I Do Not Feel Like Myself Today

Got a new blog.

Going to start posting entries on it. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe during the next few days.

Invite-only. Haven't invited anyone yet since I haven't posted yet. Give me your email if you want in.

It's going to be for a memoir. I want to work on a memoir. I have a bad memory. It will be an exercise in memory. I will fill in the gaps with ridiculousness. Fact will merge with fiction. I will not do any research. I will not ask my parents questions. It will be written out out order.

If published, it will be under a nom de plume. I will not feel restricted by my own name. My own name will not dictate what I can and cannot write about.

The working title is the same as this entry's. Good title, but too close to the title of another memoir that came out a while ago. And I don't want the work in progress title to match up with the published title.

I feel weird. Probably won't start it tonight. Trying to get back into my wacky sleep schedule.

inflatable swimming pools

I am finished with my writing program. I have learned that I am not a very good student, that a classroom probably isn't the best learning environment for me. I'm considering a low residential program because of this since I seem to work very well one on one with a teacher rather than when I'm one of the many students in a classroom. But I want to be involved in a community, want teaching experience, and want that teaching experience to help pay for tuition. So what to do? What to do? I think I'd make a better teacher than student in the classroom. Maybe a less academic-y program would work for me.

I really want to start working on my novella again, but can't until August. This frustrates me. I don't feel like working on anything else. I thought about working on a secondary story with the novella's protagonist, but I also wanted to work on an irreal story and my protagonist lives in our reality, so it's not happening. I guess I could have ignored that fact that he lives in our reality, but I don't want to do that. I've ignored too many things like that in the past.

I saw Anthony Hopkin's Slipstream. It's really fucked up.

I don't think I'm going to write short stories anymore unless someone asks me to write one and I can't just send one of the many good stories that I have written in the past that remain unpublished because of a theme or whatever. It's too much work to conceptualize short stories. Almost as much work as conceptualizing a novella. It seems like a waste of time, like I'm burning away ideas that would work better for something longer. I hope that one day I'll be famous enough to say that I'll only work on a short story if someone pays me. But for now, I will say that I will only write a short story if someone asks me for one.

I'm listening to The Modern Lovers a lot on Myspace. I really like them. They remind me of The Jim Carrol Band, but they are much, much better. I think I used to have a Jonathan Richman cassette. I didn't like it. I bought it because Dean Ween played guitar on a song or two. I like the way Dean Ween's guitar sounds. It is always out of tune.

I started a new story tonight. Having a little trouble getting into it, but it's not bad. I've been trying to come up with a good idea for it for the last couple of weeks. I came up with an idea. It's pretty ok. I think I'll write a page a day until I'm either finished with the first draft or it starts to excite me and I feel the urge to write more than a page a day.

From now on, I think I'm going to base all of the protagonists in my short stories on people that I know. It is lazy, but I don't think it's worth the effort to create an original character for a short story protagonist. I already have a fully realized character if I do it this way and I don't have to put any effort into the act of creation.

Although so far, the protagonist in my new story is not at all like my friend who I've based him on. But I can still pull things from his life or personality if it's necessary.

It looks like a couple of people bought my book today on Amazon. This makes me feel a little better about myself.

The person who wrote me a letter about enjoying my novella in The Bizarro Starter Kit also reviewed it for an online mag called The Pedestal:

"Bradley Sands’s novella "Cheesequake Smash-Up" is also based on an absurd and utterly delicious premise: America’s most popular eateries vie for a fast food monopoly in a bloody battle royal where each franchise and corporate headquarters are the combatants (thanks to recent "levitating technologies"). "Cheesequake Smash-Up" is, hands down, the funniest story to appear in either anthology. After all, it contains giant talking goldfish, anal-retentive supervisors, gorillas, geriatric sex, gladiatorial sea monkeys, a walleyed take on Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, cannibalism, tasteless jokes about bodily functions..."

That is nice. Thanks.

I read a story in front of the other writing program people last night. Thought it went pretty ok. Realized I have a microphone phobia since I don't really get nervous when I'm doing a reading without a microphone. This time, there was a microphone. The story was only a page long, which was good because I don't like reading for a long time. The content of my story made me feel like a naughty child.

The soundtrack for The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle is awful, except for Sid Vicious' cover of My Way. I once did karaoke to My Way, the Frank Sinatra version. I sang it like Sid Vicious though. I couldn't remember the lyrics that he changed except the "I killed the cat" bit. They cut my microphone. I hate karaoke bars. They are the most unpleasant places in existence.

Wait. Who Killed Bambi? is pretty amusing.

I return to work tomorrow night. I'm almost looking forward to it. I'm emotionally frazzled and a return to normalcy would feel nice.

