today i had the rare pleasure of seeing ashley, which has been about a once-a-year event for the past couple of years. ashley has a remarkable way of saving bombs until the end of a conversation. we spent an hour and a half discussing jobs, cities, roommates, friends, etc. before ashley got to the topic of her trip to central america last winter.
she told me she met a guy there. i raised my eyebrows.
"where did you meet him?" i asked.
"on an island," she said, cryptically.
"you just went onto an island and there was a guy there waiting for you?" i asked. "where is this island?"
"he's a member of the belize national soccer team," she said, by way of explanation. i pictured an island populated shoulder-to-shoulder with members of the belize national soccer team. i was impressed but not surprised. ashley has a particular look to which no man can help but fall prey. she lifts one eyebrow and sort of curls her lip like elvis. i can see you trying to do it now as you read, but trust me, you're not doing it. no one can do it but ashley.
apparently the soccer player was beautiful and fun and spoke many languages.
"are you still in touch?" i asked.
"no," said ashley, and then taking a long sip of her tea, "because he's been arrested."
"arrested?"
"yes." long sip of tea. "for attempted murder."
a small detail.
"he got into some sort of fight and then there was all this bureacracy."
"hmm... apparently," i said.
i told her i thought i'd heard it all now.
"his name is melvin."
"melvin! melvin? you dated a member of the belize national soccer team who has been arrested for attempted murder and is named melvin?"
ashley had to admit that this was so. "it was one of the healthiest relationships of my life," she said.
later, driving her home from the coffee shop, ashley had a final bomb to drop:
"i don't know why i haven't found a guy that's really right. i mean, there was melvin, and then there was marvin..."
"marvin? melvin and marvin? what's wrong with you?"
perhaps the eyebrow and elvis lip have been pointed in chaotic directions.
but if i thought that learning that ashley had dated a potential murderer-slash-belize national football player named melvin, then followed it up with a guy named marvin, was a bomb, imagine what i thought when i received an e-mail from andrew with pictures of his new baby. correct me if i'm wrong, but wasn't it just six years ago that andrew and i were dating? and wasn't it just a year and a half ago that i had to leave my shoes in the bushes at his wedding because they were too tight and, thanks to the open bar, i wanted to dance? and now he's a father? i stared at the photos for an extreme amount of time. katie, andrew's wife, looked perfectly natural and radiant holding their new baby (name of teddy. yes, you heard me right. teddy. not named after ted a., we can only assume). but somehow andrew looked very young to me in his "with dad.jpg" shot, kissing the baby's head. i suppose it's hard not to think of your friends as just kids like you. what are kids like me doing kissing babies? and being their parents? andrew is my first friend to have a baby. he was also my first friend to get married. but then, andrew is probably my most competent friend, so who better than him to pave the way? pave the way, that is, way way way ahead of time.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
one flu over the cuckoo's nest
my youngest brother has a relationship with a group home for developmentally disabled people, so last night my whole family went over there to bake cookies with them and play games. of course the cookies and the games were both jewish. i went for the games. we played jewish bingo. very confusing. david, who was spinning the bingo wheel and calling out the items, was similarly stumped. there were some symbols on there for very obscure jewish holidays. luckily our dad was there to assist: "green leafy hut!" david would call out. "sukkah," my dad would supply.
david: "noisy thing you spin round and round!"
dad: "grogger, david."
david: "colorful braided object wielding light!"
dad: "david, that's a havdalah candle."
when the cookies were done and passed around, i remarked that the one shaped like a dog was particularly tasty.
"kara," my mother said, "that's a chai."
never let it be said that we secular offspring are done learning from our parents.
today, after finishing some last-minute holiday shopping, dan and i headed to the pediatrician for our flu shots. i haven't been to the pediatrician in a long time, and everything seemed sort of creepy and old there. we waited in our little chairs next to several copies of parents magazine and then went back and got our shots. luckily i look way under the age limit for getting flu shots at the pediatrician's office. also, even if they found me out, i think i could make a good argument for needing one, what with not having an immune system. i imagine the unmasking of my non-pediatric status with me taking a step back and unsheathing something dangerous-looking, then whirling around and pointing it at people: "i don't have an immune system, and i'm not afraid to not use it!" actually it turns out that sick people aren't scary at all, but we should be.
while in the waiting room i observed a boy of about 8 or 9 drawing on a notebook his mother had pulled out of her purse.
"what should i draw?" he asked.
"i don't know, honey; how about a reindeer?" the mother asked. foolish mother.
"no, mawwwm," the kid squealed, and then, much to my delight, whined, "something medieeeeval."
move over, reindeers. margery kempe is coming to town.
david: "noisy thing you spin round and round!"
dad: "grogger, david."
david: "colorful braided object wielding light!"
dad: "david, that's a havdalah candle."
when the cookies were done and passed around, i remarked that the one shaped like a dog was particularly tasty.
"kara," my mother said, "that's a chai."
never let it be said that we secular offspring are done learning from our parents.
today, after finishing some last-minute holiday shopping, dan and i headed to the pediatrician for our flu shots. i haven't been to the pediatrician in a long time, and everything seemed sort of creepy and old there. we waited in our little chairs next to several copies of parents magazine and then went back and got our shots. luckily i look way under the age limit for getting flu shots at the pediatrician's office. also, even if they found me out, i think i could make a good argument for needing one, what with not having an immune system. i imagine the unmasking of my non-pediatric status with me taking a step back and unsheathing something dangerous-looking, then whirling around and pointing it at people: "i don't have an immune system, and i'm not afraid to not use it!" actually it turns out that sick people aren't scary at all, but we should be.
while in the waiting room i observed a boy of about 8 or 9 drawing on a notebook his mother had pulled out of her purse.
"what should i draw?" he asked.
"i don't know, honey; how about a reindeer?" the mother asked. foolish mother.
"no, mawwwm," the kid squealed, and then, much to my delight, whined, "something medieeeeval."
move over, reindeers. margery kempe is coming to town.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
whip out that cape
by now i suppose this is just getting tedious for you, hearing of my rejections from every possible job, inquiry, pitch, submission, man, etc. that walks -- or inanimately, figuratively walks -- the face of the green earth. unfortunately this time, when rejected from the super teaching job that you've all heard me fawning over for two years, my REJECTION MAN-emblazoned cape was far away from me, in my closet in new york, and now i have nothing to wear to celebrate the occasion. it's okay; the cape is dirty, anyway. from so much wear and tear, no doubt.
what do you think of a column idea, title: "the adventures of rejection man"? or maybe just "rejection man." there would be no shortage of material, as you have seen. if it were a comic book, a possible subtitle could be watch as rejection man, equipped with plentiful experience and fine credentials, gets rejected from every endeavor she attempts! amazing sound effects as all those around her climb rope ladders to glory! explosions! cotton candy! slate.com, here we come. an idea to be rejected, no doubt.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
D.O.C.
