The grown-up

I love this so much

2011-03-03T11:44:00.001-06:00

"Goodnight Dune."

It is both hilarious and touching

A soldier, a soldier!

2011-02-17T12:53:00.001-06:00

I wrote this story that's in The Bicycle Review. Within: watermelon birth, a skeleton cat, a man with a silver tongue who is not the devil.

best of eclectic flash

2011-01-07T08:55:00.002-06:00

hey, i'm in this. if you like physical objects with shiny covers, you could buy it. but you already read this before. it's that "post" thing.

NANO fiction

2010-12-02T10:20:00.003-06:00

I'm in this issue of NANO fiction. The whole thing was unputdownable. You can buy it here.

Ode to Janice-Katie

2010-11-18T15:31:00.002-06:00

Della Watson at Wunderkammer posted the spoils of Kathryn Regina's curated reading for Rec Room. Included is my story, Janice-Katie and the Concerned Mad Scientist.

We all heart Janice-Katie!

Read all four parts here:

Part one
Part two
Part three
Part four

There are many lovely works there.

Interview

2010-10-13T12:15:00.001-05:00

Megan Martin of the splendid Slightly, Briefly Illumined interviewed me about Tough Skin and writing stuff in general. I like to talk to Megan. She is neat.

Read it here!

Not-review of Matt Jasper's Moth Moon

2010-09-30T09:06:00.001-05:00

Hey, there's a not-review of Matt Jasper's book, Moth Moon, over at Venom Literati. That means it's poetry inspired by his poetry.

Here it is.

Eclectic Flash

2010-09-15T12:50:00.003-05:00

I have a story in the September issue of EF. You can read it here.

It's about living with someone who failed to commit suicide. It's called Post.

IsReads

2010-07-14T11:43:00.001-05:00

Those are my photos. But you should read everything.

Poem based on translated Chinese spam in last post's comments

2010-07-08T13:38:00.001-05:00

People have eyes of a tongue, is the observation times for the sake of talking

Your blog article is terrific!! Free I will Huichang Lai shopping!!

Water is always the same, but every moment of it is new.

Happiness is not everything, people have a responsibility.

Maturity is the ability to adapt to life in the vague.

People have eyes of a tongue, is the observation times for the sake of talking.

Another review!

2010-06-01T13:46:00.001-05:00

Tough Skin is a highly enjoyable read, full of lingual surprises and knockout lines, which are likely to elicit physical responses from their reader.

Thanks to Michael Flatt for the review.

Boo.

2010-06-01T08:27:00.001-05:00

look i found a neat sketch pad

2010-05-04T14:14:00.001-05:00

Review!

2010-04-30T08:11:00.000-05:00

An admittedly strange book, this collection will especially appeal to fans of the bizarre and bloody.

We ladies are clean, so clean

2010-04-16T11:20:00.002-05:00

Slide show of ads for women and the products they need (mostly cigarettes and tampons and their intersection), over the years.

Faces to the dirt

2010-04-05T12:49:00.000-05:00

Tom Cruise and his wife, Katie Holmes, lie on their bellies, propped on their elbows, with high powered binocular night goggles. Tom gets them from the future. They watch the children crouch and dig, then hop two feet to one side, and crouch and dig again. The landscape is barren, a ranch-style house in the distance, dust fogging the air. The children dig, and then the one wearing glasses begins to fuss. A fist shoots out of the white blanket in a nearby pram, wielding a cat-o-nine-tails, which it flings in all directions, scattering welts on the children’s bare faces, shoulders, and arms. They hop more quickly, dig with more purpose. Oddly, they seem content in their work.

“They have a purpose,” Tom says. “A purpose.”

Katie nods and takes notes. “Baby driver,” she writes, “Cat-o-nine-tails. Purpose.” The mother and father are nowhere to be seen. Tom wants to spit into a petri dish and make a macaque, a bonobo monkey, and a lizard. Babies are for lunatics; he sees that now. He wants to mate the bonobo monkey with Katie and see what happens. When he says this to Katie, she shrugs. Suri is so creepy that a monkey baby would be preferable.

Even now, she lies beside them, in her princess dress and high-heeled shoes. Her hair is getting longer. She longs to snap that whip; her hand trembles. Katie fights an urge to slap her, to bite her on the nose until she bleeds.

“Now, now,” Tom says, and Suri stands up. She begins to walk toward the other children, her hand in a strange little salute. The whip stills, and the children cower on the ground. Suri picks up the baby in the pram. She picks up the baby in the pram. Its disgruntled old man face opens up and squalls. She removes the pacifier from her own mouth and places it in his. The other children keep their faces to the dirt.

Inner monologue: lunchtime

2010-04-01T11:14:00.002-05:00

Why is that so yellow? Wait, is that meat? No...why is that so yellow? I like cake.

Oh, Clarice Lispector, you are hilarious

2010-03-25T09:22:00.001-05:00

"I'm waiting for the next sentence. It's a matter of seconds. Speaking of seconds, I ask if you can stand it that time is today and now and this very instant. I can stand it because I ate my own placenta."

don't be jealous of my boogie

2010-03-22T11:31:00.002-05:00

But if Lady Gaga had to choose, surely she would pick to have cats dressed up like her.

2010-03-18T10:08:00.000-05:00

this is probably lady gaga's fault

2010-02-25T08:47:00.002-06:00

I had a dream that I was wearing a tomato red sweater and a stocking cap that was also red, but it was a different color of red. I looked in the mirror and was appalled to discover how much those reds clashed, and then I looked in the mirror again and found out that the red was bleeding into my skin from either side and that my skin was taking on the texture of knitwear, and i was really concerned about what those two reds were going to look like, side by side, on my face.

aw.

2010-02-11T11:51:00.000-06:00

2010-01-29T10:56:00.001-06:00

whoa

2010-01-26T18:15:00.001-06:00

This happened faster than I thought it would: Here's my book.

Use your words

2010-01-25T19:14:00.004-06:00

Kate Gosselin opens the refrigerator and finds a child inside. Its skin is quite red. She makes her own line up and count off like in The Sound of Music, and none of them are missing. It is almost disappointing. The child in the crisper seems to be not quite dead, but also unable to tell her what it wants.

"Use your words!" she screams at it.

"Give it a blanket, Kate," says John Gosselin. "And some breast milk, or possibly Sprite." Then he goes away, forever.

Kate Gosselin wants to take on a project, like tilling the soil until something peeks from it, or seeding a salmon farm. The children have small, quick hands, and they are always bored. They resist, though, how they resist! They are modern children with modern dreams of typing some things and staring at some other things.

This child, though, this small curled child--so limp, so malleable--might be trained to whip. It has already shown initiative by spontaneously generating. Kate pulls its fingers out of fists and shoves superballs into its palms. It must learn to grip. It must become strong. She places it back in the crisper. Let it gnaw turnips and sew garments from lettuce. Let it flourish.

concern:

2010-01-19T13:41:00.000-06:00

my fb page makes me look like a catlady.

my mailman

2010-01-05T12:35:00.003-06:00

Right before the Christian winter holiday, my mailman was really on his game, delivering things from people one second after I received a text from someone saying that they'd sent me something, etc. It was almost like I could wish for things and they would appear.

