Tomboyland<\/em>. It\u2019s also my favorite part, the intertwining\u2019ness of it all.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s food for my ADHD\/OCD soul. It makes connections that people without ADHD might not make, which isn’t actually true because I’m pretty sure MF isn’t diagnosed officially. But regardless, for all its detours there are the dirt-road obsessions and compulsions that we keep coming back to. And the whole time you can\u2019t not keep reading to find out how she sticks the landing, which she always does.<\/p>\n
Like the one about food, midwestern food, family, and S&M, and if that\u2019s not about the most perfect encapsulation of Faliveno\u2019s midwesty\u2019ness, of Sconnie\u2019ness, then well I just don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
Which all then leads us back to the thread we most frequently come back to besides the idea of place: slippery identity, frequently sexual identity, specifically being bi-sexual and not being able to fit in on either side of gay or straight.<\/p>\n
Of looking masculine and being bi-sexual and having a bunch of straight people constantly confusing you with being a man and calling you a dyke and then a bunch of gay people questioning your gay\u2019ness because you happen to be in a long-term relationship with a man.<\/p>\n
Of course, this is me explaining this all\u2014maybe even mansplaining it, sorry sorry\u2014from the perspective of a straight white cis male, so maybe I\u2019m getting things all wrong. Which is another fucking reason you need to read this: to let Faliveno let you in on some uncomfortable truths about the way we deal with sexual identity and especially when you come from the Midwest, and all our supposed wholesome salt-of-the-earthiness and then move to New York, where even there you don\u2019t fit in because your too Midwestern, too rednecky, and you can\u2019t even move back home, because once you get off the farm and move to NYC, well, it\u2019s not like any Sconnies will ever truly trust the city-girl again.<\/p>\n
Which, of course, I\u2019m not explaining any of this well enough, sorry sorry, but then there you go, another reason you need to read Tomboyland<\/em>: Faliveno explains all this in a way that even a fellow Midwesterner like me, a fellow Sconnie, can explain with any clarity.<\/p>\nPlus there\u2019s softball, roller, derby, an ode to Twister<\/em> and the sexual chemistry between Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. There\u2019s bench-pressing and squatting and farming and the tricky relationship between doms and subs.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s all in there and it\u2019s all gritty goodness.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s Melissa Faliveno for you\u2014the true MF\u2019er, Sconnie to the core\u2014how much I\u2019d pay to buy a ticket to ride in her brain any day and so should you.<\/p>\n
– drevlow<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
BD:<\/strong> Can we talk a little about the sexual tension between Bill Paxton (RIP) and Helen Hunt?<\/p>\nMF:<\/strong> Oh my god, I could talk about this forever. Truly, one of my favorite sexual tensions in all of cinema. (And by \u201ccinema\u201d I mean of course the most important canon, Bad 90s Action Movies, and that canon\u2019s king, Twister<\/em>.) The scene where they\u2019re in the truck, chasing a tornado, and he\u2019s getting her wired up, and clumsily brushing her bare shoulder, and her hair is falling on him and he\u2019s like \u201cOh, excuse me\u201d all nervously while Van Halen is playing in the background, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (also RIP) and the character named Rabbit are talking about \u201cTENSE SITUATIONS\u201d over the walkies, and everyone is driving very fast through cornfields and shit? I mean. Come on. Also, who hasn\u2019t dreamed of making out in a field, chained to a pipe, in the aftermath of an F5 that magically didn\u2019t kill you? What a payoff! A release to end all tensions, a love to end all loves!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
BD:<\/strong> So I have a fun combination of OCD, ADHD, and anxiety, which means that I am constantly having conversations with about 12 different people in my head at the same time.<\/p>\nWhich is all to say, I really loved how your essays manage to weave between three or four or more threads at the same time and always be able to thread the needle at the end.<\/p>\n
MF:<\/strong> Thanks! I sometimes think of this particular habit of mine as a curse\u2014like I can\u2019t just write about one fucking thing. It has to go in all these different directions, and it can be really hard to make sense of things. But when I think of the essays I love most, they do this kind of work\u2014they branch out, take weird detours, peer into all these surprising corners. And as a reader, when I\u2019m like, \u201cOh, why are we here now?\u201d and then the story unfolds like a mystery, or a journey that the author is taking us on, that\u2019s when I really geek out.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
