I'm back in Chicago after one of the best Christmases in recent memory. My mother decided to stay home this Christmas and invite the rest of the family to see us (which raised some unexplainable anger from the rest of the family), which meant that, instead of rushing off to New Jersey on Christmas morning, I got to sleep late and then help my mother cook dinner all day long, then sit down for a meal with my brother, my sister-in-law, my mother and her husband, my step brothers, and my grandparents. More or less everyone I wanted to sit and have a meal with. Which was great. We had squash ravioli for an appetizer, followed by pork loin that my mother and I stuffed with apricots, using our combined medical knowledge to realize that using a process of peristalsis would be the most effective way to work the stuffing into the center cavity of the loin. Imagine my mother and I standing around and chatting, while we feed apricots to a giant esophagus, and you have a pretty good image of what we were doing.
Yeah.
The rest of the vacation was uneventful but fun. I made it up to NYC with my brother. We saw The Life Aquatic, which was profoundly disappointing (a fantastic title, fantastic concept, tacked on to a long, winding, and incidental film that wasn't terribly funny; except for Bill Murray dancing in a wet suit...that made me giggle out loud) and wandered around for a bit. Received some bad news from a friend (her grandmother died) and then spent a great evening wandering around the Village and SoHo with her while New York gave us a night full of snow, moonlight, and an irrate cabby.
All in all, it was the best Christmas in recent memory and I can't wait to do it again.
Now I'm back. In the brilliant cold. In my city, having experienced my other cities. They're like friends, cities are. I spend a great deal of time with Chicago, and I love its character and I hate some of its quirks, but I miss my other cities and long to be back with them. So. Joy.
The absinthe is steeping with the flavoring herbs now, and is a beautiful forest green. Which it is supposed to be. In a few days, we'll see how it tastes.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Rejections
Heading for home, today, which has me in high spirits (although I'm a little afraid that I'm going to experience delays on the way home. Never good).
Received a rejection letter from Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, which I posted on my wall next to the others, though the curtness of the reply and the swiftness of the rejection left me feeling more--well--rejected than the others. So I'm a bit low.
There's a few things that I find cheer me up when I read rejection letters. The first is posting them on my wall as a reminder that this is part of my body of work. Rejections mean someone has looked at my work, even if they didn't see fit to pay me for that. They mean I've been looked at by an editor. In some cases, the editors have been very helpful and kind, too, which I appreciate. So there's that. The other thing is everything contained within this article. To explain--no, that would take too long--to sum up: no matter how bad it feels when you receive a rejection letter, it isn't personal. Never ever ever is it personal. This is what I keep in mind, and it really does help me. Just last week, I sent a letter to the brother of a friend of mine, saying pretty much "Rejections suck, but they're a part of the life of a writer, and all you can do is buck up and move forward." And they do. And they are. And you must.
So the adolescent boy in me is saying "Screw you, buddy!" and the determined business manchild in me is saying "Alright, so I'll send it to someone else" and the editor in me is saying, "It's nothing personal. Just a matter of tastes. How can we make this story better?" but the writer in me is saying "Ah well. Keep writing."
Which is what I did last night. And I'm happy with the way my new short story opens. So here it is:
1. Morning
He woke beside his beloved.
The sun rose sideways into the room, neatly drawn and quartered into rhombuses by the sash and grill of the window. Light trickled across the books in the library, casting long faint shadows from the ziggurats of literature piled around his love’s bed. The books in the shelves grinned out at him like great sets of teeth, smiling because they knew they were a part of history. The whole room in which he lay beside his beloved smelled of it. Decades of bohemianism, revolution, art for the sake of art for the sake of beauty for the sake of decadence hung in the air, as palpable as the dust in the sunlight, carried on the scent of mushrooms. He rose amid this—twisting his head until, much to his delight and with an audible pop from his vertebrae, the tightness that had taken residence in his neck through the night freed itself—and wagged his nose at the ceiling. Stories written in mildew across time-moistened pages, told in a voice as sweet and tender on the taste buds as truffles, traveled their old vaporous paths into his nostrils. In one breath, a book of poetry bought for a lover on the day the bookstore opened, later bought back, dog-eared and worn by a lifetime held close to the woman’s heart. In another, oil from the fingers of a great playwright, days before he would begin writing two plays—one a brilliant parlor drama, the other a play that would redefine the art of theatre—grazed across the pages of a philosophical essay, turned to for inspiration. In another, long dried, set into the margin of a history book, these words scratched in India ink in terse loops belonging to a traveler who passed through the city, like so many others, looking for the poetry locked in its walls and cobblestones:
Love is pure, and poison, too
Liquors of bliss and blindness both
Distilled from the heart and the water hemlock
Mixed in phials of morning dew
For the taking of spirits
When other faiths fail us
Other stories in other sips of breath. His nose cluttered with each of them, all of them competing for his attention. His attention turned toward his beloved.
