Thursday, November 15, 2012

Sorry 'Bout All The Cursing, Buds...

What If Ronnie Corbett and Tilda Swinton Fucked?




Rebecca Rosenblum was looking for people to play along with The Next Big Thing questionnaire and I was all like, "Okay!" It's always a risk to talk about a book that you're working on, maybe comparable to announcing a successful pregnancy before it's been brought to term. Or maybe not at all. At the same time, doing the long distance work of a whole book tends to create this blousey pocket full of aether in your personal and mental life, and talking about kind of makes it feel like you're working on something real.

What is your working title of your book?

The Kingdom of Reality. On less-than-successful days, The Kingdom of Goddamn Fucking Reality.

In the three years that I’ve been at it in earnest, it’s also been known as Traps and Attractions and My Shitty Novel.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Visiting Arizona in 2005, I saw a news story about a desert community that wanted a cell phone tower but didn’t want the blight on their otherwise unsullied dun landscape. The answer was to erect a tower disguised as a saguaro. A day-or-so later, I hit up Sedona, where the major attraction are unseen energy vortexes. My dad was vocally disappointed that the vortexes were invisible. A tour guide offered this salve: “Everyone’s so worried about seeing something that they can’t ever seem to feel anything.” The trip ended with a visit to Tombstone, where the OK Gunfight is reenacted daily.  Arizona’s a fucked, amazing place.

What genre does your book fall under?

2012 Conspiracy/Hollow Earth Theory/Stuntman Manual/Conservation Lit

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

For Beryl, the narrator, I’m thinking a mix of Ronnie Corbett and Tilda Swinton. For Hole, Beryl’s sister, let’s get a sun hardened Carla Gugino. Lastly, I’m happy to scour the free world to find a perspicacious little sweetheart to play Hole’s daughter Malice. Her time in the book is spent with a marker made chin tattoo similar to Olive Oatman’s.



What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

"Some other places were not so good but maybe we were not so good when we were in them."

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Agency, if they like it.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

It’s ongoing. Twice I’ve gotten close enough to the end that I could’ve slit it’s throat, but both times it turned out not to be the book I was sent to kill.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Joy Williams’ The Quick and the Dead, Jonathan Lethem’s Chronic City, J. Frank Dobie’s Coronado’s Children, Will Henry’s McKenna’s Gold, and, I don’t know, maybe the Popol Vuh.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Like I said before: fake cacti, invisible tourist attracts, and a ritual performance of slaughter.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

You mean their interest hasn’t already been crazy piqued? What if I were to tell the reader that this book is also about the search for the Lost Dutchman’s Gold?

*

Now, I was supposed to chain-letter five other bloggy people to get on this, but I don't really feel like doing that. The thing is, if you're a writer with a blog and you're reading this and feel like sharing your Work In Progress, then let me know. I'd love to read about it and steal all the good stuff.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Chop Wood, Carry Fucking Water

What happened is I didn't get the Journey Prize. Neither did Kevin Hardcastle. This guy named Alex Pugsley did for the story he wrote, "Crisis on Earth X." It's a story I like, so I can't even be sore about how shit shook out.

Here's the thing: a fuckload of money is always nice (kick out the legs of anyone who says otherwise), but at the end of the day (in my case, this was a day where the only thing I'd eaten that resembled food was free and then not-free beer) it's beside the point. Being in writing and publishing is a lot like owning a cat. You put a lot of love and care and time into this thing that could care less about you, and you're happy to do it. But every once and a while that little motherfucker jumps into your lap for snugs and your goddamn heart explodes. Being up for a prize, or having some stranger mention maybe liking or appreciating something you've written or worked on, is a heart exploding cuddle.

It's hard to be resentful in this industry. In his acceptance speech, Mr. Pugsley alluded to luck's role in the award, and this luck certainly has a lot to do with that shit. But before the luck, all there is is work. I feel really fortunate to have sat awkwardly in a suit in a theater full of hard fucking workers. Writers, editors, publishers, volunteers: these people destroy certain important corners of their whole lives to foist their product on a world that on some days couldn't give less of a shit. And they're all happy to do it, and not even everyone needs to mollify rancorous minds with booze.

I know some Buddhist said this first, but I like to attribute this quote to a man named Peter Henderson, who's managed to manage the Bookshelf Cinema for about as many years as I've alive: "Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry fucking water." All there is is work. Any story or book you read is just the placid head of a duck that's kicking like fucking nuts under the water. And the thing about these award things is no matter who wins, everyone goes back to work the next morning. Or, in my case, you ignore the wood and water for a day while all those cans and pints of Mad Tom IPA get tired of punching you in the brain.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Yak and Forth

In the lead-up to the Writer's Trust foofaraw, Fiction Prize nominee Alix Ohlin and I back-and-forthed about how hard writing can be and how awesome it is when it's over. Read this at the National Post, or here's the text:

Andrew Hood: Howdy Alix! Not to get off on a weird foot, but I was in the crowd when you launched Babylon and Other Stories in Montreal, way back whenever that was. I was in my second year (or thereabouts) of a creative writing undergrad and can acutely recall holding onto you and your book of stories as an example of a youngster’s (I guess I’d qualify as a toddler, or maybe zygote) ability to deftly boot the door in. You’re four books in and still pretty spring chicken-y, but do you remember “You” when Babylon came out, or “You” in the time before? Is there writing stuff you’re hip to now that you wish you’d known then?

Alix Ohlin: Hi Andrew! That’s not weird, it’s very nice. Thanks retroactively for coming to my Babylon launch. I’m always amazed and grateful when anybody comes to an event who isn’t an immediate family member or old roommate. I don’t know if I feel that much different now, as a writer, than I did back then. I still think of myself as someone who’s learning the ropes – if not about publication, then certainly about writing itself, which is so slippery and intricate a task that I may never master it.  All I can do is keep trying. How about you? I know your second book came out this spring. Was it a different experience from the first one, and if so, how?

Hood: That first book came out in an impossible way. None of those stories had been published before, so they were written with a real youthful alacrity – I hadn’t gone through that necessary meat grinder of submitting, you know? From that naivety came this fleeting feeling that I knew what I was doing. When that first book did okay, that initial aplomb was pretty quickly replaced by dread. I felt, and still feel, in over my head. My second book of stories was kind of written as a reaction to those indefatigable, marrowy feelings of inadequacy. It’s weird that people like it and that a story in there might win an award. Inside‘s already got a few nominations under its belt. How does that slippery, always-trying feeling co-exist with outside assurance that what you’ve done is tenable? Or does it even?

