I know I have been shy lately, and being shy is not what I am usually all about, is it? Well, I’ll tell you: No. Its not.
I’ll throw together an update type of thing to keep myself updated. If any of what follows is either not enough information or does not fulfill your laughter quota for the moment, please leave notice and I will send out some subject-specific knock-knock jokes to make amends.
1. I have done it, I am legitimate. I have created an LLC aimed at freelance writing work. This will also cover any and all graphic design work I may stumble on or any type of Anti-Gran-Marnier campaign anyone would like for me to put together. This way, I figure, I can regale the snobby world of vanilla-orange liqueur lovers and then write it off. I am also writing off any and all purchases of alcohol as they are “professional idea lubricant”
and Crest WhiteStrips as they are “professional tooth-prettier-uppers.”
The name of my new company is Yahimake Wordswork, LLC.
For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, aren’t getting the joke, or don’t think I’m all that funny, I’ll break it down phonetically for you.
Yeah, I make words work.
LLC.
The last part is pronounced “Ell Ell See”
2. Since the passing of George Carlin, the last post on this site (sorry Marissa), I have ventured to Seattle and back to Scottsdale for a few days each. Both places were warm, inviting, exciting and expensive. When you’re a person who has voluntarily taken three months away from semi-lucrative bar service to dilly or dally (each day is different) your days away by inventing companies and trying on different colors of bandanas, suddenly finding yourself at the Dollars&Sense end of buying plane tickets is akin to being shot by a rifle filled with pennies. Oh the sticker shock.
To think that the only things I have left to accomplish this summer are to spend a week in the Finger Lake region of upstate New York, attend a wedding in Tallmadge, Ohio, bounce back into NYC for what I hope is a near barrage of meetings and then retreat in my gas-chugging SUV 900 miles (that’s three deliciously decadent tanks of gasoline) from Denver to Scottsdale.
Cheap. Mere pittances. Does anyone need a Rolex? I’ve got extra money!
3. The writing. I always get this question: How is the writing going? And I almost never know how much or how little to say - and here is why: if I go into surface detail, I can escape without a drawn out dialogue on the specific projects and their lengths and their varying degrees of completion. Usually discussing all of those things inspires immediate Writer Guilt which is just as strong as the brand that Jesus and His Dad cooked up for us oh so long ago. The thing is, no matter how dialed-in my writing regimen is, I will always feel a little bit behind. It’s the nature of the gig.
So I’ll tell you, in private, that the writing is going “pretty good.” Taking the summer off is going “great,” but the writing hovers around “pretty good.” I finished ghost-writing a memoir, for example, which was a great weight off my shoulders and a nice little deposit into my bank account. I wrote an essay/memoir
I’ve been waiting two years to write. I am dragging my feet through a novella, six short stories and am awaiting inspiration on the second draft of a novel that is (everyone always asks, so here you go) about an Art History professor who gets shot in a Starbucks. I also handily completed all the silly legwork and paperwork involved in explaining to a bank teller that the name of the company is spelled like this: Y-A-H-I-M-A-K-E, next word, W-O-R-D-S-W-O-R-K.
“Is it Japanese?”
“Yes, its Japanese.”
“What does it mean?”
“Loosely translated, it means Eater of Pastries.”
“Oh, are you opening a bakery?”
“Yes, I am.”
“What’s your favorite type of pastry?”
“Is this going to take much longer?”
4. I drink Red bull at midnight. I put it over ice so I don’t look like a cliche, but I drink it at midnight, slowly, and this gives me my “wings” until around five am when I fall asleep. The reason for this routine is that the house here in Littleton is pristine with solitude from the hours of 11pm-6am. There is always a cool neighborhood breeze that blows that kind of green-grass-and-sprinkler-scented-air past my shoulders as I sit and write things. The cool quiet nights with no traffic or heat waves are the reasons that this office in Littleton gets so much of my summer time.
It’s not a perfect set up, because the cellular
telephone that my girlfriend owns makes an old-timey rotary phone look like a spaceship. Between it not keeping a charge, maintaining a signal or projecting her quiet voice the mere millimeters from her mouth to its microphone, it really is a blessing to relegate our monumentally successful relationship to the following conversation.
“What?”
“I said: Ah bi ha doe na weh fler horse!”
“Horse?”
“What?”
“You said horse, I got that part.”
“No, I didn’t. I was talking about ne bi git pro kip lok seb trap nop wert flop cantaloup.”
“Fruit salad!”
“What?”
“I love you,” I’ll finally say.
“I lo ute oo ah mis yube guh here.”
“YOU NEED A NEW PHONE!”
“I need a new phone," she says.
“Goodnight, Krissy,” I say quickly.
“.........”
“Crap, there she goes.”
And I have learned to sew. Actually, I am learning to sew, I have not yet mastered it. One day, perhaps I will make elegantly tailored tatterdemalion garments and sell them for many dollars.
and Crest WhiteStrips as they are “professional tooth-prettier-uppers.”
I’ve been waiting two years to write. I am dragging my feet through a novella, six short stories and am awaiting inspiration on the second draft of a novel that is (everyone always asks, so here you go) about an Art History professor who gets shot in a Starbucks. I also handily completed all the silly legwork and paperwork involved in explaining to a bank teller that the name of the company is spelled like this: Y-A-H-I-M-A-K-E, next word, W-O-R-D-S-W-O-R-K.
telephone that my girlfriend owns makes an old-timey rotary phone look like a spaceship. Between it not keeping a charge, maintaining a signal or projecting her quiet voice the mere millimeters from her mouth to its microphone, it really is a blessing to relegate our monumentally successful relationship to the following conversation.