The Wild Man of Borneo, Disney Fatigue, Crime Poems and Short Fiction Mayhem

My eight days in solitary ended Sunday when Tonia and the girls came home from Florida. Sarah, who turns five next Saturday, slept from 3:30 Sunday afternoon until just after 8:00 Monday morning. Rowan was tired too, but spent the day doing the homework she had promised to do while she was gone. I think she was actually glad to head back to school this morning.

I got a call from my brother Rob yesterday. It was the first time I'd heard his voice since the middle of June. He's a lieutenant on a submarine, and they've been out on a cruise or mission or whatever it's called. Rob called from a hotel in Borneo. It was the first time he'd been above the surface of the ocean in 42 days. 42 days! I'd go nuts.

Rob's a golfer, and he played a round at the local course, which is surrounded by jungle. Golf balls are five bucks apiece in Borneo, but whenever he hit one into the jungle he said fuck it. He wasn't going to lost, stung, bitten or possibly eaten for a stupid little ball. A few monitor lizards hung out on the green, too. Rob and his buddies gave those monsters plenty of room. It was weird to hear Rob complain about the heat so close to the equator when our weather forecast for today calls for rain that might turn into snow this evening.

I read 81 pages of poetry submissions for the Lineup and sent my ratings to Gerald So. We got at least twice as many submissions this time around. That's a good sign. I think next spring's anthology will be even stronger than the first one.

I started work on a new short story--something I haven't had time to do since last spring. This one is about a gay gun-runner with serious anger issues. I have no idea where the story will go, though. All I have so far is a couple of pages.

Got confirmation yesterday that my story "Welcome to Wal-Mart, Motherfucker" will appear in Uncaged, editor Jen Jordan's sequel to Expletive Deleted. The new anthology comes out in the spring, courtesy of Bleak House Books.