When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.Working on a chapter though it feels more like a game of whack-a-mole. Every time I move a section into what feels like the right place, another hole opens up. How many craters can you see on the moon with your naked eye? Back ache, hands ache, dry eye and flatbread pizza. Five hours, nine, twelve. I’m holed up in a hotel in downtown Detroit working and all that’s missing is a pack of Luckys and a pair of nylons drying in the bathroom. I like to see how many hours I can go without speaking to a human being. Five hours, nine, twelve. I like it when I can think of the word.
Where do you write?
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Betsy Lerner 
Detroit? Home of Motown! Those two items painted the perfect picture btw – pack of Luckys and a pair of nylons drying.
I reckon I write everywhere – because even when I’m not physically putting the words to paper, I’m in my head thinking of possible scenes – like when I’m perusing avocados, vacuuming or loading the dishwasher. The mundane chores get done and I don’t remember doing them. Sort of like driving on auto-pilot and not remembering how you got home.
“Where do you write?”
Usually in the second and smaller bedroom of the two-bedroom walk-up my wife and I live in in Chicago. It’s where I am now. It is cold. My hands are cold. Outside it is 12 degrees F. Inside it’s whatever the building management keeps it at to emulate the legal minimum requirement of 66 nights, 68 days, during the cold months.
But this old building — it is, as far as I can tell, not insulated in the form we nowadays would refer to as insulation. It is workers’ housing, though not a slum — artisans, teachers, police and firefighters, office workers, housing for that sort, of which I am a member. Look at this paragraph, I’m dashing through the cold.
I do my writing in this room and also my earning, as I am an aging member of that brave new information economy wherein economy is the operative word, and I work from home. I spend a lot of time in this room. But isn’t that all a writer needs — a clean, well-lighted place? Well, it’s clean enough, though cluttered. Lighted well enough for me to see by. My wife and I, we call it my office, or the study. It’s my window on the world, my lifeline to humanity.
Third floor walk-up by the fire escape, or the attic. If I’m too warm I get dozy, so cold is good.
In a back alley behind a dive bar lit by a single streetlight, a stray cat rubbing against my leg after being fed a bit of leftover sesame encrusted tuna. In the woods on a day with a gentle breeze keeping the bugs away. Quietly and unobserved in a Twilight Zone corner of a house I lived in as a child. Away, away and far from here.
I haven’t yet found the ideal spot in my new digs. I always prefer writing outdoors, but it’s not likely to happen soon, considering tomorrow will be a high of 13.
Take a little break, Betsy, and go visit the Motown Museum and original recording studio. Very cool!
Like Donna I’m writing all the time in my head. But putting words to paper (on a screen) is done at my kitchen table, which really isn’t a kitchen table at all but a huge old dinning room table we moved to our family room right off the kitchen.
My corner of the table faces the door, with windows to the right and left of me. Very comfortable and safe. ( I can’t sit with my back to a door – long story)
When the family invades us for dinner I shove my stuff into a corner cabinet which is actually my writing-office.
I do have a real office, upstairs with some of my best and most popular articles framed and hung. (Gifts from my daughters) Book shelves, file cabinets, all the stuff real offices have. But it’s here, where I am right now, at my table in the family room where the magic happens. Writing is magic by the way – the mystery of which I care to share from my mind to yours.
In that slick space between the stars. Where there is only me.
Where do I write? Goin’ down the highway at 70… 80 mph, with a couple of decedents in the back… orrrr… in heavy downtown traffic (or traffic jams on previously mentioned highway), with decedents in the back. Heavy user of my note taker on my smart phone (which kinda makes me just a weeee bit dumber, every day).
Drowning in that shit hole of lies hoping my life is worth living. Cunt.
Even Bob Dylan knows you gotta keep the game goin’. Even though he ain’t too good at it no mo’. Gotta get the kids all worked up to make some green, honey. You know how it works. The only good thing about you is your god. You’ll never get another dime from me.