The Year I Forgot How to Live but Didn’t Die

The Year I Forgot How to Live but Didn’t Die

by RasmeniaNo Comments
No matter how things go wrong, it’s always a blindside. Life goes tits up on a fucking dime. There’s no warning. No easing into the skid. One day, it’s all systems nominal. The next you’re crashing down to Earth, staggering through the wreckage, reaching out for something solid to steady yourself for one goddamn second to get your bearings and reorient yourself. A daily routine is boring, but when it’s gone, you want it back as much as you’ve ever wanted anything in your life. We take quotidian predictability for granted.The upheaval starts because one day, something happens. Maybe Earth shaking and cataclysmic. But probably not. Most times, it’s a small thing. A sudden pain. A discomfort that won’t go away. Maybe something you knew was inevitable. The problem with inevitability, we always think it’s further away than it is. That we have more time. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear because the call is coming from inside...
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Laughing Through the Blood

Laughing Through the Blood

by RasmeniaNo Comments
I got the shopping cart for Xmas when I was 3 years old. Immediately, I began planning a shopping trip to 7-11. No, not a grocery store. Just as I would later insist as a stoned teenager craving a Super Big Gulp and risky nachos, it had to be the goddamn 7-11.The adults informed me I could not just wander off on a convenience store expedition on my own. This annoyed me. Stupid adults.Opportunity struck when I was left in the care of my Uncle Jay one afternoon. As soon as he turned his back, I grabbed my shopping cart and made a hasty exit. I still remember when he found me. Red-faced, panicked, and angry, my uncle pulled his car along the curb as I merrily strolled down the sidewalk, pushing my cart, with no idea how to get to 7-11 or anywhere else.“Get your ass in this car.”I got my ass in the car.Uncle Jay was 6’4” and...
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I Feel So Different

I Feel So Different

by RasmeniaNo Comments
People crowd the street, most of them women with flecks of silver in their hair and lines on their face etching a map back to who they used to be: young women full of joy and anguish. Weird, creative girls trying to survive the constant pressure of what parents, friends, schools, and institutions said they couldn’t and shouldn’t do. Lonely girls who want to scream and dance and smash convention and patriarchy but feel powerless to do so.The music in the street gets louder and one woman in the crowd, a grandmother in leather and Doc Martens, pounds on her heart with her fist, eyes closed, oblivious to all those around her as she sings along with Sinéad:I'll remember it And Dublin in a rainstorm And sitting in the long grass in summer Keeping warm I'll remember it Every restless night We were so young then We thought that everything We could possibly do was right Then we moved Stolen...
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That Shiny Newfangled Technology Can’t Do the Work for You

That Shiny Newfangled Technology Can’t Do the Work for You

by RasmeniaNo Comments
The venue reeks of cheap coffee. Creaks and groans of tables and chairs dragging on the hardwood floor echo, bouncing off the high ceiling. Barely audible beneath it all is the mumbling of socially awkward writers mingling in the early morning.The chipped folding tables are covered with cloths. Stacks of books and displays are propped up, tip over, then propped up again. Chatter and laughter rise in volume proportional to the increasing number of bodies.A quiet little man with a single stack of books stands next to his wife, who looks at no one and speaks to no one. He shows me his book. Shows me photos of himself with his book. Tells me how impressed people are with his work. And so on.This guy, my neighbor for the day, nods toward my carefully laid-out display of books. My short story trilogy, finally complete.“How long did these take you to write?”The way he asks this, it feels like a trick...
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More Books to Add to Your 2022 Reading List

More Books to Add to Your 2022 Reading List

by RasmeniaNo Comments
I don't know about you, but my to-read pile of books is absurdly out of hand. Every year, I manage to knock a hundred or so books from the stack. This makes no dent in that ever-growing behemoth. It does, however, mean that I discover a few gems each year. (A few duds, too, but I'm here to give love, not to disparage. Sorry.)Anyway, this isn't a goddamn recipe blog, so let's skip the boring story leading up to the reason why you're here and get to the goods.Please note that these are not necessarily books published in 2021, just books I read this year that made such an impact on me that I want other people to read them, too. Books by Authors Not New to Me, Who Still Managed to Surprise the Hell Out of Me:Look, this book was published in 1997 and takes place during peak AIDS crisis in San Francisco. Yet, it feels current and chillingly relevant....
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Sometimes Healing Means Turning Your Life Upside-Down

Sometimes Healing Means Turning Your Life Upside-Down

by RasmeniaNo Comments
Trauma is an unpredictable and sneaky thing. Most of us have those experiences in our personal backstories that have left us softer in some places, harder in others. Maybe we get a little twitchy when a particular name or song evokes a painful memory. In the current parlance, we get triggered.That kind of trauma, though, that wound you can take a good long look at and assess just how much damage it's done to you, that's one thing. It's something you can reckon with, maybe show it to someone else who can sit you down and help you staunch the bleeding. Dress that wound. Get you back up on your feet again. You're wobbly, stumbling around, and you fall on your face now and then, but you're moving forward again.But what about the damage you don't see? What do you do with a splinter that's lodged in your psyche, causing you to do all kinds of uncharacteristic shit when you...
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