Seymour’s Fat Lady

Monday June 23, 2008

 

Great Weekend

Friday night was my sister’s birthday, so Rod and I went to New Jersey to hang with her and her peeps. They’d ordered a spread of Chinese food from an area restaurant, and it was from this cornucopia of starch that we discovered fried wontons filled with cheese. I’d never had such a thing before, and now that I know about them, I foresee that we will be concocting some to put in our deep fryer the next time we host a cocktail party. Any kind of soft, white cheese will do; I think they used goat cheese.

Saturday we had brunch at Vynl with our neighbors and their adorable toddler. Hearing her laugh reminded me of an acting exercise I did in college: laughing for two minutes straight. The idea is to find a trigger that sets you off, and then to let the laugh be self perpetuating. The audience was convulsed watching each student perform this exercise. Even if you’re not in on the joke, laughing is infectious. I guess that’s the secret behind laughing meditations.

After brunch we headed to Coney Island to watch the Mermaid Parade. I was a little sad not to be walking in it this year. Standout costumes included a giant squid and a Grease-inspired Pink Ladies mermaid group.

While we were at Coney, we soaked up some of the local sights and activities, such as having a beer at Beer Island. Rod and our friend Mike were in heaven, as this part of the day included two of their favorite things, beer and half-naked women. 

I got my skee-ball fix, which was awesome. I love skee-ball with an unnatural love, and I’ve gone so far as to price skee-ball machines for when we have our warehouse compound in some affordable part of Brooklyn and can house a full-size arcade game. 

We decided to walk toward Brighton Beach to get away from the noise and hullaballoo for a quiet drink and snack, and we found a restaurant called Gambrinus, which has a beautiful outdoor patio under a big, shady umbrella. The shade and cool and quiet felt wonderful after the broiling noise of the Mermaid Parade. The menu is mainly Eastern European; Rod delights in pickled appetizers and so was ecstatic to discover some excellent pickles, vinegary cabbage salad, etc., to be paired with lovely grainy dark bread and butter and swigs of pilsner. I got mushroom blintzes in a cream sauce, a doughy entree I can recommend only to those who are accomplished eaters of carbs. You don’t want to consume such a treat in hot weather unless you are an experienced pasta or bread eater, because you’ll be asleep after four bites. 

Mike and I got some ice cream on our walk back to the train. I was so zonked that I fell asleep on the train ride home. I was lucky to be with my husband, otherwise someone might have stolen my shoes! I never fall asleep on the train, because I’m very possessive about my shoes.

Yesterday Rod and I went to a storytelling celebration in Central Park near the Hans Christian Anderson statue, across from the boathouse. It was so much fun! The Storytelling Center , Inc., of NYC holds a storytelling event every Saturday in the park from 11:00 to 12:00. Those of you who aren’t at home listening to This American Life on NPR might want to check out live storytelling.

It was a great help to me to hear stories aloud; it wasn’t just a pleasure outing for me. I wanted to remember what the components of a great story are, how character and timing and tension and drama all affect the audience. I plan to try writing up some anecdotes from my life as short stories, for practice.

Sorry to hear this morning that George Carlin has passed on. I hope some of his manic and insightful energy passes into each one of us, since it is so necessary for life here on earth.

 

Wednesday June 18

 

RIP Stan Winston and Cyd Charisse

So it feels like a lot has been happening because I’m writing a lot and cooking a lot and moving a lot and thinking a lot. Stan Winston, who created the special effects for Alien, Predator, and Jurassic Park, has passed away. So has Cyd Charisse. It feels like the movie world is impoverished by their passing. I just rewatched Aliens because Melissa and I are choreographing a Sci-Fi bellydance, which we hope to market to gaming, Sci-Fi, and horror conventions.

Cyd Charisse can be remembered not only from beautiful films she danced in with Gene Kelly, but also because a popular character in teen fiction has been named for her. Author Rachel Cohn’s books _Gingerbread_ and _Shrimp_ feature a protagonist who is named for the beautiful, long-legged dancer from Texas.

