Since I’m on a mini-roll here, I figured I’d just stay with the same topic one more day.

That stated, do you know this poem?

Pondering the deep questions of life, like what's for lunch.

It’s been on my bathroom mirror for the last eight months, and I can attest that its message is absolute truth.

There’s maybe a little planning and organization that could go into the process that he doesn’t mention, but mostly he’s dead on: The words just come…or they don’t.

Any attempt to force them will sound that way and feel that way and you’ll end up deleting them anyway. It’s as implausible as it is true.

So You Want To Be A Writer

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you

in spite of everything,

don’t do it.

unless it comes unasked out of your

heart and your mind and your mouth

and your gut,

don’t do it.

if you have to sit for hours

staring at your computer screen

or hunched over your

typewriter

searching for words,

don’t do it.

if you’re doing it for money or

fame,

don’t do it.

if you’re doing it because you want

women in your bed,

don’t do it.

if you have to sit there and

rewrite it again and again,

don’t do it.

if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,

don’t do it.

if you’re trying to write like somebody

else,

forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of

you,

then wait patiently.

if it never does roar out of you,

do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife

or your girlfriend or your boyfriend

or your parents or to anybody at all,

you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,

don’t be like so many thousands of

people who call themselves writers,

don’t be dull and boring and

pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-

love.

the libraries of the world have

yawned themselves to

sleep

over your kind.

don’t add to that.

don’t do it.

unless it comes out of

your soul like a rocket,

unless being still would

drive you to madness or

suicide or murder,

don’t do it.

unless the sun inside you is

burning your gut,

don’t do it.

when it is truly time,

and if you have been chosen,

it will do it by

itself and it will keep on doing it

until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

–Charles Bukowski

Back to the bird gifts, it appears.

I suppose if I were creating an olden days ranking of bird-based love offerings, geese a-laying wouldn’t be so bad. Certainly better than the turtle doves and definitely superior to the calling birds.

However, I wouldn’t know as, once again, I have never been gifted geese in any quantity.

And trust me, I’m not complaining. I’m seriously fine with that.

At the same time, I was once ‘gifted’ (dumped upon with?) a female calico Siamese and her six two-day old kittens. The mother arrived with the fine name of Luna (later dubbed Lunatic due to extreme personality quirks) and her babies were soon thereafter named:

Biscuit (male/beige)

Chowder (male/beige – obviously there was some kind of food fetish going on here…)

Liz (female/gray tortie)

Wingnut (female/calico)

Jerry (female /looked like a British Blue. Jerry Garcia had died just days before and Jerry was gray…so it seemed to add up.)

Oreo (female/runt/black and white)

The only two successfully relocated to their own homes were the boys. The rest I raised and loved and tolerated and had my thumb nail bit through (Wingnut) and got peed on in the light of day (Liz) and had abducted and went through hell and high water to recover (Oreo) and thought was the cutest kitten to ever exist and had for her entire life (Jerry.)

Case in point, Jerry died about a year ago (of skin cancer which grew internally. I don’t understand what that means, but I know it’s deadly.), thus ending an era. Jerry was a bit like the Phantom of the Opera – she was a basement dweller who liked to lay super low in the dark corners and shadowy recesses – but she still had her moments. And she truly was the cutest kitten ever.

Thus, although I wouldn’t recommend rushing out and getting yourself one-cat-a-laying six kittens, I will say that they were a ton of fun in their own perfect way. I remember just sitting there and watching them for hours on end while they were babies. Amazing stuff.

At the same time, if you’re given six geese a-laying, maybe you’ll be lucky enough to get one that lays golden eggs? And in that case – in  honor of the story – just be glad for the damn eggs.

You know the story : A man and his wife had the good fortune to possess a goose which laid a golden egg every day. Lucky though they were, they soon began to think they were not getting rich fast enough, and, imagining the bird must be made of gold inside, they decided to kill it. Then, they thought, they could obtain the whole store of precious metal at once; however, upon cutting the goose open, they found its innards to be like that of any other goose

Long story short, don’t be greedy, as those who want too much risk losing everything.

And those who don’t appreciate kittens and puppies are fools.

And people who endeavor to blog every day are even worse fools.

And not all who wander are lost.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renenwed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.

J.R.R. Tolkien

It’s only 10pm, but damn am I tired.

