Ruminations, mostly editorial
Global warmingtangential
April 29, 2007
A lovely spring dawn, windows flung open, birds chirping, sky clear. I sit at the desk, bound and determined. Chapter 12 stares balefully at me. Behind it, an incomplete style sheet, and beyond that a stack of paper, the artwork, one figure, numerous tables, and several sharpened red pencils. When all that is done, the review of the edits. A lovely spring day, sigh ...
By way of putting off the inevitable, I turn to the funnies and lo and behold— my father (1915–2006) ... protesting again ....
April 29, 2007 6:25 AM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
Warning lightstangential
April 27, 2007
I went out this morning, walking past the cheetahs and the vistor center in the rain at about twenty to ten. He was out already, up above the rocks. "Hallo there, dear man!" I cried. He stood up, looking toward me, looking at me. By the time I had drawn near enough, he was down from the rocks, moving toward me. His muzzle fogging the glass. "Mah man!" I said again. We talked, then, for five minutes, nose to nose. Merlin. I shall miss our morning meetings.
They told me later, toward the end of the watch, that sloth bears are responsible for more human deaths than any other species of bear. A public broadcasting camera man filming in India not too long ago watched one burst from the woods to chase a 500-pound Bengal tiger away. O mercy. All this and 95 percent of their diet (that's the sloth bear, not the tiger) is ants and termites. How good to know that M and I are friends.
On the drive home through the park, six miles along Beach Drive, I noticed a light on the dash. CHECK ENGINE. Heart moved to throat. I chunked the final three miles home at 28 miles an hour. "Was it flashing?" asked the dealership service fellow. "No," said I. "That's good," said he. "O god," said I. We made an appointment. "What do I do if it starts flashing while I'm driving?" I asked. "Pull over," he said. I'd rather not think about that.
I hung up the telephone and looked at the computer screen, where I had just sat down. On the task bar, the Internet connection icon sported a yellow dot flashing at me. "Limited or no connectivity," it explained. Make that no connectivity. Five hours, three telephone calls, and never mind the technical details later, I contemplated another wasted day.
Is there time, I wonder, for a bike ride before settling down and finishing the final two chapters before going to bed? You've heard tell of the hollow laugh. And what do I do about Emma, which I haven't finished watching? How do I sell the old bike at the swap tomorrow if I have to be at the dealership?
How, as they say, was your day?
April 27, 2007 5:54 PM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
Breaking uptangential
I stare down the muzzle of chapter 9, one of twelve in Unmarried Couples with Children, each of which touches on the theme of breaking up. As usual in 2007, the Year of No Time, I have left the bulk of the work until the last moment (read eight days). Do I skip writing class, cry unavailable for volunteer duties, beg off a massage, and eschew random bicycle jaunts? Ask a silly question...
Earlier, at dawn, it poured with rain. This has abated but the sky remains gray and dank and the day promises both more of same and more downpours. Having gotten in fact halfway through chapter 9, I had wanted to finish it before leaving for the Zoo, which leads me to ...
Alas, I have a tête à tête with my boyfriend this morning, our last. I daresay I might catch a glimpse of him now and again, but our liaison ends officially today. Sigh.
I shall miss him, that lumbering sweetheart.
April 27, 2007 7:40 AM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
Responsibility?tangential
April 18, 2007
Moving on with the reference lists and text citations of this edited manuscript (Unmarried Couples with Children), it occurs to me that the parents of the shooter — who run a dry cleaning business in Centreville — we forget this in thinking of the thirty-two dead who shouldn't be — have themselves lost a child but as well and perhaps more significantly seemingly must have some sense, perhaps an overwhelming sense (misguided or otherwise), of responsibility for what happened.
How desperate, how agonizing, such a feeling would be ...
April 18, 2007 11:27 AM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
Blacksburgtangential
Today would be my parents' sixty-fifth anniversary. This past weekend was my thirtieth college reunion. I had intended to write about the event and the visit to Richmond, but all that is on hold. My friend Corby from Queen Anne and Westhampton wrote on Monday afternoon.
It was wonderful seeing you Saturday... Ken and I both enjoyed our too short visit with you. You look terrific and you have had so much happen in your life, both good and bad.
I was frantic this morning , as you might guess... since Chris [older son] goes to VA Tech and some of the shooting happened in his very dorm... took several hours to get a hold of him to verify he was safe... had slept through it all (as did his roommate) since their classes didn't start till later in the day this morning. Thank God. I can't imagine how someone could walk on to a campus (or anyplace else) and commit this heinous crime. Figure has risen to 31 dead now.
The papers today are naming most of the victims, having begun later yesterday, including photographs and bios, which catch at the throat. The numbers become people, students most of them, amazing smiling very alive people, all of them. Were. Liviu Librescu, to survive the Holocaust and communist Romania and achieve international renown as an aeronautical engineer so that he might block a doorway so that his students might escape through windows ...
What does one say?
April 18, 2007 8:44 AM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
Scarlett, where are you?tangential
April 15, 2007
One would think from the cold and the rain, the ongoing rain and cold, that it were November, February, March. Something appropriate. The cruelest month indeed, though a rapport with the weather lady was never Eliot's intent. I digress yet again. Taxes, I meant to talk about taxes.
A good day, all this cold and rain, a good day —thirtieth college reunion aside for the moment— for mundanities. Taxes. Tea parties. This year's ritual unfolds not as nicely as it has done. My sister —"So how was the reUNion? did you have FUN?!"— has just suggested TurboTax, simply to avoid the inevitable headaches of the pencil, the manual calculations, the pencil sharpener, the recalculations.
