“Hello, mirror. …It’s been awhile.”
-
“It’s great to be back! back! back!”
“It’s great to be back! back! back!”
IIIIIIIIIII’MMM BAAAAAAACCKK!
Ah, my grand comeback. My reunion tour. Oh, what a feeling!
The Mellotroniacs out there have been getting fidgitiy and bored. I’ve sensed it. Smelled it in the air, the sour musk of the forsaken, wisping through my window late at night while I was cooped behind computer screens and clicking, pondering exactly how I wanted to be represented in my first printed text. If I wanted to be represented. If I had the balls to represent myself. Or if it was smarter, and safer, to play journalist and stay neutral; be the keystrokes; be the information. That was the dilemma. But now it’s over. Ego won, as it usually does, and I tried as best I could to make the book I never thought I’d write my own. Which is better, I think. My name is on it.
Catch-up: For those of you who don’t know, a few months back I was asked at work to take over a book project when the original author bailed because of time restraints. The project was about sea turtles. The time restraint was that it had to be written in two months. Two months ago, I knew absolutely nothing about sea turtles. So of course I accepted. Today, the world has Tracks in the Sand: Sea Turtles and Their Protectors–which I’ll make sure to give its own post within the week when I’m able to attach photos and “Please Validate Me By Buying A Copy” links. It releases on April 10th.
Between you and me, what I’m feeling is a weird, terrifying, amazing, horrible sense of relief, with flashes and mixed shades of pride. Relief because it’s over, and it was exhausting, and now I’ll finally have something else to talk (read: complain) about to my friends and family. Horrible because soon people will read it and I’ll be silently and not so silently judged. Terrifying because it’s over and now I have to think about starting my life again. Amazing because it’s over and now I have to think about starting my life again. And pride because it’s mine.
It’s something I never thought I’d write about, sea turtles. It’s something that was always just there, like school, given and in the background, and I figured I’d handle it the same way: with my eyes half-closed and my fingers half-crossed. But then something happened and the project changed from “work” to “my work.” This might be the last book I ever write–I knew that. And I only had about two months to research, pen and edit it. Then I’d have the rest of my life to see it either standing or slouching on my bookshelf. Oh… what a feeling.
I’m not gonna talk about self-consciousness. I’m not gonna talk about what those three words–”Wrote. A. Book.”–mean, how they sound coming out of acquaintances’ mouths, or how after awhile you force yourself to own them, force ego, force, to ever truly accept that the project is over and that it’s as good as it is and that’s all there is to it. Nope. Not gonna talk about that. What I will say is that it was an experience. And in the end, I took a concept (“Sea Turtles”) and feel like I made it into something else. It’s still a “turtle book,” yeah, but it’s more about the people that fight for the turtles. The people that love the turtles, to degrees that sometimes seem to border on the spiritual and irrational. And that’s a totally different story.
Before writing this comeback post, I thought for a while how I could change the format of this site. It’s been enough time now for me to realize that, no, I can’t do full reviews on all the movies I watch. I’m too anal and they take too long. And no, working full-time, I can’t cover all, or even a good bulk, of film/tv news without missing important stuff or being late and irrelevant. So the new format is still up in the air but, besides this long-ish opener, I’m gonna try taking a page out my good friend Kari’s blog (the always graceful and interesting A mi ver) and have a go at concise. Not vignettes, per se, but just tighter, more focused and readable. My writing is wordy and tangent-heavy as it is so it’ll be a challenge, but if it works I should be able to get a balance and rhythm going. One post, one topic. Shorter, more raw. That’s the goal.
I’m really glad to be back. It feels good–and I already have a list of things I’m excited about catching up on. Floating notes and flickering screens–that was the idea. And words. Let’s get back to basics.
sidenote: I think I’m slowly falling into deep, deep love with Regina Spektor. The video above is beautiful, but HERE’s a longer two-song suit that’s just as nice. Dig a Spektor.
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 21st, 2010 at 11:14 pm and is filed under white noise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
