Goodbye Las Cruces, Hello Seattle

So, today is Em's birthday. Kind of shitty that we have to pack on her b-day, but at least we get to come home.

We get the Uhaul, today we pack up the Uhaul, today we shut off cable and internet, today, sleep one last time in Las Cruces. Tomorrow, we'll be on the road, headed home. I wish I had something great to say, but I don't. I'm just relieved to be coming home for the next year. It's like a vacation from being away...I'm excited to see my family and friends. I'm excited to go to

ElliottBay Book Company, and Half Priced Books, and Mariners Games, and Pike, and B'ham (and all of those wonders), and U village, U district, etc.

People have been very supportive of us coming home. I hope everyone has faith in the fact that we WILL go back to Chicago...some people are afraid we won't. You doubters can suck it! Anyway, we are excited to be returning.

Here are some pictures from Cruces.

We will be taking photos of our trip home, so stay tuned for that.

Love you,

Joshua

See you soon!

So, here's the deal...

We are moving to Seattle. After a stressful couple of weeks trying to figure out doctor stuff, job stuff, apartment stuff, school stuff...etc etc, we have decided this:

I am deferring my enrollment to Columbia College Chicago for a year. We want to be close to family and friends when the baby comes (and before). I think that we just realized how important this was, and while we could've done it in Chicago, we decided that a year of not being in school will be a breath of fresh air. Plus, I can adjunct and build up my CV, writing stuff that I've been putting off, really push The Story Thief to agents and presses, and the most important things of all: Be a father and a husband. It's gonna be a busy year, but we think that being in Washington, close to people we love, we will have the support we need. So, when we move to Chicago in August/September of 2011, we will have gotten our fill of NW (we took it for granted and didn't realize how important it was to us, so now we will drink it in for as long as we're there).

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We leave here on Wednesday. Crazy. We mostly have to pack the kitchen and clothes. The rest is "bigger stuff." Em and I will be making the drive alone--well, except Indie will be riding with us too!! We were supposed to stay till the 31st, but now we just want to get out of here.

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There's a sense of relief we're feeling right now. I'm bummed I don't get to go to school right away, and bummed I don't get to hang out with the people I was supposed to hang out with this summer in Chicago, but seeing my friends and fam in Seattle will be great. That and getting our asses up to B'ham for some fucking FOOD! Wasabee! Pepper Sisters! Old Town! Harris Ave! Avenue Bread! The Bagelry (putting my boycott aside) Mallards! Boundary Bay! Mambo! Nimbus! Daisy Cafe! Bloom (the new vegan restaurant!) Casa Que Pasa! Fiamma Burger! La Fiamma Pizza! Tony's Coffee! I'm sure there's more, but I think a couple days up there might be enough to hit all of these...and more...oh man, oh man!!

Plus some of us are going to see Inception! I'm so STOKED! OMG and all the music, all the shows! I'm excited! What's going on for the 4th? What's going on for my birthday (June 26th)! I'm thinking some of us (you know who you are) will have to get together and talk about our writing (among other things!).

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OK. that's enough, but we'll be in Washington by Friday at the latest. And on the West side in the following week. I'll see you all soon!

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Love,

Joshua

cha-cha-changes

So. It's the middle of the night, and I'm blogging. There's some news we have for you guys--don't worry, it's not bad. In fact, it'll make most of you quite happy. But, I'll talk to each one of you through email, phone, or whatever. You'll know probably before you read this...or maybe after...we'll see...
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Originally, this post was going to be about my potato, and my little collage thingys. So...here they are: They are made from photos, magazine adds, post cards, and old band stuff. One, actually is made of a bunch of stuff I got at AWP. Anyway. I'll put the pictures up. and mark them.

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Look at my fucking SWEET POTATO! It's fucking growing like crazy!!! Em just informed me: "You know that thing's getting tossed out when we move, right?" My heart is broken now!

This is comprised of a bunch of pictures that were damaged in the move and have been sitting in our closet for the last year, with a bunch of scraps from band posters, and a few pieces from a magazine Em has.

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There are three here.

The one on the far left is mostly made from magazine scraps, with a picture and a Polaroid (you can see it at the bottom). The next one is all magazine and one postcard from a band called Kissing Tigers. The next one is a Rocky V. poster, a Respira poster, a postcard, and a few magazine scraps. I'm pretty stoked about these three, and will probably hang them like this.

