New Year's Solution

public class Engine { private URL _theurl;
public URLConnection _theconnection;
private String _rootURL; public BufferedReader _in; public Engine(String root) {
_rootURL = root;} public String showRoot() { return _rootURL;}
public void setUrl(String urlstring) throws MalformedURLException, IOException {
_theurl = new URL("http", [pattern host], 80, urlstring);
_theconnection = _theurl.openConnection();
_in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(_theconnection.getInputStream()));}
public static void main(String args[]) throws MalformedURLException, IOException {
String trialinput = new String();
String trialoutput = new String();
ArrayList[parameterization] goodones = new ArrayList[parameterization]();
FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(new File("ohfives.txt"));
BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(fw);
NumberFormat nf = NumberFormat.getInstance();
nf.setMinimumIntegerDigits(5);
nf.setGroupingUsed(false);
Engine sweep = new Engine([website pattern string]);
long starttime = System.currentTimeMillis();
for (int i=0; i<100000; i++) {
trialinput = sweep.showRoot().replaceAll("pattern", nf.format(i));
sweep.setUrl(trialinput);
trialoutput = sweep._theconnection.getContentType();
if (trialoutput.equalsIgnoreCase("video/mpeg")) {
goodones.add(i); } }
long endtime = System.currentTimeMillis();
Iterator[parameterization] it = goodones.iterator();
int curs = 0; while (it.hasNext()) {
String temp = nf.format(it.next());
bw.write(temp); System.out.print(temp + "\t");
if (++curs % 25 == 0) {
System.out.println(); } bw.newLine(); } bw.flush();
System.out.println("\nScan complete ("+goodones.size()+") in " + ((endtime - starttime)/1000) + " seconds."); }}

East of Essex

Bumper time it's time to fight...it's time to get down and dirty, to unmild the sandwich sauce. the love sandwich. eat drink bite confidently. swallow with the body, digest with the mind. it's time to release and forget, to cathart in the most vulgar manner possible - maybe leave tiny sesame chips all over the floor. windowbound and coming closer stepwise, the lady's back, she falls back, and the dream magician's tricks are her irritatingly accurate words.

little bit 'o runnin' on the heartwood planks all the body frosting. the fight - it's on now. the fight it's here to stay so run out the trumpets and unroll the velvet rug. there's something in this room and it's infesting my mouth, little Hamilton Fish pathways. little lives in the fight...together! together! my skin's a rag. my face's a volcanoground.

sweeping giant chunks of white cheddar into the spotlight, the mild sauce is a touch too wild, we need to make it even milder. incisionbound fightwise fissuregap soultrap on an island in the South. Pacific Ocean. where terrorism reigns where it uh ha! wins the day! nay! easily into the store to ask the attendant a simple question. spin around and feel the fight in your head in the bones in the night in the wild fight. little Duane Reade reading glasses, on my baby tonight. i say, "baby what you readin'?" She say, "I ain't readin' honey, I thinkin'bout how unhappy you make me, how dissatisfied I am. you won't be getting a bonus this year."

like a catchy humswoon, a quick whistletune, the tallest wall around. workin' hard missy...workin' like a dog for you missy. walkin' like slob oh for ya missy. wrung out and lyin' to you missy. fuck the cart rockin' the yard. in home bag land fightin' on Saturday nights. eyes agape and swingin' side to side in the orange urban city light. let's take a quick trip across the bridge missy.

so i took missy Japanese motorcartwheelin' up the span she stuck her head out the window i said baby that's fine that's just great go ahead. it felt just right. shootin' up and over passed the idiots like a dreamsong stellar-cadenced sax solo with the girderbolt harmony in place but flexibly-s0. i said to myself, "don't forget, you're here to fight." But you're crossing the bridge as a destiny interlude. Peerin' in the windows on a ferry at Governor's wing, I felt it in my bones like a grimace of the Hudson steamboat kings. "Oh-aw, you guys are too much." Well, if you want to see me, that's no problem at all.

Nickel on the ground so I pick it up but when I look I grew up. Missy, so much older than I did when I started. Skybound eyebound necktwist cardiac detonation slow it down now can't stop can't stop the bleeding we tried everything, whimper, "take her away!" take her away to the shroud in the ground "ya know the box." try harder try softer try in the night in the window with light in the darkness. the tufts and the strands in the dragon's nimble hands. one part green meat one part chicken in a pot, smoke it for an hour, braise for another, systemic violence, outrageous crimes against handicapped humanity. in the night in the firefight, system pitch.

in the night the piano comes in softly, almost...passively. But we all know what it's up to, haha, right? no. it comes in so softly and then it picks up b/c it's rock piano. it's comical his statuses beat me up. my status are the worst. good to see you back again. you still look fine. it's been such a long, long time. i remember you. i know you remember me too. cryin' in the street. playin' without house money.

Inflatable Ego!

Do you have flaccid self-regard? Do you suffer from self-underestimation? Oooohh! The pain! The agony of your hapless muscles. The routine of appearing indifferent to conversation. The monotony, loneliness, and relentlessly eroding downward spiral of self-deprecation. All that can end as soon as you finish reading this. With these three easy steps, you can banish insecurity directly to the core of your heart (where it thrives and never dies):

1) Above all...it's showtime, baby. You must remember this. When you enter a room, when you move along down the city sidewalks, when you play with little kids - it's showtime. Uh. Yeah. What. The lights go black, the crowd comes to its feet, the public address announcer clears his throat and says, "aaaand now..." There's a hot 20-something above the tunnel holding a sign that says, "TAKE ME HOME, {First Name}." People paid to see you tonight.

The place is rocking and you're still standing behind the security guards with the yellow jackets in the tunnel. You half-stretch your calves one by one, you give a little neck twist, maybe throw in a few hops. You're wearing a white headband, you take it off and chuck it to the side and think, "". Nothing. Nothing at all baby. The spotlight hits the tunnel entrance and casts a blinding light at your toes, "It's showtime, it showtime, it showtime," you whisper it.

The PA announcer belts out your name, "{FIRSTNAAAAME LASTNAAAAAAAAAAAAME}!!!" You hop a little, distributing the weight slightly onto your back foot (no one's that confident), and then you explode out the tunnel, spin around and show your face to your adoring fans as you high-five the trainer and the hot member of the support staff. You get to center stage, raise your hands above your head and say, (politely), "A buttered poppy-seed bagel, please" or "I finished that assignment you gave me" or "Happy Holidays Aunt Laurie." It's gotta be goin' through your head at all times, that scene, that's you, you're the star, it's showtime.

2) Because it's showtime, things go your way. When the subway arrives just as you descend the stairs, it's because of your aura. Your presence in the station literally adjusted the timetable and composition of the entire transit network. Cut ahead a few old folk (they won't even notice), maybe slap the top of the doorway like "yo wutup, I own this car," and go wedge between two comfortable groups of seated people and lean your ass all the way back. Yeah, who got the broad shoulders now! What.

When you're not sure if it's one of those vending machines that can take the bill both face sides up and you give it to it the face side that's less crinkled, and it takes it, that's cuz it's showtime baby! When you buy a bunch of stuff at the pharmacy and one of the items was actually half price and the math in your head was one dollar denomination too high...you know why. Baby it's cuz you're so good lookin' in the spotlight right now. Whoo!

3) You mad famous. You on top the world, baby. When people make eye contact, it mean one thing and one thing only, they are just dyin' to get with you. You see some old dude looking at some mad young chick and you cut in front of her, right in his way. He looks at you in the eyes: yeeeeah. Take a number gramps. Please. You walk past a coffee shop and startle some babe in the window because you're staring at her with your mouth open, she looks you right in the eyes: yeeeeah. Go round up a few mo'. What.

You stand on the elevator with reflective doors and everyone looks away as you stare at your reflection: yeeeeah. What now. The little bell rings but the doors don't open so almost everyone looks at the little blue number to see what up but as they realize you lookin' straight ahead they look into your eyes in the reflection: yeeeeah. "The'y a ho lotta lovin' 'go around, baby." Maybe give a little smirk. Nah. Nah. What now. Uh.

Now that you've read through the steps to achieving instant confidence, it's worth mentioning that before these foolproof guidelines become habitual (studies suggest habits take almost three weeks to solidify), you may need an easy way to remind yourself of the steps, here's how: once you get yourself all did in morning, take a last look in the mirror. Raise your dominant hand about 5 inches below your chin, extend your thumb and index finger, cupping the other three fingers, this should make a pistol-shaped figure with your hand. That little arrangement doesn't pack any punch and is for sissies.

Take your middle finger, extend it, and line it up just beneath your index finger. Now you got a hand cannon. Do you feel the difference? Try it a few times. Good. Anyway you want to look at yourself in the mirror, and fire the gun once. This should remind you of Step 1, when showtime begins. Next, blow out the top of the gun because it's all smoky. Then, put it in its holster at your side. This should remind you of Step 2 because it's cuz of your skill that the holster doesn't catch fire even though, because of you, it's so hot. Next, and this harkens back to Step 3, give yourself a last look and either wink with your dominant eye or give yourself a slight smootch. On days when you really need a big performance, you can do both, but baby... don't waste it.

"Blueprint" Preview

The age of lightning fiber has smothered us;
we’re motionless in a storm of booming characters
bent on relevance, fat with legacy.
And even in my benevolent bittersweet state,
there was a record of my tarnished past,
haunting the unacceptably latent spaces.
So I charted the best path through Babel,
arrayed those booming characters, and
set out for dreamlands and their golden valleys.
On this deep-sleep destruction hunt,
I longed for explosions to disperse the steel storm,
to dizzy my mind and unsettle my stomach.
Yet as the sticky throne appeared before me,
my first chance at releasing the vile, bile currency,
I tenderly recalled the steel sky.

The memory of its slick surface sent polar chills through me,
shivering atop the high half of the Earthball,
seducing me to stay.
A carbon-borne instinct rushed through me,
urging the auspicious econogastric reversal,
which just may have stilled the storm.
As my sclera swelled red,
a heat wave swept up and through me, and
guilt-based nostalgia swung my head back to the stormy metal sky.
Yet I stole away, shattering the boom cube,
stretching my eyes in the hurricane, and
channeling the repressed, stubborn nausea.
Against the code, taking the first, the only opinion,
I leapt with my head and
leaned forward with my heart.

