IKEA-Ho!

IKEA-Ho!

Why I ever agree to go to the Elizabeth, NJ, IKEA is beyond me. It always turns out bad, with either Jess or I kvetching and moaning about the weight of the flatpacks or awkwardly angled furniture or how fucking long it takes to get there and back.

This Saturday was one such episode. We rose early and met A, eager to be good little consumerbots (The only reason to trek to the dirty Jerz.). It was 10 AM. Aside from the brisk wind and nippy temperature we were happy happy happy. The memories of our last visit to the Swedish purveyor of lacquered particleboard vaporized with the thousands of brain cells lost daily. I once again had some extra cash and knew we needed to replace the airstrip of a coffee table, the size of our living room. We were to split the cost and had a list of items, a strict list from which we could only slightly deviate.

Our time at the store was joyous. We had a skip in our step, jokingly bickering over tastes in furnishings.

Jessie (throwing up her arms): Why you like 70s crap and furniture that’s not really furniture...I just don't know. It’s a folding chair with tiny polka dots! It’s ugly. Gross.

Me (shocked, alarmed, you get the idea): Better something collapsible than some 200-lb overstuffed leviathan. Hey, check this out! Isn’t this cool? This is so cool.

Jessie rolled her eyes. I walked to the next display oblivious to the fact that I was about to mow over some soccer mom.

Jessie: Stop. You gotta be more spatially aware.

I just motioned for her to scooch along. We both laughed

A (suprised): Wow. If I ever did that, J would be furious.

We stocked our cart with our pre-determined items and other boberias we didn’t know we couldn’t live without until we saw them.

We waited for A to fetch a 78-lb secretary from furniture pickup then off to the shuttle bus. Hip hip. Hooray. Ninety minutes. It was 1:30 PM. Jessie had to be at work at 5 PM. Everything was going as planned. There was consumer glee and adherence to a timetable and fucking-awesome planning. (Jess and I brought two rolling carts and a shoulder bag each for our wares.) We would set up a new accumulations and beam with debit card pride at our thriftiness. Yes, we were rockin’ the economy and our fourth-floor two-bedroom walk-up.

Alas, Lincoln Tunnel traffic spite me—even after I complimented the construction of a ball diamond atop its Jersey exit. Miraculous use of space, much like what we were going to do to our place. Uepa!

Four hours after leaving IKEA we arrived at our Prospect Heights digs. Jessie ran out of the cab. She was going to be late to work. Dropping her load in the living room. I paid the driver and ran up after her, not realizing I had left my messenger bag (with a wall clock, picture frame, and credit card offers) in the cab’s front seat. An hour later I figured out why dunderheaded me couldn’t find the bag and immediately called 311 to file a report. The report is being processed today and I should (cross your fingers, people) have my bag and its contents returned to me.

Of course, the only course of action left to me: eat fish and chips at Soda then get drunk at Freddy’s while watching Motico jam out the rock.

Daily Licks

Daily licks

• Black market editions of Garcia Marquez’s new books, Memories de Mis Putas Tristes, have led the publishers to release the book early. Read the Guardian report here.

• Irish Marxist academic rails against those that have slammed Derrida since his death.
English philistinism continues to flourish, not least when the words "French philosopher" are uttered. This week in the Guardian our home-grown intelligentsia gave a set of bemused, bone-headed responses to the death of Jacques Derrida. Either they hadn't read him, or they believed his work was to do with words not meaning what you think they do. Or it was just a pile of garbage.

• The international language: Mexican telenovelas (soap operas): a Russian-born reporter told her that gun battles raging in areas of unrest in the former Soviet Union would stop long enough for the combatants to take in the Mexican soaps.

De vera? The academies of the Spanish language have created a comprehensive reference text. The Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts, said representatives is the definitive dictionary on the Spanish language. (Article here.)

Experts have decided to accept those foreign words that are widely used. Some of them, like "camping" - which in Spanish is spelled "campin" - in modified form. Others, such as "jazz" and "ballet," have been adopted unchanged.

The Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts is based on language questions submitted to the Spanish Royal Academy Web site "Spanish for Today," launched in 1998.

The text aims to enable readers confronted with divergent usages to discern which are part of the standard language spoken and written by educated people throughout the Spanish-speaking world, which come from regional dialects and which are simply incorrect.

To emphasize the ongoing nature of the project, the dictionary will be posted on the Internet and updated frequently with the academies' consensus views on newly coined words and usages. Those views will also be based on consultation with some large Spanish-language media companies supporting the project, whose representatives met with academics last weekend in Madrid.

Daily Licks

Daily Licks

• Hot damn—The Times writes about anal sex. Well, through the backdoor. I mean, it’s a book review.

• Gawker fklempt over Times' cocksucking of Roth.

• The French have yellow fever. Give highest honor to Chinese kung fu scribe. [via Bookninja]

• Titillated by title, Colombians groping pirated copies of Garcia Marquez's new book. [via GalleyCat]

• Prolonging the sexual pleasure: One in 100 adults asexual, according to Canadian researchers.

I don’t know about you, but I need a smoke now.

Dining question

Dining question

Anyone been to the Blue Ribbon in Brooklyn? Any advice on what's good, what to avoid? (Beyond the Citysearch profile.) Anything?

I'm taking Jess there for a birthday dinner on Friday. Gimme words, please.

Daily Licks

Daily Licks

Late. Hungover. Debate party. Cheap drinks. Ugh.

• The Morning News staff’s fall book picks

• Rolling on with the monument and award-happy folk: Edinburgh, First City of Lit. Next up, First City of Legalized Prostitution: Amsterdam!

Cerebrolingualclusterfuck

Cerebrolingualclusterfuck

Being bilingual produces changes in the anatomy of the brain. So that's what's wrong with me!

Daily Licks

Daily Licks

• Like comic book geeks and celebrity newsmagazines mourning over the death of Christopher Reeve, others are dolorous over the passing of Derrida. The Chronicle has a short piece on the bewildering and polarizing scholar, while a href=”http://www.bookninja.com”>Bookninja has a link to postmodern linguistahoops. [via Maud]

• Extreme ironing. No, looking at internet porn while your wife is in the wash or making a grilled cheese sandwich with the same iron doesn’t count.

• linguistic profiling It’s like caliente, mano. Chevere. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.

• Coming back to haunt you: diagramming sentences. [via Languagehat]

Welcome to the family, Jessie Salcedo

Welcome to the family, Jessie Salcedo

I forgot to mention an important and telling ancedote about Parents Weekend: the Sponge Cake Incident. Prior to dinner at Moutarde, we congregated at Jess' parents B&B. There we drowned the Bday girl in presents. And a cake. A gaudy cake that seemed to be holding several pounds of icing. As Jess began to cut into it, I noticed a wall of icing was gonna splat into her lap. I placed my hand underneath it, caught and quickly stuffed my maw. What the..? Jessie was confused. The cake wasn't giving way. Everyone laughed. I was just as clueless. The knife seemed to bounce back. Sure enough, it was a sponge cake made with a real sponge. Welcome to the family, my parents said laughing. Later I asked why I wasn't let in on the joke. My mother said she knew I would taunt Jess about her "special cake" and she didn't want me to ruin her funny. That's my parents for you: silly jokesters.

Daily Licks

Daily Licks

• What's up with Gawker? I keep getting an "Under Construction" page. Anyone else having a problem?

• The Boston Globe profiles Orhan Pamuk, the author of Snow. (I gotta get to that book.) [via The Morning News]

• The UK Guardian labels The Future Dictionary of America a "political act". Well, duh! I like this one by Nicole Krauss:

and-yet conj. pronounced as one word. Always used as a sentence alone: I thought it was impossible. And-yet. Or: I was prepared to leave. And-yet. To say "and-yet " can be to say: They told me I would grow up to be handsome. And-yet. Meaning, I know the truth, of course I do, even if I can't say it. "And-yet" can be a door left open. It sounds like nyet, "no" in Russian. But "and-yet" is never so decisive or emphatic. In two syllables it can sum up the existential doubt that's tied like a stone to each of us.

