It's Thursday Night and I'm About to Head to Bed

Hi. So, I've been trying to catch up on Fringe, but I had to skip a few episodes cause I couldn't find any streaming sources for them. I don't want to download. Anyway, that's all I'll say about that right now.

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I teach at 7:30 in the morning MWF. I miss my class from last semester. They were awesome. I don't have a feel for my new class yet. I'm sure it will be fine, but we'll see. Tomorrow we'll be discussing the Personal Narrative. Fun stuff. Next week will be reading and talking about ethos, pathos, and logos, among other things. That sound be like pulling teeth...it always is. No one ever really wants to talk. Plus it will be so early in the morning. Yikes.

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Since I'm taking fiction classes this semester, I've got a lot of fiction to read. I'm excited. Right now I'm reading Lost in the City by Edward Jones. It's good check it out. I'm also reading a handful of poetry books. We read five books the first three weeks, then workshop the rest of the semester. Pretty awesome if you ask me. Fiction we read 4 books and workshop the whole time.

My magic realism books are sweet. I'll post about them as I read them, but the Aimee Bender book, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt is rad--I'm presenting on it in my class, so I'll have more to say about it when I figure all that out. I'm going to start reading The Girl with the Glass Feet by Ali Shaw. I'll let you know. Right now, though, we're reading Kafka. Mother fucker. If I have to read Metamorphosis one more time in graduate school, I'm gonna fucking Scream! I've read it so many times, I just want to wash my hands of it (even though it's brilliant). We spent over an hour talking about that story today. One guy was crazy in love with it and practically shaking over it. It's good, but come on. OK. That's mean, but maybe I'm just tired of reading it and talking about it.

For this class I wrote a story about a guy who turns into a dog when he's in his apartment. There's a possessive brother in the story that accuses him of acting like a dog, when his wife scolds him. The brother's whack. I like it. I'm might work on it some more, see where it goes. The next project is based on a Flannery OConner essay. The quote suggests the good fiction distorts the real...or something like that...by distorting you find the truth (or as I would put it, the honesty in reality). I don't know what I'm gonna do yet, but we'll...I'm sure you'll hear about it.

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For poetry I'm working on all brand new stuff for this semester. Let's see what kind of project comes out of this. I'm starting to see one. It might bleed into one I've been fiddling with already. We'll see. We'll see.

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Wendelin gave me the names of some Joan of Arc songs. Most importantly a song called Ne Mosquitoes Pass. It's fucking rad. This is the same band, more or less, as Owls--I ranted about how good they were in the fall. But they're old school. We're talking early Jade Tree/Polyvinyl shit. Anyway, I'm obsessed with this song. The end goes, "Fucking Strangers feels better, feels better fucking strangers," a whole bunch and the last line goes, "Big Gay Mr. T knocks your fucking teeth out with a telephone." I don't fucking know what that means, but I can't stop singing it. Emily's like, "Stop saying, 'Fucking Strangers feels better...' and then sing about a big gay Mr T." The music is great and the voice is off, in a cool way. If you know Joan of Arc or Owls or Make Believe, or any of the Tim Kinsella projects then you know what I'm talking about. I need more.

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We get the final disc of The Wire Season One tomorrow. I can't wait. I just want to watch that shit already. I'm on the edge of my seat. Oh that reminds me. I saw Year One. Trash. Don't fucking wasting your time. I laughed here and there, but overall it was almost as bad and You Don't Mess with the Zohan. Yeah, I saw that. If you want to place blame, look to my father. He said it was great!

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I think my next post will be concerning my top ten favorite novels, poetry books, and songs. Maybe records and films and TV shows. We'll see. I don't know why, but I feel like I should. I like lists. My notebooks are full of lists. Lists of songs. Lists of stories. Lists of poems, journals, contests, things I want, shows I want to watch, films I want to see, things I need to pay, people I need to call, things i need to do, Things I need to clean, and on and on. I could probably trace my taste in things by looking at my old notebooks. I could probably trace my history for the last five or so years by reading what I was listing. It's an obsession I wish I didn't have, but I can't stop. It's like I need different reminders in different places about the same things. Sometimes, I find the same exact lists in three different notebooks.

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I hope everyone is enjoying this winter. I hope to see everyone soon, or later, or whenever. I want to have a beer or a coffee with all of you, and talk, catch up, talk about the shit we talk about and others things.

That's all for now. I love you guys and thanks for reading.

J to the Izza.