#11: yo' mama

I think the world of you; you're talented, a great listener, you have a great sense of humor. But sometimes you get under my skin.

Once upon a time you were saying something to somebody about something you'd just created and I made a comment about how you were managing to work it into every conversation you had. You turned to me and said, "Stop harshing my high... Seriously." Even though you were serious, I had to laugh. For one thing, using "street lang"; for another, being upset by that. But I understood that it might've come off as rude. So I backed off. Let it go. No biggie.

More recently, I asked you if you'd heard of a band I've just discovered and love and you said, "I can't stand them," and you went on for ten minutes about exactly what's wrong with them -- even though you know a couple of the people in the band -- which mushroomed into other bands you can't stand for the same or similar reasons, which in turn became about specific classic songs that you can't stand. I didn't know what to say. In my bed at the end of the night I figured out that the proper response whould've been: Don't harsh my high.

I wish I'd had the insight in the moment to be able to say "WTF, dude?" to which you would likely have apologized profusely and blamed your actions on the way your mother acts, that you got it from her, that it's something you're working on. But, come on, you've been working on it for in therapy for longer than I've known you and it has always been the overriding Issue in your life.

So I don't mean to get down your throat (or whatever the kids are saying on the streets) but I just needed to vent a little bit so that the next time a sitch like this comes up I'll be able to say, "Don't harsh my high! I love that band! I don't have a myriad of reasons to compete with why I think they're great to combat why you think they're not, but who gives a rat's ass? How about a little compash here!"

Or, I could take the stance that I learned from my mama, which would be to not say anything about it at all, to slowly, over time, start hating you, seethe about the way you are, not be able to have anything to do with you. And I don't want that, because I really do like you.

obama, oh boy!

I don't think I've ever heard a presidential candidate speak in a way that brought tears to my eyes before. Not till now. Barack's South Carolina victory speech did it to me a couple of times. He's a good speaker, and I sure would like to see him in the White House.

man hug

One of the neighbors -- a handsome Indian dude I'll call R -- had a vegetarian potluck birthday party last night to celebrate his 32nd. I skipped my writing group to go because how often do you get to hang out with your neighbors and their friends? It felt a little bit like skipping Wednesday night church to go hang out at the pizza parlor with the Christian Youth Group (in other words, it felt naughty, but was harmless).

R has a girlfriend now, a gorgeous woman he met at a meditation retreat. I've seen her biking around the neighborhood but wasn't sure she was with him; he's been so reluctant to commit in the two years that I've known him. The two of them had spent all day and the night before cooking amazing Thai dishes, and when S and I got there, they were pouring cake batter into floured pans and she was heading out the front door to put them in another neighbor's oven because R's doesn't work.

My social discomfort flared up when we walked through the door -- me with my Grand Marnier cranberry sauce, S with his curried cauliflower -- because I didn't know any of the three people there. But they were very sweet and talkative; one of them was the father of the two-year-old running around, the other two were a hetero couple (who were particularly talkative and sweet; before long S was involved in a deep, comfortable conversation and I let go of my silly fear that I have to take care of him in social situations because he's so q.u..i...e...t). I hung out in the kitchen talking to R and H and greeting the others who were arriving rapidly.

Then my future boyfriend arrived. (M doesn't know he's my future boyfriend, and with my track record he's probably not even into boys, but that doesn't really matter for a crush, does it?!) We met in the kitchen then it started getting crowded so I went out to one of the couches, and all of a sudden he was sitting next to me. He had melted milk chocolate eyes, and reminded me of somebody, maybe Rufus Wainwright but a little less fey. He's a psychotherapist in training, and met R (who's an acupuncturist) at a training for another kind of therapy which begins with an H and which I can never remember -- and which has nothing to do with psychotherapy or acupuncture. M and I talked deeply until everyone else had food in front of them, then we went our separate ways, for food and to mingle with others. A few times in the night we found ourselves across from each other and it was comfortable and it was nice, and we're gonna make a wonderful couple...!

A couple of other neighbors arrived -- the big fat pregnant woman, L (going in for a C-section on Monday), her three-year-old and her two step-daughters, and C, the guy from the house behind our triplex -- there were also lots of others in attendance who had lived in our apartment and the various other houses and apartments in our enclave (what C calls the Squirrel Hutch). Nice people, interesting, climbers and meditators and roller derby gals -- Sa announced last night that she found out that "Gladiators" will be auditioning in Austin in February and it has been her childhood dream to be on "Gladiators" so she is going to audition!

