Elinor Nauen

On what would have been my father's 110th birthday, I am headed to NYUM to fret while Johnny has surgery for spinal stenosis. Daddy would have perhaps been a tiny bit miffed that Johnny was stealing his birthday thunder. I hope it being his birthday means good luck for the operation.

I'm writing this on Sunday; it will post all on its own tomorrow.  Read More 

Hit the Poetry Project's Spring Thing last night with my old friend Steve & his brother Mike, who are visiting from South Carolina. This is Mike's first-ever visit to New York & he was pretty sure it was about as memorable a cultural event as he is likely to see this week. Hard to hear the poetry but I liked watching videos through several gauze screens, which softened & magicked each image.

Also, Steve & Mike saw a raccoon in Central Park. I've lived here 40 years & never seen one & he scores his first time out.  Read More 

I admire Daniel Berrigan, who died a few days ago, in the same ways everyone has been talking about: his tireless activism for peace, his lack of materialism (he seemed to have owned not much more than a couple of shirts & a backpack), his willingness to act on and go to jail for his convictions.

But I will say the fly in the ointment, as  Read More 

Wanted to lie down all day with a book. Nonetheless, I did some work, went to class, went uptown for a couple of hours where I'm helping this guy organize his files, & now headed off to Prose Pros, for the penultimate reading of our 9th season (Susie Mee & Tiphanie Yanique). I saw brilliant yellow  Read More 

Thinking as I do every year about Kent State, the 4 students murdered & 9 others shot by the National Guard on campus during a protest, & Nixon quoted in the next day's Times: "This should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence it invites tragedy." I still cry angry tears at that lie & that tragedy. Despite having had worse presidents, Nixon was the one who began the ruin & despair so many of us still feel & the one I will always hate & detest most.  Read More 

Funny to be off blogging for so long. Even though every day I think of something I want to say here, I've had a hard time getting back in the groove, post-vacation. My daily to-do chart, which includes things like eat vegetables and laugh—in other words, not very demanding—has gone largely unchecked  Read More 

Leaving Sunday for 10 days in the UK. I'll be visiting cousins in Liverpool, Wales (Cardiff, Penarth, Swansea) & London. Mostly I'll be sitting around drinking tea & worming ancient lurid gossip out of everyone but I have some sightseeing planned too: the house my mother grew up in, 325 Walton Lane, Liverpool (very pretty on Google maps) & where her dad is buried (across Walton Lane in historic Anfield Cemetery). My cousin Hazel is taking me with her group to visit Lewis Carroll's childhood home & I will try to get to St Fagan's open-air folk museum in Cardiff. I will try to write one more time before I go but if not, back her on or about the 22nd.  Read More 

Having sympathetic outrage on behalf of Maggie, who got a cheap ticket to Detroit on Spirit Airlines. Not really so cheap, since everything except the seat costs extra: $100 for a carry-on bag (why? no one is being paid to handle it so that's pure profit), water, they even charge $10 to  Read More 

Happy 131st birthday, Grandma Alice! I can't ever not know birthdays but they're as bad as Monkees & Herman's Hermits songs for filling my brain pan.

What goes retrograde & messes everything up? Mercury, right? The moon?

Well, today was wack! Or whack! Which is it? (See what I mean?)

My day included a misdelivered package that I had to track down the UPS guy to get, which took 4 phone calls & a run down to 3rd St. I lost 2 socks in the laundry. There were work miscommunications

Then someone was telling a story in the lockerroom about being a "weirdo magnet"  Read More 

TLC is right around the corner on 2nd St, just opened a couple of days ago. We went in to see if he had cousherie, an Egyptian dish of noodles, rice, garbanzos, & onions that I haven't had since the restaurant up the block closed. He was Indian, however, so no kusheri (or however the hell it's spelled). Very pleased we had come in.

It seemed curated, like an art gallery. Like a Warhol, Ann said.  Read More 

Apparently not.

I naively agreed to a meet-up of Welsh learners, lulled by one of them saying she had a 6-month-old baby and hadn't really been keeping up. Ha! Joan & Joanie were fluent! Turns out they've both been to Welsh boot camp, a week of speaking only Welsh, and Joanie even  Read More 

72°, first of all. Finished a bunch of small but pressing projects in the a.m. Did many errands, efficiently: paid office rent, signed the Poetry Project's rent check, bought new underwear, had pierogi at B&H, where Ola, who is Polish, was appalled that I ordered them boiled not fried. She also made me a juice with a little too much Read More 

Something has been wrong with my blog/site the last few days, in case anyone has been wondering where I've been. Now it's 5 o'clock on Thursday & I have to leave to teach in just a minute. I did think about writing something ahead of time, separately, but, well, I didn't. I can tell you, however, that I finally figured out that the cold that didn't get better or worse for 10 days was ALLERGIES & I am finally feeling a little more human. Tomorrow it's back to blogging for real.  Read More 

Classic illustration of little sister looking up to & annoying older sister. (Why does she have to do everything I do?) The patterns & roles are so obvious here. S can climb a tree. Part of her enjoyment is that J can't yet.

