Hello from NYC!

 

The last time I was here I wasn't a published author. Now I am. I'm also here with my family. All of these things make a huge difference. 

NYC doesn't intimidate me. Maybe it should. I'm too busy enjoying it.

Today's writing

That’s the problem with the revolving door of rule around here: the changing guard leaves scars. There’s no real hope of getting rid of history when it lives all around you. In America, we’re different. We knock shit down when it no longer pleases us. A 50-year-old McDonald’s is considered historic. And you know what – I miss my home.

Applied to the NEA

Fingers crossed ... as always.

There are some opportunities you just continue to apply to until maybe ... maybe.

Today's writing

He cocked his head and touched the small of my back. Follow me. We wound our way past political theory and gender studies, ending up at a small sign that said SEXUALITY. 

 “I like to look here,” he said. 

That strange wriggling feeling I already had at the back of my neck got more frenzied. I felt hot at the pulse points. 

Was he – 

 “I’m not gay,” he said, “just in case you’re wondering.” 

 “No.” The response came out as if I had automated it. “Of course not.” 

 “I’m just curious.” 

“I get it,” I said. “I – I –” 

Did I really get it? 

I’d had a few flickers of thinking I was into women, but they’d passed quickly. The bigger issue was that I was still a virgin and I was starting to think that I’d fuck an alligator if it would have me. Virgins felt like an endangered species around these parts, something to be put under the microscope and studied. Here we have it, the American species of hymen. Here’s how it differs from other species. 

Jesus fucking Christ.

Are they not adorable?

 

St. Louis Arch, 2011

 

Recent writing

Café Bajer emerges from the fog like a friendly stranger, the kind you might consider engaging in conversation. Ve devore the sign reads. Later I will learn this means of the courtyard and indeed there is one, marked by a trendy-looking mannequin wearing a jaunty hat and a blank stare. Further down I see a bird in a cage. Polly want a cappuccino? 

I have found my Czech home. 

How to describe the indescribable? Bajer feels like a weird treasure trove, an antique store on acid – an ancient cash register, a bust of – someone. A fish tank, even. I’m confused and captivated. It feels like such a difference between the resolutely buttoned-up countenances on the street and – this. Where Green Gate Tower didn’t capture my imagination for more than a minute, this is my kind of place. “Hullo!” a voice calls from the counter. 

Americký, the act of being American. In these post-9/11 days, we seem to wring more empathy than enmity from others, Hard gazes soften; judgment finds itself suspended. Even the conductor who sneers at my passport on the train (“United States of Amereeeeeeca”) does it with something resembling a heart. 

But there is no hiding who we are.

Friends of Berkeley Animal Care Services -- Giving Tuesday

 

Today's writing

Everyone looks like they’re with someone else. I try to reason with myself: you’re new in town, do you expect a posse straight out of the box? The answer, of course, is yes. I press on through Pernstyn Square toward Třída Míru, the town’s main drag. To my left is a theatre; to my right a bus stop. Above me is an archway and for a minute my imagination takes me in all sorts of directions. Who has passed under here before me? What were their dreams their thoughts? What brought them here? Then I decide I genuinely don’t give a fuck, and turn up Credence on my headphones.

 

Today's writing

 Come on, Landa. What’s with the self-defeating talk? 

I’m good at it, that’s what. We train our brains, that’s what we do, and I’ve conditioned mine to think some really shitty things. Like the smoking, I enjoy it. There’s something liberating about bathing in the negative. It basically means you’ve got very little to lose. 

 I ruminate on this for the 20 minutes it takes to hit the town center, Pernstyn Square. Here’s where the photographs are made, the memories cemented. Of the very few who travel to Pardubice, none go to my end of town, nor do they explore the edge where the school lies. They come here to explore Green Gate Tower, to sit in the shadow of wedding-cake roofs, to clamor down into caves and hoist a glass.

Today's writing

Everything in me slammed shut when he approached me at Farley’s, the Potrero Hill coffeehouse I favored when in the city. I froze my ass off there, but I liked their brownies. 

