Super Scrabble. Gettin' up. Weekend alone. Thoughts on blog communities.

If you even give one microscopic shit about Scrabble, this story will make you gird your loins for love. The ultimate game. Ruthian power. Michael Cresta blowing your mind like Danny and the Miracles. That kind of stuff makes me super jealous as an avid Scrabble player. I think my high score at this point is 330.

**

I love A Tribe Called Quest and anything associated with them. Naturally, when Q-Tip releases a solo album, my feet start to sweat. I hear sounds, almost like squirrels in my roof or a Cavalier's starter clicking over in the same tone as a .44 magnum's hammer blasting out a round. It's out November 4th. First single can be heard/watched here. 

**

I buy a lot of things I never use. There's a stack of year-old DVDs I haven't watched yet. There will be time this weekend to explore those movies and my writing. Since I finished my undergraduate studies, time for movies has disappeared. I saw W. last weekend with Brianne and two of our friends, and it was fantastic. Although, I'm an Oliver Stone fan, so there's some bias. Either way, there aren't too many popular filmmakers who can create figures and situations that allow an audience to remember that we all live through times that are facsimile. Lust, health, sadness, dying, disappointment, providence. 

What pisses me off more than anything about living in our country in the time that I do is that everyone blames problems on the president. They blame it on politicians, on lobbyists and bankers and the wealthy and immigrants. This movie should help people remember that George Bush is a human being. He wants to please his parents, he wants to do things that he can be proud of. It's great to know that when it comes down to it, he probably doesn't give a fuck. He just wants to get things done.  He's everyman in the universe, only he wears a suit or button-down shirt everyday.

Whatever man, enough about politics. I'm going to watch Leon the Professional, Inland Empire and maybe something about kids this weekend. I might also watch Ron Artest's fists blur into the side of a complete stranger's face. That video will never get old.

**

All I do now is think about writing and scares my muscles stiff then forces me to close my eyes and wish that someday I'll have a job that requires me to wear a brown suit instead of an apron and blue, cross-stitched polo. I read a lot of blogs. I look at the blog rolls that slide down the sides of blogs and notice a lot of the same names. Tao Lin. Noah Cicero. Sam Pink. Etc.

I place value in names. It stems from my love of sports, I think. If I notice somebody's name and they say something about me, my head gets lighter. I listen. Their critique of me matters, regardless of what it pertains to. It could be about my socks, how much gas is left in the tank of my car, grooming techniques. For about a year now, I haven't been able to shake this desire of wanting ridiculous blog traffic. I want 100 people a day visiting my blog. I want stupid comments about beer and handstands. I want to be so busy with this blog that I forget to sleep or clean my sink.

What I'm saying is pretty shallow. I feel like a twelve-year-old popping zits in front of friends for a laugh. I think this is the first time in a while that I've questioned my ability as a writer, and that scares me. Not scaring me like I keep having dreams where I'm writing something and my laptop comes alive and gnaws through my knuckles, or I start typing sentences and my eyes bleed. 

Feeling no-good is terrible. An urge to sit and write for twenty hours and create a book or manuscript that would solve hunger problems should walk through my door and sit in my lap. I would hand-feed this urge Little Debbie treats and drill its cavities soon after. Together we might make something fantastic or nothing at all.

I don't know how to feel about writing right now. My chapbook is done, though, and will be printed November 3rd. First run is 50 copies.

Something tangible. Kevin Garnett. Scrabble addict.

Yes, that's a chapbook. That's my completed chapbook. There's a copy of my first tangible draft. Not a manuscript, but a book that you can hold and read. I'll have the final prints done in abouta week. Only a few more minor changes will be made: saddle stitched spine, cardstock cover and 100% cotton pages. When I say you need this chapbook, you truly need this chapbook. I want you to hold this in your hand like a wad of twenties or cock. 

I've posted this chapbook up on several other sites. Others are interested. I'm still not entirely sure how many I'm going to print maybe 25. 

**

Kevin Garnett is hungry for flesh. He's also the inventor of the phrase 'QWERTY.' Maybe, maybe not. I do know, however, that Kevin Garnett is the embodiment of basketball. I want you to leave a comment talking about your favorite sports moment. 

**

My girlfriend has me addicted to Scrabble. I'll play anyone. Even Kevin Garnett. He'll eat my ear after I beat him three times in a row.

Desperation sports. Brain in a window. More World Series.

Sometimes sports casters say things that are so beautiful, astounding and perfect that it makes my stomach burn and my feet feel like they're no longer there. For example, I'm watching the Monday Night Football game due to there being a rain delay in the World Series, and a player for the Titans just fumbled the ball and a Colts player recovered it.

But Mike Tirico, one of the most affluent, smooth sports casters around, said, "Oh no! Alge Crumpler lost the football.... there's a scrum. Recovered by Indianapolis!" First off... sorry for using two exclamation points so close together, you're only supposed to use eight in your hole life. That aside, I love how the situation wasn't drowned in football lingo. Anyone who might flip through the channels and watch a pile of guys fight for a brown leather bean rolling on artificial grass could understand what's going on outside of a fumble.

