I write scared

Is there an occupation, an employment, a reason for living that invokes such an anxious, desperate exploration for talent within us? Than writing, I mean.

I'm crying cause I'm scared. I'm crying cause I'm a writer and I'm scared. I'm crying because I'm a lazy writer and scared. I write scared.

And the Internet is my foe. My foe set me atop the temple roof and the entire spread of literature - the past masters, with their  and the current masters, blogging and tweeting - and says "This cannot be yours."

Inadequacy. Books a million. Websites a million. And where is my place in it?

I feel like a goldfish in a hurricane. Yes, I have a blog (where I rarely write). Yes, I have a Twitter account (where I rarely write). But, I'm nobody. A nobody writer and too lazy, I fear, to become somebody!

It's come to the point that I get depressed when I read a good story (usually in my favorite lit mags where I can't get published.)

Too many metaphors. The length of the title destroys flash fiction as a construct. Well, screw you! This isn't for us.

So what? What do I do? I'm a young writer, a sheltered human being, who's only recently fallen in love for real. Only recently living on my own. My stories are often caricatured. Oh, how I miss this! I want to workshop so badly!

"No one writes like you." Says my David.

He's on vacation this week and I'm a little weepy. On Monday he told me that God has been speaking with him.God told him that he hasn't been composing in earnest. "I was trying to impress others and be complicated."

Today he says "No one writes like you." Don't compare yourself. It's a trap. You write. You write.

He's right. Writing, or composing, is creative. This means that every creation and its means will be individualized. Other writers cannot be my measuring sticks. I can study their techniques and learn from them, but I cannot judge my talent by theirs.

Talent and skill are not the same. If I am unsatisfied with my skill, then I should stop whining and sharpen it. If I am unsatisfied with my talent, that's okay, because I need so much more than just that.

Rather, if I'm so afraid, I should stop putting a limit on my experience and write in earnest, paying attention to articles on craft, exercising, and writing what I've got.

My love taught me, "No one writes like you." And, he says. "And I forbid you from reading Hobart."

Anybody's Blog Could Kick my Blog's Butt

Hello everyone who has read my work in [A cappella Zoo, Toasted Cheese, Hawk & Handsaw, Pif Magazine, Cheek Teeth, or other].

If you're wondering why you've clicked on the link to my blog - because it obviously has been abandoned by its addict/roadhog mother - here I am again.

I'm sorry to disappoint you. Recently I've moved from my mom's house to my very first "room of my own" apartment! I am drunk on freedom and devoid of a computer with internet.

As I've been striving to acquire a 5th day on my work schedule for the cinema that employs me, and as I prefer to spend several hours with my fiance on Sundays and Wednesdays, and when I sit down to write I work on "The Good Samaritan Drives us to San Jose" and "Maps in the Back of Bibles" (coming soon!) my blogging days have been mercilessly slashed.

I did not die - though, admittedly, that would have been pretty cool. I am alive. I've just finished the Nobel Prize-winning masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude and began reading Snow Country by Yusanari Kawabata today. I'm receiving rejection letter after letter. Ergo sum.

More to come, stay tuned, yada yada. Good night.

Free Write #1 ... Malapropism is What Adults Do

Aren't children clever? Soon - how soon? Already, they invent it. A way to cut through adults' weedy words. A way to grasp what they want. A way adults can grasp how much they mean it. Literary geniuses. My Hannah sits on her heels. Her strap-on shoes have fallen off four times. This bus that's coming won't let us pack our lives aboard. Just this much; it's so hard to explain. Just this much of you for the fare. This doll can go, this doll cannot. Pick your favorite. They're both my favorite. Again, how clever! If Shakespeare invented words, my daughter's Shakespearean. Is it words she invents or perceptions. Are words perceptions or translations? My thesaurus is not packed. Of my passport and paperclipped money, it is not my favorite. I love to hear my daughter interpret words she doesn't know. A thesaurus is a dinosaur. An oxymoron is a dumb cow. I give her a new word: Irony. She chews the word with her Now and Later, not liking the way turns the watermelon flavor tinny. Something that tastes like metal, she says. Irony, I turned my last English paper in yesterday. All that work and I won't know my grade. All those words I wove. I won't know if they were right. Not Hannah, because that's a child's superpower. The bus is chugging down the street. No, Hannah, sees the mortality of words. Even the paperthin can be split. The note we left on the Women's Mission door: "He will come. We won't be here." Adults reuse words like hard gum under the bus stop bench, chewing and chewing what saliva gradually won't loosen, because they can't find the right ones. But to children, everything is malleable, because reality has yet to pinned down by letters or sounds.