Sylvia. Ah, Sylvia. Beautiful porcelain Sylvia, bound under sheets of white linen. How his heart leapt at the mere sight of her face, at the thought of her body hidden under the blanket, her nightgown just covering her, revealing just the slightest curve of her buttocks, the barest shadow of her sex. He inhaled again and drowned in the scent of her. Lilac bath oils, sandalwood incense, fine jasmine perfume, and musk—inescapable and pungent—musk, blended together in an effluvium called Sylvia. He watched her roll over in the bed and turn her face toward him, making slits of her eyes.
“It’s morning isn’t it, Jamon?”
“Past morning, dearest. Into midmorning by now or, dare I say it, late morning,” he said, turning to her.
“But not noon? Not yet?”
“No, no. There have been no bells to indicate noon.”
“Good. Then I needn’t be awake,” she said with a small smile. And she turned over in the bed, taking the blanket with her to cover her eyes from the invasion of light.
He returned to watching her, listening to her, inhaling her, and smiled because he could do so. Because he was close to her. His beloved.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And that's what I have so far. The title is something like "Parisian Decadence," or "Parisian Delight" (because it's written as a Decadence story and the Decadents hated that term for themselves...so would they use it in the title of a story?)
Happy Christmas, all. Pleasant New Year. The next two weeks are going to be fun. Going to NYC sometime over my time home, getting to see lots of old friends, and then a week of Amanda, drenched in rum rolls and absinthe.
Received a rejection letter from Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, which I posted on my wall next to the others, though the curtness of the reply and the swiftness of the rejection left me feeling more--well--rejected than the others. So I'm a bit low.
There's a few things that I find cheer me up when I read rejection letters. The first is posting them on my wall as a reminder that this is part of my body of work. Rejections mean someone has looked at my work, even if they didn't see fit to pay me for that. They mean I've been looked at by an editor. In some cases, the editors have been very helpful and kind, too, which I appreciate. So there's that. The other thing is everything contained within this article. To explain--no, that would take too long--to sum up: no matter how bad it feels when you receive a rejection letter, it isn't personal. Never ever ever is it personal. This is what I keep in mind, and it really does help me. Just last week, I sent a letter to the brother of a friend of mine, saying pretty much "Rejections suck, but they're a part of the life of a writer, and all you can do is buck up and move forward." And they do. And they are. And you must.
So the adolescent boy in me is saying "Screw you, buddy!" and the determined business manchild in me is saying "Alright, so I'll send it to someone else" and the editor in me is saying, "It's nothing personal. Just a matter of tastes. How can we make this story better?" but the writer in me is saying "Ah well. Keep writing."
Which is what I did last night. And I'm happy with the way my new short story opens. So here it is:
1. Morning
He woke beside his beloved.
The sun rose sideways into the room, neatly drawn and quartered into rhombuses by the sash and grill of the window. Light trickled across the books in the library, casting long faint shadows from the ziggurats of literature piled around his love’s bed. The books in the shelves grinned out at him like great sets of teeth, smiling because they knew they were a part of history. The whole room in which he lay beside his beloved smelled of it. Decades of bohemianism, revolution, art for the sake of art for the sake of beauty for the sake of decadence hung in the air, as palpable as the dust in the sunlight, carried on the scent of mushrooms. He rose amid this—twisting his head until, much to his delight and with an audible pop from his vertebrae, the tightness that had taken residence in his neck through the night freed itself—and wagged his nose at the ceiling. Stories written in mildew across time-moistened pages, told in a voice as sweet and tender on the taste buds as truffles, traveled their old vaporous paths into his nostrils. In one breath, a book of poetry bought for a lover on the day the bookstore opened, later bought back, dog-eared and worn by a lifetime held close to the woman’s heart. In another, oil from the fingers of a great playwright, days before he would begin writing two plays—one a brilliant parlor drama, the other a play that would redefine the art of theatre—grazed across the pages of a philosophical essay, turned to for inspiration. In another, long dried, set into the margin of a history book, these words scratched in India ink in terse loops belonging to a traveler who passed through the city, like so many others, looking for the poetry locked in its walls and cobblestones:
Love is pure, and poison, too
Liquors of bliss and blindness both
Distilled from the heart and the water hemlock
Mixed in phials of morning dew
For the taking of spirits
When other faiths fail us
Other stories in other sips of breath. His nose cluttered with each of them, all of them competing for his attention. His attention turned toward his beloved.
