October 2005 Archives

The table of contents of my book is becoming a monster. Double spaced, it's nearly three full pages. All these long chapter titles and multiple subtitles, I think it's hilarious--I'll just hope that others think the same. The table of contents won't be growing too much longer, as the chapters I have yet to write are already titled and placed into position. I have a map of where I'm headed and that feels good.

Many of my old working titles for the book have been worked into chapter titles and they work quite nice. There is a new working title for the book, but I'll wait to let it out of the bag. Because I might wake up tomorrow and think it's stupid.

Heck, yesterday I wanted to call the book Escape From Fat Mountain. Imagine if I had come on here and said that that was the title! You would have thought I was crazy. Thankfully, the new title isn't too jokey and isn't too pretentious--it just is and that feels right to me.

Other than all of that, Elise has been working and I've been writing in the book and everything is wonderful... closer than ever.

...there is a new story over at Ribcage and it's there early for a change. This way, I won't forget to post it later.

And it is in fact titled--

Bubble Belly Goes Off the Wall

I have been working on my book. Wrote two pages last night while Elise was watching The Count of Monte Cristo.

Now that the birthdays, weddings and other events have passed--now that Disney has so graciously (actually it was a nightmare) given Elise her old job back, I should be writing full-time once again.

The state of my book is that it's around 160 pages and will most likely not go above 250. On a full-fledged writing day I get over a thousand words into the computer, or around 4 pages. There are 49,000 words between what I have now and the Things You Can't Give Up e-book. Almost all of them were written while Elise was at work in Connecticut. It was the time I had designated to the book and it was a schedule that worked quite well. Only, Elise was only working 2-3 days a week up there and now she will most likely be working 4-5.

25 work days from today, the book will be 260 pages and over my projected page count. In other words, the first draft will be finished. At four work days a week, the first draft is finished in six weeks--by mid december. But these are the holidays and I wouldn't be surprised if they put E on overtime. And with her painting now on her days off, I'll have even more time. As well as time for Ribcage.

That is the state of my book. That is to say--it is completely on track.

Mostly, these past few weeks I've been thinking about the directions the book will go. In everything I write, I spend far more time in planning, brainstorming than actual writing. This is how I work. I map it all out, obsessively--but I don't write any notes on paper. This way the book or story or whatever is concise but still spontaneous.

I've been thinking long and hard about adding more of a fiction element to this book. I've already done it in the book, actually--but I'm thinking of expanding upon it. What I'm thinking of, it's not uncommon among memoirs or anything... but it may be the best way to release the helpful information that refuses to fit into the story.

For now, for today, I am writing this week's Ribcage story and it will most likely be called Bubble Belly Goes Off the Wall.

My father sold close to 10,000 copies of his last book in eight minutes on QVC the other day. They're lining up more appearances. For that book and the new. No matter marketing or store shelf placement or wherever the Food Network is, this guarantees an outlet for the books and that a third will come down the pipe. My guess is that I'll be picking up work with my father no sooner than I finish my own book. He's already working on new recipes.

A huge freaking band of Hurricane Wilma is coming onshore right now... right as I'm supposed to be leaving for the John Vanderslice and The National show in Downtown Orlando.

The sky looks like hell, but it's not raining... so I should go, right? Of course. Then I look at the ticket and see that the show doesn't go on until 10pm. Stupid fucking Social and how they schedule two shows in one night, back to back.

With three bands and the long setlists I've seen for other JV shows, this concert will be at least four hours--ending at two in the morning at the earliest. By then it's supposed to be thirty mile an hour winds and a heavy downpour that doesn't stop until sometime tomorrow evening. Awesome!

Anybody want to risk their lives for the John Vanderslice show tonight? My number is 407-FUCK-GLOBAL-WARMING. It's one of Orlando's new 20 digit dialing numbers, because of the overpopulation.

...over at Ribcage today.

Fruit Trees in Winter

As I mentioned last week, I found a sharp piece of shrapnel formed into a still uncooked slice of Butterball turkey bacon and THANKFULLY removed it, at first thinking it was a little piece of bone. The piece is about the size of a tooth filling--perhaps it is just that.

