All the Hate Mail!

Mootamorphosis

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:38:39 -0700

Jim thought he was having a bad day yesterday. Someone had stolen his check card number and bought a great deal of toiletries at a Walgreen’s in Vermont. $417 to be exact. “How do you even buy that many toiletries?” Jim wondered. “What kind of fancy ass shampoos are you using, golly!”

When bedtime came, he had still not gotten hold of anybody who could help him at his bank. But when he woke up the next morning, things were much worse: He was a cow.

He actually didn’t notice at first, but as soon as he tried to call the bank again and instead of hands he had cow hooves, he started to kind of freak out a little bit. Immediately he had a headache, and a stomach ache, and then three more stomach aches, and then his sirloin hurt, and then he felt some pain right up in his petit filet.

Jim really couldn’t think of any reason as to why he should suddenly become a cow, but it didn’t matter. He was a cow and that was basically the gist of it. Incapable of opening any doors, he knew his only lifeline was his phone. Sure, he had cow hands, but he only had to dial a few numbers. With some difficulty, he managed to call the police.

“911. What’s your emergency?”

“Well, it’s complicated,” said Jim.

“Sir, how can I help you? This is an emergency line.”

“I woke up this morning and now I am a cow.”

“I see.”

“Yeah, so I’m a cow and I can’t really do much so I was wondering if you could help me and maybe call my mother. She’s in Tulsa.”

“Sir. You being a cow isn’t really an emergency,” said the dispatcher.

“Sorry, I don’t understand. How is that not an emergency?”

“Well, are you in any danger of not being a cow?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you healthy?”

“I don’t know. I’m a cow and I’ve never been a cow before.”

“You sound okay.”

“Okay, well, that’s good,” said Jim, “but I see this as an emergency.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I’m a cow all of a sudden so I think the worst has already happened.”

“Right,” said the dispatcher. “See? It’s not really an emergency. Nothing is going to happen. Probably. This is more of like a personal crisis.”

“Ok,” said Jim.

“We actually have a number for personal crisis situations. This actually happens all the time. It’s 433. Just dial 433.”

“Thank you,” said Jim and hung up.

Jim hung up the phone with his cow foot and dialed 433.

“Al’s Butcher Shop,” said the voice.

“What?”

“How can I help you?”

“No thanks, actually. I’m all good.”

“You sure? You sound like a cow.”

“I’m not. It’s a wrong number. Sorry about that.”

Jim hung up and looked around. He was still a cow but he realized that it wasn’t really an emergency, as the dispatcher lady had said. His hoof also worked to turn on an episode of Breaking Bad he hadn’t seen yet. So he kind of just watched some tv and thought about the guy who stole his bank card.

“I hope that fucking guy turns into a cow,” thought Jim. “Fuck that guy. He uses stupid shampoo.”

Lincoln

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:34:38 -0700

“I’m not ready to be Abraham Lincoln,” James screamed as he sat up in bed, sweating and panting.

Looking over at his bedside clock he realized that it had happened again. It was 5:00am and he was wide awake, terrorized by the same dream he had been having every night for nearly 4 weeks.

In his dream he always found himself in front of a bright mirror as a dwarfish man used spirit gum to attach a bushy beard to his chin. A top hat rested on top of his head and in his hands…a Playbill:

“Abraham Lincoln” starring James MacIntosh.

He could hear the roaring crowd and could see steadily moving feet cutting through the house lights under the proscenium. He wanted the audience to grip his words like the “hang in there” cat. He wanted to move them to tears and to empower them by making his lines feel like their thoughts. He wanted to free the slaves. He wanted to unite a nation.

But he did not know his first line. Nor his second. He didn’t know any of them.

“One minute out” a voice called from somewhere behind him.

He knew what he wanted to say and knew what he wanted to do, but he didn’t know how to say it or how to do it.

Walking sheepishly towards the curtain he suddenly realized that as much as he wanted to be Abraham Lincoln, he simply couldn’t be.

And from across the stage he caught eyes with Mary Todd, a woman that he knew that he didn’t know how to feel about. She stared at him lovingly, even though he was just a facade. A commoner in king’s clothing.

Mary Todd recognized the fear in his eyes. The jitters, she had seen this before and she held out her hand, as to Mary Todd, this was her husband, at least for the next two hours.

“5…4…3…”

James looked into Mary Todd’s eyes and mouthed “I can’t. I’m not Abraham Lincoln.”

“I know, James,” Mary Todd said. “But you are to me.”

