Sarah Rainone Is Not For Sale.

2010-08-12T12:52:00.001-07:00

I am over at tumblr. http://sarahrainone.tumblr.com/

I got the message.

2010-02-06T22:02:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had three improv shows (big ups to my UCB 401 class, and my teams Cats in Hardhats and Fat Computer) and one practice (The Other Pilot prepping for our debut this evening). Thanks to the support and general awesomeness of a bunch of brilliant teammates and teachers, poets and geniuses all, I got to be all of the following:

• A fortune teller
• Vladimir the evil circus owner
• A witch doctor who’d prefer to be known as an herbal specialist
• A dairy farm owner with a magical cow and a cursed well
• An unemployed typist who, due to having only 9 fingers, types 72 words a minute instead of the industry standard, 80
• An overzealous tourist who got half-eaten by a lion
• A lion
• Another lion (different set, same hunger for human flesh)
• A pregnant lady who once did heroin with Soundgarden and who now regularly follows Frances Bean's Twitter posts and receives childcare advice from the bestselling author Dr. Mallory whose second rule is “Always wash your hands before you touch your vagina.”
• A lady who would rather do heroin with Tegan and Sara than have a baby
• A priest
• A dude who doesn’t believe in marriage
• A lady who’d prefer not to be known as a husband
• A fetus
• A person who tried to cure his friend’s alcohol addiction by giving him heroin and speeding up rock-bottom
• Half a poker table
• A nurse who believes in romantic comedies a little too much
• The ghost of a talking dog that had just been eaten
• A woman who was upset about her friend tonguing a dog not so much because of the bestiality aspect as because she had not personally been French-kissed in years
• A rich lady who believes money raises the temperature of soup and people 3 degrees Fahrenheit
• Julia Roberts
• An Ice Capades dancer who wore a vomited-in costume for love
• Lucy Ricardo, finally getting to star in Ricky’s show thanks to some vomited-in bongos
• A generic macaroni and cheese brand with delusions of grandeur
• A lackluster parade waver
• A hearse
• A grieving widow
• A magical woodland creature
• A Brown University student who believes the best way to show Cornell who's boss is with glittery posters

And, of course,
• Jesus

As I write this, I'm reminded of that saying which I've heard attributed to a ton of people but mainly Thelonius Monk: "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Indeed... and yet I was foolhardy enough to write a book about music so such wisdom is lost on me.

I've never written about improv for realsies, outside of Twitter and Facebook posts, maybe because writing about improv is less like dancing about architecture than it is like telling your friend about that amazing dream you had and realizing half-way through that "chicken" is not a verb or that, in dreamworld, discovering the tiny closet in your tiny New York apartment contains a secret passageway to your childhood bedroom is pretty standard, really. Improv, like dreams, must be seen to be believed.

And yet, I might as well us my first craft, the one that brought me to improv in the first place, if only to dance a little love song to improv. I am head over heels for longform improv comedy, and with the people who do it and love it as much as I do.

Pretty much all my money and free time goes to improv these days. I base nearly all my purchasing decisions on improv (yes to t-shirts and Converses, no to boots with heels). I wear fewer skirts and always carry around a pair of running shorts in case an impromptu practice or show presents itself. Yesterday I blew more dough than I'd like to admit on practice spaces and coaches and cab rides to whisk me from show to show, from Brooklyn to Manhattan to Queens, and back again. It was all worth it.

A few years ago, I was dating a talented musician who, thanks to the unfortunate economics of the music biz, took a hit every time he did a show. I couldn't understand it, because if you lost money doing something you worked so hard on doing, why do it? I mean, I guess I understood it in a small way because I hadn't made any money from my writing yet and I still did it, but there was always this promise that one day I would. There's no such promise for improv--which is why I finally understand why my ex would haul his equipment from dive bar to dive bar, pay the drummer and the sax payer kindly, and leave 40 bucks short with an aching back.

I have faith that it'll pay off in other ways, I guess. I'm not lying when I say I have little desire for fame or riches; perhaps because my parents are teachers, I have always believed doing good work is more important than the compensation you get for said work. Either that or I just know mine is not a face for HD. Basically, I'd just like to write some more books, and if my improv training convinces my publisher I'm not going to freeze up if Liane Hanson or Terry Gross wants to chat sometime: Awesome. The reason I took improv classes in the first place was so that I'd feel more comfortable doing book readings and interviews.

