Which is fine with me, because I, for one, have a heated love affair with the printed word. Like actually in print, black and white, Times New Roman font  (give me Comic Sans and die), smelling like a dirty thrift store, greasy paperback word book.

There’s something about the weight of the word in your hands. The heft. The smugness of flashing what you’re reading to others. Nyah, nyah, I read about SMART THINGZ.

Uhhh, how did this get in here?

Despite owning a Kindle, a device able to carry tons of books in one compact piece of technology, I still take three books along when I travel. Maybe I’m silly. Maybe I haven’t adjusted to the electronic age, but damn it I can’t. I like my books meaty.

The only reason I use a Kindle is to get a book ASAP.  Say one night I’m on Amazon all sweaty-palmed and breathing heavily and see a book I absolutely must have. Then this is where I unearth the Kindle. One click and BAM! I have it.

And still. Sometimes I hold out for the actual book.

Why you ask? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHY, JULES?

Well, let me elaborate in handy-dandy list form.

1. The Satisfaction of Finishing

Ahem.

Reading and finishing a 450-page book on a Kindle isn’t as satisfying as finishing the real live thing. You’re done. You close the book with a hearty thump. The sense of accomplishment is a tangible thing.  I’m a visual person. I need to see this.

The Kindle Progress Bar is worthless.

Hell. Go there.

It doesn’t make me feel secure in the knowledge that I’m making progress. I don’t even know what I’m looking at. Do the tick marks serve a purpose? Will they grant wishes?  I guess I’m 41% done but how many pages left?

HOW MANY?

2. The Smell

C’mon. Books just smell good.  Especially the old ones.

3. My Collection

(cue evil laugh)

I like to look at all the books and know I own them. Just like that hobo in my basement but that’s a story for another time.

Shh, it can hear you breathing.

I’ll probably never reread the books on my Kindle. I own Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas electronically but I’ll still buy the book one of these days. Building up my book collection is a good thing. I love my office library and if I had my choice my entire house would be covered in books.

Like this. Precisely like this.

4. The Memories

I travel a lot. I read a lot. The two go together like Sid and Nancy. Minus the whole murder thing.

Aw, precious.

I remember many, many books I’ve read while traveling, and on vacation, and the cities I’ve read them:  Ayiti – New Orleans, This Book is Full of Spiders – San Francisco, Hell’s Angels – Dublin, etc, etc.

On the Kindle I forget. I don’t have that physical piece to call up my memories.

Actual books are like roadmaps to where I’ve been and who I was when I read them.

5. Zombie Apocalypse

Granted, you may have more important things to do like running for your life and pitchforking Zombies than consider the old book during a Zombie Apocalypse, however, when the crazy slows down and you settle into your new lifestyle of fear and paranoia, ol’ mr. electric ain’t gonna be around.

Where does that Kindle come into play now? Huh sucker? You’re probably chucking it at a Zombie’s head or using it to dig some type of mass grave maybe. I don’t know. Don’t ask me to imagine things further because they’ll get out of control.

Aaaand, Zombie Strippers. Check.

Books are reliable. In any disaster scenario, they’re always there. When you have no electric, you have a book. You can still read in the daytime and by candlelight at night.

They still exist.

But so do Zombies.

So you’re probably gonna die.

Do not ask.

However, it’s not just a writer’s thing. Everyone procrastinates. It’s human nature. If you say you don’t you’re a liar-liar-pants-on-fire. Or you’re just way too pure for me, so stop reading my blog RIGHT NOW.

I’ll bet even Hemingway wasted time doing other things.

Like boozin’.

Procrastination can be good. It can take the mind to another place; distract you until you’re ready to come back to the story, the problem or the kidnapping at hand.

And yet, while other, normal folk may go see a movie, frolic in the outdoors doing sporty-type related activity, or having fistfights with hobos in alleyways, as a writer my procrastination usually takes place in front of my computer. Doing everything in my power to avoided typing much needed words.

Tweet. Music mixes. Baby talk to my cats. Enough of this. I decided the time was ripe to make another video. And yes. I was procrastinating when I made it.

