I never made a conscious decision to stop blogging, or take a break, or whatever this has been. Like many others, I got caught in the tidal wave of the pandemic, and just getting through was about all I could do. I’m not sure I’m restarting, either, this may be a one-off. But I have thoughts, one in particular, that’s been banging around my brain these past couple of weeks. And good grief, it’s been so long since I blogged, WordPress is using a new (not intuitive!) editor program, and it just took me twenty minutes to figure out how to insert a photo.
This was never specifically a writing blog–and it isn’t about to become one–but I have rambled a fair amount about writing because it’s a big part of me and my life. Over the course of the pandemic, I did more submitting of short stories than I ever had before, had some success (acceptances/publications), and lots of thanks but no thanks, often but not always with specific invitations to try again. That’s the way of the publishing world, until and unless you’re SUPER BIG NAME WITH MANY ACCOLADES. Which is not most, not even those who are successful. Over the past week I received a couple of rejections I’d been waiting for, and this morning I sat down to the laptop intending to choose a few new places to send those stories to, and just couldn’t. Not today. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. Seriously, I feel like this chicken.
Chicken? Rooster? What do I know, I’m a city gal, after all.
Smashed into an invisible wall and decided here was as good a place as any to drop.
So what are these deep thoughts I’ve been having that I absolutely needed to share with the world? Rejection, of course. Not in a poor me kind of way, not calculations of acceptances/rejections, not looking for pep talks or cheerleading. Just thinking about the repeated choice to continue pursuing some measure of success in an area where monthly, weekly, daily rejections are par for the course. Thinking this must have, have had, an effect on the choices I make, the way I view the world, the way I view myself. Don’t you think?
Seriously, I’m wondering. What would the difference be, if there was a difference, if I was one of the many who enjoyed reading and writing as a child, got some nice compliments from a second or fifth grade teacher, and just left it there? Limited writing to cute or heartfelt messages at the bottom of Christmas and birthday cards. Impassioned social media posts. Maybe became one of those obnoxious, “Oh, you write? I always wanted to write a book but don’t have time, I’m going to write a bestseller when I retire, I’ve got the formula down from all the thrillers I read.” I don’t think I’d be radically different, the rest of me is still me, the rest of life would still be what it is. I’d still have a dark outlook but like to laugh, still be an old-timey Noo Yawk broad, still hate when it’s cold enough I have to wear socks, still have some who think I’m funny and more who think I’m too damned much. But I think there is something, and I wonder if it’s something significant enough that after all these years it’d be noticeable? fundamental?
Sure, it’s well known you have to have or develop thick skin to pursue any creative work. Which is weird as fuck, because at the same time you have to remain so sensitive you’re raw, the proverbial bleeding onto the page. Have such an inflated sense of yourself, your words, your ability to create fictional people and worlds you put your work out there absolutely certain others will care enough about your characters they’ll laugh with them, be shocked by them, maybe even cry when you kill them off. Hope these imaginary readers will pay real money to read your work, while understanding and accepting many more won’t be interested, maybe even think your blatherings are good for nothing more than lining the chicken coop.
At least once a day there’s a thought that crosses my mind or a headline that catches my eye where I think: I should write a blog post about that. Usually followed by all the reasons I shouldn’t bother–no one cares, you have nothing new to add to the subject, good grief, Fringe, another lousy poem? what makes you think you should, you’ve already posted about that ad infinitum, blah blah blah–and I don’t. Well, it’s my blog and I’ll weep ruminate if I want to. We don’t all have One Thing we dedicate our lives to, but I do think most of us have a handful of subjects that draw us back. Themes. I’ve written many stories in somewhat varying genres, but most can be boiled down to the theme of not enough. Not good enough, not rich enough, not talented enough, not young enough, not worthy enough. Any of my long time readers know there are themes here on the blog I return to again and again, all loosely related to living live on the fringe. Today I’m back to womenofacertainage.
That’s me, above. My hair, anyway (post-ironing). It isn’t news to me that it’s a political statement (insert eyeroll here) I don’t dye my hair. I mean, sure, there’s an element of budget (getting your hair dyed is $$$$), laziness (it’s a good year if I get to the stylist twice for a haircut), and I like how it looks (I think the silver is pretty), but to others? Whoa. I am brave. Excuse me while I gag a bit. Maybe weep some more. If you dye your hair because you want to and like to, great! But I don’t think it’s so clearcut. When it comes to the signs of age and aging in our society, it’s complicated. I’ve had many women offer a compliment and follow it with, I would love to stop dying my hair, but my husband/partner/child/parent doesn’t want me to. Is that true? Maybe. Sometimes. But many of those same women wouldn’t hesitate to dye their hair a color their person objected to, or cut their hair, or not cut their hair, or dread it or straighten it or perm it or whatever.
