I can’t post tonight because I am watching the Emmy’s. I am an award show junkie. I don’t care how long, stupid, or ridiculous they are: I love the stars, the speeches, the faces of the losers. I have been writing some version of my acceptance speech since 1972.

Who do you thank?

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GUYS!!! I’ve been blogging for like seven or eight years and WordPress made us an Editor’s Pick today. I have no idea what this means except that they probably ran out of people to pick, but I’ll take it. I also want to share that I like to eat pizza while walking outside, I like to watch men check out women on the street, I am never happier than when a pair of shoes actually fits me. I am not going anywhere. I drink fate-free, caffeine-free diet coke and not because anyone forces me. I for real love to play bridge. And this tiny little mole of a nod to the blog made my day.

What makes your day?

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I’ve never talked about this, but I always think about it. How can we worry about our own stories or poems when hurricanes are destroying homes, when missiles are being launched, when the arctic is melting, when children are starving and dying when cancers are ravaging bodies, dementia destroying minds. How do you feel your work matters in the face of so much pain and suffering in the world.

How do you find meaning?

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The only way I get any fucking writing done is if I get up at five. I’ve always envied “full-time” writers, though most writers have to supplement their writing with work. It’s like the 1%. I also know that I’d probably wind up face down in a swimming pool if I tried. I’m incredibly disciplined, but my stability has always depended on having the responsibility of work. I don’t think that’s going to change in my lifetime. Nose still pressed to the bakery glass.

When do you get any fucking writing done?

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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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