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I was looking at the stars, you were looking at me

I think about this quote every day:

This is what happens when you have an artist temperament but you are not an artist.”

It’s from Mad Men. And it’s a moment that’s been burned in my brain since I saw it years ago. What’s it mean to be an artist who isn’t successful? You’re still an artist right? Is it just for yourself? Is it perseverance above all else? What’s it mean to fail and what does walking away look like in a practical sense? Do you just rebuild on your own?

So, uh, HAPPY NEW YEAR! It’s the lunar new year, a new moon in Aquarius, the United States in both literally and metaphorically on fire, and I’m losing track of what rights I still have left.

Considering everything on the table, it feels a little silly to be like Okay but what about my writing career? Thanks to incessant attack on not just me but everyone close to me, it’s easy to shut down, to focus only what I can do to survive.

But a big part of survival for me is the ability to make and share art.

Not to get too dark about things but I struggle with suicide ideation. I literally think about suicide every day and the only things stopping me at current are

(1) I really love my husband and he’s been a pretty great support system

(2) I love my cats

(3) I get to write plays and share my work with other like-minded individuals and that feels a lot like community to me.

I’ve never been a fan of “the world is a better place with me in it” because I truly don’t give a f*ck if that’s true. The world doesn’t get to suck me dry and then demand more from me just because it needs me. In any other relationship, we’d call that toxic. And I’ve also never been fan of “Well I have to outlive Tr^mp/McConnel/whoever” because they have such better healthcare than me. And outlive them to what end? They get to die while I’m forced to live in the mess they created? Hard pass.

So through all the horrors what’s gonna keep me alive? Love and art. That’s what I’ve got. That’s what floats me. But I haven’t been staffed since 2022, I have scattered playwriting projects but not enough to sustain me, and my day job is rocky at best for a couple of reasons. I need to find a way to survive as an artist but also can see Tr^mp slashing funding every which way he can so who knows what nonprofits will be left standing.

All of this chaos has reminded me of what I really want to be doing. I want to be teaching theatre and writing. I want to be writing plays and TV shows. I want to be doing direct advocacy work for trans + queer folk + Black people. I want to be specific at a time that demands me to focus as hard as I can.

And while all that sounds great…I still have bills to pay. I still have rent, cat food, people food, utilities…

How do I balance my understanding that I need to more focused than ever on my creative work when frankly my creative work can’t cover my basic needs?

The unfortunate answer is I don’t know. And even harder for me, I’m not supposed to know yet. I just have to trust that that’s where I’m being guided. It’s year of the snake, baby! My year (1989!). I need to learn how to move in the grass, how to trust I’m being guided somewhere, and that if and when things fall apart…things have fallen apart before. Will I recover? I have before.

And for me, right now, hope means I have to believe that whatever step I take next, I will recover from that too.

The universe is demanding me to change and I can’t keep fighting anymore. So back to my original question: What’s it mean to be an artist who isn’t successful?

It means you rewrite the rule book. And that’s exactly what I plan to do this year.

*Yes I know the lyric is “I was busy with the stars, you were looking at me” but let me live…

oranges

(Quick note: Blogs that are posted on or right before the new moon will be about happenings, life, random thoughts. Other blog posts will include fiction and essays. Working on categorizing that so it’s easy to shift through)

Rafferty and I wrote a book together of short fiction. You can purchase the book here. For now, enjoy an excerpt of one of the stories included in the collection: oranges

It happened over time, in an instant. 

The world was dying, of course we knew that. Whether or not we’d planned to do anything to change it was a different story. Higher temperatures, shorter days, clogged oceans…eventually a quick swim in the Pacific meant a tour of our nation’s finest plastics. If we hadn’t cared about the turtles trapped in soda trash, I’m not sure why anyone thought we’d care about the surfers locked in the plastic mesh under the sea. 

Eventually, the answer was to run, to start over. We, the innovative human race, could learn from our mistakes and try again. We could adapt to a new atmosphere, learn how to be gentle to a planet that didnt’ particularly seem to want to host us. But what other choice did we have? Earth was dying and Mars was already making so much progress towards habitability. 