S left early to come home to study; I stayed till after the cake was served and then a little longer, talking, helping wash dishes with the two-year-old's mother (who had arrived later), then talking some more. I snagged a piece of cake to bring home for S, gathered up our dishes and leftovers and headed out. Of course I hugged R because he's a sweet man and we hug. Then M was standing there saying, "Nice to meet you; good luck with your novel," or something like that, holding out his hand to be shook, which I reached past and hugged him. Then I hugged R's girlfriend, and nobody else, and headed out the door, embarrassed that I had just done that, hugged that relative stranger, knowing it wasn't worthy of my embarrassment, not that anybody thought anything of it but me, but I guess because I was attracted to him it made me feel really self-conscious that I had.

But I'm glad I did, because it still feels nice to think about.

august chagrin

I'm ready to upload chapter eight ("march eighth") to the yahoo group as my January 30th submission for my fiction critiquing group, and started thinking about chapter nine ("anita cox"), but a strong inspiration for chapter twenty-two ("august chagrin") came to mind yesterday as I was sitting on the porch with an afternoon smoke.

I've been trying to figure out how to tell this chapter in first person because the narrator (Randy) is not present for much of the beginning part. I think I found a way to do that.

The bulk of the chapter takes place in 1989, but it starts on December 31, 1988. It moves forward from there, with Randy getting ready for his New Year's Eve celebrations. He is at home snorting a line of coke to get him off the couch and into the shower. His thoughts go out from there, to the unknown elements of New York City, to people in his building; to his friend Charles, whose party he will be attending (a party to which it is rumored gay icon Quentin Crisp has RSVP'd); to people on the streets -- City employees barricading Times Square, NYPD officers redirecting traffic; busy restaurants, one in particular, Giggles, where a bartender has failed to show up and the lunchtime bartender is required to stay until another night bartender can be located, or else he'll lose his job. That bartender (Gus) calls his "roommate" (as he refers to his boyfriend at work) to tell him (Spider) that he'll be late, but gets a busy signal.

I wrote three pages last night then expanded the three to about twenty this morning. I should be working my job but I'm possessed by chapter twenty-two; I should be working on chapter nine but I'm obsessed by the action taking place in chapter twenty-two. How exciting Inspiration is!

Spider is a junkie artist. His boyfriend the bartender doesn't know this. Gus doesn't do drugs and doesn't even drink much. And he's not sure his decision to move to New York City to live with his boyfriend was such a good idea; three months in things aren't going so well.

But even though he has accidentally knocked the phone off the hook, Spider has the best of intentions on this New Year's Eve. He is going to make it all up to Gus; he is going to apologize; they're gonna have the best time in Times Square (their first New Year's Eve in New York City) because he has gotten a couple hits of acid to enhance the experience.

He's starting to get pissed off, though, because Gus isn't home from work yet like he said he would be. It's getting close to the time when they were planning to leave for the night. Spider knows he's acted like a dick for the previous three months, and has his suspicions that Gus is getting him back, finally, has decided to start being a dick of retribution. Spider doesn't blame him but, goddammit he wishes he would give him five minutes to explain things.

Gus doesn't know Spider has a heroin addiction; that happened in the four months Spider was in New York City alone, before Gus got there. Gus thinks Spider's friend Chase is an asshole, but really, Chase isn't Spider's friend at all, he's his dealer, and the reason he's never said so much as boo to Gus is because Spider told him not to. Chase is an attractive guy, and Gus has had his suspicions about Spider's relationship with him, but Spider insists that it's completely platonic; "Chase is straight -- or bisexual anyway -- and currently involved with a woman." Spider thinks Gus is getting him back; Gus is bisexual, too. But if they can just have this night together, he is sure that everything will be fine.

Spider takes his hit of acid and while he waits for it to start taking effect decides to slip Gus' hit to him "mickey-style" in a cocktail he will have ready for him when he finally does get home. After Gus starts tripping, it'll be too late to turn back, and Spider is sure Gus won't be able to help but enjoy himself.

That's Spider's plan.

Only he can't find the second hit of acid. He realizes as he starts feeling intense that he accidentally took both hits of acid. And now he's going to trip hard. He decides a quick fix of junk will calm him down. He gets the works out of the hiding place in the back of the closet and tries to prepare it in the closet as usual, but he's tripping harder and his eyes are fucking with him and his hands are shaking and something catches on fire. He puts it out but not before setting off the smoke alarm, which he has to destroy to get the screaming to stop.

