Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Monthly Archives: February 2008
Blogroll Amnesty Day
Doug’s Blog Round-up
You remember how this works: for B.A.D., we’re supposed to shine a spotlight on less-trafficked (i.e., not “A List”) blogs that deserve more attention. Here’s the spotlight, folks.
Total Dick-Head was the first curious place I found earlier this week. English teacher David Gill writes one of the most focused single-topic blogs I’ve ever read: every last post is about SF author Philip K. Dick. Recent posts include some notes on the crossover between Lost and PKD’s Valis, a review of A Scanner Darkly, and a student essay comparing Deckard (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) and Meursault (Camus’s The Stranger). Gill’s review of Blade Runner: The Final Cut is great. Check it out for the Blade Runner lolcats link, if nothing else.
New B&W reader Raw Dawg Buffalo probably gets more traffic than me, but I thought I’d give him a shout-out anyway as one of the freshest new (new to me) voices I’ve heard in a long while. He’s not always political, but his two most recent posts cover Michelle Obama and calling-him-a-dickhead-insults-penises-everywhere Michael Savage. Check him out.
But I wouldn’t have found Qucifer if I hadn’t paid attention to RDB’s comment threads. I have a bad habit of checking cute women out based on their blogger thumbnail pix — hey, sometimes people DO post a bigger photo on their profile page. Consider it the 21st Century equivalent of gawking at passing strangers (and this shout-out is, I suppose, a 21st Century wolf whistle). Qucifer’s profile page led me to one of her blogs, “Sensual Sex From East Coast to Midwest” (linked on Q’s name, above), and oh boy, do I enjoy reading one woman lecture to other women on blow jobs. I learned a lot from her advice to guys, too. No, I’d never heard of the stupid-ass “pussy-patting” maneuver, but now I know not to bother. Q’s other blog is lots of fun, too. (Just not as much sex.)
I don’t know if Corn Dog gets more or less traffic than me, but who cares. She’s closed up her blog (temporarily, I hope) because her poor little dog Dinky has a tumor. I miss Corn Dog’s voice. Go give her some love.
Recent B&W commenter Tommy Korioth must have found me through Mauigirl, and good thing, too. Over at his blog, Basket of Puppies, he recently wrote a great essay on racism in Texas. Check it out. How can you resist a basket of puppies?
D.
Best tiramisu
I cut the pound cake into thinner slices, and that way I was able to have six layers instead of four. Since the slices were thinner, they soaked up more of the espresso mixture. Thus, there’s a higher volume of espresso per bite of tiramisu.
I can’t eat too much of this stuff, but it makes Karen happy.
***
A dead blue whale washed up on South Beach in Crescent City. Since I will forever be the kid who turns dead animals over with a stick, I had to go see. (Nope. Couldn’t find a big enough stick.) This poor bastard had to have been forty or fifty feet long. Biologists from Humboldt State University came out and carved specimens from around the flipper, or whatever you call the structure that’s homologous to an arm.
It was freshly dead, not decomposed in the least, and yet the smell was viciously strong, the kind of thing that took up residence in your sinuses and made itself known for hours after. I’m wondering how deeply into town that smell will penetrate, especially when decomposition sets in — and most especially when the warm weather returns. Will it wash away? I hope so. If it doesn’t, it could take years to disappear.
***
Today, I wrote nearly 3000 words and finished Chapter One. I think it flows pretty well. As I’ve said countless times, my number one writing rule is, “It has to entertain ME.” That way, I have an audience of one at the very least.
It’s a creepy feeling, knowing that my muse has something in mind and isn’t sharing with me, not in any conscious way. “Come on,” I want to say, “how can I start Chapter Two if I have no idea what’s going to happen after the first sentence?”
To which my muse responds, “Fuck you. You haven’t given me hardly any air for MONTHS. You expect a detailed outline?”
But I guess I’m not being entirely truthful. I know what has to happen (an alien abduction). The details, my muse keeps to herself.
***
Live Blogging tonight . . . I’ll shoot for 7 PM PST, but I still have to go to the store, shop, come home, make dinner. See you soon.
D.
Writing
On the way to work, I thought of — well, not an opening paragraph. Not even an opening sentence. A clause.
On the morning of the day of her alien abduction,
Strangely enough, I could still remember those words when I got home this evening. I fired up the computer, figuring I would finish the sentence and save it to a new file. I finished the sentence, then started another, which turned out to be a longish one . . .
The morning of Lisa O’Keown’s alien abduction was much like any other morning. She pounded on Cyrus’s bedroom door to get him up, dished out some Gerber’s Peaches ‘n Cream for Billy Ray, picked the lock on Cyrus’s door, dropped the fourteen-year-old’s backpack on his sleeping groin (not all of him was asleep, she noted), loaded Mama’s whites into the dryer, cleaned Peaches ‘n Cream spit-up off Billy Ray’s shirt, brushed her hair, ate some dry wheat toast while wondering how her ass managed to stay so huge even on a sixteen hundred calorie diet, dodged Cyrus’s Pre-Algebra book, and broke up with her boyfriend, Henry Davies.
Granted, the breaking-up part of her day was a novelty, although not as much of a novelty as the alien abduction part, but she didn’t know about that yet. Just that by noon, she figured this had to be the worst day of her life, ever. (and so forth)
. . . and before I knew it, I had written over 1200 words.
No, I don’t know where I’m going with this. All I know is what I’ve already told you. I don’t even know if I can finish one chapter in this same voice. I’m not even sure where this voice is coming from — is it authentic Muse, or am I ripping someone off without realizing it? (Trust me, you would need to see more to get the flavor.) And I really don’t know if Gerber’s sells Peaches ‘n Cream baby food!
Blueberry Buckle. That was my favorite as a baby; I can remember the taste.
I’ll keep you posted.
D.