A Broke Girl's Guide to the Galaxy: New York City Edition

I totally forgot about this gem of a film…

What in the hell? It’s already February? Lemme just wipe the goo out of my eyes and flip my calendar over.

What a whirlwind of a winter. Really. It was in the single digits here in New York a week ago and my long underwear was practically becoming a new layer of my skin. Then inexplicably yesterday it was 65 degrees and I sweat through those same long underwear.

But we’re not here to talk about the weather. No. Today’s topic is all about moneyyyyy. Cash, bread, dough, coin, dolla dolla billz y’all, Benjamin’s, George’s, shit who else is on money...

If you haven’t been following my journey for the past 2+ years then welcome! I am broke.

Now I’m just going to clarify so that I don’t come off as some millennial ass-hat (I might anyway, we’ll see), but my brokeness is minimal compared to, oh, I don’t know…over 80% of the world’s population who actually live in poverty.

That being said, the past year and a half I have struggled.

I pulled my retirement money to come out here. I live in an 8x8 closet to be here. And I’ve made a lot of mistakes.

You ever see that movie, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Yeah, I haven’t seen it in a long time but I think this blog is going to be kind of like that. Except maybe less aliens.

Here are my top galactic hacks should you find yourself knee deep in student loan payments trying to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world:

Try having multiple jobs

As far as I’m convinced, gone are the days when you could have a single job that provided you with all the income and health benefits you could ever dream of.

Most people I know my age have 3-4 sources of income. Part of this is a shift in job culture that no longer guarantees you a job if you have a college degree. To be frank, that actually doesn’t mean shit anymore.

All that means is that now you have a heaping pile of student loan payments to prove that you spent four years taking bad notes in history seminars and doing improv with all your friends on weekends.

Because of this, you’re going to have to get diverse with that income stream. $30 bucks a month writing freelance pieces for some random website, another $250 a month teaching writing classes, a handful of $20’s every time you babysit some kids…it’s time to really double down on your New Year’s resolution to “try new things.”

Exhausted from all these jobbies? I know. I am too. That’s why I’m going to sign up for a sleep study at NYU. That’ll be a couple hundred bucks right there.

Find free shit

I know all our dads told us “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” but there actually is. It turns out that there are plenty of free things in the galaxy, specifically in New York City.

Free gym memberships?

Free alcohol?

Free foot rubs?

Yes! All of this and more can be free! How you ask?

You get crafty, of course. Did you know you can get free day and even week passes at gyms and yoga studios before enrolling? Who needs to get a gym membership at one place when you can simply sample every fancy gym in Manhattan one at a time and then never go back to those places again?

There’s also this cool thing called Class Pass that you can also get a free month of by clicking this link here. It has all kinds of day passes to gyms and fun workout classes. The coolest part? There’s even massages and other random wellness stuff on there!

You get a free month of points that you can use for different classes around your city. Yoga, Ballet, gym time, even candle-lit hot Pilates that you’d never be able to afford in this lifetime. And as long as you cancel at the end of the month you just get all those points to spend on whatever you want.

I even did a free “nap session” at the Dreamery Casper bed place with some of my points. Would I ever spend actual money to go to a swanky studio where I get my own nook, cozy sheets, and tiny samples of free skincare products while I take a 45 minute REM session in the middle of the day? No friggen way. But you better believe I’d do that kind of nonsense for free.

Oh and the key to free alcohol?

Might I suggest third-wheeling one of your friends and their beau on New Year’s and edging yourself over to the bar? Tons of bros willing to get you that Whiskey Sour in exchange for a dance or two it turns out. Then all’s you gotta do is give that friend a quick hand signal and she can swoop in for some fake emergency after you down that beverage.

This probably isn’t the nicest (or most feminist) of things to do, but it’s either that or smuggle your own shooters into the bar cuz ain’t no broke kids shellin’ out $15 for a glass of god damn wine no thank youuuuu.

Adopt a bartering mentality (a.k.a start trading shit)

You know back in the old days money wasn’t even a thing, OK.

People used to get by just on their own cunning ability to make their old crap look like a new iPhone. Want that buffalo skin your cool neighbor has? Better check your wagon for some dirty prayer beads to string together into a nice necklace!

I’m not saying you should go around throwing your belongings at people, but you should think about it in terms of economics, something I’m going to talk about now even though I barely passed my ECON 101 class in college.

It’s like this. Supply and demand. I have a supply of…um…IDEAS…and someone has a demand for ideas. A personal trainer I just met while using that free Class Pass from the last item has a supply of FITNESS AND NUTRITION SKILLS and I have a demand TO NOT BE A FAT SLOB WHO GETS TIRED WALKING UP ONE FLIGHT TO MY APARTMENT.

The capitalization was for effect, I’m not angry. But you get it, right?

If I’m so good at writing books, maybe somebody won’t necessarily pay me for that (see December’s post 11 Inconvenient Truths About Being an Author to Brighten Your Holiday) but they might want to trade me a couple of free massages for some advice on how to structure a memoir or short story.

So far I’ve only been remotely successful at this. But think long enough and I’m sure you’ll find something you have that you don’t think is that great and there will undoubtedly be someone out there who thinks that’s worth trading for. Speaking of which…

Get Some Cute Merch

If you haven’t seen my extremely more talented friend Kristen Jorden’s quilts then you need to seriously check yourself before you wreck yourself how friggen CUTE is this!

If you don’t have anything to trade or sell, now would be a great time to put that Etsy account to good use.

My partner in crime Kristen Jorden makes stunning quilts and they basically put everything to shame. You can check out her Etsy store here and her personal website here.

It’s nice to have a book, but I don’t recommend you spending the next four to five years trying to convert your brain into a published book because that shit is way too hard. Go easy on yourself. Make some cute shit out of garden pots or something.

If you think about it. Having trinkets to sell is a solid way to have a consistent stream of baby income flowing into your pockets. It might not seem like it’s worth it when you’re slaving away with your hot-glue gun, but once you make a few dozen of those ceramic gnomes your inventory is set until you sell out!

If you’re a good crafts person and solid at marketing yourself online that could mean a week or so. And if you really suck at making things and live off the grid you’re probably good for a few decades.

Kick Your Goddamn Starbucks Habit

I know, I know. That green lady with the twelve arms is really cool but you have seriously got to knock it off!

$5 doesn’t seem like a whole lot in the grand scheme of life, but come fucking on do you understand that dirty Chai latte is burning a hole in your pocket that already has holes in it in the first place???

Think about it this way. Even one $6 (cuz you don’t drink dairy now you fancy bastard) drink even just once a week is going to cost you about $24 a month. That’s $288 a year. And if you’re up to an addictive three times a week, that $2,592 a year! Did I do that math correctly, Jesus H. CHRIST. Yes I did. I absolutely did.

Get your shit together. That green lady is lighting your precious money on fire with all twelve of her arms.

So you like coffee. We get it. But you know what you could do instead of sacrificing that $6 to American mass consumerism?

You could just buy a big can of Folgers, mmkay. Hate Folgers? Fine, spring for a knock off or something cheap and bearable. Get the vanilla flavor. Knock your fucking self out just keep it under like $10.

And then you could make your own god damn coffee and bring it to the coffee shop.

Master cheat code? Try paying attention to when the barista’s change shifts and then ask for a free (or usually $1) refill in your road mug. How the hell are they going to know you never bought a coffee in the first place?

Or if you’re worried about your morals or something switch out the coffee for tea bags and just ask for hot water. That shit is absolutely free and totally legal.

Now sit back and enjoy not having $2,592 dollars mysteriously leave your bank account every year, you coffee genius.

Go “Green” (so to speak)

Always wanted to have a lesser impact on the slowly dilapidating environment? Well now you get to!

Being broke means using less and getting thrify with things, and that includes your carbon footprint. Now you can avoid breaking your wallet held together by duct tape AND the planet at the same time.

