[Warning: May induce vomiting.]

This past week, I vacationed with my friends for five days—our annual trip to Cape Cod, one we’ve taken for four years now. Everyone came to the Cape this year, all eight of us, plus two amazing kids and one mildly annoying (but lovable) dog.

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t take things for granted. As my previous post oh-so-subtly indicated, I’ve felt very lucky lately, and when life is especially good to me, I appreciate every minute of it. I stop and look around and take it all in. I capture it in my mind so that I can come back to it later, when things aren’t so good, so nearly perfect.

I will come back to this trip—to the fleeting moments in which I thought: This is it. Surrounded by the people I love most in this world, with so much good on the horizon, so much best yet to come, this is it. This is as good as it gets.

Because every cheesy declaration of love must be accompanied by a poem or song, below is mine. It is a song that expresses precisely how I feel about my friends.

Orange Sky
Alexi Murdoch

Well, I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
Yes, I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
With my brother standing by
With my brother standing by
I said, brother, you know, you know
It’s a long road we’ve been walking on
Brother you know it is, you know it is
Such a long road we’ve been walking on

And I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
With my sister standing by
With my sister standing by
I said, sister, here is what I know now
Here is what I know now
Goes like this
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, in your love, in your love

But, sister, you know I am so weary
And you know, sister
My heart’s been broken
Sometimes, sometimes
My mind is too strong to carry on
Too strong to carry on

When I’m alone
When I’ve thrown off the weight of this crazy stone
When I’ve lost all care for the things I own
That’s when I miss you, that’s when I miss you
You who are my home
You are my home

And here is what I know now
Here is what I know now
Goes like this
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, in your love, in your love

Well, I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
Yes, I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
With my brother and my sister standing by

[I wrote this at the end of July, but couldn’t post it until now, for fear of giving too much away and sharing news that I wasn’t supposed to share just yet. But the sentiments expressed still hold true. Even more so.]

It’s been hot in Boston for three weeks and counting. Humid and sticky and hot. For those of you who live in the South or the Midwest, three weeks is nothing. Three weeks is a walk in the park, a breeze, a we-wish scenario.

But up here in the Northeast, we’re not accustomed to it. Typically, our heat wave, if we have one, comes later—in August. And it lasts for about two weeks, tops. So we’re not prepared for this, not equipped. Boston’s buildings are old; central air is a foreign concept, a new-fangled technology that we’ve stubbornly resisted.

During Week One, people grumbled and groaned. As a city, we were lethargic and agitated. Everyone was tired. In a bad mood. People snapped at one another on the train. Bosses yelled at their employees. Children threw more tantrums in the supermarket.

As we entered Week Two, we complained. We wondered when the heat would let up, because surely it had to end soon, right? We made comments about global warming and saw a lot of movies to stay cool.

By Week Three, we had stopped our bitching and moaning. We resigned ourselves to the weather, to the high energy bills we’d pay as we overworked our AC window units. We took cold showers and sat in front of fans. The heat, it seemed, was here to stay. So we adapted. We hoped for a break, for a burst of low temperatures, but we expected heat. It had seeped into our lives, and we had no choice but to make the best of it.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I stepped out of my apartment this morning at 5:45 a.m. in a T-shirt and shorts, something I’ve done almost every day for the last two weeks, and felt cool air on my skin. I stood on the porch for a second or two, trying to decide whether or not I needed a sweatshirt. A sweatshirt.

I was dumbfounded. I got into my car and rolled down my window for the first time in three weeks, maybe more. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I wanted to kiss the air.

This year has been a tough one, for many reasons, for many of my loved ones and for me. It’s been the kind of year that makes you want to give up, to let go of whatever it is you’re hoping for; the kind of year that kicks you when you’re down, then kicks you one more time, for good measure.

Though I’ve always been the type of person who braces herself for bad things to happen, falling into a pit of depression and despair when they do, this year has been different. I’ve felt different. I haven’t had time for despair, haven’t had the luxury of sitting on my couch for days or weeks, eating boxes of Fudgesicles while watching Friends re-runs to ease my anxiety and numb my pain. Too many scary things have happened, and too many scary things might happen. The stakes are higher, and I’ve had no choice but to keep moving. To adapt. To hope for good things, but to expect the bad.

What I’m trying to say is: you get used to it, the heat, the way things currently are. And at some point, you stop thinking that they’ll be any different, any better. It isn’t hopelessness, or acceptance. It’s survival.

