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I've spent the past five years (six? seven?) working with the developmentally disabled through two different organizations. Tonight was my last night (my choice).... For now. (But probably for good.) Very mixed emotions.
I've been spending a good deal of my writing time exploring the experiences related to this job. It'll be weird to have it transition from writing while immersed into writing totally from what's in my head and notes.
On a totally unrelated note, just got an e-mail rejecto. This particular short story sold its very first time out, to a pretty well-respected, well-paying mag. It made it all the way into proofread galleys, but then the 'zine suddenly -- like on a day's notice -- closed shop. Since then, close to 20 nays. Mort Castle once told me to send a story out 100 times before giving up on it. (It's worked for him.) Only 80 more to go. |
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I hate it when I'm just standing around at a bus stop on a lonesome highway and airplanes start to divebomb and strafe me before crashing into oil tankers. |
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Received a contract today for an essay to be published in next year's new book-format Withersin anthology. "3-D Horror: A One-Eyed Appreciation". (Yes, folks, since the age of 19, I've only had one properly working eye, which sucks when watching 3-D movies.)
http://www.withersin.com |
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http://www.asianmanrecords.com/media/Monkey_Summertimesun.mp3
The free/legal mp3 above appears on the soundtrack of this movie I cowrote in the'80s. It's about a gaggle of dorky science club guys wishing they could pick up chicks.
For those of you who missed Berris Fueller's Sixteen Risky Hot Spring Break Fast Time Hardbodies Just Wanna Have Fun Nerd Revenge III, the song plays during the montage scene where our science geeks try to get buff, exercising on the beach under the direction of the sixty-five-year-old gruff but somehow suave and fun-loving father figure retiree who gets all the twenty-something chicks who's adopted them, interspersed with meanwhile-back-at-the-lab scenes wherein the kids perfect the pheremone-laden love potion (it's neon green and smokes as if it's made with dry ice) which they plan to slip into the punch at the big end-of-summer dance.
One of the science nerds, Mikey (the one being played by John Cusack), is on the cusp of being a totally regular, normal dude, if only he weren't so smart. The one really hot girl who's also, we learn, actually kinda intelligent (because she's in his class where they do things with bunson burners) actually talks to him and stuff, but at the end we come to the revelation that her jock boyfriend isn't such a bad guy after all and John Cusak should really go after the shy, mousey brainiac girl whose heart is true and whom he'll be more likely to relate to when they ride off into the sunset toward college (Harvard, of course -- the hot chick heads off to the state university party school where, as we learn in a series of Animal House-style stills as the credits roll, she becomes homecoming queen but instead of a tiara, she asks to be crowned with the goofy bowler hat Cusack gave her back in high school). |
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Somoene's gonna report me for posting this, but I always like to go out in a blaze of glory. Most definitely not work safe!
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| » Obama is ... err, I mean G.H.W. Bush is Eeeeevil!!! |
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G.H.W. Bush on the eve of the 1992 election, to kids in school: "We made a start nationally now by setting six National Education Goals to meet the challenges of the 21st century.... We should be first in the world in math and science. We need t...o regularly test student’s abilities. Every American child should start school ready to learn .... Reaching those goals is the aim of that we call America 2000."
BIGGEST! NON! ISSUE! YET!
Sep. 4th, 2009 @ 11:48 am
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| » Mister Brand! |
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Wish I had a clue how to embed this -- this clip launched a thousand '80s horror/tardy-for-class/all-purpose in-jokes with me and the geek crew back in the day:
http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/amazingstories/sorethroat.wmv
Sep. 4th, 2009 @ 09:42 am
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| » Ageism |
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So the New Yorker's new managing editor is only 26 -- http://tr.im/xlxK . There seem to be a lot of naysayers in the blogosphere.
But, hell, I was teaching college English and editing a fairly highly regarded (and admittedly less well-regarded by others) poetry rag at 21? 22?
It starts with fire, and if you're lucky you get to simmer along.
Sports, the arts, music - where would these be without the young? The are endless examples of their contributions. I'm looking forward to the new NYer era.
Aug. 28th, 2009 @ 10:48 am
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| » Sky Trail |
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Went to the zoo and did *this* today, risking limb and lunch!
http://tinyurl.com/nkystg
Jul. 30th, 2009 @ 04:35 pm
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| » She doesn't have anything you want to steal...well, nothing you can touch |
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PRETTY IN PINK was on AMC when I got up this morning. I watched it, trying to figure out how I went to bed one night 25 years ago as Jon Cryer and woke up this morning as Harry Dean Stanton.
Jul. 26th, 2009 @ 02:02 pm
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| » Half-Blood Prince |
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Scored tickets to the Harry Potter midnight show, going with my son & daughter!
Jul. 14th, 2009 @ 09:42 pm
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| » Wknd. |
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Weekends like this are little prose-poems unto themselves, eh? As in: sleeping through a thunderstorm in a tent, tubing the Muskegon, the perfect coconut rum-in-ade, copious hot tubs and frequent naps, 5,000 new words, mist off the river all morning, cold pool, the princess eats breakfast first!
Jul. 12th, 2009 @ 06:50 pm
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| » Facebookin' |
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It looks like I'm largely switching over to Facebook, but I'll keep this account. Don't worry, I won't disappear completely!
Jul. 8th, 2009 @ 02:12 pm
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| » Internet Larnin' |
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Woot! Looks like I've scored my first stint teaching an online-only English class this fall!
Don't know why I'm so excited about this, as it appears online courses are generally more work than F2F (face to face) classes. Maybe it's just the excuse to legitimately be on the computer...
Jul. 6th, 2009 @ 12:19 pm
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| » Best Lyrics Heard This Week |
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"She creeps me out. She crept me back in again."
-- Jay Reatard
Jul. 4th, 2009 @ 01:37 pm
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| » Online Classes |
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In another window I'm taking my class to get certified to teach online classes.
Internet classes are distracting by definition -- you have to be online with all those time-wasting tempations like lj, facebook, the news, etc., right at your fingertips.
Plus I have music blaring anytime I have the computer on, but I think that actually helps me focus.
Jul. 1st, 2009 @ 08:48 pm
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| » Fear |
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I'm afraid to read my friends list here in LJ world.
(I'm sorry, but I was just never that into Michael.)
Jun. 27th, 2009 @ 03:18 pm
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