Once a week, right? That was the deal.

I am deep into Big Love, and loving it in a very big fashion.

Also, Joanna Newsom's Ys is completely changing my world right now. I listen to it when I go for a run. It is...indescribable. It sounds like music from another time/place/mythos, but firmly grounded in very real details and human emotions and the natural world. It's supernaturally good, so good that it's completely changing the way I look at structure and lyrics in songwriting. If you can get past her eccentric voice--which is much less grating here than on her debut--you should give it a try. You won't be sorry. Word of warning: it's only five songs long, and each song is eight minutes or more. So, if you have trouble paying attention, it's probably not for you. I find the songs to be like mini-symphonies, with movements and concrete sections. Totally draws you in.

At least that's distracting me from constantly obsessing over when the new Tori album is going to leak.

Fun things that have happened:

1) Symphony Under the Stars with the Holics and the Haffners. We took wine and cheese and blankets and sat out on the green by the reflecting pond at UCF and listened to the student jazz orchestra butcher Neil Sedaka, which was impressive considering that Neil Sedaka's music is this close to butchery already. We definitely should have had MOAR WINE.

2) Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous dancing with Jen Flynn at I-Bar on Friday night, with special guest apperances by Catherine and Chiara and Jen Williams. We came, we saw, we drank a lot, and I taught Jen Flynn the breakdown during that Rapture song whose title is too long for me to remember or reproduce.

3) Movie night for Susan's birthday! We had snack foods and watched Payback and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, both of which RULED. Also, Josh magically invented some new cocktail that was blackcurrant juice and vodka. *_*

Oh, and I also inadvertantly frightened a co-worker on Thursday when he took my mug from the break room without realizing that the mugs aren't communal. So I hunted him down and said, "THAT'S MY MUG" all wide-eyed and scary and clearly on the verge of an OCD collapse. Then he lectured me about the mug was dirty when he went to use it. It's just tea-stained! You can scrub and scrub, and those marks aren't washing off. Sorry, buddy.

I've finally hit on an idea for the novella challenge, and am even considering doing it in epistolary or blog format. Maybe not. And I'm not even starting it until I get a workable draft of "The Remains" done. That's my project for this week. May the Lord guide me.

I did finish revising "The Handfast" though! Gotta send that out. And I'm finishing several songs at the moment, too.

Read The Road by Cormac McCarthy and thought it was awesome.

...I'm really hungry.

Obviously, updating this thing on a regular basis is just...never going to happen. I really would like to try and write a substantial update about basic life events at least once a week. Maybe I should make that a latter-day addendum to my 2009 to-do list...

Anyway. Here we go! Here's what's been going on lately. It's a lot. (It's okay to be scared. I have a beer).

1) We're moving into a two-story, two-bedroom townhouse at the end of May, in the same complex we live in now. And our monthly rent is going to be $20 cheaper than what we're paying right now on our small one-bedroom. How's that, you say? Well, basically, two factors have conspired to make this possible. Factor One: the economic/real estate chaos in Orlando means that apartment complexes are all doing a lot of business and are offering dirt-cheap move-in specials in an attempt to stay competitive. Factor Two: we renewed our lease on the one-bedroom WAY too late last summer, so late that we missed out on the renewal specials and actually had our rent increase by, like, three dollars. It was a rare lapse in the Type A, OCD Markness effectiveness train. So, yeah, when I went in last week to talk about renewing our current lease, I asked about the prices on two-bedroom units out of curiosity (we've known for a while now that we really need more space, for our sanity). That's when Dawn the Leasing Agent of Awesome came back and told me about the two-story two-bedroom townhouse that would have a cheaper monthly rent than what we're currently paying on the one-bedroom. I almost fell over. So we talked about it, and while we could have stayed in our current apartment for less money, or even taken a different two-bedroom model for less money, the added space of the townhouse outweighed the negligible amount we'd each be saving monthly on a space with cheaper rent. So, hello townhouse. It's awesome. Of course, now this means I have less than two months to organize and execute a move. I am choosing not to think about this right now, because the thing I hate most in all the world--more than Hitler, intolerance, licorice, or Ryan Seacrest--is moving. Instead, I am choosing to think about the cheapest way to assemble a small home studio recording space in the townhouse, for the simple purpose of recording decent quality acoustic piano/vocal tracks. This, I'm sure, is a much more productive use of my mental energy.

