Procrastinate--A Lifetime worth

It's well known most writers fight their own inner demons and find many ways to distract from the work at hand. This act of avoiding the work can take the form of the mundane to the creative. Some are known, including this writer, to clean their desks, organizing papers, receipts, contact lists, ipod music libraries, photo files, basically anything that can be categorized or organized.

There is nothing worse than sitting at the desk, the computer on, your hands on the keyboard, and your mind stuck on a particular word, a word that would make whatever sentence perfect. What's interesting about this process is how hard the work actually is, even if you aren't literally breaking a sweat. People assume writing to be this passive ephemeral act where inspiration will strike and a writer will type away furiously as if possessed by divine intervention. This may happen in Joyce Carol Oates' office, but I'm pretty confident when I say most writers work sentence by sentence, sometimes word by word. It is a process that can be exhilarating but also excruciating.

I have been, for the past five days, working on a particular passage of my book, chapter two in fact. It has been a laborious process of making sure the right words are used to evoke the mood and emotional landscape of the world I've created. Sometimes when I'm stuck, which happens a great deal, I switch over from my book to any number of shopping sites. It can be a dangerous distraction, indeed, as I browse the sites of Net a Porter, salivating over the latest designs by some of my favorite designers. But of late, with the holiday season fast upon us, I find myself shopping on line for holiday cards (yes, we are those annoying people who send out adorable photos of their child), toys from Santa for our son, and just general holiday gear. I wonder how I procrastinated before high speed DSL and before the advent of the plethora of shopping sites. I mean, what did I do before Ebay?

When the mental blockage is really bad, it is better to get up and simply read. Read anything from cookbooks to a 'how to' manual. Sometimes the mere act of reading words put together by someone else can unlock whatever it is that had prevented your own mind from unleashing all of those stopped up words. Or it can serve as a way to pass the remaining hour of your work day. When I had my entire library at hand, I used to browse my own collections, usually taking down a collection of poetry. This was not always a good thing since I would get so caught up in whatever collection I'd taken down for perusal that a few hours would slip by, unnoticed by me. Yes, a lifetime of fine tuning the ways to procrastinate can certainly take the reading of one poem to a few hours wasted.

One of the most amazing things about being here is the limitless opportunities to go hear some of the great writers of our age read their own work. John Ashberry, whose poetry is sublime or simply obtuse, is reading down the street from us tomorrow. I'm astounded he will be down the street, this poet whose work is discussed, dissected, misunderstood in many writing programs across the country. Perhaps today when I am stuck, which will surely happen, I will find a John Ashberry collection, if only I had my library.

Writers on Strike!

I can only imagine how the news must be assiduously covering this Hollywood Crisis! I'm sure they must have reporters decamped to Paramount and other studios, getting sound bites of people, writers, holding up picket signs and chanting for more money.

I am usually a supporter of unions, having had to join one as an adjunct at SMC. But somehow mustering up sympathy for Aaron Sorkin, Darren Starr, or Dick Wolf seems a bit, well, against the principles of what unions are supposed to do: protect the worker. If, in this case, the worker earns millions of dollars does that mean our sympathies should be any less fervent than our sympathies for, say, the auto workers union? The New York Times reports the average paycheck for the union membership is $200,000, while the average earnings for a family in LA is $52,572.

The writers' are also grumbling about being treated poorly by the big bad studio and television networks. Somehow this whining for respect seems, again, just a bit like the baby whining about not getting another sweet treat. Hollywood's abuse of writers is well documented in many, many books. F. Scott Fitzgerald's beautiful, heartbreaking memoir, "The Crack-Up," documents his mental break down while in Hollywood, getting paid as a studio writer. This industry's abuse of writers is not new and is on par with its abuses of all workers in its own industry.

Everyone has heard about the legendary screamers in this business, those bosses who scream at their underlings because their Latte didn't arrive with enough foam. This is the only industry where such unorthodox behavior is not ignored, but in some cases applauded as some masochistic machoism. Don't get me wrong, some of the power brokers, who happen to be women, are as notorious as their male counterparts for all sorts of abusive behavior, behavior that would in any other industry be grounds for major lawsuits and firings.

I've often wondered why this particular business--key word since those 'creative types, who like to delude themselves into thinking they are in a creative industry should check their naivety at the door once entering the business--seems to draw out such meanness. After living in LA, it started to dawn on me that those attracted to this business were, most likely, those kids ignored or picked on by their classmates in high school. (I'm talking about those behind the scenes since most of those in the higher profile end tend toward the super jocks, cheerleaders, and beauty queens.) Instead of licking their adolescent wounds in private, they set their sights on HOLLYWOOD where they lick the bottom of every boss's shoe until one day they are, ta da, the bosses themselves.

