Today I had lunch by the pit. It’s going to be a park but isn’t yet. I’ve eaten there once before because it’s on my route from home to work, and sometimes I want to eat before I get anywhere. I sit on a large concrete block with my back to the road, facing brambles and trees. Some of the trees have ribbons tied to their branches, whatever that means. Today I was staring at the tree that’s easiest to see because it’s in the foreground of a denser tangle. I was looking at the tree but I guess really looking past it, into the tangle. Then I very slowly began to notice fruit in the branches of the tree. I saw it before I thought it, and it was like my eyes were creating the fruit for my brain to see. It was very slow and melodic seeing, like being woken up by a song. I picked some of the fruit and finished getting to work.

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There’s going to be a death match in Seattle on November 11, and Stacey Levine will be representing Dewclaw. I’m really excited because nobody’s going to die because Stacey Levine is going to win.

I made a cake for Adam’s birthday.

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Issue 1 of Dewclaw is on sale. We need to make room for issue 2. Buy an issue for $5, which includes shipping.

There’s a new issue of the Denver Quarterly–I’ve got something inside of it. There’s also Kate Greenstreet, whose new book (The Last 4 Things) just came out. This video is amazing–The Giant–it comes on a DVD with the book.

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I went to Minnesota last week and passed out in the hospital. It’s the second time I’ve fainted; the first time was in a different wing of the same hospital. The first time, my mom was there for surgery. A nurse told me I could be with her as they gave her general anesthesia. They started connecting her to life-monitoring machines and I began to lose my hearing, then my eyesight, then–somebody was helping me up. The second time, I was looking at all the tubes going into and coming out of my grandma when I fainted. It seemed to happen slowly and I had time to get to a chair.

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Tonight I’m going to a party in what was once a church. I haven’t been to a party in a while; I can’t remember the last time I was in a church.

but I feel like being quiet.

Some hives in progress–

These photos are from “The New Scent,” a project by Jason Evans.

It’s ready, it’s done! I’ve been really excited for this to happen.

Read the second issue of Birkensnake online or as a PDF.

If you don’t already know, it’s worth buying Birkensnake for the cover alone. Only $4. You can make this happen here.

Here are first sentences from the issue:

For little girls with dirty hems and boys who scratch their knees, there is the ever-small door of the children’s factory. (Michael Stewart)

Was it shock, then, or fear, or else a naïve sense of civic duty that provoked Margaret to join the Queen’s court at Oxford? (Danielle Dutton)

In the cold summers, as the dirt rose, I’d have each child stand before me in the yard. (Blake Butler)

I clotted. (Rhoads Stevens)

I was made of string. (Matt Briggs)

I once dated a woman who kept her brother in a cage. (Christopher Boucher)

These days I’m a fucking garbageman. (Caren Gussoff)

From 144D all the way to 336G, past the 321, 322, 323, 324 all-aisle enclave whispering to a forebear each from behind, Julian kept straight and on the task at hand. (Matthew Pendelton)

Red celebrates return to consciousness by throttling doctor stooped over bed, whose pince-nez slips off to explode on white tile. (Miles Klee)

We lived in a valley of glacial till, a morass of moraine arranged by chance, as was my wedding to a man whose life was easy and brief, given up to the gods of excess and paunch. (me)

I live in tumor flats, formerly known as Taco Flats for the high percentage of Latins, even more formerly Elite Tacos, now also known as The Waste Land. (Joyelle McSweeney)