When it seemed things might be getting serious, I told Rodney I’d choose my dog, Taubensee, over him if it came down to it. Now, you might think this an odd thing to bring up, and you’d be right. But earlier that week my co-worker Tara told me she was giving up the terrier mix she’d rescued from the pound. Her explanation was that her boyfriend “wasn’t really a dog person.” I wanted to make clear as early as necessary that no such fate would befall my Best Friend in the Whole Wide World.
“I only bring it up,” I whispered to Rodney while movie trivia questions flashed on the big screen, “in case you’re one of those jerks who thinks he can wait until things get serious and then pressure me into surrendering my dog to a shelter. It isn’t going to happen. I’m just trying to be fair to you, in case that’s something you expect.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied and squeezed my hand. The theater lights dimmed completely and “Scary Movie 3” started rolling. A few months later we eloped at a Victorian bed and breakfast in New Albany, Indiana. Rodney wore a navy blue suit, and I wore a crimson turtleneck sweater and slacks. A quirky retired pastor presided over the ceremony, and the owner of the B&B was our witness.
I’ve suffered too much trauma since then to remember the pastor’s name, but I do recall vividly the way he took a wad of chewing gum out of his mouth and stuck it to the antique table top in the inn’s formal dining room.
“This is your first marriage?” he asked Rodney as he looked over the details on the marriage license before signing it. “At 31? How’d you manage that?”
Rodney chuckled and said, “The right one comes along when the right one comes along.”
The pastor nodded approvingly, signed the marriage license, and put the glistening blob of Wrigley’s back in his mouth. A few months later, we moved out of Rodney’s crummy one-bedroom on the south side of Indy and into a three-bed, two-bath condo on the west side.
One evening I stopped just inside the front door and dropped my navy blue Jansport on the landing with a thud. “Ughhh,” I deflated, “Class was exceptionally dull.” I slipped off my shoes and tugged a sock back into place. “If my scholarship didn’t depend on it, I’d be really tempted to blow off that class. How was your—”
I looked up to see my husband chasing Taubensee in circles through the house. Down the hall, through the kitchen, around the dining room table, then across the living room and back down the hall again. He hadn’t changed out of his work clothes yet, and the thick soles of his Doc Martens boomed within inches of my dog every time he took another stomping stride. He held his arms out wide, trying to make himself look bigger and more intimidating. Not that it was necessary; Taub’s tail was between his legs, and he was searching for a way out of Rodney’s path. Instinctively, I ascended the half-flight of stairs to the upper floor of the split-level dwelling and put myself between Rodney and the terrified dog, planting my feet solidly so I wouldn’t be knocked down if Rodney didn’t stop in his bully tracks.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I shouted about six inches from Rodney’s face. I turned and crouched low to console a trembling Taub. “Hey, buddy, it’s alright,” I cooed, petting his head softly. His eyes were pleading. I stood and raised my voice again to a level more suitable for addressing an asshole. “You ever do anything like that again and…” my heartbeat drummed in my ears. “That dog is the most docile creature you will ever come across in your life! Why were you tormenting him like that?” I waited for an answer but didn’t get one. “What is wrong with you?” I demanded.
“We were just playing, weren’t we, bud?” Rodney’s voice was saccharin smooth. He peeked around me at the dog, as if he really expected a dog would corroborate his story.
That was a distortion of the facts if I’d ever heard one, but rather than press him for the truth, I decided to drop it. I had just witnessed my husband bullying a vulnerable animal—an animal that had intuitively consoled me through some of the hardest days of my life, by the way—and pushing Rodney in that moment seemed like a bad idea. For all of us. So I changed the subject in an attempt to defuse the situation. “I’m going to get ready for the concert. Did you pick up the tickets at will-call on your way home?”
Rodney pulled two tickets out of his back pocket and waved them in the air. Brandi Carlisle was playing at The Vogue in Broad Ripple. “Great!” I did my best to sound upbeat. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes.” I changed out of my jeans and T-shirt and put on a stylish, well-fitting knit sweater. Honestly, it was kind of flashy by my standards, but it went well with the black tweed pencil skirt and knee-high boots Rodney had given me for my birthday. I smoothed my skirt, assessed my reflection, and decided to touch up my makeup. Nothing too daring for a Thursday evening, just bolder eye shadow and a little lipstick.
