Literary Drawfism

I should have been talking about this all week: Bring the Ink is an online literary magazine that just launched late last week. In their first issue, I was granted a space to wedge in one of my Substitute Chronicles. Go check it out. There are some of the other pieces I've not had the chance to read through yet, but the ones I have are pretty awesome. So go there.

In a similar vein, I went with my wife to Nebraska City yesterday to hear my friend present his lecture on Magical Realism and do a reading from his novel. It was stellar. Also, I heard the reading of another incredible writer, Aaron Stueve. As I listened to these two brilliant roam through their words, I felt inspired and very tiny. I enjoy writing, but as I put on my bio for Bring the Ink, I am a dabbler. I like being a dabbler--means I don't feel a lot of pressure for my writing. But if anything, yesterday taught me in my small state, that I have lost some of the importance and power of words (and maybe communication as a whole).

Despite feeling a bit inferior, the inspiration that smacked me upside the head was awesome. I've got a lot of work to do on some of my writings, and with any luck, I will complete them.

Death and One Funny Thing

Over the course of a week, I heard of two deaths that really bothered me. One was the brother of a former student, the other a great friend's grandmother. This stirs all sorts of feelings and thoughts, as death seems to do. But the real beast of it is that I've not said hardly anything to those who lost.

My dad died when I was four. Throughout high school and the early part of college, I was crumpled if I thought about it for more that .3 seconds. I know the sorrow that death brings, that insensitive, numbing lukewarm feeling that wraps around the body and suffocates. I often told myself that one reason my dad died was so I could help others who faced something similar. But I haven't.

All of a sudden I'm loaded with an insecurity, a lack of confidence about what to say when I know that often, people don't want to hear anything. They want to know that somebody is praying, loving, being a safety net in the event that they need to gush.

I need to suck it up.

On a totally different note, I heard somebody call Shihan a bad mamma jamma yesterday...and he was serious.