Oops! Part IV: It’s Raining, It’s Pouring!

It has been so warm in New York. Self is usually over-dressed, then she finds herself peeling off: down jacket; blazer; pull-over; gloves and ends up in T-shirt and jeans. It’s either that or she ends up sweating profusely. Hair stuck to her neck as if she’s just taken a shower.

So today, self decided she would go out in T-shirt and jeans.

And guess what! Here’s the weather:

Rain! Pouring rain! Self had just emerged from an afternoon tour of Carnegie Center.

She took a couple of pictures from beneath the building overhang (Well, actually, she was just trying to keep busy and not look like she was the only person in the city who hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella today). The second picture was blurred, but for some reason it is self’s favorite:

Blurry Rainy Day in New York

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

Molly Antopol in Ecotone (The Migration Issue)

Because self is starting to prepare for her next round of classes, she is on a very intense reading binge. She picks up Gaistkill and alternates with literary journals.

The journal of the day is Ecotone. The issue is The Migration Issue (Fall 2013). The story is “My Grandmother Tells Me This Story” (fiction) by Molly Antopol. The sentence of the day is:

• There were so many things to be afraid of in the forest.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

The Year 2015: Very Stream-of-Consciousness

First Margarita Donnelly Prize for Prose. Mary Gaitskill. New York, New York. Carnegie Hall and Dearest Mum (Last night, front row seat, Trio Solisti. They killed Brahms. Absolutely killed it. Three standing ovations. From a New York audience. No joke). Florence & Venice with Niece. “Crackers” in Crab Orchard Review. Fan Fiction (self’s WIP: about Peeta as a prostitute!!!) garners more hits. London-Ireland-York (the last for the first time). Central Park walks. Middlemarch (swoon). Writers Group meet-ups. Twitter Hashtag Games & Folklore Thursday. Victorian Steampunk and Shadowhunters. Believing in dragons. Stay tuned.

Carnegie Center’s Weill Hall, Before the Trio Solisti Concert Last Night

Mary Gaitskill Sentence of the Day From Story # 6 in BAD BEHAVIOR

And you thought perhaps self had stopped reading Mary Gaitskill just because she hadn’t posted a quote from Story # 6? Ixnay!

Self is as committed to Bad Behavior as ever.

Self adores short story collections. And really good short story collections are her be-all and end-all.

The last one she really liked might have been The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis. Or George Saunders’ Civilwarland in Bad Decline.

Gaitskill, self discovered, has such a feel for women (and men) who adopt alternate lives. Like intellectuals who sideline as prostitutes. Or lawyers who like to patronize prostitutes when their wives are out of town.

Anyhoo, after multiple times checking to see if the Vampire Peeta fan fic she’s following has been updated yet (The author usually drops her new chapters close to midnight), she checks her dashboard and sees — whoa! More hits on her own fan fic, the one about Capitol Peeta. Oh no, what pressure!

She’ll just have to relax by reading more Gaitskill.

Without further ado, the Gaitskill sentence of the day:

They talked about how shallow and fake it all was, and once again Stephanie told the story of the twenty-three-year-old clerk who had driven her to despair with stories of his impending publication in Esquire and his subsequent book contract, until she found out that he was certifiably nuts and on lithium, and couldn’t possibly be telling the truth.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.