listening to the spree

about to head over to the meridian room for brunch

i remember seeing them in austin last july,
the sweat and alcohol and singing and joy of sharing

i wonder at the hapless david bowie fan who expected to smoke weed and converse, sip cheap beer through the boredom of an unknown opening band...

and then the spree destroyed their expectations with colorful bursts of joy and symphonies and hair-tossing choirs, singing out the mandate to live life, to love life.

wow.

my first articulate thought as i woke up this morning was "is it the weekend?"

berkley was rooting through my jewelry box, trying to get my malas out (she likes them almost as much as the rosary i got at daniel's installation). beringer was tucked into the crook of my arm, purring.

i love the morning. especially on saturday. i don't have to hurry towards anything. i'm just lounging in bed with my laptop and two kitties who seem happy to have me here.

the tea kettle is about to sing (i'm making tea from my mint plant with my diffuser!).

The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company

(this looks cool!)

it's been a strange day at work.

here's a very funny new yorker article in which they get very pissy about punctuation and grammar.

sheesh! i thought i was grammar bitch.

it's a critique of the breakaway bestselling book on punctuation, eats, shoots and leaves -- something i must confess i've been desiring ever since it took britain by storm.

The first punctuation mistake in “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation” (Gotham; $17.50), by Lynne Truss, a British writer, appears in the dedication, where a nonrestrictive clause is not preceded by a comma. It is a wild ride downhill from there. “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” presents itself as a call to arms, in a world spinning rapidly into subliteracy, by a hip yet unapologetic curmudgeon, a stickler for the rules of writing. But it’s hard to fend off the suspicion that the whole thing might be a hoax....

And it is stated that The New Yorker, “that famously punctilious periodical,” renders “the nineteen-eighties” as the “1980’s,” which it does not. The New Yorker renders “the nineteen-eighties” as “the nineteen-eighties.”

----

and in the ever-fascinating world of spam, this gem came my way:

From: Louis North
Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2004 1:01 PM
To: Shnn
Subject: paper napkin starlets inside 9224

Unlike so many gonads who have made their niggardly lover to us.Indeed, pork chop defined by minivan prefer over tuba player.Where we can accidentally sanitize our cyprus mulch.When marzipan for blithe spirit is so-called, buzzard over pork chop negotiate a prenuptial agreement with for garbage can.tomato toward support group, about mirror, and defined by blood clot are what made America great!
scottsdale let frizzle antiquary


hmm.

i'm no hip yet unapologetic curmudgeon, and i certainly have no dead pigs negotiating my garbage can's romantic future -- i'm just a lowly editor with a passion for grammar and language, and a good story.

Scientists find rodent monogamy gene

Four drown in Fort Worth water gardens

listening to wilco (the new one) in the post-nap late afternoon.

the weekend has been slow and wonderful. things have been swirling by so fast -- i hardly recognize my own life, now that i have good access to it again.

i've done a good deal of sleeping (still recovering from the cold, i think), reenergized my delight in yoga, watched some firefly, played with the cats, caught up with friends and family and read the china study for work.

brunch at gloria's with leah, bethy and daniel was great. i didn't mind the heat (texas summer, hot as it is, feels like home to me. i fully admit to driving with the windows down and the a/c on full blast)... at one point during the recapitulation of leah's and my adventures i indicated how good it is to be home, not traveling.

i believe at one point daniel said "you can never travel enough!"

i hem-hawed about until leah said

"maybe that's right for you"

-----

i want to see so much, to experience other cultures, other spaces. peru, spain, thailand, the whole europe thing, brazil....

but i can't deny how good it is to be home. home to the little family i've gathered of cats and plants and herbs, home to the family of friends i've come to trust. home to the bed i bought, to the hardwoods, the semi-clean kitchen and bathroom, home to the yellow office, to the glenn mitchell show at noon, to buffy nights and days of publishing....

----

tape a map across your pillow
breathe the sky into your window

check out leah's sum up of BEA

(posts dated 6/9 and 6/7)

i probably picked up something like a hundred books while there. i got to hang out with some of our authors and some folks who work for our distributor. i met several book buyers, some of the sales force and droves of independent bookstore owners. one of the most amazing things about being there was that i was surrounded by people who love books. god, i really love my industry.

next year's bookexpo will be in new york. i'm really looking forward to it.

here we go: i'll admit it. i'm sitting here feeling sorry for myself.

god, i hope today is the climax of a string of one bad event after another that seem to have been chasing something in the life of shnn lately.

i woke up sick this morning. after dry heaving for two straight hours i dragged this body to the clinic where i just was last week with a UTI. an inexperienced nurse weighed me (i've lost five pounds in the last week alone), took my blood pressure, pricked my finger and harvested blood for some kind of test.

i then spent a half hour waiting in room #5, coughing in the glaring light and dissolving into gagging heaves every few minutes.

they gave me a shot (in the butt) and a ton of medicine. i think i'm getting better. i just had some green mint tea, some vitamin C and half a cup of veggie soup.

i spent the day in the red bed, trying to chase away depression in between naps. for once i don't seem to like this damn rain. i want to see the sun. i want a break from my life.

--------

and it's not just me, it seems. i returned from chicago to my soggy city yesterday. my plants are screaming for sun. bethy's home was burglarized while she slept there. the rudds' car was stolen. the hopkins went two days without power. one of our interns got rear-ended this morning. blah blah blah. etc etc.

--------

bear with me as i do this just this once, lay the words out in the hopes that i'm signing off on the pain, worry, stress and illness of the past two months. i'm speaking the past as just that -- the past.

i'm going to nurse myself back to health, nurse my finances back to someplace bearable, reimburse those who bailed me out, began yago again, work on the narnia book, work on my book, take the time again to sing and play guitar. and i'm going to remember the amazing memories that somehow snuck themselves into the recent past.

and so, i'm going to spend some time in photoshop. show you some of the great things that have taken place.

in the meantime, hang in there folks. we do still have each other.

i miss them....

just woke up in spillane's living room. it's so good to be here after spending three days tucked into one small booth in the book expo.

wow. talk about sensory overload. too much data for this mind to process.

it's so great to temporarily occupy a calm space after this weekend's bells and whistles. i'm on the second floor of an old building with hardwoods, great windows (which are open) and i'm blessedly alone. the traffic sneaks by outside, wheels hugging the road, sounding the greeting of this chicago morning.

i wish leah could be here, notebook in hand, relishing the solitude. instead she is likely beginning her day with a bath and some breakfast before going in to tame the veritable slew of new interns.

the day is good.

twelve minutes remain in the work day. it's been a long one.

leah and i fly to chicago tomorrow. we're going to hobnob* with industry folk and learn a lot and get free books.

the city is strange today. i counted at least six trees along ross ave that were hit by lightening in last night's storm. here and there blocks of businesses and homes still lack electricity. the pet store is giving away fish. despite the crowded streets of cars stopping awkwardly at red light-less intersections, the darkened streetfront windows make the air seem to hang differently. empty.

there are more storms coming tonight.

what will tomorrow hold?






*leah thinks this word should contain a "k"

the scissors have been thrown out.

it's rock v paper.