Counterbalance

The Duty of a Juror

When I began this blog, I made a very conscious decision to post often. Some will say I've not quite met the mark there.  To those readers I would say...agreed.  Working on it. I also swore to myself that I would never, never -- not ever -- post something that in any way said "Sorry for the undue absence" in the vein of "I'm so busy that I cannot be bothered to do this thing I started and clearly, now, am unable to keep up in any sort of regular way that would indicate I'm a proper writer rather than a slag."  But. So. I won't.

I will say this: Jury Duty.  Exhausting. Delicious. Fascinating.  If there is anything that has come out of my juror experience so far...it is this: I am, evidently, a writer. It has never been more obvious to me than when sitting in the courtroom, listening to everyone answer the routine questions during jury selection. I was engrossed. I made mental notes of every story, every facial tick, every interesting thing I overhead potential jurors say on breaks. I have catalogued them all. I have gathered more juicy material in a few days of jury duty than I've cobbled together in, well, months. I am bursting with so much to say and yet -- I am under a strict order not to speak until the trial is over.  Oh, but I will...soon. Very soon.

The Real Meaning of Live+Work Loft

As I attempt to:

• work on Chapter 3 of a novel
• read various books for other assignments
• finish a short story &
• come up with a market strategy for a major produce company to launch fruit segments (yes, that's right fruit segments)

Whilst hearing:

• two different but concurrently playing radio stations on HIGH volume from the roof above
• singalongs with said radio stations, from those who most likely should not be singing
• jack-hammering from the roof above
• hardwoodfloor finishing from next door
• construction crews yelling to one another (between floors 1 and 3) through concrete hallways
• oopsie ear-splitting fire alarms going off three times because the crew accidentaly "set it off"

...I'm quickly beginning to understand the true meaning of the Live+Work loft.  It is less about me living where I work and working where I live and more about me living where YOU ARE ALL WORKING VERY LOUDLY DAY AND NIGHT STARTING AT 6AM. I can see the slogan now, with slick graphics and hip colours.  "The New Live/Work Loft: You live where we work."

When the jackhammering has subsided and/or I find a temp location to "work" where I don't "live", I'll post thoughts on: Seven Types of Ambiguity progress, the David Mitchell read-his-stuff-before-he-gets-here marathon, Downtown LA dispatches that include homeless interpretive dancing & the view from above featuring Danny DeVito's head. Yes, that's right. Danny Devito's bald head as viewed from my rooftop for many hours while filming a video right where our dogs poop and no longer can thanks to overly amped PA's & stylists who felt it necessary to tear out, from the very roots, the only grass patch that exists in all of downtown LA to make the scene more "real."

You Know You're In Trouble When O-Chem Sounds Delightful

Do you ever feel that you are grossly lacking as a writer because of your seeming inadequacy as a reader?  For the fifth time this year (must I point out we are only in March?), I have read a book that has been heralded by all, and has now, as of today, won yet another literary award to pile on to the various other prizes it has already racked up locally, nationally, internationally and in blogland. And. I. Just. Don't. Like. It.

I wanted to. I tried to. I feel it is incumbent upon me to find the merit. I can sense, in some way, that the quality of my own efforts can be reflected in my response to this book. And others. If I don't think this book is good, and those whose work I admire find it "brilliant", what does that say about my own readerly leanings...and more importantly...what does it say about my writing?  If you read a work of fiction that you feel is not well-written, but that others find the picture of perfection, what does that mean?  I'm not sure, but I'm beginning to feel I'm the one without a date at the dance.

Much like when I sat dumbfounded in front of my O-Chem final in college wondering how it was I got myself here and why it was everyone else seemed to be scribbling out answers while I possessed none, I feel I'm an amateur reader/writer fumbling among the greats. Except I don't agree with the greats...at least not on this point. And while O-Chem was clearly not my bag (perhaps it is time to explore the politics and bizarre university maneuvers that make it possible for O-Chem to be a required course for a Literature major), reading and writing is. So why, then, do I disagree with everyone I really admire on this point? On this one book? On so many others books as of late?

