Quack

The good news is: I love these guys-- Duck & Herring Pocket Field Guide has accepted one of my stories! I think it will be out sometime mid November. And more good news---The very cool Dogzplot nominated my story for The Best of Web Anthology by Dzanc books. Even if I don't make it into the anthology, I'm excited about a best of web anthology; I think it's pure genius to tap into the literary horizon of the Web! Way to go Dzanc!!!

Well, there really isn't any bad news, except maybe that I've been hugely busy?

Life does feel like it can get in the way of writing sometimes...but, I've just spent the last fifteen minutes looking for a quote(can't find it so here's the best I can do) It's something about life has to become a part of your poetry(the quote was by a poet a-duh) anyway, if life stops the poem, well then, you're not a poet? Okay something like that...pretty much saying life and writing should be the same thing?

Writing isn't the death of life--and life shouldn't be the death of writing(HA, that's MY quote!..probably not as good as the poet's but same idea)

7:57 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

It’s alive! It’s alive!

INSOLENT RUDDER IS LIVE!

Go see. Great stories, Author spotlight...I LOVE THIS ISSUE!

If I knew how to link(I don't) but if I did, I'd link it for you. Sorry. But still you need to go check out my favorite issue of Insolent Rudder!

Oh, I'm out of town for the next few days...in the meantime, have a great weekend!

A joke:

A lawyer, a priest, and an Irishman all walk into a bar together..the bartender asks "is this a joke?"

I wish I could remember where I saw or heard this one...anyway I like it.

Remind me someday to tell you my surreal joke...yeeeeaaahhhh you know you wanna hear it...

Okay here goes...

How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Answer: Fish

Come on it's funny, I love that joke.

Happy weekend!

10:29 AM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Just because I can

Can the can can-can?
The can can can-can.
Can the can-can can!

5:40 PM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Utopia

Back in the sixties folks tried an experiment, you know, Digger's soup and all that jazz--and for awhile--it worked. Utopia. Cool concept, a nice thought, and the only problem: everyone wanted their share of the utopian pie (or soup) and, well, why shouldn't they want it? So here's what happened: people like Charles Manson showed up, and pushers, and dealers, and takers, and users, and all kinds of folks with dubitable morals. We have utopia for about five seconds, and the only way to preserve it (our basic idea of it anyway) is to become exclusionary—keep the bad people out. Now we have a conundrum: Utopia can't be exclusionary, utopia by definition has to be for everyone, or really, it's not a utopia, right?

The closest thing we have, right now, that mostly fits the utopian bill IS our civil rights. Civil rights ARE for everyone. I know it's hard to like assholes (we don't have to like them) It's hard to listen to them, or even want to validate them somehow, or give any sort of credence to their skewed values, but freedom of speech IS an ideal, and one we strive for, and a worthy ideal, and in its own way--an utopian ideal—and yet, wonderfully, not an impractical one. Civil rights ARE the backbone, the spine, of any decent civilization. I for one would hate to see this back get broken.

PS…hehehehe..my myspace page IS exclusionary. No utopia here, okay? So please, no requests from all you wonderful and amazing political folk out there. Love you dearly but..I'll have to pass.

8:48 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

My brain went to Jamaica...

I don't really KNOW where my brain went, only that it's missing. I meant to do this a while back..what, this? This, this: GO READ SMOKELONG!

Okay, it's morning and, well, I had a couple morning things to do, but now I'm back and GO READ SMOKELONG because hey, Teri Davis Rouvelas and Jeff Landon are just a couple good reasons to GO READ SMOKELONG! Not to mention so many other fine, fine authors!

Edit: It's gone, people...my one and only deviation into the realm of politics. MAAAAAN....never again. Shudder. Look, I'm sort of happy-go-lucky life is short and full and oh so mellow kinda gal...and so please, really, stop.

Wait...you know what, this is stupid. I shouldn't feel like I can't say my little piece..or be a wussy about saying it. So I'll be right back, I gotta go write something on word, because, well, I can't spell worth shit...

3:58 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Like Marilyn

Like Marilyn


Elsa bought huge black sunglasses. They cover the top of her face and slip over her short round nose. She wants to take a convertible for a test drive. She wants to buy a toy poodle, maybe two, a black and a white one. She wears a new rhinestone bracelet. She wants to learn how to play the ukulele.

Elsa dresses up as Marilyn Monroe on Halloween. Her breasts billow over the antennas and horns of the children at the door. The bell rings. Elsa smoothes her white dress over her wide hips and plumps her blond wig before she opens the screen door. Auburn hears a man's nervous laughter sucked back into his throat. Children mumble thank you, and hurry back toward the sidewalk.

Auburn worries, and thinks he should say something. Elsa is the third grade teacher at Greenview Elementary. He wonders what the parents will say about Elsa's high heels and black eyeliner.

Elsa blows out the candle glowing through a pouting mouth she carved in the jack-o-lantern--the smoke rises platinum colored.

Auburn remembers the fourth of July picnic, how Higgley, the school's superintendent, wet his fat lips when he talked about the real Marilyn Monroe's dress blowing up past her thighs. He remembers the day after the picnic, Elsa in the mirror, with a piece of charcoal in hand dotting a black mole on her chin.

Auburn jumps up from his chair in front of the television, and trips over the small table with the candy bowl, scattering the orange peanuts and bubble gum. He drops to his knees in front of Elsa, reaches for her ankle, the silk covered bone of it, pleading with her, imploring her, telling her how much he loves her. She wobbles in her high heels and freeing herself from Auburn's hand, she stands over him. "What are you talking about?" She asks in her new breathy voice like puffs of air.

