new writing project:

I'm trying my fingers at Nanowrimo.

So far I have half a page. If this is the pace I keep up, I will have a long short story by the end of the month, about a guy with a toothache who lives in the second tallest apartment building in the world that has a window in the bathroom but its okay because the building is so tall, but his head hurts and he is waiting to die.


don't everyone jump up to publish at once.

at least we see eagles, like, every day

The great thing about working Lights Of Christmas is that when you're up on a ladder or unraveling strand after strand of multi-colored LED's for ground display you have plenty of time to ponder the future, near and far, relive memories and basically just think about life.

The horrifying thing about working Lights Of Christmas is that when you're up on a ladder or unraveling strand after strand of multi-colored LED's for ground display you have plenty of time to . . .

there was a wind-storm friday night that knocked over the Sunset Scene, a new display in which blinking LEDs fade in, out, create a sunset effect. It actually looks pretty cool. When it isn't spread all over the ground because its black backdrop could, in Dad's words " . . . effectively be used to carry four hundred-plus pound boats accross the ocean."

This is the first job I've worked where the weather mattered so much to actually doing it since I drove the truck to San Francisco.

_ * _ * _ * _ * _ * _

good weekend in Seattle. I almost laundry-listed a post about what occurred but decided to write about christmas lights instead.

It won't be what you want it to be, oh no.

Four things, relevant:
1. That tooth, you know? That tooth?
The one. The wisdom tooth that has been on and off hurting like a motherfucking fuckass hellacious shitcuntfuckfuck for about a god-diddly-damn year, yesterday I went to the dentist I have the poem about and he yanked that horrible, rotted-out pseudo-tooth out of there.
Dr. Jones knew where Swansea was and what division their football team was and the dental assistant was cute with and without her mask and told me good luck with the writing. And now I don't have a toothache.

I do, however, need a root canal on the one right next to it.

Dear Money: I take back what I said. Let me hold you next to me. I love you. I need you.

2.
Tonight and tommorrow, two volunteer shifts at Hugo House. The first one has free food and booze for volunteers, the second lets me sit and read and shelve zines for four hours.

3.
We've gotten far enough on the Lights of Christmas that me taking a day off to attend to things like teeth and writing and going to Seattle is not a problem. Come November we'll be busy again, but right now we've got five people on two-person jobs.

4.
Visiting Grandma gets more difficult as it becomes more necessary.

No longer Pumps and Grinds

So today after helping 20 fifteen year olds take down some tents* in the pouring rain and after driving around 25 minutes in order to find a two minute parking spot to verify things with Bronwyn and being late to my volunteer shift at the Hugo House and leaving early to get Bronwyn and a very scenic if rainy trip out to Duvall, I did my first feature reading back in the United States of America.

Setlist
Flicking Ash
Swansea-Cardiff Blues (Bham Ed.)
Isolation Therapy
Cavities
Zombies and Paint Thinner
A Little Fear of Drowning
Missing Every Day
Rucksacks
Tall Drink of Water
Genus, Species and Flavour
Get Smart!
__(end of night encore)__>Story Problem


Thats a lot of poems, over half the book. Which is funny because two nights ago I was looking over it and thinking man, I don't likeany of these. I'd already decided I wanted my first reading back in the states to be all stuff from Swansea Morning Coming Down. Plus, while I've got a good chunk of new stuff, the amount of it I feel anywhere in the neighbourhood of "finished" with is not high.
Anyway. It went really well. Good reactions and sold a few books. The owners of the Duvall Coffeehouse asked if they could display SWMOCODO (nifty, huh?) on the "local authors" shelf.
Duvall is not close to anywhere in Washington (except Carnation, natch) and a lot of folks showed up from all over, including a majority of my in-state family. It felt really right that Duvall be where I step back into reading in the States. I'll do one in Everett in November probably and B'ham in February (I think; by which time I may have made at least a mini-book of new stuff) but I'm glad I started with Katherine and my family and a rainy night in Duvall, Washington.

Now I am back at Warm Beach Swamp Ground, Brielle is here and we are listening to Tom Waits' Alice and waiting for Mom and Dad to return with the three youngest sisters.

My 100th post and its not even a real post.

Read a fairly non-committal review of the new Pearl Jam album that I wrote. There are also jokes in it.

Also, I'll Have Rabies

In three days
when they've put the raptors back in their cages
and catalogued all their favourite magazines
now used to paper prison roofs
I will drink coffee still
shaking and dressed in newspapers

as I walk blind to my job at the morgue
where I will daydream of shoe polish
and proper sausage preparation

while outside the drums keep going
and my one half-dead co-worker
says nothing except
how different things were
just three days ago.

Notes from a Christian Wedding:

Jake: You know, if we go somewhere in town I'd like to get my good clothes on.

Ryan: Jake, you are so ugly that it wouldn't matter what you wear.

Jake: At least people love me and I am worth something, unlike you, who is worthless and the sort of person that people hope to go into a bathroom and find hanging from a belt.

Ryan: I've said it before and I will say it again: you make the rest of humanity look pre-fall.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

it probably didn't beat out Jess and John's for Best. Wedding. E-var. but it was top-five easily. And I've been to lots of weddings and in a few. the huge amounts of protracted, gleeful yet calm happiness in both Isaac and April was ridiculous.

and the camping bit allowed 1) a trip through the hard, throbbing metropolis of Chimacum, 2) actual time spent with groom and bride beyond five-minute "heywhereareyougoingforyourhoneymoonyoulooksoHAPPy" sorts of conversations.
3) opportunity for me to forget to bring a sleeping bag or blanket and get about two hours of sleep (in increments) on a blow up mattress in a drafty tent. oh man. 4) jake-vanquishing via rocks and clapping.

we had more fun.

**** ***** ***** *****

April actually had to ask pastor Pete to move it along. Ha.

_

sunburns hurt. beaches are pretty cool sometimes.
so goes the paradox of modern man.

^= ?

as observed by Gusta, there were a lot of pretty girls there, but as I assumed would be the case, they generally speaking were all married or on a 6 month-2 year plan to be so, with a specific subject.

this is fine; I'm getting confirmed more and more that church-related events are terrible places to meet women, since even a majority of the single ones will just want to know if I'm going to make a really good husband




speaking of terrible places to meet women, Monday I'll be up at Poetry Night for Kate and Elissa's feature.