Writing and Mead

I have a new flash up at dogzplot:
http://dogzplot.blogspot.com/2009/04/worry-brandi-wells.html



Also, Fox Force 5 is available for preorder. This chapbook collective features Suzanne Burns, Elizabeth Ellen, Andrea Kneeland, Lydia Copeland and me.
Preorder here:
http://paperheropress.blogspot.com/

While you're at it, go order Monkeybicycle #6:
http://www.monkeybicycle.net/store/issue6.html

Contributors include: Shane Allison, Sheila Ashdown, Richard Barrett, Matt Bell, Ryan Boudinot, Kim Chinquee, Martha Clarkson, Michael Czyzniejewski, Daniel O. Harris, Drew Jackson, Jason Jordan, Jing Li, Frayn Masters, Corey Mesler, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, CS Reid, Nora Robertson, Sarah Salway, Curtis Smith, Tyler Stoddard Smith, John Spiers, Joe Sullivan, Matthew Summers-Sparks, Twixt, Laura van den Berg, Cody Walker,Jay Wexler, and me.



I recently got Barrelhouse issue seven. I haven't read the whole thing, but I did read Matt Bell's story, which is called 'beautyforever' or something like that. It was freaking fantastic. Which is standard for Matt, I guess.
Order Barrelhouse seven:
http://www.barrelhousemag.com/word/





The renaissance festival this saturday was fabulous. Apparently I love mead. My friends love mead. Bees love mead. Bees love us too and hover over our hands as though they are floating.

I didn't consume nearly as much food as I normally do at this sort of thing (probably because I was trying to drink my weight in mead) but I did have a turkey leg (which is apparently an emu leg) and fried mac and cheese on a stick.

We met the king of england (I hugged him. He did not smell bad), and a giant tree man, and a young dude on stilts who told us he gets paid more if he falls down. There was some gimpy bondage guy and other people I can't remember. I took a picture with gimpy bondage guy.

I threw knives, sucked at it, but won a free cup of mead anyway since I flirted with the knife throwing girl. (Because I have short hair, lesbians love me? I have no idea).

We watched jousting, but I only listened because I was tired of standing up. A wench selling roses came by and made fun of all the guys I was with and tried to get them to buy me a rose. I told her I'd rather they buy me some mead. I said, "We only got mead money man."

I ran through a maze, difficulty compounded by all the mead inside me. I got to go down a slide at the end. I am an excellent slider.

I blacked out before we made it to archery. Apparently one of my friends hit the bullseye.

I remember sitting on the grass and then I guess I was sleeping on the grass. I woke up and felt angry that no one bought me a soda. Boyfriend bought me a soda and then we went to the humane society booth and I poked a kitten with my finger.

Then we found our other friends, who were asleep on some grass, woke them up and walked to the car. I slept most of the way home, in between being drunkenly rude.

So we have to find local mead. Is mead easy to find? I need it.

Here are things I am excited about that will be at the renaissance festival:

Wenches
Jousting
macaroni and cheese on a stick
free smoked turkey leg
meat pie
pork loin on a stake
king's weinie
broccoli and cheese pie
funnel cake
margaritas (this inhances all the parts i'm not excited about)
archery
torture museum
a maze
catapulting frogs
star and ax throw
pottery making
glassblowing
jewelry making

Paper Hero Press chapbook collective

The chapbook collective featuring Suzanne Burns, Elizabeth Ellen, Andrea Kneeland, Lydia Copeland and me (and cover art by Christy Call) is available for preorder now:

http://paperheropress.blogspot.com/

I also need to get a couple blurbs on it.

Jason Jordan is a cool guy

I won a contest (random drawing) over at Jason Jordan's blog and he mailed me issue one and two of The Maple/Ash Review. Jason Jordan is pretty great. If I had cool things I would send them to him. Jason, I have a lean cuisine that you can have. Just let me know.

I've read the first few things in the first issue and they're good. I like that I don't recognize anyone's name and that I had never heard of The Maple/Ash Review.

Can anyone recommend other smallish journals that I might not have heard of?




I am going to the renaissance festival in Atlanta this weekend. I want to eat one of those giant turkey legs and look at white people in funny costumes. I feel happy about it.

New Bookshelf

New bookshelf has at least half an empty shelf. This means I ought to buy more books. (If I hadn't spent last of my cash on the bookshelf).

I am in love with my new bookshelf. It made my entire apartment better. It made livingroom better. hallway is better. shower is better. broken drawer in my dresser is better. neighbors probably feel it too. Their toothpaste makes their teeth brighter, sometimes brilliant shades of neon pink. Their gums are stronger. George Foreman is afraid of their gums.



