Spooked

White Girl, Wasted

First off, some announcements…

This is my I’ve-got-an-announcement face.

I had two pieces of writing come out into the world this week.

The first is my review of Edmund White’s so-called sex memoir, The Loves of My Life, which went live on Monday, 13 January. Next on my plate? Reviews of Hello Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies by Manuel Betancourt, The Full Catastrophe by Casey Mulligan Walsh, Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez, and Rage: One Being Queer, Black, Brilliant… and Completely Over It by Lester Fabian Brathwaite.

The second is a craft essay I wrote for Brevity Blog on memoir genres and my struggle to identify one that worked for me.

I also celebrated my—gasp—59th birthday this past week and took joy in things like cheddar-and-chutney sandwiches, peppermint cookies, Lillet, and a favorite video game, Tears of the Kingdom. My husband’s choice of a birthday card had me laughing and crying, my favorite combination.

Two writing classes began for me this week, too. One is with the incredible Garth Greenwell about how we write about sex in English. I was very grateful to receive a partial scholarship for that.

The second was the Kenyon Review’s Online Winter Workshop. It’s a six-week program taught by some new and old favorite writers. My cohort includes talented writers, and it’s time for me to point to the bleachers and swing. (A sports metaphor? Who am I?)

I couldn’t have attended Kenyon’s workshop without the help of the many people who contributed to my crowdfunding campaign in its earliest days.

Speaking of which, I shared that campaign on Facebook to mark my birthday and reached my first goal: $1800. That covered the $800 I needed for Kenyon and the $1000 to attend the AWP Conference in March. I have since realized that I need to ask for a little more, some 300-odd dollars, to cover two more nights. (There was a mix-up with the plane tickets, and I won’t be able to fly out of LA until Monday morning after the conference ends.) I won’t ask again after this, I promise. Check the campaign here. And thank you, again.

Last announcement: the next issue of Out of Japan will be for subscribers and will bust some Japan travel myths. Got questions about visiting Japan? Use the button below to let me know.

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Perhaps because the phrase appears (delightfully) in Edgar Gomez’s Alligator Tears, but white-girl wasted has been on my mind. (Hiro also wants me to say that a bumper sticker we saw this morning, a version of the baby-on-board rewritten as heavy-financial-burden-on-board, had me laughing and repeating it for a good five minutes, too.)

Thankfully, it’s been a while since I encountered a bachelorette party in a gay bar (a spectacle replete with wasted white girls), but the streak ended tonight, and in a weird way.

Hiro and I had lunch with a friend earlier, and then all three of us saw Conclave, which is enjoying a limited re-run in theatres, no doubt to gin up more (well-deserved) Oscar buzz.

When we returned home and started up the stairs, there was a thud at the front door. I opened it and beheld a woman, perhaps in her early 40s, perhaps older, with frosted tips, a lightweight down vest over a maroon henley, black yoga pants, and, most concerning of all, no shoes or socks. (We’ve had a dry spell here, and the lack of our usual cloud cover brings temperatures below freezing at night.)

She began by asking for someone named Allison and mentioned cancer. Hiro and I have lived here for nine years and are unaware of anyone by that name ever living here. I asked Hiro to keep an eye on her and ran to get her some insulated socks.

We set our camping chair out so she could get the socks on more easily, and Hiro also found her a fleece blanket. I asked her if she wanted us to call anyone, but she fumbled in her pockets and said her phone (and wallet!) were both missing. I called the Sherriff’s Office non-emergency line to get help, as Hiro continued talking with her.

I was raised close enough to Manhattan to be spooked, worried that this woman might be either mentally unwell or otherwise dangerous, but as Hiro’s conversation went on, I heard her say, “I may have had a lot of margaritas.”

Oh, Melissa. (Not her real name.)

How many margaritas were needed to lose your shoes and socks, not to mention your cell phone and wallet? Goodness!

I made her some tea in a travel mug, and a deputy arrived. He returned to our front door roughly ten minutes later to say that another deputy had taken her home (to Covington, a good twenty-minute drive away—how did you get here, Melissa?). If we found her cell phone somewhere in our shrubbery in the morning, we were asked to call the non-emergency line again.

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I have not been white-girl-wasted since college and a dreadful combination of champagne and box wine. I detested hangovers ever since then, and life in Japan, where work-related parties start with beer, move on to whiskey and water, and end with sake, brought out my inner Honey, the character in Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? who frequently proclaims, “Never mix, never worry!”

Back in 2004, moreover, I had gastric bypass surgery, and since then, have been a very cheap date. Two sips of one of Melissa’s margaritas make me feel lightheaded. At home, I have been known to have a glass of beer of a night, and I will join Hiro in the very occasional glass of wine. And if I’m out with friends for a wine tasting or a party, then I become the world’s slowest drinker, making sure to give the alcohol plenty of breathing room within my system.

Hiro and I attended a wine-tasting this past summer. Rainier View Winery has some lovely fruit wines, good choices for Thanksgiving.

I had planned to write about other things today. But Melissa had other ideas. I’m grateful Hiro was his usual level-headed self.

Until next week,