Unsupervised.

I am home alone, and, having completed my nightly Wii "workout" (which somehow partly consists of joggling my hips slightly while doing maddening math problems), and having let the dog out the correct number of times to prevent feces from appearing on my floor, I have decided to undo all my joggling/jiggling with some whiskey, and a list:

RECOMMENDED COMIC BOOK/DRINK PAIRINGS

A quick caveat: I have recently started collecting comic books again. I have many fond boyhood memories of riding my mountain bike with friends, traversing miles and miles of rugged Pennsylvania terrain and economic blight to spend our $10 allowances in the comic book shop across from the steel mill downtown-- weird place for a comic shop, yeah? Except that I guess virtually everything was across from a steel mill, or an abandoned steel mill, or an empty lot where there once was an abandoned steel mill-- only to face the task of carrying our purchases without incident that same (suddenly terrible) distance home. I don't know why we didn't take backpacks. Were we stupid? We were stupid. There was about an inch of superfluous paper bag on your parcel available for gripping, and you typically curled this around your handlebar and held on as best you could, attempting to keep the comics as stable as possible while peddling home-- uphill! How did we not acknowledge the return trip was virtually all uphill?-- while taking as few risks as you were able. Because you don't bend comics. $10 doesn't grow on trees, and comics are AN INVESTMENT, as I like to tell people. If you hit a curb weird or got a little too ballsy coming down a steep hill and felt you were going to take a spill, you put your body between your comics and the road, and you tweezered the gravel out of your knees later.

I stopped collecting for a long time. Not sure why. Money I guess. And time. But since the Marvel re-launch I've been checking stuff out and dragging my old boxes out from storage and have compiled this painfully abbreviated and utterly anticlimactic list of RECOMMENDED COMIC BOOK/DRINK PAIRINGS:

X-Factor #1 (1986) / Miller Lite -- Because your X-Factor #1 is not worth as much as you vaguely hoped it might be-- and because it's also sort of bent somehow-- you need a beer that's plain and doesn't raise your expectations, yet still offers a bit of enjoyment if you can just get over the fact that your X-Factor #1 is somehow bent but whatever.

Amazing Spider-Man #66 (1963) / Alasia Moscato d'Asti -- Because this comic is in great shape, and while it's not like a key issue or anything, you're happy with the shape it's in. And Alasia is like champagne basically. For celebrating. Also, Mysterio seems like he would drink champagne to me, this is like a double-dipper.

Tales of Suspense #47 (1963) / Whiskey -- Because this comic is worth like a couple hundred bucks if somebody's dog hadn't chewed on it. Whatever.

END BLOG. I'm tired. And drunk!

Let's Force Caleb J. Ross To Read Harry Potter.

Now this is how you raise money-- by agreeing to do unpleasant things.

Caleb is raising money for the March of Dimes, and he's doing it by enrolling in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry a page at a time. For every $2 he receives in donations, he will read one page from the first book in the series, and record his thoughts, which are likely to vacillate between ennui and hysterical disgust. Why does Caleb hate wizards so much? Was his family attacked by an evil wizard when he was a young child? Or is he just over-compensating for being a Muggle?

From Caleb, on his literary self-flagellation for charity:

"Most years I just beg people for money, but this year I figured I would merge the fundraising efforts with my nerdy video-making hobby and my nerdy reading hobby. I've come up with the Force-Caleb-To-Read-Harry-Potter-A-Thon. Basically, the idea is that so many people say Harry Potter is such a great series (one I've never intended on reading, and have no desire to read, by the way) that I'm trying to leverage that passion for the sake of raising money for the March of Dimes.

For every 2 dollars I receive in donations, I will read 1 page of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone. At the end of each week, I will tally the donations, read the appropriate number of pages, and then record a video where I will offer my thoughts on the book so far.

I've made a video outlining the entire project HERE.

To donate, simply go to http://cjrlit.com/potterbaby, all lowercase. Any amount of money helps.

The deadline for donations is APRIL 28th!"

This is for a good cause, people. And it will be funny. Give if you can.

As of this post, unless I am mistaken, it appears $386 have already been raised. That means Caleb will be left dangling at the climax of the book-- don't let this happen.

And a final note to Caleb, should he happen upon this entry-- I've read the first two books in the series. I didn't hate them, but I wish someone would've paid me $2 a page.

Revisiting Favorites-- Bone Hotel by Yarrow Paisley.

Did I ever post this? It's one of my favorites I keep coming back to. Other than being haunting and capturing the summary liquid horror of a nightmare-- the logic of which we are appalled to find somehow recognizable-- I feel this story is extraordinarily efficient. Read, enjoy: Bone Hotel by Yarrow Paisley.

Exit Series to Appear In Hobart.

Very happy to announce my Exit series will be appearing in Hobart on the web in March. More than happy really; besides being full of amazing fiction and poetry, Hobart is in my opinion one of the more physically attractive web journals out there. A real looker. If Hobart were a person, it would be Gina Carano-- beautiful, block-jawed and possessing inalienable control of its space. I digress. Just check it out. Peter Berghoef has a great poem over there called "With Dogs in My Heart."

www.hobartpulp.com

Pear Noir! #9 -- only a few left!

Only a few copies left of Pear Noir! #9! Exclamation point! Order Pear Noir! #9 now!

Pear Noir! #9

I am pleased to have my short "Holistic Memoir, ToC" appear in the upcoming Winter 2013 issue of Pear Noir!, now available for pre-order. Issues are limited so snap one up while you can:

www.pearnoir.com

Passive Aggressive.

There's nothing quite like the moment when that obnoxious person in your office finally, at 2:30 or so, emerges from the cloud of her hangover and begins once again to narrate her entire waking consciousness in slipstream fashion, not allowing incidental pauses in cognitive activity to quell the never-ending stream of words. I know we're all in this together, and I know we have to live in harmony, and accept one another's faults and idiosyncrasies, but damned if I don't find my empathy tank completely drained by thoughtlessness and trivial annoyances perpetrated AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN. It's the complete lack of awareness that drives me up a wall. I'm actually blogging about this. My God how lame. How did we get here? Anyway, my iPod is handy, so I'm listening to Wolf Parade. But I resent being driven into my shell. So, how's your day? I just read The Gunslinger. I've been under the weather for a few weeks and wanted a comfort book. It was a spare read. Engaging, but a little plain-- everyone assures me it blooms into this incredible, epic tale, and I'm willing to take the journey. But I found the first installment to be a little like shadowboxing. We'll see where it goes.