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Jason Jordan’s novella The Dying Horse is available for pre-order from Main Street Rag.

Tiny Hardcore Press is offering you Lauren Becker, Erin Fitzgerald, Kirsty Logan, Michelle Reale AND Amber Sparks all in one place. Pre-order the chapbook collection Shut Up / Look Pretty here.

These are writers y’all want to be reading.

Occupation

There are people on Wall Street who aren’t normally on Wall Street. Doubtless you’ve heard because the media coverage has been non-stop. If by “media” I mean “a bunch of my friends on Facebook.” Of course, some days, that is my media.

I don’t have time to have time. This isn’t an excuse or a complaint. It’s a statement of my state. I’m a parent and a freelance writer and someone who, when given a few moments, very much enjoys having a good meal or going to a movie. I’m not going to occupy anything but this chair where I work and where I hope to write something worth something. And by worth I don’t mean worth money. I mean worth my presence here. I mean: writing something that makes me worth having around as a writer.

I spent a few hours yesterday pining for a more innocent me. That innocent me believed that Tony Romo was a top NFL QB. These are the things that sometimes occupy me. I’m not ashamed of this. Without our diversions, we tend to be pricks.

But about Wall Street. I am not a rich man, but I am not hurting. I have a well-stocked bar and two working cars and I pay someone else to cut my yard. But there’s a stagnation here, a sense that my hard work—or, really, my wife’s hard work, because, God knows, she brings home the proverbial bacon—isn’t worth what it might once have been worth. And this time, by worth, I do mean money.

Let me just say this: when a small number of individuals or entities control large portions of the market, it’s not a free market. And you’re either for a free market or for a controlled one. And if it’s controlled, who breaks it up and spreads the power back around?

Seriously, Tony Romo hurt me yesterday. Cracked me.

But this Wall Street thing. Shit. I don’t even know if they want what I want. I suspect that they don’t. But for the love of God, do we not want something different? I mean, isn’t this the kind of moment where the best of us make us better? There ain’t nothing wrong about finding our diversions. But at some point, we’re going to have to find our purpose, too.

And Now?

I write this not because I’m unique, but because I’m not. Because I’m just another American who remembers that day and can’t quite shake free of its grip.

There’s a rawness here. Still. So I’m not going to claim that I am blessed—as are some—with that enviable ability to lean back and observe this all from a morally pure point of view. I can’t do that. This thing. It did a number on me.

That day? I was just at work. A lot of people were just at work. That was the thing, I think. It was so easy to imagine ourselves there.

A few days after, my wife and I decided to lay flowers somewhere, but we didn’t know the right spot. We were living in DC, so we walked down to the National Mall and wandered the vacant spaces between those memorials. We finally chose the statue of Roosevelt sitting in his secluded site. What we wanted was wisdom and strength.

You know what we’ve ended up with instead.

How about this: The bodies from the Pentagon traveled in yellow helicopters. They passed low as I grilled burgers on the roof deck.

That’s what I tell people when they ask for a story about being in that city, at that time. I also mention seeing a machine gun mounted on a jeep that drove down my little street. And the smell of a building and bodies burning for days.

But those aren’t stories. They’re fragments. Ash. And we still live in that debris, I think. A man falling. A fireball. A bullhorned voice and grainy images of dark-skinned men running an obstacle course. It all drifts down around us. Coats us, still, and makes it hard for us to see.

“Perhaps the most heinous act of terrorism in history.” A columnist wrote those words for my local paper today. He’s wrong, of course. People, throughout history, have terrorized one another in far worse ways. Unbelievably worse ways.

And yet...

What happened was horrific and frightening and angering and, despite what I just wrote, I get a little ill when I hear fellow Americans trying to minimize what happened, trying to act as if our national obsession over those events is somehow a sign of moral weakness or intellectual dimness. What it is, I think, is a sign of our humanity. As much as the horrors elsewhere in the world might make us ache, we Americans felt the scorch of those fires ten years ago. The worst atrocity is always the one that happened closest to you. It’s the way our minds operate. It’s understandable.

