Tag Archives: family

12.16.12
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My son, and the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary

“Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage? That the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited upon our children year after year is simply the price of our freedom?” – President Obama at tonight’s memorial in Newtown

My son is 9 years old, and is in the fourth grade at a very nice public school. We live in a small town, in a good town, and we happen to live in the right spot for him to attend the kind of elementary school people move to be able to attend. We moved here partly so that he could be in this school system, and they’ve been wonderful – supportive, involved, and committed to the kids.

My son is taught by the kind of people who, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind, would give their lives to save these kids. I know it.

We all heard that on Friday a monster stalked the halls of a similar elementary school in Newtown, CT, and killed little kids. Beautiful, happy, loving, little children. Kids younger than my son. Teachers like his teachers. A principle and school psychologist who ran into the path of bullets to try to stop what was happening. A special needs teacher who died using her body as a shield that sadly didn’t stop the bullets from killing the little ones she tried to hide beneath her.

Tomorrow my son gets to go to school, and someone, one of the kids, is going to be talking about Sandy Hook. That’s what kids do. They hear more than we think, and they trade those rumors, sorting out the truths we think they can’t handle. My son’s teacher and special education director planned to have a guided discussion with the students, to make sure that they knew the basic facts – to dispel fear, to make the kids feel safer. Of course, we have parents who object to this, who think their kids will never find out, who think we shouldn’t be talking about this tragedy with impressionable children.

I promise that if you don’t tell your child, someone will, and they’ll want to know why it wasn’t you.

My son has autism, but he knows what it means to lose someone he loves. To have someone chasing him around the apartment, making him laugh, being important to him … and have that person never walk through the door again. I don’t think he understands death yet but he knows what it means to say goodbye, to miss someone, and not understand why they don’t come back when he asks me for them. I’m glad they’re going to talk to him tomorrow, because I don’t want him to be confused, or scared, any more than he already is in a life that is missing a lot of the language skills he needs to navigate tragedy on his own. His life is already hard. I’m not going to make it worse because I wasn’t ready to talk about this.

my little guy

my little guy

For the record, I own guns. And I am willing to sit through any waiting period, fill out any amount of paperwork, even give them up entirely, if it means that not another small child is killed by a one.

04.28.12
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Racism is Stupid

Recently a post about hipster racism has been going around, and if you haven’t read it, you should. The bottom line is that ironic racism is still racism, just slightly more likely to have dressed from a combination of products sold on Etsy.

Part of that is white people making jokes about people of color who they care about out of some idiotic belief that they must not be racist because they know/love/fuck/live with a person of color. *headdesk*

Racism, in all forms, is stupid, and everyone just needs to fucking stop it.

But, of course, I can say that, right? I’m a white person, so I’ve been protected by white privilege, so what would I know? To some extent, that is true. I am extremely white. I have red hair and freckles. I can’t even tan (though everyone else in my family does; it’s weird). My white privilege means that the one time I was pulled over by a police officer for blowing through a stop sign, I was given a warning. It means that I have walked through one of the poorest neigborhoods in Oakland, while on drugs, and jaywalked in front of a cop, who yelled, “Watch out for cars!”. At 3 am. It means that no matter how poor or uneducated I was (I lived in that neighborhood at the time, and worse ones after), people never told me that I couldn’t make something better of myself.

I’m not speaking as someone who was personally affected by a lot of racism. I am someone who got a free pass when a lot of other people I love and admire didn’t. So if I, who am not being repressed by racism, can tell you it’s stupid and useless and wrong, will that matter to you? Will it mean more to you than hearing it from a person of color?

To a racist, yeah, it will. How stupid is that?

But maybe you think that because I am so very white, it doesn’t really affect me, so I can say “don’t be racist” and it’s not that important. I’m just being trendy or something.

The thing is, racism does affect me, everyday, because I see it everyday, and it affects the people that I love.

My grandpa Joe was black. He and my (white, red-haired, Irish) grandma Helen loved each other very much. Before they both passed away, I got to see that, and it would become fundamental in shaping what I thought love was. The good kind of love that I’m still not sure I’m ever going to find.

Joe was kind and – normal. He wasn’t a “black guy”, he was my grandpa Joe, who just happened to be black. One of my nephews (I have more than one sister) has a dad who’s half black and half Chinese. Some of my best friends, including a guy who has been my friend, consistently, for 17 years, have been Filipino.

This fact doesn’t make me cool, or open-minded, or some kind of special. It just makes me not stupid. I’m not stupid enough to believe that human beings are divided by something as arbitrary as the color of your skin. We have grown to fill this whole planet, we have lived in a variety of climates, and some of us show the difference in skin tone that comes from having ancestors who mastered a certain spot on the Earth. That’s all it means.

This way of splitting up the world into groups, so that we can decide who we’re better than, and these jokes and comments and advertising and every other little way that we pass judgment on different colors of people … It’s all so stupid.

More than that, it hurts. It hurts me to see people that I respect being insulted or dismissed or patronized because they’re not white. It hurts those people who have to face prejudice every day for something they were born with. (No one gets to pick for themselves what color their skin is or who their parents are!) And it hurts us, as a global society, to still be fighting each other over this arbitrary classification.

So please, stop being stupid.

For those of you reading this and thinking, “Oh good for you, Carrie,” don’t. It doesn’t take much for me to take a stand on this, I know that. What you should do is to take a moment to redefine the people around you. All of those little labels we have in our heads? Rewrite them. Stop thinking of your black neighbor or your Asian coworker or the Hispanic woman in the PTA. And for fuck sake, stop describing people that way. Find another label.

Think of them as Bob who has the amazing rose bushes next door, or Jimmy who drinks four cups of coffee a day or Paula who’s allergic to dogs. Something about who they are as people. Because no matter what color you or I or anyone else is, we’re all the same. We’re all people.

Do that, and then I can start thinking of you as someone who isn’t stupid.

Please.

08.11.11
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The Things I Don’t Talk About

The more I write, the more people ask if they’re seeing bits of my life in those sentences. It’s bound to happen; it happens to nearly every writer. My writer friends who are women tell me it happens to them more than it does to men, but my writing friends who are men aren’t exempt from it either, so I think it’s this thing where a reader wants to have uncovered the greater truth of the story – and the greatest mystery, the greatest truth, is “What The Author Really Meant”. It’s why we read interviews, isn’t it? This desire to know the author is why we read blogs, and why we authors write blogs. If you want to know us, it stands to reason, you’ll read our work too.

But I don’t talk about myself. I talk about writing. I have a Facebook page and a Twitter feed and a Google+ account and I almost entirely talk about writing. This is on purpose, as I think it’s the writing you’re all really interested in, and the writing is all you really deserve to get. If you know me, in person, up close, you know other things about me, because you’ve been there for those events. I don’t hide anything from the people I spend my time with, and I don’t really hide anything from all of you. I just don’t mention it. If you read carefully you will have discovered that I have a child, and you might even know he’s a boy, and that he’s 8, a detail I mentioned I’ve mentioned once, in a tweet. You may know that I was married, and I am not in that relationship anymore, and if you are very astute you may have guessed that I am in a different relationship now. I have a day job, in some kind of office, I don’t work weekends, and I have just acquired a cat. That’s quite a lot of knowledge, really, if you think about it. You know, too, that I am a woman, probably since birth, that I have reddish hair and pale skin and freckles, if you look closely enough. You might know that I am overweight, but have lost weight recently, that I read quite a bit, and write not as much as I’d like, and have published a little, and been published a little more. You might guess that I am in my late 20s, which is what everyone says they guess, or you might know that I am actually 37, which I’ve never been afraid to tell people.

See, you know so much about me already. Is it enough? Will you read this, and feel satisfied, and go on to read my stories as if the words on the page are the only ones you need to know?

Of course not. You want to know everything.

What else could I say that would inform you, as a reader? The truth is, I don’t think I have to say anything. I don’t think the things I’ve already said should change your opinion of my work. I know it will, for some people. For some people, something as basic as my gender will shape their thinking of my writing for the rest of my life. I have avoided joining “women writers” groups simply because I don’t think you should care. (I went ahead and joined Broad Universe a few weeks ago because I realized refusing to do so means I lose out on people who might only pick up my writing because I am a woman but who might stick around because I am a damn good writer.) I don’t think it should matter that I am white, either, though I’ve discovered there are people for whom that matters quite a bit. I don’t think these things should make the tiniest bit of difference in whether you decide to buy my books, or in what you think of my stories. I know a dozen women, about my age, with at least once elementary-school-aged child at home and at least one divorce, and I can guarantee that we all write differently. We are each individuals, with secrets that will never be known, made up of factors that you will never completely understand.