I was considering reading The Bell Jar – though not actually holding it – when he materialized at tableside, mumbling about “Sylvia” as if he and Plath had always been on a first-name basis. He was a dark hulk stumbling slowly toward me, and all I wanted to do was flee. 

Given the power of hindsight, I would have realized that he was nervous, that he longed to build some sort of conversation but lacked the tools. He just came over and bumbled his way through. I could have had empathy, but then again, maybe I couldn’t. I just wanted him to leave like yesterday. 

It was nothing I could name, nothing I could place. Sometimes you just know – but what do you know? Can you trust what’s in your head? Can you relate to what’s in your heart? 

“I’ve been a writer for 10 years,” he said. “I’ve written two hundred poems.” 

It’s like he’s reading me his resume. 

It wasn’t that, though. I couldn’t figure out what the hell was coming out of his mouth. He didn’t seem proud; he didn’t act as though he was trying to impress me. He said it as a fact of his life, as if he updated the figures every time they changed. 

“I write too,” I said. 

“How long?” 

 “I don’t know.” I twiddled a piece of hair between two outstretched fingers. “Forever.” 

 He didn’t meet my eyes. He just glanced around the café, down at the table, up at the ceiling. When lost in thought he would close his lids and purse his lips. At some point he had taken a seat. Something told him I wanted company – and not just any company, but his. Something said to him take a seat at her table. He found something about me inviting. That made me like him, if only for a moment.

Upcoming readings

On Nov. 21, I'll be in conversation with Barak Engel, author of Ascendance: The Crack in the Crystal, at A Great Good Place for Books in Montclair, Oakland: 7 p.m.

Then on Nov. 23, I'm reading at Jered's Pottery! Join us!

Oasis, "Don't Look Back in Anger"

 [Verse 1]

Slip inside the eye of your mind
Don't you know you might find
A better place to play?
You said that you'd never been
But all the things that you've seen
Slowly fade away

[Pre-Chorus]
So I start a revolution from my bed
'Cause you said the brains I had went to my head
Step outside, summertime's in bloom
Stand up beside the fireplace
Take that look from off your face
You ain't ever gonna burn my heart out

[Chorus]
And so, Sally can wait
She knows it's too late as we're walkin' on by
Her soul slides away
But "Don't look back in anger," I heard you say

[Verse 2]
Take me to the place where you go
Where nobody knows
If it's night or day
Please don't put your life in the hands
Of a rock 'n' roll band
Who'll throw it all away

[Pre-Chorus]
I'm gonna start a revolution from my bed
'Cause you said the brains I had went to my head
Step outside, 'cause summertime's in bloom
Stand up beside the fireplace
Take that look from off your face
'Cause you ain't ever gonna burn my heart out

[Chorus]
And so, Sally can wait
She knows it's too late as she's walking on by
My soul slides away
But "Don't look back in anger," I heard you say

[Guitar Solo]

[Chorus]
So, Sally can wait
She knows it's too late as we're walking on by
Her soul slides away
But "Don't look back in anger," I heard you say
So, Sally can wait
She knows it's too late as she's walking on by
My soul slides away
But "Don't look back in anger
Don't look back in anger"
I heard you say

[Outro]
"At least not today"

Today's writing

I place the butter, milk, eggs, and potatoes in my refrigerator, which happens to be outside. Nothing here makes any sense, which means I'm the one who's nonsensical.

Who said she could come clean my apartment?

Writers Night Out

This Tuesday!

In the immortal words of Towlie ...

I am so high. I have no idea what is going on.

Marilyn's story

Marilyn Abildskov is a professor who became a friend. Check out her genius. 

New York

We're going in December, flying into my favorite city in the world (other than Toulouse, France) and making our way down to Charlotte to see my brother. I can't wait. Baz has only ever been to New York in utero. He'll love it.

Bottle of red, bottle of white

Whatever kind of mood you're in tonight
I'll meet you any time you want
In our Italian restaurant

- Billy Joel

October 7

What can be said that has not already been expressed? 

Bring the hostages home. 

Moved in

The quality of silence here is of birdsong.

We leave slivers of ourselves behind.

This is what we mourn.

This is what we celebrate. 

This is the cycle that is life. 

