My Bold Bonus Life: 6

5:40 a.m. I was up getting ready to go get my ticket to see live Saturday Night Live.

I arrived under the famous NBC marquee at Rockefeller Plaza by 6:30, only to learn that the making of the shows is "in hiatus."

But that's not what the website had told me.

Furthermore, the security guard helpfully advised me that if a new performance had been scheduled for tonight, I'd probably have needed to spend the night on the pavement out front to have any chance of getting a ticket.

Website didn't say that either. So I came back to the apartment and took a nap and did a little work. Soon to go have lunch at the apartment of a friend from my school days. I haven't seen her since 1972. She's now president of a large university. And they make fun of English majors' job prospects... She and I had some classes together. She must have taken better notes.


I did go out to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and was glad I did. The Japanese Hill-and Pond Garden alone was worth the trip. And a blooming lotus, a marvelous creamy-white thing. And lunch on the terrace in the breeze: a turkey, brie, arugula sandwich with raspberry mustard.

From there in central Brooklyn, I walked to the cafe whose caramel salt sundae was the cover of Time Out New York magazine this week. It did deserve a cover: caramel ice cream with caramel sauce and whipped cream and some sort of cookie chunks mixed in and, the crowning glory, broken pretzels on top.

From there I planned my next move: to go and see Paul Taylor's company dance at a venue in a Lower East Side waterfront park. I had two hours, so I decided to walk. Quite a distance from where I sat in Brooklyn, but surely I could make it in two hours or get a train when I needed to.

So I walked across the Manhattan Bridge at sunset. Gorgeous views of the Brooklyn Bridge, the city skyline, the boats down below, and Liberty in the distance. Then through Chinatown, past so many fish markets, fruit markets. And on to parts of the Lower East Side I'd never seen before. I walked the entire waterfront of that East River park and never found the first Paul Taylor dancer. Oh, well. The walk was really the point, which was not true of this morning's fruitless hike. By the time I got back to the apartment, I'd walked most of four hours: a slow scenic marathon.


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My Bold Bonus Life 5

Posting in the morning today, for a change, while I'm feeling fresh and clear-minded. Never mind that it's 12:13 pm. That's mid-morning for me in this New York 18-Day Bonus Life. I've settled into a schedule of going to bed about 1:30 or so and getting up about 9. Not really much different from my sked at home. But this feels much more leisurely, of course, since I'm not heading off to my office and working until mid-evening. (Instead, doing a little work on a manuscript and making one call to an editor)

Breeze coming from the terrace through the glass atrium is so nice. Second cool day in a row. Yesterday it was 74 degrees at midday. This weather feels miraculous, is giving me an extra season in my bonus life.

The weather is right to go to Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where I've never been but always had in mind. As my website bio says, I'm a devoted-but-slapdash gardener. Dedicated in spring and fall and laissez-faire in the hot months. I want to see the Brookly spread and do so in this weather, but am feeling more urban than herbal today. And I'm making a point of following whims during this time.

Today's the last day of a gallery show I wanted to see: Richard Kalina at Lennon, Weinberg. Just looked at it online and now I feel I've seen it -- and really enjoyed it.

Just had a glance at this video of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It says to me: Go, you haven't seen but a glimpse. Today?


Maybe I'll just head out and see where I wind up. But I do have to go to bed early tonight to be in line at dawn to try to get a ticket to see Saturday Night Live live.


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My Bold Bonus Life: 4

Lotta lotta walking -- twice across the island of Manhattan, and from 87th down to 42nd and halfway back. And almost every instant of it interesting.

And a little shopping: got a couple of light cotton tops at Forever 21 for dealing with the heat. (I know I'm actually 28 on this trip, but I'm young for my age.) Then, fittingly, went to Love, Loss, and What I Wore, a play by Ephron sisters based on a book by a woman who didn't start writing until she was 60, Ilene Beckerman (hurray for her!). The play is about the stories that particular pieces of clothing evoke, and was very sisterly, funny, and well-done.

I also did a little work, critiquing a manuscript. I'm managing to comfortably fit some work into my bonus life in this new and refreshing setting.

Food report: a stuffed potato at a diner that was extremely ordinary but served with the best Coke I ever tasted. I must have been thirsty.

A caramel sundae is on the cover of the Time Out New York that I bought today. It's the Dessert issue: perfect timing. And as it happens, a caramel sundae is what I had for lunch my first day here.

A fine slice of takeout chocolate chip cheesecake awaits me now. Must go.



