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These new glasses are maybe a little too Lisa Loeb circa Reality Bites. But I don’t care.
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Repost from @jenkoehl #uniform
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After two months of waiting, my couch finally came. Look at this smug face.
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All of my earthly belongings to the person who brings this dog to me
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My first mehndi.
I got on my bike to go to the cafe this morning, but I ended up in the tiny park on the waterfront instead because it was so nice outside at last, and it has been a good couple of days, weeks, months, and I was in fine spirits. I sat there and read my book for a while, only being distracted by all the dogs and their owners walking peacefully on the path behind me, because I love dogs and can’t help but look at them.
Eventually there was an argument amongst the dog owners, which is not surprising. There is nearly always an argument amongst the dog owners in New York City. I wonder sometimes if it is one every minute or one every ten minutes or six hundred a day or what. I would like to see statistics on that. I wonder if there is a file somewhere, perhaps at the desk of a city employee who has been tasked with establishing the real truth.
In this instance the argument was between a young woman walking her dog on the grass, and a middle-aged couple walking their dog on the path. There is a sign at the entrance of the park that says, “Please do not walk your dog on the grass.” The middle-aged couple, with their thick and lovely accents, pointed out the sign to the woman. They explained that it had something to do with seeding the grass. The man asked her to follow the rules and added, “I live in this neighborhood.”
The young woman engaged in the criminal act of walking her dog on the grass replied, “The sign only says, ‘Please.’ It doesn’t say, ‘Don’t.’”
The middle-aged couple started laughing at her. I mean, it was pretty funny. Her argument was terrible. Her argument went against all the rules of society. She was from another planet, I thought for a moment. Like she was an alien in human form sent here to make ridiculous arguments on a beautiful spring day. She added, “And I live in this neighborhood, too.”
The man said, “I feel sorry for you, miss.” They kept walking and chuckling. They weren’t even that mad in the end because she was being so dumb.
I felt sorry for her, too. I know what it’s like to get busted for something minor and then feel embarrassed and then argue a stupid point to try and get out of it, but I try to admit when I’m wrong lately because I end up feeling way better about it all later on, late at night, right before bed, which is when I really have to answer to myself. But sometimes it is important to witness when people do things wrong in order to know how to do things the right way. I am constantly in need of reminders of how to behave myself. So I guess I was glad I saw the argument.
Later I biked past the bookstore and knocked on the window and Emily came outside for a minute and chatted with me. “I am having a great day because I have already witnessed the frailty of humanity,” I said excitedly.
In conclusion: Ha ha, what a dumb argument. And also: life is bittersweet and beautiful.
Have a nice day.
A year ago I was prepping for four months of couch-surfing. I was massively in debt, and had nothing in the bank. I slept, in total, in 26 locations in 7 months, on air mattresses and couches and in guest rooms. One year later I’ve slept in probably the same amount of locations, but now it’s mostly hotel rooms. Everything is the same, everything is better. I’m still in motion, that’s what I like the best. I’m not quite ready to slow down.
Last night I went to a fancy fundraising event for Poets & Writers. The dinner was held in a big ballroom, and there was a massive glittering chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and I whispered to the very successful and very nice publisher sitting next to me, “I don’t want it to fall, but yet I can’t stop thinking that it will anyway.”
I got to meet lots of writers I have always wanted to meet at this event, and people said kind things to me about my book. I got to see Meg Wolitzer, and I really love and admire her a lot. And I met her mother, which was an honor. Also we were served a nice cut of meat, which is always a good way to get me to the East 60s.
I brought Emily Gould as my date because I think Emily should be at every big publishing event saying awesome things to big publishers, especially about Emily Books. At the end of the night we lingered with Marion Ettlinger and Sigrid Nunez and talked about Marion’s famous inspiration boards that she makes for each author she shoots. Mine had Patti Smith on it, amongst others, which had been transformative for me. Porochista Khakpour, who is very pretty and funny, was there for a moment, and told me I had been on hers! We also talked about whether Emily should get her photo taken by Marion. To be Ettlingered. I said she should. I said it was worth it. There’s only one Marion, and I had loved my photo. I don’t use it now because I just don’t look that way anymore. The baby face is gone. But it meant something to me to have it.
Later I walked home from the subway through the slush and a man and I stopped for no reason on the street corner, except, I guess, so that his dog could flirt with me. I felt giddy when I came home and then I checked my mail and laughed because some things will never change. A rejection letter. I WILL NEVER GET INTO FUCKING YADDO.
When I look at this photo of the two young, great writers Susannah Cahalan (Brain on Fire) and Kathleen Alcott (The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets) I am reminded of one of those Lifetime movies about identical twin sisters separated in childhood who are somehow reunited to solve a murder, probably of a beloved aunt or something like that. Susannah would play the twin who was adopted by a Manhattan power couple and became an ambitious young journalist who stumbled upon the story of the murder. (She also doesn’t realize one of her co-workers is in love with her.) And Kathleen would play the twin who went to art school in San Francisco. It would be awesome if their murdered aunt was played in flashback by Charlize Theron, but alas it would probably be Katherine Heigl.
