C. Sanchez-Garcia
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Default Position
A few weeks ago, I took a taxi to the only other job I have, outside writing. I teach two creative writing classes a week, for a couple of hours a piece, and while on my way there the taxi driver asked me what I did at the college.
I teach, I said.
And then he asked me:
So is that what you do for a living?
And for the first time in my life I didn't say yes. I don't teach for a living, anymore. My earnings from writing now far exceed my earnings from teaching, so saying I'm a teacher would have been a lie.
I'm a writer, I said, because that's what I am now. Though I want to be absolutely clear, to anyone out there who might think I've got it made, that I'm living in the dream, that they don't know what I'm complaining about, all things considered:
Being a writer doesn't make all of the bullshit just magically go away. I don't get up in the morning and put on a beret, then lounge on a windowseat with birds twittering on my shoulders. There isn't all the time in the world to do whatever I want, because I set my own hours so obviously my life must be an endless spree of breaks and telly watching and putting a few words on a page.
There's other bullshit to contend with. Like realising I haven't seen the sun for four days. Like being unable to get a story to go right - a problem that seems very minor, when you're still relying on a regular wage to keep you afloat. But it's less minor, when this is your real job. The passion quickly dies, and is replaced by what can only be described as desperation.
And a need to compulsively play Solitaire, rather than face the fact that you don't know how to go on.
But this isn't the only problem. There are others, too: like the fact that you can't just take a while to get over a crippling bout of depression. You have to deal with it, and move on. You have to deal with it and move on, not only for your writing, for the wage that you're now trying to earn, but for the people around you who are used to seeing you be a certain sort of person.
Your followers on Twitter don't want to see you be sad. They don't want to know that you can't cope with some Bad Things What Have Happened. They want to see you be Charlotte Stein. Readers of your blog want to see you be Charlotte Stein. Readers of this blog want you to be Charlotte Stein, and you want to be too, because you're aware of how grateful you should be for all the incredible things that have happened to you.
And I am. Grateful, I mean.
It's just that...I guess I'm sad sometimes, too - and I don't know why. I think I've just always been this way. I've always believed the very worst about myself, and rejected the best. There's always this thing in my head that says somehow, I don't deserve these things. I'm not worthy of them. It was all just a fluke, an accident, and soon everything will return to its default position, where I am the loser I always suspected I was.
And that doesn't change, because I'm now a writer. There's no winning the race, no sudden triumph, no moment where you're done, when you're a writer. I feel the same way now as I did when I first started: a moment of happiness, when something goes right. And then I'm just fumbling in the dark again, looking for the light switch.
I'm just waiting, for the default position.
I teach, I said.
And then he asked me:
So is that what you do for a living?
And for the first time in my life I didn't say yes. I don't teach for a living, anymore. My earnings from writing now far exceed my earnings from teaching, so saying I'm a teacher would have been a lie.
I'm a writer, I said, because that's what I am now. Though I want to be absolutely clear, to anyone out there who might think I've got it made, that I'm living in the dream, that they don't know what I'm complaining about, all things considered:
Being a writer doesn't make all of the bullshit just magically go away. I don't get up in the morning and put on a beret, then lounge on a windowseat with birds twittering on my shoulders. There isn't all the time in the world to do whatever I want, because I set my own hours so obviously my life must be an endless spree of breaks and telly watching and putting a few words on a page.
There's other bullshit to contend with. Like realising I haven't seen the sun for four days. Like being unable to get a story to go right - a problem that seems very minor, when you're still relying on a regular wage to keep you afloat. But it's less minor, when this is your real job. The passion quickly dies, and is replaced by what can only be described as desperation.
And a need to compulsively play Solitaire, rather than face the fact that you don't know how to go on.
But this isn't the only problem. There are others, too: like the fact that you can't just take a while to get over a crippling bout of depression. You have to deal with it, and move on. You have to deal with it and move on, not only for your writing, for the wage that you're now trying to earn, but for the people around you who are used to seeing you be a certain sort of person.
Your followers on Twitter don't want to see you be sad. They don't want to know that you can't cope with some Bad Things What Have Happened. They want to see you be Charlotte Stein. Readers of your blog want to see you be Charlotte Stein. Readers of this blog want you to be Charlotte Stein, and you want to be too, because you're aware of how grateful you should be for all the incredible things that have happened to you.
