ACPT Bleg

On Monday I'm intending to send off a check for my first-ever American Crossword Puzzle Tournament as a competitor.  (I've crashed twice to see friends, but I've never actually competed in my life.)  

Question: I was given to understand that there was a sort of off-the-menu option to attend the Tournament without going to, or paying for, the meals.  I like this option better, but it's not on the official sheet.  If I'm a competitor, going to everything, but skipping the meals, how much will this cost me?  

In any event, I look forward to seeing a lot of you this upcoming weekend.  Hooray!

In Lieu of a Christmas Letter...

...Here's a quick, last-chance summary of the year.  Which can't help but be a tad self-indulgent.  But a lot of friends are contacting me through Facebook.  This will help bring them up to speed.

The year didn't start well:  In mid-January I got fired from my crossword editing job.  It wasn't a sure thing at first--I had just really screwed up and knew I was in trouble--but my friend Tracy said, "I hope they fire you.  Your job is the only thing you ever complain about.  It could be the best thing that ever happened to you."  

Turns out she was right.  By very great luck I was able to stay rent-free in Brooklyn for three months while I collected unemployment and tried out Plan B.  (The friend, Jocelyn, was doing an extended stint with Habitat for Humanity.)  I spent January and February working on my book proposal for How to Love God Without Being a Jerk, and adjusting to the life of a writer:  I began working out every day on my bike.  I began to cook, and to eat heathily and carefully.  (I also stopped drinking; turns out I'm slightly allergic.)  [Side note: I also decided, thanks to Netflix, to watch every major film noir there was, at a rate of roughly one a day.  I am now pretty much an expert on the genre.]

On March 18th I sent out my proposal, and immediately got a response from an agent who said, "I can't sell this, but I like your writing.  What else have you got?"  I then sent him the proposal for my Kansas City memoir, and he bit.  On March 21st (Easter!) I got my agent, Adam Chromy, who has been absolutely amazing.  How amazing was proved in only a few weeks.

On April 1st, I made the rounds to several different publishers, and on Monday of the following week, the book had gone to auction.  By April 6th, I had a book deal for enough money to actually live on for a while.  (At least temporarily.  I'm returning to work once I'm done with the writing and touring part.)   My life changed instantly.  It still makes me dizzy to think of it.

So I spent April actually writing the book and waiting for the contract.  In April I stayed with my stalwart friend Tracy, who was away with Habitat for Humanity.  (If you ever need to couch-surf, go to the Habitat for Humanity chat rooms.  I have references now!)

In May I moved to my amazingly generous friend Sherry's country house way out in the Hudson Valley, still waiting for the contract, still writing and exercising and eating well.  I lost weight.  I had to buy new clothes, and Tracy helped me buy clothes that actually fit.  (Part of this weight loss may have been nervousness: I only had unemployment money through mid-July.)  So I spent all summer in the Hudson Valley, writing and waiting around, and FINALLY, at the end of June, I got the contract.  In July, I got the first part of my money.  Thank god for unemployment insurance.  It lasted exactly as long as I needed it.  

In August I took my current apartment in the East Village, but I couldn't move in because I was finishing the book and a move would have thrown me off.  I finished the rough draft at the end of August, and spent September moving in.

It was weird, moving, because it turns out that, after years of being other peoples' roommate, I didn't really own anything for living on my own.  I actually had to buy plates, and cups, and salt, and a bed and a desk and so on.  And I made a number of impulsive errors that I will improve on next time I move.  Moving is surprisingly exhausting, and I wasn't able to return to the manuscript (draft 2) until the end of the month, when I fixed it up and turned it in.

So I am now finally living the life I've always wanted: a self-supporting writer (for now, at least) living in Manhattan.  I've also lost 25 pounds and three inches off my waist, which puts me in the best shape of my life--equal, roughly, to my freshman year of college.  I dress well, I smell nice, and I'm basically happier than I've ever been.  Also, Obama got elected, which is not only good for the country but it won me a long-standing bet.  So it's been a really, really, really good year.  