Today we received our shrapnel relief package from ConAgra, owners of Butterball. Inside was four coupons for a free Butterball product under $5 dollars. (Too bad neither of us were particularly fond of Butterball products, even before we found the shrapnel.) Also included was a padded envelope that is possibly the biggest padded envelope I've ever seen. Padded and TWICE the size of a file folder--just to send them back a piece of metal that was small enough to be accidentally formed into a slice of turkey bacon. And of course there is a letter--

Dear Ms Michael

Your recent experience has caused us concern and we appreciate you taking the time to notify us.

As we discussed, the object would be very helpful to our evaluation. Would you please send us the object in the enclosed envelope? The object will be forwarded to our Quality Assurance Department to assist them in reviewing the situation you reported. We appreciate you taking the time to mail the object to us.

Now, most people would send "the object" and move on with their lives. But boy would I love a response to "the object" itself. I want to know what they think of it! Where they think it came from! I mean, I almost ate it, the least they can do is try to explain it.

I'll be including a letter with "the object" (which they've informed me to tape to a piece of paper for safe travel) and I think I will ask for a response to my letter and my "object."

The Lulu Blooker Prize is the world's first literary prize devoted to "blooks": books based on blogs or websites.

I am going to enter Ribcage: Volume 1 into this. They actually have a prize for best fiction book based on a blog or website! Books of this kind must be of short supply. To the winner of the fiction category goes $1,000, the publicity of being selected AND a promotional quote from one of the judges. The grand prize for the best book of all categories wins $2,000.

Preferred submissions will be those entries that display writing that lifts the subject matter out of the routine category and give the reader greater insight into the topic covered. Significant — but secondary — weight will also be given to the design/visual quality of the blook (including cover art, typography, editing and overall presentation). The overall or "grand" winner will be the single book judged to have shown these qualities to the greatest extent.

Best of all--points for presentation, typography, etc... I am excited about this. Too bad official selections won't be announced until March. I'll have Volume 2 available by then!

According to The Death Psychic, this is how I will die-

While you're leaning forward to smell a pot of cooking soup, a disgruntled relative shoves your head into the pot and holds it there. Your face is quickly cooked as you choke to death on boiling hot soup.

This site, will put your name into an advertising slogan. My slogan-

Can't do it in real life? Do it on Christian!

But Elise's name is funnier-

Recommended by Dr. Elise.

Because Elise is complicated enough.

We don't make Elise. We make Elise Better.

Puts the Elise in Britain.

The Elise That Eats Like A Meal.

Elise Tested, Mother Approved

That last one is so very true. Elise and her KIX, it's insane.

Kongfrontation has been The Mummy for some time.

Supposedly, Back to the Future is being converted into a Fast and the Furious ride.

Jaws is closed at Universal once again. Only, this time, I hear from employees that it is never coming back. That all of Amity is being torn down! In the tradition of building rides out of crap movies, why not convert it into a Deep Blue Sea ride and then fully guarantee that I will never go back to the park?

Nickelodeon is closed to the public.

The Hitchcock show is Shrek 3D.

Ghostbusters was turned into the God-awful Twister crap.

Some of the more expensive fire effects in Earthquake have been scaled down to save money. They should convert it into The Fog! I hear fog is cheap.

And there has been talk of ET closing down for years. It already has in Hollywood. Now that Universal is in cahoots with NBC, this one is a given. From ET to ER. Imagine the possibilities.

Sheila Heti is an amazing writer, but sometimes she tricks you into reading a five page story about a boy that's in love with a monkey, but nobody minds that he's in love with the monkey and the monkey can speak and nothing else happens but the boy being in love with the monkey.

Now I understand why the McSweeney's edition has seven fewer stories. Because some of the stories are about monkeys and boys and nothing else. Don't get me wrong, many of the stories in The Middle Stories are pointless--it's just that some are written so well that they knock you on your ass.

My favorite is Mermaid in the Jar...

I have a mermaid in a jar that Quilty bought me at a garage sale for twenty-five cents. The mermaid's all, "I hate you I hate you I hate you," but she's in a jar, and unless I loosen the top she's not coming out to kill me.

I keep the little jar on my windowsill, right behind my bed, right near my head so if I look up in the middle of the night, up and back, I can see her swimming in the murky little pool of her own shit and vomit, and I can smile.

"Hello, mermaid! How are you this fine evening?" I can say, and sometimes do. "How very sad it is that you're so beautiful, and you're so young, and you're so fucking trapped you'll never get out of that bottle, ha ha!"

