My Personal Blob

Dear Derek: don't email me

2011-12-28T10:43:00.000-08:00

Hey Brian,
Dont know if you received my message last evening, but I did speak with Mark yesterday afternoon. He is a really nice guy... We discussed forwarding him my updated resume with the understanding that it may be some time before he can move it toward the HR team at AHA. I also let him know I am moving to Seattle at least for the near term.

Just thought you might be interested in knowing his status.

Derek

Hi Derek,
Glad you noticed Mark is a nice guy. I forgot to tell him about how you write long, meaningless emails.

Hey Brian, Hope the week is off to a good start. I'm being blinded by sunshine on my monitor right now, so it looks like I will have to get out in it soon.

Just curious if you have heard any updates on the whereabouts of Mark. I received a voice message from him late Fri. afternoon, but with a busy weekend wasn't able to get back to him until yesterday with a couple of emails. I followed up with a call to his cell this morning. I hope to connect with him when possible.

In his message he mentioned he may be in Oregon just a couple of days and then back to MT. Have you heard if he hit the road again? I know its a topsy-turvey time for him right now.

Thanks,
Derek

Hi Derek,
I wasn’t able to make it all the way through your email because . . . as usual, it's boring as hell.

Hey Brian,
Hope your week is off to a good start.

Just checking in if you've heard directly if Mark is back at AHA!? I sent him a follow up last week, but so far haven't heard anything back. Since I haven't heard from him, I'm betting he is still back in Montana, or wherever care is being given to his dad.

Just thought I would check in with you in case you have any inside scoop you can share.

Also, looks like I will be through PDX either Wed. or Thurs. afternoon, but timing will likely be tight. I can let you know if that changes.

Hope all is well. Talk to you soon.
Derek

Hi Derek,
Glad you sent Mark an email. I’m sure he’ll be just as uninterested as I am.

On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 9:35 AM, Derek wrote:

I would like to pick your brain sometime soon. I will be heading through Portland the weekend following the Civil War game. Let's get together for a holiday brew because it's likely I'll spend the following two weeks at the coast. I expect I will be in the midst of moving between Christmas & New Years.

Talk to you soon.
Derek

Hi Derek,
Please pick someone else’s brain.

Hey Brian,
I'm sure you have already cut out for the long weekend but just wanted to send along Happy Thanksgiving wishes for the weekend. I'm suspect you will probably spend it between your parents house, your house, and wherever.

I will be staying put with a quiet Thanksgiving here in Salem. My mom couldn't make it due to weather, but my sister and nieces should be able to have a nice dinner at their house tomorrow.

Have a great one.
Derek

Hi Derek,
Glad you have a mother blah blah blah blah blah.

Hey Brian,
just thought Id check in with you quickly.
I get paid from Jason tonight. Good news. I can have beers during the Ducks game this weekend. I hope he can keep the work coming because I can use it, but nothing is on the horizon for now.

Keep me posted. Talk to you soon.
Derek

Hi Derek,
I see you have nothing new to say.

Hey Brian,
Maybe you can shed some insight. Jason's company is very hard to gauge. For reasons I don't know, I don't have the warm fuzzy feeling that seemed prospective at first. Hopefully its because the crap economy is just stressing everyone and making everyone weird, but I have noted a certain standoffishness from them that I cant place. Time will tell, but right now I have real concerns because I've had these sudden weird communications blackouts with other contract arrangement too. They really like the work, but I don't hear from them again....

Its probably best to drop it for the day. I’ll go running and will at least feel good about that.

Lets connect tomorrow depending on how your day stacks up. Mine is pretty ooooppppeeennn...

Have a good one.
Derek

Hi Derek,
You should look into joining a cult.

Hey Brian - Just checking in if you caught my note about Mark's dad?

All is well in your orbit?
Derek

Hi Derek,
Ehlsj fiehsl bijelijl bljsie. Dkjir939kjfd fdklj)_*&9 dj. My stapler wrote that.

Hey Brian,
I have a theory. Jason’s agency kind of remind me of WaggEd in that it seems they've put a process in place and it takes precedent over the personnel, regardless of their skills and talents. But when something is working to keep your business thriving, you take advantage of it.

In any case, I’m looking forward to my conversation with Jason today. It is about the only thing on my sched besides lunch with my sister at Applebees (they feed me for free today!). I already know there will be no specific commitments during my call with Jason, but I just want to keep the communication open and relationship solid. I really do see promise in what he's got going - and I've seen a lot of operations....

That's it for now. Might check in with you later after chatting with Jason.

And I am flaunting my green & yellow today...Go Ducks!!

Hi Derek,
You should join the Applebee’s family.

Hey Brian,
I need to wrap up some prospecting work - though with the exception of Jason at Speak, I rarely hear anything back. Its a glorious world out there.

Don't know if I told you, but Jason and I are scheduled to speak tomorrow, which is good. Just a check in, but I just want to let him know I appreciate working with his firm and to feel free to send along any work he can...also want to chat with him briefly about my move - I'm leaning to return to Seattle, but if he thought there was a blooming future at Speak, I would definitely rethink that. I'll feel all of that out as the conversation goes along. They noted they liked what I produced on my first project for them.

Oh yeah, do you know anyone at Babcock & Jenkins (Beaverton)? Just applied for a Sr. Copywriter position there. Just thought I'd ask. I doubt it since I've never heard you mention anything about them before.

Get to go to my favorite watering hole. Maybe only a month or so left of that routine.

Now back to work....

Dear Derek,
i have an idea. go to google and search: "free, unlimited porn."

Mark's situation does sound scary. I don't know if I would have figured that out with my limited health/medical background, though in my condition I would hope I would be able to get myself through it. Keep me posted.

My laptop is okay. I spilled barely spilled coffee on the edge of the keyboard the other morning and somehow frizzed my apostrophe. I can get around it. I'm cagey.

I'm all out of Halloween candy myself. But I did enjoy making goo goo eyes with a cutie while at coffee this morning, if that counts for anything. I guess I tend to be a graham crackers kind of guy these days.

Okay, I'm sure you have work to get through, so will leave you alone. And yes, Mr. Paternal apparently closed himself off of his conscience to the machine. We all need to sell, but at some point when faced with something so emotionally/mentally searing, you've got to realize you are not who you are anymore. And from what I tell, now he gets to live with it.

Okay, out.
Derek

Dear Derek,
You know how painful it is while sitting with swollen inflamed hemorrhoids? That's how i imagine my eyeballs would feel if i actually read your email.

Hey Brian,
Just thought I'd check in early before the day gets too busy whether you think you want to try to connect for a beverage late this afternoon. Turns out I'm meeting Tony at Widmer in NE at 1:30 p.m. to turn over the copies of the annual report he ordered. Awesome!

After that I'm going to hop over to downtown to pick up my KINK prize and could meet either at Lucky Lab or 185th McMenamin's. I'm curious if 5:30 p.m. is still the earliest you could meet?

Also, I contacted Mark yesterday afternoon and received a note back from him when I cracked my email this morning. Real nice guy. We're going to stay in touch and possibly have a conversation when the opportunity arises.

That's it for now. Much to plow through before hitting the road this afternoon. Keep me posted on your preferences/plan.
Derek

Dear Derek,
Your emails to me kind of remind me of sticking hot coals up my nostrils.

Hey Brian,
On my walk over to my expansive offices at the library, it occurred to me that if we do connect, maybe the Bridgeport Brewpub at Bridgeport Village could be an option? On the same trip up there next week I'm going to pick up my KINK prize (two $25 vouchers at Bridgeport). I could buy you a beer on them if we met there. One catch though - I would be driving into downtown, then back out to Bridgeport to meet, then back toward 26 on my trek to the coast. But if not then, we could meet there another time.

I have it down on my to dos to send a note to Mark this afternoon. Probably soon, in fact. Heard from Speak again this morning and they're waiting on the client's (Sage) feedback for any possible tweaks before recommending I invoice. Hopefully it will be fairly stet and new work would roll in next week...

Good day to get out and play hoops. I'm somewhat envious, but when the last time I played hoops, my body hurt! Of course, I went out running and cramped up a calf muscle to the point of having to drop off last evening just as I was getting to know a cutie in the running club...hopefully she'll be there next week...I'm pretty sure I will!

That's it for now. Have a great afternoon. I'll keep you posted.
Derek

Dear Derek,
Sorry about the syphilis.

I imagine you'll likely be out the door before receiving this. No rush.

I just forwarded my app package for the aha position, so I'll follow up with Mark tomorrow. Truth is, if Jason's firm kept funneling work my way and the relationship continued to develop, that would be fine with me. There's a lot I like about Speak's approach to their niche.

Okay. Have a great evening. I gotta get running myself. Literally.

And when you have a minute, let me know if a beer might be possible early next week....

Dear Derek,
usually I don’t know what you’re talking about and this is one of those times when it’s no different.

Hey! I just heard from Jason's team about an initial project. That's very cool!

I'll keep you posted on Thurs. I fully understand the timing of your work exodus and commute. I have a feeling 5:30 may be a little late for me, but let's see what develops. I don't even know for sure if I'll be heading through on Thurs.

In the meantime, I'll keep you posted on all fronts. Have a great evening.

Dear Derek,
Your email made me want to drink the inside of a lava lamp.

Hey Brian,
Hope your week is off to a good start. Mine is a little slow but I've become so accustomed to this pace it's like its own state of being. However, I did hear back from Jason yesterday and have received a couple of inquiries, so I'm going to consider that positive territory.

Anyhow, that's just after lunch ramblin' for now.... just curious what your late Thurs. afternoon might look like? I'm now seriously considering heading through pdx on Thurs. for a variety of reasons that make the weekend a little more economical & efficient.

If that turns out to be the case, just curious if you would have time for a late afternoon bev - possibly around 4:30 - 5 p.m.?

Dear Derek,
I think that was the most uninteresting email I’ve ever received. It also might’ve been the most boring ever written.

Hey Brian,
I'm hoping to have a quick call with you this weekend. I'd like to make it to Portland, but I don't think that will be the case. But will you be available for a call?

Thanks,
Derek

Dear Derek,
Don’t call. I’ll be doing really busy stuff no matter what time you decide to call me.

Hey Brian - just thought I'd report in advance that I just learned that I won one of those KINK Community contests for 2 free passes to any upcoming Bing Lounge performance and....two $25 vouchers to the Bridgeport Brewpub...how's that for a day's work? Hell, I think that's pretty good! Thinka how much beer that is, even if it turns out I'm my own date!

Just thought I'd share... been spending the afternoon reviewing some of the materials Jason provided during our meeting. The materials seem pretty straightforward for the most part, especially considering they are B2B marketing/communications in a traditional trade industry. I'll probably spend some additional time reviewing tomorrow too.

That's it. Just trying to create some jealousy when I hold Derek's "on fire" date night in pdx and you're not on the call list...

Have a great evening!
Derek

Dear Derek,
You should look into hiring a hooker.

I just sent Jason a quick follow up thank you, etc. We had a pretty casual conversation so I didn't go overly formal in my follow up. He did ask some good questions during our discussion though, so I did understand what you were saying in regard to his methodical approach. He came across as a fairly laid back, but pretty sharp business person to me. I can keep you posted if anything develops.

That's it for now. Among other pressing matters, I need to get started on a serious housing hunt since I'm ready to go and am supposed to be out of my place by Nov. 1. I don't like to do that job with my back to the wall. We'll see how things fall into place.

Dear Derek,
You know how you offer to “keep me posted” on what’s going on? Don’t do that.

Hey Brian - I'm hopefully scheduling a 2 p.m. meeting with Jason tomorrow afternoon. What does your sched look like in the 4 p.m. timeframe? I'd enjoy connecting over a bev. The weather is supposed to be great!

Have a good one.
Derek

Dear Derek,
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Hey Brian, no urgency but when you have a spare, bored minute could you send a quick reply to this new gmail address I created for biz and increased privacy purposes. Just want to make sure I'm okey-dokey.

Have a good one.

Thanks,
Derek

Dear Derek,
Congrats on creating a new email address! You should start emailing yourself.

Hey Brian - I just followed up with Jason again for a prospective meeting later this week. I finally returned to the valley late yesterday afternoon and am busy catching up on things.

If Jason & I schedule a meeting either Thurs. or Fri. are you around? I think we should try to get together if possible since it has been awhile..

Let me know if you're up for it.

Thanks,
Derek

Hi Derek,
You were “busy catching up on things”? WTF? Wait, don’t answer that.

Hey Brian,
Looks like Jason and I may try to reschedule later in the week when the dog isn't a factor and I'll have access to my full book - don't have it down here at the coast. I need to actually place the order for the RQ annual report as soon as I return to Salem, so could be delivering it as soon as Thurs. or Fri., I suppose. In some ways I'd rather just ship it though.

Glad you had fun in Seaside, though I stayed away from there all weekend especially with deck staining finally completed. Looks good though and it needed it badly. Now I'm going to just mow the lawn this afternoon, vacuum the carpet, a beach run tonight, and should be ready to return to the valley tomorrow morning. It's been a good stay down here though.