But then a happy accident occurred, one that has nothing to do with writing or marketing or fame or anything like that. I realized that nothing, NOTHING, will every be as satisfying as being part of a team you love, as setting up a team member to be brilliant, as when a team member saves your ass. Writing a good book, hell, a good sentence, feels great, but your audience is so far away, and you're on your own. With an apology to Mick Jagger for the lame wordplay, the thing about satisfaction is that "I" can't get none of it, but together, we can get plenty.

I used to be afraid to talk about my ideas for stories and books for fear others would take them and run but improv has made me realize there are more ideas and characters than stars in the sky. There's no scientific proof of that, but improv has also made me realize you can be wrong as long as you justify your wrongness, and the statement feels true to me, so there you go.

I used to be afraid of mistakes, but now I understand that there are no mistakes, only happy accidents that take you someplace better than if you'd done things the way you were supposed to. You can be imperfect as long as you have partners to call out your mistakes and make something beautiful and strange and wonderful out of them.

I used to be afraid of people but improv has made me embrace them more and worry about my breath less. I used to be afraid of myself, of the anger and sadness and emotion I couldn't make go away no matter how feverishly I wrote or how much yoga I did. I used to believe magic only happened when you took pills with pictures of woodland creatures or lions or fortune tellers on them.

But yesterday I played all those magical peoples and creatures, sometimes more convincingly than other times, and I didn't need anything to help me become them but some friends, a stage, and a suggestion.

My friend Andrew Mendillo introduced me to improv and the Upright Citizens Brigade, and not long after he did, I wrote him a note thanking him because improv saved my life. Would I have died without it? Probably not. But when I think of the people I'd never have met and the fun I'd never have had, I realize that saving a life isn't just about keeping someone breathing, it's about enhancing the quality of each of those breaths.

I could go on and on about the dream that's been the last year and a half of my life, but I sort of blew my load with "Improv saved my life" thing--there's no way to heighten beyond salvation without bringing in ghosts, and I already do that way too much in scenes. But, on second thought, maybe there's one voice from the beyond who should have a say here. Take it away, Del Close.

"When you get the message, hang up the phone."*

*courtesy of Kim Howard Johnson's bio of Del Close, The Funniest One in The Room. Charna Halpern, who founded the iO with Del, shared this bit of wisdom at his memorial service.

News!

2009-06-18T10:13:00.000-07:00

New playlist!

Much like Raekwon, on rainy dayz, I sit back and count ways on how to get rich. Also, I make playlists. Check it: http://tinyurl.com/mvb8bn

Reading! Sunday, June 21st at 5 pm

http://www.thecelltheatre.org/?newsitem=2009/05/june-21-karen-heuler-reading-series

Awesome review!

http://www.bookforum.com/review/3880

2009-06-08T15:36:00.000-07:00

I want to write about how wrong you are, but then I'd make you right.

Love is Tearing Me Apart... Again

2009-04-28T07:51:00.000-07:00

At a party a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to someone about my novel, which goes on-sale today, when he interrupted me.

“Awww,” he said, “You’re in love with your book!”

I was trying to think of a self-deprecating, humble response but the fact was, he was right. I am head-over-fucking-heels.

And in keeping with the book’s title, that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Here’s Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh on love:

“Love can be a kind of sickness… What makes us sick is attachment. Although it is a sweet internal formation, this kind of love with attachment is like a drug. It makes us feel wonderful, but once we are addicted, we cannot have peace.”

The strange thing about publishing a book about the kind of heartbreak I felt so frequently in my teens and early twenties now that I’m older and married to a terrific guy is that it’s been a while since I’ve indulged in that kind of selfish, grasping love my characters are experiencing right now, the kind of love that I’ve doomed them to experience over and over again, every time someone opens the book...

Not too long ago, another friend helped me see how sick with love I was over the book. I mean, all the signs were there: I was thinking about it all the time, I was anxious about whether it would work, I was terrified about what would happen to me if it failed.

