...I have a new Twitter fiction, haiku-type thingy called "Mirror" up at Unfold and also here under "Words In Print." I'm not sure if it's any good. I don't think I like it. I come off as if I'm trying too hard.

...I used to try to defend Seattle against people who claimed it rained too much here. The fact is, it does rain too much here. We use up all our vocabulary describing the rain--showers, drizzzle, downpour, deluge, light rain, heavy rain, big fat ass rain...I could have filled several bathtubs in the last two hours with how much water has fallen. But rain is supposed to purify the air, so there's that.

...Tomorrow is a sad day. Actually they've all been depressing the last week or so. We drive to central Washington and drop off my daughter. I was going to write her something, but then thought that'd be kind of hokey. I'm not above hokey, but the words are slippery when it comes to that subject.

...I rewrote/edited an especially violent scene in my novel yesterday. Today I read it back and it's quite good. Often times when I read something back I think, "That's crap." I'm nearing the end of the edit. At least this round anyway.

...Yesterday I mentioned Barry Graham at Dogzplot. Here's some of his fine writing from Elimae:


Two Fictions
Barry Graham

Smoke
And so it begins, like this, waiting too long for a lazy train out of West Toledo. Sugar white smoke ascends from the broken window of a nearby tool shed. On the concrete platform couples embrace, preparing to go their separate ways, pretending next time they meet they will pull out a map and choose a place, Ann Arbor or Los Angeles or Atlantic City, and that's where they'll belong, where they'll build a life and live happy, forever, like Shrek and Fiona or sharks or birthday party magic they no longer believe in. And why should they. The train hasn't left yet, but they both look eagerly towards the tracks, anticipating its departure.


The Great Wall
And so it begins, like this, waiting too long for a lazy train out of South Camden. The sky expands, turns lemonade pink along the river line before she departs. I pat her ass and we kiss for a long time but not long enough and I cry when I think she's not looking. Ask the Chinese or the Germans about secrets and revolutions and masonry, I say, and she starts to nod then stops. No need, she says, the French tell me other things. So I nod too, neither of us knowing what we meant. Why she's coming and going. Why the sun sets so beautifully on such occasions.