They told us we should be thankful that the billionaires and scientist alike had already started planning for our planet’s inevitable ruin. That all of our jokes about space travel and whoever was the punching bag of the day were in poor taste now that we had no other option. The only thing to save us now was their genius. Statues went up of men whose names I no longer know on a planet that will cease to exist. Funny how even in our demise we just can’t help an erection of power, polished in metal. 

My dad sent me the tickets. As there wasn’t enough room for everyone in the space crafts to fly comfortably, the bidding war of surivival was all encompassing. He claimed he got them at a discount at $500,000. He had to take out a loan to afford it. A loan he’d like have to immediately start paying back on Mars. 

So much for changing things

When I showed Jacks the tickets, they thought I was kidding. To them, it was die on the way there or die here. They’d rather die at home than be cut in half by loose shrapnel. I couldn’t understand why it mattered how you died; you were dead either way. 

This was easily the sort of dilemna I would’ve loved as a teenager with a suicidal lean. A way to die that wouldn’t be my fault? A way to escape the endless weight of always knowing my perpetual imperfections? Sign me the hell up.

And now at 35, the very sight of the tickets just made sick which is probably why I’d been staring at them now for three hours. 

The door slightly opened asnd Jacks slid across our wooden floors that probably were once very beautiful trees before…shit I can’t keep thinking like this.

“So, not to disturb your, well, whatever it is that’s happening here but have you made up for mind yet?”

I think they thought they were asking without pressure but all I could feel was the words piercing into my chest, death by a million questions. Even it only started with one. 

“Becca, the flight leaves tonight,” Jacks continued slowly making their way to the floor

next to me.

“I know.”

“So…what are we doing?”

“There’s only one ticket.”

“Okay. What’re you doing?”

“I need more time.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

And just like that, my panic morphed into curiosity, a special skill of Jacks that was probably a testament to how they’d gotten me, a tragic commitment phobe, to marry them five years ago.

“What’re you talking about?” I asked, not quite sure the answer would satisfy my much larger desire to drown myself in the boiling seas. 

“Well, it’s going to sound a bit nuts.”

“I wouldn’t expect any different with you.”

From their pocket, Jacks pulled out a broken watch. It wasn’t quite like anything I’d seen before. The straps were made of ribbon but the face of the watch looked ancient, expensive. Small diamonds circle the surface, all with perfect clarity. The cracked glass had somehow formed an infinity symbol and the watch smelled of peppermint. 

“What if I could give us more time?” 

“I get the joke but I’m not really in the mood.”

Jacks turned the watch in their hand, focused on it. Sure, a broken watch at any other time might’ve helped to resolve a fight but we weren’t fighting. We were dying.

“This is all going to sound insane but remember that witch I used to go to, when I wanted like cold medicine.”

“You mean the very eccentric woman you went to instead of going to a hospital?”

“She left this to me.”

Normally, I’d ask what they meant by “left” but anyone alive in 2053 knew exactly what that meant. The climate crisis had changed our way of speaking. You didn’t just leave to go to a party or leave the house. When you left, you expired. 

“I don’t see how this helps us.”

“Well, and I realize you’re going to think I’m absolutely desperate and maybe I am, but this watch, it can stop time. Here, look.”

From their pocket, Jacks pulled out a piece of paper. The handwriting was barely legible but there it was: a spell to stop time. The ingredients were simple enough: poisoned water, a favorite candy, and the watch. To perform the spell, you simply dipped the watch and your favorite piece of candy into the water. And so long as the watch stayed submerged, time would stop. 

Supposedly.

“You can’t actually believe this.”

Jacks hesitated. It wasn’t like them to pause. They were always the first at gate, said whatever popped into their mind. Their impulsive recklessness was what drew to them but it was their determination and bravery that kept me. 

Wait. Peppermint.

“You’ve tried it already,” I said, barely even hearing my own voice.

“I have.”

“And it worked? Where did you even find poisoned water?”

“I mean, what water isn’t poisoned?” 

I considered the watch again. A bit cliche to have a watch that stops time but hardly useless. This was the kind of thing people would probably literally kill for and it was in our living room, a three metaphorical atomic bomb, waiting to be dropped in water. 

