edward scissorhands

how do you recognise your reflection when you first see it in a mirror?
how do you understand a mirror?
walk good.

your name here. for the record.

so, after saturday's bout of blogorrhea, i've quieted down and decided to stop procrastinating the fiction-cutting (aided by the fact that my radio gig is giving me a brief rest as of tomorrow morning, and the shakespeare gig'g running about once a week until mid-april, when it explodes in a frenzy of elizabethan activity). so for the nth, but hopefully last time, i promise to get on it.
meanwhile, back @ the ranch, i think i finally found the thread.
since i got this collection of short fiction underway i've been trying to answer the question about what themes/ideas/vibes these stories share- if i wanna put them all in the same collection, i guess i need a premise- or so i been told- not that i decided it matters because i haven't, but i found the answer nonetheless- which leads to my current dilemma:
should i change the name of the blog?
of course, this is only an issue because i'm a little fussy about details (at least those i deem important)- i named this blog for 2things, the first being my pseudonym from my old sunday column (a double entendre referring to my specific situation, but only vaguely the sexual kind) and the second being the working title of my collection, based on the stories (after 2-and-change-years) having nothing in common that i could fathom. but apparently, the truth of oneself is hardest to see, and i only now (finally) realised that what all the stories have in common is me (duh!) so they're all (in different ways) about displacement.
right.
so i changed the collection's working title to reflect that, and thus feel that maybe i should change the blog-title too, especially as i'm supposedly about to start posting said fiction...
but of course, i don't want to change my url at this point, and being (as previously mentioned) a little fussy about details, am not sure how i feel about changing name and not address...
and there's the fact that the new-displacement-title works just fine in juxtaposition with "sweaty penguins" for the collection, but doesn't sound nearly as good with the sweet trini reference...
man. lame.
it prob'ly doesn't matter. but i care.
i guess if i can find a reasonable way to juxtapose 'sweet trini' and the whole displacement thing i'll change the name and live with it not matching the address.
and if not, then this post was word-practice...

walk good.

guess i already knew...

Stoner Bear

Which Dysfunctional Care Bear Are You?
brought to you by quizilla

now i understand...
walk good.

tomorrow's tunes...

i've pretty much decided that tomorrow will be 3canal+cream+bob marley, then some stevie wonder...
this afternoon has pleased me greatly. i walkin good.

3 years

our 3rd wedding anniversary's coming up soon.
i'm excited.
i like grims. more all the time.
walk good. discover love.

suicide assist?

i think that yesterday on the phone a stranger basically asked me for permission to kill himself, and ideas to ensure that his family would still be able to collect on his life insurance...
i didn't know what to say.
still don't.
walk good. live.

peeing red cherry sours

i have houseguests this week, so i'm not blogging much, but just a few things right quick...
american history museum: briefly stopped by the american history museum yesterday, and that shit is busted. nothing works in that place. none of the supposedly fun, interactive education-aids work. fuckin lame, man.
foot-pedal toilets: conversely, just when i thought i'd enjoyed the air+space museum to its fullest over multiple visits, leaving only einstein's planetarium for a future trip, i went to the ladies' room there yesterday. in the ladies' they have toilets with foot-pedal flushers, which is brilliant since that's what we do anyway, and this novel idea eliminates the need for the high-kick-and-push to achieve bowl-evacuation.
raku: always love it, still love it. raku is a longtime favourite, as well as new-crowd-pleaser with less-detrimental prices and yummy everything else. in short, tamarind-guava-bbq-ribs!
sweet licks: under new management, but claiming to be otherwise the same, pumpkin bars and all. they were out of mozambique and the bars though, and no longer carry pet-ice-cream-and-cookies. not that i have a pet, but...
amish cherry sours: thank-you teri, for making my dreams semi-solid and chewy, sweet-then-sour, and redder than red.
speaking of sweeties: after running into james earl jones some weeks ago @ the radio station (literally almost head-butted the famous barrel-chest from whence the voice emanates) i found out today that gene wilder's in on thursday, while i'm in. maybe gene wilder will give me a last willy wonka moment before johnny depp takes over (as much as i usually don't support the remake, i think burton+depp are the ones to do this one)...
3minutes lost forever: on the phone for the wrong show. at least the "government is shaking in their boots over shirley temple" lady was entertaining. today @ the radio station when i told a caller the programme he wanted had already ended and we were taking calls for a new show now, he insisted on telling me his comment anyway, for 3 painful minutes of my life that i'll never reclaim, so dude in arizona, you the worst. officially. if worst was a best, you get the damn trophy. shit.
and for the big finale, japanese show: i been waiting over a week to tell all about the finest 2hours of television i ever watched. it's a japanese talent show that airs on new year's day, with another competition during summer. it was amazing and endlessly fascinating and i needed to get a link to a sample online that didn't involve japanese characters, because trying to explain is useless- you just have to see for yourself. so go here and click on the 6th button down from the top left menu/sidebar. after you click that 6th button, play the one with what looks like 2 dudes playing pingpong- it's the best representation of the kind of performances you see in this show. if your computer offers to download software to translate characters, don't worry, you won't be reading. hope you enjoy. and for anybody who mighta seen or heard of mummenschantz, it's a little like that...

