AlexPGP's Corner

Only managed to crank out 600 words on the WiP yesterday.

Making things up is hard. There's a momentum memories have that one's imagination does not have.

In particular, writing dialogue is hard. You have to do a lot of talking to yourself.

I'm facing two scenes right now that are dialogue-heavy. First is a bantering telephone conversation with Neal. Has to be sprightly & amusing. What plot-critical info does the conversation need to include? Possibly Neal's developing relationship with Mimi since Mimi's suicide attempt will be an important plot point in Part 3. But I'm really throwing the conversation in there to denote the intimacy of Neal & Grazia's relationship, since shortly he will be rescuing her from the New Millennium Kingdom.

Second is a bantering exchange between Grazia and Debbie Reynolds, the nurse who orients her to the care of COVID patients in the ICU. This has to establish instant, strong rapport: Debbie Reynolds' death is what catalyzes Grazia's breakdown. The two nurses share a very black sense of humor. This scene also has to be chock-full of gruesome ICU status detail. A challenge!

###

Other than that, I did very, very little yesterday.

It's bright & sunny outside! It may even break freezing today!

But I'm a wimp. Freezing or below is generally too cold for me to contemplate solo outdoor activities.

Craziest stretch of executive power I’ve maybe ever seen, RTT texted to our group chat channel.

That's because you weren't alive in 1990 when the U.S. invaded Panama & took out Noriega, I texted. I don't think there's gonna be huge unrest over Maduro's removal. At least not in the short run.

I think U.S. citizens who don't like Trump, Canada, and maybe Europe are the only ones who will care about it, Ichabod texted.

Oh, I’m pretty sure the relatively recently elected leftist govt of Colombia cares about it, I said. And Mexico.

This is all a psy-op to take attention away from the real war, said RTT. 49ers versus Seahawks in 7 hours and 10 minutes.

I suspect Trump’s solution to the economic slowdown, thanks to his tariffs, is to float the economy with much cheaper Venezuelan oil, I said. That’s how he’ll lower the skyrocketing consumer prices that have made his approval ratings plunge.

Insane to do that when he could simply print 30 trillion dollars and bet it all on the 49ers tonight, said RTT. We would solve our deficit in one day.

###

But my major life crisis at the moment has to do with how to navigate three-point turns on the icy driveway so the front of the car points toward the road when I get in it to drive anywhere.

It's hard. It's stressful.

Everything else is kind of secondary.

Many, many years ago I copped this meme from Alice. At the time, she was an angst-filled teen growing up in NYC whose online journal reminded me of the days when I was an angst-filled teen growing up in NYC.

Now she is the mother of three, and I am an old lady.

We're still both angsty.

1. What did you do in 2025 that you'd never done before?

Made a lot of AI videos before I lost interest. Lived in a house in upstate New York in the dead of winter for a week without heat on two separate occasions.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Most New Years, I wake up with a general list of self-improvements I should try. But they never quite crystallize into resolutions.

This year, though, I do have a resolution: Put $5,000 in a savings account I can access easily if I need to.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yes. A good friend had her third baby.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Yes.

On March 12, my aunt Anne died. My last link to the Long Ago.

Annie & I had a Mitford-y relationship. Love but love begrudged. Not a whole lot of what one might call affection. But she was absolutely one of the most creative human beings I have ever encountered, a source of inspiration to me when I was young and admiration as I grew older.

She died in circumstances that broke my heart: She had dementia, and her daughter interred her in one of those Memory Acres places. They cost a lot of money. So, why did she spend so many hours in a urine-soaked bed with her hands tied to the guard rails?

It was probably a good thing that she died. I wish I could have done more for her those last four years. But honestly? I couldn't.



Then, on July 3, I found out Brian had died. The medical examiner said a heart attack, but they didn't do an autopsy, & I think it was more likely a stroke. Whatever it was, it was quick, and exactly the type of death he would have—no, not wished for: He wanted to live forever. The type of death he would have appreciated.

We later ascertained that he had actually died on July 1 and sat there, dead head bowed on his kitchen table for two days. Maybe that gave his spirit time to come to terms with the passage. I dunno.

The loss to me is incalculable. Ten times a day, I think of him. When he died, one of my moorings was cut, and that side of the boat now knocks uneasily against the dock.



Did anyone close to you get married?

Yes. Lew & Ed. The wedding was lovely.



5. What countries did you visit?

This was another year when I didn't manage to exceed escape velocity very often. The farthest I traveled from my home base was Washington, D.C., on two separate occasions to visit my fabulous pal, Alex.

6. What would you like to have in 2025 that you lacked in 2024?

Money. For me, it's always, always money.

