2015: A Year in Review

I made some new friends. (Love you, Molly!)

I lost some old friends. (I'll spare their names)

I pissed blood.

I saw The Grateful Dead play live.

I became a paid and published journalist.

I went broke.

I got really strong.

I gained twenty pounds and then lost thirty.

I fell in love.

I got a reminder that love isn't nearly enough.

I embraced the idea of dying.

 I learned the meaning of double tendonitis.

I learned a few new dance moves.

I tried a few new drugs.

I wrote a few pithy sentences.

I screwed up some great opportunities.

Reconnected with some people I never expected to see again.

I got to see Bernie Sanders go from obscure personal idol to a serious presidential candidate.

Molly can't read, she's a cat.

I dropped acid on a nude beach.

I watched furries yiff at a train station.

I had expensive electronics stolen.

I Probably caught an STD or two (it's funny because I was monogamous all year)

I finally got rid of You.

Retro: Something I wrote back in 2014

Been writing this sorta randomly for a while. Will update whenever.

Essentials:

1. The Brothers Karamazov- captivating Russian soap opera serves as the backdrop for philosophical musings on the nature of god and man. Deeper and more complex than Crime and Punishment.

2. The Turn of the Screw- One of the first books to do psychological horror and ambiguous presentation
3. Infinite Jest- a post-postmodern exploration of addiction
4. The Doors of Perception/Heaven and Hell- Aldous Huxley does psychedelic drugs, writes about his experiences.
5. & 6. Brave New World & 1984- dueling yet complementary explorations of the notion of a dystopian future
7. Frankenstein- Frightfully boring and bloated, but the good parts and the philosophical parts have influenced pretty much all 20^th century literature.
8. & 9. The Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit- essential examples of high fantasy genre, prototypical
10. Slaughterhouse Five- one of the canonical WWII books, and for good reason.
11. Cat’s Cradle- Quintessential Vonnegut. This story is him at his philosophical and creative peak.
12. Catch-22- Clever, complex, and witty, a book that will stick with you for the rest of your life, but oddly difficult to go back to afterward.
13. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- If humanity survives another five hundred years, this book will still be the definitive example of the Great American Novel. Its importance is incomparable.
14. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay- A fictionalized account of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and the experiences of the comic book industry. But, somehow way more than that.
15. Hamlet- I’m going to be listing a lot of Shakespeare, he’s just a definitive part of literary history.
16. Othello- Racist against Jews, astonishingly progressive in regards to black people.
17. Macbeth- A bit cheesy in places, but canonically essential.
18. Richard III- His most powerful history play. See optional #11.
19. Romeo and Juliet- I assume everybody has already read this, but I feel compelled to include it.
20. Les Miserables- I wish I had finished this book. I need to get back to it once I finish school. The strongest and weakest part of it is that it’s not a story so much as a experience. The characters are almost extraneous to the book.
21. On the Road- The novel that defines the beat generation. A real hip tome.
22. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas- Blurs the lines between a novel and journalism, erring on the side of gonzo.

The Optionals:
1. The Sun Also Rises- brief read, beautiful and heartbreaking
2. House of Leaves- somewhat messy and bloated, but a surprisingly easy and engaging read.
3. The Wizard of Earthsea- An odd story, classic high fantasy “boy becomes the legendary hero”-type story, but built around a very complex and intricate world-building experience. The highlight here is not the characters, but the scenery and concepts.
4. Dracula- oddly enough, not really about vampires as much as it’s about human sexuality and xenophobia.
5. The Cthulhu Mythos- these nihilistic tales are perhaps the definitive example of “Cosmic Horror”
6. The Haunting of Hill House- fairly simple horror/psychological horror story, but fun and gripping.
7. Nuklear Age- a wacky deconstruction of the super hero genre and comic books. Full of slapstick humor and silly wordplay, but a bit uneven.
8. The Harry Potter Series- I’m not counting these as seven separate books. They’re not too deep or well-written, but their cultural impact makes them pretty important.
9. Breakfast of Champions- I wish I could put this on the essentials list, because it’s really quite an enjoyable book. Loads of fun. But, between Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five, it doesn’t really bring anything new to the Vonnegut table. If you’ve read those other two, you get a sense of what to expect from this.
10. UFO 54-40- A silly Choose Your Own Adventure Book, but worth the half hour.
11. The Henriad/Shakespeare’s Histories- Richard III is actually the almost-end of a longer series of plays chronicling The War of The Roses. Reading all of them really fleshes out the motivations depth of the characters. Richard III in particular is a far more sympathetic character after you’ve read his story prior to ascending the throne.
12. The Winter’s Tale- Insane, dumb, delightful.
13. A Man Without a Country- Vonnegut as an old man, just having fun.
14. Kafka on the Shore- I have mixed feelings about Murakami. This book comes off as trying to be smarter and deeper than it actually is, but outside of that pretense, it’s still pretty clever and riveting. It’s just not something that will really stick with you.
15. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer- Tom Sawyer is basically the retarded cousin of Huckleberry Finn, and his presence in Huck’s book is an irritating drag. However, as a standalone story, his whimsical adventures are actually somewhat endearing. It’s also technically the first book in the Tom/Huck series.
16. Neuromancer/The Sprawl Trilogy- This is the book series that inspired the Cyberpunk genre. If you've seen The Matrix or followed literally anything sci-fi in the past 30 years, you've felt William Gibson's influences.
17. Snow Crash- Neuromancer's little brother. Released almost a decade later, it recreates the major themes of the genre in a superior literary practice, albeit with its own flaws and complications.