And I am. Grateful, I mean.
It's just that...I guess I'm sad sometimes, too - and I don't know why. I think I've just always been this way. I've always believed the very worst about myself, and rejected the best. There's always this thing in my head that says somehow, I don't deserve these things. I'm not worthy of them. It was all just a fluke, an accident, and soon everything will return to its default position, where I am the loser I always suspected I was.
And that doesn't change, because I'm now a writer. There's no winning the race, no sudden triumph, no moment where you're done, when you're a writer. I feel the same way now as I did when I first started: a moment of happiness, when something goes right. And then I'm just fumbling in the dark again, looking for the light switch.
I'm just waiting, for the default position.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Slave to the Rhythm
By Kathleen Bradean
I know only one truly professional writer, in that he makes his entire living from writing. Every other writer I know, even the critically acclaimed, have another source of income. Many are academics. Several offer editing services. A couple are librarians. A good many, especially erotic romance writers, are stay at home moms, and I know that's work even if there's little appreciation from society or monetary reward for their 24/7 profession. Of course, everyone who works outside the home also has at home duties, so who on earth really gets to write full time?
And would I want to?
Oh sure, it sounds good, but writers know that creativity isn't a bottomless well that you can draw from forever. Even if think you know the secret to writing highly commercial novellas, as Lisabet states, I'm sure at some point you'd hit a wall, a stubbornly blank page, a dry run. And then what? Bills don't come with a "ran out of plots? this month is on us" coupon.
People don’t respect a writer's time. They don’t get that it's work. When I'm in my office, I can shut the door and put the phone on automatic rollover to voice mail and no one would dare tell me I need to be the Girl Scout cookie mom since I'm "not doing anything," but a writer or stay at home mom? It's like their time becomes community property, and oy vey, the guilt trips if they try to keep any for themselves!
Stephen King, in his book On Writing, admits that he's not sure where stories come from. He can point to a few things that stuck in his mind when he worked as a janitor in the local high school, but he can't explain the leap from that to his novel Carrie. Likewise, I'm not sure exactly what it is that links weird things together in my brain and sets my imagination to fill in the gaps. What if I shut myself off from all that by writing every day? Freaky little unrelated things have a way of flipping switches in my mind and suddenly a plot problem is "oh yeah! And that ties in with that stuff in the first chapter..." So I won't give up my day job any time soon. But that count down to retirement? That clock is ticking loud and clear. Then I'll have to get serious. Or not. Maybe I'll try being eccentric instead.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
My Not-So-Evil Day Job
By Lisabet Sarai
I complain a lot. Anyone who's been in touch with me lately has heard about how I'm busier this term than I've ever been; how I'm teaching two brand new courses and don't have time to breathe with all the preparation, let alone write; how I leave at 9:00 AM and don't get home until 9:30 PM some nights; how I feel like Alice in Through the Looking Glass- I have to run as fast as I can just to stay in one place.
You might assume, listening to me, that I hate my work and would rather be writing every day. Indeed, for many writers, that's the ideal: to make enough money from book sales that you can quit your ordinary, boring day job and write full time.
Honestly, I don't feel that way. Perhaps that suggests that I'm not a “serious” writer. So be it. Despite the stress I sometimes feel – especially when I try to balance the demands of writing and marketing with the requirements of my public profession – I'd never want to give up my “real world” job.
My work requires a huge investment of time and energy, but it also provides great rewards. I don't mean financial rewards – I make just enough to meet my needs – but I've never aspired to wealth . I'm talking about less tangible benefits: the opportunity to be creative, the freedom to try new approaches, the respect of my colleagues and (sometimes, at least) my students, the satisfaction that comes from knowing that I've been a positive influence on the lives of at least a few young people every year. I also enjoy the fact that I'm able to use my long years of study and experience in positive and productive ways. And finally, my day job is just plain fun.
Writing is fun too, of course. I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it. (I think the secret of happiness may be to only do what you enjoy, or conversely, to enjoy whatever you do.) One reason I don't have much of a desire to make my living off my writing is that I suspect that might kill the joy. If I were forced to write, day after day, I strongly suspect that the stress would leach away any creativity I can claim now.
I believe that I could support myself, at least at a basic level, by writing erotic romance or BDSM smut. I think I know what sells, and I could churn that out if I had to. I write quickly and my first drafts are generally in a lot better shape than many authors. I could put out one or two 15-20K novellas a month, if I had to.
