Thing 1 & Thing 2

Read "Stopping by a Punk Club on a Snowy Evening" from a collection in progress, HERE


and there's another poorly made comic HERE

Poorly Made Comics

I like to make comics. Sometimes people like to read them. I've tried to present them online a couple different times and my enthusiasm eventually fizzled. I'm trying again! Check out CARTOON RYAN and other POORLY MADE COMICS.

I'm starting with old ones and will hopefully still have some drive left to post new ones. Go enjoy me over there. Go enjoy yourself over there. Go enjoy over there.

Finally...

I finally managed to write about EVER. Read my "review" of it HERE




Also, this may be one of the coolest websites in history. It is certainly the best website for a writer that I have seen. I haven't read much by it's owner, Chelsea Martin, but she has a book coming out in March, and I'll be buying it based on the awesomeness of her website.

Happy Valentines Day

Former poet laureate, Ted Kooser has written twenty-two Valentines Day poems, which he used to send to friends and family each year on specially made postcards. By the time he stopped this annual practice he was sending Valentines poems to over two thousand women. What a brilliant tradition. I don't have the planning skills to do it the way he did (nor the funds), but I liked the idea of writing something to let people know I was thinking of them, so I wrote a poem, that I have emailed to a lot of friends, many of whom I haven't talked to much in a long time. I also wanted to post it here for whoever may stop by.


Fixed


If I had
a piece of paper
to fold over,

an envelope
to seal,

inside
you would find
my thoughts
not scattered

but fixed
on saying
I’m thinking
of you

wherever
either of us
might be.

Geniusness

Publishing Genius Press held a contest to win some books, to enter you had to write a four line poem with an ABBA rhyme scheme. I got second place, and my poem, "My Little Youth" can be read HERE!

This means I'm going to have an extra copy of Shane Jones' fantastic book, Light Boxes. I'm thinking about what to do with it. Who to give it to, how to decide. By the time it comes in the mail I will have thought of something.

In baseball news, one of my (former) favorite players, Miguel Tejada has been charged with lying to congress about his steroid use. I watched this guy play Single A ball as a sixteen year old. He was awesome. Never needed steroids. Took them anyway. I guess that's what I don't get most of all, these guys were all good enough to get into the majors without the help of steroids (you can tell just by looking at how different their bodies were). I could see if it was some Joe working out for a team and dying to make it, but these guys were already there, already making the money, already all-stars in some cases.

A-Roid and lesser Catastrophes

Man, I'm so glad I stopped rooting for A-Roid after he left Seattle. Thanks for contributing to the downfall of baseball, Alex. My love for baseball continues to be devastated by these cheaters. And how can baseball ever justify these guys being allowed to continue playing after what happened to the likes of Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose? I'd so much rather have guys betting on their sport than cheating at their sport. At least Rose was betting on other sports, and his own team to win, and Shoeless Joe was the only Sox player who didn't flub anything during that series.

On a happier note, I just finished Mary Miller's chapbook of micro fiction, Less Shiny, and it is one of the best things I've read in a long time.

Also, what was with the Grammys? They showed like six awards. The only thing that made it worth watching was Radiohead's performance with the USC marching band. Awesome.

I wrote a long blog yesterday because I felt like I'd been dicked around. Then I deleted it. For the most part I felt like a kid being told he was being taken to Disneyland and then having it "not work out." That's probably a bad analogy. Today I'm trying to ignore all that. A new book came that I have been excited for, plus I bought tickets to see Modest Mouse in just two weeks. These are things to be stoked about.

I'm really going to try and write about EVER this weekend. I took notes while reading it. I don't even take notes for school, and never have. So that should tell you something.

Also, I've read Chris Killen's The Bird Room and Shane Jones' Light Boxes this week. I'm being blown away on a daily basis.

More Good News

Three poems, "The Way We Didn't Have," "One Liners About God," and "Snowboots" will appear in Sir!

As always, I will post a direct link when the poems go live.

WWR

"The Archives of Winter" is now live on the Willows Wept Review site, check it out by clicking this sentence, which is just a really long link.

News-ish

I will have a poem in a forthcoming issue of Third Wednesday. The poem is called, "Watching Lightning with My Love." I don't know the exact date yet, but you can bet I'll let you know.


****UPDATE****

Another poem, "The Archives of Winter" will appear in Willows Wept Review. I will post another link when it goes live on the site.