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This last one is small. All magazine and one Poloroid of me and Caleb playing guitars in Autumn Poetry.

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Em's making fun of me for explaining these, but I'm really stoked about them, and I wanted to blog, and I wanted to show these off.

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I'll be blogging again real soon, maybe tomorrow.

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Later

JOSHUA

Packing and Art Work

So, Em is putting together a registry for the baby stuff. She can't really have a baby shower...who would really come to Chicago for that? I'm sure if you all could, you would, but...anyway. She was working on that and I was packing up my office/storage room. I have this box of old pictures, posters, scraps, tidbits. I think I'm gonna make a collage of some sort. Over the course of this year, Em and I (mostly Em) have made a handful of art-pieces to hang on the wall.

* This one is a bunch of old posters and concert flyers that Em and I cut up and we made into what it is. There are a ton of bands in that frame and two pictures Caleb took. Actually, if you can id all the bands I'll give you something grand...yeah, the braille tapes is one of them...HA!


* These other two are actually cut from a handful of magazines we had lying around. These are ALL Em. They're really great, though my favorite is the one with the cons and the ice tea, the owl, and the legs.

* This is the poster for the final BT show.
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OK. I got some food to eat, some more packing to do, some book to read, and some jogging to do.
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Love,
Joshua

Moon and Stuff

Em and I watched Moon (with Sam Rockwell) last night. It's a fantastic film. Great, true sci-fi. If you haven't, see it. Free play on Netflix right now. So, check it.
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We also watched a documentary called "The Business of Being Born" about the state of birth in this country. It's eye-opening, and for me, pretty fucking emotional. Could be that Em and I are about to have a kid, but man, I'm telling you. There's something amazing about watching birth...maybe I just kept picturing what going down in October...OK. So, this isn't like in that fucking Health class, where you watch a birth, fucking Leone-close-up. No, this is different. I don't know. Check it if you like.
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I'm trucking through The Story Thief. It's coming along. I'm over half-way with my minor revisions. Then I'll be sending it to some folks for some readings, as well as sending it out to a few publishers and agents.
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I'm also working on revising When the Wolves Quit, and writing poetry. I'm on a roll in some regards, but the more I write, the more the project(s) build into something bigger than I expected. Don't you hate when that happens? Man, I'm done with fiction for a while (besides TST). I think I'm gonna finish a revision I'm working on, submit it, and get it out. I wanted to submit this story to Tin House, but they're doing a mysterious-submissions call (or something along those lines)...and I'm gonna end up sending in some stuff from Wolves. Hey, if you have something Mysterious...check out the sub. guidelines at Tin House.
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I'm reading Lamb by Christopher Moore (It's about Jesus and his best friend Biff...it's rad so far).

I just finished With Deer by Aase Berg (a translation). It's rad, like RIGHT up my alley. Like seriously...like almost too much up my alley...

That's all for now. I should be posting on a blog called Master of Fine Eats soon. I'll put the link up when I post.

Later dudes and dudettes,
Joshua

Friday Yo

I finally saw Inglorious Basterds. Tarantino was jerking off all over the screen (the second/third scene in particular, where we meet the basterds in the forest, as they're scalping, before "the bear" aka Eli Roth comes outs of the tunnel with his bat). He just held those alternating zooms FOREVER. But here's the thing. The film was brilliant in so many ways. That kind of tension is SO spaghetti-western (the whole film is, but...) I have to say, the opening was probably one of the best openings ever. The scene was silly and tense and long, but didn't feel that way. You wanted to get to the end, not because it was too long, but because you needed to know what was gonna happen. When the camera tracks down and we see the family in the floorboards--even though we all knew something like that was bound to happen--my heart sunk.

