Greetings, Dear Reader! Much love and gratitude to the BAP team for inviting me. I think Walt would love this blog–its democracy, its expanse, its containing of multitudes. I’m thrilled to be here–I hope you will indulge me in my rambles. To keep them less rambling, perhaps, I’ve decided to use headings (some of them dreadfully Bridget Jones-ish, I’m afraid). We’ll see how this all looks in Typepad’s html.
Mood: Light and variable
Location: The Bed (get used to this, it’s my office, really), amid piles of books, Astoria, Queens, NYC
Listening to: Some rather stentorian choral piece on WQXR
The Deal: It will soon be time for sleep, so I can get up at 5:30 a.m. to prepare for my Creative Nonfiction classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology (yes, our students take writing classes!). After a day in Brooklyn Heights (promenade, playground, dog park, pizza), my two Adorables (kids, I mean) are sleeping (on my bed). I should move them into their own room, but they look so sweet and peaceful and dear–in marked contrast to a few hours earlier on the Queensbound N train, when they were literally pulling each other’s hair out–that I’ll leave them here while I type.
Although it’s poetry that got me here, other parts of my life–nutty professor, emerging single mother, incurable music lover, urban commuter–will make their appearances.
Daily Confession (I was not raised Catholic, but something about this trope appeals to me): Like many writers, I am fundamentally a loafer and procrastinator. This is not new. A few years ago I looked over a journal I’d been forced to keep my senior year of high school and was amused by how many entries contained references to "just loafing." And I wasn’t baking bread.
This propensity, of course, can produce an excruciating writer’s block (hence the time of this post–I could say I had technical difficulties, that I was alone with the kids all weekend, etc. etc.–all true, but still). That’s why I love my notebooks, especially the battered, cheap 100-sheet wide-ruled spirals I use for my most scribbly scribbling. Over the years I’ve found techniques like Natalie Goldberg’s writing practice and Peter Elbow’s freewriting to be just as helpful as their progenitors claim. There’s something about being told "just 10 minutes" or "just a page" or "just put something down, anything" that silences the perfectionistic predatory Editor/Mother/Teacher voice in my head.
Blogging, on the other hand, requires that one’s thoughts not only be inspired, but also composed. (If it’s done right, anyway.) My own blog, Saint Nobody, is somewhat sporadic–except for a lovely stint last October in honor of Down Syndrome Awareness Month, I may only post a few times a week, or even a month, depending on what I call the "life-y-ness" of life.
Here, of course, that would not do at all. So, Dear Reader, you are witness to my resolution that, this week, I will save the brightest imaginative baubles collected throughout my days and string them together for you. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll click through the links and launch into surfdom. I’ll be brilliant, I assure you. Tomorrow, I promise. Tomorrow.