Cheers, everyone—

I'm here in Chicago, staying with friends who are kind enough to let me crash & spend the days in an urban approximation of that cabin in the woods I was fantasizing about. Quiet, quiet days in an apartment high above the city (for Chicago folks, I'm in the South Loop), looking out at the freeway and then the magnificent Lake Michigan. Up in my part of the world, I'm used to the mountain/woods sort of Great Lake shore of Lake Superiors, and the forever-seeming sweep of this Great, unbounded at least from this point of view, is awesome. Big long windows let in gorgeous sunrises and falling darks in the evening, and today it's grey and misty out, the kind of weather that reminds me of the Oregon coast, where I spent a lot of my little-er years running up and down the sand, balancing at the edges of tidepools, falling in, balancing on high wet black rocks. My mom always calls these Oregon days, no matter where you are. So a grey day that makes lots of people feel weighed down feels very comforting & cozy to me, and it's always the perfect kind of day to stay in and write.

Today's all about characters & settings. Digging around in your head trying to find these people and places so you can see them clearly and put them on the paper so they become real to the reader is always a project; sometimes they come to you so sharply that you can get them down in a flurry, sometimes they're a little further off through the fog. Today's a little of both. But I am, in fact, working on what I am supposed to be working on, which as I mentioned last week, I definitely was not.

Speaking of Chicago, there is the Art Institute, which I adore (I have probably mentioned this before), with this spectacular collection of the Impressionists. The museum in all areas is curated and hung beautifully, moving in a very clear chronology through the various periods, so that you can get a sense of how the moods and popular fashions of painting and drawing evolved over time. There's also my beloved "Paris Street; Rainy Day," by Gustave Calliebotte, which hangs at the opening of the Contemporary area, which never fails to make me gasp. As do a couple of their iconic holdings, especially Hopper's "Nighthawks at the Diner" and several others, and their holdings of one of my slightly odd favorites, Georgio di Chirico (I may have misspelled his first name) are wonderful and fairly extensive. I fell in love with di Chirico when I was in school studying the Surrealists (there were quite a lot besides Dali, and I was looking partly at the visual art of the period but also a lot of the written work; di Chirico has a few things in common with Magritte, if you like M.). Anyway, my own giant book of di Chirico prints is ragged & should be replaced, but I am very attached to it. I am going to possibly embarass myself here, but I believe it's Mark Strand who wrote a poem studying di Chirico--it's not a common one, but if you can find it, read it, and I will go find its title later anyway. Also in Chicago: the wonderful small Museum of Contemporary Photography, which I loved, and which lately had an exhibit of really fine photographs on America post-9/11.

So publication nears awfully fast, and now we're at the stage where real logistical plans for tour get made—travel dates & vehicles (planes, trains, automobiles), specific times for interviews and readings get confirmed, and there's lots and lots of email popping up all the time. It's hard not to get freaked out or overly distracted by all of it; it's exciting & nerve wracking, and time seems to have speeded up somewhat as April 9 nears. (Note to New Yorkers: I will be speaking at an eating disorders vigil at Pace University on April 1.) And every day I increasingly dread the endless airports, which I just hate. Taking my shoes off and my computer out and my way-too-many bags and coats etc. off—maybe if I packed a little lighter? Sigh.

I've oddly started listening to alt-country music, and am having a fantastic time with it. All I knew of it before was my slavish adoration of Lucinda Williams; turns out there's more. But if you haven't listened to her yet, do so ASAP.

Time for work & enjoying the foggy Chicago day.

Peace,
M