Daily Licks

Daily Licks

• Derrida is dead, deconstruction thought would be shot and buried with him. Not.
Check out the Times obit. If you read French, here’s Le Monde’s obit. The Guardian also has an obit, but check out "Our debt to Derrida":

Jacques Derrida, the French scholar who died on Friday, had a dramatic impact on the study of literature in the postwar period. His theory of deconstruction has influenced - consciously or unconsciously - a great deal of modern scholarship and seeped inexorably into other arenas and media, from George Bush's election advertising to architectural criticism. Yet his theories remain controversial. For many, Derrida personified the worst type of "French fraud", in the manner of Jean-François Lyotard and Michel Foucault, impenetrable theorists who spouted nonsense. Yet much criticism of Derrida's work was cheap anti-intellectualism or a wilful distortion of his ideas. He should be remembered as a profound thinker who made a lasting contribution to intellectual discourse.
…
Part of the problem for Derrida's critics is that they sought to hang upon him all their fears of postmodernism and relativism. Much of this was unfair, since he could not be held accountable for the journeys to the wilder shores of theory by some of his supporters and fellow travellers. What was important was that deconstruction held that no text was above analysis or closed to alternative interpretation. It is no coincidence that it came into vogue in the 1960s and 1970s, when many cultural and social institutions were being challenged. As a result, Derrida became popular among those willing to question the sterile idea of a "western canon" who wanted to expand literary discourse so that writers such as Mary Elizabeth Braddon could sit alongside the Brontes. Thanks to Derrida, many new voices were heard.

• Anne Rice bares her fangs at bad reviews. To calls she would benefit from an editor, she writes:
I have no intention of allowing any editor ever to distort, cut or otherwise mutilate sentences that I have edited and re-edited, and organized and polished myself,'' she wrote. "I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me. Even George Lucas could use an editor.

• The Sunday Book Review "digs" yet another posthumous Kerouac tome:

The publication of ''Windblown World,'' a collection of Kerouac's early journals edited by Douglas Brinkley (a sober, well-known political historian who seems an unlikely candidate for the job), may at first strike readers as an attempt to squeeze yet more toothpaste out of Kerouac's flattened tube. Fortunately, the book is better than that. For one thing, unlike other posthumous volumes that have worn Kerouac's name, it's readable.

Daily Licks

Daily Licks

I've decided to include a daily bulletin of lit and lengua stories, most of them a bit odd, in keeping with the title and theme of this blog. This is really a beta run. I'd like some feedback. For example, are they worth your time? Without further ado:

• Gabriel Garcia's new book may very well shock some of our prudish citizens. It's Spanish title is Memoria de Mis Putas Tristes. It will be released on Oct. 27. No news on the release date for the English version.

• The AP reports that The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket is number 1 on the WSJ Bestseller List. Roth's The Plot Against America is number 9. Anyone read a Snicket book?

• Crossing the Amazon: Google Print raises copyright concerns and cuts middleman down to size, the Times reports.

• City officials in Livermore, Calif will correct misspelled names on a library mosiac, including that of Einstein. The mosiac cost $40,000 but another $6,000 will be spent on implementing the changes. Anyone ever heard of an editor?

• Foreign doctors working in northern England will be given a dictionary of local slang in order to better facilitate proper health care. Among the words included are lugholes (ears), gipping (vomiting) and tackle (testicles).

I guess Jose Ramon Ralat Maldnado y Torres Sanz Garcia is out of the question

I guess Jose Ramon Ralat Maldnado y Torres Sanz Garcia is out of the question

Those crazy Danes and their laws. And I thought I was a stickler for names.

Then in the 1960's, a furor erupted over the first name Tessa, which resembled tisse, which means to urinate in Danish. Distressed over the lack of direction in the law, the Danish government expanded the statute to grapple with first names. Now the law is as long as an average-size book.

