--YOU MAY NOT KNOW IT, BUT EVERYONE SECRETLY COVETS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR

…I have a new story, "Bleeding Madras" up at Beat the Dust and also here under "Words in Print."
If you happen to click on the story, at the end (it's a short piece) you'll find a video of Ryan Adams singing, "Sylvia Plath." It's worth listening to.

…Lately the money's just been pouring in. It's disgusting.
It's disgusting how rich I am.
I'm loaded. All I have to do is get the checks and cash them.
Every day I win the lottery. It's true. Don’t believe me? Just have a peek at my In Box.
Usually I win several lotteries. Every day I do. I win millions of dollars or pounds or rupees. The announcements about my winning come via email. The messages are usually replete with many misspellings and uses of exclamation marks !!!! sometimes!! in mid-sentence !!! or mid-wo!!rd.
The matter of my reply is always paramount and urgent.
Similarly, every day some person from a foreign country kindly wants to give me upwards of 15 million (US equivalent dollars). Even though this gent or gal has never met me, they "trust me" for obscure reasons.
To claim the money, all I have to do is forward my banking info and social security number!!
So easy!!!
No wonder there are all these millionaires next door.

…Tomorrow is my birthday. My wife and kids are taking me out to celebrate today.
There was a time when I hated my birthday because it signified getting old and I have this phobia (toss it on the pile with all the others) about getting old and, well, not being young anymore.
I think it stems from growing up shy and staying shy up until age 17, feeling like I missed out on things.
I think it stems from that greedy chromosome in me that does not want to age, does not want to die, that wants to live forever young.
But now I am a lot better at birthdays. I'm actually into celebrating them. I've got a few gray hairs (well, maybe more than a few) and I say to them, "Hi there. Welcome to the club. I hope you like it here. Sometimes we have lots of fun." I think, at least I have hair.
So what I'm trying to tell you is I'm just counting my blessings, because, well, I have a lot of them to acknowledge and appreciate.

…At the Iowa Workshop during a free write we were given the starter “There are three of me” and told to write something, so this is what I wrote:

3

There are three of me, each one reaching out to the next, my blood in my brother’s blood, triplets looking for a way to capsize our identity, strip off the bark of our being and find liberation even though nature won’t allow it and fate can’t abide it, which is why I make peace with the fact that one of us stole, one of us has killed and all of us are liars, we three the same sinning suitors, triplets, identical yet separate, like slices from a loaf, felons and oafs, husbands and cheats and broken men who, in the end, get swallowed up by an unforgiving earth, tagged guilty and finally freed, yet, damn it, buried in the same brown casket.

…I sent “3” off to Monkeybicycle for their one word stories. Hopefully they’ll take it. I like Monkeybicycle and hope they like me back.


…I also like these ditties on a Saturday, right as the weekend is starting to bloom, and I hope you do, too:

--"The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along." Rumi

--"The moon has nothing to be sad about." Sylvia Plath

--"The snow has no voice." Sylvia Plath

--"All books are either dreams or swords." Amy Lowell

--"The world ignores us for years, then taps us on the shoulder with a birde or a blade." Doug Goetsch

--"There is a sense of exhilaration that comes from facing head-on the hard truths and saying, "We will never give up. We will never capitulate. It might take a long time, but we will find a way to prevail." Jim Collins


--"Wind, flag, mind moves.
The same understanding.
When the mouth opens
All are wrong." Mumon