Part 1 (1/2)

The Chronology of Water

Lidia Yuknavitch

This book is for-and written through - Andy and Miles Mingo

Acknowledgements

IF YOU HAVE EVER fuckED UP IN YOUR LIFE, OR IF THE great river of sadness that runs through us all has touched you, then this book is for you So thank you for the collective energy it takes to write in the face of culture I can feel you

Energy never dies It just changes forms My beloved friends and mentors Ken Kesey and Kathy Acker are in the space dust and DNA and words

Thank you Rhonda Hughes, editrix extrodinaire, as well as all the people at Hawthorne Books for believing inBold Swimmers

Thanks to Lance and Andy Olsen, inia Paterson, through theto ht be a book” It just took et it

Thank you to the less than Merry Pranksters, particularly Bennett Huff us, chaotic, beautiful stardust

A great waterfall of thanks to Michael Connors for, well, everything, and to Dean Hart, forpossible Thank you for ht to your doorstep

Thank you to the greatest writing group in the history of ever: Chelsea Cain, Monica Drake, Cheryl Strayed, Mary Wysong, Diana Jordan, Erin Leonard, Suzy Vitello, and Chuck Palahniuk And Ji the introduction, and to Chuck for invitingearly versions of thisme to not lose my marbles Well at least sometimes

I would not be around to write this book had it not been for id as Claudia: how to thank you for the lifeline of your enduring love You have carried me well Sister Friend Other h words suddenly sees to Andy and Miles -you make me able to be Write This love Life I didn't know

Introduction

Chelsea Cain

LIDIA AND I ARE IN THERAPY TOGETHER

That's what she calls it Technically it isworkshop, at least that's what the rest of us would like to think It works like this Wework We all critique it Then sooes into the bathrooo

Chuck Palahniuk brought up the idea of inviting her ”She writes this literary prose,” he told us ”But she's this big-breasted blond from Texas, and she used to be a stripper and she's done heroin” Needless to say, ere impressed

I already wanted her to sit by me

There was y writer-I didn't recognize her naiven a talk at a conference about the State of sex Scenes in Literature and she'd said that all sex scenes were shi+t, except for the sex written by Lidia Yuknavitch Maybe Chuck didn't tell us that But soroup did I don't re Areal-life ex-stripper in our writing group! So glamorous

Yes, we said, invite her Please

She showed up a feeeks later, wearing a long black coat I couldn't see her breasts She was quiet She didn't make eye contact She did not sound like she was from Texas

Frankly, I was a little disappointed

Where was the big hair, the Lucite platfor up? (He does that so ht she came She shared work If you are a writer, or really a hu this is You show up and sit doith a group of strangers and share your art, having no idea how they will respond, these assholesat your tits

She read us the first chapter of her novel The Small Backs of Children (due out with Hawthorne Books next year), while we all followed along with the copies she'd passed out They say that alcoholics re in your body that says yes-yes-let's-feel-this-way-all-thetime -well, I will always remember the first tiht, this is horiting is supposed to be I thought, ht, I want that

Literally I wanted that chapter

See the protocol at workshop is that we bring in pages, hand theo around the table for coes, which by then are theoretically covered with highly useful notes Work does not leave the rooes They don't let scientists take home uranium in their pockets after a day at Los Alamos That's the deal

But I wanted that chapter I wanted to take it hoain I'd never felt like that about anyone else's work, ever

I considered stealing it

I could pretend to put it in the stack as the pages were collected, but then palm it off the table onto my lap and slip it onto the floor into my open purse I didn't want to ask her for it She already thought ere all perverts, the e kept checking out her chest

I decided to play it cool We went around the table, all of us giving feedback, happy, exhausted, delighted that she didn't suck

I tried not to blather, counting on the fact that there would be , more Lidia

It worked She ca!

She workshopped that book, and this memoir And the more I've learned about her, the more in awe I am

To start, she isn't really froe there, which is a totally different thing She does have nice knockers For the other stuff, you'll have to read the book

I' a copy I can keep

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant - - EMILY dickINSON