Nobel prize in literature announced

Nobel prize in literature announced

Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek has been awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in literature. According to the Nobel Prize website, "for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power"

Having written novels, poetry, plays and radio pieces, "Jelinek has castigated Austria, depicting it as a realm of death in her phantasmagorical novel, "Die Kinder der Toten." Jelinek is a highly controversial figure in her homeland. Her writing builds on a lengthy Austrian tradition of linguistically sophisticated social criticism, with precursors such as Johann Nepomuk Nestroy, Karl Kraus, Odon von HorvDath, Elias Canetti, Thomas Bernhard and the Wiener Group."

Check out her personal site where a photo of a deer figurine is on the homepage.

On the prize, the reclusive author said "I hope I can enjoy the money that comes with this because then one can live without worrying. I also hope, however, it will not cost me too much."

Jelinek is only the ninth woman to win the award since its inception in 1901. The last women to receive the Nobel Prize for lit was Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska in 1996.

It's the new Esperanto, only better

It's the new Esperanto, only better

This week the Village Voice ditched its pathetic "Book" section to make room for the "Best of NYC" detritus. In its stead the walker-and-cane set at corporated headquaters printed this:


Best new language—LESUHORVE

Words are such a pain in the ass. Wouldn't it be better if we could all communicate through color? Without the side effects of hallucinogenic drugs? Lucky for you, Daniel Wright has invented a new language and he'll teach it to you for $150. Essentially LESUHORVE (La-soo-hor-veh) looks like color bars on your TV set, but Wright says he chose this Technicolor template because color "plays a very important roll [sic] in psychologically and mentally controlling human emotion." On second thought, we'll take the acid.

And why does Nina Lalli have a grudge against Soda Bar?

Bigger and better. Now with more side effects

Bigger and better. Now with more side effects

So much for tapering off my Lamictal. My new neurologist has decided to double my quark-particle dosage (100 mg/day, while the usual dosage is 500 mg/day) over the next two weeks. He thinks the antidepressant effects of the drug will improve my stressball self. And boy, have I been a BQE of nerves lately, what with the landlord losing rent checks, the visit by los viejos, my job, and the ubiquitous stomach churner: dinero. Initially, I disagreed with his decision. But an improved quality of life is always welcomed. And paraphrasing are president, who shows signs of mental disorder: Bring on the side effects!

Parents weekend: a review

Parents weekend: a review

I’ve let my shoulders drop and I’m no longer chain-smoking due to nervousness. Parents Weekend is over. The Ringlands and Ralats met for the first time, we met our respective in-laws, and, whaddya’ know, they like one another, they like the coupling of two of their progeny.

My old man, assuaging mi Abuelo’s concerns over Jessie and whether she’s fit to marry me, replied: Let me put this in terms you can understand. He just won the lotto.

Ma and Pop Ralat arrived on Thursday evening. We dined at Soda, where Josh and A later joined us, tossed back a few and rushed home for the presidential debate before calling it an early night. Jessie’s folks, mom Robin and stepdad Jerome, flew in on Friday. We met them at the Howard Beach AirTrain station, which is some retro-futuristic Disney-fied structure in the middle of a neighborhood that might as well be Long Island. (And what’s with that fucking car-alarm announcing the arrival of the shuttle?)

Pam made dinner. There was much wine consumed. The mothers dispensed embarrassing anecdotes about their offspring. Saturday…Saturday…I oh, yeah. The ladies ran off to Saks where Jess was picking up a flapperesque headband, or so I’m told, for the wedding. Jerome, my dad and I checked out the Trump Tower on Fifth at Jerome’s request. Afterward, we scarfed burgers at the Burger Joint.

When Jessie told me of the plan to separate by sex on Saturday, I was more than a bit reticent. Would I like Jerome? Would he like me? How would three men with accents understand one another? My dad’s thick Puerto Rican accent, Jerome’s French, my bland American. But red meat brought us together. Nothing like drink and the bloody muscle tissue of a domestic animal to bring men together. There was no grunting, only the giving of advice (You can be right or you can happy.) I sat quietly slipping my beer between juicy bites of beef. We were all happy to have some quiet. Robert Bly would be proud.