And yet, again...

We’re here. You, me. Ten years on and we’re still here. And I sit in a house I didn’t own back then, with two children who hadn’t been born back then, with a decade beneath me that couldn’t have been imagined back then—I sit with all this newness and know you sit with a newness of your own. And I wonder: where to now? If we can still feel so connected to people who were just at work—whom most of us didn’t know—can’t we feel connected to others as well? Can’t we sense those strands tying us together? In this newness—in this continuance of life—so many seem so focused on dividing themselves from others, on withholding compassion for reasons often as narrow as a difference in political affiliation. But to what ends? Truly. If we refuse to admit we're all journeying forward together, where do we think we're going to end up?

Because, you see, there are names in bronze lining two pools where towers once stood. But there are so many other names in this world that no one will ever inscribe. And there will be more. A lot more. And what are we going to do about that?

Remembered Sounds

My neighbor is doing some work on his house and, this morning, someone was using what I assume was a nail gun. The sound was rich and rhythmic, something between a tap and a thud. It was a sound that sent me thirty-or-more years back, leaving me a young boy sitting in a wood-paneled den and listening to my mother type her first novels. Her work came in these tap-thud bursts that I'm sure I didn't quite understand. But the sound of that typewriter--the sound of my mother writing--must have pushed deep into my mind. Lodged there. So that this morning, as I worked on my own writing, a nail gun reminded me of my mother in her literary youth.

And I wonder, in thirty-years to come, if my son or daughter will hear a soft clicking like a keyboard and think of me, still young and believing, sitting with a dark head of hair at the dining room table of their youth and writing books that now sit on their shelves.

Charlie Baxter Dance Party

I was gone for awhile, on the mountain, they say, although those of us on this side of the continent (even those of us in the flat parts) tend to call such soft and rolling land hilly. Not mountainous. So, I was in the hills. Of Vermont.

Everything was very old, except the people. Many of the people were young and filled with what I believe is called verve. Even the old people had young people verve. I’m pretty sure no one was themselves and everyone was exactly who they are.

I’m talking about the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, by the way.

We ate at determined times and we ate what we were fed. I liked a duck dish. The tacos made me laugh. Those deemed to have incredible talent and potential waited on us and I could not help but note how much they all sweated. They were nice people. All of them. But I was jealous. They’d been chosen. I was just allowed to watch them work.

Somewhere between the inn and the Frost cabin, I realized why so few of my stories ever end in any satisfactory way. I was carrying this little green fruit that I’d been told was a crab apple and I was talking and talking, as I do, even when sober, which I was since you couldn’t get a drink until 5:30 or so. It’s about tension, I said. The story ends at the point that particular story cannot contain any more tension, at the point right after it breaks, or right when you know it inevitably will. There is no end until the tension reaches that point. This sounds rudimentary as I write it. There was more to it. There was revelation.

I credit Charles Baxter. He gave a lecture on plot that made people cry. No shit. That happened.

I wore sweaters some days. It was 100+ degrees back home and I was in sweaters and listening to the rain. You want to talk feeling displaced? You want to talk falling out of time? I could feel the thousands who had come before me. Hope. Laughter. In a corner of the barn a piano sat mostly unplayed. They used to jam on it, I was told. They used to fill that barn with their singing.

No one knew where we were. Even those who could find us on a map.

Everyone carried satchels of books. I just spent two-hundred dollars at the bookstore, people would say. And we thought this is how the world should be.

On the last night, there was a dance. There’d been a dance previously but the last dance is always the best dance. And so we drank and flung ourselves around. I smacked into Charles Baxter who laughed. I banged my fists on the floor with the guy who’d began as my roommate but is now a wonderful friend. I consumed a healthy amount of wine and, when the music ended, I was still spinning.

