Goodbye to Good Time Charlie

Good Time Charlie

I first started working when I was ten (yes ten) babysitting. I believe that's illegal today. Then I worked at the snack food stand at the little league field. That was the summers I was 14 and 15. When I was 16, I started working in the local Public Library. And when I was 17, GapKids at the mall.

But, my first office job was the summer between 11th and 12th grade. I interned for Congressman Charlie Wilson. That summer I did not get paid. I interned another summer while I was in college, and I did get paid. I believe for the princely sum of $1200/month. Which, to a nineteen year old in the early nineties, was living large.

Charlie Wilson was all the outrageous things said about him, and none of them. He had a crass sense of humor, and notorious love of beautiful women, a party hard lifestyle. He was also a shrewd politician. He was a public servant first, a politician second.

Yes, much of his staff in the Rayburn House Office Building was made up of young, beautiful woman. But, unlike how they were portrayed in the movie, it wasn't about cleavage and a party at the playboy mansion type atmosphere. Everyone on his staff was ridiculously intelligent and hard working. I was impressed and intimated by them as young adult.

Wilson was a large personality. He had a voice that deep and booming. He stood 6 foot four with a toupe that was usually just a bit crooked. There was a letter taped up in the office from a constituent saying that while she liked his politics, when she saw him on CSPAN, she was embarrassed by the tilt of his toupee.

I hadn't seen Wilson in about twenty years when I heard about his death. But was sad to hear of his passing. I posted his obit on facebook and twitter and late Friday night an old high school friend asked if I would be interested in writing a haiku about Wilson for her column on Huffington Post. With my sleep deprived mind, I threw something together quick, emailing it to her saying, well, I hate it (like I do all my writing) and understand if you don't use it. But alas, she did. And I was the featured writing, which, was a shock to me.

So... Check out Susanna Speirer's column.

The Public Library Is Stinky

In an attempt to get out of my apartment (and you know bathe and get dressed) and take a break from my new obsessive news watching, I am blogging from the Chicago Public Library. Usually I go to various coffee shops. I have quite the knowledge of which ones have free wifi and which ones are loud, which ones quiet and who plays the best music. But in an attempt to be economical (because let's be honest, it's never FREE. I feel obligated to order a coffee or buy a bottle of water or a sandwich and before I know it, it's been a $14 dollar afternoon) I am trying out the public library. This is what I've observed so far:

• It stinks. Kind of like a mix of B.O., new car smell and stale air.
• There are a lot of people in here on a Monday afternoon. Recessionistas? Daycrawlers who work from home? Retirees? Who knows...
• The seats by the window go fast.
• It's a wackadoodle trip down memory lane sitting in a study carrel. I keep expecting to see Greek letters carved into the wood. Or graffiti referring to my sorority (or one of the others) as slutty.
  
• I type REALLY loud.
• Turning the page of a newspaper is a distracting sound.
• People need to turn off their ringers. (and what is great is that if you don't, the sweet Asian lady librarian will come over and passive aggressively request that you kindly turn if off)
  
• The guy sitting one study carrol over from me needs a cough drop.
• I need to be able to gaze out a window and think for like hours when I'm attempting to write brilliant things.
• Next time, come early and snag a window seat. (and bring a cough drop for throat clearer sitting next to you)
  

cryptic notes

As a writer (and in particular as someone with ADD), I do not always have a pen handy when I have an idea, so I have gotten into the habit of saving text drafts of ideas. But frequently I forget what I was making notes about. Following are some notes I made about story/essay/blog entry ideas:

• Olive (no idea. Seriously, not one clue)
• What would be innocuous? (again, who knows?)
• Signs on Greenlawn (Greenlawn Dr was the street of my childhood home. But I don't know what I wanted to write about the signs)
• An ordinary day (this one I do remember. How seemingly out of nowhere your perception of something changes.)
• The backend of peoples homes (This is referring to the view from the el, but when I started writing I kept thinking of Denis Johnsons Dirty Wedding and nothing I wrote could compare)
• Gaf (Irish slang for home. Not sure what I wanted to say. But I like the word)
• Winners: Hairbrush and shoes (this one puzzled me for quite a long time until I realized it was referring to the bizarreness of our news that week..the Hairbrush was Blago's and the shoes were the ones tossed at W)

Do your mother a favor...

