--IT'S ALL YOURS.  ALWAYS WILL BE.

…I'm headed to Boston and I'm a bit nervous.  11,000 writers and me.  Yikes.  Wish me luck.

…Oh, Facebook people, you're so funny and clever.  Here are some of the amusing things you said this last week:

-Dear asshole in front of me,
It's a crowded train, so nobody gets their own little island. You don't get to recline into my lap, and damn straight I will knee you if you do it again. We don't have to like each other, but let's have an amicable trip, shall we?
Thanks,
The girl behind you

-Today I found some eggs.

-You got to love a bra that makes your boobs look half their age.

-Baby, if you were a chicken, you'd be impeccable.

-We are living in the future and I am TERRIFIED.

 ·        -Okay. I'm putting away the goddamn tears and ignoring the bottle of vodka that is winking at me from the dresser. I'm going to write a story entitled Sadists and it will not be terribly sexy or endearing.

-I ♥ zombies.

-What the fuck happened to tug-of-war?

-I'm feeling pretty goddamn good, Facebook, even though I was cock blocked by Koko Loko tonight. The part about Koko Loko made my boyfriend laugh his ass off. But when I turned off the computer and the light he asked what I was doing. I told him I assumed he wanted to suck my nipples. "No thanks."

-I think as long as I am positive and supportive of others and because I don’t catfish people, that I am ok.

-Can't. Stop. Talking. In. Jewish. Mom. Voice. Need. Help.

-Shortly, my friends, this grim month will finally reach its end. Hallelujah.

"Here the faeries i caught in my back yard...you may take them, but let them play in the garden sometimes"

-" I have a dream that i will meet Tori Amos in a graveyard in Germany doing Wicca...then she will take me and we will kiss upon a piano with dead rats and bloodroses fallin...

-My nipples are nicer than yours.

 -I love the way ya poke me.

--I AM HERE, LISTENING

…You should see the lake right now.  It’s about as still as it’s ever been, a dark blue mirror reflecting back the evergreens, some house lights glowing like hot coals, rooftops and boats.

…On Wednesday I go to Boston for AWP, a writer’s conference.  11,000 people will be there.  The world needs more readers and fewer writers, don’t you think?

It should be a lot of fun, as well as a good chance to meet many of the people I only know via the internet.  Plus I’m reading on Wednesday and Friday night, and that’s always a lot of fun.

…A lot of people hate Monday.  Not me.  I like the idea of beginning something, a fresh start, a new week.

So here are some things to ponder:

“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited.”
― Sylvia Plath

-"A lot of us wear braces on our teeth.  It's what sets us apart from the Europeans."

-"Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting." Ryan Meeks

"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down."

--Woody Allen

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." Abraham Lincoln

-"The human life is all one thing, like a blad3 tracing loops on ice: a little kid, a twenty-three-year-old infantry sergeant, a middle aged writer knowing guilt and sorrow."

-"Words make a difference."

-"Telling stories seemed a natural, inevitable process, like clearing the throat."

-"By telling stories, you objectify your own experience.  You separate it from yourself.  You pin down certain truths.  You make up others.

-"But this too is true: stories can save us."

-"In a story, which is kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world."

-"The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hopeing that others might  then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make the spirits in the head.  There's the illusion of aliveness." --Tim O'Brien, "The Things They Carried"

"We are worthy of love and belonging now. Right this minute. As is." Brené Brown

"We tend to make courage too dramatic. Courage is often doing

something simple, unpleasant, or boring again and again until we get it down pat. People who are physically challenged and who have the determination to get around their handicaps are great examples because their courage makes them test their limits every day." Dave Thomas

"Let's go get the world while there's still some of it worth getting."

"The best way to honor your life is to perform every act with ceremony.  Don't do sloppy work.  Tie your shoes carefully.  Comb your hair carefully." -- Bonnie Nadzam, "Lamb"

--HEY F_*KER

…Yeah, hey, so it's Friday, the start of the weekend already.  Again.  Seems like it was Friday just the other day.

So what are your plans?

…Last week I finished "Lamb" by Bonnie Nadzam (wonderful prose, with a freaky protagonist), "The Things They Carried" by Tim O’Brien (the last story almost had me crying in the bathtub") and "The Spare Room" Helen Garner (which was slight and just okay.)  Now I've moved onto "The Wanderers" (for the second time).  It's Richard Price's first novel and quite brilliant, if not overtly racist.

…Facebook posts continue to amuse and beguile me.  Just like these:

-In other news, this morning the dog licked the cat's butt, and nobody seemed to mind, so I think we're all settled in here.

-It's official: As of today my ex-husband is a convicted felon.

