What I One-Clicked Today

Three books, one-click.

Pasha Malla's The Withdrawal Method, which just won Canada's DANUTA GLEED Literary Award for best first collection of short fiction, and may I mention how adorable and funny Pasha Malla is? He scored $10,000 for this one, drinks on Pasha!

Also one-clicked Dennis Lehane's Gone Baby Gone for particular inspiration, and Jhumpa Lahiri's collection Unaccustomed Earth, whose stories, I hear, are so good they make you slit your wrists and gouge out your eyes.

As always, I encourage supporting independent bookstores (but Amazon is so fucking cheap, whaddareya gonna do?)

Giant Gobsmacking American Idol WTF???

Adam Lambert, American Idol first runner-up? Wha? There's never been a more talented contestant than Adam Lambert, and gimme a boy with eyeliner, nail polish and glitter any day. I think Kris Allen is adorable, or, as the French say, adorable, and talented, yada yada, but Lambert is in a league of his own.

Eh, he's already a supah star and will be just fine. But knock me ovah with a puff of smoke, yo.

Speaking of Hummingbirds

Hummingbird Skeleton

I'm super fascinated by the hummingbirds drawn to the feeder at my window. Boss Man is wearing himself out keeping other birds away, but they do get in to sneak a few sucks. Apparently, a dominant territorial man-bird will allow a female at his feeder after he's mated with her.

Girl gotta put out to get fed.

Look at the hummingbird's skeleton. Its forked tongue does a long wrap-around the skull and attaches to its forehead. Look at those wing bones, like filigree, and that way-cool neck, like beads. Wow. That little coccyx. I love this creature.

American Idol Redux

Definitely, the best season ever. Danny Gokey got eliminated last night, but his version of "You Are So Beautiful" made me cry and still haunts me. Kris Allen sang "Heartless" on Tuesday night, and it's one of my favorite Idol performance ever. Kris killed.

And then there's Adam Lambert, all talent and glam angelic goth. They're all shining super stars.

And hey, didn't Jordin Sparks look hot in all her voluptuousness? You go, girl.

And while I'm on the TV subject, this year's Celebrity Apprentice was pure entertainment, despite the nepotistic, ever more weirdly-coiffed pompous and bloviating Donald Trump. I was glad Joan Rivers won, let's hear it for old people! We'll all be there someday (if we're lucky).

Territories

We have tons of hummingbirds nesting in the pines and silk trees outside my bedroom, so I hied myself to OSH and bought a hummingbird feeder and boiled up some syrup (1 C. sugar in 1 C. water, my mother's tried and true bird recipe) and waited. What I didn't know about hummingbirds is that they're fiercely territorial, but all I had to do was watch to observe it.

If any other hummers come buzzing by to poke into the sugar, one fierce Ruby Throated tsk-tsking fellow who's roundly claimed this feeder as HIS comes darting out of the pine (also his) to bombard the intruder. He will not allow any other bird to partake of the ample supply I've put out for them.

I get it though. I so get it. When my son decided to start cooking I had a hard time letting him into my territory. I get a bit too enraged hunting down the pots and pans that have their own territories the past 30 years that I've lived here. Emptying the dishwasher is another issue, chez moi. I have the matching Oneida Michelangelo silverware, and the stuff I ripped off from the Blue Cross employees' cafeteria (industrial silverware that will outlast the sun) when I was a student nurse supporting myself as a claims examiner part-time. THEY GO IN SEPARATE DRAWERS. At least, they do when I put the dishes away, and being that emptying the dishwasher is one of my least favorite chores . . .

The BF moved in 4 years ago, and there's this thing called "compromise" that's been a little tough for me. You don't wash towels with sheets, for instance, or underwear. YOU WASH THE FUCKING TOWELS WITH TOWELS. So he washes HIS towels with whatever he wants. Compromise. We all do our own laundry.

Meanwhile, this bird's gonna drive himself nuts, and I'm trying to have that mean something to me. It's constant, the shooing away of the invaders. It's gotta be exhausting. I'm getting exhausted just watching him.

One stealthy little bugger just logged a quick suck at the feeder that the boss-man didn't catch. Methinks it must've tasted even sweeter.

Wigleaf Top 50!

The Wigleaf Top 50

(very) short fictions 2009.

Night Train 9.1

Is out NOW! Night Train 9.1
Good shit, yo, pull yourself a beer or a cuppa joe and settle in.