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We keep the baby bird in a shoebox on the counter. My daughter found it by the car, next to where the last one was kicked out of the nest (now in the freezer, awaiting burial). Part of me thinks that speaks volumes about what’s wrong with the world: Birds are supposed to fly, but some don’t, and the ones that fall hit way too hard. I decided a long time ago that the world is not a pretty place. That doesn’t make me bitter or miserable; it just means that regardless of my day-to-day mood, my stance is set that things are broken here. Maybe that’s a middle class cliché, maybe that’s just believing what the Bible says, but I don’t see it budging any time soon. The bird is wrapped in a towel, on top of a hot water bottle filled with—not hot, but—warm water, no feathers save for on the wings. We feed it with a dropper, but it thrashes with a body language we can’t interpret. Doesn’t have enough energy to peck or scratch at us though. At most, there’s a small chirp, but its eyes remain shut. We call the animal hospital and they tell us that we should just leave it alone, but we can’t do that now. My father used to find all kinds of crippled animals when he was a boy: Half-eaten mice, mangled cats, dropkicked birds. He’d take them home, care for them, but the result was always the same: Dead by morning. He says it’s the shock of you caring for them that kills them. My wife insists we drive to the animal hospital. Otherwise, she’ll be up all night. She wants to know how badly injured the baby bird is. If it’ll live, we’ll take care of it. If not, she doesn’t want it to suffer. The man at the counter takes the bird to the back and five minutes later he returns empty handed. We do not see the baby bird again. In the parking lot, my wife says, “We’re going home with an empty box. I hate empty boxes. An empty box feels like an empty heart.” I suppose that doesn’t make sense to most people. Not when there’s so much wrong in the world (and enough of it is at their door). I understand that only the strong survive in nature and that weakness has no exit ramp from its unfortunate destination, I understand the reason behind one small bird in our freezer and the other one with a needle in its side, but I also understand why my wife puts down a couple of towels in the parking lot even though the next bird will still hit way too hard and why she’ll have to take it in, much like my father in his youth, and that this bird will probably still die from the shock. I understand it, but I still hope for something different. Tags: my.rad.family, out.of.my.head
Current Mood:  sad
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For the benefit of brand spankin’ new Facebookers:I made a decision recently to no longer cuss in my fiction (more on that here), so I'll give fair warning if a piece has naughty words in there: Nonfiction: "30 Seconds Where I Think About Being Alone" in Poor Mojo's Almanac(k), rant #436, 05/29/09: http://www.poormojo.org/cgi-bin/gennie.pl?Rant+436+biMicro fiction: EXPLICIT: "Plant v. Page" in Red Fez, issue 22, May 2009: http://www.redfez.net/redfez/SubPage1.php?page=SubStory&ID=88Nonfiction: Editor's intro to Colored Chalk, issue 7: "MacGuffins For Hire," 03/31/09: As guest editor, this edition of Colored Chalk deals with valuable objects and features work from poets Michael S. Harper (published ten collections of poetry, Rhode Island’s first poet laureate [from 1988-1993], University Professor at Brown University [where he has taught since 1970], has earned a slew of fellowships and awards, the most notable of which is the 2008 Robert Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America for a lifetime achievement in poetry) and Meg Kearney (published two collections of poetry [with her latest, Home By Now to be released fall 2009 and a picture book pending], taught poetry at the New School University, Director of the Solstice Creative Writing Programs of Pine Manor College in Massachusetts. was Associate Director of the National Book Foundation [sponsor of the National Book Awards] for more than 10 years, poetry featured on Poetry Daily and Garrison Keillor’s “A Writer’s Almanac,” and published in numerous publications; notably in Poetry, Agni, and Ploughshares): http://coloredchalk.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=147Micro nonfiction: "Stopping Fireworks" in Flashshot (archived via Live Journal), Spring 2009: http://sardonic-artery.livejournal.com/2009/02/27/Fiction: EXPLICIT: "Two Hands, Three Options" in Colored Chalk, issue 5: "Sins of the Father," 11/30/2008: http://coloredchalk.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=106Fiction: "The Operators" in Colored Chalk, issue 4: "Big Brother in My Pocket," 09/30/2008: http://coloredchalk.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=96Prior to this, I took a five-year hiatus from publishing shorts to write my first novel, my first nonfiction collection and to do that whole life thingamabob.Fiction (but listed as nonfiction): "Chest and Stars" in The Wazee Journal, issue 3, summer 2003: http://www.wazeejournal.org/Issue3/nonfiction/chest1.htmFiction: EXPLICIT: "Of Making Rituals and the Occasional Strive to Break Them" in The Metrosphere online, summer 2003: http://www.mscd.edu/~msphere/metrosphere0203/ofMakingRituals.htmlFiction: "Dinners with Lily" in The Metrosphere, summer 2003: http://www.mscd.edu/~msphere/metrosphere0203/dinners.html
Finally, my long short, "Queasy," will be in the debut print issue of Sideshow Fables (due for publication summer 2009).Tags: published
Current Mood:  Promoted
Current Music: Dog gettin' shaved