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My Bold Bonus Life: 3

Tired. I went out to Coney Island on the train this afternoon, a place I richly imagined as an elementary school kid. I'd heard back then that this was a place that had even more carnival rides than nearby Carolina Beach. This was inconceivable bliss.

But my interest in such rides waned, and definitely ended after I had my first and only roller coaster ride at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. I boldly refuse to do any such thing ever again.

But something about the nature of this trip (see My Bold Bonus Life: 1) made me want to go. Also, Coney Island Beach is adjacent to Brighton Beach which interests me because it's a strong Russian emigre community and I love pockets of other cultures.


Anyway, I had a pleasant and long walk on the beach, which wasn't as crowded as pictures of NY beaches always seem to be. Admired the prodigious size of the Ferris wheel and the roller coaster. Bought and consumed exotic jellied candies, presumably Russian. Heard a lot of Russian spoken, came to understand that not all Russians are blonde like Baryshnikov. And that what appears to be the main drag of Brighton Beach runs directly underneath the elevated train.

And now I've been to Coney Island, home of both Coney Island Beach and Brighton Beach. This desire is fully and happily satisfied.


But an even better part of the day: I had lunch with a friend here who is one of the most inspiring speakers I've ever heard: Colleen Keegan. She is also inspiring and emboldening at lunch. I came away with the feeling that the future is promising, that exciting new possibilities exist in what generally seem to be discouraging global circumstances. And that individual voices and quirky ideas really do have a better chance of reaching people than ever before.

Plus, the lunch and the view were splendid. (Reader/commenter/artist Lynne asked for more food reporting here.) We dined at A Voce, in the Time/Warner building on Columbus Circle. The Stracciatella,
"creamy pugliese mozzarella,roasted artichokes, lemon thyme, arugula, bresaola," was kinda unbelievable. That alone could expand one's sense of possibilities.

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My Bold Bonus Life: 2

After the euphoric first day of my 18-day life in Manhattan, I learned that even in a bonus life, one has to run errands: the drugstore, the ATM, etc.

However, doing these mundane things here makes them fresh and new. For one thing, everything was in walking distance. No driving. That alone was staggeringly refreshing.

And, coming back, half a block from "my" apartment -- hereafter to be referred to as my apartment -- I walked up on a crowd of people all over the sidewalk on both sides. And there were lots of piles of stuff on the ground and on tables. A multi-family yard sale, I thought. But then I tried to figure out what they were selling: cross-country skis, folding chairs?

A second later, I figured it out. It was a shoot. For Law & Order, I learned. (A surge of feeling lucky overwhelmed me at this point.)

I didn't see any of the stars. What I saw was people who were referred to by the shouting crew as "background" being taped walking back and forth on the sidewalk. One woman's assignment seemed to be to rummage in her bag while walking. I thought she did it very well, but somebody yelled "Cut" every time she got a few seconds into her rummaging.

Had I been really bold, I'd have said to one of the guys with clipboards: You need any more background?

Still, a surprise shoot was a nice addition to errand running.



This morning a mini-transcendent experience in the Cooper-Hewitt design museum: Lobmeyr Glass. I was drawn to the place by a photograph of a cobalt blue bowl. I like glass art and love cobalt blue. What I saw stretched my idea of what glass can do. (This video is Lobmeyr glass, but not the display at the museum)


One case of goblets and such was made of extremely fine muslin glass, "with a restrained iridescence, a whispered reference to Roman technique." The curator said these pieces have "the delicacy of a soap bubble." He wasn't exaggerating. The glass seemed barely there.

Bold design ideas are the point of this museum, and there were so many astonishing ones on display. Example: a machine that "prints out" houses, extruding concrete in lines that make walls, rather than print in lines that make type.

And some contemplative moments watching model sailboats skim across a pond in Central Park....

Bonus life personal change: I'm getting rid of a couple of pieces of clothes that I brought. They're worn out. How had I not noticed that back home?















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My Bold Bonus Life

Have embarked on my 18-day life-within-a-life in New York, the one I promised myself as celebration of turning 60 a year and a half ago. I hadn't yet figured out how to work it out (pay for it) and then this marvelous house-sitting arrangement fell in my lap and suddenly I'm here.

And it's thrilling. I arrived yesterday on "the Chinatown bus" -- an express overnight trip from Grand Asia Market at home in NC to Canal Street in Chinatown (a $30 trip, can you believe it?)

