The New Journalism Fails at Life

I like to behave as though I am an expert on journalism because my father was  a newspaper and magazine writer/editor for the better part of his life. During my senior year of High school, he started a rival town newspaper after being fired from the original rag for exposing an actual scandal in the Board of Town Selectmen where some of them were (GAsp) taking bribes.
Finally, my father had somewhere else to channel his atrophying editorial skills which for the ten years he took off from journalism to write books, he used to tear strips off of my confidence by reading my school papers over my shoulder while I tapped at the family computer--Ah the 90's, a time when you had to wait your turn on the family word processor rather than hole up in your bedroom and never emerge or speak to anyone and lick a screen to death with your eyeballs until falling unconscious with the instagram last witnessed burned into your retinas--
Where was I?

During my first summer back from college, I worked as the secretary for the paper a couple of days a week and Dad even let me write an article or two, which he editorially (not literally) ripped apart with his characteristic acerbic wit, and the next year I got a gig working at a bakery and said deuces to the family business.

With that being said, I am now a Writing Instructor at a pretty prestigious Boston institution. I have just earned my Master's in Creative Writing, and I am working on several projects for publication.

Now, that's a really verbose introduction, isn't it?
It's probably unnecessary, and my dad would definitely have cut it, but we live in a blogger society now and readers like a little personality with their opinion pieces.
In fact, the number of people publishing memoirs under the age of 30 is skyrocketing. Just go to amazon and search nonfiction and you'll be barraged with the life stories of 25 year old Beauty Gurus, Thirty Something Lifestyle bloggers, Self Proclaimed Foodies, Crafters, Entrepreneurs, Body Love Advocates, and Cat Enthusiasts.
If you have even a moderately successful Snapchat account apparently it's enough to warrant you a book deal these days. Which is great because I obviously need to know more about Grumpy Cat's Owner.
Look at Lena Dunham, one of the most unoriginal navel gazers of her generation. Girl is in her late twenties, and she's just released her SECOND MEMOIR. Albeit it's a collection of excerpts from her journal, and it's a limited release for a charity, BUT she wrote Not That Kind of Girl, her first Memoir at the age of 25.
Seriously?
What the hell could anyone of that age possibly have to reflect on? I'm sure there are many exceptions to the rule...
Malala Yousafzai for instance, but people who live through horror, war, and torture tend to grow up quick and have a good deal more hindsight to apply to the lessons they've learned, rather than your average, white, affluent, city/suburban kid who just thinks their coming of age stories are better than yours.
Was that harsh?
I'm just getting started.


Take for example the thing that started me writing about this to begin with.
This article on the site Ravishly.com


http://www.ravishly.com/people-we-love/lindy-west-her-new-book-shrill-and-hi-shes-amazing-writer

It was suggested to me by facebook because of my interest in Jes Baker, another late 20's blogger who just released a Memoir called Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls.
Guess what?
I totally want to read that book.
I want to read it because Jes used to work in Mental Health. She has a history of her own mental Health issues including self harm and depression.
I want to read it because I have struggled with those things, and even though I'm a good six or seven years older than Jes (we do share a rad name), unlike me, she has experience in the industry designed to "help" women conquer their demons, and she has spoken a great deal about how broken that industry is.

See?

Memoir about struggles as kid who hates self, never figures out why, doesn't do anything for anyone else struggling with same issues = not productive and self indulgent Read: for profit only.

Memoir about struggles as kid who hates self, endures bullying, abuse, or other trauma, but conquers all and seeks justice and works to prevent same happening to peers and less fortunate = Inspiring, justified, and hey, if the author makes a few shekels while she/he's at it, FAN_BLOODY_TASTIC.

Anyway,
So we live in a culture where the conversational tone trumps almost any other kind of narrative voice.
People like their journalism to be accessible, personable, and friendly. They want to feel as though they are sitting down with a good friend over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and being gossiped with. Perhaps, especially if we are talking about the aforementioned wonderful Memoir, that glass of coffee gets cold or the wine bottle empties, and we linger with this friend getting deeper and deeper until finally, tearfully, we clasp hands and say,
"Never again! Never again!"

I am down.
Believe me.
As a feminist, writer, new mother, etc, I am so all for the new journalism, but I have a big problem with the article I read in Ravishly, and let me tell you why.

Not only did it contain a few glaring typos, but it was almost illiterate.
Perhaps that language is a bit strong.
What I mean to say is the writing was so forcibly colloquial and conversational, that it not only skipped certain grammatical and linguistic rules, but the very TITLE OF THE INTERVIEW IS SO CONFUSING I HAD TO READ IT THREE TIMES BEFORE I FIGURED OUT WHAT THE HELL THE AUTHOR WAS TALKING ABOUT!

