Dust to Dust

sparkly, angel, fairy and otherwise

Hi Christmas elves and non-elves and half-elves:

half elf by Eric Belisle

Mid December is the time I go completely bonkers. I have tried, in my life, to keep domestic and professional very separate. Over the last five years or so, thanks in part to running an organization that encourages authors to admit their family situation influences their professional lives, I have started to overlap, blend and otherwise conflate my personal and professional life.

Like—hello—this newsletter.

what even IS this newsletter?

The world is a big fat messy glob of mud and fire and water and rocks and tornadoes, hurtling through space and yet all of us rare sentient life forms are, most of the time, pretty bored, wondering if we should have a cookie or do some exercise instead.

It is a miracle that we ever struggle with decisions so small.

here’s a recipe for vegetable cookies in case you want people to make weird faces at you during your next holiday party

Speaking of miracles, last year (that’s 2020 for anyone who is counting) right around this time, I discovered that our basement storage space (Manhattan people living in apartments feel that having an extra 10 square feet of storage space is an enormous luxury) had been smashed when a brick wall collapsed (hopefully not load-bearing) during flooding after one of the recent hurricanes. So, like, it took me more than two years to notice that I have no basement storage space…and more importantly...

In that basement storage were six storage bins containing all of my high school and college yearbooks, all of my photographs from our first ten years of marriage & our wedding journals & baby books, travel photos from pre-kid adventure travel, and other silly memorabilia that it broke my heart to lose.

I discovered this loss on Christmas Eve 2020: our longtime building superintendent had died during the first wave of Covid (a tragic story: it happened shortly after his well-deserved retirement) and the new super was indifferent to what he called “tenant troubles” and generally not very nice. He basically said, “The basement is a mess, and if your stuff is actually gone, I don’t know nothing about it.”

This is the actual basement. Which, okay, is probably currently populated only by mutant rats and dust golem and strange creatures of light, but once I had stuff down here.

Recently though, that not-at-all-super super was dismissed (yay!) and a third super has been found and he actually is super. Three’s the charm. He is methodically undoing all the damage of hurricane Sandy, superstorm Ida, post-9-11 dust no one ever cleaned up, and trying to make space in our bomb shelter of a basement for tenants to use for locked storage…and also (bonus) he’s a cheerful guy year round—not just during tip-the-staff-season.

(this staff has a really cool tip)

And, lo! Yesterday I got a call from my super Super with the good news that all six storage bins were discovered, labeled and intact, in the long-sealed, unused basement office of our (deceased) lovely but overworked first super. The boxes are dusty and completely buried under other stuff. But they are FOUND.

They are found.

Here’s hoping that you also find joy in your past, find things that were lost, and come to the wise conclusion that even without all your stuff, you still have your memories.

Here’s to memories.

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Writing news this week?

I published only one short piece. It’s about that crazy cool little five foot statue, Fearless Girl. Four minute read: it was picked up by a publication called Counter Arts. Read it here. It’s fun. It’s called “Fearless Girl vs. The Void.”

I was invited to do an article reviewing a book but we got tangled in logistics because I can’t follow directions. Instead of simply reading the book and telling the editor yes/no it was worth reviewing, I wrote an actual (1500 words) response. She liked the response so much she wants me to read two more books of the same nature and write a longer article. Decisions, decisions.

Still querying agents. Trying to let go of the antiquated idea that coming up with great pitches and taglines should be the agent’s job. Every company has a marketing and a sales department—why shouldn’t an author? We are creating products. Agents are just sales. Marketing is…someone else. (Of course if you want to GET an agent these days you better at least hire someone to create a pitch if you can’t write one yourself. I am inching closer to this, FYI. I have always been better at writing than making up titles and even lower down that list is the ability to describe my own writing…though the idea of paying someone to describe my writing so someone else can sell my writing feels about as far from creating art as possible. On the other hand it’s them or me.)

One more thing:

Speaking of me! This newsletter is not where I write about Pen Parentis, but I wrote the grant to NYSCA (New York State Council on the Arts) that won $50,000 for Pen Parentis and there was a sweet article about it! The money will be paid out over two years, so if you want to help us match it for 2022, here’s the link to donate! Your donation is tax deductible as Pen Parentis is a 501c3 literary charity. This newsletter is free, why not drop a few (thousand, million) bucks into the Pen Parentis coffers? Only if you feel like doing something philanthropic. ‘Tis the season.

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Oh - and this is just something awesome for those of you who read this far. This is the actual elevator in the new Harry Potter shop that just opened at 935 Broadway (at 22nd). It’s brilliant.

Come visit - all you need is a little flue powder….