“I’m not ready to be Abraham Lincoln.”

Quickly he found himself back where he started. In bed. At 5:00am, and he was just himself. No one needed him to be anything else.

But even being the kind of person that wants to be the person that people want them to be takes a certain kind of person. James was exactly that kind of person.

He went back to sleep, knowing that he would soon be tormented again soon. But he knew that one of these nights he’d get up on that stage and sleep, shivering and in fear, but peacefully.

Am I Dying?

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:04:00 -0700

Since the dawn of man, we have all been asking the same question:

Am I dying?

I have discovered a simple formula to figure out if you are dying.

First, answer these 10 simple questions:

1. Are you currently in a car, but also underwater?

2. Does it hurt to breathe and are you going to stop soon?

3. Are you on fire?

4. Are all of your surroundings on fire?

5. Are you still on fire?

6. Are you being killed right now?

7. Are you reading this through your mind’s eye while on an operating table?

8. Can you communicate with transparent ghosts in your living room?

9. Are you still in the underwater car?!?!?

10. Are you alive?

If you’ve answered “Yes” to any of the above questions, you are in fact dying.

So, if you have anything important to do, I’d probably get to it right away.

No really though, how are you?

Tue, 14 May 2013 23:51:54 -0700

You won’t tell me your name and you want to know how I AM.

Imbalance!

Hell

Tue, 14 May 2013 23:41:01 -0700

When Mike arrived in Hell, he was more than a little bit surprised.

First of all, he didn’t realize he was dead, so that was kind of a shock. Right away, he was taken aback by the friendliness of the staff. The demon that walked him up to the main gate wasn’t pushy at all and when he was asked for his name and home address, he thought the demon that checked his credentials was much more courteous than the last customs agent he had at Miami International.

His room was small, but clean. His bed was pretty firm, but since he always had a bad back, he didn’t really mind.

The food wasn’t great, but hey, he lived alone and seldom cooked, so not much could be worse than prepackaged supermarket salads and orange juice from concentrate.

It wasn’t until his first day at work in Hell that things started to get a little tough. Mike always dreaded work, often calling himself an entrepreneur, which is an earthly term for “using other people’s money to lose small sums of money.” The idea of being a postman or a teacher or anything like that terrified him.

His Hell Job Officer, Sam, gave him the bad news:

“Mike. You’re going to have to stand in front of a two way mirror and apologize for all the lies you’ve ever told. Each apology will get you a penny and once you have paid back all of your investors, you can stop apologizing.”

“That could take forever!” shouted Mike.

“That’s kind of the point,” said Sam.

“What happens when I finish?”

“Then you get to go to heaven.”

“What’s heaven like?” asked Mike.

“Softer beds. And the buffets are excellent.”

Mike was walked to his station in front of the television and tried to think of a lie he had told. He had lied to his parents about liking a lot of birthday presents. He had lied to teachers about stomachaches. He had lied to women about his feelings for them.

So Mike began to apologize, and at first it felt like a practice in memory. But soon it took a minute to remember, and before long he realized that he couldn’t remember which things were lies and which things weren’t.

“I actually like a pretty firm bed,” said Mike.

The Kid in 10A

Mon, 13 May 2013 23:14:15 -0700

I love San Francisco. I love losing myself there, losing my mind there, losing my driver’s license there.

And then I love finding myself and waking up on the day I leave with a sense that I’ll be back in its sweet embrace soon.

I can’t tell you how long those short flights back to Los Angeles seem. Even though I’ve never lived in San Francisco I feel like many of my best moments are there.

Tonight I sat in seat 11A and as the sun began to set over the wastelands to our immediate north, I noticed the face of the kid in 10A. Glued to the window, attached by two hands and smudgy cheek, he stared down at the world below him.

Right next to him, in 10B, was his father. His grey whiskers gave away that his terrible orange-glo hair color was intentional, but as soon as I stopped feeling superior, I noticed that he too was unflinching in his gaze. His eyes were fixed on his son.

I couldn’t help but think about how lucky this little kid in 10A was.

He wasn’t upset about our twenty minute delay. He wasn’t mad that someone had put too much ice in his Coke or that he had forgotten his frequent flyer number.

He was happy? And do you want to know why?

Because he was flying. He was fucking flying. Like a seagull or like Iron Man or like some mythical creature. He was flying.

He wasn’t afraid of dying. He had no fear that if the plane went down he would spend his final twenty seconds lamenting everything he had ever done. He would probably just think “this is different” as the flames wicked higher.