Dream Journal Volume 8796

So, here’s a lame story.

I had a sex dream the other night.

Only, instead of sex, we just cuddled.

And then I woke up and felt cold.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I gnawed on a biscuit. It tasted vaguely of yeast and biscuit. 

"It's the love story of the century. Mom got a phone call from the police station. Collect call from a friend of a friend. Illegal immigrant, some small-time dealer and coyote. And that's how she met your dad."

"Cousin Danny's out of jail. Remember him? He tried to blow up his wife by blowing up his house. He ended up just mostly blowing up himself. And the house. That's gone too."

"...wait a minute! That was one of our relatives??"

I got another biscuit.

Description of a Man on the Train

Silver and white running shoes. Blue jeans. "Danke" black backpack sitting in his lap. Green denim jacket. Blue longshoreman beanie. Big headphones, a cheap brand. Stylized with a blue jagged skull on one side, a spiky bird like creature on the other side.

Square Asian face. Light wisp of Asian stubble. "Hapsen Suru" written in a stylized font on the right index finger.

Two Brief Descriptions of Strangers

A slim black youth. Braces with green rubber bands on his mouth. A hard, cold face. Curly hair trimmed short, but a lack of clean lines. A simple white t-shirt covered by a heavy red sweater, despite the fairly warm weather. Tight black track pants, stripes running down the sides. White boat shoes.

------

A moderate standing lordosis. High and tight shoulders, slim frame, slim breasts. A face of permanent consternation. A plastic, waxy quality to facial animations. Pale, almost sallow skin. Elf-like ears, but rounded. Hair worn loose, hanging around her shoulders and over the front of her face. Yoga pants with an iPhone tucked into the front band. A pair of pink flip-flops paired with painted pink nails.

A description of a girl with reddish-pink hair

It was a bad dye job. Neon, with purple streaks integrated in the back. Her natural brown hair color showing through throughout. A portion of the hair pulled into a small pony-tail resting above the rest of the hair. Her glasses were leopard print around the lenses, with the arms being a pseudo-gold cutout of the words "MICHAEL KORS". Plugs in her ears, seemingly a half-inch in diameter or so. Multiple other piercings per ear, including a cross-ear bar. The bar is studded with pink gems on each side. Thick and long, bright and deep pink fingernails.White skintight cotton shorts, simple black flip-flops. A surprisingly full-sized set of panties is outlined prominently underneath the shorts. A flimsy black "curtain" shirt, paired with a black push-up bra. More of her breasts exposed than covered by either the shirt or the bra. An iPhone cased in something orange-pink but not quite salmon. Perhaps an unhealthy salmon who had died of mange or something. 

I counted at least half a dozen tattoos. A green four-lead clover on the left calf. Indistinct cursive scribbles of some sort of name on the top of her left foot. A cutout of California merged into a lopsided heart on the left shoulder blade. A small yet colorfully and intricately patterned crescent moon with a spade resting in the crook on the right wrist. A feather at the base of her neck, on the left side. A complex mandala on the forward left clavicle.

A noticeable hunch to her sitting posture. Fairly slim, but an overall flabbiness/jiggle to her entire structure. The pale skin of her face had a red glow, but the freckled and pock-marked nature added years to her appearance.

Emo musings in d minor

There's plenty of fish in the sea. Everybody has heard that notion. Out of a world of seven billion people, there's bound to be somebody who's a match for you. Let's do the math and see if that applies to me. 

By dint of cultural differences, we should probably count out anybody not from a western culture Amero-Euro society. I'm not going to find anybody to love in China or India or Korea or Japan or somesuch, or really anybody who isn't at least an L2 speaker of English. So, most generously speaking, we're down to eight hundred million people worldwide. I'm a largely heterosexual male. That instantly disqualifies about half the population. Down to about four hundred million people. I can't imagine being with somebody with an unexceptional intellect. I don't need a genius, just somebody very smart. 80th percentile seems like a generous enough estimate here. We're now down to less than eighty million potential people worldwide. Among that eighty million, you can count out all the people who are opposed to my particular ideological idiosyncrasies. No right-wing people. Down to forty million. No people who want to have kids. Down to ten million. No people who are already married or in committed relationships. Down to two million. No people who already have kids. Down to one million. No people of a drastically different age. Down to fifty thousand. No people who would reject me for failing their own set of criteria. Down to five hundred people. No people for whom there's an inherent biological rejection, such as smell or lack of connection/attraction. Down to twenty people. No ex-girlfriends. 19 left. No people I will never meet because our paths will never cross. One person left. No people where we meet but things just don't work out. Nobody left. There was never actually anyone there. Every man is an island. 

Description of a woman on a lunch date

She wore a black patrol cap, with shoulder-length auburn hair spiking out from under it.

A blue shirt tied at the front to become midriff-exposing. Black skintight miniskirt that hugged every curve tightly.

Too much eyeshadow, darkening her eyes beyond the point of accentuation. Simple silver bracelet and necklace. A large greyscale tattoo of a branch with a leaf falling off of it, covering most of her right forearm. A not-unattractive face that wouldn't be winning any beauty contests or landing movie roles any time soon. Teeth with just a little bit too much space between them. A general lack of muscle definition, but still a distinctly feminine and thin form. Modest breasts that fit her frame.

She put on deodorant at the lunch table. 