I really would rather not. In fact, I find myself deliberately choosing to write genres and styles that don't sell as well, out of a kind of perversity, I guess. My M/M books have outsold anything else I've written, by several times. I find myself shying away from writing more because I don't want to make money my object.
Plus I hate stress. I can function when the chips are down. I can make tight deadlines if I have to. But the pressure takes its toll, draining me of psychic energy and basically making me miserable. Yes, my day job is stressful, too, but it provides enough variety to keep me excited. It also includes natural breaks, for midterm and final exams, vacation periods and so on. If I were writing full time, none of that would be true. I know authors who support themselves with their work, and you really can't take much of a break. You have to produce that three or four or five thousand words per day, rain or shine, in sickness and in health, or you'll fall behind. You'll miss deadlines. You'll lose readers.
My husband tells me that much of the stress is of my own making. I think there's some truth in that. I'm the one who agreed to do a new column for ERWA, who signed up to edit the Coming Together Presents series, who was willing to take on the course orphaned by the other faculty member who's on sabbatical in order to “help out”. Probably I need to learn how to say no. Maybe my unwillingness to refuse requests can be traced back to my submissive nature. Hard to say!
In any case, I'm not a wage slave. I'm not oppressed by my employer. I work long hours, but not at some repetitive, meaningless occupation. I'm incredibly lucky.
I tell my students that money will not make them happy. The first key to happiness (according to what I've learned in my close to six decades of life on earth) is having a partner whom you love and whose company you enjoy. The second key, almost as important, is finding work that feeds your soul, work that ignites your passion. I'm fortunate to have succeeded in both these areas. Really, I have no right at all to complain.
I complain a lot. Anyone who's been in touch with me lately has heard about how I'm busier this term than I've ever been; how I'm teaching two brand new courses and don't have time to breathe with all the preparation, let alone write; how I leave at 9:00 AM and don't get home until 9:30 PM some nights; how I feel like Alice in Through the Looking Glass- I have to run as fast as I can just to stay in one place.
You might assume, listening to me, that I hate my work and would rather be writing every day. Indeed, for many writers, that's the ideal: to make enough money from book sales that you can quit your ordinary, boring day job and write full time.
Honestly, I don't feel that way. Perhaps that suggests that I'm not a “serious” writer. So be it. Despite the stress I sometimes feel – especially when I try to balance the demands of writing and marketing with the requirements of my public profession – I'd never want to give up my “real world” job.
My work requires a huge investment of time and energy, but it also provides great rewards. I don't mean financial rewards – I make just enough to meet my needs – but I've never aspired to wealth . I'm talking about less tangible benefits: the opportunity to be creative, the freedom to try new approaches, the respect of my colleagues and (sometimes, at least) my students, the satisfaction that comes from knowing that I've been a positive influence on the lives of at least a few young people every year. I also enjoy the fact that I'm able to use my long years of study and experience in positive and productive ways. And finally, my day job is just plain fun.
Writing is fun too, of course. I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it. (I think the secret of happiness may be to only do what you enjoy, or conversely, to enjoy whatever you do.) One reason I don't have much of a desire to make my living off my writing is that I suspect that might kill the joy. If I were forced to write, day after day, I strongly suspect that the stress would leach away any creativity I can claim now.
I believe that I could support myself, at least at a basic level, by writing erotic romance or BDSM smut. I think I know what sells, and I could churn that out if I had to. I write quickly and my first drafts are generally in a lot better shape than many authors. I could put out one or two 15-20K novellas a month, if I had to.
I really would rather not. In fact, I find myself deliberately choosing to write genres and styles that don't sell as well, out of a kind of perversity, I guess. My M/M books have outsold anything else I've written, by several times. I find myself shying away from writing more because I don't want to make money my object.
Plus I hate stress. I can function when the chips are down. I can make tight deadlines if I have to. But the pressure takes its toll, draining me of psychic energy and basically making me miserable. Yes, my day job is stressful, too, but it provides enough variety to keep me excited. It also includes natural breaks, for midterm and final exams, vacation periods and so on. If I were writing full time, none of that would be true. I know authors who support themselves with their work, and you really can't take much of a break. You have to produce that three or four or five thousand words per day, rain or shine, in sickness and in health, or you'll fall behind. You'll miss deadlines. You'll lose readers.