walk good.

the ombudswoman speaks

after walking away from it and later re-reading, i must clarify one aspect of my previous post.
i think i mistakenly gave the impression that when i'm busy agonising over not wanting to have children, grims is missing the point and just suggesting adoption instead- which is not the case, since he doesn't just assume that adoption is the answer or that us having children at all is a must. adoption is something we discuss from time to time, when my unreasonable urge to save the children from the world we're spoiling asserts itself.
when i posted before my hand was ahead of my thoughts.

and on another note, scrawn actually left her first comment ever on the blog! yay!
for those who don't know, scrawn is the best!
walk good.

baby blues

no, i am most definitely not pregnant! (and big-up my shakespeare cast for helping me stay that way with the birth-control-reminders)
after my earlier admission about newborns making me squeamish, i realised that the funny thing about my shakespeare gig is: the more i work with young people, the more i love it and wanna continue being a positive influence and continue working with them, but the less i want any of my own...especially teenage girls (having recently been one myself, i know they're the devil and refuse to have any of that teenage-girl-bullshit in my house).
add that to the fact that the more i'm married, the less i want children (i'm enjoying him way too much to share with someone as demanding as a child, and i wouldn't wanna be a bad parent) and it all makes me think i have to come up with very expensive and entertaining make-up-gifts to placate all the would-be-grandparents...my father calls me (overseas) @ 6am to ask about his prospects...
i feel less prepared for the responsibility of children than i did when i got married, and as i think i've mentioned, the plants have died- except the aloe, but since aloe vera is cactus-related i don't think i can really take too much credit for its continued flourishing.
but when i tell grims all this and he says, "we could adopt", that sounds fine to me. that's part of the whole 'wanting to be a good force in the universe for young people' and i get that about myself, but don't get why or how i could be still interested in adoption as i move further away from the idea of having children at all...
oh well.
walk good.

brain-in-a-vat...

so i found this account of this experiment and was intrigued. and then i started thinking about the fact that the brain in question was 'removed' from a person and placed in the vat, so then, wouldn't it still have whatever info was stored in it prior to removal? i mean, i'd like to think that what's in my brain now wouldn't immediately dissipate upon physical removal, assuming the 'life-sustaining fluid' was doing it's job.
so then for this account to make sense, this brain-in-the-vat must be memory-free, which suggests a newborn's brain, with only enough know-how to suckle, breathe and eliminate, all of which would be moot if it were removed upon delivery...
since newborns make me squeamish, i backtracked, into a new question: if the brain-in-the-vat isn't newborn and therefore has a memory, how does that affect its concept of its in-vat-existence?

walk good. think hard.

the trash-heap has spoken...

alright my friendly fraggles, doozers and gorgs- i asked the question about episodic fiction and walked away for a week to confirm how i really felt before reading what anybody else had to say.
and after all these days i still don't like waiting for word-installments, as evidenced by my reaction to the sunday post. i can see how the anticipation could appeal to some, but i think my hedonistic tendencies tend toward impatience.
but apparently, all 3 people who actually read this say 'yes' to posting fiction in chunks, so i guess now i should start figuring out how and where to cut...
more later.
walk good.

