Sunday, December 24, 2006

Xmasness

A gentle, quiet evening has descended on the neighborhood and I, the sole remaining occupant of 120 Linden this Christmas Eve, have settled in for a wintry night, curled up in the living room with a bottle of wine and Chestnut's iPod.

Chestnut phoned me a few hours ago from his folks' place to report that his half-blind great aunt had unwrapped the PSP Chestnut had bought for his cousin and he was presently gathering up the courage to swipe it from the jaws of her Dachsund. Tumble is spending Christmas Eve with his sister watching the Nutcracker Suite on PBS and texting me repeated requests to end his life. I'm going to head up to Erie tomorrow morning and visit with my adoptive parents, bringing along braised wild duck which Carly in her infinite kindness made for me to take after my third attempt at a casserole was hurtled feeble and smoldering into the garbage disposal.

As is the case every year, one of our neighbor's luminaria across the street has caught fire, sending a gentle flicker of light through our picture window. It's a drowsy, wonderful evening, the kind that puts worries in suspension and plans on hold, one that makes you want to close your laptop and stare out the window at the street alive in its emptiness.

posted @ 08:33 PM est [link]

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Tales from the Booth

Tuesday night we toiled in the acoustically deceased confines of a recording studio, hammering out the audiobook version of Hello Future Me... ...Hi There. Along to add to the recorded glory was Tumble's sister Imogene, who would play the parts of Officer Daniels' Daughter, Woman #1, Woman #2, and Old Lady Passerby.

I summoned my sturdiest narrator voice and read all the non-dialogue. After a couple marathon readthroughs, I realized my writing was so flowery and overly descriptive it made a Tom Robbins book read like a caveman telegram. I promised myself to lay off the thesaurus after I realized I'd used four different words for "corn".

While Chestnut and Tumble were setting up for their parts, I excused myself and went in the hall to check a voicemail. It was Carly, who had just gotten back from the Meadowlands racetrack where her ex-boyfriend J.C. had taken her for lunch to try and win her back. Carly had to spring for her own ride home after J.C. parlayed a $2-to-place bet into a $10,000 pick-6 and spent the rest of the afternoon at the Responsible Gaming booth crying to the counselor on call.

I made a mental note to phone her back after we wrapped and returned to the studio, where Tumble was reading dialogue for R.A.S.P.U.T.I.N. (Remote-Access Space Probe Utility Transponder Interface Nexus) the on-board computer in 2023.

A few minutes later, the audio engineers left on lunch and never came back.
posted @ 02:07 PM est [link]

Saturday, December 2, 2006

A Voice From Not-So-Distant Recentness
Yesterday, while conducting a conference call between the publisher and a hideously lost Grogan Tumble (who had volunteered his courier services the microsecond I'd finished uttering the words "advance check"), I was interrupted by an incoming-call beep. I looked at my phone which displayed two words I thought I'd never see again:

Carly Calling.

I let Prentice/McTiernan Publishing help Tumble figure out how to get back from Wheeling, West Virginia and took the call. Frankly, she could have dialed my number by accident and I would have been happy just to hear her hang up. Carly meant to call, it turns out, and needed someone to talk to. Her ex-boyfriend was back in town, a poker-circuit crony who'd come out with his own line of instructional DVDs a couple years back:

It was a nasty relationship that he was all-too-ready to rekindle, and Carly didn't know what to do. I talked with her for hours, offering advice and comfort, and receiving in return a glimpse of the magic that was our whirlwind romance-in-disguise. We promised to get a cup of coffee in the near future and ended the call just as Tumble made it through the front door, check in hand.

After a brief household conference, Chestnut and Tumble and I decided to spend the advance check on some top-shelf barley wine, reupholstering the sofa, and seasons 1-3 of The Wire.
posted @ 12:29 PM est [link]