The carefree afternoon soon became a night of excess and revelry. Everyone dressed to the nines for the opening of gifts and Jessie’s Birthday dinner at the Park Slope bistro Moutarde, one of Jessie’s faves. There was beer. There was wine. There was steak frites and escargot. There were pork chops and chicken with thyme sauce. Laughter. Then food coma.

Jessie’s ‘rents were leaving on Sunday evening, so that morning we brunched and ambled through the Sixth Avenue flea markets while Pam shuttled Pepito and Cuquí to the Beer Garden. We would finally have some much needed peace and quiet. And it was good. Jessie and I watched Star Wars Episode 4 on DVD. It was her first time seeing it. She, to my surprise, actually liked it.

My folks left yesterday ecstatic and relieved.

All in all, it was an A+ weekend, one that could have gone south from the start. I’m no longer nervous, just tired—but happy.

Self-inflicted, and then some

Self-inflicted, and then some

This weekend we held a stoop sale. Saturday was the big money-making day. We also had the opportunity to meet and chat with all the new kids in the building—most of whom are girls, and lesbians at that. It's a sign that the neighborhood's over, said A, who eschewing work Saturday decided to sit with me at the sale, drinking beer and playing chess. Once the lesbians come, it's totally over. Look at Park Slope.

He's wrong, of course. The very next day I watched my landlord's tires get slashed by some former tenants. (The argument, I'm told, was about the kids loitering on our stoop. All day and all night. He doesn't want them there. The don't live there. They bring crime, he says. The kids cited our stoop sale. Then why can they hang out there? Oh, Mr. Landlord! It's my building. I can do what I want. Cue tire slashing.

Two good things came of this. One: the aforementioned meeting of the neighbors. Two: The building's owner called me Sunday night to stress that his tenants can do what they want. If want to have a stoop sale every weekend, Jose, have one. I don't care. If you want to BBQ in the backyard, I don't care. I want to encourage a good atmosphere. D and I immediately hatching plans for an herb garden next season.

Now, to something more on topic: Check out this link to get a rundown on Spanish surnames and the endless string of 'em. For example—and I know this won't be the last time—my last name is Ralat, not Maldonado. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's last name is Garcia, not Marquez. Federico Garcia Lorca's last name is Garcia, not Lorca. You can get away with saying both, though. Garcia Marquez. Garcia Lorca. Ralat Maldonado.

Back to the pre-Packard days with Jack

Back to the pre-Packard days with Jack

The NYTimes has a day trip travel piece on Jack Kerouac's Lowell, MA. While Kerouac was an early influence on my decision to make the slow, hard slog to becoming a writer, his prescence in my life, my writing is a historical footnote. That doesn't minimize his contribution to American letters. The man had a superb command of language and punctuation. On the Road is a classic.

Sin verguenza

Sin verguenza

There are updates about Tuesday's reading on the WYSIWYG blog. One thing I forgot to mention about the reading was as I speaking with Allison, Nichelle Newsletter asked to take my photo. That was very nice. It was the first photo I know of where my tongue wasn't sticking out the right side of my mouth. Guess I was too nervous or surprised.

But as Jessie said this morning: You're so absent-minded. You know you have to do something, acknowledge it, then it's gone. Flit, flit.

Now, everyone should come to our stoop sale this weekend. We've got, housewares, kitchenware, women's clothes, tchotchkas, a tiffany lamp—and, get this, a full-size bed, frame and all!

contact me at myname-at-ratedrookie.com.

WYSIWYG Wrap-up

WYSIWYG Wrap-up

Thanks to everyone who showed up for last night's reading. It was a hoot. Thank you, Chris for the opportunity. And I wasn't first; I was second! I enjoyed everyone's contribution and imagination, especially Delfino's coloring book. This time, the line-up was largely relegated to seating stage right. I enjoyed that, as some of us got to chat before and after the reading. Blogger's can be such solitary figures, spending so much time before a monitor, shielded from any sense of community. Emily and I spoke about a mutual acquaintance (connected via Rated Rookie), whom we agreed is absolutely annoying and is the sole reason "poseur" ought to be re-introduced into the vernacular. Glenn and I related are distastes for certain foods (me: ice cream, he: popcorn). We were all nervous. I offered cigarettes, but had no takers.