How annoying are references to high caffeine intake?
to vague disobedience?
to the author?

Arriving Rivendell

The planks on the wooden bridge waddled back and forth under the pressure redistributions caused by travelers. Each plank had a small hole on each side of its flat section, and through the holes were small, green, twinelike strands that held each plank to the next. Running across the bridge all at once caused a tidelike ripple to cascade over the span. Of course, the variables in such a wave may be examined relentlessly (ibid).

But all of this foreshadows a familiar topic, and, seeking variety I find myself back where I began: at this goddamned Roman Clef. The influences over the past two years have been few. When I catch it good, I can follow the flow of clean streams. When I see my reflection too clearly, I pollute the waters and tire my wrists. I need calm waters as much as I need hazy rapids as much as I need the frenzy of bodily functions to quiet down for a few minutes. The source seems pure and opportune, but the rest is a tangled, murky mess.

I'll travel with myself and hear ripples of sure success: "Got a new year comin'. Only God knows what's in it." Or the thing about the dog and the gentrification zone. Only to be saddled and handcuffed by sloth, gluttony, envy, and pride - are these my bridge girders! I read the LCD display. I'm like a Three Gorges Dam simulation with infinite retries. I well up, and before I produce anything, I fall apart (at least I'm not in the paper). Inspiration sought, bring it to the bridge.

Maybe I need to recupe in some magical homely house. The structure of the worldsuit doesn't fit me. The lush greens of the riverbanks don't appeal to me. Give me your tired, distracted, jaded, populous audience, and I'll forge a head! I'll leave the homely house of convalescence (assuming I rest there), and I'll blast through the arachnowoods, acidoceans, treacherousplains, and inauspicioussands - to the top of the mountain (of love/adobe of angels). I'll tower indifferently over the riverbanks and its masses, shackled by the worldsuits of slavery (if you can say it more sensitively, e-mail it to me), and beam a message into their receivers: "There is hope, you who listen."

Wasn't the Spring

You'd suspect that tall yellow-green weeds in front of a boarded-up house indicates an extended period of neglect, and in most cases, you'd be right. So let's analyze those cases when you'd be right, ok? You call up the town commissioner's office to ask about the property, and they tell you "nothing's been reported." You call up other local authorities, and they tell you, "haven't had any problems." So you walk to the library and check the newspapers for natural disasters in the past year and all the papers say is "..." (See #1 below.) Alas, nothing about any natural disasters, including epidemics, I forgot to mention that you'd look into epidemics in addition.

So it's looking more and more likely that your original suspicion was correct. You double back to the house because this is a blog and there's no time to walk. And as you approach it, you notice that nothing about the house has changed, it's still boarded up and lots of weeds remain in the front yard. The sun is setting because of all you've done today and because there needs to be some kind of trigger for the surreal events that follow:

A small red ribbon blows [like a tantrum]. Then it lands near your foot. You bend over for the ribbon but it swings all the way to the left [of you] and so you pivot a little and go to grab it on the left. You know you're getting old when you bend over to pick up a magic ribbon and wonder, "what else can I do while I'm down here?" Oh yeah it's a magic ribbon, forgot to mention that, just figured you'd have another one of your well-educated suspicions. Who has AIDS? The magic ribbon is sticky on one side.

There you are - supporting a guardian angel and a devil's advocate on each shoulder standing in front of a boarded-up house that's almost certainly been subject to long-term neglect, having spent a good part of the day researching that very issue, and holding a magic red ribbon.

The angel says, "do the right thing," and the devil does a spinny motion with his fingers and the ribbon becomes translucent and tape-like. He expands it over your eyes and nostrils and ear canals and tongue and fingertips and says, "Do you think this cape goes with these boots?" And you say, "sure, you're the devil and things look appropriately hellish." The devil says, "Have you ever heard of salvation?" And you respond, "Ha, well of course I've heard of it but there's not much to say." The devil replies that you are completely incorrect about the cape, boots, and salvation. So you look at the house in front of you and it still looks boarded up. Then, the reality (See #2 Below) slithers into your mind: there might be malnourishment going on in the house, the government may be making some kind of statement, there could be a class action lawsuit against the proprietors, current or previous, of the residence - The devil has black hair.

There is no resolution because it's not spring yet.

#1 - Newspapers sure say a lot when you request historical information.
#2 - Remember that your senses have been cloaked in the devil's Scotch red tape!

Here At Home

[Ancestrally-privileged moguls] sometimes have these uncrinkled pieces of legal paper with manicured black characters drafted upon them, and from these West Indian (not East Asian) manuscripts, a showstopping food chain of sociopolitical implications expands – in to the inner-city, out to the shore (the ’burbs), in to the classrooms, out to the playgrounds, in ivory doors, out closets, in hearts out of iron. The networking is just splendid and the chicken is almost always prepared to perfection, their rooms are made made of bulletproof glass - a great irony considering the classes they’ve attended and the security at the iron gates.

Welcome to the Johnson & Johnson’s, leave the .223 at home next time, Damien. Would you care for a drink did you ask the trainer don’t worry I already did (what a question in this period, Mrs. Robinson reflected)? Mirrors slanted away from the walls as they soared towards the stratosphere interrupted by the arched ceiling and the golden molding in the great hall of the balding mogul’s mansion. The realism of the gazes trapped in the European paintings challenged the indifference of the Iowan safety established near the turn of the century. Safely looking up at the ceiling (because no one else was looking), Mrs. Robinson noticed paintings by Woody’s heroes on the walls.

As her shiny heels clicked behind her husband and his boss, the felt her face sink into its bones, her chest press down at her stomach, “oh, that’s George Washington,” she whispered as a code red level of inhibition began to swirl inside her. There he was, “The Father of His Country,” mounted on a horse in the New Jersey woods. Woody and Damien had a similar relationship [to other professional relationships like this one].

Right, right, oh of course. Next time, no such thing. Bust down the double doors on the field next time. Haha, yes. The logs from the inner thoughts during this interaction proved so large as to be correctly-termed ‘unwieldy.’

Winning Race

Clef

The hummin’ came from the hummer that started when I buzzed the buzzer, which ended when I clutched the black handle with both hands and pushed out onto the street. I ran to the corner and made a tight right because most intersections meet at right angles, right? A drop from a dirty old awning found its way into the hole at the top of my coffee cup.

And We! Are back!

Wondrin’ what’s wrong with this landscape, feelin’ the ground with my hands and the soul of privilege pressed squarely at my back. The pangs of lunacy addressing my backside, baby! Sailin’ for a living workin’ as a hobby like a dull knife’s afterthought – the beach resort of life. The Ohio wilderness at my back! The leaves turned and turned all around my head with my troubles and a mixed up maniac stirrin’ the pot wondrin’ thinkin’ all about crazy fates and faithless paranoia. Where we goin’ baby? We’re goin’ where we always end up goin’ ya heard me honey? Open the door by pressing against the black handle. At the end of my time, I hope my mind’s aligned.

Crossing guard, let me pass to the other side! It looks so bad that I’ve been running and now I have to wait for the light. At the end of the fiery tunnel to the promised land, there’s a cliché and a license agreement. I misunderstood the former and forgot the latter. After business time, it specified. I laughed in its face and dreamed of America the land of orange lights and slick sidewalks. A light was on in one apartment (galactic tone) so I broke in and stole everything she owned. A late night arrival to a spired-city (galactic tone) ought to inspire criminal activity. She’s the one for me, so I swung around the corner, made a tight right ya heard?

I heard ya honey, I heard ya loud and clear this room has great acoustics. She sighed and reflected on her baptism. I stood in the doorway and sent the little broken chain link whipping into to the Ohio wilderness under her futon. In a corner…in a lot, in an old broken downtown spot was where I put the heavy black bag baby! And as dawn disturbed the big city, I hunched over a weak watery coffee and couldn’t take another sip.

The hole I was in now + all the incompatible feelings had me hurdling towards the fact that I was headed to Central Park next. I shouldn’t look so far ahead, baby let’s share some spit, rollin’ round in the riverbrush of the Ohio watershed. I can dream cain’t I? Slither towards me fucker and I’ll sucker-punch you right where it stings. You and I ain’t so different after all, Jersey. Gimme something to wear and I’ll be off. This bus sucks I want a new one, I want a new set of undies honey. Let’s transfer - let’s sniff out something better.

After the homicide I went back to her apartment and sat at the little table, blood glimmering on the hardwood floor so I got a sponge and cleaned it up. I knew the cops would come and bust down the door and take me away and that was fine with me I believe in justice. I believe in the system because back in the old country shit’s corrupt. I read an interesting article about lock-picking. Fascinating stuff.

Beads & Batteries

A little boy went "uuuughhhhh" when he saw the white reverse lights on the van coming toward his little sister in the stroller. Though precocious in one area of common knowledge, he was deficient overall; his mother easily wheeled the stroller up the curb onto the sidewalk (with a few seconds to spare). I mean, the extent of the car's backwards movement didn't even intersect with where she'd been while crossing the street...it was a guttural shriek, one that only a prepubescent little man could muster. Outward from his little lips the air tossed and turned restlessly. It mixed with the grease and grime of the city, alternately savory and disgusting, wonderful and loathsome.

With his family out of the picture, his heart and mind sunk in nostalgia whenever he saw those shiny green and red ceramic tiles. His stomach juices gurgled and popped and touched his heart and mind when he saw the place's menu assembled together in white, rounded characters on the sweaty grease-filled wall. The white numbers after each item related cost - numbers that served as an index, and, when paired with the year and just a little historical data, tells the stories of cities and countries, of countries and civilizations, in the northern hemisphere of Earth.

The air licked the burnt, crispy salt particles off of itself as the scream went by, passing on the exotic seafood and aristocratic baby formula, shoveling it off with a crest at its chest. I tell you, what beats this, what flies like a pig and chomps like a shark? What zooms like a race car and pivots like a row on an abacus? Who can label me in a few premeditated brush strokes! Who can capture my worth in a few succulent thighs, am I so bland! Am I low-sodium! Am I a number and a target, can I defy the numbers if I think hard enough? The pig has wings I saw them with my own eyes!

