Moving, work, and the famous extras in my life
I moved. It’s not sunny and the woman upstairs seems to be a buffalo in stilettos, but other than that, it’s lovely. It’s a little like being in a tree house; I can look out my window and see leaves, all green in bright bundles. There are still boxes galore until the guy comes over this weekend to put my shelves up. I’m so tired. Like my eyes feel like they have little tiny weights on them. I could go back to sleep for four more hours, no problem. But alas, I leave for the city in 30 minutes and I have yet to bathe or dress.
Work is hard right now. Big deadlines. But I’m functioning slightly better with deadlines, assignments, concrete tasks. And that’s all I can say about that.
I’m interviewing Paulo Cohelo tomorrow, live on Beliefnet. For it, I re-read the Alchemist, among other things. And I can’t quite get the stuff about following your personal legend out of my head. How when you start to follow what you’re really here to do the entire universe starts cooperating and conspiring to help you (yes, just like that Goethe quote that’s not really Goethe).
I actually felt that for the brief moment I was working on that book proposal last year. It was amazing the people and resources and moments that appeared. I actually felt supported invisibly and palpable, like the angel of following your bliss and the proctor of boldness, genius and magic were closer.
And then I slunked away. By taking a temporary job (not this one) that derailed me. By giving into the bad reviews in my head, the good reviews, the pressure of it being good enough, or bad enough. Frack. Still feeling my way back. I want to make friends with my heart too, like Santiago did in the desert.
Have you seen Studio 60? It’s good, I think. Weird connections—I went to elementary school with Amanda Peet. We were in a play together and a French teacher thought we looked alike, she was constantly calling me Amanda. And we both dated Oliver. It’s weird to know someone who then becomes famous—like wait, you were like me (except way hotter; that French teacher was a tad senile) and now you’re up there. How’d that happen?
And Evan Handler’s in it too. He wrote me not too long ago about a post I wrote on his cancer memoir. I lost the email in the big crash of May or so, but it was part defense, part acknowledgement, part illumination. He said some really nice things about my writing, in the face of being maybe a little irritated about some of the things I said about his writing. I wrote him back warmly (I think) and he didn’t write back and now I feel sort of stupid, cringing over remembered lines, thinking I should have just kept it short, not said this or asked that. Yadda.
That reflex fascinates me—how some reacher-outers end up always feeling humiliated when their reach is not returned and other reacher-outers just feel angry at the other person (probably as a side-step to the humiliation?), and I guess still other reacher-outers don’t feel a thing, don’t take it at all personally and move on to the next thing without a thought. And the rest of everyone is maybe not a reacher-outer at all, but a reached-to. I kind of envy them sometimes. It seems like it would be less painful, more tidy. But maybe more lonely too. I dunno. I’m sleepy and it’s time to get wet, dressed, ready.
