Last Day at the Job

Wow. Just...wow. It's hard to believe that four years have gone by since I first walked in the doors to my first full-time job. And what a day for a send off!

First, I came in to the news that the London office had been evacuated because of a nearby gas leak! No problem in the end, everyone was back to work by around noon/9am - but still!

As if that wasn't enough, around 1pm there was a fire alarm in the US office. We all ignored it at first--we have weekly (yes, WEEKLY) fire alarm tests so we're kind of numb to the announcement after the first startling whoop of the alarm--then the announcer said that there had actually been a smoke alert. The lower three floors were even evacuated! Barely 15 minutes later we got the all-clear, and a coworker of mine later got the scoop: Apparently someone had tossed a cigarette without extinguishing it. It rolled into a crack near the wall and whatever caulking they used on the sidewalk caught fire, setting off the alarm. By the time I left, there was no sign anything had happened.

Finally, since a day of getting lovely good-byes from friends, coworkers, and authors just couldn't be complete without one last SUSFU, an author who had been trying to change their back cover copy ever since the deadline to change back cover copy had already passed called up my editorial assistant and said that their production editor had said they could change the back cover copy with editorial approval. Not only had I personally spoken on the phone with this author three times explaining why the change was not possible, we had email evidence that the production manager had told the author that the change was not possible. So I had to spend my last hours as an editor coming down hard on alternative facts. A bit cathartic after the hectic two weeks I've had, but not quite how I wanted to go out. Ah well.

Anyway, in the way of the delightful American workplace, I start my new job as a Metadata Manager on Monday. Hopefully I'll do another post like the one I did about my internship once I'm a few months in. Erm, don't hold your breath.

Anyway, here's a quick summary:

Things I Will Miss

• All the people, of course!
• This:

• The glamour of saying, "I'm an editor" (before I started qualifying)
• Relatively regulated heat in the winter (sure am glad I took that space heater home when I left the Flatiron!)
• Fast elevators

Things I Won't Miss

• Hour-long commutes
• The ear-piercingly shrieky tracks on the subway between City Hall and Cortlandt Street

Things I'm Excited For

• Working in trade (the books most people read)
• Working with books in a ton of different genres
• The glamour of saying I work in the Flatiron
• Half-hour commutes!
• Free Book Day (also kind of dreading this...)
• New job in general - duh!

Reinforcements

Sorry for the silence. It’s been an emotional roller coaster for a couple weeks and I will admit that there have been a lot of low points. There have been some high points as well, so I’ll try to cover a bunch of them and not let myself be too gloomy.

I have no idea why I chose the word "reinforcement" for this entry, but I somehow just started thinking about how different applications of it kind of meshed with what was going on.

1) Backup (e.g. Additional Troops)

As those of you reading my blog are probably aware, my parents and youngest sister recently moved from north New Jersey back to Massachusetts. I couldn’t make it for the actual move, but I took a couple extra days around the long Labor Day weekend to help settle in.

I don’t think I realized just how unsettled the whole house still was until I got there, but that’s for later.

The house is, simply, gorgeous. The original granite exterior was built in the mid-1800s and expanded upon over the years to include a kitchen, enlarged sunny family room, and an attached garage. We’ve always wanted to live in a historical house and now some of us do, along with all the quirks: a very steep servants’ staircase, an uneven basement floor, an oddly placed slate patio overlooking the neighborhood cul-de-sac that used to be an Olympic-sized swimming pool, the crumbly remnants of a road in the backyard that used to be the front yard, the alternatingly chic and questionable style sense of the former owners. Oh, and a couple renovation projects.

That was probably the hardest part for me: because the top floor needs to be renovated, I wasn’t able to help with a lot of the unpacking. I got the guest room and my bookshelves and storage set up, tackled almost all of the dining room, made a big dent in alphabetizing the CDs and DVDs, and helped out with a few other projects around the house. Maybe when I’m back around Thanksgiving I’ll be able to help with some of the dozens of boxes of books…

The best/most frustrating part was that the movers didn’t do a great job of keeping everything labeled and organized by room. Mostly I noticed this when things were missing from the rooms that were mostly unpacked, but we also found a quite a few unexpected items. A box of Christmas decorations was labeled for my room, as were a few decorative objects from around our old entryway. The books and electronics from the family room, dad’s study, and the back room were mostly thrown together willy-nilly. I had two mostly empty closet boxes for my room even though there hadn’t been enough closet boxes for the rest of the family, but breakable mugs and figurines had been put in my dresser drawers without any padding.

Around the unpacking I did get a little fun in: I rescued three tiny turtles from the pool; went up to the roof to take a look at the crumbly chimney; walked to see a couple of the historic local not-witch houses; went into Boston’s North End for a nostalgic stroll by the marina, delicious lobster ravioli at Mother Anna’s, and cannolis to go from Mike’s. Part of me wishes I’d gotten to live in this awesome house in this cool area near this historic city—which may mean that Boston will have to be somewhere in my future.

2) Positive Reinforcement: Scientific Definition

As any psychology student can probably tell you, positive reinforcement doesn’t mean rewarding a desired behavior; it’s simply the addition of a stimulus or incentive to a situation to reinforce behavior. So that guy in Ghostbusters who was getting zapped for failing to predict cards correctly was actually receiving positive reinforcement (in his case, he’d prefer negative reinforcement: having the threat of zapping removed for answering correctly).

In the past couple of weeks, someone near the apartment has taken up smoking. First there’s the gentle scraping sound of the window screen going up, then the flick of a lighter, and a few minutes later I get to share the experience via the stink that wafts in through the kitchen window, sometimes as far as the living room. The frequency of these smoke breaks has been increasing from one a morning to several every day.

I don’t know who’s doing it. Up until this point, I’ve never been aware of anyone smoking nearby, except for maybe the occasional cigarette from someone who crossed the street from the steakhouse to get a little quiet. It’s annoying, but what can you do?

Well, in this case, I could apply some positive reinforcement. Every time I heard the screen go up, I rushed to the window, grabbed two pans, and started banging them together. My desire was to make the environment unhospitable enough that the smoker would find a different direction to face—like out the front window, where there’s more of a breeze to dissipate the smoke.