You'll have to buy the book for the rest. As long as you don't get too upset when she tricks you into reading five pages about a boy and a monkey in love and nothing else.

Everyone had a paper wedged into their apartment doors today. On it were four basic questions and a deadline of Monday to return the answers to the front office.

I mean, I'm not complaining about filling the stupid thing out... or delivering it or any of that.

It's just that the questions were--

What is your apt. #... gee, I don't know... look at the door that you're sticking the paper into.

What is your name? Um, look at the lease that I signed.

What is your telephone number? Again, information that is in the lease.

So yeah, I guess I'm just complaining because I find the paper a waste of everyone's time.

This is why filing cabinets were replaced with computers. For management companies that are too lazy to pull out every tenant's lease individually. So lazy that they'd rather print up copies of a form and walk around the complex sticking them in doors.

...posted over at Ribcage.

All the Tomatoes

Also, I bought Elise a domain name and put up a quick site where there are better pictures of her recent paintings. www.elisemichael.com

Elise just finished these.

We've been in our new place for a month and I think we've finally fully adjusted.

We haven't gone out for food in lieu of cooking dinner (unless we were invited out) since the day we put food in the fridge and I feel a heck of a lot better about that. All I did was complain about the restaurants in Norwalk and now that I have a million outside my door, I don't give a shit. Tonight, I made a turkey tenderloin with okra and stewed tomatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy from scratch. Tonight, I also learned that you should not make mashed potatoes out of the new lower carb SunLite potatoes, unless you like them gummy and sticky. Some potato flakes fixed this, while simulataneously voiding the seal of homemade and adding back the carbs that were painstakingly, genetically removed from the SunLite potatoes in the first place.

The potatoes are not the reason I am writing this post.

Whenever I move into a new place--when I moved to Connecticut, when I moved from a bedroom to the basement in Connecticut, when we moved to a nicer house in Connecticut and now, moving back to Florida and here--it always takes time to adjust back into writing.

Today, now, I'm feeling good again. I just finished writing this week's Ribcage story, so the story should actually be on time this week! Heck, I'm sure I'll be posting it at the stroke of midnight. Also, it's about tomatoes.

I started writing another story, titled, When You Learn that People Never Change and it has nothing to do with Ribcage. So far, I really, really like it. And to Jeremy, or whomever else took notice of my post on Sheila Heti... Elise will verify that I started writing this story and planning the chapbook it will hopefully be a part of, days before I discovered Heti. But it's so damn similar in style, it scares me. I guess it shouldn't--Heti is some love-child of Dave Eggers and Amy Hempel and so am I. With me it's just influence, but Heti surely involved fornication, devine creation or gene splicing.

I really, really want to write a story titled, My Name is Tom Hanks, but we'll see about that. If I can't write a story named My Name is Tom Hanks, I might as well get a job in sanitation.

All of this has to take a backseat to the non-fiction book, I must mention. If I don't, my grandmother will call and ask me how I am going to pay my power bill.

But my writing is only half of why I am writing this post.

Elise is painting her third painting of the evening. Granted, it's going to be a four painting set, she's on motherfucking fire tonight.

We found a piece of shrapnel in our turkey bacon this morning! No joke. It was processed into a piece. I thought it might have been a bone, so I decided to remove it and it was actually a good sized piece of really sharp metal! Hooray!

Update: Elise thinks it's a tooth filling.

Update: Butterball is sending us their shrapnel relief package. Coupons and a return envelope to send them the evidence. I'll take photos first.

Is it bad that we still ate the bacon? (I threw away the piece in question first.)

The Girl Who Was Blind All the Time by Sheila Heti

Read that story from beginning to end. It's incredible.

There are twenty-nine more in her book of stories, The Middle Stories, out now by McSweeney's, but for once, I'm not impressed by a McSweeney's edition.

The Canadian hardcover is far more beautiful and includes seven more stories, even though the McSweeney's book was published AFTERWARD. I don't know why you would do that, unless Heti had some major change of heart. So I went ahead and ordered the Canadian hardcover.

With story titles like The Moon Monologues and Party at Her Place, With Her Piano... you can't go wrong.

>>>the following is a quote<<<

The Middle Stories is the kind of book that other writers read and say, "Aw, shit. I'm sure I would have done something this neat if only I'd had a few more years to mature as a writer and if I drank more."