Description of a waitress at a restaurant

Tall and thin. Eager-looking, a face bright with enthusiasm. Her eyes were like Steve Buscemi's. She walked with a slight hunchback. Plain brown hair pulled back in a tight bun and secured with a floral yellow headband. Pale, sallow skin. Perfectly straight front teeth, with a solid centimeter of empty space between them. In her back pocket, a single yellow glove, "Kirsten" carefully pencilled in pink marker across the center. Slightly-too-big black work shoes, making her movements somewhat clumsy and slippery.

Description of a Woman I met at the Store

It was like a composite of a lifetime of anti-smoking advertisements had managed to congeal into something resembling a blonde-haired woman.

Skin prematurely crisped into a cheap leather.

Your average person can generally be described as "like [x] celebrity, but uglier."

Sung to the tune of a song you've never heard

Poke poke poke.

Fiddle fiddle.

Wriggle writhe and shudder.

Thoughts on a Coffee Shop

While unemployed, I discovered something rather interesting- men don't go out and about during the day. Coffee shops, diners, bars. Grocery stores, department stores, supermarkets. All full of women and seniors. Groups of women. Single women. Women with children. Outnumbering men ten to one, easily.

There's something about two people talking over a sheet of paper in a coffee shop that always screams "full of shit" to me. 

Keeping it short. Like my self awareness.

I'm starting to believe in the fruit of knowledge and original sin.

Metacognition is a dangerous thing. Thinking about thinking doesn't give you control over thought, just awareness. You're still trapped in there with you.

Poems

The articulations of my work have begun growing increasingly more abstract. I often fear that I look like a madman, waving my hands around in intricate yet rhythmless patterns and cycles. Thank you for coming. Gift bags are under your seat.

Deep Thoughts on Writing

Adjectives are just the worst. They make you lazy. The best adjectives are nouns.

Dream Notes

Travel to large house for party-type situation. Older-style house, heavy on deep wood colors (mahogany, etc). Cody Moore is there. Lots of drunken college students, escalating escapades. People jumping off balconies. 

Eventually escalates into violence against myself and my family.

Masked/robed men and women. Highly arrogant, seemingly unaware of their own mortal nature. Not quite human physiology- no bleeding. But still very much dead after being disemboweled.

Leaving the Island occurs when the military arrives. People are sent off in coffin-like structures. 

Musing on Work

The best thing about science fiction is that you can’t just make stuff up. Well, you can always just make stuff up. That’s the “magic” of storytelling. If I want people to know something occurred in a story, I tell them it happened. If I change my mind and add in details, I can continue to do so. In a movie, doing something like that is often costly and complicated. Digital editing allows for a certain looseness, but only a writer can completely excise and rearrange things at a moment’s notice without disastrous repercussions. Repercussions can always end up being disastrous, but the more intricate and precise the medium, the more costly each revision is.

Science fiction is actually an attempt at realism. There is an implicit understanding that the logic of the story must remain consistent within the established laws of your universe. You always have to follow the rules, but non-scientific fiction often assumes that basic rules of the universe can be disregarded.

This can be somewhat problematized by the realization that most science fiction stories have nothing to do with science, and everything to do with fiction and fantasy. It might be tempting to say "It has a robot. Robots are science!" and label something science fiction. But, really, robots are older than the concept of machine-based intelligence. The first robot was called a Golem and was powered by blood magic. This, however, doesn't really negate its robotic nature. It is simply a non-science based branch of thought. Fantasy, or religion, depending on your preference of terminology.

Having a pre-rendered set of rules limits the scope of your potential creativity. The easiest way to make a choice is when you don't have very many options.

Capital P Pragmatist

"Just a little while longer..." She whispered under her breath.

She had been with her boyfriend for nearly five years now. Five years of doing his laundry. One shirt folded. Five years of buying his groceries. Five years of cooking his food. Five years of cleaning his room. Five years of keeping him financially above water. Two shirts folded. Five years of watching him fuck other women and telling herself she was his number one and he'd settle down eventually.

But, this was just temporary, She knew that. It wasn't that She had to do any of those things, it's that she chose to. She's a Pragmatist. Capital P. A Planner. Two shirts and a pair of pants folded. She was doing what she had to do to succeed. She knew that the chores and duties weren't falling on her because he was unwilling. He was just in a bad position. He had school and work and those other women. Where would he possibly find time to do those chores? When he finished with school... When he got a job with less demanding hours... When he was ready to commit... She knew all those things were coming. After all, she loved him and he locked her, how could they not be? The basket's almost fully folded. They'd be fair and equal then,  they'd have to be. She put so much work in, and she was a Pragmatist.

He rushed into their room, knocking the laundry basket over in the process. He searched the room, trampling clothes underfoot.

"Where's my black hoodie? Sorry, but I'm in a rush. Kaitlin wants to go to this new fancy restaurant, and you know how it is..."

Before She could reply, he had found the clothing, and was out the door. She bent over, and started picking up the spilled laundry, folding and piling it back into the basket. The tiniest of grimaces appeared on her face. Nobody but her was around to see it.

"Just a little while longer..." She whispered under her breath.

Voight-Kamph

 Imagine yourself standing at the top of a long, winding staircase. The stairs are tall and heavy, seemingly spiraling down forever. You hear a rhythmic clacking, interspersed with footsteps, behind you, and turn to see a large, old-fashioned stroller approaching. As it pulls up alongside you, you see the tender infant nestled in the basket. Immediately afterward, you see the small, harried woman who was pushing the stroller step aside and look up at you.

“Hello! I hate to trouble you, but could you help me out here? I need to get this stroller to the bottom of the steps as fast as possible. I don’t think I can carry it down by myself, but with your help, it should be a piece of cake!” she begs.

