mythical creatures

Ears and Loathing

2012-01-19T19:13:00.001-05:00

I wrote an essay called "Ears and Loathing" for the February issue of Allure, about my ears and what they mean to me (membership in the elf community).

"But you don't have big ears," you might say, if you've never met me, or even if you have.

I think my ears are my most obvious feature, but I would also concede that the flaws we believe in are often the ones that go unnoticed by our peers, who are too worried about their own weird features.

For proof, here's a photo I would have used as an author photo, if I'd written a book called "What Mr. Spock and I Have in Common: True Stories by Leigh Stein":

And here's what it looks like if my hair is down, and my ear just needs some breathing room. My boyfriend has been cropped out of this photo to protect his identity.

Dispatch from the Lilac Capital of the World

2012-01-15T13:28:00.001-05:00

This is Ellie. I've known her since she was 11. She has starred in every play (three) I've ever written. She says I better use her name in my next book, or else.

Yesterday's event was the toast of the town of Lombard, IL. My friend Mark (who was the only boy I could get to act in all the skits about tenement slums that I wrote in 3rd grade) says my book is the most exciting thing to happen to Lombard since abolitionist Sheldon Peck used his home to help slaves escape via the Underground Railroad.

Here's a picture of me being the Little Mermaid, in a seashell chair. I would have stolen it if I thought it would fit in a carry-on.

Attractive young people, excited about my book.

Me and my sister Hattie, Lush employee and master portrait photographer.

"Pretend you're all talking to her," Hattie said.

Currently reading

2012-01-13T14:03:00.001-05:00

Everyone's been saying, "You must be so excited for your book tour." And I was excited, I mean I am, but maybe not for the reasons you would expect. One reason I am excited is because I get to do a lot of traveling, and that means I get to read a lot of books.

Currently reading: Lit by Mary Karr

Most of what I am loving here are Karr's sentences: her off-kilter rhythm; her verbs; her metaphors ("across the night sky, the wind sends slim white stitches")

"We loved each other this way, Daddy and I, from afar. We're like totem animals in each other's foreign cosmologies—like islanders whose ancestral gods favor each other. Each of us represented to the other what little we knew of love inside that family, but whoever I've turned into has wiped away who I was as a kid, whoever he once loved. Age about twelve, I'd ceased to shoot pool and scale fish, stopped tuning in to the Friday night fights after Ali and Liston, nor did I follow the Yankees with the intensity Daddy thought their due."

How many of my book's characters live in Milwaukee? Click here to find out!

2012-01-12T18:52:00.001-05:00

Last night, my little sister Hattie and I drove to Milwaukee. Along the way we passed a sign for Mars Cheese Castle that had been reduced to an illuminated MA CHEE, but there was no time to stop, even though my passion for cheese is immense and insatiable. We had to get to Boswell Book Company, which is big and cozy and next to a Starbucks, making it the perfect place to spend every day of your life.

There I am, my little head, in their window! Hattie took about 6,000 pictures of this window. I am in many of them, off to the side in shadow, like the madwoman in the attic.

We had a modest but enthusiastic crowd of book/poetry/puppet lovers. One mother came with her daughter, a recent college grad, and after I signed a copy of my novel for them, the mom whispered, "I just bought her Cinnamon Toast Crunch yesterday."

A young blonde woman asked if I'd been to an MFA program (No) and if she should go to one (Only if they pay you).

Here's me, poised between thriller and fiction, JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE.

Then Hattie and I went to eat cheese, I mean dinner, and our waitress's name was JOCELYN*. This will be extremely significant if you've read the novel.

Thanks for the great night, Milwaukee!

*Truth be told, she spelled it JOZLYNNE, but I didn't know that til we got the check. The rest of the time, I thought it was Jocelyn.

Press

2012-01-10T14:00:00.005-05:00

Hello from Lombard, IL, where I am writing to you from my parents' dining room table. I have yet to change out of my pajamas. It is a very Esther Kohler kind of day.

I couldn't be happier with finding so many true love readers (!) out there, and the press my novel has been getting:

* Matthew Daddona says, "Stein’s poetic trademark is all over this novel," over at Electric Literature
* Lindsay Debach interviewed me about my writing process at the Swenson Book Development blog
* Adam Robinson asks the big question that's been on everyone's mind at HTMLGiant
* Roxane Gay says, "I was surprisingly moved by this book" at The Rumpus, and I admire her so much. I think she should be in charge of more of the world.
* I love this smart review by Tiffany Gibert, which looks at the phenomenon of quarter-life crisis (Hello, pajamas!)
* And finally, The Boston Globe takes me srsly

I will be sending dispatches from my book tour over the next few weeks, and if you come to a reading, please say hello! Let's feel, like, less alienated and stuff.

The party you were at or missed

2012-01-07T11:45:00.000-05:00

Thursday night was the release party for my novel, You Already Know what It's Called Because I Talk About It All the Time (co-written with Raymond Carver's ghost).

Keelie Sheridan, who runs 18 miles a day in a bikini, took time out of her busy life being fabulous to document this momentous occasion:

Have you ever seen so many pandas who love books? Me neither.

Erin Lynn Welsh, another artsy friend, captured the night's historical impact in sepia:

Looks like these pandas just got off a stagecoach in Lordsburg:

This was a dream come true for me. I made new friends, learned that you pronounce ARC like "ark," as in "Noah's," and overcame my fear of reading prose aloud. Just kidding. I'm still terrified, but trying to hide it by reminding myself to breathe.

Dear readers, I hope to meet more of you as I travel the country by Conestoga wagon* this month! Check out my tour schedule, it's totally insane. Next stop: Chicago.

*A girl can dream.

What I read last year

2012-01-01T09:14:00.000-05:00

Every year, I keep a list of the books I have read in a cloth journal with a rainbow cover that my ex-boyfriend's dad bought me in 2007. If you are a writer, people will give you blank journals for every occasion. Often these journals are too nice to write in (there's the anxiety of writing something horrible on paper and having it live there forever until your children find it and wonder why mom was so crazy).

I read 33 books this year, 11 more than last year. I read three books last week alone, while having the most luxurious vacation ever. (Luxury, to me, is unscheduled time spent in a beautiful place.) (Another definition of luxury is getting upgraded to first class for free, something that has never happened to me.)

I loved almost every single one of these books, and picked four for my list of the best poetry books of 2011. My very favorites, books I'll probably read again, are in bold.

1. Smiles of the Unstoppable/Jason Bredle
2. Either Way I'm Celebrating/Sommer Browning
3. Some Ether/Nick Flynn
4. Super Sad True Love Story/Gary Shteyngart
5. No Man's Land/Eula Biss
6. Nadja/Andre Breton
7. To the Lighthouse/Virginia Woolf
8. Bluets/Maggie Nelson
9. Bossypants/Tina Fey
10. California/Jennifer Denrow
11. A Visit from the Goon Squad/Jennifer Egan
12. D.V./Diana Vreeland
13. Night Fisher/R. Kikuo Johnson
14. We Are Doomed/Brad Liening
15. My Misspent Youth/Meghan Daum
16. The Balloonists/Eula Biss
17. Anagrams/Lorrie Moore (re-read)
18. Sad Little Breathing Machine/Matthea Harvey
19. Hunger Games/Suzanne Collins
20. Catching Fire/Suzanne Collins
21. The Imperfectionists/Tom Rachman
22. The Lover's Dictionary/David Levithan
23. New Age of Ferociousness/Jeannie Hoag
24. Things Fall Apart/Chinua Achebe
25. So Long a Letter/Mariama Bâ
26. Hard Times/Charles Dickens
27. Wedding Song/Naguib Mahfouz
28. Ways of Dying/Zakes Mda
29. The Marriage Plot/Jeffrey Euginides
30. Matigari/Ngugi wa Thiong'o
31. Is Everyone Hanging Out without Me?/Mindy Kaling
32. Blue Nights/Joan Didion
33. Treasure Island!!!/Sara Levine

Books I began but didn't finish (I'm very strict about what officially goes in the paper log): Wuthering Heights, Invisible Man, The Crying of Lot 49, Silas Marner

Let the beauty we love be what we do

2011-12-23T08:48:00.002-05:00

I once told a boyfriend that I wished my job were just to write and go to yoga class every day.

"That's not a job," he said, "that's a lifestyle."

OK fine, then I want that lifestyle.

This week I went back to my mat, for the first time in weeks. I had class with one of my favorite teachers, who always astonishes me with her ability to know what's inside your head. She rarely gives assists, but when I've dragged myself to class because I'm sad, it feels like she's always there next to me. She put a block under my head in pigeon pose. She read us this Rumi poem:

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

and frightened. Don't open the door to the study

and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

On Being Reviewed

2011-12-18T11:37:00.001-05:00

In sixteen days my novel will be out. I've gotten very nice reviews in Publishers Weekly, and the January issues of O and Elle. And then there's Goodreads. Because I'm getting very legitimate feedback from mainstream media that my book is worth reading, checking my reviews on Goodreads is like being addicted to crack even though I have access to the good stuff.

Let me put it another way.

