Author Archives: Naptimewriting

You asked for it.

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Okay. John has posed the following after my plea for ideas.

***
“A woman I met at the college where I briefly taught, once told me I had too many choices, that I was not driven by dire necessity. But that is just an illusion and her mistake. Choices are what we all need.”

…From The Sportswriter by Richard Ford.

Despite what you may think of the book and/or the writer, what do you think of the sentiment as it relates to ‘the struggle.’ Discuss.
***

Love that I hear Mike Myers’s Linda Richmond in that request.

As I see the preliminary assertion by the woman, these are not mutually exclusive, or even parallel, issues—having choices versus being driven by need. I see this quote from a Maslow’s pyramid perspective, and it seems that being driven by dire necessity comes at the level of fulfilling basic needs: safety, food, water, shelter. At that point your choices are different, your options are fewer, and your ethical limits are very, very high. Not many of us thinks about fairness or altruism when we’re literally starving.

But having “too many” options is, as the narrator suggests, an illusion. Not necessarily just from without, as this narrator posits. Too many choices can be an internal burden of someone whose basic needs are met and whose struggles are existential. Too many choices can also be an external judgment from one with fewer choices. Either way, I have to agree that the “too many” is an illusion and that the juxtaposition is a faulty one. Not just apples and oranges. Apples and skyscrapers.

By the same token, choices is not what “we all” need. Some people just need food, water, and shelter, and they don’t care much about existential dilemma right now. It’s a privileged perspective to think that options are the gateway, for some people can’t get within 100 miles of the courtyard.

In short? They’re both looking at things from a limited perspective, but the colleague is making a faulty assumption, whereas the narrator is assuming everyone is in the same position.

but that’s a cursory view posted mostly to get your opinions. Especially those who’ve read the book. I haven’t. (Should I add it to the pile? The pile is getting unwieldy and I’m loathe to add any more than necessary…)

IJ quote of the day 57-60

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Oooh, I’m in big trouble. I’m way behind on my quotes. In my own defense, the last 100 pages of this novel read like trying to hike down a sheer cliff that’s been greased with WD-40. Talk about payoff.

The speedy descent of the novel, Wallace’s deathiversary, a precocious preschooler (when, when will the waiting list dwindle so he can actually *be* a preschooler?!), and two new clients who have deadlines this month mean I’m reading IJ but not posting.

No spoilers, though. Finished the book twice, read all available scholarly work published on it, working on a conference paper, and reskimming for quotes but I won’t spoil your last 5%.

So, though not much can touch Mario’s concern that nobody can be sincere about emotions, and Gompert’s narration of a whole ‘nother Dantesque level of Hellacious Depression, and Gately’s defense of the indefensible, here goes:

“Any one second: he remembered: the thought of feeling like he’d be feeling this second for 60 more of these second—he couldn’t deal. He could not fucking deal. He had to build a wall around each second just to take it….A breath and a second, the pause and gather between each cramp. An endless Now stretching its gull-wings out on either side of his heartbeat’ (859-60). Freaking gorgeous prose enveloping intense ideas. Every page. Damn.

“He hadn’t quite gotten this before now, how it wasn’t just the matter of riding out the cravings for a Substance: everything unendurable was in the head, was the head not Abiding in the Present but hopping the wall and doing a recon and then returning with unendurable news you then somehow believed” (861).

Seriously? That’s genius. Welcome to my head. it’s too busy hopping the wall to check out the potential and make shit up to scare me for me to be actually living right now. That has blown my mind for the past week.

Hal similarly living in his own head:
“It now lately sometimes seemed like a kind of black miracle to me that people could actually care deeply about a subject or pursuit, and could go on caring this way for years on end. Could dedicate their entire lives to it. It seemed admirable and at the same time pathetic. We are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe. God or Satan, politics or grammar, topology or philately—the subject seemed incidental to this will to give oneself away, utterly. To games or needles, or to some other person. Something pathetic about it. A flight-from in the form of a plunging-into” (900). And he goes into his metaphor about rooms full of meat and feces, the sheer volume of a life’s work laid before you in disgusting subtotals.

