I've done the blogging thing before, but always just sort of thrown myself into as more of a journaling, with no real purpose. I got bored (or distracted), and it sort of quit happening. I'm going to try to keep that from happening this time.
I've been in Brooklyn for about 6 months now. My move to the city (which I still call it, in my small-town, rural way) was somewhat serendipitous and more than a little rocky (a breakup, no job prospects, a WoW habit that reawakened my sleeping disorder, a few too many nights polishing off bottles of beer or whiskey alone).
It wound up being great, though. I met this girl and these fellows, who essentially scooped me up, set me on my feet, and helped me get into the swing of life here. On the same day I moved out of my ex's apartment, I got an email for a job interview. Two fancy-dressed interviews and a stellar resume later, I was happily ensconced in a little half-cubicle as an editorial assistant at an up-and-coming indie publishing house.
[The Puerto Rican teenagers outside my window have suddenly started screaming at each other...I can't tell if it's joyful or angry. Definitely angry. The girls are shouting in Spanish and English, talking over each other like blue jays screeching, and their voices are peppered with the sounds of slaps. They're below my window and I can't see them, but the boys across the street are standing so still, wide-eyed and just watching. I wonder if it's some kind of reversed mating ritual, the females puffing up their voices in a kind of vocal strutting.]
For the first couple of weeks, I was nervous and felt out of place, as I always do in new situations. I'm a listener, an observer, so it's hard to fold myself into a new group of people.
[The fight outside is escalating...there are names and threats being thrown down as challenges, carhorns beeping as drivers try to push through the scrum, boys egging the girls on with things like "Sucker punch her!" and "That a way, girl!" An increase in volume and a sound of skin on skin is not good. If this were Indiana, things would have been solved by now, a quick couple punches to the face, a handshake, a shot of whiskey. Or the cops would've been called. This seems all about the build up...and now their voices are fading, as though they're moving down the street.]
Fortunately, though, after a couple of weeks, I was officially assigned to a senior editor, a real boss so I had consistent things to do. Bossman is busy and after working for 6 months, I have edited as many books. He also, it seems, takes his job as a mentor seriously. He is forever explaining to me how things in "the industry" work, or offering gruff congratulations when I do something right.
The workplace is relaxed (Big Boss, the man in charge of the whole shebang, wore secondhand jeans with holes in them to work today) which is good. I can happily wear old jeans and my Chucks, which is good, since I'm sitting at a desk for hours and hours a day.
Even though I hate sitting, my desk is a pretty cheerful place. It's haphazardly organized, so nobody else could find anything, but I can lay my hands on any book, manuscript, or contract in the pile. I am a constant target of disapproving looks and unsubtle hints from the office neat freak, who insists that I use file folders and alphabetization. Little does he realize, my filing technique is unstoppable. I also have postcards, my brothers wedding engagement picture, poems from my friends, and pictures from the Super Dictionary tacked up with thumbtacks shaped like wasps and ladybugs, and also some that have words from some mysterious book pasted on them. Oh yeah, and this calendar.
Enough about work. I just wanted to lay the groundwork so that when I tell stories later, you'll understand a little bit about what I do.
The whole reason I started this blogging project today, other than Bossman's prompting, was because it's spring, and it finally feels like spring in the city. I walked down 8th Avenue today and almost kept walking past my building. I felt like I'd been freed from some wintery purgatory. I shed my heavy coat, put on some sassy earrings, and felt a little bit like Marlo Thomas. New York shook off her dead skin and shone today, ladies in dresses, men in bright colors, all of us with wistful looks on our faces, remembering our college days in the Midwest where days like today would be a cause for blowing off class and sitting in the front yard with friends and cold beers. Maybe we'd get the grill out and send the soberest kid off to the grocery store for cheap burger patties and hot dogs, and more beer and maybe fireworks, if we could find enough money under the couch cushions.
Instead, we bring the spring to the office with us, in our clothes and our smiles, our plans whispered over the phone to skip out half an hour early for drinks at an outdoor bar.
Poem for the day: One of the gorgeous Bucolics by Maurice Manning. These don't have titles, they're just numbered. This book is exquisite, and a perfect way to start the spring. This particular poem is one of my favorites to read just as I'm dropping off to sleep, a good way to start the dreaming portion of my evening. A caveat: no punctuation mean this can be a little tricky to read, but trust me, the tiny perfection is worth the tinier frustration.
III
the night is trotting toward me Boss
as if you tapped it with a switch
or clicked your tongue against your teeth
it's coming down the pasture soon
I'll hear the leather tackle squeak
I'll see your ankle swinging in
the stirrup Boss you ride the night
but you don't need to hurry no
you've been this way a time or two
before you've hauled your wagon full
of stars it's all old hat for you
you get here when you get here O
I guess you like the same old thing
it's funny but I like it too
I like it when you ride the night
across the sky as if it were
a nag a worn-out horse you don't
mind riding O you get along
your horse is made of silver Boss
it clips like sleep it clops like you
Beer of the day: Homebrewed Schwarzbier "Mr. Black"
Song of the day: No music today, just "This American Life" on NPR
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