Don't Regret Me

Twenty three days and no post. This could be a record. The other week I went through and tried to update my journal, which had not been touched since February. Februrary! That was most certainly a record. Could so little have happened that I didn't have to turn to my journal? Watching Cloud Atlas, I realized that people back in the day used to write journals about everything. People sailing around would write all the mundane stuff down and then a hundred years later they would become valuable anthropological artifacts. Thus, as an ode to them, I must return to the journal, however trivial.

My friend sent me an email the other week, sort of thanking me, sort of inspiring me, and it reminded me that I was a really different person ten years ago. I cared more about stuff. I cared more about people. Somehow I best return to that. In the meantime, let's catch up.

Okay, nevermind. That was useless. Mostly I just had two weddings, a week long visit from San Franciscans, and a neverending deadline. On Sunday night/morning, after the wedding, I was in the hotel lobby cranking out the finishing touches on a non-masterpiece. The last New York wedding I went to, in 2008, I did a similar thing. Post-festivities and I was downstairs trying to cram in a few edits before I sent a draft off. Clearly my writing career only coalesces around New York weddings.

Right now there is a hurricane combo storm. I am underprepared but at the same time overprepared. I was built to subsist on not a lot of food, little to no light, and so far I've lost neither power, Internet, or sanity. Mary isn't here so I'm just chilling out, filling my bathtub full of water in case things go bad. Most everyone I know has lost one service already. To be flippant, nothing is different here in Fort Greene, even as I look at all the flooding photos and lower Manhattan de-powered. I can barely hear the wind tucked into my back room.

You should read Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett. It's about her friendship with Lucy Grealy, who is semi-famous for having her face constantly reconstructed due to cancer. It's the kind of book that's right up my alley, which was surprising to my friend who recommended it. She had told me to read it because it came closest to mirroring the type of relationship she had with her best friend. Somehow she thought I might not like it. That made me question why. What kind of books do I like, from her perspective?

This song by These United States is the right kind of mood setter right now: "So High So Low So Wide So Long."

"The archetypal California girl is long, lean, and tan with knobbed knees and ankles and salt-tangled, honey-colored hair. I am short and pale, with skin that burns and hair that snarls so that I leave the beach pink, itchy, and disheveled."
-Zan Romanoff, "California Girls" (2011)-

I forgot how I got to this blog, Zanopticon, but it's good. Also, I've been following this one, My Dead Parents, trying to discern if it's real or not. It almost certainly is but part of me is afraid it isn't. If it's some broader fiction project, I could even love it more so. I miss the types of blogs that existed more often long ago. Confessional, wordy, brilliant. I must find more.

"My parents have been dead for different versions of 'a while,' so I know I'm not supposed to be crushed by grief, but I never really felt sad at all. That makes me feel guilty, and a little broken. When I hear about other people being devastated by their parents' deaths I think, Shouldn't I be as sad as they are? I don't feel connected to those people at all -- I feel a mix of pity, jealously and revulsion."
-My Dead Parents, "What I Am Up To"-

Liquidate With Extreme Prejudice

If you're looking for something to watch, I have a few recommendations. Looper for scifi action movie fare, the Ai Weiwei documentary Never Sorry, and if you're feeling really adventurous, The Master. Actually the latter I couldn't rightly recommend to anyone. It's not that it's bad, it's just hard to pinpoint who I would tell to watch it. I guess if you like breathtaking cinematography, Joaquin Phoenix, and general confusion, get thee to The Master. I haven't been so anxious to hear a post-movie podcast in quite awhile. Of course, the spoiler podcast didn't really clear stuff up either. Which is okay I guess. Some movies are supposed to be impenetrable.

Everyone should see Never Sorry though, if they can. We were impressed with first time filmmaker Alison Klayman's sure handed direction and editing. She's quite young and sort of stumbled into the project, but her timing could not have been better as Ai Weiwei blew up over the time she was filming him. To think that Klayman, an American who learned Mandarin during her time in China, produced this great documentary is mind boggling. If I went to China, I can't imagine how I could undertake such a project. She must be fearless.