My mother called me last night. She read my latest story, and this is what she had to say: "Can't you write anything happy? Do your mother a favor and write something happy."

Ugh. Mothers.

I didn't sleep last night. Not at all. I packed (last minute) did some tidying up in my apartment, explained to my cat that I will be gone for 10 days but that I am coming back and someone is checking in on her (yes, I am a crazy cat lady, I don't usually like to advertise that, it's my dirty secret) and then suddenly it was time for the cab to pick me up (4AM thank you very much).

I hate people who hum along with their iPod on the el. That was me this morning. Well, I haven't slept. I didn't realize I was doing it until I opened my eyes and saw the looks. Oops.

Then I was in line behind a Romanian family of 6. yes, 6. They opened a special lane for them. Thank you TSA for family lanes.

Then I actually got on my plane. One of the only flights not delayed. I sat in my chair and watched them de-icing the plain, thinking Is this a good thing? when they announced we were deplaning because of mechanical difficulties.

WTF

I am trying to use my time wisely. But I ask you, why am I TRYING to write something happy?

Ugh. Mothers.

Sometimes I write more than the random blog post

My second published piece titled Molting is part of the current edition of Poeticdiversity.

My first published piece Doors Closing was on Failbetter this summer.

What was surprising to me is that I just googled my name and "Doors Closing" and came across this blog review of my story, which gave it 4 stars. I had no idea it was out there. Now I really do feel like a writer.

You Don't Love Me Yet

but I DO LOVE Jonathan Lethem.

I loved Motherless Brooklyn.... and I LOVED The Fortress of Solitude. In fact, I push the Fortress of Solitude on anyone who will listen. I believe it's "The voice of my generation."

His newest book ... You Don't Love Me Yet... I was worried I wouldn't like it. It sounds flufflier in content then his previous books. On it's surface it's about a struggling indi rock band in LA. But Like he does, halfway through the book, I'm already in love the characters and in love with his words. He waxes lyric prose in such a breathtaking and seemily easy way.

The novel is also, under the surface, an argument about intellectual property. I'm not sure how I feel about the stance I'm sure he's taking ... and has taken (in his essay for harpers) But I'm smitten ...I have a writers crush that knows no bounds.

I've read a couple reviews of the novel and they seemed to be a bit mixed ...and while it's not as emotional (at least for me) as Fortress of Solitude ... it's Lethem all way ... And I love it. Go read it...go read it now.

art school lemonade

the happy doctor and i talked about my writing (what i write about, how i write, where the inspiration comes from)

I realized that although I write fiction, generally through my writing I'm working something out in life.

He said, so that's how writing fits in your life.

and I thought about it, and said, I think of it as how I use my life in my writing.

lemons to lemonade.

life into art.

a bad day turns into a short story.

art school lemonade.

why i haven't been blogging

1. this is my last semester
2. I'm worried about having enough for my thesis
3. I'm working on two (maybe a third?) story ...see previous post (word of the day) also, was working on a screenplay with another hilarious friend from school - although we haven't gotten together to write in a couple weeks
   
4. I've started reading for just good fun again (sounds contradictory - I'm a writer after all - oh for this one - see the post where i was overheard in Chicago) during school i tend to read for school not for fun ..right now i'm reading Amy & Isabelle
5. I am seeing the happy doctor twice a week ... while my mental health is looking up ... it's quite time consuming.
6. I feel like I'm busy all the time and yet, I don't know what I'm busy doing ...
   
7. I'm looking for a new job ...(my contract ended at the greatest-company-ever-to-work-for i had the option to go full time but need to focus on school and all that)

on Wednesday I'm headed to AWP.... maybe I'll blog about that crazy experience.

also, it's too cold and yucky out there. Where is Spring?!?!

and for no reason except that i love the pic ... this is sascha...

Go Long...

It's a new semester. And I had my first meeting with my adviser (well, one of my advisers) and we talked about the work that I've done in the past and what I am working on now. She's thinks I have miscategorized myself as a short fiction writer ... she thinks I have larger projects in me...that I have global views on my stories and my characters ...and in her words there are "neighborhoods inside" me.

Is it just me, or does that sound a tad dirty?

Either way ... I'm bit by bit working on something. Maybe it will be long instead of short. Or maybe it will be short. But that's what brand new semesters are all about ... starting something new.