Ohlin: Yes, I hear you on the feeling of inadequacy. Worry is the real constant of my writing life; it’s my companion and my home town. Compared to awards or other assurances, which are fleeting and external, the intensity of my self-criticism is exponentially more powerful. I think this is actually good in a lot of ways; it keeps me from being complacent and keeps me working hard. It always directs my focus to the next book, because I hope so very much that it will be better than the previous ones. That’s one of my favourite parts of the process, in fact: the dreamed-of perfection of the new thing. I write towards that perfection even though I know I’ll never achieve it. What’s your favourite part?

Hood: The best part of writing is totally the idiot barreling towards a perfection that probably isn’t and shouldn’t be there. Maybe it’s a nerdy disposition that has every failure (even when it’s briefly debilitating) feel like an opportunity to try again. But at the same time, there’s no better feeling than pulling a piece off. A story working out feels like the end of a heist movie – like you’ve gotten away with something huge. And it’s a rush that, time after time, never dulls. I’ve been working on a novel for two years and suspect that, should I ever finish the thing, the payoff will be an emotional wallop requiring either a lot of sleep or a lot of beer to recover from. Do you get this? And if so, how does finishing a short story compare to finishing a novel?

Ohlin: I like that heist description; I think it’s apt. And I have had the lucky experience, a few times in my life, of pouring a story out all at once and knowing right away that it was, if not done, then set and proper in its outlines. It just felt right. Such a great feeling! With a novel, unless you’re demented or on drugs, I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. It’s such a long process with so many ups and downs built into it. You don’t so much finish as finally let go. So the emotional wallop is, to me, almost wistful, if that makes sense. (But sleep and beer are called for, yes, absolutely.) But I feel like I’m making writing sound more like drudge-work than it really is, so let me switch tacks and say that I love how funny your story “Manning” is. As I was reading it, I was wondering if you were cracking yourself up while you were writing it and came up with the idea of calling one of the characters a “big pile of human being” and then just “the pile.” Were you?

Hood: I wasn’t cracking up, but I was certainly keeping myself entertained. Because – you’re absolutely right – the work, when it’s going well, is anything but drudgey. I tend to gravitate to dark and mean-spirited subject matter and I think the humour comes from having to entertain myself while I’m slogging around in the muck I’ve chosen for myself. Plus, I have a hard time subjecting readers to the kind of negativity I’m into without cracking wise. I wanted for the epigram of my second book a Tony Millionaire comic strip: Guy 1 chuckles to himself, Guy 2 asks what’s so funny. Guy 1 answers, “The horror of being alive.” I love that; it wound up in the acknowledgements. Where do you stand on this, Alix? From Babylon and Inside I get the sense that you’re very much interested in testing the emotional and psychological tethers in people, but you’re much better at keeping a straight face (that’s not to say that there’s not a great deal of humour in your writing) than I am. Do you set course for these destinations, or do you tend to get blown there by whatever winds?

Ohlin: Many of my favourite writers combine humour and pathos (aka the hilarious horror of being alive), so I’m definitely aligned with you on that. For me, the process of finding the right tone for a piece—sometimes overtly funny, sometimes less so—has to be pretty organic. Before Inside, I had written a comic novel and a number of stories that featured similar narrators, usually a young woman with a skeptical view on the absurdity of the world. I was interested in broadening the kinds of characters who appeared in my work, and I knew that in order to tell their stories in the right way, I might wind up broadening my style as well. Do you ever think about sameness and variation in your writing? Or, to put it another way, how and where do you find surprise?

Hood: There are sort of two phases to how I write: the first is a rush of opinion, or mood – usually both caustic or maudlin; and the second, the meat of the work, the editing, is something like an adjudication of my initial inclinations. I usually end up disagreeing with that first rush, or get sad that I’d been hemmed in by something fleeting. This is where that surprise lives. Before I start to worry about sameness in my writing, I worry about sameness in my living or in my thinking. And I’m definitely there now. Chock it up to nearing thirty, maybe. I try to stay out of writers’ lives, but since I’ve got you on the horn here maybe I’ll ask about your life and your writing. Do you have an I Love Lucy strip of tape dividing one from the other? Or is the membrane pretty porous?

Ohlin: Do you mean in terms of writing autobiographically?  I think every word on the page betrays something about a writer’s life – because of how personal the process is, and how much it derives from your preoccupations and perceptions of the world. But as I get older I’m becoming much less interested in excavating my own particular experiences. I’m more curious about other people, trying to figure out what makes them tick, or exploring narrative structures and events that have nothing to do with myself. I think we’re closing out on this Q&A, so I’ll ask, how do you handle endings? What do you think makes a good one?

Hood: As an adult, I’ve yet to really write a plotted story where the resolution of the animating conflict would be the end. Writing the stories that wound up collected as The Cloaca (which “Manning” kicks off) I was aiming for satisfyingly unsatisfying endings, where the characters don’t really come to understand anything, but understand that something is there be understood. “Manning” has one of my favourite endings, with the son and mother managing to create some meaning from a situation in which they’ve both sort of missed each other’s point. Ending a short story is tricky, as that traditional epiphanic moment has become so tired. A bad or expected ending can blow an otherwise great story all to hell, I find. There’s that old Flannery O’Connor anecdote about Flan not knowing her bible salesman would steal Hugla’s leg until it happened. I really subscribe to this. A good story is usually pregnant with a good ending, and I guess the writer’s job is to make sure that everyone comes out screaming and hale when the right time comes. I want to ask you about the ending of Inside, but don’t want to give it away. Maybe I’ll ask you this (and leave you with the last word): did you know how it was going to end when you began? Do you ever know your endings when you start? Have you ever stolen someone’s prosthesis?