“As fast as possible, you say?”

You walk over to the stroller, lift it up above your head, walk to the edge of the stairs, and throw it over the railing.

An Old Post, an Old Joke

When Moses returned from the mountain, Aaron received his brother with great joy.

"My dearest brother, I am so excited for your return. While you were busy praying in the mountains, I also wanted to show my devotion to Yaweh! Everybody agreed that your inspiring trip up the mountain was inspiration for us to give of ourselves! We all sacrificed some of our wealth, and I used it to craft this statue of one of God's greatest gifts, the calves. I thought it was a good way to show our appreciation for what he has provided us. Hey, what's that in your hands? Did you make a gift for God too?"

Aaron, in his loving joy, did not notice the look of self-righteous anger growing on Moses's face. Without a word, Moses threw the tablets to the floor and ground them into dust.

"Now, brother, why would you do that? I'm sure that God loves all our devotion."

But Moses knew the truth, that their God was a God of hate. So he stormed to Aaron's bull and destroyed it on the spot, making sure that not a trace of the love or craftsmanship remained. But Moses knew it was not enough to simply destroy the calf, Aaron and the Israelites had to be punished for breaking a rule they had not yet been given. So, Moses made the people drink rancid gold dust water for reasons that are extremely unclear. Never let it be mistaken that Moses was a merciful prophet, for this was only the start of his mad spree. Moses ordered his people to go on an indiscriminate killing spree, slaughtering women and children alike.

Moses, with his black heart, knew that death was too great a mercy for his brother Aaron. No, nothing less than torture and mockery would be appropriate for a man who dared attempt to show him up. And, so Moses set to scheming, producing the cruelest irony he could imagine.

"So, wait, brother. Let me get this straight. That handful of rocks that you brought was actually a set of rules from God? And it specifically said we're not allowed to create ornate and elaborate tributes to him and that's why everyone had to die?"

"Correct."

"But you destroyed it and all proof of this anyway, meaning we have to rely entirely on your word?"

"Correct."

"And despite the aforementioned rule against elaborate and ornate idolatry, I have to create an extremely elaborate and ornate box that costs more than 40 golden calves?"

"Correct."

"...to carry around your rock dust? And if I don't, I'll be put to death, written out of god's book, and labeled a heretic?"

"Correct."

Return to the Void

This story starts out like so many other stories do- with the author saying "This story starts out like so many other stories do". It's not the best of starts, but it's a start, and sometimes that's just what we have to settle for.

You were used to disappointing beginnings.

I may have posted this elsewhere in the past. Regardless.

I pull into a dimly lit lot of a shopping center. It's cold and windy. I grumble to myself that I'm not sure why I agreed to come to this. Regardless, I march over to my destination- the only lit up store in the whole place. No sign, but the dull orange glow emanating from the windows is all I need.

The place appears to be an absurd combination of a rustic italian restaurant and a medieval hobbit hole. The squat ceiling and limited floor space meant that it would be "cozy" on the slowest days. Today is not one of these days. The bulk of the room is occupied by a clump of loosely-connected individuals. The gnarled wooden tables are pushed up against each other almost haphazardly, with only the spatters of interaction making it clear that this is a unified party.

Well, that, and I know who these people are for the most part. It's your family. They're here for you, as am I. Damned if I know why, of course. Lord knows all you ever did was screw me over when I needed something from you. That might be why I agreed to come when you called me up, practically in tears, begging me for this favor. For once, it wasn't going to be me on the ugly end of the favor stick. I have no intention of repaying your sort of generosity, but it'd always fun to watch a spectacle.

As I look around, the number of familiar faces continued to increase, leaving me disquieted. James was sitting in a chair, head down and quietly texting. Burt appeared to be hitting on a pair of middle aged women. I had only agreed to come here because it was local- only a twenty minute drive from where I lived in San Francisco. Many of these people would have have to have devoted an entire day of traveling to get here. What exactly was going on?

I don't have much time to think about this. As I'm pulling up a seat, you walk to me and grab my arm. Your hand feels soft. Softer than it ever did before, actually. I shrug it off, literally and metaphorically. I poison my mind enough on my own, no need to enable even more stupid thoughts. Still, we talk. It's mindless blather. The most interesting and salient topic to come up is that you had taken up swimming. I couldn't care in the least.

Your father walks up. Always a big man, time seems to have bloated him into a massive man. Or, perhaps he just regressed into that state. Maybe time was going backwards here. It sure feels like it. He suggests you stop talking to me, that you focus on the rest of the guests you've called together. You get angry at him, begin trying to pull me outside the restaurant. I give a reluctant look and a half-hearted shrug to your dad, and follow you out.

The weather has not improved in the five minutes I spent inside the building, and within seconds the icy wind becomes irritating. I begin formulating excuses to rejoin the main group, but your next statement takes me by surprise.

"Give me a cigarette."

"Uhm, you know I don't smoke. And, as far as I know, neither do you."

"Not what I said. Now hand it over."

I sigh, and pull the pack out of my jacket pocket. There's no way you could have known about it. Nobody knew about it.

As you take a long draw off the cig, I take the opportunity to ask one of the questions burning in my mind.

"I checked the faces of every single person in that room just now, and I didn't see, you know, her. Where is she?”

You thrown the butt on the ground, stamp it out with your foot. A massive cloud of smoke flows from your mouth, surrounding your head and curling around us.

“Shut the fuck up.”

