after the vacations, a sign of maturity

So Costa Rica, my sister's graduation, and Las Vegas are all done. Thank God. I think its a sign of growing up that I still have some money in the bank after all that. Not a lot of money, mind you, and my plan to pay off the last of my credit cards has been set back by at least a month or two, but a few years ago I would have come back from a series of trips like that completely broke.

So yay for growing up. After working this weekend, I'll have the last part of the Vegas paid off, and its just smooth sailing of paying down CC debt from there.

You see, I gave myself three goals (you could call them resolutions--but I decided on them in March, not January 1st) for this year. 1. Finish writing the first draft of my book The Constable of Bridge 2. PAY OFF CREDIT CARDS 3. Run a marathon.

So far, each of these goals is actually proceeding along fairly smoothly. My writing has been fairly consistent and fun this past month or so, I've been prepping for my marathon training, which starts in June, and I've made some good strides forward to pay down debt.

Growing up is weird. Sometimes I'm half convinced that the key to being a successful grownup is to fool yourself into thinking that you enjoy hard work. Other times, I have this sneaking suspicion that everyone is faking it, no really has any idea what the hell they're doing, and adulthood has been this fabled myth that few actually achieve before they're 80.

I think I myself may have grown up a leetle bit these past few years. Certainly I don't blow all my money at bars the way I used to. I have more patience at work, more self-control at meetings. I have a much better ability to say no to my friends when they want to go out. I can focus on the task at hand a little better. Five years ago, when I did the Chicago marathon, that was all I had time for. I trained for that and worked at GBF and that was it. I couldn't find the energy or wherewithal to write. Now, I'm managing to juggle two jobs, writing, and marathon training. So yeah, hence my theory that growing up = fooling yourself into liking hard work.

Speaking of which, at the moment the blog entry is rapidly devolving an excuse not to work on my book, so I must end this entry before the demons of procrastination take too firm a hold...

"The Nature of My Game" story available

So I was informed last week by A. W. Gifford, editor of Ghostlight Magazine, the fiction magazine put out by Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers, that my short story "The Nature of My Game" was published this past fall in the premiere issue, Volume 1 Issue 1.

You can order a PDF version of the entire magazine ($4) or perfect-bound soft-cover print edition ($8.95 plus shipping) of the issue, which, along with my 1,000-word story, contains some great fiction and poetry. Here's the link. And here's a link to the page of other publications put out by GLAHW.

I'll also be adding the links to my publishing list on the right side of the blog. "The Nature of My Game" is quite a short story, one which I really enjoyed writing and now have a sort of amusing view on. Check it out, when you get a chance.

Un Sueño

In English, sueño means dream. Towards the end of my week in Costa Rica, while stopping for a cafecita (small cup of coffee) on our way back from Limon, our bus driver Randall (pronounced ren-DAHL) asked me how I enjoying Costa Rica thus far, to which I replied, "Es como un sueño."

Its like a dream. And my week in Costa Rica, in Santa Ana was dreamlike. There may be more buildings in Santa Ana now, more Ticos riding motocicletas, but the mountains have not changed, the amazing vistas are the same, the air still smells like summer.


The people also seem the same, especially my amazing old professor and his wife, Don Jorge and Doña Ana. Jorge is a reknowned opera singer, sociologist, author, carpenter, and environmentalist. He is, quite simply, the most interesting man alive.

Anyway, as I mentioned in my previous entry, my sister Nora has been studying there these past several months on the same program I did six years ago. My friend Matt and I decided to take a week's vacation and visit her group. I thought it would be a great chance to relive some of my "glory" days in Costa Rica, as well as catch up with some of my favorite professors. Also, Anna Eggleston, a dear friend of mine and fellow Costa Rica alum from my group was living in Santa Ana, which was an added bonus. (Anna and I were each other's partners in Salsa class--we were awesome)

I had a great time. Pura vida is how they say it in Costa Rica, and it was a week's worth of pura vida for me. We hiked through the mountains, planted trees for reforestation, did pottery, danced salsa, went snorkeling, ate delicious food, saw ancient ruins.

