Seth Fischer has a story in the current issue of Gertrude. He is joined by Megan Williams and the issue is available for sale.

Volume II of Stoked Journal features poems and prose by Daniela Olszewska, Adam Moorad, Nate Pritts, Thomas Patrick Levy, Christopher “Arms” Newgent, Thomas Patrick Levy, xTx, Len Kuntz, Nick Ripatrazone, Ashley Farmer, and others.

Housefire’s Nouns of Assemblage is available for sale and there are PANK contributors in the book even though I can’t tell you all their names because there is no table of contents available. I know xTx is one of the contributors as are Matthew Simmons and JA Tyler.

Don’t forget to check out our August issue, which is filled with wonderfulnesss. Is that a word? I am making it so, for now. Check out V by Carlie St. George and Garry Sheppard’s three part story and Lindsay Norville’s Our Song and Sarah Layden’s Woman Who Was a House.

We are once again open for submissions and we’re also accepting contest entries. There’s a lot going on. You have until 9/1 to submit to our Queer issue or Little Books series. We warmly encourage you to consider a Tip Jar submission, which kicks us $3.

In even more exciting news, on 9/1 we will debut our special Crime Issue and let me tell you, this issue is going to blow your eyebrows off. Brad Green has pulled together work from some of the best crime writers in the country and we cannot wait to unveil this issue.

My son, he’s 10 months old. Funny kid. Has a cute broad smile that he often displays alongside hysterical laughter. Since he doesn’t have any language I can’t ask him what he is laughing about. Talking to him is a little like talking to the cat, except the cat understands what I’m saying a bit more than the baby does. The cat’s a grumpy sonofabitch, especially since the baby started stealing the attention she thinks is rightfully hers. She never smiles or laughs anymore. In demeanor, she’s less like the baby and more like a lazy and only-sometimes-entertaining version of Oscar the Grouch. But the cat and I have an understanding that goes something like this: Feed me on time and I don’t tear up your papers— I’ll probably still tear up your papers even if you feed me on time, whatever. Also, clean out my litter box on time or I shit on the floor.

The baby and I have no such understanding. He is smiley and laughy until he’s screamy and cry-y such as when he’s tired, he’s hungry, he’s annoyed, he’s soiled his diapers (so embarrassing for him), for no reason at all as far as I can tell, he’s caught me writing—which has been forbidden since the day of his birth (babies fucking hate literature)—he just wants to get on my nerves because he doesn’t like me, he’s happy and is experimenting with expressing it through nerve-rending wails and tears instead of smiles and laughter. Could be anything.

There’s one type of scream that baffles me more than the others though. It happens late at night after he’s split a few ear-drums, thrown his nightly fit and has nestled into sleep for a few hours. Sometimes I’m in another room licking my wounds, trying to process the new and pleasant sound around me (it’s silence) and I hear a solitary scream, it rattles me and I think: Shit, who’s torturing the cat?

After a second yelp, I realize it’s not the cat and I creep to the baby’s room and ease open the door. He’s in his crib thrashing about and levitating like he’s Regan and once again in the midst of possession.

My son during a horrible nightmare.

His head spins in an impossible, spine-churning fashion, he spits pea green vomit; there is a horrible smell in his room; and he tells me my mother is doing horrible things in Hell.

Sorry, I got carried away. None of that happens except the sleeping baby’s strange yelp, his thrashing and the horrible smell. The smell is the diaper pail, which stays full of magically generated shit-splattered diapers.

What’s strange about this yelp is that the kid remains sleeping even though he’s bobbing around. When I pick him up, he stops and then I gently rest his still-sleeping frame back into the crib. I can only assume that the screamy baby is having a nightmare.

Babies are mostly unconstructed territory. I wonder what a baby could possibly find so horrific. He’s probably not dreaming about showing up somewhere without a diaper and onesie. He doesn’t make much of a distinction between being naked and clothed and actually slightly prefers crawling around with his bare butt waving about, judging from the smile he flashes when he escapes as I’m changing him and his tears and thrashing when I catch him and attempt to put his clothes back on.

