New York – LaDonnaWitmer

Not Carried Away

satc
Mood: Industrious
Drinking: Tea Time

What I am about to say will make me one of the, oh, 5 people in the world who can’t stand Sex and the City, who is not rushing out to a theater this weekend or raising a Cosmopolitan to my lips whilst teetering about on 4-inch stilettos.

(And in my little group of 5, I’m not counting the uptight religious folk who don’t like it on principle simple because it has “sex” in the title.)

Yes, I have actually watched the show. I figure it’s best to know what you’re talking about before you choose to call it reprehensible. So a few years ago, when the final season had just aired and everyone was in a tizzy because, oh god, what would they do without their SATC, I decided to see what the fuss was about.

I admit that I went into my Netflix marathon with low expectations. I had seen bits and pieces of the show before (it has been unavoidable), and I took an immediate and deep-seated dislike to Carrie. Admittedly, I can’t stand any of the girls. But Carrie is the worst for me. She makes me want to stab out eyes with sporks.

As if you didn’t know, Sarah Jessica Parker’s frizzy-haired fashionista is supposedly a writer on the show. It pains me that people who love the show, oh you many millions, think that Carrie’s brand of “writing” is suppposed to be good. The horror!

Any time she would flip open her laptop and flick on a cigarette, I felt rage begin to well up from the tips of my toes. And then the “writing” voiceover would begin:
“I couldn’t help but wonder, when it comes to being carefree single girls, have we missed the boat?”
or
“Later in the day I began to wonder, are we simply romantically challenged, or are we sluts?”
or
“I wonder, in a world where leaving each other seems to be getting more and more frequent, what are the breakup rules?”

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

If SATC were created today, Carrie wouldn’t have a column in a newspaper (side note: how does she afford her ridiculous wardrobe on a salary from a newspaper, especially when she doesn’t even seem to work full-time???) — she would have a blog, and she would happily clatter away on her little keyboard, spewing all her random musings and boy-obsessed wonderings to the great unknown blogosphere. Kind of like I am doing right now.

Anyway, for those many and rabid SATC devotees and defenders, nothing I say will sway their love for Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte. But nothing they can say will change my utter contempt for this show.

I know it’s supposedly a great tale about the friendship of women and how it triumphs over all of life’s ills. And that’s nice and all, but it’s hard for me to see through all of the horrible writing and ridiculous scenarios and find such a diamond at the center of all the crap.

Perhaps it’s because I prefer boots to Blahniks, or maybe it’s because I was never a serial dater, or possibly it’s because I don’t give a shit about fashion, but whatever it is, the silly, self-obsessed, insecure, waspy girls of SATC will just never do it for me.

And if that makes me one of only 5 people on earth who feel that way, well, I’m just fine with it.

But if you are one of the many SATC lovers in my life (Michael, I’m looking at you), I’m not gonna love you any less because of your taste in television. Just please don’t expect me to go to the theater with you when you go to “get Carried away” for the third time in a row.

-Lo, with a kiss-kiss here and a hug-squeal there.

Cinco de Mayonnaise

buffysing2
Mood: Revving Up
Drinking: Nada

After 30 days of daily poem posts, I feel all rusty and creaky returning to the status quo of weekly(ish) posts.

But real life cannot sustain daily poems, at least not the kind of life I’m in the habit of living.

It was a brilliant idea, though, wasn’t it? Even though I thought myself insane in the beginning, I found it fairly easy to get into the regular rhythm of writing a poem a day, especially when I gave myself permission to post poems that unapologetically sucked or (this was even harder) poems that had the potential to be so amazing, but needed a few more days or weeks of percolating and editing.

Some of these un-percolated poems (Je t’aime, for instance, which now has a new name) are being re-thought and re-written as I type. Ok, not as I type, but in the general background of the return to real life, they are being revised.

Someday I’ll post them again in their better, shinier, actually finished form.

The best thing about all of this was that I wrote so many things that never would have been explored had I not given myself the daily deadline. Honey, for example, was an amazing accident, and I don’t think I would have thought to explore my personal history with bee stings had I not been wracking my brain for any scrap of story that could be whipped up into a poem.

The second best thing that happened was that I started tearing through several of the poetry collections I purchased back in January at the Associated Writing Programs conference in New York. I don’t make it a regular habit to read lots of poetry books, and it’s completely my loss. I found so much inspiration in the words of other poets, and I’m now simultaneously reading the work of Galway Kinnell, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, and Elizabeth Bradfield. What a feast!

So farewell, National Poetry Month celebration. Perhaps we’ll meet again next year.

