So it’s Thursday everyone and I realized at 5:49 this morning I hadn’t written my column this week. Wow. Time flies. It’s Friday, 7:11 a.m., and I’ve still not finished my column. Slacker. Actually, I’ve got stuff happening and probably could have skipped this week, but what sort of columnist would I be if I did that?

Yesterday I started thinking about Las Vegas. In the light of day, the city is ugly. At night, it’s like a hooker in electric blue eyeliner and scarlet rouge. I know. Vegas is a city for sin, a city of illusions, like any good hooker should be, but I’m not comfortable with obscene opulence. Also, I’m not a gambler. 

I’ve been to Las Vegas twice. First time, I saw a drag show and went pee in a men’s restroom because the line for the ladies was too long.  That was 1994. Second time was Fall 2008. I was there twenty-two hours.  My last boyfriend flew me in for the night. He’d already been in Vegas two days and stayed another after I left. My former boyfriend was a gambler. I’d told him before I wasn’t. That night, he offered me one hundred dollars to play; he said he didn’t care if I lost it. I said I couldn’t possibly lose that much. Guilt. Or it seemed frivolous. I could pay my electric and phone bills with a hundred bucks. He gave me a twenty-dollar bill, which I agreed I could bear to lose.  I played at the 21 table thirty-five minutes and broke even. I returned my boyfriend’s twenty to him and said I didn’t want to gamble anymore. Later, we went to a strip club called the Rhino. Weird name for a strip club. Maybe it was the Opulent Rhino. I can’t remember. I remember Jonniki though, who was wasn’t opulent. She was a journalism major. I said, “Whatever you do, stay in school and finish your degree.” I also said to blow off every guy who offered to be her Sugar Daddy. Jonniki said I was right. But we’d drank lots of wine. And I was an older woman with a child. She was twenty-two. Jonniki kissed me. You just never know, do you?

Lately, I’ve been sleeping better than usual. Tuesday, I hit a writing dead line. Last Friday, I bought a house. Next time I transmit from Republican country, I’ll do so from a trailer park palace not a cottage. Four weeks ago, my stepmom asked my son, “Why would you want to live in a trailer?”  Three weeks ago, my parents provided a down payment so I could finance said trailer, which was a generous thing to do–incredible, actually. How lucky I am, grateful. But I’ll never pretend to understand my parents.

My son’s first home was a “trailer.” I bought it in 1994: I was in love with it. (Insert trail of  hearts here.) The trailer was mine; it was beautiful, and to tell the truth, it wasn’t a trailer; it was a manufactured home in a manufactured home community, and so is the new one, but some people find the term “trailer” and the suggestion of a “trailer park” so offensive and low income I use it. Look everyone, here’s your trailer park trash.

In graduate school, I called my thesis, With Love, From the Trailer Park Where I Live.  You’d find exactly what you’d expect to find in my new neighborhood: elderly folks on fixed incomes, rednecks on fixed incomes, minorities on fixed incomes, solo mothers on fixed incomes. They’re my people. (Insert hearts here.)

Three weeks ago my father asked, “You sure you want to buy this trailer?”  I said yes. I want to own something again. I want a mortgage I can manage long term. After all, my financial situation won’t change, unless it dives. I’m a writer.  I’m a solo mother. What I earn at my job is what I earn and I won’t earn much else. I’m a single woman.  My parents used to assume I’d get married and double my income, except I won’t, and my parents finally gave up the idea, as has my grandmother. Now my father just worries I’m a lesbian. If Fox Mulder was a real person I’d marry him. I’d also marry Britney Murphy, but she’s dead. Anyway, I wasn’t her type, was I?

Not to mention gay marriage isn’t legal where I live.

Speaking of dead, my son asked three nights ago what would happen to him if I died before I’d managed to raise him. Like I’ve said before, my son will ask me anything. I’m glad. Twelve years ago I bought a life insurance policy; why this doesn’t occur to every parent, solo or otherwise, I don’t know, but it was one of the first things to occur to me after my son was born. What if I drop dead? Who will take care of my child, and where will the money to do so come from?

