Happy Belated Christmas!

Hello everyone, and happy holidays! I hope everyone had a great holiday and got to spend time with the people they care about! I had a quiet Christmas. I got a fancy new watch, and my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins got a Wii, so there was much bowling. I love the Wii for the fact that anyone can play it. I bowled a few rounds against my cousin, who is eight, and I lost one game. You can't have an even match with someone sixteen years younger than you with many other systems, I don't think.
On the 26th, I went to visit my grandma and then we continued on to Atlantic City. I lost a little, so I quit playing. I think I'm going to spend the money I would have lost on a nice DVD for myself.

My Senior Prom

My former professor, Tayari Jones, is raising money Girls Write Now, a creative-writing program in New York. For everyone who sends her a picture of their teenage self, she'll donate $5, and for everyone who also posts a picture and some information on their blog, she'll double it! I think it's a great charity to support, and who doesn't like showing off embarrassing pictures of their younger selves?

So here is a picture taken right before my senior prom, with the beautiful and talented Allison Mosher!

When I Like Christmas Music

So I'm not much into those radio stations that play a non-stop Blitz of Christmas music from Thanksgiving until the Epiphany, and I'm very glad at this time of year to have Sirius satellite radio. Why? Well, because of Little Steven's Underground Garage, of course. Instead of the nonstop Christmas music that murders the holiday spirit, they play their own weird, unknown Christmas songs, scattered throughout their normal fare. While some of it is less-than-great (take, for example, this Joe Pesci Christmas tune), a lot of it is really fun and unexpected. Or it's the Beatles, which is always appreciated.

Out of my Hands and Into the Postal System

Well, they're done. On Friday, I took an enormous stack of 9x12 envelopes to the East Stroudsburg Post Office, and mailed out my Graduate School applications. I walked in and the Post Office was empty, and since I am the type of person who gets superstitious and sometimes believes in omens and portents, I thought, "Well, this is lucky. It bodes well." The postal employee at the counter, Lew, looked at the stack and said, "Applying for jobs?" I said, "Close. Grad School." He got everything ready, and they were officially out of my hands. When they went in the sorting bin, I felt a little bit of exhilaration and nerves. I was no longer able to grab my work samples and shout, "Wait! Not ready! Just one quick edit!"
I celebrated being finished by downloading World of Goo for my Wii and playing it. Oh, it's fun. It reminds me of building a house of cards with little black blobs. It's completely addictive. In fact, I think I'm going to go play it now.

First Breath After Coma

I'm working on a (very special) "White Winter Mixtape". I wanted to post the songs I have so far and put out a call for suggestions. Maybe I can send you a copy. Maybe you can send me your own mix. And then we could be mixtape mailing buddies.

1. "First Breath after Coma" by Explosions in the Sky
2. "Roscoe" by Midlake
3. "White Winter Hymn" by Fleet Foxes
4. "For Emma" by Bon Iver
5. "Fox in the Snow" by Belle and Sebastian
6. "Quartermaster's Wintertime" by Bill Fox
7. "Furr" by Blitzen Trapper
8. "The Crane Wife 3" by the Decemberists
9. "Mushaboom" by Feist
10. "Sodom, South Georgia" by Iron and Wine
11. "My Favorite Things" as performed by John Coltrane
12. "Cemetery Row" by the Minus 5
13. "Color in your Cheeks" by the Mountain Goats

What else?

Jackson Pollock

Ah, StumbleUpon. Whereas before, the internet was solely a timewaster, now it is a streamlined, personalized timewaster. Tell it what you like, and it will direct you toward random things until you realize it's the middle of the night and you have work in a few hours. A big thank you to my brother Nick for introducing me to this tool. Maybe "tool" is the wrong word, seeing as a tool is an object that helps get work done, and this is just the opposite. I'll call it a toy.
So the other night, I was stumbling and I found this. It's a website that lets you play Jackson Pollock. Everytime you click, it changes color, and the longer you hold the cursor in one place, the larger the splatter becomes. It's...really fun. But wait, there's more: today I got a weekly update from Threadless, the online t-shirt store, and who should be on a shirt but Jackson Pollock? Do I love this shirt and want it? Yes. But the real point I'm trying to illustrate here is this: at three random sightings in one week, it becomes clear that Jackson Pollock is trying to tell me something. I'm one short. One more, and I have to drive to the Met and wait for Autumn Rhythm to speak to me. Try explaining that to your boss.

Work Break

I'm currently editing one of my work samples for my MFA applications, and the first page is giving me some trouble. I'm really happy with the story from the second page (the paragraph that starts, "Mike hated emergency rooms") on, but the page that gets us to that point in the story isn't pulling its weight. I don't think I can cut it and try to introduce the information through the rest of the story, because it sets up the events to follow and tells us a bit about the characters' lives and structure. It would be like cutting "A man walks into a bar," wouldn't it?

"Things that Grow Back and Things that Don't"

Every time Mike climbed to a great height to paint, he forgot to leave his phone on the ground, and the vibration in his pocket never failed to give him the sensation that he would soon fall. So when the call came, Mike’s entire body tensed, rocking the scaffolding under his feet so much that he could hear its locked wheels shift an inch on the floor. His voice shook when he answered, and he was surprised to hear that his mother Ida’s voice was wavering just as much.
“Mike, you need to leave work.”
“Right now? What’s going on?”
“You have your insurance card?” She asked. “Meet us at the hospital. Come to the emergency room.”
Mike was already climbing down the side of the scaffold, his concern about falling evaporating, transforming into concern about his sons. He held the phone to his ear with his shoulder so that he could use both hands, a maneuver that on another day would have terrified him, but today seemed the only logical way to descend.
“What’s going on?” He asked.
“It’s Will,” his mother said. “He’s hurt. Just come quick.”
Mike felt a special kind of panic starting in his head and stretching down to his limbs that he hadn’t felt in many years. He supposed it was reserved just for this kind of call, the kind that led to frantic, distressed drives toward crisis. He closed his phone and stashed it in his back pocket, started his truck, and sped along back roads toward the hospital.
Mike hated emergency rooms, couldn’t stand the smell or the daytime television on the small screens. He hated the long stretches of silence between the wailing of the injured. He hovered outside of the sliding glass doors for a moment before entering, looking through until he found his mother and two sons sitting near the reception desk and identified his fastest path toward them. When he walked in, he crossed without looking at any other patients, afraid that they would assault him with their suffering; they would judge him for being whole.