Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
07.26.25 [on the F train]
yesterday i turned in an author's note and a new draft of the book i'm writing, internets! i am writing a book and i'm pretty proud of it so far! this progress doesn't mean much in practice to people who aren't me, since my potential editor has yet to present it to her acquisitions team and who knows what they'll think, but the vibe i get from her (and sometimes my vibe-based predictions bear out, it's technically possible) is a good one, and the last time we had a zoom call she said she thought we might be ready to present after this draft, maybe. i addressed her notes diligently, and gave her a version that's nearly twice as long as the previous one and full of the stage directions and hijinks she requested; assuming this is all material we can shape and shape as we go and she's not likely to announce that she hates my face and wants nothing more to do with me, it seems like good things are happening? the x factor now is how she will respond to the revelation (and it will be a revelation, we haven't talked much on this to date) that i must work with my sister as my illustrator-partner. this has become more and more apparent to me as i write and talk with people about the project, of course it has; at first i fixated on what a fellow clinic escort who happens to be a children's book agent(!) that i met like two years ago told me about how writers and illustrators almost never come as a package deal, it's standard practice unless you're some crazy-famous pair for a publisher to accept your manuscript and then look to their own contact list for the second half of the book. but we are a writer-illustrator rather than a pair of nobodies, you see; the idea of handing off my baby and waiting to see if it finds a proper life partner has never sat right with me, this story has a million little fiddly parts that an artist needs to have in mind to get it right. filing text and then just trusting that to fate is nonsensical. jo created our wedding art, she created the portrait of chuck that's on my back forever, and i can't imagine anyone but her telling this story with me; i also can't imagine cannonballing into a subcareer as a children's author without her as my partner. our artist mother was our first teacher (not a metaphor, she came in to teach at our elementary schools); we've been absorbing the world in tandem all our lives, and we share an imagery set that we're already referencing explicitly as we plan out how to make the book-folks see what's plain to us. we want to make a new, magical thing together, and i'm so nervous that being honest about what i want will cost me what feels in my shakiest moments like conditional approval from the powers that be, but what if everyone isn't telling me they like my story just to be nice? what if it's finally time to stop being the formerly precocious child who gets bored and gives up on things when they get difficult and actually fights for something wonderful? what if we had the confidence of a mediocre white man?! poor joe is already reeling from how much i've had to hype myself up to keep going with this, and i think he too is a little afraid that my insisting on working with my sister could cost me everything when it comes to this publisher, but if i let myself be intimidated and don't push for what i know i need to be great then it's cost everything already, right? when did i turn into a motivational poster? watch this space.
12.21.24 [on the F train]
i've been pingponging between books that carry me down history's lazy river like the life preserver i was instructed to turn upside down and step into like a diaper when i was in a biosphere in mexico this past spring (laura maiklem's mudlark, a wonderful long view) and bleeding-edge ones that make me feel abruptly and specifically like shit (paul lynch's prophet song), and that has been a good-enough way to move through the world. (a panhandler on the train is chatting with a woman a few seats down who just gave him some change: "i feel lucky to be in new york, it could be worse: i could be in a different city, in a different state, in a third world country. i could be in detroit." in ian frazier's paradise bronx i just learned new york is only city to adopt constitutional language obliging it to address inhabitants' right to shelter.) i have not been doing a very good job of catching up on the work that piled up before the election; when i get tired of being in my skin i go running or go up to grand central station to donate platelets, which you can do pretty often, since they give you most of your blood back and i have a lot of platelets (i am unironically proud of this). the first time i got settled in my pleather lab-recliner and the tech could see the needle mark from the last time i was there i was a little embarrassed, but now i don't care. i got an email from the volunteer coordinator at the library saying that the guy who'd been flaking out of his shifts after mine had officially flaked off for good (which i thought we'd talked about and determined long ago, but i respect her system), and so now i'm The Study Room Monitor for all of wednesday afternoons if i want. i told her i would rule with an iron fist and am unironically proud of that, also.
i think the work buildup is under control now, or at least the parts of it that call for acute creativity and can't unspool while i'm on something like autopilot. i had an unsettling afternoon about a month ago when i spent an hour working on research for a design story, tried to save the word file, and was informed by my own laptop that i already had something by that name. turns out i'd spent an afternoon at the library the day after the election doing the same work—taking many if not all of the same notes, even—and completely forgotten about it. when i turned in revisions for a big, earnest science piece earlier this week my editor thanked me for taking my time with it, which read not as a passive-aggressive dig but as actual appreciation for not having to deal with it earlier on his end. my other essay editor has made analogous noises hinting at her own lack of peace. i am not glad for that, i want all of us to be living our best and most effective lives, but since the feeling of being a little less alone is going to be there whether or not i acknowledge it i might as well be grateful.
i think the work buildup is under control now, or at least the parts of it that call for acute creativity and can't unspool while i'm on something like autopilot. i had an unsettling afternoon about a month ago when i spent an hour working on research for a design story, tried to save the word file, and was informed by my own laptop that i already had something by that name. turns out i'd spent an afternoon at the library the day after the election doing the same work—taking many if not all of the same notes, even—and completely forgotten about it. when i turned in revisions for a big, earnest science piece earlier this week my editor thanked me for taking my time with it, which read not as a passive-aggressive dig but as actual appreciation for not having to deal with it earlier on his end. my other essay editor has made analogous noises hinting at her own lack of peace. i am not glad for that, i want all of us to be living our best and most effective lives, but since the feeling of being a little less alone is going to be there whether or not i acknowledge it i might as well be grateful.
08.17.24 [on the F train]
chocolate-chip raindrops this morning, the kind that might or might not add up to one wet cookie when i get off the train in queens. i should really start carrying a little fold-up tarp or industrial garbage bag for my tote, which would compact and travel much more imperceptibly than a full-fledged umbrella and protect the only stuff that really can't get wet. i'm semi-paused on almost all work right now, as the new third-party payment-processing contractor that handles compensating contractors like me for my biggest client has now taken almost a week to renew my apparently-expired approval, a slot canyon that seems to have affected me first among the client's freelancers and which seems unbelievable even by generic-corporate-fuckery standards (i am denied access to all of the client's assets and tools, so i can't research or build a damn thing). it's been fewer than 90 days since they approved my initial contract, a process more invasive than the blood and urine draws i underwent for my yearly physical yesterday (a background check, seriously? for a writing-jokes-about-couches gig?). this has meant that i've had luxurious stretches of time in which to run errands (with the understanding that i had to be able to sprint home at any moment) and that my schedule for the next month and counting is absolute hash, as all kinds of stuff has accordioned down the line. i generally don't care all that much about when things happen, despite my procrastinator's fundamental fear-based obsession with deadlines, but i am almost incandescent with rage about this shit; this processing contractor has already demanded invoices from my other clients to make sure my work is diversified to a degree that satisfies them—so infantilizing i don't know what to tell you—and if, say, the most pressing piece i've got pending isn't sorted before tuesday night, its editor is going to have to reassign it and i lose $600 for work that's already taken me more than two hours. i don't have any colleagues in this scenario, not really—everyone's either someone who offers me work or someone whose incompetence prevents me from doing work—so i can but holler here, since anything else would make me a real bummer to hire again. freelancers are supposed to be cool girls.
a friend of ours has taken a full-time gig with the harris-walz campaign and is either moving or has moved to delaware for the next few months. i have a theory that going up there with jigsaw puzzles and snacks would technically be infrastructural, which seems to underwhelm joe. i think we've scrubbed most of our travel plans for the fall—we've both booked solo trips out west to visit family, but he doesn't have the vacation days to really unfurl the way we like to until the end of the year, and we're already committed to a thing with my folks in the spring—so, like: delaware! it would be so cheap, i bet, and i could pretend it's comparable with door-knocking! i know that's not so, at least the door-knocking part, but i'm working my way up to more full-contact election suport.
i took the ferry out to the rockaways for the first time in several years a couple of weeks ago, at the invitation of a friend who rented a place out there for part of this summer. the stretch of beach she favors is vastly superior to the crazy-crowded portion i used to visit, and her car-based setup camps rings around the towel-and-tote situation that was all i was used to bringing out with me. i told her quite a bit about what i called 'the beach companion i lost to her office-based job,' though i didn't really get at all the reasons that relationship fell apart, at least partially because i myself don't know. could she smell the loss on me? i felt like i reeked.
a friend of ours has taken a full-time gig with the harris-walz campaign and is either moving or has moved to delaware for the next few months. i have a theory that going up there with jigsaw puzzles and snacks would technically be infrastructural, which seems to underwhelm joe. i think we've scrubbed most of our travel plans for the fall—we've both booked solo trips out west to visit family, but he doesn't have the vacation days to really unfurl the way we like to until the end of the year, and we're already committed to a thing with my folks in the spring—so, like: delaware! it would be so cheap, i bet, and i could pretend it's comparable with door-knocking! i know that's not so, at least the door-knocking part, but i'm working my way up to more full-contact election suport.
i took the ferry out to the rockaways for the first time in several years a couple of weeks ago, at the invitation of a friend who rented a place out there for part of this summer. the stretch of beach she favors is vastly superior to the crazy-crowded portion i used to visit, and her car-based setup camps rings around the towel-and-tote situation that was all i was used to bringing out with me. i told her quite a bit about what i called 'the beach companion i lost to her office-based job,' though i didn't really get at all the reasons that relationship fell apart, at least partially because i myself don't know. could she smell the loss on me? i felt like i reeked.
