St. Judy of Reeves Forgive Me

If any one sees St. Judy of Reeves around, please tell her that this is only a lapse, not the beginning of the road to my damnation as a writer.

Crossing a Creek

Neither writer nor reader should rush their exercise

Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Patrick has apologized for this at his own blog. I think if he is sincere, he should come here and to Writing in Orange to apologize at the other places where he did the damage. I now suspect that he saw a blog about Writers in Orange County and thought "Conservative meat!" I hate to inform him but I am probably well to the left and more libertarian than him.

Wrecked

Tasting the Territory

There can't be more than four square inches of skin on my toe. Almost sounds like Fortinbras fighting for less than an acre of land

I'm This Clean?

Coins in the Cup
Note: This is part of a series based on exercises from A Writer's Book of Days. It's something of a...

Dana Point 4

Joel on Weblogging
Even if you don't live in Orange County, California, you may find my series on "How to Blog" informative and...

Just wait until you get the rebate!
Your tax cut is going to be less than $20. Excited still? Trickle down from halfast at After Hours Pub....

What Went Wrong

Call it cheating, but wise words are wise words.

A Thought about an Open Mic Reading

It was like being at a Toastmaster convention, watching a virtuoso performance filled with the same trite bits of advice, the same jokes, the usual anecdotes, and everyone laughing on cue.

Dana Point 3

Making the Bed

"You made your bed: you lie in it"

My mother used to say to me.

After a Reading

....Perhaps I should build that

plywood cabin in Mexico, mould a little figure of me

out of amaranth dough, crucify it on mesquite,

and spend a hermit's life praying to my patron saint

as a way of passing obscurity.

Corporate Power: Capitalist and Socialist

When the USSR was extant, I used to call it a giant corporation that owned everything. Conservatives whimpered: we had capitalism, we were free, it was different.

Dana Point 2

We Are the Borg

The most frightening thing we can say to others is "You will be disassimilated!

Don't Be Schtupid, Be a Schmartie....

NAZI: Sure. (long pause) Are you going to send me a copy of this, because it's coming out really bizarre.

Deferred

Tonight, I defer, it being a Wednesday

Organ Pipe Cactus NM, 1990

I remember a night at Organ Pipe Cactus NM when I walked out to the edge of the campground, starchart in hand, partly to see what I could make out of the distant suns overhead, partly to leave Lynn resting in peace.

On selling our bodies, our monuments, and our sports to the highest bidder

I do not pay to advertise someone else's product.

Abortion History

There's a lesson in politics here.

Harry Potter, Rocky Horror, and Star Bores

I shall probably die without ever having seen Rocky Horror. I might read a Harry Potter book some summer if there's nothing else around. At the present, I have no plans of watching Survivor or Episodes 1 through 3 of Star Bores

Writing About Place

We need not erect a mystery religion around an oak tree: just look at the tree, its slotted leaves, the acorns, the trunk, and the branches. Write about that.

Midnight in Trabuco Canyon

I'm free of clanging in my ears, the deafness of the wakeful world.

Year 2: Writing in Orange

Link to us

Can We Trust the Air Quality Reports?

Is it just me or have I hit on yet another distortion by the corporate media?

Jesus Opposed Prayer in School

You cannot serve two masters, Jesus warned us, but the prayer in school advocates pretend that God and Caesar are the same, which is clearly counter-Christian.

The Letter B

Mom told me that the only thing she'd paid for was a report card of straight As: $10. I got one once in my senior year in college. She made excuses and I received nothing.

Micro-Climate

While we were away celebrating my aunt's 95th birthday, it rained here.

One Year of Pax Nortona Today
Thank you to each and every one of you who has found and stuck with me this last year....

South Orange County Writers Walk
Until I get some people to help me write a group blog (oh Kiril....), I'll stick announcements like this here....

Metallic Cloud

A car sounding like an approaching storm front -- rain on the edge -- passes.

Shoes

I'm not sure what to call them: they have broad, square toes and zippers up the inner sides. Beige calf-skin, subtly crinkled, covers the outside; lamb wool suits up the inside.

Welcome to Camassia!

Welcome to Camassa, a blogspot refugee!

Scott Joplin

I worked out a system of pressing the flesh of my upper arm as I lay on my dormitory bed listening to the Maple Leaf Rag and other syncopations of the American Chopin.

The Other Jesus

The more I see Fundamentalists running around attacking others, the more I believe that there must be a second Jesus Christ, other than the one who delivered the Beatitudes.