But I happen to know that there are two packages out there, for me, that have yet to be delivered. I know it's, like, the coldest it's ever been here, but I cannot stop coughing and I need DVDs of television series to soothe me.

I am mad at you, my mailman, perhaps irrationally. But that's why I said mad instead of angry.

Someone once told me

2009-12-02T12:42:00.002-06:00

That "devolved" isn't a word.
I have felt apprehensive about saying it ever since then.

announcement

2009-11-11T18:54:00.000-06:00

nanowrimo is for the bored.

First first day

2009-10-28T20:37:00.001-05:00

You cannot resist
it creeping on
you. It smells
like butterscotch or cat
pee or burnt
soup or maybe
that's you. You are
the second person,
and it is your first day
of crazy.

No stimulant
needed, no
nothing but light.
It's like you took
a food
pill except that
pill is crazy
and it's
lodged in
your cortex
pinching
your sight
until that squirrel
is your sensei and
that reflection is
you and you
are not you
anymore
because you
are crazy.

Because who
needs containment.
You are not
a casserole. You are
not off season.
And cold isn't
cold is just a
feeling and feelings
aren't real. Neither
ideas. So how
can you have
disorder.
You're automatic.
You don't even need
a seal. You need
a cape, and
a change.

Today someone asked me if I'd gotten wet, and I said no, I was just disheveled.

2009-10-08T12:25:00.002-05:00

I keep thinking of small things to say and then not saying them and then forgetting them.

All the married ladies, all the married ladies

2009-07-01T12:31:00.001-05:00

Beyonce rages. She flips her ample hair and kicks her slender feet. Jay-Z wonders, idly, if she’s dancing. The pillow room is not working, has not been working for a long time. She demanded a feather room, a straw room, and a brick room, but none of them are working either. It is nothing short of writer’s block.

Beyonce consults a hypnotherapist, who is a quack, and who says her writing had nothing to do with the pillow room in the first place. He does not understand superstition or ritual. He only understands hidden recesses of memory. In Beyonce’s brain he finds a small spotted puppy and a heap of spaghetti dinners. There is nothing malevolent lurking in there; as a result, she should be able to write. Try deep breathing, he tells her. Beyonce rages.

She presses pen to paper, while sitting at the kitchen table. She will write an anthem for women who are happily married, whose husbands are talented moguls and yacht-owners. She composes a single line: All the single ladies. No! It’s stuck in her head again. She cannot get past it. She tries again: All the married ladies. No! No! She picks a fight with Jay-Z as he makes a peanut butter and honey sandwich. He tells her it’s almond butter and not to worry. He smiles at her and kisses the top of her head. Beyonce rages.

She must take on a new character, one with a shady man and hard luck. No more Sasha Fierce; now she is…Bobbie Jean Tomorrow, who believes in the goodness deep down inside of even the man who beats her. She is a woman who names her babies Star and Angel. She is a woman who stands tall even after a tornado hits her modest shack, razing it. Tomorrow, she writes, tomorrow. Everything happens tomorrow. The spell is broken.

Today I am locks-of-loving my hair.

2009-06-25T07:52:00.002-05:00

Thinking about it makes me feel faint.

The demonstration anticipated

2009-06-23T10:54:00.000-05:00

Suri Cruise likes to wear red velvet. She appreciates the full flavor of a fine, hand-rolled Cuban cigar. She understands that sometimes you must break your opponent’s nose to break your opponent’s spirit.

Katie Holmes-Cruise watches Suri rehearse her African dance steps and anticipates. She sucks at the bottle hanging on a string from her neck. Potato-leek soup today.

Tonight they are targeting another celebrity couple. The man of the house could not care less about religion; what he cares about is science. He cares about spontaneous regeneration, but more than that he cares about deliberate generation. One time he spat into a treated petri dish and a fully formed human sprang from it less than a minute later. It was covered in hair. Its teeth were green. But it was clearly a copy of the man of the house, gone wrong. The man of the house lifted his high-powered rifle and shot it dead.

Tonight Katie Holmes-Cruise will tote Suri, who will gulp French martinis from her sippy cup. The man of the house will hobble her tongue in this way so she does not forget she is a child and speak in a clear voice about weapon maintenance. In these moments, Katie feels like a mother must feel.

The giant man and the tiny woman will eat grilled prawns and drink mineral water. They desire to make children, but they do not want to ruin their bodies or destroy the mystery that is a natural part of early marriage. There will be a demonstration. The man of the house will make her spit into a treated petri dish. Her saliva will make bunnies. It will charm them. After they leave, he will declare her saliva weak and Katie will pet the bunnies for hours, until she is led away.

The internet is my most boring friend

2009-06-17T11:25:00.002-05:00

Me: What do you want to do?
The internet: I don't know. What do you want to do?
Me: Is anything new, like really new, or interesting, like really interesting and not just sleazy?
The internet: I don't know. You could probably find out if you scanned me for a couple of hours. But you might just fall into a stupor, too.
Me: Yeah, already there.
The internet: [Silence.]
Me: Click click click.
The internet: [Silence.]

Change is never easy

2009-06-09T11:01:00.002-05:00

Lindsay Lohan knows Brody Jenner from the club scene, but more than that, she knows Brody Jenner from television programs that follow his life. He knows her, too, from tabloids mainly, but also because she saw her ex-girlfriend Samantha Ronson having lunch with him at Qdoba in Sawtelle. Lindsay Lohan can read lips, not because she is partially deaf, but because it is a useful skill. They were talking about her. They were feeling sorry for her.

Once Lindsay Lohan read a book that said you shouldn’t bother feeling sorry for people; it is a waste of energy. We must hoard our energy so we can release it like an all-consuming fireball when we walk into a room. Others will feel our heat and want to make physical contact, but we must not allow that because withholding is the key to stoking desire. Samantha Ronson made fun of that book and would poke at Lindsay when she tried to withhold physical contact from her, much like a little sister. Lindsay Lohan hates her actual little sister, which just goes to show the tabloids aren’t always right.

It is when she drives past the Baja Fresh and sees Brody Jenner munching one end of a taco while her actual little sister Aly Lohan nibbles the other that she realizes the truth: Brody Jenner is trying to steal her life. His hair is definitely slightly lighter and longer than it was the last time she saw him, and his physique and mannerisms are more feminine. She can’t pinpoint how exactly; it is just a feeling.

Lindsay Lohan goes home to take action: She calls her plastic surgeon to schedule a breast reduction. She calls her salon for a cut-and-dye. Her dermatologist has been experimenting with a freckle remover on famous people’s little sisters; it only gave Noah Cyrus first degree burns in its last application. She has heard that Brody Jenner’s genitalia can be easily mimicked. Now is the time.

