Another morning, another day.  Last night we saw a great reading: Eileen Myles and Aimee Bender at Human Resources Gallery, as part of the Rocky Point series.  Bender read a selection from her new book, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, and Myles read an electrifying segment from Inferno.

 The tirade of people described, bars, rooms, readings, Warholian celebutants and poetic moments went on and on until it dissolved into applause and the crowd funneled out into the Chinatown night. 

Or, more like, it, the crowd stayed and stayed, so many people, it was like a wedding or a funeral.  They didn't want to leave.  There was a palpable excitement.  I waited by the door peering into copies of Sorry Tree while my friends raided the hors d'oeurves, then we turned to leave.

In brighter, happier news, it is springtime, hop-time, and time for projects to blossom.

featherless, a reading series, is having its first event on June 20th at 7:30 pm at Wordspace.  The curators, Katie and I, are very excited.  The three readers will be announced shortly.  Omar Routher is designing our logo, and, judging by the preliminary versions, it should be smashing.

The bits and pieces are coming together.

I'm working on the novel obsessively, still.  I have a rough draft manuscript of nine chapters, with four more in sketchy sketchy hopeful fill-in land.   The problem I'm running into (well, one of many), is that with such an epic scope, that of thirteen years and five cities, it seems that there should be some sort of epic quality to the narrative beyond plink plonk ping pong here's my little life.  I feel that in the last section, the Los Angeles section, I will have to veer far far from the truth of placid domesticity and concoct some sort of explosive climactic whatnot to finish it off with.

Oh dear.

Another morning, another day.  The sun rises and so do I, I sit and drink iced coffee, do the dinner dishes, take out the trash.  Housework is not a dirty word, it gives me an outlet for the manic energy and a slight sense of accomplishment when done.

It has been hectic, this week.  Katie's parents have been in town, she turned in her thesis and read at the REDCAT.  The final festivities, the festive finalities, of another year ending at CalArts.

 I feel like I have been through this cycle three times, four if counting my first year as a practice run.  My own reading and graduation was what is was.  My roommate the next year was also in the writing program, the cycle passed again.  Then again, with Katie.  I am looking forwards to not being a satellite of CalArts next year, untying the apron strings a little.

It's a great place, but, yes, over.

Another thing I am done with is this Amazon Associates program.  Apologies, gentle reader, for all of these embedded links to amazon products.  I was trying to make some money.  I have not made a cent, and instead corrupted this blog with a lot of ridiculous gadgetry.  Apologies, again, and regrets.  I am trying to figure out how to leave the program, but, much like Scientology, they make it very difficult.

So difficult, in fact, that I have not figured it out.  Whether muddled by the Topamax, which is supposed to cause cognitive dulling, or by the clear omission of an exit option in their website....I am not sure. 

A few things I am excited about right now:

1. these tumblers with bees that were an engagement gift, now filled with sweet tea vodka.
2. the fact that Katie just said, "Nevada, stop giving yourself cattilingus in front of everyone."
3. The book  The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored oral history of the porn film industry by Legs McNeil and Jennifer Osbourne.
4. Katie and Nikki's thesis reading, which was tonight, and which was really really good
5. Kara Murphy's new blog, I Love it, SF.
6. The fact that not having a car will force me to get lots of exercise and hopefully become that lithe little minx I used to be.

Drinking vodka like it's water, which should contextualize the otherwise vomit of bitter events of the last few days.  Actually, not all bitter and not all to be defamed.  First up. My car got stolen from outside a friend's house, and I've been crying on my dear girlfriend's shoulder and worried I may never drive LA's fair freeways again.  It really struck home when I couldn't leave the house to get a bottle, as we live all the way up on a hill, and I felt like such a teenage loser, or a mentally disabled adult in depends, unable to get my whiskey fix.

I pull the ring off. It itches.  I pull it on again.  I am in love.

Again and again there have been these moments that make me wish I wrote my blog entries in amicable word documents, only released when they were perfect.  No, this flies out raw from the vodka maw, which is to say, unusable and likely embarassing.

But ANYWAY.  I was turned away from the reading at Beyond Baroque this weekend as neither I nor my cohorts had the $5 necessary for entry.  We had driven miles out to Venice, in Stephen's car, I had parked my car at his house, from whence it was to be robbed.  I was so full of anticipation - Christine Wertheim puts on an amazing show! But alas, there was a cover.  I was overdrawn at the time, my finances are never good and often truly humiliating for a woman of 33.  I'm not exactly a functional adult if you hadn't guessed that yet.  The Disability check comes and it goes to rent, bills, vodka, and  that's about it, maybe a drugstore eyeliner if I'm feeling especially plush.  I did get my food stamp card today.

But anyway.  My feeling at the time was that I had too much dignity to spell out my long sad sob story to the long-haired teens at the register, I couldn't and wouldn't sneak in, and so Katie and Stephen and I made our way out and to a party in Orange County.

The duo launch at the REDCAT Lounge was the day after my return.  It was a lot of fun, and I am very appreciative of the folks who came out so soon after Christmas. Harold Abramowitz hosted, read and documented.

So much has happened in the last few days.

First off, Louise doesn't have kitty cancer, just inflamed mammaries from nursing.  She's outside the door right now, spayed and doing a lot better.

The most exciting thing for me was the Washington Blvd Art Concert, on October 11th.

We arrived and set up around four. People came by bike, foot, and motorcycle, and we began.  Katie read two pieces from Vergangenheitsbewältigung, her zine.  I read from Jet Set Desolate.

