Display by Label: Things

1) I'm superstitious. When I used to swim competitively, I had a pre-race luck-building routine. It involved doing certain stretches and listening to certain music on my yellow Sony Walkman tape player. Oh, and it was crucial that I touch water before the race. If I did not do these things, I knew the race wouldn't go right. You could call this superstitious, or I guess you could call it OCD (which seems to be a theme for these memes). I prefer the former. Let's move on ...

2) Even though I'm really not a huge political junkie, my Sunday mornings would be sad and incomplete without Meet the Press. And if it's one of those mornings where David Gregory or Andrea Mitchell is hosting, well, that just crushes my soul altogether.

3) Let's pretend there's something you'd really like me to write down on paper with a pen. And let's say you told me I had to write it with something other than a Pilot G-2 .05 black ink pen. In this situation, I would be forced to tell you to go fuck yourself. Because if I can't write it with one of those pens, then I don't care to write it at all, thank you. I will search my house for hours for one of those pens even when there is a whole cup full of old pens on a bookshelf in my room. (Does this still count as "superstitious," or are we definitely getting into OCD territory now?)

4) I believe that the problem with blogs is that you can't dance to them, unless maybe they are blogs about music and a song is embedded within the post. But then you're really dancing to the song, not the post itself. This sucks. Blog posts should be like "prose songs."

5) If my blog posts were songs, I would want them to be Soul Coughing songs, which totally belies #4, because I've never felt like dancing to Soul Coughing. But Mike Doughty writes great, prose-like lyrics, which I love.

6) Even though I'm an English major and love words, most poetry makes me grow a big rubbery one. There are a few exceptions, though. Most notably, John Berryman and A.R. Ammons. Also, I pretend not to like Elizabeth Bishop, but I sort of do. And who doesn't like a little William Carlos Williams now and again? Okay, maybe I like some poetry.

7) I don't read novels enough anymore. I used to. But the Internets ruined that.

8) Some authors I like have blogs. All authors I love, don't. (And I'm not talking about blogs written by marketing staff.) I'm not sure if this is a generational gap, a technology gap, a "literary elitism" gap, or a little bit of all three. In any case, it's a shame.

9) I've been working on a novel for the past two and a half years. I don't like people to ask me "How's the novel coming?" so I mostly don't tell anybody about it. It's extremely difficult to shake the feeling of futility you get when working on a novel.

10) When people ask me what I do, I want to tell them this: "I write, but I make money by building Web sites." This is pretty much the truth. However, I usually leave off the first part about writing. Because I know what people are really asking is "How do you make money?"

11) I've been on a stage in front of a room full of strangers ass-naked. Actually, I think I still had socks on. Which must have been—oh God—so sexy. There were photos, but C and I burned them.

12) I'm thinking about #11 because today is C's and my wedding anniversary. Eight years. The years are easy to keep track of because we were married in 2000.

13) I recently bought a voice recorder so that I could record my parent's speaking on a number of subjects about their life. I did this in part to capture the stories. But also because for me, there's just something about hearing the voice of one of your parents that touches something. Even now, even at thirty-four. And I want to be able to have that as long as I'm alive.

14) I wear crocs. A lot. But just around the house. I have yet to wear them to the store or anything. So I'm not a total monster.