A lot of people had just given up.  Other people had made survival plans.  Schmitty and his folks were holing up in their basement with shotguns and rations.  He asked if I wanted to join them as he was allowed to bring one friend.  

"This isn't like going to Hershey Park, Schmitty," I told him, "I'm staying with my family."

Remember the word “party line”? It meant that everyone in your town who wanted to could hear exactly what you were saying. How fucked up is that? Wasn’t that great?

The baby is adorable, and I wish she really was mine, I was really hers, and this was a picture my wife took, my beautiful blue-eyed wife and my beautiful blue-eyed baby.

Remember when every stray dog was a love story and the snow that night cleared the crust that had gummed my eyes shut? No, me neither, but fuck it. Let’s get lit one last time. 

Allen says I haven’t got a voice on me, and so I’ve been trying to come up with special lyrics that only a voice like mine could sing. The last time I shared one of them, Allen said he couldn’t hear anything past the faucet. 

I think everyone has heard this a lot but it’s still true — read with curiosity and hunger — reading is as important as writing, more important, probably, when you’re first starting to write.

On a Tuesday morning in May, everyone in Spokane, Washington woke to the smell of pie. It was blueberry – sugary with a hint of vanilla. 

Growing up I never saw road kill. / A government worker was paid / to take the bodies away / and nobody’s day was ruined by death.

USE THE SCREAMBOX

‘There are so many damaged birds,’ he said, spreading jam on his sourdough toast. 

‘I haven’t seen that many,’ I said. 

‘Well, I have,’ he said. ‘And I was just too tired to do what we did for that seagull.’

Spoilers

 I wish I had that glorified high school / experience— where some boys / are chugging expired strawberry liqueur / and everyone, I mean everyone, / is sprawling on the grasscarpet

 "I was thinking about how famous we were as kids."

     "Who?"

     "All of us."

     This was why she liked having him in her bed, Alice thought.

I don’t have any goals except to make the reader think and feel. What they think and feel is up to them. 

When I exhaust all other forms of exploration, / this landscape will deny me at the border; / & I will turn my gaze toward a darkening / sky filled with stars I no longer recognize.

On the way home from picking up my brother at the airport, I stopped for a hitchhiker. I’d never picked up a hitchhiker before. I think I did it because my brother was with me, Julian. It was the kind of thing Julian would do.

We’ll have more in common than you’d think—after all, we’re both main sequence stars, I’m just a few million years ahead of you. 

In 2007, I was catfished by a homely woman from Arkansas masquerading as a 5’10” blonde bombshell named “Jenn.” Before you judge me, remember that this was ten years ago.

Sometimes I say novels ruined me in the way they ruin all young bookish girls, slowly and tenderly rotting out the light and making room for the sweet dark.

And tbh, I seriously doubt Jesus wants me to die a virgin. 

You’re always told to do the right thing and stand-up to evil, but can a, old dying woman who lies about being offered pie constitute as evil? I thought yes.

I read the first half of Dust Bunny City (Disorder Press, 2017) at a party, while I was sober. Men were playing darts, making tiny dart holes in the rented apartment walls. I watched them throw darts and cheer and try to teach me how to play, and then drunkenly play with the dogs in the house and then went back to my reading.

In the afternoons, I stripped off my boyish clothing and watched back to back episodes of Saved by the Bell, feeding my unhealthy obsession for Kelly KAPOWski. The perky brunette with her slim ankles and come-hither hair tosses was the ultimate teenage bombshell. 

“Go outside,” I say, and I settle in with my coffee and my laptop. “Notice how real-world birds aren’t actually angry.” 

“Fine, but I get full custody of the mustache,” I said, once we’d finished dividing up all of our things: him Chipotle, me The Red Hot Chili Peppers, him macramé, me black clothing.