Month: September 2005

Almost to the end of the Work in Progress. Still don’t know the outcome of the final confrontation. Can’t wait to see what happens.

We leave before the sun rises tomorrow for a road trip to PA to visit Mer and Stef. I’ll have a finished book and a road trip with my BH. It don’t get no better than that.

Happy birthday today to my little sister Lisa. If you live in Oswego, stop by Rudy’s and say something nice to her. She looks like me, only blonder and skinnier. Happy birthday on Sunday to daughter Meredith. (I can’t believe my baby is 18. How did that happen? Who gave her permission to grow up and become all independant and interesting and fun like that? I want to talk to whoever is in charge of these things!!)

See y’all Monday!

As I write this, the weather radar shows red clouds moving our way, which means lots of wind, thunder, and lightning, which means we’ll lose power so I’ll make this short. I think the speech went very well last night. The audience was marvelous – Syracuse has some righteous librarians and other folks who love books!! Thanks to everyone who organized the event and attended. Special thanks to two people: novembersnow for representing LJ land, and to Ms. Marshall, who was one of my high school English teachers… one of the very few I really liked. (She was the teacher in charge of the school newspaper and literary magazine, that’s how cool she was.)

Channel 10 interviewed me but I can’t bring myself to watch it, so if any of you other Central New Yorkers see the piece, let me know what you think.

We didn’t get out of the library until after 8 pm and I was starving because I was too nervous before the speech to eat anything, so BH and I decided to eat at Armory Square, a cool downtown restaurantish shopping area of Syracuse. We ate at Kitty Hoynes and recommend it highly. The whole area was kicking, especially for a Wednesday night in September. I am really proud of my hometown. Are you looking for a place to move to? Come to Syracuse!

More writing today. I am really happy with the first three-quarters of the book…. today’s scenes are when the main character….. well, I don’t want to give anything away.

Thank you Alyssa M for your inspiring email. Keep writing!

added later I forgot to say “yo” to Rebecca the Librarian who has been living the geography of my life, only in reverse.

Yesterday’s schedule worked out exactly as planned. I was a writing machine – on fire. It was awesome, if I do say so myself.

I get to do a little of that today, but there are a few other things that require my attention. I already went to the gym (I can now run for 14 minutes with just a little bit of moaning and whining). Most of the day will be book writing, but in the mid-afternoon I have to change out of my pajamas and into grown-up clothes and head south into the Big City, Syracuse, NY. If you want to hear me rant about censorship then here are the details:

Where: Curtin Auditorium, Onondaga Public Library, 447 South Salina St., Syracuse, NY
What: reception, book signing, and my speech: “Censorship: Child of Fear and Father of Ignorance”
When: Tonight, 5:30-7:30 (my speech starts around 6)
Why: because it is Banned Books Week

The Onondaga Public Library system has cool events all week long.

Oh, and if you do come tonight and you read about it here on my LJ, please introduce yourself!

writing
writing
writing
writing
drink tea
writing
writing
writing
more tea
writing
bathroom break
writing
writing
large lunch
coffee
writing
writing
writing
writing
visit parents
writing
writing
tea again
tea and snack
writing
writing
inhale dinner
writing
writing
writing
brush teeth
writing
go to sleep

Very strange dream last night (early this morning). After being trapped in a long grocery store incident (which I consider its own dream) I was hungry and went to a Japanese restaurant. I did not recognize any of the food there (I love sushi and was bummed they didn’t have any) I tried to order by pointing to pictures on the menu. I did not (do not) speak Japanese and the staff did not speak English. All I wanted was some soup. Brown soup.

I got the soup. It came in a tall glass with a straw and was delicious. I also got a plate of rice and unusual goopy looking things, and three other glasses of clear liquids in which were suspended funny looking things, like a sea cucumber that had tentacles and looked like it was made out of crystal. The waitress explained to me (using gestures) that it was considered a major insult if I touched my nose at any time while I was eating. If I did this, the kitchen staff would stick rice up my nostrils. The rice would have to stay in my nose until I was done eating.

All I wanted was soup.

I tried to eat the crystal sea cucumber, but it was sour and had a texture I shudder to think about. Everything tasted sour except the rice and the soup and I was paranoid about the rice because I didn’t want it up the nose. It took me forever to figure out that I did not have to stay in the restaurant if I didn’t want to. I paid for my meal and got the heck out of there.

Then I dreamed about an unusual church baptism that involved old-fashioned wind-up pocket watches.

Sigh. I can never find my dreams in dream interpretation books.

Off to eat breakfast and write.

added later thanks to Jessica in Sheepshead for the great note – glad you liked all the books!