05.11.24 [on the F train]
sprang! subway! no one is awake for a good reason! i couldn't fit a volunteer shift in last month and shouldn't really be starting with catchup now, i have a nasty week i should be pregaming, but the cats sense weakness and have been wedging my jet-lagged ass out of bed, so here we are. we did not see any of the solar-storm super-southern aurora borealis last night—even if it had been clear, light pollution is of course dreadful here—but i did see enough of it on social media to wish in the abstract that we were still in scandinavia. in practice i was in stockholm last friday, copenhagen the friday before that, and tulum the friday before that, so i'm pretty okay with never going anywhere ever again (except philadelphia next month for a rolling stones concert? i have no good excuse for that).
mexico was wonderful, the first press trip i've taken in a long time that made me feel like press trips are worth my time—which sounds silly, but since my main travel outlet switched over to all paranormal content a couple of years ago and i'm neither about to start ghost hunting nor especially interested in wooing new outlets, it's tricky to come up with ways to write about the things i'm invited to experience that don't make me feel like a shill. in truth i'm a writer who likes to travel rather than a travel writer, probably—one of the other americans on this trip was telling me about the industry conference i avoid every year and she and many of the writers i meet on these things seem to feel are indispensable, and it sounded like immersion therapy, or enhanced interrogation, or rush week at a southern school—matching with and speed-dating PR reps who then might or might not invite you to fly halfway around the world to spend two days at an all-inclusive resort devoted to steak, everclear, and show tunes, and while i get that this kind of full-body shudder is such niche privilege that i should just offer myself up as the first protein when the resource wars begin (you know they're coming soon, these lisa frank trapper keeper skies last night were no accident), wow, ritualizing what i do in a baldly networky way makes me want to walk into the sea. another beauty of the mexico trip is that for once i knew what (and that) i'd be writing about it before i accepted: a dear old friend from my magazine-staffer days asked if i would go and cook up a piece on solo travel for her new magazine, and that's very much the sort of thing i can get excited about doing. amusingly, though the trip was pitched to her/me as a gender-specific thing, other writers didn't arrive with that frame—and lo, there was a dude among us (two, counting the photographer/influencer who shot us all week). so technically a vagina travelogue it was not, though it functioned that way anyhow, a bit—beyond the collective appreciation of each other's sundresses and blouses that kicks off group meals on most temperate press trips, talk stayed reasonably clear of lady zones. despite my disdain for networking crap and industry gossip, i also picked up some interesting stuff about how other clients and markets work—like, if you're an australian writer it's hard to pitch a trip unless you're the only person in the country writing about it, and though US-based writers almost never feel obligated to promise coverage beforehand (and i can count on one hand the times i happen to have done it), it's standard practice in other places? i still haven't written about the cruise joe and i took last fall and the crazy bahamas trip that happened 16 hours after we got back from paris, and while i plan to get on that, i'm not especially excited about it. it feels significant that i haven't made much of an effort to fold these subjects into my pitches for the outlets i typically save for passion projects. am i quiet-quitting this phase of freelance writing, at least for now? mexico makes a compelling case for keeping an open mind—it was the perfect trip for me to take without joe, given the focus on swimming in caves and waking up before dawn to streak into the ocean. if i can position myself as my friend's startup's tropical goth crone, maybe i can wriggle out of the world of slideshows and bullet points and sing of iguanas in my own dialect. it has a certain something.
mexico was wonderful, the first press trip i've taken in a long time that made me feel like press trips are worth my time—which sounds silly, but since my main travel outlet switched over to all paranormal content a couple of years ago and i'm neither about to start ghost hunting nor especially interested in wooing new outlets, it's tricky to come up with ways to write about the things i'm invited to experience that don't make me feel like a shill. in truth i'm a writer who likes to travel rather than a travel writer, probably—one of the other americans on this trip was telling me about the industry conference i avoid every year and she and many of the writers i meet on these things seem to feel are indispensable, and it sounded like immersion therapy, or enhanced interrogation, or rush week at a southern school—matching with and speed-dating PR reps who then might or might not invite you to fly halfway around the world to spend two days at an all-inclusive resort devoted to steak, everclear, and show tunes, and while i get that this kind of full-body shudder is such niche privilege that i should just offer myself up as the first protein when the resource wars begin (you know they're coming soon, these lisa frank trapper keeper skies last night were no accident), wow, ritualizing what i do in a baldly networky way makes me want to walk into the sea. another beauty of the mexico trip is that for once i knew what (and that) i'd be writing about it before i accepted: a dear old friend from my magazine-staffer days asked if i would go and cook up a piece on solo travel for her new magazine, and that's very much the sort of thing i can get excited about doing. amusingly, though the trip was pitched to her/me as a gender-specific thing, other writers didn't arrive with that frame—and lo, there was a dude among us (two, counting the photographer/influencer who shot us all week). so technically a vagina travelogue it was not, though it functioned that way anyhow, a bit—beyond the collective appreciation of each other's sundresses and blouses that kicks off group meals on most temperate press trips, talk stayed reasonably clear of lady zones. despite my disdain for networking crap and industry gossip, i also picked up some interesting stuff about how other clients and markets work—like, if you're an australian writer it's hard to pitch a trip unless you're the only person in the country writing about it, and though US-based writers almost never feel obligated to promise coverage beforehand (and i can count on one hand the times i happen to have done it), it's standard practice in other places? i still haven't written about the cruise joe and i took last fall and the crazy bahamas trip that happened 16 hours after we got back from paris, and while i plan to get on that, i'm not especially excited about it. it feels significant that i haven't made much of an effort to fold these subjects into my pitches for the outlets i typically save for passion projects. am i quiet-quitting this phase of freelance writing, at least for now? mexico makes a compelling case for keeping an open mind—it was the perfect trip for me to take without joe, given the focus on swimming in caves and waking up before dawn to streak into the ocean. if i can position myself as my friend's startup's tropical goth crone, maybe i can wriggle out of the world of slideshows and bullet points and sing of iguanas in my own dialect. it has a certain something.
03.30.24 [on the J train]
there's an oak leaf pressed in this notebook from the owl funeral i attended last month—along with the zoo photo safari i'd taken just over a week earlier, one of the stranger trips i'd taken for an article, though there's a strong likelihood i'd have gone to the funeral anyway. i've now been writing and/or fretting over my latest Earnest Science Feature for nearly three months, though it feels more like thirty. i haven't begged joe to read any of this one except for the first version of the opening scene (one of my favorite will mcphail panels is the one where a woman asks a spider she's trapped under a glass to read something she's written), but given how much i've bitched and tossed around in bed about it, i'm sure he'll be as glad to see it out of our lives as he was, say, when i finished my orwell essay for the new york times. out, it will soon be out! until i get a big old tattoo of its subject in may, that is. (owl, not orwell.)
a man on this train is snoring the sort of snore that seems like it'd rouse the snorer, or jolt him a few inches in the air, at least, but he snores on, and i wish him well; it would be nice to be flat for a few more hours. i'm trying to get a few more bleary mornings volunteering in queens out of the way early this spring, as i'm going to mexico on assignment(!!) in a few weeks and joe and i are then meeting my folks in copenhagen, where i have decided i don't care if it's touristy to truck out toelsinore kronborg castle. we have planned little else beyond a few meals and a night at the opera and, oh, a shared airbnb i picked for when we migrate to stockholm. will my stepfather, aghast at the way i live when i'm not at a high-end hotel, decide he doesn't love me anymore? will joe out-snore this guy on the train, who sounds with every breath more and more like he's awake and trying to fool schoolchildren? will i join the danish swans and leave my terrestrial life behind once and for all? hard to say. i ended up not interviewing a colleague out in prospect park for the swan essay i sent off to the printer this week, as the thing was short enough that bringing in another voice was going to be kind of weird and she was being flaky enough about meeting that i didn't have the energy to keep chasing. i did send a draft of the piece to my friend R at the bird hospital—not because i needed to check facts, exactly, but because anyone who knew what i was talking about would know where i was talking about, and i wanted her blessing.
she called me from her long-overdue vacation and gave it, and told me Secret Owl Things about my other feature, and let me know, when i finally screwed up the courage to ask, that bird ben, the northern cardinal i've loved for a a decade, died last summer. i don't know how to write about that, and imagine i won't for a long time; knowing ben changed me in a way i might not understand until i'm very old, if i get to be very old. i do know that R's three-part benediction—you've done right by swans, i trust you enough to tell you confidential things about the owl, we can remember ben together—felt a bit like permission to take full height in this version of myself. i wonder sometimes if she knows how badly i wanted her to see this identity all those years i cleaned cages and wrestled geese, and i know that one of her great gifts is to speak to the people we want to be on our best days. i don't mean that i'm a few inches in the air like the snorer uptrain (who's still at it!), but i have had occasion to say yes, yes, that is what i meant.
a man on this train is snoring the sort of snore that seems like it'd rouse the snorer, or jolt him a few inches in the air, at least, but he snores on, and i wish him well; it would be nice to be flat for a few more hours. i'm trying to get a few more bleary mornings volunteering in queens out of the way early this spring, as i'm going to mexico on assignment(!!) in a few weeks and joe and i are then meeting my folks in copenhagen, where i have decided i don't care if it's touristy to truck out to
she called me from her long-overdue vacation and gave it, and told me Secret Owl Things about my other feature, and let me know, when i finally screwed up the courage to ask, that bird ben, the northern cardinal i've loved for a a decade, died last summer. i don't know how to write about that, and imagine i won't for a long time; knowing ben changed me in a way i might not understand until i'm very old, if i get to be very old. i do know that R's three-part benediction—you've done right by swans, i trust you enough to tell you confidential things about the owl, we can remember ben together—felt a bit like permission to take full height in this version of myself. i wonder sometimes if she knows how badly i wanted her to see this identity all those years i cleaned cages and wrestled geese, and i know that one of her great gifts is to speak to the people we want to be on our best days. i don't mean that i'm a few inches in the air like the snorer uptrain (who's still at it!), but i have had occasion to say yes, yes, that is what i meant.
