Aimless wanderings...

Today, after a visit to the Dekalb International Farmers; Market (which was nice, but not nearly so cool as Baltimore's (Give it up for Charm City!) Lexington market), we went in search of Cabbagetown, an old millworkers' neighborhood we couldn't afford to live in...


Thanks to our incredibly bad guidebook on the ATL, we had no real idea where to go. So I called the Cyclorama, and asked (nicely) how to get to Grant Park (where the 'Rama lives) and then, as if it were an afterthought, I begged, "And by the way, do you happen to know where Cabbagetown is?"


But between the guy's heavy accent (Not Southern. Maybe Pakistani?) And the fact that he couldn't remember the name of the street I needed to turn on... we got a little lost.


And at some point in all of this, my husband got a little miffed. He stated that "It's more find to find things when you know where they are."


I was feeling a little defensive, about to launch into a Laurel-style "You just aren't open to adventures" load-o-crap...


When we turned by accident onto Auburn, the street where MLK grew up, which is restored, llovely, and full of historical info. It was great!


And we never found cabbagetown... but THAT is why it's sometimes useful not to know where you're going.

My sestina...

I have written a sestina. I have submitted it to McSweeneys. I have crossed my fingers.


But here is an interesting exercise for you poet types... I'm going to post the first two stanzas of my sestina, and I want you to guess at the third stanza. Feel free to finish the poem if you're so inclined.


Consider this an exercise in formal poetry. Writing a sestina is sort of like a choose-your-own-adventure (which you know I'm interested in) because the options of "where to go next" have been limited for you by your own earlier choices. I'm curious to see if other people use my end words in the same ways (or some of them) that I've used them later on...


C'mon... give it a shot!


When I Moved to the South
by Laurel Snyder


When I moved to the South, there were boxes
Everywhere, and poor people with afros in huge
White T-shirts, and stray pregnant dogs with their hungry
Gentle faces, begging. When I moved to the South,
It wasn’t as hot as expected, not with central air
And sweet tea. But still—it’s hard to be an “Urban Pioneer.”


The first rule of being an urban pioneer—
Even before you’ve unpacked your kitchen boxes,
Even while you’re shocked and cranky in the humid air—
Is that you can never say, “Urban Pioneer” out loud. This is huge!
So if you want to tell a story about the afros in the South,
You have to say, “transitional.” Not “black” or “hungry.”

Me and my friends...

These are my beautiful friends, Heather, Stacy, Hao, Maria...  they all came to Iowa in May to see me and celebrate my marriage.  Stacy brought her camera and took these incredible pictures, for which I'm very grateful...



And this is, of course, yours truly...

 


And the tail of Dave the dog, who wore Chris' best tie to the party...

And the winner of the award for BEST BIZ CARD goes to...

...the guy my husband met yesterday at the gym. The guy whose card (and its a nice one- good flecked paper, nice font front and back) reads:


Bro. Mathew Johnson
Pedestrian


On the back of the card is a bible verse (I guess, not being well versed in the "New" Testament:


I have never met a fool
Matt. 5:22


This has got me thinking. Pedestrian as a noun I presume. But what if he means it as an adjective. And what exactly does he want in a raction? Humor? Thoughts-provoked? Awareness of humility?


Just some dude working out at the gym. On the treadmill I guess. Was it raining?


In other news, something has happened to Geneva Convention!!!

Direct reports...

I am supervising someone now, a part time person for one of the Atlanta area schools... we had our first "meeting" today and I felt like a joke...


Who put ME in charge?


Also, I got an email from Laurie Watel today (with networking help from jason Schneiderman), a Breadloafer from my year as a waiter. It turns out she lives near me. Like, I drive past her house on my way to work!


Good stuff.

Destruction of the...

Today begins Tisha B'Av, the ninth of the month of Av. 

 
If you aren't Jewish, this is probably not a holiday you know... but I think it's fascinating. 

 
The holiday commemorates a laundry list of destruction.  You can read about all the destruction here. 

 
But in brief, Tisha B'Av commemorates the fact that bad things always seem to happen to Jews on the ninth of Av. 

 
The temple was destroyed.  Twice.  The Warsaw Ghetto liquidation began.  World War I started.  The Bar Kochba Rebellion was put down. Etc. Etc.

 
Weird, right?

 
And it's a little  like a poem, in that way that a poem can be a constellation of connectors.  An image narrative.  A list. 

 
So this is a day when we (Jews) remember a laundry list, and when I (Laurel) recognize the power of the laundry list, recognize that if I were to take any date in history and look for all the atrocities which are commemorated by the observance of that date, I wouldn't have to look far.

 
There are a lot of atrocities in history.  Divided by 365.  Plenty for each day.  Plenty of sadness to go around.

 
And so we fast.

James Wright is sometimes the thing...

Making a card for your aunt and uncle...

When your cousin has died...

Is a helluva task...

But there's always James Wright...

Trying to Pray
By James Wright

This time, I have left my body behind me, crying
In dark thorns.
Still,
There are good things in this world.
It is dusk.
It is the good darkness
Of women’s hands that touch loaves.
The spirit of a tree begins to move.
I touch leaves.
I close my eyes and think of water.

Welcome to your new home...

My friend Stacy oborn has a new site at http://punctum.typepad.com

Yay!

The stuff of dreams...

Last night, Chris woke up from a nightmare to find me having a nightmare. I was crying and mumbling. So he woke me up.

I was dreaming about my cousin Janet.

I said, "Don't wake me up. I want to be sad." And went back to my dream.

I barely remembered the incident, until Chris said somethingg.

I want to be sad? Wow.

Raised by bears...

(for Shafer Hall, whom I fear I will never really know... now that I can't get to the Boston massacre)

Howard learned to like honey, and it wasn't his fault.
But when his teeth rotted sadly in his tiger mouth,
so that he could not longer tear or chew, and then

were pulled one by one, painfully, from his jaw,
left behind in an antelope thigh, a honey comb,
his paw, Howard knew it was time to leave home.

When he found the tiger-lair, none of the girls
would give him the time of day, lick his pelt or put
out. And the boy-tigers? Well, you can just imagine!

There he was-- toothless and he couldn't understand
half of what anyone said. Poor Howard. He was
a good tiger, a sweet tiger. Just a little in need.

But that's not what tigers like in a tiger. Need
His growl was all wrong. His toothless, if sweet,
grin gave the impression of an elderly disposition.

There was no hope for Howard. He would have gone
back to the bears, but for the animal need to mate.
So he waited in hopes of a lady-friend with compassion.

Or at least a crippling affliction to lower the bar.
No dice. If only he'd gone back to the bears, but instinct
is what it is, and so he died, virginal and hungry.

Remembering the taste of honey and the sweet
grunts of the bears. A pack of antelopes finished
his toothless self off. And that is the way

in the forest. Virgins and toothless tigers can't
get a break. Antelopes are unforgiving. Though
you can't begrudge an antelope. Tigers lust too.

Pasta and porn...

A few weeks ago, en route to Chris' show at Smith's Old Bar, we drove down a street in ATL called Cheshire Bridge Road. It was straight out of the Sopranos, all strip clubs and old school Italian restaurants.

So last night, we went back to check it out. We dined at Alfredos.

It was everything I hoped.

When you get to your table at Alfredo's, there's giardinaire and garlic bread waiting for you. Lots of old Italian men rush to your every whim. The wonderful menu is laminated, and the place is full of pictures of family and friends. Sinatra on the juke, no joke!

We ordered caprese to start, and I had the chicken florentine while Chris ate spaghetti and meatballs. It was all incredible.

We finished off a carafe of the house chianti, and then had espresso and tiramisu.

I was so happy... and it was surprisingly cheap.

And the reason it made me so happy?

Because this is why we moved, so that the two of us could have adventures together, do things we couldn't do in Iowa City, discover "our" things. So that we could get lost and end up in unfamiliar surroundings. So that we could learn stuff.

Today, we take a van tour of the "Battle of Atlanta" in our own East Atlanta Village.

Yip!

Shabbat Shalom...

 
My first Friday at Metro Atlanta Hillel. 


Tonight, I sleep the sleep of the moved.


In many ways.


Sleep.

Move.

18 minutes...

Today, I managed to get to work in 18 minutes.  It would be less, but for this building, the Decatur Depot.  When I get to this building (which is admittedly adorable) the road turns into a one-way and I get lost trying to find my way. But today I shaved off 3 minutes by cutting down a little side street.

This new thing, the "commute" is an interesting addition to my life.  I know a lot of ATL folks despise their drives, because they live OTP (outside the perimeter) and get stuck in massive traffic on the interstate and the beltway...