Received my passport on the mail today. That was really fast. My photo looks like I'm a serial killer, a serial killer who's gonna high-tail it out of the country as soon as possible.

All hail Richard Grieco.

assignment #1

My workshop assignment for tomorrow is to take the the first sentence of what I'm working on right now and rewrite it five different ways.

My first sentence is "Anarchy fucking rules."

I feel that this is a very good sentence. I like it a lot. The rest of the paragraph would be thrown off if I rewrite it.

It is a little hard to write five different variations of a three word sentence. I succeeded. The different variations are probably as good as they can possibly be, which is not very good:

"I would like to start out by saying that anarchy fucking rules."

"Doesn’t anarchy fucking rule?"

"I yell, 'Anarchy fucking rules.'"

"I feel very strongly about anarchy fucking ruling."

"Three words: Anarchy. Fucking. Rules."

I feel a little trepidation about printing out a piece of paper for everybody in the class that says, "Anarchy fucking rules," at the top. I will probably show it to the professor and ask, "This is ok? Right?"

I am kind of jealous of the people with first sentences that are more than three words.

title working

I did two day shifts in a row. I am never doing day shifts again. They are stressful. Too many people. One shift resulted in TMJ pain the next morning.

Yesterday, a seven foot tall woman dropped a bottle of Vitamin Water on the floor and it spilled out. I think she was drinking it at the time. She was seven feet. Seven foot tall women are very thirsty. They cannot wait until they purchase their beverages before drinking them.

The seven foot tall woman bought another bottle of Vitamin Water. She left the half empty bottle that she spilled on the counter. It is not worth arguing with a seven foot tall woman about paying for a drink that she spilled. She is seven feet tall.

She might have been a sasquatch who had shaved her entire body. She was overweight. She would have been morbidly obese if she was five foot ten, but she was seven feet, so her body fit her height.

My roommate picked me up after work. I told him about the sasquatch. He joked about how I was being sexist because I wouldn't call a man a sasquatch. I told him I would definitely call a man a sasquatch, but that the only seven foot tall men who I see at work look like basketball players.

The sasquatch was kind of cute. I would have been sexually attracted to her if I had a sexual fetish for seven foot tall women, but I do not have a sexual fetish for seven foot tall women. This is too bad. She was dressed for a night out on the town. I probably could have gotten her phone number.

I think I have a phobia about getting crushed beneath the weight of seven foot tall women, although I did not realize this until I typed this sentence.

I once had a sexual fetish for female-ish hermaphrodites. Chicks with dicks, I guess.

I developed this sexual fetish after James (of An Interview with James fame) gave me the link to a porn website. A porn website that had some very interesting pictures. They were female celebrity nudes. Most of them were fake. Some of them were real. The guy who owned the website made the female celebrity's skin green with photoshop. The guy who owned the website made the green, nude female celebrities have penises with his photoshop program.

A sexual fetish that combines she hulk, nude celebrities, and chicks with dicks is the greatest sexual fetish ever.

I tried out the chicks with dicks aspect of it. I failed. It only lasted for about an hour. It ended after I realized that I didn't know any hermaphrodites. After I couldn't find any chicks with dick porn on the internet besides male-to-female transsexuals who hadn't gone all the way yet.

I find transexuals kind of creepy. I have a few friends who are transexuals. I have not spoken to them in a while. I do not find them creepy. I think this is because I knew them before they started to become what would have been creepy to me if they were strangers.

Transvestites are neato. Transvestites are not creepy. It makes me happy when an old man in a dress and says something to me in a really deep voice.

I have the week off from work. It started today. My writing program started. The class-like things don't start until tomorrow.

I went to register for the program at a building on campus. That took a second. I was handed a folder. Many hours later, I stood in front of a bookstore in town, waiting to be picked up by my roommate. I looked at the books in the window. One of the books was written by the woman who registered me.

The folder contained a list of people who were participating in the program. I didn't recognize any of the names. It would have been nice if I had recognized some of the names. Then I would have had an excuse to introduce myself to those particular writers. I googled a few of the names of people from my workshop after I went home. The search results mostly came up with Facebook profiles. The writers that own these names appear to be unpublished, not that there's anything wrong with that.

There were a few program participants hanging out and talking in the building where I went to get registered. I left after registration, because I am socially awkward. Meeting new people makes me feel very uncomfortable. I wish I was not this way. After a person is no longer a new person to me, I will sometimes feel comfortable in their presence.

I went off to the campus center to read. I could have read in the building where they were doing registrations, but that would have made me feel even more awkward and uncomfortable. It was nice reading alone in the campus center. I don't think I've been there since 2001. I urinated in my favorite bathroom on campus. It is in the basement of the campus center. I like it because it is very solitary and few people use it. I don't think I've urinated in my favorite bathroom in UMASS since 2001.

