Josh Grimmer - Camp Granada

Hello mother, hello father.

Camp Granada is not as fun as the brochure would lead you to believe. First of all, the weather isn't great. I mean, sure, rain happens, but this stuff is corrosive. It ate through my clothes. I spend my days huddles under sheets of corrugated tin, hoping to escape the elements, and even then I have to make sure to avoid the poison ivy.

The food is awful. I've been throwing up for days now. I'm caked in what I know must be vomit, but I cannot identify the source, seeing as I haven't eaten at all. I have no idea what this all could be from. I thought about escaping. The forest is full of bears. The lake is full of alligators.

The staff is almost as bad as the environs. The counselors and waitstaff are constantly fighting for reasons that nobody has bothered to explain. The head coach just sits around and reads James Joyce to us all day. And despite the fact that it's a danger to everyone at the camp, the kid who I share a bunk with has malaria and the counselors won't just send him home. Thank God I insisted on getting that intramuscular quinine shot before coming.

I need you to come get me, please. Please. I'm willing to meet any demands you set. No more messes or noise, even when other boys come over. I'll even kiss that wretched aunt of mine, Bertha. I'm not kidding. Please. I am your son. I am broken and deadened. Save me.

Love,

Your son, the nut,
Allan

PS: Please send my deepest regrets to the family of Jeffrey Hardy. He was a good guy who just ended up in a bad situation.

Josh Grimmer lives in North Hollywood with his wife and cat. He used to run this blog, but now he only sorta runs this blog. Let him know what you think about his dumb bullshit at http://twitter.com/JoshGrimmer

Josh Grimmer - Literacy --> Mortality --> Dieting

About two years ago I posted something on Facebook about how I was sad that I wasn't a very good reader. I got a few suggestions, most of which sounded absolutely wretched as soon as I researched them. The one author that stood out was Joan Didion, some of whose essays I had read and enjoyed. Two years later, about a week ago, I found a couple of her books at a used book store on Franklin in Hollywood. Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The Year of Magical Thinking. Seeing as these were the two most consistently praised Joan Didion books, and they were pretty cheap and both in great condition, I bought them. My wife works at a library and suggested that she could have just picked them up from work. She tells me that she is usually more likely to read a book from the library than one she has purchased; it has a deadline. I'm far more likely to read a book that I've bought because while I buy very few books, I feel like I must read them cover-to-cover to justify the expense.

My plan worked. I flew through Slouching Towards Bethlehem which, along with the last Harry Potter book, is now one of two books I have read in the past five years. I'm not particularly proud of the shallowness of my literary knowledge. Apparently if you want to write, the best thing to do is read. I'm not a great reader and, as you can see, I'm not a very prolific writer. Having finished Slouching Towards Bethlehem, I figured I should try to keep my reading momentum and start reading The Year of Magical Thinking. While Slouching Towards Bethlehem is a collection of essays, mostly about California in the 1960's, The Year of Magical Thinking is presented as more of a diary, detailing the year-long period of extended grief surrounding the death of Joan Didion's husband, John Gregory Dunne. He died of a sudden and (relatively) unexpected heart attack at dinner, sending his wife into a very understandable grief spiral. The Year of Magical Thinking won the National Book Award, as well as getting nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. I'm a little more than halfway through and it's already the best-written book I have ever read, topping an admittedly short list.

The problem with reading a book like this is that now I am convinced that I will drop dead at any moment.

My wife will be left alone. We are currently childless, but that will, I'm sure, change. I'm not afraid to die because it might hurt or because I have a million regrets or because maybe there isn't a Heaven and maybe I won't get there if there is. I'm afraid to die because I love my wife so much. I love the children we don't have. The idea of them dealing with my death ruins me. I remember a few years ago my wife told me that she always wished I would die of something sudden, but not instantaneous. Something that would allow her time to mourn while I was alive, but not for too long. I feel like this is reasonable.

I still don't want to die.

I'm not old. I'll be 26 in 10 days. Everyone always tells me that I'm not old, that they're old. I understand that you're whatever age you are, and that's great. I've never been 26 before, so that's still scary for me. I'm not in great shape. My wife tells me she thinks I'm attractive, which is certainly possible. The problem is I can't really run anymore without nearly having a seizure. I don't play sports anymore. Frankly I was probably healthier when I was 20 and I smoked a pack and a half of Camels a day. At least I rode a bike. My wife and I don't own a car, and occasionally she makes waves about how we need to get one. While I agree on principle, I'm afraid that I'd gain 40 pounds in a month if I didn't have to walk everywhere. One day I'd park a little to far from the entrance to the supermarket and collapse during the walk up to the door.

John Gregory Dunne was 71 when he died. 71 is a pretty good time to go, if such a thing exists. That's a full life for most people. That's enough time to go to school, fall in love, have a career, accomplish a lot. I'd be happy to make it to 71. Still, a heart attack can happen to anyone, they say, at any time. My work pants are fitting a little tighter than they used to. I'm just getting older, right? With age comes expansion. No, I'm gaining weight. I eat like shit. The only “restaurant” within a mile of my apartment is a Taco Bell. The only delivery options are pizza and Chinese food. Not a lot of places are willing to deliver a Cobb salad. (My love of Cobb salads will probably also kill me. So what if it's got bacon and a hard-boiled egg? It's a salad, right? I'll live forever.) I need to get used to cooking my own meals, but if I'm in charge of what I eat, it'll probably just end up being a lifetime of pasta and microwaveable dinners and home-made Egg McMuffins. Those are the three things I'm good at making.

I'm trying to diet. I'm counting calories, a task made much easier by whatever law (municipal? state? federal?) requires restaurants to post caloric values. As it stands I only drink Diet Coke. When I do drink coffee or (increasingly often recently) tea, I never add milk or sugar. I've even started drinking more water. Apparently the healthiest weight for a man my height is about 80 pounds less than I weigh right now. I'd have to lose a limb, but if that's what it takes, I'm willing to give it a shot. I'd rather my wife be married to an amputee than become a widow before age 40. I'm trying really, really hard. It shouldn't be this difficult, though. I even like eating healthy foods. I was able to remain a fairly strict vegetarian for years. I just want my wife to have a healthy husband. I want my kids to have a healthy father. I would at least like to outlive my cat.

This endeavor is, at its base, vanity incarnate. I want to be attractive. I want to be healthy. I want women to find me desirable, even though I'm not available. I want to be a good looking, if venerable, corpse. I want to look better in five years than I do now. I want the second number on my gravestone to be as high as possible. I want to have to buy smaller clothing. I never want to be as fat as I was in my (hidden from view, tucked away in a closet, face down) wedding photos. I don't want to outlive my wife, though, because while I worry for her, I am ultimately selfish. I'm doing this for me. So that I can look in the mirror and at least see an attractive, if not particularly well-read person.

I have not even begun to discuss the health issues that their daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne, battled for that entire year.

I should know by now that I don't read for a reason.


Josh Grimmer lives in North Hollywood with his wife and cat. He used to run this blog, but now he only sorta runs this blog, but not really. He does some other writing for another site, a comedy site called Mattress Police. Let him know what you think about his dumb bullshit at http://twitter.com/JoshGrimmer

Josh Grimmer - The Summer of 69 Lives

Hey everybody, before I get started with my essay, I just want to publicly thank our lovely new Editor-in-Chief, Katie McMahon. When I decided to shut down the blog a few weeks ago, she came up to me at work and whined about how lame I was. I asked her if she wanted to take over the operations of the blog, to which she responded “fuck that.” Well, the joke's on her, because a few weeks later, here we are. It was so sad. She begged and begged for me to let her run the blog. I ended up selling the rights for about $250,000. Joke's on her, once again! This thing is barely worth $100,000. Oh man, I'm a fucking awesome businessman. Look out, Wall Street! Here comes ol' Josh Grimmer!

To all the writers who made this blog possible from the very beginning, thank you. Treat Katie the same way you treated me – with begrudging indifference.