So crank up the volume and adjust your jockstrap because here is the stupid shit writerly procrastination is made of.

~~~

When Your Mom Laughs at Sex Jokes 

by Ryan W. Bradley

I’ve never been caught masturbating. According to Hollywood this is a rite of passage for teenagers. I suppose it’s lucky I’m so neurotic that when I masturbated as a teenager I waited until the middle of the night to do so. Another emotional horror story I missed out on: walking in on my parents having sex. I don’t generally consider myself to have had a lucky childhood, but I do feel lucky I was able to escape these memories some people are stuck walking around with for the rest of their lives.

But you can’t escape sex and your parents colliding. For me this includes hearing my dad talk about my mom’s g-spot nearly two decades after their divorce, or telling a friend of my sister’s that his “machinery” still worked. Or my stepdad telling me in regard to me saying he shouldn’t read my novel that he and my mom already know I’m a pervert.

It was during the fall of 2004 when I was faced with the realization that my mom has experienced oral pleasure. I’ve always recognized, logically, that my parents had sex, probably still do in their respective marriages. And it doesn’t bother me. I believe it’s a healthy aspect of life. If people aren’t having sex, they ought to be. But I also don’t need to be faced with my parents’ sexuality directly.

I’d been kicked out of college after my sophomore year and was floating between my mom and stepdad’s couch and my sister’s. One night my mom decided to watch Robin Williams’ Live on Broadway with me. I’d seen the special when it aired a couple years before, but all I remembered of it was laughing my ass off.

Most of the special was fine. I laughed as much as I did the first time, and my mom seemed to enjoy it, too. Then it happened. Robin Williams did his bit about going down on a woman. If you haven’t seen this act, it includes Williams muff diving in the crook of his own hairy arm. I laughed and tried hard not to look at my mother beside me on the couch.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, sometimes using “we’re all adults” as a mantra simply won’t cut it in regard to your parents. Seeing your mother with tears of laughter streaming down her face because of a cunnilingus joke is one of those times.

Maybe no one ever walked in on me yanking my own chain. Maybe I never had to see my parents bumping uglies. But watching my mom try to catch her breath as Robin Williams buried his face in his own bigfoot-esque swatch of arm fur, well, it seems close enough. Rite of passage achieved. I certainly no longer feel the same about Robin Williams, as if I’d caught him and my mother having sex. And I’ll never watch stand-up with my mom again.

It was the kind of moment when adulthood collides with the reminder that your parents, too, are adults in a way that makes you feel distinctly immature. I’d say it was a coming of age moment, but for fear of a pun I’d better not.

~~~

Ryan W. Bradley is a writer. He is cool. I like him.

His story above made me remember watching Species with my father and Original Sin with my mother, and I heartily echo the fear one feels when a sex scene or sex-related act is combined with PARENTS IN THE ROOM. 

Ryan W. Bradley is the author of three poetry chapbooks, a story collection, PRIZE WINNERS (Artistically Declined Press, 2011) and CODE FOR FAILURE, his debut novel (Black Coffee Press, 2012). His poetry homage to Pablo Neruda, THE WAITING TIDE will arrive in 2013 from Curbside Splendor. You can visit his website here.

But yes. Wine was had.

Instead we’ll talk about something much more important. How I peed in the woods like a boy.

Last Christmas, my little sister bequeathed to me something apparently only Montanans have heard of – the GoGirl.

It’s basically a silicone female urination device that allows women to pee while standing up.  I was curious. I took it out of the tube…inspected it…

“I shall name you Bob. And you shall be my friend.”

Had some fun with it…

And briefly flashbacked to that one Beetlejuice scene…

“What scene i–Oh right. THAT scene.”

And then decided to test it out. The instructions seemed simple: “Just hold GoGirl against your body, forming a seal. Aim and pee.”

Easy pee-sy.

I probably should have tested it at home before taking it into the wilderness but once I was down to my skivvies, ready to take a leak, I was hit with the “Where do I seal?” worry. I know pee flows from my urethra; however, cupping a plastic cylinder thing-a-ma-bob around it so precise-like rivaled a Mensa test.

“Where’s my urethra?!” I lamented to my husband in my best Brad Pitt what’s-in-the-box? voice from my hiding spot in the trees. “I can’t find it.”

As always, he promptly drank his wine and ignored me.