Right now aaaaaaand go! Go! Oh shit oh shit! Oh shit! Go Go Go! Chug chug chug chug chug hahahaha! Go! Chug! Oh shit! Beady eyes looked on from across the street, there's no street. There's no street if there's no city, and there is definitely not a city here. Athletic prowess flexes and stands over me as I look back cynically yet defeated. I am a piece of fine art - a porcelain vase a masterpiece a showstopper. We have a fan! Look, there he is with the tail and the coat. Now we have a fan and a coat, this climate is no match for us. We can control our destinies because we have the tools necessary to withstand the extremes of our climate.



We are utterly adrift and it has gone to our heads. We look into the distance and our bones are disintegrating. Our hearts and minds throb with the rise and fall of the moonleash. I want a cupcake. Me and my classmates want cupcakes. We want stickers and cupcakes and first honors. I want my number to be called and called and called until I'm looking up at the cheap ceiling tiles three feet above me from the mattress of a plaything - and through the walls, through the cement mixed together by an immigrant and slopped together with Holy Water and a sacred spade - I hear the engine of a way out of here, and it. is. so. gone.

September 26, 2007

In a wild frenzy induced by tripping over a cord, our cameraman executes an opening scene that Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, and Quentin Tarantino wouldn't have come up with if they were having Sunday "dinner" at Martin Scorsese's house on a red-and-white plaid tablecloth with Mario Batali in the kitchen and Bruce Springsteen in the bathroom. And there, with ambiguously-striated focus, greyscale color imbalance, a cracked lens, and flickering light from a fountain of sparks at the site of the rupture, our hero opened his eyes and noticed a cameraman in his bedroom.

"Good morning son, what did I tell you about sending your feed to the editing software in real-time? Only problems, only problems my son." And so it was. Our hero stood up and cracked his meaty knuckles, leaned forward a little bit and reached for his toes, coming just fourteen inches short as his back cracked. Smoothly, seamlessly, like an American submarine in the Gulf, he torqued left and right, cracking some other stuff. He reached for the ceiling, formed mighty fists and more stuff cracked. He stretched his arms out to the side and briefly rotated them as he began a yawn large enough to end the day here at 4:30 a.m. But his day was only getting started, our hero had awoken, and his son returned to his room.

With a sponge the size of a small stubby brick, he alternated scrubbing. What was more valuable, the carefully-cultivated patina on the all-copper shower walls, or his tropical skin that had endured the pressures of a society that had grown complacent about having him in it? Probably the walls. You could fit an 18" pizza within the shower head's perimeter, and our hero'd have it bigger! On one wall a mirror, on the ceiling - a map of his homeland (interrupted by the shower head's pipe). He swished some hydrogen peroxide in his mouth, and allowed a little to trickle halfway down his esophagus - when, like an economy toilet in reverse...

At our hero's deli, which he owned in another life, he was putting new tape in the register when a little kid placed a Gatorade on the counter between the thick glass covered in lotto tickets and the beef jerky or whatever. The little guy then reached into his pockets, cupped his hands and began lifting his arms up over his head. His hands descended on the counter and he slowly let one hundred and seventy-five pennies cascade onto the immaculately clean surface (underneath which a black Sharpie had scribbled "100" beside "Million Dollars"). As the copper-plated coins fell on top of each other, our hero had a vision of the little guy's future.

Like the beginning of a trailer for a bad movie, the little guy’s silhouette (he was 18) contrasted with the setting sun and heat lines waved tensely in orange and red all around him. A slick black assault rifle bumped up and down against his back. He turned around and mouthed something in a foreign, barbaric tongue. The little guy was great at rolling laterally, springing to his feet, and firing like a stud. He entered a hut and shot someone in the thigh, saying “you won’t be so cheap next time!” (rough translation). The little guy had been on his own since he was eleven, climbing mountains, killing wild animals, enamoring little village girls, stealing from dusty markets, etc. He went into another hut and shot someone in the arm. Their elbow exploded, he said, “you won’t ever know me!” (same). When the little guy wasn’t off shooting people, he would bring girls to the top of a mountain that overlooked the Atlantic Ocean. “Woman, one day I’m going to get out of here altogether” (same). He had a vision of himself with two prosthetic falcon-feather-wings that he had been working on for a while. The little guy ran and jumped off the mountaintop. He glided eternally.

It actually took a while for him to get the hang of it, he took some pretty drastic plunges. Luckily, the mountaintop was about 10,000 feet above sea level – a fortunate buffer. The trick was to let air under the wings so as to glide – no need to keep flapping. See but it actually was eternal, he didn’t get tired, the wings didn’t erode, he didn’t get bored. He’s still up there because he earned it and because there’s always something to see.

Loominous

"Well I just wish you wouldn't test me, that's all."
Gaaaahd, I thought. Well I mean I thought that after the fact.
"I'm not testing you, I didn't intend it to be a test."
As soon as someone confronts you, go into defensive clarification mode. That's how the intellectual never loses an argument.
"Hand me my brush." I picked up her brush and handed it to her.
"What? Are you mad at me n--?"
"No."
See there it is. She's got the upper hand. She cut me off and cut me off with a response to my question, proving not only that my presumption is wrong, but that she knew the rest of the question.
"I just don't see why you couldn't do it in the first place like you always do?"
"Liste--"
Again.
"I mean if you're not happy doing it you should have just been honest with me instead of not doing it and testing me. I'm not averse to doing it I'm just used to doing it and I'm the kind of person who falls into routines for mundane tasks. I need to have my mundane tasks in proper order so I don't waste mental preparedness on such trivial things."
So basically, I just should have done it. From here there's nowhere to take it except maybe to escalate it to a major altercation. Well, I'm feeling a bit whimsical today. I'm a little loose. I'm kind of bored with the way things are going, why not mix it up?

"I'm tired of your bullshit, you never would've done it because you don't even know how. I wasn't testing you. I didn't think of the 'you' component of it when I didn't do it, I just didn't do it, because I didn't feel like doing it at the time."
"What is that supposed to mean I never would've done it? I would have done it if you asked me to, that's how people who don't usually do things assume responsibility for doing something they usually don't do. So if you would've asked me, I'm sure I would've been fine with doing it. And what is that supposed to mean I don't even know how, I am sick of the chip on your shoulder about the mundane things you can do that I can't."
I swear a little bit of everyone's arguing prowess derives from the snippets of Ricki Lake and Jerry Springer they've seen through the years. Yeah, our personalities are inexpensive cocktails - until the MPAA hires better lawyers.
"I'm not saying that you can't do it." A little of her own medicine! But not really because I didn't craft that strategy on the fly. It was just me lowering my standards and committing the intellectual crime I had just identified on her end. "All I'm saying," I mean, it's pretty clear that it's not all I'm saying, but this and other mini-prefaces are futile attempts to patronize the adversary into subconsciously thinking your argument is straightforward, "is that not everything I do is done with you in mind."
"Well, that's very clear to me."

Let's talk about open doors. Let's talk about opening doors. Then, we'll talk about closing them, and after that: the reluctant ajaredness of doors. The sometimes persistent nature of door-ajaricity. Or, the constitutional right of my door to have hinges on the same side as your dominant hand or there will be hell to pay in the form of you being thrown in an airtight room with a black bag over your head - door closed.

So there I sat, in a cushiony room that I am ashamed to say immediately reminded me of an old boy band video from the 90s. I believe it was the N*Sync (I never know where to put the asterisk! roflmao!) music artist, perhaps for one of their pop hits, perhaps, "I Drive Myself Crazy." Anyway, whiiish, I got all sentimental and laaamerz.

That's when you fall. Sitting there in the padded room assessing the current circumstance. I look up and there is a mirror and I am not who I think I am. I am Jenny McCarthy sitting on Santa's lap. The one and only...well-dressed missionary. I start laughing and dancing and laughing and dancing all around the padded room. When I look up again I'm Carmen Electra and I'm 80% nude and the floor in the mirror is the nighttime sky through dusty dirty grimey slimey city blinds, and in the full moon between the blinds I see myself again. I'm Lieutenant General James Longstreet, who probably never saw anyone like Carmen Electra, who I used to be before I looked up and realized I was the commander of the First Corps on a night like no other. I looked down at myself and indeed, I had the green soldier uniform on. It was tattered because if it wasn't then I'd have known something was up. I'm ready to serve! I can serve! The sanitation route? How come?

I fastened my canteen to my bayonet (probably the most useless independent clause I've ever constructed) and flipped open my Sony Vaio (clearly the rebels wouldn't have Macs). "Motherfucker," I snapped, "I'm going to need a cable resurgence, I'm way too heavy in Sterling."
"Longstreet! God damn it son, what did I tell you about checking your stocks before gameday!"
"No, sir, I wasn't - I was reviewing the battle plan for tomorrow sir."
This wasn't good, my stomach sunk. I knew that if he asked for proof I wouldn't even have the map in my history trail. If only there were some kind of configurable audit simulator. Ahhh he's gonna ask to see it, fuck I am fucked. I felt a bug on my shoe.
"Let's see what you think about Little Roundtop," he inched closer and I knew I was caught. Should I go into my apology now or should I wait on a miracle. I opened the Vaio and to my surprise, a damned Yankee pop-up ad had appeared on the screen and obstructed the portfolio view. Coast clear I figured.
"God damn it Longstreet, why doesn't this corps have better servers?"
He was so straightforward. I am a barbarian, he is a superpower. We were barbarians, the North were a civilized people. As a continent, we were civilized, and those in the tropical climates are barbarians.
"Bahhh, let's add seven months and make every month only have 19 days. Then, at the end, we'll add however many days short of the lunar calendar we are."

"Born in the U.S.A." is a c-r-i-t-i-q-u-e, and anything that's negative about it as a song is negative because it's supposed to be. Get it?

The Ballad of Calendar Math

As our pudgy little stick-figure frames slog through the screechy terrain of September, we occasionally pause for a bite to eat. When we eat our minds tuck themselves into the cozy inertia we've recklessly purchased...again. And just as our minds begin to shut their eyes, we are reminded by the speciously apologetic nudge of similarly listless travelers, ordering something similarly acrylamidic. The path we're on is the pit, and everyone here is 100% legal. We look out at the bright lights whizzing in the distance and say, "It's always so backed up."

