Since I haven't been awash in personal essay ideas lately, I'll just give those interested a quick update on happenings in my life. Recently I've been doing some freelance editing work for City Slab magazine.

Not to start a political discussion here, but then again, why the hell not? I saw this on MSNBC's Altercation and thought it was too good not to pass on. And since I'm not a big believer in forwarding emails to everyone in my address book, and since I've got this blog space just sitting here doing nothing, and since I'm a godless Liberal myself, here's as good a place as any. If it engenders discussion, great. But really I just like it, and want to post it.

Well, I've been back from vacation almost a week now, and I regret to report that one of the Standridge cats has suffered an injury. Alexei, the youngest feline member of the family and the middle-child pet-wise, was apparently hit by a car a couple of nights ago and suffered a fractured jaw. He survived, and looks set to make a full recovery, but knowing that fat orange tabby as I do, I'd say that's entirely a function of luck rather than the operation of primal survival instincts.

Alexei, you see, is not a smart cat.

Well, I'll be on vacation for the next two weeks. I know, what a disappointment--everyone's addicted to my blazing rate of blogging here. :) Anyway, take some time to look around, read my fiction, bask in the glory. And don't expect any updates until late in the month, at least. I'm putting the comment functionality on "approve," so that I don't get spammed to hell and back while I'm away from a pc. So if you comment, it won't show up until I stamp it, whenever I get back from NW Arkansas, land of my heart, home of my inlaws, haunt of my friends.

Now get on out of here. You're messin' up my lawn.

I had been toying with the idea of writing some deep, soul-searching blog about how at the end of my 34th year I'm looking back and taking a personal inventory of my life, looking at goals I made for myself that I had accomplished, goals yet to be accomplished, and reflecting philosophically on the passage of time in a finite existence and how inertia and vertigo war with one another to render us both frightened to move and terrified of standing still.

But thinking along those lines just made me feel pretentious and depressed, so I decided to go for something completely meaningless and silly. Which, if you think about it, could be a comment on the meaninglessness and silliness of our existence and our presumption that it should mean something big and deep beyond the day to day vagaries of finding food, reproducing, and ultimately dying. But then, you'd have to be thinking WAY too hard.

Another one that originally appeared on CHUDstories, couple years back, and got a good reader response there. The inspiration for the story is easy--after all, we all know that telemarketers are evil, right? I guess with the National Do Not Call List and other things this story is kind of dated already, but hey, so is Dostoyevsky. Here it is, for your enjoyment and comment.

Mary had almost coaxed little Timmy into his late-afternoon nap when the telephone rang.

There are times, as a parent, when you find yourself ambushed by your kids. You're hosting a dinner party, your guests are sitting around talking, and suddenly your sleep-addled four-year-old angel appears to announce, "Daddy, my penis itches." Or you're sitting at dinner, eating a nice plate of pasta, when your son becomes theologically thoughtful and poses the question, "Daddy, if God wanted to, could He make it so that you eat with your booty?" When things like this happen, as a parent you are completely on your own.

Here it is at last, the infamous shit story. As I mentioned in this post, I read this story--ALOUD--in front of a barroom crowd at the inagural Arkansas Literary Festival Pub or Perish event, to largely appreciative and sometimes raucous response. It appeared online for a while at my friend Lein Shory's zine Zugernat--don't look for it, it's not there anymore--in a slightly elongated form. This is the reading draft, slightly abridged but not exactly expurgated. I've only written a few comedy shorts, usually because I have a hard time coming up with something funny to write about, but when inspiration hits, I go with it, wherever it leads.

And I do mean where-ever. Enjoy, and feel free to fling comments.

One Monday morning in April, Wilfred Wertmuller looked into his toilet to discover that his stool was orange.

I can claim I come from an artistic family, and here's proof--my younger brother, Randall Darrell Standridge, a band teacher in Northeast Arkansas, has recently been on a tear, publishing several of his original pieces of music through three or four different music publishing houses around the country. I don't know from musical publishing companies, but this latest one, Grand Mesa Music out of Colorado, is according to Randy "pretty big." At any rate, you can go to that website and find an mp3 of Randy's composition, "Fields of Clover," at this link. Or, if they'll allow you, download it directly here.

Give it a listen, and tell me the kid can't write. I dare you.

This is my second published story, the first to appear in an online-only magazine. The magazine was Twilight Showcase, edited by NC writer Gary W. Conner. (Don't look for it, it's not there anymore...I don't know if any of the mags I've published in are still there.) I originally wrote this for a Halloween reading at an LSU bar, where it was received well. It's a straightforward ghost story, told around a campfire of sorts, nothing fancy, but I still like it. The only thing that makes me cringe is my attempt at Cajun dialect, but I don't do it much, and I'm leaving it, warts and all. Enjoy, and comment, for Christ's sake.

The only ghost story I ever heard J. K. tell was late in October last year, when him and me was both working on a road crew down in Baton Rouge.