Ends

It's fall now. I'm happy to spend my first fall in the City...I'm happy to see strings of lights begin to string through the streets as December approaches, although it's only the 9th - early for lights, but anything is acceptable here. To me. I took today and tomorrow off to unwind from a long previous month of travel and chaos. Craig's sister and her husband weren't able to make their trip here this weekend, and I had already requested the days so I figured, why not stay home anyway? I needed today. I needed my apartment. I had tentatively planned to travel downtown to scope out a denim sample sale, but then I paid bills and remembered London (now that Craig's surprise party has passed my savings are to be routed to a London Trip fund) and changed my mind about shopping. Anyway, this old girl isn't the best shopper. Instead, I have purged the writing studio (den, fantasy football headquarters, miscellaneous furniture storage room) of much piled paperwork that was causing me an inability to sit in here distraction-free. Did I say that correctly? Well, now a cedar candle burns to scent any residual dust I may have missed with my dust rag. I still have three rooms to clean but I wanted to take a break to invite the onset of fall and bid goodbye to the end of any stray summer remaining from September. Surely cleaning isn't the most exciting way to spend a vacation day, but oh, how we need it right now. Too much time spent outside of the apartment yields frenzied piles of junk everywhere. And dust.*I'm in a good place with writing right now. I've got some old notebooks from pre-2000, in which there are fragments of elements I might revisit. I just read a review a while ago of a book, in which the critic commented on some of the author's 'adolescent poetry', and frankly, much of what fills my notebooks from long ago is just that. Yet, there are always crumbs of food for future thinking there. Plus, back in the day, I was quite the free thinker, idolizing stream of consciousness writers and mimicking them. I suppose we all did that at one point or another. Regardless, if I can spin through the rest of the apartment in record time, without being hasty, I intend to sit back down here this afternoon and explore some recent ideas I had. My class is fantastic. I'm keeping a nice pace with myself as I learn the craft of fiction. There are just so many avenues I haven't even contemplated yet. It's a wonderful fantasy to follow, that of making things up out of thin air. Speaking of which, I've been reading some positively incredible work: I began a Jennifer Egan novel called Look at Me, which is brilliant thus far. We read a short story for homework this week called "A Temporary Matter" by Jhumpa Lahiri, and I can't wait to re-read it before next Monday - it's beautiful. There is a woman here in New York City who curates a reading series twice a month in Manhattan, and Jennifer Egan actually read there last night - I planned to go but a lot of rain and other after-work activities in Queens prevented me from attending - I was disappointed, but Jennifer Egan lives in Brooklyn and reads here constantly. And the woman who runs the reading series seems like a great brain, as well. I will pick up her book soon. I just can't get enough of contemporary writing, and it's funny, because five years ago I wouldn't have been caught dead with a book in my hands written anywhere in the 80's or forward. Funny how things change. I love books so much, almost possibly more than I did as a younger girl - or perhaps at least as much. Just when you think everything has been said already, someone turns around and unravels a mindblowing narrative. And in smart words. I am grateful to New York for every new day to ride the train, read a book, attend a reading, and to immerse myself in the brilliant pages of New York's own ongoing stories.*Tomorrow Craig is off, also. We're going to a Bob Dylan exhibit at the Morgan Library, and to the MoMA. Sunday my friend Eric unveils his first solo painting show in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I can't imagine living anywhere else but here.