Grosses bises,

Josh Grimmer, Former Editor-in-Chief

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I was born in 1985 to a lazy, single mother. I was an only child until age nine. I was, in fact, the only child in my entire family until age nine. All of these factors add up to one thing – hours and hours of video game playing. My entire childhood, as well as most of my adult life, was defined by what video games I was playing. Most extended memories are sort of managed by where I was in any given game. “That happened while I was trying to find every level in Super Mario World.” “That was the summer of Final Fantasy 6.” The most significant event of August 21, 1993 was when I saw somebody beat The Legend of Zelda for the first time. Also, my mom got remarried.

Despite what the people of the G4 network would like you to believe, video games are not, will not, and have never been cool. They are entertainment for indoor children. There's nothing cool about sitting down with reams of graph paper and attempting to map out the entire planet from Metroid, which I have done three different times. The second two were just for fun. That's seriously about as lame as lame can be. Occasionally a news story will pop up about how video games “aren't just for kids anymore.” Nintendogs, Babysitting Mama, and Imagine: Prom never get mentioned in these reports. Video games aren't just for kids, they're just mostly for kids. Like, 85 percent.

Video games are also for adults with arrested development, such as myself. A while ago a friend of mine got a real, grown-up, corporate-type job. The kind of job where you make business deals. Business deals used to happen at golf courses, but now they happen over XBox Live. Call of Duty 4 parties are apparently a thing in which people who have jobs that require suits participate. That's how networking happens now, I guess. Call me old fashioned, but I really prefer to play video games alone, like the asocial creature I was raised to be. Online gaming holds very little appeal to me, though I am currently on the precipice of the “Spring of Marvel vs. Capcom 3,” which will almost certainly force me to register for online gaming. I'm a little squeamish thinking about it.

Well-crafted video games create a sense memory for me. Just hearing the music from Final Fantasy 6 brings a rosy warmth to the back of my skull. I get the same thing if I think about the first level of Super Castlevania 4. This nostalgia really isn't much different from going through your old records and remembering the summer that all you did was sit around and listen to Daydream Nation or This Year's Model or whatever. It's also about as lame. I know that my children won't want to hear stories about the first time I beat Ganon or that one fight I had with Mother Brain. These nerdy memories are for me, and I'm pretty happy with them.

Josh Grimmer lives in North Hollywood with his wife and cat. He used to run this blog, but now he only sorta runs this blog. Let him know what you think about his dumb bullshit at http://twitter.com/JoshGrimmer

Like, 250 words or whatever.

That's how much Josh told me to write when I decided to compose this intro.

The point is, it's been over twenty days, and I missed the blog. Didn't you?

I've never been one to call myself a writer, but perhaps someday I'd like to get to that point. The only way I can ever get to that point is to write and that's what we're all about here. If you feel the same way as me, or you just feel like maybe you have something to say every once in awhile, then you're welcome here (even if you feel like you have nothing to say, but you just want to say it anyway).

What Writing, Writer, Writest has been about mostly is creative nonfiction, but let's open it up! Write a poem. Jot down some lyrics. Draw a cartoon and scan it onto your computer. Photos, scripts, an essay written by your cat, whatever you can think of.

The new theme will be: Press Start to Continue. Authors contribute stories (cartoons, poems, etc.) about new beginnings. Remember that time you tried to reinvent yourself by drinking green tea and taking yoga classes? Or when you moved across the country and broke up with your boyfriend? I don't, but maybe you do. Submissions are due Friday, February 25 before midnight. E-mail them to me at: writingwriterwritest@gmail.com

Please request my friendship on facebook so we can communicate as a community. Awesome!

I think that's about 240 words. So now I'll just add ten more words.

-Katie McMahon

Happy Trails

Hey everyone, just a tiny update here. It is with an indifferent heart that I announce the indefinite suspension of Writing, Writer, Writest. It has been a lot of fun - and really quite useful - for as long as it has been running, but the project just isn't doing it for me anymore. And when I say "me," I am speaking as both Josh and Meg. Josh was the first to admit it to himself, then Meg joined in. They're both kinda over it. Thank you so much to all of our writers over the past five months. We love you so much, and you were so fantastic. There were so many beautiful, touching, hilarious, personal and weird essays.

There will likely come a day when WWW returns from the Internet mists. Maybe in... six months? Three months? Two years. A week! TIMES! A few hours. Whatever. Friday? Fried egg? Some day, I'm sure. Just not right now. In any event guys, it's been a lot of fun. Thank you.

Grosses bises,
Josh Grimmer (and probably Meg Wood, too. Can't speak for her. You know what? I'm gonna. She says thanks.)

Josh Grimmer: This is Where I Swim b/w State of the Union for January 15, 2011

I feel like a lot of the decisions I've had to make have really been made for me. Not so much in a “cosmic nudge” sense, but more in an “only option” sense. I went to Bridgewater State College because they were the only college that accepted me. I think technically I'm still on the waiting list for St. Joseph's College of Maine. Hopefully someone from the board of admissions is a fan of this blog. They'll read this, then fast-track me to a residence hall in Standish, ME. Anyhow, decisions. I live in Los Angeles because I had to move away from my family and it was really my only option. I don't choose to do anything, it seems, and when I do it's really not for me. I feel like choices only need to be made if things are changing, and I don't like change. Choosing to get a new job. Choosing to move to a new apartment. Choices seem to only lead to new things. No thank you.

I suppose you could argue that I've made the decision to avoid decision-making. Thanks, Geddy Lee. I just want to lead a simple life, y'know? Decisions are challenging. It hurts to make decisions. Every time I make a decision, I feel like I'm locking off so many other options. You can never go back. Rather than make the wrong decision, I just want to never choose. It's easier to live thinking “well, at least I don't make a lot of bad decisions” than thinking “boy, I make a lot of bad decisions.”

If life is just an excuse to experience things, I suppose it could be argued that there's no such thing as a bad decision. You keep living and living and living and you accrue experiences that allegedly add up in the end to Exactly One Life. I feel like my life is no less rich and full than somebody who goes out and does a billion things. Am I less complete than somebody who has driven across the country? Probably not.

I guess more than anything, I just want to be left alone. No decisions to make. Status quo. Let's just see how everything plays out. It's not exciting. It's not fun. It's just kind of what I want. I don't want to be challenged because I'm afraid to fail. I'd rather be lame than a failure.

Then again, isn't being lame the same as being a failure? You've failed at life. Life really is nothing but an excuse to accrue experiences. If you don't do that, then you've objectively failed. You are a failure at life, and I'm headed that direction as we speak. Well, as I write and you read. Anyhow, yeah. I'm failing. Floundering. Drowning in life. Maybe not that dramatic, but close. I don't decide to do anything until it is absolutely necessary, in case another opportunity opens up. The reason I never advance is because I'm afraid I'll miss out on a chance to advance. It's a wretched Ourorboros of indecision and loathing. I hate myself so I never make decisions so I hate myself so I never make decisions. Since I'm obviously too dumb to make good decisions, I never make them at all. I never make decisions because I feel like I've never made a good one.

I had trouble deciding where we should eat for lunch today. I finally sided with the place that had lunch specials. I'm so conscious of every decision I make that when I go out to eat with friends, I let them all order first. I have back-up meals ready, in case one of them orders a thing I want. “I can't order a pastrami sandwich, too! The waitress will think I'm some kind of Goddamned weirdo!” This, I am certain, is indicative of a crippling personality defect that only a psychiatrist can solve with years of couch-talking and pills.

I know I should just get over it. That's terrible advice, by the way. Get over it. No thanks, I like being miserable. Yes. Of course I'd like to get over it. I want to be able to enjoy the decision-making process. I want to say “PURPLE DRAPES, PLEASE!” “I choose this thing over the other thing!” “No, let's have Chinese food!” I want to be able to do this. I really do. I'll probably never be able to leap into anything, whole-hog, but some day I'd like to be able to say “Yeah, I'll have what she's having,” and not feel like some kind of Goddamned weirdo. Some day.

Josh Grimmer lives in North Hollywood with his wife and cat. He kinda sorta runs this blog, and has another one at http://mousebed.blogspot.com. Twitter him up at http://twitter.com/JoshGrimmer

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Hey guys, long time no see. How's everything going? Well, I hope. Listen, if there's one thing we've all learned from this essay it's that I need to make the conscious decision to never write stream-of-consciousness again. This thing is a fucking trainwreck. I just couldn't go on not writing if I'm pretending to run this blog, y'know? Thanks for reading, if in fact you read it.

