Simple Words I Understand

2009-02-24T21:09:00.004-05:00

For I know the thought that I think toward you - thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope!

Jeremiah 29:10

2008-11-18T02:11:00.006-05:00

I know it sounds goofy, but I'm going to start a new blog and shut this one down. After trying to make changes to this blog today, it's making more sense to me to close it and start over.

I'd love each and every one of you who reads this blog to join me at the new place. The new blog is not set up yet, so either email me or leave a comment and I'll let you know the new address. You don't have to do any packing or heavy lifting with the move - just show up and know that you are always welcome at my place. I plan to move Tuesday afternoon.

Simply yours,

SBW
simplewords4u@yahoo.com

2008-01-02T10:01:00.000-05:00

If you wrote me a letter, I would carry it in my back pocket.

If it arrived today, it would go in the back of my Levi’s, the pair that I wear whenever I am at home and want to be me in my Levi’s, with Coltraine or Dizzy playing the background music to my day. Coltraine and Dizzy and Bird and Louis wouldn’t interrupt my thoughts when I reached behind to pull out your letter again and again and again.

If you wrote me a letter, your words would be in my hands to do with what I pleased. I would fold them, hold them, follow the loops of your letters.

And even though you wrote your words there and then, and I read them here and now, your words would bring us together in our heads, at least, if not in our hearts or anywhere else. I would read the words in the letter, and the words from you would be in me.

I could carry your words wherever I wanted, put them aside, pull them out, slip them away to read again another day, again and again. If I had a letter from you, that’s what I would do.

If you wrote me a letter, I guess it would be here by now.

Dizzy is playing in my ear, and that’s a good way to start the day, even with an empty back pocket.

2007-11-25T01:14:00.000-05:00

Bear with me, I'm inching forward on this project.

Since I had no clue how to make animals, I started with the sheep because they seem so much nicer than camels. Camels spit, I hear.

I first made a lime-green rough prototype of the sheep. I discovered that the frame wasn't sturdy enough so I made a better one and went with white.

2007-11-25T01:10:00.000-05:00

The angel is still headless but now fully clothed, except for the halo which will go with the head.

The people of this phase are now complete - except for the heads. I save the heads until last because I'm not handy with a glue bottle and would rather ruin all my efforts at one time rather than to spread it out.

Now I'll start with the animals.

2007-11-24T12:52:00.000-05:00

This is how far I got Friday night. Three headless shepherds and one naked angel. Today I'm making good progress untangling a mess of embroidery floss the cats decided to rearrange. It's a bit soggy with kitty saliva, but I can work with it. The camel awaits.

2007-11-23T16:38:00.000-05:00

I don't want to get all artsy-crafty here, but the fact is that I am crafting like a mad person this long weekend.

Awhile ago, two years ago if you're into accurate timelines, I made a holiday scene for someone who knew someone that I know. I even got paid. A little, I got paid a little. I got paid almost enough to cover the cost of the materials.

But when that person -let's call her a patron because that makes me feel like an artisan, and that makes me giggle and forget that I have no head for business - wanted me to make more figures, and when she gave me a little more money to do it, I procrastinated. For two years.

I am redeeming myself and getting the job - the entire job of making three shepherds, an angel, and a camel or two - done by Thanksgiving. Since I just started the project this afternoon, it's a no-brainer that I won't be finished by yesterday. But I will be pulling that needle and thread without stopping until the last knot is tied or I'm crying because I really don't know how to make a camel.

Then I will take my profits and buy myself a beer.

2007-11-22T22:34:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving

To those in the USA, I wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving.

To readers from across the globe, I'd like to sincerely thank you for reading what I write here on this little blog. I truly mean that and I'm not just saying it to have something to post for NaBloPoMo today.

2007-11-21T23:48:00.000-05:00

“I got Naked at lunch today.”

I wanted to say that to somebody at work. I wanted someone to ask me, “Hey, what did you do for lunch today?” and I would say, “I got Naked at lunch today.” The capital N wouldn’t show up when I said it out loud.

But nobody asked me what I did at lunch.

