Away in Vermont

I am sitting at a very old, very beautiful dining room table in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont half-listening to a story on NPR about butterflies. Someone has figured out a way to tag and track butterflies, the same way they tag eagles or sharks, but I didn’t hear all the details of the story—the how the do the tagging, and what the tag physically is—because I am working on some new writing projects which I came here to hopefully finish, and those are taking most of my attention. Some of the butterflies which were tagged in Vermont ended up at the Connecticut shore. Some of them ended up in Mexico, where they usually go for the winter months. To me this made the butterflies sound like retirees.

Moments ago, the 21 year-old son of the friends that I am staying with came into the kitchen to tell his father, my host whose dinner table I am sitting at, what kind of noises that his car is making. “Angry grinding noises,” he says, and then he makes the noise for all of us—a loud, angry grinding sound which makes all of us laugh. This is a perfect moment, and it rivals the joy of feeding the forty chickens in the backyard, which I did this morning. “I’m not good at laundry,” the kid says, when he is asked to help. “I am good at my own, but I always mess up if I have to do someone else’s.”

My novel will be released on Tuesday. So I am here for a few days of brain rest and rejuvenation before that experience begins. I have no idea what to expect, but I am expecting to feel a lot, to have a lot of reactions. And I want to be in the kind of mental place where I can take it all in. I was reading an article in Vanity Fair about Angelina Jolie by Rich Cohen who wrote: “I noticed everything…as you notice everything in a video game: because who knows what you’ll need, what will mean your advancement, what will be your demise.” I realize when I read this that this is why I have come to Vermont: to ready my brain like September is a video game. I’m doing a lot of events.

On the way up here, I stopped to get gas at the same exit where I was in March of 2009 when my agent called to tell me that someone was about to make an offer on the novel. I figured it was a lucky place, so I bought four scratch-off lottery tickets. The lady who sold them to me asked me which kind I wanted, and she pointed to the big acrylic case where all the rolls of tickets were held. “Red?” she asked. “These red ones are the most popular.” This is when I became suspicious of her motives, perhaps wrongly-so, because I went against her recommendation and bought the blue kind—Sparkling Diamonds—and ended up not winning. Four dollars, goodbye. Oh well. I still win: my novel comes out on Tuesday.

Hump Day Update

--Vermont was lovely, if brief. I guess I was there for about 18 hours, total. Still, I was able to spend some time walking through the woods, and feeling like myself. At some point while I was walking up through the part of the farm that they call "The Marriage Area," I picked up a huge branch that had fallen. It was not heavy, just large and twisted. I propped it on my shoulder and kept walking, a kind of Tom Bombadill moment. As I came to the higher part, I turned around and looked out over the hill and the snow and the land all around me. I felt such a huge swell of gratitude toward the trees. I wondered, for a moment, if I should say it out loud to them, or would they know it already? Would they care?

--My brain has been pleasantly distracted by the goings-on lately, and I feel simultaneously exhausted and charged, like I'm on speed, but drunk. As soon as things pan out and situate in some kind of finality, I'll be able to relax more. I think. I hope.

--After all the fuss, I joined Facebook. (And I have since updated my previous post on this blog about not joining it, so there.) People have been going on an on about it to be, as if it were the savior of mankind. It is not that. It is no more or less interesting and annoying than any of the previous social-networking websites, although this one has a certain reach, and therefore people who, I would gander to presume, were not a part of Friendster, for example, have signed up and send inane messages to my boyfriend about assinine right-wing causes. Hello? The interesting part to me--so far--at least, is how people talk about connecting on Facebook, but there really isn't any connecting going on that I can see. There's just confirmation and information. "Hi, it's been 15 years since I saw you!" the notes say. I am glad for them, but we are not really sharing anything other than some kind of intangible proof that we still exist. "Here I am," the thing says to the universe, and here is my data. It also makes me realize that I have no photos of myself. I stopped taking pictures with my own camera a while back, and so now my digital self lives inside other people's computers--the modern era is so fractured.

--I think the boyfriend and I are going to Prague sometime in May-ish.

Not Johnny Depp At All

"It's not Johnny Depp at all," she said. "More like George Michael meets BeeGees." They were discussing his new haircut, sardined in with the rest of us on the F Train this morning, rolling our eyes, wondering when, exactly, we'd reach signal clearance and continue on, away from the stink of West 4th Street. "It has some better shape," he responded, "but it's not what I told her to do." They looked at each other, considering. Finally, she said "Give it a few shampoos." At first, groggy from the morning, from having to spend a third of the night sleeping on the couch to avoid my boyfriends snoring, I thought she meant some kind of medication: Take two of these and call me in the morning.

