growth hurts

whether in spurts, teenager style, or a more mature process of finding yourself through the cerebro-emotional wanderings on a psychoanalyst's couch.
I'm growing and hurting,
hopefully a worthwhile flower.

super fast Chicago winter

has been zooming past at unimaginable speeds. As if I could have ever hoped for this crusty tundra life to go on enveloping me.

This morning I had a one-sentence story published in Monkeybicycle, which is encouraging and smile-inducing and makes me want to project more oddly contrived language in to the universe.

Pagan Hugs for Gypsy Jews

The best writing teacher I've had thus far has told me a lot of that intuitive advice that I thought I knew but that was driven home by her words: write every day. Even if it's shit. Write, write, write. When I was a little kid I used to think about being a great artist and my drawing teachers would always tell me to draw every day, draw, draw, draw. We are these creative monkey machines that need to practice our crafts all the time every moment so that the engineered beauty of our minds may find a voice in the coupling of talent and a hell of a lot of practice. Practice, practice, practice.

I had so many jumpy dreams last night. I'm torn between doing my research in two different countries, not too mention my sudden consideration of the fact that moving for my work will and does involve personal upheaval and I should consider that. I've been so reckless with my own emotions. Pick up and move like a gypsy and act as if this is a natural path, the path, my path, as if wherever I am will just fall into place from simple gravitational pull.
I saw a really informative personal documentary last night and for anyone who's interested in the shifting flows of time, culture, and blood it's a very interesting sketch. The film is called Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness. According to my grandfather, we're related to this lovely poet, Sholem Aleichem...a pretty light in a past I can only see through the recollections of others.

Speaking of films, I'd also like to plug my friend John Ullyot's film in the making: Mulligan. It's looking creative and wonderful as his work has always been and I'm looking forward to seeing a character I've read in so many stories come to life on the screen.

Today's my father's birthday. Which is a good bit more important to me than Jesus' birthday could ever be, but it's a happy day in the US...I like how eager people are to congratulate each other with it, I guess I just like human warmth and it can be touching from strangers. Maybe that's why I like countries like Brazil where it feels like American Christmas every day.

Maybe that's my answer? Brazil. Brazil? Brazil?! Either way there's a warm tropical spot near the equator of my heart and it's spreading. Happy warmth day to all!

Hello Radio

Last night, I had a silly spat with my darling. This turned into a malfunctioning alarm clock situation which turned into a late but nevertheless live and real as whoever-is-up at-that-hour-tuned-to-the-radio and to my wakeup voice situation. Domino effect and now I'm processing my absurdity. It's all good. If you want to listen to the fun in which Rick Kogan hilariously calls me "good old Marianna" help yourselves: http://www.wgnradio.com/shows/sundaypapers/wgnam-kogan-uncut-111211-university-of-chicago-writers-adam-rosenthal-sophie-werely-marianna-staroselsky,0,539501.mp3file

Perhaps the public humiliation combined with incredible fun will teach me to set five alarm clocks and time my love spats better. I have to say I did enjoy it very much it was really a wonderful feeling. (Live) life is a damn mushy mess sometimes but make the best of the...eggnog popcorn?

absolutely obvious things that take forever to learn

Ok, so I have spent fall quarter taking writing courses and indulging my soul, both academic and creative. In both realms the wisdom acquired boils down to the same key point:
DO WHAT YOU LOVE AND DO IT AS BRILLIANTLY AS YOU CAN!!!!
Oh and don't get too bogged down with politics about what's the thing to do to get a certain kind of job or to please a certain kind of audience or to fit into a certain kind of category. Because that's all bullshit and it will slow down this incredible gift of life and opportunity.
With my creative work the message was...if it's good, ultimately it will get picked up by a publisher. With my academic work it was...if it's interesting and relevant someone will value it and you will find a job.
Does it sound like I'm high? I really don't think I am. I think hard work and using your talents to their fullest capacity can and does pay off and ultimately I'm a believer, baby.
If this sounds too American dreamy, I don't care. The best part about the American Dream is owning the damn thing. OWN IT.

chocolate almond butter and peer pressure

Peer pressure, the good kind, is oh so good for you. Pick your peers and pears carefully. The good kind will be full of stimulation juice.

The good kind will show you that the person in the mirror is entirely up to what you make of her. And then you take a succulent bite and find yourself running down that yellow brick road seeking whatever magic man or treasure lies past the horizon and just around the corner.

I listened to a rabbi last night who didn't have much to say. He was blowing air out of his lungs and lips beautifully like an air-breathing fish. Metamorphosed into a creature that produces oxygen-filled, meaningless words.

Breathe it in and breathe it out, good mojo in bad mojo out.

Eat good food, drink good beer, enjoy Sukkot or whatever holiday haven you happen to find in your life.

Wow, world, wow.

Say I to you world. um. I have had an amazing first two weeks back in Chicago. My mother knocks on wood in my head, superstitiously as I say this and so do I. Why be so superstitious about the good things btw? Is it post-Soviet Jewish fear that everything nice will be taken away from you by Big Brother or some kind of looming omniscient totalitarian force? When a people have been terrorized the scars show even in the minds of their children. Fear is a contagious thing we can learn and learn to live with and breathe with...inhalation and exhalation laced with it. If there is no trace, you must be doing something wrong, indulging too much, they're about to take it away from you...knock on wood!

Ha. Happiness like a tap, tap, tap. I just discovered it inside of me, this ability to be happy. Is that weird? Yes. Better late than never? Absolutely.

Not that I've never been happy...of course I have, oh so many glorious times that I have poeticized about. But that was just the problem, there was languish and pain and emptiness between those spaces of goodness and it was as if I did not know how to sustain it. I do now, somehow.

Maybe all the pushing and pulling of myself like taffy across the crevices of the universe have finally paid off. I like to think so. I like to think that my open mouth finally found itself.
:) The lips closed and smiling, like the dog who finally stopped chasing her own tail.