27 Club

My birthday was Friday. I'm now eligible for the 27 Club, you know, if I were famous or something. I worked all day on my birthday, and it was a horrid day at work, one of the worst I've had at any job. But today I got to celebrate belatedly with my wife and kids and that was fantastic. My wonderful wife bought me some books I'm very much looking forward to: Legend of a Suicide by David Vann, The Wine of Youth by John Fante, and Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow.

There will never be a shortage of good books to read.

I just finished reading Kamby Bolongo Mean River by Robert Lopez. It's weird to read a book about someone forced to answer the phone all day... when I answer a phone all day for a living. Good book. Weird time of my life to read it.

I watched a no-hitter happen today. It was on tv, but still. I love baseball. I love good pitching. My idol growing up was Nolan Ryan. All this means is that watching a no-hitter is about as beautiful as it gets in my eyes when it comes to baseball. Only a perfect game can beat it. It's been a good year for pitchers.

Baby & Other Stories by Paula Bomer is now listed on GoodReads. Add it, preorder it, prepare to be blown away.

Always Starting

I've been trying really hard to like my new job. There are some cool parts of it, but there's also enough stuff that gets to me that it weighs me down. I've never had a job where metrics were a part of it before, meaning that performance wasn't just based on being a hard worker, but being on a statistically good worker. Oddly my metrics have been great. The existence of them, the focus on them (even when we're told not to focus on them) seems counter-intuitive. I have started worrying that there is something wrong with me, that maybe no matter what I am doing for work that I'll feel frustrated and miserable with it. I love my weekends, getting to just be around my family. Why isn't that a profession?

I had a dream the other night that I started a Twitter account. Don't worry, I didn't do it. I think I'd be really into it for a week or two, but then my posting would get insanely infrequent and less interesting. The Twitter dream had nothing on my dinosaur dreams of late.

Also been thinking about my experimental novellas lately. Part of me wonders what would happen if I made them available in print, cheaply. A big part of me thinks "it's not like it would be earth shattering to just do it" another part of me thinks "do I want to put all that effort into and find out just how few people are interested in reading them?" One thing about the idea I like is getting to be in charge of how they look. That always appeals to me. Tell me not to do it.

Zoology

We've gone to the zoo twice in the last week. I love the zoo. I would stay at the zoo all damn day if there weren't so many people there. And if it wasn't so flipping hot out right now. I want to write a novel set in a zoo, just so I can spend days at the zoo "doing research."

I got my contributor's copy of the new Pear Noir! Another pleasure of an issue to be a part of. Friends and writers I sorta know, like Meg Pokrass, David Erlewine, Jac Jemc, Kirsty Logan, Blake Butler, and Ethel Rohan also appear. As does Chelsea Martin, whose work I love. And Lavinia Ludlow, whose story I just now read and it was superb. BUY A COPY!