1. I've burned many tongues.

2. I wander the house in the dark.

3. I laugh and laugh and laugh.

Toying with the idea of super brief book reviews. Because I want to talk about books, but even I get bored.

WHOREADSTHISSHIT.

News as of late

Things have been rather hectic lately. Here's what I've been doing instead of writing new poems:

1. Sun, sun, sun, sun, rain.

2. Got accepted to Emerson and confirmed my enrollment. Started making extensive to-do lists.

3. Health care reform

4. Presently reading: Flow: The Cultural History of Menstruation; As I Lay Dying. Wondering if the two are related at all.

5. About to start reading: American Fascists; Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most. Wondering if the two will be related.

6. Keep forgetting to do my taxes.

7. Keep forgetting to fill out my financial aid forms.

8. Have no trouble forgetting to accrue more debt.

9. Probably becoming vegetarian, not necessarily by choice. Thanks for ruining my favorite foods, Jonathan Safran Foer.

10. Got lunch yesterday with 2 good friends. Ended up in a bookstore drinking frappuccinos, making lists of books we need to read, and researching whether or not there is paperwork involved in declaring war on Nicholas Sparks.

11. Thinking of submitting somewhere.

Bassiouny, don't read this. This is stupid.

Third thing's first: Miranda July's No One Belongs Here More Than You

Miranda July can make you laugh and cringe in the same sentence, which is a talent I truly admire. Her characters are painfully relatable and endearing, and often when we search within them we see something of ourselves, and it's usually pathetic.

If reading the book from cover-to-cover, her characters feel monochromatic; they are similarly awkward, socially inept, and desperate for, but incapable of meaningful connections with others. Often, they're alone with no real friends, and it's safe to assume that in high school they were all the weird kid. What's really interesting here, though, is that even if we weren't the weird kid we could always relate to them on a secret level that held more meaning than some of the other friendships we had; a level that made us feel guilty for existing in a way that highlighted the weird kid as weird. This is the feeling often created by July's characters, intentional or not.

Standing as individual stories, her work is poignant, endearing, frank, and sexually frustrated. As a collection they blur into a mess of awkwardness and basketcases who never really find what they're looking for, and who generally don't even know what it is exactly they're looking for in the first place. I found this problem when I tried to read Joyce Carol Oates' collection of short stories (Dear Husband). After the third story I found it difficult to believe in the voice as the character's own and not simply Oates' manner of writing--which is exactly what it was.

Things I'd like to discuss when there's food in my belly

1. Slaughterhouse-five: Good book, not the greatest, but possibly the most over-hyped.

2. Eating Animals: For those who have always been on the fence between omnivorism and vegetarianism, this book will push you into a new stage of indecision where you desperately crave a cheeseburger, but cannot get the image of cows being skinned and slaughtered alive out of your head. (And there are a lot of such images in this book.)

3. Miranda July: The problem with short story collections by a writer with a distinctive voice/style is that it's her only voice/style and the stories fail to stand together as a collection; they blur together as a train of awkward social situations and it really doesn't make a difference which character is which. Also, this is the sign of the times.