Everything has a purpose. Half empty shampoo bottles can become mega shampoo bottles, giving you 12 new containers to use however you want! Isn’t that exciting?

This will also keep you from buying more shit that you don’t need, because chances are, you already have it lying around in the bottom of the drawers of your IKEA bed somewhere so there is literally no need to waste the money.

And hey, who knows? Maybe you can jerry-rig your toilet to be like those cool eco-toilets in Japan where the water from the sink cycles down and gets used in the toilet water…that you can sell…on Etsy!

Become a Better Cook

Thanks a million Emily Hardwick!

It’s no surprise we spend so much money on eating out. None of us can cook for shit! At least not on a consistent basis that doesn’t destroy the kitchen and all of our dishware in one fell swoop.

And nothing is more sad than lobbing off a block of cheese and Ritz Crackers at 1AM because you’re too damn tired to make an actual dinner.

I was just kind of raised that way. About once or twice a week we’d get tired of cooking and we’d all ravage the kitchen for anything we could find. We call it “Fend For Yourself” Night.”  

As a kid I thought this was kind of cool that I could eat a pint of mint chocolate chip unchecked at 10PM but now I’m starting to realize every night of my adult life has become “Fend For Yourself Night” and it’s far less exciting than it used to be.

Sure, it can be easier to motivate yourself to cook when you’ve got a significant other to help you chop the onions and shit, but you’ve really got to get better at being on your own.

I used to really love cooking for boyfriends. I kind of felt like I was fulfilling my gendered societal duty every time I pulled a casserole out of the oven for my guy. There’s a lot of things wrong with that, but mostly it’s that I was only motivated to learn how to fucking feed myself when I was in the presence of someone else.

Now that I’ve been single for foreverrrrr I think it’s safe to say I need to get my act together. Luckily I got a great Vegan cookbook from a friend for Christmas and unlike every other cookbook I’ve ever had, I’ve actually make things from it.

And if you didn’t know, I do a once a week “cooking show” on Instagram Live where I cook in a made up character, funny voice and weird backstory and everything. Sometimes my roommates end up walking into the kitchen wondering why in the hell I’m talking to myself in a terrible French accident but ask me how many fucks I give?

I give about as many fucks as I have gallons of real dairy milk in my fridge! #VegansUNITE

It’d be cool if Netflix or someone picked this up and made it into a real cooking show, but for now I’m just enjoying coming up with obscure ways to explain why I’m cooking for myself alone in my kitchen at 11PM. Usually it involves a freak accident and a dead or seriously estranged husband. One time I made Butternut Squash soup as Christopher Walken. That was one of my personal favorites.

Buy (and Cook) in Bulk

Whoever made this is a saint.

It may seem counter intuitive to drop $20 on a liter of ketchup when you’re stretched for cash, but honestly you’d be saving yourself a pretty penny if you did.

I actually don’t have a membership to Sam’s Club or Costco but my best friend in Long Island does. Most of my time spent with her is actually just going there and picking out 10-pound bags of rice that she lends me extra suitcases to take home with.

If you live in New York City and don’t drive a car, this is kind of an impossible ask. If you tried to carry all those bulk items out you might end up like that Home Alone kid and drop your groceries all over a crowded sidewalk.

But what I can tell you is that there’s an app for that. FreshDirect, Shipt, and Postmates just to name a few. When I heard about FreshDirect it absolutely changed my grocery game. You’re telling me I don’t even need to put my pants on to get some more peanut butter and toilet paper? Get outta here.

It sounds like black magic but it’s really popular in New York and other cities where it’s not common to have a car or even large chain grocery stores.

And because you’re so great at cooking now, you’ll appreciate getting those groceries quickly and easily so that you can focus your efforts on making an 8-serving risotto dish which amounts to roughly 3-4 meals for you and you only yuh little sad single person!

Cha-ching! Someone just scored some extra moolah!

Borrow Your Roommates Books

Hey thanks, Joy! This book was great! I’m so glad I didn’t have to buy it!

If you’re like me, walking into a Barnes and Noble is the quickest way to drain your entire bank account. Books are awesome! And I’m not just talking about my own because I guarantee you there are better books than mine out in the world.

Books can transform our worldviews. They can transport us to new places and times and like damn isn’t J.K. Rowling a fucking genius?!

However, books are expensive. And if you’re broke as shit you shouldn’t buy them.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t raid your roommates bookshelf! Don’t have a roommate? Well then GOOD FOR YOU 99% OF THIS POST DOESN’T APPLY TO YOU since I’m assuming you must be either a bajillionaire working for a Fortune 500 or in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere and you can buy an entire house with a backyard and 5-car garage for $200 a month because that’s what real estate is like there and in that case fucking congrats, man.

So go ahead, temporarily misplace your roommates book in your bedroom for a few weeks (or a few months if you’re a slow reader like me). Even better, be on the look out for boxes of free books that somehow appear on the streets of New York City every once in a while.

Use Your Families (or Exes) Netflix Accounts

I honestly don’t even know anyone who has their own anymore. And as long as they don’t change the passwords on you then you’re pretty much set for life.

And if all else fails…

Convince Yourself that Money Sucks, You are Not a Slave to it, and Your Joyful Experiences in Life Will Serve as Evidence of Your Worth

I’m still working out the details on this one, but I think it involves sticky notes that say “You’re Awesome!” taped to your bathroom mirror and truly believing that a 401(K) is just a socially constructed concept meant to trap us all in miserable jobs that suck our souls for 30+ years.

Dunno, jury’s still out on that one…

Thanks for reading! Stay thrifty, my friends.

I Refuse To Make a New Year's Resolution This Year, Here's Why

*emerges from a pile of Christmas cookies*

It’s January 1st* in the brand new year.

This morning at around 3 AM I broke a poor guy’s heart by leaving him at the club to go get chili cheese fries after dancing with him most of the night. I didn’t give him my number. Shit, I didn’t even give him my name.

But off I walked, into the shadows of the early morning to glorious drunk snack heaven.

Aren’t you wondering what a newly acclaimed “Vegan” is doing eating chili cheese fries at three in the god damn morning?

Does it concern you at all if I say that, despite being single for the past year, I broke two other gentlemen’s hearts this morning by not agreeing to let them buy me more drinks and dance with them?

I used to worry about shit like this. But now I’m not.

Let me just make one thing perfectly clear, OK: Fuck New Year’s resolutions.

Now, this doesn’t mean I think you are stupid for having one. You are welcome to “new year new me” yourself all the way to kingdom come for all I care.

All I’m saying is that the concept itself is Ludacris. And yes, I do mean the American rapper.

Let’s go back in a time machine real quick…you comfy back there? Good. Let’s roll.

2014 was the first year that I actually hated. It was the first time that I approached the end of the year with a desire to burn my cute Lil’ Target calendar inside a dumpster.

On one hand, I’d overcome two near-cataclysmic events in the same year: a break-up from a five-year long relationship that ended horribly, and a brain hemorrhage. Also I’d graduated college, which for me might as well have been a cataclysmic event because I almost didn’t graduate at all (LOL ask me about that Nutrition class I took that summer).

But survival was exhausting. And my emotions had been to their extremes so many times I didn’t even know how to regulate myself anymore.

What nobody tells you about having several life-changing events in one year is that you don’t really get to be the same again. You cross a threshold; of growth, of grieving. And once you step over that threshold you don’t get to go back to whatever “comfortable” life you lived before.

If that sounds dramatic to you, it’s because it fucking is.

If you don’t believe me, go to talk to the strongest person I know: my mother.

This woman has been through so much shit she’s practically an armored tank.

She’s going to call me once she reads this. Why? Because she’s my absolute biggest fan and if I ever get on Ellen someday she’s going to be crying in the front row. When I miraculously made local television this year, as the camera panned out to commercial I literally waved and mouthed “HI, MOM!”

