidekick.

'Nuff said. And happy napping.

Short Films About My Life

Unfortunately, for the pictorial portion of the blog, my camera is out of batteries.

On Sunday, the movie was called 'The Catastrophist.' That all with my boyfriend turned out to be sort of fine.

Last night the movie was called 'Cooking with Martha,' or really, more appropriately, 'Watching My Boyfriend Cook With Martha' as he carefully prepared two pies for this year's Thanksgiving repast. Pecan and blackberry, thank you very much. But don't worry. I will be kept very busy tomorrow stirring the mashed potato flakes into the boiling water.

(Yes Martha. The mashed potatoes are coming from a box. I've already sampled a few portions during a fish dinner sometime last week and they are creamy and delicious.)

Today the movie is called 'Cinderella' because I will be stuck at home cleaning while my wicked stepsister, my boyfriend, leaves the house for a glamorous day sweating over his desk as an engineer in the solar energy industry. He only has to work 10 hours a day and do the job of a small army, so I'd say I might be getting the short end of the stick.

Hmm. Maybe if the weather gets nicer, I'll head to the pool after I clean the bathroom, which could have been done this weekend had someone (me) not said she would do it later.

Of course, the feature film event doesn't happen until tomorrow and I have no idea what it will be called, but certainly the word 'ham' will be in the title because that is what we are serving. Or, on the other hand, perhaps simply 'Meat Thermometer' will suffice. Thank you.

I Think My Boyfriend's Going To Break Up With Me Because I Broke The Car For Good

How This Makes Me Feel

1.
It gives me a stomachache that all the lingonberry soda in the world won't settle.

2.
It makes me wish I had a time machine so I could go back in said time and notice the exact moment when the check engine light came on while I was driving 75 mph on the freeway in the moist, dark night so that I could have pulled off the road in a more timely manner and before the situation really came to a head.

3.
Did I mention the stomachache?

4.
Actually, this situation makes me wish a lot of things and is not at all funny. For example, I wish I were a different person. Also, if I get dumped, all the cuddling in the world with my cat, Gerald Butler is not going to make me feel better.

5.
Any better at all…Am I catastrophizing right now? Or just being realistic? Is the whole world going to hell in a hand basket? Where's that lingonberry soda? I seriously need it right now.

6.
Because my stomach still hurts.

7.
Why can't I be normal? Why was I feeling so anxious about driving and the upcoming social event that instead of carefully monitoring the instrument panel at appropriate intervals, I failed to notice the check engine light? After all, I monitor my speed constantly.

(In the background, Cher sings "If I could turn back time.")

7 (1): Because Kaiser Permanente is stingy with their therapy sessions;

and 7(2): see above.

8.
Really, last night was not a good night for me. I should have stayed home. I was just not feeling 'it,' as they say. Plus I had forgotten to unmute the GPS and the uncanny silence was unnerving me.

9.
Definitely should have stayed home. I could have spent last night watching Farscape on DVD and now instead I am in mountains of shit, dog-house style.

10.
Look away. This might get ugly.

No, I Am Not Dressed Up Like Harry Potter, Today. Why The Frack Would I Be?

I am Harry Potter. I do not need to dress the part. I need to do important, everyday Harry Potter things like clean out my cat, Gerard Butler's litter box, which he has recently befouled. Then I have to pick up yesterday's clothing from the bedroom floor and carry it to the hamper because I was far too lazy to do this last night and instead just left it all in an amorphous heap over 2 or 3 pairs of shoes.

I might even do laundry and then go to Target for green bean-mushroom soup casserole ingredients, which I somehow forgot about when I went to Target yesterday.

All in all, a pretty boring, dreary day.

In Which I Anxiously Await The 11/30 Release Of 'Valhalla Rising.'

As you may guess from the title, Valhalla Rising is a movie about Vikings. Therefore I would like to make one of two predictions.

Prediction #1

The movie will be very, very good and I will like it.

Prediction #2

The movie will be very, very bad and I will like it.

Thank you.

One Lucky Turkey

Because as it turns out, I am serving ham this Thanksgiving. I am pretty excited about this because it involves a lack of turkey, a particular meat I do not like to eat ever since a childhood of watching my mother eat boiled gizzards. Intestines are gross.

Regardless, next week is going to be fun. (Really, it's only a week from now that I have to start cooking/baking/etc.)

For example, 5 year old twins are staying at my house for three whole days. I can't wait to see how my cat will react to that. Actually, I think I know. He will hiss at them and then go hide in the closet.

We are going to go swimming and sailing.

Probably a "time-out" zone will have to be established at some point, because, as many of you know, little boys do not always behave. Thus, they need a little time and space to think about just what they've done. (To be honest, I often feel the same way about myself.)

Ah, but to revisit the small infractions of childhood. I wish I could go back in time and chart the trajectory of stealing cookies from the cookie jar to filching warm Bartles & James wine coolers from my dad's basement stash in order to see exactly what went wrong.