I expected that response. I breathe in the sweet smell of the smoke. Cherry, pine and chocolate. And that indescribable acrid foulness that accompanies tobacco. Sometimes I call it the taste of suffering. I love the combination. You wear the scent well, it matches you. Was that insulting? I don’t know.

You light up again. I launch into a string of questions while I have the chance.

“What’s going on here? Why did you ask me to come? Why did you ask any of these people to come? What do you want from me?”

“Why is it that nobody else can ever get you to talk, but with me you never seem to shut the fuck up? We’re going to go back inside, you’re going to do what you need to do, and then I never want to see you again."

Your response makes me laugh. I forgot that you were actually pretty damn insightful. Resentment does tend to blind a person, I guess.

“I thought that’s what you said last time?”

You march back in without saying a word. I scramble after you. And, I’ll be damned. You were right.

Figment of My Imagination

There's this girl at Trader Joe's I'm kind of in love with. A cute bottle blonde, she's always there when I come to shop. It's kind of disconcerting, as I arrive at the most random of times. She always has a frazzled look, like she's just on the border of a breakdown. I think that's what makes me love her. I don't know if she's like that because she apparently lives in the grocery store, or some other unknown trauma that haunts her. I don't actually want to know. It would probably kill the appeal. It's not like I could do anything to actually fix her life. Or that she even needs some stupid ass coming in and trying to "fix" her. The very notion is an idealistic conceit born pity of arrogance. Why the fuck would my worldview or lifestyle be the way to guide anyone? Her name is Katy. Just learned that today. Not from talking to her, though. Didn't really have the courage to do that. Just happened to catch her nametag as I was passing by. 

Having some Pun

Welcome to the generic name extravaganza. Come on in and smoke some generic name extrava-ganja. 

The Old Man and the Sea

Once upon a time, there was a man. This man's name was Richard. In his youth, Richard often found himself in the most implausible of situations. As an old man with a long beard, he took to telling tales of his past to the kids in the neighborhood, but only on holidays.

Although I always looked forward to all of his stories, the one that always stuck with is was the Black Friday Terror.

Stuffed full of pumpkin pie and turkey, we would sit in a circle in front of his fireplace, slowly sipping our hot toddys, as he regaled us with this tale...

"Sometimes in a man's life, he's forced to make a hard choice. The hardest choice I ever made was in my 18th year, on this very day, the day after thanksgiving. My pop had worked his whole life to earn enough to open a small curio store. He had me working as a stock boy and cashier, and even back then, Black Friday was the busiest day of the year for us, which was rather odd, as our stock was pretty small, and we couldn't offer particularly decent sales, due to the extremely low market margin and turnover rate for what mostly amounted to ugly plates and weird toys. This year would be special, however. My dad had somehow lucked into a gorgeous ruby necklace, inlaid in the finest-spun silver we had ever seen. Even with the holiday "discount", we expected to make enough to rest easy on finances for a few months, at least. I knew I had to do my best and make dad proud while selling it.

So, early that morning, I went through our storage, and found the most luxurious, plus pillow we owned. Purple with gold trim, even, I felt the ring looked absolutely royal. I grabbed out poster board, and in my finest lettering, I painted out "For Sale- The Most Beautiful Necklace you have ever seen!" Everything set up, I eagerly anticipated the crowds who would come. And, boy, was I right. By noon, word of the necklace had spread around the town, although nobody who had come yet was willing to part with the money for it- although not surprising, this used to be a poor town.

Eventually, I did manage to get a buyer- John Jenkins was going to buy it for his wife at the time, Heather. But, as I prepared to ring it up, a sharp yet commanding voice floated across the room "WAIT!"

I froze immediately, and traced my gaze to the source of the voice- the most beautiful face I had ever laid eyes on. And it was attached to the sexiest body I had ever laid eyes on. I froze immediately, ignoring Jenkins completely. She ran, stumbled across the room to the counter, her heels clicking on the floor. Dressed in finery unlike anything this town was familiar with, she exclaimed "I'll give you five times what he's paying for that necklace! I must have it!" 

I agreed immediately, but, heck, I probably would have agreed at that moment even if she offered less! I was struck. With all the strange things that happen to me, I knew this was it, this was fate, our meeting. Fantasies of marriage were already forming in my head.

Which made it all the stranger when a soft voice lilted across the room. "Please, you mustn't." Only, this time the girl was as modest as the first girl was extravagant. Dressed in simple, baggy clothes, her faced obscured by long bangs and a cap, you would find her in the dictionary under "tomboy".

Despite her firm footing, she timidly edged her way to the three of us.

"You can't sell her that necklace!" she squeaked out.

"It's my mother's necklace. It was a gift to her from my now-deceased father, and was stolen from her years ago. It was her last memory of him. I can't afford to pay you for it, but it would mean the world if you could give it to me, to return to her."

The beautiful and rich woman was understandably annoyed, and among the four of us, we quickly established that the claim could not be proven, and that the necklace was bought by our store legally. I was feeling frustrated by this obvious con artist, and began to ring up the woman with the money.

At this point, the tomboy became visibly upset, and said she had one thing that could convince me that I absolutely should give the necklace to her, but that she needed to tell me it in private. Gentleman that I was and am, I couldn't stand to see a woman so upset, and not at least give her a chance.

So, I let her lead me to the back room, and ten minutes later, I came out and agreed that I could not sell the necklace. I wrapped it up and gave it to the tomboy, and she would later go on to be your beautiful Grandma Betty, Keith-boy, and you can see her wearing that necklace in the picture up on the mantle, god rest her soul. As for what she told me? Well, boys, a story has gotta have some mysteries." (For, you see, his grandson Keith would always listen with us.)