Except....I hope you didn't go on a f$!king biplane ride....I doubt you could have missed the dumb SOB since I just spotted him down in Seaside when I had lunch w/a friend and quick shopping at Safeway. NOBODY on the ground down here likes the a-hole. Some of us might even have some secret desires that something unfortunate might happen to his precious airborne noise machine. I know that's not cool, but he needs to fly that thing HIGHER and ELSEWHERE FAR, FAR OVER THE OCEAN - PLEASE!

That's my Mon. rant and feels good dammit after listening to that b.s. the past two weekends. Now I guess it's time to get out there and make some racket of my own - though mine only takes 45 mins to an hour - AND DONE!

Have a good one. I'll let you know if I might be in PDX later this week.
Derek

P.S. Just had a good call with a tech firm out of NYC, something may brew there. I need to send him some writing samples and vice versa.

Hi Derek,
Yeah, sure.

Hey,
Looks like we'll try to meet Tues. am....except that I know realize I'm going to have a small white dog along in the car with me that wasn't in the plan when I first came down here. My mom is held up w/my grandma's situation in eastern Montana, so the dog travels with me to my sister's. I'm going to have to figure that one out or some sort of workaround. Good thing there's weekend staining time ahead...

The weather situation seemed to improve, but is now a little foggy again. I did get 1/4 of the deck stained this afternoon though, so the afternoons are getting better. I heard on the radio more sun with some morning and evening fog over the weekend.

There you have it. Have a great weekend and give a call if you decide to make the drive.
Derek

Hi Derek,
Have you tried booze?

I just heard from Jason a few minutes ago and am putting together quick reply right now. He wants to see some writing samples, which I offered, but has a preference for some healthcare (I did long ago but don't have it digital) and tech, which I should be able to come up with a few items in addition to some more recent stuff. I'm just going to provide him a quick heads up that I'll forward a small batch of samples tomorrow.

As for the coast weather, it should be better on Sat. My understanding is that the temps are supposed to cool somewhat in the valley - into the 80s - which means the fog generally doesn't develop here, particularly in Gearhart. Seaside can be another sitch. I'd say watch the Portland forecast and if the temps are too drop in the 80s there on Sat., your odds on the North Coast are good.

Let me know if you decide to day trip. I'll be around, but might be deck staining during the afternoon, but you could at least have a place to base from.

I'll keep you posted. Talk to you soon.
Derek

Dear Derek,
Sometimes heroin isn’t so bad.

Just a heads up that I just followed up with Jason at Speak! I'll let you know if I hear anything from him, and would appreciate it if you could pass along any info you might come across.

Have a good one. I was supposed to start staining the deck about 45 mins ago, but by the time I got all my gear ready for action, the fog moved in again. Looks like tomorrow, but should be fine since it's a one day project - I hope. I need to get back to the valley early next week at least for a short visit.

Talk to you soon.
Derek

Dear Derek,
Sorry about your learning disability.

I might send Jason a quick follow up this afternoon, though I imagine he would get back to me if interested in discussing possibilities. If it's a small shop though as you said, he might be very busy.

Have a good one. It was sunny earlier, but now the fog appears to be moving in again. The deck awaits sooner or later.

Derek

Dear Derek,
This is second or third time I’ve heard about your mom’s deck-staining project. I didn’t care before the first time you wrote about it.

Hey Brian - Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend. I stayed calm and cool at the coast and with the exception of the UO-LSU game Sat. night, it was fairly relaxing. That game just didn't seem as much fun as last year's stream of wins. Looks like I'm also going to be down here through the remainder of the week trying to get the deck stained, so I'll do what I can to recover.

Just wanted to check in if you've heard anything from your friend Jason at Speak!? I sent him a quick note last week just to introduce myself - since he requested you forward his contact info - but haven't heard anything since. I'm not sure if he's buried with work, or has found other options, or is in limbo until a later this fall? Anyway, just wanted to check in if you've heard anything. If not, I might send him another follow up later today or tomorrow unless you note that he's already moved on with another writer or something.

Dear Derek,
I have to go to the bathroom and I’m actually very excited about it.

Hey Brian,
Just checking email quickly before heading out to do some errands. My laptop is in the shop due to an unfortunate coffee spill across the keyboard a couple of weeks ago, so I have to go to the Worksource daily to do my Internet activity. Wish I could say it's the best part of my day/life, but I'll do my best to resist.

Anyway, no decision yet on the SF adventure, though I saw the fare again this morning out of Eugene - which will already be gone by this afternoon. I'll check again while I'm online though...

Definitely try to catch Eddiie Vedder if at all possible. I don't know if you've ever seen Pearl Jam, but caught them up in Seattle at the Key Arena sometime around 2000-01 and it was most memorable. I'd see them, or him solo w/ukulele, again today if the opportunity presented itself.

Enough for now.
Derek

Dear Derek,
Good luck on all that stuff whatever it was.

Hey Brian,
Just following up quickly. It's been a shit week, topped off by spilling coffee across my laptop this morning making the keyboard essentially inoperable. I'm hoping it will dry out by this afternoon, but my instincts tell me otherwi$e.

My mojo has been well less than productive levels, that's for sure. That's a mental thing I just need to battle through, though. Working on it.

Might go to the coast this weekend, might not. For now, it's almost lunch time. We'll see what comes after that.

Later,
Derek

Dear Derek,
Your email put me to sleep, which is weird because I’m on my fourth cup of coffee in 20 minutes.

hey blog!

2010-09-28T13:48:00.001-07:00

I'm here!

Doing my laundry!

2010-04-06T18:41:00.000-07:00

So many clothes. So many, many fine apparel items. Socks. Shirts. Pants. Underwear. I'm such an amazing dresser. I never have enough room to lay them about while folding them. I need a big table for all my personal laundering duties. I could use the dining room table, I suppose, but there's something funny about putting underwear on the place where you eat. And not funny "ha-ha," but funny "Yucko." Not that my underwear is particularly dirty. In fact it's not, especially after it's been washed. This pair right here is very clean. Why, it even smells clean. Sniff-sniff. Yum. And the cotton feels so soft against my nose. And this pair, too. Why is my neighbor looking at me from the back patio? He's been watching me smelling my underwear this whole time, hasn't he? Damn him.

That's all. I'm just blogging because my blog seemed a bit forlorn. Thank you.

It's a new year, opposed to old

2010-01-10T10:39:00.001-08:00

I need a good name for my street gang I'm thinking about forming for 2010. I want the name to sound "bad," as in mean or at least confrontational sounding. I need the right one so potential foes hear it and steer clear of our “turf." No, really. Upon hearing our street-gang name, I want our adversaries to collectively say to themselves: "whoa, man. These dudes are bad ass.”

Wow. It's November!!

2009-11-18T13:12:00.000-08:00

Yo, bro, whaddup? It's me awakening from a long autumnal slumber and now I'm here to bid myself and my award-winning bloggedy blog blob a good day. I wish thee a good day, homey brew. Homey brew? What the fuck's that supposed to mean?

Working in the Work-a-Day World

2009-09-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

I was asked to compose the holiday greeting card for the large company I don't even work for. This is what I came up with:

"If you live north of the equator, it's cold this time of year!"

I thought about adding something along the lines of "This is a really stupid assignment," but I said fuck it and left it as is. I did a pretty fair to middling job, don't you think? In the end I didn't want to grandstand or make the full-time internal copywriter feel threatened or make her think her job was in jeopardy.

More wildlife in the news!

2009-07-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

I can roll with the idea that this made the evening news in Greenville, South Carolina, but what I don't get is why or how the anchor-lady hoots and gushes: "This is the story we've been waiting for all day!"

Oh, God.

Yes, afraid so. She really said that. On TV! In Greenville, South Carolina. Not to spoil the hard-hitting news segment, but the "story" includes a poor traumatized squirrel hopping and falling around with a Yoplait cup stuck on its head. I know. True story! Got it on camera! And in a spontaneous moment of schadenfreude, the anchor team laughs. They're getting a kick out of Greensville litter and an animal in distress. Oh well.

On a different note, there was some really interesting findings at the very end of the piece (via of the cameraman on the scene).

I hope you watched the whole thing, because -- if you heard it -- you would've noticed that the reporting buried the most important part: that is, the cameraman was able to interpret squirrel language. If you paid attention (like me), you would've learned that the squirrel realized it was the recipient of a good deed. After the cameraman allegedly set down his camera and grabbed the squirrel's tail (in a successful rescue), the squirrel shook free the Yoplait cup, scurried away before stopping, turning, looking back, and -- with a nod of her head or whatever -- "said" thank you! See? Just like E.T. Pretty awesome. I should've been a journalism professor or a news director. I know how to get to the real story. The story behind the story. I would've really kicked ass on that story. I would've led this way: "Not only was a man named Kevin -- who also happens to be a WYFF cameraman without any news to cover -- able to understand squirrel communication -- but -- we located a squirrel who demonstrated gratitude!! Unfortunately, we don't have the gratitude-slash-virtue thing on tape, but we have the pre-rescue part of which the squirrel is very appreciative. Let's roll the film, shall we?"

It could've been a great story, after all. It's kind of a scientific breakthrough or something, maybe. Never mind. I really didn't mean to second guess the journalistic integrity of the WYFF news team. Sorry. My bad.

[This post dedicated to Walter Cronkite.]

Protecting my Domain (true story!)

2009-07-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

I was awakened by a very large mouse (or bear) at three in the morning. Soon, I was being flanked by the large mammal, which could've easily attacked and overcame me with his incredible razor-sharp incisors which glinted in the moonlight. Although I was only armed with a Swifter rod, I confronted the beast with great bravery and courage -- "hey!!" I yelled, which is when it appeared to begin its attack but knew better: it shucked and jived before darting into the kitchen and hid under the refrigerator (it must've had these incredible weird powers to reduce its size). Because I'm such an advocate for peaceful resolutions, I secured the area and waited under the blind of camo. And although my alertness and strength were being sapped by sleep deprivation and extreme temperatures (it was chilly because I had to leave the door open), you should've seen me! I was a model of self-discipline and patience, much like a Green Beret or a Marine. Or Navy Seal!! It took a while to fulfill my harrowing mission, but apparently the carnivore realized it had no chance for survival because it understood who it was up against (me!). Soon, the crazed night creature ran with incredible fear, certain to never return, at least I hope so. Because next time I see it, it's toast. No second chances, yo. I'll kick it to the curb, take it down hard, pop its ass. Don't come roundz here no mo, bitch.

I knew it: Americans get to marry other species

2009-07-08T16:22:00.001-07:00

Someone on TV really said these things.

I heart democracy!

2009-06-22T15:46:00.000-07:00

How can we get aggro about Iran's stolen election without mentioning a couple of elections in this country, particularly the ones in 2000 and 2004? My worry -- or maybe it's just a question -- is whether the Iranian people are more serious about democracy than Americans.

Make Your Own Luck!!

2009-06-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

I believe in making my own luck. Here's the secret: one cube of butter (or a half-pint of battery acid), a box of dough (whatever kind of dough you want!), and a spoonful of blueberries and/or capers. Dump your mix into a skillet, and plan to heat it up on "low-medium" for ten minutes. You don't have to eat it! It's just a recipe for making your own luck. You should do it. Go ahead, make your own luck. Go for it! Good luck!

Money Saving Tips

2009-06-12T07:21:00.000-07:00

Instead of getting a haircut, try large dabs of conditioner! Any conditioner will do. Just slather some into your scalp and it makes your hair look shorter and shinier. You should try it. I did. It gave me a whole new look.

Commencement Talk, Pt II

2009-06-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

I was so proud to be sitting in the coliseum last night, waving and cheering for The Heiress, ignoring my dad complaining about the jam band midway through. (They rocked it!) The Heiress did me proud, as did the other 462 Lincoln High grads. It was a really good shew. I've decided commencement ceremonies are pretty alright when they involve your own offspring.

Meantime 3,000 miles away, Eugene Mirman delivered on a promise to offer words of inspiration at his alma mater's graduation in Lexington, Mass. It's David Foster Wallace lite, or economy size, because it was for high schoolers:

Hello, little dragons. Congratulations! You are now free from your 12 years of Knowledge-Prison. Today you begin the next phase of your life — whether it’s college, a job, or a program abroad — where you build a schoolhouse for underprivileged children, while hooking up with each other.

The main difference for you, between life yesterday and life tomorrow, is you can go to the bathroom whenever you want. It’s a pretty big responsibility, but you’ve earned it. A few more things: you can vote, start a family, go to war, even buy a beer. Just kidding, you’re only mature enough to shoot our enemies in the face.

Your parents are proud of you, but they’re nervous — 2009 is very different from when they grew up — most of them still remember exactly where they were when Lincoln was shot.

But here we are today — amidst several wars, with history’s largest deficit, in the worst recession since families gathered around radios to learn about evolution. On behalf of the generations who came before you, we’re really, really sorry. We made some oopsyies.