Alge Crumpler momentarily lost his livelihood. It's like a part of his soul was ripped from his body, and 21 other men had the chance to touch it. They had a chance to pull it towards their heart. Bodies turn into weapons. Into cruise missiles burning smoke onto a blue canvas, then crashing into banks of earth with their fragments displaced. 

I made a post a few days ago where I stated that I hate when academics downplay the artistic integrity of sports. A night like tonight is exactly why. Two extremely important games are going on. Poets, authors, academics, theorists, etc., need to remember that you win and lose in writing. In theory, in rhetoric. Sometimes, you write a poem, and the journal or magazine you send it to is the Patriots, or the 1985 Bears or the 1975 Cincinnati Reds. You're choked into submission. But there are other times where you throw a bomb from the warning track, you complete a screen pass with twenty seconds left and run as fast as your body lets you. Your limbs start feeling like immovable mass, lungs burning through from invisible jabs to the gut. Somebody likes your poem. You have a fantastic conversation about a story you read, or you go to somebody's reading and it's fantastic. You might win. I hope you win.  

Also, poet James Wright wrote a fantastic poem about football. It's linked on a blog here. The first time I read it, it felt like I forgot that what I was doing was reading. Everything just felt like emotions and nausea. It was one of those things that all humans could understand, even if we lacked the ability to convey the situation through language.

I want you to start looking at sports differently. Go onto YouTube or something, and check out classic games. It'll take you five seconds to find them, and your entire body will feel weightless.

**

I wrote the phrase "brain in a window,"  and I took the statement literally. Seeing a brain in a window would scare me, but not as much as seeing a heart. My mom told me a story once hen I was younger about a night in a hospital she worked in where there was a bucket of brains sitting in a room by itself all night. It's probably not true. 

Could you imagine seeing that, though? Imagining a brain working gives me anxiety. It seems impossible. Like when you have somebody explain how a car runs or how my laptop lets me type this sentence. 

I keep thinking about things that I'll never be able to understand. Always meeting them with great anxiety. Yikes.

**

The game was suspended tonight due to rain. 2-2 in the sixth inning. I'm terribly excited. It was the kind of game that I want to watch with my friends that don't enjoy sports because the game had so many wild things happen that weren't normal.

Things that get you pumped. Tons 'o links. Yes, I talked about sandwiches, not Blondie, in this post.

Man, one thing I absolutely hate is being forced to try something new. Let's say you're at Steak 'n Shake with some dudes, and you run to the bathroom right before the server comes up to take your order. You're in the bathroom for a while, and when you come back, there's some sandwich sitting at your place at the table that you've never had before.

So you're thinking, "Man, fuck this sandwich. It looks awful." Friends douse bread with condiments. Kids across from your table knock over salt shakes and grind the bottom of their cups on little mountains. You're the only one not eating. You sip at your shake and spin the straw around the ring of strawberry paste towards the bottom.

"Dude, you're wasting money on that sandwich? I'll eat it." One of your friends loosens one notch on his belt and grabs at your sandwich, tearing off a piece at the bottom.

You watch his hand, as if it were some alpha male gripping a pup in its jaws or the Earth opening at a rounded corner, sucking half a city into shallow dirt. "Here, just try it."

Tear off a piece, grind it into pulp. Lettuce, some red onion, peppers, some thick cajun sauce. Two or three different meats. It's delicious. As soon as your throat pushes the lump down, the larger piece is hanging from your buddy's lips. I guess now you can order your usual cheeseburger with extra mustard and a side of cheese dip.

So maybe next time you won't be so antsy about trying something new. I mean, I'm still going to be antsy. I hate change. I usually hate new food, poems, cars, weather, windows, whatever. It all freaks me the fuck out. What's awesome is when you try something new and it punches you so hard in the face, you have to call your mom and have her remind you that you're her baby.

These things pump me:

Awesome. Rad. Bitchin'. Sweet. Better than most. Don't say I didn't warn you, this is awesome.

I'm going to watch the rest of the World Series in my room and sleep for a long time since I have tomorrow off. 

Cover teaser for 'Simpleton'. Graduate school. Etc.

Here's the cover for Simpleton. About 90% done with editing. Wanna read the manuscript before it's published? Let me know and I'll email you a copy.

I hope you're looking at this cover the same way my dog does a piece of peppered turkey that's fallen out of my sandwich onto her paws. Trust me, I want you to read my words. Nothing makes me happier. I don't even want to know you read my words, I just know when people do. It's my motherly sense. I sit at work creasing people's brochures, and then my balls start to hurt, like when your girlfriend mounts you, but goes down your thighs too much and pushes them between your thighs. Stomach drops like change into a toll booth, but your face still says sensual, not ruptured testicle. My eyes water, mouth dries like field drought.

"Somebody's reading my blog/poems/someplace I've been published. Woah."

Everyone needs this feeling.

**

I've looked into a few graduate schools for Fall 2009. It scares me. I have some schools in mind, like the ones I would eat a glass smoothie to obtain an acceptance letter from their English department.

University of Louisville, Indiana University, other places.

**

Watch Game 3 of the World Series tonight. Evan Longoria and Chase Utley will thank you if you do. Heck, they might even thank you with a homerun, and that would just kick ass.

