Elinor Nauen

I found a score of poems clipped together but not identified. It's a Jersey poet—or at least they are largely set in NJ—& there's this one in there for me. Ed Smith? More likely Joel Lewis.

I always think I remember everything until I find evidence of how little is in here. Good thing I write so much down. That way I can go back & see exactly how much I've lost. Read More 

I'm not sure what was so confusing to me in this stab at organizing my money situation. I had never really paid a regular rent before. Apparently dividing a monthly expense into a weekly was beyond me. It's still hard to follow.

In case the graphic is too small or dim:

IN
as of Feb 5 $193
savings $90
cash on hand $40

OUT
owe $230
rent $115/mo
phone $30/ 1st mo then $15/mo
Con-Ed $20

so if I save $40/week I'll be able to pay all my bills — is this correct?? I hope so. I don't know how to figure it out.  Read More 

Too cold to work in my office... paint fumes give me a headache at home... too lazy to get dressed... starting my yearly feud with Rite Aid, the unneighborly store that refuses to shovel (the 5th Street sidewalk) & are eye-rollingly rude about it... I keep finding bits of old writing, letters, poems, all in my handwriting that is both completely familiar & achingly ancient...

I got this far then jumped up! got dressed! went to the store! came to my office!

Onward!

Got hold of a senior Rite Aid person & supposedly it'll be taken care of now... The threat of calling an executive vice president doesn't seem to loom as large as it did a few years back, when everyone snapped into action after I did.  Read More 

I remember coming back from my father's funeral to an excited phone call from a friend: "Did you see The Nation this week? You're singled out in a review."

My memory is twofold: sad that by the time I was able to turn my attention away from my dad & to this nice news, it was anticlimactic; and that it was in a review of Andrei Codrescu's anthology Up Late.

The former still holds although it's the faintest breeze of a feeling 30 years later.

The latter was plain incorrect. The review was of zines & I was mentioned for something I published in Baseball Diary. How long have I had that wrong? I wonder. Was there a later Stuart Klawans review of Up Late where he did mention me? Maybe I'll find it as I continue to browse through the infinity of folders in my office. Read More 

OK, it's not in the same realm as cutting off the heat but it's so ugly it's making me nauseated (that's also because he is using oil-based paint). I see the ugly bullying power play: "I can get away with it, it makes no difference to me, but if I can bother someone else, I'll do it." He's a mean, mean man. He doesn't grasp that I live here, that I have moral equity in this building. This is my home. It's just money to him.  Read More 

John Schlesinger painted this in 1983. The last bright spot in the building.

Now brown like everything else.

This is the beautiful front door area that he covered with misshapen bricks. He built a stoop that is convex & makes my knee ache every time I step up.

He is charging around $2,000 for a sloppily renovated studio.

I don't remember seeing this but it's definitely my handwriting. It wasn't even typed. Well, yeah, easy to see why. I'm more easily charmed now than 30 years ago, it seems.

Art & Pete: A play

Setting: Cross-country automobile, a 66 Olds Dynamic 88, somewhere in Kansas.
Characters: Art & Pete, Art driving

Art
Well, ain’t I modern!
[He does a wheelie.]
Turquoise no longer!

Pete [sings]
Irish, Irish, buried 50 years
Irish lad, name o’ peat.

Art
Hark! A hitchhiker!
[He pulls over.]

The hitchhiker is an iguana wearing a day-glo purple afro wig & a straw skirt. Hitchhiker gets into the back seat.

Hitchhiker
Well, hell-o, boys!


The End Read More 

I was starting today's post, when someone knocked on my door—a rare occurrence. It was my neighbor having trouble with his key & would his boxes be OK for the few minutes it took him to go around the corner to the landlord. Of course!

Now, what was I about to say?

Was it  Read More 

That's my motto for 2017, I think. I'm trying to not get distracted, not wish I was doing something else the minute I start doing something.

My other motto, in line with my intention to focus on my main goals is: First things first.

Other years my mottos have been:
Just say yes
Art First
Go around the iceberg
Don't drop the ball on your head
 Read More 

Some things I can't find:
• A long orange extension cord that's always been in my office

• My favorite green burned-velvet scarf

• My sister-in-law's email

• The why. The words.

• The time.

• A calendar for the house. (I have Steve's garden calendar at my office.)

Not soon enough, however.

‎*”˜˜”*°•.¸☆ ★ ☆¸.•°*”˜˜”*°•.¸☆
╔╗╔╦══╦═╦═╦╗╔╗ ★ ★ ★
║╚╝║══║═║═║╚╝║ ☆¸.•°*”˜˜”*°•.¸☆
║╔╗║╔╗║╔╣╔╩╗╔╝ ★ NEW YEAR ☆ 2017!!
╚╝╚╩╝╚╩╝╚╝═╚╝ ♥￥☆★☆★☆￥♥ ★☆

Hooray for 2017! We will survive, thrive, & stay alive. We will meet, eat, & wash our feet.

We will make plans & improve ourselves.

We will resist.

We will get out of the house once in a while.

