The Blog of Wistar Watts Murray

Whenever I write a post for the Virginia Quarterly Review, a little voice in my head tells me that I’m neglecting my personal blog. So I come here to write, but then I realize that I blew my whole wad on the VQR. So I try to buy back my post, but the VQR is like, “No way. We love this post like our own child. Not even for a million dollars.” So I put away my million dollar bill, sigh deeply, and then pull something out of my butt to blog about on Onestarwatt.

Taser parties = “a growing US trend” according to the BBC. What else do the English think we do over here? First we’re “throwing tea” into the Boston Harbor, then we’re “invading Iraq” for no reason, then we’re listening to “rap music” and eating “McDonalds,” and now we’re apparently tasering each other Sex-and-the-City-style over martinis. Okay, England. You finally got us. Next thing you know we’ll have stars and stripes on our flag.

Telephonic sheep.

Caller: Hi, I’m calling for a sheep.

Sheep: This is a sheep.

The Writer House opens in Charlottesville! I am excited about joining a writing clubhouse situated next to the best bagel shop in town (coincidence?). Don’t worry, John Grisham. Someone will eventually tell you the clubhouse’s secret password.

Four Must-Read Books for Aspiring Writers, according to Chris Higgins at Mental Floss. More recommendations in the comment section. Incidentally, here are four must-write books for aspiring writers: 1) your first novel, 2) your second novel, 3) your third novel, and finally 4) your how-to book about writing.

That’s all I got. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be in the clubhouse. No poets allowed!

Monday - I considered committing an egregious act of email stalking. The boy thought he shook me and my obsession years ago when he graduated college and moved across the county, but no, I still Googled him the morning after he appeared in my dream. I assumed that he’d want to know about us hanging out in my sleep. Luckily my girlfriends talked me down from the ledge and I never wrote the email. Stop following me, dude. Please. Enough already.

Monday II - I’ve got news for you, Most Expensive Restaurant in Town. People still go number two in your bathroom. You can’t fight the Wendy’s Combo that Monsieur Fancypants ate for lunch.

Tuesday - A member of my writing group told me that my submission was a cross between Jeanette Winterson and Marguerite Duras. Normally I’d have felt flattered at the comparison, but I’d been overdosing on Marilynne Robinson that day and I didn’t want to be associated with lyrical writers. After a while their books just feel like metaphor abuse. Or worse - onanism. Or worse - masturbation of underage analogies. [Damn! I can’t contain my lyrical nature!]

Tuesday II - Man at coffee shop kept borrowing my pen, then giving it back, and then borrowing it again. I told him he should keep it but he said it wasn’t the right kind of pen.

Wednesday - Watched some handsome fellows raise a tent. For a wedding. But the other gawking ladies told me I was too late: “You just missed J___ taking off his shirt!” One of those ladies was my mom. Tried to help with wedding decorations and mangled a boxwood. Talked about it in therapy.

Thursday - Attended the Emily Couric Leadership Forum luncheon. This year Erin Gruwell, the Long Beach high school teacher who started Freedom Writers, won the grown-up woman award. A dozen senior girls from local high schools were honored with the young lady leadership awards. Kayla Hansen, a Miller School senior, won the $10,000 scholarship. But don’t get too excited - she’s probably going to blow it all on college.

I love that our community produces such an ambitious and accomplished group of girls every year. And I love that the Emily Couric Leadership Forum makes a big deal out of them. I’m not sure if I knew what volunteering was in high school. I was too busy writing cool stuff on my ripped jeans.

I wish there were a mentoring program where confident, overachieving high school girls could adopt 27-year-old Big Sisters who are experiencing doubts about the sustainability of their artistic lifestyles. I would totally throw a luncheon for that.

Thursday II - Newborns at rock shows - yea or nay? Blogging on the couch while everyone else, including newborns, attend rock show - yea or nay? A related question - do sweatpants really deserve their bad reputation?

And now my cousin’s crazy wedding weekend begins! For three days I plan to leech champagne and to embrace being the kind of wholesome dork who likes partying with her family most of all.

But I just discovered that my rival blogger (btw, Nate, you’re my rival blogger) posted about the wedding reception we both attended on Saturday night in Richmond. Nate already gets more web traffic than I do, so I don’t think he should have an exclusive on the party. Then again, he was a better-behaved guest:

• Nate and I both changed our clothes halfway through the reception. I changed from an uncomfortable skirt and sweaty top into skinny jeans. Nate changed into an Elvis costume and serenaded the bride and groom. Guest advantage - Nate.

• Nate and I both have websites. His website features pictures of naked hipster girls (nsf), which wrangles him invitations to the AVN Awards Show in Las Vegas. My website features book news, which once wrangled me an invitation to the Authors’ Reception on Carr’s Hill. Guest advantage - Nate.

• Nate is actually a sweet guy behind his sleazy Elvis facade. I am actually a sleazy Elvis behind my sweet girl facade. Guest advantage - me.

• Outside the reception, Nate and I saw a man simultaneously driving a minivan and shaving with a disposable razor. He had a towel, shaving cream, and by the time he was done, the cheeks of a pre-pubescent boy. Guest advantage - both of us.

• Because we have quite a few mutual friends, Nate knows dirty secrets about my past. At the reception I drank enough to blurt dirty secrets about my past to anyone who would listen. Guest advantage - my dirty past. (My dirty past is now grounded and no longer accepting party invitations.)

But the party was not about me [Onestarwatt! Huzzah!] and Nate [Driven by Boredom. Boobs. ]. The party was about Jamie and Laurie. Unfortunately for them, they don’t have blogs of their own. Newlywed suckaz!