Fuck medication. This doctor understands that the food you put in your body is more important. And everyone always makes fun of me for not taking medication when I'm sick

People I didn't know wrote poetry. Not flushing toilets. Fellating my own ego.

You remember Boy Meets World, right? Everyone's favorite sitcom on ABC's TGIF. So since I'm a Wikipedia addict, I started reading through bios on some of my favorite shows from when I was a bit younger, and found out Shawn (real name Rider Strong) has actually had some poetry published. Read it here.

I mean, I wouldn't put him up there with some of my favorite poets, but you better believe when I was a kid stuffing my face with cheddar flavored popcorn, avoiding the crushed, nasty burnt bits of seed and black at the bottom of the bowl, then chasing it with a mouthful of Surge, it never came across that Rider Strong actually wrote poetry. That'd be like thinking Diana Ross was a professional wrestler, or Peter O' Toole was one of the original B-boys in one of the five bouroughs.

The urge to critique Rider Strong's poetry is blowing my mind like an axe kick to the teeth by Prince Albert. Er, the wrestler. Not the dick ring.

Fuck that. But either way... Rider Strong writes poetry. I want to do some sick workshops and drink pale ale with him, the aforementioned Peter O' Toole, and DJ Kool Hurc.

**

I can't stand when I walk into a bathroom and see piss or poop into a toilet. It turns my stomach. I want to print a huge sign that says, "Every bathroom isn't your kindergarten bathroom." Every guy would read it and be like, "That sign is so right. I'm going to flush this fucking toilet."

**

So, I think other people need to read my blog. It'd make me feel great. Like running up at a 90 degree angle Fred Astaire style. Like being the first cro-man to start a fire with sticks, or somebody's mom making a bad ass pan of brownies, and you just happened to get off the bus just in time to get the first one. Uh, yeah. Feel free to link my words. If you do, post up a comment or something.

I'm listening to this at work:

When people you know are far away and alone

I'm alone in a living room
looking through spiderweb dew
tearing down foggy glass. Dogs are panting
on porches, licking the pink pads of their feet.
Bowls filled with mushy kibble,
sons taking out the trash. They're blowing
pretend smoke rings and pushing their fingers
through the middle.

My wife called me earlier. She's still in a hospital
with her sister. We talked for about fifteen minutes.
I coughed to redirect conversation from her sister
to the dirty pile of clothes on the bed,
the scuff marks in the enterance way.
She left a pair of dull sterling silver earings
on the corner table and I spun them
around my index finger when she sighed.

These couch cushions feel like burlap against my thighs.
My cell phone is still open in my lap. CNN on mute.
Kids are still outside hurling bags of coffee grounds,
tampons, cans and banana peels into huge blue
rectangles. A couple is across the street walking
a malteese, laughing about work or something unimportant.
The last thing I remember you saying on the phone
was a brief description of how your sister
tried to bargain disease for housekeeping favors.

"She's so alone in here," I heard you drag your fingernail
against the keypad," all she's doing is crying. She
can't even see that I'm here. This is the loneliest place."
No more kids outside throwing away trash.
No more collies growling like idling trucks.
I watch a newcasters mouth move
with nothing coming out
and this living room becomes the lonliest place.
No one is here to bargin with
or bargin for.

More blurbing. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Songs.

Sam Pink blogs. He writes and breathes and lives and sleeps behind four walls. He does things just like you and me. Which means when Sam Pink is kind enough to send you a chapbook called YUM YUM I CAN'T WAIT TO DIE, you read it.

His work is exciting, loose. Sam Pink's collection is dangerous. It's the thing I found in a shoebox underneath my bed. It's covered in dust, it's still tightly wrapped in plastic, breathing in choking gasps, spitting out vowels and other things growing in dumpsters. A great suggestion would be to not show Sam Pink's work to your dad or anyone else's dad, for that matter. Mainly because, your dad is a square, but more so because coming home and finding his defragmented torso bits exploded all over his La-Z-Boy because of the sheer destruction of YUM YUM I CAN'T WAIT TO DIE would depress you for weeks. All you would do is sit in your room, eat popcorn and listen to Natalie Cole.

This chapbook is a series of micro-narratives. Maybe fables, maybe introspective narrative. Ultimately, this is a collection of statements. Examine them and apply them to your life. While I read these narratives, I couldn't help but apply them to an academic setting. 

Reading Sam Pink's work makes me want to call it my own and bring it into a class so girls can yell about nothing making sense, and guys can say cool things like, "Yeah, I get this. This is alright. Great line breaks." Then I can say what the fuck. The professor would be real slick and move his glasses up and down his nose a few times and mumble "Woahhhhh, woah. I like what's going on here," and the ambiguity of that statement will rock my world because I'll have no idea who's saying what or what is even going on here.

Follow the links, read the words, enjoy the moment. It's that simple.

**

Could you imagine being Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? 

Socks? Check. Sweet shorts? Check. Mad hair? Yeah. Wikipedia says Kareem is, "a successful coach, author and actor," and when I read this, I say to myself, "Yeah, actin' like a bad ass!" Plus, Kareem is a master of figurative language. Proof seen here:

"It's like when you're seasick and you have that feeling in your stomach. 'With a migraine, that feeling is in your head.''

How 'bout you suck on that poetic dick, Dan Brown?

