…of our own device.

Every now and then I find it liberating — sexy, even — to be a grownup. Tonight it comes from the fact that in the last hour I felt a mad sweet craving, went to the grocery store to grab essentials and procured a dozen butterscotch scones. All without setting off the fire alarm. (I say this not because I’m a bad cook, but because the smoke alarm in my apartment reacts loudly to the most minor of offenses. I’m still nervous to go pull my rainboot/door prop away and cut off air circulation.)

There lives something inherently American about staying up to watch late-night talk shows. In theory, they provide comfort, solace, almost a lullaby. To an outsider, they look stable. They fit into a structure. It’s like thinking about the American tradition of the family vacation; looking in it feels uplifting, warm — it looks like nonstop happiness. Ugh, have you ever taken a family vacation? Especially if your family in any way involves teenage girls.

So here lies (lays, leis, loos) my dilemma. Do I watch Conan for mild entertainment and a sort of outsider comfort, only to wake up at 6:30 for a planned morning yoga, half-sleep while listening to New York’s Best Classic Rock on my alarm, and finally pull myself out of bed at 7:07? Or do I retire my inherent American perception of what was once the only market in television after 10 p.m. and instead turn to baking, blogging, and reading Terry Pratchett?

I fear I’ve made my decision. Goodnight, all.

Helplessly hoping

An odd feeling has been tickling at the back of my brain the past few weeks.

Odd, like, in a bad way.

I suppose “what does it all mean”s are necessary, but I wish they would stop nagging at me. I think too much about death to enjoy life. Or maybe I think just enough about death to squeeze what I can from life. I’ve started actively taking notes to start a novel. This may really happen. Time is not meant to be wasted, so I pack it with books and radio shows and cooking and, yes, True Blood, but I pack it with things that make me feel that if I were to disappear in that moment, I’d be satisfied.

So this book should come along soon. And then I’ll blink and it’ll be ten years from now and if the world hasn’t ended yet and the inevitable Mon Valley cancer hasn’t yet gripped me then what will I be? Where? Do I even like New York City?

Of course I do. Though I dislike fashion, the rich, glamour, vanity, and Times Square, I love the progressive city and the fact that every band I’ve ever loved (save the ones who have died or disbanded) will come through here eventually. I’m working on getting used to what a summer in the city is like, and I don’t think I like it. This is where Chautauqua would have been a great gig to hold onto. I can’t put into words how much I miss stars. And fishing. As it stands, I’m heading to Chautauqua this weekend and the cabin as soon as possible after that. Stars and fish are in my very near future, I just wish they weren’t so far from the life I chose here.

There will be time, there will be time.

Sometimes I just need to get my fingers wigglin’ on the keys in between chapters of Russo.

Summer plans: break brain

Yesterday, I received in the mail the fruit of my birthday gift card to Powell’s Books: a huge box of words to busy me for a year. I’m going to try to do them this summer. All of them. This includes the cookbook. A rundown:

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson: Ok, I read it already this year. But I needed to own it. This happens to me quite often; I read a library book and decide the many notes I took on it are not nearly enough. It needs to be on my shelf. Now I can scare myself with the notion of Yellowstone exploding whenever I damn well please.

Ulysses by James Joyce: I got it during Bloomsday week, which is one of the timeliest book purchases I’ve made as a reader. I’m hoping that by next June 16th I’ll know what all the fuss is about.

The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: Yes, it’s 100% necessary to own all the books (and novelettes) in this series.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard: I almost reread by library copy immediately after finishing it. This one’s a keeper.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac: My sister stole mine. With all the insightful notes I took as a 17-year-old. It’s probably better that I start fresh.

Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey: Most of my family members own this book, but my dad’s copy (which I’d be most likely to inherit) is signed, so I doubt he’s gung-ho to send it to his reckless 23-year-old kid just yet. Uncle Lou says it’s the best book of the ’60s.

Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street by Michael Davis: Because I should know everything about the show that shaped my childhood — and still keeps me company on the mornings I want to smile.

Selected Poems by Robert Lowell: As my second-favorite poet, Lowell deserves a spot on my bookshelf. Just try “Skunk Hour” and see if you don’t agree.

The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen: Since Mom wouldn’t let me have her copy, I bought my own. My newest genius plan is to spend the next few months preparing every recipe in the book — sort of a Julie & Julia for vegetarians. And the elaborate farmers markets will help.

I now have a to-read list piling higher and higher, and my produce list features the summer-iest of the fruits and vegetables. As we speak, the library holds two books for me to check out, read and return in the next three weeks. That is, of course, once I finish the Richard Russo book I’m only 1/5 through.

Self-exile isn’t so bad when you’re doing it for these adventures. Stay tuned for reports from the front lines.

1000 words on my very own Lester Bangs.

According to the previous post, I have the option of writing about my homegrown herbs, my disappointing and my better-than-real friends, or Chuck Klosterman’s foray into fiction writing. To avoid boring you, my faithful audience, or offending you, my disappointing friends, I’ll say a few words about CK. And being that I just finished the novel on today’s lunch break, it’s probably most relevant.

Though I did just water the parsley. No? Ok.

So let me establish validity. I purchased CK’s Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs on a whim in the summer of 2005, just before I took my summer campers on a sleep-away weekend. I remember getting completely absorbed into this guy’s insights and idiosyncrasies, and I was simultaneously obsessed with and insanely jealous of him. I spent the next few years acquiring everything he’s written – at least what can be bound and put on my shelf. And it’s not much, I realize. Four collections and one novel. And about a zillion articles I’ve perused in that time. Since that summer, I think about him constantly, always questioning “What would CK have to say about that?” when any inane pop culture reference is made. I think like him, in bullet points, sentence fragments and curse words; this infuriates me, because I think that sometimes if I would just get over myself and put my shit on paper, I could be a lot like him.

Now, I’d heard a great deal about Downtown Owl, the novel in question. As Chuck’s first fiction piece available to the masses, I was not so much curious as I was wary. This can’t add up, I thought. I waited to buy it – waited nearly a year after its release in fact – when I could pick it up free at Book Expo. And, as an added bonus, I’d get to say Hi to Chuck while he signed the book.

The story itself isn’t much of a big deal here; sort of like there’s not really ever a “big picture” in Klosterman’s books, but the premise is this: 1980s small town, lots of nicknamed drunks, high school athletes struggling with self identity, old men philosophizing. A small-town lover for the ages, I’m thrilled to find these things in a novel. So far, so good.

Give me four more hours, Mom.

Greetings. I am, in fact, not dead, just 23 and sleepy. I do have many things to share with the ether, and these range in topic from My Parsley and Basil is Growing in Fantastically to I Have an Incredible Group of Friends to Chuck Klosterman Writing Fiction: An Analysis.

BUT, since I took a sick day on Friday, I have loads of 9-to-5 to do, so I’ll let Sunflower Sutra fill me with glitter and sunshine and report back at length in a few hours.

So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck it at my side like a scepter, and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack’s soul too, and anyone who’ll listen…

A good week to be me, maybe.

I officially turn 23 years old in 10 minutes, at 12:10 a.m. on June 3, but I’ve been pretending it’s my birthday since Sunday, and it will be until Sunday. I even got a gift from one of our most charming authors since she read my birthday Tweets all week. I call that a Birthday Win.

I’m completely against the notion that growing old could be a bad thing. Because it’s not like I can stop it. So, hello, let’s all just get excited that we’ve made it another year.

It’s beginning to deeply sadden me that my writing inspiration now comes through in short bursts. I think of one sentence I’d like to share with the world, but I still can’t formulate a story. I can’t blame Twitter; this is how I’ve always thought. Twitter just helps me hone my craft. Damn. I need writing assignments again.