It is once they are in this position of power, sycophants at every turn, that their true misanthropic tendencies get free reign. They then set out to seek revenge, think, "Revenge of the Nerds," on all those that had somehow done theme wrong. From the parent company's perspective, well, who cares when this abusive, pathological person is making them money, that being the only thing they truly care about.

The entire industry, much like else in life, is high school redux. The caveat being more money, more toys, and meaner games being played out. There are those who are popular--think George Clooney--, those who are most likely to succeed--think Ang Lee--, the class clown--think Steve Carrell--, etc.

So, forgive me as writers go on strike if my compassion for their plight is not there. Again, just as it was difficult for me to muster up a great deal of sympathy for those Malibu beach front properties in danger during the fires, the same applies here. Perhaps with television shows in reruns, people will spend more time reading or talking to their family instead of zoning out on that black box that seems to take up so much room in any house.

Marriage--True Test of Character

Marriage is, next to parenting, the hardest undertaking of any individual. I don't believe the institution of marriage was created to survive the years we now live. The daily negotiation of marriage means you are part lawyer and part therapist. I've always said if my husband dies (God forbid, right?) or we divorce, I shall never, ever get married again. The thought of entering into another union where compromise is the constant theme seems downright crazy. When I say this, people laugh (usually uncomfortably), and then probably assume my marriage is profoundly unhappy.

Our marriage is no more unhappy or happy than the average marriage. My feelings, rather strong ones at that, have always percolated underneath my seemingly naturalness at domesticity. Most people know I didn't really want to get married. This resistance was not a comment on my husband, but rather the institution. I felt, and still do feel, women lose much more in marriage than men. Statistics are always coming out with figures that show men's longevity improving in marriages, whereas wives seemed to suffer all sorts of ailments when married. The new murkiness of gender roles has made it all the more difficult for women and men to maneuver expectations of this long held institution.

A new obsession in our house is a show called, "Mad Men." It is set in the world of advertising in the late 50's. The show could be a metaphor for any of the financial industries today where people are constantly hedging their morals and ethics for the bottom line. What's disconcerting about this show is how little marriage, or rather the strains between the two genders, has changed since this past era. Or let me rephrase by saying, how little these roles for husbands and wives have changed in certain sectors of our society--namely the upper-middle class. Yes, we have a viable female candidate for the Presidency. But within the walls of most gated homes, these deeply entrenched roles for men and women still persist. And in truth, I saw these traditional roles being played out ad nauseum in LA.

It was quite enlightening for me to see smart women, who had accepted this role of 'wife' so readily. The question of equality and why women's roles have, or have, not changed didn't seem to be of concern to most of these women. Those discussions and fights were for 'others,' not for their PTA crowd. They were only concerned dinner get on the table, and that their kids were chauffeured to their various after school activities. It was distressing to see their days relegated by driving and feeding duties, their entire intellectual life put away, if they ever had one.

My husband and I struggle constantly with the shifting roles of husbands and wives. It is something we address each time one of us gets pissed off at the other for some oversight of a household responsibility. We are, despite me working from home, a two career household, which creates all sorts of complications. I don't view my career of writing any less important than my husband's. If I were to say his career more important, well, I might as well give up writing entirely and succumb to motherhood, wivehood, and every other 'hood.' Re imagining marriage, or the roles within a marriage, takes courage and a certain cavalier attitude that what we create will, more than likely, be frowned upon or misunderstood by most people.

I've thought a great deal about these differences, and in context of how they seem to differ between what I witnessed in LA and here. I do find more women in NY who are professionals. I have not met many women of the 'those who lunch' crowd here. Most of the mothers at my son's school seem harried, tired, juggling working and taking care of their family--a true modern woman. And the ones who are not working seem to view motherhood as their job, so that they don't have a retinue of nannies to help them. But then I don't live on the Upper East Side where this may be more prevalent, women with help who shop and lunch as their main profession. Perhaps this has to do with the Protestant work ethic being such a foundation of life on the Eastern seaboard. Or perhaps it has to do with the expense of hiring nannies, which is not an issue in LA where cheap illegals can be exploited at a very affordable price, making what used to be mainly an upper-middle class option now an option for everyone.

