I'm in Charlotte NC, on a week-long residency that begins each semester. This is my second residency/semester of my MFA (my genre is creative nonfiction). My mornings have been filled with craft seminars, and the afternoons are for workshopping my writing, and the writing of other students. There are student and faculty readings in the late ( Read more... )

On Saturday morning, Margaret and I went downtown to watch the DragonCon parade. In case you’re not a raving sci-fi geek, DragonCon is the world's largest science-fiction/fantasy convention, and it's held each year in Atlanta. It’s enormous. Over 30,000 people attend each year, and the attendees fill every hotel in the six block convention district ( Read more... )

• Woke up at 5:30, couldn't get back to sleep.
• Got up at 6:15.
• Loaded ancient cds onto iTunes so I can crank Gang of Four and Talking Heads and Joe Jackson at work.
• Played Mafia Wars on Facebook.
• Filled out a complicated claim to get my couch cleaned (dog in heat + beige couch = time to use that protection plan I over-paid for).

Last week- or more specifically, 10 days ago- someone tried to break into my house. I was home at the time. I'm still pretty rattled.

I wasn't rattled when it happened, because I didn't recognize that it was a break-in attempt. It was about 11pm, maybe midnight, and I was up and watching TV twenty feet away from the window pane that the would-be ( Read more... )

Remember that 70's show One Day at a Time, with the catchy yet irritating theme song that says "this is it" about a hundred times? That song has been in my head all day. I have found myself humming it while handling cultures, and playing ridiculous memory games in meetings, like Name The Entire Cast and Recall All the Lyrics. I did fairly well at ( Read more... )

I've always been suspicious of those who say they love cold weather. My Southern sensibility tells me this is impossible, so a person who makes this claim is most likely making preposterous statements just for the reaction, like "I just LOVE vomiting! It's so invigorating!" Of course, it's possible that someone really might like cold weather, but I ( Read more... )

I confess, I have a weakness for American Idol. It took me a few seasons of my parents referencing it in every conversation before I finally decided to see it for myself, but I was hooked immediately. Of the last 50 hours, I've spent 4 of them watching the brand new season of Idol.

I had heard they were going to trim footage of the really bad ( Read more... )

Three or four years ago, there was a rash of car break-ins in my neighborhood, which prompted me to buy and install a $30 car alarm. Once connected to my battery and activated, the alarm lay hidden under the hood, ready to sound any time it registered a drain on the battery. Even turning on the overhead light by opening the door was enough to ( Read more... )

I don’t exactly have a green thumb. It may even be the Thumb of Pestilence, since my yard is home to a half dozen rotted tree stumps full of creepy crawlies that look suspiciously like termites, an occasional black widow spider, several legions of fire ants, and loads of poison ivy. On two occasions over a year apart, I ran over a Copperhead snake ( Read more... )

Yesterday I rode my motorcycle to school. It was a clear beautiful day, warm enough for short sleeves on a bike, but not yet hot enough to feel like I’m riding through an oven. I was sitting in traffic (because every season in Atlanta is traffic season, after all), but content to enjoy the warm sun on my arms and the smell in the air. It was a ( Read more... )