Maybe that’s what I’ll get myself for my birthday this year. Aside from the stovetop grill pan, which I’m already beside myself about. Maybe I’ll promise myself to begin drafting outlines. To begin putting to paper those stories I have jettisoning around the inside of my brain, waiting aimlessly to self-destruct unless I do something with them. I scribble a poem or a short story now and again, but it’s not enough for me. Now and again won’t do it.

So, here we go, for my birthday, I will give myself my full potential. I will scribble always and write again and again. Don’t I swear this every year?

It’s summer time, and I know it’s different in the summer when there’s a job to keep you busy all day and mounting temptation to drink beer and read books until the sun sets, but there’s got to be some self-motivation, just a bit of reassurance that what I do is what I love and I’m loving what I’m doing.

I’m doing all right. Happy birthday to me.

Rainin’ on my face.

I bet you’re wondering where my inspiration has gone.

Well, if you’re not, I sure am.

I was in the middle of reading one of Ginsberg’s letters to Kerouac when I rode the subway this afternoon. Then, the lights in the car zonked out to black. Any inkling of inspiration that hung between the lines was lost forever.

Ok, I’m being dramatic.

I pumped a lot of money into the city yesterday. In between my exploratory ventures. I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge (to Brooklyn) and back across the Manhattan Bridge (to Manhattan). This latter walk was far less majestic than the former (but remarkably much more of what I’ve been used to — walking on bridges my whole life and all). A gelato at a street fair in Little Italy, a lemonade at a stand a little farther down the street, and art. I, a New Yorker, bought art! Free publicity for http://www.kategabrielle.com/ — really, her stuff is adorable. And hilariously ingenious.

I took the subway back over to Brooklyn to street shop and get my new favorite roadside snack — street tacos from Endless Summer taco cart on Bedford Ave.

In an attempt to come full circle, after putting a bunch of cash into the city for myself, I gave a homeless man one of my last three dollars.

I used the last two dollars to pay off overdue library books.

And, see? Still no point.

Shadows. Shadows!

It’s taken me a little while. What can I say? It’s a potential case of swine flu and the fear that if I watch another episode of Buffy I’m going to turn into my 7th grade self that makes me finally sit down and put the laptop — where else? — on my lap.

Rewind. Friday. Got my single ticket for John Prine.

I’m enjoying — nah, I’m hoovering — a Whole Foods dinner on a bench on the west side of Central Park, listening to bagpipes whine from under a nearby overpass. I hope I’m not the only one who can hear them, but those shirtless soccer players seem uninterested. They seem like the kind of guys who don’t answer to “soccer.” Time to switch shoes. Flip flops to heels, though where I’m going, no one’s going to judge.

I wobble on my heels as I try to avoid the cracks in the brick sidewalks around Juilliard, making my way up to the Beacon Theatre. I begin to fall among groups of people my parents’ age. Some are carrying maps, others keep stopping to check street signs; I even saw one group carrying a car GPS up Broadway. I fall in with this crowd. May as well know where I’m going.

Inside the theater, I see about 2 people under age 30 for every 50 people. Everywhere are my parents, my aunts and uncles, my college professors, my dad’s fishing buddies…all beards and Birks and denim. These are people who were around to experience real live folk music, as it was growing up in the 20th century. They got to be the first ones to read Ken Kesey. I can bet a good number of them spend New Years Eve with Garrison Keillor.

I ask you, where are these people normally hiding?

No matter; I take my seat between two sets of my parents.

Yes, it’s my first time seeing Prine, I tell them. Dad and Uncle Lou said it’s about time I see him live.

By the time he ambles onto the stage, I’m the surrogate daughter of this couple to my right and scheduling a date with the son of the pair to my left (am I exaggerating?).

This concert occurred on the day after the 12th anniversary of my first concert. I remember things like this.

