Monday, June 30, 2008

Inching through the tunnel ...

Taking a break from importing, editing and labelling six thousand and four photographs of rocks, I decided to do some work today. After doing actual work-work this morning, I went to the new(ish) coffee shop down the street (not a Starbucks) to work on my story. I am happy and somewhat shocked to report that I wrote 1,229 new words. This is such a strange and interesting process. At this point in the game I feel as though I'm living my characters' lives in real time and, like them, have no idea what the future holds. My writing coach believes in forging ahead, not mapping everything out and self-editing. Editing stunts the creative process, she says, and I understand what she means. She gives me deadlines and I do my best to meet them, with the goal of getting to the first ending. Because there will be a whole lot of editing if/when I meet my goal. But, she points out that it's a lot easier to shape a relatively complete draft than it is scene-by-scene without a road map. I suppose perhaps it's somewhat like a sculptor chipping away at a slab of marble to reveal the ballerina that he didn't know was inside. "I suppose perhaps it's somewhat ..." How's that for commitment?

I don't yet know the whole story. I know aspects of it, certainly, and I know my characters and their backgrounds reasonably well but the direction? Not sure. Actually that's not true. I know roughly how I think it will end ... it's all the stuff from a to z that I'm unclear about. Because of the surprises that have arisen thus far, I might logically change the title I've used since I wrote bits of the first paragraph two years ago. This paragraph sat on an endless white page, untouched, until I revisited it in April.

The forging-ahead process is both enlightening and claustrophobic ... like inching through the Lincoln Tunnel knowing you'll most likely see the light at the end -- you're getting further, no matter how slowly. I am fully aware, by the way, that this may never be anything but a manuscript, but that's okay. I'm writing more than I've ever written these days, and it feels good.

You know what's strange? Since I added the Statistics feature to this whatever-you-want-to-call-it, I have had considerably fewer comments than I used to. Yet I see that people are visiting. Huh. Strange.

Hint, hint.

Pictures of the @#%# rocks coming soon.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Please stand by ...

I'm trying to sift through my Utah photos and pick the ones I'll post, but it's pretty tedious naming 300 photos of rocks. Beautiful rocks, but rocks nonetheless. I actually took Geology in college and loved it, but that was 150 years ago. Oh dear, I'm dating myself.

In the meantime, here's a couple enjoying an afternoon in downtown Moab:

Friday, June 27, 2008

From the Colorado

This is estimated to be a 250,000,000-year-old conifer that's washed down from the Rockies and is now petrified (wouldn't you be?!).

Dead Horse Point -- there are several versions of the provenance of this name.


Spacious skies






The result of letting someone borrow my ridiculously complicated camera.



You-Ta

Okay ... this trip was a life-changing experience from start to finish in so many ways. There were ups and downs and all arounds ... not sure where I ended up. I'm not going to [verb-that-means-blog] about it all, just mention the good stuff. Moab is a beautiful, authentically crunchy, life-affirming town. If you like water, rocks and sand, which I do. I feel so badass (you know how unusual this is) -- with my scrapes and my bruises from rafting. I have been working on a poem for the past hour or so, and I'm still hearing everything rhyme. Or in rhythm.

So much to tell you -- where do I start? Here are some photos -- I shall return soon:

Where we stayed; highly recommend:

Before learning how to adjust the exposure:


After said learning experience:



Hi Ed, Ivy, Jill, Cheech, Tara and so on -- I am uploading more photos and will be back in a bit.

But enough about me ...

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Utah rocks

I hope you folks like pictures of rocks, because I have a great many from this trip thus far. Wow it's taken some weird turns today, as is par for the course, it being life and all. Happy summer solstice. If you're on a good path, keep going; if it's been a tough stretch, here's a brand new beginning. Get to where you want to be. It's time.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Grand is a relative term...

Here I am in Grand Junction, Colorado ... arrived here from LaGuardia via Denver and now have a little under two hours wait for Kristine and Melissa, who I will meet at the Alamo counter where we pick up our convertible and head to Moab, Utah ... I kind of assumed these two hours of solitude in Grand Junction would entail my eating lunch, reading my book, basking in air conditioning, or at the very least a lazy ceiling fan. No such luck.

