You are looking for a guy. This guy writes books, but you don't know exactly what he looks like, much less where to find him. As you look for this guy, you meet another guy. That guy writes books too. You don't
know him or his work, but there is swap, and Bones Buried in the Dirt by David S. Atkinson, sits there, waiting, looming, possibly beckoning, and you still know so little about it. But then you read these sparsely and beautifully written stories about childhood sexuality, violence, and terror by this guy you now know. Stories that derive so much power from their ability to capture quotidian moments, that you are reminded of Hush up and Listen Stinky Pooh Butt by Ken Sparling, another book that found poetry in the nearly real time moments that make for a life. All of which is to say, that you were looking for a guy, you found another guy, and that guy's book, once looming, now read, changes your life. Pretty cool that.
There is a guy who might be the guy you have been looking for. He looks enough like the guy you've seen on Facebook or Goodreads, but not exactly. Many of those photos are black and white, though maybe it's just the one photo you see again and again. this is real, however, as real as things get anyway, and in color regardless. This guy is also wearing glasses and a baseball hat. Which guys do, though not just guys, and he may be doing too. He is also tall, and that may be the biggest disconnect of all. Your image of the guy may or may not involve him being in black and white, or wearing a hat, but tall, no, that does no compute, and so you question whether he is in fact the guy, and you find yourself confused, possibly scared, and though you don't think you are experiencing dread, it doesn't mean you aren't either. The problem as you see it, is that you are very much caught-up in your own head, and the answers are not clear, which means how to escape your thoughts and fears are not so clear either. All of which makes you feel like one of the characters that populate the stories in Shenanigans! by the Joseph Michael Owens. Maybe you're the guy who can't quite deal with his morning coffee, or can't quite talk to his significant other. Maybe you're the dude who decides to bike into the Rockies and just sort of maybe wants it to end. Or the character who doesn't quite know what's wrong with his liver, but wouldn't mind if he did. They are characters who are in situations they, like we mostly recognize, but can't make sense of. They persevere though, mostly, if not entirely triumphantly, and much of the time because of the passage of time, and the presence of love. Their lives change, if only subtly, as did ours when we found out that the tall man before was is in fact Joseph Michael Owens. Because like one of his characters, we were done with our journey, we were out of our heads, and we were no longer lost.
