china

just over a week and i will be on a plane flying to china. i feel no sadness at leaving the states. after all, what am i leaving? the things most important to me are coming along--my wife, my thoughts--and i can always find my lost red book. plenty of pages to fill before i get back stateside in early july.

china. as a child it seemed so distant, far away. as an adult it seems even more so. removed from my experience as a middle-class suburbanite. separate from the freedoms available to american citizens. but soon it will be neither far away nor mythical. it will be reality.

here, i will cease to exist. there, i will take root and grow. china. land of possibility.

eavesdropping at the bus station

His voice is always the same, asking
What to bring in a duffel bag:
Candles, obviously. Also the pussycat dolls and
Candyland. I almost feel guilty wearing these jeans—new,
To fit the 10 lbs. that leave me slightly off-balance

Leaning sidewise as I climb the stairs. I want to catalogue them,
But they know I do it, scribbling, trying to hold the page away
From sight, interpretation, ostracization; but she
Bums a smoke from me, and my cover is blown.

I have no smokes to give.

But I do complain under my breath, obvious
Enough to see but not hear, and I watch those
Who ride who watch me watching them watching me
And try to visualize their names:

Blind asian woman, white cane, sits near door
With feet that dangle above rubber tread

Thin woman, white gauze bandage on throat
Cropped gray hair, smoke-rich scent

Complaining woman, brown coat, slack
Brown hair with doughy face

Black woman, headscarf, long wool
Coat and glasses, heavy gold earrings

They ride, and I ride, and we ride together
But always apart, thinking thoughts about each
Other both visual and invisible, without speaking.
Doors wheeze and suck another on, and I take it

In, red white and blue patriot ballcap elaborate green
Tinged walker supporting massive swell of flesh
Swathed in Gunther Toody’s 50s Diner jacket over Monkees
Tee ZZ-Top beard. He puts on the dark sunglasses later.
Then again:

Plump latino couple, shaved head, sharp-edged facial hair, faux
Diamond studs, tight bun, fleshy face, gold hoops

Teen girl, hoodie, piercings—eyebrow lip tongue nose—big
Gulp duffel headphones cord snaking around exposed navel

Black dog walking black man walking black dog who sees for him
In leather harness on short hair and clipped nails

Rich Denver does not ride the bus. And then I see why
The driver always nods at my shoes
And ignores the jeans when he sees that I pay in crumpled
Bills and linty coins dug out of tight pockets;
Anyone can blow their paycheck on new pants. Wheels
Turn as I get off, and all I can think is

White man, respirator, paunch, mustache.

snow

turns the sky into a swirling grey cloud. visibility drops to 50 ft. on the road and your tires slide as you change lanes to avoid the semi bearing down behind. you try to remember the warm las vegas sun and find only blurry images washed by snow. white. blank. clean. fleeting.    

like my soul after recognition.

tribute to blooms

this is to The Bloomsbury Review, with caps, italic, and all proper respect. they gave me a place to work, a chance to shine, and best of all, a place in their legacy. here's to little ol' indie presses and their academic cousins, university presses. may blooms keep the spirit of independent publishing alive and well for much longer than the 25 years they have been in operation.

used book shopping pays off

in spades

the bookstore of lot 49

the captions of the preceding pictures say it all. one of the great things about shopping for used books is the unexpected surprises that come out of nowhere. like this one, which i bought for $1 at the corner bookstore. now, i don't like the corner that much--the proprietor is cool (he was listening to the go! team on his ibook as he rang me up) but the selection doesn't stack up to the plain-titled Books, over by Joanne Fabric. Books is the prototypical bookstore, with scads of stuff piled up everywhere and a crusty old owner that smokes like a chimney and grunts his acknowledgement of my choices. love that place. the prices aren't great, but they always have something i want, and that makes the trip worth it. if you have to struggle to pick which book to plunk your coins down for, the shop is definitely worth the time. i used to wish i ran one of those places, but i'm probably not crusty or mean enough for the job. besides, i wouldn't want to sell anything, as i'd regard the place as a personal library.

though if i did run one, this is what would happen:

customer walks in, doesn't look at me, is gone by the time i turn around. he approaches the counter with a volume, slips a card out of his wallet, extends is. Wrong.

"Sorry, that book is not for sale."

"Sure it is. The price is marked inside the cover."

"Not for sale to you, i meant."

his face reddens, he gets pissed, he polishes his teeth with his tongue. then:

"sell me the book or die, bitch. "

"name four other books by this author and i'll let you have it free."

"um, yeah, see, it's for school, you know, they require me to..."

