Elinor Nauen

When I dropped my scraps off this morning, a young woman was sitting at a table full of literature about the program—that was a first, usually it's just 3 plastic trash cans that you dump your peels & coffee grounds into.

Would you like a bag of compost? she asked.

I recoiled! No! Why would I want a bag of compost?! (Whatever that is, come to think of it.) Read More 

One can find time for everything if one is never in a hurry.
—Mikhail Bulgakov

The Master and Margarita is the favorite book of many people I know. Me, I've never read it, but I like this quote. If you find the right pace, you can do everything you want & need to, but feeling frantic makes it impossible to do much at all.  Read More 

When the sign was up, people would sometimes stop me when I was entering or leaving the building: Did Ezra Pound really live here? Sometimes I said yes, sometimes that I didn't know, sometimes the truth: that all the fancy buildings had names (the Van Gogh, the Dakota) & why shouldn't a tenement? We liked to say we lived at the pound.

 Read More 

1 in 6 Americans has German background: That was certainly true for my neighborhood, which was largely German until the General Slocum disaster in 1904, when hundreds of people on an East River holiday boat died. The decimated community scattered. One remnant is the Ottendorfer Library, the oldest branch library in Manhattan and one of the first buildings constructed specifically to be a library. It's next door to the German Dispensary, now the Stuyvesant Poly-clinic, known for the busts of famous Germans. The neighborhood

The text of the plaque:  Read More 

Things that are inedible at home are delicious at work.

I wish I could tell you why these "mini crunch bars" are so awful. Maybe just because they are far too crunchy? Nothing like worrying you'll break a tooth to dampen one's pleasure.

Which makes me think about the time years ago when I was editing fiction for Woman's World & someone submitted a story with the line: "it only served to wet my appetite, which was already damp." Read More 

I was going to the 6th floor to do editing for a health guide, but this is the pass they spit out.

I have had two economist jobs in the past: at the University of North Carolina in the graduate economics department & for Pace University, I forget doing what, beyond looking up numbers in the Municipal Building. I was more qualified for these jobs than for many I've done, having taken a semester of economics in high school from Mr. Tom Lemonds. He had us "invest." An excerpt from my diary of that time:

In econ for our stock market project, Nils and I have so far made $5.05. I guess that’s not so much compared to the $1000 Ken made, but it’s satisfying.  Read More 

Johnny looked at everything in the store (J. Antonio's on Avenue A) & chose this. His taste has become mine. Or maybe it's that my taste has become his. In any event, he was pleased with what he chose & so am I. It's partly titanium. He is too.

I have been reading a lot of the poetry of Philip Larkin lately. "Traumerei" is one of many that I like. It's been a long day & week & I have miles to go so I'm not going to say more about him or this poem now. Enjoy.

Träumerei  Read More 

"That's my childhood!" I called to the guy parking this station wagon, which turned out to belong to Jim from Long Island, around my age or a little younger.

I stopped & chatted, showed him the photo that's the cover of "Snowbound," me with some '50s cars like this one. He liked that I appreciated his car & offered to take a picture.

I love New York!  Read More 

Yesterday my sister, nephew & I were handed certificates of German naturalization by Herr Roland Pohl, at a champagne reception at the German embassy. On behalf of Germany, he took responsibility for the atrocities and welcomed us back as full German citizens. Every one of you who accepts helps heal the wound, he said, & invited us to explore our new status. I expect the meaning to reveal itself over time, as getting married did.

Ahead of time, I had imagined an informal "here ya go" amusement & that our party at the Bierhaus was the main event. After, the party, while festive, was nothing special, and this ceremony was a huge & moving deal.

My dad loved being German & I am convinced with all my heart that he would approve both of me taking this step & the actions of the German government.  Read More 

I do a lot of editing for social justice organizations, which are always trying to "shift the narrative" and get people to be less racist etcetera etcetera. One article I worked on recently was by someone who referred to herself as "serv[ing] as an unapologetic arbiter of authenticity." That makes me wonder about  Read More 

Randomly thinking of the great Bootsy Collins & how much I love this clip of him singing "Cool Jerk."

Luckily he is a friend of a friend, not my own friend, who claims every criticism of anything to do with tRump is "fake news." Every single comment he posts contains it: "fake news." It's tedious & makes me wonder what would have to happen to change this man's mind.

I have wondered this before about myself, in similar contexts. For example:  Read More 

By the year 2020, the year of perfect vision, the old will outnumber the young.
—Maggie Kuhn

Remember Maggie Kuhn? She founded the Gray Panthers back in 1970, when she was forced to retire because she turned the then-mandatory retirement age of 65. The Gray Panthers became known for fighting ageism, claiming that "old people and women constitute America's biggest untapped and undervalued human energy source."

