I have decided that the mini-lesson I will teach tomorrow at my mega four-hour job interview will be about the difference between 'accept' and 'except.' It will be exciting. I will also dress in a long skirt and matching top because frankly, it's one of the best outfits I have. This needs to change before I start going on interviews for administrative assistant jobs.
The little girls in my building have a perpetual dance party going in the hallway outside our apartment. Nothing will deter them. Unfortunately, they only seem to have two or three songs at their disposal, which they repeat ad naseum.
Beets. I should really eat more beets. Note to self: buy beets.
So I frittered the day away. Well, I did the laundry and a little bit of grocery shopping, but otherwise nothing. I read Kate Atkinson's first novel, took a bath, watched P.S. (a film I found totally implausible -- though I suppose romantic movies don't need to be plausible) and endless episodes of Buffy, and ate the rest of the not-so-yummy Mulligan stew. I haven't even put the clean sheets on the futon yet. My kitten is sleeping on a wrinkled mound of sheets and comforter. I'm such a lazy bones.
I saw American Splendor last night and was a bit disappointed. I guess my expectations were just too high -- everyone I know has been telling me how much I'd love the movie. But I didn't really. I liked it okay. I thought the actors were really good, especially Hope Davis. I certainly wasn't frustrated with its implausibility (maybe because it was so much more rooted in reality than P.S.). But I'm not tempted to run out and buy it on DVD or anything.
Maybe it's just because of the string of really good movies I've seen lately. Mostly Martha and A Tale of Two Sisters.
Anyway. I'm yammering on. It's one in the morning, and on the television Willow and Cordelia have been hypnotized to harvest eggs for a monster that looks like a cross between a brain and an octopus. Could there be such a thing as too much Buffy?
This whole being done with my thesis business feels odd. What am I supposed to do next? I really do feel moved to begin another story right away -- something I can't do at the moment, because I have class in fifteen minutes, and forgot to bring the disk with all my new, unfinished stories on it. So, erm. Hmm.
Another fact that astounds me is that my mother, brother, and hopefully Piper will be in NYC in approximately three weeks. Holy shit.
Spike and Giles 
My thesis is finished. I won't rest easy until I hand copies to Joan, Myra and Graduate Studies, but I revised it a little more, saved it to disk, and tucked the disk into my bookbag. I'm satisfied with everything except the last sentence in "Irene and the Pale Man." But I'll work that out sometime later.
It's a strange feeling, to be done with something. I almost want to begin a new story, promptly -- not having the thesis to revise makes me feel kind of weird, loopy --
Or maybe that's just because I'm tired.
Anyway, in celebration I wanted to post a hokey picture. So there it is, Spike and Giles sipping celebratory blood/tea.
A Tale of Two Sisters is magnificent. It's scary, yes, but also psychologically interesting and narratively ambiguous -- like Donnie Darko and the more infuriating Mulholland Drive, there's lots of room for interpretation. I like movies that don't spell everything out for you.
I am tired, no doubt suffering from the aftermath of a very busy weekend. The SLC Poetry Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival, Joey's visit, many many conversations about Aardvark, and long nights at bars -- I slept for nine hours, and would like to sleep for about ten more.
Brief synopsis of the weekend: Brenda Hillman's reading was lackluster, but Russell Edson was fantastic. I want to read every demented thing he's ever written. The alumni reading was also pretty interesting. The Tribeca Film Festival's "7 Dwarves" was more kid-friendly and less bizarre than I expected. Also, I sat through the midnight showing soaking wet (can't seem to bring my umbrella with me when it's actually raining), which probably didn't increase my viewing pleasure. I liked that some of the cast was there, though. Also, peach schnapps are sort of gross.
Jason left for Dunkirk early this morning (he'll be gone for a week), so I'm at the apartment, trying to make last minute revisions to the thesis, eating handfuls of arare, and finishing my assignment for Myra's class. Soon I'll eat some of that Mulligan stew I made earlier, and then end this low-key day with a (hopefully) successful viewing of A Tale of Two Sisters.