Brad Pitt looked like he had to take a shit the whole time, especially during the premiere. The alternate reality of this film was brilliant, 'cause in most films with this kind of historical bent, you expect them to fail. But they don't. They fucking kill Hitler! Crazy. Anyway, I loved it. We got a bunch of films we're hoping to catch up on before we leave for Chi-town.
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We've had a stressful last couple days. Our Chicago friend went MIA for a day and a half, and we were supposed to have her check out some apartments for us, and we sent in an app, then hours later, Em finds a review of the place that was NOT GOOD, in fact it was horrible. We had to cancel the app and our agent-guy was totally cool with it. He's rad. We owe him beer and cookies. But she's gonna take a look at some apartments for us today or tomorrow, so we'll see...fingers crossed everyone...fingers crossed.
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I'm hoping to find a job somewhere ASAP. I've applied for a few teaching jobs for this summer, but I've yet to hear back from anyone. Maybe I'll end up working at a call center. Honestly, I don't care. I just want a job that pays decently for the summer...
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OK.
That's all. I'm trying to blog at least once every two days or so...maybe once every three...we'll see if I keep up.
Love
Joshua

Wednesday

Look at this picture! Look how young I was! This is taken in the basement of our Monroe St. House, near the lettered streets. This is after a Autumn Poetry practice. I don't know what I'm doing, but I like this picture. I hated living in that house, though I have some interesting memories--and I DID like living with David Woods. We were sort of the butt of everyone's jokes. We were liberal, while almost everyone else was not. Was really NOT. Like ignorant about anything that didn't fit inside their sheltered suburban, Christian bubble. I left six months into living there with extreme writers block, no money, and a broken heart (or ego, I couldn't tell you which was which then...but I'd bet it was more of an ego thing). Anyway, I left.
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We'd practice in the basement, right next to the bag and box full of discarded, nondescript porn, next to the hole in the concrete wall (that looked like someone out of a war zone (just the hole...nothing else). So, we had an upstairs neighbor that used to come down in the middle of the day and ask us to stop playing, one time he said, "Can you practice with acoustic guitars?" We laughed at him and said, "We're a rock band, dude."
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So, this is moments after Autumn Poetry ran into the ocean. Our bass player, had the keys on his belt loop and lost them. We had to find some PVC from a landscaper and unlock the door through a cracked window. It was quite a feat. Anyway, he's smoking, and we're all smoking outside the frame, because our smokes were still in the car. Wow. We never let our bass player live that one down. Though, we probably should've he was having a rough tour, and actually, was probably on his way out. I miss that kid. Kevin, I miss you.

Later dudes,
JOshua

Yeah, here's a new one!

So, I'm officially obsessed with this band--mainly this record, though I've been reading about other records and I HAVE TO get my hands on them.
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My Good, GOOD, friend Dave sent me a CD with a bunch of records on it. Examples: Knapsack, Kid Kilowat, Polar Bear Club, Lee Fields and the Expressions, and more. But what really caught my attention was this record from The Hold Steady. I can't say enough good things. Check it out. Apparently, the records have recurring characters, and the songs feel more like stories with guitar riffs and melodies. I know this is way behind, but hey, I've been buried in academia, my own band, and other things for a while...Here's the lyrics to the first song, "Stuck Between Stations":

There are nights when I think Sal Paradise was right.
Boys and Girls in America have such a sad time together.
Sucking off each other at the demonstrations
Making sure their makeup’s straight
Crushing one another with colossal expectations.
Dependent, undisciplined, and sleeping late.

She was a really cool kisser and she wasn’t all that strict of a Christian.
She was a damn good dancer but she wasn’t all that great of a girlfriend.
She likes the warm feeling but she’s tired of all the dehydration.
Most nights are crystal clear
But tonight it’s like it’s stuck between stations
On the radio.

The devil and John Berryman
Took a walk together.
They ended up on Washington
Talking to the river.
He said “I’ve surrounded myself with doctors
And deep thinkers.
But big heads with soft bodies
Make for lousy lovers.”
There was that night that we thought John Berryman could fly.
But he didn’t
So he died.
She said “You’re pretty good with words
But words won’t save your life.”
And they didn’t.
So he died.

He was drunk and exhausted but he was critically acclaimed and respected.
He loved the Golden Gophers but he hated all the drawn out winters.
He likes the warm feeling but he’s tired of all the dehydration
Most nights were kind of fuzzy
But that last night he had total retention.

These Twin Cities kisses
Sound like clicks and hisses.
We all tumbled down and
Drowned in the Mississippi River.

