There is a rainstorm today in Saratoga Springs. You can hear the drops beating on all the thin parts and slivers of openings of the mansion. It smells very musky, like all this old water is seeping out of the wood to join the air and the fresh water outside.

I broke my prior code of non-nyc/yaddo transversing today by driving into the city for the afternoon to see Raphael’s reading. He’s a brilliant guy and comes to more of my things than I should submit friends to, and I was interested to see what his dramatic work would be like. Turns out funny and moving. The cost of such a capade didn’t come cheap. As though being punished for my impulsiveness, my ASS GOT TOWED.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon in the impound lot on the west side highway moving along a progression of unmarked windows. My time of violation was 4:02 on 9^th avenue which, unbeknownst to me, restricts parking after 4pm in a city with reassuring (ands yet disturbing) efficiency. As I moved from the ‘please tell me you have my car’ window to the ‘license’ window and then the ‘registration’ window, I couldn’t help an appreciation for what feels like an American, if not Kafka-esque, bureaucratic tradition.

Pete asked me last night, on his last night, if I ever worried I wouldn’t be recognized in my lifetime, and I said, gosh no, I just want to be able to keep DOING it.

But theater is different I suppose. One can write novels in obscurity until the cows come home and still be a novelist but in order to be a playwright, to make PLAYS, it requires the recognition and participation of some community. For a play to be produced there is recognition inherent, if only in that someone is acknowledging: this exists, here is the way in which it will exist at this moment.

For all the power of creative autonomy, of ego, novelists and short story writers wheal, it seems a life at great heights and equally great potential for abyss.

Last night, after a couple glasses of Saratoga wine, I decided somewhat precipitously to take a bike ride. I ended up getting terribly lost on a dark windy path.

Luckily this morning another writer was similarly feeling the effects of the previous night’s hijinks, and we ended up on a small road trip coming upon the best BBQ I have ever had in my life.

I am hoping to return Thursday night for another pulled chicken sandwich and the weekly biker rally (bring your own lawn chair).

Last night, after a couple glasses of Saratoga wine, I decided somewhat precipitously to take a bike ride. I ended up getting terribly lost on a dark windy path.

Luckily this morning another writer was similarly feeling the effects of the previous night’s hijinks, and we ended up on a small road trip coming upon the best BBQ I have ever had in my life.

I am hoping to return Thursday night for another pulled chicken sandwich and the weekly biker rally (bring your own lawn chair).

My father is going to marry his nurse.

I am not the type of writer in which the draft unfolds. I am messy. I make wild gestures. I shape the skeleton with heavy strokes (to generously mix a metaphor). And then winnow. Complicate. But I am also inpatient. I know what I want it to be and I want it to be that NOW.

I am frustrated with myself (that’s not how you said it was going to SOUND, that’s not how you said it was going to FEEL). 

I want what I want and I’m not yet the craftsman to do it. The struggle sounds like acrylic nails clicking against the keys. The more I know what I want and the further I am from it the faster the percussive tapping. The further they pull from my nail underneath—trying to line up the words of my weird playworlds like an ill-fitting retainer.

I wonder if Yoko Ono
Ever thought of staying solo
If she thought of other men and
If she doubted John Lennon
Worrying that he’d distract her art

Some will give their love for fashion
Others trade their gold for passion
I don’t have the goods to start with
Never had the reins to part with
Still, I hope you take me seriously

‘Cause I think I could go
Deep as the sea of Yoko
You don’t know a person like me
I could sell your songs to Nike

And for all you know
I could save your soul

As only true love can change your mind
Make you leave your screaming fans behind

Fame will come and vanish later
Transcendental love is greater
I think if we had this somehow
We’d be feeling famous right now
We’d be saying love is all you need

And they could rag about me
Yeah, they could rag about me
Throw me to the velvet dogs of pop star history
But I won’t be your Yoko Ono
If you’re not good enough for me

The stewardess asked the exit row passengers if they were capable taking instructions from a woman.

At the Cincinnati airport on my way back to Albany. I have 18 days left at Yaddo before returning to New York and the frenetic energy therein. An amazing, if brief, trip to my native coast. The production of Apricot Supernovas was fantastic (beautifully choreographed and scored with sound foley). I loved getting to meet the company members. It was closing night—the cast party ran late into it in a Seattle home with a denim insulated (via staple) sound studio and trampoline. We drank local IPA and ate from a bowl of cherries and a crushed avocado. A small bonfire was lit in the back yard and a snail leisurely made its way along the open porch door. With three hours T-minus my return to the airport we headed back.  

The most exciting thing next to getting to see the play (and Seattle for the first time) is that I’m going to get to work with LiveGirls! again.  I’ve been commissioned to be the third writer for their June Carter Cash Project this fall (Sept 12-Oct 4). I can’t wait!

I don’t know if there’s anything I like as much as sneezing or if there’s anything that makes me feel as though I’ve lost half my life. I do this continually—satisfyingly—exhaustingly on the 6:30am flight to Seattle.

I’m dismantling myself. The joints of my jaw and ankle and hip are sore from cracking the ligaments over the bones and back again. My elbows and shins bloom with plaque as the skin attempts to heal the picked scabs with the faulty immune eczematic response.

Landing for the transfer from Albany to JFK this morning, I saw the large houses of what might be the Hamptons—or at least the large houses of the type that don’t pretend to be part of the landscape—which I find to be synonymous with my imaginings of the Hamptons. Near the landing strip a bog of once sunken boats lie pristine, belly up. Not skeletons at all but plump little ships waiting to be plucked out and driven about the channels surrounding houses that so strongly declare themselves as such.

I’m in Seattle for a little less than 24 hours to see Apricot Supernovas at LiveGirls! The artistic director, Meghan Arnette, and her husband Brian took me exploring this afternoon.

The Pike Market downtown.

The Magnolia Bluffs.

The Ballard Locks.

It’s absurdly picturesque. And engineered.

There is also some serious mustache action. The personal aesthetics seem as purposeful, naturally beautiful, and accessible as the landscape. The boy and girl behind the counter. The barge catnapping in the bay. Surely there is a danger lurking in Seattle. I must return soon to investigate.

I’ve met people in New York from Seattle. The kind of person who gives you a fever through the shoulders.