02.03.24 [on the J train]
i've had a run of really wonderful reads at the start of this year: turning into a shark, swapping bodies with your spouse, defeating conversion camps, it's all been lovely. speculative fiction makes me itch to write strange things, though not to write fiction—i have tried that a few times and everything about it feels wrong. which is lucky, really, as i then get to enjoy others' stuff with absolutely no skin in the game. on that, though, i had a funky twinge yesterday that is leading me to look into the possibility of writing a nonfiction book? it would not be a collection of essays, nor would it be a memoir; it would have a principal and lots of secondary subjects that are not me, and you would just smell me in the structure and language, or maybe, maybe i would lean a bit into a framework like the one in preparing the ghost, where the author talks about the first photographer of a giant squid and also, semi-related, about his own working out of an ice cream truck in chicago. i will probably spare posterity stories of my slinging health food in orange county, but maybe other glimpses could end up in there? more importantly, the prospective subject spent significant parts of her life close to new york city, so if i decide i really want to dig in on research—a copy of her out-of-print midlife memoir is on its way to me now*—i could make a lot of initial progress without shelling out for plane tickets or making myself vulnerable in, i don't know, residency applications or whatever. i am still not at all sure that writing and especially selling and marketing a book are things i truly want to do, but i know i want to read this memoir to see if i like the idea of spending a lot more time thinking about this woman, and that's something?
the owl pitch i mentioned last month landed, speaking of writing. it landed this past wednesday because my editor missed my email the first time and then had COVID, so the time-sensitive part of the story is spoiled, but i get to spend the rest of the month thinking about owls—for money, and that's the dream, really. yet another bird pitch flew out of me about a week ago, and before that another about a world war two pilot and candy, and if all of them hit, february is going to be a bit of a shit show—but perhaps it's time for me to develop the ability to juggle passion projects instead of packing them in the tissue of better-paid busy work. the ceramic flamingo i ordered after embracing a flamingo in the bahamas last fall was bubble-wrapped just beautifully, and it still arrived on our doorstep with a broken neck.
the owl pitch i mentioned last month landed, speaking of writing. it landed this past wednesday because my editor missed my email the first time and then had COVID, so the time-sensitive part of the story is spoiled, but i get to spend the rest of the month thinking about owls—for money, and that's the dream, really. yet another bird pitch flew out of me about a week ago, and before that another about a world war two pilot and candy, and if all of them hit, february is going to be a bit of a shit show—but perhaps it's time for me to develop the ability to juggle passion projects instead of packing them in the tissue of better-paid busy work. the ceramic flamingo i ordered after embracing a flamingo in the bahamas last fall was bubble-wrapped just beautifully, and it still arrived on our doorstep with a broken neck.
*ETA as i finally get around to uploading this written-on-the-subway post: it was getting weird that the memoir i mentioned hadn't arrived as of today, so i checked my alibris account and realized i hadn't succeeded in buying it. it's finally en route for realsies! since i'm updating, i can also now report that the other bird pitch also hit and i finally got a weird no about the pilot, like, monday, february 20th. i'm a little shocked at the rejection, as that pitch was really good, but juggling three semi-recreational stories this month would have broken me. i am at peace.
01.06.24 [on the J train]
if eater posts an item about a delicately-braised writer turning up on a platform in queens later today, that's me; i took the clinic-escort volunteer leaders' email about extra-cold-weather layering too seriously and am sous-vide'ing myself in some zippy thing i bought in akureyri last year and snow boots that are bigger than the cat. i am not one of those people, alas, who thinks sweltering one's way to the great mixed-recycling bin would be better than freezing to death.
one of my milder personal nightmares came to life yesterday evening at this off-broadway riff on a mentalist show at which i was singled out for a bit of audience participation. this was my own fault, since the performer was narrowing down his field of targets by telling people to sit down if they weren't left-handed and so on—i could have just done that—but being compelled to lie is also a personal nightmare, so that was off the table. luckily the guy doing the audience work seemed to catch my awkward-collaborator psychic stink and moved on. i told my mom about the show and she sympathized—she once got plucked from the crowd at a penn and teller show in las vegas. my mother is a brutal disappointer of magicians—an occasion on which she did so at a southern california fuddrucker's is canonical in my family—so this fascinated me. are these guys (they are always guys) like cats who know when someone doesn't want them to sit in their lap?
i sent my first passion-project pitches for the new year earlier this week and—you might want to be sitting down for this—they are about birds. it's time to write a weird science piece about birds! the ideal weird piece about birds would be a deep dive on the state of sky burials, as caitlin doughty talked about in from here to eternity (her boss book about death practices around the world and why pretty much all of them are a better deal than what we do here in america); as i recall, it's getting tougher to do them in places like india because the necessary raptors no longer show up (pollution? habitat loss?), whereas here we have carrion birds aplenty but it's illegal. which reminds me: i wrote several pieces for a friend's end-of-life startup (heh) years ago and never bookmarked their eventual URLs; is my relatively mixed-company-friendly explanation of what happens when a body is embalmed still out there somewhere? what about the quaker funeral breakdown? (for what it's worth, i like the sound of quaker funerals: simple, pretty green.)
the bird pieces i pitched are about owls and flamingos, so no human-corpse-eating to report out, probably. if i pitch the owl idea to another outlet i'm considering mentioning that my enthusiasm for them is so consistent that the only smartphone lock screen i've ever had is a grainy old shot of the midtown hooters marquee. a little beside the point, maybe, but it's true, and i eventually landed that piece i wrote about collecting nineteen eighty-four because i emailed a stranger about the time a pigeon threw up in my mouth, so...maybe?
one of my milder personal nightmares came to life yesterday evening at this off-broadway riff on a mentalist show at which i was singled out for a bit of audience participation. this was my own fault, since the performer was narrowing down his field of targets by telling people to sit down if they weren't left-handed and so on—i could have just done that—but being compelled to lie is also a personal nightmare, so that was off the table. luckily the guy doing the audience work seemed to catch my awkward-collaborator psychic stink and moved on. i told my mom about the show and she sympathized—she once got plucked from the crowd at a penn and teller show in las vegas. my mother is a brutal disappointer of magicians—an occasion on which she did so at a southern california fuddrucker's is canonical in my family—so this fascinated me. are these guys (they are always guys) like cats who know when someone doesn't want them to sit in their lap?
i sent my first passion-project pitches for the new year earlier this week and—you might want to be sitting down for this—they are about birds. it's time to write a weird science piece about birds! the ideal weird piece about birds would be a deep dive on the state of sky burials, as caitlin doughty talked about in from here to eternity (her boss book about death practices around the world and why pretty much all of them are a better deal than what we do here in america); as i recall, it's getting tougher to do them in places like india because the necessary raptors no longer show up (pollution? habitat loss?), whereas here we have carrion birds aplenty but it's illegal. which reminds me: i wrote several pieces for a friend's end-of-life startup (heh) years ago and never bookmarked their eventual URLs; is my relatively mixed-company-friendly explanation of what happens when a body is embalmed still out there somewhere? what about the quaker funeral breakdown? (for what it's worth, i like the sound of quaker funerals: simple, pretty green.)
the bird pieces i pitched are about owls and flamingos, so no human-corpse-eating to report out, probably. if i pitch the owl idea to another outlet i'm considering mentioning that my enthusiasm for them is so consistent that the only smartphone lock screen i've ever had is a grainy old shot of the midtown hooters marquee. a little beside the point, maybe, but it's true, and i eventually landed that piece i wrote about collecting nineteen eighty-four because i emailed a stranger about the time a pigeon threw up in my mouth, so...maybe?
12.23.23 [on the F train]
it is too early to make good decisions! the anti-abortion extremists who harass patients outside the far-flung clinic to which i am en route would never yell something like that and i'm not about to suggest it, but–they wouldn't be incorrect? i nearly grabbed the wrong train just now as i was congratulating myself for waking up without my alarm for this morning's escorting shift. of course, i'll never rise naturally because birdsong summons and the sun warms my bones or whatever; worry is the only thing that gets me up without assistance. i don't mind that so much, as it sort of means that the worst moments of my day are inevitably the very first ones. once i know i won't sleep late i can pose for the river with the cats and contemplate late-stage capitalism with my microwaved day-old coffee. we are staying put for the holidays as we usually do, and it's even lower-impact than in previous years: we'll go out to a movie on christmas eve but aren't doing one of the fancy dinners i invariably hate. i still haven't figured out how to strike a balance between joe's interest in complicated-food-and-drink-related celebration and mine in comparative frugality (in that context, at least) and temperance, but i hope we're getting better at meeting each other halfway.
i didn't think i was going to have much free time here at the end of the year, but work is mostly done? i have to turn in a revised draft of my MUSHROOMS IN SPACE! essay back in over the first week of january, but it feels like the tweaks my editor and i talked about aren't going to break my head. i'm hemming and hawing over what my next passion projects (or at least the ones that i pitch instead of just accepting) will be and...meh? it was humbling to eat it with my first new yorker humor submission, though my dad made a valiant attempt to console me with the repeated story of how some friend of his has submitted hundreds of thousands of cartoons to them and is still waiting for a nod. i appreciate his point, but i am a very special girl and this is totally different.
speaking of special girls, my favorite former staffer from the bird hospital, a woman i haven't seen in person since well before the pandemic, popped up in my instagram feed as a full-fledged (heh) urban ranger in central park. i have absolutely nothing to do with that, but hot damn did it activate my proud-auntie parasympathetic system! one day you're swooning at the smell of crow blood in front of a gal and the next she's in your phone delivering a totally polished minilecture about weird duck season. i'm very curious to know if she's blown the whistle on mouse park, i.e. the spot where we'd sneak behind some trees and release the mice we'd caught nibbling on bird seed in the hospital's basement treatment room, but my feeling is that i should let sleeping liberated rodents lie. god i'm happy for her.
i didn't think i was going to have much free time here at the end of the year, but work is mostly done? i have to turn in a revised draft of my MUSHROOMS IN SPACE! essay back in over the first week of january, but it feels like the tweaks my editor and i talked about aren't going to break my head. i'm hemming and hawing over what my next passion projects (or at least the ones that i pitch instead of just accepting) will be and...meh? it was humbling to eat it with my first new yorker humor submission, though my dad made a valiant attempt to console me with the repeated story of how some friend of his has submitted hundreds of thousands of cartoons to them and is still waiting for a nod. i appreciate his point, but i am a very special girl and this is totally different.
speaking of special girls, my favorite former staffer from the bird hospital, a woman i haven't seen in person since well before the pandemic, popped up in my instagram feed as a full-fledged (heh) urban ranger in central park. i have absolutely nothing to do with that, but hot damn did it activate my proud-auntie parasympathetic system! one day you're swooning at the smell of crow blood in front of a gal and the next she's in your phone delivering a totally polished minilecture about weird duck season. i'm very curious to know if she's blown the whistle on mouse park, i.e. the spot where we'd sneak behind some trees and release the mice we'd caught nibbling on bird seed in the hospital's basement treatment room, but my feeling is that i should let sleeping liberated rodents lie. god i'm happy for her.