-As a short, Jewish woman it is an honor to be chosen as Pope.

-Babies would be cuter if they were puppies.

-I have found the inside of my soul. It is not very friendly.

-The way i ask friends to meet me at the library is 'hey do you wanna go pretend to be bears?'

-On the bus I sat in front of two college students sharing all the ways they cheat in their courses. I'm off to cry in a corner.

-No coffee was harmed in the making of this penguin.

-I am in a giving people a piece of my mind mood. You want a piece, too? Step right up.

-Our dishwasher died the weekend before last. New one came today. Am I weird if I hug it?

--EVERYONE SAYS THEY LOVE YOU

…I love Facebook.  It's kind of fun being a bit of a voyeur.

I wish I was more clever.

These are actual, unedited bits from Facebook, intended for your reading enjoyment…

Sometimes you gotta remember not all people are bad....some are just too fucking stupid to know right from wrong.

I have given up on losing 7 pounds in the next 7 days and am soaking my jeans with water and stretching them over wooden chairs.

whoops! there's beer falling into my mouth!

I no longer poke. And I no longer accept pokes. But I may make exceptions once a month.

 Where the hell are my birthday wishes people?

Portland has this phenomenon that I haven't noticed anywhere else where obese people get around in wheelchairs. Today I was in the grocery store and a man got out of his chair and stood up to grab a loaf of bread. So I yelled, "Praise Jesus! It is a miracle!" And he joined me in a celebration of our Lord.

Wow. Just wow.

Fuck science, fuck everything!

Happy news on Linked In! This morning I was endorsed by a businessman named Bob Bobstein for my incredible finesse and excellence in impersonating the late, great Carl Malden, and accepting marriage proposals in three languages based on lottery results.

I ate two hot dogs. they were good.

An elderly woman just walked through my bedroom wall and she's now staring at me. What should I do?

Fri-mother-fucking-day.
Bitch.

Just dug two pieces of glass out of my hand

Oh no! My foot fell asleep while looking at Facebook and I can't get up to GET MY GLASS OF 5:00 WINE! HELP ME!

just had one of the most intense sexual non sexual experience on the tube with one of the most attractive people i have ever seen in my life.

the great pyramid was a power plant & aliens are awesome.

Today, I had to reassure my mother that I write fiction.

In exactly three words, please describe what you do when you're nervous.

"I can't stand oppression much longer. Someone say a prayer."

another dismal day in paradise.

Closed minds really should have closed mouths, too.

I have been sick all day.  I got food poisoning last night and now I have a headache. At least I got my hair colored last night!!

Hey, so I have a poem about donuts.

Totally spooked. My TV just came on by itself.

"Snorting chalk out of Satan's ass crack"

Just so you know, America is slowly becoming a bad comedy.

That is some nasty sh**. 

Dear Google,When has it been ok to reveal a lady's age? Shame shame.

If I pass out and hit my head and don't wake up (lack of commas denotes delusion) please distribute my virtual remains accordingly.

Holy shit I need a day job.

Ponies are for pussies.

I cry a lot.

--HEY, STRANGER

…Happy Monday.

It's a blustery day here.  Blustery always makes me think of Winnie the Pooh.

I hope you have an incredible week.

…I got a very nice and personal rejection on a submission the other day.  The editor said I was "this and miss" with him, but "more hit than miss."  He said he really like the story below that was published in Free Range Magazine:

                                                   Punctured

            In the umbra of her resolve, I watched Mother stick pin after pin into her skin. 

It scared the life out of me.  I tried not to vomit or shriek or cry. 

            Her entire left arm was covered.   In between the silver sheen, a few spooky streaks of red ran down the underside of her elbow, dripping splotches on the floor.

Out of pins, she flipped her head like a panther’s tail and said, “Go get more.  There’s a big tin in the pantry.”

            I obeyed.  To do differently would have produced disastrous results.

            She immediately went to work on her foot, calf, the thigh area where she had bunched up her baby blue bathrobe, the ratty one with a cartoon duck pattern.

            “Does it hurt?” I asked.

            “What do you think?” she asked back, though it wasn’t really a question.  Young as I was, I had already learned that any question could be answered with one of its own by simply adding a slate-black stare.

Mother pushed hundreds of pins into her skin.  It took the better part of the afternoon.

            At one point, she removed her robe.  She said, “You’ll need to finish the rest.”

            I didn’t want to look at her private places, didn’t want to stick pins in her, didn’t want to breathe or even live any more.  Nine years was a long life for many creatures.  I was elderly by comparison.

            “I won’t do it,” I said.

            Her eyes spun.  “You will.”

            And so I took the first pin.  “How hard?”

            “Do you really think it matters?”