Ohlin: I don’t tend to go for the completely wrapped-up ending either. Instead, I cross my fingers and hope that there’s enough resolution – usually thematic or emotional, rather than plotted – for readers to come away with some sense of what the story is about, while leaving room for them to bring their own interpretations.  With Inside, I didn’t follow the characters all the way home, so to speak, but I tried to show how they were headed there. I don’t like to know the exact ending before I start.  But I often think of writing as if it were a piece of music, and I know, in a general sense, the kind of note I want to finish on: the big swelling crescendo, the fade away, a major chord or a minor one. I imagine that note lingering in the reader’s mind, and aim for it. And I have never stolen a prosthesis, though I have come into possession of an abandoned one. But that’s a story for another day.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Comedy



Horse walks into a bar.

Bartender asks, "Hey, Horse. Why the long face?"

"Because my life is terrible," says Horse. "Beer, please."

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Dumpster Driving



Now watch this video with the sound off, and imagine this man is explaining how to break a sassy dog's spirit, or is describing an hilarious crime he witnessed, or trying to understand how the robot warrior he built went astray. Then go read his story Gorilla Painting 26' X 32' Acrylic On Canvas at Joyland. Once you're through with that, track down the rags he's previously stained--one awesome one made it into the Journey Prize. And once you've read all there is to read, just sit there and wait for him to deign to publish a book.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Totally Something Worth Leaving Your House For


So I don't know who you are, let alone where you are. But let's say you're a person in the Waterloo, Ontario, Canada region who's into writerly things. If that's the case, then holy shit do I ever have good news for you. In both your very own backyard and in your very own wheelhouse, there's going to be a writer's festival. And even holier shit: I'll be there!

Throw some pants and a cleanish shirt on on November 3. I'll be yakking it up in chairs and maybe behind a table with Alexander Macleod and Tamas Dobozy. I've never met Mr. Dobozy, but musclebound Kris Bertin has nothing but nice, non-violent things to say about Mr. Macleod, so I can only assume this panel will be the best thing ever, totally worth leaving your house for.

Find out more about the Wild Writer's Literary Festival HERE, whoever you are.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

"I Can't Get Out of This!"



 I killed this past June in Arizona, where instead of finishing my novel, I changed the thing completely. When I got this Journey Prize questionnaire, I was staying in a KOA Kabin in Flagstaff, beering more than I was writing, hiking up Mt. Elden in the day and at night reading Whitley Streiber's Communion. Thinking and talking about old writing while sweating new stuff is not always a good feeling, let me tell you...


  1. What was your reaction when you found out your story had been selected for The Journey Prize Stories?

There was elation and pride, sure, but later on. The first feeling was a sick feeling. I think I found out about this whole to-do on the second day of working full time on the book that I'd gotten some support and quit my job to write, and those first few days went pretty miserably. What I like to call The Dread was unpacking it's bags, cuing up episodes of The Simpsons to watch in lieu of doing anything worthwhile. To get word that something I'd done a year ago was considered decent by a cadre of people who should know  triggered a kind of panic. What I'd done and what I was doing had absolutely nothing in common. That was another guy who did those JP stories. I'll tell what would be awesome: if you could somehow, impossibly, find out about these nods while you're in the throws of fret. Future You lands his rigged phone booth into you office and assures you that the garbage you're working on will turn out okay in end.

  1. Who is the first person you told the good news to?

I told The Dread first, and it was all like, "Fine. Okay. But what have you done lately?"


  1. What is your story about, and what was the inspiration for it?

"Manning" is about a son and mom trying to sell a split dad's card collection at basically a flea market. "I'm Sorry and Thank You" is about a drunk we don't know much about encountering a mother changing her baby on his front lawn.

"Manning" is somewhat inspired by this one time when I was a squirt and decided I'd sell all my sports cards, which I had been collecting just out of habit. I put an add in the Pennysaver and that Saturday set up a card table with my collection splayed out on it. All these fat, sweaty adult men showed up and got really mad at me because my cards were in no order and I had no idea what I had.

"I'm Sorry and Thank You" comes from a fairly literal source. I was working in this bookstore and on my lunch breaks I'd go to a bar down the street and usually drink two pints.This one day, I saw a hippy woman unwrapping her kid on the lawn of the pub. Seeing the mess, it occurred to me that a pre-solid baby basically makes a birds mess, and for the life of me I couldn't remember what the hole that birds have was called. When it came to me later on in my shift, it was an amazing, troubling feeling.

  1. When did you write it? How long did it take?

"I'm Sorry" was written probably in about the time it takes to read, which never happens to me and will probably never happen again. "Manning" also came out quick, but I spent a while tinkering, taking our and adding curses. Both stories happened sort of simultaneously, at a time where I was keeping a notebook and forcing myself to meet a daily quota. I'm not doing that now, and so produce very little it turns out.

  1. Did you do any research for the story?

I was going to ask, "Does beer count as research?" but it occurs to me that I'm nearly thirty and that's sad. So, no.

  1. Did the story, its themes, or its characters surprise you in any way?

Pickle wanting to keep the Rance Davis card for himself came as a surprise. I know we're told every character should have a Want, but I don't usually think of story in these terms, and I think my characters aren't usually desire-driven. It's sad to admit, but when all of a sudden this character had a clear Want in the story, I got a bit scared. I didn't know how to write that.


  1. Did you have an “aha” moment while working on the story?

  1. What is your favourite line in the story?

My favorite lines are probably the best examples of bad writing. From "I'm Sorry:" "A bunch of people had died somewhere because of something, he read." From "Manning:" "Whatever happened, something would happen."


  1. What is the best advice you’ve received about writing?

Trevor Ferguson once told me that, in the current climate, it's against all odds that anyone ever will read anything you write, let alone like or understand it, so you can feel free to write your goddamn heart out. He said it with a few more flowers though.


  1. How many attempts did it take before your story was accepted for publication?

I detest the submission process, so I rarely submit. With both stories, I got on base with the first swing.


  1. What advice do you have for someone looking to publish a story in a literary magazine?

At the time when I was submitting like nuts, I was submitting garbage and getting raw about it being rejected. Besides patience and sympathy for the people who have spend their days up to their tits in garbage submissions, I think a young writer should spend a lot of time honing an understanding of how publishable their stuff actually is. If a young writer's going to be a grouch about having a story rejected, then they should have to back that attitude up with a thirty page essay, with a works cited, on why they think their story about a young girl coming to the city from the country and finally knowing what it is to be free deserves to be published.