My son’s father is custodian for the money under the Gift to Minor’s Act. Yeah, he agreed to tend the money. He also agreed to look after our son if I died before I’d raised him. Now you may think this man won’t do the right thing by my son with that money, but truth is my son’s father lives in a mansion and owns two Ferraris (I hear through the grapevine) and more than one person has told me, “You need to go after that guy for more money.”  True, he doesn’t miss the child support he pays now. Last month on the phone he asked, “How much do I pay you?”  because his accountant takes care of it all and he doesn’t miss it. Still, I’m not asking him for more money. I don’t care how much he makes or the parties he throws on New Years or the young women he fucks anymore. I care about our son.

When you go after a non-custodial parent for more money sololy because he/she can apparently afford two Ferraris it’s no longer about the child. It’s about greed, pettiness, envy, something. My son doesn’t have everything he wants, but he has everything he needs. Twelve years ago, when I bought life insurance, I did so because if I die before I’ve raised my son to self sufficiency, I want to contribute financially to his future. I’d want to contribute anyway. Death is expensive and some debts don’t go away. The idea my death would become a financial burden on anyone, especially a person I love, kills me. At my day job, I witness families left not only in emotional but financial ruin as well when a breadwinner dies. Heck, when a stay-at-home parent dies. You’ve any idea what a homemaker is worth? Thousands of dollars a month.

Okay. About the other thing, my son’s father agreeing to raise him if I can’t. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit my son’s father is betting I don’t die before I’ve raised him. He’s not rubbing his hands together and hoping I drop dead so he gets his chance. He can have his chance anytime; all he has to do is ask his son.

The other night when I explained this arrangement to our son he said, “I don’t want to live with him. He doesn’t love me.” 

Okay. Look. I’ve had to change my mind about this a couple times. If you know me, or have read my column, you might understand why I’ve made the choice I have regarding who takes care of my child if I die prematurely. The decision has kept me awake at night. It’s not a choice I’ve taken lightly. I’ve struggled with it, and plenty of single and/or solo parents ignore the decision altogether and hope for the best because it’s hard.

After all, who wants to think about the person they love most in the world in someone else’s hands? Who wants to imagine themselves dead?

My son and I talked about it the other night, and he agreed my choice was best. I mean, we’d talked about it before. He knew about the life insurance. He knew who my prior choice was and why, and he wasn’t exactly happy about it, and now that he knows who my current choice is, he isn’t exactly happy about that either.

Nothing’s ideal. But I can’t not make a decision. That’s impossible. Irresponsible. Naive.

Ten minutes after we’d finished our conversation, my son came back and said we should conduct an experiment.

“What kind of experiment?”

“We should drive to Denver to where my dad works and you should pretend he has to take care of me now and then leave and see what he does.”

My sweet beautiful kiddo. He doesn’t trust the guy. Why should he? The first time I asked his father if he’d raise our son if I couldn’t he said, “I told you I didn’t want to be a father. I haven’t changed my mind about that. But I guess if you were dead I’d do it.” 

My son wants a trial run. Can you picture us in the car? We’re not on our way to Vegas.

“A swirl of little pale birds, like confetti, like a net of lace, exfoliated from the sky and draped themselves upon an Aleppo pine … the world continued, bland and blase, while catastrophe opened beneath the one who cared.”
Edward Abbey, The Fools Progress.

Abbey wrote this book as a semi-autobiographical map of his life. In the above line, he had just learned that he has cancer and only months to live. His main character in many/all of his novels was the wilderness. His main theme, his relationship with it.

It is a struggle. Whether I am around to brush my hand across its side or not, the Aleppo Pine will grow regardless.