I was a tad befuddled. I mean, it’s not like I can unzip my zipper and stick it in like the website suggests (adjust your clothes; there’s no messing up your jeans – uh, yeah right), I do wear underwear, so you still have to de-pants.

So I did it. And I cupped it.

It worked. Sort of.

Like I said, I should have practiced before. But it wasn’t bad. And the thrill of peeing while standing up can never be matched.

It’s a cool product. I can see where it would come in handy when a bathroom isn’t around.  I’m just probably not the best person to use it. I’m a fumbling mess with poor aim and unsteady legs (gentlemen).

I guess, when nature calls, I just prefer squat-lounging back against trees like the uncoordinated woman I am.

“Meeting like what?”

“In the dark?”

“How do you want to meet?”

She glances over her shoulder and offers a toothy smile. It’s our third time and I think her name might be Tracy or Tiffany or something equally trashy. “Dinner would be nice,” she says. She giggles. “In a lit area, maybe?”

I point my cigarette at her. “Yeah, well, McDonald’s is open. Right down the block. Don’t let me stop you. I hear the McRib is back.”

~~~

I think I wrote something really freakishly good today. Or it’s just freakish. Either way, I wanted to share a part I’m semi-confident in. At least it made me laugh. And remember the McRib.

Why?

Because I feel like it, hookers.

~~~

Last night I inadvertently washed my Playboy magazine in a load of laundry. Not sure how that happened but my sheets were covered with pieces of tattered boobies. It took me a while to discover why my clothes were sprinkled with shredded paper and when I finally figured it out it was like my own starring role in Nancy Drew and the Case of the Disappearing Playboy Magazine.

It was fun.

I was a sad panda though, because I really did want to read the issue.

Who spies fleshy bits?

~~~

Good books were delivered to me this week. Choke by Chuck-who-in-the-hell-can-pronounce-his-last-name-Palahniuk, The Mapmaker’s War by Ronlyn Domingue (loved her since The Mercy of Thin Air – dear god please read this NOW), and Spillover by David Quammen.

“Oh sweet babies…”

I’m salivating to start Spillover tonight. Every now and then I get hot and bothered to read about infectious diseases. And you know, because I don’t like sleep. At all.