So we listened to the song that is also the book’s title. And for the first time in weeks I didn’t think about the book’s Amazon ranking, marketing budget, or critical reception. I just thought about all the people who’d helped me write it: my editors, agent, husband, friends, teachers, family, and Ian Curtis and Joy Division who created the saddest, most beautiful song in the world.

I’m anxious and nervous all over again, and I feel as if I can’t do enough for this book. Except, the thing is, the book doesn’t care. The book doesn’t want to be a success. The book doesn’t want anything.

The book isn’t alive. The book isn’t me. The book is just something I did with the help of a lot of other people.

Now if only I could remember that.

Feeling unsustainable

2009-04-23T09:36:00.001-07:00

Here's a short story I wrote a while back.

I’m walking around in the museum of knowledge, kinda bored if you want to know the truth, and it occurs to me I must’ve skipped past a few of my favorite exhibits

the out-of-this-world
space adventure,
the dam’s-done-broke-
gushing-rushing log flume,
the hands-over-my-eyes
shouldn’t-peek-but-I-do
funhouse with the witches
and the blood and the goo

Excuse me, I say, walking backwards on the conveyer belt, I want to go back.

You can only go forward in the museum of knowledge, says the woman behind the counter.

But I didn’t start at the beginning, I pleaded. Someone dropped me off midway by mistake, and all you’ve got here is atlases and dinosaur bones and periodic tables.

What’s back there wouldn’t interest you, she said, it’s kids stuff.

Oh, but it would interest me, I said, it’s… it’s important. You know the funhouse back here?

She nods solemnly.

The funhouse is important. I need to remember it.

She nods again, frowning, grave, but I get the sense that she’s going to lift the velvet rope.

It’s my dream, see, she just works here.

***

I’m walking arm-in-arm with sprightly, smiling, wool-capped Kimber Dean. It’s not her, really, but a close approximation, and in this world I’m embracing her, but it’s not Kimber the woman I’m embracing, though I have those dreams too, no, it’s Kimber the activist I’m holding tightly this time, the Kimber who was quoted all the time on all things leftist and labor-related, only after a while there was someone else heading up the coalition on fair trade and I remember what a mutual friend once said about her, how she told him she just plain burnt-out on activism by her junior year and decided to settle into life instead, and it was then that I met her, smiling and smart-assed and hunkered down with a girlfriend that didn’t last long but none of that mattered anyway because Kimber never knew I existed, never knew I cared.

In this world, though, Kimber Dean and I walked arm-in-arm, she could barely keep her eyes open, and she was self-deprecating about her achievements and her appearance, and this was so unlike her, not that I knew what she was like at all, but this was so like me, and I tried to tell her she was beautiful and cool and great, but she just shook her head and told me how tired she was.

And so I told her to sleep, and then I told her I’d carry her, and she fell asleep, and carry her, I did.

She was light at first, and it felt good to lift her up real high above the pavement where the boy had been beaten, above the grassy quad where the kids had camped, and I convinced myself I could carry her all the way home.

But of course I couldn’t.

***

I tell him about the dreams, about the war between the me who was never really a kid and the me who is most certainly already an adult, between the me who cares deeply about the world and the me who wants to not give a fuck, and I say, Even when I was young, I felt like I was old, and even though I know I’m young now I’m still older than I was then, back then when I didn’t realize I was young.

It’s just, I sigh, It’s just… I want Marc Jacobs to dress me. I want Marc Jacobs to want to dress me.

While I still have lots of collagen, I add.

And he says, I don’t know why all the pretty girls think they’re not pretty.

That’s not what I’m saying! I say. I know I’m pretty. I just want Marc Jacobs to make me a dress which, you know, makes that clear. And while I’m at it, I want a casio keyboard, and not to care, and… Remember all the people who saw Joy Division play for the first time?

He does.

I want to be part of something like that. I’ve never been part of anything like that. Not the Seattle riots, not New York in the 80s or even New York in the 90s. I never toured with the Dead, or danced in Ibiza, or even saw a Dark Side of the Moon laser light show. I never wrote about the war or protested the Republican National Convention’s descent on New York or threw a brick at Starbucks; I stayed at home and watched it all on the Internet.

Look, I said, I’m not even talking about Woodstock or Four dead in Ohio or Dylan going electric because I wasn’t alive for that stuff so I can’t feel guilty about not being there, but as for the other stuff I’ve got no excuse.

