If you're visiting through an RSS reader, you may not be aware that I keep a sidebar miniblog of links to online writing that I enjoy. The direct link is http://www.delicious.com/rarelylikable and RSS readers should be able to pick up the feed from that. I've made a pact with myself to update more often, link to paper writing from time to time, and provide more comments. I also REALLY welcome suggestions.
I'm also at Goodreads. I use Goodreads to keep track of what I've read, and again, suggestions.
"Perhaps this is why writers of all sorts and everyone else imagines so frequently throughout the day, because the task before us is so immense, of pushing and pulling our desires and fears in different directions and shapes, of taking on the unpredictable morphing world before us and holding it fast, or letting it loose even further."
Full-blown book reviews are very tough for me to write, and I blame my eighth grade Language Arts teacher. Every Friday was Book Report Day. Once you've heard about a book six times from thirteen year olds, even if that book is Slaughterhouse-Five, it gets old. She was bored, too. She'd sit in the back of the room during book reports and since the only person who could look at her was the presenter, she'd spend forty minutes playing with her face -- pushing her cheeks around with her fingers, mostly. It wasn't the easiest thing to watch while I was telling twenty kids who hated me why I liked A Swiftly Tilting Planet.
"Writing, if you’re serious, is not a special hobby you get to when you’ve cleared your to-do list of everything else."
I've been writing stories, both real and imaginary. Sometimes I lose track of what's real and what isn't, and this pleases me immensely.
"You've never been shy about letting people into your genital area before, so why start now?"
I went to a carnival last weekend that had one of these rides. As I was watching it unload passengers, a kid on the higher side of the ride threw up all over the motor, about 20" below him. The girl sitting next to him did not even bat an eye. Totally bored. Ten minutes later I saw them on a ride sort of like this.
"What an author is, does, what an author authors is certainly in flux, is more fluid now than anytime since Johnson, literacy, and the invention of cheap mass printing."
I guess this is a link to my Google+ profile. There are things I don't like about Google+, but one of the things I do like...you can hang out in a chatroom and watch YouTube videos. Had some fun with that last week. And the other day I found the Leif Garrett Behind the Music on YouTube. God help you all.
"Rip these rules up! Even if you’ve laminated them!"
Would it be better to share links of interest in Google Reader? Google+? Twitter? Facebook? This blog turned six not long ago. Is it CivilWarLand?
"For poets, poems are never enough."
There's a pack of coyotes in my neighborhood. We saw one in a front yard over the weekend, and Friday night they got to howling until someone shined a flashlight out back. There are also a lot of dumb wild turkeys and slow moving groundhogs in the neighborhood. It's a buffet, basically.
"It comes out next week in paperback from Faber & Faber."
Thanks to surgery and lifestyle changes, I'm 99% sure that I'm currently going through telogen effluvium. I don't have a lot of hair to begin with, so this is a problem. A ponytail looks scary now, which is not convenient in the summer. Sometimes I pull a lot of hair out in the shower (or brushing my hair, or just sitting around) and think oh man, this sucks so much. But (maybe) it's a better result than no surgery or lifestyle changes would have been? I guess it's time for a short haircut. I welcome suggestions in this category, especially if you have seen my potato head in person. If a haircut doesn't help, perhaps I'll shave it all off, be relieved, and everyone can play velcro darts with my head in Chicago next year.
"Each of us finds our own balance, but when I write, the scenes that truly transport me and send me soaring are the furthest things from real life, but not furthest from my imagination."
Incision Update: I'm down to a 2x3 bandaid. The surgeon broke up with me, and sent the bill this week -- adding to an already spectacular pre-insurance total. Last week I drove past his office and in its driveway, there was a guy in a helmet and spandex on his ten speed. I had time to look, and it was definitely him. I'd estimate he is about sixty years old. It's no estimate that he is badass times at least two.
"That's all. Goodbye. Father Christmas"