I’ve been reading a lot these past weeks, but have put aside many more novels than I’ve finished. Last night I started another and realized part of why I keep putting so many to the side. Not because they’re terrible, and not because they’re too deep. I love great books that make me think, highlight the human condition, and make me cry because I’ll never write such a beautiful sentence, but that isn’t what I’m in the mood for these days. I want stories deep enough to engage that primarily offer escape. All the news is awful, thoughts of what’s to come, who and what has been lost in these past months of Covid-19 are worse, damned right I want to get lost in someone else’s fiction. But it can only be escape if it offers characters I can connect with. I guess my version of escape is different from…who? The majority of readers? Gatekeepers of the publishing industry? Where are the contemporary novels with mid-life (and older) protagonists? Ones where the storyline isn’t about second chances at love, or ticking biological clocks, or 55 year old men finding love with a 22 year old, or twenty-nine year olds who are panicking and botoxing because they’ve realized their skin actually moves when they smile. Where are the novels–whether they’re lit fic or genre–with protagonists who have saggy boobs and enlarged prostates and that isn’t the whole storyline? And nope, I’m not looking for the sweet septuagenarian who solves bloodless murders in between knitting tea cozies and baking cookies, or the cranky old octogenarian who used to be so nice until his somebody died and left him alone and afraid until the toothless 6 year old facing a lung transplant melted his heart with a sticky hug. I’m not saying I never read or never want to read stories with young protagonists, but for me the thought of being 25 again is not a pleasant escape but ugh, no thanks. And 16? 18? is the stuff of nightmares.
Everyone in the US so busy pretending to be shocked by the GOP and republicans literally willing to sacrifice seniors, disabled people, POC, middle aged folks with pre-existing conditions. Are you really? Really shocked? Hell, middle-aged people are so undesirable, so distasteful in our society they’ve been willed into invisibility. Young or old, those are the only two options. 60 is young! Why, just look at that multimillionaire 60 year old actress over there with her personal trainers and surgically enhanced everything, must be something wrong with you, your priorities, if you don’t look like her–or want to. You don’t want to look 50, or 40, or hell, even 30 (remember, that’s about when you discovered your skin might move when you smile). We’re such an all or nothing society. Young is good, old is bad (except as a vehicle for the occasional heart warming moment). Rich is good, poverty is bad. Men are bold and distinguished, women are hysterical and bitchy. White is rights and freedoms, black/brown is unlawful and suspicious. Anyone in between, who contemplates or lives in the gray of life isn’t worth discussing, insuring, or even saving, why would we want to read about them, eh?
This morning I asked on Twitter for recommendations of novels with middle aged or older protagonists. To my non-surprise, few suggestions have come through, fewer that I haven’t already read.
As I’ve already blogged, my family’s shelter-in-place isn’t complete, because while we have been going to fewer appointments than usual, there are still some that can’t be avoided/postponed. Every appointment is a risk that is carefully, thoughtfully, analyzed and weighed by us and by the doctors involved. It isn’t like we generally go to any doctor or lab for the hell of it, but yes, when weighed against a high likelihood of death, there’s a whole lot that can be postponed. Because it isn’t just about our family and the risk to us, it’s the risk to every doctor, nurse, and hospital employee we come into contact with, and by extension, their family members, every other patient, ad infinitum.
Yesterday was the eye specialist with Art Child, and I have to say, these appointments get creepier and creepier. I didn’t think hospital (outpatient sections) hallways could be any emptier than they were a month ago. I was wrong.
It isn’t as if the office is normally filled with patients getting regular eye exams. Anyone who is a patient there has a significant disorder. Granted, this is a specialty hospital, and then up to a sub-sub-specialist’s office, but still. Right now they are only seeing those who are at imminent risk of total vision loss. The creep factor isn’t limited to the normal raised eyebrows of a young person being very noticeable in a hospital frequented by septuagenarians, octogenarians, nonagenarians. Not even limited to the 50 stops set up to ask if either of us have a cough, a fever, known exposure to someone with Covid-19, temperature check, please put on a new mask. No, it was the way I felt so noticed. Radioactive. I swear kiddo was the only patient, we were the only non-employees in the place.
And then home, back online to news reports filled with open-the-country protestors. Keep in mind, those photos are artfully cropped to look as if the number of participants are greater than they are, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t real. And widespread. Oh, you poor, deluded fucking morons. Some of my friends (you know, those extremists who believe in things like science) are wondering why? how? I’m not wondering, and at this point no one else should be either. They are cultists. There is no logic to be applied to society or the world at large. Their only thoughts are in service to their leader. Don’t be fooled by taglines about Jesus or the greater good. This is about two things, and two things only, because there are actually two subgroups here. The first are the wealthy and greedy, who don’t give a shit how many die or are permanently disabled from this virus. Get those peasants back to work so we can keep growing our portfolios! The second group doesn’t know any better, because they’re busy listening to right wing propaganda that continues to tell them this is overblown, a hoax, the fault of the leftists and the other, and really, Great Uncle JimBob is a pain in the ass anyway what with his whining about empty insulin pens and the way you have to blend and thicken Grandma’s Sunday dinner so she doesn’t choke on it. Both groups though, part of the same cult. Cult 45, the orange monstrosity.
Besides the obvious warnings signs: a leader who’s considered infallible, placed above God, no accountability for said leader, mistrust of other, preying on the weak, demonization of anyone who leaves the group, calls for violence, harm and threats against their own members, no allowance for questioning leader or dictates–all of these have been true from the beginning of his reign, err, I mean, campaign–there’s another obvious and growing sign. Isolation. That’s an important aspect of cults, same as any abusive partner, isolating members from access to information and people outside of their approved community. I’m concerned that much the way the internet allowed the extreme right wing, white-power-and-mysogyny-prompted nutters to find each other and grow their numbers, our legally sanctioned and medically necessary nationwide isolation will only strengthen the cultists, both in conviction and numbers.