I was reading Stephen King's The Wastelands, which is the third book in his Dark Tower series. I like it, but not as much as the first book. It is much better than the second book, which is pretty terrible for the first 250 pages. The first book is nice because it does not read like Stephen King wrote it. The second book is not nice because it returns to his usual style. Stephen King describes his style as the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and large fries. I really like this description. It is accurate. I think Stephen King is probably a really nice person.

My co-worker describes Stephen King's prose as bland. This is accurate too.

Book 2 gets pretty interesting after the first 250 pages, but the writing still reads as if Stephen King wrote it. Books should not take 250 pages to get interesting. Books should be interesting from the first sentence. Especially the first sentence. I don't know why I read 250 pages of crap.

And the majority of the second book takes place in our world/reality. Our world is dull. I like the alternate world that Stephen King has created for this series.

Book 3 is interesting from the first page, but it still reads like Stephen King wrote it. I think I'm ok with this. Most of it takes place in the world of The Dark Tower. And even the scenes that take place in our reality are interesting.

I am feeling a little nauseous all of a sudden.

After reading in the campus center for a couple of hours, I went back to the place where they had the registrations. This is also the place where they were also having our welcome dinner. The food was very good. I sat with four men of various ages. They seemed very literary fiction-esque. I felt like an outsider since I don't have a clue how to describe myself and my writing. One of the men of various ages said something like, "It is really hard to get published." I did not mention that I have a published novel (Amazon sales rank 1,013,321!). That would have felt like bragging.

I received a Myspace message the other day that made me feel a little better about that horrendous sales rank. It said that my novella, Cheesequake Smash-up--from The Bizarro Starter Kit (Blue)--, was one of the funniest things that she had ever read. This made me feel good about myself.

We went to a reading after dinner. Poetry and prose. I really liked Lydia Davis' stuff, although I often found my attention wandering. I usually experience this problem when I'm trying to listen to a reading. There is something wrong with my attention span. I think this is less of a problem when the author is "performing" rather than reading. Work that is read out loud is usually pretty boring delivery-wise rather than content-wise. I try to "perform" whenever I do a reading, which is very infrequently. But I read the story off paper rather than memorize, so it is not as good as it should be.

Carlton Mellick is the greatest reader that I have ever seen, but he is not a reader. He is a performer. He didn't read a story the one time that I saw him. He did a performance. Sort of a one-man play. I have done things like this also for readings, but they come off as looking really stupid because I'm reading them off paper since I can't memorize things.

I really liked Lydia Davis' short sentences.

My friend sat behind me. He has a glass eye. I did not expect him to be there. I was surprised. He was there because his girlfriend likes Lydia Davis. She interviewed her recently for our local alternative weekly newspaper.

He is not really my friend. More like an acquittance who I am very fond of. We do not communicate unless I run into him out of the blue.

Mike Young was also there. I talked to him. I started debating whether I should go to the reading that he put together that's happening in Boston tomorrow or if I should go to the reading that is part of my writing program. This is the first time I have been torn between two readings.

Mike Young started smiling and looking like a maniac. I asked him what was wrong with him. He said something like, "You will find out later."

I guessed that he was sitting next to his professor who was doing the reading for my writing program at the same time as Mike Young's reading. I was correct. His professor looks very young. Maybe around my age.

I just checked. He was born in 1971. He looks very young for being born in 1971.

I read his first novel a very long time ago. I liked it, but I don't remember very much about it. I was surprised when I heard that he was teaching at UMASS.

I feel weird about typing his name since we are living in the age of google alerts and blog searches. I don't know why I feel weird about typing it. I want to be his student for longer than an hour and a half, I guess. I will be his student for an hour and a half this week. It is for a class that happens only once. Still, I don't know why I feel weird about typing his name. I'll probably go to his reading tomorrow because I hate traveling.

It would take me an hour to walk to his reading from my apartment, but I will probably already be on campus beforehand.

It took me about an hour to write this blog entry.

what's the greatest nation in the world?

I slept last night. It was strange. I haven't slept at night since the beginning of the year, besides going to sleep in the early morning during the World Horror Convention.

It was strange to not need to put a shirt over my head in order to fall asleep.

It was strange to wake up in the daylight instead of the darkness.

It was nice. But it was not nice to force myself to stay awake until midnight. I did this so I could prepare my sleep schedule for my writing program next week. My writing program is at a normal time rather than a graveyard shift time.

I'm going to tell you a story. I told it to Seth Schultz a couple of weeks ago and he said, "Good story."

I think this happened to me a month ago.

I originally wrote, "This happened a month ago, I think."