So when something does change—big or small—when something remarkable happens, when what you’re used to is turned on its head, and you’re presented with something you’ve wanted and hoped for, something you had started to think you’d never get, it’s terror-inducing. The fear is real and big and overwhelming, but so, too, is the joy.

I’m not sure if I believe in a higher power. I know that many people turn to faith or God or whomever in times of great need and sorrow, that they find comfort there. I don’t. I can count the number of times I’ve prayed—out of abject desperation—on two hands; some of my prayers have been answered, some haven’t.

Odd as it may be, it’s when good things, remarkable things happen—the heat wave breaks, the losing streak ends, the year of just getting by takes an unexpected turn—that I wish I was a true believer. I wish I believed because then I would have someone to thank. Today, my gratitude is immense, and if I believed, I would get down on my knees and say thank you. I would say it all day and all night, all week or all month; I would say it over and over again and wouldn’t stop until I believed it—until I believed my good fortune.

And then I’d say it one more time, for good measure.

Before I moved to Boston five years ago, I lived in a glorified studio in Alexandria, Virginia. While I’d love to wax nostalgic about the modest, cave-like hovel that I called home for three years and confess that, in hindsight, I really loved it, I can’t. The truth is, I hated that apartment.

Part of my hate had to do with the apartment itself (in particular its low ceilings, ratty carpeting, and the fact that you had to walk through the bedroom closet to get to the bathroom); part of it had to do with the management company that owned it (run by a boozy alcoholic and staffed by a mean, burnt-out security guard and three people who collectively spoke three words of English); and part of it had to do with where I was in my life at the time (working a job that bored me and dating a boy who lived very far away, one who later dumped me on my ass and sent me spiraling into a depressed, comatose oblivion). Regardless of the reasons, I hated my home and, by extension, hated my life.

Two months before my move, when I came to Boston for a three-day apartment search, I knew one thing and one thing only: I wanted to love my apartment. I wanted rooms! I wanted hardwood floors! I wanted to be able to invite people over without feeling shame and embarrassment! I arrived in town, rented a car, and, using an actual printed atlas, drove around the unknown city, meeting realtors and viewing apartments.

Some were okay. Some were complete and total dumps. But when I got to my apartment, I just knew. I knew in the way that women in romantic comedies “just know” that they’ve met “the one.” Sunlight poured over the hardwood floors, casting a faint glow over everything in the apartment: high ceilings, an eat-in kitchen, three closets, and a hallway—hallway!—connecting the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. While other prospective renters milled about the place, inspecting moldings and speaking to one another in low tones, I grabbed the current renter, shoved my checkbook in his face, and told him I’d take it.

I’ve spent the last five years in that impulse-buy. Like any long-term relationship, we’ve had our ups and downs. There were the mice incidents of ’05, ’06, and ’07, and the subsequent terror-induced out-of-body experiences. Parking is more or less an impossibility, and on many late-night occasions, I’ve fought the urge to drive my car into a brick wall. The dumpster out back attracts a certain kind of animal that scares me more than serial killers. My cupboards sag, my counters are covered in contact paper to conceal the nastiness underneath, the sound my toilet makes upon flushing could wake the dead, and my shower is, well, unique.

But, much like my affection for this ridiculous Bay State city, my love for my apartment has never wavered. It has been my home, my first true home since leaving the original one, with the mom and the dad and the brother, thirteen years ago.

This weekend, I’m moving. Into a bigger place in a better location with my best friends. I’m excited about this, excited to be moving forward with my life, excited to be living once again with people I consider to be my family. Just as my previous moves—from St. Louis to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh to DC, and DC to Boston—set my life in motion, pushing me closer and closer to where I’m meant to be, this move has prompted a similar feeling: of possibility, potential, something good on the horizon. It is the right thing for me to be doing at this moment in time, and I know that with the certainty of a hundred romantic comedy morons.

Yet this week, as I’ve packed up my books and dishes and clothing, stripping my apartment of everything that made it a home, everything that made it mine, I haven’t been able to shake my blues.

When I graduated from college, my mom gave me a small decorative pillow that reads, “Home is where you make it.” Cheesy and cliché, yes. But the sentiment was exactly what I needed as I loaded my Subaru and left my hometown, and immediate family, for good.

The older I get, the truer that phrase becomes. Though place is important, it’s really the people in your life, the relationships that you have and the strength and power of those connections, that make a home.

