New & Improved Book Cover, Queries, Soap, Medicine, Clouds & “The Most Valuable Poet On the M-I-C”

I’ve had a busy day today. I woke up at my parents’ house, showered, packed, ate a bagel, and drove an hour drive home. The drive wasn’t bad at all. Now that I take an exit to avoid part of the highway that I don’t like, and I know the exit numbers have changed, at 3PM on a Spring day there’s no traffic or blinding sun, and there was no rain like I’d anticipated. It was just a beautiful Spring drive.

When I got home, I comforted my cat right away. She’s an anxious cat who needs to constantly be comforted and she has a hard time when I leave her but I was only away from her for one full day. Still, she’s howling like crazy in the other room as I write, but I’ve given her some food and attention… maybe not enough…

I got some popcorn teriyaki chicken for dinner, talked to my mental health worker and my boyfriend, and I re-did the cover for my upcoming memoir while waiting for my weed. I’d made one yesterday, but I felt like I could do better. I definitely think I improved it a little bit, even though it’s the same basic idea.

I liked this idea of a claw machine representing a very flawed and rigged system, pulling my androgynous baby picture out of a pile of photos of me from various stages of my life. They are the same photos I used in the one I made yesterday, but I added the 8th grade, big hair photo, since 8th grade is an important part of the book and it’s probably the furthest from my true self that I ever was. I also changed some of the details of the person I drew, who is supposed to represent a young soldier.

As soon as I finished, my medicine came…

This is one of my favorite strains. LA Confidential. It’s recommended by Snoop. You can read about it here…

https://www.allbud.com/marijuana-strains/indica-dominant-hybrid/la-confidential

I saw that my soap came from my favorite soap shop on Etsy. This was one of them. Gorgeous!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/WickedSoftOrganics?ref=profile_header

I took out the trash and took a couple photos of the clouds…

I’ve been listening to music, took a bath with my new soap, smoked a little bit of my new weed, and I sent out a few more queries. I got another encouraging rejection today, and this one included a link to a web site kind of like the other two I’ve been looking for people through, but this one has a bunch more people I haven’t tried yet, so I researched four of them who were looking for memoirs and sent them each what they wanted, which were all different. It was hard work as usual, but maybe it’ll pay off. I feel like maybe I’m giving up too early. Now that I’m editing again and fixing a lot and am halfway through, I feel like it’s worth trying some new people. If I was close with a few like they’ve said, maybe this extra edit will be enough. I thought I was out of people, and I haven’t heard back from them all yet, but I don’t know what to expect. I only know what happened last time. This book is stronger in most ways. I do believe in it. Even if I self publish, I think this one might get read more and a little more buzz. I can only hope it reaches the people I’m meant to help with it.

I listened to Big L in my car on the way home. He was a brilliant artist. Some of his lyrics are potentially offensive if they didn’t make for such beautiful poetry.

And that is that.

Design For New Book Cover

I saw my family for Mother’s Day today. We hung out for several hours preparing food, eating, talking, sharing photos of pets, etc. My sister helped me figure out how to add tags to my blog posts, but we still haven’t figured out how to use it as a regular blog to follow other bloggers. I may not be able to, but we will see. Both my sisters helped me create a linktree account though, and that should help point people in the right direction as well. I can put it on my Instagram as my main link, so I don’t have to constantly switch the links depending which page I’m promoting in my post…

https://linktr.ee/wickedcliche?fbclid=IwAR3SSUgUD-o_DOi4fqo9ROJz3OixFc5YLCiZiSLDUXJMQGrb21UKTz1TcTY

You can click there to see it if you want. It’s not especially exciting, but I am kind of excited about it, as it is a helpful tool.

The other thing I’m most excited about today is that I created a cover for my upcoming memoir. I’m gonna try to redo it with some different colors and hopefully a better drawing of the person at the machine, but I got this idea the other night and was excited that I was able to make it work, even if I have to do it over to make it a little better, I think it’s kinda cool…

“I Write the System To Fight the System So I Might Right the System”… coming out around the 20th anniversary of 9/11 if I self publish.

What else? I don’t really know. I gotta get back to the usual life later today, but it was nice to get a break.

I’m looking kinda vintage…

or do I mean old?

