My Badger Has A Mercury Switch

May 8

The party was lovely, the best I've ever been to, let alone one-fifth hosted. You know it's a good party when three-quarters of the people are strangers to you, and none of them are assholes. The night was beautiful, the stars piercingly clear, and the party spilled from the house onto the porch and into the yard. I stayed up until 4 a.m. I usually only last until 1 or so...

I like surrealism, particularly when it creeps into daily life, and I especially like overhearing sentences that, in all likelihood, have never been spoken before. Like "My badger has a mercury switch" and, even better, "You're the blackest, blindest, most shot-and-killed motherfucker I ever gave a bath to." Both those things were said at the party.

It helped that I decided to be an extrovert and talk to people at this party instead of lurking on the edges. I had a lovely conversation with an artist-type about genre illustrators-- Royo, Canty and the like. And I had a very long and deep discussion with a beautiful blonde woman (who works at a feed and grain store owned by a lesbian couple-- ah, fair mountain town, you continue to reveal your mysteries and wonders to me!). We talked about Jealousy as Poison, the Dangers of Repression, the Wicked Lure of the Forbidden, Goat Farming, and other fine subjects I could enumerate and capitalize if I so desired.

On Sunday, I bounced a tennis ball on the side of the house. And got stories ready to go out in the mail. Stories have been coming back to me, and I've been putting off sending them out again for various reasons. When I finally decided to clear my decks, I found that I had thirteen stories that needed to be submitted! And two more that are awfully close to being ready to go out for the first time! I have a total of 21 stories out now, from a totally non-supernatural thriller to a very horrific turn on a fairy tale to a gonzo superhero tale to a story about interdimensional truckers; and of course more. Never let it be said that I write within a box. Well... at least it's a biggish box.

So I should be getting a flood of replies in a few weeks (and I did have several stories out anyway, which could conceivably come back at any time). You'll hear all about it, promise.

I wrote a haiku today. I don't write those often. Here it is:

A genius can look
at roses and see math, and
also the reverse.

I don't write haiku often because I'm longwinded. I have a lot more to say on the above subject... maybe I'll do so in another poem.

Hope Monday is treating all of you well.