He was flying and his father, equally lucky, got to go back to that place as the clean silhouette of his past, present, and future cut into the fuchsia light piling in from the horizon.

Another flight home from San Francisco and the truth remains that you can’t just fly away from your problems. You can’t eliminate who you are.

I wish I knew the name of the kid in 10A so in twenty years I could remind him about this moment. But I don’t and I can’t.

Next time you’re in 11A and you look up at the seat in front of you and see a little kid enjoying himself because he’s flying, do yourself a favor:

Take a moment and take a deep breath and then go up to that little kid and take his seat and steal his view and tell him to kick rocks. Hell, he’s young and he’s had his little moment in the sun. You should press your little smudgy cheeks against that window.

After all, we could die at any moment.

Why We Win

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 18:14:30 -0700

This world can be a little out of order sometimes.

Something that has been built by many can be destroyed be a single one. Tranquility can be turned to fear by a single one. Happiness can be turned to anguish by a single one.

But the reason we keep building these things, knowing full well that they can be destroyed, is because we are bonded by an overwhelming and unstoppable current of love.

We will build tall towers. We will go to school. And yes, we will run marathons.

The single one can take away what we have built but they cannot take away why we have built it.

That’s why we will always win.

Love.

Eli the Mute

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:03:34 -0700

When I was 20 years old, I did something incredibly stupid.

Because other people were involved, I will give them fake names, but I think it’s time for me to come clean about this:

I grew up in Los Angeles, not far from UCLA, and the surrounding area of Westwood was a frequent hangout spot for me when I was in high school. We would go there and pretend we were older and sneak into the then popular hookah joints and try to sneak beers at the Irish pub that rarely carded.

One night in fall, Chris, a friend of mine and I were walking down Gayley Avenue, where all the fraternity houses lived. The crowds outside were pretty huge and it seemed like a good idea to see what was going on. Apparently, it was rush week, which was a great excuse for an UCLA student to snag some free beers. Unfortunately, at the time, I was not a UCLA student. I was a dropout.

Full of hubris, Chris and I decided that rushing a frat at a school we didn’t go to wouldn’t be hard enough, so we gave each other additional challenged. I was dumb and quick to tell him he had to be a member of the swim team, hoping this would lead to funny conversations about shaving body parts and so on.

He quickly turned and said “You have to be a mute.”

Never one to back down from a challenge, no matter how stupid, I quickly said ” .” I didn’t say anything. I was a mute. No more speaking. He would have to introduce me. He would speak for me, and I would have to go alone with everything he said, no matter how ridiculous.

Minutes later, we walked through the front door of the frat house. I won’t mention the name of the frat for fear I will be killed, but it was a pretty well known one.

Right away, he introduced me as “Eli” and told everyone that I had burnt my esophagus in a spelunking accident in New Mexico and was getting grafts over time to get better, but unless I was able to get some kind of miracle surgery, I wouldn’t ever be able to speak again. Needless to say, it was hard to keep a straight face, but I did.

And as the night went on and I concentrated on not speaking, I found that people were really interested in talking at me. I was being treated like a dude with an accent. Everyone walked up and said “Oh, hey, you’re the dude that can’t talk, right?” And then I wouldn’t say anything and they would high-five me and say “Awesome!”

The Keystone Lights flowed that night and by the time it hit midnight they had invited us to their mixer at the San Pedro brewery the next night with some girls from a nearby sorority. Of course, we were in, but of course, I would still have to be a mute.

The next night we showed up at the frat house and boarded a bus of men and women headed to get destroyed and make bad decisions. We hit the brewery and continued in our underage drinking. Now, being a mute is hard. But being a mute is even more difficult when you’re A: drinking and B: trying to hit on co-eds.

I was on the dance floor with a young lady who though the fact I couldn’t talk was pretty sexy. But she kept talking to me and with the Sisqo blasting in the background I had no idea how to make my facial expressions match what she was saying. Finally, she said something and I blurted out “What???”

And she froze. And I froze.

“Did you just talk?”

At that point, totally caught, I grabbed my throat as if I was being stabbed in the neck and turned around and ran frantically through the front door of the bar. I landed about two blocks away before calling Chris in a panic. These. Guys. Were. Going. To. Murder. Me.

Chris finally answered his phone and came out into the street. We got in a cab and headed home, hoping to never speak of this again.

The next morning however, I got a call from Chris.

“Eli. They have no idea. They just thought you got drunk and left. They’re having a big party tonight. We should go.”

“This is a terrible idea. No way.”

