1:48 AM - 30,650. Spent the evening recording music rather than writing. First time I’ve done that in a number of years, and it was nice to change pace, though the word count suffers greatly as a result.
2:05 AM - 30,750. Don’t have the fiction gears turning tonight. Can’t even decide when to start paragraphs and I am completely befuddled by comma placement to an extreme degree. It’s beyond turning off the internal censor at this point; words just won’t come.
2:53 AM - 31,285. And now I really don’t want the novel to be about dimension-hopping ghost-zombies. No, now I am much more interested in the adventures of the doctors Lillincully and Quacksalver. As it turns out, my very own Dr. Heim has revealed his part in assisting in the two doctor’s Sonic Room experiments. THE PLOT THICKENS!!!
3:17 AM - 31,522. Just guessed on a word, hypothecation, only to find that it is indeed an actual word, though not at all the same thing, in meaning, that I was hoping.
3:35 AM - 31,669. Must. Take. Break. From. Writing.
11.26.2009
Day Twenty-four
12:20 AM - 28,330.Predator reference: check. Again, I wrote myself into a situation wherein “down the hall” is grotesquely overused.
12:52 AM - 29,036. Really got up a good head of steam for that section there. Time for a change of scenery, from the ever-more-welcoming locale of Yellowhouse to the depths of the dingy apartment I’ve called home for the last three years. Still more writing to be done this night, or morning, or whatever, but for now a short break.
1:48 AM - 29,036. Back at the apartment and I realize now I’ve left my headphones (for special music) at Yellowhouse. But I do have a good supply of bread for toasting and Nutella for spreading.
2:03 AM - 29,331. Maybe, just now, the most bizarre sentence of the book was created. Behold: This seemed curious to him, and, though his knowledge of space-based physics was rudimentary at best, he chalked this incongruence up to the un-reality he hypothesized he was trapped in.
2:28 AM - 30,007. Getting close to the point where I should be wrapping up the second section of the novel and returning to the first person narrative I so love, but it still feels a long way off. I’m exactly 10,001 words behind the quota for today, which is terrible. Oh how I wish for the whimsical days of the first week, where I was always at least a day ahead. No matter, a few more nights of work like this and maybe I have a chance at pulling this out.
2:49 AM - 30,453. Finding it difficult to explain music with text. How to you describe the sound of a guitar without saying it sounds like a guitar? This seems like a good exercise, to try and duplicate with narration the tones and feel of music. Too bad I don’t have the time, with this project, to figure out the best way to do so.
3:03 AM - 30,650. Hit a wall. Tied up a lengthy, unplanned section that was fun to write, but now I’m back into the well-mapped territory that hasn’t peaked my interest as of late. I guess I could discard the prescribed plot an do something more exciting, but I feel obligated to the story, to tell it the way I know it needs to be told. Maybe I’ll just have Dr. Lillincully or Quacksalver appear whenever I need to get out of a rut. Seems to have worked so far.
12:52 AM - 29,036. Really got up a good head of steam for that section there. Time for a change of scenery, from the ever-more-welcoming locale of Yellowhouse to the depths of the dingy apartment I’ve called home for the last three years. Still more writing to be done this night, or morning, or whatever, but for now a short break.
1:48 AM - 29,036. Back at the apartment and I realize now I’ve left my headphones (for special music) at Yellowhouse. But I do have a good supply of bread for toasting and Nutella for spreading.
2:03 AM - 29,331. Maybe, just now, the most bizarre sentence of the book was created. Behold: This seemed curious to him, and, though his knowledge of space-based physics was rudimentary at best, he chalked this incongruence up to the un-reality he hypothesized he was trapped in.
2:28 AM - 30,007. Getting close to the point where I should be wrapping up the second section of the novel and returning to the first person narrative I so love, but it still feels a long way off. I’m exactly 10,001 words behind the quota for today, which is terrible. Oh how I wish for the whimsical days of the first week, where I was always at least a day ahead. No matter, a few more nights of work like this and maybe I have a chance at pulling this out.
2:49 AM - 30,453. Finding it difficult to explain music with text. How to you describe the sound of a guitar without saying it sounds like a guitar? This seems like a good exercise, to try and duplicate with narration the tones and feel of music. Too bad I don’t have the time, with this project, to figure out the best way to do so.
3:03 AM - 30,650. Hit a wall. Tied up a lengthy, unplanned section that was fun to write, but now I’m back into the well-mapped territory that hasn’t peaked my interest as of late. I guess I could discard the prescribed plot an do something more exciting, but I feel obligated to the story, to tell it the way I know it needs to be told. Maybe I’ll just have Dr. Lillincully or Quacksalver appear whenever I need to get out of a rut. Seems to have worked so far.
Day Twenty-three
5:01 PM - 27,722. Totally high on paint fumes from a four hour painting session and it’s time to step it up. High gear, and whatnot. I’m finding that the more planning I do the less interested I am in the actual writing. Once I know where the story is going and how it will end, I lose that excitement that comes from trying to figure everything out.
11:45 PM - 27,741. hi*ball number nine: lemon-lime.
11:45 PM - 27,741. hi*ball number nine: lemon-lime.
Day Twenty-one
12:16 AM - 26,368. Going to try to go back to that section I skipped yesterday, finish it up.
12:44 AM - 26,626. Well, patched up that missing segment, mostly, though it took far too long. Very difficult for me to go back when the motivation lies in the present/
1:29 AM - 27,722. A good number to stop on, I think. Very glad to have Dr. Lillincully on board the character ship. He makes it possible to include page-eating expositional ramblings, because that’s what he does. And he does it well.
12:44 AM - 26,626. Well, patched up that missing segment, mostly, though it took far too long. Very difficult for me to go back when the motivation lies in the present/
1:29 AM - 27,722. A good number to stop on, I think. Very glad to have Dr. Lillincully on board the character ship. He makes it possible to include page-eating expositional ramblings, because that’s what he does. And he does it well.
11.21.2009
Day Twenty
12:13 AM - 25,535. Made the mistake of skipping over a small portion of the story to get to something that should be easier to write. Basically, I’m moving past a dramatic, fog-enshrouded chase scene to a trans-cosmic exploratory adventure. Because those, the adventures, are much easier to write. At least right now, compared to the chase scene. I say this is a mistake because the chances of going back and writing the chase scene are slim to none.
12:32 AM - 25,824. The Unified Back Porch Dog Door Hypothesis Number Three-Eight-Three-Four-Nine-Two-Four? Of course! Why haven’t I come to this sooner?
12:48 AM - 26,191. Might have to be done for the night, due to the insanity brewing in chapter fourteen. Seriously, I don’t know what is going on in my own book. Somehow the infamous Dr. Edward P. Lillincully has made an appearance, whisking a main character off on a leisurely cosmic tour.
11:15 AM -26,200.
12:32 AM - 25,824. The Unified Back Porch Dog Door Hypothesis Number Three-Eight-Three-Four-Nine-Two-Four? Of course! Why haven’t I come to this sooner?
12:48 AM - 26,191. Might have to be done for the night, due to the insanity brewing in chapter fourteen. Seriously, I don’t know what is going on in my own book. Somehow the infamous Dr. Edward P. Lillincully has made an appearance, whisking a main character off on a leisurely cosmic tour.
11:15 AM -26,200.
Day Nineteen
11:46 PM - 25,041. By this point I don’t even remember writing the beginning of the novel. In fact, I really can’t recall the first 20,000 words whatsoever. I wonder if this ever happens to Stephen King...
11.18.2009
Day Seventeen
3:18 PM - 22,370. hi*ball number eight: wild berry. 5,969 words behind, partly by choice, mostly be necessity. Kinda hard to deal with moving, schooling, working, and rehersaling (band), but I guess that’s the point. The goal for today is 3,000 words...not likely, but I’ll remain as positive as possible.
3:35 PM - 22,565. Picked up a little trick, just now, to ease the pressure: I switched off the word count at the bottom of the document. Works, so far, to get the pace going.
11:58 PM - 22,567. Yeah, probably not making it to 3,000 today.
3:35 PM - 22,565. Picked up a little trick, just now, to ease the pressure: I switched off the word count at the bottom of the document. Works, so far, to get the pace going.
11:58 PM - 22,567. Yeah, probably not making it to 3,000 today.
Day Sixteen
12:15 AM - 22,123. Aliens reference: check. Once again, a good number to stop on.
1:55 PM - 22,123. Reading over what was written last night, having no recollection of those words.
2:20 PM - 22,369. Now one of the characters, the one who started to talk like Gandalf all those thousands of words ago, yeah, now he’s talking like Alan West’s Bruce Wayne from the original Batman show. Why? Because ‘old chum’ is the perfect way to address folks these days. Yeah.
1:55 PM - 22,123. Reading over what was written last night, having no recollection of those words.
2:20 PM - 22,369. Now one of the characters, the one who started to talk like Gandalf all those thousands of words ago, yeah, now he’s talking like Alan West’s Bruce Wayne from the original Batman show. Why? Because ‘old chum’ is the perfect way to address folks these days. Yeah.
Day Fifteen
1:08 AM - 20,700. Unintentional hiatus yesterday. While I am a little worried to be so far behind, I am glad to have had a break from the novel for a while.
1:38 AM - 21,121. Feels like a good number to stop on for the evening, what with all the ones and twos.
11:19 PM - 21,121. It begins, with another evening of late night wording.
11:37 PM 21,433. Ghostbusters reference: check.
1:38 AM - 21,121. Feels like a good number to stop on for the evening, what with all the ones and twos.
11:19 PM - 21,121. It begins, with another evening of late night wording.
11:37 PM 21,433. Ghostbusters reference: check.
Day Fourteen
1:19 AM - 20,491. Not writing on day thirteen felt good.
1:36 AM 0 20,683. Would really like to go on, but I’m getting old and as a result am less able to stay up ridiculously late. Suck.
1:36 AM 0 20,683. Would really like to go on, but I’m getting old and as a result am less able to stay up ridiculously late. Suck.
11.13.2009
Day Twelve
3:47 PM - 20,061. hi*ball number seven: orange.
4:34 PM - 20,366. Ghostbusters reference: check “and the sky was black as sac-cloth.” Really not on my game today; these last 305 words were painful. I think maybe taking a break from the novel for a whole day every few days or so should be a requirement.
4:34 PM - 20,366. Ghostbusters reference: check “and the sky was black as sac-cloth.” Really not on my game today; these last 305 words were painful. I think maybe taking a break from the novel for a whole day every few days or so should be a requirement.
Day Eleven
12:30 PM - 18,011. Giddyup.
12:47 PM - 18,358. Passed today’s quota on a roll, but must pause for class. It’s become
frustrating, this start-stop pace. How nice it would be to have continuous writing time whenever I pleased. Also: no idea whatsoever what tense I’m writing in. Don’t really care anymore, either.
2:15 PM - 18,682. Wrote those last words all stealthy in class. Longhand, too. I feel like I’m having a hard time finding my voice, or using what voice I think I have. Something about writing something so long that makes me switch over to autopilot; a majority of this novel doesn’t features the style of writing I think I’ve developed in other pieces. And thus, the self-doubt begins. Side note: Think I’ve cracked the whole tense issue, or at least why I’m so much more comfortable writing in first person. In first the reader automatically identifies with the narrator, which makes my job easier as I don’t have to work as hard to establish that reader-character connection; the reader essentially is the narrator. In third, however, the reader has more of a choice with whom to identify. This sucks, because then I have to actually make the characters a) likable and b) identifiable, which are sort of the same thing. Basically, the characters need (just slightly) more depth than they do in first person. Probably my biggest weakness is creating three-dimensional characters, and so far no one in the novel is remotely close to that standard. Everyone’s a tool and the plot is driving the story more than the characters. Dab.
5:09 PM - 19,000. hi*ball number six: lemon-lime. Just started the twelfth chapter, relieved to be done with Paxtonia. Wondering, too, how it can be that nearly every remix of a White Zombie song is better than the original? I don’t think White Zombie completely sucks (indeed, I am fond of several of their songs), but the remix album Supersexy Swinging Sounds is much more listenable than any individual WZ album. Mostly. At least the first half, anyway. Okay, so maybe just the first three songs. The rest is kinda rubbish.
5:24 PM - 19,119. Ghostbusters reference: check. That cup of coffee I just drank, yeah, not helping me focus on the writing, though it has fueled more than a few pacing sessions through the house.
5:29 PM - 19,199. Star Wars reference: check.
5:30 PM - 19,204. Lord of the Rings reference: check. “Time? What time is there?”
6:14 PM - 20,061. Passed tomorrow’s quota fifty-eight words ago. Wish I could get some more done tonight, as at some point tomorrow I have to attend to several school assignments and I’d like to have a comfortable lead on my quota for Friday. Regardless, the novel’s spilling over onto its forty-first page. Whoa.
12:47 PM - 18,358. Passed today’s quota on a roll, but must pause for class. It’s become
frustrating, this start-stop pace. How nice it would be to have continuous writing time whenever I pleased. Also: no idea whatsoever what tense I’m writing in. Don’t really care anymore, either.
2:15 PM - 18,682. Wrote those last words all stealthy in class. Longhand, too. I feel like I’m having a hard time finding my voice, or using what voice I think I have. Something about writing something so long that makes me switch over to autopilot; a majority of this novel doesn’t features the style of writing I think I’ve developed in other pieces. And thus, the self-doubt begins. Side note: Think I’ve cracked the whole tense issue, or at least why I’m so much more comfortable writing in first person. In first the reader automatically identifies with the narrator, which makes my job easier as I don’t have to work as hard to establish that reader-character connection; the reader essentially is the narrator. In third, however, the reader has more of a choice with whom to identify. This sucks, because then I have to actually make the characters a) likable and b) identifiable, which are sort of the same thing. Basically, the characters need (just slightly) more depth than they do in first person. Probably my biggest weakness is creating three-dimensional characters, and so far no one in the novel is remotely close to that standard. Everyone’s a tool and the plot is driving the story more than the characters. Dab.
5:09 PM - 19,000. hi*ball number six: lemon-lime. Just started the twelfth chapter, relieved to be done with Paxtonia. Wondering, too, how it can be that nearly every remix of a White Zombie song is better than the original? I don’t think White Zombie completely sucks (indeed, I am fond of several of their songs), but the remix album Supersexy Swinging Sounds is much more listenable than any individual WZ album. Mostly. At least the first half, anyway. Okay, so maybe just the first three songs. The rest is kinda rubbish.
5:24 PM - 19,119. Ghostbusters reference: check. That cup of coffee I just drank, yeah, not helping me focus on the writing, though it has fueled more than a few pacing sessions through the house.
5:29 PM - 19,199. Star Wars reference: check.
5:30 PM - 19,204. Lord of the Rings reference: check. “Time? What time is there?”
6:14 PM - 20,061. Passed tomorrow’s quota fifty-eight words ago. Wish I could get some more done tonight, as at some point tomorrow I have to attend to several school assignments and I’d like to have a comfortable lead on my quota for Friday. Regardless, the novel’s spilling over onto its forty-first page. Whoa.
11.10.2009
Day Ten
3:24 PM - 16,035. hi*ball number five: orange. Realizing now how much I failed on my goals for the weekend. Thought I’d be to this point two days ago...
4:08 PM - 16,391. Jurassic Park reference: check. Slow going. Would much rather nap than write, but now is not the time for naps!
4:33 PM - 16,702. Passed today’s quota with the word ‘tarnation.’ As in, “what in tarnation is that corpse doing walking about?” Yes, zombies. They were unavoidable.
4:47 PM - 16,955. Rambo reference: check.
5:34 PM - 17,645. Done with chapter ten, which, at seven-and-a-half pages, is the longest yet. The last four hundred or so words, an action scene, just flew onto the page. Writing action is easy. Writing comprehensible action, now that’s something else. Gotta remember that guns need reloading and all. And phasers, they probably need fresh batteries or something like that.
6:29 PM - 18,011. The last three hundred and fifty-seven words did not fly onto the page. Break time, for exercise purposes. And to rest my ears, which have been punished by maximal volume for just over three hours now.
4:08 PM - 16,391. Jurassic Park reference: check. Slow going. Would much rather nap than write, but now is not the time for naps!
