[_Journalized_11.21.2011_]

"The Coffin Door" advanced toward completion, this weekend. Most of the time that I spent on it, on Saturday and Sunday, involved shaping and re-shaping a Word doc that will soon be converted into a handwritten, scribbled, and drawn-upon page, and then scanned and added to the story as a facsimile page from a character's notebook. The titular door — well, two of them — have arrived by UPS. I've found and acquired a pair of antique cabinet doors, in fact, and one of them will serve well as the small portal upon which the unraveling mind of a main character is so profoundly fixed.

And so, today, I must schedule the photo shoot that will generate the story's final pages. That's among the heap of to-dos that my to-do list threatens. And then there's French class tonight. There are about four weeks left of it, and while it's a total pain in the ass to schedule Monday afternoons around going to the classroom (even after testing out of two-thirds of the original three-hour duration, at midterms), I also know that I will miss it when it's over.

On Saturday afternoon, Ms. Brown and I snuck in a film by Matthew Porterfield: Putty Hill. Nominally, it's about the days just before a funeral for a dead junkie. There's a whole universe that orbits that idea, though, long and sad and rich in photographic detail; rich in performance textures and achievements. If you're ever curious about what independent cinema allows artists to do with these ideas — that is, when the filmmakers are free from their corporate-marketing paymasters — compare Porterfield's portrayal of family, drugs, and estrangement to the treatment given such things in Winter's Bone (and the vulgar simplicity of that movie can be discussed without even counting its moronic horror-movie last act).

And, yes, "The Dirt Baby" is my new short story, published by Mixer. Thanks to every single person who's taken the time to, and been thoughtful about, telling me that they've picked up a copy. Every time I hear that, it matters to me. Thank you. If you haven't had a chance: Buy "The Dirt Baby" at Amazon.com.