 Thank you for coming. This is a marvelous place to read and hearing about all the manuscripts I think I I'm not going to take offense if anyone wanders off to consult some fabulous illuminated thing I'm going to read Just a little bit from the beginning of the book and then I'm going to make an Incredibly quick and graceful bridge and move to a later part of the book Okay, let's make sure I have my Age that I'm going to chapter one Antelopes have 10x vision you said it was the beginning or close to it That means that on a clear night they can see the rings of Saturn It was still months before we tell each other all our stories And even then some seem too small to bother with So why do they come back to me now? Now when I'm so weary of all of it Memories are microscopic Tiny particles that swarm together and depart Little people Edison called them entities He had a theory about where they came from and that theory was outer space The first time I traveled alone. I went to a restaurant in order to steak But when it came I saw it was just a piece of raw meat cut into little pieces I tried to eat it, but it was too bloody. My throat wouldn't swallow Finally, I spit it out into the napkin There was still a great deal of meat on my plate. I Was afraid the waiter would notice I wasn't eating and laugh or yell at me For a long time. I sat there looking at it Then I took a roll Hollowed it out and secreted the meat inside it. I Had a very small purse, but I thought I could fit the roll in without being seen I Payed the bill and walked out expecting to be stopped But no one stopped me. I spent my afternoons in a city park pretending to read Horace At dusk people streamed out of the metro and into the street in Paris even the subways are required to be beautiful They change their sky not their soul Who run across the sea? There was a Canadian boy who ate only oatmeal a French boy who asked to examine my teeth an English boy who came from a long line of Druids a Dutch boy who sold hearing aids. I Met an Australian who said he loved to travel alone. He talked about his job as we drank by the sea When a student gets it when it first breaks across his face. It's so fucking beautiful. He told me I Not it moved though. I'd never taught anyone a single thing What do you teach? I asked him Rollerblading he explained That was the summer it rained and rained. I remember the sad doggish smell of my sweater and my shoes Sloshing crazily and in every city the same scene a Boy stepping into the street and opening umbrella for a girl Keeping dry in the doorway another night My old apartment in Brooklyn It was late, but of course I couldn't sleep Above me speed freaks merely disassembling something Leaves against the window. I Thought a sudden chill and pulled the blanket over my head That's the way they bring horses out of a fire. I remembered if they can't see they won't panic I Tried to figure out if I felt better and calmer with a blanket over my head No, I did not Chapter 2 I Got a job checking facts at a science magazine Fun facts they call them The connected fibers in a human brain extended would wrap around the earth 40 times Horrible I wrote in the margin But they put it through anyway. I liked my apartment because all of the windows were at street level in the summer I could see people's shoes and in the winter snow Once as I lay in bed a bright red sun appeared in the window It bounced from side to side then became a ball What the biologists say life equals structure plus activity Studies suggests that reading makes enormous demands on the neurological system One psychiatric journal claimed that African tribes needed more sleep after being taught to read The French were great believers in such theories During World War two the largest rations went to those engaged in arduous physical labor and those whose work involved reading and writing For years I kept a post-it note above my desk work not love was what it said It seemed a sturdier kind of happiness. I Found a book called thriving not surviving in a box on the street I stood there flipping through it unwilling to commit You think that the mental anguish you are experiencing is a permanent condition But for the vast majority of people it's only a temporary state Had ideas about myself Largely untested When I was a child I like to write my name in giant letters made of sticks What Coleridge said? If I do not greatly delude myself, I've not only completely extricated the notions of time and space But I trust that I'm about to do more Namely that I shall be able to evolve all the five senses and in this involvement to solve the process of life and consciousness My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead Women almost never become art monsters because art monsters only concern themselves with art never mundane things Nabokov didn't even fold his own umbrella Vera licked his stamps for him a bold plan was what my friend the philosopher said But on my 29th birthday, I turned my book in If I do not greatly delude myself. I went to a party and drank myself sick Are animals lonely? Other animals, I mean Not long after that an ex-boyfriend appeared on my doorstep He seemed to have come all the way from San Francisco just to have coffee On the way to the diner. He apologized for never really loving me He hoped to make amends Wait, I said Are you doing the steps? That night on TV. I saw the tattoo. I wished my life had warranted If you have not known suffering love me a Russian murderer beat me to it Of course, I thought of the drunkard boy in New Orleans the one I loved best Each night at the old sailors bar. I'd peel the labels off his bottles and try to entice him homeward But he wouldn't come Not until light came through the window That one was so beautiful. I used to watch him sleep If I had to sum up what he did to me, I'd say it was this He made me sing along to all the bad songs on the radio Both when he loved me and when he didn't in those last weeks. We drove without talking Trying to out ride the heat each alone in the dream the city had become. I Was afraid