Pick Your Friend's Brain

I've decided to post more often on Dear Screwsan from here on out, even if I have nothing interesting to say. Perhaps especially if I have nothing to say.

I like to read blogs of my friends who live far away. Like Tim and Hansel and Gabe . And the blogs of my friends nearby--K-Tizzo. And maybe my friends and family would like to read blog entries of what happens in my life. Granted, it won't all be sex-talking Samantha Bee. I don't get cursed out by Robert Smigel on a regular basis. Not every day can be a Republican National Convention day (can it? It can't right? RIGHT!?) especially if they all end up in jail (please god). But in case you live in, say, London, or Seattle, or Iowa, or California, or Brooklyn (farther than you think), and we don't see each other so very often, I'm going to try to keep this up, so check in like you vote: early and often.

Today happens to be one of those days I have nothing to say. I'm cleaning out my desk, shipping to friends and family all the free books I've collected working at Penguin for the past three and a half years. From The Wings of the Dove, to An Encyclopedia of Serial Killers, to The Mormon Book of Soup, rarely have I felt so schizophrenic.

The new job starts on Monday, and I am nervous, but looking forward to working in a smaller, independent publishing house, with my own office; assistant to no one. Really, working for a corporation was beginning to wear on me. I didn't think I'd care, or that it was a liberal collegiate cliché to care, that I couldn't afford the luxury of not working for a corporation if I wanted to make it as an editor, but I was wrong wrong wrong. Also, I've been taking in a lot of media about fascism lately (see the film "The Conformist," read the book IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE by Sinclair Lewis) and that wasn't helping things.

In other news: my friends are geniuses. Janaka Stucky, a
poet-undertaker-burlesque-dancing-hot-girlfriend-having-ex-hindu--who once single-handedly fought off a pack of baboons in the wilds of India with a hand-made machete--is featured in this week's Boston Phoenix. He's pretty sexy and can drink whiskey, too.

Then there's Nate, who published his first book, a collection of short stories, last spring. Since then he's written another short story collection, a book of poetry and the memoirs of his weird, Evangelical upbringing in Kansas and Colorado. Also sexy. Read about his attitude towards writing and life and how he fucked up his marriage, here.

Okay and Joe (who was also in the undertaking business, but has wisely left it to be a newspaperman) is going to publish an article in the NYTimes Book Review, but I can't tell you when or what or it would spoil the surprise. Plus he's got his own entry in the Wikipedia. AND he's recently announced his engagement to Jean. Congratulations, you judas goat.

Thank god for my friends on blank-brained, desk-cleaning, dreary days like these.