The Secret to Life!

Belief System

I believe that life is too short to drink bad coffee.
I believe in making pie crusts. They are easier than you think and SO MUCH BETTER than frozen.
I believe that you can't hear your favorite song enough times in a row.
I believe in long walks with music in your ears. With a good soundtrack, your life is the best movie ever.
I believe that handwriting letters and mailing them regularly has the power to change your life and someone else's.
I believe that polaroid photographs are totally underrated.
I believe that mixed CDs are not the same as mixed tapes.
I believe in driving across the country.
I believe in leaving the country.
I believe that honesty is not as hard, and more important than most people think.
I believe that there should be yoga and nap rooms in the office world.
I believe that there should also be creativity options in the office world.
I believe in personal boundaries.
I believe that our lives matter more than any of us think.
I believe that we all have a story that helps us and a story that hurts us.
I believe that the reminder that we are all terminal on this bus, erases the question of what is important in our lives.
I believe making lists of your beliefs, favorite things, and inspirations have transforming qualities.

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Flannel Pajamas

On wednesday night, Graham and I went and saw Flannel Pajamas, a film that has been getting RAVE reviews EVERYWHERE, citing it as a relationship film up there with the likes of Annie Hall and Scenes from a Marriage. It could have been two hours of paint drying, for all I cared--I was just excited that I got to leave work early and go see a movie!

Never go see a movie that has hard edged, crusty critics, who usually HATE everything saying that it was the best thing they'd seen of its kind and that as long as they live, they will never forget it. I tell you now, that there is no place to go but down (and down we both went). I didn't like it that much, but that's all I'll say, and all I got out of my mouth to Graham, as we were walking out of the theater, when the usher stopped us and said, "WAIT! We forgot to tell people, the director is here to do a Q & A!" How often do you get to a chance to leave work early and go see a movie? How often is that followed with the actual WRITER AND DIRECTOR popping up and saying, "HEY! Is there anything you want to ask me?" So, we turned around and stayed with about 6 other people to talk with Jeff Lipsky.

For the record, we were of the minority who didn't like it. Two people thought it was the best thing they'd seen of its kind and as long as they lived, they'd never forget it. They also thought they were watching a movie about their own relationships and raised their hands to say, "I saw the scene when they are talking and I realized, YES, all those relationships I had WERE a waste of time!" Another woman said, "This movie showed me that men really DON'T have empathy." Which made Jeff Lipsky sort of chuckle and say, "Well, I'm not sure that's what I was going for in this movie, but I do think empathy is important in a relationship."

The things that this event told me: Filmmakers can be nervous, funny, and very human. They can also be great on the spot therapists, filtering people's entire histories with intimacy, and revealing even some of their own histories. I actually liked the movie a lot more after hearing him speak about what went into it. It is so easy to judge and to regard largely released art, like movies, and who makes them. Seeing the bald and nerdy Lipsky, with a microphone, talking to a room of 6 people, fielding their own reactions to his work, made me see it doesn't matter how "big" the project is--it's still, ultimately human. I hoped that they had told the NEXT showing that he would be there at the end. As a fellow human and an artist, I know I'd want a larger audience to talk to.

Thanksgiving

Thanks a heap for Peets coffee. Peet, you cool dude of 1970's Berkeley, I thank you for my green mug of hot steaming delicious beverage every morning. Thank you for shipping across the country. I am a proud Peetnik.

Thanks for the heat and hot water coming back on after the guys working on the apartment downstairs busted a pipe. Believe me, if the world knew how CLOSE THEY CAME to smelling my neighbors, Graham, and I after a few days of no showers, they would be giving THANKS too.

Thanks for the pink in my studio. I feel oddly calm when I look at it.

Thanks for the GE Building I pass every day to get to work. It not only makes me think of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera protesting the demolition of Diego's mural, outside its walls, but it's a beautiful building, with red marble and art deco cascades. It reminds me of why I love living in New York.

Thank you for guy who laughed and smiled with me while waiting for the subway the other night. I was watching a crumpled dollar bill on the yellow of the subway line, wondering WHO WOULD PICK IT UP? Why wasn't the young woman standing in front of it picking it up, or the people passing over it? Then, suddenly, a Hispanic man in middle age, looked down and picked it up. As he did, he looked up at me, and we both just started grinning, and then, for no reason at all, laughing. That was FOUND MONEY to me, on a Monday night commute home.

This morning, coming into work, I was crushed in with the commuters of New York City and their suitcases, which I vowed not to trip over and yet, I managed to trip over. Before I left I heard of 38 million travelers making their way to destinations of 50 miles away or more. In a city that makes every day an EVENT with its crowds and activities, I am SO GLAD that tomorrow I will be in the safe confines of my colorful apartment, cooking in my pajams, watching movies with my groom, and probably yelling at my cats to stop attacking eachother.

Thank you for this, and thank you for so much more, and everything.

Happy Thanksgiving EVERYONE!

Some Things I Absolutely Know

I am reading Carolyn See’s incredibly inspiring book, Making a Literary Life. I’ve had this for years, and have read parts of it, but in a low point of NOW WHAT, I picked it up and have since felt my literary aspirations invigorated. This morning I was reading about her basic ideas for plot is that you simply have well written characters and have them DO something. Also, you should write entirely from what you ABSOLUTELY KNOW. So I started to think, what are the things I absolutely know?

