MORE AI NONSENSE

I'm not as charmed by automatically-generated Spotify word salad as I used to be. The new "Roast My Listening" feature is pretty bad. This is an example of what the app vomited up for me when I gave it a whirl. 

Remember when they tried to convince us that the inevitable robot uprising would be a good thing for everyone? Yeah, I ain't buying it.

 McCARTHY MONDAY 

The standout memory I have of this movie (Class, 1983), involves hanging out at my grandmother's house that summer and watching an episode of Siskel & Ebert. (Pretty sure my grandmother was the one watching, I was just sitting with her.) The guys were discussing this new teen movie about a boarding school student who has an affair with an older woman who turns out to be his roommate's mother. They showed a scene from the film wherein the main character and Roommate's Mom are about to start going to town on each other in an elevator. My grandmother harumphed at the depravity occurring on the TV screen and promptly ordered me out of the living room. "You don't need to be watching that kind of trash," she said, giving me a look. I reluctantly got up and shuffled out of there, wondering what the big deal was. I watched way worse stuff at home all the time, since my parents and everyone else in the neighborhood had gotten cable a few years prior. Along with getting to see all the sex and violence we could handle on HBO (we were mainly interested in stuff like Friday the 13th and "naughty" teen sex comedies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High), there was a steady supply of porn magazines--some of the more explicit rags, like High Society and Oui--hidden out in the woods that bordered my friend Caroline's house, the same woods that on the other side happened to border the playground behind John Strange Elementary, my school. In hindsight, I really want to believe that the culprit was some horny kid who was forced to stash his stroke books where his parents wouldn't find them, i.e. the wooded lot off of North Ewing Street....because the idea of some pedo-vert strategically placing hardcore porn rags in and around the woods behind an elementary school is too disturbing to contemplate. Also, that probably should've been two paragraphs. My apologies. 

I eventually did see Class a year or two later when it was in heavy rotation on HBO, and it turned out that my grandmother--a very wise woman, by the way--was 100% correct. I didn't need to be watching that kind of trash, but not because of the (lame) sex scenes and the (mostly lame) teenage boy hijinks. It's because Class, well....it kinda sucks.  

The movie takes place at an all-boys boarding school outside Chicago. The bros on the dorm engage in your typical raunchy teen movie antics; pulling endless pranks on one another, smoking copious amounts of weed, and trying to get off with the girls at the neighboring all-female prep school. Sensitive guy Jonathan (Andrew McCarthy), journeys to Chicago on the advice of his roommate Skip (Rob Lowe), hoping to lose his virginity to some worldly big-city gal. Jonathan meets Ellen (Jacqueline Bissett), an older woman who picks him up at a bar. Suddenly the movie shifts gears and morphs into a tender-yet-inappropriate romance that comes to a screeching halt when Ellen discovers that Jonathan is only seventeen (not a grad student as he'd led her to believe) and she wisely "nopes" it out of there. Jonathan is depressed for a while, and then, after the inevitable "Hey I'd love to spend the holidays with your family, Skip. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. HOLYSHITIVEBEENFUCKINGMYROOMMATESMOMALLALONG." If that weren't enough, it soon becomes clear that Ellen is battling a raging alcohol addiction that disgusts her husband, Skip's father (played by Cliff Robertson). And boom! Now we got a tense family drama. 

Jonathan and Ellen rekindle their relationship after the boys return to school following Christmas break. Skip eventually tracks Jonathan to a local motel, finds him in bed with Mom, and goes predictably apeshit. Back at school, Dad arrives to inform Skip that Ellen has voluntarily checked herself into a psych hospital (offscreen)--and, with that--she handily disappears from the movie and is seen nevermore. Tensions between Jonathan and Skip boil over, culminating in a vaguely homoerotic wrestling match in the woods. The boys end up back at the dorm, covered in leaves and mud, all pissed off and exhausted. Skip makes a wisecrack. Jonathan turns to him. They both start laughing, and....freeze frame! The End. I guess the message is, "bros before hos," even when the ho is yo mama.