Mac and Cheese Pizza & Good News After Another Heartbreaking Day

I got some bad news today that I kind of saw coming, even though it might not be as bad as I thought, it might be. My favorite mental health worker is leaving her position and moving to a different position on the same team. It may end up being that nothing much changes between us, but it might mean that we won’t be working together anymore. I’ve sort of been waiting on this news and somewhat prepared to hate her for hurting me if she went about it the way others have, after we’ve become so close. I went through several workers in a few short years, and one worker who left around this time five years ago who absolutely broke my heart because she promised to keep in touch, but didn’t. It was a messy thing though, I won’t lie. It was partly her fault for all the boundaries she was breaking at a time when I was extremely lonely and broken, and I thought she cared about me and maybe even liked me in a romantic way. Obviously that was where things were partly mine to blame, although I never did anything inappropriate, but I think she knew how I felt and I honestly thought she felt the same, because of how close she got to me… but that was 5 years ago, and I went through several workers since her and tried so hard not to allow myself to fall for one ever again. And I’m not in love with my worker who’s leaving now. I don’t feel romantic feelings towards her and I know she doesn’t for me, but I still kind of love her as a person in a way that one would grow to love anyone who helped them so much in 3 years time, nevermind a person like her, who I clicked with immediately in our first phone call. I knew after our first 15 minute conversation that this day was going to come and it was gonna feel like hell, and I’ve been sobbing all day. I don’t know what’ll come of it though and I know the last thing she wants to do is hurt me or even leave me. She is fighting to keep me, so I appreciate that and don’t hate her, but I’m feeling a lot of sadness. When we first met, I was stepping out into the world for the first time as an adult, just about to turn forty years old after a life of being broken, and I was doing great, but within just a couple months of us meeting, I fell into a deep psychosis that lasted months. I was on bed-rest, completely miserable, and we texted every day and she came to see me every week. She was the first, and still the only one of my workers to read my first book in its entirety, and she was the one to encourage me to publish it, which was something I severely feared for far too long. She helped me through 7 months of feeling so fucking terrible that I was almost ready to give up, but she encouraged me every day and she loved my art and my songs and let me practice in front of her. I could tell that she was honestly impressed by me and that I made her job more enjoyable and worth doing, to see me recover and publish my books and perform and show my art. It made me feel good to have someone in the system that actually believed in me and who saw the artist I was and thought the world would wanna know me too. She helped me believe in myself and helped me survive one of the most difficult times of my life. I’d just achieved so much of what I always wanted after a life of being broken, and doing so broke me again, and it looked like I might lose it all, but I came back even harder and I have her to thank, but I don’t know if I’m losing her and I don’t know how to feel about it, except sad that this is how it always seems to be. I still think about Stacey and Elisa, Celie, Miss K, Robin, Michelle, Joanne, Leah, Caitlin, Leslie, Ana, Pat, etc. There are so many people who once saved me and meant the world to me as teachers and therapists that I’ve lost and my heartbreak is real. I miss them terribly. I hate that I’m forced to let go of so many great people. I felt like when she left, I was gonna tell her to fuck off, and that I’d hate her and even possibly quit therapy, because I can’t keep taking this kind of loss… but maybe she’ll be one of the ones to stick by me, as I do also have a list of people who once meant the world to me and are still in my life in a different way. They still mean a lot to me, but since they’re no longer employed to work for me, I have good boundaries and they’ve become like other friends in my life who I just talk to once in awhile. It still means a lot that they’re out there and part of my world. I hope she’ll remain in my world because she’s an awesome person who I’ll always have love for. It’s hard to think about getting to know someone else, and I’m sad and hurt but I’ll be okay.

I decided that for a little food therapy, I’d try the macaroni and cheese pizza from Za. There are two pizza places in my town that put pasta on pizza, and I thought it sounded like too much carbs and not particularly appealing, but some people love it and the one at Za has caramelized onions, which I also like, so I thought I’d try it. I mean, I do like macaroni and cheese and pizza.

It was good, but I probably won’t get it again. They have a great chicken and veggie pizza I like there too. Just as good, and probably a lot healthier, but this was fun to try.

As for the good news, my mom got her blood-work back today and she’s still cancer-free for 5 years now! That is definitely happy news! And while it’s not looking great for my memoir being published, I haven’t heard from everyone yet, and even if I self publish again, it has a chance to succeed if the right people read it. I know the writing is better than The Godchild books and it’s getting even better as I do more edits. The big craft fair at my mental health center will be a perfect place to sell the book along with some stickers and prints and stuff. Life is okay. I’m grateful for getting through it.