I stuttered during my slot, but not as much as my first appearance at the reading series. My story (below) wasn't heartbreaking this time. People actually laughed, which shocked me. I don't consider myself funny or witty, but shared experience often elicits laughter.

After the reading, I was approached by Allison, of The Brazilian Muse. She complimented my performace. Of course, I froze after recognition. (I don't take compliments well). Still, it was nice.

Then I was off to see Motico and Sxip!Matta jam at Lit.

And finally, the story:

Two Episodes in Catholicism

1. Diana Conti
Pha-ka-ta. She sucker punched me. Diana Conti sucker punched me, and I couldn’t have been happier. Recess was cool. In second grade, Diana Conti’s hips were already well-defined. She was hot, a hot Catholic schoolgirl whose copper skin and matching, thick hair brought forth tiny, pubeless boner in my church-issued slacks. I dreamed of Saturday morning cartoon make-out sessions. She could be Smurfette. I could be Horny Smurf.

Then Diana socked me. I went down, my vision fuzzy. I looked up to see to her straddling my waist and pounding her smooth brown fist into my stomach. Hallelujah. Diana had me by the hair and was slamming my head into the ground.

Why are you smiling?

Cuz, Diana, it really doesn't hurt. It's kinda fun.

Fine. Take this, then. Pha-ka-ta, she walloped me again.

Phwa-ka-ta.

You’re sexy, Diana

You're mine, Jose Ralat

Phwa-ka-ta. Phwa-ka-ta. Phwa-ka-ta

She stopped and brushed her thick hair from her face, revealing a sly grin of approval. So, I did what I thought anyone would do, I grabbed her jumper and pulled her down on top of me, kissing her. She kissed back.

The next Saturday on a Youth Choir field trip at the roller rink.


2. Father Klump
Overcome by the grandeur of St. Peter’s, the stone upon which Charlemagne had been crowned, the carved serifs high above the pews, which were, I was told were thirty feet tall, I decided to confess. My traveling partners had tried to dissuade me. Dude, that's cool and all, but when was the last time you went to Church, said one. You'll regret it, said another. But citing my Jesuitical religious upbringing, I declared Catholicism a religion where love reigns freely. I wasn’t going to confess, per se. Rather, I was going to discuss with the padre my long absence from the Church and my desire to re-join the fold. A schedule with the presiding priest and the language to be used during the sacrament was posted on the door. I had five minutes and decided to wait in the confessional. For Father Klump. K-l-u-m-p.

Then I met Father Klump. And he was no Jesuit, but some crotchety, hunched-back ol’ bugger of an American in the warren of dogmatic detritus.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been…it’s been…. Tell you the truth, Father, I don’t know when I last confessed. Heh.

He tried coaching me along with the protocols until I said, Look, Father, I didn’t really come in here to confess. I would like to discuss the fact that I feel ready to re-join the Church. I’ve been away a long time.

Behind the screen, Father Klump frowned and sighed.

There are two things that define a Catholic. First, you must attend Mass every Sunday without fail. Secondly, you must believe that Christ came down to earth to purposefully establish a new religion. Can you do that? Do you believe that?

Actually, Father….

He growled, raising his voice a bit. Can you do that? Do you believe that?

Jesus Christ did not come to earth to specifically form a new religion, no. Jesus was a Jew who simply wanted to reform, not a breakaway.

He was no stinking Jew, boy! These things are not up for debate. You don’t debate in the confessional. Do you understand me?

Yes, sir. I was beginning to regret my decision.

I decided to try another tact, one more academic. That’s when I fucked up.

