WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8TH

Attn: Faculty & Staff,

 We are now ready to begin Phase I of “Web -Time Entry” validation process. There are two sets of instructions attached to this email message . One set of instructions  is for salaried employees and the other is for hourly employ/… Read full post »

Part two of the open call:

1.  Los Angeles.  This is everything I hate about a city--a giant sprawling smoggy ugly strip mall that goes on and on and on, punctuated by far too many billboards for cosmetic surgeons.  Surprising the hell out of myself, I really liked it.

2.  Ci… Read full post »

In response to Beth Mann and Alysa Salzberg's open calls:

1.  Poetry.  This is going to surprise a whole hell of a lot of people, considering I have an M.F.A. in writing the damn stuff.  I can dash off sonnets and triolets and terza rima.  But let's face it: most poetry, my… Read full post »

 Putting Makeup on Dead People by Jen Violi

Hyperion Book CH

ISBN 10--1423134818

ISBN 13--978-1423134818

Available May 24, 2011, at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and independent booksellers

(The following is solely my own opinion and does not reflect that of the author or anyone else connected to th… Read full post »

In the streets of my neighborhood today.  I'm towards the end, dressed as Janis Joplin. 

(The music is Fats Domino and Allen Toussaint, "Hey Las Bas Boogie" off the album "Alligator Alley."  I make no money from this video, but you all should go out and buy their music.) Read full post »

(This needs to be sung to the tune of this.  I can't sing, but it's not like Malvina Reynolds really could either.)

I am dropping lots of students

I am dropping 'cause they don't show up

And they don't turn in their homework

And they roll their eyes at me

When… Read full post »

(Back as a teenager, I had a beat-up Pentax K1000 camera with a slightly wonky light meter.  I used up a whole lot of film taking pictures of random crap around the house, repositioning lamps, holding my hand over part of the flash, etc., to get a sense of how the thing was calibr… Read full post »

In the spring of 1987, when I was six-almost-seven and my brother Eric was four-almost-five, our parents bought a split-level house just outside of Greensburg, Indiana.  Said house was originally built in 1961, was both the architect's and the head contractor's first attempt at buildin… Read full post »

"Young Adult Fiction:  Wild Things" by Naomi Wolf 

Leeandra:  "OK, how many people here have read any of the Gossip Girl books?  (most of the girls' hands go up)  How many people have watched the show?  (nearly all of the hands go up).  First thoughts on this essay-… Read full post »

 June 11, 1992 

Dear Journal,

I am bored. Bored bored bored. There is nothing to do here. I read the part on polio in the book of Knowledge* and it was good but boring. I hate it here. I hate my parents. Eric is a droid. I read all of the… Read full post »

 Sometimes, when you're panting and exhausted and dizzy and disoriented because you smacked your head into a window one too many times and got accidentally swept up with the trash by the janitor, the best thing to do is calm down and let someone give you… Read full post »

Nobody will hire a teenager to do anything that isn’t disgusting.—Christina Applegate’s character Sue Ellen in 1991’s Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.

I’m not an economist, but I’m not stupid either.  And today, I’d like to talk about an… Read full post »

First lined, boned dress with a zipper I've ever attempted to make from scratch.

Yeah, right.

Neck straps and boobage part semi-complete.

Gathers put in under boobage, waistband and back attached.

Skirt is put together.  Also, I do in fact… Read full post »

That's my foot.  That's your typical NOLA cockroach. Read full post »

Elvis sweet-talks the oscillating fan and shows off his dance moves, because even if your relationship mainly consists of humping like bunnies, or, well, humping like cockatiels and small household cooling appliances, it's nice to have a little old-fashioned romance once in a while.

 … Read full post »

I been working.  Working WAAAAAAYYYY too much.  I'll have to do something about that one of these years.

Oh, and I went the LONG way through Florida (most of the panhandle over, then most of the way down towards Miami) for a wedding.

As always, my cheapo camera will take you… Read full post »

Today's my 30th birthday.

 My brother Eric and his girlfriend Angela came 800 miles down to New Orleans to surprise me.

I will write more later.

(Note:  I have yet to see Sex and the City 2.  I have been reading the reviews with unabashed glee and I plan on seeing it when it comes to the Prytania Theatre in New Orleans, if only so that I can pull an Ignatius Reilly and yell "Vile abortion!" at… Read full post »

I did not want to go to Chicago, or rather, I did not… Read full post »

Friday night I was told I'd be waiting on a wedding party in the upstairs ballroom at the restaurant instead of waiting tables in the dining room downstairs.  I'd be paid a percentage of the cost of the party and would basically have to just keep the chafing dishes full, pick up… Read full post »

Today marks the first day off I've had since Easter Sunday.

I ain't going in tomorrow either.

(For the inspiration, please check out Ann Nichols' blog What I Wore.)

1.  The Winnie-the-Pooh dress.  There were actually three of these, identical but in different sizes.  Mom must have got them on a killer sale for me “to grow into.”  They had puffy sleeves and a wh/… Read full post »

Hey y'all.  I just wanted to apologize for not being on OS much lately and commenting on your posts or returning PMs.  Since Christmas, I've been working two jobs.  Right now I'm on Day 36 at the shop, the restaurant, or both, breaking my 1997 understaffed-radio-station record of… Read full post »

For six years now, the University of New Orleans Creative Writing MFA program has hosted a prom for all the graduate English students, professors, and their guests in the liberal arts faculty lounge.  It began with the idea that our high school proms all sucked and no one got to enjoy… Read full post »