SOUTH COAST, ENGLAND-

‘Goddamnit woman!’ I remember thinking. ‘SQUEEZE! YES! But for the love of God please shut the hell up!”

I hadn’t travelled all the way out to California to hear a rubenesque Midwestern woman squat out a deuce. We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert, and this, apparently, was log country. I was not sat in a glamorous and expensive convertible — clearly. I was on a coach, heading to Las Vegas. I had the good fortune to be seated in front of the chemical toilet at the back, able to hear the whole dirty performance.

Whilst chewing on cold curly french fries, an ill-advised purchase from a stop at Arby’s, I had an horrific and horrendous thought: What if she’s pleasuring herself?! She’s been in there a damn long time! How can I know for sure? How can any of us know? And will the mental scars ever heal?

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LOS ANGELES, CA-

(A Helpful Guide)

Step Number One: Figure out what the story’s about. Try to have it not be about bears. No one likes bears; they’re big and stinky. Animatronic bears are even worse.

Two: When you’re done, write your story down. Try to make it about ninety pages. These ninety pages are your screenplay. Congratulations! It’s done!

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WASHINGTON, NJ -

Every time I open a new book of fiction, there’s a part of me that hopes for the improbable: to encounter something new, something utterly original.  So as you can imagine, I’m let down a lot.  But sometimes I get lucky.

It’s been two weeks since I finished reading J. Robert Lennon’s Pieces for the Left Hand, but here’s this little gem of a book, still sitting on my desk.  I don’t know when I’ll return this paperback to its designated shelf, but it won’t be anytime soon, for I keep going back to it, reading one of the 100 anecdotes in this collection at random, smiling and chuckling along the way.

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LOS ANGELES-

Every writer I know has trouble writing. Joseph Heller said that once. I would echo it here. Personally I don’t know a single writer who has an easy time writing. Especially fiction. Fiction seems to be a special kind of pain in the ass. Or maybe I’m just projecting.

Another thing I would add is that a lot of writers don’t write very much. And some of them don’t write, period.

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LOS ANGELES, CA-

“The Maid of the Mist isn’t running,” a tourist with a British accent says, studying a map of Niagara Falls, New York. “Wasn’t there something called the Cave of the Winds?” His companion, a slim woman with red hair and freckles and dark-brown eyes, shrugs, crinkling her nose. The man continues, “I remember you wore raincoats, climbed a slippery wooden stairway and entered a cave behind the falls.” “Maybe,” the woman answers, but she seems cold in her black pea coat, seems to shrink from an overcast day and icy drizzle. She puts a small hand on the man’s arm and asks, “Would we want it to be open in November?”

The Cave of the Winds, once located behind the Bridal Veil Falls, was destroyed by a controlled dynamite blast in 1955. By then the once large cave – 130 feet high, 100 feet wide and 100 feet deep, had shrunk and been reduced to about a third its original size. Falling rocks had ‘shrunk’ the cave and hurt or endangered several visitors. (more…)

DAYTON, OH-

Two Christmases ago I sat through DeNiro’s “The Good Shepherd” and watched a sluggish two-hour story put on cruise control until it eventually died, silently, from its own boredom around three hours long.

In knee-jittering, nicotine-withdrawal anxiety, I eagerly nibbled on my nails like nachos waiting for an assassination, unexpected death, gun or fist fight and, around the 2:50 minute mark, I resorted to settling for an argument with the actors throwing things at each that would’ve sufficed as a climax.

But nothing came at the end other than collective sighs by the audience as the credits rolled. I walked out of the theater and saw the billboard poster for the movie.

Larry King, CNN’s famed interviewer, exclaimed “Best spy movie ever!”

Larry King is a jack ass as a movie critic, and his movie critic quote (MCQ) inclusion in this poster was the first time I really noticed how different films are being packaged in the poster format in the internet age.

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BOULDER, CO-

Lately, I’ve been having this urge:  I want to start a fight.

I want to step inside the ring, look into the liquid abyss of my opponent’s eye, and kick some butt. 

I want to approach her as if I’m going to tell her a secret, and then hit her with a roundhouse elbow.

I want to insult her mother. 

I want her to hit me back for real. 

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TOMS RIVER, NJ-

I have strange ability to turn what I see on the television set into a distinct feeling that follows me everywhere. In last Sunday nights episode Don Draper who is MIA in California walked to the ocean and waded in, stretching his hands out Christ like, hoping to absorb something.  I’ve done this very same thing.  He’s searching for who he really is.  He isn’t Don Draper, he’s someone else, and he’s in California for a trade show, and ends up visiting a woman who has direct bearing on his past.  Why is he hiding out? Why did he reinvent himself? Why do I think I’m Don Draper? 

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PORTLAND, OR-

I’ve been absent. My bad.

I moved. Moving sucks. I mean, the relocating part is good. I like that.

This was a big relocation for me, halfway across the country. It involved me, a dear friend, three pocket dogs and a goldfish, all in the cab of a very large moving truck. A comedy of errors in itself, but I’ll save that for later.

There was also some truck-stop food involved. Truck-stop food, the other gray meat.

I consider all of this fun, an adventure. (more…)

SAN DIEGO, CA-

The fires are mostly out, the air has mostly cleared, the city of San Diego is returning to a new normal.

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PORTLAND, ME-

One morning in Maine, two 30-something women and a hound-dog of a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix made their way along the circumference of Mackworth Island.

Carol is playing tour guide.

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

The strangest thing someone said to me on Thursday was, “Excuse me, can you hand me a bacon?”

I did, in fact, hand her a bacon.

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MILLVILLE, NJ-

When I was growing up, my friend Pam’s grandmother had a paperweight collection that I considered sort of magical.

Actually, Pam’s grandmother, Mrs. Stamps, was sort of magical herself.

She was a widow when Pam and I met. She lived alone a few miles farther inland from us, on a large, wooded piece of property. She’d traveled all over the world and her home was decorated with the fruits of her experiences.

A zebra skin hung on the wall, et cetera.

She seemed sort of Victorian, if by “Victorian” one means “like Mary Kingsley or Isabella Bird.”

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LOS ANGELES, CA-

Before I start, let me say now that this post is not, as far as I’ve been able to determine, depressing.  I’m not really trying to be deep or anything, and while this post does have something to do with me, mostly it’s just my feeble atempt at gonzo-journalism.  And, of course, procrastination.  Now, to begin.

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

My husband, Michael, grew up near Amish Country, PA (i.e. Lancaster County), so naturally whenever we visit the area I insist on a tiny road trip.

My reasons are twofold:

1) It’s Amish

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FARGO-MOORHEAD-

I lived in the Fargo-Moorhead area back a couple of Mays ago.

With my first year of grad school behind me and with one more ahead, I survived and waited it out by working the following part-time jobs:

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

As promised, the third and final installment on my posts about street art, unless something else comes to my attention.

Whilst roaming the streets in search of Stue or Nomad or my next cup of coffee, I came across this work of art:

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SAN DIEGO, CA-

You’ve seen those little pills, the ones that contain a spongy surprise when you plunk them into a glass of water, right?

When you were eleven they sprang into dinosaurs, zoo animals, flowers, or brains.

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