Today was one of those weird days where you can see the moon in broad daylight. Staring at it, I felt like an alien who had landed here, taking in the skyscrapers against the clear sky and wondering where it all ends up.
September's over. I'm back at my desk in my treehouse (or, as I sometimes call it, the Kit Kat Club) The computer situation is partially...mostly solved. I've been ripping out recipes for braised pork shoulder and spiced cakes and pasta dishes heavy on mushrooms and red wine. Looking forward to October, to writing my damn book and to hot apple cider with whipped cream.
Technical glitch aside, writing here every day has been great, great fun and good practice for me. I may not be back every day, but if a week goes by without a post, by all means -- give me the business. Sitting down and forcing myself to write something, anything before midnight comes has been a better exercise than I anticipated.
Big shout-out to JP at Buttered Noodles for hitting the big 3-0 (posts) today, too.
30 September 2010
29 September 2010
Knots to Untangle
OK, it's not the absolute worst time for my computer to go tits up, but it's far from ideal.
I'm back at Winston's on the shared machine, the only one of the two that doesn't have the same virus as my laptop. Looks like I'll be dropping some unexpected cash on a new computer sooner than I'd hoped.
My dad and stepmom recently divorced after more than two decades of marriage. One of the hardest parts has been counseling my dad through the random shit that happens in life -- things that my stepmother used to just deal with for the both of them. He gets so upset when an unexpected credit card fee pops up or when the Internet service he ordered and paid for turns out to be spotty at the river cottage he moved into this spring. He takes it personally, and spins into rages at these little indignities. "Dad, this is life, these kind of things happen all the time and they happen to everybody," my brother and I found ourselves saying over and over.
And tonight, I'm having to say it to myself. Over and over.
grrrr.
I'm back at Winston's on the shared machine, the only one of the two that doesn't have the same virus as my laptop. Looks like I'll be dropping some unexpected cash on a new computer sooner than I'd hoped.
My dad and stepmom recently divorced after more than two decades of marriage. One of the hardest parts has been counseling my dad through the random shit that happens in life -- things that my stepmother used to just deal with for the both of them. He gets so upset when an unexpected credit card fee pops up or when the Internet service he ordered and paid for turns out to be spotty at the river cottage he moved into this spring. He takes it personally, and spins into rages at these little indignities. "Dad, this is life, these kind of things happen all the time and they happen to everybody," my brother and I found ourselves saying over and over.
And tonight, I'm having to say it to myself. Over and over.
grrrr.
28 September 2010
Bloggus Interruptus
I did not forget to post yesterday. I wrote very dutifully about Little Ed and my crazy upstairs neighbor last night. But posting was thwarted because my computer is infected with a virus or some type of malware (which is a very badass word).
My five year old computer has been dying without dignity since January. I'm taking her in the shop again tomorrow, but I fear the end is near. I am posting this tonight from the free public computer at Winston's -- the leather-bar-turned-24-hour coffee-shop a couple of blocks down. I may be the first patron in the establishment's history to use this computer for something other than cruising "HoTT BuTTs" or "Sinagaporean Sloppy Sluts." Or, you know, Facebook.
Anyway. I will be back on track through Thursday, either on this borrowed machine or on my own computer now living on borrowed time. Say a few Hail Marys for us, won't you?
My five year old computer has been dying without dignity since January. I'm taking her in the shop again tomorrow, but I fear the end is near. I am posting this tonight from the free public computer at Winston's -- the leather-bar-turned-24-hour coffee-shop a couple of blocks down. I may be the first patron in the establishment's history to use this computer for something other than cruising "HoTT BuTTs" or "Sinagaporean Sloppy Sluts." Or, you know, Facebook.
Anyway. I will be back on track through Thursday, either on this borrowed machine or on my own computer now living on borrowed time. Say a few Hail Marys for us, won't you?
September 27: The Visitor
I have just gotten back to sleep after a breaking up the 6am cat war that is fought in or around my bed every day when the sun starts to rise. Someone is banging on my door. That can’t be right. I don’t know a single person who would be banging on my door at 7:30am on a Friday.
“Hello??” Bang bang bang.
I recognize my upstairs neighbor’s baritone with its dramatic flourish, “Hel-OOO??!”
Here’s what I know about my upstairs neighbor: he writes poetry, he has a pet bird that he frequently shouts at to “Shut up! Shut UP!!” He spends a great deal of time out on his back porch, directly above mine. He appears to be about 70 years old, with an entirely bald head and dresses in sandals and button down shirts from the Frank Costanza cabana wear collection. I sometimes wonder if my cats and I are going to get contact high from the clouds of earthy pot smoke that waft in through my open windows and from the hallway. His musical tastes run from The Little Mermaid soundtrack to Donna Summer.
I open the door a crack, trying to keep Odin and Andromeda from darting out into the hallway and leading me on a chase up and down stairs to retrieve them.
“Oh, hi!,” he drags out key words like he’s doing an impression of Joan Collins. “Listen, I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to be banging around upstairs for a bit because there is a squirrel in my apartment.”
“A squirrel?” I wonder for a minute if I’m still dreaming.
“Yes, I had my screen door open yesterday and this squirrel just ran right into my dining room from outside! Well, I tried calling the City and they said they’d send someone but that was yesterday and of course they haven’t done a goddamn thing. So I called our management company and they sent someone over, and I thought I heard it run out the door so I sent him away. Well then this morning, I walked into the dining room and I heard this grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.” he makes a low growl that I’ve never in my life heard come out of a squirrel. “So, he’s still in there!”
I think I get it now. “OK”, I say as cheerily as one can when one has been roused from sleep by cats and strange neighbors. “No problem, thanks – “
But now he’s launched into scolding. “Do not keep food on your back porch. If you keep any food out there it attracts animals. That’s why I had this squirrel run into my apartment."
This kind of pisses me off. I don’t keep food out on my porch – why would I? “OK, I don’t keep food out there, but thanks.”
“You shouldn’t because it attracts all kinds of critters.”
“OK, I won’t,” I say, guiltily remembering the night I put out a dish for a sweet stray cat that followed me up from the laundry room and the 2-3 times I’ve put my trash bag out on the porch overnight so it won’t fester in my kitchen overnight.
I have never seen evidence of squirrels in the garbage. I’ve never even seen a squirrel on the back porches. Not that it would be surprising, we live right at tree level on a street lined with old sugar maples and oaks.
