hobnobbing

So I ran into Armistead Maupin the other day. Literally.

At least that's what I told my sister when I called her a few minutes later. I told her that we'd collided, and I'd said excuse me, and that a carful of men had ridden past in a converable, singing the 'lonely goatherd' song from The Sound of Music. This, I told her, was the reason I lived in the Castro. Stuff like this happens all the time.

In reality, there was a good three-foot saftey zone between the Armistead and I. We made passing eye contact, if even that. He was looking over something that looked like a bill, and I was regretting my shirt-choice and realizing I was late to work. No words were spoken, no limbs intertwined or even bumped. I didn't see the 'lonely goatherd' men until I went around the corner. Mary? Forgive me. I lied. I embellished.

But that's what writers do. We make the truth better. How do I know (well, besides the fact that I've been exaggerating since I learned how to talk)? Armistead told me (and a roomful of other writers) tonight, at the Novel Writing and Publshing Seminar at 826 Valencia. So there.

Uncanny Valley

A moth is sitting on my ring finger as I type this. It feels so strange -- not just tickly-strange, but unheimlich, like I'm breaking some deep-set and rooted taboo. Just my luck: sit down at my desk to finally write, next thing you know, I'm the Moth Bride.

Anyway. So I'm done with school. That might be fairly temporary though; I'm looking at a few grad programs (one a Ph.D, one yet another MFA), both of which have deadlines looming, both of which I might apply to. I say 'might' because I'm having trouble deciding which to go with, and because, well, I'm busy enough already.

Busy with what, you may ask, O imaginary reader. 'This and that,' I'd reply, and then we'd both sit and ponder how much of our lives are spent this-or-thating, and before you know it whole weeks dissapear out of the 'future' drawer, only to show up crammed inside in the overstuffed 'past' drawer and oh God the moth is going for my beer.

Anyway (did you know Brian has started counting how many 'anyways' it takes me to finally get to my point? Not all the time, that would be horrible, just sometimes, when I'm being especially pedantic and digressive). Anyway.

I have been busy. With the Day Job, which takes up an awful lot of air, despite only being 6 hours, thrice a week, and 3 hours, twice a week. And with getting ready for teaching next semester, which entails lots of reading & listening to lectures-on-tape, and basically giving myself my education thus far all over again, so that I don't feel underqualified. And with not writing, which takes up more time than you'd imagine.

Meanwhile summer's here, and even though seasons in San Francisco bear almost no resemblance to the ones I had growing up in Massachusetts, there's always that funny tug of memory when the weather changes (like the distinctive beach-ball smell of sunblock, which pulls me, for a moment, back into every summer day I've ever lived all at once).

And now I'm thinking about summer, and I've lost my train of thought entirely.