It is hardly plausible that the entire literary world and the prize-awarding machine that supports it has agreed to conspire against me.  It is more likely, that...well...it's me. 

I'm thinking this is either a great thing (very punk, very out on a limb with my own opinion that no one else holds) or a less great thing that may signal a decline in my readerly/writerly abilities.

Gut Check

In the midst of packing, unpacking, planning optimal loft layouts, and strategizing freestanding wall options that don't require permits from the city (which has led to strenuous all-nighters involving the construction & joining together of several tortuous inventions by IKEA - namely PAX and EXPEDIT), I quickly jumped on the computer yesterday morning, bleary-eyed and wondering how we would make it to the big move day on Saturday.  What to my wondering eyes did appear on Yahoo News? Dana Reeve's death. 

Now.

I didn't know her personally. I did not spend a lot of my daily life until this moment thinking about her. Sure, I thought of her when there was a primetime interview I happened to stumble upon about her & her husband and all they were doing for those suffering from paralysis.  The lobbying for stem-cell research. Yes, I thought of her for a more extended period of time after this death. I even, truth be told, thought about her a lot when I heard she was diagnosed with lung cancer a year and a half ago.  But then I forgot about her. As we all do.  Because we go on with our lives and our little dramas and the minutiae that seems so relevant, but is, in fact, so not.

Here I am, deciding which danish modern lamp might blend nicely with my mother's old kilim rug, worrying what this combination might say about who I am, wondering if it conveys the seriousness/playfulness of myself as a woman, as a writer, as a human being. Unsure if it will set the right tone at dinner parties.  I am playing with my new washer & dryer because I have never had a washer & dryer and because I can finally use quarters for their intended purpose in LA -- parking, not laundry.  I am actually feeling pressure about some of the paint decisions. So much so, that I wake up at night thinking about it and I get distracted by the endlessly subtle permutations of steely-gray-blue-gris paint finishes while I am at work and supposed to be, yes, working.

And Dana Reeves graciously lived her life, supported her husband immeasurably through very difficult times, was diagnosed with cancer shortly after his death and has now died of that cancer at the age of 44.

Shame on me. 

When You Move House, Anything Can Happen Sweetcakes

It is ours. It is ours. It is ours. The Kafkaesque labyrinth of papers and documents and signatures and last minute emergencies and crazy runarounds is over. We got the keys last night, dropped off a few things to make it "ours" and had a little champagne to mark the occasion.

I have much to say - for of course, when is it that I don't? -- and I will eventually say it all. Observations to come may include: whyohwhyohwhy escrow people are rude, how certain loan "guys" can be so arrogant and get away with it, why it is I don't like to be called peaches or pumpkin or sweetcakes whilst I'm borrowing vast sums of money and essentially gambling with my life (see loan guy) and a little insight into the psychology of the loft and why every seeming "loftie" must embellish their loft with only post-modern furniture from Modernica.  Please. You are buying a loft, not becoming a loft.

And so. Before I go getting all trite and rude and, well, me...I thought I would take a moment to share with you a little snippet of Jeanette Winterson from way back when.  This piece from the Times rang so true to me years ago that I carry it about in my head and pull it out on appropriate occasions. This being one of those (the impending moving and all), I thought I'd trot it out.  It captures my feelings spot on as I begin to place the things of my life into boxes and decide what I will need for the new road ahead.

"One of the reasons that moving is traumatic is its effect on our emotions. We are contained - literally - in a house. Shift it, and the feelings are not just ones of re-location, but re-allocation. Events, desires, memories, hopes, are packed with the furniture, and cannot but be unpacked differently. The house changes and we change with it. It is one of the few opportunities for past, present and future to become liquid again, from their normally fixed and solid state. We re-view the past, the present is altered under our feet, and the future, which is made out of past and present, is no longer the predictable things it was.

When you move house, anything can happen"

I wish you some shifting & some "anything can happen" excitement over the next few days. I'll be back once my moving bruises heal and I've had a good dose (per Patricia) of some good wine.