Remember the time we raced elevators in Kokura?
After 11 p.m. the elevators in my building would stop at every floor, and it
seemed to us that surely one elevator was faster than the other, so we got into
them and raced, and about halfway down some poor couple got onto my elevator,
while we were giving the play-by-play (I'm
on the fifth floor now and the doors are closing!!) and there I was pressed
to the wall, shouting to you, Please you
have to keep talking to me. Because I was clearly crazier than any
foreigner ever, except of course the guy in the other elevator shouting back at
me I'm winning, I'm winning!

Remember how my boyfriend at the time tried to get you to side against me in a
macho way, how GUYS were into this and that's why I wasn't, and you said,
"Yeah, I remember going through that stage?" You were the most likely
to side with the testosterone of any man I've ever known, but you stood beside
me then. Staunch.

Remember when we went to that baseball game and I confessed that I really knew
nothing about baseball, and you honestly started explaining that well, there are two teams…
And I thought, He couldn't possibly
think I am THAT stupid! And then years later realized that you had in
fact thought I was that stupid as far as baseball was concerned, and
liked me anyway.

Do you remember when we laughed so hard we had to sit down on the sidewalk so
we wouldn't keel over?

I touched you once in 20 years, I put my hands on your shoulders, and you sat
very still then. But when I tried to kiss you, you pulled away, because we were
friends first and always. Did I ever hug you, even hello or goodbye? I don't
remember, but I think I didn't. We were both such prickly little beasts, and
disinclined to show the soft underbelly to anybody who might poke us in an
unfriendly way.

We wrote letters at first and I always wanted to be my very most
entertaining
for you. I would sit at a dark table in the nearest bar and buy a bottle
of red
wine and write pages and pages to you until the bottle was empty. And
the
letters from you, torn from notebooks, written on the backs of fliers,
long
screeds alternating fury and humor, dancing on that line that I could
barely
walk without falling.

The internet made things easier. Remember how we
would chat for
three hours every Saturday, telling secrets, looking at pictures of art,
movie previews, anything. Listening to Portishead together, looking for
the best picture
of Ava Gardner, the perfect combination of beauty and dissolution. You
were
closer to me than if you'd been in the room.

Remember when we fought because you said I liked old lady television and I said
you loved your mother too much and we didn't talk for a year? What a waste. You
could curse me under the table, and did, and you were harsh as sandpaper. But
for your mother – it was weird what a little boy you became, so deferential.
And now I will write to her and tell her how much you loved her, which is the closest
I can be to sorry.

All these memories. What am I going to do
with this if you’re not here to remember it with me? And the last time we
talked it was just nothing, it was about the weather, it was hot and sticky
where you were and I don’t even know if I made a good enough joke, if the last
thing you remembered about me was laughing. I hope so. Goddamn it.

I got tagged in that "15 albums that are super important to you forevers
in only 15 minutes go!" thing on the book of face, and I did it, and
then I thought: But lists are not interesting; reasons are. So.