**

All of these are worth watching. They all rule/shred/get your head bobbing, etc. I think this idea came from Dan Bailey's post from a few weeks ago where he put up a bunch of cool shit he liked in high school. Man, I loved being into music in high school. You didn't give a shit about anything, it just mattered if music got you so pumped up that you wanted to punch through your closet and rip all of your nice collared shirts.

Among others.

Football. New reads.

When people tell me they don't like watching sports, I can never understand it. Ever. You need to watch sports. You need to go to stadiums and drink six dollar domestic beers and eat cheesesteaks that're simply piles of shaved steak thrown into open-face hotdog buns.

You need to be drunk, cheering, wearing a t-shirt in December. You need to be cheering for men running around with steam rolling out from the sides of their helmets. If you've never been to a football game, go to one. It doesn't even matter what team you root for. Just go.

On that note... I root for these guys:

And this guy is my absolute favorite:

**

I've added a few new people to my list of people with blogs that you should read. It's Sunday, and you're probably watching football, so during the next commercial, read them. Everyone has interesting things to say.

Which reminds me, if you read my blog and want to link me, please feel free to do so. I'd love to have more people reading it. 

Update on Simpleton. I shouldn't be working today. Lists.

We're absolutely dead at work. Dead. I have nothing to do. I'm working on Simpleton right now. Just got the cover finished, I like it a lot more than the original. I'm working on page formatting right now. Either way, I'd like to have it done by the end of the month. No idea how many copies I'm going to make. You want one? Tell me. You want to blurb about it? Do it. I can send you a .PDF of the manuscript. You want to ignore it? Sweet. Go make me some brownies.

**
Saturday's weren't made for working. Unless you drive a cab or you deliver babies. Everyone else should be outside doing yardwork or running in the woods or fishing. Those are the things that make Saturdays productive.

**
I used to make lists for everything I did. I need to start doing that again.

Etc. below:

Congrats to Alexi for his spread in PerformanceVW magazine.

Sometimes I feel like this.

We were meant to fuck.

I could tell,
just by the way I clutched your breast in my fingers
the way someone clutches a five dollar bill
blowing across a convenience store parking lot.
We sat at a sports bar.
Two empty stools between us.
I slid you a glass of gin,
then another.
I remember saying,"You looked thristy,"
but I didn't look at you. My eyes
were fixed on a high school football jersey,
reading sribbled handwriting and the scores
for a handful of games.

We talked in short, choppy sentences. Your
hands were thin, you were a nail biter.
After 11, we ordered pizza, extra green peppers.
I ate the small corner pieces.
Later, my jaw felt heavy.
Like cinder block bones, like a dry felt-tip marker.

During last calls, I asked if you wanted to come home with me.
"Sure," you slid a cardigan no one arm and walked towards the door,
"That's worth two free drinks."
I'm glad you didn't complain that my passenger's seat was broken,
and that the heat didn't work.
We had our head on each other's shoulders
walking up the stairs, leaning against the wall.
I used every key I had twice before
we fell into my living room. The front door stayed cracked open.
No lights on in the hall.
You leaned over me on the floor, undid my belt.
Tugged at me belt loops.
"Give me five minutes."
You kicked over your purse walking to the bathroom.
It was way too easy for you to unzip your dress drunk.

"Is this a rape kit in your purse?"
I rifled through loose pennies and cigarettes
and pictures of dogs and turtles.
"Yes, it happens sometimes."
You came out of the bathroom in just heels.
Both of our bodies were warm.
We scoured and kissed sloppy and made
noise in a room that needed white noise.
When you sat on my thighs,
I couldn't help but look back over at your pruse
with its innards spilled on the floor.
A rape kit in a ziplock bag,
dirty change, lipstick with smudges on the cap,
people's phone numbers and napkins.
Things like this weren't supposed to happen
until you grabbed my dick the way somebody's dick
is supposed to be grabbed.
We crawled onto the sofa and rocked
it against the wall. Frames fell onto my head
and we didn't stop.

Then it was over. I felt like a teenager
pulling at the hair on his wrist.
The teenager chewing the inside of a retainer.
You climbed off my waist and turned on
some rerun of Real World/Road Rules Challenge,
watching it until your eyes closed.
I left the TV on
and watched our shadow move on the wall.
Your leg twitched and I finally felt
like I could fall asleep.

Today might be a good day.

An elderly man wrestles with 

a fanny pack filled with prescription bottles in a park.

His untucked shirt flap

rests on his thigh like a lapdog.

In a park. Leaves piling up,

small hills of orange and tan.

The bench slats are damp with morning.

There's a younger man sitting on the gnarled roots

of a tree that's been used as a chalkboard for decades.

People scribing directions to unearth old Converse shoeboxes

used as time capsules. Kids writings lists of who they've fucked,

what little league teams won big games, 

who won games of Red Rover sixteen Junes ago.

Children ride bikes with rusted baskets.

People make small noise. Coughing, 

clipping fingernails, striking matchbooks.

Wind bending stalks of thick grass

down by the lake.

The older man squints at the labels,

pressing them against his lens.

He pours a handful of a brown pill

and a round tan pill into his palm,

tilts his head back and moves his lips in prayer.

Simpleton. Growing out of habits. What my children should do.

