Eugenics Begins With You!

I burned my finger...

I drank too much tonight.

I burned my finger on a cigarette. 

I made plans with my current inamorata.  Private and public. 

My finger still hurts. 

I've got to go teach love poetry tomorrow.

I'm a pretty happy hare right now.

What Reconciles Me

"What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered, together.  They are strewn there pell-mell.  One of your ribs leans against my skull.  A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis.  (Against my broken ribs, your breast like a flower.)  The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel.  It is strange that this image of our proximity, concerning as it does mere phosphate of calcium, should bestow a sense of peace.  Yet it does.  With you I can imagine a place where to be phosphate of calcium is enough."

                                                                                       - John Berger

I want nothing more than to love this much - and to write this well.  And one day... I think I just might.

To the Editors of Time Magazine:

I am writing you this letter in reference to Claire Suddath's most recent article, "Mourning the Death of Handwriting".  In truth, I would have preferred to write you this letter by hand, but I worry that the irony of such a thing might cause Ms Suddath's head to explode.  

This was perhaps one of the worst articles I've read in a very long time.  The mixture of Ms Suddath's sad limitations of journalistic scope plus the transparently cavalier attitude with which she shared that scope both offended my intelligence, and  left me as a reader (to put it bluntly) seriously pissed off.

The arrogance and cynicism that Ms Suddath employs in the closing remarks of this piece are not only flippant and simplistic - but they even manage, in an act of surprising journalistic alchemy, to render every single word that comes before that conclusion entirely pointless.

If the issue itself is something so easily shrugged away, what's the value in writing about it at all?  Why did I bother to read this article, if the author could so glibly shuck the issue's relevance with the same dearth of intellectual consideration and wit that is most often expressed in a Facebook or Twitter post.

I'd suggest that you fire Ms Suddath, but to be honest the problem exists with your editors as well.  Whomever it was that misconstrued Ms Suddath's transparent, nihilistic, 20-something blather as wit shouldn't be editing Time Magazine - he or she should be writing for "Red Eye" on FOX News - a show now famous for its criminally simplistic interpretations of complex or otherwise important subjects.

"And let's be honest: the Declaration of Independence is already hard to read."

It is not my intention to fetishize the Declaration of Independence, but a statement like this is entirely unacceptable.  Not because it disrespects the document - the Declaration of Independence has no feelings to bruise.  The problem with this line is that it insults the intelligence of your readers.  A line like this hinges on the assumption that those people who read it will view one of the most important political documents in all of Western history as an excuse to get cute - as a punch line.  That they're more than willing to let paragraph after paragraph of cultural analysis be washed away with little more than a lazy zinger.  A joke.

Unfortunately, the only joke I see here is Claire Suddath.  And it isn't a very funny joke, at that.

I say this as a long-time reader of your magazine, AND a member of Ms Suddath's generation - as I am only two years older than she. 

It seems clear to me that it is your intention in publishing Ms Suddath's work to somehow speak to my generation.  That you have somehow gleaned that we are a population of vapid nihilists whose general response to any issue or crisis is to shrug, and snort, and take a swill from our PBR... satisfied in the knowledge that we're above such issues.  Because nothing means anything. 

Well I'm asking you to stop that.  Stop it.  Please stop pandering to the lowest common denominator of my generation - employing writers who infect us all with such flimsy and ultimately frivolous nonsense, masquerading as news, commentary and humor.

Ms Suddath's work is without a shred of wit, complexity or intellectual depth - and it's time you put a stop to it.

Sincerely,

a.

That's the end of that chapter

Good news:

I'm totally out of my maudlin, loathsome whine-fest.  What a difference a few drinks can make.

So what's new?  I'm excited about writing again!  I fell into a little micro-funk after I got home... which usually happens when I've got nothing to do.  My new semester starts in a month, and I'm so excited I can barely breathe.  I got my student reviews from this last semester... and they were killer.  I'm actually liked!  I'm good at my job!  Who the hell saw that coming?

So my days are spent writing and reading and editing for The Splinter Generation.  And in a few weeks, they'll be filled with class-planning and essay grading and pleas for meteors to dash my brain to chutney.

I'm starting an interview series through The Splinter Generation - I think it's going to be pretty much the greatest thing ever.