Why am I here? Why are you here? Why are any of us here? Why is this cat here, sitting on the barstool next to me? Why is there a living goldfish wriggling inside the cat’s mouth? Where did that goldfish even come from, and how did they get that tiny sombrero on its head?

Is it a Mexican fish? Can a fish even have a nationality? Finally, what is the genus of the goldfish?

These are all good questions, and all are unanswerable save one—that one being the ‘Why am I here?’ question. That one can be answered. The rest, I’m afraid, are impossible to answer.

I am here to dispel advertising myths. Or, as the kids say these days, “adver-myths.” There are too many of these adver-myths to count, but if I had to estimate, I’d say there are 2,437.

In a way, I’m exactly like that show Mythbusters, with the one exception that I only bust myths involving the advertising industry and also I don’t have a TV show. Okay, make that two exceptions.

Look, I’m sure you’ve heard all kinds of crazy tales about the advertising industry. I’m not going to waste your time with the more familiar ones. The one about the malfunctioning electric Poodle, for example. Or the malfunctioning Golden Retriever. I’m certainly not rehashing the old malfunctioning Cocker Spaniel legend. They’re silly—these dog adver-myths—and not one of them is true. Except for the electric Rhodesian Ridgeback myth. That one is true, and I’ve got the scars on my shin to prove it.

This Rhodesian Ridgeback looks so real, doesn't it?

No, I’m delving into the myths that, while well-known, are least talked about. For instance, some say advertising is the product of capitalism. But actually advertising is not the product of capitalism, but rather communism. Think about it.

Do you believe every copywriter burns the midnight oil trying to write the Great American novel? Well, you wouldn’t be the only one to think that, despite the fact that you’d be wrong, as every writer knows that novel has already been written by the late, great Fyodor Dostoevsky.

The idea that my brother Gary—who also works in advertising—impregnated a client, said he’d pay for the abortion, then changed his mind in the clinic waiting room and begged her to keep the baby is a myth I just made up right now. I don’t have a brother named Gary. I don’t have a brother named Glen or Brian or Dale. In fact, I don’t have a brother at all.

The notion of people in advertising working late hours is decidedly false. Sometimes we leave as early as 2 a.m.

The idea that every project is due yesterday is not only false, but inane. You can’t go back to yesterday because it’s in the past and going back in time is physically impossible until June 17, 2013—the deadline I set for finishing my time machine.

I shouldn’t have mentioned the time machine. Please forget you ever read that. I’m wishing I could go back in time to delete that whole mention of the time machine, but I can’t, because I don’t have a time machine and never will. Because I’m not working on one.

You know what, I should probably go ahead and wrap this up. Sure, there are other myths out there and they shall be busted in due time. You can’t rush mythbusting. Take it from me and, possibly, this cat, who has since swallowed the fish. Maybe the cat knows about bustin’ myths, too. There’s no telling what the cat knows. Because, really, I don’t even like cats.

If you’d like me to bust one of the myths you’ve heard, please write one in the comment box below.

Why am I here? Why are you here? Why are any of us here? Why is this cat here, sitting on the barstool next to me? Why is there a living goldfish wriggling inside the cat’s mouth? Where did that goldfish even come from, and how did they get that tiny sombrero on its head?

Is it a Mexican fish? Can a fish even have a nationality? Finally, what is the genus of the goldfish?

These are all good questions, and all are unanswerable save one—that one being the ‘Why am I here?’ question. That one can be answered. The rest, I’m afraid, are impossible to answer.

I am here to dispel advertising myths. Or, as the kids say these days, “adver-myths.” There are too many of these adver-myths to count, but if I had to estimate, I’d say there are 2,437.

In a way, I’m exactly like that show Mythbusters, with the one exception that I only bust myths involving the advertising industry and also I don’t have a TV show. Okay, make that two exceptions.

