Neurologist Oliver Sacks, proposed that Gray perceived the taking of his own life as part of what he had to say. “On several occasions he talked about what he called ‘a creative suicide’. On one occasion, when he was being interviewed, he thought that the interview might be culminated with a ‘dramatic and creative suicide’.”

Reading the only fictional novel by one of my all-time favorite writers, Spalding Gray. It deals with the suicide of his mother, but much of it also deals with how creativity can become a sort of life after death — how you are kept alive by the people who admire you (present company included, apparently). The quote above is from a Guardian profile that followed Gray’s own suicide in 2004.

In an odd bit of coincidence, I was also reading today this NY Times article about the mysterious new PT Anderson movie The Master and it mentions the suicides of Jeremy Blake and Theresa Duncan, a story I’ve long been fascinated with — two creatives, madly in love, who descend into madness and begin to think they’re being stalked by Scientologists. They eventually kill themselves. (Anderson movie is ostensibly about Scientology.)

That led me to this Vanity Fair article about the Blake/Duncan suicides. Which includes this quote from Jeremy Blake, who killed himself five days after his girlfriend.

Blake said that Theresa was “never a person to compromise,” and that he had a “clear understanding” that she had made the decision to end her life. He said that in doing so she had exhibited the same “strength” that she had shown when she was alive.

Sad.

I originally signed up for the full marathon this year, but in November I started having trouble with me IT band. I’ve only ever had one other running injury, tendinitis in my knees, and I learned enough about training and self-care then to make sure it never came back. I used the same techniques to get over my IT band issues, but I also lost about three weeks worth of training, and since it was getting so close to crunch time I eventually decided to just drop down.

Since the Houston Marathon has switched to the lottery system this year, that decision was a hard one to make. I really want the Houston Marathon to be my first, and there’s no guarantee I’ll get in next year unless I pay to join a running club with reserved spots. But in the long run it’s probably for the better. I’ve only done one half so far, and moving from that straight into a marathon might not have been the best plan. After January 30th I’ll have two half under my belt, and depending how I feel after this one, I’m thinking of running the brand new Galveston Mardi Gras half marathon February 20th. I may be totally burned out, but it’s the first marathon (and half) on Galveston Island since the ’90s and it sounds like a lot of fun. A week after that is the Rodeo Run 10K, the very first race I ever ran and a race I will run every year no matter what else I do. Then in March I’m running the Race Against Violence on Team Walk the Walk for the Houston Area Women’s Shelter. Normally I am a person who runs just for myself, but this will be the first race I’ve ever run for charity and I’ve super excited to do it.

Aaaaaaaanyway. The point of this whole post was to point you to this race report from a guy who ran the Disney Half Marathon last weekend with his mom, a 20-year cancer survivor and a novice runner who just started running in September. If you have ever thought that running 26 miles, or 13 miles, or 6 miles or 3 miles or even one mile was crazy or impossible, I want you to read that story and I DARE YOU not to get a little bit choked up. What’s crazy is that next day the guy went out and ran the Disney full marathon.

Hot Springs is beautiful and we spent a lot of time sleeping in, staying up late, and walking all over town. Bathhouse Row is pretty damn amazing, but there are other awesome middle-America aspects to the town that I’ll talk about in a future post. We were so lazy we didn’t even go hiking, and going to some pace outdoorsy was one of the main goals. Oh well. Just gives me something to do next time, and believe me, in fell enough in love with the town that there will be a next time.

The whole time we were there I kept thinking about where I was and what I was doing the year before. We have to travel so much to see family during the holidays (this year it was Oklahoma for Thanksgiving and Florida for Christmas) that New Year’s is usually our own holiday together. After all the stress and buildup of the previous months we usually like to get away to some place secluded. In 2008 it was Robber’s Cave, Oklahoma. Last year it was a week through west Texas, culminating with a camping trip in Big Bend.

2009 had been a pretty shit year for me. I won’t go into details but I will say that two major events sent me spiraling into a well of hate and depression. I’m not really much of a metaphysical person, but on New Year’s Eve, just outside of Big Bend, I decided to do something I’d never done before: I wrote down all my heartbreaks and regrets on a piece of paper, and I threw it into the fire at La Kiva in Terlingua.

It didn’t matter if it worked or not. It made me feel better. Then I got waaaay too drunk on champagne and puked in the National Park the next day.*

What’s crazy is, it seems like it *did* work. 2010 was one of my most amazing years in memory. I started it off by running my first half-marathon. In March I went to SXSW for the first time. In May I found out my portfolio was accepted into the creative writing program at UH. In June CLH and I went to Sweden for a month, spending July 4th weekend in Stockholm.

Just before our trip to Sweden, I’d been asked to fill in for my music editor at work. I was flattered by the responsibility. On my last day, I found out about a job opening there. Not just any job opening… and opening for my dream job. But, it had been years since I’d worked full time, and I agonized and agonized over applying. After applying, I agonized over whether I’d take the job if offered. Then I agonized over not hearing anything about it for the month I was in Sweden. I actually did my job interview from the kitchen of our apartment via Skype, miles and hours away from my interviewee. And then, a few days after we got back to the US, I was offered the job.

Life since then has been hectic and happy. Believe me when I say I am literally working at my dream job, the kind of place I wanted to work at when I decided to study journalism. But it is a 24-hour position and has left little room in my life for other pursuits, like all my crafting projects, blogging and the thing I miss most from my former life — travel. But I am working to balance things out and hat is one of the goals for 2011.

But the awesome year didn’t stop there. Probably the most amazing thing I did this year was jump out of a plane. In November a large group from my running club got together to do the scariest thing I can possibly imagine doing. I hate heights, I hate the feeling of not having something underneath me (like when you’re standing on a ledge) and I hate airplanes. But skydiving is probably the most amazing and formative experience I’ve ever had in my life. There is no way to describe the freedom you feel, freedom of movement and freedom from fear, as you are falling 120 mph toward earth. It was so peaceful. I can’t wait to do it again.

