The End Is Near

Heidi Klum and Seal have decided to divorce. What can this possibly mean, what with their annual renewal of vows and constant talk of a super hot sex life? It can mean that showing the flag means the ship is in danger of sinking. Like the Titanic or that new Italian cruise ship. Like a punctured water wing. I know. I've showed the flag. Once. My early brief marriage was failing, failing, failing. It was once upon a time, many years ago. We didn't have four children, multiple houses, or extravagant Halloween parties. Okay, we did have Halloween parties in July in our two room apartment with decorations that I couldn't really afford from Michael's. I mean, I overspent to the tune of about twenty two dollars. This was in the 90s when twenty two dollars really meant something. But I digress. We, my ex-husband and I, were on the brink of splitsville. So I put a picture of us posed at a party on my desk at work. We looked good, perfect in fact. We smiled, all dressed in our party clothes. Dear gentle reader, I was wearing pearls. God help us all.

So the picture in a cheap frame from Pier One sat in view of all. My soon to be major ex-boyfriend (then only the wacky guy who had an office across from mine) put a post-it note on the picture that read "Quit flaunting your happy little love affair. It depresses the rest of us." This made me laugh so I kept the post-it note on the picture. It covered up our faces and made me feel oddly sane. My friend Hank grunted when he saw the picture and said, "The end is near." Hank, that motherfucker, could see some shit like an ancient Greek oracle. He was legally blind which makes the above sentence all the more strange and true. By the summer, his prediction had come to pass, and the picture went into the drawer along with the post-it note, a modern art statement. Hank always said when someone was really adamant about something, "Who are you trying to convince?" which is something I always consider. Unlike many internet commenters who act as if the Heidi/Seal break-up is shocking, I don't think so. Most people barely survive one wedding, much less annual vow renewals. And if you have to keep saying it, well, I channel my favorite Mineral Wells oracle -- who are you trying to convince?

Installation Continues In The Next Room

The new year has begun in earnest. The Mayan calendar suggests this could be it, so I'd better get to work in doing whatever I need to do to as the great Tim Gunn says, to make it work. I just read my dear friend Laura's blog on her new year's resolutions (check it out -- http://laurabenedict.blogspot.com/) and got inspired in terms of thinking about change. Now I've always contended that change is difficult, Paul on the road to Damascus type stuff. The fact that the Bible itself posits change as a miracle gives me pause. Even so, I can say that time itself has changed me. Best changes over the last decade -- less worry, less guilt, better health habits, less concern over what people think about me. The last one is a great liberation. As Ray Drecker said on the great (now cancelled -- WAAH) Hung, "When you're young, you spend all your time worrying about what other people think about you. That's the great thing about getting older. You don't care what other people think about you. Fuck that. It's what you think of yourself that matters."

I used to be so afraid of looking stupid it was hard to actually learn anything. Do you know what I mean? I fooled myself into thinking I knew more than I did, that shallow knowledge was good enough, that if I admitted how little I understood about how certain things worked, I'd look foolish. Waste. Of. Time. Epic waste of time. Death to good writing. Now I start at the beginning. Beginnings are good. And you can begin anywhere. So this year I give myself permission to look stupid. I do it anyway so I might as well enjoy it. And I think I might actually get somewhere.

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Wednesday!

The New Year

My mother took down the Christmas tree every year on December 26th, early in the morning and spent the rest of the day eradicating any sign of the holidays. I've kind of inherited this way of being, but this year, I've been reluctant to let the holidays go. I formed a half-baked theory about this phenomenon which goes something like this -- when I've had a rough year, I get rid of the holiday stuff as soon as possible, start with the calendars and planning and make the Carver line (This time, next year, things will be better) my mantra. When I've had a pretty good year, I'm not as eager to be done with it. So by those signifiers, 2011 was a pretty good year.

I've always kind of hated New Year's Eve, but I didn't this year, another good sign. At the strike of midnight, I took to heart the feng-shui tip of saying something you want to usher in the new year, you know, the generic blessings of good health, money, love, and for us writers, publications! I felt strangely hopeful for someone who published two books about death, rape, incest, and other less cheerful subjects last year. I remembered my first New Year's Eve in Detroit, when I heard the guns going off all around me at the strike of midnight. I didn't know that happened, so it was quite a shock as I spent the night alphabetizing my books in the midst of periodic gunfire. I knew something was happening, but I didn't know what, just like now, but I'm a lot more comfortable with that emotion.

