wheat harvest 2006

my dirty love

We went to Montreal for a mini-vacation last week. It was nice to see a different city with a totally different vibe from New York. The tourist attractions weren't great. There's a church near the top of what folks in Montreal call the Plateau, with at least a hundred steps to it. We were expecting something holy--we were confronted with this cold mausoleum. The guide book said the basilica was "refreshing" after all the iconography of other places, but the way I look at it, the icons are what make these churches beautiful and intimate. We did find a small chapel below the basilica that was filled with votives and piles of canes and crutches--apparently there's an idea that if one climbs up the steps on the knees, this person will be healed, and the canes and crutches are proof. We also found a church near the harbor that was dedicated to sailors. Little ships hung from the ceiling, and the walls were filled with sea-faring pictures. There was something about these little places that caught my heart. People were praying in them, calling to God silently or vocally. The tinge of votive candles and incense completed the scene.

I really enjoyed Montreal. I loved the way the apartments had little terraces on them, and how people hung out there to read or smoke or talk. But I feel like Montreal is a place to live rather than visit. You won't really know that city till you've wandered it for a bit.

At any rate, my second love (the first is, of course, obvious) will always be New York. New York is like that ex-girlfriend (New York must be female--there's no way she's male) you can't shake. She's dirty, smells bad, is freezing and sweltering for months at a time, takes all your money and crowds you into a dwelling a quarter of the size of a normal place for more than half your paycheck. Yet she has pieces of beauty that always bring you back. Gorgeous architecture next to homely towers, singers in the subway, readers in pompous bookstores, theater in every hole in the wall, clothes and furniture on the street for the taking, people watching galore...what more can I say?

grrr, tigers!

This weekend Teddy was here, and I went museum wandering with him--we actually went through two museums in one afternoon! Which is one too many for me, usually. I get so drained by all the visual stimuli. We went to the MoMA and the Folk Art museum. The Folk Art wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I was envisioning a bunch of dust gathering knick knacks, but there were a few pieces of glorious artistry in the everyday--like the tiger pictured here. I wasn't sure if cameras were allowed, so I snuck this one in very fast. I felt like a detective in a weird glass and mortar jungle...

spring cleaning

For the first time in our relationship, Tom and I had a spring cleaning day for a place we can call our very own--at least, our own as long as we pay the rent. Now, Tom doesn't like the term, spring cleaning, and he has various reasons for it, but that's what we were doing no matter what it's called. We are only half--if not less than--done with the job, because we're doing all those dirty little deeds you always push under the rug: really cleaning the grout, organizing the fridge and the pantry, filing away all those bills, rearranging our bookshelves, etc. We are going to throw out our street-found lamp that has stood gathering dust tomorrow, and have put up some attractive Chinese lanterns (bought at a store called Surprise! Surprise!) instead. We also bought a new shower curtain that has the words shampoo, wash and soap on it, as you see here in the photo. It goes quite nicely with our fake wooden Michelangelo prints (found on a street near Menno House--they were some kind of Louvre souvenir) on the bathroom walls, which are a nice communist red. I'm quite pleased with it.

you're hopeless, just hopeless, Charlie Brown

The picture on the blog is not hopeless--it comes from a site by a friend of Tom's, called Hobosoup. He plugged it on his blog as well, so really I'm being a copy cat, but what can I say?

Annie (the woman in the photo) is one of the coolest people I know. She's this kick-ass, I've Been Everywhere, Been There, Done That chainsmoker I've known (through Tom) since I've lived in New York. She's kind of an underground celebrity--apparently Bjork is afraid of little Annie. (She's so tiny! I feel like a lumbering ogre around her--you should see her with Tom!) I've been to a couple of her shows, and they were fun. She has this gravelly voice that can soothe and excite at the same time.

I've been feeling like a Charlie Brown lately. Nothing I do comes out right. I wander around in front of my computer, sure that I should do something but I can't think straight enough to know what that something is. I've gotten some writing gigs--one paid, the other not-yet-paid--but I can't even do that right. I think one editor hates me, the other doesn't communicate even though I'm constantly emailing and calling. No one wants to hire me for a job that has health insurance. My MFA is a total joke in the real world. You have to publish before anyone, even an agent, will glance at you. I'm afraid I'll just be a professional student because that seems to be the only thing I'm slightly good at. The list goes on and on.

But, never fear, life goes on and I'll figure something out at some point. Something's got to happen eventually. So, maybe I'm not hopeless after all. We'll see.

huzzah! sort of...

I turned in my thesis last Tuesday. It was a rather anti-climactic moment. My thesis advisor is on sabbatical and rarely comes on campus, so I just left it in her mailbox at the graduate center. It looked a little sad to be shuttled off in such a manner, but what could I do? I felt like leaning in and whispering: It's okay, Carolyn will take you home soon. And she'll be firm but right and loving.