Reading amateur reviews of your book is like eavesdropping at a slumber party, when everyone else thinks you're asleep. If someone says something mean or catty or false, your instinct is to call her out on it, but you keep pretending to be asleep so that she'll keep talking. That's how I feel. Like a twelve-year-old. Like the time I slept over at my best friend's house and someone put my bra in the freezer so the next morning I had ice cube boobs on my way to modeling class.*

Because of NetGalley, basically anyone can download a free copy of my book and "review" it in advance of its publication. Anyone can write something like, "Don’t let my three stars fool you: The Fallback Plan is a really good book." Or, "What I disliked was that she felt too deeply and thought deeply." Or, "There wasn't a lot of action and hardly any "plot" per say [sic]."

On her blog, Anne R. Allen recently wrote a guide to Amazon reader reviewing for the clueless, a post that I love. To summarize her advice to reader-reviewers: you're not writing for the New Yorker, not every book is trying to be War and Peace (or Anna Karenina for that matter), and if you actually liked it, give it more than 3 stars.

My friend Sarah advised that I pretend Goodreads is my ex-boyfriend's Facebook page, and avoid it in order to preserve my mental health. But I think I keep going back because I'm waiting for my ideal reader, my one true love reader...someone who reads my book and feels like it was written for her. Because that's the reading experience I've had with my favorite novels, and what inspired me to write one of my own.

True love reader, are you out there?

* Another story for another time.

How to Be a Gentleman of Leisure

2011-12-08T08:56:00.001-05:00

This week's advice column is live at The Faster Times.

Melville House is still running a great contest (without a deadline!) and it is this: tell me your problems, and if I give you advice, you win a signed copy of my book. (Win win?)

Leighstein (at) thefastertimes (dot) com

The Fallback Plan book trailer

2011-12-07T09:27:00.001-05:00

27 days til my book is released!

Fake Interview

2011-11-23T09:31:00.001-05:00

for Liz Hildreth

I was going to bring lilacs,
but I forgot. Don't ask.
I'm not afraid of any monsters,
just seahorses, and there is
no story from my childhood
to explain this. Where
do I see myself in five years?
The opposite of where I am
today. In other words,
not on an island.
Seriously, Liz, I'm swimming,
and it's frightening outside.

Contest

2011-11-16T09:33:00.001-05:00

My publisher, Melville House, is having a contest. Write me for advice and you not only get advice, but you might win a signed copy of my novel.

My Life is So Fabulous like Whoa

2011-11-13T15:49:00.001-05:00

Conversation with friend on Thursday:

Friend: Want to go to super exclusive book party with me where we will meet fabulous people? It starts at 10:00.
Me: When, tonight? I can't, I have to go to class in the morning and last week I was 10 min. late and the professor locked me out and wouldn't let me in.
Friend: Oops, not tonight. Next Wednesday.
Me: Next Wednesday I have my night class.
Friend: No worries. How about tonight at 7:00, I'm going to a party, free cocktails and snacks?
Me: I have to work late.

***

Conversation with boyfriend:

Boyfriend: How are we getting to the movie?
Me: Let's call a car.
[the car comes but we don't go downstairs fast enough and we watch car drive away]
Me: Let's give up.
Boyfriend: No, you really wanted to see the movie, let's see if we can get another car...
Me: I give up.
Boyfriend: C'mon, let's try.
Me: [as I pull his arm away from curb] Let's just go inside and watch Werner Herzog movie on DVD and eat pizza from a box.

***

Last week, I was interviewed for the Daily News. The reporter asked what I liked to do for fun. "For fun?" I said. "You know," he said, "like in your free time."

"Watch reality TV shows and write poems about them," I said. I literally could not think of a single other thing I do "for fun." Eat pizza from a box? Oh, and visit the Anthropologie website, which is part of my elaborate fantasy life. Maybe that's what my answer should have been: "I have an elaborate fantasy life."

Trolls, Polygamists, and Other Spooky Things

2011-10-31T09:52:00.001-04:00

Last weekend, I lead a birthday party for a little girl who was turning four. All her preschool friends came. I was supervising the kids on big foam play equipment, and one little boy kept hiding in the tunnel underneath it, and then popping his head out.

"Are you the troll under the bridge?" I said.

He smiled, but didn't say anything.

I kept helping the kids go down the slide, watching that they didn't push each other off, but the boy kept popping up and trying to disrupt the line.

"Little troll," I said, "will you please let the birthday girl go down the slide?"

"Not until you answer my riddle," he said.

***

I spent a lot of time with friends this weekend, drinking wine, eating cheese plates, going to yoga. I also spent the blizzard inside, alone, watching Sister Wives on TLC. Compare the message of that show ("Ours is a spiritual union") with that of the film Gigi, which I saw on the big screen at BAM yesterday ("Men love you just the way you are, even if you've trained to be a prostitute.") Thank heaven for Maurice Chevalier.

***

In book news, I have a new advice column up today at The Faster Times, just in time for Halloween, about a scary boss. My novel was reviewed in Publishers Weekly, on the Swenson Book Development Blog, and in Library Journal by a woman named Jan Blodgett. Because there is this thing called the Internet, I am able to find out the source of all my mediocre reviews (in this case, from a middle-aged adjunct belly dance instructor). I'll definitely try to make my next novel target that demographic.

Today is my birthday

2011-10-20T09:33:00.000-04:00

It's hard to resist the urge to invent units of measure for each passing year.

My 26th year, in accomplishments: I sold two books, I had a chapbook published, I taught over one hundred and fifty kids, and I got straight A's. Can I get my ears pierced now?*

In books: I discovered Bluets by Maggie Nelson, To the Lighthouse, and Eula Biss.

In bad news: I went to two funerals, I was dumped three times, I had the worst major depressive episode I've had in years, and I wrote approximately 0 new poems.**

In blessings: I was surrounded by wonderful friends who are patient and forgiving with me, I moved in with my boyfriend, and I got to spend a week in Santa Fe.

* In third grade, my BFF Kate was promised she could get her ears pierced when she got straight A's. I had to wait until eighth grade. "But I always get straight A's and I never get anything!" I said to my parents, crying hysterically. They caved.

** Not including collaborations with Rob MacDonald, who keeps me from feeling irrelevant.

Occupy Joan Didion

2011-10-13T22:32:00.000-04:00

Re-reading Slouching Towards Bethlehem through the lens of the occupation.

“The center was not holding. It was a country ofbankruptcy notices and public-auction announcements and commonplace reports ofcasual killings and misplaced children and abandoned homes and vandals whomisplaced even the four-letter words they scrawled. It was a country in whichfamilies routinely disappeared from city to torn city, sloughing off both thepast and the future as snakes shed their skins, children who were never taughtand would never now learn the games that had held the society together. Peoplewere missing. Children were missing. Parents were missing. Those left behindfiled desultory missing-persons reports, then moved on themselves.”

- Joan Didion, 1967

Foreshadow

2011-10-11T10:27:00.000-04:00

After a nice summer spent reading (The Hunger Games), writing (a second novel), and going to the beach, I'm back in fall mode. Next to fall switch in my brain, there's a little sticker that says "Flip at your own risk." I'm taking five classes at Brooklyn College, and working two part-time jobs. One of my jobs involves choreographing musical theater dances for young people, so I've got that to work on in my spare time. I haven't had time to read a book for pleasure (The Imperfectionists) since the hurricane hit, so I'm crossing my fingers for another one of those.

Last week, this all caught up with me. I was out with a cold for a few days, but since I can't slow down, I just used the time to proofread my book.

I haven't read my own book in a year, maybe even longer than that. I've worked on edits in the past year, but never significant ones, so I had no reason to read the whole manuscript. There was just a paragraph to rewrite here, a sentence to reword there.

There's a scene in which Esther, the main character, dreams that Jack, her crush, is dead and she goes to his wake. Jack is based on my ex-boyfriend Jason, who died in July. I went to his funeral in Little Rock. What disturbed me the most was that I didn't remember writing this scene at all. Like a real plot twist, I didn't see it coming. And what grieves me on a daily basis is that I can't share anything with him anymore; I can't call him on the phone and say, "Can you believe I did this?"

When I woke I was covered in cold sweat. I called Jack.

“I just had a nightmare about you.”

“It’s only 11:00.”

“I know,” I said, “I fell asleep by accident.” In the background I could hear “I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight,” and gunshots.

“What are you doing?”

“Killing hos,” he said.

“Killing what?”

“Playing Grand Theft Auto.”

“Oh. Is Pickle there?”

“No,” he said.

“Is anyone there?”

“No.”

I still hadn’t completely shaken the dream. If I closed my eyes I saw meerkats coming towards me like bloodthirsty pallbearers. “I want to die before anyone else I know does,” I said before thinking. “I want to die first so I don’t have to go to any funerals.” I straightened my twisted sheets so I could shimmy under them.

“Are you crying? Why are you crying?”

“I don’t know.” Sentimental sadness.

Jack never felt sorry for me and maybe that’s why I called him. Plus, he was always awake in the middle of the night.

My favorite cast of the Real Housewives is back

2011-09-28T09:28:00.001-04:00

GOSSIP GIRLS

When you're putting together a charity party,

it's nice to have rich friends.

See you soon.

I don't think she really understands

how intense this can be for me.