He knows what I’m talking about because he was Christian as a teenager.

I conclude, There’s simply no reason I shouldn’t be friends with M.I.A.

I draw a diagram in the air with my beer.

On the one side, there’s me

And I’m fabulous and political
And Marc Jacobs wants to dress me
And I’m a total fucking rockstar

And on the other side, I’m editing a book on sustainability
And I have a day job
And I’m really responsible.

Do you really want to be a rockstar? He says, knowing I don’t.
ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY, I say, knowing I do.

Well, then give it ten years of performing in dive bars. With dirty bathrooms.

This is a dirty trick because he knows I hate dirty bathrooms.

WHERE
IS
MY
AUDIENCE? I roar.

Ah, fame, he says, so elusive.

I don’t want to be FAMOUS! I said, spitting out the word, appalled thoughts of the Britney Spears, American tragedy article still unsettling my mind. I just want a small New York following. Maybe I should start a blog.

You have a blog, he points out, and might I remind you you only wrote two posts?

That doesn’t matter, I say. If a blog lives on the Web and no one links to it, it doesn’t exist at all. Maybe I’ll call my blog “I want Marc Jacobs to want to dress me” and someone will link to it and eventually Marc Jacobs will link to it, too

and then it hits me.

I don’t even like Marc Jacobs’ Fall collection, I sigh. I mean I like Marc, don't get me wrong, the shimmery dresses I saw at Bloomingdale's are to die for. But the jackets make even the skinny girls look fat.

I feel fat, I say, and he gets angry and I know he’s going to say something about pretty girls again but only because he misunderstands.

Not fat physically, I say,

Fat… mentally.

Unsustainable? He asks and I know he understands.

Yes, I say, I feel unsustainable.

Because if Marc Jacobs told me he wanted to dress me in the coat
that makes even the skinny girls look fat

(and if he added that it was made in a Sri Lankan sweatshop)

I’d still put it on.

2009-04-14T11:41:00.001-07:00

It's ten feet away, the door, and the next door another ten, and the final door forty in all. One door isn't even closed, just there. How some people can move through these doors with such relative ease fills me with such jealousy and curiosity. How do you do it?

There are words for this, I know. I would like to put a word on it, just so I can blame something other than myself. But I do blame myself. I know it's not my fault exactly but it still seems so stupid, so pointless, to be this way.

And anyway it is my fault. There were other versions of me I could have been. I chose this one or at least it feels like I did. I couldn't have always been so scared of the door.

When characters in books move through doors, it feels so fake, so staged. It feels so counter to what I am... which is essentially in this room.

I am essentially in this room.

When characters in books listen to other people, it feels so fake, so staged. I don't listen to other people. I try to listen but I've already made up my mind. I'm already thinking about what to make you listen to next.

Look. I made a real effort to be here, okay? As for you, you must want to be here because I've never heard you talk about the doors or the stairs or the turnstyle or the doors again or sitting there or geting off or the stairs again or going there. I never hear you talk about it. How do you...?

Nevermind.

Why I Hate American Idol

2009-04-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

I'm back after a brief hiatus. This week, I'll announce the winners of my first-ever treasure hunt. For now, a brief rant.

Why I Hate American Idol

The reason I hate this abysmal show is not the lack of talent of the singers; it’s not the cheesiness of the performances; it’s not even the inanity of the judges. Or rather it’s those reasons, but not only those reasons.

First and foremost, however, is that it violates one of my few musical beliefs (the only other I can think of at the moment is that vibraphones are usually, like milk was to Ron Burgundy, a bad choice).

But my number one belief, the only belief that really matters since I suspect most people are with me on the vibraphone thing, is that you should never, ever cover a song unless you add something special to it, unless you truly make it your own.

And that doesn’t mean turning a rock or pop song into a fucking country ballad, Idols, simply because it’s a different genre. It means you need talent, style, an honest-to-God unique voice (And preferably, an honest-to-God goddamn band.) Think Jimi Henrix covering All Along the Watchtower. Brilliant, moving, goosebump-inducing cause he rocked the fuck out of Dylan’s slow folk jam. Same goes for Jeff Buckley’s version of Hallelujiah (Has anyone actually heard Leonard Cohen sing?) Johnny Cash’s Hurt (in my opinion, not as good as NIN’s, but Cash is a God), or Sublime’s Trenchtown Rock (RIP Bradley, RIP Bob).