I think it's also a little sad because I know it's still a work-in-progress that needs to be sent out to the cold cold world of agents and editors who'll toss it out without a second thought. But I need to just put it aside for awhile.

I wanted to add something to my earlier post about music. It started out as a note to a friend but my egotism got the best of me:

I was surrounded by music all the time growing up. I honestly don't remember a time I wasn't singing or was surrounded by music of some kind. Especially in church. Everybody in the Mennonite Brethren Conference could hold a note, it seemed. It wasn't until college that I realized there were churches (and some were Mennonite!!) that couldn't sing well. That couldn't hold a four-part harmony. (I'll admit, there was a period in my life that I believed praise music was more heart-felt than hymn singing (believe it or not, I was a Christiany-handy-clappy-Christian for awhile--if you are or ever have been a Christian you'll know what I mean), but I found myself drawn back into the fold, so to speak, though there are some praise songs I still like.) I sang at church, I sang in school, was in the elite choir in high school, etc. I took piano lessons and played in the school band.

In college I had a slight, shall we say, falling out, with music. Though I was in the "common" choir, it wasn't enough for me. I wanted to be in Chambers, but they didn't let first years in and the director leaned towards actual music majors as far as selection went. I could have auditioned for it my sophomore year, but at the end of my first year the director of Swing Sisters approached me after I'd sung a few solos in concerts and told me I ought to audition for his group in the fall. The way he played it to me, it was merely a formality--that I was in. So I didn't even try out for Chambers. Swing Sisters would be a change from what I usually did, and I wanted to try something new. And guess what, I didn't get in. (The director put a stupid rose in my mailbox, and a note telling me how sorry he was, how talented I was, yadah yadah yadah...)

To compound that situation, I received a C+ in a voice class that semester. I can't even remember why. That fall I edited the campus paper; I don't really remember a whole lot about that semester beyond staying up till six in the morning. I think it was because I don't sight read very well. Even with all that piano, flute and voice in my past I depend more on my ears than my eyes. I don't quite understand it myself. I think I get the general idea of what to sing, but it's only once I've heard the harmonies once or twice--sometimes more, but usually two times is enough--I can more or less "read" the music. Genius? Laziness? I must admit the latter is more likely.

So, for awhile I stayed away from singing other than the hymn sings at chapel or church. When I was on cross-cultural we would sing in the little nooks and crannies of holy places. My favorite memory is when we went into these underground caves and sang old 606:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him all creatures here below.
Praise Him above, praise Him above,
Praise Him above, ye heav'nly hosts...

The fellow showing us the caves was so drawn by the music that he demanded we sing again when we went above, but no one wanted to do it. Maybe we felt the holiness only there in a cave--maybe it was laziness, but who knows?

I slowly glided back into music after awhile. I did get into Chambers the second semester of my senior year. I heard through the grapevine that the director was quietly auditioning new people, and I got an audtion. I guess he'd heard enough about me to take me, because I sang for about a minute and the rest of the time had me try to repair this tiny fountain! As I left, he said, Well, rehearsals start next week. I'll see you there. And that was that!

blah blah blah

I've been feeling especially dried up about writing lately. And cynical to boot. I went to a reading on Friday that was made up of MFA students from around the city, expecting great things and came back with only a few bright moments. One of which was a classmate's performance--which, though I may be biased, but I thought went very well. However, the paltry scheisse I was forced to listen to beforehand was mind numbing. In particular, there was one reader (the first one (who goes to Columbia, of all places!)) whose prose was a wandering, self-absorbed nightmare. There were, I'll admit, a few sprinklings of insight, but they were dwarfed by the waves adverbs piled upon adjectives that were totally superfluous. (Not unlike this blog.) This story kept going on and on and on and I wondered if I would ever live to see act number two. And this is someone who beat me out of a place at Columbia!!!! If that's the kind of crap Columbia likes, well, I don't know what to think. Then I had to sit through another reading of poetry that was badly read by this traipsing little tight-jeaned, forward-motioning-breasts girl. As soon as I saw her I thought, uh oh, another perky one! She tried to do the poem nyorican style. I'm sorry, she was white as a sheet, and unless you're black or Spanish or just damn got it going on, it doesn't work.

The reading was scheduled for 7--it started after 7:30--the whole thing went till 9:40. Of course the person I had come to hear was the last of six readers, so I couldn't sneak out after she was done.

One bright spot was Palm Sunday. I sang with some folks at MMF and genuinely felt chills as the service and the singing progressed. I've said it before and I will say it again: the only time I'm pretty darn sure there is a god out there is when I'm singing and the harmony is blending and you barely need to look at the music because it's there inside already, pumping through the blood and muck of the body, ready to pulse out because the deity is out there tapping her toes.

