Yesterday was manic, wretched, me in high heels walking through wet snow to an interview with a friend of a friend, a thin and bent woman in her thirties with a mouth that looked as though it hadn't set right, the way noses can do. I couldn't get to the Brooklyn Public Library in time to hand over my writing samples and beg an interview. I shut myself up in my room with my feet in slippers and a pile of books, only coming out to debate the merits of children with Jojo when she came in for the night. Stayed up until three, unable to sleep. I should stop masturbating just before bedtime but when else am I in the mood?
Then this morning, printing the samples, preparing myself for uncomfortable dress interview clothes and the wet and cold day outside, I got an email from the BPL. They liked my cover letter; they wanted me to email them my writing samples. Done and done. An hour later and they email me again, wanting an interview. I lapse into cheers and recline on the bed for the rest of the day.
Stepping out to the grocery store, I run into a beat-street player, the sort of smooth that runs well over the level of woman it's meant for. He needs a writer, and likely hopes for a bedmate. He'll get one but never the other, if he knows what's best for him, or none at all.
I'm hoping hard for the job at the library. I've always loved libraries, books, words in general, and to generate loving words to describe this institution would bring me such joy. I try not to think of it but everything is so good, they must be permitting of my sense of humor because my cover letter was so tongue-in-cheek, they must like my samples or why would they ask for me, they must be willing to hire someone my age or else they would offer more money.
Still in the hole and broken. Writer's life. Make me tea and swing me, it's beautiful.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Pillow fight and Puff Dumpling
New York is not a home. It doesn't seem to be a place of permanence. Everyone here is here for a reason; it's a jumping-off point, a place to start a career, a family, a new life. Those who have lived here all their lives speak dreamily of living elsewhere someday, but most people who live in the City, Manhattan or Queens, come from other places and these other places define them. They come here to see if they can do this one thing. It's a conquering place, a dreaming place, certainly a place for adventurers. New Yorkers seem to know this. They are constantly challenging each other to accomplish something unreal.
Like the pillow fight in Union Square.
It was just an email, floating around. The sort of thing I likely would have ignored in my other cities, in any of my other lives. A pillow fight in Union Square. 2:00. Costumes welcomed. Jojo and I arrive in pajamas and boots and wool hats with ears knitted onto them. We look like wandering mercenary cats, like Puss in Boots. There are camera people and photographers everywhere; we don't know if we should pretend we can't see them or look directly at them, and so we do both, but hardly ever at the same time. We see a girl in a pink tutu holding a plush hot pink pillow. Several young men wearing black ski masks who stuffed their pillows into T-shirts with skulls on them, being interviewed for a local TV channel. A tall Asian kid dressed as William Wallace, blue clay on his face and a teddy bear for a shield. We see an older couple wearing hats similar to ours, though theirs are bright blue and purple and shaggy. We hail them as our mercenary-cat brethren from the north. One woman has a glorious hat. A long, drooping leather hat trimmed in fur. For the most part, though, the crowd is nicely dressed, in good coats and nice shoes, expensive scarves. New Yorkers are wonderful dressers but there is a place for costumes and this is it.
The fight begins without any warning. I imagine someone whacked someone else at the far end and it spread like a contagion, quickly, through the crowd, and suddenly everyone is hitting everyone else with pillows, fairly gently, and laughing. The laughter is amazing. A few screams and squeals, but mostly two hundred people having a pillow fight of epic proportions, grown adults who haven't played this game for years, and laughing and laughing. There is hardly any talking, except the occasional "Get the panda!" or "Get the Scotsman!" whereupon those individuals are barraged, disappearing under multicolored pillows. And laughing.
Jojo and I find each other before the greater part of the fray is finished. She tells me she met Batman in the midst of a crowd, and he screamed "Catwoman!" and she screamed "My nemesis!" and bopped him on his bat-ears. We go to get frozen yogurt, kicking back in our chairs, exhilarated, sweaty, our pillows piled on the table next to us. People keep looking in the window with questioning eyes. We smile and recount our battle.
