Rainy Ruminations
Seasonal Allergy Sufferers Rejoice!!
It rained yesterday and all that golden pollen went swirling down the drains and gutters of NYC.
For those of you unfamiliar with NYC rain, it looks kind of like this:
Real New Yorkers always carry an umbrella in their bag because our showers tend to come out of nowhere and vanish as quickly as they arrived. But on days like today it is best to stay indoors….or just run from one awning to another.
Another reason to ditch the umbrella is that the scaffolding in NYC is often too tight for even the smallest diameter of coverage. Much less opposing traffic.
That said, there is a beauty to the rain dance in NYC. Most scaffolds are wider than this (admittedly preposterous) sidewalk. Generally, three people can walk abreast beneath a scaffold, and when there are umbrellas involved, there is always this wonderful, unspoken kinetic dance that occurs quite naturally.
Both umbrellas tilt to the outside so that any water caught on the surface spills over to the outside edges of the opposing couple. The taller person raises their umbrella and the shorter person ducks underneath, careful to lean away so that the taller person’s eyes are protected. They pass without looking or acknowledging their proximity. They pass without slowing down. If you are huddled in a doorway watching this dance, you might see it happen five or six times in a minute.
Only tourists, who tend to cluster and bump umbrellas, generally fail to do the instinctive dance. Of course, they have their own special Tourist Rain Dance since they often wear both a slicker AND carry an umbrella, so that when the wind gusts, they are first rendered immobile by the sharp inversion of their umbrella (which generally tugs their attention away and makes them raise their hands to try to clutch at the Poppins-like accessory) and then they are blinded by their slicker as the wind shoots up from beneath to surround them in a sea of plastic. And then they turn around in circles trying to re-invert their umbrella while simultaneously trying to pat the caught air out of their plastic slickers.
If you give them a clear berth, it’s pretty fun to watch them bump into each other.
WRITING NEWS:
I lined up another online video interview, this time with Stephanie Larkin on Between the Covers TV. I enjoyed talking to her about Book & Baby and look forward to speaking to her about A FLASH OF DARKNESS.
The podcast I recorded (interviewed by Tessa Fontaine) for GOOD MOMS ON PAPER should drop soon, but I haven’t heard from them, LMK if you are a follower of theirs and hear my interview!
Oh! A close friend of mine recently said, “you know I don’t do horror, do you think I would be able to read your book?” And the answer to that is definitely YES. My short stories are very weird but they are not going to gross you out or give you nightmares (unless philosophical thinking upsets you, then…maybe.)
ALSO another writer friend told me to stop saying that my stories are weird and instead say that they are quirky, surprising, extraordinary, different, unusual, or original. I’m not sure how any of those things are all that different from each other.
So choose your favorite adjective, but please obtain a copy of my book (here’s one way) and drop a review on Amazon — I loved when one reader not only reviewed it on Amazon and Goodreads but sent a copy of the review to me via email just to tell me she loved the book. And truly folks - writers need reviews. Until the book has 25 reviews posted on Amazon, it won’t be suggested to anyone while they are shopping. Last I looked, I still need 24 more “customer” reviews.
(Thanks, Patty.)
I do still have some free review copies left, so if you love Kafka’s short fiction and want to read my book for a possisble review, reach out.
Random Final Thought:
Speaking of Kafka, there was a news story in my local Downtown paper about this new “World’s Tallest Correctional Facility” they are building, along with an architect’s rendering—and I am nauseated to think that a JAIL would be this much bigger than all the residential, commercial and other properties in the entire neighborhood.
If the City needs this much space to house the individuals who are unable to live within society’s current laws, is it possible that there are bigger issues at hand than just…a lack of space to house people who break the law?