Reading Dan Bailey's chapbook reminded me that I need to hurry up on mine. It was about 85%finished six weeks ago, then I just started getting interested in other things. When I got finished with the cover for the chapbook, I posted it on here. Man, 20 seconds later, I hated it. 

So, I'm starting on a new cover and working with a new title. It's called Simpleton, which will include 15 poems and 3 pieces of short/flash fiction. If you want it, that'd be great. I'll be publishing it myself, since I have the resources. Awesome.

Saying 'resources' sounds extremely profound. Suggesting I have some shifty friend from an Eastern European country that talks with a thick, muddy accent, drives a black sports sedan, and dumps bloated corpses into rivers with their feet adorned in cement shoes.

Man, that'd be the life. Could you imagine that? Talking to your mom at dinner, and she's concerned that you won't look up from your plate of overcooked pork roast and green beans, and as she puts her glass up to her lips she says, "I'm concerned about all your spending. Where do you get this money from?"

And you finally look up, all excited, as if somebody had kicked cattle slab into a lions cage. Stab at your pork and shove the piece of gristle into your mouth.

"Mom, you're worrying about nothing, I have resources." Bits of meat fall onto your plate and into your glass. 

She's not satisfied with this answer. She slaps the top of your hand and mumbles something to herself. She's tired of boxes without return addresses sitting on the stoop when she gets home from Jazzercise. 

**

I used to play video games all the time. Now I don't. Since I've been done with school I bought a lot of my older games back (Super Nintendo, Nintendo and the like). For the most part, though, they've sat alphabetically organized inside a Rubbermaid container that I use as a nightstand. I beat a few games, but I think the reason why I bought some of my stuff back is because it's comforting knowing that it's there. Maybe like why your dad bought a rusted-to-hell beige Ford Torino a few years back and has let it sit in the yard with the windows open and collect rainwater in the floor pans while birds picked at the stitches in the steering wheel.

He's standing in the driveway wearing a bathrobe, and drinking tea from his 15 year high school reunion mug. "I just like knowing that it's there. My first car was a beige Torino."

Secret of Mana, Super Dodgeball and Stunt Race FX all want to be played. Some of these games are worth more than $100 dollars, others are practically free. 

Maybe it's just my mind's way of telling me, "Prepare yourself for Diablo III. You've been waiting for it for almost 10 years. It's almost here." Yes, you can read that sentence, click on that link, and remember that this is all I wanted to do during high school. 

**

Sean Lovelace was a professor of mine at Ball State. Read his blog, it's amusing. I've plugged his words before, but you probably ignored them. Don't do it again, you're just making things harder for yourself. In his latest update, he talked about a writer visiting Ball State, and she said that she would never want her children to become writers.

News flash: everyone is a writer. Most people just don't care. You write grocery lists and memos to your boss about needing a new desk, and thank-you cards to your aunt for when she sends you Disney movies. 

I would never want my children to do this:

Or this. Or this. Or this.

They'll probably do all of it.

Blurbing. Starbucks. Etc.

Dan Bailey sent me a copy of his newest chapbook East Central, Indiana. If you haven't read Dan's work, that means you're just not trying hard enough. Reading Dan's work adds years onto your life. I've never had anyone personally send me a chapbook before. It's an exciting feeling. What that tells me is that Dan values my opinion, or maybe he just likes knowing that I'm reading the things he writes.

I work at a place that prints and publishes things, so I have this crazy urge to print off Dan's chapbook and design a cover for it. I could even bind it and put covers on it. I'm going to supress this urge. Plus, that would make Dan some kind of third-degree-of-separation customer, and I don't want to think of Dan as a customer. This makes me think of him wearing a suit. I've seen Dan in a suit one time before. He was drunk and I was high. We read our literature in front of an audience and everyone was excited. People made faces, for most of them because they couldn't help it. I read first in a low voice and kept looking at the same two faces in the audience over and over again. It felt like I was at a museum staring into an oil painting. The overhead light drowned out everyone's face and they were condiment swirls on a paper plate.

Dan's poetry always has an element of sincere energy and frankness that coils itself around your feet like a huge snake hiding in knee-high grass. It chokes your face and you die, but it doesn't bother you because dying is something we'll all have to deal with eventually.

I'm not saying Dan's poems are an atomic bomb. Dan's poems don't allow you to stare at the page and convince yourself that what you're reading doesn't have the opportunity to exist. He creates realities and worlds with tangible things. People with skin, dogs with balls, houses with four walls and chimneys that belch smoke into trees, and those threes shudder when the wind blows. Children clap their hands in Dan's poems and moms and dads drink coffee with the lights out.

I can sit here right now and tell myself that people in our world don't live on the moon but in i want to get drunk with you, Dan says, "we grew up in small chambers on the moon/i think that was when everything was a bit lame." My opinion is that Dan probably doesn't care at all about his work embodying some kind of aesthetic truth or value. To me, this collection calls attention to existential reasoning. That's a good thing.

When his poems end, some teachers would say, "They end on a sharp image." Nobody really knows what that means. I'm sitting here finising a Dan Bailey poem, and I tell myself, "The best way to end a poem is to prepare the reader with an image that will make them want to read another poem." In my life I've read enough authors to fill stadiums, but many of them only once because they cannot create a circle with their writing.

Dan makes circles. They're planets orbiting something in space that nobody can see. They're large enough planets that no single human being can explore them or know what they are beyond reading them, so you're forced to keep going and going until you either put the book down or sleep. Sometimes Dan's work makes me think about that one picture where all of those sets of stairs keep turning into themselves and the person in the picture looks lost and confused.

If Dan's chapbook was faxed to me, I'd wonder where it came from. Then I'd continue to read it until I got another fax.

**

I never had Starbucks until my senior year of college. Home was the only place I ever had coffee, and most other things that're served at Starbucks just dont' sound appitizing.

Now, I work right next to a T-Mobile and Starbucks. I can go next door to pay my bill every month, and if I ever get hungry, I can always just get a cookie or something to drink. There are only a few things I like on the menu and they're all frappucinos. Most of the other things taste like ass-flavored water swimming in chunks of ice.

**

I'm listening to Tom Petty at work and it's fantastic. Nobody is in the store and I can sing Honey Bee as long as I want. Thanks to my Dad, I grew up on Tom Petty. The Beatles, too. And Buddy Holly, but Tom Petty was always my favorite. On Sundays before football would start, we'd organize all our little helemts on top of the TV and I'd pick out who I think would win each game. I always thought the Jets would lose. I hated them when I was five. Now, I'm pretty indifferent.

His songs are always sad, even if the lyrics aren't. Tom Petty always sings like it's the last thing he'll ever do. Somebody tall in long coat is standing behind him with a gun, and as soon as he does his last strum, the back of his head is all over a wall. Tom Petty's Greatest Hits was also the first CD I ever got. It was a gift from my dad's parents when I was seven. I still have the CD sitting in a box at my mom's shop. The case is cracked, and the disc is in really bad shape, but every song still plays, except Something in the air. I hate that song anyway, so it doesn't bother me.

Worlds. Romeo. Diaper House.

I'm sitting here imaging somebody somewhere else. Who knows if they're pissed or not. It's probably a guy, mainly because it's hard for me to imagine a girl imagining something.  The guy's sitting a desk. He's wearing pajamas, reading a forum. He's writing a response. His stomach burns from eating out earlier. He had two cups of chili and six glasses of water. 

The water was free, he kept drinking it. The waitress filled his cup up even before it got empty. Her apron hung below her hips and he probably stared at her ass when she walked away, trying to see if she was wearing a thong or not. Guys can tell, some girls, too. Eating the chili caused regret. Acid reflux. Stomach turning over like ungreased cylinders and gears. Difficult with grinding and septic noises.

When people think of imagination as "imagining," I think that's bullshit. There are six million people in the world, so chances are, if you're imagining a guy in his yard mowing grass, or somebody's mom cutting a tray of brownies into little squares, there are people doing those things somewhere. 

Somebody is imagining you. They're imagining your face looking into a screen reading words about them looking at you. Everything is happening everywhere.

** 

I've only read Romeo and Juliet one time and I didn't understand it. Fourteen-year-olds really don't understand anything, and looking back at it, that's really unfair. Your body starts betraying you. Boners, screaming. You start caring about stupid things like clothes and driving a car fast and being loud around strangers and friends. Man, who cares about any of those things? 

It was the first time I ever remember a teacher referring to the word "theme." We had to write an essay for the test over Romeo and Juliet about a major theme. Mine was two pages of complaining.  I didn't understand why a guy with a sword wouldn't just ride on a black horse through the woods and rescue this girl. Things were supposed to work like that in the sixteenth century. 

After that I started asking questions about everything. I started writing poems, too. I've tried to look for old ones that I wrote, or old essays, and I can't find anything. Maybe my parents have them. I remember one day at lunch when my friend was talking about seeing a hooker in Louisville, and I said, "If a hooker gets raped, is that considered shoplifting." Everyone thought it was hilarious, but I thought it was a legitimate question.

**

I like typing things into Google's image search and seeing what comes up. It's usually something perverted or disgusting. I typed in 'diaper house,' and nothing came up that's worth posting. There's some upskirt shot of Amy Winehouse that's supposed to show that she wears Depends or something like that.

You should type in something awesome and comment back on what you find.

The greatest. Day off.

If you say you like poetry, even a little bit, and didn't think that video was extremely bad-ass, there's definitely something wrong with you. Listen to his music, buy his albums. Go to concerts. You really don't have a choice in the matter.

Also, this is the reason why you shouldn't try to pee outside a night club or bar, no matter how drunk you are. Run into a neighbors yard or something. Or just use your pants. You can always wash them.

** 

I'm laying in bed naked. It's 9 in the morning and my day off. Nothing's planned. Maybe a walk. Maybe playing fetch with the dog. I'll throw her ball five times, and then she'll sit under a tree and chew at the grass until I get the mail and tell her we're going inside. I miss friends in Muncie. I miss sitting in a class room and reading other people's literature. Now that I'm done with school, and just use the Internet to find things, I keep finding myself returning to things that I like. 

There hasn't been a challenge for my leisure reading, and it's making my writing worse. I feel like my "skills" and ambition are regressing. I'm too worried about work and money and cars to sit at my laptop for an hour and write a story, kind of like I did in my last post. These are things that people worry about, though. 