10.28.23 [on the F train]
it wasn't painful to get up just after six this morning! it's not something i want to get in the habit of doing, mind, but i didn't feel like i'd been hurled through an interstellar hatch to the waking world, blinking and about to freeze solid in airless space, and that is something. speaking of airless space, i am batting .500 on landing interviews with moon- and mars-colonization experts for an upcoming essay and feeling pretty fancy about it. some outlets' names get me instant yeses, but this one is niche and much trickier; if i spent my days thinking about terraforming and organic architecture i like to think that i would find queries like mine enchanting, but i appreciate that when one is focused on keeping our sorry asses alive beyond the home planet we've trashed it's important to allocate resources practically. i haven't decided if i'll do a video or phone interview with my yes; it can be easier to refer to my notes when i'm not visible, but it can be easier to establish a rapport with my subject when i am. she seems like a cool lady, so maybe i'll go for video? it might sound a little silly to be proud of just gaining access, but this expert wanted to see my questions before making up her mind on if or how we'd be in touch (not as weird as it sounds when you're talking about a science- versus personality-driven exchange; clinicians and researchers often want to know that you have your shit together before they promise you their time, and that's fine and fair. i'm not trying to trick her into a juicy quote about what happened after she slept with justin timberlake).
we are leaving for paris at the end of next week, my first time back since the ignominious visit of '97 when i wept my way across the city and had the best fried potatoes of my life with a man who mistook me for a hooker. i thought joe would make some restaurant reservations and we'd otherwise kinda walk the earth, but i've booked quite a few afternoons and evenings: we'll be rolling out for a rothko exhibition, an opera, a bicycle-themed film festival, and a jazz show. i revisited grace jones's memoir to take note of where we're supposed to look for 1000-3000 piece ravensburger puzzles (the book's most delightful aside) and my memory had played tricks on me: she actually just name checks a department store and isn't specific about location. her sister suggestion for new york city puzzle purchasing, in turn, is "times square." where in time square is grace jones shopping for puzzles? this is the sort of thing that would dominate my signage, had i commercial space in midtown.
within something like 18 hours of getting back from paris i'l be flying off to the bahamas for my first proper press trip since the pandemic started. it's a citizen-science-themed visit, one that could dovetail nicely with all the notes i took when we cruised around canada last month. i keep thinking every invitation will be my last, since i turn most of them down and i don't publish much in the way of entry-level travel roundups like i did a few years ago. that's okay, really: since i'm now a vegetarian teetotaler, i'm even more ill-suited to wining and dining than i used to be. i for one welcome a future in which i'm occasionally asked to catch an expedition boat or, like, pick up beach garbage in the bahamas. joe didn't seem to have FOMO about not being invited to join me for the latter, and that was definitely so when i noted this will be the first time i visit a place name-checked in "kokomo." find someone who loves you as much as my husband hates "kokomo."
we are leaving for paris at the end of next week, my first time back since the ignominious visit of '97 when i wept my way across the city and had the best fried potatoes of my life with a man who mistook me for a hooker. i thought joe would make some restaurant reservations and we'd otherwise kinda walk the earth, but i've booked quite a few afternoons and evenings: we'll be rolling out for a rothko exhibition, an opera, a bicycle-themed film festival, and a jazz show. i revisited grace jones's memoir to take note of where we're supposed to look for 1000-3000 piece ravensburger puzzles (the book's most delightful aside) and my memory had played tricks on me: she actually just name checks a department store and isn't specific about location. her sister suggestion for new york city puzzle purchasing, in turn, is "times square." where in time square is grace jones shopping for puzzles? this is the sort of thing that would dominate my signage, had i commercial space in midtown.
within something like 18 hours of getting back from paris i'l be flying off to the bahamas for my first proper press trip since the pandemic started. it's a citizen-science-themed visit, one that could dovetail nicely with all the notes i took when we cruised around canada last month. i keep thinking every invitation will be my last, since i turn most of them down and i don't publish much in the way of entry-level travel roundups like i did a few years ago. that's okay, really: since i'm now a vegetarian teetotaler, i'm even more ill-suited to wining and dining than i used to be. i for one welcome a future in which i'm occasionally asked to catch an expedition boat or, like, pick up beach garbage in the bahamas. joe didn't seem to have FOMO about not being invited to join me for the latter, and that was definitely so when i noted this will be the first time i visit a place name-checked in "kokomo." find someone who loves you as much as my husband hates "kokomo."
12.18.23
no publication-related love (at least from my two outlets of choice, and i am too fickle to pursue others) for my little humor piece that could, alas—but it makes me laugh, and that's what's important. here's what in my head felt like a cinch:
These Trader Joe’s Hacks Are Magical
Foraging, grave robbing, waiting for a blue moon—who has the time? Whether you’re prepping for weeknight rituals or planning a ceremony for someone special, this grocery-shopper’s grimoire cuts to the chase and won’t cost you your soul, probably.
CASTING THE SNACKS
Hungry for a bit of cross-cultural, carb-based divination? Clear your mind, gather bagged treats as their shapes catch your eye in the aisles, then choose one that is slightly larger—say, a Parmesan Crisp—to represent yourself. Attach meanings to each of the others: a Spicy Porkless Plant-Based Snack Rind for Trickery, an Organic White Truffle Potato Chip for Prosperity, and so on. Set the Self item in the center of a tea towel, then cast the other items atop it and let their arrangement reveal cleromantic meaning. Know that if the snacks are fickle you may not receive a message—but you can serve them again and again until your intuition serves you.
VEGAN MILK BATH
When you’re in the mood for love and glamour and can’t maintain a herd of 700 lactating donkeys, we’ve got you covered. Give your charisma and attractiveness a dairy-free boost by boiling together a bottle of Charles Shaw Rosé, a carton of Unsweetened Almond, Cashew & Macadamia Nut Beverage, and a bag of Joe Medium Roast Ground Coffee. Stir clockwise until the mixture is browned and fragrant, then pour it into a hot bath and take a good, long soak. Absorb even more of the mixture’s benefits by removing all of your hair below the neck with Honey Mango Shave Cream.
FOUR THIEVES VINAIGRETTE
Swig this to sidestep the Black Death when cozying up to questionable corpses. Pour out half a bottle of Organic Raw Apple Cider Vinegar, then pop in four peeled garlic cloves. Add a small handful each of Seasoning in a Pickle, Herbes de Provence, Everything but the Elote, and 21 Seasoning Salute, then reseal the bottle. Let it sit for four full days, shaking once a day, then strain and rebottle. Hack on a hack: To banish someone bothersome, write their name on a piece of the Fearless Flyer. Soak the paper in your vinaigrette, charge it with the full force of your repulsion when the moon’s face is hidden, fold it up as small as you can, and compost it.
NO-KNEAD HOMUNCULUS
We could all use a little help in the kitchen—and cooking up a sous chef has never been simpler. Line an ungreased loaf pan with Plain Pizza Dough, pour in a carton of Cage-Free 100% Liquid Egg Whites, then fold the dough inward and pinch the edges to create a pocket. Cover with horse dung, then leave the pan to putrefy somewhere warm and dark for 40 days, or until the dough begins to be alive, move, and stir, which can easily be seen. Warily and prudently nourish and feed the dough with Bloody Mary Mixer With Clam Juice and more horse dung for the space of 40 weeks, and it will become a true and living infant.
NEXT-LEVEL SUMMONING
Ready to gain knowledge of the arts and sciences once and for all? Create a protective circle with 7 Salts of the Earth’s Hawaiian Black Lava (absolutely no gaps!), then create a second circle of White Chocolate Baking Chips within its confines. Use more Chips to trace an inverted pentagram, place Nutmeg Scented Candles at each of its five points, then place a sixth Candle and a pile of Golden Rounds Crackers beside it. Light the candles, then step between the circles; chant “Linan tasa jedan Paimon,” and picture a gloriously-crowned rider on a dromedary camel. Pro tip: Your guest of honor hath a great voice and roareth at their first coming, so summoners in the know tuck Bamba Peanut Snacks in their ears. Survived this recipe? Received dignities or lordships? Drop us a line in the comments!
These Trader Joe’s Hacks Are Magical
Foraging, grave robbing, waiting for a blue moon—who has the time? Whether you’re prepping for weeknight rituals or planning a ceremony for someone special, this grocery-shopper’s grimoire cuts to the chase and won’t cost you your soul, probably.
CASTING THE SNACKS
Hungry for a bit of cross-cultural, carb-based divination? Clear your mind, gather bagged treats as their shapes catch your eye in the aisles, then choose one that is slightly larger—say, a Parmesan Crisp—to represent yourself. Attach meanings to each of the others: a Spicy Porkless Plant-Based Snack Rind for Trickery, an Organic White Truffle Potato Chip for Prosperity, and so on. Set the Self item in the center of a tea towel, then cast the other items atop it and let their arrangement reveal cleromantic meaning. Know that if the snacks are fickle you may not receive a message—but you can serve them again and again until your intuition serves you.
VEGAN MILK BATH
When you’re in the mood for love and glamour and can’t maintain a herd of 700 lactating donkeys, we’ve got you covered. Give your charisma and attractiveness a dairy-free boost by boiling together a bottle of Charles Shaw Rosé, a carton of Unsweetened Almond, Cashew & Macadamia Nut Beverage, and a bag of Joe Medium Roast Ground Coffee. Stir clockwise until the mixture is browned and fragrant, then pour it into a hot bath and take a good, long soak. Absorb even more of the mixture’s benefits by removing all of your hair below the neck with Honey Mango Shave Cream.