2) There's lot of interesting music thoughts and feelings and experiences happening these days. Several weeks ago, Josh and Amber and I saw Amanda Palmer live and solo in St. Pete, and then last week Josh and I saw Lady GaGa live in Orlando. Both concerts were completely breathtaking, in two completely different ways. Amanda Palmer is a force of nature--she is hands-down the most talented songwriter working in music today, and in her interviews and blogs, comes across as an extremely genuine and highly-intelligent person, sometimes excruciatingly so. We've been wearing out her solo debut, Who Killed Amanda Palmer, for months, and were really excited about the show. And, omg you guys, what a show. It was the best concert I've ever been to. No, really. Better than Tori. Better than Elton. For real. I don't know what it was, or even how to describe it. It was a religious experience. It was in a dive-bar in St. Pete, with some of the most obnoxious and smelly fans in the entire world. But when she came out on stage and started banging (literally banging, sometimes karate-chopping) her Kurzweil, none of that seemed to matter. She played and sang and talked to us for over two hours. I've never been to a show quite like it. She's such a warm and funny and smart personality--the whole thing felt very intimate. She answered questions and told stories and took requests, and just when the atmosphere almost teetered over into feeling too casual or too familiar, the lights flared and she threw herself at the piano like an animal, and you could tell that the hair was standing up on the back of everyone's arms. Lady GaGa wasn't as intense of an experience, but equally amazing. You guys, I don't know what to say, but I'm totally in love with Lady GaGa. I've been a casual fan for a while--yeah, Poker Face is awesome, yeah, I like getting down to Just Dance on the I-Bar dance floor or running to it on the trail--and I really started to like her when she did that acoustic piano/jazz version of Poker Face. So we got tickets, but I wasn't really that interested in going, and almost decided not to the night of the concert. I'm so glad that I did. It was such an amazing show. This girl is going to be the next Madonna, mark my words. She references Warhol and pop art and how her facade is a lie, all the while singing her lungs out and dancing and breaking it down to her great pop songs, which range from fun to "whoa, that's actually a well-written little song right there!" And in the best part of the night, she came out in a bubble dress (look it up on YouTube or something) and did two solo acoustic piano numbers--just her playing and her voice--and adlfaikjsdf;laksjflskj LOVE. Lady GaGa, I am officially a fan. You've got a great voice, a great sense of art and visuals, you write killer songs in several genres, and you are smart enough to both reference and make fun of your Warholism, knowing full well that the frat boys and the teen gays and the underage drunk girls have no idea who Andy even is. Kudos. I wish I could have a long conversation with you over wine, because you are FASCINATING. On top of all this, the release of the new Tori Amos album is imminent, and I've been knee-deep in the Tori forums for weeks now, analyzing and debating and waiting and hoping that this new record is, at least in part, an improvement on the last two records, both of which had strong initial impressions that then seriously grew off me (and most of her fans) over time. I've been in a quiet frenzy of anticipation for the album for a while now, and I don't think I'll be able to really relax until I have it in my hot little hands. Come on, music journalists, leak it now! You know you want to!

3) I had a breakthrough last week on "The Remains", and by breakthrough I mean that I complained to Malyn about not knowing where it was going or what to do with it, and then twenty minutes later I totally had a brain flash and the whole thing just...coalesced. I have a structure, an arc, and a viewpoint character I really understand. Of course, I also have 13,000 words of an incomplete first draft, probably more than half of which is now unusable. I'm still trying to decide if I want to jump back into it tomorrow or spend this week doing another revision pass on "The Handfast" so I can start getting that out to the fantasy markets. Humph. In other writing news, I'm taking part in a novella challenge with a group of writer friends. We have until October 31 to draft and revise a novella of at least 75 double-spaced pages that uses "Florida" as one of its themes. Slotting this in to the 2009 To-Do List probably means that the new novel is going to get pushed back, probably even until 2010. Unless the novella becomes a novel-sized project in its own right, though that's not really the point of it. We'll see.