So anyhow, how was decisions week for all of you? I hope you enjoyed it. We got a few really nice essays, which always makes me happy. I have a few new subjects. We have exactly one essay submitted so far about cars, which is next week's theme. Please – if you have a car story, send it my way. Contact info is on the right side of the screen, so go ahead and ship it off.

Now if you want to get ahead of the curve – and I know you do – there are a couple of new and exciting subjects to write about. First off is media. Not THE MEDIA. Not Fox News or the Washington Post or whatever, but media. Film. Music. Literature. How does that make you feel? Do you have a single favorite piece of media? Is there one thing that just turns your crank in a way that no other thing does? Write about that. Do you just like one particular format? 35mm film? Vinyl? Lo-fi, Guided By Voices-style music? Write about that. Submit it by Friday, January 21.

The week after media is self. How pretentious is that? Wicked fucking pretentious. Now, with that said, write about self. What makes you you? How come you're not somebody else? Not “what makes you special” or “what's your secret talent,” but what makes an individual an individual? Or whatever. I don't even care anymore. I need to wake up for work in three hours. Just write about self. Should I use a big S in Self? I dunno, that makes it look even more pretentious. Whatever. Submit your essays for that stuff by Friday, January 28.

Thanks for your continued patronage of Writing, Writer, Writest. It's been a bumpy month here, but I think we're back on board for another great run of amazing essays from the loveliest people I know. (HINT: THAT IS YOU.)

Grosses bises,
Josh Grimmer, Editor-in-Chief

Josh Grimmer: Ignorance and Want

[ed. note: This essay was originally written a year ago for Josh's other blog, The Mousebed. Just know that some stuff has changed - he no longer lives close enough to Kung Pao Kitty to have them deliver.]

This may come as a shock to many, considering my famously rosy disposition, but I don't really care for Christmas. I'm not a huge fan of any holidays, really. This most likely comes from having had to spend miserable dinner after miserable dinner with my miserable family. Luckily, I suppose, I'm all but estranged from 90% of my family. I'm not particularly proud of it, but I really only ever talk to my dad and brothers anymore. With the exception of the week I spent in the same house with her, I haven't spoken to my mom in well over a year. I don't speak to her partially because I hate every single thing she says and does, and partially because I just don't want to bum myself out. Sadly, this doesn't mean I don't hear from her. She leaves me voice mails every few days, the content of which just serves to bring me down. She's a depressing person, especially around the holidays. Every message is the same.

“Joshua, it's mom. Um, just wanted to know how you are. How's Beepobo [my cat's name is Peepopo]? I hope you have a good (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, New Year's). I can't wait to come out to Los Angeles to visit you again. Call me right back. (Then, she gives me her phone number, like I don't already know it.)”

I just can't do it. I'm not even sure why I bother listening to the messages at this point. The worst is when she hijacks my dad's phone and tries to trick me into picking up. This just means I never answer when my dad calls. Incidentally, his voice mail messages are just as formulaic, but they vacillate wildly between hilarious and depressing. They usually contain information about my brothers' athletic prowess and my mom's shitty life. One particularly disconcerting message began with “Don't worry, there's no reason you should call me back about this, but your mom just got driven to Mass General Hospital.” Awesome.

Anyhow, now that I'm out of the will as far as most of my family is concerned, the holidays are a little less painful. A “family holiday dinner” for me now usually means my wife and I order food from Kung Pao Kitty and give Peepopo a tin of wet food. I don't go out for Halloween, I don't really do New Year's. I still, however, hate Christmas with a passion envied by the Grinch himself. I hate the music, I hate shopping, I hate crowds. I also hate being compared to Ebenezer Scrooge. By the way, why did everybody need to shit on Scrooge for hating Christmas? It's not like he went around lighting pine wreaths on fire or anything. What's really rough for me is how much I love crass commercialism.

I, personally, wish no ill will upon anybody who wants to celebrate Christmas. I mean, I have a fairly strong faith in God and the Bible, and even if I didn't, I wouldn't begrudge people their right to observe the birth of Christ in whatever way they see fit. I just don't want to be a part of it, is all. I like the idea of giving presents to my wife, although it almost always happens that we're too poor in December to even think about gift-giving. I'm also not one of those people who feels the need to get their pets Christmas presents. A girl at work asked me a couple weeks ago if I was going to give my cat extra cat nip for Thanksgiving. This would have been a lot more appropriate had she asked me on 4/20 - which, as we all know, is Peepopo's birthday. I told her no, I wouldn't be giving the cat extra cat nip on Thanksgiving, because that doesn't make any fucking sense. She's a cat, she wouldn't understand the significance of the gesture. Also, we need to renew her medical cat nip license before I feel good about giving her anything more potent than one of those dingle balls.

One of my biggest dreads is the idea of raising children. It wouldn't be fair to project my hatred of Christmas onto my child - although the idea of raising him 1/12th Jehovah's Witness has crossed my mind. If his birthday is in December as well, then double score. Christmas really ought to be the best day of the year for kids. Presents, family, Jesus, it's all there - the idea of taking that away from my progeny is unconscionable. I fervently hope that I'll be able to provide for my child an environment only half as shitty as mine was growing up. Hopefully by then I won't loathe everything as much as I do now, but let's face it, that's a long shot.

---

With only a little over two weeks until Christmas actually happens, I still hold out hope that this year will somehow be different than every other. It can't be as bad as two years ago when my wife had an asthma attack so bad that she nearly died on Christmas Eve. It also probably won't be as bad as that Thanksgiving when I woke up covered in pepper spray. The thing that will be most different about this year is my job. I'll probably end up working both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I'm okay with this. It'll provide me with something to do on Christmas besides sit around and wait for my mom to leave me a sad voice mail and then spend the next six hours moping about my apartment wondering why the family I refuse to talk to didn't send me any Christmas presents.

More than anything it'll give me something to do instead of hate myself for getting my wife nothing for a second consecutive Christmas. Three years ago I bought her Primatene caplets from the Long's Drugs on Hollywood and Sycamore, which ended up saving her life. That's almost as good as a card with 20 dollars in it.

Josh Grimmer lives in North Hollywood with his wife and cat. He kinda sorta runs this blog, and has another one at http://mousebed.blogspot.com, where this essay originated. Twitter him up at http://twitter.com/JoshGrimmer

Josh Grimmer: There's No "Mom" in "Denial."

The only thing worse than being caught in a lie is not being believed. When I was 15, my dad gave me his credit card information in order to buy tickets for a baseball game. I did that, and immediately afterward I used his credit card to buy online porn. This was back before really good porn was widely available for free, I'll have you know.

I knew I'd get caught eventually, but I figured I'd just lie and get out of it. Who cared what I told them? It'd all blow over eventually, and years later we'd all be dead and nobody would care. I'm sure this is indicative of deeper, more devious and sociopathic behavior in me or something, but eh, whatever. I had free, high-quality porn, and that's what matters.

Eventually the bill came. My dad figured everything out pretty quickly, considering the email address used in the purchase was mine. My parents confronted me, rather angry. It all seemed to be going pretty much the way I had planned. Then the crazy twist came - rather than lie and see how things played out, I accidentally told the truth. I told them it was me, and I bought it when my dad gave me his credit card to buy baseball tickets. Naturally, my mom didn't believe me, which would have been reasonable if I were lying. She thought that my dad had bought the porn and used my email account to shift the blame onto me when the bill finally arrived.

I was so pissed. Angry beyond words. I spent my entire life lying to my parents about EVERYTHING. “Where are you going?” Lie. Fight. “Did you do your homework?” Lie. Fight. “Are you doing okay in school?” Lie. Fight. I figured maybe, just maybe, the sequence could go along the lines of “did you buy porn?” Truth. Over. I know that it probably wouldn't have just ended like that. That seems stupid and unreasonable, but I figure telling the truth would be better for me. I never, ever got away with anything, even if I did lie. Why bother anymore, right? Tell the truth. The truth will set you free.