“You’re wearing that?” Rodney scoffed when I emerged from the bathroom.
“Uh, yes?” I held my arms out and looked down. Was there a stain on the sweater? Had I snagged the skirt on something?
“I don’t know why you’d wear something that nice. We’re basically going to a bar, you know. You’ll smell like an ashtray when it’s over.” His words were sharp and mean. Like he was jealous or something. He looked at his watch. “We’ve still got a few minutes before we have to leave. You have time to change.” He gestured toward the bedroom.
I didn’t move. “Are you mad?” I asked disbelievingly. I thought for a minute that he couldn’t be serious, but he looked at me the way my mom used to look at me after she’d given me a direct order. Was he going to count to five too? Whatever, I was nobody’s child anymore. “I’m not changing again,” I said. “We’ll be late. Besides, if the outfit gets smoky, I will wash it.” Judging by the way his right shoulder was twitching, my smart-alack tone struck a nerve.
Sensing bad things were afoot, I avoided further confrontation while simultaneously embracing the Irish temper so generously bestowed upon me through my mother’s line. I slammed the bedroom door, retreating from Rodney’s presence.
Sitting down on the hope chest, I changed out of my clothes, first unzipping my boots and putting the boot shapers back inside, then folding my sweater neatly and putting it back in the dresser drawer, and finally hanging the skirt in the walk-in closet. When I emerged from our bedroom a few minutes later, Rodney was holding the front door open. He did a double-take when he noticed I was in my pajamas. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said. “You have fun.” I strode past him then grabbed the TV remote and flopped onto the couch. I scrolled through the DVR listings until I found reruns of Sex and the City. Rodney hated that show.
“Fine!” He yelled loud enough that I winced. “I’m leaving.” He paused for just a beat to see if I’d protest, but I didn’t. Moments later, the aftermarket mufflers on his pickup growled to life and then faded out of earshot.
I didn’t know it then, but after a decade and a half of reflection on this and countless similar scenes, I realize it wasn’t really my outfit Rodney objected to, after all he’d given it to me as a gift. What he despised was the self-confidence I projected while wearing it.
So yeah, we’d been married about a year, and the honeymoon was definitely over. I, being a mostly well-adjusted person, worried what that fight meant for our marriage. Rodney, however, having witnessed thirty-something years of lying and manipulation fueled by his dad’s Budweiser and exacerbated by his mom’s bipolar depression, figured that if we were yelling at each other in private and doting on each other in public, we must be doing something awfully right.
To Rodney, it was exponentially more important that people thought we were happy than that we were actually happy. I’d never in my life met anyone so Jekyll and Hyde-like, and didn’t intuitively know how to handle him. I was winging pretty much everything after the wedding because Single Rodney was apparently just for show, and Married Rodney was the real deal. From that point on we fought about everything. About how I didn’t make the bed when he told me to. About how I wasn’t bringing in enough money. And about how he was fucking Lucy, a Chinese exchange student in his graduate communications class.
But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
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After my brain cancer diagnosis, I wrote a juicy memoir airing my ex-huband’s liar-stained laundry. I’m over the drama, but I might as well get something for my trouble, right?
He tried to gaslight me once about its contents, insinuating I was the liar or misremembering when I had intentionally obscured details.
When that didn’t get me to doubt myself, he promised to help me market my book. Yes, even after all the laughable Author Solutions drama he started.
When his offer to make me internet famous didn’t get me fawning over his generosity, I reached into my very effective Rodney repellent toolkit and blogged about him some more.
As if on cue, he scurried away from the truth like vampires running from daylight.
Who You Gonna Believe is “pretty good story telling,” he wrote via my contact form as I recovered from more chemo.
Anyway, it’s tiresome to promote this book because I am cancer weary and just generally not interested in book promotion. But money is tight after more health insurance shenanigans, so here I am. Asking you to tell a friend about it or read it if you haven’t yet.
(It’s free with ads. You don’t have to give up money to help me buy Dan’s meds this month.)
You can read the whole ebook—did I mention it’s free and infuriatingly funny?—on this website, right this very second.
