Love Here

I'm taking a short break from the blog and will return in September, after Labor Day.

I'm sorry I won't be at all of your blogs to visit and send my love, so I hope you'll know that the love is here if not there and I'll return soon. :)

The Afters

I had been pushing so hard to finish my work in progress this summer.  I wanted to be ready for fall, my favorite season, with its crisp air and the kind of blue sky that isn't trapped above a summer haze.

For some reason, my rhythm still operates on an academic schedule.  September nudges closer and I want to be new.  Like the school clothes, the empty notebooks, the just-sharpened pencils, their shavings in a curlicue.  I want to be rid of everything that came before and take off with all the afters.

Early this month, as I saw September rise up, I pushed late into the night, forced words that began to hate me for thrusting them on crowded pages.  I kept pretending it was possible to finish, all the while knowing it was not.

It was a good little run, that kind of denial, but now I know it's not possible.  I'll have to take this novel into fall.  Heck, who am I kidding?  Chances are you're going to find me making snow angels with this ratty manuscript still hidden in my puffy coat.

Sometimes I think writing is a race.  I think I'm losing.  As I wander through the blogosphere, I can't help but think all these writers are going to sleep early and waking up late and, somehow, in the time they were dreaming, they managed to write 80,000 words.  Truly.  It looks that miraculous from here.

They're winning, I think. I'm going to come in last.  Dead last.

I know it's not true.  I know their successes are not miracles.  I know it's not a race.  I know I'm too caught up in their afters: their finished first drafts, their multiple offers of agent representation, their book deals, their cover reveals.  I know that when I have all of these things, I will just get caught up in the next round: their sales, their reviews, their signings, their speaking engagements.

I used to write because it was the best place to be heard without having to speak, because I had to know the story that was in me, because it was so much fun I didn't know how to stop.  I never wrote to reach the end.

I've decided I want to write like that again. I want to walk into fall and remember what it was like before I knew what they had or what I wanted.  I'm going to write like there is no after at all.

The Time I Ate Gator

I spent the weekend in Jacksonville, Florida where I was taken to Clark's Fish Camp.

There is nothing I love more than kitsch and Clark's is rumored to have the largest private collection of taxidermy in the nation.  I was in heaven upon walking in the door.  

I could have eaten yak, crocodile, llama...even python.  There were choices to be made. Fried. Or chargrilled.  Did I prefer gator tail, toe, or rib?

I settled on gator tail.  It tasted a lot like chicken.  

I enjoyed eating it amidst the twinkling lights underneath a canopy of stuffed animal skin.

I was not kidding.

I really was not kidding.

Fried gator tail.

This one time, in Jacksonville, I ate your friend.  

Eleven Questions and the Song of You

The lovely Faith Elizabeth Hough tagged me in an Eleven Questions Game and I liked her questions so I went for it.

What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?

It's very difficult for me to pick favorites. Particularly when it comes to ice cream.  I love the fresh taste of Mint Chocolate Chip. I love a basic Chocolate. But, there is something about a pure, perfect vanilla that makes me happiest.

What book do you wish you were a character in?

I have always wanted to know Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables and be her bosom buddy. I have wanted to live on Prince Edward Island, hang out in Marilla and Matthew's kitchen, walk with Gilbert and Diana from school.  I want to know that entire community.

White, dark, or milk chocolate?

Dark.

Would you rather be a coal miner or a skyscraper window washer?

Skyscraper window washer.  Even though I'm not a huge fan of heights, it would not be as debilitating for me to climb high as it would be for me to end up in a dark, cramped space for an extended period of time.  I also love sun.

If you were an American in the late 1700's, which side would you have taken in the Revolution?
No taxation without representation, yo.

What writing tool would it be hard for you to live without?
This is going to sound crazy but...my hands. I think I would be able to live without a lot of different tools. But I can not, for the life of me, tell a logical story out loud.  I would never be able to dictate a story to someone and have it make any sense. (I apologize to any of you who have had to listen to me tell a story at a dinner party.)