I've also been thinking about marriage a great deal since I've been reading a book that looks into Post Victorian Marriages of writers in England. This book focuses mainly on the unique unions of writers and intellectuals as they try and redefine gender roles post-Victorian era. And how miserably they fail despite their efforts to redefine this institution. What's striking from reading this book is how far we've come and how little has changed, really. So, this balancing act that I am always living will hopefully become easier over time. Or it may not and I will still be grousing about the inequities between the genders, particularly within the confines of married life.

Halloween in the Big City

The area where we are living was built for returning war veterans, one of the few affordable housing left in this city. It is a massive footprint, large enough to warrant designation on any given city map. This community of buildings and green space is where young families live side by side, underneath, and on top of older long-time residents, whose days are now measured by the smaller details of life. It is strangely like living in a suburban spread, yet in the middle of the city. For our first year here, it has been the ideal choice. In some ways, it resembles Park LaBrea except the property is not cut off to the rest of the city by gates. Instead, the property blends into the landscape of the East Side, open, inviting, and easily accessible. Even the lack of gates doesn't deter you from feeling safe here as you walk around, noticing the older residents sitting on park benches, enjoying the fresh air.

The large green space held a Halloween festival for the plethora of kids, who call this home. There was an impressive corn maze in the middle, games along the edges, and a dance floor where loud music blared from speakers. My son, who had been beyond excited about this day, soon joined in the fracas of playing games for candy and trying to get through the maze. We took a break from the festivities by heading to a friend's house for pizza, and wine for the adults. Then we went 'trick or treating' city style. We rode the elevator up the top floor of our friend's building and made our way down by walking down the stairs of the fire escape.

Each time a door opened to welcome our gang of kids, you couldn't help but glimpse the life inside. Older people, some with live-in aides, still opened their doors, eager to give out the sugary confections, perhaps nostalgic about former lives when they were the ones knocking on doors with their young ones behind masks. Each opened door also revealed the way people imagine spaces that are all identical to their neighbors. You could see how a bookshelf in one corner changed the way the room flowed. Or the way long-time residents hung chandeliers over dining areas. It was illuminating for each of us adults as we wound our way down 14 flights. The kids' bags full, we headed to our building and to our apartment. The adults continued drinking wine as all the kids played, or rather, destroyed our son's room. Every so often, the doorbell would ring, signaling another round of 'trick or treaters,' who had ventured to our door that had been covered in fake cobwebs.

My son didn't comment on the differences of trick or treating in apartment buildings versus his old neighborhood in LA. Instead, he was concerned he have the 'right' costume this year and for the next year. His friends left with their tired parents behind. My husband and I put our young boy to bed, relieved to have survived this first Halloween in the city.

Shopping---Doctors

I'm now meeting with doctors, hoping to replicate the two, Ob and Internist, I had in LA. It has been a mixed bag, this process of trying to find a doctor that will be the right mixture of cautious and neurotic. In all fairness, both of my doctors in LA became personal acquaintances, if not friends. During the course of the ten or so years, they had seen me through pregnancy, illness, and general bad moods. So, trying to replicate these long ties was a tall order. It's no surprise how disappointing all of this has been thus far, even in this area where I'm surrounded by three large hospitals.

I had started this search by sending out an email to those I know here, those I thought would have been conscientious in their own doctor search. It's funny how irrelevant all of this is when you're in your 20's, but more pressing as you turn 40. I can no longer be cavalier about mammograms, high blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and general health concerns for those who are middle age. I need a doctor, whose bedside manner is amiable, but still neurotic enough to get that extra test done if there is a need for caution. A doctor who is all bedside manner, but lacking in aggression in their attack of whatever ailments, is probably not a doctor for me at this juncture of my life, no matter how much more pleasant a visit would be with such a physician.

I made appointments for all this week, in the hope this doctor issue will be sorted before a crisis occurs. The first appointment went well. I thought him the right fit for the general health concerns most of us face. My next appointment was for an OB, who was part of a large group practice. The person who had recommended her had warned she was 'no nonsense.' I had no idea 'no nonsense' meant zero personality. In fact, her personality, what little there was, bordered on the combative. It was a shock to my system since my OB in LA was someone I had a secret crush on for years. He was the one person who could take a needle-phobe like me into a confident pregnant woman, capable of not passing out every time blood was needed to be drawn. He was the man who delivered my son, making sure my phobias didn't turn an already stressful experience into a whole new dimension of stress.

I left her office, wondering how finding the right doctor was like shopping for anything else in life. The only difference was that you don't get to try on for size most physicians, although such a thing should be allowed. But in our age of health insurance craziness, for those of us fortunate enough to be insured, well, the idea of taking a test run on a doctor is not advised or covered. So, there I was, having wasted an appointment on this person, who was clearly not going to remain my OB.

