Baby Don't You Cry -- Gonna Make a Pie

So, lately I've been feeling stressed. Nothing urgent or terrible: just lots of stuff to do, phone calls unreturned, etc. 


And so I made a pie. 


I both love baking, and am sort of self-dramatizing, and this is one of my favorite movies: 





So it's impossible to make a pie without getting this song in my head: 





And if you want some poignancy to your evening, check out a little about actor/director Adrienne Shelly. 


But you know what else I love beside pie? Rice pudding. 


Oh, rice pudding. 

Reasons I Love This Blog Very Much

• The ads google is currently displaying by my blog are for Wayne's World merchandise. HOW DID THEY KNOW????
• I finally made $100 dollars from ads on this blog (after several years of blogging), which I reinvested in another writing project (details to come!). So thank you, anyone who has read this blog and/or clicked on the ads. You are awesome; you enable my babbling here, and support my babbling elsewhere.
• Someone apparently found my blog by googling "I spilled buck urine on my phone." I love knowing that I'm the go-to place for urine plus electronic equipment queries!
• Also, someone found my blog by googling "accidentally." Just "accidentally." 

Here's a picture of me making a kissy-face while trying to raise one eyebrow: 

Here's a picture of me making a kissy-face but LOOKING ANGRY ABOUT IT:

Hello, Hello Giggles

Hello and welcome there, anyone reading this who came over from Hello Giggles. I have Julia Gazdag to thank for hooking me up there (the beautiful story of our meeting is documented here). Anyway, I'm writing a column there called "Adventures in Thrifting," in which I document (mis)adventures in the glorious seedy underbelly of secondhand shopping. My last column was about winter coats; I caused some very minor controversy by suggesting that warmth shouldn't be your #1 concern while picking out winter coats. As an "outtake," here's a picture of me in one of my winter coats that didn't make it into the post:

Gonzo Non-Journalism

As I stated below, last weekend I flew to Minneapolis/St. Paul (mostly St. Paul, lowertown St. Paul to be precise) where the lovely Gonzo Group Theater kicked off their workshop series by doing a staged reading of my play about fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen. The play is called The Most Incredible Thing (it's the title of one of his fairy tales, okay? I'm not that conceited. Although the play is rather incredible...as, come to think of it, am I...huh. Interesting.) 

One of the participants in the workshop, Tyler Olsen, blogged about it here. As he writes, the experience went like this: I met with the actors that Jen Harrington and Luke Weber, my friends -- er, professional acquaintances -- who run Gonzo, had selected and cast. The actors were all pretty amazing -- some were newer to the scene and some were kinda crazy qualified and experienced (in a "oh, I run my own theater group" kinda of a way) but they all did an excellent job and had been cast very well for their roles. The actors and Gonzo folk gave me lots of feedback, which is like manna to my raging ego, and I went home and made revisions. Tyler gives me a lot of credit in the blog entry above for being open to suggestions, but I'm basically just happy when people are paying attention to me and the initial draft was criminally long -- cutting it was easy as cutting a really easy pie. 

We did another reading/suggestion session and I made some MORE changes, and then angelic Jen Harrington printed out the changed pages and brought them to the space and then the angelic actors did not punch me in the face when I gave them new pages twenty minutes before the reading and was like "Okay, so pages 1-9 and are now new. Begin on old page 10 and continue halfway till old page number 34, which will then repeat to new pages 34-36 and being again halfway through old page 38..." They went with it and barely missed a beat in performance. 

The evening reading was the in Gonzo's new space, The Baroque Room, which is a beautiful room full of harpsichords (hence the name, I s'pose). I got to see some old friends at the reading, including this Food Junta lady, Claire, which was lovely. Then there was a reading the next morning at Golden's Deli (downstairs from the Baroque room), where I took some pictures! 

It's a very particular kind of thrilling to hear your work read out loud by well-suited actors. Especially so when you get to hear the changes you've made take effect so soon (in my fiction writing and most of the process of writing the play, I've been left to the echo chamber of my own mind, which is not nearly as fun).

That's so...Theatrical

Got various news in theater end of things. I'm very lucky to have become one of the theater reviewers for the Tucson Weekly. 

And...this weekend The Gonzo Group Theater is doing a reading of my play, "The Most Incredible Thing" about fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen.

There's a reading Saturday, October 15th at 7:30 pm at the Baroque Room in lowertown St. Paul. And a reading Sunday, October 16th at 11:00 am at Golden's Deli (also in lowertown St. Paul). 

