Write what you know

They all tell me to write what I know. I wish I knew more. Everything I've written has been other people, other stories, far far away from my own life. Because I'm sick of thinking about what I know. I've spent my whole being living in my head. Now even the sweetest memories have dust on them; all of them worn out like a shirt that's been through the washer too many times.

I know what it feels like to be a girl. I know what it feels like to be in love. I know what it feels like to have someone reach into you and see you. I know what death looks like. I know what life looks like. I know what sex feels like. I know what heartbreak feels like, too: those minutes when you're all by yourself and you let out those first few wails like some sort of grieving banshee and all of a sudden you're where you said you'd never be, on the floor alone—pathetic, so alone.

But there's so much more that I don't know. Like what it feels like to be a boy. Like what it feels like to be denied a basic human right. Like what it feels like to pull your life out of your chest and look at it. Like what it feels like to say the words "fuck you" and really mean them.

I want to know these things that have never happened to me. I want to take different voices and make them all talk through me like some kind of spirit. If I write about the unknown for long enough, maybe I can know something new, something better than what I am now.

But even while I write this, I know I am cheating myself. There's a reason we write what we know. We've spent enough time turning our own knowledges around in our heads that when we finally decide to put them to words they come flowing out with purpose, like they were always meant to be on that page. And it means so much more when we're done, doesn't it?

these days the people I love are spread so far apart

I have written down so many pretty words for you. I mean to give them to you wrapped in a bow like Christmas morning, like your smile like Christmas morning, but my fingers fumbled with the Scotch tape and it's all wrong now. We've lived so many pure moments, and in each moment I thought, just for a second, that I could finally reach back and give you these words and these feelings, pass them from the cup of my palms to yours like river water. But when I'm laying next to you and you have said so many beautiful things to me and it is the right time, the exact-on-the-dot-right-on-time time, I falter and I forget and I doubt. Because maybe if I never give you these pretty words I can keep them safe. Because if you were to lose them, or throw them away, or break them, I don't know what I'd do.

Saturday

One time we all went to a river in Virginia. The sun was sweet and hot and we were flesh-naked and all so beautiful. We jumped into the water and I was surprised by the current, fast and bold. I thought I might never climb up the bank and the water would take me down past the fishermen and the water bugs and the tiny frogs, under the bridge and away from everyone like Osiris floating down the Nile. I grabbed a tree, though, and scratched myself— but finally my foot dug into the honey mud and I pulled myself up a bank and I couldn't breathe because my lungs were too filled with happiness and relief and fear.

And Chris said that this was the first time in a long time that he had actually felt like he had done something real. Something alive. And we jumped back into the river. But I knew the current now and could get to the other side back to the sand. And then we sat and we covered ourselves in mud and we laughed and we looked and we breathed and we floated. When it grew late we reluctantly left perfect piece of river where we had recovered our pulses and made our way up a mountain, singing all the while, reveling in our new-found infinity.

One time we went to Ryan's mystical house on a mountain. And we ate a dinner where there were only good, rounded silences with remnants of smiles from the conversation that had just finished. When it got dark, we made a fire in the backyard and we talked about our favorite vegetables, and horror movies, and sex. And it was safe and daring all at once and there was nothing false about it. Because we all cared about every second. Because every sentence was important. Because the fire was warm and orange and purple and because Haggis had a cold dog nose and fur you could bury your face in and because we could see stars that don't exist anywhere else, not in the same way, not really.

When we fell into bed exhausted by our lives there was no room for pre-sleep worrying because the day had been good. And that's all anyone ever needs.

regular life

this morning I turned over and open my eyes
and you were looking at me
and you were smiling
and I hoped it was because you felt happy like I did.

I want to take naked pictures
and brush our teeth together
I want to make cakes
and drink tea and cook dinner
and laugh:
Laugh,
while we make cakes, tea, dinner, love.

Most of all I want to watch the world stop outside your window;
the traffic light turning red
the cars going still
everything quiet between us.

my mayor

So I've been following @MayorEmanuel on Twitter. For those who aren't aware of the genius that is MayorEmanuel, the person who writes for this Twitter account is posing as newly elected Mayor Rahm Emanuel, except it's sort of like his alter-ego: aggressive, hilarious, rude, with a trucker mouth. So, pretty much Rahm on the inside—the Rahm that we all know secretly exists. The account chronicled Emanuel's Chicago mayoral campaign, creating a rich cast of characters: Carl the Intern, an ambitious and lovable nerd, Axelrod (David Axelrod, reinvented) determined and obsessive political aide to MayorEmanuel, Hambone, Axelrod's opinionated dog, and Quaxelrod, an incredibly insightful duck bearing a striking resemblance to David Axelrod that MayorEmanuel came across one day and adopted into his campaign staff.

