I got a Gmail the other day from a writer in Israel. He said he “found” a copy of the Forest for the Trees on a bench in Tel Aviv. He liked the book, it helped him, blah, blah. What I want to know is: who leaves my fucking book on a bench? Or did he get to the chapter on “what makes editors” tick and, thoroughly disgusted, intentionally leave the book on the bench. He couldn’t even be bothered to throw it out. Or maybe it was more benign, just forgot it, which is even worse in my book. It’s also true that another part of me thought: go little book, you made it all the way across the world.

Did you ever find a book? Or leave one behind?

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When I was a senior in high school, I won a poetry prize of $100. I went to the local bookstore and bought as many poetry books as I could, most just because of how they looked. One of those was Houseboat Days by John Asbbery. I had never heard of him, but I like the woman with the impassive face, elegant dress and oar in her hands. And then I fell in love with the poems. When I was a freshman at NYU, I saw that Ashbery was reading at Books & Co. I had never been above 14th Street on my own, but I braved the subway to the upper east side. The store was packed. Everyone looked impossibly sophisticated. I managed to get inside, but I couldn’t see or hear a thing. It was the best time I ever had.

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It’s August 31, do you know where your novel is? Did you fuck this summer or did this summer fuck you? Did you work? Did you tunnel down, bite down, dig deep or did you drift, go back to sleep, weed your garden? I use the end of the summer to check in with clients who have gone awol for a time. So I’ll ask you: where are you at?

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I went to Fort Collins, CO yesterday to celebrate Temple Grandin’s 70th birthday. We met about 25 years ago when I was a young editor at Houghton Mifflin having read Oliver Sacks’s article about her, “An Anthropologist on Mars.” I had a sense that she needed to tell her own story and that became the memoir, Thinking in Pictures. I met a woman at a bridge game this year and when it came out that I was the editor on that book, she said, if you never do another thing with your life, that book changed lives. Temple changes lives, and it’s been my great privilege to work with her on her books, and to know her.

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I think of my writing project as my imaginary friend. It’s all I think about no matter if I’m at a party where bacon wrapped scallops are being served, if I’m waiting outside Whole Foods for the prices to come down, if I’m weeding my weed garden, riding Icelandic ponies on a Vermont farm. It’s me and my imaginary friend on the cyclone, on the hay ride, in the sack, the potato patch, the aquarium and the aquarium gift shop.

Tell me about your imaginary friend.

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December 1987

To Mark

Whom I hope will always remain a poet in eternal youth and never lose his precious innocence.

Merry  Christmas baby

I love you, Rachel

I grabbed my copy of Poets in Their Youth by Eileen Simpson to take to Jury Duty (I got dismissed). I’d had it for years, found it in a second hand book store, was desperate to read it, but didn’t. When I opened it today, I found the inscription above. I felt like I was eavesdropping. Why was this beloved gift abandoned, returned, tossed back into the sea. Next, precious innocence? Doesn’t every poet want experience? But mostly I was so touched one person would give another a gift about poets in their youth.

Where are Mark and Rachel now?

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I have jury duty tomorrow and I’m probably one of the few people in America who likes being called. (I also like conventions and trade shows). I love the people watching/scrutinizing, the bailiffs, the lawyers in their ill-fitting suits, and the ceremony. It feels like walking into a short story. I like the rules. I like to see what people are reading, if they are reading. I like the boredom, the slow hands of the clock, the linoleum. The thing I love about being a writer is the goddamn anthropology of everything.

What do you like that everyone else hates?

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Did you see the eclipse or were you too busy writing? Did you feel the atmosphere change, the air charge, the shadows fall hard on the pavement. Did your heart darken, harden? Did you feel a drop? Did the wind die down? Your cape fall from  a telephone pole. Were ravens praying on a bench. Did you find a tangle of cellophane or a cup of moss, a cairn made of many stones? Did you think about nothing or how hollow you feel most of the time, even now under this delinquent sun?

Your eclipse?

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Congratulations to our beloved and beguiling SSS on her publication day.  This is true cause for celebration. Sherry thank you for being such an integral and supportive and loving member of our truly dysfunctional family. We love you. Congrats. You not only finished the fucker, you got her published. Wow.

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I’m going on vacation tomorrow, which means I’m going upstairs to my home office, lashing myself to the desk for seven days, and hoping that I win. It’s a death match, this writing business. It’s you against the beast. I don’t have any spiritual feeling about the work. I hate the words process and journey. I don’t send postcards. To me, it’s work. I don’t plan on learning anything new about myself or growing. I just want to go in punching and be the last man standing. Love you and leave you, fellow nut balls. Hope to see you next week.

What’s your idea of a vacation?

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