What's up, new decade?

Since I'm planning on being indisposed for the next 36 hours, at least, and since making lists is my only natural talent, I decided I would make a list of all things good 2009.

I wish I had read more books this year, as I wish every year. And as I resolve every January 1st, I hope to read more in 2010. My newly discovered favorite things to read are short-shorts. Short fiction in general, but short-shorts of 1,000 words or less (usually 500 or less) are more concentrated compared to normal-length short stories, and I find the scenes, however mundane or typical, are teeming with restrained emotions, so that a scene about buying oranges is never about oranges. Some are uncomfortable vignettes that make you feel like you intruded on the wrong hotel room. They show you the faintest breath of life before definitively shutting the door.

My favorite short-short anthologies of 2009 (both put out by Rose Metal Press):


Brevity & Echo: An Anthology of Short Short Stories. All stories in this collection are 1500 words or less, most of which are less than 400.

Excerpt from "I Always Know It's Over When They Say" by Melissa McCracken:

You never met a man like me before. My wife has nothing to do with this. You remind me of my mother. I want seven children. I have three kids. I'll never get over her. My ex wouldn't swallow. Lemme buy you a drink. I only drink when I'm depressed. My British accent only comes out when I'm drunk, Love. Last time, I wrecked the El Camino. I only bet on college ball. I haven't finished a book since high school. I quit the hard drugs. I can't wait till deer season.



A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness: Four chapbooks of short short fiction by four women (Amy L. Clark, Elizabeth Allen, Kathy Fish, and Claudia Smith)


Excerpt from "I Tell / I Don't Tell" by Claudia Smith (I chose this one because it's strikingly similar to my own life...especially the prom part):

My prom date was gay. He wore a beautifully fitted tux. We went bowling instead of doing it, afterward.
I didn't know he was gay. Not for sure. I had him pick me up at my best friend's house. My own house smelled of rotting.
I lost pregnancies.
I won't tell the details, but some are sloppy.


My favorite albums of the year:

It's Blitz by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Swoon by Silversun Pickups

To Be Still by Alela Diane

Crossing the Rubicon by The Sounds

Manners by Passion Pit

Best shows:

Alela Diane @ the First Unitarian Church, March 1st(my birfday present from Rachel. I got Alela Diane's new cd and her autograph, locked the keys in my dad's car, chatted with her drummer while waiting for AAA, and drove home in a blizzard...near white-out conditions. Truly a stupendous night.)

The Sounds + Foxy Shazaam @ the TLA (feel good show of the year)







Best movies:

Up

Brothers

Fantastic Mr. Fox (I haven't seen this one yet, but I'm adding it in anticipation.)







2009 was an odd year, no pun intended. Lots of ups and downs, as with any other year. It's strange to think that the first decade of the century is over. 10 years ago I was almost 15, adjusting to life without mom, and I was thinking how strange it felt to see a whole century end. It felt like being a part of history by default. Now I'm almost 25, and I cannot believe how far I've come. I'm very proud of myself. Way to be, me.

See you all next year!

My dad told me that Jonathan Safran Foer was on Ellen yesterday. I missed it :(

But for good reason ;)

idon'twanttogotoworkohmygodihateit.

Read Miranda July

I undeleted this blog for a second time. I plan to utilize it for book reviews (maybe music, tv and movies...whatever is in front of my face at the time) and better updates about my work. Etcetera. All writers have them. Let's be a writer, shall we?

Presently I'm reading (or preparing to read) No One Belongs Here More Than You, a collection of short stories by Miranda July. My first Miranda July experience involved Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex). You could say it was a menage, I'll allow it. Jeffrey Eugenides, perhaps my top-most favorite author, edited a wonderful and eclectic collection of love/anti-love stories called My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead. The anthology spans numerous decades--maybe centuries, I'm not sure--and it pulls from the oeuvres of classic greats such as Faulkner, Joyce, and Nabokov (who I find annoyingly verbose, but whatever), and it features contemporary lesser-knowns such as Miranda July.

Something That Needs Nothing is a witty tale about an 18-year-old girl's pathetic and painfully one-sided infatuation with her girlfriend (later, ex-girlfriend). I hate using the words "honest" or "real" when describing stories, so I'll refrain here. But July's story is a relatable and often humorous rendering of how embarrassing and pathetic we are in the wake of heartbreak and losing a significant other (who never really loved us) to another:

I could not let her leave the building. I ran down the hall and threw myself on her. She shook me off; I locked my arms around her knees. I was sobbing and wailing, but not like a cartoon of someone sobbing and wailing--this was really happening. If she left, I would become mute, like those children who have witnessed horrible atrocities. No one would understand me but those children. [...] Before they pulled away, I shut my eyes and hurled myself onto the sidewalk. I lay there. This was my last hope--that Pip would take pity on me.

As someone who jokes her way through difficult things, I fell in love with this story and immediately wanted to gorge myself on July's prose. Several months and one amazon.com wishlist later, I have the yellow version of No One Belongs Here More Than You (see also: green, pink, and orange). What makes me love her more is the fact that she is also a filmmaker, screenwriter, poet, and actor. Quintuple threat! She's also cute to boot.

Anyway, I hope to some day be a quintuple threat while maintaining my humble good looks. In the meantime, I'm reading this book.

Look alive

I just turned the heat on in my room. It felt like giving up. But after spending much of today fast asleep under piles of blankets I needed to do something to keep me comfortably awake. My summer clothes began swapping places in storage with my winter clothes. This also feels like giving up. The windows are shut tight. I burn candles for additional warmth. My tea kettle has been dusted off for a season of use. Every day I want to hibernate.

Someone make this chill go away.