Note to self, in next life avoid opting for older sisters notably prone to offer what almost always proves to be notably logical advice. Very annoying.
It is getting late. Each time I review the numbers (which is to say, the calculations, did I mention how petty numbers are, I should have done) I find another form on which I forgot to update something or other. To think that once I contemplated, even undertook graduate school for, batted my eyes at the notion of, a CPA certificate neatly matted and framed and hanging on the wall.
I brood. The amount in question is $89.95 or something or other. Do I really want to deal with this now? A plague on sisterly advice. TurboTax Home & Business Download for Win w/ Free State Download. Consider it bookmarked. I shall think about it tomorrow. In the morning. After all, tomorrow is another day. Sigh.
April 15, 2007 9:32 PM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
Attic reportstrictly editorial
April 10, 2007
Class notes. They remind me of why I never took notes. This in turn reminds me of my GPA, which I would rather not remember. We do however remember our contribution to the Bethesda Writers Center (bother the apostrophe, it's on vacation), no? Every Tuesday at half past ten from last week until Memorial Day.
Two pages of notes in reasonably neat handwriting, an accomplishment in and of itself, though scarcely worth $300, but I digress before I begin. Not promising. Among the scribbles —scarcely the drunk Pakistani wandering across the street that Bill once described (note to self, must find alternate and elegant image)— several ideas, which tripped over themselves and each other as they occurred to me in rapid-fire sequence.
Mardi Gras portrait ...
That much is clear. I refer to Nin's of 1905, now being restored by the National Gallery conservator. The accompanying text is not clear. "Patchwork story — snap, snap, snap — begin with restoration?" What on earth, I wonder, was I getting at.
Tennis court brunch post-Mimi ... telephone call from nephew ...
This one is clear. Even now, perhaps thanks to this cold and windy April, the match played the day after Mimi's service is clear. Bloody Mary's for the onlookers, reasonably a propos.
The notes that follow are strictly transcriptions of her talk. She (her name doesn't come to mind) recommends Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street, Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, and Wally Lamb's This Much I Know Is True. Most of her references are about writing what I describe as journal essays, personal experiences rather than historic family experiences. This doesn't seem to matter. The idea, she explains, is that such stories are definitely our take on what has happened. Memoir, she continues, is character driven rather than plot driven. I think, oddly, of Barbara Vine and her handful of psychological mysteries, so unlike her Ruth Rendell detective mystery series.
Find the emotional background to the idea to write. Identify the driving emotion. Write through the truth for strength of the piece. Revise to soften, but only afterwards, not while writing. Do not bypass the truth of the story. Build scenes, even if they're tangents. Follow what pulls, there's a reason for the pull.
Odd lines on their own ... circular motion to quiet the left brain ... fight or flight ... expectation versus destination ... knowing what to do with your feelings, being able to put a cap on it ... if you hear voices (she quotes) take notes.
She mentions Rebecca McClanaghan (easy to spell as the Ingles and White Marsh come to mind) and The Riddle Song, writings based on place. When tackling unresolved questions or issues, when a person is dead, for example, list the topics to cover, then circle the most important one. Find out why it's the most important. I add question marks in the margin next to two notes to self.
...(weekends) Bill ... Mimi (xmas) .. Wesley & Theo ...
April 10, 2007 3:26 PM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
Bored meeting addendastrictly editorial
April 5, 2007
Up and back to New York for a board-bored meeting yesterday, in the cold pouring rain more typical of late February or early December than April, thanks very much. Washed away the cherry blossoms, thanks very much again. One digresses ...
She —name being cloaked to protect the innocent— did try to put him —name being cloaked to protect the guilty— on the spot last night, due perhaps to my formal terse protest. It was fun. It unified everyone openly against the bombastic inarticulate nit. Eye met and rolled. Sideways smirks were almost in step. No formal reprimand, of course, that being beyond the scope of some people's text, alas. Thick skins, even greater alas, are not likely to get the point and step down as MAL. One wonders, suddenly, about stirring discontent in the ranks, such that electoral ballots might be written in to oust all bombastic inarticulate nits, of which we seem to have only one, mercifully.
April 5, 2007 11:54 AM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
Newsworthy author !!strictly editorial
April 1, 2007
My eye lingered on the headline: Author, 96, Proves It's Never Too Late
MY author !
WTOP
Washington Post
New York Times
My contact at Random House telephoned last May. "I have a manuscript for you," she said. "Great," said I. "It's about 450 pages," she replied. "Typewritten." I paused, wondering. Of course it's typewritten. All RH jobs are hard copy. Tedious, but the price of having Random House as a client. "Typewritten," she said again, "as in on a typewriter. The author is 95 years old." Ah. Well, then ...
The Invisible Wall, by an old man living in Brick, New Jersey— where we watch movies on rainy summer weekends, right down the road from the Lyon-Vaiden cottage at Manasquan. It was a delight, a well-done and revealing tale of a decade of his childhood in an English town before World War I, of the Jewish-Christian divide in a working-class neighborhood in a working-class town. It was also the manuscript that got me a reprimand note for stetting the commas in simple compound sentences. Random House doesn't like commas in simple compound sentences.
I glow, however. I'm all atwitter. I worked on a famous book. Okay, not famous, but newsworthy.
I'm still tickled.
I'm even emboldened to write my person at Random House on the strength of it ...
April 1, 2007 12:57 PM | Add comment | Read comments (0)
© 1993-2007 Helen Glenn Court | All rights reserved