40 lines tonight… well more than the 15 or 16 I usually crap out at during po-grind months. Plus, Andie MacDowell makes an appearance in tonight’s poem. You know it’s good when Andie MacDowell is in it.

Oh, wait, that’s not true.

Tomorrow, planning for Iron Scav 10 (why haven’t you formed a team yet?), writing poem #3 (or #34, depending on how you look at it), and nighttime goofing off with Bryan King. I’m motivated to read some more of David Allen’s Getting Things Done; I can see why there are cults around this book. I feel myself becoming a cultist. I’ll probably also begin re-reading In Our Time for bookshop. I did the unspeakable… I crossed over to fiction for a bookshop. But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to discuss the book that has my favorite story in it. (Hilarious: there’s a SparkNotes page for “A Very Short Story,” which is almost as long as the story itself.)

Harry Potter books spawned cults, too. I wonder how many people were David Allen for Halloween?

Andie MacDowell was in Hudson Hawk. It was one of the few movies that was made better by her presence. (It’s this mack truck of awful which somehow veers across four lanes of suck, crashes through the median, and ends up on the really enjoyable side of the highway.) I wonder how many people were Andie MacDowell for Halloween?

Someone broke into Ladybug’s car last night. Well, not broke in so much as went in, since she left it unlocked. They opened the glove box and tossed some stuff around, and then opened the trunk. But they didn’t take anything, since there wasn’t much of value. It’s hard to whine when nothing’s missing and nothing’s damaged, but it’s just never fun to wake up to a reminder that your world just isn’t as safe as you would like to believe.

Oddly enough, I had terrible trouble going to sleep last night; I kept hearing the cats rumble about and thinking that someone was in the house. I would wake up every couple minutes before I drifted off for good, convinced that when I opened my eyes, I was going to see a human form in the doorway. I am not sure what a panic attack feels like, but I’m guessing that’s pretty close. (My pulse has been well above normal for about two weeks straight, I think due to stress.) I had nightmares most of the night that were based on that initial paranoia…

After Ladybug roused me in the morning and I drifted back to sleep, I continued to have nightmares, but these were actually based on the lowest form of po-gossip. It was still sort of terrifying… people were physically threatening me about keeping their secrets and giving up others. And it was all the juvenile who-kissed-who kind of stuff that makes for interesting conversation but isn’t useful or important in any way. I woke up fairly convinced that I don’t want to know anything about anyone ever again.

Still, it’s nice to go from night terrors to po-terrors, the latter of which is the lesser. I did feel like my mental load was lighter for much of the day. Whatever was bothering me, I think (I hope) it worked itself out of my system.

DHL tried to deliver a package today. I’m guessing it was a packet. So, I’ve signed. Maybe it will be waiting when I come home tomorrow.

Tonight, I have treated myself to luxurious sloth, downloading some songs from music blogs (to give you an idea of the quality, the best was Kix’s “Don’t Close Your Eyes”… for serious) and shredding months worth of bills and bank statements and stuff.I had the shredder on for a good half-hour solid.

One Story arrived today and I still hadn’t read the last one. I’ll remedy that before the end of the night.

Again? Furreals?

Cortazar’s Cronopios y Famas was a terrific, odd read. Sadly, my sixth edition from New Directions has page 69 reprinted on page 71, and so I’m missing a page that begins one of the stories in the baffling third section.

If you don’t have this book, get it and read the second chapter. Immediately. “The Tiger Lodgers” is brilliant, and the final story in “Unusual Occupations” is flat-out genius.

This sounds like hyperbole.

Bedtime. Hyperbolic dreams await.

(I won’t get a day off to write part of my essay tomorrow after all. Maybe Thursday. Boo.)

I know, you often think to yourself: “what is in Ross White’s mailbox today?” Well, I can answer that question for you.

First up, the new record by They Might Be Giants, entitled The Else. I ordered it off of their web site a few days ago, because they sent a note saying that there was a limited-edition EP included with the album. kept buying things from their web site is a Catch-22; the prices are affordable, but the shipping is extreme. Did I really need for this album to arrive from UPS? Not really. I would’ve been just as happy had it arrived in five to nine business days.

Next, two books from Amazon. One is entitled Poetic Closure: a Study of How Poems End by Barbara Herrnstein Smith. in particular looking for to the chapter on repetition. The other book is full of what looks like micro fiction — Julio Cortazar, Cronopios y Famas. All I really want to you about that book is that saying it into my voice recognition software has made me decide that I will never want to speak Spanish words to this program again.

Horse Less Press was good enough to send me Abraham Lincoln’s Death Scene, a chapbook by Zachary Schomburg. Granted, I sent them five dollars to do so, but still, it was good of them to send it. I finished reading about half of this book, and the verdict is still out. kept or is the phrase, “the jury is still out”? I can never remember. Something is still out there. It is an opinion.

Extras and Weeds? All in the same night? Heavenly!

I’m in Asheville today, staying in the same hotel that Ladybug and I like to stay in when she comes to visit me at Warren Wilson. The one with the whirlpool tub, yes. I’m planning to head to campus tomorrow or Wednesday to poke through the library, yes I am. I just sent a long e-mail in response to some questions from my new buddy, who, as near as I can tell from e-mail and our one live meeting, is cooler than your new buddy, blog readers.

This follows a busy weekend in which I spent more time traveling than not traveling, and did not actually get any reading done. I did, however, listen to John Hodgman’s audiobook The Areas of My Expertise. I had never listened to an audiobook before. I found the experience pleasant enough, but I do not wish to listen to further audiobooks, unless they are read by John Hodgman. I think To Kill a Mockingbird would sound very good in his voice. Or Love in the Time of Cholera. But not Dracula.

This installation came to UNC’s Ackland Art Museum in 2003 or 2004, and it moved me in the most severe way. I couldn’t tell you why, but it did. I think about it all the time.

Which makes this all the more tempting.

If you try to call me for the next couple days, you likely won’t get me. I’m in Sophia, NC at a Baptist mountain camp that DPI sometimes uses for teacher retreats. I don’t get good signal up here, and if today is any indication, I may not be online all that much either. The Internet was down for about three hours this afternoon.

It’s also raining so hard that I may float away. And there’s hail. So yeah, this is a storm.

Continuing with my somewhat obsessive non-poem readings of late, I began Malcom Gladwell’s Blink last night, and expect to finish it tonight before I go to sleep. I also brought with me a copy of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, which I do not plan to finish quite so quickly. One might think that all this non-fiction would have an effect on my thinking about fiction, but if it is, I’m not noticing.

Also, I’m writing a technical manual right now. Zzzz. But that has to be done before the 17th so I can’t drag it out.

I just finally managed to untangle myself from Daniel Wallace’s The Watermelon King, which I was long overdue in reading. Long, long overdue. But I wanted to read it before I picked up Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician.