The other day I posted a status on Facebook that earnestly asked what a praline might be, because honestly I’ve never been able to figure it out passively, and by god I do NOT plan on googling that. What if it’s horrible? I hate googling horrible things.
ryanlasala
On Being an Adult and Avoiding Quicksand
I know someone who is my own age, and who knows how to do taxes. This, to me, is nothing short of arcane magic. Something forbidden and locked away. A knowledge so base and powerful that even a vague understanding threatens to undo a carefully calculated peace in the universe. If you are a millennial and you know how to do taxes, what’s next? Alchemy? Necromancy? Horcruxes and 401K’s?
The Most Humane Way to Murder a Mouse
A few years ago, Katie and I went to the Topsfield Fair with our friend Nick (an event that my mother would call, “a slice of life,” a description she reserves for things like bowling leagues and other congregations of people that are rather–how do I put this without sounding derisive?–enthusiastic about specific, odd things. For the people of the Topsfield Fair (and for the duration of our time spent roaming the different pens), this specific thing happened to be: farm animals. There’s much more to be said about out time at the Topsfield Fair, but it isn’t the focus of this story–it’s actually just the lead-in for the opening scene–and so I’m going to set down this string and polish off this parenthetical tangent and maybe finish this run-on sentence).
Returning
My life has been a lot of circles lately.
This–as in this act of typing up a post–is the most recent circle. The most recent return.
Today Jackson and I are hiding from the rain and writing. At least that’s what our headline for the day was. “JACKSON AND RYAN RETURN TO WRITING.” A more accurate headline would be: “JACKSON AND RYAN GET MANICURES AND THEN WATCH TWO EPISODES OF ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK AND THEN LISTEN TO LANA DEL REY AND BRAINSTORM WHERE THEY WILL ORDER FOOD FROM.”
Metaphori-Weekly! – People Are Like Pencils
People Are Like Pencils
People are like pencils; honed and whole at first, with a core of potential words hidden beneath a sheath of laminate, a hard-gloss finish in any and every color. People are like pencils; sharpened to a lethal point in a moment of whirring tumult, a point that might prick blood in the half-thought of haste, a point that cuts across yawns of ambiguous blankness in precise, stringent lines that structure and rectify, cross-out and destroy. People are like pencils; their words might be erased, but not the actual imprints they etch on the surfaces they touch; when their sentences are gone, the ghosts of their sentiments are left behind as pocks and scars and smudges and particles of dust.
Three Wonderful Conversations On Monday, May 12th
Today I had 3 wonderful conversations with my students:
1. In lunch, I commented on a students tattoo that referenced a super hero. “I don’t even like that character,” the student admitted. “I like batman.” I asked why, and the student elaborated: “Like, Thor is a god. The Hulk is The Hulk and Spiderman has mad powers. But Batman keeps up with them and he has none of that.” I responded that Batman had a lot of money, and therefor a lot of advanced gadgetry, and the student nodded. Another student chimed in, “But he makes that money. And when he lost it, he made it back again. He’s smart!”
Educating the Ignorant on the Majesty of Ursula, Sea Witch and Gay Icon
Growing up, I thought Disney’s The Little Mermaid was about Ursula. I thought the movie, though oddly focused on that emaciated red-headed hoarder*, was actually a film about a business-savvy octopus lady’s dream of political conquest, and the unfair regulations she was forced to overcome. **
*(This isn’t thin shaming so much as it is a response to Ariel’s most famous frame, in which she is grotesquely disproportionate. This is compared to the rest of the movie, where the animators did not render her a bobble head).
Read moreEducating the Ignorant on the Majesty of Ursula, Sea Witch and Gay Icon
April is LGBT Month! #LGBTApril
Laura (of Laura Plus Books) and Cayce (of Fighting Dreamer) are doing this great thing called LGBT Month this April (#LGBTApril), and I’m participating!
I mean, I guess I’m always participating, because every month is LGBT Month for me, but it’s more fun to do these sort of things when people are making cute banners for you, and when you’ve got a tribe bristling with restless inspiration and do-good vibes.
16 Essentials for Succeeding as A Writer in 2014
1. Crippling Self-Doubt Cutely Coupled With Billowing Anxiety
2. Wool Socks (trust me)
Beta Reading
Sometime last month I sent a preliminary draft of KMDC to a writer friend who has literally witnessed this project from the very beginning. And about a week ago I sent off the beta draft of KMDC to a few trusted ladies up in Boston. My parents currently have copies loaded on their kindles, and, to complete my Arsenal of Critique, I’ve enlisted another novelist in a trade of manuscripts. (the lovely J.M. Johnson, who you should follow on Twitter. Also, check our her blog).