A co-worker did ask me if I read the email he sent me. He said this as he walked past my cube with the sagging grey fabric on the half walls. I hadn’t read his email, and he told me I had better read it and answer it right away because it was urgent. Then he stepped into his cube with sagging maroon fabric, directly across from mine, and I could see the top of his head as he checked his computer to see if I answered him yet.

Nobody that day asked what I did for lunch and nobody asked why I had mascara smeared around my eyes like I had been crying.

When I was on the subway to work that morning, I knew what I had to do during my lunch break that day. I knew when I saw someone else on the train reading a book, wiping tears from her eyes.

I craned my neck like a vulture to see the title of her book she held on her lap. She noticed me circling my head around and raising my eyebrows and furrowing my brow as if my head muscles from across the aisle could lift the book up so I could read the cover. She noticed me and flashed me the cover, and I gasped. She nodded, knowing words were not necessary between us, and went back to her reading.

The book was Naked by David Sedaris.

His stories used to play on the local NPR station, and I was a fan from the start. I saw the off-Broadway show he wrote and I laughed. I laughed right along the other ten people in the audience. I laughed even though I knew the story almost by heart from hearing it on the radio; I laughed before all the best lines.

But somehow I got out of the David Sedaris loop and didn’t know he had a book published until I saw the woman crying on the train. I knew on the train what I needed to do at noon.

I ran to the bookstore on Third Avenue in the 50s, breathlessly said, “Naked” to the first employee I saw, bought the book, and started to dash back to work. When I got to 40th Street, I hit a red light at the corner, and I opened the book in my hands. I let the light change without crossing, and then I moved away from the corner, chaotic with the midtown lunch-hour crowd. I wanted to read more, right there on the sidewalk, and my mascara ran from the tears as I flipped the pages.

That’s how I found out about books back then. I would watch the commuters. The Celestine Prophesy was a big hit at the time, though I never bothered with that one because the word Celestine tripped me up. I didn’t know how to pronounce that, so I didn't read it. But I got plenty of other good recommendations just by noticing all the readers around me.

I was at coffee shop the other day for lunch. I grabbed a bite to eat and then lingered, sipping my coffee and writing in my favorite notebook with my favorite pen. I looked around and noticed everyone around me was also sipping and writing. No one had a book. Is writing the new reading?

The woman with the tiny laptop at the table next to me laughed a few times. I could see she was writing emails. Four other people had laptops. Everyone else had paper, bless their souls. I wanted to say NaNoWriMo under my breath and see if anyone would catch the phrase, look in my direction, and nod.

But I wasn't sure how to pronounce it so I didn’t say it, and nobody nodded. Everyone wrote and I wondered if we were all writing about each other, describing every other writer there at lunch in the coffee shop by ourselves in a group, and then I felt rather naked.

2007-11-20T23:38:00.000-05:00

Hate is too strong of a word. I really don't want to use the word hate. But 50,000 has become my least favorite number.

And if you know that that means, then you know what I mean.

2007-11-19T23:23:00.001-05:00

Let me start out by saying that I have no English blood in me, no Norman blood either, and I’m pretty sure I’m not part Hungarian. I have no axe to grind at all in the whole succession to the throne controversy – that battle has been fought and won. It’s water under the bridge as far as I am concerned.

Please understand all that when I tell you that Edward the Confessor is missing.

I know that you know that Edward the Confessor, King of England, the last Saxon ruler, died in 1066. After that happened, there was that big political controversy over who would succeed him to the throne because Edward had no children. Harold Godwinson from England said he was king, William from Normandy said he was king, and some people found a kid named Edgar in Hungary and said he should be the king. And he was indeed King of England, a boy king for a couple of weeks or so, but no one remembers that.

So the two main contenders fought, William from Normandy and Harold Godwinson. You know the rest, I’m sure. Someone – and I bet William claimed it was him – shot Harold in the eye with an arrow and Harold died. That was the end of that, and William conquered England in 1066.

I’m just an armchair historian amusing myself with stories from the past. I’m not taking sides – what would be the point? I mean who cares that Harold probably was indeed promised the throne, whether that was right or wrong. And I know that nobody knows anymore that young Edgar from Hungary really was the next of kin. The Normans made sure we don’t remember that.