I won’t lie to you, there is an asteroid heading for the earth and you only have four days to live. I’m sorry, where was I?

Oh yeah, it will be up to you to lead America into the future. And I don’t mean your generation. I mean the 326 of you. You alone must fix the whole world. Tonight — relax, celebrate — have some Manischewitz. Tomorrow, start fixing.

Good news! This is the point in the graduation speech where I tell you a personal anecdote about perseverance and then quote a song. What’s the worst grade you’ve ever gotten? A D? An F? When I was in eighth grade at Diamond Middle School, on a homework assignment, I once got a -8. I did my assignment worse than not doing it. But did I let getting a grade lower than the lowest possible grade stop me? No. I was put into Recourse Room (Special Education) and turned my F into a D.

So, you see, sometimes you can fail, then barely pass, and then become a comedian. Also, I recommend being on television occasionally, because people treat you nicely.

Lastly, some tips for life:

Don’t forget to follow your dreams — unless your dreams are stupid — like eating all the cake in Arlington.

Be kind to people.

Don’t get too excited when you read the Fountainhead.

In this time of recession, it is the time for invention. Did you know both the telephone and the automobile were invented during recessions? So was “talking dirty.”

Things can kill you. So just keep that in mind, you fearless-know-it-alls.

Good luck with everything and don’t become addicted to heroin, unless you want to be a great songwriter.

And now, as promised, I’ll quote a song. Garden Party by Rick Nelson. It’s about him getting booed off stage at Madison Square Garden in 1971: “It’s all right now, I learned my lesson well. You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself lott-in-dah-dah-dah, lot-in-dah-dah-dah.”

She Graduates

2009-06-09T08:37:00.000-07:00

Congratulations, Daughter. Your future is bright if you keep pushing your heart, looking outward, and staying unafraid of challenge.

The following is an excerpt from a 2005 Commencement Address (Kenyon College in Ohio). It was delivered by the late author David Foster Wallace. It's good and real and says it like it is.

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"

This is a standard requirement of commencement speeches, the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories. The story thing turns out to be one of the better conventions of the tradition, but if you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance, or so I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovely morning.

Of course the main requirement of speeches like this is that I'm supposed to talk about your liberal arts education's meaning, to try to explain why the degree you are about to receive has actual human value instead of just a material payoff. So let's talk about the single most pervasive cliché in the commencement speech genre, which is that a liberal arts education is not so much about filling you up with knowledge as it is about "teaching you how to think." If you're like me as a student, you've never liked hearing this, and you tend to feel a bit insulted by the claim that you needed anybody to teach you how to think, since the fact that you even got admitted to a college this good seems like proof that you already know how to think. But I'm going to posit to you that the liberal arts cliché turns out not to be insulting at all, because the really significant education in thinking that we're supposed to get in a place like this isn't really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about.

If your total freedom of choice regarding what to think about seems too obvious to waste time discussing, I'd ask you to think about fish and water, and to bracket for just a few minutes your skepticism about the value of the totally obvious.

Please don't worry that I'm getting ready to lecture you about compassion or other-directedness or all the so-called virtues. This is not a matter of virtue. It's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self. People who can adjust their natural default setting this way are often described as being "well-adjusted," which I suggest to you is not an accidental term.

Given the triumphant academic setting here, an obvious question is how much of this work of adjusting our default-setting involves actual knowledge or intellect. This question gets very tricky. Probably the most dangerous thing about an academic education -- least in my own case -- is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract argument inside my head, instead of simply paying attention to what is going on right in front of me, paying attention to what is going on inside me.

As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (which may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.

This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth.

And I submit that this is what the real, no-bullshit value of an education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.

By way of example, let's say it's an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home. You haven't had time to shop this week because of your challenging job, and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the work day and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. And the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop and it's pretty much the last place you want to be but you can't just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge, over-lit store's confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts (et cetera, et cetera, et cetera) and eventually you get all dinner supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough check-out lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But you can't take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the register, who is overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.

But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and you pay for your food, and you get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death. Then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plastic bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to the left, all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic, et cetera et cetera.

Everyone here has done this, of course. But it hasn't yet been part of you graduates' actual life routine, day after week after month after year.

Then the dishwasher goes out and the car's oil is past due and needs new tires and the yard is going to hell and your 401(k) is underfunded. But it will be. And many more dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routines besides.

But that is not the point. The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it's going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way. And who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is.

Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious liberal arts form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic being disgusted about all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV's and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks, burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper-stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest most -- [responding here to loud applause]: this is an example of how NOT to think -- disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers. And I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel, and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are, and how modern consumer society just sucks, and so forth and so on.

You get the idea.

If I choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway, fine. Lots of us do. Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn't have to be a choice.

It is my natural default setting. It's the automatic way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world, and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities.

The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he's in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.

Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do.

Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you are supposed to think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it.

Because it's hard. It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat out won't want to.

But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she's not usually like this. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the DMV, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness.

Of course, we don't know, but it's not impossible. It just depends what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're gonna try to see it.

This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.

Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it Jesus or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Life in Linnton

2009-06-09T08:08:00.001-07:00

What Linnton is known for besides moss: slugs. Humungous slugs. No, really. Trust me. They're HUGE.

Dream: cloying perfume causes tooth decay

2009-06-04T08:23:00.000-07:00

I dreamt I was getting my morning coffee at a café where exotic dancers unwind after a long night on the pole. As I walked the gauntlet to place my order, I was struck by what could only be described as poor dental hygiene. Either the dancers had stubborn blueberry/coffee stains between their incisors or visible signs of gingivitis. Some had both.

My Favorite People

2009-05-26T16:51:00.000-07:00

Say you could list your favorite ten types of people. Without really thinking about it too much, here are mine:
1. Girls who wear dresses on bikes
2. People on my bus
3. Civil War re-enactors
4. Smiling people who work at fast food restaurants or Safeway
5. People who can't remember any movies they've seen
6. Painters who aren't very good yet
7. Mousy nerdy people who like to party
8. People grateful to meet or see me
9. Christians wandering around places like Pakistan
10. Physicists even though I don't know any

My Current Status

2009-05-20T08:10:00.000-07:00

I'm wearing my favorite undies today. Actually, I wear my favorite undies everyday. Not the same ones, of course. Actually, I'm very fortunate and blessed because I like all my undies. My undies rock. They're boxers. Wait a minute; I should clarify. My undies rock only when they're clean. Soiled undies belong in the hamper. Unsoiled undies are best (my opinion!). Today -- like most days -- I'm wearing clean and comfortable undies. I should post that on my Facebook status, don't you think? And tweet it. Fer sherz. I'm so good at all this social media, it's downright scary.

How did she get my email?

2009-05-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out who Krystal Thacker is and why her subject header says: Bigger, Harder, Longer. The only thing I can think of is the girl at ACE Hardware who was helping me decide on the right set of drillbits.

Protecting & Serving & Frying Food

2009-04-30T07:09:00.000-07:00

I meant to blog today, but then I lost track of time, and next thing I knew, I was searching YouTube for beatboxers and working up an appetite on www.whyyourefat.com and checking my Facebook status and -- as you can imagine -- I hadn't found the time to blog. My life is very busy with all the stuff I need to watch on my DVR and all the fried food I plan to prepare in my deep-fat fryer and all the people I need to stalk . . . and then there's the swine flu pandemic coming our way, which I'm hoping ignore. So, yeah, I'm busy. Damn straight. Add, also, that I'm an artiste with a novel to write as well as all my commitments (and deadlines) I need to fulfill as a prominent in-demand professional blogger for a real-life actual blog. You might think you have a right to get all emo on me for not blogging sooner, but actually I don't think you do. Maybe, though. Not sure.

Cleveland has a good energy

2009-04-19T21:35:00.000-07:00

I'm not one to find any amusement in swear words and I'm not one to take delight in other people's misery (i.e., unemployment, pay-phone usage, drifting, people's decisions to have a mullet, etc.), but I do have a great appreciation for some of America's great cities.

Damn straight I'm a professional blogger

2009-04-15T07:31:00.000-07:00

Damn, I'm good. I've reached such grand heights with my blogging and social media endeavors that the designer I work with told me I needed to blog in order to pull my weight. Step up. With the economy all in flux, it's time I do my part and help keep the plant afloat. And there's no better person than myself to create a vast following of prospective customers. My goal is to spread the value of our service-and-product offerings. With my kind of chops, I should be able to spread value like the plague in no time. Look out world: our service-and-product offerings will get you big time.

Long story short: I came to the rescue, which means I've started a new blog and have become the voice of our humble value factory. Damn. I'm so awesome. Anywho, my new blog is about a very sexy topic and extremely alluring subject matter. It has such widespread appeal and potential, I wish I'd thought of it myself, but I can't take credit. Without further ado, my new blog is about the goings-on of Environmental Health & Safety Professionals. Even though The Matriarch smirked at me when she saw my excitement and passion to make a difference, my new blog is destined to prove all the skeptics wrong. It will sizzle and sparkle and dance around a pole. Men will weep. Women will cover the eyes of their children and hold them close. Let my designer friends refer to me as The Thousand Faces of Ignatius, but you know what? This is going to be the real me and I'm being true to myself. I heart safety! The best part is that I'm about to evolve a fair-to-middling family-owned business into a major-ass enterprise destined to transform the face of at-risk behaviors. Besides talking about how awesome we are, I plan to provide compelling successes of sitting up (not slouching) while I blog and how I make (and drink) coffee without scalding (or electrocuting) myself. I also plan to explain how one of our safety consultants got his Ph.D. from one of the premier institutions of ~~online~~ distance learning.

Explaining a Good Day of Crafting

2009-03-25T19:13:00.000-07:00

Below is some gold from Peter Rock, Portland author of The Bewildered, The Ambidextrist, This is the Place, and the new novel My Abandonment inspired by the father and daughter who lived in Forest Park for a few years. In Forest Park, not Forest Heights.

A good writing day is any day where a piece of the clock is given over to the invisible people. In the past I was spoiled, and often had hours and hours to write; now the writing often happens when I wake up and can't sleep at two in the morning, or at five, before my daughter wakes up, or fifteen minutes on the bus, or half an hour pretending I'm not in my office with all the ways the visible people can reach me turned off, shut down, disconnected.

I want to believe and to travel. Sometimes a good writing day is an hour of madly scribbling, vistas opening up ahead and inside, landscapes and synapses of some person rushing at me, and the whole rest of my waking day I carry that like a charm, knowing there's more and that I've been in touch with the invisible again; sometimes a good writing day is ten minutes of crossing out a paragraph, or adding a comma; sometimes a good writing day is half an hour of daydreaming with not a word to show for it.

There are no bad writing days; even those that seem the worst are leading us onward, only in ways that were not expected, perhaps slower than we believed we desired.

What could be better than that?

He strung together a lot of awesome words and made their sum so beautiful and artistic and inspiring and mostly true for me as well, but a really good writing day is a certain feeling of knowing my story and my people are headed somewhere -- to somewhere I can't wait to discover. Sounds corny, I know, but I'm no Peter Rock either. Besides, my good crafting days haven't been happening too much lately. I've been experiencing less synapses and more "crossing out paragraphs." Or just staring at them.

Future President of the World

2009-03-04T11:16:00.000-08:00

A really good speech and excellent example for Toast Masters everywhere. In 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, 12-year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki of Vancouver B.C. closed a Plenary Session at the UN's Earth Summit. If you're not moved by her words and their delivery, you're dead.

Career Choices

2009-03-03T07:28:00.000-08:00

I probably should've pursued a fall-back plan in one of these job areas:
1. Abandoned/Foreclosed House Housecleaner or Sign Painter/Planter
2. Grief Counselor
3. Undertaker
4. Movie Star
5. American Idol judge
6. Facebook Guy
7. IRS employee-at-large
8. Drug Lord
9. Network News Anchor
10. Bachelor Contestant

Facebook Chain Letter

2009-02-06T07:15:00.000-08:00

If you're reading this, you have to automatically cut and paste the questions into your Facebook Notes page and start answering them. Then tag hundreds of your Facebookies. Do it. If you do it, I think you'll automatically get seven years of uninterrupted employment. If you break the chain, something unsavory might happen. I'm not sure. Good luck!

YOU'VE BEEN TAGGED TO ANSWER ONE MORE SERIES OF STUPID QUESTIONS
1. IF YOU HAD OCTOPULETS, HOW MANY WOULD YOU KEEP?
2. WHAT IS IDAHO'S REAL NAME?
3. WHAT TYPE OF CURRENCY DO YOU UNDERSTAND BETTER: BEAUTY OR DOLLARS?
4. DO YOU LIKE HIPPIES?
5. DESCRIBE DALLAS, TEXAS.
6. WHAT KIND OF HATS ARE GOOD?
7. DID YOU VOTE FOR WALTER MONDALE, MICHEAL DUKAKAS OR PAUL TSONGAS?
8. WOULD YOU HAVE BILL O'REILLY OVER FOR DINNER IF SOMEONE PAID YOU?
9. DO YOU WASH YOUR HANDS WELL ENOUGH WHEN PREPARING MEALS FOR GUESTS?
10. WHO'S YOUR FAVORITE CURMUDGEON?
11. WHEN YOU FIRST HEARD ABOUT THE PROSPECT OF AN INTERNATIONAL "SHROOM DAY," WAS YOUR FIRST CONCERN FOR PUBLIC SAFETY OR SUPPLY?
12. PENCIL LEAD OR PINK ERASER?
13. NEIL YOUNG?
14. IS BEYONCÉ PART OF SOME SORT OF STIMULUS PACKAGE OR WHAT?
15. PICK A 20TH CENTURY DECADE TO BE 24 YEARS OLD INDEFINITELY.
16. IF YOU COULD RENAME FACEBOOK, WOULD YOU CALL IT SUCKYFACE OR FACE-ON-YOU OR ...?
17. WOULD YOU EVER WANT TO LIVE IN OKLAHOMAH? WHAT ABOUT OKLAHOMA?
18. HAVE YOU EVER WATCHED ADAM 12, THE HIGHLY UNDERRATED POLICE SHOW?
19. WHO IS WAY COOL?
20. WHO WOULD PLAY YOU IN A BLOCKBUSTER MAJOR MOTION PICTURE?
21. WHICH FAMOUS PERSON WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE STUCK IN AN ELEVATOR WITH FOR HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS? (DON'T SAY McGUYVER BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE STUPID.)
22. DO YOUR PARENTS KNOW HOW MUCH OF A WASTE OF TIME FACEBOOK IS?
23. HAVE YOU PRETENDED TO BE A SUPERMODEL? YOU HAVEN'T?
24. ARE YOU A STALKER?
25. WHEN PEOPLE SAY "THIS CITY IS TOO LIBERAL," WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?
26. SHOULD ALIENS FROM DISTANT GALAXIES BLEND IN, BE CUTE, BE SCARY AS HELL, OR LEARN TO SPEAK ENGLISH?
27. WHAT KIND OF COFFEE DO YOU LIKE?
28. BLAH BLAH BLAH.
29. I NEED COFFEE.

Melikes my mayor

2009-01-25T14:16:00.000-08:00

As long as Sam Adams doesn't want to date us, we've got an excellent mayor. I can't decide what's worse: the witch hunt or Sam's lie.

On a Roll!

2009-01-21T14:17:00.000-08:00

I'm psyched. We have a new president, one with all those characteristics and brains I associate with great leaders. I get a sense he truly understands. He absorbs. He's creative. He thinks. He unites. He makes sense when he speaks. He has a genuine spirit. His ego seems fully evolved. He seems cool under pressure.

The inaugural address he delivered yesterday felt as if it were cut with a diamond. Pure and resonant. I witnessed more than the transfer of power. I felt a rebirth of our national spirit.

As far as my Great American Work of Fiction goes, thanks for asking. For two weeks straight, I've been rewriting the first two paragraphs nonstop. Yes, I've been pretty productive for the last 300 hours. Not quite on a roll, but ... well, you know. I'm going for it, giving it my all. I should have my new novel in the can about the same time Malia or Sasha -- either one -- makes a bid for president in 2032.

Twitter is VERY useful

2009-01-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

When I first learned about Twitter a year ago, I was somewhat critical of its utility. Now I'm convinced of its many practical uses:

1. Locating friends at a convention.

2. Letting friends know how bored you are in the convention panel you're attending.

3. Making sure total strangers understand how important social plans/Hollywood meetings are.

4. Asking questions about new iPhone apps.

5. Answering questions about new iPhone apps.

6. Exhibiting pith and wit.

7. Telling people you're "friends" with someone they might know.

8. Letting people know you're prone to distractions.

9. Saving awesome independently owned bookstores.

Staying Upbeat for '09!

2009-01-05T16:18:00.000-08:00

The holidays are over. Whoop-dee-doo. Holidays/Schmolidays is what I say. I'm working hard at not suffering from post-holiday acedia. Acedia is my rediscovered word. I was reminded of acedia while watching a TV special on the Seven Deadly Sins. Acedia is a beautiful word for being depressed and blue and apathetic and denial that anything's wrong. Whatever. I'm funk-proof, really, which probabably has lots to do with all the junk food I've been eating non-stop. I've basically been consuming all my funk away while watching television for hours on end and not working on my great american work of fiction. If you're looking for secrets to procrastination and denial, I totally have the answer.

One more example of missing the whole point

2008-12-30T12:44:00.000-08:00

Average number of vacation days per year, brought to you by the World Tourism Organization.
Italy: 42 days
France: 37 days
Germany: 35 days
Brazil: 34 days
UK: 28 days
Canada: 26 days
Korea: 25 days
Japan: 25 days
USA: 13 days
Nazi Germany: ?

Bonus question: name a country that doesn't provide government-sponsored health care coverage for all of its people?

Is this hip hop?

2008-12-19T09:26:00.000-08:00

My Great Newspaper Deliveryperson

2008-12-15T10:23:00.000-08:00

Not only am I wearing a scarf around my neck all day to show my utmost appreciation and gratitude for my morning newspaper delivery professional, but I plan to remit an amazing bonus come bill-paying time. I tell you what: every time someone asks me today, "Hey, did you know you're still wearing a scarf around your neck?" (or "Hey, nice scarf!"), I plan to bow my head slightly and tell the story of opening the front door at 5:30 this morning and seeing my Monday paper all wrapped and dry. Then add, "This scarf, my friend, is a tribute. I wear this scarf around my neck as a mere token reminder for myself and others that no ice and snow or slippery-steep hill can delay my newspaper deliveryman. Nope. He's too good. My newspaper deliveryman is as close to God as it gets."

News of the times

2008-12-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

You thought I was going to ramble on about being too big to fail and government bridge loans and the imploding economy and the price of oil and the new way to dole out praise (i.e., a Barackliment or baracliment /n./ A condescending and somewhat reluctant compliment for characteristics that have been apparent to most people for a long, long time).

Anyway, the news I have is more fascinating. You see, Jenny no longer has her numer. After 30 years, 867-5309 has been disconnected. So, basically, it's a sign of the times, I guess. No one's got her number. It's somehow related to the credit crunch. According to an anonymous source, Jenny has a cell phone number which she now uses exclusively and plans to keep unlisted. If someone finds her on Facebook, please drop me a line. Thank you.

How-to Kit on Getting Beautiful

2008-11-19T13:54:00.000-08:00

A Christmas idea and an excellent use of instructional design.

It takes Effort

2008-11-14T08:52:00.000-08:00

I'm reading a novel by Francine Prose called Blue Angel about a fiction-writing teacher named Swenson. He's been working at a small fictitious liberal arts school in Vermont* for a long time; he's closing in on fifty, his wife works as a health care professional at the campus infirmary. They have a daughter away at college (who sounds kinda spoiled). Some lampoony moments of students' bad writing and the silliness of the academic scene. If it sounds interesting, read it (it was a National Book Award finalist), but part of the reason it's mentioned here and now is because it got me to look up a line of dialog from the movie Animal House. Remember Donald Sutherland's Professor Jennings character?

Jennings:
Teaching is just a way to pay the bills until I finish my novel.

Boon:
Novel. Wow. How long you been workin' on it?

Jennings:
Four and a half years.

Pinto:
It must be very good.

Jennings:
It's a piece of shit. Would anyone like to smoke some pot?

[*]Speaking of Vermont: a writer friend is on her way to the Green Mountain State ... enrolled in one of the best MFA programs in the land. Never mind that she's already published two books. But that's not news as much as this is: she just got a note from her editor at Bantam. This morning. It brought me to tears of joy.

"You’re quite the rising star here at Bantam Dell, and if the response from the people here is a thousand times more enthusiastic than that of the reviews, your reviews will still be overwhelmingly glowing and effusively acclaiming."

That, good people, is awesome. And it's a pretty strong indicator that talent helps, but hard work is where things get done. My friend works her ass off.

Yes we did.

2008-11-05T10:16:00.000-08:00

And it's been missing for a long time.

In Australia . . .

In Japan . . .

In Kenya . . .

In Greece . . .

In Indonesia . . .

And in Multnomah County, where Obama recieved more than three-quarters of the vote . . .

I dig

2008-10-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

The hardest thing about writing is getting yourself into a state of not not writing, which -- when it gets really bad -- has me going for my stash of scribblings I've collected in a folder for no other reason than I never want to forget them. They have hydrating electrolyte-like properties.
I first learned about John Cheever in high school and read some of his short stories in college, which may have something to do with why I have a soft spot for seeing -- emerging from incredible strings of words and sentences -- every-day life under a microscope while maintaining nuance and decorum that is a mix of beautiful, neurotic, ordinary, sweet and a little bit dark. An example of what I mean is below. It's a gem, a passage I can read over and again without fully understanding all the reasons why I'm so in awe.

"We have a nice house with a garden and a place outside for cooking meat, and on summer nights, sitting there with the kids and looking into the front of Christina's dress as she bends over to salt the steaks, or just gazing at the lights in heaven, I am as thrilled as I am thrilled by more hardy and dangerous pursuits, and I guess this is what is meant by the pain and sweetness of life."
- John Cheever, The Housebreaker of Shady Hill

Excerpt Time!!

2008-10-27T09:45:00.001-07:00

From my next NTWNGP, proof that I'm still trying to be motivated:

Loomis felt her eyes on him, and the effect was as though a lifetime of manners could slide right off. She regarded him up and down, her eyes at least stopping and looking straight at him with no acknowledgement at all of what she might be seeing. She was quiet. He couldn't figure out if her gaze was a trusting one, or all scrutiny, but he certainly liked having her across the table.

Yes, it took five years to write this one paragraph. Thank you.

Not much to like about emoticons

2008-10-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

I've tried for about ten years to find something appealing about symbols and various bits of punctuation like colons and semi-colons to make stupid smiley faces or winking faces or "just kidding" faces or "stop stalking me" gestures, but I've given up. Maybe it's like how I feel whenever I try on a leather jacket at the store: some things just don't feel or look right on me. Leather jackets -- like emoticons -- make me feel self-conscious and a little ridiculous every time I see myself with one. I cringe or wince, and my sphincter might even tighten a bit. Maybe it's because I'm so fiercely ambitious and focused in life, but I always feel like my emoticons are telling me in their tiny li'l ironic voices that everything that came before needs to be re-evaluated and rewritten. My emoticons aren't very subtle. They tend to scream at me: "EDIT, DUMB ASS!" or "DO THE F OVER, BITCH!" Anywho, I don't even like the word emoticon. What a stupid word. I cringed even typing it just now. F-you, emoticon. You suck, emoticon.

Why I love Wikipedia

2008-10-21T16:07:00.000-07:00

"When invigorated by spinach, Popeye can lift or press about 36 tons. [citation needed]"

A Real Person for Vice President!

2008-10-03T10:07:00.000-07:00

The big vice presidential debate was last night. I had my own little superbowl party with all kinds of post-debate analysis. Here are some of our observations about Hockey Mom Extraordinaire Sarah Palin: she was chirpy and peppy. Her soundbites were well done or at least smiley and upbeat. She winked. She said, "you betcha" a few times, which made her sound tough as nails. She did a "shout-out" to a grade school back home is Alaska, which I found to be in touch with the times and definitely down with her homies. She asked Biden if she could call him Joe and then called him "Senator O'Biden." She incorporated many folksy expressions like "now doggone it" and "all of us that come from a diverse background of policy and partisanship," which ... well, I don't know what that means, actually, but it sounded pretty good, dangit. She said we need to understand that "lots of the American people are a-hurtin." She said something about McCain being the man we need to have "leave," then "lead." She declared to go beyond Vice President Dick Cheney in expanding the powers of the vice-presidency, which was very exciting. She told Biden his wife's reward for teaching is "in heaven" (forgetting, of course, that his first wife is already up there). She also said that John McCain knows "what evil is" and if that doesn't make him the best choice for president I don't know what does. All in all, I think she won over lots of her supporters. I feel that way especially after hearing the insights of an undecided voter who claimed Sarah Palin came across as "real."

This post is dedicated to the Union Civil War commander General George McClellan, not to be confused with Commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan.