“Don’t look at the camera.” Me:

When I arrived to December 31, 2014 I was really depressed. I was healing up nicely from my brain injury but only on the outside. My insides were still squirming with anxiety and record-breaking low self-esteem.

I was about to start my student teaching back up again and I felt a pit in my stomach drop every time I tried to pick up a lesson plan. PTSD. That’s called PTSD. I didn’t understand it then, but the classroom brought me higher rates of anxiety than normal.

Probably, oh, I don’t know, because my head exploded while trying to explain “ethnocentrism” to a couple of 14-year-old’s.

I decided to go out on the town with my best friend Brennyn so that I could do what most people do on New Year’s: get white girl wasted and pretend like my life wasn’t falling apart. I could drink alcohol again. And my doctor told me as long as I didn’t black out I was probably fine.

So I continued my trajectory to inebriation and landed myself with bloody arms (I was wearing a sequin skirt and it had scratched my arms up while dancing) in a friend of a friend’s bed drunk and kind of high, calling up my other best friend and demanding that I be her Maid of Honor if she got engaged** that night.

Do you even know what’s about to happen next in this story? Do you even understand the kind of wacky shit I’m about to tell you right now?

Here we go.

The next thing that happened was that I woke up in that stranger’s bed soaked in pee because I had just drunkenly pissed myself.

Didn’t see that one coming now did yuh?!

OK, maybe you did. Also maybe you read my book and that little juicy story is buried in there somewhere. Wow, did I just spoilers you without telling you I was gonna spoilers you right now?

I feel like that was kind of manipulative of me. But hey, if you actually read this then you must enjoy torture because literally all of these posts are ridiculous.

What was the resolution that led to this tragic event? I’ll take “What is…Stop Living Through Life-Altering Events and Having to Deal with The Emotional Fallout?” for $1,000, Alex!

As silly as that sounds, my “resolution” was to stop being me, essentially. I didn’t want to carry all that baggage with me into 2015! 2015, babay new year new-ohhhhhh, nope. I just pissed in a stranger’s bed. Same me. Wait, was I pissing in stranger’s beds before 2014? What in the actual fuck is going on here?

I’m happy to announce that I haven’t had an “incident” since. Unless you count passing out and puking at a routine blood draw every single time but I mean cut me some slack will you, pressures cuffs and bins on walls with needles in them make me lose consciousness, OK.

But that doesn’t mean my resolutions since then have been any less stupid.

There was 2016 where I vowed to get back in shape.

Also 2017 where I vowed to get back in shape.

And 2018 where I settled for being “a shape.”

Most of my resolutions in the past few years have centered on my body and changing it. I didn’t understand what this was about until recently when I remembered that my body went through a massive change in 2014 causing me to lose 20 pounds of muscle mass and gain it all back in my face, ass, and bellybutton.

I’ve also resolved to write daily, eat healthier, do more comedy, do a TED Talk, get a book published, and move to New York City.

I’ve tried all kinds of mechanisms for this change including countdown calendars, planners, writing affirmations on sticky notes and putting them around my house, and who doesn’t love a good ol’ vision board? And I’m not saying these things don’t work, because they do. Obviously a few of those things got done. And if I haven’t tried to sell you the Passion Planner then are we really even friends?

The only thing is that this change comes from within.

I know that sounds like I read it from a fortune cookie or some shit, but it’s true.

The planners and the vision boards and the resolutions can only get you so far.

It’s what you do when you’re alone that counts. What do you tell yourself when nobody is around to like your Instagram posts about your progress towards that resolution? Who is going to be there for the setbacks? How far are you willing to go to write that book or lose that weight or make that documentary? When it’s March and you’re trapped inside in a snowstorm and taking a nap or watching another Netflix show or scrolling through other people’s lives is so much easier? What are you going to give up to make a change?

Let me repeat that one more time: what are you going to give up to make a change?

We talk big talk, but when the rubber meets the road, or whatever, suddenly it’s December again and we didn’t even get so much as a chapter of our Great American Novel written. When we talk about resolutions we talk about what we’re going to get. Money, fame, the washboard abs. Nobody talks about the giving up part; the sacrifices and decisions made to make those resolutions actually resolve.

Historically speaking, I can maintain momentum with a resolution a couple of days in a row before I get distracted and derail myself because OH LOOK SHINY. WHAT’S THAT, A NEW PROJECT TO TAKE ON WITH ALL MY NON-EXISTENT FREE TIME AND SURPLUS OF MONEY? WHY YES, YES I WILL VOLUNTEER AT THAT BLIND DOG SHELTER.

We’re all like that. It’s not just me with my head injury over here flaking on resolutions left and right when we get side-tracked. January 1st rolls around and we want to change ourselves right the fuck now and right the fuck forever.

Because who doesn’t? Change is awesome. Change is what happens when a depressed high school teacher moves to New York City with nothing but a few pencil skirts and a manuscript and transforms into a slightly less depressed stand up comedian and motherfucking published author who wears mostly sweatpants and the occasional nice dress to book signings and local TV appearances.

My life is unrecognizable.

I hope my exes stalk my social media. In fact, I’m sure at least one of them does. And I can die happy knowing that he is kicking himself every time I post a juicy “look how successful I am, you SHMUCK” post on Instagram.

But change doesn’t happen overnight. And it isn’t permanent. Not for me and not for all those ex-boyfriends that ended up in my first book.

It’s 2019 and I don’t care how many “alternative facts” you’ve read today on Twitter, you know that much to be true.

I’ve seen a lot of friends achieve some amazing things this year. Some of them got married, had kids, finished Master’s degrees, climbed mountains, lost weight, and became artists.

I’ve achieved my own as well: publications, speaking tours, TED auditions, book launches, TV interviews, comedy shows, New York City hustling, Veganism. Shit did you know I cut my own bangs for a while back there? It’s been one hell of a year.

And in a sense I am still very much in progress; a process of becoming.

I refuse to reduce myself to a resolution. No, you know what I want, a revolution; a rebellion. I want to fuck shit up.

And I can’t do that with a flimsy promise to the ether to “be skinnier,” or “more successful.”

I don’t even want that. I want to be strong. So strong I can lift a fucking car over my head and still look graceful for a camera catching this viral shit go down. I want to be irrefutable. So irrefutable that people will stop at nothing to get inside my damn air bubble.

And if I really am going to get a revolution, then it’s going to take a long-ass time. I’m going to need to be strategic about this shit, get some advisers, do some homework, really dust off my suit of armor and probably get some life insurance already.

I’m going to war, basically.

I’ll fight for the life I want to live, not according to some calendar, but in the little moments that I choose to do the things that move me onward and upward.

And you know what? Some days all that means is drinking more damn water. Some days it means hiding my phone from myself so that I can write for 30 peaceful and uninterrupted minutes. Others it means letting myself eat the “non Vegan” thing instead of beating myself up for an hour over it.

And when I slip up (often), I will wipe off my bloody arms and acknowledge that the journey I’m on will challenge me to new places that I can’t even see yet. I’m going to fail and fail well, learn from my obstacles, and love myself no matter what day of the year it is.

Editor’s Notes:

*OK, I lied. It’s the 3rd. This post could have been much more timely but I figure by now at least 3/4ths of you have given up your resolutions already so it evens out.  

**This same friend just got engaged today*** and I may or may not have sent an identical voicemail to her this morning from the parking lot of a diner in Brooklyn. What can I say, some things never change.

***Two days ago.

11 Inconvenient Truths About Being an Author to Brighten Your Holiday

“Dear God-Thing, please send me a nice royalty check and some New York Times buzz…”

“Oh dang it, Mimi. Can’t you blog about something happy just once?”

Now, now, five of you reading this but mostly my mother, calm down.

I know this headline might have you believe that I’m about to throw a pity party for myself with a big ol’ sad piñata, but that’s not the case. I don’t even have the kind of confetti needed for that sort of thing, OK MOM.

