Codes of Conduct

No hoodies. I guess George Zimmerman would feel right at home at Fashion Valley mall where I took this picture to-day. Guess who broke rule 8.

I guarantee there are hoodies sold in the mall. I'm tempted to go there wearing dark sunglasses and a false beard on principle. I ought to've tipped my fedora over my face like Tom Reagan in Miller's Crossing.

I still stink of the chow mein I had for breakfast. I've had tea, chips, and a burrito since then but I feel like I'm stuck in this little pungent cloud of soy sauce. Breakfast was at Pick Up Sticks with some family who are visiting from out of town. I drove them all over the place to-day, from the Mormon Palace Temple, to the beaches of La Jolla, to Coronado Island where I accidentally drove onto a Navy base. The car air conditioner wasn't great and maybe that explains why I feel like I've been sweating chow mein all day. I feel pretty gross and tired and the headache I've had for about a week has turned into an ear ache that got worse every time I drove between hills.

I had time to read the new Sirenia Digest to-day. Caitlin's new story, "CAGES I", was a collaboration with a guy named David T. Kirkpatrick, a biologist from the University of Minnesota. It's a sort of stew of biological information from the future stitched together with a mannered first person narrative that was reminiscent of the voices David Bowie created for his Outside album. It was good, and I appreciate a reference to Videodrome, but it wasn't nearly as amazing as the stuff from the previous issue. This new issue also included an old collaboration between Caitlin and Sonya, but it mainly served to remind me of how that post by Sonya I read the other day was the best thing she'd ever written (that I have read). In fact, I held back a little, as I always held back with Sonya, but it suddenly occurs to me there's little point in me doing so when she's not speaking to me--that review the other day was the first truly good piece of writing I've ever seen from her. I mean, her stuff has always had good qualities--a gift with language primarily, and some very nice, inventive descriptions, but the characters she wrote never quite worked for me, never had any depth. This review was the first time I really felt like she connected as a person with her apparatus, the first time she used her chopsticks without thinking about them being chopsticks. Of course, it may be totally different from her point of view, but in any case, I'm more optimistic for her future artistic endeavours than I've ever been.

Twitter Sonnet #375

Freezer hearts have phantom fish stick syndrome.
Sooty flat white dwarves draw Diane Arbus.
Baleen bananas hold the red roofed home;
Absent flatbread, inadequate hummus.
Uncovered brains signal a faulty hat.
Finger feather dusters clean the silt line.
Parentheses hold the albino cat.
Flattened umbrellas can hold little wine.
Pinkened bones crush the narrow tripod skull.
Feebly wiggling eyebrows overnoodle.
Screaming peanuts watch NASCAR from a bowl.
Razor rows of weeds pin the mad moogle.
Cold sauce abandons the dark orange chow mein.
Meaningless meals stretch across the rug plane.