"There's a vending machine if you want some cookies," offered the very nice woman who works for the TSA.

"Is there more commerce nearby?" I asked hopefully.

"Commerce bank?" her colleague chimed in. "There's one a couple of miles east ..."

"No -- I mean somewhere close by where I can get a bite to eat -- besides cookies," I explained.

"They have crackers too!" she boasted. "But a restaurant? Not really. There are a couple of things a mile or two down the road."

"Can I walk it?" I asked, ignoring the seven different straps of varying weight crushing my shoulders.

"Oh -- you can't walk in this heat!" they assured me.

"Is there perhaps a taxi service?" I tried.

My query was greeted by a polite guffaw, if such a thing is possible. "Where are you from?"

"New York," I said with a smile, knowing I sounded like one-of-those types, like my former friend who led me on a miles-long ramble through Paris in search of a Diet Coke some 15 years ago.

"Well, welcome to our tiny Western town!" they crowed.

"Thanks so much," I said sincerely, briefly contemplating the vending machines. Even those bizarre orange crackers filled with peanut butter were beginning to seem appealing.

I've opted, instead, to sit outside, read, write, and loan my cell phone to a government official from Mexico City whose ride was late and whose phone card wasn't working. His ride arrived.

As Cheech, who I im'd a few moments ago, said, "You have full Wifi access and you can't even find a stinkin' sandwich?!"

Welcome to the start of my vacation. I am really, truly looking forward to the rest (now I only have an hour or so until my friends arrive!). I am, even more immediately, looking forward to my next bite of non-vending machine food.

You're all getting t-shirts that say, My friend went to Grand Junction, Colorado, and all I got were these lousy jam-filled packaged cookies.

I promise the next posts from this trip will be filled with mirth and merriment. Right now I'm going to head over to the John Deere truck working near by and see if the little woman packed an extra sandwich...

Monday, June 16, 2008

Where have all my commenters gone?

I miss you! But thanks for the private comments ... it's really, really rewarding to have readers.

Lies lies lies, yeah-eh...


I have a Facebook account. I know, I know. But it's actually been a fun way to reconnect with old friends -- from my hometown (which is technically Jackson Heights but, having moved from there at the age of four months, I relinquish my claim to it), from high school, college, my Random House days, and so on. As it turns out, people who are old-enough-to-know-better (i.e. over 17) use Facebook and its nerdy brethren to lie their ways into false friendships. Granted, not every one of my 120 friends is someone I'm in touch with on a regular basis, but I have not fabricated my way onto any of their pages, as others seem to do with alarming frequency. Let me explain:

I recently re-friended a gentlemen I know from home, and have been enjoying a lively back-and-forth how-have-you-been-the-past-15-years conversation with him. So when another gentleman with a vaguely familiar name sent me a request and explained, "It seems you and I are both friends with [redacted], and you seem cool from your profile, so I thought we could be friends," fairly pathetic approach notwithstanding, why would I have assumed that he and [redacted] aren't friends?! I did, however, write back, "How exactly were you able to see my profile?" (oh come on folks, most of you know that you can only read someone's profile once you've befriended them). To which he replied something to the effect of, "Oh -- I guess somehow I was able to read part of it and do you know which [hometown high school] years' reunions are coming up?" prompting me to say, "Um -- I would imagine those ending in a 3 or an 8." I then emailed our mutual friend, asking for more info about this smooth operator, and friend said, "Don't befriend him! I barely know the guy!" Apparently "the guy" has been poaching friends from Actual Friend's Facebook page.

Now, this has got to be a contender for the least effective popularity contest ever. Anyone with an account on one of these insular little pastimes knows how they work. Wow! So-and-so has 247 friends! How had I never realized what a catch he so obviously is! His profile doesn't mention his being "in a relationship" -- I should hook him up with my single friends! Twenty-three people have sent him good Karma, and look how big his lil' Green Patch has gotten! How is a gem like this still single?

Anyway, snarky, cooler-than-thou attitude aside, I wish The Poacher best of luck with whatever it is he's attempting to do, provided it is no more underhanded than it seems. May he find love, friendship, networking and all the Superpokin' he can handle in the cyber world and beyond.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Helter skelter

Oh, hi.

