Monthly Archive for November, 2009

Helicopter cat

Published on November 29, 2009 in AM/PM, Kim Jong-Il and it is a mystery. 2 Comments

Thanksgiving was fun. There was a brine emergency but then everything was solved and the turkey turned out fine and everyone brought a delicious dish. I’m on day three of leftovers and sad to see them go. I do also sort of want a taco.

Now I’m trying to win an award for laziest house-cleaning. If I go an hour between mopping each individual room, I’ll advance to the semifinals. I was thinking just now while I was mopping that most every adult in the world has spent some time in his or her life cleaning in some small or large way. Even your worst enemy (if you’re into that sort of thing) has likely put some hours into mopping or at least washing dishes.

Has Kim Jong-Il ever cleaned? It is a mystery

Has Kim Jong-Il ever cleaned? It is a mystery

Patrick Wensink, author of the funny book Sex Dungeon For Sale, is holding a coloring contest. The winner receives a copy of AM/PM plus Fool (Christopher Moore), Help! A Bear is Eating Me! (Mykle Hansen), and Tales Designed to Thrizzle (Michael Kupperman). Looks fun and the pictures are neat. Check it out.

My cat and I invented a game called “helicopter cat” where I tie her favorite toy to a string and you know what, this story isn’t even worth finishing

Tofurky looks like Combos

Published on November 26, 2009 in Behind The Blog, Cooking and well anyway later. 3 Comments

Combos looks like Snausages. Everything is eventually meat. My story “Waste” in Annalemma 5 is “basically about” how pigs turn into pork. Someone give me a grant and I’ll present a lecture on this to a major research institution while sipping from a tureen of gravy.

I’ve got meat on the mind. I bought a sixteen pound turkey and sunflowers. I am brining the turkey tonight and roasting it tomorrow. I was thinking about buying one of those grain-fed, air-chilled turkeys that is raised by a farmer with a kindly face who gives them a minimum of three compliments a day, but then I remembered that I didn’t want to spend eighty bucks and I bought the other kind instead: an Honest turkey for Honest times.

Yesterday I sold my old dining room table and all my old chairs to a plumber named Bubba. My new table is currently at a secure holding facility, preparing to serve eight. For one week I was the owner of two tables and ten chairs. I could have hosted a very small state dinner if that dinner was presented in two locations.

Behind The Blog: A couple weeks ago I was blogging and I wrote “neurosis is boring” and then I deleted that and stared at the blank part of the page for about ten minutes. That was the blog about Tobias Wolff selling oatmeal.

Yesterday Jac Jemc texted the words  “ham face” to me and I felt real tender.

I read A Jello Horse a few evenings ago before dinner. I had just finished another book which had ended up being far too detailed in the real for my taste, and the jello horse was a refreshing digestif. I wanted the strange things to happen for 600 pages.

I’m going to Taco Bell. Well anyway later.

(which is lavish)

Published on November 18, 2009 in Cool and Sue Grafton I guess. Closed

I dreamt I was checking in at a blood donation center. The phlebotomist touched a growth on the back of my neck and said I should have it removed. I reached back and ran my fingers over it, surprised I had never noticed it before. I said that if he thought I should get it removed, I would trust his professional opinion. He shrugged. One of the other patients produced a shotgun and opened fire.

My copy of Easter Rabbit has arrived. Its little fictions are so small that it’s interesting to read the sentences for emerging patterns. A lot of his last lines are arraigned in a similar way, which makes the whole feel like a litany for meditation. Reading one a day feels good but it also feels good to read the whole book and let them fall on you. Flash fiction is cool because it changes depending on how you regard it.

Here’s a fun fact about Sue Grafton, who is writing that alphabet series of bestsellers (N is for Noose etc): she refuses to sell the movie rights to that series. She told her children that if they sell the rights after her death, she will come back from the grave and haunt them, “which they know I can do.”

Also she began the series during an ugly divorce while fantasizing ways to kill her ex-husband. Recently their youngest daughter was married, and he came to the wedding held in Grafton’s home:

“We were perfectly civil, while I’ll never forgive his ass for what he did to me. There was some real satisfaction in the fact that he came to my house — which is lavish — and I thought, ‘Eat your heart out, asshole.’”

Sue Grafton sounds like an unpleasant yet compelling person to be around. I’d ask her to be my roommate but I have a feeling she’d drink all the gin.

I made this zucchini bread yesterday, heavily modified. I substituted puréed pumpkin for the oil, a cup of whole wheat flour for a cup of white, reduced the sugar to 2 cups, subbed a cup of brown sugar for white, and increased the zucchini to three cups. It turned out really well, moist cinnamon flavor with a bit of pumpkin in the background. Dense breads are forgiving.

“Getting in trouble is a fake idea.”

Published on November 15, 2009 in Work and well anyway later. 1 Comment

Office hours. The adjunct behind me is doing a lot of grunting. Another came into the office, picked up the stapler, said “Did you staple things in college? I did,”  and walked out.

