Comma, too.

Working on a 900-plus-page novel at the office, and my proofreader has queried every instance of a comma-less “too”—i.e., “He laughed too,” as opposed to “He laughed, too.”

It depends on the style the author prefers, of course, plus my boss once instructed me not to globally add or remove such commas, as it really depends on the construction of the sentence and even of the paragraph itself. In this case, however, the author is dead, and the translator, if asked, would prefer to keep a comma-less rhythm. I have honored this preference for the most part, and yet there are some spots that beg for that comma—though if I had to explain the reason behind it (the comma separates the two preceding items; the comma offers a needed pause; the comma refers to the subject of the sentence, not the object), I would get confused, because for every reason to isolate that “too,” there’s an equally reasoned counterpoint to leave it alone.

Now I’ve got the urge to ignore the proofreader’s queries and change all instances to “He laughed along” or “He laughed as well” or “He too laughed,” though the last would probably be flagged by another proofreader with the query “Add commas around ‘too’?”

*

Am on page 692 now, and despising this word. It feels like I’m okaying or naying commas willy-nilly.

*

On page 723, and am recalling my fondness for “too” when a narrator would spew out a list of observations and depend on the word to emphasize her sense of urgency or state of mind (earnest, innocent, righteous).

*

What is a “metallic voice”?

Sinking

Am alarmed to be feeling so down. In some ways it makes sense—financial issues are closing in (am meeting with my new accountant on Wednesday), I want to sell my apartment but have to make minor renovations first, my stories are coming along but not being written fast enough, work at the office has piled up much too much, good friend from college was gracious but I saw him in a stressful environment, another good friend is sick and as incoherent as ever, a disagreement with J stirred up many past negatives. My mouth feels pinched.

Where did my zen go?

J is dragging me out for a jog tonight. I am not a jogger, but I’m hoping it will wake me up.

Blank

My laptop screen went blank last night. Every time I turned on the computer to back up or run a virus check, after some time (depending on how long I’d left it alone before hitting the “on” button) the screen would go blank again. No warning. So I left it alone all night. This morning I brought it to the office to transfer files to my work computer via a flash drive. It took an hour or so. My files are safe! And my laptop ran for a long time, but then in the afternoon went blank again.

Like my head right now.

How to make backups of everything in my head?

Social tales

Thursday

Had dinner with one of the writers from the Sunday writing group. We stayed till closing time. She is so lovely and positive. I’m a little in love, and I told her so.

*

A collection

I has it!

Well, it’s on my fingertips.

But truly it’s there—am finally understanding what these stories from the past couple months will amount to.

Now, to write them . . .

It took me four hours earlier tonight to perfect a paragraph. I forget sometimes how tedious my process can be.

Still, at three a.m., plowing on.

Mille grazie, J.

Broke

The accountant asked me: “Do you travel?”

“No.”

“Never?”

I was embarrassed. “I’m visiting my brother in L.A. next month.”

“Let’s say instead that you’re going to a writers’ gathering in May—and while you’re there, hey why not see your brother?”

A writer’s accountant, this. My first.

I showed him one receipt. It was a donation (this my first too) to a fledgling press.

He set the receipt aside.

“But I donated,” I said proudly. “Fifty dollars. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“Not really.”

I stared at that receipt. I’d made a list of all the nonprofit presses I was going to donate to this year. Not that I have the money.

“You owe X dollars,” the accountant said toward the end of our meeting.

X = about $30 = much, much less than what I owed last year.

“And,” the accountant added, “you owe me one thousand.”

My friend, who’d referred him to me, said he charges her around $350.

I left the accountant’s office promising to pay him in installments, regretting that I hadn’t asked him to lower the fee, wondering if accountants ever lowered their fees, already drafting a note asking if he could lower his fee.

*

I dial the Asian American Arts Alliance. A man answers: “Hello, this is H.”

“Hi, my name is w. I’m—”

“Hello, w! You’re calling about the Urban Artist Initiative, right?”

