10/15/09

Name your five most character-building memories.  Your five happiest.  Top five kisses.  Your desert island albums and books.  I know mine, I think.

Last Thursday a good friend of mine flew in from out of state and stayed with me until Monday evening.  Old readers will know her as the Antagonist.  The moment we got in from the airport we set her things down and watched Casablanca, a favorite of ours.  The next morning we went to the grocery store and she made dinner and I invited over a friend from the MFA program, who will probably figure into things enough that I may as well assign him a ridiculous blog-codename.  When I figure out what they call his hat I’ll name him that, I guess.  Anyway.  We drank, watched Dr. Strangelove.  Drank some more, had a few more friends over.  It was a good evening.

Saturday we stayed in and watched M*A*S*H and a backlog of The Colbert Report.  She cooked this killer meat dish.  Sunday was the Mojave, which kicked our asses in one way or another.  Routine scratching of the eye, dehydration.  The muffler clamp on my Cav rusted through and snapped while we were trying to see some lava cones, and that was a pisser.  We made a fire and set up the tent outside of the Hole-in-the-Wall canyons, sat around feeding the flames and watching the stars come out.  We’d gone on a short roadtrip in January and had a great time, and this was a bit disappointing.  She came out here as therapy for myself and for her, and it doesn’t seem like we managed to fill each other’s tanks like we expected.  We commiserated, we stood-in.  Maybe we were one of the 13 steps for each other.

Monday, driving her back to LAX, we riffed off an episode of The Office and went back and forth asking desert island questions, and eventually we got to the memory ones.  That was a little cathartic, I think.  Realizing where things fit, what’s shaped us.  I’m realizing just how long life is, and how much of it I’ve lived.  I’m happy about where I am as a person but I’m not happy about where I am.  Maybe it’s important that I run myself aground against a place, that I come to realize not everywhere is home.  Place is important to me as a person and a writer.  Finding a place that’s a source of conflict is just a new experience.  Not an enjoyable one, but one I can learn from, maybe.

My short story is up on Splinter Generation. An early review from a friend calls it “The Big Two-Hearted River of the Iraq Generation.”  I expect “sensational” and “spellbinding” to come soon.  In all seriousness, it’s been a good experience working with the editors at Splinter and I fully recommend submitting to them.  Thanks, guys.  And thanks to the folks who’ve already read it.

In other writing news, the novel is dragging because of classes, and I’m sort’ve pissed about that.  Broke the 30k mark two days ago, but I’m only getting about 1000 words a week.

In other, other news, here’s a short roundup of articles from the depths of the litblogs:

An interview with Margaret Atwood over at Jacket Copy.  I don’t like Atwood’s writing much, but I respect a lot of her views.  She talks blogging, science, and writing sex.

An interview with Sherman Alexie. He also talks some sex, re-attacks the Kindle, and discusses the state of technology on reservation grounds.

For viewers of Californication, The Rumpus has an article that lambasts the lack of literature on the show.  Also, apparently, the big book in the show, God Hates Us All, has been ghostwritten by…someone.  You can check out the first chunk at Amazon.  It’s atrocious.

Finally, John Crace condenses Blood Meridian into a misread and misguided eight minute sneer. I wonder if he actually had to read the book in eight minutes as well, or if he, well, fill in the blank.