My Body Is a Book of Rules

Elissa Washuta

Description

As Elissa Washuta makes the transition from college kid to independent adult, she finds herself overwhelmed by the calamities piling up in her brain. When her mood-stabilizing medications aren’t threatening her life, they’re shoving her from depression to mania and back in the space of an hour. Her crisis of American Indian identity bleeds into other areas of self-doubt; mental illness, sexual trauma, ethnic identity, and independence become intertwined. Sifting through the scraps of her past in seventeen formally inventive chapters, Washuta aligns the strictures of her Catholic school education with Cosmopolitan’s mandates for womanhood, views memories through the distorting lens of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and contrasts her bipolar highs and lows with those of Britney Spears and Kurt Cobain. Built on the bones of fundamental identity questions as contorted by a distressed brain, My Body Is a Book of Rules pulls no punches in its self-deprecating and ferocious look at human fallibility.

Sujets

• Aboriginal
• Ethnic
• Cultural
• Native American
• Biography
• Regional
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: Red Hen Press
• Date de parution: 12 août 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781597095433
• Langue: English

Extrait

MORE PRAISE FOR ELISSA WASHUTA S MY BODY IS A BOOK OF RULES

BODIES ARE US. AND NOT. HOW DO WE FIGURE OUT WHICH IS WHICH? ELISSA WASHUTA TAKES YOU ON A FEARLESS RIDE OF SEX, DRUGS, MOOD DISORDERS, SELF-IMPROVEMENT, DIETING, INTERNET DATING, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND WHY SHE ISN T CATHOLIC ANYMORE. MY BODY IS A BOOK OF RULES IS A FUNNY, SCARY, UNPREDICTABLE BOOK; IT READS LIKE THE INSIDE OF YOUR OWN HEAD.
-SALLIE TISDALE AUTHOR OF TALK DIRTY TO ME
A GENRE-BENDING ODE TO THE BI-POLAR BRAIN, WASHUTA S VENOMOUS, LYRICAL CHAPTERS LINK TO FORM A MEMOIR THAT S DARING, VULNERABLE, CAUSTIC, AND RAW. READING THIS BOOK, YOU FIND YOURSELF IN A STARING CONTEST WITH A WRITER WHO WON T LOOK AWAY-NOT FROM HER DEVASTATING BETRAYALS OF BODY AND BRAIN, NOR THE CHRONIC SEARCH FOR A CHEMICAL CURE. SHE EXPLORES THE NUANCES OF BLOOD OUANTUM, COSMO, CATECHISM, PSYCHOTHERAPY, PROMISCUITY, FENCING, AND LAW ORDER: SVU IN A VOICE THAT EMBRACES ITS SELF-DEPRECATING, SELF-DESTRUCTIVE, HUMOROUS, BEDAZZLED CONTRADICTIONS.
-NICOLE HARDY AUTHOR OF CONFESSIONS OF A LATTER-DAY VIRGIN
MY BODY IS A BOOK OF RULES
ELISSA WASHUTA

Red Hen Press | Pasadena, CA
My Body Is a Book of Rules
Copyright 2014 by Elissa Washuta
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner.
Cover design by Nicholas Smith
Layout design by Michelle Olaya-Marquez and Nicholas Smith
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Washuta, Elissa.
My body is a book of rules / Elissa Washuta. -First edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-59709-969-1 (tradepaper : alk. paper)
1. Washuta, Elissa. 2. Manic-depressive illness-Patients-United States-Biography. 3. Indian women-North America--Biography. 4. Indians of North America-Biography. 5. Indians of North America-Ethnic identity. 6. College teachers-United States-Biography. I. Title.
CT275.W316A3 2014
970.004 97-dc23
2014007669

The National Endowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Pasadena Arts Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, and Sony Pictures Entertainment partially support Red Hen Press.

First Edition
Published by Red Hen Press
www.redhen.org
Acknowledgments

An earlier version of Preliminary Bibliography appeared in Filter Literary Journal .
An earlier version of Prescribing Information appeared in Third Coast .
Thank you to Artist Trust for their generous support of this book in the form of a GAP Award.
I am grateful to the many people who have lent me their time and expertise, along with the many others who have contributed to this book s development over the past several years.
To the wonderful people of Red Hen Press-thank you for all you have done for this book. Particular thanks go to Kate Gale and Nicelle Davis.
I am tremendously grateful to David Shields for the unceasing encouragement. To Maya Sonenberg, I am forever grateful for her challenges to me to create the best possible book.
The Cowlitz Indian Tribe has been an invaluable source of support-thank you for your commitment to my graduate education, and to my ongoing education as a human being.
To my colleagues in the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington-thank you for your unwavering support of my writing.
Richard Hugo House has supported my development as a writer in more ways than I can name. Thank you to every person who has worked to build that beautiful place, and thank you to everyone who has come into my life because of it-you are so many, and I am so lucky.
My immense appreciation goes to Paullette Gaudet, Sarah Erickson, Chris Boginski, and Simone Sachs Hollander for being my first readers and for helping me build this book. Special thanks to Ann LoGerfo, Roz Ray, and Laura Scott for your insight in helping me wrench the near-final draft into place. Jon Sternfeld, thank you for your faith in this book and your eye for structural magic. Peter Mountford, I am greatly indebted to you for the wisdom you have imparted. Matt Hargis, thank you for providing records that were so important in writing this book, and for being there to keep them.
Brian McGuigan, huge thanks for opening up so many opportunities for me, for having my back, and of course, for being my friend.
Steve Barker, for your appraisal of every draft, for your unflinching encouragement at every turn, and for sticking around even after you heard me read the first chapter-thank you.
To my amazing family-here, there, and everywhere-aunts, uncles, cousins, Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, Dad, Nate-your love means everything to me. I am beyond grateful.
For Mom, Dad, and Nate
We are four chambers
Table of Contents