“What are the downsides?”

Jacks smiled at me. Even getting me to consider this gambit was a win and they knew it.

“None.”

“It can’t be none,” I shot back, with more bite than I intended.

Jacks handed me the watch and shrugged. My verbal stab hardly even breaking hte surface. 

“Becca, I don’t think there are any. Unless I’ve turned green or something and don’t know it yet.”

“There’s always a downside, a consequence.”

“Yeah but do you think that because you were raised Catholic and were taught magic came from the Devil? We’re not selling our souls here, we’re just literally stopping time.”

“Tell me exactly what happened when you used it.”

And so they did. They’d woken up, gone to the reading of Madam Mayhem’s will (a name to which I appropriately rolled my eyes every time I heard it), and then received a watch and a lighter. A watch to stop time and a lighter that was just a lighter. Apparently, Jacks complimented a lot so Madam Mayhem left it to them. As soon as they left the will reading, they read the instructions that came with the watch and then tried it outside a grocery store. 

Why a grocery store? If you’re always going to expect reason from Jacks, then I can’t help you. 

Outside of the grocery store, they filled up a plastic cup from the closest trash can with the water in disgusting puddle right by the entrance. Gross, I know. They then tossed a peppermint from their pocket and then watch into the water. 

And everything and everyone paused. Jacks had to force the door open into the grocery store, which means they probably broke it, and then had to unstop time to get out. Nothing but Jacks was in motion. The whole world finally still. 

It would sound beautiful if it wasn’t terrifying. 

“And then that was it?” I asked when the story was over.

“Yeah. Then I came home.” 

Stopping time didn’t really solve our problem. We would have to return to this exact moment in time with the same problem of I had exactly one ticket to Mars on a space ship that was leaving tonight. 

“Could we stop it forever?”

On some level, Jacks knew I’d ask that and even still seeing the color leave their face I knew on some level they hoped I hadn’t. 

“Becca, this is just something to delay. We can’t–”

But they cut themselves off, knowing the only response to “we can’t” is “why not” and they didn’t have a good answer. Because there wasn’t one. We’d finally been given an actual solution that was death, abandonment, or a fucked mix of both. 

Without saying another word, Jacks stood up, almost drunk with fear and excitement. I could hear the tap running from the living room. Looking back now, I see the cruelty of our decision but it felt as though there was no choice. I couldn’t leave and I couldn’t stay but I could wait, forever.

Jacks returned with my favorite coffee mug filled with brown water from the tap. They held the watch and a piece of peppermint in one hand and a Skittle in the other.

“You really sure about this?”

“I am.”

“But, forever, Becca?”

“Forever.”

And without letting Jacks fill me with any more doubt, I dropped the Skittle into the water and waited for them to drop the watch and peppermint. 

I assumed Jacks had left out major details when they said the world ceased. I assumed the sky would be filled with bright pastels, that birds would be floating mid air, that we’d be overwhelmed by the smell of peppermint and whatever toxins are in Skittles. That maybe my skin would be tighter or even as Jacks had joked, we change colors. 

But it was as if nothing happened. I almost didn’t believe it had worked until I walked over to the window and noticed the stillness. It wasn’t the sort of stillness that was loud, the kind you see in movies whenever a character stops time. The blur of life that was. Instead, this stillness was quiet. If I hadn’t known better and I’m not really sure that I did, I would’ve assumed we’d teleported to a different earth. A planet that was just ours but the remnants of humanity’s destruction still laid out around us. 

The very first thing I did was check to see if the fridge still worked. Again, looking back now, I see how absurd that is but if life was still and time was stopped, was I expected to hunt? It’s not like I could go to the grocery store.

It wasn’t until after I opened the fridge, had a breath of relief that the light was on, and then closed it, that panic settled in. Yes, the fridge still worked but plants wouldn’t still grow. And hunt what exactly? Frozen animals? How would we cook even? Did fire count as a  living thing? 

I leaned back against the fridge and slid to the floor. It would be nice to say worry overcame but this felt much heavier. I thought of immediately going and knocking over the mug, restarting time, and returning to my general angsting as I stared at the tickets. 