Really I’m just here to process, as always, the strange and challenging parts of my life on a page that I will upload to the internet so that everybody else can look at it and not me. Because that’s how this whole thing works, mmkay? Which leads me to…

Truth #1) You are going to fixate on all the weird shit in your head until you put it on paper (or in my case, word doc).

It’s not an exact science, but authors are really just creative lunatics hidden under a bunch of trench coats and fancy detective pipes.

We have one million ideas a day (not unlike the everyday person), except our thoughts become full-blown screenplays, memoirs, and novellas. It’s exhausting, if you ask me, which you didn’t, but anyway.

When an author truly relieves themselves on the page it’s like inhaling a really good candle, or peeing after you’ve been holding it in for a whole day.

If this sounds like a lot to process then…

Truth #2) You better get yourself some damn therapy.

I went to therapy one time. OK a few times. It was in 2016 at the start of my second year of teaching and I was in a particularly tough spiral downward after a breakup. I remember going in the first visit and having to answer these questions on a little electronic block about how much alcohol I drank and if I was attempting to jump in front of a bus anytime soon.

I kind of felt like therapy was something other people did. Messed up people. But sure enough the second I sat on “the couch” I burst into tears about approximately one billion things that were flying around in my broken head.

I told the nice lady about my book that wasn’t really a book yet and that I was really traumatized still by being in a classroom and by the time I left for New York City I don’t even think we skimmed the surface of all my B.S.

And that’s OK. Because someday I’m going to have a grown up job with grown up healthcare and that will be the very first thing on my list of awesome grown up things to accomplish.

Truth #3) You are going to bankrupt yourself on your first book release.

The images you had of swimming in bathtubs of all the money you’re about to make from your best-seller turned Hollywood blockbuster can stay safely tucked inside that delusional brain of yours because that’s just not gonna happen.

In fact, you will be spending your own money, and a lot of it. So much so that you will have to start a GoFundMe page* and frantically bother every single person you know to donate to your extravagant book launch party.

Did you really need that mac and cheese food truck? Yuh know what, no, you did not. But nobody gets mad at a bride for picking a three-story wedding cake shaped like the statue of David, OK?

You enjoyed the fuck out of those three bites of mac and cheese that you inhaled in between signing 100 books back to back to back to back…

*Thanks again everyone who donated! I thought about sending each one of you individualized thank you cards but then I got really overwhelmed and didn’t….so THANKS!

Truth #4) You are now a salesperson.

Surprised? Oh yes, I bet you are. Skills you don’t really possess, like convincing someone to purchase an intimate story about your life, will now be entirely necessary if you plan on selling any books at all.

Frustrating? Completely.

Me: “Hey there! Would you like to look at this story I wrote about my miraculous recovery from a traumatic brain injury?”

Lady: “Oh, that’s nice. I was kind of looking for a cookbook though.” *walks away*

What am I gonna do? Follow her around the damn Barnes and Noble and continue to shove my little blue-green cover in her face? That’s just not my vibe, yo.

It was the vibe, however, of the other author I was sharing the signing with on the opposite side of the store. He’d shout “WHO’S YOUR FAVORITE AUTHOR?” and point his finger at his book aggressively until that person walked toward him, which I guess is one way to go about annoying the shit out of everyone you meet. To his disappointment, three of my friends walked through that entrance and immediately said “MIMI HAYES.” He pointed sadly to the other side of the store, “She’s over there…”

He may have been the more aggressive salesperson. But I have friends. Speaking of which…

Truth #5) Your friends and family won’t leave you Amazon Reviews.

Now I know about nine of you are like, “HEY I LEFT YOU A REVIEW” and I am so happy that you love me on that level. But the truth is, even your closest friends (and even your Mom!) might not get around to that glowing 5-star review in time for you to not lose your shit every time you refresh your Amazon page.

Why do reviews matter? Well, if you’re me, your book is about something very personal and traumatic that you oddly chose to share with the entire world with an accessible bookstore or WiFi connection. This means that every time you see a nice paragraph about your work, your art, you feel so happy and full that you could die in that moment and be totally OK with that.

The inverse is also true because when you don’t get reviews, especially from your friends, you interpret that as your friends not caring, which you know isn’t true but it still stings your mushy human organs. “I can’t believe they don’t even bother, it’s a paragraph, how hard can it be?!” Well, time for a reality check tootsie roll because…

Truth #6) Your book is not the most important thing in the world.

I know, I know. This is a hard pill to swallow, you literary genius! Just because you spent four whole years hiding in dark corners of coffee shops and scribbling chapter headings on note cards and tacking them all over your apartment like a literal sociopath, doesn’t mean anyone else is going to give a damn.

Now that’s not to say your mother won’t call you a, AND I QUOTE, “powerhouse” over the phone on multiple occasions.

That’s not to say your best friend won’t follow you around at your book signing and snap candids of you penning your John Hancock all over a stranger’s book.

But you must understand that this is your life. And everyone else has their own life which probably doesn’t include you pretty much most of the time.

You are allowed to be proud of your work and it feels really great when others express that too, but sit down, stay humble, Kiddo.

Truth #7) Your publicist is (probably) dead.

Contrary to what the movies may have lead you to believe, publicists are not snatching at the back of your ratty coattails looking for every opportunity along the way for you to make it big. In fact you’re not entirely sure what your publicist’s name is because they only emailed you that one time over a year ago and you kind of haven’t heard from them since.

[ooOOoOOo sPoOkY]

Truth #8) Everything you get, you will work for.

Due to Truth #7, you’re going to have to work extra hard to get any attention for your book. You will call up magazine editors, cold-email conventions to speak at, and haul a suitcase of your own books to a signing at a Barnes and Noble that you asked for and nearly didn’t get because the other author was booked months before and they didn’t order your books in time.

You are going to appear on local TV channels and interview with international radio stations not because of someone else, but because of you.

Truth #9) Everyone is going to underestimate you.

If you got paid in the amount of times people asked you if you’re self-published you’d be a god damn millionaire by now.

This isn’t to say that self-publishing is shameful. It’s actually probably way easier to navigate than traditional publishing. But the assumption underneath “you’re self-published, right?” is that surely you couldn’t have a legitimate publisher, because that’s incredibly hard to do.

Everyone thinks it’s cool that you wrote a book, but few people will piece together the fact that you built everything you’re standing on.

It won’t be until you fill a gallery full of your closest friends and family during your launch that people will start voicing their surprise at your work ethic and commitment to finding the best mac and cheese food truck in the Denver Metro.

“Wow, I had no idea,” they’ll say as you squiggle your name on their book nonchalantly like you didn’t just sell your first unborn child for that food truck back there.

As annoying as this can be, especially while you’re putting in all the backbreaking work to an audience of none, this will actually play out in your favor down the line as you become a walking cliché underdog narrative.  

Truth #10) You are going to lose friends in the process.

Somewhere down the line of writing your first book, you’re going to start a separate file called “Acknowledgements” thanking all your friends and family for supporting you during this whole grueling ordeal. You’ll list as many people as your editor will allow and include exactly how those people helped you get this stupid word document made into a full-blown book.

After the book comes out, you’re going to notice that a few of your friends in that very word document are not responding to your text messages and phone calls anymore, which makes you the saddest schmuck ever.

You’ll text them some more, leave a slew of teary voicemails, and eventually write and publish a whole think-piece about one said ex-friend which she will probably never see anyway but at least you let some shit off your chest for a second until the next friend inexplicably dips out of your life.

The good news is, the ones that stick around are fucking awesome and will never stop supporting your crazy ass no matter what you do.

Truth #11) Even though being author feels like being on a roller coaster with a broken off-switch most days, you wouldn’t choose any other job in the world.

Why 11 Truths? Because 11 is an extremely frustrating number.

And you’ve closed your eyes at 11:11 PM and wished for Michael McToddferson, (or whoever the hell you’re obsessing about at the current moment) to kiss you for no damn reason in math class tomorrow too many times with zero positive outcomes to have any respect for the number eleven.