Eventually Spider makes his way to the kitchen table with the works and Gus comes through the front door of the apartment (which opens into the kitchen) to find Spider intently watching the flame of the lighter under the spoon with the junk in it, heroin and needles on the table, a rubber strap around his arm. It goes downhill from there. (That's all I've got written down.)

Later that night, Randy and Gus meet.

the book

I feel like I should perhaps be keeping notes on my progress with the novel, when I've finished a chapter, when I've submitted to my critiquing group, what their responses are, what my further thoughts are. But that's all so tedious.

I have a few corrections to make per S on chapter eight. I always give him the latest version of a chapter before I present it to the Group. I also have the wonderful ears of P who says she enjoys hearing me read the chapters out loud to her. I know she enjoys it, and it is such a great big help to me to hear myself read what I've written.

That's my biggest goal as a writer, I think, to make the written word sound like a story that is being told. I also picture the events so clearly that I think my writing leans toward being a movie-style description of things.

I noticed this about my writing after a good friend and after a couple of people in the Group said I use a lot of color descriptions. The good friend said this wasn't necessarily a problem; the people in the Group said I might want to consider using some of the other senses in my descriptions (one person said I might want to be a bit more "judicious" with my use of colors in descriptions "because colors evoke very specific memories in peoples' minds." {We certainly don't want that, do we?}) I know I use a lot of colors, but I think I "use the other senses" as well. But like for instance if I write about a smell -- a bad smell perhaps -- the writing of it seems to be more in the reaction of the people experiencing it than an actual chemical description of the smell.

A lot of what the Group comments on annoys me (and when I tell S their comments, they annoy him even more), but I still think it's very good for me, this Group, having a Group, going to a Group regularly because the deadlines give me goals to hit, and having my work critiqued by people who have little interest in it (other than the fact that they have to do so in order to get my critical opinion of their work) is humbling.

Even when people point out seemingly totally ridiculous things, I am forced to look at them, at least for a moment; sometimes that leads me to tweak those things, or sometimes I just feel even more confident in what I've written. S says it seems like these people have no patience. The novel doesn't move in a linear way in the least. Most of the chapters relate to each other pretty obviously in my mind, but then there's chapter five, "didn't stop," which takes place fourteen years before the previous chapter, and which introduces characters that haven't even been hinted about as yet. Crazy!

When I read chapter eight to S, he said, "Your Group is going to let out a huge collective sigh of relief!" It's true, a lot of the frayed edges are associated in chapter eight (though more frays are introduced...). It's thrilling for me to see it come together, and I think it was thrilling for S and P as well to see them come together.

The Group also does point out things that I (and S and P) have missed which I think really do need to be looked at. Many in the Group are very good about technical things, being able to spot inaccuracies (or potential inaccuracies) in plot, character, setting, etc. So it's worth it to me to bear through some of the more ridiculous comments to get to those nuggets that really could make the story stronger.

Okay, so one of the most ridiculous (recent) comments was with regard to a description in chapter seven:

His full lips were accentuated by the lamplight, his top lip the silhouette of a bird in flight.

One person in my Group circled the end of that sentence and wrote next to it "I'm not picturing this metaphor," then further added aloud in the Group meeting, "I can imagine a lot of different bird silhouettes; I can picture a hummingbird, I can picture a condor, but I'm not sure what kind of bird you're referring to."

Those kinds of comments just give me a little inner smile but no panicky feeling that I haven't done my job as a writer... (And I'm not trying to make fun of this person, not too much; I have a really hard time critiquing other peoples' work as well. It's not easy. But that was pretty funny.)

chapter eight: march eighth

One of the most exciting things about having finished chapter eight today is that chapter nine is already pretty much done.

#10: you're in nature

I went on a retreat in Wimberley this weekend for some kind of a self-help style group that I knew on Friday evening was not for me, but I stuck it out till Sunday afternoon because I didn't want to react too quickly.

The nicest thing that happened was falling asleep on the bank of the Blanco River during the Saturday afternoon break. Before I did, I stood there awhile, then sat and wrote this in my little pocket-sized notebook:

I'm sitting on the bank of the Blanco River,
the grass tall and brown-green around me,
making line-shadows across the page.
The water is a pale green,
and through it I can see some of the darker rocks on the bottom.

