In Your Spare Time

Every spare minute ask yourself:
Are you okay with dying soon? Is this what you want to be doing, is this how you want to be spending your time?

[It’s okay to ask other people for advice when you already know what you want them to say. You are not looking for a second opinion, you just want to hear your own one out loud. You want the universe to hear it too. The only thing to be careful about is they may not give you what you're looking for. Plus, did you ever notice how people who are the most eager and forceful with their advice are usually the most unfulfilled in their own lives? Someone who is on the right path doesn't need to convince anyone else of anything. Thank them, and move on. There are so many other things you need to put energy into, in all that spare time that you have.]

The hill behind the house where you grew up echoed, and now you live in Manhattan and nothing echoes. Even if it did, the noise of everything else would drown it out.

Every spare minute ask yourself: Do you want to write or don’t you?

I agree these are not things that should irritate me to such an intense degree.

1. When people say “What?” or “Huh?” the minute you start to say something. Up until that point they had only missed like two words at most, so if they had just kept quiet they would have heard everything they needed to hear without asking you to repeat what you hadn't even said yet.

2. Public nail clipping.

3. Hinty-hinty type sensationalist stories where you can never figure out the crux of what actually happened. Like, did the person die, or not?

4. The expression “It is what it is.”

5. When you just need to buy one thing in the supermarket at midnight on your way home and there’s literally like one other person in the entire store and they are just hovering around the only section you need to get to. (Similar to the adjacent locker terror at the gym or the person who sits next to you in an empty movie theater.)

6. When you tell someone something that's been bothering you at work or home or in your social life and their response is, “Oh.” Or “Hmmmm.”

7. People who urinate too frequently, especially in the middle of a good conversation. The worst is the sort of gleeful, “Gotta pee.” Like they feel almost proud of themselves.

8. People who are so busy they can’t possibly respond to email but always have time to read their emails. Only once did I have the balls to call someone on this and he agreed that it was an absurd practice but said he'd continue to do it because he likes the little break.

9. Women with long hair who cut it one inch and keep saying “It’s sooooooooo short”.

10. People who don't understand that when I hesitate and sound suddenly distant that means I don't want to do what you're asking me to do but I don't feel comfortable saying that.

(For some reason the use of “they” instead of he or she does not annoy me. It sounds more appropriately anonymous and like just this grating, faceless presence in your life.)

Haiku 5/7/08

Peaches in winter,

Not very tasty. Warning:

Men should not buy fruit.

That thing about "the night waltzing in"

1. Are there self-help books on how to cure an addiction to self-help books? 2. At a dinner party about 8 months ago we were talking about how no one really goes out these days and everyone has coupled off and settled down and I said “No one’s really doing the whole friends thing anymore” and my friend Greg said “Friends are so analog.” 3. You know you have really jumped the shark when you’re having a drink in a bar and you look for seats that are far away from the speakers.

4. Please do not make the mistake I always make of telling people you don’t know well absurdly personal stuff to keep up the momentum of a conversation. 5. At B&N they always claimed they wanted “fresh”, creative ideas but what they wanted were more books on guns, dogs and Ireland. When I told Jen’s boyfriend this today at Hill Country he said “How about Dogs Invade Ireland?” 6. There are lots of things about my old boss that if I told you, you’d think I was ripping off episodes of The Office but I’m totally not and all these things really happened. For example, once for Christmas he got a huge FedEx delivery of Omaha Steaks from a vendor and went around the office asking people if they had any ice packs so he could keep it frozen but no one did. He ended up having to leave early and take a cab home to Long Island so he could get the steaks into the freezer right away. 7. Are you happy? 8. My friend Margaret went around the table with her Flip camera asking people that question at a high school reunion type thing over Thanksgiving and it got awkward and really quiet and everyone stopped chomping on Doritos when Sarah admitted she really was not happy at all. 9. Are you baking cranberry bread and does your house have that cozy feel with music playing and candles lit and people laughing and drinking wine while chopping onions in the kitchen that you pictured it would have? 10. Whenever someone says about a neighbor down the street “He seems nice and keeps to himself” run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. 11. Are you surprised by new insights on a daily basis? 12. Is love that stomach drop, shout-from-the-roof, can’t-breathe-without-you elevated feeling or the functional life together where you’ve figured out ways to stop arguing over money or whose turn it is to take down the recycling? (Obviously neither and of course that is a ridiculously naïve and simplistic divide.) 13. You should be flattered to know that I still have your letters, your frantic post cards from every place on earth other than the place where I kept not meaning to end up. 14. People are always happy for “Indian Summer” (politically incorrect) but by that time I am always anxious for the fall to start, to get on with things, to get over the loss of it and accept it and move along and stop that long, drawn out hot haunted requiem.

