| Vulture |
[15 May 2008|04:25pm] |
I feel like a vulture.
Perhaps a month or six weeks ago, someone I know passed away quite suddenly.
And today I wrote to one of the publishers he worked with, to offer myself as a translator in case they needed someone.
Now, I had originally passed this work on to him when I left New York. (Back then I wasn't translating very much, so it wasn't worth my time; these days, I translate possibly more than I write, or I'd almost be happy to since it's quicker cash for me, and doesn't exhaust me creatively, so even though the pay hasn't changed in the ten years (!!!) I'd be happy for the work.)
But I still feel like something of a vulture.
The editor in question hadn't yet heard that he'd passed away, but would be interested in working with me again when they have another project.
Am I a bad person for doing this?
I don't really think so.
And it's not like the first thing I did on hearing that he'd passed away was try and take over his workload; that would indeed have been ghoulish.
But the fact is, they're going to need a new translator again... so it works out for everyone, I think.
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| Anticlimactic |
[14 May 2008|07:43pm] |
I've been fighting off a sore throat these past few days of off-and-on rain and cold, and it seems the sore throat is winning.
I went to get my intestinal biopsy results, and the final determination is that I have a non-celiac wheat intolerance. Sometimes what looks like a duck and quacks like a duck is not, in fact, a duck. Although to all intents and purposes it is. That is, the same treatment for celiac applies: just don't eat it. The only upside is that since it is not an immune-based reaction, I merely have unpleasant symptoms that are less severe in their repercussions than having full-on celiac would've implied.
I've been wondering if (apart from or related to the wheat issues) I might have a salicylate sensitivity. This would explain both the rash (on my arm) that I got after my recent dental cleaning, and the sores I get around my lips after drinking orange juice, for instance (I tested negative for an allergy to oranges, but still wind up having a reaction, something that has only happened to me since going off the wheat in February).
I think I need to just stop worrying about all of this for a while, though, and make sure to eat as well as possible from among the limited diet I have left. I can experiment again (elimination or reintroducing) later.
One further health-related note: On Saturday I was out with some friends who stopped at Palazzo on Gran Via for ice cream. I was all set to order a water-based sorbet... but I'd been so good for so long, I ordered the mint chocolate chip ice cream instead.
Which was delicious.
Although I started having a headache before I even finished it, and then upset stomach and etc. as per usual when I have dairy. Sigh.
(And the encroaching sore throat started that night after the ice cream, too. Sigh.)
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| FTFW Review |
[09 May 2008|10:51am] |
There's a new review of FAIRY TALES FOR WRITERS up in the new issue of VISIONS: A RESOURCE FOR WRITERS, which ends:
Lawrence Schimel manages to touch on many of the myths and the struggles facing writers at all stages of their careers. The poems have a touch of humor along with a dose of warning. If you recognize yourself in one of the cautionary tales, it might be worth taking a second look at your situation. If you see the same parallels in one that has a happier ending, who knows but that your story might follow the brighter pattern.
The road to publication and success is complicated, dangerous, and exciting. This book can offer a laugh along with a serious nod or two, all wrapped up in well-written tales of both familiar and unknown potholes standing between the writer and fulfillment as a published author.
I'm pleased my little book is still getting attention, especially so long after its publication. (It often seems that the window for review attention is shorter than the shelf life of dairy products.)
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| Work habits |
[08 May 2008|03:41pm] |
Sure enough, today I'm logy and translating very slowly, after yesterday's out-of-proportion productivity.
Not helped by the fact that it started raining last night, and that always leaves me in an off-kilter mood.
Supposed to rain non-stop for the next few days.
Now, I know we need the precipitation, but part of me can't help wishing we had it only when I was traveling elsewhere... :-)
I don't know whether to continue struggling to work, or to try and do other types of work (whether domestic chores that've been ignored for too long or other business-y type stuff). Maybe I'll spend some time looking up words and filling in the gaps of stories I've already translated... So it advances the project (due next week), even if at a slower rate.
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| Fits and bursts |
[07 May 2008|12:02pm] |
I woke up way too early, for some reason, and couldn't get back to bed. So I've been having a productive morning. It's now noon and I've already translated 4,250 words this morning.
This is raw translation, mind you, where I simply leave the words I need to look up in the original Spanish and type around them. But it works better for me to take advantage of these (rare) fits of productivity, and then fill in the gaps in "quieter" periods.
Taking a break now, but will no doubt try and have another spurt of work this afternoon.