Well, like I said, Class is a bad movie. And not the fun kind of bad--it's the not-good kind of bad, with all those weird tonal shifts and Rob Lowe trying too hard to be the manic funny guy. The film also lowkey hates women; the female characters are either snotty, shallow bitches (the girls from the neighboring prep school), boozy trainwrecks (Ellen), or pointlessly cruel cunts (the lady who tricks Jonathan into marking up his face with a coin).  

One thing the movie has going for it, at least, is an impressive cast. Besides Lowe and McCarthy, Class is teeming with soon-to-be familiar faces in supporting roles. You got John Cusack, Virginia Madsen, Cameron from Ferris, one of the girlfriends from Weird Science, Lolita Davidovich, and a kid who I vaguely remember from some other Reagan-era flick. There may be more, but you'd have to look closely. 

Upside: Andrew McCarthy is frickin' adorable in this.

Verdict: I give it half a Blane. 

Class can probably be found somewhere on streaming, but seriously, why bother?

 I STEPPED ON ANDREW McCARTHY'S FOOT
AT THE CARMEL CLAY PUBLIC LIBRARY!

He was really nice about it, though.

Andrew is explaining.

Andrew is fixing his hem.

Andrew is listening.

Andrew is amused.

Andrew is pointing.

Andrew is thinking.

Andrew is happy.

I'm reading his new book. It's really good so far, and I highly recommend it.
More importantly -- SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY! The book-banning fascists want to cut library funding. 

Lots of GenX gals go nuts over Blaine from Pretty in Pink, but I prefer Andrew's character in St. Elmo's Fire. I liked his vibe and his cynical attitude, plus he had a much better wardrobe in that one (I love PiP, but I didn't dig Blaine's preppy threads). I know St. Elmo's is generally disparaged nowadays, but fuck it. I love bad movies, and anyway it's pretty to look at and endlessly quotable. (When I met Andrew I should've said, "Quick, what's the meaning of life?" but I didn't. I clammed right up because I was all nervous and excited. Oh well, maybe next time.)

Always loved this scene with him and Emilio: 

I've been toying with the idea of turning this blog into something else. Perhaps an Andrew McCarthy fansite? Maybe I'm kidding, but maybe I'm not.

 J A M  T H E  C O N T R O L S 

 Run + tell all of the angels

Those who could hear the music 

It's a vibe

 Stay Hydrated

 Menopause, amirite?

 Hear them shout across the land

 Pulling threads

Guarding the moon

 

blinked + u were gone 

Jeremy Spoke

 

 Surprise 'em with a victory cry

Watch the shadows

 

 It usually takes a minute....

 Falling faintly through the universe

Kinda Lingers

 

19- ohwellwhatever -91 

 Al Burian Deep Dive

 That space above us

B A N A N A S

 Find me in your leopard-print daydreams

you might think

 

It's Not Easy

Just passing thru

"Is this record a pencil or a beer can?" 

 The Hills Have Eyes

We Are So Fragile

 

Oh My Goddess

waiting for the gift of sound + vision

 

It starts with desire

 

Where's Marilyn

 THE MIGHTY B.C.*

I swear sometimes this blog is like one long In Memoriam tribute, but I gotta acknowledge the passing of Bud Cort. 

I was 12 years old when I first caught Harold and Maude on TV, and it was exactly the right time in my life for that movie to find me. I was a shy, quirky kid just entering middle school, and while people are somewhat forgiving to shy, quirky, little kids, by the time you hit that pre-pubescent stage, you notice that you're suddenly expected to straighten up, blend in, and CONFORM. The halls of my middle school were filled with these mean, nasty little preppy clones who had not only gotten the memo, they enthusiastically embraced and celebrated their uniformity. It was all profoundly depressing, and I wondered if this was what life was going to be like for the rest of forever. 

Then I saw Harold and Maude, this wonderfully weird, darkly funny, big-hearted film that was unlike anything I'd ever encountered before. I remember thinking, "Someone gets it." And that brought me a great deal of comfort.         