My writing is informed by all of this, and none of it. It’s just as likely that the next story you read of mine will have been inspired by a news article, or a piece of fiction I read as a child, or a story I thought failed (and you’re holding my written attempt to do it right). I don’t make an effort to write about my life, and I doubt very much that there’s an autobiography in my future. I’ve explained this, over and over again, and I know it doesn’t matter. Some of you will still read my writing, and want to know what I’m really trying to say. The question is, if you knew everything about me, what would it change? Would my horror be less frightening? My erotica less sexy? My science fiction less inspired by science fact? Let’s find out.

Here is the quick and dirty story of me: Continue reading →

03.21.11
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10 (Writing) Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About Me

1. I don’t write under a pen name. I use my real name, and I’m happy to do so, because I’m proud of my work and like being associated with it, except … Technically, this isn’t my birth name, though I use it as such, because my father named me one thing but my mother changed it a day later (and, thanks Mom!) but it’s been my real name my whole life as far as I’m concerned. Well, and that’s not true either, because my last name is courtesy of an ex-husband, who lent it to me and didn’t care much when I decided to keep it after the divorce. Ok, and that’s a little dishonest too, unless I explain that it wasn’t his last name to begin with. He changed his name while we were together, and let me pick his new last name, which would eventually be our last name, and then when he was gone, it’s still mine. So, in a way it is the name I made up for myself.

2. The first book I was ever published in, which I still have a copy of, was a collection from pieces previously published in Dreams of Decadence magazine. This was a goth/vampire magazine, and the piece which I had published (and then reprinted) was a poem. So, yes, my earliest inclusion in a printed book was a dark and gothy poem about vampires. Clearly, I have no shame.

3. I trunk novels because I don’t like what I’ve done to the characters. People die, often in depressing or horrible ways; crimes are committed, hearts are broken, children are abused, and the innocent suffer. After a while, I either need to drink a LOT more or stop writing. In the past, I’ve always stopped writing. At some point I will pick one, invest in some good Scotch, and force myself to get to the bitter end. Maybe.

4. I have realized lately that I’m happiest when my friends are writers. No, let’s be honest – I’m happiest when my friends are good writers. (Second on the list are artists, and then musicians.) I’m starting to have trouble with wondering why I waste spend my time on people who don’t “get it”, and I’m fairly certain that in the future I’m not going to be happy dating someone who isn’t at least a part-time writer. So much of my life is spent reading and writing and playing with words and talking about other writers who’ve been brilliant with their own words that I’m afraid I’d be boring to anyone who wasn’t passionate about the same things.

5. I don’t ever expect to make a living being a full-time writer. This doesn’t bother me at all, as I have discovered the best reason ever to stay in a “normal” dayjob – health insurance. Besides, being well-fed, healthy, with a roof over my head and having my bills paid (all things I get when working a dayjob) mean that I can write whatever I want, however I want, and focus on the words instead of the possibility of a royalty check. Unless you’re writing so much, and being paid so well for it, that you literally don’t have time to work another job besides, trying to figure out how to quit now so you can write later almost feels … irresponsible? Selfish? Some other nasty little word.*

6. I often have an idea for a story that I cannot write until it has finished percolating in my brain. I will turn it over, looking for the cracks and the glittery bits, play it over in my head until I find the voice, and lie in the tub until I know what happens to everyone involved. Then I get up, sit down with my laptop, and write until my hands cramp up. This method allows me to accomplish thousands of words a day, but it may take months for the story to be ready to be birthed in this manner. Conversely, I also write in the more conventional way – bit by bit, a little each day until it’s done, but I confess that I prefer the Act of God method a little more.

7. When I can’t write, I read. I try to do one or the other (or both) every day.

8. Whether I’m writing is a sign of what kind of life I’m having at the moment. When I’m happy, I write often. When I’m not, I write less. When things are falling apart and the Tower is crumbling around me, I don’t write at all. When things have been that bad, I always take is as a sign of recovery when I’m ready to start writing again.

9. I have written both comic books and screenplays and still tend to think of comic script writers and screenwriters as people who have great ideas and a good concept of dialogue and visuals, but aren’t really writers the way people who write articles/stories/books are … since we’re responsible for not only the skeleton of the tale but the putting on flesh and dressing it up in outfits too. A screenwriter can say, “X happens,” and a director and DP and set designer will be responsible for making it appear on screen, but a writer has to make X appear in our brains.

10. I often wish that non-fiction was as beautifully crafted as fiction, and that fiction was as clean and crisp and clear as non-fiction. My very favorite writers are the ones who can make that happen.

