Postmodern Sass: The First Two Years

Two years ago today I began writing Postmodernes Sprachspielen, and I remember vividly the catalyst: It was Jack standing me up for Carly and Simon's wedding.

It's something I've done since I was eight years old: I write when I'm upset. When I'm hurt, or depressed, or lonely, or sad, or angry, or afraid, or I feel like a fool, I write. And when I've finished, and after I've reread what I've written a dozen times or so, I feel better. It is both pennance and catharsis.

Until I sat at John Steinbeck's desk last week, I thought that, if I were ever to be happy, I'd stop writing.



See, that's usually what happens with me. I know, because I was happy for almost seventeen years with X, and I hardly wrote at all during that time. I felt that I couldn't, you see, because I wouldn't be honest in my writing, because he might read it, and I didn't want to become like Alice Munro, who I hear isn't welcome in her hometown.

The irony is, he left me anyway, and it was because of something I wrote.

That was when I began work on my PhD. A major writing project, in which I need not be honest.

And now I have Jack, and I don't have Jack, and though he doesn't read what I write, when I write something about him, he reads it then, and he tells me, "I would never tell you what to write," and I know he means it sincerely, and yet, now that I live in California, his adopted home, and it is no longer an odds-astronomically-against coincidence that someone who reads my stories might know the real world "Jack," well, I'm writing in my Moleskine more these days.


Because that's just for me, and no one else.

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Postmodern Sass's Greatest Hits Volume IV

In April, Jack comes back into Sass's life just as she's about to fly to California for a job interview.

In May, it's time to start packing, so Sass sells some furniture to a woman from Planet Claire and paints her bathroom.

In June, the packing continues and Sass tells her dead mother she's moving to California, and her friend Genie discovers her blog.

In July, an old friend from Montreal is in town, performing in the theatre of the car. Sass flies back to San Jose to go apartment hunting. Cinderella and Sass argue about baskets, while Sass's friends argue about her farewell party.

In August, Postmodern Sass goes to the Moon with Jack, then bids farewell to Zee and Lulu, and her karaoke buddies, and waits for the moving truck. She arrives in California, only to be told to go away.

In September, in San Jose, Postmodern Sass gets a message from her dead mother, hangs the ceremonial orange towel in her new apartment, and gets back on the roller coaster with Jack.