Or you can subscribe to my Substack and get it delivered one chapter at a time, on the first of every month, to your email inbox.
Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 4: Liar, Liar:
I was born on March 4, 1980 at Gibson General Hospital with a fully functioning bullshit detector. I didn’t know how to use it, or even that I had one, until my mid-twenties though. Here’s how I discovered it:
One Tuesday circa 2006 or 2007 (I could probably pin down an exact date if I had the energy to dig, but I don’t) I was driving home from my part-time job at The Saturday Evening Post. Light from a Long John Silver’s sign reflected off the windshield of my Malibu and the AC vents pulled in hints of fried fish and seasoned salt. I was having some super serious dinner thoughts while waiting for the light to turn green when my cell phone started ringing. It was Rodney’s ringtone. I couldn’t dig it out of my bag. I was driving.
In fifth grade I had this teacher I absolutely could not respect, Mr. Nelson. Though I probably missed out on a lot of interpersonal nuance at the age of 11, the big issue for me then was his wishy-washy demeanor.
He played favorites, and I didn’t know what a double standard was yet. I merely thought it was entirely unfair that he would treat the girls as inferior. That was enough for me to dislike Mr. Nelson.
I didn’t like him one bit, and that distaste wouldn’t be contained. When my smart mouth got me in trouble, Mr. Nelson sent the school principal to jerk a figurative knot in my tail one day at recess.
I was not the kind of kid who got in trouble, so I was more offended than remorseful. I doubled down on the disrespect, but I kept it on the inside. Mostly.
I refined my stoic’s skills over the years, but I will still tell all when being “civil” is more dangerous or detrimental than sticking up for myself.
If you’ve read Who You Gonna Believe* or my blog over the years, you probably know I’m better at articulating my beefs these days. It’s not that I can’t handle people wanting different things than I do, it’s that I refuse to play with people pretending they want the same thing I do.
I’ll give you a couple fer instances.
Rodney could have avoided lots of humiliation if he’d said from day one “I want to cheat” instead of “monogamy is my favorite.” Then the onus would have been on me to walk away. There’d be no written record of anything.
It’s a sure way (though not the only way) to elicit disrespect from me, the cowardice of deception. When I fought Lincoln Financial Group for promising insurance and then doing everything they could to not pay, for example, it really pissed me off.
My thinking was, hey, I didn’t force LFG to sell me private disability insurance. I didn’t force them to market it to me, a woman who might one day dare to use it.
Maybe they should have been a Fortune 500 florist or something. Then if I tried to get my insurance payout, they could point, laugh, call me absurd, and send me GIFs of clueless John Travolta.
I was going somewhere with all this.
Oh, yeah. I don’t respect the Supreme Court Justices who decided to kick the immunity decision back to the lower court in D.C.
Just say you’re sweet on fascism and let us plan accordingly. Fucking cowards.
I got my first literary agent rejection letter on Sunday, and I feel so alive. I’m not sure that’s a normal response for writers to have. I think I’m supposed to feel bitter resentment. But things have been pretty dull here for a while, which severely exacerbates bored depression.
I’ve counted ceiling tiles a few too many times already.
The agent’s email was kind, explaining how Who You Gonna Believe didn’t fit into her current list of working titles. But I still wonder how straightforward the rejections are.
Like does she genuinely think the manuscript sounds intriguing, or is she just saying that because I have brain cancer and she doesn’t want to hurt my feelings?
I run into the hurt feelings thing a lot, as you might imagine. It doesn’t make me mad. It just makes me wonder. I appreciate that people are trying to be nice, but I also appreciate bluntness because it protects my energy reserves.
I’m probably one of few who would rather hear, “this is not marketable in any universe” than “it’s not for me.” Provided it’s true, of course.
Which is why I was trying to get feedback before querying in the first place. I thought it would save me the agony of deciphering. I was protecting myself.
By the way, I rejected all of those proposals I mentioned previously because I didn’t have the energy to interpret responses. (That’s not a reason listed in Reedsy’s drop-down menu, in case you were wondering.)
That’s the story of my first rejection letter, dull as it is. Maybe one day I will wish I could remember it, but for now it feels very forgettable. It was as impactful as a cookie-cutter reply from HR after submitting the first resume and cover letter of a job search.
