Bread and Bread

I’ve been visiting a hypnotherapist—because I’m not the kind of girl who can be content with just two therapists (couples and regular), and because I want her to convince my subconscious that a long happy life is viable, that imminent doom is not my destiny. She’s been having me write down my dreams, and let me tell you, that shit is one long found poem. Last night I attended Rhapsodomancy ’s ninth anniversary reading at Good Luck Bar and heard work by Cynthia Cruz , Rob Roberge , Louise Mathias and Wendy Ortiz . Soon I was itching to write dark, spare poetry like Cruz’s. Here’s what I came up with, transcribed directly from the previous night’s dream. I genuinely don’t know what it means, which feels like cheating, like I’m one of those coy writers. But, like about eighty percent of my dreams, it seems about guilt on some level, and appropriate for Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples Day/Genocide Day. A Movie We Didn’t Know We Were In We played in the abandoned rooms benea...

One of the guests at my sister’s UCLA graduation party was her high school marching band director, who was kind of sexist and annoying, but also dedicated and beloved by students who weren’t me. He asked how I was doing, and I told him I’d just finished my thesis at CalArts. “It’s a collection of connected short stories,” I said. “You wrote a whole book? Wow! That must have been hard.” “It was,” I said proudly. “And it’s all true?” “No, it’s fiction.” “Oh. You mean you just made it up?” His disappointment was palpable. A whole thesis full of lies. Writers—not to mention readers of anything thicker than Parade Magazine —usually enjoy this story. Fiction is, of course, an art. You have to create a whole world, not just describe what you see. Remember Parade? Remember All-Grown-Up Miley 1.0? But my sister’s band director might be vindicated to know that one reason I chose fiction is because I’m a lazy researcher. I love learning about other times, place...

1. blowing up I was driving to Stories to hear Michelle Tea and Wendy Ortiz read when I got stuck in a snarl on the part of the 2 that meets the 5. I’d heard that an oil truck blew up on the 5 earlier in the day, but I didn’t think traffic would still be backed up. I also didn’t understand why the traffic cones were pushing us from the 2 onto the 5. McSweeney's makes pretty books. Alberto, who’d been thinking about going with me, texted that he was going to hang out in Downtown L.A. that night, since he could get there by public transportation. Someone needs to come up with a name for that particularly Angeleno experience of basing your plans around traffic avoidance. CAReography? I sat on the freeway listening to NPR announce the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial. Earlier I’d heard a report where people were chanting, “Murder, not manslaughter,” so I was surprised to hear that the jury chose neither. I wasn’t on the jury, and I certainly wasn’t in Geor...