Ruth Gordon was brilliant of course, but Bud Cort was a revelation.

Sometime later, I learned that BC was also the voice of the computer in Electric Dreams, a romantic comedy that I'd loved for years. I couldn't believe it--Harold was Edgar, and Edgar was Harold! It made me love him even more. (I still maintain that Electric Dreams is a darling movie, even though there seems to be lots of mixed opinions on it. And the new wave soundtrack totally rules--I wore it out on cassette tape as a youngster.)

BC with Virginia Madsen on the set of Electric Dreams.
How adorable are they?!?

I think I'm finally going to have to bite the bullet and check out Brewster McCloud. Even though I'm not an Altman fan, I'll do it for Bud.

I mean, just look at him with Shelley Duvall! 

I like to think they became besties after this.

In fact, BC actually made an appearance on an episode of Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre years later. I have vague recollections of that show, and now I think I'm going to have to hunt that one down as well.

The most surprising place Bud Cort turned up was this outtake from Arnold Schwarzenegger's Pumping Iron, of all things. I had no idea this clip existed until recently, when I came across it among all the online tributes. I love how chill and down-to-earth Bud comes off in it. And dig his groovy leisure suit at the end!

Rest in peace, Bud. 

You made generations of oddball kids feel seen.

*A play on the title of this excellent tune by the late, great, doomed For Squirrels. If you want to disappear down a rabbit hole--and discover some good music--check 'em out.

 

Anyone else so fucking angry right now, they're about to explode? Dumb question. Anyone with eyes, a functioning brain, and basic human decency is beside themselves about the ICE murders in Minneapolis. When I watched the footage of that fucking ICE Nazi JONATHAN ROSS (may he never know a moment's peace for the rest of his miserable worthless life) shoot Renee Good three times in the face and growl "fucking bitch" as her SUV careened into a parked car, I swear I felt my soul leave my body. Same thing on Saturday when I saw the video of Alex Pretti getting beaten, pistol-whipped, and shot dead in front of Glam Doll Donuts. A sickening mixture of horror, rage, fear, and overwhelming dread.

The worst are the apologists, of course. The smooth-brained MAGAts dutifully sticking to the script. "She was a domestic terrorist attempting to ram ICE agents with her car." And the ludicrous, "Well, he had a gun!" Seriously. I don't even need to point out the irony on that one. Everybody already knows.

The Trumptards think their allegiance to Orange Hitler and his regime makes them safe. It doesn't, and they'll be the last ones to know it. Renee Good was an SUV-driving mother of three with a glove compartment full of stuffed toys and a labrador retriever in the backseat. You just know the MAGAts were relieved to hear that she was a lesbian. Like she had all the trappings of a "normie," but her sexuality made her an "other," so whatevs. It's okay -- she was one of them. No need to worry. I'm sure they're waiting to hear that Alex Pretti smoked weed, or was a practicing Buddhist, or any other detail that makes him "sketchy" or different, so they can shrug off his murder as well. 

Right, fascists. Keep fucking that chicken.

It would be cruel and hypocritical for a middle-aged liberal feminist type like me to post an extra-large image of ICE Barbie Kristi Noem's fucked up face, wouldn't it? Especially since she was so bothered about the South Park guys making fun of her appearance.  

I don't know how I'll live with myself. 

I think Kristi Noem was actually upset because the South Park satire touched a nerve and brought her greatest fear into the open. You know that underneath that flammable synthetic weave, somewhere in the back of her tiny brain, she's terrified that there will actually be consequences someday. Not the consequences she deserves, but consequences nonetheless. And if she is thrown in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison, (oh please please please let that be coming) you know what that means? Her lips and face will deflate, her Mar-A-Lago makeover will be ruined, and she'll be stripped away to nothing----just a plain-faced, puppy-killing nobody from South Dakota with bad skin and traction alopecia. 

From my lips to God's ears.  

 

Also....

 Okay, 2026.
Let's do this.

"For this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon, long ago...."

