Some random pieces of information that loosely cohere via association

My story White Hands, published by Zone 3 in their Fall 2008 issue, is now online. They've added lots of content to their website. Look for the issue with fiction/an interview with Michael Martone, U of Alabama professor, who is in Tuscaloosa, dealing with the aftermath of the tornadoes. He is OK, and is busy making sure everyone else is OK.


Stacks of paper are piling up here in the haushold. We choose to deal with it by listening to music. During this song, the baby stops what he's doing and gives me a very sweet smile. He's always liked a little Ray.



A peaceful song about less-than-peaceful times. But the baby doesn't know that. Not yet.

About White Hands: I wrote it in graduate school, and I remember my professor being less than impressed with my initial drafts. Unsatisfied is perhaps the better word. Of course it stung at the time, but I realized that having a reader like that is crucial. That is one way to grow: by learning how to be a little unsatisfied with your own work. It's a recurring theme in Although Of Course You End Up Being Yourself by David Lipsky, which chronicles his road trip interview with David Foster Wallace on the Infinite Jest book tour in the late '90s. That, and the dangers of becoming addicted to television. And the Internet. And what-all else you can imagine. The dangers of white noise, once again.

White noise from my inbox: "When your wipes case is this stylish, your diaper bag might actually get jealous."

The ludicrousness of this world, I tell you. (My diaper bag is plenty secure in its self.)

Sudden Flash Youth

Sudden Flash Youth: 65 Short-Short Stories

From Persea Books, now available for preorder. Includes my short piece "For Good," about Cece and Juan at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Contributors include Dave Eggers, Pamela Painter, Alice Walker, Ron Carlson, Naomi Shihab Nye, and more. It's edited by Christine Perkins-Hazuka and Tom Hazuka, and Mark Budman, who also edits Vestal Review (which published one of my flash fictions, He Waits, Wants, in Issue 30.)

Am I sounding convincingly casual? Because, really, I am doing some calisthenics of excitement over here, to be including in this book. Deep knee bends and such. Toe touches. Sudden Flash Youth ships in mid-June.

Musical Youth, if you've clicked the title of this post, is something else entirely. Can we hope for a comeback tour?

All we can do is hope, friends.

Your mission for the day

(From MAKE Magazine, out of Chicago.)

The magical UPS truck

...has delivered my copy of The Pale King, David Foster Wallace's last -- and unfinished -- novel. Sorry, other books. Putting you down for awhile. The foreword tells how editor Michael Pietsch worked on the book from drafts, notes, and how he interpreted Wallace's vision for the work.

On the subject of DFW, this article says more than I could, presently. Writer Maria Bustillos spent three days at the Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, reading his papers, notes, and a sampling of his annotated books -- some 300 are included there.

I have a copy of this Wall Street Journal piece tucked away, too, in case the Internet ever explodes. "This is water, this is water."



It is an odd thing, missing someone you didn't know. That I'll never be able to send DFW a postcard, or receive one in return. (Imagined scenarios, part I.) That the imaginary postcard would be delivered by a new mailman, the old one reassigned to a new route without even a goodbye. No goodbye!

The UPS truck driver remains the same. Loud music, high socks, speedy. Grateful for my gratitude when he brings me books.

Thanks for the books, sirs. Both of you.

"Some things stay the same. Like time."

Gray Monday with a chance of warm. High probability of coffee in orange mug, possible cold front sweeping through sinuses. Thunder rumble, or truck of insanity on road in need of paving. Grading done, writing commenced, baby "singing" to his toys on the playmat while music softly plays. A good start to the day/week/month/year. To wit: my March Madness bracket ain't shot yet. One side is completely intact, save for Syracuse losing to Marquette last night. What can I say? I make my picks with the heart.

Gray Monday deserves as much prettiness as we can give it.

White Noise

I've been wondering lately about images and associations, and how the brain does what it does when it comes to calling up random bits of information, culture, clutter, effluvia. The white noise of the brain, the distractable brain. The Retractable Brain, the brain that can be folded into a small case, potato-head-like!

