Check It Out!

I love acceptance letters. I love the trilling "ca-CHING" promise they make. I love the way they continue to do that months later. You're ready to smash that noise with a sledgehammer by publication (if and when that ever happens). For some reason known only to those in the publishing biz, payment to authors is on publication, NOT on acceptance. Cute, huh? But today in my snail mail I got the shortest and most spectacular acceptance note ever:

A check for five American dollars. It was only a check. No note, no explanation, nothing. From Atomjack virtual magazine.

Wow! Wait...did I submit anything to Atomjack? And if so, WHAT! I had to go scrambling into my records to see what went to Atomjack.
Aha! It was a 3,000+ word science fiction story partially based on my dog Pony called Big Wet Nose. Oddly enough, the first poem I sold was also inspired by Pony (which has yet to be published).

Right. No more links. Go read it. Meanwhile, I'm gonna yell "ca-CHING!"

Be Still My Beating Heart

Well, someone somewhere seems to be determined to halt my blogpost on the history of the Jews (although I'm all for Jews -- heck, Rena is a Jewish name! Imagine my mother's suprise when she and I found out when I was 15!) because I SOLD A SHORT STORY yesterday! My legs literally went numb when I read the email. I could barely lumber down the stairs, screaming for Mom to read what was on the computer screen. She thought it was all quite funny. Although I rocked, I didn't rock out too much.

"How Does Your Garden Grow" was sold to newWitch for an upcoming (but not the next) issue for about $15. newWitch is a quarterly, so who knows when this'll come out. What's especially sweet is that the first draft was written in my late-lamented bender in England. Bits of the second draft survived the fire and I just worked on it from there.

So, I'm still recovering. And I've now forgotten the gist of the Jewish History post I was going to do! (And the blogosphere breathes a sigh of relief...) I should charge people to have me NOT write blogposts! Oh, no, wait -- that's the Mafia, isn't it? Oh well, another great idea shelved...

FOUR!

Well, I was going to do a report on my Jewish history studies, which might have required footnotes, but I've bagged it to report that I've sold a fourth poem! All hail, GlassFire, which has taken a chance on me. The poem is entitled (wait for it) "The Reason Why I Was Mad At You, But Didn't Admit It, So I Babbled Like An Indiot Instead". I wrote it when I was attending Delaware County Community College in the late 1980's. I had this intensely weird platonic relationship with a guy named Neal (not his real first name). I wrote this poem while in the throes of being bent under a massive crush for him, which went unrequited. My Mom somehow saved a copy of this poem in her basement when I took off for England (to pursue yet another crush...which unfortunately was NOT platonic). I haven't really changed it much and sent it off. GlassFire was the first place I sent it, for no particular reason.

I endured a lot of arguing and hopelessness with Neal. Now I'm getting paid $5 for documenting it. I guess it was worth it.

Obligatory Blarney

It's St Paddy's Day and I'm exhausted from SHOVELING SNOW. For those of you not familiar with March weather in the Philly area, this is the equivelent of having fish rain from the sky.

That's the main reason I'm exhausted. The other reason is that I was up until 5 in the morning concieving, performing and getting results on a spell. (Yes -- I do spells. The odd thing is I can never remember to use spell check.) I'm not going into any details so as not to offend the Christian readers, but it was a communication to my dream Peter Gabriel to help me remember a forgotten poem. (Can you say that three times fast?) I couldn't get to sleep after the spell, and thought I'd look through a notebook I looked through a hundred times before looking for this damn poem. If you guessed that I found it, pat yourself on the back. But not only did I find the poem, but about twenty others I lost in 1997.

Oooo. Ahhhh. Well, I was impressed.

So no one has to wait for sleep to talk to Peter Gabriel, here's another "based-on-PG" personality you can email: The Adventures of Mini Peter.

The Score So Far

Well, I thought I'd do something special for the first anniversary of this blog, but I've been felled by a virus for the last week, so just being conscious seems a celebration in and of itself. So, I've posted a picture of a hamster's butt for your enjoyment.

So, what are the numbers? Well, we have:
* about 132 posts
* an average of four links per post
* an average of one coherent thought per post and about thrity incoherent ones
* an average of zero comments per post (I must not be pissing enough of you off)
* about half of the posts have an image due to screw up in a security program. I keep meaning to go back and add images to all of the naked posts, but, quite frankly, I have better things to do.
* at least a dozen posts that actually comment on what is going on in my spritual life
* at least fifty-seven references to Peter Gabriel (one day I'll get around to fixing the links to those PG videos that were yanked by YouTube. Damn you, YouTube!)
ANYWAY, thanks for reading, even if this is the only post you ever read of this blog. Se ya same blog time, same blog channel.

Moon Power

Not exactly as groovy flower power or as dangerous as nuclear power, but "Moon Power" is the title of my latest poem to sell. Whoo Whoo! I can't print the poem here, as that would blow the contract with the magnificent, the munificent Scifaikuest, which publishes

Scifaikuest publishes original scifaiku, haibun, senryu, tanka, and horrorku, and articles about these forms.

"Moon Power is a multi-haiku...or multi-ku...or ku-kus (not to be confused with couscous...I'm not sure what it's called. ANYWAY, what makes this especially gratifying is that I wrote the first draft of this poem when I was


(get ready for it)


twelve.


That was back in the year 1983. You do the damn math. Every five or ten years, I'd take it out and fiddle with it. Now, it's finally going to be out there about February 2008, when I will be a hell of a lot older than twelve.

I love the moon. There is a definate compassionate pair of eyes there looking down on us. There can never be enough songs about the moon. I'm glad she approves of this one enough to get me a buck or two. I can't live without my spirituality, but I also need to feed my dog. Hopefully, one day I can combine the two.

I Couldn't Resist

No offence to any Catholics out there, ESPECIALLY my Mom, but I saw this on Post Secret and just had to steal the bandwidth. Hell, you're Christians. Forgive me.

I've had a time of it. Although I'm not into believeing in the Be All And End All of Jesus, I do believe in Yin and Yang. When good things happen, bad tend tend to follow to balance out the living experience. I had a really good day yesterday. I slept too much, ate too much, and finally finished the first draft of my 19,000 word killing off the human race novella, tentativelt titled Rainbow's End. It was one of the most intense days of my life. I felt happy, at peace, totally connected with the universe and my place in it...as well as slightly nauseaous from eating half a hoagie and a cheeseburger on the same day.

Today, I tried to download a message Peter Gabriel stuck up on his official, Mac-infested website with my measely Gateway Windows XP Real Player. Oh for shame. Not only can Real Player NOT play it -- hell, they can't even RECOGNIZE it -- the damn video wiped out three quarters of my music library. Thank God/dess for backup files, or I'd be even more pissed off than I am now.

Not that Peter's going to be upset by this. He ever hears about one of his rabid fans not being able to access his site and he'd laugh his lovely ass off. Ah, now that's something I'm not giving up!