Back on the road there are two choices in front of us: "Merge" or "Return" We rarely choose the former. It makes us sleepy. And when we sleep...a glorious procession of gears and other submachinery, to their beds...we sometimes travel down the path marked "Merge." Complicated by all that precedes us, our driver turns his head briefly to see his briefcase then quickly turns his head back and focuses on the road. He sticks out his hand towards the briefcase and twists the combination on the right side to 6-2-4 and then again on the left side. The case flicks open and parenthetical fumes suffuse the back seat, where we have been seated all this time.

An explosive mixture of chemicals and poor decisions emulsify at once and traditions grow taboo under the intense glow of a halogen flashlight - strapped to the helmet, the yellow plastic helmet, of the leader, of our team of miners. We employ about four miners, so... Sometimes gases from the crust of the earth ignite the mixture and we spin out of control as the last domino in a chain of people who aren't the last domino. Our hands tied behind us, we see a lineup of the alleged perpetrators. An unfriendly, dishonest officer asks us to pick out the one who's done this to us and we all start to cry - and I become nostalgic.

Moven

In a hole, a deep dark one, there spouts a steady stream of fecal matter. At its source, you. You are the source of a reprehensible fountain of feces. I like it. Last night, I had a dream about you. I dream of you often. All kinds of positions, all kinds of sensations, those dreams with the wide hips and crooked yellow teeth. The dreams with softly prominent nipples in a beige Baniyaan.

So then Johnny went walken...he went walken, without you. He said, "Banksy dog, why you always gotta shit right here? Ha, dog knows we about to get out this nice shit, so he gotta shit right before we hit the ghetto." Do you remember? "I'm just more of a minimalist, ya know, I hate kitsch." Johnny looked at that clown and wished Banksy had shat on his foot.

I wish my dreams came true...oooh. I don't know what to do. This month, in this month, I need to stop dreaming of you. When your hair is just right, there lies a cemetary of gelatinous coffins atop your head. And beneath the graveyard, a landing spot, for the stones I will throw when I destroy you. Lovingly, I muttered the rest of what I always say - it's the undisputed truth.

Burnt by a Tuft of Fire

Immediately after [human catastrophe], the [human] villains were identified. They received the usual treatment of a villain: lots of press, some roundtable discussions, some new hardcovers. "Inside the mind of [villain]" by [human expert]. If their CV is lengthy, we'll pay the intern a bit more to buff up all the graphics. Maybe we'll do a special edition. Maybe [partisan pundit] will weigh in. Maybe [unrelated subject's radio talk show host] comments, and maybe [I] will shake [my] head. [Local news co-anchor, male] shakes head at [local news co-anchor, female]: "What a shame." [Homemaker] [temporarily completes homemaker task], forming an expert knowledge base of what they heard, which comes in handy in the [social realm]. [Web aggregator] reports [10^(# references to barbarian nation-state [from America's perspective] or terrorism [perceived/actual/both]) multiplied by top story average] stories are being aggregated for [human catastrophe] topic.

I remember questioning the existence of my "permanent record." After The Net, I decided that more energy should be expended questioning the validity of my permanent record. My first fear was of bumblebees, my second, cicadas; third, wasps; fourth, roaches; fifth, tornados; 6th, genital papercuts; 7th, caterpillars, 8th, lightning, and my ninth fear was tarnishing my permanent record. That probably had more to do with my discovering of the difference between "permanent" and "temporary." When the mind stores a pristine copy of the word "permanent (and the semantics thereof)," after it has done the same for the concept of death, the word "permanent" is an air-conditioned hut on a desert island.

But more than any of this is the desire to tempt the fates with relatively villainous deeds, and so to light a flame and hope for a clear calm day. Turbulence begets tufts of fire that swirl upwards and tempt the body-canister into exploding, ending it all. The skeins of white organic matter swirl and become whiter. Nothing about an egg is black or blue.

September 5, 2007

A secretly traitorous journalist would never have stood for the abhorrent treatment of La Stuarda. It would have shocked him out of his insincere complicity with the king - and that would have been amazing.

Here's the idea: station 5 testers with laptops on 34th Street. One at 10th Ave., one at 7th, at 5th, at Madison, and at 2nd. Each one has 2000 tests to administer. The test is simple: you start each person at a web browser with the standard Google homepage showing - fine. You tell them to type 'america' into the Google search bar plug-in. The autocomplete function will list about 10 choices that begin with 'america:' '-n airlines, express, eagle, idol, apparel, ...' - then, you let the person select whichever one they want, and repeat the process using words on the first page that comes up after the selection is made. For example, if I did it ten times, I would be on the following web site: http://www.riowild.com/saquarema.asp.


Another: Ok, so because physical discomfort sucks, I thought it would be good, while still young, to record how my body feels when it is at its maximum comfort. As a young person, it's still quite possible that more than half of the year, this level of physical comfort is sustainable. If I record that data, and then record days where I don't feel as good, rating the discomfort relative to the maximum comfort level, my days in advanced age would be significantly more enlightening. I could be fifty and in the hospital for some random heart condition, and I could reflect on 1) how maximum comfort felt, with resolution down to specific body parts, 2) the ridiculously outdated technologies I used to construct this system. If you want the idea, take it.

One more: A hit TV show about changing life career on a dime. For example, depressed NYC 20-something moves to Chicago and joins AIDS consultancy, meets prestigious guests in swanky hotel restaurant where blues from the fifties is playing, falls in love with waitress, older, married. Goes back to NYC, meets depressed 20-something, female, who receives protagonatory baton from the first guy. She quits her job, becomes more honest with people, gets a little crazy in the head - starts yelling "Get me off this plane" at 20,000 feet. Emergency landing at airforce base, angry passengers, advertising spot. Take it, publish it, but if you're going to chop my head off, make the first chop count.

September 4, 2007

Gesturing wildly, he told me that there was nothing to worry about. "We go in through the open window, wearing stockings over our heads. Then, you stand in the bathroom, lock the door, and change into this outfit." He picked up a college sweatshirt and a white vest.

"Are you serious? Why would I be wearing that?"

"Listen, there's no time to question things now, you come out of the bathroom once you hear that the guy and his wife have realized I'm in the house. You scream, "COPS!" and you hold this bat." He handed me a black maple bat.

"Why would a cop be wearing a Columbia sweatshirt, with a white vest over it, swinging a black baseball bat?"

"Are you in or not man? Think about the payoff, you probably won't even have to come out. If they don't wake up I just take the shit and we leave." He clapped his hands together and sent his right hand shooting off into leavedom, towards my face. Ironic.

We staggered behind the house, we put our stockings on, and in we went. I ran into the bathroom and locked the door. I immediately took my wallet out of my pocket and put it on the sink. I said to myself, "What am I doing?" Apparently we hadn't been very quiet entering through the window, both the wife and the guy were downstairs confronting my accomplice. I took one of my house keys off the keyring and placed it on the sink.

"You get the fuck out of the bathroom, whoever you are!" yelled the big man. I felt lots of footsteps real close to the door and then a pounding on the door. The wife was calling the real cops. I didn't really think about what could be happening out there. I knew what I had to do. Kick open the door, wave the bat around say I was the cops. Well, no. First I had to unlock the door so when I kicked it it opened. I put on the sweatshirt and the white vest over it. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. I put my hand through my hair to fix the stocking-hair. I wasn't very excited. Being in that bathroom felt safe. I wasn't up for the challenge of kicking the door, angling my eyebrows, and raising my voice. I didn't really hear anyone anymore. I heard the real cops outside.

"Yeah we have two dead. Yeah. Washington Avenue. 125. Looks like the husband strangled the burglar after the burglar strangled his wife. The husband said there's someone else in the main bathroom, I sent Randy in to check."

I fumbled around and put my wallet back in my pocket and the key back on the keyring but I couldn't really get it on so I stabbed the key and my keyring into my pocket. I threw the bat in the tub and turned the shower on. I fumbled with the bathroom lock, I could hear the footsteps coming down the main hall. I slowly opened the door and then bolted out into the hall and didn't turn around to see if the officer had reached the hallway and seen me. I ran out the back door into the backyard. There were two kids smoking pot on the pool deck. I don't know who they were and they didn't ask whom I was. I jumped from the pool deck to the gate of the neighbors and then onto their pool deck, and so on for about 5 houses.

As I was making my escape. I heard the voices of the cops ringing in my head. Autumn came and settled on these suburban backyards. "The husband will get manslaughter. Probably get off, he's a reputable guy. Once we find the accomplice the judge will slap him with some other armed burglary, 5-10, he'll plea and take 90 days, who wouldn't take 90 over 5-10?"

I didn't want to go to jail and I thought maybe there was a way I could get off with this. I kept hopping pools and decks and something happened that I was scared would happen. The white river all around us kept swirling and the silver sky made the leaves moist and slippery. Some were red-brown others were green-brown. I hopped over a gate and saw the two kids smoking pot on a different pool deck. All the pools were covered with black tarps and asymmetrical ponds had formed. Some of the leaves were on the bold green grass, but most were neatly packaged in bundles. I stopped running and sat in the corner of a backyard. I walked up a slight incline to the back of a backyard. I took off my sweatshirt and so my vest, I was wearing a black t-shirt underneath. I put my key back on the keyring. I sat with my knees bent at my chin. The unforgiving wind of the white river blew indistinguishable brown specs into social frenzies that speckled the dark gray outlines of the clouds.

I still hadn't thought about my accomplice and that he was dead. Instead I thought of jail. I was haunted by the voice of the judge which came in so clearly as I made my escape. I knew I had to get out here. I had enough money in my bank account, I could go South. I'd never make it over the swirling white river without being identified. My fingerprints would be on the knob, so if I were to make an escape on a plane, I'd have to do it soon, as the judicial bureaucracy would crawl to actually place a deadlock on my commercial travel. Where could I go? Where did I want to go?

September 3, 2007

Found recently: the fountain of youth. Yeah it was pretty huge. I know. I know. Ha, stop. Listen to me man, I saw all these kids walkin' down a trail at sunset, errr, it may have been dawn. The octogenarian was talking to a skinny blonde girl with dense, ugly tattoos scattered grossly all over her stupid body. Spry, but could his cock still work? Down the jet stream, gazin' down, searching the gray fields with the cold wind at his back. To the desert plain.

