February 2010
37 posts
1 tag
Thy Kingdom Come
(Earlier)
Sitting in front of the window, the sun warmed my cheeks, the tops of my shoulders. I took a deep breath, inhaling through my nose. I expected to smell the coffee Sister Cretia made for me every morning in the rectory kitchen. I expected to smell the ink from the newspaper usually in my lap. But there was only the faint smell of latex and industrial cleaner. I opened my eyes. ...
January 2010
29 posts
2 tags
He still leaves messages without saying his name, knowing I’ll recognize the nickname he gave me. When he says it in front of other people, I have to spend three or four minutes explaining where it came from and why he uses it. It sounds like nonsense. It’s a bastardization of a real word, something that he pronounced so very incorrectly, and it stuck. I pretended not to like it.
He knows...
1 tag
I’m proud of many accomplishments in my life. But I think I’m most proud of becoming the kind of drinker who inspires gentlemen who taste my drink to pull back and exclaim: “Jesus. That’s a serious fucking cocktail.”
And I know, I know, people will piss and moan... →
“I want to know you moved and breathed in the same world with me.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald (via stranded-wanderer)
Have I told you about my idea for a tattoo? It isn’t so much an idea as a dream I had, a dream where I had a phrase of Fitzgerald inked down the length of my spine...
1 tag
Hallowed Be Thy Name
(Earlier)
They were whispering, a group of five or six, standing around my bed. Every now and then they threw a worried glance in my direction. I lifted my head and found that I was lying in a narrow bed, stiff, white sheets tucked in around me. At the foot, a woman with a shock of dark curls stood with her hands crossed over her chest, her eyes shut. The others in the room wore some kind of...
I would like to read about the fictional exploits of a band called The Charcuterie.
I am now going to conceive of the story and characters necessary to make this a reality.
1 tag
Our Father
The tile swam into focus when I woke up. Grimy, filmy tile, its caulk gone a gangrenous black ages ago. The paint on the ceiling bubbled and cracked. A faucet crusted with white and green dripped into the tub, but I couldn’t tell whether the water was hot or cold because as I slowly came to consciousness, I realized I was sitting in a tub filled with ice.
I must have been sitting in it for a...
We’re on Day 8 of the book submission process.
I fluctuate between “OMG maybe this could really happen” and “OMG it will never happen I’ve wasted several years of my life everything is hopeless” about every 15 minutes.
I was told that this process could take anywhere between 3 weeks to 3 months. I’m not good with numbers - someone tell me how many...
1 tag
Jack Gilbert, The Paris Review, Issue 175, 2005
Interviewer: When you look back on your life, do you see it as divided between the three women you loved?
Gilbert: Yes and no. The highlights of my life have been the women I was in love with, but I’ve had a whole other life alone. I used to say that the only thing better than being alone was to be seriously in love.
Interviewer: You don’t get lonely.
Gilbert: No. I really...
1 tag
HELP NEEDED: Haiti hit with massive quake.
charitywater:
charity: water’s two local partners, Partners in Health and Concern Worldwide, are reacting to the disaster swiftly and comprehensively.* We need your support. In the interest of immediate relief, we’re asking that donations be made straight to our partners. To donate to Partners in Health’s efforts, click here. To donate to Concern Worldwide’s efforts, click here.
If...
1 tag
You know when you wake up but you’re still having a dream? The kind of thing where you reply out loud to a question posed by a figment of your subconscious?
The other night I woke up and said “Yes, of course,” to my closet, which is directly across from the foot of my bed. My dream had me convinced that Michael Jackson was in that closet, asking me if he was really dead.
...
1 tag
The Notebook - The Hunt For The Worst Movie Of All... →
“The story that he reads her is a miserable love story, I mean really just one of the worst. It’s about this rich girl (Rachel McAdams) who starts dating this poor boy (Ryan Gosling) for no real reason other than apparently she is into guys who think a fun time is lying in the fucking road, and who act like they are going to date rape her if she just gives them a chance. Then they fall...
I ended the night walking barefoot through Little Tokyo, carrying my tall lady shoes because they hurt my feet and because the book I wrote is completely out of my hands and in someone else’s now.
It’s going to be in a bunch of other people’s hands starting next week and I don’t really want to think about that because, hello, a year and a half of work has reached judgment...
1 tag
All the going to work and working out and grocery shopping and cooking dinner and taking out the recycling and walking the dog and checking your phone to see if anyone emailed/texted (even though the light isn’t blinking and you didn’t hear it buzz, but still) and hitting fast-forward on shuffle until the thing plays a song you want to hear and opening a bottle of wine - I’m...
I can hear the Johnny Cash they’re playing at the bar downstairs and across the street.
I’m drinking scotch upstairs and across the street.
Never the twain shall meet, because I just finished peck, peck pecking at my keyboard. Not because I felt done for the night, but because I wanted to save some work for myself. The same way you save some Chinese takeout for breakfast the next...
“Of course, when it’s going well there’s nothing in the world like...”
– Robert Stone, The Paris Review Interviews, 1985
Him: Is that a locket?
Me: No, it's just a heart.
Him: But what's in it?
Me: Nothing. It's empty.
Him: How fitting.