I understand, you understand, this is for the greater good. For physical health and well being of all, in addition to wanting a shot at seeing economic health again. Reopening the economy isn’t going to do squat to help the average JoeJane when JohnQPublic drops dead. Those going out and protesting, those crackpot governors reopening beaches and hairdressers and massage parlors aren’t putting themselves and their families at risk. They’re putting all of us at risk, because of the spectacular combination of communicability of Covid-19, asymptomatic transmission, lack of widespread testing, and the most corrupt, authoritarian administration backing the most narcissistic President this country has ever known.
These cult members? Some don’t understand the repercussions, but many do. And they don’t care.
Like everyone else during this pandemic, I’ve been thinking. Too much thinking. The shot above is not from today. Today is one of those crazy stormy days; crazy rain, howling winds, you don’t want to go out even if you could.
I’m thinking about how unprepared we all were for this. Not just the tangible, obvious unprepared of a federal government that decided the best way to respond to warnings was to stick their fingers in their ears and sing lalalalastockmarketlalala, the lack of sufficient medical equipment and PPE for health care workers, disruptions in supply chains. The lack of emotional preparedness of…me.
We wake up and shuffle through our days, room to room in our apartments or for brief errands outside, but we haven’t turned into actual zombies, a la Zone One.
The streets are quiet, Broadway’s gone “dark,” but despite the photos circulating of empty tourist spots like Times Square, the city isn’t silent, as The Stand would have led me to believe. As I joked the other day with a friend, I was mentally prepared for the need to engage in a bit of looting to access food in the grocery stores, not waiting on line for over an hour to be granted entry. I took the photo above last week while on line for the store, a full two blocks away.
So here we are, just about mid-April, almost a month since NY has officially been under stay-at-home orders, over a month since many been social distancing. I’m still thinking too much, and April is still National Poetry Month, which of course puts me in mind of being an angsty teen and writing angsty poetry while sitting on the rocks on an empty, windy Brooklyn beach, expecting many things ahead–some good, some not, but not this. I’m still a lousy poet, but sometimes it still feels right. I’m not writing anything else, so why not?
Birds Sing in the Quiet Spaces
In the used to be normal days
The space of almost mornings
Gray and brown wings against black to blue to lavender sky
A moment with coffee, while neighbors snored to the rhythm of
Recycle trucks belching along
Subways rumbled below, metallic clash and squeal of elevated tracks reaching
Birds sing in the quiet spaces
Today, yesterday, tomorrow, the new shifting normal, quiet all day days
Thought they’d be different days
Birdsong throughout days
But city quiet isn’t silent
It’s the momentary standstill walking past a writhing garbage bag on the curb at
2 am
The count between a split of lightning and ripple of thunder
The pause after a squeal and thud before traffic moves on
The halt of skittering roaches against cracked linoleum when the lights come on
The right before applause as the lights dim
The stun on the playground between a fall from the monkey bars and a wail
The space between a siren’s keen and speed followed by the lament of quiet lights
New York is that cab. I am that cab. Hell, we are all that cab. Balanced precariously, not on the tip of a friendly well-trained nose, but on the edge of the undomesticated and aggressive Covid-19, while the sun continues to rise in the background each day, unconcerned by the dramas and traumas of human beings.
I’ve ranted over the past couple of weeks, vented the anger and frustration of not enough people in the US taking this seriously enough, the hideous politics of a literal pandemic while we have a president and administration that cares nothing for its citizens. These last days, though, no matter how I try to hold tight to the protective coating of anger, anxiety has continued to ratchet up and fear has coated the surface of every thought. Writing, whether fiction or blogging, is my way of taking control and muddling through, always has been. So I’m writing now hoping it will help me get a handle on this. I’m not sure it’s possible, with no end in sight and no certainty as to the scope we’re facing. I may or may not actually post this one.
If you are a reader who follows Mrs Fringe, whether long term or more recent, you know I’ve spent more than my fair share of time in emergency rooms, ICUs, hospitals. More than most, not as much as too many. My fears today, the anxiety that’s taken a blowtorch to my gut over the past month, comes from those experiences, from knowing how these things are “supposed” to go, from being able to envision but not able to face what lies ahead for too many of us. The other day I went to the grocery store. A long line to get inside, but once I was all was neat and organized, people (for the most part) working to keep their distance from each other. Not necessarily six feet, but this is Manhattan, it just isn’t physically possible in most shared indoor spaces. As I walked up the frozen food aisle I had to stop because the cases on either side of me took on the gray fuzziness of oh shit, am I going to pass out? I wasn’t, and am not, ill. This wasn’t the first time I got dizzy while out and running a necessary errand in recent weeks, had a moment of oh my god, this is not right, not a personal trauma, the world is wrong and will never be the same. Not even the first time it’s happened outside of Covid-19. I have a strong stomach and high tolerance for medical stuff, but oh man did my knees go out weeks? after Husband’s second open heart surgery, when the physician’s assistant was removing the drainage tubes from his chest and abdomen and I heard the peculiar, specific, sucking, squishing thwok of that first seal being broken. Other times also, with no particular, obvious trigger, always after a crisis has passed, when the fear, emotion, excess caffeine, lack of sleep and often lack of decent nutrition hit me in a mundane moment of checking for a ripe avocado. This time my brain isn’t waiting until after. I’m panicked now.
