Dispatches, thoughts, and miscellanea from writer Jon Konrath

Pocket books

Splitting headache. I think it’s from the heat, but it could be something else. I’m about to take some Tylenol PM, crank up the AC, and try to sleep it off. It’s been a slow weekend, which is good. I have a new dentist, and I think I can see his office from my window, so the commute isn’t a problem. He is also pretty laid-back and not all about the lectures, or the insistence that I need to cash out my entire 401K and spend it on veneers, braces, and who knows what else. I do have to go back next month for some work, but just fillings. No titanium post insertions or root canals or anything.

Lulu has a new book size, the “pocket” size, which is something like 4.25×6.875″ or something like that. I was thinking that I would love to make my own version of the pocket ref, which is my absolute favorite book ever, and I think pretty much anyone with a spare twelve bucks should buy it. It contains pretty much every reference table and material stuffed into 768 pages that fit in your pocket. I love to read it when I’m bored, and it’s always good to take on travel. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to glean together all of my most-used useless info and cram it into a little book, and others could buy one too. Like, what to do for a hangover or food poisoning, what presidents have been shot and where, the addresses of Denny’s in many major cities, a list of daily excuses to have a party, whatever. Anyway, it’s a thought.

I’ve been reading Amy Hempel’s Reasons to Live. No, it isn’t a new-age bullshit book, she’s a writer, very minimalist stuff, very good. All of her stories are told in as few sentences as possible, very tight, very deadly. It’s good stuff, except when I read it, I simultaneously want to rewrite everything I’ve ever written so it works like that, and I also just want to give up, because there’s no way I could. But I still read it. She has a hardcover story collection from this spring, I hope it’s not repeats from the book I have.

Nothing else. No writing, it’s been too hot, and my computer room has no AC. I have the laptop, but usually I spend half my time fucking with the WiFi to get it working or not working, and it won’t let me write.

Anyway…