I'm starting a whole new host of essays.

I'm sending out my work.

I'm the greatest teacher who ever lived.

I made friends with a big cool black dude named Dexter at a karaoke bar - and yes, I probably shouldn't point out that he's black because that's somehow racist or whatever... but I'm excited because out of all the different permutations of gender/race/etc. that my friends have been... straight, black dudes have been a little rare.  So I made a buddy and he rules.  Go ahead... call me a racist.

I'm going to write an essay on race.  It'll probably get me killed.  Some white dude with dreads who calls himself, "Peacetrain" will shoot me in the heart with a crossbow.  And then he'll lecture my corpse.

AAGH I've got so much energy.

I'm gonna refurbish my newly-stolen bike.

The next time I blog... it'll actually be about something.

I promise.   

Toxic

I would rather hurt someone than be forgotten.  And I'm not sure if I think that's right or not.

Entropy

I can't decide if I think decay is beautiful or horrifying. 

While I was in LA, I went to a museum where a pretty famous illusionist and magic historian had donated his collection of antique dice. Each set was arranged in various states of degradation... some only slightly cracked, others a tiny crumbling avalanche of pulverized celluloid.  The lighting was so lovely in this museum - nearly nonexistent, really, it was practically pitch dark in that place, save for the few halogens that illuminated each display.  The lighting haloed each object with such fierce light that each of them smoldered there in the dark.  It was jarring.

I spent a good ten minutes just staring into the crumbling dice, while the illusionist's voice narrated into the dark a self-written history lesson on the development of dice. 

There was something so hauntingly lovely about those dice.  Not only their color, and how the camphor caught and trapped the little light in the room.  It was the fact that they were dying that really moved me.  Well... not dying... they're not alive.  But the way they were positioned atop one another... the little flecks and bits of their structure peppering their display cases... the way they fractured and fell away from themselves - even down to the chemical level - it was almost moving - like they were eroding away in the dark.

I like that things can still be beautiful as they die... that death itself, that deconstruction, decay, that entropy is, in its own way, a truly beautiful thing.  Not because of what it means - because even its meaning (perceived and invented as it is) will corrode, too.  No, I don't mean to project a belief on those dice, or on entropy at all... I mean to talk almost about the aesthetics of loss... and say that I found it beautiful. 

Everything is crumbling - all the time.  Every relationship is ending, every person I know is dying - the universe is pulling itself to shreds.  It's just all happening so slowly that I can't really see it. 

I can't see it, but I know it's happening.  Every connection I make with someone is a connection I'm losing.  The very act of letting someone into my life is a wound, really.  Something self-inflicted. 

Yeah, I know... I'm being a miserable old shit right now - but it's been on my mind for the last few days.  Just this little itch in my brain.  A reminder that everything I think I know is an illusion - or at least a fiction.  That every relationship I think I can depend on is slipping away.  That I cant really count on anything... anything other than loss.  A slow, constant loss... like water running through my hands.

Here's hoping I'll still find it lovely once it's all gone.  Or, at least, while I'm losing it.

I feel sorry for anyone who reads this.  I'm probably going to ruin your day.

Dunno.  Just been on my mind lately.

I promise, next post I'll write about ponies.  Ponies are always great.

Home

I'm home.  I got my MFA.  My reading was a wild success - my lecture was adored.  Terry shone with pride.  My workshop mentor told me to submit my workshop piece (which was the shittiest piece in my manuscript) for publication.  I made tons of new friends - solidified those that had already been made.  I got home and slept for twelve hours.  Ate chinese food and watched In Treatment with Jamie.

Got two dates coming up.  A casual Thursday on the horizon.  Sean and Carly on Friday. 

I'm submitting pieces for publication, and am beginning the long slog through rejection.

I just accidentally ashed a cigarette into a newly opened can of diet coke and drank it anyway, and, after a moment's consideration, have decided that I'm okay with that.

My life is fucking swell.

Adventures in Los Angeles 5.? - A World Without Michael Jackson

A year ago, I was here in Los Angeles when I heard that George Carlin died.  He died in LA.  I took it poorly - George Carlin got me thinking when I was a kid.  I grew up seeing him as a kind of philosopher... and so when he died, I felt like I had lost a mentor of sorts.  It was personal for me - I went for a long walk that night and listened to his old bits on my iPod.

