Writing on Air

When I walked in to my room just now my dress was kneeling like this and that's how I knew that it really is time to rest, even my dress is exhausted. Me and my dress must regain our strength before the big premiere! Every day I wonder: will people come to the IFC Center in NY on the 17th, 18th, and 19th? And will they come to the NuArt in LA and Century Centre in Chicago on the 24th, 25th, 26th? If all these shows sell out all weekend then people in the rest of the country have a fighting chance of seeing the movie. I think to myself: how hard could that be? But then I realize that I really only know about 20 people in each city, and I think of all those seats and I get nervous and wonder how expensive is it to hire a plane to fly over the cities that says: See Me and You and Everyone We Know! Or could I just walk around and yell it loudly, but that might be alienating. For now I have decided to lay the challenge at your feet. Perhaps you know someone who flies one of those skywriter planes for a living. Or, alternately, maybe you can tell your friends to go. In any case, each day I think about this for at least a little while. I imagine all the seats and hold my breath for a moment and then carry on with my day.

Sometimes it is a comfort to think about things that aren't the movie. For example, Cloverfield Press. These friends, they said they were going to start a publishing company and then they really did it, and the books are small and real and lovely. Thrillingly they published a little book of mine, it is just one story called The Boy From Lam Kien.

You can order it now and have it sent to you when it comes out, June 24th, the same day that a certain movie comes out in LA. In fact, I will be reading a story aloud at Skylight Books at 7:30 and then running over to the NuArt to do the q+a for the 7:30 movie. Also, have you visited Learning to Love You More? It is my collaboration with the artist Harrell Fletcher and with you. We just put up a new assignment, #47: Re-enact a scene from a movie that made someone else cry. You can be the first one do it. I will obviously be checking LTLYM every other second to see if anyone has done that assignment, in the same way that I avidly read the comments on this blog. Basically I am either thinking about the empty seats, checking LTLYM or checking the comments. Or making toast with almond butter and jam. Those three things pretty much triangulate my existence. Sometimes I have to think about my friend Dena getting married and what will her dress look like. And also I worry about my parents and hope they are happy. And sometimes I think about my brother and his wife and how they are having a baby and will it be a girl or a boy. And then I check the comments section and then sometimes I have to spend up to twenty minutes at a time resigning myself to aging. And then I have to think about love for awhile. And then I check websites and think about the empty seats and then I sleep.