I met Adam Robison years back, but I met him on the phone. On the phone, I talked to Adam Robison about life and love and all sorts of other unsightly, embarrassing things.
And then I hung up. I hung right on up on Adam Robison and I didn't look back. At the phone, I mean. I walked away from the phone and didn't look at it, because I had just talked to Adam Robison on it.
After that, I wrote a letter to Mathew Simon.
Dear Mr Simon,
Have you worked hard all these years? Is there something in the way of the door? Will Pluto ever become a planet again? Does this mean we no longer understand understanding? Where are you standing? Is it in in? Is it in out? Freedom means many things to many people. Does it mean any of those things to you?
Where do you stand? I mean, where do you really stand? Not where are you standing. Where do you stand?
I am for things. I am for socks. I am for raspberry bushes. I am for squirrels climbing up my window screens in the summer. I am for catching a fly in my fingertips. I am for buying new sunglasses and then losing those sunglasses.
This is a true story. I wouldn't. I wouldn't make something like that up. It's true. True true.
I find that the border guards are not all that rude. When I was little, I once had a border guard between Canada and the US ask me if my dad had any computers or fresh fruit in the car. He had already asked my dad. Then he asked me. He assumed that I would rat out my dad.
I would've. For the record, I would've ratted out my dad. If it would've made my dad love me slash pay attention to me, I would've ratted him. Sigh.
This is a photo of me and my dad:
Sigh.
It's not only border guards who want me to rat out my dad. But mostly it's border guards. Borders between states in the United States of America like to stop me when I am driving in my car, and they like to ask me to get little again, so that I will be honest. And they like to ask me if my dad has any computers or fresh fruit somewhere.
He probably does, at home. He probably has this stuff that they are asking about. But I don't really know for sure. I never ask and he never tells me. Plausible denial. Willful ignorance. Don't ask, don't tell. It's all game theory, here. Don't learn and you don't need to lie.
Canadians, though, are out to get my dad. It's because my dad is a floating ball of light.
Canadians hate light. Canadians need less light. They want less light. To Canadians, there is no difference between need and want, though. It's all the same to them. All the same. To us, to we normal people who are estranged from our dads, need is need and want is want.
But nope.
Before I get to blogging, though, I need to confess. I have fresh fruit and computers.
***
I'll be reading at AWP in Denver. Here's a poster for one of the readings:
Here's a poster for another of the readings:
Those two readings are on the same day. I will run from one to the next. (I will not actually run run, but I will move quickly from one to the next.
I also hope to do a reading in an elevator at some point. For Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens. Details to come.
I would like to introduce you to the lunch demon. This is the lunch demon:
The following things are true about the lunch demon.
1) The lunch demon has a soul that is heavier than the souls of regular people. It is weighty. Weighty.
2) The lunch demon refers to himself in the second person. "You would maybe like to go out and get a pizza? Yes, you would. Will Bob come with?"
3) Remorse is something that the lunch demon feels as a kind of all-over itch. When the lunch demon does something that makes him feel remorse, the lunch demon feels this unpleasant, all-over itch and it can't scratch it. So it goes for a swim.
4) That thing you just said? To yourself? That thing? The lunch demon heard that.
5) You will, when you die, find the lunch demon waiting for you at the gates of Hell. And you will feel an all-over itch.
