I've been writing a bit more lately, three hours last night. I need to keep that momentum up, go hard. My sister is going to smoke me if I don't watch out. She's eleven, and she's always trying to create: journaling during class, writing songs on the piano, lyrics in the bathtub, poems in bed. She's pretty unbelievable. She has fun with it, something I've forgotten about most days.

Everything's so damn intense for me. It's all life and death, love and hate, heaven and hell, no in between. I'm tired a lot. I take pills that don't work very well, and I sweat and go pale in the weirdest of times. I'll keep if it means that whatever it is about all of that that's good is really good, and means that Christ will use whatever that is and show people himself. I hope that's finding my identity in Jesus, because God knows everything else will fail me. If not now, then sooner or later. Anyone good at anything will, at best, be only as good as their lifetime. At fucking best. Even Faulkner saw the end of his run, when the years, alcohol, affairs, and mindfucks finally had their way. Life and death, heaven and hell.

There's all these small things that make my life wonderful, though. When my neighbor's dog, Deuce, a tough brown pitbull, runs over and licks my face with his big wet tongue. When Sue fills my candy jar with Milky Way because she knows I like them, when the end credits roll on Seven Samurai, and I know I've sat through one of the best stories I've ever been told. And good heavens, all the reading I've done, everything my classmates, and Rick, Martina, and Steve have done to sharpen my eye and make me fall in love with stories that had to be told.

I want to go do things. It's like Howard said, "It's one thing to read a lot of scholarly articles on Faulkner, but it's another thing to get behind a mule and plow." -Insert Tom Waits reference here- I want behind that mule. I want my fly rod to bring in a fighting trout. Somedays, only occasionally, I want to know what it's like to watch my friend die of a bullet wound in a trench. Then I realize how much I don't want that.

But I kinda do.

I'm waiting on five o'clock to roll around. I've actually been productive around here today. Not that I'm usually worthless, I don't guess. I've been guilty of reading on the job: movie and book reviews, books, news, blogs. It makes a pretty tolerable jobe even more tolerable. Two birthdays at the office today, meaning cupcakes and ice cream in a span of five hours. Can't knock that.

I'm ready for things to cool down and stay down. My mail runs today were a little hot and uncomfortable. Anything to get out of the office a few minutes though, look at some pretty girls, and step on some acorns.

I've been reading some good stuff, lately. bell hooks wrote some interesting essays in her book Teaching to Transgress, Tanizaki's stories in Seven Japanese Tales are wonderful, Amy Hempel's interesting (not sure I get it yet, though), and Jean Rhys' After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie is supposed to be great. I've never read so much in all my life, and it's a good feeling. I hope the good Lord cultivates that thing in me, the feeling that I've got to read everything that's good, multiple times, and remember it. Indeed.

I've been looking around at going to Alaska. Gotta save the money, and get the tools of the trade. Time to go...

Home for the weekend. I just finished walking the dogs, and though I hate getting started with them, finishing and coming home is always a pleasure. Walking feels good. Like I've breathed and sweat out some of the nonsense and the dross. Not to mention that they are precious animals: tongues out, tails wagging, noses in the grass. I love the hell out of some dogs. It's too bad I don't have one in Hattiesburg. Yet.

School has been really good. There's plenty of work, some of which I'm not sure how I've finished in time, but it always gets done. I'm somewhat on top of things, and enjoying myself. I need to go exploring, riding my bike on the trails, or going for a walk and seeing where it takes me. The workshop is great. My fiction was on trial last Wednesday, and things couldn't have been better. There's plenty to fix in my work, plenty I can do better on, and many ways in which I need to be challenged. There are things I need to think through, scenarios to weigh and consider. But I'm telling a story, putting it in front of people I care about, listening to their criticism, reaching around in the dark, and putting my fingers on my voice. There's a lot of voice to grasp. I'll need a whole lot of patience and a good deal of time. Praise God.

Home is sweeter for the distance. There's my cat, Leon, riding in his carrier in my passenger seat. Danielsen plays on the stereo, and white trash goodness every couple of miles. My friends here are all growing and changing, unfurling like a flower in the spring.

The river is everywhere.

Last night was good for some reason. I stayed in the library reading for class, and there were a lot of kids in there. Studying, talking, earphones in, laptops out. I don't know, made me feel like I was in it again. Like I wasn't alone in the world.

I'm learning to be a better reader. Seeing the little things, the things that don't work, the beautiful stuff, the ruts, and the problems. We keep going back to how to make a story interesting. How to make someone "care" (another term for "be interested in the story"). I like it. I'm the worst writer in the classroom, but I like it. I'm humbled and small. I see all the work ahead, the hours that I've got to spend to make Maupassant's words "talent is a long patience" come true. There's a lot to look forward to.

When I'm not reading or writing I've been watching "The Adventures of Pete and Pete," "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," or a movie worth the time: Say Anything, One Hour Photo, Magnolia...more to come.

My cat, Leon, spends most of his time outside climbing trees, chasing bugs, exploring beneath the house, or lazing in the bushes--he's got a good life.

The front porch awning is spotted with little holes where the driller bees have made a home. My dad said to spray them with wasp spray, and as he put it, "They will die in their tombs." Hilarious.

This deal ain't bad.

I'm gonna try to write tonight. Thought I'd sit down and loosen up with a blog.