BD: <\/strong>And while we’re on the subject, is this how your brain works too or am I projecting too much?<\/p>\nMF:<\/strong> Ha! You\u2019re not projecting at all; my brain really does work that way. (And I too have struggled with both anxiety and OCD, so I feel you.) I think most of my process, in terms of writing essays, is trying to wrangle all the threads, figure out on the page why things are connected in my brain, and see what interesting things I might find in the connective tissue.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
BD:<\/strong> How much of your threads come as part of the natural writing process versus you thinking things out ahead of time?<\/p>\nMF:<\/strong> I might be circling around a few seemingly disparate ideas before I start an essay, but mostly the threads, and certainly the connectivity, comes only as I write. Essays for me are really a way to ask a question, often from a bunch of different angles, to see what I might find. I rarely ever know where I\u2019m going when I start an essay, and there\u2019s usually some kind of revelation that happens in the writing process, where I\u2019m like, \u201cAh, okay, so that\u2019s<\/em> what I\u2019m doing here. (I think. Maybe.)\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
BD: <\/b>Are there ever times where you\u2019ll make a jump but it feels a little too easy or predictable? Times where the jump makes sense to you but your editor\/readers feel like it\u2019s too much of a leap?<\/p>\n
MF:<\/strong> I definitely make leaps sometimes that feel predictable, maybe a little cliched. This happens most often when I\u2019m digging into a metaphor. And sometimes I\u2019ll step back, take some distance, go back to the essay and think, \u201cOh jesus, that\u2019s embarrassing,\u201d and then cut or adjust that particular thread, or line of inquiry. Which is not to say that you can\u2019t write about some metaphorical connection that\u2019s been made before (I have a whole essay about motherhood and plants, for crying out loud); I think the key is that you have to try to take it somewhere new, or surprising, or add some another element to the conversation to deepen the connection.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
BD:<\/strong> How much of your jumping comes from a discomfort with being stuck in one thread for too long? Maybe again I\u2019m projecting my own discomfort here, but I was also thinking I could do a whiz-bang PhD thesis on your writing style and how your discomfort with identity informs this? Or am I full of shit?<\/p>\nMF:<\/strong> I get bored easily, and can lose focus on a single subject. And while I can spend hours (read: weeks, months, years) researching one thing, the way I really make sense of a subject is by looking at other, related (however peripherally) subjects\u2014often that I\u2019ll stumble upon in the research process. But really, it all goes back to the idea that, for me, the most interesting ideas, questions, and experiences are multifaceted\u2014I can\u2019t write about gender, for instance, without writing about sexuality, without writing about class, without writing about the Midwest. They\u2019re all inextricably connected for me, and so what I try to do in an essay is tease out all those connections, and try to make sense of them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
BD:<\/strong> I was wondering about your experiences with masculinity\/toxic masculinity within female sports? I was thinking of specifically things like the desire to dominate, to bully, to intimidate, the fear that comes with it, the sexism, homophobia, the cycle of violence.<\/p>\nYou talk a lot about your own experiences on both sides of violence, so I was wondering how much that played out for you in things like hockey, softball, or even roller derby?<\/p>\n
MF:<\/strong> I think about this a lot, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s something I ever thought about when I was growing up playing competitive sports\u2014even when I was an adult, even when I was becoming more aware of things like misogyny and toxic masculinity; I didn\u2019t know how much I internalized those things. But I grew up around dudes, a lot of my friends were dudes. And as I got better at sports, started identifying as an athlete and winning awards, hanging out in the high school weight room with the football team and competing with them on the powerlifting team, I swaggered around school like those dudes\u2014brazen and braggy and a little butch, before I ever understood what that word would mean to me someday, but still hyper feminized as I knew I was supposed to be\u2014wearing makeup and tight skirts and heels, wanting to be the object of those dudes\u2019 desires. And as I got older, I hung out around a lot of dudes, too, especially those with whom I played on co-ed bar-league softball teams\u2014Midwestern dudes, straight white cisgendered dudes, dudes who drank too much and watched sports and talked shit and loved to chase girls but probably hated a lot of women, who were certainly super homophobic. Who said things like \u201cpussy\u201d and \u201cfag\u201d to each other on the regular. And to roll with them meant saying these things too. I didn\u2019t realize then\u2014and this was in my late teens and early twenties, before I took my first women\u2019s and gender studies course in college, before I started shopping at the feminist bookstore, when I still put \u201cALLY\u201d stickers on my notebooks, before I had any understanding of my own queerness. I internalized all that shit, and it took a long time to break out of