"leave. now." i wave my arms like they were snakes and turn my back to him. the bell tinkles as he leaves. without the book. i held on to that.

again:

girl comes in, takes a half-hour choosing, pays in cash. while ringing her up i make small talk.

"i bet your name is veronica, or something."

"no, but i wish it was. veronica is so much hotter than betty."

"jughead rocks, you know."

"i thought archie was the cute one." wrong. i slide her change back across the counter.

"come back when you figure it out," i say.

and last of all:

woman comes in, gum chewer, asks for danielle steele.

"you take our questionnaire," i say.

"what questionnaire?"

i slide the paper across the counter. "score 15 out of 20 you can buy mass-market. that means danielle steele. for anything else you need a 19 or 20."

she scores a 3. wrong. i boot her out the door.

anyway, you get the idea. not a very successful venture. though if someone came in i did like, i'd probably give them an extra book for free. anyway, to cap this post, let me just ask a few questions:

Who is Oedipa Maas? And what was she doing when the Paranoids blew out all the lights? What was the strange legacy of Pierce Inverarity that first led her to the world-wide conspiracy known as the Tristero System, and then on into the mystery and enigma of America itself?

pants

and their relation to weight that is. mine, of course. you didn't think i was going to talk about the weight gains of some other poor sap? you are heartless, as usual. i thought you were going to think that. which is why i hesitate to tell how i tried on three pairs of pants today, all of which were tight in the waist. by tight, i mean gut-suckingly tight. tight so you can't wear them without needing to visit the restroom more than usual, thanks to that extra pressure...

the scale reads 152 sometimes, though it usually rounds out just below 150 in the 148-49ish category. not much. but when i came came home from two years in the philippines three years back, i was clocking a skeletonesque 125, 10-15 below my average 135-140. so where did this 15o stuff come from?

all this obsessing over a few pounds? what has denver done to me? or maybe i should blame it on the holidays: chocolates, cookie exchanges, parties. or the tetons. but i think it is much more likely that i was undernourished as a child, and am just now regaining my proper proportions.

seriously, let's think about this. i grew up in minnesota, where it is winter 6-8 months out of the year. (if you think i am exagerrating, visit my parents for a week right about now. but bring at least two coats, and plan on wearing them simultaneously, or getting severe frostbite.) eskimos wear fur coats, eat extra fat to keep their energy up (at least according to popular myth). me? i shivered in a coat filled with synthetic fiber and ate salad every day. salad is a summer dish--you eat it when you can grow it. but not according to my mother. which made me a skinny little runt, and accounts for my stunted growth.

so it is obvious that i am not to blame for my pants not fitting. they were the wrong size all along. or maybe it was just the holidays.

rejection with a smirk

i received another rejection slip today. along with the normal typed note was a small handwritten note that said, "thanks Steven." my reaction was totally laid back and cool. i didn't even blink for five minutes.

but hey, a HANDWRITTEN NOTE! that takes serious time. first you have to select a pen, or pencil, or fashion a quill out of a paperclip; second, shake it, sharpen it, or stick the improvised stylus in your arm for backup ink; third, COMPOSE the thing; and then actually write it.

in order to not look like morons, they probably rewrote it 5-10 times, increasing their investment exponentially. let's tally our total so far:

writing utensil selection: 5 min.
priming the chosen instrument: 2-10 min., depending on stubbornness of the utensil
composition: 20 min., bare minimum
actual writing time: 30 sec.
revision: 15 min.

total time wasted at office while getting paid: 42 min. and 30 sec. - 50 min and 30 sec.

which amount of time pales to how i waste the hours here at the hotel. but still, they don't work at a hotel, which can only mean that A) they love me, B) they hate me or C) they are indifferent. which pretty much covers the bases.

finally, i conclude that they are laughing at me for something, or else they genuinely almost liked my story. i can't decide which. the agony of mind reading is multiplied a million times when a handwritten note is involved. i think they sent it to me on purpose.

click me

finally, someone tells the truth about the internet.

what? honesty? on the internet?

barb and steve (i always start books with a picture of my baby)

lost red book

i placed a small red book on the trunk of my car and drove off. i never found it again. i interpret this as an end, and a beginning. the book symbolized a moment of my past, and is now lost among the sidewalks and rain gutters of suburbia.

so, instead of mourning my lost book, and the notes inside--i already have a new book anyway--i'll use this blog to fill the remainder of the book with things i might have written inside it. and since this blog isn't limited by two covers and a finite number of pages, it may last a little longer.

here's to my lost red book.