Off To the Big Apple

From Beantown to the Big Apple tomorrow, the occasion being the MWA Edgar's week, esp. the Symposium, God, how Platonic. I missed last year, being in a funk about my writing. This year, the funk is worse, but since I've resolved to give up crime fiction for mainstream or maybe even literary fiction (can I still do that?) this may be my last year, and I've been trekking down to NYC for at least 10 years for this event.

I have learned a lot about "the state of the market" which grows worse every year unless you are a top gun like Sue Grafton or Harlan Coban, and I've met some nice people, and rubbed elbows and pitched two books. I haven't pitched Festival Madness, and I suppose I should get an elevator pitch ready. For all it's worth. I've learned not to mention the KGB or Osama Bin Laden with reference to these books because that's sooooo yesterday. I've learned that people I met last year (never mind two years ago) won't remember me. I've learned that agents and editors would really rather talk with agents and editors other than aspiring writers, but that's o.k., too. In their shoes, so would I.

I've learned that it's really true. If you're standing like the wallflower at the orgy in the midst of 200 people, that if you just smile, someone will approach. This can be the most forced, shit-eating smile in the world and someone will at least return your smile.

So: life lessons learned at the Edgar's. I used to go to the banquet, too, now, alas, no longer affordable. I was always seated in Siberia, but that was O.K., because there were nice writers seated there, too, and why wouldn't I be in Siberia? Me and The Shadow Warriors. That cocktail party was even more excrutiating unless one of my New England writer buddies was along.

Some of my fellow Guppies (the Great Unpublished) will be there, so I should have lunch companions, although I didn't mind eating alone at a cool Italian place two years ago. Sat at the bar, had a wonderful lunch with wine and an attentive waiter. Sometimes, when one is in a certain mood, others think that you are SOMEBODY and serve you well.

When we were young and sexy this happened to S.O. and I at Chasen's in LA (best table in the house) and also at The Bakery in Chicago (seated in the kitchen where all the VIP's were placed.) The photo shows that young woman.

"You're up in an aeroplane, you're dining at Sardi's." Well, those were the days, and I never write about them, but I'm thinking maybe I should, and tell all the secrets, but I probably won't. Or will I? Nope. Have to outlive everyone first, including myself. Ha ha.

So after this ramble--ramble, not rant, I need to check on the orange yogurt bread and get my chicken breast in the oven. And pack. Those not-too-old-not-too-unstylish clothes. And wash my newly cut, streaked hair. "You're dining at Malibu, alone on the sand."

Onward.

Grapeshot

Craig's List

My son turned me on to Craig's List like six or seven years ago. We listed 3 house sales on Craigs List when we downsized from our big house to a smaller condo. We sold the pool table lamp and the dart board that had been left in the condo. We also sold a microwave and a TV set, and gave away an exercycle to a deserving old man.

Just a few weeks ago, I bought a used Apple on Craig's list. We bought a furnished doll house.
I sold my Honda.

I signed up for psychological tests for pay to get some extra $$$.

Craig's List is my go to place, so it was unsettling last week when the Craig's List Killer struck. The thing is, I had never noticed the personals. I mean who would look unless you were, well, looking. Been in those hotels often, for legitimate purposes. Never seemed like a place for that kind of hanky panky and then a killing.

Doctors (and would-be doctors) make the worst murderers. They think they're so smart and they screw up so badly. I'm only thinking of some Boston murderers. My cat could do a better cover up.

So, will I continue to patronize Craig's List? Sure. No commission. No hassle. I'll be a little more careful. I have to admit it was weird to count out all that cash for the car on the kitchen table.

Grapeshot

Why Is Everything Such A Hassle?

Yesterday I had my hair cut and colored for the first time since early November. I was the two-toned kid, with 4 inches of brown and 5 inches of streaked blond brown with ends that had seen better days. Looking good, now. I did this in prep for Edgar's week in NY. It is bad enough to be the unstylish country cousin, even the pudgy unstylish country cousin without being the bad hair etc. country cousin, and might I add the cousin who hasn't published a book since 2003, etc. etc.?

