The Misadventures of a Native New Yorker

If the history of the American sentence were a John Ford movie, its second act would conclude with the young Ernest Hemingway walking into a saloon, finding an etiolated Henry James slumped at the bar in a haze of indecision, and shooting him dead.

--Adam Haslett, Via the Bookslut Blog  

The episode of the This American Life podcast is entitled "Remember Me," and featured several amusing (some darkly) takes on William Carlos Williams' famous poem, "This is Just to Say." I'm pretty sure that's how my brain came up wtih this, as I lay in bed this morning, constantly hitting the snooze.

This is just to say that I will be late to work this morning
Please forgive me, for my bed was so soft, so wonderful
and my body, so tired.

Other than that, it's movie night (yay), I really enjoyed last night's Gossip Girl, and watched that crazy rainstorm in awe.

I did something this weekend that I haven't had the time nor energy for much of in ages.

I wrote. Actually wrote!

One was a fannish thing I've been poking at for a bit. Still not done, but I got things moving again but just simply deciding to get them up and going. It's not going to be a long piece, just a silly crack thing, so I'm trying to remember the whole brevity/wit thing. (It's a SPN/Grey's crossover crackfic, in case anyone out there was wondering or wanting to beta).

The other is a non-fandom thing I've been working on for a bit, and again, simple brute force got it moving again. Also, you can't beat a good morning followed by a relaxing afternoon (and a generous amount of bubble tea) to help matters.

After I rolled myself out of ozzdo's birthday dim sum extravaganza and the subsequent bubble tea, I took the train home (with redstapler and lwoodbloo), and settled on the couch for an hour or so with a seltzer and the copy of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell that I am working on. After that came a nap, and after the nap I felt good, but I didn't have a lot to do before j_bkl came home and we had to leave for Penny Dreadful at the Brick. So, I sat down at the computer, opened Google docs, and started writing. I didn't have to clean, I didn't have to unpack anything, I didn't have to do any housework, and I sure as hell wasn't going to be eating again that day. I had an hour and a half to just sit and write. And it felt absolutely delicious. It made me look forward to the week I took off for my birthday - I will be spending some time doing this exact thing, both at home and elsewhere. I can't wait - it's going to be rad. And the exact amount of "me time" that I so desperately need. It was like J said - I had a week off from my job for the move, but I worked my ass off that entire time. So, this at least allows me to dispense with that slightly crispy-around-the-edges feeling I've been dealing with. I need a break, so I took one. I mean, I have the vacation time - even after the week for the move and week + Watchmen Day I'm taking off, I still have 19 vacation days remaining. Which is good, as vacation days are always a good thing to have.

I had a really awesome weekend. I celebrated birthdays and got to see people I haven't seen in awhile, and an awesome movie won an Oscar. All told, it was pretty damn good.

Speaking of birthdays - mine arrives in 2.5 weeks. I will be 29. Aaaaaah!

Happy Birthday infinitehippo!!

My cubemate is playing the Juno soundtrack. Blech.

I didn't post all that much last year, and I hope to change that this year. I'm going to see if I can post at least a real paragraph every day, if I can. (Let's see how long this lasts).

So, as I've been teasing the last couple of days, I'm embarking on something of an adventure in the first half of 2008. As many of you know, 2007 wasn't my favorite year by any stretch of the imagination. I was preoccupied by a lot of things, none of them worth really too much thought. I was borderline obsessed with finding a boyfriend before a certain date, and I spent thousands of hours worrying about things that were not improved by worrying. All I succeeded in doing was driving myself (and several people around me) crazy.

I was on the phone with my mom on Sunday night, and in a moment of mild exasperation, she suggested that I "take a class or something." To her, all of this panic and worry stemmed from boredom, and it was high time I got off my brain and give it something to do instead of waste away. She's suggested this a couple of times before, but I wrote it off. I never found anything that I really connected with. Until now, obviously.