Just back from a four-hour lunch & talk with my old friend (from high school, not OLD) Bessie. I have a lot of friends & each one is unique & wonderful, but there is something in going back as far as high school with someone that makes it pointless to embellish or hide. Or maybe  Read More 

I was on the subway & a handsome young man was making eye contact. Just as I was saying to myself, Oh yeah, I've still got it! he said, "Ma'am? Would you like a seat?"

Thinking about Lisbon & the one place there that I really loved, the tower of Henry the Navigator, where he watched his ships sail away (& used Chaucer's "Treatise on the Astrolabe" to send them safely south) made me think about shanties. My people come from England, and although I don't know that we ever had sailors in the family, I grew up singing "Blow the Man Down," "What shall we do with the drunken sailor," and my favorite, "A Capital Ship" (for an ocean trip was the walloping window blind... I'm off to my love with a boxing glove 10,000 miles away...).  Read More 

Here's another poem that turned up while I've been going through files. This one I've edited from the version I first wrote 25 years ago.

Away Game


the Lisbon of Henry the Navigator
     cobblestones, tiles with the colors of isolation,
          baleful pigs on a truck

romantic Lisbon on the Atlantic
     where endeth land and where beginneth …
          but

no one to talk to
     blisters (why these shoes?)
          alone, travel’s effort not adventure

hotel TV: smarmy British game show
     Bogart flick with Portuguese subtitles
          & suddenly baseball

heaves into sight
     so unexpected it Read More 

The Newly Famous Friend I know is not necessarily the NFF the public does. That people are impressed that I even know this person is just a trick of timing—we were young together. It's as though your accountant's secretary is Art Buchwald's sister—it doesn't mean anything.

Some of, a lot of what people say about her, I recognize, but even when Read More 

Johnny brought home a disco lightbulb. "Someone threw it out, and it was brand-new!" he marveled. Buster stood a few feet from the bathroom staring at the hippety-hoppety reds and blues then backed away. We jump, bump, & laugh.

Been finding some treasures & near misses. I know that all the good ones must be in books, so anything that's better than awful is fun to find.

Before and After

I used to walk around
     but now I sit around
I used to lie around
     but now I lie a lot
I used to tie my shoes
     but now I wear star socks
I used to drive a car
     but now I park my car
I used to have a cat
      now I have a canary
I used to be a book
    but now I am an exit
I used to be Boston
    but now I’m Elizabeth
               New Jersey
I used to be a shortstop
      but now I’m underhanded
I used to be a Patsy
     but now I’m Ruby

3/85 Read More 

* 7 a.m. Pilates session.

Oh, that's funny, I can't think of any others.

I had to ask Joel Lewis why I'd been considered an honorary Jersey poet, & he remembered better than I did that I used to work in Englewood. It was so much fun to have my family at my reading in Jersey City; to hear Sanjay's terrific story & some of the open readers;  Read More 

Meetings, assignments, deadlines, & in between, as much of my sister as we can manage. Hence the short shrift I've been giving to me blog.

I don't want to say what this is beyond it being an image I like

Just bought my ticket & am going in 4 weeks. I am too excited to think about anything else. I haven't been in such a long time & I have lots of relatives to see. I'll be visiting people in London, Liverpool & Wales, & plan to do some fun things as well. I used to go so frequently  Read More 

Why don't I go up there all the time, other than that it's a rather long train ride? It's so wonderful to get lost in the medieval art & stones, with that view of the Hudson & the gardens of Fort Tryon Park along the way.

We stopped into the Mother Cabrini shrine just south of the Park. Her actual remains are there in a glass case. She died in 1917. She had a very nice face & is the patron saint of immigrants. I wish all those wall-builders would stop in & talk to the lovely nuns (sisters? is that the same thing?).  Read More 

My sister's in town & we're feeling veddy British. Also, I have been looking all over for crumpets, yummmmmmm, which I remember my mother making, but she says she & her mother bought crumpet pans & it was such a pain that they only did it once. Is that the time I remember? Turns out they're available at an all-things-British shop just a block away from me. Yummmmmmmmmmmm. Read More 

We decided to play hooky & see the new Tina Fey movie, rushing to make the 10:45 show. (Half price! $8 + 29¢ tax.) Noticing that she'd given us tickets for the 11:45, we went back down many flights of stairs, only to learn that the 10:45 referred to p.m. Since we were so crazy early, we decided we'd watch  Read More