But my hairdresser is great and he is even reading my book as is one of the other stylists. He liked the "descriptive" passages, which I suspect is damning with faint praise, but anyway. . .
I go back to Wellesley for my hair, and bopped into E.A. Davis to ogle the Lily Pulitzer clothes. So cool. So summery. So very Nantucket. Drool. Prices too high. I debated, and decided not to try anything on in the unlikely event that it fit. E.A. Davis is never a hassle.

We were having lasagne for dinner and I needed parmesan cheese and lettuce, so I stopped at Shaw's. Bought a wee box of black raspberries, so I had three (count 'em) 3 items. Took my understuffed basket into the 10 items or less check-out line. The clerk had already scanned the stuff the woman in front of me purchased, and then she began to pack it up, and I realized about the 3rd grocery bag that this woman must have had AT LEAST 20 items. That Shaws is always a train wreck. So, one might expect that the woman would turn and apologize. Maybe no one was behind her when she unloaded her week's groceries. Nope.

Maybe I had a right to expect that the check-out clerk would apologize for holding up the line endlessly. Paper and plastic and the woman's own bag (just one!) and was that a debit or a credit card yada yada.

Nope. Instead, a cheery, "how are you, today?" Now, how is anyone, especially us type A's who must wait and wait in the quick ten-items-or-less (not fewer) line for endless minutes for the rude feeling-so-priveleged shopper? I said "fine," with a chiliness that must have given her a clue. Still no apology. Not even a breezy apology.

Certainly no abject apology. That would come later.

On to the dry cleaners. Opened the door, and the woman who works there was sitting at her desk. She didn't look up. I did a double take. Hmmm. Her eyes are closed. She is erect, and therefore not dead. This woman never looks exactly healthy, so this was a legitimate consideration. I said, "excuse me."

She woke up with a start and starred at me. Abject apologies. My god, you would think they had lost the cleaning, which has actually happened, but not there. I had two "groups" of cleaning and no cash, so I whipped out ye old charge card, and for some reason she rang the cleaning up in three groups, but she had to key in a lot of numbers and the charge machine was SLOOOOOW, just like the Shaw's checkout line. I didn't understand why she couldn't add 10.00 and 19.65, after all it wasn't a quadratic equation, but this math seemed to be beyond her ken.

In the meantime another customer came in and waited and waited and waited, just like I had at Shaw's, and I was tempted to apologize, but hey, I wasn't the sleepy, slow, abject one.

Finally, with three charge receipts for $29.65, I was out of there. No other hassles. It's a wonder I didn't get rear-ended driving out of the parking lot. This is the center where all the truckers stop at the Dunkin' Donuts because there's a big parking lot. Sometimes you have to wait there indefinitely, but when the wait is long, we will feel virtuous and skip the donut. Never a bad idea, skipping the donut, especially is you are the not-very-stylish country cousin a little pudgy and not recently published.

Alas,

Grapeshot

Earth Day Disaster

My seedlings all died on Earth Day: the tomatoes, cukes, beets--all broke off at the surface of the potting mixture and expired. Too sad. Too much water? Who knows? I'd been nuturing them for two weeks. I replanted the seeds in a different medium. The beans never came up, either.

Mesclun is growing outside, and I'm planting spinach and beets tomorrow.

Alas, horiculture. Sucking it up over something besides writing. That, too. April really is the cruellest month.

"Fishing by Obstinate Isles."

My robot fish story was rejected! It's one of the favorite things I've written. The readers did not get it, were not engaged, and it did "not resonate."

I think my writing group gave me bad advise apropos the beginning, but that can be fixed. I'll send it out again, of course, because I am so taken with the character.

How am I feeling about this? Absolutely rotten. Ezra Pound said it better. "Out of key with his time" and "fishing by obstinate isles." Yup.