I’ve been away in Oregon and North Texas. November in Rockwall is warm like springtime but with brown leaves, which makes for disorienting feelings. In Portland I kept eating macaroni. Now I’m home. I live in a tree.

I like how when kids keep journals on paper they end each entry with “Well anyway later” or similar. Somebody start a literary journal where all the stories have to end that way. Somebody start a literary journal where the stories are all already written by the editors and writers have to pick one attach their names. Subtitle “Redefining the creative process.”

One of my students gave me a flyer advertising a Tobias Wolff reading that happened last week. I’m kind of sorry I missed the reading but the picture of Tobias Wolff on the flyer makes it look like he’s selling oatmeal.

don't start none won't be none

don't start none won't be none

All author photos should depict the authors as their true selves instead of propped up pre-dead. Some would still be stuffed but the best would be destroying. Raymond Carver would be ripping apart a phone book with his teeth. Tobias Wolff all driving a herd of bulls over a cliffside. Barry Hannah setting an armoire ablaze. Joyce Carol Oates severing the fingers of a youth. Hopefully it goes without saying that this goes for all people and not just writers. Everybody’s an artist. Well anyway later.

Things I ain’t mad about

Published on November 3, 2009 in Featherproof Books, Hank Williams Jr. and Work. 10 Comments
  1. Maud Newton gave Featherproof a little blurby on mini books.
  2. I’m in charge of the turkey for Thanksgiving. Has anyone ever grilled a turkey?
  3. Publishers Weekly chose men for their Best Books of 2009. So what if the aesthetic of this panel of editors happened to involve only men this time? I would find it insulting to be the token female placed on the list for anything other than the strength of my words.
  4. There is a new gender issue you can get mad about every day if you want.
  5. Some of the people complaining about this PW thing are suggesting books by women that they loved. Everybody wins in the stretch.
  6. Massive deadline day. I wrote 4,000 words and learned about what it really means to earn a PharmD. My brains feel poached. Tomorrow I’m going to knock out some educational writing–you know, for kids–and clean this cold place. I’ll make a dust nest and fall asleep inside.
  7. Congratulations to ameliagray.com reader “Sasha,” who won a copy of Annalemma 5 by claiming that his favorite Hank Williams Jr. song was his guest vocals on Kid Rock’s “Cadillac Pussy” wherein the honky tonk pioneer’s son sings, “She had a Cadillac pussy.” I’ll send a second copy of Annalemma 5 to Hank Williams Jr. for that line.
  8. The phone was stressing me out so I hid it.
  9. All I can do anymore is write lists, watch football and update my fake Twitter.
  10. I keep coming back to this Absent. Kim Gek Lin Short, Marc McKee, and Reb Livingston.
  11. They’re still filming Cheaters. Someone over there updates the Official Cheaters Blog twice a month. This all happens whether you regard it or not.

Texas Books

Published on November 2, 2009 in Hank Williams Jr. and Kyle Beachy. 1 Comment

Jeff Salamon’s swan song at the Statesman was an optimistic article on Austin’s writing community. “Austin has had a literary scene for years,” said local writer Owen Egerton. “I just think it has exploded even more so over the last 10 years or so.” Just in time for the Texas Book Festival, which was lots of fun and included an astronaut and Margaret Atwood. I was on a panel about writing dark fiction with Dan Chaon, Scott Blackwood, and Kyle Beachy.

The Literary Death Match was a time and a half. A crowd of 150+ in a Methodist church. Sam Elliott was in the house. Beachy talked about blowing up Graceland. Jeff Martin suggested that Nobel laureates get to take a sub-subway while everyone else is stuck on the regular subway. Jason Sheehan fit three pounds of sausage into a one-pound casing. Jane Smiley nearly bit Richard Russo, who nearly bit my stockings. I read some threats. Owen Egerton described a Xanadu of sensual delights. I answered some Texas Trivia and won it for the home team. I’d like to dedicate this victory to the Corn Palace.

Five Things was equal if not more. Readers included Beachy, Christian Lander, Blackwood, and Tyler Stoddard Smith reading Texas-centric prose. My friend Spencer was a handmade robot, which gave me a small but significant feeling of pure joy every time I looked at him.

spencer
Thank you

After all my hawing, I wore the same thing I wore two Halloweens ago. I sang Hank Williams Jr. and a butterfly got caught in my wig and next year I’ll come up with another costume, really, probably.

A wise man said I looked like the ocean

A wise man said I looked like the ocean

Great weekend, everyone. Let’s wrap it up. I’m hearing rumblings of multiple new reading series starting up in town (Betsy Crane is among the idea-makers). Between that and the kind crowd I met at the festival, I’m feeling energy and life running through the sticky intangibles of the Austin scene.

Tonight I saw Gogol Bordello, bringing earplugs to avoid the buzzing like what followed Thursday’s Drive By Truckers show. Tomorrow’s a big deadline day. NaNoWriMo started yesterday; I haven’t participated in years, but it makes November feel like a month of high hopes, fruitful projects, and the happy grip of deadlines.