* This does not apply to people with trust funds, lottery winnings, wealthy spouses, are enrolled f/t in a college with an excellent financial aid package, or any of the number of other ways in which you can not work but still have your bills paid. I’m talking about the people who’re constantly falling short on their bills and expecting others to cover them because they’re just not cut out for a job. Please note: writing is a lot of work too, and if you can’t be consistent about going to your dayjob you’re probably not going to be consistent about putting words onto paper either.

01.05.11
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The Dream is in the Details

I had a dream tonight. Unlike most of the dreams I remember, it didn’t end in adrenaline and panic and running. It also, strangely enough, included real people, instead of actors playing the parts of people that I know. My dreams have always been like that – I’ll know who the image is supposed to represent, but I’ll also know (in my dream) that it’s not actually the person I feel it is.

In this dream, a friend asked me to meet him after work. This involved maps and driving and ending up at a cabin in the woods, snow crunching under my feet as I got out of the rental car and walked toward the house. I know that the trees were evergreens, that the sky was clear even though the snow was still crisp and powdery, and that the house was a dark reddish color, though it was yellow on the inside – yellow paint, or yellow light, or something. A faded kind of yellow, not sunny and bright, but something that reminded me of age. There was a big porch, and people every where. I wandered around, saying hello to his family, who’d never met me before, and didn’t know where he was. I smiled a lot, and walked around the property. There were people cooking in the kitchen and arguing in that way that you know they love each other as much as they love being loud and energetic. Too many opinions about how to cook something, and the older woman trying to get everyone else out of her way.

I was wearing dark jeans and dark grey snow boots and a grey jacket that went down past my hips and had a hood I didn’t keep up. I remember brushing snow off of it later in the dream. At some point I fell asleep in the snow, because I woke up, dusted the snow off me, and kept looking. A few minutes later a truck pulled up and a couple of guys piled out of it – I was standing on the porch and he walked up to meet me. Snow fell from his shoes as he climbed the wooden steps. I remember looking down at his hands and seeing he was holding a lit cigarette – in my dream I thought, “He doesn’t smoke,” and then thought it was one of those bad habits you pick up with disreputable cousins. When the weekend’s over, you put those things aside and we pretend it didn’t happen.

He took me toward the back of the house, to where another small porch sat off the back kitchen door, introducing me to people along the way. More smiling. We sat down on the floor, with him on my right, and me sitting with my back to the railing. I could see other people walking around, looking at us but not coming over to join in the conversation. My friend began excitedly telling me about what he’d been building with his cousins, the reason he’d made me wait so long. It was some kind of clockwork contraption, though I never saw it. At one point, while he was sitting there, smiling, gesturing with his hands – still lit cigarette in his left hand – he mentioned that he’d had to fold up a piece of paper to make a kind of bellows balloon, to blow air into the machine, and he pulls out this folded map from his jacket pocket. It’s creased  every inch or so, a pattern radiating out from the center, where he’d torn a small hole.

I remember thinking, “That’s my map. I’m going to need that to get back.” But I didn’t say anything.

People kept walking by, and I mentioned that he was ignoring the others to tell me about his machine, but he said that he’d be expected to say hello to me and tell me what he’d been doing, since I drove all the way up there. He said he knew what he was doing.

I watched him go back to his family, smile and chat and smooth hurt feelings. They all went to go eat and I was left on the back porch, looking out at the snow and the trees.

But I kept the map.

______

I don’t need to interpret the dream. I know what it means. What interests me is the details. When I woke up, the scenes still fresh in my head, I thought over what stood out to me. Aside from the feelings, which are difficult to put into words, there were the tiny moments of texture, color, objects. They supported the scene and made it all-together more real. The crunch of the snow, the colors of the house, the sun in the sky, the green needles on the tree … I knew where I was, what time of year it was, what kind of place I was in. My friend’s smile, the movement of his hands, and other details I didn’t need to mention here, all made it clear who he was, even if he he hadn’t looked like himself. The cigarette, the creases in the map, the playful argument in the kitchen – details.

The story was simple but the extra bits of information made it memorable, at least to me.

When I write I try to remember the details. The color of the sheets, the texture of a picture frame – they don’t change the story but they add to the feeling of place. My best stories are ones where I can imagine having lived in their world, because the sense of place identity is made stronger through the accumulation of detailed objects and sensory information. On the other hand, I never want to get so overloaded with expositional description that I spend 300 pages talking about a particular, comfortable, chair.

Next time you have a dream, try to hold on to the details, and then write them out when you wake up. You might see it in a new way.