I crave a good, decadent dessert. A chocolate mousse, or the chocolate custard from Veselka. Too bad I'm not an expert chef. Unfortunately, my cupboards and refrigerator only has those cheap Swiss Rolls.
I am at the Sarah Lawrence Poetry Festival, and though we haven't gone to any of the readings yet, I'm already exhausted. It's strange to see all these people I haven't seen for at least a year. Kind of stressful too. But dinner with Jee should be relaxing -- and hopefully he'll shed some light on the business of formatting one's thesis. And then the Tribecca Film Festival should be lots of fun too.
More Aardvark drama/trauma. When is there isn't any?
The anniversary last night was great. Jason and I went to Veselka for borscht and a great chocolate custard. He also had mushroom and kashi pierogies, and I had a marinated chicken breast with mashed potatoes and beets. Yum.
Upon finishing Her Husband, I reach the same conclusion I had when beginning the book: As a person, a husband, a lover, Ted Hughes was an asshole. I'm not very familair with his poetry, so I can't make an assessment there. One of these days I will read Birthday Letters. I also want a copy of the new (or shall we say original?) Ariel.
I guess I can't forgive him for destroying a volume of Plath's journal, heavily editing/censoring her letters and other volumes of journals, "mis-placing" the other, and neglecting her other manuscripts and papers to the point that most of them were stolen from the disheveled, unprotected pile he left them in. And that's just his trespasses as executor of her estate.
Anyway. Today Jason and I are celebrating our one-year anniversary. We're going to Sylvia's for dinner (fried chicken and waffles, yay!), and I plan on wearing a dress or at least a skirt. I can't believe it's been a year. It doesn't seem that long at all.
Jason has been wonderful lately. On Wednesday night I was so depressed I wasn't even returning his phone calls (well, anyone's phone calls, really). He called Nina to check up on me, and when he finally got ahold of me on the phone, decided that he should take a cab (it was pretty late by that time) to my place. He was right, of course -- just seeing him made me feel better.
Lots of odds and ends to deal with. I want to apply for at least another job before meeting him at the bakery tonight. I have transcript requests to send off, a thesis to fine tune (one more week!!!!), cat dishes and cat litter boxes to clean and fill, a thinking assignment for Myra's class. I also need to go to the Internet Cafe, because Adobe Acrobat isn't loading correctly on my lap top -- I'm entering the second stage in the application process for the New York City Teaching Fellows, and need to download many, many forms before my interview session next weekend. Oh, and then there's A Tale of Two Sisters. For some reason (well, maybe 'cause I was dithering around on the internet, and then writing another short piece for my thesis) I couldn't get past the fifteen minutes of the movie. I kept on having to flip through the chapters to the beginning.
Also need to figure out how to remedy the window problem. My note to my housemates about keeping the window closed has seemed to have the opposite effect: almost every time I check, it's open at least three or four inches. It's like a goddamn invitation for robbers.
Argh.
A good/bad day. I only have $260 in my bank account, which means that if for some freak reason I had to pay the rent today, I couldn't do it. Of course I'm expecting a tax refund, and I'll get paid at the end of the month, which would cover rent plus a little extra. Still, it makes me apprehensive.
Yet it was a productive day as well. I fine-tuned my resume and then sent off four job applications with rather good cover letters, including one to the NYC teaching fellows on a whim. It's pretty damn competitive, so I probably won't get an interview, but it's worth a try.
Am trying how to tell my roommates, without sounding overly upset or pissed off, that leaving the kitchen window open (the window without a screen) when everyone's at work or school isn't a good idea, especially when they leave it open more than seven inches, and a little gray cat (namely my little gray cat) could easily slink out into the backyard. Also, there's risk of contamination from the ailing cat.
Bad dreams. First that I inadvertently left my dog, Piper in a church parking lot and couldn't find her again (although all the mice and cats came out when they heard me calling for her). Then something about a vampire girl who disguised herself as a meek sorority girl, which allowed her to attend church services.
