Musings, First Wednesday in November (2009)

November 5, 2009 at 1:18 am (Books, Eavesdropping, Home, Insomnia, Plays)
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Brother Tommy, who is the best, absolutely the best brother in the whole world, just sent over (through his in-laws), 10 precious copies of The Lost Language.  Brother’s in-laws were staying in the City, so hubby had to rent a car to pick up the copies (since both our cars are being repaired!) Does anyone want to order? Self can do first come, first serve. She’ll bring the copies to this Saturday’s reading, as well. Then, whoever gets a copy will see that awful first story that had Dearest Mum reeling — BWAH HA HA HA — “Dumpster”

Let’s see, what did self do today?

  1. She took out the trash.
  2. She began reading only her second Precious Ramotswe mystery, In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (Her first was The Kalahari Typing School for Men) and is enjoying it so much! It occurs to self that if she wants to absolutely forestall any insomnia, she should perhaps quit reading World War II novels, or any books about the Holocaust, for they always make her angry and sad.  She went on quite a bender over the last one she finished, at 3 in the morning, Irene Nemirovsky’s Suite Francaise.
  3. She watched “Oprah.” Hilary Swank was the guest. It occurs to self that Hilary Swank is exactly the kind of actress Oprah-watchers adore: she takes on roles with uplifting messages. She was married to Chad Lowe for many years and she divorced him without becoming tabloid fodder and is now dating a guy who is not a movie star, not a director, not glamorous. Perhaps self will relent and see “Amelia” after all? Especially as she herself could do with some “uplift” in the dull dull early weeks of November?

Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.

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Is It Worth It?

October 22, 2009 at 11:37 pm (Holidays, Insomnia, Movies, Relatives)
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Self means, to fly home, simply on hope.

Self has just returned from watching a sad-eyed Audrey Tautou (waif-like, but somehow hard, too, especially around the mouth) in “Coco Before Chanel.”  The movie was wonderful, and the original score was composed by Alexandre Desplat, the same composer who did the music for “The Painted Veil” (one of self’s all-time movie faves). Had a wonderful serving of peanut butter cioccolato before the movie (At the Aquarius on Emerson in downtown Palo Alto  –  but of course dear blog readers might have guessed, just from the mention of the gelato!).  And now that she is home, she seems to have been sand-bagged by the most awful doubt about her upcoming trip to Manila.

The weird thing is, self keeps asking herself:  What is she doing spending the holidays there, when son and hubby are here?  Does that make any sense?  She will be with other people’s children, in other people’s houses.  What a lonely feeling that will be, especially during Christmas!

When self went home with son, in 2006? She almost didn’t go. Because her whole family came here, to the Bay Area, earlier in the year. And it drove self crazy. They brought a maid, but the maid didn’t know how to cook.  So self ended up cooking for everyone, including the maid.  And she was still teaching four classes.  There were a few times when she still had to cook after getting home from a night class, close to 10 p.m.

When self confided her doubts about the 2006 trip to Ying, her wonderful sister-in-law brushed all self’s doubts aside and said simply: You’d better come.  And self did indeed end up enjoying that trip.  She and son went to Boracay.  They went to Bacolod.  They even went to Puerto Prinsesa!  And saw the St. Paul Underground River!  And made friends with a very nice young couple named Kat and Dexter who have since moved to Read the rest of this entry »

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Regrets, Dear Bro

October 15, 2009 at 4:35 pm (Books, Insomnia, Relatives, Surprises)
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We never did get to take you to Lobster Shack.

And, the other night, when you kept saying you wanted to see “Inglourious Basterds,” self made you watch “The Painted Veil” with her instead.

There are three big, fat juicy rib-eye steaks in the refrigerator, for self expected you home last night.

There are breakfast pastries from Whole Foods on the kitchen counter.  Self bought those for you as well.

Self never did get to give you her presents for your daughter:  the copy of Irene Nemirovsky’s Suite Francais, the books by Alexander McCall Smith and Sarah Vowell.

Most important of all, self never got to give you the x-rays from her dentist here, to give to the dentist in Manila who self is going to see, when she goes to Manila this December.