  1. What do you love most about the short story form?

There are a lot of things I don't like about the short story form, but maybe this isn't the machine to do that particular laundry in. What I love about short stories that I love is this lie that they tell you. I'm thinking here about Munro and Hemple and Lorrie Moore. Some people will tell you that the way to structure your story is with conflict and resolution, and then put an acetate on the overhead showing a graph of rise and fall--what I like to call the Stereotypical Male Orgasm Graph. When the writing's good, graphed stories like this can be good. But what I absolutely love about the short story form is it's ability to balk this structure in a way that novels can't. There'll be the opening conflict usually--the lie, like I was saying, or we can call it the arousal--but instead of the story being a machine of resolution, that climbing rise and fall, a great short story can--to maybe misremember a Leonard Cohen line--cover its reader with unspecific kisses, can be about constant, pleasing tension in a way that I have more trouble tolerating with longer forms.


  1. What is your favourite short story and/or short fiction collection, and why?  

I love Amy Hemple's Collected Stories, and Lorrie Moore's Collected Stories (which I had to order from the UK). I feel safe when I've got these books handy.


  1. Are there any short fiction collections or short story writers you feel should be better known?

I don't know who's known and who's not--it's been a while since I've travelled in those circles. As an up-and-comer, I love this guy Kevin Moffett. His first collection, "Permanent Visitors," I really love. I think he might be better known in the US than he is in CA.


  1. What is the last short story or collection that really made an impression on you?

I got Kris Bertin (fellow JP nominee) to hand over his manuscript. His stuff is just thrilling to read. It's hurt and smart in a way that I crave from writing.

  1. What are you working on currently?

Holy moly. I'm writing a stupid novel. I tried. I tried so hard to keep the story a short story, but it wouldn't do it, wouldn't have it. I'm answering these questions from a cabin in Arizona (and now typing them out in a bar in town with wi-fi) where I'll hopefully finish the stupid thing. It's about two estranged sisters who sort of go looking for their father who vanished in the Superstition Mountains while searching for the Lost Dutchman's Mine. I think it might also be about what reality is. I have no idea what I'm doing. The stupid thing might be terrible. I'll tell you, right now's one of those times when I could really use a visit from Future Me. In his stead, beer will have to do. Beer and the urging of The Dread.

 

Friday, October 12, 2012

Between You & Me, I Sneak Beer Into Movies

Hey you cloacas! I know I haven't been keeping this place up to date... There are more sad, personal reasons that I've been a slouch, but also I've been building up a blog for the Bookshelf Cinema. Said infidelity can be found HERE.

I don't know if you know this, but The Bookshelf in Guelph is one of the, well... uh... BEST PLACES EVER. And I'm fortunate enough to be from time to time employed by them. Currently, I use the daytime cinema lobby as my office, where I'm currently writing the aforementioned The Kingdom of Reality.

So hang in there. I'm sure there's enough Blog to go around. If not, then this space shall slowly but surely become a source for what's current and coming at the Bookshelf Cinema.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Errata

If you (whoever you are) are a functioning human being reading this, then you're probably picking up on a gallimaufry of blunders and boners within these Posts, spelling- and grammar-wise. Just ignore those or whatever.

Sloppiness might be the only arena in which I might be able to challenge Steinbeck or Fitzgerald. I don't always type so good, and am likewise shitty when it comes to picking up on my lazy mistakes. All I have to say is: pay me and I'll try and do bitter. Sorry: better.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Journey Prizz (Sadness of the Swamps)

Things worked out well and a story I wrote called "Manning"--that the buds in PRISM published forever ago--was chosen as one (1) of the three (3) stories in the final running for this year's Journey Prize. The other story in the running can be read at the wicked-fucking-cool Joyland. Not to be a dick or nothing, but both of these stories can be found in a book I wrote that some other buds at Invisible Publishing published called The Cloaca.

Here's what the book looks like:


If you know (whoever you are) anything about anything, the JP is fairly fucking prestigious, and this is awesome to have happen. However...

It's kind of a sucky feeling to be separated from the other folks on the JP list. The list is stalwart and true and hopefully the anthology as it's released will act as a platform/spotlight for all the writers and magazines that stain the rag. In particular--and this is just because I somewhat know the fucker--not having Kris Bertin around to be in a dead heat with is disappointing. Though me and he turned out to live in the same city, I met him through his nominated story "Is Alive and Can Move," which was a real dick kicker of a story that PRISM also put out. It was the best story I'd read in a long-ish time, for reasons that it will describe better than I can. If it was up to me, he and me would be in a weird pie eating competition (while dressed in suits) that would decide a JP winner. But--as with most cogent disappointments in my life--this was not up to me, and nor should it be. Because I Drink.

Beyond professional awkwardness, this being shortlisted also means that I have to hang out in a room with mostly total strangers for a night while wearing a suit, and it might take a fair amount of aforementioned Drink to feel good about being corporeal during this whole to do.

All this snit aside, I'm serious: it's a realdeal honour to be all up in this Journey Thing. I'm for real seriously serious. Seriously.

EDIT: It's not lost on me how sarcastic this sounds, but hopefully, if you (whoever you are) read this blog, then you'll understand that I'm a bit of a weirdo chockablock with self-loathing. I'm at a loss to really express what an honour being a part of this is without getting caught in the mud pit of my own issues. Thanks for reading!

Saturday, September 15, 2012

The Kingdom Of Reality

Not that anyone asked, but it's been a Saturday Day of Drinking and I find myself back at my desk working on a novel that no one cares about and have basically found the perfect hybrided example of tone that I've been striving to affect with this novel I've been hammering at that you didn't ask me about. And it goes like this:

Friday, September 14, 2012

A Real Good Mother And A Father

My pop turned 60 yesterday, by the way. Not too shabby.