like old biddies or a married couple, my friend sarah and i have a "place" in d.c. the place is the only spot in the city that makes d.o.c. pizza (that's denominazione di origine controllata, which basically means that they make it like they do in italy, with some weird standards about using mozzarella di bufala and having the crust be an exact thickness and made with some exact kind of farina 00). it's an amazing place. every time we go there i finish my pizza about a half hour before sarah, because i am a champion eater. a champion.
tonight we went with her friend kelsey as well. kelsey was friendly and smart and beautiful and very well put-together. which of course meant that i dropped pizza sauce all over myself and spat while laughing and coughed on ice cubes and did all sorts of other non-well-put-together things that i always magically manage to do when i am around such people. sarah and kelsey work for the government. "i am a writer," i said. "well, a graduate student and writer." i guess that alone goes a long way toward explaining why i cough on ice cubes.
after dinner sarah had to get her license plate affixed. she just got new d.c. plates, but she only put on the back one -- reason enough for the ticket-lovin' d.c. police to fine her $50. so, lesson learned, sarah cajoled her work colleague and carpoolmate, the young colin, to affix her front plate. we headed over to his place after dinner and he came out looking way too much -- as sarah later pointed out -- like an extra in "the dead poet's society" to know how to affix a license plate. we went down into his parking garage. (new yorkers, note: there are personal parking garages for certain apartment buildings in washington. this is amazing.) he went away for a moment and then returned with some slammin' power tools. (slammin' is not my word, nor is it his; it belongs to the power tools alone.) then he got down on his back and began making whirree! sounds with the power tools while we literally stood a few feet away and giggled. gender roles were being fulfilled to their fullest. colin completed the plate affixing. we showed our admiration/appreciation. "well done," we said. and, "good work." we probably could have thrown handkerchiefs, had we had any, but mine probably would have been splattered with tomato sauce.
tonight we went with her friend kelsey as well. kelsey was friendly and smart and beautiful and very well put-together. which of course meant that i dropped pizza sauce all over myself and spat while laughing and coughed on ice cubes and did all sorts of other non-well-put-together things that i always magically manage to do when i am around such people. sarah and kelsey work for the government. "i am a writer," i said. "well, a graduate student and writer." i guess that alone goes a long way toward explaining why i cough on ice cubes.
after dinner sarah had to get her license plate affixed. she just got new d.c. plates, but she only put on the back one -- reason enough for the ticket-lovin' d.c. police to fine her $50. so, lesson learned, sarah cajoled her work colleague and carpoolmate, the young colin, to affix her front plate. we headed over to his place after dinner and he came out looking way too much -- as sarah later pointed out -- like an extra in "the dead poet's society" to know how to affix a license plate. we went down into his parking garage. (new yorkers, note: there are personal parking garages for certain apartment buildings in washington. this is amazing.) he went away for a moment and then returned with some slammin' power tools. (slammin' is not my word, nor is it his; it belongs to the power tools alone.) then he got down on his back and began making whirree! sounds with the power tools while we literally stood a few feet away and giggled. gender roles were being fulfilled to their fullest. colin completed the plate affixing. we showed our admiration/appreciation. "well done," we said. and, "good work." we probably could have thrown handkerchiefs, had we had any, but mine probably would have been splattered with tomato sauce.
there's no "i" in "testies"
on my first night back in d.c., my family was about halfway through dinner, or maybe a little more, when my sister started making fun of my mother. that's pretty good, for my sister. usually it starts earlier in the meal. and usually it's not entirely warranted. but this was.
it seems that the other day, my sister was acting a little testy. (why is this night different from all other nights?) so testy that she was snapping and barking at everyone who came near her. my brother david was playing some card game with my mother in the kitchen, and arielle entered to a great fanfare of testiness. early in the day, apparently, "testy" had been the adjective decided upon to describe my sister's behavior, and the adjective had stuck. having had it, my mother cried out,
"arielle! you need to go wash out your testies right now!"
without the aid of the written form to spell out testies instead of testes for you, i'm sure you can see how great hi-larity and dropped jaws ensued.
even better was the response that my sister got while retelling this story at the dinner table, where i literally spat out a leaf and then threatened to fall off my chair. but really, i should expect this by now; this is the same mother who remarked to a mortified fifteen-year-old arielle and her friends on a chilly night that there was "a nipple in the air." my mother is not crass; she is not perverse. she just doesn't think before she says things sometimes. there is no doubt to me that in her head, "testies" was spelled with its chaste internal "i." but you cannot make these mistakes when you have two teenage children, one college-aged son, and an elder daughter who looks to be in the eleventh grade.
yesterday, in the car with dan, the youngest, we rehashed the "testes" story for our (my) amusement. we were sitting at a red light when dan said,
"just to get this straight: testes are testicles, right?"
"yes, dan," i said. "testes are testicles."
never let it be said that i don't contribute to the learning process of young people.
it seems that the other day, my sister was acting a little testy. (why is this night different from all other nights?) so testy that she was snapping and barking at everyone who came near her. my brother david was playing some card game with my mother in the kitchen, and arielle entered to a great fanfare of testiness. early in the day, apparently, "testy" had been the adjective decided upon to describe my sister's behavior, and the adjective had stuck. having had it, my mother cried out,
"arielle! you need to go wash out your testies right now!"
without the aid of the written form to spell out testies instead of testes for you, i'm sure you can see how great hi-larity and dropped jaws ensued.
even better was the response that my sister got while retelling this story at the dinner table, where i literally spat out a leaf and then threatened to fall off my chair. but really, i should expect this by now; this is the same mother who remarked to a mortified fifteen-year-old arielle and her friends on a chilly night that there was "a nipple in the air." my mother is not crass; she is not perverse. she just doesn't think before she says things sometimes. there is no doubt to me that in her head, "testies" was spelled with its chaste internal "i." but you cannot make these mistakes when you have two teenage children, one college-aged son, and an elder daughter who looks to be in the eleventh grade.
yesterday, in the car with dan, the youngest, we rehashed the "testes" story for our (my) amusement. we were sitting at a red light when dan said,
"just to get this straight: testes are testicles, right?"
"yes, dan," i said. "testes are testicles."
never let it be said that i don't contribute to the learning process of young people.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
bagels get hungry, too
you know you have regressed to childhood when the words "it is okay if i take a shower?" escape your lips, and you are wearing a towel with sesame street characters all over it, and the sound of "moooom! phoooone!" is reverberating around you, and, on top of this, you suspect that momentarily, like the mouse who was given a cookie, you will be asking for some shampoo as well. because you didn't bring any. you are in your parents' house. you are Home For The Holidays. you are ten.
this afternoon i went with ari and dan to get a bagel. we only ever eat at this particular bagel place where i like the tuna fish. it's called bagel city and it is populated mostly by elderly jewish people and babies. while eating, arielle noticed that the wallpaper trimming -- some kind of painting of bagels engaged in various free & easy activities -- featured bagels eating bagels.
"is that weird?" she asked, chewing. "bagels eating bagels? i think that's weird."
"most bagels are cannibals," i said. "this is a historically accurate portrayal of the life and times of bagels and how, when they went picnicking in the '80s or whenever this mural was painted, they were forced to eat other bagels because they did not have enough shot to hunt bison."
i met with a blank stare from both siblings.
someone was watching all this.
at the table next to ours, an old lady was making no show of not eavesdropping. she also made no show of politeness, asking us,
"why aren't you kids in school?"
i did not respond and continued to eat, perhaps because when someone you don't know talks to you in new york, you do not respond, or perhaps because i am not as polite as my sister, who explained that we were on vacation. the woman asked where ari went to school, and she responded. she asked if ari had any homework over the break, and if so, what kind, and ari responded.
"what grade are you in?" the woman asked.
"eleventh grade," said ari.
"are you all in eleventh grade?" she asked. story of my life, although i admit that all of us, my thirteen-year-old brother, ari, and pie-faced me, could all probably be taken for seventeen.
"no," daniel answered gallantly, trying to defend my honor. "i'm in eighth grade, and she's in graduate school."
the woman looked skeptical and ignored this, finally leaving us to our bagels.
ah, youth, you display yourself in all your myriad forms.
this afternoon i went with ari and dan to get a bagel. we only ever eat at this particular bagel place where i like the tuna fish. it's called bagel city and it is populated mostly by elderly jewish people and babies. while eating, arielle noticed that the wallpaper trimming -- some kind of painting of bagels engaged in various free & easy activities -- featured bagels eating bagels.
"is that weird?" she asked, chewing. "bagels eating bagels? i think that's weird."
"most bagels are cannibals," i said. "this is a historically accurate portrayal of the life and times of bagels and how, when they went picnicking in the '80s or whenever this mural was painted, they were forced to eat other bagels because they did not have enough shot to hunt bison."
i met with a blank stare from both siblings.
someone was watching all this.
at the table next to ours, an old lady was making no show of not eavesdropping. she also made no show of politeness, asking us,
"why aren't you kids in school?"
i did not respond and continued to eat, perhaps because when someone you don't know talks to you in new york, you do not respond, or perhaps because i am not as polite as my sister, who explained that we were on vacation. the woman asked where ari went to school, and she responded. she asked if ari had any homework over the break, and if so, what kind, and ari responded.
"what grade are you in?" the woman asked.
"eleventh grade," said ari.
"are you all in eleventh grade?" she asked. story of my life, although i admit that all of us, my thirteen-year-old brother, ari, and pie-faced me, could all probably be taken for seventeen.
"no," daniel answered gallantly, trying to defend my honor. "i'm in eighth grade, and she's in graduate school."
the woman looked skeptical and ignored this, finally leaving us to our bagels.
ah, youth, you display yourself in all your myriad forms.
Monday, December 19, 2005
i remain
i've got about an hour before i have to leave for washington, so i'm trying to pack. it's not easy, the packing. i'll be gone for ten days, and who knows what i'll need in that time? what if i need to look presentable? what if i need to look like ass? (no, wait: that can be arranged under any circumstances.) what if i feel the need, contrary to the past two months, to work out? i would need sneakers. and how can i revise my story if i don't bring a huge stack of workshop comments with me? but soft! i was going to read this enormous hardback book; i can't leave that behind. and so on. it's times like this that make me think, wait! is it possible that i'm a girl? i can see ted somewhere in the financial district smacking his forehead with the palm of his hand as i type this.
yesterday, driving back from philly with adrienne, abby, and harry from the occasion of alyssa's birthday, i was informed by half the car that in fact, "cheers" is an okay, friendly sort of sign-off, not distancing or snotty at all and -- let the tables turn, turn -- my own favored business-like sign-off of "best" is a far more smarmy culprit. if that's true, as adrienne and i are still hesitant to believe, then i suppose i owe the cheers bandit a small, grudging apology. luckily, however, the cheers bandit doesn't read this page, so i don't have to apologize to anyone. and that's good, because man, do i hate to apologize. we came up with a few that we would like to test-run to ascertain their smarminess. entrants included "eternally," "jovially," "half-heartedly," and other adverbs. i suppose those are better than best. in the end our tentative favorite sign-off became, "i remain."
i just ate two yogurts for lunch and am now feeling a little sick. let dairy reign and everything, but two yogurts back to back is a little much, even for me, the original dairy queen. one was blueberry and one was raspberry. i was trying to, you know, mix it up a little. but as you know, whenever i try to mix anything up it goes awry. especially yogurt.
yesterday, driving back from philly with adrienne, abby, and harry from the occasion of alyssa's birthday, i was informed by half the car that in fact, "cheers" is an okay, friendly sort of sign-off, not distancing or snotty at all and -- let the tables turn, turn -- my own favored business-like sign-off of "best" is a far more smarmy culprit. if that's true, as adrienne and i are still hesitant to believe, then i suppose i owe the cheers bandit a small, grudging apology. luckily, however, the cheers bandit doesn't read this page, so i don't have to apologize to anyone. and that's good, because man, do i hate to apologize. we came up with a few that we would like to test-run to ascertain their smarminess. entrants included "eternally," "jovially," "half-heartedly," and other adverbs. i suppose those are better than best. in the end our tentative favorite sign-off became, "i remain."
i just ate two yogurts for lunch and am now feeling a little sick. let dairy reign and everything, but two yogurts back to back is a little much, even for me, the original dairy queen. one was blueberry and one was raspberry. i was trying to, you know, mix it up a little. but as you know, whenever i try to mix anything up it goes awry. especially yogurt.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
turning yourselves in
i have now received three missives expressing fear that their authors are the "cheers bandit." to all three, i say no, you are not. what alarms me, though, is that three additional people, beyond the cheers bandit, consider themselves probable candidates for the position. which means that they must use "cheers" as a sign-off, too. is "cheers" sweeping the nation, like some modern-day "baby fish mouth"? please, say it isn't so.