“Yes, I—”

“You’re wondering where your check is, right?”

“Well yes—”

“We’re cutting them today or tomorrow. People have been asking about this. Thanks for checking in.”

“Thank you.”

Raising baby goats

A dear friend from college has two children.

Another close friend from college is trying to have a baby.

My best friend from high school just had twins.

Yesterday, the young assistant said to me, “Don’t you want children? You’d make a great mother.” She said this in all sincerity.

But I’m more comfortable with the word aunt.

My biological clock does not tick. Having children has never been a dream of mine. When I think of having a child, my whole body goes cold.

And that’s too bad. I think I could be an all-right mother.

I hope this is a phase. The wondering about raising my own kid, that is . . .

Ugh, it smells like everybody in the whole office just farted. What the—

The next great thing

An editor was in my office. I gently chastised him for passing on my friend’s manuscript. He felt remorse, and admitted that he couldn’t yet bear to part with the book (it’s sitting in his office at home) even though he and his boss decided in the end that we weren’t the right house for it.

“Not the right house?” I said. “The book has our name practically stamped all over it.”

The editor hung his head.

I told him how this writer was amazing and already carved a lovely path for himself, and that what came next would be superlatively grand. Then I told the editor that he should steal my friend away from the other publisher—for the next book, at least.

We both sighed.

“I guess I have to wait a little longer for the next great thing,” said the editor.

I waved my hand hello. “Right here,” I said. Then I put my hand down in embarrassment. My voice had squeaked. I never talk about my writing to the editors at the office. What bravado.

“All right,” said the editor. “I am waiting.”

“So am I,” I said. Then, to deflect attention away from myself, as I am wont to do, I said, “But you already had it in your hands.”

Back to work

After nearly a month and a half of no proofreading due to another self-imposed writing spree, I sent out a query to my contacts about upcoming jobs. Sadly, not much fiction is being done right now (or perhaps my contacts are shunning me!), but one contact finally proposed a novel. I don’t have the luxury to say no at the moment, as my bills are piling up, but still I didn’t agree to the job right away, compelled first to do a quick background check of the author and his previous books, something I do with all jobs, whether at other presses or at my own. This was a writer I wasn’t familiar with, but I found a review of his previous novel where Ruth Franklin compares it to W. G. Sebald’s Rings of Saturn in the very first line.

How can I resist?

Drama at work

Drama at work. Drama at work. What to do about all the drama at work?

I’m caught somehow.

Didn’t mean to be. Made it clear to those involved to keep me out of it.

But now somebody is crying in her office because of some Facebook note (she had to explain Facebook to me first).

Getting out my wallet and my scarf. More flowers, damnit. A girl shouldn’t be crying on a Monday.

Drama at work. Drama at work.

And my neck hurts!

ETA: No—no more flowers, damnit.

ETA2: A pick-me-up from down the street has helped. Yummy yummy yummy . . .

Catch-up time

V, a friend from college who just won an NEA grant, will be here at 6:30, so I’ve vowed to quit the Net-surfing and revise my story from now till his arrival, and then we’re off to dinner at Rai Rai Ken and gossip.

Tomorrow, in the hours before I meet one of my lil’ writing groups, I’ll be having lunch at the Pink Pony with a long-lost friend, S, who’s visiting from California with her boyfriend and their son. When we were arranging to meet, she made sure to say that it would only be the two of us, catch-up time between two friends, two writers, two soulmates, and that she’ll send her boyfriend and son off to a museum.

I was touched.

Partly because I was fully prepared to give my attention to those two nutty men of her life. Partly, too, because whenever V and his boyfriend, M, come to town, M usually insists on hanging out with us, and so in the role of hostess I feel a (silly) pressure to be goofy and nonliterary-minded—and meanwhile my whole being is restless from the desire to ask V about his writing, what he’s reading these days, what his plans are, which writer he’d like to stalk next.

Well, today M is visiting family, and V has decided to come out and see me on his own.

I am so excited.