FOUR THIEVES VINAIGRETTE
Swig this to sidestep the Black Death when cozying up to questionable corpses. Pour out half a bottle of Organic Raw Apple Cider Vinegar, then pop in four peeled garlic cloves. Add a small handful each of Seasoning in a Pickle, Herbes de Provence, Everything but the Elote, and 21 Seasoning Salute, then reseal the bottle. Let it sit for four full days, shaking once a day, then strain and rebottle. Hack on a hack: To banish someone bothersome, write their name on a piece of the Fearless Flyer. Soak the paper in your vinaigrette, charge it with the full force of your repulsion when the moon’s face is hidden, fold it up as small as you can, and compost it.
NO-KNEAD HOMUNCULUS
We could all use a little help in the kitchen—and cooking up a sous chef has never been simpler. Line an ungreased loaf pan with Plain Pizza Dough, pour in a carton of Cage-Free 100% Liquid Egg Whites, then fold the dough inward and pinch the edges to create a pocket. Cover with horse dung, then leave the pan to putrefy somewhere warm and dark for 40 days, or until the dough begins to be alive, move, and stir, which can easily be seen. Warily and prudently nourish and feed the dough with Bloody Mary Mixer With Clam Juice and more horse dung for the space of 40 weeks, and it will become a true and living infant.
NEXT-LEVEL SUMMONING
Ready to gain knowledge of the arts and sciences once and for all? Create a protective circle with 7 Salts of the Earth’s Hawaiian Black Lava (absolutely no gaps!), then create a second circle of White Chocolate Baking Chips within its confines. Use more Chips to trace an inverted pentagram, place Nutmeg Scented Candles at each of its five points, then place a sixth Candle and a pile of Golden Rounds Crackers beside it. Light the candles, then step between the circles; chant “Linan tasa jedan Paimon,” and picture a gloriously-crowned rider on a dromedary camel. Pro tip: Your guest of honor hath a great voice and roareth at their first coming, so summoners in the know tuck Bamba Peanut Snacks in their ears. Survived this recipe? Received dignities or lordships? Drop us a line in the comments!
09.13.23
i can promise you i didn't do anything system-preferences-related that would have caused my laptop to delete all of the files on my hard drive and in my icloud account last night; the most exotic alteration i make to it is the application and removal of a triangular piece of washi tape when i want to reveal its camera for a zoom interview or cover it up for everything else. i can also tell you the cats didn't do anything weird to the machine, because i closed it and sat on the couch watching msnbc for like fifteen minutes before opening it to a blank desktop. just closing and opening, and there were a few drafts i'd put in the trash that i couldn't restore because they'd turned from word to excel files(?).
this morning i spent half an hour on the phone with a tech who ultimately made me a reservation at the apple store that turns out to be in the oculus down by the world trade center, a mall that seems designed to send people tumbling down wide flights of marble stairs. at the genius bar i was the undiagnosable malady of the day: my genius confirmed that i hadn't undone any of the protections that were supposed to prevent my computer from eating itself, and that all of my drafts, research, contracts, interviews, transcripts, invoices, pictures disappeared at the same time for secret reasons. "it even took all of your music," he marveled. he confided that he was an artist and didn't keep any of his drawings on his machines; they all lived on an external drive. he showed me an amazon product page that i photographed with my phone (i was later advised that if this freakish thing ever happened again i should jam my phone into airplane mode, which would maybe outrun the sync that would devour all of its files, too.)
we eventually figured out that about 5,000 files - a weird mix of my work, individual, like, live at leeds tracks i don't even remember transferring from a disc to the machine i had before this one, and a bunch of files i'd deleted intentionally in 2014 were wandering in some sort of digital bardo apple had recently created for people who i guess deleted all of their shit and then had changes of heart? but it wasn't searchable and it wouldn't upload in a batch, so i had to "brute force" it (per the genius) and hope the stuff i wanted was in there.
i walked home past trinity church and the supreme courthouse and thought about how while i wanted to revise the pain-in-the-ass super-science-y story i've been working on all summer i really just wanted to know that a little video of steve jumping for a mylar balloon still existed somewhere that i could find it, and i cried a little. i said that to another apple tech on a phone appointment an hour later. "i lost a cat earlier this year too," he said. "i'd raised it from when it was so small it fit in my hand, and then it lived outside, and i went out to a doctor's appointment for a headache or something and when i came back ants were crawling all over it." he said he had a little boy and he would be devastated if his pictures of him disappeared; what if, one day when he was twice as old as he is now, he couldn't remember his son when he was a little boy and he didn't have the photos to help him, what if they were just gone from his mind one night?
some of my batch-restoring attempts eventually worked (brute force!) and i found the steve video. his balloon is yellow mylar, star-shaped, and he meows questions at it before leaping in the air to catch its ribbon in his teeth. his back curves like it does in the tattoo luca font designed for me at the beginning of the summer; i had sent him a couple of photos ahead of time, but when i showed up for my appointment, he asked me where steve's stripes were when i remembered them. one of the things i have always loved about tattoos is the thought that they can't be taken away; no matter where i go or what i become, i have jude's three legs, chuck's shadow at my back, steve forever in the air.
this morning i spent half an hour on the phone with a tech who ultimately made me a reservation at the apple store that turns out to be in the oculus down by the world trade center, a mall that seems designed to send people tumbling down wide flights of marble stairs. at the genius bar i was the undiagnosable malady of the day: my genius confirmed that i hadn't undone any of the protections that were supposed to prevent my computer from eating itself, and that all of my drafts, research, contracts, interviews, transcripts, invoices, pictures disappeared at the same time for secret reasons. "it even took all of your music," he marveled. he confided that he was an artist and didn't keep any of his drawings on his machines; they all lived on an external drive. he showed me an amazon product page that i photographed with my phone (i was later advised that if this freakish thing ever happened again i should jam my phone into airplane mode, which would maybe outrun the sync that would devour all of its files, too.)
we eventually figured out that about 5,000 files - a weird mix of my work, individual, like, live at leeds tracks i don't even remember transferring from a disc to the machine i had before this one, and a bunch of files i'd deleted intentionally in 2014 were wandering in some sort of digital bardo apple had recently created for people who i guess deleted all of their shit and then had changes of heart? but it wasn't searchable and it wouldn't upload in a batch, so i had to "brute force" it (per the genius) and hope the stuff i wanted was in there.
i walked home past trinity church and the supreme courthouse and thought about how while i wanted to revise the pain-in-the-ass super-science-y story i've been working on all summer i really just wanted to know that a little video of steve jumping for a mylar balloon still existed somewhere that i could find it, and i cried a little. i said that to another apple tech on a phone appointment an hour later. "i lost a cat earlier this year too," he said. "i'd raised it from when it was so small it fit in my hand, and then it lived outside, and i went out to a doctor's appointment for a headache or something and when i came back ants were crawling all over it." he said he had a little boy and he would be devastated if his pictures of him disappeared; what if, one day when he was twice as old as he is now, he couldn't remember his son when he was a little boy and he didn't have the photos to help him, what if they were just gone from his mind one night?
some of my batch-restoring attempts eventually worked (brute force!) and i found the steve video. his balloon is yellow mylar, star-shaped, and he meows questions at it before leaping in the air to catch its ribbon in his teeth. his back curves like it does in the tattoo luca font designed for me at the beginning of the summer; i had sent him a couple of photos ahead of time, but when i showed up for my appointment, he asked me where steve's stripes were when i remembered them. one of the things i have always loved about tattoos is the thought that they can't be taken away; no matter where i go or what i become, i have jude's three legs, chuck's shadow at my back, steve forever in the air.
06.18.22 [on the D train]
in attempting to send my dad father's day salutations i sent him some pull quotes from a piece about the harvard medical school morgue staffer who got caught selling donors' body parts to gothbros and issuing receipts for "braiiiiiins." better than a jerky of the month subscription or an ugly tie, probably? i was reminded of a few years ago, when one of the big outlets i'd been writing for pivoted, somewhat mysteriously but not in an interesting way, from travel to paranormal content. one of their editors asked if i was interested in writing about true crime, which is one of a handful of subjects that just don't grab me at all. ditto ghost hunting, and the combination is lethal–contacting the spirits of murdered prostitutes and the otherwise marginalized, yeah, no. there were some weird weeks in there when we were all making a valiant effort to maintain a viewpoint–maybe we could get some more mileage out of haunted hotels?–but it didn't last long. this sale-of-body-parts stuff is perhaps closer to the kind of corpse-related stuff that does interest me, like how the medical school is going to have to track down all of those families who thought their folks' remains had gone to science. (NB: read the fine print several times when you turn stuff over To Science.)
joe speculates that maya deren, our tiny new cat, has mellowed because she was spayed on tuesday. doctor google is vague on this; she is probably 2-3 years old (per our vet) and has had at least one litter of kittens (per the gal on staten island who fostered her as she weaned them). it's been suggested that once a cat has reached decisive adulthood, spaying or neutering doesn't have much of an effect on their behavior. i have so little experience with female cats of any age that i'm no better than doctor google–but she seems to enjoy our company, even matty's, and i'm glad for that.
joe speculates that maya deren, our tiny new cat, has mellowed because she was spayed on tuesday. doctor google is vague on this; she is probably 2-3 years old (per our vet) and has had at least one litter of kittens (per the gal on staten island who fostered her as she weaned them). it's been suggested that once a cat has reached decisive adulthood, spaying or neutering doesn't have much of an effect on their behavior. i have so little experience with female cats of any age that i'm no better than doctor google–but she seems to enjoy our company, even matty's, and i'm glad for that.