But my "commute" is a little urban cruise through diverse 'hoods, past new sights (for me) and I love it!  I like having 20 minutes in the morning with NPR and coffee .  I love trying to find landmarks for myself.  I love waking up slowly, without having to talk to anyone.

I drive through my neighborhood, down my street and past the lake with no name, turn left on Candler and then I tool through East Lake, where the houses get bigger and fancier.  There are increasing numbers of potted plants in each block.

Then-- just when you think the potted plants are at their utmost possible utmost, you enter Decatur, and the speed bumps and adorable cafe's take over for the plants.  Once you get through Decatur, you enter Druid Hills (Jessica Tandy's 'hood from Driving Miss Daisy), where the mommies-with-babies-in-expensive-strollers-brigade is constantly vigilant.

Then you get to Emory, and work.

"Commute" is the word for the day.

 

Last night....

In the 17 years since Joshua Nelson first sang along with a Mahalia Jackson album he discovered in his grandparents' home when he was eight-years-old, he has spread the sheer joy and fervent spirituality of Gospel music to audiences from New Jersey to Jerusalem...

So last night...

I went to see Johua Nelson, the black Jewish gospel singer...

He sang his heart out, at the church that used to be the church of Dr. Martin Luther King...

It was amazing, so moving.  Everyone danced the hora, and he sang Louis Ar,mstrong and Oseh Shalom and Eli Eli and...

Lord, lord...

The walls of Jericho came tumbling down!

How to blogroll???

And my hitmeter!!!

I had like, 17,000 hits until this...

Ah, well....

What did I do???

I thought changing...

The template would keep my comments/blogroll/everything! I'm an idiot!

Pre-sunrise blogging...

With tea and juice...

It's 5:14 (in the a.m!)and the computer says I've been online for 29 minutes and seventeen seconds already.

Why?

Because my first day on the new job was tiring/overwhelming, and followed by a trek to find a notary and a Fed Ex envelope which will hopefully end the selling-our-house-in-Iowa process...

So then I fell asleep at 8 pm last night. Woke up at 4 this morning. A weird feeling.

But I'm finally getting to read all my blogoshhere back-posts for the last few weeks. Good stuff.

Congrats to Paul and Shanna and Michael and everyone on many accomplishments of late. Yay!

My own writing is a little stalled, buried as it is under boxes and boxes and bags. I owe new proposals to an (unnamed for now) agent, work on the "Somebody Save Me: Songs about Fucking and God" proposal to Jeff Sharlet, as well as some editing for KtB. And Daphne and Jim. Most of all I owe Daphne and Jim some serious attention.

But soon. Soon!

In sadder news, the funeral will be Thusday. So I may be heading to Scranton.

In happier news, the house is wonderful, pulling together nicely. And my job is great!

A moment of silence, please...

My cousin is dead...

There is no way to say this but bluntly. Anything else would be bullshit.

My lovely cousin Janet died yesterday. She was travelling, in the far east somewhere, and came down with a cold or something. Then she got disoriented, so they took her to hospital in Beijing, where a CAT scan revealed a mass in her brain. Before they could operate, she had an aneurism and died. She was 18 or 19. I feel terrible that I can't remember exactly how old. I feel terrible that I haven't seen her since she was a little girl. I missed her bat mitzvah.

My family is not good at the whole extended-family-in-touch thing.

I resolve to do better. I resolve to hug her parents, Dee and Howie. i can't stop thinking of them. My grandma told me, "Howie says everything happens for a reason, but this is going to take him a long time to figure out the reason. And everyone is in shock, I think. I am. Can't comprehend.

And also, they can't figure out how to get the body out, so we can't plan a funeral.

This is all very awful.

Udderly...

Stupid...

What do cows and couples have in common?

Both are domesticated!

Which is to say, both are fat... or at least that was the theory of my friend Maria when we were in college. She had a whole thesis of how serious relationships contribute to weight-gain. Through a complicated equation concerning comfort, couch-sitting, less strenuous (if more regualar) sex, and a lowered bar caused by ao variable attractiveness-to-gettin-some ratio.

I scoffed back then, but now... catching myself in the mirror, it seems I've succumbed.

