erica eller, writer, soap bubble, lets plain wrap get to know her better. this is the twenty-fifth installment of plain wrap’s interview series in which plain wrap interviews all its facebook friends. thank you erica eller.

1. Tell us about yourself?

1. A soap bubble is a circular form of soap in the air. It is always racing to disappear into air. The air is where it belongs because it is filled with air. With the slightest agitation, a soap bubble pops. No one remembers a soap bubble once it has popped. Sometimes I recognize that I’m nothing more than a popping soap bubble. I’m constantly being readmitted into nothingness, into air. Do you remember in the “Story of the Eye” how Bataille tries to make us swallow so many different circular forms throughout the book? Well, I’ve swallowed them, burped them up, and put them on my blog, which is http://ericaeller.blogspot.com/ and oh, I’m so sorry, I have to stop myself sometimes. Now what was the question? Oh yes. I’m a writer. I live in San Francisco. I study Literature.

2. Have you read any good books lately?

2. If I were to read a good book, I might pick up Cortazar’s Hopscotch, or Bataille’s Blue of Noon, or Amilcar Cabral’s speeches, or hell, anything Jorge Luis Borges wrote. I’d read Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles. I’d read Nabokov’s Pale Fire and W.G. Sebald’s Rings of Saturn. I’d read Par Lagerkvist’s The Sybil. I’d read the collected stories of Lydia Davis and the collected poems of Emily Dickinson. I would read Ostashevsky, Khlebnikov, Vosznesensky, and Tsvetaeva (what a mouthful) and I might go ahead and read everything that is being published in English by Roberto Bolano. Then I’d try my best to get acquainted with those other great writers like Ariana Reines, Arisa White, Daniel Alarcon, Janey Smith, D.W. Lichtenberg, Evan Rehill, and Justin McElfresh. In other words, I’d read all of the usual good books that come and go from our bookshelves, but have I read them lately? No. I’ve just been reading an instructional book about how to speak Spanish, which is ok, but not good.

3. Why did you leave your last job?

3. I was the office manager for a photographer who took pictures of the interiors of fancy homes. We used to work together in the same room when he was not on assignment, sitting in front of enormous Mac screens in the basement of his home, not speaking. There was never enough work for me to do and this was perhaps a conundrum for the both of us. I felt irresponsible for getting paid $26 an hour to do a few hour’s work over the course of six hours, three times a week. I tried to mastermind a way to help with his business’ success, but it was already functioning superbly so I was unable to improve it. I think I had been using scented conditioner when the recession hit. My boss’ girlfriend moved into his house in order to share rent and save money. She didn’t like the smell of my conditioner. They got engaged soon after, but I only knew that because I heard it from a mutual friend. Then I took a month off from work to be with my family because my dad was dying. When I returned to work, my boss had arranged for an HR consultant to deliver my end-of-employment papers on his behalf. I’m not entirely sure why it happened. It must have been a combination of things.

4. What have you done to improve your knowledge in the last year?

4. I ask questions, lots and lots of questions. y tu?

5. Tell us about the most fun you have had in life?

5. Sometimes I pretend to be Carol Channing as the White Queen in the mini-series version of Alice and Wonderland who sang, “Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never ever jam today.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-MLwPW86Rs) It’s fun to pretend, but if I had to choose between that and making love, I’d choose the latter.