If asked, she (Sheila Heti) will say she is just a quiet sensitive girl who likes to curl up and read a nice romantic novel on her couch. She may also say she has a catfish in her pants, so it's probably best if you don't talk to her.

-Michael Redhill, author of Martin Sloane

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And on the sidebar, the benefits of joining...

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Due to the "part-time" training, Army National Guard troops also have a 35 percent higher mortality rate once they're shipped off to Iraq. (According to the Pentagon)

But wait! 3 free music downloads! I mean, they're giving a $10,000 enlistment bonus, plus $20,000 in student loans, plus a program where they'll put $25,000 down on buying your first home... and a $2.97 iTunes credit is going to clinch it for anyone?

I created a Myspace account to help spread the word about Ribcage.

Befriend me.

I did some calculations and I think it came out to $30,000 a year to live comfortably here. In our one bedroom abode. With Elise's one car.

It's a good thing I have a girlfriend. I couldn't live with a roommate and I couldn't live on my own otherwise. Living, I've found, is very expensive.

And did you hear that they want to put an eighteen cent tax on each plastic bag you receive at the grocery store? First, they complained that paper bags were wasting trees and stores converted mainly to plastic. Now, they know that plastic bags biodegrade as slow as rat shit and no one knows what the heck to do. We're supposed to be using reusable canvas bags that we take with us.In Ireland, they enforced a plastic bag tax and usage went down by ninety percent. I don't think it will ever happen here though. Wal-Mart will wave a magic wand and politicians will walk away with fat pockets.

Besides, plastic bags don't go to waste! They go to good use... being filled up with more garbage before they're thrown away!

Eighteen cents a bag and we'll all be saying, "Just put the Pine Sol in with the broccoli... Oh, that steak too. And the eggs. And that 2-liter of soda. Trust me, it will fit. And don't you DARE double bag it!"

Elise dropped off of Disney's map, even though they were supposed to hold her in the computer system for a year and now she'll have to sit through three days of happy horse shit training to be a recognized "cast member" once again.

I told her that she should look into Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede Dinner Show, because there's only one show a night and there are horses! Granted, she'd probably have to wear a bustier to work every night, but the tips might be good.

My payment for co-writing Eating Stella Style will allow me to live as a full-time writer for several more months, but beyond that is up to me. This full-time writer has to work full-time coming up with words and ways to continue writing, full-time.

So that I don't end up in that bustier, serving food in what smells like a stable.

Tonight, I've been trying to think up ways to save Elise from that same fate. An eBay business! No. Handmade crafts! No.

There's always diving for golfballs.

...over at Ribcage today.

Florida Rooms in Florida

Grkgrl88 is a loyal reader of Ribcage and like all of the loyal readers that link me, I am always checking in on her blog. Every so often she posts a numbered post that is obviously fiction and very, very short. I liked the idea and wished it was mine (there was a time, coincidentally, when a new sentence would appear on Ribcage alongside the story every week... the first one ever is to the right) but a blog of these random sentences could be fun.

Then she posted a link to this blog, One Million Footnotes and I discovered the world of Footnoters.

This guy links to a dozen other people now doing close to the same thing. Proof that there is still creative ground to be broken on the internet.

Or that people have too much time on their hands.

I'll stick to my flash fiction site. It's enough stress for me. And by the way, it's already Wednesday. Oh BOY.

From the Washington Post... full story here.

Discount retailer Target Corp. calls to mind many things. A porterhouse steak isn't one of them.

But as the chain that brought the world a Michael Graves-designed fondue set plunges deeper into the food business, it is adopting an increasingly common tactic in the grocery industry: launching its own line of high-end beef. Sutton & Dodge Steakhouse Quality Angus Beef, named after a fictitious butcher and an equally mythical restaurateur, hits stores this summer, with cuts ranging from rib-eye and T-bone to tenderloin and New York strip.

And from later in the story...

...for sheer stagecraft, nothing tops Target's campaign for Sutton & Dodge.

From CattleNetwork.com...

Sutton & Dodge is Target’s new premium steak line developed to give a designer image to SuperTarget’s meat cases. It’s the brainchild of Hormel Foods Corp.

“Sutton & Dodge,” according to Hormel VP Gary Ray "sounds like a steakhouse chain."

