I Eat

So...I have a strange habit. I take a picture of almost everything I eat. I have no idea what compels me to do this. There are, literally, hundreds of photos on my phone. They sit there. They serve no purpose. I'll admit. It's a little weird.

So, I share them with you. In the hopes that you'll want to go to these places or make these dishes yourself.

Hurricane Irene Lasagna @ My Kitchen

Chicken Cacciatore Concoction @ My Kitchen

Linguine with Clam Sauce @ My Kitchen

Caprese Salad with basil from my fire escape garden @ My Kitchen

Caprese Salad with no mozzarella because I forgot to buy it @ My Kitchen

Blurry Spicy Pork Ramen @ Momofuku Noodle Bar

Connecticut Style Lobster Roll @ Red Hook Lobster Pound

Cherry Lime Rickey I only ordered because it sounds like something from a book @ Tom's Diner

Do you have any weird habits you'd like to share? This is a safe place.

Tuesday Books for Writers! The Book Thief

Two things first.

1. In recent months Tuesday Books for Writers has been all but non-existent. The idea behind it: to better articulate why a book works...which, for me, is a difficult thing to do. I decided to give myself the challenge and have, more often than not, failed to get the posts up. So I have decided to retire the idea and talk about the books I read in another way.

2. Yes, I realize I am quite possibly the last person on earth to read Markus Zusak's The Book Thief.

Now this.

I read The Book Thief during Hurricane Irene. I curled up in it on the couch, then the bed. Back and forth. It is quite possibly the best book to get lost in during a hurricane. But it is not necessarily the best book to finish during a hurricane. Mainly because it is not a book you can easily leave behind. It's hard to look up from a book like this one and put yourself back inside the day.

I have never in my life sobbed so hard for a group of characters. I have shed tears over words and pages...but not like this. This was the kind of emotion I would only be able to sum up in cliches because it would be too exhausting to find the right way to say how it made me feel.

There are so many reasons a writer should read this book. I'm not smart enough to know all of them and list them here. But here is what I can tell you:

The world of this book is huge, all-encompassing. You are in it and you know it. You feel the streets. You know what it means to be there. A remarkable thing.

The words and the way they are strung together are beautiful. Even though so many of the words themselves are strange and ugly. I would never think to put them next to one another and, yet, when I saw them together I would think, there is no better way to say this. Even if there are a million ways to say it.

The characters are really wonderful (understatement of the year.) And you only need to read the book to understand. There's not much more I can say about that.

But there is one device in the book that is used over and over again. And it's the only thing I was able to define and pass along to you and think about using in my own work. (The rest, I could only hope to absorb through a powerful kind of osmosis.)

The Bomb Theory!

Which I learned about from Mr. Alfred Hitchcock. Have you heard about it?

Two people sit at a table having a conversation and Boom! a bomb goes off. That's 15 seconds of surprise.

Two people sit at a table having a conversation and we, as viewers, see a ticking bomb underneath their table. And we wait. And we know what's going to happen. That's 15 minutes of suspense.

You know which method Hitchcock used.

As I read The Book Thief, I could think of no better example of how to effectively use the bomb theory in a book. It's hard for me to say it's a device because it sounds gimmicky and it is not used that way in this book. But almost every chapter begins and gives away the outcome of the scene. And we read, desperate to find out how the book gets to the place we already know it will get to. It's bold. It's risky. And it works in this book.

There is a lot more to say about this wonderful book but this is, at least, some kind of start that will have no end.

I do feel it is a good place to end Tuesday Books for Writers until I find a new way to talk about the books I read on this blog.

If you've read the book, please let me know your thoughts!

Hurricanes and Other Thoughts

Along with so many others on the east coast, I spent the weekend with Hurricane Irene. We live just one short block away from the mandatory evacuation zone. And while I questioned whether there are such specific paths of destruction, whether devastation has such distinct borders, we decided to stay put and wait it out.

We bought flashlights, bottled water and other non-perishables. We stocked the wine fridge. I filled my bathtub with water because The Weather Channel said I should. The city emptied. Public transportation shut down. And we had no other choice but to stay put or rely on our feet to get us anywhere. We sat. We watched. We waited.

She came late on Saturday and we heard the wind, the rain. The windows shook. The branches and leaves slapped the windows. I heard sirens about every hour. In the darkness, I never knew what brought the authorities. And when I woke up...all was well.

The city hoped for the best and prepared for the worst. We were lucky to experience minimal damage. I know that others in the path of Irene are not so lucky. They are still without power. Trees have been uprooted. I know that people have lost their lives.

My parents are still sitting in the dark. I have family on Long Island who are wading through floods, who will have to repair their homes. But they are safe. They are okay.

When I was four years old, Hurricane Gloria came through Long Island. It was especially memorable for my family because a tree fell on our house. The whole side of the house was damaged but we were all fine.

When the storm had calmed my Dad took me outside, put me on my tricycle and set me down next to the massive fallen tree. He made me pose for a photograph, made me put my hand to my mouth as if I had knocked over the tree with my tricycle: Oops!

He thinks this is a funny story. He still tells it. He likes to think the picture made everyone laugh.

He always tells me things can be replaced. People can not. I always try to remember that.

I hope that everyone in the path of Irene is safe. My thoughts are with you.

Taking Risks

When the weather cooperates, I ride my bike to work. I gather my things, my backpack bulging on my back, and I ride over the Manhattan bridge. The first moments of my morning are spent looking at the skyline of lower Manhattan. The Hudson River glistens underneath the sun. And you can see the Statue of Liberty in the distance. I see it all again in the evening as the sun sets in the sky.

