What One Girl Knows: February 2005

Whiskey Tango

"these whiskey tango ghosts won't leave us alone but you are too polite to complain"

--Tanya Donelly, Whiskey Tango Ghosts

Martha's Foolish Ginger

I'm really enjoying Tori's The Beekeeper. Much more than the first listen on Jason's little boombox. He liked it instantly, but I thought I might have to get used to it, the way I had to get used to The Choirgirl Hotel, with its incessant techno beat (now one of my favorite Tori albums, by the way).

Oh, I didn't mention yet that I heard Tori speak at the 92nd Street Y on Thursday night. She was supposed to promote her book and perform a few songs, but the Y didn't give her a rehearsal space, and Tori has always been notoriously picky about having the proper space and atmosphere for performances. So no songs. The interview was interesting, though Tori was a little spacey now and then. She mentioned the book of Mary Magdalene from The Gnostic Gospels, which Jason says he's read before. I'd like to read it myself, one of these days. After the Tolstoys and Woolfs and all the other unread books stacked in the hallway and on the shelves in my bedroom.

For Music

I'm interested in learning more about Billy Tipton, a female jazz musician who lived as a man for most of her/his life. Apparently he married several times, adopted children, and his real gender wasn't discovered under after his death. It's such a fascinating story. Diane Wood Middlebrook wrote a biography, Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton, that I'd really like to read.

Retelling Fairy Tales

I started reading Kelly Braffet's Josie and Jack, to supplement Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (which is a great feast of a book, but should be savored and not rushed through, as is my tendency). I may also start reading Virginia Woolf's Moments of Being, but that's just an aside. Josie and Jack is described on the book jacket as a "contemporary Hansel and Gretel story (that) is compulsively readable and hugely entertaining." I've only read 30 pages or so, and already I'm struck by the desolate setting of this huge dessicated house, and brother and sister left mostly to their own devices. And it's written by a SLC alum, too! I always feel heartened when I pick up a book and realize that it was written by alums, whether undergraduate or from the MFA program. Maybe these writing workshops will help, afer all ... maybe that great dream of being published isn't so unattainable after all.

It's begun to snow. I wonder if we'll really get a foot of snow. Jason called a little while ago, because Grand Street Settlement cancelled their afterschool program. I'd come to Astoria right away, but I'm waiting for my Fresh Direct order. Anyway, it's kind of nice to sit on my bed, listening to Tori's new album, writing more of a new story, and starting a new "visionary" story.

The idea of "visionary" writing has stayed with me since Myra's workshop. Apparently Emily's workshop submission is visionary. I like her stories a lot, but why are they visionary? Because they aren't personal and realistic? I feel a little hurt, because all of my writing is personal and realistic, and damnit, I wanna be a visionary too. I'd love to write like Aimee Bender or Kelly Link -- weird, surrealistic stories that make you feel off-kilter and thoughtful.

Notes from the Kitchen

The turbot fillet panfried with butter, parsley and creamy dill mustard turned out to be wonderful. Turbot is so cheap at Key Foods -- I'm excited about the possibilities of this fish. Also, I fried some french fries with garlic salt in the same pan I fried the fish in -- a little mushier than I'd have liked, but satisfying. All in all, a successful dinner. Now I need to recreate it for Jason!

Dreaming of Dinner

Ah, the end of another weekend. I'm in Brooklyn, watching the first season of Curb Your Enthusiasm and sporadically knitting a ribbed scarf with red Lamb's Pride yarn. I'm thinking about what to make for dinner -- a filet of turbot with creamy dill mustard, perhaps, with french fries. I love food way too much.

This afternoon, Jason and I had lunch at Bon Vivant with Liz and Mitch. I think it's pretty overpriced, for a diner, but my stomach was filled to satisfaction with syrup-drizzled french toast and scrambled eggs with tobasco sauce. Afterwards, Jason and I wandered around The Strand. I picked up a reviewer's copy of Judy Budnitz's Nice Big American Baby and Elizabeth Glitter's The Imprisoned Guest.

Last night we went to Jake Duffy's for vegetarian dumplings and a viewing of I Heart the Huckabees. I liked it, but I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it's just one of those movies with scenes to prompt vaguely pleasant viewing reactions. It was certainly a strange enough plot, and I like Jason Schwartzman. But, to quote Suzanne, "It was a surprisingly light movie about existentialism." Is this a positive thing? I'm not sure yet.