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| Buzz cut, plus interview |
[06 May 2008|05:22pm] |
I asked a friend to take a snapshot of me this afternoon, so I could post what the new buzz cut looks like.
I like the convenience of it, not to mention when people rub my head (preferably people I know, although one is not averse to handsome strangers doing likewise...)
It's a warm spring here (27º Celsius right now) although this morning when I woke, since the balcony is still in shadow then, I left the house with a black cashmere sweater on. Alas, I then wound up spending an hour and a half in the sun, sitting in front of and/or walking around the Reina Sofia Museum, while they taped the interview about MARÍA Y EL MUSEO. It'll be a ten minute spot when they're through with it. I'll post a link once they've posted it, although it won't be until mid-June at the earliest.
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| Health vexations |
[05 May 2008|05:25pm] |
Went to the hospital this morning to pick up my allergy bloodwork and it all came back negative.
So maybe we're not testing for the right component? All I know is that I AM reacting to the wheat, even though so far I've turned up negative for the celiac blood test, the wheat allergy skin test and now the wheat allergy blood test.
Went to dentist this afternoon for a cleaning and, alas, had an allergic reaction before I was two blocks away. Large rash broke out on my arm, just like what's happening to me with wheat although faster and "sharper" in many ways (how it feels from inside). I was nearly home, so I went upstairs, took some photos of it, and then went back to the dentist (literally around the corner, by which point it had already started to subside, although he looked at it and said it definitely was an allergic reaction of some sort.
But he says he'd only used sodium bicarbonate, although it may have had some flavoring substance.
Sigh.
On the plus side, now that I've been off the wheat again for a month, I seem to fit in my size 29 pants again... :-)
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| wings |
[01 May 2008|06:42pm] |
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I found a pair of black feathered wings on the street today. The have two small straps to affix them to one's back, the kind popular with clubbers or go-go boys. I don't know who had worn them, or who had lost them, or why no one else had bothered to pick them up, but I couldn't help taking them with me (I am in the café at Berkana just now). I have no idea what I will do with them, but how could I just pass them by? So many stories just waiting there...
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| Another interview |
[30 Apr 2008|02:56pm] |
Just got a call yesterday to do an interview about Sara and my new picture book MARÍA Y EL MUSEO, about the Reina Sofia Museum, for Esmadrid.tv, the promotional local TV station (available via internet and also on monitors around Madrid).
Just buzzed my head today, although evidently I left a stripe at the back. Oops. Must try and fix it before the taping. :-)
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| Interview |
[28 Apr 2008|12:43pm] |
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I just taped the interview for TVE's Documentos TV program about gay life in Spain, talking about being a gay writer in Spain versus the US (especially writing both gay erotica and kidzbooks). My part was very brief. We'll see how it turns out, the program won't be ready until June or July, and not sure when it will actually air.
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| Further thoughts on writing and language |
[20 Apr 2008|01:58pm] |
Looking over some of the poems I recently wrote in Spanish, I also realized that in English I almost never write poetry addressed to a "you" whereas this seems to be something common in my Spanish poetry. I don't know if it's more to do with me (that is, if I express emotion differently in one language more than the other, that is, if English is my critical/facultative language and Spanish my emotional language) or the fact of Spanish being one of those languages with a formal (usted) and informal (tu) second person. Or literary conventions with respect to the genre in each language.
Still, it was something I found interesting to note.
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[18 Apr 2008|04:31pm] |
Had a meeting this morning with the producers of a documentary about gay life in Spain, for which I'll talk about the differences in being a gay writer in the US and Spain. Looks like they'll be taping me on Monday the 28th.
I made it just before the rain and hail started, so I've been here working a bit on various things (a revision of a translation into English, etc.). We need the rain, but this sort of weather always leaves me a bit blue.
Which no doubt contributes to my feeling like I'm in the Augean Stables. No matter how much I advance on something (or some things) there's always so much more that I need to deal with...
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| Writing and Language |
[17 Apr 2008|04:29pm] |
I've been working on preparing a bunch of my poems written in Spanish that I needed to send off today (well, I should've already done this earlier but have not had a chance to get to it) and I realized that, while I never write poems in English without titles, I seem to be perfectly comfortable doing so when writing in Spanish.
It was a surpising minor little tidbit of insight into the differences in how I write in each of the separate languages I create in, separate from any self-translation I may do (during the process of creation or after).
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| Not as expected |
[17 Apr 2008|10:10am] |
So I went back to the hospital this morning to have blood drawn for them to do some more allergy tests.