February is going to be a big month for me. In addition to two very exciting concerts, I will be going back to school! I have a one-day seminar called "Jump Start Your Novel," on the 9th. The following Tuesday I will begin a class in Humor and Comedy Writing that lasts for 10 sessions. I'm pretty jazzed about both. I stumbled across the comedy class by accident, and the course description made me laugh, so I thought about it for a day or two, then signed up for both of them (with redesigner holding my hand via IM). I took deep breaths and reminded myself that if this guy sucks, I can withdraw and get most of my money back after 1-2 classes. (I was always good at picking up on a professor's potential suckitude, so hopefully that little bit of school-fu is still present in me.)

The best part? These are both at NYU. And since I will be a student there, I can mock the place to my heart's content. There is no downside.

These are going to be a test. If I acclimate well to the whole school thing, I am almost certainly going to pursue some sort of paralegal certificate starting in the fall. I basically like what I do, and that is largely what I do, plus some other extremely useful skills. And, when your company does tuition reimbursement, it's stupid not to at least try to take advantage of it. I always planned to, but I never had a plan to before now.

In some way, I'm glad I waited. I wasn't ready before now. The idea of taking classes and being back in a school environment used to give me hives, now it's really exciting me. I enrolled yesterday, now I just have to wait for my course kit to arrive in the mail. I needed something new - I see now that I was stagnating and I needed something radically different to be excited about and involved in. The prospect of taking these classes was more exciting to me than taking a trip anywhere, so I took that as a sign that I should do this. There will be plenty of time to travel later this year or next.
Every time I think about doing this, I smile, and that's all I really need to know.

I'm sure that whenever anyone brings an infant home, there's a certain feeling of trepidation about bringing it out into the world. Goodness knows that I've been anxious about bringing Thalia out of doors since she arrived just before Christmas. She's made a few trips to my parents' house, but otherwise, the limit of trips that my allegedly portable computer has made have been between my desk and my bed.

Until today.

One of the goals of this vacation has been 'a day spent writing.' I figured today would be a good day to do it, because:

1. I've had a few days to decompress from 'work mode'

2. I wanted to spend a quiet-ish day to myself before heading back into 'work mode'

3. I can't remember the last time I've spent one.

And so, with great trepidation AND determination, I put my laptop in its bag and headed out for breakfast and writing time. I live in a place rich with coffee shops and establishments hawking their free wifi with food purchase. If anything, it's worth a shot.

I tried Naidre's first. The staff is friendly, they have wifi, and the food is great. Still, I knew it wasn't ideal - not only is it tiiiiny, the tables are rickety, it seems to be a favorite haunt of the stroller brigade. Which I don't mind that much, in theory. I snagged the last table and prepared to decide on a food choice when I overheard the following conversation between two mothers, each with a toddler on their lap:

Mother 1 (to toddler): What's the matter with you? Silly! I'm trying to give you a piece of cake, and you're acting like I'm trying to feed you poop!
Mother 2: It doesn't even look like poop! (to toddler, in baby-talk voice) Does it look like poop to you?
Mother 1: See! It's not poop! It's tasty! No poop! No poop! No silly poop!

I knew in my heart that there was no way I would be able to enjoy either a good meal or a good write with this unholy combination of Rugrats and Pink Flamingoes within earshot. I grabbed my stuff and left, sharing an eyeroll with some poor dude also trying to get writing done.

I remembered that there was another place I'd been meaning to try and was only one avenue over, so I headed up. It was exactly what I was looking for. Now I have a nice, sturdy table, am surrounded by clicking laptops, shuffling papers, and conversations devoid of excrement. I finished my yummy chicken salad sammich, and I have a tall glass of iced green tea. Not only am I pleased, but I will almost certainly be back. I'm reluctant to divulge the name, as it already has a good crowd in here and I'm concerned with getting a seat on a Sunday or whatever.