Jeez. I’m tempted to call another long-lost friend whom I haven’t seen the last couple of years, as he’s been traveling, but mainly because I’ve been hiding out.

I’m on a roll with this feeling-good thing, and I want to bask in people’s good news, in their forward momentum. I’m just basking, period.

Yellow orchids

Editorial assistant is steaming mad. Three of us, women, are in the hallway listening to her. Two men pass by at different points and say, “I smell a revolution brewing.” The first man looks like he wants to lead us; the second looks scared.

*

Editorial assistant starts crying through her rant. Her boss is impossible. Her boss takes credit for all the work she does. Her boss doesn’t introduce her to their authors. Her boss will never help promote her. Her boss demeans her publicly with silly admonishments.

I received one such silly admonishment from this editor earlier today, and forwarded it to editorial assistant: “Is this really what you have to deal with?”

“Yes,” she e-mailed back, “only every minute of every day and 100x worse.”

*

I head out to the deli. Their selection of flowers is paltry. I’m hoping for something with a bright color, but simple too.

I don’t know my flowers, but I do know how a cheer-up bouquet should look.

Inside the deli I find clusters of twirly flowers. The bouquets come in yellow or pink. I pick yellow and ask the guy behind the counter for the price.

“Twenty-five dollars.”

I have only fourteen on me, so I return the bouquet to its bin and go back to the selection of flowers facing the street. Finally I pick out four supple, sexily curving bulbs, three dollars each. Inside, I place the tiny bunch on the counter.

The guy points to the yellow bouquet I’d set aside and says, “Okay, twenty.”

“Thank you, but I only have fourteen. I could, of course, pay you back later—but I’m sure you don’t like doing that . . .”

“Pay later? Sure.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Give me the fourteen.”

*

Back upstairs, the editorial assistant stops by my office. I tell her to close her eyes. I place the bouquet in her hands, and I say, “A girl should never cry on a Friday.”

She starts crying again.

She hugs me three times.

*

The past couple of weeks have felt as though I’ve had a glorious little yellow bouquet tucked into my pocket.

But now I’m feeling the need for the real thing. I, too, am needing a good cheer.

A story’s progress

Early Sunday morning, I sat in an east-side Cosí café trying to get a handle on a fragment of a story I was preparing for my writing group. Something clicked around 2:00 p.m., when the foundation at the beginning started to gel. Then I reread the rest of the fragment to see what there was to work with—and, well, there wasn’t much.

Later that afternoon, I sat in a west-side Starbucks to give it another stab. I got a little further.

On Monday morning, everything clicked into place, I finished it and then sent it to my group.

At workshop last night, the story got a very decent response. I guess this means that my last-minute amendations were good after all.

I’m going to finish another draft of it and then send it off to find a home.

It’s been ages since I finished writing a real story.

It’s been ages since I submitted anything to journals.

Ages and ages.

I’m so excited.

*

A dear friend—so astronomically talented, and about to be published by a wonderful press—wrote to me: “Just finish the manuscript already.”

I wrote back: “Okay—I will.”

*

“So do you think the story works?” I ask J.

“It’s different,” he answers.

“In a good way or a bad way?”

“I don’t understand. It’s good.”

Pause.

I say, “Sorry to harass you about this, but can you explain how it’s different?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, ‘What do you mean?’”

“I mean, ‘It’s a huge departure for you.’ Didn’t your group comment on that?”

“No. They commented on the details that made the story a departure, but they didn’t comment specifically on it being a departure.”

“Well, it’s more rounded. More complete. Also, it’s very Babel.”

“But I’m not a reader of Babel.”

“Ever?”

“Ever. I do not read Babel.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you anti-Semitic?”

“What?”

“Well?”

“I love Sebald, I love Albahari—”

“All of them write about the Holocaust. There’s more to Jewish culture than that, you know.”

“Of course I know—”

“Are you only focused on victimization?”

“No! And their novels are hardly about victims.”

“But why don’t you read Babel?”

“The last time I tried reading a Babel story, I couldn’t get into it.”