Angela + Angela, 1995.

Angela was my best friend from boarding school. I met her on the first day of freshman year at Marian Heights Academy, in August 1988. Eighteen days ago, on Wednesday, November 12th, I lost her to a car accident.

Although it's lifted somewhat, I'm still in a great deal of shock. Still doing that thing where I wake up in the morning and then it hits me all over again. "Oh that's right, Angela's gone." For the first few days after getting that phone call, I was 100% on autopilot, going around in a zombified grief-trance. I was so out of it that my family wouldn't let me drive. I notified a few classmates of Angela's passing, but selfishly gave up after the fourth call because it made me sick to say the words, and typing them out felt even worse.

Since attending Angela's visitation (John and I drove down to Missouri to pay our respects last weekend), the dam has broken and I've officially entered the blubbering, sobbing mess phase. The Sally Field "I want to know WHYYYYYY!" phase.   

Appropriately, Angela and I were in Steel Magnolias together our senior year of high school, and Angela played M'Lynn, the Sally Field character who gets to make that speech. (I was Miss Clairee -- I got to say, "Go ahead M'Lynn, slap her!")

Clairee and M'Lynn, backstage on the set of Steel Magnolias, 1992.

Angela and I played sisters a year earlier in another school production, Crimes of the Heart, and we had a blast. There was a scene where she and I were sitting at the kitchen table together, listening to another character talk. As this character wraps up her monologue, Angela and I were supposed to look at one another and sort of snicker for a minute, then burst into inappropriate laughter. We wanted to get the scene right and make the laughter genuine, so in rehearsals we would murmur nonsensical phrases under our breath to try to crack each other up. We talked to each other without moving our lips, like ventriloquists, saying things like "Poop Soup," and "Buffalo Farts" until we dissolved into punch drunk hysterics. And you know what? We nailed it every performance. (Such method actors we were!)   

I've gone through boxes of old pictures, looking for more gems from our four years at Marian Heights, but I'm finding that the best photos of Angela and I are the ones from our post-high school era. When we graduated MHA and left Ferdinand, I went back to Indianapolis to attend court reporting school, while Angela--a native of the Missouri "Bootheel" region--started her undergrad career at St. Louis University. Once Angela and I realized how quick and easy it was to just slide up and down Interstate 70 (only three and a half hours, depending on who's driving), we visited each other several times a year throughout the nineties. Sometimes Angela's sister Bonita would come with her on her sojourns to Indy, and I have a memory of the three of us singing Janet Jackson's "Nasty" for karaoke at the bar my boyfriend managed. Our song selection stands out because it was the most awkward song to sing for karaoke, full of long pauses and various grunts and "ooh"s and "uhhh"s. We were laughing so hard at how weird we sounded, we could barely finish it. 

Another time Angela came to Indy for a visit, she and I decided to catch a movie---When A Man Loves A Woman---the Meg Ryan drama where she plays an alcoholic mother bottoming out. Sitting in our seats before the show, we idly wondered how much of a tearjerker the movie would be. One of us brought up the Leslie Nielsen/Priscilla Presley scene in Naked Gun where they wander out of a movie theater, laughing their asses off, and the camera pans up to reveal that they've just seen Platoon. We both joked about recreating that scene if the movie turned out to be a major downer. I think we were actually expecting WAMLAW to be weepy but fairly light, maybe something along the lines of Beaches, or Lifetime Channel for Women-type fare. We were both unprepared by how dark WAMLAW is; in one memorable scene, Meg Ryan gets blackout drunk, slaps her children around, downs a fistful of pills, and crashes through a glass shower door. It's all very brutal. 

When the end credits started rolling and the lights went up, Angela and I both looked at each other, like, "Wow, that was....a lot." 

Then she started snickering. I was like, "What?" And then she looked at me, and laughed some more, and finally I got it. I broke into a Beavis and Butthead-esque "Oh yeah. Uh, huh huh huh huh huh huh," in recognition. Shenanigans continued as we headed up the aisle of the theater, walking and laughing, catching each other's eye, and laughing some more. 