Normally, this would be the end of the story for us, but one year, Keith wasn't with us, and he stumbled at the end of the story. Like always, we pressured him to tell us what she said, but this time, to our surprise, he relented.

"Okay, okay, but you have to promise to never reveal this story to the outside world, and that includes Keith."

After crossing our hearts and swearing and making affirmations, we all crowded in to hear Old Man Robert's secret conclusion, finally.

"What did she say? What did she say?"

"Well, boys, she actually didn't say a word. In complete silence, she undid my pants, and proceeded to give me the greatest blowjob of all time. As I finished in her mouth, I knew I had met my soul mate." 

Thoughts on Being Single

I don't miss dating. For the most part, I vastly prefer the pleasures of living a self-absorbed life a lot more than trying to deal with romance and love. I'm obsessed with myself, and dating is mostly distractions and caring about other people. I don't miss sex. I don't miss anniversaries or parties or dances. I don't miss presents or kisses or the touch of another human.

Sometimes, I do miss You.

I have a female friend who occasionally sends me pictures of her, with doodles of penises in her hand. I never know what to think of those pics. I feel like if I sent people pictures of Me fingering doodle vaginas, that would be creepy.

Flowing with the Music

Last night I was laying in bed, as per usual, thinking crazy thoughts about nothing. However, this time, there was this absolutely enchanting song playing. The bass was rich and resonant, rolling across not just the soundscape, but my very understanding of what bass could be. As I grew aware of the song, I ceased all thought and lost myself to it, letting my conception of identity, of physicality, drift away. Naturally, I lost my perception of time as well, and I cannot recall the length of the experience. Regardless of the time spent, it encapsulated what it needed to. Well, until stubborn little thoughts began to worm their way into existence. I started to wonder about the name of the song, and about the name of the author of such a piece. This evolved into more petty and immediate physical concerns- what speakers was I using to play this song? What platform had chosen it for me? Of course, at the moment I had the questions, the music ceased completely, and I remembered that I was laying in bed at night and it was completely silent in my room.

Old Old Old Old Old

I bet you that Hunter S. Thompson scrapped thousands of pages of whiny, needlessly self-indulgent bullshit while writing what he did. Same goes to Mark Twain, George Carlin, Kurt Vonnegut, David Foster Wallace, Voltaire and so on and so forth. The key theme here being satire, of course. Or being rich and white. One of those two. I already tried the former, should really get to work on the latter.

Amphetamines

You.

You think a little pill will help?

That forced happiness will pay off?

It has never worked for anyone.

Why would you be special?

You.

You never listened to a word I said.

I'm a pretty dumb guy by myself.

But I'm not alone.

It's not Me that You're ignoring.

But the million others just like

You.

Have you ever sucked dick for weed?

Are you happy now?

Admittedly not business. I just want to know. You said you were miserable. Are you happy now? Did anything good come out of this? 

Okay, admittedly, yeah. That is about exactly how I expected you to respond. 

I'm sure you're plenty happy. It was a stupid question on my part. 

I'm glad to hear that everything is going so well for you.

Things really haven't been all that great for me since the breakup. After I lost my job, the apartment went soon after. Then my dog died and my house blew up. I was reduced to sucking dick for crack, but then the dicks blew up too. 

What did I even do to you? What makes me so unbearably awful?

You Don't Always Have to Get the Joke

Hillary Clinton reminds me of my ex-girlfriend.

HRC: I went to the oppressors and told them "Cut it out!"

Press: Aren't you worried about hypocrisy? You're on the board of directors for Wal-Mart.

HRC: I fail to see how that's relevant.

Press: Well, just, you're quite literally in bed with the same thing you just claimed to be against. We can literally see him thrusting in and out of you right now.

HRC: I fail to see how that's relevant.

Press: Oh, for fuck's sake, couldn't you at least avoid signing that paperwork right now?

HRC: What paperwork?

Press: You are literally holding in your hand a new policy approving cutting Wal-Mart wages so low that most of the employees will need to go on welfare.

HRC: Get your shit together, poor people.

Press: This is effectively a subsidy for billionaires. It goes against everything you claim to stand for. You can't just talk about championing ideologies of morality while simultaneously blatantly debasing them.

HRC: Walmart. Employees. Get. Your. Shit. Together. I'm an intersectional feminist. Interview over!

I plagiarized this from the internet and I don't know who I stole it from.

You are the type of hypercritical and cynical "good-time-genocide" sort of guy that I go out of my way to avoid dealing with in real life.

Like me, you are also brave in that it's a really tough thing to be able to anonymously correct someone's opinion over the internet. That guy who you so bravely corrected will hang his head in shame for the rest of his life.

I call it reddit-syndrome. You become so accustomed to dishing out minor corrections all the time on the internet because for some reason it makes you feel good to be correct. You don't do it in real life anymore because you realized people don't like to be around someone who does that. However on the internet there's an endless supply of people and opinions to "correct".

Good guy You.

The Mystery of Turtle Cove

There's always been something mysterious and seductive about a secluded beach. Thick fog rolling across the ocean and curling up the sand, before exploding into a heavy blanket of soft whiteness that clouds your vision beyond your own reach. The crisp sea air, tangy with the sense of adventure, and also salt. The crunch of sand and pebbles underfoot, heart racing with anticipation as Turtle Cove appears in your view. The rocks of the cove practically exude sunlight, their warming glow contrasted by the rich deep blues of the sea and night sky. Looking around, the only movement is the ankle-high waves gently lapping and receding, rhythmic and dull. Some people say it used to be teeming with life here,  that it was impossible to get within sight of the cove without wading through the swarms of turtles that used it as a nesting ground. The name seemed obvious enough in that context, but whenever I stood there, I always wondered "what happened to all the turtles of Turtle Cove?"

