Monday Night

Drinking a ten dollar Guiness on the patio of a bar I thought was affordable before they served me a ten dollar Guiness. There's a pair of pigeons clattering around in foreplay on the green vinyl awning covering the patio; their sharp little feet slapping the roof like rice pouring into a bucket. A woman with a creased forehead, pushing a stroller, stopped and said she was six dollars short of getting a room for the night, I offered her the tip I was going to leave the waitress but she said she couldn't take it because someone worked for it. There's joggers going by and I see some of them admiring themselves in the windows of the deli next door. I tried to brush away a gnat and knocked over my beer spilling half of it.

One of mine!

A story of mine ("The Need for Other People Faded") was named one of the "Notable Stories of 2009" in the Million Writers Award.  I'll know in the next couple of weeks if it made the list of top ten stories. I'm very excited to be in such good company, and the journal it appeared in (> Kill Author) was singled out as "Best New Online Journal."