I say *only* 10pm because of my new – temporary – lifestyle. I call it “run like the wind or until there is no more wind and you choke for a little while in a dramatic fashion before dropping dead” and it involves doing everything one would normally cram into a full day…plus editing (a.k.a. largely re-writing) two chapters – or 25+ pages – a day.

You may fancy yourself a superman and declare that quite doable, but trust me…it’s cruel and unusual.

However, despite the mental agony, I’m hanging in there and getting it done. This is week two of three, and it’s almost halfway through week two…so help me God.

It's hard to determine if he's doing this because he loves me or because he thinks he owns me. Or something nefarious in between.

And all this despite the fact that there’s a gigantic, furry 100-pound animal smashing himself up against my right (dominant) side and lying on my arm and his ear is twitching against my finger and basically he’s cramping my style literally and figuratively and physically and factually and objectively and in a way that is sweet but annoying.

What I’m trying to say here is that he’s cutting off circulation to the right side of my body, but I love him so I’m letting him do it.

Because that’s what love is.

Sucking it up even when your beloved is really, really, really irritating you.

Right?

That’s what love is?

Right???

But enough whining about the semi-domesticated mammal encroaching on my personal space. It’s time. It’s always time. And so once again it’s time to go back to editing…

See you on the New York Times Bestseller list! Next fall work for you?

Last night while in the shower I remembered #4.

He's very pale and there's no beard in sight. Technically, he's kind of unattractive, but he's funny and an amazing chef, and if you ask me, that more than compensates.

Wylie Dufrense.

If his name isn’t enough to convince you he ain’t easy on the eyes, here’s a photo.

He’s the chef/owner of WD-50 in Manhattan and a disciple of Catalan chef/god Ferran Adria (if I could’ve, I would’ve structured my whole trip last year around eating at El Bulli…until I learned that two million people request a table every year and seven thousand actually get one. Ahem…) and a leading proponent molecular gastronomy.

Anyway, his food is really bizarre and scientific and yet somehow sublime (or so I’ve heard and somehow it seems from the cooking shows on which I’ve seen him. I’ve never quite eaten at WD-50…yet.), and he’s very funny (big with me), and there you go.

And – in my defense – he does not look like a rabbi.

And for that, me and my psyche are grateful.

Completely unrelated: Me looking like an escaped member of the 'Ice Capades' and holding the iPod touch I just won from the Googlewaveblogger.com. I love it!!!

If I were slightly more enthusiastic and energetic, I would find the old post I’m about to mention and link to it, but instead let me just explain: Last October when I was in Istanbul, Turkey, my friend and I went to a Salvador Dali exhibit at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum (which, by the way, if you try to walk back to town from there – as we did – be forewarned that that is not a reasonable plan. And then, when you realize that you’ve been walking for an hour and are still incredibly far away from Sultanahmet, let alone Taxsim where we were staying, and thus give in and get onto a public bus in rush-hour traffic, be prepared to have 12 and 13-year old school boys grab your butt while chatting you up. It was all I could do to refrain from reprimanding, “I could be your mother!!!”  But I didn’t…mostly because I don’t like admitting that stuff to myself. Not that I fancy myself Mary Kay Letourno, I just find the passing of the years so much more pleasant when you don’t actually acknowledge the passing of the years.)

Anywho, while I was at that exhibit, there was this movie collaboration between Salvador Dali and Walt Disney that was so amazing, I recorded it with my camera. I was showing my sad cinematography effort to some friends last night, and they kindly suggested we see if a better version was available on YouTube…and lo and behold (!), it temporarily is.

It may not be temporary, but seeing as the movie is clearly not supposed to be posted here…it probably is, and since I truly regard it as one of the more amazing things I’ve seen in the last few years, I wanted to share it with you:

Is that not the most jaw-dropping mix of the Disney optimism and the disturbing Dali imagery you could ever fathom?

One can only imagine it was rekindled on some kind of Fantasia kick (especially seeing that Roy Disney played a role in the credits), but it’s still one of those cool ‘imagine if’ moments that it turns out actually happened. Now to get a time-machine and put Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and the Pixar people together…

(Note to self: Make sure to toss plenty of anti-depressants in with the candy bowl.)

(p.s. Many thanks for Michael Kraabel for the beers! That’s right…not just a beer, but an entire pitcher or two! Seriously, THANK YOU. It’s oh so nice to be appreciated!)