I edited it because a lot of bloggers who are writers write sentences like this. They end their sentences with a comma and "I think." I think that bloggers who are writers have picked up certain things from each other. It is like a bunch of friends who talk the same way because they spend so much time together.

I think that I have picked up on a lot of this, but I'm going to edit it out whenever possible when it requires as little work as rearranging a sentence. Otherwise, I will not bother.

Back to my "good story."

I was at work. A nervous looking guy prepaid for some gasoline. He pumped some gasoline. He stopped pumping gasoline. There was still some money left from what he prepaid. Maybe a dollar and some change. He came back inside. I opened up the register, thinking he wanted his change. He did not want his change.

He wanted me to call the police. He wanted me to call 911.

Someone outside had pissed on him. He wanted me to report this.

I looked outside. I saw a guy in his twenties outside of nervous looking guy's car. He was laughing to himself. He looked drunk. He was getting into the backseat of the nervous looking guy's car.

I called 911. I told the operator that my customer had been urinated on. The operator asked to speak to my customer. I put him on the phone. I listened to one side of the conversation.

I learned that the nervous looking guy knew the person who had pissed on him.

If I had known this information from the start, I wouldn't have called 911. I would have called the main number for the police. I did not think that getting pissed on was an emergency. I do think that it would have been an emergency if my customer didn't know the person who pissed on him since this person had crawled into the back of his car.

The nervous looking guy asked the police to send a car over. He feared for his safety.

The police car showed up. One policeman talked to my customer while the other policeman talked to the guy who had pissed on him.

I listened to the first conversation. I could not hear the second conversation.

My customer knew the guy who pissed on him from work. He was not his friend. He did not really like him. But they ended up in the same bar together earlier in the night. I guess maybe a bunch of people who worked together went out drinking that night.

The guy who pissed on my customer got into a fight with somebody. The police came. My customer talked to the police. He did the guy who would later piss on him a favor. He prevented him from being arrested. He said that he would take responsibility for him and drive him home.

On their way home, my customer was pissed on.

The police officer kept asking my customer if he was shocked by seeing the piss guy's dick. He said something like, "I was shocked at the time. I am not shocked now."

I think this meant that the piss guy could have been arrested for sexual assault or something. Maybe something else.

My customer did not want the piss guy to get arrested for that. He just wanted to get rid of him. He wanted the police to throw him in the drunk tank or something.

Then I found out the car that my customer was driving was not his car. It was the piss guy's car. This made me think that it was even more ridiculous to call 911 instead of the main number for the police.

I thought that if my customer wanted to get rid of the piss guy, he could have just abandoned him and taken a cab.

But maybe he couldn't do that since he took responsibility for him earlier at the bar. Maybe if the piss guy caused any havoc, my customer would be held partially responsible for this.

I just thought of this.

I guess he could have just abandoned the piss guy and his car at my gas station. I'm glad that he didn't though.

The piss guy's ex-girlfriend showed up. She had broken up with him a few days earllier. She talked to the police. She cried a lot. This annoyed me. I was trying to chill on the Internet during all this. I wished she would stop annoying me. I wished she would cry outside rather than in my store.

I think the piss guy got into a fight at the bar with a person who was screwing his ex-girlfriend and was responsible for their breakup. Something like that. I'm not sure. My customer said that he would just get into the same fight again after he took him home, so maybe they were roommates.

The ex-girlfriend wanted to drive the piss guy home so he wouldn't have to get arrested and get thrown in the drunk tank. She was a little too drunk for this. She took a breathalyser test.

Eventually, everyone went away.

It was very nice.

The piss guy went away with the police.

His car was either driven by my customer or towed. I don't remember.

The ex-girlfriend either walked home or was driven home by my customer.

I have a strong dislike for humanity.

I do not have a strong dislike for the members of humanity who I like, for the members of humanity who do not piss me off.

I am very fond of a few members of humanity.

the king is dead

I just read the first forty pages or so in the second book of Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It was extremely boring. I am very disappointed. I really liked the first book in the series. I'm anti-Stephen King again. I wish it wasn't a series. I wish the first book was the only one. I wish it had a closed ending. Then I would be pro-Dark Tower.

E

I think I'm addicted to email. The little ding that Outlook Express whenever I get new mail gives my brain a feeling of joy. The little icon that appears on the right corner of my computer screen gives me brain a feeling of joy, but not as much joy as the little ding. On Myspace, the red color of the "New Mail" text also gives my brain a feeling of joy, but not as much joy as the little ding, although more joy than the little icon that appears on the right corner of my computer screen.

Right now, Outlook Express checks for new mail every five minutes. I used to have it at one minute, but I find that it slows down avi files whenever I'm trying to watch them.

Sometimes I can't wait a whole five minutes. Sometimes I press the "Send/Recv" button myself and check it manually.