The account is, in a word, brilliant. It follows Emanuel's daily schedule pretty closely, updating on speeches, events, and debates. And it goes a bit like this:

"Carl calls them The InternCorps, they're all wearing these fucking green rings. 'We'll be fine, as long as Chico's not wearing yellow.'"
"Hanging out with nerds at Google today. Up half the night building up my elfin sorcerer, in case anyone throws down a motherfucking 20-side."
"Oh good, we've reached the "everyone shit on Rahm" part of the debate. It's cool, I'll go get my motherfucking raincoat."

I honestly can't explain how incredibly great the whole narrative is—you need to read the Twitter feed to really get at the genius. The igloo building, the great Chicago snow, the Google nerd battle, the igloo melting—all of it, recounted hilariously and stylishly. This author has created a story and a voice, and it is fucking masterly.

But now it seems that the story may come to an end. For, as a sentimental Daley told MayorEmanuel on the night before the Chicago elections, there can only be one Rahm. The twin Chicago universes must come together, and one Rahm must go. A vortex, says Daley—and Carl the Intern does the math to back it up—will open. And MayorEmanuel must go through it. And it is so perfect. What a fitting ending to such an epic journey, a break in the space time continuum that opens right after Rahm Emanuel wins the mayor election. MayorEmanuel is the Odysseus of Chicago politics, and his voyage to mayor-hood concludes tonight:

@MayorEmanuel Rahm Emanuel

And now all I can hear is that music, and suddenly everything just fucking...

Yes. 

everything that matters

Things I fear: dependence,
tears, dying, losing, bees.
Things I love: you, spring,
dirty jokes, happiness, soft hair.
I have all the things I love
In my reach
And bees don't come until August.

Doubting my world

Today was an infuriating day for me in the world of politics. The Wisconsin public employee protests and the House of Representative's 56 million dollar cut in Planned Parenthood's funding are both part of the disgusting aftermath of our allowance of Republicans to take over our Congress. Both of these political incidents make me angry as a citizen. But there was one incident in particular that made me angry as a journalist. Instead of outlining it, here is the letter that I just sent the editors of the Washington Post, which I think clearly articulates my point.

To Mr. Brauchli, Mr. Narisetti, Ms. Spayd, and Ms. Carswell,

I have always respected the Washington Post and have usually found it to be a newspaper that is critical, fair, and comprehensive. But most of all, I believed that the Washington Post was a publication the public can depend on to relay important news. I was thus shocked and disgusted when I did not see one article on the incident at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech at George Washington University on supporting the free speech of protesters in the Middle East. Army officer veteran and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern's unlawful arrest for his silent and peaceful protest—an exercise of the first amendment right that all United States citizens are supposed to have—was a demolishment of democracy in itself. Hillary Clinton's disregard of the incident is even worse in its incredibly infuriating irony. 

But the fact that a major political newspaper like the Washington Post did not deem this newsworthy enough to cover demonstrates that the press is truly immersed in the cozy world of Washington insider politics, and is unable to act as an independent institution anymore. This blatant catering to government officials is wrong. The exclusion of this incredibly important portrait of the hypocrisy present in our administration indicates a severe imbalance in the media, and goes against the journalist's code of ethics—to report all truth objectively. 

I am sincerely disappointed in the Post. There is absolutely no excuse for the negligence of such a significant incident. I went back to the news stories on Thursday's online edition of the Post to see what could have possibly taken precedence over reporting the events of the speech. I found this headline: "New Prince George's Wegmans becoming a social hot spot."

So this is America?

Claire Rychlewski

I am actually offended as an aspiring journalist that neither the Washington Post NOR The New York Times (I'm sending their editors a version of this tomorrow) bothered to cover this. Of course, bloggers were all over the events but unless someone is an avid follower of off-beat news sources, they never would have known this happened. This sickening sycophantic attitude the mainstream news media has toward the government is repulsive. The press gets so buddy-buddy with Washington officials that journalists and editors would rather pointedly ignore the hypocrisies and the disregard of civil liberties present in our administration than bite the hand that feeds. 

I am disgusted, shocked, and outraged. But most of all, I am sad.