Memoir Outtake: Wishes, Wishes, Wishes

These were wishes I jotted down in the summer of 2009 when I was midway through chemotherapy:

• That my hair will fall off like a autumn leaves so it can grow back as the mightiest afro ever. (My lifelong dream of having hair like Jimi Hendrix or Sly Stone would come true!)

• That my cancer won’t come between the joy I feel alongside Paola. (Like sitting next to each other at a café, months or years down this road, reading or writing together.)

• That the chemo will rid my body of Mr. Hodgkins so that I can kiss her and hold her hand when we walk around the city and—for once—not be sick.

• That it won't make me sterile so that someday, if I want, I can have kids with someone I love (and who loves me).

• That the chemo doesn’t stop me from riding my bicycle around the Mission on a sunshiny day, or from cycling beneath the skyscrapers (our urban redwoods) in downtown at night.

• That this ordeal will help me become the strongest, kindest, most beautiful person I can be. (Humble like dirt, compassionate like a Buddhist monk yet fierce and indomitable like the scorching guitar riff during the beginning of Kirk Hammett’s solo on Metallica’s “Holier Than Thou.”)

• That it doesn’t stop me from going to grad school in the fall like my oncologist said it would.

• That it gets rid of Mr. Hodgkins forever and ever so that I can be with my parents and sisters for as long as I can.

December 2014

2015-2016 NBA Playoff Preview: Opening Round

Oh sweet baby Jesus, after an eighty-two game regular season grind, the 2015-2016 NBA Playoffs commence this Saturday! For the second time in NBA history, this year’s playoffs will include two teams with over 65 wins. (During the 2008-2009 season the Cleveland Cavs entered the playoffs with 66 wins while Kobe’s Lakers had 65 regular season wins.) Those two teams—the San Antonio Spurs, and, in particular, the Golden State Warriors—are heavy favorites to win it all according to FiveThirtyEight’s latest NBA Predictions:

Prior to this season, 17 teams—including last year’s Warriors—have won 65 regular-season games. 14 of them have won the title, so it seems extremely likely (with apologies to Cavalier and Thunder fans) that either the Warriors or Spurs will hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy amidst a rain of champagne two months from now.

On paper, this year’s First Round doesn’t feature many enticing duels like the epic opening round of the 2013-2014 NBA Playoffs, but the second round could feature some excellent matchups.

Here’s my quick breakdown and predictions for the opening round:

Interview: Ruby Hansen Murray

Last month, during my residency at the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, I was fortunate to meet several good-hearted and talented artists including Ruby Hansen Murray, my writing studio neighbor and the other fellow writer-on-the-snow-filled-premises.

Ruby is a writer and photographer living on Puget Island in the lower Columbia River estuary. A member of the Osage Nation, her work appears or is forthcoming in Wild in the Willamette, Yellow Medicine Review, American Ghost: Poets on Life after Industry, Oregon Humanities Magazine and National Public Radio. On the artist residency front, she’s been knocking it out of the park, having been awarded residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Island Institute in Sitka, AK, Jentel, Playa and Hypatia-in-the-Woods. She has studied at Warren Wilson College and the Institute of American Indian Arts along with Jamie Figueroa, who I met at a VONA workshop (Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation), which Ruby has also attended.

On our road back home from Wyoming, in the lobby at the Laramie Regional Airport, the lone television—to our complete chagrin— was tuned to Fox News. 2016 Presidential candidate Donald Trump spewed his bullshit on a campaign stop with his defeated minion, Chris Christie, grinning and standing behind him. And so, Ruby and I retreated to the back of the lobby to sit down for this interview. After quietly sharing a cabin for three weeks, and after hearing her read a short excerpt from her novel-in-progress, The Heart Stays People, I wanted to find out more about her craft and the process she has embarked on to write this novel:

My Favorite Books I’ve Read Since 2009

Alas, this list-making endeavor would have been ideal for the tail-end of December but, hey, the first quarter of 2016 is coming to a close so the new calendar year is still more on the new-ish side, no?