those habits. It wasn\u2019t really until I stopped playing on those co-ed softball leagues, and started playing roller derby, and then on an a women\u2019s fastpitch league\u2014both of which were made up of a bunch of queer folks\u2014that I realized that being a jock didn\u2019t have to be synonymous with misogyny or homophobia. That masculinity didn\u2019t necessarily have to be the toxic kind. That I could embrace my own masculinity more than I ever had\u2014chop off all my hair, stop wearing the skirts and heels and makeup that never felt like me, to be confident and competitive and maybe even a little cocky without cutting other people down, to stop trying to fit into the classic \u201ccool girl who can play sports and drink beer but who still looks good in a dress\u201d bullshit I\u2019d learned from all those men of my past. Basically, to stop trying to play that role to fit in with the men, and own it for myself, while surrounded by a bunch of queer women and people who broke open my own understanding of what a \u201cwoman\u201d could be, what masculinity could be, how my own body and sense of self fit into those words or didn\u2019t.<\/p>\nI still like to watch sports and drink beer and talk shit, by the way, but I understand now that I can do those things without being a dick. Which is fun!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
BD: <\/strong>My apologies, but I feel like in these times, I would not be doing my due diligence if I didn\u2019t get a little political with you. I know this can be a bit of a touchy subject, but in your mind, how far do the borders of \u201cMidwest\u201d run? Which states that sometimes like to think of themselves \u201cMidwestern\u201d do not meet the qualifications in your mind?<\/p>\nMF: <\/strong>Oh man, this used to bother me a lot more\u2014maybe until I started writing a whole book about the fluid and indefinite nature of literally everything. I used to get pretty irritated when people from eastern Ohio called themselves Midwestern. Like, sorry, no, that\u2019s the Rust Belt. But I\u2019ve come to embrace the Rust Belt as simply another sub-community of the Midwest, like the Great Lakes states or the Plains. One of the beautiful things about the Midwest, I\u2019ve come to understand, is that\u2014like gender, like sexuality, like language\u2014its boundaries are fluid, its definitions change depending on who\u2019s speaking them. What I mean maybe is that it\u2019s murky and indefinite\u2014and those are the spaces I love most.<\/p>\nThat being said\u2014someone who had lived their whole life in Pennsylvania once told me they considered themselves Midwestern, and that is one hard line I will absolutely draw.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
BD: <\/strong>Okay, so I noticed that you switched terminology once or twice in your book, so let\u2019s nail it down definitively once and for all: Pop or soda?<\/p>\nMF: <\/strong>Hahaha. The most important cultural question of our time! It\u2019s pop<\/em>, one hundred percent. But the truth is that I code switch all the time, so here in New York I usually say \u201csoda,\u201d (like I say \u201ccaramel,\u201d rather than \u201ccarmel.\u201d)\u00a0 But as soon as I\u2019m home in Wisconsin, I\u2019m back in the land of pop and carmel and standing in line instead of on it (which\u2014how do you even stand on a line? The people are the line! It\u2019s madness).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
BD:<\/strong> What was it like recording the audio for your book? Most of the stuff I write, I write to be able to be performed out loud, but I also know that when I try to memorize pieces, there are all these little things that seem fine on the page but bother the shit out of me when I have to \u201cperform\u201d them.<\/p>\nWere there any words or lines you had written that you then cursed yourself later when you had read them aloud? Repeat them? Stumble over them? Etc.<\/p>\n
How much did you have to code switch between your \u2018sconnie accent and your natural voice and then your \u201cAudible\u201d voice?<\/p>\n
Did you learn anything about your prose from the process?<\/p>\n
MF:<\/strong> Recording the audiobook was actually one of my favorite parts of the publication process, even though COVID curtailed all our fancy plans for it. I had to audition for the part, which is kind of wild, and had to send the folks at Brilliance a sample recording of myself reading an excerpt. I got the job, which was super exciting, and I was supposed to be flown out to a studio in Michigan for a week last spring to work with a director and producer. When COVID hit, they were like, \u201cSorry; we\u2019re going to have to hire an actor out here.\u201d And I was like, \u201cHang on a minute.