My Reading at Cornelia Street Cafe

I often don’t feel like responding immediately to big events, which sometimes makes this whole insta-culture sometimes stressful for me. I take time to process things, let them percolate. Suffice it to say, it was an amazing night for me, a real personal triumph. The joint was packed, I probably had 15 people there alone, from all parts of my life. Old co-workers, blog-friends, my mother, sister, good friends from real life, my friend-slash-agent, and also, beautifully, Preston Miller – whom I have only met once, but I reviewed his terrific film God’s Land on my site, and he showed up!! These are all busy people, with crowded calendars, and they all made the time to show up (on a bitterly frigid night, by the way). So my great thanks to everyone.

My mother had driven down and, weirdly, I ran into her on the street, randomly, not even near Cornelia St. Cafe, an hour or so before I had to get there. It was freezing, and I was looking for a public bathroom where I could put on some makeup. If it had been a mild day, I would have just gotten all girlied-up sitting in the park, but it was so cold that my fingers were frozen. I was frustrated, and wandering around the West Village trying to find a public bathroom, and suddenly, there was my mother coming towards me. What??? We sat at Starbucks, warming up, and it was nice, perfect.

I wasn’t nervous for the reading. I don’t get nervous like that. I get excited and anxious to be up there. My experience beforehand is one of an underlying thrum of “I. Can’t Wait. I Can’t Wait.” What I get nervous about is all the people I know being in one place at one time. I get nervous about having to manage all of that. But then it always turns out all right in the end. I get emotionally, how you say, over-stimulated sometimes, especially when things are happy and joyous and crowded with people I love. At the same time, I’ve been so busy – relentlessly busy actually – since late December – and I haven’t been able to see many of these people in months. Last year was a freefall of free time, due to collecting unemployment and lots of freelance jobs which left me free as a bird. Those days are long over. So the night of my reading was also a great chance to actually, you know, see my friends.

My mother and I parted ways after Starbucks. I needed a little alone-time to get myself together. In the freezing wind that barreled up the Avenue of the Americas. I got to the cafe early (or, as Ann Marie and I would say, “geekily early”) and literally 5 minutes after I walked in the door, the door opened behind me and I heard a plastic crackle, and I just KNEW that it was my mother and that she had bought me flowers. It was like we were tracking each other through the streets of the West Village. For some reason, it was so hilarious and heart-warming. We arrived there almost simultaneously and we had just parted. So hysterical. The downstairs performance space wasn’t open yet, so Mum and I sat by the window and chatted a bit. And then … the peeps started arriving. The night began.

My sister Siobhan arrived. So excited to see her! Barbara arrived. My friend Sheila arrived, in a fur hat like something out of Fargo. She’s a writer, too, and recently read her incredible Wall Street poems at KGB Bar which was a fantastic night, so she and I are having a lot of fun supporting each other. I was excited for her to finally meet my mother. Sheila has become a very important friend. Her husband, too. He’s the one who (along with David) built my bookshelves for me, when I was wounded and soul-sick, head-sick, and then when I tried to thank him he said, “Listen, baby, what we did today was a barn-raising.” These are good people. Relatively new friends but totally in my inner heart-circle now. For all time. Jen showed up, beautiful and lit-up with excitement – and she and Siobhan were hugging, and she and my mother were talking, and I would glance around and see all these people from different sections of my life interacting and my heart would fill up with gratitude. My friend Liz showed. I had sent her a vaguely threatening but polite email: “Tell your boss you work your ass off and you need to leave half an hour early.” We were laughing about it. She said, “I actually told my boss that my friend was going to KILL ME if I didn’t go to her reading.” “Oh, so you got my subtext then?” “I TOTALLY GOT YOUR SUBTEXT.” Laughter. I have known Liz since I was 16 years old. She showed up to see me off to my prom. So that’s the kind of history that was in that performance space at Cornelia Street. My blog-friend Therese showed up, which shocked me because I had thought she was in Ireland. But she’s not, she’s back! She and I had what is probably the best Bloomsday on record, and at that point we had only met each other briefly, although we have been reading each other’s sites for years. Go check out her site. It’s really something special. So to meet someone briefly (she showed up at the reading of my script in New York in the fall of 2009) and then to launch ourselves into spending 10 straight hours with one another at Bloomsday was a leap of faith, and it was absolutely awesome. We already have a date to do the exact same thing again this year.

Three of my good friends from my old job also showed up but I didn’t even see them there until afterwards. They stood in the back. Pat said, “Yeah, this place is a firetrap. We’re standing in the back.”