Cocktail Hour
Movie suggestion: The Descendants

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Thursday!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas Eve to you and yours! 2011 has been quite a year, but here we are at the end of it. Hope all my dearest are having a wonderful day and sending lots of love to you all! XO, Michelle

Loading Mercury With A Pitchfork -- A Review Of Young Adult

Young Adult, starring Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt, is the best movie I've seen in some time. Written by the fantastic Diablo Cody, Young Adult follows the ill-conceived plan of Mavis Gary to return to her hometown of Mercury, Minnesota to regain the love of her old high school flame shortly after receiving a birth announcement telegraphing his happy life with his wife and infant daughter. She's a ghost writer of young adult novels, a series about the most popular girl in school, but more importantly, she's a stunted alcoholic that spends her days in a hungover stupor and her nights in a haze. It's hard to make Charlize Theron ugly, but she manages to pull off the morning after many too many with just the right details -- guzzling Diet Coke, ignoring her tiny little dog, watching reality television. The movie makes no judgement on her lifestyle, but presents her as is, a lonely woman on the verge of forty who doesn't play nice with others or herself.

Upon her return to Mercury (she lives in Minneapolis, presented as the big glamorous city), she runs into an old high school acquaintance, Matt, who was the victim of a brutal beating in high school for his perceived homosexuality (he's not gay, hence the dying of interest in this hate crime) and recognizes her soul sickness as a fellow traveler in the margins. He serves as witness to her crash and burn in her pursuit of her old love and provides a soft landing spot for her pain. We see his acerbic kindness as she does -- an antidote to the brutality she inflicts. Unlike Matt, life hasn't forced her to live with her pain so she develops a massive addiction to anesthetize it. We end with Mavis finding no easy answers, no reform, no moment of hope. Instead, she finishes the final book in her series, a voiceover that gives a sense of a new beginning. But Mavis is twenty years out from high school. She's at a crossroads of her professional life, but without the hope of turnaround. But it's not bleak either -- she's been given a view of her past through various lenses (the most affirming to her is Matt's sister who glamorizes Mavis' life much like reality television gives a viewer a glimpse into the stars' "real lives") and allows her to leave feeling good. It's not what we or even she knows of her actual existence, but this pretty mirror gives Mavis the courage to continue, a great insight into the way life is right now -- if it looks good to others, it's fine. We need not worry about the actual in our virtual age. We know ourselves through how we appear to others, through a glass darkly, a dynamic Mavis knows a little too well.

Benedictions and Maledictions
Yes, Heff -- Hung is cancelled and I am weeping! I can't believe it. Why, oh why? (rending hair right now). Enlightened is still here, thank goodness, but why did they take away Ray and Tanya? Sadness. Sigh. Blah.

Hi Everyone -- Back In Black And White!

Hi guys -- I'm having a little trouble with my blog and archiving, permissions and otherwise. Please do not think you, my gentle and lovely readers, are excluded from anything! I'll be back tomorrow with new work. Does anyone have advice for saving old blog posts? I'm trying to condense my copious past to make room for the present . . . please advise!

Happy Birthday Shawn!

Here's me with my dear friend Shawn. Happy birthday Shawn!

Dear readers, sorry to be out of touch lately. Real life has caught up with me and virtual life has suffered. But it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas and more blog posts are on the way! Question of the day? What are your favorite and least favorite Christmas presents?

Some Of Us Are More Alone: A Review of Enlightened

People, myself included, love to say they don't mind being alone. Inevitably these people, myself included, have never really been alone. Of course, they may have been single for a year or alone for a weekend, only a bag of Funyons and reruns of the The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for company. But as Tyler, the work friend of Laura Dern's Amy, the main character of the wonderful new HBO series Enlightened, tells her, Some people are more alone. Enlightened, created by Laura Dern and Mike White, written by the sublime Mr. White, offers us a glimpse into the heart of middle-age, dashed dreams, and cubicle despair.