4:33 PM - 16,702. Passed today’s quota with the word ‘tarnation.’ As in, “what in tarnation is that corpse doing walking about?” Yes, zombies. They were unavoidable.
4:47 PM - 16,955. Rambo reference: check.
5:34 PM - 17,645. Done with chapter ten, which, at seven-and-a-half pages, is the longest yet. The last four hundred or so words, an action scene, just flew onto the page. Writing action is easy. Writing comprehensible action, now that’s something else. Gotta remember that guns need reloading and all. And phasers, they probably need fresh batteries or something like that.
6:29 PM - 18,011. The last three hundred and fifty-seven words did not fly onto the page. Break time, for exercise purposes. And to rest my ears, which have been punished by maximal volume for just over three hours now.
Day Nine
11:16 AM - 13,661. Gotta do some work on this piece today, to stay ahead. Wish I had coffee.
11:58 AM - 14,157. Seems like every time I get up to speed, I’m derailed by the internet. This time, Wikipedia articles on New York City.
4:16 PM - 14,157. Back at Yellowhouse. hi*ball number four: lemon-lime. Added bonus: Hershey’s w/almonds. Victory is in sight.
5:12 PM - 14,406. Much distraction with planning and research (Bill Paxton characters), but now the Melvins are blasting forth with great vigor and volume and all is well in the novel-writing world. Wrote maybe the most ridiculous line yet: --Correct, my boy,-- Heim interrupted, telepathically...
5:56 PM - 15,035. Enter Paxtonia. Achieved today’s quota and still going strong. Wish there were more of those Sun Chips I was eating earlier. Garden Salsa, of course. Accept no substitutes.
6:38 PM - 15,691. Aliens reference: check.
7:00 PM - 16,035. Done for the evening. Need to do something exercise-like or risk total protonic reversal.
11:58 AM - 14,157. Seems like every time I get up to speed, I’m derailed by the internet. This time, Wikipedia articles on New York City.
4:16 PM - 14,157. Back at Yellowhouse. hi*ball number four: lemon-lime. Added bonus: Hershey’s w/almonds. Victory is in sight.
5:12 PM - 14,406. Much distraction with planning and research (Bill Paxton characters), but now the Melvins are blasting forth with great vigor and volume and all is well in the novel-writing world. Wrote maybe the most ridiculous line yet: --Correct, my boy,-- Heim interrupted, telepathically...
5:56 PM - 15,035. Enter Paxtonia. Achieved today’s quota and still going strong. Wish there were more of those Sun Chips I was eating earlier. Garden Salsa, of course. Accept no substitutes.
6:38 PM - 15,691. Aliens reference: check.
7:00 PM - 16,035. Done for the evening. Need to do something exercise-like or risk total protonic reversal.
11.09.2009
Day Eight
12:08 AM - 12,515. So Day Seven never really happened. Bummer. Thought I could really get ahead of things here. Guess I’ll just burn more of that midnight oil I found in the closet. hi*ball number two: orange.
12:21 AM - 12,618. Chose a bad time to deal with the logistics of the Transdimensional Transportation Apparatus. Too tired really to make much sense of how it works.
12:39 AM - 12,748. Seinfeld reference: check.
12:57 AM - 12,896. How is it that a you can be unfazed by a phaser? The f/z swap confuses me, concerns me. One is clearly a cooler spelling than the other. But which is it? You be the judge, and I will then judge you based on your verdict.
1:43 AM - 13,341. Ugh. hi*ball completely ineffective. Also, made the mistake of taking the laptop to bed. Literally falling asleep every twenty-five words. Made today’s quota though, at least I have that.
1:06 PM - 13,341. Really hate spelling ‘specter.’ Should be spectre, but the spellcheck’ll drive me crazy for with all the red underlines.
1:12 PM - 13,383. hi*ball number three: orange.
1:18 PM - 13,489. Ghostbusters reference: check.
1:26 PM - 13,661. Done for the afternoon, unfortunately.
12:21 AM - 12,618. Chose a bad time to deal with the logistics of the Transdimensional Transportation Apparatus. Too tired really to make much sense of how it works.
12:39 AM - 12,748. Seinfeld reference: check.
12:57 AM - 12,896. How is it that a you can be unfazed by a phaser? The f/z swap confuses me, concerns me. One is clearly a cooler spelling than the other. But which is it? You be the judge, and I will then judge you based on your verdict.
1:43 AM - 13,341. Ugh. hi*ball completely ineffective. Also, made the mistake of taking the laptop to bed. Literally falling asleep every twenty-five words. Made today’s quota though, at least I have that.
1:06 PM - 13,341. Really hate spelling ‘specter.’ Should be spectre, but the spellcheck’ll drive me crazy for with all the red underlines.
1:12 PM - 13,383. hi*ball number three: orange.
1:18 PM - 13,489. Ghostbusters reference: check.
1:26 PM - 13,661. Done for the afternoon, unfortunately.
11.08.2009
Day Six
12:19 AM - 9,146. Had to trim off a word from the last sentence. For aesthetic purposes, because if Kirk means nothing to you then Captain Kirk is a waste of two words instead of one. Trying to hit 9,500 before bed...
12:41 Am - 9,525. No disintegrations. Except, maybe, when the Time Displacement Generator is involved.
12:54 AM - 9,708. Can’t even read the words on the screen. Eyes just watering and not working at all. Think I’m averaging ten words per minute, or something terrible like that. Latenight math was never my thing.
9:04 AM - 9,708. On the bus. Started carrying a Fisher space pen in my pocket at all times now. I like the idea that I can be prepared any sort of ink-based adventure, but I’m also all too aware the the ink cartridge is pressurized and just waiting to explode in my favorite pair of pants. Living dangerously, eh?
9:35 AM - 10,006. Four words past today’s quota, and I plan on devoting much of the night to finishing this first segment of the book. If I could get to 15,000 I’d be very pleased.
11:36 AM - 10,084. Had to slip a new paragraph in before shifting focus to some essay for school. At twenty pages now. Twenty pages of 11.5 Times New Roman with 1.5 line spacing. Easily the longest single piece of fiction I have ever written, and I’m only getting started. So far I haven’t run into any troubles, and have not felt any sense of dread or creeping doom. Instead, I’ve just been very motivated. But how long can I maintain?
1:00 PM - 10,213. Trying to throw down some key dialogue before/during class. Got all my schoolwork out of the way for the weekend, so I’m extending my probably ridiculously over-optimistic goal to 18,000 by Monday morning.
1:11 PM - 10,348. Class dismissed early. Time to sprint to the bus stop, ride home, make a pbj and head over to Yellowhouse, to really open the fictive floodgates. Maybe there’s a stop at the grocery store, for Nutella, thrown in there too.
1:38 PM - 10,348. On the bus, the computer’s battery dying quickly, and I can’t shake the feeling that one of the characters is speaking like David Bowie. His accent, I mean. Or inflection, whichever.
1:45 PM - 10,502. Star Wars reference: check. “You may fire when ready.”
2:00 PM - 10,662. Done with part one, it would seem. Thought maybe I could stretch it out to 15,000, but it was having none of that. Probably start in on part three next, as I’m not entirely sure what to do with part two yet.
3:45 PM - 10,666. Had to add those four words just now. Currently engaged in a battle to hash out the details of part two. At Yellowhouse, but unable to enjoy solitude or painful volumes due to the others here, working on the kitchen. First hi*ball consumed, this one lemon-lime. Got three more in the fridge, should I need them tonight.
4:23 PM - 10,727. Been working away on the outline for part two and the current chapter and as a result, not getting many words down. This second part, it switches from first-person to third-person, which is throwing off my rhythm pretty hard. It feels like I’m starting over. This depresses me.
5:11 PM - 11,161. Just wrote the word ‘beautiful’ a second before it was used as a lyric in the song that’s playing. Weird. Also, this tense-shift is driving me crazy. It feels so wrong, third-person past, after so much first-person present.
5:55 PM - 11,622. Spinal Tap reference: check.
6:12 PM - 12,007. Well past tomorrow’s quota and I’m finally getting the hang of this new tense. Gorillaz at full volume (more importantly, full bass) in the empty, wooden-floored house is amazing. Such resonance.
6:23 PM - 12,135. Down the hallway, again!
6:24 PM - 12,140. Loboratory? Perhaps where lobotomies are performed? Or would that be a lobototorium? So many o’s...
6:38 PM - 12,386. Calvin and Hobbes reference: check.
6:40 PM - 12,429. Elvis reference: check.
6:45 PM - 12,515. Done for the evening, at the end of chapter eight.
12:41 Am - 9,525. No disintegrations. Except, maybe, when the Time Displacement Generator is involved.
12:54 AM - 9,708. Can’t even read the words on the screen. Eyes just watering and not working at all. Think I’m averaging ten words per minute, or something terrible like that. Latenight math was never my thing.
9:04 AM - 9,708. On the bus. Started carrying a Fisher space pen in my pocket at all times now. I like the idea that I can be prepared any sort of ink-based adventure, but I’m also all too aware the the ink cartridge is pressurized and just waiting to explode in my favorite pair of pants. Living dangerously, eh?
9:35 AM - 10,006. Four words past today’s quota, and I plan on devoting much of the night to finishing this first segment of the book. If I could get to 15,000 I’d be very pleased.
11:36 AM - 10,084. Had to slip a new paragraph in before shifting focus to some essay for school. At twenty pages now. Twenty pages of 11.5 Times New Roman with 1.5 line spacing. Easily the longest single piece of fiction I have ever written, and I’m only getting started. So far I haven’t run into any troubles, and have not felt any sense of dread or creeping doom. Instead, I’ve just been very motivated. But how long can I maintain?
1:00 PM - 10,213. Trying to throw down some key dialogue before/during class. Got all my schoolwork out of the way for the weekend, so I’m extending my probably ridiculously over-optimistic goal to 18,000 by Monday morning.
1:11 PM - 10,348. Class dismissed early. Time to sprint to the bus stop, ride home, make a pbj and head over to Yellowhouse, to really open the fictive floodgates. Maybe there’s a stop at the grocery store, for Nutella, thrown in there too.
1:38 PM - 10,348. On the bus, the computer’s battery dying quickly, and I can’t shake the feeling that one of the characters is speaking like David Bowie. His accent, I mean. Or inflection, whichever.
1:45 PM - 10,502. Star Wars reference: check. “You may fire when ready.”
2:00 PM - 10,662. Done with part one, it would seem. Thought maybe I could stretch it out to 15,000, but it was having none of that. Probably start in on part three next, as I’m not entirely sure what to do with part two yet.
3:45 PM - 10,666. Had to add those four words just now. Currently engaged in a battle to hash out the details of part two. At Yellowhouse, but unable to enjoy solitude or painful volumes due to the others here, working on the kitchen. First hi*ball consumed, this one lemon-lime. Got three more in the fridge, should I need them tonight.
4:23 PM - 10,727. Been working away on the outline for part two and the current chapter and as a result, not getting many words down. This second part, it switches from first-person to third-person, which is throwing off my rhythm pretty hard. It feels like I’m starting over. This depresses me.
5:11 PM - 11,161. Just wrote the word ‘beautiful’ a second before it was used as a lyric in the song that’s playing. Weird. Also, this tense-shift is driving me crazy. It feels so wrong, third-person past, after so much first-person present.
5:55 PM - 11,622. Spinal Tap reference: check.
6:12 PM - 12,007. Well past tomorrow’s quota and I’m finally getting the hang of this new tense. Gorillaz at full volume (more importantly, full bass) in the empty, wooden-floored house is amazing. Such resonance.
6:23 PM - 12,135. Down the hallway, again!
6:24 PM - 12,140. Loboratory? Perhaps where lobotomies are performed? Or would that be a lobototorium? So many o’s...
6:38 PM - 12,386. Calvin and Hobbes reference: check.
6:40 PM - 12,429. Elvis reference: check.
6:45 PM - 12,515. Done for the evening, at the end of chapter eight.
11.06.2009
Day Five
3:27 PM - 7,177. Ouch. Yesterday was something of a disaster, word wise. Gotta get back on track.
3:57 PM - 7,469. On it, again. Took a while to get the engine running, but now it’s full steam ahead. Shooting for 10,000 by the end of the day. I’ve broken the novel down into three parts and am hoping to get the first and third segments clocked in at 10,000-15,000 each, with the second segments eating up the rest. It’ll be interesting to see if that works out like I’m planning.
4:13 PM - 7,745. Feeling like the prose is too wordy, too drawn-out, which I’m guessing is a subconscious reaction to the 50,000 word requirement. Instead of aiming for brevity, like I would prefer, I’m just watering the whole thing down with unnecessary verbiage. Also, the music’s up as loud as it’ll go (Baroness, again.) and the warning twitches of the oncoming caffeine madness are twitching throughout my extremities.
4:54 PM - 8,290. Chapter six’s done. Didn’t end where I thought it would, but that’s okay; it’s still the longest chapter yet. Flaming Lips now, as the sun sets on the other side of the living room window here at Yellowhouse.
5:17 PM - 8,341. Took a break there, from the actual writing, to plan out chapter seven. At the quota for tomorrow. Must keep going. If I could somehow get two full days ahead of schedule; that’d be something. Noticed an unusual increase in semicolon usage. This bodes ill.
6:06 PM - 8,999. Star Trek reference: check.
6:28 PM - 9,147. Disbeliefe? What? Brief moment of horror a minute ago when Nic’s sister unexpectedly (and quite stealthily) stops by to pick up the kitchen sink. Nothing like hearing the echo, from down the empty hall, of a jiggling door handle.
3:57 PM - 7,469. On it, again. Took a while to get the engine running, but now it’s full steam ahead. Shooting for 10,000 by the end of the day. I’ve broken the novel down into three parts and am hoping to get the first and third segments clocked in at 10,000-15,000 each, with the second segments eating up the rest. It’ll be interesting to see if that works out like I’m planning.
4:13 PM - 7,745. Feeling like the prose is too wordy, too drawn-out, which I’m guessing is a subconscious reaction to the 50,000 word requirement. Instead of aiming for brevity, like I would prefer, I’m just watering the whole thing down with unnecessary verbiage. Also, the music’s up as loud as it’ll go (Baroness, again.) and the warning twitches of the oncoming caffeine madness are twitching throughout my extremities.
4:54 PM - 8,290. Chapter six’s done. Didn’t end where I thought it would, but that’s okay; it’s still the longest chapter yet. Flaming Lips now, as the sun sets on the other side of the living room window here at Yellowhouse.
5:17 PM - 8,341. Took a break there, from the actual writing, to plan out chapter seven. At the quota for tomorrow. Must keep going. If I could somehow get two full days ahead of schedule; that’d be something. Noticed an unusual increase in semicolon usage. This bodes ill.
6:06 PM - 8,999. Star Trek reference: check.
6:28 PM - 9,147. Disbeliefe? What? Brief moment of horror a minute ago when Nic’s sister unexpectedly (and quite stealthily) stops by to pick up the kitchen sink. Nothing like hearing the echo, from down the empty hall, of a jiggling door handle.
Day Four
12:01 AM - 7,000. Really want to go to sleep, and though I’m past the quota for tomorrow, I still haven’t written the necessary daily 1,667. Bad habit to get into. Onward, I press onward, trying for 7,400.
12:12 AM - 7,107. FAIL! Must sleep. This scene is going nowhere, and I can’t pull away from its gravity. Just writing circles around what needs to happen and the last page of dialogue pretty much says the same thing in several nonsensical ways. I have no idea what I’m even typing right now...
9:30 AM - 7,177. Tidying up last night’s disaster. Decided just to end the current scene, pull the ejection seat activation handle and escape the verbal quagmire.
12:12 AM - 7,107. FAIL! Must sleep. This scene is going nowhere, and I can’t pull away from its gravity. Just writing circles around what needs to happen and the last page of dialogue pretty much says the same thing in several nonsensical ways. I have no idea what I’m even typing right now...
9:30 AM - 7,177. Tidying up last night’s disaster. Decided just to end the current scene, pull the ejection seat activation handle and escape the verbal quagmire.