Rejected: Too American

2008-10-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

Dear American Author,
You're too isolated, insular and untranslatable.
Cheers,
Horace Engdahl

Rejection #700 billion

2008-09-22T16:44:00.001-07:00

Thanks for your query, but I'm not the right agent for your work. I apologize for the impersonal nature of this response which is due to the large number of queries I receive every week. I wish you the best in your search for representation.
Best,
Henry Paulson

Rejection #495

2008-09-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Ignatius,
Thank you for your query regarding your work. We read your letter with interest, and certainly found your concept to be intriguing, but regrettably, we must pass. While there's obviously a great deal to recommend the project, We're afraid we're simply so overwhelmed with "work" at the moment, We can consider only a very small fraction of works we’d otherwise love to read. Thank you, again, and we wish you the very best.
-Lehman Brothers

Rejection #491

2008-09-12T09:41:00.000-07:00

Thank you for your interest in submitting your materials to The Bush Doctrine Literary Agency. Please understand that, due to volume, I cannot reply to every submission because I'm serving in the Alaska National Guard. If I want or require more information, I will contact you.
All best,
Track Palin

Rejection #487

2008-09-11T12:04:00.000-07:00

Dear Writer,
Thank you for your query. Unfortunately, your project is not right for the agency at this time. Best of luck to you as you seek representation.
Warmest regards,
Dick Cheney

Rejection #481

2008-09-10T07:24:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much for submitting your query for my review. I’ve given it careful consideration, and unfortunately it’s not something we at LanceStrong Agency can represent. We’d love to say yes to all the worthy projects that come across our desks, but we receive many good proposals and can only represent a fraction of them.
We are only one agency, and these decisions are subjective. I encourage you to continue seeking representation and publication, and I wish you the best in having your project published.
Many blessings,
Lance Armstrong

Rejection #472

2008-09-09T08:38:00.000-07:00

Thank you for submitting your work to BFLA. While we enjoyed reading your query, it isn't something that we'd like to pursue at this time. We wish you the best of luck in your writing career.
Regards,
Brett Favre Literary Agency

Rejection #454

2008-09-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

Ignatius,
Thanks so much for your interest in my agency. I'm sorry to dash hopes, but the material just doesn't sound right for me. This in no way reflects its potential for success, it just means I wouldn't be a good fit.
I wish you the best with it,
Janet Reno

Rejection #348

2008-09-05T16:28:00.001-07:00

Dear Ignatius,
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to consider ALL IN A CUP (great title, by the way). I appreciated your short-and-to-the-point synopsis and I'm impressed by your writing experience, but I feel that the only new acquiring I can do is with projects that are radically different from the projects I'm already representing. I’m afraid that in the end, I don’t wish to pursue this further with you. I really only have space to diversify, and even then, there's a lot on my plate right now.

Please know that I am grateful that you thought of me for ALL IN A CUP, and I hope that your hard work on this project will be rewarded with an attentive agent and a prosperous career.

Take care,
Sarah Palin

McCain's Dan Quayle

2008-09-04T09:32:00.000-07:00

Below is a video of a boy falling out of the stands after attempting to catch a fly ball to left-center. Fortunately, he wasn't hurt. But the reason this clip is so important to me is because of how well it captures my feelings about the Republican Party. After falling -- scarily -- the kid sort of pops up cooly at first, but in the end -- barely finding his legs -- seeks comfort while collapsing into the arms of an adult. That's sort of how it is for me when watching Republicans strut their stuff. I can listen to chants of "drill, baby, drill" and try laughing it off, but then I see Vice Presidential nominee Dan Quayle appearing in her smart skirtsuit and LensCrafters glasses and up-do while she talks about her accomplishments in front of a gushing crowd of pear-shaped white men (not to mention a very nervous family) ... anywho, it concerns me so much, I need an adult to console me. And I don't care how uncool it makes me appear. I need a hug from a real adult.

Priceless!!

2008-07-24T16:44:00.000-07:00

I'm totally getting one of these. I think it's made out of platinum, bullion, titanium, gold, lutetium, pearls, palladium, zirconium, diamonds, mink, plutonium and emeralds.

I heart Trains

2008-07-22T11:14:00.000-07:00

I occasionally wonder if some people would like to suburbanize the very things that make a city a city.

Take trains. I've read how pearl district people move into their "lofts" and soon begin whining about train noise. "Can you do something about those damn trains?" Oh brother. As if the train tracks are part of their HOA dues.

Long ago, I decided to embrace the rails and trains and engineers who lay on their horns. That's what happens when you live in Linnton. I'm all for improving your li'l piece of heaven, but I wouldn't move to the moon if I didn't like lunar supply-docking-station noises.

My personal enlightenment came after hearing how old-timey neighbors saw railroads as either a badge of honor -- what train? -- or something to be championed as an integral part of our history or heritage or "civilization" itself. Like the river and terrain, trains offer a powerful reminder that an authentic sense of place often occurs by accident, or when we stop worrying about making things easy, quiet and pleasant. Or strategizing about what's good for business.

Our Man takes it to The Man

2008-07-17T14:45:00.000-07:00

This is Heinrich Kieber who is now officially in the witness protection program. I say he's kind of a hero no matter how hard the powers-that-be will try to make his sketchy past appear even more sketchy than it really is. When I first heard network anchorman Charlie Gibson say that a disgruntled bank employee was in trouble for handing over the names of international tax evaders, I was thinking along these lines:

“Hey, Kieber. I need to talk to you for a sec.”

“What?”

“I think I need you to work again this weekend.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Someone set a Speed Record!!

2008-07-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

I don't get this quick of a reply even when I'm in trouble with the boss. To the Big City and back in six minutes. Hope it doesn't mean I picked a sucky agent.

From: Croissandra Strickenbacher
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 12:16 PM
To: Ignatius
Re: query | mainstream: ALL IN A CUP

Dear Mr. Ignatius,
Thanks for thinking of me. I'd be happy to look at a sample, say 2 chapters, of your work via email.
Best,
Croissandra

----- Original Message ----
From: Ignatius
To: Croissandra@strickenbacher.com
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 12:10:08 PM
Re: query | mainstream: ALL IN A CUP

Hi Croissandra,
I'm seeking an agent. My completed novel, ALL IN A CUP(77,000 words), is the story about two people on different life trajectories who end up needing each other. Set in Portland, Ore.: an afternoon fender-bender sets off a clash of lifestyles that leads ... and so forth for another bazillion words.

Indulging my Stimulus

2008-07-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

People ask, "So, what did you do with your stimulus?" I say, "I got me a pair of ignition cassettes!!" That's what I say, because that's what I did. Pretty sweet. I couldn't think of anything better to do with my stimulus than to get me a pair of ignition cassettes. They're awesome if you ask me. Thank you stimulus!!! Thank you stimulus for my new ignition cassettes!!

Rejected!

2008-07-09T08:52:00.000-07:00

Dear Ignatius,
I've read some of your book and although I like the idea, I don't think I can do anything with it. Thanks for thinking of me and I wish you luck in finding someone to represent your work.
Regards,
Bajooney Bullwhipple

Yeah, whatever. Meantime, because I hadn't heard from Agentress Extraordinairess from across The Pond since March, I uncharacteristically pestered her. She responded this way:

Thanks for checking in Ignatius and sorry I need more time!
Appreciate your patience.
Best
Lady Elizabeth

Phew. That's practically a love letter, don't you think? Unless I'm mistaken, I think she's into me.

Go for the Gold!!

2008-07-08T08:58:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be straight up with you because I am a straight shooter who shoots from the hip: my heart is not into blogging this week. I know, you're shocked because it always looks like I'm giving 123% day in and day out, but believe me, this week, I've decided to coast. Why? Well, because The Heiress is away all week and I just had a three-day weekend, which included a road trip to Track Town USA where I pretended Kara Goucher and Lolo Jones were psyched I was there, cheering them on. Anyway. I'm exhausted. I sat in a swanky hoity-toity private elite corporate-sponsored "suite" where I tried to fit in but instead drank all the free pints of Drop Top Ale we could and ate all kinds of cookies and pie and chicken and steak.

I'm sure you understand. I understand. I haven't had a vacation in nearly three weeks. How messed up is that? Seems slightly unjust. Three weeks! These last few days -- Monday and then this morning -- have been especially grueling. Yes, I know last weekend was a long weekend, but part of that was in Eugene. And, sure, Jesse Helms died and that was an added bonus, but that's not enough. I need more of a break.

Blogging is very hard. Blogging is blogging and the job is a nightmare no matter how nice the weather is, or how burning my yearning is to Go for the Gold.

Sorrow and Gladness

2008-07-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of Bike Portland. And I have a thing for fair and tenacious advocates. And pedaling to get around. Today Jonathan Maus commemorates Tracey Sparling (1988-2007) and the resulting bike box at the location where she died while waiting for a green light.

Suburbanites bad at math, awesome at garages

2008-07-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

Nice headline from the New York Times: Fuel Prices Shift Math for Life in Suburbs. And this little nugget from a person trying to sell her McMansion so she can maybe extricate herself from oppressive mortgage payments and find more modest quarters in the city. The subtext in the article is along the lines of: "Living way the fuck out here with my central air and expansive carpeted floors and automatic garage-door system and new-smelling formaldehyde fragrances sounded pretty neat at the time." As if considering the hours she spends getting in her car, driving, parking, getting out of her car, waiting at the pump, pulling out her credit card, creeping along, waiting, emitting flourocarbons, talking on her cell-phone device, getting lost in the scorched-earth mirages of tailpipes . . . she had this to say: "Now, the suburbs seem mean. I wouldn't do this again." And then she probably walked inside to cool off, opened her pantry for a twelve-pack of waxy chocolate doughnuts, and wondered how long it would take her to drive to the neighborhood gate to get on the nearest arterial and park at the nearest Olive Garden before heading to Costco to get ready for the work week.

Call me Reverend

2008-06-26T13:04:00.000-07:00

I was ordained yesterday by the monastary of The Universal Life Church, and I already have two weddings lined up. No, really. I'm nervous. I need to figure out the types of questions I need to ask the young couples to make sure they're ready and get them all pumped up. Marriage is a big responsibility, of course, which means a lot of things to a lot of people. Anywho, it's my duty to bless and unite forever. So far, I think I'll ask these questions:

"Are you insured for freak-dancing mishaps?"

"Are you serious or are you going to get divorced or what?"

"Where do I plug in my fog machine?"

"Where do you plan to spend holidays?"

"Can I black out these windows?"

"Where do I put my scythe?"

"Have you seen the movie, Rosemary's Baby? What about Kramer vs. Kramer?"

"Do you have an area where you can leave during the ceremony in case, you know, you need to do it?"

"Do you have a space large enough to accommodate a dunking booth?"

"Are you more pro Guns n Roses or pro Led Zeppelin?"

"Are you ready to take it to the next level?"

More potential for Rejection!!

2008-06-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

Hi Ignatius,
... I have read your synopsis and would like to see more. Normally I would order a few chapters, but seeing Very Important Person says your book is well worth looking at I'm going to have you send the complete MS via an email attachment to an email message to me. I'm a little jammed up right now and have a couple of other books to read, but I'll definitely get to your novel as quickly as possible. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to take a look at your work. It definitely sounds interesting.
Best,
Bajooney Bullwhipple

I now carry a cell phone device

2008-06-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

It's an end of an era. I can now text. I have a charger. I can call home while driving and say, "I'm on my way home!"

And no longer do I need to explain to anyone that I'm not very communicado.

I now give me the nine-year evolution of the reactions I've received when forced to explain I don't have a personal hot device.

1999: Solidarity ("Yeah, me neither -- I hate those things!")

2000: Indifference ("Okay, what's your home phone number then?")

2001: Encouragement ("You should get one -- they're coming down in price.")

2002: Confusion ("I thought you, like, worked for a software company.")

2003: Sympathy ("They're getting cheaper. You'll be able to afford one soon.")

2004: Irritation ("How am I supposed to reach you? Never mind. Forget it.")

2005: Scorn ("Is there a particular payphone you like?")

2006: Skepticism* ("You're serious. Really?")

2007: Disbelief ("Wow.")

2008: Incomprehension ("You don't ... how ...?")

[*] Or maybe it was disdain.

I had his name wrong, but stalked anyway

2008-06-16T08:49:00.000-07:00

I recognized this guy after getting off a plane in SFO. I think I caught him off guard. Our conversation went like this:

Me: "Hey, are you . . . are you Steve Guterson?"

Mr. Guterson [looks up from whatever he was reading while sitting on a bench and nods and sort of smiles]: "Yeah. Uh, David."

Me: "Oh, of course. David. Well. I've read two of your books and I understand you have a new one out . . ." [Something like that.]

Mr. Guterson: [Kind of nods, smiles again.]

Me: "You're amazing at what you do ... I didn't mean to intrude. I'll just let you . . . I'll mind my own business now . . ."

And that was that. I want to believe my ability to recognize him was so shockingly unexpected that he simply didn't know what to say. I probably intimidated the hell out of the world-class author, which is understandable. I'm very intimidating by nature. (I am deceivingly strikingly handsome and well dressed and my muscular arms are covered in black tattoo art gone awry.) But what did I learn about my moment of unexpected stalkerazzi? I learned he was more nerdy and brainy-sounding than I expected. And that I'll never mistake him for a Steve.

Mid-year Resolution

2008-06-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

Top 25 Things I'm Going to Try to Keep an Open Mind About, but will Probably Fail.

