Thoughts influenced by the rhinovirus
who do I thank for coughing at me?
Hi pals.
Can a common cold cause trepidation to turn into bravado in the decision-making centers of one’s brain? At least psychologically? Because I’m writing this and thinking I would’ve never started a Substack if the idea didn’t come to me in a congested haze that spelled “sporadic writer.” I am writing to change this. I will write fiction and you will find it here or through here. TBD as to when you’ll find the fiction, but stick with me! I also write thoughts and life updates. For example, this post is mostly a life update.
You may know me from some kind of school or childhood given how I’ve chosen to share this page. Or you don’t know me personally, which means, cool! The post-about-on-Instagram strategy has found you, and/or I’ve made it as a writer. I’ve made it big as a writer, like traveling to New Zealand with leg space and having a writing room with a desk that was owned by a Jazz Age writer and ego-tripping to no end all on my book money. What. Book.
Let’s see. I have an idea for something queer, possibly sci-fi but to be honest I wrote some of my ideas down on the back of a notecard for a script I had to read at a telemarketing job and promptly threw the card away after quitting the job and forgetting the ideas were written there (more on my unemployment later). Luckily, I’ve salvaged some of my thoughts. I also have several half-written drafts of short stories that in my opinion don’t surpass a middle-school writing level. We are our own worst critics. I am pretty sure my writing has regressed since college when I was actually taking creative writing classes, so I’ve joined a writing group. Yay! One of my college instructors said that to write well you have to read more, so I’m also doing a lot of that especially because…
I’ve got no job! Some background: I was in the closet until the winter of 2022. Also, I went to college thinking I would graduate with a double major in psychology and economics, but I tanked the former and wholly dropped the latter in my senior year. I took a semester off and finished my degree in the spring of 2021, one year later than was originally planned. I left the Tri-State Area and got a part-time job in south Florida and had no intention of continuing a writing habit I had started earnestly in college or pursuing graduate school for psychology. Then I came back to New Jersey and decided in the late summer of 2022 that first I would be clear about sexual trauma I’d experienced, which led to the coughing up of a dense hairball of unsafe relationships that I spat out and crushed under my feet. I found my first real outlet for trauma to be through writing. Then I was in psych wards and an intensive outpatient care program during which I came to terms with my sexuality and came out as a lesbian. While in outpatient, I resolved to get far away from the claustrophobia and the traumatic nausea of my life in the Northeast, and so I moved to the best place I could think of: Tampa, Florida. This was without considering the politics of this state, I just wanted to be warm and far away. But now I’m here, I’m addicted to the weather and I’m wearing my gayness all over downtown Tampa. I’m in therapy. I’m on alcohol-limiting and weed-banning medications. The therapy and meds are expensive. I’ve worked as a cashier at an aquarium restaurant, a feeble freelance writer, a telemarketer and I need more money. I’m saving up for a professional certificate so I can become a data analyst and pay for my medical expenses. I want to work somewhere that isn’t soul-sucking. And I’m writing here to stay consistent.
Right now I’m looking for a full-time job so I can pay for the data analytics program. I think interpreting data will only make me become a better writer because inspiration always seems to come from opposing disciplines. I’m currently reading The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith and I recommend it. I’ve eaten a banana that browned over the course of writing this post. I’m hungrier than that banana but sicker than having an appetite. I’m thinking I’ll update this public journal at least monthly. I’m growing a plant that wilts like a middle-schooler with a grow spurt but somehow manages to make it to each new weekly watering. Finally, to the college, high school and childhood friends I’ve left up north and elsewhere: I miss you! I miss your humor, your intelligence. Florida needs your brightness and, to whom it applies, your gayness. Come on by.