…I have new things: "A Conventional Woman" at 52/250 A Year of Flash, "Cat Nip" at Tainted Tea, and "Christmas in July" at Wufniks. All three are also here under "Words In Print."

…I like that photo above. It's a tad suggestive. Okay, more than that. But they're both clothed and they both seem very…relaxed. happy. comfortable. in their own skin. in each other's skin. Just enjoy the picture.

…I wrote a lot yesterday. A LOT. I think nine stories. I think also, that they were all pretty good, not much rubbish. I read stuff by Rae Bryant and Diane Williams and that made me want to write. Diane Williams is a marvel. Her work is odd, often times deep but then it can feel light and frivilous, too. Sometimes she dances in between tenses and from first-person to second-person to third-person plural all in the same piece. Here is a short, short story so you'll have a flavor. (And by the way, I think she was doing flash fiction long before any of us were doing it.)

Ecstasy or Passion

While I am alive, I have raptures. I have troubles with my nose. When I fell, I broke both of my arms. I didn't know I had broken my arms. I sat down after I fell. There was semen on my penis. My hands were together on my belly, the way Bob's were, as if somebody had tampered with my body. Somebody else--I did not do it!--must have killed me.

…See?

…Someone once posted this: "If you had to choose between being happy or writing, which would it be?" I don't know why, but I think about that question a lot. Of course, you can say they're the same thing, but then that's cheating, isn't it? I can't imagine not being able to write. I try not to take it for granted, either. I try to be grateful and respectful of the craft.

…I got the new Adele disc and Ratatat. The latter is a lot of ambient sounds and muffled talking. It's the audio equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting. It's hard to listen to as background music. It demands to be sorted and attended to.

…My son and I watched Russell Brand on Saturday Night Live. The guy has those big, moose eyes and that high forehead and the Jesus hair which taken altogether make him look like a frightened wildebeast. I didn't like him prior to SNL, but you know what, the guy slayed his monolouge. Very clever. Didn't read any cue cards. I was rolling laughing (but not on the floor.)

…The Oscars are on Sunday. I'll watch. Of course. Films are one of my 8 Things You Can Never Have Enough Of. I try to remind myself beforehand, though, that this is an award show where everyone thanks obscure people I don't know, that the Oscars, often and ultimately, is a boring affair.

…I like these things today:

"I'm sorry I didn’t have time to write you a shorter letter." Mark Twain

"One thing does not follow the other."
"Ever read a book that made you cry like a vodka divorce?" Sean Lovelace
"I think it would be a good idea." Mahatma Ghandi

"Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it." Jane Wagner

"Beauty is a form of genius--higher, indeed, than genius, because it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world, like sunlight or springtime, or the reflection in the dark water of that silver shell we call the moon ." Oscar Wilde

-"Long before Einstein thought up his theory of relativity, any child could explain that some days passed more slowly than others and some weeks dragged pretty much into eternity."
-"Men with money are rarely slim."
--Meg Rosoff, "Just In Case"

-"The dead are as sentimental as anyone else." Stuart Dybek

-"His piss is not piss, he drinks only mineral water and produces a cloudy chartreuse flow that smells of summer grass."
-"Insects got caught in the warm putty of the windows and horseflies drifted up and down the panes. They were furry and weighted, blunt, and their heads were blue."
-"Laura put Callie down to sleep when they got home. She wondered why sleep is down. She thought it was like a sinking. Callie was afraid to go to sleep."
-"She felt the round covered balls of her eyes, the boned sockets, the hard line of her jaw. Her face felt old to here when she touched it. She hadn't seen her face since she was a child. She remembered seeing it that night in the mirror; the halll light a sudden blindness, her mother laughing, the sweet sick smell as she leaned close to tie a red ribbon too loose in Laura's hair."
--Jayne Anne Phillips

"You can't gain much if your name's not in lights, but you can't lose either. Soemtimes this attitude catches up with me; I wonder if I'm trying to shield myself from the trials of competition, the heartache and paranoia that come with being in the fray."
"The face of a harsh fact is this: success is a long shot."
-"Restaurant workers are the urban equivalent of filed hands. About 40 percent are "undocumented aliens," and many of the rest are either rehab cases , runaways, or parolees."
-"I didn't know yet that what is done well is invisible."
-"After all, English is my second language. My first language is gutter."
-"If you expect gratitude around her, you're doomed."
-"Who has't encountered madness at some point in their lives, in a relative or friend?
--'You don't need perfume in a hospital,' he answers.
--'Wrong, my love. The hospital is where you need it most.'
-"The name of the game is endurance. I've seen a lot of writers drop away after a few decent stories and disappear."
--Michael Greenburg


"For a child, memory is a reservoir that doesn't empty." Aharon Appelfeld

"I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that spark should burn out in a brilliant
blaze than it hsould be stilled by dry rot. I would
rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in
magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper funciton of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time."
--Jack London

"They had entered the stage of fact races where the protests of the body overrule the willingness of the mind." Tom Jordan

"Whatever you do will be very insignificant, but it is very important that you do it." Gandhi

"I've learned that you can tell a lot by a person by how (s)he handles these three things: rainy days, luggage and tangled Christmas tree lights." Maya Angelou

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart." Helen Keller

"Love has a hem to her garment that reaches to the very dust, it sweeps the stairs from the streets, and because it can, it must." Mother Teresa

"Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind." Johann Wolgang van Goethe


Most of us miss out on life's big prizes. The Pulitzer. The Nobel.
Oscars. Tonys. Emmys. But we're all eligible for life's small
pleasures. A pat on the back. A kiss behind the ear. A four-pound
bass. A full moon. An empty parking space. A crackling fire. A great
meal. A glorious sunset. Hot soup. Cold beer.

-- Anonymous