I, Mrs Fringe, am fucking terrified. Our closest hospital is one we’ve been to many times, both their adult ER and the Peds ER sections. Many fine doctors there, some inpatient units are excellent, never had any problems in the ped ER. The adult ER? Another story entirely, and over the years it’s gotten worse and worse, to the point where I’ve said I will not go there for anything anymore. Why? Because they’re chronically understaffed, and an understaffed and overcrowded ER is dangerous, no matter how good and well trained the nurses are. Less than a year ago we were there, Husband, it was a guy from housekeeping who turned on the oxygen and gave him a nasal canula when I couldn’t get a doctor or nurse to come over when his o2 was dropping. One story of many, and that’s with me there, staying out of the way when I can/need to and making noise when I need to do that too. Again, not the fault of uncaring or lackadaisical nurses, but the limits of how many high needs patients any one person can reasonably care for, with new patients streaming in and needing assessments every few minutes. Stretchers stacked like a damned game of Tetris, many times I watched workers from transport needing to move 4-10 patients just to reach the patient they were there for and be able to get them to their next stop in the hospital.
I stay when Husband is in. I stay when Art Child is in. For all our hospital time, we don’t go unless it’s absolutely necessary. And part of when an ER visit or hospital stay is absolutely necessary, by definition, means the person being seen/assessed/admitted isn’t feeling strong, maybe can’t speak, certainly can’t make a fuss if they need something and staff are busy elsewhere. Other hospitals. It was me who yelled for the nurses in the step-down CICU after Husband’s first open heart surgery, when he turned blue and all tubes and bags filled with blood, his aorta ruptured along the suture line of his new valve. Would they have come running thirty seconds later? Would thirty seconds have mattered? It might have, considering they needed to reopen his chest there in the room and manually pump his heart on the way back to the OR. Or when Husband was on a vent and the ICU dr decided this was the perfect time to preen for the nurses and show off how the temporary pacemaker leads were/weren’t working, giving unnecessary shocks until I spoke up because he didn’t know about damage to a nerve he was expecting to see a response from because of a prior surgery (Husband, obviously, unable to tell him). Or, less crucial but important, when we had the (thankfully rare) experience of an unkind EEG tech who was too rough placing leads on my girl’s head, and she was too terrified to do anything other than cry quietly. Or the times food service sent non-diabetic meals to Husband. Or the many other times when calories in take precedent over what type of calories, so I go out for foods to tempt while the hospital trays sit uneaten. Or with MIL, when some slick talker from billing came into the room to offer threats about insurance claims and what would be owed. Yes, I kindly invited him to get the fuck out and take it up with Medicare, not a vulnerable elderly woman who’d had her chest cracked open two days before who’d only been off the vent a matter of hours.
These are just a few bad moments of lapsed or potential lapsed treatment in otherwise great care, with many, mostly reassuring moments. Every ICU nurse I’ve ever interacted with (Peds, cardiac, or general) has been great to oh my god this person should be nominated for sainthood). ICU nurses are extraordinary, with training that goes well beyond the nurse drawing blood at your local GP’s office. But when hospitals have literally overflowed into tents, it isn’t just equipment that will be in short supply, it will be staff, doctors, nurses, nurses aides, physician’s assistants, because both there are too many patients and because they themselves who are getting sick.
Yes, there are the very real extra fears that go with knowing people in my immediate world are particularly vulnerable to more severe manifestations of this virus because of pre-existing conditions. And it’s more than that. If one of those I love needs to be admitted because of Covid-19, or what about the non-Covid-19 related reasons I have the experiences I do that haven’t magically disappeared, how will I be able to just leave them there? Maybe in a hospital, maybe in a fucking tent? Nerd Child isn’t even here. He’s safe and healthy, for now, but if things go sideways and he was to get sick? I couldn’t go to him. If Husband or Art Child or Man Child was to need hospitalization he couldn’t come to be with them either. The thought of walking away, not being there if Husband is on a vent? Literally makes me sick. One of my children? I can’t imagine it, because the pain of that very real possibility overwhelms my ability to paint that mental picture. But I can’t stop thinking about it, at least the edges of the possibility, because I have been there in “normal” times. Our normal abnormal. In fully staffed hospitals with all the needed equipment. It’s knowing that if medical equipment needs to be rationed, there’s the very real possibility those preexisting conditions will render them ineligible for a needed ventilator. It’s the incredibly stupid comments I continue to see and hear online, in the news, in the community, from stupid people still blaming the ACA, or Obama, or saying those same rationing conditions existed under “Obamacare.” Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
If you’ve never experienced a loved one on a ventilator I’m glad for you. I hope you never do. It’s awful, and illness, injuries and novel viruses don’t give a shit who you vote for. But for those of us who have, repeatedly, who deal with chronic illness and disorders that make things like staffing patterns, hospital admissions, ICUs (hell, the fact that we “joke” about July being the worst time to have a crisis requiring admission because that’s when the new residents come on board), know the best cart to get coffee from part of our basic facts of life, there’s an entirely different level to this hell we call the Covid-19 pandemic.
