year in [re]view

Amazingly, it's been about a month shy of a year since my last post. Between completing half of a master's program, the regular 9 to 5, and hustling to build the most bad ass CV possible in time for PhD application season, I've got a couple of excuses to hopefully justify being AWOL for so long. But first things first: The books. The glorious books...


After plowing through Stephen King's Full Dark, No Stars, I kept plugging right along—leaving me now delinquent by ~65 reviews! Now accepting bets to see how long it'll take me to catch up...

Bright Before Us
Katie Arnold-Ratliff


Got myself a signed copy of this little beauty through Powell's Indiespensible program, and once again, my favorite independent bookseller did not disappoint.

overdue book review(s)

You may or may not have noticed that things have been awfully quiet around here at isn't it pretty to think so? Chalk it up to a series of 3am nights churning out a labor of love (...that may have come out wrong). At any rate! I've been reading about as much as ever, just terribly lax with posting reviews. So let's play a round of catch-up, shall we?

No, David!

David Shannon

My boyfriend's mom gave him this for his birthday, so of course I gave it a read. The concept is pretty self-explanatory after a glance at the cover: David does something he's not supposed to; David's mom says, "No!" It's a cute little book with some good laughs to be had, but the best part is the art. Shannon's illustrations have a definite whimsy, but of a sort not typically found in children's books (at least in my experience). And the colors are absolutely fantastic. Highly recommended for anyone with children (your inner child counts).

shameless self promotion

It's a long time overdue, but my baby Leonard has finally made his debut! After much thought and consideration, the working title stayed, and Leonard & the Telescopic Trachea is officially in print.

death by legume

Welcome back, dear readers (all three of you)! Don't let the lack of recent posts fool you: I've been reading up a storm, just haven't had additional downtime to blog about it. So now, I diligently set fingertips to keyboard to fill you in on the latest books to take their leave of my "to-read" shelf.

Mr. Peanut
Adam Ross

Every so often, a novel comes along that's a complete game changer, surpassing your expectations and taking you to places you'd never have dreamed of (or had at least forgotten existed), and as you turn the final page of the story to find blank space and the back cover on the other side, all you can do is release a breathless, blissful "wow."


This is one of those novels.

used // in well-loved condition

The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books
edited by Jeff Martin & C. Max Magee


A new month, a new review. This was an impulse buy off the "employee recommendations" display at my local Barnes & Noble while killing time before seeing "Thor" in 3D. One look at the cover art, and I couldn't very well not buy it. Throw in the fact that I've been kicking around the idea of doing my thesis on reading as tactile experience and the fetishization of print, and it's fairly obvious that this particular book was tailor-made for me.


Happily, it did not disappoint.

i'm cool. i have tattoos.

A Heap of Broken Thoughts
Sean Pearson


Just shy of two years ago, one of my best and oldest friends informed me that he was looking at self-publishing a collection of short stories, poetry, and miscellaneous odds and ends that he'd written throughout the years and asked if I'd write some copy to put on the back cover. Never one to shy away from a challenge, I happily accepted. But although I'd read most of the book's contents, I hadn't actually read the book itself.

Which, as you might imagine, made things a little complicated.

so many books, vol. 2

Yesterday, I threw down some book recommendations. Today, you get the rest! So sit back, relax, and try to steer clear of your plastic, cos nearly all of these are worth owning.

so many books...

For a while now, I've been posting brief reviews of books here and there on other sites thanks to Powell's Daily Dose and its lure of free books, but I've recently been inspired by my amazing pal Audrey and her work over at Bibliosaurus Text to post reviews here. After all, what good is it being a bibliophile if you can't share the love? And besides, my reading habit is about to kick into overdrive with the start of a new school year, so this might be a good excuse to get back into the swing of putting my thoughts on paper/screen.

leonard, revisited

Big, beautiful developments are in the works, courtesy of a woman who more than knows her way around a Sharpie and a block of wood, bringing us one step closer to putting Leonard the giraffe's story into print. And there was much rejoicing!

...or there would be, were it not for a currently significant roadblock: I have to pick a title first.

Shoot.

this is what they pay me for...

You know the sort of thing where one person starts a story and then a group of people take turns adding to it, picking up the narrative ball where the last person left off? Sort of like Click... aaaaaaanywho. A coworker just forwarded a story kicked off by another of our coworkers, and added to be at least one other (if not more) in the interim, which starts off talking about a poor schmuck wasting away in cubicle land a la "Office Space," then shifts point of view to his boss, Amy, who thinks bitterly to herself that her male subordinate wouldn't have lasted nearly as long were it not for his conventional good looks because, in the world of depilatory creams, some man candy often helps to close the sale.

Needless to say, this got my mind stuck on unwanted body hair (and yes, I freely admit to having first googled "depilatory" to figure out just what sort of cosmetic product the story was dealing with)... so I ran with it:

leonard and the telescopic trachea

Needless to say, the title is a work in progress. But I think I'm happy with how the story turned out, and it's not like it's a baby [just written for one], so who cares if I don't name it right away? Anyway, it's my first stab ever at a children's book.* Anthropomorphic animals teach us all a valuable lesson... or something.

blah...

...is pretty much all I have to say on the subject at the moment.

Q: What subject?

A: Who cares?

Which brings us back to: Blah...

Just finished putting the "free" in "freelance," writing some stuff for 944 on the pro bono tip. And I really need to go and brainstorm for my next project... which I had goddamned-well better finish. Because I never really finish anything I start. Plague of my generation, or is it just me? Probably a little from column A, a great deal more from column B, but I digress...

you win this round, pearson...

Thanks to the persistence of one man (you may or may not know him by the name Juan Canadilla, but that's another story for another day), I'm posting again. It's one of two assignments I've completed for my online fiction class, but I'm too lazy to post both at the moment... not to mention tired. I've spent the better part of my post-9-to-5 day battling writer's block to beat a freelance PR project into submission... hopefully successfully, but there's no knowing that until tomorrow. And now I'm rambling (inarticulately at that), but I really just couldn't care less. So.

Yeah.

The assignment: Write 5 opening lines for the same story. The idea being that each should be a totally unique line, not just a variation or minor alteration of its predecessor.

the bold & the biographical

No matter how old I get, I don't think I'll ever get over the rush of excitement that accompanies the first day of school!

Well, ok... so I'm not technically matriculating anywhere, but my 10-week online fiction workshop started today, & I. Am. STOKED!!

First assignment: Submit a bio, 500 words or less. Given that we're immersed in a virtual classroom, it's a logical exercise to foster a sense of community (blah blah educational buzzword blah).

like eating glass

Another story start that eventually got scrapped...

Blink once if you can hear me.

No?

Nothing?

Okay then.

I don't know how it ended up this way. Maybe I had put you up on a pedestal that was too far out of reach without the thick layer of drool connecting cheek to pillow, dragging you back down to the muck and mire that is my level.

Or maybe you just need to be unconscious for me to get a word in edgewise.

Regardless of the cause, here we are: only able to communicate in one-sided conversations after the Ambien with a gin and tonic chaser kicks in.

It's almost comforting in a twisted sort of way. Maybe because, with your eyes closed, I can pretend that they could open and look at me the way they used to.

But we both know that's a lie.

If self delusion could be packaged and sold, it'd put heroin out of business by Tuesday.

There was a time—how long ago, I don't really remember—when I honestly thought we'd go the distance. Although maybe that's what this is: a protracted limp to the end of the line.

And of course, it's entirely possible that I brought this on myself. All those "I love you"s I heard might just have been "like"s if only I'd bothered to clean the sappy Cusackian romactic bullshit out of my ears and listen properly.

We all hear what we want to hear...

Why can't things just be clear-cut for once? I mean, why can't I just dust off the scientific method and diagnose our malady and its underlying root cause?

Symptom A: My voice makes you cringe when it used to make your breath catch in your throat. Not always, but it happens. Kind of a knee jerk startled-down-a-dark-alley gut reaction that you think I don't notice, but I do.

Symptom B: You stopped laughing at my jokes and started looking at me as if I were a troublesome child. Or just an idiot.

Symptom C: Whereas once my indecision was an obstacle we both struggled to maneuver around, now it's practically a blessing since every suggestion or bold assertion I make gets shot down without a second thought.

Symptom D: I'm baring my soul in between your snores.

Back in my college days, I convinced myself that all the love songs flooding the airwaves past and present were proof that romance was real. If they wrote it, they must have felt it at some point, right?

Wrong. Because for every song about passion and bliss, there's another about heart ache and anguish—a hormonal ebb and flow that's got zero to do with legitimate human connection.

Of course, that's all bullshit really. Cynic that I am, you know as well as I do that I'm still a hopeless romantic. Like an existential tragicomedy—I believe in true love, but I don't buy into the idea that it'll ever be reciprocated.

Not for me, at least.

Probably should've seen this coming. Can you give your heart to another for keeps before having tried, only to have it ripped out, pissed on, and left for dead? How can you grasp what it is to be in love before your heart's been broken?