Sometimes I get certain words in my head and repeat them to myself in the manner of a lunatic. Or I am driving, and the music I'm listening to (Arcade Fire, The Suburbs) makes me feel like the soundtrack to my own movie is playing in the background. A single raindrop hits my windshield and rolls down, slowly, and if I were a filmmaker, this would be my visual for "sad," my cheesy and obvious visual, until the pan-out reveals I am in the Starbucks drive-through, being a yuppie buying a yuppie drink ("I think we've aged out of that designation," I recently told my husband, though right now, the moment of this image, I am alone in the car, with Arcade Fire (is it "The" Arcade Fire?), soy latte in hand), and the detail of Starbucks, the iconic green logo, makes the mood either sadder or much happier, depending on where you sit. I sit in the car. I wish for my camera when a man on a bicycle rides slowly by, hunchback in a red and blue windbreaker, framed perfectly between two identical brick buildings.

I want to write these things down, but I am in the car, driving. Also, I keep losing my favorite pen. DANCE TEAM TORI says the window decal on the Suburban.

My brain recalls and grabs on to things that seemingly have no connection: "My ancestors spit on your haircut!" RSTLN and E. Rock you like a hurricane.

What is my brain trying to tell me?

I attempt to unravel these connections. I google things and get lost for awhile, in the brain-like folds of the Internet. There were weeks when everything I searched for directed me to the same cruddy website. I thought that Google was broken, but it was me.

Consider the equation. What if: C.Sheen = J.Phoenix - beard + smirk (x sympathy / tough love)?

We build excitement.

Operators are standing by.



Online TV Shows by Ustream

Or maybe the operators have flown by now. Flighty. Like my brain.

Book Me

The ides of February have passed.

What are we going to read next? At the moment, I'm itching for something relatively fast, with a minimum of horror/tragedy (unless, of course, the horror and tragedy are handled as comedy, in which case the experience of reading said events is much more enjoyable. For me, anyway.) But not too funny. And not too sappy. And with just the right amount of profound, you-did-not-waste-your-time-reading-this added in.

I could do a keyword search at the library with all of the above and see what I come up with. I don't think I have enough Boolean operatives for such a search. Which is why browsing the shelves is so important. Which is why I'm a little distressed about what's happening with the Borders reorganization, even if there are other stores, plenty of them. Some say bookstores are going the way of the dinosaur, thanks to e-readers. I'm not against e-readers (the devices, nor those who read electronically) and aside from the bigger and nastier question of who has access to the technology, I do think they limit the serendipity of finding the perfect book you're in the mood for. I don't want our society to become so efficient that we eliminate browsing.

I love to browse. Not just bookstores, either: I could spend, I have spent, many hours in the aisles of hardware stores, office supply stores, craft stores, variety stores. Many hours, many stores. Browsing. Bookstores are by far my favorite.
And libraries, too.

These are social spaces. And while I like technological convenience and certainly enjoy bouts of hibernation, I sort of fear these insular worlds we're creating, where limited interaction occurs. Limited chance of finding or seeing the thing or person you didn't expect to find or see.

That's my platform. More serendipity. Can we make that happen? And also, a recommendation for my next read?

New Booth

It's the second issue of Butler University's literary magazine, Booth.

Fiction: John Baum, Aaron Burch, Edward Porter
Winesburg, Indiana: Barbara Bean, Kate Bernheimer, Robin Black, B.J. Hollars, Michael Martone, Deb Olin Unferth
Art: Austin Kleon
Poetry: Jason Bredle, Mary Buchinger, James Crews, Brent Fisk, Derrick Harriell, Lois Harrod, Marty McConnell
Interviews: Jay Lesandrini talks with Nick Flynn, Barbara Shoup sits down with Jane Hamilton
Expert Miscellany: Kathleen Balma, Karen Kovacik, Sarah Layden, Brian Oliu, Chad Redden

Give it a look-see, hear?

Writers of the Internet: Go Read This

Amber Sparks writes about the hyper-anxiety social networking can provoke in writers at Big Other. As my dear friend Jennifer says about the pitfalls of Facebook: "Compare and despair."

The comments after the article offer a pretty great conversation, too. I don't know Amber, but after reading this, I'd like to.

P.S. I got my very special rejection T-shirt for Christmas. Boo yah.

Warming up

It's a cold January morning, which I know without having to go outside.
The birds scramble around the near-empty feeders.
I'm drinking hot coffee from an orange mug.
Making plans. Lists.

Listing. Listening to:



"It would be this, it would be this."

I made no resolutions this year, so my January is freed up for hearing this song on repeat. May you enjoy similar small pleasures.