buttons in funny places

i'm elated; i just found a button on my laptop that turns off the touchpad.

you have to understand; its not that i have meathooks or anything, but on my last laptop, i could barely type because i kept grazing the touchpad....

so if i were typing middle of another line something, randomly
my cursor would jump to the

...and i can't tell you how annoying that is when you think you're writing your opus.

as it turns out, what i was writing then wasn't going to be my great work. but touchpad misshaps are no less annoying now than they were back then, so it is nice, now that i have redefined the role and importance and type of writing in my life, to finally be able to peck at this keyboard without having to wonder where the words will end up.

at any rate, here i am with a new laptop, and a summer off from school -- with new plans for my former opus, new plans for a new opus, and most importantly, germs of ideas for other little pieces along the way. these last i'd like to focus on the most. i've only really written two short stories that i'd ever let anybody read. one needs about a thousand man hours of editing. the other needs less editing and more retouching. they are not bad. if i can fiddle with them a bit, they might even be good. they give me hope that i'll be able to write in the short form successfully. i plan on trying it out; if it works out the way i hope, i may send a few pieces out to run the publishing gauntlet. if the little guys survive, they'll be 'real,' i'll get to say i'm published, and maybe i'll even see some money. it won't be enough to pay rent; i'll be able to buy toothpaste and toilet paper and a nice chicken dinner if i'm lucky. but no Gepetto would ever be so happy.

let's set some goals:
i'm aiming low here, i know, but i'm not going to ask for much more than three short stories this summer. that's really because i only have three ideas, but let's all pretend that its because i'm monumentally gifted and that if i try to write any more than that it will put undue strain on my fragile body, and that because being such a genius is so exhausting i'll have to be bedridden for five months if i manage to pump out more that three literary treasures. let's pretend also that the nap i'm going to have to take after writing this post is for the same reason. everyone got it? good.

so, i have three ideas. one of them is what i like to politely call a reworking of Borges's "the Circular Ruins;" you might impolitely call it a "rip-off," but if we can get together over lunch on this one, i'm sure we'd be able to agree on the backhanded term "inspired by" and walk away satisfied.

one idea is about something called 'the Book of Lost Thoughts,' and it came from me wondering what happens to all of the little lines of poetry and prose i've composed in my head while walking, only to forget them completely upon arrival at whatever my destination.

one idea is about buffalo. the phrase that keeps flickering on the screen of my brain is "buffalo underworld"........its not about organized crime, or gangs, or our lovely, corrupt and useless politicians (ok, i didn't vote, i have no right to complain, yadda yadda).......but because buffalo manages to be a small and incestuous and inbred city; people's secrets get passed around like currency, street gossip is almost always reliable, and everyone's got a reputation for something. the word "sordid" is the best i can think of to describe it. the strange part is people take a certain kind of twisted pride in all that sordid stuff here. i'd venture a guess to say that any city is like that, but i don't live in any city, i live in buffalo. and because i am an absolute retard for mythology, i of course plan to work in some references to the classical (and non-classical) depictions of the Underworld....because....sometimes buffalo feels like...Purgatory or something....Sheol...the abode of the dead...

anyway...a story a month this summer.
i should be able to do that, right?


i'll let you know...