--I’M NOT AS BAD AS YOU THINK I AM, AM I?

…Last night I watched, “Donnie Darko” again. It had been at least ten years since seeing it.
What a film, what a piece of work.
Holy hell.
Future film majors should be required to study it. There must have been at least 30 different cinematography shots that were ingenious. Then there’s the creepy, whacked out plot. Then there’s a kitchen soup of famous actors—Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Seth Rogen, Drew Barrymore, Ashley Tisdale! and Katherine Ross who I once had a crush on (that’s her up there circa “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”) but who I thought while watching “D. Darko” was Meredith Baxter Birney.
In any event, if you’ve never seen Donnie Darko, please do. It’ll knock you down and laugh at you in a very spooky voice.

…Today I nailed boards to other boards. Now I have some nasty ass blisters. My hands are not used to doing anything that does not involve a keyboard.
I am not a carpenter.
I am not handy, nor am I a handyman. Just ask anyone.

…I finished Brian Oliu’s little book of quirky pieces called “So You Know It’s Me.”
This guy is a very fine writer. He strings together beautiful sentences. Sometimes you’re not sure what he means. Sometimes, I bet, he doesn’t even know what he meant. But that’s beside the point if you like lovely language. Usually people who use a lot of repetition feel fraudulent to me, but Brian does it wonderfully.

…I also finished Megan Chance’s historical romance novel, “City of Ash.” Megan, too, is an incredibly gifted writer. She’s the master at many things: building completely individualized characters, layering in sensibilities, adding historical flourishes, doing hardcore research to cement authenticity, and—something that always impresses me—adding so much conflict that the characters get shoved farther and farther into peril. The only thing I don’t understand is why Megan isn’t hugely popular. Maybe she writes too smart for most people? I don’t know, but I love her.

…Tomorrow I am being interviewed and recorded at Vox Poetica, then the link will be put up at the publication. I’ve never done anything like that before, so needless to say, I’m excited. I’m going to read three poems on the air. Yikes!

…Tonight I am going to see “Cheap Trick.” Yep. “Momma’s all right. Daddy’s all right. They just seem a little weary. Surrender. Surrender, but don’t give yourself away.” I am not a big fan but the tickets are free and company will be excellent.
Tomorrow night I’m going to see “One Republic” and meet the band afterward.
Next month it’s “Ryan Adams,” “Death Cab For Cutie” and “The Head and the Heart.” I almost had a coronary when I found out Ryan Adams was finally touring again. I would have his babies.
It probably seems to you as if I go to a lot of concerts. It seems that way to me.

…While reading Brian's book in the bath (there's some alliteration) I wrote four pieces in his style. It was fun.
Here's one.


Strangers

You never told me and I never noticed before, but I do now.
I see them, the jars inside your eyes. Mason jars. My mother used to stuff hers with peaches she picked from a puny-looking tree leaning beside the tree swing attached to two crooked trees.
But these eyes of yours, these eyes with jars inside them, they are different. They are more like glass canisters. They are a place to store precious materials, such as your memories and your laughter. I have never heard you nostalgic and come to think of it, many years have transpired since your last laugh. I am the laughingstock in this relationship, believe me.
I wonder if your eyes get dry as mine sometimes do. If they did get dry, would the jars crack from being bone-dry and sore? If you sat at a computer all day as I sometimes do, would you get so much eye strain that the glass jar canisters would crash in on themselves, shattering like a glass hit by a sonic sound wave?
Discovering these jars in your eyes has me fascinated. They are making me more and more curious. What else do I not know about you? What other discoveries have I not discovered because I have not been paying proper attention?
Oh look—there are trapdoors inside your ears. What a shock! Knock, knock, who’s there, who’s there inside your right ear and who’s inside your left ear and why are do you have doors in your ears in the first place and why are both of them locked, from the inside no less?
Now that the cat is out of the bag you snort and stick out your tongue and I see that, ah ha, it is a ticker tape tongue, a kite tail tongue with little origami strips of paper. On them messages are written in a thin scrawl, as if a carpenter ant found a fountain pen. I read every note where you’ve recorded every name ever created, even the weird, hard-to-pronounce Old Testament names like Hesekiah and Abijah, but nowhere is mine. Is it behind the trapdoors? Is it in one of the jars? Do you not remember who I am or have we really become strangers after all?

--CAN I BUY A VOWEL?