Coming down that hill (that mountain) on the final morning, I thought I might be ill. I blamed it on the wine. But it was probably something else.

Because It Can't Not Be Today

Sometimes I make the mistake of reading the comments sections of news stories. The anger is a sickness. I can feel it working its way into my blood.

I’ve heard we shouldn’t use clichés because they are lazy. I’m pretty sure they can also be dangerous. At least when enough people believe they’re true.

Amazing how language can become drumbeats, subtlety stripped and meaning stretched into a thinness that sounds hollow and repetitive yet nevertheless makes feet fall into line.

But, seriously, I mean, come on: at what point did so many people of modest means stop caring about the condition of those most like themselves and start fighting for the interests of the wealthy? How does something like that occur?

There is a myth of martinis and cigarettes and there’s a true story of fire hoses. If only it could be reduced like that. History as some pretty old Christmas card, or history as some righteous progression. We think we’ve lost something or we think we’ve valiantly moved forward, but you know what I think? Sometimes I think we’re just spinning.

Today will be a fragment of my children’s past. You and me, though? This is the middle. This is what we’ve been given. Work with it or just turn on Jersey Shore. You know?

"An Incomplete Registry of Deaths: Part One" Up at Corium

Got a new story in the new Corium. Read it here. It’s a series of somewhat interrelated micro fictions. I’m hoping to do more of these but who knows. My projects don’t always hold.

Thanks to the wonderful Lauren Becker for including the story. I haven’t been getting a lot of stuff out there this year, but this one I really liked and am so glad it found such a great home.

A Collection of Bookstores

On Saturday nights in Brooklyn, when I was alone and my friends weren’t calling, I’d take the F train up a stop to Prospect Park and spend the evening in the Barnes & Noble. I wasn’t the only one who did this. The place was packed.

A man once came up to me in a San Antonio Borders and tried to recruit me for the army. It was midday on like Tuesday. I was out of work at the time and must have looked it. He said military service was a good way to make money for a few years. He didn’t mention war. Or patriotism. This was fall of 1999.

There was a Borders in the World Trade Center. You could still see the sign in the rubble.

I went to The Strand the second day of my first trip to New York. I decided then that I needed to move to the city.

Shortly before my son was born, the stress overwhelmed me. I left the condo and walked a long way to a Barnes & Noble (maybe a Borders) in downtown DC. I browsed for several hours until I felt better. Then I bought a Guide to Literary Journals and told myself I’d publish something before I was thirty. I had six months. Four months later, I received an acceptance from Flashquake as my son rolled side-to-side on his mat.

If I’m in Austin for even a couple of hours, I’ll stop by Book People. It’s across the street from the flagship Whole Foods. These are good hours.

There’s a bookstore in Dupont Circle with a bar. I don’t much like coffee. But a martini while I browse the new fiction? Genius.

I own a Kindle. I’ve bought a lot of books from Amazon and spent a lot of time on their site. This is all very convenient. But it never has the right smell.

Every time I take my kids to the nearby movie theater, we do two things after the film is over. We get ice cream. We go to the second floor of the Borders and we pick out a new book from the children’s section.

We should probably do that this weekend.

That store is going to leave a big space to fill.

So, I'm Going to Ramble About Movies for Awhile

The makers of Hangover 2 should watch Cars 2. That’s how you rethink things, fellas. Cars 2 ain’t brilliant, but it’s nothing like the original.

In case I wasn’t clear, Hangover 2 was bad. Has there been a lazier sequel to a good movie in recent memory?

I said sequel to a GOOD movie. Transformers 3, you may put down your hand.

I haven’t seen Transformers 3. But Roxane Gay has. And I trust Roxane.

Still, could it be worse than Green Lantern? I’m a comic book nerd and I thought the GL movie bit more than either of the Hulk movies (both of which bit terribly hard—like gnawing on over-smoked jerky). Amorphous bad guy. Hero who just needs to learn a little selflessness. Final fight scene that mistakes special effects for drama. And the Green Lantern Corps? Oh, lord. They managed to retain all the lameness of the GLC from the comics and STILL butcher the main facts. That takes work.