1. Starland
   Vocal Band – I bought this for my father the summer it came out,
   because it was popular and I thought he would like it. I played this
   album until the grooves were worn smooth. I studied the picture of the
   band, tried to figure out what they were like, invented back stories
   for them. I know now that it was mostly lame covers of classic folk
   songs, but gosh I loved this album, and it was the first album I loved.
2. Simon
   & Garfunkel – I couldn't tell you which single album, maybe
   "Sounds of Silence", with their pointy shoes and capey looking coats
   and their mysterious destination down a country road. We didn't have a
   lot of music in the house when I was growing up, but we had all the
   Simon and Garfunkel, and I loved it all. Writing out the words, lying
   on my back crying beside the stereo, because "gazing beyond the
   rain-drenched streets" was so lovely. This is why I am demanding about
   lyrics; you cannot start with Paul Simon and settle for mere rhymes
   after. 
3. Eurythmics – Again, I don't know which album, maybe
   "Sweet Dreams". This was the beginning of liking pop music for me,
   liking costumes, liking how you could build a shell around your heart
   instead of holding it out on your open palm, like you do with folk
   music. And I liked how her voice was so controlled and so powerful. And
   her hair.
4. Prince's Purple Rain – I realize that there are movie soundtracks that affect people more (you know who you are, The Wall)
   but this was the one that won my heart. The dancing purple q-tip! I
   loved him, despite those embarrassingly long guitar solos, gah. And I
   could still listen to most of this today, and dance.
5. Kate
   Bush's The Dreaming – First album that was hard for me to like before I
   knew I loved it. It was such an interesting cross between the easy
   folky appeal of "The Kick Inside" and the harder rock that I was
   learning about (Pink Floyd, King Crimson) but I knew that whether Kate
   Bush crooned or screamed, she absolutely meant it, and it was a lovely
   channel for how I felt at seventeen, angry and anguished.
6. Talking
   Heads'  Fear of Music – (I think? I tend to like an artist, get
   everything they've done, and listen to it all in a long, lovely
   gluttonous loop, so I don't generally focus on albums). David Byrne
   changed my brain. I don't really think I can say much more about it.
7. Laurie
   Anderson's Strange Angels – Her previous albums had a much bigger
   influence on my ideas about the world and about what stories we tell
   and how we tell them. Those were game changers for me. But Strange
   Angels… this had a huge influence on my feelings. And still does;
   Coolsville can still make me cry faster than I can blink.
8. Leonard
   Cohen's I'm Your Man. I had read his poetry in high school, and when I
   first heard his music I was like: This guy can only sing one note,
   hello. And I hated (and still don't like) how he brings in pretty
   sopranos to cover it up. I like him best raw. But coming back to him in
   college, falling in love with Suzanne as one does, and then with "Take
   This Waltz" I think he had me forever in his pocket.
9. Eno/Cale
   Wrong Way Up – This album has super powers. If I ever talk about dying,
   make me listen to it. I cannot leave a world where this album exists.
10. Tori
    Amos' Little Earthquakes – Oh, the tragic breakup album. This is maybe
    a little awkward, now, my love for this album. But gosh, that was a
    hard break up, and Tori knew all the words.
11. Counting Crows's
    August and Everything After – This was one of maybe five tapes I had
    when I moved here. I have no objective idea at this point if it's any
    good. I think it is really really good. But it was the only actual
    album I had for several months, and I am intimately bonded with it
    forever.
12. Beth Orton's Central Reservation – Great lyrics, great
    swoopy music, heartbreakingly good voice. I like, too, how optimistic
    this is, because I think she could easily be very yeasty. I like also
    how her crossover tends to be towards electronica. It was a new way of
    thinking for me, and I like anything that opens doors in my brain.
13. Jaromir
    Nohavica Darmodej – I remember very clearly the first time I heard
    this album; it is when I knew I was going to stay here for a long time.
    If a country can produce this man, then it is a country worth living
    in.
14. Regina Spektor's Begin to Hope – Like Beth Orton, Spektor
    just intrigues me with her ability to do a lot of stuff and her quiet
    refusal to be easily pigeonholed. The match of lyrics to music is
    surprising and often delightful to me. Plus her voice is just crazy
    awesome. 
15. There should be a place for mix tapes. It would be
    wrong of me to put any album ahead of mix tapes, because whenever I
    want to hear music, my brain first goes to mixes, the sonnets of my
    generation, my musical touchstones.

The book I am reading (A Gate at the Stairs) is a mystery to me. It is good but I am more than halfway through and I do not really understand a single character. I blame the author, who doesn't seem to want to pin anything down either. There are really truly sentences like "the room was the pale yellow of wheat, like chablis". Listen: the room is pale yellow, or wheat-colored, or the color of chablis, but why couldn't she pick and I am exhausted and the room never gets mentioned again so who cares.

There are these five sentences, quotes from various writers, that I've saved in my "drafts" file and I keep reading them over and over again and I always feel like I'm on the verge of learning it but then I don't.

There is a "Kids in the Hall" sketch (I think) where Scott Thompson (I think?) is supposed to be some awesome author reading aloud from his upcoming brilliant second novel and he goes "write what you know, write what you know, write what you know, I don't know anything." Let me tell you the second book is not at all like that. Or is it. It is. Every day this week will be writing, writing, writing, or I will really be forced to write something closer to the bone, and we none of us want to see that. Scott Thompson totally pwned P.J. O'Rourke and I will love him forever for it.