…I have three new stories up:
--“Solitary” At Doorknobs and BodyPaint
--“A Colony of Termites” @ Housefire
--And “Black Notes” @ Pure Slush.
All of them are also here under “Words In Print.”
The latter story is a combination of two I keep coming back to—dementia/Alzheimer’s and lost innocence. Maybe I need to write it in novel form. We’ll see.

…In the tub the other day (what is it about the soothing feel of gurgling water?), I diagrammed the new novel, or did a rough outline of it. Since then, it’s been on my mind, which is good, because the piece needs to be flushed out quite a bit and, also, I find, when I can hold off from jumping in and just writing something, my subconscious works on my conscious, creating a new awareness, so that a lot of the things I see, read or hear become useful fodder for the writing. I watch a show with a blind person in it and think, "Maybe I'll make the sister blind." I read a story about a ghost and suddenly it makes perfect sense to add a delusional character who thinks she sees the ghost of her dead twin, and then it makes me have to come up with a subplot about why the twin died and what makes this person see her dead twin.
It's all quite fun, actually.

…My daughter and I watched two films. One was, “Flipped,” an adorable little coming of age number about falling in love in the year 1963. Evidentially it was adopted from a YA book of the same name. It falls on the cusp of cheesiness, but I bet you won’t be able to watch it and not go “Aw,” several times.
The other film, “Afterschool” was a raw, brutal look at kids in a boarding school who—materially—have it all, but who’ve become desensitized to living for the sake of living, without stimulants, both narcotic and sexual. It’s sort of a “Less Than Zero” reworking for a new generation. Beware: should you decide to watch it. There are many parts which will leave you dry-mouthed, squirming and wishing you weren’t watching it.

…It’s a gray-green morning, misty. The lake wears a wrinkled mauve face. There are no boats. The eagle is somewhere else. A lonesome dog is howling sporadically. The environmental state of things is telling me it’s to be a sad Monday, but I don’t believe that. It’s going to be fantastic.
I can just feel it.
Can’t you?

…Here are some things I like at the start of a new week:

"I will make my soul an envelope for your soul~ And my heart a residence for your beauty~ And my breast a grave for your sorrows~ I shall love you" ~Gibran

‘'Worry looks around, Sorry looks back, Faith looks up.”

"From the beginning, the soul of you and I has been one" ~Rumi

“I have so many words, but not enough beds. So they stand and fall into obedient line, chatterbox gossips with the bionic mouth and the old sleeplessness. But to your name they fold up in a cross: the arch is a bow of great pain. And so reduced, they find a place.” Emily Filocamo

"I like to think of art as living information. You simply go to it and its emotional relevance with just happen to you." Ryan Adams

--"Wisdom is benefiting from other people's pain."
--"Hard and difficult seasons are just the chapters of what you're going through at the time, they're not the story. How you get through those chapters determines the rest of the story." Jeff Knight

--YOU LOOK SENSATIONAL

…I forget too much. Sometimes I can’t even remember what I’ve forgotten.
That could be scary, but I just sort of ignore the fact that I’m not logging certain events or actions down into the journal that my brain carries around.
It’s not like I have Alzheimer’s. Not yet anyway.
It would suck to have Alzheimer’s. It would suck to have dementia or any sort of disease like that.
Glen Campbell has a new album coming out.
(You think it’s really random, me mentioning Glen Campbell right now, don’t you? You might even wonder about me and dementia.)
“Why are you so happy?” a reporter asked Glen.
“Hell, I don’t know. Maybe because I’m still young.”
“Young?”
“Yeah, I’m only 75.”
I like that spirit. I like Glen.
Glen just revealed he’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He doesn’t care, though. He’s actually even going on tour for his new album. I’m not sure how that’s all going to pan out, but I admire him a great deal for doing so.
Pat Summitt, the winningest women’s college basketball coach ever, just announced that she, too, has Alzheimer’s, but that she is going to continue to coach.
I think that’s brave. You know, throwing yourself out there like that with a public admission and then allowing yourself to be vulnerable enough to erode while everyone’s watching.
I don’t know why I’m fixated on Alzheimer’s this morning.
I guess it’s because a friend was recalling memories and I thought it would really suck not to be able to remember past events—the good ones anyway.
Of course there are many things that would suck way worse.
So, let me shut up. The sun is shining. It’s Saturday in Seattle. No one’s on the lake yet, not even a duck. The beavers must still be sleeping.
Good morning to you. Have the best day ever.