I thought she was intoxicated with something.

When can I come to your castle?

You have to hear this.

I was worried the fans might get aggressive.

They're not illegal;

they're just dangerous.

Nobody is going to come.

Mix Tape Memory

2011-09-20T12:09:00.000-04:00

Somewhere around 1997 or 1998, I joined a listserv fan group for Francesca Lia Block, a YA author who described sparkly and grim L.A., girls with purple hair, and a kind of longing felt by suburban thirteen-year-olds (i.e., me). From this group, I made friends across the country, including my friend Lindsey, who I reunited with in Brooklyn three years ago.

I traded mix tapes with these girls, which is how I discovered Tori Amos and Ani Difranco. I listened to "Mr. Zebra" obsessively, having no idea what it was about.

I still don't know what this song is about.

There was a librarian in the group named Anne, who mailed me my first mix CD. I'd never even seen one before. I asked her how she'd gotten to print her own label on the CD and she told me she bought the labels at Office Max. It was a revelation. I listened to it all autumn, and for years afterward, and so these songs stick out in my mind as being particularly autumnal, and remind me of riding in the backseat of my parents' car on our way to a Rosh Hashanah party, on the north side of Chicago, in the rain, listening to my discman:

Meryn Cadell - "Johnny and Betty"
Joan Osbourne - "St. Theresa"
Paula Cole - "Hush Hush Hush"
Sarah Mclachlan - "Ice Cream"
Liz Phair - "Polyester Bride"

Currently Reading: Vacation Edition

2011-09-05T10:06:00.000-04:00

Brian and I have spent the last couple days in Provincetown at a gay waterfront resort. When I say gay I mean I've been the only woman anywhere near the pool. Every afternoon, from 4-7 there's a Tea Dance, which looks to me like a huge, alcoholic game of dress-up. I endorse make believe.

Poolside, I've been reading the Sept. 5 issue of the New Yorker, fascinated by Larissa MacFarquhar's profile on moral philosopher Derek Parfit, of which I understood about 60%:

He has few memories of his past, and he almost never thinks about it, although his memory for other things is very good. He attributes this to his inability to form mental images. Although he recognizes familiar things when he sees them, he cannot call up images of them afterward in his head: he cannot visualize even so simple an image as a flag; he cannot, when he is away, recall his wife's face. (This condition is rare but not unheard of; it has been proposed that it is more common in people who think in abstractions.)

I'm also reading Things Fall Apart (for my African literature class), and Hamlet (for a literature & film class).

Yesterday, we rode bikes to Pilgrim's Monument and climbed to the top. At Provincetown Museum, I learned about scrimshaw, the art of carving into the bones and teeth of whales or ivory:

Brian thinks it's disturbing that I would be interested in art made out of dead animals' bones, but I think it's disturbing that he would be interested in antique weaponry meant to kill humans. And so it goes.

Recipe for a Book, Part II

2011-08-30T15:14:00.004-04:00

INGREDIENTS

The elements you select to be included in any given composition assignment, and out of which the work will be composed. These might include objects, sounds, physical actions, text, theatrical conventions, etc. The right kind of Exquisite Pressure is created by how many ingredients you assign to be included in the piece and how difficult they are to find, make or include.

The Viewpoints Book, Anne Bogart + Tina Landau

My second, hesitantly titled, 23,000 word novel-in-progress includes pioneers and ghosts like these:

Recipe for a Book, Part I

2011-08-29T13:00:00.004-04:00

INGREDIENTS

The elements you select to be included in any given composition assignment, and out of which the work will be composed. These might include objects, sounds, physical actions, text, theatrical conventions, etc. The right kind of Exquisite Pressure is created by how many ingredients you assign to be included in the piece and how difficult they are to find, make or include.

The Viewpoints Book, Anne Bogart + Tina Landau

Here are some of the ingredients I put into my first novel, The Fallback Plan:

Currently re-reading

2011-08-23T10:16:00.002-04:00

"That gorilla I met, the one who signs, was given a push, but it didn't work. The people with whom she lives wanted her to mate. They brought in a suitable male, younger and larger than she, and set them up to cohabit. The female gorilla signed to him things like, 'Hurry up' (and give her more bananas) and 'Truck not yours' (a Tonka toy truck). Neither gorilla would make a move, so the people rented an X-rated film and screened it for the primates. It held the gorillas' attention, and when the film was over, the female gorilla signed to the male, 'Climb up on my back.' But he did not have her language skills, and did not otherwise take the hint."

- Amy Hempel, Tumble Home

The cops

2011-08-09T09:04:00.003-04:00

A week or two before he died, Jason was arrested for stabbing a man with a knife. The news report (which I can read online whenever I want, as well as his obituary) makes it sound like he was out of his mind: gesturing towards a pool of blood on the ground, the police officer asked who was cut, and finally Jason admitted "someone might have gotten cut." "When questioned further about the incident," he pulled a bloody knife from his pocket.

At the funeral, his younger brother told me that they only got half the story. The guy he stabbed tried to run Jason over in his car. Jason said he didn't want a fight. The man got out of the car, and his daughter yelled from the backseat, "He has a gun!"

A couple nights ago, Brian was watching Cops while I marked up a manuscript, and I had to leave the room. It reminded me too much of Jason. Not because he was always getting arrested, but because there's no nuance. The cops are good, right. Everyone they arrest is bad, wrong. I find myself sympathizing too much with criminals.

After his arrest, someone in his family must have paid his $5,000 bond. Someone paid for all the flowers at the funeral, the casket, the marble slab they buried him under at the top of a hill.

The birds

2011-08-08T09:22:00.002-04:00

The last time I saw Jason was in June. He came to New York. Friends asked if he was staying at my place and I looked at them like they were idiots. Where else would he stay? He’d been living with his grandmother in Little Rock, Arkansas, mowing the lawn and taking out the garbage and looking for a job where he would last longer than two weeks. He used to call me late at night and ask if I could hear her birds. They drove him crazy.

“You don’t hear that?” he’d say. “They’re screaming.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

The night before his funeral, I stayed in the guest bedroom of his grandmother’s house. Slept in a day bed. The house was huge, with vaulted ceilings and lofted bedrooms. The white carpeting was impeccable.

“Hello, sweetheart,” one of the birds said, whenever we walked by her cage.

The other bird just screamed. His name was Smoky. I don't remember the name of the one who could talk.

When we got lost in North Little Rock, it was because we'd crossed the river without meaning to, and had to keep turning around to go back.

Dear

2011-08-06T10:26:00.003-04:00

our parking lot in albuquerque

Dear Jason,

When we left for Albuquerque, my mom gave me the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, and your dad gave me a cloth-bound journal with a rainbow on the cover. My dad gave us fifty bucks to find someone to help us unload the moving truck. “I can do it,” I told him, but thirty-six hours later, we were standing in our new apartment complex parking lot, arguing over how to move a mattress between the two of us.

Love,

Leigh

Dear

2011-08-02T21:07:00.001-04:00

Dear Jason,

There are no pictures of us together.

I was really upset about this, until my friend Liz told me that it's like if we lived in Niagara Falls. Would we have pictures of the falls if we lived there? We'd take it for granted.

Love,

Leigh

Tattoo idea

2011-07-30T15:12:00.001-04:00

I interviewed Miranda July

2011-07-27T11:46:00.003-04:00

She said she liked the owls on my shirt, but that didn't make it into the interview because what am I, an insane person?

Dear

2011-07-27T01:14:00.002-04:00

Dear Jason,

The night before your funeral, I told your mom the story of the night you proposed to me. We were at a house party outside Chicago, before we moved to Albuquerque, and the police busted it. Most of the kids were underage (including you), and I was one of the few who were not (I was 22). After a couple hours of lectures and threats, the police told everybody that they had a choice: either they could spend the night in jail, or they could call their parents to come pick them up. You got down on one knee and proposed to me in this stranger's living room, and I said yes and got to take you home, as your guardian.

Then we passed around a ziplock bag of the things found on your body after the accident. Your wallet, a flashlight. The ring your ex-girlfriend's dad made you out of a motorcycle part seven or eight years ago. I never once saw you take it off. I thought they should have buried you in it, and I got upset. The detail undid me. Like the next day when your brother told us that yes, of course you'd been wearing your motorcycle helmet, but it was smashed in when they found you.

I'm wearing the ring you bought me in the Ozarks. It's cheap plastic, but it has veins in it like turquoise.

Love,

Leigh

currently re-reading

2011-07-08T13:05:00.003-04:00

"In the dictionary, lumpy jaw comes just before lunacy, but in life there are no such clues. Suddenly, for no reason, you might start to dribble from the mouth, to howl peevishly at the moon. You might start quoting your mother, out loud and with conviction. You might lose your friends to the most uninspired of deaths. You might one day wake up and find yourself teaching at a community college; there will have been nothing to warn you. You might say things to your students like, There is only one valid theme in literature: Life will disappoint you.

Dub the imagination pharmacist, and then we can talk turkey.

These are things you might find yourself saying."

- Lorrie Moore, Anagrams

Magic Bullets II

2011-07-06T08:47:00.005-04:00

Last month, I wrote about antidepressants and how, according to some people who make good points, they don't work nearly as well as, or in the way that, we think they do.