By the time we reached the lobby, we were doubled over and hyperventilating, cackling wildly at absolutely nothing. We stumbled past the cheerful ticket taker, who, noticing our mirth, called out, "Glad you ladies enjoyed the show!" And that, of course, made us laugh even harder. 

 

Angela had this great, absurdist sense of humor. I'm pretty sure she was the only friend of mine who actually read Woody Allen's Without Feathers on my recommendation. I remember her getting a bang out of the chapter with the "lost" Biblical writings.  

(Sample passage: "And the Lord produced two stone tablets and snapped them closed on Job’s nose. And when Job’s wife saw this she wept and the Lord sent an angel of mercy who anointed her head with a polo mallet and of the 10 plagues, the Lord sent one through six, inclusive, and Job was sore and his wife angry and she rent her garment and then raised the rent but refused to paint.")

In turn, Angela introduced me to the Enneagram. One of her professors was really into it, and so Angela got into it, too, and gave me an armload of books on the Enneagram during one of my visits to St. Louis. (I'm a 4w3, in Ennagram parlance; Angela, a 2w3. Interesting stuff, and IMO more accurate than Myers-Briggs.) 

With Angela as a tour guide, visiting St. Louis was awesome. She lived in the Central West End, a hip neighborhood with fun, quirky shops (Heffalump's!), indie coffee houses, and Forest Park (sort of a small version of Central Park). Angela lived with a roommate in this giant loft apartment with exposed brick that was straight off the set of Friends. It was cool as hell.

One of my favorite trips, though, was the summer I visited Angela down in her hometown of Bernie, MO, in the aforementioned Bootheel of the state. It's an interesting region--on the north end of the Mississippi Delta--lots of rich history, southern-inspired cuisine (I had fried okra for the first time in Bernie!), and Delta blues music. 

Anyhoo, I loved it:

I can't even put into words how much I love this photo of Angela.

My favorite part of this photo? Angela's thumb. 

Never discard "imperfect" shots. 

Someday, you'll be glad you saved them. 

 Hanging in downtown Bernie, 1993.

Me, all countrified.

Angela feeding the sheep.

In the kitchen of Angela's childhood home. 

If I could, I would so time travel back to this moment in 1993 and just hang out there indefinitely.

Around 1997-ish, Angela was accepted to a graduate program at Tulsa University (I honestly can't remember if it was a PhD or Master's program. She didn't make a big deal out of that kind of stuff. She didn't need to. Girl was smart.) I was overjoyed, because Tulsa is where half of my family lives. That meant that even though Angela would no longer be as close as she was in St. Louis, I'd still get to see her anytime I was in Tulsa. The timing was perfect---my sister Michelle and my Aunt Donna had just moved into a large rental house in an up-and-coming neighborhood on the southside of the city, and they had a loft for a third roomie, so Angela joined them. 

Seriously, looking back on it all, I can't believe how lucky I was. How lucky we both were to have all the time together that we did. It's one of the things I hold onto now.

Hanging out with Angela in Tulsa during the summer of 1999, she had some news. She'd met a guy through her church that she really dug, and it seemed serious. Like, this dude might be The One. Angela introduced me to Brian, and I got a good vibe from him. He seemed really smitten with my friend and he treated her well, which was my biggest concern. I soon found out that he was a movie buff with an offbeat sense of humor. Another good sign. During my visit, he hosted a dinner party at his apartment, and we all watched Radioland Murders. I was like, "Okay, this guy's a keeper. Well done. Approval: granted."

Angela and Brian got married in 2000. They started a family a few years later, settling down in the Missouri Bootheel to work and live. I always thought it was cool that they did that. Angela worked in mental health, and in her hometown, she saw a community that was underserved, and felt compelled to change that. Her kids got to grow up close to grandparents and cousins, in the same place she'd grown up. There was a nice symmetry to it all.

Angela and I kept in touch over the years, but we didn't see each other like we used to. You know how it goes, you grow up (a little), you get married, life gets busy and complicated, suddenly you're 40, then 50....sigh. Yeah. You know how it goes.