Friday, December 16, 2005
omissions
apparently in her haste abby left out another detail of the rat story, the omission of which has caused an e-mail uproar in northern california: it was gallant bryan, the boyfriend of abby's sister becky, who did the dirty hands-on work with the rat. let this addendum serve as his recognition.
tonight i went to see my cousin debbie's photography opening. she's having a solo show at the SVA, and it's kick-ass, so anyone who wants to see some great photography should go there. many of the pictures also feature debbie's parents, my cousins judy and alan. this caused my mother great delight when she viewed the photographs on debbie's web site. "i saw judy on the web site!" my mother exclaimed with pleasure. i'm not sure that was debbie's intended "viewer's effect," but with family, you know, so be it. my cousin julie, debbie's sister who is my age, was also in attendence. julie is a filmmaker, but is now applying to many grad schools in many different areas. she told me that in her apartment building there is a small tunnel that leads out to a sort of yard. to get to the yard, she said, you can either live on the ground floor, or brave the small tunnel. her boyfriend alex, a tall man, has braved this tunnel, and he reports that it is not lit and that he suspects there are things living in there. maybe rats. "more rats!" i cried, but did not tell the rat story, so i'm sure they thought i was very strange. julie has an excellent dog in her apartment (not in the tunnel) and one of my new nyc goals has become to meet it.
tonight i went to see my cousin debbie's photography opening. she's having a solo show at the SVA, and it's kick-ass, so anyone who wants to see some great photography should go there. many of the pictures also feature debbie's parents, my cousins judy and alan. this caused my mother great delight when she viewed the photographs on debbie's web site. "i saw judy on the web site!" my mother exclaimed with pleasure. i'm not sure that was debbie's intended "viewer's effect," but with family, you know, so be it. my cousin julie, debbie's sister who is my age, was also in attendence. julie is a filmmaker, but is now applying to many grad schools in many different areas. she told me that in her apartment building there is a small tunnel that leads out to a sort of yard. to get to the yard, she said, you can either live on the ground floor, or brave the small tunnel. her boyfriend alex, a tall man, has braved this tunnel, and he reports that it is not lit and that he suspects there are things living in there. maybe rats. "more rats!" i cried, but did not tell the rat story, so i'm sure they thought i was very strange. julie has an excellent dog in her apartment (not in the tunnel) and one of my new nyc goals has become to meet it.
postscript
last night at abby's, she provided a miraculous postscript for the story of her sister's car. and here i paraphrase:
"they just opened the glove compartment," abby said matter-of-factly,"and a glove-compartment sized rat was in there. it was like, 'hey, i'm a rat.'"
moments later, too modest to accept our delight at this detail, she added, "well, that part i made up."
"they just opened the glove compartment," abby said matter-of-factly,"and a glove-compartment sized rat was in there. it was like, 'hey, i'm a rat.'"
moments later, too modest to accept our delight at this detail, she added, "well, that part i made up."
Thursday, December 15, 2005
a different sort of transit strike
this morning abby told me a story that just confirms the power of the rat. abby's sister lives in northern california, where she has a car. (for those of you not in new york city, please excuse the exoticism i've attached to that fact.) i sense from the story that it is usually a normal car, so that when abby's sister found that her car had been all chewed up, she knew something was awry. further, the car could not be driven because something had chewed through all the electrical equipment. what had done all this chewing? a rat. there had been a rat in her car. they found it. it had been there in the glove compartment even while she was driving the car. the best part of the story, however, or as much of it as abby told me, was that when abby's sister called state farm to sheepishly explain the situation, it turned out that automobile rat-gnawing is covered by state farm. apparently this happens all the time in northern california. rats just enter cars and gnaw them. this definitely changes my "california is a place where happy blonde people surf and eat cucumbers" idea. i'm going to have to change it to "california is a place where happy blonde people surf, eat cucumbers, and are assaulted by rats."
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
false alarm
sorry to have whetted your whistles for nothing. at the abbey pub on monday night, keri, who had been misled by some exterior source, led my workshop to believe that a former instructor of ours -- no longer at columbia for the time being -- was the son of an ex-president of the czech republic. at which point, reading a corroborating blurb from the internet on helene's crackberry, i nearly shit a brick. (the brickshitting was mainly due to a story i'd submitted while studying with him that had some information about the CR that he did not like. my god! i thought to myself in the abbey pub, my facial expressions changing flavors like a gobstopper. no wonder he thought i was such a prick!) i died a little.
but later on, at home, i had to double-check on this. there were too many weird things about it. like, when would he have been president? not during the regime. and how come we'd never heard anything about this? too weird. it turned out that the blurb we'd read was from a site about a czech arts & culture society in america, and our former instructor's dad was the president of that, not of the CR. jesus christ! way to get me all worked up about nothing. my workshop was just as surprised as i was when i told them the news, but way less relieved.
but later on, at home, i had to double-check on this. there were too many weird things about it. like, when would he have been president? not during the regime. and how come we'd never heard anything about this? too weird. it turned out that the blurb we'd read was from a site about a czech arts & culture society in america, and our former instructor's dad was the president of that, not of the CR. jesus christ! way to get me all worked up about nothing. my workshop was just as surprised as i was when i told them the news, but way less relieved.
Monday, December 12, 2005
i wear a top hat to blend in with the crowd
i walked around all day looking ridiculously appropriate, knowing that i was to attend ted's office party later this evening. in class: ridiculously appropriate. in workshop: again, appropriate. after workshop at the bar: appropriate beyond compare. all day i was surprised that i wasn't stamping documents or else brocading my initials onto handkerchiefs. by appropriate i mean that i wasn't wearing jeans and sneakers: good practice for my interview tomorrow afternoon. michelle, keri, and andrea all gave me some good advice (not to mention the advice given to me by my clever students) so i have no excuse but to rock the casbah. if i do not rock the casbah, it will be no one's fault but my own, or no one's fault but ted's employer for feeding me iffy shrimp at the office party this evening.
i arrived downtown at around 9:30 looking ridiculously appropriate but in a sort of wilted way, since i'd had the appropriate thing going all day. ted's office is out of control. they have television in their elevators. we came off the elevator onto the floor where the party was, and there were people dressed entirely in white pantyhose and hoolahoops making these sort of swirly motions with their arms and legs, bathed entirely in blue light. (i assume these were not the lawyers.) i was frightened and backed away. these people had no eyes. we proceeded to the shrimp piles and the chocolate fountain, the reasons i had come. sadly, the chocolate fountain had nothing left to dip in it. i considered my bare tongue, but i had been doing so well with the appropriate thing up to that point, and it seemed a shame to ruin it. such excess. excess everywhere. it was kind of gross, to be honest. the one thing that i did covet was a giant goblet -- maybe four to five times the size of my head -- completely filled with rock candy. i thought about how popular i would be if i could steal that goblet and bring it to my workshop on wednesday. i pictured my workshop friends sprawled upon the floor, rock candy debris all around them, their mouths sprinkled with the tiny crystals of their sugar spree. they would be happier about the rock candy than these lawyers. i wonder what they do with all that extra food. i hope they give it away to a shelter or something. but i have to tell you that this isn't a company i particularly have faith in, in that regard.
but i'll save the most amazing thing i learned today to tell you tomorrow. those who were at the abbey pub this evening after workshop already know what it is. "i am in shock!" i announced. when you're enough in shock to announce that you are in shock, that's when you know it's for real.