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.

something's in the whaatter

I was in the Sarah Lawrence bookstore just now, and as I was searching for a book, I overheard this conversation, more or less:

Whiney Girl: I would go to New York more, but I always feel like I have to be constantly on my guard.

Buxom Saleswoman: Yeah, every day you hear about rape and murder. It's a horrible place! I'm telling you, there must be somethin' in the whaaater [insert New Yorker/Westchester accent].

Whiney Girl: I do like flouride, though. It takes care of your teeth.

this will be brief

I'm going for an interview for the Teaching Fellows program. I am a little freaked out by it. Mostly because of the sample lesson we have to teach. I wouldn't be so worried about it but the time limit's five minutes and they are apparently quite tough about it.

My only comforts are the other candidates are probably as freaked as I am and it will all be over by this time tomorrow...I think I'll need a few stiff drinks after. Luckily, the interview site is within walking distance of several bars! It is supposed to snow tomorrow--yuck.

a sudden goodbye

The Dean of Studies at Sarah Lawrence died yesterday. She had been struggling with cancer for several years, apparently. I didn't know her very well, but she was the faculty sponsor of the Right to Write program--had initiated it, I believe.

I didn't even know she was sick. I had a meeting with her last semester, and in retrospect she did look a little guant, but I had always known her as a rather thin person, so I thought nothing of it. Not that I was expecting her or SLC to be parading it around, but I never even heard anything at the water cooler.

The son of my cousin once said, If cancer ever came around here, I'd do this! And he made a swift kicking motion.

Amen to that.

missionaries

I was just visited by some cute old ladies who're spreading the Good Word around this building. They were just so earnest and sweet with their coats and hats and smiles. It's weird being on the other side of an evangelical crew. I once was on that other side. For three or four weeks one summer I lived on a beach in San Diego, went in to Tijuana every day and did basketball and swimming camp and spread the Good Word--can you believe--me and basketball? I've been visited by Jehova's Witnesses before, but I don't think they're a part of that group. She asked if I wouldn't mind her coming around to talk about Jesus again (she gave me a little book), and I blathered on about being a student and having an erratic schedule. I didn't have the heart to dissuade her, but I don't know if I could keep up a nice pose for an entire discussion--I would be afraid she'd be a little upset about my Jesus...but then again, maybe not. I suppose she's seen it all around here. When I told her I was an MFA writing student, she whistled and said, Ohhh, that's quite interesting. She's probably marking me down as heathen. But she was very nice, even so.

one down, 19,999 to go

Yes, it's been a long time, and my readership has probably dropped off by now, but it's all been for a good cause. It's job-huntin'-thesis-finishin'-goin'-to-Staten-Island time. I just found out I've been moved up to the next level of the NYC Teaching Fellows program! Yay for me! Now I have to go to this huge interview process: I have to make a 5 minute (exactly--they'll stop you if you go over) lesson plan, have a big discussion group and then, finally, a one-on-one interview. It's next Saturday. Luckily, the lesson thing is done first, so I can get over it quick.

I still don't know how I really, honestly feel about it. I've been sitting around worrying about it for so long, I haven't figured out what I think. Although it must be a good sign that I was happy and relieved when I got the email. I'm still pounding the pavement for editing jobs at HarperCollins, Random House, Simon and Schuster and Knopf, and I went to a publisher's workshop yesterday at school, so I got a lot of lists of small presses in New York, so I'm going to look in on those.

Thesis stuff is going okay. I'm fairly close-mouthed about it all, so I won't say more than that. One of my pieces has been chosen to be workshopped next week in a master class with Antonya Nelson. She happens to be from Wichita, so I made sure she got a tale about a tornado.

state of the onion

The above title is a saying of my dad's...

Last night Tom and I hosted a Bush-drinka-thon. Some friends from our Menno House days came armed with margarita fixings and a blender. I broke out our wedding linen and dishes which Tom filled with junk food. We then each chose a word we believed would be said the most during the speech, and promised to drink each time the word was said. (Of course, outside drinking was allowed.) I chose terrorist and Tom chose each time Bush fumbled for a word. Lowell kept track of the numbers. I think he left with it, otherwise I'd grace you with the numbers.

The speech was rather boring, I must say. It was all safe diatribe; no beautiful oratory skills even from the speech writer. The whole tax-exempt Health Savings Accounts seems a little fishy to me. I feel it will work out great for rich folks but people like myself will be forced to foot the bill for those silly anti-seizure meds and birth control, not to mention any surgeries that could occur. Brian Lehrer of WNYC had a segment about it on his show. There are links to the sites about both sides of the issue.

The only exciting moment about the whole thing was when Bush talked about how congress (i.e. Democrats) didn't go along with his Social Security plan. For those of who weren't watching it, the entire Democratic section leaped to their feet and cheered mockingly at him. He was pissed. God forbid someone not look at him in adoration at every fumbled word that comes out of his mouth!