But more importantly…

On days when you’re knee deep in a sticky chapter rewrite or hammering your head against a wall because you can’t seem to focus on a single manuscript for more than five minutes at a time, you’ll flash back to that little windowless classroom.

You’ll see a fleeting image of you crying in the teacher’s lounge in between classes or stepping in the world’s largest wad of gum while simultaneously slamming your toe on the corner of a desk and you’ll think, “I’m so glad I’m not back there.”

Because even in your darkest days, you are capable of transferring your woes into words. And those words matter. Maybe not to everyone. But they matter. And so do you.

So quit refreshing that damn Amazon page, you psychopath, and finish your next book already!

I Had My Tarot Cards Read For the First Time and Pretty Much Lost My Damn Mind

My face when a deck of cards tells me about my life…

Okay, okay, everyone stop what you’re doing right now. Put down the pastry or po-go stick or small child you’re holding and listen to this.

I am freaking the fuck out, mmkay.

And not because Oprah or Spielberg called to deliver contracts for my movie rights.

I am freaking the fuck out because I just had my Tarot cards read this week, all right. And boy was it a doozy. Like the kind of doozy that makes you write blog posts about while you listen to the hum of a washing machine as three little angels sleep in their beds instead of passing out from pure exhaustion covered in stickers and macaroni noodles.

That’s right. The kids are asleep, the kitchen’s clean, and I’m ready to get into this shit.

But before I take you on the epic quasi-acid-trip that was my tarot reading, I’d first like to point out a couple of key details to this story.

1. I have never had my tarot cards read in my life.

2. I have never had interest in having my tarot cards read in my life.

3. I still don’t know what a tarot is.

4. But I think it’s a small animal of some kind.

In the past week I have discovered “Bumble Bizz,” a much cooler side of the classic dating app Bumble. I’d never noticed it before, but I swiped over to find one million professionals of all kinds of industries at my swipey little fingertips. Way cooler than trying to make a myriad of Steve’s, Chad’s, and Tyler’s more interesting than they actually are. Oh, your profile says you’re 6ft1, how fascinating!

I switched over to the Business side and quickly adjusted my profile to read “Seeking Ted Talks and Brain Gigs. LMK if you want to make my book into a movie” and began the ol’ swiperoo.

Within minutes I’d found a potential new student for my weekly writing class, neuroscientists that I wanted to interview for my podcast, and a lovely woman who was offering discounted Tarot readings.

Who doesn’t love a discount, amiright?

I guess the last time I’d heard the word ‘tarot’ was in the movie Ghost. I think there were tarots in that movie, right? Maybe it was just Whoopi Goldberg doing a séance when Patrick Swayze shows up and says she’s full of shit.

Well, as curious as I may be, I definitely didn’t believe in spiritual mumbo-jumbo like tarot cards any more than I believed Beatle Juice would show up in my livingroom if I said his annoying name three times.

But for whatever reason I right-swiped on this Tarot Reader and quickly messaged her to tell her I was game. We exchanged numbers and I picked my favorite coffee shop near the Brooklyn Museum to meet up in broad daylight. No dimly lit basements or side alleys for me, okay, I’m not a moron.

So I get to the coffee shop early and set up shop with a little notepad to record my thoughts pre-tarot. Here I am waiting to have my future told! I scribbled. I’m so excited! Although I was skeptical about the whole thing, I was still excited to hear thoughts on my life. It was way better than getting catfished, I decided.

A lovely Latina-looking woman roughly my age greeted me and I was immediately drawn to her energy, literally, I got out of my chair and squished around the crowded tables to give her a hug. She looked like a friend I’d known for years, or maybe in a past life, if I believed in that sort of thing, which I probably didn’t. But she was just so adorable.

We walked through what the cards did and didn’t do…

They can open up channels within you.

They cannot predict your future.

They can reveal things on your mind or in your life that you’ve been suppressing.

They cannot tell you when or how you’re going to die.

I was a little fixated on the death thing, probably because it’s that time of year and it would be so cool to know the year in which I’m finally allowed to shed my gooey human body and fuck with all my friends and enemies as a ghost.

She asked me to shuffle the deck in any way I chose. So I scrambled them around for a good minute or so, repeating back to her that the cards do not actually predict death.

Then she placed the deck to my left and gracefully pulled them to the right of the counter, making a perfect line between us. For some reason I expected her next move to be to pull one randomly from the deck and shout, “IS THIS YOUR CARD?” But she didn’t. Instead she asked me what I wanted to ask the cards.

“Ask them?” I clarified.

“Yes, ask them something you’d like to work out in your life that you are unsure about right now.”

“Ask them…ask them…” I hadn’t really prepared any questions for the session. I kind of thought she’d be doing all the work. “Oh, I got it! Can I ask them about my art? I want to know…like am I going to be successful at my art actually or am I just going to be a flash in the pan and not be relevant at all?”

Yes, it’s been weighing on me. Since releasing my first memoir and discovering it behind a ladder this week in Barnes and Noble, far from any wandering eyes to possibly find, I’ve been wondering if I’m truly going to become the author I want to be.

Do you guys know how many books there are in the world? Just think about that for a second, okay. Just think about how unlikely it really is that my little blue-green cover will make its way out of the slush pile of J.K. Rowling’s, Roxanne Gay’s, and apparently, Tim Tebow’s.

Yes. You guys. Tim Tebow is even writing books now. Or he pays someone else to and gets his face plastered all over them. And he gets his own fucking table at Barnes and Noble.

This title is like a motivational poster threw up all over the cover…

Where is the justice in the world, hmm?

New York Times Best-Seller?

Can somebody explain to me what the actual fuck is going on here?

All right, I’m calm.

Back to the cards.

She asked me to pull three cards with my left hand. Why the left hand, you ask? Yeah, I asked about that too. I forgot what she said but it was something about the heart’s connection to the brain. I’ll look it up later.

I pulled them a little apprehensively, after all I didn’t want to come this far to pull shitty cards. I’d just asked if I was going to be a best-seller or toil into a career as a has-never-really-been. I chose the cards one at a time, making sure to pick the first ones I laid my eyes on and not second-guess myself.

Here’s what I pulled:

The Master:

“The Master in Zen is not a master over others, but a master of himself. His every gesture and his every word reflect his enlightened state. He has no private goals, no desire that anything should be other than the way it is. His disciples gather around him not to follow him, but to soak up his presence and be inspired by his example. In his eyes they find their own truth reflected, and in his silence they fall more easily into the silence of their own beings.”

”The master welcomes the disciples not because he wants to lead them, but because he has so much to share. Together, they create an energy field that supports each unique individual in finding his or her own light. If you can find such a master you are blessed. If you cannot, keep on searching. Learn from the teachers, and the would-be masters, and move on. Charaiveti, charaiveti, said Gautam Buddha. Keep on moving.”

She explained: In order to be successful at my art, I need to be the Master of it. 10,000 hours, all that shit, mmkay. I didn’t tell her I was a writer or a comedian but she told me whatever my art was, I need to take it seriously and get. to. fucking. work. I need to live an breathe it. Why? Because I’ve got “disciples” now, all right. I’ve got people gathering around me listening to what I have to say. And not only that. What I say, or as the card would tell me, what I don’t say (i.e. “silence”) is helping others understand who they are. Holy fucking shit, you guys.

Also: Can we just talk about the Sanskrit word “charaiveti” for a second? I had to look this up, but when I did my brain literally walked out of the room for a smoke break that’s how overwhelmed with emotions it was, okay.

Chara = moving

Eva = alone; only

Iti = Thus

It is said that Buddha concluded his sermons with “Charaiveti, Charaiveti”, or “keep moving, keep moving,” which is part of a larger phrase:

“The honey bee, by its motion, collects honey, and birds enjoy tasty fruits by constant movement. The sun is revered, by virtue of its constant shining movement; therefore, one should be constantly in motion. Keep moving, keep moving on!”