In a few hours, I have my monthly appointment with my psychiatrist, and I'm going to tell him I want off the ride. Not because reading things online has convinced me I don't have a real disease, or that I might as well be swallowing Mike & Ikes every morning, but because I know myself well enough to know that in the summer I feel up up up, and taking medicine that is also activating (that's the word that, for me, best describes what it's like to go from off medication to on) means insomnia and spending all my days like a zombie. I also have only written two poems in eight months (!). The fact that meds puts my poetic mind into hibernation fucks with my identity.

So I can't sleep. I have prescription sleeping pills that no longer help. So I'm up at night. And I'm on Jezebel.

Now, according to new research, autism has been linked with moms' antidepressant use.

According to the Wall Street Journal, researchers found a link between a mother's antidepressant use and giving birth to an autistic child. Specifically, "results indicated a doubling in risk of autism if the mother filled a prescription for antidepressants at any point in the year before delivery. The risk tripled if she filled the prescription during the first trimester of pregnancy."

Much more research is needed to solidify the link, but if it's true, what could this mean? Better stop your meds if you're trying to conceive? What if the pregnancy is unplanned? Should you visit a fortune teller and ask her to see into your future and tell you when you should stop?

One of the comments:

Don't worry, mothers were already ALWAYS GUILTY before this post. If your child has a chromosomal disorder like Katie Price's child, people will still reject the science and blame the fact she drank before she knew she was pregnant. If she hadn't drunk, they'd blame her shampoo. The mother is always to blame.

I sent the link to a friend of mine with depression, who also has a daughter on the spectrum. She wrote back:

there's been a lot of anti-d bashing lately, so it seems fishy. i think anti-d's have been picked up by people who don't have severe depression. so people who sought out doctors for depression (like you, like me) before depression was mainstream were willing to do anything. do bloodletting, do whatever, just help me. it's not like that anymore. of course these people aren't going to see some miracle happen. they weren't critically ill. but some people are really depressed. and anti-ds help them. you cannot deny that. it's absurd to deny it if you've ever been in a psych unit where people are very ill and you see a nearly miraculous improvement. i always think it's so strange when people say everybody's psyching themselves out by thinking anti-ds (and neuroleptics!) will work and then they do. in people who are psychotically depressed, there's no "psyching oneself out." psychotics aren't capable of metacognition. they're barely capable of cognition. they don't know whether they're taking a pill or if the queen of england is taking it. they can't distinguish a pill from their own mouth. also, what other treatment plan are you going to put these people on? the homeless guy who staggers in thinking he's being chased by helicopters. i really doubt he's going to be able to incorporate a macrobiotic diet and do 45 minutes of cardio. he's probably already doing the cardio from running from the invisible helicopters. i get very frustrated and emotional about all that. when people bring up the fact that people who take anti-ds and neuroleptics are left being "slow" and with facial tics and dead. they were incapable of human communication before. they were on the verge of killing somebody because they thought their lives were being put in danger by some unseen force. i think slow and ticky may be an improvement.

i don't know. what do you think?

Brief Emails from Hideous Men

2011-07-03T21:41:00.005-04:00

When I was twenty-one, I went on one of my first blind dates ever. I was living in Chicago, back at home after my job in Brooklyn fell apart, and I spent all my savings traveling around the country in a train for thirty days.

He had the same name as my dad. I thought this was a little weird, but he seemed really nice and funny, and we talked on the phone before we went out, and I told him my last name (after he asked). This would have been 2005, before Googling everyone you meet, and admitting it, became totally normal.

He asked me to meet him at a fudge shop. He was about my height, which alarmed me (I'm not very tall), but other than that he was funny and friendly. We went and got cheap Middle Eastern food. He laughed at all my jokes. He finished all my sentences for me (after Googling the shit out of me). He was so impressed that at such a young age I was already a published writer yadda yadda yadda. As for him, he hated his job and seemed generally depressed and directionless. (So of course I fell madly in love with him in three seconds.) I thought we had a great time. I can still remember what I wore.

This is the real email I got from him after our date:

if i may offer you some advice ... go back to school. get a degree in literature and teaching. keep writing. it's not so much you need a degree (although it certainly helps with jobs) as it is all the people you will meet in school and the social learning you will undergo. along the way, you'll meet a nice jewish boy too.

i really hope you don't think i'm being presumptuous. i would just like to see you succeed. then one day i'll read the new yorker, see an article of yours, and say to myself, "hey, i bought that girl a combination vegetarian platter."

All I'm saying is, This is going in my new novel. Men, remember: just like diamonds, email is forever.

How to make your ex boyfriend disappear in ten easy steps

2011-06-22T08:55:00.003-04:00

1. Buy a box of Swiffer cloths because you'll need it.
2. Carry twenty pounds of bedding and towels to the laundromat on Coney Island Avenue.
3. Put everything he left behind in out-of-the-way places you won't see on a daily basis.
4. Clean the bathtub.
5. Take a shower.
6. Make your bed with white sheets and white pillowcases and a white blanket.
7. Close the white curtain.
8. Go sleep in someone else's bed for a night.
9. Come home and open the curtains so the light comes in.
10. Repeat steps as needed.

Currently reading

2011-06-12T11:53:00.002-04:00

"For much of my life, I wanted to be other people; here was the central dilemma, the reason, I believe, for my creative stasis. I was always falling short of people's expectations: my immigrants parents', my Indian relatives', my American peers', above all my own. The writer in me wanted to edit myself. If only there was a little more this, a little less that, depending on the circumstance: then the asterisk that accompanied me would be removed. My upbringing, an amalgam of two hemispheres, was heterodox and complicated; I wanted it to be conventional and contained. I wanted to be anonymous and ordinary, to look like other people, to behave as others did. To anticipate an alternative future, having sprung from a different past. This had been the lure of acting—the comfort of erasing my indentity and adopting another."

- Jhumpa Lahiri, "Trading Stories" (in current issue of the New Yorker)

Magic Bullets

2011-06-10T11:02:00.002-04:00

One of my favorite writers, Elisa Gabbert blogged this week about antidepressants, in response to an article in The New York Review of Books. Both the post and the article are fascinating, and raise questions about a national mental health crisis, health care in America, and the actual efficacy of drugs designed to treat depression.

In one of the books reviewed, The Emperor's New Drug: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth, Irving Kirsch has carefully examined clinical trials of popular antidepressants, and reveals that placebos could be as much as 82% as effective as the drugs themselves. He also posits that the trial participants getting the placebo could deduce that that's what they were getting, because they didn't have any side effects. So:

To further investigate whether side effects bias responses, Kirsch looked at some trials that employed “active” placebos instead of inert ones. An active placebo is one that itself produces side effects, such as atropine—a drug that selectively blocks the action of certain types of nerve fibers. Although not an antidepressant, atropine causes, among other things, a noticeably dry mouth. In trials using atropine as the placebo, there was no difference between the antidepressant and the active placebo. Everyone had side effects of one type or another, and everyone reported the same level of improvement.

Emphasis mine.

This is extremely alarming to me, and makes me wonder who the trial participants were. The book reviewer doesn't go into it, but I hope Kirsch does (I haven't bought his book yet). Who suffering from severe depression would agree to a clinical trial in which they may only receive a placebo? Because I wouldn't. I don't know very much about how these trials are conducted, but would someone without health insurance be more likely to sign up? (I'm assuming treatment is free?)

Last summer, I dated a guy who prided himself on going with the flow and living in the moment. One night at dinner he told me why he doesn't have health insurance: because it's all a big scam and if he was on the brink of death, he could always go to the ER, and it would be illegal for them to refuse him treatment because he couldn't pay. I listened and nodded, silently infuriated.

Finally I said, "It's fine for you to say all that because you've never been seriously ill. I have to have health insurance."

"Why?" he said.

"Because I'm mentally ill," I said.

He burst out laughing. "Is that how you think of yourself?"

"It's not how I think of myself, it's just true."

Last year, I spent over five thousand dollars on health-related costs. This was with insurance.

Write Me

2011-06-08T15:03:00.002-04:00

Do you hate your job? Have you been considering a lobotomy? Will you be paying student loans until after you're dead?

I'm currently accepting submissions for a new advice column.

Write to me. I will help you. I will give you a fallback plan.

leighstein AT gmail DOT com

outtakes

2011-05-31T16:38:00.006-04:00

Me: Do you think I can just wear it like this?
Hattie: Everyone will think it's your bra straps.
Me: But it's not. It's a playsuit.
Hattie: No one will know that.
Me: Well take pictures of my whole body and they'll see it's a playsuit.

The Sunday Routine of Leigh Stein, 26, non-puppy-owner

2011-05-29T11:15:00.006-04:00

This is both boring and fascinating. Young, female, writer living in Park Slope with boyfriend and puppy. They cook brunch together! While listening to NPR! On their laptops! What's even more irritating is that the article is presented as offering a sneak peek into the life of a "real" writer, and yet she herself acknowledges that everything she does is a cliché.

If you want to know what the life of a real writer is like, here is what I do on Sundays.