Anxiety

It's clawing at me from the inside out. It always does when I get what I want. 

Fueled by Philz

I dodged so many bullets.

Most of them were from people who didn't know what they wanted. 

Sometimes I think they're the most dangerous ones. 

The horrid neighbor

She and her friends played loud music and screamed in the street at midnight. Then she slashed our tires when we called the cops.

She made fun of Baz for being scared to take the bus when he was in kindergarten.

She bragged in front of us that "I got all the white and Asian people working for me" at school, then beat her child until he wailed audibly.

She took up so much space, so much air, that our own living room felt polluted by her. 

She will never read this. 

Yesterday

Twenty-second anniversary of our first kiss. We sat on a bench on Piedmont Avenue. He pressed down so hard my mouth hurt. Then he paced. "I can't help it," he said. "The energy."

Last year

This played over and over:

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends.

Good memories, yes

There are indeed good memories here. 

I cried watching this. Baz put his arms around me and lay his head on my shoulder. "Does this make you sad?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "And happy too."

What I learned this weekend

At Family Camp, Camp Loma Mar: 

- Cold showers SUCK. Especially when the lights go out.

- It's really, really important to be close to the bathroom. Let's say our cabin was not.

- I want to try camping again because when I hate something for the first time, I find it interesting later on down the road. I mean, that's how I felt about Adam when I first met him ...

Dave Navarro on Instagram

I was re-reading Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and it occurred to me that there is a strong parallel between his work and that of our own. The leaves represent the cycle of life and death, yet he continued to work on the body of poems until his own death in 1892. Perhaps he, like us, was unable to fully understand his own work as he continuously tried to re-write, add and expand upon it, willing away his own work’s cycle of life… just as we have. Perhaps it’s simpler to recognize when something is gone and learn from the magical lesson of grief rather than avoid it and remain in a consistent state of dissatisfaction.

Albert Camus

The older I get, the more I find that you can only live with those who free you, who love you with an affection that is as light to bear as it is strong to feel.

Today's life is too hard, too bitter, too anemic, for us to undergo new bondages, from whom we love. This is how I am your friend, I love your happiness, your freedom, Your adventure in one word, and I would like to be for you the companion we are sure of, always.

Visuals

Here's where we're moving!

Money

I'm talking to a close friend about money. He was surprised when I told him I spent my twenties broke as anything. I mean, we're talking broke. I haven't been there for a long time. I hope never to be there again. 

That's right!

 

Deborah on Facebook, 2017

You know, it took me a while to get this, what Allison meant. She had to remind me of the historical date...which had been slipping in & out of my consciousness. Allison was the first one to tell me a version of what happened on 9/11 sixteen years ago. She said, over the telephone, "I think a plane crashed into a building in NY. I don't know when I'll be able to fly...they're closing all the airports." "For a crash in New York?" All was unclear, in those early hours.

The Killers

Are we human, or are we dancer?

Wouldn't It Be Nice

I'm listening to the Beach Boys right now. We could be married/and then we'd be happy ...

That line always made me laugh. Not in a cynical way, but just in an isn't that naive way. Marriage is not the ticket to happiness. The reverse may, however, be true. 

I love Adam so much. I don't write about that as much these days. That's because I'm not trying to prove anything. Who would I need to prove it to?

Barenaked Ladies

I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve
I have a history of losing my shirt

Portland

Thirty-six hours on the train. Loralee and Woodlawn. Lunch with Mohr and Britney. Showing Baz around for the third time, priceless.

Reno

We dropped Baz off at the bus for camp, hustled up to Nevada. We spent time drinking, talking, laughing. We came together, rediscovered.

It was awesome.

I'm with her

Adam and I first met at work. There I also encountered a woman I'll call Sue, because that was her name. Sue had battled breast cancer and won. Unfortunately, that did not give her any more of a holistic perspective. She was a bit of a bitch, if I am to be honest, and I am to be just that. 

Donald Trump is just as blind. Son of a bitch gets nicked -- nicked! -- by a bullet meant for his head, and still he hasn't learned anything about life.

He's an idiot. And I'm with Kamala.

Watching this guy with no arms walk around outside this cafe

Really, the post title is what it's all about. 

