Dispatch #23: The Age of Falling

Don't worry, this isn't another gift guide

I wanted to write and say hello since somehow weeks have zipped by without a (free) newsletter.

So: Hello!

Somehow it’s already December. The sixth of December, in fact; on this day twenty years ago, Patrick and I went on our first official date. We’d been friends for a while by then, penpals too, we’d slept together a few times, even. But this was A Date. We walked from my dad’s house (where I lived, after graduating from college and then traveling in Europe) to see "the film “Secretary” at the movie theatre on the corner of Beverly and Fairfax. Afterward, we walked south to Kmart so Patrick could buy some new sheets. I’ll never forget how sexually charged it felt, watching those sheets come down the register conveyer belt. (Patrick denies this was anything but a practical errand, so who knows, perhaps the sheets were not emblematic of anything and I’m just a horndog?) That night, I wore a wide-necked white ribbed sweater from Banana Republic with jeans. We made out in my bedroom afterward and then he went back to his apartment in Hollywood. I had many opportunities to see those new sheets in the weeks following…IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

Today, twenty years later, we are tired because, last night, Ginger woke us every hour. She was sleepwalking, basically; her nose was running and it kept half-waking her up, and she’d come into our bedroom and turn around again, without speaking, back to her bedroom. This morning I felt as bleary-eyed as the mother of a newborn.

Our housekeepers were coming this morning (for the first time in four weeks, wow, was the house getting grimy!), so I decamped for the coffee shop to work. On my walk to the car, I rolled my ankle (in my clogs), and fell: flat on the ground, hands scraped, knee banged. I yelled, “Oh fuck!” No one was around to witness my humiliation and pain.

When was the last time you fell down? I actually fell flat on my ass while hiking in November, but it didn’t hurt like this did. Later today I saw my friend Laura and she said something like, “We’re getting to that age now. The age of FALLING.” We laughed but I’d had the same thought, the same fear.

Tomorrow I’m going to Palm Desert to speak at UC Riverside-Palm Desert’s low residency MFA program. I’ll be there for two nights, staying at a nice resort hotel. I have to give a talk (on revision) and meet one-on-one with students, but otherwise my time is my own. I am looking forward to being in teacher-and-writer mode, and also excited to be alone in a hotel room with its, to quote William Carlos Williams, “immaculate white bed.”

I have a fantasy of waking up early one morning there to revise the short story I wrote while at I was Dorland. How glorious would that be, to get in some juicy writing time from the comfort of a king sized bed? The story has a supernatural plot line that isn’t in my usual comfort zone (though, yes, I know, I did write a time travel novel) and it has a sort of bemused, campy quality that I want to push.

I feel like I must get this story done before the new year swallows me with its teaching demands, but I also know that’s somewhat unrealistic. I finished my novel last month (also while at Dorland) but now there is so many end-of-the-year chaos. For one, Santa Claus is coming to town. And the kids only have one more week of school after this one, and then they’re off until January 9th. All three of them! Until the 9th! What the fuck?!

I’ll be happy if I can finish this story and share it with a friend or two, and get my Caltech class squared away. And then I will float away into the holidays. Our Christmas tree is now up, and I’m looking forward to watching LA Confidential with a cocktail, as I always do with Patrick in December. I can’t wait to eat latkes at my mom’s house for Hanukah, and eat Alison Roman’s rib roast on Christmas Day, and see a gun fight at Tombstone with my in-laws in the days leading up to 2023.

I wish you a lovely holiday season. I hope you found something on a gift guide while also feeling so annoyed by said gift guides, as I do. Why does EVERYONE have to produce a gift guide now? It’s like engagement photos. A REQUIREMENT BY SOCIETY.

Here, then, is not a gift guide, just shit I like, that I either want for myself, or did get myself.

Like everyone else, I read the novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, which I consumed in about five days and adored. If you don’t know, it’s about two friends, Sam and Sadie, who design video games together. Work is almost always compelling in fiction, isn’t it? I loved reading about their games. The book reminded me a bit of A Little Life in its swath of time covered, and how it was about friendship. Sam is like Jude with his corporeal vulnerability, too. But, of course, it had no rape, suicide, and intense trauma. It was lighter…but just as spellbinding.

Sometimes the book hit on its themes a bit too hard, and I hated how the narration sometimes over-explained for the reader who god forbid might not understand, as in: ““The poor man’s Chris Cornell,” Marx whispered, referencing the lead singer of the grunge band Soundgarden.” Um, people can Google Chris Cornell if they don’t know who that is! Let me believe in the authority of the narration! Don’t yank me out of the universe!

But otherwise, it was a great read. I miss reading it.

I loved this piece by fave critic Welsey Morris about the death of the movie star, which articulates a topic Patrick likes to rail against on Saturday nights. Morris writes:

“Without any middlebrow, non-superhero films — star vehicles, they were called — we’re facing the elimination of being as an art form, the death of tropes, tics and signatures; laughs and struts and accents and turns of phrase; a gallery of light bulbs going “ding” over some actor’s head".”

Morris writes about the combination of “wisdom and vacancy” that a star like Brad Pitt had years to perfect and to build with audiences. It’s a terrific, fun piece of cultural criticism.

Now I’m reading Agatha Christie for the first time. I love how quickly the book moves—such a lesson in pacing! I want to write a book that has short paragraphs and people dying in nearly every chapter.

I’ve been thinking of the classics I want to read next year. (Do we all make such aspirational lists?) Since listening to Red Comet, the bio of Sylvia Plath, I want to revisit The Bell Jar, and the poems of Robert Lowell. I’m newly curious about D.H. Lawrence, whom I’ve never read. I was thinking of reading Frankenstein since I never got to it in high school. I am going to look into Walden for something I maybe will write. What about you?

On the clothes front:

I like this floral duster. I have no reason to own this, but it looks impractical and fun.

Every pair of shoes from this boutique in LA. So gorgeous…and so expensive. Sigh. I actually got these much cheaper sneakers on Black Friday because I want to wear sneakers again and I’m trying to figure out how. They’re gonna be big time mustard, baby!

I am so drawn to this LL Bean men’s sweater. It just calls to me. I really am going to get it, I think. Watch out world! (I see now there is a women’s version, but do I want a slouchier look? I think I do.)

As for food:

Did I already share this ramen noodles with charred scallions and green beans recipe? It’s easy and flavorful—a great weekday night recipe.

Patrick made this pork ragu last weekend and it was much easier than some of the other recipes he’s tried. It was gooooood.

This red wine is so yummy—smoky but juicy—and it makes me want to try more wines from Sardinia. (Story goes that drinking wine from Sardinia makes you live longer…it’s definitely true, right?!)

Okay, that’s all I’ve got for you on this December day. I have some fun ideas for 2023 newsletter missives: about getting my author photo taken (a treatise on wrinkles?!), about fiction writing (a list), and a game my friends Sierra and Peter call “Who’s in your hot tub?” (Hmmm, don’t you wanna know what that’s about?!)

I look forward to writing these for you in the new year. Thanks for reading!

Oh, and if you aren’t a paid subscriber, you also have the option to send me a couple bucks through this Buy Me a Coffee thing.

I have a cappuccino problem, so if you like reading my work, I will be so grateful to you for getting me one!

Ho ho ho!

xoxo

Edan