So what does a baby nightmare look like? Here’s my theory: He wakes up and he’s hungry. That’s enough for a hey-jack-I’m-hungry-where’s-the-woman-with-the-milk-scream, but that’s a light yelp. Not the one that becomes audible. Not the blood curdler that makes me think for a second that someone has shot an arrow into the cat. That scream comes next, just when the dream turns surreal. He sees someone coming toward him, unbuttoning a shirt to feed him. He smiles in joy and anticipation. That hollow feeling deep in his stomach will be filled. But when he’s lifted into the air, something feels terribly wrong. Where’s the pillowy softness that has been a lifespring? What’s the deal with all the belly flab. The boy yanks open the shirt and there’s just a scrawny milkless flatness sitting atop an overly round belly. What cruelty. It’s not his mother it all, but his father, the hapless buffoon. Leave me, you fool. I’m hungry and you lack the tools. The beautiful, beautiful tools! He wants to yell all of this and more, but he doesn’t have the language so he lets out a terrified, angry, lonely howl.

Whatever the case, I’m positive this kid’s nightmares revolve around eating. The boy fears nothing. He chases the cat as if she doesn’t have claws and the cat—the scratchmaster herself, author of some of my most interesting scars—cowers and runs. The one thing he fears is hunger. I noticed, back when I got him, that his first flashes of a smile occurred when he was asleep. With his lips, he’d make sucking motions as if a breast was pressed to his face and he’d smile and suck and smile and suck. That was the time I felt a true kinship with him for the first time as my most pleasurable dreams also involve breasts.

Rion Amilcar Scott writes fiction all over the damn place, tweets @reeamilcarscott and blogs at datsun flambe.

Creative Writing
This is an introductory course that focuses on imaginative writing style, revision, being alone, ordering in, crying, finding a good psychologist, and cleaning the house. Writing-wise, we will focus on short stories, poetry and creative non-fiction as well as non-fiction that isn’t very creative at all. Bring a pen and 12 bottles of Barbasol shaving cream.

American History
This course is designed to develop an understanding of the American experience. The course begins with a brief overview of the television show “The Biggest Loser” as well as an intense study of People magazine. Later in the course, students will be asked to rip out pages on the Theory of Evolution from science textbooks and replace them with pages on Intelligent Design, all while participating in a round-robin hot-dog eating contest. The course is worth three credits, unless your parents make more than $200,000 a year, in which case it will be worth six credits.

Humanities I
Humanities I is a recommended course for any college-bound student, as humanities is required at most colleges and universities. But do you even want to go to college? Your good friend Stu works as a manager at The Olive Garden and he promised you a full-time job after graduation. Says you could work your way up to manager in no time. Of course, Stu is always high as shit, so he might not know what he’s talking about. Hey, it looks like there are field trips in this class. Maybe it’s worth taking, after all.

Life Management Skills
Uh-oh. It looks like your 19-year-old sister is pregnant again, but this time the father could be anyone. It’s probably best you don’t go home tonight. Dad certainly won’t be going home—not after cheating on Mom with your best friend’s mother, who, as it turns out, has gonorrhea.

Debate I
Can’t decide whether or not you should take this course? Then you probably won’t be very good at it.

Biology
This course is designed to help students develop skills in the areas of cooperative learning, critical thinking, and the scientific method, although all you’ll remember is that one guy who refused to dissect the frog due to his commitment to animal rights. Which is perfectly fine. But did he have to burn down the entire school while masturbating?

Psychology
This course provides students with the opportunity to acquire an understanding of the human behaviors not covered by Bjork. Content will include motivation, desire, why you’re a failure, your inability to make Dad proud, how to block out the thing that happened to you in the locker room the other day, back hair, why that girl refuses to go on a date with you (hint: she’s your mother), and why you should bank at Wells Fargo.

Economics
Economics studies the ways society uses its limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants. Content includes fundamental concepts, demand-supply-price interaction, competition, corporate greed, downsizing, talk of layoffs, being called into your boss’s office, reminding him how you’ve been a loyal employee for 10 years, telling him you’re one of the top salespeople, explaining how you’ve got two kids for Christ’s sake, being escorted out by security, I hope you rot you greedy piece of shit. 3 credits.

