Cross-legged

I love that at conferences, cheese danish are an acceptable breakfast. I love that at this conference, sitting on the floor, shoeless, is an acceptable way to write. And that there is a strolling lunchtime magician. And a scheduled recess, with cookies and Crayola markers.

At the Rental Car Counter

The agent who helped me brought up my reservation and asked where my last name was from. I said Czechoslovakia. She said that in Tagalog, it means "to go upstairs."

I think it's pretty cool that it's an action verb. Whenever I think of my last name, I think of my grandpa as a child in Bratislava. I've heard his stories (how he tells stories!) about the house that had seemed so big to him. And the window he wasn't tall enough to look through, but and had to boost himself up with a chair if he wanted to see what was happening on that side of the neighborhood.

I don't know why people ridicule rental cars. Working door handles, non-leaking sunroof, shiny paint. All this and customer service with some etymological trivia served up with a smile and a wonderful Filipino laugh. What's not to love?

Cartography

In my office hour today, a Southeast Asian student came in needing help on her compare/contrast paper. She wants to compare the cities of San Diego and her hometown. We talked about the differences in education, and she explained that, at home, a student's secondary/high school grades determine what they can study in college.

"If you have good marks," she said. "You can study medicine. If you don't, you study literature or geography."

So I guess anything less than science is left to the underachievers? How sad. And how misguided. I'll leave the "literature" sucker punch alone and instead ask, rhetorically, have you seen Google Earth? Holy cow. Underachievers the people behind this program are not.

"Permanent Midnight" by Jerry Stahl

My brother gave me this book for my birthday (along with a shea butter and lanolin shampoo and cream rinse; don't worry, they're for Louie). "Permanent Midnight" is a memoir of a one-time TV writer's drug addiction. Shooting heroin and writing for the family-friendly "Alf" and the baby boomer hijinks of "Moonlighting"--good stuff. Since the memoir he's published several novels. It's interesting to read a memoir from a writer whose creative work you aren't familiar with (except as manifest in the quirks of planet Melmac).

If I were to guess about a book like Fatty Arbuckle, based on "Permanent Midnight," it probably has pervasive drugs, some pornography, profound self-doubt, absent parents, the desire to do right but the overbearing compulsion towards self-destruction, and, maybe, a flash of light at the tunnel's end. Sounds good to me.

Okay, Okay, I Get It

Today I received ten email rejections from the same journal for the same story. Okay, I get it. I suck and you hate me and I should either live out the rest of my days under a rock or get a new career, and at the very least never submit to you again. But maybe you could've gotten your point across in, oh, say five rejections? Mark, what are you waiting for in getting in on this fun?

My last blog link (until next year's Tour of California!) about the Borat showing. Viva la TCSD!

Wait For It...

Brian and Buck in Technicolor. For the impatient, fast forward to 2:30. Well done, gentlemen, well done.

In the Name of Charity

You wish you were part of a club where this is your President (scroll down to 13:53:04).

In Brian's defense, he isn't "unfit" at all. Sasha Baron Cohen didn't exactly look good in it, either. Or John Mayer.