Michael Craig's Journal

I’m living the Writer’s Life, abandoning my family for 22 hours out of every day to work at a condo 5 miles from our house. The condo is nice; my Mom and her husband live here during the winter. But it is desperately in need of cleaning.

I’ve been living here on and off since June. The dishwasher hasn’t been run once. There are three rusty knives in the sink. I think I used one to slice pizza, the second to spread cheese, and the third to cut a cheesesteak. Everything else has been paper or plastic or carry-out or consumed right over the sink in its original container.

I go grocery shopping once a week and the bill is substantial, but the refrigerator has nothing in it but bottled water, a salami I haven’t had the guts to start for three months, a giant bag of M&Ms, and the leftovers of three carry-out meals. It is assumed I will throw out all three. I take the trash to the dumpster once a week - scores of water bottles, reams of paper, and the leftovers out of the fridge. If I throw it directly into the trash, it could grow a beard before I get it to the dumpster.

The clutter - 5 feet of files, 25 books, probably 50 different notebooks, 50 different pens, boxes of cookies and crackers in the exact spots I put them when I removed them from the grocery bags, 8 briefcases/book bags/tote bags/computer cases/etc. - is daunting, but it is localized. The real filth, an expert will tell you, is in the empty spaces. The carpet and tile are mostly unoccupied (I localize my messes, and stack them vertically) but filthy with dust and trace elements of the aforementioned Vertical Miasmae. [I am presuming that the plural of miasma is misamae. If not, then sue me.]

There is a surge suppressor next to my work table. I count eight plugs. The speakers for the iPod are plugged in nearby. The Carpenters’ Rainy Days on Mondays has just finished. I have it set to “shuffle,” so the next song, now playing, is Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Nighttrain.

Omaha Eight-or-Better by Mike Matusow is proving difficult to turn into reality. I’ve done two interviews with Mike and he was unconventionally brilliant in both. But the first one was cut short because he kept falling asleep. The second was conducted in his swimming pool.

Now THERE is an interview transcript. Actual fragment:

“I think shaving today might be an option. For the voice recorder, in case anybody might be listening, I am sitting in the pool with Mike Craig and I haven’t shaved in a week.”

What is more strange? That he said that into my voice recorder or that I typed it into the transcript?

Mike’s A.D.D. is so intense that I find myself having trouble organizing his thoughts from the transcript into chapter form, as though reading his words has intensified my own A.D.D.

It’s coming, but slowly. I have 3,000 words and that doesn’t include some really smart things he has to say about Omaha. But it’s slow.

Consequently, I’ve engaged in the long-recognized writer’s tradition of looking for things to avoid work.

Number 1, of course, is playing poker on Full Tilt. (Whew, got the Daily Plug in.) I’m actually writing during much of that time. I hope that’s the reason for my horrid results as of late.

I’m spending some time keeping up on what my friends are writing. I’ve encouraged you to read Amy Calistri/Tim Lavalli on Pokernews.com about what happened with the 2 million extra chips in the main event of the World Series. (There, I’ve done it again.) I can’t wait to read Harrah’s response. I predict that it does not end the controversy. I also read Amy’s blog, Aimlessly Chasing Amy.

I’m also reading Richard Brodie’s blog, Lion Tales, which he wants me to help him turn into a book, and Pauly’s Tao of Poker. Naturally, I notice when Pauly mentions me - my traffic spikes up and don’t think I don’t appreciate that! - and he had a short post mentioning me and Amy/Tim. The best part was referring to Calistri & Lavalli, two of the most educated people I know, as Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown.

When I can do some work away from the computers, I’ll carry it into bed and work there. (Is there a statute of limitations on bedsheets?) What that really means is I will spend half the time working and half the time reading something else until I fall asleep. Jo Anne has proof that I’m not smuggling in some recreational chick because half the queen-sized bed has the indelible outline of my body and the other half has the Razz chapter, the last 3 issues of Card Player, 4 watch magazines, my pen that can write underwater, and the 4 books I’ve read over the last 10 days:

George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London - great, great, super-influential non-fiction novel.

Jonathan Van Meter’s The Last Good Time - a reader of the Journal recommended this, maybe even in one of the comments. It’s about Paul “Skinny” D’Amato, a legendary Atlantic City character.

Eric Spitznagel’s Fast Forward - just finished this, about a writer who moves to L.A. to write for the movies and ends up writing porno films. Some very funny passages.

Chuck Klosterman’s Fargo Rock City - I’m also reading the just-released Chuck Klosterman IV, a collection of his magazine articles, but that’s at home. Chuck is one of my favorite writers and I think we share some common ideas about the craft of writing about well-known people. Also, he’s seen Britney Spears without pants. And some of the defining moments of his life have involved Guns ‘n’ Roses.

Oh, I also avoid work by writing in my Journal. So, enough of this work and on to some other work.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 11th, 2006 at 12:23 am and is filed under My favourites:.