11.04.2009
Day Three
12:00 AM - 5,773. Sidetracked by the necessary planning that I’ve now adopted as a pre-chapter ritual. Get a rough outline down then just go for it. Seems to be working.
12:26 AM - 5,776. Slow going. More internet distraction. Much time spent pondering new word: hadn’tve. Had not have, being the intended contraction, though I’m not even sure had not have makes any sense as a phrase whatsoever. Decide instead to go with “wasn’t”, which cleans up the whole issue nicely. Was getting lost on some deserted, past tense backroad there. Not sure where it was leading...
12:31 AM - 5,807. Have probably used the phrase “down the hall” at a hundred times already. Wonder what percentage of the total word count those three are responsible for.
12:40 AM - 5,929. Learned the difference between eloquent and elegant, then spelled black without a ‘c’. Is this irony? I know not.
12:47 AM - 6,043. Decided to stitch the last half=page onto the end of chapter five instead of using it to start chapter six. Ideally, to increase the tension. Or something to that effect. Copped a line from Fear and Loathing, too, to end the chapter: there is no way to describe the terror I felt. Always liked that line.
6:46 PM - 6,086. Really can’t figure out, due to the whole present-tense thing, if I should be using ‘run’ or ‘ran.’ This one has always stumped me, and, of course, I never bother to look it up. I think it’s run, am pretty damn sure it’s run, but for whatever reason ran just sounds right.
6:47 PM - 6,094. Just used ‘down the hall’ again. Shit. Need to find a better way to say this.
7:11 PM - 6,301. Break time.
11:04 PM - 6,328. Almost done with tomorrow’s quota. Would like to be at 10,000 by the end of day five.
11:22 PM - 6,586. Invented new word: somehome. Was trying for ‘somehow,’ but just went all wrong.
11:24 PM - 6,593. T2 reference: check.
11:35 PM - 6,676. Starting to lose it a bit. The writing, I mean. The words aren’t coming out as effortlessly as they sometimes do. Feel like I’m working harder to find the right thing to say.
12:26 AM - 5,776. Slow going. More internet distraction. Much time spent pondering new word: hadn’tve. Had not have, being the intended contraction, though I’m not even sure had not have makes any sense as a phrase whatsoever. Decide instead to go with “wasn’t”, which cleans up the whole issue nicely. Was getting lost on some deserted, past tense backroad there. Not sure where it was leading...
12:31 AM - 5,807. Have probably used the phrase “down the hall” at a hundred times already. Wonder what percentage of the total word count those three are responsible for.
12:40 AM - 5,929. Learned the difference between eloquent and elegant, then spelled black without a ‘c’. Is this irony? I know not.
12:47 AM - 6,043. Decided to stitch the last half=page onto the end of chapter five instead of using it to start chapter six. Ideally, to increase the tension. Or something to that effect. Copped a line from Fear and Loathing, too, to end the chapter: there is no way to describe the terror I felt. Always liked that line.
6:46 PM - 6,086. Really can’t figure out, due to the whole present-tense thing, if I should be using ‘run’ or ‘ran.’ This one has always stumped me, and, of course, I never bother to look it up. I think it’s run, am pretty damn sure it’s run, but for whatever reason ran just sounds right.
6:47 PM - 6,094. Just used ‘down the hall’ again. Shit. Need to find a better way to say this.
7:11 PM - 6,301. Break time.
11:04 PM - 6,328. Almost done with tomorrow’s quota. Would like to be at 10,000 by the end of day five.
11:22 PM - 6,586. Invented new word: somehome. Was trying for ‘somehow,’ but just went all wrong.
11:24 PM - 6,593. T2 reference: check.
11:35 PM - 6,676. Starting to lose it a bit. The writing, I mean. The words aren’t coming out as effortlessly as they sometimes do. Feel like I’m working harder to find the right thing to say.
11.03.2009
Day Two
9:28 AM - Set to work, this time on the bus. Carsickness in t-minutes five minutes and counting.
9:43 AM - 1,819. Writing on the bus sucks. Very bumpy.
10:54 AM - Got the whole story-arc thing mapped out in math class. I’m very confused, but I think I know what I’m doing now. Or, at the very least, I know where to go with it. Hardest decision so far: yes, time travel is absolutely necessary. Also, got the characters pretty figured out. Their roles in the plot, at least.
11:43 AM - 1,933. Really getting the ball rolling now, plot-wise, but for some reason one of the characters has started to speak like Gandalf. An interesting development...
12:25 PM - 2,445. Getting close to fulfilling today’s quota, but alas, I must detour down the road of scholarly responsibility. Just when it was getting good, too. Somehow this chapter’s turned towards the mystery/suspense vein. Oh well.
1:23 PM - 2,469. In class, trying to sneak words out between the professor’s powerpoint slides. Making the chapters way too short, substituting them for the *** I’m so accustomed to using with short stories. Need to learn how they work together; when the break in action is big enough to constitute a whole new chapter or just a small pause. Or maybe *** just indicates a scene change within the same time period? Kinda like all the “meanwhile, at stately Wayne Manor”s in the old Batman. Four chapters in five pages is a bit ridiculous, I think.
1:30 PM - 2,469, still. Realizing now that I’ve completely trapped myself in first-person narration. Need to have action away from protagonist, but can’t make it work within the narrative confines I’ve established. Balls!
1:47 PM - Yes, still at 2,460. But now I’ve solved the whole first-person prison thing. And I figured out how to do the critical POV shift from protagonist to protagonist’s clone. Much rejoicing.
3:44 PM - 2,467. Back at the empty Yellowhouse. Alone, mostly terrified to be alone in the house after seeing Paranormal Activity yesterday. Drown out the terror with volume and brownies.
4:13 PM - 2,784. Just wrote my favorite line, so far: “Doug had an eye for good hedge-work...”
4:30 PM - 3,076. Narrowing in on today’s quota, though I plan on overshooting, working my way far into tomorrow’s count.
4:36 PM - 3,196. Couldn’t resist Ferris Bueller reference: “This place is like a museum: very cold and you can’t touch anything.”
4:46 PM - 3,379 and rolling. Boosh! Reduced to air-drumming along to Baroness in celebration. Psych is high. Also, just described a bowling alley with a black floor instead of the usual hardwood. Now I want one.
5:02 PM - 3,614. Requisite Bill Murray reference: check.
5:46 PM - 3,886. Took an extended break to write out a brief overview of the next chapter. Have been writing with black Fisher space pen. I usually favor roller ball pens, but I’m growing rather fond of this, a ball point. Learning its intricacies, its secrets.
6:33 PM - 4,664. Again, very confused with the tense of the narration. Really I have no clue how to manipulate these things; I just go for whatever sounds right.
6:50 PM - 5,058. Got tomorrow covered, but if I keep going maybe I can finish this thing early. Or at least keep my mind off of every shifting creak of the floorboards or hiss of the radiators, which aren’t creaking floorboards or hissing radiators, they’re the footsteps of some unseen demon, the hiss of its breath hot on my neck...
7:26 PM - 5,727. Chapter five in the bank, ready to get out of this cold house and grab some dinner. Made significant progress today; nearly at my quota for day four already. Think I’m finally getting the hang of writing long fiction, finding the right length to extend scenes without having them drag on for pages and pages. Ridiculously loud music helps. Would like to keep going but I’m struggling to spell words now, having to stop mid-word and think for a second. Fingers are moving slow, too.
11:47 PM - 5,729. These grapes I’m eating, they must have some kind of invisible mold on them, for they are disgusting. Tomorrow I will search out the best snackfood available, and make a cache. A snack cache.
9:43 AM - 1,819. Writing on the bus sucks. Very bumpy.
10:54 AM - Got the whole story-arc thing mapped out in math class. I’m very confused, but I think I know what I’m doing now. Or, at the very least, I know where to go with it. Hardest decision so far: yes, time travel is absolutely necessary. Also, got the characters pretty figured out. Their roles in the plot, at least.
11:43 AM - 1,933. Really getting the ball rolling now, plot-wise, but for some reason one of the characters has started to speak like Gandalf. An interesting development...
12:25 PM - 2,445. Getting close to fulfilling today’s quota, but alas, I must detour down the road of scholarly responsibility. Just when it was getting good, too. Somehow this chapter’s turned towards the mystery/suspense vein. Oh well.
1:23 PM - 2,469. In class, trying to sneak words out between the professor’s powerpoint slides. Making the chapters way too short, substituting them for the *** I’m so accustomed to using with short stories. Need to learn how they work together; when the break in action is big enough to constitute a whole new chapter or just a small pause. Or maybe *** just indicates a scene change within the same time period? Kinda like all the “meanwhile, at stately Wayne Manor”s in the old Batman. Four chapters in five pages is a bit ridiculous, I think.
1:30 PM - 2,469, still. Realizing now that I’ve completely trapped myself in first-person narration. Need to have action away from protagonist, but can’t make it work within the narrative confines I’ve established. Balls!
1:47 PM - Yes, still at 2,460. But now I’ve solved the whole first-person prison thing. And I figured out how to do the critical POV shift from protagonist to protagonist’s clone. Much rejoicing.
3:44 PM - 2,467. Back at the empty Yellowhouse. Alone, mostly terrified to be alone in the house after seeing Paranormal Activity yesterday. Drown out the terror with volume and brownies.
4:13 PM - 2,784. Just wrote my favorite line, so far: “Doug had an eye for good hedge-work...”
4:30 PM - 3,076. Narrowing in on today’s quota, though I plan on overshooting, working my way far into tomorrow’s count.
4:36 PM - 3,196. Couldn’t resist Ferris Bueller reference: “This place is like a museum: very cold and you can’t touch anything.”
4:46 PM - 3,379 and rolling. Boosh! Reduced to air-drumming along to Baroness in celebration. Psych is high. Also, just described a bowling alley with a black floor instead of the usual hardwood. Now I want one.
5:02 PM - 3,614. Requisite Bill Murray reference: check.
5:46 PM - 3,886. Took an extended break to write out a brief overview of the next chapter. Have been writing with black Fisher space pen. I usually favor roller ball pens, but I’m growing rather fond of this, a ball point. Learning its intricacies, its secrets.
6:33 PM - 4,664. Again, very confused with the tense of the narration. Really I have no clue how to manipulate these things; I just go for whatever sounds right.
6:50 PM - 5,058. Got tomorrow covered, but if I keep going maybe I can finish this thing early. Or at least keep my mind off of every shifting creak of the floorboards or hiss of the radiators, which aren’t creaking floorboards or hissing radiators, they’re the footsteps of some unseen demon, the hiss of its breath hot on my neck...
7:26 PM - 5,727. Chapter five in the bank, ready to get out of this cold house and grab some dinner. Made significant progress today; nearly at my quota for day four already. Think I’m finally getting the hang of writing long fiction, finding the right length to extend scenes without having them drag on for pages and pages. Ridiculously loud music helps. Would like to keep going but I’m struggling to spell words now, having to stop mid-word and think for a second. Fingers are moving slow, too.
11:47 PM - 5,729. These grapes I’m eating, they must have some kind of invisible mold on them, for they are disgusting. Tomorrow I will search out the best snackfood available, and make a cache. A snack cache.
11.02.2009
Day One
12:24 AM - First word written
12:34 AM - 87 words in. Not sure what pace that puts me at, but it probably isn’t good.
12:44 AM - 188 words in. ‘Wolf Like Me’ comes on the shuffle and i crank the speakers, since I’m the only one here in this house. Not sure what tense I’m writing in, which is troublesome, but I’m sure that’ll get hammered out, forgotten, and rediscovered over the course of the month. Volume up a few more notches, then hit repeat.
12:54 AM- 297 words. Getting bogged down in thought, distracted by random things, though I have no internet to waste time with. The desire to make everything sound perfect right away is keeping my pace slow. Must learn to get past that and just go go go. The sooner I get to 1,667 the sooner I can go to sleep.
1:04 AM- Still 297. Had to run back to the apartment to shit. A weakness of mine, not being able to shit in foreign toilets. Debating whether or not to get into the bottle of wine in the cupboard over the stove. Pro: being mildly drunk is fun. Con: will probably get drunk enough not to focus on noveling and instead run around apartment until passing out.
1:30 AM- 357. A very fine caliber, but a very poor wordcount. The internet is my enemy. At least the wine has stayed corked...
1:56 AM- 606. Finally escaped the first scene. Focus is in short supply, and I think I might have passed out for a minute or two. Feel like I should have more of an outline; like I’m running ahead at full speed with my eyes closed, only not in a good, exploratory way, but in a bad, going to set up lots of problems later way. Nevertheless, I’m on chapter two, which is good, I think.
1:05AM - 687. Moment of total confusion before I realized there is a time change tonight. Thought I had somehow gone back in time, yet was able to keep the progress I’ve made since the last time it was 1:05. Like I was given a second chance to make better use of the 1-2 o’clock hour. But, yeah, I’ll probably just waste this new hour like I did the last.
1:27 AM- 1,008 words. Maybe, just maybe, I have a shot at finishing this whole thing. Calling it a night to the rhythms of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, this time at a reasonable volume.
10:14 AM - At it again. Been up for a while now, but couldn’t even get the documents opened until now. Rooibos helps.
11:27 AM - 1,699 words in. At the quota for today, and calling it quits for a while. Finally got some momentum built up; gears are turning, wheels are spinning, and such.
12:34 AM - 87 words in. Not sure what pace that puts me at, but it probably isn’t good.
12:44 AM - 188 words in. ‘Wolf Like Me’ comes on the shuffle and i crank the speakers, since I’m the only one here in this house. Not sure what tense I’m writing in, which is troublesome, but I’m sure that’ll get hammered out, forgotten, and rediscovered over the course of the month. Volume up a few more notches, then hit repeat.
12:54 AM- 297 words. Getting bogged down in thought, distracted by random things, though I have no internet to waste time with. The desire to make everything sound perfect right away is keeping my pace slow. Must learn to get past that and just go go go. The sooner I get to 1,667 the sooner I can go to sleep.
1:04 AM- Still 297. Had to run back to the apartment to shit. A weakness of mine, not being able to shit in foreign toilets. Debating whether or not to get into the bottle of wine in the cupboard over the stove. Pro: being mildly drunk is fun. Con: will probably get drunk enough not to focus on noveling and instead run around apartment until passing out.
1:30 AM- 357. A very fine caliber, but a very poor wordcount. The internet is my enemy. At least the wine has stayed corked...
1:56 AM- 606. Finally escaped the first scene. Focus is in short supply, and I think I might have passed out for a minute or two. Feel like I should have more of an outline; like I’m running ahead at full speed with my eyes closed, only not in a good, exploratory way, but in a bad, going to set up lots of problems later way. Nevertheless, I’m on chapter two, which is good, I think.
1:05AM - 687. Moment of total confusion before I realized there is a time change tonight. Thought I had somehow gone back in time, yet was able to keep the progress I’ve made since the last time it was 1:05. Like I was given a second chance to make better use of the 1-2 o’clock hour. But, yeah, I’ll probably just waste this new hour like I did the last.
1:27 AM- 1,008 words. Maybe, just maybe, I have a shot at finishing this whole thing. Calling it a night to the rhythms of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, this time at a reasonable volume.
10:14 AM - At it again. Been up for a while now, but couldn’t even get the documents opened until now. Rooibos helps.
11:27 AM - 1,699 words in. At the quota for today, and calling it quits for a while. Finally got some momentum built up; gears are turning, wheels are spinning, and such.
9.30.2009
Preview: II
With his own television tuned in to the same station, he would watch through an expensive pair of Bushnells for the duration of the half hour program. Her strokes were ungainly and she never mixed colors in the proper proportions, leaving her canvas covered in a thick insipid mess. Inevitably, at about 2:25, she would become supremely frustrated with her failed attempt to duplicate the work of the great master of coniferous companionship. For the next five minutes she would mouth curses and pace around her apartment, often times knocking over her easel or tossing the lackluster canvas in the trash. However, as soon as 2:30 came along and the program ended, she would calmly turn off the television and close the blinds.