7:09 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Eight things you really don’t want to know about me.

So here's the thing: You have to tell eight things about yourself then, I guess, pass it on to eight other people (tag eight other people) Oh and say who you tagged and send them a note or they might never know. I think this is how it works anyway? So here are eight things you never really wanted to know about me. You might not even be my friend after this.


1) I've always wanted a front porch. All of the furniture in my living room would look great on a front porch (not so great in the living room) Oh and maybe a porch swing, too. And a tray with tall glasses full of ice tea with a big wedge of lemon in the summer time. In the winter, I'd decorate my front porch for Christmas(I'd leave the decorations up until April)

2) I'm afraid of fish. Shut-up! I'm serious about this! Fish are scary! Yes, they are. Glassy eyes and scales and sharp fins and you know..just so you know..our fish, some of our fish, have big teeth--Muskies and Northern Pike. Anyway, I won't swim where I think there might be fish swimming below me rubbing against my ankles. Sometimes I have nightmares about being stuck in water with oodles of fish swimming beneath me..arghhhhhh. Now if that isn't scary I don't know what is?



3) I smoke too much. I sound like I have consumption. It's ruining my skin, my teeth and I think even my feet (okay, not really my feet, but they aren't so hot either) I want to stop smoking. I have to stop smoking, oh God, this makes me want to smoke…I'll be right back…



4) I flirt. I have a flirting problem. I really think I flirt too much (you sexy thing)



5) I drink coffee at night--only at night I top it off with Baileys.



6) I love to dance. I dance in my living room (that looks more like a front porch) I'll dance anywhere, but I will not be the only one on the dance floor, I'm not one of THOSE people but still… I'm a very good dancer (Rainman who?)


7) I'm terrified of freeways, highways, okay, ALL ways. I have a little driving phobia, I take back roads and side roads and will avoid left hand turns at busy intersections(I'll take twenty right hand turns to go left) Somehow, this works for me, but not very well, and eventually people who ask me to drive to Saint Paul (the other twin city) catch on.


8) I believe in the power of prayer. I really have had prayers answered…..not ambiguous or maybe coincidental, but truly answered!


 I tag…David Treuer( I dare him) Sarah, Tonya, Cole, Andrew, Zinta, Neil Young(I just threw Neil in because I was drawing a blank) and God…wouldn't it be cool if God told us eight things? Wait…what eight things would you want to know about God—Boxers or briefs?

4:47 AM - 14 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Joe Dandy

Joe Dandy

Them ain't no honeybees, I says to Jerry. All bees make honey, he says back to me. An' just how you supposing you gonna' get that honey? Seems to me them bees being underground in the dirt an' all, that even if you could get to their honey, it'd be honey an' dirt, an' 'bout as useless as ole Tic Henry's dried up milk cow.

Jerry, who couldn't find his ass with a handful of fishhooks, ain't never cared much for God's creatures. We once had us a little ole puppy name of Gravy, an' like puppies do, it was nippin at Jerry's cuff. Jerry give that tiny thing the boot. Done kilt it right then an' there. But here he is, wantin' to be nice to a nest o' bees under the ground. I already been stung, an' the baby, she jus' two years old, she been stung three times! So I told Jerry it's a man's duty to take care o' those kinda things for' his family. Now he says those bees good fo' something. I think he don't wanna' mess with 'em, on account he don't wanna' git stung.

It'd been 'bout two months now since I asked Jerry to do something 'bout them bees. He never did. I put some chicken wire in a big wide circle 'round where I know the nest is. Just so's no one step there an' git they selves swarmed.

Now this morning, it sound to me like the devil hisself was dying outside in the yard. I went running out there, see what all the ruckus was about, an' I saw my best rooster, my one an' only Rhode Island Red by the name of Joe Dandy, covered up with bees. Joe Dandy never did pay no mind to chicken wire; he always just went wherever his ole mind set him. He paid a steep price for his bandy ways. Those bees done stung him to death.

I can't go an' git him yet as the bees still making they selves known. I sure did like that cock. I got him sometime back on a trade for an ole broody hen, he was just a cockerel then, but he growed up fast. Rhodies is a good meat bird, an' mighty fine an' plump in the roasting pan, but Joe Dandy had his self so much character that I kept him as my pet, 'cause his ways made me laugh some an' took the loneliness out of my days. He was real pretty too. He had a color like dried blood, a deep red almost black. His feathers made a fancy spread' cross his back, an' was glossy like polished up church shoes.

What I always liked the very best 'bout Joe Dandy was the way Jerry try an' give him the boot an' come away with a bloody shin for his troubles. Jerry never could lay no heel on that sly bird. Joe Dandy just fly hisself out of Jerry's way, an' sit up in a low branch crowin' out his victory. I guess I sorta wished that sometimes I could flap myself out of Jerry's reach and sound my own victory call.

4:38 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

I’m in a big fat sappy mood and I really want...

To hear "Nights are Forever Without You" By England Dan & John Ford Coley.

Also I think, maybe, "Angel of the Morning" The 1968 version by Merilee Rush and The Turnabouts.

I'm even thinking some Barry Manilow! HA! No, not really. No Barry Manilow. Maybe Bread though....

4:45 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

DOGZPLOT!

Check out their debut! Flashy flashes of flash..and no, you can't say it three times fast.

Oh, and aside from the other wonderful authors..I have a weird little thing live there..so yeah, check it out.

10:51 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment