Letter B

The Past Is A Foreign Country

This picture showed up in my inbox today from our friend Joey who just got it himself from a mutual friend. A long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time ago Joey organized a sail on a schooner around lower Manhattan for a bunch of friends and co-workers. Just because. Just because we all lived our lives by the water but rarely went out on it to get a good look at our beautiful city. I have lots of memories from this cruise but one of the most vivid was a gorgeous sunset as we sailed through New York Harbor towards the the Narrows. Matthew and I had just started living together at this point and our future together was slowly taking shape. The one part of the future that we never imagined is obvious in this shot. It's a picture from a world that's gone. Our private world and the world over Matthew's shoulder. It's both an image I want to put at the bottom of a box in the back of a closet and one I could stare at all night.

Constructive Summer

Matthew is finally done with school and now we can get this summer started. And by "started" I mean let's break out the Sheetrock! Last year we did no summer projects on purpose. This year, not so lucky.  We have a list of what that stretches into infinity and beyond. (I was going to christen this summer "The Summer of Noggin" but I think it might turn out to be "The Summer of Toy Story 2.") The fraction that will actually be accomplished is probably about 0.001%. And that would be a good number. This is when I wish we could just hire a crew, give them some plans, a sack of dough and then fuck off to the Cape for a couple months. .... Sorry, still reveling in that fantasy. Just give me one more second... Okay. I'm back. Dammit.

So anyway, yes, the List. We decided the most important thing on it is to get the kids into the same room. And because this requires a little demolition it's obviously the one Matthew wants to do first. (The man teaches ninth graders. He has some tension to release.) Right now Willa sleeps in a dormer room that is off our bedroom. (Saying it's a room is generous, it's basically a closet with a window.)  This little nook was created by the previous owners who walled off the dormer from another bedroom (Lowell's) and opened up a new door from our bedroom. We plan on tearing down the false wall, boarding up the door and returning the bedrooms to their original state. (Why am I using all these words? What is this, the 19th century? Pictures here if you prefer visuals.) This will make Lowell's bedroom bigger and we'll basically just keep Willa's crib where it is now and voila! They share a room. On the one hand I know getting Willa into another room and out of ours is a good thing. There is just a curtain separating us from her which was lovely when she was a baby (and not in bed with us which wasn't often.) But these days it is starting to feel a little flimsy. We want our room back so we can stop worrying about making noise or keeping the light on (walka-chicka wahh). We both feel like it's a good time to do this since we'll have time to adjust before we do any travel. And yet. And yet. I am having trouble. I don't want to say goodbye to the baby stage and this feels like we're taking a sledgehammer to the five minutes of babyhood she has left. (Okay, a sawzall, it really is a flimsy little wall.) I keep coming up with things to procrastinate the task but Matthew's not buying it. It starts tomorrow unless I chain myself to the wall. Which I won't do. But I will be sorely tempted. Goodbye, little nursery. I will miss you so.

Peer Pressure Is My Friend. Again.

In 1992 I bought a copy of that year's Best American Short Stories and was blown away by this story called "Forever Overhead." It was told in the second person which is something that I usually really hate but this story was so simultaneously gorgeous and nauseating that I raced through it and had no time to be annoyed. After reading it I flipped immediately to the back to read the author statement and that was when I fell in love. Right then and there. This guy, David Foster Wallace, had written this ridiculous, wonderful, and hilarious author's note that was a complete 180 from and even more brilliant than the fraught and delicate story I had just read. And it had footnotes. Footnotes in an author statement. I was smitten.

When Infinite Jest came out I bought it right away. I'm pretty sure they released it in paperback because I remember buying it at a now defunct Brentano's on 6th avenue a few days after it came out and I remember it was a paperback. I went home dewey-eyed with excitement to start reading. I started that day and I think I got to page 160 or so. And then stopped. This was back when I devoured books, staying up all night to read even mediocre books. Once I got started on a book I read it constantly until I was done. That never happened with Infinite Jest. I put it down and it stayed down. I remember picking it up again a few years later and getting to right about the same spot again and again stopping. At some point I must have lent out my copy because the next time I felt up to reading it I couldn't find it anywhere. After this I walked around with a tiny little part of my brain that felt guilty for never finishing, hell, barely starting, the magnum opus of my favorite contemporary writer.

When I heard the news last September, cryptically via Twitter, that David Foster Wallace had hung himself I found myself crying almost instantly. Suicides make me very upset anyway but to lose such a mind to that fucking villainous black hole, depression, shocked me to tears. I couldn't shake the dread and sickness that plumed up whenever I thought about if for a long time afterwards. That day though, partially because it had been on my mind again since getting Consider The Lobster and partially because I am a narcissistic douche who can't help myself, I had the thought: shit, now I have to finish Infinite Jest.

Enter Infinite Summer, a brainchild of Defective Yeti's Matthew Baldwin and also guided by my favorite Internet sensei, Eden Kennedy. As soon as I heard about it, again via Twitter, I knew I was in. Here was another chance for me to prove how susceptible I am to peer pressure AND fulfill one of my lifetime goals. Fun! The gist is that a bunch of people from around the globe will be reading it this summer from June 21st to September 22, 75 pages a week. (Not including the extra 300 pages of endnotes.) I am 50-some pages in and feeling good. Just knowing that I will be finishing it this time (as God and the Internet as my witness) definitely helps. I will be occasionally blogging about it, I guess, so I hope you don't mind. Not sure how I'll do that as I am so spoiler-averse it borders on psychosis, but I'll figure out something. If anyone out there is participating in this summer project too, please pipe up and let me know.

Did I Mention That I'll Be (Speaking) At BlogHer?

I have been meaning to write a post now for months to let you know that not only will I be going to BlogHer this year but I will be speaking on a panel. (I know, I know, why the hell would I be speaking on a panel at a blogging conference? I nearly let my blog die this year for f*ck sakes. But the panel is about microblogging -read: Twitter- and I'm representing as Momku so it's not entirely absurd. Not entirely.)  But then BlogHer sold out in like, a freaking minute, and I felt that posting about a conference you couldn't attend even if you wanted to was bad form. And there is also this little problem that I am almost genetically prevented from self-promotion of any kind. This is not something I like about myself. I really believe that it's important to be proud of your accomplishments and abilities and, for women especially, to not shy away from talking about them. I believe this strongly. In theory. In practice it's almost impossible for me. I want so badly to be able to do it but I have all sorts of psychological baggage that makes it about as appealing as waltzing barefoot in my underwear on a stage strewn with crushed glass. Yeah. Issues!

So anyway. I will be speaking on a panel. At BlogHer. With some smart, awesome women. If you're going to the conference please consider attending our session. I think it's going to be great.

(p.s. I have also been holding out that I got my hair cut off about a month ago. I am the world's worst blogger. Next post.)

My Little PCB Monster

This weekend a bunch of ships sailed up the Hudson to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's discovery voyage. There was a big celebration held on a point near us to watch the ships come in with bands and food and hula hoops. (Hula hoops? What is going on? Must be some kind of trend.) We went down and Lowell was instantly drawn to a shallow bank where there was a beach of mud and rocks due to low tide. He and a bunch of his fellow hooligans spent hours mucking in the silt. I was focusing on keeping Willa from throwing herself off the end of the beautiful, but treacherous art installation/pier so I didn't really see the extent of the mucking. When I finally caught up with Lowell he was basically a walking Super Fund Site. (The picture really does not do justice the extent of the muddiness, it was ridiculous.) Although part of me wanted to rush him home and give him a Silkwood-esque shower I just made do with some baby wipes and then Matthew handed him a chocolate ice cream sandwich to smear all over his face and complete the look. I'm sure he'll be fine, since the Hudson is soooo clean now. Maybe we'll be lucky and he'll just end up with some cool mutant power.