Show you the money
Wake up and smell the coffee
Want a piece of you
Sit on it
Keep it real
Wang Chung tonight
Get all up in your grill
Think outside the box
Be there (and/or be square)
Talk to the hand
Take it up a notch
Kiss your grits
Get jiggy wid it
Catch you on the flipside
Open up a can of whoop-ass
Gag you with a spoon
Go girl
Keep on truckin'
Get with the program
Eat your shorts
Take it easy
Give mad props
Bring it (on)
Man up
Touch base
Quiero Taco Bell (I have no idea what this means)
Not go there

Yeah, some are less annoying than others. Some are just plain retro-cool. My personal favorite that I will never stop using is Get with the Program. It's really best when I yell it really loud. I will never stop trying to get with the program or asking others to do the same. It's in my nature. In fact, today I've decided I am going to ask people to get with the program every time I greet someone new. For instance:

Gas station attendant: "May I help you, sir?"

Me: "GET WITH THE PROGRAM!"

I kept an open mind, I really truly did

2008-06-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

A novel called The Shack by William P. Young was highly recommended to me by three people, one of whom I admire a lot. Actually, a fourth person said it was "gripping." And you know what? It's far worse than I quietly suspected. The first 150 pages have all the nuance and artistic soul of a Thomas Kinkade painting. It reads as if written by a committee of technical writers.

My theory, actually, is that it was originally meant for fifth and sixth graders, but the people promoting its online sales have shrugged and realized there're adult Christians who will buy uninteresting and uninspired fiction about the lord.

It's fewer than 300 pages, and yet I'm still only two-thirds from getting through it. My mind wanders a bit. The upshot is that it's one long After School Special episode of "Touched by an Angel," where Della Reese is God, and the main protag named Mack grows increasingly stupid. It's just plain weird. I don't want to hurt any Christian people's feelings, but come on. I'm trying to be kind here. It's a stupid novel. Here's some of its poetry:

"A knock at the door startled Mack from his concentration, and he could see that it was Willie. Their conversation must have been sufficiently perplexing to warrant an early visit. Mack was just relieved that Nan had already left."

No wonder the writer(s) couldn't find a publisher. Of course, it's now taking the "Christian community" -- whatever that means -- by storm. Bloggers are now bickering about its theology, which is even more bizarre. I'm having a hard enough time getting past the lack of tension, contrived conflict, stilted language, POV lapses, and uneven prose ... in sum, I've become completely detached and uninterested in comparing my personal beliefs with someone else's.

Election Day in Oregon

2008-05-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

Can you see me? I'm over toward the left side of the picture there. Look near the blue smudge by the white and fleshy and reddish hues about 23 pixels to the right of the guy wearing the Novick "Vote for the Hook" t-shirt. I'm right between that bald guy and the lady wearing the tube top. See me? That's me!!!

Another Agent Extraordinairess. Maybe.

2008-05-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

Is this the one?

Dear Ignatius,
Blah blah blah and thanks for getting in touch with me about your novel, which sounds interesting. Please email me the first 100 pages.
I look forward to reading and being in touch.
Best wishes,
Lady Elizabeth

Who knows. She's probably just being nice. I might respond. Might not. Whatever. If I wait long enough, maybe she'll email me back -- "Hey, Whaddup? I never heard from you and was a-wonderin' ..." That would be pretty cool. Then I'd know for sure if she really thought I had something that really interested her. I think that's my new plan. My new modus operandi: hard to get. As an unproven writer who wants to get his Great American Work of Fiction published, I can probably improve in the area of sitting back and letting the world come to me. Damn. I wish I thought of that before.

Agentress III: Rejected!!!

2008-05-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

Here's the reply after being asked for the first three chapters. Yes, dreams were dashed once again:

"There's something really lovely about your writing -- clear, simple, sweet. I liked the concept of your story, and your background is intriguing, especially your work for The Oregonian. (I'm actually from Eugene.) I wanted to make this work and yet . . ."

And it goes downhill for the next five hundred words. Oh well.

Another New Agentress

2008-05-05T16:21:00.000-07:00

I gotz my favorite kind of mail today.

Dear Ignatius,
Thank you for your query. I was intrigued by your book description and would like to request the first three chapters of the manuscript. You can send them in a Word attachment via return e-mail, or by post at the address below. Thanks again for thinking of me. I look forward to reading your work.
Best,
Angelique Ackerbenstein
Angel Agent Associates, Inc.
983 Seventh Avenue, Suite 465
New York, NY 10123

Heeere kitty, kitty, kitty

2008-05-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

How to start sprawl!

2008-04-24T16:48:00.001-07:00

This lamp post reminds me of this quote right here from Alex Marshal:

"A city's internal transportation system -- the layout of its streets and roads, the layout of streetcar systems and subways -- determines the character of the city, how its citizens live and work.
Build subways and people will live in dense neighborhoods and walk to corner stores; build broad suburban streets and they will live in subdivisions and drive to Wal-Mart."

Sprawl is an awesome example of market failure and its negative impact on a community's quality of life and environmental sustainability. But don’t try telling that to the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal or anyone who worships the God of the Free Market.

Presenting The Next Governor of New York

2008-04-15T08:41:00.000-07:00

Here's Hillary last weekend hanging in western Pennsylvania, getting her drink on with "bitter working-class voters." I like how she's holding the shot glass. Her lips are full of anticipation and regret. It's a look of being thrust into the moment. Like, "Oh fuck, what kind of rot-gut is in this shot glass? Damn working-class voters! Can't even serve a fine elite Scotch. This is gonna be some nasty shit. Where's some sniper fire when you need it?"

Aiming for a Random Post

2008-04-04T15:00:00.000-07:00

This post is about yoking three elements: adrenalin- and caffeine-addled respect, a gunslinger's approach to make-believe, and highly attuned bullshit. I have no idea what that means, but I've been crummy about consistent blobbing. I owed me one. There I have it. Done. Boom. Over and out.

Eff'd up economical situation

2008-03-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

In case you've been too busy mulling over what to do with all your money, Alan Greenspan wrote this: "The current financial crisis is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of the second world war."

I don't mean to sound all alarmist and depressing, but that gets five out of five yikesies.

Besides making me want to eat lots of doughnuts, the article talks lots and lots about bad mortgages and financial market this and that and blah blah blah, but you know what? It missed something that seemed obviously very missing. No, not the closing of Mervyn's or stupid British spelling or America's Next Top Model. Nope. It's that Alan Greenspan -- for whatever reason -- forgot to mention anything about uncontrolled deficit spending and the $2 trillion of unfunded war debt. I'm no economist, but it seems to me that there's been plenty of debtor-nation irresponsibility during these last seven years to ef-up any ol' first-world nation's economy.

Dear John

2008-02-28T15:42:00.000-08:00

Ever want to know what it feels like to be kicked to the curb? I don't really know what it feels like, but this is what it reads like. This appeared in my inbox on Friday, Feb. 22, 2008. If you're into this kind of thing, make a note of it.

Hi Most Awesome Writer,
I am still awaiting a response from Bojambi Junebug of William Morrow/HarperCollins. I can't harrass her but I've tried...and it's not forthcoming.

In the meantime, I've had to reconsider where my efforts are getting the most traction -- and that is the writer/director side. Therefore, I have decided to shift my focus to screenwriters and away from novelists which means, unfortunately, I will not be able to continue representing you. It's not a question of quality, it's just a decision based on pure economics. I have to focus where economics dictate, even moreso because we are a start-up, and right now that is not on the novelist side. I am only keeping two novelists whose books have strong film potential but have put a freeze otherwise.

I'm sorry my news isn't better. You're a great guy and writer, and I'm sure you will get your writing properly noticed!

Best,
The Agentress

And that's how that works.

Summer Lovin' & Circuit City

2008-01-25T07:37:00.000-08:00

I'm ready for summer! Can't wait to invite my buddies over so we can party in an inflatable pool with my hi-fi and blender nearby.

Hard at Work

2008-01-24T16:14:00.000-08:00

Here I am working on my new novel. So far, it's called "Loomis Rides the Bus." It's going to be awesome. Nineteen-year-old Loomis lives with his beloved grandmother who dies at the beginning ... a well crafted epic on finding your way, friendships, love, MySpace, Portland history, and a mall shooting. As you can tell, it's going to require tons of concentration and hard work.

Dying from Greenery

2008-01-15T16:44:00.000-08:00

At least I don't have scurvy. I have all my teeth. It’s my leg that’s bothering me. It’s been itching for two weeks straight, twenty-four-seven.

I have a full blown case of poison oaky. It’s now in a state of protruding red bumps and nerve endings screaming for a skin transplant. At times, it feels as if my leg hairs are bleeding, but come to find out, it's not blood. It's just yellow leakage from lesions that are apparently storing a large supply of poisonous sap.

You know what? It itches like hell. You're probably wondering how I contracted it. Let's just say I was doing some neighborly-community-service chores without a jumpsuit and was probably a little more adventuresome than I needed to be. It was New Year's Day. Evidently, I was rolling around in a ditch while my Linnton Portland neighbors removed one-hundred-year-old ivy from a one-hundred-year-old cement wall.

I don't know what to say other than poison oaky is some nasty shit. First of all, by the time you know something is up inside your skin, it's too late. You don't realize you're dying until after you've been unbeknowingly scratching yourself like crazy while watching TV or eating popcorn or whatever. It's sneaky as hell. I wouldn't trust it ever. I tell you what: it's crazy shit.

From what I gather, I just need to let the red pustules run their course and let this botanical disease continue to course through my veins until I arrange for a transfusion or until my leg turns black and falls off.

The Matriarch thinks I might have something more sinister which might require amputation. Personally, I was thinking about finding an ebola specialist. I don't know. I don't want to be a baby. I suppose I can wait until I start losing more muscle mass. Not sure, but I do know I'm a survivor and I plan to keep it that way.

Weddings and Me as a Cake

2008-01-09T12:31:00.000-08:00

I have friends. But you know what's exciting about that? It's like this: my two friends are getting all married to each other. They're foodies. And therefore it only makes sense that I let them know about the "Self Cake." Or "My Size Cake." Or "I'm So Excited About My Special Day that I Want Everyone to Eat a Likeness of Me" Cake. Or "Oprah Cake." Anywho, I'm thinking of commissioning a wedding cake like the one in the picture, only it would look more like me and less like an African American woman with a large bosom. So, why a Me Cake of Me and not the bride? Simple. Because I'm awesome. There's that, but also there's the little fact that my dear friends have announced to me that I'm their official chosen minister of vow administration responsible for closing the deal. And as the responsible party in the center of this beautiful storm, I'm going to propose that we all arrange for a Me Cake sitting in the back of some awesome bakery with human size ovens. Yep. It's the perfect touch. The cake would look just like me, head to toe. It would be awesome. Me as a cake! It really doesn't get any better than that. I would taste fantastic. My spleen would be particularly scrumptious, with my esophagus a close second.

No bidding war this holiday season

2007-12-21T13:08:00.000-08:00

Heard from my Agentress this morning. All the news goes through her. She's my filter. She softens the blows. She's my airbag protection. In a nutshell: two of the five big-city editors have "passed," which is a kind word for, "kicked me to the curb." Both big-city editors wrote something along the lines of "Dan is awesome." Actually, they didn't. They don't think All in a Cup is awesome. That's kind of my problem. They need to think it's awesome.

One wrote, "While I liked the characters and thought the writing was good, I'm sorry to say that I just couldn't figure out a way to help the novel stand out on such a crowded shelf." My writing is "good." WTF?

Good?

Damn. Cookies are good. Broccoli is good for you. A four-cylinder manual transmission gets good gas mileage.

Then there was this last little jab: "I wish I could be more enthusiastic -- though I'm sure you have savvier editors on the trail here." Yeah, whatever.

So, how did I reply to The Agentress? I was a man of self-control, pith and class. I wrote, "Dangit. Merry Christmas."

The Heiress turns 17

2007-12-12T07:55:00.000-08:00

Holy schmokes. The Heiress is nearer to fully certificated adulthood. The Matriarch brought home an awesome ice cream cake last night and all two of us sang Happy Birthday to our dear slightly embarrassed Heiress. Then -- with all the aloofness of a supermodel -- she blew out the candles and asked if we got her a Range Rover. She's a true heiress!!

It's a spectacular time for a posty

2007-12-07T08:24:00.000-08:00

Showed up for work this morn with a big swath of toothpaste smeared on the side of my nose. Hmm. Must've been in a rush while brushing my nose. No one said anything. I got a few odd looks at Fred Meyer this morning, but that's about it. Pretty awesome. No complaints. No injuries to report.

We had a wild mix of wind and rain over the weekend. I feel sorry for all those people who lost everything to the wet watery downpouring torrential rain and gunky mud and foul smells. Damn flood plain and Mother Earth. My heart pours out to them, but it doesn't pour any more rain, no way.

Heard from the Agentress on Monday. I think she's probably close to the best agent in all the land. Here's a quick run down of what's going down with All in a Cup:

(The fiction editor names are fictal so I don't jinx myself or get anyone uptight or in trouble with the law or anything.)

