i can't really sing, so

I am currently annoyed that I am awake, sitting in my room at the Red Roof Inn. If I would have known before I woke up that the radio was already pre-set to the Toldeo NPR, I would have had it on all night. Instead, I let a short iTunes mix sing me to sleep and then woke up at various occasions in a panic throughout the night. My curtain is drawn, but I'm sure it's raining. But let's back track a bit. I am AWP-bound currently, but last weekend I was in Boston. Gigantic Sequins had a 3.1 Celebration at Trident Books and Cafe on Thursday night. Four great writers whose fiction has been published in Gigantic Sequins read. I was pleased to meet Meg Cameron and Kelli Trapnell and also glad to make this celebration an opportunity to catch up with LaTanya McQueen and Olivia Kate Cerrone . Olivia closed out the night reading most of her piece in our 3.1 issue, "Dirty", leaving the audience with some closure, but curious to figure out what happens. Kelli came before

I've driven to Boston, stayed for less than 24 hours, and driven back. I've driven home from the Bay State leaving after midnight, pulling over to sleep in front of a rest stop parking lot outside of a Starbucks, and made it on time to work at a Barnes and Noble in New Jersey by 7:30am. I've been through more states in a weekend than some people have been to in their lives. Once, I drove north for 6 hours with no radio in my car. I sang most of the time and cursed the annoyingly catchy song (by the Barenaked Ladies that they used to play at work at least once every ten minutes) that I couldn't drive from my head or remember all of the words to. But I've never done what I'm doing over the next two weeks . On Thursday, immediately following the Poetry & Drama Quiz I'm administering to my Experiencing Lit students,  I will be driving to Boston. Gigantic Sequins has an event celebrating the winter release of our 3.1 issue , featuring four great fiction wr

This week, I received at least TWO exciting things in the mail. First came a Vinyl full-length album "Songs of Praise & Scorn" by Christopher Paul Stelling , whose music is hauntingly fabulous. There were some songs on here I recognized as ones I love: " Never Been There " has given me chills live, and as I was baking strawberry banana muffins, warm in my kitchen, last evening, it did the same as a recording. In addition, there are some songs that I felt I was hearing for the first time. I've known Chris for more than a few years at this point, and I'm truly glad to have purchased his album not only to put some cash in his hypothetical gas tank but because it's something I will listen to over and over again. Something about Chris's voice is familiar to me-- I can hear other people I know in his voice, and this leads me to believe that he is someone who speaks for our generation. Check him out . Here is the nice message that came with my vinyl,

HAPPENING Thursday 2/2/2012 Tire Fire Reading Series presents : Scott McClanahan, Kendra Grant Malone, Matthew Savoca & Kirsten Kaschock  |  Tattooed Mom 530 South Street  |  7pm-10pm  |  FREE I'm pretty psyched about this one. I am "into" collaborative writing recently, for some reason, and Malone and Savoca are, I believe, reading together from their collaborative work *. It has this feel to it, and it's usually subtly humorous in a way that you probably have to be when you are working with someone else, I suppose. It makes me jealous that I don't have a collaborative poet friend. But moving on, I went to a Tire Fire reading last year, and I met a lot of great people there and saw three great fiction writers read their work. I am looking forward to attending tomorrow, and I'm sure this event will be as good if not better than the reading in November! Make it out! It's supposed to be nice outside anyway. You have no excuse. * Edit: the

Mission: To read (finish) at least 52 books during 2012 Status: 6/52 read Notes on Books Read: 1-3)  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo / The Girl who Played with Fire / The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson At some point, I acquired a (probably free) mass market copy of the first book in this series, and dutifully placed it on my mass market shelf for when a time came that I felt the need to read this book, and perhaps the rest of its series. I do this with things that are overly-hyped (Bolano, Harry Potter, Golden Compass, etc.), I give them time. Too many people who I know had read this book and tried to talk with me about it over the holidays that when it came time to choose what to read next, I figured it was time. I was instantly hooked-- and aggravated that I was, in fact, hooked. Larsson's writing isn't great, and the fact that it's a translation, I'm sure, doesn't help. But his stories are compelling. I found myself disappointed t