I was sitting, hooray, and reading, but not focused much on the book. A fat lady had crammed herself into the space between me and another guy, then she pulled out a chunky worn paperback romance. Sometimes when a stranger touches you like this, in a remarkably intimate way--sustained and quiet--I wonder if they're not doing it on purpose, trying to drain the life from me because of their own loneliness. (Perhaps this is a bit dramatic.) I tried to read over her shoulder, I tried to memorize a few good lines to share with you here, but my short-term cache was already filled with Johnny Depp and George Michael meets the Bee Gees. And there was only pale backs and promises, nothing else that really struck me. Her red acrylic fingernail looked shoved down into the chubby end of her thumb, like a cherry stuck in the white icing of a cupcake.

This afternoon, I'm driving to Vermont to bring back the first crop of 2009 maple syrup, which is being boiled as I write this. By the time it cools, filters, is brought up to the house, heated again, canned and boxed, it will be tomorrow afternoon, and then I can bring it back to NYC for selling on Saturday. I'm looking forward to the long-ish drive, about 5-6 hours. I relish the time alone. I need to spend some time thinking about the first novel, and it's pressing future. And I need to allot some real uninterrupted brain time to figure out a plot device, or plot problem, in the second one.

If you're nearby Union Square on Saturday, come by. The first syrup is a thing to behold.

Best Gay Everything

Looking for something to warm up those cold January nights? Some of my work is included in these two anthologies, which are out there in bookstores waiting to be snatched up.

Best Gay Erotica 2009 features my story, "Mr. Laundry," about an unexpected encounter at a Queens laundromat.





Best Gay Romance 2009 includes an absolutely true essay about what happened one summer in Vermont many moons ago.

Vermont / Back Forty

--Vermont was lovely, despite all the bleary-eyed work we did. We canned about 45 gallons of syrup for the coming weeks of Greenmarket, so that I can have basically every grade of syrup in every container. (This means taking the syrup from huge 30 gallon drums and putting it into tiny containers from 3 ounces up to a gallon.) Our market table is becoming too small to hold everything, perhaps we'll need to expand. Also, I seem to have forgotten how much room it takes to have everything available, since over the winter we're usually down to one or two grades in most of the containers. So, the good stuff is here, too, the Deep Mountain Special Reserve, which tastes so utterly fantastic and subtle that I think the best thing to do with it is, um, just drink it out of the bottle.

--Howie, the sugarmaker, and I were walking through the sugarbush, talking about price points and candy sales. "This is where I almost died," he said. "What happened?" I asked. In the trees above us was a huge branch, broken and dangling from the trunk. "The wind was really crazy, and I got stuck in the snow right here. That branch was waving all around, ready to snap off and come down on my head." He paused, and I took in the reality of it--the situation was very real. "What was going through your head?" I said. He answered: "You never think it's going to happen. But some part of you does."

--The drive from New York City to West Glover, VT doesn't really get interesting until you're in Vermont. Until then, it is only the wavy stretch of I-95 through Connecticut and Massachusetts, which is spotted with rest stops infested with McDonald's. The radio, also, lacked excitement. We did have some interesting conversation.

--Last night, Kip and I took my friend John out to dinner for his birthday at Back Forty, the casual new foodie joint from Savoy's Peter Hoffman. Here's what we shared:
-Pork Jowel Nuggets, with jalapeno jam
-Buttermilk Biscuits, with maple chipotle butter
-Wintered Over Broccoli Rabe, with garlic and balsamic
-Green Wheat, with mint and yogurt sauce
-Toasted Fregola, with marscapone, caramelized onions and guanciale
-Drunken Potato Melt, with spring onions, fontina and appenzeller
John had the Grass Fed Burger, one of the most press-given dishes at the restaurant, and Kip and I shared the Whole Rotisserie Chicken. The kitchen, or somebody, mistakenly sent out the half-chicken instead of the whole, and they made quick note of it, and sent the other half. Then, as an apology, they sent out fresh doughnuts with a lemon thyme glaze. "For, you know, that whole chicken thing," the server said. I thought that was classy. Also, the server must have overheard us talking birthday, and saw us give John a birthday card, so without any of us mentioning it, they brought a slice of the seasonal pie with a candle. It was a citrus cream thing, much like a key lime pie, but better. The food was great, and the vibe was totally casual and classy. I thought the service was also superb--even with the chicken error, they were gracious, relaxed without being too friendly. Thumbs up, Mr. Hoffman.

Home Again

I've just returned from a few days in Vermont, walking through the maple trees, canning syrup, catching up with old friends, eating lots.

More soon, when I get back on track....