Okay! Today is the right day for a new post. Why? I ran into the former-lawyer-rare-law-books-bookstore-owner at lunch this afternoon. Apparently we enjoy the same Atlas Cafe. He was both easy and difficult to recognize. He looks like he would be a famous actor, so I was sure if I had seen him in movies or in real life.
He had brought what looked like a miniature version of the NY Review of Books (have they gone small, like Rolling Stone did? And others?) and I was reading Francis Ford Coppola's literary journal Zoetrope: All-Story. Meaning, it's all stories. All short fictional stories. I was getting familiar with the latest issue as I am applying to be a reader for their editorial team. I love reading. I love thinking about what I am reading. So, I hope they will let me be a reader. They apparently get 10,000 submissions a year. I imagine a mountain of papers, piling up in the office, and the way you dig is with your eyes. What a journey.
Well, there is a lot to write about. I slept fitfully last night, terribly. In my sleep I remember saying to myself, "this is the worst night of sleep I've ever had." It definitely wasn't, I can already think of four other nights which were worse (freezing on Mt. Merapi in Java last year, the overnight train ride sitting on the hard seat for 17 hours where Booth slept UNDERneath our seats, with the spittle and the sunflower seeds and shoes and grime, so I could lay down on his seat--) and a couple others...but anyway. It was a bad night's sleep, and I tossed and turned, stopped and started, all punctuated by the confusing life story of my dream's protagonist, a man named Narcisco Rodriguez, a Latino baseball player turned fashion designer. I could not understand what he wanted or needed from me, but I was tugged along the whole ride, at the expense of my rest. I hope he is happy, wherever he is now.
So I awoke in a fog. I wanted to write my cover letter for this readership thing, but I couldn't think. It was as if the fog from the Bay had somehow rolled into my cranium, usurping, filling every groove or crease, or fogging up every synapse, or messing with whatever happens in the technoworks of the brain, fogging me up, fogging me down. I went to get a coffee, well, an iced and minty decaf from what, in my limited expertise, is the best coffee in San Francisco. Philz. For $4.00 i was taken to an entirely new psychic realm. The fog is dismantling. A whole new sensation is settling in.
In half an hour I have to leave for my writing class. It's a new class I have decided to explore, in efforts to bulk up my writing muscles. I am trying to get all the creative juices flowing- at this moment I intend to apply to MFA programs in creative writing. The most essential element of the application is the manuscript/writing sample, 20-30 pages. I really need to revamp what I've got, or start on some totally new projects. And I figure a class is a good way to get some inspiration and direction.
Ok just looked at google maps topographic and the address for the class is Hill St. This hill looks like no joke. Better jump on my bike, now.
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