Dec. 3
Blondy Scarparinzi at St. Martin's
Sally O'Malley at Random House (Shaye Areheart Books Division)

Nov. 27
Malachi Bramheemini at William Morrow/HarperCollins

Nov. 26
Clarice Bucknelloopopo at Bantam Dell

Nov. 5
Tigerlily Zoology at William Morrow/HarperCollins

What does all this mean? All this means is that my Agentress is well connected and knows how to shake her booty. I don't know what this means, exactly, other than my Agentress is able to tell all these big-city fiction editors that she believes All in a Cup is the next Grapes of Wrath or some such. I'd say this is spectacular for now. If someone told me my Agentress is the best ever, I'm not sure I could counter with a less original opinion.

I started a new "project" during the second week of November. Title so far is "Loomis Rides the Bus" but it also might be "My Friend Gray," but who the hell knows? I hope it's going to be a spectacular work of art. Possibly the next For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2007-11-29T13:46:00.000-08:00

Trying to be articulate

2007-11-14T15:15:00.001-08:00

Q What interests you about fiction to pursue it at the level that you're pursuing it?
Is that a trick question?

Q You know what I'm saying.
There's mystery in its process. It's expression in a very pure form. A way to make sense of what I see.

Q For example?
For example, most of us don't move very far up or down from where we start. I don't know if it's an obsession, but I notice there's a strong myth that says the opposite. It's interesting to me.

Q Do you consider yourself an orderly, organized writer?
So far my process is the opposite of organized. Aside from work, I tend to like order in almost every other aspect of my life. For me, the process of writing is really chaotic and indulgent and selfish. The actual space where I write tends to be messy. Sometimes, writing feels a bit like I’m letting go of everything that's actually more important. Finishing my novel was like being on an all-night bender and then thinking, “What the...? What did I just do?” and pouring myself another drink.

Q What are your impetuses for your writing?
Impetuses? I like saying impetuses. Impetuses for writing, for me, are simply strange things I happen to notice in everyday life, stuff I read about, stuff my wife says -- situations that strike me as compelling, anecdotes I’d heard, images, words, songs. You know. There's nothing special about my impetuses.

Q Where did you learn your craft?
In the third grade. Trial and error. I was never very good at writing short stories and figured I could just skip 'em and try a novel, which I did. My first novel didn't know whether it wanted to be a coming of age memoir, action adventure or mystery. The real writing leap happened after I started figuring out how to read my own work in order to make it better. Obviously, it's a continuum. I have tons to learn. On the other hand, instinct is important and going with my gut. For All in a Cup, I had a basic premise: two characters who read each other all wrong. For scenes, I have some basic ideas -- a character they can learn from, or an image, or a situation that sounds interesting -- and then I feel my way around until I find the edges. I've heard writers say it's like going into a dark room... you stumble around until you find the walls and then inch your way to the light switch. With a novel, it’s more like you’re inside a dark cavernous, vacant old lumber mill, like the one down the hill from where I live.

Q Does music play a role in your writing?
Great question to ask someone who's musically illiterate. I tend to listen to sad, melancholy music, or what some people might call suicide music, like Mazzy Star, Liz Durrett, Camera Obscura, Eddie Vedder, Laura Veirs, Yo La Tengo, Julie Doiron, Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Finches. I'm also a sucker for sitar and harmonica and organ. It's odd I know, but I find it very inspiring, calming, poignant, beautiful. It slows time for me. It probably has some effect on the tone of my writing. I'm fascinated and intimidated by song writing, which is essentially poetry with instruments, beat and a good voice. The art and creation of it is inspiring to think about.

Q Do you consider yourself a fast or slow writer?
I write in slow motion. It's always the same struggle to get a good paragraph down on a page, and deal with the same self-doubts and hair pulling over and over. What's worse is when I read good fiction and say to myself, "What the hell am I doing? I can't touch this." It happens all the time to me. I often feel like I'm riding a trike while others are whizzing past on a motorcycle.

Q What's the hardest part about writing a novel?
All of it. Being smart enough to create people from words and experiences. And chronology and having conflict in the right spots. While in the thick of it, creating a web of characters and a plausible compelling series of scenes, my timing can slip, my structure gets disjointed. Meantime, I might get sidetracked by an emotion that I don't know how to articulate. It's hard to even get a character moving from Point A to Point B with verbs that are new and interesting while keeping some sort of tension. And then there are the transitions. There's not a lot of luck in writing a long body of work. Maybe that's why I like it so much. You can't cheat.

Q What were you like in college?
Same as I am now: a by-stander more or less. I remember reading the same socialist and Marxist pamphlets as everyone else during the Reagan era. I wasn't the type to go to Nicaragua to help out the Sandinistas, but I was definitely cheering them on, telling them good job, go for it, you rock. I was drinking beer and saying: "I know these injustices keep coming up, but -- hey -- my dad has season tickets to the Seahawks."

Q Who are the great American writers of your generation?
The ones my age that come to mind are Jonathan Lethem, Joanna Hershon and Jonathan Franzen. I suppose. But Ursela Hegi, Don DeLillo, Oscar Hijeulos, curmudgeon Philip Roth are all masters of our time. At least those are the first ones that come to mind. There's a lot of good authors. And there's a bazillion writers with far greater chops than me.

Q Just when you think the story is about to make some sort of statement, it takes a turn or backs off. Is that intentional?
I have a fear of being preachy or didactic. Even though there are so many things wrong in the world, I knew I needed to explore relationships and delve into what motivates us, what complicates us, what crushes and saves us. It means more. Certainly, there are scenes in CUP that are important to me, but I didn't write it in order to straighten out some sort of morality. Writing is not so much cathartic as it is creative.

Q There’s subtext about class in the story, or at least subtleties about what people typically do with their money.
I can't be the only one who walks around downtown and sees the gulf between people who look like they’ll never have to worry about money and people who look like they’re barely getting by. If you don't see it, you're either ignoring it or you're not really getting out much. I don’t know if I succeeded, but I wanted to put those observations into full view. Those aspects about class will always be part of my fiction.

Q You set up the story with a simple fender-bender, where most people would go their own way, end of story. In this case, Tim and Sarah seem to dig their heels in, letting their distrust get in the way.
I isolated the bigotry to cars and clothes, I suppose. People react in funny ways under stress. Add threats to finances and personal property, and you have potential for everyday people doing weird things. I’ve always been fascinated by how quickly people make judgments based on appearances. My challenge for ALL IN A CUP was to get two people who wouldn’t like each other at the beginning, but stay connected throughout the story. In the end, I found that the threads of civility are what kept them tethered; they both had it without understanding it. Sometimes civility is all we have, and we wonder if that’s enough.

Q Sarah isn’t really a model personality for good behavior, is she?
My early drafts had Sarah far less likable than how she ended up. I wasn’t being fair. My biases got in the way. She reminded me that even the pretty ones who look like they have everything figured out aren’t immune from having to face and overcome horrible issues. Sarah’s cancer hits her through no fault of her own. It’s a genuinely sad situation.

Q Have you ever met anyone like Tim?
No, but we’d be great friends if I had, despite his analytical and morose nature. He has this incredible pool of wealth that gives him a lot of freedom to ask what-ifs and live out all kinds of choices, which turn out to be non-choices. Somehow, he’s encumbered even though he’s trying so desperately not to be. He’s got guilt, grief, demons and so on. It’s the baggage that matters, not the wealth. Tim’s very easy to like because he chooses to emulate a life without any creature comforts. And he’s the perfect balance for Sarah, whether she realizes it or not. Everywhere you look, the world is filled with examples of balance or forces that even each other out, and here Tim and Sarah do the same for each other.

Q What's a good writer quote you can give me?
Henry James ... what he said on his deathbed: "Ah, here it comes, the big thing." I think it's funny. And Jonathan Lethem said, "It seems to me John Quincy Adams gives you everything John Adams gives you with a little something extra in the way of Quincy."

I didn't get my Role Model's name

2007-11-08T07:16:00.000-08:00

This story will test my storytelling powers. This happened while three of us early-morning one-stop shoppers stood in front of Stadium Fred Meyer, waiting for the store to get its day on. I had just dropped off The Heiress at school and leaned against a post in front of the main door, minding my own business and somehow gave off a sign indicating I was open for a chat. The sign on me must've very clear: "Go ahead, talk to me because I'm always ready to engage in stranger-to-stranger chatter. We can talk about weather, sports, snow, ballot measures, TriMet, puppies, why no one would steal the stacks of newspapers next to the door, you name it." I was a chat magnet, for sure. A locus. We were having a fun time.

Actually, the first thing you need to know is that today is Thursday. The daylight savings adjustment occurred between Saturday and Sunday -- in the middle of the night -- like four days ago. The time machines of our lives have been clicking along steadily, unchanged, for ... let's see, at least the last one hundred hours. The sun has risen and set for three days, not including today.

So where were we? The three of us were waiting in front of the store chattin' it up when my Role Model -- a young man in his twenties and appearing likable and pleasant -- walked past us to the front glass sliding doors as if they would immediately part to let him through. Nothing. Not open yet, of course. He appeared shocked that the doors didn't open, looked only mildly embarrassed.

Role Model (to me, of course): "Not open?"

Me: "Not yet." (I said it like I was an expert.)

Role Model: "What time is it -- 7:45?"

Guy from Minnesota: "It's seven."

Role Model: [nods] "Is it daylight savings?"

Me: [politely] "Yeah. Last weekend it switched. Today's Thursday."

Guy from Minnesota looks at me with a mix of disbelief and understanding.

The Big Question on my mind -- and probably on the Guy from Minnesota's as well -- was this: What has Role Model been doing for four days, while the rest of the world was approximately 45 minutes behind him?

Agentress Act I: HarperCollins

2007-11-05T14:41:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought my Agentress was only interested in setting up her new awesomely hip-happening office, she emails to let me know that she's about to send my manuscript to an editor (I will call Juniper Wooley) at William Morrow/HarperCollins. For all of you who aren't "in the know," William Morrow is the imprint. HarperCollins is the publisher. Like Pontiac is to General Motors. I think that's how it works. What do I know? Hell, I don't know. WtF? In any case, this is a big effing deal. A milestone, if you will. From now on (this day forward), I can say "yeah, an editor named Juniper Wooley at William Morrow HarperCollins had a look" ... hopefully, she'll end up really loving my Great American Work of Fiction, of course, but even if she "passes," I can take pride in knowing that the gang over at William Morrow HarperCollins had a looksee. I can say it without lying -- assuming I remember Juniper Wooley's real name. That'll be cool. I can't wait to go to the next cocktail party telling everyone all about it. I'm ready. I'm pretty psyched, actually. I'm going to have to practice my story, though. I don't want to sound too bragadocious or excited or full of myself. That would suck. That would backfire. I have to tell the story about my amazing accomplishment nonchalantly, like it's no big deal, when in fact it's a pretty fricking amazing achievement, if you ask me. It's going to be hard -- a balancing act for sure -- but I'm totally up to the challenge of talking about myself. I can do it.

Nearly unbelievable Halloween News!

2007-10-31T19:21:00.000-07:00

I have some awesome news. I got home to an empty house, which really isn't a house at all, but it's home. Anyway, guess what? I started flipping switches to light up the place and get all homey and then emptied the bathroom waste basket ... and you know what? You'll never guess. The back porch lights were on! Fricken Frucken Fracken A!! Our back porch lights were on!! Both of them! I kid you not. I'm as baffled as you are. I've never seen our back porch lights actually ON. It was magic. Or it was at least magical. It made my night. I wouldn't be telling me about it if it didn't matter. Trust me. It matters because it was as if a Halloween angel walked into our back patio area or something. I was moved.

So, what am I doing this Hallow's Eve eating broccoli and posting a blob? I'm sitting here telling me about my back porch lights, that's what!! It's awesome. The Heiress is out with the car probably scaring everyone. It's Halloween, after all. I hope her costume is appropriate. I'm actually kind of hoping she's five again and dressed as Snow White, with the high collar and everything, fully costumed. She's probably not. She's probably dressed as a Bond Girl. Oh well. I'm a crappy dad. All I seem to care about is our back porch lights. Meantime, The Matriarch is in Bend, probably not thinking about our porch lights. I can't wait to surprise her. I can't wait to turn them on for her. It's gonna be awesome. You wait.

No burnt bridges. Phew.

2007-10-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

Re-cap. I queried Agent #1 by email. She writes back asking to submit a partial by mail. She reads, emails and requests the full manuscript. Her attached letter indicates she expects an "exclusive." I mail it off. Meantime, my future Agentress emails after reading my query and says "email your full manuscript as an attachment." Why wouldn't I? That was Friday.

My future Agentress then emails me Sunday around midnight. Her email: "I loved it. I'd love to talk to you about it."