That one I’m letting lie for a while. I can’t deal this week with the thought of escapism and avocations and rooms full of meat and shit. I’m noticing more and more that huge momentous lessons of honesty and philosophy and reality from IJ are getting pushed to the corners of my mind, compartmentalized, labeled, and stored for much, much later. I’m clearly not doing my job. But with all due respect, I think letting all this sink in at once would cause the black billowing. You know? So bite-sized Wallace creeps in and the rest comes later.

Finally:
“The parts of this Gately can follow he doesn’t care for one bit. He doesn’t want to know his body even fucking has something with six syllables in it” (921).

I love this book, and I love Don Gately. And his sternoclastomastoid is the least of his problems, right now. In fact, given the size of his melon, his SCM is probably a really meaty part of him, holding up his head and turning it and whatnot.

I’m pretty crushed we’re finishing soon, but I do have a life to get on with. I have three careers and a human to gestate while raising a small person. But this chance to reread IJ with a group of open minded people has been such a gift. Thanks.

Guest post

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It’s not that I have a guest blogger today. It’s that I’m feeling lazy and have other stuff to do and kind of wish one of you would write a post for me. Or at least give me an idea. So leave a comment with a blog post you’d like to see soon, and I will oblige you. Even the really obscure or outrageous suggestions. In some form.

So here’s your wish list…

Perspective or lack thereof

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I think I have a big problem…yesterday was my ten year anniversary and I completely forgot because today is the one year anniversary of David Foster Wallace’s death. It would seem that my priorities are way out of whack.

Sept 12, 2008 I was moving semi-long-distance, in the truck one-fifth of the way to my new home and heard that the man I considered the greatest living writer was dead. I couldn’t believe it. But it didn’t hurt yet. A few days later, when my Internet was finally up and I was sitting on the floor in front of a box-perched computer, I learned Wallace had hanged himself. And the floor fell out from under me.

That day got me reading again, got me back into academic writing, mired me in a mild existential crisis I’m not sure I’ve emerged from. But his death got me living again; scared me back into conscious decisions and active participation in the forward progress of my life. David Foster Wallace’s suicide terrified me—that I wouldn’t get any of my writing done, that I wouldn’t get my life done, that I would lose my son the way Mrs. Wallace did, that I might lose Spouse the way Ms. Green did. That day, finally back in the place I love and with a family I’m struggling to be good to, a huge sinkhole collapsed, and I’m still struggling to keep from falling in.

So I forgot my anniversary. Meh. Spouse did, too. We forget a lot these days. Chalk it up to all the living we’re doing.

Rest in peace, Mr. Wallace. And may his parents, sister, and wife all find some peace, too. I wish I had more to offer than blog posts and scholarship on his work, but it’s all I have to give. The rest I’m giving to my family.

The art of Kim Cogan

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Went to the opening at the Hespe Gallery tonight.

Wanna see something cool? Here’s the man himself in action.

Having a three year old at a gallery was stressful. But he was pretty dang awesome. And his friend, also three, was there. And his new friend, one, was there, too. And a few other people brought their kids, about which the gallery owner was beyond fabulous and sweet. So the only one mocked—universally—was the lady with the freaking dog. At a gallery. Hanging out near the snacks table, where the dog ate all the stuff off the floor. Even my kid wasn’t that bad.

And I’ll tell you, the overwhelming lovin’ that people on BART showed my sweet and well behaved kid allowed me to step outside my constant frustration and battle with him to just appreciate him. thoughtful, silly, smart, and adorable. Freaking adorable.

Great night. Thanks, Kim.

My favorite, if forced to choose, btw…

SF plans this month

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Kim Cogan opens a new solo show at the Hespe in Union Square. Come on out because his work is absolutely breathtaking. Opening Sept. 10. Check Kim’s blog or the Hespe’s site for more info. (He has a show in New York while I’m there in November, so I hope to see him at Gallery Henoch, too.)

Infinite Summer ends and Booksmith holds a party. Sept. 28. Hope Spouse gets home in time to do bath and bed so I can clear out my tape flags in time to have a normal-looking copy.

And some time this month we’ll stay closer to home and hit Berkeley Rep’s American Idiot musical. Hope grandma can babysit.

I know it’s a lot to ask. Three outings in one month. Only one appropriate for Peanut. But come on. This is the reason we moved back!

Is it wrong that…

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I was buying Spouse shirts for work and found myself winking at one of the models? I should mention I was online shopping and the model was kind of smarmy, in that Chet kind of way. Of course it’s not wrong. Because I was kidding, right?

Is it wrong that I wanted to gouge out the eyes of the guy next to me in the coffee shop who kept interrupting my work to make inane banter? Of course not. But is it wrong that I didn’t actually gouge them out?

Is it wrong that I told my kid to give his new doll a tour of the house so I could close my eyes for two minutes and not worry that he would be breaking something or, you know, demanding attention or something?

Is it wrong that I’m having dreams about the people on 30 Rock because thanks to Netflix, Spouse and I are actually watching (old) television programming most nights and these are the only adults in my life?

Is it wrong to eat the same food day after day after day after day until you get sick of it, then move on to another item-of-the-week? If not, is it wrong that I’ve moved to an almost-all ice cream diet? Of course not. Calcium and protein, right? Right?

Is it wrong that I sat in a salon for half an hour today, leafing through Food and Wine, just waiting to make an appointment for a haircut? I didn’t *have* an appointment. I wanted one. But Spouse was at home with P and I felt as though I had all the time in the world. And they had two new Food and Wines.

Is it wrong that the bathtub has needed new caulk since we moved in four months ago but that I still haven’t gotten to it? Will it be wrong two months from now?

Is it wrong that I fantasize about going on facebook and calling all those liars and posers on their b.s. about how perfect their lives are? Or to ask them when, exactly, they’re too old to post drunken pictures of themselves out with friends? Seriously, who the hell gets a sitter so they can go party? I’m pretty sure it’s wrong to use party as a verb after age 25.

Is it wrong that the week where my nausea was manageable I willingly took the wallop of exhaustion because it was better to feel unbearably tired than puke 5 times a day, but that now the barfing is back?

Yeah, actually, that one is wrong.

IJ quote of the day 56

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bits from Gately’s early consciousness in the hospital…

“He fever-dreamed of dark writhing storm clouds writhing darkly and screaming on down the beach at Beverly Ma, the winds increasing over his head until Herman the polyurethane vacuole burst from the force, leaving a ragged inhaling maw that tugged at Gately’s XXL Dr. Dentons. A blue stuffed brontosaurus was sucked upward out of the crib and disappeared into the man, spinning. His mother was getting the shit beaten out of her by a man with a shepherd’s crook in the kitchen and couldn’t hear Gately’s frantic cries for help” (816).

“Gately’s heart is now somewhere around his bare hairy shins, at the mention of Federal crewcuts” (827).

“The heater vents kept making a sound like a distant parent gently shushing. When it starts to get dark out is when the ceiling breathes. And everything like that” (827).

The lone uninsured Congressperson

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One congressional Representative has no insurance—a physician who says that as soon as Congress goes without insurance for a while there will be real change.

Check out the story of why a Wisconsin Representative declined coverage, and how his grown children, who can’t afford their own coverage, have a different perspective without health care than the politicians who take good insurance for granted.

You know, the current talk in health care reform is to leave everybody’s insurance the way it is, but to add an extra choice for people who want something different…a competitive option for people who don’t have insurance, who don’t like what they have, or who can’t afford their choices? How much easier would life be for employers if they didn’t *have* to provide insurance? Doesn’t seem fair that you make far less than you would if your employer were free to just pay you for your work instead of paying you, plus your health benefits…

In the past 40 years we’ve gone from health *care* to health *insurance*. And we now have a huge industry that makes tons of money denying us the care we need. Why can’t we cut out that middle man?

Representative Kagen did.

IJ quote of the day 52-55

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So way behind. And I’m about to throw in the towel on this project because as the CUNY conference looms large and I changed my paper topic and now I have to bust a move in two months to get it done.

Plus, I miss a few days due to, like, life (and feeling like hell and puking non-stop and raising a kid and trying to freelance and do academic work all while maintaining sanity, some personal hygiene, some domestic order and cleanliness, a marriage, and staving off the bill collectors) and I miss 40 of the densest and most plot-flying-by pages of the novel. Geez.

So. I give you Mario and Hal in bed at a crossroads:
‘You remember my hideous phobic thing about monsters, as a kid?’
‘Boy do I ever.’
‘Boo, I think I no longer believe in monsters as faces in the floor or feral infants or vampires or whatever. I think at seventeen now I believe the only real monsters might be the type of liar where there’s simply no way to tell. The ones who give nothing away.’
‘But then how do you know they’re monsters, then?’
‘That’s the monstrosity right there, Boo, I’m starting to think.’
‘Golly Ned.’
‘That they walk among us. Teach our children. Inscrutable. Brass-faced.’ (774)

And I give you Marathe and Gompert enjoying a beverage at a bar after both hit a new kind of sober bottom, in classic funny-but-not-at-all-and-really-painful Wallace style:
‘I know of this meaning. I am spending a day to find someone I think my friends will kill, all the time I am awaiting the chance to betray my friends, and I come here and telephone and betray them and I see this bruised person who strongly resembles my wife. I think: Remy, it is the time for many drinks.’
‘Well I think you’re nice. I think you just about saved my life. I’ve spent like nine weeks feeling so bad I wanted to just about kill myself, both getting high and not. Dr. Garton never mentioned this. He talked plenty about shock but he never freaking mentioned Kahlua and milk.’ (776)

And Molly Notkin telling U.S.O.U.S. operatives what she understands about the Entertainment, which is about as reliable as…hell we have nothing reliable in this narrative, so how do we even gauge her version of the truth as she’s never seen it? But holy revelation, if they are, on the Entertainment’s content and form, and the Personal Daddy stuff we totally could have seen coming, and the Orin bashing we so totally needed, even if it’s hyperbole. (788-95)

And the hilarious kertwang of Hal finding the Inner Infant group rather than NA (and, seriously, Boswell’s musings on anti-Lacanian sentiment in IJ, I really need to tell you about my as-yet-secret paper post haste but first I have to develop it and submit it so you can’t all run right out and write a 25 page paper on the same topic) and especially the are-you-kidding-me-how-early-90s, John Bly reference. Plus, way to make me feel better, Wallace, for not letting my kid cry alone in a crib, ever. 796-808.

That does it. The lame ass round-up of not even quotes but borderline-summary that will win me no awards and get me no readers but will help me further postpone the seven other things I have to be doing RIGHT THIS MINUTE.

Kahlua and milk sounds really good, though.

Allowance Day

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It’s been a busy week. Peanut has been talking about getting something for the baby. A doll, he says, is what the baby needs. “I have money in my lion bank…maybe I could buy a doll for baby.”

We’ve never done the real money thing, the ‘go to the store and buy something you choose and evaluate and weigh the value of’ kind of thing. We put everything he wants on a list and he gets some of it for Chrismakkah and birthday. He never, ever gets something unplanned at a store. Ever. If we announce we’re going to the store for Playdough, fine. But if we get there and remember Playdough, it goes on a mental list for next time.

So he decided yesterday that he wanted to take his money and go to the store (where he weeks ago had a major meltdown about a blue frog, about how the blue frog was coming home with him and he didn’t want a birthday list he wanted to just take things. We made it out of the store after a lot of patient explaining that we couldn’t take and that I didn’t have money for a blue frog but that if it was on his list I would save and by Chrismakkah I might. He offered to take one for baby, too, back a month ago or so, but I wasn’t gonna fall for that.)

So we counted his money yesterday and went to the store and he picked out the same blue frog—one for him and one for baby. And when he heard what it cost, he chose something smaller for the baby.

Behold: Madeline the Monkey (gift from M.N. last Thanksgiving) with baby’s green frog and new, as-yet-unnamed blue frog named Pilot for his ability to spot airplanes.

aug 09 019

Very sweet. And today he wanted to take the rest of his money and buy me a hippo he saw at the store. So we talked about saving and about spending and about having some left for next time. And he still wanted to buy me the hippo. So I reminded him about the doll on his birthday list. Much better idea, he said. Small problem, I noted, dolls that he likes cost way more than the money he has left. His doll, apparently, needs to have a button for talking and must close its eyes and nod when he nurses it. (You must know it’s killing me not to comment on most of these pint-sized proclamations.)

So we introduced allowance. He’s a big fan of Frances, including A Baby Sister for Frances, in which our heroine mentions her allowance. So we told Peanut about allowance. And about taxes. And after some wrangling, we gave him his first weekly stipend: two quarters, two dimes, two nickels, and three pennies. And he paid his taxes a day early. (We were going to come for them Sunday, but he said why wait? My kind of guy.) We suggested one nickle and one penny as a not quite ten percent tax. He said no way. How about two dimes? Without getting into percentages (that was, like, 23%, that offer), we settled on one dime each week for taxes on his 83 cents.

His tax bracket sucks, since he doesn’t understand that pennies, his favorite, are not worth as much as a dime, his least favorite.

Sigh. Clearly he’s not ready to babysit. But maybe by then the frog Pilot will be.

IJ quote of the day 52

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Mario and the Moms.

I know Orin argues vehemently, as does his old buddy, the recluse whose name I don’t feel like dredging up, that Avril is manipulative or absent or something other than human and trying her best. And I’ll tell you something, as a mom, that scene 761-769 is touching and sweet: two damaged people trying their best. It’s funny, it’s sad, and it’s evidence that human beings need to find a better way to communicate than using words. Let’s move toward Heinleinesque grokking.

Huzzah for Ben & Jerry’s

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Really, this is a huzzah for Vermont, but I love this symbolic show of support for yet another state making civil rights a reality not just a talking point.

In celebration of Vermont’s new marriage equality, Ben and Jerry’s is renaming (just for Sept. and just in VT) their awesome Chubby Hubby ice cream and relabeling it Hubby Hubby.

I met Chubby Hubby in the mid-90s at Boston’s phenomenal Scooper Bowl (debuts of all the new ice cream flavors by every ice cream company on the planet, filling the Commons with free ice cream and insane amounts of goodwill). I love the flavor, for peanut butter and chocolate and pretzels are my idea of heaven, even though Cherry Garcia often spends more time in my house.

I’m so proud of companies that put their neck on the line for what they believe in. B&J is already doing awesome work for livable wages, poison-free farming and dairy ranching, the planet, and other causes near and dear to me. But it’s just lovely that they are rolling out a line of happy celebration for this new law. What goes on in other people’s houses is their business, and the number of cartons of B&Js now in my freezer, as of today, is my business.

IJ quote of the day 51

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La Mont Chu, worried about the Eschatonial consequences for the Buddies, tries to get info out of Mario. And after nine full back-and-forth where filmmaker is talking like a director and Chu is staying in character, we hear:
‘Jesus, Mario, it’s like trying to talk to a rock with you sometimes.’
‘This is going very well!’ (759).

hi.larious. And probably very important from a narrative-metanarrative standpoint, but for now I’m hopped up on Ben & Jerry’s and just find it touchingly funny.