I went and found the organizer of the night. I was third in the lineup of four readers. The other readers were Michelle Herman, Maeve Kinkead and Joel Hinman. I had seen Joel at Sheila’s reading at KGB, and he asked what the piece I was going to read was like. “For some reason, I think it’s funny,” he said, taking me in. Perceptive. I said, “It is funny, but there’s a sucker-punch, too. It’s kind of like an ABC Afterschool Special.” There was a pause, and he burst into laughter. After I read, he came up to me and said, “You described your piece perfectly.” We are a mix of writers. Michelle Herman read from her unpublished novel, Maeve Kinkead is a poet, and Joel read from his novel as well. And I read a personal autobiographical essay. So the evening had a really nice mix, I think.

Everyone was so nice. The place was packed. I had about 15 people there myself, and it is a small (fire-trap) of a place, and the other writers had guests with them too, so it was standing-room-only. This, again, does not make me nervous, but makes me antsy with impatience to get up there. My friends were spread out through the room. I sat with Barbara, Therese was right behind us. At the table below us sat Jen, my mother, Siobhan, and Siobhan’s friend Ann. At one point, I honed in on a conversation that was going on between Jen and my mother, and it sounded quite deep.

I heard my mother say, “I try not to have regrets. Like the song by Edith …” (long pause)
Jen filled in the blank, “Pilaf.”
There was a brief pause, and my mother said, “I think that’s rice.”
And then Jen and my mother started howling. I am still laughing about it.

“Edith ……..”
“Pilaf.”

Jen’s laugh could be heard in the next county. It is one of the best laughs on the planet. Hearing her laughter coming at me from out of the darkness when I was reading made me so happy. There is nothing quite like that sensation. It is irreplaceable.

There were people there whose work I’ve read for years. That was exciting for me. I was ready. I had my makeup on, I had a glass of wine (just one), and I was ready. Tension pouring out of me, leaving me calm and open.

The lights went down, and the evening began. Michelle Herman read first. Her novel is about the West Village. It was funny, smart, and I want to hear more. Maeve Kinkead read 6 or 7 poems in her soft gentle voice, and it was lovely to hear them. Then there was a quick 10-minute break, which gave me time to confer with my agent about what the hell I should say as an introduction. I hadn’t even thought of how to introduce the piece. “What should I say, Barbara?” Barbara launched into a firm monologue about what I should include. “Make sure you say the name of your book. Mention that you have written a book and say the title.” Now this is interesting: When the evening started up again, and the organizer/emcee took the stage, she read my bio (boy, it makes me sound cool – I’m doing all that? Really? What a cool person I must be!), and when she read the name of my one-woman show (which also happens to be the title of my book) – 74 Facts and One Lie, there was a ripple of laughter and response through the audience. I am fiercely protective of that title, and get nervous about putting it out there, while things are still up in the air with my book. However, sometimes it’s good to give people a taste of it – and the response – to the title alone -gave me this huge shot in the arm. I glanced over at Barbara, and she gave me a knowing nod. Good agent. I can’t tell you how many people came up to me afterwards and didn’t talk to me about the piece I had read that night, but asked me about 74 Facts and One Lie. They wanted to hear it. One guy asked, “So what’s the lie?” This is the kind of thing that makes me believe in what I have created (and it has been tough this last couple of years), and also get pumped at what is to come. The “title” had been a real back-and-forth, I had had other titles (one in particular) that I was extremely attached to. I remember talking about it with Alex on the phone and I told her the title I had been thinking of. I asked her what she thought. There was a long long pause as Alex thought about it. Then she said, “If I saw that book on a display table at Barnes and Noble, I would walk right on by. I wouldn’t pick it up.” I was devastated. I really believed in my title. But I had asked her for her honest opinion. I said, “Really???” She said, “Yeah. It makes it sound like it’s gonna be a scholarly book, with pie charts, and … statistics and shit … But 74 Facts and One Lie? That would call to me. I would want to know immediately what the lie was. I would pick that book up.” It was such a solid response, and I knew in my heart she was right, and now I can’t believe I even considered the other title – I mean, the “other title” was the name of the book for a good year and a half, as I was working on it. Anyway, the book has the right title now, whether it’s published or no. And hearing the buzz through the audience at that title … it was a buzz of interest … put me over the MOON. I felt fantastic!

