Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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Fiction in a Flash at SmokeLong

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A piece of Flash Fiction from some of my talented colleagues debuted yesterday on SmokeLong, a weekly and quarterly Flash Fiction anthology.

Stephen Gardner’s The Booking of La Gianconda is a noir-ish snapshot from a 1936 jail-house that could easily fit into the fictional universe of Chicago. It’s accompanied by an illustration by Throwaway Horse founding partner Josh Levitas.

Illustration by Josh Levitas - visit smokelong.com for the full version and accompanying fiction.

Here’s about 5% of the the total tale:

“Hey, Glass Eye,” Walters called over to me as I fiddled with the Kodak slide film. At the name, I gritted my teeth hard enough to chip an incisor. Walters never let me forget the war wound. Like I said I’m a camera guy when I’m not riding a bucket and a mop, not even a cop.

(Visit SmokeLong for the full story!)

Flash Fiction doesn’t have a formal definition, but it’s about brevity and efficiency. SmokeLong’s limit is 1,000 words. While other outlets have much shorter word-count requirements, the common element is that good FF should consist of lithe, streamlined language that puts every word to good use.

I asked Josh if his accompanying flash illustration included any self-imposed restrictions: his finished picture was done in a single sitting with limited tweaks or digital post-production – all completed in less than an hour! It’s worth viewing the larger version at SmokeLong to see some detail that’s lost at the smaller size.

Kudos to Stephen and Josh for being featured, and for their evocative 1,000 words and single-hour image!

breaking the painful cycle

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I have mentioned my dermatological struggles in the past on the blog. While the potential disintegration of my epidermis seems to have been staved off at the moment, my skin-care needs are (ridiculously) one of the major worrying factors about my health care and costs.

Yesterday, one of my favorite Twitter friend, @JerseyShoreJen, mentioned she had booked another media appearance from her recent EdOp on Eczema. Being a fellow lifelong battler of it and its fiendish cohorts, I congratulated her and asked her to share her article from the NYT Health Section – “The Painful Cycle of Eczema.”

In the bathroom, I try not to dwell too long at the sight of myself in the mirror before patting my skin dry and slathering it with lotion. I wrap bandages over the raw and weeping patches in the crooks of my elbows — a stopgap, really, since the bandages will soak through in several hours. I take Benadryl to calm the itching, and ibuprofen to temper the swelling and pain, before heading to meetings in an antihistamine haze. I hope no one stares, but they do.

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I wore long sleeves and pants to school, even on the hottest, most humid days. … When I passed through puberty and still had outbreaks, I viewed my eczema as a character flaw, something I brought on myself for not being perfect.

After I read her story, Jen and I got into rapid-fire exchange on Twitter, gushing over our challenges and successes with our conditions. Though my collection of problems do not manifest as violently as Jen’s, I see so much of myself in her story. I never once wore pants to gym. I’ve ruined pillowcases and sheets when my medications have bleached out their color. When I have an outbreak I worry that people will stare and judge in meetings.

There’s not an immediate happy ending here – Jen and I are both continuing our respective struggles and our treatments. However, the silver lining is the connection that Jen created, and the relief I felt in talking to someone who relates to what I’m going through.

Jen writes at Down The Shore With Jen.

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There’s a very interesting site that allows you to calculate your ecological footprint. While the information on how much of the Earth we suck up is rather sobering, i found out i only equal about .5 of a normal ecology hogging American! Go me!!! Now, if we eliminated half the world’s population and the rest of them only took up as much space as i do, we’d be on the right track.