Here are a few things I like today:

"If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on
walking." Buddhist Proverb

"I think laughter may be a form of courage. As humans we sometimes stand tall and look into the sun and laugh, and I think we are never more brave than when we do that." Linda Ellerbee

"Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for
long-term values." Joshua L. Liebman

"I learned the sun falls a million ways on a mountain trail, so each becomes a different trail
I learned if I dressed like a folding chair I'd never be alone." Rob Cook

"A friend is one who sees through you and still enjoys the view." Wilma Askinas

"We all have stories we are trying to escape." Vanessa Hua

‎"Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes." --William Gibson

"At first dreams seem impossible, then improbable, then inevitable." Christopher Reeve

"A servant wants to be rewarded for what he does~ A lover wants only to be in love's presence~ The ocean who's depth can never be known" ~Rumi

--FOCUS ON YOUR BREATHING

...I've been listening to this band and this song on repeat. It's quite sweet and sad and good. You'd like it.

"When it hits me that she's gone
I think I'll run for president,
get my face put on the million dollar bill.
So when these rich men that she wants
show her ways they can take care of her
I'll have found a way to be there with her still.

When it hits me that she's gone
I think I'll be an astronaut,
make the moon my home and leave the earth behind.
So when she steps into the night
to the light that makes her prettiest
she'll be facing me every time she shines.


When it hits me that she's gone
I think I'll be a movie star,
play the finest men the world has ever seen.
So when these lovers that she's found
show her ways they learned to talk to her
behind each perfect word there'll be a little bit of me." Dawes, "Million Dollar Bill"

--WHEN I WAS SEVENTEEN, IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR

--My daughter has an obsession with Katy Perry. I’m not sure why exactly; she just does.
But it's a healthy obsession.
It’s a hobby for her, this Katy Perry fandom thing.
When I was her age I had a mild obsession with Bo Derek.
That’s her in the photo. The iconic image is taken from the film “10.”
I haven’t seen that movie in many, many years and I’m almost afraid to since I have such fond memories of it.
In the movie, Dudley Moore’s character is having some marital woes with his Julie Andrew’s wife when--while driving through Beverly Hills--Dudley is at a stop light, turns to his left, and happens upon the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.
It’s Bo, of course, seated in the back seat of the car next to him. She glances at him as one would another passenger in the opposing lane. It’s a subtle, slow motion gaze which confirms for Dudley (as well as viewers) that Bo is indeed stunning.
When the light changes to green, Dudley fights traffic to follow the car and the woman to, of all places…
a chapel.
Bo Derek (said beautiful woman) is getting married.
That doesn’t deter Dudley.
Nor does a toxic bee sting to the nose, the loss of several teeth, an arrest, being locked out of his house, a car wreck…
Nothing dissuades Dudley because he’s just too far gone, too obsessed with his obsession.
After a series of comic pratfalls, Dudley tracks the bride all the way to…
Mexico
where she’s…
on her honeymoon.
Eventually, Dudley saves Bo’s new husband from certain death by drowning and Bo, a new age feline, ends up smoking pot and wanting to engage in sex with Dudley while Ravel’s Bolero plays on the stereo.
Ultimately, Dudley realizes that Bo is beautiful, but always somewhat vapid, scrupulous to a degree, and, well, just not the perfect “10” he’d thought her to be—at least not spiritually or mentally.
His hopes dashes, he returns to Julie Andrews, not settling, but wiser and more grounded.
The film is a great tale about the grass always being greener on the other side, the fallacy of beauty, and the truth about love.
Those are the things I think about when I remember “10.”
Really, they are.
I don’t think about Bo. It seems silly now, that I ever had a crush on her. After all she wasn’t real. I should have known better.

“Love is not a feeling. It is an action, an activity. True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision.” Scott Peck

--SAY IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT

…I have a new poem, "Mother's Day" up at Stoked and also here under "Words in Print." I tend to write really dark, tragic stuff, but this poem is about as tragic as they come. I even had a friend question why I would write something so horrific. I guess that's a fair question.
I don't know if I have an adequate answer.
I do know that it's nearly impossible for me to write happy pieces. It's not that I'm an unhappy guy, but rather that it feels like a cop out to take the traditional everything-works-out-wonderful-and-they-all-lived-happily-ever-after endings. It seems boring.
The dark stuff is more interesting to me, more unexpected. The truth is, the world has lots of dark places and dark moments and dark people in it.
The truth is, I'm not talented enough to write something happy without it coming across as hokey.
We all have our niches.

..I'm still working on paginating a chapbook for a poetry contest. It's a lot more work than I thought. I might be wasting my time. Even though there are three winners, contestants WORLD WIDE are encouraged to enter.
I suppose, it can't hurt.