What is Marriage?

I find both stands to be a little extreme, though I understand where the two amiable duelists come from and sympathize.

Me on Burning Bird
Burningbird quoted and remarked upon a comment I made on her blog. It's not a fight, but a mutual nodding...

One Year Minus Two Days

This article has had its negativism. But against that shadow, the features illuminated by the Light become more clear. Thank you for being a reader and a friend.

Dream
Lynn and I are sleeping in an abandoned car on a roof top. I go downstairs. My brother is coming...

San Onofre 5

Boil-up and Cool-down

In the heat of the afternoon, somewhere between Los Angeles and Hawaii, the uppermost tenth of a millimeter of the Pacific boiled up.

A Fourth Best Quiz

Auditory : 50%

Visual : 50%

Left : 30%

Right : 70%

San Onofre 4

Blurring and Purring

A blurred rush to the floor, like the breaking of a bulb of a themometer and the spilling of the mercury.

An Race-Gender Traitor Discusses Michael Moore

After shocking one conservative matron enough to make her get up and leave before the conversation was over (gotta love that open-mindedness!), we talked about whether or not it was the right thing for Michael Moore to "disrupt" the Academy Awards with his little anti-Bush speech.

How the Right Lies

In all these cases, regardless of the smoking gun, they deny the Truth because in their minds, the Truth is something that can be shifted around to fit their political aims and prejudices

San Onofre 3

Your Catfood or Your Life!
Thanks to John Lettiere. Looks like one of those pictures in Goya's "Horrors of War" series, except that the...

Meeting Lynn

I prefer not to think about the what-ifs. There's a big soot cloud that never developed in my life. Why worry about what didn't happen when the outcome was so good?

Suffer the French Children, Come Unto Me

I'd like to know which American families backed out of the exchange and treat them to a little "unpleasantness" -- before some Right Wingnut puts words in my mouth, I am thinking of plain old good Pennsylvania Dutch shunning.

Color Quiz

Hmmmm. I'm the king of chaos. Order?

I Have Never Walked Down this Street Before

The results I get for my Blogstreet neighborhood vary depending on which of my two possible URLs I punch in. Radically.

Nature Boy?
what decade does your personality live in? quiz brought to you by lady interference, ltd...

San Onofre 2

The East Coast of Crete

We went because there was a Minoan palace, one of the grand stone halls they built when they dreaded pirates who were hung like bulls splashing in from the sea and raping their bare-breasted queens.

San Onofre 1

Haze

A light haze blindfolded vista seekers today.

Dream
A variation on a dream that I keep having. I'm in school and I'm flunking out because I haven't been...

Nada

I'm allowed to beg off now and then. Tonight, I beg off

I didn't feel the earthquake?!
California geography seems to have changed since I went to sleep last night....

One Year Minus Nine Days

Tupperware comes off the line without blemishes, all looking alike. When you write as I do, you get balls of raw wax, misshapen boxes, and, now and then, the stuff of weird science -- things that crawl.

Crap Crap Crap

Crap is good because at least it is writing. You see more of my crap because I have committed myself to keeping the memes going for a month or more.

Dream

"The nice thing about chocolate Easter bunnies," he says, "is that they can break into a million pieces and you still can eat every bit."

Goodnight

That's the problem with this place, this body

Too many Is and I am the only "you".

Dream
I'm working in a company, some Silicon Valley place where the high-ranking men wear silver-gray tailored suits that they wear...

Blog Poetry Report

Wordsmiths have blossomed online lately and I'd like to point out a few places where people have been risking their blogging reputations to express themselves in verse.

Resurrection of the Dead

A and T inadvertently did the cruelest thing I think a person can do to a person without cutting or shooting them. They saw me as another person, T's dead brother who'd killed himself I don't know how many years before.

Blog for America
Howard Dean now has a weblog (written by Matthew Gross). Snatched from Ratched....

The Women in Black

It relieved me to see them; they are the shadow which will not be heard in the blinding conservative sun patch of Orange County unless --

Button, Button, Where is Your Button?

Cell Phones

My cell phone has developed the naughty habit of turning itself on when I am moving about in the world and recording what I say.

Cat-nasta

"I see that as he moves those extended claws of his over the touchpad and taps at the button, the cards on the screen move. Let me try."

The Three Best Quizzes Out There

I like these three tests because unlike the things you usually see hashed together by people at Quizilla, there's a scientific/rational basis for the results.

