I’ve decided I want Maira Kalman to illustrate my book.  There.  So can you call her for me?  I can’t call her right now because I’m very busy at the beach finishing it.  Call her and tell her what my book is about:  suburban angst, the cat throwing up, the futile pursuit of happiness … you know, the clumsy yet beautiful thing we call ‘marriage’, that sort of thing.

I’ll need drawings of crane flies, they should be misshapen and misunderstood.  They should provoke fear but up close, also empathy.  There should be one nice shot of Ellen banging her piano, of Howard leaning against a wall like Bogart – I’d like him tired, long-suffering, lost.  There is the opening scene, Fellini night; I’ll need a dejected rendering of that. 

And, of course, Claire.  Maybe stepping out into the street around the giant truck or on the phone in the dark in Kandahar, her arms directing her words.  Oh, and Dr. Head in her powder blue suit and platinum hair and bright-colored lips; she’ll be fun, I think, to draw.  Oh my goodness, the possibilities.  I must take an art class right now, there’s too much for Maira to do all alone.  How about if we all draw one page?  I’ll give you the scenes for depiction, you can choose.  First let me eat my yogurt, it’s getting warm.

First, look at this.  I found it in the pool yesterday right before I jumped in.  By the way it’s not a leaf next to the arachnid but another object approximately the size of a cruise ship.  I took the picture from my helicopter.

And I guess, really, that’s all.  I’m very busy. 

M-III has yet to Friend me like he promised.

I upped my usual dose of coffee this morning and am now onto Coke.  (Diet.  You know I don’t like sweet.)

My laptop is hot, it flashed a snide little note about temperature and then shut itself down, I’m not pleased.  I could work on A.’s laptop, I suppose.  I mean I am, already, I’m doing it now, but there are inconveniences. 

I could write in my head from the pool but there are leaves in the pool and remember?  I’m tired.  I don’t have what it takes to get them out.  Moxie, it would take.  Some sort of zest for life that this morning I’m missing. 

There are foul-smelling things in the refrigerator, I put a note up for the other employees.

There are foul-smelling things in the litter box, and also there are bees.  Everywhere.  I’m not sure how they relate to the smells.

I’d like gardenia-scented candles for Christmas if you don’t mind.  And a cooler laptop.  And a tall dark man (hint, “A.”) to sweep the leaves from the pool.

Okay, so Duh — go to this tonight.  Back Fence PDX.  Some very funny people will tell you outrageous stories about summer.  They’re actors and writers and former Scientologists, so it’s guaranteed to be great.  There will also be a swimsuit contest and RSG is in that, and if you’re in Mac can you stop on my street and give me a ride?  Thanks.

I’m working in the front room this week, which means the wireless signal is even weaker than in the small house.  This, of course, makes me think of Liz — hey Liz! — because she’s very sympathetic about my wireless connection and maybe she’ll buy me a booster today and leave it on the porch.  If she does, though, I’ll see her doing it because my front door’s mostly a window and the other windows don’t have stuff to cover them, I’m exposed.  But that means you are too when you drop things off on my porch.

The other thing about working in the front is I see the deer walk by.  C. says the deer are dirty.  “Filthy” was the word she used but I disagree.  I see them walking up from the creek, I think they bathe.  So there’s that and now the birds are flying in. 

The birds come in the back door to eat Scruffy’s food and yesterday one hopped all the way up here, to the front, and flew around.  It scared me because I watch Hitchcock and because birds fly crazy when you put them in small rooms, but I opened all the doors and it left and now I miss it. 

I feel like you need a link here to something smart.  Brain food, something to perk up your tired heads.  I can’t find one, though, my flitty connection is making me mad.  Wait, I know — Melissa Lion today, she wants you to like yourself naked and she has a picture.  Which reminds me that in Ashland a woman is marching topless in the 4th of July parade.  Because you can be topless in Ashland, it’s totally legal.  Ashland rocks, right? 

(More later.)

I’ve had a huge burst of creativity today, inspiration out my ears and I just realized why — it’s my font!  Not this one here, but the one in Word.  For some reason when I opened New Document today (I’m rewriting a chapter, I wanted a clean place to work) the font was Calibri 11.  Do you know it?  I assumed I was writing Times New Roman, I thought TNR was the default, but no, it’s not, or at least it wasn’t today.  I was working and working and writing and reading it back and it looked so pretty, I liked all the words. It’s the Calibri!

My working manuscript, however, is in Garamond, I’ve always considered Garamond my lucky font.  In fact what I do when I’m writing is I save Garamond for when I need it.  I start in Times New Roman and save Garamond for when I’m stuck; it’s my Mariano Rivera, it’s my relief font.  So a couple of months ago I made the whole Good Wife Garamond but what luck – now this, now Calibri. 

