day 7 - word count: 11,116

(can i just say before i write this that i'm totally paranoid about who's reading this now that the blog's been outed...)

ok, so yesterday was probably the most unproductive day... my own fault...

i wrote a teeny tiny little bit. there were plans in the making to visit the road tattoo that Steed made in front of city hall. it was on the front page of the town newspaper and everything. :)

so, by the time 12:30 rolled around, i had to go meet everyone and we drove over there. there was a non-denominational prayer and we all drew the names of hurricanes inside the hurricane charm. i did two actually - Gert and Arlene. I was so glad to finally be a part of this whole project. I wasn't feeling well the day that most of the tattoo was being plotted and painted. I was so bummed.

then, we went over to this funky little seafood shack to get some fried seafood. i think it was called seafood harvest. i had a crab cake sandwich and i stole scallops and french fries from my neighboring diners. yum-o-rama! yumyumyumyum....

dina had invited us over to her father's place to hold workshop. the house was huge and multi-tiered like a tall hollow wedding cake. it was located just one row of houses away from the ocean. we sat down to workshop and some freak storm fell on the house.

crap. i just looked out the window and it's storming again. :( and i didn't bring my umbrella to the common area. i've been f*cking toting that thing everywhere and haven't used it yet!

anyway, at the workshop, martha read one of her stories and the idea was brought up that one of her main characters could be a poc instead of white. it was interesting to me that martha thought she couldn't write that character/story because that wasn't "her story". it kinda sounded like she was worried that she would marginalize her audience and that maybe she couldn't give credence to a poc voice. admittedly, i could be totally wrong about the exact issue that surrounded martha's story but that what i was hearing. I could also have been hearing it since in my story, im really concerned about writing lebanese, polish and puerto rican characters. I feel totally incapable of doing so. I'm going to attempt it but the process will most likely resemble carving into stone.

finally, we all got to hear an excerpt from what john is working on. his work is very interesting to me because i hear it as a good marriage between a poet and a fiction writer. he has a very unique style and mastery of language and vocabulary and a wonderful pace. I find that i struggle with that all the time. the poet in me is constantly trying to enconomize what i'm trying to write and i think it makes my work more and more inaccessible. it will be a great lesson for me to listen and read more of john's work.

after the workshop, some other associates came over and there was pool playing and pina colada drinking (neither of which i took advantage of). we all ended up going to a restaurant that had more on its menu besides fried goods. the street that the flagler tavern was located on was blocked off for a motorcycle show and rally. there were hundred of bikes lining the streets and there were some really beautifully painted ones. there was this far out bike that was really squat and wide. it was silver and painted with characters from a movie... i can't remember if it was the wizard of oz or the oompa loompas from willy wonka... it's was trippy. i talked to a bike about what was going on and he explained that this was a new thing the city had cooked up to draw tourists back to new smyrna beach which had been heavily damaged from a hurricane. he was so nice and was telling me about where to go in new smyrna and that i should really go and see st. augustine. apparently, the architecture is very old - sounds interesting. i think he said it was only a half hour away.

the flagler tavern serves good food but the service is SO F*CKING SLOW. jessica and i were running on fumes and we still had to prepare for tonight's dinner. after a long circuitous drive, we all finally arrived back at "the ranch".

jessica and i marinated the chicken and pork for the adobo. we talked about our lolas (grandmothers), filipino resturants and our favorite filipino foods. it was beyond surreal. i kept thinking, is this real? am i dreaming? seriously, i could be cathecting this whole world in my teeny tiny head while the reality is i'm living underneath the L tracks somewhere in downtown chicago... after the food prep, i had a cup of tea and i noticed jessica's eyelids were getting lower and lower. so, i headed off and ran into a dance party that was happening inside the theatre.

it was very entertaining to watch the other associates get happy on red stripe, kylie minogue and house music. :)

i really should go now and find Del and see if he still wants to go to church today... either that or actually catch up on that writing.