I’m starting my MFA program tomorrow. Others have expressed anxiety over this leap. I’ve read about students so nervous they couldn’t sleep, puked before their first class. I don’t feel this way. I feel more tense than anything. I’ve spent a month here in California. But now I’m out of money and my bike has been stolen. I’m on the verge of violence. Of fleeing. To where I don’t know. Somewhere no one can find me. I hate people. But where would that be? It’s a big planet. But it grows smaller everyday. There will be no where left for us to run soon.

I haven’t done a damn thing over the summer. I read books. And here they are:

Alarcon, Daniel
War by Candlelight
A collection of stories about Peru and America. I read it in one sitting.
Lost City Radio

Anderson, Sherwood
Winesburg, Ohio
Hemingway’s inspiration.

Atwood, Margaret
Life Before Man
Marriage is often a lie.

Boyle, TC
Talk Talk
Deaf woman and talking man get their identities stolen. Then they chase the thief. Classic Boyle.

Bukowski, Charles
The Most Beautiful Woman in Town
She kills herself. Or is killed. I can’t remember.

Byatt, A.S.
Possession
Literary scholars as heroes.

Chekhov, Anton
Stories

Clinch, Jon
Finn
An imaginative tale about Huck’s father. Ending gets away from the writer. But endings are hard.

Conrad, Joseph
Lord Jim
Conrad. What more can I say?

D’Ambrosio, Charles
The Dead Fish Museum
Not impressed.

Doyle, Roddy
Paula Spencer

Fitzgerald, F. Scott
This Side of Paradise
Tender Is the Night
The Crack-Up

Gandhi, ed. John Dear
Essential Writings

Hemingway, Ernest
The Garden of Eden
A strange story about Hemingway getting fucked up the ass, literally, by his wife. Not a typical Hemingway tale.

Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Jesus this book sucked.

Iribarne, Matthew
Astronauts & other stories

Ngugi wa Thiong’o
Secret Lives

Phan, Aimee
We Should Never Meet

Welsh, Irvine
Trainspotting
My favorite read over the summer. A bunch of Scottish junkies fucking 14 year olds. And written in dialect. Not for the faint of heart.