Welp, that didn’t go how I thought it would. I heard back from 4 of the 5 publishing pros on Reedsy that I contacted yesterday, and the quotes I received ranged from $60 to $500.
What?
They all got the same project summary from me, requesting a query letter review, but only one of them didn’t change the project scope in their proposal, and I’m frustrated.
One of them started proofreading my writing sample in their reply. While I appreciate the extra labor and the helpful intent, that’s a completely separate process.
Thanks, but no.
One of them told me, “I normally charge $325, but for you $225” and I felt like I was buying art off a poorly-lit boat from some character named Redd (or purchasing a used car from some dude with a combover wearing a leisure suit if you don’t play Animal Crossing).
And I’m sorry. What is happening right now?
And another was like, “I’ll write the query myself, and you can use it or not.” (That was the one that cost $500 because it required reading my entire manuscript.)
What? No.
No no no no no.
Suddenly there are four new carts in front of one poor, befuddled horse.
I’ll think about what to do, but I’m feeling a little overwhelmed. I was hoping to pay for help simplifying the query process, and now it’s exponentially more complicated to me. Do. Not. Want.
Should I query agents without feedback on my pitch first? Do I not know how to do this, or do I lack confidence? Both? Publishing could be rewarding, but it’s sounding pretty costly to me in terms of energy expenditures.
Even if I managed to find a self-publishing company I trusted (y’all know I have battle scars there), I don’t really want to manage the process.
Not that long ago, I said I was letting Who You Gonna Believe go. I was tired of treating myself to the trauma. But then a funny thing happened.
My website was doing some serious numbers.* And that got me thinking maybe I should try to do something with this memoir I spent so much time on. Maybe I should try to make something of it. For the traffic gods.
I updated the digital cover, started promoting links and using excerpts to garner interest, and the next thing I know I was reading and proofreading the damn thing. Without angst, without feeling like I was waterboarding myself with toilet water.
I even thought to myself a couple of times that maybe I can write. I was barrelling through chapters like they were well-composed. Or at least well-enough composed. Maybe letting the work stagnate was a bad idea.
Then last night, I had a dream where instead of my ex-husband refusing to leave, he just walked away when I told him to piss off. That never happens!
I was laughing at parts of the story and remembering how much joy and laughter entered my life when Dan showed up.
I think I’m healed?
I’d still like to actually reach people with it. Have someone edit it. Format it for ebook. Turn it into an audiobook. But I’m not really in a position healthwise where I can accomplish any of that, let alone all of it. So I’ll just let those dreams simmer.
Anyhoo, I’m going to continue proofing today and think about how I can get more people to read it. I really do think there’s a there there, if I can just clarify the vision a little.
* Another funny thing happened. Turns out my search numbers were inflated by 4/20, and after everyone was good and high, things settled down some.
To be perfectly clear, I know this isn’t the most orthodox way to teach someone how to write a memoir in 10 Steps, but I submit that if you’re hung up on the literal how-to’s of writing a memoir, you aren’t really ready.
I don’t feel like diagramming sentences today.
That, and rudimentary how-to articles are largely about giving you the confidence to do a thing anyway. You can absolutely do this thing, but you should prepare first. Because if the surprising stuff turns out not to be a surprise, you’re basically unstoppable.
Forget what others have said about you (well don’t literally forget, you might need the fodder) and be prepared to look at your past self objectively. Lassoing that objectivity is even harder than it sounds, but it’s possible.
There are some faults you’re going to want to absolve yourself of in your writing—for me, naivety and cluelessness topped the list—don’t do it. You have to be willing to let readers see the warts. If your story is going to be relatable—if you’re serious about memoir writing—you must be authentic.
Absolution may still come to you, but not by glossing over the bits you don’t like. Be ready to criticize yourself. A lot.
2. Relive Your Trauma
I wasn’t prepared for the buried trauma that writing a memoir would resurface. I thought I was, but I was kidding myself. I literally had to take breaks and ultimately end my memoir to stop the constant onslaught of PTSD triggers.
3. Give People Fake Names
This is probably obvious, but there’s a certain kind of person you’ll need to write about who still Googles herself 15 years later. To avoid the headaches, just change her name.