Proving that New York City has everything, I just located a storytelling event that happens in Central Park every Sunday afternoon. I’ve decided that hearing stories performed is going to help me with my prose difficulties and lift me out of the morass by reminding me of what a propulsive story does, how the tension and momentum build, how it resolves.

The summer solstice is Friday night. Hooray! It’s the perfect time to meditate on what you want more of in your life. The Mermaid Parade is Saturday in Coney Island. Unfortunately I won’t be walking in it this year, but it will be fun to attend all the same.

I pulled the Empress card today, which is about creativity in all its forms, as well as about nurturing. To that end, readers, I’ll give you the Moosewood recipe for the broccoli pasta salad, which is a great one to take to potluck picnics or summer parties. I omit the cashews from the recipe and it tastes just fine:

Pasta Salad with Broccoli and Cashews
Serves 6 to 8

1 pound medium pasta shells
1/4 cup vegetable oil
6 cups broccoli florets and peeled and sliced stems
8 ounces sliced mushrooms (2 cups)
1 1/2 cups chopped fresh parsley
2 cups chopped scallions or 1/2 cup red onion
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 cup toasted, unsalted cashews

Cook the pasta al dente, rinse with cold water, drain, toss with a little oil, and set aside.

Saute the broccoli in the oil for about ten minutes or until it starts to become tender. Stir frequently. Add the mushrooms and saute for five minutes more. Stir in the parsley and scallions or onions and saute for another minute. The broccoli should be bright green, yet easily pierced with a fork.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the vinegar, mayonnaise, and mustard. Stir in the sauteed vegetables and the pasta. Just befoer serving, stir in the cashews.

Serve cold or at room temperature as a summer salad.

Currently Reading: Five Men Who Broke My Heart by Susan Shapiro

 

Tuesday June 17, 2008

 

Speak, Memory

As I complete my five-page assignment for my memoir class this week, I’m trying very hard not to recall passages from Vladimir Nabokov’s amazing memoir, _Speak, Memory_. You know why? Because he’s one of my favorite writers, and every time I realize I won’t write as well as Nabokov I feel like drowning myself.

Instead I’m reading memoirs that are a little more within my reach as a writer. I plan on picking up Susan Shapiro’s _Five Men Who Broke My Heart_. Memoirs like these, by women who are roughly my age and who grew up and were educated in similar circumstances to mine, convince me that in memoir, it ain’t the meat. It’s the motion.

Does the world really need one more story about a middle-class white girl growing up in suburban alienation, with the obligatory eating disorder and desire to be an actress, etc.? Probably not. But the world is getting one all the same.

I’m on a mission to set myself up as a gothic life coach. I’m here to tell people that depression isn’t all bad, that it is crucial to make friends with your dark side, and you can facilitate that process by dancing around to Wumpscut while wearing a lot of black eyeliner.

In the meantime, I’m also:

fleshing out the nonfic book proposal
scouring the want ads for writing and copyediting jobs
researching publishers in preparation for sending out resumes and book proposals
cooking pasta salad with broccoli, mushrooms, and cashews
eat taralles like they’re going out of style

 

Currently Reading: The Devil, The Lovers, and Me: My Life in Tarot by Kimberlee Auerbach

 

Friday June 13, 2008

 

Storytelling Can Be a Lost Art

So, the memoir class was not exactly what I had in mind, but I think it will be interesting nonetheless. I thought we were going to concentrate on developing first-person pieces to send to magazines. It seems like most people in the class are working on full-length manuscripts.

I already have a poetry manuscript and a teen novel manuscript I can’t sell. Now, at the end of this class, I’ll just have one more fucking manuscript to shop around.

My friend who’s a literary agent told me that the plot of my teen novel needs work. The teacher from last night’s class told me that she loves the themes of my intended memoir, but the story arc needs work.

I can’t tell you how many books I’ve read on plot already, and nothing seems to break through. There’s some essential ingredient of storytelling that I’m forgetting. I’m quite sure that I used to tell stories all the time, as a child, as a teenager. Once I honed in on poetry, it appears I lost the ability to frame a story.

Here’s hoping I can get it back. If this class doesn’t do it, I’m going to look for an oral storytelling class.

