...I have two new stories up:
--"Burial Music" @ Troubadour 21
--"Wicked Water" @ 52/250 A Flash a Year
Both are also here, under "Words in Print."

...I find I write about water a lot. I think it's because I live on a lake and much of the time I'm staring out at it. I wish you could see what I see. It's quite beautiful, no matter what the weather. Every day it has nuanced differences.

...I love Post-It's. I hope the inventor is a billionaire. I think he/she should have won the Nobel Prize.

...I like magazines. I think they're one of the best entertainment values around. I especially like Esquire, although I liked them more when they regularly/monthly published short stories.
They had a survery for men about random topics, but they split the two groups in those aged 20 years old and those aged 50 year old. Some of the answers were a little startling.
--In general older men are more pessimistic about the strength of America's future, they are half less likely to exercise than younger men, they nearly double younger men in their belief that gay marriage is wrong.
--Younger men are three times more likely than 50 year olds to say that divorce is NEVER an option and there are more 20 year olds who self-identi\fy as pro-life rather than pro-choice. Younger men more are more likely to wan their wives to stay home and take care of the kids.
--A full quarter of both age groups think Glenn Beck is the most trusted person to get their news from. (Honest, I'm not making this up.)
--And the last interesting thing was both age groups rated Clint Eastwood as the coolest man in America by almost the exact same margin.


...I spent yesterday submitting around and I wrote one small piece after I read an article on bullying. Here it is:


Black and Blue
for Hope Witsell

My lover has corduroy skin now, sea shell irises and feather-stuffed limbs that he swings around me as we slow dance on a night when my parents are out. If my brother catches me, he’ll be cruel like all the rest of them. He wouldn’t understand how precious you are, what a wonderful secret-keeper you are, not like my schoolmate who turned me inside out so that now there’s graffiti slurs written beside my name and places I can’t go without being spit on.
It’s a cheap road I’m taking, I know, I know. I don’t want anyone sad on my account, yet I didn’t choose to be here either.
I kiss my lover goodbye. I’ve knotted a string of mother’s scarves together. I tie one end to the canopy bed and one across my neck. I know I’m not a slut. I know I’m not a bad person, even if everyone else disagrees. God will take me in. His arms were long and warm, his voice soft and loving.
These are the visions I want to be true, the last things I tell myself before I leap.