I'm sad she is gone, but I'm glad she was here. I'm glad she found a great partner in Brian. I'm glad she went into mental health, because there was never a person more compassionate, more empathetic, more suited to that field than Angela. I'm glad she got to be a mom, because she was really good at it. 

I'm glad I got to be her friend. 

(If you know, you know.)

I've been scribbling notes regarding the Charlie Kirk brouhaha for the past month or so, wondering if it's actually worth posting about. I mean, what more is there to say about a toxic potato-headed white nationalist whose claim to fame was spreading christofascist bullshit and "debating" "woke" college students? (BTW, let me state for the record that I'm not happy the guy was murdered. Even a toxic potato-headed white nationalist is a thinking, feeling, sentient being.* Even though Kirk himself considered the mass slaughter of schoolchildren and civilians acceptable losses, just as long as his precious Second Amendment was upheld, and even though Kirk enthusiastically supported the idea of televised public executions. Regardless of what he said and did, I'm not in favor of him getting shot. I'm not in favor of shooting anyone--human or animal--because I am not a member of a rightwing gun-loving death cult. Just to be absolutely fucking clear.) So yeah, I'd pretty much decided to leave it alone.

And then Erikkka Kirk and JD Vance had to go viral with their public grope sesh. Suddenly, the whole saga became way too entertaining to resist. 

 

And don't forget the pleather crotch-cutters. MAGA women are KLASSY!

I am so perversely grateful to these two grifters. Amid the day-to-day horrors of life under this filthy, feral, farcical, fascist administration--FINALLY---they (inadvertently) give us something good. 

I was searching so many JD/EK memes that the YouTube algorithm eventually busted me, and I got an ad for Turning Point USA (TPUSA.....hahahahahaha) popping up in my feed. I reported the ad, but having never reported an ad before, I didn't know it would make me come up with a reason for objecting to it. I ended up going with "It contains sexual content." 

Ooooh, I won't be able to undo the complaint! Guess I'll have to live with it. Although, as someone often (unironically) accused of being a brazen hussy in my youth, I wish I'd worded it differently. I don't object to Turning Point USA because I'm offended that Erikkka Kirk and Jaydine are obviously fucking. As I said, I am completely in favor of their affair, even if all that comes out of it are entertaining memes and (hopefully) a future South Park storyline. I am offended by the existence of hateful rightwing money-laundering organizations like TPUSA. 

The abbreviation is appropriate, however. 

 The MAGA crowd just makes it so easy, you know?

*Allegedly.

 DAMMIT, NOT DIANE! 

I was texting with my friend Shelley about favorite films recently, and she asked a hypothetical question: if you were on your deathbed and you were able to pick ONE movie to watch, the last movie you'd see before shuffling off this mortal coil, what would it be?

For me? Annie Hall. No question.   

"Wonderful, then why don't you get William F. Buckley to kill the spider?"

Then I said, wait....what if it took me a while to kick off and I had some more time to kill (pun intended)? If that were the case, I'd have to add Manhattan. Shelley said that Manhattan was problematic because of the whole Mariel Hemingway thing. I said, well, it's my last day on earth, and unless Mia Farrow is standing at my bedside with a hypodermic full of bleach ready to inject into my jugular, I'm watching Manhattan, too. 

Also co-starring Diane Keaton. 

And I thought, hold on....if I'm watching Manhattan, I am absolutely watching Sleeper. Also with Diane Keaton. (This scene with the bad poetry is one of my favorites. She's brilliant.)

"DAMMIT! I always get that wrong!"

And if I'm throwing in Sleeper, I gotta throw in Love and Death to round it all out. Also? Diane.

Shelley pointed out that if I watched those movies in that order, Annie Hall wouldn't, in fact, be the last movie I ever saw. So I said, okay then, reverse it. I'll do Love and Death, Sleeper, Manhattan, and then Annie Hall.  

But I gotta end with Annie Hall, for sure. It's as close to perfect as a movie gets.