This also isn’t the first time I’ve gotten a dubious lecture from Mr. Upstairs. He came down one day after I lit my charcoal grill and claimed that the smoke was flooding into his apartment and that if I followed his technique where you light just four coals, let them get ashy and then pile up the rest of the coals around them, there will be no smoke at all.
I didn’t point out to him that what he was proposing would make twice the ignition smoke and take twice as long, just like I don’t point out to him now that the reason the squirrel ran into his apartment is because he had his back door wide open.
I agree through clenched teeth, and my neighbor, satisfied by my promise, goes upstairs and bangs around. Presumably the squirrel gets the message, I didn’t hear anything else about it all weekend.
Tonight, I came home from the office, and pulled the trash out of the can. I put it outside on the porch quietly, remembering the dire warnings I received last week. “Whatever, dude.” I think to myself.
Shutting the back door, I notice that one of the jars on my kitchen windowsill has been pushed almost to the edge. Cats must have been up here. I move it back into place, and come face to face with a black, eager little eye.
It’s the goddamn squirrel! He sits on my windowsill, looking straight at me then scurries halfway up the side of the drainpipe toward the upstairs deck.
Laughing, I retrieve the trash bag from my porch. Point: upstairs neighbor.
The little squirrel comes right back. Even now, he’s curled up, sleeping adorably on the outside ledge of my kitchen window with his tail wrapped around the top of his body. Part of me wonders if he has rabies. Part of me wonders if he was a pet or something – am I just imagining the longing on his face as he peers into my kitchen? Part of me wonders if maybe…he’s a little hungry. I think of the almonds in my cupboard.
Anthromorphizing animals and other objects is an old, old habit of mine. When I was in Kindergarten, I wrote and illustrated my first book, “Little Ed Under the Bed” about a little girl who brings all of her stuffed animals into the bed to sleep with her, but forgets all about Little Ed under the bed. She’s wracked with guilt when she finds him the next morning and promises to never leave him down there again.
And so I keep checking on little Ed out there on the window. Wondering if he’ll be gone in the morning.
“Hello??” Bang bang bang.
I recognize my upstairs neighbor’s baritone with its dramatic flourish, “Hel-OOO??!”
Here’s what I know about my upstairs neighbor: he writes poetry, he has a pet bird that he frequently shouts at to “Shut up! Shut UP!!” He spends a great deal of time out on his back porch, directly above mine. He appears to be about 70 years old, with an entirely bald head and dresses in sandals and button down shirts from the Frank Costanza cabana wear collection. I sometimes wonder if my cats and I are going to get contact high from the clouds of earthy pot smoke that waft in through my open windows and from the hallway. His musical tastes run from The Little Mermaid soundtrack to Donna Summer.
I open the door a crack, trying to keep Odin and Andromeda from darting out into the hallway and leading me on a chase up and down stairs to retrieve them.
“Oh, hi!,” he drags out key words like he’s doing an impression of Joan Collins. “Listen, I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to be banging around upstairs for a bit because there is a squirrel in my apartment.”
“A squirrel?” I wonder for a minute if I’m still dreaming.
“Yes, I had my screen door open yesterday and this squirrel just ran right into my dining room from outside! Well, I tried calling the City and they said they’d send someone but that was yesterday and of course they haven’t done a goddamn thing. So I called our management company and they sent someone over, and I thought I heard it run out the door so I sent him away. Well then this morning, I walked into the dining room and I heard this grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.” he makes a low growl that I’ve never in my life heard come out of a squirrel. “So, he’s still in there!”
I think I get it now. “OK”, I say as cheerily as one can when one has been roused from sleep by cats and strange neighbors. “No problem, thanks – “
But now he’s launched into scolding. “Do not keep food on your back porch. If you keep any food out there it attracts animals. That’s why I had this squirrel run into my apartment."
This kind of pisses me off. I don’t keep food out on my porch – why would I? “OK, I don’t keep food out there, but thanks.”
“You shouldn’t because it attracts all kinds of critters.”
“OK, I won’t,” I say, guiltily remembering the night I put out a dish for a sweet stray cat that followed me up from the laundry room and the 2-3 times I’ve put my trash bag out on the porch overnight so it won’t fester in my kitchen overnight.
I have never seen evidence of squirrels in the garbage. I’ve never even seen a squirrel on the back porches. Not that it would be surprising, we live right at tree level on a street lined with old sugar maples and oaks.
This also isn’t the first time I’ve gotten a dubious lecture from Mr. Upstairs. He came down one day after I lit my charcoal grill and claimed that the smoke was flooding into his apartment and that if I followed his technique where you light just four coals, let them get ashy and then pile up the rest of the coals around them, there will be no smoke at all.
I didn’t point out to him that what he was proposing would make twice the ignition smoke and take twice as long, just like I don’t point out to him now that the reason the squirrel ran into his apartment is because he had his back door wide open.
I agree through clenched teeth, and my neighbor, satisfied by my promise, goes upstairs and bangs around. Presumably the squirrel gets the message, I didn’t hear anything else about it all weekend.
Tonight, I came home from the office, and pulled the trash out of the can. I put it outside on the porch quietly, remembering the dire warnings I received last week. “Whatever, dude.” I think to myself.
Shutting the back door, I notice that one of the jars on my kitchen windowsill has been pushed almost to the edge. Cats must have been up here. I move it back into place, and come face to face with a black, eager little eye.
 |
| This isn't THE squirrel, just A squirrel. A cute squirrel. |
Laughing, I retrieve the trash bag from my porch. Point: upstairs neighbor.
The little squirrel comes right back. Even now, he’s curled up, sleeping adorably on the outside ledge of my kitchen window with his tail wrapped around the top of his body. Part of me wonders if he has rabies. Part of me wonders if he was a pet or something – am I just imagining the longing on his face as he peers into my kitchen? Part of me wonders if maybe…he’s a little hungry. I think of the almonds in my cupboard.
Anthromorphizing animals and other objects is an old, old habit of mine. When I was in Kindergarten, I wrote and illustrated my first book, “Little Ed Under the Bed” about a little girl who brings all of her stuffed animals into the bed to sleep with her, but forgets all about Little Ed under the bed. She’s wracked with guilt when she finds him the next morning and promises to never leave him down there again.
And so I keep checking on little Ed out there on the window. Wondering if he’ll be gone in the morning.
26 September 2010
In the House
He could still hear her wailing in the other room, as wretched and insane as a barn cat.