Then came the reading. I went into my storytelling zone. I know this piece almost word for word, but I did bring up the pages with me, of course. But it’s such a known piece, that it’s like I can just put myself into that world very easily. Okay, now, I’m gonna tell you a story about a boy I once knew. His name was Keith McAuliffe. Long-time readers of this site will be familiar with that story. (Here’s a link to it.) I will take the link down soon, since that piece is in circulation right now and I want to limit its availability, but there it is. The story of a young boy I was friends with when I was a kid, and a moment of heroic kindness he showed to someone when he was a senior in high school. Like I said. ABC Afterschool Special. I love the piece and I love sharing it. I had read it aloud 2 or 3 times over the weekend before, just to prepare, and (not exaggerating) burst into tears every time I came to the last line. I didn’t just well up. I dissolved. Repeatedly. It is alarming to repeatedly dissolve at the same exact moment. I was actually a little bit panicked about it. It seemed to be an involuntary response, and I did not want to cry during the reading. It is not good form to weep over your own writing. My brother sent me an email about it saying, “If you cry, you cry.” That was very helpful, actually, and I stopped worrying about it. I did not, in fact, cry, but I felt the tidal wave coming. It didn’t matter that there were people there, my response was involuntary. But I hoped that the people “out there” were crying. Or at least moved. That was what I wanted.

The zone of what happens when you are reading in public is a private experience and I find that it diminishes when I describe it. I remember every response from the audience, every laugh, every reverberating silence (silence, a real listening silence is even better than laughter), every single moment of what happened while I was up there. But those memories are mine. They are for me to think about later, to help me “stiffen the space between my shoulderblades” (to quote Lorna Moon in Odets’ Golden Boy) when things get rough, when I lose belief in what I am doing, when I wonder if all my hard work will ever pay off. Remembering the sounds that people made as I read, the reactions, the sense of all eyes on me, all ears listening – waiting to see what would happen in this little high school tale – is a strengthening experience, deeply heartwarming to me, and while it was going on, I never wanted the experience to end. I have re-lived it in my head constantly ever since it happened.

The applause was warm and powerful, and when I got back to my seat, I saw that Jen was in tears, and so were my mother and sister. So it happened. I didn’t cry, and they did. That’s always my goal, but once you come back out into the darkness, after being in the light, sometimes it’s difficult to gauge exactly what just happened. I am not a quick processer anyway. It always takes me some time. Friends and family are really helpful with that. What they have said to me, their responses, their reactions … have helped me to process it.

After Joel read, the evening came to a close, and everyone mingled for a while, in a celebratory mood. There was another event happening there afterwards, so we had to move on, but until that time, everyone just hung out. Talking and circulating. I got to talk to all of the other writers, most of whom I had never met – and we talked about each other’s work. People came up to me to talk to me about my piece. It was so awesome. One of the ways I gauge the success of a reading like this (and I’ve done many of them, so I know of what I speak) is when people come up to me afterwards, and yes, they might say, “Good job” or “I liked what you wrote” – but what they really want to do is talk to me about themselves, tell me a story from their OWN lives. When this happens, I get that goosebumpy feeling on the back of my neck. I know that I have succeeded. This is what it means to communicate, to pass something on. And that was going on all night. One woman came up to me and said, “I knew a boy like Keith McAuliffe too.” One guy came up to me and said, “I was so happy he turned out to be a mensch.” (I loved that comment. It showed he invested, he was somehow invested in who this Keith was, and that he turned out all right). He also said to me, (and he was British) “You know, I went to public school until I was 11, and we all wore combs in our back pockets.” I started laughing. He went on, “When I finally went to private school, I still had the comb in my back pocket, and the boys at the new school all said, ‘Oh, so you went to public school, huh?'” A fascinating memory to me, showing that “combs-in-back-pockets” are cross-cultural to a certain generation. This same man also said to me, “There was also a boy in my class who was retarded, and I remember always wishing I could be better to him, or protect him … you know what I mean? Your story really made me think of those times.” I got a lot of comments like that. One woman, also a writer, said to me, “There was a disabled girl in my class in grade school, and I have been trying to write about her for years. I have been trying to write about what it was like for me, and how shy I felt, but how I wanted to … be that hero for her … include her … but I didn’t know how.” These stories were coming up at me repeatedly after the reading. Everyone has a story like that.