"I'll always be there for you. I'll never hurt you."

How could I have been so naive to think that a love defined by hyperbole could last?

I dunno if it's any good. Probably not, but this is:

rearview mirrors

Steven asked for an example of how to handle flashbacks in a story, and since the Word doc I had in mind is saved on my dinosaur of a Dell that no longer boots up and I had to retype the thing anyway, I figured I might as well post it here.

So here goes:

Gray eyes slit through aviator glasses, staring down the sun. Top gun, fucking Maverick. Feeling the need, the need for speed. More so now than ever.

There had been a car, hadn't there? Twenty-five-hundred RPMs, downshifting to fourth to pass on the left of a two-lane highway, manicured nails tuning the radio dial, mariachis drifting through static

french-tip manicure. her favorite

Needle slanting, laying left. Coasting to the dusty shoulder, a chugging halt. Blood red bullseye as the needle buries itself below the E. Seems familiar, somehow... busted radiator hose

red. blood red lips or lipstick?

Could've been. Running on empty, moving, movies, the needle, volcanic steam, falling needles, the E, must be...

Reeling left, scanning the horizon for the cherry red Mustang he knows he'll find shimmering in the heat baking off the asphalt in the distance, not so distant, he can't have walked too far...

Nothing there but sand and a misfired synapse, blurred and fogged memory of a Sean Penn film.

He's been walking the desert so long he's forgotten anything else. He has his suspicions that there was something more once, the pins and needles of recollection, smell of rust and salt that's not quite carried by the breeze but is present nonetheless. A faint echo on the edges of perception, like the skipping track of an album whose notes and words you can't recall.

Fuck it. He's here now, has always been here. At least there's quiet. At least he's alone...

red rusted. iron.

Only he's not alone, not really. Like the eye of some prehistoric omen, the sun blazes overhead, an unceasing beacon. Muting the world, tinting reality, the aviator glasses aren't enough to block out his shadow. Its held his trail doggedly from the beginning...

Whenever the fuck that was.

rat in a cheeseless maze

Turning his back to his tracks and the shadow, he scans the horizon, searching for... what? Pavement, tire tread, signs of civilization, gas pump

mariachi music, tin warbling voice of the stereo

billboard, fucking something. There should be some goddamned thing, a sign...

Not that he honestly believes that. Small doses of comfort through larger tales of fiction, and the doses are getting smaller all the time. Not that that's any different from the way things were before.

Is it?

Distracted hand loosens the knot in his necktie as the eyes behind the shades drink in the expanse of sand, panoramic thirst.

A shadow passes over his face; he looks up to watch a bird circle past the sun. Hawk, maybe? Too soon to tell. Darkened wingspan flapping dustward...

Touchdown.

Not a hawk then. Not even a falcon

french manicure finger tips trailing down his thigh

Blood faced buzzard. No, something not quite right about that either. Frames from a Disney movie or National Geographic. Something about a prison

topped-off gas tank, flamenco guitar as petroleum splatters.
metronomic dripping keeping time

and keys... jangling keys on a metal ring. Doors slamming shut—

Turkey vulture.

well-thumbed pages of a Norton Anthology,
perfumed pout and Maybelline stains.
"quoth the raven"

Aww, fuck it.

The sun passes behind a pack of cumulo nimbi

they used to laugh together when she mispronounced "meteorology,"
but when had that been? and where (who?) the fuck is she now?

as he meets the stare of the vulture. His gray eyes burn inside its hollow black ones, staring at his own mirrored stare. Looking down, he notes that the vulture casts no shadow.

Neither does he.

Numbed fingers rub the crusted sand from swollen eyelids. Whether from sleep or the ground, he's unable to tell anymore. Not that it matters now.

Props himself up on an uncertain elbow, shifting his freight to rest on his ass he feels

her hand on his skin. groping, a caress, lingering...
skin meeting skin, his skin, not mine

a lump under the right cheek. Pulls from his pocket a weather-beaten wallet, the cracked brown of aging black leather. Windburn eyes watch as his fingers flip open the wrinkled flap, pull out a California driver's license, so there must have been a car. Or a road.

Or, at the very least, there must have been California.

Unless...

unbuttoned fly. 501s draped over the chair back.

male. 5'10". Hair: Brown. Eyes: Blue.

But his eyes are gray behind his Maverick shades. Mom and dad, their eyes were blue, but not mine. Some people called it hazel, but that's not right. It was the color of lack, it was no pigment, it was

she liked the fact that they changed to match her outfits

gray.