Jacks walked into the kitchen and sat at a dining chair across from me. They know better than to disrupt my angst even if they weren’t the best at it waiting it out. 

“Question.”

“Becca, you don’t have to announce that you have a question. I’m sure you have many.”

‘Do you remember when you asked Madam Mayhem to do a money spell when we short on rent that one time and she gave you some pennies and some cinnamon?”

Jacks laughed at the memory. We were about $500 short on rent and, a feeling that has become way too common in our time, desperate. Jacks assured me that they could figure it out. We’d tried selling everything but unfortunately poverty kind of warrants that nothing you have is valuable. We’d tried offering up our services. Jacks could do carpentry work at a discounted price. I could teach dance lessons to whoever wanted to feel alive in their bodies again. And after hours and hours of additional work, we were still $500 short.

Almost as a joke but not really, Jacks said they’d go to “their witch friend” who would do a money spell for them. And then Jacks came back with five pennies, one for each hundred we needed and cinnamon. 

I ended up borrowing the money from my father.

“Isn’t there some part of you that’s kind of pissed that she had a watch that could stop time and when we needed her help, she gave you some pennies?” 

“Maybe I was supposed to dump the pennies in water too.” 

Our laughter continued through the night. I eventually got up off the floor and made us dinner using the food we had. After dinner, we re-read our favorite books and played board games. The sun didn’t rise or set. It sat in the middle of the sky like a halo, a crown really, anointing us as final authority of our royally bad decisions. 

In the morning, Jacks asked me if I wanted to go on a walk. When I asked where, they smiled and said “anywhere.”

Well well well

Woof. The state of the world makes me want to jump off planet.

I’ve made the complicated, messy decision to leave Meta. And holy fuck has that been hard to stick to. I’m worried about losing all of the passive connections I have that have meant the world to me. I’m worried that there is no good place really and it’s really pick your poison. And mostly I’m worried that this will scatter us even more.

I feel like I’m spending my days, attempting to rationalize my fears instead of feeling them because feeling them is just too fucking heavy. I’m worried about my family so much I’ve barely given myself any time to worry about me.

And then all of my worries feel so hollow compared to what I feel like my loved ones have to worry about. I’m not trans. Questionably next to the umbrella, sure but I’m not under it. I was born here. And yes I am Black but the threats to me feel so distant when threats to my trans community and migrant community feel so pressing.

My patience is thinning. I’m pre-exhausted and overwhelmed. And I know, logically, that’s the point. But it’s working. And that’s the worst part.

So what the fuck do we do now?

I don’t have an answer to that generally. But I can tell you where I’m at personally.

I’m trying my best to not get overwhelmed with big, scary things and think of things as one step at a time. What is the next best step I can take right now that can help guide me to fighting the big things? What can I focus on in the immediate so I don’t get drowned in impending doom?

For right now, for me, I can focus on creating a stronger community, making bad art, and donating money/time when I can to the people who have more stamina and resources than I do to fight the good fight. While I’ve loved how social media makes me feel like I’m connected to people, as people were reaching to me, I realized how little I actually kept in touch with people scattered across the world. I don’t have time to send 1000 emails a week but I do have time to pick a handful of people a month and check in. Even if it’s a fast “Are you alive?” text. We’ll need each other more than ever now and I want to work on showing up for people in a real way.

But before I can do any of that, I have to work on my mental health. I have to make sure I’m in the right head space to really hear people when they need help and to be upfront about when I’m not. I’m still not medicated. I’m not in therapy. I have to find a way to protect my brain, otherwise what help can I really be?

I wanted to bring the blog back as a way to connect with people but also as a place to venting, scream, breathe, and remember. I’m realizing I don’t remember nearly enough about the first time the angry orange in a bad weave took office and memory is important. It’s important to remember his tactics, his weaknesses, and his lack of follow through. I know we won’t all survive this and I find myself already pre-mourning.

But if I survive this, I also want to remember how. So that I can help as best as I can, should there be, gods forbid, a next time.

So, uh, welcome to the blog! It won’t always be so dark but it won’t always be light either. It’ll be a rambly mess and hopefully this way we can all feel a little less alone.

Love, always,

Rachel