I’m not posting a picture of the dog here until he gets a haircut, but yes, there is a dog in my house right now.
More on that later.
I would apologize for not writing here more but how obnoxious is that? Like there aren’t ninety bazillion other things to read on the internet, not to mention newspapers and magazines and BOOKS OF COURSE, all probably (definitely) way more important than something I slam out in an hour in the morning while I’m sipping my coffee.
People need to know that! No one is more important than anyone else. We are all equally important. We are all equally unimportant. We are tiny insignificant specks, especially on the internet.
And anyway I’m not sorry, because I’ve been outside, getting some fresh air, and also doing lots of yoga, and reading, and writing, and thinking, and also my parents were in town, and yes, the aforementioned dog has been taking up some time, and I was doing a lot of freelance work so that I can pay my bills because someone has to pay these bills and it is not you, is it, paying my bills. (But do you want want to pay my bills?) (Why aren’t you paying my bills?) (Can we discuss this?)
I’ve been reading the fantastic Julie Orringer short story collection, How to Breathe Underwater, by the way, each story so funny and dark and substantial. And also Coetzee’s Age of Iron, which is painful and brilliant. I wish I could write a book just like that. And I’m slowly making my way through C.S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed which is so emotionally pristine I suspect it is the reason why I threw away everything I’ve written for the past two months.
I finished Colson Whitehead’s Zone One, which had such a fantastic ending, and do you know how hard it is to write a good ending? It is HARD, you guys. We all get so excited at the beginning of our projects and then by the end most of us have no idea what to do with what we’ve created. But this ending was the shit. I also read Joe Hill’s Heart-Shaped Box recently, and it was the same thing. Blammo! I closed the book feeling very satisfied.
I want to write a horror story, I want to write a zombie book. I want there to be aliens from up above landing in my character’s lives. But I doubt I could pull it off. Both of these guys must live in a very special world in their heads.
Oh OK you ALL do. You’re all special flowers.
Except when you’re not.
Clearly I’m torn.
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I am reading this week! And it’s going to be a good one.
Vol. 1 Brooklyn is having a 2nd anniversary party, and it’s a benefit for Girls Write Now. I am reading with Deb Olin Unferth, Maud Newton, Kio Stark, and Alina Simone.
How
about
that.
More info here. Facebook says 100 people are coming. Love it.
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Related. (I am old.)