Perhaps being Brody Jenner will be simpler. Certainly people won’t worry about her weight fluctuation as much.

Taco salad

2009-05-22T08:51:00.001-05:00

As Brody Jenner is being dressed and re-dressed for his daily lunch date, he thinks about requesting that his manservants call him “your majesty,” as a joke, but no one understands Brody Jenner’s wry sense of humor. Someone bald helps him into his boxer briefs.

Brody Jenner wishes he’d been born at a time when being a bon vivant was respected. He just knows Oscar Wilde would have written a play about him.

Craig’s List has saved him. He preys on the curious--dazzling strangers with his wit, sharing meals at corner tables in unfashionable restaurants. Today, a nameless beach café in Tijuana, tomorrow a Chipotle in Redondo Beach. Brody Jenner likes Mexican food. His Craig’s List ad says as much. He screens the applicants carefully, asking questions like, “What do you think about Brody Jenner?” and “Have you ever killed anyone?”

Today he meets a young woman for taco salad. He speaks with her and watches as the expression on her face changes from star-struck to genuinely interested. It happens around the eyes and mouth. A certain tightening, a certain loosening. He suggests they share an entrée and then take a stroll. She acquiesces. They talk easily, natural and quick conversationalists. Both are witty. Both appreciate wit.

Their fork tines intertwine deep in the taco salad, and she attempts to wrest hers away, but the cheap cutlery bends easily; their silverware resembles a piece of modern art, impossible to eat from, nuggets of ground beef trapped in the interstices. There’s been a shift. Her mouth is puzzled now. Is this a trick? Is this really Brody Jenner? She yanks his fork away from him and works to rip apart their utensils, tearing at the tines and making frustrated animal noises. Brody Jenner watches in horror. All they have to do is ask for more forks. There are always more forks.

The meal ends silently. They take turns attempting to eat off the fork sculpture. Neither succeeds. It should have been a popcorn moment; they should have brushed skin.

Must be made up

2009-05-13T09:50:00.001-05:00

Katie Holmes-Cruise hasn’t seen her daughter in five days. Usually, each day, an averagely attractive nanny brings in a child that may or may not be the same one she birthed, and together they make baby dolls walk around like adults. Like humans. They all have bowl cuts, round faces, and slightly Asian features. The children. The dolls are western European. The carpet is white. The baby dolls are porcelain. The baby grand piano is a lurid turquoise that makes everyone look like they might throw up when they are in its shadow.

Katie sleeps in this room, under the piano. It’s her fort. The child(ren?) get led out at dusk, and she drapes several cashmere throws over the piano’s back and curls up on the carpet. It is surprisingly scratchy and leaves small welts on her face. Katie arranges her cheek on her shoulder. Katie wakes with a crick in her neck to the sound of New Age jazz. She rolls expertly from her fort, like a threatened homeless person.

It’s only Suri. Her feet dangle from the bench; one frilly white sock hangs from the stumpy toes of her right foot; the other is completely bare and flawless. One must start in on pedicures early, else feet become craggy. Suri is a talented musician. She can play the miniature violin, the miniature harp, the miniature saxophone, the miniature electric guitar, the recorder, and the baby grand. Katie runs to get the baby dolls, to make them promenade around the keys, but Suri stops her with a hand gesture so reminiscent of the man of the house that Katie tastes ammonia in her throat and sinuses. She mustn’t cry.

Suri’s baby voice disturbs Katie. Her soft palate has not yet fused, and the sibilant consonants trigger something in Katie’s brain that make her long for tapioca, zwieback, and serenity. Suri’s baby voice is telling her it’s time to go. She must be measured again. She must be made up.

I changed my mind

2009-04-24T08:35:00.002-05:00

I am not going to be Fergie for Halloween. It makes my nose look big when I part my hair in the middle. Instead I am going to be Natasha, of Boris and Natasha. I am going to start growing taller and skinnier today by taking vitamin supplements. I wonder if you can reinstate adolescence somehow. Maybe if I get a perm it will help.

Drink it like a shot

2009-04-23T10:58:00.000-05:00

Lindsay Lohan observes her pinky closely and thinks it looks fine. There are not too many wrinkles in the knuckle, but not too few either. Her pinky looks neither swollen nor old. She turns to Samantha Ronson to point out this perfection, but she is somewhere else, deejaying or shopping, smoking cigarettes or piloting a small plane. There are normal people in the world. There are people who don’t have nicknames that consist of their first and last names squished together. Where did her mom go? Is she in New York?

She closes her eyes and considers illegal substances and ancient peoples. They sat around all day chewing on leaves. Their thoughts were more important than anything else. Lindsay wishes she had been born an orange fluffy housecat so she could do nothing but roll around in catnip and ponder the universe all day. The housecat, she thinks, is the modern equivalent of a mystic. She wonders why no one hires her for period dramas. She wonders if there were no freckles in the past. The only barrier between cats and people is language.

Lindsay Lohan is writing a screenplay about a troubled film actress whose bad choices lead to her downfall. She imagines the future when that guy, who used to be a pimp in France but who is now an old man who looks like a ventriloquist, will interview her for a cable show about interesting actors. She will say she is a method writer. Everyone will laugh. Lindsay Lohan types on a tiny gold computer: Meow meow meow meow ROAAARR! Did cats evolve to be bigger or littler? What size was the first cat? Oh, big, big. Big and tusk-y. You can kill a dog’s instincts, but not a cat’s. Lindsay Lohan types: Fight or flight? Autonomic nervous system. Her screenplay is becoming experimental.

It is coming to the time of day when there will be visitors. She wishes they would bring gifts like blackberry pie and teddy bears on silver platters. Lindsay snaps shut her tiny laptop and waits. She thinks she should get a funny friend, someone rakishly witty and possibly gay. They could collaborate. Is Samantha in Miami? Is Jonathan Rhys Meyers in London? Is Perez Hilton capable of friendly love? The sun sets and Lindsay Lohan waits, exploring her face with her fingers like a blind person. She read somewhere about spinal fluid being the next age inhibitor. You drink it like a shot.

Confidential to practically everyone

2009-04-01T14:14:00.002-05:00

"Definitely" is spelled like "definitely."

Everyone is taller than Fergie

2009-03-30T15:07:00.004-05:00

Stacey Ferguson (also known as Fergie) and her husband, Josh Duhamel, like to work out together. They like it so much that many of their conversations occur breathlessly. Fergie runs while Josh Duhamel power-walks beside her. This used to make her feel powerless and enfeminated (which is the name, I’ve heard, of her upcoming album). Now it makes her feel tiny, which she is, compared to Josh Duhamel, who is legally classified as a giant. She likes this feeling after having gained 15 pounds for an acting role. Even though she’s lost the weight, her skin feels saggier than it had been. She thinks about cellulite and chainlink fences, but only for a second. Then she thinks about changing her name.