The August issue is live. I insist you start with Charles Dodd White’s Winter by Heart. This stunning story about a father and son and a man who has little good in him is fine writing by any measure. You’ll also find excellent work from Molly Laich, Jacob Dawson, Kevin Vaughn, Julia Clare Tillinghast, Carlie St. George, Emma Sovich, Gary Sheppard, Alec Bryan, Johanna Reed, Lindsay Norville, Marcelle Heath, Christopher Lirette, Sarah Layden, Ruby Labrusciano-Carris, Caleb Johnson, Michael Glaviano, Claire Burgess, Corey Ginsberg, and last but in no way least, Claudia Cortese.

We have a lot of exciting things coming up with a mini-Crime issue that will debut on 9/1/11. We’re also open to submissions until 10/15/11 for a special issue of 50-word stories that will debut on 11/1/11. This issue is guest-edited by JA Tyler. In October, we’ll unveil our second Queer issue, guest-edited by Tim Jones-Yelvington as well as our regular October issue.

We re-open to submissions on 9/1/11 and we truly cannot wait to read your work again. The break was nice but we’re ready to get back to it. Yyou’ll notice we have a new submission category in September–the Tip Jar Submission. You can choose to “tip” us $3 when you submit your work and you’ll get a $5 discount on any subscription to the print magazine or a $3 discount on a Little Book.

Writers are always welcome to submit for free. All submissions will continue to be read and responded too in a very timely manner, sometimes with feedback, sometimes without. The tip does not afford any privileges other than giving you the opportunity to help us do more great things (moving to a semi-annual print schedule, etc.).

I repeat, writers are ALWAYS welcome to submit to free and that will not change.

In August 2012, we are releasing Myfanwy Collins’s full-length collection, I Am Holding Your Hand. This is a book we are honored to be able to usher into the world and in the early part of next year, we’ll be working hard on getting the book ready pre-press galleys and all that good stuff. Stay tuned. Submissions are still open for Little (or not so little) Books.

Eric Beeny is once again featured at Matchbook.

Her Dirt, by Tania Hershman is featured at Welcome Collection.

This stunning prose poem by Elizabeth Wade is well worth the read.

Nicholas Sansone has a story in the August issue of Word Riot and Jonathan Callahan has fiction in the August issue of The Collagist. In that same magazine, you will also find a novel excerpt by Kevin Wilson.

At A-Minor, Andrew Roe.

Thirteen Loops, by BJ Hollars, is forthcoming from the U of Alabama Press.

Ruth Hoberman was one of twelve poets selected for the Site of Big Shoulders Art + Poetry collaborative project. Her poem is online now.

I’m really feeling this. These dudes is balling. “Luxury rap, the Hermes of verses.” That’s just how I’m living. They speaking my language. I mean, this is how I’m gonna be living. I guess this very moment I’m the-Hermes-of-sitting-on-my-ass-in-my-mother’s-basement. I’m on furlough right now and this morning I thought I was gonna get a paycheck, but all I got was an IOU.  How am I supposed to pay my bills with that? Am I supposed to tell the grocery store that I’ll take the food now and pay them in two weeks when I get the money that I’m rightfully owed? A little frustrating. I pissed away 80 hours in that damn factory and until I see some bread, they essentially stole that time from me. Only goddamned resource I can’t get back. But as soon as I get some money, I’ma get a Maybach like the one they describe in the song. How much one of them cost? Oh. Really. Well, it might take a few paychecks, but watch I’ma be popping bottles with supermodels, like Jay-Z said. I really wish they’d pay me.

—Otis Parker, Bowie, MD

Man, did he say he had a Hublot watch? Them joints is like half my yearly income. I mean, back when I had a job. Now I don’t have a yearly income. And two big face Rolexes? That sounds like several months rent and groceries. I ain’t worked in weeks. Somebody need to forcibly redistribute some of that wealth. Where you say they live at again?

