Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Thanks, Amy and Jessica. No haters!

I haven't heard a peep from either of my parents. It was actually
freeing that both of them pretty much stopped talking to me before I wrote
the thing. The caution that I felt about writing about other people in my
life wasn't there to that degree. I did nevertheless tone a stuff down.

I'm really learning that it's very very challenging to write about the
people in your life in a way that's respectful of their privacy without
losing the story. I don't know any writer who hasn't struggled with how far
to go.

A few of my friends who are in the book have called or emailed, and so far
everybody's been really nice. I'm doing a reading in Brooklyn in a few
weeks, and I do have this fear that a few of the people I identified as
raging douchetards will show up. I changed some of their details, and hey,
it's not like we're going to be exchanging friendship bracelets anyway, but
I sometimes have visions of the woman I called my "nemesis" blacklisting me.
(She works in the media! HA!)

And I think the "why don't you just adopt?" analogy is a great one.  I have
a friend who does an amazing blog about her own adventures in infertility,
called alittlepregnant.com, and she has written a lot about that, with great
humor and sensitivity.

The world is full of helpy helpertons, some of whom may just be making small
talk and some of whom are just totally invested in getting you to live the
   same lives they have. When are you two going to get married? When are you
 going to have kids? Don't you want kids? When are you going to have the
second one? You can't let her be an only child! When are you going to leave
the city? You can't raise kids in the city!

Note to world: thoughts go on the inside.

Our choices are so so personal. And sure, some of my friends have taken
paths that would be totally wrong for me. That's why they're their paths. If
you don't have to live it, you don't get a vote!

Although I did spend the better part of the last nine months teasing my
friend Keri for getting knocked up a third time.
  

    
I was on a date (back in the dating days) and the man and I were talking
about where we lived and where we wanted to live.  At the time I was living
in Boca Raton, FL (and hated it!).  He lived in eastern Ft. Lauderdale
(where I really wanted to live).  At one point he said, "Well, we're all
going to end up living in Westin-like sub-divisions anyway, so it's all
moot."  And I thought to myself, "There is NO WAY I will end up living in a
sub-division."

Needless to say, that was our last date.  Clearly we weren't going anywhere.
  

    
i fled the suburbs where i was born and raised as soon as i could

it amuses me that once i married and had children, i settled in a
leafy suburb, similar to where i was raised

but i did take my kids into sf frequently when they were young - and
my suburb is close to the city, so there is nearby diversity and there
are rampant cultural opportunities
  

    <scribbled by dfowlkes Tue 3 Jul 12 10:14>
  

    
When suburbs started they were intentionally not diverse, but mine,
like yours, is diverse now.  
  

    <scribbled by dfowlkes Tue 3 Jul 12 10:14>
  

    
How did your reading go, MB? What kind of questions are you getting?
  

    
No disrespect to the burbs here!

What I did find difficult as I was searching were all the people who were so
set on the inevitability of leaving the city. I had a broker flat out tell
me my kids would hate me for raising them in a small apartment. That is
BALLSY. And it's that mindset of judgmentalism that I find so fucking toxic.
I really really tire of the culture of "I need to put you down to feel good
about me."

Fawn, I think the Housing Works event went fine! It was a "conversation"
with Chris Bonanos of New York magazine, and frankly neither of us were
quite sure what that meant, but we had a good time.

I get a lot of questions about why I wrote the book and how I started it,
but one of my favorites from the event the other night was about how I blog
and how that affects the writing.

When I was shopping the initial proposal around, my first agent gave me a
memoir that had been based on a popular blog. And I thought, this sucks.

I love having a place for my little random thoughts, and I have long stood
firmly in opposition of the notion that print is a more legitimate form than
anything on the web. But they are different. And I think blogs is blogs and
books is books and the space where they overlap is pretty small.
  

    
That is ballsy.  I have people tell me all the time that I MUST build out my
house so my kids can have their own rooms.  And I think, "What if I lived in
a condo that couldn't be built out?" Plenty of families have kids that share
bedrooms.  Most days nobody that lives in this house could care less about
building her that room.
  