From my new project

I'm 27 years old, and I'm lost without a path. I can't find the Czech Republic on a map. I still think it's twinned with Slovakia. I've barely heard of the Velvet Divorce.

My point is that I'm running. Fast and far, as rapidly as my stumpy legs can take me. And I've just hit a dead end that resounds globally. 

And now it's summer

I like summer. I like the slow pace and the it's-okay-do-it-later attitude. Things seem quieter, more chill, and that's because they are. Baz is doing the summer things: summer school, camps, and so on. We went to the Alameda County Fair yesterday in Pleasanton. It was cute as hell and he loved it. Very cool.

Boys are out of town

They're in Southern California. I'm home. It's quiet. Not too quiet, just quiet enough. It brings me back to living on my own, to what that was like. No one to answer to. Nobody to come home to. 

Advantages, disadvantages. We all exist in the in-between.

Michael on CONFLAGRATION

Your talent juts off the page like a cumming cunt. It just does.

Great quotes

Both from The Killers' "Read My Mind" (the song that got us to Tokyo in 2007):

"I pull up to the front of your driveway/with magic soaking my spine."

"The stars are blazing/like rebel diamonds/cut out of the sun."

GREAT STUFF.

I keep away from Runaround Sue

Driving down The Strip, we saw these guys rocking OUT (and videoing themselves, natch) to this song. It was hilarious. We had good times in Vegas. And we're going to Reno in. July when Baz is in camp! Back to closing down bars ...

Conflagration is DONE!

Now writing up a synopsis ...

"It won't always be this way"

It's hard having a kid. That's not breaking news. It's just the truth. Last night I was all pissed off because I just wanted to go out with Adam to some dive bar, maybe stay out until dawn. But we couldn't. I love Baz with every cell in my body, but it's hard.

"It won't always be this way," Adam said. For better or worse, he's right. 

2016

 

Excellent article on Judaism in today's times

My friend Peter sent me this. Worth a read. 

Pitch

Sent something to LitHub on the strength of an exchange with Marcus -- it totally inspired me. A random intro:

2009. 

In my mid-30s, a writer with more inspiration than money. I was walking down Oakland, California's Piedmont Avenue when a printed article caught my eye under the overhang of the Piedmont Theatre. It was written by that film-criticism master Roger Ebert. "One human life, closely observed, is everyone's life," it declared. "In the particular is the universal."

At that moment, my work changed. 

Something to know

Don't piss me off. You won't like me when I'm angry. Trust me. 

Queensryche, "Silent Lucidity"

Your mind tricked you to feel the pain

Of someone close to you leaving the game of life

So here it is, another chance

Wide awake you face the day, your dream is over

Or has it just begun?

From CONFLAGRATION

Saint Orres doesn’t loom or hunker. It regards. Highway One, the Pacific Ocean, cars wending their way along the rise, brush tattooing the slope on which it sits. In California, brush is a fuck-you to the environment, a fount of fire. Yet you see it everywhere. Such is the arrogance of this state.

The most personal listing copy

I've been a real-estate writer throughout my career, but writing my mother's copy was something else.

Yup!

I'm 50 today. Yay me!

Posted this on FB eons ago

Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. it's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere. - Barack Obama

Truth

You know how you always think you're so fat, then you see pics of yourself that show you you're not so bad? It's like that. 

Authors Answer blog

It's here! 

From Conflagration

Vegas

It was fun. It was tiring. It was a LOT of family time. I'm glad we did it, but I'm also glad we came back.

Dinnertime

 

From CONFLAGRATION

So much of parenthood is just looking. We watch our creations do what our creations will do. Our little Frankensteins, our babies. Arise, my creation. Live. I watched his chest rise and fall as I had done so many nights before when he was younger, particularly when he was just a newborn. You run the risk of losing them then. It gets a little less dicey as they get older, but then again, does it?

Does it?

2018

 

That's right

 

I miss you so much, baby

 

Running today

And the Editor's Pick.