And then, I think, the church building started to fall.
I probably dreamt about vampires because I've been watching a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer lately. And I have some anxiety about bringing Piper to NYC to live (she's been with my mother in Kentucky), especially since she is so adept at slipping out of collars and harnesses. But what did the whole church business mean? I don't think I have any anxiety about religion. Well, maybe for five minutes, after Jason confessed that he thought he might be turning into a conservative Catholic, but we quickly came to the conclusion that that was absurd.
Hmm. Maybe the church business in the dream had to do with the nearby church's bells ringing, approximately once every ten seconds.
Virginia Woolf is my new Disneyland. I am 3/4ths through Nigel Nicolson's biography of Woolf, and am eager to read Orlando, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves. Jason bought me Volume One of Woolf's journal, which I will probably read next.
I brought my laptop to Astoria on the whim that I might get a signal from a neighbor's wireless network, and I am! Oh the joys of laptop computers and wireless cards.
Today was a mostly stupid day spent in transit. An hour and a half from Astoria back to Brooklyn, where I talked to Nina and Collette for twenty minutes, played with Rue, packed up my laptop, and headed back to Astoria. Then nearly two hours on the subway back -- apparently the N couldn't decide if it was an express or local, so it made a lot of erratic stops, and the people piled into the cars as if it were rush hour. Sunday afternoon public transit sucks.
But the day was sweetened by a pleasant afternoon with Jason, and tilapia marinated in caribbean jerk sauce. Now to the Top Tomato for ice cream cones! And Carrington!
The whole prospect of life after grad school is getting me down. The thesis that is beginning to remind me more of a knotted ball of yarn than a coherent group of stories, the idea of not having a job after graduating, of finding an apartment that accepts dogs and cats, and moving all my crap. Blah. I hate the uncertainty of the near future.
Today J and I went to the Wave Hill Botanical Gardens with Liz and Mitch. It was great -- very beautiful and peaceful, overlooking the Hudson. Jason and I snitched a little sorrel (delightfully tangy!), Jason and Mitch rolled down a hill, and then Jason took several pictures of Mitch mid-flight, jumping from a nearby wall. Afterwards, we went to Beard Papa for cream puffs and saw Kung Fu Hustle, an entertaining movie, but not as deliriously weird and humorous as I'd hoped.
Now back to Astoria and the toxic fumes of Aardvark. Yay. Can't wait.
My roommates and I have got to stop rescuing stray cats. Our new mission involves a little gray female, the cat who (we think) was left behind with Carl. She has an eye infection that looks particularly nasty -- I think her eye might actually be coming out of the socket. So at the moment we have a cage contraption hanging outside the window. I'm not sure if it will work or not. We will see.
Jason brought me daisies!
My blog has been lacking in visual content lately. Here. This is A Tale of Two Sisters, the next movie in my Netflix queue, one I am eager to watch. Dark fairy tales are my passion.
Well, I've begun another revision of "The Mary Museum," but those visionary bits I was so eager to cram into the story just aren't fitting. Does this mean I'll never be able to write surrealistic fiction? I have added about a page about Lori Ann's Mainland-envy, but am not sure where I'm going with the information. I'd really like Mary to turn out to be a symbol of escape, a person who Lori Ann thinks might be ordinary, or might be magic, she's really not quite sure, but either way offers L.A. a form of escape.
My head aches. Maybe I'll take a nap.
Am I too tired to even revise my stories? This is awfully disappointing.
"For about six weeks, Sylvia Plath's actual world was a realization of the aim she had set herself in a journal entry a year after she married Ted Hughes. She had been reading Virginia Woolf's The Waves, admiring Woolf's skill at putting commonplace experience into unforgettable images. "I shall go better than she," Plath vowed. "I will be stronger: I will write until I begin to speak my deep self, and then have children, and speak still deeper." Writing the poems of Ariel was the way Plath kept that promise."
Her Husband, pg 193.
