my muse is a precocious little girl

I feel like I always jabber about being a writer, and writing, and blah blah blah so I should just stop being a pansy and post some writing. Don't worry — you'll never come here and find full drafts of short stories. Just some snippets I've written here and there.

So, in that spirit, today while writing with some friends, I was challenging myself to be brief. Here are two short-short stories, in less than 100 words.

Eloise sat in the basement room and began to unravel the rug again. She had woven and unraveled the same red, black and white fibers more times than there are spines on a cactus. If she had woven the same pattern twice, she didn't know. Diamonds, mandalas, chevrons, paisley swirls all emerged from the same beaten, fuzzy threads. The futility of her task may be cause for concern — but probably not.

I have never been any good at spelling. Inappropriate and unwelcome letters crop up in the middle of words where they are uninvited, like the static shock of a doorknob early in the morning. But I can spell onomatopoeia perfectly; strange vowel clusters snared by the siren song of the flypaper in my synapses. That pesky third "n" in begining, or the extravagent "e" in withe, however, manage to escape.

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for those playing along at home

Now you too, can be a pundit, with Slate's delegate counter! You may not have a fancy touch-screen to monkey around with primary results, but you can figure out exactly how much trickery and subterfuge HRC would need to win the nomination.


(PS. If only real newspapers and magazines could do this)

The Voice of an entire city

Sadly, Myron Cope, the man who coined a thousand catchphrases, passed away yesterday at the age of 79. He is survived by the Terrible Towel, "Yoi" "Double Yoi" "Okel Dokel" and a million nicknames and utterly batshit insane game-time utterances. The Voice was responsible for a lot of what any native Pittsburgher considers their identity, even after we all peace out of Western PA.

All I can hope is you continue to mock the Brownies and the Bungles from whatever Afterlife there may be.

it ain't me babe

Penn State's Thon promo video. I don't know, I find it kind of terrifying, with the dramatic strings, and coordinated movement, and the screaming and crying.

make art! make art!

mazeltov glen and marketa.And good move John Stewart for letting poor little Marketa back on stage to give a speech. She's nineteen and she barely speaks English. "Fair play to those who dare to dream."

Everything about this was amazing and inspiring.

These are Dark, Evil Times

I woke up this morning with whiskey on my tongue, tired, confused, angry, restless. The way you always were. In the middle of the eternal shortest month, in the midst of my own body's mental and physical breakdown, you decided you'd had enough. Your brains were all over the typewriter, counselor. The snow was thick on the ground, and for you, the winter would never end. I got the call, I heard a recorded voice tell me you were gone. Three years later, I no longer speak to that person's recorded voice and you are still not with us.

No one could tell me if it was true or not. Some people said they didn't believe for days, thought you were pulling another fast one. Another decompression chamber. I knew from the first second that you'd finally given up the ghost. It was the only way. Your best prank. Six months later, you were shot into the sky, like the beautiful, weird, twisted mutant you were.

We need you now more than ever, but chances are a time will never come when that won't be true. I lust after the words you will never write, about Mike Huckabee's speed freak for Jesus bug-eyed, bass-playing antics, about the sheer ridiculousness of the slow crumble of the Bush administration. If we'd had a different president, would things have seemed less bleak, Raoul? If the Patriots we're the opposite of competition, pure sport and surprise, would you have felt more satisfied?

Football Season is Over, but who do I turn to now, for inspiration, for courage, for irreverence, for everything?

You, Doctor. Too weird to live, too rare to die.

Mahalo.

i need a lawyer

Listen, if I had my way, I would just go through this day pretending it's like every other Thursday where I go to work, waste some time, go to yoga, talk about postmodernism, then go get drunk.

Unfortunately, even the cartoons on Nickelodeon this morning won't let that happen. And I am in a particularly black and foul mood today, so you can all take your candy hearts, and shove them.

Or maybe this is all pure gibberish — a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow — to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested...
Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.

goodnight, sweet prince

Oh, baby. The results of Heath Ledger's autopsy show that he died from an "accidental drug overdose," if you consider swallowing Viocdin, Oxy, Xanax, Valium and two different kinds of sleeping pills an accident.

At least we know you weren't trying to off yourself, but something was hurting you awful bad.

Now, off to drink myself silly and watch you woo Julia Stiles with Frankie Valli songs.

correlation is not causation

Last night, Alabama and most of the rest of the American South picked Mike Huckabee as their candidate of choice in the 2008 presidential election.

Today, a mass of tornadoes devastated the same area.

A scientist would say that correlation is not causation...but evangelicals don't believe that science proves anything. So I guess the only other available option is that they're being punished for designating a wild-eyed, bible-humping fear monger out of his head on Speed and Scripture as a rational human being, let alone a person capable of running this country.

YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWW

photo NY Times

Remind me why we beat Howard Dean off the political scene with a baseball bat studded with railroad spikes for his post-Iowa crazy again?

Super Tuesday is one of the darkest days of the year for the myth of unbiased jounalism.

Get it girl.

Super Tuesday MLK redux

Consider this my official disenrollment from "the chorus of cynics."

I want to be inspired. Strike all my defense of Hillary as the better politician. Just because the system exists, doesn't mean I have to support the person who plays it best.

Fuck the system.

Yes we can.

Football Season Is Over

Just in case you were wondering, this year on February 20, the anniversary of the Good Doctor's death, (mahalo, sir) there will be a total lunar eclipse. Celebrate with whatever combination of chemicals, debauchery and pagan reverence you see fit.

And thus, the football gods did smile...

...and they did decree The Underdog the most blessed of all their creations.

Seeing the Pats lose the only one that counted was one of the most satisfying non-Pittsburgh related sports moments of my life. Also, this lends more support to my theory that it is impossible to win a Super Bowl without some sort of adversity in your path. Swagger doesn't win championships;beating a pretty-boy quarterback into the ground for 60 minutes does. First-round playoff byes and running up the score all season do not instill a team with the kind of grit it takes to clutch the Lombardi in a fit of orgiastic glee.

And now, to continue dealing with this unholy mess that has taken up residence in my sinuses. These are evil, evil times. Mahalo.