I don't think I would get as much joy out of the little ding if I received a lot of spam. But I don't get a lot of it, even though my email address is listed in various places on the internet. I probably get like three or four spam emails a day, and the majority of them are usually related to fiction. I don't mind those so much, although I don't think this is the best strategy for authors to sell their books.

I have an alternative email account that is used to receive spam. Whenever I sign up with a website who I think might spam me, I give them that address.

I also have a bunch of other email addresses. I should just stop using them when I get a new email address, but I never do this. I collect email addresses, although I have forgotten most of them.

I just pressed the "Send/Recv" button. I did it without thinking. It is like second nature to me. It is a very annoying habit. I think I do it because of my extremely short attention span, which has been shrinking more and more throughout my life.

I think that I'm addicted to email because I'm waiting for the one email that will change my life. I have not received it yet, although I have received a few that have changed my life to a minor degree. I think that I might have thought some of these would have a major impact on my life after reading them for the first time, but as time progressed, I realized that this was not the case.

I think I'm being very unrealistic when I think that a single email will change my life. I think that I should think more realistically. I think that a series of email can change my life.

I just pressed the "Send/Recv" button again. I don't know what wrong with me tonight. Maybe I'm always like this but don't realize it because I'm not writing about it? Maybe I have some weird form of OCD that is only related to computers?

Obviously, emailing me is the best way to get in contact with me. I hate getting phone calls. There is something that I dread about them. They are very intrusive. Also, whenever I turn on my cell phone and find out that I have a message or two, I get afraid. I associate phone calls with dramatic seriousness and the emails with fun. I like calling people though. I am a hypocrite. Except I don't like making dramatic serious phone calls. I don't like calling people at work about a bill or whatever. I just like calling to shoot the shit.

I feel like this entry is really boring, my most boring entry ever.

I am at work. I am on my laptop. I have not brought in my laptop for a few days. I have not felt the need to do it since I finished the second act of my novella. I like going to work without my laptop. I get more reading done. If I go to work with my laptop, then I just waste time with stupid internet shit. I hate stupid internet shit, but I can't help it. I am powerless against stupid internet shit. I need to defeat stupid internet shit. I need to discipline myself. Stupid internet shit is stealing many hours from my life.

I also like going to work without a laptop because I've started to walk part of the way home after work and the laptop is heavy and hurts my shoulder if I carry it for more than like ten minutes. I usually take two buses to get home, but now I am taking only one. It is nice to walk, and I need an excuse to get a little exercise. I gained some weight over the winter.

I walk past Emily Dickinson's house every day on my way home from work. Does this make me all literary and shit? I don't think I've ever read an Emily Dickinson poem. I like the area around her house though. It is beautiful. Kind of garden-y. I wonder if I need to be with a tour guide or some shit to hang out there.

I always wondered where her house was. I've lived in the area two different times, for a total of about seven years, and I've never known.

The Prince of Candy showed me where they graveyard is where she is buried. It is next to a laundry mat that I once went to with him.

I thought her grave was next to her house for some reason. I was looking for it every time I passed her house, although I was not looking very hard. I did not leave the sidewalk. Having your grave next to your house is cool, but morbid.

I brought my laptop in today because I really wanted to write this blog entry. It's been a couple of days since I wrote anything, and I go crazy whenever that happens. I have Hypergraphia, I guess. And blog writing soothes me to some degree, although it's not as fulfilling as fiction writing, although it's a hell of a lot easier. And more fun overall. Because I don't strive for excellence.

Plus I don't like writing after work because I'm tired. I think I'm going to force myself to write blog entries after work from now on. I'd rather spend my free time at work reading.

I waste my time with stupid internet shit a lot less when I'm working on fiction and all motivated, but I don't want to start something new until after my fiction program next work.

I brought a book with me today: Jim Thompson's Savage Night. It is ok. I should read more of it after I'm finished typing this entry. It is a paperback. It is very light. It will not cause my shoulder to hurt more on my way home.

I am also reading The Cartoon History of the Modern World. I left it at home. It is a little heavy, but not as heavy as The Cartoon History of the Universe III, which I finished reading last night. I would have brought The Cartoon History of the Modern World with me if I didn't bring my laptop with me.

I feel like this entry is really boring, my most boring entry ever. I will write a better one tomorrow. Tomorrow will be my first real nights off in a while. I don't consider nights that I work on my fiction actual days off. I might not be at work, but I still feel like I'm working. Writing blog entries does not feel like working.

I will not have another real night off in a while, even though I have another one this week which is reserved for trying to get back to a normal sleeping schedule so I can be awake during my writing program. Then I have a week off for my writing program, which will not feel like a vacation. When I come back, I probably won't get another night off for a bunch of days. I will be exhausted during that bunch of days.