And my new YMCA has this "coach approach" where someone calls you when you don't sign in for a week, and they watch your progress and keep track. So I'm convinced I'll beat the domestication process. Yes indeed. I'll kick it. With a little help from the Young Men's Christian Association.

Jesus was skinny.

A semblance...

Of normalcy...
 
 

 

Yes indeed, my little house is beginning to be in order...  so much so that I'm blogging in my very own kitchen, with a cup of coffee made by me...  and I just ate a lunch of my own invention. Nice.

Except the dial-up is NOT nice.  Turns out our  street isn't DSL-ready. Ugh.

So much I'd have to say if I wanted to tell you what I've been up to.  Work begins on Monday.  Tonight we're going down to Criminal Records for free beer, and to FREE BUSH (from office), an  event organized by  Lee's friend Jamie.

We had a great Cuban dinner last night, and  I'm in love with the Good News Cafe in East Atlanta Village. My new breakfast spot.

The local library  is HORRIBLE! Truly appalling.  I'll be doing something about that.  More videos than  adult fiction.  More  self help books than adult  fiction.  And poetry?  Yeah, right... Give me a year to find  a grant...

Otherwise, we're just settling in.  We love Decatur and  the EAV.  Sadly, Little  5 Points seems to have become an extended-mix of Hot Topics (that awful corporate-punk mall store)  but I'm  looking forward to Indian Food there anyway. 

We dig the pizza  at Mello Mushroom, our new bank, walking  the dog  in our new neighborhood, the  YMCA down the street,  and the foliage.

Andd our house. We LOVE our house...

In brief...

I'm here...

I'm safe. I'm sound. I'm in my new house, but can't get online (hence I'm typing at the lie berry).

I'm VERY excited!

Too many adventures to recount. The saga of Iowa City is over (for now) and the battle of Atlanta has begun, with a starved stray puppy named Kareem and a friendly neighbor named Miss Rachel. Italian Ice at Cole's and a massive shopping trip at Tarrget. Misadventures with Bellsouth (DSL NOT AVAILABLE IN MY HOOD!!!) and I'm in love with everything.

Anchorman was a riot. The drive (3 times!!!) about killed me. In laws came and went (So nice. They are SO NICE!) Dave the Dog is making friends and Hassle the Cat is knocking things over and Chris the boy is "working from home" and Laurel the girl is running at a million miles an hour...

So everything is falling nicely into place.

Come visit!

Eastward...

Ho...


I'm in Louisville, feeling almost human again. A nasty hangover and an 8 hour drive whomped me yesterday.

On the good side, Dave the Dog got to poo in two states, and pee in three!

On the bad side, Burger King has this new Angus Burger... blech.

Options are limited when you have two animals loose in your car and you're starving in Indiana.

"Indiana wants me, but I can't go back there!"

So now what? Do I stop in Chattanooga and have dinner at the Mudpie? Do I drive on to Atlanta and stay the night at a Motel 6?

Only the highway knows... and he aint tellin...

Dear...

Iowa City...



Dear Iowa City,

I'm leaving you tomorrow around noon, and there's just too much to say.

I've left you before, and you've always welcomed me home... but the purchase of the new house in Atlanta makes me think that this time it's for real. I may not be back, Iowa City, but I want you to know I love you. I'll miss you a lot.

In particular, I'll miss your Hamburg Inn #2, your Northside bars, your B roads and farmlands, your thrift stores, your silly workshop parties, your Motley Cow and your pistachio pizza from the Wedge. Your chicken apple sausages on Thisbe's porch, your Mill-shows-with-fiddles-and-banjos, your Hickory Hill, your Thai flavors, your ped-mall, your landfill salvage barn, your sunflowers, zinnias, and purple-cone-flowers in summer, your porches, your John's Grocery, your pie-shakes, your sweet corn, and your incredible lilac spring.

But more than anything, your people, my friends. Thank you for them.

And thank you for helping me pay off the credit cards, buy a house. Thank you for teaching me something about people and myself, and for holding me while I wrote myself out, and in, and back from a great distance. Thank you for giving me time to work and think. I don't know how I'll ever repay you.

I'm leaving with more stability than I ever expected to have. I'm leaving with an incredible partner-for-life. I'm leaving with a dog, a cat, 7 finished manuscripts in a drawer, and 10 fresh ones in my head.

In my Book of Life... the chapter called, "Laurel grows up a little bit" will be dedicated to you.

