234. As a young reporter in 1970, I was assigned to review a musical billed as a tryout for Broadway. I declared the production a “pleasant enough way to spend a summer evening, but in its current form, it’s not up to bigger and better things.” Always trying to spice my pieces, I concluded that the experience was like being served a full meal of melba toast—you come away “full but not satisfied.” A few days later, while I was reporting for a feature, a young woman recognized my name and said, “Usually these reviews are puff pieces.” She paused and added, “Yours was interesting.” And a few days later, I was interviewing a chamber group that would be performing at the same arts center where the musical was running. One of the musicians recognized my name and said, “The people from the show were talking about you. They hate you.”
235. “I’ve Got to Pass Your House to Get to My House” (written by Lew Brown, sung by Bing Crosby)
236. I spent ten minutes untangling the wires connected to a pair of headphones I put in a drawer alongside assorted wired devices. I do not recall spending any time tangling the wires before I closed the drawer. I have spent several hours of my life untangling wires, and I have never consciously tangled anything. It must be something I do.
237. In the mid-1970s I saved up to buy a reconditioned IBM Selectric II typewriter, the typesetting machine of choice for non-funded small magazines. The characters populated a tiny globe called an element. If you smooshed two keystrokes, the machine would remember which order you hit them and space the letters evenly on the page. (In effect, the Selectric had a RAM of one bite.) Writer friends came over to use my Selectric; someone commented, “Wow, I didn’t know civilians were allowed to have these.” I was told when I bought it that I would need to have a service contract with IBM because there’s a thin cable connected to a “gear shift” that tends to snap. And snap it did, every few months, but one quick call would result in an IBM repairman showing up, sometimes the same day; for the first time, I felt cared for by a giant corporation. When I took a writer-in-residence position at the Interlochen Arts Academy in northern Michigan, I didn’t think I could write without my Selectric. I had it shipped, and a couple of weeks into the term I returned to my cottage to find the box on my porch. I plugged it in, got the motor humming and started to type. Snapped cable. The nearest service center was downstate, hours away. The next day a serviceman drove up and fixed the cable. Before long, people were knocking on my door to use my typewriter.
238. Molly Bloom: “Excuse bad writing am in hurry. Byby.”
239. On the way toward a glorious rainbow, a snake in the grass came across a stick in the mud. “Don't you just love the feel of dew on the belly?” the snake said, but the stick didn't answer so the snake hissed and slithered on. The snake came across a bump on a log and said, “Nice weather for the ducks; would you like to share one?” but the bump was mum so the snake hissed and slithered on. The snake came across a hole in the wall and said, “Hey there, what're you looking at?” but the hole was mute so the snake hissed and slithered on. The snake came across a hooker with a heart of gold and said, “You and me, what do you say?” But the hooker turned away from the snake because she had just accepted a college scholarship, so the snake hissed and slithered on. The snake came to the end of the glorious rainbow and spotted a pot of gold. “I'm not falling for that,” the snake hissed and slithered on.
240. I am taking Clinical Psychology in college and use that as justification for taking advantage of the free psychotherapy offered by faculty—it’s research. Talking to my therapist is like opening up with a friend, and I always feel slightly rebuffed when he says, “We have to knock it off.” We exchange a couple of cards after I graduate, and when I visit campus we meet for lunch. He tells me he’s at the college because he was miserable treating really sick patients. I ask about his wife, whom I have met a couple of times, and am shocked when he tells me that they are separated. I remember seeing a picture of his two kids, and I ask how his children are coping. He pauses with his roast beef sandwich in his hand and says, evenly, “How much do you charge?” We finish our lunch and I never see him again.
241. Two children on subway; one gets seat next to mom, his sister must stand grasping the pole. She smiles and narrates as she dances: “I get to stand up, spin around, touch the ground.”
242. In my early years of teaching I bought a briefcase, but it didn’t work for cramming books and folders on the fly. Each week The New Yorker ran a small ad for a Danish School Bag at a place called the Chocolate Soup on the Upper East Side. One of the testimonials was “This bag got me though law school.” I wanted one, badly. I was nervous about going to the store—Upper East Side, New Yorker, law school and all—and thought I had made a mistake when Chocolate Soup turned out to be a tiny children’s store. But yes, they did have the Danish School Bag, which the store owner had fallen in love with while traveling and arranged to sell in her store. Twenty-five years later I had lunch with one of my early students. I asked her what she remembered from those years when she was in elementary school coming—sometimes two or three times a week—to the Teachers & Writers Collaborative room at P.S. 75. “Your bag,” she replied. “You had the coolest bag. Then Lisa found out where you got it and bought one. We hated her for it.”
243. It’s fine to write something corny, as long as it’s fresh off the cob, hot, and sweet.