If you need some context as to why I’m flipping out right now, which you likely do: I am so constantly in motion my parents literally say “that one, she’s always moving, always got her hair on fire.” So for me to draw this card which is to become constantly in motion and to become the master of my art so as to inspire others, well, I’m shook to say the least.

Let’s charaiveti, shall we?

I also pulled…

Clinging to the Past:

“The figure pictured in this card is so preoccupied with clutching her box of memories that she has turned her back on the sparkling champagne glass of blessings available here and now. Her nostalgia for the past really makes her a 'blockhead', and a beggar besides, as we can see from her patched and ragged clothes. She needn't be a beggar, of course--but she is not available to taste the pleasures that offer themselves in the present.” 

“It's time to face up to the fact that the past is gone, and any effort to repeat it is a sure way to stay stuck in old blueprints that you would have already outgrown if you hadn't been so busy clinging to what you have already been through. Take a deep breath, put the box down, tie it up in a pretty ribbon if you must, and bid it a fond and reverent farewell. Life is passing you by, and you're in danger of becoming an old fossil before your time!”

She interpreted: I’m literally obsessed with my past. Which is also to say, I’m obsessed with my trauma. Again, she didn’t even know about my book, my brain, or any of the other shit I’m currently not working on with a trained medical professional like I should be. She told me I need to “let it go.” Whatever “it” was that I’ve been holding onto, I need to get that old stuff out of my face.

My thoughts: No. Fucking. Shit. If you didn’t know, I spent four whole years reliving and rewriting my trauma into a memoir that is now sitting proudly in the front window of a least 1-2 Barnes and Nobles in Brooklyn where I have strategically placed them so as to not be sandwiched between Arthritis Pain 101 and Heal Your MIGRAINES Now on the very bottom row of the book shelf.

Honestly, I’m glad I spent four years clinging to my past. It made me tough AF and ain’t nobody can tell me shit. Why? Because resiliency that’s fucking why.

But the cards are right. I have to let it all go now. Which isn’t to say I have to pretend it didn’t happen, but it’s time for me to truly move on, move on, dear traveler.

Should I still tour my book and comedy and use my brain injury to promote my identity as the most adorable and funny brain-injured chick in all the land? Abso-fuckin-lutely. Should I toil with every book sale and allow myself to linger in yesteryear? Nope. Not. Gonna. Do. It.

I also pulled…

Totality:

“These three women are high in the air, playful and free, yet alert and interdependent. In a trapeze act, nobody can afford to be a little bit "absent" even for a split second. And it is this quality of total attentiveness to the moment at hand that is represented here. We may feel there are too many things to do at once, but get bogged down in trying to do a bit here, a bit there, instead of taking one task at a time and getting on with it. Or perhaps we think our task is "boring" because we've forgotten that it's not what you do but how you do it that matters.”

”Developing the knack of being total in responding to whatever comes, as it comes, is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. Taking one step through life at a time, giving each step your complete attention and energy, can bring a wondrous new vitality and creativity to all that you do.”

She interpreted: I have to focus. Just like a cast member in Cirque du Soleil, I gotta be on the ball and never take my eye off that same ball. I have to be the ball, okay. She also said when I am The Master and I stop Clinging to the Past, then I will have totality. I will be in the moment and I will thrive.

My thoughts: Yeah, I’m a hummingbird and my hair is on fire like all the time so yeah, you know what I do get distracted. I experience these flow or “total” states when I’m writing. I literally forget to go to the bathroom or eat or drink for like eight hour increments, it’s insane. But I’ve got too many damn balls floating around.

And try not to laugh at that, okay, I’m trying to be serious here, you guys.  

If I were a juggler I would suck right now and Cirque du Soleil would surely blacklist me from every future circus gig. I need to focus. I need to zen. I need to take some shit off my plate like right this very moment.

So if you’re reading this, that’s me telling you that I’m going to take a tiny pause from my podcast, Mimi and The Brain, for about a month, just to get my little zen head back on my neck for a minute.

Don’t worry! I’m not going anywhere, OK!

And if you are itching for some prime Mimi content might I direct you to like…everything else I’m doing right now. Including but not limited to my very fun and very dramatic book that is available right the fuck now, Fam!

Anyway, this post is getting long. And if I were to walk you through every single card we pulled with my questions like:

Is there anything holding me back from being successful?

Will I truly find love? And

Should I let someone else be responsible for my art or produce it solo?

I think I’d end up with a full-blown book proposal so we’re not going to do that, okay?

But I will leave you on a couple juicy bits and some emotional aftershock to stew on for the next month while you’re waiting for more content from me.

Honorable mentions:

I asked the deck more about pursuing my writing and I got Past Lives, a card which says in all of my past lives I encountered a choice to pursue a thing, or not and to regret it like a loser the rest of that life. My Tarot Spirit Guide said that every life I’ve lived before* I haven’t pursued it. Which is why leaning into my identity as an artist is so hard in this life.

*What do you guys think, hmm? Former Prime Minister of India? A carpenter in Renaissance Italy? One-armed juggler in 1930’s Chicago? Hit me up with your best predictions of my past lives! WHAT A FUN GAME I JUST MADE.

As you knew I would, I also asked the deck if I would find love or remain an old dusty hag with lots of dogs and a cabin all for myself. Which doesn’t sound so bad minus the dusty hag part.

I got the Schizophrenia, Morality, and Sorrow cards. Sounds promising, right? Well, actually it kind of is.

Schizophrenia:

“The person on this card brings a new twist to the old idea of "getting stuck between a rock and a hard place!" But we are in precisely this sort of situation when we get stuck in the indecisive and dualistic aspect of the mind. Should I let my arms go and fall head-first, or let my legs go and fall feet-first? Should I go here or there? Should I say yes or no? And whatever decision we make, we will always wonder if we should have decided the other way.”

”The only way out of this dilemma is, unfortunately, to let go of both at once. You can't work your way out of this one by solving it, making lists of pros and cons, or in any way working it out with your mind. Better to follow your heart, if you can find it. If you can't find it, just jump--your heart will start beating so fast there will be no mistake about where it is!”

She explained: When I go on dates, I’m kind of two-faced. I’m not being my truest self. And guys can see it a mile away. They are so good at spotting my two-facedness, in fact, that not one of them has seriously approached me as a romantic possibility in over a year. What does the deck Have to say about my future as that dusty dog lady, you ask?

Well…then I pulled:

Morality:

“Morality has restricted all the juice and energy of life to the narrow confines of her mind. It can't flow there, so she really has become 'a dried-up old prune'. Her whole manner is very proper and stiff and severe, and she is always ready to see every situation as black and white, like the jewel she wears around her neck.”

”The Queen of Clouds lurks in the minds of all of us who have been brought up with rigid ideas of good and bad, sinful and virtuous, acceptable and unacceptable, moral and immoral. It's important to remember that all these judgments of the mind are just products of our conditioning. And whether our judgments are applied to ourselves or to others, they keep us from experiencing the beauty and godliness that lies within. Only when we break through the cage of our conditioning and reach the truth of our own hearts can we begin to see life as it really is.”

She said: In order to find love, I need to let go of that desire to hold back my true self, the master, totality, all that. I gotta quit being such a dried-up old prune. OK, so she didn’t say that, but how goddamn hilarious is that?

I think: This card is spot-on. I don’t have any jewels around my neck but I’m pretty sure I’ve been pretty stubborn lately when it comes to dating. And like my new schizophrenia diagnosis, I have to quit hiding my full self from these dudes. Otherwise…

Sorrow:

“The image is of Ananda, the cousin and disciple of Gautam Buddha. He was at Buddha's side constantly, attending to his every need for forty-two years. When Buddha died, the story is told that Ananda was still at his side, weeping. The other disciples chastised him for his misunderstanding: Buddha had died absolutely fulfilled; he should be rejoicing. But Ananda said, "You misunderstand. I'm weeping not for him but for myself, because for all these years I have been constantly at his side but I have still not attained." Ananda stayed awake for the whole night, meditating deeply and feeling his pain and sorrow. By the morning, it is said, he was enlightened.”

