There’s a new issue of New York Tyrant coming out and I have a story in it, “Boy”. Here’s now it starts–

He’d found something blue to use as a voice, and soon the entire sky was implicated by him: there were no edges to its or his accumulation. For a time in the presence of what I took to be his mood, I was confused—uncertain what was or wasn’t an aspect of his identity, I thought everything was or wasn’t, a back-and-forth of consecration and profanation that included in their extent the realm of all things and all people, living and dead. And so at both ends of my existence I butted up against him, and unable to live or die I became a thing that only slowly, after much time, is no longer associated with any idea. As an artifact of a time in which I had lived, I did not live, I persisted—if form were given to the shape I made, that form would coincide precisely with Earth’s revolutions, and from a space dislocated from ideas I would appear no different from any mystery caught in the pull of another mystery’s gravity.

Here you can preorder the issue.

It was just summer–now there’s a hurricane to wait for. After that, I go back to class. I’ll be teaching fiction to seniors. When I was a senior, I only wanted real people to come through my door. I took calculus and physics. I took off my glasses so I could draw better blurs. I wonder whether these seniors will be more comfortable with invisibilities. I might test whether taking off my glasses before I go into the classroom will help me be less nervous when I start to speak.

A few nights ago I dreamed I was reading something wonderful. The only words I could remember when I woke up were “droughty Antibes.”

This summer I have read: Rilke, Gass, Woolf, Proust. And The Dreaming Girl by Roberta Allen.

And two stories have been published: “Girl” in The Brooklyn Rail and “I Carried My Coma” on Sidebrow’s site.

I’ll be reading on Monday with Mairead Byrne, Noah Gershman, Rachel Glaser, and Kate Schapira at 186 Carpenter St. (on the west side of Providence — the cross-street is Battey).

Things will start around 8pm. I don’t know when they’ll end.

We found a spring on an island, and we drank from it–a mug was hanging from a branch nearby. There were baby salamanders in the water, and the sand on the bottom was bubbling. This was after a foggy night spent beside a lighthouse, and a foghorn, and waves. It was nice to find that this trapdoor led to water even after having slept beside so much of it.

It was also reassuring to see that there’s a ground beneath the ground, and between the grounds, there’s space. (Reassuring like when you drop an egg, and it breaks.) I’d like to keep moving through the ground, occupying different spaces along the way. If I moved in more than one direction at once, that would be fine–then I wouldn’t have to make up my mind.

I’m back from the silent retreat, but I’m still not really back to blogging. I just don’t want to do it, yet I want to tell you about the retreat, and the chickens that were waiting for me when I got home.

We have three hens now. I named them Carol, Steve, and Franz, after my meditation instructors. Now I am eating more eggs than I was before the retreat–at least one a day. Eggs are nice, silent vessels; if it could be arranged that I could sometimes hang out inside an egg, once a week, working up to every-other day, I would probably do it.

What else is it important to tell you? That the retreat was in Barre, MA. It lasted ten days. It was at the Insight Meditation Society, which teaches Vipassana meditation, which, if you’re interested in what that is, you can find out a little more on IMS’s website, here.

I don’t know how much I’ll be back to this blog in the next few months. Classes will end soon, and then there will be gardens to tend and different cities to visit (New York, Minneapolis, Eugene, Ithaca). But I’m sure there will be things I want to brag about between now and when classes start again. Like for instance if I start eating two, maybe even three egggs a day–I will want to tell you about those sorts of things. And if I start spelling “eggs” with as many gs as eggs I’ve eaten that day. Yes, I can tell already, there will be lots of reasons to continue blogging.

I’ve got a story up today at Everyday Genius. Thanks to Adam Robinson!

Do you get nostalgic for something you didn’t really like at the time? I feel that way about my grandma’s ham.

You had a chocolate cupcake in your hand and I had an English muffin and we did a handshake to compact the muffin + cake. We kept shaking and made a dough ball we shared until it got wet because you threw it into a swimming pool context where it became a beach ball. For the next week I’m going to pay attention to my body’s actual weight, how it sags between two trees like a cloth cloud bank. “No big-time bling, only ambition and raw nerve, denim shorts and chili dogs.” Through April 2.

I’ll be reading at Abe’s with the Cousins this Sunday. Joanna Howard, Kate Colby, and Joseph Riipi will also read.

I’ve heard that Abe’s has Goya ginger beer, so there’s also that to look forward to.

Also, I guess I’m balding.

Issue 3 of DEWCLAW has been published. Here it is!

This issue makes the most powerful sounds.

Somebody who is not me posted this while I dreamed of a cliff that tore away from its mountain and went to Stop & Shop on the bus.

This morning I was contacted on behalf of the prince of a small island whose mother died of a brain worm the length of the island’s circumference. It has become part of the island’s myth that the brain worm was a physical manifestation of her worries about the island–that her mind was constantly going over and over the state and affairs of the island, worrying her to death. And so the worm has been stretched around the island, protecting it. Until this morning, when that image surfaced, upsetting “the beleaguered prince”, as his spokesperson described him.

So, sweet prince, I am sorry. It seems my dream of a cliff became an agent in your frustration. Tonight I will not dream; I will vigilantly guard my identity as you do your island.