            I jabbed her hard, drawing a crimson pimple.  She did not yelp or flinch or even inhale.

            I poked dozens and dozens of pins into her pale skin.  I covered her breasts and stomach and stuck them across her buttocks and through her meandering pubic hair.

            When I was finally done, she told me to go to sleep.  She said she would take it from here.

            I sauntered up the stairs.  She watched me, or so I thought, catching glimmers of eye whites glinting around the silver. 

I closed my door hard, then softly reopened it.  I tiptoed to the edge of landing and knelt down, looking through the slats of the bannister, waiting, same as her.

            After several hours, he pulled into the drive. 

I watched my father through the window.  He was wearing a mid-weight herringbone suit with a soft pink shirt and a tie that looked like the belly of a fish.  His shoes were butterscotch, “Salesman Brown.”  My father, the tailor, had already taught me much about textiles and weaves, thread count and fashion.  He’d taught me, too, how to dismantle a family.  He’d taught me about suffering and—via mother’s self-inflicted torture--just how much pain the human heart can bear.

            When he opened the door, he found my mother’s arms outstretched.  She resembled a silver crucifix.

            “Take one,” she said, “As many as you like,” she said.  “One for every last lie.”

--I MEAN IT.  YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL

…Hey there, Friday.  Look at you, all dressed up in gray, wearing a sleek rain slicker and galoshes, hair done up, with a smile as wide as the Montana sky.

You look great. 

…Yesterday I wrote quite a bit on the new novel.  Poor Gigi and Eve and Eddy, Carly and Ruby.  All of these other kids sure have it rough.

…Today I’ll be in Woodinville for the second time in as many days.  Having lunch with a friend.

…I’ve been thinking about you and hope you’re set for a wonderful weekend.

…Here are some things to ponder:

"Let us then be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labor and to wait."

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"You can't climb up to the second floor without a ladder. When you set your aim too high and don't fulfill it, then your enthusiasm turns to bitterness. Try for a goal that's reasonable, and then gradually raise it. That's the only way to get to the top." Emil Zatopek, Czech Middle Distance Runner

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” Dr. Seuss

 "The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment." Pema Chodron

“The universe is not made of atoms; it's made of stories." - Muriel Rukeyser

"As the body needs physical exercise in order to remain in fit condition, man's spirit also requires the spiritual exercise derived when he confronts his problems and combats life's vicissitudes." William Sahakian

"The world is so big, so complicated, so replete with marvels and surprises that it takes years for most people to begin to notice that it is, also, irretrievably broken.  We call this period of research 'childhood'." Michael Chabon

"The aim of life is to life, and to live means to be aware, drunkenly, joyously, serenely, divinely aware." Henry Miller.

--I'M LOSING MYSELF, BIT BY BIT

…I’m on Twitter and Facebook even though I never really know what to say on them.

I never feel very witty or clever, but I do enjoy what other people have to say.

Here are some real, unedited Facebook posts that I found interesting, for whatever reason, from the last couple of days:

-“I want to be a cunt for the rest of my short life.”

-“Now have to outbid the guy who outbid me…mano mano baby bird.”

-“Dear Oregon,

I’d like to pump my own gas now”.

-“Call your name, 2, 3 times in a row.”

-“I’m not doing very good today.”

-"Last night at dinner, out of the blue, my 4 year old says: 'Mom, you shouldn't drink liquor. Daddy says you get drunk'."

-"I hate everybody; at least I can do it with a smile on my face.”

-"Do you like vegetables? I've always been fond of root crops."

-“Keep praying.”

-"Dear God I need you now more than ever! Why does pain have to hurt so much and hurt for so long and happiness only comes in small doses that doesn't last very long?"

-"I need a virtual hug.  Please."

-"Someone has stolen my bank card details and all my money is gone. Typical Monday."

-"Martin Van Buren."

-"Pretty sure this day cannot get any worse. Tell me something good, please?"

-"Bored food engineers + smoking crack = McDonalds Fish McBites."

-"False humility is incredibly unappealing."

 -"Day of Fail just keeps on failing. They double-booked my shift tonight, so I walked up the hill at 9pm for absolutely no reason whatsoever."

 -"Thunder Muscle."

-"Drawing people's nipples is always fun."

-“Just dropped my phone into a bowl of pho, so this whole Facebook status smells like shrimp pho.”

-“If loving coffee is wrong, I don't wanna be right.”

-“It's shameful that I often find myself wanting to "like" emails rather than respond to them.”

-“thank u for being my frend.”

-“I wish it weren't only Facebook that asked how I'm feeling. I wish my car door asked it. And the auto-check-out screen at the grocery store. And sidewalks I walk on a lot.”

-"Fuck."