Because dammit, I want to make money writing. It can’t be that hard! People do it all the time.

I have always suspected that my prose doesn’t work because it doesn’t transcend narcissism or navel gazing. I really hope this memoir class (and my renewed sessions with a therapist) can help me get my head out of my ass–not just for writing purposes, but for my general progress as a soul on this earth.

My parents are insane, and to other people they are very funny. I can’t utilize any of that material because I’m still so angry at them, and it bleeds through when I try to write about them.

If forgiveness was an act of the will, I would have forgiven them seven times already. They have a pool, for Christ’s sake, and they only live an hour away. You know I must be frickin’ pissed at them because I choose to stay in NYC in August instead of visiting them.

One of the exercises the teacher asked us to do was to ask our friends, “How do you see me? What things do I do that are typically ‘me’ ?” She said people have a hard time seeing themselves as characters, so it can help to get the outside perspective.

As you can see, I need all the help I can get in this class. Please feel free to write to me in answer to that question. And as for my mental stability, I assure you I won’t fall to pieces if you tell me something unflattering. The point of this exercise is to get some objectivity about the self, and thanks to modern chemistry happiness is a swallow away.

 

Currently Reading: A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father by Augusten Burroughs

 

Thursday June 12, 2008

 

The Tarot Doesn’t Lie

I pulled the ten of cups this morning. I pull a card every morning as an exercise in deepening my tarot study and exploring how I can wrest the most productive and positive energies from my day. The ten of cups card represents being exactly in the kind of harmonious and supportive community one needs to be in. It presages a day of free-flowing ideas and the unmitigated joy of being alive.

Since I brought all my blog readers through the valley of the shadow of depression, I thought I’d take this time to broadcast that I feel frickin’ marvelous today, not including the minor hissy fit I had over the feedback from last night. I’ve been working on my nonfiction book proposal, and it’s going great!

I’m also presiding as queen over my kitchen, which is one of my favorite activities. I love to cook, in part because it gives me great pleasure to create wonderful food for a fraction of the cost of restaurant entrees. The fun part is combining the menu planning with budgeting, which includes planning how many different meals I can get from a base of ingredients.

Anyone can stock the refrigerator with expensive, premade groceries like store-bought hummus and frozen pizzas. I like making black bean dip from scratch as an appetizer for dinner one night and then using it for lunch in a quesadilla the next day. Or baking scallion biscuits when I realize I overbought scallions last week.

I feel so clever, sharpening my wits to tickle my husband’s palate. I enjoy seducing him with colors and textures and flavors. I offer a well-stocked refrigerator as a gift for my partner, which involves all of my frugality and creativity and effort.

This would make a great class, I think, and I sometimes imagine posting an ad on craigslist, offering my services as a cooking tutor/meal planner. The problem is that this is New York City, a market in which I would be competing with Cordon Bleu-trained chefs for the privilege of being a cooking teacher. I have no formal cooking training, unless you count the six months I worked as a line cook in a Mexican restaurant.

Incidentally, I quit the job working at a Mexican restaurant not because it was backbreaking work being on my feet all day and mopping the industrial-sized kitchen, but because I couldn’t stand working in such close quarters with a staff of two other people, one of whom did not speak English very well and the other who could not converse about any blessed thing I was interested in. Great Gods, my social skills are fragile, and my need for intellectual stimulation is great.

However, I can’t count the times people have asked me whether I give cooking lessons. If I could just work out the logistics of it (which involve insurance, I’m sure, when people set themselves on fire during one of the lessons), it would be such a cool thing to put into the world.

Maybe that could be another nonfiction book proposal. Or a column in a newspaper or magazine.

When it comes down to it, cooking for yourself is a great way to stick it to the Man. Take control of what goes in your body! Stop paying out the wazoo for prepared organic groceries from Whole Foods, or ordering in from Zen Palate, or spending half your day on line at Trader Joe’s!

 

Godzilla Brain in the House

Here’s what I don’t like about teaching: You can’t please everyone, and invariably you are going to get negative feedback.

One out of the five comments I got from last night stated that I “didn’t seem trained as a teacher, since she mainly read off the handout we were given.”