It's cinnamon season

Autumn, the anti-spring--when colors bloom for death and not life. Your parting gift. Everything from here on revolves around warming yourself internally. Mulling spices. I'm catching cold. I woke up with a sore throat and I thought a cup of tea would be a quick fix, but 2 cups later I'm not feeling much better. I can feel my glands swelling. I can feel my sinuses bracing for impact. I feel the sick kind of tired. Curse me, never wanting to shut the windows when I sleep. I've been feeling a tickling in my chest for the past day or two, but blamed all the smokers around me.

I was supposed to go to an arts festival in West Philly today with my friend Chris, but looks like I'm going to pass on that. My throat is feeling worse by the minute. Garbage.

It's not just a one-night stand

Nothing keeps me up at night anymore, save my boyfriend's cat nagging me like an irreverent step-child--and I should know. My mother remarried when I was 21 and too old to be tricked into second-string father-daughter relationships. My father had been wearing dresses for 7 years and 5 days by then, and every wedding anniversary thereafter will be the year + 5 days anniversary of my dad painting his toe nails and secretly wishing I had nicer clothes and prettier hair.

But the point of all this: I no longer write out of desperate need. That's the worst of it. I'm stable.

I stayed up till 2 watching the rerun of Oprah. Mackenzie Phillips was on talking about her memoir and her drug-fueled sexual relationship with her father (John Phillips from the Mamas and the Papas). Her drug-fueled life in general. I hate Oprah as an interviewer.

"At 16 I started shooting coke, and I--"
"Wait, let me just clarify, at 18 you were raped by your father, and after 10 years you were 29 and weren't you old enough to know better?"
"Yes, I was and I knew better. At 16 he taught me how to shoot--"
"So you knew having sex with your father was wrong."
"Yes, and he allowed me to do so many drugs--"
"You knew having sex with your father was wrong and you kept doing it for 10 years."
"Yes, I was on drugs all the time and that ruins your capacity to reason--"
"So it was wrong and you kept doing it?"

Ugh. Anyway, it hit me that I seem to be drawn to women who crumble. Regardless of whether they fall into ruin or rebuild, I admire them. Perhaps it's because in either case they never say they found Jesus or "by the grace of God." In either case they find themselves and proceed accordingly. I'm just enthralled by the awful things that are repressed and that build pressure over years till they explode one way or another. Super volcanoes.

Side note: the women on The View are at least mildly retarded.

I've been having such weird/bad dreams lately. They're super vivid and really ugly. I'm never quite sure what they're about. One I had last night involved some sort of altercation in which AE got shot and died. I didn't see it happen, and I think Biff's boyfriend got shot and died, too. I'm not sure, but there was someone else that also died. The thought of AE dying was enough to make it a nightmare and I kept thinking, this isn't right, and I forced myself awake and had to talk myself out of calling him at 3 or 4 am to make sure he was really still alive.

I found a press last night that caters to writers like me who write poetry, but specifically prose and short-shorts (vignettes). They're called Rose Metal Press and they're having a chapbook contest. I need 25-40 pages of good stuff by Dec. 1st. Fingers crossed. There are a couple books I want to buy from them, so I need to reason with my budget. I'm going through the classified section of P&W magazine and researching different presses to see which contests I'll enter and who I'll submit to. My to-do list today. Let's get movin', kid. Let's get it on.

The dreams I dream, the song I sing for you

Some thoughts I had on seeing Foxy Shazam, The Sounds, and Bam Margera all in one place last night:

1. Foxy Shazam is, for all intents and purposes, a group of really drunk friends who got together and decided to play music while drunk, and it's possible that none of them are playing the same song, but it works as a soulful and irreverently entertaining spectacle. That's what it is. It's a spectacle. And I would gladly see them again. So if you find yourself in the unique situation where you're feeling blue and have an opportunity to see Foxy Shazam, see them and a smile will spread across your face. For days you will not be able to comprehend just what exactly you saw. There are no words for it.

2. Bam Margera is a rich asshole who dresses like a rich asshole. His wife is waif thin, and they're both so full of it despite the fact that Bam made his fortune by being an idiot on TV and not because he did anything relevant, noteworthy, or particularly skillful, and when you get down to it he's not different than any other douchebag in Southeastern PA except that he's a millionaire for no good reason and he drives a Mercedes. But I'll admit I was mildly star-struck; I got a small kick out of seeing a local "celebrity" from cable television.

3. Gay men LOVE the Sounds. According to my BFF, gay men love Swedish pop in general. There were lots of jazz hands and limp wrists. I'm not hating. I thought it was funny in a nice way. I mean, my dad is half gay, so...I'm practically gay myself. Anyway, I wouldn't have called myself a Sounds fan prior to this show; I went mostly because my best friend has been aching to see them for at least 2 years and I knew it was something special for her. But they put on a really fun, energetic show, and at times we felt like we were in a circa 1992 spaceship. Asymmetrical hair cuts, vests, curled lips. Look at the guitarist or keyboardist and you'll probably understand another reason why gay men love The Sounds. The singer is incredibly sassy and has nice legs, but spits a lot on stage. I'm probably a fan now.

All in all it was a good night that made me feel kind of happy despite my current situation with my dear boy. Essentially, I do dumb stuff and think nothing of it because it's all nothing to me; but he's something and he's something very special, and if the nothing hurts him then it's not nothing--it's something I have to fix. Sometimes I wish that, when you can't find the right words for a particular situation that you could crack open your heart and show someone the colors inside and it would be enough to make them want to take a chance and keep investing in you. Maybe someday I'll gather enough strength/courage to crack open my rib cage and incandescent light will shoot out everywhere.

My brother is moving today. I'm helping because, frankly, I have nothing else to do, and I'm looking forward to not finding ass hair on the toilet seat whenever I go into the bathroom. Seriously, I could knit a sweater.

And frankly, my heart is too anxious to do any serious work today anyway.