Of course, Turtle Cove was not actually a cove. There was no rolling fog, no turtles had ever lived there, and the nearest ocean was over fifty miles away. I grew up in a suburb on the eastern edges of Los Angeles county, rows of identical two-story square houses having supplanted once-profitable orange groves. The community butted up against and splashed into two small canyons of quasi-developed nature. Starting from the local high school and armed with good directions, a swift walk could bring you to either canyon in about fifteen minutes. The larger of the two canyons was mostly occupied by a few thousand acres of playgrounds and parks, and a 250 acre man-made lake. The area was clean, safe, and organized. Paved, scrubbed and scrutinized, the biggest danger was getting hit by the cars driving along the multi-laned roads.

But the other canyon? It was something special. Small and practically hidden away, the land was criss-crossed with signs of detritus and decaying civilization. For whatever reason, every attempt at bringing the location into the 21st century seemed to fail and begin rotting away*. Rusted metal bars poked out of chunks of crumbling concrete at the oddest locations, and every road petered out into faint dirt pathways within a dozen meters of penetration.

Of course, the kids of the neighborhood loved it. There was a horse's hitching post at the entrance of our favorite route into the forest, which was strange considering the nearest stables were several towns over. I don't think I ever saw a single horse anywhere in the canyon. Occasionally a llama or two would be hitched up, but that was to be expected. Most of the time, we would all rush down a path that existed only in our collective muscle memory, eager to get to The Waterfall.

Upon reflection, I would call The Waterfall something like "bucolic" or "picturesque", something akin to one of the more interesting Rockwell paintings. At the time, all we cared about was that it was a load of fun. Set in a small clearing, the actual waterfall was only about fifteen feet high and overlooked a relatively narrow but surprisingly deep pond. I have no idea how many thousands of times we jumped from that waterfall, plunging into the ice-cold and murky water below.

However, there was something rather odd about the waterfall- its water source, or rather its lack of a source. There was no river or creek that fed into or out of the pond, and yet the water was never stagnant, never grown over with moss. 

*There is one minor exception to this. Deep within the thickest part of the forest, there was a small building. I would call it a shack, but it was easily the newest and most modern looking thing there. Everybody stayed away from it, but that's a story for a different time.

Sexual Assault is Always Funny

On Rape and Humor: Why Rape Jokes can be Funny

The rape joke is a complicated topic to tackle, and approaching it carelessly can result in a rather ugly brouhaha. However, a well-timed sexual assault reference can also bring a bit of excitement and laughter to the room, as everyone heartily commiserates on the humor inherent in horrific tragedies. Rape jokes can be fun because it's a painful event and a socially taboo issue that peeks into the deepest and darkest crevasses of the human experience. It's not uncommon for people in heartbreakingly tragic situations to develop a sense of humor about it, so much so that there's a popular term for it- Gallows Humor.

By discussing something in a humorous manner, we can work to devalue its hold over those who have to deal with its very real ramifications. In fact, this is actually the basis for “exposure therapy”, a rather effective way of treating PTSD, quite probably the single biggest concern when dealing with rape victims. In essence, avoiding rape jokes only serves to fetishize rape, turning it into something quasi-sacred and the victims as something other than human. Rape jokes allow a victim to move beyond being just a victim, and return to being an ordinary person who can exist beyond a single moment, to allow them to fight having that moment define them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_therapy

In addition to that, as a bonus point of benefit, rape jokes can actually work as a way to address other relevant issues. Take, for example, this comic.

The "dickwolves" in this comic are not representative or supportive of any sort of rape culture in any way. Rape is used as a punchline, but only as a way to demonstrate the depravity of the characters involved in the scene. If one were to try to assume that the comic is pro-rape, it stops making sense as a joke. The joke relies on a sense of understanding that the hero’s callousness is morally reprehensible. There could be nothing worse than being raped by dickwolves, and yet the hero won’t take a second out of his day to help somebody beyond the bare minimum expectations. It is made aggressively clear that we, as the audience, are expected to be laughing at the fact that we would personally never do something like that, as the shocking actions are as repulsive a thing one could imagine.

My Time as a Professional Chef

You have one pasta on the menu with every fucking kind of seafood on the menu, and you got to be making it all day.

A Conversation with You

"Does chocolate help?"

"How would chocolate help? It's candy, not magical creativity food!"

"You know, the sensation? Evoke your brain to start thinking about things."

"What are you expecting me to think about? Going to a chocolate shop? I'm writing a goddamn horror novel."

"You could write about a spooky chocolate monster or something! The fudginator!"

"That sounds like a terrible wrestling gimmick or a bad episode of Scooby-Doo."

"Okay, okay. We want some serious, something really dark and gritty. How about an evil candy factory?"

"How would a chocolate factory end up evil? 'Mwuahaha. We've put nuts in the plain chocolate!'"

"Obviously the factory is just a front for dark secrets!"

"So... Saw meets Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Isn't that just Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?"

"Shit."