After some initial success, the subject (who is, my nose tells me, currently at it again) appears to have become accustomed to the ruckus—like bears who run into noise and light alarms around dumpsters so much that they learn to ignore them. Maybe I need an air horn. And “please smoke elsewhere” in Morse code.

3) Positive Reinforcement: Conventional Definition

The use of the phrase “positive reinforcement” to mean rewards for good behavior is so common that it does merit inclusion. I had a great example in mid-August when I met with CC for my half-year review. I had a great report and was given more responsibilities, including a commissioning goal, and told what I’d need to do to be considered for promotion. Yay!

Unfortunately, things got a little rough soon after that. As our office move downtown approaches, quite a few people I love working with are moving on, so there’s some sadness along with the excitement. And I’ve had several very promising leads for book projects fall through or get put on the shelf for a couple months—not that they won’t happen, and I can’t begrudge a writer for wanting to take their time, but I’ve always been the kind of person who wants to reach their goal early so that they can surpass it.

4) Assurance

Along with all the changes happening at work, though, we still have a great team of editors and assistants. My own editor has been supportive when things were rough, and other editors, EAs, and PAs have also offered opinions and advice—potential positives in turnovers, last-minute career tips, moving office decorations, shows to see, books to read, restaurants to eat at, recipes to try. I’ve also spent some time with people who I’ve not had much chance to interact with up until now. Hard to believe it's possible not to have talked much with someone in an imprint this size, but our wedge-shaped office doesn't lend itself to interaction. Which is part of why we're moving. 

5) Reiteration

Support doesn’t just come from work, either. Friends have been willing to listen and offer advice—even hilariously bad advice, when I need a laugh. Cadillac is there every morning for a quick chat to just make me feel human again, to have a conversation that isn’t about work, doesn’t require knowledge of current TV shows, and allows conversations to swing from serious to silly and back again in a few seconds. And, as usual, my family has very kindly put up with me. My mom is a saint. 

6) Strengthening

I’m trying to stay focused on this aspect of the definition, the fact that I really feel like I have a grip on the EA thing and am more than ready to move up. Even if my projects have been slow off the ground, they are coming—that’s something. But I’m also handling some complicated and delicate situations on my own (as a result of the turnover, not negligence on anyone else’s part!) and doing really well. I can answer most questions about our title management system and I know who can when I can’t. I’m writing bulletins about technology updates and monthly successes. I haven’t actually let us run out of coffee despite a surprising lack of anxiety in the office when the supply gets low. (Yes, I’m doing the coffee order. Oh, the irony! (I think…))

To step away from all the vagueness, I also did some literal, construction-level strengthening. A friend, MM, told me and Neline about a cool even that happened last Saturday evening in Madison Square Park: MAD. SQ. TASK, a massive art party for people young and old and a lot of in-between.

Volunteers had brought in supplies from all over: cardboard boxes and tubes of all lengths, sizes, and weights; ribbons pattered and plain, strings and tapes of several colors; hat boxes in at least four different sizes; seven or eight mannequins that didn’t start or end the evening with all their limbs in place; lengths of scrap cloth in a dozen textures and patterns; plain, construction, and wrapping paper; markers, crayons, paints; and odds and ends that included a couple reels of film, ladders, endless rolls of plastic wrap, and foam tiles.

Visitors had to write a creative task and put it in a box, then take one of their own and complete that task. One friend had to build a Broadway set, convince people to act in it, and gather an audience. Someone had to make and share a pizza. One group built a “power tower”. One little girl wrapped herself in tinfoil and went around asking for hugs. One person got five people to join a dance party. One little boy had to start a human wave, and some older guys quickly got on board helping him out by lending their very loud whistles. Several college kids were running around tying people together. Lots of little kids built nonsense contraptions that may or may not have been actual tasks, but hey, they were having fun.

My task was to make a five-foot-tall hat. I had no idea how to start. I ended up getting a hat box with a ribbon in it for the base, then realized that it could be five feet tall without going five feet off my head—so it was five feet tall but started partway down my back. I attached a five-foot cardboard tube to a hat box with copious amounts of tape (going by the “more is more” school of thought), so that the tube was about three feet above my head and two down my shoulders. I did some tying and taping to wrap some shiny textured gold paper around the tube, then did some creative taping and wrapping to attach some overlapping layers of dark green cloth to the top and a sandy gold textured cloth to the top of the hatbox (no glue, no staples, no scissors, and I was lucky enough to find one tiny safety pin among the cloth. Voila! I had an island hat.

But my palm tree was lonely. I decided it needed a mermaid. Again I got creative: I rolled a bundle of brown cloth for the body and secured it with a ribbon, rolled and bent paper tubes that I tucked into the ribbon to make arms, and carefully folded two corners of a scrap of blue cloth into a tail. Zhe looked a little lonely, so I tore a few fish out of green construction paper, drew on fins, gills, and smiley faces, and attached them by taping them to lengths of film that were, in turn, taped to the hat box.

When I finally put the hat on, the hat box covered my entire face. But then, a five-foot-tall hat wasn’t going to be the height of practicality anyway.

My next assignment was to give it to someone. This was fairly easy, though the poor woman I gave it to had no idea what to do with it. Alas, I was the only one to ever wear my creation: it leaned against a railing near some very wildly dressed mannequins the rest of the evening.

7) Reminder

When I’m in a slump, I have an awful tendency to become unsocial even when I really want to be around people. So to combat that, I’ve been trying to do things that I know I like, even when I do give in to the desire for some alone time.

I started with a walk in St. Michael’s Cemetery, which did not seem like a morbid thing to do until I told someone I did it. I like cemeteries. They’re quiet, peaceful. There’s so much history in gravestones, and sometimes quite a bit of personality. There were no terribly old stones that I came across—only the very late 1800s, not exactly impressive to someone who grew up in New England.