I officially hate 3D now. Terrible thing. Pointless. Most of Pirates of the Caribbean 4 was unwatchable through those dark, bulky glasses. Biggest rip-off in entertainment.

My kids saw King Fu Panda 2 twice. I didn’t see it at all. I consider this one of my biggest victories of the year. Hot parenting tip: convince other people to take your kids to kid movies.

Bridesmaids is the best movie I’ve seen this year. Not that the competition is strong. But, still. I definitely cared more for Kristen Wiig’s character than I’ve cared about anything in any of the other movies I’ve attended this summer.

Although, actually, Super 8 was okay. Nostalgic for anyone of my generation. A bit “hermetically sealed,” though. Other than the computerized effects and the continuous utterances of the word “shit” from young mouths, it was like a found volume of early ‘80s Spielbergness. A Movie with that capital M. You could feel the gears turning.

I never walk out on a movie. But I’ll stop reading a book pretty quickly. This says something about me, I suppose.

I have fallen asleep in movies.

Movies I wish I slept through recently: Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, Hop, Despicable Me, Owls of Gahoole

I see a lot of kids movies. I need to take my “hot parenting tip” more seriously.

And, yes, Despicable Me is bad. I could write an essay on why. The short version: it’s cynically constructed.

I have high hopes for the newest Harry Potter, though.

I read the first four books to my son. Decent reads. But we never made it past the first 100 pages of the fifth book. It was horrifically slow; J.K. Rowling is just lounging in her fictional universe by this point, enjoying the process of world creation far too much and leaving the reader with scant plot. Also, as the series draws on, the POV choice becomes an increasingly frustrating mess. Everything is 3rd person from Harry’s POV. We don’t learn anything that he doesn’t learn. But, because Rowling expands the wizarding universe to such extremes, this POV means the books increasingly become a series of people telling Harry what has happened and will happen next. Yes, Rowling invents various magical devices that allow Harry to see and even experience events outside of his own life, but it’s never quite enough. Switching to a multi-POV style after the second or third book would have greatly improved the novels, I think. Although, admittedly, I haven’t read the last few.

Somehow a post about summer movies became a lazy book review.

But, seriously, Cars 2 is a spy thriller. Cars was a coming of age movie. More sequels should be so bold.

I Was Going to be Crass

I dreamed I called an old friend. I was in my kitchen. The conversation was filled with pauses and words used to end those pauses. “Well.” “Anyway.” I had the sense that I needed something resolved but I – the dreamer – didn’t know what this thing needing resolution was. More-or-less, I was observing myself in a private moment. Two degrees to my own left. This is how I feel every time I write a story. I never quite have a grasp as to what the hell is going on.

I want to complain about something but I don’t want to seem like a whiner, or ungracious to a world that has, overall, been very kind to me. Maybe it’s my Texas stoicism. Or Celtic pride.

I was invited to a party and they let me have a beer then asked me to leave. I stood on the street and watched everyone else through the window. It was bright in there. People moved like cattails and swallows. No one looked down to see where I’d gone.

If you type in swallow on Yahoo’s search bar, it will suggest that you’re searching for “swallow birds,” “swallow tattoo,” “swallow my load” ... in that order. I was wondering if swallow like the bird was really spelled the same as swallow like the action of the throat. Apparently, yes, it is.

Part of me wants to title this post: Swallow my load. As you can see, I did not. I’m uncomfortable being crass. Your crassness, however, bothers me not at all.

Drought

There’s a drought on and everything’s going towards dead.

There’s a drought on and the sun has gone mean with heat.

I could bake cookies in my car.

I sweat and think of Brooklyn, where there was no drought but no air conditioning either. I was about as young as you can be and still be an adult. My white shirts went to yellow. I thought I’d soon publish in the New Yorker.

