Snippet: Theme and Other Insidious Obsessions. It’s not immediately apparent what it is that I’ll be spending the rest of my life writing about. Isn’t that a terrible sentence? I can’t help thinking about it, how terrible that sentence is, and how, at the end of my life as a writer, I may read that […]

Snippet: All the Things You Fear The fear of nightmares, of monsters under the bed, of the boogeyman in the closet: those are childhood fears. Childhood fears evolve, don’t they? One fears spiders, snakes, dogs, heights, enclosed spaces… Or of things more exotic. No matter. The little old woman cowering before me, humpbacked and–what’s the

When I die, I just wanna be DIRT! That was something that got passed around a bit in college. Anyway, Ray and I went on a picnic this afternoon. This, as it turns out, is not such a great idea on a Sunday afternoon. What’s with all these mooks fishing from a stocked pond? No

Snippet: Virgo, Inc. The first thing we did when the wyrmhole opened past Pluto was send probes, which were destroyed and sent back. Looked like that damn’ things’d been chewed on. Second thing we did was send more probes. Ditto. Third thing we did was…you get the picture. Enter the entrepreneur Silas T. Barnum, founder

Snippet: On the Way to the Ladies’ Room at the Silver Streak Café Memory, that is, the sprint of electricity from one neuron to another, takes shortcuts. At first memories (especially the painful ones) take as long as the event itself; by the time you’ve let twenty-two years go by, they’re a bare moment, a

Cross the fingers and other little rituals …Looking for a bunch of stupid tax paperwork, I found Jewel’s new address. I’ll open up the last letter, write all over it with updates, and send it off again.

Tone-deaf and lovin’ it. Ray has learned to sing. She’ll interrupt herself when crying in order to do so. For example, she doesn’t wake up well, and will often fuss a bit when she gets up from a nap. Today I hear her start winding up for a good cry only to start serenading the

Grammar, Dammit. If anyone, anywhere, anytime has told you “It’s not i-t-‘-s, it’s i-t-s, i-d-i-o-t,” then take a week and try this: Don’t type “it’s.” At all. For a week. Did you ever do that experiment in grade school where you try to go an entire day without dotting your is, js, or crossing your

Rejection, Canadian-style. I just got a rejection letter from Alley Cat publishing re: erotica story, “Customer Service”: “The story is well written & creative and I like the humour but it goes too far over the top (not sexually) but stylistically, at least for our purposes.” Deadline for submissions: March 31st. Postmark on letter: April

Moooovies. Osmosis Jones, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Thirteen Ghosts, Domestic Disturbance, Like Water for Chocolate. Osmosis Jones. This, my friends, is a movie for all ages, unless you’re the age where you don’t have a sense of humor. My only caveat is that you should make sure you brush and floss before watching