i arrived downtown at around 9:30 looking ridiculously appropriate but in a sort of wilted way, since i'd had the appropriate thing going all day. ted's office is out of control. they have television in their elevators. we came off the elevator onto the floor where the party was, and there were people dressed entirely in white pantyhose and hoolahoops making these sort of swirly motions with their arms and legs, bathed entirely in blue light. (i assume these were not the lawyers.) i was frightened and backed away. these people had no eyes. we proceeded to the shrimp piles and the chocolate fountain, the reasons i had come. sadly, the chocolate fountain had nothing left to dip in it. i considered my bare tongue, but i had been doing so well with the appropriate thing up to that point, and it seemed a shame to ruin it. such excess. excess everywhere. it was kind of gross, to be honest. the one thing that i did covet was a giant goblet -- maybe four to five times the size of my head -- completely filled with rock candy. i thought about how popular i would be if i could steal that goblet and bring it to my workshop on wednesday. i pictured my workshop friends sprawled upon the floor, rock candy debris all around them, their mouths sprinkled with the tiny crystals of their sugar spree. they would be happier about the rock candy than these lawyers. i wonder what they do with all that extra food. i hope they give it away to a shelter or something. but i have to tell you that this isn't a company i particularly have faith in, in that regard.
but i'll save the most amazing thing i learned today to tell you tomorrow. those who were at the abbey pub this evening after workshop already know what it is. "i am in shock!" i announced. when you're enough in shock to announce that you are in shock, that's when you know it's for real.
invading the winner's circle
i don't know why this should be true, but this year more than most i have been pleasantly surprised by people. i think my expectations have gone down. i expected that on saturday night, attending a dinner party of lawyers and their wives and husbands and girlfriends and boyfriends and, in my case, a singular paralegal and me, i would be drowned in a baleful tide of uproarious lawyer laughter, and maybe some heartfelt fist-pumping while they sat in a circle with their sleeves rolled up yelling, "brief! brief! brief!" sometimes i guess your imagination can give you a false start. because these lawyers were excellently nice. they were young lawyers. a lot of them younger than my friends from the writing division. and yes, they all wore very nice clothes and had very nice manners and did very dry things during their weeks and did, as is the custom of lawyers, give a warm and interested nod when i said i was a writer, and then proceed to be utterly stumped as to what i might "do with that." but overall they were very nice people and even i, the surly writer, was allowed to stay amongst them for one evening.
naturally there was someone there who spoke czech. i don't know how this came out. recently everywhere i go there is someone who lived in the CR just post-'89 and knows all this poorly pronounced czech (poorly pronounced, yet better pronounced than mine). he was just as against trying to speak czech on saturday as i was. i demurred by saying that we hadn't even learned all the tenses yet. he protested that he hadn't lived there in over ten years. then, feeling bold, in czech i ventured "it is pretty there now." (certainly not the comment i would have made in english, but my choices are limited.) he nodded politely. "you are boring!" i continued, in czech. i can always remember the word boring because it was taught to our class with me as the reason. "you are boring!" the instructor cried out, probably because whenever he asks us what we do, did, or are going to do, the only verbs i can remember that seem realistic are sleep, eat, read, and write. then he wrote the word for boring on the board and said it again. "kara is boring! me too," he followed up hastily. "i mean all graduate students, we're all boring." the man at the lawyer party maybe didn't know the word for boring, lucky me. but he did slowly back away and not talk to me again for the rest of the night. i suppose boring is only a sort of half-compliment depending on who it comes from and who it's going to, and freshfaced writer/writing teachers speaking to bald financiers is not an eligible match.
on saturday morning while i was walking the streets, ted set up the gazelle. i got this gazelle because i never go to the gym anymore. i'd forgotten that i was supposed to go to the gym on doctor's orders, not to look extra hott, because it turns out looking extra hott just isn't so important to me. i have, as phillip as likes to tell me, "let myself go." but i am getting sick again, so maybe it would be a good time to do some sort of physical motion. this gazelle is pretty strange though. abby & harry liked the idea of there being an actual gazelle in the living room, kind of like an african safari in manhattan. i haven't used it in earnest yet. it is not very challenging. yesterday, however, while revising, i heard a distinct wickee wickee wickee sound coming from the other room. it was the gazelle in action. ted was on there, reading some sort of philosophy tract and boldly striding along.
"what are you doing?" i asked.
"i am working out on the gazelle," he said, casually flipping a page. he was wearing slippers. as you can see, it's not terribly strenuous.
naturally there was someone there who spoke czech. i don't know how this came out. recently everywhere i go there is someone who lived in the CR just post-'89 and knows all this poorly pronounced czech (poorly pronounced, yet better pronounced than mine). he was just as against trying to speak czech on saturday as i was. i demurred by saying that we hadn't even learned all the tenses yet. he protested that he hadn't lived there in over ten years. then, feeling bold, in czech i ventured "it is pretty there now." (certainly not the comment i would have made in english, but my choices are limited.) he nodded politely. "you are boring!" i continued, in czech. i can always remember the word boring because it was taught to our class with me as the reason. "you are boring!" the instructor cried out, probably because whenever he asks us what we do, did, or are going to do, the only verbs i can remember that seem realistic are sleep, eat, read, and write. then he wrote the word for boring on the board and said it again. "kara is boring! me too," he followed up hastily. "i mean all graduate students, we're all boring." the man at the lawyer party maybe didn't know the word for boring, lucky me. but he did slowly back away and not talk to me again for the rest of the night. i suppose boring is only a sort of half-compliment depending on who it comes from and who it's going to, and freshfaced writer/writing teachers speaking to bald financiers is not an eligible match.
on saturday morning while i was walking the streets, ted set up the gazelle. i got this gazelle because i never go to the gym anymore. i'd forgotten that i was supposed to go to the gym on doctor's orders, not to look extra hott, because it turns out looking extra hott just isn't so important to me. i have, as phillip as likes to tell me, "let myself go." but i am getting sick again, so maybe it would be a good time to do some sort of physical motion. this gazelle is pretty strange though. abby & harry liked the idea of there being an actual gazelle in the living room, kind of like an african safari in manhattan. i haven't used it in earnest yet. it is not very challenging. yesterday, however, while revising, i heard a distinct wickee wickee wickee sound coming from the other room. it was the gazelle in action. ted was on there, reading some sort of philosophy tract and boldly striding along.
"what are you doing?" i asked.
