Bite Me, Baby ...

... because this bites! After making an executive decision, the board of directors at SATB -- me, myself and tapeworm -- have taken on the labor of love to rebuild each deleted entry on blogger, while planning a long-term expansion of Manola's enterprise. I intend to take over the world, infiltrating one I PEE address at a time!

I realize now, after twenty years of professional writing and just over six months of blogging, that the latter is like no other: it lacks the finitude of a published poem in a literary journal or the closure of an invoice for work rendered. So many words I've written that I've forgotten, especially the ones that intended to sell something, get money -- oh all those sell-out words and money being the only motivation -- those words that put daily bread and wine on the table. The slave-words of writing for a living when you can't afford to write for love.

But you do it anyway, even if it costs you what many others covet: the perfect husband, the perfect children and the white picket fence house. No, you write those words of love, regardless, because you know your reason for being. An entire lifetime of choices made because nearing forty, you'd be creating a character named Manola. Ridiculous, maybe. Real, YES.

And then those words I love, those sentences that linger in my imagination, not filling my belly but keeping my spirit alive. Day-to-day blogging creeps under my skin, an ever-evolving voice that begins but can never end, so long as Maria the writer lives and breathes. Blogging seems so much more alive, even though there are books on my shelf collecting dust, with covers and spines containing some of my love-words forever etched in ink, approved and stamped by editors.

And yet, because I've managed to eradicate in one fell click the thing I didn't even know I loved, I find I must put the pieces of Manola back together, finding the greatest writerly pleasure of my entire career through some ridiculous alter-ego named after shoes I can't even afford, precisely because the luxury of blogging is what Virginia Wolf called A Room of One's Own.

And I love this room: it's got a closet full of gorgeous high heels, a luxurious bed, an antique desk with drawers brimming with handmade paper, sharpened quills and bottles full of supple, runny ink, chilled albariño wine, and most of all: freedom to write. It's like putting words together and writing at the same time. It's like having sex and making love at the same time. Like my greatest love and I, writing and Maria: inseparable. Oh and yes, somewhere in between the crumpled sheets of my bed and the scratched-off sheets of my writing tossed into a wastebasket -- the most amazing man I have yet to conjure from my heart's desire whom I will honor with an even greater love.

... which reminds me ... all you macho studs waiting outside my door to audition for seasonal boyfriend: take a number!

HA! I have a nagging feeling, no -- it's an itchy feeling, actually -- that it's going to be long, lonely summer, but that's ok ... IT'S THE SEED THAT'S HOT ... NOT THE FLESH! So keep biting ... and writing ... it's the only way to taste life.

musical accompaniment

Clap your hands. Some quick sound pleasure from Manola's friend Cyan.