Titles

My friend the Lizard Person: A Tale of Love in the Face of an Attempt at Global Usurpation by the Reptilian Forces

God Mode: How to Live a Life of Success and Happiness through Cheat Codes

The Tawdry Turnip

My Yoga Pants are a Metaphor for Love

The Loneliest Lagomorph and The Pestilent Plague of the Malicious Myxo

Tea-time with myself: Memories of a life lived during refreshment breaks

T-Rans: The Tremendous Tale of a Transgendered Tyrannosaurus Rex's Trans-Atlantic Trials, Travels and Tribulations

Poems about Butts

So You've Just Been Decapitated: A Guide for Dealing with Terminal Stress

Online Shipping is Free with the purchase of Online Shipping

The Man in the High Castle, but, like, with weed instead of Nazis

Chalupa Joe and the Case of the Missing Chalupas

Chalupa Joe II: Attack of the Chalupacabra

Moving in Slow Motion: Why Athletics are Necessary

Middle-Class Cisgendered White Male: A tale of being oppressed in America

Do Rhetorical Questions Belong as Book Titles?

Yes!

Fuck Me Harder, Daddy: An Exploration of Michel Foulcault and Power Dynamics

My Immortal 2: I don't have the rights to the original

Literally Just a Dream

I had a dream about you last night. An oddly specific one.

I was living peacefully. Happy. Life wasn’t perfect, but it was decent enough. But, for whatever reason, you decided that simply leaving my life wasn’t enough. You persisted in publicly mocking me. For whatever reason, I was unsure myself, your derision took on a life of its own. It grew and spread, wormed its way into my life. I couldn’t go out in public, I couldn’t even leave the house, because the specter seemed to hang over everything I did.

Why would it?

One of the biggest lies told to children: "It gets better."

No, it doesn't. Life is shit, and it stays shit. If anything, it only gets shittier, and you just lose the will to keep fighting. You just sort of flop, give up, and say "I guess this is what life is."

Your parents liked to snort crank and fuck in the back of an old civic

Of course, the key high-profile compositional distinction between the works indubitably lies in the national and lingual preferences of the authors. Even translated into English, Proust's prose flows with a delicate yet quintessential French-ness, floating along like a feather caught in a draft, pleasantly at first, but gradually worn into a threadbare skeleton that ultimately collapses in on itself by merit of its own faint weight and flight duration. Meanwhile Joyce's thick Irish brogue seeps into a nigh-incomprehensible mishmash of onomatopoeic nightmares and deliberate subversions of every major trope in both English literature and the language itself.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, this presents a rich breeding ground for points of comparison and contention, as both manage to press up against the boundaries of excessive and unbearable in their respective manners.

The authors didn't let their similarities stop there, either. Both left the works in a tragically incomplete manner, though it becomes easy for one to imagine when such colossally nontraditional works would have a frame of reference under which we could even possibly determine whether they were properly finished.    

Some animals were born more equal than others

It feels like if I kept writing until I died, it would never be enough to express everything I want to say. For example: the word "fungible". I would love to have an opportunity to use "fungible" in my writing, but when would I ever have an organic opportunity to work it into the dialogue? I don't write about economics or finance, and for good reason. Never take financial advice from a writer. I'd have to come up with some thinly-veiled excuse to shoehorn it in awkwardly.

I tried interpretive dance for self-expression, too. That's probably the most interesting sentence ever written about interpretive dance, and I still fall asleep every time I read it back to myself.

The self is found in the expression of kinesthetics. A flash of limbs. Grunts and thrusts. The mind is clear, the goal precise. Assault, penetrate, and barrage. Unrelenting. Showing no forgiveness and no mercy. Pure, unfiltered hatred. Pure, unfiltered love. Every reflex honed to respond to the slightest twitch, every nerve on fire with an ache to connect, to control and dominate.

At Least it Was There

She looked deeply into his eyes. Limpid pools of black ichor, eternity and nothing.

“I really just don’t care.” “Go to hell.” “I’m already there.” “What right do you have to say anything about pain?” “At least I’m honest.” “Why would I ever care about that?" "You’ll see some day.”

And he did see.

A thoughtful analysis of Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" in relation to James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake"

Fuck off. I don’t know a thing about those slag-arses. Thud bonk bonk splat. It was on the eve of the first fortnight of flibbertigibbets that the young man found himself in the fledging strokes of a bildungsroman. He dies. The end. Bratta tat tat tat uomph spelling this sentence backwards sdrawkcab ecnetnes siht gnilles hpmou tat tat tat attab.

It’s not a satire. I just hate you and think you don’t deserve better. You want this? It’s yours, free of charge. A gift to the world. Savor it.

Friendly Advice

Oh you have some constructive criticism? Blow it out your ass.

Post-ironic gritty hyperrealism? Simple blue-collar sincerity? Neo-postmodern meta-exploration? 

The context? Go fuck yourself.

Knock-off Don Reckless. Performers should be blind. Audience antagonism.

Prove it.

Old Tin-Ear and the Christmas Weekend Jam Band

I have a super power. It's one nobody has ever thought of before as a super power. People get paid hundreds of dollars an hour to pretend they have it.

Nobody likes a whiner. I do. Pretty fucking amazing power, I know. Bet your jaw just dropped.

Writers have the responsibility to be an asshole to the people who trust them the most.

Maybe it's just an excuse. Maybe my problem is the only time that I'm ever happy is in the thick of a fight.

Who the fuck even says this kind of shit? 

I invented a new writing style the other day. I call it nouveaux-hyper-minimalism. 

I've always sort of resented the phrase "write what you know."

I can’t get the taste of bile out of my mouth

I can’t get the taste of bile out of my mouth

Smile and then you're smiling

Hello again. This comes and goes. You know the drill. See you when I see you. I guarantee nothing and plan to under-deliver.