HE SAID, MARIE, MARIE, HOLD ON TIGHT
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
~ The Waste Land, "The Burial of The Dead", Eliot
Sunday, July 13, 2008
cars and dirt
drove up to ithaca for the weekend. cooked a steak and tilapia fillets for dinner with baked fries and grilled peppers. lots of rosemary. didn't really want to go to ithaca, wanted to stay in the city, have been exhausted, and i knew the drive up would be exhausting. but i think he really wanted to go upstate, get into the country. i drove 2/3 the way there, 3 hours on the expressway and interstates in the dark, mind-numbing upstate new york roads with monstrous mountains and lakes. just got back, i fell asleep for the most part in the car, thus putting him in the miserable boyfriend position of having to drive 3 hours downstate in torrential rain and cross a massively congested gw bridge into the city while i slept. (so we were driving, the rain came down so heavy that the entire landscape was blotted out and turned into a massive dali-scape, i was drowsy, where were we? which country was i in? when i woke up, everything was clear, and yes, i was in america.) on the way back, we stopped at a fireworks factory outlet and bought some fireworks (can't wait to set them off illegally in some random ithaca or jersey field), then i took the wheel, got into a massive jam on some interstate with construction while desperately needing to take a piss, i stopped at some gas station to use the bathroom and we bought some greasy bk hamburgers which we ate--with humor--in his car, we got lost, he took the wrong turn, ended up on some interstate 476, which lead us to some boondocks down in pennsylvannia, the town of taylor--that was depressing. and work is getting slightly depressing--i rejected 12 manuscripts in an hour last fri, and had to go out with the publicists for drinks and lunch and an author reading last week--all that oily schmooozing. work again tomorrow, i sorta wish i didn't go up to ithaca--getting wet by the lake with a flock of geese and wearing flowers in my hair perhaps wasnt worth all the stress, but whatever i am discontented and rambling and i am upset that i have to do all the laundry and apartment cleaning that i could have done over the weekend.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
plant
109th street and broadway--am stopped by a beautiful boy in skinny jeans, he asks me to support gay rights in america. on the 1 train on 42 st, i ask a man what he is reading, 30 days of night, he says, in it the northernest of the northernest towns is submerged in darkness for 30 days and attacked by zombies. we laugh. that's awesome, i tell him, i love it already. across the road on 111th, a baby is crying. i had a half-day today. the fourth of july weekend. i am helping to publicise the best american comics 2008. i'm also reading ozick's heir to a glimmering world--in it rosie, orphaned at 18, becomes the typist/babysitter/housekeeper to a haphazard family of german immigrants. set in new york in the 1930s, it takes us through rainswept bronx streets, the grime of manhattan, the secrets of a mad woman (is her madness a ruse? like hamlet?). it's wonderful. the typewritter seems a central motiff for ozick--the upcoming dictation is a fictitious novel about the (female) typists who transcribe the novels of megalomaniac male white writers (i think conrad is one of them, if i am not wrong). fernando, my peruvian friend in cornell who is a grad student in south american literature, is staying over this weekend, and i am excited too.
i sent off a letter yesterday. i finally made the decision, after half a year of agonizing. i actually do grasp the magnitude of what i have chosen. i've put my parents through grief, but i think we've all become closer through this, and i love them for everything. i look outside, and i miss home, i miss ithaca, but new york is beautiful, and i am in love, burning, occasionally afraid to, but determined to become someone. i hold my life in my hands like a plant.
