Abra Goes

It’s Friday February 29th and once again, I rock.

ABRA MILES – 43.8 / 42 MILES RAN IN FEBRUARY

Queries – 10/10 for Feb. Only 20 for the year so far. (I intend to put more time and effort into my March pitches, but at least I’m hitting send more).

Today is the last day to download Charles Bock’s Beautiful Children.

A very wise woman once said: If it’s for free, it’s me. And I have to agree.

Neil Gaiman is offering a free download of American Gods for the next month as well.

A PDF will never be more enjoyable than an actual book in your hands, but I’m liking this trend of free book downloads.

Most of the free downloads I’ve seen lately are only available temporarily. And because I like to read and I like free, this is the first time I’ve ever sought out books with a sense of urgency. Often, once a book is published, I know I will most likely be able to find that book whenever I get around to buying or checking it out of the library. Years can pass between a book hitting the shelves and me taking it home. But these downloads are a bone for the curious appetite.

Books are one of my favorite objects in the world, but what I like most about these temporary downloads is that they exist one day–available with a click–and they’re gone the next and what remains is the story you read–not the book or the soft pages you wrote notes one minute to forget about the next.

With less than four months to go of building my freelance business back to a full time work load, I should be in GO mode writing and sending out queries. I should be on the freelance job boards trying to line up regular clients. Yet my website is a work-in-progress that’s not progressing, and I haven’t cracked open my Rolodex since November.

Where’s my track coach from high school? During spring training freshman year in high school, Mr. A transformed me from an ok student doing track for something fun to do with my friends into a serious athlete and student. He taught me to push myself hard, that I am nothing special, and to move with intention.

Passing another runner during my first 400 meter hurdle relay, and feeling another runner come up from behind to cross the finish before me affirmed coach A. 1) I was not the undefeatable, gifted miracle runner I wanted others to think I was. 2) I wasn’t bad, and had potential to improve.

If given only two words to define myself, I am a runner and a writer.

Coach A would hear my professional intentions, and look at what I do each day to get myself there, and he would laugh. He’d tell me to get changed, shut up and write.

You can pay people to coach you in anything, writing included. But I don’t need a motivating pep talk- though if given an ear to fill with whines I can always fill it. No. I know this place well.

Coach A reminds me that I am not a gifted genius writer who will succeed without sweat, lots of time on the clock, and a stack of rejection letters. But I can get there if I keep pushing. But unlike running, where the tangible to-dos are obvious, there are a thousand paths to success in writing. This doesn’t make success more likely, it makes finding your path sometimes overwhelming.

I’m curious to know what does and doesn’t work for you? How you maintain focus and productivity, especially in the face of a hump?

The operative phrase is: Apply bum to seat.

ABRA MILES – 41.8 / 42 MILES FOR FEB

2008 ABRA MILES – 83.8 / 500 MILES

My pics from Friday don’t capture that beautiful city covered in a blanket of fresh white powder that you see in the movies. I think any city is magical when it snows, but a snowy weekday in NYC leans more on the ugly-baby side of beauty. I thought I’d share them anyway…

Brooklyn looked nice in the morning (that’s my hand keeping me balanced an on my feet on the slippery sidewalks):

The subway puled into the station in all its icy glory:

The thrilling gray slush of Times Square (sigh):

Passing through Bryant Park from the library is hard to resist even when its frozen.

Because it’s alway good to look up:

I’m going to have a niece!

And it finally feels like winter.

My nephews are both in their teens so being an aunt is nothing new, but being an aunt to a girl will be. Maybe now they’ll finally be someone in my family I can beat at arm wrestling, at least for the next ten years.

So my sister and her husband haven’t agreed to name my niece Lorna yet, but I need to write a name down for July 4th. This gives me just over four months to get my act together so I can be Lorna’s favorite.

Qualities of a favorite aunt include – this is a list in progress- :

ability to make a baby blanket; a repertoire of songs to sing; getting my story published (Lorna wants this, too); willingness to travel to remote locales (because the baby will want me to have adventurous stories to tell, with my own photos); my play running for more than 6 nights (because babies just love the theatre)

Drive safely,

Did you watch the Lunar Eclipse last night?

I threw my coat over my pjs and watched from the sidewalk because the contents of a neighbor’s living room were blocking our roof access.

It felt like hours, but I think I watched it for about 15 minutes before the cold drove me back inside. I imagine it was more vivid in any other place, but the view from Brooklyn wasn’t so bad.

Earth’s red shadow is an ominous shade. I’ll have a picture to share, but night pictures never do the sky justice.

“See the red dot there?”

This is the view from the our Inn’s porch: Do big, empty, beautiful houses scare you, too?