I don't know how else to say it.

Lookee!!!

What I Found...



A bed and breakfast in Old Louisville that welcomes dogs and cats!

So instead of sneaking the animals into a crappy motel, we'll be lapping in luxury, for a reasonable price... and with the house golden retriever...

Saying goodbyes..

Is sad...



At times like this, it feels enough (and maybe more) to state the obvious. I went this morning and said farewell to Pieta who has become an intensely close friend over the last year.

I'm tearing up right now. Don't laugh.

And it was so hard to imagine not being able to meet her for coffee, or to sit again on her back porch, in the glow of pink Xmas lights...

But we have a plan, since she's planning a move to Menphis... we'll meet at the Atlanta to Memphis halfway point, which sits on a two lane (we got out an Atlas) in the town of Cullman Alabama.

Because departure and adventure are close cousins.

Also departure and return.

So tomorrow, Dave and Hassle and I will climb into the front of my truck, and return or depart or adventure...

At least as far as Louisville, where there's a pet-friendly motel!

Wish me luck.

A little freaked...

About everything...

Tonight, thinking about all the possible paths in life... all the tiny mistakes made, all the details..

My deep thought, on 3 cans of piss beer I'm trying to drink up, is...

There's dying...

And then...

There's NOT dying...

No details, really.

Laurel's famous...

4th of July SONG...


I wrote this song three years ago, and I sing it every year.

I've never been fully satisfied with my own tune, so if you can come up with a good one, I'll totally thank you!!!

Sing it tomorrow (while you celebrate your freedom from the tyranny of British Kings) and think of me:

Laurel's Patriotic Song

Happy happy firecracker!
Happy Bratwurst too!
The tyranny of British Kings
Is not for me and you...

So throw your tea in a harbor!
Fire your 21 guns!
You've traded in those British Kings
For Fat republicans...

(The exclamation points are important, and it helps if you pretend to march while you sing it)

Kapow!

The beginning...

Of goodbye...

Pizza last night with Jeff and Sonya... Grilling tonight with Thisbe and Lee... Then tomorrow night with Pieta and Bo...

The sad part.

Washing the last loads of linens... running the last box of doorknobs to Housewords...

Sigh.

In other news, I think "Grounded For Life" is my secret fave TV show. Is that weird?

Petrova Pan...

Grows up???



Meditative today... because I went into a fancy design store, to return some breakable wedding gifts for smaller objets that would travel well in a glovebox... (I bought a tiny Alessi salt shaker, crystal and stainless)

And suddenly I was like, "Whoa! I'm buying a fucking crystal salt shaker!"

And then I thought about all the things I've been doing lately...

Moving the old Goodwill furniture to the curb, getting prints and friends' art finally framed, and digging out and framing my diplomas... sorting through the kitchen supplies and tossing duplicate crappy garlic presses, taking load of clothes after load of clothes to the consignment stores... calling credit card companies and cancelling the ones that wouldn't lower my rates... filing things...

And I feel a little panic-y. I feel scared of what I'm becoming.

Suddenly I'm a wife and a homeowner and a salaried employee, starting (for the first time ever) a second year at the same (non-waitress) job...

And on top of all that I'm buying crystal salt shakers? Pewter measuring cups?

I'm getting rid of orange vinyl sofas and peach crate-bookshelves? Why?

I think I'm becoming an adult. And I'm scared of that.

I want to make sure that I'm very careful about what kind of grownup I'm becoming. I don't want to accrue so much fancy crap that I care too much about the crap. I don't want to lose sight of my values, simplicity, the aesthetic of recycling and decay...

I don't want to get too fancy...

I'm packing heat...

Into old boxes...



Which is to say, it's hot and my life is being contained. Which is to say I might shoot myself...

Not really.

But MAN! Moving totally sucks... you forget how much...

Last night, I packed for hours and hours (10 of em), and then took myself to the Foxhead for a drink to decompress...

There was I was, sitting alone at the bar with a vodka tonic dripping on my hand, watching some boys in tight suits throw balls at each other in California (Is NOMO really a name?!)

When in walked John Freyer, always a nice person to see.

We got to chatting, and it turned out his out-of-town-guest was visiting from Atlanta! Yay! So we chatted about the ATL and he gave me his card...

So now we have 4 people we know in our new hometown!!!

(I put the gun down)

Now back to my boxes...