We go to the cat shelters after this, where we finally fall for a small white cat called Snowbella, which we will not permit her to be called again. At the moment, she rejoices in the name of Puff Dumpling, which we may translate to Chinese so that it will be less offensive. We pick up Brent on the way home, and I cook chicken marsala while they settle Puff Dumpling into her new home. She seems so content here, exploring easily, begging attention. She's so lovely. She's Jojo's cat really, but I will be happy to live with her. Cats are always third roommates.
Pillow fights in New York. Wonderful.
Like the pillow fight in Union Square.
It was just an email, floating around. The sort of thing I likely would have ignored in my other cities, in any of my other lives. A pillow fight in Union Square. 2:00. Costumes welcomed. Jojo and I arrive in pajamas and boots and wool hats with ears knitted onto them. We look like wandering mercenary cats, like Puss in Boots. There are camera people and photographers everywhere; we don't know if we should pretend we can't see them or look directly at them, and so we do both, but hardly ever at the same time. We see a girl in a pink tutu holding a plush hot pink pillow. Several young men wearing black ski masks who stuffed their pillows into T-shirts with skulls on them, being interviewed for a local TV channel. A tall Asian kid dressed as William Wallace, blue clay on his face and a teddy bear for a shield. We see an older couple wearing hats similar to ours, though theirs are bright blue and purple and shaggy. We hail them as our mercenary-cat brethren from the north. One woman has a glorious hat. A long, drooping leather hat trimmed in fur. For the most part, though, the crowd is nicely dressed, in good coats and nice shoes, expensive scarves. New Yorkers are wonderful dressers but there is a place for costumes and this is it.
The fight begins without any warning. I imagine someone whacked someone else at the far end and it spread like a contagion, quickly, through the crowd, and suddenly everyone is hitting everyone else with pillows, fairly gently, and laughing. The laughter is amazing. A few screams and squeals, but mostly two hundred people having a pillow fight of epic proportions, grown adults who haven't played this game for years, and laughing and laughing. There is hardly any talking, except the occasional "Get the panda!" or "Get the Scotsman!" whereupon those individuals are barraged, disappearing under multicolored pillows. And laughing.
Jojo and I find each other before the greater part of the fray is finished. She tells me she met Batman in the midst of a crowd, and he screamed "Catwoman!" and she screamed "My nemesis!" and bopped him on his bat-ears. We go to get frozen yogurt, kicking back in our chairs, exhilarated, sweaty, our pillows piled on the table next to us. People keep looking in the window with questioning eyes. We smile and recount our battle.
We go to the cat shelters after this, where we finally fall for a small white cat called Snowbella, which we will not permit her to be called again. At the moment, she rejoices in the name of Puff Dumpling, which we may translate to Chinese so that it will be less offensive. We pick up Brent on the way home, and I cook chicken marsala while they settle Puff Dumpling into her new home. She seems so content here, exploring easily, begging attention. She's so lovely. She's Jojo's cat really, but I will be happy to live with her. Cats are always third roommates.
Pillow fights in New York. Wonderful.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
So it begins.
I moved to New York at the end of January, driving in my ancient Honda Civic, a brave vehicle reveling in the name of Billy Markham. He has a sweet temper and the good grace to only develop massive engine problems when a mechanic is close to hand, and my bank account can handle it. Not that my bank account can handle very much these days, but he tries, he tries. He lost an ignition coil in Colorado during a snow-filled night, and he's loaded with all the books I own. Well, not all. A few boxes wouldn't fit. But close.
I drove with an old friend, to whose dreams and projects I have always been so devoted I call him, only half-joking, 'Milord.' He was thinking a lot that trip, scratching his beard and gazing out of the window, and he glanced over at me suspiciously from time to time. He knew I was thinking about Jason. He felt it his duty to come with me on this venture, to guide me with whatever words of wisdom he could fashion out of the space that came echoing toward us through the wind. This strange skill is double-edged, as so often gifts are. He always speaks the truth, but his words never echo in the same way for him. He is as changeable as the people he encounters, and this makes him fragile. A ridiculous word, for him. He resembles nothing so much as a Viking warrior. We think it is because of this resemblance that hats suit him. He never looks quite himself without a helm of some kind.