The man with two first names brought a rattleskin back from his recent stateside visit. I, who had a childhood in one kind of nature, and then remember watching rattlesnakes sunning themselves on the fraught walks of my adolescence, down to Angsty Hoffman park and back, shook the rattle out into my hand and screamed because I thought it was alive. No matter how much country I'm coated in, I'm a city girl on the inside. I could sleep in a museum in an instant but I've never liked tents as much as I've been in them.

These summer days, sudden storms and sunshine, so hard to plan and surprising. It is unsafe for laundry. Today I told the pizza guy downstairs that he'd been written up positively on a local wesite, which he didn't know. I am neighborly. But I haven't been to the beer garden yet.

Dear mustard, I am sorry that I forgot what you gave me was what I want.
A sweet and sour bite, a slap on the tongue, a reminder of other
flavors. I have drowned myself in vinegar and salt when you were what I
wanted. Colonel Mustard, in the kitchen, with the knife.

I am perplexed by my neighborhood. Within a three block radius of the
apartment, there are four food stands (pizza, kebabs, fried cheese), two
flower stores, two pet supply stores and two pet grooming stores, ten
pubs and a wine bar, and three hairdressers. There are no vegetable
stands (six blocks), no clothing stores (five blocks), no drug store
(four blocks), bookstore, school supplies… I'm not saying I have to
walk far for what I want, but isn't it ODD to have so many of one kind
of thing and so few or none of the other.

Despite the presence of three hairdressers, I've had a hell of a streak
of bad luck with haircuts (for a while, this blog was on the front page
for "bad haircut"), and thus have for the last three years taken care of
my hair by clippering it down to about a centimeter every few months.
I'd rather have a bad haircut for free, thanks. The few times I've felt
brave enough to try and make an appointment, they've been willing to see
me in a week, by which time my braveness evaporated and I just went
ahead and cut my hair. But yesterday the planets aligned, I walked in,
they agreed to let me come back within 24 hours, and I got my hair cut.
It was fast and I think it looks good, and she did it to my
specifications (rather than what often happens: they mistake me for
somebody who cares). So yay.

I've been thinking about secrets or maybe privacy, because what is a
secret anyway? Why don't you tell them; why don't I? Why, when taking a
running jump at talking about it, do I find myself unable, tongue-tied
by myself. Do I not say it because I don't want it to be true. Or some
sense of shame, maybe. Or because I don't feel like having the
discussion that I expect will come. It's definitely a fact that I don't
talk about stuff easily or ever till I've made my mind up what I think. I
think about myself as a person who doesn't have secrets, but what I
mean is if I'm going to tell you eventually I generally tell you
straight off, just to get it done. But in inventorying my too-narrow
curtains I've realized that there are things I've told nobody, or few; there are things I cannot say. So that is sort of interesting to me.

FRIENDS & FAMILY: Summer vacation is
absolutely THE BEST. I want Squire home all the time. He's
working on changing his screenplay into a short story or something. I
don't know. He has summer goals. He makes me laugh every day.
And Friar and I talk about nearly everything and I'm so glad to have known him
so
long and still be so blown away by everything he knows. Last night he
was talking about Konrad Lorenz and summer pub behavior and I actually
rested my chin on my hands and looked at him raptly. We're our own
little enclave these days, inside this ghost town. Nearly all my other
friends are out of town and we write or text each
other but I have nobody who
wants to meet me at the beer garden for like, maybe the rest of the
month? It is kind of lonely.

FICTION: Loved Gilead. Not crazy about Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. Started reading Summer of Caprice last night and it was just about perfect for my mood, a little surrealist Czechish thing. Still working through Watership Down with Squire.

FUN: Oh the sun the sun
the sun! It is lovely. Although I think the naked boys next door moved
out (or maybe went on vacation) because there was a lady over there
cleaning all the windows (YAY!) and then all the curtains were drawn
(BOO!) and not a sign of them. We have ants and that is our only guest.
The cottage is kind of awesome, though. These birds built a nest in the
broken-down porch, and it's been fun watching her brood and now the
parents both fetching worms for the babies. They seem to not mind us
very much, though we do try to be a bit quieter around them (I guess, if
they had the whole forest behind them and they built on the
peoplehouse, that's what they get).

FLICKR: I have some pictures up on Flickr.
Talk to me; how are you doing?