Home again...In love again

I've done a lot of blogging about my writers block. The other day I came across something I wrote in the fall about my frustrations with my writing:

It’s like going from loving someone to not.

I was a writer then I wasn’t.

The words stopped.

They used to hang out inside my head.

Between meetings and phone calls, walking down the street, sentences knocked around with the rhythm of my steps.

How to say it best, new words, phrases, ideas; it was all bouncing around fighting for space in my thoughts until I finally spit them out either through ink and pen or tapped into my keyboard, letters cascading from the cursor.

Now there’s an opaque filter holding them back, waiting for liquid draino or is it that the words have been spilled and will no longer be refilled.

Whatever… I’ve slowly started writing. The obsession with words is, slowly, coming back…

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

It's like a spring day (or Fall) and I'm cleaning and running errands and getting things done. Sun makes for a whole new me.

on the road again

(This ones for you JW.)

Why, although I do it ALL the time, I hate traveling:

stocking feet with the inevitable hole in the big toe or at the heel, on slick linoleum airport floors

people who put their shoes back on right at the point on the security conveyor belt where your stuff comes out, causing blockage from the line of people behind them, and forcing me to stand in my stocking feet just that much longer.

scratchy announcements about which rows are boarding that are illegible.

anyone pushing to be the one to enter the plane before me (come on people, we have "assigned" seats)

coach.

if you order a soda, the flight attendant gives the can. if you order a water, you get a dixie cup of water. give me the damn bottle!

baggage claim. children climbing on the baggage carousel and parents not stopping them. people who push me to stand on the edge of the carousel, blocking as many as possible from both viewing access of the baggage on the carousel as well as actual physical access.

Shuttle drivers who drop me off on the wrong side for the street, forcing me to roll my suitcase across 3rd ave while I'm are carrying a laptop, purse and my coat.

not having my cat sleeping at my feet.

showering in someone else's shower- trying to figure out how to turn the water on, how much hot is needed and how much cold, trying to find the spot on the tub edge for my shampoo, trying to figure out how to turn the water off.

not having the intuitive experience of the best way to walk to the subway, which stairs at the exit are the most efficient, which subway stop is the closest.

not having a badge for the office building and having to have a black and white digital photo taken of me that looks like I just smelled a fart.

carrying my laptop all over Manhattan.


why I love traveling:

seeing my friends

being in new york again

seeing my friends

seeing my friends.

In the end it IS about words

In a previous post, I incorrectly described my friend as talking through a moment of anguish. That was writer's embellishment. It was the word that I liked in the sentence, but she pointed out to me last night that Anguish was a little too intense a word. She's right. That was lazy writing. So below are some better word choices:

Disappointment n.

1. 
   
1. The act of disappointing.
2. The condition or feeling of being disappointed.
2. One that disappoints.

Frustration n.

1. 
   
1. The act of frustrating or an instance of being frustrated.
2. The state of being frustrated.
2. Something that serves to frustrate.

Vexation n.

1. The act of annoying, irritating, or vexing.
2. The quality or condition of being vexed; annoyance.
3. A source of irritation or annoyance.

Exasperation n.

1. The act or an instance of exasperating.
2. The state of being exasperated; frustrated annoyance.

Aggravation n.

1. The act of aggravating or the state of being aggravated.
2. A source of continuing, increasing irritation or trouble.
3. Exasperation.

Simulacrum

Word of the Day for Saturday March 4, 2006

simulacrum \sim-yuh-LAY-kruhm; -LAK-ruhm\, noun;
plural simulacra \sim-yuh-LAY-kruh; -LAK-ruh\:
1. An image; a representation.
2. An insubstantial, superficial, or vague likeness or
semblance.


***
Something has happened. I started writing today. And something came to me. I don't know where it is going. But I am either titling it Simulacrum or The Allegory of the Cave on Wall Street. It's something new. And it might be horrible. But finally my fingers are moving across my keyboard instead of staying pearched at f and j waiting for inspiration.

a fraternity of quirkiness

The other day a dear friend who I have known for many years and someone with whom I’ve blurred the platonic/romantic friendship lines many times, called me quirky. He used other words, but quirky was what stayed with me. Because he meant it with affection, and he knows me quite well and knows that I’m weird, and that I think I’m weird.