Okay, enough rhetoric for one blog.

(Wasn't it interesting that Laura Bush was seated between a black man and a Muslim woman? Oh, how multi-cultural of them! Of course, the Muslim woman was dressed fashionably and had her veil pushed as far back as possible. Had she been in full hijab (face veil, gloves, chador--the works) Laura wouldn't have dared sit with her. I'm all for the baring of any woman's head, but the fact is, many don't or are not allowed. It's always easier to digest a religion when it's not totally obvious.)

(And the whole Cindy Sheehan thing was interesting. Her only mistake was not waiting to show her shirt after the speech had begun. That would have been more interesting.)

b.o.w.m., or bitter old white man

Last night Tom and I went to see the movie--the first in many many months--Munich, directed by Speilberg and partly written by Tony Kushner. (When Tom told me Tony Kushner, who is one of the celebrities I've met and actually had a one-sentence conversation with (I was wearing my Amnesty International anti-death penalty t-shirt when I went to a reading and he said, I like your shirt. I said, Thanks.), wrote the screenplay, at first I thought he'd said Ashton Kuchner wrote it--I was floored, to say the least.)

Although I can't say I'll see it again any time soon, it's not because it was horrible. It was so emotionally gut-wrenching I can't imagine going through it again for a while. So it was my kind of movie. I felt it showed both sides of the violence between Palestine and Israel, and neither come out pretty. (I must say, the woman who played Golda Meir did a beautiful job of being a gentle yenta and a cold mastermind.) Munich was a bit on the long side; I think some things could've been cut or at least condensed, but it is Speilberg--and he can basically do whatever he wants anymore.

Afterwards we went to a diner to get something to eat to appease our contraband Milk Duds--we always buy candy at a Duane Reed or CVS--and were seated next to this cute old couple: white hair, matching canes. They reminded me of the couple in a diamond ad I used to see a lot: a young, hip couple comes upon an older couple in a park and pass them by, but the hip woman looks back and takes her man's hand and the breathless voice-over says: A diamond is forever.

Well, our food came and we were talking about the movie and I wasn't paying much attention to what they were saying. At first I thought they were married, but he said he was a Democrat who voted Republican, and she seemed shocked, so I guess they were casual acquaintances. He spoke of abortion (pretty much against, which I thought was typical for an old white man who'll never have to deal with such a situation), Bush (fairly warmly, but critical), etc. But then I heard the word Negro again and again.

They want whatever they can get, those Negroes, he said. All they want is a free ride, those Negroes. He just kept saying it over and over until I could no longer think but listen to his hurtful words. Then he started in on homosexuality: There's fags and lesbians running our city, he announced for the world to hear. This might as well be San Francisco!

Tom and I looked at each other and kept our heads down and ate. We tried to keep up some semblance on a conversation, but as soon as we were done we made an exit. The whole time I weighed the pros and cons of saying something, but decided against it. Tom did too. It wouldn't have changed his mind. We did say as we got up, loud enough for him to hear (though he probably was too deaf): Let's go somewhere where there's some opinions from this century. I think the woman heard. She seemed a little embarrassed.

Tom says he lived in Richmond among some real racist folk, but he never heard the word Negro among them.

tim robbins sighting at a speakeasy

I can add to my ever-growing list of celebrities the Shawshank Redemption-star Tim Robbins. It was in probably one of the coolest bars I've been in yet--it rivals the KGB bar on 4th St. (Where KGB is all about hole-in-the-wall grime and Communism, this one is all about opulance and Capitalism.) This bar is completely on the DL. If you don't know what you're looking for, you'd miss it. Luckily Tom and I were behind some (rather annoying) people and they were talking about The Toy Company, the name of said bar, so we followed them down some creepy stairs to an alley to another set of stairs and suddenly you're in this posh little Prohibition-themed bar with gilt ceilings, chandeliers, comfy chairs and ottomans and the walls are padded with gorgeous fabric.

As we were trekking to this little booze haven, it wafted up that Robbins and wife, Susan Sarandon, were in this bar. Some chick behind me literally pushed me aside to run down the stairs to see for herself. As if they would disappear suddenly.

I didn't see Sarandon, in the proper gloom of a speakeasy, but I was about eight feet or maybe a little more from Robbins. He's a tall galoot of a man, gray hair that needed a trim, and a pair of glasses perched on his largish nose. He looked like some absent-minded professor you'd have in college, teaching a literary criticism class entitled: Gender Switching from Shakespeare to Modern Drama.

I say this with all fondness. I'm very fond of galoots, as you well know as well as English teachers.

BTW, I haven't seen my big galoot crush since school started again. There's a reading next week; maybe he'll be there.