eponymous

so i started this blog with the intent of posting my work, but soon realised i had a personal conflict about doing it. so i let that slide for a bit. now i'm back to wanting to do that, and of course, the unresolved conflict rears its less-than-attractive head again.
the problem is that i'm not very enamoured of my poetry right now. i'm enjoying my short fiction more. so i wanna post the fiction because i think it's a better representation of where i'm at right now, as well as just caring more about its life- especially since there's another 'unnamed' blog i read (not mentioned or linked anywhere on mine) solely for the (admittedly limited-life-span) entertainment value of this chick completely fulfilling a stereotype that i previously thought might be urban myth, whose author posts what i think is horrid poetry, of her own creation. her appalling poems ruin the blog for me whenever they appear. i don't wanna be that chick. (of course, that statement can only have meaning if i'm not already that chick through my regular posts, so i deliver it with a larger-than-usual dose of optimism.)
however, my short fiction, while short, is still a lot longer than poetry, so i don't know how to go about this- each story is too long for an individual post, but when i think of breaking them up and posting one section at a time (episodically, if you will) all i can think is how much i hate that shit. i hate waiting for the next installment of something i'm reading (unless, like a blog, it's happening in real-time). it's why i stopped reading the dark tower series- i got sick of waiting for each next book to come out, so i put it down and decided to wait until he was done writing, then buy the collection and burn through them in order.
(needless to say, i was so thrilled that tolkien was already done with the hobbit and lord of the rings trilogy by the time i was 10 and learned of its existence and need to be read by me.) i know some like that kind of thing and get excited when they finish one piece and are eagerly anticipating its sequel, but i hate reading rations so much that i even hate when i'm reading a newspaper or magazine article and get partway through only to be told "continued on page 99". why the fuck can't they print one story at a time, using all of each subsequent page, moving on to another (page and/or story) only when one is finished?!
i don't care what perfectly satisfactory reason they have for it. i don't like it. and i take it personally. make it stop.

so i guess this is my appeal to anybody who might read this and think of revisiting me: tell me what you think of possibly reading short fiction broken up (versus ridiculously long posts), and if you like the episodic option (even for something not originally written that way) would it need to be updated daily to stay interesting and enjoyable?

walk good. read hard.

mo' betta shakespeare

so today i got to indulge in another of the shakespeare-gig-perks.
today was day 1 of the shakespeare festival, so i got to watch several high schools do half-hour productions of any shakespearean work, or part(s) thereof that they found appealing, then give them awards for it. this is one of the most gratifying gigs ever- i get paid to be an audience member, then reward the various casts and crews for their work. all this while laughing at the 'mistress of the revels' literally pulling shakespeare-gimmicks out of her shakespeare-tattooed cleavage like that dude in the harlem globetrotters cartoon used to pull everything (including the kitchen sink) out of his 'fro, and fraternising with 2 other theatre professionals who at the very least i'm thrilled to meet and on brilliant occassions (like today) may be people i already know and love and can't wait to spend the day with.
sometimes i think my life is a gift from some being who keeps mistaking me for a good person...my apparently-very-well-behaved doppelganger must be really pissed, wherever she is. her life must stink by comparison. i hope she never reads my blog, or she'll find and kill me for usurping the benefits earned by her hard work (if being good were easy, i might actually be doing it).

and tomorrow, me and the regular shakespeare crew get to be the entertainment for the students performing in the festival.
yay shakespeare!

walketh well.

whiny bitch

so i think i'm going to give in and whine just a little right here, right quick.
i don't need excessive whining space, just a tiny bit of air for my tiny little grievance. not that i'm by any means complaining of stress or suggesting that i don't enjoy every mouthful of my life, but even the luckiest of us have minor frustrations.
i feel like that paragraph was much ado about nothing.
so out with it then.

i'm frustrated by my so-far-failure to get published in america.
not that being published in america is a goal for me, but it's where i temporarily reside, and my job hunting is naturally localised. (well, i'm looking @ telecommuting jobs too, but nothing in either department yet.)
at home i wrote for a newspaper and a theatre company. i did alright for myself. here, i write solely for my own entertainment. and even if i don't know my stories until ink hits the pages, the instant each letter is fully formed it becomes old news for me.
i'm not asking for insta-retirement-riches (not that i'd turn that down), just for work that pays me to choose words to string together pleasingly. or teasingly, or surprisingly, or engagingly, or all of the above.