Ended up just watching Buffy and knitting. Inexplicably began knitting a winter hat, light green and gray. I guess circular knitting is just more gratifying for me than straight needle knitting. I got stuck in Seasons 2 and 3 of Buffy: slightly curvy, high school Buffy, still trapped between those walls of Sunnydale High.
Went to sleep after two in the morning, and woke up at seven-thirty, to Nina leaving the apartment for work. Couldn't go back to sleep, so read an Alice Munro story, took a bath, read more of the Her Husband, the Ted Hughes/Sylvia Plath biography, ate breakfast, and put on a Sarah Harmer CD. I intend to work on my thesis today, but I think a poem might sneak out somewhere between short stories. The other day Jason asked me why I stopped writing poetry.
"After your thesis, you should start concentrating on poetry again," he said. It was one of the best compliments ever.
Why did I stop? Because I started out a poet, and as a freshman in college decided to take a fiction writing workshop, being a weaker fiction-writer. I never got out of the endless loops of fiction workshops, and somewhere along the line assumed I was inadequate as a poet -- I forced myself to stop writing poems, even tried to strain the poetic language out of my stories.
I thought it would be too late to return to poetry, but perhaps not. Perhaps there's enough room for both poetry and fiction.
And now on to an Aardvark-detox evening. Lots of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Tori's The Beekeeper, watching Emma Thompson in Carrington, Sims: Busting Out, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds, cold ginger ale, poetry books, the biography about Sylvia Platha and Ted Hughes, homemade chili minus the hamburger chunks, hiding under the covers with Rue.
I'm too angry to work on my thesis, which is a bloody shame. But there's always tomorrow.
The poem I mentioned a few days ago:
for Jason
The Beginning
In the bar where we first
met, you were a giddy drunk.
Yelps of joy, then silence
as you pirate-winked your ale.
I watched you take long amber
swallows, half-swallowed yourself
in shadow and the neon
stutter of the Guinness sign,
thinking you charming and
perplexing: a satisfying enigma.
But I lied. That wasn't the first
meeting. The first time, there were
sun glints in your hair, the picnic table
warm splinters beneath my palm.
We spoke of school, Salo, sex and shit.
An unconventional first conversation.
I liked your sea-hazy eyes, your
easiness with strangers. That was all.
How could I have recognized you,
the heart of my heart, on that crisp
October day?
Recognition came later,
after the long sigh of winter,
after we both suffered a little more.
Aardvark is crazy (not in a charming, eccentric way), and stirring up yet more trouble. Why is this news? I'm not sure. But I AM allowed to write about him -- I'm allowed to write about whomever I please, in this blog. Isn't that the least I should be allowed, when he is slandering me every single day, Yoko-onoing me to countless friends and acquaintances?
I'm only good at keeping quiet, keeping the peace, for so long. Jason is a gentle soul, a mediating peace-keeper, but I was born under the sign of the Dragon. There's only so much I can endure, before my tongue unsticks itself. And I don't take very kindly to unwarranted ridicule and malice.
Just finished another draft of "What She Doesn't Know." I'll make photocopies of it for workshop tomorrow.
Which leaves me with:
Very minor tinkering with "Irene and the Pale Man"
A little more tinkering with "Yan"
Fitting the visionary new elements into "The Mary Museum"
Working out the kinks of structure in "Guitar Lessons" (which I need to re-title), and more
substantial revisions.
Figuring out what to do with "Irene." Joan really wants me to finish writing it, but I don't feel at
all passionate about the story right now. So either I grit my teeth and finish the damned thing,
cop-out and replace it with "The History of Snow," which teeters on being publishable, or
finish either "The Stacks" or "Tabby Cat." It would be so satisfying to fit "Tabby Cat" into
this thesis, because it's almost as old as the beginning drafts of "Irene and the Pale Man," and
I think someday it can turn out to be a very powerful meditation on the mother-daughter
relationship.
Here's a bit of news I forgot to pass on: Aardvark is definitely moving to the Bronx in June. But he apparently promised the Astoria apartment to Dania and two other girls! Without asking his other roommates if they planned on staying, of course. How typical Aardvarkian of him.
