--THERE ARE A LOT OF DIFFERENT WAYS TO DO THIS

…Last night my son played guitar and sang a song he wrote called, “It’s a Calm Day in Seattle.” The song is terrific. I know you think I’m saying that because he’s my kid and all, but really, it was a great song. Sample lyric: (“It’s a calm day in Seattle
and I’ve been trying to fight this battle
to see what I really need to be.”)
It’s about this kid who doesn’t feel like she can be herself around her friends
When he was done my daughter, he and I wrote a song, or the husk of one, together.
“She came back on a Tuesday
purple black and blue
hiding behind those glasses
as if you never knew.”)
It’s a song, “Bruised,” about a daughter who comes home to visit her Dad after being physically abused by her husband.
Yeah, it’s dark, but hey, this is me we’re talking about. Not me in the abuser or abusee, but me as in writer.
I wish I could play an instrument and write music. I’d pop out a few songs every day, even though it’s a hell of a lot harder than it looks.

…We have been re-enjoying “Six Feet Under” the last few days. It’s so brilliant. Tonight it’s Season 2 of “The Sopranos.”

…I have been in a writing lull lately. I feel lethargic when it comes to writing. I don’t know why. It’s not really writer’s block but just a blasé attitude. You should come over here and kick my ass, slap me around and tell me to get to work. If you called me a lot of cruel, hurtful names, I bet that’d fire me up plenty.
I am coming up on 500. I think that might be a reason. Maybe. Maybe not. I hit #497 today.

…There’s a new site called “Take it to the Streets Poetry” that periodically publishes downloadable pamphlets and asks you do drop a few of them behind at restaurants or the subway or whatever other obscure place you might think of, the idea being to share poetry and writing with people who otherwise wouldn’t read it. I think that is a stellar idea. I like that notion quite a lot.

…Tomorrow is a big publishing day for many online lit journals. People seem to like the 15th to release new editions. I have four different things hitting.

…These things are pretty good on a Thursday:

"Wisdom comes alone through suffering." Aeschylus 525-456 BC

"Life is wasted on the living." from "Six Feet Under"


--"Humiliation is a visual medium."
--"You absolutely must be able to fake sincerity."
--"I want to grow up in a place where people dream." from "Raising Home"

"If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice how he acts when he loses money." New England Proverb

"There are rooms here I don't think I've been in." anon

"If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it!" Jonathan Winters

"The only evidence of you was me."
"Regret can last forever."
"How much of you did I make up from the start? How much did I not see at all?" -- Rebecca Brown

"Since the novelist is himself a human being, thre is an affinity between him and his subject matter which is absent from many other forms of art." Forester

‎"We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another." ~Luciano de Crescenzo

“It seems to me that when you write a short story, you have to cut off both the beginning and the end. We writers do most of our lying in those spaces. You must write shorter, to make it as short as possible.” ~ Anton Chekhov