February 2006
Can't say as how I blame me – I thought long and hard, but unproductively, about the limited usefulness of introspection. In my tidy little room, my calm and soothing environment, cerebrations are nevertheless murky. Even thought
Drowned in Lake Placid – My blood was boiling so I cooled my heels. I am entering the decades of unflappability, a new era of serenity for me, a gradual onset of life-enhancing calmness which will peacefully terminate in the
Let's have anal sex – One of the perks of taking it on all fours like a dog is that you get to feel, however briefly, that someone is really behind you 100%. Thank you, I'll be at Nitwits in Sioux Falls later this month. E
Ordinary people – I was subject to the common domestic hazards. Horseplay with a loaded salad shooter, all fun and games till someone loses an eye. Raging sister advancing on me with an Epilady. That's not a toy, hold
Self-contained – I finally learned to contain myself sometime in the late 1990's. Before that I was all over the place. I had a nose for things and a thing for noses, among other things. I cocked one ear, I pricked bo
February 2005
Aim low – The fortune in the fortune cookie I didn't get after the noodles I didn't eat in between spasms of burbling conversation with some engaging Portland friends I don't yet and might never have said Don't
Coleman Dowell – It turns out that digital entertainment can mean more than simply a moistened finger. Today I walked all over, listening to The Wrens. Everything I saw was made better and more interesting thanks to T
Evaluation – Upon interpretation of the raw data, it was determined that an unacceptable number of my test erections were Mildly to Moderately Psychotic in nature. Several prophylactic measures were recommended, i
Handful of dust – It's tempting to think that feelings exist in a person before they suddenly catapult out of the body to adhere to, coat, or burrow into parts of the world. Rather than create them on the fly or fashi
Light of truth – I sometimes walk up Hawthorne around 40th to 50th, but usually only during the day. At night that area is pretty much a post-apocalyptic landscape of wandering drunks and horny straight guys in tented
Little room – I like being in my little office with all my things, my bunker. My books and my comfy chair and the blank wall where I'll hang something someday, perhaps that beautiful original poster for The Extermi
Occupational hazards – My office is dominated by an ugly futon sofa. The lumpy futon itself is in a terrible flower print cover and the frame has been gnawed by an apparently insane dog or wart hog. It's not much to look at
Sap of pleasure – The activities of the human brain are self-rewarding, by the mechanism of the release of pleasurable chemicals. I should feel grateful to my brain for giving me these little fixes, but unlike a mouse
Slunk – At the last minute I decided to stop being such a putz and go hear Charles D'Ambrosio read from Orphans. I was only five minutes late to the New American Art Union but the smallish gallery space was j
The long-awaited James Purdy renaissance – Amazing. James Purdy, one of my writer heroes and a man whose lifetime of brilliant work has been almost completely ignored by whatever passes for the literary establishment, is the Featured Author of
The silent killer – Where have I been? Call it my semi-annual crisis of confidence, winter version. I don't know why this happens, or rather I don't know why it ever subsides. Not that it helped me feel like a better wri
Trying to live – The repellent human organism, I tell myself, with its damp shadows and awkward compromises with gravity, its preposterous clumps of vestigial fur, its capricious, ungovernable inflations and deflation
Wedding – When I've had friends they've mostly been homosexuals or social misfits or losers or all of the above, and therefore I've only been to one wedding in my life, that of a friend of mine from work, a wor
February 2004
Afternoon buzz – The other day I found myself in a neighborhood bar with a friend, getting a nice easy buzz from a succession of increasingly appealing 7&7's. Getting sloshed in the afternoon when you're within walkin
All the comforts of home – My resolution to enjoy life more only lasted twelve hours. I haven't resolved to enjoy life less, I've simply reverted to my default stance of benign fractiousness. What I want is simplicity and a kin
Desperate drill – Last night a friend took me to a wine bar. I enjoy wine but my knowledge of it is minimal, and correcting this state of ignorance isn't exactly high on my list of personal goals. Wait, do I even have
Go tell your alien brothers that Ronnie Cordova says they're GAY! – It seems that I'm a superstar. No really. By some cosmic coincidence I share my name with the righteous but ridiculous hero of a series of comical short films called Sockbaby.line of dialogue quoted i
