My Darling, My Parasite

I plunk my ass in a chair next to an unassuming twenty-something hipster type. The writing workshop I’ve been waiting for with bated breath is finally here. Lynda Barry live, breathing, to be in front of me in mere minutes. The vibe is mellow. Mainly 30-something and older women ready to get our writing groove on with a few bespectacled fellows to keep things diverse. I feel more like myself today than I have in ages. I’m still adjusting to the post-miscarriage me and coming to terms with the fact that this experience has changed me in ways that I didn’t expect. Who knew that miscarriages would turn saying a simple sentence, a simple answer to “How’s it going? What’s been up with you all?” into a scramble for words. I don’t want to lie, but I don’t want to walk around laying miscarriage bummers on all my friends.

The pregnant woman sits down behind me. The matronly woman beside her breaks my concentration on my Pelecanos paperback, the leftover easy reader from jury duty earlier in the week that I brought to keep me company in the quiet moments between writing.

“So when’s the big day?” The woman asks from the table behing me.

“Any day now. I am so ready for Audrey to get here.” Her voice is sharp and nasally like Courtney Love.

“Audrey’s a pretty name.” The woman coos.

Of all the places I could sit in this room of 50 seats, I end up in front of the pregnant woman. Fucking great.

“Yeah, I was going to wait until I met her, but then I realized that I’d already been getting to know her. She’s an Audrey,” Courtney says.

I resist the urge to turn around and take her and her swollen belly in for a moment. Then I can’t resist. I steal a glimpse over my shoulder. The picture I have in my head of Courtney is not far off from the reality: late 20s, round, protruding belly (you can’t get anything past me), dyed black hair in crooked pigtails, wearing slouchy jeans and a faded black band tee. I give myself a pep talk. You cannot dislike women because they are pregnant, because they speak about their pregnancy like the majority of women who’ve never stared down the barrel of a bad ultrasound.

But I sure can dislike somebody for raising her hand to read aloud at every freaking opportunity.

This writing workshop is unique in that the class is instructed to keep our heads down, “working on our spiral” while people read from their assignments. As we doodle spirals and the alphabet, the teacher, Lynda Barry, goes around the room to call on people who have their hands raised and want to read. As you may have noticed, I have a definite sense of how things should be done. I have unspoken rules. I’m a bit of a Larry David without the clit to act on my code beyond a disappointed look or mutter. The same goes doubly true for writing workshops. The first day I (arbitrarily) decide that reading 1-3 times per day is acceptable. You have to give the other folks a chance. You have to keep some of your writing for yourself.

Courtney does not respect my code of the Lynda Barry writing workshop. She stomps all over it by not only reading every time, but raising her hand so fast that she is the first reader most times.

Before Mr. Crud dropped me off at the workshop, he spaketh these wise words, “Don’t be so quick to find a bete noir. Maybe try not looking for one at all.”

I snorted. “Yeah right. I mean, I’ll do my best.”

My best didn’t last very long.

That night I gave Mr. Crud the news. “I couldn’t do it. I have a bete noir.”

“Oh dingles.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But she read every time. And she talked about her pregnancy in that fake-complaining-bragging way.”

I reassure myself that it’s not the pregnancy that is bugging me so much as the breach in writing workshop etiquette. I want to look around and see if anyone else is annoyed, if any other eyes dart up from being bent over our spiral doodles, but fear attracting the attention and ire of my idol. Don’t be such a jerk, I say to myself.

Ahem, loving kindness anyone?

Day 2 begins with a group sing-a-long to the Underpants Gnomes theme song. Promising to say the least. I am in full-on brain crush mode for all things Lynda Barry. I scribble words that I hope will evoke the anecdotes and jokes she tells. Words to seed my retelling of the workshop to Mr. Crud later that day.

Our second assignment is to write something inspired by the word “Shock.” My first image is the darkened ultrasound room. Ah jeez, I chide myself, can we let that one be for a day? I have written recently and extensively on my close encounters with miscarriage shock. I write about something else.

