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long time ...

I know, I get distracted ... I have approximately 3 blogs, and have not updated ANY of them recently. I'll try to be better about it, I promise.

I am now fully settled into Brooklyn, and getting used to having free time again. I am not sure how I managed working full-time, going to school part-time for so long. Somehow I did it though, and still managed to have a social life -- go figure.

Now that school is done, I have more free evenings to enjoy my new apartment. I love it! It's spacious and chill with roof access and good roommates. My roomies, C & R, are good people. C and I have known each other for years. She is my age, a musician and a super-cool person. She's laid back and fun, and I really like living with her. R is the "man of the house" he's 6 years younger than us, which makes me and C feel old, but it's all good. He's a photographer's assistant and all around nice guy.

The three of us drank champagne and played darts last night -- good times, although I haven't played darts recently and lost miserably.

Writer's Block

I spent an hour tonight in Barnes & Noble looking at books. I went in thinking I would by a new book since I finished the one I was reading today, and yet I left empty-handed. It wasn’t that I couldn’t find something that interested me; there were a plethora of titles that I would have loved to dive into. I just couldn’t seem to find it in me to pay full-price for a book. Sure, there were plenty of books at 20% and 30% off the cover price – including the new Nick Hornby title which I have been wanting to read. Yet I still did not make a purchase.

Instead I scoffed at the prices: Nick Hornby at 20% off the cover price of $24.95, why that is still $20 plus tax … and I can get it on Amazon for even less than that. But I don’t usually order books for myself from Amazon. I am more of an instant gratification type when it comes to book buying. Has working in a branch of publishing where I have access to thousands of titles for free – if I properly work the system – really jaded me that much? I used to think that books were the one thing for which I would always pay full-price. I told myself that they were the one area where I would always support the independent mom & pop place over a chain regardless of cost. But here I found myself in a bookstore, for the explicit purpose of acquiring a new book, unable to act on my impulse.

Is it because I was in a Barnes & Noble and my subconscious was telling me to do what I believe in and shop local? I don’t think so. I think that I have truly come to a point in my life where the idea of paying the list price for a book seems preposterous; especially when I can go to Amazon or The Strand and get the same title for a fraction of the price. This is a sad day. I feel like I have lost some part of myself that I may never get back.

While thumbing through titles in B&N I came across a statement that said something to the effect that living in New York can suck the will to write out of an author. This started me thinking about my own writing and how living in the city has changed my voice. My writer’s block started long before I moved to NYC. I can pinpoint when it happened nearly to the date, but would rather not go into that now. Let’s just say it was years ago and due to circumstances beyond my control.

I have thought about reconnecting with my inner author for sometime now, and envisioned day-to-day life in the city as the perfect means to achieving that goal. What could be better material than the wacky happenings of more than seven million people going about their life activities? After two-and-a-half years, though, I still have not written anything worthwhile.

I don’t think my inability to put pen to paper (or fingers to keys) results from lack of desire. I started two blogs with great intentions of keeping them up-to-date with anecdotes. I journal sporadically, and intend to write each night before I go to bed or each morning when I wake up. I read books like The Artists Way for inspiration. Still I am unable to meaningfully compose stories of sentences made of words born of letters.

So what is it that is preventing me from doing an activity that I love? Could it be true that this city sucks the writer out of you?

After stumbling upon that claim this evening I started thinking about it, and concluded that it could be true. Perhaps NYC is so stimulating that one finds himself or herself home at night lacking the energy to prepare dinner let alone write. Not to mention the fact that most of us spend all day in front of a computer working, and if not at the computer, then in meetings making notes – or doodling – in note pads. In this capacity one is always communicating with written language in some way; it is simply not the way a writer would prefer. This meaningless composition serves no creative outlet. Instead it takes precious words and turns them into a necessity of the work environment.