Sylvia. Ah, Sylvia. Beautiful porcelain Sylvia, bound under sheets of white linen. How his heart leapt at the mere sight of her face, at the thought of her body hidden under the blanket, her nightgown just covering her, revealing just the slightest curve of her buttocks, the barest shadow of her sex. He inhaled again and drowned in the scent of her. Lilac bath oils, sandalwood incense, fine jasmine perfume, and musk—inescapable and pungent—musk, blended together in an effluvium called Sylvia. He watched her roll over in the bed and turn her face toward him, making slits of her eyes.
“It’s morning isn’t it, Jamon?”
“Past morning, dearest. Into midmorning by now or, dare I say it, late morning,” he said, turning to her.
“But not noon? Not yet?”
“No, no. There have been no bells to indicate noon.”
“Good. Then I needn’t be awake,” she said with a small smile. And she turned over in the bed, taking the blanket with her to cover her eyes from the invasion of light.
He returned to watching her, listening to her, inhaling her, and smiled because he could do so. Because he was close to her. His beloved.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And that's what I have so far. The title is something like "Parisian Decadence," or "Parisian Delight" (because it's written as a Decadence story and the Decadents hated that term for themselves...so would they use it in the title of a story?)
Happy Christmas, all. Pleasant New Year. The next two weeks are going to be fun. Going to NYC sometime over my time home, getting to see lots of old friends, and then a week of Amanda, drenched in rum rolls and absinthe.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Taxation, Representation, Etc.
I keep trying to wrap my brain around exactly what my problem with the whole "let's make a Constitutional ammendment forbidding them homos to marry" thing. Aside from the fact that its properly "those homos" and the fact that making a Constitutional ammendment barring a group of people from expressing love seems just fundamentally wrong, I've been probing myself (so to speak) for exactly what is wrong with it. Barring freedoms isn't fundamentally wrong, of course. Most laws bar freedoms. Such as the freedom to kill, the freedom to drive at 500 mph on open highways, the freedom to forcibly remove someone from their home and declare that home yours. These are all freedoms that the law has reasonably barred. So why not this one?
It comes down to this: one of the fundamental principles of this nation, the principle that, arguably, launched the American Revolution is "No taxation without representation." Roughly speaking, that means that nobody can enact a law that affects you and only you unless someone in the government represents you. Which is why it was wrong for the English to make laws affecting the colonies, and why it's wrong for a bunch of White people to make laws restricting the rights of a bunch of Black people. If, for example, a law were enacted allowing White people to walk around wherever they want, sit where they want on buses, attend whatever schools they wanted, and eat at whatever restaurants they wanted, while Blacks had to go to specific schools, eat at specific restaurants, and sit at the backs of the bus--well everyone would say that was madness...eventually.
There are freedoms that belong to everyone and there are freedoms that belong to only a select group of people, and whenever we try to restrict the freedoms of a select group of people without restricting the freedoms of everyone else, we are not just on a slippery slope, we are already sliding away from everything that makes us the land of the free. We cannot reasonably enact laws affecting one group of people without representing the will of those people within our legislature. Gay marriage: where are the homosexuals in the House of Representatives? Who represents queer issues in the Senate? Where are there gay people in the Oval Office? In the Supreme Court? In the lives of the people trying to fuck up the lives of people not like them? We can't allow it. We can't. It's this, then the removal of the right not be fired from a job for being gay. Then the ghettos. It's a backwards step away from enlightenment and it goes against the principles of our Revolution. America isn't just founded on the Will of the People. It's founded on the Will of the People and the rights of people who stand reasonably against that will to live their lives in peace.