Today I found out that I do not have cancer. It was highly unlikely that
I did, but the two weeks I was waiting for test results were pretty
awful for me and probably anybody who had to listen to me. So that was a
relief. I quickly moved beyond being relieved, which makes sense, to
being pissed at myself and really embarrassed. I feel things very
intensely but I'm generally a fairly level-headed person, and this crazy
amount of dread, and the crazy if/then hamster wheel I put myself on, and my
near-surreal need for reassurance felt like a betrayal of my character
by… myself. Either it's bad or it isn't, but the two weeks while you
wait for the results are not an appropriate time to freak out. Freak out
after the results are bad, or better yet don't freak out at all. You
know? It was stupid. It was like somehow if I worried enough I could
influence the results? It's not that kind of test though, and anyway I
am not a great holder of breath. Anyway, I'm fine. I am shifting myself
back to relief, which is the more appropriate emotion, and to continued
resolutions to take care of myself as if I were my best friend and not
secretly a lunatic. I got home and painted my face up to see what I
would look like when I get old. Deep frowny bits sure, but also I've already
got some pretty good laugh lines already going on. It was not unhopeful.
Then I forgot to take the makeup off before Squire came home, so he had
kind of a surprise, there.

IN THE HIDDEN CHAMBER OF OUR
INTIMACY ALL PROS AND CONS MINGLE.

A writer writes something. Next, an
editor edits it, eliminating grammatical and factual errors and usually
tightening the style if needed. The text then goes to a translator,
whose job is to translate the text. A final editor (me!) then makes sure
that the text is as natural sounding as possible in the target
language.

THE FAMOUS TIGHTROPE WALKER
HOUDINI WOULD SPREAD HIS ARMS.

The translator’s dilemma is the
challenge that a translator faces when needing to relay something from
one language that does not translate exactly or even smoothly. A joke is
lost; do you “make up for it” later? How can you convey a stylistic
flourish? Do cultural activities get explanations?

 

TIME SEEMS TO STAND STILL TILL MY
HISTORY COMES ALIVE.

The particular translator's dilemma that I’ve been thinking
about this week is the one that happens when for some reason the source
language editor has not done their job. This is sometimes not because
the editor did a bad job, but because the writer did not feel the need
for an editor at all.

 

I WOULD ASSEMBLE IT THE WAY FIRST ANTHROPOLOGISTS WOULD
ASSEMBLE SKELETON OF MESOZOIC SAURIANS.

The dilemma is this: What if the writer is a
poor writer; what if the text is error-ridden
in the extreme? Is the translator's job to make sure the writer's work
is reproduced as faithfully as possible?  to
make text sound as good as it can? to make the text easier for the reader? Is the translator's duty to the
writer, or to the text, or to the reader?

 

SHE IMPERSONATES THE HEAVENLY AND
HELLISH BEAUTY.

The language editor's dilemma is the same song at a
different pitch. It IS an editor's job to fix factual, grammatical, and
stylistic errors. The problem is, when the text gets to the translator,
it should already have been cleared of error in the source text, and the
language editor should really only be worrying about such stylistic
changes as are necessary to make the text sound natural in the target
language. Should.

 

IT TESTS TRESPASSING INTRUDERS IN AN INNOCUOUS FOREPLAY.

But. I just got done editing a book that had so many errors it was almost funny. I decided to
go at it as the first editor should have done, which meant a lot of
research. It turns out that I enjoyed it (the research part) a lot more
than I’d expected. I turned in a text that was reasonably accurate,
grammatically correct, and stylistically still a reasonable reflection
of the writer. I feel a little morally conflicted, because the English
version doesn’t align with the original as it should, which is beyond
the call, but I felt I had to do it that way. I’m not even sure if I was
appropriately loyal to the readers, who have now been robbed of some
pretty funny stuff. However, since it was too good to throw it all away,
I have given you a little taste of the meal.

 

HEROD WASHED HIS HANDS.

Hi! Hi! What's up with you? What's up with me is that I have TOO MUCH
TIME and everything takes on this super-saturated intensity, and I
forget that the world is in fact going on as usual and it's just I'm
looking at it a bit funny. But anyway I thought maybe I should just say
what's facts and not so much feelings.