My mom flew into a rage. She trashed my dad's bedroom. Did I mention they sleep in different rooms, and have for almost their entire marriage? They do, and they have. I'm sure plenty of healthy couples do this, too. She threw all of his stuff down the stairs. Clothes. Trophies. Furniture. Shoes. All of his ties. It all went.

The lesson to learn from all of this is obvious. Just go ahead and lie to my mom. It really doesn't fucking matter what you tell her. She doesn't listen, and it doesn't really register. Her drug-addled brain is the Only Truth. It's obvious, looking back, that my mom just wanted an excuse to get a divorce, and she was presented with a pretty sweet reason by me and my stupidity. This was the exact moment that I decided to officially become estranged. Can I tell you how hard it is to be estranged from your family but still live with them? It's pretty fucking hard. That's exactly how hard it is. Pretty fucking.

Now that I'm living on the other side of the country, I really don't have to talk to my mom. I call my dad every now and again to see how he's doing, and I have Facebook to get a hold of my brothers. I only speak with her when she wrestles the phone away from my dad, to whom she is still married. Crazy, right? I eventually paid him back for the porn. All is forgiven, all is more or less forgotten. And I still lie to my mom every time I talk to her. “Glad to hear from you.”

Josh Grimmer lives in North Hollywood with his wife and cat. He kinda sorta runs this blog, and has another one at http://mousebed.blogspot.com. Twitter him up at http://twitter.com/JoshGrimmer

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This concludes Lying, Liar, Liest week. I hope you lie-ked it. If you didn't, you can still tell me that you did. That's not a lie, so much as it is something that friends do to spare my feelings.

Another week is over. How great is that? The year is almost over. That's even better. This week's essays are going to be about brushes with fame, if indeed anybody actually sends me an essay. I got nothing. Seriously, nobody has sent me anything. That's fine – I didn't get anything for vague unease week until Monday, and that one somehow turned out okay. Please send something, if you've got something.

The week after brushes with fame will be about Christmas. The last week of October was Halloween, the last week of November was Thanksgiving, this coming week will be Christmas. Where do I come up with this shit? Man, I am GOOD. Please have your Christmas essays in by Friday, December 17.

The two weeks after that will be a little different. There will be a sort of end-of-the-year wrap up. I'm going to re-post some of my favorite essays from the year. Not all of my favorites, to preemptively soothe anybody who gets all butt-hurt. Just some of them. If anybody has any essays that they'd like to nominate for re-posting, I'm more than willing to listen to your stumping. In fact, I encourage it.

Grosses bises,
Josh Grimmer, Editor-in-Chief

Josh Grimmer: The Worst Thing I've Ever Done to Anybody, Ever b/w State of the Union for December 4, 2010

At this point I feel the need to remind you that you’re on my side here.” – Mike Birbiglia

For the first two years of my high school career, I went to a weeeird school. I went to a school with about 250 or so students but little funding to go around. As such, the school had fewer amenities than the Big Soul-Crushing Public School, Man across town. Most schools had things like cafeterias, auditoriums, libraries and teachers who got paid. We didn't have anything like that, but we did have a guidance counselor, and she was kind enough to take an interest in the lives of her charges. Since she had so few students, she was the guidance counselor for all of us. She knew every intimate detail of every member of the student body. Non-sexually, of course.

---

I dated two girls my freshman year of high school, neither of whom really turned out the way I thought they would. I failed in both relationships. The first dumped me on my birthday because her parents thought I was a bad influence on her. The second dumped me on her birthday because I wasn’t a bad enough influence on her.

Going into my sophomore year, I got around to asking a girl out who I thought might want to date me for longer than a month. As always, I was way out of my league. She was smart, classy and dignified. If you have managed to read anything else I've ever written, you’ll know that those are three words that don’t describe me. Whenever people asked me why I felt insecure with her, I told them about our summer jobs. I worked at the A&P Supermarket, she worked at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. I couldn’t compete.

There was one other thing that made me uncomfortable with her – she was afraid to kiss me. Anybody reading this who was ever the age of 15 knows that it’s impossible to convince a girl to kiss you without sounding like a date rapist. You just can’t do it. Instead of working through this roadblock, we just ended all of our dates with awkward hugs and I would sneak a kiss on her cheek on the doorstep of her parents’ house. Romantic, right? Well she hated it. I can’t be sure, but I think her parents didn’t approve of me being – believe it or not – a bad influence on their daughter. I couldn’t fucking win, man.

During this time I was eligible to be confirmed as a member of the Catholic faith. The bargain I struck with my parents was as follows: once I went through the rite of confirmation, I no longer had to attend mass with my parents anymore. I couldn’t have been more stoked to be confirmed, let me tell you. In my confirmation classes was a redheaded girl who I had never seen before. Apparently her parents moved from another town and she was to be confirmed at the same church as me. She was much more my type – angry, rebellious and a smoker. We had similar taste in music and that was really the most important thing to me at the time. She and I spoke for hours on end every night after I’d get off the phone with my girlfriend, a habit I would repeat two more times before I was done dating. Long story short, I fell in love.

That summer I grew apart from my girlfriend. Like I said earlier, she worked at Woods Hole and I worked scanning groceries, so we didn’t have much to talk about at night when we’d get home from work. It didn’t help that her dad wouldn’t let her stay on the phone past 9pm, which at the time I considered totally fucking lame, a position I hold to this day. We spent little time together that summer, and when we were together we’d sit around and watch movies. Her favorite movies were Benny and Joon and Harold and Maude but sadly not Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice.

As our relationship grew stale, I started talking more with the Girl From Confirmation Class. We’d see each other fairly often and she knew she had me wrapped around her finger. We would hang out all the time, doing things that could only be described as perfectly normal and perfectly healthy. We’d watch Internet porn, talk about our favorite hilarious Internet-only fetishes and listen to Tori Amos albums, all while never having sex. I wasn’t about to cheat on my girlfriend, after all.

Then one night we had sex. One night she came over because she wanted to learn how to play Dungeons and Dragons, and instead we had sex. I know I don’t need to tell you how this all happened - it’s a tale told since time out of mind.

The next day I called my girlfriend, planning to tell her that I had to break up with her, possibly telling her about how horrible a person I was. I got a hold of her and before I could say anything she was crying. Her fucking cat died. I couldn’t believe it. There was no way I could dump her then. If I ever got dumped the same day my cat died, I’d throw myself off of a cliff. I put it off, hoping that things would just kind of figure themselves out, as things are wont to do. Believe it or not, they didn’t.

I kept cheating on my girlfriend that summer, and that September we all had to go back to school. My girlfriend, the Girl From Confirmation Class and I all went to the same school of approximately 250 students, so we all saw a lot of each other. Needless to say, things were pretty nerve-wracking for me. There’s no worse feeling than being constantly reminded of how horrible you are as a person.

One night I was with the Girl From Confirmation Class and we were just starting to have sex when I stupidly decided to have a conscience. I told her I would have to break up with my girlfriend before any other sex could be had, but I would do it at my soonest convenience. We fell asleep without speaking to each other.

The next day, I was invited to lunch by my guidance counselor. Remember my guidance counselor? It’s a post about my guidance counselor. We went to lunch at the hippy restaurant near the school and she told me that my girlfriend would no longer need my services as a boyfriend. I couldn’t believe it – the GFCC told my girlfriend about our tryst(s) and was she ever pissed.

Small class size is a good thing if you’re a teacher. It’s less of a good thing when you’re a bad person and everyone knows in under an hour. I was virtually blackballed from school and I had to transfer to the Big Soul-Crushing Public School, Man just to avoid the constant shame. There's nothing worse than every single person you encounter on a day-to-day basis knowing that you're a wretched piece of shit. You’ll never fucking believe what book we were reading in English class that month. Say it with me: The Scarlet Letter.

A few months after I transferred, my now-ex-girlfriend and I started talking again. We talked about how much we liked being together and how I should have just asked her to have sex with me. She’d have said no, but at least we’d have broken up before I cheated. A few years later I’d be on the other end of infidelity and I finally understood how horrible it felt. Whenever I think about it though I always feel like I deserved it for how I acted in high school.