Hugh Selwyn Mauberly [excerpt]

For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old scene. Wrong from the start--
No, hardly, but seeing he had been born
In a half-savage country, out of date;
Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn;
Capaneus; trout for factitious bait;
[idmen gar toi pant, hos eni Troiei]
Caught in the unstopped ear;
Giving the rocks small lee-way
The chopped seas held him, therefore, that year.
His true Penelope was Flaubert,
He fished by obstinate isles;
Observed the elegance of Circe's hair
Rather than the mottoes on sun-dials.
Unaffected by "the march of events,"
He passed from men's memory in l'an trentuniesme
De son eage; the case presents
No adjunct to the Muses' diadem.

Why do I even remember this old "stuff" from college English? At least when I give a speech at Toastmasters, I've always lauded for 'colorful speech.'

Onward, onward.

The David Lodge book, Therapy, is good, well, therapy. I laugh like an idiot every night when I am reading it.

Grapeshot

Blogging Along

Cripes, I haven't posted to this blog in a long time. I've been on Twitter (Judyinboston) and my other two blogs. Life's bits and pieces: cleaning, cooking, gardening, and oh yes, writing. Washing, ironing, shopping, stuff. I gave a speech at my Toastmaster's Club about my adventures on a big corporate re-engineering committee in the mid-90's. Ah, the memories. I was associated with the "old legacy system." Might as well have been the dung heap.

Announcement: could be the economy is looking up. We trekked to the Wrentham (Discount) Mall on Sunday for chocolate and moisturizer, and there was a huge crowd. Big line to get into the mall. Parking lot crammed. Lots of people with shopping bags. The stores looked busy, as opposed to Nordstrom's a week earlier and the mattress store on Saturday. Big sale and the store was empty.

So we did our bit, spending the tax refund and the dribs and drabs of money which have come ouf way. I bought a used Apple. A backup drive for said Apple. A keyboard and a mouse. Remember a song from college:

My father makes book on the corner
My mother sells second hand gin
My sister makes love for a dollar
My god, how the money rolls in.

In this case, it rolled out. So . . . .

I'm appearing at the hair dresser's this week for the first time in six months. Long, two-toned hair. The occasion is Edgar's Week next week in NYC. I even have something to wear because I didn't go last year and can therefore wear what I would have worn last year, had I went. Yanno.

Cringing at the idea of the agents and editors cocktail party. How many years? May flog Significant Other's memoir. How would that be? On the other hand, I haven't pushed Festival Madness at this event. F.M. hasn't set the world on fire. In fact, no one has asked for the full ms. And I was so sure. Idea for rewrite, but it will be a lot of work. New beginning. We all need new beginnings. Apropos sucking it up and all that humiliating stuff, there was an interesting post on "when do you know when to quit?" today. I guess you don't. Because around the corner may lurk the agent or editor who believes in you. http://www.murderati.com/blog/2009/4/19/how-do-you-know-when-to-quit.html

Today is Patriot's Day in Boston and a holiday. They ran the Marathon today. We used to live in Wellesley and walk down to the center of town to cheer the runner's on. Wellesley College woman always scream their lungs out. The Red Sox won big time.

I have to confess a total addiction to In Treatment. What a great show. HBO rocks. Worth every dime. And The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency is growing on me every week. It's so nice so see a show about Africa with people going about normal everyday lives, eating out, with schools and homes and occupations. This is a new glimpse into the Dark Continent with no war, rebellion, refugee camps, 13 year old soldiers--well, you know. No Somali pirates.

My robot fish story with the Somali pirates is soooo topical. Now, will it be published?

The kitchen counter is full of seedlings. They are so cute! We have daffodils and forsythia blooming, finally. (not in the kitchen!) Itsy-bitsy leaves on bushes. Very heartening. Something blooming in the slough. Haven't seen the ducks lately.