Three plops to my left;
a family of turtles, mama, papa, and junior, perhaps.
One swims to the middle and down out of focus, out of sight.
Another swims shortly toward me then pokes her head out of the water.
The red marks on the sides of her thumb-sized head look like earrings,
rubies or garnets perhaps.

The wind blows through the sawgrass,
a symphony of dry sounds;
the surface of the Blanco River ripples and the newly-arrived sun glistens
like so many diamonds scattered here and there.

I say hi to the turtle and she pulls her head sharply under the water
and paddles frantically downward, out of focus, out of sight.
I laugh out loud and the sawgrass laughs with me.


Before I fell asleep, you were on my mind. I felt a sadness, a longing. I don't know where this has been coming from lately, but it has been coming constant and strong, like a flowing river, going in a particular direction, the same direction it has always gone.

I was glad to get back home yesterday, back to my space back to my cat, my best friend, a home cooked meal, a beer, a movie, my own bed...

This morning I found this by Khalil Gibran:

When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.


That's it. That's what this is.

a thought

Sometimes, I've got nothing. Not that nothing is going on. Nothing to share. Not really. Too much going on. I've been having vivid dreams, crazy, exciting stuff that I know better than to even attempt describing. They just sit with me, and keep a little smile at the ready.

A couple of mornings ago, I woke up with a thought, and it seemed like an important thought. It was the first sentence to an upcoming chapter. The chapter is pivotal because the narrative goes from first-person to third-person. It has a purpose. The other chapters are all over the place, according to when they take place. (Some in my critiquing group have expressed dissatisfaction, even discomfort with the non-linear telling of the story. Feh!)

I kept spinning the thought around in my head. I didn't want to lose it. So I kept repeating it over and over. I didn't want to just roll over sleepy-eyed and grab the first piece of paper and the first pen and write it down. I wanted to make sure it was right.
I petted the cat.
I got up and peed.
I started the water for the coffee.
I put away the clean dishes.
I got the cat food and the half 'n' half out of the refrigerator.
I fed the cat.
I poured half 'n' half in my coffee cup.
I put the cat food and half 'n' half away.
I got the coffee out of the freezer.
I prepared the coffee filter.
I made my bed.
I turned on the power strip which turned on the internet.
I turned on my computer.
I put the filter on the carafe and poured the boiling water into it.
I entered my password and opened the programs I needed for work.

All the while I kept repeating this oh so important opening sentence to myself. Then I wrote myself an email. I updated it a couple of times throughout the day. This is what I ended up sending to myself:

One event cut a line through the world, divided it into two parts, measurably changed the lives of certain people on either side of it forever. That event took place with Anita Cox.

the last movie i saw (part one)

I don't know if you're the type of person who reads movie reviews before you go to see a movie (I'm not), but this is not a review.

When my favorite movie partner started school this past fall, his schedule got busier, his purse got emptier, and the list of movies we wanted to go see got longer. One of the ones we kept putting off seeing was Lars & the Real Girl. It looked like and was billed as a kind of quirky comedy. I don't have anything against quirky comedies -- in fact, I love them; Junebug, one of my all-time favorite movies, is a quirky comedy.

And it's not because I didn't think Ryan Gosling, the star of Lars, couldn't handle the job of a comedy; I've seen him play everything from a young Jewish neo-Nazi to a crack-addicted inner city school teacher, I think he's an amazing actor (I'm sure he'll have an Oscar eventually, maybe several) and knew he would have no problem with the role of a quiet guy who buys a lifelike silicone doll over the internet to be his girlfriend.

So, I really don't know why we kept putting it off. But I went to see it last night, at the Alamo Ritz (my new favorite theater because it's brand new and because it's the Alamo, so I can drink good draft beer and eat usually yummy food -- the fries were a little stale last night -- and because it's a twenty-minute walk from my house).

I'm thinking the audience got the memo that this was a comedy; they seemed to yuck it up throughout the movie, in strange places, I thought, while I sat there quietly sobbing through most of it. I laughed too; it's a funny tale, but it's also very sweet -- maybe more sweet than funny. I saw it as a movie about social awkwardness, and I've got me a little of that.

Oh, and the fact that Patricia Clarkson was the co-star, well, I would walk an hour to see the combination of the two of them on the screen!