He found it, he found her. Such a pretty girl, purple pattern-silk and lazy-green underskirt. On a motorcycle, caressing windy, straight-road America. Looked up to see me, the lucky one, searching. Searching for that high-roofed garage. I sought gold and diamond rings. Walk through these rooms, to the valley floor. I hope I remember the light and the crazy yellow-red pattern. Remember the meals and their tastes. Remember the longing. Remember the colors and smells and the volumes. I hope I remember every instance of everything I've done—the sensations. I keep crashing, I keep learning. Searching for she who feeds mulberries to yuanworms.

Laughing at little things, calling those things sacred, the man with the blue shirt and turquoise belt remembered 1980. He remembered glimpses of him on his motorcycle, tracing the perpendicular midwest roads for months at a time. The sun and the smelly leather. Oh Adolfo! Oh Ronald! I fell in love with the one with the shoulder-straps and the basket boughs from Katsura. And I promised I'd treat her sweet and lewd, and I rubbed her earlobes of pearl and sent a wild scream through her. I was the lucky one. The chopsticks, she was my beautiful reward. Her name was Rafu, but called herself, "Ditalina." I called her mine.

Oh I need her and her circles. She is my shield and my sword. She is God's light, though her bones are frozen. Send me up baby. Oh baby let me cook for you. I want it, I want the crossing again, I want my youth and the longing. I want your green underskirt. Am I too forward now? Is my wrinkled forearm and my aged facial scars too grotesque for your tastes? I don't have time to spare. I don't have a lifetime to forget. I need this and I need it now don't direct me to your hopeless exit. Don't promise me "later." Don't walk me to your door. I need it now this belt is a clip-on.

As I was thinking all this some young studs looked on—they don't get it.

September 2, 2007

For today, [the proprietor] has scheduled sales of two 150-foot plots on 178th and 179th Streets, between Audubon and St. Nicholas Avenues. "Now, I know when you see a black person come near you at night, you're first thought is, 'He probably wants money.'" I wanted to ask Abel wherever did he get that loathsome idea, when I see a black person come near me at night, I think, "Here is another chance for me not to be a pathetic white person." Funny, right? Wildly missed connections. If only he would think, "This white guy is probably struggling with his own idea of race relations." Or maybe, maybe I should be thinking, "This man appears to be approaching me with the intent of talking to me." Maybe, I should be thinking nothing until the man actually interrupts my conversation, starts looking me in the eyes. These are the questions of a nighttime stroll. They are my filtered observations, and I am a filtered soul. I haven't pondered enough of my own actions. I haven't interacted with society to the extent that I should have at this point. I am a sheltered, filtered soul. I need to work for the government, but by now I've probably done so many aggressively foolish things that they'd never hire me. Let's not even talk about the IQ test. I should join a basketball league, or a pool — or maybe I should just hang out on my corner and see if my feeble heart can take the adrenaline spikes of my paranoid mind. And if I listen to you for long enough, I will have to stick my head into the path of an oncoming train - not because anything you are saying is particularly distressing, obnoxious, or boring - but because you probably have never made any attempt at unfiltering my soul. That is the appropriate role for a believer. I want to find my way.

Take me, Jesus, to the land of hopes and dreams. Take me Jesus to my home on high, to a little brown cabin in the aged dark green forest of Heaven. Let the Vitamin Water-prosperity drench my divine abode in your noble forest, Jesus. Honorable and patient Lord, in the storms of the night before I had the tools that you have now bestowed upon me, my talents, I cowered in shame and fear. But now Jesus, though the storm has persisted, I am freed from the oak intersection of shame and injustice. Lift me high, onto your broad eagle-winged shoulders, Jesus. Carry my inadequate flesh to the red mountains in the distance. Shower me with potion, Lord. Shower me with your juicy love fluids, Lord God Most High. I am capitalizing words that refer to You, God, because I am a believer in Your Ways. Everything About You Makes Me Shine Like The Glimmering Cherubim On High. Like Your Staff And Giant Fucking Chariot. There is no greater force in my life than the towering presence of your design decisions which suffuse my petty, mortal "life," Jesus Son of God, Father of Life, Diviner of the General Assembly of Spirits and Prime Minister of Smarmy, Awful, Christian white people.

Rain in on me Lord God and bring me out of the depth of this intractable quicksand through which I can no longer advance towards Your Kingdom. Surround me with OnStar agents, God. Oh, God, let me sing you a song I wrote the other day about one of your children and professed followers.

I turn to you, honorable Dr. Christ, son of the Virgin, on whose wall a diploma from Boston College rests. Jesus, warm me up. Distract me let me go. Let me fall into the depths of some secular bullshit so when you rescue me it's monumental like when you rescued Paul on the road to Damascus. I will then turn to you Lord, supernatural nothingness. Your omnipotence is derived from the ridiculous amount of variability that you programmed into this hellish Earthball. How clever of you to test your people with stuff like a solar system and the vastly irregular climates of this Earthball. How insightful to build in earthquakes and hurricanes. Thank you Lord God Most High Most Influential for the climates and the different skin colors of your children. It has made this walk-in-the-park world of ours such an easier place to deal with. Now, amidst all of the complexities of drilling for organic matter, we have something black and white, a peaceful oasis — unlike the eight-lane interstate that roars beneath my 150-foot plots.

September 1, 2007

Raw, huh? Is that the goal? Well I'm going to need a fix if raw's what you want. A little fix because without one I'm just a two-ton brick tied to a giant neon sign and some bended metal harness, plunging into the East River from one of the Manhattan bridge girders. One more time, way up on one of those giant metal substructures. The next time it rains...darlin.' Twenty-four, ninety-five. Start timer.

But now that the two-ton brick's been discussed. Let's talk about some of the literature I've been fascinated with lately. Moving on, we can discuss some of the work projects that have piqued my interests lately. Next, we can have a sweet talk about all the great humans I've been interacting with lately. Great, so now I'll fill you in on being such a lucky son of a gun here on the Lower East Side in my own place that I rent. Do you still have time? Ok great, now let's talk about my plans for the future and the evolution of the roadmap I devised back in college. I'm kind of bored, let's chat about my rigorous exercise regimen. Next, we'll discuss all of the really adventurous things I've done and the repercussions of some shady actions that I've had to deal with. Snap, snap, snap, ok let's talk about all the times I've stood up for something I care about. Wait no, first I'll talk about everything I care about. Ok, now let's talk about all the times I've stood up for that. Whew! What a whirlwind. I'm sure you're ears are ringing, so you better get to that. Maybe next time we meet up you can tell me about yourself. End timer.

Timer results: 45.320 seconds. Nice! It must have been all the transition sentences that caused the spike above 40 seconds. A shame a wicked shame. A repulsive, ugly, disgusting, horrible face. A grotesque, greasy supply of fat. Three of the latest and greatest, gratifying me for $24.95 a month for this month. A sweet, sincere face and stretched audio cables. What do you recommend for my headphones? What do you think of these? What can I say you ask?

Radio. RADIO. RADIO. RADIO. Oh, the radio. THE FUCKING RADIO.

I just found what I was looking for. I tuned things a bit. Let's talk about the three vixens of the apocalypse. First there's the hellfire cat of the raging metropolis, the one with the pretty blue eyes. A little chub...not gonna lie. I'm down with that because I'm a little chub. She rides in a pink sports car and when she glides down the highway you realize that some of her hair is naturally brown — almost all of it. Sweet thing. I know why I started with her. It's because she's my favorite. First first. Not like the bleak city I once sort of read about sitting in a state of forced nature. I never got any questions I never asked myself why. I never asked myself what the fuck I was doing. No one asked me anything pride was nothing. I am five years astray. I am seventeen. Someone put this thing in reverse.

That's the wrong approach, ya see!? Can't you see, I can see nothing but the second hellangel lust object Halloween-haired young woman. She swoops in from the West, across the Pitt and back again, above Houston. I want some dough. I need some dough to match the doughiness factor she gives me from her carousel. Mmmm the vicious breadmaking. The ferocious breadwinning. The carnivalesque lighting and the old fashioned light bulbs and the caressing and the focused brutality and all the competition and the plans. The plans! I have no plans I haven't had any plans. Should I thank you you fucking wretch or should I slap your indistinguishably attractive face. At this point people close to me would urge me not to put it in reverse but to forge ahead. I'm not seventeen, they'd say. She said, a hundred (thousand) times. Just charge on further down the road.

Out of the brush came the yellow-haired, third pet of Satan on whom I'm allocating funding for this month. She told me about the true path to salvation. She told me about how I can regain the path to boundless glory. To rolling meadows of gratification where the grass is short and we can play with each other all day long when I get home from work. She said that I should keep going forward, only...not on the path, go offroad until I come to the path I should've been on. I mean actually she didn't say that she just said, "Let's go offroad, baby." But I knew what she meant, or at least, I'm intelligent enough to realize that if I went offroad, while still going forward, I would at least be headed towards the road that I should've actually been traveling on all this time. See, but that's the thing, even if I go offroad with her, the other two hellcat angels will bring me back to the wrong road, the one I'm currently on and I'll drive off a bridge at this rate.

And that's where I am right now. Driving down the wrong road and being fully aware of it. I know the right road, and it's off to the left, through the brush, and the insects, and the grime and wastewater. At this point it would take quite a bit of squint-based driving to ever make it to the right road. There would be leaps of faith involved, because the way I see it there are only four choices at this point. I can go on ahead and see where exactly the path of least resistance leads. I can turn around and go all the way back (not really an option). I can wait for the next rest stop and then reevaluate. Or I can turn left, get offroad, turn the windshield wipers on hope that nothing heavy pierces my transmission.

The last choice isn't really an option either because I'm an unadventurous coward at heart.

Oooh, a feather.

Render This!

We marketed this product for people with tiny fingers. I cringed when I heard it and shivered when I thought about it. Besides the added keys, this product is for a very select group of people, not just those with small fingers. Not only that...it's completely reasonable that, like oversize print books, the keyboard could be enlarged for those with normal-to-large sized fingers. The most essential requirement for this new software is a big, fast brain.