There were definite waves of fashion among the headstones. Newer remembrance walls for ashes and urns broke up the field, as did a couple rows of honest-to-goodness mausoleums. Near the front of the park the tombstones were massive in width and length, at least four feet high, with bigger plots and a handful of names of each stone. More modestly sized stones for individuals (and a few couples) filled the middle, though there was a lot of variety in decoration. Well, sort of. There were carvings of pillars and flowers and scrolls, but there were also a heck of a lot of crosses. I only realized when I saw one star and crescent that I hadn’t seen any stars of David.

There were also a lot of languages, which was a first for me. I’ve seen some tombstones in German, but that’s about it. St. Michael’s had Greek, Italian, Russian, Polish, and quite a few alphabets and languages I didn’t recognize, with a few Chinese, Japanese, and Korean letters scattered among them.

Right next to that crowded, newer section were some scattered older headstones among very large trees: one of the oldest parts of the cemetery, I believe. A far corner was dense with a variety of Asian texts and stones as tall as I was with what looked like quite a few names—family plots, I assume. I made my way back toward the entrance over a hill, through some very Edwardian-looking grave stones that were more like statues and decorations than simple markers.

What struck me most was how impersonal so many of the stones were. Granted, I wasn’t expecting it to be full of unique memorials like Barre, Vermont’s Hope Cemetery, but I expected a bit more individuality from New Yorkers. Names, dates, maybe a photo—that was it. Only a few had really personal touches: one made sure that everyone will remember he was a Yankees fan, one was a piano player, one a doctor, one a “ladies man” (that was carved on the back of the tombstone, which I thought hilarious), and in one perplexing instance the stone didn’t say anything but “MOTHER”. Those last two really struck me, since they seemed to have several possible stories behind them.

I also made note of good names as I went by. Graveyards are great places to browse for character names. I won’t include the one absolutely brilliant full name I found, since it was a relatively new memorial, but I’ve included some of my favorite individual names.

First names:     Marija     Roque     Tekla     Madiana     Orsalla     Edilia     Spyros     Quiescence     Suoma     Toman

Last names:     Rovensky     Skerbel     Timberman     Vartholomes     Dragos     Arrington     Templeton     Grassner     Spinner     Wickersheiner     Lallathine

On the subject of characters, I haven’t been writing but I have been inspired and taking notes like a fiend. I usually only dream vividly when I don’t sleep well (and yeah, there’s been a good bit of that lately), and one morning I woke up with a place and a situation and the beginning of a story clear as day in my mind. I started throwing characters at it, first from Sherlock and Elementary, but they rapidly spun out of character until they were only vaguely recognizable (though I may still play with them that way)…then, oh boy, I got Frankenstein involved. Mostly it was a desire for me to throw in some characters I’ve been building, one of whom was Frankenstein’s creature. (He likes to cook. It’s a long story.) Then I remembered “Pride and Prometheus,” a gloriously grim and gothic short story I read a while ago, and decided to get some Bennett sisters involved. I’ve cut myself off for now until I get some more plot hammered out.

As a result, I’m back to doing what I love: research. I’m gobbling up what little information and scraps of literary criticism there is about Ernest Frankenstein (the second son and the only Frankenstein to survive the novel), figuring out just how much I’m willing to fudge the properties of phosphorus in a steampunky world, looking up the thickness of permafrost, brushing up on the history of the transcontinental railroad, and very determinedly ignoring the last two digits of the years I’m looking at. We’ll see what happens.

I also had a chance to indulge in something I rarely do: fire! I had a few packets of checks with my parents’ New Jersey address on them and I’d finally gotten around to replacing them. I wasn’t sure how to dispose of them, so I figured I might as well do it completely. I brought the checks to Massachusetts, found the old “wolf pot” (an iron pot that’s always stood by a fireplace…except when we’ve repurposed it as a Halloween candy bowl) and carted it down to the pool side. Not exactly a bonfire, but fun nonetheless. It made me want to light a real fire and try cooking in that big old pot.

Food is has still been great. I’ve been out with coworkers and friends for Japanese in the East Village, vaguely South American nachos and tres leches cake, a Korean burrito (man, I love New York!), and a good old burger.

I'm also still volunteering. Since I missed Labor Day Weekend, I actually gave Xavier a try on a first Sunday. Man, was I reminded why I don't go on those weeks any more! No issues with M. Creepo, thank goodness, but the coordinators sure were doing their best to keep the hungry miserable. I took a certain savage pleasure in fetching takeout containers, extra cups of juice, and coffee--other coordinators have only ever encouraged us to do that kind of thing, since the whole point is to be welcoming and friendly! The usual post-volunteering lunch crew wasn't there, so I indulged in Panera's over the end of The Marlowe Papers.

So yeah, I’m doing what I can to get out of this funk of mine, though it’s taking more work than I’d like. Hopefully my next update will be a bit more cheery. 

Fair Weather, Friends

Once again I'm well overdue for a blog post. Yeesh, I haven't written since before the Fourth of July! 

Fun with Family and Friends

Since then I've caught up with most of my dad's side of the immediate family over two trips to my grandparents' house at Lake Wynonah, and got to spend some quality time with my sister and her boyfriend, who I hadn't had much chance to hang out with. I also got my yearly water skiing in, though the weather was a bit rough so I didn't get to do quite as many laps as usual, alas. With alpine skiing I may only get to go once a year, but I can ski all day two or three days in a row. Water skiing, well, that's a ten-to-fifteen-minutes-per-year extra special treat. 

When it comes to smaller groups, I had a great time with my parents, and an aunt and uncle to came to New York City to visit the Cloisters and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My aunt has been teaching art classes at a local school, but I was under the (wildly mistaken) impression that it was all on the, "what shapes are in this picture?" level. Instead, we had our own personal tour guide. Well, maybe not "guide", since we all out ourselves pretty lost in the Met Museum a couple times--but that's the fun of that big building! And it seemed like everywhere we went, my aunt had a story to tell about an artist or a picture. We also made the discovery that modern art is far more fun and interesting when a little bit tipsy--this discovery was courtesy of the rooftop bar, which has some amazing views, a changing array of interesting (if pricey) drinks, and--best of all--very soft fake grass that makes an ideal spot to sit on the ground and share sips of our cocktails. We capped off the day with a delicious meal at Le Paris, a French restaurant (gasp! surprise!) where there was once again a great deal of sharing.

