Writer and Editor C.B. Calsing/ G.G. Royale

I listened to this book during my walks this spring break. I found it hilarious, sad, and motivational in turns. The audio book has its bright side -- in that Tina Fey actually narrates it. The book, I'm sure, would have its bright side -- in that the pictures she references are right there. I would definitely recommend this book to pretty much everyone. It's great to see inside her development as a performer and writer. I'm sure people in my neighborhood think I'm crazy. Not only because I walk around with a dog tied to my waist -- it makes sense, believe me -- but because I've been laughing and crying aloud and completely ignoring them as I go by. I'm sure they can't see my uber chic iPod buds and the brilliant white wires, so they think I'm just rude. Or crazy. Listening to this made me want to write comedy. I wrote one stand-up routine once, but never delivered it. Fey's background is in improv, which I loved in theater class growing up, but ...

Last night I volunteered at the opening of the season for the Big Easy Roller Girls . Right this moment, I'm shopping for street wheels for my skates -- the ones I had custom made four years ago, the first time I wanted to do derby -- so I can start to get my chops back up before try-outs for "new meat" positions in the fall. There, I ordered them: purple wheels and cheap bearings so I don't ruin the good ones I already have on my skates. Sacrifices will have to be made to make the practices and what not, but I think I'm finally ready to make it happen. I'll spend the summer working the bouts, learning the ropes, meeting the people I need to know, and skating all over the place. After that, maybe I'll be ready to try out. If not, well, I'll have fun getting to that point. Now to go dig up all my gear.

I went to the creative writing teachers' conference in Fairhope, Alabama this weekend. This is always an interesting and sometimes nerve-racking experience. I often leave with a different perspective on what I'm doing with my life and how I'm getting there. Fairhope is a beautiful town, almost Stepford perfect, which is why it was hilarious when I tripped and skinned my knee and both palms on its Stepford-perfect sidewalks after having a few drinks at the pub down the block. The irony being that I can come home from the corner bar, or all the way from Markey's even, managing the holes, dips, rises, and all the other inconsistencies of a New Orleans sidewalk, but I can't walk on a perfect sidewalk in a perfect town? I guess that fall -- which was witnessed by a shop owner who told me "I do it all the time" -- is something of a metaphor for my entire weekend. How I can traipse along perfectly well in my own sort of damaged, psuedo-successful publishing w...

I've been walking the streets of my neighborhood quite a lot lately. Two or more miles each day essentially. I've seen some interesting things, like today in the dumpster behind Studio Inferno was an orange feather boa. I had to wonder how it got there and why someone would throw something so lovely away in the first place. I also found twenty dollars today which, though not nearly as whimsical, is pretty damn awesome.