Elliptical Poetry, furries, etc etc etc

There's been silence over here, but with good reason, I swear!! Last week I was deep in the throes of planning/rehearsing/freaking out over TypewriterGirls Gone Furry. All elliptical time was spent memorizing my lines. Pretty much all my time for about three days straight was spent memorizing my lines, really.

It was all worth it, though - in spite of some minor snags (which all shows have, really) the show went amazingly well. Pittsburghers appreciated it, furries appreciated it, Ohioans Mary Biddinger and Juliet Cook appreciated it, and my brother made a damn fine Sidney Crosby. Also, I wore a gorilla suit in 85 degree + weather and did not pass out. That was more or less an act of god. We had the largest turn-out that I believe we've ever had for a show, and at least ten people have approached me since the show to make sure we'll be reprising this performance for next year's Anthrocon.

Speaking of Anthrocon, I have to say, I do <3 me some furries. Every one that I met was nice and helpful and the ones in fursuits pretty much all let me pet their fursuit, pull their tails, and get pictures. I can't say I personally will be going furry any time soon, but I'll totally hang out downtown when they're back next year.

I'm finally feeling like I'm getting back into the creative swing of things a bit. I say that tentatively, because I haven't seriously worked on anything for so long that I was starting to question labeling myself "poet" (not really, but you know...), but some things have occurred that have pushed me back toward my writing space, which is a space that I need to be in. I love writing and am at my happiest when I am writing and creating. I wonder if my discontent over the past 6 months had more to do with not writing and less to do with any other factor in my life.

A chapbook project I've been working on off and on over the past 4 years is taking off in my mind again. I used to be worried about some of the content, but I'm not now. If you want a small preview of my new old project, check out the newest issue of Pear Noir! - it's got three poems in it from this project, and I'm pretty darned excited about them. With that said, I was on the elliptical machine for 50 minutes yesterday (in spite of Ben's best efforts to distract me) and I read some of that issue of Pear Noir!

Pear Noir! #4 (Summer 2010) - One really great thing that I must say about Pear Noir!'s fourth issue is that it has an amazing sense of cohesion. I find that to be a very difficult thing to find in a literary journal - they're usually much more scattered than, say, a single-author collection or themed anthology, but the folks over at Pear Noir! pulled it off. There's a gritty darkness to every one of the pieces I read (even one about baking a pie). There is some weird shit in here. There's a fiction piece called The Robot Vampire Lioness, and yes, it is odd, off, and borderline-ridiculous (okay, maybe it did a flying leap over the border), but I liked it nonetheless, in that "what the fuck am I reading? This is absurd!" kind of way, and isn't that the best way, in the end? Go get yourself some Pear Noir! and not just because I'm in it.