Writer's Spread

One of my best friends since we were kids is a famous author...I'm talking the famous like there have been movies adapted from his stories, he's actually been heard saying don't you know who I am? and you did, etc.  The kind of author some of you (snobs) would say is a real writer because his publisher is in a real big building in a real big city.

I believe I am his only non-celebrity friend. When he does take me out, I'm usually the person cut out of the frame behind Kanye West.  He believes I ground him.  What this really means is I know some pretty disgusting secrets about him and he's scared I'll sell them to Harvey Levin to make my rent.

Anyway, he comes over to my place today as I was trying to work and says, "So, I see you've been writing a lot."  I perk considerably and think, he's finally been reading my books!  Perhaps he'll give me a review that I'd rather die than ask for?  Perhaps he'll find the time to finish working on the script we started in high school?  Perhaps I can call myself a real writer now.

I looked up from my laptop, hoping to come off cool and said, "Yes, I've been working my ass off!  I've got some stuff up in anticipation for the two novels that are set for release.  Thanks for noticing."

And he says, "Well it's kind of hard not to...you have all the signs.  I mean, friend to friend, don't take this the wrong way, but you've gotten kind of fat."

Rice Cake anyone?

Welcome To My Life

So I was instructed by my editor to begin a blog. Actually, it was a demand. The demand was followed by..."Hell, I can't believe you don't have a blog! Why everyone has a blooooog!"  "And there you have it, I suppose that's why I don't," I responded.


But I'm really not that flippant. Nor that affected. Truth is, authors (not all, but some) find comfort in hiding behind their characters. I can be a drug dealer who beats the hell out of his wife as my character Dylan Parker does in Five Percent of Nothing, I can be a maid who commits the ultimate horror as my character Ana Cartena does in Brazilwood, I can be a woman who takes advice from a leaky faucet like my character in Conversations With Verbs of Prey or even someone who talks to a bubble as my character in Suffering Surfactant does. But here, well here I'm just me. And if I'm just me, well then I risk it all.


So this is me. I am many things, like a raging hypochondriac...I was convinced I carried Ebola, Legionnaires and gangrene of the elbow at the same time. I have weird phobias: latex balloons and those canned bread products in the grocery stores among others. I am bombastically sensitive and extremely flawed.  I have a photographic memory and vividly dream in color. I hate getting drunk and haven't run across a drug that doesn't make me ill. I am currently concurrently engaged in one of the saddest and exciting times of my life. I'm allergic to Novocaine.


And the rest I hope you can work out with me along the way.