I know the color of the California skyline goes from blue to rust, when you’re flying in to San Francisco or San Jose.

I know the sound of my mother dragging on her third cigarette in the morning.

I know the mixture of dirt, cement, and pebbles that make up the driveway of my elementary school, and the sound that rubber wheels of bikes and cars make driving on it.

I know the bruised patches that Graham gets on his lips when he’s tired or rung out.

I know the white barked trees that line Bryant Street, in my hometown, with the leaves the size of my hands, but not the names of them.

I know the route from my house to my best friend’s house I used to ride on my bike on the way to school.

I know the smell of that friend’s head, and her laugh, and what she was wearing the day I met her.

I know the lay out of the house I lived the longest in, and the phone number, and the way our kitchen looked.

I know the pock marks on my dad’s brown shoulders, and the way he runs his tongue against the back of his front teeth, when he is really tasting something sweet.

These are things I absolutely know. There’s more, of course, and what emerges is that I know lots of things and it isn’t hard to figure them out, or make them up. If you are looking for new sources, what are the things that you truly know—intimately, without thinking to hard? What are the things that you have lived with, believed in, experienced? You are smarter than you think.

I Tried

Just another random event, at home, on a saturday night.

I've been remiss in writing here, mainly because I have no regular access to the internet, but also because these days I have felt CLEAN of any INTERESTING MATERIAL, otherwise known as BORING AS HELL. Actually, there are a number of things I'd LIKE to write about, but I am up against that WHAT IS APPROPRIATE. I can't talk about work, or situations that might prove TOUCHY for other people, unless I want to create problems for myself (which I don't), but OH IT'S SUCH GOOD DIRT!

In any case, here is some NEWSY stuff. I am going to be posting more flyers soon. I was inspired by the recent article in the Newyorker on the playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, who wrote a short play every single day for a year. She said that it became this sort of daily prayer to art, to life, to a life of art, and it seemed to take a life of its own. It made me think again of ritual, and how much I thrive witha a very specific daily practice. The flyers are relatively easy. They are quick, so I can fit them in during any kind of busy day, and they require both writing and drawing. I think I can do them every day for a single year. So it's been just over a week, and so far so good. I don't look at them again, because it feels like they lose their meaning if I check back on my work so soon. I want to give it two weeks, before I look back on them. So right now, they are quietly forming themselves in a folder above my desk. Everytime I think I don't have it in me, I am surprised by what I find again and again: an old prom date, a first night in Brooklyn, my kid brother's cereal bowl. Things I haven't given a second thought IN YEARS. Somehow I think that is what writing can give us--our lives back. Here I think I am so clean of material, when as I think about it, I've been working over the details of my life, and creating stories from them. It's just that it is SO QUIET. There aren't any giant firworks or parades or GREAT LEAPS that can be seen. Yet, somehow the leap is in the trying. I swear, my tombstone will read: I tried. Maybe that's all there is to do.

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Coney Island Baby

Yesterday Graham and I decided to play hookie and what better thing to do on a weekday on a beautiful fall day, but escape to Coney Island, like a couple of runaways? Niether of us had been there and I secretly have had a total fantasy of going out there o a day like this, when the crowds are gone, and the place is empty, and closed down. It is RARE when an idea of something lives up ALMOST EXACTLY to what you imagined it. We got off the near empty subway, only to be greeted by signs for Mermaid Avenue, where the late great folk hero, Woody Guthrie lived. I suddenly got REALLY EXCITED. We walked out and the streets were sunny and cold and empty. Not a sight you see often in the New York City proper. We crossed over to Nathan's hotdogs and ate ourselves sick on chilidogs. Note to anyone who dares do this: SKIP THE CHEESE. I don't know why I imagined a lovely pile of shredded cheddar, but the shock and DISMAY of seeing the heaping SPOUT BORNE "cheese" sent me AGAST. I know what you're thinking: You ordered CHILIDOGS and the FAKE CHEESE SCARED YOU? Yep, it did. It also proved inedible. I had to scrape it off. It was ike eating Graham's socks, after a day of strenuous hiking.

Then we set out for the Boardwalk. I've never been so happy to see a bunch of seagulls in my life. It meant we were near an ocean, and as we made the trek and spotted the steel blue horizon, I felt a rush of RELIEF come over me. The OCEAN! Thank GOD FOR OCEANS. I hadn't realized how much I missed knowing I was on a coast of some kind. What's more, the beach was smooth and quiet and DESERTED. SPACE. Actual, room to BREATHE and hear LITTLE TO NOTHING. PHEW!

It was so fun and relaxing. It also stirred my sense of adventure and imagination. Something I've been needing to feed lately. It was invigorating. I've had a secret fever for Coney Island, ever since I saw a PBS documentary on it. As we strolled along the desolate, sunny boardwalk, looking at what seemed like the DREGS of carnival structures, and deserted lots, you's never imagine the GRANDEUR that took place there at one time, the science displays, the animals, the "cultural" exhibits.

Walking along the seaside, and staring into an American landscape, filled with mystery and gaudy structures was exactly what I needed to appreciate once more where I am. It turns out, I don't need to travel very far to find the mystery I've been looking for. All I had to do was say yes to cheese at a seaside hotdog place to find the most MYSTERY I've found in a long long time.