25 September 2010
Coffee
Fixing my coffee feels like preparing a baby's bottle. Sugar, lots of cream, get a spoon from the drawer or a thin wood strip from the bin and stir until it's toffee tan. Don't skip a step. Can't drink it if it's too hot -- I like to take big, bitter gulps to get it through the oblong hole and into my bloodstream as quickly as possible.
When someone tells me they don't drink coffee because they don't like the taste, I always say "tastes bad, feels good." I get my personality from a bean. It makes my words flow, unsticks them from the tired places. It makes my heart go and my pee smell. Always keep my bag stocked with Listerine strips to wipe off the tongue filth it leaves behind, so I can speak to the bus driver or the man at Borders without broadcasting my preferences or my afternoon whereabouts.
I used to call bad days at work "40-ouncers." Two Starbucks ventis from the Senate Chef: morning and afternoon. They were days I couldn't afford to go without the fight-or-flight feeling to carry me through the news cycle and into the night.
Sitting in the coffee shop, music piped in and a cup on my table, I feel like an artist, a visionary. It drags me out of my own brain. It feels like a reason to live.
When someone tells me they don't drink coffee because they don't like the taste, I always say "tastes bad, feels good." I get my personality from a bean. It makes my words flow, unsticks them from the tired places. It makes my heart go and my pee smell. Always keep my bag stocked with Listerine strips to wipe off the tongue filth it leaves behind, so I can speak to the bus driver or the man at Borders without broadcasting my preferences or my afternoon whereabouts.
I used to call bad days at work "40-ouncers." Two Starbucks ventis from the Senate Chef: morning and afternoon. They were days I couldn't afford to go without the fight-or-flight feeling to carry me through the news cycle and into the night.
Sitting in the coffee shop, music piped in and a cup on my table, I feel like an artist, a visionary. It drags me out of my own brain. It feels like a reason to live.
24 September 2010
2006 July
I am sitting in an outdoor café waiting for a car to hit me. Or: a bomb to explode right now, incinerating newspapers, cigarette butts and the stray page from some organization’s strategic plan that’s been blowing between the sidewalk cracks.
I’m out this Saturday afternoon looking like a cancer patient – all dark undereye circles and unwashed hair. I’ve stopped caring that these jeans are a little too short for flip flops and the zit on my right cheekbone isn’t adequately concealed.
At least I walked out of the apartment building, down N Street to this corner Starbucks which is full of Europeans hanging around the flat screen TV cheering loudly for Germany, now battling Portugal for third place.
At least I bought a newspaper and new sunglasses to replace my beloved Target pair from the beginning of the summer. I must have left them behind on a shelf of the dressing room at Banana Republic. Stupid, I call myself. But then, more gently – this is what life is all about. We get things, we lose things. And so I make an unscheduled stop at Filene’s for a subpar substitute pair. They don’t block my eyes as much as the lost ones. I don’t feel as fashionably distant.
I had planned to walk up 16th Street to Meridian Hill Park to read, drink iced coffee and maybe meditate a little. Even though I don’t technically know how to meditate. I was thinking I’d just sit on some grass and close my eyes or something.
But after the sunglasses selection and purchase, I felt exhausted, almost defeated, and in great danger of going home and getting back into bed. After all of my getting out of the house struggle earlier today – the fight to get my feet moving toward downtown and a bra on my chest in the first place – I can’t let that happen. So it’s here, outside.
Reading the Style section – “former Governor Mark Warner dined Friday night with some friends at Oya downtown. They shared appetizers, entrees and bottles of wine.” Oh god. Something about this fills me with dreadful sadness. Dinner with friends. Bottles of wine.
I put my head down on the table. OK, now this looks a little crazy, I tell myself. Why do you have your head down like a sleepy Kindergartener? This makes my eyes well up. Well for fuck’s sake. Crying? Crying outside at the Starbucks? There is a car stopped at the stoplight right next to you. I can hear the car stereo through the open windows. Why can’t you put your head up so those people know you’re ok?
Crying at Starbucks. Well this is pretty low, isn’t it? I finally sit up and my whole spine aches like I have finished some impressive workout. The lifting up makes the tears actually squeeze out of my eyes like slippery puppies – down my cheeks before I can restrain them.
I start rubbing my temple and the third eye spot as soon as I’ve got the teariness under control. Headache. You know these migraines – how they jump out at you from nowhere. That’s what I’m telling the people who may or may not be staring at me from the Starbucks inside. Carry on. Nothing to see here.
23 September 2010
Sweaty
Days like this, I want to take off my skin and leave it piled on the closet floor for the cats to nap on. I want to peel off my muscles and shake out my organs, then run -- all bones-- lightly through the streets.
22 September 2010
Chicago vs. DC
The budget reconciliation bill is not an acceptable topic of conversation in Chicago. In DC, it is a vehicle for Saturday Night Live-caliber comedy riffs.
I think Chicago men are more attractive as a whole. Wrigleyville has it's share of frat-daddy types, but they're so much less menacing, less sinister than the ones on the east coast. They don't have that creepy core of entitlement, so they resemble Golden Retrievers next to DC's sharp-toothed wolves.
It's harder to make friends at work in Chicago. Everyone goes home to their family/friends/whatever, even after grabbing a drink at happy hour. Coworkers make polite office conversation about weekend bachelor parties, Bears games and trips to the Empty Bottle, but rarely is there a real attempt to bring one's worlds together. In DC, by virtue of the intensity of the work I suppose, your work friends ARE your friends. Any pre-existing friends, college roommates, sisters, whathaveyou get co-opted into your office-based tribe. I miss that.
In the Metro -- you stand Right walk Left or deal with the wrath of the mob. You are free/encouraged/pretty much obligated to enforce this by growling, cursing or shouting at any violators. On the L: "c'mon and get on this train, it's freezing out there! Have a nice day!"
In Chicago, I don't see other people out alone as often. I like to go out to dinner, to a movie or to a bar by myself from time to time. I'm almost always the only solo person in the establishment. It felt less conspicuous to be out in public alone in DC.
Chicago people actually read In Touch and Us Weekly and stuff like that on the bus and in public. I wouldn't even read Harry Potter on the Metro, keeping it on my nightstand only to be enjoyed in the privacy of my room. Junk reading felt as embarrassing as porn in Washington.
I felt at home in DC. Chicago is home.
I think Chicago men are more attractive as a whole. Wrigleyville has it's share of frat-daddy types, but they're so much less menacing, less sinister than the ones on the east coast. They don't have that creepy core of entitlement, so they resemble Golden Retrievers next to DC's sharp-toothed wolves.