Awesome Sauce

Short Storyist and all-around Sweet Person Rebecca Rosenblum has been, for the third time in her blogging life, compiling a sort of democratic list of 1000 Things We Like. Considering the title of the blog you're currently spinning your wheels with, I added my twenty cents. Here's my contribution:

499) Elderly women looking in trash cans
500) Elderly men standing and watching construction
501) When cats burp or fart
502) When you lock your bike to a pole and it falls down
503) Drunk kids eating pizza or Chinese food while staggering home, letting their trash fall behind them as they go
504) Those people whose whole week leads up to Karaoke Night and who are really good at Karaoke
505) Hearing about someone falling asleep on the toilet
506) When Bonnie Prince Billy makes reference in song to either his beard or stomach
507) When little kids fall down and don’t cry until someone asks if they’re okay
508) West Coast IPA
509) Watching anyone over fifteen learning how to skateboard
510) When firefighters set their practice house on fire
511) This friend I had who had a ghost in his house and would pee his pants (grey track pants) whenever he thought about it
512) Tracking lines on VHS
513) When you wait around all day for the mail that might have money for you in, and then you go out for afternoon beer and come home to find the money has come
514) Frank’s hot sauce on everything
515) Using “dickering” instead of “haggling”
516) Other people’s fear of clowns for some reason
517) Those promises you make to yourself when you’re going to sleep that tomorrow you’ll wake up and do all things you’ve been doing wrong the right way

Here's a bonus Liked Thing: When elderly people spit into trash cans.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

2007, Rue De Villeneuve

I wonder how I come across as a roommate—or simply as a person to any other person. Sarcasm, complaint, and Simpsons quotation is my small talk, and I can only keep up that chatter for a few minutes before it becomes physically uncomfortable and I need to go. Now, if someone wants to stop and talk about their relationship with their father, I'm all “Hold that thought and I’ll be right back with some beer,” but otherwise I, as a roommate, tend to carry on to my room, closing the door behind me. I never understood roommates who leave their doors open.

We were three guys living in a cheap apartment that would have fit five or six. We had our corners we went to, so there were great jags of undecorated, unused space that someone might try to comfify with a show poster or chair he found on the roadside, but in the year I was in that place it never felt like any of us ever really moved in. The spoken word poet (is that essentially a sarcastic string of words, or do I need to add inflection?) who had been theretofore occupying the place was constantly threatening to come back, and whenever she visited Montreal treated the place as if she were paying rent, so I think we were all living in borrowed rooms.

The men I lived with in what would be my last apartment in Montreal were fine fellows, friendly and strange in their own ways. But the cocktail of my social inelegance, an early work day, and burgeoning anxiety about my worth as a writer stymied any sturdy bond. I could slag my personality failings far beyond your willingness to read about them, so there was my work schedule: I was due at the brewery for 06h00 and would get home at 14h00, at which point I shut myself back in my room, drank a few free beers, and napped until 18h00ish. Those few hours of being up and about with my roommates could hardly be described as lucid.

Because I couldn’t rely on myself to function after a real day’s work, I began to rely on writing pre-work. With a determination I still can't account for, I’d fall out of bed at 03h00 and manage a few words before catching the first metro. My bedroom was the smallest, so I lucked out and landed a small room off the kitchen that I made into an office. The floor sloped and my rolling chair always to flee the desk. For those keeping track, it was under these conditions that I wrote “The Shrew’s Dilemma” and “Unburdened Things” and absolutely did not write a novel.

I read somewhere that Buckminster Fuller slept only four hours at a time as a way to combat the jetlag problems that came with his constant travel. I don’t recommend these dymaxion habits. My time in this last apartment are hazy as hell. How much this has to do with queer sleep and accessibility of free beer I’ll have to hash out with my maker whenever that time comes.

One pellucid memory jutting out from the hoppy fog that was that year involves my roommate Chris. This is one of the most ebullient kids I’ve met, indefatigably chipper and witty as all get out. Chris’ catchphrase was “Strong.” It was his affirmation, his approval. Any idea you had or any situation you described that Chris agreed with would get a grinning nod and a definitive “That’s strong.” One morning, I got up at my regular 03h00 start time and found Chris on the couch in one of the three barely furnished common rooms playing a baseball video game, a bottle of tequila next to him on the table. He explained that he was killing time while he waited to hear from a girl. He was playing the Homerun Derby section of the game, which involves you being pitched at and hitting homeruns. He didn’t want to be in the middle of a game when the girl phoned. Let’s say I said “Strong.” I left him hitting dingers and just beginning to sip from the tequila at 05h15 and when I got back from work at 14h30, Chris was still on the couch, hitting dingers, the bottle nearly empty. Chris hadn’t heard from the girl, hadn’t slept, hadn’t stopped playing, and had been having the time of his life.

I don’t remember what it was I did on my last night in Montreal—probably it included Dieu du Ciel—but I do remember walking home and being approached by a friendly Tabby. When I bent down to pet him, the thing sort of climbed into my arms and us two gingers snuggled in the middle of the street for a spell. “I bet I could just steal this cat if I wanted,” I assured whoever I was with. They said no way, that the cat wouldn’t have it. So I walked the cat up the steps and into the apartment and, still holding the guy, walked through all the rooms. Tour over, I set him down by the open front door, giving him the chance to return to whatever rightful owner he had and whatever rightful life. Instead of bolting, he just flopped over and showed me his fat stomach.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

2006, Ave Coloniale (Bunk or Murphy? or It Tas'es Like Coke!)

My friend Ross moved to Montreal while I lived in this apartment. He worked down the street in a thriving bike shop and would often cycle by afterwards to drink on my balcony. It was a shared balcony, but no one else was ever out there. Across the street was a three floor building. The top two floors were occupied by a whole family. The two grandparents lived at the top and below them lived at least six people, uncomfortably I’m sure. My favourite thing to watch from that balcony was the oldest son unfold his Murphy bed every night, thinking to myself how awesome it would sort of be to unpack your bed like that every night.

Below the two floors of cramped family, at street level, was a girl who never shut her blinds and spent hours trying on different outfits in her mirror. Shit never got nude, but there was always that boozy, half-joking hope. It was an awkward situation: it seemed odd and prematurely guilty for Ross and I to go inside just because this girl didn’t close her blinds. And anyway, after being waved to one time it was clear she knew we were there—not necessarily watching, but there. One weekend this girl had an older woman we assumed was her mother visiting. When going to bed that night, we watched this old woman climb to a spot in the bedroom that was out of view, leading us to believe that this girl had all along had a bunk bed.

What would be better? Bunk or Murphy?

The apartment itself was forgettable, if somewhat dingy. My landlord was Hasidic and wouldn't look at the girl I was subletting from during the official meet-up. The girlfriend I had at the time refused to stay over, being mostly bothered by the old man below me who coughed up death every morning at exactly 08h30. Across the hall from me was a girl I was told was an outpatient of some sort, and I was given the task by the person moving out of my new apartment to notice when this girl began piling all her stuff outside her door because this was a sign she was getting ready to kill herself and I was to inform the landlord, who, though he'd never look at the suicide-prone woman, would ostensibly make the call that would save her life.