Am reproducing, word for word, a journal entry I scribbled Sunday night in my green notebook, a compository of school notes, quotes and the occasional journal blurt. I don't know -- I normally like to write my more personal entries on paper, away from Big Brother and the eternal roving public eye. But my blog seems kind of dull right now. Anyway, I feel like I'm due another entry, but I'm too entrenched in thesis stuff to think up anything.
4.10.05
A mixed-feelings kind of day. It started badly, with nightmares about zombies and waking to an empty bed, and really disgusting hair -- Easter green at the roots, dirty yellow-brown everywhere else. My second worse hair experience of all time. I went to Eckerd's before even brushing my teeth and bought a very expensive hair-dying kit that promised a nicely understated shade of brown. Only the neon green must have interfered, because instead I ended up with a head full of oranges and reds. A better hair color(s), but better still on an art canvas than on my head. I am still adjusting.
Jason I went to Soho to get Tribecca Film Festival tickets (we're going to see a German re-adaptation of Snow White), but it turns out tickets aren't being sold until tomorrow at noon. Someone fucked up with the info at the front of the festival pamphlet. Soho was very crowded -- lots of tourists and trendy shoppers, all the women slicker and better dressed than me, in my furry pink bathrobe jacket and birdhouse button I've been so proud of.
Went to the Central Park Zoo, which was fun. It's spring, so a lot of the animals (turtles, sea otters) were humping. We especially liked the penguins -- J said it was the first time he'd ever seen one in person. I took a black and white picture of him that he'll use as the author pic for the chapbook.
Then Nina called and said that Carl the cat scratched his way out of her bedroom window screen and took off. She also found Rue outside on the window ledge, debating whether or not to join him. Collette has since located Carl, and brought him back inside, so we are still a 3-cat household. I am so glad Rue didn't escape. Just the idea that she almost did - that she was technically outside - makes me feel cold inside. I am in Astoria, but I want to be with Rue in Brooklyn, petting her sticky soft gray fur that she's been shedding in great big puffs.
The ongoing Rue versus Jason internal debate. I hate it.
I told Jason I would go feed the homeless with him tonight, but I started dreading it since dinner. It's a little scary, and some of the men leer. Anyway, Jason can pretty much read me like a book at this point, and pried out what was wrong with me (sometimes I hate being so transparent). He sent me back to Astoria, but instead of immediately getting on the N train, I went to H&M and loitered for half an hour. It made me feel very rotten, to slink out of feeding the homeless just to browse and contemplate clothes-shopping. I almost bought a bunch of things, none of which I can afford.
Took a shower and conditioned my poor sunburst hair. I do feel better, having washed the city grime off me. I think I will read Kim Adonizio's poetry, critique Emily Choate's stuff, start knitting something on J's grandmother's needles.
This is one of my favorite poems in Nicole Cuddeback's The Saint of Burning Down:
Tyrrhenian
Odd moments deliver one fully into
life that's always straying. Fleecy stars
off the poplars swim
blindly through the streets
as elements swap properties and even
the spirit might dream itself elemental,
floating just above,
already pushing off
like so many ships that didn't come back.
Yesterday I made my way into the sea.
First time in years. Crowds
of Italians. It wasn't
the Gulf where I used to go, but in the waves'
rough play lifting me off the drowned sand,
was it grief in bliss
or just the kindred salt
that drew forth the tears? Cold sea against
the bloodstream like a second life,
the one that lives while I,
sealed away, manage
to get a few things done. As if shreds
of life (I could say death, but I won't)
sometimes come home.
A fine spit of foam
gleamed on the blurring, gray surge. I was
seven-years-old falling backward into the waves,
Indelible, devastating joy.
The eternity in my lost life.
(pgs. 75-76)
Ahh. It was nice to take a break from fiction. Now I return to Margot Livesey's Criminals (I've been on quite a Margot Livesey kick lately).