The Dread
Note
Please Him
Faster Than Your Heart Can Beat
Preliminary Bibliography
The Kindling Model in Bipolar Disorder
Prescribing Information
Dear Diary
Fucker and Fucked
Dear Diary, Part 2
Sexually Based Offenses
Actually-
Many Famous People Suffer from Bipolar Disorder
I Will Perfect Every Line Until My Profile Is Flawless
Please Him, Part 2
The Global Positioning Effect
BODY MY HOUSE
MY HORSE MY HOUND
WHAT WILL I DO
WHEN YOU ARE FALLEN
MAY SWENSON, QUESTION

THERE ARE WORSE THINGS THAN HAVING BEHAVED FOOLISHLY IN PUBLIC.
THERE ARE WORSE THINGS THAN THESE MINIATURE BETRAYALS ,
COMMITTED OR ENDURED OR SUSPECTED; THERE ARE WORSE THINGS
THAN NOT BEING ABLE TO SLEEP FOR THINKING ABOUT THEM.
IT IS 5 AM. ALL THE WORSE THINGS COME STALKLNG IN
AND STAND ICILY ABOUT THE BED LOOKLNG WORSE AND WORSE
AND WORSE.
FLEUR ADCOCK, THINGS
MY BODY IS A BOOK OF RULES
A Cascade Autobiography
PART 1
A girl who guarded her chastity was considered valuable in the eyes of our warriors. A man would willingly give many ponies and robes to her parents for such a wife .
MOURNING DOVE, MOURNING DOVE: A SALISHAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

The Indians whom Sheridan had taken on the island were closely guarded. Old Chenoweth (chief) was brought up before Colonel Wright, tried, and sentenced to be hanged. The Cascade Indians, being under treaty, were adjudged guilty of treason in fighting. Chenoweth died game. He was hanged on the upper side of Mill creek. I acted as interpreter. He offered ten horses, two squaws and a little something to every tyee for his life, said he was afraid of the grave in the ground, and begged to be put into an Indian deadhouse. He gave a terrific warwhoop while the rope was being put around his neck. I thought he expected the Indians to come and rescue him. The rope did not work well; and, while hanging, he muttered, Wake nica quas copa mamelouse! He was then shot. The next day, Tecomeoc and Captain Jo were hanged. Captain Jo said all the Cascade Indians were in the fight. The next day, Tsy, Sim Lasselas and Four-fingered Johnny were hanged. The next day, Chenoweth Jim, Tumalth and Old Skein were hanged, and Kanewake sentenced, but reprieved on the scaffold. Nine in all were executed. Banaha is prisoner at Vancouver, and decorated with ball and chain. The rest of the Cascade Indians are on your island, and will be shot if seen off of it. Such are Colonel Wright s orders.
(From a letter by Lawrence W. Coe, describing the events of March 28, 1856, at the Cascades of the Columbia)
Tumalth begat Mary who begat Abbie who begat Kathleen who begat Leslie who begat Elissa.
The Dread
During my senior year of college, in the studio apartment the university paid for me to inhabit, as though I was more courtesan than scholarship show pony, I ignored all the helpful warnings handed down from the people in charge who did not seem to believe we children could keep ourselves alive. There were resident assistants roaming the floors, inspectors sniffing the apartments for smoke that had risen from some source other than charred pizza crust. There was the faceless university safety office that shot off missives into our mailboxes, card stock garishly printed to catch our attention but unable to compete with the issues of Maxim or High Times that we would pull from our mail cubbies, so any university notices would be dropped into the recycling, a homogenous stack. We deleted their e-mailed crime alerts and safety tips, too.
All the people who knew better than I did told me a thousand times to SNACK BEFORE AND DURING DRINKING, AVOID MIXING ALCOHOL WITH PRESCRIPTION MEDICATIONS . They said, PACE YOURSELF ; they said, DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY DRINKS WITHIN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME IS CONSIDERED BINGE DRINKING FOR FEMALES? If they wanted me to keep my ounces and hours straight, they shouldn t have asked me to measure my medicine numerically. I operated by my own logic: for my health, I drank Tropicana with immune-boosting Vitamin C that the carton promised me was dialed up to one hundred percent of what my body needed; for my pain, I added the crystal heat of Grey Goose, which I figured was sort of less unhealthy in its clarity. My liquid dinners delivered two servings of fruit, one serving of venom.
Beyond the walls of the brick compound I called home, there were the good people who worked on the third floor of the University Health Center: the woman who took my tearful appointment requests and refilled the displays of pamphlets on eating disorders, the therapist whose placement of the Zen rock garden on the table next to the patient s chair only made me suspicious, and the psychiatrist who supplied me