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Fugitaboudit…And three other phrases not to use with crazy people.

Last night, for reasons passing understanding, I had a massive panic attack about two a.m. Panic attack may not be quite the right word for it. Rather, it was a massive, sudden-onset and triggered OCD episode, brought on by the introduction of a new person into a very complex and completely unfathomable equation. Suffice it…
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The Dance.

The lightbulb. That’s what is different. Maybe it is a higher wattage or has a short. For whatever reason, that pool of light is just a little bit brighter, a little bit more golden than the spaces around it. I wonder if she knows what she represents, sitting in that pool of light? Did she…
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The Life Telephonic, Or…Why Call Centers are the New Waiting Tables for the artistic crowd.

Each morning, I awake at the buttcrack of dawn, get into my car while it is still dark, and drive ten miles to a large cinderblock building, where I enter through an unmarked door and proceed past high-technology to a small workstation in the back of the building, tucked away behind high, beige sound-dampening cubicle…
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A New Book for a new cycle.

Not sure why, but this is the time of year when my projects seem to take flight. With Bohemian Row (now known as “Anything But Ordinary”) in the final revision stages, I’ve turned my sights to a new story. Something about the concept of intimacy fascinates me. People have a desire to be intimate —…
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When the World Comes to an End.

“For english, press one. Para espaniol, pruhuhumini numero dos.” One. “Thank you for calling AppleCare Customer Support Help Line. Please speak the name of the product for which you need support.” iBook. “Okay. I can help you with that.” (New Voice) “We estimate your hold time will be approximately 1,477,826.42110 minutes.” Oh boy here goes…
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A Day in the Life of a Hardened Criminal.

Until today I had very little sympathy for those people who find themselves living in jail because of breaking the law. For years, I ignored a friend of mine, a former police officer, who said that he gave up law enforcement and moved to another state because, in Louisiana, he “couldn’t drive to work without…
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The Stuff of Human Drama. (Or, Oh God Oh God We’re All Going to Die!)

Saturday evening, I and my roommate (an Atmospheric Sciences major) began watching CNN and the Weather Channel religiously, anxious for a finalized storm track. Sunday, we began preparing to house his parents, his little brother, and their two dogs indefinitely. His parents didn’t think they were going to flee as of Saturday morning. They arrived…
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Cardinal Sins. (Or: Things not to do when writing.)

If you’ve ever wondered why so many books you read seem so similar and thought that it was just you, or your taste in literature, or the fact that you only read one certain genre, take heart; it’s not just you. A sad fact of human literary existence is that books are all similar. The…
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An Ode to the Idylls of the 4th. (OR: To write or to barbecue…)

That is the question. Whether tis nobler to entertain one’s friends on the Bayou, or to take to the keyboard against a sea of blank pages and, by opposing, fill them. I found myself in a very interesting dilemma on Thursday. At work (I am production manager and designer for a sign company), my employer…
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Nothing is ever as it seems. (Or….So your daughter has a blog…)

I have a blog. Perhaps you have a blog. It seems these days that everyone has a blog. So that my daughter has a blog should have come as no surprise. After all, she’s 13 and lives on the internet (albeit in a variety of post-modern chat personae). Still, though, it isn’t what one expects…
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