the pieces of my life

Saturday morning. Keep in mind, I had half a bottle of Prosecco (because no way could Tweeds and my friend keep up with me) and three lemon drop martinis the night before.

So what the’s only logical thing to do on a Saturday morning? Why, go for a six-mile run with Beetle and Keaton, of course! Running in New York is one of my favorite things—we headed across the High Line, down the Hudson River Park, around the tip of Manhattan, and 3/4 of the way across the Brooklyn Bridge. When we got back on terra firma, we decided to take a subway back, stopping at the Union Square Farmers’ Market for fruit and coffees.

Back at the apartment, Sunrise and Scooby were waiting for us, and after a quick shower and a leisurely breakfast at Markt (where the host was only mildly snarky at us! They’re softening there), I suggested a flea market. “A flea market? Really?” Sunrise protested. As I think I’ve mentioned before, my next novel is to take place in the 1930s, so I’m doing research, looking for old magazines, jewelry, postcards, whatever! to inspire me and to give me insight into my characters. I dragged Sunrise (the rest were willing participants) to one of these huge garages of a flea market.

I walked through it. I was done in about 15 minutes. Bought a pretty (non 1930s) ring. All good.

An hour later we dragged Sunrise out. She was pretty hard to drag, though, as she was laden with purses, jewelry, and god knows what else she found. “This is awesome!” she was heard to mutter a few times and she practically ran when she saw the next flea market one block over.

By this time, the half bottle of Prosecco, the three lemon drop martinis, and the six-mile run were catching up with me, and I headed back to the apartment for some, let’s call it, “alone time.” The rest headed to Fishs Eddy. About an hour later I was ready to join them again. So I called to find out where they were. Still at Fishs Eddy. Uh, really?

We headed back to the Strand, where this time, I stocked up on books for me! I’m not as ideologically against e-readers as some would have you believe, but the simple fact that it doesn’t allow you to spend hours on end leafing through books at the Strand is enough reason for me to turn my nose up at them.

By this time, Tweeds had joined us and she lead us to an ice cream store that had the most marvelous waffle cones that I could have eaten twelve more. We sat by St. Mark’s Church and had our ice cream and rested our toesies. We lost Keaton at that point who wanted a nap, so the rest of us headed to the Howl Festival in Tompkins Square Park (passing my old apartment!), and after listening to bad music and eating good pierogi, we walked to the Hester Street Craft Fair.

My old apartment:

Street art at the Howl Festival (pay attention to this! It will come back to haunt this story later):

We took the subway up, got all prettied up to see a show, and then headed out for dinner. We couldn’t decide on a place, and ended up at a pub that was okay, but not worth writing about. Then we saw Desperate Writers at the Union Street Theater. The play was cute, with some funny moments, but overall, it didn’t float our boats. We were in the front row, so we had to crane our necks up, and I was too aware that the top of my underwear was rolling down and cutting into my belly. Never the sign of an engrossing play.

We left, yawning. It was about 10 p.m. I texted Tweeds to see what she was up to, but we were really all pretty tired and pretty much done for the night. But then, two things happened: 1) As we were walking home, Sunrise spotted that Bridesmaids was playing in just a half an hour and 2) Sunrise’s husband had the audacity to tempt us into trouble by e-mailing me: “I’m not going to say your tweets have been pedestrian but… actually, yes I will. No nudity and very little alcohol.”

So at 10:35 on Saturday night, we started all over….

…to relay a conversation with my son. Tuesday was an early release day, so I took my kids and a friend to the MFA to see the Dale Chihuly show. (Which was a big hit. My son declared “Mille Fiori” to be the “most awesome thing [he’s] ever seen!”)

On the way there, my son asked me, “Do people become artists because they can’t find other jobs?” (Keep in mind the boy’s grandmother is an artist.)

Later, after I told Adam what he said, Adam told the boy, “You know, if I were out of work, I don’t think I could be an artist. I can’t draw.”

To which the boy logically replied, “Well, in that case, you could be an abstract artist.”