Lindy West: Her New Book Shrill — And Hi, She's An Amazing Writer.

I mean, what are you saying?
How are you using that dash? Not correctly that's for sure. 

And what the flying fuck is "HI, she's an amazing writer"? That's not a phrase. 

Lindy West sounds like a cool chick. Her responses to the interviewer are well thought out and poised, but the writer of the article sounds like a thirteen year old trying her first shot at writing for the school paper. 

This paragraph for instance:

"There are so many amazing feminist writers writing amazing memoirs, I feel like it's changing the landscape of the bookstore (or Amazon, as it were). I realize they have always been there, and I was just up to my neck in diapers or something, but this is an exciting time. We're talking about bodies and existing as a human being in a way we never have, in a way that will change conversations forever. And Lindy is on the front line."

At first, I thought, yes! There are a lot of feminists writing memoirs, and it is cool, though with my earlier caveats. It is changing the genre, which is a good and bad thing. Yes.






But when she goes on to say "They have always been there" she is going back on what she just said, and then she goes on to say "I was up to my neck in diapers or something" and I got so confused as to be angry. Do you mean you were wearing diapers up to your neck? Were you buried in diapers? How is your being a mother relevant in this sentence? From here the paragraph just disintegrates, the moment I gave up trying to like the article was when I read "We're talking about bodies and existing as a human being in a way we never have," and I thought,


Wait...that's not english.

It is a really sad thing for Lindy West's new book to be treated to such poorly manufactured praise.


I really want to be excited about the new direction of journalism, it could double as extremely therapeutic, or even work as the only way to get an increasingly narcissistic and self absorbed society to empathize with one another like humans again.






I do, however, think there are limits, and as writers, especially writers espousing the goods of other, intelligent, wonderful women and feminists (because the two aren't mutually exclusive), we owe it to our future selves, and future writers of these and other developing genres to at the very least, adhere to basic grammatical structure, so that our words, if not resonant, are at least clear.

What's with Today today?

A year ago I was 14 weeks pregnant.
I was walking from Salem to Beverly, a two and a half mile walk I did, and do, several times a week.
I wasn't showing yet. We'd only just had our first ultrasound, and I was so happy.
a little over a year earlier I had miscarried at 8 weeks, and I was very afraid, so making it to the second trimester was a big deal to me. I was in the process of switching my brain from CONSTANTLY PANICKING to relaxed. Even the worst of the Morning Sickness had passed by then, and i was enjoying the concept of actually eating food and not feeling like I had a case of the spins for hours every afternoon.
I was actually waiting for the stoplight to change and thinking about what I might make for lunch when I got home.
The light turned green, and I stepped into the crosswalk, but not before glancing at the car in the lefthand turning lane, which happened to be a police cruiser. I looked at the police officer's face, a man in his late fifties I surmised with a mustache and  bags beneath his eyes. I thought, we'd made eye contact, and so I began to cross the street.
We hadn't.
The car lurched into the turning lane, and he accelerated so quickly, I had a split second to kind of hop forward out of the way of the incoming vehicle.
I wasn't quite fast enough though, because the police car struck my hip and spun me so that the front left tire dug into the skin of my left knee and shin.
I remember spinning in the street repeating in my head,
"don't fall don't fall don't fall it's all over if you fall."
I didn't fall.
I watched the police officer pull over. He jogged over to me,
"I didn't see you," he said.
I was gasping for breath. I felt pretty rattled, and those damned tears started coursing down my cheeks. I limped over to the curb, out of traffic, which began to move as though nothing had happened.
I said, "But I was in a crosswalk."
"I didn't see you," the cop replied.
I said, "But i looked at you. I thought you saw me."
"I didn't see you," he repeated.
"I'm fourteen weeks pregnant," I said, and he sighed and looked away from me.
"I'll radio it in. calm down," he said.
And then he went back to his car.
He did not come back and check on me.
I leaned against a house in the shade while the sirens got closer.
my leg was okay. There was a huge burn in the flesh where the tire had spun on it, and it was black with rubber and bleeding and swollen, but I couldn't care less.
I knew I hadn't been struck anywhere that might affect it, but I was terrified for the baby. I wanted another ultrasound, right then and there. I wanted to go to my doctor and have her look me in the eyes and say, "It's okay."
The police came and asked me questions.
The emts came and washed my leg.
The firetruck came for about five minutes and then drove away. If you know me, you know i was going to ask for a ride home on that thing.
The cop who hit me came and took pictures of my leg.
He never said he was sorry.
He never asked me if I was okay.
The emt's wanted to know if I wanted to go to salem hospital, but i wanted to see my doctor in beverly, so i refused. The police got a female cop to drive me home because I think they thought she'd be able to calm me down, keep me from suing them or whatever.
When I got home I sat on the porch as she drove away.
 I stared at my phone.
I knew I was supposed to call people.
I knew I had to get to the doctor's to have her verify that the baby was all right.
instead I took a deep breath and looked out at the sunshine and the pollen soaked air.
It was thick and golden, and the light looked so yellow I thought of honey and bees and then I just said thank you.
Just thank you.
to whomever, or whatever, or wherever.
Thank you.
because i might never have sat on that porch again if I had been just one step slower.