I'm reading a hilarious book by David Lodge, Therapy. Kind of oppostite In Treatment.

So it goes. A friend sent some fab tango music and we've been listening to that. Rented Frieda from Netflix and liked it.

That's all.

Grapeshot

Sickly Sweet

This is a rant about sugar. Everything is too sweet! The sandwich bread today practically ruined the tuna salad because the bread tasted like sweet rolls. I mean, really. I noticed the cranberry sauce recipe on the bag of cranberries had upped the sugar from 1 to 1 1/2 cups. Too sweet! In baking, I rely on my old standards, and approach new recipes with a certain sweet suspicion. Too much sugar? Sometimes, the answer is yes.

My god, even bottled water comes in sweet flavors now. Eeeeww!

When I worked, every morning I watched the sweet young things (SYT's) dump 3 -7 spoonsful of sugar into their coffee or tea, then add about half a cup of cream. What were they drinking? Looked like dessert to me.

O.K., I'll put a teaspoon of sugar on the grapefruit half, or add a bit to the fruit salad, but this over sugaring of everything is an offense to the palate. My friend actually likes the cheap pancake syrup over maple syrup. Well, duh, it's sweeter. But she drinks prune juice, a sugary sweet concoction that ought to be illegal.

Sometimes, even ice cream is too sweet. Cocktails are too sweet. Cereal? Don't even mention cereal. I stick to shredded wheat and five-minute oatmeal. We like a bit of brown sugar on oatmeal, but not mountains of it.

Bread is the worst. You have to read every freaking label to find whole wheat that isn't loaded with sugar, honey and high fructose corn syrup. Sweet bread ruins the sandwich.

I don't know. Maybe if everyone's teeth rotted. Won't happen. No wonder we are a nation of the obese with adult onset diabetes running rampant.

The sugar substitutes aren't much better. They are even sweeter.

If life hands you lemons, squeeze them over your food.

Onward,

Grapeshot

Oh, The Places We've Been

Masala Art Indian Restaurant in Needham. Yum! The Border Cafe in Cambridge. The blackened catfish was to die for. And the really giant sized glass of wine. Mon Dieu. I had to come home and take a nap. The Big Apple Circus with the trapeze artists, the jugglers, and the fun dog act. We had a busy week. I made potato pancakes and my vegetarian asparagus and pasta casserole and we even concocted up bananas Foster. And the frog exhibit at the Museum of Science was soooo topical because the frogs in the slough started their very noisy chorus last week.

Migrating birds are coming through and the vegetable garden is planted with some cold-loving veggies.

Spring is bound to come soon. Seemed like it on Thursday but now the cold is back and in the meantime the rains came. It's a full life, Charlie.

Thisbe comes out of the closet

As everyone knows, Friday is Cat Blog Day

And Thisbe is out from under the bed, too. After years and years, Thisbe has finally accepted our young houseguest who appears three times a year for various vacations. Usually Thisbe spends these weeks sulking under the bed or in a closet, wherever there is darkness and privacy and one can't (Thisbe hopes) be seen or detected.

Annie is the Tabby. Thisbe is the tortoise. She has a cross on her chest, and she hopes that the Pope might visit someday, as she knows he likes cats. But I digress.

When discovered under the bed, Thisbe used to hiss, "Get outta here. My space."

While we were in Europe, we shut the bedroom doors so that Thisbe's caretaker could give her the twice daily insulin she requires. After a few days Thisbe warmed up to the caretaker and didn't hide when the front door opened and the unfamiliar tread was heard in the house.

So on this occasion of our small guest's visit, we shut the bedroom doors again. Thisbe could "hide" behind the sofa in the home office or under my computer desk or in the cedar closet. She made several appearances and let the small guest pet her, a milestone. Then, three nights ago, Thisbe approached the small guest and said, in cat, "I would like to be petted." And it was accomplished. So Thisbe has been hanging out in the home office with the rest of us. The doll house is set up here and the small guest is busy night and day rearranging dolls and furniture.

