Nazario Scenario

Overcoming Nostalgia

I've been trading short stories with Budd, a 19-year-old college dropout (I don't think he'd mind being described thus) who moved to New York to be a writer, and is right now walking dogs with me for money. He is an offbeat guy, but really smart. A couple of days ago I sent him a story called "Biting My Arms Off," which is the story I've had the most material success with to date. I hate to couch it in those terms, but I feel like I should mention that.

Budd went nuts for it -- his notes on the back reminded me how good a story it really is. After we'd quit for the day and I was running an errand at the bank, I took the ms out of my purse and reread it. I couldn't leave the bank until I was done. The great thing about that story, I think, is that it's so loving; it pulses with, is driven by, love.

Then I got mad at myself because I never wrote anything else that good.

But! Today, just now, I finished a draft of a new story that might, MIGHT come close. The new story is called "Fatma the Beagle." This post-story euphoria feels amazing; to exploit a cliche, it's a feeling I want to bottle and sell.

***

Here are the first lines of each of the two stories.

1. I've never seen Omaha before, and I'm fascinated: it's a real metropolis.

2. I wanted to have an out-of-body experience, not to kill myself.

Hilarious Racehorses: VALIDATED!

I had a fun time a little while ago trying to think of good names for racehorses. Yesterday Diana sent me this, which you can imagine made me pretty happy.

Potential Intros For My Reading at Think Coffee

"The prose of this next reader is like a mink farm: noisy and disturbing, reeking with pheromones, it perpetrates violence in the name of luxury."

"Few people embrace life more passionately than this writer does -- because life, as we know, is a parade of weird alcoholic dudes."

"Amanda Nazario was late coming here because she spilled a whole chocolate malt on herself. Please welcome Amanda Nazario."

***

I, along with four talented and exciting others, will be reading at Think Coffee in a few weeks. I will send reminders out as the day gets closer, but here's the info now if you're one of those organized types:

.

Tuesday, October 16th at 7 PM

Think Coffee
248 mercer street
(between 3rd and 4th streets)
new york, NY
(212) 228-6226

There will be fiction and poetry. And it's only an hour long, so your legs probably won't even fall asleep. You won't be sorry. GET THERE.

Many, many thanks to Erika, who invited me to read.

Delicious Hatred

Sarah's hatred of The Lovely Bones is so nuanced, so perfect. Reading this article of hers made me want to pick up a terrible novel and bathe in the sweet, lukewarm waters of schadenfreude. Reading bad fiction is, sometimes, the most fun you can possibly have.

The Dog Life: VALIDATED!

Last Spring I quit dog walking, I thought, for good. Readers of this fine blog will remember my posts from that season all about how destitute I was, but how hopeful; how I was going to live by my wits, scrape together funds I got from gigs as a hair model and psychiatric guinea pig and freelance porn writer. Luckily dog walking missed me too much, and I came back.

In May I was housesitting at a loft in SoHo when I decided to submit a poem to the Writer's Digest Awards. I didn't have enough money in my bank account for the entry fee, so I got a cash advance of forty dollars on my credit card and deposited it. I chose a cute poem I wrote in Marilyn Hacker's prosody class, a terza rima, that dealt with dog walking pretty directly. I thought the WD awards might like it, maybe, and it turns out I was right. They just sent me an email saying it won second prize in the "Rhyming Poetry" category! Like what the FUCK! So, yeah, dog walking gets me what I want. Ain't no two ways about it.

I have an essay called "The Dog Life" that I'm working on now with excellent notes from my friend Cathy. My fellow writer/dog walker Justin looked at it too, and said it hit home. That one is important to me and I hope people see it someday. But at least I can post the silly poem here (it's really silly), if I'm allowed to. I'll ask the nice lady who sent me the email, when I speak with her tomorrow.

Portraits w/Eyes Closed

Found this in one of my old notebooks today.

To Clarify:

I don't hate all old people, and I don't hate all fat people. I hate all smelly, slow-moving, comically disheveled people. And that doesn't include homeless people, because give them a break already. No, I hate people who shuffle slowly on and off the bus, who rummage in their duct-taped purse for twenty minutes to pay for a candy bar, and who go everywhere carrying their Pekingese with the matted fur.

Oh, that reminds me: Revisit my Top 10 Street Crazies list sometime, wouldja? I'm still proud of it.

Everything Is Illuminated

Drinks last night at Broome Street with Mikey and Shay. A friend from the BPC, Jeanann, showed up with a hunk named Sean and we all five of us gabbed about our work and our friends and our abject exhaustion. It was wonderful, especially the BLT with individual pot of mayonnaise.

Being in SoHo around the corner from the Mercer Gallery, where Mike Sanzone had his two shows this year, reminded me of how hard I'm working, how much we're all doing. Shay is going to give a lecture soon about graphic novels (details to follow). The Hardest-Working Guy in Art or Showbiz Sanzone, apparently, is doing production design on a zombie movie. Mikey Solomon is modest about it, but his ad campaigns for the board of health are all over the place -- on the street and the subway, you can't miss them. 

I'm lucky. Those guys make me feel guilty for not working more, but I left the bar early so I might get a little writing in, so I made them feel guilty too. One hand washes the other. I ended up too tired to write, so here I am guilty again. Wonder what I should do.

The Thing Is,

I can't sleep more than a couple of hours a night. What is WITH that?

Girls v. Boys

I have an unusual social life. One of my earliest memories pertaining wholly to my social life -- certainly the earliest that isn't fraught with anxiety -- is of, in kindergarten, sitting on one end of the lunch table with the girls while the boys whooped it up on the other end. They yelled, hit each other, threw food, said offensive things. (I distinctly remember Ben M. saying, "Lois Lane on a choo-choo train! AND SHE'S NAKED!") They were all completely breathless with laughter. The girls I was sitting with were quiet and sweet, pointing out details on each other's sweater buttons and My Little Pony lunchboxes. I was transfixed by the boys, elated, teary-eyed, laughing along with them the way I later learned to laugh at episodes of Jackass. I wanted in.

I love boys. I chalk it up to having been raised by an aloof, cool-guy father, a Falstaffian dirty-joke-telling stepfather, and a mother who loved boys too. I date men who have brothers. The brothers like me. The sisters? The brothers' girlfriends and wives? Not so much. I go out with groups of raucous people, both male and female, and end up closing the place with a handful of the boys. I was once hanging out with my college boyfriend and all his closest friends, a group of about twenty guys, at his parents' house. One of the friends put his arm around me and said, "You like this, huh Amanda? Look at all of us in this room! This has gotta be like nine feet of cock!" Yes, a wonderful joke, but I hope it isn't my (admitted) weakness for cock that makes me like them so much. I hope it's just them.

And I can't discount all the wonderful girls. Not surprisingly, I prefer nontraditional girls to the other kind. My girlfriends are brassy, funny, and violently honest. They're not always confident, but they tell the truth about their insecurity to make it go away; they don't cover it with cocktail parties and shopping and makeup and J-Date and double-talk. Not that they don't sometimes enjoy those things, it's just... different. There's an innocence about it, a declaration of, "Wow, I threw a cocktail party? How did I do that?" They know they're different, and they like it.

So do I.