waaaaaaaaaaaa!

i wish i could convince the radio station freelance gig that they need me in a more semi-permanent fashion. or rather, that they could convince their money-men to pay for me.
i love that gig. i spent last week researching and writing about intersex and genitally ambiguous conditions- learn something new every day there...

it may be time for me to get back to posting my work in this blog. i'll see how i feel...
thank you for listening.
walk good.

don't get deep on friday nights...

i admit i stole this:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest:

"her neck is one cast-iron muscle cramp. sweat sticks together the folds of her neck skin. her shoulders are bound, pulled up tight around her ears."
diary. chuck palahniuk.

and this:

You are

What Rejected Crayon Are You?

enjoy. walk good.

baby-mama-drama

big up alyfromcali for cnn's word on growing the herd...
i guess i can see how the sperm was a 'gift', not theft, but since he gave it in such a way that even the court agrees "no reasonable person would expect could result in pregnancy", and she "deceitfully engaged in sexual acts...to use plaintiff's sperm in an unorthodox, unanticipated manner yielding extreme consequences" she shouldn't be allowed to demand child support- i mean, she basically lied to him, and when he 'donated' sperm he knew that using that orifice biologically couldn't impregnate her, so i think she takes all the responsibilty for this one...

sorry to those who'd already read it. i've been a very bad blogger.
walk good.

have gun, will what?

i know i've been a bad blogger, but i'm back, finally ready to compose full sentences again and give voice to the thought that's been ricocheting around in my head since last week- yeah, it's been a little busy with me working days on the intersex/genitally ambiguous radio segment, him working nights plus designing another show, and us trying to get together to buy a car and some pants+shoes...we barely managed the errands, far less spending quality time and all that stuff we got married for. the most time we've spent together (awake) the past 2weeks was the couple hours @ jake+jenn's housewarming (yay), and the following night passed out on the couch when he unexpectedly got off early.
so. onward and upward...

after watching more than enough episodes of law+order and csi to qualify as an amateur-expert, i been thinking about the gun thing- not that i'm trying to fuck with anybody's constitution here, just airing an opinion.
i feel that if anybody thinks they're badass enough to kill another human being, they should have to get down and dirty. if you wanna take a life it shouldn't be easy- you should have to get up close and personal, and fight the owner for that life. you should have to be intimate about it- not be able to do the deed from a distance.
i guess my issue isn't with the guns themselves, but with the fact that they allow people to kill other people from just far away enough to not feel shitty about it- of course, there are those who wouldn't feel shitty about it close up either, but i think making attackers take the time and fight hard for it would cut down on fatalities. i mean, if somebody knew that to kill the person who "stole" their significant other, they'd have to run up on them with a knife or brass knuckles and be prepared for a fight they might not win, it might not seem as worthwhile...
being able to drive by and kill as easy as buying fast food seems unfair.
i know the constitution says people have the right to bear arms, but i'm not sure why we need to. then i was reminded that some people still hunt.
but i figure that not many people need to hunt to eat anymore. if you hunt for the sole purpose of food, then you should be able to apply for the appropriate permit for a gun solely for that purpose. but if you hunt as a hobby, well, look how many other 'hobbies' are illegal- why should hunting be different? is hunting less dangerous than marijuana?
i'm not suggesting that anybody should be denied a constitutional right, but that maybe the reason for that right should be re-evaluated. it just seems (and yes, this is a simplification) that maybe this whole issue is blown out of proportion because some people want to continue hunting, which justifies everybody being allowed to have a gun in a time when most of us don't have to shoot our dinner, which then allows us to hunt each other for sport as well.
but if nobody had one, then nobody else would need one, right?
i mean if some do, then everybody should be allowed to, but might it be better to make it so that nobody does? how important is it that hunting be legal? do people need to bear arms? is it worth being able to kill each other with less effort than walking into the restaurant to order and purchase a meal?

and on that note, i say let him eat fluffy, but see for yourself...
walk good.