One guy – I loved him – came over to me and said, “I was wondering if – in that moment back in high school – you were aware of your own ….” He paused, and I filled in the blanks: “My own lameness?” He laughed and said, “No, no, I wouldn’t call it lame – I would call it human – were you aware that you were falling short of who you wanted to be? Or was it just in retrospect that you felt that?” Ahhh, I was so happy talking to this man. I said, “No, I clearly remembering feeling shame in the moment – ” “Really?” “Yeah, I remember thinking – wow, I want to help – but no, I won’t help because I’m afraid – and I remember how much that sucked.” He said, “I think we all have those moments. Where we want to rise to the occasion, and be a hero, like Keith McAuliffe was. I really really related to what you wrote.” “Thank you so much.”

No, really. Thank you so much.

One woman said to me, “Yes, Keith McAuliffe is a hero, but you were the one who noticed and remembered and wrote it down. That moment can live forever now.” I said to her, “I don’t think Keith was even aware how hard I was watching him.” “That’s the best part,” she responded.

Afterwards, my crowd of peeps dispersed – I didn’t get to spend nearly enough time with all of them – and some of the writers, the organizer of the night, and me, my mother, Siobhan and Ann all went out to dinner at a little Italian joint around the corner. It was Michelle Herman and her husband (he was the one who said to me across the table, “So what was the lie??”), the two organizers of the event, and then my group. But we had a really nice time. The food was delicious and I got to catch up with Siobhan a little bit, my newly-engaged sister, and that was awesome. These writers are all a little bit further down the path than myself and all of them were hugely encouraging, and giving me names of editors at magazines and telling me I should send the Keith piece there. I will. Sally, one of the organizers, said, “I want to do a night about Unsung Heroes. Your piece gave me the idea.”

I also got a lot of compliments about HOW I read, but I’ll save that for myself. I knew I had read well. It is a pleasure for me to be up there. It was a BLAST. I can’t wait to do it again.

We all parted ways and my mother and I hurried through the FREEZING winter night to the parking garage. It was BRUTAL, the wind was huge. It was our coldest night yet. Parking in my neighborhood at that hour of the night is a disaster, not to mention the mountainous remnants of snow and ice that take up perfectly legitimate parking spaces, and I started to get stressed out. I finally booted my mother out of the car, gave her my keys, told her to go inside and make some tea, relax, and I’d find a parking spot. FORTY MINUTES LATER I found a spot. Mkay? By the time I came home, Mum was in her pajamas, drinking tea, and she had washed the leftover dishes in my sink and put them away. I have barely been home in the last week, so my apartment was a wreck, and it was hilarious and also embarrassing to think of my mother getting to work in a bippity-boppity-boo way while I circled the blocks looking for parking. But still. Mothers are awesome.

We sat in my cozy study, as Hope circled around our ankles curiously (“who is this new lady? And why am I not the center of attention?”) and talked about the night, and about Keith McAuliffe, and my piece, and what a good time we had had. We put her flowers into a vase and they are on my kitchen table, lighting up the room.

Then we slept like LOGS.

It was a beautiful night for me, and it went off just as I had planned and hoped. I have to tell Keith McAuliffe that a bunch of people were singing his praises, and calling him by his full name, in the cozy downstairs performance space in the West Village. He wasn’t “Keith” to them. He was “Keith McAuliffe”.

Speaking of Keith McAuliffe, here we are on a field trip in the 6th grade, at the height of our friendship. I am wearing his hat. I am also in denial, apparently, that I need a training bra. But I am unaware of that fact. I am a child, still, and I am happy. I am unselfconscious. He is happy too. A moment in time, caught. Our energy caught, too. The two of us, good friends. Before adolescence came and changed everything.

Keith and I have since re-connected and I would say we are good friends now, better friends, and can actually talk about who we were to one another when we were pipsqueaks. We also spent a marathon of a day together in New York, wandering around, getting caught in a playground (literally. We could not find our way out. Keith pointed out how appropriate a metaphor it was), and then, let’s be honest, we got pretty drunk, and we talked about love and sex and men and women and politics and God and relationships and childhood and ourselves for hours and hours on end. I believe we clocked it: we talked for 11 hours straight. STRAIGHT. And we could have kept going, but frankly, it was 2 a.m. and we were exhausted. It was so much fun. He’s read the piece I wrote about him. He was embarrassed, humble, and emotional about it, but his comment to me about the events described in the piece was typical Keith McAuliffe. He said, “You know, I remember that day. I remember that kid. He always had a smile for everyone, and was always nice to everyone, which is more than I can say for most people.”

Keith, the same thing could be said about you.

Thanks for the inspiration.