Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

I've been writing again, and here's something different.  Vignettes and notes from the long piece I'm finishing this week.  Sometimes, the fiction we write can leave marks.  Deep marks.   While in Greece I've been working on the day job and getting back to my roots and me.  Enjoy the notes and windows into the next phase. Next time I'll pull out the notes on dating again.  Joy.  Now there's an absolute joy, so much that at one point I forgot how to speak English at the luscious advances of an American in Greece.  (Note the dripping sarcasm).   Greece has my heart in many ways, even with a stress and workload--this year--of epic proportions.  I am obsessed with life here, I keep coming back, and it feels like home time and time again.  Since that first voyage in 2013, when my best friend had to drag me back on the ferry to Turkey, to now when I wander Athens.  I stroll along these streets with such ease, knowing this c...

When my last book released, another academic marvel and a monograph this time, someone asked how my book party was and where it was at.  I stood there, rather stunned, as--well--there was no launch party.  None of my books, articles, or literary forays have ever gotten a launch party or social nod.  Instead, my reviews and critics have generally been kind and warm with notes of praise, yet when you are me, and always on the outside looking in there is no one to throw a party for as we say.  I'm still taken aback by the question.  Still shocked by how hard it hit me. Yet, the reality has long been there.  Waking up alone is one thing.  Always being alone another.  Never having anyone to celebrate with . . . well, that's a marker in and of itself. Though, as any socially adjusted adult does (I use that term loosely) I attempt to engage in adult activities, socialize, meet people for drinks, and do this tango from hell called dating.  I...

As I rock along the subway line, and pass with throngs of others up and down the stairs, escalators, and ramps, and pour onto the city streets, I can feel the hum of the urban hive.   Its rhythms, its rhymes, its pulse.   It's heartbeat.   These are the things I see.                On an average Monday, with mid-fall overcast skies and leaves beginning to change, billows of steam erupt from the sewers and rooftops.   Those from the lower domains carry the odors of the city, those that out of towners notice and I've long learned to ignore.   The ones from above, I look at them and wonder if they are the cast off dreams of New Yorkers awakening to find themselves in the cog again.   Or, I wonder if they are the cast off dreams of New Yorkers who find themselves awash in regret the morning after, in the middle of, or years into the game.   Are they the bellows of exasperated parents bemoan...