Actually, I drank a lot of warm, cheap beer too. Really, I should have insisted on quality. Nothing but the best. Because I'm worth it. Thank you.

WTF? I Am On The Ocean!

This is not a Hyundai I am driving.

Really, sometimes I feel like I can barely drive. Still, I obviously made it through driver's ed. However there is no such thing as driver's ed for a sailboat, at least not that I know about. It is more like flying by the seat of your pants while your boyfriend--the real sailor--goes below to take a piss.

The real sailor tells me I don't have anything to be ashamed of. Apparently when most people take the helm at sea for the first time, or the second time, or the third time, or the fourth time, the boat just turns in wayward circles and they sort of scream in the delight and the thrill of it all. Losing control just never felt so exhilarating. Sort of like being on a roller coaster. Except that the ocean is not a theme park. In fact, it might be fair to say that you are the ocean's bitch.

On the other hand, I had the darned boat pointed in the correct direction from the very beginning. Which is great for me. But internally it wasn't so cool because I thought if I made one single, itty-bitty mistake, we were all OMG going to die right this instant. (This should tell you a lot about me: someone raised me to think I have to be perfect; and I catastrophize. Which is a fancy word I learned recently in a, ahem, certain milieu.) Equally possible, one of us would escape but the other would be trapped in the boat like Jeff Bridges' wife in White Squall. So I would either 'enjoy' a watery death or feel guilty for the rest of my life. Or worse, we would all be eaten by pilot whales, which normally seem pretty harmless.

Trust me. I saw a few the other day after I finally started to relax.

Which is the point I wanted to make. About relaxing. Which I did. You would never relax on a roller coaster. But a beautiful day to sail upon the sea sort of does a lot to unwind tension and anxiety.

Also, the ocean is full of dolphins. Did I mention the dolphins? A colossal pod of winsome creatures of the sea. Some swam right near the boat.

Wild dolphin make everything alright. I am left like a little kid at Christmas in their presence. Please don't eat the tuna. Thank you.

Some Excuses for the Colossal Grammatical Lapse in Yesterday's Facebook Post

From now on, I vow to read this entire book before posting anything online.

"The more I learn about my grandfather's WWII experience, the more lucky I realize I am to have ever gotten to meet him."

I should have said 'luckier.' I apologize to you, the internet, and all my many instructors who have taught me far, far better than that.


The Excuses (In No Particular Order)

1.
Hey my Masters degree is in poetry, not grammar.

2.
Clearly I am some sort of hooligan of grammar. By choice. By eradicating the conventional structure of grammar, I was attempting to rebuild it. Uh, yeah.

3.
Most of my English grammar books were written in other languages. Like in Russian or German. And while I may still read enough Russian to find my way through the completely untranslated DVD menu for a (by the way) really faithfully adapted television mini-series based on The Idiot by the late great Fyodor Dostoevsky, I fall down when it comes to the comparison of adjectives.

4.
My mother corrected my grammar continuously as I was growing up. See what I'm trying to say here? Nagging never gets the job done.

5.
I like to end sentences on prepositions too. Especially in daily speech. Do you have a problem with that? Either way, the whole language is going to pot. You might as well just crack open a frosty cold one and enjoy the view.

6.
My fancy-ass private college did not make students who passed the writing entrance exam take composition. Therefore my actual instruction in English grammar ended freshman year of high school. Of course, this total ignorance of the guts and bowels of my native language hampered me somewhat when I was teaching in graduate school. WTF? I still don't know what a dangling modifier is. Please don't try to explain. You will only be disappointed in my lack of comprehension. It's sort of a sore spot for me. Sort of how I can never remember what 'alterity' means.

7.
'Alterity' has something to do with 'otherness,' as in switching one's perspective for that of the other. Try writing a dangling modifier about that, bitches!

8.
Excuse me for calling you a bitch. I got excited.

9.
Okay, that's it people. Look away from my internet shame. There are worse grammatical catastrophes than bungled comparatives. Here are a few gems.

You're welcome.

There Is A Nightclub In Vegas Named After Me

Yup. Just me and my nightclub.

Did I say 'nightclub?' Drai's is an after hours club. The establishment's wide red and black doors don't even open until 1 am (and close at dawn), which, inconveniently for this blog episode, means I have no idea what goes on inside. (For example, do they provide cots if you suddenly get tired and have to lie down right this minute?) One thing stands certain. This Drai will probably never find out because this Drai goes to bed at 10 pm, even in Vegas.

Well, alright. That last statement does involve a touch of hyperbole. There are a number of things I will stay up for and I'm sure you can think of at least one of them. And I am not talking about dragging my tired ass around to make a walloping $2.50 on the slot machines while breezing through 'Paris,' which is the name of a casino/resort on the Las Vegas strip that boasts an Eiffel Tower growing out of its bowels. Like most things on the strip, this behemoth is a copy of something else, and in this case fashions itself after Paris, a real city that brags, I dare say (among its other accomplishments), a better-dressed citizenry. But all of this aside, I am not, and never will be, a night owl.