There’s a drought on and my inbox fills with work requests and newsletters and promises of Vegas.

I could stay in the desert for $35 a night. More fun than waiting for the desert to come to me. Which I think it’s trying to do.

I assume we’ll irrigate and overuse and predict the best of outcomes.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt rain. Not once.

Not even in Brooklyn. Which may have been a fever, come to think of it.

Cocktail Hour

I want you to accept me or reject me. I don’t like being stared at. I don’t like being the thing you will stoop to if it’s last call and you’re feeling drunk and needy.

I sit with a six-o’clock whiskey. Irish. It’s too hot for the Scotch. Or, rather, I don’t drink scotch on rocks, so the hot is not for Scotch.

Gin was once believed to cure gout. I sometimes believe it cures the insufferability of being trapped inside one’s own body forever. A good friend once stuck that bit of silliness into gin’s Wikipedia page. It lasted a week before someone erased it. I think the erasure was terribly shortsighted.

Hemmingway said he could tell the exact point on the page where Faulkner took his first drink of the day. I paraphrase. But I wonder if Faulkner wrote drunk. That seems preferable to revising drunk.

Jameson, Hendrick’s, Tito’s, Tanqueray, Caol Ila, Bacardi, Milagro, Jack Daniels. Crown Royal. That’s one each of the four whiskey groups, two gins, a vodka, a tequila and a rum. For those keeping score at home. Or considering your cocktail options should you decide to visit.

Accept me and I’ll buy you a drink. Reject me and I’ll pour myself one.

Short Getting Shorter

I haven't been writing much flash. I've been enjoying taking a little more time with things, leaving room to extend language. Not that I'm writing epics, mind you.

But I wonder what the popularity of flash is doing to our perceptions of things. And by "our," I mean the world of journals and journal readers. Today, I had a story rejected. The reason given: the story is too long to be so reliant on the poetic over the narrative.

The story is 1,500 words.

I'm pretty sure that's quite short.

I assume the journal had issues beyond the poetic-to-narrative balance (not claiming it's the most brilliant thing I've ever done), but I do find the specific concern over the length strange. It's as if flash has trained us to expect a full story in the tiniest possible spaces. Maybe this story needs to be cut in half. But, eight years ago, I would've never imagined a 1,500 word story referred to as "a story of this length." As if it were something bloated and unwieldy.

Something Something

Something cool: Hazel Foster talks about my story “Leap” at Matt Bell’s blog, here.

Something new: I finished three stories this week and sent them into the world. They are all at just one or two places. I find that I prefer this method to the scattershot. Of course, this method may also be why I have so little coming out right now.

Something old: Novel. In rewrites. Thought I was done last summer. Turns out: not so much. This could be a post all its own. I have a second novel just banging itself against my skull, but the first one is still something I want to pursue. Oh the complications...

Something worth buying now: Like poetry? Buy Lauren Schmidt’s new chapbook from Main Street Rag. It’s Voodoo Doll Parade and you’ll love it. Find it on this page. Lauren was in my MFA class and I can more than vouch for the amazingness of her work.

Something worth getting ready for: The one-and-only Roxane Gay has a book of stories forthcoming. Ayiti. Preorders from Artistically Declined Press begin this July!

Something else: Saw a bunch of shiny, youthful Mitt Romney supporters in a Las Vegas casino. They were standing around in a cheery sort of way, apparently anticipating Romney’s arrival. Politicians and slot machines. Plenty can seem bright and alluring. Then you put some money into one and ... well ... yeah.

Chosen

The thing that mattered came packed in a box filled with tight little bags of air. I don’t know where that air came from, how the exhalations were chosen. But they nevertheless took up most of the space with their cushioning. Large percentages of space. All of them just sitting there with their purpose already over. Lasting until I deflated them and disposed, carelessly, of their skins.