Another weekend saw a birthday evening for a friend. Neline and I met up with a few others at The Meatball Shop in Brooklyn. After we ate, we wandered down to the East River Ferry, where all five of us chowed down on a massive piece of chocolate birthday cake while enjoying the sunset over the New York Skyline, ogling puppies, and spying on the illuminated apartments in the fancy high-rises on the water. Next on the agenda was the wonderfully named Radegast Hall & Biergarten, which had a delightfully old-world feel and great folkish-sounding music (I really must look up the band the birthday girl was reminded of). Worn and weathered wood everywhere! My kind of place...though I didn't spot any "garden". I was tempted to get some mead in keeping with the theme, but opted instead for Crabbie's Ginger Beer since I love the nonalcoholic variety so much. As usual in my case, the alcoholic version added something that wasn't necessarily desired in the first place, but at least it was decent. After that, we finally, finally made our way to the main event: dancing! We headed over to The Woods, a bar with a dance floor, and forked over a small cover charge...but nobody was dancing yet. We hung out for a bit, grabbed a bite from the kitchen and hung out in the garden, and finally got fed up with waiting. At almost midnight, a couple of us went in to get things going. In no time, the dance floor was packed! I had a great time, just wished the dancing had started sooner so I'd gotten more in. We left around 2AM, which wasn't so bad, but didn't get home until 4AM thanks to subway repairs and New York cabs' reticence to drive between Queens and Brooklyn (grr). I slept in incredibly late and only just woke up in time to meet everyone again to go see Boyhood, which was fantastic. For all you movie-lovers, I can't recommend it enough!

 

I also recently had a long-overdue catch up with Felicia (who I hope doesn't mind that I'm naming her). Obviously I don't have restaurants to recommend from that experience, but I have to say that GoogleChat is a great substitute for Skype...which I'm really only not using because I can't for the life of me remember my log-on info.

Pickles and Books

In blog title-related news, one of my two local grocery stores has started carrying 99 cent deli pickles--you know, the eight-inch-long ones that are so delicious. Needless to say, I'm fighting habit formation! Even stuffed in one of the overlarge plastic containers they provide, they're far easier to carry home than an entire jar of pickles. So far I'm limiting myself to one about every other week. Yeah. I am an adult.

Relating to the other half of my blog title, we recently had another Free Book Day at work. I went a bit overboard, being far less choosy than usual, though I justified this with the knowledge that we will (probably) be moving to our new home before the next one. I'm well stocked up for the next couple years (factoring in the gradual addition of other books). 

The loot list: 

The Intern’s Handbook – Shane Khun; The Revenant of Thraxton Hall – Vaughn Entwistle; Mistborn – Brandon Sanderson; Tower – Nigel Jones; Thieves’ Quarry – D. B. Jackson; The Fire Witness – Lars Kepler; The Other Typist – Suzanne Rindell; The Crown – Nancy Bilyeau; Joe Golem and the Drowning City – Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden; A Little Night Magic – Lucy March; Dancing to “Almendra” – Mayra Montero; Dirty Wings – Sarah McCarthy; Love All – Callie Wright; The Shogun’s Daughter – Laura Joh Rowland; The House of the Four Winds – Mercedes Lackey & James Mallory; The Midwife’s Tale – Sam Thomas; Fairy Tale Queens – Jo Eldridge Carney; Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters – Philip Eade; The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno – Ellen Bryson; The Executioner’s Heart – George Mann; The Caretaker – A. X. Ahmad; Cinnamon and Gunpowder – Eli Brown; The Water Rat of Wanchai – Ian Hamilton; The Sea House – Elizabeth Gifford; A Book of Horrors – edited by Stephen Jones

I'm especially excited for Mistborn, which I think is one that Felicia recommended to me some time ago. Now I can finally get a crack at it! There are also three nautical/piratey books in there that I can't wait to sink my eye-teeth into. 

In what's become something of a tradition, though, I am not going to read any of these books as soon as I finish my current novel. Instead I'm going to crack open what may be one of the most touching gift books I've ever received.

Cadillac

I need to preface this with a tiny bit of an explanation. After a three week break from St. Francis Xavier, I came back to a weird day that wasn't exactly in my top 10. Two of the guests hit on me, and one of them--who I'd considered a friend for several months--said some particularly nasty things that even I couldn't ignore. I told him off far more politely than I though he deserved and thought I'd let it roll off my back, but it kept bothering me to the point that I almost didn't want to go back this past week (though of course I did, because I knew what I should have said last time and was ready in case it happened again). 

Now, there's this guy who I see almost every morning when I go under the railroad overpass to take the shortcut to the subway stop. He's always been friendly and polite, wishing me a good day and commenting on the weather, and I'd taken to replying in kind. It was getting ridiculous that we spoke so frequently without saying anything of importance, but I was being stupid about feeling like I needed a reason to stop and talk.

Last week I happened to notice that he had an open notebook beneath his hands as he leaned against the mailbox...and his handwriting was all over it! I didn't even think about it--I just had to ask what he was writing. A quick chat finally opened the floodgates. We introduced ourselves and he told me everyone called him Cadillac. It was the morning, so I didn't have too long to talk--just enough time to find out that he'd had some work published and resolve to look it up. Sure enough, that afternoon I found out that Cadillac was known professionally as Cadillac Man--and he'd published a book, Land of the Lost Souls, about his experiences as a homeless man in New York City (published by Bloomsbury, no less--my upstairs work neighbors!). I immediately added it to my GoodReads list, though I wasn't sure when I'd get around to reading it. 

We had a couple longer conversations last week, wandering from general to specific about our lives, our writing careers, the job market, life and death and heaven, Astoria geography. I was still a little wary that another piece of nastiness was going to jump out of someone so friendly and kind, but so far so good. Then, yesterday, he waved me over, asked if I had an "h" on the end of my name...and pulled out a copy of his book, which he'd signed for me! I was so incredibly touched and happy. I just finished my last book today, so Cadillac's book is up next!

