Silvertongue reading

I read a very short story tonight at this reading series called Silvertongue. It was about my cousin Jennifer's autism and how it's dealt with in the family. Surprisingly, I managed to keep my nerves under control until I was up at the podium. Then my face turned red and my voice started shaking a bit, but I finished it! Then afterward, a couple of people said they liked my story, which made me very happy!

Silvertongue was combined with Verbatim tonight, which is a poetry reading thing. The only other guy reading a short story instead of poetry was very good. He pulled off a difficult form, and his words almost sounded like poetry. Much better than me and my purely straightforward writing style. I wish I could muse more beautifully.

Here's a piece of what I read. The topic was "keep it in the family."

When I was a kid, I always got pissed off when Jennifer and her family came to our house to visit. It meant that I had to put all of my important things at the top of my closet or bookcase so Jennifer couldn't get to them. It meant that she would eat my mother's tall, beeswax candles, although that was more funny to me than it was to my mother. It meant that I had to constantly stay in my room, or keep an eye on it at all times. If I left, I would come back to the door cracked open.
"Jennifer," I would growl, bursting in. And there she would be, on the floor in the middle of a mess of my clothes and toys and CDs and secret stash of makeup.
"Sorry!" She'd screech. Then she'd run out, muttering in a voice garbled with other half-words, one of my family's video tapes in hand.


Then I went to this photography gallery opening thing, and it turned out that it had been canceled and there were very few people there. It was kind of awkward, since I brought wine to share, and ended up hiding it and keeping it for myself. Now I'm drinking it and it's pretty good, so it all evened out. It's Hirschbach and Sohne Riesling.

Until next time!

Shit, it has almost been ten days since I last posted!

I've been writing, though, I swear! I wrote a piece of flash fiction that I want to submit to the Story Week Reader, so I'm not so sure I want to post it here. Although there are a few short shorts that are already on this blog that I may submit as well, like the "Changes" story. Those of you that aren't reading, give me some feedback! I will post the first paragraph of this new story that I wrote.

She had eaten nothing all day. Flashes of light from neon signs pushed themselves into her consciousness, their bright pinks, greens, and reds demanding, “pay attention to me!” She wondered if they were hot to the touch, and was disappointed when she stretched up both arms and found the lights too high to reach. She figured that the burn of the glass on her hands would distract her from the ache in her stomach. She looked up at the sign, slowly reading the words that advertised food and warmth inside.

But she couldn't eat. Not just yet.

She was starving the baby out. A hunger strike against her own flesh and blood.

I kinda like the story as a whole. I wrote most of it on the train on the way home, it was awesome. I just got an idea and wrote it all out. If you wanna read the whole thing you can tell me or something.

Okay, bye.

Entries typed from my journal.

Written around 4:15 PM:

AAAAAAA! An obese woman in an electric scooter just got on the bus. I looked up as she rolled to the space designated for wheelchairs, and saw under her far-too-short skirt that was pulled taut above her knees. Her legs lay apart, and the fat leading up from her knees pooled inward, her thighs touching right before I could see her underwear.

I am scarred for life. Just kidding, that happened a long time ago.

(there is a line across the page)

I think it's time to start writing my memoir/novel thing. Or compiling it and filling in the cracks. I guess I'll start by editing the other half of this essay on self-injury. Then I can piece together and edit the chapter on being in the hospital. Then I connect the two together. Probably the hospital chapter after the self-injury chapter.

And I can write an introduction after the whole thing is done, Fat Girl (by Judith Moore) style. The interviews need to be in there, too. There's a lot of stuff I've done since sophomore year. I'll have to edit and rewrite a lot, since I wrote each piece to stand on its own, and now a lot can be explained early on and not need explanation later. I wonder how long it's gonna end up to be? I was kind of figuring that it shouldn't be less than 200 pages. Isn't that still novella length, anyway?

I get distracted so easily, but I really want to do this. I've worked pretty (?) hard (?) on this subject matter so far.

