mimsy and outgrabe

"There is a great deal that either has to be given up or taken away from you if you are going to succeed in writing a body of work." -- Susan Sontag Another quote written down in my (former) journal, along with a bunch of other writers speaking to the power of habit when it comes to creation. I must have collected them from some interweb source -- maybe Brain Pickings again, or some other writer's blog. Anyway, Steinbeck's in there, and Samuel Johnson, and Italo Calvino, but Sontag's striking a chord the most. I've been feeling kind of beat up lately, like something's been taken away from me, but it hasn't really been taken away from me in the way that Sontag's talking about here. She's talking about sacrifice. I haven't really sacrificed anything. Well, that's not true. I've sacrificed a lot but in the wrong places and probably for the wrong reasons. I suppose that's what's got me low. I fucked up, like in a big way, ...

This week I'm late to the blog. I was late arriving to Florida, too -- I was supposed to arrive Friday with my children but we were unable to fly out until Saturday because of the Nor'easter. Other than our travel plans being interrupted, though, we were lucky. Long Island was hit with some rain and wind but nothing catastrophic. Nothing like what's being reported in other areas of the country. It's kind of guilt-inducing how nice it is down here. Windy and a touch on the cool side, but I'm not complaining. After the oppressive cloud cover of the last week up north, it's rejuvenating to see clear blue sky and sun. A. met us at the airport, and now we're all ensconced at his parents' condominium for the next few days. On Wednesday A. and I will leave for Tampa so I can attend AWP and his parents are taking the kids to Disney for two days and a night. (They are brave and maybe foolish grandparents -- do they know what they are getting into? --...