7. What date from 2025 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Per above: March 12th, July 3rd.

November 24th & 25th—which I spent at the Cayuga Medical Center, having overdosed on pills that, in my sleep-deprived psychosis, I thought were ibuprofen but turned out to be Wellbutrin. No long-term harm done, but very humiliating.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Starting the Untitled Chick Lit novel. It will take me another 10 months to finish. But I will

9. What was your biggest failure?

See November 25th above.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Apart from unintentionally ODing on a popular antidepressant?

No.

I mean, the usual unexplainable aches & pains & twinges that beset humans of my advanced age (73). The warranties are expiring on all my joints & muscles.

11. What was the best thing you bought?.

I'm not sure I bought anything in 2025! I mean, other than food for me and food for the kiskas.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My oldest son, Ichabod. (Not his real name!) He has been unwavering in his emotional & yes, financial support. He is even talking about buying a house in Ithaca to give me some housing security.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

The usual clown car politicians allegedly running this world. My dick landlord, Icky.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Liquidity went to basic operating expenses: rent, utilities, food, car expenses. When I moved across the river, my rent & utilities more than doubled. And I don't care what inflation numbers the Trump administration manufactures: Food is easily 25% more expensive now than it was last year.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

I am excited about the Unfinished Chick Lit novel. If I can pull it off the way I want to pull it off, it will be very good—though, of course, since no one actually reads anymore and I no longer have publishing connections, it will remain one of those secret accomplishments that warm you up from the inside.

16. What song(s) will always remind you of 2025?>

Oddly enough, since it was the total antithesis of my mood...



17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

I. Happier or sadder? So much sadder.

II. Thinner or fatter? Thinner. Too thin, in fact.

III. Richer or poorer? Poorer.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Traveling. Writing fiction. Hanging out in real time with my friends and my offspring.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Feeling sorry for myself. Reading The Daily Mail. Watching anything produced by Bravo.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

I had an absolutely fabulous Christmas hanging out with Flavia & bopping around NYC.



21. Did you fall in love in 2025?

No, I don't think I'm capable of falling in love anymore.

I can still touch my toes, though. And stand on one leg for 45 seconds without falling.

22. How many one-night stands?

My vibrator resents this question!

23. What was your favorite TV program?

White Collar. The first two seasons. It's an old TV show, corny & goofy. It has no delusions whatsoever of significance. But it distracted me sufficiently throughout the summer so that every once in a while, I forgot Brian was dead.



24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

No. This is one of those very few areas where my rational mind wins out over my naturally vindictive and grudge-harboring heart.

Hatred is a vector with that grasp & pull that signifies a claim on one's emotions still. It's a waste of time. When people cross you, the best way to deal with them is to disappear them through absolute indifference.

25. What was the best book you read?

Fiction: The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai

Nonfiction: Larry McMurtry, A Life, Tracy Daugherty

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Not a discovery in terms of a new artist or piece. But increasingly, when I listen to music, I have the ability to identify & track instruments individually as they harmonize and backtrack through various melodic themes, which has given me a much greater appreciation of musical compositions.

27. What did you want and get?

Despite my multiple character flaws, the Universe continues to be kind. This year, I wanted the money for the wheel bearings I needed to get replaced on my ancient Prius to fall from the sky. And it did.

28. What did you want and didn’t get?

Brian's car.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

Anora. A Real Pain was a close runner up.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I had a fabulous birthday in NYC with my two sons:



I turned 73—which, as Velma notes to Thelma in Chicago, is "older than I ever intended to be."

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Brian not dying.


32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2025?

As I have been writing in these yearly summaries for 20 + years, I dress like a bag lady.

I have a decent eye for fashion and am thin enough so that I would actually feel comfortable in just about anything I chose to wear. And I understand that fashion is a meaningful personal statement!

I just can't be bothered with it.


33. What kept you sane??

Sane? My, you are making assumptions, little meme! 😀

But, no. I am sane. I force myself to be, so I get all the credit.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

This year? No one.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

The continuing consolidation of wealth & resources in the hands of the 1%.

36. Who did you miss?

Brian.

37. Who was the best new person you met?

I met & befriended a surprising number of new people this year. The one I liked best was probably Justine.

Though RTT told me recently, "It's probably a good thing you didn't move into Justine's house! She's dating the mayor! And it wouldn't look good for my mother to be living in a house with the mayor's girlfriend!"

RTT was just elected to the City Council of the city in question. 😀

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2024:

It doesn't matter if the first draft's good. It only matters that the first draft's finished.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

None.

40. Post a picture of something that made you happy this year.



Always, always tulip trees.