Do you guys all know where we are at this point? We are still on Friday. Yes, that’s right, Friday:

Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)
We-we-we so excited
We so excited
We gonna have a ball today

New York does that to me. Makes me sing bad songs. Constantly.

The gals come to town. I arrive at the apartment first; they arrive shortly after. We are hungry. Very hungry. But we are six and we must find a place that can serve six people who are hungry and can’t wait till 10 p.m. to eat. Open Table to the rescue—CraftBar had one slot for us at 8:30, and we happily grabbed it. Some of us were very excited as we are major Top Chef fans; others less excited, because they’ve never heard of Tom Colicchio. Tom Colicchio became kind of a theme for the weekend. Eh, don’t ask.

So, who’s with me? Well, there’s Tweeds. And Beetle. And Laurel, who I’ve decided isn’t a Laurel after all, but really more of a Scooby, so Scooby she shall be from here on out. We also have Sunrise and Keaton with us.

Here’s the thing about Friday night. We ate. And we drank. And we were hilarious. No, seriously. We were the funniest people ever. We were so funny, in fact, that I took notes on the evening so I could remember to tell all of you about our evening.

Um. Those notes. Is anyone surprised that they really make no sense at this point? I mean, I can make out what I was referring to, but I’m not sure if I can adequately explain to you guys why “Mussels are chickens with p*enises” and “Sunrise feels drunk in her shoulders” was so fall-on-the-floor hysterical. So I won’t bother.

I will tell you that I had three lemon drop martinis, Sunrise had two drinks that she swears “tasted like Christmas,” and Beetle ordered a tiny dish for dinner and then proceeded to eat from everyone else’s plate. Keaton was horrified when a waiter took away her mussel-shell plate before she was done eating only to realize that this is what’s called service and her plate was merely replaced by a clean one.

Also, I texted my husband: “They have pork chops WITH bacon on the menu.”

He responds seconds later: “That is simply awesome.”

I then write back: “The evening special is pork for two.”

He writes back: “God bless Tom.”

I then write: “So, how are the kids doing? Everyone okay?”

And I never hear back.

After dinner we are pleasantly woozy so we head back to the apartment to get some sleep to fortify us for our Saturday adventures. And, oh, what adventures those were! Stay tuned…

The last we saw our heroine, she had just finished breakfast with her agent, and was ready to enter the perilous world of the New York scene.

What will she do in the mean big city? Will she swoon with excitement? Will she run into some nefarious characters? Will she be swindled out of her money?

Yes, yes, and no, unless you count the damage done to her credit card at such houses of ill repute such as The Strand and New York Cake.

After a morning of shopping at the aforementioned stores, she heads to lunch with an old friend from her publishing days. After a pleasant couple of hours gossiping, our heroine meets her sister, the fair and lovely Tweedle Twirp, at the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side. Together they took the “Piecing It Together” tour, which let them “See the homes & garment shop of Jewish families who lived in the tenement during the ‘great wave’ of immigration to America.” Great fodder for our heroine’s next novel—if, that is, she ever finishes revising her current novel!

But the tour only occurred after a trip to Economy Candy and Roni-Sue’s, so our heroine could buy candy of ill-repute for her family (non-kosher chocolate-covered bacon—aka “Pig Candy”—for her hubby and candy cigarettes and bubble gum cigars for her most-definitely underaged children).

After her trip to the Lower East Side, she and the Tweedle Twirp made their way to the West Village to meet yet another friend for yet more gossip and a bottle of Prosecco. After a leisurely evening, our heroine received a text that her Boston gal pals were a mere fifteen minutes away, so our heroine and her sister rushed frantically back to the apartment.

Will she make it back to the apartment on time? Will she be so fuzzy from the Prosecco to even care if she’s on time? Will her friends get lost on the mean streets of New York? Will she write the next post in the first person? Tune in next time for the answer to all these questions and more….

Who filled my house with a swimming pool? At least, that’s what I assumed happened. Because I feel like I’m trying to walk through water. Slow. Sluggish. Not moving very fast. Time is crawling. My revision doesn’t seem to be revising itself.

Those who follow me on Twitter or Facebook already know that my weekend in NYC was, um, shall we say eventful? I’m not sure how much of it is interesting to all of you, but I’ll tell you anyway, breaking it up into multiple posts, as I do need to be revising!

Thursday morning was freakin’ jam packed. Woke up extra early so I could cram everything in: I wrote the school newsletter, ran 6 miles, volunteered at the before-school PE program, showered, volunteered for an hour in kindergarten, packed, and still showed up at South Station an hour early for the Acela (why an hour? I have no idea what I was thinking except that I wanted time to buy food). Train ride was uneventful—napped, worked, read. Fast ride—train was only 15 minutes late.

Walked to my folks’ apartment, and did the first thing one must do in New York: Meet the Tweedle Twirp for a pedi and a cosmo. After we had a French dinner outside with my parents and the Tweedle Twirp’s boyfriend/partner/other half (we had discussions about what to call the Tweedle Twirp’s legally-recognized domestic partner of 18 years, and I don’t think we ever came up with a satisfactory title, so I guess we’ll stick with Tweedle Twin) that was delicious even if we did have to keep picking leaves out of our wine. I had requested we go anywhere that was not kid friendly and the place fulfilled! (No chicken fingers on the menu and tight quarters.)

Went to bed fairly early and woke up at my normal 5 a.m. on Friday. Had a lovely run on the Hudson River Park and the High Line Park. Got dressed and walked on down to…

…my agent’s office! The office is on the top floor of a small building in the West Village, and I’m kicking myself for not sneaking a picture or two, but—as you can guess—I was so excited (and, yes, a little nervous) about meeting Laney that thoughts like “pictures” weren’t in the forefront of my mind.

The office was exactly what I imagined an agent’s office to look like—it was pretty old school. Desks in nooks and crannies and books everywhere. It’s a small office, but it looked like the kind of place you’d want to just pull up a chair, have a cup of tea, and talk books. It was 9 a.m. so not many folks were in yet. Laney and I headed downstairs for coffee.

Talking with her was both reassuring and a little scary. First, having a face to put on e-mail is fabulous. Second, I genuinely liked her as a person. The scary part was when we talked about the state of the publishing world—it’s tough out there and having an agent is no guarantee of a sell, so she’s really working hard to “bullet-proof” my manuscript. I was reassured when she told me she keeps her list small and she only takes on projects she truly loves. But it’s daunting to hear how much work this is going to take!

We talked about ourselves a bit; the only awkward moment was when it came out that my family is serious about the Red Sox. As a native New Yorker, she’s definitely in the Yankee camp, but I think it’s something we can move beyond.

This may be of interest for those of you who are writers in the querying process: I mentioned to Laney that I had tweeted another agent’s blog post and that the other agent had looked at my profile and commented that she really loves Laney. Laney had high raves for this other agent and she said that every now and then (not too often I gathered), if she got a query for a project that she thought had merit but wasn’t in a genre she reps, she’d pass it on to the other agent. Nice to know there’s some camaraderie out there!

Finally, I asked her about my name. Seriously. I have great angst about how common my name is (my father prefers to call my name “popular,” but really, let’s call it as it is: common). So the question is: What name do I publish under? When I first started publishing in literary journals, I went with initials: J. S. Brown (I was a huge fan of A. M. Homes at the time, which most likely influenced me). But given that it’s women’s fiction I’m writing, it makes more sense to have a more identifiably female name. Jenny Brown is so common, although I do generally come up in the top 3 in a Google search. But the domain for that is owned by someone who sells “cheap homes.” I do own the domain www.jennifersbrown.com, which I’ve used basically as a placeholder. As much as I detest “Jennifer,” it looks like that might make the most sense. And it’ll weed out those I know from those I don’t (e-mails and phone calls to “Jennifer” always mean you have no idea who I am).

Okay, that takes us up to 10 a.m. on Friday morning. And with that, I’m going to go revise. More later. If I can make my way out of this swimming pool daze, that is.

I am on the Acela headed south to New York City. (Whenever I say “New York City,” I think of that old salsa ad.) So you, my friends (or whoever you are), will be subject to my random thoughts of the moment.

—I sent in my marketing materials to my agent, but haven’t gotten feedback on it yet. I think that those marketing materials were the hardest thing I’ve had to write—definitely harder than the novel itself; possibly harder than the query. And I feel like a jerk calling my own writing “powerful” and “engaging.” I mean, it is “powerful” and “engaging,” I’d just rather others say it for me.

—Shoes. I hate shoes. I never know what shoes go with what. Which makes it especially annoying that by the front door of our house lives a shoe pile that makes the annual shoe sale at Nordtrom look contained:
There are eight feet in this family! Why are there so many shoes? My daughter alone could shoe a small nation with the ones she hordes in her closet. Seriously. She does not part with shoes. No matter how small they get.

—I missed National Short Story Month. Seriously. Apparently May was National Short Story Month and I just blinked and let it slip by. Which is a shame, because short stories are so digestible. What’s June? I mean other than National It’s My Birthday Month So What Are You Getting Me? Only 23 shopping days left, people! One Story, which is a journal I love and highly recommend, published a list of the top 10 short stories. I think my goal for the next 12 months is to read every story on their top 10 and their big list.

—V. S. Naipaul, what up? I mean, dude, I stood by you through that whole Paul Theroux feud. I mean, yes, you sounded like an ass. But who knows? Theroux has proven in his writing that he’s not always the easiest man to get along with. But women writers suck? All of them? Look, I’ve actually read your books. And let me tell you, there are plenty of folks who say they’ve read your books, but I’ve actually sat down and read, from beginning to end, three of your books (technically, three and a half. I couldn’t get through Half a Life: A Novel). I was a loyal fan. But not anymore. We’re done. Jack ass.

—I have no idea where I am. I see highway and bridges. Oh, and water! So I am officially somewhere between Massachusetts and New York (sorry Rhode Island and Connecticut that I can’t tell you apart).

—Does the train really need to be air conditioned? I won’t even turn on the air condition in my own home, because although we’ve hit 88 degrees, it’s not summer yet. Wasteful train.

—Oh, I’m in New London! Which would be helpful if I had any idea where New London was. Gotcha, Connecticut. I can tell by the Foxwoods signs. I may not know my towns, but I do know my casinos.

Okay, signing off now, because I did promise myself I’d take this train ride to do more revising. Or sleeping. Or revising in my sleep. Something like that. There might be more from NYC. There’s bound to be lots of tweets. Something about New York just makes me Twitter happy. Fuggedaboutit.

Insomnia sucks. I have my rewrite dancing in my head and it won’t go away, so I’ve decided to just get up and obey the force that says, “Work on it already, damn it!” Which would be fine if I weren’t working on it every day as it is. My agent marked it up all nice and pretty with lots of red marks and comments, which wouldn’t bug me so much if she weren’t so right. Reading her comments all I can do is scratch my head and think, “Duh! Why didn’t that occur to me!” Reason number one why an agent is so valuable.

Another blogger, Writer Unboxed, wrote a piece on living the life of a professional writer. She writes that she thought writing would be “me quietly pursuing my stories under cloudy skies. There would be a cat on the windowsill, a dog by the fire.” And it brings me right back to my own memories of what I thought my writing life would be. I pictured a three room house in a Key West–type location. The kitchen is charming, in a colorful, Caribbean-kind of way. Next to it, the bedroom room is small and cozy. And running the length of the two rooms is a long living room, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, French doors that open to a stone patio, my desk with a non-Internet-connected (although Internet didn’t exist when I originally created this fantasy) computer. No TV lives in this house. Just a radio for connection to the outside world. With the doors open, the indoors and the outdoors were seamless, and sometimes I’d sit on the patio table to write and other times I’d write surrounded by my books, only a cat for company. If I need something—say more wine or cheese or chocolate—I’d hop on my bike and get it. But otherwise, it’s a very solitary existence of which I dreamed.

Let’s contrast this with the reality: At the moment, my computer is perched on my lap while the rest of the family sleeps upstairs. This is as good as it gets. Normally I’m hunched on the kitchen counter or hiding in my office, trying to cram in quality sessions in between having to write the school newsletter, get into the kindergarten to volunteer, bake cupcakes for the Cub Scout barbecue, write an op-ed for our local override, or any of the other million things that have to be done in the six hours the children are in school. When they are home, there’s “What are you doing? What are all those marks on that writing? Can you get me a snack? Can you get my Shrinky Dinks down? Will you play Go Fish with me?” There is nothing romantic about this writing life, although I do have almost floor-to-ceiling book shelves in my family room.

But at least I’m writing. That part of the fantasy remains true. And to be honest, that’s all of the fantasy I really need. The rest is, well, just a fantasy. And it’s not even what I want anymore. Now I want, “What are you doing? What are all those marks on that writing? Can you get me a snack…?” The writing life needs a few challenges in it to keep it interesting, no?

And now, the fantasy is merely that I continue to write. So on that note, it’s back to the revision before the rest of the world wakes up….

Adam is having dinner on what is arguably the world’s largest yacht (and apparently it is up for debate). This is the life he now apparently leads.

The life I lead involves leftover pasta, an iPhone on rice, the girl’s multiple nightmares, and the week-old dirty socks I just found in the boy’s backpack. Minutes ago I e-mailed Beetle, asking her, “Who the f**k is playing such loud music in the neighborhood at this hour? And classical music at that?”

And then I went upstairs to put away yet more stray books only to discover that it’s us. We’re the ones playing such loud f**king music at this hour. When the girl had her third “I’m having a nightmare even though I haven’t yet closed my eyes,” I told her, “Turn on your light, read a book, listen to music… I don’t care! Just go the freak to sleep and leave me alone!” And so she turned on the Nutcracker. At top volume.

Good thing I didn’t call the cops. To think I had thought I’d skip the wine tonight. Ha!

It must be spring. The air is warmer. Birds are chirping. The boy is begging to ride his bike. I dropped my iPhone in the toilet. The girls is asking to go about in just a bathing suit.

Wait, what? No, no, no. I definitely did not wear my capris with the shallow back pocket and, upon pulling them down to do private things, allowed my phone to fall into the toilet. Of course not! I did that last year and who in the hell who be so incredibly moronically stupid to do that kind of thing twice? Seriously? Not me. Absolutely, totally, and completely not me. Which means this conversation with the boy did not happen this evening.

The boy: What are you doing?
Me: I’m putting my phone in a bag of rice.
The boy: Why?
Me: Um, because…
The boy: Why?
Me: I dropped it in the toilet.
The boy: Again?!
Me: Maybe.
The boy: You really should get a cheaper phone. You keep dropping them in the toilet!
Me: Harumph.
The boy: And if you get a cheaper phone, can I have the iPhone to take apart?

But of course there is no iPhone to take apart. Because I absolutely, definitely, for sure didn’t drop my iPhone in the toilet again! How much longer till the iPhone 5 comes out? (And, just to be clear, I went to write, “How much longer till the iPhone 4 comes out,” and the boy said, “You have an iPhone 4. The iPhone 5 is what you want.” Can you say, “his father’s son?”)

Our family subscribes to The Week magazine. It basically distills news from publications around the world, so you can see the various sides of each story. Everyone but the girl enjoys it—even the seven-year-old boy reads the political cartoons and scans the news items.

They have some great columns that express the ridiculousness of the world and I love its “Good week for/Bad week for” column. Unfortunately they don’t have these online. So I want to point out a particularly great one this week. This (reputable) news magazine wrote in the issue we received on Friday, May 19:

“Good week for…
The human race, after the world did not end on May 21, as Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping had predicted. [Editor’s note: We filed this item several days early, but will print a correction if it’s wrong.]”

We’ll be renewing.