Josh Grimmer lives in North Hollywood with his wife and cat. He kinda sorta runs this blog, and has another one at http://mousebed.blogspot.com. Twitter him up at http://twitter.com/JoshGrimmer

---

If that's not a tale of vague unease, I don't know what is. The very, very attentive will recognize that story from my old blog, The Mousebed. I did a little touching-up, a little editing, a little re-writing, a lot of re-purposing. I thought we'd be a little light on stories this week, considering I had zero sent to me on Friday, but it looks like we did okay for ourselves. Thanks to all who wrote. An extra special super awesome thanks to the lovely Sabrina Parke, whose essay “Who Should I Make This Out To?” got a mention on Schmutzie's Five Star Friday this week. How great is that? I'll tell you how great it is. It's really extra special super awesome great. That's how great it is.

We shouldn't dwell on our past victories, though. What we should do is talk about this coming week's theme. Lying, Liar, Liest. Tales of fibs, lies, falsehoods and truth adjustments. Expect some fantastic essays from all of your favorite writers, as well as me.

The week after that will consist of essays about brushes with greatness. Remember the time Emo Philips came to get a cup of coffee from you at work and you nearly puked on him? That's the kind of stuff we're talking about here. Writers, please get those essays in by next Friday, December 10. That is all.

Grosses bises,
Josh Grimmer, Editor-in-Chief

Josh Grimmer: The First (Good) Thanksgiving b/w State of the Union for November 27, 2010

When I first decided to write about Thanksgiving, I figured I'd just write about the year that I got maced by my brother. Long story short, my mom used to carry mace. One Thanksgiving morning, my brother Billy sprayed it into the central heating duct, getting it all over everything, including me. The first thing you do when you wake up is rub your eyes and use the bathroom, so I got mace all up in my eyes and dick. Just awesome.

Then maybe I thought about writing about how miserable I was for every Thanksgiving, and how I hate my family and how we always fight and the fact that every occasion is marred by arguments and that the only thing I ever enjoyed doing with anyone in my family was playing cribbage with my grandfather for hours on end.

This led to my hatred of holidays. They really just make me sick, straight through to the core. The anticipation of the fights and the passive-aggressive shittiness. I just dread the final sixth of the year.

I'm just not in the mood to write about that anymore, though. I'm pretty happy. I just had a really amazing Thanksgiving. The first one ever, really. Fellow WWWriter Katie McMahon came over and made sweet potatoes and a green bean casserole. I cooked chicken (which I'm usually pretty afraid of – I still hate cooking meat, despite not being a vegetarian for a few years now). I watched football and did all kinds of Thanksgivingy stuff. I even ate some pie. Look at that. Pie.

What I'm saying is nothing bad happened. I enjoyed a holiday. Insane, right? Yeah. It really was. A few topics ago, I wrote about how, no matter how much you love your friends, your family is your family and they can never be replaced – whether you hate them or not. I still believe that. My mom is still an awful woman who has never and will never cook. My aunts are still miserable. I'll never get those years of loathing back, and that's fine. I'm just thankful to have had one good one.

---

Hello writers. I'm thankful for you. Have I said that lately? It's true, y'know. I'm not one for being maudlin, but there's nothing I enjoy more than all of you.

Do me a favor, everyone. Send in some essays. I literally have nothing this week. NOTHING. From anyone. I blame one Nathaniel Hoyt for coming up with a subject that nobody wanted to write about. JERK. Nah, he's fine. Whatever. Just send me an essay. Could be about anything. Just write something. Send it in. Hopefully it's good?

Listen, next Friday is lies and lying. Send in essays, you liars. Please. PLEASE.

Please.

Grosses bises,

Josh Grimmer, Editor-in-Chief.

Josh Grimmer lives in North Hollywood with his wife and cat. He kinda sorta runs this blog, and has another one at http://mousebed.blogspot.com. Twitter him up at http://twitter.com/JoshGrimmer

Josh Grimmer: For the Love of Others b/w State of the Union for November 20, 2010

I have, on many occasions, described myself as an “appreciator.” I'm terrible at making art. I can't sing or dance or paint or draw or sculpt or write poetry or any of that stuff. The way I contribute to the creative community is to enjoy the work of others. Honestly, it's the reason I started this blog. I wanted to write more, but just as importantly, I want to read what the rest of you have to say. I really enjoy getting all the submissions every week.

In any event, I just like liking things, especially music. There's nothing I enjoy more than listening to something new and exciting, then telling everyone I know how great it is until they're completely sick of me. What I'm driving at here is this: Have any of you ever listened to Piney Gir? She's really great. Probably one of my five favorite artists ever. Like most people who really love an artist, I've bought all of her albums and listen to them often. I added her as a friend on Facebook so I could get updates about concerts I couldn't attend because they all take place in the UK.

After a while, she started noticing how frequently I posted her songs on my Facebook page. She got a hold of me, telling me she'd be coming to LA in the near future. She wanted to know if I knew any music-types or concert venues or whatever. Freak out. There's something very daunting about being contacted by somebody whose work you so greatly admire. I told her I didn't know any music people or concert bookers or whatever, but I do know filmmaker-types. She sent me an advance copy of her next album, in the hopes that I could come up with a music video. Crazy, insane pressure.

Through systems beyond anybody's control, her trip to Los Angeles was canceled due to giant clouds of volcanic ash. I was pretty crushed, but we still talk every now and again, and I still love everything she does. That, however, is where we reach the conflict portion of this story. How do I go about being a fan of Piney Gir's music, despite knowing that she knows? It's a weird feeling knowing that someone knows that you admire their work. It's like have a crush on somebody's art. There's a weird embarrassment that comes with being found out. I've had to tone down my fandom lately, out of a weird sense of self-loathing. “Boy, I hope Piney never finds out that I like her music, even though that's well-established.” I dunno. It's hard to explain. I guess I just don't want to look like a pathetic superfan or whatever. I need to stop thinking about it so much, I suppose.

I guess all I can do really is tell you that I love her music. I think it's well written and skillfully performed. It makes me happy in ways that other music just doesn't. I think that's enough. There's not really that much more to say, I guess. Just listen to this.

Little Doggie (From the album Hold Yer Horses)
Greetings, Salutations, Goodbye (Also from Hold Yer Horses)
For the Love of Others (From the album The Yearling)

---

Oh, hello everybody. I'm writing again! How nice. So I'm all moved in and shit. I have a whole bunch of cool stuff in this apartment that I simply lacked at my old address. A bedroom, a heater, air conditioning, carpet and a non-digusting shower, to name five. It's really quite nice.

First order of business is thanking my lovely editor Meg Wood. She took over for a week while I was getting my act together, packing, cleaning, moving, et cetera. She's the greatest. If you disagree, please light your head on fire. Thank you.

Now onto more important business: writing prompts. Do me a favor, everyone – please send me a Thanksgiving essay. We're a little light on those, and I'd like a couple more. New prompts, though, are way cooler than reminders about old ones, right? Here are the two new topics:

Vague unease! Anything that makes you go “eh, I dunno... maybe?” Write about that, get the essay in by next Friday, November 26.

Lies and lying! It's a sin to tell a lie, or so that song tells me. It's not a sin to write for this site, though. Please have your essays in by Friday, December 3. Holy shit, man. December.

Grosses bises,

Josh Grimmer, Editor-in-Chief

Josh Grimmer lives in Hollywood with his wife and cat. He kinda sorta runs this blog, and has another one at http://mousebed.blogspot.com. Twitter him up at http://twitter.com/JoshGrimmer

Josh Grimmer: A quick heads up.

Hey everyone, just letting you all know that I'll be taking a week off from running the blog so I can move. Not from the desk to the kitchen, but from Hollywood to North Hollywood. Everything is going to be run next week by the loveliest editor a guy could ever want, Meg Wood. When you submit your essays, please be sure to ship them off to meg@megwood.com. That is all.

I love each and every one of you in the creepiest way possible.