One of the best aspects of the trip were the people I was with. Nora is, of course, always fun to hang out with (hey, she's a Hurley!) as is Matt, and it was awesome to see Anna. But the rest of Nora's group were strangers to me, besides a little conversations I'd had with Nora about them on the phone. They are an amazing bunch of students, funny, kind, and always up for an adventure. I'm lucky to have met them.

Some of my favorite memories from the week were hiking up the mountains, then hiking back down in the dark, stopping at a bar called Buena Vista halfway down for the best beer, 80's music, and french fries ever, seeing a giant school of silver fish snorkeling, relaxing on a motor boat to an awesome view, relaxing at Jorge and Ana's awesome house, drinking games in the hotel, conversations with Gabriel, another awesome professor, in his class, the farewell party at the bar, and simply playing cards on the beach or chatting in a coffee shop. It may sound corny, but I felt truly blessed to have had this experience, to "relive" for one week one of my favorite semesters in college.

My week back in Costa Rica was una semana perfecta, a perfect week, almost too good to be true. And, like all the best dreams, it ended too quickly.

Links and things

I've been abominably lazy in keeping up with this blog. Without regular entries, I imagine its hard to keep regular readers. Therefore, I'm making a spring resolution to try and update the blog once a week.

We'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, things have happened in my life. St. Patrick's Day was fun, if rather inebriated. I had a lovely visit with my mother, father, and brother Sean over Easter. And I'm going to Costa Rica in less then a week, to visit my sister Nora, who is participating in the same study abroad program I did several years ago. I love reading her blog. She writes wonderfully and it gives me a marvelous sensation of deja vu.

Anyhow, the reason I've been remiss in my own blogging is that I've been working on my book, still tentatively titled The Constable of Bridge and is also going, more or less, well. I hope to finish the first draft (finally) by the end of this year.

I'm also doing the 2010 Chicago marathon. Which should be both fun and extremely stressful.

But enough about me, here are some links to images and videos I've come across the past few weeks that I thought would be fun to share:

This first image could be retitled "How Pat Operates in his Cubicle":

I love it! This second image I found on Digg.com and really needs no explanation. (and only a leetle spelling correction) Its awesomeness explains itself:


Then there are two videos I found both educational and compelling. The first is an update on Epic 2014 (shown to me originally by my friend Andy Wilkerson), and is called Epic 2015. A few years old, but still terribly relevant I find:



The second is more about the movement of social media, a phenomena of which this blog is just a small droplet in a digital tsunami:



(the embedded video doesn't quite fit within my posting margins, so a better view of the video can be found here)

Here's a link to the great author Margaret Atwood's thoughts on Twitter.

Finally, for something beautiful and fun, a link to the animated advertisement for Neil Gaiman's lovely poem "Instructions," which is about what to do if you're caught in a fairy tale and is soon to be published in book form, illustrated by the amazing Charles Vess.

[ETA] Crap! I almost forgot about Neil Cameron's A TO Z OF AWESOMENESS, both educational and a fuckton of coolness.

Alan Moore can tell you why I tell stories

I just came across a brilliant clip on youtube taken from the documentary The Mindscape of Alan Moore, in which Mr. Moore succinctly describes what he believes about magic and art:



Link here.

Suffice to say, I completely agree with everything he says. When I'm telling a story, I honestly have no idea where it comes from. But it feels powerful. It feels like something other. And it feels amazing. Magic is a good of an explanation as any, in fact, its the best I've heard. It rings true.

For those of you who don't know, Alan Moore is a brilliant, British, eccentric writer of comic books. He is considered to be, if not the best, one of the most best writers of comic books ever. His large body of work includes V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentleman, and of course, the much-lauded Watchmen. His DC comic The Killing Joke gave me nightmares.

His video clip above gave me much food for thought.

ETA: and I have just finished Chapter 6 of my novel today, which I've been chipping away at all week!

winter is cold, beards are itchy, and writing a blog helps

As I look out my window to a bright sun and blue sky,















I find it hard to believe that winter has arrived. Yet arrived it has, and with a cold vengeance. While we certainly don't have the snow in West Michigan, Chicago being along Lake Michigan makes for some bitterly frigid winters.