4) I hate Twitter. No, really, I hate it. I liked it better when it was called "your Facebook status". I deleted mine, just like I deleted my MySpace a while back. I've got this thing and I've got Facebook, and that's seriously about all the online interaction/presence I can handle. I don't know what's wrong with me, I'm staring to reject technology. Lately, it even makes me sick to my stomach when Josh flips on the television to channel surf or watch some DVR-ed reality show. (Back to the "needing more space" thing).

God, that was exhausting. There's so much more, too much to tell. I had Easter tea today with Amy, and it was awesome. Amber met a boy. Friday night, I smoked hookah with Nate and Heather. I mixed Xanax with wine at Passover dinner and barely remember it. Maybe I DO need Twitter. If I could talk about my life in sound bites, I might be more prone to talk about it at all. I think my natural secretiveness is getting worse as I get older. Sometimes I'm really afraid that when I hit 35 I'm going to have a J.D. Salinger style wig-out and run away to the Ozarks or something. But tonight, it's all cool. Josh is making dinner. I'm going to spend the rest of the evening consuming cultural artifacts--Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Kate Bush's The Dreaming, the first two episodes of Big Love on DVD (I have no problem with TV on DVD, Netflix is a god). Tomorrow, I'm attending a workshop at work where I learn to make sound loops in GarageBand. I have a good life.

I would just like to let it be known that due to Josh being off on spring break and up in my grill all week disrupting my routine, AND because I've been stuck on the story I'm writing and only just figured out where the hell it's going (after 13,000 WORDS OF DRAFTING), I'm officially considering this week a wash. I will now eat some fast food that is really terrible for me, and I am going to love it.

P.S. We're moving into a townhouse! DEETS TO FOLLOW.

Markness's To-Do List for 2009!

1) Draft and fully revise five new short stories.
* Almost done revising "The Handfast." Still trying to hammer out a first draft of "The Remains." Ugh.

2) Keep up a steady submission schedule to both literary and genre publications.
* Sent out "Ruby Gupta" to, like, seventeen different places.

3) Finish the first draft of a new novel.
* Not even starting this until July 1.

4) Finish the second and third drafts of The Serpent Bearer's Name.
* Yeah, this so isn't happening right now.

5) Finish at least ten songs.
* Didn't really do much songwriting in the month of March, and then started making headway this week on a really, REALLY old song I haven't even thought about in years. But I was playing around with a new motif that reminded me of it, so I went back to the old song, and new words and ideas started coming up. So, if you're keeping score, I'm still 2/10, as far as the goal.

6) Maintain regimens of exercise and healthy eating begun and sustained in 2008.
* Doing well! Started a 5K training program to build my endurance, and I'm loving it.

7) Read for at least thirty minutes before bed, Sunday through Thursday.
* Trying to remember--I read Watchmen and Watership Down in March, and I LOVED both of them. I think I may have read something else, too, but I'm forgetting...EDIT: Remembered! I also read Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon, which was awesome, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling, which was SO CUTE and cracked me the fuck up, for real.

8) Pay off credit card bill.
* DONE.

I...suck at writing in LiveJournal.

I never thought the day would come, you know? Sure, I've had dry spells, but for years I've dumped all manner of rant, excitement, and TMI whimsy in this fucking thing. I'm not sure what's been different lately. Like I've said in previous entries, maybe it's just that I'm devoting a lot of mental energy these days to my own writing--slogging through the end of a draft AND the end of a revision at this very moment. I'm filling up my own plate with professional writing projects and ambitions, which doesn't leave me many words to throw around in here. Honestly, maybe my habit is changing. It's not just that I'm writing my own stuff. I had a whole week off two/three weeks ago where I wasn't working on anything, and I didn't update this anymore then than I'm doing now. I'm not sure what gives. I still check it obsessively, to keep up with my peeps and my ever-expanding network of indie music piracy (thumbs up, RIAA!), but...yeah, I don't know. I'm only writing in it now because it's been well over a week since my last drive-by update. Also, it's April Fool's Day, and I feel dutybound to come on here like I do every year and say:

I FUCKING HATE APRIL FOOL'S DAY. I want it to die, I want to erase it from the collective cultural consciousness. Pranks are the lowest common denominator of humor.