Fergie wants to change her name to show everyone how much she loves the giant, Josh Duhamel. But everyone, even Josh Duhamel, calls her Fergie. She wonders how much this will change her self-identity and makes a mental note to call will.i.am, whose name is so rooted in self-identity, and also see if he will give her Diddy’s number. Fergie has never called Diddy before. She feels a little nervous, thinking about it.

Josh Duhamel notices Fergie has gotten slightly sweatier than usual as she runs, and asks, breathlessly, if she is still obsessing about the name-change thing and about calling Puff Daddy. He doesn’t care, he says. The name Duhey makes him think of Scrooge McDuck’s nephews, which could be a plus or a minus. Then he thinks of swimming in gold coins and how gold is a really soft metal. He wonders what it would feel like to drown, his lungs filling with gold. Even though he knows it would hurt, he thinks it would hurt so good.

Josh Duhamel often applies choruses from pop songs to events in his everyday life. Every time Fergie goes to the gym without him he tells her he’s going to miss her like a child misses its blanket. Fergie doesn’t notice that he has corrected the grammar in her song lyric. Instead she thinks about how Josh Duhamel is referring to a child as “it.” She doesn’t like that. Fergie wonders if she’s made a terrible mistake every time he utters that phrase. Josh Duhamel’s legs pump rhythmically, one stride to every four of Fergie’s.

Josh Duhamel breathlessly says aloud that he doesn’t feel emasculated. He would support her if she wanted to burn her bra. This makes Fergie giggle because of the double-meaning of the sentence due to the word “support.” Josh Duhamel doesn’t get it because he is more mature than Fergie. He thinks she is laughing because he used the word “emasculated” incorrectly. He wonders what “emasculate” really means.

Later that afternoon Stacey Ferguson goes to an official office in downtown Los Angeles and legally changes her name to “Fergie Duhey.” The clerk does not look at her as though she has suggested something odd, which bolsters Fergie’s confidence. The clerk is very non-judgmental, Fergie thinks. She likes that.

As she jogs home, Fergie imagines Nancy O’Dell pronouncing her new name. She imagines Nancy O’Dell to be a sort of bleached conduit of her own thoughts and feelings. She wishes she could dress up like Nancy O’Dell and not have to worry about artistic merit. But Nancy O’Dell is a giant, too. No one would ever mistake one for the other in a line-up. Fergie Duhey thinks about when she was in junior high and suddenly everyone was taller than her.

I'm peeling

2009-03-25T08:10:00.002-05:00

When I peel my skin it makes a crackling noise like it was actually fried by the sun. I have not eaten any of my skin despite this because once removed it is sort of gray.

Also, I just read my own tea leaves and found that my day (and possibly my life) is going to be speckled.

All the single ladies, all the single ladies, all the single ladies, all the single ladies

2009-03-13T09:42:00.002-05:00

So Beyonce has this room full of pillows. She really does. It’s where she does her song-writing. She lies on her back and looks out the window at the stars (or the clouds, depending on what time of day it is) and composes lyrics. I imagine that she has a pillow room on that yacht where she’s always hanging out with Jay-Z, too, even though no one has told me with absolute certainty that it’s true.

Beyonce leans back onto her pillows, which are silk and multi-colored, and she writes a line: “All the single ladies.” She flips over onto her stomach, leveraging her body with her powerful thighs. She presses the pen cap to her full lips. Beyonce writes with a ballpoint pen. She always has. “All the single ladies”: This she writes a second time. She kicks her legs to squash some of the feathers in her pillows to make a better nest. “All the single ladies,” she writes. And one more time: “All the single ladies.”

Beyonce goes to make a cup of oolong tea. She leaves it outside of the pillow room because she doesn’t want to spill on her silk pillows. It will cool there. Beyonce will drink it when she is done writing. She deliberates. She writes “All the single ladies” again, but crosses it out, disgusted with herself. She tosses and turns in her pillow room. She thrusts her arm down between the pillows, trying to find the floor. Pillows aren’t right for every type of writing, but she cannot reach beyond them. Beyonce goes to get a manicure to see if the extra nail length will allow her to connect with something solid. It doesn’t work. Beyonce pouts. She throws her ballpoint pen across the room and puts her mouth against a red tasseled pillow to scream and scream. Now she has nothing to write with. Beyonce looks at her work. She looks out the window at the stars. There aren’t very many of them. She searches for her pen and does not find the one she is looking for, but she does find another one, from another time, when she threw a similar tantrum. Triumphantly, Beyonce writes: “Put your hands up!” Another hit. The pillow room never fails to inspire. Beyonce drinks her oolong tea.

Art is neat

2009-03-05T08:38:00.002-06:00

This looks cool. I would glue stuff to my face all the time too if it didn't inflame my sensitive skin. Here's more.

Nooooo! Watch out, Calypso!

2009-03-04T12:31:00.001-06:00

Someone is setting cars like mine afire! Afire!

My sea kitten's name was "Splishy"

2009-02-19T12:01:00.001-06:00

I genuinely love the sea kitten campaign. I made a punky pink salmon. This is not like the My Bra thing. This is for reals.

Skin wuss

2009-01-22T11:54:00.003-06:00

Silver nitrate cauterizes skin. It is also known as a lunar caustic.

It blackens the edges of a wound, but I forgot to ask whether it was because it was burnt or because it was a chemical reaction.

It is probably obvious to a scientist.

You are a treasure, sir, a real American treasure

2008-12-17T16:13:00.003-06:00

That is what I said to the guy at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles when he wouldn't let me switch/renew my license plate because the birth certificate--which by the way has gotten me a passport, a social security card, and licenses in three states--didn't have a raised seal on it. I had approximately four billion forms of identification, but my birth certificate didn't have a raised seal. I freaked out. I wanted to make him feel bad. I wanted him to think of me smirking at him when he fell asleep. Now I think my insult is hilarious. Also, I'm pretty sure when I go back with my raised seal birth certificate, he is going to give me a really hard time.

Everything comes down to vitamin deficiencies

2008-11-25T15:20:00.001-06:00

Needing the sun is so pathetic. It makes me feel like a an ancient creature, which should fill me with a sense of the continuity of life and the grace of chimpanzees, but my keyboard moves faster than my brain now, so I can’t think that way. I want to tie a wire to a tiny tree to change its growth pattern because that might give me some sense of control. When no one emails me for more than an hour, I think that there is something wrong with the Internet, not that no one is thinking of me or needs me. I don’t have any control over chimpanzees. They keep eating and sleeping and learning how to use tools at their own rate. The sun is setting already.

What's it called, the beautiful inclusion?

2008-11-12T12:36:00.002-06:00

A rash heart reaches to heat
Or a hot race trashes a scar
Chase rats north to eat hearts,
to scare
Crash;
rot.

So that only uses the letters in my name. That is why it is terrible.

Automatic writing iii

2008-10-05T15:46:00.000-05:00

Your skiff becomes a regret, my glove a hope. Nothing is anything other than someone else’s impression of it. Therefore, I am a snob, and somehow also representative of the lowest type of thin-haired raspy-voiced mob.