I happened to be at the biggest gothic cathedral in the world not too long ago. It’s right here in New York City, believe it or not. St. John the Divine sits on a hill not far from Central Park. And I was there, not even thinking about the Norman Conquest.

But, I noticed something odd at the head of the nave in the Cathedral. There is a place for five small statues, recessed into a wall behind the alter. Five spaces and only four statues.

Who is missing? Edward the Confessor, last Saxon king of England, that's who.

Why is he missing? Somebody stole him.

That’s the news I got straight from someone else wandering around the Cathedral on that gloomy fall day.

Who would steal a statue of Edward the Confessor? It’s just conjecture at this stage, I realize that, and I want to remain neutral, but it’s those Normans who are behind this heist, I just know it.

2007-11-18T23:26:00.000-05:00

“What’s with the black electrical tape?”

Angelo’s Bike Shop is around the corner from my place. I’m not an avid biker, but I have a bike and I notice bikes. And I have noticed something I didn’t understand.

“What are people doing to their bike frames?” I asked Angelo. “It looks like they wrap the bars with a rubber tube and then wrap that with electrical tape. What is that?”

“It’s a rubber tube wrapped with electrical tape.”

"Ah, yes. But why do they do that? I see it on all the bikes on the streets.” I said, pestering him a bit as he searched behind the counter for the bell I requested.

I wanted a bell on my bike and Angelo ordered one for me. He tried to sell me a horn that looked like Harpo Marx’ horn. “I don’t think so, Angelo.” He told me it was an air horn, that it didn’t toot, but blasted. Loud. But I didn’t want a blaster. I wanted a bell with a twinkly ding. He doesn’t carry twinkly dingers, but he ordered one for me.

I don’t see the tubing and tape on all the bikes. Those bikers with the skinny bikes don’t wrap their frames. I suppose they don’t want the extra bulk. They seem very intense about aero-dynamics and speed. I guess that’s why they wear those shiny, slick clothes.

They are hard to miss in those shiny clothes, and it’s not just the shine that catches your attention, but the bright neon color. I suppose those kinds of bikers like the bright colors because of visibility and safety. I think they are into safety, and wisely so, those bright and shiny bikers.

The guys wrapping their frames aren’t wearing the shiny, tight clothes. I’m pretty sure they aren’t into safety or at least they aren’t into looking like they are into safety. They are more likely to be weaving in and out of traffic without safety helmets buckled under their chins. They are more likely to ride their bikes down the stairs at the subway station, to use the park benches as jumps, to eat a folded piece of pizza while riding their bikes no-handed.

They are two different kinds of bike riders. There are the bright and shiny riders who ride in a straight line with stealth swiftness, and then there are the bikers who ride at break-neck speed and pull dangerous stunts with practiced skill. Different styles, different bikes, definitely different clothes, different people. Nothing in common.

“So why do the guys wrap their frames like that?” I asked Angelo.

“To keep the paint job nice. They like to keep it bright and shiny.”

2007-11-17T23:17:00.000-05:00

It all happened right in front of me on a crowded subway the other night.

Two young guys, just-out-of-college frat-boy types, stumbling their way up the corporate ladder in wrinkled slacks and crooked ties sat next to each other on the crowded subway car, across from me. I first noticed their conversation when one said to the other, “What you gotta do to get ahead is go out with your boss after work and start drinking. Drink until you can’t stand up. That’s what I did and now I have an office and a secretary. I’m telling you, it works.”

That raised a few eyebrows in the subway car, and a guy older than the office boys, someone who clearly knew about making a man out of himself spoke up. “Shut up,” he told the young men. “Just shut your freakin’ mouths talking like that. That’s no way to success. That’s just no way to be your own man.”

This man, this self-made man who spoke up, had tight curls in his hair. And I don’t mean naturally curly hair. His head looked just like I remember my mom’s hair looking right after she removed all the curlers from her hair and before she brushed it out. He had tight tubes of curls on his head. I couldn’t keep my eyes off them. They were perfect. It’s not a look you see on people in public, not a look you see on men in particular, especially men giving career advice.