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I wanted to have a Memorial Day post regarding Jim Sheeler’s Final Salute (about the marines who knock on the doors of families who have lost soldiers to war), but since the Rocky Mountain News went the way of the dodo, their videos don’t work so well anymore. Even the original print of the article won’t load up. It’s a shame; it’s a beautiful article, won Sheeler the Pulitzer (nice guy, too, by the way), and the audio slide show is stellar, but it’s one more thing that used to be there and is not. My hard drive crashed. All my nonfiction is gone. Thought I had it backed up, but did not. My wife found an older version of one collection on her computer, but it’s not the same. A couple of short stories finger-snapped out of existence, too, but I’m sure I’ve got emailed versions of them sitting in some editor’s slush pile. In general, a lot of polished work has resorted to its scuzzed up previous form. A month-and-a-half of the novel didn’t get backed up either. I’m trying to recreate it now, but it’s like the author says in “Wonderboys” as his novel is flying around in the breeze from the back of a crashed hatchback, his editor futily grabbing at pages whistling by, about how Hemingway once lost an entire novel and was only able to recreate the first chapter. That’s what trying to reproduce this work is like – trying to get the original when all you have is a loose reference to a different reference. It hasn’t gone through several ears and mouths, but it’s gone through your head and fingers enough times that you can’t suss out how you got from beginning to end. I have some patch versions of other chapters and it’s harder to quilt those together than it is to work from scratch. Can’t blame anyone but myself (though if my new hard drive crashes too soon I’ll write off Macs for life). So back up your stuff. Music, family photos, whatever. Otherwise, you’re the next one to write a post like this. Tags: world.issues/influential.figures
Current Mood:  Recreatin'
Current Music: Wife blaring Andrew Lloyd Webber
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A few months ago I decided I’m not going to cuss in my fiction anymore (see here). Of course, as soon as you make a decision like this, something comes up. When you send out your work, there’s always a long delay with editors getting back to you, followed by mass rejection, and then, if you do get a piece accepted, a delay till the publication hits. Once I made my no-cuss decision, a fiction piece of mine with cussing—you guessed it—got accepted. I sent a letter to the editors telling them to change a line or that I’d have to withdraw the piece. Thing is, sometimes it’s tougher to get a response to a query than it is to get something accepted. The piece came out today—unmodified—so at this point I’ve decided to just not promote it. Sure, I realize that mentioning not promoting the piece is, in a sense, promoting it, but I figured I should weigh in on the issue in case someone comes but saying, “Hey, I thought you said…” Inevitably, I can’t be too annoyed about it because, a) that’s just how life goes; and b) it’s still nice to have a piece published. So that whole no cussing in fiction thing starts now. Hold on… checks pieces that are currently making the rounds… yeah, starting now. Tags: published
Current Mood:  Unpromoted
Current Music: Lack of fanfare
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I get instructed to take the back hallway to the secret entrance by the phone room. A phone call later and there are two nurses inside with masks on taking a slip of cash and a signature. “Hold this mask over your mouth,” says one, and after a couple of string ties we look like we all shop at the same place. Under the sterile hum I ask, “Does this mask make my butt look fat?” Their masks come up with smiles. That’s pretty good for medical officials. There was this Batman storyline—amidst all the other Batman universes, where Bruce Wayne might be more violent, insane, or a hundred years old—that suggested the reason the Joker was so obsessed with the man in black was because he could never make him laugh. I have a similar quirk with doctors and nurses, humorless as they tend to be. It’s a family trait. My father once laid flat on his back getting his eyeball removed for surgery (they put it back when they were done). With his eyeball strung out on his fat chest, he lamented that he thought he’d finally see a special little body part again. He got the doctor to leave the room with that one. He’s duped people into looking at his colonoscopy pictures, too. Got me with it twice, back to back, but the doctors are still the best target. I’ve cracked a few in my time, but it’s less fun when they come to expect it. I’ve had more awkward silences though; including that one time I—pre-marriage, therefore a virgin at the time—inadvertently got a year-long Viagra prescription. The last visit I had ended with me telling the doctor, giving me a week-long steroid blast to combat allergies, “Level with me, doc. How small will my genitals shrink and when can I start my professional wrestling career?” Today’s doctor is new and not very good with eye contact. Before he got in, I was disappointed that I didn’t bring a sharpie to draw a smiley mouth on my face mask. I dug through the room. No luck. I tried using a regular pen, but stopped when I realized I was more likely to gouge through the mask to reveal my actual smile than to get the ink to stick on the slick surface. I don’t remember all the jokes I used, but I know I forgot the one about being too skinny to get swine flu. Despite the precautions and the neat visual, I don’t have swine flu. No standard influenza either. “Just viral crud,” says the doctor, head tilted towards the floor. It’s a medical term—viral crud—and it sticks in my lungs and throat real good. After getting swabbed in the back of my throat and up my nose, I ask the doctor if he’s done prodding orifices. When he confirms, I say, “I guess our relationship’s over then.” I suggest wearing my face mask to the grocery store, seeing how long it takes for someone to escort me out for smelling fruit way too close. I stop short of yanking my face mask off in the parking lot offering free hugs and smooches to anyone who passes. By next time I hope to learn enough origami to fold the paper over the rubber patient seat into something pretty. I took the secret way out when I left. I think they might have me do it that way every time. Tags: out.of.my.head
Current Mood: Not-swine flued
Current Music: Talk radio
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