10:38 PM; Marriott hotel bed, Louisville
Dad just turned off the lights. Mom is still reading. I have taken a break from Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight in order to write.
Sometimes I imagine writing a lyric memoir in which each line/paragraph is the opening line to its own memoir. Like:
As a young teenager, I wished that something interesting would happen to me so that I could write a memoir.
While stewing naked in a hot pink hot tub with an elderly, chest-less, pre-famous witch, I ended up sharing the story of my family.
I asked my then-girlfriend why they didn’t write a memoir about their transition and de-transition, and they said it had never occurred to them.
I laughed maniacally on the California shore, skipping through the cold Pacific water, wondering how on Earth I was so lucky, so happy. Weeks later I lay face-down on the couch, suicidally depressed, trying to allow myself to be distracted by reruns of Downton Abbey.
Yesterday I played canasta with my great aunt, Tita—the sister of my beloved Abuela. I tried my best not to be disgusted by the drool that had escaped her lips as she organized her cards.
I dreamt that the world was being swallowed by a black Cloudgate approaching on the horizon through a valley of skyscrapers.
In the prison cell, in defiance, I peed on everything and applied a thin layer of toilet paper on top so as to prevent efficient cleanup.
My parents decided to leave on vacation during a -12º winter storm while I was still suicidal. I wept on the phone with them, terrified the chickens would freeze to death.
I sat at the picnic table at the campsite in the desert rolling Play-Doh into colorful slugs that I was convinced could be sold as soap dishes.