Since everyone’s reflecting today and blabbing about seizures, but also history, I’m sticking this up because I found it while I was looking for something else, and it has nothing to do with seizures, but maybe history, and who knows when I’ll find it again. 

To My (then) Husband

There are nights, sometimes, when I feel like we own the moon
Walking from the back house — (the bunkhouse, the guest house, I’ll remember years from now I never did know what to call it, the choices too grand or too cheap) –
into the “main house” (same problem) and passing the moon on the way, up to the right, no one else to claim it but the trees.
Lighting the pool water up — it’s elusive, seductive at night — but not the shabby things that needed fixed like that bastard sun did (you always preferred the sun, you see now maybe why I didn’t.)

Yes, nights sometimes, tonight let’s say, when walking by I thought we owned it (the moon).
You not here, but safe, and kids safe, and me waiting to tell you –”The moon!  It’s ours!” 
And we, not too young or too old yet, and I wouldn’t answer phone calls, I only looked at the moon and waited. 

To My Son

In the news tonight, they talked of a ticket
From the last Titanic survivor and it sold for oodles of money at an auction in England.
And all I thought was I wish I had oodles of money — just exactly oodles, not one penny more, just enough to buy you that ticket and give it to you one day after school.
And I wouldn’t care if you lost it, I wouldn’t bother you with what it cost (though that’s not true, we tend to behave exactly the way we don’t want to)
But just to give it to you, like the moon, because your passion about things makes me dreamy again and feels like butterflies dancing on faraway stars.

Bellow was brilliant, there. 

So, yes, something happened today, I suppose you all know.  I’m not one to offer sentiment when everyone else already has.  It’s dull to do that, isn’t it?  But I will say that today is Tuesday so I was helping in the library, at school.  And I had this wonderful, warm wave of deja vu when Mrs. R. raced in breathless to turn on the television and the tiny second-graders clutched their books and looked up, and watched their new President. 

It was always an occasion — remember? — in school when something momentous enough happened to warrant the television on.  Not the VCR, but the television, and on real channels.  So I liked, in other words, watching the President sworn in, from the library at school, flanked by the second grade.

I’m not watching the rest of the coverage, are you?  I’m bored with it already.  Moments are nice, but all day blather not as much.  Besides there’s work to be done, my day is nuts, I’ve turned my phone off.  (The three of those things are unrelated.) 

Did you know that your heart gets 4 billion beats?  That’s assuming you’re not victim of misfortune, that’s assuming all goes well.  I don’t think I’ll need my 4 billion, though, I’m hardening my heart.  I’m toughening it up, closing it off, I’m taking great precaution to ensure it beats less.  I’ll check to see if they’re transferable, the beats, in case you want them.  

After work today I’m tackling page 2 of 2666.  I’ll make pots of coffee.   You should, too. 

My favorite word today is “annul.”  I’m going to use it five times.  I’m going to ask questions with “annul” in the line. 

Also — I know you’re curious – my favorite color is blue, my favorite insect is stickbug, my favorite book, so far today, is not 2666.  Though I’m trying, I am.  Because everyone told me to read it, and so to be a sport I read the first page.  Today I’ll try for the second. 

Tomorrow, to celebrate inauguration day, I’m going to a book group to listen to my wildly successful writing friend talk about this.  And also to drink wine, he promised there’d be wine.  And then, well … I guess cry because it’s history. 

George Plimpton used to play catch with himself with a football in Central Park.  And he’d throw and run very slow and nonchalantly so bystanders would think he was waiting for someone and not just some weirdo playing catch with himself.   I don’t know … I’m just saying. 

I’m in a sour mood, it’s why I’m dull.  The sun is out, however, and I worked out early against my wishes so that means I can have cheesecake for lunch.  And even though I don’t like cheesecake, it sounds nice to say it, I like the idea.

Hemingway had 52 cats, in Havana.  Did you know that?  Few do.  I’m getting anxious to go to New York, will you be around?  Anyone?  Tell me when it gets warm. 

My two favorite words today are tutelage, and sultry, I can’t explain why. 

No organ talk, I promise.  We’ve had enough.  No plane talk either, though that was certainly incredible.  We can talk about popcorn or licorice, or if you insist, we can talk about your birthday.  Are you having a birthday?  Do you know what you want?  Did you know if your birthday is Saturday that you’re a Capricorn, and also, in China, an Ox?  Well if you didn’t, now you do. 

I read my new Atlantic and there was a disturbing article about the Times, which is really, I guess, about newspapers in general.  It was so disturbing I only skimmed it.  What I got, though, was that the print Times, as we know it, is gone in May. 

Thankfully, the Times wrote back and told The Atlantic they’re wrong.  So maybe they’ll make it until June.  H., and I, will have difficulty, I know, getting through Sundays without that little blue bag. 

I have assignments today, too many of them.  I’m behind.  I need four more hands and two brains.  Call me if you find some.   Oh, and the berkshires, yes … still Herzog.

The line yesterday was from Bellow.  You know, don’t you, that I read Herzog over and over when I’m stuck.  Do you know that?  The answer is “yes,” yes you do know that.  I just told you.  The line today is from Herzog, too.  Now you know all kinds of things.

I feel it necessary to clarify, for M., that the man and his wife and the kidney did not walk into a bar, nor were they throwing livers at each other on Facebook, it’s a real story.  A man gave a kidney to his wife and then she left him.  He’s mad at her for leaving him and now he wants his kidney. 

I don’t know, John Smith, which I would prefer, the kidney or the person.  Probably neither.  I’d be interested, though, in the million-and-a-half bucks. 