03.18.23 [on the F train]
after a year and a half of these crack-of-dawn journeys i can affirm that no one is on the subway at this hour for a good reason. it's not like buses in san francisco, where the 7 AM'ers were like actively casting spells to pry open the gates of hell and accelerate the end of the world, but the collective ugh up in here is palpable. i do these abortion clinic escort shifts once a month and was considering going again next weekend so i'd feel okay about skipping april, when my schedule is tricksier than usual because we'll be in iceland for two weeks, but back-to-back daybreak shenanigans would be too much for me. i do appreciate the community i feel on mornings like this one, as we wait to hear what that trump appointee out in amarillo will rule about mailing mifepristone, and everyone is grateful to have like-minded, action-oriented company, but my seasoning as a human shield wears thin with overuse, and the catharsis of confrontation just gets corrosive in big doses.
on horse pills, we saw our, i don't know, sixth play of the year on thursday. it was love, set in a temporary housing center in england, and it was wonderful. in another month or so it will probably start feeling like too much to have two or three artsy nights out per week, but for now it's excellent. all of the new york city, right in the kisser, go ahead! tonight we're headed up to the philharmonic, and i will disco nap hard enough this afternoon that i definitely won't fall asleep in the middle of the program. it helps that i crammed in a tár viewing right before the oscars last week; cate blanchett is MSG for me when i don't have a taste for something on my own, though even her formidable work in i'm not there couldn't make me care about bob dylan. in a year in which michelle yeoh didn't win everything, CB would have won another oscar; instead she just floated around in a cocoon of louis vuitton ecosilk like the gracious technolympian she is. i doubt she was bothered.
both the editor and the freelancer who fact checked my draft have written to say how much they love my robot cat essay, which has been a real relief; i didn't want to make a big deal about how much it means to me, but as i've said, i'm trying to break their hearts. that feedback is nipping at me to plot out another weird passion project, but i'm not very good at premeditating those–certain kinds of writing are like throwing up. afterward you're usually able to piece together what happened to get you to that point and you're grateful to be on the other side, but it's generally an unhealthy thing to get into on purpose.
on intimate fluids, i gave blood for the first time in ages yesterday, and my iron levels were totally unremarkable. at last, i am iron woman! is it sobriety-related? did the random daily multivitamins some PR person mailed me work better than all the others i've tried? did the blood bank get so desperate that they relaxed their guidelines for this along with everything else (the cooling-off period for donations after tattoos is now just three months–or no months, if you get tattooed in new jersey)? i won't look a gift needle in the mouth, but i will start donating platelets as often as i can. getting to read for two hours while watching my blood cycle through a machine, then drinking cranberry juice and feeling smugly helpful without actually having to interact with anyone? delectable. if they brought back those little bags of cheez-its for the are-you-going-to-faint-or-what tables it would be perfect.
on horse pills, we saw our, i don't know, sixth play of the year on thursday. it was love, set in a temporary housing center in england, and it was wonderful. in another month or so it will probably start feeling like too much to have two or three artsy nights out per week, but for now it's excellent. all of the new york city, right in the kisser, go ahead! tonight we're headed up to the philharmonic, and i will disco nap hard enough this afternoon that i definitely won't fall asleep in the middle of the program. it helps that i crammed in a tár viewing right before the oscars last week; cate blanchett is MSG for me when i don't have a taste for something on my own, though even her formidable work in i'm not there couldn't make me care about bob dylan. in a year in which michelle yeoh didn't win everything, CB would have won another oscar; instead she just floated around in a cocoon of louis vuitton ecosilk like the gracious technolympian she is. i doubt she was bothered.
both the editor and the freelancer who fact checked my draft have written to say how much they love my robot cat essay, which has been a real relief; i didn't want to make a big deal about how much it means to me, but as i've said, i'm trying to break their hearts. that feedback is nipping at me to plot out another weird passion project, but i'm not very good at premeditating those–certain kinds of writing are like throwing up. afterward you're usually able to piece together what happened to get you to that point and you're grateful to be on the other side, but it's generally an unhealthy thing to get into on purpose.
on intimate fluids, i gave blood for the first time in ages yesterday, and my iron levels were totally unremarkable. at last, i am iron woman! is it sobriety-related? did the random daily multivitamins some PR person mailed me work better than all the others i've tried? did the blood bank get so desperate that they relaxed their guidelines for this along with everything else (the cooling-off period for donations after tattoos is now just three months–or no months, if you get tattooed in new jersey)? i won't look a gift needle in the mouth, but i will start donating platelets as often as i can. getting to read for two hours while watching my blood cycle through a machine, then drinking cranberry juice and feeling smugly helpful without actually having to interact with anyone? delectable. if they brought back those little bags of cheez-its for the are-you-going-to-faint-or-what tables it would be perfect.
02.26.23 [on the F train]
the nasty adventure of my thinking it would be a good idea to immediately adopt a kitten–which joe wasn't on board with at all but was willing to endure without objection for my sake–seems to be over. last thursday i applied for a little flame point kitten i found on petfinder, and on friday the rescue group emailed to say that my vet and former vet didn't have much information on matty, and he hadn't been seen since 2021; had i taken him somewhere else, perhaps? i hadn't; he loses his shit when we pack him up to take him to the doctor, and between the pandemic and steve's acute illness we decided to let things ride for a bit. i wrote a quick note back explaining that in a way that made us sound at least non-monstrous, and i wrote a longer one the next day to emphasize our essential fitness as pet guardians. i sent another one on monday with a link to a catster piece i wrote back in 2015 about how matty was so shy with strangers that we got a baby monitor to point at his food dish so we could let the petsitter know he was still alive when we went out of town. that last email really felt like showing my ass; i'm easily googled and my writing would have turned up in a cursory search, but intentionally exposing myself and all kinds of positions some rescue-group rando might find objectionable (when i friended steve's foster on facebook years ago i soon learned she had a robust array of exotic political stances) felt desperate. it was desperate. i am used to cat groups leaping at the chance to give me fancy kittens; steve's foster called me an hour after i applied for him and marveled at how our vet knew us by name, then confided that we beat out a vet tech as potential adopters. she drove all the way to philly to meet us and make the ol' steve transfer. matty's foster wasn't quite as exclamatory, but she okayed my flying all the way to los angeles for him, a thumbs-up i wasn't expecting in the least even though my introductory note made the notebook sound like reservoir dogs. these jersey folks with the flame point kitten, though–nothing. their autoresponse said they'd only contact me if i was approved, and that i should wait five business days. i did, feeling a bit more like no one would give us a cat ever again with each one, and on thursday i googled the group to see if, i don't know, they seemed like the kind of people who would take exception to my having 50 copies of nineteen eighty-four. i found an absolutely scathing passel of yelp reviews alleging that their fosters were horrifically negligent, that their screenings for parasites and things like FIV were breezy at best, that they were abrasive and disinterested at adoption events and maybe a bit racist(?!)...and, by the by, they asked for more info and rejected or ignored strong-sounding candidates all the time. that is lousy news for the little kitten i'd hoped to bring home, assuming he's there and up for adoption at all, but it's a relief to me; i couldn't in good conscience bring a potentially-very-contagious cat to live with matty (several yelpers railed about feline coronavirus, which terrifies me), and maybe the stink of neglect doesn't cling to me as enthusiastically as i thought it did. we won't really know until we revisit this stuff when we're back from iceland in may–if we're not impulsively adopting a cat now, i want to wait until after that big absence so a new creature won't lack us immediately–but the thought has given me some peace, and i'm grateful for that now.
i asked my editor for an extension of the big cat essay i was to turn in two weeks ago, and she was kind about it, so i'll be turning a draft over early this week. the robot cat manufacturers i expected to ignore me actually got in touch a few days ago (still got it with cyborg cat people, baby!), so i have a singular mise en place of uncanny-valley stuff, philosophy, interview notes from a wonderful turkish documentarian, and bioacoustic studies to dump into the ecstatic poetry that got me in this mess and cook up...something. it might be really great! it is almost definitely going to be really long. i already worry that i'm going to disappoint the aforementioned documentarian in the brevity with which i'll visit some of these cat-musings, but essential catness and the human heart are a lot to unpack in 1500 words, reader. if i make a crack about efelines dreaming of wireless mice you have permission to fire me from a cannon.
coldest sidewalk shift of the winter at the ol' health clinic–i tucked a couple of hand warmers under my icelandic wool fingerless gloves and i still feel like i'm writing with frozen breakfast sausages. i was hoping the cold would keep most of the protesters away, and one of the regular churches did wimp out on us, but the ones that showed were especially noxious: livestreaming and filming us, blocking patients' access to the clinic door with one of their signs featuring tiny baby parts splattered on coins and dollar bills, heckling the security guard. i should feel lucky that they almost never single me out for abuse–i guess the same vibe that makes people ask me for directions and if the thing they're trying on looks good says that i won't really take it to heart if you tell me i'm no better than a school shooter. my typical unpicking of the morning's stitches is to hop out of the subway at the greenmarket on the way home, and i brought a couple of shopping bags with me, though i'm guessing vendors will be staying home today as well. i've already gotten enough frequent-frigid-shopper card punches for this year's winter warrior spoon, but they aren't carrying them at the administrative tent yet. where is my spoon, friends?
i asked my editor for an extension of the big cat essay i was to turn in two weeks ago, and she was kind about it, so i'll be turning a draft over early this week. the robot cat manufacturers i expected to ignore me actually got in touch a few days ago (still got it with cyborg cat people, baby!), so i have a singular mise en place of uncanny-valley stuff, philosophy, interview notes from a wonderful turkish documentarian, and bioacoustic studies to dump into the ecstatic poetry that got me in this mess and cook up...something. it might be really great! it is almost definitely going to be really long. i already worry that i'm going to disappoint the aforementioned documentarian in the brevity with which i'll visit some of these cat-musings, but essential catness and the human heart are a lot to unpack in 1500 words, reader. if i make a crack about efelines dreaming of wireless mice you have permission to fire me from a cannon.
coldest sidewalk shift of the winter at the ol' health clinic–i tucked a couple of hand warmers under my icelandic wool fingerless gloves and i still feel like i'm writing with frozen breakfast sausages. i was hoping the cold would keep most of the protesters away, and one of the regular churches did wimp out on us, but the ones that showed were especially noxious: livestreaming and filming us, blocking patients' access to the clinic door with one of their signs featuring tiny baby parts splattered on coins and dollar bills, heckling the security guard. i should feel lucky that they almost never single me out for abuse–i guess the same vibe that makes people ask me for directions and if the thing they're trying on looks good says that i won't really take it to heart if you tell me i'm no better than a school shooter. my typical unpicking of the morning's stitches is to hop out of the subway at the greenmarket on the way home, and i brought a couple of shopping bags with me, though i'm guessing vendors will be staying home today as well. i've already gotten enough frequent-frigid-shopper card punches for this year's winter warrior spoon, but they aren't carrying them at the administrative tent yet. where is my spoon, friends?
