Oh It's Like This Now
I didn't pop champers Tuesday, despite having a perfectly good bottle of Gosset Brut Excellence to ice down and toast with, not to mention a perfectly fantastic reason to celebrate. Early in the a.m. and bereft of coffee, it didn't occur to me that I could have brought the bottle to my buddy Joe's place which is where I went to watch the inauguration, a picture-perfect, clear blue-skied view of the bay bridge from Joe's balcony on Telegraph Hill. We watched the inauguration intently, breaking the silence and intermittent tears of joy to comment on everything from the samples in John Williams' piece to Aretha's fierce church lid. Obama's speech was great but a surprising highlight for me was Reverend Lowery's benediction. There was something in his rhythm and timbre that really resonated with me. His words and voice sounded full of experience, brimming with history. I can't imagine how it must have felt for him to witness and represent at the inauguration of our first black president. I absolutely loved his capper, remixed riff on the old Big Bill Broonzy lyrics, though it is frustratingly not surprising that so many people have misconstrued them, crying foul...never ever getting it. Whatever. All I have to do is look at that clip of Barack and Michelle dancing the first dance to bring back the tears of joy. So beautiful, the look of love.
Last Thursday, I returned to the ranks of the unemployed. I'm not trippin'...yet. I know that it's going to be even more difficult for me to find a job than it was before. I'm not hopeful about that in the slightest. I'm staring at a crippling amount of financial debt that is sure to get deeper. All the same, I'm really trying to stay focused on not let myself slide into the soul-crushing depression I dealt with last go 'round. One way I'm hoping to do this is by going back to school. Kinda sorta. I'm taking two creative writing courses at City College of San Francisco. I miss the structure of a classroom. I need the discipline that comes with adhering to deadlines. I want very badly to start writing again. The idea is that these classes will shake me from my creative funk and maybe even prime the pump enough for me to approach grad school with more confidence. It still doesn't feel like a fully realized plan but it's something. And it's something I really need to work out for me. It would be nice to feel good about some part of myself for a change. I've spent far too long feeling exactly the opposite.
Anyways...I've got beaucoup books to buy now. One of my classes is for short story writing, the other autobiography. Between them there are about 11 required texts and a gang of optional texts. The expense of the required texts alone makes me shudder. I was hoping that some of the bay area based bibliophiles on my f-list might have one or more of them that I could borrow for the duration of the class. I promise not to mark 'em up or otherwise be rough with 'em. And I learned yesterday that kombucha in my backpack is a no-no so there should be no fear of any sour, living organisms slogging your books. Here's the list:
The Story and Its Writer - Ann Charters (ed.)
The Art of Fiction - John Gardner
The Great Failure: My Unexpected Path to Truth - Natalie Goldberg
Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir - Natalie Goldberg
Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English - Patricia T. O'Conner
The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto - Pico Iyer
The Letters of Abelard & Heloise- Betty Radice (translator)
Infidel - Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Borrowed Time: An Aids Memoir - Paul Monette
This Boy's Life - Tobias Wolff (I actually already have this one. The completist in me had to add it.)
Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT LeRoy - Savannah Knoop (seriously?)
Letters of Vincent Van Gogh - duh (what's with all the letters?)
Holla at'cha boy if you've got the goods.