It's harder to make friends at work in Chicago. Everyone goes home to their family/friends/whatever, even after grabbing a drink at happy hour. Coworkers make polite office conversation about weekend bachelor parties, Bears games and trips to the Empty Bottle, but rarely is there a real attempt to bring one's worlds together. In DC, by virtue of the intensity of the work I suppose, your work friends ARE your friends. Any pre-existing friends, college roommates, sisters, whathaveyou get co-opted into your office-based tribe. I miss that.
In the Metro -- you stand Right walk Left or deal with the wrath of the mob. You are free/encouraged/pretty much obligated to enforce this by growling, cursing or shouting at any violators. On the L: "c'mon and get on this train, it's freezing out there! Have a nice day!"
In Chicago, I don't see other people out alone as often. I like to go out to dinner, to a movie or to a bar by myself from time to time. I'm almost always the only solo person in the establishment. It felt less conspicuous to be out in public alone in DC.
Chicago people actually read In Touch and Us Weekly and stuff like that on the bus and in public. I wouldn't even read Harry Potter on the Metro, keeping it on my nightstand only to be enjoyed in the privacy of my room. Junk reading felt as embarrassing as porn in Washington.
I felt at home in DC. Chicago is home.
21 September 2010
Electric Eel
I find myself sucking at the dregs of my old life. Slurping and lurking in the corners of it, like a barbed and whiskered fish lip-suctioned to a dirty glass tank.
20 September 2010
This Was Just Like That
I was still sitting on the couch, laughing with David when They took back Florida.
Took it back?
"Too close to call," Wolf Blitzer said. That’s ridiculous, we said.
"They’re still going to call it for Gore", I said, "They just need to be sure. Those exit polls wouldn’t be that far off."
" No", David said. "This is bad." I didn't totally believe him, but that’s when I left the living room – I couldn’t stand it, the suspense.
Like the time in high school Cross Country practice when Amber Herlihy had a seizure in the country club pool we'd borrowed for the afternoon. She wasn’t breathing and it had been too long since Coach G had pulled her out, started mouth to mouth. Nothing was happening, she wasn’t breathing. She wasn’t dead, was she? Some of the girls on the team were crying, some were still in the water, lined up clutching the pool side, watching. I had climbed out, dripping and watching from a distance for awhile. Finally, I went into the locker room and waited in there alone.
I couldn’t stand out by the pool waiting to find out if Amber was alive or dead. We were so far out in the country, it would take the ambulance at least 15 minutes to get to her. She was definitely going to die, I decided. Pacing the locker room, I tried to get used to the idea of her dead. The scene at school. At the funeral home, the air close with the smell of roses and too many people in a small space. The hysterical, hugging teenage girls and the stone-jawed teachers in gray suits who had seen this before but had never grown used to it.
I stayed in there, digging my fingernails into the surface of my palms and watching the clock in the orange-tiled changing space. I stayed long enough that I knew by the time I came out, there would be an answer: alive or dead. I needed to know which so I’d know what to do next.
When I finally came out and saw Amber splayed out on the pool deck where I’d left her, my throat contracted. I thought “OK, dead.” But the coach was still pumping her chest, and it seemed like only seconds before she seized and foamed orange vomit and fluttered her eyes.
Alive, as it turns out. And now it’s just a story, instead of a story.
So, I left CNN and went to the kitchen because I couldn’t watch Florida dangle between “won” and “lost” anymore than I could watch Amber laying down between life and death. I needed to distract myself before the final call, to perform my prayers and incantations at a distance from Wolf and the Balance of Power Desk and real time.
19 September 2010
Phantom Limbs
 |
| By James McMullan |
In one sense, it's a smart calculation. I was not going to be a professional actress or a Broadway dancer. So why not focus talents and time into pursuits that were likely to pay off in the future?
Now that I'm cresting my 30s, I have been actively longing for some of those more artistic pursuits that were so abruptly abandoned.
That's why I'm so excited about LINE BY LINE on NYT online. James McMullan is an artist who is going to be teaching weekly drawing lessons through this column.
From the first installment, "Getting Back the Phantom Skill":
Drawing, for many people, is that phantom skill they remember having in elementary school, when they drew with great relish and abandon. Crayon and colored pencil drawings of fancy princesses poured out onto the sketchbooks of the girls, while planes and ships, usually aflame, battled it out in the boys’ drawings. Occasionally boys drew princesses and girls drew gunboats, but whatever the subject matter, this robust period of drawing tended to wither in most students’ lives and, by high school, drawing became the specialized province of those one or two art geeks who provided the cartoons for the yearbook and made the posters for the prom.
This is sort of embarrassing to admit, but I drew brides. But also the 9 planets of the solar system, palm trees, detailed scientific drawings of grasshoppers and the human heart for science class, and characters from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
I'm going to try to spend some time with James McMullan each week.
18 September 2010
Two-thirds
Today was a good day because I met up for a writing date with JP at The Book Cellar and actually banged out a story start-to-finish before we were both fried for the day.
I have this terrible habit, in writing and, I guess in life, of powering through the first two-thirds of something and then dragging.......to.....a.....stop.
I've been kicking an idea for a graphic novel around in my head for more than a year. One night this summer, after a long walk on the lake path, I came home and outlined it on page after page with a black Sharpie. But then, weirdly, I stopped at a point a little more than halfway through the story. I have 2/3 of a short story done. The whole thing is outlined, I have read it multiple times for my writing partners, but I just can't sit down and finish it.
What I wrote today needs a ton of work. But, I'm clear on the beginning-middle-end. That's a big deal for me.
To celebrate, JP and I pretended we were in France and had a delicious dinner of wine, cheese and chocolate. Just for fun, I've been asking myself this question every day: "If someone came and said, 'you can go anywhere in the world right now -- money, obligations and reality are not a factor' where would I go?" Recent popular answers have been Maine (in a cottage by the sea, eating lobster and writing) Alaska (watching grizzlies...from a safe distance) and Thailand (laying on the beach).
Today it was France. How can I make it happen?
I have this terrible habit, in writing and, I guess in life, of powering through the first two-thirds of something and then dragging.......to.....a.....stop.
I've been kicking an idea for a graphic novel around in my head for more than a year. One night this summer, after a long walk on the lake path, I came home and outlined it on page after page with a black Sharpie. But then, weirdly, I stopped at a point a little more than halfway through the story. I have 2/3 of a short story done. The whole thing is outlined, I have read it multiple times for my writing partners, but I just can't sit down and finish it.