Just look at the grins on our faces there. That is life well-lived. I also kind of feel like I’ve done the scariest thing I can possibly imagine, and it was awesome, so what do I ever have to be afraid of again?

So what will 2011 hold for me? In three weeks I’m running my second half-marathon and I may run a third at the end of February. Other than that, I have really no idea. I have a lot of goals for work, for my personal life and for my creative endeavors, but if this year is half as challenging and rewarding as the last one was, I’ll be happy. Bring it on, Elevensies.

* Didn’t think about it until now, but might this have been some kind of purging of negative energy? God, listen to me.

(Via The Impossible Cool.)

Since then I’ve harbored a longstanding fascination with the film. It’s in the list of 350+ on my queue now, but last week, when Maud Newton tweeted about a story of the same name by John Cheever I realized the movie was based on the same short story, which you can read online here.

Summer ends today. Maybe I should bump the film to the top of my list?

But until Thursday night I would not have called myself a Rolling Stones fan. Since Thursday night, I’ve been reading obsessively on the 1969-1975 line-up, probably the best line-up in the band’s decades-long career. (Check out this awesome, informative chart.)

And also since Thursday I have become totally infatuated with Keith Richards. Mick Jagger’s onstage antics seem contrived and performance-arty, but when Keith Richards closes his eye and shakes his hair you can tell it’s because he feels the music, not because he’s on display. It goes without saying, but Keith Richards is so fucking cool. That I am 30 years old and just discovered this is some kind of pathetic, but hey. Better late than never.

My shitty iPod tape adapter only plays music out of one half of my speakers, and I was sick of the 10 or so CDs I had. For some reason I thought it might be worthwhile to scan the dials, hoping there would be listen-worthy radio on a Friday night. Somewhere between Schulenburg and Luling, I caught several Christian/self help stations in a row, including one where three gossipy women were having a would-you-ever conversation regarding stripping for one’s husband/boyfriend at his request in the privacy of one’s home. All three women talked about this hypothetical request as if it were the most scandalous thing they could possibly think of doing.

It took all I had inside not to swerve to the side of the road and pull a Sailor and Lula after that.

Two years and some change ago I had one of the best nights of my life as a music lover in Houston. Dengue Fever was playing the Orange Show, and I caught them for the first time and had a chance to meek Zac and Senon before I split Southeast Houston and headed toward the Montrose to catch the Born Liars, The Ugly Beats and The Fleshtones at Rudyards. It was a legendary show, and my picture, along with my friend Alice’s, ended up on the Houston Press music blog.

About a year after that I started writing for the Houston Press myself, first penning travel stories, then becoming a music blogger. I was thinking about how all this had come full circle Friday night when I saw the Fleshtones and the Ugly Beats again, this time at the Continental Club, and in the capacity of a reviewer for the show. There’s Alice in this picture too. (I’m in on the far right.)

I quit my job as a full-time reporter at a newspaper when C and I got married and moved to Korea. While over there, I began freelancing, but then we moved back right as the job market crashed and so I’ve been working part time and going back to school for fun since then. But all that’s about to chance.

Starting tomorrow, I will be the web editor at the Houston Press. I am excited and terrified and more than ready to start what is quite literally my dream job. Everything I’ve worked for, from my first degree (in journalism) to my freelance work to finishing the hardest semester of school I’ve ever experience in two different programs (the second being literary nonfiction), has been a means to this end. Can. Not. Wait.

The reason why so many people are hesitant to admit that sexism exists, and the reason why so few young women are willing to self-identify as feminists is because the sexism inherent in our society is so ingrained that half the time *I* don’t even realize it’s happening.

I remember one WTF moment when a lady acquaintance hung out for hours after a show trying to meet the band. Years later, I would meet the infamous groupie, Pamela Des Barres, who shared with me her philosophy on what it means to be a muse.

Case in point — little girls groomed to be groupies while boys are groomed to be critics. Like there isn’t enough wrong with the music industry’s treatment of and respect for women.

But one thing I’ve noticed since I started writing about music is the number of people who seem to think I have no authority to espouse opinions. When I wrote about Kinky Friedman I had a guy try to tell me how to vote. When I gave Patti Smith an honest review for what I felt was an uneven appearance, I got slammed not only by commenter but also by people in real life.

I’ve suffered momentary doubts and been called plenty of names but one thing I’ve never done is question my own right to write about music — or anything — critically.

So the post is worth a read, but then the writer completely undoes all the mental gains she’s made with this self-deprecating line:

You might also want to look for Anwyn Crawford, whose essay — not fully available online — started this conversation. You are probably better off listening to her about this stuff than listening to me.

And then the title! The title, which apologizes for having an opinion in the first place. C’mon girl! Where’s your resolve?

*It’s always nice to have readers stand up for me in the comments.

I haven’t found any tar balls on the beach yet, and I’ve already been to both coasts. Oh yeah, on Friday morning I got to ride a fuckin’ manatee! Not really, but I definitely swam with a bunch in the murky waters of so-called Crystal River. They felt slimy. More on that later, when I don’t have to buy a round of beers at World Of Beers in order to get access to the internet.

Tomorrow we are headed back to the west coast, to Spongeorama, the Greek wonderland of Tarpon Springs, the creepy Scientologist wonderland of Clearwater, Fla., and lovely Tampa/St. Pete, maybe my favorite two-cities-in-one in all of the Sunshine State. Considering I ate my weight in steamed blue crab this weekend, my beach motto is above. Translation: A woman without a belly is like heaven without stars.