I would have gone with you. I wish nature had something more to say than peace. I wish peace were something you could peel. But if it weren’t boring it wouldn’t be peace. Stop saying peace.

I didn’t go though. It didn’t make any difference. There is very little significance in the act of piling one’s hair high upon the head. Oh, but I love the deep ache of pulling it out after a long day. It is even better when you do it.

I saw a feverfew flower lying bruised in front of the stackable washer-dryer. I attached loneliness to it. You saw my bloody thumbnail by the doorjamb and assumed horror. I just thought it was too hard. It wasn’t representative of my being as a whole.

Automatic writing II

2008-09-19T17:40:00.000-05:00

The problem is I don’t like to measure things. Maybe you should do it yourself. I am not talking about making a human skinsuit. I do not want anything tailored. Just find some carcasses and clean them. Just make a cape. No buttons or zippers are necessary, only arm holes and mouth holes. Did I ruin everything when I suggested that he wasn’t bare-chested? I think the worst part about humans with a lot of hair is that they don’t lick themselves clean so smells get trapped in the furry arcs or maybe the worst thing is that people don’t want humans to smell like bears. Humans are supposed to smell like fruit and flower, not mammal or fish. I think I ate crab disguised as cheese today. It would have gotten caught in your face and filled in your pores until your skin couldn’t breathe any more and you died like a frat boy covered in house paint. Even the soles of his feet.

Automatic writing I

2008-09-05T18:36:00.001-05:00

Who wants to be a llama?

I know I’m a bunny, but I can’t figure out if I’m susceptible or resistant, if I’m dominant or recessive, or if I just need a drink. Except that bunnies are addicted to carrots and nose-wrinkling, not relaxation. Except they must maintain softness or they turn to rats, their powder puff tails uncoiling and shedding fur that gathers into accessories. Everyone’s afraid of naked things.

Break the hard sod

My tongue is so dry it sticks to the roof of my mouth like so many octopian tentaclay suckers. I mustn’t wet it. Moistening only leads to trouble. I know we grew up to invent moon bounces and pirate-themed mini-golf courses, but it still feels like kind of a bummer we couldn’t have thought of it earlier. Will you ever go down a waterslide that toilet bowls into a death chute without pulling your trapezius? You might have, once.

No curative agent

I’m so sorry that I thought I was powerful, and I believed it so hard you believed it, too. That egg smell? I maintain to this day that it was not me. How did we ever sit on second-hand couches? Why do I think that you might still be thinking about this, or about me at all?

Breeding ground

Geographical and generational vocabulary variations. Someone should be studying that. But not me. I’m going to watch the dragonflies do it and listen to the bullfrogs giggle like drunk businessmen. Oh, wait: That’s boring, too.

I am posting just to have posted something new.

2008-08-27T15:40:00.004-05:00

I have eaten six sugar cookies today.

I have lugged things. I have been the first awake person in a building filled with many sleeping people. I have decided not to worry about a many-legged bug. I have slightly electrocuted myself: It only went partway up my arm. I have looked for things.

I think I'm going to start posting regularly again.

When I was very small I watched the entire Democratic National Convention. I really, really wanted Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro to win. I sat in my blue bean bag. Now I would rather slightly electrocute myself every five minutes than watch any political convention. Are conventions for nine-year-olds?

This is disconnected.

Piles of recycling

2008-02-27T15:33:00.003-06:00

For some reason, I have this celebrity magazine from Nov. 1999. It is called US. It is the earlier incarnation of USWeekly. Many of the features, like "Fashion Police" and "Loose Talk" remain, but the overall editorial style is classier, and real actors, like Annette Bening or Kristin Scott Thomas, actually talk to them, and they recommend independent movies. US, I mean.

It makes me feel sad to look at it, like maybe US was born with good intentions but discovered that no one really cared unless it was being snarky or trashy. Or maybe they just figured out how to make more money.

US is like the naive child who says she will never be a corporate cog and USWeekly is like the adult with a mortgage to pay.

This post might make me seem crazy, so I'm going all out: Last night while I was watching The Biggest Loser, the two brothers reminded me of my cats. One was clearly Eli and the other clearly Ollie. The younger one who looks way worse with his shirt off is Ollie. Also, if there was a Biggest Loser for cats, Ollie would definitely be on it. Eli would be on Intervention.

If Ollie and Eli were US and USWeekly, they would be neither. If I were US or USWeekly, I would be USWee.

Hillary and my mom

2008-01-28T16:03:00.001-06:00

My mom is the one with the huuuuge grin. Isn't she cute?

Candystriper I

2008-01-17T14:53:00.000-06:00

They will let anybody in here. They will suit them up and propel them toward coffee machines bigger than those old computers that took up whole foyers.

The uniforms are fucking attractive. I’m a milkmaid, a mermaid, a lover of order and kindness and order again. My hat is so very starchy: hot-cha.

They make me put on gold lipstick in the ladies’; I imagine it to be de rigeur until I notice the others’ lips gone gooey and naked.

Forty-seven people I touched have died. We get our thirty thousand beats, and when they’re done, yowza. Look out, old people, it is a day to die. Young people, too, let’s drink coffee till our lips quiver and shoot spittle into the crevasse.

The smell of liver makes me vomit a pale, fleshy crescent into the water cooler, and the nurses join hands to push me out of their fold. They do not do anything. They talk to each other. That is all. The phone rings and rings until the sound of it stops being a sound at all and becomes a feeling like that time when you came home from school and no one was there.

Towels, fighting with their looped white fibers, their stiff odor and the promise that things can be wiped: I hang them.

What do you mean, I don’t get paid?

Look I made five tiny paintings

2007-12-29T15:40:00.000-06:00

Midwife IV

2007-12-16T15:38:00.000-06:00

Yesterday this baby plopped into my palms with an hourglass figure: eensie breasts spurting droplets of milk, hips swiveling as she effortlessly assumed the lotus position. She could hold her head up right away. Her eyes had something behind them, and it was immediately clear she would not need sleep till midnight.

Fearing the next step (an even smaller fully formed woman popping out of her nether regions, and then an even smaller one from that even smaller one and on and on until they were just invisibly small fully formed woman giving birth to one another into infinity), I plugged her up, put her in my pocket and took her to Chile.

Deep in the forest there is a miniature forest that houses kittens fierce as jaguars and mini-horses with joints that actually move. The trick to finding it is looking closely.

My baby-woman seemed overwhelmed, and her pelvic area was bloated, stretching and mottling the skin. I looked at her in my magnifying mirror that I use to tweeze my eyebrows and observed her gooseflesh.

Really, she had a far better chance of ever finding that cute little land than I ever did. I gave her a little shove with my index finger and off she scuttled. I watched her until I saw her harness a millipede and ride off on it through the underbrush. That was pretty gross.

At night I say a prayer. Prayers don’t all have to be to the same God or even use the words thee or thine. I say I love the Universe and everything and everybody in it. These will be my last words. These will be my last words.

