The necessity of new satchels.

A day of meetings/meet-ups. This is more of a consistency post than anything, blog maintenance being not the strongest of my suits.

Got dressed when it was foggy out, and now I'm overlayered for late-September sun. The fall that never fully settles, just hits harder when it does. It's been sunny out long enough that a nice misting of rain is a comfort, like not being covered in a thin film of sweat once you step behind the bar. Thanks, five blocks from bus to workplace.

Upsides: writing this on new/old laptop. Suddenly, so many projects feel so much more possible, though I may grow to miss the time-crunch that library-internet provided.

Redesigned a million times before.

So between poeming, storying, laptop-not-having, and delaying inevitable "here's what's going on in my life I know I've neglected the blog but trust me you don't really want inside this head right now oh no that sounded way more ominous than I meant it to" post(s?) not much has gone on here in the last few months.

I've got plenty of things I want to write about for the Trains and Tall Buildings series, some of the aforementioned life updates, and a few more drafts of poems to throw at the wall and see if they stick. But the perfect is perpetually the enemy of the good, so here's a couple quickies--

I'm writing music reviews again.

I sent out the proofs to Alice Blue, and will have a new chapbook as part of the Shotgun Wedding Imprint of Alice Blue. It's called The Third Best of Possible Outcomes. I'm also re-drafting one I wrote last year (mainly in post-work whiskey-fueled sessions when my laptop worked) and trying to polish it up.

I'm ZAPPing again.

This all will be easier once I re-laptop, but as is, the gentle scent of metal, stale beer(!) and humanness surrounds me in the Seattle Public Library.

Some productivity jams:



later, but not much.

Life on the Blood Farm was never easy. . .

or Socratease and the unfortunate rise of philosophical burlesque.

Shiny New Diner

The wood all polished, varnished,
licenses and certificates hung on bright-
white walls, only two or three handprints
on the window.

The TVs in the corner showing top 40
music videos are flatscreens now. The
servers' uniforms are cleaner, blond
hair fluffier and I can even imagine
them smiling.

Morning eaters walk through, starved
looks on gaunt faces while I sip orange
juice and check the clock; all polished
wood, roman numerals and accuracy.

25 minutes and I've still not received
my eggs on toast.
________________________________________________________
project update: now the question is-- is it easier to fix a 5,000 word story with lots going on, or to generate roughly 3,000 newer, better words?
I'm leaning towards the latter.

Seagulls (flash fiction)

It was like a scene out of “The Birds,” the Seagulls diving all at once, ripping his hat to shreds. A bowler cap, timeless and stylish. The wind blew it down Swansea Beach and into a discarded chip tray where the seagulls had destroyed it. In the days that followed, his head felt naked and exposed, despite the matte of prematurely greying hair that lay on his head like a sleeping dog.
His girlfriend was secretly relieved; she thought the hat was silly, so when he decided to search out a new one she accompanied him with great reluctance. He searched the charity shops first, but their aisles of cast-off clothes held nothing for him. His mood worsened; he told his girlfriend of the time his mother had lost her favourite brooch and how she brooded for months and it must run in the family. She nodded and made him tea. He searched the aisles of Debenhams and the racks at TK Maxx. He walked the beach and cursed the seagulls. He started noticing people’s hair and when he was with his mates he constantly compared. His best friend drove him to Cardiff where they ruffled through boutiques and found a few that fit in size and style but were too expensive—the last one had come to him cheaply, so should the next.
He stopped looking. He stopped combing his hair. He took to eating lots of sea food and bitterly cursing all men his age whose hair retained its youthful brownness. One day he stood in line at the market for an order of cod and saw the vendor a booth over wearing a stylish golfer’s cap, checked and full of life. He looked once, then twice. Mid-purchase, he dropped his fish, ran and made an offer.