“If you were my boys,” he said, “I’d smack you up. Don’t you have any pride?” The frat boys looked a little peaked at this point, truly they did.

The tight curls fascinated me and held my attention, knowing how long it took to get that look. But there was more. There was his hairline, perfectly shaved so his forehead was high and the curls sat on the crown of his head. There were his eyebrows, shaved into stripes. There were the rings, many rings, in his eyebrows and ears, and the chain that dangled from his lip. There were the flames of the tattoos that circled his neck.

And there was the fur jacket. It was white fur. I suppose it could be some other type of fur, I don’t know fur, but to me it looked like my friend Jenny’s rabbit-fur jacket that she got for her birthday when we were in second grade. The lining of the man’s jacket was satin. I could see it because it draped off his shoulders. Underneath he wore a brown snake-skin blazer and orange shirt.

I noticed the curls didn’t move when he moved, they were so well lacquered. And I noticed more about him. I noticed his brown leather pants. The pants were tucked into brown cowboy boots that I wouldn’t mind having, except they had orange flames on them and that’s not my style. The flames on the boots matched the flames on his neck. This was a man who paid attention to details. On the top of the boots was a strip of twisted leather that went down the center of the boot and off the end of the toe. It looked like a boot bayonet, if there is such a thing. I would think it would be hard to walk with a piece of twisted leather shooting off the boot like that, but it didn’t look beat up or anything so the guy managed just fine. He seemed quite comfortable.

At the next stop, a little old lady got on the train. The man, the man with the curls, told the corporate kids, “Get up and give this lady a seat. Don’t you have any manners, you fools?”

The little old lady said, “No, I want to stand.” She grabbed a hold of a center pole and smiled a cheerful smile. She looked like a pixie, a 90-year old happy little pixie.

The man, the man with the toe twists on his boots said, “You have amazing eyes. Look at those eyes! Beauty, that’s what you are, grandma, beauty.”

“They are Irish eyes,” the lady said and giggled.

“Look at that, boys,” the man said to the young men. “That is beauty. I’m not gonna smack you because of those beautiful eyes.” I swear he really said that.

2007-11-16T17:11:00.000-05:00

“Oh, for the love of God, don't do it,” my friend said to me. "Whatever you do, don't bring tempeh."

That was exactly my plan, to bring tempeh.

My dear aunt on Long Island invited me for Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t know if she remembers or not that I’m a vegetarian, but the last thing I want to do is have her worry about what to feed me. I’ll eat anything, anything at all, except meat. Usually I can get by without calling attention to that, but people tend to notice when I don’t join in the white-meat vs. dark-meat debate on Turkey Day.

Plus, my aunt, like almost everyone in my extended family, doesn’t like food. We are not an eating family. The last time my aunt hosted a family dinner, it was a barbeque in her backyard. There were a total of 10 people and one package of Oscar Meyer wieners.

But I like to cook and to feed other people. It’s no big deal for me to bring an extra dish or to cook the entire meal and haul it on the train to Long Island, though I don’t think anyone is anxiously awaiting my spelt-buckwheat cranberry cobbler or hemp seed stuffing.

So I asked my aunt what I could contribute to the meal. “Bring a package of napkins," she said. “There are so many pretty Thanksgiving napkins in the stores. Is that too much trouble? I will have plenty of food!”

“Aunt Esther,” I said, “I’ll bring the napkins, but I’m bringing some food as well. I’ll surprise you.”

So now I have to decide what to bring. I thought some fried tempeh cubes served with roasted peppers and onions on top of a wild rice pilaf and drizzled with my secret-recipe yogurt sauce would be great.

“No!” my friend said when I told her my plans. “You cannot bring fermented soybean to a table full of carnivores on Thanksgiving. You just can’t.”

I don’t see the big deal. It’s not like I would use the word fermented, and like hell would I say soy when I served it. I planned on saying something like “Want some of this fried stuff? You can dip it ketchup if you want.” I figured it would be a hit.

“Expect a family intervention if you bring tempeh to Thanksgiving,” my friend warned.

I called my mom to ask her suggestion. “Bring pie” was all she said.

I’ll bring pie, but it’s going to have a spelt and buckwheat crust.