I just want to thank my agent, Adam Chromy, and my friends Jocelyn, Tracy, and Sherry, who saved my life when I really needed saving.  Thanks also to the Moth and the New York storytelling community, without whom I would never have met all the friends who sustained me this past year.  (This also means big thanks to the amazing Cyndi Freeman, who introduced me to the storytelling scene in the first place.)  And of course, huge enormous thanks to Ira Glass and everyone at This American Life, who are a total delight to work with.  It's been crazy busy, but I'll get something in this year; I promise.

In 2009, I'm eying a move (in August) to someplace in Brooklyn with a little more room.  (i.e., something large enough to have office space I can deduct from my taxes...and small enough that the tax savings are comparatively impressive.)  And I'll have finished my book and begun starting on the next one.  Aside from that, I'm actually daring to hope that 2009 might even be better than 2008.  And that, just possibly, things keep improving from here.  

Happy New Year, y'all!

Christmas in Tucson, Such As It Is

I spent the last ten days in Tucson, Arizona with my family, and one of the events we went to with my niece and nephew was the "Snowfall."  At a high-end mall in the north of town, they have a scheduled snowfall every Friday and Saturday night for about twenty minutes.  "You should come," said my sister.  "I think you'll find it hilarious."

It was hilarious indeed.  They had carolers.  The place was littered with kids, some of them actually bundled up against the snowy cold.  (It was about 60 degrees the night I went.)  I thought they were actually going to break out the snowblowers or whatever it is they use up on Mount Lemmon to add snow when there isn't enough.  But--although it's very hard to tell with my shitty camera-phone--that light mist you can see near the lights isn't actually snow at all.  It's soap foam, drifting down in appropriately sized bubbles, shooting out of some sort of cannons.  From a distance, it actually doesn't look too bad in the air.  But it's soap and water.  It doesn't collect on the ground, you can't make it into snowballs or catch it on your tongue, and aside from the visual it's basically useless.  It was a huge hit.

The saddest thing for me was when I saw two children lying supine on a patch of dirt--which was now muddy dirt, of course--flailing their arms in imitation of a snow angel.  It was too dark to capture, alas, but the image is burned in my brain as a symbol of the most depressing kind of wishful thinking.  As a desert rat myself, I never thought I'd miss snow, but I was happy when I returned to New York and found it already on the ground, officially Christmaslike.  

Anyway, enjoy the dark video, and snark away if you like.  

Back on Schedule

As you may have noticed, I haven't blogged for a full month, and even before then my blogging got really spotty.  I apologize.  My life as a writer is terra incognita, and I'm learning as I go how to manage my time.  What I learned this time around is that I really need a schedule in order to get things done.  As of yesterday, I have one, and it's made all the difference.  Now that I know when I work and what counts as "done," I am also free to blog and doodle and do all the other things I love without fear of squandering important writing time.  Whew!

So expect me to return to my former habit of two or three posts a day, starting today.  (Or, just possibly, starting after the 25th, for obvious reasons.)  With any luck, hiatuses like these will be less common in the future.

40

I almost forgot: today's my twin brother's 40th birthday. Happy Birthday, Daniel! I'll think of you tonight when I'm attending the New Yorker Festival Dance, which seemed like a good idea at the time. My dream is to get the band or the DJ (or the jukebox, I guess) to play U2's "40" as a private joke. Such a downtempo choice, though, doesn't seem likely to fly until the after-party.

No party on this end until I can combine it with an apartment-warming (and probably some karaoke across the street). Another week or two, I think.

Alas and Barack

Well, damn. I've been talking all week about wanting to go to Philly to help out the Obama campaign. But I had a friend in town yesterday and today, tomorrow's the debate[CORRECTION: today now; I started writing this at 11:45], and--oops!--I have several tickets to the New Yorker festival this weekend, including seeing Stephen Colbert, a humor master class with Ian Frazier, and possibly even a ticket to the big dance on Saturday night. (I'll have to check with my social secretary.)

And now, thanks to the constant emails I'm getting from the Obama campaign, I have just discovered that THIS WEEKEND IS THE LAST CHANCE TO REGISTER VOTERS IN PHILADELPHIA, which is the nearest swing state for New Yorkers like me to be able to influence. So while I may be able to help out NEXT week instead, by that time the most important part may have already been done. Sigh.

