Moving

We are moving yo. As I sat in our living room at 12:45 am last night, all my worldly possessions half packed all over every surface, watching Hoarders on TLC, I had an epiphany. NEED. TO. GET. RID. OF. SHIT... PS. This photo is not my apartment... yet.

100 pages

100 pages isn't that many, right? If one were, say, a 15 year old with chicken pox and a typewriter and a lot going on and a lot of time on her hands- one could, ostensibly, have 100 pages of woe to add to the collection? Right? 100 pages. Friends, boyfriend, poetry, pregnancy?, snark and heartache...creative pursuits. 100 pages. There's chain smoking grandma stuff too, for sure, and an entire childhood to look back on... 100 pages. Just read an interview with Lorrie Moore in my Wisconsin alumni magazine and she said that writing about "coming of age" takes a lot of pages. 100 more pages than I already have? Um, yes. 100 more pages, actually. 1 0 0 m o r e p a g e s.

Tweet This

My friends, colleagues and fans often ask me, if I'm "on twitter." My good friend and colleague, Kid Rock and I share similar views on Twitter and it is this: "If one more person asks me if I have a Twitter, I’m going to tell them, 'Twitter this shit, motherfucker. I don’t have anything to say, and what I have to say is not that relevant. Anything that is relevant, I’m going to bottle it up and then squeeze it onto a record somewhere." Yes it's a tool and publishing types are gaga over it but I swear, if I invite even one more piece of communicative technology into my life we will all suffer. Tweet Tweet Tweet. I too, like my pal Kid Rock, have some real writing to do...like this blog here.

Lorin Stein: Overacheiver

Have you heard about Lorin Stein? Talented, ambitious, French-speaking bastard. 37 years old and to be the new editor of the Paris Review? So young! So accomplished! But has he ever written a first person young adult novel and nourished 2 babies for 5 months straight on breastmilk ALONE? Long ago, when he was alive, I got wasted on white wine at a book party at George Plimpton's house. The walls were dripping with whimsical caricatures drawn by oh, probably Picasso, Hirshfeld or W.C. Fields. The kitchen (where the wine was) was gigantic and filled with expensive pots and pans and thick white dishes. There were writers everywhere and some of them knew my name and couldn't wait to hear about what I was "working on" and who I was "studying with" and if I wanted "another glass of chardonnay." I thought that my life would be filled with hundreds and thousands of better and even more literary nights of debauchery. Little did I know that tipsy on a little corner couch, listening to him plink plonk on a baby grand, equally drunk with a fellow student would be a highlight of my so called literary life I would share, hardly ever, with anyone. Until now. Cheers Lorin- you firecracker.

The Balm of Environment

I just read this great little piece on Paris' Shakespeare and Co. bookstore and it was all about the balm of environment. We are moving, that's right- moving- to a new apartment any minute now and I am overwhelmed with choices and prices of furniture and rugs and window shades, beds and rugs, chairs and bath mats, headboards and potholders. We need a new vacuum cleaner. How many books should we take out of storage? I work at home and bathe at home. Sleep, love, feed my family and play with my baby all in the same space. I want it to be inviting and calm, creative, and beautiful, timeless yet unique. A real home that takes the anxiety from your shoulders the moment you walk through the door. Oh dear reader, how the fuck do I pull it off? Say it with me- the balm of environment- Let's start with a bed for the 3 year old and take it from there.

Writers

How I love them. I love how you can take a poetess, a romance writer, a Penthouse Letters writer, a Young Adult novelist, a memoirist, and dare I say a medical textbook writer- sit them all at a kitchen table with a pot of coffee and they will bond- bond I tell you!- over deadlines, point of view, inspiration, and their quest for immortality through the written word. For realz. Speaking of writing, I'm itching to get started on my next book but feel like it would be cheating on BELL JAR SUMMER until the edits are finished, my editor/s are beside themselves with glee and their eyes are glazed over with dollar signs. Now all I need is time time time time time time time time time time time time... Oh! And I FINALLY Got my Shelfari to work (Thanks Java script!) so if you have any books of note that I need to read or am forgetting all about remind me! And- if you have a question about any of them let me know... And if you want to buy a copy you can click on any book on my shelf and it will take you to a Shelfari page with an Amazon link at the left hand side of the page...