Writing Update

Fresh from a brief sojourn in Wisconsin, I'll have much more to regale you with in a few days once I have uploaded my snaps of House on the Rock, but I promised regular writing updates... Here we go:



That puts me, right now, at a couple of thousand words behind schedule. Sigh. I hope to catch that up in the next week or so. I didn't write anything in Madison this weekend, but I sure did read!

You may notice that, FINALLY, I have finished the ponderous (but nicely written and informative) Beatles bio. Then, within a day, I also finished a slim hardcover volume I purchased for a quarter at the latest rummage sale, Still Life with Chickens: Starting Over in a House by the Sea by Catherine Goldhammer. It was a quick read and I enjoyed it, although I got tired of the whole chickens as bridge to new life metaphor quite quickly. While we were in Madison, Jeff found a used copy of Edwin Mullhouse, and, since I had nothing more with me to read, I began that. Amusing and interesting so far.

Well, GW has asked for updates on the novel, so I thought I would offer the first paragraph and the last paragraph of the latest batch:

First:

Bierce wandered in, resplendent in iridescent polyester scales, peering out of the gaping mouth of a huge fake and shimmering fish head.

Last:

On the other side of the plate glass, Grant sat at his keyboard, furiously worrying the eraser off of his latest pencil and tapping out his latest brainstorm of a headline: “City Art Lovers XXXasperated by Do-It-Yourself Show.” He chuckled and hit save.

Remember folks--this is first draft stuff!

Rummaging, Visiting Greg, and Various Other Musings

So, here's what's been happening in my life:

On Thursday, my pal Laurie and I made one of our semi-annual rummage sale pilgrimages, this time to the big fall sale at Christ Church in Winnetka. As usual, it was quite crowded. I'm not really sure how much I spent, but not an inordinate amount. I don't think... The most expensive purchase was two yards of really fine upholstery material with fall leaves on it. I hope there is enough to recover the seats of my dining room chairs. We will see. If not, I can always just make a pile of pillows out of it. I also got a pair of Italian leather loafers, a dress with tiny houndstooth checks, a crocheted sweater, a couple of books, a pile of LPs (for the amusing cover art), a huge ceramic platter in a funky 50s shape and painted with stylized pine cones, a couple of heavy vaseline glass candy dishes, a souvenir cup and saucer from Catskill Game Farm (a place my family used to visit on our way up to visit my dad's sister's family, who lived in Scotia, New York), and what I thought was the grand prize--a huge black soft vinyl (quite leather-like) messenger bag from the Gap... for five bucks!

I've been looking for an outsized black leather bag--hobo-style, messenger-style, big-ass-tote-style--to replace my beloved old leather bookbag satchel that has seen better days. I was really chuffed about finding this bag, until I got it home and discovered it smelled as if it had been languishing in someone's basement--someone's very DAMP basement--for a decade or so. Which is probably exactly where it had been. So, after soliciting advice from a message board I frequent, I turned it inside out, sprayed it liberally with Lysol, and set it out on the balcony where it could bake in the unseasonably warm and bright sun predicted for the weekend.

Then Jeff and I started what we expected to be a two-and-a-half hour drive down to Normal to visit Greg.

A little more than FOUR HOURS later, we pulled into the parking lot of the Bloomington-Normal Holiday Inn Express.

It took us two-and-a-half hours just to travel the 60 miles or so from our door to Joliet, where we stopped for gas and some coffee. The rest of the trip was pretty much a breeze, but damn! There was some construction, but not so much that it should have made the Stevenson Expressway a parking lot at 2:30 in the afternoon. We thought we would avoid the rush hour... but I think the rush hour got moved up a bit due to the alleged three-day weekend (alleged, because we sure as hell never get Columbus Day off--but apparently others do). Sheesh!

Once we got to Normal, we had a lovely time. Greg gave us a tour of his frat house, brought us up to date on how his classes are going and his plans for summer school and/or interships, showed us how to play Guitar Hero (which, by the way, is really not much like playing an actual guitar)... we took him out to eat several times, shopped, and generally relaxed. I actually read more than a hundred pages in the Beatles biography, and I'm now up to the beginning of Beatlemania. Maybe I WILL finish it by the end of the year! Greg was a great host; we had a good time hanging out in the unseasonably nice (well, HOT) weather.

Other musings: Now that I'm reading about the Beatles (and this book is thorough--good grief, is it thorough!), I'm really jonesin' to hear some of the songs and tracks that are discussed. I put my Anthology 1 CDs in the listening queue in the car... and the cuts are very cool. But I also want to SEE the Beatles Anthology documentary as well. I hope it is on DVD... (although we tried to start Volver tonight, and for some reason the DVD player isn't talking to the TV. Merde.) AND I can't wait until Help! is finally available on DVD. I know it's kind of corny, but I have a soft spot for it: "Go to the window!" and "I wouldn't touch you with a plastic one" are old catch-phrases of mine.

Also, the black messenger bag seems much less musty now that it has basked in the Rogers Park sun for a while. It still doesn't smell like roses, but at least it is better. There is hope. Or maybe I should just bite the bullet and find a leathersmith who can copy it in nice, durable leather. 'Cause the beatings I give my carry-ons are truly ruthless.

Back to work in the morning--no Columbus Day, observed or otherwise, for us. Which is probably just as well. No offense to my Italian friends, but that guy wasn't a very nice man, all told. Still. If my employer offered me the day off with pay, I would not say no. So much for the strength of my convictions.