5 Marvelous Things

1. Vanessa Woods' book "Bonobo Handshake". I heard about her on PRI's "To The Best Of Our Knowledge", and I went to the library and got it out. I didn't expect much of it or from it. I'm not a big ecology reader, and not really an animal person. Sorry, I'm just not. But I loved this book- she's earthy, funny, and makes the story about the region and the people as much as the animals. Very highly recommended.

2. Once again, To The Best Of Our Knowledge. They continually make really compelling hours of radio, about all sorts of topics.

3. Mike Schmidt's The Forty Year Old Boy podcast. Mike is profane, longwinded, but funny as hell. Basically think like Eric Bogosian, except with less hair. #referencesabout7peoplewillget

4. Michael Cunningham's new book "At Nightfall". Engaging and hypnotizing. It is the story of people I don't know anything about and am nothing like, and they come to life brilliantly. He makes me weak with jealousy.

5. Kelly

I hate you, Michael Cunningham

I hate you because I've been trying to put something into words for all of my adult life, and you managed to do it in two sentences. 

"We-we men-are the frightened ones, the blundering and nervous ones; if we act the skeptic or the bully sometimes it's because we suspect we're wrong in some deep incalculable way that women are not. Our impersonations are failing us and our vices and habits are ludicrous and when we present ourselves at the gates of heaven the enormous black woman who guards them will laugh at us not only because we aren't innocent but because we have no idea about anything that actually matters."

100 Word Challenge: Dancing Days (NSFW)

Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge was almost entirely not responsible for the Jets' victory over the Patriots last week. The word this week is "credentials", and my story is called "Dancing Days".

I'm going to call this one NSFW, though it really isn't. At best, it contains an "adult situation". Whatever that means.

Consider yourself warned.









She presented herself to him shyly, showing him what one should only show a lover or a doctor, like she was showing her invitation to a fancy dress ball. She folded away the tiny triangles of fabric with delicate, precise care, then stood up. The bass pounded through the walls of the tiny room. He knew she wasn't here entirely willingly, and he knew the twenties she had folded away would not pay for textbooks. He suspected no one had treated her kindly in her short life.

He knew all that was true.

Then again, he didn't leave.

Friday Means It's "Meeting Time"

The 52/250 Flash has come into the world again. This week's stories are about "animal behavior", and my story, "Meeting Time", may be found here.