—Otis Washington, Binghamton, NY

Cornel "Otis" West

The ostentation of the presentation is beneath my compensation. Can you dig what I’m saying? I ain’t spending no money on that. In ‘Otis,’ my dear brothers Jay-Z and Kanye West play the part of overzealous and capricious conspicuous consumers in a time when our dear misguided brother Barack Obama is not returning my phone calls and, just as bad, there is double digit unemployment in the black community. They’ve lost touch with the common people. Now perhaps my dear brother from the Marcy Projects and my dear brother from the south side of Chicago would like to join my brother Tavis Smiley and me on our poverty tour to reconnect with the people in the hood. And if our dear brother Jay and our dear brother Kanye would like to contribute some funds to pay for the tour, including hotels, meals, souvenirs, bitches and other incidentals, I’m sure brother Tavis and I could work out something.

—Cornel “Otis” West, Princeton, NJ

That’s a damn good sample, Otis Redding, “Try a Little Tenderness.” Seems like in the lyrics they decided to try a little dullness. Oh hahaha.

—Otis Statler, Waldorf, MD

This fool said, “I made Jesus Walks I’m never going to Hell.” Ha! Wanna bet?

—Jesus “Otis” Christ, Right Hand of His Father, Heaven

Kanye West's uncle, Otis West

You know something, those boys ain’t shit. That boy Kanye is my nephew. Him and that funny looking guy—Jay…Jay-something—came over to visit me a few months ago. I fried some chicken for them. This was before I got laid off. Right after he eat, Kanye grip his stomach and say he need to use the bathroom, but I ain’t get a chance to clean it–I had the same chicken the day before so, believe me, I know what it can do to a stomach, taste good though—so I’m like, ‘Man, watch the throne, you need to wipe it off before you sit your ass down.’ Next thing I know, he and Jay name the album Watch the Throne and they got a song name after me. And you think I seen a cent off that? I tell you them boys ain’t shit. I would show you the toilet, but my house got foreclosed on. Lost everything after I got laid off. I called up Kanye–this was before the album came out–and was like, break me off some bread so I won’t lose the house and he accuse me of wanting to be adopted, said he already adopted enough people, Philip Drummon’ed em. I said, ‘Son, I ain’t no damn Willis and I damn sure ain’t no damn Arnold. You steady watching the throne, should be watching your mouth when you talk to me.’ Then he want to talk to me about his Benz and his other other Benz. Shortly after that, I got foreclosed on. I approach my nephew like, ‘Give your uncle a place to stay.’ He like, ‘Can’t you see the private jets flying over you.’ I think he rude. I’m left with no dignity and he want to make me look even less dignified. We start to arguing and he end the conversation saying, ‘May all your pain be champagne.’ Now the boy know I can’t even afford Ripple. I told you my nephew ain’t shit.

—Otis West, Chicago, Ill.

Jay-Z and Kanye West got a song together or something? Oh, a whole album. Damn, I ain’t been keeping up. Busy looking for a job. It’s hard when you ain’t already got one. Not like I can afford to buy the album anyway. You know if it’s any good?

—Otis Hampden, Brooklyn, NY

*

Rion Amilcar Scott writes fiction all over the damn place, tweets @reeamilcarscott and blogs at datsun flambe.

On August 6, after Standard & Poor’s downgraded the US credit rating to AA+, the US Treasury pointed out a $2 trillion error in Standard & Poor’s calculations. “A judgment flawed by a 2 trillion dollar error speaks for itself,” a Treasury spokesman said. Added the spokesman: “My mother made a 2 trillion dollar error once. Once.” The following is Standard & Poor’s official apology:

……………..

Dear Fellow Americans:

On behalf of everyone at Standard & Poor’s, we would like to officially apologize for the very minor miscalculation we made late last week while determining whether or not we should downgrade the country’s credit rating. The press likes to call our mistake a “two trillion dollar mistake,” but we think that is unfair, despite its spot-on accuracy. Nevertheless, we want to apologize for this miscalculation, as well as for a few others, which we will address in this statement.