I was disheartened enough to consider the radical decision to remain with my OB in LA, and jetting in once a year for my annual check ups. I know that is not advisable since, God forbid, I would be quite stuck if there was some complication down the road. And as much as my old doctor adores me, I doubt he would fly 3000 miles to oversee my care. So, off to the boards I go as I search some more for a doctor that will be the appropriate fit for me--no tall order given my phobic nature.

The Village

I still find myself in awe with where I am. Yesterday was just such a day as I found myself down in the Village on my way to visit with a new doctor. I stumbled on to a little street called Washington Mews. The stones of the street were as charming as the carriage houses that lined both sides of this tiny thruway, connecting 5th Avenue to University Place. As much as I love the convenience of new buildings, there is something wildly romantic about living in such an old little cottage, tucked away from the city. I walked through, passing various doors, wondering how, or who, had the good fortune to live inside. I could envision a book-lined wall, a small staircase leading upstairs to a bath and bedroom. It was all I could do to keep from peaking into one of the windows, so desperate to see how others lived in such a charming home.

I love walking in cities, no matter how big or small. There is no way to stumble upon such idyllic places except by walking. Paris, one of the best walking cities, is a place where I am always stopping in mid-stride to stare longingly into one of those Parisian apartment buildings, a big wooden door opening on to such a picturesque courtyard. There's nothing more enticing to a voyeur than a walk at dusk, as lights get turned on inside. You can stand on a street, observing lives unfolding behind glass as bodies walk past windows. Aside from the possibility of discovery, I love the anonymity that walking in cities offers--the feeling of being swallowed up by the streets, bodies, and cars.

I'm finally cutting all ties with my former life as I forge new relationships with doctors here. Each step in establishing a life in a new city takes me just a bit further away from my former life. I feel quieter about all of it now. I am settling into the realities of the day to day life here. Groceries get ordered and delivered, meals prepared, coffees drunk with new friends, all the while taking note of how dramatically different my life is to where it had been a year ago. How my reality today was impossible to fathom, no matter how desperately I wanted it to happen. How things can change in a moment.

I have weaned myself off of movies set in New York. The city is becoming too intimate, too familiar for me to luxuriate in images, usually idealized by others as the perfect city. Now, I have real concerns about buses, subways, and getting my son to school on time, even if the walk is a mere one block.

Brisk Days

The weather has turned and is now 'brisk' a euphemism for cold. I headed to a well-known coat store to prepare for those days when going outside is painful due to cold and wind. A new added difference in my life is the proximity of my cousin, who is more like a younger sister than a cousin. She is blocks, truly a mere few blocks away, so is always on hand to meet for a little shopping, cup of tea, and to drink bottles of wine, which we do when she's over for dinner. This relationship, an extension of the crazy, close, but too close to be viewed as healthy of our mothers, is much like any familial relationship. We love each other, but are also inflicted with the complications of the relationship of our two mothers. It is something both of us cherish despite it all.

This weekend before Halloween was an overdose of this strange holiday, one I've never understood. My son, much like all of his peers, was beyond excited to get dressed as Dracula, his choice, and to attend the Fright Night at his school, sponsored by the PTA. I don't recall so many activities in LA for this one holiday, other than the vans full of trick or treaters that would descent on our little block. It seemed the entire city had activities in celebration of this ghoulish night with parties, trick or treating in the Village, and a Pumpkin Patch in Central Park. Dressed to go out for a night out with my husband, I found myself applying white face make up on my son as I readied him for his sitter and for Fright Night. As I applied the make up, the irony of my brown skinned son getting 'white face,' was one that made me laugh. I know too soon these moments when my son needs me will all be a part of the landscape of memories. The sense of watching and participating is with me every day as he take leaps in growth and maturity. The habit of spelling words I didn't want him to understand has come to a screeching halt as he sounds out letters and is spelling at the most elementary level.

I sometimes wonder if we'd made a mistake only opting for the one child. How different our lives would be if we had the messiness of having another child, either boy or girl, requiring logistical maneuvering, manageable at a sane level with only one. The excuse of living in New York seems selfish as I see families around us, families of four or more. I can already see the acceptance of the solitariness of being an only child in my son as I hear him playing by himself for hours on end, imaginary cities being created as he talks to himself. The product of just such a family makes me more aware than others of what is ahead for my son--the constant tug between craving social interaction and the refuge of solitude.

As they say, too late. The die is cast and he will forever be the only child of this unique union. I'm sure we will, his father and I, be a source of embarrassment and pride.