Shipping Up to Boston

I think I use that phrase any time I'm taking a trip back to Massachusetts, which is probably too much. Hey, I love that song! Anyway, the 'rents are packing up and will be officially moving from New Jersey to Massachusetts soon. I won't be doing much shipping myself, though I do think I'll be taking myself north to help unpack and settle in. The least I can do is get my bookshelves organized, right? All two of them. Where have all the bookshelves gone?

I haven't seen the house yet, but I'm really excited to. The guest room, which will be my main haunt when we don't have other guests around, sounds lovely from Dad's description, with a windows on three sides (I think). I can't wait to see the historic bits--the narrow servants' stairs to the kitchen, the massive central chimney, the granite-posted basement, the soaring ceilings. I've also put in a request for a visit to the North End for some fantastic Italian food. 

If there are any ghosts in the new house, you can bet I'll be writing about them here!

Playing Catch-Up

Why today? Who knows! For whatever reason, I'm finally sitting down to get back on the blog. 


The Family

May was a crazy-busy month. I spent most of the weekends at home with the family, helping them get the house into shape for viewings. This involved:

• painting ceilings
• power washing the deck (wohoo!)
• mowing the lawn
• scrubbing walls
• carefully hammering popped screws back into the ceilings

...among other things. 

Then, over Memorial Day, we went to the lake and proceeded to demolish two sheds. With two axes and a crowbar Becky and I tore them both apart and hauled the remains either up the hill--to throw in a massive dumpster--or down the hill to the fire pit. So, of course, I got to have a massive bonfire, which was a great deal of fun. I wasn't quite as well-toasted as last time, fortunately. 


The Work

May and June are the busiest months for us. It takes about six months to take a manuscript from submission to final book, so we've been hard at work pressing our authors to deliver their manuscripts on time so that their books can publish in 2014. Unfortunately, most of them submit manuscripts stuffed full of things that they don't realize require permission, so they have to go and get that permission belatedly, and it can be a very long process. My job is to make that process as painless as possible--though you'll hear very different things author by author. 

The biggest buzz around the office? Sometime in late July, we'll be leaving the Flatiron building. Mixed feelings all around--I loved getting to work in a historic and well-known building, but I'm definitely going to enjoy some of the modern conveniences. We'll be joining Nature Publishing Group down on Varick Street for about half a year until we all move to our final, long-term home downtown. I threw together a map with approximate locations: 

Other fun things at work included two author events. The first one was a small presentation that the author gave about their book, which described the lessons about leadership and management that could be seen in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. One of the authors had actually worked with the television company in Pittsburgh and had worked with Mr. Rogers himself to create educational activity booklets to go with the show. 

The second event was, if you can believe it, a massive wine tasting. Two of our authors have written a book about the economics of the wine market in the EU, and since one of them is on the board of the Chianti Classico consortium, we got to attend the launch of their new elite category, the Chianti Classico Gran Selezione. I didn't know much about wine to begin with, and then to learn that I'd be able to taste 24 different kinds of some of the best wines in the world...well, I was blown away. 

All I can say is, thank goodness for spit buckets! I think I only managed to try a few more than half, though I also got to try out some regional cheeses, salamis, and prosciuttos. Yum!

But I didn't come out any more appreciative of wine than when I went in, and I definitely haven't had a magical conversion into a wine connoisseur. Most of them were pretty harsh, and I can't say any of them would be a first pick unless I had a good meal to help it go down.

Highlights:

• Castello di Gabbiano (2011) - the only wine I gave 3 stars (the rest of these were 2 stars)
• Luiano: Ottantiuno (2010)
• Casaloste: Don VincEnzo (2009)
• Vignole: Créspine (2009)
• Bibbiano: Vigna del Capannino (2010)
• Castello di Fonterutoli (2010)
• Castello d'Albola: Il Solatio (2010)
• San Vincenti: Chianti Classico (2011)
• San Felice: Il Grigio (2010)

ES had to dash, but CC, JV and I rounded out the evening at Veselka, a Ukrainian restaurant in the East Village that I'd heard great things about--though the $15 entrees were a bit out of my price range when I lived there. I had stuffed cabbage with sauerkraut, both of which were absolutely amazing, and I even had enough left over for breakfast the next day!

The Play

In Astoria Park

Becky came to visit for the weekend after Memorial Day. She hadn't seen the apartment yet and I was eager to show her around. We hung out the first night, walking down to Broadway (in Queens) to grab a bite to eat, then headed home to watch a movie for one of her classes. Which is how I finally saw Inglourious Basterds (which would have been a way better movie with Shosanna as the main character...just sayin').

Me and My Pickle!

The next day--well, we tried. The plan was to visit Brooklyn Flea and then hit up the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. First I brilliantly decided to wait for a Q train when there were no Q trains in Astoria that weekend. We took an N and hopped to a Q in Manhattan, then when we finally surfaced in Brooklyn I kept managing to get us turned around. We walked in about four different directions before I finally got us on our way to the market. We had fun poking around, though neither of us bought anything, and set out to find the Botanic Gardens. Alas, there was nothing to tell me that there was not, in fact, an entrance to the gardens via the road that cut through Prospect Park--so my efforts to take us on the shortest route from the subway to to the Gardens just got us spit out at Grand Army Plaza...just in time for a downpour to start! We took refuge in one of two doorways under the Plaza's Victory Arch and exchanged photos with the people huddling in the doorway opposite while we waited out the rain. By the time we ventured forth, we were done with excitement for the day. Instead, we settled in at Ideya for a late brunch (only in NYC does brunch start at noon!) before we headed home. Becky continued my introduction to Tarantino with Pulp Fiction, which I actually really enjoyed.

Fortunately, Becky's last day with me totally made up for the previous one. Everything went off without a hitch: After stopping at Brooklyn Bagel for some really delicious breakfast wraps (and a pumpernickel everything bagel for me--who knew such perfection existed?), we headed over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to catch the Charles James exhibit. It turned out to be perfect for us--James's designs were heavily inspired by historical dress, involved elaborate architecture and detailed planning, and many mixed colors beautifully. The upstairs room was definitely the more "modern art"-ish section. All the dresses had been worn, but they often looked uncomfortable or even absurd. A second room downstairs had more of the things that people might actually wear--some of which I definitely would try!