So, what's going on with me? Actually, since it's the first of the month, it's technically time for my monthly "Goals for 2009" report card, but we'll get to that in a second. How am I? Let's talk about ME for a second. Well, I'm dandy, I guess. I was feeling pretty down the last few weeks or so due to a lot of things, but there's been a shift since the weekend and now I'm all right. It's kind of hard for me to admit that I'm turning into a "moody" person. I used to pride myself on only having two gears: happy or angry. That's definitely changing as I'm getting older, and yeah, it's not like my unhappiness the last few weeks was completely unfounded or had no basis in external events and relationships, but still, I'm very unused to suffering extended bouts of malaise. It makes it really hard to write, too, which is why I feel like I've been truly SLOGGING through the new story I'm writing. It wasn't until the end of last week that I felt like I was really getting a grip and knew, at least vaguely, where it was headed and how it was going to end. Every story is different. The last one I wrote, "The Handfast," which I'm currently revising, came out pretty easily. This new one, "The Remains," is like...God, writing it is like pulling eyeteeth, every single day. It's hard. And part of me is like, "Well, if it's this hard, then maybe you're doing something wrong. Maybe you're forcing it." And the other part of me is like, "Well, writing shouldn't be easy. Nothing worth writing is easy to write." And then I go back and forth and think about that until I get depressed. L. O. L. Honestly, like I said above, I have pretty lofty writing goals that I'm working towards and I put a lot of pressure every single day on myself to meet them, and even though I'm very conscientious about giving myself breaks, it can still add up. You know?

I'm fine, otherwise. Relationships are an ever-evolving game. Just when you think you have the rules of a certain relationship--lover, friend, vegetable, mineral--figured out, things evolve and the rules change. I have to say, I'm struck pretty often by a feeling of extremely humbling gratitude. I'm grateful for Josh, and I'm grateful for the circle of friends I've made--brunch and movies, beer and buffalo wings, Epcot and sunbathing--people who seem to like me for who and what I am, who want to be around me. Hell, I'm grateful for the job I have, a job that is truly minimal in responsibility and obligation and pays an amount disproportionate to what it asks of me. It gives me the time and energy to focus on the things that are truly important to me.

I guess what I'm saying is okay. Not that you doubted. Maybe I needed to say it to myself. Hello, Livejournal. Sorry I neglected you. I'll try to do better next time. :)

P.S. Report card tomorrow. Yes.

It has been a full week since I updated LiveJournal.

This happens, especially when I launch into a new writing project. The words get used up on the fiction and then there's none left over for the blog. Also, I tend not to write in here a lot when I'm unhappy or depressed--a rare occurrence in Markness-world, but it does happen--so that also contributed to last week's silence.

There's not a lot going on to write about, anyway. Work is uneventful. I had a pretty fabulous weekend--the drag show at Parliament House on Saturday night with Heather and her best friend, Melissa (we unwittingly walked into Erotica weekend, who knew?), and then went for lunch and Duplicity with Catherine and Susan yesterday.

Ugh. Where is my oomph? If you find it, please call me.

Invariably, the predominating emotion I experience when writing the first paragraph of a new story is: "WHAT THE FUCK, THIS BLOWS, BEING A WRITER IS STUPID."

There has been relaxation, there has been sun, there has been copious amounts of drinking. (Do yourself a favor and look up how to make a shot called a "leg spreader". For real). Now, here we are on the eve of a new week, and for me, a new cycle of drafting/revision.

The week before last, I finished a new draft and I submitted a fully-revised story to seventeen different literary magazines. Thus accomplished, I took all of last week off.

Weird confession: it's really hard, after getting into a two-week rhythm of writing and revising every day, to make yourself take a week off and not do anything except brainstorm a little. All week I kept catching myself going, "Why aren't you writing? Why are you wasting your time?" But the feeling of just being able to relax, of giving myself the permission to not do anything except stare blankly at American Idol, is totally necessary. Time off, recharging, is just as important and necessary as the time I spend drafting and revising. You have to let the well refill, you know?