Now I'm here in LA again, and I just heard that Michael Jackson died.  I'm sitting in a break room at school with a bunch of people... all of us on our laptops, each one sifting through the internet to find out if he was really dead or not.  It's surreal... almost goulish... everyone clicking around like vultures, chirping out little status updates - "coma!" "no... dead." "nope coma again... no... no... yeah, he died."

Now we're all trading stories - anecdotes about him.

What a weird day.

So much for Iran being an interesting story... too bad... I really liked following that one.

Adventures in Los Angeles 5.3 - Nuclear Wessles

It's nearly three in the morning over here.  I just got home from a party hosted by the most delightful man ever - someone so charming that I wish I'd known him even better before.

I'm the doziest bear at the moment - my eyes are heavy and dry - I smoked way too many cigarettes, and I have to be at a lecture at nine tomorrow morning.

So not gonna happen... but whatever.

I gave my reading tonight - and it was fucking great.  There's something really amazing about having a room full of people laugh when you want them to laugh - and "hmm" when you want them to "hmm."

I got great praise and compliments - most of which I actually believed...

I was fussed over for a while - always my favorite thing.

But the best was seeing Terry's face after it was all over... she looked so fucking proud.  That was awesome.  She and I have had our differences about this or that - but always had a solid mentor/student partnership - one which is rapidly evolving into an actual, real-life friendship... and that's come to mean a great deal to me.  We went out to dinner the other night... and it was just wonderful.  Wonderful and delicious.  

I've had a few delicious dinners here so far - as a culinary sidebar - I had thai fried rice with Chinese broccoli tonight.  Really goddamn good... I wish I had some right now.  I'll have to settle for the muffin I stole from the hotel earlier today, I guess.

Anyway - Terry beamed at me when I was done - and some lady I didn't know paid me an awesome compliment - and Laura patted my knee and gave me an "I told you so" face - and Antonia, the achingly lovely/cool/fascinating/tattooed stripper writer lady said something positive to me when I was done... but I couldn't hear her over the blood thundering in my skull.  It's impossible for me to talk to that woman without turning into a seventh grader.  She's so damn cool and pretty.  Sigh.

So my reading was a complete success - everyone laughed when they were supposed to, and everyone rubbed my belly and told me I was good.  And I believed them... which was great.

Afterwards, Scott (my long-lost Jewish half-brother), Laura and I went out for dinner (where I had my delicious fried rice)... and then Scott and I went to a party... where I danced (for all of three seconds... but it was to The Cure... so it's understandable), drank and smoked... but spent most of my time talking to a Russian physicist about the Higgs Boson.

Today turned out to be fucking awesome.

I just wish I had a foodage to crunch on before I sleep... ho hum. 

Breakfast tomorrow, I guess.

Goodnight, Moon.

a.

Adventures in Los Angeles 5.1 - It's just not fair...

In the last two years in this program, I've earned a reputation as the consummate flirt.  A title I wear like a badge of honor.  I love to flirt.  I do it all the time.  I'll flirt with anyone - with anything.  I'll flirt with a guy's dog, if it'll get me attention.   But the trick is, I need a squad to really flirt well.  I need to play off of a group.  On my own, I'm awkward and self-conscious.  In a group, I'm chatty and clever and brassy and charming.

I'm here this time, and most of my friends are gone.  Nearly all of them graduated last winter... leaving me here, alone...

This would be bad enough... but today I discovered that my hotel is hosting a seminar for single women on "How to make a man love you" or something equally absurd.   Tonight, my hotel bar is going to be percolating with spurned 30-somethings... and I don't have a squad to help me flirt with them.  I've seen so many in the halls of this hotel already... each of them stalking around like panthers, their footfalls padding to the endless rattle of their biological clock.  I'm in heaven - but I'm alone... so I'm in hell.

Oh how I wish my friends were here.

The flight was good.  I sat next to a cartoonishly obese woman who breathed through her mouth through the entire flight, and who grasped my forearm whenever there was turbulence.  Her name was Loretta.  We spoke for a while.  Nice older black lady.

I managed to flirt with her no problem.

We'll see what the night has in store.  I'm off to pick up Laura.