The Better Part of Valor

it’s actually a bit cloudy. I don’t approve!

see?

http://emergingwriters.typepad.com/emerging_writers_network/2008/08/a-series-to-avo.html

So I had dinner last night with Edward Albee. He is still vigorous at 80, quiet though alert, sharp-tongued and gregarious.  We panicked a bit, my fellow colonists and I, at the prospect of making food for a legend, especially since our cooking abilities extend to shopping for prepared food and putting milk in cereal, but we managed to pull off a spread (thanks in no small part to Edward’s bringing over some leftovers from a party in his house the night before).

Nicorvo-Nissen BBQ with Vows

Thisbe Nissen was married on Saturday to Jay Baron Nicorvo. The Rev. Matt Goodman, ordained at the Universal Life Church, officiated in a non-religious ceremony in the couple’s backyard.

Ms. Nissen, 36, is a fiction writer and a cradle robber. She graduated from Oberlin College and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She has a loud, infectious laugh and is inordinately attached to her cats. She knows a lot about chicken husbandry.

Mr. Nicorvo, 31, is also a fiction writer who likes older chicks and wants a goat. He is a rootbeer-aholic, though he denies that this is a problem. Until August 16th he served as a journeyman carpenter around the house, constructing sturdy and aesthetically pleasing benches.

Rain threatened the proceedings, but the bride and groom patiently waited out the storm and the ceremony proceeded under a brilliant sunny sky. The couple arrived at the site of the nuptials in a canoe, which subsequently capsized, threatening the new marriage of the officiating reverend and his soaked bride. The ceremony included references to Plato’s Symposium and much crying by Laurel Snyder.

The celebrants danced to the guitar stylings of Dave Moore until the wee hours when the groom’s brother broke his foot. Other highlights of the weekend revelry included heroic baking and cooking by Lisa, Katie and Sarah, the breaking of a piñata by Juliana, streaking by the groom’s other brother, and an elegant bagel brunch. The couple will be honeymooning in Saugerties, where they have a scrupulously decorated house.

And it hurts! But I took a two-handed shower. Ahhhh. Here are photos. not for the squeemish

So I’ve been averaging 10.5 hours of sleep a day. I say “a day” because I sleep from midnight to 8 or 8:30 and then again from 1-3pm. The afternoon nap is involuntary. I just slump over. I have eliminated blood sugar drop as a possible reason, which leaves me with two possibilities: Narcolepsy or avoidance. I’m assuming the former is not a real possible cause, so I must just not want to write.

How is that possible? I do everything in my power to have time to write and then when I finally get that time I futz it away in slumberland? I could not be more disappointed in myself. However, I keep conking out. A fellow colonist pointed out that I’m now sleeping almost half my life away.

Let’s examine some physical causes: yes, I’m not getting my usual exercise because of the #(%&#!! finger (6 more days, btw, until the pin comes out). Also, I’m unable to eat my usual food because of availability and the #(%&#!! finger (I can’t really wield a knife, nor can I wash dishes). But I am walking along the beach every day, and I’m still getting my fruits and veggies.

Matt Hoverman, another fellow colonist suggested that it has to do with the writing I’m doing, rather than the writing I’m avoiding doing. I’m at a stage in my novel where I find myself taking my characters through the minutia of their days, which means I don’t know what’s going to happen. Plot has never been my strong suit—I can write a ten page scene in which the main characters receive and unwrap a package. And after writing two failed novels that lacked real plots, I decided to write a thriller this time. (Though Alison Smith said to write about Episcopalian incest victims with Aspergers who live in Paris, I went for art forgery and cloning instead, though I did keep the Paris part). And now I’m stuck.

I start thinking about the plot, then I get confused. Then I make a grocery list. Then I get another cup of coffee and then I go to the bathroom again, then I watch a fly repeatedly hit the window. I consider that I feel very much like that fly. Then I am overwhelmed by a need to be unconscious. When I awake two hours later I am disoriented and confused and I go to the library to watch the Olympics on broadband.

Is it possible that I’m just wearing out my brain? That the plot choices I’m trying to make are so taxing that I’m forced to shut down and reboot? I actually think this might be the case. So how to solve the problem? I just finished an outline of my novel. The whole thing, start to finish, A to Zed. Now maybe I can stop frog-marching my characters through their paces and actually nudge the book forward.

And stay awake for more than six hours at a time.

Hello from the Edward Albee Foundation. I’m here for the month as a guest in his barn. It’s spartan, but idyllic, nestled between the ocean and the bay. It’s day four, and we’re settling in. There are five of us here, four guys and yours truly. Two playwrights, two painters. Unfortunately, no one can cook. We’re living entirely on cereal.

I promise I will stop blogging about my finger eventually, but in the meantime, I really wish this pin were out already. Here’s a list of the things I can’t do: jog, swim, bike, surf, kiteboard, yoga. Here’s a list of the things I can do: walk. So I’ve been walking along the beach. It’s pretty crowded (August, after all) but tends to calm down in the early evenings, which is when it’s coolest, so it all works out.

Montauk has been unexpectedly low-key. I had assumed it would be an extension of the Hamptons, but while it HAS been upscaled recently, it is still primarily a fishing town and a coast guard port. That does not mean, however, that fish is cheap. I ate a $20 lobster roll yesterday. It tasted good.  I’d been fantasizing that Montauk is the easternmost point in the U.S., but I think Maine has that honor.

Albee himself comes to deliver mail every day. I met him for the first time today. He shook my hand and said, “Nice to meet you. Get back to work.”

So far mostly what I’ve done is slept and read and looked longingly at the ocean, but things should get jumping soon!