Letter

The call for entries asked for short pieces of writing (fiction, memoir, poetry, scenes from your life, weird shit that’s on your mind). I emailed an mp3 before finishing to read the rules and regulations.

I apply for things all the time. Magazine cover designs, essays, short stories, book reviews, interviews, illustrations, whatever; if it’s in the ballpark, or the neighborhood next to the ballpark of what I think I do, I’ll fill out the form. Then I promptly forget about it. I’ve learned to do this after many years and hundreds of rejections. If I dwelled on even a fraction of the entries that weren’t even rejected but merely ignored, I’d live curled in a fetal position in the back corner of my closet. I fight like hell not to get my hopes up.

So I was surprised to receive an email from Hello America Stereo Cassette barely an hour after sending the recording of a chapter from Old Style. It wasn’t a rejection, but a request to read the entry requirements——they only accept wav files and I sent an mp3.

I searched around for the raw file of the recording, but discovered it no longer existed, a casualty of my spring cleaning assault on my digital archives. I just love throwing things away. Sometimes, I find out later that it’s something I might actually still need.

Undaunted, I set up the mic, opened up Garageband, and read another chapter from the new book. I sent it off and, wonder of wonders, it was accepted. It’s the one at the top of this letter. If you buy it, I get 50 cents!

I heard from the printers that Old Style should be ready sometime next week. If you want to be in on the first batch I send out, order now.

—I made a page of self-portraits and wrote about a year without the Skylark.

One of the valuable finds during my epic website spring cleaning was the series of drawings and paintings I made about eight years ago at the Chicago Cultural Center. I spent quite a bit of time there watching people and eavesdropping on conversations.

This was during the very brief window of almost having a literary agent. We discussed a book project that might be part of a kind of franchise based on Wendy MacNaughton’s Meanwhile in San Francisco. The plan was to get a bunch of artist/writers to make books about their cities. They were considering me for Chicago.

For various reasons, it never happened. The agent stopped returning me email soon after. I filed the art and notes away and moved on to something else.

Over the years, I tried periodically to revive this work, to fit it into something knew. Brian Leli published a version as pdf with some accompanying text as part of a thing called Single Cell, which I can no longer find online.

Looking at the stuff now, I see it as prologue to the CTA marker series I made several years later. It’s all part of the same all-encompassing project.

Until I figure out a permanent physical home for this stuff, I’ve made a page on the site for it. I’ve sold a few of the originals, but still have most of them. Drop me a line if you’d like one. It won’t set you back much.

Got my first shot Wednesday. It was at a Costco on Ashland Avenue, in a provisionally curtained-off area next to the customer service counter, just beyond the checkout lanes. The woman who called to confirm my appointment instructed me to enter through the exit doors, but to be careful because they come out fast and furious. Did she mean the volume-discount shoppers? Something else? I was just happy I didn’t have to register for a membership.

Most people are, or will soon be, going through some version of this process (save for the tinfoil hat types, of whom there’s a sizable contingent, as we have found out the last few years). It felt pretty routine to me. The people running this hastily-assembled operation were mostly competent, though the young woman at the registration desk could’ve used a gentler bedside manner—— there’s no call to bark at people to sit down, rather than line up, after giving them no clear instructions. Few of us are mind readers. The pharmacist who gave me my shot was calm and clear, which is all that really mattered. Afterwards, I was sent to another area with chairs, several occupied, and given a pink post-it note with the time fifteen minutes hence, and told to sit. They wanted to make sure there was no severe reaction.

I sat and watched another employee dart about, wiping surfaces, then left when the appointed minute struck. I didn’t feel anything, good or bad. I’d read for weeks about people smiling or weeping for joy at getting the vaccine. Did I miss something? Am I empty inside?

I got some lunch, then called my folks to reassure them it went smoothly. I have allergies, so they worry. Then I went home and went back to the bottomless website redesign k-hole I’d been living in the previous few days. I was a lot more preoccupied with recategorizing jpegs than any virus or physical malady.

The next morning, with the website thing over with and time to reflect on the day before, I tried to muster some hopefulness. It doesn’t come naturally. What’s encouraging is how people I know and the tone and timbre of news reports sound a lot more upbeat than they did a month or two ago. We’ve all been through the ringer. Maybe things will be better.

I’ve never been a ray of sunshine myself, so I have to look for what warmth there may be elsewhere.