To be a Writer, LOOK like a writer
December 30, 2007
It’s easy. Don’t dye your hair. Chew your fingernails. Don’t wash you hands or face. Don’t change your clothes for days at a time. Leave your bed unmade. Leave empty wine glasses under the bureau. Leave bureau drawers pulled out. If you smell bad, spray the French way, with Ew Duh Toilet, right down the front of your shirt. Let the Toilet water drip into your belly button. Eat two boxes of triscuits while editing a rejected magazine article.
I had to get dressed to go out last night. It took me four hours of drawer and closet rummaging. Finally pulled on a pair of my daughter’s sweat pants and a top I bought from the Salvation Army that seemed to fit. Noticed the label:GAP MATERNITY. Didn’t know Gap made maternity clothes. Didn’t know they would fit me so well. Went out today to join a health club. Wore same sweat pants and a stained men’s T-shirt to a yoga class, with two different colored socks. Went on the treadmill in clogs, forgetting where I put my sneakers or if I ever had any. Came home and took a shower, and put on a mildewed Dress Barn cardigan over a spandex T-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms. Wrote for twenty minutes. Took a nap. Woke up and sat in front of camera to take self-portrait of me being a writer in a dumpy writerly room. Think picture, if cropped, is perfect for back cover of my forthcoming self-help book about overeating called “Don’t Help Yourself”
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There is somebody in my house in Vermont. A nice man is renting my house and I am thrilled because that man is renting my house and sending me money so that I can rent an apartment in Providence. Now, wait a minute. Does this make sense? I thought so, a few weeks ago, when I was working here, singing, planning, organizing, hob-knobbing, but as of today, as I lugged a bunch of my crap up two flights of stairs on the East Side, all the while knowing I would have to lug the crap back down the two flights of stairs a few months from now— as of today, I thought to myself, “Gee, I don’t feel very good in my head” I sat on the stairs, dirty stairs, very dirty, and considered my situation. I blamed the town of Bridport , Vermont, for not having a Dunkin Donut’s or a Cafe, a bar or a nightclub, a college, tennis courts, health club, movie theater. Then I blamed myself for wanting those things. Then I blamed myself for having those things here in Providence and not taking advantage of them because I like staying home and reading in bed. Now, if I like staying home and reading in bed, why don’t I just move back to my own home, in Bridport, and wait out the winter with Charles Dickens and Mark Twain? Now that I have rented my house, I miss it. It is not available. That is why I was so sad today, moving into what I thought was a nice apartment on the East Side. It is somebody elses house and always will be, no matter how many knick knacks, rugs, paintings, books, personal items I stuff into it. Renting makes me feel insecure, more insecure than worrying about how to pay my property tax. It’s silly, because none of us own anything fully. Still, sombody is in MY house and i am in somebody else’s house, and it’s ridiculous in a way that I can’t quite comprehend and it is making me very very sad.