 

 

After that we wound our way through Central Park to the Zoo. Becky had wanted to go for ages, and I was certainly up for it. The entrance fee was surprisingly reasonable, and I was impressed with how much fit into that little park. We also got lucky in that a lot of the animals were out and active--we got good sightings of monkeys and birds, and the sea lions were having a blast rocketing around their tank. 

 

The only bummer was that when Becky went to get her souvenir magnet at the end of the day, they only had ones showing animals we didn't see--snow leopards (well hidden), baby penguins (none this time of year), and a polar bear (recently deceased). (I appalled Becky by asking a park attendant what they did with the body of the dead polar bear. They didn't know.) We also stopped by the children's zoo, which was totally worth it. There were plenty of new animals to see that weren't in the zoo proper and some great places to take pictures. 

Another weekend I went with Neline and a couple other friends to visit some art galleries in Brooklyn. I'd never done it before, but apparently we just walk into a building full of studios and pop our head in any open doors. Unfortunately, the landlord had evicted the galleries the previous weekend, so there were only a handful open. One of them, though, gave us some bang for our buck with a display of seven artists' paintings, all modernistic. One had tiny, smaller-than-a-post-stamp paintings on the walls--we had to pick up magnifying glasses to walk around the room and see them. We hit the jackpot on the third: the artist was going to have a demonstration of his awesome printer later that day, so we got to chat a bit. This thing was a silkscreen printer! You could scan in an image to create a plate and then print a bunch of images in a single color. The artist was interested in small-print-run publishing and his friend was interested in publishing more generally, so between art, books, and Brooklyn, the six of us had a good talk. They sent us away with a recommendation to try the nearby Tortilleria Mexicana Los Hermanos, which is a tortilla factory and Mexican restaurant. 

I only had a small (delicious) snack before hopping on the subway to meet up with Dad and his parents in Astoria to show them the apartment. We tried to get into Taverna Kyclades, which is apparently famous, but they were already busy early in the evening. Instead, we headed across the street to Okeanos--which is a fantastic Greek seafood restaurant where Mom and Dad and I ate the evening that they moved me into this apartment. I don't like fish much, but I've twice had delicious fish dinners. And their potatoes...I think they do something with lemon. They're delicious, though I've never had room to eat them at the restaurant, only as leftovers! They sent me home with most of the veggies, which went into that week's dinner, a vegetable-heavy couscous salad.

And, finally, for those of you following me on Twitter and Facebook...what is "sex croquet"? I went with KB (EA) to a Young to Publishing hangout in Central Park. We were going to play frisbee/"flying disk" (it came from a dollar store) and such, but we got distracted when an Australian stag party started playing party games nearby. There were two teams, blue and white jerseys, and they started up with tennis ball egg races, boot throwing ("welly whaling"), and sack races before advancing to the events that caught our attention. Sex croquet (which the literarily-inclined YTP group called "crotch croquet" until informed otherwise) was a relay race in which two contestants tied ropes around their waists to dangle the ball attached to the end between their ankles. They had to bend their knees and swing their hips to get the ball going and then knock a tennis ball on the ground the 10 feet to the finish line. It was pretty funny, but difficult enough to be a bit slow. The more popular event (for the YTP group, who started cheering for the teams) was the sock wrestling, when two guys each put a sock on their right foot and then tackled each other in a ring to get the other guy's sock off first. 

Let's see, the reading you get updates on through Goodreads (apparently a lot more updates than I'd realized!), which just leaves

The Writing

The story I've been working on graduated from the handwritten journal to the computer. Unfortunately, that means it kind of stalled. My morning subway rides were my dedicated writing time, and I need to readjust to start working in the afternoons, when I'm usually fed up with looking at a computer. 

I like how it turned out, mostly, though it needs some serious editing. The main issue is the end, which it doesn't have yet. I've written about five quick drafts of an ending but I don't like any of them. *Sigh*

In other news, I'm rereading King of Worms. Yes, that old thing. Kind of surprised how good it is. I mean, Lavardia would need a lot of help to bring it up to snuff, but KoW is pretty good, if I do say so myself. Maybe once I'm done with this read-through, I'll print out another copy and get work on the massive cutting that needs to be done. Fortunately, I've been seeing lots of places where little extraneous words can hit the highway. Verbal efficiency and economy, those are my goals. We'll see how that goes. 

Goodgrass...heh heh. Still a dream project. Tumblr's been a great source of inspiration, but I'm too heavily invested in the world and not enough in the characters. So yeah, character exploration needs to be happening. I'm also struggling because I'd really like to show off Tam's matriarchal society, but the whole point is that he's a fish-out-of-water, man-in-a-woman's-world thrown suddenly in a patriarchy. Granted, that society doesn't really see him as a man because of his culture, so maybe that's my way in. Just doing a lot of thinking still. 

And Last but Not Least...

I need to give a shout out to another poorly named but really excellent movie, Dirty Pretty Things, which Neline and I watched on an impulse purely because it had Audrey Tautou (Amélie) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) in it. It's about immigrants, legal and otherwise, and refugees in London trying to earn enough money to survive and, eventually, pay their way to the next stage of their life. 

And that's it! Hopefully it won't be so long between posts next time. 

April Showers...

I have a lot of big news this week (guess that's what I get for skipping one). Some of you may already know some of it, so bear with me. 


Meow

The most exciting news that I'm talking about way too much is...I have a cat! More specifically, I have Audrey ("Fluffy," to Grandma Sybil). Mom and Dad drove me back into the city after Easter this week to drop her off. She's still adjusting--she's never been a loud cat, but her little squeak-meows have been about five times more frequent than usual. My apartment is the smallest space she's ever been in, and she doesn't have Ripley to annoy her...which is part of why Mom and I decided she'd be best to come to the city. She's always been a little underweight and recently a bit tender (we think she has a bit of arthritis--she is 14, after all), so we thought some peace and quiet and a chance to finish the food in the dish might do her some good. 

Why this change? 