Reviews of this show have been mixed which I believe can be attributed to the fact that this show feels too real and makes the viewer uncomfortable. There are no laugh tracks or gun fights to relieve us. Amy doesn't deal drugs or work in a bustling emergency room. Instead we start with her returning home from a new-age rehab called Open Air. Determined to put her very public breakdown and her messy affair with her boss behind her, she moves in with her mother (played to perfection by Dern's actual mother, Diane Ladd), she's forced to take a demotion from being a buyer in her large company to computer drone in the basement which she describes as a "warehouse for carnival freaks."

The show's painful earnestness puts us through our paces along with Amy as she remains determined to put her newfound wisdom to use while being challenged on all fronts -- an emotionally shutdown mother who prefers her flowers and dogs to people, her addicted ex-husband (Luke Wilson who also brings a scarily accurate potrayal of Levi, a man who makes no apologies for his use), and her former friends at work who now treat her as a pariah. Amy tries and tries again to make a connection. Bu her old life won't fit the new her. And her attempts to change people around her meet the natural resistance. "Don't try to save me," Levi tells her, his voice laced with warning.

And truth be told, Amy is having a hard emough saving herself. Healing in a beautiful, pressure-free setting is one thing. It's quite another to bring this zen quality into a world with watchful bosses, shopworn relationships, and the pain of ordinary life that is visited upon us all.

Amy's only new relationship is with Tyler, a fellow employee who has been banished to the basement to punch numbers all day. They form an alliance which will be tested by their differing expectations. At the midway point in the season, Tyler attempts to kiss Amy and her rebuff threatens their fragile ecosystem. When Tyler expresses his desire not to be alone, we sense his deep well of aloneness, the kind that can't be explained away by feigning a mutual understanding. (Oh, you lost your leg -- I broke my toe once. I totally get it!) Some people are more alone than others. But despite the gulf of dreams deferred, hopes denied, and endless reams of futility, we still respect the efforts of the characters to evolve, to become something more than they are. When Tyler smiles his tiny, sly smile, we sense he knows a secret. And Mike White knows one too -- the pain of being trapped and the beauty of an actual connection with someone despite all the forces, internal and external, that work against it.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Thanksgiving

Here it is -- finally available on Amazon! Thanks so much for all the love and support for this book. You guys are much of the reason it exists at all. I've been absent from blogging for a bit to get myself together and work on some new projects (more accurately, wrapping up the old ones.) So how do we enter this Thanksgiving season? With Demi and Ashton on the rocks, Natalie Woods' death investigation being reopened, with the Lions looking good for the big day, with gratitude in our hearts, with Christmas looming brightly while internet articles warn of the calorie dangers of holiday coffee drinks. That said, I'm going to try and drink at least two a day just to show the joyless grinches where they can shove it.

Tomorrow -- reviews on Enlightened and Hung. See you then!

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"I don't fuck much with the past, but I fuck plenty with the future." Patti Smith

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Monday!

Make Yourself Small

Hey guys, the time is here! Make Yourself Small is at the printers. I hope this November is finding everyone well and ready for the holidays, if one can be such a thing. I'll be posting more pictures and more commentary soon. Life is getting crazy, what with being in mourning over Kim Kardashian's ill-fated union, the Occupy movement doing its thing, and Herman Cain being accused of more than just thinking Godfather's Pizza is actually good pizza. I've been drowning in a sea of work and black clothes (if I think about how much time in my life I have spent and will spend searching for a black sweater in a pile of black clothes, I could weep -- it's roughly equal to the time it might take someone to write three books), but I remain in good spirits. More soon!

Happy Devil's Night!

Vampire Kiss Martini
Serves 1

Ingredients:
1 part raspberry liqueur, such as Chambord
1 part vodka, such as Absolut
1 part Champagne, such as Korbel
wax teeth, candy corn, licorice, and/or blood orange slice, for garnish

Directions:
1. Layer raspberry liqueur, vodka, and Champagne in a fluted or martini glass.

2. Garnish with wax teeth, candy corn, licorice, and/or blood orange slice.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
Hold on, man. We don't go anywhere with "scary," "spooky," "haunted," or "forbidden" in the title. ~From Scooby-Doo

Four More Days Till Halloween

Hi everyone -- I'm back! Been taking a little time for a cyber detox from the blog, but thanks so much for all the good feedback on the story trailer. My wonderful editor Ginger reads in this trailer. My voice is so awful -- I'd never dare! Now that we're in the high holy of the Halloween season, I pose the question to all -- what are you going to be for the sacred day? I've always loved this holiday given that the stresses are minimal and optional -- buy candy, wear an outfit. Hell, that's every single day except amped up a bit. I've been all sorts of things for this day -- a mermaid, Snow White, a witch, a devil, St. Lucy. I have a stewardess costume from this year, probably inspired by the retro charm of shows like Mad Men and Pan Am. I like to think we all contain multitudes and this is the day which we can all explore those options if we want. I'll be back tomorrow with some Halloween recipes straight from the only cookbook I own (besides Cooking With Dr. Pepper) which is an Avon holiday cookbook, a gift from my mother many years ago. Hope your October is going well!

Three Days Standard Bereavement

Three Days Standard

Storylandia 4 is now on sale!  My story, "Three Days Standard" is in this issue.  Hope you guys are having a great Thursday.

www.storylandia.wapshottpress.com/2011/10/01/storylandia-4-now-on-sale/

Zombie Apocolypse

For this Tuesday, I start the Halloween month, most sacred of times, with a drink recipe for the infamous Zombie. The last time I had this wicked concotion, I had two and a pounding headache which has kept me from drinking them again. Still, I have the memories (of a kind) of this delicious libation.

1 oz light rum
1/2 oz creme de almond
1 1/2 oz sweet and sour mix
1/2 oz triple sec
1 1/2 oz orange juice
1/2 oz 151 proof rum

Shake all ingredients (except 151 proof rum) with ice and strain into a collins glass over ice cubes. Float the 151 proof rum on top, add a cherry (if desired), and serve.

19% (38 proof)
Serve in: Collins Glass

Make My Darkness Bright: Reviews of Dexter and Hung

Hi everyone! Sorry for the long absence -- real life (or what passes for it) caught up with me in a major way. I'll be posting regularly from here on out (fingers crossed!).

Two reviews today:

Dexter returns with our favorite serial killer, Dexter Morgan, recharged and ready for action. The last couple of seasons, Dexter has been through hell -- no surprise that this season has his examining issues of faith. Taking his preschool-age son Harrison to a Catholic school, he freaks out at the gore of the crucifix, thinking it might be too much for a child's sensibilities. He describes his own belief system as a code of things to do to keep himself out of trouble to which his sister replies, That sounds like training a puppy. Angel, Dexter's colleague who suggested the school to him, tells him that kids need to understand about "those kinds of things," meaning theology, sacrifice, and faith. After Angel's rambling answer to Dexter's question about how we know there's a God, Dexter replies, "Thanks Angel. That really clears things up." Great season opener. Dexter lives by a code, but will he start to see his morally ambiguous position as a force for the greater good instead of a personal monster, an inner darkness? The ads use Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" as background. I think it's a good guess that Dexter will explore his own place in the universal order.

Hung, in a opening episode titled "Don't Give Up On Detroit, Or Hung Like A Horse" begins with Ray and Tonya in a new center for women named Orgasmic Living. Both of their financial situations are bleak in backstory -- Tonya is working at Bigby's Coffee and Ray is substitute teaching a couple of days a week. One bank loan and a new idea later, they are teaching women to umm, enjoy themselves, and let's just say Ray's practicum portion of the seminary seals the deal. They're in the money at the end, but with the threat of Lenore's newfound boytoy at the end, will their joy be short-lived? Higher stakes this season give the series an added pop. Who will give in or just give up? Like Charlie the pimp said last season, Mind bullets -- bang, bang, bang!

Great quotes --
"You only have to kill one time to be a killer, baby." Lenore to Jason after he agrees to take money for sex, but just this one time

"I've been looking for you for a long time, like they do for the Dali Lami in Tibet." Lenore to Jason after seeing "the goods"

"The big guy hit the ground. Time for the runner up hottie." Vince M. after his intern faints after seeing black snakes come out of the stomach of a murder victim

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Monday!

Goodbye Pine Valley

Today is the last day of All My Children which saddens me greatly. I remember watching All My Children as a child with my great grandmother, my dad, and my sister on his lunch break. Sadly, I will never work at Pine Valley University or marry Jackson, live in Hell's Kitchen with Jessie and Angie, or get my hair done by Opal at the Glamorama. Goodbye to my only soap opera; you will remain in my happy memories!