I decided that morning to wear a very low-cut top, because I was interested in being conspicuously performative.  Performing a character in the text, not myself.  The selection I read was about Lena losing her virginity, and coming to terms with the implications many years later.

Noted: the interplay of gender and triangulation.

Two women reading.  Men watching. We each read twice.

Both selections told of uneasy straight relationships, closing.

Katie's three ended in two.  Ladies.

While I can't say how many people have died from excessive reading of Harry Potter, here is a list of people who have died from Lorazepam (Ativan).

• Michael Jackson
• Anna Nicole Smith
• DJ AM

Strangely I only know about famous peeps, as they don't release the lurid details of normal ODs to randoms like me.  But, of these three they each had a veritable pharmicopia of other things in their systems, not just this delicious white pill.

This revelation has led me to try and quit drinking, which is working out reasonably well.  Thanks, lamictal, for making my attempts at social drinking end up with me still sober and headachy, and everyone else loopy loos.

  However, today is my birthday - I'm 33, whee!  Jesus died at 33.  I certainly will not.  I'm feeling pretty good for a no-longer spring chicken.  I remember freaking out when I left my teens.  My thirtieth birthday was such fun, glossed over by calartiness, that I wasn't too upset.  However, today I'm facing adulthood full square in the face.  Yipes.

It's cool, though, really.  I'm enjoying where I'm at right now, if only I could kick the writer's block that steps in front of me, like a fierce Tyra Banks, and says, "what, you're thinking about writing?  how could you, you have nothing good to say!"  So then I blog about my personal life, and everything's ok until the next time I get the urge to write another novel, which I really want/need to do.

But the question, as ever, is what to write it about?  I could just do short pieces until something jells, I suppose?  I recently lost all the data in my external hard drive, I dropped the damn thing....urrrgh.  So unless I retype a bunch of shit, the old fragments I might have cannibalized are gone gone gone.  This makes it seem even weirder.  I looked back on the folder of stuff I'd printed out the last time I got all charged up, and so much of it was shite.

But in other news, I'm going to be reading in "A Day in LA: Washington Blvd Art Concert", on October 11th.  Katie and Omar and I just went driving through Culver City in search of the perfect spot(s) for our readings.  I found a great big blue-poles and glass building called, "Imperial & Wholesale Electric Supply."  It's right next to the river and the intersection of Washington Blvd and La Cienega.  I'll be there from 4:30 - 5:00 pm, with the reading starting at 4:45 pm.

I'm really excited about this.  I haven't read out in public since the Next Words reading when I graduated from CalArts, and that was at least a year ago.  Possibly two.  Time gets weird for me, y'know.

But Katie found an amazing spot, it's an old broken down church.  This spot is so cool that Katie has people asking to share it with her...I think the answer is no.  Katie Katie Katie my lovely girlfriend, yay for her, she's also started a blog, finally seduced by the blogger application.  It's called Vergangenheitsbewaltigung, which means the struggle to come to terms with the past.  That's also the name of her zine, which she will be handing out at this here church around 3:30 pm.

I'm sitting here waiting for darling K to come home from school, defrosting the birthday steaks, drinking coffee that is probably a bad idea.  Oh well, It's my birthday, dammit.

Several things, this morning. I'm waiting to go to the REDCAT MFA Writer's Showcase, followed by Mommy Mommy. Possibly between that we'll stop by Tucker Neel's art opening, or possibly Hot Dogs and Hats by Karaoke Fever.

It will all depend on how much can be done in a day, a day dominated by public transit.

But at the moment, drinking coffee and picking a blemish on my face, my dominant thought is - is 32 too old to wear a romper?

I have also been obsessed with sandals that come down like little spats.

I recently had the pleasure of attending Stephen van Dyck's thesis reading.

"A book-length conceptual writing project called "People I Met from the Internet," a detraumatizing, horizontalizing, decriticalizing of memories, spaces and otherness to sameness/"homoness."

In anecdotal footnotes, Stephen presented a coming out story similar to Joe Brainard's I Remember. The emergent list format, as popularized by the 25 Things, is a style whose parallel structures grants a certain equality to each phrase. The teen tryst in a New Mexico cave is aligned with each encounter thereafter, each with a story, each with the same detached yet ironic delivery.

I was intrigued by the way the text bloomed when read aloud. Having encountered the text in a previous draft, the horizontal legal paper and tiny font was a bit daunting. However, when read selections, the room exploded.

The introduction was by Matias Viegener, recently featured in Vice for Fallen Fruit.

So, on the topic of sociability, I went to a book release party for Vanessa Place's La Medusa the other day. It was acutely enjoyable, with a plot powerpoint by Teresa Carmody, Sissy Boyd did an exquisite movement piece, Christine Wertheim dissected vocalizations of qua...lecture on the origins of Wilshire boulevard, and more.

By the end, I was melting into the night, margarita glowing, so so pleased with the words I had seen reimagined.

I'm excited to read the core text. "As smart as Ulysses, but sexier."

We went to Maxi Kim's reading at the Smell last night, for One Break, a Thousand Blows,  and it was excellent. Well-orchestrated performance, theoretical commentary, and heat so moist and dense I almost fainted into my pie. Tasty, tasty pie.

Curiousity is piqued, now, I'll have to order the book.

The next morning, dear Liza got out, so we have been turning things topsy turvy to find her. I'm pretty sure she's behind the bookcase.