   

R.I.P. Diane. You were a real one, as the kids say.

Thanks, That Was....Fun?

I've been thinking a lot about writing, and why I haven't done much of it over the past few years. Part of it is time and the lack of it (we moved back to the Indianapolis area in early 2024 so I could help take care of my Mom, who has Alzheimer's). Another reason is that I've been channeling the creative energy I used to put into writing into making art, mainly painting and mixed media collage. You know what I love about art? It's fun and therapeutic in the way that writing used to be for me, but--unlike with writing--it's something you can show people and they can say things like, "Oh, cool!" Or, "Hmm, interesting." Or, "I don't get it, but okay." 

"Welcome To Whoever You Are"
analog collage 
2025

"Follow the Gleam"
analog collage
2025

"Cosmic Jam" 
analog collage
2025

The feedback is more immediate; it's something folks can look at, touch, and have an honest opinion about pretty quickly. Whereas when you write novels, everyone gets really enthusiastic and says things like, "Wow, you're an author? I can't wait to read your book when it's published!" And then sometimes they buy your work (but maybe don't read it, or at least they never mention it again) or they don't buy it, but still say things like, "You're really talented, keep it up," even though you suspect that they've never actually read anything you've written.   

I'm not complaining, and I don't take it personally, because of course it takes more energy and commitment to sit down and read a book than to, say, look a painting. And seriously? What I've learned about any sort of creative endeavor--writing, painting, et cetera--is that the work is its own reward, and if you're not doing it for yourself, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. As cliched as that sentiment may sound, it's also true.

The one novel I've published (I have five other novels that are mostly written, just unfinished) does okay in terms of sales, especially considering that I'm an indie author. Even though Thanks, That Was Fun has been out in the world since 2011, I still get purchase notifications fairly regularly, and they still make me happy. There is something undeniably thrilling when strangers discover and buy your work, and I can't see myself ever getting blase about that.

Overall, I'm satisfied with Thanks. There are a few parts that make me cringe, and certain portions that I obsess over when I go back and read them, thinking, shit--if only I could revise that now! But for the most part, I'm proud of the novel. 

Lately, for the first time in several years (since the pandemic, anyway), I've started writing again--just here and there, enough to get the old juices flowing. There are two of my WIPs (Works-In-Progress, i.e. the unfinished novels mentioned above) that I have decided to go back to, complete, and probably publish independently. The other ones? We'll see. 

****************************************************************************

Recently I've been going through some of my old journals. Ever do that? WOW. Some of the more entertaining bits--to me, anyway--are the entries I wrote when I was chemically altered. Here is the part where I make the obligatory, "Kids? Don't do drugs," statement, or more accurately: "Do as I say, not as I did." These are a few scribblings from 2008, when I popped an Ambien late one night and thought it would be fun to make myself stay awake and write. (It probably was fun, but of course I don't remember it. I do remember gorging myself on carrots dipped in peanut butter, because Ambien makes you do shit like that, and also having a conversation with an imaginary person sitting next to me on the couch.) Anyway....

A hot mess obviously, but I'll translate my fucked up handwriting......

Better to live in a drunken state than a noodle variation of the oman is rate you know it's all the best when you go to the miller

Yeah, my little experiment with Ambien-induced writing didn't exactly produce anything earth-shattering (and this was by far the most coherent passage of the bunch). But I bet if Taylor Swift dropped one of her surprise albums featuring a track with the same lyrics, the media would eat that shit up with a spoon. I can see the reviews now:

Jezebel.com - "Taylor Swift seems to be channeling Arthur Rimbaud and Jim Morrison, and we are here for it!"

AV Club - "Taylor Swift's dark new release leans into the esoteric."

I could go on, but you get the idea.

An aside: it's funny how dated Ambien references are now. Like, it was such a mid-2000s drug to do, only seeming to exist in a very specific post-MySpace era, when Britney Spears was flashing her minge at the paparazzi, and we all thought Dubya would go down as the worst president in history.