One of the greatest things for me about being a writing student, is meeting other writers. We are different. Each of us our own bizarre collection of idiosyncrasies. Kind of like the table of food at a church pot luck dinner. But I’ve found that some of my weirdness is not uniquely mine, but actually part of a shared fraternity.

I own books. I have a hard time walking out of a bookstore without spending a lot of $. “Ma Belle Mere” keeps lecturing me to use a library card. But I like to own my books. I like to keep them long after I’ve read them, even if I never open them up again and re-read them. I loan them to friends, always asking that they return them to me. My non-writer friends, many of whom are also avid readers, find this unnerving. They are afraid of losing my book, or forgetting to return it to me. They don’t quite understand why I need to keep them.

My fellow writing students, own books, keep them, loan them out but ask for them back.

I edit my thoughts. I have an inner dialogue, sometimes it’s the characters in my stories. I imagine what they would be thinking if they were standing on the L platform with me. Sometimes it’s a replaying of my day and how I would describe it in an email (or a blog). And sometimes it’s my own fragmented prose word play. Just me on the bus trying to describe how the Lake looks to me at night. But even in my own thoughts, I edit. I catch myself using cliché’s or obvious word choices, and I struggle to find new ways, my own way, to say something. No one will hear my thoughts but still I have to write them the best way that I can.

The other night I was on the phone with a writing friend, she was tipsy, smoking cigarettes and talking through a moment of anguish. As she was re-telling the nights events, she used a phrase, one that I can’t remember now, something clichéd like maybe “stars in my eyes”, some phrase that we use in every day speech, and she stopped herself, saying, “Well, if we were in workshop someone would scratch that out.” It made me smile.

I am among other quirky people who are also in constant play with words.

Do I have nothing to say?

Now that my classes have started again, and I am reading volumes of stuff, and I have write and be creative every day, I find I have nothing blog about.

Curious, right?

~~~~

Word of the Day:

For your further education, I'd like share a word that I came across that I love. I don't know why I love this word. But it feels good on my lips and in my sentences. It has sass and eloquence, all at once. Kinda like me and most of my friends ;-)

Definitions of audacious on the Web:

• invulnerable to fear or intimidation; "audacious explorers"; "fearless reporters and photographers"; "intrepid pioneers"
• unrestrained by convention or propriety; "an audacious trick to pull"; "a barefaced hypocrite"; "the most bodacious display of tourism this side of Anaheim"- Los Angeles Times; "bald-faced lies"; "brazen arrogance"; "the modern world with its quick material successes and insolent belief in the boundless possibilities of progress"- Bertrand Russell
• disposed to venture or take risks; "audacious visions of the total conquest of space"; "an audacious interpretation of two Jacobean dramas"; "the most daring of contemporary fiction writers"; "a venturesome investor"; "a venturous spirit"
• unrestrained by prevailing standards of propriety

The strange thing about having a blog, which is kind of like living alone…. Everytime I log on, I’m almost surprised that there’s no new posting. As if I am expecting my secret self to have, behind my own back, posted something. I feel that way when I walk into my apartment. Like, I’m expecting my bed to have been made while I was gone, or my breakfast dishes to no longer be in the sink. I don’t know who would post on my blog, or tidy up my apartment, but it’s always both disappointing and reassuring to realize that I alone am responsible for myself

Caught without a pen

I had the perfect idea for a story. It was going to be my Pushcart Prize, my O'Henry winner. There was an object in the story and it was the perfect metaphor for something. It was original and brilliant. I thought of it while riding on the bus, but I didn't have a pen on me. I can't remember it now. This is why writers always have a pen and at least a scrap of paper on them.

~~~
I had another venti cup of crack today. I love the starbucks near my office because I actually ordered a "Venti, Nonfat cup of crack, foam, no whip." Love the guys there. Although my barista was pushing the sprinkles. But perfection doesn't need extra trimmings.
~~~
Small things make me happy. Like chopsticks. Eating chicken and broccoli stir fry with chopsticks feels like an occasion. Even if I order from the Chinese restaurant on my corner at least once a week, it still feels like an occasion.
~~~




Now that it is a new year, I've been thinking about the one that just past. It was a big year for me. I changed cities, I changed lives. Plus, on a morbid note, I did not attend one funeral in 2005. Which I think is the first year since 2001 that has happened. So, it I would say, all in all it was a good year.