to speak to touch his arm even Remember this sign this tree this broken down street Remember it is possible to feel this way There were 29 days on the calendar then 15 then 10 then the day I packed my car and left I drove the length of two states sobbing Heat like a hand against my chest But I didn't I didn't remember it three There's a man who travels around the world Trying to find places where you can stand still and hear no human sound It is impossible to feel calm in cities. He says because we so rarely hear birdsong there Our ears evolved to be our warning systems. We are in high alert in places where no birds sing To live in a city is to be forever flinching The Buddhists say there are 121 states of consciousness of these only three involve misery or suffering But most of us spend our time moving back and forth between these three Blue jays spend every Friday with the devil the old lady at the park told me You need to get out of that stupid city. My sister said get some fresh air Four years ago. She and her husband left They moved to Pennsylvania to an old ramshackle house on the Delaware River Last spring she came to visit me with her kids We went to the park. We went to the zoo. We went to the planetarium, but still they hated it Why is everyone yelling here? The philosophers apartment was the most peaceful place. I knew it had good light and looked out over the water We spent our Sundays there eating pancakes and eggs He was adjuncting now and doing late nights at the radio station You should meet the sky I work with he said he makes soundscapes of the city I looked at the pigeons outside his window What does that even mean? I said He gave me a CD to take home on the cover was an old yellow phone book ruined by rain I closed my eyes and listened to it Who is this person? I wondered Reader she married him The only thing you need to know for the little leap in spaces that She's now married and has a kid and she is doing ghost writing project for Man who wanted to be an astronaut but didn't succeed and it's now writing a very ill-conceived memoir 12 Advice for wives circa 1896 The indiscriminate reading of novels is one of the most injurious habits to which a married woman can be subject Besides the false views of human nature. It will impart it produces an indifference to the performance of domestic duties and contempt for ordinary realities It's true that I am feeble-minded at the grocery store. I Write lists that I forget by things. We don't need or already have Later my husband will say did you get toilet paper? Did you get ketchup? Did you get garlic and I will say no, no, I forgot sorry Here is some butterscotch pudding and some toothpicks and some whiskey sour mix But for now my daughter and I stand shivering in front of the meat case I'm cold. She says why can't we go? Why do we have to stand here? There's some kind of meat. I am supposed to buy kind of meat for a meat recipe We can go soon. I say just wait. Just let me think for a minute. You're not letting me think So lately I've been having this recurring dream In it my husband breaks up with me at a party saying I'll tell you later. Don't pester me But when I tell him this he grows peevish We're married remember Nobody's breaking up with anybody. I love autumn. She says Look at the beautiful autumn leaves. It feels like autumn today is Autumn your favorite kind of year She stops walking and tugs at my sleeve mommy mommy. You are not noticing. I'm using a new word. I Say autumn now instead of fall 13 I Have this idea in the middle of the night that maybe I could stop working for the almost astronaut and get a job Writing fortune cookies instead. I could try to write really American ones Already, I've jotted down a few of them Objects create happiness the animals are pleased to be of use Your cities will shine forever Death will not touch you. I send my fortunes to the philosopher. He writes back immediately I'm interested in bankrolling you, but I only have 27 dollars in checking The next morning a man comes to look at the apartment for bugs He brings his dog with him Seek he tells the dog seek seek But the dog just sits there looking at him a Week later. I called the man back to look again. I give him tea and cookies Here's what you do. He says put poison on the mattress then on the window sills then in the electrical sockets Then just go to sleep in your bed, but the kid upstairs knows all about it already Can I give you a little piece of advice? He says Throw out everything you own. I read an article written by a woman living alone who got them She talks about how depressing it is to have no one to help her with all the spraying and washing and cooking and bagging She spent all her money Hasn't had a date in years. I show it to my husband It's true. We're lucky. He says a Few weeks later. They send a note from her school about lice Mothers drive across town to the orthodox neighborhood to see the nitpicker a hundred dollars ahead is what she charges them She's very thorough the mother's claim worth every penny But my husband is thorough too He goes through our hair then holds the comb up carefully to the light. Do you know why I love you? My daughter asked me She is floating in the bathwater her head lathered white Why I say? Because I am your mother. She tells me there is a video. I've seen which I cannot unsee That shows the bugs avoiding the poison by climbing the far wall Crossing the ceiling and then dropping onto the bed and another one Even worse in which a woman films herself waiting up all night beside her daughter's bed with a lint roller What Simone Vale said? Attention without object is a supreme form of prayer The almost astronaut calls me at all hours now to talk about his project I think it's going to be a best-seller. He tells me like that guy. What's his name Sagan? Carl no, he says that's not it something else. It'll come to me a few nights later. I Secretly hope that I might be a genius Why else can no amount of sleeping pills fell my brain? But in the morning my daughter asked me what a cloud is and I cannot say thank you