Month: March 2023

  • Research and Submission Day

    I am limited on what I can do today. Between chores, and school obligations, and watching the kid, and having to go to bed early, as I have an early morning tomorrow, I don’t have a large resource of time to work with. That is why I am looking up online journals, and submitting stories to them.

    I mean, I also want to get a blog in, clearly.

    But I do like the rabbit-hole game you can play online with writers, and discovering magazines they have written for. I have subscribed to several online lit journals, which means I get a couple emails a day for new works that have been published. I discover new writers this way, and in their bio’s, usually, is a list of other places they have been published. I select a publication I haven’t heard of before, read a story on their site, which will lead me to that author’s bio. And the game starts all over again. It can eat up a good chunk of your day if you are not careful. I set a time limit for myself.

    I will digress for a second, as I would like to say a word about writer’s bio’s. As a theatre guy who has written thousands of bio’s for myself, it was drilled into me that this was the one shot you have to sell yourself to the audience and, potentially, your next job. It is very difficult to sum up your career in 50 to 100 words, but those of you who use this space to share your sense of humor; you are my heroes. Shine on you crazy diamonds!

    Outside of someone publishing me, the thought that I subscribe to is that I need to get 100 no’s before I get my first yes. Right now, I am at “no” #36 for the year. I got some work ahead of me.

  • Hot Water – A Rant (Unedited)

    Nothing ruins my day easier and faster than not having hot water. I live in an old building; a generic NYC tenement styled walk-up. I’m not fooling myself here, I know that the hot water is destined to give out frequently, as the boiler was installed during the Coolidge administration. Still…

    I grew up in the suburbs outside of Dallas, in a newly built ranch styled home. The water heater we had lasted about fifteen years. It gave out at the most inopportune time when we had family visiting, but it was quickly and as my father liked to remind all of us, expensively replaced. It’s still going strong, again, my father likes to point this out as well.

    All the other places that I lived, in and out of college, and I lived in some pretty rundown places, always had hot water. Once or twice, I think, it went out, but it was such a rarity. And when it happened, it think it was due to repairs being done on the system.

    And then there is New York City. Everybody has hot water and heating issues. I got a friend in the Meatpacking District, real swanky place – he has water issues. New construction, old construction, pre-war, modern; it doesn’t matter – everybody has this problem. How is it that all the heater and boilers around the entire country work, but when you cross into New York City, they all go on the blink. Is there a curse, or is it all run by the Mob?

  • Things Have Changed

    I submitted a flash fiction story to a bunch of magazines on Friday. I do this from time to time. I get impatient with actually crafting something, and get it into my head that I should send something out to as many publications as possible. And then wait.

    I do like emailing out my work. I think it is easier for all parties. Quicker responses, easier to read, no piles of paper. I never liked the old system.

    Back in college, I mailed out so many manila envelopes with self-addressed stamped envelopes included. The people at the local post office got to know me pretty well, and I would need to get the query packages weighted to be mailed each time. I stood in a lot of lines. And then the waiting, and checking the mail. I really hated that. Not only did it cost me money, but there were some submissions that I never got a response from.

    At least now, I always get a response.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Nearly Perfect Bracket, Talkin’ Football, and Kids n’ St. Patrick

    (We are sports heavy this week…)

    I wrote the other day about how my bracket predictions are pretty much shit as they are all guesses and I pick way too many underdogs. Well, yesterday, I called every game, save one. I got Furman v. Virginia wrong. And I blame Princeton for it. That’s right. I had selected Princeton over Arizona, as I have a weakness for the Ivy-League schools. So, because of that pick, I told myself I needed to be a bit realistic with the rest of my selections. Hence why I took Virginia. Besides Princeton, the rest of my underdog picks really weren’t that impressive; Auburn, and Penn State. This is why you should go with your gut. As of this moment, my bracket is ranked 659 out of 14million. I know that will change by the end of today. But right now, in this moment, I am nearly perfect.

    I have a Tottenham Hotspur scarf that I put on when it is cold out. To most people it just looks like a white and navy scarf, but yesterday a guy stopped me, asking if I was a Tottenham fan. I talked to someone on the street about football. Mainly the Champions League, as the guy’s club was Barcelona, but still. This is the first time I have actually talked football with someone when the World Cup wasn’t going on. It made me feel like my fandom was validated.

    Today is St. Patrick’s Day. All week, leading up to this, the kid couldn’t have given two shits about it. In fact, she asked me lots of questions of why the day is celebrated, and if it’s really only a grown-up holiday. I tried to give her a little history lesson on all the Irish who immigrated to this country, and how they have influenced and made our country a better place. You know, because immigrants do make our country better. She got it, but still didn’t think St. Patrick’s Day was that big of a deal. And then this morning, she was all about putting on green, and finding leprechauns, and pots o’ gold. I think this proves, that for kids, you never let a holiday go to waste.

  • Brackets: Go with a #11 Team

    The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament starts today, and this will be the only time this year when I will care about college basketball. I have nothing against the sport of basketball. You could say that basketball is my family’s sport, being that we all played it growing up. My brother is a basketball coach and so is his son, and when the whole family gets together, we end up talking basketball; pro, college, high school.

    What I do enjoy is the drama of competition. I like watching underdogs, on a big huge national stage, upsetting powerhouse teams. There is something so completely satisfying and life affirming in watching a team made up of players that have been dismissed and underestimated, dig deep and do something no one thought was possible. It gives you hope, you know.

    And that is also why I am so utterly awful at making a bracket for the tournament. I’ve done three this year, each with a different champion; Arizona, Kansas, and Gonzaga. I’m not stupid, I know one of the Big Teams will win the tournament. But if you look at my predictions, I have an overwhelming preference for lower seeded teams. I’m picking Colgate over Texas. Why? Because I want to see that small school slay a giant. Because I want to see that Colgate team celebrate on the court like they just won the whole thing! That belief, hard work, and luck can converge and something amazing can happen.

    And for that reason, my brackets always sucked. I used to make a bracket at every office I worked at, and there always some guy who took the whole thing way too seriously, and would make fun of my completely bonker predictions. But every so often I’d get a pick like VCU or Loyola Chicago right. And that feeling of proving that guy wrong and watching his bracket explode in his face; it was like Christmas morning and my birthday wrapped in one!