These are the happy moments for me in 2005 (in no particular order):


Getting into the Art Institute. I had to re-read the acceptance letter several times.


Lunch at Atlantic Grill with my brother. It was a too hot, white sun in our eyes June day and we ordered the Shellfish castle. I went through a shellfish phase this summer, it was like I was addicted to raw oysters and shrimp. The "Castle" is really for four people. They had to move us to a larger table. People walking by on the street stopped and stared at it. It towered over us as we spun it around, searching for the next clam or oyster or shrimp. It was a glorious display of decadence, sitting outside on a weekday afternoon, eating too much overpriced shellfish at a restaurant on the Upper East Side.

Dinner at Pipa with the girls. It was one of those of nights when there was a surprising warm weather and everyone in Manhattan leaves work early to drink cocktails outside. It was right after I got into grad school and SD was offered the job in Singapore and EL had just moved to New York. Later we went to the Brandy Library and MM and EL stole wine glasses. It was just one of those nights that I loved being in New York and I loved having friends who had known me since college.

London. I hated it and I loved it. I hated flying back and forth and being jet lagged for a month straight, a week here and week there. I loved hating it, and I hated that I loved it. I loved everyone in the office there. I missed New York the whole time I was there and couldn't wait for a proper cup of coffee - even at Starbucks the Brits have figured out how to ruin coffee, and yet I felt determined to come back. Of course, waiting for the car service to pick me up at JFK, it was warm and sunny and all blue skies and I thought that I would never want to go to London again in the middle of the summer.

My brother's graduation from Syracuse. Even though he and I fought in the car driving home. Once we are in car together for a long road trip, we are instantly five and fifteen again. But that weekend, it was nice to be with my family and I was proud of him.

Fourth of July, lunch and cocktails at Sushi Samba with KW and VR.

My first night sleeping in my apartment in Chicago.

My birthday. I threw myself a party and invited people from school that I barely knew, and found out that I had new friends.

Sailing on Lake Michigan in my uncle's boat with my parents and my uncles and my aunt. Oh and that same weekend that they were in town, I had a "date" with my dad and we had ice cream at a soda shop in my neighborhood. He can't hide how excited he is that I have moved to the city of his childhood. Like all real Chicagoans, transplanted or not, he believes that Chicago is the best place in the world.

Lunch at the Central Park Boathouse with SD.

New Years Eve at KW's. Seeing all my New York friends again. CH turning to me after I told a dirty joke and saying with real emotion and nostalgia "I've really missed you." SD was back from Singapore, and JC came up from DC, and then we went to Biddy's afterwards. It was the only way I wanted to say good bye to 2005.

If I only had a blog

I feel the pressure, as a writing student, to blog. Which left me with the thought, if I had a blog what would I write on it?

Just random nuggets of thoughts:

Yesterday:

Walking on Belmont, venti cup of crack in hand (the new cinnamon dolce latte - skim no whip) and a smile on my face because even though it's January it was in the 50's. Edit Piaf was on on my Ipod, and I was a block from the L, when I ran into my Aunt Janella. She is tall and thin, with the kind of short curly hair that makes her look like an artist. Seeing her olive skin and rigid cheek bones walking towards me, I was momentarily shocked. It was her out of context, in my neighborhood, on a Thursday afternoon, and not at my grandparents over the holidays. She doesn't hug. I once hugged her good bye when she was dropping me off at the airport. It was angular and distant, and my arms were back at my side before it even started. I almost reached out my arms to her, but stopped myself. You don't hug a non hugger in the middle of the day on a busy street. We chatted amicably, and I walked away feeling more at home in Chicago than I have in the five months that I've lived here.

My friends in New York are huggers. We don't do those half assed kiss on the cheek things. We hug. Tight hugs, real hugs. I miss them. But then I also miss New York.

Today:
Yuck. Slush falling from the sky.

I sit in a big pretty office with futuristic furniture. It's a Friday that feels like a Monday. And all I can think about is drinking with my friends tonight.

I didn't want to leave my bed this morning. I spent three weeks traveling, and the whole time I missed my bed. Can I be in love with my feather bed? my 400 threadcount sheets, my pillows, my old teddy bear. Because I am.

I keep thinking about tonight, because I am looking forward to seeing my Chicago friends again. Being in New York last week, briefly stepping into my old life felt great and strange. But now I'm ready to taste Chicago again