Usually, when I think about this humble little project, it fills me with all kinds of amourpropre. Even when I’m temporarily removed from my own devices (audiotorily speaking), I can’t help but self-congratulatorily pat myself backwise (I’m flexible) at keeping the motor of this anthology running.
Then sometimes…
My friends, a confession: I am a sucker. Little stray kittens and musty books and vegetably steamed dumplings…. these things were basically made for me. And stories like this belong on the list of things for which I’m a true sucker, and by “like this” I don’t necessarily mean Austrian (though I don’t mean “decidedly not Austrian” either). And I don’t necessarily mean the sort of story that plucks your arteries and uses them to serenade you corrido-style. Although, again, I don’t have anything against that either….
A saw a sign the other day while out on a drive, a sign that said this: Frost Heaves.
And I almost had to stop and compose myself, because I was so deeply distressed by the fact that frost can’t heave in private (and I’m not a histrionic sort of girl), and saddened that a frost’s heave has to be announced clearly for any old asshole who happens to be driving by…
Allow me now to guide you most gently out of the first week of July: those of you in America, lie on your side and listen quietly, finding pause only to burp out the last taste of your hotdogmatic overindulgences. Just focus on the voice — the beer is two days old and will make its way to the outer side of your pores eventually, I promise — and let me repeat — you are NOT going to always feel this way.
