spring, anyone?

It's definitely spring. Yesterday I was walking to the subway and saw the old men playing dominoes on the sidewalk, and kids were running around, screaming like banshees. It was a nice gentle warmth, though it got cold in the evening. But it's finally arrived. It's very dry, though. It's been the driest month of March ever for New York state since they started keeping records. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, but who knows? I hope it isn't a drought coming on. That means it'll be like our first summer in the city. It was ridiculously hot and dry. We went to movies to keep cool.

Our housing complex was bought a few weeks ago, and there's already some obvious changes. People who've been subletting illegally have been kicked out, a bunch of the "maintenance" workers have been fired--and rents are going up. It doesn't affect us, thank goodness. We have a lease until next year and the mayor just signed the Rent Stabilization article for another few years--till 2009, I believe. That means, I think, that they can only raise our rent the amount of inflation percentage. That means, however, that the landlords will be looking for more reasons to kick people out. Most importantly, it means that anyone who rents a space like ours will probably be paying market value for a studio in New York.

Ah, gentrification. More and more white folks are showing up in our neighborhood. I even saw this white hipster chick walk into our building yesterday! With rents going up, that means a different crowd will start living here. I don't know what I think about it all. I do know I don't want the folks living here to think that I'm one of them. At least my Laundry Buddies won't think so...

west side snobbery

Well, the other day I went to Erica Jong's reading at the Broadway and 82nd Barnes & Noble (since I wrote a review of her newest book I figured I may as well see her in the flesh), and I got a fresh view of West Side snobbery. The people attending the reading were just plain selfish, mean, crotchety folk. One old dude berated me for saving a seat for Lady L (who was dashing uptown from work):

You can't do that, he said.

Yes I can, I said.

You can't keep a seat like that, he said.

My friend's coming any minute, I said. People did it to me.

What do you mean? he said.

Other people were saving seats elsewhere. I found these two, I said, turning away from him.

Now, he was rather old, and I might (I can pretend to be altruistic here) have given him the seat and stood in the back (the place was packed--the reading space was ridiculously small--I have no idea why they had such a big-name reader in that space), but the way he acted I knew he never would have done the same for me, even if I was with a walker or something.

Others were being horrible as well. One lady was berating a poor floorwalker about the lack of seats.

There are no more seats here, he said.

Well, you go downstairs and get more!

There aren't any seats left in the building.

Well, there ought to be more somewhere!

And so on. I ended up having to give up the extra seat anyway. Lady L wasn't there by the start of the reading and I had to raise my hand when the MC asked the crowd to. (The woman who sat in front of me kept leaning in my way, completely obliterating my view. She was wearing these low low cut jeans and her bottom kept peeking out further and further like a plumber's. There weren't any panties to block the sight.)

Erica Jong was an interesting person. She had this mothering sort of air that made you feel as if you could hang out in her kitchen with a mug of tea and talking about Plath and shoes at the same time, yet she had this I Know I'm Famous and I Won't Let You Forget It way about her. Which pretty much fit the way of her book seemed to me. She mentioned more than once how intelligent and neatly well-off Upper West Siders were, having been one herself:

I can't afford to live on the Upper West Side, she said. I have to live on the Upper East Side. (This comes from a person who has a house in Connecticut or someplace like that.)

and,

Well, you know no one reads anymore, except for people on the Upper West Side.

The crowd, mostly former hippies who've managed to "live" the bohemian lifestyle in single family townhouses, all laughed in agreement. Now, I realize this statement was tongue-in-cheek, at least on her part. But I wondered about the audience. The way they laughed seemed that they believed it in their heartest of hearts.

I had her sign my book that I'd gotten (for free since I reviewed it--one good thing about being a reviewer) and even told her about my review and gave her a piece of paper with the link and my name on it. I doubt she'll look at it, though she confessed to being a blog and email junkie, but I figured you didn't always get a chance to tell the author about a review you wrote. She was, as I said, a nice sort of person at the core of it all.

