A Novel

I want to read a novel. Something that will take me a while--I've got about three hours of free time at school every day after I finish teaching. Give me suggestions in the comments. Please? You can do it anonymously if that turns you on.

Okay bed

This is a considerable source of stress for me: that there's The Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories every year. And no story appears in both, which strikes me as odd; or, collusion by the publishers. So I want to read the best short stories of 2005--which do I buy? (Note: I've found that the O. Henry stories are better.)

I got a gift card to Barnes & Noble for Christmas and decided to walk to the Coop tonight to spend it. (Why is he writing about going to a bookstore, you ask. Because I spent the rest of the day sitting close to the TV, intermittently patting my stomach.) I came away with Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard, and The Shell Collector, a collection of stories by Anthony Doerr. If you can find a story of his called "The Hunter's Wife," read it. It was a mentally and physically exhausting process deciding on only two books.

Tonight was clear and cold. On the walk back I had to keep shifting the books from hand to hand, stuffing the free hand in my pocket to warm. Somewhere near my house, hidden, cats were fighting, making noises like tiny engines revving.

My eyelids are falling as I write,/So I'm afraid, friends, this shall be all for tonight.

zzzzZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Worst Night Ever

(First of all I want to apologize for the silliness and stupidity of my last few posts. I wasn't sleeping and I get kind of loopy when that happens.)

All right: last night. So yesterday at school my mentor teacher had told me that he wasn't going to be in school today. He suggested that I teach the class--there would still be a sub in the room, but I would lead class. I agreed, even though I'm still fucking recovering from final papers. Last night at like ten o'clock I was up writing out a lesson plan, and I was so tired and just wanted to go to bed. It's like, I thought I was done with work for a little bit, but now I had ANOTHER thing to do. Here I am sitting at the table, pissed off and working:



I'm practically falling asleep, I have a headache, I have to wake up at 5:30, and I still have no idea what to teach. Couldn't get much worse, right? That's what I thought. Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this GIANT FUCKING EVIL BAT COMES CRASHING THROUGH THE WALL NEXT TO MY HEAD.



Of course I FREAK OUT and run away, and I'm running all around the kitchen trying to save my life and I'm SCREAMING and this bat is like SHREIKING and CLAWING ME and SHOOTING LAZERS out of its fucking RED EYES and all I can think is OH MY GOD THIS IS HOW I'M GOING TO DIE.

Shit is starting on fire and exploding all around me! I'm holding the bat back as best I can with a broom. I'm circling the perimeter, dodging the lazers and flying debris, and I'm bloody and blackened--when all of a sudden I slip on water leaking out of a busted pipe under our sink. I fall on the ground in the corner. The broom goes skidding across the floor.

So there I am: on the ground, helpless, no weapon, surrounded by flames. A goner. Dead meat.

The bat screeches and starts to fly at me with fangs bared. I yell my final words: "I love you mom!" Suddenly, at the last second I realize: I'm sitting right next to the knife drawer! I wait until the bat is just about to plunge its claws into my neck when I WHIRL AROUND, GRAB A KNIFE, and SLAY THE BAT WITH EXTREME JUSTICE!!

I pass out.

***************

I wake up a few hours later and throw the bat carcass out the window onto one of the tow trucks that park behind our apartment. I'm throbbing and bloody and missing and arm and I'm thinking to myself, "I need to get help."

I know what you're saying at this point: there's no way things could get worse after that.

I go over to Adam's room and open the door, and my jaw drops.

He's in bed.

With someone else.



I stumble backwards, leaving the door to his room open. I turn, dazed, reeling. I think I hear Adam get up and call my name, but I walk into my room and lock the door. My heart feels like it's been ripped from my chest by chains. I sit down on my bed and begin to weep.

I got a kiss from Jamaica Kincaid last night!

WOOOHOOO!!

In the past 48 hours my Profile Views spiked from 73, where they had plateaued for like the last five months, to 116!! I guess I get more interesting when I don't sleep. If you were my 100th profile viewer and can verify it, contact me and I've got a prize for you.

