Where I Write #23: The House My Mother Built
That’s what I want to do as I write: break through the varnish my mom helped me shellack over my truth, the stains we both used to deny our imperfections, hide our dark places.
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Posts Tagged: Where I Write
Where I Write #22: A Room of One’s Own in the Middle of Everything
I’m writing on the bathroom floor, laptop on my knees. It’s tight in here; shower, toilet, and sink crammed together with just enough space left to stand, or in my case, sit
...moreWHERE I WRITE #21: On the Edge of Sky and Sea
In the dark streets of Lhasa two summers ago, I bought a bracelet stringed with smooth skulls and wear it now habitually.
WHERE I WRITE #19: With Love From My Desk From A Dumpster
I write at a desk two gay men helped me pull from a dumpster and load in my truck. The legs are bruised, and its paint’s coming off.
WHERE I WRITE #17: From a Place of “Yes”
(Well, at least for the next two weeks, anyway.)
WHERE I WRITE #16: In Storms
With the exception of the four years I spent at a small college on the east coast, I’ve lived in Chicago all my life. Anyone who grew up in the Midwest, or spent any significant amount of time there in the oppressive heat of summer can tell you about at least one memorable storm.
WHERE I WRITE #15: The Hospital Room
I’ve only rarely worried about death. The one time I actually was dying in a hospital for a while, I wasn’t worried about it.
WHERE I WRITE #14: A Green Room in Gujarat
The wall in front of the desk is a greenish turquoise. The painters came and finished the whole flat in just a few hours, and you can see where the paint-soaked rag dripped a little.
Where I Write #13: To Walk Among Coyotes
I moved to Los Angeles a few weeks ago to house-sit for the summer. I drive a borrowed car and have a meager savings. The house is near the Hollywood sign, in the hills,
Where I Write #12: A Stable in the Floodplain
Across the Missouri River from North Omaha, just east of the intersection of Interstates 29 and 680, a few miles
Where I Write #11: A Table Meant For Dining
There is a corkboard here. On it, there is a paper doll of L., a friend from my grad school days. The doll features a pixie haircut, a polka-dot blouse, a pair of men’s pants.
Where I Write #10: Nowhere, Everywhere
Most often, I don’t. I watch basketball instead. I check my e-mail. I cook dinner and make love to my girlfriend and read magazine articles about the financial crisis. I move constantly, from Brooklyn, New York, to the Pacific coast of Mexico, to Portland, Oregon, to the rural South, to Portland again, and now to upstate New York, all in a period of a little over three years.
Where I Write #9: A Cabin on the Lakefront
I stopped counting when I reached eighteen moves. That was a few moves ago. I am very good at packing my life into boxes.
WHERE I WRITE #8: The Strange Nooks of Our Bodies
They’re all means of transportation, if in various states of disrepair:
WHERE I WRITE #7: Between Clients
[Editor's note: Some photos NSFW.]
I write between clients. There’s a yellow wall behind me, and fuzzy leopard print pillows on the floor.
...moreWHERE I WRITE #6: Blood Red Desk
It’s kinda moved.
Where I write.
Probably because my understanding of home for the longest time was nomadic–movement and the body.
...moreWHERE I WRITE #5: Please Continue The Story
I am looking at the things on my Ikea desk surrounding my 2007 Dell Computer that I am typing on. What I see from left to right:
Where I Write #4: My Old Wooden Desk
I write at an old cherry wood desk. It’s heavy and difficult to move, scarred, the stain is flaking off, initials etched into the surface. The desk has seen better days but it’s still beautiful.
Where I Write #3: Wherever and Whenever I Can
At the moment, I’m writing in a cafeteria full of adult nerds who are parents of teenaged nerds, some of whom will likely be running the country twenty years from now.
WHERE I WRITE #2: Situation/Coordinates, Venue, Witnesses
The list below is a register of the dates and locations of when and where the author wrote her memoir Revolution, published in this month.
WHERE I WRITE #1: Hotels, Highways, Hotspots, Haiti
If I were independently wealthy, I would be less for it, because the chase for money to pay for food, shelter, babies, and now small children has taken me from sharing with two women an eighty square foot octagonal house originally built in the early twentieth century in rural Florida to house a wealthy child’s doll collection, to a room in a massive and mostly unoccupied schoolhouse converted into a lakefront hotel by the tax evading gangster Al Capone