Running again

Hello again.

It's that time of year when I link to this story.

Which means it's that time of year when I ask if you might be able to donate a little money for breast cancer research. And to bribe you into giving money, I run a little.

But I know I do this every year. And because it keeps happening—and will keep happening for a while—I know you get a little fatigued by it.

So this year, let's have some additional bribes. Here's what we'll do.

I have a fairly small goal this year. $600. If I manage to make that goal, I'll go out with my Holgaroid:



















and take a photo for everyone who donated. (And, as loathe as I am to do this, I'm going to ask that you at least donate $5 to be eligible. $5 is not bad, right?)

UPDATE : Due to film cost, though, I think I need to cap this to the first 12 donations. Sorry.

If I break $600—even by a dollar—I'll have a hardcover copy of A Jello Horse printed and everyone who donated will be entered into a drawing for it.

If I break $800, I'll have a hardcover copy of The Moon Tonight Feels My Revenge printed and everyone who donated will be entered into a drawing for it.

If I break $1000, after the 5K, I will run the additional 5 miles home.

(Friends—if you would like to offer to donate another prize for this, please drop me a line.)

I would not be a published author right now if it weren't for a specific person. That person died very young. Breast cancer. So, once a year, I run.

Thanks.

Joe

In this post, I mentioned that I was thinking of getting a Joe Kittinger tattoo.

I did it.



It's based on this photo.

Footage of this jump appears in this Boards of Canada video:



At the 6 minute mark of this video, a friend of Joe's gives him the finger:



I'd never seen that video before. Now I sort of want to get that image—a friend, no doubt filled with stunned admiration and a little love-tempered envy—a man flipping off one of the bravest men in history.

***

Still happening.

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***

Suitor

(Part one here. Part two here. Part three here.)

But Jesus, is the what and who said that? The phantom finger of the suitor made its way around the sandwich shop, sometimes.

The phantom finger of the suitor could plant itself mid-thorax, and scratch the itch within a sandwich maker. Could plant itself within the brain of a sandwich maker, and cause the sandwich maker to add more mustard than is truly needed. Is truly desired. Is what is wanted. Is what is asked for.

Ask-ed, says the sandwich maker with a finger in his brain. Two syllables. Ask. Ed.

The stink from off the body of the suitor is a fresh, enticing medium rare.

The suitor in a sandwich shop repels and attracts the eaters one and all.

The sandwich maker considers asking him to leave. But then sales go up.

And up.

And, no, the suitor does not have to leave. The suitor can keep his seat, and finish up his sandwich.

This is all about control. Because the burning quietly continues.

This is all about control.

In the winter months, the best of all the kinds of months, there is little to do at his apartment, so he goes outside and rolls in the snow.

The snow fills up his mouth as he rolls in his front yard. The snow fills up his ears. The snow fills up his nose. He inhales deeply of the snow. Of the snow, he inhales hard. The snow sucks into his nose, and into the cavities of his sinuses. It sits in there, a rabbit in a warren. The snow in his sinuses, a rabbit in a warren, does not melt until he stands himself up, and walks himself into his house, and sits himself in a chair, and waits himself seated.

And then the snow, a rabbit in the warren of his sinuses, melts. It trickles down his throat, a rabbit to the stomach of a bobcat.

In the stomach, the snow, melted, stays itself put.

***

My favorite novellas.

Lots of other people's lists, too. Thanks for asking me to submit, John Madera. Nice group.

***

Matthew Savoca's Happy Cobra Books ebook TOUGH! is on Goodreads. You can go and rate it.

Also, Young Revolutionaries is there, too.

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My novella A Jello Horse will be out in May.

***

Please consider donating to the Race for the Cure.

Suitor

(Part one here.)

There were bed-ridden months. The arm, half nude frame; the repairing cells, unable to keep up with the break down, inconsolable.

Months in bed. Curtained, halflight days. Water sucked through a twisted straw. Whole days finger-framed through his one good hand, close concentration on the sheet and blanket and pillowcase weave, off-white thread over and under off white thread. Stained dark sometimes.

And a wriggling. In his leg, a wriggling. Something usually dull. Something sometimes sharp.

Told he was bed bound no longer, he rolled up, and sat seated on the edge of the bed. For a minute full, he moved air in and out. Pushed arms against the mattress. Hopped down. Stepped with the left.

And when he raised the right leg, it came up faster than familiar. The familiar weight of his leg, gone. Something else in its place.

He stepped forward with the right, and came down. And heard a crackle. And felt a splintering. And he buckled. And he fell.

Your bones, a doctor said. A worm is in there eating the bones of your leg. Tunneling through you bones. He made so many in your right leg, it shattered from your weight. Holes and holes and holes. See? Look here at the fragments in the x-ray. Holes everywhere. He's done with the leg and moved on, but damned if I know where. We'll have to make you a new one. Leg. A new leg.

