I’m heading back to New York tomorrow for the PEN World Voices Festival, lunches with lovely OP authors, and a Tribeca FF film or two.  I’ll be posting PEN dispatches over at www.otherpress.com and the Other Press Facebook page, and maybe I’ll post them here, too.  (Here, as opposed to there, I reserve the right to use as much profanity as I like.)

So generally, I’ll be more present hereabouts in the coming days (and hopefully beyond).  Promise: more TK.

Without even realizing it I kinda gave up trying when it came to new music, so long ago now that I don’t even remember when. Maybe when The Ghost broke up (not necesarily causally related, though perhaps…). So it was nice to discover something new, new to me at least, on a whim.

The disappointment–the wholly expected disappointment–just heard “From the Hips” off Cursive’s new album, out today. I’ve come to terms with the fact that The Ugly Organ was probably the last album I’ll buy, but there’s still a let down every time I hear a new Cursive song that leaves me utterly unmoved. There were intimations of that whole quasi-swing-feel (poor description, I know) on that album, but it was kept in check, I think, or balanced, by a musical and lyrical tone of desperation and urgency that still manages to be propulsive and ridiculously catchy, which is what I’ve always loved about Cursive. Happy Hollow lost that, and it wasn’t just the tenor of the music. There was something creepily polished about the vocals that held none of the same seeming sincerity, the same rawness, that in earlier albums drove the always incredible lyrics home.

(Sidenote: I could be entirely wrong, but it seemed to me that The Good Life–starting with Lovers Need Lawyers–cleared the path through the musical terrain Cursive is now exploring.)

“From the Hips” sounds like more of the same. I’ve been listening to Cursive long enough to feel like I should give the whole album a shot…but I just don’t think I’m up to it.

One of the perils of working at home, I’ve found, is the bottomless coffee pot.  I’ve got that chalky film that forms on your tongue after too much too-strong coffee, which I haven’t experienced since the nights I spent smoking and caffeinating until 4AM at the Esperanto years ago.

Another problem: constant and endless phone meetings.

In an attempt to stay on some semblance of an east coast schedule, I’ve been trying to force myself to be a morning person.  It’s hard, but possible, to be something you decidedly are not.

It took about five days to drive across the country, driving between 8 and 12 hours per day.  I once made it from New York to Denver in 27 hours, taking shifts with a friend, but that’s back when I was more badass than I am now.  Also, I had two cats in the back this time, so for their sake it was necessary to take it slow and stop every night.  

I made a trip to the west coast back in November–Seattle, Portland, SF, Tahoe, SLC, back to Seattle–and it amazed me then how many mountain ranges there are.  I couldn’t even keep up with which is which.  I drove across them again on this trip, and now I’m trying to remember them all: the Appalachains in PA, the Rockies in CO, a particularly steep and terrifying range on the border of WY/UT, the Cascades in OR, and what I assume is the Pacific Coastal Range.  I need a relief map.

The most beautiful part of the drive, though, was the last few hours into Portland, driving along the Columbia River.  Absolutely breathtaking.

According to the Rocky Mountain News, the moon tonight is closer to the earth than it’s been in fifteen years, i.e. it’s at its perigee (a word I learned just two minutes ago, lest you think I’m smarter than I am).  It also happens to be full–apparently a rather rare occurence–so it will appear to be 30% bigger and brighter than usual.  I enjoyed about ten minutes of a spectacular view out of my office window–the moon hovering, glowering, between two buildings on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.  It has since slipped behind one of those buildings, but I’ll venture out in search of a view later, and pictures will be had.

If you’re not locked under cloud cover tonight, skip the movies or the bar and do some moon-watching.

My family has decided to forego gifts in favor of charitable donations this Christmas. The trouble is, which charity to choose? In the running, for me: Girls Write Now, 826 Valencia, ASPCA.

I will never live down the day I watched VH1′s All-Time Hip-Hop Countdown, and roundabout #12, I predicted that #1 would be “Gangsta’s Paradise.” (Lame in retrospect, I know; but dude, seriously. That song was in heavyrotation for, like, my entire adolescence.) Now, apparently, Coolio’s irrelevance has been somewhat mitigated: He cooks. On TV.

Busy (I just typed “busty” and almost let it stand, but no) day today.  So I won’t get to my planned soliloquies about The Corrections (which I just finished) and 2666 (which I just started) until tomorrow, earliest.  I’m sure you’re “all” waiting with bated breath.

As a post script: I promise to immediately cease any and all obnoxious self-conscious references to my utter lack of readership.  From here on in, I’m addressing you as the millions.

After settling on WordPress, I spent about three days trying to come up with a blog name.  I came up with something brilliant–so brilliant, in fact, that I’ve now completely forgotten what my first choice was–and hastily entered my blog name, password, and e-mail address.  Clicked “register.”  And of course the blog name I requested was already taken.  As were the next four names I tried over subsequent days (after deliberating and obsessing over the myriad implications and interpretations of each one).  I was tempted to use “kafkaspine” because I saw those words scribbled on a scrap of paper (with an exclamation point!) on an abandonded desk in my office, left behind by some long ago laid-off coworker.  But I can’t really lay any official or even unofficial claim to or love of Kafka, so it didn’t seem right to just plaster his name on the header of my obscure little blog.

Then today, having resigned myself to waiting until I stumbled upon an appropriate name instead of actively trying to be clever or deep or meaningful, I opened my inbox.  I try to be dilligent about keeping my inbox tidy–replying promptly, filing old e-mails in their appropriate categories, deleting anything I’ll never read or won’t need again.  But there’s always something that seems unimportant or totally resolved that ends up in my “deleted items” folder, and two weeks or a month or a year later, I find I need to reference again.   Which is why my inbox rarely goes over 300, while my “deleted items” folder now exceeds 14,000. 

It occurred to me that that’s basically how I’ve been thinking about this blog.  Nothing too pretentious (though I suppose the very assumption, however unassuming, that someone somewhere might even give a shit is pretentious in itself), nothing I’m obligated to take too seriously.  The deleted e-mails, the ten-year-old shoes buried in my closet, the book that fell behind the desk without my even noticing.  Nothing important, but it might still be useful someday.

Or not.