Friday, September 28, 2018







—THIS IS TERRIBLE.  THAT’S MY PROFESSIONAL OPINION

…I wrote a lot of odds and ends yesterday.  One piece I finished, but I’m too nervous to share it.  Even for me, it’s incredibly dark.

…This is a first for me: my story was translated in Spanish and published in an Argentine journal and will also be published in a print anthology later this year.  There should be a button in the righthand corner to translate into English.

 …Sometimes I just feel like I want to go home, but I don’t know where home is.

…Where is your mind now?  Somewhere outside of the body?

…These walls look the same as they did yesterday, and the day before that—like they could use a drink.

…Next week I’m going to get back on Twitter.  I hope I can figure out how to make it work.  Apparently, it’s where all the writers are.

…Sometimes you can’t pick the knife, but it can sure pick you.

…The trouble with beginnings is there aren’t any.

…If only I could make a better list.

…Anyway, the point is, it feels like there’s a sun going down in my head.

…How is it that I’m still here, and you’re still over there?

…Some other time I’ll show you the thing about my guardedness.

…I wait and I wait for this mood to change, but the birds never come and the mood never changes.

…Sunday I start up a new online writer’s group with four people I adore.  It should be fantastic and hopefully quite productive.

…When I was younger I had dreams I could fly and dreams that I could swim underwater, holding my breath for hours and hours.  I miss those dreams.

…Every so often I check the mirror to make sure I’m still there.   That’s why the walls keep sighing.

…I promise to get back to posting stories and poems at some point in the near future.  Just bear with me a little while longer, please.  For now I need to journal.

…What a difference misplaced anger can make.

…What I mean is, you’re not to blame for this.  And don’t blame anyone else either.  Fasten it on me.

…Sometimes what someone writes tells you the look on their face pretty clearly.

…I have a heart, that’s not the problem.  The problem is I’m always cold.

…More and more, I get this feeling that I don’t know a thing.

…Someone recently told me that having humility starts first with having high self-esteem.  I’d never thought of it that way before.

…Tell me a story about the bottle’s neck widening.

…Sometimes I figure if I don’t say it aloud, I won’t ruin it.  If I don’t say it out loud, that might make it untrue.   

…It’s amazing what a well-placed comma can do, how much it can change things.

…When it comes to fashion, you don’t want to be a repeat offender.

…Every window in this room is nodding its head, urging me to get on with it.

…Yesterday, when the sun came out blazing, it hit the surface of the lake with so much power.  The sun-dappled waves gossiping with tiny pinpricks of light.  It was so captivating I must have stared for an hour.

…It’s not that easy to say what happened.  It’s not even easy to think about what happened.

…I’m having a hard time getting back into the swing of things.  How about you?

…Time to run.

Wednesday, September 26, 2018







--EVERY PIECE OF FURNITURE IN THIS ROOM IS NODDING ITS HEAD “NO”

…I’m not talking.  You’re not talking either.

…What’s the point in needing to know the motive?  That won’t solve the slaughter or change what happened.  What’s so important about figuring out whose fault it is, or is that just for your benefit?   

…I guess I don’t understand how fate works.  Seems like a hoax, like that lucky penny you pick up not knowing it was tails, not heads.

…Nothing you can ever say will ever unmake you.

…You can be swallowed alive and no one will ever hear you, but you can’t drink glass without becoming something else.

…It’s funny how a few words can do that, serrate then leave you un-sutured.

…Aren’t we all just looking for something, even if it’s impossible to find, even if we find it and it’s impossible then?

…God bless the darkness, where there’s a place for most of us.

…It isn’t always true what they say about tomorrow and the sun, but it’s still best to believe it.

…What does it mean, to be a descendant of something monstrous and to still love the monster?

…All precious stones are made this way, through applied heat and pressure.

…Once a day, swallow a small sun and see if it can’t warm you enough to get you through the afternoon, the night.  It’s what I’m trying.

…It’s not like that, not like you think. 

…Some questions are best answered with silence.

…I’m as happy as the next person, even if my words would suggest otherwise.

…Questions I’ve been asked recently:  From your viewpoint, what is the problem exactly?  Overall, how would you describe your mood?  Do you think this is something you’ll ever stop regretting?

…Anything can be a drug, if you love it enough.

…That’s the basic idea, to work through the pain, even if it seems impossible and you’d rather not.

…Someone told me this--After a while, you learn to take your shelter where you can get it—but I still don’t believe them.

…Moderation is the bright spot on the other side of the lake, just out of reach, that I’m always swimming toward.

…When we’re done, all that’ll be left behind are facts, some real but most misleading.

…“I’m no prophet.  My job is making windows where there were once walls.” Michel Foucault

…“When you go crazy, you don’t have the slightest inclination to read anything Foucault ever wrote about culture and madness.” Mary Ruefle

…This is just to say that I’ve eaten all the pills I’ve been prescribed and I still feel nothing different.

…I once believed survival had something to do with language.

…How bad does the news have to be before it’s allowable to shoot the messenger?

…I’ve done that before, had a hare trigger, shot without aiming.  It always felt good at the time, but pretty shitty afterward.

…It’s all right if a person stares a little, but when they do that without using any words it gets very unnerving.

…Carry me in your pocket like a lucky penny or rabbit’s foot.  I don’t care which, just keep carrying me in our pocket.

…There’s a theory that says you don’t exist unless someone calls you and you respond.

…I don’t why I’m crying either.