Kuhn also said: Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind—even if your voice shakes.

I just ordered her autobiography, No Stone Unturned.  Read More 

I'm 9 years old on my birthday.

The rest of the year I'm whatever age goes with the calendar.

I haven't seen any of the current Olympics & the last time I can remember watching any Olympics was 1984, when Johnny & I reenacted Greco-Roman wrestling.

Click on the caption & you'll find out about some people I was surprised to learn were Olympians. Dr. Spock! George Patton! Tom McMillen, the tallest Congressman ever. And more.

Missing my little guy.

He's at home & too heavy to haul back & forth, even just a few blocks.

I love the way he looks at me, the way he licks my fingers, the way he gallops to the bed as soon as I lie down at night & to his dish as soon as I get up in the morning.

The serious way he is trying to catch this mousey thingy.
 Read More 

I know, I know, everyone hates this holiday, they don't have a partner, it's too gendered, it reminds them of junior high.... But I have always loved it—it's the real start of my birthday, I lived for 3 years with someone whose birthday was February 14,. And now, most of all, I am so ridiculously in love with my husband & he with me that every day is a Hallmark card.  Read More 

I'm excited to be planning a trip to Norway for later this year. These photos are exactly why I'm going and what I want to see. All these places have been in my dreams my whole life.

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
—George Orwell

Is this true?
Is it something that sounds true but is questionable?
Is it possible to tell the truth?
Do we always know the truth when we break our teeth on it?
Is it ever a time of universal deceit?
Is it always a time of universal deceit?  Read More 

Johnny just said, with an unfamiliar catch in his voice, that the book he's listening to—A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute (real name Nevil Shute Norway)—is the first romantic book he's ever really liked.

I checked it out instantly. What can make Johnny cry is something I've always wondered & never discovered.  Read More 

I haven't made a list of books for ages. Here's what's piled up around me, all of which I'm reading, more or less:
= The reader over your shoulder: a handbook for writers of English prose, by Robert Graves & Alan Hodge. This is 7 Stories reprint of the cranky, opinionated, brilliant, funny 1943 book. They pull no punches!  Read More 

Every single day I see or think or experience or am directed to something wonderful. It's most often something small—a good response to some clear or not-so-clear thinking, a little bird close enough that it seems friendly & personal, a few minutes of snow. I do try to notice them but I don't always also write them down.  Read More 

The idea for this layered poem comes from anatomy books that have the muscles and bones and circulatory systems in overlays. So this is, as the painter Hallie Cohen suggests, a verbal neural system.

It's something I have thought about doing for decades but never knew what technology would work. Turns out that mylar  Read More 

I love this article about what it's like to live in Yakutsk, Siberia, the coldest city in the world, where winter temps regular hover at an unbalmy -40°. They build on stilts so as not to melt the permafrost and sink their homes.

I do remember some -30° days—one where our car wouldn't start because the oil had frozen. The January thaw meant the temps went above zero...

Would I want to live in Yakutsk? A Russian mining town with 270,000 people? Where I would have to give up winter jacket & wear a real coat? No, I don't think so.  Read More 

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that you are constantly making exciting discoveries!
—A.A. Milne

It's interesting to catch yourself in irrational moments. I went to Paris in 2000 for my friend, the poet Doug Oliver's funeral. I feel like I was there quite a long stretch although it must have been only a few days. I had been to Paris a lot around then, for work & because it happened, & I didn't  Read More 

I have laryngitis, it seems, if that's the definition of my voice having turned silent or at best croaky. How long will this last? I've never had anything like it before.

I really want to talk about how great Prose Pros was last night—Eddie Berrigan, Maggie Dubris with Sara Wendt, & Annabel Lee (plus me, as the Double Yews). It was a music-themed night plus a benefit for a wonderful immigrant-protecting organization called New Sanctuary Coalition. We made over $350 for them!

I have sat up. Is more expected? I remember when I felt like I was flitting through a minefield & everyone was getting blown up & I was finding daisies. Well, it's caught up with me, it seems.  Read More 

Only twenty miles above our heads is an appalling, hostile environment that would freeze us, and burn us and boil us away. And yet our enfolding layers of air protect us so completely that we don't even realize the dangers. — Gabrielle Walker, An Ocean of Air

Inspired by the Eiffel Tower, a Russian scientist as far back as 1895 suggested an elevator to space. It's far from becoming a reality—the technical challenges are close to insurmountable—but it's in the air (so to speak).  Read More 

My favorite poem:

O western wind, when wilt thou blow
The small rain down can rain.
Christ that my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again.
—Anon, 16th century

 Read More