Still naked, still in bed. Still have the lower half of my legs wrapped up in a down comforter without a cover on it. Still feel the sharp edges of feathers scratching my heels and calves. Why do I have an air conditioner on in October? I'm going to take a shower in a minute. Stare at my balls while water falls on my face for 10 minutes.

Woods.

I'm at work right now, and Devin just farted. He's carrying an empty garbage bag that makes a waxy sound when he walks. His uniform shirt is untucked in the back and there's a huge blotch of teal toner on his apron where a cartridge exploded yesterday.

"I'm real gassy right now, man."

Devin is a fantastic guy. Sometimes he just starts talking and he talks about the kinds of things that make you forget that you're working. We talk about being from different large cities (he's from Cincinnati, I'm from Chicago), and how their skylines compare to Louisville's. You can stand on Market Street next to the 50-some story building with the tall glass dome (I never remember what it's actual name is) and it makes the buildings feel like really tall people. Tall, quiet people who look down on the spots on your head that are balding.


He keeps saying he wants to transfer to the other FedEx Office downtown, and that would kind of piss me off. I'll miss when we talk about church, even though I haven't willingly gone to church in at least 10 years. We sing gospel really loud and puposely off-key.

I could take a trip with Devin, a camping trip. Maybe we could chip in and buy an old F150 or a Chevy Scottsdale, and a little camper that fits inside the truck bed. The screens on the windows would be filled with holes and fly carcasses. Wrappers from Hostess snacks are stuffed between seat cushions. We'd pull over every few hours to stretch in a field and pee on the roots of a dying tree.

We'd pull up to a creek and skinny beagles and bloodhounds would run out of the bushes nipping at our ankles. The sun would be resting on the top of a mountain like a lemon cookie on top of a scoop of ice cream. I would walk circles around our tent, pounding small hooks into the ground with a small garden shovel. Devin takes food out of his pack: pretzels and raisins thrown together in plastic baggies, cans of generic soda held together in plastic rings, salt packets and honey mustard from a truck stop outisde of Owensboro.


I eat until there's nothing but salt in the bottom of the bag. Devin's asleep with his head resting on a patch of moss. His jacket lays across his legs and his feet twitch when the wind circles around the tent.


We wake up the next morning. Inside of the tent is wet with morning. I pour a bottle of water on my face for a shower and dress outside the tent. Devin pokes his head out of the tent.


"Let's go fishing. We can go where those dogs came from. I heard them barking last night."


I button up my shirt and pull a cap down to my eyebrows.


"We don't have poles. I don't like fishing."


"There was a bait shop somewhere before we pulled off the highway. We can get cheap poles from there, and dig up worms on the shore."


Dogs start barking. Their feet shuffle. They lick rocks, sniff piss stains on trees drool from jowels. Devin walks off. I can hear him climbing into trees, breaking the logner branches off towards the top. He's adiment about fishing.


I sit on a pile of undershrits and unlace our shoes. Devin returns with the sticks and we wrap the tips with shoelaces. We walk to the shore. Still muddy and damp from dew. Worms writhte around. I pick up a handful and tie the plastic tip of the lace around their mid-section. The worm isn't enough weight to make the line sink, it floats near the surface.

Scales from bluegill whip around like the ribbon blowing loose from a girl's ponytail. They swim by uninterested, occasionally nibbling at the drowning worm tail.

Devin digs the end of his pole into the ground and leans back, "20 bucks says the fish think the bait is fake."

"Fishing and hunting isn't fair for animals. I'd like to see a deer run through the woods with a gun so if he came across a gamesman, he could fight back."

We keep fishing.

Reppin' LVWs. October. Holliday pay.

So, let's say your in Louisville this weekend, and need something to do. How about come to the sixth annual LouisvilleVW BBQ? Okay, okay, so you might not care about Volkswagens, or cars, for that matter. Well, you should. It's the most important investmant you'll ever make, next to deciding on what cereal you might eat in the morning.

Trust me, they're a lot of fun. I mean, come on: awesome Volkswagens, delicious beer and barbecue, cool friends, vendors, and you better believe I'll be wearing a costume again this year up in the line of cars that're in the showcase. People are going to see my car and me dressed up and scream out, "Holy crap."

And if not, that's cool, too. They'll probably still be having a bitchin' time.

**

Weather in October is great. Today I woke up at 7 and loafed around for a while. Tangled my legs in bed sheets, licked Brianne's forehead. She dressed and left for work. I put on a t-shirt and walked out onto my balcony. Cold and comfortable. Somebody's mom would say, "the breeze has a bite to it."

It smelled like fall, too. The decay of browning leaves falling onto the ground, creating little piles shaped like islands. People with open wnidows cooking chilli and plooms of hand-rolled cigarette smoke fighting its way through ripped screen doors. When you walk behind my place, stray cats huddle around half-eaten cans of Chicken of the Sea. They whimper and lick the dirty underside of their paws.

**

So, now that my probationary period at work is up (you know, the first few months or so), my accrual for holliday pay, vacation time and sick pay has started, it makes me feel kind of old. Like.... only your parents are supposed to want vacation time. Whatevs.

200th post. HEMGF. News.