In response to this, I've unpacked my hat and gloves, dusted off my winter coats, and attempted to grow a beard:











--which I thought would make me look like a "struggling writer" but instead, I think makes me look more like a "potential serial killer." Whatever the case may be, its at least helping to keep my face warm.

Speaking of a struggling writer, after I posted two of my poems in the previous blog entry, one published and one the unofficial, unpublished "sequel", I thought I would check the list of links of my other published stories. And well that I did. It turned out that many of the links were old or bad. So I've updated them. You can listen to the two podcast stories for free, read several online shorts free as well, or order the printed books anthologies. Enjoy!

Now, back to working on my book, which I've been putting off by making this blog entry because A. I'm slightly hungover (damn alcoholic eggnog) and B. I'm a slacker.

Back to work!

two poems

The first thing I published after graduating from Aquinas in 2004 was the poem "The Pipes of Pan," which was printed in the The Willows magazine back in February 2007. The magazine has since gone under, and the poem is nowhere to be found online, though I do retain one of my contributor's copies.

A colleague of mine noted the (unintentional) similarity between my poem and Christopher Marlowe's poem to Sir Walter Raleigh 'The Passionate Sheperd to His Love.' He mentioned it would be fun to read an answering poem, much in the way Sir Walter answered Marlowe with, 'The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd.'

And so I wrote the poem "The Maenad's Answer." I present them both now here, free of charge, for your enjoyment. Comments are, of course, welcome:


The Pipes of Pan
By Patrick Hurley

Have you heard my pipes,
my lass,
their sweet, seductive call?

They’re chilling, shrilling, trilling,
my lass,
amongst the leaves of fall.

Have you heard them dance,
my lass,
their fey, haunting tune?

They’re cooing, hooing, blewing
my lass,
‘yond the far side of the moon.

They’re calling out for you,
my lass,
to leave both hearth and home.

Come, climb out your window,
my lass,
the night is ours to roam.

We’ll dance and sing and caper and prance,
and frolick the night away.

We’ll whisper, and kiss, and flicker, and drink,
until the dawn of day.

Then we’ll taste your sweet perfume,
naked under cloudless moon,
and when sunrise doth start to loom,

We’ll all fade away.

We’ll all fade away.

Then you shall return,
my lass,
where mother and father wait.

Naked and alone,
my lass,
left adrift by fate.

Count your lucky stars,
my lass,
to walk through father’s hall.

Next time we come a’ calling,
my lass,
you may not return at all.

For the troupe of Pan,
is a hungry troupe,
whose merry-making ne’er ends.

And though we drink and drink and drink,
on food we must depend.

This is why,
oh my fair lass,
we call on thee alone.

For, from time to time,
my lass,
Pan’s troupe needs
flesh and bone.





The Maenad’s Answer to Pan
By Patrick Hurley

Yes I’ve heard your pipes,
my lad,
sounding through my wall.

They’re fleeting, cheating, bleating,
my lad,
hardly seductive at all.

Oh, I’ve seen you dance,
my lad,
prancing like a loon.

Perching, searching, lurching,
my lad,
a hairy, drunk buffoon.

I will walk with you,
my lad,
in the woods so late.

Little do you know,
my lad,
there my sisters wait.

You’ll lie and steal and brag and boast,
idling the night away.

Whilst I pretend to smile and laugh,
thinking of how you’ll pay

Our hungry eyes shine in the gloom,
the beating drums proclaim your doom,
and rising sun will mark you tomb.

Oh how you’ll pay.

Oh how you’ll pay.

Oh you might come through,
my lad,
with naught but aching head.

Winesick and forlorn,
my lad,
wishing you were dead.

Count your stupid blessings
my lad,
to wake w’ both horns intact.

Next time you come a’calling
my lad,
you may leave on your back.

For a Maenad’s claws
are long and sharp
and hunger for taste of man.

Because we take what we can find,
we’ll settle for foolish Pan.

So you see,
oh fairy lad,
the truth of my sisterhood.

We’ll save a dance for you,
my lad,
in the end
we will have blood.