7Up, Ellen, Surprise Money, Sushi and Soulmates

Usually this time of year, summer is beaming down its promise on me. The promise of so much time to write and to follow my rhythms. Not this year, though. Everything feels askew, with my father gone two months and my mom suffering in the hospital. Today I brought her 7-Up and slip-on shoes and magazines. When I walked in the door she said, "It's sure good to see you." (Funny, she never said that when I was a teenager!)

We walked together up and down the hallways, her holding onto her IV pole for security. I know she's afraid of falling again. Who can blame her. We watched Ellen together. Ellen makes her laugh. Ellen, I love you for that.

When I got home, I had a surprise email from the Bellevue Literary Review telling me they received a grant and so are paying all the contributors to the Spring Issue a retroactive $100 stipend. I feel like I put on an old jacket and discovered cash in the pocket.

I also heard from my friend Janelle who's been at Cannes (because) -- and she said it's a magical place. She's already scheming of ways to move there.

Annie whisked me off to sushi. California Rolls and Sapporo are great comfort food.

I'm continuing to try to slip in research for my novel, reading Jane Bowles' letters. I'm struck by how she and Paul were married for many years but didn't live together much and had lots of (same-sex) relationships with others. And yet they were clearly very connected. Kind of like Auden and Chester Kallman. Chester, who was 14 years younger than Auden, broke Auden's heart by not being monogamous. But over the years they remained soulmates of a sort; Auden died at age 66, and Chester soon followed.

February House

Did you know that W.H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee all lived together for a few years under the same roof?

Their fixer-up Brooklyn brownstone was "host to an explosion of creativity, an extraordinary experiment in communal living, and a nonstop yearlong party" as the book jacket of Sherill Tippins' February House reads.

Many of these people will make appearances in my new novel. I'm reading Tippins' book as part of my research. This is the best kind of research, where you lose yourself in great reading that evokes the complexities of people and their time.

Carson McCullers and Jane Bowles--both of whom were married to men but had passionate affairs with women--will figure prominently in my as yet unnamed novel. I'm discovering so many interconnections among the (mainly queer) literary figures of the era that I'm gloriously drenched in the chaos of discovery.

The more I read about Auden and his lover Chester Kalman, the more I think that perhaps I have two or three novels coming out of this research.

I wish I could say more, but I've got to run off to the university to take part in a departmental reading of student essays. It's an all-day affair of reading anonymous paper after paper, scoring them based on a 1-6 rubric. A weird tradition, a bit like self-flagellation. It requires a lot of caffeine to stay on task.