Anywho, this post is a response to my homeboy, Justin’s list of the best books he has read since 2008. Like Justin, I, too, joined Goodreads around the same time. 

It was fun to browse through my list of books read since 2009 to try to determine which were my favorite books read during each calendar year. Like many of our other lists, it was challenging to decide upon one favorite book I read that year because, let’s be honest, I have great taste in books. (So you know, I was smirking while I typed that.) I’ve read a lot of good fucking books over the past seven years—and many did not make this cut.

Shit I Miss About My Brush Creek Artist Residency

• Seeing our jackrabbit friends at Artist Camp

• Being around fellow kindred artists on a daily basis

• Waking up at 9 a.m. most days

• The view of the snow-filled field and surrounding rock outcrops from my bed every morning

• The ritual of taking off my boots and stepping into my slippers whenever I stepped into my writing studio

• The view from my writing desk

• The comfy couch in my writing studio (great for afternoon naps)

• All the quietude and solitude

• Becoming acutely aware of the shades and play of light and shadow within my studio as the day passed, as well as out on the various trails

• Wearing a scarf and mi chullo on a near daily basis

• Walking into the kitchen at 12 and 6 p.m. on a daily basis and magically having plentiful free food to gobble

• Our communal meals

• Murray’s wit

• Beverly’s mischievous grin

• Susan’s smile

• Elizabeth’s infectious laugh

• Federico’s voice

• Kathy’s kindness

• Sliding over the heated wooden floor in the kitchen in my socks

• The sound of our boots as we walked on the wooden platforms around Artist Camp

• The hills and beautiful rock outcrops around Artist Camp

with my writing partner, Chepita

• All the birds on the ranch: the robins, magpies, the occasional crow, the little small dudes and the rare falcon and golden eagle

• The primordial fear of running into a moose or mountain lion on our hikes past Artist Camp

• The Swinging Bridge!

with photographer extraordinaire, Susan Hillyard

• Taking hikes before or after meals

• Hearing and seeing the creek

• The blue sky on a clear day

• Seeing horses in this snow-filled landscape

Brush Creek Ranch

• The orange sunsets over the Snowy Range Mountains

• Seeing all the stars at night on clear evenings

• Having the writing studio (and Artist Camp, really) all to myself late at night

• Going to a small town on a weekly basis

• The salty caramel ice cream at Lollipops

• Seeing icicles hanging from our roofs

• The snow!

• Snowfall!

• The howling winds!

• Playing in the snow by making snowmen

• Seeing animal tracks in the snow everywhere

• Having to always be aware of where you’re stepping when you’re not indoors or on the wooden platforms (spoken like a relatively young man)

• Having life siphoned down to eating, shitting and writing

Miss Sally (or My First Snow(wo)man)

Last Wednesday, I built my first snowman ever.

In seven weeks I will turn thirty-seven.

Before I came out to Wyoming for my three-week winter residency, I figured I would have ample opportunities to build a snowman or two or few. I knew it might not be as easy as it seems in movies and TV, so I was wise enough to ask a few of my coworkers who hailed from cold-weather regions for any tips on building one. The one tip I received—and it proved to be quite helpful—was to begin by simply pushing a snowball along the snow.

Shit I’ve Learned About Wyoming (Thus far)

February 5th, late Friday evening, the tiny United passenger plane I rode from Denver, CO landed on the small airport runway in Laramie, WY. It was my first time in The Equality or Cowboy State, only my second time in the Mountain Standard Zone. (My heart still aches for you, New Mexico!) The following morning, I contracted the services of the good people at Snowy Range Taxi to take me west from Laramie past Saratoga, the nearest town from the artist camp that I will call home for most of this month.

On my two-hour cab ride to the Brush Creek Ranch, and from conversations with locals and others who have passed through Wyoming before, I’ve learned a thing or two about the 44th state admitted into the American Union: