One thing after another

We've finally made our long-awaited, much-discussed move: to a townhouse on the Oakland/Emeryville border. It's a very nice unit, with all sorts of features that we've never had before, and the neighborhood has, so far, not caused any problems. That's the funny thing about a place like Oakland. We're in between San Pablo Avenue and Market Street, and although they're only a few blocks apart, they're worlds away from each other.

Still, the process of moving has so many details! And so much goes wrong! And every victory seems to come with another setback. In the setbacks column: our hot water has gone out, twice; ants, a lot of them; complications with the internet hook-up; plus we had to spend a day and a half cleaning our old apartment just to get it presentable enough to get the security deposit back. And each of those setbacks has delayed our ability to get unpacked and moved in to this new apartment.

But finally, one week in, I am sitting at a desk in the spare bedroom/my office. And we have the DSL and the wi-fit set up, and I am finally able to once again telecommute (or blog, as the case may be). So maybe I'm gonna make it after all.

Planned is Here (There?) Everywhere

It's official: There is now a book publisher. I've taken delivery of two heavy boxes filled with Sarah Trott's Planned. You can still pre-order with free shipping until midnight.

Writing and the internet

There is something happening at the margins today, something happening just outside my field of vision, and when I turn in its direction, it moves just out of sight again. And in the meantime, I am fitting together other thoughts.

Item 1. Ben Kunkel's "Lingering" essay, which has many interesting things to say about the internet and such as, including "If you want to make a culture your own, you have to make your own culture, and not just repurpose the productions of people with more capital (or contribute marginalia to news stories)." And also, "Bloggers on the whole write carelessly, their ideas are commonplace, they curry favor with readers and one another, and their popularity is no index of their worthiness."

Item 2. Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I find Didion to be a touchstone for me, nevermind the perception of middlebrowness that she has accumulated over time. And I spent a couple hours this afternoon reading parts of that essay collection, and felt this passage from the preface to be especially apt:

What else is there to tell? I am bad at interviewing people. I avoid situations where I have to talk to anyone's press agent. (This precludes doing pieces on most actors, a bonus in itself.) I do not like to make telephone calls, and would not like to count the mornings I have sat on some Best Western motel bed somewhere and tried to force myself to put through the call to the assistant district attorney. My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is the last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.

In praise of the fallow period

While out at dinner last Saturday night, I expounded a little bit on my current theory that the creative process requires excessive down time. There may have even been a little bit of table pounding (blame the wine). I'm currently in the midst of an unproductive period, so I might be a bit biased.

Truth is, I haven't done any major work since I finished Pythia Says. And I haven't done much with the Pythia project, which I know is a shame, because it's pretty good. One of the better things I've done, and no one has seen it. I feel like I found a good post-MFA confidence in my own voice and just let the project happen and take hold, without doubts or outside interference. But then I just let it accumulate dust.

And I finished it last summer. Which means we're at almost a year without writing (barring a few small things that fizzled, and instantaneity, which you should totally be following). Maybe I'm just wasting my time, but maybe I'm just wasting my time while preparing for something new. As in, the waiting is key. I don't know. And I don't know what comes next, writing-wise.

But exciting things are happening. There is bringing out Sarah Trott's book, Planned. It's the first full-length book of poetry from There, and I did the editing, book design, etc. So that's something.

There is publishing its first book: Planned by Sarah Trott

Exciting news! There is publishing its first book: Planned by Sarah Trott. You can pre-order the book now, while it's at the printers, and get free shipping to addresses in the United States.

It's long been a dream of mine to expand the online journal into books and chapbooks. For our first project, we are bringing out the first book by Sarah Trott, who also appeared in the first issue of There.

Being on the winning side is a new, unusual feeling

So pleased that Barack Obama won last night (and decisively, across the Interior West, Midwest, and New South, not just the blue Northeast and Pacific). It's strange to have someone I actually wanted to win do just that (even in primaries, I'm accustomed to backing the losing candidate). The only sadness (and it's a sharp one) is the passage of Proposition 8, amending discrimination right into the state constitution. (Adam says: Maybe we can get the state out of marriage entirely?) I just think of all those people who have married in joy and celebration during the past five months, and my heart breaks for them. So tears of sadness, tears of joy, bittersweet victory.

I voted

And I have the sticker to prove it. Adam and I went to our polling place (the garage of a brown-shingle house around the corner) around 8:30 am; when we got there, the line snaked down the driveway and onto the sidewalk. The morning was cold and brilliant, and the waiting voters were, for the most part, quiet in their own thoughts. Not being in a swing state, it's harder to feel like an important part of history. Of course, there were lots of other important things on the ballot. As we walked up to the polling location, we passed a woman holding up a No on Prop. 8 sign at an appropriate distance. We assured her we would, but I worry that it will pass.