--I THINK THE WAY YOU EAT YOUR TOAST IS ADORABLE

…I have a new story, "Maps" up at Curbside Splendor, a story, "The Hard Dance" at Awosting Alchemy and a poem, "Sunglasses," about domestic violence up at S/Word.
All of them are also here under "Words in Print."

…My hands are shaking.
I hate that.
It would be hell to have Parkinson’s. I just voted and my script was all jagged as if I was signing my name with a razor blade.
Prior to voting, I blew all the cedar shavings off the decks. It took over an hour. The vibrations from that machine get into my nervous system somehow, and I ended up being numb in one arm and have a twitchy thing going on in the other.
This typically lasts an entire day.

…Prior to all that, I ran five miles on the treadmill.
I listened to Alicia Keys.
I think she is a doll.
I think she should make dozens and dozens of albums.
I hope her marriage survives. I'm not betting on it, but I wish she would find love and that it would stick.

…I’m almost done with Lidia Yuknavitch's astonishing memoir, "The Chronology of Water." Her story, delivered, ironically, without a chronological timeline, is rendered in ruthless truth and her writing is lyrical and lovely.
Here are a few samples:

"I didn't know yet that sexuality is an entire continent. I didn't know yet how many times a person can be born."
"Women live their lives secretly wanting their lives to become movies."
"People are often asking me if the things in my short stories really happened to me. I always think this is the same question to ask of a life--did this really happen to me? The body doesn't lie. But when we bring language to the body, isn't it always already an act of fiction?"
"There are many ways to love boys and men. Or to let them love you."

Do yourself a favor and get her book.

…Last week before my mother died, before the funeral and all that, I spent a full day reading stories for Scribophile. I was guest judge for a contest they were holding, a paying contest.
Most of the stories were very bland. Quite a lot of them were about zombies or robots or other weird sci fi shit.
I found three winners pretty easily. But that's all I found. It was too easy. I wanted it to be struggle. I expected it to be very, very difficult to hone it down to three. So what does that tell me/us? there are too many writers? Everyone thinks they're a writer?
Don't get me wrong--I was happy to be judge, honored and flattered to be asked. I just wished there would have been better writing.

…One of my favorite things is laughing. Saturday Night Live can pretty much always make me laugh. It's not as sharp this year, but there are still some good gags.
Laughing reminds me that I'm alive and that life is a good thing.

…Another of my favorite things is being asked by someone to write a story. I guess it's validating--having someone like your writing enough to solicit a story or poem.

…I am sometimes on Facebook longer than I'd like. I get sidetracked on it. But there are other people, people you know, who are on there ALL THE TIME. These people also have jobs. These people also edit lit journals and have a spouse and probably take time to bathe and dine and go to the restroom.
These people are writers.
How do they do it? Where do they find the time? And why is it so important for them to share every inane detail of their life?
I honestly don't get it.

…One other thing I love is Amazon. Amazon is dangerous.
The other day I ordered the new Jack's Mannequin and Laura Marling (because Ryan Adams name-checked her), two Kathy Acker's books, Jen Knox's book, and Gene Weingarten's, "The Fiddler in the Subway" about classical violists who anonymously pose as homeless people playing in the subway stations.
I can't wait for that box to arrive.
Oh, and I ordered Drake's new disc.

…Here are four things to ponder on a Monday:

"The innocent and beautiful have no enemy except time." Yeats

"Nobody has ever measured,
not even poets,
how much the heart can hold."
~ Zelda Fitzgerald

"When I sing, I feel like when you're first in love. It's more than sex. It's that point two people get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it's gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills." Janis Joplin

"There is a smile of love,
And there is a smile of deceit,
And there is a smile of smiles
In which these two smiles meet."
~ William Blake