Midwife III

2007-12-10T08:52:00.000-06:00

I have written a bestseller: The New Child: Borne of Gristle and Hair, Stewed in Musk. Okay, so it actually isn’t a true bestseller in the sense that its principle audience is comprised of mad scientists and kindly women. There aren’t many mad scientists, and the women are afraid to read it in public lest they be labeled quirky.

Also, I am told the reptilian brain is inherently frightened of the title; it seems smelly. But I will not change it.

The basic tenet: Conventional wisdom states that children are made of people—but you can totally create your own with everyday objects. And then there are instructions.

Gather. We have been doing it for long before we even knew to be afraid of rats. Gather like an addict scraping precious dust from foil and grout. Hard children are made of dog whiskers, men’s toenail clippings (the yellower the better), and spittle.

Sperm does play a role, but it is very slippery. Recommended that you put it in a receptacle directly. Like your vagina.

But if you want a soft child, it is far more difficult to attain. It is not made of love, you fucking sap. It is made of goose down, your grandmother’s biscuits, and lead paint.

Birth is like being pitched from a great height into a shallow lake, except the opposite, a splash into a cold so sharp it takes your breath away. Don’t feel bad if your baby comes out blue; that’s the luckiest thing, not ever having to breathe.

Midwife II

2007-12-04T08:49:00.000-06:00

These are the way babies get born: square, seal-shaped, doubled, trebled, people-shaped, red-headed. Wormy and way too small.

“Oh, the possibility!”

She smiles and begins an exercise I prescribed in her third month. She traces a cylinder over and around her poky belly button. It will awaken awareness in the baby of its journey down the chute of life. So I said.

“Will her eyes be blue?” she says, dreamily. Also I make her thump out, on her belly, the rhythms I learn from my steel drum class. It increases intelligence and grace. The baby will never need spectacles.

Its eyes best be blue, or this be the milkman’s child. So said the peas. “Oh, yes, oh, yes.” Things I know, I repeat.

I close my eyes and feel around inside of her, warm and riddled with stalactites. The inside is pink when I shine my flashlight.

“A girl.”

Or a boy. You know, as long as it isn’t jaundiced or epileptic or dead.

What I lack in my kit: a pair of scissors. The child’s head rents a jagged path between birth canal and that other, dirty hole. Squashy potato head, plugged with slime. It shoots out like a star, and there I am holding a whole child I did not hurt.

I am prescient. I am a born midwife. I have to quit before I kill someone.

Midwife I

2007-11-27T10:31:00.000-06:00

One thousand four-leaf clovers plus a vine of sweet peas makes it healthy. Gather the clovers by the light of a full moon. If even one three-leaf clover makes it into your haul, that baby is fucked, limbless. You can get the sweet pea vine from your local greenhouse.

Rub lavender pebbles from the health food store wholesale bins onto the mother’s ripe tummy. Pour hydrogen peroxide and erase that weird line that bisects the lower half-circle, turning babies into sour peaches with hard, wrinkled centers. Send the lady to the salon, for general upkeep and removal of the business down there. Then, pray a full rosary with the dough-faced nun that keeps watch over the world from her perch on public television.

Make small talk: Any day now, any day, pretty lady. Full head of hair! Two little eyeteeth!

Never, ever say ‘parasitic twin.’ Reassure. Do not say ‘gnawed nipples.’ Especially do not giggle after you’ve said it.

Gather the instruments: metal tongs, four sets of tweezers (pointy, not pointy, spare not pointy, blue (pointy or no, no matter)), good book, boiling water (best to keep a pot on at all times), pottery jug filled one quarter of the way with goat’s blood (milk will do in a pinch), kerosene lamp, clean cloth, shiny brass door knob, and a potato.

I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.

Top Secret discussion

2007-11-15T09:20:00.000-06:00

So, fellow writers of Top Secret Project Number One? Can we post stuff from it on our blogs and send stuff out from it to other folks and stuff like that? Because it is the only thing I am writing that I like. Some of it doesn't make sense without the other stuff, but some of them stand alone...how do we feel about this?

Turns out I'm Asian

2007-11-05T12:30:00.001-06:00

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

I like the new thing the tea people are doing

2007-10-29T14:58:00.001-05:00

Where they put the tea into clear mesh bags instead of that opaque white paper.

Also, just discovered that the "My Bra" song is also a real song, not just a marketing campaign. Mya sings it. It is four minutes long. You should probably download it right now.

Hold up, The Grown-Up

2007-10-24T09:12:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I know I usually just whine on this blog, but I'm putting that all on hold to create an obsessive blog about "A Shot at Love With Tila Teqila."

Whose brilliant mind made this show? That giant bed? Brilliant! The country fair in which stuffed animals can act out secret scenes of love? Brilliant!

And the people! Why am I not a contestant? I promise to do 1,000 sit-ups a day if I can be on "A Second Shot at Love With Tila Tequila." I already have my costume planned: Dr Manhattan, mais oui!

Oh, Tila Tequila, I cannot wait to toy with your split heart.

Missed connection rejection

2007-10-19T16:34:00.001-05:00

There's this one dude who has rejected me twice for separate posts. One time:

No thanks, I have plenty to choose from, and my current choice is older and more mature than you. Thanks anyways.

Another time:

No thanks, I prefer more normal women, Thanks anyways!

Also, someone posted a response post to my post today that said:

You have some mental issues of your own girl!

People are silly. And "anyways" is sooooo not a word. Nyah nyah.

Also, here's that orangutan I promised

2007-10-18T14:18:00.000-05:00

Meghan, I made some mock-ups for your book cover, too.

Hallucination made real

2007-10-18T14:16:00.000-05:00

I thought that I had hallucinated this commercial. It turns out to be true. I made my bra.

An open letter to the people on my train car

2007-10-05T09:24:00.000-05:00

Dear Trainfolk,

I'm sorry. I have a new phone.

You see, my old phone vibrated while it was ringing, so I could feel it as well as hear it. Also, the ring tone was Deacon Blues by Steely Dan for, like, two years, and now I feel like that is the sound I answer to. It's my jam.

I am having trouble with "Sweet Nuts," as my free, provided ring tone on my new phone is called. It just doesn't feel like it's mine.

I felt just as irritated as you did when that idiot wouldn't answer his goddamn phone on the train. I, too, was especially aggravated by the weird tinny electropop tone that went on and on and on. Imagine my acute embarrassment at discovering that idiot was me.

Before you get all up in arms about ring tones being annoying anyway, I have tried the vibrate option. It just is not as powerful as my old phone. It does not work.

Enough excuses: I'm sorry to have assaulted your eardrums with "Sweet Nuts." It will not happen again.

Love,

Sarah

Hotel Woman am I

2007-09-27T21:30:00.001-05:00

All day long I dream about my hotel. And then I get here and hide hide hide hide hide.

Today we went to a seminar where we learned how to write. First you pick up this tool called a pen.