This week, I'm going to try an experiment with a friend where we meet and do our writing together. Not together in the sense of collaboration, but together in the sense of doing it in the same space, sitting in a cafe or a quiet bar. I've never done anything like this, but I write in public a lot, so it's not a far stretch from my usual routine. And I think I might derive a sense of comfort from sitting with someone who's doing what I'm doing, even if we're not really talking.

I like doing things like this, changing up my routine. Whenever I start to feel a little weary or stuck in the middle of a draft, I change things. I go to a different coffee shop or bar, I write at a different time of day, I change what I drink, etc. I don't stick with any one thing for long because if my routine gets stale, then my writing gets stale, too. Change is as necessary as taking time off.

People who Twitter at each other need to be shot. Dudes, we can only see one half of your conversation. It's obnoxious. That's why God invented EMAIL.

And now, a conversation with Susan:

Me: *goes to the gas station to get tonic, but can't find any. Calls Susan, resident gin expert, in panic*
Susan: Hello?
Me: There's no tonic.
Susan: ...Mark?
Me: There's no. tonic.
Susan: ...I'm sorry, I'm gonna need more.
Me: *sigh* I taught for eight hours straight and then I went for a run and I'm giving myself a week off from writing because I'm a little burned out but when I sit down to knit or watch crap TV or play Legend of Zelda my writer brain goes "WTF ARE YOU DOING YOU SHOULD BE WRITING" and I can't relax and I just need a giant gin and tonic and I have Bombay but no tonic so I went to the gas station to GET tonic and there ISN'T. ANY. TONIC. There's just Sprite, and ginger ale. What should I do?
Susan: ...go to another gas station.

Edit: Actually, that's not all.

One, if you haven't seen Elaine Stritch: At Liberty, put it on your Netflix immediately. Oh God, it's so fucking fabulous.

Two, the cover and track list of Tori Amos's new album, Abnormally Attracted to Sin, was announced today.

( And then Atforumz exploded... )

There's other things to talk about--taking a week off from writing, some personal stuff, my thoughts on all things Watchmen--but I'll live to blog another day.

I can't wait until I'm an established author so I can use my writing career as justification for my eccentricities and selective anti-social tendencies.

In other words, yesterday SUCKED. Let's try that again, March. Let's try that one again.

Today's writing epiphany: everything I write is autobiographical to a degree, especially in the subtext. Right now I'm finishing a spare, bleak fantasy short story about a handfasting between a woman and a much younger man, and I realized as I was writing my way inexorably towards the ending that the story is really about how much I resent people who are weaker than me, who force me to be strong and do what is necessary when they cannot.

Also, I have written off today entirely due to the crazy of, oh, EVERYONE, and as soon as Josh gets back from the gym, I am going to Lazy Moon and having a GIANT piece of pizza and a GIANT Yuengling. Healthy diet be DAMNED.

Edit: Seriously, Wednesday? Seriously? Has every single person in my life gone completely apeshit, with a precious few exceptions?

There is often a huge discrepancy between the reactions people see me give, and the reactions that are actually happening in my mind. Two case studies:

1) This morning at work, I went into the breakroom to make my usual cup of A.M. tea. Only to discover huge signs all over the place that said "DON'T BOIL WATER" or something to that effect. Confused, I went into my department chair's office and asked her what the deal was. She said that they were doing a sewage inspection and that our water was basically unavailable for drinking today or tomorrow. Now, my verbal/physical reaction was, "Oh, drat." My ACTUAL reaction, inside my head, was more like, "OMG WHAT DO YOU MEAN IF I DON'T HAVE A CUP OF TEA I WILL DESTROY EVERYONE HELP HELP MY ROUTINE IS BEING DISRUPTED HELP."

2) I went to Wal Mart (I know, right away, BAD) to buy some label paper and some printer paper. As I was checking out, the (greasy, creepy) cashier said, "You're Full Sail, right?" I said, "Um, yeah. How can you tell?" Because dude, I wasn't wearing my badge. And he said, "You have an artsy cloud around you." My outer reaction? "OH, hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha." My for-real reaction? "DUDE. PLEASE DO NOT READ MY AURA. TAKE TWO GIANT STEPS BACKWARDS. OFF A CLIFF."