One last thing about the neighbourhood. Down the street, children would collect in front of one particular building. It was hard to tell which kids actually belonged there. One time, Ross and I overheard an exchange between a kid and her mother that confused us at first, but then became clearer. The little girl was taking interest in whatever drink her mom was drinking, and then was given a sip. Either thrilled or confused, the little girl announced—in a statement that’s still a source of hilarity between Ross and me—“It tas’es like Coke, mommy! It tas’es like Coke!”

I moved out, again a month early, when one of those aforementioned moody couples moved next door and would pound furiously through the wall if I made a peep after 10pm. I heard them fighting through the walls nightly, the dopey guy complaining that his girlfriend treated him like he was a fucking stupid child. “You make me feel like such a child,” he’d told her once, “And that’s why I can’t fuck you anymore. Okay? Jesus Christ.”

2005, Rue De Chateaubriand

I don’t have a great disposition for roommates. I can be cagey and odd, and usually want to be left alone—not necessarily to write, but to fuck the dog while sweating not writing. But in this apartment, down a side street just below Mount Royal metro station that the garbage truck barely squeezed down, I strove to be friendly and stay out of my room. My roommate was a friend of a friend, and for the most part we got along, bonding over a half-sarcastic, half-legit love for CSI and Doritos. The space was awkward for an unromantic couple, the bedrooms right next to one another (they might have been one room cloven in two by empty wall) and the living room gigantic and high-ceilinged, so hard to decorate. It was this tall living room that my roommate and I tried to turn into a communal office, her illustrating and me trying to keep up the writing stuff the first summer out of school. Roomie loved the idea of us creating in the same space, and I pretended to. In secret I set up a makeshift desk in my bedroom, which is where half of Pardon Our Monsters was written.

After two months of living in this apartment, I returned to Ontario for a few weeks to go on a camping trip. When I returned, my roommate cornered me with something important to tell confess. Before I could fret the possibilities, she dropped the news: while I was portaging she had successfully cast a spell and now considered herself a functioning witch. My digestion of this information was complicated by my roommates other lifestyle switch: she had become besotted with a group of metal-loving French-Canadian crusty punks. When I’d come home from my 9 to 5 brewery job, wanting only to shower and get drunk, the shower would be occupied (can you wash dreads) and the kitchen and living room was all torn denim, studded, patched leather, and single dreadlocks. A few of these guys, who were all very sweet and mostly children of wealth, were in a metal band they called Excreted Cowboy. They had no songs, but had stickers and t shirts. My favorite sticker of theirs showed the Statue of Liberty holding an automatic weapon in each hand while fighter jets soared above her. The band’s name was up top, in creepy spray paint font, and below was what I presumed to be the band’s slogan (I didn’t know bands had slogans): Audio Terrorism.

I moved out a month early, on foot--the place was just up the street--and paid two rents that month. This was an ebullient, kind person I had been living with. The shit part of the situation was that she hadn't been living with the same.

Monday, September 10, 2012

2002 - 2005, Rue St. Marc, Montreal, QC

The stillest I’ve been since quitting my parents’ house at nineteen was my first apartment in Montreal. I spent the three years of undergrad in this 4th floor 2 ½. (I never figured out the numeracy of Montreal dwelling, but believe this half refers to the bathroom. I could look this up, but maybe I’ll leave that to you—whoever you are.) The summer leading up to my moving in, the building had been chock-a-block with drug labs and caught fire on a weekly basis. These street scientists were ousted by the time I moved in and replaced by moody couples who were not thrilled with where they lived.

The parquet floor stands out in my memory, as well as the blister of water damage above my shower. I was nineteen when I moved in, so still found movie posters to be an acceptable decoration choice. There were these potheads next door who would always knock to borrow my guitar tuner and never return it. They were black and muscular, and having just come from a town whose racial quilt was made up of two patches, Caucasian and Asian, I was also so ashamed by my kneejerk fear of these guys that I never bothered to get my tuner back.

But nothing stands out as strongly as my feeling embarrassed about living there, in that highrise--which, by the way, had a thirteenth floor. I was in Montreal just as it was becoming the goddamn hippest place to be, living in a grey downtown apartment building while my just-as-new-to-the-city peers were finding cheap niches on the Plateau, where their bedrooms were as big as my apartment. These apartments had French doors, the glass hazy and old paint flaking; tangled layers of 60’s era bikes on the porch; rickety chairs culled from the curb and crudely painted whatever gaudy colour; overgrown backyards; languid cats that seemed to have come with the flats; deadly, drunken trudges up the icy helixes already rickety spiral stairs. Most of my friends lived with more roommates than I’d ever had visitors to my expensive, small, white bread apartment.

I wanted to be one of these freewheelin’ people living in one of these freewheelin’ places. And my life since, as I’ve lillypadded from place to place, has been a constant reminder that I’m not so freewheelin’, that I’m a fairly melvin and often prefer to be alone. Fun houses are places I’d rather visit than live.

In The Mood To Move

This is tenth time I’ve moved since 2005. This is not a stat I’m strutting. Moving is goddamn exhausting, expensive as sin, and always just a bit humiliating. It’s not healthy to box your life on a yearly basis. When I began this entry, my worldly possessions were stacked in the corner of my denuded room and I was sweating whether or not I’d manage to Tetris the lot of it into the body of my purple 1997 Rav4—“The Grimus.” I made it just fine. Halifax to Guelph in two days, listening to Stephen King’s time travel novel.

I’m not a gewgaw guy, not sentimental with possessions. The boxed life I’d moved was books that I either haven’t read or can’t do without, furniture that I could either collapse or disassemble, and clothes I’d mostly had since high school. The lot of my worldly junk equals the size of a moose, maybe, or a grizzly bear, or one of those poor obese adults you used to see on TV being taken out of a hole cut into their house by a forklift.

I’ll be thirty in half-a-year and this is a mite fucking depressing.


Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Seriously Ensorcelled, Guys

I'm in a cynical old stink, guys. So it doesn't often happen that I get besotted with a thing. But I've seriously become obsessed with the below-mentioned artist, Riff Raff. Particularly the below-linked song "Time." Visual reasons: maybe I like to watch with a man with a BET tattoo yawning in a music video, and furthermore enjoy watching that same man have Pringles placed on his fridge-proped body as if it's an obvious, maybe holy thing to do. Textual reason: the section Riff Raff spits about being alone and sick and needing to fall asleep with the TV on is a real kick in the dick. I've spent some serious spates unable to sleep without the TV on, specifically (and let's just keep this between you me and the net) episodes of The Simpsons with creator commentary, And to be alone and sick--few friends, no family or girlfriend available to stop by and check in with you--is one of the gloomiest places I know about. (This one time, during my first year living alone in downtown Montreal, I fell seriously, deliriously ill. My legs were taken out for three days. I didn't leave the house, and when I finally did, it went to the grocery store where--instead of soup, or tea, or tiger balm--I picked up a six-pack of chocolate chip muffins. Let me mention that this was Halloween. At home I ate all those muffins while watching episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? on the cable I then had. And I'm serious: I got well.) But also the yawning and the Pringles.

I'm telling you.

(Also, it may interest you--whoever you are--to know that James Franco is playing Riff Raff in the upcoming Harmony Korine movie...)

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Hay Sad and Beautiful World

I made a drunken promise to myself that I'd do whatever blogging is more. For the time being (while I scramble to patch together angry thoughts on insipid things) I'm submitting the excuse that I'm working on an all encompassing, all enveloping, all inveigalling, all invaginating blog post about how why everything's the worst. So hold tight.

For the time being, there's this:





This man is my new favorite man. Here's why. Roberto Benigni's heartfucking statement from the film "Down By Lawn" comes to mind: "It is hay sad and beautiful world."

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Writing's Hard

Writing’s hard. It used to be kind of easy.

In high school I’d spend my weekends in my basement bedroom writing plays all the livelong night, some Kevin Smith or Quentin Tarantino proselytizing in the background. Usually, I’d take a break around midnight to hit up the Wendy’s out by all the car dealerships. I felt better than everyone else and whatever the hell they did with their weekend. (I’ll leave out the later scenes of me drinking wine and writing Kerouacian poetry in that same basement under the light cast by a lamp made from a wine bottle.)

My high school—spitting in the eye of virulent arts cuts—supported an annual Student One Act Festival (which I think and hope is still going on), so these chatty, greasy plays of mine always made it to stage, under my direction. The first play was about a platonic couple in a bomb shelter at the end, telling stories and playing Jenga; the second was a clunky, overreaching deal about the afterlife; next was one I still feel some pride for, a Vonnegut inspired romp based on a They Might Be Giants song about an old writer convinced people are stealing his ideas that included a Jehovah’s Witness being bludgeoned with a rifle; last was an art piece about two men who spend their days in a wheat field. There was a small pond cocksureness to this coming of age garbage, and I believe this prolific period was fostered only by a wonderful youthful ignorance. The writing didn’t have to be great; it was more important that I was doing it at all.

Comeuppance is the best gift anyone, not only artists, can receive. “Studying” creative writing while studying literature supplied a much needed shock. I have trouble saying I acquired much from “studying” creative writing—as in any practical information about plot, say, or genre, or sentence structure—but being amongst a mix of amazing and terrible writers made for a great education. As far as the great writers are concerned, the best thing you can do in any field is surround yourself with people who do the thing you’re trying to be with deftness and ease—at least perceived deftness and ease. I find this keeps you on your toes in a way insular gusto can’t quite. An equal but different drive comes from the slackasses and dillweeds that overran my program, people who put little thought and even less time into the goddamn doggerel they expected me to read and critique. The disdain I had for these fuckers made for and introduced me to a fire that propels me still. Every piece of shit I read sends me to my desk to do better, making spite another important fuel. I would never make any claims to the worth of my work, but I feel good saying that I work very hard at what I do, and strive not to waste anyone’s time.

Few salvageable pieces survived my three years of university. I spent a lot of time there trying and failing to write like Italo Calvino and Jorge Louis Borges, but did manage, in my last semester, to find a voice and approach that I’d go to bat for. In an Editing and Publishing class I produced a chapbook called You’re Stupid, I’m The Best that included a few stories that wound up in Pardon Our Monsters—a book that about 700 people actually paid real money for.

The other Monsters stories were written the year after university while pushing a broom and scrubbing tanks at a brewery. My friends were going into masters programs, and I was determined to do without that support, working a job that made me pretty tired and kept me kind of drunk. The work I did was without aspiration, though. I only wanted to write well. I had to be urged to submit a story, and so did so—to The Malahat Review, to name names—and after hearing nothing back I didn’t aspire to magazine publication until a few years ago. The same person who recommended I submit a story to a magazine, a former professor who continued reading and helping me with stories, recommended me to the captain of Vehicule Press. I sent sample stories to the editor of the Esplanade imprint of said press, was asked to submit a full manuscript, and about a month afterward I was told I’d be allowed to make a real-life book. I was twenty-three and this is not how the world works.

The few reviews that Monsters received were enthusiastic, but for the most part the book was quickly forgotten about, I’d thought. And I didn’t mind, or at least wasn’t worried. Having a book, however, made me eligible for grants, one of which I got, and made me interesting to agents, one of which I got. So I set out to write a novel for this agent, supported by this money. And it didn’t go well. For the first time, I found writing hard. Shit was expected of me. Every stupid day I sat down to work, I felt completely unable, irrevocably in over my head. In the midst of this daily dread, the agent who I was letting down informed me that I was short listed for and then won an award I’d never heard of for a book I hadn’t known I was writing. From there, writing got exponentially difficult for me.

I continued to not write a novel, instead writing some stories on the side that exist now as The Cloaca, which, as far as I know, not a whole lot of people know about. I gave up not writing that first novel, and started writing and throwing out another novel, which some other people gave me money for and which I’ve promised to that same agent. I should be writing that book right now, but I’m writing this instead. And this feels pithy, not as good or thorough or funny as it could be. But it’s free and for the internet, so who cares, right?