Answers for Are Muffin Tops Collapsible?

Busy!

A cappella Zoo began accepting submissions today and I've been reading and reviewing ever since my David went home.

New discovery: I love being an editor! It's what I want as my career. Throughout high school and college I thought: I'll teach creative writing or I'll be a librarian. Editor was a fallback. Not anymore.

In a different part of the forest, Pif Magazine has published my story "Answers for Are Muffin Tops Collapsible?"!

Good at Denial

"I'll go! I'll go! But you already wish I were gone."

Said the snotty girlfriend. Said the boy atop the slide. Said the suicide bomber.

The Legs Come Off Easily

My short story about Barbie-breaking, the hate of cuteness, and the horror of one-dimensional existence, The Legs Come Off Easily, is now online at A cappella Zoo's website!


I more than merely reccomend you read the remainder of the issue, I implore you (sets spinning her red and white hyptnotist's wheel) from my benevolent heart,

read A cappella Zoo, read A cappella Zoo,

listen to my words,

it's good for you...

Now I will snap my fingers and you will buy me a caramel Frappe.

Balloons Float Like Child's Eyes

Tess wished the plastic string would fly her to the sun a second before the hot ceiling light popped her Happy Birthday balloon.


Though it will only take you about 7 seconds to read this Friday's hint fiction, I'm in the mood for a soundtrack.

We Shot the Moon, if you're wondering.

The Picky Reader in British 1100

"I’ve a book for you" said Thomas Hardy.

"I'm not optimistic but I am idealistic." Said she. "Never understood imperfection."

"I've a book for you."

Little Round Doorways

The boy who usually juggled full Pepsi bottles sold unmarked CD's Tuesday.

"Music or Videos?" asked Daphne, walking from the recycle center.

"Nobody asks that."

Being at the Feminist Rallies Makes Me Feel like a Man

The bra's underwire popped like exploding candy.
           Paz hugged herself, avoided pumping fists, bearded pits, and tried to feel empowered, not cavemannish.


Before I get hate mail, or worse, accused of being an enemy of my own sex, let me say that the message of my story is not anti-feminist. Just anti-radical feminists.

Why is becoming hardened and wild and rude to the opposite gender becoming more powerful? Why do men-eaters feel they've not turned into the monsters they feel are dominating them?

Can You Spell Tourettes?

Soundtrack, cause you know you want one, by Blind Pilot.

David and I have been threshing out a new song (which actually mentions a threshing room floor) called "A Bad Year for Small Animals".

** Please see next post for more details.**

This venture has sent me to Rhymezone a few times and this reminded me of an important rule for writers that I've enforced in my own work, whether for short stories or song lyrics.

First, a lovely anecdote from sixth grade.

One Geography class a fellow student asked my teacher Mr. King if he had Tourette syndrome.

I don't know why you would ask someone who has regular conniptions (who ripped a very expensive atlas from the wall and threw it into the hallway for a forgotten reason) if he had Tourettes, but my classmate was just that stupid.

Mr. King stared at him and said,

"Can you spell Tourettes? Because I don't think you should use words that you don't know how to spell. So for you, that leaves: ooh, uh, and duh."

Tip: don't use words you don't know.

If you have a general idea what it mean, click onto Dictionary.com and familiarize yourself until you can employ it confidently. This rule is especially vital for college students. Every professor and editor can identify thesaurus-driven work. Be smart.

Also, consider this: if you don't know a word, readers will not be affected by it.

Bedwetting Science

"You pee yourself?"

exclaimed the bed-wetter, his piteous suicide ruined.


I'm a little early, but I wrote this a few days ago and I'm not waiting until midnight to post it.

A conundrum has poked his furry head out of the closet. A literary magazine I adore is accepting readers. However, I just started Moleperson Magazine and applied for a second job.

I believe that we here in internetland would say:  >.<

Hint Fiction Friday (Saturday)

Soundtrack stuck in my head by Dear and the Headlights.

As a shout out to the wonderful authors who together make up the Hint Fiction Anthology, I am establishing Hint Fiction Fridays! Woot!

This is a writing exercise for me and an invitation to all (3, probably) of you to post your own hint fictions on my comments page.