\u201d I was stuck at home, teaching remotely, and had a bunch of free time; I\u2019m a musician and used to produce and cohost a podcast for Poets & Writers<\/em>, so I have a bunch of recording gear and audio experience. So I built a little ramshackle studio in a tiny closet (I know) in my Brooklyn apartment, draped blankets from the walls, and borrowed a fancy mic from my friend who works in radio. I recorded into GarageBand through a little Zoom H4n we\u2019ve got here to record music. I set up a mic stand and the folks at Brilliance sent me an iPad to read from, and a director, Ken Schmidt, Skyped in from Michigan. He was incredible to work with\u2014super pro, and just overall a wonderful human. (We spent a lot of down time talking about our dogs.) I figured out my setup so that he could monitor my recording, and he would cut in to have me do a section over, give a line a little more energy, develop some accents and tonal differentiation for some of the people I interview in the book, which was fun. Lots of Sconnie accents for those parts. For my own part, there was certainly some code switching between Sconnie and radio voice\u2014but because of my experience hosting a podcast it wasn\u2019t that new for me. We focused mostly on energy, and presence\u2014really showing up for it, like I would a performance with my band. The best advice Ken gave me was that it should feel like telling a story\u2014like I was sitting around a fire with friends, telling these tales; that it should never sound like reading. He could tell when I was getting tired, or checking out a little, and we would take a break, and then kick it back to life. There were definitely moments when I would read something and shudder over what I had written, or think\u2014\u201cOh man, I should have cut that line,\u201d or \u201cI could have written that better.\u201d Which was a little horrifying, but helpful. I always tell my students to read their work aloud, and having to read my entire book aloud\u2014sometimes repeating sections multiple times\u2014was an exercise in both editorial hindsight and humility.<\/p>\nLuckily, because this was the height of the COVID outbreak in New York City, construction was halted\u2014so there was no usual soundtrack of chainsaws and pile drivers and jackhammers, which would have made this process impossible. It was June, and super hot in the city, so I sat in my tiny dark blanketed closet for a week, sometimes recording for eight hours a day, just sweating through my clothes and drinking hot Throat Comfort despite the heat. It was kind of brutal, but I loved it. One of my favorite parts about playing music is recording\u2014being in a studio for days, working with bandmates and a producer, doing takes until they\u2019re right, figuring out some stuff on the fly collaboratively\u2014and it was a lot like that. I\u2019d love to do it again someday. So if anyone needs a deep-ass contralto (or tenor, if I\u2019m being honest?) hit me up.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
BD:<\/strong> Can you explain to me the rules and strategies of roller derby? I am always drawn to it, but am also quite dull-witted and have never been able to suss it out.<\/p>\nMF:<\/strong> Totally! It\u2019s a bit tricky, and there are so many strategies I can\u2019t name them here (plus the game has changed a lot since I played, about ten years ago, back at the beginning of the modern-day resurgence). But the basics: there are ten people on a flat track, all skating counter clockwise during game play; each team has a jammer, whose job is to score points, and four blockers, who make up a \u201cpack,\u201d whose job is to both help their jammer get through the pack and stop the opposing jammer from getting through. So they basically play defense and offense at once. A jammer is essentially a sprinter, and her job is to lap the pack, scoring one point for each opponent she passes legally. And everyone is hitting everyone while this is happening, which is of course the best part. I was a jammer, mostly, but I also had a lot of fun as a pivot, which is kind of the leader of the pack; she stays up front, is often the last line of defense, and communicates with her pack and calls out plays and such. I loved to jam, because I love to skate fast, and I was pretty good at it. But I also really loved hitting the shit out of people. It\u2019s pretty much the most satisfying feeling in the world, especially for someone with a lot of repressed Midwestern rage, to slam your body into the body of another person, on roller skates, and watch her fly off the track and into the crowd. *Chef\u2019s kiss.*<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
BD:<\/strong> I would say that about 70% of my desire to write when I first got started was a rebellion against Midwestern repression, which in my mind is closely related to my relatives\u2019 version of \u201cMinnesota Nice.\u201d<\/p>\nThe upshot of this was that when I first started publishing things about my family\u2014no matter how hard I tried to paint them as the good guys to my own bad guy routine\u2014my mother would often write me letters to say how glad she was that I was a writer but then how much she wished I would move on and start writing more happy things. More happy things that didn\u2019t involve her, my father, and my dead brother.<\/p>\n
You have a spectacular essay about family, food, and BDSM. And of course, beyond that you are writing a lot about some tough things you have gone through\u2014not in response to anything your family did to you\u2014but still, a lot of things that would make most Midwesterners squirm in their seats. Not the least of whom, I imagine, the people who know you best.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s that been like?<\/p>\n
Do you have ground rules for what and whom you will write about?<\/p>\n
Do you share it with them first?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m asking, because frankly, I\u2019m pretty terrible at this, and at this point, my family and I have come to a very Midwestern don\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell compromise with my writing.<\/p>\n
MF:<\/strong> Whew. Yeah. This is one of those things that never stops being hard. I keep doing this thing to my parents where I reveal things to them about myself through my writing\u2014things we\u2019ve never talked about before, things they don\u2019t know until they read the piece (usually after it\u2019s been published), things that we still don\u2019t really talk about\u2014but even though it\u2019s hard, I feel a lot of relief every time it happens. It\u2019s like coming out (which I also did to them through this book) over and over again. I\u2019m an only child, and my parents and I have a pretty good relationship now, but things weren\u2019t always great, and we certainly partook in that long and storied Midwestern tradition of silence\u2014of not talking about anything hard; of denial and repression and grudges and a quiet, simmering rage; of any sort of conflict or confrontation turning into a sometimes years-long silent treatment. And when that\u2019s the possible outcome of conflict, you learn to shut up and never say anything. So I feel like every time I reveal some vulnerable truth about myself, however large or small, we\u2019ve chipped off another little piece of that generations-old glacier of silence. And they know me a little better than they did before.<\/p>\nA hard truth about writing personal essays and creative nonfiction is that no one is an island, and if you write about your life it\u2019s inevitably going to involve bringing other people into the fold\u2014often those closest to you. My students ask me some version of this question all the time: How do you write about your family, or the people you love? And I think my best answer is this: Focus on the story, and stories, that are yours to tell. If you can write something down and honestly say to yourself, \u201cThis is my story,\u201d then I think you\u2019re off to a good ethical start. If you write something down and it doesn\u2019t feel like it\u2019s yours\u2014if it reveals someone\u2019s secrets, for instance, and especially if a certain revelation could harm them, or you\u2014then I think it\u2019s critical to interrogate your motivations, and the implications of telling it. It\u2019s also important to ask yourself, \u201cIs writing this down worth losing someone over?\u201d I struggled with this a lot when I was working on my book\u2014so much so that I almost cut one of the harder essays to write, \u201cSwitch Hitter.\u201d In an earlier draft, I had revealed some details that I knew could be hurtful to other people, and possibly to me, and might end up in a severed relationship or two. I was really banging my head against that essay, because I felt like I couldn\u2019t tell my story without telling every single gory detail. But at one point, my very good friend and trusted first reader, Melissa Febos, was talking me off this particular ledge. She said, \u201cTry not to focus so much on what you can\u2019t say, and try to focus on what you can.\u201d What parts of this story can you really write into, and bring to the fore, to say what you need to say, maybe instead of these other elements that you don\u2019t feel comfortable writing about? Another way to think about it: What ways can you tell this truth, without necessarily telling all of it? That really unlocked something for me, and it\u2019s advice I give to my students and friends all the time now. There are some memoir purists who will tell you that you have to tell the whole truth, no matter who it hurts; tell your story and fuck everything else. And maybe, for them, that works. (Though I really have to question one\u2019s moral compass if they truly believe that.) I personally don\u2019t buy it. If something feels too uncomfortable to write, you don\u2019t have to write it. And in the end, this is art, and those are lives. To me, the lives are always going to be more important.<\/p>\n
(That doesn\u2019t mean you won\u2019t piss people off, even if you try very hard not to. You almost certainly will.)<\/p>\n
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First of all, her initials are MF and I think she\u2019d be okay with me calling her a badass MF\u2019er, which is what I’m trying to tell you:\u00a0 you need some more MF’in Melissa Faliveno in your life. Which is to say, you need to read Tomboyland. It\u2019s required reading. I\u2019m requiring it for you. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":16644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[2607,2610,2612,2611,2613,2614,2608,2615,2616,2606,2605,2609,2033],"class_list":["post-16642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bull-interview","tag-bi-sexual","tag-bill-paxton","tag-ed-gein","tag-helen-hunt","tag-jeffrey-dahmer","tag-melissa-faliveno","tag-melissa-febos","tag-roller-derby","tag-sm","tag-tomboy","tag-tomboyland","tag-twister","tag-wisconsin","writer-drevlow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16642"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16648,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16642\/revisions\/16648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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