You’ve no idea what it means. 

I wrote Blanche Dubois because I just referenced her in a scene and am thinking of her today and it’s always fun, isn’t it, to say her name.  Say it.  “Blanche Doo-bwah.”  Be dramatic about it, in honor of her. 

That’s all I have.  Really.

.. and I’m a little scared.  This facebook stuff is a bit fancy for me.  But I was just asked to be another “friend”, so while I was over there I decided to poke Lisa.  I hope it didn’t hurt her, or violate my marriage vows.  I’ll find out in due time, I suppose. 

The Good Wife is going horribly slow.  But here’s a clip.

The Jenks, like everyone else on their block and the next block and the blocks on either side of those, lived in a four-bedroom house with 2.1 baths.  It boasted a “great room” with sliding glass doors that opened up to a small white-fenced yard.  There was wood in the kitchen, on the floor, it was light brown.  Everywhere else there was carpet; white in the “blue” room, berber where they kept the tv.   

They had a two-car garage, half of which was kept clear for Ellen’s minivan, the other half for bicycles and wagons, the lawnmower, and things Howard brought back from Home Depot. 

They parked a Camry outside, in the driveway.

You can bring me lunch if you want, I’m almost hungry.  A big salad with some spinach and maybe greek-y with olives and feta. 

Tonight I’m making a souffle.  I never have before and I want to, I should have by now.  I have three days, still, to accomplish stuff before I’m 40.   That’s it for now.   

Because I’m having trouble with my head today (can’t get a thing to come out) I’m working on filling it.  Am watching The Today Show, for instance, and following the Tatum O’Neal crack story, the fire in a movie studio story, Ted Kennedy’s brain. 

I expect brilliance to seep out of me in a moment. 

I hope A. has a pleasant day. 

Unrelated, General Greivous of the Separatist Army is a really creepy-looking guy.  Don’t you think, A.?  He’s the one with the four skinny arms. 

I’m having problems, they’re technical.  And so I had things to say and I’ve forgotten them because I first tried to muscle through another download by myself, without buttons, and when that didn’t work tried to muscle through the Automatic Updater plugin and that was no treat.  All because of strange goings-on in the application — this one here, right here, that I use to post my lovely words. 

Then crashing and freezing followed elsewhere, of course; these problems all come in threes.  This all on the heels of having to relocate my “office” this morning, from the back house to the front, because of a spider.  Not just any spider, but the weird thick black-and-white striped one that was sitting right square on the middle of the bed last week before A. smashed it.  Now its wife or mother or brother or best friend is back and sitting striped and meaty in the center of the table, where my coffee goes.  It’s got big muscly thighs and it crouches all eight of them down like it’s going to jump and I swear if that thing jumps it can go for a city mile.  (Country mile, city block, I know but I’ll say what I want.) 

So you understand, now, that I can’t even be in the same house as it, nor can I kill it because I’m too scared.  It has practically, almost entirely, ruined my day.

This, on the morning following the evening that I was knocked out of the Mac 3rd Street Books Spelling Bee on – I’m ashamed to tell you this, but it’s bound to get out — “scuttlebutt.”  Yes, “scuttlebutt” and I’ve no intention of telling you how I spelled it. 

It’s 10:13.  I must go while there’s something to salvage. 

I have things to do, I must leave you.  But before I go, for the record, Humboldt’s Gift (Saul Bellow) is just under 70,000 words.  The Good Wife, as I speak, is 133,140 (words).  Eighty thousand is just about right; I’ve a lot of cutting to do. 

Send virtual scissors here.

A., you guys, is nuts (see # 4.)  What book is that, A., and why are you reading it at work?  Nevermind.  My job, most times, is fun, because I get to read and look up curious things, and do some research and make things up.  Today I’m reading on-line excerpts of Saul Bellow because when I get stuck I need good writing and he’s a standy. 

Here’s a great little bit from Humboldt’s Gift:

“To be loused up by Humboldt was really a kind of privilege.  It was like being the subject of a two-nosed portrait by Picasso, or an eviscerated chicken by Soutine.  Money always inspired him.  He adored talking about the rich.  Brought up on New York tabloids, he often mentioned the golden scandals of yesteryear, Peaches and Daddy Browning, Harry Thaw and Evelyn Nesbitt, plus the Jazz Age, Scott Fitzgerald, and the Super-Rich.  The heiresses of Henry James he knew cold.”

To be loused up by DiFalco was kind of a privilege.  Like getting the two-for-one milk coupon at Safeway, or the front mezzanine seats with M. and D.  (M. — I didn’t get them yet, I’ll email you about it.) 

I, sir, am no Saul Bellow.  Still.