I played this for my dying mother

Well life on the farm is kinda laid back
Ain't much an old country boy like me can't hack
It's early to rise, early in the sack
I thank God I'm a country boy

Well a simple kinda life never did me no harm
A raisin' me a family and workin' on the farm
My days are all filled with an easy country charm
Thank God I'm a country boy

Well I got me a fine wife I got me an ol' fiddle
When the sun's comin' up I got cakes on the griddle
And life ain't nothin' but a funny funny riddle
Thank God I'm a country boy

When the work's all done and the sun's settlin' low
I pull out my fiddle and I rosin up the bow
The kids are asleep so I keep it kinda low
Thank God I'm a country boy

I'd play Sally Goodin all day if I could
But the Lord and my wife wouldn't take it very good
So I fiddle when I can and I work when I should
Thank God I'm a country boy

Well I got me a fine wife I got me an ol' fiddle
When the sun's comin' up I got cakes on the griddle
Life ain't nothin' but a funny funny riddle
Thank God I'm a country boy, woo

Well I wouldn't trade my life for diamonds or jewels
I never was one of them money hungry fools
I'd rather have my fiddle and my farmin' tools
Thank God I'm a country boy

Yeah, city folk drivin' in a black limousine
A lotta sad people thinkin' that's a mighty keen
Well, son, let me tell ya now exactly what I mean
I thank God I'm a country boy

Well I got me a fine wife I got me an ol' fiddle
When the sun's comin' up I got cakes on the griddle
And life ain't nothin' but a funny funny riddle
Thank God I'm a country boy

Well, my fiddle was my daddy's 'til the day he died
And he took me by the hand, held me close to his side
Said, "live a good life, play my fiddle with pride
And thank God you're a country boy"

Well, my daddy taught me young how to hunt and how to whittle
Taught me how to work to play a tune on the fiddle
He taught me how to love and how to give just a little
And thank God I'm a country boy

Well I got me a fine wife I got me an ol' fiddle
When the sun's comin' up I got cakes on the griddle
Life ain't nothin' but a funny funny riddle
Woo, thank God I'm a country boy, yes

Round House Cafe

 

Interview with Bold Journey

It's here!

Tracy Chapman at the Grammies

Beautiful.

Queensryche, "Silent Lucidity"

Hush now, don't you cry

Wipe away the teardrop from your eye
You're lying safe in bed
It was all a bad dream spinning in your head

Your mind tricked you to feel the pain
Of someone close to you leaving the game of life
So here it is, another chance
Wide awake you face the day, your dream is over
Or has it just begun?

There's a place I like to hide
A doorway that I run through in the night
Relax child, you were there
But only didn't realize and you were scared

It's a place where you will learn
To face your fears, retrace the years
And ride the whims of your mind
Commanding in another world
Suddenly you hear and see this magic new dimension

will be watching over you
(I) am gonna help you see it through
(I) will protect you in the night
(I) am smiling next to you, in silent lucidity

I can't do this
Visualize your dream, record it in the present tense
Put it into a permanent form
If you persist in your efforts, you can achieve dream control
How's that then, better?
Dream control, dream control
Help me

If you open your mind for me
You won't rely on open eyes to see
The walls you built within
Come tumbling down, and a new world will begin

Living twice at once, you learn
You're safe from the pain in the dream domain
A soul set free to fly
A round trip journey in your head
Master of illusion, can you realize
Your dream's alive, you can be the guide but

will be watching over you
(I) am gonna help you see it through
(I) will protect you in the night
(I) I'm smiling next to you

From CONFLAGRATION

There’s that old resentment. I don’t know if I feel chained in marriage or around Ross in particular, but sometimes I feel as though he has his claws in me and I can’t escape. It’s weird – he’s such an easygoing person on the surface, but can be so intense at heart. Maybe it’s me that’s intense – intense in the sense of not wanting to be tied down. Maybe that’s not what I ever wanted.

What would have happened if I’d never gotten married?

2016

 

Noe Valley

 

San Diego

My brother and I were going through my mom's stuff. We came upon her purse. Her wallet, her perfume, vaccine literature that was probably never read and now never would be. "This is the tough part," he said. He was right.

2020

 

The first kiss

Man, we made out so hard it hurt. If I didn't know I would marry him then, I should have. 

Monterey