(No way did I belong in the real Paris that night. You should have seen me by the time I actually went to bed. My eyes were glassed over and my hair was starting to look as if a baboon were living in it.)

However, my deserved lack of membership in the night owl club does not mean I am some sort of prancing, trilling lark singing songs at heaven's gate at 6 in the blasted morning, which is about when my boyfriend started playing with the electronic curtains in our hotel room because he is an engineer and finds moving parts fascinating.

Of course we did have a nice breakfast at a little place in the 'Venetian' and then he surprised me by whisking me over to Drai's 'After Dark' for a quick photo opportunity.

Are you a Smith or a Clark or a Williams? Note to you: with a name like Drai, you could go your whole life never meeting anyone at all with the same name as yours unless they're family, let alone ever see a sign emblazoned with that weirdly truncated yet old world vowelly moniker, so it's oddly thrilling when it happens. Not thrilling enough to risk bumping into a crowd of drunken vampires by making it over to the club when it actually opens. At 1 am. But thrilling nonetheless.

And then. And then.

And then, my friends, we went to the Hoover Dam, which was breathtaking.

Yup. We did that last part right in the middle of the day. Just the way I like it.

In Which I Whine About My Cola Problem, Which Is A Really Big Deal, Trust Me.

If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is.

Man, do I ever enjoy the taste of a crisp, fresh cola beverage. Whether straight from the can or over ice, I just cannot get enough of this effervescent bombardment of the senses. (Unless it is Coke, that is. Coke is gross. It is cloyingly sweet and leaves a nasty aftertaste so if you don't carry gum or toothpaste with you at all times, you are screwed.)

So what's the problem? Well I am 35 now and although I am by no means 'fat,' I am definitely not in any danger of fitting into those really cute pants I bought at H&M when I was 22 and living in Europe, pants that I still own now because they continue to be very cute and I cannot bear to let the dream die. In other words, all these empty, (delicious), empty calories are a big no-no.

So why not just have a diet Pepsi? Diet Pepsi, after all, tastes clean and crisp. (Obviously I won't be having a diet Coke.) What a great idea except that fake sugar still makes you fat and has been linked to seizures in individuals susceptible to them--yeah, okay, the cases in question were of people drinking 20-22 cans of diet soda a day, but you can never be too careful. Seizures, just in case you didn't know, can make you piss on your leg, or hit your head, or crash your car, or maybe just see King Canute, the Danish King of England, in your living room. But still. 'Nuff said.

Thus, Zevia, a calorie-free cola beverage sweetened with natural stevia extract (which the rest of the world has been using for decades) really leapt out at me from the grocery shelf at my local Henry's Farmers' Market.

I lugged a 6-pack home.

I carefully extracted one of the frosted beverage mugs from the freezer and filled it with ice. Cracked open the soda. The ice popped and fizzed.

Heady with anticipation, I took the first sip.

As it turns out, Zevia tastes like Coke. Who makes these decisions?

My Weekend At The Races: If I Ever Had A Daughter, She Is So Not Leaving The House Dressed Like That

Out of energy drink? Cat food has some of the same ingredients!

Does every short course off-road race car driver dream of standing on the podium in order to have his leg rubbed by one of the minimally-dressed "Rock Star Girls"--one of a squadron of size zero promotional workers for Rock Star Energy Drink, available in lemonade barf or cola barf flavors--or do some of them kind of see through the whole charade as the girls smile their makeup encrusted smiles and hold up shimmering cans of Rock Star Energy Drink, available in lemonade barf or cola barf flavors? Do you want to try some? They're giving cans away for free. In fact, small children are walking around drinking up this miasma of intoxicating energy serum. Take it from this former nanny, but that is insane. Children do not need more energy. They need sedatives, just like cats on road trips.

However, the real issue with the Rock Star Girls is their inappropriate for the situation footwear--high heeled black boots in an area where the ground is covered in a thick layer of gravel. Literally, they could not walk without aid and also had trouble climbing up the steep ramp to the awards platform in order to dole out phallic-shaped trophies in the form of spark plugs. Really, it's hard to do the job right of promoting Rock Star Energy Drink, available in blah blah blah (you already know the drill), when you cannot even propel yourself, able-bodied woman that you normally are, from location A to location B without some douchebag getting involved who really is just trying to peer into your decollatage.

All in all though, this weekend helped me to re-commit to a few fashion rules, as if my clothing and I were a married couple renewing our vows to each other in a heartfelt garden ceremony, but with the entire viewing public in attendance.

Actually, there are only two rules.

1.
If you look in the mirror and it looks like you are wearing a shirt with no pants, your dress is not long enough.

2.
Shoes are made for walking, not stumbling.

But really, none of this is the Rock Star Girls' fault. Instead, I think we can safely thank the Rock Star marketing team and even more importantly, all the skanky-ass men who think women made helpless by their wardrobe are attractive. Rant now over. Thank you.