Twitched and Stuck

Last night, while my husband and I watched a movie, a muscle twitched in my neck. I had been cross-stitching for hours that day, and had reviewed a bunch of residency submissions too, and in any case my neck is, let us say, not of the spring chicken variety. But because I couldn't easily identify whatever the phenomenon was that caused my neck to feel weird, I began to worry, and then feel certain, that I had a blood clot traveling slowly northward and it would lead to a stroke.

Soon, my neck twitched and stuck for longer than a moment, such that I could put my fingers on the area. It was definitely a muscle spasm (a weird one), not at all a blood clot. Much more like an eye twitch, although I've never had a spasm in any muscle that wasn't on my face, and I've never known a muscle spasm to stick that way, briefly, like the old wives warn us about our faces.

But I had already put in the worry about the stroke. My blood pressure had already inched that iota higher. My stability about waking up alive the next morning had been shaken. I felt relief, but things were not the same as they had been.

**


In late March I contemplated writing a Medium essay called "Welcome to Our Paradise." I had just come home from my very first book tour - one I organized by my own wits and on my own dime, one that was shortened by two important dates (only for two additional dates in SoCal to get cancelled, too) - but I was still rapturous at the uncrowded airports and the lighter traffic of both foot and wheel. It was a state of voluntary quarantine at that point; those with good reason were staying home, but folks like me, who never had direct contact with children or the elderly and had healthy immune systems, felt okay going out.

I did not take advantage of this freedom once I got home from Portland. In general life I spend the majority of my time at home, doing one of the many things I love to do: read, write, cross-stitch, watch movies, fiddle around in the kitchen, love on my husband, and enjoy silence + solitude. At home alone is my natural state. This is partly because I'm introverted, and partly because it's how I spent a lot of time in my formative years. I don't like the grocery store, I don't like dinners out with more than one or two other people, I don't like weaving through shoals of pedestrians on the street. I like being at home. I've made my home the way I like it because I like it at home. I don't know how to explain this any better.

I wanted to explain in the essay that the current world, where people are mostly at home and nothing is going on outside and we are all just...living with ourselves, quietly, is the paradise that introverts have longed for. Further, I wanted to explain that extroverts who find themselves uncomfortable at having to stay at home, alone or not - that discomfort is how introverts feel who have to go to work or school or concerts or grocery stores or anywhere people gather. But, you say, everyone has to go to work or school or concerts or grocery stores. Exactly. It's a constant state of discomfort, from the moment we leave our houses until the moment we get blessedly home again. The world under quarantine is a world built for us, at last, and it's paradise.

I hoped that this explanation would inspire conversation about how we can help people of different kinds to live in the world together. Maybe extroverts could remember the extreme discomfort of this period and realize the world is built for them to enjoy more than us, and maybe we could rebuild some of the world to be kinder to all of us. More work from home; more understanding of how hard it is for us to be around people all the time, not just in extreme crowds; less ridicule of the homebody lifestyle. I hoped it would be worthwhile for everyone to consider how good it feels to some people to stay in a couple of rooms all day long, no one else around, and how absolutely dreadful that feels to others.

But I can't write that essay anymore. Too many people have died. It's no longer an intellectual experiment. If we build a new world after this Great Pause, it will not be to shield us from everyday discomfort; it will be to save us from slaughter.

**

Over April I've been working on a somewhat preposterous project that has come to its end in the past 24 hours. I now have a Ph.D. in Parapsychology, just like Peter Venkman. I earned it from the Institute of Metaphysical Humanistic Science (IMHS), which is 100% online. It was an extremely interesting course of study. I also picked up a short course in Tarot, so I'm now certified in that, as well as being a Certified Paranormal Investigator. It's a non-secular, non-academic degree, so I don't really think of it the same way as the doctoral degrees my friends and my mother have earned, but I'm still gonna put the certificate on my wall and change my Twitter bio.

No, I am not kidding. I really did do this program in a month, and I really did get a Ph.D., of sorts. We got a surprising windfall at the end of March and I'd been wanting to do the program for some time once we had a bit of extra money. The gods blessed me with an indulgent husband.

**

I have plans for what I'm going to do with the rest of my year, but everything that happens beyond my literal neighborhood is as yet unfixed. I hoped to go to Chautauqua this summer, but I don't think it's a good idea anymore. I wanted to visit Portland in the fall, but who knows where we'll be then? And, of course, I wanted to tour Ceremonials some more, on the East Coast and here in LA. But once life resumes, whenever it does, all the authors who didn't get their tours due to later release dates will want to rebook, and all the authors whose books were coming out anyway will be booked. I don't want to go up against all that.

I'm thinking seriously of just letting it go, of continuing to do online promotion and podcasts and whatever else as it comes along, but not trying to push sales of the book as intensely as I was in February and early March. Planning the tour and a bunch of affiliated publicity was about all I had in me until summer; I just don't have the resources to shift gears the way a lot of authors have. In parallel, I have less riding on my debut than other authors who launched this year, under more dire circumstances than I did.

It's a painful calculation to make. I had hoped to let Ceremonials grow all year long, and had planned to make promoting it the main focus of my spring and summer, and possibly the fall as well, depending on how it was doing by July. But I don't want to compete with other authors in the scrambling way book promotion is being done now. It's a mess and I want no part of it. Plus, I've let other projects wither on the vine for much too long.

This in no way invalidates my feelings about Ceremonials, of which I'm so proud and about which I'm so happy. For a variety of reasons, though, I worked hard to disconnect my heart from the finished product and its success or failure. That means it's less of a heartbreak, and more of a simple disappointment, to let it go for the moment, with the idea of picking it up again later, if possible, if it's viable. I'll always love this one, whether it got a fair chance or not. There will never be another debut, but there will be other books.

**

And I need to write them. That's what I keep coming back to, whether through the IMHS degree, my idle hands at home, my frustrating email inbox, the social media I've abandoned and the social media I still work with. All of them are telling me I need to write. I haven't written anything except reviews for months - this is my first blog post since January 1 - and I feel bloated with unwritten words.

I know exactly the project I want to start with, but it's intense, and I'm reluctant to dive into it. I know what I'm like when I'm really writing: mostly in the zone even when I'm walking around, divided entirely between the notebook and mindless activity to calm the notebook's buzzing at me, telling Matt thank you in a stoned voice for the meals he brings me as I type. That version of me is inherently selfish, so absorbed in her task is she. Although I love her, too, of course, how could I not, when she turns out work that I adore (and need), I have been putting off stepping into her skin. She makes me want to apologize to everyone after the fact for the weeks it takes me to do the project. I'm sorry I didn't really see your face while you were talking to me. I'm sorry you had to hydrate me like a child. I'm sorry I woke up in the middle of the night to write for two hours and then took a nap at 11 AM.

It's worth it, in the long run, but it makes me miserably guilty to contemplate.

**

Also, I bought 16 oz of tea, which is a lot more tea than I thought. This bag has heft.