"i am working out on the gazelle," he said, casually flipping a page. he was wearing slippers. as you can see, it's not terribly strenuous.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
something will occur
this morning, at an impressively spry hour, thom, emily, helene, lorenzo & i congregated at the journal office to once again walk the streets for money. after a bit of huffing around about what we were going to do, we split into teams with our press kits and headed outside, where helene & lorenzo promptly realized that they did not have a copy of the journal to show potential business partners and then, shortly thereafter, thom dropped his copy into a muddy puddle. we were off to a good start. thom insisted that we put our hands in the middle of the circle and then joyously yank them back out of the circle, with energy, like hockey teams do before games. hockey teams yell "team!" or "rangers!" we did not yell anything. before doing this, thom had initiated a test run with only me, upstairs in the writing division. taken by surprise, i had yelled, "go!" i guess that was the wrong thing to yell, because thom looked a little disappointed. i don't do that kind of thing very often.
thirty-five blocks downtown and fifteen minutes later, emily & i did not meet with much success. people barked at us. they did not want to negotiate for ad space. finally we had a few leads and had stepped in many puddles. we discovered that we were hungry. we hoped that team lorenzo& helene and team thom (the team of thom's self) had done better than we had, and adjourned for lunch. the development editors at columbia: ajolaa are working really, really hard. the greatest triumph of the day was discovering how compatible said non-hardworking editors are. we were both pleased. pleased and having made no money for the journal. but, you know, whatever. we're writers. what do you want from us? something, as i like to say when i have no idea how i'm going to accomplish any given task, will occur.
thirty-five blocks downtown and fifteen minutes later, emily & i did not meet with much success. people barked at us. they did not want to negotiate for ad space. finally we had a few leads and had stepped in many puddles. we discovered that we were hungry. we hoped that team lorenzo& helene and team thom (the team of thom's self) had done better than we had, and adjourned for lunch. the development editors at columbia: ajolaa are working really, really hard. the greatest triumph of the day was discovering how compatible said non-hardworking editors are. we were both pleased. pleased and having made no money for the journal. but, you know, whatever. we're writers. what do you want from us? something, as i like to say when i have no idea how i'm going to accomplish any given task, will occur.
Friday, December 09, 2005
multiples
jen took time out of her extraordinarily busy day serving the young scholars of the university of pennsylvania to send me this important breaking news, which i thought you, too, would find enjoyable. (yes, those are multiples.)
the weather and other perniciousnesses
yesterday afternoon i learned that there was to be snow, and immediately became frightened. i don't know if this instinct to be frightened of the weather will ever go away after having lived in prague, where i was nearly killed by weather. well, weather, and crohn's disease. but since crohn's disease doesn't go away, and weather does, it's more sensible to be frightened of that. i'm pretty sure the clinching episode was passing out in a freezing construction trailer in ke stirce in the midst of a lesson, the "'mom, can i have that bear?' 'no, you cannot have that bear; it is too expensive'" audio tape still playing. luckily that episode ended with one of the better alternatives, which was my student, martin, still wearing his hard hat ("for warm") picking me up and more or less carrying me all the way back to the ke stirce tram stop pointed back toward home. somehow i got off the tram and onto another tram and into my apartment, but that part isn't memorable. at the next lesson martin was equipped with two plastic mugs of becherovka ("for health") that we drank in the construction trailer before beginning. that was an interesting lesson. at that one he told me that he was a DMX driver and that he had a son, but the mother of the son was not his wife -- she was a DMX driver, too. i remember saying, "great!" which was not supposed to be my teacherly response, but i was drunk. on the plus side, i did not pass out.
so yesterday afternoon abby came over and we went to look for snow boots for me. if i'm going to pass out then i should at least have some waterproof traction, maybe. but the ones we found were kind of bulbous. also they were warm in an unearthly way. abby claims that one of them almost burnt her hand (i think they'd been sitting on a heater). so that was a failed expedition. later on, after our evening classes, we met up again and tried a new bar. there are not many places on the upper west side that can be called "a new bar," so we were sort of excited. this bar was pretty okay. it was a little mood-lighting-y and short-staffed, but it was quiet, and you could actually hear what others were saying. teo and harry also came. i could not hold it any longer. i had to tell them what had happened to me.
right before i was about to leave the apartment for class, the phone rang.
"hello!" cried the person on the other end. "may i please speak to karla?" she said my last name, too, and she pronounced it wrong.
"this is kara," i said.
"no 'l'? or is it silent?"
"no, it's not silent," i said. "there's no 'l.' it's just kara."
this woman, one meghan, was from a collection agency. after a brief explanation, she informed me that my credit card company had turned me over to their agency and that, with all the interest etc., i now owed something to the order of $5,000. never mind that this did not seem possible. my heart began to race. i could see myself in the reflection of the window taking enormous breaths. i asked if i could see all this itemized in writing. i thought, how the hell am i going to come up with $5,000? i pictured the entire room filled with children's literature waiting to be copyedited. i pictured myself dropping out of the program and becoming a prostitute. i did, fleetingly, have the thought that i'd never racked up a credit card bill that would come out that high, but only fleetingly.
"okay," said meghan. "we can send that to you. we'll send it to the po box address on long island."
"what?" i said. "that's not my address."
"it's not?"
"no."
"ah," she said, "and are these the last four numbers of your social security?" she told me some numbers. they were not.
"and were you born in '75?" she asked.
"no," i said, "i wasn't."
"hmm," she said. "okay. this isn't you. there's been a mistake. they must have just looked up your name in the phone book. and since this isn't even your name, i think it's safe to say..."
"my god, meghan!" i cried out. "you scared the crap out of me!"
"i know!" she cried delightedly. "you must have been so scared, like, how'm i gonna get the money? what did i spend it on?"
"yes, i was," i said.
"well, good-bye,"she said.
we hung up.
so yesterday afternoon abby came over and we went to look for snow boots for me. if i'm going to pass out then i should at least have some waterproof traction, maybe. but the ones we found were kind of bulbous. also they were warm in an unearthly way. abby claims that one of them almost burnt her hand (i think they'd been sitting on a heater). so that was a failed expedition. later on, after our evening classes, we met up again and tried a new bar. there are not many places on the upper west side that can be called "a new bar," so we were sort of excited. this bar was pretty okay. it was a little mood-lighting-y and short-staffed, but it was quiet, and you could actually hear what others were saying. teo and harry also came. i could not hold it any longer. i had to tell them what had happened to me.
right before i was about to leave the apartment for class, the phone rang.
"hello!" cried the person on the other end. "may i please speak to karla?" she said my last name, too, and she pronounced it wrong.
"this is kara," i said.
"no 'l'? or is it silent?"
"no, it's not silent," i said. "there's no 'l.' it's just kara."
this woman, one meghan, was from a collection agency. after a brief explanation, she informed me that my credit card company had turned me over to their agency and that, with all the interest etc., i now owed something to the order of $5,000. never mind that this did not seem possible. my heart began to race. i could see myself in the reflection of the window taking enormous breaths. i asked if i could see all this itemized in writing. i thought, how the hell am i going to come up with $5,000? i pictured the entire room filled with children's literature waiting to be copyedited. i pictured myself dropping out of the program and becoming a prostitute. i did, fleetingly, have the thought that i'd never racked up a credit card bill that would come out that high, but only fleetingly.
"okay," said meghan. "we can send that to you. we'll send it to the po box address on long island."
"what?" i said. "that's not my address."
"it's not?"
"no."
"ah," she said, "and are these the last four numbers of your social security?" she told me some numbers. they were not.
"and were you born in '75?" she asked.
"no," i said, "i wasn't."
"hmm," she said. "okay. this isn't you. there's been a mistake. they must have just looked up your name in the phone book. and since this isn't even your name, i think it's safe to say..."
"my god, meghan!" i cried out. "you scared the crap out of me!"
"i know!" she cried delightedly. "you must have been so scared, like, how'm i gonna get the money? what did i spend it on?"
