spring break bewarin’ the ides of march

Last night at Kevin Kautzman’s Cocktail Party, I read a short creative nonfiction piece and a bit of The Teaching Emotion to a small and non-threatening crowd. Contrary to my fear, I did not freak out, though much to listeners’ bemusement and even my own, I felt the need and did indeed do some stretching before I read. Wow. Yeah. Okay. It was fun. The short piece, “What to Wear When Last Seen,” will likely eventually find its way to deepsicks, but I want to let it rot a little to see if does some growing, first.

Several months ago Katy w/y, artist of TTE’s cover, directed me to www.bookcrossing.com, which sparked a book-circulation idea I planned on doing but forgot about until recently reminded by my friend Bree. The concept?—to make the world one, big library. People pull doing-nothing books from their shelves, register them at the bookcrossing site, mark them with an ID number and instructions for tracking, and set the books free in public spaces. Strangers pick them up, go to the site, enter the ID, and check out everywhere the book has been and the comments others have written. The finders then read the books, leave online entries of their own, and lastly set the books free once more. Is this freaking awesome, or what?—and it does work. There’s over a 100,000 members worldwide with nearly 300,000 books registered and racing around.

Of course most of these books are set free by readers and not authors… but why not. My novel does no work in the cave of my closet, and I’d rather free the books and let them be read than let the money I’m not getting mean anything—at all. Of those nearly 300,000 liberated books, eleven of them are The Teaching Emotion, soon to be released in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Eureka-CA, Portland-OR, New York City, Boston, and Chicago by my spring break traveling buddies—piles of thanks to Bree, Nic, Nathan, Dan, and Chris. It will take awhile to post the release notes since I don’t know exactly where the books will be left; a few of the copies are bound to slip through the cracks, as well, or fall into the hands of unconnected individuals, but if you want to track their journeys over the coming weeks/months/years (hee), check out my bookcrossing bookshelf.

So. It is spring break. I wanted to get out of Minneapolis. But how could I possibly leave when Godspeed You! Black Emperor is coming? I’m also seeing Thievery Corporation and possibly Flogging Molly. I’ll be spring breakin’ working all day and dancing all night—so what else is new, seriously? Heh. It’s all good, and maybe I’ll actually get other, er, things and stuff done.

Music News: AFI just released their sixth full-length album “Sing the Sorrow.” It makes my insides hurt badly (in a very good way). Vocally and musically they’ve exploded unbelievably and soon shall be the Next Big Confusing Thing for outside listeners leaning in. Hardcore? Emo? Goth? Horrorpunk? …EB-what-the-M? I say we start at rock-n-roll and leave the ground behind. They’re coming April 11th. I predict surreal. Hear a couple of the new songs (albeit with low quality) from their homepage; there’s an audio player just beneath the third “icon.” You might have to screw around with it a bit. Enjoy. : )

Site News: The übersweet new messagebored just became the big suck. Apparently its ad-free format runs on a 20-day trial basis, a fact they hide well if they even mention it all. I scoured the site before I signed up and only did so under the delusion that they wouldn’t expose me repeatedly to products I don’t care about, want, need, or trust.

It’s not just a couple ads, it’s banner ads, popups, AND links-to-ads disguised as threads directly in the forum—I almost had a seizure when I saw it. I don’t know what to do. My dad suggested finding some open source… stuff, but I looked into that briefly in the past and I don’t think I’m cut out for it technically. Take a look around—d6 scripting is stripped bare bones, serviceable and sorta sharp but simple simple simple. I cry. I’ll figure something out, just don’t wait for it. Ugh. Anger.

But! Google found me!!! That’s right—after dropping in-coming links and screwing with metatags (until I realized they don’t matter with Google—bwah) and repeatedly submitting my site to their spiders for an entire year (happy birthday, deepsicks! you are so lovely), I’m finally at the top for “meg holle” and “the teaching emotion.” Happiness.

It’s absolutely gorgeous out today, 64 degrees, and my window is open wide. I didn’t realize how much I missed the broken conversations of passers-by and the rush and roar and fade of passing cars—oh strange-sweet Doppler effect, you hold my heart in your weird waves.