First, we would like to apologize to the barista at Starbucks. What happened at that fine establishment could have happened to anyone. Yes, we ordered a Venti caramel Frappuccino, when in fact we actually wanted a Grande. Yes, we know this minor error caused the cashier much stress when trying to void the transaction at the register. And yes, the fact that we had a one-night-stand with said cashier certainly added to the awkwardness of the situation. Nevertheless, we felt the only fair thing to do was for her to give us back the balance in price while, at the same time, letting us keep the Venti-sized drink. We’re glad she agreed, but perturbed that she gave us an attitude during the transaction. Hence, we recommend she work on that attitude if she’s interested in keeping her minimum-wage job.

Of course, we’re only human, so naturally we made a few more “mistakes.” For instance, earlier this week, we tweeted that we had more than 2,000,000,004,000 Twitter followers. Our estimate was off, once again, by 2,000,000,000,000. It has not gone unnoticed that this is the 2,000,000,002nd time we made that mistake. (Ha ha, get it? Just trying to lighten the mood.)

On a similar note, our LinkedIn profile is not 85% complete—as previously stated—but rather only 65% complete. However, we are in the process of completing our ‘Education’ section, which we are told will increase profile completeness by five percentage points.

Let it be known that we genuinely regret telling our wife that we lost $75 last night while playing poker with the guys. We actually lost $5,945 dollars. We felt this monetary loss wasn’t a big deal, but she obviously felt differently. The indisputable fact that we came home at six in the morning without calling probably didn’t help matters.

We have decidedly made other mistakes that do not fit into the “overestimating” category. These mistakes range from trivial to catastrophic to Shyamalanesque. Take, for instance, the Nine Inch Nails song “Up Above It” from their debut album Pretty Hate Machine. When Mr. Reznor was singing “I was up above it,” we originally thought he was singing “I was in a Pontiac.” We take full responsibility for this misunderstanding, and we’ve made it a point to sing the correct lyrics when we play “Up Above It” on our Zune, despite the fact that “I was in a Pontiac” is a better lyric.

Another example of an “error” is the flyer posted on the bulletin board in our office kitchen addressing the Heimlich maneuver. To all our employees: despite what the flyer says, do not “Gently insert the toilet snake” into the “victim’s esophagus.” While this might dislodge the food item, it could also cause extremely minor esophageal damage. We plan on taking this posting down within the next few days to prevent further incidents.

Again, we made what some would call mistakes. But, as the great philosophical rock band Human League put it, “[we’re] only human; of flesh and blood [we’re] made. Human; born to make mistakes.”

In summary, words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration and inconvenience you have caused us, but we’re willing forgive you if you do the same.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Standard & Poor’s

Brad Green’s Fixing Miss Fritz is live now at the Texas Observer. Read this.

Staccato Fiction offers a story by Michelle Reale.

At Fwriction Review, fiction from Myfanwy Collins.

Mensah Demary’s Stark County appears at Used Furniture Review.

In the Summer 2011 issue of The New Yinzer, an appreciation by Matt Bell.

Up at Staccato Fiction, a story from Sarah Malone.

Kathy Fish’s Wild Life is available for pre-order from Matter Press.

Michelle Reale has a collection available from Thunderclap Press.

Zelda is revisited by Brian Oliu in Web Conjunctions.

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson is out this month from Ecco.

Richard Thomas graces the virtual pages of Metazen.

Kill Author Fourteen features writing from J. Bradley, Jen Michalski, Meg Pokrass, and Robb Todd.

Exciting project on the horizon–Corey Zeller approached some great writers to produce self-parodying titles. Zeller’s objective: “to write a book of serious prose poems” borrowing the deliberately bad titles. That She Could Remember Something Other Than _________, a Nester / Winter nominee, is the working title for Zeller’s collection.

Alexis Orgera broke up with me. She did it in a book. The book was how like foreign objects. One minute we were dating and so intertwined and then I became a pit in her stomach and near the end we were banished from one another, Orgera tearing the relationship out of me like a hot knife.

from ‘Road Tripping’:

I’ll check the windows of your house, which is to say

the open air, for drafts or oncoming traffic.