For your entertainment, here's Danny Kaye as Hans Christian Andersen: 

Really Real Inspector Hound

Wot I Wrote about Wot I Didn't Write: Minneapolis Star-Tribune book review of the The Free World by David Bezmozgis.

I also fulfilled a long-held dream last night and finally saw Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound. I'd read the play before and even suggested it to my college's summer stock company, UNCO (which I think, sadly, doesn't exist anymore. Am I wrong about this? I hope so) -- as  a friend of mine was going to be directing and was looking for suggestions. And they actually did a production of it! Which I did not get to see, as I never got to be around for/participate in UNCO, as I always had a summer conflict. (This has always made me sad).

So, despite my fannishness of the play, and the fact that I was extremely indirectly and casually responsible for a production of it coming into being, I'd never seen it performed.

And it was well worth the wait! As funny as the play is to read, it's much, much funnier performed (obviously); anything confusing about the script makes perfect (albeit, absurdist, dream-like) sense in production; AND it was done very well by The Rogue Theater company, who have a great track record and put up this extremely cool-looking sign on the Historic Y building:

If you're in the Tucson area, see this immediately! The also open with another (very short) Stoppard play called New-Found-Land.

It Lives!

I have a short story up on The Fiddleback. It's called "Witness My Hand and Seal" and you can read it here.

And because you should never say that I didn't give you nothin', here's some pictures of Montreal Food.

It's Poutine! This type of Poutine is called L'eau a la Bush. I don't know if that means it subscribes to the Bush Doctrine or what. This Poutine comes with steak, oignons, and champignons. That's steak, onions, and mushrooms, for those not familiar with all that Frenchy Froggy Montrealy funny business:

Poutine is now such A Thing that they serve it at Burger King all over Canada. I saw this sign in at the bus station in Barrie, Ontario:

This is Poutine a la Mexican, and it is not from Burger King, but rather from the Secret Menu at Frite Alors:

Yeah, that's Salsa. Viva la Mexican et la Poutine!*

*I'm from everywhere.

Poutine looks really gross, huh? And I went to eat it after 1) Eating a smoked meat sandwich; 2) Then going to hot yoga. So I was like, "Non! Non! Le Gravy and le cheese curds on les frites make me sick! I desire only le side salad!"

Then I took a bite and discovered that it was, as this guy puts it, "Not un-tasty." Quite the reverse, actually.

More on smoked meat sandwiches, Montreal, thoughts, and sunshiney mornings, coming soon!

I write about Nick Hornby too much, I think

ETA: Ha! That totally read "I write about Nick Horny too much, I think." I fixed it now. Also: Nick Hornby is SO lucky he did not grow up in the US. He would have been tortured over that name.

Here's a review I wrote for The Minneapolis Star Tribune that went up ages ago: The World Beneath by Cate Kennedy (not to be confused with Kate Spindler nee Kennedy). Anyway, I compared Kennedy's writing to Nick Hornby's and I realized I did this, too, when I interviewed Peter Bognanni for the dislocate blog.

It's odd because I don't think of Nick Hornby as being particularly relevant to me as a writer. Like, if you asked me, "Who are your favorite/most influential/whatever/whatever writers?" I'd never think to say "Nick Hornby." But he seems to come up almost immediately as a reference point for me when trying to discuss/articulate something about the writing of others, particularly if they are at all: a) funny; b) contemporary and set in contemporary times; c) write in a more-or-less "realist" mode; d) streak in larger social issues/concerns with small-scale, contemporary, funny stories.

And, really, maybe I wouldn't say "Nick Hornby" when asked about my influences because -- I dunno. Because he's an older British dude, because he writes a lot about masculinity, and maybe because he's so popular and I want more street-cred or something. But really, Fever Pitch, High Fidelity, and About a Boy*, not to mention his series of essays on reading for The Believer and some of his other non-fiction, are a tremendous influence.

*But there you go -- all these books have become big Hollywood movies. And High Fidelity and About a Boy were pretty good movies (Fever Pitch, not so much). But when you mention them as favorite books, you feel a bit silly, like you're someone who only reads novelizations of popular TV shows or movies.

"But what is wrong with popular TV shows and movies, Easy O?" you might ask. "Do not you love these things? Are you not committed to the Fusion of High and Low--or, less problematically, Popular and Literary (this phrasing is still problematic, but let's move on) forms of art? Did you not write a novel fusing in the structure and themes of popular Romance Novels with a literary style and plot? Isn't that, in a phrase, Sort of Your Bag?"

Well, yes, I would reply. But--But--

....But I still want to sound smart at intellectual cocktail parties! And answering "Marilynne Robinson" when some impressive person dressed in hipster-chic peers at me over their plastic cup of cheap wine just makes me feel more impressive than saying "Nick Hornby." And it's not untrue! I DO like Marilynne Robinson!

I'm Not Dead, Just Resting My Eyes

Hey lookie! It's me. Among the many things that cause me on occasion to lie sleepless and twitching in my bed, trying to sleep but unable to as the many things I have left undone dance tauntingly before my eyes, there's the fact that I did an awesome residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts and told them I'd do a write up of my experience on my blog, to give the Center its due kudos. And then I never did. SO I AM NOW. AFTER I SAY A FEW OTHER THINGS.

Warning: this is going to be a links-a-palooza. But which I mean: lots of links! Because it is my terrible misfortune to know lots of talented and successful people, to whom I wish to give due kudos. Also, you should know that I am not only famous but also a great listener.

MORE LINKS! The fabulous Ms. S (or, as I like to call her, "Pants, Bossy" -- not to be confused with Tina Fey's Bossypants; first name Pants, last name, Bossy) has a blog, Yogurt is Cultured! It's on my blog list, but right here I linked you to the entry where she talks about seeing an opera with me when I visited her in New York, cause we shouldn't get confused about this not being all about me.

Speaking of ME, I recently finished the second draft of my novel, so I'm now emerging from the cocoon of writing, blinking a little at the harsh sunlight of the world outside, forced to deal with all the undone tasks, neglected friends, etc. Amelia recently blogged about the empty nest syndrome of sending off her manuscript, but then her novel manuscript has been sold to Farrar, Straus and Giroux because she's a motherfuckin' rockstar, while mine is still at, em, an earlier stage of the publication process. So it feels a little bit presumptious to be like, "Yeah, I totally know the feeling, right??" But I am feeling oddly empty-nesty. I miss my novel. It must be Stockholm syndrome, considering how much I moaned about it. I've come to identify with my captors! They just wanted the best for me! They loved me in their way!

I just read Zadie Smith's collection of essays, Changing My Mind, in which she has an essay called "That Crafty Feeling." (Originally published in The Believer -- I believe (pun totally not intended, but nevertheless awesome) that you can find it online.) Anyway, she says that in novel writing there are "Macro Planners" and "Micro Managers" (bold mine):

You will recognize a Macro Planner from his Post-its, from those Moleskines he insists on buying. A Macro Planner makes notes, organizes material, configures a plot and creates a structure—all before he writes the title page. This structural security gives him a great deal of freedom of movement...I know Macro Planners who obsessively exchange possible endings for one another, who take characters out and put them back in...
I can’t stand to hear them speak about all this, not because I disapprove, but because other people’s methods are always so incomprehensible and horrifying. I am a Micro Manager. I start at the first sentence of a novel and I finish at the last. It would never occur to me to choose among three different endings because I haven’t the slightest idea of the ending until I get to it...Macro Planners have their houses largely built from day one, and so their obsession is internal—they’re forever moving the furniture. They’ll put a chair in the bedroom, the lounge, the kitchen and then back in the bedroom again. Micro Managers build a house floor by floor, discretely and in its entirety. Each floor needs to be sturdy and fully decorated with all the furniture in place before the next is built on top of it. There’s wallpaper in the hall even if the stairs lead nowhere at all.
Because Micro Managers have no grand plan, their novels exist only in their present moment, in a sensibility, in the novel’s tonal frequency line by line...the whole nature of the thing changes by the choice of a few words. This induces a special breed of pathology for which I have another ugly name: OPD or obsessive perspective disorder. It occurs mainly in the first 20 pages. It’s a kind of existential drama, a long answer to the short question What kind of a novel am I writing? It manifests itself in a compulsive fixation on perspective and voice...months are spent switching back and forth. Opening other people’s novels, you recognize fellow Micro Managers: that opening pile-up of too-careful, obsessively worried-over sentences, a block of stilted verbiage that only loosens and relaxes after the 20-page mark is passed. In the case of On Beauty, my OPD spun completely out of control: I reworked those first 20 pages for almost two years. To look back at all past work induces nausea, but the first 20 pages in particular bring on heart palpitations. It’s like taking a tour of a cell in which you were once incarcerated.

I'm a Micro Manager, and so I wrote the whole first draft from the first sentence to the last, in order. I reworked the first few chapters a ridiculous number of times (over the course of...four years?). Then I started over and rewrote it. I stalled, once again, about the third/four chapter mark, got some feedback, pseudo-started over again, and then kept writing till the last sentence.

MY POINT, and I swear that I am getting to it, is that I couldn't have done it without the residency at KHN, in a very real and very literal sense. Like I said, that first draft took about four years (and then I did a little tinkering with it before starting over). The second draft, which was longer and more structurally complex, took about nine months. Of course there are lots of reasons for that, but the residency at KHN helped in several crucial ways:

I can haz analysis!

A cool thing to turn up when self-googling to see if a review had been posted. It hadn't, but I found this!

Snow Follows Me Everywhere

I don't know if I've mentioned here before that I'm giddy with joy that my story is featured in the upcoming issue of American Short Fiction.

They had a reading scheduled for this past Friday, at which an excerpt from my story was going to be read -- but it was rescheduled due to snow. Yes -- snow in Austin. Clearly, simply speaking my name was enough to bring wafts of snow down from Minneapolis. I am a chilly mortal.

Anyway, check out the saga on their blog, which is worth reading.

Also, check out the blog of this Austin resident: Amelia Gray.

Once upon a time, Amelia and I went to high school together, back in Tucson, Arizona. We didn't become friends till Senior Year, which I viewed as an opportunity sorely wasted. Amelia intimidated me because she actually wrote things, while I just thought about writing things. She had a play in the school's student playwriting contest (which I didn't know existed). She and her writing were funny and sharp. We stole hard cider and sherry from my parent's fridge to drink (that's what you get when you raid the liquor cabinet of academics). We went on a camping trip together, if you can picture that (I'm not sure camping naturally springs to mind when you think of me).

She went to Arizona State and I saw her briefly in Phoenix once, when I was in town for a night before catching a plane. She was reading If On a Winter's Night a Traveler and was a little distracted.

We crossed paths again briefly after college. She was on her way to an MFA program while I was just thinking about going to MFA programs.

We've crossed paths twice as AWP; the first time, in Austin, she was mid-MFA program, and I was mid "Maybe I want to switch MFA programs?" This last time, in Chicago, I stopped by the American Short Fiction table and was delighted to find excerpts from Amelia Gray -- excerpts from her book!

I think I babbled something incoherently to the person manning the table "She's my friend! From high school! She has a book! Is she here? Have you seen her?" Which I'm sure did make me sound weird at all.

I tracked down the table of the publisher -- Featherproof Books -- and there she was, with copies of her very own book. Which I bought and read the entirety of on the L train the next day. It's really good.

Now we are both in the latest issue of Annalemma. Here's a review of the issues that praises Amelia's story and says "there isn't a dull story in the lot," which I guess by implication calls my story...not dull?

And, full circle, Amelia lives in Austin, I've got a story in American Short Fiction, and a friend of Amelia's is going to read it, when I stop sending snowstorms their way.

Sorry for the fangirl babbling. Hi Amelia! I still think you are funny and sharp and still feel a little intimidated by you, in a good way. Come to Minneapolis sometime if you like snow! There's plenty to enjoy.

Update-y kins

For this week and this week only, I'm being featured on mnartists! Thought I'd link, even if it's brief, and also to acknowledge that they are awesome and not only is my name now correct, there's also this nice stuff about me up.

I also found out that in November I'm to be published here, which makes me apoplectic with joy.

Feeling hot, hot, hot

Yes, so creative I know. But it's hot! And humid! And...dang!

Added a blog to the right: "Punching Little Birds in the Face." A very talented lady who is becoming, like, a famous poet.

Am a winner in the Mnartists flash contest. I think this is awesome,and I get to be in a reading in August! However, they do call me lauren. Still, you can't have everything, I suppose.

Also

I was also thinking of naming my book after a wine term. It has lots of advantages -- there's lots of wineries in Oregon, one of the characters is an alcoholic, etc.

So I looked up some terms, and none of them were that great (although, I realized that enzymes are important to making wine, and one of the characters studies enzymes...). But two I liked:

Sweet Reserve

Cold Stabilization

I particularly like "Sweet Reserve" -- it sort of sounds like a romance novel title, and one of my characters is a romance novelist. But it also sounds like a weird, intriguing contraction -- which is good, I think. And I like the multiple meanings of "reserve." Here's the definition of "Sweet Reserve":

Sweet Reserve

A sample of the original juice from which a wine is made, used to sweeten the finished wine after fermenting to dryness and stabilized...The advantage of using a sweet reserve to sweeten a stabilized dry wine is the it adds sweetness, fresh flavor, and natural aroma to the wine. It may also improve the color of the finished wine somewhat.

From http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/glossary.asp

Possible Novel Titles

The Grafting Season

Divine Grafts

Divine Drafts

The Divine Graft

The Reason Why

OMG you guys, this is going to be the best summer EVER

So, I'm all grad-u-mated from the Mother F'ing Awesome program, and though I don't yet have a "job" lined up to the "fall," there is stuff going on this summer I thought you all should know about:

I'm participating in a reading to raise money for Kulture Klub. It's June 10th, at 7:00, at the Loft Literary Center. I'm reading with a bunch of other artists -- there will be visual stuff, written stuff: all kinds of stuff. Presentation will be quick n dirty -- less than an hour. And then free food and drink! Admission by suggested donation of $10-15 dollars. For a good cause! Less than a movie! On the weekends! At Southdale! If you buy snacks!

I'm also TEACHING a class at the Loft this summer, starting June 17th: "Writing Fairy Tales and Folk Tales." The Loft is also having an open house tonight, so I'll be pimping the class.

I'll be teaching the same class at the University of Wisconsin-Stout for a weekend over the summer. Check out my classy picture.

Off-Leash Area is also having a show this summer: "Ivan the Drunk and his Terrible Tale of Woe." I'll be tending box office June 7th and June 11th.

I'm also tending box office June 5th for this show.

So much stuff! And I will be revising my novel. There's that, too.

Spring Breakdown

Not a clever blog title.

I'm sitting in "It's A Grind" coffeeshop with my BFFHSAB (Best Friend From High School and Beyond). The coffeeshop always makes me think of the old, brilliant "Weeds" credits -- and I'm currently drinking an iced coffee, which makes me feel like Mary-Louise Parker in the brilliant first season. Which goes to show you how mediated by television my life experience is. (It might work the other way, though: I do think that the first three seasons of "Weeds" do capture some aspects of life in a Western gated-community-suburban-type place fairly accurately, even if it does get increasingly over-the-top. I love that moment in season 1 when MLP admits sometimes racial stereotypes are true: "I like gin. I'm not fond of hugs." Like her character I like iced coffee, hybrid cars, my own bathroom, and gin -- and I'm not fond of hugs).

Before I typed all that, I should say that I'm back in my Western Suburban hometown for Spring Break. The idea was to get a lot of work done on my thesis, write a draft of my thesis essay, catch up on a bunch of miscellaneous projects, do some job/grant application stuff...my parents are actually out of town, meaning that Spring Break was supposed to be largely a self-designed writer's retreat, a la the summer. After all -- a huge lovely suburban home for me to work in, all on my own-io.

One my thesis advisers emailed me days ago asking how it was going. "Did you finish the last part of your novel? How's all that solitude?" I just wrote her back, saying "Um. It's going okay."

It's not going okay.

I spent two days lying around in my own pee (as the divine Miss M puts it) before realizing that my BFFHSAB is also on spring break and has tons of actual work to do, too. Trying to follow her example, I went with her to a coffee shop at 8 am this morning (suffice it to say, I still wasn't out of bed when she got to my house -- I had to be the Getting Ready Ninja). She's sitting in front of me, industrially doing work, because well...she's smarter and harder working than me.

The sheer amount of work I blithely thought I'd get done in what amounts to five days is started to press down upon me. WTF was I thinking? Why did I waste two whole days?

My lovely BFFHSAB has just lent me headphones (I forgot mine) -- which might help. So I'm going to take a crack at working, gulping my iced coffee all the while.

Gulp.

Whoa, it's a not post

I won't say "Hey, I'm posting again!" because obviously I said that below and obviously it was A LIE.

I have no particular reason to post again, other than that I'm always writing blog posts in my head, so why not write them -- not in my head?

Oh, and occasional vague feelings of guilt for not using the blog as a Self Promotional Tool (though writing that makes me feel like a Self Promotional Tool*)

*I stole that from someone else. Which is even worse.

Here goes:

My old story has been archived online here, on the Whistling Shade Press website.

I'm having a story come out here in the summer (Annalemma magazine). I submitted to them partly because I really like their mission statement. Read it! Also look at the pretty pictures and read the stories, if you like.

I have a book review here. This kinda makes me feel like a rock star. Or the Minnesota book reviewing equivalent of a rock star. Which I guess is like Ethan or Jake?

Oh, my inspiration to post this was to say: why is it that when I choose "shuffle" on my IPod, I just skip every song that isn't already a favorite song I always listen to? This keeps me in the same pattern of just listening to the same songs over and over, which is why I picked shuffle in the first place. But then posting distracted me enough to stop doing that. So I actually discovered some songs on my IPod I'd never listened to before. Um...well done me, I guess?

Although it's funny that I feel that I don't listen to enough songs in my collection, because this is pretty much the reaction of my Music Loving Friends when they see my itunes collection:

Me: (secretly hoping Music Loving Friend will approve of my music collection) Here's my itunes collection!

Friend: This is...all the music you have?

Me: Yeah.

Friend: Oh.

This is because I always whittle my collection down: I never back it up, and so when my computer dies*, I tend to let the songs I don't actively want to replace go by the wayside. I also don't put embarrassing old CDs onto my computer. As a result, it's a slimdowned collection, meant to impress my Music Loving friends (look! only...sort of acceptable music here! No embarrassing 90s bands!). And then they...aren't impressed, because my collection is so small. Because if I really Loved Music, I'd never let attrition whittle my collection down.

*This tends to happen to me a lot, which is matter for another day.

Sigh.

Peace, y'all.

Off-Leash Area

Hey guys!

So, I wrote a blog review a long time ago about this theater group, Off-Leash Area. And they contacted me. And they're very nice. And now I'm on the board.

So one of my first duties as board member is to "host" one of the shows. That means I'll greet people, give a little speech before the show, and be around afterwards to chat to people over beer and snacks.

Check them out on their website, or check out this information:

With a cast of three powerful women, including
Jennifer Ilse,
Co-Artistic Director  OLA
Karla Grotting,
2007 McKnight Dance Fellow,
and
Elena Giannetti

DATES AND TIMES
Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays
2 Weekends ONLY
October 3rd through 12th
ALL Shows - 7pm

TICKETS
Attendance to shows in Our Garage are
by Advance Reservation Only
Please call: 612-724-7372
Suggested Donation: $10-$15
(donations at the garage)

Join Us
after the show
refreshments by the fire pit in Our Backyard

That's some BULLSHIT

Last day up at the cottage. We head down to Toronto in a couple hours, then I'm in Toronto for a few days. Back in Minni-snaps on Thursday night.

I'm totally bummed to be leaving (see: title). My uncle and aunt keep congratulating me on having survived so much time up here on my own (there was a full two weeks they weren't here, and I've been here for a month, total), but honestly, I don't feel like I've been that solitary. I've enjoyed the time alone, I've read a lot, written a lot (not as much as I wanted, but then, one never does...), swum and biked and cooked a lot (pictures forthcoming) and Taken Stock a lot, and the solitude never felt weird or oppressive. And thanks to high-speed internet and the occasional phone conversation, I've been in touch with a lot of friends and it feels like due the to the distance or all the free time I've had up here, the conversations I've had with people have been meaningful: we've actually emailed and talked About Stuff, and I've caught up with some people I've haven't talked to in a while. Plus the lack of social time has made me appreciate my friends and look forward to spending time with them. I feel like the time here has deepened my connections to people, not severed them. I've spent a lot of time with my uncle and aunt and realized that I need to spend more time with my Canadian family. I like to complain/boast about being an only child with no cousins, but the truth is, I _do_ have family, and I should take more advantage of it.

Gosh, though, apparently being up here has made me maudlin.

It's time to go back to the flatland, though. I'm reading The Magic Mountain, which is about this dude, Hans, who goes up to visit his cousin at a retreat for people with TB, up in the mountains. He get so seduced by the orderly, reflective way of life that he sort of psychosomatically gets TB, too. He becomes addicted to leisure--a not particularly intellectual guy in the past, he's exposed to all these thinkers, all these different ideas about society, life, death, disease, the whole process of Taking Stock, in other words. He gets so wrapped up in it he becomes unfit for actual life, down below.

So I don't want to end up like old Hans. I do believe in the importance of quiet, of Taking Stock, of reading (reading, as DFW points out, is like the least lonely thing you can do, in a way -- it's a really intimate connection with another person's mind), of reflecting, of taking time to synthesize. But you need some action in your life, too. You can get too seduced by passivity, because the rewards of passivity can be great. After all, you need a lot of quiet and leisure, you need to spend a lot of time by yourself, if you want to write. I guess it's about having the discipline not to get too wrapped up in your own head; to make sure what you do has a connection to the world.

Or something. What do I know, anyway?