2007-11-13T11:04:00.000-05:00

I got my hands on a new digital camera, and I took it out for a little spin this week.

I’m not a picture-taker. I’m inexperienced, and I mixed up the on/off button with the picture-taking button on almost every shot. It’s kind of embarrassing to say that those pictures –the ones I took when I thought I was turning off the camera - ended up being the best shots of the day.

Except for this one.

Looks rather ordinary, I know. A pleasant enough path through a park on a cloudy day. Big deal.

But when I got home, I blew up the picture on the computer and messed with the brightness. I felt like I was searching fuzzy photos for evidence of the Loch Ness Monster.

Eureka! Here is evidence that my story about what I saw while walking down the path was true. Do you see what I see?

2007-11-12T16:22:00.001-05:00

You've heard the legend, I'm sure: There are alligators in the New York City sewers.

I don't know if that legend is true, but look what I stumbled upon in the park today.

Giving credit where credit is due: Untitled by Bokhov, 2007, NYC.
Photo by yours truly, Nov 2007, NYC

2007-11-11T00:34:00.000-05:00

He wore a pair of battered canvas loafers, burnt-orange corduroys, olive-green jacket, thrift-store button-down shirt, and an overgrown haircut. He slouched in his chair and stretched his legs out into the classroom. He was hip, he was young, and except for his great pair of shoes and green jacket, he wasn’t anything I would be interested in.

Until he spoke, until he wrote. And then, oh then, I had a school-girl crush on him that was crazy and mad, though I’m no longer a girl and he is teacher in his twenties.

Some women fall for good looks, power, caresses. Others like gifts or tangible expressions of affection.

As for me, all I need are words. I fall for them every time. All talk and no action is fine with me. Wait a minute, that’s not true. I take that back, and quickly too. I want the action, and plenty of it, but action with talk, that’s perfect. Whisper some sweet things - or not-so-sweet things - in my ear, and I melt. Write me a note, and I’m yours. Make a witty comment and, oh, watch out for what you will do to me.

The crush I had on the teacher wasn’t about lust, though. It was about a love of words.

The first night in class we read a Dorothy Parker short story. Of course I had heard of her before, who hasn’t? But, I’m sad to say, I never read anything she wrote besides quips of hers that show up on lists of famous quotations. We read a story by her in class, and I was hooked with her words, with her style, with her wit, with her timing, with everything in that story. So, I got a crush on her, too. Why not? So what if she’s dead and not truly eligible for a crush, I still have one on her. Words can do crazy things like that.

The students in the class were new to writing fiction. One student, an office worker, confessed that she never went to college, didn’t know how to write, and had never shared her stories that she wrote on her lunch-hours with anyone. She trembled when she read her words. But her words made me want to rip up my notebook and let my felt-tip pen dry out. What she wrote was sensual, suspenseful, substantial, perfect. The hip, young teacher worked with her, but she didn’t need much help other than to hear the words, “You are a writer.” She blushed, she blossomed, she wrote, and one night she read without trembling. Her words are out there in the world now, and I feel lucky I got to read and hear them.

I loved the way the teacher talked, I loved the way he surprised me by impressing me when I judged him to be some punk-ass kid scoring a night-class teaching gig by luck. I loved his handwriting, his comments on my papers. I loved that he loved words and knew more than I did, and that he was willing to share, and talk, and write, and listen to words. I loved that he said to write words and then throw out words, speak words, insist on right words. And, I admit, I loved his shoes, too.

2007-11-09T00:17:00.000-05:00

I used to know a man who liked to listen to the ice.

I think of him when the weather turns cold, like it has now.

I knew him in the winter, when we spent weekends at his cabin on the lake. He smelled like the outdoors, scotch, and smoke from the fires he lit in the fireplace for us. He joked that he had coats older than I was, and I liked to pull those old coats around me in the chill of the season. The difference in our ages was as seductive to me as it was to him. It was an aphrodisiac for us, one that lasted the long winter nights of a long winter season and no longer.