This isn’t a potential crisis, it is a crisis. It’s real and it’s here. That was a few days ago. As of last night, there were 26,697 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in this city, 5,250 hospitalized, 1,175 in ICUs, and 450 deaths. Those numbers are just in NYC, just the confirmed cases. It may or may not be futile, but I’m doing all I can to keep me and mine safe, keep others safe from us should one of us get it. Please, please, all of you do the same.
There’s a bit from the manuscript I’m querying that keeps going round in my head. Is it in poor taste to quote from my own work? Do rules about poor taste apply when we’re in the midst of a pandemic and facing the apocalypse? *shrug* I’ll quote it anyway.
He should have missed me. Pined for me when we weren’t speaking, begun to waste without my dumplings. But in fact he looked fine when I snuck upstairs and watched him hauling cases of clean glasses to the bar. Healthy. Maybe he’d gained a pound or two. How could that be? I was good for him, damn it. I would be there, even later, when he got sicker and most people got afraid. Maybe. If he wanted. If I wanted. I turned my mind sideways, so’s not to think how people could be good and bad for each other at the same time. Simulcast, like a presidential speech, or a Grateful Dead concert, when the sound was supposed to line up from the TV and the radio exactly right, but there was always that lag, so you didn’t know where to put your ears.
That last bit, not knowing where to put your ears. That’s how I feel these days, but I don’t know where to put my mind, can’t quite think about anything straight on without needing to let my thoughts slide to the next, and yet now matter how much slip sliding between the neurons, those thoughts always slide to another aspect of Covid-19. The danger to my family, personally, health-wise? Slip. The economic ramifications? Slide. The thought that if one of my loved ones ends up hospitalized I don’t think I’d be allowed to actually, physically be with them? Slither. The entire country changing forever? Well, that one is something we’ve been looking at for close to four years now, isn’t it? Sigh. And what I’m talking about today. New York. The city. My New York.
The rate of confirmed cases in New York City is, so far, following the terrifying curve that’s been expected, with confirmed cases rising exponentially. For the most part the parameters for testing are still strict because of limited tests available, so when I say there were close to 4000 confirmed cases by late yesterday afternoon, it isn’t my imagination run wild to say there are likely tens of thousands of actual cases through the city already, confirmed or not, severe or not, symptomatic or not. The only thing moving faster than the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in NY right now is the number of jobs lost, which dwarfs the number sick &/or testing positive. People in the music industry, hospitality, restaurants, retail, on and on.
Much of the city looks like a movie set right now. The flats and backdrops are there, subway cars empty and waiting, lighting is right, but still far from filming, only a few people moving about here and there. I know that is good news, our best and–except for testing (out of individual control) and hand washing–only defense. Still creepy as fuck.
Being a born and bred New Yorker is its own cultural identity. You can be anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world, and if you say you’re a New Yorker, people have images that come to mind. Images of the tourist traps you avoid, the cultural institutions you grew up frequenting, the shops and restaurants they’ve maybe dreamed of visiting but for you are–were?–daily life. If, like me, you’re of a certain age and/or from certain boroughs, you don’t actually have to identify yourself as a New Yorker, not for nothing but your accent does it for you, recognized no matter where you are.
Broadway is dark. I love live theater, and yes, I love Broadway shows. I haven’t been able to go regularly in years, out of budget, but man oh man, nothing like it. Those shows are mind-bogglingly expensive to produce and run. With weeks, maybe months, of no sales, how is it going to get up and running again? And those are the big boys, what about the off-off Broadway shows?
The Metropolitan Opera laid off its union employees yesterday. Union employees. Think about that.
Though still technically allowed to run delivery/pick up service, many of the restaurants have closed. Restaurants in New York, even the top ones with the Big Name Chefs, run on a very, very narrow margin. The restaurants everyone has seen on tv shows/movies, read about in Page 6, and or the local corner joints that have been serving locals for decades. Katz’s Deli (1903), Lombardi’s Pizza (1905), Peter Luger (1887), Tavern on the Green (1934), The Rainbow Room (1934), Totonno’s (1924), The Russian Tea Room (1927), Delmonico’s (1837), Sylvia’s (1962), Nathan’s (1916), Jing Fong (1978), Russ & Daughters (1914), Barney Greengrass (1908) and I’m guessing literally, easily, a hundred others people world wide would recognize the name or interior shots of. Weeks/months of no income?
And the shops. Not just the big names that are more of a tourist attraction than shopping expedition for most (Bloomingdale’s, Tiffany’s, Bergdorf Goodman), but the ones that are known through the city and often across the world. Shops that represent New York, make this city this city. Mood Fabric, Matt Umanov Guitar’s, Rudy’s Music, Canal Street Market, Moscot’s Eyewear, Kiehl’s, and on and on and on. I can’t think anymore.