~~~

Saturday, the husband and I drove out to Four Peaks to do some target shooting. The Arizona desert is very beautiful and yet it reminds me of scenery in The Neverending Story, which is also a bit depressing. We went off-roading and drove through these creepy tunnels. I kept picturing hordes of zombies careening through them to eat our delicious brainssssssss.

~~~

On the writing front, I have a flash fiction piece called “Betty Lou is Welcomed to Undereaters Anonymous” in the spring edition of JMWW. Robert Vaughan rocks for including me among other fine, fine writers. JP Reese’s “Simulacra” had me marveling.

I also had a piece of fiction that’s been trying to find a home since June of 2012 accepted by Pithead Chapel so that makes me feel all kinds of good.

I love the guy. He’s a favorite of mine. He does things with words I can only dream about. I recently finished Hell’s Angels and every chapter, every sentence, left me slack-jawed. Hunter S. Thompson could have written about the mating habits of slugs and I’d gladly devour it.

Wait. Do slugs mate?

Yes. Yes they do. You’re welcome.

I’ll never write like this literary godsend. And I’m okay with that.

I also know I’ll never have a writing schedule like the guy. Although, clearly, cocaine did wonders for the guy. I read this article a few months ago on Uproxx about his daily routine, and while I’m not sure if it’s real or not, I’m kind of hoping it is.

HST’s dietary habits have me insanely jealous. If I ate like that my stomach would capsize and groan like a manatee.

I imagine they sound like a mix of Chewbacca and Lucille Bluth.

I also intensely applaud HST eating fettuccine alfredo in the hot tub. The closest I get to this is using red vines as straws when I drink my glasses of wine while reading my Sweet Valley Twins books in a tub full of Mr. Bubble.

I write sporadically throughout the week but Sunday is my full day reserved to write. I screen calls, I don’t leave the house, I sit my ass in a chair. My schedule doesn’t rival HST’s but I have a schedule and I think that’s what matters.

Or maybe cocaine matters. Beary the Bear seems to think so.

My Sunday Routine

8am – church. Haha. Just kidding.

8am – alarm goes off

8:07am – hit snooze again

8:45am – rise but no shine

9am – coffee promptly made

9:10am – fish oil pills to take the edge off

9:30am – dick around on Twitter

9:35am – coffee, read flash fiction stories at various lit mags

9:45am – coffee

10:15am – coffee

10:45am – story submissions and ZOMGCOFFEE

11:30am – begin blog posting

11:45am – coffee and/or pizza consumed

Noon – shower, consider becoming a carny

12:30pm – put on pants

1:00pm – edit novel-in-progress

3:00pm – consume Michelob Ultra

3:10pm – make poop jokes on Twitter

3:30pm – more novel edits

6:00pm – wine and write/edit flash fiction

8:00pm – scrounge up a semblance of dinner and a TV show

8:45pm – TV or writing

10:00pm – drops iron pills

10:15pm – reads Cracked.com

11:30pm – sleep

There. That’s what my typical Sunday involves. It’s raucous ain’t it?

If you want to share your writing schedule, complete with drugs, alcohol and veiled perverted references, send it to me and I’ll post it next go round.

And a great poem.

amores gitano (gypsy loves)
by Roberto Carlos Garcia
Červená Barva Press, 2013

Roberto Carlos Garcia’s work has appeared in Connotation Press- An Online Artifact, Wilderness House Literary Review, Poets & Artists Magazine, Metazen, Atticus Review, and others. His fiction is included in the anthology “The Lost Children,” a book of 30 short stories to benefit children’s charities PROTECT and Children 1st U.K.

“Amores Gitano (gypsy loves)” is his first chapbook.

A native New Yorker, he now lives and works in New Jersey where he is pursuing an MFA in Poetry and Poetry Translation at Drew University’s Low Residency MFA Program.

You can follow Roberto Carlos Garcia on Twitter at @thespokenmind. His website is www.robertocarlosgarcia.tumblr.com

“In his chapbook, amores gitano, Roberto Carlos Garcia breathes adult passion into the craft of desire, these poems strip themselves, naked. They flirt and they want and each section a near erotic frame of determined risk ready to widen the realm of the reader’s senses. Here is a poet who can dress and undress the lyric with his mind, hands and tongue.”
—Thomas Sayers Ellis, Author of Skin Inc. Identity Repair Poems and The Maverick Room

“Roberto Carlos Garcia gives us twenty stunning gypsy loves in amores gitano that together construct a language so wrought with desire it swaggers. This is a luminous book that marks the emergence of a new and important voice that is sure to stir up all kinds of bad.”
—Sean Nevin, Author of Oblivio Gate

18.

There’s a cruelty
about her
that’s always hungry.

When she finally takes,
finally tastes flesh
& is full,
what’s left of me
is loved again,
her cruelty abates.

In many ways
I’m a keeper
in a zoo.

Once the lions are fed
I can enter the cage
but still,
I’m leaving my life
to chance.

$7.00 | 30 Pages | In Stock

Friday night, Carnaval Electrico was held at the Crescent Ballroom in Phoenix. A gathering of musicians including my two big faves: Hanni El Khatib and the Cold War Kids.

Hellz yes.

Cold War Kids are frickin amazing. Listen to them.

If you don’t know who Hanni El Khatib is, check him out here. He’s rock and guitar and amazingness all tied up in taught lyrics. I kinda want to mosh-pit when I listen to him. His new album drops on April 30^th and you can check out his new single FAMILY here.

Workin’ that mic like a pro.

And that’s my good and honest goddamn plug.

Anywho…the main concerts were outside, and despite it being Phoenix it was rainy that night. And yet, it was fabulous. The PBR was flowing and I stayed up late like a big girl should.

“Just call me Cinderella, muthafuckas!”

I ate from my very first food truck and danced my ass off.

My husband is clearly Dennis in this scenario.

And let me just say dancing in the rain was a delicious experience. Feral and wild, it brought the crowd together, not to mention it curled my hair something fierce. By the end of the night I had raccoon eyes and Gary Busey hair.

This is me the next morning. Don’t be jealous.

And with the rain, you could feel the love. It’s the hippie in me but the crowd was on that night. All of us meshing and getting along and frolicking in the rain. I bought a fellow dancing companion a beer. Another woman ran through the crowd hugging and kissing strangers – myself included. Another kindred dancer posed for a photo with me.

I have no idea who this woman is. But she’s cool.

As a side note – if my interpersonal skills were as good in the real world as they are at concerts I’d be so well-connected by now.

The best part of the night was…wait for iiiiiiiit…when I met Hanni El Khatib. I was probably about ten feet away from the stage and when he finished his set he meandered through the crowd. No one approached him and I couldn’t help swooning.

Finally on his way back to the stage, my brave husband stopped him and asked if he’d take a photo with me. He said sure and waved me over.

Hanni (we are now on a first name basis) shook my hand and asked my name. On my second beer by then, I told him that my name was “Jules”, blushed, and then vaguely mumbled something about loving him and his music. I think I tried to hug him. A crowd gathered.

Then he wrapped an arm around my waist and we took the photo.

THIS IS MY PROUDEST MOMENT, MOM

I couldn’t keep the grin off my face for the next fifteen minutes.

Despite my huge musical (and then some) crush on Hanni El Khatib, my husband is the best for arranging it. Whatta man.

WARNING DO NOT GOOGLE IMAGE “WHATTA MAN” BY SALT N PEPA YOU WILL GET DICK PICS.

As I said.

Best concert ever.

She asked me if I wanted my glutes massaged and it took all the effort I had to keep a straight face and resist asking, “Glutes are boobs right?”

It was the most violent massage I have ever experienced in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I asked for deep tissue but by deep tissue I didn’t request “toe-curling-pants-wetting-pain”. But like all good women, I bit my lip and took it in the dark.

Now the point of this post is not to discuss my sadomasochistic massage, it’s to talk about writing, ass faces.

In a roundabout way, I suppose.

I can never relax during a massage. I think this is partly related to my very first massage. I was probably 16. My step-mom booked a couples massage for my sister and I with a husband and wife naturalist team bent on introducing holistic methods to the masses. Sounds like the plot to a Captain Planet episode doesn’t it?

Remember these fools? 

After much tee-heeing about the hilarity that we’d share a massage room, I was assigned the male masseuse. Or maybe I took one for the team for my 13-year-old sister. Either way – I still remember him. He reminded me of some old hippie…grey hair, ponytail, Aladdin-style vest. This did not worry me. The fact that he had a very long coke nail on his right pinkie finger was the kicker that kept me alert throughout the whole massage. Relaxation was not to be had.

I was terrified. I kept picturing him slipping in the oil and clawing me with his nail. I’d come out of that massage like poor old Rosemary Bathhouse after her demon-rape dream.

“Worst massage ever.”

So because of that one experience and thanks to an extra-long coke nail, I can’t unwind. I always think. My brain whirls. In fact, there are always three main things I think as I’m being massaged:

1. “What body part are they rubbing me with? Because it feels like a [comment edited]…”

2. “What if lose control of my bowels?”

3. “Cake is awesome. I wish they could rub me with cake. Hey, let’s make that happen.”

But in addition to those slightly improper thoughts, I think of my stories. Stories in progress, yes, but it’s also a friggin’ fabulous time to brainstorm. Your mind wanders. And while I’m busy worrying about if the reason the masseuse is asking me to flip over onto my back is for mere human sacrifice, I’m also brewing up some pretty kooky scenarios in my noggin.

(Doesn’t the word “noggin” really get you jonesing for some egg nog? Think about it.)

I don’t entirely attribute the fact that I can’t relax because I’m a writer. Maybe I’m just neurotic. But what I do when I’m NOT relaxing is definitely related to my writing. I’ve always been like this. I can never NOT know what’s going on around me. I can’t fall asleep in public; I can’t sleep during a road trip or on an airplane. Sure, maybe I’m busy worrying about whether someone will teabag me while I doze but I don’t think that’s it.

I have to be constantly aware. And that’s a good thing for an eavesdropping, quote-stealing writer.

What this shows is that sometimes it’s okay to not to relax during a massage. Chalk it up to inspiration. I also came out of it with an envious case of bedhead.

“Helena Bonham Carter ain’t got nothin on me.”

After all, without Large Marge and her voluptuous forearms I never would have had this blog post.  So the next time you want to come up with a plot point, drop $60 and head to the nearest massage parlor for a very happy ending.

C’mon. You knew that reference was coming.