This went on for several weeks, her painting, him watching and laughing. Then the skull appeared. Slender and anemic, in place of the easel, propped up by some sort of tripod. Definitely not human and too big to be deer. Probably a horse, he thought. Through the Bushnells he scanned the room but never saw her. Just empty eye sockets and a mouth full of incisors and molars grinning a lipless smile. The curtains stayed open for their usual half hour before being drawn shut by the unseen tenant.
This went on for several weeks, her painting, him watching and laughing. Then the skull appeared. Slender and anemic, in place of the easel, propped up by some sort of tripod. Definitely not human and too big to be deer. Probably a horse, he thought. Through the Bushnells he scanned the room but never saw her. Just empty eye sockets and a mouth full of incisors and molars grinning a lipless smile. The curtains stayed open for their usual half hour before being drawn shut by the unseen tenant.
9.11.2009
Mathed
Exponent,
associated with ten and to the right moved
positive, notation not quite scientific. Then,
negative decimals, leftward multiplication and
the first non-zero number, raised to some power.
Perspective estimation--
a broad range of values,
one quantity compared to
another. Thinking methods,
magnitude orders and the weight
of a year's newspaper.
associated with ten and to the right moved
positive, notation not quite scientific. Then,
negative decimals, leftward multiplication and
the first non-zero number, raised to some power.
Perspective estimation--
a broad range of values,
one quantity compared to
another. Thinking methods,
magnitude orders and the weight
of a year's newspaper.
8.28.2009
Imaginary Apostles
The 2:01 bus, as usual. Seventh row from the back, right side, window seat, as usual. Three stops, four. The bus fills but no one sits next to me. Fifth stop, people are standing in the aisle, still no one sits next to me. Maybe I smell or maybe nobody can see the empty seat or maybe I just have a look, unknown at least to me, that screams ‘don’t sit next to this guy.’ Sixth stop though, somebody approaches. Small and roundish, dark skin covered by a faded teal sweatshirt, curls of wire-y grey hair stuffed under a tattered canvas bucket hat. Various bags of various sizes clutched in one gnarled hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Steam whispers upward from the thick papered walls of the cup.
“Mind if I sit down here?”
“Not at all.”
“Thanks.” He slides into the seat, carefully marshaling his bags and coffee. His eyes are old and watery. Pale corneas that have somehow lost most of their opacity, pupils that long to be vivid with youth. Nestled into his seat, he thanks me again. I convey my response with a shrug of my shoulders and return attention to the book in my hands.
A minute passes. Another. Again he strikes up conversation.
“I tell ya, there’s nothing like a plain cup of joe. None of this decaf business. Sugar-free. No, straight joe is my beverage of choice.”
I nod, mumble mock interest.
“Some guys, they go to a bar after work. Not me. I’m a busy man, but I’d rather go to a coffee shop and sit down with a good newspaper. Yep. But it’s all about moderation. That’s my motto. I had a coffee in the morning, this one in the afternoon, and I’ll probably have another this evening. No more though.”
“Yeah,” I say, my head half-cocked towards him. I notice he is looking directly at me and not off into the distance as he chatters on.
“I can understand why women would avoid the caffeine, but us guys, no problem. I mean, a young guy like you, and I can tell you’re young and active, can drink a Coke or Pepsi every now and then, cause you’re going to work it off. It just gets dangerous when you’re having as ix-pack a day. Same goes for beer.”
Slightly troubled and mostly annoyed I look at him, say “yeah, you really gotta be careful about that stuff,” turn back to my book.
“Now, do you go to school up here?”
“Yes,” and I’m being as curt as possible in hopes of squelching his curiosity. Instead he doubles his efforts, engaging me in an intense series of questions that ends with a detailed explanation of the decline of a mall in the suburb where I live. Then it’s back to my status as a student.
“What do you study?”
I surprise myself by telling the truth. English, creative writing, and not architecture, the usual response to bus-borne queries.
“Oh, yeah? I’m a minister now, but I minored in English Lit back in college.”
“Weird coincidence, huh?” There isn’t a shred of sincerity in my response. He continues on about his days in college and how they led him to a successful career in scriptwriting and I’m just waiting for the religious sales pitch but he never gets to it. More talk of college and how he majored in English Theatre and how he moved to L.A. to write for film and television before he was called away to be a minister.
“Well, I majored in English Lit and English Theatre and went to L.A. about a year after college, to work on film and television scripts. I bet you’d be surprised to know that writing for television and writing for the screen, which is film, are very different.”
I’m about to say that I’m not surprised and that I actually have quite a bit of experience writing ‘for the screen’ before I’m distracted by what he just said. Earlier he had mentioned a minor in English Lit and now, not forty-five seconds later, it’s reversed. Probably just misspoke. Then it gets worse.
“Yeah, I had a major in English Lit, European History, and Philosophy, and a minor in English Theatre. Yeah, I had a double major and a double minor.”
I let him run with it, egg him on. “Wow, that sounds like a lot of work.”
“Oh, it sure was. And I had grades too. 3.7 for my minors. 3.5 for my majors. No, 3.6 for my majors. But you know, I also worked. I put myself through college. I had two part time jobs and one full time job. While my friends were on summer vacation I was working.” He finishes his coffee and I notice the tattered pages of an atlas in his other hand, the kind you’d find in a high school geography textbook.
“That’s cool though, that you did all that yourself.”
“Sure is. Oh, and I had another minor. You’re not going to believe it. Can you guess?”
“Uhhh, architecture?”
“I also minored in Pre- Law.”
“Wow, you sure were busy,” I say, though it’s almost “you’re right, I don’t believe it,” except at the last second I decide not to call him out but to encourage him. I want to know how far this will go.
He rambles for a few minutes, recalls his decision to move to Los Angeles some more, tells me all about his successful, rich industry friends, and again mentions how he was called away from film to be a minster. Except, he doesn’t say minister. He says apostle. A record scratches, the needle bumped out of the groove in my head. Static hiss, confusion. Before I can recover, put the needle back in the groove, he’s moved on, deep into an explanation of why so-and-so is the most accomplished cross-over novelist slash screenwriter and why his name will be the one we’ll be talking about in the universities years from now. Too startled by the apostle comment, I fail to catch the author’s name, though I can’t imagine it belongs to any actual human being, alive or dead.
“But you see, the Lord called me away from all that. He made me an apostle and what I do as an apostle, see, is I have authority over nations and countries and people.”
“Really?” trying to sound as authentic as possible.
“Yep. I work with prime ministers and congress and presidents. And I go to these countries and nations and I work with their leaders and provide protection, if they acknowledge my authority.”
“Protection? From what?”
“Pestilence, plague, famine, drought. Those things. But only if the leaders choose to accept my authority over their nation.”
“I see. How do you communicate with these leaders?” Now I’m trying to stump him, probing him to see how though out his delusions are. His response is pure verbal lightening, fast and precise.
“Correspondence. And telephone. I work directly with the prime ministers, so I use the telephone with them.”
“Wow.”
“Yes, sir. You can read my license here.” He hands my the atlas. Across the bottom of the pages, scrawled in an impenetrable cursive, are words and sentences that I could never hope to understand. The map itself is a world political map and I notice many of the countries are highlighted. Maybe he notices my eyebrow twitch and anticipates my question or maybe he reads my mind, but either way he offers an answer before I can ask.
“These are the countries I have authority over.”
“I see.” The United States, Canada, Greenland, Australia, New Zealand, North Korea, many others too small to see. One stands out. “Antarctica?”
“Yep. And up here, too,” he indicates the top of the map, where the entire Arctic Ocean is a mess of blue map ink and yellow highlighter. “That’s the Arctic. I’m recognized there.”
“By the polar bears?” I try to sound genuine but I know some sarcasm must have bled through. He’s unfazed.
“You know it,” he says, and I want to ask if he communicates with them via correspondence too, but decide to ask him if any countries have denied his authority. Again, I hope to catch him or throw him off guard, but his reply asserts the kind of confidence one can only have if they believe they are telling the truth.
“Well, the U.S., of course,” he laughs. “And New Zealand. Australia too, at first, but then they saw what I did for all these other countries and changed their minds. And the U.S., that’s just a racial thing, because I’m Afro-American. That’s all Congress there. And that George Bush Jr.”
When I ask him how he provides protection from pestilence and the like, the bus comes to a stop The driver announces the stop and my mystery apostle tucks his atlas away, stands up.
“Well, good talking to you. Good luck with school. Remember, you just have to put yourself out there.” And he’s gone, down the aisle and out the door and into the anonymous sea of people boarding and de-boarding. I spin around to the two kids sitting behind me, my eyes wide.
“Did you guys hear any of that? What that guy was saying?” They just star back, their faces blank mirrors reflecting the same look I must have had when the apostle initially spoke to me. “Okay, I guess not.” I turn to a girl across the aisle, but she’s engaged in a cellular conversation and isn’t paying attention. Nobody is in front of me. “Anybody hear that guy? He was crazy!” I say as loud as I dare. Almost a yell, but not quite. No one even looks at me.
Two stops later I get off the bus and walk to my car. I open the door. I get in. I drive home.
“Mind if I sit down here?”
“Not at all.”
“Thanks.” He slides into the seat, carefully marshaling his bags and coffee. His eyes are old and watery. Pale corneas that have somehow lost most of their opacity, pupils that long to be vivid with youth. Nestled into his seat, he thanks me again. I convey my response with a shrug of my shoulders and return attention to the book in my hands.
A minute passes. Another. Again he strikes up conversation.
“I tell ya, there’s nothing like a plain cup of joe. None of this decaf business. Sugar-free. No, straight joe is my beverage of choice.”
I nod, mumble mock interest.
“Some guys, they go to a bar after work. Not me. I’m a busy man, but I’d rather go to a coffee shop and sit down with a good newspaper. Yep. But it’s all about moderation. That’s my motto. I had a coffee in the morning, this one in the afternoon, and I’ll probably have another this evening. No more though.”
“Yeah,” I say, my head half-cocked towards him. I notice he is looking directly at me and not off into the distance as he chatters on.
“I can understand why women would avoid the caffeine, but us guys, no problem. I mean, a young guy like you, and I can tell you’re young and active, can drink a Coke or Pepsi every now and then, cause you’re going to work it off. It just gets dangerous when you’re having as ix-pack a day. Same goes for beer.”
Slightly troubled and mostly annoyed I look at him, say “yeah, you really gotta be careful about that stuff,” turn back to my book.
“Now, do you go to school up here?”
“Yes,” and I’m being as curt as possible in hopes of squelching his curiosity. Instead he doubles his efforts, engaging me in an intense series of questions that ends with a detailed explanation of the decline of a mall in the suburb where I live. Then it’s back to my status as a student.
“What do you study?”
I surprise myself by telling the truth. English, creative writing, and not architecture, the usual response to bus-borne queries.
“Oh, yeah? I’m a minister now, but I minored in English Lit back in college.”
“Weird coincidence, huh?” There isn’t a shred of sincerity in my response. He continues on about his days in college and how they led him to a successful career in scriptwriting and I’m just waiting for the religious sales pitch but he never gets to it. More talk of college and how he majored in English Theatre and how he moved to L.A. to write for film and television before he was called away to be a minister.
“Well, I majored in English Lit and English Theatre and went to L.A. about a year after college, to work on film and television scripts. I bet you’d be surprised to know that writing for television and writing for the screen, which is film, are very different.”
I’m about to say that I’m not surprised and that I actually have quite a bit of experience writing ‘for the screen’ before I’m distracted by what he just said. Earlier he had mentioned a minor in English Lit and now, not forty-five seconds later, it’s reversed. Probably just misspoke. Then it gets worse.
“Yeah, I had a major in English Lit, European History, and Philosophy, and a minor in English Theatre. Yeah, I had a double major and a double minor.”
I let him run with it, egg him on. “Wow, that sounds like a lot of work.”
“Oh, it sure was. And I had grades too. 3.7 for my minors. 3.5 for my majors. No, 3.6 for my majors. But you know, I also worked. I put myself through college. I had two part time jobs and one full time job. While my friends were on summer vacation I was working.” He finishes his coffee and I notice the tattered pages of an atlas in his other hand, the kind you’d find in a high school geography textbook.
“That’s cool though, that you did all that yourself.”
“Sure is. Oh, and I had another minor. You’re not going to believe it. Can you guess?”
“Uhhh, architecture?”
“I also minored in Pre- Law.”
“Wow, you sure were busy,” I say, though it’s almost “you’re right, I don’t believe it,” except at the last second I decide not to call him out but to encourage him. I want to know how far this will go.
He rambles for a few minutes, recalls his decision to move to Los Angeles some more, tells me all about his successful, rich industry friends, and again mentions how he was called away from film to be a minster. Except, he doesn’t say minister. He says apostle. A record scratches, the needle bumped out of the groove in my head. Static hiss, confusion. Before I can recover, put the needle back in the groove, he’s moved on, deep into an explanation of why so-and-so is the most accomplished cross-over novelist slash screenwriter and why his name will be the one we’ll be talking about in the universities years from now. Too startled by the apostle comment, I fail to catch the author’s name, though I can’t imagine it belongs to any actual human being, alive or dead.
“But you see, the Lord called me away from all that. He made me an apostle and what I do as an apostle, see, is I have authority over nations and countries and people.”
“Really?” trying to sound as authentic as possible.
“Yep. I work with prime ministers and congress and presidents. And I go to these countries and nations and I work with their leaders and provide protection, if they acknowledge my authority.”
“Protection? From what?”
“Pestilence, plague, famine, drought. Those things. But only if the leaders choose to accept my authority over their nation.”
“I see. How do you communicate with these leaders?” Now I’m trying to stump him, probing him to see how though out his delusions are. His response is pure verbal lightening, fast and precise.
“Correspondence. And telephone. I work directly with the prime ministers, so I use the telephone with them.”
“Wow.”
“Yes, sir. You can read my license here.” He hands my the atlas. Across the bottom of the pages, scrawled in an impenetrable cursive, are words and sentences that I could never hope to understand. The map itself is a world political map and I notice many of the countries are highlighted. Maybe he notices my eyebrow twitch and anticipates my question or maybe he reads my mind, but either way he offers an answer before I can ask.
“These are the countries I have authority over.”
“I see.” The United States, Canada, Greenland, Australia, New Zealand, North Korea, many others too small to see. One stands out. “Antarctica?”
“Yep. And up here, too,” he indicates the top of the map, where the entire Arctic Ocean is a mess of blue map ink and yellow highlighter. “That’s the Arctic. I’m recognized there.”
“By the polar bears?” I try to sound genuine but I know some sarcasm must have bled through. He’s unfazed.
“You know it,” he says, and I want to ask if he communicates with them via correspondence too, but decide to ask him if any countries have denied his authority. Again, I hope to catch him or throw him off guard, but his reply asserts the kind of confidence one can only have if they believe they are telling the truth.
“Well, the U.S., of course,” he laughs. “And New Zealand. Australia too, at first, but then they saw what I did for all these other countries and changed their minds. And the U.S., that’s just a racial thing, because I’m Afro-American. That’s all Congress there. And that George Bush Jr.”
When I ask him how he provides protection from pestilence and the like, the bus comes to a stop The driver announces the stop and my mystery apostle tucks his atlas away, stands up.
“Well, good talking to you. Good luck with school. Remember, you just have to put yourself out there.” And he’s gone, down the aisle and out the door and into the anonymous sea of people boarding and de-boarding. I spin around to the two kids sitting behind me, my eyes wide.
“Did you guys hear any of that? What that guy was saying?” They just star back, their faces blank mirrors reflecting the same look I must have had when the apostle initially spoke to me. “Okay, I guess not.” I turn to a girl across the aisle, but she’s engaged in a cellular conversation and isn’t paying attention. Nobody is in front of me. “Anybody hear that guy? He was crazy!” I say as loud as I dare. Almost a yell, but not quite. No one even looks at me.
Two stops later I get off the bus and walk to my car. I open the door. I get in. I drive home.
8.19.2009
Preview
Soft at first, then louder. Hard hoof-falls echoing down the dim hallway. Click clack. Click clack. Four doors away, maybe three. Each step accelerates his heart rate by twenty beats. Click clack. Click clack. Two doors. Click. Clack. The hooves slow as they draw near their destination. Click. The impact is heavy enough to rattle dishes in the sink. Clack. A long shadow slides under the door...