We drink
We dry up
Then we crumble to dust
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The vocals are gravelly and the guitars are loud, and it's real catchy too. Check it!
Joshua

Oranges

So, I saw this while walking around NMSU the other day. I had to share it.
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Right now, I'm eating an orange and taking a break from writing notes for my good friend, Ian Denning, who sent me some stories during AWP. And I've read them a couple times, but haven't commented. One of his stories is period piece, and it's freaking really great! I'm really stoked about it (Yes Ian, I am). So, I'm writing notes for stories. I'm just glad I get a break from fiction endnotes for like two years (unless I end up teaching a fiction class...) because my focus at Columbia is POETRY ONLY.
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Currently, I'm also in the process of revising a short story called, "Testimonials are Money Makers," which I'm really excited about, and I'm just changing up a bit. Fixing things. I'm also, revising The Story Thief one last time before I send out my next draft to friends and start writing agent letters. This consist of cutting "Fucks" and dialogue that toes the line between transcript and Beckett.
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Anyway, I'm gonna eat this orange, drink some coffee, and keep with the notes.

Later Gs,
Joshua

The Countdown has begun...

This is our first official baby present. Go to Ugly Dolls to check out more.
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So, Em, Indie, and I walked about the NMSU campus a couple days ago and I cleaned out my "office." It was nice walking around, remembering the first time we came to visit...and being sort of quiet about how we didn't like the town on first view. Here's some advice. If you are planning on going to a program, try to go check it out. 'Cause I heard a lot of things about this town, and it wasn't what I expected. Though, I'm glad we came. I made some great friends, learned from some pretty fantastic professors, I got to teach, and we found Indie. Not bad if you think about it. But I'm glad to be attending Columbia College and I'm glad to be going to Chicago...a real, big city. Speaking of that, we're looking for places. We're no longer thinking Rogers Park (did I mention that?), now we're thinking Andersonville, Edgewater, or Lakeview...We'd be up on Lake Michigan, and right by the Red Line (EL). Anyway. Wish us luck.
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We (I mostly mean Emily, 'cause I wouldn't know where to start) have to find a doctor for Em and the baby. I think she's got some leads, so that's good.
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I caught up on LOST. YOu know what? I just want it to end already. I just want them to get the point and have it all be over so I can move on with my life. I'm tired of the twists and turns. I just want to watch something else...like Finishing the Wire (Yes, season three, disc 5) BOOM!
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I've got a lot of reading to do this summer. Some editing. AND a lot of writing. Cause who knows how much I'll get to do when the baby comes? My goal is to work on my major project (This is the Way to Rule), and tinker with poems about place and identity (being a husband, father, but really being an all around idiot...basically, I'm just one big failure, who really has no idea how to do those things well...that's what I've been writing about lately, though not overtly...)
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I just did the dishes and have some rice cooking. I think I'm gonna steam up some veggies for Dinner...Cabbage, Broccoli, Spinach, and fry up some Temp-ah. We'll see how it turns out.
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Later Gs
Joshua

Double Downs and A Sweet Potato

First of all, Ian Denning doubled-downed at KFC. Enough said.

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Yes, this post is about a sweet potato. A few weeks back I bought a sweet potato and I didn't cook with it, because, well, I got a whole bunch of other food that I wanted to cook, so I left it. Then it started sprouting and I thought, "I'll throw it away tomorrow." But the next day it had grown a bunch more, so I thought, "I'm gonna see if it gets bigger." Well, it did. Now, it's pretty big. Look close, you can see how tall these little vines have been. Fiction writers, here's an exercise: Write a story about a sweet potato that grew too much, rapidly, and took over someone's kitchen. There must also be a cardboard box, a loaf of bread, and a pair of boots in the story. OK. there you go.

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We're looking for Chicago Apartments. It's slow going, but we got a lot of leads. We were thinking Rogers Park, but I think we're shooting for something closer to campus so that I'm not so far away from home, what with the baby and all. So, we're looking for places in Lakeview and Andersonville (and other neighborhoods in those areas). We're really excited to be in Chicago during the summer, and even more so that this will be our home for the next couples years, maybe more. We'll see.

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I'm excited to start the program at Columbia and excited to meet the poets and profs whom I haven't met.

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OK. Time to clean up the house and stuff.