So when I was flipping by just in time to hear some hack cover True Colors (I refuse to even learn his name, that’s how strongly I feel about this) in a version so utterly devoid of the beauty, the messiness, the feeling, the crackling imperfection that Cyndi Lauper brought to it (incidentally, she did not write the song—Billy Steinberg did—but Lauper rented that shit to OWN), it made me realize how much our nation has lost its fucking mind. Or at least its fucking taste. Which we had at some point, I know we did. Pop music has not always been synonymous with airbrushed former Mouseketeers and voices that only a vocoder could love… and it doesn’t have to be.

I know, I know. It's not really pop music, what they're doing: it's musical theatre without Disney sponsorship. Which brings me to one more belief: musical theatre singing sucks. It's nasally and cheesy and loud and generic and obnoxious. It's all well and good if you've got family in from out of town who want to see Times Square but let's not confuse it with actual music.

And look, I also know I’m five years too late or whatever on this but it bears mentioning because the novelty has worn off and then some and people still seem to like this shit, so…

Seriously, people. Turn off your fucking televisions, turn your backs on these overzealous karaoke singers and demand something BETTER. Start by supporting real musicians by buying the music they spent their lives perfecting. I promise you won’t be sorry.

Unless the band you choose to support has a vibraphonist.

I haven't forgotten you!

2009-04-01T15:20:00.000-07:00

Been busy finishing up a cool freelance project and preparing for my improv graduation show... I'll be posting regularly again next week!

One Rule.

2009-03-27T07:28:00.000-07:00

So. I hate authority. I didn't like when my parents told me what to do and I could only deal with bosses telling me what to do because they were paying me. So I don't much like enforcing rules, however, it occurred to me that I should set down one ground rule when it comes to commenting.

-Please, no anti-gay or racist jokes or statements. And no attacking other commenters, either.

That's it.

Sing to Me, O Mogwai!

2009-03-24T22:38:00.000-07:00

My muses are fighting. This is not good. I knew getting two was a bad idea, like feeding Mogwais after midnight or some shit.

But they were so cute! She with all the hair! And he… with less hair, but still cute for a boy muse and I figured I could use one of them, too. This is America, I told myself, the land of plenty, and if they’ll let you buy two muses, then by God I shall have two.

But now they’re all grown up and I fear I haven’t done a very good job at raising them. Pieride at Mazedonia’s Muses told me they didn’t require much care, just some sunlight and the occasional grape leaf, but Zorba the florist said something similar about the Miltoniopsis orchid I bought last winter and that thing didn’t last a week!

My muses do not argue like you or I. They have lyre-offs. It is so fucking annoying. I can’t get a damn thing done with all that golden music in the house, not even when I’m all sweet and “Sing to me, O muses.” It’s like they don’t even care about me anymore.

But this morning, the music stopped. And I can’t find my muses anywhere! This is not good, because she can be fucking fierce. One time I came home and found her sitting there with blood on her hands and her mouth. She’d found a mouse in the apartment and eaten it alive. Grape leaves, my ass!

I’m sitting at my desk, typing, when she walks in without him. We’re leaving you, she says, we’re in love and want to move to Nashville.

Nashville! I say. What do you muses know of the American south?

We know nothing, Mortal, she says. We are only the inspiration. But we have tired of writers. We want to work with country singers.

Then she adds under her breath, At least they don’t try to be funny.

I don’t believe you, I say. I think you killed him and now you’re making a fast getaway.

He couldn’t face you, Writer. Behold! He is waiting with the driver from the land of Arecibo.

Fearful for his safety, I walk over to the window where she's pointing.

But there he is, sitting in the back of a Cadillac. He's smoking a cigarette and weeping.

Fine, I say, go. Maybe now I can finally have some peace and quiet and get some work done.

Maybe so, she says.

Then she smiles and I see that her mouth is red with fresh blood.

Ch-ch-ch-changes?

2009-03-23T15:08:00.000-07:00

I have already grown tired of the rigid daily features I imposed upon this blog and am hard at work thinking of changes I'd like to make. Stay tuned for a new and improved version of Sarah Rainone is not for sale, now with more guest stars and less OCD (at least when it comes to features).