So since I can't really justify going myself, I'm assuaging my conscience by at least suggesting that YOU--all you New Yorkers and other borderers-of-Philadelphia--ought to consider going down there for a day or two. There are bus trips and the like happening all over the Obama campaign's site, and this really is the last chance to do some good.

Meantime, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping I can make it NEXT weekend, which is still free of special events. I guess I'll know by Monday if I have to work on the book some more or not. Wish me luck!

The Guiltiest Workout Plan Ever

The good news is that I have an exercise plan for the first time in many years, and it's working better than any such plan ever has. Since January, I've lost three inches around my waist and something like forty pounds. There have been a number of factors that have combined to enable this:

1.) I was fired in January and living on unemployment for the next six months, so I suddenly started learning to cook lots of very inexpensive vegetables--which turns out to be easy to do (saute everything in extra-virgin olive oil) and remarkably healthy.

2.) I discovered I was allergic to alcohol (stomach rumblings often lead to bad breath), so I cut out alcohol and went from two shots of whiskey a day to zero. (I still write in bars, and I'll have a hard drink on occasion when there's something to celebrate, but mostly I have seltzer and cranberry juice.) With whiskey as hard as I was drinking, that's a drop of about 250 calories a day right there. More on the weekends.

3.) I also developed a weird reaction to vinegar, and that meant cutting out a host of foods like mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, relish, barbecue sauce, and all the other things that make hamburgers so great--and this further pushed me toward a steady diet of brown rice and veggies.

Most of all, however, I started riding my stationary exercise bike. And since I had all the time in the world, I was riding roughly 88 minutes a day. I say 88 because that's the length of two average hour-long TV shows once they go to DVD. I needed to watch a DVD while riding because that's the only way I can not die of boredom. (And I can't go outside and ride a real bike: too much real-world preparation, and I always get distracted by something outdoors in the unpredictable world. To be consistent, I need to have a completely controlled environment, and it has to be as easy as waking up, putting on slippers and riding away.) When I did this in grad school I discovered that one episode quickly wasn't enough time, so I started watching two. When I resumed it this time, I started at two already, since I knew I could do it.

So far I've gone through three seasons of The West Wing, Season 3 of 24 (never again), Season one of Veronica Mars and Mad Men, every episode of Friday Night Lights, Lost and House that's currently available, 2 seasons of Arrested Development (for comedies, I do four episodes a day), and the first season of Heroes. I'm sure I'm missing a lot of other stuff I've seen, and I did a few movies in there too (It turns out most 1950's-era noir films are exactly 90 minutes long). But mostly it's just been TV, TV, TV.

This is, of course, ridiculously expensive. I've justified it up till now by telling myself that $75 every month (which is what buying new shows averages to) is about what I'd be paying for a gym membership anyway, only this I'm actually using and getting results from. And yes, I've thought of doing Netflix, but the problem with that is that you can't guarantee you'll get your season in the proper order, and it also makes it VERY difficult to watch the best dramas--HBO's hour-long shows tend to come two to a DVD--so I'd get a DVD and need it to be replaced immediately. Not even Netflix is that fast. And soon I'd have no room for movies.

So I've been looking for alternatives, and just this week I hit on idea that I'm afraid works beautifully. I'm almost ashamed to say it, but since it might help someone else, I'm swallowing my pride and fessing up.

The only real splurgey thing I did when I moved into my new apartment was to buy an XBox. (XBox, despite the "ring of death" problem, because they have Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan and I'm just that big of a boardgame geek). Then I bought "Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion," which is basically a dumbass adventure game of mind-boggling scope. You can wander almost anywhere, do whatever you like in whatever order you choose, and have it all happen in a pretty beautifully rendered world with constant new challenges, side quests, and the requisite overall epic feel. For just the right breed of geeky magpie, this is like an endless field trip to Shiny Objects 'N Things.

Until recently, I actually hadn't played all that much, because--well, it's really silly and pointless. But last Friday, when Deadwood breathed its last and I was looking around for something new, I did an experiment and discovered that the controls on Oblivion are just simple enough that you can, in fact, operate them while on the exercise bike. And so all week I've been playing Oblivion while pedaling away.