The end of the story is that I went to the midwives, and they examined me and let me listen to Bastian's heartbeat for as long as I liked. Bob had left work and driven a million miles an hour to essex county obgyn, and I had called Liz because she's an emt and my best friend and I thought she would know things.
The midwives told me to go to the emergency room to have my leg looked at so there would be a record of it, and I did.
They put topical ointment on the burn and bound it up with gauze, and gave me a tetanus shot.
When we finally got home in the early evening, we got pizza and ice cream, and I took a walk on the beach and I kept touching my stomach and telling the baby he was already a death defying superhero.
which he is.

A year later, the police officer who hit me has never inquired as to whether I was all right.
I finally got the paperwork in the mail last week for the city of salem to cover the cost of my medical bills.

a lot of people ask me when I tell the story if I'm going to sue.
i'm not.

because I'm lucky.
It could have been so much worse.
A year later, I have Bastian, who is perfect, and I have a scar on my leg that looks like a shadow, and I have a reminder to look out from my porch every day, and say thank you.
To whomever, whatever, wherever.
Thank you, because we still have today.

Carpe Omnia

On my way into the kitchen this morning to refill my coffee mug, I took the last sweet slug of the dark stuff and paused. 

apparently I like to roll liquids around in my mouth like a wine taster sometimes. I did not know this about myself. Like when I was eight years old and I realized I could make a chocolate chip cookie last a half hour if I sucked each bite until it turned to mush and crumbled in my mouth, i like to savor things...prolong the magic as it were. 

of course having a five and a half month old baby makes this credo even more important because everything is different every day, and the baby you went to sleep with last night is not often the same baby you wake up to in the morning. that's how fast it is. 

anyway...so this morning, after a series of dreams in which I successfully used a semi colon to the applause of my graduating masters class (I can't make this shit up, but apparently my subconscious can), the babe woke me at the gorgeous bird chirpy, sunshine glimmering hour of five thirty. 

I fought the inevitable, and then I made coffee, like we do. 

and three hours later, after many nukes, and many setting downs, and many chasings, feedings, etc, I went into the kitchen for my oh so necessary refill. 

With that split second roll of luscious, sweet coffee from one cheek to another over the landscape of my tongue, the baby flailed (his favorite motion du jour) and punched me right in the coffee pocket (face), forcing me to forcibly eject the contents of said cheek through my pursed lips and across the kitchen. 

yes ladies and gentlemen, I experienced my first fully involuntary spit take.

I had to take a moment and admire it really.

the radius of coffee sprayed from the front of my shirt and across the linoleum petering out after speckling the confused dog with a small decorative mask of fine brown beads. 

This people. 

This is why i wear black. 

so welcome. 

This is my new blog. 

it's going to be where I put down my thoughts about being a new mother, a writer, a human, and a person who like to taste things. perhaps a little too much. 

a brief detour:

one of the reasons i have never held with taking medication for my depression, or anxiety, or any other damn thing, is because i believe the highs and lows of life are what make it worth living. i believe the illustrious jason lee has a soliloquy regarding this topic in the classic tom cruise oeuvre "vanilla sky". 

can't have sweet without bitter or something.

so i take it all. 

the crying jags in the bathroom in the middle of the afternoon because the baby just tore out another handful of neck hair, the hysterical laughing over a third outfit change from a magnificent arc of piss that somehow circumnavigates the diaper to impressively soak any nearby surface, and the involuntary spit takes in the morning. 

I take those alongside the single dimple that only comes out when the babesauce is feeling impish, the incredible comfort of my husband (hereafter referred to as either herrband or beard)  putting his arms around me after a hard day and saying, "You're doing great. you really are.", the friends, the family, the baby, the ocean, the lilacs near the open window, and yes, the really big bites of cookie that I take with pleasure. 

Mangez-tout means eat it all. 

in culinary circles it refers to snap peas, the treaty little veggie whose pod you eat and the little sweet peas within.

I decided to name this blog Mann-gez tout because that's me. eating it all, rolling every mouthful across my tongue, tasting the bitter and the sweet, and relishing it because that's life. 

okay enough of that. 

i need another cup of coffee.