Tomorrow expect to have your mind fucking blown (sorry, I watched the season finale of Eastbound and Down last night and it's quite possible I'll be channeling Kenny Powers for the next few days) by an original short story about mogwais and muses.

And as for today, it's the first installment of "Are you a cold-blooded killer with a case of amnesia or a lapsed Catholic who just can't shake the years of religious indoctrination?"

You wake up in a cold sweat. Your jaw is aching, probably cause you'd clenched it really hard before falling asleep the night before. You could not fall asleep because you felt so guilty about what you'd done that day that you felt the need to replay the entire day over and over again in the hopes of doing the right thing this time. But no matter how many times you try to mentally undo what you did, it stays did.

When you roll your tongue along the sides of your mouth you discover two thin lines of raised flesh from having chomped down on your cheeks while sleeping. You feel a growing sense of existential unease. You have wronged someone and you know it. But who? In your dream, you either cheated on your husband, took some kind of psychotropic drug, missed an important meeting, cannot remember your locker combination, or accidentally insulted a good friend. It's just a dream, sure, but you are still a terrible, terrible person. The only thing that can stop the voices from telling you what a selfish waste of space you are is to drown them out with the lyrics to something you'd memorized long ago either by choice or by force.

Some days you invoke Nas or Guru and run through the lyrics of "It Ain't Hard to Tell" or "Mass Appeal" over and over again just like you used to do during cross-country races to make up for lack of Walkman. Other days, your mind won't let you choose. It's The Lord's Prayer whether you like it or not.

Q: Are you a cold-blooded killer or just Catholic?

A: Just Catholic.

Posting help

2009-03-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

A few of you have mentioned encountering problems when trying to comment. Hopefully, this link has the answers. http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=42399

Treasure hunt: "Before your time" mix

2009-03-20T12:53:00.000-07:00

For some reason, today I'm feeling nostalgic about songs that mean nothing to me. While flipping channels and eating some homemade fried rice, I came across that Visa ad with Morgan Freeman and the aquarium featuring "Tuesday afternoon" by the Moody Blues and I almost started weeping. Why? No idea.

Up a few channels to HBO territory and Footloose is on; despite being momentarily distracted by Sarah Jessica Parker's unfortunate 80's hair, I nearly swooned to Foreigner's "Waiting for a girl like you." Again, the reason why is totally beyond me.

Now despite the fact that both bands were before my time (and not in a cool way like Led Zeppelin or Joy Division or the Beatles but rather in the way that makes me ask myself "Why the hell do I like Foreigner and the Moody Blues?"**) I have happy memories of other songs by them, namely "Nights in White Satin" and "I Want to Know What Love Is." But there is no reason that these two particular songs should be triggering any kind of emotional response. Unless...

What if both songs were evoking not a specific memory per se but rather the feeling of an era that I would never be a part of, one that had come and gone before my time?

Without further ado, this very first treasure hunt will call upon you to create a playlist that adheres to the following guidelines:
-The songs must have been popular "before your time."
-The songs need not be cool. Get a few cool tracks on there, sure, but the more dorky and terrible songs your list includes, the more likely I will be moved by your honesty. Think prog rock, metal, and hair bands.
-The songs needn't call to mind a specific memory but they should evoke a weird, weepy wave of nostalgia about a time that you didn't actually experience, a time that was just beyond your reach.

Here's mine):
1. Crazy Train (Black Sabbath)
2. More than a feeling (Boston)
3. Waiting for a girl like you (Foreigner)
4. Open Arms (Journey)
5. Closer to the heart (Rush)
6. 18 and life (Skid Row)
7. Aqualung (Jethro Tull)
8. Don't Fear the Reaper (Blue Oyster Cult)
9. You Can Do Magic (America)
10. Time of the Season (The Zombies)
11. Crimson and Clover (Tommy James and The Shondelles)
12. A Whiter Shade of Pale (Procol Harum)
13. Tuesday afternoon (The Moody Blues)

The person who submits the list I like best will get a free copy of my new book! Just put your answers in the comments section, I guess.

**Yes, I know that it's not totally fair to the Moody Blues to compare them with Foreigner. Still.

Something I'm Loving

2009-03-19T08:49:00.000-07:00

New York. Yesterday.