I’ll check your hair for beautiful noise

and pick the notes from the base of your scalp.

We’re out in the open, specter.

We’re like two field mice on a streetcar.

This is how we fall in love, Orgera and her reader, the crafting of her language putting notes in our hair, making noise beautiful, pairing us with her as she pairs everyday objects with unexpected movement. The foreign object is both our reading and her language, each a new substance in a complex game.

from ‘Rules of Gravity’:

The two of us in my car,

darkness rose through bottlebrush

and Brazilian pepper

in the driveway

in droplets of blood.

Rose, an oubliette of mean fire,

through your body

then sank

a lodestone in me.

It is love until there is too much, until the language becomes so dense that we cannot stand one another, that we begin to infect each other, as a foreign object in the body, as sometimes even transplants are rejected, Orgera’s conversational banter growing ever more present at the head of each poem, chastising us as only lovers can.

from ‘Unlike Many Land Mammals’:

Until one day you began dying,

you were the bug of my life. To continue

this metaphor would be profane,

but remember that bug sounds likes love

beneath the din

of iTunes across a long, narrow space.

We lived in an extra-long shoe-

box. We lived in the delinquent shadow

of bamboo. We lived as rats

clipped their nails on our walkways,

as humans screamed and punctuated

our infrequent lovemaking.

And then it was over, Orgera flinging us from her poetry like a couple tosses one another out of their lives. We fell into and held one another for as long as could, but then we broke. how like foreign objects does this, and so much more, in its dense and beatific pages. I’ve never met Orgera, and I’ve never read her work before, but through how like foreign objects I became both close to and far away from what she writes, how she writes, and the maneuvers she uses to pull me in and then eject me from her poet’s heart, from her cavern of immense vocabulary, from her poetry as thick as love.

how like foreign objects is available from H_NGM_N BKS.

J. A. Tyler is the author of A Shiny, Unused Heart and A Man of Glass & All the Ways We Have Failed. He is also founding editor of Mud Luscious Press.

My fellow Americans, my colleagues and I in the Democratic Party recently made a debt deal with our friends across the aisle in the Republican Party. This deal averted a crisis—the debt ceiling was raised and our country avoided default—but the deal, devoid as it was of revenue and full of spending cuts, also left many of my supporters feeling disappointed and abandoned.

I hear what you’ve been saying: That I’m weak. That I’m a master of capitulation and accommodation, but not of fighting. That I might as well go ahead and join the Tea Party as I’m helping them achieve their agenda. Well, I’m out of traditional ideas. The intransigence of my opposition and the dire economic situation of our country calls for me to make large and novel changes in the way my administration does things.

You say I might as well be a Tea Party member, I say that’s as good as any idea that I’ve heard. Effective immediately I, Barack Hussein Obama, am joining the Tea Party and will take up and attempt to complete their agenda. The most important thing for this country is that my presidency fails and that I join the ranks of Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush as a noble one-termer. I was on the road to achieving that goal previously, but with my direct aid, we as a nation can make sure that this is a certainty.

Starting today, immediately following every speech I make, I will go outside and protest whatever I just said while holding misspelled, racist and/or ill informed signs. Despite releasing my long-form birth certificate, I will soon provide proof that I was indeed born in Kenya and will conduct all presidential business in traditional Kenyan garb. And we are still researching the constitutionality of this, but I will be replacing my Vice President, Joe Biden, with the rotting corpse of Ronald Reagan

This is a drastic step, but I’m tired of losing. If you can’t beat ‘em, right? I came in talking about changing the tone in Washington and doing things in the spirit of bi-partisanship so here I am walking the walk.

No, this will not create jobs. It won’t fix our country’s wounded credit rating. It won’t save us from another recession or stop our long slide from the dominant power in the world to…well, I’m not sure where we will end up. Like many of my compromises, it will certainly redistribute the nation’s wealth into the hands of “job creators” who will in turn, horde the money and not create any jobs.