Pulling away from the drowsy warmth of us at night, he asked me to go outside with him and I did. On those late-night walks, the snow creaked under our feet it was so cold, it squeaked when I dug the heals of my boots into it, it burned when I touched it with my skin. The air was dry and if the wind was still, the atmosphere was like a vacuum, a void, and even the bitter cold was suspended and I didn’t notice it. The cold winter skies were clear and sparkled with the lights of a million stars.

The motionless air, the frozen white earth, the warmth of companionship, the flickering light in the black sky, the ice solid on the lake below, you enter a beautiful, still, silent, other world when you venture out at night in the winter.

No wonder the Annishinabe of the northland said winter nights were the sacred time for storytelling. You feel creative, part of all creation, in that air. You lose time. You whisper words, and you chose your words sparingly, on those powerful silent nights. The dark, lasting longer than the light, is your reality, and the sky brings magic, real magic. If you are lucky, you’ll see the northern lights dance across the sky, eerie, energizing, elemental.

I never heard the ice crack that winter on the lake. I slept through it one night, warm and content in a cocoon of down blankets. He went outside without me and heard it in the early morning light. It’s a sound, he told me, like the northern lights are a sight. Words won’t work when trying to explain it.

When I told him my dream of living in New York, he said there is no place lonelier than in a crowded city. And now that I’m here, I think of him there, in his cabin on the lake, as I feel the first chill of the season and pull a warm coat around me.

2007-11-08T00:53:00.001-05:00

I’m having a problem with the characters in my so-called in-progress draft of a novel.

The characters are stiff and move around from location to location without any reason. I have begun to picture them made from plywood, cut rough. You’ll get splinters if you touch them they are so rough. I picture them in Central Park on some sort of stand to hold them upright, like giant paperdolls. With no intonation in their voices, they don’t converse but rather recite words to each other. The words are predictable, a series of clichés.

Then they are disassembled and they inexplicably appear on the west side, overlooking the Hudson. The winds there are strong, and the wooden characters sway and fall down. The fall face flat, where they can no longer look at each other and think such thoughts as, “Mitch is handsome and I am attracted to him.”

Lack of a plot is turning out to be a bit of a problem too. Lack of talent seems to be a factor as well. And my penmanship has declined.

2007-11-08T00:25:00.000-05:00

This is what you would’ve heard me say if you were here with me today:

“Where is my wallet? Where is my wallet? Nobody talk while I try to find my
wallet. We can’t go until I find my wallet. Where is it? Oh here it is, in the
freezer.”

I put my wallet in my backpack, after taking out the bag of once-frozen blueberries, and went on my way.

2007-11-07T00:14:00.000-05:00

So I was crossing Broadway on Tuesday and a woman shouted from a parked car on a side street. “Can I park here?!”

There were neon pink signs posted every two feet on the block. The signs said, “Warning: All Parking Spots Are Now NO PARKING.” These didn’t look like official signs, but something a nearby business owner or resident posted out of kindness. Or maybe they were posted by someone hoping to save some prime parking spots for himself. You never know.

Nobody answered the woman with her head out the window, and she screamed again. “I can park here, right?!”

As I walked by, I pointed to the signs with a shrug. “Guess not,” I said.

“But it’s election day. I can park here on election day, right?”

Alternate-side parking rules are suspended on days like election day, that’s true. But I suspected NO PARKING rules were still in effect. But I don't drive so I don't pay much attention.

“I wouldn’t, but what do I know,” I said, thinking the conversation was over.

“You don’t know much, that’s what you know! I can park here on election day! It’s election day!”

I wonder if she voted.

2007-11-06T22:01:00.000-05:00

I was on the subway today.

A guy standing near me said, “Excuse me, is that yours?” He pointed to the floor. There was a scarf on the floor, and it was mine.

“Thanks for telling me," I said as I picked it up.

“It’s a bummer to lose something like that, especially when it’s a day like today.” It was windy and rainy this morning.

And then I thought, should I or shouldn’t I? Should I bother telling this guy what I was thinking. He looked away and I decided to let it go. He wouldn’t be interested in what I had to say, I was sure. But I really wanted to tell him.

He looked my way again and I blurted out, “You know, you have a great voice. It’s wonderful.”