41. Did you wrong or hurt somebody in 2025?

Probably. But not intentionally.

42. Is there some new place you are planning to visit in 2025?

I hope I can pull off the trip to India.

43. Where would you have wanted to go and did not in 2025?

Same list as last year: India, Vietnam, Cambodia.

I've always wanted to go to Bhutan, too, but I kinda have to take that one off the list because I don't think I have the stamina anymore for those kinds of altitudes.

44. Did you learn any new life skill in 2025?

Designing websites in Squarespace. Making AI videos.

45. Any new food or drink preferences developed in 2025?

Nope.

46. What is your greatest fear for 2025?

That I won't make enough money to sustain even my simple lifestyle. That I'll slip on the ice & break a leg, a hip, or something that will take away my independence. That something bad will happen to my kids.

47. Did you follow any sports event in 2025?

No.

48. Which social media did occupy most of your time in 2025?

Probably Facebook, although I've dialed wayyyyy down on the time I spend on social media. True, I spend at least an hour most mornings writing in my online diary. But I don't consider that social media.

49. Is there somebody you feel particularly grateful to this year?

Ichabod & RTT. They love & support their eccentric old Mom!

50. Five predictions for 2026

1. The U.S. will go into recession, and the world will follow.
2. Democrats will win the House but lose the Senate in the 2026 midterms.
3. Some major industrialized nation government starts crumbling in February, & this immediately leads to war
4. Netanyahu will be ousted as Israel's prime minister
5. Trump will die in June or July.

Whaddiya know? I'm not sore at all this morning except for some tightness in the tendons behind my knees. I maintained crouching tiger stance the whole time I was shoveling 'cause you know, ergonomics. I guess I need to do more squat thrusts.

###

Finished Schlock customer training. I start showing up in their office this coming Monday.

I'm not sure Schlock makes much revenue off the financial products we're supposed to hawk so relentlessly to unwitting clients desperate to square their tax statuses with the IRS. I guess that puts Schlock a notch above, say, check-cashing operators & payday loan providers, the carrion eaters in the predatory foodchain that feeds upon American poverty. Their customer base is not the wretchedly destitute but the struggling poor.

Schlock offers refund advances, various types of loans that use your refund as collateral, & debit cards for individuals whom various life circumstances have conspired to make wary of banks. These products are the nectar in the Venus flytrap's hairy sack: Once you wander close enough to sip, it is very difficult to extricate yourself, so you will wander back year after year after year to be overcharged on yr taxes. They're retention mechanisms, in other words!

Would love to do some serious muck-raking here á la Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel & Dimed) or Jessica Mitford (The American Way of Death). Taxes and the whole tax industry are deeply interesting; this is why tragic genius David Foster Wallace was working on a novel about the IRS before he ambled off one bright autumn day to hang himself on his back porch.

I'm fairly certain, though, that amidst the contractual verbiage that I scrolled past & signed without bothering to read was some sort of NDA. Ah, well! It's not as though I don't have a dozen other writing projects on my plate.

Must remember to get manicure!

I know from experience that tax clients stare at the hands that are entering their financial data!



Speaking of Jessica Mitford, I am currently reading Carla Kaplan's Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford.

Jessica Mitford is a particular heroine of mine. Partly because I find the Mitford sisters utterly fascinating, and partly because she lived in my old North Oakland nabe, but mostly because she is an utterly hilarious writer whose critiques invite you to find the absurdity in the seriously objectionable. For me at least, it's easier to reject something because it's ridiculous than because it's morally reprehensible.

I met her once.

I was invited over to the Rockridge house by her son Benji's then wife. Some kind of coffee klatch. It would have been the mid-70s. What the pretext was, what the wife's name was, I can no longer remember. What I do remember is Decca, with her regal demeanor and air of perpetual bemusement, sweeping down the stairs in a shabby bathrobe. And I remember Decca's voice. Think Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey.

She joined us in the living room, waved her china coffee cup about and chatted away. Whatever was in the coffee cup had been liberally doused with what smelled like bourbon. I had no idea who she was, but I was enchanted.

Years later, she wrote me a charming postcard after I reviewed her book The American Way of Birth for The Whole Earth Review.



Years later still, when I became a Mitford fan-girl, I realized Decca was easily the most tragic of the sisters. She inhabited her droll, acerbic persona so thoroughly & magnificently that it was easy not to look beyond it.

First husband, the quixotic Esmond Romilly, with whom she ran off to the Spanish Civil War at age 19, was lost at sea flying home from a bombing raid of Nazi Germany. First child, Julia, died of measles at the age of four months; first son, Nicholas died at age 10 when his bike was hit by a bus while he was doing his paper route.