PJ Harvey and computer terminals

I'm at school, trying to make last minute edits on "Seeing Things," the short story I'm workshopping for class next week. It's the shortest story I've written in years (about five pages), and although I know length (or lack of it) doesn't matter, I still worry that it's not enough. Maybe I should have prepared another short short, and turned them in together. Except I don't have another short short. And writing one would have distracted me

Really, though, I'm just procrastinating on my revision of "Irene and Pale Man." I wrote a little more of the new scene on Metro North this morning, and actually have a pretty clear picture of how I want to end the story. I don't know why I'm reluctant to work on it.

Jason just called. He just got off the Bronxville train -- and I'll meet him at the library after class at 5:30. We plan to have sushi at Haiku, a great new Japanese restaurant next to Slave to the Grind. I look forward to the sweet potato tempura sushi.

I've been reading Dan's blog (angryandsloppy) lately, and it makes my blog look like a quaint girly diary or something. I wish I had it in me to write intellectually stimulating rants. Guess I just don't.

This morning John and Stella (his new girlfriend, at least until she leaves for Taiwan -- actually I think she's leaving today) were making strange noises in his room. Jason thinks they were on acid, but I'm not sure what on-acid sounds people make. They spent what felt like hours in the bathroom, and then Stella left a compact with a broken mirror carefully taped into it, labelled "Stellie." Mysterious.

The 'R's and the 'T's

Just a quick note. I was sent around campus from the registrar's office to deliver packages and things, and found myself (conveniently!) at a computer. Work is so boring today. Blah. I was in the middle of changing 'R's on transcripts (for lecture classes) to 'T's (tutorials) when Marion decided to send me out for some fresh air. Good thing too -- I was starting to feel cross-eyed and queasy.

Earlier I had a conference with Myra, who, as always, had a lot of great advice. Today she was pretty brusque though, something I didn't particularly like. Maybe it was just her mood. Or maybe it was the fact that the girl in conference ahead of me was crying.

In 45 minutes (thank God!) I'm released from my 'R's and 'T's, back to Jason and Astoria, and a night of intense revision for tomorrow's workshop. Maybe I'll stop at Virgin Megastore first, to get a copy of Tori's newest album, The Beekeeper.

Book Junkie

I just ordered an used copy of The Dogs of Babel from Amazon. I'm not sure why, when I have approximately 41 other books to read. But it was cheap and seems like an interesting book, and sometimes I get a little carried away on the Amazon website.

I also like getting mail outside of bills and clothes catalogs, and rarely get any unless I order something. That may also be a motivation.

I just hope The Dogs of Babel doesn't disappoint. The books with the most hype are often questionable. I hated The Cranberry Queen, though I read every word, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was much too gimmicky and grating. Nina just finished The TIme Traveler's Wife and described it as a watered-down version of Byatt's Possession. So The Dogs of Babel better at least be interesting.

In other news, Sandra Dee just died from kidney disease. This is particularly sad to me, because I recently discovered her films -- I think Gidget is charming, and When A Man Calls a fun movie.

The Salve of Brunch

I just returned from a very satisfying brunch at Maggie Brown's, a restaurant just around the corner from my apartment. From the outside it looks like a little hole in the wall (I don't even think there's a sign), but the inside is quite decadent. Pseudo-velvet walls, a humongous steer skull, chunky wooden booths, and a bar reminiscent of the days of Doc Holliday. And of course, the most important part: the food is good. I had an omelet with horseradish and chives, home fries, a particularly good spinach salad, and toast. The company (Jason and Nina) was also quite good.

Yesterday Jason and I went to the strange land of Ikea. It seemed almost fitting that we had to travel to another state (Jersey) to get there. We shared platters of salmon (crusted with black pepper and a strange, unidentifiable spice) and Swedish meatballs at the cafe, tested some couches, and wandered through the frenzy that is the downstairs housewares. I got a really nice blue lamp, a candle holder, and magnet strip, and Jason a set of picture frames, but the experience made us both very tired (and I think it scared Jason -- especially in the housewares section. "Oh no," he said at one point in quite a woeful tone, "I don't think we'll ever get out.") Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to go on a weekend afternoon, during a President's Day sale? Afterwards, on the free shuttle back to Manhattan, Jason and I likened the Ikea experience to attending a cult meeting. A little scary, a bit exhilarating.

Lazy Sunday

I just wanted to mention that I've been reading Salinger's Franny and Zooey. I love the simple, straight-forward prose, and the Zooey/mother bathroom scene that lasts approximately 60 pages. It's a bit aged and pretentious, but I forgive it for these things. I'll let you know my final impressions when I've finished reading it.