”Times of great sorrow have the potential to be times of great transformation. But in order for transformation to happen we must go deep, to the very roots of our pain, and experience it as it is, without blame or self-pity.”

She said: Yeah. You better get your shit straight or you’re gonna be in peril, Mimi. Whoopi said it best:

This seemed grim, but she actually told me I’m about to find love, like the real kind. She told me I’m going to meet the man of my dreams and have everything I’ve ever wanted. The catch? I’m going to go very on-brand and freak the fuck out about it which will lead me to this lovely card of a man weeping uncontrollably. And that just doesn’t really sound fun for me, personally.

So: I can pursue the man* of my dreams but only if 1) I’m being my most authentic and awesome self and 2) I chill the hell out

*I’m not going to be dramatic…but I did meet a super cute guy at a party this weekend. Have my dusty old prune days come to an end? STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT.

Okay, okay, I’m going to talk about two more cards followed by a story, mmkay?

Next Question: Am I gonna be OK? i.e. “listen you little deck of cards I have seen some shit and I really want to achieve all these awesome dreams so am I going to or not?”

I pulled…

Adventure:

“When we are truly in a spirit of adventure, we are moving just like this child. Full of trust, out of the darkness of the forest into the rainbow of the light, we go step by step, drawn by our sense of wonder into the unknown. Adventure really has nothing to do with plans and maps and programs and organization.”

”The Page of Rainbows represents a quality that can come to us anywhere--at home or in the office, in the wilderness or in the city, in a creative project or in our relationships with others. Whenever we move into the new and unknown with the trusting spirit of a child, innocent and open and vulnerable, even the smallest things of life can become the greatest adventures.”

She told me: There’s this story of this guy who asks his guru what he should do to be happy, OK. And so the guru is like yeah sure go to this mountain. And there aren’t like planes or even like boats really he has to travel all across the world, literally swim the Pacific or something to get to this mountain. Twenty years this guy is trying to get to this fucking mountain. Along the way he meets the love of his life, has some crazy stories, all this stuff. But he gets to the mountain, all right, and it suuuuucks. Literally the mountain is dumb and he hates it. But then he looks back at his twenty-year journey and he’s like okay it’s not so bad I did all that cool stuff on the way here.

My thoughts: Wow I would hate to be that guy right now. But what a cool story. And so perfectly intertwined with my life and my constant pursuits to find the next best thing but never really enjoying the moments that get me there. “Drawn by our sense of wonder into the unknown?” Oh hell yeah. Let’s go find that lame-ass mountain!

Question asked next: What are my best qualities?

I pulled…

The Fool:

“Moment to moment, and with every step, the Fool leaves the past behind. He carries nothing more than his purity, innocence and trust, symbolized by the white rose in his hand. The pattern on his waistcoat contains the colors of all four elements of the tarot, indicating that he is in harmony with all that surrounds him. His intuition is functioning at its peak. At this moment the Fool has the support of the universe to make this jump into the unknown. Adventures await him in the river of life.”

”The card indicates that if you trust your intuition right now, your feeling of the 'rightness' of things, you cannot go wrong. Your actions may appear 'foolish' to others, or even to yourself, if you try to analyze them with the rational mind. But the 'zero' place occupied by the Fool is the numberless number where trust and innocence are the guides, not skepticism and past experience.”

Guru said: I have the ability to continue trusting, loving, and existing even when bad things happen to me. I am “foolish” in that I have an aura of innocence that allows me to bounce back from the past in a way that others cannot.

Me: At this moment in the session I was ugly crying. Why? Because the cards were right. The cards knew. They knew that I’ve been hurt by others and betrayed by my own body. They knew that on a daily basis I foolishly forget all the pain I’ve been through.

The card goes on to say:

“A fool is one who goes on trusting; a fool is one who goes on trusting against all his experience. You deceive him, and he trusts you; and you deceive him again, and he trusts you; and you deceive him again, and he trusts you. Then you will say that he is a fool, he does not learn. His trust is tremendous; his trust is so pure that nobody can corrupt it.”

”Be a fool in the Taoist sense, in the Zen sense. Don't try to create a wall of knowledge around you. Whatsoever experience comes to you, let it happen, and then go on dropping it. Go on cleaning your mind continuously; go on dying to the past so you remain in the present, here-now, as if just born, just a babe.”

”In the beginning it is going to be very difficult. The world will start taking advantage of you...let them. They are poor fellows. Even if you are cheated and deceived and robbed, let it happen, because that which is really yours cannot be robbed from you, that which is really yours nobody can steal from you.”

”And each time you don't allow situations to corrupt you, that opportunity will become an integration inside. Your soul will become more crystallized.”

At this point in the session I had to blow my nose. Which my guru was totally cool about. I explained to her in vague terms why I was crying and that it was true, I’m resilient because I am not burdened by my traumas, I use them to get me places.

Now for the final story.

I’ve been carrying on my week like normal, despite having been totally shaken by the truths told to me by a deck of cards I’d never even heard of before. I went to work like normal, did a few after-work social gatherings, and continued to stalk the shelves of every bookstore I could find for my book.

But something crazy happened tonight.

I went to go see A Star is Born with a friend, ugly cried, as was predicted, made a trip to the eye doctor for some new contacts and glasses, met a complete stranger at a coffee shop who grew up in Colorado, is a writer, teacher, and probably my new best friend…but the weirdest thing happened when I was reading my copy of my own book on the subway home.

I got to the part where I get a little humbled and deep. No spoilers, but I talk about feeling lucky that I’m not disabled, dead, or blind.

I went to my first eye exam in three years earlier today. And aside from being that idiot that wears a single pair of contacts for six months until they literally rip themselves out of my eye sockets, my eyes are fine.

I have some double-vision in the corners of my eyes still. Mostly just in the morning or if I look at something really fast in that upper left corner. Do you understand how fucking lucky I am?

I woke up from brain surgery seeing double and sideways. Are we on the same page now?

I closed my book on the end of this chapter right as the subway doors opened and began sobbing. All of a sudden I remembered. The Fool remembered what I’d been through and all of the sudden that was very heavy.

I ugly-cried myself the two blocks home while calling my mom. As I slowly puttered down the street leaving puddles of eyeball goo behind me, bodega owners and taxi guys on the street started shouting at me “What’s wrong, Baby? What’s wrong?” It was like reverse catcalling, it was kind of awesome.

But I kept walking, telling my mother that I was probably just overly emotional because of Bradley Cooper but also that I almost died four years ago and I kind of thought that was a lot to process.

I hadn’t realized in that teary phone call, but my brain was lining up all the information from the tarot cards and delivering them in real time. This wasn’t just some random thing I did. I’d opened up a window into my soul.

Added bonus? I got this all for $30.

Talk about a mind-fuck.

Well. That’s all I have for you this…morning? It’s currently 2:32AM as I’m wrapping this lil’ puppy up. Which I guess makes me The Master of Writing.

And also really fucking tired.

Charaiveti, charaiveti friends, I’ve got some REM cycles to attend to…

Editor’s Note: The cards used in the Tarot session were called “Osho Zen” Tarot cards and reflect the teachings of Osho, an Indian spiritual teacher who died in the 1990’s. During his lifetime he was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader and mystic. The descriptions for each card were pulled from a site I found online that appear to be from a book published from Osho himself. I do not know the credibility of this source, however the descriptions found on the site matched what the Tarot reader said to me.

How I Really Feel the Day My Book Comes Out

Friends: “OKAY EVERYONE MAKE JAZZ HANDS!”