As I say goodbye to the place that witnessed such pivotal years of my life—the years in which I became a writer and began what I’m sure will be a lifelong battle with the demons that hold me back—I am comforted by the fact that I will take my home with me, that my home will forever be where my family is, whether they’re across town or in the bedroom down the hall. My friends are my home, and though moving on and moving forward is, for me, always bittersweet, I honestly can’t wait to see where the next five years will take us.

I’ve never kept a journal. I’ve tried. About 15 times. I’m a writer, after all. We’re supposed to really dig journals and write in them every single day. But every journal I’ve ever started ends after about one or two (really lame) entries. Then it’s nothing but blank pages. And my kind hates blank pages.

I’ve given it some thought, and here’s what I’ve come up with as to why I can’t embrace the journal:

1. There’s no audience. Apparently, I need this, regardless of whether or not my stuff gets read. When I write, I assume that at some point, someone, anyone, will read my writing. So in a sense, I’m addressing those people; I’m writing for them (as well as for myself). But a journal? I simply can’t bring myself to write for or to an inanimate object. I tend to ask a lot of questions in my writing (Why does the world suck so hard? How do we survive it? Why do we survive it?), but as much as I’d like it to, a cheap empty book of paper sure as shit can’t answer them.
2. It’s too forced. Dear Inanimate Object, Today I went to work. It was fine. Afterwards, I went over to J and Cris’s for dinner, and everyone got really drunk and hated on one another. I said a lot of dumb stuff, mostly because I’m really sad about the fact that my dad has cancer and scared that he’s going to die. It really sucks. But tomorrow’s another day! Your pal, Julie. The thing is, I’m slow to process and express myself. This is why I’m a writer. I think too much and need more time to express those thoughts. They can’t be rushed or forced. Trust me. I’ve tried.
3. I sound like a fucking idiot. See #1 and #2. After I’m dead, and my children are wading through the crap that was my life, I don’t want them stumbling upon a journal that confirms what they’ve always suspected: their mother is a complete and total moron with absolutely nothing interesting to say. This may be true, but I don’t want to leave them with hard evidence.

In college, as a super nerdy wanna-be writer, I would jot down passages from my favorite books. I would photocopy poems or clip quotations out of magazines that spoke to me or perfectly expressed how I felt. I accrued so many of these clippings and copies and quotes that I started taping them into a notebook. Only when I had filled two of these notebooks did I realize that this was my way of keeping a journal.

Because I seem to be equally bad at maintaining this blog, in addition to Julie originals, I plan to post some writing that you’d find in my kind of journal. Not necessarily because I’m lazy (which I am), but because most of the time, other writers just write it so much better.

Those Winter Sundays
By Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

My good friend and fellow writer Liz recently interviewed Nina Garcia. You know, the judge on a little TV show called Project Runway. Her interview resulted in not one, but two stellar articles:

“Nina Garcia’s 5 Quick Fashion Fixes for Moms”

“Nina Garcia’s Six Sophisticated Staples No Woman Should Live Without”

I know. My friends are pretty darn cool.

A while back, my best friend Lizzi gave me a tough-love speech about my writing.

“You don’t know how lucky you are,” she told me. “So many people don’t know what they want to do with their lives. You do. You do, and you’re not doing it.”

She had (has) a point.

My other friends express the occasional interest/concern, too. Just this past week, my friend Adam asked me about The Book.

I attempted to dodge him, mumbling something about if I wanted to work on it I would and when the time is right and I’ll get to it eventually. Sensing my neuroses, he said, “I’m not sure whether or not to ask about it. It’s probably annoying, huh?”

But the truth is, it wasn’t (isn’t). No, I told him. It’s good for me to be reminded of That Gift I’ve Been Given That I Haven’t Been Doing Shit With. My squandered talent. The thing that I supposedly love to do and yet don’t. Good to be reminded, because I spend a lot of time trying not to think about it. Because when I do think about it, I can’t come up with a good reason why. Why I continue to squander and ignore and waste and dodge.

Theories abound. I’m afraid? Maybe. I don’t think I’m talented, good enough, interesting enough, enough enough enough to “make it?” Probably. I’m lazy and just want to watch TV for the rest of my life? Perhaps. I write marketing copy all day and can’t muster any more creativity in my spare time? Could be. The Book and the issue of what the fuck to do with it and how the fuck to re-write it have so mentally constipated me that I’m literally unable to work on anything else? A good guess. I’m not really excited about my life and haven’t had sex in a very long time or been in a relationship since Bush’s first term? Okay. A combination of all of these things and more? Sure, why not?