"yes, i was," i said.
"well, good-bye,"she said.
we hung up.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
i know what's under that faux beard, you false believer
one of our popes, sonny k. of baltimore, md., has embarked on an undercover mission on behalf of the fur papabili. in an effort to discover how the enemy operates, he has begun a secret endeavor to investigate the secular christian world. see below for an update on his progress:
outright passage
yesterday, in plain view of all, michelle & i spent our morning class period in an outright passage of notes. many of mine, predictably, involved bears making speeches about the goings on. hers centered on preparations for a job interview she will have today (right behind the layout of her apartment she had drawn at a previous class meeting). it's too bad that there's nothing to be gotten out of the wednesday class, but after a full semester's worth, i can honestly tell you that i'm learning more from the bears.
it was an afternoon of readings. keri, being superb as usual, arranged for all of our K-12 CA/T kids to read at the bowery poetry club in the east village. i'd never been there, but it was a great venue. the kids were amazing, too, and looked totally at home up on the stage, like they'd been reading at new york city poetry clubs for their whole lives.
from there i went to the writing division readings back up at columbia. my friend david the quarter-czech poet was reading. he, too, was amazing. while his sass level fell a little short of the east village sixteen-year-olds (no hip sixteen-year-old emcee invited him to "style on the microfono"), his poetry way kicked the ass of the other poetry. poets are really mysterious. you can sometimes tell by knowing a fiction writer what kind of fiction writer they're going to be. not so with poetry. poets are lyrical, you know; that's shifty. i'm just going to come right out and say it: lyricism is slightly shifty. i don't trust it at all. but oh, the effect! i was in raptures.
i guess the yearlong all-nyc ban on considering hiring me as a teacher is off, because i finally have an interview on tuesday. my excitement and my nervousness and my sureness that i won't get the position are all about equal right now, which is to say, at a high level. my students, who have been charting my application with some interest, had all manner of advice for me this morning at our final meeting/"class party" (meaning the students eat shitloads of cake and play loud rap on a boom box for two hours). their advice:
1. dress in a high-necked shirt [comment followed by extreme giggling] (i'd just like to say, for all of you who are now thinking that i wear my cleavage shirts to teach, that i *never* wear cleavage shirts to teach, so i don't know what that comment was about.)
2. follow every question with the remark, "that's a very good question."
3. make eye contact and try not to be the first to look away. (intimidation tactics! okay.)
4. don't wear sneakers. (they're on to me.)
5. tell them that i'm available to start as soon as possible. (i tried to explain to them that the soonest i could start would be the beginning of the next fall semester, but they said that i would impress the interviewers with my eagerness if i displayed a willingness to start before it was even possible.)
other tips, as always, welcomed.
it was an afternoon of readings. keri, being superb as usual, arranged for all of our K-12 CA/T kids to read at the bowery poetry club in the east village. i'd never been there, but it was a great venue. the kids were amazing, too, and looked totally at home up on the stage, like they'd been reading at new york city poetry clubs for their whole lives.
from there i went to the writing division readings back up at columbia. my friend david the quarter-czech poet was reading. he, too, was amazing. while his sass level fell a little short of the east village sixteen-year-olds (no hip sixteen-year-old emcee invited him to "style on the microfono"), his poetry way kicked the ass of the other poetry. poets are really mysterious. you can sometimes tell by knowing a fiction writer what kind of fiction writer they're going to be. not so with poetry. poets are lyrical, you know; that's shifty. i'm just going to come right out and say it: lyricism is slightly shifty. i don't trust it at all. but oh, the effect! i was in raptures.
i guess the yearlong all-nyc ban on considering hiring me as a teacher is off, because i finally have an interview on tuesday. my excitement and my nervousness and my sureness that i won't get the position are all about equal right now, which is to say, at a high level. my students, who have been charting my application with some interest, had all manner of advice for me this morning at our final meeting/"class party" (meaning the students eat shitloads of cake and play loud rap on a boom box for two hours). their advice:
1. dress in a high-necked shirt [comment followed by extreme giggling] (i'd just like to say, for all of you who are now thinking that i wear my cleavage shirts to teach, that i *never* wear cleavage shirts to teach, so i don't know what that comment was about.)
2. follow every question with the remark, "that's a very good question."
3. make eye contact and try not to be the first to look away. (intimidation tactics! okay.)
4. don't wear sneakers. (they're on to me.)
5. tell them that i'm available to start as soon as possible. (i tried to explain to them that the soonest i could start would be the beginning of the next fall semester, but they said that i would impress the interviewers with my eagerness if i displayed a willingness to start before it was even possible.)
other tips, as always, welcomed.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
unsavoury
last night at around 9 pm you would have found me sitting on a ledge in the ubiquitous dodge 413 watching freshman writers read fine works and eating soupy ice cream out of a plastic bowl. the soupy ice cream was my dinner. it had m&ms floating in it, and some cherry stems (the cherries had been eaten). around 11 pm you would have found me returned to my apartment banging my head against the desk while trying to copyedit some babysitters club. i wasn't allowed to read babysitters club as a kid, and maybe this is why: it makes you bang your head against the desk, and that's painful. meanwhile i was feeling the effects of the soupy ice-cream dinner, too. the final word on ice cream for dinner is that it's not a good idea, unless of course it's accompanied by the rhythmic stylings of freshman writers.
shortly afterward, i made the mistake of checking my e-mail. it's usually a good thing to do when you're in the midst of an unpleasant project, checking your e-mail. but three unsavoury e-mails awaited me there. one, sent in bitter hatred, noted the fact that a person i work with is leaving, which potentially means more work for me. that was a mass e-mail, which i found extra unsavoury. (i'm enjoying writing "unsavoury" as much as possible in celebration of writing a paper for tomorrow for a man who thinks himself british but grew up in rhode island.) the second e-mail, sent in good faith and actually in a very generous gesture, signed off with the word "cheers." this is not the first time that this crime has been committed by the same individual. how weird is "cheers"? super weird. if you're over 50, you can use "cheers." if you're british, you can use "cheers." if you're a mustachioed snob with a cravat and a cane and a university post, you can use "cheers." but this person is under 50, american, and upstanding. so i don't know what's up with the "cheers." unsavoury, to be sure. the third e-mail was basically a litany of all the undone work i have left to do on a particular project i have committed myself to. it was not written in dulcet tones. thankfully, however, it did not even sign itself off, excusing itself from having to come up with a "cheers" or something worse, should there be anything that fits that description.
this morning a messenger came to get the babysitters club manuscript. i was not expecting him to come so soon. i was still wearing my pajama sweatshirt, which has the name of my college boldly emblazoned across the chest in capital vanilla letters. (i don't wear it out of the house lest someone discern that i went there.) i was also chewing something. is that strange? i know you shouldn't answer the door in your pajamas, chewing, but there was nothing else to be done. i wasn't going to rip off my shirt and spit out my breakfast. that would have been even worse.
