Month: May 2014

I watched the video of Elliot Rodger. I couldn’t help feeling compassion for the kid, even though he hated women (especially blondes) and was a mass murderer. Never mind girlfriends, he didn’t have friends period. Where were his parents when he was growing up without friends? Perhaps they did everything they could to address this though.

Some guy who was interviewed in the Times talked about how in high school they once taped Elliot’s head to a desk while he slept, apparently unaware that he and the other tapers come across as complete dicks. (I’d forgive the guy if he expressed some remorse, he was just a kid at the time.)

Note: For the record, my compassion is not meant to excuse his behavior.

On the news the gun control guys talk about how getting rid of guns is impossible, and they try to put the blame elsewhere. They says “lets talk about other solutions,” while at the same time refusing to compromise in any way shape or form. Gabby Gifford’s moderate bill didn’t pass. Getting rid of guns, by the way, it do-able. Australia did it. Japan did it. It worked. I remember Rob Borbidge, former premiere of Queensland, Australia, talking about how voting for gun control destroyed his political career but it was worth it.

For God’s sake, Elliot Rodger bought guns legally at three stores. Which reminds me. Do Background Checks Work to Keep Disturbed People From Getting Guns? Fuck yes.

Gun owners should be licensed like car drivers, and getting that license should be as hard as it is to get a driver’s license. They should have to take tests and get background checks. It is not unreasonable to ask people to demonstrate some semblance of sanity and responsibility before giving them something so dangerous. We don’t just give anyone a car and set them loose, we should at least do the same for gun owners. Oh, and they should also have to buy insurance.

A photo shoot on a Sunday on a holiday weekend. I took this an hour ago.

Out my window last night. I didn’t realize until someone just emailed me to have a nice holiday weekend that this is Memorial Day weekend!

What are everyone’s plans?? Clearly I don’t have any. I must make some!

Do I know how to post the hard news or what? Like most writers these days, I have to be a very very careful spender. So when my sunglasses broke in several places and could not be repaired I worried about finding an affordable pair to replace them. I need prescription glasses so cheap pharmacy glasses were out of the question.

Warby Parker to the rescue. I got these for $150. A great thing about Warby Parker, for every pair of glasses sold they donate a pair to someone in need! How can they afford to do that, and what a wonderful thing. I’ll post pictures of them in action when I have them.

About the picture below. There are a number of stores in my neighborhood which sell insanely high priced handbags and display them like works of art, which many of them are actually. They’re just incredibly beautiful. I don’t like to carry bags actually, so I’m never tempted. But like a painting in a museum I know I will never possess, I still like to look!

I took this picture because this handbag store was a gallery previously! And before that a firehouse, after sitting abandoned for a long time. Except, maybe people were living in there at the time, I don’t know.

How much do you think those two bags in the window cost? Should we all make a guess and I’ll find out later and see how we did? I honestly don’t have a clue. I’m going to say … $500.

That’s a strange title, I know. Take it easy and write? Can’t be done. But now that all my spring cleaning is done I really need to focus on and finish this book proposal I’ve started. The first draft is complete. Next is the fun part, going back in and polishing it up into the glimmering but morbid jewel I expect it to be. This would be more fun if I was working on an actual book I had a contract for and not a proposal. When it’s a proposal there’s a lot of anxiety underneath, spoiling this fun part somewhat.

But I’m not going to think about. I’m following an enchantment I’ve had for a long time and experimenting with letting it be exactly what it is. We shall see if that draws anyone else in. It has to do with my lifelong romance with the forgotten.

The flowers I bought myself when I finished spring cleaning. Bleecker has been eating the leaves one by one. Bastard. Yeah, I’m talking about you, my little flower-wrecker.

I’ve been reading more about the Jill Abramson firing than I ever have before about a story of this nature. I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps because the speculation about it is so interesting, and something about the story has brought out everyone’s best, at least in what I’ve chosen to read so far.

I think there’s also a road-not-traveled element for me. Long ago I decided my temperament was more suited to books than a newspaper. Except I’ve also questioned that decision. I’ve never lost sleep over it – you have to make choices in life and you can’t always know until the end, if ever, if you’ve made the right one. But if there’s any place I’d like to have worked if my decision had gone the other way it’s The New York Times. (And The New Yorker, although not a newspaper.)

So, I’ve been reading about what happened, and daydreaming about their world, and the players, and their lives, and imagining what it would be like to be in it. It looks fun. Even when it’s all temporarily gone to hell like this. I’m sure it’s not a cocktail party right now for those in the thick of it of course, I’m just saying it seem alive and vital and electrifying and I wouldn’t mind being in the middle of that right now.

A street fair on Bleecker yesterday. I left my apartment to get new sunglasses, and while I was out this street fair popped up.