Esmond & Julia only got footnotes in Decca's memoir Hons & Rebels.

And she could never, ever bear to speak of Nicholas.

Years later, she wrote in a letter to someone, "What it boils down to is putting one’s feelings on a special plane; most unwise, if you come to think of it. Because the bitter but true fact is that the only person who cares about one’s own feelings is ONE." One of my favorite quotes of all time.

You can only deduce the immensity of Jessica Mitford's pain by her steadfast refusal to acknowledge it. That no-whinging-allowed credo, of course, was part of her indoctrination as a blood member of Britain's aristocratic class. As was a certain airy disregard for the feelings of the laboring classes that survived her membership in the Communist party and immersion in America's civil rights struggle.

It is very difficult indeed to deduce the existence of something by its complete absence from the official record.

Still. I think I would be enjoying this biography more had its author intuited its subject's tragic essence.

I read approximately 2 million pages of tax code yesterday. Only 998 million pages to go!

Truth be told, I don't want to read tax code! I don't want to do anything but sit on my fainting couch with my eyes slightly unfocused, thinking strange, dreamy thoughts. It's not as though this coming week is real time anyway, right? The week between Christmas and New Year's is an interstice, kinda like the one between the last chime of midnight & the beginning of a new calendar day. A portal, in other words.

###

Also, played a bit with the Work in Progress. I am writing now about a hospital during the COVID pandemic. I wasn't a nurse during the COVID pandemic, so this is something I know very little about. My imagination is getting a workout. And it's flabby!

Simultaneously, I'm trying to sneak in the Jesus cult. And when I say "sneak," I mean position it under the radar so that when Grazia joins, the reader is surprised—even though all the evidence is there.

Next scene is a telephone call between Neal & Grazia. Of course, they have to banter amusingly. It's surprisingly difficult to write amusing banter off the top of one's head. The call has to include some Mimi backstory, too. Mimi's narrative is breadcrumbs strewn throughout the rest of the novel; she is not one of the main characters. But in the third part of the book (Flavia's POV), Mimi is going to try to kill herself, and that needs to be set up.

Christmas was the Big Fun.

Being completely neurotic, I had to talk myself into not canceling: Basically, I wanted to lie in bed for two days with the covers pulled up over my head since my client was never gonna pay me, and that meant this was the last Christmas I was even gonna have a bed, right? Next year, it was gonna be a couple of pieces of soggy cardboard in the Refrigerator Box Under the Bridge. Enjoy it while you can!

Plus, there would be Nazis. I wasn't sure how the Nazis were going to work their way in there, but I was sure they would.

Don't be ridiculous, I chided myself.

And drove to Poughkeepsie to hop the train.

###

The City was.... the City.

It is the environment that shaped me, and it is such an odd environment, sui generis, you know, so visiting is always a homecoming: It is the only place I 1,000% feel like I belong.

A good omen! When I got off the shuttle at Times Square, a Peruvian shaman was performing in front of my grandfather's mural!



(No, I mean the guy in the red tie is not my grandfather. I doubt very much the mural artist knew my grandfather. It just happens to look exactly like my grandfather.)

###

Real-life Flavia is very, very wealthy. She lives in a townhouse in the West Village on a meandering street that predates the grid that NYC planners imposed in 1811 when the city's population began to explode. Nearly two centuries later, a bunch of LA producers decided to lodge the fictional Phoebe from Friends on this street, though even in 2004, there is no way a waitress could ever have afforded it.

Real-life Flavia has simple tastes, so the townhouse does not scream ostentation. But the details are all the best—an incredible kitchen island of orange marble, wonderful art on the walls, exquisite appliances.

She has no supernatural beliefs about her own exceptionalism, either. Later on, while we were out tromping—I have been one acquainted with the night: oh, how I miss walking around cities at night!—she remarked out of nowhere, "I know how incredibly fortunate I am. And I wonder about it." A throwaway line: She wasn't being defensive, and I hadn't asked.

I shrugged. "Well, it's not as though your life has been bereft of tragedies." I listed a few. "But it's true. You are never going to go mad for a week after invoicing a client, wondering if they will pay."

"No," she said. "I never will."

"But then, I'm never going to have my home in Gaza City destroyed by IDF bombs," I said. "Prosperity is relative. Still, if you don't feel odd talking about it, I have a weird request."

"What?" she asked.

"Well, you know, I'm writing a novel. About Brian. And the fictionalized protagonists are me, you, & Daria. Alternating first-person POVs. And your first-person section is the last first-person section. I'd love to delve down deep with you some time about what it feels like to be rich."