UP AND OUT When I wake up, the first thing I do is put on my silk kimono, and thank God I don't own any dogs or babies and I can sleep as late as I want. After I water my hanging plants, I put on my day costume and walk to the corner bakery to get a non-organic bagel with non-organic cream cheese. Here is a picture of me in my day costume:

IN THE CLUB I don't belong to any clubs.

BRUNCH AT HOME Alone, I eat my bagel and drink coffee with milk, 2 sugars, on my terrace. I watch people across the street entering and leaving their houses. I fantasize, I brood, I think about what I want to say about headless women on book covers.

ERRAND FREE My unpaid intern does my errands for me. In exchange, she is learning valuable skills in errand-running and preventing important people like me, a real writer, from yelling at her.

WORK TIME If writing seems daunting, I do balancing poses, which make writing seem easy.

DINNER WITH FRIENDS I don't go to dinner at Roberta's. I go to dinner at a place that's so local and so original I'm not even going to tell you what it's called. Okay, it's called The Farm. I order a cheeseburger, medium well. Here is a picture of me in my evening costume.

MORE TV [Why is this writer watching so much TV? Why is the NYTimes writing about someone else's TV habits? Who cares?]

READ, MAKE LISTS Before bed, I again thank God that I don't have a puppy. I read some Ian Frazier, so I can go on Siberian adventures in my dreams. Here is a picture of me, right before I go to sleep.

currently wearing

2011-05-15T18:13:00.002-04:00

This outfit is called "What if my grandmother and Imelda Marcos got together and robbed a peacock farm"

Intervention poem

2011-05-11T15:51:00.001-04:00

LORNA

It only seems like she been doin one thing her whole life.

My mother's a crackhead.

When I smoke crack, it's something really satisfying my flesh.

My mother definitely has delusions of grandeur.

You can never be too thin or too rich.

I am really a Cabernet Sauvignon smoker, too.

We don't know who she owe money to.

That's my secret.

I was a very happy kid.

I just loved to dance.

The monster was too big for me to stop.

currently reading

2011-05-08T17:41:00.001-04:00

Finally, who shall blame the leader of the doomed expedition, if, having adventured to the uttermost, and used his strength wholly to the last ounce and fallen asleep not much caring if he wakes or not, he now perceives by some pricking in his toes that he lives, and does not on the whole object to live, but requires sympathy, and whisky, and some one to tell the story of his suffering to at once?

To the Lighthouse

currently reading

2011-05-08T10:03:00.002-04:00

[Clark Gable] had the most beautiful eyelashes I've ever seen on a man—on a human being. They were exactly like a Shetland pony's. Now you're probably not as intimate with Shetland ponies as I am. They're terrible little beasts—but they have the longest, fuzziest eyelashes of any creature you've ever seen. Clark's were exactly like that.

- Diana Vreeland

mail

2011-05-04T16:57:00.004-04:00

Dear Ms. Leigh,

I miss you so much.
Can you come back and be
our drama teacher again? Can
you write me a letter and tell
me how you're doing. My add-
ress is Ivette S-----
------ Apt #----
Brooklyn, NY ----

Love,

Ivette S-----

currently reading

2011-05-01T21:07:00.002-04:00

I think it was Goethe who said, "There is a glory to madness that only madmen know." It's a beautiful statement, but I'm afraid I may have made it up. If i did, it's better than his.

- Diana Vreeland

Intervention

2011-04-27T16:17:00.001-04:00

MIRIAM

I think I was chosen through God
to unite people together.

That's my meds right there.

You gotta put on your space boots.
I'm good at what I do. Very good.

Just like tranquil, tranquil.

We couldn't speak the language.
Climb trees and run and just be,

like, a tomboy. There is definitely

brain damage. It was hard to believe her.
She seems a lot worse than she's ever done.

I'm most afraid of is that she's gonna die.

The Real Housewives of Orange County

2011-04-25T11:46:00.001-04:00

RICHES TO RAGS

My problem is I like everything.
Love it. You don't know how old I am?

Do you meditate at all? When you have babies,
you'll, like, want a stunt double.

I think when you slow down,
that's for sissies. Just relax

and let us do our magic.
I understand: not everybody is funny

like us. What would she do
if someone called her an evil bitch

to her face at her own party?
You have a daytime ring?

It's not funny. Life is a pie.
Some days I wonder what's left for me.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season Finale

2011-04-23T12:14:00.001-04:00

TURN, TURN, TURN

I know you're jealous that we're bonding.
Maybe we can have a romantic weekend.
Smile, even though it hurts. Pray for sun.

I should have worn flats, but flats
to me is like a disease.
I'm a little bit emotionally exhausted.

Most people would be proud
when they lose weight, but I'm not.
As soon as you don't have it, you'll miss it.

I need to make me happy.
That's why they give married couples
a tax break. We feel good. We feel good.

That's the plans.

currently reading: Women of the West

2011-04-23T11:50:00.003-04:00

Ever felt vexed by a lazy roommate? You're not the first.

I am reading excerpts from Mary Richardson Walker's diary, in Women of the West by Cathy Luchetti and Carol Olwell.

Tuesday, April 23, 1838.
I feel vexed. This is the third morning I have omitted the sweeping when I first got up just to see if Mrs. E. would not take her turn. Sunday morning when I commenced sweeping she remarked she would have done it but supposed I had already. But the floor was so dirty had she looked at it she could not decently avoid sweeping. But some how she managed to get to the tubs & I would not be so impolite as to crowd her away, so while she was washing her clothes I just swept the room. This morning I wished to make haste & iron while babe slept so left an opportunity for her to sweep again. But I left it go till ten o'clock when she took her knitting & walked off after cracking & scattering about nut shells. So I have swept the room with a vengence [sic]. I have washed the room every week while we have been here & she not once & I think she shirks more than is decent. Evening, have got plenty words to say.

If women's pioneer diaries turn you on, follow me on Twitter, where I'll be posting more brief excerpts from this primary source document treasure trove (trousseau?).

Today in New Mexico

2011-04-23T10:31:00.004-04:00

Today my outfit is called "What if Little Edie and Henry Darger Met and Fell in Love"

The Real Housewives of New York

2011-04-22T10:50:00.001-04:00

MARCH MADNESS

We all love our gays in New York.

Who has sex in bed?
I have a huge ribcage.
That's the problem.

Nobody drinks at lunch anymore. It's so boring.

My dress came undone again.
I want to find my husband.

We're talking about me now.
We're embarrassing ourselves.

What's Paradise Island?
Why am I drinking soda?
I'm really, literally, am nauseous.

The guest room must be a busy place.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

2011-04-21T09:28:00.001-04:00

HOW TO BEHAVE

How can you say we've never had an argument?
You're ruining my nice pleasant afternoon
cutting roses. I'm the type of person that

I'd like to move on from things.
Listen to me. My mother was a prostitute.
Try not to be jealous.

Hi, Gorgeous!
I heard you have a wild swan.
I wanna do some dancing.

I wish I could find a way to bring him
over from the dark side to the fun side.
I feel like I have this life that I want to celebrate.

I just wish he would celebrate with me.
I feel so disconnected.
I can't wait to dance.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

2011-04-20T10:42:00.000-04:00

PAYBACK'S A BITCH...JUST ASK YOUR HUSBAND

Next thing you know all the women were,
like, fighting. Armando, did you wash
all these flowers? I felt devastated.
Everything's potentially fantastic, but
who knows. I think I'm going
to make the first move and reach out
to her. I don't know why I just cannot resist
a theme party this year.
I've invited as many wealthy women as I know.
I don't know where you go from here.
Where do you go from here?

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

2011-04-19T11:49:00.000-04:00

THE DINNER PARTY FROM HELL

I collect lingerie. It's like candy.
I can't breathe though.

When Saturday hits, I get all excited.
You little sex monster, give me a kiss.

Can you hear me? Her reality and my reality
are two very different things.

We're not supposed to be good.
We're supposed to be really, really bad,

in a controlled setting.
Can you hear me now?

It's hard for me to forgive people anyways.
Those kind of people I don't understand.

Roughhousing is just a part of growing up.
The love they have after they die is stronger

than anything we can imagine.
Can you hear me? Is that better?

The Camille cocktail was like a bowl
of soup. Cheers.

Reading material

2011-04-17T15:01:00.003-04:00

What I am bringing to read in New Mexico:

SELF
***Gwyneth Paltrow's Healthy Eating Secrets: What She Really Does to Get Those Abs!

GLAMOUR
***12 THINGS EVERY WOMAN DESERVES NOW

The Zoo in Winter
by Polina Barskova

every time I try to complain to someone about life
someone's inevitably irritated
how dare you young healthy beautiful
and my interlocutor doesn't even guess
that these three words affect me
like abracadabra affects a pumpkin

Bluets
by Maggie Nelson

32. When I say "hope," I don't mean hope for anything in particular. I guess I just mean thinking that it's worth it to keep one's eyes open. "What are all those/fuzzy-looking things out there?/Trees? Well, I'm tired/of them": the last words of William Carlos Williams's English grandmother.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

2011-04-15T09:27:00.001-04:00

CHARITY CASES

Sometimes I've met men in the market.

It happens.

Men punch each other in the eye and it's over.

*

I'm not pregnant, I'm not pregnant.