I was worried he would think I was weird, that all the commuters around us would think I was hitting on the guy. But I wasn’t, I swear. He had an incredibly beautiful deep voice, and I was impressed with it. That’s all there was to it.

“I can’t believe you said that,” he said. Uh oh, I thought. I triggered something here I’m going to regret.

“I really can’t believe you said that,” he said again. “I’m starting to do voice-over work, I just started, like right now and, wow, I really can’t believe you said that. That is amazing you said that.”

No longer looking like a desperate housewife flirting with young men on the 1 train, I now felt like an angel blessing his new endeavor in life. “Well, you are doing the right work,” I told him. “You found your calling.”

“Wow,” he said.

Then it was my stop, and I got up and forgot the scarf behind me. He grabbed it and tossed it to me just as the subway doors closed.

2007-11-03T00:06:00.000-04:00

In a tiny trickle of a yard in a park in my neighborhood there is a flower garden. This afternoon I scored a seat on a park bench in a prime location by the garden, not an easy task on a beautiful day like today. The women sitting next to me took my writing in a notebook as an invitation to a conversation.

The Other Woman: I don’t know why people let their kids run through that garden.

Me: Well, there is a path. That’s pretty inviting to kids. A path through a garden is fun to run on.

The Other Woman: I just don’t know why they let the kids traipse through the garden like that. The gardeners work so hard.

Me: Well, there is a sign that says “Children’s Garden” and there is a stepping stone that says “Welcome.” I’m pretty sure they want kids to go through the garden.

The Other Woman: I don’t know why the kids are allowed to go in there like that.

Me: Yeah, it’s terrible, isn’t it?

The Other Woman: It is!

2007-11-02T01:34:00.000-04:00

All other indications aside, I really don't want to dwell on the numbers when it comes to writing this month. But just for converation sake, just to humor ourselves, how many words do you think author Margaret Atwood wrote and then pared down to get to this perfectly-told story:

Longed for him. Got him. Shit.

2007-11-02T01:04:00.001-04:00

I don’t like sitting on the floor of Border’s bookstore.

I went to the store tonight for a quiet place to write for NaNoWriMo. Wait, I want to say that differently. I went to Border’s tonight to work on My Novel. Yes, that’s better. Writing ”My Novel” tickles me.

And apparently others feel the same way. The café at the store was packed and I think everyone there was writing. Is it always like that?

I don’t know because I usually don’t go to the café at Border’s to write. My usual writing haunt away from home is a hole-in-the-wall restaurant near me where nobody speaks English. Tonight I thought I’d try the mainstream locale at Border’s. The trouble with mainstream, of course, is that everybody else is doing it too.

There wasn’t one empty chair in the place. I don’t mind sharing a table with strangers, but I do like my own chair. I left the café and headed for the comfy chair section of the store instead.

But the comfy chairs were gone. They weren’t occupied with readers or writers or sleepers. They were gone as in Not There. I don’t know why because they are really comfy and are usually the only reason I go to that store.

I didn’t want to sit on the floor of a store to write but I did, along with a few other uncomfortable hunchbacked souls. I wasn’t the only writer there on the floor, not by any means.

In front of me was a tangled extension cord, discarded inserts from magazines, and a worker sweeping the carpet, an inspired setting for My Novel set mainly in the outdoors. My back leaned against the shelves holding biographies of entertainers. Let me tell you something I learned tonight - this section is a hopping place. Bette Davis and Frank Sinatra still have many fans and most of them stepped on my backpack tonight while I tried to scramble out of their way while not losing the flow of writing My Novel. I lost my flow.

I couldn’t concentrate on my characters’ emerging voices because of a loud-mouth customer from someplace where talking loudly among people reading and writing is considered within the realm of politeness. He paced the comfy chairless section talking on his cell phone. “Yeah, we went to Popeye’s and KFC today. We couldn’t find a Burger King.” After 15 minutes listening to this man describe the fast-food chains he has visited on his visit to this city, I called it a night.

I counted the words I had written: 1800 and then I counted all the words that are worth keeping: 27. I heard once that 27 is a lucky number, or was it 29? Either way, I packed up my notebook and my pens and went home.