To plot boardwalk planks, open the landscape toolbar by clicking Views-->Toolbars-->Landscape. This is not one of the default toolbars, you'll have to open it by yourself. Also, all toolbars are accessible by holding the menu function keys on your keyboard and pressing the corresponding letter or key icon (in this case, 'L'). Hold down shift to plot a series of "sturdy planks." To automatically bolt the planks to underlying beams, press the tool menu function key + B within 3 seconds of releasing the shift button. Generally, the software recognizes these "afterthought" actions, and will give the user 3 seconds to execute commands after previous the user-input has completed. In this manner, the entire boardwalk can be completed with a series of quick-thinking, rehearsed (if necessary) finger maneuvers. As you can see, there is a full-featured set of boardwalk options: wood type and dimensions, bolt type and custom types, strength, resistance, color, to name a few.

Now that you have a boardwalk you'll need beach objects. These items fall under the Natural Landscaping category, so pull up the Natural Landscaping toolbar to draw beach objects. To carve a custom waterfront, it's often best to start with a general motion, start the sand carver and then use the keyboard arrow keys to slowly carve a waterfront. This tool will ask you to specify some broad boundaries on the waterfront you wish to carve, and then will begin recording your arrow key incisions to apply after the sand carver reaches the far boundary of the waterfront you initially specified.

Continue this process for all the static objects in your city beach. The amusement park, the retail establishments, the streets, the public transportation, the signage (very important!), the labeling, and the light fixtures.

Part II: Dynamic Objects in the Simulation - November 2007

Loop Parkway

George-bashing has been a long time coming. The fiery dome and the Romanesque promenade crowning my high school. The state and the church and that dumb story about how Hoya became their nickname. My stomach in knots gaping at plaid neckties, owning the utterly unownable city, and realizing that our appetizer was remarkably garlicky. A nice little place on 44th with its unforgettable mural and an even more profound relationship to the church. It was then that my mind was decided, so I paused my world for two years.

And the stars flew past me and the planets flew past me and in front of me were a collection of colorful electronic pixels and some cheesy Christmas lights. So the spiral continued and the unbelievable ascent continued. Two vertical bars, telling me that I couldn't proceed by my own order, so I grew more indignant and less knowledgeable. Remarkably, I traveled all the way home to punch the ballot.

If lying were a crime I'd be doing a ton of time.

Running, Sadly

A stem some seeds and the chemicals...swirling all around the room. The passion the fuel the fire...oooh in the planted in the planted oh we planted our hopes and oh wow we planted in my eyes your eyes oh the swirling. The rip-roaring the falling the roaring...crawling. The wedge the sand the precision the crawl the wall oooh in the plant in the pool in the hopes we lie we lie you lie you lie youlie you lie you oh the cryin the hopes the oooh we crawl we fall look around...around around around.

All around you in your world. Emphasize me emphasize the feats your feats the untouchable your stories your hands the clench the grip the skin the sweat the rolling and roaring and fire and sweat and skin and liquid in the world in your world you made my world. The jaw the clench I watch you watch me listen I listen you watch I imagine I fantasize you saw what I didn't the sound and the clench the jaw and the skin with sweat all around all around the room. Sifting, separating leaving all in the room, all in the clench and the jaw and the skin with the sweat in the aaaaaahhhhhhhhfternoon.

The steady summer sub and its chlorinated blue and the missed metaphor for refuge your refuge. Ever catch that...show me how you caught it how'd he catch it how'd you protect him? The blue and orange and black and the ridiculous pavejob the chuckle the assurance simply simply remember me please don't worry about me remembering you around the room around the time in the time we share we shared when your eyes pierced through me and reminded me of the fault of my egotism I can not help but grow older and try to steady the ship sense myself stop lying stop lying and be reminded on our day it comes its yours its mine I promise it's ours.

"Come on now. You sound ignorant. I don't want to hear that." He put a fork in it - something I wish I had the courage to do. The master mediator, the straight-shooter with a famously indexed collection of bullets, a transcendently tactful surgeon of the mundane that surrounds us...he was an impossibly powerful man. Time spent around him enchanted your physical and spiritual sides equally. Watching his eyes was a full-body experience, a leveling and forceful communicant of a verbal undertow that shook your core and sanitized your heart.

We are grateful to have you in our lives. We aspire to possess your energy, compassion, intelligence, and sense of self.

Rest in peace, Fidel. We love you.

Transgenerational Despondence: Part II

The concert violin never did it for me, my aural palette isn't very refined at those high pitches, you know? Maybe I should sharpen it; maybe I should listen to Top 40 songs with melodramatic violin lines in the background. Or maybe...I should just skip all that and just give up altogether.

From afar the car moves very slowly but down where the radio fills the cabin we're flyin' down a desert highway with nothing but nameless California desert plateau ahead of us and a dusty road and an iPod shuffle with not enough songs but a mess of style, a crash of silver. We're not terribly agile these days. Kinna in the groove, kinna inflexible...a healthy serving of rigor mortis for the "living." I'm reminded of my giant map and its icon language and those 2.5 lines and the bold colors. Sucking melting ice out of a clear plastic cup; the wind drowned out the solo acoustics, which suck.

She and I are headed to a desert lab...this is an epilogue. I've never been a mortician but something tells me that some ginger finger maneuvers will come in handy. Sandy sun palace, you could've been a haven for some Japanese 8-bit developer.

Intent technicians, huddled around a roulette wheel waiting for their next project. Another human, oh awesome, give it to Claire over there. Claire took a stack of chips and took the black playbook binder. Black X's and bold dashed lines all over the place, an icon that signified her laser pointer, greyscale gradients specifying atmospheric conditions. She would hold one of the chips tightly between the thumb and index finger on her weak hand, then she'd flip to a page in the binder. Mind you, Claire didn't track some national ideology index to pick the page in the binder, though she would tour the country in way too methodical for MTV, too blunt for PBS. After picking a design, checking the quota (that she modeled at rest stops), she picked up the laser and dug transistors into the chips with femto-granular precision.

Argue with me on this one let's hear it I want to swallow your argument, pulverize it and puke it up. Electrical outcry, brassy headaches maybe some jammed fingers. Pick you up by those precious legs throw you over let you go, dreamin' throbbin' electrical outcry. Slap you silly slap some sense into you I bet you'll take it huh, it'll run out huh nothing about interest didn't you learn about interest do you have any interests in allowance calculations too? Singin' my song cloaked in your pathetically unmasked scorn. Love it: "lawsuits remain rare because of a cultural aversion to litigation."

Jigadeejig hee haw hee haw no loose no loose. Can't. Immanuel skyline developments, coming soon, negotiated thoroughly in a tangled web of metal and other instruments. Tappin' up and down reading about the Haitian Revolution, rubbing the back of your scalp and the beautiful bird imagery on your light-weight polo. Managing latency from behind a giant medieval wall, climb to the top and between the tall posts looking out at the horizon...recalling the power struggle in Ravenna.

Mourning Routine

Walkin' you all the way home, feelin' things out...gettin' the feel. A shrine before I kneel we peek at the glimmer of the gold. It must be Our Lady! Siftin' through some aisles I heard your voice, I can't quite make it out but it sounds an awful lot like an argumentative, ridiculous request: "I have been. HERE. threeee times already today, and threeee times already today I have asked your manager to order milk WITH-OUT GROWTH HORMONE - comprendo ingles!?! Do you even work in dairy, where's your manager. This morning, this afternoon, and a few minutes ago." Mmm, yeah. That's you honey. My dreamgirl. Contendin' about things you have no godly right to contend about, like the time you stole from a store and went back to make it look like you hadn't - baby they called you on it.

"Bitch! Wait for the next one bitch. You fucking bitch!" If you call someone that you just shoved in the chest a bitch three time in ten words, what does that make you? "Mommy!" (or Aunt Trish) "Listen honey I'm not your mommy ok? Your mommy is trying to straighten things out with whatever sleaze is most likely to be your daddy." Well now, is that an appropriate thing to tell your little friend there? I don't think it is. Just because you called some other chick a bitch three times in ten words shouldn't dictate how you act for the rest of the day. That's why Trish took a walk when the real mother came home.

So I'm walking and looking up and getting all morbid. Here's the routine: front page catastrophe, refresh refresh, "oh" details, candlelight vigil, Chinatown Facebook trinkets (applets), acronym and colloquialisms, last thought's internalization, on with life, "oh" yeah, "I was there/where," Senate commission, publication.

Bottlestops, Cops

A little folky don't ya think? I liked everything about her except didn't ya think she was a little folky? Let's move on to the next candidate, what do you say? You want to take a little break, huh? Oh you quit? But you're our diversity officer you can't just pick up and leave. No, see you can't do that unless you don't want to be eligible--what's a polka-dot-collared job?

On the street things were decidedly less surreal even though I'm prone to dramatize colors when I'm alone. Now I don't have a job, WWDD? Actually my surname has many more Confederate city streets named after it than yours. My stupid little red shoes gripped the ground and I pulled up and up on my chin to avoid sobbing. Goddamn white laces, ya'll get dirty so fast...find me. I need someone else to give me a chance. Where's the adjusted line of professional behavior for people like me?

I need a thumbnail picture and a byline and a ticket for a bus to a train to a ship to an island to a hut to a bed to a hole to a handle to some sweet deadly darkness. I kneeled and raised my hand and got a taxi who took me to Church...to Canal past Tillary to Flatbush saw Jacob by Robert from Robert also Robert heard something to Beach Channel to Rockaway Beach a few blocks...135. I got out and scaled a 7 inch concrete wall (how symbolic) to a set of eroded stairs - saw the dunes saw the sand saw the sky saw the beach touched the sand with my shoes - which are stupid. Removed them, discarded them, threw them away they washed away like anger like disappointment and the sun moved behind some thunderclouds and the afternoon got purple and the rust on the bridge turned yellow and the green turned dark blue then grey then asked for shelter but the man had plans to go. An escape plan some broken bottles a needle a trip a fall a high a crash some reading all wet all emotional all impossible all too much to handle to much to stomach digest process daily weekly after a day a week a year a decade veins and colors and dye and needle the needle his needle his hands his fingers guarded protected explained taught held. Hold on.