New issue of Pindeldyboz is up.
I like this by Christopher Cocca:
http://www.pindeldyboz.com/ccpretty.htm

I like the rest of issue too, but I'm too hungover to read anything that long.




I am reading Blood Meridian right now. (Among a handful of other books). It is a harder, slower read for me than Road. Road was quick. I see Blood Meridian mentioned a lot and I feel dumb for thinking it is 'hard' or something.




I put some of my writing into on of those online text analyzing things. It said I overuse the word "the." I used it 134 times. I am going to go back and take all the 'thes' out of this post, except for the ones in this paragraph. I will try not to miss any of them.

Here are some 'the's' in case you need them:
the the the the the the the the the the the

I don't need them. You can have them.

Petty

P.H. Madore wrote this and submitted it to the Brandi Wells Review:
http://brandiwellsreview.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-want-to-fuck-brandi-wells-by-ph.html


Please write more lude things like this and send them to brandiwells@gmail.com


Also, Brian Foley who edits Sir, had poems in No tell motel this week:
http://www.notellmotel.org/

I like no tell motel.

Dear Bowling Green,

I do not know how 'extensive' your waitlist is.

Please love me.


Thank you,
Brandi

I feel 'angry' lately. Or maybe 'energetic.' I'm not sure which. Whenever someone calls me at work to ask a question about an apartment or put in a work order, I want to pick up my desk and heave it into wall several times, until the desk is in splinters and there is a hole in the wall big enough for me to hide inside. When I am drinking my wine at night and a commercial comes on the television, I want to fling my little black oriental-looking coffee cup into the wall.

These feelings pass. And come back. And pass again.

I think it has much to do with wanting to move away from here and start over. New job, new place, new people, new restaurants, new trees. I am so tired of these goddamn trees. I know every tree in town. I have seen all the bark and leaves that I can see.

Some writing

Here is a small section of something I am working on. I would really like it if someone would publish the whole thing. I submitted it to some places but it was rejected by one of the places. Here it is:


When I was a kid, I thought sex would be like one really long orgasm. That’s the only thing that made sense. Why else would anyone do it? I’d lay in bed at night with my door cracked open to let a little light in, fantasizing about the twenty minute orgasms that awaited me in adulthood.

It feels funny. Nothing about it is good or pleasurable. It’s slippery and wet and I can hardly feel him anymore.

“Let’s stop,” I tell him. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, rolling off me.

The sheets are smeared with bright red blood and the condom he pulls off is coated in blood too. He wraps it in a paper towel and throws it in the trashcan at the foot of the bed.

I try to roll off the bed in a way where he won’t see me bleeding. I mean, yes of course he knows all the blood is mine, but I don’t want him to actually SEE the blood coming out of me. Facing away from him I try to wipe all the blood away with a towel. Then I get dressed, but I don’t bother with underwear. They’d be ruined.

The Brandi Wells Review now has twenty submissions. Barry Graham sent me a list of squirrels and says that if anyone can guess which four are not real, he will give them a signed copy of the national virginity pledge. Go here and read squirrels:

http://brandiwellsreview.blogspot.com/2009/04/primary-classification-of-family.html.


Take a look at the rest of the Brandi Wells Review:
http://brandiwellsreview.blogspot.com/
And submit writing to brandiwells@gmail.com
100% acceptance, so if you send shit, it's your shit, not mine.

That is the slogan for the Brandi Wells Review.
"100% acceptance, so if you send shit, it's your shit, not mine."

The Brandi Wells Review

The Brandi Wells Review now has writing by five different authors: Bradley Sands, Joseph Goosey, Ben Mirov, Andy Riverbed, and C.J. Krakeel.

http://brandiwellsreview.blogspot.com/

Please read their writing. I haven't yet, but I plan to very soon.

Also, please submit to the Brandi Wells Review. We have a 100% acceptance rate.
Submit at brandiwells@gmail.com


**Now posted are poems by Chris East, Thom Young, Darby Larson, and Gene Morgan.**

Here is the first posting in the "Brandi Wells Review"
http://brandiwellsreview.blogspot.com/

It did not exist until Bradley Sands sent me a prose poem that I requested he write. Now it exists. If you email me anything at brandiwells@gmail.com I will 'publish' it. A poem, a story, a sentence, a word, part of a word, a number or a picture. Please put effort into it or do not put effort into it. If no one ever sends me anything, I will repost Bradley Sands' poem from time to time.