Josh Grimmer: Something You Don't Do to Somebody You Love b/w State of the Union for October 30, 2010

Our first date was Halloween. It was the culmination of years and years of devotion – sometimes implicit, more recently explicit. Time spent talking on instant messenger, then on the phone – for hours, every night, despite the fact that I had to wait up until midnight so her unlimited cell phone minutes would kick in, seeing as she was an entire country away. There was a lot of buildup for this one date.

We had started talking online probably three or so years earlier, having met on a message board for a now-defunct comedy website, like so many couples do. She said something mean to somebody I hated on the Internet, so naturally I fell in love. That's how guys work, by the way – especially guys on the Internet. We fall in love very quickly, and for any reason we want to. “She made a joke about David Byrne. She and I must be soulmates. Better latch on FOREVER.” So I latched on.

---

A few weeks before Halloween, I got invited to a party. Now, I hate Halloween and I hate parties and I hate costumes and I hate everything and ugh Jesus I'm a wretch. I told her about the party, and how I wasn't going because I didn't have a date. That was a lie. I wasn't going because, y'know, fuck that noise, right? Being social? Having fun? No thank you.

“What if I were your date?”
“Yeah, right. You fly out to Massachusetts and I'll go to this party.”
“Done. I have that weekend off. See you then.”

Shit. Well, now I have to go this horrible party full of jerks. (NB: I really don't actually hate everybody who was at this party, just everybody in general. You understand.) On top of that horror, I had the unenviable task of meeting my, I suppose, girlfriend. Meeting somebody from the Internet is a scary thing. I've done it a handful of times now, and it never gets easier. Meeting someone you've only spoken to a few times is nerve-wracking, but there's something much worse about spending years and years getting to know somebody – falling in love with somebody (because, let's be clear, I was completely in love with her) – and then having to actually meet her. It's not a voice on the phone anymore. It's not text on a screen. She's an actual person who knows everything about me. Fears, hopes, shame. Everything.

And there she is, getting off the plane. And I can read it on her face – she hates me.

I was awful. Just the worst. I was sweaty and pimply and exhausted and poorly dressed. She had every right to look at me and immediately turn around, get back on the plane and fly back to Los Angeles. I now know that she would have, if the plane hadn't already left the terminal. Planes work the same way buses do, right? They have a circuit that they just follow all day? I'm pretty sure that's how they work.

So we drove back to my parents' house. They were much more interested in meeting the mystery girl I'd been spending years talking to than I was, and I helped pay for her flight. We couldn't even look at each other for the whole first night. It was too surreal. I figured the best way to simulate a phone call would be for her to sit on the bed and for me to lie down on the floor next to it. We turned off the lights and just talked for a few hours. It helped, but it didn't solve the problem. I think we ended up breaking up three or four times that weekend.

So it's Halloween. She's some kind of vampirate thing or whatever. She looks good. I'm something that involved dress pants. I can't remember what. Tom Waits? Probably. Sure. We'll say that my costume was Fat Tom Waits. As we left for the party, my mom asked where we were going.

“There's a party over at Rachel and Julie's place.”
“Really, Joshua? 'Rachel and Julie?' You don't do that to somebody you love, Joshua.”

I'm not entirely sure what she meant by that. I guess if you love a girl, you shouldn't take her to parties at other girls' houses. That makes a certain kind of nonsense, if you squint your eyes and turn your head. Whatever. We drove to the party in relative silence. We stopped at Burger King so she could get some chicken nuggets or whatever. The moment we got to the house, we were accosted by a girl whose costume appeared to be “drunk pregnant girl with cat ears.”

Important: I'm terrible at parties. I have crazy anxiety around strangers. Frankly, I have crazy anxiety around familiarers. The ratio of strangers to familiarers was like, 40:1. It was too much for me to bear, especially considering I was certain that I had gone and ruined my friendship with the girl from the Internet. We broke up. Again.

We talked and talked and didn't talk and didn't talk. Finally, we decided on going to a different party over at my friend Joe's house, which consisted of Joe, the rest of the Magnuses, Joe's girlfriend, our friend Nate and nobody else. I was instantly at ease, although I can't remember if that was a result of the familiarity of Joe's house, or the fact that I started drinking the moment I got there. Whatever it was, something clicked. I explained to Nate and Joe that the girl from the Internet and I were just going to be friends. We had broken up for the Nth and final time. It's all over. We're just friends. Phew. At least we were still friends.

That night, we were both hanging out in my bed. My mom poked in and asked us if we were in love. That's the kind of question a child of divorce asks his mom and her new boyfriend. It's awkward when a kid says that, and boy was it ever awkward when my mom said that. The thing is, we probably weren't. The rest of her visit was a blur. We went out for breakfast the next day. It snowed, which made her cry – not in a fun, “oh this is so beautiful” way, but in a “GODDAMNIT WHY CAN'T ANYTHING BE THE WAY I WANT IT TO BE” way. We watched State and Main. I drove her back to the airport. I cried the entire way home. We got married a little over a year later.

Josh Grimmer lives in Hollywood with his wife (who he met on the Internet) and cat (who he met in person). He kinda sorta runs this blog, and has another one at http://mousebed.blogspot.com. Twitter him up at http://twitter.com/JoshGrimmer

---

Trick or whatever who cares. How was Halloween week for you guys? Good, I hope. What are you guys and gals going to dress up as tomorrow night? I'm thinking Doughy Elvis Costello. No, not for me. For you. For all of you. Each and every reader of this blog should dress up as a Doughy Elvis Costello. Put on the weight, I don't care. Just do it.

Living in Hollywood, every day is like Halloween. Oh, except for Halloween. That day is like getting punched in the solar plexus by Halloween. Thousands of people in costumes, clogging the streets. It's difficult to get anywhere. You can't drive, you can't park, you can't walk. It's utter misery. Second worst day of the year for me, right behind Oscar night. Good thing I'm moving soon.

[[HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THIS SEGUE]]

Speaking of moving, that's next week's theme! Starting tomorrow, we'll be posting a bunch of great essays about moving from all of your favorite writers, including Katie McMahon, Sarah Vowell, Steve Strong, Charles Bukowski, Marsi White, JD Salinger – all of them and more! (Can you say “special guest writers?” I'm not saying you should expect something from Mark Twain but uh... I hope you like Southernisms. That's all I'll say.)

The next theme for submissions is fashion. Now, I know what you're thinking. “Great! I can write about Etsy.” You know what? Go ahead. If I get a dozen essays about Etsy, then cool. Please, though, be sure to be interesting. That's all I care about. Oh, interesting and before the deadline. November 5. That's a Friday, just like every deadline.

The week after that, the theme will be “Listen to This.” I'd like to receive essays about your favorite mix tape, or the time your friend took you to see a band that you hadn't ever heard of but you ended up liking, or the time you dated a girl who was really, really into Tori Amos so you ended up becoming a Tori Amos fan by osmosis. There's something very scary and intimate about giving somebody some music to listen to for the first time. Hopefully there'll be nothing scary about submitting your essays by Friday, November 12.

I'm running woefully long, so this'll be my last thing. Do any of you write music. HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION. I know some of you do. If you have a song you've written or would like to write about any of our topics, I'd love to post them. Songwriting is still writing. Let's make this thing an Internet multimedia extravaganza or something.

Grosses bises,

Josh Grimmer, Editor-in-Chief

Josh Grimmer: State of the Union for October 23, 2010

Another week of writing is, if you'll forgive the expression, in the books. Looks like buildings and food was a bit tougher a subject than I thought it would be. No matter, onward and upward. The next subject is Halloween. Spooooooooky! We'll be posting a bunch of great, possibly scary, possibly depressing stories all week long, so stay tuned.

Topic reminders: October 29 is the deadline for your essays about moving. New town, new house, new whatever. Pack up your stuff in a box and write about it.

The Friday after that, November 5, will be fashion. Write about some kind of clothing or whatever. Listen, I'm late for work. You guys know what fashion is.

Grosses bises,

Josh Grimmer, Editor-in-Chief

Josh Grimmer: Before the Flood b/w State of the Union for October 16, 2010

And the rain came down, like they were hoping
The great grey belly in the sky split right open
They sing hand-in-hand to the river
The Lord will keep us forever

- Piney Gir, “Great Grey Belly”

Growing up in the New Englandy area, we got more than enough weather. Insane humidity. Snow for days on end. Buckets and buckets of rain – every year, without fail, on my birthday. We never really got event weather. Two of the three big weather memories I have come from age five or so. There was a night where we got what seemed like ten feet of snow. I went to bed, things were fine. I woke up and the snow was easily twice as high up as the very highest I could stretch my neck.