We came into the city at five in the morning. I was rocking in my seat with anticipation, joy, the moment when you step over the cliff and all you can think is, "I'm falling now." His silence had a terrible weight, an exhaustion I tried not to touch very much with my trembling curiosity. An ill match, but we managed not to scream at each other.
New York doesn't feel like home. Nothing ever has, not since I was a child, not since the house in Oakland with my sacred space under the stairs, full of apples and chocolate and books, my flashlight dangling from a string fastened to the sixth step. The dark wooden smell under there. So New York is not home, but it is beautiful in our apartment, and dangerous on the street, and everything smells different, sounds different. It's an adventure-palace. It's here. Here it is.
New York is where I try to become a writer. It doesn't seem to get more specific than that, and perhaps it shouldn't. Writing as a profession is usually pigeonholed, wrestled into a manageable form. I write short stories and one hopes someday I will finish a novel that I am probably not just yet old enough to write. I have written business documents, ad copy, web copy, white papers, correspondence and mailing advertisements. And then there are those things I have never tried but would love to - the newspaper articles, the columns, the lengthy magazine scripts. There are two plays knocking around in my head right now. One screenplay - perhaps two. This blog, I suppose, though I never considered blogging a writing form. But then, I was ever resistant of the digital age. I like my life to take on ancient tones for the beauty of history, but then, I've found so many blogs online I read again and again, until I forgot.
I mean this blog to keep me writing, to remind me that Writer is an occupation, an art, a lifework. Perhaps to provide whatever guidance I can to any out there who wanted to do this, this writer's life, and are as afraid as I am. I am terribly afraid.
But today it begins.
I drove with an old friend, to whose dreams and projects I have always been so devoted I call him, only half-joking, 'Milord.' He was thinking a lot that trip, scratching his beard and gazing out of the window, and he glanced over at me suspiciously from time to time. He knew I was thinking about Jason. He felt it his duty to come with me on this venture, to guide me with whatever words of wisdom he could fashion out of the space that came echoing toward us through the wind. This strange skill is double-edged, as so often gifts are. He always speaks the truth, but his words never echo in the same way for him. He is as changeable as the people he encounters, and this makes him fragile. A ridiculous word, for him. He resembles nothing so much as a Viking warrior. We think it is because of this resemblance that hats suit him. He never looks quite himself without a helm of some kind.
We came into the city at five in the morning. I was rocking in my seat with anticipation, joy, the moment when you step over the cliff and all you can think is, "I'm falling now." His silence had a terrible weight, an exhaustion I tried not to touch very much with my trembling curiosity. An ill match, but we managed not to scream at each other.
New York doesn't feel like home. Nothing ever has, not since I was a child, not since the house in Oakland with my sacred space under the stairs, full of apples and chocolate and books, my flashlight dangling from a string fastened to the sixth step. The dark wooden smell under there. So New York is not home, but it is beautiful in our apartment, and dangerous on the street, and everything smells different, sounds different. It's an adventure-palace. It's here. Here it is.
New York is where I try to become a writer. It doesn't seem to get more specific than that, and perhaps it shouldn't. Writing as a profession is usually pigeonholed, wrestled into a manageable form. I write short stories and one hopes someday I will finish a novel that I am probably not just yet old enough to write. I have written business documents, ad copy, web copy, white papers, correspondence and mailing advertisements. And then there are those things I have never tried but would love to - the newspaper articles, the columns, the lengthy magazine scripts. There are two plays knocking around in my head right now. One screenplay - perhaps two. This blog, I suppose, though I never considered blogging a writing form. But then, I was ever resistant of the digital age. I like my life to take on ancient tones for the beauty of history, but then, I've found so many blogs online I read again and again, until I forgot.
I mean this blog to keep me writing, to remind me that Writer is an occupation, an art, a lifework. Perhaps to provide whatever guidance I can to any out there who wanted to do this, this writer's life, and are as afraid as I am. I am terribly afraid.
But today it begins.
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