I HAVE A TOOTHACHE AND ITS ALMOST AS TOUGH AS TRYING TO MAKE A SUBJECTIVE THING PERFECT.

Well, I’ve definitely gotten better at editing.

Ack my head.

Went to a book event last night.  Featured 5 authors, one was Jaidree’s who was doing a reading.  Open bar where I drank too much before leaving (note: No I did not get drunk at the event.  But dirty martini for the road = not a good idea.  Esp if the recipe they’re using is pure vodka. [p.s. gin is yummier.]) so my head currently hurts. It feels like there’s crap in the pipes of my brain and while I know what I want to edit next, it’s a “tough morning at work” at the moment.

Regarding the event, because there’re book people there I didn’t want to alienate I wanted to bring my a-game, just in case my work came up in a chitchat. Does everyone know what an elevator pitch is? Because I spent an hour rehearsing mine mentally to the point that I can say it as fast as eminem raps, but I hate rote memorization and speaking from it. Necessary evil though. And while I was doing that, I wanted to make sure I was dressed nice.  It’s true that, aside from weddings and stuff, I haven’t gotten to wear suits for most of 2017. Decided to do all black, and a mirror inspection made me think that my favorite black tie going with it made me look like a bouncer, so I did the open collar instead, and when I saw my reflection it was one of those “Yep, that’s your look for the night.” moments.  I was content. Left.

After the reading, when the bar opened and it was time to schmooze, while I’m right next to Jaidree I noticed a really pretty gal standing at the wall and scanning the room herself. And let’s be realistic, this is nyc (where there’re so many beautiful people that even beautiful people can make themselves feel ugly) but she’s standing out because she’s got unique and slender features with a bit of that edginess that sort of particularly makes her my type and as I’m thinking this and not staring I accidentally did the eye contact bar flirt.

What’s the eye contact bar flirt thing? (No, it’s not really flirting. And for the record, I’m absolutely unwilling to mess around on Jaidree) But I’ll tell ya: the eye contact bar flirt thing is how babies were made before the 1980’s.  The eye contact bar flirt thing is something I’ve gotten to witness VERY FEW TIMES when I was bartending because nowadays for some reason, those in mid-20’s don’t respond to it or are clueless or whatever. Or maybe I’m just a dork. I don’t know, in my history I’ve usually had to do something to work up a schmooze besides look.

And I do know about myself, esp, since rereading my old blog, that apparently a beautiful gal in proximity to me used to register like some sort of stupid challenge.  I know, it sort of sucks. I think that used to make me put too much pressure on myself when I actually was interested, which maybe people could read? But last night, I’m next to Jaidree, and because I’m at ease and waaaayyy more worried about doing something that’s indecent to my rising authorship than rejection or something, I did this.

For this is how you eye contact bar flirt.

You look. You make eye contact.  You make an expression with your face that reveals that you don’t think you’re looking at food, or something ugly, but a human who could be interesting (you have to do this all in one expression) and then you continue looking about the room and move forward with your life.

Usually, this resolves in both parties moving forward with their life.  Sometimes a bit of an ego boost on both ends.  Sometimes on one end.  Sometimes the opposite.

But last night the second I did my study-smirk and continued eye roving, something in my brain clicked and went “Yeah, you just did the thing.” (to which I immediately thought “Oh well.”)  but then in 3 seconds, my eye was drawn right back because: movement. Gorgeous gal is making a beeline right for me and Jaidree, and I have to admit it’s ballsy too. She introduced herself to Jaidree really smoothly, really normally and really well because within 10 seconds she establishes that she’s there for personal interest while jaidree is there for professional reasons.  Gal turns to me and “and how come you’re here?”

And my brain did something like “Oh man.  You gotta abort.  Abort.” and my face did the smile and I said “oh me? I’m attached to this one at the hip.” And the gal’s face changed and she was soon out of there like friendly lightning. Am sure she still had a good night.

So, about that ego boost, it’s nice to know that a well dressed bearded me is sometimes able to inspire the second prettiest girl in the room to come talk to me even when I’m already with the prettiest girl in the room. I’m getting old, and probably don’t get to enjoy things like that forever.

I’ve experienced people who want to know if Jaidree and I are related, which is weird cause I’ll put my arm around J in unsibling-like ways when it’s kosher, but it’s also not weird because we’re both tall, people who aren’t like us probably think we look similarly ethnic (which is silly but ok.)