Oh, I did write a poem recently, in honor of Jason and my upcoming anniversary. I had an overly-ambitious idea of writing a handful of poems, printing them out on very nice stationary, sealing them in envelopes, and then presenting them to Jason at the end of the month in a stack tied with a pretty ribbon. Then I realized that I really should concentrate on the thesis!
So anyway, I'll post "The Beginning" here after a few more minor revisions. Poetry writing is a great breath of relief when you're trapped in the middle of a yawning, gaping fiction thesis. I wrote the poem in a day, mulling some of the lines over in my head before penning them, typing the last stanza in the fifteen minutes before workshop. And when the first draft was complete, I felt such a sense of accomplishment! Sure, I get the same rush when I finish a short story draft, but that's after weeks, months, even years of thinking and writing.
I find I use different compartments of my mind to write poetry, as opposed to fiction. For poetry, I am engulfed in language and rhythm, and that kickass last stanza. For fiction, I have to consider character development, plot, setting, dialogue, where scenes should go and for how long, and an equally satisfying ending. I wonder if anyone else feels this way?
Big news! Jason won the Slipstream poetry chapbook contest! He gets fifty free copies of the chapbook, entitled Some Days It's a Love Story and a monetary prize! It's so exciting, and exactly what a post-MFA poetry grad would hope to accomplish within a year of graduating. Wow. I am confident he will publish a book collection within the next couple of years. Much more confident than I am of my own work ever finding its way to publication (though, er, guess I need to start sending stuff out first).
Tonight is another John-Debbie gig, at some undisclosed location. I plan on glamming out in fishnet stockings and some short skirt. Deidre's very nice violet/brown hair has also inspired me to seek manic panic hair dye and try something a little punky on myself. maybe a violet, or a dark blue. nothing too obnoxious.
This is the book of poetry I am currently reading. It's The Saint of Burning Down (an excellent title, in my opinion) by Nicole Cuddeback, who coincidentally is a SLC alum. I go through strange, smallish fits of poetry reading because A) I feel poetry is good for me, and B) it is a genre I often find myself reluctant to read. For one thing, I'm still not sure I know how to read a poem. Because I am a writer, I appreciate language, and I often enjoy provocative, particularly well-crafted lines or even stanzas. But I am also an impatient reader, a speed-reader from early childhood. I cannot just stop at one poem, put the collection down, and let my mind percolate on it for a while. No, I have to read through five or six poems, until themes and images are mangled and merged, until I am (usually) entirely confused.
You would think that having a poet boyfriend would remedy my poetry-phobia, but so far that hasn't been the case. Jason occasionally spoon-feeds me a poem: a Levine here or there, a Lorca or Neruda. But more often than not, he's also reading fiction -- he's particularly fond of Latin-American novels.
I am halfway through The Saint of Burning Down, and find my reading experience to be pretty much the same as always. There are a few images so beautiful I had to write them down (for example: "blue shoots of ink bloom on the right hand"), but I've read all of them too quickly, and some of the poems veer a little close to language poetry (which aren't supposed to comprehendable anyway, right?). Blah.
My kitten just kicked me in her sleep!
I can't sleep. I guess I'm still coming down from the writing high. So I will take this time to mention that Jason is a wonderful boyfriend. Sometimes, when I'm being stupid or cranky, I forget this. But he really is. He's kind and patient and listens to me ramble on about my quest for the perfect feta cheese, or my secret passion for Disney theme parks, or a number of equally inane subjects. This morning he went to the grocery store at 8:30 in the morning, just to buy me Maalox because I was having stomach issues. He overcame his dislike of cats long enough to become attached to Rue. Sometimes he brings me pumpkin cupcakes and small bottles of ginger ale. He is also very very cute!
Just finished a second draft of "The Mary Museum." Finally. I'm not sure I'm ending on exactly the right note, but I guess I'll figure that out with time. Just hope it's before the thesis is due. It's strange how some story endings come so easily to me, and fit the story so perfectly, and how others make me want to gnash my teeth.