I see you out there talking on your cell phone. You’re supposed to be inside the coffee shop with me but instead you’re sitting in your car talking to god-knows-who. I brought your DVDs back. I hope you remembered to bring me the second season of Veronica Mars because I was planning on watching it tonight. But I guess I’ll just sit here with some episodes I’ve already watched, waiting for you.

Why are you still out there? That must be a really important phone conversation. We said 6 o’clock. You’re now 45 minutes late, and I was only 20 minutes late. I don’t even like coffee. I’d knock on the coffee shop window, but you’re probably blasting the heat and the radio in your car. I’d call you, but you’re already on the phone. So I’m just going to sit here watching you until you do what I want.

On Saturday I misplaced my only hairbrush, but I didn’t notice until Tuesday. Now the squirrels have moved in to build their nests. My hairbrush should arrive in the mail tomorrow, but meanwhile I have become used to squirrel babies pooping down the back of my neck. And the literary advice they whisper in my ear has really improved the direction of my novel.

He is the most adorable jock ever. And he better score a lot of goals to compensate for my leaving the internet for 12 hours. You hear me, bro? I want flashy, violent goal scoring. Like a video game. None of this sissy stuff. And it’s raining, so there better be hot chocolate at the tailgate.

Birds are pretty cool, but in the springtime they are always instigating fights with clean windows and mirrors. If I think about it too much, I might start losing respect for the cardinal that keeps hurling himself into my boss’s car, asking that punk rearview mirror, “You think you’re better than me? You think you’re a hotshot because you got into the MFA program and I didn’t? Oh, so you’re going to cry now, you whiny baby?”

I have bookmarked a hundred things that I want to blog about, but all the links are on my home computer and I’m currently at work. And I refuse to write about what I did over the weekend, because that’s no one’s business. Even though what I did was REALLY cool. I could win the gold medal in the Drivin’ & Cryin’ event at the Olympics. I can simultaneously cry, steer, change gears, make note of the speed limit, and find the most tearjerking song on the radio. But I’ve been training ever since I got my license. I keep tissues in the glove compartment. Maybe I just own the world’s saddest Honda.

In honor of the Spanish bacon dinner I enjoyed earlier tonight, and to make up for yesterday’s poorly written guts chronicle, I will tell the true story of a Mas evening two summers ago, witnessed pre-blog.

In summer, we sit on the patio at Mas, the trendy Spanish tapas restaurant two neighborhoods down. Everyone who first hears of Mas Tapas says, “Topless? It’s a topless bar?” It was only funny when I said it.

The restaurant was built on a run-down corner in the up-and-coming section of Charlottesville. Belmont was where the poor folks used to live before their neighborhood was gentrified. It was almost like rich folks started moving in so they could use the big city word “gentrified” without having to live in Brooklyn. Charlottesville struggles with a creative exodus to the five burroughs, but Belmont remains our haven of neighborhood stroller chic – an integrated six block radius within walking distance of downtown. Belmont is where houses climbed in worth by an average of $200,000 in two years, and where you still don’t want to get caught alone, sans pepper spray, in the middle of the night on certain streets. But Belmont is also where natives won’t bother you for hosting a keg party in the front yard of your renovated Victorian mansion.

So this Spanish tapas restaurant landed in the middle of Belmont and it was immediately hard to get a table on most weeknights. We arrived after 10 pm in the waning summer heat. The university was out on break, therefore we didn’t see the rich kids from the dormitories who had been turned onto Mas by a review in their school paper. When we arrived at the restaurant to meet our friends, recently engaged, we found out that we were celebrating the fiance’s birthday. They had already been sitting on the Mas patio for two hours, drinking sangria and eating bacon-wrapped dates.

… continue reading this entry.

I am disturbed, bewildered, and perhaps a little inspired by a news item featured in this week’s C-Ville Weekly newspaper. Here’s what happened.

Best friends Jerald and Joseph were partying at Rivals Sports Bar & Grill one warm, average night last March. At Rivals they met their new buddies Sunshine, Big Mama, Candy, and “the Mexican.” The gang then caravaned downtown to visit the amply-stocked bars of the Atomic Burrito (RIP) and Miller’s. But Joe and Candy stayed in the car, presumably to hook up. When Candy passed out, Joe walked to the bar to meet Jerald, Sunshine, and the rest of his crew. But by then the crew had a new member - Joseph Ray.

As the night wore on, Joseph Ray and Joseph realized they didn’t like each other. On the crew’s walk back to the parking lot, this tension reached a violent crescendo. Despite Jerald’s best attempts to hustle his friend into a vehicle and prevent him from engaging in a drunken street brawl, Joseph Ray still managed to pull Joseph from his truck. Then “the Mexican” and Joseph Ray started “whooping” Joseph, who promptly curled up in a fetal position. Jerald saw that Joseph was being double-teamed so he ran around the truck and heroically defended his friend.

“If you know someone was a friend of yours,” Jerald said later, “you just ain’t going to let them get whooped up on without giving them some help.”

After Jerald broke up the fight by throwing Joseph Ray onto a parked car and elbowing him in the eyeball, the two best friends jumped back into the truck to make their getaway. That’s when Jerald realized that he had “a ball of guts” dangling from his body. Joseph Ray had apparently stabbed Jerald, causing his guts to dangle. Now the case is going to court.

Someone please alert John Grisham about the trial of the century.

In court, [Jerald] Gibson showed his scar. “I got stabbed right there and they had to go in and pull all my internals out and fix my insides.”

Jerald Gibson, I salute you and the lengths you go for your friends. I wish your guts a speedy recovery.