If you would have asked me four years ago on this day where I saw myself today I think I would have told you I’d be happily kicking it with Rosa Parks and Gilda Radner “on the other side” munching on some fancy cheese dips and trading gossip about which dead celebs were hitting on us at the pearly gates of heaven.  

My head was pretty screwed up by that point and I was making all kinds of dark jokes.

I had also just started doing something to distract me from all the brain bleeding nonsense.

I had just started writing a book.

Exactly four years ago I was sitting on my parent’s couch plopping my busted fingers down on a fresh word document.

“This sentence took me five minutes to write” were the very first words I wrote.

It actually took me longer than that because I could only use one hand.

Is it fate that this book would get published exactly four years later?

I don’t know about fate, okay. And *SPOILER ALERT* if I’m being completely honest with you that same sentence got cut from the final copy. But I’ll tell you this much, I never expected any of this to happen.

I never expected to be getting an email from a publisher on Sept 25, 2017 asking to publish my manuscript.

I wasn’t planning on delegating a cover design or hiring an attorney to negotiate contract terms.

I didn’t anticipate seeing actual ratings for my book posted online by people I’ve never met before.

And I definitely didn’t think a box of books could make me cry.

The truth is, I started writing a book because I thought I was dying. And I thought maybe I should start saying something important before I couldn’t say anything at all. Behind the LOLs and selfies of me at my keyboard typing away there was real, unfiltered fear.

This could be it. This could be the last thing you ever say.

Part of me was really upset that I wasn’t Anne Frank. That I wasn’t a pure and radiant soul documenting life-shattering thoughts on the page. I’m just some brain damaged chick sitting here watching Netflix waiting to die, I thought.

This was not a fun idea to entertain.

So I sat there on September 18, 2014 and began typing with my right hand. I got a few more sentences down, mostly about how I thought I was dying and that I thought it was really funny and weird to be writing a book in such a condition. I finished a page or two and then took a break to watch six straight episodes of How I Met Your Mother.

I think the next day might have been similar. Get up, take brain pills, eat food I can’t taste, write book, Netflix, nap, Netflix, nap, friend takes me on a walk, Netflix, bed.

I started writing a book because honestly what else was I doing?

When I thought about note-worthy dramas in movies and TV, the dying person always gets to go do something they’ve always wanted to do. They get to see a sunset in Italy or eat some exotic food or do something reckless and bad-ass on a rooftop or some shit.

Nope. Not me. I’m just gonna sit here and watch Barney tell us for the millionth time that it’s going to be legen….WAIT FOR IT…DARY.

What’s legendary about not showering for a whole week and finding Cheese Doodles in your hair?

I started writing a book because I was depressed and sad and thought I was dying and needed therapy.

Not what you expected? Yeah, I know. Me neither.

I guess it’s not our fault. I think society pushes the idea that authors are poised, literary robots who recite quotes from The Classics and spend hours in dimly lit cafes channeling their genius into every word, sentence, and paragraph.

Yeah, what a load of shit right there.

I mean maybe that’s the case for one or two of us. The few and far between; the privileged authors who have plenty of therapy and quiet space and money to create said genius works.

I hated writing in college. I was a History major so I had to write a lot of 20-page dissertations on feminism during WWII and all I could gather was that I was really bad at it.

“Write more academically.”

“Stop using puns.”

“Quit dropping the F-Bomb.”

 It never occurred to me then that it was the beginning of the end for me. And I’m not talking about the whole brain bleeding thing anymore, but that it was the beginning of what would become a never-ending need to write.

An itch that I would forever need to scratch.

I continued writing a book because it felt good. It felt good to release what I think was probably better suited for a therapist’s couch but came out on a page in the privacy of my computer screen instead.

I began saying whatever I wanted and whatever I felt. I typed with that one hand every chance I got (when I wasn’t watching Netflix, that is).

All of my emotions and dark contemplation’s about death and heartbreak just kind of oozed out of me. Kind of like the blood in my brain. I couldn’t control it. I wrote about a guy possibly dying next to me in the ICU, finding a catheter in my you-know-where, and temporarily having the vision of somebody on some seriously dope LSD.

And also like my brain I really needed to clean it up.

By the time I healed up and got back into the classroom I’d written about half of a manuscript. Approximately 40,000 words of utter nonsense about being really scared that my last meal was about to be a frozen burrito.

The fear continued to sit on my chest throughout student teaching, where I learned just how hard teaching would become for me with my newly patched-up brain.

Grading and lesson planning replaced book writing for a while. I could use my left hand again, but it was busy typing out emails to parents about So-And-So smacking another kid with a ruler in 4th period.

I took a two-week long nap after my first school year and then dusted off my word document and began again. This sentence is going to take me five years to publish at this rate, I thought as I reviewed the utter shitshow-condition of my manuscript.

And you know what, it pretty much did.

I spent the next three years rewriting and rereading my trauma.

And honestly, it was really fucking painful.

Just picture the worst moments of your life and analyzing them from every emotional angle for four whole years. Sounds fun right?! Wrong.

But like I said. I couldn’t go back. My body was extracting toxins into paper and I was just a slave to it after a certain point. Grade papers, teach, grade, nap, write, grade, nap, write, teach, eat a cube of cheese to keep from passing out.

It was the new normal.

And I need you to know that it was not glamorous.

Today and probably in the foreseeable future, you’re going to see a lot of pictures of me and other people holding my beautiful book, beaming with joy.

And that joy is real.

It’s the realest thing I’ve ever felt. So when I tell you that I cried in my rental car last night when this song came on the radio you kind of get where I’m coming from.

It’s very fun having people surround you with something you created. I imagine it’s how new moms must feel when everybody circles around and coo’s at you and your beautiful baby.

But it’s also scary. It’s scary that this thing I created out of fear of dying is now alive and well and in the hands of any Joe Blow who happens to see it on a bookshelf.

It’s terrifying that my alternative to therapy is now in the hands of my mother, my father, and probably a few curious guys I dated long ago before any of this existed.

How am I really feeling the day my first book comes out?

A lot of things.

Pride. Excitement. Fear. Uncertainty. Shock. Probably a couple of emotions that won’t be discovered by scientists until 2025.

I don’t know if these emotions will ever wear off. Not fully anyway. It’s a very strange experience when your conversations shift from “how are you doing in New York?” to “Wow, that thing you said on page 17 nearly made me piss my pants.”

My Auntie said she cried at a chapter that I didn’t even know could make someone cry.

It occurs to me now that I was pretty stealthy about the whole being terrified of dying thing. To the point that even the people closest to me are coming to me now with some very big emotional reactions to my I-really-should-have-been-in-therapy memoir.

To my credit, I was in therapy. Just of a different kind. Learning how to walk again seemed a bit more of a priority than my bottled up emotions at the time.

But here I am, sitting on my parents couch yet again letting some of those emotions leak out onto the page. It’s not perfect. It’s sometimes scattered and messy and painful. But it’s a necessary thing I do now because, again, I really should be in therapy.

Don’t worry about me though, really.

I’ve got great friends. My family is rock solid. I live in the coolest city in the world.

As the cover of my book would say, I’ll be OK.

I’ll be better than OK, actually, I’ll be fucking fantastic.

Feel free to congratulate me, pat me on the back, and take selfies with my book.

I hope you buy it, read it, and enjoy it.

I hope you laugh and I also hope you have a box of tissues at the ready.

I hope that some brain-injured chick out there on her parent’s couch finds it, reads it, and feels a little less alone.

And more than anything, I hope that I continue to chase this dream no matter what happens.

Now go out there* and get your copy!

Had to have high, high hopes for a living
Shooting for the stars when I couldn't make a killing
Didn't have a dime but I always had a vision
Always had high, high hopes
Had to have high, high hopes for a living
Didn't know how but I always had a feeling
I was gonna be that one in a million
Always had high, high hopes

*Check out major bookstores first! If they don’t carry it, feel free to ask them to order or visit Amazon or my site over at Animal Media Group here!