Hint Fiction refers to a story of 25 words for fewer that hints at a more complex situation but is a self-contained implosion of emotion.

Thank you, Robert Swartwood!

Tonight I have written such a story as I whiled away time in the box office.

80,000 Fan Haircut by Emily J. Lawrence

The director gave permission. The child star’s hair, I swept, dusted and tucked into my pocket. Daddy’s the hero at last. But, no. UNFOLLOW.

Putting on my Digger Hat

I have become the founding editor of Moleperson Magazine.

We launched this evening and my heart won't let my breath back out - I'm so excited/terrified/slightlyproud!

If you are a fiction writer, an artist who likes drawing/photographing molepeople, or an indie musician (David will be monitoring music submissions) with a love for the weird, I refer you to Moleperson Magazine.

To celebrate, a good song by Last Dinosaurs.

This Song's Trapped in My Head, Kumbaya!

Strangely, there are songs that get stuck in my head only when I'm at work. There's nothing I can find that initiates these repetative concerts. (Except for one of the songs; there's a circus game in the arcade. When it comes on, everybody ends up humming along.)

I've embedded the videoes so they can get stuck in your head, too! Aren't I nice?

These songs include:

Kumbaya

Drunken Sailor

Theme from the Odd Couple, which I've never seen, but they sang in Friends

Of Heroes and Archetypal Design - Using the Hero's Journey to Structure my Novel

The Hero Myth, exposed by mythographer Joseph Campbell, is a spine for the body of fiction. I won't repeat what countless helpful websites already have, but I will summarize:

Every protagonist traverses the archetypal "Hero's Journey." He possesses a need or desire, is incited by a crisis, and accepts the quest to succeed and earn his boon.

Using the steps of the Hero's Journey, I will map out the plot of my novel.

I won't show you this process because I'm still at the Call to Adventure in my quest to complete this novel and I don't want the Temptress to seduce you into pilfering it.

However, I'd like to demonstrate the usefulness of this mapping by naming my characters and the roles they play in this journey.

Hero: Meg Thirske...

a young woman who is happy for the first time. She has lived with depression all her life and knows herself only in the confines of being sad. Now she must acquire the skills to cope with having a happy life, all the while, sad events threaten to cause a relapse into depression

Magical Weapon/Tool: Telescope...

a scarecrow Meg constructs who is given a consciousness (unbeknown to Meg.) She is the narrator and interpreter of Meg's situation. *I can't tell you the end, which explains how she is a tool to Meg. Sorry.* Let's just say that her storytelling eventually gives Meg the perspective she needs to achieve her Apotheosis.

Temptress: Convenience of Known Coping Skills...

The Temptress is not a human (or scarecrow) character in my novel. Not that this is untrue of most modern stories. Meg knows how to be sad and survive; but, her glory will come when she can be brave and live a healthy life.

Mentor: Levi Wells...

Levi is Meg's true love. In learning to have a relationship with him, Meg 1) discovers who she is 2) learns not to "collapse" in old ways but to improve herself, and 3) finds the encouragement she requires to press on in her quest.

Fool/Trickster: Epiphany Bohling....

a classmate of Meg's whose outlandish beliefs test the reality of the other character's lives, in often funny ways. Epiphany also has her own hero's journey, as does Levi and Urriah; however, theirs are subplots while Meg's in the main plot.

Nemesis/Father: Urriah Graham....

a young woman, Meg's best friend, with just as many emotional problems. Okay, Urriah is not the typical nemesis. 1) She is not necessarily against Meg or her efforts, and 2) she is a very sweet and misguided girl who is beginning to rebel against her own beliefs. However, she embodies the guilt that discourages Meg and confuses her efforts to succeed.

This is the notion some Christians have about depression. That people who are depressed are "selfish," they don't have a "legitimate medical illness" and "should get over themselves." These statements, spoken by Meg's pastor and Urriah's father, compound Meg's shame and pulls her back toward depression.

Magnetic Valentine's Poem

Close to my house there is a used bookstore called The Book Nook. Its children's section had a set of magnetic words on a metal file cabinet. David and I walked over to the mall to play with the words all the time; it was one of our favorite dates. But, unfortunately, The Book Nook recently relocated to another space in the mall and with its renovation, the magnetic words were somehow taken away.
But! Happy ending! David bought me a Magnetic Poetry set (along with the expansion pack: Happiness) for Valentine's Day!