Ouch.

The fact is, I’m not trained as a teacher. I’ve never taken an education course. What little educational training I have, I got at staff meetings while working as a tutor.

What this comment fails to take into account is that:

1.) I wrote the fucking handout
2.) My boss told me it was a lecture, not a class, and I do things differently in class
3.) I gave numerous examples off the top of my head
4.) I encouraged audience participation
5.) I managed the time and energy of the presentation by suppressing the nerdnick who asked a million questions
6) I fielded questions from the audience knowledgeably

So if that’s not a display of teaching skill, what is?

Okay, I’m practically Amish, and the audiovisual portion of my classes is very low-tech. The class could benefit from a PowerPoint demonstration, and if I owned a laptop, I would think about incorporating that element.

Notice how I’m glossing over the other four comments that raved about my brains and charm and sense of humor.

I opted not to bring in the uke. I’m looking to develop musical content in combination with a short lecture on the parts of speech, and maybe making a short video of it and trying to sell it.

This is just one of the many, many ideas I have. Which might be why I get a small fraction of stuff actually done. At heart, I’m a dilettante. 

Currently I’m juggling several projects:

A nonfiction book proposal
A novel
Poems
Starting a memoir class tonight
Trying to drum up freelance work
Brainstorming a new dance routine

This is a far cry from two weeks ago,when I was sobbing uncontrollably and staring at the wall. I’m wondering if antidepressants will help control not only the superego, but also the id, because between the two of them my poor ego is pulverized into paralysis.

Whenever I get negative feedback, I feel like Godzilla and want to stomp on some skyscrapers and yank airplanes out of the sky and breathe fire and create general decimation. If you don’t love me, you should be destroyed.

 

Wednesday June 11, 2008

 

Grammar Geek

May I admit something to you? I enjoy teaching grammar.

I like studying and teaching grammar because, at bottom, I crave rules and limitations. I’m a Capricorn, and my ruling planet is Saturn, Lord of Limitations.

But also, the thrill is much more like the one my husband Rod gets when he dismantles a machine to see why it isn’t working. It’s thrilling to investigate the parts of something and then put it all back together and hear the engine come to life, the fans blowing smoothly, all the fuel humming along in the wires and the gears meshing properly.

I’m reading June Casagrande’s _Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies_, and aside from the little-girl vocabulary of “meanies” the book is as entertaining as Lynne Truss’ _Eats Shoots and Leaves_. 

I can’t help it; I think dangling modifiers are uproarious. And I’m dedicated to helping legions of students avoid them in writing!

I’m doing a seminar at Mediabistro tonight, and I came thisclose to bringing my ukulele in so I could sing a preposition song. Since this seminar is to drum up new students, I couldn’t decide whether the uke would intrigue prospective students or scare them off.

I wonder if I would be quite so enamored of teaching grammar if I had to teach it at a community college? Something tells me I will have a chance to find out, in the near future. 

I like the idea of empowering people by teaching them grammar rules, as many people have been traumatized by the study of the English language. To avoid many common grammar errors, there is more than one solution to each problem. I enjoy looking for many options to produce a clear sentence, and I think it helps students to see that there isn’t one way to skin a dangling participle.

It isn’t clear to me how useful this information will be to people, in a world in which novels are now being published .. phones in text messaging vernacular. Will copy editors of the future be crossing out the word “later” to spell it “L8R”? That remains to be seen.

 

Tuesday June 10, 2008

 

Erzulie

This morning I had a vivid dream about Erzulie, vodou lwa of love and creativity. In the dream, she was holding a petrified mollusk up to me for inspection, and I was horrified. It seems clear that the source of my creativity needs to be fertilized, reconstituted, whatever it takes.

I’m not tutoring over the summer, just teaching, so my income is reduced. And when I’m worried about money, it’s very hard for me to think about anything else. And when I’m working full-time at a job I can’t stand, I’m too exhausted to write. 

Still I feel some kind of mad, joyous creative energy coursing through me today. The appearance of Erzulie in my dream has reassured me that the money part will be taken care of if I simply cultivate the writing projects I’ve got in mind but never had the time or energy to concentrate on, until now.