Glenn’s Caramelized French Toast

Why they call Bay Head the Hamptons of NJ…

We saw a number of shells standing up along the shore:

Apparently, seagulls prefer the off-season, too.

Ode to mysterious, sandy boot:

We bribed the locals to let us ride past:

The tip of Point Pleasant:

Pizza, Pork Roll, Cheese Steak, Fresh Cut Fries – could a vegan ask for more?

Barack Obama won his 10^th victory in a row last night, after taking Wisconsin and Hawaii. Clinton is trailing Obama by less than 100 delegates. It’s still an extremely close race for the Democratic Nomination.

Voters in Rhode Island, Vermont, Ohio, and Texas vote on March 4^th.

A woman I have a lot of respect for mentioned that she’d be excited to elect our nation’s first female president. Perhaps it’s because I’m an Obama supporter that I haven’t engaged in this discussion yet. I understand the sentiment of wanting a female president to light up this country’s presidential history of white males, but the sentiment is worthless against the bottom line: I don’t want another mediocre-at-best president.

I like to believe that people vote with their guts – that raw place where brain, heart, and instinct agree.

You don’t need to have a dime in your pocket to see the lunar eclipse tonight. The moon will appear red and we may actually be able to see some of the craters.

Partial eclipse begins at 8:43PM EST and ends at 12:09AM EST.

NASA Science News says time of maximum beauty will be 10:26PM EST.

Take the time to watch the eclipse tonight-there won’t be another one for 3 years. Connect with the physical world we live in. And bundle up.

I’ll be standing on the roof of my building in my Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. Looking up…

Here’s something I liked from the movie, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, based on the book by the same title by Rebecca Wells:

I see the moon and the moon sees me

And the moon sees the one that I want to see

So God bless the moon and God bless me

And God bless the one that I want to see 

ABRA MILES – 31/42

We left Manhattan Friday night and arrived at The Bentley Inn B&B around 10PM. You can take NJ Transit directly to Bay Head from Penn Station (we stopped in South Jersey first to high-five family).

Usually I leave the city for a change of scenery and pace so my only consideration of sleep accommodations is location and how cheap a deal I can find. This is the first B&B I ever stayed in and the experience was refreshing.

Not only was I surprised at how affordable The Bentley Inn is this time of year, I could hardly wait to try their caramelized French toast.

Both my companion and I are lousy with directions. The relief we felt upon finding the place without making one wrong turn vanished on what we thought was first sight of our home for the weekend. Where was that ‘1886 Mansion’ shown on the website?

We sat in the car and stared at a cavernous house with peeling paint, turned over chairs, and crooked windows. I walked up to the front porch to double check the house number and became Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween when she walks up to the Michael Myers house in the first 5 minutes of the movie: someone was watching me… The porch creaked and for that I’m-a-girl-in-a-horror-movie reason, I lingered on the front porch staring into the black windows covered in sheer white drapes.

Fortunately, my companion thought to double check the address before we broke into this home, appropriately shut down for the winter. We looked across the street and saw the actual Bentley Inn with its lit driveway and welcoming lights on inside- believably an 1886 mansion.

Our 2^nd floor room, the Rand Alan, was clean, comfortable, had a door onto the house’s wrap around porch, and a view of the creepy house across the street to boot. We shared the hallway bathroom with no one, as the other guests were staying at the other end of the home, away from the traffic.

The breakfast was tasty. Coffee & tea are offered all day. Glenn, the Inn Keeper, is a character out of a Jonathan Franzen novel; he makes honest eye contact and always seems to be up to something way more interesting than making breakfast for small talking strangers.

My hands froze during the obligatory beach walk, but you really can’t match the crispness of the Jersey Shore.

With just over 1300 full time residents in Bay Head, we were able to ride the Inn’s bicycles on wide streets with little traffic all the way to the tip of Point Pleasant. In the summer, you could spend the entire day riding to all of the antique shops sprinkled from Bay Head to Point Pleasant, but most of these places were closed for the winter. The two that were open on Main Street had plenty of beach novelty souvenirs. I guess they were antiques…made of ancient shells and antique salt water taffy from the olden times of last week?

Bay Head is about 3 blocks wide, sandwiched between ocean and bay. Side roads and bike paths led us over small bridges to docks and benches with wide views—good places to meditate.

I recommend going to Bay Head now before it’s oozing with sun tan oil. My favorite moments of the weekend were sitting on the Bentley’s 2^nd floor porch drinking coffee at dusk, and riding bikes. As someone who didn’t learn to ride until the tender age of 21, I have many miles to make up for.

Pictures from Bay Head are forth coming.

ABRA MILES – 28 / 42 for Feb.

70 / 500 for 2008