“The power of the novel in the nation’s culture had weakened. It had happened gradually. It was something everyone recognized and ignored. All went on exactly as before. That was the beauty of it. The glory had faded but fresh faces kept appearing, wanting to be a part of it, to be in publishing which had retained a suggestion of elegance like a pair of beautiful, bone-shined shoes owned by a bankrupt man. Those who had been in it for some years, he and Glenda and the others, were like nails driven long ago into a tree that then grew around them. They were part of it now, embedded.”
From ALL THAT IS, by James Salter. Publishes April 2.
This is John Kenney. He wrote a great, funny, smart, emotionally true novel called TRUTH IN ADVERTISING. I will be in conversation with him tomorrow, January 25, for his book launch at Greenlight Bookstore.
Five years ago I left a man and it was messy and I went to Portland for the summer and when I came back to Brooklyn it was still messy so I went to Los Angeles for a while and there, at last, things seemed to be getting less messy, and I was working well and going for long walks around the hills of Silverlake every morning and I was drinking less and I found a yoga class I liked and freelance work I could do long distance and I started to remember what I was like before I was this person who was in a relationship that had gone bad.
And then, after a month of this way of life, I broke my ankle. I broke it very badly and I had to have a horrible surgery and I could not do anything but sit in this house in Silverlake for two months while I recovered. I popped Percocets and watched episodes of “Intervention” and did a passable job on my freelance work and read Olive Kitteridge and thought about someday writing a book exactly like that, but set in the suburbs of Chicago. I was in a tremendous amount of pain. I was bored out of my fucking mind. I couldn’t go anywhere because there were all these awful cement stairs that led to the house, and I couldn’t manage them by myself. So I was trapped in this house for months.
I hated those stairs. They were what was between me and sunlight. Me and the person I had been close to becoming again. Why were there so many stairs? Whenever I had to go to the doctor’s office I had to slide down those stairs on my ass, wincing on each step. Sometimes I would just open the door and lean up against it and stare at them, thinking dark thoughts. Those stairs, fuck those stairs so much.
I walked over there yesterday, to the place I had stayed, and took this picture, and they looked as ominous and dangerous as I remembered. I had an unpleasant physical reaction to them as I approached the house. My body chilled, and I was queasy. I took the picture, and got the hell out of there.
The spring after I got the cast off I wrote a novel about the whole experience. And then I threw it away. When you write a book you have to want to spend a long time with it. After you sell it you have to edit it a bunch of times, then you have to learn how to talk about it, then the book comes out and you do a bunch of readings and interviews, and it ends up being a long haul. And after I wrote about it and had processed it, I didn’t want to live with it anymore. To wear that cast for two more years? No. So I threw it away.
People are always shocked when I tell them I have thrown away a few books, but it’s actually a powerful act. As powerful as it is to publish something, it’s just as powerful to recognize you can walk away.
Book clubs and readings, yoga, sushi, and one of the most searing headaches I’ve had in my life that lasted straight through two business meetings and one dinner. I was not exactly myself that day, but you don’t always get to be yourself. Sometimes you have to be someone else.
I’m drinking too much coffee. All I do is drive everywhere, and when I arrive at my destination, I talk about myself for a while. Still, I am having fun! The response in the book clubs has been intense, to say the least. Everyone has an opinion about these characters. I like hearing what people have to say. Please keep talking to me. I love that people care even a little bit.
My film agents told me they would send me the first season of “Girls” because I do not have cable anymore and I think they pitied me. So that is something to look forward to when I return home.
And finally: Last night’s reading was the jam!
rachellani Asks:
jamiatt Said:
It’s good that you’re in college, and you have the freedom to experiment right now. I would try to write lots of things and see what you like the most. I started out writing poetry in college, and then I switched to studying fiction. I’ve worked on so many different types of projects over the years, essays and articles and advertising copy and even a pop-up book, and I’ve learned something new from each experience. You should try everything.
Also, obviously read a lot. Read and read and read. If I’m not reading, it’s really hard for me to be writing.
Travel if you can. I know not everyone has the money to do that, but it is worth saving up for trips because you just learn so much when you gain a new perspective. I spent my junior year of college abroad and it opened up my mind in a big way. Maybe drive cross country? Even just taking the bus to an unfamiliar part of the city can shift things in your brain.
Also: talk to all kinds of people. Eavesdrop. Go to museums. Fall in love. Break somebody’s heart. Get fired. Get drunk. Be kind. Basically just live your life to the fullest and read a lot and write a lot. That’s a good place to start.
I stumbled a lot, and will probably continue to do so, but I always keep an open mind and try to experience new things. I bet you’re already doing all the things you’re supposed to be doing. I didn’t write my first book till I was 32 years old. I led quite a life before then and I don’t think I was really ready to focus on it until just that time. But everything I had experienced contributed to my writing.
There’s no math to becoming a writer. You either are one or you aren’t one. You either have the ambition and the discipline, or you don’t. It’s up to you to do the work. But I support you!
Someone at WORD is pretty hilarious.