I also bought Tori Amos' autobiography/book of conversations and interviews. I know it will probably be chunky and badly written at best, but I was seduced by its soothing white cover, and pretty color pictures in the middle. Also, it's Tori! I know I should have just invested my money into her upcoming CD (due out Tuesday) instead, but I couldn't resist.

Old movies watched: in the middle of Sorry, Wrong Number (Barbara Stanwyck). So far, a very engrossing film.

This Life

Myra's writing prompt for class this week is to create something based on the last sentence in Joan's book: "...as if this were the only life I was going to have in the world, as if no others were waiting."

Which reminds me of Smashing Pumpkins' "Perfect."

"next time I promise we'll be
perfect
perfect
perfect strangers down the line
lovers out of time
memories unwind."

When I was teaching comp classes in Louisville and living in Nicholasville, I listened to the SP album a lot. I never saw the music video for "Perfect" (and I'm sure there was one), but I liked to imagine a grainy, black and white film of a man and woman, passing through a multitude of lives during a multitude of eras, their lives always intersecting in some bittersweet way.

I like this idea of reincarnation, but how to convey it in a writing prompt? I think you'd need a story collection to get anywhere, or perhaps a novel. And Myra's instructions were very open-ended -- we could do "anything," by which I guess she means multimedia.

The risk of writing a reincarnation story is it ending up being extremely hokey -- like that movie with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson. "Dead Again," I think it was called.

Hmm. I have to give this a little more thought. I'll let you know what I come up with.

Old movies watched: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Auntie Mame (Rosalind Russell).

Valentine Anxiety

I don't remember the last time I celebrated Valetine's Day. I'm usually snide and cynical when the 14th rolls around, telling anyone who asks that "I don't believe in such a commercial holiday" or "I don't even like chocolate."

But this year I have a boyfriend and, well, the whole Valentine affair is making me nervous. If the holiday is a celebration of love, then we really don't need it -- we celebrate that every day we're together. At the same time, I do want to celebrate Valentine's Day. I think it's some kind of residual desire from high school, when all the other girls were going to Pizza Hut or the Yum Yum Tree with their lovers.

I asked Jason if he believed in Valentine's Day, and he said yes. I think he was amused by the way I asked him, like a shy little girl.

I love him. I guess that's all that matters, right? Forget Valentine's Day. I want ordinary days, just lounging around in my pajamas with him, kissing him, holding his hand as we walk down the street.

The cat's meow

As promised months ago in my blurty blog, a picture of the infamous Rue:

like hitting your head on a concrete wall ...

I've reached a temporary brick wall, so to speak, in the story I'm writing. It's a problem of deciding when to have an actual scene and when to just summarize like crazy. I know the theory is to reserve scene-making for those important moments in a character's life, but I also know that most of this story has been telling rather than showing (which makes me nervous, like I'm breaking some kind of huge taboo), and I wonder if all the telling has begun to get a little tedious.

I'm at the point of the story where my main character meets her first love interest. They're in a coffee shop, she realizes he isn't as difficult to talk to as she thought, and they begin to converse. But ... about what? I guess I need to figure this guy out a little first. I think I know her pretty well -- she's a self-centered person who thinks blending in with the crowd will lead to happiness, who begins in the transformative power of true love. She's condescending to her older sister, who she feels never accomplished anything with her life, though she herself hasn't really done much. Eventually she will begin to change the way she sees the world, but to get there ... I have to write this segment of her life.

Sometimes I hate writing. But I love it too intensely to stop.

Old movies watched recently: Suspicion (Joan Fontaine and Cary Grant), half of Now, Voyager (Bette Davis). I should finish the rest of Now, Voyager later tonight.

Fever + Thesis = ?!?

Should I be sick? I just did this a few weeks ago -- the fever, sore throat, unattractive hacking and nose run. And now the happy fever and sore throat are back. All the while, I'm working on a first draft for a new short story, tentatively entitled "Charmed Life" (hope to think up something less hokey by the second or third draft). Tori Amos is wailing on my MP3 player ... the draft from my uninsulated bedroom window is sneaking through. Ahh. What a great way to spend a Friday night.

What One Girl Knows

Monday, February 28, 2005

Whiskey Tango

Martha's Foolish Ginger

For Music

Retelling Fairy Tales

Sunday, February 27, 2005

Notes from the Kitchen

Dreaming of Dinner

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

PJ Harvey and computer terminals

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

The 'R's and the 'T's

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Book Junkie

The Salve of Brunch

Lazy Sunday

Saturday, February 12, 2005

This Life

Valentine Anxiety

Friday, February 11, 2005

The cat's meow

like hitting your head on a concrete wall ...

Fever + Thesis = ?!?

About Me

Links

Previous Posts

Archives