June 2010
41 posts
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Runners
Thunder, yes; it comes as we run in the predawn. The road hedged by a looming fog of rhododendron. Our soles slapping the echoing pavement that tilts crazily between the ridges of the mountains. Thunder like the sky shredded, unseen lightning turning gray sky to a blinding white sheet, silhouetting the lurking hilltops. We run.
The clouds hang lower when we keep running. They pursue us but we are...
Well, just hit two hundred followers. Thanks, guys, you’re the best. I take it you’re here for the writing? Or the quotes? Or the arts commentary? I don’t know. What is it?
subnormalreality-deactivated201 asked: Not anons. Currently just one. I should get more anons. I have 500 followers on Colvin Wilt but nobody seems to be interested in me. Haha.
I am a muffin, so it's fine. I probably know this person and he's just messing with me. So I'm playing along. It's the most social life I'm getting these days. I hope this guys isn't straight, though. Do you think he...
I am a muffin, so it's fine. I probably know this person and he's just messing with me. So I'm playing along. It's the most social life I'm getting these days. I hope this guys isn't straight, though. Do you think he...
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Let’s say for a moment the girl sitting on the edge of your bed leaves.
By leaves I do not mean she left you: there is no bitter note, nor apologetic tears. No other man— or woman, don’t fear. She has not died, no accident of fate or callous murder here. Not missing, no face on the fifth page of the newspaper, no trail gone cold. No, let us say she vanishes, as she sits there,...
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“I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I...”
– Raymond Chandler, Farewell My Lovely.
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Best Of
In lieu of actually writing anything today, I’m compiling a best-of list, the better to introduce my writing to my more recent followers. So far, here goes.
Vignettes:
When Returning To The Valley
No Chance Meeting
The Lesser Souls
Untitled (She had a curious way of standing…)
Untitled (Excerpt from “A Road Called Ocean” II)
The Moral
Creative Nonfiction/Essays:
...
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New appearance for the blog, people. Check it out, if you feel so inclined.
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“The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is...”
– Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities.
marissaisgod asked: Okay, I'm ready to disrupt your world once again.
I live ten minutes from the beach.
As a small child, I often played with boys who lived somewhat close to the water but not as close as me (suckers).
I don't have a sister (or a brother, for that matter) but I'd often get my best best best friends to pretend we were sisters and switch names and tell...
I live ten minutes from the beach.
As a small child, I often played with boys who lived somewhat close to the water but not as close as me (suckers).
I don't have a sister (or a brother, for that matter) but I'd often get my best best best friends to pretend we were sisters and switch names and tell...
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theliesthatrevealthetruth asked: I love your writing and your blog overall. Do you have a favorite writer?
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(Like) The Gates of Eden
This is what happens: this is what happens when you’re twenty-four, about to turn twenty-five, and you go out to dinner and discuss the impending marriage of just about everyone you know to everyone else you know, and the children the people who are already married have, and the children the people who aren’t married have, and the divorces of the people who were once married. This is...
Anonymous asked: Your letter to your ex was incredible. I hope to write like you one day.
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Watchjsyingling:
I posted this earlier (adapted short flick from something I wrote), but now it’s on vimeo so much more accessible. Enjoy it up—I know I did. Directed by the talented friend and director, Patrick Muhlberger.
Somehow I missed this when it was posted some three-odd months ago. It’s good. It shouldn’t be missed.
marissaisgod asked: Hey,
1. I'm wearing a barrette in my hair.
2. I found your blog.
3. I think that's awesome.
Love always,
Marissa
1. I'm wearing a barrette in my hair.
2. I found your blog.
3. I think that's awesome.
Love always,
Marissa
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Possible Reasons Why There Is A Bird In This Whole... →
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Letter to an Ex
My dear,
It was not long after you left that I spent my days entirely in solitude. The eyes of my friends, the other professors in the department, their knowing looks, were too much for me—and I retreated in desperation to those allies who had never betrayed me, my books. Many nights I would return from the university, hang up my coat and hat, drop my briefcase, and, picking up a volume from desk...
subnormalreality-deactivated201 asked: Ditto on the 'no remnants of sanity' part. My futon has Robert Olen Butler's Severance and The Safety of Objects by A.M.Homes. The first one's about thoughts and feelings captured after the head has been severed. The second book has a pair of scary scissors on it. What is the universe telling me? How you been? Still sick? It's my turn this cycle. I am stuck at the fringes...
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Things, Besides Myself, Found In My Bed At 2:47...
James Frazer’s The Golden Bough (688pp.)
Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces (418pp.)
The 1989 Jones & Jones translation of the Mabinogion (240pp.)
No vestiges of sanity.
Not one.
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I try not to bore y’all with the details of my personal life, but suffice to say over the past week I’ve been sick, and production is at a standstill.
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“The facts even when beaded on a chain, still did not have real order. Events did...”
– Tim O’Brien, Going After Cacciato.
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“The hero, therefore, is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his...”
– Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces.
vrch asked: You write nicely! I really enjoyed Insomnia
outofnature-deactivated20110320 asked: I reblogged your last post Insomnia, however when I reblogged it cut some of the text out, so I placed a via and your url. I hope you don't mind.
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Insomnia
At night, the house seems an undercroft. Its doors the gates of sepulchres. At each step the beams of the floor stutter and groan, ill at ease and hydroptic with years’ accumulation of damp and time. Television is impossible, as is music; sound an abomination that cultivates thought, drives in wakefulness.
There are other sentinels. In houses lit and watchful they count the hours until...
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“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed...”
– T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
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“And what is a kiss, when all is done?
A promise given under seal— a vow
Taken...”
– Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac.
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“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
– Jorge Luis Borges, “Poema de los Dones.”
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“It is worth remembering that every writer begins with a naively physical notion...”
– Jorge Luis Borges, Evaristo Carriego.
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“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program. And...”
– Arthur C. Clarke quotes Larry Niven in this long-ago interview with Space Illustrated. It is a shame to me and a blot on this America’s great record of chasing the dreams of man that we should abandon the space program as we have. The destiny of man lies in the wide open spaces, where living...
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The American Century is So Over (Obama and Foreign... →
I’m anticipating a TL;DR from most of my followers here, but I have to say that what Guernica is talking about here is exactly what I’ve been going on about since Obama took office: the world is beginning to see there’s a lot of bark but no bite, and that’s a dangerous thing.
The article’s well-researched, well-written, and provides numerous examples of the political...
phoebejaspe asked: What's your first name?
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Popularity, Christine →
Why is Tumblr such a popularity contest?
This is the opening line of an entry by queenchristinewrites (formerly girlwithcoffeeandwords); before I forget, let me say I’ve been following her for some time, she’s always a good read, and is definitely one I recommend to anyone who hasn’t checked her out already.
Tumblr is a bit of a popularity contest, regrettably so;...
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The Communicators
He holds the chair for her and they sit. Beyond the plate glass window, streets run the world sixty stories below, ribbons dyed with neon and rain. Brake lights like crimson ants marching by twos through flickering concrete canyons. He is reminded of generic photographs in slick-bound travel magazines: long exposures of sleepless nights in Los Angeles, Sidney, Tokyo, indistinguishable without...
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“He thought that in the beauty of the world were hid a secret. He thought that...”
– Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses.
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