Keep it real,

Stay clean,

Joshua

Wordle and Projects

So, I did some wordle. These are the word clouds for my four recent projects. There's The Story Thief, Bumping, When the Wolves Quit, and To the Chapel of Light. If you're a publisher, publish these. I've been sending out Bumping for probably two years, and the biggest critique is that the book's language is fairly spare and minimalist. It's a book of understatement and subtext. The Story Thief is in its final editing (at least, I'm combing through checking dialogue and shit before I start querying agents and some awesome presses). I'm excited. Anyone wants to read it and give me some feedback in a couple weeks...let me know...you included Dave. To the Chapel of Light is now out at small presses. I hope someone sees the good in this project. I'm so proud of it, and I have a lot to say about that project. When the Wolves Quit has another draft in it. I met with my professor, Richard Greenfield (who is a brilliant poet, fucking brilliant, and a fucking great teacher), took the time to read my massive book and talk to me about it. He had a lot of great things to say, and some comments that jazzed me so much! i got some work to do, but to me, I think it's not a lot of work, just some teasing out of the performance of each character. I've got some books to read and some things to think about in terms of really bring out that this book is a play and not just some arbitrary form holding a narrative together. It's about roles and roles being stretched and twisted when violence and things out of the norm rear its head.

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I've got poetry workshop tomorrow, then one more fiction workshop. Then I meet with MY class on Friday, get the final papers and tell them their current grades. I'm sad to see 'em go. But I'll have new students in Chicago...keep your fingers crossed about summer teaching!!!

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Alright, just watched Glee, gonna watch some parenthood and hang out with Em and Indie.

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Love,

Joshua Young

Don Waters and other things

Dear Chicago,

Don't worry, we'll be there soon. Just hang on...we've got some shit to finish here, then we're on our way...Indie's excited to meet you. Though, we're probably gonna have to get her a fancy coat for the winters. I'm sure she'll be happy not to have to deal with pulling goat-heads out of her paws. Anyway, see you soon.

- X

So, except for two more fiction workshops and one poetry workshop, and giving a final, I'm done. We had a nice little workshop today, and ended up in this little nook, talking about the stories. But whatever, you probably don't care about that.

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Last night I got to see Don Water's read from his collection of stories, Desert Gothic, which won the Iowa prize for fiction. He read the story, "Mormons in Heat," which is a really great story, and super funny. My friend Peter was laughing so hard, that Don started laughing a lot--that and he was laughing at his own stuff, 'cause he hadn't read it in a while. It was a great reading! Go check out Don Waters. He's brilliant!

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What's funnier about last night is that the gentleman who read, the MFA student was a guy named David Roe, who introduced (each student is introduced by a friend in the program before the reading) by a guy named Steven Lloyd Weber. OK. So, Steven read last year, when I came to visit. And David Roe introduced him. Talk about fucking full-circle. Even if I wasn't leaving, I would have to with something like this. It's just crazy that the same students who I saw when I came to visit--my first reading series at NMSU--were the same two who read at the last. CRAZY.

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I'm getting excited to get out of this town, but I gotta say, I really like a lot of my new friends. And some of them I respect as writers so much more than I did in the beginning of the year. Maybe it's cause they're grown as writers, or maybe I was just pissed. Though, there are some people you'll see out there in the fiction world for sure. Poetry-wise, ditto.

I think I'm also on the same page with most people here about the "laziness" of the town, and how that can affect the program. I think, for the most part, many fellow students are really hoping for a more intense next year...maybe not intense, but fuller.

I'm excited to start at Columbia, though we got till September 7th. I think I'm gonna go troll around over there during the summer. I applied for a teaching job, though, I don't think I'm gonna get it. My cover letter wasn't the best. I've rewritten it and made it really sharp. Maybe I should reapply. There's nothing wrong with that right?

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I've got a headache right now. But I tried to pushed through it, I revised some stories and work on some endnotes and my poetry portfolio. I'll still have a lot to do by monday. I read a lot this semester, but I read a lot of fiction, and not as much poetry. Probably about six or seven poetry books. I read a lot more prose...plus prose books are longer...

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There's a ROCKBAND party tonight. Me and Indie are gonna head over there in an hour and a half. She's gonna play with her friend Rory. So, we have to go over earlier, so they can get their sniffing, barking, and growling (And maybe some pissing) out of the way. They usually run around like crazy for a long time, then that night, and the next day, both of them just want to sleep...ALL DAY.

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Alright, I think I'm gonna straighten up some shit for a while. Have a great weekend.

Later,

Joshua