martinimade

The Fortune Cookie Man

Working for ten years now at the fortune cookie factory and I'm still not allowed to write
any of the fortunes. I couldn't do any worse than they do, what with their You Will Find
Success in the Entertainment Field mentality. I would like to tell someone that they will
find a gorilla in their closet, brooding darkly over the shoes. And that that gorilla will
roll his glassy, animal eyes as if to cry out to the heavens that are burning in bright
orange and red and through which violent clouds are rolling, and open his beast's mouth
and issue a whimper that will fall on the shoes like a buffing rag hot with friction. But
they say no. So if you don't find success in the entertainment field, don't blame me.
I just work here.
by Ron Padgett from New and Selected Poems (David R. Godine, Publisher).

(For thems that care: life has been busy. Not bad, just busy. It will pass, very soon.)

So I know that the decisions that I made after college worked out. But at the time I didn’t know that they would. See college is not necessarily predictive of your future success. And it’s the kind of thing where the path that I chose obviously wouldn’t work for you. For one, you’re not very funny.

Go here to read Stewart's commencement address. It is pretty dang amazing.

I totally forgot to mention that my Knit Buddy was the wonderful Amethyst Muse, Deb. Thanks again! And I'll post pixs of the socks once I get 'em done.

Well, u-- um, can we come up and have a look?


What Monty Python Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Stolen from The Writer's Almanac:

June 10

The sun like whiskey and caffeine
goes right to your head
slowing you down then speeding you up
you spend one hour looking at three
hanging plants and ten minutes
reading the obits lamenting the man
(I knew him, we had Irish Coffee
one cold December night)
who had the ill fortune to die
on a day when somebody really famous
like the leader of a rock band
died and so his obituary was overlooked
and I am thinking of him today
I'd tip my cap to him if I were wearing one
but I'm not I'm standing here
unprotected in the sun
that has gone to my head like a song

-- David Lehman, from The Evening Sun.

The new Bookslut (and its spanky new redesign) is live. Clearly, I had too much time last month and was able to get three things written for Ms. C: an interview with Kage Baker, a review of The Mind at Night and a column about the unhappy marriage of science fiction and romance.

Also this month, a new Austinmama column, this one about my love of Martha and firm belief that she was screwed.

The right hand is still weird. Should my elbow hurt, too? Bodies are weird.

Due to the weird new work schedule and my inability to know when enough is enough, all of the joints in my right hand feel a little wacky, especially in my thumb and index finger and wrist. I suspect it's a simple overuse thing--at the local almost-daily, where I'm filling in this summer for an editor out on baby leave, I spend 5 hours a day with a mouse in my hand, futzing with layout and copyediting. At home, because I am a moron, I spend even more time abusing that hand with knitting and even more mouse-work as I surf the webbage. As a result, I say simply, ow. It's starting to feel like bone-on-bone, which is bad-on-bad, which is not to be confused with blonde-on-blonde, which is another post for another day.

As a result, I need to take a break, rest the offending digits and hope that this is a passing thing. So, this weekend--no knitting (feh), no typing, no random surfing. If I owe you email, sit tight. It'll happen.

This getting old thing sucks donkey butt.