--I WOULD TELL YOU THE FUNNIEST THING ABOUT ME, BUT YOU'D HAVE TO BE VERY LOOPED TO GET IT, AND BESIDES, THIS IS NOT REALLY THE BEST PLACE FOR GIVING CONFESSIONS, IS IT?


…Today I am driving to Portland for the first ever HOUSEFIRE reading at Michael Riley Campbell's pad. It should be mucho fun. Festivities start at 7pm. Cover charge is $5.00 and/or two six packs. Really.

…I am presently reading many books at the same time. (I never used to do that.) Only one is a novel, though, so it's easy to weave in and out of things.
At this moment in time, I think there may be more outstanding women writers than men. Maybe even twice as many. Three times as many, perhaps. At least that's how it seems to me.
Don’t shoot me, I’m the piano player.

...I've been listenting to "The Smiths" a lot lately. I used to think they were overrated but now I realize it was just me.
It's always fucking Me, isn't it?

…I watched "Momento" the other night. It's spectacular. You should go right now to Blockbuster or Red Box or Netflix and get it. Christopher Nolan is so very clever. He also did "Inception." I'd seen "Momento" before, but it was even better this time. Guy Pearce was brilliant. How did he not even get nominated for that performance?

…Yesterday I wrote you a very long message. I did. Really.
It was the sweetest thing ever. I didn't hold back. I made up new words because the old ones didn't have the right weight or texture. It was a nuanced note without any typos or smiley face emoticons. The sentences I strung together were similar to music. Some of it was sweeping woodwinds, others plinks with some brass. The choruses reached all the way up to the sun. It was easy to make beautiful sounds because the letter was about you, to you, entirely you-centric.
If you'd seen this note you would have cried until your eyes bled. But you also would have thanked me quite a bit and said, "I love you so damn much!" and you would have desired to kiss me, or more than that.
In the note I suggested some things. I made my intentions very, very clear, and though they had dangerous implications, you would have been cool with that. I hope so anyway.
The reason I didn't show you the letter is because I stuffed it inside an old-fashioned beer bottle, the kind with a stopper, the kind they probably still sell in Germany or Switzerland. It was an ale bottle. I put the note in there and I went to the ocean, specifically to the Puget Sound, and I side-armed that thing as far as I could. I heard it plop and saw it rock and waddle up on the surface of the water. I even gave the note and the bottle containing it an awkward little wave for good luck.
When you're at the beach this summer, keep your eyes peeled. With some good fortune and the current at its back, I imagine my message will be washing up on the shore where you are, say, sometime around the second week of June.

…I am parceling out Natalie Goldberg's book, "Writing Down the Bones" and trying not to read it too fast, sharing bits with you. Take a look at this:
"Writers are great lovers.
They fall in love with other writers. That's how they learn to write. They take on a writer, read everything by him or her, read it over again until they understand how the writer moves, puases, and sees. That's what being a lover is: stepping out of yourself, stepping into someone else's skin."