I read a story once that was based on the idea that each of us is given a finite number of words to speak in a day. People could choose to use their words in aimless chatter or meaningful conversation, but once they had spoken their share silence ensued. At the center of this tale was a couple who were very much in love. They had committed to each other despite the fact that they were geographically separated. Each day they tried as hard as they could to speak as little as possible so that they could share their lives with each other through nightly phone calls; remaining close despite the miles between them. Some evenings though one of them would find that they had ran out of words, and would let the other talk. Other times they both would reach their maximum usage. It was at these moments that the couple would listen to each other breathe – content in their connection despite the lack of spoken language.

I can’t help but wonder if something similar to this happens to those who want to be writers yet find themselves working mundane jobs to get by. Maybe we spend all day using our words for meaningless communication that by the time we want to write something for a purpose other than work we are left without the vocabulary to say it. It is thoughts like these that both depress me, and help me excuse my failure co compose.

With that said, I have one anecdote to share before I collapse into a much needed slumber.

After I left the bookstore I made my way to the train that would whisk me home to Spanish Harlem. Knowing I had a half-hour ride with no reading material I opted to listen to the soundtrack of my life and play Tetris (ah the joys of technical gadgetry. Shortly after I settled into my seat, minding my own business like the good New Yorker I am, a man sat down next to me. I did not turn my head, but merely got an impression of him out of the corner of my eye. I am usually not skittish when it comes to weirdoes on the subway. I leave them alone, and they tend to leave me alone. For reasons I cannot fathom, this man set me on edge. Still having only the impression I was able to make from my peripheral vision I concluded that he was stranger than most. His outfit appeared to be a traditional African long shirt and slacks, and yet I knew that it wasn’t quite right. Had it been, I would have been at ease.

My suspicions were supported when he shook his change cup in my direction. Had he been merely a pan handler, he would not have taken the seat right next to me. Next he started yelling about the “F’in War” and how she had to go die in it. Then he rose to stand in the middle of the car and yell at us all about the men and women fighting on the front lines. Now I was able to get a good look at him. He was wearing layers of colorful clothing, a paper crown, and a golf ball necklace. His outfit coupled with his nonsensical yelling at people about war – sometimes in their face – could have meant that he was a harmless crazy. Yet there was an underlying anger to all his rants that I could not come to terms with, and set me on edge. Perhaps it was this paired with the fact that most of the time he was sitting next to me he was mumbling comments apparently directed at me … I was grateful that he did not try to follow me off the train.

Why?

I spent the last hour ransacking my apartment in search of a very important paper that I put in a very special place. That seems to be the root of the problem. You see, I take after my mother when it comes to these 'special places'.

My mom is someone I love dearly, but she has this knack for putting items somewhere, and then never being able to find them again. These items range from Christmas presents to car keys, her purse, and many other miscellanies. Sometimes these items are found after a good round of searching and sometimes it takes months. I have received gifts meant for Christmas in July of the year after. A set of car keys was once found after the spring snow melt — presumably dropped the winter before. These things happen, and the "special places" have a certain notoriety in our household.

I seem to have inherited this from my mother. I have been known to misplace driver's licenses that I had out moments before. I tend to put paperwork in random places only to discover it again months later, repeating this pattern week after week. This time though, I managed to create one doozy of a very special place ... and it makes me want to alternately scream and shoot myself in the foot. You see, I lost a receipt that clearly lays out charges that my rental company needs to reimburse me for. I NEED this piece of paper more than I have ever needed a piece of paper in my life.

I located the initial receipt — the one I signed when the movers came to pick my stuff up, but I can't for the life of me find the one they gave me when they finished unloading the stuff. The one with itemized charges and stars to show what exactly the rental company was covering. The thing is, I knew this piece of paper was uber important, and so I put it in a place worthy of its import. Do I remember where that place is? No, but thank god I can kinetically remember doing it. Funny how my muscles remember the motions, but my brain can't remember the place.

I guess I will go dwell on the frustration as I try to fall asleep, and once I do hit slumberland, I am sure my sleep will be plagued with anxiety dreams of searching for the paper. I am sure these dreams will not shed any light on the situation as I have searched every feasible place I can think of. But it doesn't hurt to hope, does it?

moves, views and thunder oh my!