Oblivion has, they say, 100 hours of gameplay. That's the equivalent of 136 episodes of a TV show, or 73 days worth of biking. (Actually more, since after distractions I really only bike two days out of three, depending on the breaks). And it cost me $50. For sheer bang for the buck, that knocks Season Four of The Wire into next Thursday.

But it gets better. Because although it may CLAIM to have 100 hours of gameplay, like any role-playing game, it actually has at least twice that much, because they probably don't want to count all the times you have trudge back into town to go sell your loot at the local merchant (for reasons I won't go into, it profits you to sell 100 arrows one at a time), or wander in utter confusion (it's often better to take a slow winding route to a location), or summon a skeleton a hundred times in a row to get your skill levels higher. For that matter, you can simply futz around with your character's completely customizable face if you like. (And you can change everything: eyebrow height, eyebrow width, eyebrow protrusion, eyebrow angle, eyebrow color...and that's just the eyebrows.) It's all utterly meaningless but so compelling in the actual moment. The minutes fly like webisodes.

Today I hit a new personal record: because I only permit myself to play the game if I'm on the bike, today I rode for two hours because I was trying to close the Oblivion Gate in Leyawiin and I couldn't find the damn Sigil Tower. (Don't you hate when that happens?) "Just let me get the hell out of this dimension," I told myself...and before I knew it, two hours had passed--and I emerged, exhausted but happy and about four hundred calories lighter. Tomorrow we'll see if I collected enough allies to prevent the daedra hordes from overrunning Bruma. I am electric with hope.

This has resulted in an odd disconnect. I find myself passing the mirror in my new 31-inch bluejeans and thinking, "Damn--I look better than I've ever looked in my entire adult life." Then immediately another part of my brain says, "And yet, I am also, this very moment, a seventh level high-elf wizard." If fuckability worked like matter/antimatter, I'd have imploded days ago.

Anyway, I submit this for everyone's consideration. If you can profit from it, do so with my blessing. But if not, may I add one other thing I've learned? The West Wing has eight episodes per disc. Eight! If you're renting them one at a time from your local Blockbuster, that's the exercise regimen to start with. And you know what else? riding an exercise bike is a great way to watch any film that has subtitles. You weren't going to hear all the nuances of the voices anyway, were you?

Bed, Bath, and Aesthetics

Now that the bulk of my work is out of the way for the moment, I’ve been taking the time to do a few other things that have sorely needed doing: bundling up clothes to be donated, emptying boxes, rearranging furniture and the like.

 Chief among these chores has been purchasing actual amenities so that my apartment is less of a hidey-hole and more of an actual nest that people (well, okay, women) might feel comfortable hanging out in.  On Wednesday I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and bought bed stuff (two sets of bedspreads, and enough pillows to smother a giant), and on Friday I went back and bought things for the bath (a scrub brush, new towels, matching brushed-metal wastebasket and soap dispenser, and a funky shower curtain).  On Monday, my plan is to finish up with Beyond—probably a floor lamp and some curtains that are nicer than the bare-bones white Ikea  drapes I’m currently working with.  Then I order a poster or other wall art, do a little drilling (I bought a drill!) and then I can hang out my shingle. 

 I’ve never done this in my life, and it’s paralyzing.  I sent a text to my friend Tracy that said, “I’m in Bed Bath and Beyond and I’m overwhelmed.  How can anyone decide on just one set of pillows?”  I could have happily bought two of each of ten different styles.  I found myself in the bedding area for over an hour, literally staring at five different bed sets and thinking, “What is the shape of my aesthetic?  Orientalist sultan?  Funky modernistic shapes?  Spartan solids?  Country casual?”  They all had different claims on my character.  Apparently I contain multitudes. 

 Of course, ideally when you’re decorating, you’re decorating with things that you bought slowly over the course of many years, and even more ideally, you’re decorating with really original, one-of-a-kind distinctiveness.  I don’t have that kind of money.  So really, I haven’t been thinking, “Who am I really?” but “What subsection of the Bed Bath and Beyond demographic do I seem comfortable representing?”

 The answer, it turns out, is “Whatever’s on clearance.”  It’s not that I’m intensely cheap.  I walked in and said, “Money’s no object; I just want my tiny apartment to be festooned with efficient quality over its modest fractional acreage.”    But after looking over every bedding style they had, I kept coming back to three pieces…and all of them turned out to be on clearance.  Apparently it’s been a bad season for abstract shapes.  Same thing happened in the bathroom.  “Ooh!  A funky brushed-metal look!  I wonder why everyone seems to hate it so?”

 So I bought this stuff, but I admit I’m a little nervous.  It’s possible my place just looks horrible now and I’m the only one who doesn’t know. 

 The thing is, I actually know what my aesthetic is: it’s jokes.  I noticed this a few years ago when I was listing my favorite artists—Paul Klee, Rene Magritte, Roy Liechtenstein, Claes Oldenberg, Salvador Dali, and that reliable puzzle-geek standby M.C. Escher—and I thought, “Wait a minute!  All of these artists are funny!”  They work in visual paradox in some way that tries to disconcert you.  I was forced to admit that I may not know a thing about art: I just know what makes me laugh, and I could very well be embracing total shit just because I like the guy in the picture’s bemused expression.  Without a visual gag of some sort, I have almost nothing to say about any art at all.  And did I mention that I’m colorblind? 

 I’ve tried to decorate in jokes before.  It’s a disaster.  Since my humor seems to run in a kind of pop culture/pop art/comic book vein, everything that amuses me demands one’s attention, and if you stick even three of them together in a single room—say, a Simpsons calendar, a Humphrey Bogart Scrabble board, and curtains with retro cowgirls on them—the place starts looking awfully cluttered.  Additional problem: even if I like jokes and pop culture, I’m not going to get laid if I have Bugs Bunny sheets, even if I suspend large metal quotation marks directly over the bed.  At some point you have to rein it in. 

 What I’m telling myself now, and I almost believe it, is that the styles I’ve chosen are on clearance because they’re distinctly masculine—triangles and squares floating on a backdrop of gunmetal gray and chocolate are at any rate not girly—and this makes me not so much classless as a non-normative Bed Bath and Beyond shopper.  I know this much for a fact, because I was there, surrounded chiefly by women and more women. The only men I saw were being pulled along by female partners.  By the time I hit the checkout, I felt disgustingly hairy and in need of a manicure.

 But the deed is done, and in a week or two I’m hoping to have an open house where friends can come by and judge for themselves.  (Then we’ll repair to a nearby bar.  There’s really no room in my place for more than four people, and two have to stand—plus we all have make loud humming noises if anyone uses the bathroom.)  I can say two things, however: I like it a good deal.  And I have eight very comfy pillows on my sofabed.  That’s right, ladies—eight giant pillows. 

Back Now.

I've been working, and then buying stuff for the apartment so I can actually live like an adult human being.  Now that's all done and I can start blogging again.  Now if only there were events in my life and in the culture at large to talk about...

Final Glubbing

I'm about to embark on a final one-week finish-the-document surge.  If you happen to see me online, ask what the hell I'm doing and to get back to work.   It takes a village to finish a book.

By the way, the cartoons are going to be appearing automatically every other day or so until they run out.  So even though I probably won't be blogging, there will be some amusing thing added every day or two.  Thanks, Blogger, for the delayed-post feature!

Upcoming Show (Last Minute Notice)

I'll be storytelling TOMORROW NIGHT (That's Tuesday) at Sherry Weaver's Speakeasy.  The show is at the Coraline Cafe at 29 Cornelia Street (I think of it as being sort of "behind" the 4th Street A station), starts at 8:30, and there's a $10 cover plus a food or drink item.  As you can see from the link, I'll be performing with certifiably great people like James Braly and Faye Lane, so it'll be a terrific evening. 

If you see me, feel free to comment on how pale I look.  For the past two days, I've woken up, started writing, and didn't venture outside until 9 pm.   But don't worry--in the absence of sunlight I've begun taking vitamin D tablets to stave off rickets.

