Nazario Scenario

Tomorrow Is My First Day Off In Over A Month

Tomorrow will be spent doing the following:

Dishes
Putting books away
Teachery stuff (looking at papers, checking administrative details on computer)
Listening to Michael Shelley
Write-eeeeeeen
Pounding mug after mug of Cafe Bustelo with chocolate milk
Not walking any dogs
Not tutoring any undergrads
Possibly eating brunch
Sit-ups
Mani/pedi/eyebrows?
Duane Reade?
Mailing a submission or two to a journal or two
Wallowing in bliss of contentment
Messing around on Goodreads

Toxicity

Toxic city!

I am pretty sure I got food poisoning on Monday from a gross noodle dish at a Thai restaurant near where I work. Oh boy, was it gross. The beef had that rainbow on it that really yucky supermarket beef has, the whole thing was in a weird Chef-Boyardee-like tomato sauce, and the experience was unpleasant overall. "If I finish this, I will get food poisoning," I told myself. But I didn't have the heart to send it back (I have never done that and I hate the very idea), and I didn't want to waste money or time, so I ate it.

You know how, when you have food poisoning, your body gets achey and shivery as though you had a fever, and sometimes you do get a fever? This is how I felt all day Tuesday and most of yesterday. I had low-grade food poisoning. No puking was involved, thanks to my awesomely strong stomach (witness my routine intake of sugared sodas, coffee, Sparks), but still. Why do I do this to myself?

Sneeek Preeeview

On WHFR tonight, I will be playing one of my favorite songs in the "Whoa! That song's messed up!" category. The song in question is Johnny Get Angry by Joanie Sommers.

Other songs will also be played and it will be Fun Times for you and yours. Listen from 7 - 8 PM if you dare.

Mistletoe Harness

It is very important that one character in my new story, which takes place at Christmastime, be wearing a mistletoe harness made out of a coat hanger.

If you don't know what a mistletoe harness is, I pity you. And if you do, for God's sake, where were you last Christmas?

Dirty Jersey

I just spent a couple of blissful hours in Jersey City with Helen and her Yorkshire Terrier. It's only half an hour away, but it's like a different world -- so peaceable and small. Little details like the retro Walk/Don't Walk signs and the wooden telephone poles are very obvious there (to me, at least, they are). So odd, to hop across the Hudson River and suddenly feel like you're on vacation.

Let it be known: I plan to go to Jersey City more often, to sit in bars and write and read. And to see Helen and, not least, Chewie.

Ay Jay

The first few drafts of my short story "The Collected Works of Sara Ruiz" were unsatisfying. People who read it wanted it to be expanded into a novella, or cut way down, or trashed outright. So I shelved it for a year.

Then I rewrote it as an essay. Last night I found out it's going to be in the 2008 issue of Alligator Juniper in their genre blur section, and I am extremely proud.

Thanks, all you friends who gave me notes on this piece and responded to it honestly (over the years there have been a lot of you). I hope you'll pick up a copy of AJ 2008 when it comes out, so you can see what became of "Sara" in the end.

Myers-Briggs

I want to know what everyone's Myers-Briggs type is. Tell me! I just took the test for the first time in several years and found I have become an ESFJ. This type, the "Helper," seems to me much more boring than ENFJ, which is what I was before and is the ideal personality type for TV anchors and preachers. Now they're saying I should be a kindergarten teacher or a nurse, and though I admit that both of these are sexy, I just don't know if they're right for me.

What a Horror This Is

There was an hilarious old man behind me at the post office yesterday. Can you guess what his problem was? Yes! He didn't like waiting in line. Here are some of the things he said under his breath: "Ugh, this is a fucking disaster!" "What a horror this is!" "Ridiculous." "What the fuck are they doing?" (This kind of reminded me of one RAGBRAI showering experience in a building behind a gym: a sunburnt woman took off her clothes, stood in line, and cheerfully said, "Wow, this is like Auschwitz!" Except... at Auschwitz they didn't ride bikes and eat pork chops? Lady?)

When the old dude's turn in line came up, he was all smiles and politeness. He was a kook.

YOU TAKE IT ON THE RUN BABY / IF THAT'S THE WAY YOU WANT IT BABY

You're under the gun, so you take it on the run.

I don't have anything to say right now except for that I had a great time teaching yesterday, and that I have just downloaded "Take it on the Run" because its absence from my iTunes library was conspicuous.

Is This the End of Cute Boy Slam?

When Luke, a twelve-year-old with glasses and braces, got on the mic and began reading his poem about kittens, I wiped away a tear. Yes, it was the pinnacle, the culmination, of nine wonderful years of Cute Boy Slam. I heard Roger Bonair-Agard cheer him from the back of the house: "LUKE, USE THE FORCE!"

The six other participants were very game, smiley and winsome. But Luke stole the show. Since the inception of CBS, Cristin and I have spent a lot of time wondering aloud when an actual cute BOY -- as opposed to a sequence of twentysomethings dressed in earmuffs or carrying Chihuahuas -- would ever grace the stage. Now it has happened. And I wonder if we can ever do Cute Boy Slam again.

The man who brought in a Chihuahua was Chad Anderson, in 2006. Just FYI.

Another reason not to do Cute Boy Slam again: For God's sake, I'm fucking thirty years old! Something about extolling, at least publicly extolling, dimples and sideburns at my age feels a little odd to me.

But the memories make me so happy. Remember the time I did the calibration (sacrificial-goat) poem dressed in a polo shirt and carrying an umbrella? (My pseudonym was Noah Tylerson-Smythe.) Remember Ed Garcia's winning poem about being "so brr-brr cold"? Remember Rob Neill and his Bambi lamp? Remember?

Every year someone asks why there isn't a Cute Girl Slam. I answer their question with another question: Aren't girls objectified enough as it is? But girls do get a theme night too: URBANA has traditionally held something called the Diva Slam, which is for women only and is NOT about their cuteness, the same way Cute Boy Slam is NOT about the boys' sex lives or the way they look in a muscle shirt.

The Cute Boys really get into it, though. One of my favorite aspects of CBS has always been how willing the poets are to fit the (very exacting) mold Cristin and I have set up for them. It's like, TALK ABOUT CUTE THINGS OR BE GONE! CUTE THINGS INCLUDE DUCKLINGS, HOSTESS TWINKIES, AND YOUR SWEATSHIRT! GO! And they totally do it. It's been wonderful.

Here are some of my favorite promotional postcards from Cute Boy Slams past.

I now promise solemnly that I won't talk about boys, swooning, mash notes, Coreys, lunchroom dates, etc. in this blog for the rest of the week.

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