"hi," i said. "here's the manuscript." making it look like i had probably edited it in bed and then slept and slobbered all over it during the night and was now handing it to him.
"oooookay," said the messenger.
see? i can be unsavoury, too. it's bad all over.
shortly afterward, i made the mistake of checking my e-mail. it's usually a good thing to do when you're in the midst of an unpleasant project, checking your e-mail. but three unsavoury e-mails awaited me there. one, sent in bitter hatred, noted the fact that a person i work with is leaving, which potentially means more work for me. that was a mass e-mail, which i found extra unsavoury. (i'm enjoying writing "unsavoury" as much as possible in celebration of writing a paper for tomorrow for a man who thinks himself british but grew up in rhode island.) the second e-mail, sent in good faith and actually in a very generous gesture, signed off with the word "cheers." this is not the first time that this crime has been committed by the same individual. how weird is "cheers"? super weird. if you're over 50, you can use "cheers." if you're british, you can use "cheers." if you're a mustachioed snob with a cravat and a cane and a university post, you can use "cheers." but this person is under 50, american, and upstanding. so i don't know what's up with the "cheers." unsavoury, to be sure. the third e-mail was basically a litany of all the undone work i have left to do on a particular project i have committed myself to. it was not written in dulcet tones. thankfully, however, it did not even sign itself off, excusing itself from having to come up with a "cheers" or something worse, should there be anything that fits that description.
this morning a messenger came to get the babysitters club manuscript. i was not expecting him to come so soon. i was still wearing my pajama sweatshirt, which has the name of my college boldly emblazoned across the chest in capital vanilla letters. (i don't wear it out of the house lest someone discern that i went there.) i was also chewing something. is that strange? i know you shouldn't answer the door in your pajamas, chewing, but there was nothing else to be done. i wasn't going to rip off my shirt and spit out my breakfast. that would have been even worse.
"hi," i said. "here's the manuscript." making it look like i had probably edited it in bed and then slept and slobbered all over it during the night and was now handing it to him.
"oooookay," said the messenger.
see? i can be unsavoury, too. it's bad all over.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
roll the dice/craps
yesterday, since ted and i are both working under tight deadlines on big projects and have absolutely no time to spare, we decided it would be the perfect time to rearrange the entire living room. now we have an alien living room, fit for aliens. at a certain point last night i left my computer to get something from in there and nearly had a heart attack. the couch was elsewhere. the tiny non-functioning television was elsewhere. the "boxes of crap" were elsewhere. i carefully retreated to the desk, walking backward so that no more changes could occur behind my back as i traveled.
the "belgian pegleg" story is coming along, but it reads like someone charted it out and then rushed to get out words that would approximate the chart. it reads like a story written by someone who outlines. i don't outline. i wouldn't know where to start. so far: pegleg becomes pegleg! pegleg becomes slut! pegleg moves to argentina! pegleg moves home to belgium and gets an mba for non-university graduates! pegleg kicks the shit out of non-pegleg! the end. abby asked if the pegleg could be named peggy. "no," i said. "no, because that's what they would expect of me."
what's really amazing is that stored in sundry places throughout the writing division are the squirreled-away proof that copious writing can be done in a short period of time: the completed novels of my students, participants in national novel-writing month and way out-of-control overachievers. the novels are not good, mind you, but they are novels. i flipped through them to get a sense. i sense 7 out of 7 novels about college students trying to find themselves and/or trying to find their way in a lost and dark world. the endings are also very pleasurable. they are momentous endings, weighty endings full of discoveries and five-thousand dollar words. (and then he knew... the world was not as it seemed, but was a dark cavern full of dreams. [interpretive sample])
you probably know how much i love the tallis scholars. they're coming to perform in new york on saturday. i was busily shitting my pants with excitement when i realized that i'd already promised myself as a female presence at the dinner party of one of ted's work friends/superiors. it's the kind of dinner party where you have to bring your womyn, or a reasonable would-be substitute thereof. (harry volunteered to take my place and attempt to be another of these reasonable substitutes thereof, but the halfhearted laughter that followed this offer leads me to believe that it may not be serious.) so i am not going to see the tallis scholars. if you can go, you should. e-mail me and i'll give you the info. i could even get you a cheap-o ticket, if you sing to me and cover me in manna and dates.
my sister made me a CD mix. there's this song on there called "dice." the words are really confusing. "nothing can compare," it declares, "to when you roll the dice and swear your love's for me." what does that mean? roll dice? and swear...? couldn't you swear about stuff like that without rolling dice? what kind of dice are we rolling, here? metaphorical dice? no! we're playing craps, aren't we? they should have called the song "craps," then. feel free to write to me and tell me how culturally dull i am, meanwhile explaining everything i've ever longed to know about you and your hip cultural world.
the "belgian pegleg" story is coming along, but it reads like someone charted it out and then rushed to get out words that would approximate the chart. it reads like a story written by someone who outlines. i don't outline. i wouldn't know where to start. so far: pegleg becomes pegleg! pegleg becomes slut! pegleg moves to argentina! pegleg moves home to belgium and gets an mba for non-university graduates! pegleg kicks the shit out of non-pegleg! the end. abby asked if the pegleg could be named peggy. "no," i said. "no, because that's what they would expect of me."
what's really amazing is that stored in sundry places throughout the writing division are the squirreled-away proof that copious writing can be done in a short period of time: the completed novels of my students, participants in national novel-writing month and way out-of-control overachievers. the novels are not good, mind you, but they are novels. i flipped through them to get a sense. i sense 7 out of 7 novels about college students trying to find themselves and/or trying to find their way in a lost and dark world. the endings are also very pleasurable. they are momentous endings, weighty endings full of discoveries and five-thousand dollar words. (and then he knew... the world was not as it seemed, but was a dark cavern full of dreams. [interpretive sample])
you probably know how much i love the tallis scholars. they're coming to perform in new york on saturday. i was busily shitting my pants with excitement when i realized that i'd already promised myself as a female presence at the dinner party of one of ted's work friends/superiors. it's the kind of dinner party where you have to bring your womyn, or a reasonable would-be substitute thereof. (harry volunteered to take my place and attempt to be another of these reasonable substitutes thereof, but the halfhearted laughter that followed this offer leads me to believe that it may not be serious.) so i am not going to see the tallis scholars. if you can go, you should. e-mail me and i'll give you the info. i could even get you a cheap-o ticket, if you sing to me and cover me in manna and dates.
my sister made me a CD mix. there's this song on there called "dice." the words are really confusing. "nothing can compare," it declares, "to when you roll the dice and swear your love's for me." what does that mean? roll dice? and swear...? couldn't you swear about stuff like that without rolling dice? what kind of dice are we rolling, here? metaphorical dice? no! we're playing craps, aren't we? they should have called the song "craps," then. feel free to write to me and tell me how culturally dull i am, meanwhile explaining everything i've ever longed to know about you and your hip cultural world.
Friday, December 02, 2005
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