christmas coat

You'll notice the self-hewn tree in the background.

love/hate

There was not a musical note in sight; the snow came 15 minutes later.

So, O and I went out to the forest with an axe and a camera for a little father/daughter slaughter. Tree slaughter. This was no BJ#2 backpiece Abraham/Isaac crap. It was about 20 degrees out, damn cold. On the way, she kept saying, "I want a tiny, tiny, tiny, TINY christmas tree, Daddy." Once we were out of the car, though, the story changed. "I want a tree with lots of annual rings," she said. Annual rings? You know, three-year-olds these days, man. Three-year-olds. I convinced her that the 70-foot tall ponderosa wouldn't fit in the car, and that everyone might be most happy with the tiny one. The tree you see in the background is the one that she'll be rockin' the holydays away with. If you ever have a daughter, ever--go take her on special little dates. It's the best-feeling you'll ever have in your entire fucking miserable life.

Phoenix in Flames.

Finals time. One more semester and I'm out of shit to do. Yeah yeah yeah, join the club: I know most of my friends are gone & done with school and have been for a long time, but it'll be the first time for me. I don't really know what I'm doing after the schoolins. If my dad was a mob boss, I'd teach at Reed College, but my dad's not anything, so I'll be that, too.

I applied for the Wallace Stegner Fellowship last week. I forgot about the deadline until 4pm the day it was due. So I jammed out my statement of purpose and poems and application-thing all in 20 minutes. We'll see how it goes; tell you in March or something.

Today at my job slinging lattes in the heart of the Furnix, at Royal Coffee Bar, I was wanking around and made a free pour Phoenix in Flames, a la Converge, or a la The Phoenician, depending on your taste. Or a Novel by Andy Bryan, again, depending on your taste. I know it's lame to post coffee porn on a blog, but a blog's lame anyway, so I'm not too worried about it.

Lately I've been reading the Blue & Brown books, Letters of Vincent vanGogogo, and have two novellas by Italo Calvino waiting for me at the end of this week. I've really wanted to read a great, longer novel over break. I might read Denis Johnson's new one--it just won the National Book Award. The break's only a month, otherwise I'd read Mason&Dixon--but that might be my almost entire summer reading list. Anyone reading anything interesting in long fiction land?

I love you all, my darlings. All of you I love you.