(P.S.  Sorry for the last-minuteness of this announcement.  If it helps, I'll also be performing a completely different story on October 16th at Sherry's other Speakeasy show at Bar Reis in Brooklyn--375 Fifth Avenue in Park Slope. I'll be telling along with Andy Christie and Tracy Rowland, among others.  Admission is $10, but here you don't have to buy food or anything.)

(NOTE: An original version of this post said the show was tonight.  It's not.  Sorry for any confusion that I may have deepened.)

Baby Wants Candy

Last night, thanks to a last-minute call, I found myself at the Barrow Theater watching Baby Wants Candy.  Baby Wants Candy is an improv troupe (with a rotating cast including writers for The Colbert Report and 30 Rock and the like, so they're no pikers) whose gimmick is that they improvise an entire musical based on a title someone has yelled out.  One title out of an entire audience supplies the premise for the next 90 minutes.  As you might imagine, the stakes are high during the yell-out phase.

I saw them once before, and they actually used my title--The Littlest Vampire in Sheboygan--and did a very impressive job.  (The main founder/performer, whose name I'm sadly blanking on, is an absolute genius at comedy, lyrics, and scene management.  He brings out everyone else's best.)  

This time I thought, "Maybe I'll sit this one out.  There are 200 people in the audience, they'll all be yelling stuff, and I had my chance."  I figured I'd simply put my name in the hat (they were holding a drawing for two free Baby Wants Candy tickets and one pair of tickets to The Colbert Report) and sit quietly.  But then I came up with what I felt was a truly great title--"Serial Killer Follies of 1982"--and decided, what the hell; I'll yell.

Here's the thing: they took my title.  And the show, "Serial Killer Follies of 1982," was as hilarious as I'd hoped, since they were not only free to do New Wave and metal songs, but made tons of movie references as well (as a scene in the detention hall started looking at lot like The Breakfast Club)...and at one point, the drummer for the live band even did the drum break from "In the Air Tonight."

Disappointments?  A few mild ones.  As I told my friend Jenn, I kind of hoped one of the singers doing backup would sing "Turn around, bright eyes...,"  And no one reacted to anything by saying "Jump back!" a la Kevin Bacon.  But of course, these jokes are absurdly specific and the guys aren't psychic.  A bigger sadness lay in that they didn't have an actual synthesizer, so no traditional New Wave music was actually possible (though onstage, one of the actors played an air casio keyboard and brought down the house by announcing that she was pushing "Samba.")

Also, while there was break dancing--and there's been break dancing 2 out of 2 times in the shows I've seen, both times as a one-shot joke--they didn't do any rap, which is a shame, since 1982 was just about the last time that people could actually make money doing rap without actually having lyrics, flow, or talent of any sort.  (Listen to Run-DMC's 1985 Raising Hell some time and try to imagine what it must have been like to have a climate where a rapper could literally have a track that begins "Peter Piper picked a peck of...pickled peppers!" and not get shot for insulting the genre.)

Finally, there was only one serial killer in the show, and there were never any Follies.  I pictured something more elaborate, like John Wayne Gacy and Ed Gein saying, "Let's put on a show in the old circus tent!"  Kind of like Assassins.

But I quibble.  They were brilliant, and I got exhausted just thinking about how hard they must have been working to come up with new scenes, new jokes, new rhymes.  I had a great time.  In fact, I had the best possible time, because not only was my musical title picked, but at the after-show drawing, I won the Stephen Colbert tickets.  (Don't know when, though; they'll email me, assuming my address is legible.)

So this is my prediction: the next time I see Baby Wants Candy, it won't be quite as good.  I don't see how it could be.  For now though: childlike squee sounds of happiness.  Big thanks to Jenn for inviting me out.

Dawn of the Interwebs

Can it be?  I actually have...Internet access!  Right here in my own apartment!  No more scrambling around to hunt up stray bandwidth, buying polite bagels I don't want.  I can actually check my email whenever I want to without getting dressed up, showering, and then justifying the trip by staying for 90 minutes.  Excuse me for a moment--just thinking about all the time I can save now has made me a little dizzy.  

