I sit here in the back room of this house in eastern USA, reading a letter from my very good NSW Australian mate who wrote my letter on 4 x 6 manilla-colored journal paper in scratchy black letters while sitting at a café in Tarifa, Spain. In this letter he wrote that a tourist had just wandered by and snapped a photo of him sitting at that table writing that letter just then. In reading this just now, I have had a kind of swirling, strange, small-world moment when I felt a part of me almost leave my body in some kind of floating, enlightened flash, thinking that somewhere there is a picture of this letter I am holding, a picture that represents this letter in an incomplete form, at the moment before he wrote that, when my mate might have gone on to say something else, and yet because that picture was taken there is a picture of this letter in one form, what it had the potential to be or would have been, and now I hold the letter in its final form, what it is now because of the photo and the tourist. And after that sentence where my mate tells me of the tourist he writes "I wonder if I fulfilled the fantasy of the expat writer sitting in a foreign country." Whether I can explain it well or not, there is something in that photo and in holding the letter here, like I'm holding some moment in time that was captured but could not be, a very strange thing.

Out of the blue last night I opened a new document in WordPerfect and started quickly typing up a poem, just my thoughts in lyric form, or perhaps not just, since I hardly ever spew forth drafts of poems anymore. The first line surprised me, but it is the most genuine thing I've written in quite a long time: "what a sick fuck i am". So I think it has potential, this vomiting admission of how I regularly calculate my chances of not coming down with some terrible illness. The title is "statistics". I hope I can actually finish some of these drafts and get them circulating. And maybe, I really hope against hope, this is a new era in my writing, a time when I will focus on what the poem wants to say and not so much the sound or style. So hard for an editor not to edit everything that comes out.

I have been taking every free moment and building on the romance novel. Up until early Sept. I had been frustrated with the idea, rather lost in how to keep going. But over Labor Day weekend I was up helping my sister for a few days. After the kids were in bed we put on the movie Closer. Worse thing we have started to watch in a VERY long time. So boring, choppy, terrible. (Any fans? Perhaps we did not give it enough time, but after Jude Law runs back into the exhibit, Sis and I were sick of his stalking and pushed Stop.) It left me empty and thinking about relationship movies.

We did watch most of You Got Mail, most of which had left my memory. At the end of that movie ("Don't cry, Shopgirl"), I could feel a sadness developing, a wish that the world had better romance kicking about: slow, emotional, intelligent, subtle, rather innocent romance (says she who is currently editing erotica). It set me thinking about other scenes, movies, words that created the romantic in me -- the (good) Love Boat episodes, the Han and Leia repartee, even the recent King Kong cabin exchange that seemed rather nice. I'm sure there are many others, which I'll blog about if I can gather a list. It all made me feel that I can contribute something to the genre, even if in the end the manuscript only circulates among my (hey, what do you think of this) friends. So I'm back to putting an effort in. I hope I can get a real draft soon.

In other news, we have selected The Phantom Tollbooth as our work book club selection. Don't ask how that came about, but a good number have not read it, and as I think it is required reading, I am happy that the group thought it a good idea. I certainly have misplaced my copy, so I'll have to buy one. Drat, buying books. What a shame.

Last night was one of the Nokia Theater concerts for Asia. We met up with friends at Times Square and went into the theater early to pick out where to view the show. We decided on the floor instead of the stadium seating in the back; we knew it would only be two hours, so we figured we weren't too old to stand! The theater is pretty nice. The temperature was surprisingly cool and comfortable. And standing turned out to be a good idea; we could see everything and everyone, and it was more fun to dance around to the 80s tunes. :)

As far as I can recall, they played (not in this order) “Heat of The Moment,” “Only Time Will Tell,” “Sole Survivor,” “Don’t Cry,” "The Smile Has Left Your Eyes," "One Step Closer," "Time Again," "Cutting It Fine," "Without You," "Here Comes the Feeling," "Wildest Dreams," "The Heat Goes On," "Ride Easy," "Roundabout,” “In the Court of the Crimson King,” “Fanfare for the Common Man,” and the one we had the most fun with, “Video Killed the Radio Star.” For the latter, John used a megaphone to sing the opening lines so that he mimicked the recording, which was just so cool. Geoff wore sunglasses and his long, white coat. The audience all did the weird "Oooh, oooh" between the lines. Really fun!

I must say that they all sounded wonderful. This was the second time I'd seen John and Geoff, probably the 15th time I've seen Steve, and the first time I've seen Carl (which is actually surprising considering that I'm the prog girl). I was really impressed with Carl's playing and appearance -- he's in great shape and looked like he was having a great time. His drum solo was one of the better ones I have seen. We all had a good time.

After the show R and I grabbed a bite at Europa Cafe and spent a little time taking in the square. As I stood on the sidewalk, bobbing my gaze from one bright sign to another, R said, "People come from all over the world to see this." I took the perspective of one of those people, and it made the square rather amazing -- the huge bright screens, thousands of people, hot dog carts, street artists, expensive stores, theater ads, news headlines, glass MTV booth, tacky restaurants. I appreciated it as a jersey girl, but I loved it as a tourist.