How much longer are you gonna leave me here? I've been out in the desert for... days? years? It's fucking hot, throw me a bone, man. Give me a gun, a knife, fucking something. A tool.

Help me end it.

god helps those who

Fuck you.

He's on his own.

Probably not exactly what he has in mind, but it's the best I could do on short notice.

"kill your darlings"

Humidity meets humility...


East Coast weather is not my friend.

In other news, something random I started working on. Not sure if I'll add to it or leave well enough alone, but Faulkner would probably have a field day...

Given the choice between staying where I am another moment longer, dealing with the unfathomably uncomfortable departure that no doubt awaits my attempt to escape, or suicide, I've gotta say that shuffling off this mortal coil seems by far the most palatable option at this particular juncture. Unfortunately, I've yet to get my bearings in this godforsaken shrine to Pottery Barn and have had absolutely zero luck in locating any potentially lethal means of dispatching myself—blunt objects, sharp edges, poisonous substances, bathtubs in close proximity to a precariously balanced electrical appliance, all suspiciously MIA—so lingering seems to be the simplest option at this stage of the game.

Path of least resistance...

"Hiya, toots!"

Even if I didn't recognize her voice sight unseen, I'd still know her without looking by the telltale Donald Duck line. I turn to face her, and without missing a beat, she leans in for a kiss. I'm not sure whether to be angry with her for crossing the proverbial line in the sand that is our strictly platonic code of conduct, or pissed at myself for going weak in the knees and closing my eyes.

Fucking schmuck...

I'm at a total loss as she pulls away, breaking out in a beaming smile, but I scramble to salvage the situation. "Eh, having a good time, Dolores?"

She punches me in the shoulder, which doesn't exactly catch me off guard—although I wasn't expecting to get hit quite that hard. "I hate it when you call me that!"

I shrug and resist the urge to rub the spot on my arm that's starting to throb a bit. "Don't see why. If it's good enough for Eddie Valiant—"

"—it should be good enough for me," she finishes my line while rolling her eyes and biting her lower lip. It's a verbal routine we both know forwards and backwards, a move out of our own personal playbook.

But I've never really been a fan of non-contact sports, if you catch my drift.

"Look, Dee—"

"—Thank you!" she cuts in with over-exaggerated relief that I've used her self-appointed nickname.

"Think I might split," I continue. "This just... It isn't my scene, you know?"

"Aww," she pouts. She knows I'm a sucker for that. "But you just got here..."

"Um, I've been here a few hours, actually."

She does a double-take so comical, Chuck Jones would be proud. "Have you??"

I nod in the affirmative.

"Why am I just seeing you now, then?" she demands, to which I choose to reply only with what I hope is a suitably non-committal shrug.

Cool as a cucumber...

Or so I thought. She's standing with her hands on her hips, giving me that look. You know the one. Right eyebrow raised just so above the left, mouth poised somewhere between a smirk and a frown, forehead wrinkled in what could be concentration or consternation?

That look.

I swear, she practices in the mirror when she's home alone. No one should be this good at a look, particularly when the look in question is systematically engineered to give the unshakable suspicion that the person giving it is staring into depths of your soul you hadn't even suspected might exist before.

We both know I'll cave eventually—she always gets the best of me in situations like this, and she bloody well knows it, too—so I decide to cut my losses and just throw in the towel without a struggle. Gotta pick your battles, am I right? "Just kinda been laying low, I guess," I admit. "Playing the proverbial wallflower and all that."

"You're such a goober, man," she snorts, killing her beer.

So much for an easy, relatively painless escape. I glance at my wrist, "Wow, would you look at the time," hoping she's tipsy enough not to notice—

"Dude, you don't wear a watch."

Once again, I've underestimated her day-to-day obsessive-compulsive attention to detail. "Touche," I acknowledge. "But I still really ought to go."

By now, she's made her way to the refrigerator. "Geez, you're such a killjoy," she manages to mutter over the clinking of bottles.

"I just don't fit in with this crowd," I try to explain.

But she's not buying it. Looking me dead in the eye, she cracks open a can of PBR and says, "You fit in with me."

She's got me there.

But it's a matter of principle. Or pride. Or bullshit pseudo-machismo. Who knows?

It's a moot point, anyhow. The fact of the matter is, I made a decision, and I'm sticking to my guns. "I'll see you when I see you," I say, trying to sound as upbeat as I can muster.

I linger with my hand on the doorknob, waiting for Dolores' trademark, "Not if I see you first."

But no such luck. She's already left to rejoin the party.

And I head home, alone.

Meh. I dunno.

As a bonus, some holiday spirit:



Because I can.