After the requisite 8 minutes of writing, we bow our heads and begin our spirals. Out of the corner of my eye I catch the next reader and quickly look back to my spiral. She reads haltingly of the day that she learned she was pregnant and excitedly told her husband. Her voice grows quieter as she navigates the words, pausing to sniff back tears. I feel my eyes growing full. Oh no oh no oh no. I wanted to escape miscarriage for this weekend, for these precious 6 hours, but there is nowhere to run.

The woman takes a deep breath and reads the final sentence of the piece, her husband’s reaction to her pregnancy announcement. “Don’t get too excited. Sometimes these things don’t stick.” She breaks down into sobs. I want to run and sling an arm around her slight shoulders. “Did it take?” I want to ask her. Did it?

Tears are not uncommon during the course of the workshop. Men and women push back against the waters churning within. My turn comes during the lunch break. Lynda is signing books. I feel like a dope for forgetting my books. I’m not big on book signings. They feel weird to me. The purpose of the book signing is more a ruse to facilitate contact with the writer. Silly me, I have forgotten my ruse. Courtney plops down next to Lynda and inserts herself into every conversation Lynda has with the workshop participants lined up to get books signed.

“Audrey is totally going to read all your books,” she says.

“Do I sign it to you or Audrey?” Lynda asks.

Across the room I turn back to my PB & J and fume. It’s always the loud girls who command the attention of the writers I love. Likely because the writers are awkward and quiet like me and can relax into the feeling of not having to make conversation.

The woman who read her “Shock” piece sits a few tables over from me, picking at a bowl of noodles. Like me she is eavesdropping on Lynda and the booksignees. Her shoulders are stiff, her face closed and tight. Her lips are a thin lipsticked red line. When I look at her eyes I have to look away, the intensity of the sadness is so strong. I may cry if I look at her too long. Did it take? I still want to ask. Did it?

I crumple my napkin. Lynda is rubbing Courtney’s belly and kissing it. “For Audrey,” she says joyously.

Jealousy flashes. In different circumstances, Courtney and I might be bonding right now. I imagine our conversation.

“Yeah, I’m about 5 months along,” I would have said had Dewey lived.

“Oh girl, you are in for some fun.”

Sure, we wouldn’t have become best pals or anything but we could have had a pregnant lady bonding moment.

“I call Audrey my parasite,” Courtney says in real life. “My sweet little parasite.”

“Oooo, I LOVE parasites,” Lynda says.

That does it. I shoot out of my seat and bump into desks and chairs, but thankfully not any of the people in line on my way out the door. I walk the halls of the Convention Center and settle in a spot away from the hubbub of Wordstock and the 2008 Holiday Food and Gift Festival. My longing for my own parasite almost knocks me over. I want to break workshop rule #1 and talk to Shock Reader about her pregnancy. Did it take? Me neither.

I collect myself and return to the room for 2 more hours of writing exercises. Lynda gives us another word. We write. We spiral. Courtney’s voice sounds first.

She tells the story of the last time she saw Audrey’s father: He is in love with another woman, he doesn’t even want to know when Audrey is born. Courtney has shed her tough girl voice and breaks down into sobs. Still I feel hard towards her. On my spiral sheet I write “Y CANT U B KIND?”

Why indeed.

After the workshop Mr. Crud says, “You look happy. Really happy. I’m so glad.”

I feel happy too. A whole weekend of doing what I love with one of my favorite writers has put a spring in my step. I am exhausted and welcome the bed’s embrace.

That night I dream that I am getting an ultrasound after my D and C.

“The baby isn’t developing but it’s still alive,” the doctor says.

“How can that be?” I ask, upset that the D and C didn’t get everything.

The doctor shrugs his shoulders. My dream spirals into images of waiting rooms and the fluttering heartbeat on the ultrasound screen.

The symbolism is too heavy for even me to miss. My babies are still alive even if they aren’t developing, even if they are discarded cells in a biohazard garbage bag. I carry the weight of their absence. My embryos, my parasites.