Failing’s the worst, but it’s the only result that I can ever count on. Every fucking day I sit down and fail fucking miserably. I did this in my basement years ago, with late night softcore on mute. And I failed big time in university, though never as bad as the fuckfaces who were convinced the drivel they’d managed was tops. And when I got a fulltime job, my failure was contained to the pockets of free time I managed. So I suppose writing’s always been easy, but it’s the failure that’s gotten difficult. Somehow I’ve found myself in a place where I say that writing’s what I do and is a thing I’m supposed to be good at. So when, out of sight, I spend a day producing plodding, trite dreck, the consequences of that failure feels more severe, intractable, fucking absolute.

Hearts Throb



Hey, kids. There's a story in The Cloaca called 'The Shrew's Dilemma' that has something to do with the suicide of onetime teen heart throb, Jonathan Brandis. Here's a drawing someone did of him:


I found out about Brandis' hanging himself a few years after the fact and was pretty legitimately shaken by it. The description of that shaking is pretty much reported in that story I wrote. I was hit up by the good people of the The New Quarterly to contribute to their Magazine As Muse section. The piece I gave them about my time spent reading Tiger Beat as a little fat kid can be found in their summer issue, which you can see about getting here, or you can track it down wheresoever awesome journals are sold.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Writing, The Stupid Internet, and You

In some German TV interview, Pulitzer Prize-nominated author David Foster Wallace is asked about his relationship with television. He says he doesn’t have a set, and then quickly broadens his answer by saying that this is not some smug declaration, but the equivalent of an alcoholic saying that they don’t keep hooch in the house. I watched this hour-long interview in instalments on YouTube when I probably should have been doing something else.

I own two computers, one with the internet and one without. I write on the former and mouth-breath on the latter.

Today on that latter computer, I downloaded two eagerly anticipated episodes of American Pickers (one of which is titled “The Return of Hobo Jack.” I seriously can’t wait.), read a fake and hilarious letter Werner Herzog wrote to his cleaning lady, watched a clip of Werner Herzog being shot during a BBC interview, then a clip of Werner Herzog explaining that he only just realized that his friend of 30 years, Pink Flamingos director John Waters (whose name Herzog can’t remember initially), was gay, then went to IMDB to see what movies Herzog has coming up, after which I made snide comments on my friends’ Facebook status updates, read articles about things and listened to bands they recommended, the lot of which I can’t, four hours later, remember anything about. This while checking my email a fucking bazillion times. The whole time my writing computer was open to a project on the desk to the left of me—did I mention that I have a work desk and an internet desk?—and I would reach over and wiggle the mouse every time the machine threatened to go to sleep. I was going to get back to work in just a sec.

My idea to get the worst computer I could find, one which would tolerate the presence of nothing more than a Word program, never mind the internet, came from Oprah’s new Gail at the time, Jonathan Franzen. I can only assume that he manages the tomes he does because he has no internet access. Franzen made no mention of being in a house where there was no internet, or not having other gadgets capable of roving and roaming the kitten-riddled ether.

Of course I read this Franzen interview on the internet.

In the past I’ve been able to manage some scintilla of creativity while having a TV on in the background. The trick was not to watch. Knowing that it was there and on was somehow mollifying, and all I had to do was turn my head if I heard something interesting happen. The bitch of the internet is that my participation is required. It can’t be ignored because to have it on means that you are, to an extent, at its helm.

 Internets have helms, right?

Wallace’s problem with the TV was surfing, compelled by this worry that there was something better that he didn’t know about on some other channel. This must have been in the days before digital channel guides. I don’t much bother with TV anymore because, viewing the channel guide, it’s robustly obvious that there’s nothing better anywhere. It’s all garbage, or it’s about people living in garbage, or rooting through other people’s garbage finding garbage that’s worth something. The internet, however, is some bullshit Borgesian Babel, where every one item you view or read comes with oodles of suggestions for celebrity nudity or fat kids wiping out on their bike or revelations about what Facebook does with your birthday and religious views that you might find interesting. There is no end to relevance in whatever the internet is.

Getting an internet-less computer didn’t, I admit, do much to dash that Rear Window-esque urge to peep through the connected machine still in the room. I still have hooch in the house; I’ve just hidden it from myself in some inconvenient place. Writing this now, I’ve got the wigglies, wondering what’s on the other machine that I might be missing. For all I know, “The Return of Hobo Jack” is done downloading. Werner Herzog might be getting shot somewhere else as we speak. Stephen Harper might have accidentally used the term “in a coon’s age” at the opening of a new Tim Horton’s where a used bookstore used to be. And I want to be the first one to post a link to these things, so other people can drop whatever important thing it is there doing and have a look.

I’ll be honest with you: the only reason I got up from one chair and sat down in the other to prattle about this now—yes, I have a separate chair for each desk—is that, while surfing, I was given an option to see a picture of Whitney Houston’s dead body. The prospect of seeing some probably blurry, cell phone shot of that misery broke whatever spell. I’ll give the internet this: every once and a while its cumulative repugnance drives me back to productivity in a way that nothing else has ever managed.

The fact that you, whoever you are, are reading this on the internet while you should probably be doing the thing you’re supposed to be doing, is not lost on me. I’d tell you to get back to work, but I know that wouldn’t do much good. Google “Whitney Houston’s Dead Body” and decide for yourself how much more aimless clicking you feel up for.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

I Work In A Brewery Called Garrison Sometimes


Cleaning House

Oh, hi there. I guess it's been a while--not that anyone noticed.

So, The Cloaca came out way back in April and a little tour ensued. Sorry I didn't tell you about that--not that you (whoever you are) would have cared. Upon my return I launched into full-time work/procrastination on the novel that I've been claiming to be writing for a few years, went to Arizona to research, and sort of forgot that I put out a book back in April.

Here's what the thing looks like:


And here's what it looks like in a baby's mouth:


A few people in the media have been putting the book in their mouth also, and here's what they say it tasted like: The Coast, The National Post, Quill and Quire, Steven W. Beattie, The Chronicle Herald. If you've stuck the thing in your mouth-brain, I'd love to hear what you thought about it. Email me, if you want, with questions, comments, or condemnations.

And a bit of extra news, it happened that the first and last story in The Cloaca were nominated for this year's Journey Prize. "Manning" was published in last summer's PRISM International, and "I'm Sorry and Thank You" was published on the Joyland site--that story you can read here, for FREAKING FREE,

Lastly, it's not like I'd forgotten what blogs were. I was doing some of that on Joyland for a while. Here's what that looked like.

That's all I've got! See you in a few months, I'm sure.