Pulling up to the party, I felt a sense of dread. But as soon as I stepped inside, everyone seemed happy to see Eli the Mute. So I cracked a Keystone Light and played pool with Brad, one of the “elders” or whatever the hell they’re called.

But suddenly, Chris wasn’t around. 10 minutes passed. 20 minutes passed. Chris hadn’t left my side here before. But 30 minutes passed.

“Eli. Can I talk to you privately?” asked Brad, placing his pool cue down. I nodded and followed him up a staircase.

He followed from behind and guided me into a darkened room where four of the other “elders” were waiting for me. It was dark. Where was Chris? Nowhere.

“Sit down,” said Brad, as all eyes were pinned on me. “Here’s the thing, Eli. We have a rule at this fraternity. And that is if any member says that they don’t want you around, you’re out. So, you’re out.”

Oh Thank God, I thought. They had no idea. I nodded sadly and shrugged apologetically and stood up to back out of the room.

“Sit the fuck down,” said Brad.

I complied.

“There’s something else. If you ever tell anyone what happened here tonight, or any of the other secrets of this brotherhood, we will make your life a living hell.”

Oh Thank God. Ok. I can do that. I stood up.

“Sit back down.”

And at this point I was expecting a bat across the back of the skull, but Brad just started talking again.

“There’s one last thing. In order to be one of us, you have to have a sense of humor.”

I didn’t know where this was going.

Suddenly, the lights turned on and they popped open a bottle of champagne and in unison they screamed “Congratulations!”

They all hugged me and poured cheap booze on my shirt and told me that I was now a part of them. The door behind me opened and there was Chris. He was in too.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I embraced Chris, but gave him a look telling him I was going to kill him for letting them get me alone.

“Guys. Welcome. We’re so glad to have you. Come back tomorrow and just bring your transcripts from last semester so we can make sure your GPA is 2.0 or higher and we’ll be good to go.”

We did it! We’re in!

Oh wait. We don’t have transcripts. We don’t go to UCLA.

Needless to say, we disappeared after this. We never showed our faces again.

Chris dodged countless phone calls and of course, they never called me. I didn’t have a phone. I couldn’t talk.

I avoided the entire Westwood area for about three months, but then, after a while, I figured everyone had forgotten about Eli the Mute and I let down my guard.

One day, sitting at the Starbucks outside the Fox theater with my friend Aron, I heard someone called out “Eli!” and for some reason I turned around.

“Hey, Brad” I said. And then his face turned to stone.

He walked closer and closer until he was right over me.

“Eli?” he asked. “You can talk?”

I nodded.

This was it. I was about to die. He was going to frat-murder me, whatever that means.

“Holy shit, dude. You got that surgery you needed! Congratulations!”

“I’m so lucky!” I screamed.

Brad gave me a big hug and said “I can’t wait to tell the other guys.”

“Say hi for me!” I said.

Brad walked away and I sat back down at my table with Aron.

“Who is Eli?” asked Aron. “Why did that dude call you Eli?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

The Last Glass Of Wine

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 18:10:07 -0700

The last glass of wine in the bottle is the loneliest.

The other glasses are out, swirling in the bellies, getting to the heads, aiding decisions.

The last glass of wine stares out, trapped at home, wishing for purpose.

It’s Saturday night and the last glass of wine sits alone, collecting oxygen, becoming better. But eventually becoming worse. Descending. Turning. Turning into nothing.

Years spent here. Aging. Improving. Now, useless. Sending out pheromones. Asking for company, but echoed back into the void.

“I could improve you,” it says. “I could heal you. I could cleanse your memory.”

But everyone slowly falls asleep and in the morning it is too late. The time has passed.

Life dies and then life goes on.

And the next bottle opens and another life begins, praying for answers.

It’s Saturday night and I want to be taken in

Peter Saw Mary

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 09:53:34 -0700

Peter saw Mary.

She was sitting in front of a coffeehouse he had never seen before. He had walked by this corner five days a week for almost a year, but somehow, he had never seen the yellow awning and matching yellow plastic folding chairs. But today, Peter saw Mary. She was reading a book.

Peter walked up and said “I’m sorry to do this, but is there any way I could have one of your cigarettes?

Mary looked up from her book and saw Peter. “I don’t smoke. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, neither do I.”

Peter quickly sat down and Mary placed her tattered copy of Jitterbug Perfume on the table.

“Do you mind if I sit?” asked Peter, far too late.

“If you don’t smoke, why did you ask me for a cigarette?”