01.31.23 [on the F train]
i am going to try submitting something to the new yorker! i think it has a decent shot of being appreciated if i execute the idea well, which is kind of terrifying; now i have to write the hell out of it. i haven't worked on humor for, oh, a decade, when i would buzz mcsweeney's with a list every once in a while,* like a comet that wanted you to try the veal and tip your servers. this is a better idea than those were, but i haven't described it to anyone because i'll need to see if the premise works without explanation for early readers once i have a draft finished. (i don't have a draft finished, though i have the intro together, which for me is half the battle. i'm manifesting, just accept that 2023 is the year of woo-woo.)
this prospective ha-ha of mine - it's a daily shout, in theory - requires research, so i've been getting all kinds of exotic alerts from the academic journal aggregators i fired up when i was writing about iceland in the fall. sounds like a barrel of laughs, right? it is odd working regularly and earnestly at something new and unlikely, but i'm enjoying myself.
my other nonstandard project is an essay due in mid-february on, among other things, robot cats. i am to interview the makers of robot cats about what it is that makes them catlike, and i have a strong suspicion that no one at all will answer my queries. no, that's not quite right - i think one particular source will reply in a way that both bums me out in terms of my own mortality and makes me feel even worse about steve's illness than i already do. it's hard to tell how steve is doing, though it seems clear that he has unfinished business on this plane of existence. i am not not interested in interviewing him about it.
my aunt and godmother's brother died recently, and in the back-and-forth after i wrote to offer condolences i sent her one of some good death poems i read in the latest installment of emma straub's newsletter. it seemed like a good idea at the time - the poem made me feel good - but joe thought it wouldn't comfort her. you can read the whole thing here (it's the second one, "in the beautiful rain"); i was going to tell you my favorite part and realized i don't have one, it's all lovely, but the part that felt like it was meant for me is
*i should have quit when i was ahead with that one; they used my second (as i recall) submission in a book, and my batting average wasn't going to go up.
this prospective ha-ha of mine - it's a daily shout, in theory - requires research, so i've been getting all kinds of exotic alerts from the academic journal aggregators i fired up when i was writing about iceland in the fall. sounds like a barrel of laughs, right? it is odd working regularly and earnestly at something new and unlikely, but i'm enjoying myself.
my other nonstandard project is an essay due in mid-february on, among other things, robot cats. i am to interview the makers of robot cats about what it is that makes them catlike, and i have a strong suspicion that no one at all will answer my queries. no, that's not quite right - i think one particular source will reply in a way that both bums me out in terms of my own mortality and makes me feel even worse about steve's illness than i already do. it's hard to tell how steve is doing, though it seems clear that he has unfinished business on this plane of existence. i am not not interested in interviewing him about it.
my aunt and godmother's brother died recently, and in the back-and-forth after i wrote to offer condolences i sent her one of some good death poems i read in the latest installment of emma straub's newsletter. it seemed like a good idea at the time - the poem made me feel good - but joe thought it wouldn't comfort her. you can read the whole thing here (it's the second one, "in the beautiful rain"); i was going to tell you my favorite part and realized i don't have one, it's all lovely, but the part that felt like it was meant for me is
“Though grudging at first,i'm just about to finish straub's this time tomorrow and discovered last night that its heroine and i have the same birthday, which feels like something she (emma straub, that is) would find amusing; it's a Plot Point. maybe i have an unrealistic sense of what authors want to know about the people reading their books? i once sent patricia lockwood a photo of my purple toe after falling down the stairs in our friends' casita in the dominican republic because i was socked in with thoughts of her boss memoir, and i think it was well-received, but that might not be the best example. a few years after that i sent her a princess di beanie baby that went on to make an appearance on a mid-pandemic virtual book tour; patricia, i hope you never feel like you have to give the authorities a heads up about me.
he fell like the rain,
with his eyes wide open,
willing to change.”
*i should have quit when i was ahead with that one; they used my second (as i recall) submission in a book, and my batting average wasn't going to go up.
12.17.22 [on the J train]
i remember my [abortion clinic escort] shift just before christmas last year as the coldest by far, and i have thus wildly overdressed in a sweater from the reykjavik red cross and some insulated stirrup pants(!) i bought for a press trip in the french alps long ago when the earth was flat. i had actually intended to ski on that trip, and after i mentioned as i got fitted for my equipment that i hadn't been on a slope since adolescence, someone showed up at my room with a supplemental insurance card. fair play, club med; fair play.
so i think what's happening is that i'm going to try blogging in a notebook whenever i ride the subway, a nod to the early days of writing out my posts on the back stairs when we lived in san francisco. less angrily, i hope, or angered for different reasons. we went out to bushwick last night for a son little show and when i met joe at a restaurant beforehand - a place styled to look like its owners' parents' turkish supper club in midcentury wisconsin, as i recall - he said i had a 'scattered and off' vibe (which he eventually attributed to the blogging). so that's something we can expect going forward, maybe. the show itself was at what i would call an archetypally bushwickian venue - hairy light-threaded star clusters hanging around the big old disco ball (joe called them neurons, i called them vogons), a big sign prohibiting body shaming, permanent illuminated signs for the EXIT, the COURTYARD/SMOKING, and FOOD TRUCK. the person who searched my bag noted faux-neutrally that i had a lot of earplugs. "you never know when you might grow another ear," i said. the bathroom attendant had a QR code in case you wanted to venmo him. son little himself was sleepily charismatic, and delighted when the crowd added in "whoa-whoa-whoa"s for the "blue magic" singalong. no one had done that before, he said, but it made sense that new york originated it, he reasoned.
i still haven't convinced my editor to take me up on the iceland travel piece i mentioned back in october, but i did sell and write her the iceland story i nearly reported for her colleagues on the print side more than a year ago, and i suspect it's going to do well. the many icelanders i interviewed have thus far been pleased with my diligence and accuracy, and that is all i really care about, though i certainly wouldn't sneeze at being the magazine's de facto iceland correspondent. one of the translators i pinged who was particularly generous with her expertise has been really warm as a general proposition, and i think maybe we'll be friends? (she seems to spend half the year in iceland and the other half in brooklyn.) that's especially buoying at the moment, for i seem to have lost friends this year.
in the course of an argument joe and i had in the spring, he told me that one of the old pals we'd visited in the dominican republic a few months prior had suggested to him that perhaps i had "the kind of syndrome that makes people rant in the street." i immediately texted said pal and told him how hurt i was that he'd made that suggestion. well i seemed not myself, said he. i explained that there had been a global pandemic, and that i was newly sober, traveling with a partner who was in serious distress, and unexpectedly writing my first piece for an outlet i badly wanted to impress while on vacation, and i guess i'd thought he would see me in the context of all those things, and extend me the empathy i've tried to have for everyone else as we navigate our respective challenges. i was also mortified, because i had worked so hard to be a good guest when we were out there; i couldn't believe i was being pathologized. i tried to explain that there had long been plenty of mental health professionals attending to me and that maybe calling me the manic street preacher of the lower east side was not thoughtful or kind, but he didn't seem very interested in listening to me. when i texted a few months later to say that i care about them and hoped we could figure something out, he and his wife said they want to meet me in person to talk about it; given how pear-shaped things seem to have gone the last time we saw each other, i don't want that. so i am mourning them. i thought they saw me.
is that brutal? what if anything do you owe someone who tells you they think you're something you're not and keeps insisting on it when you disagree and offer a bunch of evidence to the contrary? i don't intend for subway bloggin' to focus on mental health, which i don't enjoy discussing all that much, ironically, but i did just spend two hours getting properly preached out on a street corner, so i feel like i came by it honestly. this morning it wasn't all that cold, but the antis packed up on the early side, and i'm now officially done human-shielding for the year, praise hekate. take care of yourselves, and each other.
so i think what's happening is that i'm going to try blogging in a notebook whenever i ride the subway, a nod to the early days of writing out my posts on the back stairs when we lived in san francisco. less angrily, i hope, or angered for different reasons. we went out to bushwick last night for a son little show and when i met joe at a restaurant beforehand - a place styled to look like its owners' parents' turkish supper club in midcentury wisconsin, as i recall - he said i had a 'scattered and off' vibe (which he eventually attributed to the blogging). so that's something we can expect going forward, maybe. the show itself was at what i would call an archetypally bushwickian venue - hairy light-threaded star clusters hanging around the big old disco ball (joe called them neurons, i called them vogons), a big sign prohibiting body shaming, permanent illuminated signs for the EXIT, the COURTYARD/SMOKING, and FOOD TRUCK. the person who searched my bag noted faux-neutrally that i had a lot of earplugs. "you never know when you might grow another ear," i said. the bathroom attendant had a QR code in case you wanted to venmo him. son little himself was sleepily charismatic, and delighted when the crowd added in "whoa-whoa-whoa"s for the "blue magic" singalong. no one had done that before, he said, but it made sense that new york originated it, he reasoned.
i still haven't convinced my editor to take me up on the iceland travel piece i mentioned back in october, but i did sell and write her the iceland story i nearly reported for her colleagues on the print side more than a year ago, and i suspect it's going to do well. the many icelanders i interviewed have thus far been pleased with my diligence and accuracy, and that is all i really care about, though i certainly wouldn't sneeze at being the magazine's de facto iceland correspondent. one of the translators i pinged who was particularly generous with her expertise has been really warm as a general proposition, and i think maybe we'll be friends? (she seems to spend half the year in iceland and the other half in brooklyn.) that's especially buoying at the moment, for i seem to have lost friends this year.
in the course of an argument joe and i had in the spring, he told me that one of the old pals we'd visited in the dominican republic a few months prior had suggested to him that perhaps i had "the kind of syndrome that makes people rant in the street." i immediately texted said pal and told him how hurt i was that he'd made that suggestion. well i seemed not myself, said he. i explained that there had been a global pandemic, and that i was newly sober, traveling with a partner who was in serious distress, and unexpectedly writing my first piece for an outlet i badly wanted to impress while on vacation, and i guess i'd thought he would see me in the context of all those things, and extend me the empathy i've tried to have for everyone else as we navigate our respective challenges. i was also mortified, because i had worked so hard to be a good guest when we were out there; i couldn't believe i was being pathologized. i tried to explain that there had long been plenty of mental health professionals attending to me and that maybe calling me the manic street preacher of the lower east side was not thoughtful or kind, but he didn't seem very interested in listening to me. when i texted a few months later to say that i care about them and hoped we could figure something out, he and his wife said they want to meet me in person to talk about it; given how pear-shaped things seem to have gone the last time we saw each other, i don't want that. so i am mourning them. i thought they saw me.
is that brutal? what if anything do you owe someone who tells you they think you're something you're not and keeps insisting on it when you disagree and offer a bunch of evidence to the contrary? i don't intend for subway bloggin' to focus on mental health, which i don't enjoy discussing all that much, ironically, but i did just spend two hours getting properly preached out on a street corner, so i feel like i came by it honestly. this morning it wasn't all that cold, but the antis packed up on the early side, and i'm now officially done human-shielding for the year, praise hekate. take care of yourselves, and each other.