…I got my copy of L.E.S. (Lower East Side) Review in the mail and read the whole thing through. There's lots of different stylings in it. Some of the poems were really out there and I had no idea what the author was trying to say.
I don't know why people like poetry like that.
I wonder if they can infer some meaning that is totally escaping me.
I me totally flying right over my head.

..Here are some interesting and very random facts I've collected for your enjoyment:

What's the saddest movie of all time?
-- 20% say "Schindler's List
--16% "Old Yeller"
--14% "Terms of Endearment"
--10% "Life is Beautiful" (one of my favorites films)
--10% "Brokeback Mountain"
--9% "Million Dollar Baby"
--6% "The Champ"
--3% "Love Story"
--2% "An Affair to Remember"

…There are more kangaroos in Australia than there are people

…"Mean people" earn $10,000 more than "nice people" in the work place

--91% of all adults think they are a good, very good, or excellent driver

--Has Martin Luther King's dream of racial equality been realized in the US?
Yes --54% of blacks
Yes --49% of whites

--Through yesterday, the US has tied the record (20008) for weather-related disasters that cost $1B or more

--The last seven July's have been the highest grossing movie months ever

--"The Jersey Shore goes to Italy" premier is the highest rated in MTV's history
Ambercombie and Fitch has offered to pay the cast of "Jersey Shore" not to wear the apparrel line's clothing

--DON'T STOP NOW, YOU'RE JUST ABOUT TO GET TO THE GOOD PART

…I have a new story, "Chop Salad," up at ZOUCH magazine and also here under "Words in Print."
--I like the photo they used, of President Obama, Michelle and the girls. They used that pic because in the story I start off by saying I wish I was black and I wish I could meet the Prez and play with his bone-thin girls (the narrator is a chubby, reclusive girl without much self-esteem.)
I am not fat. Most people would call me thin, lean, skinny.
I am six three and 165 lbs.
Sometimes I feel fat, though. Sometimes I think I am fat. I do have a little roll around the waist. Really. It's not just me being anorexic either.
Here, have a look.
See? I told you.
Even though I am not overweight and even though I do not have a vagina, I have a lot in common with the narrator in Chop Salad.
I often feel reclusive and shy. Sometimes I feel aloof because I feel as if I don't belong to any one group. What do I mean by “group?” Heck, I don’t know.
I am good in crowds when I force myself to be, which can happen, though it takes effort.
I can be charming even if it does sometimes feel like a farce, an act.
I remember a Partridge Family episode where Danny--struggling to find out what he wanted to do with his life--had a eureka moment:
DANNY: "Mom, I know what I want to be when I grow up."
SHIRLEY: "Well, that's great, Honey. What do you want to be?"
DANNY: "A negro."
(this was in 1972, so it was still "negro" instead of "African American.")
I've wanted to be black before. I've wanted to be other people, part of another culture, especially one with strong bonds.
Is that normal? How about you? Have you ever thought of being someone else, or are you just perfectly fine with who you are?

…I have given myself the permission to take the rest of the summer off from writing unless someone solicits me.
It’s a freeing feeling but still a bit of a struggle since I often judge my success/worth by how much I produce, which as a way of valuing oneself, I realize, is far from ideal.
I did cut and paste about 80 poems together just now. I might submit them to this poetry Chapbook contest. There’s a fee for the contest, of course.
The competition will be stiff, no doubt.
But you win money and there are prized for the top three finishers and it would be nice to win a prize, especially in poetry where I am not always certain I am that skilled.
So, we’ll see. I’ll let you know how it goes.

…It smells like bacon.
It’s a good smell, strong, sort of greasy and irony.
The sun is streaming through the window of this crepe-coffee shop I’m at.
It’s so bright, in fact, that I’ve draped my laptop bag over the screen in order to thwart the glare.
I probably look suspicious to onlookers.
It makes me feel like I’m under the sheet at summer camp with a flashlight telling ghost stories.
Funny how little things like that can make a person feel nostalgic.

…I like these things on a happy Tuesday afternoon:

"The line between living and manipulating your life for the sake of your art is blurry." Art Edwards

"Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry." -- Mark Strand

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known.' Chuck Palahniuk

"Ever writer who is not a great writer is a plagiarist." Bolano

"I was making a point. It was about how small life is and how you only get to see so much but then, when you widen your lens, you miss all of the important details particular to imperfect knowledge."
--"I try to remind kids that they are not noble savages, they are human beings, and the odds are aginst them."
--"Frequently we think of ourselves as someone different from whom others think we are." --Stephen Elliot