About six months later, Hurricane Bob came and knocked a bunch of trees down. This was expertly rhymed about by Meg earlier this week, so I feel like I don't need to talk about that. Nothing really notable happened, weather-wise, for another 15 or so years.

I had just failed out of Bridgewater State College (go Bears). I wanted to major in English until I realized I couldn't read. I have this horrible block in my brain that forces me to shut down the moment I open a book. It gets worse as I get older. It's amazing that I can stand to be around my wife, considering how she's always walking around with her face buried in a book. She's like Belle, except she's friends with two talking candelabras. Anyhow, after the English debacle, I switched my major to physics. I love physics – I'm too dumb to major in it. Oh, and I slept through class every day. That didn't help.

So I failed out of school. A lot of people do that. I moved back in with my parents. A lot of people do that. I lived in their basement and wanted to kill myself. A lot of people do that, too. After the initial adjustment period, life sort of rolled on like it does. Job to job, paycheck to paycheck. A basement full of crap – clothes, records, comic books, whatever. I wasn't really dating, I had a terrible car. I worked at Blockbuster Video (RIP) for the stunningly insulting rate of seven dollars an hour. I could feel another low coming along. It was one of those periods in my life – one of a few – where each morning I woke up felt like another loss. I was fighting with my parents every day, my mom especially. I never really got along with my mom. I was a terrible son, she was a terrible mom. We decided to just kind of live with that.

It all came to a head the night of the hurricane. Whatever hurricane it was - I honestly don't remember the name. Norma? Jerry? Partario? I forget. It doesn't matter. Really, it might not have even been a hurricane. All I know is it really started dumping down when I was at work. From 5pm to 1am, all it did was rain. Oppressive, painful rain. If you went outside, it hurt. I somehow made it home with my broken windshield wipers and dim headlights. I got in, took the hottest shower you could possibly take without melting, and went down to my bedroom.

By the time I got home, the water had risen to just beneath the lowest stair. The I fumbled around in the dark for the light switch. The whole basement was flooded. All my stuff - the aforementioned records, clothes, comic books – was destroyed. I sloshed over to my bed to find it soaked through. I pulled back the covers to find a family of mice, huddled up for warmth and hoping not to drown. I wasn't about to shoo them away, so I went back up to the living room and fell asleep on the couch.

Remember my mom? Well she shoved me off the couch at about 5am, asking me if I was on meth. If I had been on meth, I wouldn't have been asleep. That, as they say, was the last straw. I'm pretty sure that's what they say. I had spent years threatening to move away from home. After years of making excuses to stay, I finally had my excuse to leave. The flood might have been the best thing to ever happen to me.

I quit my job. I sold my car. I bought a plane ticket. Four days later I was in Los Angeles. I'm never going back.

---

Oh, hello there. Welcome to this week's State of the Union post. Yeah, it's a bit long. I decided to shove my weather essay in there, just to save space. Consider that space saved.

Weather week! What did you think? Favorites? Unfavorites? You probably shouldn't talk about your unfavorites, that's not what we're here for. I personally enjoyed Patrick's essay about tornado monsters and supercats. I really enjoyed weather week. The whole shebang.

Now, as for this week, it's buildings and food week. We've got a handful of essays, one from a new contributor, even. Who will it be? Well, obviously you don't know. It's a new person. Duh.

Deadlines! Friday, October 22 – I want your essays about Halloween. Costumes, candy, spookiness. Remember the time you dressed up like the Roadrunner three years in a row? You could write about that. Or the Ghostbusters costume you made all by yourself that turned out to not actually be what the Ghostbusters wore. Write about that, too.

The week after that, I think we're all going to write about moving. Why? No reason. Just figured it would be nice to write about. I just closed my eyes and thought “what is the first word that pops into my mind? Moving! Oh, moving. What a great topic!” That is the genesis of this incredibly random topic. I'm certainly not moving to North Hollywood next month, that's for certain. Wait, what? I am? Oh shit. Oh that explains everything. No wonder I'm full of box-related dread. Poor Peepopo won't know what hit her.

Here's my challenge to you, readers. Hell, writers too. Everyone within the sound of my voice – leave more comments. I know it's not just the writers who are reading this. Without getting too pretentious, I'd like each essay to open a discussion here. Get people talking about stuff. I dunno – listen, it's late. I just want people to talk to each other about the stuff that they write. Ask questions. Prod. Whatever. Is something unclear in the text? Ask about it. I feel like Meg and I do a pretty good job of editing this stuff, but sometimes ambiguity slips through.

Still looking for a logo, still looking for more writers, still looking for more readers. Tell your friends.

Oh, and one last thing – if it's playing in your town, go see Tamara Drewe. It was directed by Stephen Frears, who also did The Queen and High Fidelity. It's about a bunch of writers. I mean, it's about a bunch of stuff – love, infidelity, teenage obsession, nudity – but so much of it is about writing. And most of all, it's brilliant. Go check it out.

Grosses bises,

Josh Grimmer, Editor-in-Chief

Josh Grimmer lives in Hollywood with his wife and cat. He kinda sorta runs this blog, and has another one at http://mousebed.blogspot.com. Twitter him up at http://twitter.com/JoshGrimmer

Josh Grimmer: State of the Union for October 9, 2010

Hey everybody!

Holy smokes, I've looked at THE NUMBERS. We've had (as of right this moment) over six thousand page views! Look at that number. Over six thousand. That's four digits, guys. Great work, everyone! Tell your friends to tell their friends and they ought to tell their friends, too.

Now, since we've got so many views, I feel like we need a logo. Are you a graphics design type? Are you a drawing, drawer, drawest type? Do you like to take photos or whatever? I don't care what it is, I just want a logo. If you'd be so kind as to make some kind of logo and send it my way, that'd be super awesome. No specific dimensions, I have no idea what'll look good until I see it. If I pick your thing, you might even get a prize! (PRIZE OFFER CONTINGENT ON ME NOT BEING POOR.)

Now on to the assignments! This coming Friday, I'd like to get as many essays as I can on the subject "Buildings and Food." This topic was inspired by the title of a Talking Heads album, but I won't tell which one! (My secret!)

The week after that - Friday, October 22 - send me your essays about Halloween. It's the scariest of the holidays, or so I have been told.

Thanks for participating, and I hope to see all kinds of pretty pictures flood my inbox.

Grosses bises,

Josh Grimmer, Editor-in-Chief

Josh Grimmer: Sabotage

Most divorced parents fight for the exclusive rights to the love of their children. Bribes, presents, lenient curfews, et cetera. My parents split up right about six weeks after I was born, and my mom did her fair share of fighting for my affection. My dad was never around to fight back – he ran off for Florida, never to be seen or heard from again. That really should have ended the argument, right? My mom wins, 1 – 0.

My mom spent most of her time explaining to me that my dad never loved me. He was a bad guy. An alcoholic. Emotionally abusive. He lied about every single thing he ever told her. He claimed to have no friends or family. She basically married a drifter. I get it, mom. He sucks. Of course he sucks, he abandoned his wife and child. I get it. Really.

My mom, terrible at making friends and even worse at dating, really only had one person to love her – me. Rather than actually being a good parent, she decided it would be just as effective to convince me to hate my dad. She burned a lot of calories making sure I was thoroughly aware of how wretched he was. Eventually I really empathized with my dad. I wanted to run away from home, too.

As I grew more and more distant from my mom, she tried harder and harder to eliminate anything in my life that I loved more than her. As I got older I realized she wasn't actually interested in me – not even a little. She figured hey, what the hell, this kid is supposed to like me, right? Anything that I liked more than her was a threat, and as time wore on that became a longer and longer list. Pets – I had a cat named Leon once, who I loved very much. I went on a vacation to (I know, believe me, I wasn't thrilled about it either) Ohio. Nine days later I came home to no cat.

