elf_fu: Do you remember the first time poetry and writing caught you, and if so, when and where?

thejunkyswife: The first time I realized I was extra good at writing was in the first grade when my teacher asked us to write a story. I'd recently been fishing with my father, and we'd caught a blow fish. I'd loved the blow fish and was kind of freaked out by it puffing up and being all covered in spiny things. When we were told to write a story, I wrote about the fishing trip, and the teacher praised me. She even asked me to read the story in front of the class, and my classmates laughed when I described the fish. I was hooked, immediately...I'd found something that I could use to get attention, express myself, and receive praise.

I'm not sure when I started being a "poet." It definitely became an identity in high school...I like the phrase Ernest Hemingway used (deridingly) for a poet once, "tragic poetess"...


elf_fu: What moves you, poetically?

thejunkyswife: Tragedy, love, and especially tragic love. I'm lame like that. My favorite Shakespeare play is Romeo and Juliet. The feeling I get in my gut when there's a beautiful possibility that just can't be fulfilled is the most poetic thing...


elf_fu: Given your experiences with your husband, if you could go back to your past self, what is the single most important thing you would tell her about what she's about to go through in loving someone with an addiction?

thejunkyswife: Wow...you're good at this!

It kind of depends on which past self you're talking to...if it's the past self before I knew he was using again, I'd smack that bitch and talk to her about denial. If it was me in the first month or so after I found his needles, I'd talk to myself about detachment and the importance of looking out for myself, my own needs and interests, and in finding solace and serenity wherever I can.


elf_fu: What's the one thing you have learned, since you started blogging that has stuck with you for a very long time?

thejunkyswife: I think that idea of detachment is something that will be useful for me forever. I've spent far too much time in my life worrying about difficult people and their needs and not nearly enough time taking care of myself. That part of my life is over. No more codependent craziness!

Blogging itself has changed the way I think about writing in many ways. There's this wonderful audience that interacts with me, which is really cool...I like having people read, respond, reflect on what I say.


elf_fu: If you were a painting, which one would you be, and why?

thejunkyswife: Artemisia Gentilleschi's Judith Beheading Holofernes...the second one when the woman is older, wiser, fatter, and accompanied by a helpful female assistant. It's my goal, to chop the heads off all those destructive male forces in my life and to start that llama farm full of lovely, intelligent, helpful, motivated, EMPLOYED women.

That was super fun, by the way. Thanks!