***

Me, Twittering.

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Me, running for breast cancer research.

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In case you missed it, me in love with CAVES.

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You? What about you?

***

Go listen to Yoko Ono.

"Don't worry, Kyoko. Mum's only looking for her hand in the snow."

Awp

Man who can't blog (or whatever your name is), did you go to AWP? And if so, what was it like??

No, I didn't go to AWP. I was home. But I think, even though I was not there, I can tell you exactly what it was like.

It was like this.

For some reason, all these writers spontaneously decided they needed to go to Chicago for some reason. Some flew. Some used the train. Some took buses. Three (an only three) drove cars. Many hitched rides by using their belts to attach themselves to the underside of delivery trucks.

And when all these writers got to Chicago, all these writers decided to check into the Hilton.

That's when someone spiked the drinking water. That's when the whiskey bottles—each of which had been secreted on the person of each of the writers—came out. That's when the laughing gas canisters were attached to the air vents.

That's when all hell broke loose.

When writers attack a city, they begin with the libraries. They grab all the fiction from the shelves and they put it in more prominent spots. They find all the electronics stores, and they break the windows—the ones that have TVs in them—and they tape books to the screens. (They use duct tape.)

They steal all the newspapers from the newspaper vending machines, and they take out black markers, and they cross out most of the words, and they leave the words to poems by John Ashbery and Albert Goldbarth and James Longenbach.

They go into all the bars in the city, and they drink every ounce of liquor and beer and wine the city has to offer. (Seriously. All of it. You couldn't get a beer in Chicago to save your life this week. The bars are all closed. The convenience stores are selling only beef jerky. The alcoholics are all in withdrawal. They are walking back and forth in front of the bars, waiting for the doors to open.

After the drunken writers finished vandalizing the city that welcomed them, they all went back to the Hilton, and they all took naps. Together. In groups of two and three and four. And no one cheated on their spouses or significant others. Writers don't do that. They prefer to cuddle up to each other. No sex was had between two writers in the city of Chicago. Everything was totally on the up and up. There was just a lot of cuddling.

Also, there was dancing. Lousy, lousy, lousy dancing.

And then everyone went home.

That's what AWP was like.

***

Today's new Pandora station: The Swell Maps.

The Swell Maps, The Helicopter Spies
Josef K, Endless Soul
The Modern Lovers, She Cracked
Dinosaur Jr., I Live for that Look
The Swell Maps, Bridge Head (Part 9)
Glenn Branca, Ascension
Donner Party, Blue Starch Acid for Baby's New Tooth
My Bloody Valentine, Paint a Rainbow
Sonic Youth, Destroyer (Live 2-1-81)
The Sex Pistols, Pretty Vacant

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Another year, another 5k run for breast cancer research. give if you can. Even just a dollar.

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This is a band called Barbagallo. They are playing Erik Satie pieces.

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UPDATE:

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Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen
Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen Elizabeth Ellen

Wrestler

I would like to tell you on this blog a little about politics.

There's this guy who works at the White House.

(The White House is a house that is painted white and holds in it the President of America, who we all know is the Leader of the Free World and the most powerful man on all the planet.)

(America is a big country located in the upper middle part of the Western Hemisphere, and is the place where the people and their things are freer than all other people and things anywhere on the entire globe.)

(The globe is the planet and the planet is a big, round version of the ground, and it is hurtling very speedily through space.)

(Space is everything.)

This guy who works in the White House and is the person I was referring to before (but not the President, who I also, you may remember, referred to) has a very important and significant job. His job is one that keeps him on duty almost all the time, 24 hours a day almost, and seven days a week almost.

It's a very difficult and hard job.

His job is to wrestle with others who have the same (or a similar) job in other countries.

(Other countries have something sort of like a White House, but usually shaped different, and also often of a different color.)

(Blue, maybe. Or a nice green.)

(Other countries also have something like the President, but their "Presidents" will have a different name often, and they will also not be anywhere near as powerful as our president, who is as powerful as a person can be.)

(Other countries are places with their own special borders on other parts of the globe. They are almost 100% of the time on the ground and not in the water, except for Atlantis.)

(Some people deny that Atlantis exists as a country, and those people do not think that Atlantis—because it is not there or anywhere—even has a President or a White House colored a similar or different color.)

The man from earlier who wrestles for the President of America is the best of the country wrestlers in the whole wide world. This is why our President is such a powerful President. And why our country has so many of the freedoms that we all enjoy and take advantage of.

That is what I have to tell you about politics for now.

***

John Vanderslice reads from Letters to Wendys.

"One time I saw a guy with three Biggies at once. One wonders not about him, but about what holds us back."

***

This is my favorite song to jog to. After I get home, I like to have a cigarette and a beer.

Get By - Talib Kweli

(Actually, I quit smoking years ago.)

(Often I miss it.)

***

UPDATE:

Consider donating.