blergh + breaks

My workload has subsided somewhat, having finished the monster report, but Dan's has increased. We're both struggling to find creative time in each day.

However: I changed the storyline/structure of my novel and now it's suddenly way more fun to write. I'm actually dying every day for that delicious hour or two when I can put away the paying gig and crank out a page. Yay. I wish I'd felt this way when we first arrived in Hope, when I had entire days free to write, but it feels good anyway.

Of course, we take some breaks. Catan (Tim shown here workin' on a Longest Road):


Pool (the most contact my skin has sustained with the sun since I was a teenager):


Sunset in Broad Ripple:


In other news, my friend Janet from grad school just published her book, The Creepy Girl (the title was my suggestion, she tells me, though I have no recollection of this), and it's getting amazing reviews. Buy it, if you wanna be creeped! And Rachel says John's finished his book too! More inspiration to crank.

blergh.

Okay actually this kind of sucks. I'm working 15-hour days writing this research report, seriously from waking to sleeping minus tiny breaks for eating and and one Deadwood at midnight. Plus I'm getting more writing offers. A chunk of October is already blocked off for a project, and even a bit of November. I've turned down a couple small jobs but I don't have the guts to turn them all down; it's just not in my constitution. (What if they stop coming?)

Anyway, um, you might want to stop expecting a completed novel from me when I come home. It's looking unlikely. *giant sigh* What a privileged problem to have, I know I know, boohoo. I was looking for a job and then I found a job and heaven knows I'm miserable now.

You can keep expecting tons from Dan, though! Tee hee.

reality i accept you

My week has been all work. I'm preparing the analysis of the research I did in NY/SF, plus I have another freelance copywriting assignment. Dan too has had some requests from the home office, although he's still finding time for music, whereas it's been over a week since I've opened the looming "MY BOOK" folder on my desktop (named to distinguish it from the $$ folders, as in BARB'S BOOK and BARTENDER'S BOOK). It sucks, sure; this isn't what I came here to do. But at the same time, the role of reality in our vacation is part of what makes the whole plan so great. It's not just a fantasy. Money is necessary, obvs, and the fact that we're still making it even with all this flexibility gives us hope that this lifestyle can possibly be, to some degree anyway, sustainable.

Dan's not in the same omg zone I described last week -- he seems to have good days and so-so days -- but on the whole he seems upbeat about what he's creating. And he's eating so well! We're cooking vegan meals and doing yoga and just generally being retardedly Californian. But Dan, as is his style, is taking it all the way. He's entering his third week of hardcore Fuhrman eating, and DAYUMN he looks good. As for me, well, Pat just ordered two cases of It's-Its from San Francisco, which arrived in a rather dramatic presentation of smoking dry ice, so my diet has been vegan + It's-Its. I recommend it!

senda salami to your boy in the army

After two full days in my New York hotel, it came to my attention that Bridget and Giovanni were also in New York. Uh what? I had an unexpected morning off, and the three of us wandered around the EV and LES, strategizing ways to achieve bi-coastal living while eating candy and getting tomato-faced from the sun. Our wanderings included a typical new-New York coffee shop (an Adam C haunt) but then lots of Mad Men era (ok Peggy-specific) spots like Katz's Deli and Economy Candy:





Then I had just enough time to meet Angela for lunch. Ange and I were roommates at Berkeley and came to New York for the summer of 2001 to be interns, which was everything you'd expect: sharing the world's tiniest room, scrounging pennies from our laundry pile, finding grand importance in every moment simply because we were in New York, etc. She's doing amazingly well, btw! She excaped the NY magazine industry just before it imploded and now works at Macy's as a copywriter, while also writing screenplays and becoming a media mogul (video journalism site coming soon). Forgot to take pics but she looks exactly the same.

I really love New York. Trying to remind myself not to glamorize it too much and remember why I left, but it's hard when everything is so damn timeless and inspiring and urgent and the people are all so abruptly nice and even the weather is perfect. I just want to live everywhere all at once.

pause

I'm in New York on business; haven't touched the novel in days. I knew this project would happen, and I knew it would mean a lengthy pause in my writing, but it came faster and harder than I expected. So now Dan is totally kicking my ass at Concentration Vacation. He's got a sweet setup in one of the bedrooms, the one that Grandma furnished especially for my brother and I when we were kids. Anytime we get home, whether it's from grocery shopping or a Tim Brickley and the Bleeding Hearts show, Dan immediately disappears in there for hours. He is IN the ZONE. I'm stoked for him, if a bit jealous.


But I will say, it feels nice to be challenged by Actual Work, or maybe just by something outside of my own brain. And to be bringin' home some juicy bacon. And New York! I had a few hours this afternoon to be free in the city, and it made me really jones to live here again in a non-student state of mind. This city is so much better when you're not penniless and stressed and living on 130th.

I know we're falling behind update-wise, but Pat just got me a new camera as a belated barfday present, so stay tuned. Indianapolis has been really really fun and relaxing and we have soooo much space and peace and I'll tell you all about it soon, or maybe Dan will get bored out there without me and decide to contribute to the blog hmmm? Unrelated: my hotel has janky wifi so I have to sit in the lobby to write this, and sitting next to me is a very tired-looking businessman in nice slacks and loafers, half-napping, listening to a blaring iPod, audible even over the lobby's smoove jazz, and I just caught the chorus coming from his earbuds: Oh Mandy / You came and you gave without taking. !!?? Not lying! Manilow! Divorce, maybe? *only-in-new-york headshake*