I'm in the middle of this book and love it.

I've recommended books some of you have liked before, so take this recommendation into consideration. Part of me just wants to have someone to talk about it with when I'm done.

Anyway, Elizabeth Strout's OLIVE KITTERIDGE won the Pulitzer for fiction this year, and it was in paperback already, so I figured I would just pick it up and read it eventually. But it's a novel written as a collection of stories about one gruff, difficult retired schoolteacher named Olive Kitteridge and her whole entire town. Sometimes she's a major character in the stories, sometimes she's on the periphery. Every time, though, she makes an impact on the larger scope. Each story has been individually satisfying, which means that I've gotten the sense of closure and relief at having finished something profound and beautiful every time I pick it up, and I'm only 100 pages in. It's really, really good.

What I want.

I want one of these Kindle devices. I really, really want one. I've been trying to save up money for months in order to get one, and I've been talking and talking and talking about getting one.



Has anyone who reads this blog gotten a Kindle, seen a Kindle, used a Kindle? I want some feedback on them.

The Tate Modern shirt.

Before and after.

The boyfriend snores.

JOB APPLICANT CHALLENGE: Riley.

My friend Will sent me this challenge:

I challenge you to film a response to a job application. It can be a real one or one you make up; you may answer truthfully as yourself or create a persona.

I answered it three times.

JOB APPLICANT CHALLENGE: Daishwalla.

JOB APPLICANT CHALLENGE: John.

Learning from MANHATTAN.

Condolences.

State of relationship.

Challenge me.

Thank you, Zombie Sitcom.

I know I've got a bad reputation, and it isn't just talk talk talk ...

Stephen's in bed, and I'd not blogged in a while. I feel like I've barely written anything in a while. I've been so consumed with my webcam and making quality videos everytime I sit here at the computer - which now resides in this cute alcove in the corner of my bedroom with its own tray, lamp and photogenic bookshelves - that I forgot that the main reason I bought the computer, created the alcove and live my day-to-day existence is because I want to write. I'm good at it. I should do it more often.

(See how weak that previous paragraph is? That's how much I'm out of practice.)

So maybe I'll just take a photo of myself with the webcam everytime I sit down to write, and that'll get me out of the habit of strictly using this computer for webcamming (badly) and Facebook games.

Maybe I should revert to HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE for further inspiration, for I got a lot of good essays out of that - some of which may be published elsewhere soon. If I could return to improv a better, saner, easygoing person who was capable of keeping his emotional outbursts onstage and didn't constantly seek approval and trusting relationships, I would use that outlet to become more prolific. For a time, I even sought out details of my family's past in the hope that I would find inspiration to write stories there. In high school, I created a whole town of melodramatic, fictional characters and impossible circumstances, and I escaped into that. (The words came so easily then.) Sometimes I write for an audience, and my writing works out well for that.

So the pattern is that I seek inspiration, then I get so caught up in and obsessed with the inspiration that I forget to use it much to write about it. Or I tire of the inspiration.

But to get to the emotional core of the stories - the ones I feel most, the ones I most enjoy telling, the ones where I manage to mock myself the most - I think I need to trust myself and trust that I already know what I'm doing.

What do I have when I've been stripped of everything outside of myself that I think I need to be able to write? I have myself. And that's enough.

OK, cool. I've psyched myself into giving this writing thing a shot again. It's just me and the screen, the keyboard, the pen, the page. And it's all I need.

Bare-chested book review.

McElderly.

I'm watching MADE OF HONOR - don't ask - and the opening scene has Patrick Dempsey as a college senior in 1998. As in, when I was a college senior. Patrick Dempsey is A DECADE older than me in real life. So that means, in the decade that the actual movie takes place, Patrick Dempsey's aged 20 years. Or that I look as old as Patrick Dempsey in my actual life. I hate movies.

Open letter to a friend.

For some reason, this is hilarious to me.

Slow follicle death.

How to deal.

This is the tribute I read at my grandfather's funeral yesterday.

When I was 12 and generally insecure, Grandpa came to Atlanta for a visit, sat with me and my brother at the kitchen table and taught us both how to play cards, a game of Rum 500. My brother picked the game up easily, whereas I was having difficulty even shuffling the deck because of my disability. So I complained, talked about how I didn’t want to play. But Grandpa wasn’t having any of that.

He showed me how he shuffled cards. He split the deck and then put it back together. And he did it again and again. It wasn’t fancy, but it got the job done. And he taught me that I could do it the same way. And I did it. Then I didn’t think I was dealing the cards fast enough. He told me that people would wait, that you do what you can with what you have. That’s how you deal cards. And that’s how you deal with life.

A couple times, I asked him for mercy, told him that I would get the hang of the game if he just “let me win” a couple hands.

He laughed at me.

“Let you win? LET YOU WIN? I’m not going to let you win anything. You’ll win when you know how to play.”

This was a man who’d beat you at checkers and not let you forget about it for the rest of the day. He was one of the funniest people ever, a real character. He was tough. He taught me how to make a quick, sarcastic comment. He taught me how to be strong, how to be confident. It works with a deck of cards. And it works when you’re going through your day.

And he was right. Victories aren't given. You win when you know how to play.

Once, when I was a toddler, he put me on the tire swing behind his house, and I was nervous. And I think my parents were even a little scared. But he told me it’d be OK. He told me that all I had to do was hang on. I’m still hanging on.

Grandpa was great. He inspired this passion and strength in every member of his family. I will carry him with me – in every card game, in every joke, in every stubborn argument and in every accomplishment worth fighting for - for the rest of my life. Every one of us who loved him, who learned from him will do that.

Thank you, Grandpa.