But I think I would like to be.

Who am I gonna play with?

I negotiate for a living.

*

Presentation is everything.

I was kind of fearing for my life.

All women should have at least an idea

of how to defend themselves.

There were things that happened

that I don't really talk about.

Intervention

2011-04-14T08:55:00.001-04:00

DONNA & JOSH ARE DRINKING IN THE BEDROOM

My name's Donna.
I was kidding.

She's teaching her son how to drink.

At first, it's fun, you know?
Usually you do pretty good.

She gets the community to help her.

She calls it "flying."
I didn't testify.

I felt violated, very violated.
I was young. They stole my technology.

When the kids were growing up,
we went for walks.

Those are things you don't remember,
but I do. My name’s Donna.

I want my daughter to come back to me.

It's so toxic you don't even know how toxic it is.
She'd be covered in mud and missing
a shoe. I want my daughter

to come back to me. My name’s Donna.
All's I see is back-stabbing stuff.

Love you, babe.

I had to work the night shift and
that's when everything happened.

Her primary focus was surviving
the devastation of her life
that she created.

I want my daughter to come back to me.
You haven't given me a chance in my whole life.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

2011-04-13T07:52:00.001-04:00

MY MANSION IS BIGGER

It's fun to be part of this celebratory event.
Just don't knock me into a door or something.

I know that you want somebody.

I just don't know what we're going to do.
What is the right kind of color and feel?

At this point in my life, I was hoping

that there would be no more worries.
I want to have a person that I can lay next to.

It's gotta be somebody fun.

I just wanna scream.
You better do me well.

We all deserve to have it all.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

2011-04-12T08:19:00.001-04:00

THE ART OF WAR

I don't know what you're doing
right now, but it isn't okay.

I'm always in the hot seat.
It's just complicated.

But honestly, I'm gonna be honest
about that conversation. Maybe

it's because her husband works for us.
I am not gonna allow them to bait me.

The person that remains in control
is the one that wins. I don't lie.

Plastic cutlery only.
Bring it on, baby.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

2011-04-11T14:41:00.001-04:00

I WOULD NEVER SAY THAT

She really started questioning me a lot.

It kept going and going.

Am I that invisible?

I'm gonna actually leave.

I just hope nothing else goes wrong.

I was really curious to see if the hypnotist worked.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

2011-04-10T16:15:00.001-04:00

PLENTY OF BAGGAGE

Why not do something for me?
I'm always doing everything
for everybody else. I have to
have at least three outfits a day.
I can feel your tension.
You're going to be naked in Vegas.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

2011-04-09T18:27:00.001-04:00

CHOCOLATE LOUBOUTINS

Mommy's a baby.
I don't want to say that.

Take her to Africa.
She makes really bad choices.

I am my own person.
I don't really have to think twice.

I think the conveniences
of having people do things

for you is really what money
means to me. Poor me.

It's about her learning
to stand on her own.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

2011-04-08T07:53:00.001-04:00

IT'S MY PARTY AND I'LL SPEND IF I WANT TO

Sometimes with kids? They're upset.

My daughter's going to be turning four
on her birthday.

What would be more appropriate
than the Barbie collection?

I feel empowered by this.

I lost my sense of self
because I was taking care
of someone else
for so long.

I know you miss me madly.

I'm going to cry again.

The animals should be in the shade.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

2011-04-07T10:06:00.003-04:00

LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF WEALTHINESS

dedicated to Sarah

I thought I had a stroke, but
it was my false eyelashes.

It's a land of make believe.

It can be brutal at times.
Growing up in extreme wealth,

you have to sometimes be careful.

I live in a gated community.
I have four nannies and they rotate.

It's so romantic.

I feel that this is an opportunity
for me to show that I'm my own person.

It may look like I have it all, but

I want more. I'm a dancer and
I have been my whole life.

I'd rather be happy than right.

The Bachelor, Episode 7

2011-04-06T08:51:00.000-04:00

BRAD AND THE REMAINING WOMEN TRAVEL TO ANGUILLA

This pool party is beyond
difficult. I think there’s going to be

a lot of devastation.

I’ve picked up women
in helicopters, but now

I’m more confused than ever.

There’s just no romance.
We’re going to be cliff-jumping.

This is the ideal scenario

for a guy to tell a girl
how he’s feeling:

the water is so so blue.

We’re losing the sun and we’re
gaining the moon.

The Bachelor, Episode 6

2011-04-05T08:24:00.001-04:00

TEMPERATURES RISE WHEN BRAD AND THE WOMEN JET TO LUSH, TROPICAL COSTA RICA

I'm ready to get down and dirty in the jungle.
I'm trying to make this the most real experience it can be.

I clearly did not grow up in a jungle.
This is weighing very heavily in my heart.

One minute we're ziplining through the jungle
with monkeys, then we're having a picnic by the river.

I honestly don't know what to do with this rose.
I hope Costa Rica can provide some answers.

We look out the window and see a gigantic volcano.
I'm not gonna let anything stop me from falling in love.

The Bachelor, Episode 5

2011-04-04T10:25:00.001-04:00

THE WOMEN TRAVEL TO LAS VEGAS

This is a real love.
          We are so excited.

We don’t know where we’re going.
          Is that a low or a high right now?

This is one of the nicest malls
          in the world.

This is so so so pretty.
          If you don’t feel for me,

I want you to send me home.
          I’ve met a billion guys who can’t handle my life.

I’m never gonna escape it.
          So many things are coming into my mind.

Don’t cry babe.
          Cute little cross-eyed Peaches.

She’s sexy without trying to be,
          which makes her even sexier.

The Bachelor, Episode 4

2011-04-03T09:51:00.000-04:00

A BACHELORETTE WAKES UP WITH A MYSTERIOUS BLACK EYE

What we went through today
is mine.

That was the best cocktail party
I’ve ever experienced.

This could be real.
I feel like I’m open and

ready to falling in love.
I’m so terrified

something may or may not happen.
When you put yourself out there,

a whole new world can be opened.
I want to grab Chantal’s hand and run.

My black eye is not going to stand in the way:
this is a make or break day for the rest of my life.

The Bachelor, Episode 3

2011-04-02T07:50:00.002-04:00

BRAD AND A DATE RECORD A DUET

Listen: it’s like this.

                    This is a very beautiful woman.

It’s scary to put yourself in such a vulnerable
position.

                    We are about to film an action-adventure movie.

It’s so scary.

                    This is probably going to be the most embarrassing
                    thing I’ve ever done.

Even though I lost my dad,
I’m going to get a great husband.

                    We were having a private conversation.

Every time I start to feel special
with you, someone else
has the same experience.

                    I want to have so many more conversations
                    like we had tonight.

The Bachelor, Episode 2

2011-04-01T08:35:00.001-04:00

BRAD AND A DATE GET CLOSER WHILE AT A PRIVATE CARNIVAL

When Ashley and I were running through the carnival,
I just kept seeing how she was smiling.

Ashley has absolutely no clue where we’re going.
Redemption? I don’t need that. I don’t need redemption.

I will not have you, like, obstruct the rest of my life.
How old are we? We’re going so far over the top.

I definitely feel my most beautiful right now.
I wanna see if we can laugh, be ourselves.

I don’t know if you got the memo, but it’s my birthday.
I think we should now be using the word “nightmare.”

Happy National Poetry Month

2011-04-01T08:34:00.002-04:00

For National Poetry Month, I will be writing/posting poems using dialogue from reality TV shows. Please to enjoy.

I'll gonna cry alot

2011-03-26T08:23:00.000-04:00

Dear Mrs. Leigh,

I will miss you really much! I'll gonna cry alot. If you don't leave I'll be happy.

From,

Fei Meng

Bye!

[sad face]

How to Catch a Cold

2011-03-23T19:49:00.007-04:00

1. Quit one of your jobs. Cry for at least one day, and then intermittently thereafter.

2. Have your last week at said job coincide with your midterm exams.

3. Alternate between work, school, and insomnia. Stop crying. Go back to being dead inside.

4. Study for 8 hours for the two exams that will turn out to be the easiest. Study modernism for 20 minutes and live to regret it.

5. Never see or talk to your friends unless they are in the room with you while you study.

6. Have the worst migraine you've had in a year for about fourteen hours. Go take your philosophy midterm even though you feel blind and high.

7. Don't get enough sleep because you didn't take your sleeping pill because you thought you'd be too groggy in the morning before your next midterms.

8. Catch cold.

9. Attend surprise going away party thrown by the 4th grade class and eat chocolate-covered rice krispie treat. Receive letters and pictures and cards from everyone, including this one:

Dear Miss Leigh,

I'll miss you. You were the best teacher I ever had. You make drama fun. You're the only teacher I know that likes Greek myths.

Your [sic] truly,

Jennifer

10. Go in the bathroom and cry.

11. Then it hails.

1st grade

2011-03-10T19:15:00.002-05:00

Boy 1: MISS LEIGH, THEY'RE SAYING THAT GOD IS ALIVE

Me: You mean alive...on earth?

Boy 2: He is!

Boy 1: No he's not, he's in Heaven!

Boy 2: No he's not!

Me: Well maybe your God is different than his God...