He sings Spanish Pipedream to open, and I feel no revelation. I don’t feel that aching in my heart like I do for so many of my bands, the ones who were mine first, who no generation before mine got to experience. As he gets to “Sam Stone” and “Hello In There,” I place the feeling — or lack thereof. It’s home.

Sometimes I think too many things feel like home to me. Then I think, can you ever have too many things feel like home?

He sings “Fish and Whistle” and “Ain’t Hurtin’ Nobody,” and I may as well be in my backyard helping Mom & Dad clip grapes off our vine. Or at Louie’s farm in Wisconsin, taking notes on his intuitive cooking. Or, most of all, at the cabin, eyes heavy with a long day of sunshine, fingers sticky with fish scales, chucking driveway rocks into the river, waiting for the steak to come off the grill while everyone drinks silly blue drinks.

The guy speaks between sets, and I may as well be listening to my grandfather. The voice is emblazoned on the back palate of my cerebellum, resurrected as that of a dear friend and absorbed as casual conversation.

One of my favorite Prine songs is “Lake Marie,” but as I’d never seen him perform before, I didn’t know if he ever played it live, what with most of the song being spoken-ish word. As he starts to play the first few lines of the chorus, that whateveritis magnificent feeling builds up from my stomach to my throat. Do you know what blood looks like in a black and white video?

In his encore, Steve Towns Earle and his brilliant mandolin-warblin’ partner joined Prine & the guys for “Paradise.”

For a week that begins with me going back to Pittsburgh, opening the cabin & seeing that brief pocket of Potomac for a minute, this is the best ending I can think of. I’ll sleep well.

Carry on, then. The rest of the weekend is epic in itself, when old college friends finagle their way into my life now, and I take it as it comes. Nine of us chopped veggies Sunday afternoon, and I then shelved books for charity for the rest of the day.

And I blame my neglect for my immune system on the reason I’m sitting on my couch with a tub of vitamin C and flushed cheeks, but I can’t complain if I made it from September to May before I got sick. Until next time.

Can it ever be just one thought…?

Good news. After months of tests, scopes and sonograms, my underlying issue seems to be not only unworthy of surgery, but curable with a self-prescribed “shit-ton” of water.

At Strand last night, Chuck Palanhiuk said, “You can’t sign a Kindle. You can’t put a hundred of them on a shelf to explain who you are to your dates.” So we continue the debate with ourselves as to whether they’re OK or the devil. The reader in me hates them, the commuter & marketer think they’re a-okay. I’ll agree to disagree with me.

I’m freelancing for a stage directors’ union, and I find my union support increasing exponentially with every case description I proof. I like proofreading (hey, understatement of the year, what’s up?); I like that as I do it I can read, learn, absorb. Job perks.

Despite my valiant effort to find scalped tickets under $40 (not feasible, but if I didn’t try, I failed completely), I didn’t go to Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday bash at the Garden. I did spend all day Monday reading reviews, looking at photos, and listing to “We Shall Overcome” on my iPod. That about makes up for it, right?

Decided I’m forging ahead to pay off my credit card, and when I do, I’m buying a plane ticket to Denver. And one home, of course. So if this means I have to stay in every weekend and drink Three Buck Chuck, so be it. I did just get Season 2 of Northern Exposure. So here’s to saving money, except on that wonderful day when I honor myself for making it through 23 years (well, probably two days of honoring…let’s be honest, it’s going to be a week).

I think I’m only posting right now because I have an insane amount of work to do, so I like to put the pressure on myself just a little more. It’s the only way I know how to function.

Liquor is best when it hurts.

Yesterday I woke up with a great hangover. They absolutely exist, as consequences to a great time. As Steinbeck says, I take my hangovers as a consequence, not a punishment. They’re even better when they’re on rainy Sundays when you’ve got all the water in the borough to drink and season 2 of Buffy on DVD.

But you know when hangovers are really the best?

When you’re in college, surrounded by your best friends, and you’re all in the same boat.

(Read on, and I apologize for the rushed ending, I got tired.)