July 2008
I hadn’t touched Anti-Fat in months. The bones were
there: It needed a few more scenes, additional development of two characters,
and I hated the ending.
Keep submitting, promoting, emailing, selling, prostituting to make sure
this book ends up in someone else’s hands besides my own and VF’s. Write,
write, write.
I opened the file,
rolled my head around in a circle. The right side of my neck was sore. Writing
was the easy part. Landing a literary agent and consequently selling a book to
a publisher? A drastically different, degrading, years-long experience, growing
rapidly into to a monster tyrant of a 6-year-old. I’d been writing for seven
years and trying to sell my first book, Twenty
Something and Blonde, for five. I was done.
My pill bottles stood
strong on my kitchen counter.
The rundown:
• 100 mg of Zoloft
(anti-depressant).
• 250 mg of Clozapine
(anti-psychotic—now called the less monstrous term of “mood stabilizer”).
• 400 mg of
Lamotrigine (again “mood stabilizer”).
• .5 to 1 mg of Xanax
• 5 mg of Ambien, as
needed at bedtime.
I opened two other
projects I started last year—“projects” because I didn’t know how they would
end up. Then, there was last of my Blonde series, Thirty Blonde, and finally, Soulcrusher.
Two more novels. Jesus.
I looked up bipolar
disorder: Racing thoughts, hopelessness, mood swings, anxiety, low self-esteem,
argumentative, judgmental, and some suicidal stuff. Ah yes, my very own house
of horrors.
Before I clicked the X
in the upper right-hand corner and pushed away from my desk, I checked Kohl’s,
Wells Fargo, and Denny’s websites for job openings. I can always call my mother.
Jack: U
doing ok?
Me:
I'm ok babe. How are you?
Jack: I'm hanging in there.
Me: do u want to talk
later? I'm going into my office now.
Jack: Have to work.
Thank u though
Me: staying busy is
good. I hate that you're upset
Jack: I hate that I
made u upset
Me: its not your
fault. I'm ok. Don't worry about me. It helps talking to u
Me: (later) Why don't
you come over to watch a movie. Unless it would be too weird for u. It would take
your mind off things! I know u work late tonite...
I don’t remember what he
said.
July 5
Walking into the Shack, the evening colors
ahead dimmed the skies with red, topping a beachy white: a Mark Rothko
painting.
“It feels like a Bloody Mary night.”
VF wasn’t enamored or hindered by my sobriety. I agreed, drinking vicariously
through her throat as I adjusted my ass on a stool. Owner waved from a safe and
solid eight seats away. Too Tan suggested a Virgin Mary. Her 14-ingredient
concoction apparently won an award last year (at the Bloody Mary Battle!), and
when I took a sip I knew why. Sublimely delicious. I slurped and watched her
make two rum and Diet Cokes. She smiled at me.
The virtually non-existent sting of
awkwardness upon seeing B6 didn’t result in any dangerous reaction, but the not
drinking helped. I probably wouldn’t fuck B6 again. Whatever. Bars and
nightlife provided fun whether Charlie Sheened or sober (sober = designated
driver). My clearheaded powers expanded if a new B happened to walk by whatever
throne I sat on, laughing with my friends or smoking outside. If my
capriciousness and nuance intrigued a B, it guaranteed at least a month of
dates. A hospital seemed worse than jail, so staying yards away from alcohol
took much less effort than wits kept when I inhaled vodka and limes.