“Where's Leon?
“Who?”
“Leon. My cat.”
“I'm pretty sure you don't own a cat.”

I had a Hyannis Mets baseball cap that was specially ordered to fit my gigantic head. I barely had a week to wear it before she took it from my room, ran it through the washing machine and shrunk it. I know I sound paranoid, but it was a pattern. Anything that brought me any kind of happiness was gone. Broken action figures, dented baseball bats, a video game that mysteriously got returned to the store. The sad part was that she really thought she had me Gaslit.

The destruction of my stuff was bad, but it really paled in comparison to her absolute disdain for anybody I dated. She doesn't love you. Why are you with her? You should date Alicia. You shouldn't be dating a Jewish girl. She lives so far away. You know she's using you. (For what?)

Every moment I was in a relationship, my mom would try to break it up. She still is, for that matter. That doesn't really surprise me – if there's a more concrete example of somebody or something I love more than my mom, it's my wife. I mean, first of all, I love my wife even a little. Some at all. Very much, actually. That puts her ahead of my mom from the very start. I moved away from home to be with my wife. When I'm sick, my wife takes care of me. She (occasionally) cooks and (occasionally) cleans. (Probably about as often as I do – not often.) Those maternal duties – the doting, the caring, the aw honey-ing – my wife does all that now. My mom never really did. She was replaced as the most important woman in my life, or would have been if she ever was to begin with. My mom is obsolete. She fought with the entire universe for my affection. It shouldn't have been a close match, but she lost.

Josh Grimmer lives in Hollywood with his wife and cat. He kinda sorta runs this blog, and has another one at http://mousebed.blogspot.com. Twitter him up at http://twitter.com/JoshGrimmer

Josh Grimmer: A very short State of the Union for October 2, 2010

And so ends back to school week on Writing, Writer, Writest. If you haven't yet, I suggest going back and reading this week's stuff. It's all just fantastic.

A new week means a new theme, and next week is no different. Power struggles. A boss you fight with, a hairstyle that just won't work, a bathroom that just refuses to stay clean.

Aspiring writers can submit essays about weather, due Friday, October 8. The week after that will be essays about buildings and food, due Friday, October 15.

Keeping it short so I can get to work on time,

Josh Grimmer, Editor-in-Chief

Josh Grimmer: Die Kenntnisscheune

The first day of school is always awful. Well, for me, at least. I'm not great at meeting people or being social or any of that. Icebreakers are the absolute worst for me. “Okay, everyone say your name, your favorite holiday, and the coolest thing you've ever done with craft paper.” “Um... Josh... uh... Lincoln's Birthday... hm... 'Do not disturb' sign for my doorknob.” The only thing you've learned about me is that I'm not great at being put on the spot. The first day of kindergarten was particularly rough for me. I had to answer all of the icebreaker questions, plus one.

“What happened to your eye?”

---

My mom was a single mom. Possibly the singlest mom. She worked in some capacity for some kind of medical something for most of my childhood. I have no idea what this place did or does or if it still exists. Maybe it never existed in the first place, and she just told me that's where she was all day so she'd have an excuse to put me in day care. Whatever works, man. The place she sent me to was called The Knowledge Barn. A bit of quick research shows that The Knowledge Barn closed down about three or so years ago, so if you were thinking of sending your kids there after reading this post, tough shit.

The Knowledge Barn was no different than any other pre-school or day care or whatever. There were mats and blocks and a playground and snack time and nap time. I could never fall asleep for nap time. It was right after noon. You gotta be shitting me, right? A 12:30 nap? Come on. Nap time was right before whatever it was they called “going outside and throwing dirt at each other” time. I usually spent both hours playing Game Boy, because I'll be Goddamned if I'm going to throw dirt at some stupid kid. I have something called “quiet dignity,” thank you very kindly.

One afternoon I was goaded into wrasslin' in the dirt with some kid. We were each supposed to represent somebody affiliated with the WWF. He picked Bret “The Hitman” Hart. I was that panda. We were punching and grappling or whatever you do, when he decided it was time to do his patented move. I was never a huge fan of the WWF, so when he told me that Mr. Hart's signature move was to throw me into the fence, I had no reason to doubt him.

He grabbed me by the arm and started to swing me around. He let me go, flying towards the chicken wire fence. My whole body slammed, spread eagle, into the fence. I tried to whirl around to get my revenge, except my face was caught. Right above my left eyebrow, a little to the left of the arch, a nail had lodged itself into my head. I'm pretty sure I fainted. I don't remember how I made it from Dirt Clod Park into the kitchen of The Knowledge Barn, but I have a permanent image of a bucket full of soapy, bloody water located right below my face. I sat there, pressing a sponge onto my head for what seemed like forever, waiting for my mom to get off of work and pick me up. The fine Knowledge Barn staff didn't call my mom, seeing as they figured she'd just get off work fifteen minutes later. True story.

My mom did the requisite yelling at the staff for not giving her an excuse to leave work early, and then yelled at me for “fucking around with that idiot kid.” It was the first time I remember my mom swearing, so that's in there forever. We made our way to Cape Cod Hospital, where I got a dozen or so stitches and my very own eyepatch. Apparently if the nail hit me anywhere but exactly where it did, I'd be dead or blind or paralyzed or something equally awful. So lucky me, right? Right.

For me, the most important thing to keep in mind when meeting a big group of scary new people is to never do anything to stand out. Certainly not right away. Make sure to not wear anything that would make you noticeable. Like, you know, an eyepatch. I eventually didn't need it anymore and went back to normal. I got to blend in and be like the rest of the two-eyed children.

---

It seemed that every few years I'd get to return to school fresh from the emergency room. Right before fifth grade, my right arm popped out of its socket, so I got to wear a sling. Seventh grade was crutches for something – I don't even remember what. My first day of high school was made notable by an operation on a smallish, likely cancerous mole behind my right ear, which forced me to make the decision between shaving my whole head that morning, or just a portion. The journey into my senior year was made all the better by new glasses.

If I were the type of person who thought that stuff meant things, I'd take a long look at this pattern. There would have to be something there, right? Yeah? No. Probably not.

Josh Grimmer lives in Hollywood with his wife and cat. He kinda sorta runs this blog, and has another one at http://mousebed.blogspot.com. Twitter him up at http://twitter.com/JoshGrimmer

Josh Grimmer: State of the Union for September 25, 2010

Hey there, riters and wreaders. Thanks for stopping by for another week of Writing, Writer, Writest. I don't know about you, but I'm certainly having a good time, despite the crippling anxiety I feel every time I post something. You're probably nodding, thinking “boy you sure are a dope, Josh Grimmer.”

So summer vacation! Fun, road trips, the Beach Boys, girls, boys, the sun, meeting people from the internet – there are plenty of fun things to do during the summer! I would like to commend each and every one of you for not writing an essay reviewing the Tiny Toons movie, How I Spent My Summer Vacation. I'm not saying I wouldn't like it, I'm saying it would have been too easy.

Now that summer vacation is over, we sadly turn our attention to school. Back to school. New pencils and textbooks and teachers and homeroom and whatever. There's a lot of newness to school, particularly if you're going to a new school. I had the unmatchable joy of going to five different school systems in my public school career. What a delight.

Now, fitting with the back to schoolness of this week, you've all got homework. Two more themes coming your way.

Due Friday, October 1: The theme is power struggles. Asshole boss? Bad relationship? A really nice shirt that just won't fit right? Write about it. Send it my way.

Due Friday, October 8: Weather! I know that strangers only talk about the weather, but we're all friends here. Maybe a particularly memorable rainstorm, or a tornado that ripped up your house, or a flood that caused you to move out of your parents basement where you were living like a fucking loser. Whatever it is, let me know.

And hey, non-writers: Get off your duffs! I want to post more essays, so get your act together and send them in. What's the worst that could happen? I tell you it needs to be longer or shorter or something. Just send me something.

And double hey, readers: Tell your friends. Let them know about WWW. Be a missionary for good writing on the internet. Spread the gospel of whatever who cares anymore sheesh. Spread the word.

Grosses bises,

Josh Grimmer, Editor-in-Chief