So this is my 200th post. A milestone, something people look forward to. Like a birthday or a homerun or burping an infant after he breastfeeds. I'm glad I've kept this blog going.

Talking about breastfeeding makes me think about becoming a father. Woah, saying you created another human being is other-worldly.

**
I have a friend named Dan Bailey. He writes. He's tall and skinny. Not dangerous like most tall and skinny individuals. Well, Dan could be dangerous. If so, he hides it well. Dan blogs here. Dan also runs a video blog called HERE EXPLODES MY GIANT FACE. People submit videos of themselves reading literature. Sometimes, you just need to trust me and click on the links. I have other friends that blog, too. I'll save those folks for a rainy day.

**
There will be a point in your life where you have an excess of money. Maybe spend it on a stove that cleans itself or a lapdog. Do whatever you want. Might I suggest doing something like this.

Things like this make me wonder why somebody would get a wax statue of themselves or a portrait of their wife wearing a purple one-piece bathing suit watering the row of tulips next to the gazebo. My aunt Cathy has a large mural of herself and her husband eating at a diner. Not nearly as exciting as having a giant Lego statue of yourself. Could you imagine if it came to life?

City Lunch

There's a kid wearing khaki shorts and a plain undershirt loading the back of his S-10. He looks up at me, holding a laundry basket with keyboard cords and stereo equipment spun together like a chunk of steel wool. He squints and looks into my face. Middle of the face pinched together like a magician's handkerchief.

This makes me uncomfortable. I'm up on my apartment balcony with my legs propped on the railing. Shifting weight back and forth on the balls of my feet. Leaves turn over anticipating rain. A mother bird perched on my neighbor's roof digs her nose into her nest. Sauce drips onto my work uniform from my sandwich. I'm drinking Sierra Mist from the two-liter bottle in gulps that push my cheeks out. I spill sauce in lines and I keep watching the basket.

I look back down and watch the kid rub sleep from his eyes. Lazy. He points down the street towards Ormsby and says, "I'm going back home for good."

"Great," I push my thumb into sandwich crust,"then you won't need directions."

He grabs at his crotch. I assume he needs to use the bathroom. Spring trees drop berries onto the ground and leaves keep turning over waiting for it to rain. Truck door slams shut and the starter clicks four times. I think to myself not enough spark, check your plug gap. Head out the window, adjusting his seatbelt. A woman rides by on a bike with an empty child seat towing behind her. Helmet swinging by its straps from the handlebars.

Bread crumbs float at the top of my soda and the kid yells something as his starter clicks again. I get up from my chair and hope he stops halfway home.

Didgeridoo. Work. Cars.

Remember that art festival I told you to go to? Well, I went to it with Brianne. Lots of fun. Tons of cool things. Also, I bought this.

Yes, a didgeridoo. You can pretend you're not jealous, or you can admit that you are jealous that I bought one. Either way, I'm indifferent. Playing one is a lot more difficult than I had originally though. At the art show, I talked with Ms. Tanya Gerard, who's been playing the didgeridoo for a very long time (I think like... 20+ years) and also been handcrafting her own for nearly as long. 

**

Everyone says, "Man, I don't want to go into work today," at some point in their life. Today is one of those days for me.

**

Helped my buddy do some more wiring on his Rabbit Pickup project and a mock-up for the fuel lines. I hope he can get it running for this weekend. It's our club's last gathering before the winter season. Hibernation for Volkswagens. How exciting.

Paid for nothing. Saturday. Junkyard hopping.

Usually, I get paid for doing my duties at work (packing boxes, making copies, cleaning, etc.) but on days like today where everyone should be outside doing fun things anways, for example, the St. James Court Art Festival here in Louisville, I get paid for sitting here at work and listening to music. Devin is in back looking for a dog on a website that's kind of like MySpace for animals. The store is clean though, and that's really all I ask for.

On topic, here's some of the music I'm listening to:

Listen to them all now, you'll thank me later.

**

I started on my car project, titled Project 2.0. You can read about it and look at pictures of it here. You know, if that's your kind of thing. If not, that's cool. In lue of the project, tomorrow is going to be some fantastic junkyard hopping, and if I can find a decent looking OBD1 head, I'll start cleaning it up and maybe get some of the motor started. Who knows?

**

Also started submitting some poems and stories to lit. mags, since it's "that time of year again." You should do this too.

Home. Closing in on milestones. Submissions.

I'm home from Maryland. It took me three tries to type that previous sentence, I kept spelling Maryland wrong. The show was fantastic. Tons of cars equivalent to a mortgage. Others drove like mortgages: loud, fast, unassuming. Waves were tall from the wind coming from Florida. People parked their cars in the sand and let the sink low enough for the oil pans to rest on a layer of sea shells and sea grass. 

People were drunk. I was drunk. Jager, Blue Moon, Yuengling. Not Bud Light. Everyone had fun. I slept on a wicker couch without blankets. I bought shirts from vendors and talked with people through hand gestures and poorly emulated sounds of a VR6 engine. But that doesn't bother anyone, they understand the garble. 

I'm finalizing some poems and flash pieces to send out to publications. Cool, huh? You should be doing this too, it's very important. And hey, somebody might end up loving your writing. That'd really make your day.