My husband tells me that much of the stress is of my own making. I think there's some truth in that. I'm the one who agreed to do a new column for ERWA, who signed up to edit the Coming Together Presents series, who was willing to take on the course orphaned by the other faculty member who's on sabbatical in order to “help out”. Probably I need to learn how to say no. Maybe my unwillingness to refuse requests can be traced back to my submissive nature. Hard to say!
In any case, I'm not a wage slave. I'm not oppressed by my employer. I work long hours, but not at some repetitive, meaningless occupation. I'm incredibly lucky.
I tell my students that money will not make them happy. The first key to happiness (according to what I've learned in my close to six decades of life on earth) is having a partner whom you love and whose company you enjoy. The second key, almost as important, is finding work that feeds your soul, work that ignites your passion. I'm fortunate to have succeeded in both these areas. Really, I have no right at all to complain.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
The Best Wildest is Yet to Come? Maybe.
Wildest thing I've ever done? Started a bar fight with seven Hell's Angels after one of them said something rude about my song choice on the jukebox. Spent three days in the hospital with a concussion and busted ribs and I still have a couple of knife scars to remember them by.
No wait, that's not right.
The real wildest thing I've ever done? Piloted an airplane after the pilot had a heart attack. I relied on my dead steady nerves and a few years of flight sim practice and put that plane on the ground without so much as spilling a glass of champagne in the first class cabin.
No, no, no. That's not it.
You want to know the wildest thing I've done in my life? Delivered a baby on the Autobahn. My baby.
Um... no.
Rescued a family of four from a Yeti in the Serengeti.
Nah.
Climbed Everest. Blindfolded.
Nope.
Auditioned to be the voice of iPhone's SIRI and was told my voice was too sexy.
Uh uh.
I, um... huh. Wildest thing, you said? Wildest? Like safari-wild? Girls Gone Wild? Wild, Wild West? Oscar Wilde? (Gene was Wilder.) Wild.
Hmm.
I suppose I have my share of youthful wildness. Underage drinking in bars on the Ft. Lauderdale strip (and being an extra in a couple of very bad 80s movies as a result). Riding through Coconut Grove in convertibles with rich boys I didn't know. Dating wildly inappropriate people who did far wilder things than I ever did. Having sex in cars and on playgrounds and on the living room floor of a friend's apartment while four other people slept around us. But everyone does that, right?
There's the whirlwind 1000 mile relationship with the man who would become my husband... on January 1 he was my boyfriend's roommate whom I hadn't even met yet, by October he was my husband after spending less than 3 weeks together. Is that wild? Even if it is, the story is 22 years old.
There are a few things here and there over the past couple of decades that I'd call brave or crazy or impulsive or just plain dumb, but I don't know if any of them were truly wild. Maybe I've set the bar too high. Maybe I've seen too many YouTube videos (and porn) and read to many confessional blogs to think that anything I might ever do could be classified as wild.
When do we outgrow wild? I ask this question with a bit of panic in my voice (fingers?). I don't want to think that my wildest moments are behind me, unless being wild is inappropriate once you're past a certain age. I don't want to be the middle aged mom being made fun of because she's being wild. (I doubt teenagers call anything their parents do "wild." I'll let you know in about twelve years.) I don't want to be the cougar dating her son's best friend. That's not wild, it's just... ick. Plus, to be honest, I will be whatever comes after cougar by the time my boys are in high school. That's what I get for waiting until my 40s to have babies. Sigh. Wait... is that wild? Having babies in my 40s? No... probably not.
Sadly, I don't think I'm all that wild. I'm a pretty responsible person (barring those youthful wild moments) and tend to make careful choices. My wildest moments are the times when I'm impulsive and make a snap decision without thinking it through in my usual careful, analytical way. I almost never regret the outcome of those impulsive moments, they just don't happen all that often--and they aren't often very wild at all. My last truly impulsive decision... well, my memory is a little fuzzy right now, but I think the end result was my second baby. See what I mean? Not exactly wild.
