spicy mayo, scr*w senor green, and other thoughts on life and writing

somebody in my house turned the entire (half jar) of mayo in our fridge into an entire (half jar) of spicy mayo. since there are only two people in my house - and i am one of them - pinpointing the culprit was no hard task. and tho i’m curious to know what the circumstances were for the abundance of mayo and why he didn’t just make a small bowl of spicy mayo to suit his spicy mayo needs at that time, mostly i was grateful for the backup jar of BOGO mayo we had because i'm not at all having a two cheers for shocking discovery of bright orange mayo when you're expecting regular mayo kind of day. and yes, that is how i chose to word that sentence.

suffice to say, i might be having a fairly hormonal week.

two weeks ago, i returned from my heavenly-productive writing retreat to my must-have-descended-from-heaven beau (who makes brazenly inappropriate amounts of altered condiments) to my teeny apartment and, here's the kicker, to my Regular. Old. Life. 

don’t get me wrong. i love my regular old life because it’s not regular and i’m not old and my life on so many days feels blessed and just…luckily good. except lately i wish i woke up one score and five years ago and said, man, i want to be an electrical engineer when i grow up.

see, i’m starting a new novel. and while it was going brilliantly in the high desert region of Colorado, you know, here:

in Brooklyn it feels stifled and boring because it isn’t being written how it should be, which is frustrating when you consider i’m the one who’s writing it. now all told, i’ve been focused on this novel for about two months, so i will work out the glitches over the course of the next year at which time i’m sure an editor, or twenty, will take another year to say they’re not sure about the authenticity of the voice and no one’s buying odd murder mysteries that are set in the 1940’s anyways. at which time i will begin another novel and… scream, perhaps.

but i digress, and while i digress further, allow me to say that when you’re having a hormonal week that leads you to write catty and pessimistic sentences like the ones above (one editor did say that she would just die if she didn’t acquire my novel, but then her editorial board said, eh, we doubt it.) you should definitely not start thinking thoughts like “it’s as if I’ve worked the same job for fifteen years without a single promotion.” 

and when your hormonal week gets to that level you should definitely definitely not check in on more successful authors. 

especially not more successful authors who have created online, free content educational material using a grant they received from Googletwo years ago. and even though you admire him and think he’s a bit of a prophet, you also can’t help thinking, oh scr*w you, John Green. you know what i was doing two years ago? complaining about my too small apartment. you know what my biggest accomplishment in the last two years was? the fact that my website name no longer has blogspot in it (i know, awesome, right? thanks Rich! weeee!).

and then we take deep breaths.

beyond wishing for a writing guardian angel or mentor or an editor or otherwise decent connection to take an interest in me, i know what i have to do.

first, i have to stop being such a crybaby. i did get that SCBWI grant so it’s not like there haven’t been any promotions. also, i have to put my head down and work. i have to reach out to and check out more successful authors because it’s inspiring and more than that, writing doesn’t have to be a lonely vacuum. tho most times it is and since i didn't want to be an electrical engineer, since i chose to write novels, i need to go back and read the first sentence of this paragraph a few more times.

maybe some people are meant to do multitudes of really intelligent good for the earth and minds of youth things – thank you John Green (and apologies about that scr*w you bit early. i know you’re a real person who's worked hard to get where you're at and i'm sure you have your own hormonal weeks. though probably less of them because you’re a man.) and some people are meant to do mini-multitudes in different fields like farm-to-table restaurant-ing. (tho have I mentioned that my website name no longer has blogspot in it?) and it’s all okay, so long as everyone’s enjoying themselves. 

maybe it’s all about timing anyway. so in the meantime, i should get my head out of my ass, figure out how to write my damn book, make it great and take long walks and do something useful, like start volunteering again.

because maybe instead of prematurely opening a fresh jar of fresh mayo, we should embrace the creepy orange-colored, sriracha mayo that life throws our way even though it looks toxic. 

and yes, this was my dinner. it's sauteed corn and tomatoes.
clearly, hormonal week does not creative dinners make.

embrace it because the spicy mayo weeks force you to look at more writers websites in one hour than you have in the whole previous month(s). they force you to finally get the damn 'blogspot' out of your website name. embrace them, because even as you do, you will remember that all weeks aren’t hormonal. that good writing weeks are ahead along with the high that will come when you nail that elusive creepy 1940's voice you're going for.

just take my advice. don’t over embrace the spicy mayo of life (see above photo). it will give you a terrible stomachache which won’t be corrected by eating a whole row of Double Stuf'd Oreos.

also? if anyone has any guardian angel writing connections that might help, i'm seriously all ears.