CHICAGO, IL -

Hey Jeff Maybe,

So I wanted to say sorry for ruining our conversation the other night at that thing where people were performing and I don’t know if it was a dance thing or it was a really weird play, but it was intermission.

We were grabbing a drink and you had this shocked look on your face, as if you had just seen a squirrel piloting a kite in the middle of the ocean, and so I asked “What the fuck did we just see in there?” and you answered and questioned me at the same time with “Right?”

We were talking, laughing, digesting and vomiting what we had just witnessed on that stage, and then you started imitating one of the moves from inside by dancing with your arms over your head.

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NORWALK, OH -

Basements, by nature, are dark and scary.

Searching for the light upon entering one can instantly become the most important thing in the world, your fingers nervous not to touch anything at all but the tiny plastic rectangular protuberance sticking out of the wall or the thin chain that hangs blindly a few steps in.

We hold our breaths no matter how many times we’ve descended the stairs that week to retrieve holiday decorations or to do our laundry; we are in the safety of our own locked homes, yet somehow there is always the possibility there’s a knife-wielding intruder or a hungry coyote taking a short breather under the stairs.

Or there’s the possibility that a face-sized spider has descended to face level, swaying gently in front of the chain you seek.

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CHICAGO, IL -

I don’t remember if I caught wind of it through Facebook or Twitter, in an email or if I just stumbled across a headline on the web, but when I heard that author Stephen Elliott was sending around a limited amount of advance copies of his new book, The Adderall Diaries, for free, I kept the information to myself and emailed him immediately.

He calls it the Lending Library.

Asks that people read his book in a week and then send it along. Just pay for the first-class postage and don’t mistreat the book for the next person.

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CHICAGO, IL -

A man walked through my back door yesterday afternoon.

Uninvited.

Had a shaved head.

Dilated pupils.

Wearing a gray T-shirt and jeans in 92-degree temperature.

He was thin and short and meek and, after thinking about it hours later, only really threatening because he was an unapologetic stranger advancing into my kitchen.

When I heard the door creak open and shut from our nursery I believed it was my rogue cat, Lincoln, finally coming in from under the back deck.

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CHICAGO, IL -

My first child is due tomorrow, but who knows if it’ll make an appearance though.

Could see its shadow, could not.

Could be too pleased in its warm liquidy blanket to even make it to the mouth of the cave, to be coerced from its cage, to be held up by the mayor, or to be anything else that’s a terrible metaphor for the baby birthing through Claire’s vagina.

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TEMPE, AZ -

Thank you, President Crow, for that generous introduction. I know we just met on the steps leading up to this stage, but you pretty much nailed me: I am a 30-year-old guy with an MFA who works with computers and constantly daydreams about having webbed fingers and toes for reasons he wishes not to disclose.

And I want to thank the entire ASU community for not inviting me here today. I know you were all looking forward to hearing President Obama speak, but he is off fighting crime and Liz Cheney’s hairstylist.

If you are sitting out there, sweating and fanning your face with today’s commencement program, trying to ignore the growing dampness of your colorful underwear, and you are wondering if I’ve ever even stepped foot in the state of Arizona before last night, then I want to tell you this: I never had a reason until now to check ya’ll out. I can think of 47 other states I’d rather visit than Arizona, so this is a total surprise to me too.

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CHICAGO, IL -

There’s that age-old question: If you could be anyone in the world, real or fictional, who would you be?

I still don’t have an answer.

Maybe Jon Stewart or Wolverine.

LeBron James or Trey Parker.

Alvin York?

Joe Biden?

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CHICAGO, IL -

My wife is pregnant.

Showing.

Growing.

Glowing.

Claire is fertilizing my seed, so to say, and supposedly on June 6th we’ll have a full grown zucchini ready for bucketing.*

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CLEVELAND, OH -

This is the third chapter in my ongoing story of how I started writing semi-professionally and all the ridiculous mistakes I’ve made along the way.

The first segment revolved around me scoring an editing gig for a totally shitty magazine and almost getting sued: In the Beginning There Was an Unpaid Editing Job in Cleveland, a Potential Lawsuit, and a Bunch of Unprovoked Angry Geese.

The second installment had me milling around the (X-Games-like) Gravity Games on the 9th Street Pier in Cleveland, taking notes and feeling sorry for myself: Rewriting a Media Guide Is Easier When You’re Both Lonely and Looking Important.

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CLEVELAND, OH -

This is the second chapter following, well, the first chapter I posted in July: In the Beginning There Was an Unpaid Editing Job in Cleveland, a Potential Lawsuit, and a Bunch of Unprovoked Angry Geese

(Short breakdown of the above: I’m writing and editing a totally shitty magazine in Cleveland, The Hip Pocket, which is run by a team of amateurs in 2003. I was almost sued because I said my magazine was to receive a “boatload of money” from the Gravity Games to throw a party for their athletes and I had to write a Letter of Retraction to cover my ass. Our next cover story was to cover the Gravity Games story.)

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CHICAGO, IL -

Chicago has an annual celebration of print literature called Printers’ Ball.

It’s a free event where a 100 or so lit organizations come together to showcase their weeklies, monthlies, yearlies, books, posters, horn-rimmed glasses, shaggy haircuts and zines. There’s also live entertainment and lectures and films and readings.

Sounds like a great night to me, really.

Totally something I’d want to immerse myself in.

But what really got my juices flowing was that I thought this would be a great opportunity to print up a bunch of copies of my unpublished humor book and talk to some independent publishers from the area about my chances of getting the thing out there.

Out there, out there. 
 

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CLEVELAND, OH -

I’m standing and painting gravestones as weird red squares, twenty yards from where the coffins of President James A. Garfield and his wife (name?) lie in the gray basement of the Garfield Monument, and I’m thinking about how much I hate my banking job.

I’m thinking about how I kinda love ATMs because they keep customers out of my bank, but at the same time how I hate loading them with cash in the mornings.

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CHICAGO, IL -

Having a back deck is an amazing thing.

It’s a spot to enjoy the sun, have dinner and drinks, read in your own private breeze, and if you’re up high enough, it’s a spot to spy on all your neighbors without really feeling like a spy.

To be a one-man neighborhood watch, is how I like to think of it.

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CHICAGO, IL -

I admit that the set up is pretty dramatic:

A man stands motionless on a street corner in single-digit morning temperatures holding onto a sign that simultaneously calls the mayor of Chicago a dictator while asking a certain FBI agent to stop raping his wife. (more…)

CHICAGO, IL -

Lately, when stopping by my girlfriend’s apartment building, I’ve been feeling a lot like Tom Hanks in “The Money Pit.”

The place is falling apart faster than a button-down shirt from H&M, and every new discovery makes me laugh.

Or sigh.

Or pound my fists against the wall.

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CHICAGO, IL -

I cut my hair the other weekend, and by that I mean I took my clippers, a plastic bag and the extension cord out onto the back deck.

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CHICAGO, IL -

The other night I was at my favorite coffee shop with my favorite girl, Claire.

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CHICAGO, IL -

I received an email Monday from Igor Anatsko.

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CHICAGO, IL -

I’ve always tried to write stories on here with the site title in my head.

About times when I get nervous.

Or breakdown.

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