Shipping Up to Boston

The Lawrence family is moving again. Dad recently got hired by SeQur (which I thought was "Sea Cure" until he showed me his product's video!) and, in a hilarious coincidence, the office he'll work out of is located in Northborough, Massachusetts--in fact, the building is on the very road that I used to take twice a day on my way to and from high school! 

Mom and dad are excited to move back to Boston, and are even looking at a historic house closer to the city and with a nearby Trader Joe's--a long-time dream of theirs (okay, so Trader Joe's was a recent addition). It's too soon to know exactly where they'll end up. The biggest thing to factor in is that Kate still has two more years of high school yet before college. Poor Kate isn't too thrilled, since she has a lot of friends down in New Jersey, but we all know she's a tough nut and a good egg who'll make friends quickly wherever she ends up. 

Most of what this means for me is that I finally have to make decisions about what items I want with me and which can be more difficult to access. It felt a bit like betraying my friends, but I finally decided to box up many of my favorite books from childhood and other favorites as well, leaving behind books I haven't read, haven't read in a long time, or might conceivably want to read again in the near future. We figure that these ones will be the most likely to end up on a shelf at a new house, where I can get to them when I come to visit my parents.

Anyway, we'd talked about having me take a cat before mom and dad decided to move the whole family, since it would take one pet off their hands (and their rent) if they had to live in an apartment for a while. Even after they'd organized their plans, though, mom still stuck with the idea of sending a cat with me--after all, I'd always said a cat would be my first luxury after I had a paying job. So I asked my landlord and my roommate, got the go-ahead, and brought her in. 


The Job

As always, I don't want to go into too much detail about this. Suffice it to say: my manager, BF, has moved on. With my imprint's recent merger has come a lot of change, the most recent of which was a decision to move my imprint into the other imprint's building in advance of a bigger, final move later this year. The commute was already a pain for BF, who lives in Connecticut, but this move was going to tack on another 30 to 45 minutes to his commute. 

We're down to four now: JV heading Business with ES to help her; CC on Economics with me to help her; and CC also on Finance, though ES is still the assistant for those books. One good thing to come out of this latest change? A promotion for CC! That's right, I'm back to working with a full editor. Strangely enough, there's very little change for me, at least as far as the day-to-day goes. 


Enough news, time to gush about the good things in life. 


On Writing...

I'm now on the third draft of the short story I've been working on since February. Okay, okay, so that's partly because I got impatient with the format I was using and decided to start fresh before I got the whole way to the end of the second draft. The first was a standard first-person piece of prose, with a space-age interplanetary trucker narrating the encounter that she and her copilot have with an alien life form--the first interaction between humans and a preexisting life form. The narrator is almost exactly a character I created for a short story in my senior year of college. Except for the whole space angle, of course. 

Anyway, I decided the second draft should be an annotated transcript of the cockpit's "black box" recording--annotated because I had so many ideas about this space-going culture that I wanted to squeeze in. Typical of my enthusiasm for a new project! However, as I went on, I found the annotations to be distracting. I wanted to use a made-up code to indicate alarms going off...but then I realized that multiple alarms would be going off in these situations! I had a damage report, but didn't want to actually list the three dozen flare exit nozzles that were crushed, bent, or altogether removed. Boring! I tried just doing a straight transcript...but the alien encounter is very visual, and part of what attracts me to the transcript format is how sensually flat it is (this was a key frustration of mine when I was transcribing oral history interviews). My main character's main setting is, "generally amused," but in a transcript all her little chuckles, chortles, and other sounds of merriment get transcribed as "laughs" or "laughter." 

As of this morning, the third draft is an incident report with commentary. It also has the transcript in it (and I'm not messing too much with the last draft's dialogue sections), but it's there as a transcript within a transcript. I figure, what's the best way to fill in the visual blanks in this audio file? Well, have the people involved in the accident listen to the recording and comment on it! I'm sticking with my main character--the other one plays by the rules--though in theory both pilots would comment on the recording. I figure having a single person responding to the transcript will let me keep some of the visual while expanding the view into this character's head...though I've already found a few downsides to this format as well. I'll keep going, but there's still the possibility the whole thing will end up back in prose form--definitely better for its trip across genres, but still back to the beginning. 

And did I mention that I'm hand writing all of these drafts on the subway?


On Watching...

A couple weekends ago I went with Neline and one of her friends to see Only Lovers Left Alive. In spite of its saccharine, tongue-tying alliterative/assonancey title, I really enjoyed it. Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton (the reasons I even gave this film a chance) play millennia-old vampires living in the modern day. They're both recluses, one in Detroit and one in Tangiers. Why? Well, why not? Both places are just as un-legit as the sticks of Washington State.

Why did I fall for this movie? As always, fantastic world building. There were so many hints of history and culture indicating a bigger story, references to larger issues both ancient and modern. I loved the references to scientists, writers, and musicians throughout history, even if they seemed much like a best-of checklist of only the most famous. True, the audience wouldn't recognize the dropped names of people who didn't become as famous as they deserved...but shouldn't there have been some of those between Einstein, Tesla, and Shelly? Oh, and the music was great. I'm holding out hope for a soundtrack. 

The only two things that annoyed the heck out of me: 
     1. Adam and Eve. Seriously? If it wasn't Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton, those character names would have driven me from the theater. 
     2. Christopher Marlowe. Not the fact that it's him, just yet another speculation that he wrote Shakespeare's plays. I just can't believe that--the styles and ethics of the plays I've read by each writer have been so wildly different that I just can't believe that Marlowe is the grand master. I like the idea of Marlowe as a vampire...I just can't see him settling for Shakespeare as his legacy!

Incidentally, I'm on the lookout for a collection of Marlowe's works that will, ideally, be a counterpart to my beloved Complete Pelican Shakespeare. If you're a Marlowe buff, drop me a line!


On Volunteering...

I'm still going to St. Francis Xavier on what's turned out to be just about every other week. I continue to enjoy it, but have finally decided to stop attending first Sundays. Back on the first Sunday in October I had a run-in with one of the volunteer coordinators, which I described in one of my blog posts. At that time, G. invaded my personal space and grabbed my arm. He'd done it twice since then, and both times I pulled away and asked him not to do that. Three weeks ago he came up behind me while I was working and grabbed me by the arms--and that did it. I told another coordinator what had happened and I left. Fortunately, G. only volunteers on the first Sunday of each month, so I'll take myself elsewhere on those days from now on. 