His clue was "something we used to do all the time but can't anymore." Isn't that cute? <3

So, to repay him for one of my favorite gifts ever, I've "written" this belated Valentine's poem.
(Punctuation added, of course.)

Let the petals of peaches dress your head
Together beneath the summer blue sky
the sun's wax smelling sweet,
we fiddle with tiny pictures of happiness.
My friend, love, ache & giggle!
The rust of sunshine full on you
brings me mad!
In light's pink gown I am not as warm
as in your arms.

It was a bit messier on the board. I had to stack an "an" on "warmth" and an "s" on top of that.

When There is Nothing to Hear

Soundtrack by Seabear.

You've seen (and I hope listened to) the soundtracks I've linked for nearly every post. It looks like that thing above, the blue underlined word Soundtrack.

Why must we always have something playing, speaking, thinking? Why do we feel wrong when there's not anything to hear?

My Sunday School teacher asked us this on an off-topic tangent and I didn't get to answer. Luckily, I have a blog. :P Here's my belief.

It's because we're afriad of non-existence.

Music is powerful. It brings out joy, suffering, and worship. We see this through the excellent music of Christian musicians, such as Alanna Story and Audrey Assad.

Expressing ourselves - words - thinking - it all proves we exist. By keeping our minds stocked with sounds, images, and talking, we feel like we won't be lost.

Imagine nothingness. Imagine silence. The majority of people, when asked to react to these states, reply that they would add something, anything, to comfort themselves.

We fear the end of our consciousness, our existence. When faced with infinity, we can't bear it. It makes us nausous. Because we know that we have no power in the void.

But our God lives in infinity.

And our intimacy with Him can begin there. Closing out all else, we find ourselves on a ledge over an extensive depth. We shudder. We fear.

In this moment, God can teach us to have peace by trusting in Him. We can know we are safe because we know He exists and His existence is not erasable in infinity like ours is.

When there is nothing to hear, He will come to speak. This is called meditation. Do not try so desperately to fill your head with noise, thinking it is the only proof you are safe.

Being still and knowing He is God is difficult. Usually, I end up chanting "quiet, quiet, quiet" in my head for five minutes, ineffectively. However, it is a crucial ability to obtain. Practice.

In secret, in the quiet place, in the stillness, You are there.

Welcome to Pallet Town!

Descriptions, whether metaphors or adjectives, must be impetuous, tenacious, and memorable - they must poke the reader in the eye, causing him to be more alert to your words. If your book or story were the mob, they would be your made men. They get attention, according to your orders.

You have your adjectives, your metaphors, your similes.

Give them enough bullets to accomplish the job. A full barrel, minus one, so they can't take you out and ruin the operation.

We'll start with one of our basic sets of descriptive words: colors. Try enhancing your writer's pallet.

I've included my experimentation as examples.

Yellow

The house was a yellow houses shouldn't be.

The house was the yellow that Hummers should be but houses should not.

Orange

He handed me an orange cup.

He handed me a tangerine cup.

Red

She painted her toes red.

She painted her toes like a clown's nose.

Purple

I can't wear a dress that ugly shade of purple!

I can't wear a dress the same color as old lady lips!

Blue

When her eyes were closed she was happy; in dark blue, she let her veins swirl.

When her eyes were closed she was happy; in the same blue as water on blacktop, she let her veins swirl.

Green

The grass is so green and beautiful.

The grass, wearing the same color fashion avoids, is yet so beautiful.

Brown

His hair was brown.

His hair reminded her of bitten M&M's.

Ivory

Her skin was ivory.

Her skin was ivory like a roll of Scotch tape.

Pink

He saw the pink rose and knew it was for her.

He saw a rose, pink like little girls' dreams, and knew it was for her.

Puzzles aren't Just for Mall Walkers

(A while ago, in my hometown, an elderly man was featured in the paper because of his faithful puzzle breaks in the Book Nook while mall walking.)

When I get sick, like I was this past week, I find my mind turning from the artful and creative and getting stuck on games. Spider solitaire, mahjong, etc.

This time, it was jigsaw puzzles.

Not cardboard ones. Those are too much trouble. No; my mom introduced me to JigZone.com.

It's a nice website. I've been doing dozens of 48-classic piece puzzles and drinking my bottles of purified water. Woo-hoo for youth!

Music to piece-together to.