15. Once in a while people ask me,

“Whatever happened to that novel you were working on?” and someone gave me the advice to just throw the whole damn thing out and start again which I think is really good advice. (Not that I've taken it.) 16. It can’t all be grand stuff. That stuff is exhausting. People don’t think like that. At least I don't think they do.

17. Does that thing still happen to you where you are absolutely dying to have one quiet night at home by yourself and then the second the house is quiet and you are home by yourself you start frantically checking email and facebook and going through your phone contact list and texting everyone you know? 18. I always wished he was a bit more poetic but then I really liked when we were walking up 9th avenue after dinner and it was only just then starting to get dark (this was earlier in the year, way before “Indian Summer”) and he said that thing about “the night waltzing in.”

Tours of Places You Used to Live

Do you like to give tours of places

you used to live?

Do you take it personally

when the scenery has changed?

“There used to be a swing set over there,

that was rotten and creaked a lot,”

you might start to say,

rolling down the window

to point to a certain gathering of trees.

But I can tell you right now—

the swing set doesn’t matter

to anyone else on the tour.

And they certainly can’t be bothered

with knowing exactly

where it used to be.

Which parks

used to be bigger, which houses

were smaller,

which church had one time been painted

a bright, Easter-egg yellow,

and is now a dull gray—

None of these is important.

Neither is the fact

that you once lived down the block

from a neighborhood pool,

that first thing in the morning

you could hear kids shrieking

as they cannonballed in.

All these people on the tour can see is a fence,

and a block of concrete.

Whether the pool is closed now for good,

or just for the season,

has little bearing on them.

They are checking their phones,

wondering how long it will take to get home,

starting to worry about work the next day.

To them progress is not a personal snub.

Let’s say for example the town got a lot of money

to modernize the library.

Now it's shaped like a ship,

with all this light streaming in,

and big comfy couches instead

of those sterile little cubicles.

Someone in the group keeps saying,

“Wow” and thinks it’s impressive,

for such a small town.

You want to punch them

because they are missing the whole point.

You liked those sterile little cubicles,

and the water fountain

that never gave more than a trickle.

You liked the dark little children’s room

with a worn-out wooden dollhouse

and the animal books with

the bindings completely shot.

Most of all you miss the fairy-tale stone steps

in the back, leading down

to a field full of goldenrods

and marigolds.

Someone else points out how cool

the train playground is.

“Was that here when you were little?”

Nope. No. They are just not getting

how much you loved

that wild field,

how sometimes in early spring,

while your dad was gathering books on

tax preparation and your mom

reading Bartlett’s Quotations,

you and your sister would wander down

that impossibly long stretch

to the almost-woods where

you knew you weren’t supposed to go.

There you’d look for ladybugs

or four-leaf clovers

and other surefire signs

of good luck.

Or let’s say in the place where

the pool-hall burned down,

now is a festive Mexican restaurant,

with local artwork,

and good happy-hour deals.

You can tell the tour group all about that crazy,

smoky pool hall where, in high school,

you used to run into the local guys,

who somehow had Boston accents,

how every single night without fail

“Hotel California” played on the jukebox.

But they’re looking at a sign

for 2-for-1 Margaritas,

asking about

the vintage clothing shop next door.

As you get back into the car,

maybe you realize

that you yourself are forgetting certain things.

Of course in the obvious Borges way,

like the bike paths that were huge and perilous,

leading off into the unknown,

are now simple dirt roads,

alongside the tracks of the commuter rail

to North Station.

But even things like the fact that

your house was never green,

it was beige at first,

then painted white,

But you could have sworn—

Or something like the fruit trees

that never bore any fruit.

But what about that perfect Empire apple,

after school one day in 5th grade,

you carefully picked off a branch that seemed

to be handing it

to you?

Before you attempt to go any further,

you should probably ask yourself—

Why are you giving this tour?

Is it curiosity, nostalgia,

just a memory-lane type thing?

Is it because you really do want

someone to know how it felt to be you:

a scrawny kid with a 10-speed bike

who loved her cat (the one buried behind…

which poplar tree?),

who loved

those January nights when she would curl up

in the living room,

whose mom would bring her hot chocolate

whose dad would sing Mr. Tambourine Man?