What I wrote today needs a ton of work. But, I'm clear on the beginning-middle-end. That's a big deal for me.
To celebrate, JP and I pretended we were in France and had a delicious dinner of wine, cheese and chocolate. Just for fun, I've been asking myself this question every day: "If someone came and said, 'you can go anywhere in the world right now -- money, obligations and reality are not a factor' where would I go?" Recent popular answers have been Maine (in a cottage by the sea, eating lobster and writing) Alaska (watching grizzlies...from a safe distance) and Thailand (laying on the beach).
Today it was France. How can I make it happen?
17 September 2010
The Trouble With Jars
Occasionally, I become paranoid that I'm edging over the line between quirky and socially unacceptable.
In the last couple of years, I've become a little attached to jars. Chicago doesn't have a recycling program that's worth a damn and, let's face it, everyday chores are enough of a challenge for this girl. It's not like I'm going to faithfully rent a zipcar to haul a bunch of recycleables to the nearest facility.
Jars are so handy. I use them for my makeup brushes, spare change, to hold extra soup and sauces. I use them for the 1 trillion safety pins that come home with the dry cleaning. And I think they are pretty. I like the shapes. I like glass.
But inevitably, there are extras. There are some in my cupboard, and I've pulled some out and put them on top of my yikky white kitchen cupboards to add a little visual interest.
Just tonight, there was a new spaghetti sauce jar and a salsa jar ready for the dishwasher. I paused before putting them in. Is this how it starts...my inevitable decline into hoarding? With jars? I had a vision of the future -- my family members placing concerned phone calls amongst themselves, "well I knew there was something wrong when she started with those damn jars."
I've already made my sister Ariel promise that if I ever need a hoarding intervention, she'll hire Dr. Zazio. Her voice! It's so soothing!
In the last couple of years, I've become a little attached to jars. Chicago doesn't have a recycling program that's worth a damn and, let's face it, everyday chores are enough of a challenge for this girl. It's not like I'm going to faithfully rent a zipcar to haul a bunch of recycleables to the nearest facility.
Jars are so handy. I use them for my makeup brushes, spare change, to hold extra soup and sauces. I use them for the 1 trillion safety pins that come home with the dry cleaning. And I think they are pretty. I like the shapes. I like glass.
But inevitably, there are extras. There are some in my cupboard, and I've pulled some out and put them on top of my yikky white kitchen cupboards to add a little visual interest.
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| These guys live in my kitchen |
Just tonight, there was a new spaghetti sauce jar and a salsa jar ready for the dishwasher. I paused before putting them in. Is this how it starts...my inevitable decline into hoarding? With jars? I had a vision of the future -- my family members placing concerned phone calls amongst themselves, "well I knew there was something wrong when she started with those damn jars."
I've already made my sister Ariel promise that if I ever need a hoarding intervention, she'll hire Dr. Zazio. Her voice! It's so soothing!
16 September 2010
Identifications to be Made While Walking in the City
Ketchup or blood?
Peeled hard boiled egg or large fungus?
Dog poop or human poop?
Speaking on cell phone or speaking to demons?
Discarded lunch remains or regurgitated dinner?
My bus or not my bus?
Peeled hard boiled egg or large fungus?
Dog poop or human poop?
Speaking on cell phone or speaking to demons?
Discarded lunch remains or regurgitated dinner?
My bus or not my bus?
15 September 2010
Well, Excuse Me for Living
I retract my earlier statements about how nothing causes an existential crisis like updating your resume. Applying for health insurance should be outlawed for violating our Eighth Amendment rights.
Backstory: in the next few weeks, I will have exhausted my COBRA. My new employer won't start offering health insurance until January. So that leaves me vulnerable to car accidents, aneurysms and stray cats carrying the Ebola virus for a few months.
I have been insured by Blue Cross Blue Shield my entire life. So, it would seem, it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to obtain one of their nifty little Temporary PPO plans to cover me in the interim. It would seem. They totally denied me.
I've applied for a couple of other individual plans, but it doesn't take an underwriter to see where this is heading.
The medical history questions went back ten years. TEN. And they asked about everything -- I was scrambling to look up names and addresses of doctors who have retired since I last saw them. By the end of it, I was wracked with an exam-taking anxiety. "Have you had a pap smear?" was one of the questions. Yes. Wait...is that a trick question? Will they NOT cover me because I haven't been more thrifty with my ladyparts?
The main issue appears to be that I receive treatment for anxiety and depression. So, a disease that I inherited (both of my parents are medicated and/or in counseling. Grandmothers on both sides have made octogenarian confessions to me that they think they have an anxiety disorder. My uncle attempted suicide three times.) has turned me into an Untouchable in the eyes of the health insurance pantheon.
So, basically I'm being penalized for doing what American culture insists that we do: "take steps" and "make a plan" and "feel better." I'm being penalized for not blowing my head off.
"Do you consider yourself cured?" the form asked. And no, there wasn't a write-in box.
On the upside, this seems to be one of the only times in recent years where my non-imminent production of offspring is a good thing.
We all just went through a painful and intelligence-insulting national health care debate, so I'm not going to go into all that. But if anyone knows a Canadian who wants to get married -- hook a sister up.
Backstory: in the next few weeks, I will have exhausted my COBRA. My new employer won't start offering health insurance until January. So that leaves me vulnerable to car accidents, aneurysms and stray cats carrying the Ebola virus for a few months.
I have been insured by Blue Cross Blue Shield my entire life. So, it would seem, it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to obtain one of their nifty little Temporary PPO plans to cover me in the interim. It would seem. They totally denied me.
I've applied for a couple of other individual plans, but it doesn't take an underwriter to see where this is heading.
The medical history questions went back ten years. TEN. And they asked about everything -- I was scrambling to look up names and addresses of doctors who have retired since I last saw them. By the end of it, I was wracked with an exam-taking anxiety. "Have you had a pap smear?" was one of the questions. Yes. Wait...is that a trick question? Will they NOT cover me because I haven't been more thrifty with my ladyparts?
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| This is Me Right Now. |
So, basically I'm being penalized for doing what American culture insists that we do: "take steps" and "make a plan" and "feel better." I'm being penalized for not blowing my head off.
"Do you consider yourself cured?" the form asked. And no, there wasn't a write-in box.