Facts are that we've been going to the cottage a lot. Pulling nails
out of old boards, lots of chainsawing, watching various flowers
(planted and otherwise) pop up. The current focus is on the front porch,
which was caving in because the previous owners built it on sand. I am
not making this up. So the whole thing came down and now we will figure
how to put it back up, this time not on sand. Lots of time spent in
pubs, on the train, and at the dining room table with graph paper trying
to figure out what to do. Graph paper and booze is a winning
combination.

Facts are that I've been sick for almost two weeks. I'm so much
better now, but I still can't walk about without a box of tissues in
hand. This is somewhat complicated when there are abrupt pressure
changes, which render me entirely useless on the best of days. On
Saturday I spent most of the day in bed, drifting between sleep and a
pile of New Yorkers, jumping up with a periodic flood of motivation only
to sink back down as everything went black and starry. Sunday was
better, but still not great: the one thing I nearly managed to
accomplish (picking up a glass from the floor) was thwarted when I
smashed my face into a nail. Good times.

Facts are that freelancing is going pretty well, actually better
than I would have thought. I am able to put food on my family! That
said, it turns out that marketingspeak is my chalkboard fingernails, and
that I am also not terribly happy with art critiques, of which I
currently have a book's worth to do. I love the translator and it's not
hard work, it's just irritating. Last week I did a medical paper on
yawning, which was fine text-wise, but lead to more napping than was
probably strictly necessary. Coming up this week: a travelogue. You
guys, if I don't get a simple "stereotactically-inserted
somethingsomething in the cortex" soon, I'm going to scream. Yes: "It's
not brain surgery" for me means something else: it means it's actually
hard work.

Facts are that I've thrown the last two books I've read, which is
not good. I'm thinking of a New Campaign, reading Pulitzer winners
(exceptions: Do not have to read the egregious Kavalier and Clay again).
This started as an idea to read all the Man Bookers, but then I
realized I've hated more than half of the ones I read, echh. So: Pullet
Surprises it is. If I take off the ones I've read already, I've still
got some 70 books to read, so this becomes part of the five-year plan,
clearly, because I am not one of those book-a-week geniuses.

Facts are that I feel sometimes as though I'm making no progress as a
person, and then I remember how much I was crying this time last year,
and I feel ready to launch my own self-help channel. Now: your turn.

Things that annoy:
people who use air quotes to convey their
superiority
errors on government websites
my brain when
insufficiently stimulated

Things that confound:
people who
dance to a different rhythm than the one playing
taking the time to wonder instead of taking the time to find out
where
the last hour went

Things that delight:
the mash-up of "It
Wasn't Me" and "Let It Be"
20 minute naps
when you throw your head back to laugh

We did our whirlwind rock star tour
of California (I didn't take many pictures, sorry). We saw our first
roller derby and it was awesome. We ate a lot of good food. I found out
that Hendrick's gin is as good as its ad copy. I fell hard in love with
otters and seahorses. I watched Golden Girls for the first time. I
found out what the dot over the I is called in the course of losing
(but not badly) at trivia night. I turbo-taxed. It was mostly very
good.

On the road to Monterey, we passed a car on the side of the road. Two
people were hugging beside the car. My first response was WHAT THE
HELL? My sister and my son both said AWWW. This, along with their cute
noses, blond hair, and general irresistibility,  none of which I share,
is further evidence that I am basically raising my sister in boy form.
I do not wish it any other way.

Now I'm home and singing "good morning, jet lag, here we go again…"
to myself. I am sorry that I did not get a full vacation while we were
there (two rush jobs) but I am grateful as anything to have today off
so I can wander from room to room in a half-daze. I may glut myself on
the New Yorker or on television for the whole day. Or both! Certainly I
am staying in my jammies. It's just going to be that wacky.

I was planning to let Squire stay home after I woke up at four and
found out that he had been up since three, but he insisted on going to
school. Ah, school. We have not missed you at all.

Uhm, I got a really awesome contract (editing medical, marketing, and
miscellaneous texts, mmmmmbop) with a Prestigious Hospital and I'm
pretty excited about that.

I have felt more precious and more disposable in the last two weeks
than I have in a year, and holding those two feelings at the same time
is a level of dissonance that I generally try to avoid. It will pass,
but probably not until I've watched an entire season of True Blood or
something.