I just saw a face

I forgot!  At the Joyce Carol Oates reading I saw this actor and could not for the life of me remember where I’d seen him.  He’s semi-famous too because he was recognizable!  Damn, I cannot remember what I’ve seen this guy in.  Do you know how infuriating that is?

I don’t know why I can’t stop watching, but I just can’t look away

If any of these are ever on and I have a lot of shit to get done, someone please just take the remote away from me.

*Dirty Dancing

*Murder By Numbers

*Rules of Attraction

*The Starter Wife

*The Ninth Gate

*Showgirls

Where are you going, where have you been

1996- I spend two weeks in August at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp for the first time. All the cabins are grouped in “units” which are named fine-artsy things like Big Band, Bandwagon, etc. All the cabins have corresponding names. I am in the Villanelle unit, in the cabin known as “Oates.” Apparently all the cabins in our unit are named after women writers. I considered myself a fairly well-read 13-year-old and had never heard of this Oates person.

Later in 1996- I read the book Foxfire. I picked it up because a) I liked the name, and b) it was being made into a film. The book features charming topics like girl gangs, teenage aggression, hooking, and a particularly savory scene where a woman with mental retardation gets gang-banged in the woods. Am scarred for life.

1997- I finally catch the movie version of Foxfire on cable one day. It’s not even the same story.

2001- I read “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” in English 100. Traumatized yet again.

2003- I read “Ghost Girls” in my creative writing workshop. Yep, traumatized. I also read “The Strand Used Books 1956″ and for once, am not traumatized, but enchanted.

2007- Joyce Carol Oates makes an appearance at the Borders on Broad Street in Philadelphia. She is frail-looking, slow-speaking and conservative in manner, not at all the kind of person one would expect to publish writing that has traumatized me all these years. She reads a bit from her new book, Gravedigger’s Daughter, and then answers some questions. Some choice gems:

“The Irish, they’re the ones who will break your heart.”

“When you write, you have to make the decision whether you want to include only a few details, like Hemingway, so your writing will move faster and have a more cinematic flow to it, or if you want to include a lot of details like Faulkner or Dickens or Joseph Conrad and really slow your reader down so they can get a sense of atmosphere and setting.”

“Sometimes when I write a novel, I get so caught up in it that I have to take a break from it and write a short story just to break up the intensity.”

(my favorite) “I teach at Princeton, and in the writing of my students, you really get a sense that they believe that history begins with them. I think my students are very aware that they live in a very politically debased time, yet they still retain such a sense of idealism, like they want to make the world a better place and that it doesn’t always have to be this way. Because of that, most of the energy in my writing tends to come from the younger characters.”

Wilco

I dreamed about killing you again last night
And it felt alright to me
Dying on the banks of Embarcadero skies
I sat and watched you bleed
Buried you alive in a fireworks display
Raining down on me
You cold, hot blood ran away from me
To the sea

I painted my name on the back of a leaf
And I watched it float away
The hope I had in a notebook full of white, dry pages
Was all I tried to save
But the wind blew me back via Chicago
In the middle of the night
And all without fight
At the crush of veils and starlight

I know I’ll make it back
One of these days and turn on your TV
To watch a man with a face like mine
Being chased down a busy street
When he gets caught, I wont get up
And I wont go to sleep
I’m coming home, I’m coming home
Via Chicago

Where the cups are cracked and hooked
Above the sink
They make me think
Crumbling ladder tears don’t fall
They shine down your shoulders
And crawling is screw faster lash
I blow it with kisses
I rest my head on a pillowy star
And a cracked door moon
That says I havent gone too far

I’m coming home
I’m coming home
Via Chicago

Searching for a home
Searching for a home
Searching for a home
Via Chicago

I’m coming home
I’m coming home

Let’s try this again.

I am starting this because

a) I am going to be in Philly a little longer than I thought.

b) I miss writing.

c) My friend base is now even more spread out than it was two years ago.

I think I’ll start with a story from a few years ago, because I think it’s appropriate, don’t you?

*********************

“I’m sorry, but I think you’re beautiful, and I was wondering if you wanted to join me for coffee later this week?”

I looked up from the book I was reading–I don’t remember the title now–and my eyes panned over a pair of sneakers, skinny ankles with no socks, runner’s calves, a nice face. Probably not a psycho.

“I can’t,” I said. “I’m moving to Philly tomorrow.”

His nice face fell slightly. “Oh.” I wondered if he thought I was lying. I still could barely believe it myself. Then I decided that it was just outlandish enough of an answer to be believable. Fleetingly, I pondered the acute irony of the situation. Here I was, in a bookstore, living a scene right out of a chick flick–the kind of scene that we scoff at, not because of the sheer improbability of it, but because it is not probable–and I was starting a new chapter of my life in 24 hours. That was just the kind of luck I had. I would have found it frustrating or bittersweet if it were not for the fact that I myself was mildly amused at how ridiculous it all was.

“So what are you doing in Philly?” he asked.

“I’m going to be a teacher.” It sounded awkward in my mouth. A lie that wasn’t.

“That’s cool, what are you going to teach?”

“Middle school social studies.”

“Social studies. That’s cool. So why are you moving to Philly to teach?” Prolonging a conversation for purposes that were never going to be served–haven’t we all been there. I tried to see myself from his perspective: small, sitting cross-legged on the carpet like a child, black sweater, pale face, curly dark head bent over a book. How old did he think I was? Was he also doubting my choice to be a teacher, my potential to lead groups of unruly children to academic success? No, he had too nice a face for that. The kind of guy that asks a girl out on a whim in a bookstore is not a skeptic. More likely he found it charming that I was sitting on the floor, when in reality it was just more comfortable. More likely he found it fascinating that I was so engrossed in my book. And now, he probably found it interesting that I was moving halfway across the country to teach. He probably thought of me as plucky, bookish, a risk-taker–and in reality, I am none of those things, I don’t think.

What he did not see. The nervous, borderline-pleased flutterings at picking up and starting over in a brand-new city where I didn’t know anyone, something none of my friends were doing. The anxious stirrings that I would forget something very important behind and jeopardize my whole summer. But most of all, the sheer terror below all that, solid and relentless as a block of ice at my core: what if I failed, what if I made no new friends, what if my students hated me, what if I was actually a terrible teacher, what if I taught them all the wrong things, what if I couldn’t find an apartment, what if I couldn’t earn enough money, what if I got fired, what if, what if, what if. I was blindfolded, walking along the edge of a windswept, lonely cliff. What if I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life? If I thought about the what ifs too much, they started to rise up in my throat like bile.

I did not like to discuss the what ifs even with my closest friends; I did not want to discuss the what ifs with this stranger, however nice his face might be. So, instead of the long, drawn-out answer to his question, the one that I had tired of repeating to people over and over again during the past two months, I simply said, “Well, that’s where I decided to teach.”

“Cool.” He nodded. “Well, good luck.”

“Thank you.” He walked away, his runner’s calves, his skinny ankles. I wondered if he was in the habit of picking girls up at the bookstore. Or perhaps this had been the first time he was able to work up the courage, and look at how it had turned out. Maybe that was his kind of luck. Either way, he had not known how his gamble would pay out, yet he had gone ahead and taken a leap anyway. And in that way, we were kind of alike.