“Just get through it. And then you’ll get into it.”

“Okay,” I say.

Pause.

“About my story—what did you really think of it?”

Barfly

Last night:

JF: w, please have a sip of my wine.

me: Girl, I’m Asian. It’s like, two sips and I’m done!

*

“You look like you frequent bars,” says the editor.

“Not above Twenty-third Street,” I say.

“Don’t you ever venture above Twenty-third?”

“No.”

“Me either.”

“Why do you need to go to a bar above Twenty-third Street?”

“The author insists. It’s like he purposely wants to avoid everything I’m familiar with about this city.”

“Next thing you know, he’ll want to see Times Square.”

“That’s so eighties.”

I nod at the editor, as if I know what he’s talking about. The truth is, I don’t frequent bars. I go wherever a friend leads me and rarely return to the same bar again, unless by accident. Sometimes I’m introduced to a grungy bar, and I confess I don’t know what to do in one. In a semi-grungy bar on Orchard Street once, a Vietnamese woman asked her boyfriend to ask me to have a threesome. I couldn’t stop laughing. Drinking makes me laugh unintelligible chimes. That is good. That is fun. But most of the fun—and wonder, at times—comes from vicariously living through other people’s barfly lives, the broken codes of conduct and etiquette that I nod to or cluck sympathetically over. The storyteller is telling her tales more to herself than to me. And I laugh in amazement at all that I’ve missed, am missing, and will miss—c’est la vie–ly—tomorrow.

*

The editor says to me, “I picture you in dirtier bars. But I need a clean hotel bar.”

“Afraid I can’t help you there,” I say with an apologetic sigh.

*

If I had to name a favorite spot for a drink, it would be Angel’s Share above St. Mark’s Bookshop. My first time there was with a good, cherished friend I’ve known since college. We sat facing the floor-to-ceiling window on a rainy night musing about our place in the city. I haven’t seen this friend in ages. Next time I see him, I will give him a big hug.

*

I learned one night a few years ago that one should never dance after two stiff drinks.

Stiff drinks? Hardly. They were melonballs. But they were way spiked.

I nearly threw up on the DJ, who’d started to invite me to the stage to dance.

A friend held my hair back as I stood over a trash can.

Another friend jumped out of the cab at a red light when my dozing head twitched.

That was a bad night. My only drunken spree. There’s a tuna-salad aftertaste every time I think of it.

How does the Hitch do it?

*

Two beautiful young editorial assistants hiding out in my office, one of them the miss from last night:

JF: Can I ask the guy in Contracts if he’d like to go to a bar with me so I can rip off his tight pants with my teeth?

GC: How about this—just ask him out to lunch.

Dreams in a half-hour period

A kind Richard Gere morphed into a gentle Val Kilmer. Richard/Val kissed me. What a kisser. We both had dry lips. We were both shy. I started to say to Val, “You’re like Batman,” but then let the statement trail off. Then my sister burst into the room. She had some bad news: The trees behind my house were being razed by my crazy neighbor. I jumped up from the bed to rescue my trees, and at the door I said, “Mel, you know Val.” And she did. They had made out some days ago themselves.

I marched up to the lady razing my trees, and we fought with our hands.

An editor at work let go of his birth parents. He was frustrated and angry. He had written a memoir, and the parents were not pleased. I said to the editor, “They’ve always known you’re a writer. This is your creativity. It’s a new venture for you, this kind of writing. And it’s a tender book. Why can’t they see the tenderness?”

I said all this while wiping two fat tears from my cheeks. They’d leaked out earlier while I was walking down the hallway, and I’d vowed to act as though it were natural to walk around the office with two fat tears perched on my cheeks.

Zoo animals trapped me in an alley—a lynx, a bear, a tiger, an angry elephant. Another animal was humanlike, and waved a machete at me. Suddenly a man beside me appeared. He pushed me gently toward the machete. The machete cut into my arm. I bled. This meant, said the man beside me, that I was now safe. I thanked him for his wisdom. But I was frantic for a Band-Aid.