For some reason, self got all confused and thought you were coming back from LA last night.  She didn’t know you were planning to stay there until Saturday, when you return to San Francisco for a brief stop-over before going home to Manila.  After checking son’s room (where you slept, this past week), she saw it was so clean.  All the toys you brought for your kids were gone, and if self hadn’t been so distracted (by being finalist for Donald Barthelme Prize and then not being a finalist) she would have noticed and thought it was strange that you brought everything down with you to LA.

Self even left the key out –  but, sometime during Craig Ferguson’s monologue, she realized you wouldn’t be coming and took the key back.

Self slept four hours.  Which she supposes is not that bad, considering how many nights she’s had less sleep than that, lately.  Just before she went to bed, she decided not to finish reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s much-touted Eat, Pray, Love (because all the talk about God and self-fulfillment and following your bliss was making her queasy) and go on to a Ruth Rendell mystery.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.

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Today, Monday, Columbus Day 2009

October 12, 2009 at 10:33 pm (Brain Cloud, Conversations, Food and Drink, Insomnia, Relatives, Surprises)
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There is no mail delivery today.  Self just realized this when, after she got home from lunch and a walk around downtown Redwood City with Dear Bro, she stuck her hand in the mailbox and was surprised to find it empty.  Then she realized it was Columbus Day, a holiday.  Ergo, the library will be closed as well.  Self has to wait until tomorrow to return James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds (which she read until 3 a.m. this morning) and borrow Kazuo Ishiguro’s Booker-nominated novel of a couple of years back, Never Let Me Go.

Self did have to work at the Writing Center, however; she is starting to see a core group, students who present week after week, who self has formed a tutoring relationship with, and also a student she taught in African American Lit, last semester.  And that student was a very good writer!

But, in general, self found herself rather “low bat.”  (Could it be the overcast weather?  Could it be all the nights staying up reading?)

Self arrived home to find the house empty.  But she wasn’t undisturbed for more than five minutes, for then the phone rang and it was Dear Bro telling her that he was on the way home: would she like to have lunch somewhere?  Self said sure, and suggested he might like to see Whole Foods, “because they have this great buffet, and everything is weighed by the pound, and we can take the food home to eat it here.”  But she sensed some reluctance on the part of Dear Bro, so she asked, “Or did you want to eat at a real restaurant?”

It turned out Dear Bro would rather eat at a restaurant.  And he surprised self by saying he wanted Indian food.  And self knew just the place to go:  Read the rest of this entry »

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A Long Digression

September 26, 2009 at 4:09 pm (Books, Insomnia, Plays, Writing)
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One thing you can say for self: she tries, she really tries. Here she is blogging, on this early morning Saturday (when very soon we will have to leave, pick up rental car from the airport, then pick up son’s friend from the city, then drive over the Bay Bridge, then present to Orinda, where self will unburden herself of the chips, bean and guacamole dip, honey turkey slices, 2 lbs. of salami, loaf of sliced sourdough bread, Mission flour tortilla chips, bottled water, liter bottles of coke, chicken salad, and fruit she bought yesterday in Safeway, in mad effort to approximate an organized being, preparatory to watching Cal Shakes’ “A Midsummer Nights Dream.”)

Self tried like might and main to reach niece G last night, to see if she wanted to come along, but after leaving three messages and getting no response, she has to face the cold hard fact that niece has probably made other plans for today.

Then, somewhere around midnight last night, when it became clear that self would not easily get to sleep (bad enough on ordinary nights, but son presented at 11 p.m. There goes sleep!), she tapped out two pages of her novel-in-progress. Of course, she doesn’t know where the character she was writing about came from. All of a sudden, she was there, in self’s computer, and wouldn’t get out, no matter how hard self tried to banish her to a walk-on part. So, well, this is how novels get written. You stay up sleepless and you start hearing voices.

Anyhoo, the ostensible reason for this post (pardon the long digression, dear blog readers), is to list the books self is interested in reading after perusing the 20 September 2009 issue of The New York Times Book Review. It is (thankfully) a shorter-than-usual list:

1.    After reading Malena Watrous’ review of Joyce Carol Oates’ 57th (!!!) novel, Little Bird of Heaven:

2.    After reading Thomas Mallon’s review of William Trevor’s xxxth novel, Love and Summer:

  • William Trevor’s Love and Summer

3. After reading Gregory Beyer’s review of Jonathan Ames’ collection of essays, The Double Life is Twice as Good:

  • Jonathan Ames’ The Double Life is Twice as Good

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Bleary-Eyed, Per Usual

September 22, 2009 at 4:09 pm (Insomnia, Quotes)
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Self has been up since 2:45 a.m. Rather than wallow and curse over her lack of sleep, she decides to get up immediately and act as if 2:45 a.m. were really 6:45 a.m. Amazing, the things you can dream up at 3 a.m. Books she never shows the slightest interest in reading in the full light of day now seem very compelling. She went back and forth to the bookshelf, back and forth.