Because even your best attempts at keeping ties severed may be thwarted.
My ex-husband actually joined my Patreon even though I did my best to rename people and switch up identifying characteristics. That’s a real thing that happened.
There are legal considerations too, but I am not a lawyer. If you have qualms, hire an attorney, please.
4. Find Enablers
Aside from needing money to pay bills after having brain surgery, there were a couple of motivating factors that kept me writing:
A former employer (who I name-drop in the preface of Who You Gonna Believe) and a couple of online friends behaved in such a way that I believed I could write.
All of them read my blog at some point and encouraged me to write a memoir. I channeled them when I doubted I could succeed.
5. Hold a Grudge Loudly
There’s a great quote that I have seen floating around the internet attributed to Anne Lamott. (I see it a lot without attribution too, so who knows?) It goes something like: You own everything that’s ever happened to you. If people wanted you to write nicely about them, they should have behaved better.
You might feel like it’s in your best interest to withhold certain facts, but you don’t owe anyone your silence. You hear me?
6. Be Discouraged
Some people will say that memoir writers just want revenge. I, for example, fit the divorcee and undiagnosed cliches, since so much of the story is about my lousy ex-husband and my subsequent long slog to a medical diagnosis.
The naysayers discouraged me, not gonna lie. But then a funny thing happened: I realized they weren’t my readers and weren’t ever going to be my audience. Caring about their opinions was like asking the guy who sells gym memberships if my dress made me look fat.
7. Read Other Memoirs
You might just learn stuff you didn’t know would help you write. My favorite reads while I wrote Who You Gonna Believe were by John Lewis, Jenny Lawson, Leah Remini, and Mary Karr.
The odd thing about memoir writing is that it makes you self-aware. You see that other people have profoundly different stories to tell and feel like maybe your life isn’t that big of a deal. I say that’s a good thing.
Not only did a sense of smallness help me see my trauma as a mouse and not a monster, it helped me relate to my audience in a new way and craft a better story for them.
9. Write for Spite
So maybe spite isn’t what fuels you, but it was a big motivating factor for me—knowing that the awful people who denied so much of my truth couldn’t stop me now. That was empowering.
Yeah, I can be petty. I wrote to spite them, but also to spite the person they imagined me to be. The person I knew I wasn’t.
10. Dig Up Your Past
As a practical matter, memoir writing can be hard because our memories are faulty. I found I could settle the timeline of events if I dug through old blog posts.
You might also find helpful details by talking to friends and family, reading a journal you kept, or poring over pictures.
Social media timelines and archived chats are also useful if you have them available.
So that’s it. How to write a memoir in 10 steps. Easy, right? Pfft.
To celebrate last night’s insomnia, I updated the cover image for WHO YOU GONNA BELIEVE and posted an epilogue for closure.
It’s funny, because I remember when Hank Green was promoting his first book, he said in a video something like, “You can just end a book wherever you want.”
It seemed kind of obvious to me at the time. Like, of course you can end a book however and whenever you want. But then I also stressed over wrapping up this memoir for months. So it’s also an epiphany. I get it now.
I couldn’t just say “the end” and wave my proverbial wand at everything. I had to come to terms with being done, I suppose.
Because, I don’t know, I have a brain tumor? Because finishing might mean I can go ahead and die now?
I almost included that Hank Green anecdote in the epilogue, but since I name dropped the other Vlogbrother in the preface, I opted to not be that kind of weird.
Shut up. Name dropping here is different. It isn’t weird.
While I was checking WYGB links, formatting chapters, and double-checking the Table of Contents page last night, I also realized I stopped writing in an okay—maybe even artsy—place anyway.
So read it. It’s free. It’s sorta funny. It’s my revenge or something.
In other news, congratulations to me for getting 500 pageviews yesterday! And after just hoping for that very thing on Monday!
I’m not going to repeat that success today, unfortunately, but it was fun to watch my counter go up after someone big apparently shared my How to Make Cannabutter article on Facebook.
Facebook is good for being seen, but it’s not great for sustained traffic. Once your link slides down the news feed, you’re basically just a hunk of Velveeta in someone’s lactose-intolerant colon.
At the risk of being (more) annoying, I gotta plug this GoFundMe crap again too. I got bills. They’re multiplyin’.