It's difficult to be impulsive at this stage in my life. I mean, sure, I could hit the highway for points unknown when the babysitter shows up on Monday morning, but I'd have to be home before my husband goes to work on Tuesday. Not that that's not enough time to be wild, but... well, I'm tired and I have deadlines and I can't afford to get arrested right now, okay? What would I tell my husband? Or the babies when they're older? Or, worst of all, my publisher? Sheesh. Why are you trying to get me in trouble?
This is the wildest I'm going to be, at least for the next little while. And I'm more than a little okay with that.
No wait, that's not right.
The real wildest thing I've ever done? Piloted an airplane after the pilot had a heart attack. I relied on my dead steady nerves and a few years of flight sim practice and put that plane on the ground without so much as spilling a glass of champagne in the first class cabin.
No, no, no. That's not it.
You want to know the wildest thing I've done in my life? Delivered a baby on the Autobahn. My baby.
Um... no.
Rescued a family of four from a Yeti in the Serengeti.
Nah.
Climbed Everest. Blindfolded.
Nope.
Auditioned to be the voice of iPhone's SIRI and was told my voice was too sexy.
Uh uh.
I, um... huh. Wildest thing, you said? Wildest? Like safari-wild? Girls Gone Wild? Wild, Wild West? Oscar Wilde? (Gene was Wilder.) Wild.
Hmm.
I suppose I have my share of youthful wildness. Underage drinking in bars on the Ft. Lauderdale strip (and being an extra in a couple of very bad 80s movies as a result). Riding through Coconut Grove in convertibles with rich boys I didn't know. Dating wildly inappropriate people who did far wilder things than I ever did. Having sex in cars and on playgrounds and on the living room floor of a friend's apartment while four other people slept around us. But everyone does that, right?
There's the whirlwind 1000 mile relationship with the man who would become my husband... on January 1 he was my boyfriend's roommate whom I hadn't even met yet, by October he was my husband after spending less than 3 weeks together. Is that wild? Even if it is, the story is 22 years old.
There are a few things here and there over the past couple of decades that I'd call brave or crazy or impulsive or just plain dumb, but I don't know if any of them were truly wild. Maybe I've set the bar too high. Maybe I've seen too many YouTube videos (and porn) and read to many confessional blogs to think that anything I might ever do could be classified as wild.
When do we outgrow wild? I ask this question with a bit of panic in my voice (fingers?). I don't want to think that my wildest moments are behind me, unless being wild is inappropriate once you're past a certain age. I don't want to be the middle aged mom being made fun of because she's being wild. (I doubt teenagers call anything their parents do "wild." I'll let you know in about twelve years.) I don't want to be the cougar dating her son's best friend. That's not wild, it's just... ick. Plus, to be honest, I will be whatever comes after cougar by the time my boys are in high school. That's what I get for waiting until my 40s to have babies. Sigh. Wait... is that wild? Having babies in my 40s? No... probably not.
Sadly, I don't think I'm all that wild. I'm a pretty responsible person (barring those youthful wild moments) and tend to make careful choices. My wildest moments are the times when I'm impulsive and make a snap decision without thinking it through in my usual careful, analytical way. I almost never regret the outcome of those impulsive moments, they just don't happen all that often--and they aren't often very wild at all. My last truly impulsive decision... well, my memory is a little fuzzy right now, but I think the end result was my second baby. See what I mean? Not exactly wild.
It's difficult to be impulsive at this stage in my life. I mean, sure, I could hit the highway for points unknown when the babysitter shows up on Monday morning, but I'd have to be home before my husband goes to work on Tuesday. Not that that's not enough time to be wild, but... well, I'm tired and I have deadlines and I can't afford to get arrested right now, okay? What would I tell my husband? Or the babies when they're older? Or, worst of all, my publisher? Sheesh. Why are you trying to get me in trouble?
This is the wildest I'm going to be, at least for the next little while. And I'm more than a little okay with that.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Working for Slo-Mo
(Note: This poster is for a reading in Toronto during Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans Pride Week 2007.)
------------------
“Executive Escorts Wanted.” Heh. The word “executive” didn’t fool me into believing that sex work was glamorous, or that it would lead to a high-status career – on the contrary. I dialed the number and asked for the man who had placed the ad because I needed money.
Was I always a Bad Girl? You tell me. I had not planned to sell sex for a living. In my twenties, I had assumed that an ability to type, file and serve the public could always get me an office job if nothing better was available. As a bride, I had assumed that if all else failed and my marriage ended, the legal system would force my husband to help provide for any children we might have, if not for me. As a graduate student, I had assumed that I could complete a thesis in a year or two, and then re-enter the job market with a versatile Master’s degree in English.