On the upside, this seems to be one of the only times in recent years where my non-imminent production of offspring is a good thing.
We all just went through a painful and intelligence-insulting national health care debate, so I'm not going to go into all that. But if anyone knows a Canadian who wants to get married -- hook a sister up.
14 September 2010
Spotted at the Argyle Stop
The man coming down the opposite staircase was older, maybe 65 with a lumbering walk and close-cropped silver hair. He was wearing an XXL t-shirt that blared "Pray for Me, My Husband is ITALIAN" in red and green letters.
13 September 2010
What's With the Name?
When I was a kid, I loved superheroes. Specifically, the kickass female superheroes of the late 70s/early 80s. (well, and KISS, but that's another story)
Wonder Woman was my absolute favorite. I had the underoos, the Wonder Woman utility belt (tiara, bracelets, belt and magic lasso) and I used to walk around with my long dirty blonde hair all wet because I thought it made it look dark like Wonder Woman's.
I also was really into this coloring book, "Wonder Woman and the Menace of the Mole Men." Upon tracking down and shelling out an embarrassing amount of cash for a couple of these on eBay, I discovered that the plot was a little...shall we say...risque? At least for a Kindergartener.
Wonder Woman was my absolute favorite. I had the underoos, the Wonder Woman utility belt (tiara, bracelets, belt and magic lasso) and I used to walk around with my long dirty blonde hair all wet because I thought it made it look dark like Wonder Woman's.
12 September 2010
Sunday Night
I'm having a hard time settling down and writing today. This was a social weekend -- I was out Friday night with JP at Krista's mustache party, which turned into a late, late Bucktown night out ending past 4am at the ever-notorious Marie's.
Last night, we celebrated Jess's upcoming wedding with a grownlady bachelorette party. An adorable redhead from Wines for Humanity came and hosted a wine tasting. Wine tastings are pretty fun. I'm not particularly advanced at detecting notes and noses and finishes, but some of the wines make me want to eat certain things -- buttery pasta or strawberry pie. Some of them trigger bizarre smell memories. We tasted a French merlot that made me think of spaghetti at my Grandma B's house. Turns out, I was picking up the green pepper in the wine. By bottle number six, my notes on a Spanish Granache had deteriorated a bit: "fruity-fruity jelly yum."
There was also a cheesemonger on hand who paired cheeses with the wines we were tasting. Cheese is my favorite substance on earth. I have given this a lot of thought, and if some demented deal-maker said to me that I either had to give up cheese or lose a whole year of life, I would take the cheese. Same with a finger, or possibly an entire hand. We tasted a Taleggio that actually caused goosebumps to climb up the sides of my neck.
Today was mostly spent sleeping and grappling with confusing dreams that involved Michigan black bears, lost text messages and lost love. I can't shake this sense that somewhere, right around the corner, I'm going to find a definitive answer or a strategy to end the drifting. But every Sunday, I find myself right back where I was. And maybe that's alright.
Last night, we celebrated Jess's upcoming wedding with a grownlady bachelorette party. An adorable redhead from Wines for Humanity came and hosted a wine tasting. Wine tastings are pretty fun. I'm not particularly advanced at detecting notes and noses and finishes, but some of the wines make me want to eat certain things -- buttery pasta or strawberry pie. Some of them trigger bizarre smell memories. We tasted a French merlot that made me think of spaghetti at my Grandma B's house. Turns out, I was picking up the green pepper in the wine. By bottle number six, my notes on a Spanish Granache had deteriorated a bit: "fruity-fruity jelly yum."
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| I lost my shit over this cheese. |
Today was mostly spent sleeping and grappling with confusing dreams that involved Michigan black bears, lost text messages and lost love. I can't shake this sense that somewhere, right around the corner, I'm going to find a definitive answer or a strategy to end the drifting. But every Sunday, I find myself right back where I was. And maybe that's alright.
11 September 2010
Overheard on Clark Street II
Two women, smoking on the corner outside of Tapas Las Ramblas:
Blonde smoker: "I'm just glad he didn't die of alcohol poisoning. That's what I was afraid of."
Brunette smoker: "What did he die of? Just...being a hamster?"
Blonde smoker: "I'm just glad he didn't die of alcohol poisoning. That's what I was afraid of."
Brunette smoker: "What did he die of? Just...being a hamster?"
10 September 2010
The Drive Home From Evanston
Sitting at the red light, the man in the left turn lane caught my attention.
I wondered if I should flag him down and tell him that I saw the face of a dead woman riding there next to him in the car. But it didn't seem worth it.
It was an optical illusion. Or maybe he was well aware of the mournful death's head along for the ride.
I wondered if I should flag him down and tell him that I saw the face of a dead woman riding there next to him in the car. But it didn't seem worth it.
It was an optical illusion. Or maybe he was well aware of the mournful death's head along for the ride.
09 September 2010
Odd Compliments
"My daughter was always very pretty, but now she's cute."
-- My dad, on the occasion of me getting a perm in the sixth grade. This was said directly to me, not about me to someone else. It must also be said that I was scorchingly awkward, with buck teeth, terrible hair and questionable taste in stonewash during the period in question -- I think he was overcompensating a bit.
"You look good. Like, your face looks good."
-- Best friend, last Sunday night.
"You really get right in there, don't you?"
-- Sixth grade science teacher as our class was dissecting bluegill.
"About 70% of the time, when I'm...alone...I'm thinking of you. Remembering you."
-- The Russian, 2005. Unclear what the breakdown was of the other 30%. Or what his girlfriend at the time would say about this.
"Nice sunglasses. You're kind of a badass!"
-- 22 year old who works in my office, June 2010.
"I've been teaching this class for many years now, and I think this is the first time someone has written about owl pellets."
-- Writing retreat instructor, March 2009.
-- My dad, on the occasion of me getting a perm in the sixth grade. This was said directly to me, not about me to someone else. It must also be said that I was scorchingly awkward, with buck teeth, terrible hair and questionable taste in stonewash during the period in question -- I think he was overcompensating a bit.
"You look good. Like, your face looks good."
-- Best friend, last Sunday night.
"You really get right in there, don't you?"
-- Sixth grade science teacher as our class was dissecting bluegill.
"About 70% of the time, when I'm...alone...I'm thinking of you. Remembering you."
-- The Russian, 2005. Unclear what the breakdown was of the other 30%. Or what his girlfriend at the time would say about this.
"Nice sunglasses. You're kind of a badass!"
-- 22 year old who works in my office, June 2010.
