Erica Lorraine Scheidt's Blog, page 5

Some love for a hound dog puppy from M Dash and Animal Madness. Thank you so much. 

So what happened?I got two years into the novel and got completely stymied and felt like it was an utter flop. I wanted to put it aside but my wife talked me out of it. She said she cared too much about these characters and wanted to find out what became of them. I had to start all over again, keeping the characters but reinventing the story completely and leaving behind almost every element with the exception of the birth that goes wrong – that was the only significant element that I preserved.You've had this experience before…
It happens with every book now, I hate to say. I abandoned my second novel completely. Writing Kavalier & Clay, I had several moments of utter collapse. Same with The Yiddish Policemen's Union. I'm obviously just not very good at this. Michael Chabon in conversation with The Guardian
Photo: Katherine Wolkoff via Cup of Jo

Below are several of M. and my favorite date night walks:

Takeout from Out the Door eaten out the back door on the benches watching the ferries go in and out. Walk up the Filbert Steps to North Beach, quick viewing of the murals in Coit Tower (smash a penny), a stop in City Lights Books and then cocktails at Cafe Zoetrope. 
Walk to the top of Bernal Hill. Walk back down. Stop at Red Hill Books on the way to Wild Side West.  
Flora Grubb for coffee. 
Cocktails at Mint 54.
Lunch at Darwin followed by a walk to SFMOMA. 
A visit to Headlands Center for the Arts followed by doing nothing at all on Rodeo Beach (aka Fort Cronkite)
A visit with Emmett and Deanna at Inside Modern and then cocktails and song at Martuni's. 
Happy hour tacos at Pancho Villa followed by window shopping up Valencia Street, a loop around Dolores Park and then pizza at the counter at Delfina's. Photo: our favorite bartender, Maura

The wildly gracious Deanna and Emmett of Inside Modern in Hayes Valley donated a George Nelson Bubble Lamp to Truman the hound dog puppy's fundraiser. The Truman has some very stylish friends.
PS: I got my beautiful writing desk there when I started my book

Break your deadlines, default on your due dates, wander in the streets, go to the movies, eat lavishly, fornicate, blaspheme, bless a street urchin, browbeat a civil servant, and when you’re done with these things, if you feel excited by what you’ve seen and heard, then go write. Rick Moody via Top Ten Books 
Photo by Elizabeth Weinberg

Another element of my memoir — the stupendous importance of love, friendship and solidarity — has been made immensely more vivid to me by recent experience. I can’t hope to convey the full effect of the embraces and avowals, but I can perhaps offer a crumb of counsel. If there is anybody known to you who might benefit from a letter or a visit, do noton any account postpone the writing or the making of it. The difference made will almost certainly be more than you have calculated. Christopher Hitchens (from Hitch-22) as quoted in NYT
Photo: New York in the 80's by Steven Siegel via Miss Moss

A Brazilian mixtape over at Little Paper Planes by my best friend, Clarita.
Painting: Alfredo Volpi 

Sometimes I see a photo like this and think, I should just clear our my reader and read 3 blogs. And then I start counting them and it's way more than three.
Photo: Vic

Our rescued hound dog. He almost died. We're having a fundraiser in San Francisco on Friday, September 14th to help pay his medical bills. Join us?

Lighting new cigarettes,
pouring more
drinks.

It has been a beautiful fight.
Still
is.

from Bukowski via Books vs. Cigarettes
Ouda Wyoming Knit Sweater via Welcome Back Oldtimer