When I turned thirty, I was facing the collapse of everything I had counted on. Advances in office technology had dried up the jobs that had supported me through my first college degree, and I didn’t understand computers. As a divorced mother, I was told that I was entitled to child support, which my ex-husband refused to pay. His claim that he could not afford it seemed to satisfy the legal system. As a graduate student, I learned that I really had no rights. As my advisor continued to put off reading my latest chapter, I was repeatedly warned that I could be dropped from the program for failure to complete my thesis within the time allowed.
Bad Girls seem to be made, not born. I “came out” as a lesbian by going to the local gay bar, where I met my first bar dyke lover. While I was pressuring her to find a job and control her drinking, she rebelled by stealing the contents of my bank account. Then I learned that her sticky fingers were well known to most of the other dykes in town, who serenaded me with “You should have known better.”
I swallowed what was left of my pride and applied for welfare. I was told that I was not eligible as long as I still had any savings. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. As Janis Joplin sang it, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.”
Slo-Mo (as I’ll call him), the pimp who asked me to meet him for an interview, had a colorful history of his own: he had sold dope of various kinds, including heroin (on which he was hooked), repossessed furniture and played pool for big prize money. He was running an escort agency as a sideline. He moved and spoke like an old 78 RPM record being played at 33 & 1/3 speed.
Sex was part of the interview, and it felt strangely businesslike. It was really an audition. Like other employers, my new boss explained the rules: safety on the job (regular use of condoms plus medical checkups), reliability, appropriate dress (tight skirts, not ragged jeans). We had a deal.
In some ways, going to work at Slo-Mo’s house at noon and leaving at five o-clock with several hundred dollars in cash was similar to jobs in which I had been expected to please male clients and supervisors who patted and patronized me because I was a “girl.” It was also like dating men who expected sex on the first date, either because I had a bad reputation or just because they wanted it – except that, in this case, they paid in cash. In advance.
Was I having wild adventures? I was nervous every time I went alone to a hotel or a private home to meet a new john, but really, I wasn’t taking any more of a risk than a woman who meets men on the ‘net. I knew very well that any woman can be perceived as “asking for” male violence.
My johns didn’t turn out to be monsters. Some actually seemed shy and grateful. The real Boogie Man in my life was “the system” (government, police, the courts, the mental-health system, even academia), and this is the hardest thing to explain to those who have not tried to walk in my five-inch pumps. All I can say to those who believe that all the major institutions of our society exist to serve the needs of citizens in general is: it just ain’t so.
Slo-Mo turned out to be very reliable in his way. At the end of a working day, he would come home, where I was usually alone in his house. (Most of his stable worked the night shift.) He would offer me a drink, and he seemed impressed that I never helped myself in his absence. Like a considerate husband in an arranged marriage, he would ask about my day, and I would tell him how many “calls” I had when I was not working on my thesis. Then he would ask for an agency fee for each call, or (more often), he would invite me into his bedroom to collect his “fee” in trade.
One day he told me and all his other “girls” that he had sold his business – which essentially consisted of us – to a woman he knew who never contacted us. Apparently she regarded us as outdated furniture from the old business, and chose not to include us in her plans for re-opening.
Years later, I heard that Slo-Mo had died of a heroin overdose. To call him a Good Man would be a stretch, but from what I saw, he wasn’t bad at all. He might have been the only man I’ve ever known who never lied to me.
Still later, I was invited to a birthday party in a local pool hall. I hesitated to pick up a long stick and aim it at those little balls on the table. I was so far from being a pool shark that I barely qualified as a sardine. Luckily, no one was playing for money. That night, it seemed, I couldn’t make a wrong move. I was more surprised than anyone in my audience.
A gay-male friend jokingly said, “Well, we all know about dykes and pool, don’t we?” Did we?
Oh, Slo-Mo. I bet you were there; it’s the only explanation I can think of. Like the junkie musician for whom Sarah McLachlan’s song was written, I hope you’re resting in the Arms of the Angels.
-----------------------------
(A longer version of this piece, “Getting Paid For It,” appeared in the “women’s work” theme issue of a local leftist newsmagazine, Briarpatch, in 2005.)
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