07.02.15

ROAD TRIP UPDATE: VI {08:45, tucson}

we staggered to the front desk at our tucson hotel something like forty minutes before they let our room go for the evening (we took our sweet time getting out of orange county, and i took my sweet time getting through the mountains between san diego and yuma when a sudden thunderstorm flashed me back to hydroplaning and totaling a car in the rain when i was 18). "i really like your shirt," said the fellow who checked us in. if you would know true and constant love, internets, adopt a shelter animal and/or find yourself an old siouxsie and the banshees tee on ebay and wear it around when you travel.

i have been up since six or so this morning, when i began to stir and worry about the article i had to send to new york by eight. i wrote most of said article in the passenger seat as the interstate unspooled behind us last night, which is either the loveliest or the most terrible thing that's happened to me since i declared myself a freelance writer last fall. a framed poster on the plaster wall behind this desk promotes DILLINGER DAYS, an annual celebration of the anniversary of john dillinger's capture by the tucson police department in 1934. i have outlived john dillinger by five years so far. there are four pairs of earplugs tucked behind the shampoo and lotion in the bathroom.

09.25.13

joe and i failed to discourage occupation of the seat between us on monday night's extremely full redeye flight from phoenix to new york city—it is hard to look menacing and/or pestilential when one is simply an X on a plane diagram—and we both ended up in armrest turf skirmishes with our neighbor, a rather pushy gentleman. i eventually crossed my arms and fell asleep, so i didn't apply much of the constant, firm pressure that is my signature border control. joe, more wakeful, went for active defense via sharp jabs. who maintains their territory with open hostility like that? it never ends well.

01.03.12



how florid you were, end of 2011! abandoned by an ailing milkmaid, i watched a kid from billy elliot dump blood all over a bunch of shakespeareans;* spirited to arizona, i read the hunger games trilogy in like thirty-six hours and beheld a giant snowman made of diet root beer. i floated in a nudie tank at the new museum and ended up with swimmer's ear; i flew to california and received a rhino head made of old pants. i donned a creepy venetian mask and completely missed the orgy room at sleep no more.*** i started a book that, had i finished it, would've won THUNDERTOME for the year. there is much to tell, and i have missed you.

imaginary reading group discussion questions

01 does stage blood bother you?

02 how many plane rides did you take in december?

03 would you risk getting swimmer's ear from a museum's nudie tank?

04 if you were a rhino head made of old pants, would you rather hang above a bar cart or in a bedroom?

05 can i post another dozen subway readers even though some of the previous fourteen remain unmatched?

06 where were you on new year's eve?

*second-bloodiest show i've ever seen!**

**the all-time bloodiest was evil dead: the musical.

***which, let's be honest, is probably for the best; december was already unusually nude.

07.09.10: arizona, part II

07.08.10: arizona, part I



{one of like seventeen axes in my in-laws' garden}




{the swimming hole at which i attempted to impress my father-in-law with cannonballs}




{downstream from the swimming hole}




{sunset, the hike back to the car}




{heading out of town on the beeline highway}




{saguaros en route to phoenix}