Gina

I grated up a big sweet potato, a small golden beet, and a couple of shallots last night, and have since been making sweet potato-golden beet-shallot hash/hashbrowns and topping it off with a little goat cheese.

I’m still working on getting the consistency & crispyness down (how do you get grated veggies to stick together? should I just accept that they won’t stick together? should I throw in an egg? that’d also be bonus protein, I guess). That said: This is one of the top five tastiest things to ever come out of my kitchen. Which is saying a lot, because I can fucking cook.

I had sweet potato-golden beet-shallot hash and a chicken-apple sausage for breakfast (so easy! so fast ‘cause I had everything grated already! seriously, cooking it took 5 minutes and then I had a hot breakfast full of both veggies & protein! why don’t I do this every day?!). I just had the same thing for dinner plus some broccoli. I think this meal might become a staple in Ginaland.

I’ve been working on a prose poem called “Reasons For & Against Loving Me.” I can’t tell if it’s awesome or drivel.

Writing about break-ups and your own romantic anxieties in the midst of a Scorpio pink moon kinda means you just go for fucking BROKE, y’all.

1. My meeting with my advisor was, um, kinda stellar. I’m superstitious about saying much more in public, but, in short: It was very good. It has opened some doors.

2. Writing a book about bodies and relationships and sexuality and gender and eating disorders when you are an Aquarius with your Moon in Scorpio (and Libra rising) and there has just been a Pink Moon eclipse in Scorpio baaasically means that you become a font of DEEEEEEP SCORPIO FEEEEEELINGS. At least, it does if you are me.

Writing and re-writing and editing when the work is all deeply personal & very vulnerable is a fucking weird emotional process, y’all. It’s not bad, and I’m not bad. I’m quite good, actually, I’m also just… hella feelingsy.

I somehow managed to write another 2500 words today? Holy hell.

I am wrung out now, though. It is ice cream & bad tv o’clock. Then, it is bed o’clock.

I’m in that place with the manuscript where I’m vascillating between “This is awesome!” and “This is utter tripe!”

I am well aware that this is just part of the process, but dag, man. I wish I could put my artistic insecurity in box till I’m done with the book, you know?

In other news: The first draft is due Thursday (eeek!). Then I meet with my advisor to go over edit suggestions on Saturday. Then I have till May 17th for edits & re-writes. So. Wheeeeeee?

If I wasn’t such a fucking perfectionist, this would be a lot easier. Old habits die hard, I guess.

So, Tilda (one of my 2 cats) went missing for 2 days. I have been kind of a nervous wreck about her being gone. I spent all afternoon putting together a MISSING poster for her, and was very ready to go get it printed tomorrow morning.

Aaaaand I came home to her chilling out in my garage. :) She is a bit dusty & dazed & hungry, but she is fine. SWEET SWEET RELIEF.

How To Have A Body is due to my Advisor in 9 days. I feel like I’m supposed to be stressing out. But I’m truly, genuinely not. My anxiety is… honestly, kinda non-existent right now. Like, yeah I’m a little tired, and yeah I’m having to be extra-diligent/protective about things like Breakfast and Exercise and Taking Breaks and Enough Sleep. But mostly I’m just excited & joyous & into where the book is taking me.

I have been writing all  my life, and I have made many attempts at many books. But I honestly never knew before this one that writing a book could be this fun, this exhilarating. This is BAD-ASS.

“Hey Gina, what’d you do this weekend?”
“Oh, y’know, taught a writing workshop and ran some errands and took myself on a jaunt through North Beach and re-wrote the entire beginning of my book. Nothing major.”

:)

The first draft of How To Have A Body is due in ten days. There is still a lot to do, but I am feeling pretty proud & awesome of what I’ve accomplished right now.

Relatedly? I could really get used to having this much energy & being this productive all the time. I cannot stress how much I LOOOOOOOVE not being in the midst of A Terrible Fibro Flare. I get so much done when I’m not knocked on my ass!

1. 25,000 words & counting on How To Have A Body. There is still so much more to do, but wow. Can I get a HELL YES?

2. Missing Sunday Streets to Get Her Done (and also get some laundry done). A little wistful about it, but there will be other Sundays for Streeting in my future.

There is nothing like the intense pressure of intense deadlines for a book that is kinda about an intense break-up but really mostly about your intense relationship with your body & the world to make you, well… Intensely aware of your body. You know?

I mean this in a good way. I feel more in my skin, more comfortable, happier, hotter & more desirable than I have in ages. Some of this is about some recent experiences of feeling appreciated & desired in various ways. But it’s way bigger than that, too. It’s about an internal shift.

I left the house in a tight strappy tank top, a very short miniskirt, bare legs, & sparkly shoes today. Glitter on my eyelids, lipstick on my lips. These might not be brave fashion choices for someone else, but they are extremely brave fashion choices for me, especially considering my past year.

I feel back to my real self and I feel braver, basically. It’s been a long time coming.