The bad news is that I'm still completely swamped with my book, and I'm hoping to get a really good draft done at the plausible clip of...well, I can't specify, but I should be mostly free of the sweatiest mining by the end of the month.  

In the meantime, though, my postings should pick up almost immediately, partly because it's gotten so much easier to do now...and partly because, back during the move, I uncovered a surprising stash of old cartoons in a book that was covered with mold.  So in order to toss the book, I had to scan the cartoons, and now I've got about a dozen of them ready at a moment's notice.  I'm (tentatively) back, baby!  I'm (tentatively) back!

The Move

Yesterday I broke out my well-honed trundling skills again.  I don't know why I do this to myself.  I hate moving.  I probably could have afforded movers this time.   But I did it myself anyway, in the interest of getting it done immediately so I can focus on my work as soon as possible.  (Well, 83% myself; A hundred hugs to my friend Charlie, who helped me load up the van on trip #1!)  Even though I had the van for ten hours, and even though I was making a series of fifteen- and thirty-minute drives, I still had to call to extend my rental, so in the end I had the thing from 10 am to 11:30 pm, barely stopping to eat.  And today my body is achy all over and in a permanently clenched posture. 

I did it in three trips: Trip #1 was out to Clinton Hill in Brooklyn to pick up my stuff that had been in storage since the end of March.  Some of it turned out to be too moldy to salvage, but the DVDs and most of the boardgames are all right.  (I hadn't played Trumpet in years anyway.)  Haven't checked the TV yet.  I assume it works, but I can tell you one thing: it ain't pretty no more.  I might have to retouch its scar-scraped edges with a bit of nail polish.  Do they make Large Appliance Gray?  (The big surprise in Brooklyn: I got there at 11:30 and discovered that there was no parking, and cars were two deep on one side of the street for street cleaning.  Oh, right, I thought; it's crazy shit like that that's why I got rid of my car in the first place.   That cost me an hour of bafflement and redeployment right there.)  

Trip #2 was to Ikea.  It's an odd thing: since I've been a professional houseguest for years now--I left all my little amenities, like plates and forks and such, back in Tallahassee and have had well-heeled roommates and community cookware ever since--I actually had a chance to rebuild everything from the ground up.  I still don't have a cooking knife (I want a good one), no plates (didn't like Ikea's options) and no salt and pepper shakers (I want something fun)...but everything else is pretty well taken care of, and I can even entertain up to five other people.  Probably you'll all have to stand, though, and sign a release promising to engage in loud conversation any time someone steps into the bathroom. 

The worst part of that foray was when I got back to my place and there was, for the only time all day, no place to park nearby, and I was alone.  I was obliged to drag my purchases, one by one, across the concrete for a block and a half.  Most survived okay, but my wardrobe was tall and weighed 76 pounds, and the pressure on the cardboard box was just too great.  I hurled an old shirt underneath; I dragged newspapers along; nothing survived the shredding, including my wardrobe.  In the end, the entire box simply shattered a few steps from my doorway, and I wound up bringing the fucking thing in in piece by piece, leaving the pile of shrapnel outside on the sidewalk.  I doubt anything's missing, though, unless one of my new neighbors is a disposable-Allen-wrench fancier.

Trip #3 was to Jersey City, where my exercise bike has been cooling its odometer since the end of April or so.  The surprise there was simple: I got lost trying to get to Holland Tunnel, and somehow managed to travel down West Broadway until it flipped as I crossed an intersection and turned into a one-way street charging straight at me.  (Interesting fact: you can get ticketed for talking on your cell phone while driving in New York City.  Which means that if there's no place to park, you actually have to travel quite some time before you can find a place to pull over and call your friend to say "There's no place to park."  Ditto if you get lost.  Since I got lost about three times, I lost precious minutes on my meter just from finagling a way to call someone with Mapquest.)  

Still needed: a window air-conditioning unit.  Until then I won't really feel comfortable in my new place.  Does anyone know how people buy these things without breaking their backs?  Do air conditioning places deliver?  Or are they lighter than they look?  (I'm thinking of investing in a dolly and some bungee cord.  But of course, then comes the problem of storage...)

