Good Halloween party, that.  Chauffeur and I shonked the competition at flip-cup and beer pong.  We went to the party as each other, which was a good laugh for the few people that were familiar with us.  I donned  a pair of fairy wings for part of the evening.  At some point before I bedded down with a laundry bag as a pillow, next to a girl nicknamed Armyfuck, Chauffeur and I managed to switch back into our own clothes.  Neither of us remembers how this happened.  It’s the great mystery of the evening.  The next morning we bailed a bit early and got breakfast at this great joint called Flo’s.  Come’a the pancakes.  Sometimes this place ain’t so bad.  Then you come home like I did today to a parking ticket and an overdue fee on a book.

Soon, I promise, a writing post.  You pick the topic:  1. On the muses, or 2. On how I write in two completely distinct voices depending upon whether it’s a short story or one of my novels.  Pick the first one, please.

Hovering under 39k on AAM.  Started writing a new short story tentatively titled “Anhedonia”.

Oh, hell, I didn’t tell you, did I?  I was invited by the good folks at The Splinter Generation to read “My Wakeup” at Avenue 50 in LA.  December 16th, 7-9PM.  Mark your calendars.  I’ve got a practice reading tomorrow in class.  Wish me luck.

Aaand one last thing.  00:50-1:22 and 3:16-3:27 of this video.  Killer.

Two nights ago I went out with Chauffeur (one word, goes with his nickname for me) and a girl to a supposed dive downtown.  We had burgers and beer, had a shot to celebrate the girl’s birthday, and went across the street to check out another bar, a little closer to an actual dive.  As we walked in a fellow playing pool turned and put his hand in the air and I high-fived him and shook.  As we waited on our beers he pointed at the three of us and the bartender wouldn’t take our money.   We drank and went out to the back to let Chauffeur smoke and watched this half-pint latina with a lot of metal in her face rap very, very poorly in front of a camera.  (Riverside, side, side, on the mike, mike, mike…ad nauseam.)  We went back in for a while and met Joe, our drunken benefactor, play pool with one hand–his non-dominant.  He’s apparently some sort of drunken savant, because he was sinking shots pretty consistently.  I followed Chauffeur back out for another smoke and we were making fun of the rapper when we realized she was still at it, still saying mike, mike.  We dove behind a brick wall and laughed for a good five minutes.  When we went back in Joe decided to give us a tour of downtown and we followed him directly next door to a gay bar where he bought us more drinks.  We moved on, discussed random things.  Chauffeur and I wandered off briefly to look at a war memorial and I remember telling him that I write because I didn’t serve, and that’s mostly right.  I wouldn’t feel like I have to write if I served.  It was a good night, maybe the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been here.

Yesterday I moved everything out of the apartment and into the new house.  I don’t know how to feel about that.  I should feel good to be shut of it, because truly little good happened there.  And this, here, is all new.  As fresh as can be without a bout of amnesia.  But I couldn’t help but feel like I was giving some things up.  Signing off on memories, devaluing them.  I don’t like that.

In the evening the owner of the house, another grad student, took me out to a coffeeshop downtown on the back of his scooter.  I got some writing done.  And today I went back to the apartment to clean it and I was struck again with the knowledge that I am leaving one of two places that I’ve known her.  I stared at that damn futon and at the couch and the pool and the lounge chair as if I could place them more firmly into my memory.  But they’re already relics.  Already cherished in their way.  Walking back home I was taken by the smell of the orange trees and I stood at the intersection of Canyon Crest and MLK, standing in the thin shadow of the lightpole, this song came on:

I watched a woman pull up to the light in a rusted truck, watched her look at me.  She was beautiful, and it was a romantic contrast.  When I crossed I glanced her way again and she locked eyes with me and I passed on and I thought about the few times a woman has touched me out here.  A hand on my shoulder, arm around my waist.  I thought about reservoirs, literal and figurative.  I thought of how quickly my reservoir dries out here, how soon a night like Wednesday can fade.  It’s not a matter of whether or not I can make it.  I know I can.  It’s whether or not I come out the other side having gained ground, rather than lost it.  I haven’t regretted the way I’ve spent my life so far, and I’d hate to start now.

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.

But!  I thought I’d ask what you folks would like to see.  Maybe a sidebar picture of me with some witty quote.  I’m thinking of putting in some virtual bookcase, or something to that effect.  How about music?  I know Lindsay wants an audio excerpt of me reading from my second novel.

In other news, here in brief is a list of some misadventures in Riverside thus far:

1. Befriended a Jehovah’s Witness outside the UCR library.  He had long, dirty fingernails and smelled like dill.  He mentioned that Jesus was in Hell.  I promised him I’d look into the JWs, and I will.  We say hi now when we see each other.
2. Neglected to get the power put in my name quick enough–had power shut off for two days.  Managed to save all of our food by buying ice off of a six year old.
3. Fought with the cable company, which surreptitiously gave me some package that I didn’t want that doubled my bill.  The short version is that I sound like a grizzled old axman when I want, and I was angry at the time.  Apologies abounded.
4. Got suckered into riding the RTA line with Gavin, my Viking-ly housemate, to the Galleria.  He thought he knew what he was doing, and instead wound us up at the end of the line, as far away from home as possible.  We spent four hours on or waiting for a bus, and about one hour at the mall and Barnes & Noble.  Never doing that again.

More to come, surely.