What should I do on this night off? I am considering taking over the world. Or waking up and going to a bar. Getting drunk. Going home. Sobering up while watching movies. Writing a blog entry that is much better than this one. That will probably be my entire night off.

I feel like blogging about writing is being really lazy. I want to stop blogging about reading and writing. I want to stop being lazy.

writing by people who I know

Eric Blair got a UNPAID job at a music zine. I wrote UNPAID because he likes bragging about the zine's high circulation and this is my revenge. Writing UNPAID in capital letters is my revenge. The zine is also free. This partially explains the high circulation. It is a pretty good zine, if you like reading about music. I do not like reading about music. Like I give a fuck what some dumbass musician has to say. I would rather listen to what a dumbass musician has to play. I really wish those two sentences didn't rhyme.

One of Eric Blair's responsibilities is to be a jerk to the people who write letters to the zine. He is very good at this job. Good job, Eric Blair. This is the job that he was born to do.

Links:

http://www.slugmag.com/article.php?id=1310

http://www.slugmag.com/article.php?id=1294

Micah Hacim and Tony (of "An Interview with Tony" fame) have a blog where they write about watching TV. It has been really good lately, although it gets updated about as often as I've been updating my own blog recently. It's much better than the Micah Hacim story that I "published" in this blog. I am also very surprised that Micah Hacim and Eric Blair haven't gotten married yet. They are very close. They like to snuggle. They need to visit me in Massachusetts. They need to visit a courthouse in Massachusetts.

Check out Micah Hacim and Tony's blog!

http://tonyandmewatchtv.blogspot.com

And lastly, my brother (who reads this blog) had a couple of short stories published. They were published on the Boston Phoenix website, which is the alternative weekly newspaper where he works as an assistant editor. He also has interns. I need interns. His stories are pretty decent. He should try to get his stories published at a place where he isn't an editor. Sometimes the sentences that I write make me feel like an asshole. I can't help it. My delete button is broken.

Links:

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Life/58391-Dunkin-rage/

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Life/61090-Meeting-Dad/

Juuuunk Fooood!

I finished writing the second act of my novella on Wednesday night. Now I'm probably going to take a vacation from fiction writing until August, which is when my mentor has the free time to send me notes on the third act section of my novella. Hopefully I won't lose my protagonist's voice in the meantime. I guess I could always reread it from start to finish in August, obviously.

Although I'm doing the writing program thing a week from Sunday, so maybe I'll have daily fiction writing assignments for that.

Maybe in the meantime I'll start working on my memoir-y thing that I want to do.

And I'm going to blog more frequently. I miss blogging.

I want to go to a particular bar near me to celebrate. I want to go there because it opens at 5 am. But I probably need a ride to get there.

The Amazon sales ranking for It Came from Below the Belt went above a million a couple of days ago. That's never happened before. It's pretty pathetic. It means that no one has bought it in a while. I used to look at books that were ranked over a million and either say "HA HA!" or feel sad for the author, depending on whether or not I was feeling cruel that day. Now other authors can look at my book's page on Amazon and either say, "HA HA!" or feel sad for me.

Hey, people who have been meaning to buy it! Now would be a good time. It would help me feel better about myself. I don't know what I'll do if the sales rank doesn't stop being pathetic. I am afraid of what I'll do to myself. I am afraid of being by myself. This is a desperate cry for help. I think I will have a hissy fit if the book's ranking stays above one million for much longer. I am afraid of having a hissy fit.

Doesn't this awesome review make you want to buy the book?

http://sfreader.com/Home/BookReview/tabid/55/Default.aspx?book=1066

Yes, yes it does.

This blog entry is pretty lame so far. I need to clean my room. I need to invent a robot to clean my room.

A group of zombies came into my store last night. It was annoying. I don't like zombies.

zombies = customers who take like half an hour to pick out the junk food that they want, who wander around aimlessly, who are frequently under the influence of marijuana.

Fuck those zombies because they prevent me from getting my tasks done so I can do whatever the fuck I want after I'm finished.

I usually only get a couple of zombies at a time. But groups of zombies are the worst because they are usually loud, which makes it difficult for me to read.

The group of zombies from last night were loud. They thought my store was a bar or something.

Kelly Link wrote a story about real zombies going into a convenience store. It is called "The Hortlak," although I originally thought it was called "Some Zombie Contingency Plans." It appears in the collection, Magic For Beginners. I need to read it again. I remember liking it a lot, but not much else. I think the zombies were harmless and coming into the protagonist's convenience store because they used to do it in real life a la the zombies flocking to the shopping mall in Dawn of the Dead. I think that Kelly Link has probably worked at a convenience store. Kelly Link is good. She lives near me.