I will say this, though.  As beaten and smashed as I feel today, as horrified as I know I'm going to be when I survey the strewn wreckage (I'm still at Tracy's for the moment), there's one spot of hope: the first piece of mail arrived in my name at the apartment, and it turns out to be a book I ordered--The Most of S.J. Perelman, a classic collection by my favorite humorist.  There could not be a happier omen.  

Photos I Couldn't Take

I'll admit it; I overplanned.  But when This American Life calls, what can I say?  I'm helpless in the face of their warm winning smiles and calm handshakes. So even though I have a book to write, and even though I'm moving on Monday (which I suspect will take all day, since I'm driving from Manhattan to Clinton Hill and back, then from Manhattan into Paramus, NJ--they have Ikea--and back), I also agreed to do a piece for TAL the details of which I'm not at liberty to divulge at present.  (For all I know, it may not even work and may ultimately not run.  If I get a kill fee, I'll do the honorable thing and tell you all what happened.)  Hence my brief absence.  Since tomorrow is moving day, I wouldn't count on an update then either.  But soon I'll settle down into an actual writerly routine, and then I'll be back to my usual blogging state: the cartoons; the poems; the odd observations, both religious and non.  It'll all be there.

Until that day, though, I have to share two moments that I wish I could have photographed, but since there were people involved, I despaired of getting permission:

*  A homeless person on 14th street today was holding a sign that said.  "I'm just like Obama.  I want change."

*  On Friday, down at Clinton and Rivington, an Asian couple was pushing their baby in a carriage, and the baby--I kid you not--was holding a brochure titled "Emergency Contraception."  I actually ran after them to ask them to stay still, but they didn't speak English and looked alarmed at my excited manner.  Damn the foul luck.  That would have been the greatest picture ever.

Homefulness is Here! Sort of.

I got the key today!  That's the good news.

The bad news is, because this is the first time I've ever not simply thrown everything I have into the nearest vehicle and moved it all myself, I'm discovering that things are a little more complicated than I anticipated.  Examples:

*ZipCar probably won't have a vehicle for me until the weekend is over.  (Summer in New York is like that, apparently.)

*The movers I talked to required a two week wait. It's summer AND the first of the month, so they're already booked up.

*Worst of all, the sofabed I want to have--the slightly high-end, Art Deco-inspired sofabed of my studio apartment's hope-fevered dreams--can't be delivered until the 23rd. 

Fortunately, I can continue to stay with my friend Tracy for a few days more while I work out what the hell I'm going to do.  My current guess: get a Zipcar on MONDAY (who vacations then?) and shuttle my things back and forth then. This will also allow me to a. buy a wardrobe at Ikea (there's NO closet space in my apartment) and b.) buy a window-unit air conditioner.  (Advantage of a studio: a window air conditioner takes care of the whole place.)  After that, I'll just sleep on a borrowed air mattress for the next 20 days or so.  This will further delay any thoughts I might have had about dating.  

Still, it's a huge relief to have the keys in my pocket, and I keep loving the neighborhood. If it doesn't rain while I'm mid-trundle, I can hardly wish for more. 

Countdown to Homefulness--3 Days Left

There may be a brief blogular silence as I travel a bit...

Countdown to Homefulness--4 Days Left

(Germantown, NY)--Halfway there! Tomorrow I'll be in Jersey City, staying once more with my kind and patient friend Tracy. So if tomorrow's countdown has a different dateline, that's why.

Countdown to Homefulness--5 Days Left

I just discovered that my apartment technically becomes available on the same day as the first total eclipse of the sun in two years. I suppose some would see this as a baleful omen. I'm choosing to see it as a symbol of the day I get my superpowers.

Countdown to Homefulness--8 (not 7) Days Left

(posted a trifle early so I don't have any distractions for tomorrow's more official writing)

A BRIEF POEM OF HOMEFUL ANTICIPATION

When I’d the chance, right off the bat

I got a little Village flat

So if I ever bought a hat

I’d have a place to hang it.

In dreams, I’ve decked its every stat

From walls to bed to bathroom mat...

But I wake up and notice that

It’s still not mine yet. Dang it!