8.17.2009
That Girl In Class--You Know The One
Patches of skin peeked through tattered denim and
bleach-blonde locks splayed over obscure
necklines, a belt of rainbows, wrapped waist,
thin, pelvic bone pushed against taught skin--opposing mountains
and a tattoo, crawled and curled over lean
shoulders. She makes a fist around a pen,
writes like she's etching stone.
bleach-blonde locks splayed over obscure
necklines, a belt of rainbows, wrapped waist,
thin, pelvic bone pushed against taught skin--opposing mountains
and a tattoo, crawled and curled over lean
shoulders. She makes a fist around a pen,
writes like she's etching stone.
8.16.2009
7.22.2009
Hot Off The Grill
I was the Tin Woodman. Or the Scarecrow. Or whichever one of those Oz fuckers didn’t have a heart. At least that’s what I’ve been told. But that isn’t really the issue here, at least not now. The issue is that if it weren’t for an overwhelming desire to have a yellow tee shirt I would still be breathing, still be narrating from the realm of the living. Instead, I’m in this weird, pseudo past tense disaster of a novel, trying hard to keep my verbs in order. And I still don’t have a yellow tee shirt. Or a heart.
Literally the first paragraph I've produced in two months. The start of something that I can feel slowly working its way to the surface. Something big, something fast, something like a shark or a whale or whatever. Not sure where it is going, and it seems like there or three of four separate ideas swimming around in these sentences, butthat'll all get worked out later. Hopefully.
Literally the first paragraph I've produced in two months. The start of something that I can feel slowly working its way to the surface. Something big, something fast, something like a shark or a whale or whatever. Not sure where it is going, and it seems like there or three of four separate ideas swimming around in these sentences, butthat'll all get worked out later. Hopefully.
7.06.2009
Patience
Continuing with the theme of archive emptying, here is a storyboard/plotline I wrote up for a story I never even started.
* time is a closed, repeating loop
* the number of human lives on the planet is fixed
* no new lives are ever created
* when a person dies, or reaches the end of one life cycle, they are reincarnated as another person and follow that particular life cycle until its end. And so on
* somehow, the main character is made aware of this situation
* he continues to kill himself until he cycles through every possible life cycle in the hopes that he will eventually be reincarnated as himself and use this 'second chance' to make right some wrong (probably something to do with a girl/lover)
* the time loop always ends with total destruction and then starts over
* by being aware of the loop and altering it (by continually killing himself) he eventually reduces the lifetime of every person on the planet, causing a catastrophic breakdown of time
* he realizes thus and is forced to live out every life in its entirety, essentially on autopilot
* after he explains this to the girl, he is reincarnated as her, and while living her life on auto pilot he realizes she is in love with someone he understands is better for her than he is
* he accepts that she will never love him fully and is doomed to be a self-aware automaton
perspective: after-the-fact narration? Or after-the-fact until he is reincarnated as her? Probably after-the-fact; a memoir of everyone who ever lived.
the train metaphor: time is a train track that is a giant loop. There are many trains on the track. Every time a train reaches the end of the loop a new conductor takes over and drives the train for the duration of the next loop.
Looking back on this, I now find that last part, the train thing, most interesting. To the degree that if I ever summoned the motivation to re-visit this story, it'd probably just be about train conductors on a fixed loop.
* time is a closed, repeating loop
* the number of human lives on the planet is fixed
* no new lives are ever created
* when a person dies, or reaches the end of one life cycle, they are reincarnated as another person and follow that particular life cycle until its end. And so on
* somehow, the main character is made aware of this situation
* he continues to kill himself until he cycles through every possible life cycle in the hopes that he will eventually be reincarnated as himself and use this 'second chance' to make right some wrong (probably something to do with a girl/lover)
* the time loop always ends with total destruction and then starts over
* by being aware of the loop and altering it (by continually killing himself) he eventually reduces the lifetime of every person on the planet, causing a catastrophic breakdown of time
* he realizes thus and is forced to live out every life in its entirety, essentially on autopilot
* after he explains this to the girl, he is reincarnated as her, and while living her life on auto pilot he realizes she is in love with someone he understands is better for her than he is
* he accepts that she will never love him fully and is doomed to be a self-aware automaton
perspective: after-the-fact narration? Or after-the-fact until he is reincarnated as her? Probably after-the-fact; a memoir of everyone who ever lived.
the train metaphor: time is a train track that is a giant loop. There are many trains on the track. Every time a train reaches the end of the loop a new conductor takes over and drives the train for the duration of the next loop.
Looking back on this, I now find that last part, the train thing, most interesting. To the degree that if I ever summoned the motivation to re-visit this story, it'd probably just be about train conductors on a fixed loop.
Dear Jayne
Sometimes I write fake letters. For fun, or something.
Drunk, and writing this to you instead of my journal, which is probably a mistake but I guess I can always read this in the morning. I don't know, but either way words are qued up at the tip of my pen and it is best to get them going as soon as possible. I was thinking about the sun and how much I'd like to see it close up. If I ever found out I had a terminal illness I'd steal a spaceship and fly into the sun. Cremation and spaceflight all in one package--very appealing, no? I feel the need to write as quickly as possible, while my fingers still tingle, to capture the precise nature of this state of mind. This is all non-sense, but at the same time it's all that I am--words and ink and flesh and bone and hair. Naked, cold, hungry. I'm not sure I have a firm grasp on vocabulary now, but the first sentence of this page should be a reasonable excuse. Strike now, while the iron is hot! When we die we will exist in ink and paper--a history of thought and intention. Everything sounds epic when you're inebriated and I apologize for the grandiose ramblings of this letter. But as I said, I'm ink and paper and intention and can't be held responsible for late-night self-expression, can I? Not sure...if it were raining I'm sure I'd feel even more introspective ----- I think it is important not to censor yourself. I feel like the more I ramble the closer get to some truth, unknown or obscured by my conscious mind. Stoner poetry, for sure, but I'm not stoned I'm just tired and full of echoes or shadows or reverberations of former lives. Strike while the iron is hot! Capture these ghosts and spectres and imprison them on a page within an ink cell. Midnight cats make the night easier, their calm demeanor's are comforting, soothing. But I will not be soothed. I will rage on into the depths of the night content with the absence of others. The more/higher walls I can build the better. Now I'm just being ridiculous. I should go now--sleep--dream about things more exciting than reality, which isn't too hard. Really all I need is a flying car.
Drunk, and writing this to you instead of my journal, which is probably a mistake but I guess I can always read this in the morning. I don't know, but either way words are qued up at the tip of my pen and it is best to get them going as soon as possible. I was thinking about the sun and how much I'd like to see it close up. If I ever found out I had a terminal illness I'd steal a spaceship and fly into the sun. Cremation and spaceflight all in one package--very appealing, no? I feel the need to write as quickly as possible, while my fingers still tingle, to capture the precise nature of this state of mind. This is all non-sense, but at the same time it's all that I am--words and ink and flesh and bone and hair. Naked, cold, hungry. I'm not sure I have a firm grasp on vocabulary now, but the first sentence of this page should be a reasonable excuse. Strike now, while the iron is hot! When we die we will exist in ink and paper--a history of thought and intention. Everything sounds epic when you're inebriated and I apologize for the grandiose ramblings of this letter. But as I said, I'm ink and paper and intention and can't be held responsible for late-night self-expression, can I? Not sure...if it were raining I'm sure I'd feel even more introspective ----- I think it is important not to censor yourself. I feel like the more I ramble the closer get to some truth, unknown or obscured by my conscious mind. Stoner poetry, for sure, but I'm not stoned I'm just tired and full of echoes or shadows or reverberations of former lives. Strike while the iron is hot! Capture these ghosts and spectres and imprison them on a page within an ink cell. Midnight cats make the night easier, their calm demeanor's are comforting, soothing. But I will not be soothed. I will rage on into the depths of the night content with the absence of others. The more/higher walls I can build the better. Now I'm just being ridiculous. I should go now--sleep--dream about things more exciting than reality, which isn't too hard. Really all I need is a flying car.
Super Random
Seriously more random than anything yet posted here. Strange things recently found in a notebook:
I remember the days, snow packed, across two streets that separate school and home. Quiet, walk around old brick building, alone, though fresh footprints suggest others are here, inside, waiting. Those same wet footprints navigate hardwood hallways, glisten under lights suspended a bit too high for precise illumination. The classroom is cold. Ancient radiators spit and hiss as they try to counteract the windows above. The lights in here are closer; they provide more modern light. I remember blood blisters in kindergarten, lies and tickets in first grade, burnt hands in second, glasses in third, static water fountain shocks in fourth, snowy halls in fifth...
This page, already tainted by the first--
And on the table I find a single hair. Long, brown. With the proper technology I could make a clone of whomever left his hair here. Would they be the same? How well an automobile runs depends on the quality of gasoline used to power it. Or, you can make the same machinery operate differently by using different circuitry. Or, a brain can be physically identical but I can't imagine it would work the same, have the same thoughts.
How did I get here? This class, a drone, to infinity by way of every rambling backroad imaginable, never changing pace or intonation or randomness. Hidden fidelity. Who is this woman in the rowboat? An image of peaks and valleys; just find me the girl. Minimality is a factor, L.A. riverbed longshot. Perfect apex -- dry lake -- salt flats -- slowly tilt -- water and energy -- an ocean filled with plastic
I remember the days, snow packed, across two streets that separate school and home. Quiet, walk around old brick building, alone, though fresh footprints suggest others are here, inside, waiting. Those same wet footprints navigate hardwood hallways, glisten under lights suspended a bit too high for precise illumination. The classroom is cold. Ancient radiators spit and hiss as they try to counteract the windows above. The lights in here are closer; they provide more modern light. I remember blood blisters in kindergarten, lies and tickets in first grade, burnt hands in second, glasses in third, static water fountain shocks in fourth, snowy halls in fifth...
This page, already tainted by the first--
And on the table I find a single hair. Long, brown. With the proper technology I could make a clone of whomever left his hair here. Would they be the same? How well an automobile runs depends on the quality of gasoline used to power it. Or, you can make the same machinery operate differently by using different circuitry. Or, a brain can be physically identical but I can't imagine it would work the same, have the same thoughts.
How did I get here? This class, a drone, to infinity by way of every rambling backroad imaginable, never changing pace or intonation or randomness. Hidden fidelity. Who is this woman in the rowboat? An image of peaks and valleys; just find me the girl. Minimality is a factor, L.A. riverbed longshot. Perfect apex -- dry lake -- salt flats -- slowly tilt -- water and energy -- an ocean filled with plastic
7.04.2009
Random
One from the archives (maybe parts of this found their way into other things):
Forgotten cats outside the window. Wrappers from many teas, assorted on the linoleum. Remembered cats stretched across circular dinner tables, creating curved meridians. Another cat prowled back into the light, from the dark between chairs and couches. The sole desire, the primary mission: cashews. Cashews and Nut-thins, and maybe the delicious background flavors of Goldfish crackers. Sudden cats, spiraled up and down. Lips thick with salt, such a good time to be had fainting for the orange and red keys, fuzzed together, a sort of plastic melted over as a cover
Forgotten cats outside the window. Wrappers from many teas, assorted on the linoleum. Remembered cats stretched across circular dinner tables, creating curved meridians. Another cat prowled back into the light, from the dark between chairs and couches. The sole desire, the primary mission: cashews. Cashews and Nut-thins, and maybe the delicious background flavors of Goldfish crackers. Sudden cats, spiraled up and down. Lips thick with salt, such a good time to be had fainting for the orange and red keys, fuzzed together, a sort of plastic melted over as a cover
6.20.2009
Different Keys for Different Locks
His voice, pinched off at the end of sentences / Revolutions Two through Eight / And walk through the clutter, the dead automation / Circuits bled electricity until nothing was left, no power just silent snowflakes, the buzz and hiss of high tension lines conspicuously absent / Bare walls and hardwood floors and cold rooms. Oppressive empty space / You need to see the timing, like Tetris blocks locked in place / Serpentine vibrations that pass through flesh walls, while in the corner stacked journals tell dusty tales of imagined possibility, dry ink flaked off yellowed pages / Frightened by the speed of his tonal recognition / Wet reflections / wild lights / cloud passed electricity / Lightning is cloud feedback / This storm is a song, thunder chorus and lightning verses, rain fell like liquid percussion on glass ears / All of the songs in the world play at the same time and I try to decipher them, individual melodies like cells in ether / Planets and cells suspended in ether, the sound of a compressed spring / Burnt tongue coffee, like a swollen piece of sandpaper between my jaws / Yellow-tipped power cords and quarter-inch input jacks; again, in the empty cold room. Cracks in the floor, wide / Cracks the floor wide, like veins in the marble or rivers bisecting themselves on graph paper / Everything ends with a g / Golden maple floor, cracks wide in the marble, veins or snakes or / rivers / Little skeleton fingers make a fist around a pen / The floor is basement cool in front porch heat / Perfect cylinders / gears in motion.
6.03.2009
Hiatus
So, the blog has been on something of an unofficial hiatus lately, it the complete lack of posts hasn't been obvious enough. It can be really difficult for me to stay motivated, and the first month of summer is usually spent not writing or reading. It's shameful, really, how little I've done sine the end of the semester. However, tomorrow I start phase one of the Program, which is a highly scientific and exacting, um, program, designed to keep me from being totally worthless. Phase one involves writing every day for ten minutes, without stopping, for a week. After that, phase two: two pages in the morning and three pages at night, every day for a week. Then, phase three, which I haven't created yet. Probably be pretty serious though. Punishing, perhaps. The idea is that somewhere in this process a gem will be unearthed, and I can finally stop watching Arrested Development and start writing the next Great American Novel. Then I can retire and return to repeated watching of Arrested Development. That is the goal, the mission, the Program. Or something like that.
5.18.2009
Of
The expected glow of a computer screen conspicuously absent. In its place the shallow hues of old Christmas lights stapled to the walls, so he sits, a basement stoner, on the corpse of a couch, at least as old as he is, in the dull orange light, smoke tendriling up through the hot summer air trapped in the room, deprived of the freedom of midnight breezes, the smoke now pollinating the air, tickling the gentle hairs in the nostrils of those with noses for such things, like the addition of cheese to a burger, that little extra ingredient that makes the whole meal better, or so he tells me, or tries to tell me, but his speech is too slow, too stunted to decipher properly so all I hear is a string of ums and likes and totallys , the true language of those types, sadly content with inferior communicative abilities, unable even to deliver the most basic indication of coherent thought, whereas I have vastly superior skills and a functioning knowledge of human emotion, like the perfect cyborg assassin, programmed with just information to complete the mission, whatever that may be.
5.07.2009
Chapter Two
My first contribution to the project. It will be interesting to see how the different writing styles mesh together, if they do at all. I think I can see the plot developing, or at least there are some elements available for plot development now. Or something like that...regardless, I'm eagerly awaiting Chris D.'s chapter.
So Henry sat, on the toilet, avoiding the return to his booth as best he could. He figured he had about three and a half minutes more before his booth-mates grew too suspicious of his absence. At his booth: Holly (sister), Roland (her husband), and Peter (relationship unknown). Henry despised Roland, largely due to his being in Henry’s class every year of elementary school. Also due to the time in sixth grade when Roland knocked Henry’s fresh-off-the-grill hamburger out if his hand and onto the dirt at Henry’s Backyard Birthday Bash. Mostly due to that time in sixth grade.
When the fork hits Lenny’s chest at the other diner, Henry emerges from the restroom. He walks to his booth, his mind made up: he was leaving.
Hey guys, I’m sorry but I gotta go. Work called. They need me downtown.
You took a phone call while on the shitter? Roland asks.
I never said I had to shit.
Well, you were in there so long. I just assumed.
Thanks, Roland.
You still answered your phone in the bathroom. That’s so gross. Holly frowns, disapprovingly.
Thanks, Holly. Look, I’ve got to go. He tosses a crumpled up ten dollar bill onto the table and walks towards the door.
Don’t forget your sidewalk chalk, Picasso! Roland shouts after him. Henry pretends not to hear and exits the diner. He flips the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and steps out into the rain. A few steps later and he’s fumbling for the keys to his ’96 Honda Civic. A few more steps and he’s at the driver’s side door. He slides the key into the lock and with his knee presses on the door while turning the key and engaging the handle, a ritual necessary to open the antiquated door.
On his way home Henry gets a non-fake business call.
Henry. We need you. 14th and Exeter. Double homicide. Pretty messy.
I’ll be there in five. Henry flips closed his phone, turns the red Civic around and points at the desired intersection.
Four and a half minutes later Henry arrives on the scene. He parks a block away, grabs his pack out of the trunk and heads toward the mass of police officers and medical personnel gathered in the street. His arrival is unnoticed.
Sir. Excuse me, sir. Is detective Lantz here? Henry pulls at the shoulder of a uniformed officer.
Huh? Oh, it’s you. Hey, Lantz, you’re boy’s here. The officer motions at a small group of policemen. Detective Lantz looks back at them.
Hey, Henry, over here.
Henry walks over to the curb where the officers are standing and sets his pack down. The policemen return to their duties, oblivious to Henry’s presence. He opens his pack and extracts the necessary equipment for the task at hand.
What do you think, cyan or cerulean for the pants? he says out loud to no one. He decides to go with the cyan and takes the corresponding stick of chalk out of the large box of multi-colored chalks.
Yes, cyan was the right choice, he says when he finishes tracing around the victim’s tee shirt. Now, is this blood maroon or wine? Or perhaps a combination? When he’s done, Detective Lantz ambles over to check his work.
Christ, Henry, we just need an outline, not a fucking mural.
Yes, sir, but I thought mustard was a good match for victim number two’s shirt.
Keep that shit in art school, son.
Yes, sir.
Alright, then. Thanks for coming out.
Henry replaces his things in his pack and walks back to the Civic.
II
Moments earlier, on the other side of town, in a similar diner (it does, in fact, belong to the same chain of diners as the one in which Derek’s bloody fork will be thrown shortly) similarly occupied, Henry Herman was sitting on a toilet. Specifically, he was sitting on the toilet in the women’s restroom. Henry always used the women’s restroom at this particular diner, not out of some strange fetished programming, but rather because he felt it was cleaner than the masculine equivalent.So Henry sat, on the toilet, avoiding the return to his booth as best he could. He figured he had about three and a half minutes more before his booth-mates grew too suspicious of his absence. At his booth: Holly (sister), Roland (her husband), and Peter (relationship unknown). Henry despised Roland, largely due to his being in Henry’s class every year of elementary school. Also due to the time in sixth grade when Roland knocked Henry’s fresh-off-the-grill hamburger out if his hand and onto the dirt at Henry’s Backyard Birthday Bash. Mostly due to that time in sixth grade.
When the fork hits Lenny’s chest at the other diner, Henry emerges from the restroom. He walks to his booth, his mind made up: he was leaving.
Hey guys, I’m sorry but I gotta go. Work called. They need me downtown.
You took a phone call while on the shitter? Roland asks.
I never said I had to shit.
Well, you were in there so long. I just assumed.
Thanks, Roland.
You still answered your phone in the bathroom. That’s so gross. Holly frowns, disapprovingly.
Thanks, Holly. Look, I’ve got to go. He tosses a crumpled up ten dollar bill onto the table and walks towards the door.
Don’t forget your sidewalk chalk, Picasso! Roland shouts after him. Henry pretends not to hear and exits the diner. He flips the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and steps out into the rain. A few steps later and he’s fumbling for the keys to his ’96 Honda Civic. A few more steps and he’s at the driver’s side door. He slides the key into the lock and with his knee presses on the door while turning the key and engaging the handle, a ritual necessary to open the antiquated door.
On his way home Henry gets a non-fake business call.
Henry. We need you. 14th and Exeter. Double homicide. Pretty messy.
I’ll be there in five. Henry flips closed his phone, turns the red Civic around and points at the desired intersection.
Four and a half minutes later Henry arrives on the scene. He parks a block away, grabs his pack out of the trunk and heads toward the mass of police officers and medical personnel gathered in the street. His arrival is unnoticed.
Sir. Excuse me, sir. Is detective Lantz here? Henry pulls at the shoulder of a uniformed officer.
Huh? Oh, it’s you. Hey, Lantz, you’re boy’s here. The officer motions at a small group of policemen. Detective Lantz looks back at them.
Hey, Henry, over here.
Henry walks over to the curb where the officers are standing and sets his pack down. The policemen return to their duties, oblivious to Henry’s presence. He opens his pack and extracts the necessary equipment for the task at hand.
What do you think, cyan or cerulean for the pants? he says out loud to no one. He decides to go with the cyan and takes the corresponding stick of chalk out of the large box of multi-colored chalks.
Yes, cyan was the right choice, he says when he finishes tracing around the victim’s tee shirt. Now, is this blood maroon or wine? Or perhaps a combination? When he’s done, Detective Lantz ambles over to check his work.
Christ, Henry, we just need an outline, not a fucking mural.
Yes, sir, but I thought mustard was a good match for victim number two’s shirt.
Keep that shit in art school, son.
Yes, sir.
Alright, then. Thanks for coming out.
Henry replaces his things in his pack and walks back to the Civic.
Teamwork / Chapter One
After much talk between myself and two fellow fictors, a multi-author novel project is now underway. Tentatively titled Check, Please, we're alternating chapters and smashing them together, hopefully with stupendous results. Eric W. stepped up to the plate in the leadoff position, and his contribution, the first chapter, is included below. We'll see how this works out...
That's not what he said at all.
Two grimaces. The man's skin is pinched at the neck and jawline.
Of course it is, you nit, now give him your wallet.
That's not what I heard you say, is that what you said?
No. I said wallet. Just wallet. A short man, galoshes. An umbrella. The rain, always the rain.
I can't believe this shit. Indignation is hard on most faces, no exception here.
The first man is Derek Unger. He was born in a hospital in Brussels, but only because his father was stationed there in the war. He's bored and his face is pockmarked. He spent years in front of the mirror perfecting a smile that has worked its way into any number of women's pants.
The second is Lush. That's what he tells people when he meets them. He has a pipe that his grandfather gave him from after the same war that Derek's father fought in. The two men have no idea they have this connection. Right now, their concern is with Derek's wallet.
Wallet. The short man repeats himself. His hand is like a badgers paw, maybe a raccoon. Perhaps a badger when it's dry. A raccoon's timidity, in this downpour, it's understandable.
Why would I give you my wallet, will you answer that? Lush's lips smack as he says this. His breath is hot, and there's a hint of chili that makes him feel like the bile is rising in the back of his throat. This doesn't really happen until there's a gun in his mouth. Later.
He doesn't need to explain anything to you, man. Give him your wallet.
Just shut the fuck up, man! I'm asking this guy questions and you keep answering. What do you have to do with this anyway?
Wallet, Derek.
Derek had no idea the short man knew his name. He's visibly surprised. Shaken more than he would have been if the man hadn't know. That's obvious, perhaps, but it works. He hands over his wallet. The shorter man keeps his hands under the protective circle of his umbrella's shade.
Lush has a piece of pipe, of the metal variety, tucked in his jacket, which he brings to bear against Derek’s skull at the completion of the request.
Yeah?
Yeah it's here. The shorter man re-folds a piece of paper he's just finished examining from Derek’s wallet. He drops it into the pocket of his rain jacket.
---
What'll it be gentlemen?
Two eggs, over easy. Grits, hold the hash browns.
How do you want your toast?
Held as well.
No toast?
No toast. Thank you.
And you?
Lush sets his menu back between the ketchup and the mustard. The shorter man orders a coffee and a side of cottage cheese. Lush hates cottage cheese, shakes his head.
And your friend? He doesn't look too hungry. Aspirin?
Yeah, four aspirin. A second glass of water would be nice too. Oh, actually, cranberry juice. Lush loves cranberry juice.
Alright, back in a moment, gentlemen.
Derek’s head droops. He's got a spot of drool at the corner of his mouth. His hood has been forcefully held up to cover the purplish egg rising on his shaved head.
So. Lenny.
The short man is Lenny. Shit-Eating Grin Lenny is what his cousin's called him when they used to play rough at the farm his grandparents owned.
So. Lenny.
Lenny is clearly not paying attention to Derek. He's staring at the spot of drool on Derek’s face.
Clean that off, Lush.
What?
Clean that off. That spot of drool.
Lush checks his lips. Lenny isn't pointed at Derek, and Lush is self-conscious. This is fairly typical. Lenny points at Derek, who's mouth is starting to gape open a bit.
What? Oh. No thanks, man.
Do it.
Fuck you.
Lenny slams his fork into Lush’s hand. Lush yells.
This is a good opportunity to take a gander at the rest of the diner. There are four other patrons, none at the same table. The waitress, Miranda, has her hair in a bun. She loves eating the frosting off of cinnamon rolls and her husband of three years left her for a job in another state. Chasing the dream is how he referenced it when he left her. She's staring at the men’s ticket. Hard.
The three men are now all wide awake (though Lenny remains stone-faced). Derek rips the fork out of his hand and throws it, in a slightly offhand manner, at Lenny who dodges it. Hard to do in a small space. The fork thuds into his chest, and then falls softly onto the padding of Lenny's side of the booth.
It has blood on tips of the prongs.
I
You heard the man, give him your wallet.That's not what he said at all.
Two grimaces. The man's skin is pinched at the neck and jawline.
Of course it is, you nit, now give him your wallet.
That's not what I heard you say, is that what you said?
No. I said wallet. Just wallet. A short man, galoshes. An umbrella. The rain, always the rain.
I can't believe this shit. Indignation is hard on most faces, no exception here.
The first man is Derek Unger. He was born in a hospital in Brussels, but only because his father was stationed there in the war. He's bored and his face is pockmarked. He spent years in front of the mirror perfecting a smile that has worked its way into any number of women's pants.
The second is Lush. That's what he tells people when he meets them. He has a pipe that his grandfather gave him from after the same war that Derek's father fought in. The two men have no idea they have this connection. Right now, their concern is with Derek's wallet.
Wallet. The short man repeats himself. His hand is like a badgers paw, maybe a raccoon. Perhaps a badger when it's dry. A raccoon's timidity, in this downpour, it's understandable.
Why would I give you my wallet, will you answer that? Lush's lips smack as he says this. His breath is hot, and there's a hint of chili that makes him feel like the bile is rising in the back of his throat. This doesn't really happen until there's a gun in his mouth. Later.
He doesn't need to explain anything to you, man. Give him your wallet.
Just shut the fuck up, man! I'm asking this guy questions and you keep answering. What do you have to do with this anyway?
Wallet, Derek.
Derek had no idea the short man knew his name. He's visibly surprised. Shaken more than he would have been if the man hadn't know. That's obvious, perhaps, but it works. He hands over his wallet. The shorter man keeps his hands under the protective circle of his umbrella's shade.
Lush has a piece of pipe, of the metal variety, tucked in his jacket, which he brings to bear against Derek’s skull at the completion of the request.
Yeah?
Yeah it's here. The shorter man re-folds a piece of paper he's just finished examining from Derek’s wallet. He drops it into the pocket of his rain jacket.
---
What'll it be gentlemen?
Two eggs, over easy. Grits, hold the hash browns.
How do you want your toast?
Held as well.
No toast?
No toast. Thank you.
And you?
Lush sets his menu back between the ketchup and the mustard. The shorter man orders a coffee and a side of cottage cheese. Lush hates cottage cheese, shakes his head.
And your friend? He doesn't look too hungry. Aspirin?
Yeah, four aspirin. A second glass of water would be nice too. Oh, actually, cranberry juice. Lush loves cranberry juice.
Alright, back in a moment, gentlemen.
Derek’s head droops. He's got a spot of drool at the corner of his mouth. His hood has been forcefully held up to cover the purplish egg rising on his shaved head.
So. Lenny.
The short man is Lenny. Shit-Eating Grin Lenny is what his cousin's called him when they used to play rough at the farm his grandparents owned.
So. Lenny.
Lenny is clearly not paying attention to Derek. He's staring at the spot of drool on Derek’s face.
Clean that off, Lush.
What?
Clean that off. That spot of drool.
Lush checks his lips. Lenny isn't pointed at Derek, and Lush is self-conscious. This is fairly typical. Lenny points at Derek, who's mouth is starting to gape open a bit.
What? Oh. No thanks, man.
Do it.
Fuck you.
Lenny slams his fork into Lush’s hand. Lush yells.
This is a good opportunity to take a gander at the rest of the diner. There are four other patrons, none at the same table. The waitress, Miranda, has her hair in a bun. She loves eating the frosting off of cinnamon rolls and her husband of three years left her for a job in another state. Chasing the dream is how he referenced it when he left her. She's staring at the men’s ticket. Hard.
The three men are now all wide awake (though Lenny remains stone-faced). Derek rips the fork out of his hand and throws it, in a slightly offhand manner, at Lenny who dodges it. Hard to do in a small space. The fork thuds into his chest, and then falls softly onto the padding of Lenny's side of the booth.
It has blood on tips of the prongs.
5.01.2009
Avocado
And I kind of hate her now, probably due to the innumerable cold shoulders thrust into my advances, but then she stifles a quiet laugh and instantly I’ve forgotten and forgiven any trespasses and when she bites her lower lip and scrunches her nose I melt a little, content with the scene I’m seeing in my head of the two of us hand in hand exploring a long, bright grocery aisle, a small black basket in my free hand and an avocado in hers as she meticulous inspects the green orb, but by the time she’s done the real her, the one I hated moments ago, is already out the door, down the hallway and off into a world unknown and untouched by even my imagination, and I guess that's fine, for I am much more enamored by the infinite possibilities of the her that is still holding a ripe avocado than the her that just left.
4.28.2009
Gangsta Bucket List
According to a professor of mine, the three main goals of a 'gangsta' (hearing a white college professor in his fifties use the term 'gangsta' is always amusing) in the late 80's were:
1) get a girl pregnant
2) take a life
3) survive in prison
So far I'm 0/3, which probably isn't a bad thing.
1) get a girl pregnant
2) take a life
3) survive in prison
So far I'm 0/3, which probably isn't a bad thing.
4.16.2009
Butchered
Yes, this is the worst haircut I have ever received. Yes, I paid for it, too. $16.97. Three of those dollars were a tip, which I normally wouldn’t have given, out of principle, but my girlfriend has made such a big deal about tipping in the past that it’s almost become habit. And it’s not just that the haircut sucks; the whole experience was a total disaster. The woman with the scissors (not a barber, that’s for sure) talked. A lot. About things that I could not have cared less about. No, I don’t care about your teenage sun. No, I’m not interested in your uncle the famous historical writer (it helps if you remember his name, too). No, I really don’t want to hear about the lineage of your family or all the terrible stories your grandfather told about the war. And if you say pitcher instead of picture one more time, I might take this ridiculous smock off and use it to hang you. That might have been a bit harsh, but this haircut is terrible. You should see it. And, just like at the dentist’s, I don’t want you bombarding me with questions about my degree and my career plans and my social life while you are wielding sharp instruments around my face. Please focus on the task at hand and cut my goddamn hair straight. Seriously, what kind of question is what do you want to do with your life? I want to work some shit job every Monday through Friday until I’m too old to do anything fun and watch my relationships with close friends disintegrate as we all grow older and closer to death. Or maybe I just want to have my hair cut decently and in peace.
The reaction to the cut isn’t good:
You look like either a pedophile or a victim of a pedophile.
Oh, great. I’m shaving it immediately.
No, keep it. You look like a little funky monkey, it’s cute.
What? A funky monkey pedophile. That’s just what I had in mind. In fact, the next time I go in to get my hair cut I will tell them. I’d like to look like a pedophiliac monkey, please. Oh, and could you add a little funk too?
True story, unfortunately.
The reaction to the cut isn’t good:
You look like either a pedophile or a victim of a pedophile.
Oh, great. I’m shaving it immediately.
No, keep it. You look like a little funky monkey, it’s cute.
What? A funky monkey pedophile. That’s just what I had in mind. In fact, the next time I go in to get my hair cut I will tell them. I’d like to look like a pedophiliac monkey, please. Oh, and could you add a little funk too?
True story, unfortunately.
Trilogy
On the back of my spacewhale I feel a slight tinge of panic as the inerstellar cetacean takes flight and slips through massive clouds of gas and dust particles and cosmic debris. The panic subsides and I remember the pleasure of space flight.
There are other people on the back of my spacewhale. They aren’t much fun. In fact, the two girls sitting directly behind me are candidates for the most-annoying-sub-twenty-one-year-old-duo award. Probably will win. They talk constantly during preflight preparation, about the most mundane bullshit: boys (not men), television programs, sex with boys (and definitely not men), and clothing. Their voices are like serpentine razor wires, slinking and wrapping around my head, piercing my ears. Midway through the flight their batteries are depleted and they fall into restless sleep, shifting in their makeshift beds and kicking the back of my seat.
The girl across the aisle, funny story about her. Right after the stewardess goes over the safety features of the spacewhale and just before it takes off, the pilot comes on the intercom and asks for someone named Kayla Keyes.
Kayla Keyes, will you please ring your call button? Kayla Keyes.
No call buttons are depressed, and soon the captain is back on the intercom.
One more time. Kayla Keyes. Please ring your call button.
Still no call buttons are depressed and the captain comes on again, frustrated.
Kayla Keyes. Ring your call button now. Kayla. Kayla Keyes.
One more time: Kayla. Kaaaaaaaayla. Ring your call button.
I happen to glance off across the aisle and catch this girl sitting in the aisle seat raise her arm and press the call button overhead. A small light comes on and dings and soon the stewardess is coming down the aisle.
Kayla? she asks.
The girl just looks up and shrugs her shoulders
We called you four times? Why didn’t you answer?
The girl shrugs again.
Well, you could have saved us a lot of time here. Anyway, we have an important message from your dad. He says to text him as soon as you land.
The girl shrugs once more and the stewardess leaves.
I watch the girl stare down her phone, hovering over her lap, protected by furious thumbs. Texting a storm. All this well after the pilot commanded all passengers to power down all transmitting cellular devices.
Some time later the spacewhale touches down at Sky Harbor Intergalactic Spaceport in Phoenix. Not long after I’m standing at the passenger pickup bay, waiting to be picked up by unknown family members. I say unknown because I don’t know which members of my family will be picking me up, and some of those members I haven’t seen in six years or haven’t even met yet. That would be my step-cousin, the one that, though she’s been my step-cousin for ten years now, I haven’t met. Her name is Jesse, I think. The others, the ones that I haven’t seen in six years, include my aunt Melissa (we call her Missy) and cousins Lindsay and Dan, my step-uncle Dennis and his daughters (my step-cousins) Jesse and Megan. That’s Jesse I haven’t met. Megan I never will meet, because four months before I got on my spacewhale and travelled to Phoenix she packed a bag and ran away. Also there: my mom and dad and grandma.
The longer I’m waiting in the pickup bay the more nervous I get. I wasn’t sure I’d recognize Missy (more concerned that she wouldn’t recognize me) and dreaded an awkward ride home with Dennis. After half an hour I give up all hope of having a decent trip. Then, out of the darkness at the far end of the pickup bay, a sleek silver craft roars towards me. Music blaring out the open windows (“Ocean Man” by Ween) and I see my cousin Dan behind the control panel, eyes hidden by silver aviators and head obscured by a very old locomotive conductor’s cap. His fiance, Janice (I left her out of the list of family members because I’m not sure what to call a future cousin-in-law), sitting next to him. Dan notices me, violently jerks the silver craft at me and guns the sub-lightspeed thrusters. At the last possible instant he hits the brakes and slides the craft right up next to me.
Well, get in, he shouts over the music.
I open the rear hatch and toss my bag in before crawling into the tiny passenger compartment.
Hours later I’m poolside, staring off into the Phoenix sun while my dad throws coins into the water. For Jesse. She recently turned sixteen and, not having a job or allowance, will do nearly anything for money. So my dad throws coins in the pool, and when she gets home from school she puts her backpack down and jumps in after them. Four dollars and seventy-three cents, enough for lunch at McDonald’s, she says.
The next day Dan and Jan take me with them to the airport to pick up Lindsay. We leave early and stop in the desert. It’s hot and barren and full of bizarre vegetation and everything I expected the desert to be. We walk along a trail, mostly in silence, watching the dry air move through the spines of cactus. The colors here are soft, muted. Nothing is vibrant.
Lindsay is standing nearly in the same spot I was twenty-nine hours ago.
The ride back is quiet. Dan and Lindsay talk, but only to each other and only in their secret sibling language. We see a homeless man on the side of the highway with a sign. It says anything helps. I say sorry, we thew all of our change in the pool. They laugh. Dan tells me he once tried to send me a telepathogram, but couldn’t remember my area code so he tried a random combination of digits he thought might be right and sent it to someone he’d later discover to be a fourteen-year-old girl (the telepathogram: did you know more than half Earth’s population lives in yurts?). I laugh.
That night Dan and I stay up late by the pool. He sips from a glass of Wild Turkey and smokes. I just sit and don’t smoke. We talk for hours about music and passion and art and integrity, but we just say the same things we sad the last time we stayed up late and talked. The same recycled conversation. Still, it’s a connection, which is more than I can say for my time with Lindsay.
No one wakes me up in the morning and I sleep through breakfast. I stumble through the kitchen and out onto the back porch where breakfast debris litters mostly empty plates and the whole family is sitting around a table. I sit and drink coffee and listen to Grandma talk about Grandpa. He died six years ago--his funeral was the last time I saw Missy or Lindsay or Dennis. She talks about Poppy (how it came to be that we all call him Poppy, I’ll never know), and how empty the house is without him. I can see the hurt in her voice hang in the air like cold ocean fog.
The day goes by quickly: hot, dry, still. We go off into the desert again, Dan, Jan, Lindsay and myself. We walk a long dirt trail, winding around mesquite and under the upreached arms of ancient saguaros. I hang back and talk to Lindsay. Or try to talk to Lindsay. I ask her about bands and movies but she;s less than enthusiastic in her replies. Finally I get her to talk about the family.
It’s weird how we’re supposed to be related but we have nothing to relate to. We might as well be strangers.
Yeah.
I mean, I don’t know anything about you. What have you been up to all these years.
Not much.
Oh come on, you gotta give me more than that.
Why?
Because we’re cousins. Family. We should know each other.
Why? We see each other once a decade. You don’t have to be friends with everyone, you know. She walks away, catches up with Dan and Jan. I stop and pick a spine off a young saguaro and roll the slender dagger between my fingertips.
Dennis transports me to the spaceport. Dan, Lindsay and my dad are off searching for used record stores and old book shops. Jan, my mom and Missy are taking Grandma shoe shopping. So I’m sitting next to Dennis (who looks like some strange breed of Jay Leno and Wayne Knight’s character in Jurassic Park), in his cream colored luxury cruiser, doing my best to sound interested in his awkward computer babble. He stops and buys us ice cream, and for a minute we sit, not talking , just eating ice cream. Dennis finishes his ice cream first.
This is some family we’ve got.
Tell me about it, I say, my throat thick with the frozen treat.
He starts his cruiser and sets off for the spaceport.
I hope you’ll come back soon, he says when we arrive at the departure gate.
Yeah. I close the passenger hatch and enter the spaceport. I think about what Lindsay told me yesterday in the desert and board the spacewhale, leaving my family in the dusty sun as the great creature swims off into the upper atmosphere.
There are other people on the back of my spacewhale. They aren’t much fun. In fact, the two girls sitting directly behind me are candidates for the most-annoying-sub-twenty-one-year-old-duo award. Probably will win. They talk constantly during preflight preparation, about the most mundane bullshit: boys (not men), television programs, sex with boys (and definitely not men), and clothing. Their voices are like serpentine razor wires, slinking and wrapping around my head, piercing my ears. Midway through the flight their batteries are depleted and they fall into restless sleep, shifting in their makeshift beds and kicking the back of my seat.
The girl across the aisle, funny story about her. Right after the stewardess goes over the safety features of the spacewhale and just before it takes off, the pilot comes on the intercom and asks for someone named Kayla Keyes.
Kayla Keyes, will you please ring your call button? Kayla Keyes.
No call buttons are depressed, and soon the captain is back on the intercom.
One more time. Kayla Keyes. Please ring your call button.
Still no call buttons are depressed and the captain comes on again, frustrated.
Kayla Keyes. Ring your call button now. Kayla. Kayla Keyes.
One more time: Kayla. Kaaaaaaaayla. Ring your call button.
I happen to glance off across the aisle and catch this girl sitting in the aisle seat raise her arm and press the call button overhead. A small light comes on and dings and soon the stewardess is coming down the aisle.
Kayla? she asks.
The girl just looks up and shrugs her shoulders
We called you four times? Why didn’t you answer?
The girl shrugs again.
Well, you could have saved us a lot of time here. Anyway, we have an important message from your dad. He says to text him as soon as you land.
The girl shrugs once more and the stewardess leaves.
I watch the girl stare down her phone, hovering over her lap, protected by furious thumbs. Texting a storm. All this well after the pilot commanded all passengers to power down all transmitting cellular devices.
Some time later the spacewhale touches down at Sky Harbor Intergalactic Spaceport in Phoenix. Not long after I’m standing at the passenger pickup bay, waiting to be picked up by unknown family members. I say unknown because I don’t know which members of my family will be picking me up, and some of those members I haven’t seen in six years or haven’t even met yet. That would be my step-cousin, the one that, though she’s been my step-cousin for ten years now, I haven’t met. Her name is Jesse, I think. The others, the ones that I haven’t seen in six years, include my aunt Melissa (we call her Missy) and cousins Lindsay and Dan, my step-uncle Dennis and his daughters (my step-cousins) Jesse and Megan. That’s Jesse I haven’t met. Megan I never will meet, because four months before I got on my spacewhale and travelled to Phoenix she packed a bag and ran away. Also there: my mom and dad and grandma.
The longer I’m waiting in the pickup bay the more nervous I get. I wasn’t sure I’d recognize Missy (more concerned that she wouldn’t recognize me) and dreaded an awkward ride home with Dennis. After half an hour I give up all hope of having a decent trip. Then, out of the darkness at the far end of the pickup bay, a sleek silver craft roars towards me. Music blaring out the open windows (“Ocean Man” by Ween) and I see my cousin Dan behind the control panel, eyes hidden by silver aviators and head obscured by a very old locomotive conductor’s cap. His fiance, Janice (I left her out of the list of family members because I’m not sure what to call a future cousin-in-law), sitting next to him. Dan notices me, violently jerks the silver craft at me and guns the sub-lightspeed thrusters. At the last possible instant he hits the brakes and slides the craft right up next to me.
Well, get in, he shouts over the music.
I open the rear hatch and toss my bag in before crawling into the tiny passenger compartment.
Hours later I’m poolside, staring off into the Phoenix sun while my dad throws coins into the water. For Jesse. She recently turned sixteen and, not having a job or allowance, will do nearly anything for money. So my dad throws coins in the pool, and when she gets home from school she puts her backpack down and jumps in after them. Four dollars and seventy-three cents, enough for lunch at McDonald’s, she says.
The next day Dan and Jan take me with them to the airport to pick up Lindsay. We leave early and stop in the desert. It’s hot and barren and full of bizarre vegetation and everything I expected the desert to be. We walk along a trail, mostly in silence, watching the dry air move through the spines of cactus. The colors here are soft, muted. Nothing is vibrant.
Lindsay is standing nearly in the same spot I was twenty-nine hours ago.
The ride back is quiet. Dan and Lindsay talk, but only to each other and only in their secret sibling language. We see a homeless man on the side of the highway with a sign. It says anything helps. I say sorry, we thew all of our change in the pool. They laugh. Dan tells me he once tried to send me a telepathogram, but couldn’t remember my area code so he tried a random combination of digits he thought might be right and sent it to someone he’d later discover to be a fourteen-year-old girl (the telepathogram: did you know more than half Earth’s population lives in yurts?). I laugh.
That night Dan and I stay up late by the pool. He sips from a glass of Wild Turkey and smokes. I just sit and don’t smoke. We talk for hours about music and passion and art and integrity, but we just say the same things we sad the last time we stayed up late and talked. The same recycled conversation. Still, it’s a connection, which is more than I can say for my time with Lindsay.
No one wakes me up in the morning and I sleep through breakfast. I stumble through the kitchen and out onto the back porch where breakfast debris litters mostly empty plates and the whole family is sitting around a table. I sit and drink coffee and listen to Grandma talk about Grandpa. He died six years ago--his funeral was the last time I saw Missy or Lindsay or Dennis. She talks about Poppy (how it came to be that we all call him Poppy, I’ll never know), and how empty the house is without him. I can see the hurt in her voice hang in the air like cold ocean fog.
The day goes by quickly: hot, dry, still. We go off into the desert again, Dan, Jan, Lindsay and myself. We walk a long dirt trail, winding around mesquite and under the upreached arms of ancient saguaros. I hang back and talk to Lindsay. Or try to talk to Lindsay. I ask her about bands and movies but she;s less than enthusiastic in her replies. Finally I get her to talk about the family.
It’s weird how we’re supposed to be related but we have nothing to relate to. We might as well be strangers.
Yeah.
I mean, I don’t know anything about you. What have you been up to all these years.
Not much.
Oh come on, you gotta give me more than that.
Why?
Because we’re cousins. Family. We should know each other.
Why? We see each other once a decade. You don’t have to be friends with everyone, you know. She walks away, catches up with Dan and Jan. I stop and pick a spine off a young saguaro and roll the slender dagger between my fingertips.
Dennis transports me to the spaceport. Dan, Lindsay and my dad are off searching for used record stores and old book shops. Jan, my mom and Missy are taking Grandma shoe shopping. So I’m sitting next to Dennis (who looks like some strange breed of Jay Leno and Wayne Knight’s character in Jurassic Park), in his cream colored luxury cruiser, doing my best to sound interested in his awkward computer babble. He stops and buys us ice cream, and for a minute we sit, not talking , just eating ice cream. Dennis finishes his ice cream first.
This is some family we’ve got.
Tell me about it, I say, my throat thick with the frozen treat.
He starts his cruiser and sets off for the spaceport.
I hope you’ll come back soon, he says when we arrive at the departure gate.
Yeah. I close the passenger hatch and enter the spaceport. I think about what Lindsay told me yesterday in the desert and board the spacewhale, leaving my family in the dusty sun as the great creature swims off into the upper atmosphere.
4.02.2009
A Disconnected Trilogy of Self-Discovery in Three Parts
Probably I’m too contented to be a good writer. So I tried to be an alcoholic, like Kerouac or Bukowski or Hemmingway. Didn’t work. I never liked the taste of alcohol and mixed drinks just made me sick. So I tried my hand at drug addiction, like Burroughs or Dick or Hunter Thompson. Also didn’t work. Turns out it’s supremely difficult to score hard drugs in Crawford, Nebraska (population: 1,107). Really, this town is Mayberry. No rough side of the tracks, no ghetto, no dark underbelly. And besides addiction is a skill I do not possess.
But back to the contented writer thing. After failing to get on the addiction wagon I turned my attention towards sabotaging my close relationships, like Kerouac or Bukowski or Hemmingway or Burroughs or Dick or Thompson. My family is scattered around the midwest and I don’t really talk to them much anyway, which ruled them out. So I turned my attention to my girlfriend. If I could just get her to throw a lamp at me or smash some dishes maybe it would be the spark necessary to write the next Great American Novel.
I’d come home late and not tell her where I was. She didn’t care. Said I needed my space and that’s okay with her. I’d be emotionally distant as I knew how. She said it’s just a phase and I’d get over it. I even tried leaving fake love notes to non-existent lovers on my desk. She never read them--she’s not the snooping type, I guess. So I told her I was having an affair. She laughed, asked me with who and said there are only seven girls in town within ten years of my age and if I was sleeping with anyone older or younger I had more problems than infidelity. I accused her of having an affair. She laughed.
Goddammit, I’m serious, I said.
Okay, honey.
Nothing but smiles, so I went into the kitchen and took a coffee mug out of the cupboard and hurled it into the wall. Being one of those plastic, refillable jobs it just bounced helplessly off the wall. Laughs.