Speaking of bucks, sort of, the three-legged doe was in my yard again last night.  She has four legs, actually, she just doesn’t walk on one.  But she’s been doing this since before Christmas, I think she’s milking it a little.  I was standing outside with Scruffy, we do that occasionally, and I heard her, she was just a few feet away.  I’d like Very Tall Vet to come and give her a cast but I’m not sure he works nights.  And Three-Legged Doe does not come out during the day.

I’m picking up 2666 this afternoon from Sylla because everyone is telling me to read it.  It’s three thousand pages, or some absurd amount.  Which means I won’t read it, but I’ll have it now and I can pretend I am … reading it.  Which M. likes to do, by the way.  Don’t trust him for a second. 

That’s all that’s fit to tell you this morning, about anything. 

I’m freezing.  I can’t get the temperature right — too hot or too cold — but I’m trying not to think of it.  Still, you asked … or you didn’t, who’s to say, I’m telling you anyway.  I’m cold.

There is a man who gave a kidney to his wife, who now wants it back.  You can’t blame him, I’d want mine back, too, she left him for her physical therapist.  So yeah, he wants his damn kidney back, he wants it right now.  He means it.  Or else 1.5 million dollars, that’s, I guess, what they’re going for. 

I’m not only cold, but tired.  So if you’re not getting me coffee, I’ll have to go get it myself. 

Mtk, as the newspaper guys say. 

I dropped some change on the floor and I won’t pick it up.  I mean it, I won’t.  If you want to pick it up, it’s all yours, go ahead.  I can’t tell for sure, but it looks like about 75 cents.

C. says I have brilliant observations but then get stuck in them.  It’s true, I could do observing scenes all day, plot, not so much.  Plot I get bored by.  Which explains the coins (above).  Plot would be to pick them up and send them somewhere exotic, give them adventures.  Observation, though — my weakness/forte — insists that I let them be.  Who knows what sort of dark things I’ll discover lurking in their metallic little souls?  I’ll let you know.

So there are some scenes, in my book, that get too observy; I need to balance them a tad bit with plot.  I’ll do that today.   Right now, in fact, as soon as we’re done.

Stephen Pinker, my favorite cursing shrink, had a piece out Sunday — how did I miss it, I just saw it now! — on genome testing.  I want one, a genome test.  I want it for my birthday.  You know where to send it. 

I just became thirsty, so I’m off to get water.  Call me if you want.  I’ll write you back. 

Sometimes it’s exhilarating to write, sometimes it sucks.  Today’s a nice blend.  I’ve received helpful feedback, I’m working it in.  I went back to old drafts and reread things and, of course, discovered I like the old stuff, some of it, best.  Anyway, it’s all nice and pretty, the words are splendid and rattle along like an old freight train, clickety-clack.  Or passenger train, maybe, with the dining cars and Pullmans, my words are rattling along like that.  No one, yet, has lost interest in the scenery, not even at night. 

So now I’m at the housekeeping stage, the part I’m not so good at.  The cleaning up paragraphs that don’t blend, combing through for the echoes, fixing timeline problems, filling in gaps here and there where the details don’t add up. 

Thomas Wolfe had Maxwell Perkins to do all of that part for him, plus Perkins threw in martinis at the corner bar.  I have C., but no martinis.  I got here too late.

Oh, I’ll give you more later, I have phones that are ringing, important people to please.  Don’t change that dial.

I forgot to thank you, the other day, for the love stories.  My great friend RSG sent me one, a screenplay, and I was in it!  Loosely.  But I got to make out!  I think everyone should write a love story today, or watch one on TV.  Love is one chewy cookie. 

Me, I’m still writing one.  It’s done, really, there’s just this terrible part in the middle, not even the middle, but at the end of the beginning; pp 23-30.  I’ve been banging my head on this stupid part for weeks and I’ll probably end up cutting it and fixing the hole and that will make me furious because I’ve been banging my head on it for weeks. 

Stupid thing.  Anyway.  The rest, then, hums along.  Someone dies in the end, there’s a dandelion bouquet and the paraplegic lover relocates to another town.  How’s that?  Gary, as I promised, gets a beautiful moment in his driveway, the one I wanted in real life but never got, and Ellen comes clean. 

There are actually two problems.  One is timeframe.  I start at a point, then go back, and have just recently changed my mind about where to pick up the point again.  I’m working with 100,000 words, this takes work, moving parts around.  So there’s that, now, plus the pipe.  Yes, it’s a scene about a broken pipe.  And I know you just laughed now, you’re wondering why I bother.  Well listen buddy, don’t underestimate a broken pipe.  It’s also a scene about Blanche Dubois and I do not want to let her go.  Every book I write will have a Blanche Dubois moment, I’ll make you look for it, like Waldo.  And there will also always be an angry smoker and a lover who can’t speak.  And, of course (duh!) monkeys.

Stay tuned.  It will all really be done very soon, I give you my very truest word.

My friend runs a paper and I’m jealous.  He gets to decide each day what to put in it, and that seems fun, so now I want a paper, too.  I don’t know how to get ads, so you’ll just have to pay me a lot for it.  It will be good, I promise.  Today, for instance, my paper would have stories like this:

Lou the Mule
An angry smoker (I’ll always have an angry smoker piece)
A bare-bottomed skier
A blow-up doll sex bandit

If you want to work on my paper with me, call.  I won’t answer, though, until later because I woke up at 4am today so now it’s bedtime.   I’m cold and tired and if you have solutions for either of those, tell me when you bring my soup from The Sage.

P.S.  I stole this from Claire, you really must read it.  I know, everyone always says “you really must read it,” but trust me this time.  You must.  [Shouts and Murmers:  This Is No Game]