What happened with her Harvey? Can you hear me Harvey? How could she say all of that? I take offense to how she said Adios Muchachos without at least stopping to think that there was a woman in the room.

God winced. We all winced we couldn't believe it. Fucking life...I want to see it. I would give mine to give the world more of his. A chariot and a street and a dynamite listen to this wind all the sand on this beach she thought! Roll me over let me swim she thought. A knock and a nudge and some neck muscles and a sinking feeling give me more. She dug up a mental motorcycle and rode it off into the still-orange grimey sunset as the lightning refracted on the ocean right in front of her. Chances like this come and go the train noises hide it the jet engines hide it and the storm hides it and at each one of those it's great to scream and get all the fucking shit out.

Rarely are all three of them audible at the same time but the jet had to land because it was below decision altitude outside of the storm and the A out there with the purple summer storm crossing the bay. As the wind and the bay with the rain and the wind and the plane with the lightning and the lighting, which was purple and the bridge that was dark green between the grey that was the cockpit she saw the pilot and the conductor and the mother and her dad and she turned her neck like the last time she did before everything sank. The whirling and swirling and vibrating pulsating wishing crashing sliding surfing flying falling tripping. All this nasty yellow fluid came out herb leaves jungle leaves Amazon keys golden and Socialist but better but barely leave it there and walk back to the street. She left it there and went back to Beach 135th St.

She walked to a payphone and placed two quarters in the machine and dialed the operator. That was wrong they told her. For operator calls press 411 then oprima numero uno not to speak in Español so she pressed 24 because it was funny and sentimental and not uno. Queens, NY. That is not listed in our directory, please call back with a valid city and state please. She called back and pressed 24 and then said she wasn't exactly sure what town she was in but please don't hang up they asked what was the last town you were in she said New York, NY. They gave her a Holland Tunnel-based taxi company. She asked to be picked up they declined. She dialed 411 then oprimió'd 24 then said Brooklyn, NY and she got a very local taxi company even though Brooklyn isn't really a city. They picked her up it was dark she had no shoes or money and forgot her phone where she used to work and now she was wet from the storm she lost her voice basically. She liked the bridge and saw the city and the lights and thought she saw JFK. Got to a busy intersection she had to pee her cigarettes were ruined didn't have a light anyway the driver wasn't very aggressive she paid and got out far from Tillary far from the bridge - Flatbush. Hailed a cab he said not going to city she said neither was she. Let her in she said, Port Authority Bus Terminal, he said get out she kissed him, he took her by the chin and threw her against the little glass opening she hurt her neck her stomach sank her heart sank the fucking shit had come back.

The lights of downtown Brooklyn in the distance reminded her of Manhattan in the distant distance and the lights and all the fucking shit. Got another cab didn't have any money he didn't care took her over the Manhattan Bridge let her off when two little kids needed a cab they had money higher priority missed connection? Said thanks said thanks so much said one day, had faith believed it thought it ok didn't think about it. Walked from E. Broadway and Canal to 41st and 8th Avenue begged for a bus wasn't that era. Can't beg for a bus the busses left from garages roped off no hitchhiking no valuable trade no pawn shops needed money knew what to do went to 42nd saw some guy needed a lift gave him the needle fell crash cash - beautiful cash "get me out of this place!" Next bus out of PA is in 6 hours attendant said gleefully. 4AM to Philadelphia first one on last one off got to sit in the back.

In Philly she had slept on the bus lots of stops then packed gross and constricted and stuck and sweaty and wet and tarred pockets and bare feet funny looks concerned looks two faces especially. In a crowd far from home kneeled raised hands no cab this time. Stood up not a power ranger not a superhero nothing...deflation but closer to the resolution to the reconciliation to a comedy to disbelief to bed.

Lightly Bleeding

The killer methodically came down the stairs (which were just planks of smoothed oak resting atop unevenly cut, white planks on an incline), wheeled towards the locked bedroom door, aimed at what he hoped was a quietly resting landlord, and pulled the trigger.

Mmmm...visual escapades with my lovely lady. We found each other Teresa ... ah sweet restful fields and our bodies wedged into the earth. The sun's lapidary rays strike us and keep us calm despite the nervous anxiety of sexual anticipation. Freeze-framed in the ground there looking at the blue sky between our eyelashes. I kept talking to you about insane things, topics of discussion that I'd never actually bring up. About everything and it was lucid and lyrical and you liked it, and then told me about yourself and I listened. The conversation tasted perfect, like my favorite food. When our eyes teared up because of all the sun, we drank it down and it quenched every desire temporarily. I didn't look around at all because you were right next to me. Laying next to me wedged into the ground, our gazes locked on each other.

You looked past me into the distance and told me a weird creature was coming towards us. I marveled at how airy and beautiful my limbs felt, at how the little ducts from my mouth to my throat carried some divine fluid that removed all pressure from everywhere, as if I were awake but sleeping but awake but sleeping but awake. Your eyes looked at me knowingly, but I misunderstood them, I suppose. I heard the creatures footsteps getting closer.

All of a sudden I looked so deeply into your eyes. I fell so far into them Teresa how did you let me fall so far ... the Hundred Hand Slap with Mt. Fuji delicately fanned behind us! Ah leave me no how did you leave me how did you not hear me here how did you leave me did you hear my Tiarhtian shriek of anguish? Everything rotated slightly after the footsteps stopped and there I was in a dark room. I trusted you Teresa, I suppose I deserved this.

The bullet ripped through the flimsy door and as light poured into the small bedroom blood poured out of the back of the sleeping landlord's head.

Correction: As it turns out the killer didn't have a killer instinct - I completely misread that one. This entire post is borne from an excessive procrastinatory paranoia that trickled down my bloodline through the olive presses and sewer caps and dusty meadows overlooking the Mediterranean and in the distance...Carthage.

Tracks

As far as we've come, we're right where we started, care to comment? The answer to that is predicated on how little we know about everything we're sensing, and the sum total of everything we're sensing can be expressed in a nice neat little formula that has already been hard-coded into most spreadsheet applications.

In other words, what's happened has already happened, and you are one expensive daughter. The policy on your life says nothing about an accidental death by commuter railroad smothering, which is why when I ascended the platform, still encrusted in commuter delirium, and I noticed all the children your age playing on and on the tracks for about half the platform, I wasn't particularly moved. I must say, in retrospect, that I wiped a glob of mucus from the corners of my eyes in order to believe them. There they were, exploring the tracks like rats—defiant and self-assured—there was no sense of danger in their motions. So fine. I turned to the middle-aged woman that I usually complain about the world to and said, "Look at this...I thought playing on railroad tracks was a nighttime thing. At this hour with all the trains they better really be careful." Something pierced through her commuter delirium but dissipated into the frenzied heart racing realization that the 7:29 was coming and the little rodents were still playing with the tracks. Our vantage point was from the easternmost part of the platform, the kids were playing from the middle of the platform to the westernmost part, so really, we had front-row seats. The train barreled along and the kids confidently assumed their train-passing postures. They hit the tracks hard, flattened themselves out right between the two steel beams that the trains' wheels moved along. This morning there were a few too many children on the tracks and not all of them had a spot as the train passed me and my commuter colleagues. As the train started grinding its brakes everyone had found a safe spot, but right as the train started passing over the easternmost expanse of outstretched children, a few of the kids got up and started running to safety underneath the platform ledge, a place which, if I had to choose, would choose instead of letting the train pass directly over me. The train mauled the late-decision-switching children. The momentum of the front of the train plus their lateral motion pushed them forcefully against the platform edge and dragged their faces against it, eventually sweeping them down underneath the train, at which point their bones fleetingly lifted the train up before the weight of the train flattened the bones and stretched their flesh over the steel beams that their friends were hiding adjacent to.

A railroad spokesperson came rushing over to me and began yelling: "How dare you! How dare you you coward! How could you let those children play on the tracks and not say anything!? Look what you have done! The tragedy! The poor children the poor poor children. How dare you! You are scum you how dare you oh oh the poor children...I hope you know how responsible you are for this catastrophe!"

My friend was reaching into her purse for her medium to medium-far distance spectacles. She was saying something about her employer's vision plan and how rotten healthcare in the country was and something about how she can never find her glasses and something about how she hopes her husband didn't accidentally mistake the glasses for his own.

I wondered whether or not the spokesperson had been hired by the new railroad executive, whose professed first priority was railroad safety. She had instilled in me something I don't think I would have developed without her fervent urging: if you see children playing on railroad tracks during peak hours, advise them not to change their mind about their safe position beneath the train as it arrives at a station.

"It is wonderful," I thought as I went back downstairs to my car, "that my wife works to support the family in addition to my job." There was a procession of emergency service vehicles making sharp turns and half-skiddy bee-lines towards the elevated platform. A man with a briefcase and a really nice suit stopped me and said, "We're never going to get out of this lot, do you want to get something to eat while they peel the kids' bodies off the tracks?"

I really had my heart set on the egg omelettes at work, but since it didn't look like I was going to work today, I said, "Ya know what, I really can't, I think I'm going to call my wife and see if she can take off, maybe we'll go the mall or something." In the back of my mind I had something else in mind. Two helicopters were circling above me now and I looked up and shielded my eyes with my right hand that was holding my briefcase. One of the choppers was from the local news station and the other copter had a big white cross on its all-red body. I squinted and thought to myself, "God, that woman was really lacing into me before about the kids. She's totally right about that too. How did I not say anything? How did the rest of the people on that platform all just stand there? She was right I feel awful."


At the diner where my wife works someone burst through the door and yelled, "some kids got hit by a train at the station, turn on the news!" She was cleaning a plastic tabletop, about to set it up for another customer. She turned her head towards the television above the hostess' station. It had reached MSNBC by now and they were crediting the local news channel's chopper for the live aerial footage. She reached into her pocket to answer her cellphone because I was calling her to see if she could take off work. As she interrogated me about what had happened and I offered her everything I saw, I pulled up to the diner and saw her on the phone through the glass windows. As we made eye contact I turned the car off and stepped outside and looked up at the chopper and back at the TV in the diner when I noticed that the local news station's helicopter feed had a bit of a delay on it. I thought maybe I should let them know about that but figured that they already knew it.