It’s my birthday! I woke up earlier than usual this morning from a dream. That dream included a figure from my past, and my early morning mind went down a rabbit hole of thoughts including this one:
I’m not going to finish my memoir, because I don’t want to.
When I started Who You Gonna Believe a few years ago, I did a little research on memoir writing. One thing that came up frequently was authors saying how emotionally raw writing their stories left them.
Pfft! “This isn’t that hard,” I said to myself, digging in for another chapter.
Reader, in hindsight writing that shit was brutal. I’d dive into a story, trying to think about a scene and how to write it only to discover a year or two later that I was ruminating on terrible things not in the chapter. Things I didn’t include in the manuscript, but things that were essential to remember if I wanted to convey anything meaningful.
Then I’d have to think about the terrible things in the context of how to anonymize the written details. Then I’d have to read what I wrote for editing.
However well I thought I’d done, it was not a labor of love.
But I felt obligated to keep going for reasons, and I genuinely thought one day I’d write “The End” and walk away mostly unscathed.
In doing meditation and introspection regarding my anxiety, though, I recognized two things: 1.) writing a memoir requires living in the past, at least sometimes, and 2.) healing trauma requires being present.
Others might be good at moving back and forth between moments in time, but I am not. And so as a birthday gift to myself, I’m just walking away from this thing. Not a quitter, but—as always—a fighter.
The past couple of weeks have been eventful, just not so much in my online life. Mom came to our house here in Urbana to help us with landscaping. (And when I say helped, I pretty much mean she did everything because she is the best mom on the planet.)
There are plans in the works to get the shutters and trim on the house painted, but first: estimates. It really makes me happy to look at the prettied-up yard this year. Because last year during the pandemic, we didn’t have the money or motivation to do much of anything with the yard.
After Mom spent a few days here helping us out, I went back to stay with her for a bit. One of my brothers and I worked on getting more things sorted at her house. My Dad had a pretty ginormous model railroad thing going in the basement, so Ryan worked on that while mom sorted documents and I shredded the stuff that couldn’t be recycled.
It was hard work in that it tugged a lot of nostalgic strings, but it was good to get Mom several steps closer to a more manageable household. One evening she and I assembled a lateral file cabinet together. The instructions were terrible (there were no words, only pictures) but after two hours, we got it done and she made me a root beer float as a reward.
We also talked more about Dan and I moving to be closer to her and my brother and sister-in-law, and we are thinking the best idea might be to make a separate living space by finishing Mom’s basement. My brother the architect is willing to help us with plans. Also, because Mom’s place is only about 30 minutes from St. Louis, it would mean we’d be closer to Siteman Cancer Center if/when I need treatment again.
Speaking of the cancer stuff. I did have a consultation with a neuro-oncologist at Siteman last week, and the news actually brought me a little relief. The doctor said that it’s not clear whether the growth they’re seeing on my recent MRIs is cancer growth (if so, I’m a little ahead of schedule based on what they know about my kind of tumor) or if it’s radiation necrosis (if so, the timeline seems to fit).
At the moment, the only way to be certain is for them to biopsy the area they are seeing and look at the cells under a microscope. Having had one brain surgery already, I’m not really excited about the idea of another one. And because of the location (my medulla) doctors aren’t really eager to start digging around in there either. For now all the doctors involved in my case seem to be recommending another MRI in three months.
I think a huge factor in waiting is that I’m not experiencing new or worsening neurologic symptoms and the growth is small. With a little time it could become more obvious which treatment plan is needed, and in the meantime I can live my life knowing that there are treatments available for either scenario.
Anyway, I’m still a little uncertain when my next Zentangle video will be as I still have a lot of to-do’s that take priority. But I am feeling the itch to draw again and set up my bullet journal for May (I skipped April) so that I can keep things sorted a little better in my mind.
***
WELL FUUUUUUUUUUCK. It’s a couple of hours later, and I just heard that they want me to do low-dose chemotherapy again. I mean, it makes sense. I don’t disagree with their recommendation. But I was just starting to see some daylight after losing my dad, and now I’m preparing to be broke, fight insurance all over again, and just generally have no energy to even wipe my own ass.
