this will be fun, except if you don't own a camera or if you're Chad

There's a lot of shit floating around in the air right now--job rejections, letters in the mailboxes, piles of gray snush soaking the ankles and whatnot--so while we're all bobbing in the muck that is Smarch, I'm going to change the subject.

It's like this: we're all the same boat. And that boat is floating way out in the ocean. And there are sharks circling that boat. So to distract ourselves, let's not talk about how small and shitty the boat is, or how big the sharks' teeth are, or about how we can't swim, or about those funny black birds circling overhead.

Pretty good metaphor, huh? That's okay. I didn't pay anything for it.

So speaking of writing--BAM! SEGUE YOU DIDN'T EVEN SEE COMING!--I am starting a blog mini-challenge: show me your work space. It can be any place that you work, or do work upon. Clean it up if you need to, maybe take down your Hannah Montana poster and hang up a picture of something literary, but where do you get your best stuff done? Where does the muse find you? Where do you feel accomplished every now and again?

Maybe it's time I focus on the writing, the writing that I do not for or because of a job, or publications, or the degree, though those things sometimes take center stage or command my attentions for a while. I write because I can't organize myself in any other way or make sense of anything without writing. I write because it makes me feel like I have some structure and control, because doing so often leads me to wonderful, surprising places. And maybe focusing on that can get me through the rest of March.

Plus I'm nosy and I feel like ripping off d*s.

So show me where you write, where you paint, where you assemble things or think or film or edit or whatever. Just don't make me hear crickets. I realize maybe five people are reading this, so pull through for me.

Look, I'll even go first.



When the dog isn't on my desk, it's where I do stuff. Some things in this photo have changed, but I like the view better when the tree's out.



Some Donny Miller next to our insanely ugly, cannot-remove-or-no-more-security-deposit-back-for-us blinds.



I like to look at my passport and realize that I have never been out of the country and no, Canada does not count. But there's a plant, and a photo of little B, and some markers in jars, and photostrips of Colleen and I at Chuy's 183, and in the way background, in a black frame, is the poem that Jeano wrote about me. It makes me feel like a rock star.