What song best describes you or the way you see the world?
Bob Dylan's 'I'll Keep It With Mine'.  The lyrics mean everything to me. It doesn't describe me but it is how I wish I could be.  It's how I think the world can be seen.

What's your favorite first sentence from a book?
To be honest, I don't have any memory of exact sentences.  I don't have a favorite sentence at all.

If you could get on a plane for a month long vacation tomorrow, where would you go?
I think Japan. Yes.  Or Australia. Or Thailand. Or Peru. Or...

Do you outline your stories?
What's an outline?  ;)

Would you rather live in a palace by the sea or a cottage in the woods?
What an impossible choice.  Certainly a cottage over a palace.  But I love trees and I love the ocean.  A cottage in a wooded area near the sea?  Yes.

I always feel strange about tagging others (I'm weird) but I am in love with Faith's question: What song best describes you or the way you see the world?  I'd love to hear your answers for that, if you feel so inclined.

Mash Ups!

I wanted to blog today but felt jumbled in thought.  Oh gosh. So many thoughts.  I can't keep them straight.  I feel tired of throwing up a picture in this space.  Tired of trying to say something when there doesn't seem to be anything that makes sense inside me to say.

Since I can't seem to string thoughts together with any cohesion, I give you a Mash Up.

Today, I turned to one of my best friends, Lynn, in one of our never-ending email exchanges.  I asked her for a blog topic. Going back to school, she suggested. And I couldn't seem to conjure up any logical story.  No nervous anticipation or getting a first day of school outfit or waiting for the bus or blah blah blah sigh-y new beginning waah waah.

Lynn had a story.  Of her first day of Kindergarten.  Every child cried hysterically and then ended up pictured on the front page of the Syracuse newspaper.  One child, poor J. was, apparently, front and center in his ugly hysterics, and never lived it down. That made me think of the possible headline.  The Terrors of Kindergarten! And that made me laugh.

I learned today that the whistle in Donna Summers 'Bad Girls' is called a samba whistle. And now I think I need one because I want to toot toot and beep beep my way through life.

In order to get in a certain mind frame for writing more, more, more, (and more!) toy scripts, I felt I had to listen to Melanie Safka's 'Brand New Key' on repeat. You know the song:

Oh, I got a brand new pair of rollerskates
You got a brand new key

The lyric I love:

I ride my bike, I rollerskate, don't drive no car
Don't go too fast, but I go pretty far
For somebody who don't drive, I been all around the world
Some people say I done all right for a girl  

I just love that (especially the last line.)  I think I could write an entire book about that girl.  Maybe I will.

And speaking of people who have done all right for being girls... my favorite Mash Up ever from the show I gave up because it made me crazy:

Campus In the Rain

Sometimes I click to see the live view of the Cornell University campus. Today, I see that the sky is vaguely pink. That the sun skids past cloud and hits McGraw Tower.  A figure walks the path and disappears and my August heart aches to follow.

It rains in Ithaca. A lot. And, yet, I don't remember how it felt to clutch an umbrella on the brink of Libe slope.  I don't remember the slosh of rainboots or socks hung to dry.  I remember cold, sure. The way it itched at my scarf and left us raw.  I remember the sun's stammer, how we clung to its brief note.  But Ithaca, in its steady, constant, reliable stretch of rain. This, I don't remember.  This, I never see.

Cornell as I see it

Loving Lately

Every Monday the lovely Catherine Denton shares what she is Loving Lately and she is encouraging others to do the same. I love the idea and she inspired me to go for it.  I hope you'll hop over to her blog and share a link to what you love too. 

So here's what I'm loving lately:

Lil A. My friends daughter, who, at three months old, took her first subway ride to visit our home.  I love that she is soft and warm and new.  I love her mother-- and her father-- but especially her mother because we lived as roommates for years. We knew one another when we hoped to have the things we have now. And I know how lucky Lil A is to have her.

New York City. For making me angry and sweaty and overwhelmed. For being louder and more crowded than I like. For inspiring me to look harder, discover deeper. For being more beautiful and alive than I can ever imagine.

Summer. For being purple. Vibrant. Green.  

What are you loving lately?