"Sure," she said.

###

I'd carted along Mexican food from a place in Hyde Park—the best Mexican food I've found in the Mid-Hudson Valley, which, of course, is not saying much—so we ate and afterwards repaired to the media room to watch my very favorite Christmas movie of all times: 12 Monkeys. (Yes, boys & girls! Technically, 12 Monkeys is a Christmas movie.)

"Only good movie Terry Gilliam ever made," I said. "But what a movie."

"I don't like Brazil at all," Flavia said.

"I know, right? And The Fisher King is just this maudlin excercise in sentimentality."

"The Time Bandits is okay."

"You think? But 12 Monkeys is so fucking great—"

And it is!

Is fate predetermined? A man travels backward in time to look for ways to prevent the virus that will decimate humanity and drive it underground.

But it is only because the man traveled backward in time to describe the virus that the mad scientist hatches the plot to release the virus, and the 10-year-old boy who will grow up to be Bruce Willis watches, uncomprehending, his adult self die:



The movie dovetails so exquisitely. The use of wide-angle photography & canted angles to denote the Willis character's inner turmoil. Low-tech single cuts are only used when Willis is time-traveling—complete reversal of the common sci-fi film technique, which is to pull out the heavy special effects artillary when they are time traveling. The dark, dark shooting palette is only relieved by the bright pops of the red Army of the 12 Monkeys logo. The art direction so perfectly underscores the script: The only things that are worth looking at are the things that nobody looks at.

"The movie never changes," Bruce Willis tells Madeleine Stowe. "It can't change. But every time you see it, it seems different, because you're different. You see different things."



The next morning, we hopped the subway to venture forth to deepest, darkest Flushing. Little Beijing!

We rendezvoused with Betsy and then bopped around, staring at many wondrous things. In Little Beijing, Christmas Day is just a day like any other day. The sidewalk vendors were hawking their goods, the stores were crowded, the streets were thronged.









We ended up driving to Kew Gardens for Christmas lunch. Betsy's old nabe, I think she was feeling nostalgic. The restaurant where we ate was one of her old haunts. The people who run it know her, watched her kids grow up, & the kids still come in some time. (For various reasons too complicated to go into here—except to observe that while I like her, she is what you would have to call a Difficult Person—Betsy is completely estranged from her kids, so it was sweet & strange listening to Betsy quiz the waitress: "Natalia came in? What was she wearing?")



Then we went to hang out at this tiny café that had just opened!!! The proprietor was from Paris, and why his life's ambition was to open a café in fuckin' Queens on Christmas day and force his beleagured baristas to wear berets is beyond me, but hey! Why not? The cappucinos were delicious and the mocha slices sublime.



Then Betsy took off and Flavia & I went to see a movie where Hugh Jackman played a Neil Diamond impersonator. Theater was packed. Not a single member of the audience was under 60! Perfect movie to round out Jewish Christmas! Schmaltzy, but undeniably heartwarming.



Subway-ed back to Flavia's casa. The tromp through the West Village took us past a couture shop designed to resemble a thrift store so that $1,000 dresses were strewn on wire hangers along bare metal racks. The City's premier bagel & cheese emporium had constructed this delightful whimsy in its front window:



My heart was so light! I felt so happy!

Even the certain knowledge that the very next evening I would be dealing with awful stuff once again—12 ground inches (ugh!) of Hideous White Stuff From the Sky and life in the Refrigerator Box Under the Bridge—did not quash the sheer joy of the moment. I am alive! I thought. The night is beautiful, and I am alive to see it!

####

And whaddiya know? Five miles up the road in Pine Bush, they got 14 inches of snow last night! But we only got six. We dodged the bullet. And in a miraculous display of un-dickish behavior, Icky actually dug my car out for me.

Plus the client paid me.

I'm tempted to qualify that as "the client finally paid me," but the truth is the invoice did not actually take that long to process. It is me who is absolutely insane & neurotic about all of this. If I am going to continue freelancing—& I mean, I am very good at doing the actual work demanded of the role—I have got to think of some way to prevent myself from going all borderline over the billing process.

I do not think I have borderline personality disorder. My mother, though, was a Grade AAA borderline. I was raised by her; it was just the two of us till I was 16 & old enough to escape. And I have what I would characterize as a mimetic personality: Put me in a room with people who have an accent, and within an hour, I'll start channeling their inflections. I don't do it by design! It's an unconscious behavior, a kind of protective mimicry. My personality is porous—which serves me well as a writer but not as a human being. I have weak ego boundaries.

This past week, I was channeling my crazy borderline mother.

And it was not a pleasant feeling.