A few bits of newsy things:
1. Michelle and I are editing a new cinepoem called “Yellow”
2. There is a ladonnawitmerdotcom refresh in the works that will include a real RSS blog feed (yay)
3. The Secrets of Falling is reviewed in the May issue of The Other Herald

All good things, all keeping me busy, busy, busy. Seems to be the way I like it… and off I go.

-Lo, with a “Grrrr” and an “Arrrgh”.

Two for One

gary
Mood: Sickly
Drinking: Green Tea

It’s very last minute, but that doesn’t make it any less fabulous…

I’m sharing a feature spot with my poetry pal Gary (pictured) this Thursday, February 7, at Bird & Beckett Bookstore in Glen Park.

The festivities start at 7 p.m. and are followed by an open mic. So if you’re around, head on over to 653 Chenery, grab a seat, and maybe even bring a few of your own rhymes to read.

In the meantime, I will be trying to ditch this scratchy sore throat that I brought home from New York so I can read without sounding like a frog. (I aim high.)

See you on Thursday!

-Lo, who believes in the healing properties of tea.

Big Apple Sauce

23rdstreet
Mood: Industrious
Drinking: Lukewarm Diet Coke

I love New York.

Yeah, yeah, that’s what the t-shirt is for. But really. Who doesn’t love New York, even in January…

I’m in Manhattan for a writing conference, and let’s be honest — at least half of the reason, maybe even three-fourths of the reason I wanted to come to this conference was just to be in New York again.

It’s been a few years since I was last here. Somehow, I always seem to show up in the city during the winter, necessitating a suitcase of sweaters. I even have a big fuzzy winter coat that usually hangs mothballed in the garage because it was purchased specifically for trips to colder climes like New York and Chicago. It’s rarely cold enough in California to warrant so much fuzz.

Boy is joining me for the weekend, but for the moment I’m on my own in the big city, and enjoying the heady freedom of riding the subway to Soho and back for no apparent reason.

Of course, I’m here for the writing, too, and I’m taking pages of studious notes and ferreting away nuggets of inspiration for later, (although the blogging for writers seminar I was just in was capital B Boring).

Anyway, I’m all juiced up in the Big Apple and my MetroCard is burning a hole in my pocket. Being here just makes me feel like anything could happen, even though “anything” usually turns out to be fairly unremarkable.

So let me say it again: I really love New York!

-Lo, who feels right at home on the boisterous sidewalks.

If You Can Make It Here…

Mood: I love my life.
Drinking: Water to wash down the sour patch kids.

I’m far from home right now, sitting on the 30th floor and staring out at the lights of dowtown Manhattan. Boy and I took a spontaneous trip to NYC with some friends this week. Our excuse was to see Depeche Mode at Madison Square Garden (and those boys rocked the Garden pretty goddamn hard last night), but really, what excuse do you need to see New York in December?

So we packed our bags and found a condo to sublet for a few days and here we are. Boy and I spent most of the day today wandering the East Village, shopping for random fun shit like a green canvas cap with a red glitter handgun on it (for me) and some pinstriped pajamas (for him). We also stopped on Christopher Street to ogle some puppies in the window and purchase a punked-out plaid collar for the Loon. I love vacation shopping.

Actually, I just love New York. Especially at this time of year. As one of our New Yorker friends said yesterday, You can be all cynical and grouchy at the crowds and the tourists (of whom, admittedly, I am one) and the slush and the rush and then you round the corner and see the angels and the glittering tree in front of the Rockefeller Center and all of the sudden you’re all melty and soft inside. (H&M on Fifth Avenue gives me that feeling, too.)

It’s very cold here, though, and snowed a bit today. I won’t miss that part at all when we head back home to the green and the palm trees. Every time our friend M (also from SF) slides on the sidewalk ice, he yells out, “I LOVE San Francisco!”

So between the cinepoem editing (Object should be done and up before Christmas), and the real life busy-ness and the spontaneous jaunts to the East Coast, I have begun work on yet another huge and exciting project…Book Number Two!

It’s not a tease this time. I have a designer (the fabulous Kathy Azada), a photographer (the lovely Patti Monaghen), and I’m hard at work. This book will be more than double the size of Angel Skin and even more gorgeous than she was. It should be finished by the summer of 2006, if all goes well.

That’s all for now. I’m off to soak my tired toes so I can put on my boots again and hit SoHo tomorrow.

P.S. Jo, I WISH YOU WERE HERE!

-Lo, who fell in love with lipstick #88 at Sephora today.