I organized my thoughts in konvoluts and also drew some more animals. I am particularly proud of the orangutan, which I may post later, when I have access to a scanner.

Golly, I wish I had more freedom to just tell the Internet everything. I'm feeling confessional right now. I want to be like that stewardess who got busted for telling all of the propietary secrets of the world of air hospitality.

One serious impediment to Hotel Womanry: No smoking.

Also, I think our Whitehead plays a hilarious joke on all residents, which is that the time on the alarm clocks is set to the wrong meridiem stage. So, when I set my alarm for 6:45 a.m., it didn't go off, because the regular time was screwed up, so it went off at 6:45 p.m. instead. Does that make sense? Our Whitehead, making the businesspeople late. Adorable.

Tomorrow. Home.

For me it is EOD. But not for everyone.

2007-09-26T15:24:00.000-05:00

Gosh, I'm tired and cranky. Business sure takes a lot out of a body. I would like nothing more than to spend the rest of the day watching HBO.

Maybe Kathy and I can sneak out and smoke cigarettes out back behind the hotel.

I am going to Boston this afternoon

2007-09-25T15:10:00.000-05:00

EOM

That means "End Of Message."

I will talk to you on Friday.

Else I will post incessantly from my hotel room EOD.

That means "End Of (the) Day."

Either way.

More than two paragraphs, chosen at random

2007-09-24T22:03:00.000-05:00

“Did you live near each other?” Ang asks. Ang dwells on the idea of neighbors because we have never spoken to ours. I tell her to put her head down. Walk briskly. Machines can turn your lights on for you now.

“Very near,” he says. “We spent the night in each others’ rooms several times a week. Some said we were close.”

She turns her face up to his, and the angle is such that he can see directly up her nostrils, which I’ve told her again and again are too furry for a girl. He smiles and touches the tip of his index finger to the tip of her nose.

“Your father needed someone to take care of him,” he says.

“Me, too,” she says, and she snuggles more deeply into his lap. He shifts; she probably is pinching his groin with her shoulder.

“You, too,” he murmurs.

“Me, too,” I say softly, softly, so they can’t hear me. I wedged my body under the desk while M. switched reels. These are the parts of my body that are either asleep or in pain: neck, forehead, right foot, that place between rib cage and hip. I feel creased. I want to whimper even though I know it means I will be caught. I want to be caught.

“Meh,” I say. They continue their stroking and staring. “Weeehf,” I say. “Wheeeeeem.”

M. does not turn his head, but Ang does. She smiles at me.

Today, part 2

2007-09-20T12:38:00.000-05:00

Today, I am a little better. It is because I decided that getting that stressed out about anything isn't worth it. I was being a grown-up yesterday. Today I'm me again.

Maybe this belongs on the other blog, but one of the things I really like about Munson is that Frances is 38, and everybody keeps telling her that she's still young and just beginning to make her way in the world.

Also, yesterday I overheard one of my co-workers on the phone referring to people on one of our lists as "girls," when the list was of some pretty high-powered people, and I don't think it was due to sexism, but to the fact that he's probably not a grown-up in his mind and so, unless he's actually, physically met someone else, he can't think of them as a grown-up either. Maybe I'm being kind. Maybe I'm projecting.

It is freezing ass cold in my office today.

Today

2007-09-19T10:48:00.000-05:00

Today is not a good day because nothing is going right at my job. Why does my (meaning one's) job determine the kind of day I (meaning one) will have? Discuss.

Holy marathon

2007-09-15T19:39:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I wore high heels for 18 hours.

Today I "ran" 23 miles.

My calves hurt.

Fleas in my eyes, fleas on my scalp

2007-09-13T21:10:00.000-05:00

I have learned the source of my itching. You guessed it: fleas! Ollie had fleas. Now he doesn't have fleas. Then our house had fleas. Then Abby and I cleaned it for many, many hours using many poisonous products. Now our house doesn't have fleas. But my lungs feel soupy.

I have to wake up at 3 a.m. to go to New York City for 12 hours. Boo.

Okay, I'm better now

2007-09-12T19:43:00.000-05:00

Apparently caffeine is linked with my self-esteem. Heck, I'll probably even post more stuff from my novel. Not right this second though.

Right now I'm going to talk about my cats: Until about 40 minutes ago, there was but one, Eli. Now there are two, Eli and Ollie. I'm afraid they're going to joust for our affection on the mini-horses as soon as they find the cat-shaped armor under the kitchen sink. But I guess that's what it's there for.

Is it possible to be allergic to one cat, but not another? Because my eyes itch. Also my scalp.

I feel gross.

2007-09-12T09:28:00.001-05:00

I think it's because I put those two random paragraphs up, and it's clear how much they need revision, but the thing is that I'm not at the point where I want to revise anything because I haven't finished with the first draft and the truth is that I'm not even sure I want to finish the first draft.

I only want things today. I do not want things.

I wonder if you'll be able to see the italics in this font. I hope so, otherwise the above paragraph won't make any sense.

I feel gross. I want to take down my whole blog. I'm not going to. But I want to.

Anyway, I'm only going to post small things that I feel are complete now. Because no one really wants comments on a work-in-progress. Also, I think two paragraphs of a novel don't make sense.

Those enough justifications for me? Do I feel better now?

Nope. Still feel gross.

Two paragraphs, chosen at random

2007-09-11T20:45:00.000-05:00

All the kids want to sit in the balcony, and it doesn’t look right—top-heavy and like it might sway and crumble. The kids would have fun if it fell; they wouldn’t break. Their bones are still pliable. But the parents would. Break. And then M. would have lawsuits on his hands, and that’s something else he objects to. I imagine. Lawsuits are neither profitable nor productive to the entity being sued.

You sue me. I am being sued by you. So sue me. If my name were Sue I wouldn’t go around starting bar fights. I’d use my name as a verb. Nanc. You better watch out or I’ll nanc you. Nancing would be something like killing, except gentler. It would be like a temporary removal of a portion of your soul. You’d feel it and wish it weren’t happening, and then it would come back in a rush and you’d feel grateful, grateful enough to hug the person who’d nanced you.

I have resorted to drawing.

2007-09-10T19:14:00.000-05:00

I still am not posting anything from my novel. Nyah-nyah, cyberspace.

I am far too busy drawing little animals and working on a TOP SECRET PROJECT.

Avoidance tactics

2007-09-07T13:52:00.000-05:00

Have you noticed how my posts are getting shorter and shorter and less about anything? That's because I'm consumed with the idea of posting novel excerpts on here, but then I lose my nerve.

I am a wussy pussy.

Unattainable goal: Just post something.

Oh no!

2007-09-07T13:35:00.001-05:00

My childhood is crying right now because Madeleine L'Engle just died.

That dark spot

2007-09-05T21:16:00.000-05:00

That dark spot? In the center? That's a whale.