I went in to ask her if she could take off and she said, "Why don't you sit down so you can eat something?" I really had my heart set on the egg omelettes at work, but since it didn't look like I was going to work today, I said, "Ya know what, honey, if you can't take off I think I'm just going to go home and be there when you get back, the kids stay late at school today right?" She nodded. So I left her there and with a plan in mind I drove home in a hurry.

As I drove home the commuter delirium began washing in and out all over the windshield of my Prius. I saw railroad car windows from the early 20s and some eerie blue light from outside mixing with the humid yellow-greens of the white-but-soiled wallpaper. I was overcome with a desire to change my outfit, especially my jacket. Then everything blurred and became vibrant. Some bright teal and ruby red absorbed my delirium and drew dewy lines vertically through my field of vision. I needed a Splash. I pulled the car over and put the seat down horizontally and just lay there on the side of the road, listening to all the helicopters and the sirens.

My phone rang as everything above me (the interior of the roof of my Prius) kaliedoscoped in felty quad-mirrors of Cuban blues and yellow-greens and teals and reds from Florida. The heat and humidity of everything was rushing all over me so I decided to put my hazards on and finally look to see who was calling me. It was my daughter and my wife. One call from each. One call from each four times, the thing said, I think. I picked it up and dialed 4444 when I heard an enormous explosion.

My delirium and lethargy vanished in an instant as I sprung to a seated position. I looked in the directions I thought the explosion came from but all around me I couldn't see anything. I stepped out of my car and dialed my daughter's cell phone. She said she stayed home from school today because she wasn't feeling well. Great, I thought, there goes that. I told her to take the chicken breasts out of the freezer and put them in a medium saucepan filled with a little water in the sink. She asked me where I was (probably to see if I would do it), and I told her I wasn't coming home.

I didn't really know where I was going.

Black, White, & Red

"Why did you put a lemming in your wedding?" "I've known him forever and he's been good to me." "It's still a little weird, with the guy from the store carrying him around in a cage and all." "I know, I wish we could've given him something formal to wear." "Yeah."

One of my cousins sat in the fourth pew on my family's side. He wore thick-framed, black eyeglasses that had almost a half-inch of solid frame on either side. As my anxious fiancé appeared in the doorway at the opposite end of the church, I stared intently at my cousin. He had this weird look on his face. The procession moved forward, and Ingmar's light blue denim shirt clashed with everything. A lot of people stopped looking at the bride and looked at him and the lemming who, incidentally, was adorned with a black satin ribbon around his torso with a corsage pinned at the top.

My cousin was reading an article that befit his oenophilic tastes on the transparent overlay that his iGlasses® afforded him. Using the chip installed in his wrist, he could control the degree of transparency (this had no effect on the actual color of the lenses on his glasses) with simple finger motions at the inside-end of his forearm. The gadget and the implant set him back quite significantly in the financial sense, but in human terms, he was easily the most advanced person in the building, if not the whole county. I had no idea that he even had this gadget, so I just thought he was spacing out.

I was supposed to say something to my fiancé but before I did so I motioned to Ingmar to let the lemming out of his cage so he could lineup next to the other members of the bridal party and, of course, to get Ingmar's atrocious shirt out of the picture. When he opened the door to the lemming cage, the little fellow scurried down the aisle and right out the front doors of the church. My cousin had identified the lemming and placed a Google GPS Tracker® on the little fellow. He inhaled, raised his eyebrows, opened his mouth and pointed towards the back of the church but decided not to say anything.

Others fainted and yelled, Ingmar bolted down the aisle after the lemming—cage door clanking back and forth. I told the minister to continue with the wedding, "He always does that." My fiancé was all flustered and had run her hand through her hair to relieve some pressure. This messed up her hair. My cousin went back to reading a review about a new red. He looked up and faded down the overlay's transparency, noticed that my wife-to-be had tossed her hair a bit, and he quickly faded up his overlay and requested a Yahoo! Replay® of how it had happened. The web service, which had been adapted pretty early on for this medium, informed him that the replay would cost $4.50 for retrieval and $0.30 per second (though he could proof the frames at 10 second intervals to get an idea). He wanted only 8 seconds so the site billed the charge to his personal account.

My cousin didn't carry a wallet because all of his identification, finances, and retail rewards cards were installed in the metacarpal chip implanted in his wrist. When he rode the subway, turnstiles clicked open for him as he approached because of the Yellowsock® data exchanged between him and the transit station. When he went to the store, they didn't ask him if he had a rewards card because the monitor had already detected this information. It was great.

The replay was great, he coveted my fiancé. I married her. We processed down the aisle and down the stairs of the church. Everyone was lined up like at a wedding. Ingmar was holding the lemming, whose flower-pin had pierced through the stem of a flower on the lawn at the edge of the grass. Lemmings have a tendency to cut corners because they're lazy and spatially perceptive. They also usually run on tundra, not concrete, so the little guy's judgment was all off. What an ironic twist!

On our honeymoon, my wife and I considered buying a pair of iGlasses® but decided to wait until we returned to our home country. In retrospect, I wish we would've bought them then and there.

I usually did everything I could to lead the mischief.

Engauged

Mother of god! I dropped this zesty salsa all over my freshly starched white shirt. My brain faltered. My head let me down. I need a shnazzy cleaning product to remove this blemish. It's outside of the tie-buffer. It's outside of the boundary of tie bufferdom. In the distance I saw a red circle. That was my target. I have been a pilot for almost 8 years. I've seen my fair share of tough landings, but in terms of suicide missions, this was my first.

Tah-boooo. I will stalk you until the day you die...she said. She said, a hundred times. It's a Texas mow-down. Vvvvrrrrr...motion sickness. To many mistresses down to speak of to dream of a little vice, a small vice me and you. Little afternoons, tiny indulgences. Steppin' and driftin' in the fiery aftermath, of my destruction, which was taboo to mention. Even in this terrifying new medium. Freaky squeak the E. I know that money is the big funny.

Hey quick question, actually no, actually my question doesn't make much sense anymore. In that short time...my question no longer made sense. Twas irrelevant. Sick [sic]. In the big money. Wet dreams. Muddy transactions. What the fuck is that noise? Listen, think twice about what I'm going to say right now: I can't figure you out. What a tell. What a sick and twisted lie. Slime. Slime. Fallout. Begin, to end. Tell me what I want to hear.

Imperative, you say? I'll try interrogative. Who was there on the night of the alleged rape? What do you mean your dad will beat this? What do you mean you hate [racial epithet]? How can you be so insensitive? What's a rake? Isn't that for leaves? Why dost thou celebrate bygones? I found proof, aren't you scared? Why aren't you scared? Why do you talk about your dad so much? What about your mom? Do you have a mom? I don't, Chris.

Conservation Designation

As the car approached the flashing light, Peeter assumed it was one of those used car lots spending an up-month's profit on a massive strobe light. Would you be surprised to learn that the flashes were coming from the boardwalk? Would you be shocked to learn that a wizard with a true blue robe and felty white stars had tripped and dropped his magic wand over the railing? Magic wands self-destruct like slow-motion firecrackers in the summer season. The little white plastic caps blow off and an airborn stream of, well, magic, combusts all over the place. It's pretty cool in the dark because it looks like a freak firecracker. All the little stars and magic dust, aflame. Unforgettable. The wizard had splinters all in his right soul, for he had tripped, on a boardwalk, and when you trip on a boardwalk, and you're a wizard, well, you gotta take responsibility for what happens.

As it turns out all that happened was that some bystanders got a pretty sexy drowsy feeling to slowly slurp through their bodies. That's the closest sensation it can be related to. Imagine strolling on the parking lot pavement just below the boardwalk. You and your date just finished some crappy clam bar special, you could taste the sand in the clams and you chalk it up to the "experience." [ five sentences censored ] Heading to your car, parked nose-first against the boardwalk beams, an enormous fountain of burning magic erupts in front of you (on the other side of the boardwalk, after all, people who walk on the boardwalk actually stay near the railing closer to the shore, obviously). Little tender charms, aflame, and flying to about 150 feet in the air. Little crescent moons and five-pointed stars, little fusillis and annoying farfalles, religious icons and transportation signifiers, cute bunnies and ugly spiders, and other interesting things in fiery whites, greens, reds, and some orange.

What's remarkable about the whole situation is that unlike a firecracker, a single magic wands can last all night. So the clam bar customers no-looked their napkins/bibs back behind them on the red leather stools they had been perched on slurping away at sea juice. They moved to the window and slowly, realized there was nothing to be afraid of...magic was in the air. Peeter realized what it was too, in time, and called the authorities, he was that kind of guy.

The couple ducked below the boardwalk and had an incredible view of both ends of the magic wand, spewing majestic tender charms from both ends, kind of nervously alternating, defying gravity, contorting into the positions of a pin drop in rewind and fast-forward. They laid down on the sand and looked up through the cracks in the boardwalk. The magic would sometimes shoot right over them and steadily fall on to their faces. It didn't hurt because it's magic and magic doesn't hurt...even when it's on fire.

I guess there are better places to lie down and look up at the stars from than from under a boardwalk. For example, places with less than 98% obstruction of the sky above you would be better. Also places where debris from the bottom of people's feet didn't slip through the cracks you are counting on to give you glimpses of night sky...would be better. But for the couple, that night, a magic night, all of that didn't matter. The charms gave off a glittery glorious light that illuminated the underbelly of the boardwalk, not to mention the night sky off to their sides. They looked at each other and beyond their faces the shore and the shops. The charm lit up the ocean and the windows equally intensely. Regular motion slowed because intense light at night does that. It's that ferris wheel inertia moment, ya know. You can only go around and around a ferris wheel so many times, or a carousel, at night, without feeling that inertia moment. Your brain is like, all right, this fixed path is boring me to tears, I'm gonna put it on autopilot this next time around. Your mind "wheels." Cinematographers love this shit because audiences love it because it makes sense to us.

The cops pulled the couple (that you imagined) out from the boardwalk and extinguished the magic wand before the grand finale. Fucking idiots. The wizard got arrested because the state doesn't allow firecrackers. Why should he get arrested? Because to people on a job all this mind inertia and lovey-dovey tender charm shit means [word censored].

I'll give you a job.