Gal proceeded to move on and mingle well.  All in all it was a great event in that sense.

Now, regarding these events, I wanted to make a couple more notes.

In this case, where we were was for a rather prestigious first novel award.  So I was expecting more …..bookish, promotion stuff going on?  I guess I was expecting sales, and people wanting to meet the author.  This was neither of those, and it was interesting to see authors who read wandering around and looking ready to go home. (It’s as if authors can exude that introvert at the party vibe too, or something) and all in all, the scene made me realize it was more to promote the award itself, and the awarding body, more than the author.  Readings are quirky too – you just get to pic any section that’s supposed to be captivating from your book? Think about it, if you write a book and someone asks you to share a minute of it, which part are you going to pick? Because I’d say some people picked their selection better than others, in that some things read out loud better.  You can’t read a url unless it’s really funny or poignant in some way, and even if you do, saying ‘www.mybutt.edu/-a/wordplay/tellingarchive.exe WILL overshadow the rest of that paragraph.

The other part of this food for thought about the event was the demographics.  For example, estrogen.  Holy crap – what a disproportional amount.  I guess most people there were book professionals, but when I say 80%, I mean 80%.   You know what else estrogen does early in life?  It makes people tall.  And you know what else was amazing? Everyone there was pretty tall. I mean it, I think there’re endocrine differences in that sample population that sort of designated these people as having no choice, but live a future related to books.  There’re industries where the average height among gals is 5’4, but book related ones are certainly not one of ’em.

Anyway, that’s the end of my blah blah blah. Brain is feeling better, I mostly just wanted to wake up and get the rust out of my neurons.  Now thinking it’s time to get back to polishing.

😎

Querying is really a little exhausting! That’s all I want to say on it: if you’re doing it right, even adjusting a little paragraph to say it right to the right person, can be really draining.

(But that’s why time invented breaks.)

Going through my old blog

I (only sort of) wish I could say pure gold from 2011.

but holy crap, my seemingly inexhaustible rambles resulted in a couple gems in the rough:

I just read it for 3 hours (priviledges) only got three three months and will share a couple:
This is an entry I wrote on the last day I saw my grandmother.  I really treasure it because my recall of that day is a little different, and because of brains, I actually trust this write up more.

”

Those of you who haven’t had the joy of reading last private entry (Which’d be everyone, cause it’s private) have missed out on the news of why my gran (mom’s mom, the one who’s not recently put into rehab after a crippling stroke) was a little more difficult to put up with when I took her to the doctor.  Her second diagnosis (and I’m still pissed about the failure in the first) is acute leukemia.   On one hand, she’s a great lady who’spast 90 through the course a full life. She’s mastered her own life, raised a full fam, and enjoyed 56ish years of heavy smoking.  

On the other hand, she’s got acute leukemia now.
*face*

So there’s no decision to be made: we’re going to roll with it, in the most morbid sense that one can roll with punches.  Not to mention this’d be our choice anyway – when one of your larger late life pleasures is a full breakfast, as is my gran’s, a chemotherapy option might as well kiss your ass.  There’s that idea that your treatment can degrade a quality of life.

Mom’s being very good but told me realistically if I want to see her again to say goodbye I should do so within the next two weeks to a couple months.

I’m turning old and increasingly amazed at how fast time seems to fly.

Finally got her back to her home yesterday, her tight apartment on Park Avenue and I knew things’d be changed around.  Mom’s even hired a live-in helper so gran really has 24 hour care in between our visits.

Turns out one of her last requests have been – which I guess I’m kind of proud of considering I did the last two prior – was another lobster dinner.  She obviously enjoyed taking me to lobster dinners around her neighborhood when I was a kid and teen, when I got back to NYC that was obviously a lot of trouble for her, and for her last birthday and holidays, I came over with a couple live ones bought from across the street and cook the hell out of her kitchen.  So this was one of her latest requests.

But I was late, and stepfather-man Lucien wound up doing his best over the cooking, which was cool.  But I walk through the door and there’s my gran with a bed where her chair should be.   No table either – and these are legacy furniture to me, long-time fixtures at her place now – but these were apparently scrapped for easier live-in access for two in her apartment.

Gran’s now not been the same person for a little while.  Gone from tough old lady with badass new Yorker personality to more kitten-like, strong personality to a little more confused – these’ll never seem quite right to me.

