Year in Review 2016: A Slow-Motion Concussion
The very first thing I did in 2016 was fall on my face. Around 5am on January 1, my cat bounded into the room and insisted that it was time for him to go outside. My bed was cozy and I wasn’t at all ready to emerge into the world — the sun hadn’t even risen yet! — but I got up anyway; just a couple weeks before, my cat psychic had told me that Musa had a terrible fear of being trapped, and that if I wanted to have a good relationship with him, I needed to let him out whenever he asked.
I’m pretty sure I was still drunk, and also naked. I stumbled to the front door and cracked it open so Musa could dash out. And then on my way back to my room, I slipped and fell on my face. It took me a second, several seconds, to register what had happened. The room, or my head, filled with a ringing sound, even as the other noises of the world receded. Pain can be psychedelic in its ability to make ordinary time feel momentarily irrelevant. Which is to say: I thought I might pass out. When I looked in the mirror I saw that the gash on my forehead was deep and ominously bloodless, with just a hint of bone showing through. Expert intervention seemed like a good idea — but it was so cold and so early; my car was across town; the hospital was 30 miles away; I was still drunk. I texted my mother a wound selfie and then fell back asleep. When I woke up I had a terrific hangover but I was alive. In retrospect,the whole thing feels somehow like a gory little metaphor for 2016.
Here is a picture of my cat:
Amid the turmoil (personal, national, global) I did a lot of writing. Here are some of my favorites:
+About that cat psychic (In Hazlitt; edited by Jordan Ginsberg)
+About Jared Rutledge, an Asheville coffee shop owner whose life fell apart after he became immersed in the manosphere (In NY Mag/The Cut; edited by Genevieve Smith)
+About the EarthFirst! musical, my admiration of activists, and my boringly moderate soul (In the Oxford American; edited by Eliza Borné)
+About people who detransitioned (In the Outline; edited by Leah Finnegan)
+About Taryn Wright, a woman who exposes people who fake cancer online, and how her online investigations got out of hand (In the Guardian; edited by Clare Longrigg)
+About a quilting business gone terribly wrong (In Texas Monthly; edited by Karen Olsson)
There is plenty more where that came from: smokejumpers, Under Armour, preppers, wildfires, etc. Here is a photo of some sexy smokejumpers from the 1970s, because why not:
I got to talk to many amazing writers for Marfa Public Radio: Garth Greenwell, Henri Cole, Alfredo Corchado, John Keene, Jamaica Kincaid, Layli Long Soldier, Chad Post, Anna Badkhen, Hala Alyan, Ru Freeman.
I was interviewed on the Longform podcast, which was exciting because I am a big fan of those guys and that program.
I spent 6 weeks at the Headlands Center for the Arts, the most beautiful place.
I bought a pick-up truck and we are in love:
I handled my first dead body. I learned to ride a motorcycle. I wrote poems. I leaned hard on my friends. I realized that I didn’t understand the world as well as I thought.
Happy (almost) 2017, everyone.
xox