Did you last-minute swerve to catch Exit 27 off 495

so the guy in the backseat

wearing the Yankees’ cap

and one side of his ipod headphones,

(the guy who is right now wondering

if there’s a Roy Rogers

at a rest stop anywhere between here and New York)

will understand what it felt like to be that kid?

Or is it so that you can be that kid again,

wearing pigtail braids

and too-small pajamas?

Is it so your mom will bring you hot chocolate,

and you dad will sing Mr. Tambourine Man?

Because if that’s what you’re hoping to get

out of giving these tours

of places you used to live,

it’s no wonder you feel a desolate fury

as you finally consent

to pull away from the curb

and head back to 495.

Of course you are biting your lip

as you turn your bruised, lavender face

away from the watery view.

And no wonder you have to summon

the restraint of a caged Mountain Lion

to keep your voice steady,

as you crane your neck around

to tell someone in the back seat

(whose face you barely recognize)

“No, that was music store.

The donut shop was across the street.”

Holiday Roundup - Bargain Basement books I've written

This one is hot off the press--in stores now. The cover was designed by the ever-elusive (i.e., always running off to Pittsburgh) Casey Hallas. If you happen to see it somewhere with a hideous and outdated cover, that is the UK version.*

"Do you know the original names of your favorite bands? The lyrics to your favorite songs? The singer-songwriters who wrote the songs that became famous only when metal bands covered them? The cover art to the world’s best-selling-albums? Do you know enough to keep up entertaining cocktail party chatter or could you go one-for-one with true music connoisseurs? In the trivia questions presented here, ranging from the years before rock ’n’ roll through every decade to the present including a section for true music geeks (the ones who can, for example, read actual music), you’ll find the stories behind the bands, the real people behind the magazine covers, the breakthrough hits, the lives lived to excess, the one-hit wonders, the secret muses, the bizarre cover versions, the record-breakers, the weirdest misheard lyrics, before-they-were-famous factoids, B-side esotera, best-selling records, and major cultural turning points in the world of music."

This one came out in October. You'll find it alongside an accompanying Italian version. I had to use a pen-name so no one would know the line in the author bio about almost getting fired for keeping a list of incriminating conversations was about me. To make it more confusing, B&N has the author name wrong on the website. I’ve considered letting someone know about that, but haven’t gotten around to it. Oh and by the way, I didn’t write the curses themselves, that was Antonio Martinez. I wrote the scenarios that you would find yourself needing to use them in. If you have young children around, be careful with the audio component. A*shole, Son-of-a-B*tch and C*cksucker really roll of the tongue en Español.

I am pretty sure this dog IQ book from 2007 is still around as it reprinted a couple times.

You can also buy it in Japanese or this language.












A few years back Random House bought Girl Drinks and released it with a slightly more titillating title. Looks like you can get it used for 19 cents!












* The UK cover

Being Here

Being Here

“Be here now,”
My friend tells me on her way to yoga class,
sipping green tea.
And I wonder if she knows just what I’m up against,
How many places other than here I am,
How many times other than the present
are demanding my attention,
engaged in furious battles,
issuing a rousing call-to-arms.
How even as she speaks in her serene,
first-grade-teacher voice,
trumpets are blaring,
summoning every neuron in my head
into that unreal, unraveling future,
into the what ifs and possibilities,
inevitabilities and just missed-
almost-might-have-been-sliding-door
alternate realities.
And how at the same time, bagpipes are
pulling me backward,
toward Gatsby’s green light,
Faulkner’s red and dying evening,
Foucault and his labyrinth:
everything we already–so many years ago–never meant to leave behind.

How I am no match for that unruly past,
the one that, like the engulfing sun from
a 1970s NOVA special, will one day
grow tired of having given so much, for so long,
and swallow up those ungrateful orbiting bodies,
in a splendid, brutal swan song,
a supernova blast of gravitational collapse,
and then, finally, that longed-for quiet air.

How there is a jittery, flailing creature inside,
clumsily chasing memories with a fly swatter,
succeeding only in keeping them airborne
and constantly in the way.
Memories at once microscopically precise:
(the smell of crushed blackberries, a homemade
lily-of-the-valley bouquet, the lonely sound of a departing train),
and other times a maddening optical illusion:
I tilt my head to get a better view,
and they slip off,
then taunt me again,
like children who want to be chased in a night-time game of tag,
but who are older now, and run too fast.