It has been a while since my last—and as fate should have it first—post. Sad but true. I am not sure what this says about me as a person, and a procrastinator, but let me start by saying that it has been quite a month. My last post discussed my upcoming move. Now the big apple is known for nightmare moving tales, but nothing prepared me for the disaster my move was (floors not only three weeks late, but I get a call while the truck is loading that the place is not ready, store stuff overnight and camp in old apartment, get into new place to find an unfinished disaster area . . .)


But, that is all in the past now. I can safely say that I am settled into my new place and I love it. Basically I went from a fourth floor walkup microscopic cave with views of the apartment across the airshaft to a spacious light-filled sixth floor elevator unit with city views and many closets. In the morning the daylight gets me out of bed and at night the twinkling lights of the Upper East Side lull me to sleep. I love the light. I love the space. I love my apartment.

* * * * * * *

Tonight I stepped out of my local grocery store, Food Choice—a place I prefer to call "Food Lack of Choice"—to find the rain-slicked streets of Spanish Harlem alight with the sickly green color that precludes a thunder storm. I hurried home, groceries weighing down one hand, umbrella clutched in the other, hoping for a glimpse of lightning bolts from my new apartment.


My new digs happen to be on the sixth floor of the tallest building in the area . . . this makes for amazing city views at night and the unusual ability to see lightning. In New York City, thunderstorms are mostly heard. The thunder claps bounce through the streets, the sound amplifying as it echoes off high rise after high rise.


For pedestrians scurrying in the rain at street level, thunderstorms are heart-stopping medleys of cacophony that only make the rain that much worse. Not only do you have to dodge puddles, umbrellas that are forever trying to stab you in the eye, and the inopportune splash of taxi and bus slop, but now you have to worry about the noise of thunder scaring the shit out of you as well . . . and all that without the pleasant warning flash that, in most places on earth, precedes the rumbles. The same buildings that channel the sounds of thunder into intense rumbles also ensure that lightning is rarely seen. Occasionally, a flash of light makes its way to street level, but most often there is no visual warning for the ruckus of Mother Nature's fireworks.


All of this changes in my new place, where one can see for miles. And thus it was with the excitement of a child at Christmas I rushed home, only to be disappointed. Tonight's promise of thunderstorms from both the weathermen and the greenish glow of the sky never came to fruition. And so I sit listening to the patter of rain against my window, still waiting to see the zig-zag of light coupled with the Upper East Side skyline . . . maybe tomorrow.

Moving

Why is it that moving is always filled with drama? You would think that having done it a couple times a year for years, I would be a pro. But, in reality, I hate moving. I am really bad at it, and someday I hope to avoid it altogether.

You may be asking yourself: “How can someone be bad at moving?” I know, it is not a difficult concept – put things in boxes, hire strapping young men to carry them down your four flights of stairs to a truck, and then negotiate the items into the elevator and up six flights to your fabulous new apartment. Not rocket science, I know. My problem stems from the fact that I am the biggest procrastinator ever. It is true, I cannot accomplish anything without a false sense of pressure which I create by putting everything off until the very last minute. Thus, I am sitting in my apartment with the move looming less than 36-hours away and yet I have not packed a single box. WHAT IS MY PROBLEM?

I keep telling myself that I have been in my current microscopic apartment for 2 years. Thus I could not have accumulated that much stuff – no room for it. Um yeah, this is a good example of my perpetual state of denial. I may own only books and clothes, but I work in publishing thus the number of books I own is ridiculous. Over the past two years I have acquired shelves and shelves of free books ranging from cookbooks to trash.

After a day on my couch watching trashy Saturday TV, and with the Monday 8:30 a.m. mover deadline quickly approaching, I think I am finally ready to start packing my first box. I can feel the motivation rising in me like heartburn. Thus I am off to take advantage of this energy – before it disappears and I return to my lethargy.

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