Of course, a lot of the time my facial expressions pretty much completely give away what I actually think about something. I used to have a poker face. I'm not sure where it went. My poker face and my patience must have stolen a car and skipped across the border in the night, years ago.

Edit: All right. Seriously. The emotional yo-yo that is this week needs to end. Please stop the ride. I want to get off.

Random crap, filling up my head.

I don't know WTF is up with the month of March. It was gorgeous and even hot last week to a point--like, it wasn't long ago I was going to the beach with Amber and Malyn, or hanging out by the pool at Animal Kingdom--and now it's frigid and blustery.

Also, I don't know WTF is up with this week. It's only Tuesday and everybody is acting totally batshit. Maybe it's just me--maybe my tolerance for batshittiness ebbs and flows with the phases of the moon. (Honey, that's called a "period").

I had a songwriting epiphany while finishing "Redondo Lights" that I didn't fully understand until today while I was in the shower. Most of the time, for me, the melody dictates the words, but sometimes, when the idea of the song becomes clear, the words or the idea of some necessary lyrics can inspire, change, or even demolish the melody in certain places to make way for something new and exciting, melodically. This is, I think, a pretty crucial idea in the kind of songwriting I like and want to do--songs that take you by surprise, and whose surprises you can still find joy and depth in, even after endless repetition.

Just so you know, I'm totally spouting off shit in here because I am procrastinating doing something else on my list for tonight, like starting to read Tales of the Beedle the Bard or trying, ONCE AGAIN, to teach myself how to do a rib stitch.

On reading: you all owe it to yourselves to read Michael Chabon's collection of essays, called Maps and Legends. It's part personal writing-life essays, part love letters to genre/entertainment, part investigation into the interconnected nature of all these elements. It manages to be both completely self-indulgent AND completely profound. How the fuck did he manage that? Answer: because he is a god. Have you READ The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay? Srsly.

Also on reading: the American Library Association announced their 2009 Reading List, comprised of what they voted to be the best eight titles each from a number of genres from the 2008 publication year. I didn't know that they did this, but it RULES, and seems to be a good tool for finding quality books you missed in various genres of your choice.

Only eight minutes until the Bucket of Crazy that is American Idol. Is there wine? I hope there's wine.

February kind of SUCKED because I was hella sick for the first two weeks of it. Let's see how we did.

Markness's To-Do List for 2009!

1) Draft and fully revise five new short stories.
* I finished revising "How Ruby Gupta Got Bitch Slapped" and I'm VERY CLOSE to finishing the first draft of "The Handfast". Still not sure what I want to work on after that.

2) Keep up a steady submission schedule to both literary and genre publications.
* Well, "Ruby Gupta" is ready to go out now, so that will probably be my project for next week.

3) Finish the first draft of a new novel.
* Not even starting this until July 1.

4) Finish the second and third drafts of The Serpent Bearer's Name.
* I...honestly don't think that I've looked at this since before the new year. I got all the way through Part I, realized that I had to completely rewrite the ending of Part I, then skipped to the first chapter of Part II and got two-thirds of the way through that before Life Happened and...yeah, it's still just sitting there. I have a feeling that I won't pick back up with this at all until after my short-story goal for the year has been reached.

5) Finish at least ten songs.
* Finished a song called "Redondo Lights", so with "Rented Room", we're up to 2 out of 10 for the year so far. I'm ahead of the game on this one, and both these songs have one or two lines of lyric that still need to be fiddled with, AND they need to recorded, so I might take a break from the songwriting in March, just to avoid getting burned out. Writing lyrics is really, REALLY difficult for me. It's harder than writing anything else, including literary criticism. I'll post the demos when they're done. SIDE NOTE: I'm starting my Great American Idol Covers Project once they competition gets down to the Top 12. You know you're excited.

6) Maintain regimens of exercise and healthy eating begun and sustained in 2008.
* Still doing well with the eating. I indulge more on the weekends, because that's why God invented them, but I tend to be very conscientious and portion-controlled in my eating and snacking during the week. As far as exercise goes, I didn't exercise at all for TWO WEEKS in the beginning of February because I caught the Martian Death Flu That Would Not Go Away. So that blew. But I got back on track the LAST two weeks of February. New running music--The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kelly Clarkson--aided this.