How my oblivion was ruined – People don't like the idea of being forgotten after their deaths, which is a weird projection I could never get my head around. Since I'm going to be dead when this state of affairs, being forgotten,
In common – It turns out that you and I share a fondness for this book or that movie, this microgenre of music or that dusty corner of "edgy" underground culture, and a little too giddily we exchange smiles, gest
In heaven everything is fine – It's 3 in the morning and there are two people sitting on my couch, but they're both sort of asleep. At least they're in recumbent poses with their eyes closed, whether they're technically asleep or n
Invitation to a beheading – I got another solicitation to submit work to a humor site. I don't understand such invitations. It isn't like it's some kind of promise, the last time I got one they rejected the piece I sent them. I
Is that possible – Since I don't have the slightest idea who I am or what I'm doing or who I was or whether I am remotely close to whatever or whomever I am supposed to become or how I'm perceived or where I should be o
Leap day not skank day? – Apparently leap day isn't a day on which one's actions are free of certain bothersome moral and social consequences, on which particular so-called moral constraints on behavior are refreshingly loosen
Magic trick – I find the air surrounding person X to be soft and comfortable, a nice place to hang around, spend an afternoon. Unambiguous air, but sculptable like a down pillow. Wordless channels of communication
Mixed feelings – I'd like to sneak away from myself, maybe as I nap. I could feed myself a big dinner perhaps, lull myself into a food coma, and then tiptoe away through the back door which I'd cleverly left very slig
My next brain – My next brain will eschew fancy newfangled features and concentrate on doing a solid reliable job on the fundamentals. Things like, oh, allowing me to sleep eight hours a night perhaps, and maybe also
My sunny day – Spring is in the air, for me. A false spring, most likely, but I always did have a natural sympathy for tentative smiles. The arrival of a new season occurs only in the mind, it's different for each p
Oppressive enthusiasm – The other night I went down to Powell's to attend a Clear Cut Press reading. I am a subscriber to Clear Cut and am supportive of it of course, but I was there mostly to see Matthew Stadler, Clear Cut'
Pool table – I assume I would be informed if my father was discovered to be no longer alive. I haven't heard from him, or heard any word about him, in something like ten years. My most recent intelligence had him
Shadow selves – Do you ever think about how changed things would be if you'd made certain small decisions differently, or never saw them as decisions, or been a slightly different person faced with the same decisions
Such satisfying boredom – One thing I like to do is watch a movie and value all the wrong things about it. I don't know anything about movies really, despite the fact that I've seen hundreds or thousands of them. When it comes
The day after the day before – Yesterday I had a long conversation over drinks with a new acquaintance. One of those meandering bar chats that feels like forging a path, hacking away at dense mental vegetation. But a path to where,
The gay divorcee – As a homosexual in a seemingly stable relationship, I have thought about the gay marriage issue for a grand total of about thirty seconds. If nothing else, allowing gay people to legally marry is a wo
Too much immunity – Not even March and already I'm in allergy hell. What fun. A willful overdose of loratadine supplemented by sporting, devil-may-care amounts of profoundly drowsifying dyphenhydramine. Olopatadine hydro
Trauma of friendship – Yesterday my friend C called from New York. I was both happy and mortified to hear from her, but luckily she felt the same way about calling, which allowed a note of grim authenticity or gallows humor
Uncounted blessings – I've never been one to count my blessings. Instead I treat my blessings as an undifferentiated mass or conglomeration, that is when I'm not ignoring them completely or mistaking them for curses. To se
Wasteful and distracting – I was reading in the NYT Sunday Magazine about the increasing numbers of very, very old people who are still thriving and fully engaged with life. One man they profiled is 100 and still a practicing l
Why the long face – I am feeling mighty arbitrary lately. Who are these people and why am I here and not somewhere else, or nowhere? Often you find yourself closely or even intimately associated with people who don't see
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