To those of you who read: Thank you, keep reading, and tell your friends.

To those of you who aren't reading: stop being GAY

I'm nocturnal. I haven't seen the sun since Friday. Okay, and get this: I'M WORKING ON ANOTHER FUCKING PAPER. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Who said Ed School isn't rigorous? Oh wait, that was me. Repeatedly.

I'm a little worried because as I reached my nadir sometime around 8 a.m. Friday, in my S-109 final paper I wrote something like, "The third component of ASS"--Oh yeah, I called my program ASS this time--"will be creating a school culture that encourages students to do their homework. This component, which I am totally going to bullshit Shiner you fucking cocksucker, will integrate the Symbolic Frame of the Four Frames, Ethnography, and Accountability." Michael Shiner is the name of my TA, who is the squarest, most humorless man I've ever met. Anyway, I might have left that little subordinate clause in my paper when I emailed it to him, because I don't think I re-saved the file after I edited it the last time. Last night I was tipsy at a party and tried explaining to a few people that if I did screw up and send it as is, that I'd just be really apologetic and tell Shiner that I was stressed out and exhausted and didn't really mean to take it out on him, and everyone was like "yeah, totally, it'll be fine," and I had myself convinced too, but now I'm like, are you fucking kidding me, it's not going to be fine! I CALLED MY TA A COCKSUCKER, PEOPLE.

Also, I got really perfection-crazy while editing my autobiography and ended up turning it in eight hours late. I got an email from my TA saying it'll be downgraded. I don't mind that, but I just felt flakey, especially since I had already gotten a last-minute extension. I mean, it didn't help that I knew Jamaica Kincaid is grading it.

Leave me comments.

Oh No

SO WHAT IS DAVE LIKE WHEN HE HASN'T SLEPT AND HAS BEEN WRITING PAPERS FOR A WEEK AND A HALF?

1) HE WRITES IN ALL CAPS.

2) HE JUST WANTS TO BE DONE WITH S-109. HE HATES THAT CLASS SO FUCKING MUCH HE CAN'T EXPRESS IT IN WORDS OR EVEN GESTURES. HE'S LISTENING TO DAVID BOWIE.

3) Okay, this all caps thing is stupid and I have to go to the bathroom.

4) If I turn my head really quickly to the side there's a ghost image that follows.

5) I bought this cinnamon raisin toast the other day and I'm convinced our kitchen smells like it ALL THE TIME, and it pisses me off, except, why? I like the smell! At first I smell it and I get mad, but then it smells good and I just don't understand my anger.

6) There's this carwash in Madison, Wisconsin with a sign that's a green octopus holding buckets and sponges, and it's like, why am I talking about that?

7) The other day on New York Times.com one of the most emailed articles was a recipe was for macaroni and cheese. What is that?! It wasn't even a good recipe. The results were, I mean the ingredients were just like milk and noodles and a lot of cheddar cheese. Albert, remember when we made homemade mac&cheese in xox one random night, and maybe Masha was there I don't know, and then Nick Hollon came down and had some, actually, maybe he didn't have some, I think maybe he wouldn't have some for some reason. Nick Hollon, are you reading this you bastard?!?! DID YOU HAVE SOME?????

8) Speaking of macaroni and cheese, before I left for break I was drunk and hungry one night so I made some Annie's shells and cheddar, except we didn't have any milk, so I just used extra butter, and it was gross, so don't try that.

9) God now all I can think about is Nick Hollon and that weird squinty thing he does with one eye when he talks sometimes.

10) Sometimes people say the exact wrong thing to you without even knowing it, and it's when that happens that I feel completely alone.

11) I think the music I was listening to suddenly changed sad, so that's what prompted that last thing. It's Ella Fitzgerald.

12) I was trying to think of possible hybrid animals earlier and I came up with Iguanameleon, and then I kept trying to turn it into the punchline of a joke where it would be a pun on "one-in-a-million," you know like "how many times will it succeed if you try to cross two lizards?" "Iguanameleon!" but clearly it doesn't work.

13) I need to either work on my paper or give up and go to sleep