Thisbe's old terror has abated. Of course sometimes a cat still likes her privacy and a trip to the furnace room or behind the couch or especially the cedar closet is still required.

Annie is always tranquil but has been heard once this week to offer up five mad meows. Don't know what that was about. She also escaped, opening the sliding door with her paw and exclaiming, (in cat) "spring is here; free at last!"

A household with cats is a complicated one, with brooding and sulking and periods of extreme lovingness. Cats are crazy. They fit right in.

Grapeshot

Hippocampos, Anyone?

Cultural factoids of the day.

Apropos the Neptune Fountain in Bremen, a friend writes: March 30th was Waldemar Otto's 80th birthday and there are exhibitions of his art all over the place.
You may find further information on http.//de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldemar_Otto
There is a good photo of the fountain working. The bubbling water really does it. I think it is a great and way out piece of art.
About the horses: They are fabulous creatures, so called Hippocampos, that belonged to Neptune's and Poseidon's crew, the upper half horse and the other half either a fish-tail or a sea serpent.
The Bremen citizens were not amused when the fountain was installed in the Nineties. It seemed ominous and gloomy lacking hanseatic optimism.
They should have known when they comissioned him, as Waldemar Otto`s idea of mankind and his world has never been too optimistic.

For another look at a hippocampos: http://www.fotosearch.com/UNC295/u11609607/

That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.

One of the most compelling sights in the downtown area of Bremen Domsplatz is the Neptune Fountain. Many cities have a Neptune Fountain, but none like Bremen's. The fountain is not classical, and it presents a puzzle. The people and sea life all appear to be half-drowned. Or maybe they have been out of the water too long and are dying without the strength to climb back into the water. I could not determine which was the case. Neptune looked like Darth Vadar driving the hounds of hell. (His horses). And why did Neptune have horses? They looked so ill-behaved. This is the most compelling statuary I've seen for ages. The fountain was designed by Waldemar Otto. In spite of much internet research, I did not find a satisfying explanation for the subjugation and wretchedness of the people and animals.

This was heavy stuff, but good. And this is definitely a fountain unlike any you will find in the U.S.

Grapeshot, who is still ingrigued

What Was She Thinking?

Yesterday Male Relative (MR) takes flight from Las Vegas to Providence? Sits next to woman with a Palm Pilot. At some point he notices that she is keying some very unflattering comments about him into her palm. . . something about him being a cross between Darth Vadar and Charles Mansion.

Now MR arrived in PVD looking freshly showered with new haircut, clean shirt and khakis and good shoes. Actually, the kind of guy a woman might even LIKE to sit next to on a plane.

My take is that this woman is or thinks she is a writer, and is letting her imagination and fancy roam all over the airplane cabin, writing descriptions of would-be characters. Except that she is an ass. An unfeeling ass. A stupid ass. I mean, suppose MR had taken umbrage and done something stupid, almost as stupid as she was doing. Like seize the palm and erase the text. Like make a loud crude comment.

Now almost anything you do on an airplane these days can get you arrested, so he held his peace. This woman will piss off someone big time one of these days. Someone who isn't a captive in the skies. You just have to wonder.

What was she thinking?

All you keepers of journals, etc. out there. Keep the personal comments about the passenger next to you for later. When he/she can't see what you're busily keying.

I don't know. And then there is the Wellesley woman who got into it with the State Police at Logan Airport, another lose-lose situation. A lot of my sex are, to put it mildly, feeling overly entitled.

Don't be stupid on a plane. Don't trash the appearance of your seatmate on your Palm. Don't argue with the state police at Logan. Don't try to run them down. It ain't cool.

Grapeshot, who is wondering what this magical state of entitlement might feel like.
Might it feel like riding before a fall? Grapeshot is also wondering why she continually keys "Las Vegas" as "Last Vegas."