frances e. dinger

Spilt Milk – North American Hamsters by subbacultcha (lyrics from the first page of Richard Yates)

I gave my little brother Aaron a Tao Lin book for Christmas, which he accepted with a polite facial expression and said, “Bed” after unwrapping it halfway.

Mom said, “Ooh, cool book cover.”

I think the cover of Bed is supposed to be a purple Nessie on a field of baby blue, which I would presume is water. (I was trying to describe it to myself from memory but when I looked at the book cover, I realized my memory of the Nessie figure is a lot more detailed than the actual illustration and the sea-beast’s head is facing left instead of right. Right is right, as in correct.)

My little brother said, “I’ve been reading more.”

I said, “Yeah, I know. I wanted to take advantage of that. Or encourage that…. This guy is kind of weird but it’s good.”

“Cool. I like stuff like that.”

“Good.” I don’t know how to talk about literature with my brother.

We hugged when I opened his gift to me. The gift was a “statement necklace” with chunky flowers on it. My heterosexual brother is good at picking out jewelry for women ie: my mother and I. Aaron doesn’t have a girlfriend but he told me an Asian girl who was possibly flirting with him at a party the other night was “hot.” « Read the rest of this entry »