I hesitate to admit this, but ... technology confounds me. As in, "Where's that confounded bridge?"

On the one hand, particularly in this city, it is an agoraphobic's dream. Though an agoraphobic might want to rethink living in Manhattan to begin with. But really -- even before the wonders of the "Internets", Manhattan has long been a place where one can get a fair amount done with minimal contact with the outside world. Blintzes at your doorstep at 4AM? Done. Dirty laundry picked up, washed, folded and returned? Not a problem. Now one can have these conveniences and so, so much more with little more than a valid address and a keyboard. So that's a good thing. I have built and solidified multi-dimensional friendships through two-dimensional efforts. But I have also had pointless misunderstandings with some of my closest friends in two dimensions -- there are no nuances or subtleties to IMs and emails. There is to Skype, but no one seems to have it except George Breakfast and me.

The word nuance reminds me of my seester. About which more later.

I have the luxury of working from home more days than not which is, for me, a luxury. I don't gravitate toward office settings, though I must say that the in-office work I'm doing these days is extremely enriching in many ways. But technically I could do this and other work from the privacy of my home, wearing as much or as little as I feel like wearing. I could, if I chose, put in a solid eight hours of work in an ill-fitting vintage prom dress and a pith helmet. I don't. But I could.

Hello, tangents.

I've taken to getting dressed in clothing I could wear out of the house when working from home. But for a writer, and I am finally ready to admit that I am a writer, electronic distractions abound. Never mind the television, cable, Netflix, phone, text messaging, and so on ... simply sitting down to write comes with the temptation to check my email. Constantly. On slow mail days, there's Gawker, there are friends' blogs, there are random ideas I choose to Google. Like Kleenex, Bandaids, Q-tips and Xerox machines, Google is fast becoming more than a brand -- it's the catch-all phrase for searching the World Wide Web (does anyone say this anymore?). It is procrastination's best friend. I'll be on a roll with my writing, wind up in some sort of food scene, then not be able to decide whether the thing you strain spaghetti in (spaghetti that you don't order in from across the street, that is) is a collander or collandar or khahlehndur ... so I'll look it up, triggering a Pavlovian response to pasta -- like pasta cruda, which my mom makes flawlessly and has taught me how to make. And then I'll think about Italy itself, and remember that Diane is on a tour of the Mediterranean - I think she's in Sicily, which is where, exactly? And Malta -- my former landlord is from there. Who was that nice couple who lived next door? She was working for Lorne Michaels -- let me Google her. Oh! They got married. Just like my freshman year roomate -- who's on Facebook -- and apparently loves Arrested Development too. I wonder what Jason Bateman is working on these days ... since Juno -- which I might as well IMDB because I never did read the trivia for that film. I'll peruse the credits (while waiting for Tetris to load) and -- the Dolly Grip's name is really familiar -- let me email my friend in LA to see if it's the same Gregory -- but I haven't talked to my LA friend in a while, so I'll just give him a call before I start writing. And then call-waiting comes in, and so-and-so has a hilarious story to tell me -- she's just come back from St. Thomas. Which is where, again? Looks nice -- let me check Orbitz or Travelzoo and see how much it costs to get there. But actually, before I do I should really head down to New Orleans to visit friends there -- how much will that cost? It's cheap this time of year! Let me call those friends and see if this is a good time to visit -- it is! There's a festival (always) that weekend -- headlined by a band that sounds kind of familiar -- I should download a few of their songs before I head to New Orleans with the nonrefundable tickets I just bought on Expedia ... flying Continental, which I don't have miles on -- let me sign up for their frequent flier program ... What's the etymology of the word "frequent"? And so on and so on and so on.

On the first day of our illustrious writers' group, we had a member, Joyce, whose schedule, unfortunately, has prevented her from committing for the time being. She had finished a draft of a novel, which had taken her from May till November to write. We were impressed -- and perhaps some of us a bit envious.

"It was easy," she explained. "I was brand new to New York and didn't know ANYone. I had no friends."

"Lucky," Michael and I joked later. For a few brief shining months, Joyce had minimal distraction.

I wouldn't trade my friends and family for the world. I absolutely would not. But I would love to find the middle ground, where I can maintain my relationships and write.