(also, I found another great place in Union Square yesterday - Patisserie. Yummy food options, decent amounts of seating and a really cool staff, particularly the coffee dude, who actually asked me how much milk I wanted in my tea. This is the kind of thing that is done so seldomly that it will win my lifelong loyalty. )

So far, it's been a great vacation. I didn't get to do every single thing I had planned on, but that's no biggie. I needed to sit down a minute and let myself get back to well, myself. And the beauty part of these few days is that I got to do just that, but I didn't have to go anywhere to do it. I got to sleep in my own bed, spend time with people I care about, AND have some time to be by myself and wander around. Friday I spent a day at the Met, even getting to see Carly for an hour. Yesterday I wandered around parts of the far west village I don't get to see hardly ever, and really enjoyed the look around. It was such a good recharge, that yesterday, over tea and mini-pastries at Patisserie I managed to get some great ideas for Freelancer down on paper. Maybe it's counter-productive to restart, but I'm starting to see what needs to make it what I see in my head and know in my heart that it could be. And I'm not completely dumping everything and starting from scratch, either. Just the first couple of chapters need souping up, and I can see that now. So I'm going to go and play with that a bit more. I'm starting to contemplate how to put myself on a writing schedule, too - maybe a couple of days a week I'll take a lunch at work and go somewhere to scribble for an hour, although that can be REALLY hard. Might be worth a try, though. If I can manage to work the gym into my life, I can manage this. And hey, I always have the Winchesters to keep me occupied if my regular fiction isn't biting on that particular day. (no, dotfic, I have not forgotten about my/our reality-switch fic.)

Excellent weekend, truly. Incredibly good.

Friday: I saw Corpse Bride with Carly & Tim. I loved it, and it was nice to see them again.

Saturday: I saw the White Stripes and Shins with whtegrlwthehair and friends. Good times. The Stripes are good recorded, but amazing live. Even with a blown PA. I hope they had that fixed by the show tonight!

Today: Watched the Yanks beat Toronto 8-4. And cheered my lungs out for the one and only, incomparable, irreplaceable Bernie Williams. Because his contract is up this year, and we need to show Herr Steinbrenner we need more Bernie, oh yes we do.

Desperate Housewives was very, very good. Grey's Anatomy, however, owns my soul. I now know which show I would pick if I had to. Even though I might be sad about having to choose.

I also got my stuff done for write club, by some miracle. Which is why I will be dead tomorrow. But I will sleep better tonight as a result.

In other news:
This song is one of my favorites lately. It blows me away how many beautiful songs Van Morrison has written and performed in his career. This one being the most beautiful of them all, in my opinion.

And now, to sleep. I need to shower in the morning and I can't oversleep.

Things that suck:
* Work. Not the people, they're always divine, but today I was up to my eyebrows in paper and the most stressed I've been in ages. Thank GOD tomorrow is Friday, seriously.

*My inability to be several places at once next Thursday. My life would be SO much easier if I could accomplish that. Next Friday, too.

*I haven't had the ability to churn out anything for Write Club this week, mostly due to lack of sleep. And the irony of it all is that this week I wanted to take some time to rest and write. Ha. I shouldn't complain, though, because I have a chapter or two more outlined, I just have to get the spark to connect them all, and will meet my page minimum easily, possibly even the maximum. I just need more time. Why isn't there more time?

*I've been wondering where all my time goes lately (and money, but that's another rant for another time). I feel like I have no time to be quiet, to just BE. I love my socialization schedule, but sometimes I think I need to stop the world every so often.

* There's melancholia that's been going around. It's worse than the bird flu. Symptoms include self-doubt, panic, insecurities run amok, and general despair. I've been fighting with it, and from what I can tell, so have more than a few around me. *sigh* We all need hugs, naps, and tea, methinks. I wonder if its the shift in seasons that throws us all out of balance, zapping our creativity and confidence. (Or at the very least, mine).

* How late it is and how little I've gotten accomplished this evening.

*Friday's horoscope for pisces: Look at what's directly in front of you. Deal with the situation as it actually is. You keep thinking about how things ought to be, how you wish they were, how they might have turned out or how they could yet change. That's all very interesting but it's not very useful. The secret of success, this weekend, involves recognising the reality. You can't do that unless you are also willing to find some way to feel good about it. Once you have learned to love it, though, you will somehow understand how you can change it.
Say it with me now: FUCK YOU, CAINER!!