It comes down to this: one of the fundamental principles of this nation, the principle that, arguably, launched the American Revolution is "No taxation without representation." Roughly speaking, that means that nobody can enact a law that affects you and only you unless someone in the government represents you. Which is why it was wrong for the English to make laws affecting the colonies, and why it's wrong for a bunch of White people to make laws restricting the rights of a bunch of Black people. If, for example, a law were enacted allowing White people to walk around wherever they want, sit where they want on buses, attend whatever schools they wanted, and eat at whatever restaurants they wanted, while Blacks had to go to specific schools, eat at specific restaurants, and sit at the backs of the bus--well everyone would say that was madness...eventually.
There are freedoms that belong to everyone and there are freedoms that belong to only a select group of people, and whenever we try to restrict the freedoms of a select group of people without restricting the freedoms of everyone else, we are not just on a slippery slope, we are already sliding away from everything that makes us the land of the free. We cannot reasonably enact laws affecting one group of people without representing the will of those people within our legislature. Gay marriage: where are the homosexuals in the House of Representatives? Who represents queer issues in the Senate? Where are there gay people in the Oval Office? In the Supreme Court? In the lives of the people trying to fuck up the lives of people not like them? We can't allow it. We can't. It's this, then the removal of the right not be fired from a job for being gay. Then the ghettos. It's a backwards step away from enlightenment and it goes against the principles of our Revolution. America isn't just founded on the Will of the People. It's founded on the Will of the People and the rights of people who stand reasonably against that will to live their lives in peace.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
The Absinthe Drinkers
Ah shit. I've been seriously remiss in my blogging duties over the past week. Mostly because I've been spending evenings at home, getting actual work done on short stories and on that novel that's been sitting around on my hard drive, twiddling its thumbs for the past--oh--six months. It sits there, taunting me. Actually, it sits there, telling me to get off my literary ass and write the fucking thing. Because I know how it ends! At least, I think I do. As I've been writing, I wonder if it actually ends the way I think it ends. Anyway. Point is, I haven't been going out and pretending to work while actually perusing the Internet quite as much as I used to do.
But I sat down and blocked out where the novel has been these past couple of chapters and where chapter five might be going. Which is good. Chapter five has felt a bit aimless to me, which is generally what frustrates me and makes me stop writing it.
Finished the medical story. Have started another.
Oh, and I bought an absinthe kit from this guy (I find it disconcerting that the first part of his URL is "deadflesh.fear"), which arrived in a timely five days. I began to macerate it on Sunday, and so I now have a decanter full of 151 rum and wormwood macerating in my linen closet, slowly turning into a familiar forest green. A few people have wondered, "Why are you making absinthe? Doesn't that make people go mad?" And the answer is no. Absinthe doesn't contain enough of its active ingredients to make people go mad. Wikipedia has a good article on absinthe, which describes some of the conditions that caused absithe to eventually become illegal and some of the reasons why some brands were so dangerous (competitors of Pernod absinthe added industrial-grade alcohol and other horrible things to their blends to cut corners and add color).
In my experience with the drink, absinthe has little of the effect that people ascribe to it. It's just a nice warm sort of drunk. With some synaesthesia to top it all off. Very nice.
So that's all. I started a new story in a sort of Decadence style. About a pig.
Oh...and as nearly as I can tell from this post in Jeff Vandermeer's blog, there is further evidence that I'm a medium for the zeitgeist. A story about a stripper stripping her epidermis? This sounds almost exactly like my story "Pornography," in which a boy can't get off with his woman unless she strips her skin off (because his first experiences masturbating was to Gray's Anatomy).
Happy Holidays, if I don't blog before then.
But I sat down and blocked out where the novel has been these past couple of chapters and where chapter five might be going. Which is good. Chapter five has felt a bit aimless to me, which is generally what frustrates me and makes me stop writing it.
Finished the medical story. Have started another.
Oh, and I bought an absinthe kit from this guy (I find it disconcerting that the first part of his URL is "deadflesh.fear"), which arrived in a timely five days. I began to macerate it on Sunday, and so I now have a decanter full of 151 rum and wormwood macerating in my linen closet, slowly turning into a familiar forest green. A few people have wondered, "Why are you making absinthe? Doesn't that make people go mad?" And the answer is no. Absinthe doesn't contain enough of its active ingredients to make people go mad. Wikipedia has a good article on absinthe, which describes some of the conditions that caused absithe to eventually become illegal and some of the reasons why some brands were so dangerous (competitors of Pernod absinthe added industrial-grade alcohol and other horrible things to their blends to cut corners and add color).