We kind of throw down and even if it wasn’t a Fine Dining experience that I can now be super critical of, it’s nice.  Aid comes in and she’s very pleasant and bringing some peacefulness, complimenting and professional.  Reads a paper for a long while about Caribbean happenings and which organization bearing one acronym is warring or acting out against some other organization bearing another acronym for a while, but, she’s polite and wise enough to issue nice professional compliment.  Hey apparently I’m tall and handsome. Great, mm-hm.  I can tell she’s super qualified and pleasant to be around. She actually did decent, great things towards my grandmother too.  I guess that’s also important.

My family’s pretty down to earth and we’re amazingly capable of dealing with things like death.  We’re also strong willed people, and have so far been pretty cool about the idea of living ourselves out.

But it’s still new to me, eating around an elderly relative we’re treating as bed-ridden.  Who did ask the same well intentioned questions a couple of times, and who mentally, isn’t processing our information as much.  And giving her stuff away.  Which was always nice but weird, and it doesn’t help that mom’s explaining that this is so she can feel she has a sense of control over the future (I know.)  And while maybe not absolutely bed-ridden, who’s consumed and enjoyed so much dinner, that she dozed off for a catnap and then woke up right there.
Everyone’s cool with this – by my reckoning she’s kicked much more than 85 years of a calm, alert presence.

And we’re all pleasant enough.  But there’s only so much to talk about by a dozing lady before we’re ready to go home: Hey remember when. . .?  Hey I’m going to be bartending in a hotel near here as of Monday, yes it’s cool for all sorts of reasons!  Check that out- a lobster cleanly and completely demeated and consumed via bare hands.  Hey so, I upgraded my ram on my pc and since then have been #2 ranked in the world as a sniper in a video game, accidently.  Hey remember that time Gran ate the wrong batch of brownies at thanksgiving and thought that was just the greatest cup of tea ever? Hey, I can bake this Christmas.  Hey lets check stuff and joke around a little.  Yadda.

But then we’re getting ready to leave and I kiss her on her forehead goodbye she wakes up and time’s slower again and she thanks me for being able to make it over and we even wink at each other and shiyat (my gran taught me how to wink at people around when I was 8, and this ability has been one one of the sources of my power) and in addition to “love you” I realize most of my casual statements of “be well” and “take care” suck.  I want to be light, but now there’s tension in me because I want to not say goodbye with such a negative drama but feel some dumbass human cracking in my dumbass presentation, so I say “I’ll see you soon” but realize I need to arrange that shortly if I’m going to mean that statement and I actually might have cracked a little.

I’m not even used to trying not to crack.  I wasn’t even aware that I have a desire to not crack, but apparently it’s the case. 

I don’t want to make crying noises.  Ever.   Especially not in front of others – I don’t even like sniffling.  But getting that this very affectionate hand squeeze from a lady who’s always to demanded a bear-hug on a departure, and seeing god-knows-what’s going through her mind as she then kind of stares straight ahead as I’m standing to her right, kind of just breaks my heart.

About to crack and for reasons more about how this woman’s helped bring me up than wanting to be too cool, don’t really want to as a closing note.

So in a puss I fake doing a final check in the kitchen, grab a sneaky paper towel, and actually avoid eye contact on my way out.  Babble babble lolsy things which may seem too open but is also actually quite inane distracting banter on the walk to the subways with my mother and the stepfather man.  

Get control of the affect back and ended up sifting over detaching rationalizations.  I mean hey, while it’s amazing how humans have evolved to cry to show disturbance and grief, I’ve also evolved to not want to secrete extra tears and mucus in the presence of others.   And a tall dude walking around the streets bawling seems strange from my perspective.  So I try and retain coolness in my actions, but what’s this stupid expression in a hallway and eyeball leaking? Running against a cold wind after a steady high water + sodium diet maybe? Oh, no, I just really love my kickass gran. 

Fak.”

Onto something lighter:

This is less golden, but typical of my non-normalcy.

Apparently, this is how I point out that clingy voicemails will not lead to the perfect date?

“They could offer you a marijuana coated gourmet steak with lemon zest terriyaki spinach with a side of dumplings and penne al vodka miso sour with the greatest lime gimlet that’s ever cooled your jets that transforms into a 3am aphrodite-whispered blowjob followed by athenian intercourse chock full of ambrosia brimmed joint sweat in front of an air conditioner next to a table topped with pitchers of water hand delivered and spit into by naked baby cupid himself and you know what? You’re STILL NOT TURNED ON to this great outing because it was communicated within 6 missed messages 22 minutes before you even got home”

I put another website together yesterday.  It feels like I spent hours to cook a tiny plate.  Eaters know that isn’t my style, as goddamn fine food is still fantastic in unfine amounts – but i think it was necessary and/or helpful.  We live in a world where you’re best off having an author status before being an author maybe, so, fine.

