June 16, 2009

The Best Thing Ever

I don’t like chit chat. Or to put nicer, chit chat is hard for me. I’ve heard this is a characteristic of introverts.

So yesterday, when I’m sitting at the baseball game, and the two single, middle-aged women, who are season ticket holders, attempt to “chit-chat” with the opposing team’s on-deck batters (and every other breathing soul that comes within one-thousand miles of them), I become frustrated.

I prefer quality rather than quantity. Deep rather than shallow. These are just preferences. I tolerate the extroverts’ gabfest. At times I dabble in it myself.

But sometimes just shut up.

I really mean this when it comes to other things other than talking. Like books and movies and songs and art. Just because you made it (or can make it) doesn’t mean you should publish it or sell it or even share it.

Some things, most things, like words and stories and thoughts, need time to grow, to mature, to deepen and strengthen. They need to be edited and worked on.

I want the best story possible from a set of words. Not just a story. I want the best movie and conversation and photograph and book. Not a bunch of them that I’ll throw away and forget.

Whether it’s one word, one color, one shot, one note, take the time to make it the best, most amazing thing ever.

April 1, 2009

Headed to Graduate School

I’m reading The Necessary Grace to Fall by Gina Ochsner. It won the Flannery O’Conner Award. Gina actually called me yesterday to congratulate me for getting into Seattle Pacific’s MFA writing program. She, along with Bret Lott, will be my fiction teachers. Or maybe they’re called professors. I’m not sure which. Gina actually lives in Keizer, which is where I’m from. She was very nice and described some of the things we’ll be doing at the first workshop this summer in Sante Fe. There are 7 other fiction writers in the program.

Right now the weather in Portland is wet. It’s a constant mist, not a hard rain, and it’s annoying. I don’t often long for the sun, but I am now.

March 25, 2009

Hockey House Wiffle Ball League Part 6: Steroid Scandal

The Hockey House Wiffle Ball League stars talk about their steroid use.


March 16, 2009

Hockey House Wiffle Ball League Part 5: Who’s the Toughest Guy in the League

Part 5 of the Hockey House Wiffle Ball League. Team Faith plays a night game and tries to figure out who’s the toughest guy in the league.

March 8, 2009

Hockey House Wiffle Ball League Part 4

Another wiffle ball extravaganza. This week it’s an offensive barrage.

March 5, 2009

Hockey House Wiffle Ball League: Joe Gets Rocked!

Joe gives up 6 home runs to Team Faith. And Ross takes off his shirt…again.

February 28, 2009

The Hockey House Wiffle Ball League

It’s the beginning of Spring Training for The Hockey House Wiffle Ball League:

wiffle_ball

February 25, 2009

Hockey House: 01 Cast a Spell

Living in the Hockey House is sweet. Except when Hunter’s World of War Craft addiction goes too far.

February 25, 2009

A Majestic Love Song by Yehuda Amichai

A Majestic Love Song

You are beautiful, like prophecies,
and sad, like those that come true,
calm, like the calmness afterward.
Black, like the white lonliness of jasmine.
With sharpened fangs: she-wolf and queen.

Your very short dress is in fashion,
your weeping and laughter come from ancient times,
perhaps from some book of other kings.
I’ve never seen foam at the mouth of a war horse,
but when you lathered your body with soap
I saw.

You are beautiful like prophecies
that never come true.
And this is the royal scar;
I pass over it with my tongue
and with pointed fingers over that sweet roughness.

With hard shoes you knock
prison bars to and fro around me.

Your wild rings
are the sacred leprosy of your fingers.

Out of the earth emerge
all I wished never to see again:
Pillar and window sill, cornice and jug, broken pieces
of wine.

Yehuda Amichai

February 10, 2009

When You Called The Other Day

When you called the other day
I didn’t answer

Though my heart began to pound
and I couldn’t breathe

It’s the way you say my name
when you’re excited

Maybe tomorrow you won’t
say it anymore

Perhaps today you’ll say it
over and over