I was born on the same day as Henry Miller, and I take great delight in reading his books, in which he details how he “touches” his friends for loans to keep him afloat so he can finance his writing. He seems to feel not the slightest compunction about being a mooch, so convinced is he of the worth of his art. I wish I could have a little of that single mindedness.

 

Monday June 09, 2008

 

Spring Caravan

Spring Caravan was fun. Somerset is right near New Brunswick, where I went to college, and my sisters still live in the area, so the Voodoo Sisters had plenty of support. Melissa Voodoo and I were not prepared for the adulation of fans we’ve never met; several people recognized us by our YouTube vids. Hooray! The stage at the Ukrainian Cultural Center is tremendous, and I had the wonderful experience of being able to complete the cane routine without the fear that I would lop off Melissa’s head. 

I am still not at 100% full strength, and I continue to feel as though I’ve had a bad influenza for the last month and am still recovering, so I spent most of my time at Spring Caravan hiding until I had to perform.

Roderic, my gorgeous edelweiss, is most unhappy when the temperature climbs above eighty degrees, so I spent a few hours yesterday stocking up on juicy fruits and vegetables to tempt his fickle appetite. I made a barley salad that was inspired by one of the recipes from the Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special Cookbook. The changes I made: I omitted the carrots and substituted carmelized vidalia onion, and I omitted the walnut garnish.

French Barley Salad

1/2 cup raw pearled barley
2 cups water

Dressing
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill (1 1/2 teaspoons dried)
1 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 cup halved or quartered mushrooms
1 cup peeled and diced carrots
1 cup cut green beans, trimmed and halved
1 cup thinly sliced red or yellow bell peppers
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 teaspoons butter
2/3 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Using a strainer, rinse the barley and drain. In a small heavy skillet on low heat, roast the barley until fragrant and beginning to brown. Place the barley and water in a small saucepan, cover, and bring to a simmer. Cook on low heat until most of the water has been absorbed and the barley is soft, about 40 minutes.

While the barley cooks, whisk together all of the dressing ingredients. In a separate bowl, pour half of the dressing over the mushrooms and set aside. Blanch the carrots in boiling water for about one minute. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a large serving bowl. Blanch the green beans for three to four minutes. Drain and set aside to cool. Stir the bell peppers and parsley and marinated mushrooms into the bowl of carrots.

In a skillet, heat the buter. When it sizzles, saute the walnuts until they are coated and the butter begins to brown. Remove from the heat.

When the barley is tender, drain it in a colander. Add the drained barley and the remaining dressing to the serving bowl and mix well. Allow the salad to sit for at least thirty minutes before serving. Just before serving, gently toss the green beans and walnuts into the salad. Serves four.

In no ‘poo news: I have discovered that parsley infusion makes your hair insanely shiny. Maybe not so good for blondes, but brunettes can benefit by boiling up some parsley leaves and rinsing with the brew, maybe with a tablespoon of vinegar thrown in.

 

Friday June 06, 2008

 

The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll

Do you know that children’s book _The Lonely Doll_, by Dare Wright? The cover has got a checked gingham border and a pic of a doll with a blonde ponytail. There were a few books in the series; I seem to remember it mostly because the doll meets some teddy bears, one of whom gives her a spanking when she misbehaves. Very noir photos for a children’s book, and now I know why.

I just read Dare Wright’s biography, _The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll_. It is an absolutely corking read! I couldn’t put it down. It was fascinating and nauseating in equal measure. Dare Wright was such a successful children’s author because she was a perpetual child herself, dominated by her mother to such a degree that she never individuated and couldn’t function as an adult.

As someone who grew up with an overprotective and bossy mother, I am drawn to stories of daughters, which is why the Persephone myth resonates so strongly with me. Reading this book gave me a chance to see what the cost is when you spend your life pleasing a mother who smothers you, when your identity is subsumed into your parent’s. 