But what about the fact that St. Thomas Aquinas said, God is every… I wouldn’t have time to discuss the Thomistic theory of the divine life force. Klump had had enough.

What the hell does the Thomas Aquinas have to do with anything.

What the hell does the Thomas Aquinas have to do with anything.

What the hell does the Thomas Aquinas have to do with anything.

I stuttered and stammer in my attempt to respond, but was too flabbergasted. I had never heard a priest cuss. Priests didn’t cuss. They were above that, right? I was going white.

Finally, I put two words together: A lot.

What the hell does the Thomas Aquinas have to do with anything.

What the hell does the Thomas Aquinas have to do with anything.

What the hell does the Thomas Aquinas have to do with anything.

You’re no Catholic, boy. Get out!.

Anagnorisis: it all becomes clear

Anagnorisis: it all becomes clear

At first I thought it was some sort of cold/flu, that knotted, nauseating feeling gathering at the base of stomach near the opening to my intestines, or at the very least another bout of my GI troubles. But, no. Yes, I was sick. Yes, the upset stomach had, in part, been GI trouble, as a result of constant anxiety. Let's not, forget that case of severe tinea pedis. (Wash. Dry thoroughly with gauze. Apply ointment. Take pill.) How do I go to a job where I am barely tolerated, where the can't fire but wish they could? I'm a damn good editor, man! My talents are wasted daily for what? My boss even acknowledges I should be making 20k more. And he hates me. How do we cover the wedding costs now that Jessie's dad has pulled out most of his initial offering? (Real trustworthy, that guy!) Will the Tennis House work just as well as the Boathouse for the ceremony? How do I pay for this and that and another stuff? DJ? Live band? Food: what kind?; how much? Groom's cake? Wish that schmuck would scoot over and not take up two seats? Can't be comfortable. Why does that kid always ask me for money or a smoke? He's got nicer shoes than I do. Do I really need to get up today? And then there's tonight's WYSIWYG reading, which you are expect to attend. Or else we're gonna have to rumble? Watching me make an ass of myself is a doozy of a pasttime.

I do pretty well at daily activities, though. Something I've learned after self-titrating off the menagerie of meds. Does the good life have to be that expensive, anyway? Fuck Pfizer. Fuck Glaxo and Eli Lilly. Fuck me, this has got to stop. Cigarettes don't even taste as good anymore. The luster: Where the hell is the luster?

I have begun taking steps, planning. My life will be better soon, through my own machinations, a wide, strong support system. I am writing more, just not as much on this blog. Here's to love, the kind that looks at your cracked, pussing feet and loves you all the more, the kind that dotes on you even while you pull up the covers over your faces after a stinker. Part-and-parcel amory

Zap zap. Fizz. Hello there, Mr. Serotonin. Good day, Dopamine, ma'am. Pass the Maille, Norepinephrine. Whoa there, this pathway is closed. Renovations and all. GABA, baba, gobbledy-gook. Enough, bub, I'm switching gears, walking headlong into a plan. Thank you, Mr. Garcia Marquez. Your recent antics have been a great help. Why spell "Hola" with an "H"? The pinche letter is silent!

7:30 in the school basement. Don't be late. You'll get a worse beating for it.

7:30 in the school basement. Don't be late. You'll get a worse beating for it.

That's right, folks, another installment of the famed WYSIWYG Talent Show blogger reading series will be held on Tuesday, Sept 21 at 7:30. As always it will be held at P.S. 122. This month's theme, if you haven't already gleaned it from this post's title, is Bullies and Mean Girls. I will be one of the readers/performers/masochists. (Please, God, I hope I'm not first this time.)

Other much cooler people reading are:
Mike Daisey
Rachel Kramer Bussel
Glenn B.
Standard Deviance
Emily Gould
Jessica Delfino

How to get to the show:
P.S. 122 is located at 150 First Avenue at 9th St. (accessible from the #6
at Astor Place or the L at First Avenue). Tickets are $7 and can be
purchased at the door or in advance at the P.S. 122 box office at 212-477-
5288 or online at Ticketweb (http://ticketweb.com).