2008: Year of the Biffle

I texted a friend the other day to say Merry Christmas, beautiful. Love you. Hope to see you soon.

She texted back, Thanks, T. Love you too. See you Fri.

Yeah. Except I'm not T. I'm J. And we didn't have plans for Fri. As a matter of fact, we haven't had plans for a while. Not for lack of trying on my part.

"Give up," says my shrink, who may be just a little tired of hearing stories like this from me. "She can't reciprocate your feelings for her. Find someone who can reciprocate."

Okay. My shrink has said this before. Stop chasing after people who blow you off. You'd think, after twelve and a half years of therapy, that I'd have integrated this advice.

"But maybe it was something I did," I fret. "Maybe I alienated her somehow; maybe I should..."

My shrink shakes her head. "It's nothing you did. It's not about you. It's her. She's just not that into you."

We talk about some other stuff, and then she edges forward in her seat, her signal that the session's almost over. These are her parting words for the week:

"You've got to find a really good girlfriend."

I'm thinking about it all day as I write. Then I run into Amanda in the kitchen at the writers' room and we chat for a while. I tell her the text message story.

"Sucks," she agrees. "You should probably give up."

Amanda's a really good girlfriend, and has been for many years. But she's already got really good girlfriends coming out of her ears, fabulous wingwomen with whom she goes on writing retreats and to swanky parties.

Me, I tend to spend all my free time with Bill. Actually, when I think about it, the last best girlfriend I had was back when I was single.

"I think you're getting in the way of me having a girlfriend," I tell him over the phone, checking in from home for our late afternoon catch-up.

"Why, yes," he says. "I am."

Ha ha. He knows I don't mean a sex girlfriend. I mean a love girlfriend. I mean a Best Friend For Life. A biffle.

I hang up and go back to brooding.

I go to the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror, give myself a wry smile. I'm cute, I tell myself. Right? I mean, I've been down on myself lately because I put on a few pounds, and the waistband of my pants gives me an appendectomy every time I sit down, but my hair looks good, and this new shirt I got is really flattering. I give a few quarter turns in the mirror: left, right, left. Cute. Even I have to admit it. I'd want to meet this girl. I'd want to be friends with her. In fact, there's nobody else I'd rather be friends with.

It's like that line from the new book, the one my editor used for the title. The unspoken question Bill used to ask when I came home from volunteering each week: Have you found her yet? The one who reminds you of you?

I haven't found her yet. But I think I finally know what I'm looking for.

Kath, I'm crying!

Thanks to you, I joined LibraryThing, and I just read twenty-three of the best reviews I could have ever hoped for. And from such smart, voracious, critical, sensitive readers, all of whom wrote beautifully themselves. This is exactly what I was hoping for yesterday, the change I was hoping would come: The book is out there, and people get it. Thank you so much for being one of them.

Writey stuff

I rented a laptop while mine is being fixed, and I'm back at the writers' room, which has been pleasantly uncrowded this week. Hunching over little Renty the Rental for hours at a time is productive, but it makes me want to do yoga. Or, better yet, to lay down on the carpet and take a nap.

Forty-six days until the book comes out. And then what? Nobody knows. Does it sit there rotting on the shelves? Does it take off and become this year's Eat, Pray, Love? Am I suddenly struck by inspiration for a third book? Does Sam come back from the dead?

And what do I count down to, when the book comes out?

I feel like I'm in between states, like I'm pupal. I guess that's what we call "life," being between the state of birth and the state of death. Uneasy, excited, unsure. But this feels immediate. I feel like I'm on the verge of a big change. Maybe it will come with the book's release. Maybe it'll come from within. I don't care, just as long as it comes.

The shame.

So, I've been posting on a Disney World fan site.

Just thought I'd get that off my chest.

I have been GEEKING OUT in the most hardcore fashion, writing things like:

"It seemed to me that the first part of Spaceship Earth had been faithfully restored, with few changes to the scenes. I know that a lot of purists are upset over the new Judi Dench narration, and I loved the old Jeremy Irons version myself, but I thought they did a great job of updating the story, which was a little outdated. Any version of the 'future of communication' that doesn't involve the internet as we know it is going to seem hopelessly dated – I'm talking to you, Carousel of Progress!"

And:

"Illuminations is impressive, but it doesn't grab me emotionally the way Fantasmic! does."

And:

"The woman in front of us at Soarin' asked the CM [cast member] at the gate if she could use her FPs [fast passes] after the return window had closed, since she had lunch reservations at that time – the CM assured her that she would be able to use her FPs 'any time after the return window starts, through the end of the day.' I was surprised to hear this. I know that CMs will usually honor FPs after the return window has passed, but I thought that Soarin’ was an exception to this, and that they were strict about making you use them during the two-hour window. I still wouldn’t take a chance on using 'expired' FPs for Soarin’, but I did distinctly hear from the CM that it was okay to do so, so I thought I’d pass that information along."

It's all right if you want to pretend you don't know me anymore. I understand.

After all, I got to ride the new Spaceship Earth. And you didn't.

Friend with book!