(End of journal entries.)

Thoughts on Faces

I've been realizing lately that I don't like looking at people's faces. Especially in photographs or commercials when the face is right there, zoomed in and looking at you, it bothers me. I just don't like facial expressions.

This isn't the case all the time, because I do like looking at the faces of people I like, such as my friends. But the expressions of some people just makes hatred well up inside of me.

I think this is one of the reasons why I don't like American comic book art that much (well, as opposed to Japanese comic book art). The faces of the characters are twisted into positions that aren't very flattering. The lines in their faces are accentuated. Whereas in manga, their faces are simplified and everything is made to look "prettier." Does this mean I'm obsessed with beauty? I don't know.

Sometimes it's like a car crash: I just can't stop looking as these people's faces move into different, ugly positions. I suppose this happens more often in real life, where I like to stare into people's faces. I like to read as much as I can about them before looking away. I am a creeper. But when I watch commercials or see close-up photos of faces, I can't look. I must divert my eyes. Even if it's a picture of someone I perceive as beautiful, sometimes it's too much.

But not all the time.

Don't judge me.

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Please view my articles/reviews, since I apparently get money that way?

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2334118/a_review_of_my_new_cat.html?cat=53

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A Review of My New Cat

When I first picked out Kite from the shelter, she seemed like the perfect cat. Calm, laid back, sweet: a lap cat. I took her out of her little cage and set her on my lap, where she promptly curled up and began to purr.

It has been two months and I am beginning to think I was swindled.

I wanted another cat to be a companion to Mims, my shy little tabby. I wanted this new cat to be equally as laid back, but less shy, a cat that I could pick up and carry around. It would stand to reason, then, that I should not get a kitten.

Of course, I got a kitten. A black-and-white spotted, adorable little thing that seemed happy enough to come home with me. She even purred in her carrier on the way back to my apartment.

I guess I should have taken it as a sign, when right away she meowed constantly if I left my room. I had her locked in there, separated from the other cat until they were ready to meet. But, I shrugged it off as a kitten thing.

When I let her out a week later, she was shy around Mims. She sniffed at her tentatively, and looked oh-so-innocent when Mims hissed and ran away. Mims knew what was up.

The weeks progressed, and Kite began to get used to living in my apartment. That is to say, she began to take it for granted. She was used to Mims by now, and took great pleasure in chasing her around the room, much to Mims' dismay. I found my temper becoming frayed as the sounds of sharp meows, hissing, and racing feet became more commonplace.

Then, the meowing started. Not even gradually, just all of the sudden one day. She decided to sit by the door and meow loudly and constantly. She had already acquired the habit of trying to escape every time I came home, but apparently that wasn't enough. She had to alert me to her absolute need to be in the lobby of my apartment building.

This behavior has continued to the present day, and needless to say, my patience is wearing thin. I find myself yelling at her lot, something I have always tried not to do with my cats. She seems to know exactly when I'm trying to work, and launches into her meowing escapades for the hours upon hours that I am sitting at my laptop, fruitlessly trying to concentrate.

She is already a year old, and she still acts like a hyper-active kitten. Do yourself a favor: adopt an older cat.

Thoughts on Where The Wild Things Are

I saw Where The Wild Things Are a few days ago, and it made me think about a bunch of stuff. Like, how barricaded adults are in their own emotions. Blocking out true emotion and making things so complicated, when Max just sat down next to whoever was feeling bad, even if they were angry with him, and talked it out. Those child-eyes cure everything.

The simplicity of pure, unadulterated emotion, and the complexity at the same time. When it seems like everything can be solved by being genuine and truthful, can it? It always feels that way to me, but in the end, people are clouded by their emotions. Their anger. Things that need to be said don't come out right, or don't come out at all. An unwillingness for confrontation postpones conversations that need to be had.

I am guilty of all these things. Does this mean I should be more like a child?