In my experience with the drink, absinthe has little of the effect that people ascribe to it. It's just a nice warm sort of drunk. With some synaesthesia to top it all off. Very nice.
So that's all. I started a new story in a sort of Decadence style. About a pig.
Oh...and as nearly as I can tell from this post in Jeff Vandermeer's blog, there is further evidence that I'm a medium for the zeitgeist. A story about a stripper stripping her epidermis? This sounds almost exactly like my story "Pornography," in which a boy can't get off with his woman unless she strips her skin off (because his first experiences masturbating was to Gray's Anatomy).
Happy Holidays, if I don't blog before then.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Korpervelt
Had a good writing night, last night. I've been working on a story that takes the form of a scientific/medical paper, and have been wrestling with how to bring elements of dialogue and characters other than the person writing the paper into the story, and last night solved it by adding footnotes to it. I'm not sure why that didn't occur to me sooner. Footnotes can be kind of gimmicky--and it's a done gimmick, too--but in this case, it really frees the body of the text from the choppiness of switching back and forth between the scientific voice and the narrative voice, and it also opens up room for a lot of explanation and parenthetical commentary that was tanking the story. So I went to bed feeling happy and productive last night.
This morning, I was very excited to see this article in the Sun Times:
A controversial new exhibit of human body parts, which has fascinated millions in Europe and Asia but appalled and infuriated others, is coming to the Museum of Science and Industry..."Body Worlds'' features some 200 body parts, including 25 whole figures, that have been preserved through a process called "plastination." Created by a German scientist and artist, the procedure replaces body fluids with resins and polymers.
The article goes on to describe a little of the controversy surrounding the exhibit, which, frankly, surprised me to read about. I got to see "Body Worlds" when I was in Berlin a few years ago. I found it weird and wonderful and right up my alley. At the end of the booklet that accompanied the exhibit were quotes from some of the dozens of people who donate themselves to the doctor/artist who makes the sculptures. Some said it was in the interest of science, but many--and this is what interests me--were doing it for religious reasons.
Anyway, the last time I saw the exhibit, it sparked a great flood of creativity in me, which included the story I was working on last night, so this is clearly an omen. Rest assured, I will be at the museum. Possibly many times.
Feb. 4-March 20
$21 for adults,
$11 for kids 3-11 and
$17 for seniors.
This morning, I was very excited to see this article in the Sun Times:
A controversial new exhibit of human body parts, which has fascinated millions in Europe and Asia but appalled and infuriated others, is coming to the Museum of Science and Industry..."Body Worlds'' features some 200 body parts, including 25 whole figures, that have been preserved through a process called "plastination." Created by a German scientist and artist, the procedure replaces body fluids with resins and polymers.
The article goes on to describe a little of the controversy surrounding the exhibit, which, frankly, surprised me to read about. I got to see "Body Worlds" when I was in Berlin a few years ago. I found it weird and wonderful and right up my alley. At the end of the booklet that accompanied the exhibit were quotes from some of the dozens of people who donate themselves to the doctor/artist who makes the sculptures. Some said it was in the interest of science, but many--and this is what interests me--were doing it for religious reasons.
Anyway, the last time I saw the exhibit, it sparked a great flood of creativity in me, which included the story I was working on last night, so this is clearly an omen. Rest assured, I will be at the museum. Possibly many times.
Feb. 4-March 20
$21 for adults,
$11 for kids 3-11 and
$17 for seniors.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Pie Interruptus
How I Met My Neighbors
Last night I was in the middle of making two dozen or so hand-held chicken pot pies for consumption over the next weeks (I'm not sure why, but winter always makes me want to make pie...any pie, really; just pie), when I heard a knock at my door. Which was odd, because I never hear anything from my neighbors. The last time I received a knock on my door, I opened it to a pair of Baptists from Indiana who wanted me to come to their church. So I asked who it was, and the response was, "It's your neighbor, Dan. My apartment's on fire. Which, naturally, made me open to door. Smoke billowed in from the hallway, and I stood in the doorway for a moment, trying to figure out what to do. After a second, I grabbed my coat and ran to knock on doors to get people out of their apartments, before the fire department called up the stairwell and ordered both Dan and I to leave.
