Thought-Drive

Before a crazy Saturday afternoon and evening (I drove around with an Asian in my trunk, but he wasn't naked), I watched a History channel special on a place called Lucky Friday. It's a vast silver mine in the northwest. The foreman, dirty from the bottom of his hardhat to the bottom of his boots, smiled and said between one of the informatively voice-overed snippets of bleak footage, "I say that any day underground is a good day." I came up with two conclusions after recovering from my slack-jawed dismay. Mining is hard, and it takes special types to do it well. As of right now, I did not get into the Odyssey writing workshop. The woman did grant me the boon of the mysterious "short list" of those to be contacted if anyone who did get in backs out, and also she read over my work and gave me her feedback. I was pleased, because she seemed to have actually read the entire thing, which I can't say the same for other contests and competitions I've joi...

Earlier this year, I complicated my 2010 taxes by accepting pay for working at my friend's theater. Today, a different friend called me about reading over his novel for him, and offered to pay me for that, too. I wondered if the IRS would really come after me for not reporting something like that. I suppose I'll get around to bending that law when it comes time for the breaking. I wish I had some colloquial wisdom to insert right here, but alas, my researching is incomplete. I am watching Justified though. The latest episode (given unto me by the prophet Hulu) solidified a theory I'd been developing for a few weeks now. Listening to the director and actors, the show seems to owe it's origin to that of a short story from which the first episode takes its name. The first episode is strong, well acted, scripted, and directed. I'm not sure what I was doing, but I dropped it promptly and watched the next three in rapid succession. With each, my anxiousness faded along...

Order surrenders to chaos. Yesterday I called a woman who I hadn't tried to contact in three weeks. I hadn't tried because none of my earlier correspondences had been replied to, and in this era of meta-communication, that non-communication communication generally means in our society either a) there's been a tragedy, and the person just needs some time or b) They're just not that into you, but they'd rather not let you know directly. I really thought that I had gotten it, too, had internalized that They wrote a book about it, after all. After dinner with a friend, I told him "I think if I let myself believe that's how people are, a part of me is going to die," like the guy who says he doesn't believe in gravity: clearly it is a fundamental constant, he simply has chosen his battle poorly. Or maybe it's something else. After all, I'm similarly rejected in that manner all the time. Submissions sent off with SASEs find themselves trapped in...

I would like to blame recent neglect on the weather. Where I live, Spring has touched down with a graceful finality, and wherever She alights, golden motes of troublesome dust rise up like smothering clouds. And the garden grows. But that would be too much. Nor would it be completely accurate to say that I just hadn't gotten around to it, because here I am typing away one still-cool morning, fresh from a shower and thoughtful. An artist I know who works in all manner of strange mediums (from my perspective, I mean) described to me something of her process. She wonders up an idea, and judges it, then usually ends up throwing it away. As whatever deadline approaches this process repeats, becoming more frenzied and wild until rampant need (which I believe is half the formula for genius) causes her brain to formulate on the idea, the one she will actually put forth. Procrastination is what I might have called it, but likely only because I didn't have a better word. Because, I...