It is raining today. Feels like it has been raining for hours. Time moved backwards, so that the clock says 6:53 even though she expected it to say 7:53. Out in the living room, she hears the beagles jumping and clattering all over the hardwood floor, trying their darndest (Beagles are so dumb) to wake her up. Well, she is up. But, unless they can hear her typing, she will pretend she is still asleep.
This morning, still reading Joshua Ferris, she comes to a section of his novel where a character named Lynn, recently diagnosed with breast cancer, thinks of the time she drove a lousy car around Lake Michigan.
Self too had a lousy car. Several of them, in fact. She wrote about one of them in a story called “The Lost Language,” one of those hybrid stories that are part essay and part fiction, that is told in segments. And it was published in Isotope, whose fabulous editor was Chris Cokinos, but now no one in America (or anywhere else in the world) will ever read it, because two years ago, Isotope ceased to be.
“The Lost Language” is the title story of the collection that was published last year in Manila by Anvil. Maybe people in Manila will read it. Maybe a dozen people?
And then this year she finished a novel called “Leaving.” It was about a Filipino maid. Then Mona Simpson came out with her big novel about a Filipino maid. Then self watches on YouTube as Mona Simpson reads from the section of her novel that has to do with a Filipino maid. The maid is called “Lola.” She is far more competent with children than Mona Simpson is. Oh. Wasn’t that Dear Departed Sister’s maid? The one self just encountered in New York, this last trip with Dearest Mum? Her sister’s maid was getting paid so much money, self wished she were a maid and not a writer. Seriously.
Self, where is this going?
Rainy thoughts, rainy thoughts.
Kanlaon 