I first met Jami Attenberg in the winter of 2005, at a party for a bunch of literary magazines that I attended because, as I told Bill while I was getting dressed that night, "I want to meet people. I never go out, and I never meet people. So I'm going to this thing."

So I went to the thing, and I saw Cheryl, so I was already ahead. And then I saw someone else whose writing I admire, but she was kind of surrounded with people. I approached anyway and said hello, we've met before -- oh, right, she said. Hey, this is my friend Jami.

Jami said, "That's right, stand near me; only a half a glass more wine until I start saying indiscreet things about people."

And I was like, "Okay! Perfect. Thanks for the invite."

And you know, you chat with someone at a party, and you trade email addresses, and you say you're going to have lunch, but how often do you really have lunch? Because Jami and I actually had lunch. And it was fun. So we did it again. Repeatedly. Then in summer of 2006, she joined my writers' space for a month or two, and we were both working on our second books. We'd take a break and grab a bite and unload -- "I don't know. I'm still working on the second chapter. There's so much backstory I have to cram in there." "Yeah, I'm having an exposition issue too..."

And now, here it is. Time for her second book to come out. In the author's own words:

"The Kept Man is about art, love, death, laundromats, sex, drugs, comas, donuts, Mount St. Helen's, cab drivers, Christians, holding on, letting go, punk rock, hospitals, and the fine neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY. I am extremely proud of it, and can't wait for you all to read it."

In People magazine's words:

"Written in relaxed yet fresh prose, Attenberg's debut is unabashedly emotional, refreshingly devoid of New York City cynicism, and tenderly funny." Three and a half stars!

In my words: I read it in galleys, and loved it. Congrats, Attenbergerbaum. Book two, baby! Next lunch is on you.

Epic Fail!

So I wrote seven pages on Friday, and then I came home to write a really gloat-y post about it, acknowledging even as I was composing the post that it's a very risky thing to gloat over one's creative productivity, or to publicly state in any way that you're happy with your work, because it's bound to jinx you and scare away the creativity gnomes. And I was just up to the point where I was laughing off the idea of scaring away the creativity gnomes ("They don't even exist!" I was writing. "They're just a product of the meth hallucinations! And I don't even take meth! Yet."), when my laptop decided to freeze up, causing me to restart it, causing it to make a truly awful grinding noise, at which point it just crapped the bad and quit.

REVENGE OF THE CREATIVITY GNOMES!

Fortunately, all my data was backed up, and Bill's been working on it, but it doesn't look good that little Lappy the Laptop will survive this epic fail (I'm writing this now on Bill's computer, Desky the Desktop). Which sucks, because I can't take Desky to the office with me, and working from home is never as productive as working from the office. And I was on such a goddamn roll, too -- I mean, seven pages! Seven pages of crap, but still!

That'll teach me to gloat about writing. I think I'll go back to being depressed and stymied now.

Aw, yeah.

I busted my ass on the treadmill this morning. Then I put together a solicited pitch for a magazine with a circulation of about eleventy billion. Spoke to my editor, who told me about the good review in Kirkus, then to awesome publicist Lauren Cerand, to confirm a few upcoming readings. Realized I could invite two of my favorite young writers, Kadida and Melissa, to read with me at Bluestockings in March; wrote to them both and they were both psyched. Went off to grab some lunch from Poochie's ("Paradise for Vegetarians"), was at my desk by 1pm -- wrote five and a half fucking pages, and wrote 'em loud. I don't even care that they're crap.

Mood: Great.

"Riveting." -- Kirkus Reviews

Just got the preview of my review in Kirkus, one of the most influential book review sources, and it's really good. Words like "riveting," and "fascinating," and "devastating" are bandied about; the review ends by calling the book "an intensely rich reading experience." So I haven't even made it to my desk yet, but it's already a great workday. Here's hoping for another three-and-a-half pages!

3.5 more pages

And I'm still awake! Amazing. You'd think I'd have worn my damn self out with all that typing, which I'm doing too loudly, apparently, as I was chastised at the writer's room yesterday -- "Um, your keyboard is really loud." I know! That's because I'm pounding the keys! Just like Sean Connery said to do in that movie Finding Forrester! Excellent writing advice, that -- if you find yourself having a creative crisis, just type harder! Actually, I'm not typing very hard at all; I'm typing in the same spastic, forty-words-a-minute-with-only-four-fingers method I've been employing since high school. I just have a very new, clickety keyboard. Sorry, peoples, but the art has got to be created at TOP VOLUME these days! CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK! You'll forgive my exuberance, I hope; I'm just so happy to be working again. And to think, all it took was a nine-day trip to Disney World. Now I know how to cure writer's block. Next time it comes on, just ship me to Orlando, and I'll be fine. As a matter of fact, I feel it coming on right now! GET ME BACK TO THE MOUSE, STAT!

3.5 pages

Wrote three and a half pages in two hours today. Then had a small glass of ice wine from Fake Canada in EPCOT after dinner and fell asleep on the couch with my mouth wide open. May have sprained my jaw. Meant to write a really grand post, but instead writing this one, which doesn't even include the personal pronoun: Tired. Brain hurts. Going to bed. But happy.