"Time travel is lonely..."--John Vanderslice

Because it's an effective writing warm-up but mostly because it's fun, I post six-word stories on Smith Magazine nearly each day. (As noted last year, I had a piece included in Smith's latest HarperCollins anthology, It All Changed in an Instant and read at the University Bookstore stop of their tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV8VpKj50Ds)

Went to post this morning and discovered one of mine is Story of the Day again, which is always pleasing, only it's the one I wrote about last year's Oscars: "Will miss watching Oscars with him.":

http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/story.php?did=103474

That held equally true last night, of course, but I'd spent the afternoon w/ two of my oldest and dearest friends and had run into a pair of my favorite colleagues and was putting a better face on things this year, because I can. I still hurt unremittingly but the shock has dissipated and I'm not shattered in the way I was at first. (I still hate the outcome and will hate it until I'm dead. But that's gotta be self-evident to anyone with a functioning brain stem.)

So it's strange how time has again folded in on itself, which it does all the time with grief and, also, if you're a writer.

So much for this year's half-dozen words on Aaron Sorkin.

And the laurel-resting continues:

One of my dear lefty colleagues recently chided me for being too hard on Greece and its ongoing economic debacle. I explained to him nearly each Greek-American I know had predicted the motherland's implosion and while creating the building blocks for contemporary democracy, math, theater and Western philosophy remains equally inspiring and astounding, toppling the EU is kind of a huge fucking deal.

Today, the latest from Forbes on Greece's new "I Won't Pay" movement:

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/02/22/general-eu-greece-i-won-apos-t-pay_8319311.html

Magic:

The Washington Square Hotel posted this photo on its Twitter feed today:

http://twitpic.com/42a0vu

Yes, I know New York winters permeate one's bone marrow and they're damned near impossible to navigate with a cane, but dear god, I remain entranced. (The last time I was in New York, it was 10 degrees F with wind chill, I had a 100 degree fever and needed the cane the entire trip and it was still completely fucking worth it. But did you expect me to reach any other conclusion?)

My new essay for Nerve, "A Foray into the Domestic Arts", is up now! Cookies, sex and the intersection of the two!

First off, thanks so much to everyone for your delightful birthday wishes yesterday. Imbibed the leftover cake from Kingfish this morning and am experiencing a sugar crash not unlike the opium madness Burroughs wrote of in Naked Lunch. ("I've got the fear!")

If we've known each other awhile, you know this is the fourth version of this essay that has run in the past ten years. And if we know each other well, you know the full story behind it, which is even funnier, though I'll omit select details here. Let's just say a certain someone used to repeatedly mention I left out the part how we'd already dated on-and-off before this story begins and that I'd broken up with him the previous time. I'd playfully retort, "Maybe you should write your own essay then."

When a longer version of this piece was published in the Seal Press anthology, Single State of the Union, alongside essays from Margaret Cho, Chelsea Handler and some fine writers who happen to be dear friends of mine, the latter group of us were asked to do readings at Elliott Bay Book Company, the University Bookstore and at Queen Anne Books. He attended the Queen Anne Books event with my folks, clapped louder than anyone, then Mom and Dad took us to dinner afterward.

Obviously, we did get back together again, but I never did bake cookies again:

http://www.nerve.com/love-sex/true-stories/grand-gestures-of-love-gone-wrong?page=4

Prompting nacho comsumption to fall drastically:

Hey, straight guys!

If you'd admit you're a wee curious about fucking each other, the NFL would become superfluous.

As would bar fights and any film in which Hugh Jackman transmogrifies.

Think it over and get back to me.

Happy Superbowl Sunday!