The week after that more than made up for it. I had a great time manning the bread stations with other volunteers, chatting when we weren't busy. It's great how happy a buttered cinnamon bagel can make someone! After the day came to a close, we had a record number of people (at least since I'd started going) join us for lunch afterwards. 

~ ~ ~

That's about it. I want to close by saying that this post's title isn't meant to be symbolic of bad things. I know one traditionally has to put up with rain, but I actually often like it...and anyway, in this case I'm just thinking of rain as a change from snow. It's still precipitation (change always happens, just in different ways) and it's still going to bring results (flowers) that I have no way to predict. I'll just have to wait and see what blooms!

Welcome to Astoria!

I am well beyond owing you all (four? five?) a blog entry! But it's for a good reason--for the past month I have been crazy busy finding and moving into an apartment. 

In an earlier post (the last one? it's been too long!) I mentioned that I met my roommate, Neline, at St. Francis Xavier while we were volunteering. We hit it off pretty well and, what do you know, a few weeks after that she was asking around if anyone was interested in moving--and I was! We hung out a bit to make sure that we were a good fit and then we hit the streets. 

Finding an apartment was a long, stressful process. There weren't many choices in our price range. Most people didn't return our calls or emails. Two of the ones who returned my calls told me they no longer had the two-room available but had one-rooms. Dude, if we ask for two rooms, we need two rooms!

Finally I hit gold: a two-room apartment with small rooms but with a living room for $200 less than our hoped-for maximum. I took that one seriously and emailed the broker three times...and got a response! Neline and I saw it and liked it and the rest is history. The broker was great to work with, giving me a blank lease to read in advance so I could ask questions. 

The last week in my old apartment was really weird. Since move in/move out was on November 1st, a Friday, I'd have to move my things out on Sunday in order to fit with Mom and Dad's schedule. While I was packing Saturday, Max called the landlord to look into fixing our horrific shower (so glad to be away from that!) and then promptly left for the day. So later that afternoon, when the landlord came, Mara knocked on my door to tell me we had to hide the washing machine in my room. In the middle of this farce, she saw the boxes and said, "Are you moving?" Apparently Max hadn't even told her!

I slept on a camp mattress in a sleeping bag for the week and lived out of a suitcase. I might not have bothered if I hadn't had the first of two showings of Danny Boyle's Frankenstein to attend on Wednesday. (Massive post next--I won't announce it on Facebook, because it's full of spoilers.)

On Thursday morning, Halloween, I packed up the last few things in my room, left the keys on my desk, and said good bye to the Lower East Side/East Village. I commuted from New Jersey for the next two evenings and, come Sunday morning, set off with a van load of furniture for Astoria.

Where is Astoria?

That's Manhattan on the left. Astoria is in Queens.

Once again I'm in a neighborhood with questionable boundaries. Historically, Astoria is more in the area in the circle, and the bit that Google Maps calls Astoria is Long Island City...but, of course, all the landlords in LIC and Upper Ditmars (above Astoria) want to call their area "Astoria" to attract tenants. Neline's lived in Long Island City for a few years, so she was in the know.

My Dad and I met Neline on the doorstep with her moving crew of three guy friends. We unloaded her first car, switched out that one for our van, and then unloaded the furniture. I'd brought most of the big pieces, like our kitchen table and bookshelf, and I wanted her to be able to start settling in. It was great that we got the extra help. Dad and I took a lunch break at a local bakery, ordering two of only three non-dessert items on the menu, and Dad pointed out that none of the first-floor windows had bars on them as they did in Manhattan--a good sign of a good neighborhood. 

Back home for another load! We squeezed in with most of my actual living supplies (clothes, mugs, bedding), barely made room for Mom, and took the rest into the city. Mom and Dad helped unload everything and set up the futon, and afterwards the three of us went out to dinner at a local Greek restaurant. Astoria has a very strong Greek influence, especially the part we live in. 

Anyway, enough with the words... time for pictures!

View from our front door. Bathroom is to the right and Neline's room is about a 120 degree angle to the right. That's the fridge on the right of the picture, and those two doors go to my room (left) and the living room (right).

View of the entry/eating area from the kitchen. There's a closet with overhead storage space on the left wall. That's a Maron kitchen table with old Lawrence chairs from all the way back when a table for four was big enough for us.

The kitchen! Pretty nice setup, I must say. We've got a very nice stove and enough space to turn around even after we put in some shelves against the wall. There's a brick wall out the window, so we get natural light without giving up privacy.

Here's the living room! We've got a futon couch (good for visitors *hint hint*) and a really comfortable papasan--that round cushioned chair on the right. Edna's in the window. I will notice in two minutes that it's snowing outside.

Audrey's new home! She's glad to be out of the basement. Shout out to Sam for bringing some sophistication and class to my first apartment! As you can see, that one bookshelf just isn't going to cut it for two bibliophiles. We're working on it. Oh, and you can't see her in the picture, but Lucy is on the shelf over the door.

And, finally, my room! I got to bring my captain's bed from home, so there's storage underneath, and Neline gave me the closet-substitute she was using at her last apartment, which is the perfect size for all my things. 

View from my room into the kitchen. I leave my door open most of the time to make everything feel bigger. In theory, if I closed my door that mirror would shine some light from the living room into the kitchen. It does work...but I only close my door at night!

It's been a crazy week of settling in, setting up internet, getting used to my commute--which is, funnily enough, almost exactly the same length as my commute from the Lower East Side. Subways, unlike buses, don't have to stop every single block! 

We have a few things left to get. Neline needs an elevated bed to give herself more storage space. We both need another bookshelf in our living room--two book lovers quickly overwhelmed the one bookcase we brought. Because our prewar building has high ceilings, we'll need a stepladder. And we haven't put much of anything on the walls yet, though I may raid the guest room in New Jersey, which (unfortunately for its decor) has many of my favorite pictures on the wall. 

I think that's enough for now. I do have a monster "zoom-in" post coming up, after all...