Look, I’m sure you’ve heard all kinds of crazy tales about the advertising industry. I’m not going to waste your time with the more familiar ones. The one about the malfunctioning electric Poodle, for example. Or the malfunctioning Golden Retriever. I’m certainly not rehashing the old malfunctioning Cocker Spaniel legend. They’re silly—these dog adver-myths—and not one of them is true. Except for the electric Rhodesian Ridgeback myth. That one is true, and I’ve got the scars on my shin to prove it.

This Rhodesian Ridgeback looks so real, doesn't it?

No, I’m delving into the myths that, while well-known, are least talked about. For instance, some say advertising is the product of capitalism. But actually advertising is not the product of capitalism, but rather communism. Think about it.

Do you believe every copywriter burns the midnight oil trying to write the Great American novel? Well, you wouldn’t be the only one to think that, despite the fact that you’d be wrong, as every writer knows that novel has already been written by the late, great Fyodor Dostoevsky.

The idea that my brother Gary—who also works in advertising—impregnated a client, said he’d pay for the abortion, then changed his mind in the clinic waiting room and begged her to keep the baby is a myth I just made up right now. I don’t have a brother named Gary. I don’t have a brother named Glen or Brian or Dale. In fact, I don’t have a brother at all.

The notion of people in advertising working late hours is decidedly false. Sometimes we leave as early as 2 a.m.

The idea that every project is due yesterday is not only false, but inane. You can’t go back to yesterday because it’s in the past and going back in time is physically impossible until June 17, 2013—the deadline I set for finishing my time machine.

I shouldn’t have mentioned the time machine. Please forget you ever read that. I’m wishing I could go back in time to delete that whole mention of the time machine, but I can’t, because I don’t have a time machine and never will. Because I’m not working on one.

You know what, I should probably go ahead and wrap this up. Sure, there are other myths out there and they shall be busted in due time. You can’t rush mythbusting. Take it from me and, possibly, this cat, who has since swallowed the fish. Maybe the cat knows about bustin’ myths, too. There’s no telling what the cat knows. Because, really, I don’t even like cats.

If you’d like me to bust one of the myths you’ve heard, please write one in the comment box below.

ATTENTION: We are having a reading in Chicago, this saturday, at 9 pm, though words will start spitting at 9:30. There’s going to be burlesque. Both Matt and I are reading as are other luminaries such as, well check out the line up on this bad ass poster Matt made.

Storyglossia 42 includes fiction by xTx (READ THIS), JA Tyler, and others. Read all of it, really. It’s Storyglossia.

The Medulla (Oblongata, can’t help it) Review 2.2 includes the one and only Super Lakers Fan and Paul Pierce Hater Mel Bosworth. He is joined by J.P. Dancing Bear and CL Bledsoe.

It’s Christmas in July at Wufniks with a story by Len Kuntz.

Did you know Ethel Rohan is the Writer in Residence this month at Necessary Fiction? She’ll be featuring the work of Irish writers. You’re welcome.

Andrea Kneeland has a new poem up at Juked. She also has a poem at Everyday Genius.

The March issue of decomP includes writing from Len Kuntz, Micah Dean Hicks, and others. They are also having a KickStarter campaign to fund a print component.

Jamie Iredell is interviewed over at Recommended Reading.

New fiction from Sheldon Lee Compton is up at Blue Fifth Review.

The Way We Speak Now, by Angi Becker Stevens is now featured at Smokelong Weekly.

Tamiko Beyer and Thomas Patrick Levy have words in Diagram 11.1.

Sara Lippmann explains the origins of her story Tomorrowland on the JMWW blog.

In very fancy news, Hannah Miet has a feature in The New York Times.

xTx has new fiction up at Wufniks and David Bowie is involved, sort of. Wait, what’s that? She has two stories up? Yes.

Thumbnail reprinted Erin Ftzgerald’s ode to Beatrice Quimby.

There is a new issue of Bluestem with a bunch of PANK friends including James Valvis, Ani Smith, Melissa Broder, Ricky Garni, Robert McDonald, Anne Leigh Parrish, Andrew Roe, Heather Momyer, Karen Munro, Christina Murphy, Aubrey Hirsch, Robert Swartwood, Len Kuntz, Gary Moshimer, and more. Get started, here.