Much more to say, so I'll be back soon. My spaghetti has arrived.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Fleeting thoughts

I deleted the post that prompted someone to email me separately and ask if everything is okay ... hadn't meant to sound quite so despondent -- it was a fleeting thing.

More to come ... later today.

My sister, my sister ...


...tell me what the trouble is ...

Remember this song? Though not my usual cup of musical tea, this one will forever be the anthem of my senior year spring break, when Diane, Kristen, Jen and I joined Laura on a trip home to Tampa, where we had an incredible setup. This deserves its own post. In the meantime, here's a memento from the past, and one that I love. My sister and me, on our then front steps, which bore witness to our childhoods, comings-of-age, triumphs, embarrassing dates, and so much more.

I love you, Jules!

Friday, June 6, 2008

Addendum


Well, after that sorry excuse for a good night's sleep and in keeping with the spirit of Neil's compliment, I've made the adult and logical decision to sit out this road trip and lay low tonight -- to read, write, and CLEAN. Eliminate some of the physical clutter so that other adventures this summer are well-earned. Woo-hoo! Responsibility! Adult decision-making! Cleaning!

*sigh*

Anyone want to do something tonight?

Abundance


Wide awake in the city that never sleeps ... this was one of those days that captured the magic of New York. After working (from home) I went to writer's group, during which, among other things, we critiqued Cheech's piece ... in it he describes eloquently and accurately the love we feel for our hometown, the addictiveness that keeps us coming back for more. I've lived and loved elsewhere but this is home. It was a day of creative pursuits -- after group we went to the screening of a very well-made pilot, "Project Ghostlight", which is right up my creepy alley ... a reality show about haunted theaters. When that was over we rushed across town to a play by one of my new favorite theater companies, The Debate Society. Fifty minutes of madcap hilarity. From there we ambled westward again in search of dinner with no destination in mind -- wound up on a whim at Dos Caminos on Houston. By the time we got there I was low-blood-sugar-cranky and starving and looking forward to a margarita. I can be cranky around Cheech -- he's one of my bests and "gets" me more than many do. We're waiting for our table when in walks someone I've known since freshman year in college but hadn't seen for fifteen years. My photographic memory for faces and bizarre ability to recall decades-old snippets of conversation prevailed -- we had a lovely reunion and my moodiness dissipated. Old College Friend's wife said that he, too, had been hungry and cranky before walking in -- so a moment of Manhattan-style serendipity served us both well. Cheech and I walked home (he was kind enough to take the subway from my street) through the West Village, my old neighborhood (four different apartments there before I moved to this one). At the corner of Greenwich and Charles he said "Cheech's old block" (I'm Cheech too) ... which I misheard as "Cheech is full of guac" ... also somewhat true. My final outing of the evening was a walk with Lou, whom I'm simply in love with these days, fine fuzzy fellow that he is.

And now, hours later, I'm unable to sleep. Insomnia does not stress me out as it once did ... it's not my favorite way to spend the wee small hours, nor is it as traumatizing as it might sound. Neil paid me a huge compliment today: "You're so productive these days!" Music to my tone-deaf ears. Maybe "tone-deaf" is too strong ... sometimes I can flawlessly carry a tune, other times not in the slightest. For some reason I find the song "Happy Birthday" especially difficult to sing, and so I've grown accustomed to energetically mouthing it at group events. Birthday parties, that is, when others are singing.

So much so much so much more to write but my synapses aren't firing correctly at this late-early hour. Later today we drive to Pennsylvania, where Neil plays a festival and we swim in a lake. Not at the same time. That wouldn't work.

I take this opportunity to say thank you thank you thank you for stopping by every now and then and reading my words (and looking at my photos) ... it takes me by surprise, now, when people mention something I've written. And it means the world to me. Because you are some of my very favorite people in this world, who have come into my life from a variety of places -- childhood friends (and their lovely wives -- hi Sandy!), former coworkers (and excellent bosses, LL), friends from neighborhood taverns -- the shy ones and all-- old classmates, my mom and my sister -- two incredible women, my west coast friends, and of course, my BB, who will return from Hong Kong for the summer and whom I can not WAIT to see. I am blessed with abundance and have you all to thank.

And now I await Morpheus as daylight ascends.