Lately, I haven't stopped to take it in. Because I am just trying to get where I need to go. And, the past few weeks, it seems that everyone is on edge. Even more so than usual. The traffic is maddening. Other bikers are not paying attention. Cars are whizzing past me like I am invisible. People are smacking their cab doors into my hand and I am left purple and bruised.

I am not a reckless biker. I follow the rules. I stop at lights. I use the bike lanes. I try my best. But it seems I'm not getting anywhere.

And I watch other bikers as they ride the wrong way down the streets, as they cut in front of cars, ring their bell through intersections where they don't have the right-of-way. Yes, it's dangerous. No, if I were them, I wouldn't test it.

But, you know what? They are getting somewhere.

As someone who has spent most of her life trying to do the right thing, I wonder about this. A lot.

How can you be seen and heard and still follow the rules? How do you get somewhere and still play it safe?

When I write, I think: here is a place to take risks. Here is a place to be reckless.

I don't know how many times I've asked myself why I write. There is no real answer, I'm sure. But I think that must be one of the reasons. And I hope I am taking enough risks there. I hope I can find other places in my life to take the right risks.

The Bad Blogger

I have to apologize because I've been neglecting this blog lately. Please know that I read all of your posts and follow your lives, your projects, your brilliant minds but these days I've been more of a passive participant in the blogging community due to lack of time.

Work has been very demanding. As many of you know, I write and produce content for toys. It's hard for me to talk about my job on this blog because there are a lot of restrictions to what I can and can not say (crazy, I know). Just know that when my development schedules slip (and would you look at them go? slip sliding away, she sings), the engineers get grumpy, the sales teams get frantic, the big chain stores yell 'where are my toys!' Everything explodes. And somewhere...a spoiled child cries. And that's the gist of each day.

My nights are far more exciting as I frantically edit my work in progress, Rabbit Island. Goals of finishing the first edit by next Wednesday are just out of reach. I stay up as late as I can but there is a point when exhaustion takes over.

And that’s when the travel comes in. I will be leaving for far-off lands (Georgia…Alabama) next Wednesday for the holiday weekend in the states.

All this to say: I’ve been a bad blogger. I’ll try to be better.

Part of that effort: I joined Rachael Harrie’s Third Writer’s Platform-Building Campaign. Will you participate with me?


And tell me, how have you been spending the final days of summer?

A Trip to the North Fork

Yesterday, Tyler and I left the city to visit the North Fork of Long Island. We will be getting married out there next May and there are wedding related things to care of but, to be honest, we took the trip to escape the city and enjoy the excellent food and wine the region has to offer.

We do not own a car so we rely most often on our feet to get us places. It felt like a luxury to rent a car for the day, to ride east next to that long yellow line.

We discovered 88.3, WBGO, the jazz station, and listened with great interest to a program called Singers Unlimited with Michael Bourne. I was pleasantly surprised to turn on the station at the exact moment Rosemary Clooney sang out 'The Man That Got Away' which is, oddly enough, a song important to Rabbit Island, the work in progress I am frantically editing away at-- cutting and pasting and rewriting to get a framework worth working through.

I had forgotten what it was like to be in a car, to listen to the radio, to see a glimpse of something through glass and watch as it drifts away.

There were horses and farm stands, wine tastings and lunch beside the water. We found The Winemaker Studio, a little wooden tasting room where the winemakers in the region are selling their private labels. And when I learned what that meant, it took on even bigger meaning for me. Instead of making wine for the wineries and their owners, instead of adhering to the standards of an already established brand, they are making wine for themselves. And that's interesting...that makes me want to know more...

And of course, any time there is a sign pointing the way to cheese, I am happy. I am in a kind of heaven.

Penn Relays

I woke up this morning with a memory. I don't know how it connected to what I may have dreamed before it. It was just there. And when things are there and they don't belong anywhere else I put them here. (Just so you know how this works.)

When I was in high school I ran track. I was a sprinter. I never had the legs to endure long races. I was the kind of person who believed she could do anything in the shortest distances. I would run until my feet bled, until my legs ached, until I couldn't breathe, until I needed to vomit, whatever it took to get it done.

My sophomore year, my coach invited me to go to the Penn Relays, the largest track and field competition in the states, but I wasn't allowed to race with the rest of the girls, a team of seniors who had more experience than I did. I was to go...to learn. And before I could even get on the bus, I was forced to watch endless videos of past relay teams from our high school as my coach analyzed every start and finish, every baton hand-off, the way the girls sprinted the straight-aways, how they took the turns.

All of this, so I could sit in the stands and watch everyone else run.

My coach told me it was a privilege to miss school and attend this event. But I wanted to race.

When I thought of the Penn Relays this morning, I pictured the blazing burnt orange track beneath me (it may not be orange but this is how I remember it) so far away from the blur of colors I sat with.

I have mixed feelings about this memory. On the one hand, I think what a brat I was to believe I somehow deserved to race before I was ready. On the other, I wonder why this coach made me attend so I could sit by myself and hope to one day be there for real. (I was never invited again.)

I am not a patient person. I know this. And so, I wake up every day wanting to do a million things and I say to myself: Take your time. Sit back. Learn.

But I also know that I am the kind of person who falls so easily into the role of observer rather than participant. Sometimes I accept the fact that I am invisible and I remain unseen.

Lately, and I don't know what has triggered this, I am sick and tired of reigning myself in. Lately, I do not feel it is privilege be there. I do not feel it is enough to stand back. I want to be in it.