“Well, to be honest, I wanted to look cool,” said Peter.

“I don’t think cigarettes make you look cool.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you don’t have one then. You were the one I was hoping would think I was cool and if you had a cigarette and had given it to me than I would have a cigarette and you’d be sitting there thinking that I wasn’t cool instead of what you’re thinking now.”

“What am I thinking now?” asked Mary.

“You’re thinking that I’m going to guess what you’re thinking and tell you some smooth line but instead of that, which is the kind of thing you’d expect from a guy who uses a cigarette to look cool to you, I’m just going to tell you what I’m thinking, and that’s that I am terrified to talk to women and so instead of talking to them I ask them for cigarettes and that’s just my way of getting close enough to sit down.”

“So you do this a lot?”

“No, this is actually my first time. I just said it like that because I wanted you to think I was experienced and confident,” said Peter. “I’m Peter.”

“Mary.”

Peter and Mary shook hands. Mary broke off the eye contact before Peter did.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you, you should probably get back to your book.”

Mary half-smiled and then picked up her book. She held it up near her face, but right over the page numbers, there was Peter, still sitting there, patiently, quietly.

It was only a matter of minutes before Peter broke the silence.

“Excuse me, can I ask you for a favor, Mary?”

Mary put her book down and took the last sip of her latte. “Sure.”

“A lot of people have been walking by, Mary, and those people are seeing a woman reading a book and ignoring a man that is sitting with her, and it feels like a weird sort of cold intimacy and I guess what I’m saying is I think all these people walking by look at me and assume I’m a bad boyfriend or a boring husband or something, and to be honest, it’s kind of getting me down because no one likes being judged, Mary. Do you know what I mean?”

“Sure.”

“I’d feel a lot better about myself if others felt better about me and that’s only going to happen if you feel better about us.”

Peter pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and lit one up.

“I thought you said you didn’t smoke,” said Mary.

“I only said that so you’d think I was healthy and so you’d think that if we were to end up together I’d be there for the long haul and not die, ever, you know?”

“So, you do smoke?”

“Sure, but only to look cool.”

“Like I said, I don’t think it looks cool,” said Mary.

Peter immediately tossed his cigarette to the ground and then threw the rest of the half-full pack to the floor and crushed it with his heel.

“I quit for you,” Peter said. “Self control.”

“What do you want, Peter?”

Mary was exasperated. She was exhausted by Peter.
“Mary, here’s the thing. I saw you and I wanted to buy you a cup of coffee.”

“Well, why didn’t you just say that?”

“I told you. I’m terrified to talk to women,” said Peter.

Peter saw Mary crack a smile. He knew she probably felt like he had given her a couple of smooth lines disguised as the opposite. He wanted, badly, to explain that he had meant everything he said, but she probably wouldn’t believe him, and even if she did, she wouldn’t understand.

Peter saw Mary that day in front of the coffeehouse he had never seen before. Peter walked into the coffeehouse and bought two small black coffees and brought them back outside.

“How’d you know I take it plain,” asked Mary. “Thank you, by the way.”

“When I saw you I didn’t see any sugar packets, and you don’t seem like the type for artificial sweetener, and when I sat down I could see you in the reflection in the bottom of your cup so I knew you didn’t use milk.”

“You drink your coffee black too,” she said, gesturing towards his cup.

“Actually I don’t drink coffee. I don’t really like it.”

Mary shrugged.

“I just figured,” said Peter, “As long as I have a cup of coffee here in front of me, you can’t go, because that would be rude.”

“Oh, I can leave. Those aren’t the rules.”

“I hope you don’t.”

Peter took a sip of his coffee.

“I thought you didn’t drink coffee.”

Peter saw Mary again in the reflection in her cup. “These things aren’t the things that matter when it comes to defining who you are, Mary, and so whether I smoke or drink coffee or come here often are just distractions.”

“From what?” asked Mary.

“From everything else.”

Peter and Mary finished their coffees in silence. They just looked at each other.

They saw each other.

Why I Don't Sleep

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 22:27:00 -0700

When I was a child, I was convinced that my parents were conspiring to kill me. I was sure, from the age of three, that every time I got a bad grade or left a light on in the hallway, that one of them would come into my room in the middle of the night and stab me with a knife from the kitchen.

Thus began a life of never sleeping.

People always ask me why I don’t sleep and I make up a wide variety of excuses, but the real reason is, at the end of the day, I’m pretty sure someone is going to loom over my bed with a scythe and take me into the abyss.

I’ve never been to the afterlife. I’ve also never been to Nebraska. I’m cool with that.

The only thing scarier than life is the lack thereof. We mock it because we fear it. We dress up like ghosts on Halloween becuse we want to make a joke of our biggest unknowns. Or is that just me? You’re telling me you’re not dressing up like a slutty nurse because you fear the judgment of an omniscient overlord and you intend to mock his power? No?

My parents weren’t particularly homicidal, as far as I can tell, but they sure knew how to express themselves, and as a child, when you don’t quite know how to articulate your thoughts, you think, “Hell, I better stab something I guess.” This is why kids burn ants with magnifying glasses. To mock their fear.

I don’t sleep. I stare at the backs of my eyelids and I watch the colors blend. I listen to the sounds of the night.

Sometimes, when I felt particularly nervous, I would lay my pillows in my bed in the shape of a body and then I would sleep under a sheet on the floor next to my bed. Sometimes I would sleep in the hallway. Anything to make sure that my loving parents didn’t violently murder me in my slumber.

The first time I remember seeing my mother cry was when I refused to get out of the car to retrieve the mail because I was afraid she was going to run me down with her Mazda minivan. I was eight at the time, but I remember it like today.

Perhaps I’m making my parents sound like murderous monsters. Let me be clear: these two people were remarkably gentle, supportive, and nurturing (mostly). The fault is entirely mine.

I fear death. And who better to fear than those that gave me life? They are most closely associated with my ability to be, a thing I knew I wanted to keep doing.

I don’t sleep.

I don’t sleep because I feared that the people that loved me most in the world were trying to kill me. So just imagine how I feel about everyone else.

Leaves

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 19:25:00 -0700

The leaves felt every footstep upon them.

The sound that we all viewed as a sign of fall, the sound of a slow death, the sound of hope for an eventual rebirth. To them, these sounds were just a surprise.

The leaves remember when they were small and when they were tender and green. And they grew up and they provided shade and they were right up against each other, bonded by love and bonded by touch and bonded by a communal desire. The leaves just did what leaves do.

Crunch. Another life over. Crunch. Another dream gone. Crunch. Another family done.

We skip through the streets, the sounds of death, to us, the sounds of life. Of oneness with the world. Of oneness with nature. An escape from the pavement and the concrete. An escape from cars and trains and subways. An escape.

Beneath our feet, a world.

The leaves look up, browning at the edges. Hardening and losing sight of their former glory. We see them as beautiful. They look up and see themselves reflected back down at them, green and luminous.

A little girl jumps into a freshly raked pile and feels alive. She will remember this moment forever, and when she is an adult and romanticizes her childhood, these sounds will be there.

Crunch. A pile of leaves. A separation between here and gone. The young destroys the old with glee.

Bad Breath

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:50:01 -0700

Have you ever known anyone who has had perpetually bad breath?

Don’t feel bad. I’m here to help.

Here’s the thing: That person is a monster.

A person with perpetually bad breath is an unloved soul, an unclaimed being. If I ever loved anyone who had this malady, I would stop them, I would hold them, I would love them, and I would proclaim: “Please enjoy this mint strip!”

But these monsters don’t have that. No one. Not friends. Not family. Not even concerned coworkers have taken the time to solve this simple matter.

So what does this mean?

It means that your bad breath friend is a terrible, lifeless, soulless, monster.

Speak of salvation? Give them gum. Or give them death.

There is no in between.

Dan's Dream

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:38:13 -0700

Dan was swimming in his old high school, trying to impress his coach, who was also his father. When he reached the middle of the pool, his body was stopped by an unseeable force, and suddenly the water turned black. He could no longer see his feet, and he cried out to his coach, but his coach was no longer there.

A voice echoed through the gymnasium as the lights all went out completely. The voice kept telling him it was going to be okay but the voice was not very convincing. Pitch black, save for one slowly moving light, Dan trembled in the cold, black water. He watched as this small floating light moved closer and closer, carried by footsteps, until it was close enough and he could almost make out her face. It was beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep

Dan smashed his hand onto the top of the alarm clock. Short of breath and damp from sweating, Dan laid back down and stared at the ceiling, desperately trying to figure out why he had set an alarm for 4:51am.

Flipping his pillow to the dry side, he closed his eyes again, hoping to continue where he left off. Though terrified, he needed to see the face behind the light and identify her, and identify the quivering voice that told him it was going to be okay. His eyelids fluttered and he quickly fell asleep again, but he did not find himself in a gymnasium at all. He found himself in the small kitchen at work, adding Splenda to his coffee and wearing a shirt of unknown origin. He was making small talk with Faye, his slightly attractive coworker.

Meanwhile, back in Dan’s bedroom, a light was emanating from underneath his pillow. Illuminating all four corners of the pillowcase in turn, a piercing beacon tries desperately to get his attention, but Dan is not in this room, Dan is in his small kitchen at work.

The woman from the dream trapped on the other side of the pillowcase does all she can do. But Dan’s eyes are shut and he is elsewhere.

She calls out, telling him that things will be okay, but he cannot hear her.

She knows the only way they will meet is if Dan turns his pillow over again, but he won’t, because he is trapped in his day to day life, a life of mundane ritual and desire, and he may never break sweat again.

As Dan talks to Faye about her clothing, the light under the pillowcase slowly begins to fade.

When Dan wakes up, he will never know how close he was to finding her, but he will go to work, and he will go the small kitchen, and he will make coffee, and he will tell Faye about a funny dream he had last night.

Mr. Jones Translated

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 04:03:00 -0700

Sha la la la la la la

I was at a club and looking at a blonde lady. My friend, a guy named Mr. Jones started talking to a different girl, who had dark hair and suddenly she started dancing as her father inexplicably played guitar.

Mr. Jones thought she was pretty hot. We like hot chicks.

I am an ugly weirdo.

Let’s dance together. Sha lalalalalalalala.

Dance, Maria. Mr. Jones is kind of a pervert, but if he gives me alcohol I’ll forgive him.

I’m so drunk I start talking about agnosticism.

My friend Mr. Jones and I like the fact that we are being recorded. We like to be loved because we are both trying to fill a void.

Now seems like a good time to act like we care about art. Women like art, right? Picasso! Cool!

Mr. Jones and me look into the future and argue about a girl with a lazy eye.

I have a guitar and now I will never be lonely. Ok, I feel lonely.

I’m singing about cats.

Okay, I’m lonely. Also, I’m an agnostic. Will you be lonely and sing about cats with me?

Mr. Jones and me look for women with less money because affluent women shun us. I bought a guitar. Mr. Jones is probably just a shitty piece of my own displaced need for approval.

Mr. Jones and me are going to be celebrities.

This will last forever, right?

Why

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:36:56 -0700

It doesn’t matter what you want or don’t want.

It doesn’t matter what you need or don’t need.

All that matters is that you understand why you do or don’t have it.

You need to know these things.

That is the only way things can ever change

Kissing Theory

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 03:32:54 -0700

We all remember our first kiss.

Our first kiss ever, and the first kiss with the person we currently love. I do.

Why?

When courting, we try so hard to be engaging, to be attractive, and to make eye contact. We are attracted to this person. We find them visually, and hopefully, creatively and emotionally, enticing. We want to kiss them, even if we don’t quite know why. Impulsively, we want to place our lips against theirs and we want to drift away with them.

We want to swim in an ocean of color. We want to fly in a sky without limits. We want to hold sacred a thing that is so simple: a pair of lips and another pair of lips.

Why?

When you kiss someone, it is the first time you choose not to see them. You choose to close your eyes. All of the things that first drew you to them melt away like so many ignored candles. You choose not to see them.

You choose to feel them.

It is unlike any other thing you can share with a person. The world, your surroundings, and even them, drift into the abyss, replaced by a singular moment. A rhythm. A beat, a melody, a sound, a color, a vibration, a feeling, an endless array of nothing. In a world with nearly seven billion people, world that is 25,000 miles around…

Suddenly, only a millimeter matters, and it is the one between your lips. And with your eyes closed, you eliminate that gap, and you create a new sustainable world.

This exists nowhere else.

Remember your first kiss. Remember the first kiss you had with the one you love:

It’s a millimeter gap you have to close, and you can do it.

If you try.

Brain Creatures

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 01:20:00 -0700

Jeff and Stacy went to bed and simultaneously fell asleep as they usually seemed to.

Luckily, they were both pretty heavy sleepers so they never actually saw what was going on during their slumber.

As Jeff began to breathe heavily, the top of his head split open like a root tearing through a sidewalk and a small pink creature looking something like a tiny hairless baby rat burst through the skin.

He hopped off Jeff’s forehead and, using Jeff’s ear as a stepping stone, made his way down to the pillow. He traversed the mushy tundra and then eventually hopped over to Stacy’s pillow. He placed his entire head in Stacy’s ear canal and whispered something.