Version as a verb

2007-09-05T14:43:00.000-05:00

I do a lot of versioning at work, which means that I ever-so-subtly re-write pieces to appeal to different audience segments. I'm going to write a versioned story. Mark my words.

Possibly attainable goal: Announce my intentions on this blog, thereby making myself feel guilty for not delivering on my promises.

oh dag

2007-09-04T19:07:00.000-05:00

Look how smokin' hot Abby is.

I have kind of a lot to do

2007-09-04T12:55:00.001-05:00

The world did not stop while I was on vacation. How disappointing.

Today at work I am writing about a variety of very grown-up things, ranging from sourcing people to promoting speakers. I bet all the people in Maine are canoeing today.

Completely off-topic: I have had this thought about vegetarianism: I think grown-ups think of it as a childlike choice. Children tend to be choosier about what they eat (my friend used to babysit for a little girl who ate only white things); also, it seems childishly tender-hearted to be a vegetarian. Be sensible, the grown-ups say, have some beef.

Also, I'm not sure if it's ever grammatically correct to double-colon in one sentence, but I really like the way it looks.

I have kind of a lot to do.

The overarching theme of my life is laziness

2007-08-24T14:26:00.000-05:00

Today I am wearing lipliner for eyeliner because I couldn't find the eyeliner in my makeup basket. First I thought it looked kind of cool, and then I thought it made me look tired, and then I thought that was accurate, and why not just let people in to my exhaustion from the get-go?

I am going to Maine for a week. I will not be looking at the computers while I am there. I will be looking at the books instead.

The joke on my popsicle stick

2007-08-24T12:26:00.001-05:00

Where do books sleep?

Under their covers.

Super-powerful thigh muscles

2007-08-23T08:48:00.000-05:00

I decided to run home from work yesterday. All was going well until a gaggle of babies and puppies popped out at me, forcing me to the cobblestone section of the sidewalk, where I twisted my ankle.

It was the best almost-fall of my life, mostly because it was the only one. If I'm about to fall, I fall. My super-powerful thigh muscles saved me. Time slowed down, I could feel my body straining against and overcoming gravity. Six months ago, I would have skinned my face.

Except that I strained my super-powerful left thigh, and now I'm having trouble walking, let alone running. Abby had to come pick me up.

I feel dumb. There is a 1.6% chance that I will be doing 23 miles on Saturday. Yesterday it was a 100% chance. Boo.

I also blame The New Yorker

2007-08-22T12:56:00.000-05:00

Mostly for despair, in the world at large.

I hate the way writers look; their eyes are always saying, "I have seen things" in not so many words. All of the writers in The New Yorker have seen things. Things that I have not seen.

Except I did find this piece in The New Yorker about grown-ups that I rather like. I like the first two, but not the second two.

I clearly remember wanting, as a child, to slam my head into the tabletop until it bled as I listened to my aunts and uncles talking. That feeling persists to this day.

But they all gave me marathon money, so bless them.

Unattainable goal: Stop panicking that my aunts and uncles might be reading my blog.

Grad school ruined me.

2007-08-21T15:27:00.000-05:00

I had food poisoning twice during grad school. I'd never had it before and have never had it since. Does that mean grad school causes food poisoning? Yes.

Also, I think it sucked out my sense of humor. Or maybe the food poisoning did that. Are there documented cases of food poisoning causing sense-of-humor loss?

WARNING: About to get a bit personal. I wish I could figure out how to make my font smaller to do so.

My blog makes me feel like a Writer instead of a Businesswoman. I think about my book a lot more, and so I'm having these completely obvious revelations. I feel better now.

I should write a book that reminds me of me. I should write a funny book.

I am dumb for not realizing that lot earlier.

It is grad school's fault. (Shut up, Kathy, I know you totally loved it.)

I like blaming other things for my shortcomings.

Unattainable goal: Start taking responsibility.

What if he really loved her?

2007-08-20T20:15:00.000-05:00

I realized why I hate my outline so much. One part of it hinges on someone (character called M.)being insincere in his love for one of the main characters (character called Ang)--even though it's not a book about romantic love. For some reason it's very important for me to clarify that, like you'll think I'm a pussy if I'm writing a book about romantic love or something. M.'s getting revenge for something. That's more bad-ass, right?

Except I would never want to read that, even if it were funny or written well or whatever. So I'm writing it instead?

I know why I did it: There's a part of me that can't believe men actually love women. I think boys can love girls though. (And girls can love girls, and boys, boys.) And M., at least, is a grown-up (in spirit and age both: made of mutual funds, etc.)

I blame television. And my parents.

What if M. really loved Ang? Then the other main character (Nanc) could be wrong about him. It's way more fun to watch someone's world collapse than to have someone vindicated for being cynical about love.

And this is why outlines blow. Back to my really long roll of packing paper.

Puppet shows make it all better

2007-08-20T12:41:00.000-05:00

Why I love where I work:

I just said, "I'm cranky," and Kevin said, "Want me to do a puppet show?" And then he knelt down behind my monitors and his hands became Frank and Sheila and they went to the fire station for cotton candy.

And now I feel better.

What makes a grown-up?

2007-08-20T12:10:00.000-05:00

Lack of emotion

Healthful habits

Financial security

Good sense

Grown-ups are made of mutual funds and hymnals and regrets. That's what grown-ups are made of.

Smoky eyes and the natural look

2007-08-17T13:06:00.000-05:00

Work: My voice is perky and a little breathless, like honey-no-one-will-ever-know-what-a-crater-face-you-are-makeup-makes-you-better-as-a-human-being.

Life: So I'm trying to follow an outline for this book (The Grown-up). It seems like a Really Good Idea, so maybe that's why I hate doing it.

Lately I've noticed that I only actually mean about 25% of what I say. The rest of the time I'm either joking or being a dick or both. Unattainable goal: Be more sincere.

Frequently Asked Questions

2007-08-16T13:45:00.001-05:00

Q: What do you intend to do with this blog?

A: Oh, I'll probably just write about other stuff I'm writing about.

Q: Won't that be boring for other people?

A: Well, I'll try to do it in an entertaining way, but to answer your question: Yes.

Q: What are you writing about right now when you're not writing this post?

A: Agents and resellers.

Q: That sounds awesome.

A: That wasn't a question, and also you're wrong.

Q: Why is your blog called "The grown-up"?

A: It's a novel I'm writing. I might post excerpts from it from time to time. Also, I might whine about the process of writing it. Also, I might write about stuff I'm writing for work, and when I'm writing stuff for work, the subject matter is usually very grown up. Like agents and resellers.

Also, it's important to note that most of the stuff I write about for work is very boring, so I will warn you if I'm about to talk about staffing for an extended period of time, for example. I never will though. Talk about staffing for an extended period, I mean.

Also, I don't feel like a grown-up, even though I clearly am one.

Q: Are you extremely hot?

A: Yes. Next question, please.

Q: Will you meet me at Lalo's after work?

A: This is getting creepy. Will you buy me a margarita?

Q: Hey, I'm the one asking the questions.

A: [Silence]