I sign with Agentress later in the week. Meanwhile, I kind of conveniently forget about Agent #1, thinking the easy thing to do is to let it play out. Monday (today) comes and I decide that's probably not cool. I mention to Agentress. She agrees. I'd signed a contract, after all. In any case, I apologize profusely about the turn of events to Agent #1 this morning and I recieved two replies. The first was all pith; she wanted to know the name of my agent. The second included some tough talk, but some nice words too:

...You were actually one of the writers we were considering making a part of our own agency. But I’m glad you told us when you did -- before any further time and work elapsed. This may seem somewhat ungracious on my part, but, as I say, we do expect more honesty on the part of the writers who submit to us. We put a lot of ourselves into our reviews, and all of us participate.

This said, I’m sure your agency will work with professionalism and grace, and that they will sell you very well, and with the enthusiasm we would surely have shown. As I just said: you are a wonderful writer.

Best wishes,
Agent #1

Don't take this the wrong way, self, but if you never get published, at least you know you're a wonderful writer. That's not bad. Be psyched. I am.

I've Signed with My Agentress

2007-10-24T21:28:00.000-07:00

As of yesterday, I'm on board! Pretty awesome. I've been welcomed. I'm feeling showered with most excellent faith and praise and goodness. I plan to celebrate by eating doughnuts. Thank you and good night.

Agent Action

2007-10-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

No contract in hand, but supposedly it's coming. Yesssiree. It all came down yesterday at around the noon hour. I won't bore myself with too many specifics. Let me go right to the best part -- and there's no other way to put this: not a lot of experiences come close to having someone who seems to know a lot about the book business gush over your work. Damn. I might've heard my Future Agentress all wrong, but I swear she said some of the following friendly phrases during our first phone conversation in the history of our relationship.

"My legs were like cramping because I was so excited to get through it."

"I almost emailed you midway through, but decided against it because I've been burned before."

"It's seamless, it flows together really, really well."

"You ruined my weekend because I couldn't put it down."

"You have a very understated, unique voice."

"It's the kind of writing that helps you forget about the writer."

Holy cow. I tried to be calm while I talked about the bagel I was eating. That's right. I was talking about my bagel. She was like, "Is there a better time?"

Then I wondered -- asked myself, actually -- if all agents read from a list of gushing praise.

I also remember asking where my fiction fits and I suggested maybe it was like maybe ... "chick lit or something"?

"No," she said. "It's literary."

It's the greatest feeling to have someone notice the things you strive so hard to accomplish.

Armistead Maupin of Portland?

2007-10-17T11:06:00.000-07:00

I just heard from an agent who wants to see my manuscript. Kinda good news, but I've heard it before. We'll see. After taking a look at the first 50 pages, she compared me to Armistead Maupin, the San Francisco fiction writer with a successful series on depicting how people's lives and careers cross and connect (Tales in the City). Or maybe the agent seems to think I'm gay. Oh well.

I'd like to believe I can have my own novel series. At this rate, I can publish one book every 20 years. I'll be the Armistead Maupin for Portland, but with fewer books. Maybe this will be awesome. I don't know.

Google's new stalker technology

2007-10-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

I report to you that Google Streets Maps' cameras scoured LINNTON of all places yet decided Beaverton, Tigard and Vanloser could wait. That's your fun fact of the day.

Me and Ernest

2007-10-10T16:29:00.000-07:00

Hemingway wrote the last paragraph of The Sun Also Rises 28 times before he felt he got it right.

Hemingway, pfssh. Well, I wrote and rewrote the last paragraph of All in a Cup 280 times over a period of at least forty years. So there.

Hemingway also is said to have found it ridiculous that people would think writers were born with some sort of innate ability to string together eloquent prose to form powerful stories about humanity. That's weird because I find it really EASY.

i finished the damned thing

2007-10-08T13:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Ms. Agent,
I'm seeking an agent. My completed novel, All in a Cup (76,000 words), is the story about two people on different life trajectories who end up needing each other. Set in Portland, Ore., the mainstream fiction revolves around Tim and Sarah, a pair of thirtysomethings: an afternoon fender-bender sets off a clash of lifestyles that leads to self-discovery, common ground, and love.

Tim is arriving from Seattle in an old K-car and looking as if he'd just rolled out of bed. Sarah is the well-pressed pharma-rep scrambling to cover compounding debt. All in a Cup depicts how lives, careers and classes cross and connect. Sarah faces the ravages of ovarian cancer, while Tim works through the guilt and grief from the loss of his wife and nine-year-old daughter. Tim is looking back, Sarah is looking to the future.

The story's day-in-the-life arc aspires to reach readers who treasure the subtleties of Anne Tyler, Pete Hamill and Anna Quindlen, but also enjoy the pace of Nicholas Sparks.

My professional background includes nearly 20 years of writing, editing, and managing ad copy, Web content, annual reports. I've also published more than 20 narrative features and opinion essays for The Oregonian.

I'd like the opportunity to submit my manuscript or at least an opening chunk. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

My new tatts

2007-09-19T16:09:00.000-07:00

Here's what I have done. I have made a bold lifestyle choice, but what I see as the only choice for me. Have you ever dared to dream? I have. In my case, I've decided to have the words "Mr. Cool Ice" written as many times on my torso as I can, accompanied by a coyly posed skeleton wearing sunglasses. That's exactly what I told the tattoo artist: "Make him like totally coy yet happily in the moment!!" I hope he doesn't look too prissy, because he's not supposed to be. As long as Mr. Cool Ice isn't mistaken for Sally Field or something, I'm okay.

You probably want to wear mittens or gloves when you touch Mr. Cool Ice because otherwise you just might get frostbite. Actually, that's just some Mr. Cool Ice humor. In all seriousness, my skin temperature varies only slightly, depending on the surrounding temperature.

Believe it or not, Mr. Cool Ice was not my first choice. Some other names I considered, but ultimately rejected for not being "cool ice" enough: Mr. Cool, Mr. Ice, Dr. Cool Ice, Mr. Cold Temperature, Mr. Frigid Coy Skeleton.

My Foodie Review: Bean & Cheese Burrito

2007-09-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

Not sure if you knew this, but I'm a foodie. I love food and I'm really good at eating it. For today, I'm going to tell you all about the 89-cent burrito I bought from the refridgerator at my neighborhood Texaco Gas-n-Food Mart. I purchased it this morning and ate it just now. In fact, I'm getting beans out from between my teeth and seeing that I'm currently getting bean crusties in my keyboard. Dang. Just a sec. Oh well. About my burrito. It was functional as far as swallowing goes. Not sure where the cheese was, but hey, who am I to say? I'm not a cheese expert. It tasted okay in a floury, salty, beany kind of way. I don't know how many bites it took, but it went down okay. It came in a plastic wrapper. I can't remember the name of the company that created it, but I think "Las Campanas" and "microwavable" was in the name, which means it was an authentic microwavable burrito. Thank you.

My most awesome bicycle tip(s)

2007-08-29T07:59:00.001-07:00

Man, I was like quick feet this morning. Actually, I might've been like Lance Armstrong, but without all the fame, endorsement deals, spandex, muscles, record-breaking feats, doping controversy, international envy, cancer, and super-human qualities. Anyway, you know what my trick is? Inflated tires. Fully inflated tires are like incredible. My tip of the day is to pump up your tires until they're firm. I'm no phsycisccssisct, but I tell you what. Pedaling is easier when your tires aren't so soft. Try it. Trust me.

Tip #2: Ride after your hemmoroids are fully healed. It's a little-known tip that works!

My Life at Greenbrier Parkway 97006

2007-08-20T08:59:00.000-07:00

This ode to Working for The Man appeared in the The Sunday Oregonian on July 25, 2004, but who cares about all that. This, my friend, is a love letter to all the people weeping in silence about how they ended up walled in by acousterized upholstered dividers now asking if the world would one day run out of PowerPoint.

I don't ask for much, but I want my life at Greenbrier Parkway to be worth something and so -- thanks to a "going away kegger" a few nights ago -- I am following through with a request to find a url or pdf to resurrect the lore of the Summer of '04.

Working for a large company wasn't what I thought it would be. The lore of opportunity — quarterly bonuses, affordable insurance, mentors and nice chairs — seemed to have been lost under the haze of textured acoustic ceiling tiles.

After three years of trying my best to act professional and pretending to appreciate a good reengineering when I saw one, I left for a family-owned business where my first companywide meeting was listening to a raised voice across the room. The president wanted to know whose upside down chimichanga landed in his tuna salad.

By the time I realized my stock options were not going to make me rich, my already big-company employer got six times bigger overnight. It was acquired by an entity owned by an international power located somewhere across the Atlantic.

Whatever the company gained in size, it lost in personality.

After the purchase and a period of transition that will always continue to transition, the local company culture — the DNA behind decision making, communication, reward and recognition, and what people say during happy hour — was altered just enough to make me wonder if I could keep ignoring the mumbling in my brain.

Efforts to blend company cultures were mostly communicated by monthly e-mails supposedly written by a president and CEO I'll call "Bert," who worked 1,000 miles away. Bert wrote about how great it was to be part of a $1 billion technology company.

He thanked and congratulated us. He assured us our contributions were adding up. No matter how meticulously crafted Bert's passages appeared, they never delivered the brevity I was looking for: "OK look, shareholders own me. No layoffs for now. Can't say more than that."

Without getting into the details of what I think about public companies' end-around approach to creating long-term value, Bert’s attempts at keeping us in-the-know magnified the disconnect between what was happening in the board room and what was going on inside the head of a marketing analyst clicking between a project Gantt chart and monster.com.

I was patient. For a while, I took comfort in knowing I wasn't a number. I was a semi-colon. I was a piece of punctuation few people knew how to use.

My post-acquisition role reminded me of a friend who answered phones while temping for a Spanish-language newspaper years ago. He'd answer, "Welcome to Mundo Hispánico, how may I direct your call?"

For three days, he'd listen to Spanish on the other end, and respond "no hablo Español." Just like me, he was apologetic, tried to help, and wondered what it would be like to be paid in pesos.

I was given a role I had little interest in or knack for.

There were times when the company's new ways of doing things were so tenuous and inefficient, I felt like I was wasting everyone's time, including mine. The restructuring also led to a project-approval process modeled after a Pandora's box. I was told to own projects and rely on departments in three different time zones without any authority to tell anyone what to do.

My days had become all e-mail, planning and scheduling, talking on the phone, making up acronyms and sitting in meetings. It got to a point where I'd enter conference rooms telling myself, "If you can't listen to what they're saying, at least concentrate on how they're saying it."

With thousands of mergers and acquisitions around the world every year — a roughly $2 trillion trade in 2000 — I would expect the success rate to be better than 40 percent. It's not. According to a 2002 Business Week report, acquirers lose value in 61 percent of all mergers. A study by international accounting giant KPMG puts the failure rate as high as 83 percent.

Looking at an acquisition from the outside in, it appears the initial due diligence and legal and fiduciary smack down relies on too many people with the same taste in clothes: investment bankers, lawyers and accountants. I know exactly what you're thinking. Why leave it up to people who are least able to empathize with the human condition? I don't know why.

"Companies need to have a sense of humor," says Cindy Rockwell, the first human resources expert I found who didn't wince when I mentioned I'd been "working for The Man." She runs Lusix, a Portland-based consulting firm for tech companies needing advice on anything employee-related — including the province of bringing cultures together. Not once did she use the words "human capital."

"The reality is that no two deals are alike," Rockwell explained. "The direction to take is as unique as the people involved. I know this sounds simple, but a smooth transition boils down to keeping people informed."

Whether or not my former employer's effort to communicate the transition and lift spirits was strategic or spontaneous, its execution fell short. The company's first move was to let all 3,174 employees know we would be called associates.

A few months later, we were asked to pick up a "company-logo transistor radio headset in Shipping." By spring, we had a "name the intranet" contest, which predictably ended with something so predictable and memorable I decided I didn't need to remember it.

The message is clear. While the possibilities for ideas are endless, the ability to pick good ones gets mired in the lowest corporate denominator.

If this is a big-company problem, maybe the first step is for shareholders to acknowledge the backflow caused by hosing down the same company culture that created the innovations and sales channels they sought in the first place. A megalith without a heart and soul is fine for employees who revel in spreadsheets and whiteboards, but what about the rest of us who yearn for a life without lanyards and security badges?

"You could be in a large company and always feel connected," Rockwell reminds me. "How the company is structured makes a huge difference. When you get down to a couple dozen people, all you need are a few ground rules. Generally speaking, small groups tend to find good answers on their own."

It's common sense, of course. One of the intangibles for staying as long as I did was the people I worked with every day, including my boss. I have fond memories of him looking over my shoulder watching me leverage my deliverables. Even now I realize how much it takes for a manager not to gloat when 350 percent of my schedule was booked until March 2006. He excelled at not gloating.

Yet there was always someone above someone else who decided what I should be doing, how much I'd get paid, and from where I might be out sourced. It's an arrangement that prevents any unnecessary loyalty.

Happily, I'm now in a good place. There's a direct correlation between action items and productivity. I work in a corner building where meetings are a matter of rolling chairs together. I'm talking more, e-mailing less. It's a company where I can't rely on anonymity to avoid responsibility. It's good for me. Next time my lunch drips into someone's tuna salad, I'm definitely going to step up.