As I walked outside, barefoot, into the cold air, I glanced up at the window of Dan's apartment. Fire belched out in big swirls. Fire engine lights flashed everywhere. The small crowd of interested neighbors that always appears at these sorts of events had already begun to gather on the sidewalk. Some out of sheer curiosity, some to see if there's anything they can do to help, some to be nosy and poo-poo the poor soul who accidentally started the fire.
I stood outside in my socks and winter coat for an hour, watching the fire department work, chopping away at my neighbor's windows, raining glass and water down to the street, until there was nothing left but the shell of an apartment. A square space where an apartment once lived, it's eyes hollow and black and unframed. When they were ready to let us back in, I made sure Dan and his wife had somewhere to go, and then went back in to see what had become of my apartment. Everything was fine, but it reeked of smoke. So I opened up all of my windows and placed fans in them, called my friends Bonnie and Darcy, and went back to making pies, while my neighbors evacuated their houses and their pets.
A while later, Bonnie and Darcy showed up and sat with my while I made pie in my winter coat, and we drank moscata and lit scented candles and nag champa and just generally enjoyed the best of a bad situation. Every so often, someone would knock at the door--first the curious friends of a downstairs neighbor who wanted to make sure he was okay (everyone got out okay, as far as I know) and then my upstairs neighbor, who was away during all of this and came home to her apartment wide open and her dog locked in her bedroom. I explained everything to her, lent her a fan, and then spent the night at Bonnie and Darcy's house, just in case the carbon monoxide levels were dangerous.
Today, the apartment next to mine is all boarded up, making it look even more like a ruined shell. My front hallway is cold and dark and smells of the most horrible, acrid, chemical mixture of smoke and fire-killers that I could ever imagine. The hall outside my door is dingy, grey, as though it won't even let light brighten it. Black, mildew-like tendrils run up and down the walls where the smoke and water infiltrated the paint, the wood, the carpet, the air. Everything has a current of smoke and burning running through it now. Even my apartment, which was relatively untouched, reeks of smoke still. But it's getting better and it will be better.
People are generally good natured, I've decided from this. Most people, anyway.
And I'm okay and so is everything I own. And I'm thankful that I can sit here and write this over a cup of hot cocoa and everything's really pretty cool.
Last night I was in the middle of making two dozen or so hand-held chicken pot pies for consumption over the next weeks (I'm not sure why, but winter always makes me want to make pie...any pie, really; just pie), when I heard a knock at my door. Which was odd, because I never hear anything from my neighbors. The last time I received a knock on my door, I opened it to a pair of Baptists from Indiana who wanted me to come to their church. So I asked who it was, and the response was, "It's your neighbor, Dan. My apartment's on fire. Which, naturally, made me open to door. Smoke billowed in from the hallway, and I stood in the doorway for a moment, trying to figure out what to do. After a second, I grabbed my coat and ran to knock on doors to get people out of their apartments, before the fire department called up the stairwell and ordered both Dan and I to leave.
As I walked outside, barefoot, into the cold air, I glanced up at the window of Dan's apartment. Fire belched out in big swirls. Fire engine lights flashed everywhere. The small crowd of interested neighbors that always appears at these sorts of events had already begun to gather on the sidewalk. Some out of sheer curiosity, some to see if there's anything they can do to help, some to be nosy and poo-poo the poor soul who accidentally started the fire.
I stood outside in my socks and winter coat for an hour, watching the fire department work, chopping away at my neighbor's windows, raining glass and water down to the street, until there was nothing left but the shell of an apartment. A square space where an apartment once lived, it's eyes hollow and black and unframed. When they were ready to let us back in, I made sure Dan and his wife had somewhere to go, and then went back in to see what had become of my apartment. Everything was fine, but it reeked of smoke. So I opened up all of my windows and placed fans in them, called my friends Bonnie and Darcy, and went back to making pies, while my neighbors evacuated their houses and their pets.