• Q&A with director Alison Klayman
• ReThink Interview: Alison Klayman
• Chance Encounters Interview

We convened our first book club meeting tonight, after talking about it for most of the summer. It's taken awhile because I read half of the wrong Murakami -- the three-in-one monster that is 1Q84 -- before realizing it. So I had to skitter through Kafka on the Shore as fast as I could. (I hadn't known about it previously but the highlight text feature on the Kindle is fabulous. Even better than bending down the corners of pages.) Murakami is known for passive protagonists and this book is no exception. His main characters lack agency, and they basically don't choose to do anything.

Generally, Kafka on the Shore is about memories and dreams, but that's just a tiny slice. There's also a cat killing scene that will stick with you forever if you let it. Never mind the incest. Even though we spent three hours talking about it, complete with going over specific quotes, I still feel the need to gain perspective on Kafka on the Shore from Murakami lovers. I feel like maybe I missed something(s). It's the kind of book that sucks you in but then frustrates.

We began book club with a warm up discussion about Fifty Shades of Grey, while downing a giant ball of mozzarella-like cheese that I forgot the name of. The ball was seriously the size of my fist. And really, two people can only eat so much cheese, however delicious. My food ignorance is reaching embarrassing levels as menus nowadays hold many mysteries to me. Tonight's WTFs: escarole, polpettine, orecchiette, bucatini, polpettone.

"In ancient times people weren't just male or female, but one of three types: male/male, male/female, or female/female. In other words, each person was made out of the components of two people. Everyone was happy with this arrangement and never really gave it much thought. But then God took a knife and cut everybody in half, right down the middle. So after that the world was divided just into male and female, the upshot being that people spend their time running around trying to locate their missing other half."
-Kafka on the Shore-

Back and Forth

It's been just about a month since I've been here.  I feel like I've done nothing.  First two weeks was people visiting and then I launched into some writing that had to be done.  I had a deadline yesterday and I hit it, sort of, but rewrites have to begin again. I was lamenting today with Jennifer about how we really haven't done anything since being in New York.  She's been on a project that has taken a lot of time to put together and then two weekends in Syracuse to install and show.

We were talking about how the pressure of a deadline really just makes life and creation unbearable.  The constant "how fast can I work" calculations balanced with "how good will this be" fears.  I really don't like that aspect of it at all. I just want it to end.  The reward is a sense of accomplishment -- however fleeting -- but I don't really care about that.  I'm pretty good with not accomplishing I think.

I thought the joy was supposed to be in the work, the time spent doing it. But instead I just tend to avoid it whenever possible.  Until it's unavoidable.

Things I have stepped out to do:  Brooklyn Book Fair for a few hours, a wonderful outdoor dance party to stalk a DJ I'm in love with (the kind of true love where you just stand twenty feet away and stare), a Saturday conference for book bloggers.

Those are the only times I've left the house in about two weeks.  Have I been more productive?  Not particularly.  What I've done instead is just sit in front of the computer trying to get words out, even while I completely let everything online fall apart.  Is this how regular people feel?  When they just keep falling behind and there's no time to do things?

Every day I look out the window and see the incoming weather change and lament that I can't even get away with wearing menpris soon. I don't even have an iPhone 5 in my hand, as I've been waiting to reward myself for a job well done on this book.  Since the book is not done, no reward.  Sigh.

Wait, what am I even complaining about?  Geezes. Snap out of it man! I hope to return to regularly scheduled programming in two weeks, when everyone arrives for weddings. In fact, it has to be, because if this project doesn't get done by then, I'll have no time to play. It's October but I'm already staring at November.

For our first roommate activity, Mary and I went to do laundry yesterday afternoon. Since moving in, we haven't walked to a subway together, seen each other outside of the apartment, or eaten a single meal that involved sitting down. She's out, I'm in, or vice versa.  It's working out well.  Except our grand plans to explore and attend things is clearly not happening.  Perhaps next month.  When she's in the Yucatan.

Basically we are time sharing an apartment, with occasional check-ins if our paths cross.