The Cat Woman

I had an online friend -- lost now in a history that got trashed in a hard disk crash about seven years ago when the net was young and people didn't blog -- who slept with seven cats every night.

Hug and Keep Hugging Other Bloggers
Comments seem to be slow on many blogs. I've toured a bit and identified some active blogs that aren't so...

I'm Not Different. I am.

I'm secure with being myself in the world. But the fear these critics of mine show when I mention what I like -- the way they parody me as a snob and a know-it-all -- says a lot about them.

The Warrior Queen and Her Consort

Boadicea is named for a warrior queen who rebelled against Roman rule.

Riley Wilderness 3

The Mad Greek

It's the only civilized place to eat at between Barstow and Nevada.

I have a song to sing, oh!

You are Psalms.


Which book of the Bible are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Shadows

I've been thinking a lot about shadows lately.

How Did This Happen?
I must get down and grovel to Mileah, who celebrated her forty-fourth birthday two weeks ago! I am ashamed.......

Riley Wilderness 2

Dream
Something loose in the mind: I'm walking with many others in the future. The next stage of evolution has happened:...

Voice of the Body

I got to thinking how I, at age forty five, am like that old cat.

Riley Wilderness 1

I did this just for the kick of it

Trouble Trouble
To see what other trouble I am in this week, check The Gutless Pacifist where I am a guest blogger....

A Picture Speaks

Somehow this speaks to the state of my mind....

Mockingbird Nest
I wandered into a blog where a conversation about a mockingbird nest was going on recently. I've lost the address....

Naming Things

I propose a constitutional amendment -- to both the state and federal constitutions -- that would prevent the memorialization of any individual in the name of any government property for a period of fifty years following their death.

Dialogue

>Cheri: Hey, Joel. That's a nice sweater you've got on. Where did you get it?

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 7

Turning away from the Door

I didn't go through that door. I turn and ran as hard as I could into the chaparral. There was better material there.

I never liked the word "pottymouth"

How much of a pottymouth are you?

The Good Die Young

Everyone is celebrating Bob Hope's 100th anniversary. Except for one lone Orange County Weekly reporter and myself.

Burningbird On Fire

Rebuttal must appear in the context of the message. Sam Ruby's marking of Burningbird's remarks as "flamebait" violates this principle.

Vital Statistics

Guess Who's the Joker

Right wing political correctness took a slap in the face.

August 1976 - Her name is no one's business

They say that Mormons and Catholics live to breed.

So aside from the catch of the blue book with the golden hornblower

the two of us should have been naturals in the flesh.

Labors

I don't know why I'm fighting so hard to meet a deadline for a contest with a $5 gift certificate as the big prize, but I finished a first draft of a story tonight and will put the final polish on it over the weekend.

Bowie Goes to the Vet

We're not sure what is going on yet -- the vet couldn't find any scratches or ulcers -- but there's a good chance that Fiona scratched her in the eye. (Herpes is also a possibility -- anyone ever dealt with this in a cat?)

Holy Jim Canyon 5

On the Printing of Poetry

Three years from now, I want to be seeing my name somewhere. The best way is on thick paper printed off hard type set by hand.

Blaspheming Jesus

The Weekly(?) Mews Report

The unthinkable happened last night: Virginia Mew and Boadicea stood nose to nose and didn't hiss at each other.

Email Monster

These keys can be troublemakers for me.

Holy Jim Canyon 4

Tuna Fish

I don't know that it is even a question

in the part of my mind that is a tuna fish.

Holy Jim Canyon 3

Out Patient

I'll die in an uninteresting fashion

and they will forget me with clear consciences.

Jewish Conspiracy?

What happened? Did George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair, and the Queen convert?

Describing a Silence

Draw an old-fashioned television screen

flat on the top and bottom,

rounded at either end

around each of these scenes.

Holy Jim Canyon 2

Tedious Advice

My struggle has been to keep from feeling alone, to simply be myself even though others preferred to isolate me as a weird jerk.

Pleasureable Lies
Fiction and poetry are pleasurable lies. So why worry if the lines in the center of the road really do...

The New Slogan

Excuse me you may ask? How did you get to be socialist and libertarian?

Chips con queso

I can't let go of eating chips and queso.

Holy Jim Canyon 1

Dispensing with Dynasties

Why do we allow these dynasties to continue unchecked?

Volcanic Masturbation

Is it only me that sees a attitude and a rhetoric of hate that is not unlike what was used to propel us into the latest Iraq War?