I have some draft blog entries but will (ALWAYS) need to double think about what’s good to post “professionally” if at all.  I think those implication-quotes speak volumes enough.

I’m going through another round of reading on Disjuncture. Then I’m going for another round of queries. I’m actually grateful it’s thanksgiving tomorrow (ha.) because it makes me think waiting on querying is a-ok.  Agents and book professionals should be with their families, reading other manuscripts they’ve already queried.

Anyway, happy thanksgiving.

Welp,

I think I’m a loser, and you can’t stop me!

I think my author results are currently kind of pathetic, and that I haven’t won or earned the results I want: this makes me a loser. It even stings a little to declare, because after another rejection I realize: I’m very strange, and so much of my sense of self is wound up in this thing that I so so so want results for.

But after thinking should I give up on this, the answer is really no.

Sure, I considered giving up.  Cause I AM silly, the question is just how.  Well, I imagine this latest non-form might be like your kid getting the worst report card and it looking like they’ll never do well in school, when it’s the only job you gave them.

I guess that’s strange or something, but that’s how it felt.

The deal is just another form rejection. It sucks because a *hopeful* question in response to that update (it’s an update) is did that rejection come with any feedback or reason why. The answer is no — it’s a form rejection. The entire point is to be devoid of direct feedback and disengage politely. And form rejections can mean many things. They can mean you have mistakes you’re making again and again. They can mean you’re querying the wrong agent. They can mean the agent is absolutely disappointed in you and that you’re submitting shitty drivel. They can mean that you just missed the mark and should tidy it up and if you have A DAMNED GOOD REASON that your work should be revisited and the balls to do so, that maybe you can go back (but probably not.)

For people like me, they can be a little crazy making because you can see all these things at once. It’s like you can adjust that part of your brain to tune into that portion of the spectrum of that the rejection letter reveals – because those things are as helpful at letting you see the quality of your own writing as a prism, I think.

I considered sending a polite reply asking for any feedback after that careful read.  Part of me still does. But I woke up today and figured I’d want to make it more bulletproof.

I think I’m more willing to shift gears, because my m.s. isn’t a baby. It’s not a living thinking thing of growing sentience that needs guidance rather than skillful, near-magic engineering.  I think a better analogy is, it’s like building a battlebot.

Yeah, humans don’t just expel battlebots.

And you know, it’s really tempting when you’re an ambitious tryhard to give it all these cool extra things.  My battlebot is definitely ed209ish, which means there are situations where being beefy is a hazard. Like, for example, a debut author on a bookshelf. (You have to wonder about that. If you think the reason 300k word tombs from debut authors don’t exist on basic bookstore shelves is because new writers don’t write them, you’re very mistaken.) Like characters with middle eastern names. Characters who’re former pornstars. Characters who show they’re depressed by laying around a lot. Basically, characters who are characters. I think in the process of publishing, extra bells and whistles can easily make for environmental hazards. These are merely things to reconsider, maybe cut, and if not, definitely do best.

Yeah, if publishing is a refining vehicle, you’re better off treating your ms as a battlebot I think. Not your baby.

A parent is rarely willing to detach parts from their baby.  I think if a baby is born with 11 digits, a parent might often think: “Do I REALLY need to get rid of that abnormality I mean look my baby is so beautiful!” which makes that abnormality more of a question instead of a feature that could be normalized, and a parent might forget more easily to ignore that subjective beauty, because every part is supposed to serve a function.

So, I don’t know. I have a little (but seriously, at this point just a little) time to see about these bells and whistles.

Yesterday, feeling like a loser made me reconsider and re-evaluate a little more. Today it makes me want to bring out the angle grinder and sandpaper and re-evaluate these eccentricities, and it was the first thing I did.

I seriously thought about moving forward with my life and minimizing the amount of energy I’ve put into making this project really become a something.

The answer is still hell no.

What if instead of asking people “should we keep confederate statues” we asked, “What should be done to resolve the tension between those who want to keep these monuments and those who don’t?”