(long pause while his brain explodes)

Boy 1: NO!

Boy 2: When my brother or I have a birthday, God comes to our house. He has to be alive.

Me: Does he talk to you?

Boy 2: Yeah.

Me: What does he say?

Boy 2: I'm not supposed to tell you.

Me: Maybe your God is different from his God, but they are both friends.

Boy 1: No.

***

Girl 1: MISS KRISTINA, I HAVE THE HAND-CUBS!

Kristina: The hand-cubs?

Girl 2: The HAND-CUPS!

Kristina: What?

Girl 1: THE HAND-CUPS!

Kristina: Oh, the HICCUPS. Hold your breath.

Girl 1: No. Scare me.

Kristina: I'm not going to scare you.

Me: BOO!

GIrl 1: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Thank you.

Modern Discourse Part II

2011-03-03T08:37:00.003-05:00

(kindergarten)
Me: And now you're in...Mystery Land.
(A little girl immediately makes one hand into a monocle for her eye.)
Me: I see E. is a detective...and K. is a...K., are you a dead bug?
(no response)
Me: Maybe we should solve the mystery of why K. is a dead bug.
E: AHA! SOMEONE MUST HAVE STEPPED ON HIM!

(4th grade)
M: President Obama is mean.
Me: Why do you think so?
M: Sometimes he is nice, but he is mean to people without papers. They have guns.
Me: Oh, do you mean people who want to move here from another country? That's called border control.
M: I hear my mom on the phone with my sister in Mexico because she doesn't have papers and my mom is trying to get her some but she was having a baby and my mom told her not to. And then she lost the baby.
M's cousin: She lost the baby?
M: Yeah. Now she is having another baby and my mom is telling her not to.
Me: How old is your sister?
M: 17.
M's cousin: Russian people have it more easy than us.

(teenagers overheard on the street in Sheepshead Bay)
Girl: Nyet.
Boy: Da.
Girl: NO!
Boy: DA!
Girl: You wish.
Boy: I don't wish.

Modern Discourse

2011-03-01T10:34:00.002-05:00

Guy in my modernism class: Isn't there a contradiction [in the Futurist manifesto] when they say they want to scorn women, but in the next line they say they want to demolish feminism?
Prof: What do you mean by contradiction?
Guy: Aren't they Futurists? Aren't they supposed to love everything about the future, like feminism?
Girl sitting next to him: Yeah, that was confusing to me, too.
Me: Uh...I don't see how this is a contradiction. The Futurists were a bunch of 20-something dudes sitting around talking about war and guns and destroying things.
Guy: So is it a reaction to feminism starting in Italy?
Prof: What? I don't know what you mean...I mean, feminism is a pretty broad term that we would need to be more specific...definitely with the Symbolists, women were idealized in a different way...
Guy: So the symbolists invented feminism? And the Futurists were against that?

Then I put my head down on my notebook and went into a coma.

You

2011-02-21T17:10:00.002-05:00

You and Me, Bess
You Better Go Now
You Broke My Heart
You Can Do Better than Me
You Do Something to Me
You Had Time
You Never Get What You Want
You Really Gotta Hold On Me

I

2011-02-20T18:17:00.002-05:00

I Am in Love
I Concentrate on You
I Feel It All
I Gave You All
I Get a Kick out of You
I Gotta Feeling
I Hung My Head
I Kissed a Girl
I Love Paris
I Love You Porgy
I Should Have Known Better
I Stand Corrected
I Still Remember
I Summon You
I Thought I Saw Your Face
I Turn My Camera On
I Walk the Line
I Wanna Be Adored
I Wanna Dance with Somebody
I Want It Now
I Want You Back
I Was Made for You
I Will Follow You into the Dark
I Will Possess Your Heart
I Will Survive

Tonight

2011-02-17T09:24:00.001-05:00

THE READING AT CHRYSTIE STREET:

LOVE TO LOVE YOU, BABIES

Join guest host Leigh Stein on Thursday, February 17 to lick your lovelorn wounds with poets Anselm Berrigan, Sasha Fletcher, & Eugene Ostashevsky.

7 PM
The Four-Faced Liar
165 w. 4th Street
New York, NY

Anselm Berrigan is a poet and the author of five books, the most recent being Free Cell, published by City Lights in 2009. A book-length poem, Notes from Irrelevance, will be published by Wave Books this fall. With his mother and brother he co-edited the just published Selected Poems of Ted Berrigan (U.Cal). He is the poetry editor for The Brooklyn Rail, holds too many part-time teaching jobs, and lives in New York City, where he grew up (and down).

Sasha Fletcher is the author of the novella WHEN ALL OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED MARCHING BANDS WILL FILL THE STREETS AND WE WILL NOT HEAR THEM BECAUSE WE WILL BE UPSTAIRS IN THE CLOUDS. He is an MFA candidate in Poetry at Columbia University. He lives in Brooklyn.

Eugene Ostashevsky is a Russian-born American poet and translator. His two-and-some-odd books poetry include Iterature and The Life and Opinions of DJ Spinoza, both published by Ugly Duckling Presse. He also edited and co-translated OBERIU: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism, containing the writings of 1930s poets and philosophers like Alexander Vvedensky and Daniil Kharms. Look for videos of his work on YouTube and for recordings at http://fishouse.org/archives/eugene_ostashevsky/index.shtml

We don't live here anymore

2011-02-16T21:38:00.004-05:00

Here is the diet diary of someone who is working three part-time jobs while going to school full time:

8:30am - instant oatmeal
10:30am - no time to get coffee, get Dr. Pepper from vending machine and feel disgusting
12:20pm - get tuna sandwich from the cafeteria that you eat in the twenty minutes you have to cram for your history exam
2:45pm - yogurt (snack)
5:45pm - Lunchable because CVS is out of sandwiches, and you need to eat dinner before your night class
7:30pm - 2 mini Dove chocolates (snack)
7:30pm - vitamin water
9:30pm - whiskey

You, too, can have this body! Just follow my regimen, and take the stairs whenever you can. (But no other exercise allowed.)

snow day

2011-01-27T13:37:00.002-05:00

I'm writing a poem using dialogue from every episode of The Bachelor that I watch, thereby making my Bachelor-watching part of my "art."

In February, I'll be going to DC for AWP, taking four classes at Brooklyn College, working three jobs, putting up a show of short plays with my Sheepshead Bay kids, going to Kansas City for a funeral, and hosting Poets & Puppets.

One nice thing about emotional numbness is a steady level of productivity, uninterrupted by feelings like stress, frustration, or anxiety. One not-so-nice thing is the lack of nostalgia. I miss nostalgia.

I always want to cry

2011-01-23T15:58:00.004-05:00

- when Maria and Tony get fake-married in the bridal store

- when Tony gets shot

- when Amélie is crying and then she hears the bead curtains move, but it's only her cat

- when Sally tells Harry she broke up with her ex-boyfriend, because they never had sex on the kitchen floor

- when Barbra Steisand sings "My Man"

- at the end of Pan's Labyrinth

- at the end of When Harry Met Sally

- when Edna St. Vincent Millay falls down the stairs and dies

- at that scene in Everything Is Illuminated when Brod and her husband have to communicate through a little hole in the wall because he's gone mad and beats her all the time

- when I hear a song I haven't heard in a really long time and it reminds me of some time in my life that is over

poem for trazodone

2011-01-16T13:08:00.001-05:00

How much sleep do I need?
All of it.

I’d rather be touched
than gazed upon, but

again, this depends
on the weather.

One of the side effects
of this medication is

that I’m always thirsty.
I wish less people

would love me,
so there would be less love

to take back.
Does this sound diabolical?

Anyone who thinks
I’d ever stop writing

because of him
takes himself

too seriously.
One of the side effects

is that the desert is everywhere,
all over your mouth.

J'aime ma soeur

2011-01-16T10:11:00.008-05:00

I sent Hattie pictures of my new haircut.

Hattie said, "i'm going to send you some different facial expressions responding to your haircut"

I said, "please do"

#1 is like mom crying when she hears people sing

"omg it's so beautiful!"

#2 is yea girl

3 is an older guy saying yeah, pretty cool

4 is awwww!

5 is OH OH OHOHHO

6 is a guy hitting on you

7 is i want to pinch you

8 is like presenting you at a show

9 is a little gremlin looking at your hair and liking it
my nose is so much more bulbous than yours at the end
do you ever think about that?

currently reading

2011-01-09T09:12:00.002-05:00

"When I entered the cold terra-cotta-tiled room where we were to fill out our customs declaration forms, I encountered an old friend: the smell of Russia. How do they do it? Here on the edge of the Bering Strait, five thousand miles from Moscow, almost within wafting distance of the U.S.A., the Russia-smell is exactly the same! I breathed it deeply. Yes, it was all there—the tea bags, the cucumber peels, the wet cement, the chilly air, the currant jam. About the only point of similarity between this smell and the one I'd just left in Nome was the overtone of diesel exhaust. But, still fresh from America, I understood that America's essential smell is nothing at all like Russia's. America smells like gift shop candles, fried food, new cars. America's is the smell of commerce. The smell of Alaska that stays with me the strongest is that of the Cinnabon sweet rolls shop in the Anchorage airport; I'm sure the scent of Cinnabon is set adrift everywhere in that space intentionally, in order to ensnare passersby. The smell of America says, 'Come in and buy.' The smell of Russia says, 'Ladies and gentlemen: Russia!'"