All the while over the horn section,
a stubborn voice is holding forth
in patient recitation:
what happened last year at exactly this time,
three years ago or ten.
(“Can you believe we were just now arriving on West 87th?”)
And another one, shrill and stuttering,
panicking over the buildup of birthdays and New Years,
endings to eras that were themselves already too late.
The keeper of that shrill voice has a ruler
she keeps slapping against the desk,
Sternly counting the overlap, the around, and in between
giving me only a second as I pull down the shade
to think how strange it is
that Grandma and her great grandson were
on the planet at the same time for only five months,
before a reedy, listing pastor
bemoans the falling apart by degrees,
and an overdressed soprano—makeup already starting to run—
belts out Olympian nostalgia.
Here comes a friendly, nondescript neighbor,
marveling in the prosaic as he shuts his car door,
“I can’t believe I get home from work
now and it’s still light out.”

Well,
of course.
That happens every year.
(No need to mention the tilt of the earth,
the rotation around that resentful sun.)
That has happened every year now for…thirty-three years.
Haven’t you gotten used to it?
Thirty-three years, the ruler is whacking,
three years older now
than my grandfather’s age when he died,
Keats, Morrison, so many others,
already long dead.

Stop wallowing in that.
Be here now.
Listen to that gentle voice,
one suited for vespers,
or to murmuring lullabies from across the yard.
That voice is noticing the scenery,
tasting the hint of lemon
in the Blue Sky Vineyard wine—

And that is what I miss most about my dog,
(besides the pressed-up, warm little body snuggled under the covers,
or the ice cold, iron dark, we-are-the-only-two-creatures-alive
midnight walks along the edge of Prospect Park)—
The endless, unflinching, be here now of her life.

Dogs are Buddhists, without green tea or lotus positions.
She was here then, equally happy to come in or go out,
take a nap or take a walk,
for five years pulling hard against
the leash every time;
not “tomorrow we will run faster”, but today.

Maybe it’s okay to be here now,
thinking of her there then.
And to picture myself catching my breath behind her,
Maybe we are both still there,
In the space of the until already behind us.

Getting Stung by Bees

1. I spent seven years in the absolute center of the baby universe (Park Slope) and then I had a baby and moved out. 2. Nobody I know growing up was allergic to peanuts or even thought about it as a possibility, unlike, say, penicillin or getting stung by a bee. 3. Next time this week I’ll be in London. 4. My nieces are 3 ½ and 5 years old, which makes them full kids now and no longer babies or even toddlers. This is yet another adjustment for me to make. Being an aunt to babies almost feels like you can pretend you are a sister to a teenage mom. 5. Tomorrow my dog Sky moves on to her next adventure in life. I’ve become one of those awful people who have a baby and give up their dog. No matter how complex and nuanced the confluence of factors that led to this point, the end result is the same. Every time I am about to write the new owners and explain all these complicated reasons I stop myself because everyone has reasons for why they do what they do. 6. Last night my parents said they slivered into little balls on the bed so Sky could take up as much room as she wanted. 7. Number 5 coupled with the fact that I have unwittingly become an office drone makes me a lot more forgiving of people who get beaten down and give up their ideals and go into pure survival mode. 8. Thinking about how we are not the people we dreamed we would be makes me think back to all those late-night high school conversations with my best friend Margaret, from whom I’ve been somewhat estranged. 9. I like the peacefulness of the nighttime routine with Wally and yet lying on the bed in the dark listening to lullabies I often grapple with the most morbid, terrifying sense of loss. 10. It’s true the more you have to do the more you get done. 11. In checking our email again and again and again-what are we looking for? (Train running local; foot of snow expected tonight.) 12. I miss Park Slope, but if I’m honest with myself, I have to wonder: would living there now feel like living out the past? Things happen, and then you have to accept them. There’s this delay where, even after they’ve happened, you can push off, hold at bay, the reality of them, the implications. I guess you could call this denial but I think it’s something else. Moving, people dying, bosses not liking you, parents suddenly leaving the house where you grew up after 26 years, apartments that don’t allow dogs, always being exhausted but refusing to go to bed even one minute earlier. I think it's logical that you shouldn’t go to bed on the same day you woke up. 13. The last few times I’ve seen my brother-in-law he’s been in a great mood, offering to burn discs of music that I like. 14. One other problem now is I keep thinking about everything in terms of infinity. 15. Sometimes it’s not just the day of the week I can’t remember, or the date, or the month, or the year but the decade, the century, the millennium. I suspect this is a common problem. Lately more routine things have been getting more routine, like running out of milk, getting woken up by a fog horn, or seeing someone you know at a farmer’s market and having them give you a blank, unamused, off-center look when you express surprise in the fact that potatoes and other root vegetables are best in early spring.