Obstaculo

It finally dawned on me! A big part of why I'm out of sorts is that I'm writing a dreary, death-filled novel. I'm on the eleventh chapter, and it's just been misery and murder, peppered with the occasional sex scene. I had been juggling the novel by writing a less depressing (though certainly dark) short story, but I finished that a little over a week ago. Ever since then it's been non-stop work on the novel. 

So I started writing another short story. It's futuristic and dystopian. I'm stuffing it full of all the elements I love in fantastical fiction but was always afraid to include in my own work. It's even got some of this: 

Except much more steampunked-out!

I didn't hit the RSVP button for that particular Meet-up. I actually don't feel that bad about it. It meant I got to come home early, make vegan quesadillas with J, obsess briefly over the Beatles, and then spend two lovely hours writing long-hand at the kitchen table. 

Oh, and "The Chronicle of My Mother" was a gentle, beautiful Japanese film. It even squeezed a few tears out of me, though I would have been loath to admit it. And then I got into my car, which smelled inexplicably like the old violet candy my grandfather used to keep in his room. Mysterious.

J and I also went to see "Hit So Hard," the biopic about Patty Schemel, drummer of Hole.

I listened to Hole's "Live Through This" every day for a year when I was a teenager. It influenced so much of my young sensibilities about music, feminism, men, and life. I remembered thinking Patty Schemel was so kick-ass because she was a woman who played the drums, and most of the women in bands then either sang or played bass guitar. 

It's kind of painful to listen to "Live Through This" now. But I'm grateful I had it in my life when I needed it.

Next up: another round at the Silk Screen movie festival. Dive bars in Lawrenceville. Oh yeah, and a trip up North.