Sun, courtesy of ?

Breakfast in bed, 60 Thompson

Alexander Technique class, Rebecca Tuffey

Infinite Jest, puchased at B&N Union Square; read, cried over, and underlined repeatedly while sitting on various benches in various parks

Coconut yogurt, Union Square Farmers Market

Lunch, 'shroomburger at Shake Shack

Dinner, multigrain vegetable roll, Woo Ji Rip in K-Town

Improv class, Upright Citizen's Brigade

Why this blog? Why now?

2009-03-18T20:02:00.000-07:00

Just so we're clear, the point of this blog is to give you some free stuff so that you might be enticed to buy things I create that are less free. (But only nominally less free since we're talking books here.) Here's what I'm thinking:

Tuesday: Sing to Me, O Mogwai. Original short stories and essays inspired by both pop-culture and serious shit. Some posts will be true, some will be less true. All of them, however, will be honest.

Wednesday: Who needs hand-washing when there are lists to be made? Mostly playlists, but because I am obsessive (though not to my knowledge compulsive) and today's post is a kind of list, I need to keep things consistent. (Wait. Is that compulsive?)

Thursday: Something I'm loving. Books and music mostly, but maybe other things I know less about to keep things interesting.

Friday: Treasure Hunt. I send you on a quest, if you make it back with your faculties intact (big ups, J.D.!) and an answer, send it to me. The brave soul who sends me the most kick-ass answer will be awarded with either the secret of immortality or a free book.

Saturday and Sunday: Unlike the Judeo-Christian God, I don't need a day to rest, but I could use the weekend to shamelessly plug stuff I created with my own hands and brain. Excerpts from my forthcoming novel and the playlists that either inspired it or are inspired by it.

Monday: Motivational lessons from Ty the Williamsburg Raccoon. Cause everyone needs a pick-me up on Mondays... Everyone, that is, except for people who, upon being recently laid-off by major media conglomerates, have found that they have lost all sense of time.

Special features will include awesome guest stars, imaginary band names, cool coincidences, quizzes--such as "Are you a murderer or just a guilt-ridden Catholic?"--and music lessons from the hottest German neu new-wave band you've never heard of: The Zupacutes... (I do not know how to blog umlauts but you can bet they'd be there if I could.)

That is all.

Sarah Rainone,
Not for Sale

A girl was born. Thirty years later, she starts a blog.

2009-03-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

The day after my mother’s funeral was one of the best days of my life. It shouldn’t have been, it wasn’t supposed to be, it just ended up that way.

First, some context. My mom died on March 13, 3007. Her funeral was on March 16th, my birthday was (and is) today... March 17th… St. Patrick’s Day.

My mother was Irish so this was a big deal.

I wasn’t supposed to be born on St. Patrick’s Day. I was due in late February but the way the story goes is that everyone on my mom’s side of the family (except for my mom) was thrilled when the due day passed, then another, then another… because they were all gunning for St. Pats.

My dad’s side of the family, however, was less pleased. They were Italian, there were no grandkids yet and my mom was old (28) so they didn’t see the reason for all this drama. Just have the bambino/a already!

When I was born on the 17th, my mother’s father, Robert “Big Bob” O’Connor, and his clan rejoiced while the Rainones grumbled a bit: “She couldn’t have held on two more days until San Giuseppe Day?” “Of course not. She’s… Irish.”

“She’s… Irish” is what the old Italian ladies would whisper loudly every time my mother would walk into a room, knowing full well that loud whispers aren’t whispers at all, but rather the most effective way to combine screaming and hissing.

I’ve always liked to imagine that my mom held out on purpose but I knew it was likely just dumb luck. (My very pregnant friend just confirmed said lack of control over delivery date via text message, saying that if it were up to her, she’d be in labor right now.) It wasn’t until last night that a lone gunman theory entered the picture. I joined my husband in bed not long after the clock struck my birthday, cold as always. After stealing some of his warmth, I asked him to tell me a story “about me.” (Lest you think this was just some kind of birthday request, I’ll set the record straight. I ask him this kind of shit at, like, 1:13 in the morning all the time: What’s the meaning of life, Markus? What is your least favorite thing about me, Markus? Do you think the Palestinians and the Israelis will ever find peace, Markus?)