My point being: I have no fucking clue why I’d rather write about not writing than write something of actual substance. And without understanding the why, I’m not quite sure how to overcome the problem, other than just telling myself to get off my ass and goddammit do something already. But that hasn’t really been working out so well for me.

Own worst enemy? Yep, that would be me.

My only consolation is that I’m not alone. Other writers experience the same damn issues. In her post on writeforyourlife.net, a site about writing that I read in lieu of writing myself, Manuela Boyle breaks it down:

There are lots of us writers who make their living doing the thing they love; and yet as a result, don’t make their living in the way they’d really love.

What I’m trying to say is that the writing skillset is like France: much bigger than you thought when you get there, and that if you’ve got talent, then hell, make like Simon Cowell and put it to work.

But let’s pause and think about the writer’s gentle soul awhile. Some of the copywriters I know have literary or non-fiction ambitions; others quite simply, don’t.

Some are lazy when it comes to that magnus opus, some think they’ll eventually get round to it, and others know their own creative practice is good for them, like greens are, but don’t want to participate.

A handful—and here’s the type that impresses me most—do both. They write copy in the day, and create worlds of their own by night.

What of the writer who is (g) all of the above? What will light a fire under her ass? Though a better question might be: If the fire isn’t already lit, is it even worth hunting around for those matches?

In middle school, I decided that I wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to write, and this seemed like the most “practical” approach. I envisioned myself interviewing people, writing under tight deadlines, and working in a frantic office where everyone had had too much coffee. Neither one of my parents drank coffee, so I envisioned it as something that other, more exciting adults did. Something that professional journalists did.

When I entered high school, I signed up to write for the school paper. I was assigned to the features section, and for a while, this suited me just fine. News could be boring, I reasoned. Feature articles would allow me to flex my creative muscles and write about real people and the things that were important to them. I am and always have been a human-interest kind of girl.

Every month, my editor would assign a topic, and at first, I loved it. I wrote about the “fun” stuff, wrote the articles that people would actually read—about Valentine’s Day and beloved childhood toys and the reasons that teenagers spent so much time on the phone.

But after a year or so, I was bored. I wrote my articles during my lunch period, an hour before they were due. I had mastered the features formula: catchy lede, set-up, quote, transition, quote, transition, quote, transition, quote, cute full-circle concluding sentence. And my assigned topics got dumber and more ridiculous. One of the last articles I wrote was about PDA. Public displays of affection. During a free period, I had wandered the halls of my school, interrupting couples mid-grope to ask them why. Why are you touching your girlfriend’s breast in the library?

So, when the newspaper advisor offered me an opportunity to write an op-ed, I jumped at the chance. Maybe this was my true calling! I thought. I would use my words to take a stand, to convince people that I was right and that they were wrong. My articles would have substance!

My assigned topic: homophobia. Was homophobia a problem in our school? The year was 1995: of course homophobia was a problem. I got to work, discussing the topic at length with my friends and teachers. And I listened. I listened as boys called one another “faggots” and passed judgment with “that’s so gay.” I asked my fellow students why they used these expressions and received some interesting answers. I poured my heart into that article, believing that it could open a dialogue and, in some very small way, actually make a difference.

But all of my hard work was for nothing. My advisor had wanted an op-ed that expressed her opinion, one that wouldn’t ruffle any feathers or include the “f” word. Re-write it, she told me, and argue the other side. In other words, my advisor wanted me to lie. Worse, she wanted me to compromise my entire belief system, the very core of my being, the kind of person I aspired to be.

I was enraged. I told her that I quit, and marched into my guidance counselor’s office, demanding that he drop me from the newspaper. I fought back tears as I explained what had happened.

“This is absolutely no problem,” he assured me. “You’re doing the right thing.”

As it so happened, my guidance counselor, in addition to being sympathetic and understanding, was gay.

That night, I told my mom that I had quit the newspaper. She had just walked through the door, and was distracted, sifting through the mail.

“What?” she said, whipping her head up to look at me. “Why?” She knew how important my journalistic aspirations were to me.

I broke down then. I had never quit anything in my life, and this had been my dream. More than anything, though, I was so disappointed. So disillusioned. How could the world work like this? How did people who cared as much as I did even stand a chance?

I cried and cried, and when I stopped, my mom told me that she was proud of me. For quitting? I asked. No, she said. For standing up for what you believe in.