    
Hey, I was raised in a small NY apartment, and, looking back, I LOVE
my parents for getting us somewhere decent to live (it really WAS
nice), and esp. my mother for opening up all of the wonders of the city
for me. 
  

    

Hey Mary Beth, long time fan, first time question asker...

once you guys got settled in to Inwood, and things were
on their way, did you maintain your searching? Did you
still scan Craigslist and the Times? Did you ever
find a place in your old neighborhood where you thought, "Shit,
if we waited 6 months we could have bought this one?"
  

    

Divinea, thank you for that post. That means a lot to me. I really love that
my girls take for granted stuff that other people dream their whole lives of
seeing, because they live here.

Ah, and the artist formerly known as stickboy! Longtime fan as well!

I'm not obsessive, but I do still look at the real estate listings - both
here in Inwood and in my old Carroll Gardens neighborhood. As I mentioned
upthread, the apartment we bid on originally is now, three years later, on
the market for 70K more.

And I have two friends who have this sort of unit and it makes me weep:
http://realestate.nytimes.com/sales/detail/641-3430/inwood-new-york-ny-
usa/PRICE-HIGH-
sort/266-400190--297-0134618--641-3504--641-3430--641-3692--44-1515099--641-36
71--44-1182816--641-3674--955-0712008001-
ls/66-t

I love my hood with all my heart, but sometimes I wish I could airlift it
about a hundred blocks further downtown.
  

    
They have that roof garden view?  AND 3 bedrooms? I'm weeping with you.
  

    
As the market hit the tank soon after you bought, how did that impact
your feelings about buying and owning?  Did you have thoughts that
you'd be on the good end of the price spiral once you got in and then
discover you got to the party too late?
  

    

I honestly feel I did as well as possible. I started looking in 2003, so,
even with the slowdown and slight dip in the market, prices are never going
to be what they were then. And sure, maybe if we'd had our shit totally
together and leaped on something right at that moment, we *might* now have a
tiny co op in Carroll Gardens, or a somewhat rundown house in Kensingon
(both Brooklyn).

But we didn't, so, je ne regrette rien.

If I were trying to sell right now, like some of my friends, I might be
freaking. But right now, my home is just my home, and that is a GOOD thing.
I got this place for 10K less than asking, which in NYC in 2006 was pretty
unusual. I got a 30 fixed mortgage rate, thanks to the Community
Reinvestment Act. And mostly, I just like where I live and where this road
has taken my family and me.

I sometimes look at what houses are going for in the other cities where my
friends live, and think, why am I doing this again? But value isn't square
footage or resale price. It's how you feel about where you live.

So I guess I think whenever you arrive at the party, you've just to figure
out how to have the best time possible once you're there.
  

    
Thanks, Mary Beth, for a good read and a good discussion.
  

    
thanks, Marybeth.
  

    
More thanks here, marybeth. BTW, your book has been very popular with
my friends in SF who are still in the market. Three people out here
have read it since this discussion began.

We're highlighting a new discussion today, but of course this one
doesn't have to end. 
  

    
I just finished the book, and the tension at the closing...  I might be a 
big softie, but I had tears in my eyes for you.  I remember very well 
having  a similar re-action (and our closing dance was not nearly as 
rollercoaster as yours)

It's a really great read, and I can't wait to read your next book.

(on your second and third editions, you can add the clown seal of 
approval!)
  

    
It read like a house on fire! 
  

    

Oh, thanks, everybody. I knew I could count on the WELLperns to bring it
with the great questions and stories.

It's been cool getting to talk about my meatspace home in my virtual one.
  

    
Hey MB-- what witty things are you thinking to write in people's books?

When I wrote my coloring/learning book I alternated between:

"Have fun coloring in the whole state!"

and

"Remember, you are never too old to color!"
  

    

I've been thining of writing "NOW YOU CAN'T RETURN THIS" but I haven't yet.

I suck at signing.
  

    
"Thanks for helping me pay my mortgage."
  

    

Seems like a play on the words "house warming" might be called for.