7) Read for at least thirty minutes before bed, Sunday through Thursday.
* Oh, fail. I finished reading TWO books in all of February--Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway and The Reader by Bernhard Schlink. To be fair, the Burroway is a MONSTER of a book--technique, process, AND example stories--but still. I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I read much more slowly and for shorter periods at a time than I did when I was a kid or a teenager. There's SO MUCH out there I want to read, and not just fiction, but all the awesome nonfiction/biography/history/science/whatever that I've never been exposed to. I'm never going to absorb all the cool stuff I want if I keep reading at this ridiculous, plodding pace. Ugh. In other news, I really, really liked The Reader and found it much more emotionally engaging than the film, despite film's immediacy.

8) Pay off credit card bill; save up and buy a new computer.
* I'm SO CLOSE to paying off my credit card. $313.34 to go, asldifalkjs. And yeah, the computer thing happened forever ago now, so I'm putting a strike through it and not mentioning it again.

I have to say, I'm proud of myself for sticking to my artistic goals and achieving them. I'm more than a little terrified of New Novel Time (JULY 1, OH GOD SAVE ME). But I also feel like by that time, I'll be more than ready to take a break from short fiction and dive into something more complex and substantial. I need to start thinking seriously about research and stuff for it. Can anybody recommend some good books on the Millennial Generation, or Egyptian mythology?

And now, a cup of tea and In the Mood for Love. Because it is POETRY MADE LIFE.

You know what the best feeling in the world is?

When you've been struggling with something creative--a revision problem in a short story, or the lyrics to a song--and then, after beating your head against it for a week, there's a BREAKTHROUGH and the rest falls into place as easily as children's puzzle pieces.

No one will fuck me if they think I'm crazy.
I'll just suck it up, I'll be fine,
popping pills, drinking way too much wine in the backseat of your Honda
as Del Amo Boulevard slings us beyond the Redondo lights.

I'm knee-deep in drafting a new short story and revising "How Ruby Gupta Got Bitch Slapped", so I'm not feeling a lot of compulsion to write in here. I'm only doing so now because of music news that cannot pass without my necessary commentary.

First off, the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs single, "Zero", is streaming on their MySpace. It is made of both synth and awesome. I love love love love them, and I love that they continue to push their sound in new directions with each album. And Karen O is one of the most eccentric but amazing vocalists in contemporary music.

Second off, and speaking of eccentric but amazing vocalists...

Tori Amos has announced the title of her new album, coming out this spring. And it is called:

Abnormally Attracted to Sin.

...*crickets*

For those of you who care, read my reaction under the cut. For those who don't, please skip to the bottom.

( teal deer )

Long story short: I'm fairly indifferent to the title, which bodes well for me coming to the music on its own terms without any crazy-high expectations.

But hear this. If this album ultimately disappoints, I'm going to call Tori up and ask her why she's letting Amanda Palmer and Bat for Lashes do her job for her.

(You should be listening to Bat for Lashes's new album, btw).

I've seen this in a few places and I thought it was cool.

Take your five most cryptic Twitter/Facebook/MySpace status updates and explain them.

1) "Mark just almost choked on his own awesome." Um, yeah, today in lecture I almost died because my throat just up and stopped working. It was like dying of consumption. Bizarre.

2) "Mark would like Mercury to come out of retrograde now." Dude, a few weeks ago, everybody went completely crazy and stopped being able to communicate. I blame astrology.

3) "Mark is a SWIRLING PINWHEEL OF AGGRAVATION." A few weeks ago, Josh's iMac froze. It wouldn't do anything--it just sat there, and the cursor was stuck as the little rainbow pinwheel that signals the computer's processing. So Josh busted out, "God, go away, you swirling pinwheel of aggravation." And then I laughed for five minutes because when something like that hits me the right way, I find it ENDLESSLY AMUSING.

4) "Mark would really appreciate it if you would stop infecting him with your Crazy." Similar to #2. Some weeks I feel like everyone's goal in life is to make me as insane and ridiculous as they are. STOP TRYING, I WILL NOT CATCH IT. This particular incident had to do with my boss telling me something out of paranoia, which directly resulted in me embarrassing myself in front of my department chair. I know, that's not exactly less cryptic, but it'll have to do.

5) "Mark really should have brought a hip flask." Family. Thanksgiving. Enough said.

Well. That was...pointless.

So, I'm not sure how it happened, but sometime between midnight last night and just now, I figured out how to fix "How Ruby Gupta Got Bitch Slapped". Score one for the unconscious as jump-started by re-reading Writing Fiction for the gazillionth time. Dude, I wasn't even aware that "Ruby Gupta" was BROKEN, and now, I know how to FIX IT. Awesome.

There is no point to this post other than this.

Well, that and this. So, when I lecture, I don't usually use the podium microphones or anything. I just stand there in front of them and talk, loudly and enthusiastically, without any amplification. This is usually fine, but since my voice and respiratory systems are still on the mend from the alien death flu, I was starting to lose my voice around 11:00 a.m. So I very reluctantly started lecturing from the podium, which allowed me to use the microphone and totally save my voice. Which is awesome, except that at certain points I totally caught myself doing a sexy phone operator voice. Completely involuntary. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me.

Also, this song is my jam.

It feels good, after languishing all last week in the throes of an alien death flu, to be back on track. Today there was work, and there was writing. There was reading. There was exercise, and there was revision. There was even time for relaxing and watching Sex and the City on DVD. I've discovered, as I've gotten older, that anything which knocks my weekly goals off course is a source of annoyance and borderline depression. I couldn't wait to get back into the swing of things today. I feel rejuvenated and refreshed and ready to get some work done. I have goals, damn it. These stories aren't going to write themselves.

Not so awesome: I do a back-to-back lecture tomorrow and Thursday. But at least I get a day break in between, unlike last month when I did this.

And then this weekend there is dinner at Ceviche, and pink ice cream at my cousin Miranda's, and then BEACH all day Sunday. BEACH. BEEEEEACH. It is more than necessary.

...Jesus Christ, I'm boring. I've barely updated for the last two weeks, and this is all I can give you?

Two random things do not make a post. They make...a postlet? A nanopost? Babies? Love, not war? Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, we'll be here all week, try the veal.

1) Click here to listen to full-length streaming audio of Vienna Teng's forthcoming album, Inland Territory. I laid down on the couch this afternoon with headphones and a cup of tea and listened to it from beginning to end, and HOLY MOLY. Her songwriting is as impeccable as always--she seems to get better and better with each release--but I think many fans will be surprised by the production choices, especially after the hushed intricacies of Dreaming Through the Noise. The production here is just as intricate and full of hidden gems--breaths, pedals, sandpaper, claps, little bells and glasses, whispers of sound fleeting in and out--but overall takes a much more robust approach. Big drums, crashy piano, thundering orchestral arrangements--in this sense it has more in common with her sophomore disc, Warm Strangers, than any of her other records, but moves those ideas forward into new--well--territory. The more robust production also is more kindred to the verve and energy of her live performances--many fans were put off by the dissonance between Noise's muted arrangements and Vienna's more lively stage performances of the same material. If you're a stranger to Vienna's music or a fan who was put off by Dreaming Through the Noise (I wasn't, but I know some were), definitely give Inland Territory a spin. And if you're already a huge fan, I would recommend doing what I did and giving yourself an hour or so, putting on headphones, and listening to the stream that way. It soars. It's worth it.

2) I was sick as a dog for all of Monday and most of Tuesday. Monday night was the worst. I was seriously having fever dreams. Like, I thought I was in the Vietnam War. Yeah. And apparently, when Josh came in to say goodbye before he went to work, I said, "No. You have to go. You have to go on your journey. Go. Go on your journey." Um...okay then. Anyway, I hate being sick, because I have a LOT OF THINGS TO DO. I have things to write, and revise, and compose. Oh, and I also have to go to WORK, which I stayed home from most of the week at my boss's insistence. But see, when I'm not there, things have this charming way of falling the fuck apart, which they kind of did in various ways. So I'm feeling physically fine now, but emotionally I feel like a lazy, unaccomplished lump. You know, the kind that's been rotting his brain with Sex and the City on DVD.