Issue 6 of A cappella Zoo is available and affordable and includes Callista Buchen, Nicelle Davis and Cheryl Gross, Rose Hunter, Micah Dean Hicks, and JA Tyler.

Daniel Nester has a new project, The Memoir Office.

The March issue of elimae has writing from Jamison Crabtree, Ricky Garni, Helen Vitoria, and Eric Burke.

More new issues–Dark Sky Magazine–has work from Bonnie ZoBell, Helen Vitoria, and David Cotrone.

New fiction from Tyler Gobble is live at Housefire.

Two more missed connections by Brian Oliu were recently at Wigleaf.

Three Ghazals by Dennis Mahagin are featured at Unlikely Stories. He is joined by Melanie Browne, who had two stries there in January.

Jeffrey Petheybridge and Anthony Madrid have a collaboration going on. Kirsty Logan and George Ttoouli do too.

The one and only James Tadd Adcox has flash fiction in Ghost Ocean Magazine. Click on Current Issue to get to his work.

Hobart 12 includes writing from Mike Meginnis, Lily Hoang, Aubrey Hirsch, Brian Oliu, and so much more. A full Table of Contents is here and bonus features are here.

The new issue of diode has poems by Laura McCullough, Ocean Vuong, and Blake Butler’s Facebook Wall.

Camroc Press Review, which has a nice new look, has a story by Vallie Lynn Watson.

At Metazen, Feng Sun Chen.

Imagine this perfectly windy day. There is a kite, the most perfect kite. And we are on a perfect grassy slope, looking down a clean run, a lack of trees as a runway. We want to burst, kite string in hand, wind lifting those wings and its hollow bones. But the string beneath our kite, it has birthed itself a tangle of white, an unspooled ream of loops. The wind will not last and the mass of string seems a doable challenge, so we drop to your knees, to the lawn, and begin feeding lines through lines.

from ‘The History of a Lake Never Drowns’:

We fished for porcelain, traded childhood wampum in shards of blue

Summer thunder levitated a tiny body in bed

Your head, tender poppy, white-shaped lung tired like a sinner

watching the sun go down

Think how many little words have passed by & not noticed you

The dock a xylophone you dove from

Julia Cohen’s Triggermoon Triggermoon is this kite. Cohen’s poems have these lithe and beautiful shapes, moments that in our hands we want to see flying. We picture, in their shiny surfaces, their open spaces, the sky against poetic skin, the way these poems are unleashed from ground, relinquished towards the perpetual transformation of clouds.

from ‘Hello Pedestrian, I Hope’:

it’s not too wind-torn

out there—these shutters are

just for show. You have

the warmest bones I’ve ever

met. The woodpile is dwindling

while my androgyny is a perfect

child that cannot stack.

And Triggermoon Triggermoon is also the string pooled beneath the kite, flopped down in seemingly hassled impasses, tendered back and upon itself, infinitely playing out. These poems are work to be done, both a praise of down-on-knees for how they are written and the workload of crouching to investigate, to unstring lines from lines.

from ‘No Bravery in the Night Room’:

What scares me most is that what I fear is already here & I don’t

know it yet I’m also afraid that if it happens

you won’t be imaginative enough to know where I went I do not

worry about the ghosts with them good & evil doesn’t apply

I have no bravery for the night in my daylight hours are stoic &

invincible I feel prepared

& eager I have ten eyes ten hands

My closet holds my clothes the forest my animals

When we shut our eyes they are actually still open only

covered by a lid I say these lines uncomplicated so that I may

eventually sleep

Cohen is not the flyer of this kite, we are. As readers engaged in Triggermoon Triggermoon we are asked to wield her beauty in our skies, to judge the wind and work out our tangles. Cohen’s poetry is not to be swallowed – it is to be sipped, relished, savored – and we are expected to work on her poetry until we find those two finite ends. Then we will tie one to kite and one to our wrist, letting go, watching blue between perfectly carved spaces, a kite of words floating up.