I’m no stranger to long running businesses closing their doors, no New Yorker is. With the rise of commercial rents having gone from ludicrous to impossible over the past couple of decades, the sight of a beloved local shop gated with a big long sign saying goodbye, thank you, and after X generations we’ve had to close because we lost our lease (only to sit empty for months, years, before being replaced by yet another half empty high rise, a CVS, a Starbucks, a bank whose name is going to change by the time you blink because it’s been absorbed by another bank) is a familiar one. Always a moment for sadness and reflection on how very clean and cold and corporate so many old favorite areas have become. But not everywhere, and not all the businesses.
So I’m thinking, when we get to the other side of this–and we will, whether it’s weeks, months, or over a year–what will be left of New York? My New York, our New York. Who and what businesses will be able to ride it out in this city of those that represent the city and the people in it, not the chain outposts that are already all too common a sight. Yes, we are a constantly evolving city, it’s what allowed it to become an icon and identity unto itself, self-absorbed though it may be. But those often small, multi-generational, not necessarily big name or big dollar places? They’re the heart that keeps beating.
The question on everyone’s lips. Well, not everyone, some are still licking toilet seats because they think it’s funny or just moaning about the inconvenience of bar closings, having to cancel vacations, having to self-quarantine if ill/possibly exposed to Covid-19. But pandemic or not, stupid’s gonna stupid and selfish is gonna selfish. The good news is there are also incredibly generous people working to feed the hungry/about to be hungry, some (too few) companies who are continuing to pay employees they’ve been forced to lay off or furlough while their doors are shuttered.
But back to the question. I am not ok. I know this, knew it, thought if I acknowledged the fact it would help keep my anxiety under control. Until Husband’s appointment yesterday with his young, upbeat doctor who just a couple of months ago said I was feisty, whose face was somber and I found myself having to work not to cry in response. The above photo of the hallway in the hospital? Yeah, that hallway is usually a hub of activity with an outpatient lab, cash machine, tea/snack kiosk just behind, and elevators leading to many of the individual doctor’s offices and departments. more than once we’ve had to wait for one of the elevators to arrive and open a second or third time because they were just too crowded. Not yesterday.
For everyone who is practicing social distancing, there are many of us who can’t stay home for two or three weeks, or six months, or a year, or however long this breath holding season is going to be. There are people performing essential services who have to go to work–and don’t kid yourself, it isn’t only doctors, nurses, police, firefighters and EMTs who are performing essential services–it’s also your pharmacist, grocery store workers, sanitation workers, truck drivers, bus and train operators, etc. And people who have to get to the doctor for appointments that can’t be put off if we’re going to try to avoid needing an array of doctors, nurses, and hospital beds for non-Covid-19 related reasons.
There would never be a good year for a pandemic, but this timing feels particularly devastating. This is a life altering event. Fuck, this is a world altering event. On a personal level, Husband and Art Child, who would both always be vulnerable, are both at points where they have no reserves for their bodies to call on. Mother in Law, who’s at a stage where every year seems to take an exponential toll. Nerd Child is in his senior year of college, campus now closed, though he was able to successfully petition to stay because of extenuating circumstances. Great! Except eek! he’s still my heart, and I really, really hate having him far from me during this. Man Child, who is currently strong, healthy, and miraculously still employed for the moment, but don’t think for a second I’m not thinking about him having contracted viral meningitis less than two years ago.
I was still reeling, just beginning to process the medical mayhem of the last several months for our family when this virus hit the US. On a national level, when we have someone sitting in the Oval Office who doesn’t understand the definition of civil service, or science, or compassion. At a time when it couldn’t be more clear the US needs nationalized health care, the citizens are showing with every Democratic primary they don’t want it. Not enough, not yet. On an international level, with not only our country deciding they miss the good old days of nationalism and sanctified subjugation, and global climate change threatening everyone and everything.
I haven’t been able to focus to escape into reading. Or writing. Or querying. Can’t stress bake because my building has a gas leak, we will have no gas (means no stove/oven) for who knows how many months. I’m still doing my yoga every morning, checking in with friends through text, email, and social media, here at home we’re counting toilet paper squares but we have enough food. I’m hand washing and disinfecting and elbow sneezing, no-face-touching (iffy on that one, it’s freaking hard!), and you better believe there is no toilet licking. At this point no one in my immediate circle has or seems to have Covid-19, but way too much of this is out of my control.
So here we are, in the year of 1918 and 1929 decided to have a baby and call it 2020.
I am hanging in and hanging on, doing what needs to be done, but I’m not ok, how about you?
Asses up: is burying my head in the reservoir the same as burying my head in the sand?
Recently I’ve seen a bunch of tweets/comments in the writing world about writing that strike me as…odd. That it isn’t the writing that matters, it’s the story. Umm, what? Yeah, yeah, I know, there are books/stories that are plot driven and those that are character driven, and there are different readers who read for different reasons. But. If I begin a novel and it doesn’t have a strong voice and or strong writing, I don’t care about the story and will stop reading. The opposite is also true, if the voice/writing is strong and the story sucks, I’ll continue to read and still love the book. Obviously, a great book will have it all, most writers strive to create it all, but many don’t. Including, yes, many published and sometimes lauded and/or bestselling stories.
But I’m also seeing the flip side– don’t-worry-about-publication, just write for the love of it, doesn’t matter if you’re ever/never published. Strangely enough, this statement is usually made by people who are published and don’t seem to be renouncing future contracts. Hmm. Yes, I understand where the statement is coming from: rep/publication will bring new pressures, doesn’t solve everything. Nothing does.
I do love to write, oh, the feeling you’ve nailed the phrase, the scene, the word. The other side is the lousy, practically adolescent (at 50,000 years old) angst of rejections. You have to have thick skin, they say. Heh. I’ve robbed Peter to pay Paul, fed my family more than once with a mostly empty fridge and cash scrounged from behind the cushions, seen both my husband and my daughter stop breathing, dealt with more ologists, advocating for my loved ones as a lay person most would love to ignore, actually seen Husband’s heart taken from behind all those nice protective layers of skin, muscle, and bone. The literal start to my day involves measuring the necrotic tissue on Husband’s foot, adding to the photo record of it to track the spread. Yup, my skin is plenty thick, thanks. None of this means I don’t care about my words. As I’ve said many times, for me, half of writing is being read. And nothing, nothing is equivalent to when someone reads my words and comes back to tell me they felt them.
I’m a reader who also plays with words and worlds of my own. I tend to enjoy reading books that are more in line with what I write (not exclusively, a good thriller or sff can be great fun to read, but my imagination doesn’t lean that way for wording). I’m a ferocious reader, a voracious reader, a fucking excellent reader who takes more pleasure in a great book than anything outside of those lovely but boring to others mama-moments. Seriously, half the time I trip over the kids’ names when more than one of them is standing in front of me, but a great opening line –hell, a great line in the middle of a novel– will stay with me forever.
Characters, oh I want characters who are fresh and raw and real. Who feel things deeply, who make me feel things deeply. It isn’t a fast pace, not even an imminent world war that’s going to make me feel, not a beautiful protagonist that will catch my reading eye, it’s the beautifully drawn world, even if, maybe especially if, it’s rich and dark and ugly; it’s the interesting narrative, sharp dialogue, it’s the words. Not is it realistic but does it feel/do these characters feel real? Making me ache is cool, but making me laugh is better, both is best. Does it make me want to move to Alaska in the middle of winter like when I reread The Snow Child? Yes, I want those sentences so lyrical, so clear and ringing I do stop reading and say goddamn, how did the author do that? Is this really the same language I use every day? A great book will somehow take me out of my everyday with characters who are everyman/woman. Characters I see myself and my people in: those who are struggling and striving and failing and pissed off. Characters whose stories shouldn’t be remotely interesting yet are.
In a surprise to no one I, Mrs Fringe, write fringe characters, the people in the background brought to the fore. They don’t save the world, most of the time they don’t even save themselves. If I was smart, as someone who loves playing with words, has no MFA, and wants to be published, I would work on stories and characters that are more commercial. More exciting, more elegant, more sexy, more triumphant. I guess I’m more stubborn than smart. And every time I get feedback from a reader who says yes, I felt her, I know him, every time I get one of those dreaded close but no cigar rejections–you know the ones, they’re personalized, offer specific and positive details but say nope, can’t place it, or not this time, try me/us again, every time I read a novel that rings so fucking true, it frustrates me to no end but also gooses me not to stop.
I’m not everyone, but I’m not the only one, either.
Yesterday for the first–and likely only–time this summer, Husband, Art Child and I made it to the beach together. This means we didn’t take the train to my beloved Brooklyn beach, but went to New Jersey. The water is colder, the waves rougher, you have to actually pay and get a little bracelet/badge thing to step onto the sand, but Husband prefers it. Sure, the sand in Brooklyn is finer and softer, but the Jersey shore doesn’t have chunks of glass sprinkled throughout. No, I don’t mean collectible beach glass, I mean bits from leftover broken bottles. Husband’s got those diabetic feet, extra care must be taken. Me? I’ve got feet like a goat, toughened from childhood and teenaged days walking on those Brooklyn beaches, and nights spent on the boardwalk–which, at the time, was not smooth and sanded like someone’s backyard deck. I’d get home each evening and spend twenty minutes with a pair of tweezers, removing splinters I hadn’t even felt going in. Do goats get splinters?
We’d only been there a little while and were standing at the shore debating the waves when a young couple walked by–twenties? thirties? and the man stopped to compliment Husband. If you’re someone who pays attention to that stuff, it makes sense, Husband appears very fit. To tell the truth, I didn’t notice the couple until I was seeing their backs, and his back looked like a guy who spends some time working on his body. But yanno what they say, looks can be deceiving. I was a young teenager when I met Husband, he had 6-pack abs and was all buff, has stayed that way through the decades. All these years, never saw him do a sit-up, he never went to a gym, etc. He’s got whatever it is that makes some men go bald early and develop a new muscle from a vigorous sneeze. Good genes. On the outside. His insides? Not so much. Which has had a toll on the outside. It isn’t like the man thought my husband was twenty years younger than he is. No wrinkles, but his beard and chest hair are white, he’s got scars running down his chest and across his abdomen from open heart surgeries and various drainage tubes, a continuous glucose monitor planted in his side, and pretty much permanent bruises from the multiple insulin injections he gives himself daily–because needles and blood thinners aren’t a match made in heaven–and he’s much narrower than he used to be, muscles shrank some after that first open heart surgery. Do those twenty pounds count as lost if I picked them up and kept them for myself? But he still looks damned fine, and it’s reasonable for anyone seeing him on the beach to assume he spends regular time at the gym.