We rolled in at 10 am and then, sweat-drenched, I rolled and toted and subwayed my monstrous suitcase (housing computer et al)to a lefty church service where a former client of mine is minister. Got there just in time to hear her preach, and meet her afterwards. I'd never even met her; being several states apart, we'd communicated only by email. Her sermon was inspiring; about making important changes by shifting your weight in the desired direction, a little and then a little more and so on. Music was gorgeous: a piano and flute performance of one of Satie's Gymnopedies, and then a solo by a woman with a Broadway style voice (rather different from most of the church sopranos I've ever heard, no warble)

Then uptown to my home for this bonus lifetime. Wow! it's terrific. A sunny studio on the third floor with a glass atrium at the back that has been made into a sunlit office that then opens onto a large third floor terrace in a breezy canyon of trees within the center of the block. (see terrace view in photo)

Also, the owner, whom I've never met, (daughter of a friend of a friend, and oh, what nice people) is 28 years old with a glamorous career, Audrey Hepburn taste, and an excellent book collection. I am happy to be twenty-eight again for the coming weeks.

In the afternoon, I went first to the Manhattan Dominican Day parade.
Continuous dance music and everybody dancing. (I had no idea that 90% of New York was Dominican.) Then to the E. 60th Street Fair, and more walking (my favorite thing in New York) and sudden exhaustion: back to the apt. Ate the owner's mother's homemade pumpkin bread and leftover white wine on the terrace at dusk. (I was asked to eat up all the leftover perishables or get rid of them)

How did I get such a miracle opportunity as this? By telling everyone I knew. And I didn't even do it to look for an opportunity, just out of excitement. But the results convince me more than ever: if you have a dream, start making it real by making it public.

Feel free to announce any dream(s) of your own here in the comments.





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Junk Mail to Art

My friend, Christina, knowing I'll be in Manhattan next week, passed on word of a cool workshop there.

I love the idea, and it can be done anywhere: turning your junk mail, your pile, into a piece of art. When you think about it, there's no end to the forms one's pile of garbage paper and odds and ends can take. Highly customized notecards at the very least.

It'd be interesting to take one day's trash/recycling and see what can be made of it.

If you exercise your creativity and come up with something, send a photo. I'd love to post it.

Note: the wonderfully inventive artist Bryant Holsenbeck has an ongoing slide show on her site displaying her art made from trash and recyclables.

A Taste of My Plan B Life

New York has called me and I need to cancel the Get-Published workshop that I announced in my last post.

Thanks to those who expressed interest. I'm sorry for any inconvenience.

The situation: I got an offer I couldn't refuse: 2.5 weeks plant-sitting and being a "New York writer" in an apartment on the Upper West Side. Great chance to see some colleagues--even though it's August-- and lead some of my Plan B life. (If I had two lives, one would of course be in Manhattan and, as it happens, on the Upper West Side.) So when the Big App calls, I go.

Do you have a Plan B life? Do you ever visit it? (A virtual Second Life on line doesn't count.)





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Seminar: Get A Book Published

You’re invited to a Get-Published-in-Today’s-Market Seminar
on Saturday, August 14,
at my cabin in the woods, south of Chapel Hill, NC.

You’ll learn:

--How to think about your book or idea – however literary or personal – from a commercial perspective

--How to approach an agent (with fiction or nonfiction)

--The trends in publishing by the major houses and how to stay current

--How to choose and approach small presses

--Self-publishing’s new respectability—how and where to begin

--How to make the most of your credentials

--As well as up-to-date high points of: promotion, Internet and print resources, “building a platform,” networking, and aspects of getting a book out into the world.

(What we won’t cover: photo books, books for small children, poetry.)

My publishing credits include: two novels, Sister India published by Riverhead (Penguin Putnam), a New York Times Notable Book of the year, and Revelation (Simon & Schuster) with screen rights sold to Synergy Films. Co-authorship of a nonfiction book, The Healing Power of Doing Good, published by Fawcett Columbine (Ballantine Books). I’ve published articles, essays, and reviews in More, Ms., Cosmopolitan, Travel & Leisure, Family Circle, Motor Boating & Sailing, and other magazines, and in newspapers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and most of the other major American newspapers.

Writers I’ve worked with in my consulting services for writers have found agents, published with major book houses including Simon & Schuster, Wiley, Workman, and St. Martin's, as well as smaller presses, literary journals, magazines (Gourmet, Newsweek), newspapers, and online publications.


Nuts and bolts:

Class hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hang out until 5:30 and socialize, if you like.
Lunch and drinks are provided.
Feel free to bring your laptop.
No prerequisites: you’re welcome whether you’re previously published, finishing a book, considering an idea, or looking for one.
Cost: $95
Reserve by sending a check to Peggy Payne, 410 Morson Street, Raleigh, NC 27601 or click on the payment button at the bottom of this page.