A while later, Bonnie and Darcy showed up and sat with my while I made pie in my winter coat, and we drank moscata and lit scented candles and nag champa and just generally enjoyed the best of a bad situation. Every so often, someone would knock at the door--first the curious friends of a downstairs neighbor who wanted to make sure he was okay (everyone got out okay, as far as I know) and then my upstairs neighbor, who was away during all of this and came home to her apartment wide open and her dog locked in her bedroom. I explained everything to her, lent her a fan, and then spent the night at Bonnie and Darcy's house, just in case the carbon monoxide levels were dangerous.
Today, the apartment next to mine is all boarded up, making it look even more like a ruined shell. My front hallway is cold and dark and smells of the most horrible, acrid, chemical mixture of smoke and fire-killers that I could ever imagine. The hall outside my door is dingy, grey, as though it won't even let light brighten it. Black, mildew-like tendrils run up and down the walls where the smoke and water infiltrated the paint, the wood, the carpet, the air. Everything has a current of smoke and burning running through it now. Even my apartment, which was relatively untouched, reeks of smoke still. But it's getting better and it will be better.
People are generally good natured, I've decided from this. Most people, anyway.
And I'm okay and so is everything I own. And I'm thankful that I can sit here and write this over a cup of hot cocoa and everything's really pretty cool.
Friday, December 10, 2004
A Warm Winter's Day
It's another grey, damp day in December, with temperatures not much lower than the forties or fifties and a veil of moisture in the air, dulling the line of the sky. Last year around this time, I remember walking out into the cold air, feeling it hit my skin and solidify my mind into these neat little crystals of thought. Last year, I remember walking around a cemetery in snow drifts, struggling just to breathe against the wind, and skies a permanent blue because the air wasn't warm enough to hold clouds. That's proper winter.
This year, it's just grey and moist. Good weather for a sinus infection. Yay, global warming.
Despite that, I've been very content over the past week, due in no small part to the fact that a friend I love very much is coming to stay with me soon. And because we've actually both taken a proper amount of time off to enjoy each other's company, so we're not rushing to cram a proper visit into a short period of time. Makes me smile every time I think about it.
Also, the benefit went well. We raised about a thousand dollars for Tantalus, and more just keeps coming in. If you haven't been able to donate or whatnot, please do. So we can do brilliant theatre.
Wandering Books
While tooling around on the Web today, I visited Jonathan Carroll's site and was happy to see that he has been updating it and even has a blog, which is, like most of what he writes, really good. On it, I found a link to bookcrossing.com, whose goal is, "to make the whole world a library. Book Crossing is a book exchange of infinite proportion, the first and only of its kind." The idea is to leave a book that's moved you in a public place for someone else to pick up. That person does likewise and so on and so forth. You can track your book's progress via a sticker that the site provides. It's a brilliant idea; I think I'll start doing that, at once.
For those of you who don't know him, Jonathan Carroll is an author. His books are largely slipstream fantasies--dreamscapes glazed upon ordinary life. They're about the magic of true love and imagination, philosophy, talking dogs, and heroes/heroines who eat far more Sachertorte than is probably healthy for any human being to consume. I can't recommend him enough. Especially his book White Apples.
This year, it's just grey and moist. Good weather for a sinus infection. Yay, global warming.
Despite that, I've been very content over the past week, due in no small part to the fact that a friend I love very much is coming to stay with me soon. And because we've actually both taken a proper amount of time off to enjoy each other's company, so we're not rushing to cram a proper visit into a short period of time. Makes me smile every time I think about it.
Also, the benefit went well. We raised about a thousand dollars for Tantalus, and more just keeps coming in. If you haven't been able to donate or whatnot, please do. So we can do brilliant theatre.
Wandering Books
While tooling around on the Web today, I visited Jonathan Carroll's site and was happy to see that he has been updating it and even has a blog, which is, like most of what he writes, really good. On it, I found a link to bookcrossing.com, whose goal is, "to make the whole world a library. Book Crossing is a book exchange of infinite proportion, the first and only of its kind." The idea is to leave a book that's moved you in a public place for someone else to pick up. That person does likewise and so on and so forth. You can track your book's progress via a sticker that the site provides. It's a brilliant idea; I think I'll start doing that, at once.
For those of you who don't know him, Jonathan Carroll is an author. His books are largely slipstream fantasies--dreamscapes glazed upon ordinary life. They're about the magic of true love and imagination, philosophy, talking dogs, and heroes/heroines who eat far more Sachertorte than is probably healthy for any human being to consume. I can't recommend him enough. Especially his book White Apples.
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