Within moments, a small pink rat-like thing emerged from Stacy’s other ear. She crawled across Stacy’s lips and the he-rat-like-thing helped her down on the other side.

He and she took each other’s hands and ran together the length of the sheets, down off the bed, under the doorway, and up and into the kitchen.

Luckily, there were a few swigs of wine left in a glass on the counter. They climbed in together and talked all night, taking drops of wine in turn, laughing, and making love.

As the sun threatened to creep in through the windows, he and she bid each other farewell, complete with what seemed to be an endless array of goodbye kisses, waves, hugs, and on and on.

Soon, he was back in Jeff’s head and had closed the entrance behind him. Somewhere, he knew, through a couple of layers of flesh, and only a few feet away, she was there, waiting for the time they could meet again.

It was a wonderful night and he and she knew that even if Jeff and Stacy never slept again, they would always be bound together, both by memory and by chemistry.

Quite accidentally, tiny bits of Stacy had come back with him and tiny bits of Jeff had come back with her and those bits, in time, would grow, until they would not have to visit each other in the nights anymore, as while they would always individually be a he and a she, they had now formed a they.

Flirting

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:40:21 -0800

“Hi, can I buy you a drink?” he asked.

“What is the purpose of this visit?” she asked.

“Well, I’m looking for an easy way to speak to you and I have eight dollars available.”

“Well, then yes, I am willing to speak to you, but a drink would help me be interested because at the moment I am not.”

He orders her a drink, as well as one for himself.

“I have some questions about your upbringing and your current affairs, though I’m not ready to ask any questions about your relationship status,” he said.

“I understand. I come from a generic family and have a job I tolerate because of the money I am paid that I use to live and buy food,” she said. “My relationship status is irrelevant at the moment.”

“Can I buy you another drink? I am interested in asking more questions but I don’t want to feel responsible.”

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll answer with some degree of honesty, probably.”

Another drink arrives and they drink it.

“How is a girl like you single?” he asked.

“What makes you think I’m single?” she asked.

“Can I buy you another drink? I feel called out and am shamed.”

“Sure. My intention was to shame you. I have succeeded.”

Another drink arrives and they drink it.

“Rainbows involve all the different colors, and all the colors in between the colors,” he said.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said.

He waited for an hour and then he realized that she was probably gone.

And then he felt really bad.

Because he realized he only had $25.00.

So he couldn’t tip appropriately.

Photographs

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 23:03:50 -0800

Sarah would often lie awake at night because she had a great deal of anxiety. She would stare at the ceiling fan and count crags on the stucco ceiling and take deep breaths.

As much as she wanted to sleep, and as much as she loved the escape of dreams, her biggest fear was always the next day. The unknown was terrifying and so much so that it tended to ruin the known.

One night, after three hours of tossing and turning, Sarah went to the hallway closet and pulled out a cardboard box full of photographs. She leafed through them, her brain awakened entirely, as she transported herself through nearly three decades of memorable moments.

Small pieces of her brain came to life as she flipped through and then suddenly she stopped on a particular photograph:

It was from a theme park. Her hands were high above her head and her hair was floating but her face was nothing but smiles. It was a photo from Space Mountain from when her family visited in 1995. It was her and her sister. The lines were long that day but she didn’t remember that. All she remembered was this particular moment.

She had no fear back then. She did not fear hitting the bottom. She just smiled and allowed the ride to take her wherever it was going to go.

Back in bed, Sarah left the photograph on her bedside table.

Quickly, she fell asleep.

The morning came and Sarah woke up and tried to stretch her arms, but she couldn’t. Her arms were high above her head. She tried to speak, but she could not, as her mouth was frozen in an excited smile. She looked to her left and saw herself sleeping in bed. Sarah was trapped in the photograph, frozen in a moment of total fearlessness.

The previous night she had found comfort in the past because the past was fearless. But in romanticizing the fearlessness of the past, she had regressed to a point of total fear, because even though the moment in the photograph was scary, the outcome was known.

She began to cry as she realized that embracing her old lack of fear did nothing to help her current state.

Suddenly, Sarah woke up and fixed her eyes again on the ceiling fan. She did not know how long she had been asleep. Looking over at her nightstand, she saw the photograph and remembered where she just had been.

She turned the photo upside down and realized that nothing from the past would quiet her mind and that the racing thoughts were not going to go away until she actually embraced the next day again.

The fear of the unknown became a sentient creature that lived with her. And one day it would be gone and she would again be fearless, but Sarah had no way of knowing when.