I found an audio version of the story here: www.kqed.org/arts/writersblock/episode.jsp?id=11707. I will listen to it.

I met TTB yesterday morning. Or maybe I should say his alter ego? He works at my store now. I asked him to do his TTB shtick. He refused. He said something like, "There's a time and a place for that, and this is neither the time nor the place." I think I really mangled his actual response. He might end up getting stuck with my night shifts while I take a week off to do my writing program.

I finished Raymond Carver's Short Cuts. I think it might have been the best short story collection that I've ever read. I guess it's more of an anthology since it just collects stories that appeared in earlier collections because they were used in the Robert Altman movie of the same name. It has some really good selections.

I also read and finished Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. That one wasn't as good. I've also read it before. I was only really impressed by a couple of stories besides the ones that also appeared in Short Cuts.

I finished the first book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It was very good. I am usually anti-Steven King, but this book was very good. I will read the next one in the series. It was sort of how I wanted Cormac McCarthy's The Road to be like. Although I wish Stephen King's dialog was as good as McCarthy's. That's the only thing I like about McCarthy: his fantastic dialog.

I gave up on The Road after reading like twenty pages.

I get bored easily.

I also get frustrated my run-on sentences when they read like their author is using them to be lazy rather than for stylistic reasons.

I really liked the movie, No Country for Old Men. Everybody liked that movie. I tried to read the book. I was horrified by the unnecessary run-on sentences.

I think Cormac McCarthy should write movies and plays only. He may be the greatest dialog writer who has ever existed. Too bad that's not a good enough reason to read his books.

Here is a run-on sentence that I once wrote in a story. I used it for a stylistic purpose. The stylistic purpose is that the protagonist is supposed to have written the sentence after snorting a massive amount of cocaine.

I mean the rancid drip in the back of my throat is unpleasant but I don't mind it so much with the helium rising into my brain cells which is kinda neat and I like how I didn't have to suck in a balloon to feel this way and I don't understand where the balloon went and I'm really thirsty and did a mention a balloon and OH FUCK this is really neat and did I mention this neat feeling already to the readers of No Girls Allowed Magazine because if I didn't I'd like to tell you how neat I'm feeling but not neat as in a tidy room because my place is always a mess but sorta fucking incredible and did you say something because I was talking about my dislike for cleanliness and mother has a cleaning man come every week but I hated how I had to wake up early whenever he came when I was younger and I take another breathe and another and another and see mom I'm going out for some fresh air and I put my hand over my chest and it goes BOOM BOOM BOOM really fast and sometimes I forget about the BOOM BOOM being there and it's going faster and faster and I'm traveling into the future at a slightly faster pace than I usually do when I'm just walking around and have I mentioned that I'd like to make a movie about traveling into the future and blowing dinosaurs up while ignoring the existence of going to the bathroom and it would be pure fucking gold as I tell Jerry Bruckheiny while he smiles without eye pupils and the sandwich in a rented video cassette nods its approval then that thing inside goes BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM and I take another whiff and the BPM gets cranked up more and more until my heart

Little Glass Roses

I just put a beetle out of its misery. It was half dead. I was sweeping the floor and didn't want to sweep up a half alive beetle. After I killed the beetle, I thought about whether or not the beetle had feared death. If I was to guess, I would say that the beetle didn't fear death.

I think maybe that's the main difference between humans and other sentient beings besides our appearance. Humans fear death. I think that maybe we evolved because of our fear of death. I think maybe our technology has advanced because of our fear of death.

Some guy just came in and asked if we had any little glass roses. We do not have any little glass roses. Then he asked me if I knew a place that sells little glass roses, repeating the words, "little glass roses," a second time. I said, "No."

I have no idea where they sell little glass roses. I have even less of an idea of where they sell them at 1:17 AM. I wonder why he needed glass roses at 1:17 AM. The man looked very sad after I told him I didn't know a place that sold little glass roses. He looked nervous.

I think the only positive thing about being suicidal is that you lose your fear of death. It is too bad that you're filled with overwhelming sadness when you're suicidal, or else you would have a really good time during what's possibly your final days.

bang

It is very humid outside. I am stuck at work. The windows have condensation on them. I cannot see out of them very well. It almost looks like the world is stark white. It almost looks like the apocalypse. I just pressed the AUTHORIZE button so that someone could pump gas into their car. I'm feeling moody. I ate a Three Musketeers chocolate bar to help me stop being moody. Sometimes chocolate makes my brain feel nicer. The chocolate bar helped a little. I want to work on my novella, but I am too moody. I hate people. They should leave me alone when I'm at work. I have things to do, like write blog entries. Maybe I will write the name of my novel in the condensation on the windows. Maybe I will write the address of my website. Maybe that will increase Amazon sales. My amazon sales are probably the crappiest that they have ever been right now. I think I will read a J.D. Salinger book instead of working on my novella because I am moody. I still need to sweep and mop the floor.