He said something about how it made perfect sense to him that I was born so late: not only do I hate the cold and love the covers but I’m the Queen of the Snooze button. I love sneaking in 5-minute dreams before dragging myself to work. (Or at least I did when I worked in an office. Now that I work from home, I don’t have to drag myself anywhere.)

It never occurred to me that perhaps I had some power over the day I was born. Probably because I don’t believe that the unborn are human or capable of thought of any kind -- let alone highly specific thoughts about a holiday on the 17th of March that involves green beer, blinking pins that say “Kiss me, I’m Irish” or four-leaved clovers, as that would also necessitate prior knowledge of the existence of numbers, months, malt, hops, green food dye, plastic, tiny batteries, sex, Catholicism, sainthood, nationality, and either the genetic or environmental mutations of plants. Oh, and luck. Still, the idea that the alpha version of me might have been unable to come out and face the world is more in keeping with my personality than I’d like to admit. I mean, there’s a reason that I’ve been planning to write a blog for something like five years and am only “going live” today, on my 30th birthday.

That an unconscious Sarah might have hit some version of “womb snooze” to get in a few extra weeks of warmth is not unrelated to another idea that hit me lately: that maybe my mother held onto life a little longer than everyone expected so that she’d die around a time of year that everyone in my family, even the Italians, had come to love. She had, after all, requested on her deathbed that her funeral be a party and joked that she fully expected my brother and me to get a keg. And she was notoriously OCD about planning things: she left behind scores of notebooks full of color-coded meal plans and to-do lists for the holidays. You can’t tell me that a woman who writes notes to herself about exactly the time the homemade Toll House cookies should be defrosted to be at maximum freshness for the Christmas Eve party didn’t at least give a bit of thought to something as monumental as her last moment on earth.

There wouldn’t be a keg the day of the funeral, but the following day was another story. My friends had been planning a St. Patty’s pub crawl in Providence for months. They’d rented a van, one of those huge wheelchair-accessible jobs, so that no one would have to drive. At first, I wasn’t sure about the pub crawl no matter what my mother had said. But my family insisted I enjoy my birthday and so Markus, my out-of-town friends, and I joined the merry band.

Despite the fact that so many people seem to think St. Patrick’s Day is the "Best. Holiday. EVER.", I can’t say that my relationship with the day has always been a happy hour. When I was a drunk back in high school and college, I was always miffed that I had to share the holiday with so many other drunks who would usually forget they were supposed to be buying me drinks after the second round. When I wasn’t drinking at all, I found the drunkenness disgusting.

But on that day, being neither lush nor teetotaler, I didn’t feel neglected or disgusted. I knew my mother was gone but I also felt that she had become a part of me and that to honor this new part of me, this old part of her, I had to enjoy myself. “KO was always the life of the party” was how someone described my mother after the funeral, using her old initials and lifelong nickname, and of course I knew it was true. Which is why I found it strange that at times she seemed to resent that her daughter had turned out so much like her…

On my 28th birthday, I celebrated my mother as she might have been around that age – a young woman who loved being around people, who adored her friends, who was the life of the party – and in so doing, honored a part of myself I’d abandoned years earlier for some reasons that made sense (to have a healthier relationship with alcohol, to spend more time on my writing), for others that didn’t (to punish myself for living carelessly when I was younger, to allay irrational fears that I’d suffer from acute liver failure if I had an occasional glass or two of wine at dinner). I didn’t drink myself into oblivion like I used to but I didn’t abstain either because no matter how many times I’ve tried to convince myself otherwise for foolishly romantic reasons or author-bio purposes, I know I’m not an alcoholic but rather a masochistic perfectionist who likes to build impossibly high walls she has no chance of scaling, impossibly high walls that don't particularly need to be scaled. And when she falls (and she always falls) she has an excellent excuse to beat the shit out of herself.

(It’s a Catholic thing.)

Perhaps it was the shitty circumstances that gave me license to be less than perfect for the first time in a long time, perhaps it was my mother’s death that liberated me from being the perfect person I thought she wanted me to be, perhaps it was just the presence of so many old and dear friends, but that day I remember feeling very loved, very nonjudgmental towards myself and others… and lucky as hell.