We met for coffee at the airport. Before the Salon essay, Modern Love, and Oprah. My blog was just beginning, hers was coming to an end.
Ayelet and I compared notes, talked easily and openly about writing and kids, adjunct gigs, and true love. And then we talked about Amanda.
Amanda Davis was Ayelet's best friend. She was also someone who touched my life, who had been amazing to me when I was pregnant, green with morning sickness and dry heaves at Bread Loaf. And supportive later, when I traveled to New York to join her and a group of other women writers who met monthly at an Indian restaurant in the East Village. Amanda always the lively center of the group.
Talking about Amanda's death wasn't easy. Talking with Ayelet was. I hadn’t read her blog, Mommy-track books, or Daughter's Keeper — I really didn't know her. It didn't matter. We talked and laughed and bitched and gossiped, shared stories and bits of information about the many people we both knew, and, finally, about the one person we both missed.
Ayelet Waldman will be reading from her new novel, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, tomorrow night at Politics and Prose.
If I Only Had An iPod, musical selections by Ayelet Waldman
I write to music. I didn't always. I used to demand silence. But then I started working in cafes and the conversation around me was so compelling (in a horrible, boredom as compulsion way) that I began wearing my ipod. The other day I forgot my ipod and lost the entire day's work, due to the fact that the short, chubby Jewish guy at the next table was trying to convince his companion that she should enter into a polyamorous S&M relationship with him. I was not the only person in the cafe sitting with dropped jaw and glazed eyes.
I don't ever choose music with lyrics — or at least not lyrics in English. I tend to write to minimalist classical music. Something about that works for me. I've included one of the pieces I like most on this list. The rest of the songs sort of have something to do with either me, or my novel, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits.
Stacy's Mom by Fountains of Wayne: I'm a Jersey Girl. And a mom. Nuf said.
You're With Stupid Now by Aimee Mann: I love Aimee Mann's bitterness. This is great post-break-up music.
The Felix Da Housecat mix of the 15th by Fischerspooner: This is the music the main character in my book, Emilia, dances to at Opaline.
Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich: This is the music I work to. It has a propulsive energy to it that keeps my mind focused.
The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side: Magnetic Fields. Love and Other Impossible Pursuits takes place in NY and so does this. Not that that's a real connection. I just love the song.
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