Husband was amused by the compliment, probably forgot about it a minute later, because it wasn’t a big deal, no long interaction. I kept thinking about it–prompted no doubt by the young women sunbathing behind us having a loud and running conversation about planned plastic surgeries and the horrors of aging and pregnancies on women’s bodies. I was tempted to shake my saggy bits in front of them. For whatever progress has been made in our society, the marriage of ageism and misogyny is alive and well. No one is likely to walk up to a woman of a certain age who looks her age and tell her what great shape she’s in. Women can and will be complimented on the shape they’re in only if they also look younger than they are. Women aren’t supposed to look their age, and if they do, if god forbid it’s remarked upon, it’s an insult. Why is that? Unless we’re in positions of power, women on the wrong side of the aging hill are largely invisible. If you are a woman in a position of power, you’d best look younger than you are, get those Botox injections or you’ll be pilloried and lose that position. The weird thing about all this? For a non-public, non-powerful regular gal, it can be a relief. Because as women, a compliment from a stranger can’t be taken without an assessment of whether that compliment is actually a dis or worse, a threat. I like to think of aging as nature’s invisibility cloak, woven of gray hair and gravity.
The only thing better than a beach day is a beer on the beach day. Sadly, this photo is from last month, and I’ve only made it the beach a couple of times this year. Life.
A couple of weeks ago was the Mrs Fringe blog-o-versary. I celebrated in Fringie style by intending to post about running this blog for the past six years, but was distracted by life and there went that.
Here’s the thing about living with chronic bouts of medical mayhem. It doesn’t take much, doesn’t take long to have all the doctor, specialist, emergency room visits meld into one long this-is-the-entirety of life. And it isn’t knowing too much about what’s being said in medical-ese, it’s the sneaky tidbit that comes from behind you and smashes you upside the head with an anvil. Like knowing exactly which bathroom is likely to be the emptiest/cleanest at any given time of day at your most visited ER.
I was joking with one of my writing friends last week, and told her to send me a rejection email so I could feel like a person. She didn’t, but the writing gods were with me and I did get one from an agent a few days later. Sounds a bit crazy to say that, eh? Not just because rejection, but because querying, in and of itself, can often feel dehumanizing. But rejections can be ok, they’re a reminder of person-hood and productivity. And this was a lovely one, personalized, complimentary, and brief. Well, maybe it is a bit crazy to talk about good rejections, but it’s a crazy business.
In addition to commentary on all the political muck, there’s been a lot of industry muck going around recently on social media, stories of agents who aren’t ethical, etc. I follow, pay attention, but don’t say much because I have no personal experience; I’m unagented and have never been strung along by a shmagent. I’d like to say the latter is the result of my sophisticated New Yorker radar, but that would be nonsense. It’s luck. I’m no different than any other wannabe who plays with words, knowing exactly how slim the odds are, and yet investing hours and days and weeks and months, sometimes years, into creating fictional people and living in their worlds, because it could happen. I could get signed, one of my manuscripts could get picked up. I want to think I wouldn’t get suckered, but I can see exactly how and why that damned hope could override any warning signs.
Yesterday there was an interesting thread on the writer’s forum, it’s been discussed many times before, and I don’t think what it became was the original question/intent, but it was a plot vs writing thread. Which is more important to readers, likelihood of being picked up, that kind of thing. Yah, yah, the best novels have both, but most novels aren’t *the best,* and have one or two strengths, not perfection. I enjoy a broad variety of books, literary and genre (nonfiction, too), but if I had to pick one, I lean towards the literary. I can forgive/ignore a lot of plot holes for an interesting character. As a reader, that’s fine, there are always many fine novels to choose from.
As someone who plays with words with an eye towards publication, it couldn’t be a poorer choice. If I was smart–practical–someone who wanted to improve the odds of their dream becoming real, I would work on a tightly plotted thriller with an intern who saves cyberspace, or an epic dark fantasy with a fairy who saves the world, or beautiful, eternally young vampires giving fangtastic blowjobs to shapeshifters–while saving the world.
I’m not that smart. The New Thing I talked about in my last post? I’m still working on it. Took a week off because of the medical mayhem, got back to it the other day. I’m not a fast writer, but if I’m in it, I’m in it, and will average 1000 words every writing session. I’m all in with this angry, unlikeable and unapologetic older woman. This morning I woke intending to open the file and begin the next scene, but instead sat and thought about how thoroughly impractical this story is if I care about finding an agent. And/or being published. There went the day’s words, eaten by angst and shoulda woulda couldas.
There is such a thing as a practical dreamer. I wish it was me, but it isn’t. I I love this story–even though most of it is barely more than a shadow at this point, and I am having too much fun with this character. When my words aren’t lost to practicality and medical mayhem.
What the hell, might as well go all in on the angst:
mrsfringe 