((The Sound of a Tongue Indicating Death))

I haven't had many battles with that wire-snipping fiend, writer's block. Not that I'm always as prolific with my writing that I wish to be. Ideas are well-stocked up there and I've been too busy to run into writer's block very often.

However, I am not without adversary.

This past week I've had a very bad cold. I didn't write anything. I didn't want to, either.

Sickness is a writer's worst enemy. When the body is drained, it becomes a limp noodle and the balloon of creativity tied on the other end is kaput. All week my creativity has been croaking.

Had I written, it would have doubtlessly come out with all the pride of sputtering tongue.

That's not all. Now that my body is upright and I went to work, my brain is still deflated. I have to pump more life into it. Exercise time!

I have no instant cures for writers suffering colds. All I have is some instant oatmeal. Maybe some brown sugar.

However, for recovering writers, I can tell you: read. Reading will help you build back up

Also, list making and some writing exercises like the one below:

Choose a news headline. Without reading the article, write a story that explains the headline.

The Transformation of a Wallpaper Baby

Soundtrack.

Tuesday night a volunteer (with a pretty voice) from my university's Alumni office called to check up on my productive life. I felt embarrassed by instinct, as one who self-consciously calls herself a bum.

A bum in the fact that I'm 23 years old and have yet to rent a room of my own, drive on the interstate without a fire-breathing driving instructor, or have a desk with my name on it, or at least my own stack of Post-its.

However, this Pirate who Doesn't Do Anything has been busy lately.

I've published three articles on Examiner.com, one on Howcast. Six stories and my name are being printed or typed into six different creative publications, two of which are up to read. I'm excited about my free contributor's copy for Relief which hits the press in Febuary.

Plus! David and I polished off our song, "Surprise Paper Bag", last Sunday and he wants to preform it at Paramount!

I'm not bragging on myself. One fact of proof is that these are not monumental accomplishments and I have a long way to go. Secondly, because I know something about myself that you may not. I am so small.

I brag in God as a little girl who couldn't leave her house or mother a few years ago. As one who entertained thoughts of giving up. As one who probably will take antipsychotics for the rest of my life. As one who knows just how much I need help and strength from the Lord.

I'm a wallpaper baby, not able to join the game of musical chairs for the sticky glue on my back, unless my hand is gripped by an able and loving friend.

Yes, I'm small, but I'm growing! Growing, growing, I'm growing.

How To Read My New Article on Howcast (Easy!)

Step One:

Click here.

Step Two (optional):

Click here for a nice song to hear while you read.

To hear them one must be calm... for their wingbeats are barely audible

My review of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was published today on Examiner.com.

I always feel as if I'm holding up a sign that says "Click if You Love Me" ... Instead of Honk if You Love Me.

But, I'm a writer; I need to get used to living like a homeless person. So here I am in my little coat and hunting-orange hat with my carboard sign that says: Charity, This is How I Eat.

I'm a beggar who gives, though. Here's something to listen to while you read my review.

This game makes my tongue quite lame, sir!

Watch this quick, slick, trick with Seuss's tongue nooses with no truces!

Xin Yan, a tongue-happy young girl, speed reads Dr. Seuss's most twisty verses in Fox in Socks. The crowd is flipping out, so you have to listen fast!

You'll find your tongue tries to trail, but try not to bite it!

I can't even read this slowly without slobbering all over myself.

Our Own Myths, which taste like sour gummy worms

Soundtrack by Paul Macefiled (Love this song!!!)

I remember as a child, toddling around with spoons of Fruity Pebbles, my brother and I made up magic. The red fruity flakes, if you eat them, you fall in love with the first thing you see. We probably swiped this from an Aladdin episode (remember the TV series?) or some other show we watched.

We spent breakfast "falling in love" with items around the room.

Right now, I'm actually in love with a food processor I lost, and imagining the Oreos and vanilla ice cream I used to whip up on slow afternoons.

I also remember a necklace I got from Bingo at the nursing home my dad ran. The charm was the size of my palm, I thought it was too big. It was just from another time. An oval turquoise stone encircled by braided metal on a chain.

It transported me to the Land of the Black Sand, where I was an acrobatic "street rat", which I definitely stole from Aladdin.

I've traded in my curls and 101 Dalmatians pants but I still find myself with a palmful of myths. The most abundant of these are Happy Token myths.