I’ve spent years in therapy trying to disentangle myself from such a dynamic. Plath’s “Medusa” seems appropriate here, and this poem is one of the reasons I have a medusa tattoo:

Medusa

Off that landspit of stony mouth-plugs,
Eyes rolled by white sticks,
Ears cupping the sea’s incoherences,
You house your unnerving head — God-ball,
Lens of mercies,
Your stooges
Plying their wild cells in my keel’s shadow,
Pushing by like hearts,
Red stigmata at the very center,
Riding the rip tide to the nearest point of
departure,

Dragging their Jesus hair.
Did I escape, I wonder?
My mind winds to you
Old barnacled umbilicus, Atlantic cable,
Keeping itself, it seems, in a state of miraculous
repair.

In any case, you are always there,
Tremulous breath at the end of my line,
Curve of water upleaping
To my water rod, dazzling and grateful,
Touching and sucking.
I didn’t call you.
I didn’t call you at all.
Nevertheless, nevertheless
You steamed to me over the sea,
Fat and red, a placenta

Paralyzing the kicking lovers.
Cobra light
Squeezing the breath from the blood bells
Of the fuchsia. I could draw no breath,
Dead and moneyless,

Overexposed, like an X-ray.
Who do you think you are?
A Communion wafer? Blubbery Mary?
I shall take no bite of your body,
Bottle in which I live,

Ghastly Vatican.
I am sick to death of hot salt.
Green as eunuchs, your wishes
Hiss at my sins.
Off, off, eely tentacle!

There is nothing between us.

 

Currently Reading: The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright by Jean Nathan

 

Wednesday June 04, 2008

 

Ukuleles of Love

I think the antidepressants are making me feel worse. I’ve heard this can happen; it’s scary. It feels like a hot wind of all the things you hate about yourself constantly blowing through you, tuned up high and loud. 

Saturday night Rod and I went out on the town with the radiant Boni, Alice, and Maryann to see the Ukulele Cabaret. This is the second time I’ve been to the event, and I have hugely enjoyed myself both times. Some performers are highly skilled jazz musicians, and some people are primarily stand-up comics who accent their routines with some uke songs. The breadth of influences and styles is fun. We saw the Jack Lords, a full band with a lead uke. They sound like Belle and Sebastian. We saw the War Ponies, a uke duo who looked like they took sartorial advice from Death in June. The theme song for Uke Cabaret, “Tiny Bubbles,” has the refrain “Ukuleles of Love, raining from the skies above.” You can see a lot of the performance videos on their Web site, www.ukulelecabaret.com. Check out Hot-Time Harv’s “I Put Out for Chinese Food.”

Before the cabaret, we jammed out in my apartment. Alice brought her acoustic guitar and Boni sang Rod Stewart and Hank Williams songs. I was thrilled, and they were very encouraging as I plunked and plinked along on my uke. Boni and Alice are also two of the poets who first encouraged me in New Brunswick when they heard me read in the open mikes. It’s also very funny that they’d just come from getting their hair done–and they looked lovely!–and had laid out big bucks for shampoo, conditioner, etc., and then told me my no ‘poo hairdo kicked arse.

Thanks to all of you who have written or called to let me know that you love me and are thinking of me. I appreciate your support. Every time someone reaches out to me, I’m surprised, and then Rod reminds me, “You’re blogging about this on Myspace.” I always figure everyone’s on Facebook instead…

The difference between this depression and others I’ve had is that I know now this is not who I am. When I was younger, I believed this was my natural state, and that happiness was an aberration. Now I know this depressive fog is the unnatural visitor.

Just finished Khaled Hosseini’s _A Thousand Splendid Suns_, which was okay but not as enjoyable as _The Kite Runner_. 

I virtually inhaled Melissa Bank’s new book, _The Wonder Spot_. If you have not read this book, go and do it immediately. It’s marvelous! I liked it better than the other book of hers I’ve read, _The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing_, which was too arch to really be funny. That’s a comment Diane Wakoski once gave me in a workshop on a poem of mine, and at the time I didn’t understand what it meant; it has something to do, I believe, with being too self-referential to really get the jokes the universe plays.

Frankly, I’m just dreading Spring Caravan. It’s heartbreaking that I’ve been wanting to dance at this event for years, and now that I will be there, all I want is to be curled up in a ball in my apartment.