And it turns out that there is a bus strike that I hadn't been aware of, so getting there took much longer than expected.
Once there, however, I was literally in and out of the hospital in three minutes. If the blood they'd taken didn't leave me lightheaded, the rapidness of the whole procedure would've!
It took so little time I was actually able to dash back to the bus stop and catch the same bus back (the hospital is a terminal stop, so after a brief pause there, it turns around and heads back along the route).
So one thing was worse and one better.
I wonder what else today will turn out not as expected...
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| Allergies |
[15 Apr 2008|06:20pm] |
Went to the allergist this morning for some skin tests.
Turns out I am indeed allergic to melon, something I was thinking might be possible after the last few times I'd eaten it. So that makes pineapple, kiwi, and melon confirmed as fruits I need to avoid. It's a pain being a vegetarian (because of an acute nephritis when I was younger) and with all the other intolerances and problems I've been having lately, to lose fruits I actually liked eating.
At the same time, I didn't have skin reaction to either wheat, oats, or barley, so it's either celiac (despite the negative blood test, we'll see what the biopsy results are) or something else.
Although I need to go back tomorrow or the next day for them to do blood allergy tests.
Ironically, I have not in the past been allergic to pollen (until last fall when I last had my allergies tested), but since I woke this morning I've been sneezing like crazy and with a runny nose. Ah, spring!
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| Guest of Honor |
[14 Apr 2008|06:35pm] |
It's now public that I'm going to be one of the Guests of Honor at Gaylaxicon in Minneapolis, October 9-11, 2009.
http://gaylaxicon2009.org/
I'm very excited about this and am pleased to at last be able to talk about it openly.
:-)
See some of you there!
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| Slovenia |
[11 Apr 2008|04:05pm] |
It looks like the Slovene edition of my picture book with Sara Rojo AMIGOS Y VECINOS is out, since there are news blips or press releases starting to appear, like this one from earlier this week at the Slovene Queer Resource Directory: http://www.ljudmila.org/siqrd/index.php?id=683
How exciting!
And I've been invited to Slovenia, for something else, later this year, so hopefully I'll be able to take advantage of being there to do an event to promote the book. More details once things have been fully confirmed.
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| Chroma |
[10 Apr 2008|11:22pm] |
I got my contributor copies of the Spring 08 issue of CHROMA, the UK queer literary journal, which focuses on translation this issue. I translated an untitled poem by Jesus Encinar for it.
You can check out the magazine at http://www.chromajournal.co.uk/
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| Alyson sold |
[10 Apr 2008|04:46pm] |
Or at least, about to be sold, along with OUT and THE ADVOCATE and a few other things, to here!
Here's a press release about the binding agreement of the sale:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080409/aqw100.html?.v=40
There has been so much flux lately in gay publishing in the US... I wonder when/if it will all quiet down at last.
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| Biopsy |
[09 Apr 2008|02:57pm] |
So, I finally had the intestinal biopsy this morning, the last step in determining if the problems I've been having are celiac's disease or something else (which we won't know from the biopsy, just that we'll have to keep looking).
They had to give me a valium because of how nervous I was, and I'm still quite zonked now, even though I have just woken up again (I slept for maybe three hours after I got home from the hospital). I think I am both physically and emotionally worn out from this (I managed to not break down in tears until after the test was over, but when I was still so woozy from the valium I couldn't get up.)
I am relieved it's finally over, and now just need to deal with waiting for the results (which it turns out will not be available for 15-20 days, even though my appointment with the gastroenterologist is scheduled for Monday, so I guess I'm going to need a second appointment and more waiting, ohhhhhhmmmmmmmmmm).
At this point my biggest fear is that it's not celiac's disease, not that I would like to have it, but that I would like the uncertainty to be over at last so I can try and resume a normal life again, not to mention be able to determine what I can and cannot eat without harming my body so much.
I also have a meeting with the allergist on Tuesday, to see if what I have is a wheat allergy instead of celiacs.
(I could simply have an intolerance, although the reaction seems to be stronger than that, at least considering I have a milk intolerance--not just lactose--and the symptoms produced by that are different.)
At any rate, I am going off all gluten again as of now, since I felt so much healthier when I was off it for 6 weeks earlier in the year. While this does severely limit my diet, I think it is my best course of action, especially while they (medical establishment) and I are trying to figure out what it is that is provoking these reactions.
So despite entering a new phase of waiting and nervous-anticipation of the results of the biopsy and upcoming allergen tests, I am sure I will be feeling much better being off the wheat (which I think has also been affecting my mood negatively).
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