7 songs

Apparently there's this thing Wunelle has about telling the blog-world what seven songs you're into at the moment. He mentions he'd like to hear from me. I'm horrible with names and titles, so it might take a few minutes to look them up. Basically, there's this pile of CDs next to our player, and I rotate them around because I'm too lazy to go through the huge books:

1. Neil Young - Old Man
2. Bob Dylan - Not Dark Yet
3. Cat Stevens - Trouble
4. Gillian Welch - The entire album of Soul Journey (it doesn't have the names listed on the CD)
5. Sarah McLaughlin - the album Afterglow (same reason)
6. Indigo Girls - Midnight Train to Georgia (actual song)
7. Ryan Adams and The Cardinals - the album Jacksonville City Nights (the lazy excuse)

People I'd like to hear from as far as albums. Frankly there's a lot more than 7, so I'm going to have more than 7:

1. Linda
2. Dan
3. Diana
4. Brian M.
5. Tom (I want to know what he listens to when I'm not around)
6. Bianca (if she has time for that...)
7. Holly
8. Reuben
9. Jenny
10. Kirsten
11. Jason
12. Teddy
13. Sarah D.
14. Szenga
15. Alex
16. Lady L
17. BJV
18. David
19. Ben
20. Anna
21. Kansas (a real person, not the state)

rejection

Well, I didn't get into the NYC Teaching Fellows. On the one hand, I am upset that anyone would reject me (me of all people!!!), but on the other hand, I'm slightly relieved. I wasn't totally sure I wanted to enslave myself to the New York Public School system. So, I'm back to looking for work--though I unoffically have been since the interview.

On the positive side, I'm about to be published on an online journal: LostWriters. I have a book review that will come out March 20th.

the ubiquitous grindstone

Well, the interview is over and done with. According to my interviewer, I could find out whether I've been accepted in two weeks or two months. So, I'm back in the rat race, because there's no telling what will happen. The group I interviewed with was pretty good--save for one sweet girl who tripped and nearly fell and didn't finish her lesson plan on time. If she gets in she'll be eaten alive by kids. She's just so nice and has horrible self-worth issues.

I held my own, I believe. My lesson plan went fairly well, was less than five minutes and people were eager to get involved in answering my questions. In the discussion time I had some trouble getting a word in edgewise--the two women I worked with were very very talkative, and they were both at least fifteen years my senior, so the whole "children should be seen and not heard" mantra kicked in. Which is somewhat bewildering to me, because I don't think that came from my parents at all. Then there was a writing assignment. You only had twenty minutes and it took me ten to write an outline. And sometimes it's hard for me to write because my hand starts shaking after awhile from my bout with the Tumor. I could've mentioned it at the one-on-one interview session, but I've always hated to use that excuse. I did mention some of the gaps between college and work were because of "medical issues." He seemed fine with that, though he did make sure I hadn't been working the last two years because of school. I think with the writing thing they're not worrying so much about the content but the tone of the draft, because he asked me about that first.

So, anyway, what's done is done. Ben came for a quick visit that evening and we bought gin and tonic and got nicely drunk at home. (He came to the City to talk to a prospective Author who lived on West 90th, and when he mentioned his sister lived in Harlem the Author was shocked. Is one of them black? he asked. Mind you, Ben is about as white as white can be. Blond hair, blue eyes.) The next day we went to a kick-ass brunch and went home and took a nap.

I'm back to applying for editing positions and now I'm writing my curriculum vitae for adjunct positions at community colleges. I need to sign up for the LAST (Liberal Arts and Sciences Test), which is required for people to pass to teach in New York. I wish I could wait and see if I got in before I foray into the standardized test world, but that may not happen. I hate those things!!!

Oh, the Antonya Nelson master workshop went well. She had a lot of good things to say. I feel pretty good about that. At the dinner we talked about Kansas. I was so nervous I couldn't remember what highway led to Hillsboro! I kept wanting to say 42, but that's the one through Harrisonburg.

My one concern that's surfaced is regarding my writing. If I do get in to this fellows program, I'm going to be pretty immersed in it. I have the feeling that it will be tough to find time to write. I don't want that to happen. I've made so much progress these last two years, I would hate to see that slip away.