Did I leave out anything? Contact me with questions at peggypayne(at)peggypayne.com or in the comments section here. Thanks.

Peggy



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Spunky Mama: A Hospital Adventure

It's been a wild couple of days. At first, seemed as if Mom had had
a heart attack. Then it appeared to be an infection in a lung.

Then it was definitely a fairly weird situation. I won't encumber you with the medical details, but some organs had gotten kinda twisted up. And apparently, she has had this situation for decades, maybe even from having twins 57 years ago, and no one knows why it got painful at this time. (Also, no one could understand why it didn't affect her appetite at all.)

A couple of doctors were saying she needed surgery to fix it, but then the pain went away with one Tylenol. She said she saw no need for surgery for anything that could be cured by one Tylenol. And the last surgeon said: let it be, maybe it'll never be a problem again. If it is, then operate then. She liked him a lot. But he wanted her to have one more test to be sure.

So mid-afternoon Friday, she went downstairs to the outpatient surgery wing to have that. After more than an hour Brother Franc and I started getting worried. Then we learned, unbelievably, that the whole county had no water, a main line had broken and water had to be shut off and porta potties were being brought to the hospital and there would be no surgery except emergency because they couldn't wash instruments.

The whole hospital turned into a sort of convivial gathering the way a town does during a power outage or some such. It was during that moment that a lot more relatives arrived in Mom's room and a woman came in to announce personally to every patient not to drink the water and the CEO of the hospital decided to pop in for a visit and found Franc fully clothed lying on Mom's bed making phone calls. (He'd already told one caller that Mom was in for breast augmentation and a facelift because dating at 88 is so competitive.)

The CEO thought Franc lying in bed with his shoes on was the patient and said, So you're about to be released? Then Mom was rolled back into the room, and said she was going home, which she did. And I drove the three hours home to my house, back to where it was possible to take a shower.

Saturday Mom went out and ran errands and got her hair done. I, on the other hand, am exhausted. She's to go get the last test sometime this week after they've taken care of the more pressing cases. I still have a faint worry that it will show something bad, but the medical opinion is that it probably won't.

And one medic said that based on the tests they'd done, she has another good ten years, that nothing else is wrong with her at all and she isn't at any risk for anything. Energetic as she is, Husband Bob thought she'd be upset at the idea of only ten more years, but she thought making it to 98 would be fine.



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Fear Not...

“Every thing we do is music and everywhere is the best seat.”

— John Cage

(discovered on the website of Ranch La Puerta spa in Tecate, Mexico)

"He was an early writer of aleatoric music (music where some elements are left to chance),..."




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Take Heart and Let the Sadness Come

Today is Tisha B'av, a Jewish fast day dedicated to mourning the various acts that destroy holiness in the world. I learned this from the blog of composer Meira Warshauer. She and I have been friends since we were in first grade.

She writes: "Today, for a few more hours, we can feel the sadness of a world in pain. Today we don’t have to get busy fixing it. We also don’t have to turn away from things too difficult or inconvenient to face. We can live with the sorrow. We don’t eat, we don’t bathe or listen to music. We are just present with the broken-ness of our world. We feel compassion. We let our hearts break."

That takes courage. That's bold.


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Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway?

Brain research from Israel shows that what works best for taking immediate brave action is to disconnect from the fear and do it anyway.

Neuron magazine reports that people watched in an MRI machine could let a live snake closer to their heads if they "dissociated" from the feeling of fear.

"Courage is associated with dissociation of reported fear and somatic arousal." Somatic arousal being the physical agitation: pounding heart, sweat, etc.

In my view, anyone who can let a snake get near them in an MRI machine is already Batman.

But I do find the research potentially very useful to me. Essentially, it is to put the feelings aside. We've all done that, putting an emotion aside in moments when "the show must go on." So everyone knows how. Probably courage is a matter of being conscious and practiced at "not feeling the fear" though we know it's there, rather than being fearless or panicked.

(I'm currently working on putting aside the feeling of being sweat-soaked from a half hour midday walk -- by blogging and carefully placed ice cubes.)








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Taking a Bold Approach with Tennis Elbow

I put my little kayak in the water yesterday and went for the first longish paddle of this year. Tennis elbow has kept me away from it for months.

I was waiting for it to be totally healed, then got tired of waiting, and went for a little kayak ride anyway.

I've used that strategy with an injury on two other occasions. Once it was a total permanent cure (for back trouble) and the other time it landed me in six months of physical therapy (for a frozen shoulder.)

This time, no change. I had a fine time on the lake and today my elbow hurts no worse than it was already accustomed to.

In fact, it hardly hurts at all.


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Do Something New -- Or Do an Old Thing Differently

I'd heard that the gallery light in the new N.C. Art Museum had a mysterious ethereal beauty.

Last night at dusk and in a thunderstorm, I made my first visit. (Characteristically, it was work that took me there: a gallery is going to be a setting for important stuff in my YA(young adult)-paranormal-romance-in-progress.)

I did find the ethereal light, the feeling that the classical sculptures had brought all of history with them.

And, my point, I was reminded of the refreshing value of regularly doing something new -- ideally every day.


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The Very Bold Harvey Milk

Last night, I watched the movie Milk, the biopic about San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to hold major public office in this country.

Sean Penn did a terrific job playing the part (won a Best Actor Oscar.)

I already knew of course that Milk and the supportive mayor of the city were murdered in city hall by a fellow councilman.

What struck me in the movie was how many times Milk lost and ran again before he was elected. He was defeated in three campaigns before he won. That's a lot of times to go through the day-and-night siege of a campaign, a long time to keep up the kind of courage he had to have, approaching lecterns again and again in spite of death threats.

I certainly admired the man's politics and courage. I also now admire his persistence.

Here's a clip from the real Harvey Milk:




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I Write Like Margaret Atwood?

Should you be in the mood for a hilarious compliment to boost your boldness factor, go get your writing "analyzed" at I Write Like Margaret Atwood.

All you have to do is paste in a few paragraphs and the site's software speedily decides what well-known writer uses similar word choice and syntax.

I ran across it on a Facebook entry this morning and hurried straight to the site.

I learned that I am very versatile. I pasted in a few grafs from three of my novels.

In my first Revelation, about a Chapel Hill minister who hears the voice of God, "I Write Like H.P. Lovecraft." Wikipedia reminds me that this early 20th century writer of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror is known especially for "the subgenre known as weird fiction.

Lovecraft's guiding literary principle was what he termed 'cosmicism' or 'cosmic horror'..."

In my second, Sister India, "I Write Like Jonathan Swift." Jonathan Swift!! Remember Gulliver's Travels? How is it that I write like a turn of the 18th century British satirist, preacher, and pamphleteer? Probably because the narrating main character is an American woman who has taken to Indian English.

And I've happily learned that in my recently completed "Blue Serpent Rising," "I Write Like Vladimir Nabokov." This pleases me. I can live with this. In fact, I think it would make a nice blurb. My "Blue Serpent" and Lolita do have some interests in common.

Go give it a try and report back who you write like. One way or another, it's likely to give you an emboldening burst of energy.




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Self-Defeating Thoughts and Questions

So often it's difficult to know which is "the better part of valor."

I think most of us would do the right thing most of the time if we were sure what it was. (Heady discussion at lunch today about the pros and cons of fundamentalist religion: it does give a secure sense of right and wrong about many things.)

But would any religious code tell me whether to keep working at the moment or take a nap or the afternoon off and start again refreshed? Maybe it's too small a matter to matter. But such decisions often feel quite important to me. ( See obsessive compulsive disorder: scrupulosity)

Once I righteously kept working (which involved driving to a copy center) when I was very tired. I got hit by an 18-wheeler and my car was totaled. It was half my fault; I thought he was signalling to me to drive out in front of him, but he wasn't. Would have been better if I'd taken a nap. But how was I to know?

A person could waste a lot of time and energy and joy trying to make the right decision about everything.

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Rondori: Dealing with Several Problems at Once

How is it possible that my car failed, my computer got a virus, I lost my health insurance, my credit card was stolen, my psychologist husband moved into a new office and independent practice after 42 years with his old group, and major repairs are going on at our house--all in the same few weeks?

Is it something I said?

In some martial arts testing, there's a part called rondori or randori, when multiple attackers come at the candidate all at once. The goal is to stay upright as long as possible.

The closest I'm coming to bold just now is to keep dealing with things one by one.

I'm happy that it's mostly just technical difficulties. My thoughts are with regular visitor here, Mamie, who is coping with big rondori right now.


Steven Seagal performs rondori, aikido

///RHYS ISTERIX | MySpace Video


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My Fourth of July Car

A flower-mobile (see photo two posts ago) is a hard act to follow, of course. But my morning glory car was replaced -- on the eve of Independence Day weekend -- by this cherry-bomb-red 1998 Ford Escort. I'm thrilled and feeling a new surge of bold independence.

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