All This Violence Makes a Statement

I am using Mindless Self Indulgence lyrics as my title. Oh no.

After many months, I figured out how to turn the volume up on my mp3 playing program on my computer. This is very nice. This is very significant. Before tonight, the volume was too low. This made me incredibly annoyed at work. I guess the makers of free mp3 playing programs try to make your life incredibly annoying if you don't buy the paid version.

I have been too burnt out to blog lately. I am being pretty prolific novella-wise, which burns me out. The summer is here and the night shift at my work is really slow. This is very nice. The college students are no longer around. They are not stopping for junk food on the way to their drunk driving deaths.

I am one chapter away from being halfway through the second act. I plan to finish the second act before the Juniper Writing Program starts on the 22nd. I think I will be successful at this.

I do not think I'm going to work on my novella tonight because I only got like six hours of sleep, although I'll probably write the first couple of sentences of the next chapter to make it easier on me tomorrow.

Instead of working on my novella, I will write about my trip to the library this morning.

Last week, I went on a crazy "ordering books from other libraries" spree.

A couple of days ago, I received one or two email notifications about books coming in.

Yesterday, I ran out of books to read.

So I went to the library today to get a few books and pick up the ones that were on reserve for me.

I found these books in the shelves and checked them out:

Stephen King's The Gunslinger: This is the first book in the Dark Tower series. I tried to read it when I was younger. I could not get into it. I liked the other Stephen King books that I read though. They were my substitute for R-rated horror movies since my parents did not let me watch those kinds of movies. When I got older, I started to hate Stephen King. I thought he was too long-winded and his novels were filled with filler. But I'm very interested in this Dark Tower series. It sounds very interesting. And I read a prequel in the form of a comic book limited series, which was written by Peter David who I like. The comic was pretty ok. Everybody in the comic talked funny though. I think I will need to get used to this. Also, The Gunslinger is only like 300 pages, so it is probably less long-winded than most Stephen King books. I read the first couple of pages on Amazon and they were pretty ok.

Raymond Carver's Short Cuts: I keep thinking his name is Richard. I don't know if I've read this already. I will figure this out, I hope. I think I've read two of his story collections. After I finished them, I said to myself, I really like Raymond Carver, but I do not feel the need to ever read another Raymond Carver book again. But I'm more interested in minimalist writing now than I was back then, so I'm going to give him another read. I feel that he and Barthelme are the most influential story writers. I find it strange that I prefer Carver since my writing has more in common with Barthelme. Although I'm not sure about my recent writing. I think it either leans towards Carver or neither of them. I have never been able to make it through Sixty Stories. I think it's because I keep checking it out from the library and rarely feel in the mood to read it. I think I will buy it on Saturday so I can read it at my leisure. A local bookstore is giving away five dollar off coupons that day to celebrate the anniversary of their existence or something.

J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey: I am a little interested in Salinger's fictional Glass family. I just finished Nine Stories. It was ok. It seemed like the type of book that would be assigned in an English lit class. I would have liked it more if it was assigned to me in an English lit class. The Catcher in the Rye was my favorite book that was forced on me in high school. I haven't read it since then. Maybe I will reread it.

So I went up to the check out desk with these books and told them that I should have one or two books on reserve. Turns out, there were five books waiting for me.

Damn, that's a lot of books. Hopefully I'll be able to finish them all. The librarian asked me if I still wanted the three books that I just wrote about. I said, "I guess."

Here are the other five books:

Chuck Palahniuk's Snuff: I am halfway through. It is pretty entertaining, but not very good. It is like Chuck Palahniuk is writing a Chuck Palahniuk parody. The plot moves extremely slowly. This doesn't give the characters very much to do besides tell each other morbid facts, which Chuck Palahniuk characters are prone to do. The morbid facts are interesting, but this is not supposed to be a morbid fact book. It is supposed to be a novel. I think Chuck Palahniuk should write a morbid fact book. It would be the greatest morbid fact book ever written.

John Reed's The Whole: John Reed is my Goodreads friend. He liked my novel. This book sounded interesting. It is published by MTV, who always uses interesting, highly-readable layouts.

Richard Brautigan's The Edna Webster Collection of Undiscovered Writing and Sombrero Fallout and Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork: Richard Brautigan is my favorite author who still has books that I haven't read yet. These are the only Brautigan books that I haven't read yet, except for a few out-of-print poetry collections, but I am not crazy about his poetry, so I will not buy them. I also plan to read his daughter's memoir.

I usually like to write nice endings to my blog entries. I am not going to write a nice ending.

People are starving.