—Wake up. Wonder why you have “If You’re Happy And You Know It, Clap Your Hands” song stuck in head.

—Go to bathroom (number one).

—Head to office. Realize you forgot your laptop.

—Go back home, try to remember what you did last night (bar, woman in black dress, bearded dude, arm wrestling match, Scion tearing out from bar parking lot).

—Go to bar. Retrieve laptop from Dumpster out back.

—Finally arrive at office. Sit down, turn computer on, stand back up, wonder how gum got on your seat.

—Spend hour in agency kitchen removing gum from your pants with various cleaners.

—Put pants back on.

—Return to office, check e-mails every 20 to 22 seconds.

—Go to bathroom (number one), wash hands, return to office.

—Get called into a brainstorming meeting, brainstorm, get asked to leave brainstorming meeting.

—Tell plant lady your brainstorming ideas, feel really good that she loves them, then feel disappointed when she tells you she has no pull around here.

—Laugh at plant lady’s ideas.

—Put on rubber Milton Berle Halloween mask and return to brainstorming meeting. Talk in Milton Berle voice. Take long silence as indication that the meeting has come to a close.

—Leave brainstorming meeting. Try to say hi to coworker you’d like to ask out sometime, but stop short as she just happens to get a phone call at that exact same moment again. Curse your luck.

—Go to bathroom (number one). Wash hands, get a flash of a memory from something that happened in childhood, dry hands, etcetera.

—Eat a sandwich at deli across the street.

—Return to office. Take off Milton Berle mask.

—Perform various tasks (write down ideas, present ideas to client, defend your ideas, realize you’re being too defensive, present plant lady’s ideas, revel in client’s praise, convince yourself it was your idea all along).

—Go to bathroom (number one). Consider getting your prostate checked. Wash hands.

—Return to office and perform various tasks (strategize, conceptualize, accessorize, receive from coworkers numerous stinkeyes).

—Call it a day. Pack up laptop, say goodbye to people on way out, accept piece of gum from very nice coworker Tom.

—Go to bar for quick drink(s), get up nerve to approach woman in blue dress, clean drink off face in bathroom (also, go number one).

—Arm wrestle guy with goatee. Lose. Realize your laptop is missing. Go outside, see plant lady get into Scion and squeal away.

—Go home, lie in bed. Realize you forgot to look for laptop. Sing “Your Laptop’s At The Bar, Don’t Forget” to tune of “If You’re Happy And You Know It, Clap Your Hands” in effort to remember to get laptop before going to work tomorrow.

—Fall asleep. Dream about going to the bathroom (number one).

Fiction from Colin Winnette has been posted at Everyday Genius.

Fruit, fiction by Len Kuntz is up at Staccato Fiction.

The third issue of Muzzle includes poetry from Marcus Wicker, Steve Subrizi, and others.

Lacey Martinez writes of lists and more at Wigleaf. There’s also a postcard.

Here’s a great interview with JA Tyler about Mudluscious’s new imprint, Nephew.

Issue 5 of Spilt Milk includes Helen Vitoria and Kyle Hemmings. Kyle also has a story up at Metazen.

David Peak’s King of the Rats reigns at Wigleaf.

Nicolle Elizabeth reviews Pedro Ponce’s Alien Autopsy.

At Pure Slush, a story by Todd McKie.

Yes Yes Books, run by Katherine Sullivan has a great new blog including a post by Richey Laurentiis. You should also check out a recent post by Phillip Williams. I look forward to seeing what they come up with.

There’s a special issue of the Foundling Review, a flash fiction issue with writing from Kyle Hemmings, Tara Laskowski and Beth Thomas.

Up now at LitSnack, a fine story by Michelle Reale.

Marc Baumer wrote about his date with Emma Watson.