- Ian Frazier, Travels in Siberia

oh she may be weary / them young girls they do get wearied

2011-01-03T13:50:00.002-05:00

Julia gave me this present.

Fortune Telling Kit for Amateur Welders

2011-01-01T12:50:00.002-05:00

for Cathrin

Sunlight improves my brain function
by at least six hundred thousand percent.

You can get anything you want
if you pay for it. Or if it comes up

in your new year's eve fortune telling
kit. I haven't had a lot of time lately,

so I've been running my errands
in my dreams. Sometimes it's funny:

you think you'll die, and then you don't.
My fortune said I would go back

to Santa Fe and win the life
of someone else. Watch

the sun crown the Sangre de Cristos.
Listen to that wind.

Poem for Lauren Ireland that I Wrote in a Dream

2010-12-30T09:29:00.001-05:00

The sun also rises
if you say so.

I'm not sitting here abject,
looking up the definition.

I like language, but I don't
like like language, you know?

Is it beautiful? Circle yes
or no. Thank you

for reminding me
of the harp,

for giving me
that antebellum carry on.

Charlie Kaufman Christmas

2010-12-29T12:37:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was the memorial mass for my grandmother. A lay minister comes to the nursing home because so many people can't leave, and I took Communion for the first time in my life, because I thought it would be more rude to refuse it. I was also surprised I remember a little over two verses of "Silent Night" and the entirety of Our Father. I crossed myself a few times, by some weird reflex, remembering when I played that Irish Catholic woman in a play in high school, and had to cross myself all the time, until the rest of the cast agreed I looked like I knew what I was doing.

Later, at the luncheon, my step-grandfather kept asking where my grandmother was. "In heaven," someone would say, and then he would say, "I forgot," and cry. This happened a few times.

Remember that year I was dumped on Thanksgiving and my grandmother died at Christmas? Pat suggested that Charlie Kaufman is writing my life.

I am happiest when I am: buying new clothes for my shrinking body, petting my cat, watching Mad Men, or reading. By happiest I mean at my most amnesiac. I've finished the following books in the last week:

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City
Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife
I Remember Nothing

currently reading

2010-12-23T19:23:00.002-05:00

"Call a healthcare provider right away if you or your family member has any of the following symptoms, especially if they are new, worse, or worry you..."

***

"Part of what makes Barbara Zimmerman's letters to Otto Frank so sympathetic and so touching is that they make it possible to be imagine what it was like to be in your early twenties and get your first real publishing job in New York, and one of the first books you are assigned to edit happens to be The Diary of a Young Girl."
- Francine Prose, Anne Frank

***

"How are you at keeping track
of which acquaintances you've told which
thing that's happened to you?"
- Matthew Yeager, "A Jar of Balloons"

miss misc

2010-12-17T11:47:00.002-05:00

In December 2008, I stayed out all night with my friends Pat and Jay, and they convinced me not to go to sleep before I had to catch my plane to Chicago the next morning. Drunk on pizza, I agreed this was a good idea, but then I was seated next to a very chatty Jewish guy, who wanted to tell me about how his waspy professional dancer girlfriend forgot to wish him a happy Hanukkah. I wrote a poem about this.

I also picked the "best" poetry books of 2010.

Hedda Gabler Maui Cowgirl

2010-12-15T12:33:00.002-05:00

The last time I felt like this was the winter of 2007/8, in New Mexico. I lost the same amount of weight. I stared at the wall. Leaden limbs. Our neighbor Jeff ran into me on my way to the mailbox, and asked if he could come over later. He had a leather jacket his girlfriend didn't want, and he wanted to see me try it on. When he came to the door, I asked Jason not to let him in, but he did anyway, and I had to put on that leather jacket for everyone and stand there. It was a horrible jacket. The first time we ever met Jeff, he offered us cocaine, and called Jason "Hollywood." I never got a nickname. We went for a ride in his truck to the Walgreens, and he hit another car, busted his side mirror, came over later to apologize with a few ears of corn.

Something that is still interesting to me right now is dressing up. Today I'm wearing pink and blue and white and grey, like my idea of Scandinavia. And a pink orchid in my hair. And cowboy boots. I've been wearing the same grey cardigan almost every day for over a week. I'm constantly cold, unless I'm in bed. My hands are never warm anymore.

ROBOT SYLVIA PLATH

2010-12-12T15:54:00.001-05:00

Pat, keep your suicides straight.
Never did I say I would walk
into a river. Remember? All my jokes
are about ovens. All my favorite
stories begin with “Le Creuset.”
Since you asked, I’m wearing black
underwear, a black turtleneck,
and black rain boots. I’m going
ice skating. Suicide by ice skate.
I’m going to shock everyone
at Rockefeller Center
with my apropos of
nothing. Regardez-moi!
Je suis incroyable!
I hope Rockefeller Center
has robot insurance and
I assure you
my behavior
is always, entirely
appropriate.
Signed, A Robot

I'm reading this Sunday

2010-12-10T14:44:00.001-05:00

7pm at Le Poisson Rouge

Books Read in 2010

2010-12-10T08:50:00.005-05:00

True, a meager 22 compared to last year's 36, or the 29 books I read in 2008. Am I becoming stupider? I hope not. I'm probably just becoming more distracted. Also, I read a lot of heavy hitters this year.

1. Selected Poems/Dara Wier
2. Man on Extremely Small Island/Jason Koo
3. The Iliad/translated by Robert Fagles

Now's the time for killing!

4. Oedipus the King
5. Museum Pieces/Elizabeth Tallent
6. The Bacchae
7. Black Life/Dorothea Lasky

I don't think it is funny to be so elitist
To everyone who hasn't had the chance to be as special as you are

8. The Difficult Farm/Heather Christle

Any time you buy anything,
you should buy an extra, in case
you really like it.

9. The Clouds
10. Stars of the Night Commute/Ana Bozicevic
11. The Ticking Is the Bomb/Nick Flynn
12. Big World/Mary Miller
13. The French Exit/Elisa Gabbert

I want to invent the future,

so people will think I came from it,
sent back to the present-as-past.

14. Pink and Hot Pink Habitat/Natalie Lyalin
15. Anna Karenina/translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

When she poured herself the usual dose of opium and thought that she had only to drink the whole bottle in order to die, it seemed so easy and simple to her that she again began to enjoy thinking how he would suffer, repent, and love her memory when it was too late.

16. The English Patient/Michael Ondaatje

I promised to tell you how one falls in love.

17. A Midsummer Night's Dream
18. Othello
19. Phaedra
20. The Rivals

Ah, madam, our memories are independent of our wills. It is not so easy to forget.

21. From California, On/Jennifer Denrow
22. Chilly Scenes of Winter/Ann Beattie (reread)

What's the use of trying?

2010-12-08T19:57:00.001-05:00

fairy tales

2010-12-03T08:55:00.002-05:00

(5th grade)
ME: That sweatshirt is so big on you. Or do you like that? Is it cozy?
T: Yeah. But you should see D.'s sweatshirt. His is the best.
ME: Why?
T: It's made out of wolfskin.
ME: IT IS NOT MADE OUT OF WOLFSKIN.
T: It is.

(2nd grade)
A: Miss Leigh, what happened to you? You used to be like this...and now you shrink...

Am I going crazy, are you coming with me?

2010-11-30T13:29:00.002-05:00

I have a review of Black Life by Dorothea Lasky in the new issue of NOO Journal.

Hattie and I wrote a poem together in honor of Lily Ladewig and Anne Cecilia Holmes's I Am a Natural Wonder project.

"In California, I look like me but with a better person inside."

You have to buy "From California, On," Jennifer Denrow's new chapbook from Brave Men Press. She knocks me down and builds me up.

home for wayward girls

2010-11-28T09:12:00.003-05:00

I lost my voice for over a week. When I got it back, a 2nd grader named Tommy ran up to me and said, "MISS LEIGH! YOUR VOICE!" Then he put both of his hands on my neck, rubbed vigorously, and whispered, "I love your throat..."

I lost six pounds in twelve days. I can now fit into the long plaid skirt my mom wore in the early '70s when she was marathon training. "Can you believe my waist was ever that small?" she asked me. I spent two hundred dollars on a sweater, a blouse, and a candle that smells like grapefruit. I invented a new outfit called "Sylvia Plath Goes Ice Skating." It involves chinchilla earmuffs. If I wear my new sweater every day until April, the cost per wear averages out to be negligible.

I'm re-reading Chilly Scenes of Winter for my book club:

"Connie Francis is singing 'Where the Boys Are.' He saw that movie. Yvette Mimieux got raped. He would like to rape Laura. That's not even true. He would just like to have a cheeseburger at McDonald's with Laura. For almost half an hour he had not thought of Laura. He tries to switch his thoughts to...what was her name...Betty, to have an erotic vision of Betty. He sees a slightly plump woman in a dress and heavy black boots. He tries to imagine her without the black boots. It is impossible. The black boots will not come off her."