"I've been teaching this class for many years now, and I think this is the first time someone has written about owl pellets."
-- Writing retreat instructor, March 2009.
08 September 2010
Mind Games
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| Or maybe it's Joaquin Phoenix! Noooo! |
I see him around. "Oh, there's that guy parking his car," I think when I"m walking down Glenwood after the gym. Hey, there he is at The Coffee Studio, huddled over a Mac with a bleach blonde graphic designer. He is making out with his bear boyfriend in front of the leather bar. He is shopping at Edgewater Produce with his tattooed girlfriend.
When I lived in Lincoln Park, there was a guy I referred to as "the chief extra in my life." He lived in my building, frequently rode the same bus as me to Michigan Avenue, where he'd get off at the same stop as me and walk into the Wrigley Building just next door to my office. I'd see him in the neighborhood, but then I started to spot him all over town. I noticed him at the next table when I was on a date at Clark Street Ale House and I saw him couple of times in Logan Square. I became convinced that if I actually spoke to him, the universe would contract and I would bring about the apocalypse. I think he said hi to me once in the elevator and I responded with a sound somewhere between a yelp and a cackle.
I haven't seen him in ages. Maybe he got reassigned and this group of bearded ones has taken his place.
07 September 2010
In the Loop
I'm down here wearing work clothes, blending in with the office people while the wind picks you up and blows you out of town. What else is there to do, anyway?
There's the rest of this day and then tomorrow and a Thursday morning meeting. Everyone is walking to lunch, discussing the long weekend and their fantasy football leagues. Standing in line for coffee this morning, I was surprised how numb I was. Maybe it's a stages-of-grief thing or a medication side effect. Either way, it has spread to my bones.
Thinking of all of the terminally broken people I know. Or those already in the late stages, the ones I stride past in the shade of Union Station, stepping carefully around their sprawled-out legs. "That's coming for you, too," it whispers, fingers cold around my wrist.
"Are these shadows of things that must be or are they shadows of things that might be?" But the season's all wrong for Dickens quotes.
There's the rest of this day and then tomorrow and a Thursday morning meeting. Everyone is walking to lunch, discussing the long weekend and their fantasy football leagues. Standing in line for coffee this morning, I was surprised how numb I was. Maybe it's a stages-of-grief thing or a medication side effect. Either way, it has spread to my bones.
Thinking of all of the terminally broken people I know. Or those already in the late stages, the ones I stride past in the shade of Union Station, stepping carefully around their sprawled-out legs. "That's coming for you, too," it whispers, fingers cold around my wrist.
"Are these shadows of things that must be or are they shadows of things that might be?" But the season's all wrong for Dickens quotes.
06 September 2010
The Blight Man Was Born For
Some of you guys know that I'm working on a novel. One of the major plot points and themes revolves around grief. As someone who hasn't yet experienced a major loss, I wonder if it's crazy to try to put a character through it and to write about the grief that follows death in a meaningful way. Sure, there has been serious pain and depression in my life. There has been loss. But for the most part, it's an experience that's more on the horizon than reality.
Grief and mourning and luck have all been kind of tumbling around in my head this week. Last night, I watched Hotel Rwanda and struggled to imagine the burden of drawing a card like that out of the Universe's deck. Even in our attempts to break genocide down and understand it on a human level through art and writing and documentaries, it's so hard to separate the individual lives involved from the capital-E Event of it.
About an hour ago, I finished Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, which she wrote in the year after her husband John's sudden death and the catastrophic illnesses of her daughter Quintana. This passage perfectly sums up for me the way our ideas about luck and grief are tangled:
One of my favorite poems (and a really great YouTube channel):
"Spring and Fall To a Young Child" by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Grief and mourning and luck have all been kind of tumbling around in my head this week. Last night, I watched Hotel Rwanda and struggled to imagine the burden of drawing a card like that out of the Universe's deck. Even in our attempts to break genocide down and understand it on a human level through art and writing and documentaries, it's so hard to separate the individual lives involved from the capital-E Event of it.
About an hour ago, I finished Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, which she wrote in the year after her husband John's sudden death and the catastrophic illnesses of her daughter Quintana. This passage perfectly sums up for me the way our ideas about luck and grief are tangled:
Once when she was still at the Westlake School for Girls, Quintana mentioned what she seemed to consider the inequitable distribution of bad news. In the ninth grade she had come home from a retreat at Yosemite to learn that her uncle Stephen had committed suicide. In the eleventh grade, she had been woken at Susan's at six-thirty in the morning to learn that Dominique had been murdered. "Most people I know at Westlake don't even know anyone who died," she said. "and just since I've been there I've had a murder and a suicide in my family."
"It all evens out in the end," John said, an answer that bewildered me (what did it mean, couldn't he do better than that?) but one that seemed to satisfy her.
Several years later, after Susan's mother and father died within a year or two of each other, Susan asked if I remembered John telling Quintana that it all evened out in the end. I said I remembered.
"He was right," Susan said. "It did."
I recall being shocked. It had never occurred to me that John meant that bad news will come to each of us. Either Susan or Quintana had surely misunderstood. I explained to Susan that John had meant something entirely different: he had meant that people who get bad news will eventually get their share of good news.
"That's not what I meant at all," John said.
"I knew what he meant," Susan said.We are not supposed to live our lives with one eye looking wearily around the bend for the tragedies sure to come, and I don't intend to do so. But they are coming. They will be brought to us or brought on ourselves in a million different ways, big and small. And it doesn't take an event like the Rwandan genocide or even a death in the family to remind us.
One of my favorite poems (and a really great YouTube channel):
"Spring and Fall To a Young Child" by Gerard Manley Hopkins
05 September 2010
Overheard on Clark Street
Two guys, smoking in front of Charlie's:
"There is some kind of fire that just burns in Eastern European women. Makes them crazy."
"There is some kind of fire that just burns in Eastern European women. Makes them crazy."
04 September 2010
03 September 2010
Sing, Goddess
"She said 'Cassie is a total dicktease in those shorts' "
Daphne looks over at me sideways to gauge my reaction as she takes a long drag on the cigarette -- her third since we've been down here.
I look down at what I'm wearing to the second day of ninth grade. T-shirt, tights and boots: all black. And the rolled up jean shorts that offended Diana so much. They're leftovers from junior high. The rule is, no new clothes the first week of school. You look like you're trying too hard.
