good night I’m off to have a dream about edgar allan poe slicing radishes with disturbing abandon and no knife skills to speak of

the author here is not one I think that highly of, but when he’s right he’s right. being right two footnotes in a row is a rare gift
christ how “inexplicably amusing“ some people do find that whole business
oh the stories I could tell
naturally I won‘t. but could

much as my blood is in my hardwood floors, now

I exaggerate but every day I believe a little more in the separation of mind and body. inasmuch as my mind wants to have a nice time but my body wants to fall down. oh how it wants to

apparently everybody of my approx. demographic got very into outdoor skating in the early 2020 except me (too busy replacing my spine & reading novels)
so there are a million video tutorials warning you not to stiffen up lock your knees & fall over backwards. but breaking rules is in my blood

regrettably yes
it’s a great way to get to know your floor really close-up
I have whatever is the opposite of imposter syndrome because I know I can do it, I remember how it’s supposed to feel, I don’t even remember learning, just doing it, it was easy. however, I can’t do it

“why don’t you just stop falling down” a woman needs hobbies

(I am trying to learn a particularly depraved style of wheeled transportation that lends itself very well to falling over backwards very quickly very hard on your head. how did my left arm get involved in that? i’m talented that’s how)

nine years later I still fall on my left arm like I was born to do it, I don’t even try anymore
in fact I try not to because my left shoulder needs surgery now too, I’ve been sure for forever. haven’t done anything about it yet, but I do know it. but I can’t stop
is this fair? I don’t think it is

if the surgeon had sewn it on properly, this would not have been a problem. well but he didn’t, did he
persevering after that was really a case of, what do you call it, locking the barn door after the shoulder surgeon stole your horses
but I did do my best

hardest part of right rotator cuff surgery recovery was learning to catch myself with my left arm every time I fell down or was taken by surprise. by the time I got my reflexes right it didn’t matter anymore bc I fell down some wet stairs right onto the afflicted arm the very first week

they should replace political debates at the higher levels with a player-vs-player jousting bout from the 80s amiga game defenders of the crown

it’s harder than it looks

don’t really understand anyone who’s mad at her for getting money for nothing from another set of scoundrels. it isn't wrong to take money from bad people, it’s wrong to give them anything in return for it. & if anyone can not write a book in 2 yrs it’s her
it’s also me but I don’t like to advertise

oh my god I just saw her complaint that everyone will tell you Just take some cocaine & push through it, but nobody will undertake to personally bring you, a nervy writer of a certain age with no dealer connection, a bagful of cocaine just when you need it
she’s right again, how does she do it

the american children all talk like james whitcomb riley dialect poems which is not the most immoral thing depicted but certainly the most distasteful

it‘s a good book all in all and I don’t recommend it

the past is the worst place in the world. let’s never go there

edith wharton's THE CHILDREN is a nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty piece of work
sort of a little bit like all the julian f. thompsons I got so into not long ago, with an interlude like the tirades against Experiment House in the narnia books, with a main guy who is one of not one but two humberts humbert

there’s a bus stop advertisement I walked by today whose visible-to-me part said

ANXIOUS

JESUS CAN HELP

and I am sorry but anxious jesus can help nobody until he gets his own jitters under control. put on thine own oxygen mask & take thine own pharmaceuticals first, & all that

I know of those but did not/do not read such things. but wikipedia reminds me she is the brain genius behind naming kirk’s mother winona & therefore probably responsible for the decision to cast winona ryder as fake new spock’s mom in the newer movies. still don’t know what I think about that

what’ll they think of next?!
(a “prestige” miniseries of joan vinge’s snow queen/summer queen books, I hope. I lost a week of middle school to reading those under the desk when nobody was looking, and I still don‘t remember a damn thing about them. but I think I liked them)

forever, never to return
HOWEVER, I might be wrong. dates & times are inherently unstable
whether I ever read it or not, I absolutely remember seeing it in a waldenbooks sf/f section. faced out if memory does not deceive me

how dare you all make your callow jokes about the pierce brosnan versailles lesbian mermaid movie without mentioning it’s based on that vonda mcintyre book!!
don't think I ever read it, I think it came out like a year after the era when I would read anything of that kind, no questions asked, ended

once I bought what I thought was a box of the chalky papery candy cigarettes but when I opened it turned out to be the rubbery bubble gum cigarettes and I was never so angry in my life

absolutely amazing insight into the helen dewitt situation by clever people who temper their sympathy with their sense that she is “not well.”
golly was it her account of debilitating stomach spasms or the mentions of suicide that gave you the first clue

if you have to give talks & promote institutions & make videos as a condition of getting the money, that’s not an award. that’s a job. & if I wanted a job that miserable by god I’d have one

can’t even tell you how many lower-level grants & residencies & contests I have been pushed towards by well-meaning people & known in seconds of starting to read the requirements there was no point in applying bc I would never, ever, ever agree to do these things.

“I’m sorry I ever had anything to do with you, and I don’t like your mother either” and your little dog Toto, too

sharp’s martha novels have faults you wouldn’t believe, and plenty of them. to start with they should be one book not three, you can skip nimbly over the entirety of wwii between chapters as easily as you can between books. but Martha herself is like unto a god to me, just about

sales websites are awash with machine-generated text blobs now, & even before it was possible to press a button & get a polluted stream of generic adjectives from the computer plenty of people would unashamedly cut&paste from wikipedia where they could
but I defy a computer to write like this

“The book says […], does that make this a first edition? I don't know. Look at the pictures and decide. If you are reading this, you're much more likely to know what it is than I am. […] I have these books lying around and I've never known what to do with them.”

my favorite book descriptions are always the ones I write myself. probably because when I look back over them, at best they give me the pleasing sensation of looking in the mirror & at worst they give me the displeasing sensation of looking in the mirror. but this one is better than any of mine:

I couldn’t go back even if it still existed, they don’t let in grown-ups. or did adults just choose not to go in because of all the children hopped up on grocery-store birthday cake from various Party Rooms, screaming
just knowing it existed up there was comforting all on its own
well
not anymore

probably I’m never going back to the upstate area, but if I did & only at the very gates of the place discovered that there was no more confined space they used to fill up with smoke machines & lasers & wall-projected paula abdul videos, I think I’d die