01.01.22
2022: THE YEAR IN REVIEW
i realized i'd been wearing my underwear inside out.
i microwaved the last of the old coffee and started a new pot.
i misted some trailing plants on top of our new bookshelf.
i emailed a researcher for an article i'm filing next week.
i noticed a bleach(?) stain on the left arm of my sweatshirt.
i took photographs of: mylar 2 and 0 balloons in a tree, spent fireworks, and two plush snowmen taped to a different tree.
i showed up 15 minutes late to a zoom call with friends.
i ate two pieces of aged swiss cheese.
i bought a big brass spoon rest.
i realized i'd been wearing my underwear inside out.
i microwaved the last of the old coffee and started a new pot.
i misted some trailing plants on top of our new bookshelf.
i emailed a researcher for an article i'm filing next week.
i noticed a bleach(?) stain on the left arm of my sweatshirt.
i took photographs of: mylar 2 and 0 balloons in a tree, spent fireworks, and two plush snowmen taped to a different tree.
i showed up 15 minutes late to a zoom call with friends.
i ate two pieces of aged swiss cheese.
i bought a big brass spoon rest.
08.10.21
i'm working on a piece about the mental health benefits of various outdoor activities—have been all summer, actually, as the book that led my editor to assign it to me was pushed back, and i'm only marginally better at juggling stories than i was around this time last year—and was invited to a guided meditation and walk across the brooklyn bridge, my first in-person Work Thing since last february. (there have been other invitations, but i remain awkward and picky.) i walked down to a fountain near city hall, signed a waiver, took a pair of glowing blue headphones, and wondered if i was being invited to join a cult. (i had just watched the "moira rosé" episode of schitt's creek.)* i had intended to secret-shop the session, but i ended up introducing myself to the program's creator and leader and interviewing him with my phone while my commuter sweat dried. a hundred other people showed up, we all fired up our tech and formed a circle around the fountain to set our intentions, and atmospheric piano music tinkled into my ears.
thunderheads boiled across the river almost immediately and our leader encouraged us to "choose the rain" ("it's only water"). in a low, smooth masseur's voice, he talked us across the bridge and through the downpour; i both love summer storms and have been contending with exotic personal weather, so i was all for the walk's spontaneous metal subtheme. water cascaded down a concrete staircase with us and fizzled against a halal cart that emerged from the steam at its foot. we huddled under the brooklyn side of the bridge like an aspiring new-age rat king, and a handful of participants accepted the invitation to return their headsets and walk some other time; the rest of us funneled into the park. i believed our leader when he said he was impressed with the rest of us.
thunderheads boiled across the river almost immediately and our leader encouraged us to "choose the rain" ("it's only water"). in a low, smooth masseur's voice, he talked us across the bridge and through the downpour; i both love summer storms and have been contending with exotic personal weather, so i was all for the walk's spontaneous metal subtheme. water cascaded down a concrete staircase with us and fizzled against a halal cart that emerged from the steam at its foot. we huddled under the brooklyn side of the bridge like an aspiring new-age rat king, and a handful of participants accepted the invitation to return their headsets and walk some other time; the rest of us funneled into the park. i believed our leader when he said he was impressed with the rest of us.
i probably don't need to say that the walk felt like a third installment in this summer's Lauren Learns and Grows Through Kooky Participatory Events. i made a silent promise to myself and tearily high-fived a tree in a walled garden; i joined a final circle at the edge of the river and, when invited to share my name and a word, leaned into a bean-sized microphone and said i'm lauren and i'm regenerating.
*two high school friends and i went to a house party in oxford that turned out to be a cult recruitment session, complete with weird crackers, a long-haired, moon-faced guru who ostensibly didn't speak english, and a mysterious assistant who refused to give us back our shoes when we realized what was going on and said we wanted to leave.
02.08.21
since the beginning of the year i've been doing team-based escape-from-zombies fitness-tracker challenges with my college roommate jen and her various social and professional circles; it's been a delightful way to fold check-ins with a dear friend into my daily life and has also turned me into an aaron sorkin character. removing old green nail polish? can totally happen while i'm racewalking around the apartment. emailing a dermatologist for a story follow-up? can totally happen while i'm racewalking around the apartment. worrying about what's going on in the bartlet biden administration? fooled you, i stopped doing that at the end of january. okay, i mostly stopped doing that at the end of january.
it turns out that motivation is a much bigger problem for me when the world is just mostly on fire instead of completely on fire. i've been so frayed and overcommitted for most of the pandemic that i didn't think about the fact that i was doing too much; now that, i don't know, we're watching two hours of news a night instead of three and i'm quilting at the coffee table instead of writing letters to georgia voters as we watch, i've started to shy away from the work that wasn't a problem a few months ago, or wasn't a problem i could avoid. that's where the racewalking out of the zombies' clutches comes in: you're not really procrastinating if you're getting steps en route to returning a library book (for which you won't even get late-fined until june) to help friends bust through a roadblock of undead wolves. the work is still happening, but i've started asking for the leeway that social media assures me i've deserved all this time. i think i ruined my sneakers on a walk up to midtown that got us to the next safe house just as some bar television played the national anthem at the beginning of the super bowl and it was totally worth it (also they had started to smell, a bit).
it turns out that motivation is a much bigger problem for me when the world is just mostly on fire instead of completely on fire. i've been so frayed and overcommitted for most of the pandemic that i didn't think about the fact that i was doing too much; now that, i don't know, we're watching two hours of news a night instead of three and i'm quilting at the coffee table instead of writing letters to georgia voters as we watch, i've started to shy away from the work that wasn't a problem a few months ago, or wasn't a problem i could avoid. that's where the racewalking out of the zombies' clutches comes in: you're not really procrastinating if you're getting steps en route to returning a library book (for which you won't even get late-fined until june) to help friends bust through a roadblock of undead wolves. the work is still happening, but i've started asking for the leeway that social media assures me i've deserved all this time. i think i ruined my sneakers on a walk up to midtown that got us to the next safe house just as some bar television played the national anthem at the beginning of the super bowl and it was totally worth it (also they had started to smell, a bit).
08.24.20
one of my favorite new york cities is the one that scrapes across my scalp when i wander out on our balcony in the dodgy moments of the almost-morning. when we first looked at this apartment i worried that i would sleepwalk out and over the railing, or that our cats would follow a pigeon out past those unforgiving 18 stories; it hasn't been a problem. i also had no concept of what i would feel when i watched a tugboat pushing a barge full of landfill unzip the east river late at night. it is the nissan hour; no one, or almost no one, is out for a reason they'd choose. (while i wish i could wish nissan drivers well, they're scoundrels.) the little cat whips his tail like a flag — at last, we're active at the same time! — and i pick him up and show him a plant he can't eat.
i sort-of volunteered to watch the republican national convention this week and to suggest, and contextualize, moments a friend might watch with her boys, Just To Be Fair. i had a story that ended up taking all day to file, so i've been catching up via twitter, which has been about as useful as one would expect. the story is probably not life-changing, but the people i met to write the story are dead serious; it's taken me three weeks both to corral their permissions and to do them justice.
friends have been sending me links to both jerry seinfeld's response to the idea that new york is dead and bats filmed upside down that look like a goth club, which means that i am lucky to have friends who get me (while jerry seinfeld's new york is not my new york, i appreciate upper-west-side-on-upper-west-side violence, and two LPs from the band scoring that youtube clip were en route to us; i feel seen). i have a week or so before i have to file anything else, so i am going to launch into my backlog of books like an old-timey circus performer swan diving into a teacup. one of my editors notes that her budget for the rest of the year is due soon, and that all thoughts i might have for her between now and january should roll in before thursday. no problem! and: shit's gonna get so weird.
i sort-of volunteered to watch the republican national convention this week and to suggest, and contextualize, moments a friend might watch with her boys, Just To Be Fair. i had a story that ended up taking all day to file, so i've been catching up via twitter, which has been about as useful as one would expect. the story is probably not life-changing, but the people i met to write the story are dead serious; it's taken me three weeks both to corral their permissions and to do them justice.
friends have been sending me links to both jerry seinfeld's response to the idea that new york is dead and bats filmed upside down that look like a goth club, which means that i am lucky to have friends who get me (while jerry seinfeld's new york is not my new york, i appreciate upper-west-side-on-upper-west-side violence, and two LPs from the band scoring that youtube clip were en route to us; i feel seen). i have a week or so before i have to file anything else, so i am going to launch into my backlog of books like an old-timey circus performer swan diving into a teacup. one of my editors notes that her budget for the rest of the year is due soon, and that all thoughts i might have for her between now and january should roll in before thursday. no problem! and: shit's gonna get so weird.
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