"Why? Why would she say that?" I make it come out like I'm mildly irritated, but inside, a prickly Oh FUCK is rising up my throat. I try to tamp it down with another fake-inhale of the Camel Light I've mostly been holding and flicking against the soles of my Docs. I know enough to hold it in for at least 15 seconds and make sure to exhale a little out my nose, so it looks like I'm really smoking.
She shrugs and scratches her flaking eyeliner with a chipped pinky nail. "Who knows? Maybe because of your dad?"
"My dad?"
"Well, yeah."
"He's just the mayor -- he's not a king or anything." Now my hands are really shaking, not just with nicotine and Mountain Dew. I haven't been here long enough to cross Diana and Leah -- senior girls who would punch me in the locker room just to make a point.
"Yeah, but he's all over TV and stuff. I don't know. They were just saying that you seem a little stuck up." she takes another long, dramatic drag before flicking the butt off onto the tracks. She looks over at me "They're probably just acting like that because they want to fuck your brother."
"Then they should quit being such bitches behind my back. They don't even know me." I'm too wound up to concentrate on my cigarette anymore. I grind it out on the cement ledge.
Daphne looks over at me sideways to gauge my reaction as she takes a long drag on the cigarette -- her third since we've been down here.
I look down at what I'm wearing to the second day of ninth grade. T-shirt, tights and boots: all black. And the rolled up jean shorts that offended Diana so much. They're leftovers from junior high. The rule is, no new clothes the first week of school. You look like you're trying too hard.
"Why? Why would she say that?" I make it come out like I'm mildly irritated, but inside, a prickly Oh FUCK is rising up my throat. I try to tamp it down with another fake-inhale of the Camel Light I've mostly been holding and flicking against the soles of my Docs. I know enough to hold it in for at least 15 seconds and make sure to exhale a little out my nose, so it looks like I'm really smoking.
She shrugs and scratches her flaking eyeliner with a chipped pinky nail. "Who knows? Maybe because of your dad?"
"My dad?"
"Well, yeah."
"He's just the mayor -- he's not a king or anything." Now my hands are really shaking, not just with nicotine and Mountain Dew. I haven't been here long enough to cross Diana and Leah -- senior girls who would punch me in the locker room just to make a point.
"Yeah, but he's all over TV and stuff. I don't know. They were just saying that you seem a little stuck up." she takes another long, dramatic drag before flicking the butt off onto the tracks. She looks over at me "They're probably just acting like that because they want to fuck your brother."
"Then they should quit being such bitches behind my back. They don't even know me." I'm too wound up to concentrate on my cigarette anymore. I grind it out on the cement ledge.
02 September 2010
In July
I pierced my own side. And now I can only watch as it flows out furiously into pail after pail.
"Oh, but you shouldn't have put the hole there." she says. "It shouldn't hurt so much. You must be doing something wrong." She smiles at me from her perch on the cushioned sofa and reaches down to pet the dog.
"If it wants to be told, the story will find a way. It won't let you rest."
I'm not resting now! I want to rage and throw coffee mugs at her as I rush to replace another bucket, full of gristle and horns and little tumors with sand burr hands.
I am leaking on the sidewalk. I am staining your couch. Making barnyard puddles all over the floor while my cat calls the paramedics. The bathtub teems with swimming blood-guppies. With warring Viking ships and 1980s child molesters.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." I say. She nods smugly and turns her head as I spit shark teeth one right after the other into my tea.
"Oh, but you shouldn't have put the hole there." she says. "It shouldn't hurt so much. You must be doing something wrong." She smiles at me from her perch on the cushioned sofa and reaches down to pet the dog.
"If it wants to be told, the story will find a way. It won't let you rest."
I'm not resting now! I want to rage and throw coffee mugs at her as I rush to replace another bucket, full of gristle and horns and little tumors with sand burr hands.
I am leaking on the sidewalk. I am staining your couch. Making barnyard puddles all over the floor while my cat calls the paramedics. The bathtub teems with swimming blood-guppies. With warring Viking ships and 1980s child molesters.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." I say. She nods smugly and turns her head as I spit shark teeth one right after the other into my tea.
01 September 2010
September Blog Challenge
A few weeks ago, I was crowded into a 7-11 parking lot with hot and sticky strangers to watch Joan Jett and the Blackhearts cap off this year's Market Days. She was tiny, muscled and dressed in a black bikini top with jeans. Stalking over to her guitar and slinging its strap over her shoulder, she led off the show with that question, "Are you afraid? Don't be afraid." and then the opening notes of "Bad Reputation" got everyone into a rocking badass frenzy.
Buzzed off vodka lemonade, standing under the stars, I was cut by her admonition. Am I afraid? Of course I'm afraid. Fear is the motivating force in my life.
I work because I'm afraid I won't have any money and will have to go home and live in the small town I deliberately left behind. I put off work and personal deadlines until it's almost too late, and then in a flash of fear and guilt, I churn out the press release or the fact sheet that could have been written weeks ago. I pay the $4 processing fee to pay the RCN bill by phone the day before they shut it off.
When I worked on the Hill, I was terrified of fucking up. I lived in fear of one of my catastrophic failures playing out on CNN and NPR for the whole world to cackle at. It drew up knots in my back so deep that once a massage therapist said she wanted to guess what my job was at the end of the session. Her two guesses were Department of Homeland Security or the FBI. I was angry and brittle and prone to teary outbursts.
I'm still afraid. Afraid that my writing sucks, that I won't ever do anything important or interesting. That I'll make a wrong decision that can't be undone, like invest in a relationship that flames out spectacularly. Or have a baby only to realize that I'm a terrible mother, suffocating myself and ruining that child's life forever.
The beginning of the school year has always, for me, felt like the true New Year. Maybe it's because I had teachers for parents or the fact that the summer-to-fall transition in the Midwest seems so dramatic. Summer requires attendance at outdoor events, weddings, barbecues and rooftops. Wasting it feels morally wrong. Why sit and write when you could be running on the lakeshore or out on a camping trip? (Even when I'm not actually doing these things -- it feels like I should be) The mandatory recreation of summer makes it easy for me to let everything slide.
So, in the spirit of the new year and all things turning, I'm starting the September Blog Challenge. I will post here every day. It may just be a couple of lines, but I will write something new today through the 30th.
Feel free to harass me to keep my word.
ETA:
JP over at Buttered Noodles is also taking part in the September Blog Challenge. She's kicking my butt already with her September 2 post. (just remember, I am nocturnal...most posts won't go up until it's dark out)
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