But now she is groggy. And self has been trying to read the same passage in The New Yorker, over and over, and the darn thing is being stubborn and obtuse instead of opening itself up fully to seat-of-the-pants analysis. As far as self can make out, the article seems to be about coffee mugs. And who or who does not have access to tickets to a Duke basketball game. And there is a connection to Obama’s health care plan thrown in there somewhere.

Okey-dokey, now to the article’s main point, which seems to be that the public “skittishness” about the Obama plan can be attributed (at least according to the article’s writer, James Surowiecki) to something called “the endowment effect.”

It works this way: “the mere fact that you own something leads you to overvalue it.”

There is also something called “status-quo bias” : According to Surowiecki, “Just designating an option as the status quo makes people rate it more highly.”

As proof, Surowiecki turns to behavioral economists, who “have established that we feel the pain of losses more than we enjoy the pleasure of gains.”

Now, then, has self already mentioned the interesting detail about the coffee mugs, and about the tickets to the Duke basketball game? No? Let’s just say those are niggling details. The meat of the argument is this:

People have been rendered unnecessarily anxious by “reams of disinformation.” Anxiety has been “exacerbated by the Obama Administration’s initial emphasis on the way the plan would help hold down health-care costs. This approach was understandable: most people think health care is too expensive, so the ability to hold down costs seems like a selling point for the plan. The problem is that once you start talking about cost-cutting you make people think about what they might have to give up. And that makes them value what they have more highly.”

Phew! Is self glad the article is over! Because trying to understand all the finer points of the argument are proving extremely taxing to her brain!

Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.

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Insomnia & The NYTBR of 13 September 2009

September 20, 2009 at 8:46 pm (Books, Insomnia, short fiction)
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Self had another awful bout of insomnia last night. She told herself she would not allow herself to read any more of the Alice Munro collection after a certain time of night, because then she’ll want to stay up reading, so enthralling are the stories (Runaway). But it didn’t work last night. In the wee hours of the morning, self was still wide awake, the only difference from nights previous was that she was now reading The New York Times Book Review of 13 September 2009. So, here are the books self thought she’d be interested in reading, in the wee hours of this morning:

1. After reading Liesl Schillinger’s review of a new novel by E. L. Doctorow, Homer & Langley:

E. L. Doctorow’s Homer & Langley

2. After reading Dexter Filkin’s review of Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman:

Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

3. After reading Lisa Scottoline’s review of Ethan Brown’s Shake the Devil Off: A True Story of the Murder That Rocked New Orleans:

Ethan Brown’s Shake the Devil Off: A True Story of the Murder That Rocked New Orleans

4. After reading Louisa Gilder’s review of Graham Farmelo’s The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom:

Graham Farmelo’s The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom

5. After reading Andrew Ervin’s review of Nigeria-born fiction writer Helen Oyeyemi’s third novel, White is for Witching:

Helen Oyeyemi’s White is for Witching

6. After reading Caryn James’ review of Philippe Claudel’s latest novel, Brodeck (translated from the French by John Cullen):

Philippe Claudel’s Brodeck, translated from the French by John Cullen

7. After reading William Giraldi’s review of Terrence Holt’s first story collection, In the Valley of the Kings:

Terrence Holt’s In the Valley of the Kings

8. After reading Jonathan Lethem’s end-paper essay, “Poet of Desolate Landscapes,” about the stories of J. G. Ballard:

The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard

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Hotel Amerika TransGenre Issue

August 31, 2009 at 8:00 am (Insomnia, Surprises, Writing, short fiction)
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So, it’s past midnight. Almost 1 a.m., in fact. And as usual self finds herself still awake and staring up at the ceiling (Please God, don’t let her go the Michael Jackson or Heath Ledger route — you saw where their insomnia got them? Self, don’t be silly! Even if you wanted to, you wouldn’t be able to afford all those prescription drugs!)

She decides to browse through a Poets & Writers. Lo and behold, almost in the exact middle of the magazine is an ad for Hotel Amerika’s TransGenre Issue, Spring 2009.

Self has a piece appearing in this issue. It is called Read the rest of this entry »

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Today, 2nd Thursday of August (2009)

August 14, 2009 at 12:17 am (Brain Cloud, Home, Insomnia, Writing)
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Today was an entirely different day from yesterday.  In terms of news, self means.

While yesterday, the TV showed clip after clip of angry people in Town Hall meetings, today the news was all about:

  • a huge wildfire in the Santa Cruz Mountains
  • an impending Bart strike (scheduled to begin Monday)
  • weekend weather prognosis:  HOT.  HOT.  HOT.

Self tried her best to stay away from the blog.  In the interests of her writing.  No good, she still had to wander over at least a couple of times every hour.

Moreover, since the start of the summer, self has made the remarkable discovery that she gets many of her best story ideas after hubby gets home.  Before that, she likely reads.  Or putters around the garden.  Or fabricates excuses to go on errands (yes, even with clunky car).  Or browses the web.  Or makes useless phone calls.  Or sits on the couch and acquaints herself with what her writing colleagues are doing.  Or bemoans her lack of financial stability (Hubby is with a start-up, and self’s part-time teaching provides nowhere near a livable salary).  Or posts stupid reviews on Amazon.com

After he gets home, even if they are in the middle of watching a very exciting episode of, say, “CSI:  New York” (Last night’s episode, apparently a re-run, featured American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee, playing a woman who turns on her stalker, and she was phenomenal!  She even got to sing a little bit, in the last two minutes of the episode!), self will suddenly experience nirvana. Then she’ll start typing away like mad on her laptop, and she’ll insist –  insist –  that hubby listen to this amazingly brilliant thing she has just written:  which happened with “Appetites,” the piece that is now on the Cafe Irreal website.

Last night, she got a sudden brainstorm at 11 p.m.  This was murder.  She didn’t get to sleep until 3 a.m.  She tossed and she turned.  She kept getting up to read.  She finally had a slice of cake and a glass of milk.  Then, she doesn’t know what happened, but next she knew it was 8 a.m.  There was a half-full glass of milk on the floor by the bed, and an empty cake plate next to it.  Self doesn’t even remember going to the kitchen in the middle of the night.  But there it is before her:  the evidence.  Hubby is completely stoic about self’s nocturnal ramblings, for he leaves for the office without comment.

So, anyhoo, it’ll be a good couple of hours yet before hubby gets home.  Self is crawling through Maximum City:  Bombay Lost and Found.  One thing she can’t wrap her mind around is how the author kept from going crazy while interviewing possibly every known gang member in the city of Bombay.  How did he get to sleep, after spending hours listening to how this or that gang member carried out a contract killing?  Self must have read at least a dozen extremely detailed descriptions of rub-outs, today alone (For that matter, self, what are you doing spending this fine summer day reading about the murder rate in Bombay?).  Self realizes this is not particularly helpful to her writing.  She tries hurrying up.  But it’s no use: self’s mind continues to get stuck on all the passages with extremely gory details.  Why, self, why?  Why are you in possession of such a morbid imagination?

Now self decides she will make herself go to the San Carlos Farmers Market.  She hasn’t been in weeks, and she used to go every week with son, when he was visiting.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.

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Summer Thoughts: Café Irreal, Today’s “The View”, Mysterious Insomnia

July 29, 2009 at 7:17 pm (Brain Cloud, Home, Insomnia)
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Amazing: self has discovered that she can actually operate as a credible semblance of a human being, even with no sleep. At all. For that reason alone, today should be a very very very good day. (Just imagine, however, how much better and how much more productive self could be if she’d had at least four hours — !!! Gnashing of teeth)

Self has some very good news to share with dear blog readers: A short piece, “Appetites,” has just been accepted for Café Irreal’s Issue # 31 (Yaaay !!!) The site’s editors are currently visiting Prague, home of the greatest short story writer in the world, Franz Kafka.

And today, in contrast to yesterday, when the backyard was filled with men climbing our trees and conducting noisy conversations, self has the garden all to herself again: it is quiet, Read the rest of this entry »

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