Bessie & I only once have managed to take a photo of ourselves—we invariably are deep in conversation that excludes documentation. Even yesterday, when we and our husbands had lunch, I took photos of Tom & Johnny but none of Bessie & me. I love to see them laughing together, our two handsome men. They have boxing in common and— "What else did you guys talk about?" I just asked. Predictably his answer (in his irritated, why-are-you-even-asking voice) was: I don't know. That's male friendship, isn't it?  Read More 

Williams taught the same formal message at each ((college)): that the new poetry, esp. the new American poetry, would have to be "consonant—con-sonant—with our age and range of our physical understanding. It must sound with our age and sound new and vigorously." Alchemist of the word as he was, he was looking  Read More 

Maybe if the sun came out I wouldn't be sleepy all the time

Maybe if I wasn't ever hungry, I wouldn't be hungry all the time

Maybe if I fixed my office chair, I could sit here all day

Maybe coffee

Maybe Patty Loveless

We don't get a lot of sunlight so when it's bright out back, it always stops me in pleasure. I love our little apartment, our cat, our quilt, our duvet, our books, the gate David Morrison made 30 years ago, the little bit of view we have.

Also, this is the one sunny day in a week.  Read More 

The gym: closed.
The dojo: closed.
B&H: closed.
Downtown Bakery: closed.
Whole Foods: closed.

I go for a walk. I end up on 14th Street & the Sabbath security guard is out front of the synagogue. ? I ask. It's a Yiddish event, he tells me, & he didn't go home so he was happy to  Read More 

We did our annual check-in:

How're we doing?

Good..... How're we doing?

Good.

Whew. And onwards into our 26th year married (33rd together, 37 since we met).

It's finally winter but the days are getting longer. I have to say that being born in the winter (February) but during a time of increasing light feels like a fortunate thing.

My friend ("I'm a Republican but I voted straight Democratic") thinks it will be good to have businesspeople in the White House. He's a business guy, so maybe he's right. I can't see how, but I am trying to be willing to see where I"m wrong & change my mind if warranted, since I don't credit those t.Rump people with being willing or able to change their minds. And I don't want to be like them.  Read More 

Saw a riveting and fast-moving (110 minutes!) Macbeth last night, at a small theater right around the corner on 4th St.

Tyranny. Ambition. The parallels to today are clear.

How did England survive all these centuries with rulers like that? Do monarchies survive when republics don't, thanks to a loyalty people feel to a king or queen that they don't to an institution or even a way of life? Would there be an England without the queen? I guess royalty is an institution but it's wrapped in a feeling.  Read More 

Just finished Arlie Russell Hochschild's exhausting and eye-opening new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and mourning on the American right, a journey to the heart of our political divide. She meets and talks at great length over many years with Tea Party–supporting residents of Louisiana.

Her central issue is  Read More 

Is it fair to say that the South finally won the Civil War?

I fall into a conversation with a lady who has to be at least 80. She is cultured (mentions many places around the world she's visited, quotes Dante in beautiful Italian) & confesses that the place she most wants to visit but never has is England.

England? I repeat, thinking, it's not that hard to get to England.

England. My people are from there in fact, she tells me, although it turns out that was in the 1600s.

As a convert to Catholicism, she continues, I resent how Henry VIII treated the Church, so I've never gone.

You could go and spit on Cromwell's grave, like the Irish do, I wish I'd said.

 

 Read More 

Up till today I have scorned conspiracies & those who buy into them (for example, see my post of January 27, 2016; click the tag "conspiracy theories in the column to the left). I believed it to be a personality trait—a flaw, really—one I was too sensible to fall for.

Today something changed.

I'd been softened up by the Russia influence on the election, no doubt, but it's the blatant coup in North Carolina that has made me realize that things really have changed. You can have a conspiracy without hiding it. They can do whatever they want.

What am I going to do? How can this be stopped?

p.s. No blog yesterday because I was at death's door. I knocked & knocked, but I wasn't allowed in. Throw up like I did Tuesday night & you'd be begging to die. You'd be thinking it was imminent.  Read More 

I feel energized for the first time in a long while. It's great to tick off the ol' to-dos, including a few (a lot!) I'd been procrastinating on. Hoping to get re-energized on this blog too. As with life in general, it's sometimes hard to tell where you are on the curve. Which makes me wonder whether Read More 

I'm doing my happy little snow begging, thumpety thump, a flake a flake over the lake, oh please please make me a flake.

No wait, not that kind of a flake.

My dad's immortal poem, delivered frequently & solemnly:

Snow snow snow
Ho ho ho

WillisWeather® aka my personal weathercaster aka Steve tells me it's on the way......  Read More 

I still live here, & the East Village will always resist.

It was so windy today I was riding my bike backwards down the street, practically.

This afternoon at karate I ran into a guy I like a lot, someone I hadn't seen in a while. We hugged & then halfway through listening to another friend talk about his housing issues, I threw my arms around X & said, I'm so glad to see you! I love you!

He said, I'm glad  Read More 

I am having such a hard time being light-hearted here. It'll come back, I know, & I've been able to make myself do things like go to karate & make a dentist appointment, so I can feel my resolve/energy/enthusiasm coming back. But I don't want to be the person who fiddles while Rome burns.

It was 30 years ago today that my dear dad, Hans Nauen, died.

I've thought a lot lately about his experiences as a Jew in Nazi Germany. He was sure nothing like Hitler could happen here—we're too heterogeneous, too big, & we have the example of Germany. I wonder....