All of that is true. Why am I joining the Tea Party again? Because the next Depression is on the horizon and I’m tired of fighting it. As a matter of fact, it’s just about here. My time will be better spent coming up with a cool name for it: The Greater Depression. I’m partial to that one. The Great Depression II: The Electric Boogaloo. Nah, too predictable. Perhaps The Electric Brokealoo. Maybe. I don’t know.

It’ll come to me, maybe at night when I tuck Malia and Sasha into bed. I’ll look at their faces and imagine them as women—older and post-apocalyptic in demeanor—living through the aftermath of our decisions to be bullies and cowards and I will see them mouthing words and those words will be sad, but also perfect in describing the time some decided to scorch the earth and others decided to let it burn.

*

Rion Amilcar Scott writes fiction all over the damn place, tweets @reeamilcarscott and blogs at datsun flambe.

Like you, I was born. Then I became a man. I still am a man. Just ask my wife. Never mind. Don’t ask my wife. Pretend I never even brought my wife up. Just take it from me: I am a man.

But like I said: I was born. Most people are brought into this world by a mother, but I was brought into it by a grandmother. My daughters’ grandmother, to be exact. And most people don’t remember the day they themselves were born, but I do. I remember every moment.

I remember there being a light. I went toward it. After about three hours of crowning, I emerged successfully. The doctors gently delivered me and placed me on a table. First, they removed my bicycle helmet, which they placed into a tub of warm water. Then, due to a slight measure of incompetence on the doctors’ part, my father had to cut my umbilical cord with an Earth, Wind & Fire 8-track. It went smoothly, or at least as smoothly as things could go in a stolen ’74 Lincoln Town Car.

After removing the bike helmet, it is customary for the doctor's Illustrator Assistant to sketch out the apparatus. Above: the sketch of my helmet.

The next few hours were a blur. Not for me, but for my father, who was hyperventilating. I was fine, and I remember everything with pinpoint accuracy. I felt the doctors poke and prod. Mainly prod, but there was definitely some poking. If I could break it out, I’d say it was about 23% poking, 76% prodding and 1% doing that magic trick where you pretend your sliding your thumb across your hand.

While I could only see light, shadows and some motion, I did notice a silhouette looking down at me and shaking his head. Not in a bad a way, but more of a Are-you-kidding-me-? kind of way. When I was a teenager, I brought this up to my mother and she said the head-shaking is standard operating procedure. Much later in life, when my daughter was born and put into the nursery, I noticed the doctors (obviously incompetent ones) didn’t follow this procedure. So, when I was in the nursery, I made sure I looked down at her and shook my head. She’ll thank me one day.

When it was time to leave the hospital, my mother carried me to the car. They didn’t use baby seats back in those days, so they had to strap me to the hood with bungee cords. Luckily, we didn’t live far from the hospital, although it felt far what with the below-freezing temperatures. Nevertheless, we made it home in what my father called “record time” with a “record low number of speeding tickets,” hitting a “record high number of deer” while mother tried to keep the “record number of cops” off our tail by throwing out the window a “record number of records.”

Those first few nights in my new home were both strange and beautiful. Strange because, admittedly, I thought the only two places in the world were my mother’s womb and the hospital. My world immediately opened up to a third place: my parents’ home. And now, as I write this, I can only assume there’s a fourth, fifth, perhaps even a sixth place somewhere out there. We can all dream, right?

Back in those days, breastfeeding was looked down upon, so my mother fed me Italian Wedding Soup, which was the formula du jour.

"Breastfeeding is bad. Try Italian wedding soup," this doctor told my mom. He just might have saved both of our lives.

Every day, she’d cut up the vegetables and make the broth and shape the little meatballs with her palms or any two palms she could get a hold of. It was a lot of work, but what were her options?

I could go on and on about those first days on earth, but I’ll stop here for now. All I ask is that you, too, try to remember your first days. If you’re having trouble, start by thinking about your last days on earth, then go backwards from there. Eventually, you’ll get back to your infancy. (We all do.) What went through your mind during those first few days? How did you feel? And, if you could break it down, what were the percentages of poking, prodding and doing that thumb trick? These are all important questions only you or your doctor can answer.