Target's new line of "premium" beef doesn't just sound like a steakhouse chain, it's on the edge of fraudulently posing as one. They have the fancy name, the photos of the two fictitious characters that supposedly own the company and the phrase "Since 1890" on every package.

Yet Sutton & Dodge was invented by Hormel just this year. Look at that quote by the VP of Hormel. He's practically admitting to false advertising!

This "Steakhouse Quality Aged Angus Beef" is exactly that... and then it's stuck with needles and injected with a saline solution equal to twelve percent of it's own weight. Injected with water and salt and flavorings and who knows what else. Then it's tumbled in a big vat much like clothes tumbling in a dryer. All to make the meat "tender".

What you end up with is a cut of meat that is unnaturally tender. What you also end up with is an 8 oz cut of beef that contains 26% of your daily sodium intake. And what Hormel ends up with is an extra $1.20 on every ten dollars worth of meat.

What ends up on your plate looks deflated and tiny as all of the water cooked out of it and as even more liquid continues to leak into your vegetables and all over the place.

All stores without an on-site butcher are selling this kind of meat. It's called case-ready meat and it's been going on for years, most notably at Wal-Mart. But Target has taken it to the next level. They're dressing it up as something upscale and worth a higher price and they're doing it to really good cuts of meat. Ruining really good cuts of meat and overcharging you for it. By all means, pound, needle, inject and tumble a flank steak, but why do that to a porterhouse? To a grade A, aged, Angus filet mignon?

They're turning fresh cuts of meat into pre-packaged luncheon meat, basically.

Have you ever had a Hormel beef roast? You might as well go meat shopping at Arby's.

I wrote an email to Target about all of this. Mostly, to have a response that I could post here when I receive it. My main question was. Where do they get the Since 1890 next to the Sutton & Dodge name? And that I would love to see the company's incorporation papers.

I went to throw an empty bottle of Splenda sweetened Light Hawaiian Punch on top of the washing machine, because, naturally, that's where I throw all unsightly things that are too big for our garbage benches and that I'm too lazy to walk to the trash compactor for until it accumulates into a garbage carload and so I'm throwing that bottle in there and I'm about to close the door when I realize....

That gecko isn't supposed to be indoors.

You see, outside our apartment at around ten at night, the geckos come out in full force. They crawl all over the ceiling eating moths, huge moths... and it's awesome.

I am so happy to be living with these geckos. I've always wanted a gecko, but never wanted to actually take care of one. I'm so used to living with them, that seeing one in my laundry room didn't seem out of the ordinary at all. But he looked skinny and the cat wanted to play with him, so he had to be captured.

All apartment complexes should release geckos, just to be as cool as this place.

In other news, here is a big picture of a tree with a face.

Finally, finally, finally, I got my galleys. And then I remembered, Oh yeah... I co-wrote this book and it was less exciting to read, better just to touch.

Also, galleys are boring looking.

I have many things to say about writing. I am hoping that this blog will dissolve into many months of writing woes, hoorahs and horn tootings, because that will mean, quite simply, that I am writing again. As more than just a hobby.

I am hoping to use less commas.

I am hoping to strap myself into this chair. To get the work done.

I have plenty of meat in the freezer. I can ride this out. Though, most of this meat is bullshit. It's from Super Target and it's injected with a twelve percent saline solution.

I am hoping to go into that further. Because it is bullshit.

Burger King's new MEAT'NORMOUS Omelet Sandwich. Two long egg patties, two sausage patties, two slices American cheese, three slices of bacon and two pieces of ham. More fat than a Whopper and when coupled with hash browns, it's half of your reccomended daily calorie intake!

The Oral-B Triumph. The commercial claims that it is the world's first toothbrush with an on-board computer. I won't contest that. The on-board computer can do whiz-bang things like... count up to two minutes, the dentist reccomended brush time. Wow! And for only a hundred and fifty dollars? For God's sake, buy yourself a Crest SpinBrush and a really nice stopwatch.

I don't know what's scarier... that Gillette is introducing a new FIVE blade razor known as the Gillette Fusion, or that the powered version, unlike Gillette's previous M3power, has a microchip inside to regulate something or something. First the toothbrush, now this? Also, it has a SIXTH blade on the back for shaping facial hair. This sixth blade is a necessity, seeing as five blades is so damn big that you can't do anything precise with it.