The Whiner. The Hypnotist. The Legendary.

Must complain. Please bear with.

The fifth college I've applied to since getting my MFA two years ago just told me to go to hell this morning. Worse, of those five colleges, not one has even allowed me the chance to sit down for an interview. I'm always weeded out during the "reviewing candidates" stage.

Here's the rub – I know what's going on, I think. I've been keeping tabs. These college are hiring out of state professors with TEACHING EXPERIENCE. I have only high school teaching experience, no college.

Paradox begins to materialize before your very eyes.

You're getting sleepy, very sleepy.

You're fully asleep.

Now, when I count to three you will travel to five colleges around the region, ask to speak to the presidents of these five colleges about the virtues of hiring local professors who can actually relate to their students and therefore provide a more rounded college experience and soon after you will wake up to find a better world for all your convincing.

Okay, I'm done.

I have a story up today at The Legendary called "Girl Spotted During the Solo." There's also a picture of me smoking a cigarette to go with said story. I look confused in the picture, but I'm really just upset. I can't remember why, but I'm sure there was a good reason. The story is okay, though. Check it out here.

More Funny Things I've Heard

Funny things I've heard recently:

Me: Why does Victoria Beckham always look so upset in pictures?
Dry Wit Person: It's because she's so hungry all the time.

Dry Wit Person also told me that a character actor whose name I cannot remember was asked who was the strangest person he'd ever worked with and he said Tom Cruise. No surprise there, but when asked to further explain the actor said:

"He's the biggest homophob I've ever met. We'd be sitting around between shoots and he'd be like 'This is good ice cream. Sure glad there's no gays around.'"

Somehow that was much funnier when Dry Wit Person told it, but I'm gonna leave it here because, well, the delete button is all the way up there.

Guy Who Is Very Often At My Workplace: Who is that guy who played for Chicago? Man, he could jump. I seen him jump from the free throw line and dunk. He's really good. What's his name?
Sports Editor (confused): Michael Jordan? Are you talking about Michael Jordan?
GWIVOAMW: Michael Jordan. Yeah.

My girlfriend sends me the most awesome internet stuff of all time. The backlog is too numerous at this point, but I think I'll start sharing some of the goodness on here in the upcoming posts. Here's a sample, and here. Envy me for having such a badass cool chick. I can feel you envying me and it feels good.

Michael Jordan. Damn.

The Mary, Frank and Cindy Show and Mel Bosworth Reads.

Some cool writing things I've happened across I think folks would like:

Mel Bosworth reads people's stuff, including most recently Darby Larson's story "Reflexive," and sent me cigarettes as a closer for our correspondence on his piece that will appear in Wrong Tree Review. He's of course a cool cat. Have a look.

Roxane Gay's piece up at Hobart is phenomenal. She keeps cropping up in every nook and each time is better than the next. Read, I say.

David Erlewine is working on a novel. Yes, that just happened. He's been posting a bit here and there at Fictionaut. Go have a look. Sign up if you haven't already. Fictionaut is a good, fine place and David's stuff is some of the best there.

There's a lot more out there – HTMLGIANT's Mean Week is a catch up situation if you didn't get a chance to follow along for instance and the new issue of decomP to name just a couple more – but these have stuck out in my mind.

I've had some fortune lately with my work.

Three pieces taken since last I spoke of my growing number of submissions out there in the world.

I'll have a story called "A Tree Born Crooked" in The Cut-Thru Review's winter issue, another called "The Body Ricardo" at Metazen soon and just this morning learned that Cindy Rosmus will take my story "Reaction" for Issue #20 of Yellow Mama.

I'm more than pleased with all of these, no doubt. Thanks to Mary Stepp, Frank Hinton and Cindy for including me.

The Funny Dinner.

Had an interesting dinner with some awesome folks recently. Some funny things I heard during this most awesome dinner:

"My tongue...there's breath on my tongue."

"I always check for raccoons in my backseat when I get in my car. Like it's a serial raccoon or something and hiding in the back seat."

"Oh, you've been married three times. That's nice, that's nice. Hey, who are we to say anything about your hobbies?"

These folks rock. Simple as that.