Today is my 31st birthday. It’s much calmer, much more relaxed than 30 was. One might call it anticlimactic, but that implies a let-down of some kind, unfulfilled expectations, and I don’t feel that way. The nice thing about relaxed is that it allows you to contemplate your age, your life, and your accomplishments in a productive way.

I was reminded of the above story this past weekend, and thought that it was a fitting 31st birthday tale. People who have lived through their 30s often tell me that it’s the best decade, that you know yourself so much better and subsequently have an easier time of it, enjoy it more.

I may have given up on a childhood dream when I was 16, but at 31, I am thankful for that experience—and where it led me. I am thankful for the people who have shaped me, shaped my life, made it better.

As I move further and further into adulthood, I hope for many things. But mostly, I hope that I continue to be the kind of person who makes her mother proud.

[This time of year, every blogger writes the obligatory, heartfelt giving-thanks post, listing the things that he or she is thankful for. I think it’s, like, a law in the blogger handbook, to of course be followed by the reflections on the past year/new year’s resolutions post.]

Many years ago—twelve years, to be precise—my family hosted Thanksgiving. Our dining room table was stretched thin (the extensions had come out), chockfull of close extended family members and friends of friends. Some of the people there I had only met once or twice.

For the first time in Bogart family history, someone suggested that we go around the table and each say what we were thankful for. (Typically, and ever since, we just shovel food into our faces, competing with one another for the Who Can Eat the Most and Say the Least title.) My turn came last, and I supplied a doozy:

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m not really thankful for anything this year.”

“Nothing?” my mom said. She stared at me as if I’d just slapped her.

“Nope. Not really.” I shrugged.

“Well, okay then,” she said, trying to cut the brief tension with some humor. “I guess Julie has absolutely nothing to be thankful for. Her life is horrible. Let’s eat.”

I should explain. At the time, I was a freshman in college. A few weeks earlier, doctors had discovered a tumor on my boyfriend’s brain. He was spending the holiday by himself in a hospital in Philadelphia, far away from my hometown of St. Louis, recovering from brain surgery.

My euphoria at having found love for the first time in my life had been quickly followed by hospital visits, anxiety-induced bed-wetting, and the contemplation of death. In other words, in the span of three months, I had experienced my highest high (true happiness) and my lowest low (gut-wrenching agony). In other, other words, I was kind of fucked. I was also 18 and prone to the melodramatic.

Thanksgiving that year had come at the worst possible time in the worst possible way, and I flipped the holiday off with both middle fingers.

Flash-forward twelve years to the present day, and the present holiday. Four weeks ago, my dad was diagnosed with stage II colon cancer. He had surgery to remove the tumor, and in the upcoming weeks, he will most likely undergo chemotherapy. I’m not going to lie and say that, because I’m older and wiser, I’m fine. Because I’m not. I’m sad and I’m scared and I’m dealing.

But, and here’s the part where older and wiser do come into play, I know now that whatever happens, I will survive it. This year, I have many, many things to be thankful for. My dad’s cancer was caught early, and it hasn’t spread, for starters. But also at the top of my list are the people who have seen me through this. They are the people who will be there for me always, no matter the highs or lows, the people who bring joy to my life every single day, even when there’s cancer.

They are my friends. And even on Thanksgiving, I can’t thank them enough.

I have a new article up at Sirens Magazine: “Doing the (Post-Divorce) Deed.”

Again, I think the title sums it up quite nicely. It’s never too late to get some action.

[Update 12.1.09: AlterNet re-printed (posted) my article.]

One of the challenges of writing memoir is that there are so many ways to tell a single story. So many different points of view (who will be the narrator?), so many slight variations on memory. I remember it one way, she remembers it a different way. Who’s to say which one is true?

All you can do is remain true to your own memory, and to tell the story, your story, the story of your family or friends, as truthfully as you remember it. As truthfully as you feel it.

In her novel, No One You Know, Michelle Richmond writes:

Every story is flawed, every story is subject to change. Even after it is set down in print, between the covers of a book, a story is not immune to alteration. People can go on telling it in their own way, remembering it the way they want. And in each telling the ending may change, or even the beginning. Inevitably, in some cases it will be worse, and in others it just might be better. A story, after all, does not only belong to the one who is telling it. It belongs, in equal measure, to the one who is listening.

As I begin to re-write my own memoir (soon? One day? Years from now? This week?), as I start over from the beginning, though the characters and setting and events will remain the same, the story could change. Hopefully (please? Pretty please?) for the better.