Happy tokens are little things you find that make that moment special. For instance, coins run flat by a train are happy tokens, as is a piece of hair (or any other thing) in the shape of a heart, or a splatter of paint that looks like a little girl with duck hair, you know, that old cutesy haircut a lot of Precious Moments girls have, or if there are an usual number of blue/pink gummy worms in the box.

Which means, you can make a wish.

David and my favorite little legend is, if you find an eyelash on your true love, you can make a wish, and blow, it will come true.

Do you have one? Something that feels special that you stumble upon in life? Leave me a comment so I can join in on the happiness.

Maybe I should get a Twitter account?

My second article on Examiner.com was published today! According to my stats, I have earned 11 cents - whoo hoo!

I'd like to share with you the joy of reading Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros, so click on the link but also, run out to your library and check out Caramelo! You will not regret it, I promise. It is just as thrilling as going to see movie.

Sandra Cisneros, my herione of writing:

Hector and the Search for Happiness and something about a crocodile?

I examine books now... That's a strange sentence to say. So is: Excuse me madam but that crocodile is nibbling the motor; please thwack him on the nose for me so we can carry on with our expedition.

I may or may not be extremely tired right now.

I am Book Examiner for my hometown on Examiner.com and my first article, a book review of Francois Lelord's small novel, Hector and the Search for Happiness, was published today!

No, I won't tell you how the book is. You'll have to read my review! And when you're done, try Hector and the Search for Happiness.

Hope Tied with Spiderwebs

My short, short story "Hope Tied with Spiderwebs" was posted today on Glossolalia's website!

Please, click the link to read it.

Hope you enjoy!

Angry Old Man in the Sky

How many of us view our merciful God like this?:

My David did; and along with him, most who are unsaved and some Christians. Why? And why has God been depicted this way for hundreds of years? (The above picture dates back to the Renaissance,  Michelangelo's time.)

"The God of the Old Testament" is often thought of this way. It is a voluminous stumbling block to nonbelievers and one that David had been struggling with the past two months. In the Old Testament God seems a spiteful fuming cloud thundering down on the people. However...

This is man's perception. Think back to the Israelites, or even further. Is this image not one that a sinful race would have? Is it not similar to the view of a scolded child?

For instance, David recently shared a story with me about him and his father.

They were preparing to cross the street. David was a child, rambuctious as any other boy, and he ran out into the road ahead of his father, right in front of a car. His father snatched the collar of his shirt and pulled him back just before the car roared past.

David was a little dazed and frightened. His father stearnly scolded him. As David told me this, it was clear that his father had left an impression he never forgot!

"You're the last thing I'd want to lose," his father said afterwards.

Now when David remembered this, he didn't say: "My dad saved my life!"

He remembered, "My dad yelled at me!"

Aren't we the same?

When God rebuked His children throughout history, they failed to see His urge not to lose them. Instead, they resented and feared God's discipline and very often forgot that He'd given them the rules ahead of time and always warned them before He enacted justice.

God may be angry at your sin, but He is not a vengeful perfectionist, waiting for you to slip up so He can burn you to a crisp.

He just wants to save you.

"The LORD is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love, forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion. But he does not excuse the guilty."

Numbers 14:18 (NLT)

Today Begins My 23rd Year

Yes, today is my birthday.

It's been twenty-three years and two weeks since the Christmas Eve I decided it was too cold to be born. I might add that today is still too cold for my taste. David doesn't seem to mind, but he's a penguin.

And penguins even go out in the snow barefoot. But pandas like me praise God for our big coats. That's why I eat so much.

Eating Cities... Cities Eating.

Today I heard a melody in the drain. Sheathed in showered bliss, the bliss of warm skin after washing, I was toweling off when I heard it. It was jumpy and light. You see, our house is in a virtual earth bowl into which the rain, or in this case, the melted snow, runs. Therefore, our drains are always drowned and clogged.  Today, as our bathtub drained, the bathroom sink's pipes bubbled a song. I thought how whimsical God's sense of humor was.

This is a random note I wanted to share. My real news reminds me of the drinking drain. Ironically, on the day I switch from soda pop to a diet of orange juice and water, my review of Darrin Doyle's The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo was published on Literary Laundry's website.

This is ironic because of the theme of consumption. The Girl who ate Kalamazoo, Audrey Mapes, is a portrait of grotesque consumption. But don't take my word for it.

Please read the review and try to understand my train of thought; meanwhile I'm attempting to write a review of the Japanese film Nobody Knows for my next blog post.