Hattiesburg isn't bad at all. The first three days were brutal. Irrationally sad and lonely and weird. I suffered through them, saw a doctor, and have been fine ever since. Praise God. My workshop met last Wednesday, and it was a lot of fun. All the kids in the center for writers met up at the Keg and Barrel afterwards, and these are good people. The church I've been attending is solid. My job is doable and lighter than Lemuria. You could say it's a little too good to be true at this juncture.

I've been home a good bit. But today I got the hankering to come back to Hattiesburg, so I did. My house is peaceful, my books are here, there's a lot of places to rent movies, and I'm learning how to cook some. I like it. To say I love it could take months, years. For now, however, this could be called home. If I could start to making a salary, paying for things, really growing up...that would be swell.

The Lord is my shepherd.

I'm packing things up, getting ready to move into my new place in the burg. So far all I've got is my books boxed up. I'll take some clothes. Kitchen items. My bed and sheets. God knows what else. And God knows I'm apprehensive. I should have quit work a week earlier than I did. Too late now. Gotta roll with the punches.

I start my new job early Wednesday morning. Class starts on the 19th. Things are moving right along, and maybe it's a good thing. Maybe I won't have any time to worry myself out of sanity. Ugh, so much is actually happening, though. I'm just a little scared of what's ahead. I'm nervous about how good an English degree I got. We'll see how much I learned in the last three years. Just how much Mississippi College's English Department actually prepared me. I know I'm not stupid. I know that out of all the published writers living right now, at least a few of them have to be dumber and less creative than me. Have to. Come on. I mean really?

I was reading Frederick Barthelme's Author's Note in his short story collection The Law of Averages. He was writing about how he found his voice, about how good it felt when he realized what he was doing wasn't copying his brother. I hope I know what it's like to find my voice. I'm curious as to how people will respond to me in workshops. I fear at the moment that I'm too influenced by the Southern gothic tradition. Frederick writes about ordinary people in ordinary situations, and he writes them in a profound way, making ordinary things rife with meaning and truth. I wonder if the entire program is going to be centered around writing this way. I have to wonder if the kids with the dead folks at the end of their eleven page stories will get laughed out of the room. We'll know sooner than later.

I ought to be okay if this doesn't work out, though. I finished Tim Keller's book The Reason for God yesterday. Keller's book moved me especially when he began to describe the definition of sin. He didn't give the reader a long list of things we can't do if we want to be genuine followers of Jesus. Instead, he defined sin as failing to find our identity in our Savior. That definition hit home for me.

I love books, stories, and writing with all of my heart. The whole thing, no millimeter left untouched. Nonetheless, it may very well be that books, writing, publishing, or teaching English aren't what the Lord wants for me. I won't know until I get to Hattiesburg and start this thing. I won't know until I make all A's this semester, and find myself proud of the work I'm doing despite the criticism and the need for rewrites. That's why I'm scared. The not knowing. The having to do in order to see.

I'm still God's all the same. Even if I never publish a story, lecture a single english class, or write contemporary criticism. I'm still the Lord's. I'll still be alive. My desires, hopefully, will change.

The Bible is a big ole book of stories. It's violent, beautiful, it's got a dude blowing his load and dropping dead. The thing is rich. It's the reason I read. To find the Great Story in everyone else's story. To see God's work, his poema, alive and well and being revealed in every word and every breath and every cast and every blink of the eye. He's shown us himself through storytelling.

I just want to give a little back.

It seems like if you do some living it's easier to write. Blogging gets old after a while. You do it because you know people read it, and they want to know what's going on in your life. Personally, I don't have anything to say if I can't do some living and then some reflection. I've been cranking out blogs because I know a few people I care about read them. I don't want you to read something unimportant though. Not that anything I have to say is ever that important. But it should be personal. I guess. Yeah, it should be personal for sure.

I'm moving to Hattiesburg in less than a month. I'm going to try to write some stories and learn how to get better at storytelling in general. Scary as hell, sort of, but not really. I mean if the whole thing comes crashing down and sucks, I can pack it up and know it's not for me. I just don't think that's the case, though. I don't think I'd be okay with going down there and things not being okay. Writing, reading, learning...it means way too damn much to me. I used to want to be in a hardcore band. Yeah, I know, right. I wanted that whole thing to be my vocation at least for a while. Four years later and all I want to do is write. Say something important with the word. I guess, important. Maybe the better word for it is heartbreaking. Say something heartbreaking. A good book is like a good relationship with a person. It's vulnerable, capable of breaking your heart, scalping it, sharing something with you that takes you aback, makes you thank God that He hears you when you pray. That's why I read.

Lately, for similar reasons, I've been spending time with some folks. I've taken upon the reputation of the "flake" over the years. Never committing to time with anyone, always bitching about how I want to be alone. And I do, very much, want to be alone, a lot. But I need people. I need their lives so I can borrow from them. I know that sounds awfully parasitic and selfish, but it would only be so if I didn't find the whole thing so precious. The wine with a friend three times your age. Hearing their stories from the first half of life. Taking note of it, knowing they've had their hearts broken, and jarred, and that they've made it to age 65. That is precious, that means the world to me. That's worth borrowing from.

I'm ready for something other than the bookstore. Something other than knowing my mom's house is less than a half hour away. Some place called mine. That has my things in it and no one else's. I guess I can only really have that if I ever buy a house. But you get the point. Striking out, doing the important stuff, the stuff you'll do maybe until you die.

I seriously need to go write fiction. Right this second. So I will.