What’s his name!
A new cup projected into the wall with a successful explosion of glass.
Honey, wasn’t that the cup you made for your mom in the fourth grade?
I slinked over to the debris, knelt down, tears welled up in the corners of m eyes.
Look what you made me do! I was sobbing now, streams of tears and snot sliding down my face.
It’s okay, honey. It’s not broken too bad. Let’s try to glue it back together.
Okay.
* * *
So now I’m on our front porch, lemonade in my hand. The late summer sun is broadcasting its final warm rays of the evening and the sound of cicadas pulses rhythmically through the cottonwoods and a slight breeze trickles through my hair and across my face.
To hell with Hemmingway. All he did was undo everything Faulkner established. Kerouac and Bukowski, too. Just shiftless drunks who embellished their mundane lives. Burroughs and Thompson were too twisted to keep their shit together and managed to coast downhill into greatness on a single piece of work each. And Phillip Dick, he was just a paranoid amphetamine fiend, so caught up in his own delusions to make anything of his life.
She appears through the screen door and refills my lemonade, the engagement ring on her left hand clicking against the cool glass pitcher. They can have their names emblazoned on the pantheon of great literature. I’ll take my porch.
But back to the contented writer thing. After failing to get on the addiction wagon I turned my attention towards sabotaging my close relationships, like Kerouac or Bukowski or Hemmingway or Burroughs or Dick or Thompson. My family is scattered around the midwest and I don’t really talk to them much anyway, which ruled them out. So I turned my attention to my girlfriend. If I could just get her to throw a lamp at me or smash some dishes maybe it would be the spark necessary to write the next Great American Novel.
I’d come home late and not tell her where I was. She didn’t care. Said I needed my space and that’s okay with her. I’d be emotionally distant as I knew how. She said it’s just a phase and I’d get over it. I even tried leaving fake love notes to non-existent lovers on my desk. She never read them--she’s not the snooping type, I guess. So I told her I was having an affair. She laughed, asked me with who and said there are only seven girls in town within ten years of my age and if I was sleeping with anyone older or younger I had more problems than infidelity. I accused her of having an affair. She laughed.
Goddammit, I’m serious, I said.
Okay, honey.
Nothing but smiles, so I went into the kitchen and took a coffee mug out of the cupboard and hurled it into the wall. Being one of those plastic, refillable jobs it just bounced helplessly off the wall. Laughs.
What’s his name!
A new cup projected into the wall with a successful explosion of glass.
Honey, wasn’t that the cup you made for your mom in the fourth grade?
I slinked over to the debris, knelt down, tears welled up in the corners of m eyes.
Look what you made me do! I was sobbing now, streams of tears and snot sliding down my face.
It’s okay, honey. It’s not broken too bad. Let’s try to glue it back together.
Okay.
* * *
So now I’m on our front porch, lemonade in my hand. The late summer sun is broadcasting its final warm rays of the evening and the sound of cicadas pulses rhythmically through the cottonwoods and a slight breeze trickles through my hair and across my face.
To hell with Hemmingway. All he did was undo everything Faulkner established. Kerouac and Bukowski, too. Just shiftless drunks who embellished their mundane lives. Burroughs and Thompson were too twisted to keep their shit together and managed to coast downhill into greatness on a single piece of work each. And Phillip Dick, he was just a paranoid amphetamine fiend, so caught up in his own delusions to make anything of his life.
She appears through the screen door and refills my lemonade, the engagement ring on her left hand clicking against the cool glass pitcher. They can have their names emblazoned on the pantheon of great literature. I’ll take my porch.
4.01.2009
Rejection
Is part of the business. I don't know exactly what I mean when I say business, but that seemed like the right word. Anyway, got two new rejection letters today. Form letters too, not even personalized:
Thank you for taking the time to send this submission. Unfortunately on this occasion we are going to pass.
and
Thank you for sending us your work. We're sorry to say that it does not suit our current editorial needs, but we wish you luck with it elsewhere.
Not bothered by these ones, as all I submitted was a poem (Hungry), and only because I was in Arizona and very bored. It's the ones that you've worked hard on that hurt. Or the ones that are close to you. Probably that's the worst.
Thank you for taking the time to send this submission. Unfortunately on this occasion we are going to pass.
and
Thank you for sending us your work. We're sorry to say that it does not suit our current editorial needs, but we wish you luck with it elsewhere.
Not bothered by these ones, as all I submitted was a poem (Hungry), and only because I was in Arizona and very bored. It's the ones that you've worked hard on that hurt. Or the ones that are close to you. Probably that's the worst.
3.28.2009
An End Without A Beginning
Wet earth beneath his feet. Soft impacts of snowflakes tapping on the shoulders of his jacket. Hands in pockets, head down. The wind sifting through unseen branches. No voices, no signs of existence outside the dull sphere of firelight. The wind quickens, pushes orange embers away from the fire and into the night. He tucks his face into the collar of his jacket, looks at the fire. He looks deep into the bed of coals, little pockets of flame licking up at the falling snow. He stands and lets the fire die, its light lost and heat radiated away until it is just him and the wind and the tapping snowflakes and the sound of his breath in the night.
Definitely feels like a good end to something. What it is an end to? I have no idea. Haven't been able to get back in that frame of mind. Probably a bit too Cormac McCarthy, but I liked it. More to come.
Definitely feels like a good end to something. What it is an end to? I have no idea. Haven't been able to get back in that frame of mind. Probably a bit too Cormac McCarthy, but I liked it. More to come.
3.12.2009
3.10.2009
Meteoric Rise...
...is a ridiculous phrase. Meteors don't rise! They are rocks (essentially) captured by Earth's gravitational field and pulled towards it's surface at extreme rates of speed. THEY ARE FALLING! No one would say sky-diverific rise, would they? No, because skydivers, like meteors, aren't rising. Falling. Always falling.
Rant brought to you by Wikipedia's article on Sara WIllis' novel Ruth Hall.
Rant brought to you by Wikipedia's article on Sara WIllis' novel Ruth Hall.
3.05.2009
Roger
Is the entity looming over my desk. He has not communicated with me, yet, except to inform me of his presence. Above are two visual interpretations. The drawing is very cartoonish; he's much more sinister in person. I know he's there, but when will he speak to me? Soon, I hope.
3.03.2009
Receipt
The girl at the register is cute. I pretend to casually glance her way, until I make out the name on her nametag. Laura. She has long dark hair, a fair complexion, and is thin. Very thin. I could probably break any of her bones, easily. I want to take her home and make her sandwiches until she reaches more human proportions. She is polite but not nosy, as any good cashier should be. She asks me how my day is. Fine, I say, how is yours? She shrugs I’ve had better. She rings up my items and asks if I want them in a bag. All I purchased was a small box of nails and a small box of ceiling hangers. And a jar of real peanut butter. The good stuff. I think I can handle it, I say with a grin. Are you sure, she asks, these are pretty dangerous. No, I’ve been lifting lots of weight lately, for this exact purpose. All right, she says, have a nice night. You to I say, headed for the door. What an idiot, I think to myself. That’s all you could manage to say? I’ve been lifting weights? Nice one, meathead. By the time my first foot falls outside the door, I’ve thought of at least a thousand better things I could have said. I live for danger. I’ve received all the proper training for these situations. It’s okay, I’m impervious to puncture wounds. The list goes on. By the time I put my key in the car door, I’m half-convinced I should turn around, walk back in there and holler don’t worry about me, I thrive under hazardous conditions. But I don’t. I drive home and pretend like I said something funnier, wittier. I pretend that after I impressed her with a clever remark, she asks for my signature on the receipt, and just before I can finish writing my last name she also asks for my phone number. That shit only happens in movies, I guess. And maybe Nicholas Sparks novels. My life is not a Nicholas Sparks novel, which is sort of a blessing and a curse. Blessing: I never gag on sentimentality in my day-to-day life. Curse: I never fall madly in love with the awkwardly beautiful soulmate.
A semi-true tale, and a product of the same day that saw Killing Jerry Seinfeld's genesis. I usually operate like that: weeks and weeks of sloth and disinterest followed by a day or two of frenzied productivity, then more sloth. Not too sure this piece has a future, though. At least not on its own. Perhaps it will see life as part of something else. Perhaps it will be left here, on this digital page, to die and rot into obscurity.
A semi-true tale, and a product of the same day that saw Killing Jerry Seinfeld's genesis. I usually operate like that: weeks and weeks of sloth and disinterest followed by a day or two of frenzied productivity, then more sloth. Not too sure this piece has a future, though. At least not on its own. Perhaps it will see life as part of something else. Perhaps it will be left here, on this digital page, to die and rot into obscurity.
Killing Jerry Seinfeld
The vampires outside the window were very bothersome. All red eyes glowing and peering through the window. I wanted to close the shade, but was too scared to go near the window. Which is ridiculous, as the glass is both thick and vampire-resistant. It’s not coated in garlic or anything, but there is a manufacturer’s guarantee sticker in the lower left corner. So, really, my fear was completely irrational. Though, when dealing with vampires near one’s dwelling, it can be beneficial to handle the situation with caution, regardless of any anti-vampire systems that may be deployed. This is all my fault I suppose, the vampires. I spent too much time in graveyards over the years to expect that I wouldn’t have some sort of run-in with them. But now there were twenty of the fuckers outside on my front lawn, and I was fresh out of crucifixes. Wooden stakes though, yeah, I had those. I had plenty of those.
I spend time in graveyards digging up recently deceased bodies. For, research purposes. And by research I mean experiments. Necromancy. I’ve been experimenting with necromancy, which is the practice of bringing the dead to life. Like some sort of zombie conjurer. Anyway, so I used to rent backhoes and dig up coffins and take them home. I’d take the bodies to my garage and try to bring them back to life, but the coffins, those I chopped into various sizes for firewood. Yes, I have a fireplace, and I use it often. Also, burning is a good way of removing evidence, and coffins. Turns out a lot of times firewood and anti-vampire stakes are the same thing, which, though I didn’t know at the time, would become immensely helpful in the future.
Go to my room and bring me my scarf, I told my girlfriend. She’s great, but she won’t be any help tonight. She doesn’t have the stomach for this kind of work. When she returned, I wrapped the scarf around my neck, pulled on my coat and picked up the sharpest of the firewood. I kissed her quick and headed out into my very vampire-dense front lawn. The battle was anticlimactic. Really, twenty blind vampires aren’t that hard to defeat. Turns out they don’t even possess bat’s echo-locative abilities. The worst that happened was one of them got his pale hand wrapped in my scarf and I had to slither out of it, to avoid tearing it. Other than that, though, piece of cake. The bodies I dragged to the back yard, piled them up next to the garage, being especially careful no to disturb the carefully placed stakes. Come sun-up I’ll have a nice pile of ash behind the garage.
It’s amazing, the ramifications of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This morning, for instance: everything was set for me to leave the house at the appropriate time, to catch the appropriate bus, until I tried to make my lunch. I got two pieces of fifteen-grain bread out of the bag in the cupboard, as usual. I got a knife out of the silverware drawer, as usual. I got the raspberry jelly out of the refrigerator, also as usual. However, instead of getting the vat of peanut butter out of the same cupboard as the bread, which I would have done way back when the bread was extracted from said cupboard, I got a small jar of all-natural peanut butter out of the same refrigerator containing the jelly. To be perfectly clear, I do not condone using all-natural peanut butter, under any circumstances. The oil has a nasty habit of separating from the food-paste, and unless you stir it constantly or refrigerate it, it is completely worthless in it’s binary state. But my girlfriend, she insisted that I make the switch from delicious, non-separating Skippy to this new, purportedly healthier demon. She’s pretty cool, but she knows nothing of proper PB&J manufacturing.
Anyway, so I have to refrigerate my peanut butter, which keeps it in a terrible, un-spreadable condition, and when I attempt to spread, it pulverizes the bread, rips wide gashes through the fifteen-grain matrix. I try to spread another dollop of the thick paste on the other piece of bread, with similar results. I glance at the stove clock, notice I’m four minutes behind schedule and curse out loud. Furious, I slap the two pieces of ravaged bread together, squeeze them into a ball in my fist, until the thick, un-spreadable peanut butter oozes between my fingers, and hurl the useless mass into the sink.
So now I’m on a bus, not the one I should be on, but a later, less timely bus. My hand smells like all-natural peanut butter. In five hours, I know that I will be sitting in the break room at work, angry and hungry. Worse than that, though, are the vampires. I expect them at any time, their pale noses hot on the trail of my peanut buttery flesh.
Strangely, it wasn’t my peanut butter fist that drew the vampires to the front lawn. It was my necromancing. Turns out one night I managed to return a corpse to the realm of the living. Except this particular corpse was less of a corpse and more of an undead vampire who was just resting in his coffin, and who, by being returned to the living world, ceased to be a vampire. Also turns out that this particular vampire was well liked in the vampire community. Something of a comedian, I guess. But the rest of the vampires, they weren’t too happy with me for stealing away their funny-man. At least that’s what I was told by one of the blind nighstalkers on my lawn, moments before I staked him. He might have also said something about unrelenting attacks on myself and loved ones, until I returned this undead Seinfeld, but I was too busy plunging firewood deep into his heart to ask questions.
Twenty blind vampires were only the first wave. The next night, there were thirty. And they had all the vision necessary for serious combat. As luck would have it, I still had plenty of firewood, and my good friend Meriwether Duval. Meriwether though, he’s no vampire slayer, but who is, really? Buffy, sure, but she’s not so much of a vampire slayer as she is Sarah Michelle Gellar pretending to be a vampire slayer. What I could use is a bona-fide, steak slinging, crucifix wielding bad ass. I’d settle for Sarah Michelle Gellar, though probably for different, less vampire-related reasons. None of that mattered though. It was just me and Meri and thirty goddamn vampires on my front lawn. Oh, and my girlfriend.
I called for her to bring me my scarf. Why don’t you just stay inside, she said, we spent all that money on the vampire-proof windows, we might as well use them. Vampire resistant, not vampire proof, I said. Now please be a dear and bring me my damn scarf. She’s all right, though I often wonder if Sarah Michelle Gellar would be of more use in these situations. When she returned with my scarf she asked me when I became so devoted to vampire staking and wasn’t I too scared even to close the blinds the night before. I told her Ripley was scared shitless in Alien but the didn’t stop her from kicking xenomorph ass.
Meriwether and I, on the front steps, stakes in hand. I instruct him to take the eastmost fifteen while I attend to the westerly fifteen. He stared at me blankly and I said just go wild, we’re Lethal Weapon 4 now.
It was bloodless, the battle, which isn’t to say that wounds weren’t inflicted nor vampires slain. It’s just that, though they consume blood, vampires don’t necessarily bleed it. That is to say, vampires are undead, so bloodflow isn’t required and therefore, when staked through the heart, they don’t bleed. I could never understand how heart penetration is supposed to kill something that is both already dead and independent of their cardiovascular system. I guess that’s just the way it is. But the battle, victory. Thirty dead vampires and not a scratch on my body. Meriwether, he didn’t fare so well. I can still say the battle was bloodless because the fifteen vampires he was responsible for teamed up and drained every ounce of his blood through their hollow pale fangs in no time flat. Sucked him completely dry. At least I was able to stake most of them while they were hunched over his body.
After a few days and many failed incantations, I was finally able to revive Meri. Within a week or so he was back at full strength and, aside from the many fang-marks, he was as he was before the battle, except now he demanded to be called Hrothgar. Of course, during that time I had to fend off countless vampiric hordes by my self. She was there, my girlfriend, and she’s okay, but she didn’t even help be haul bodies to the ash pile behind the garage.
That night, no less than one hundred vampires outside, I decided enough was enough and that I would give in to their demand. I opened the vampire-resistant window and called out to them. I told them I was sorry and that I’d do whatever it is they wanted me to if it meant and end to the nightly slayings. The leader of the vampires came to the front of the pack. So be it, he menaced, and proceeded to explain in excruciating detail everything they expected me to do.
Turns out the guy I accidentally brought back to life, yeah, Jerry Seinfeld. Been a vampire the whole time, since the beginning. So when I said earlier that he was some sort of vampire Seinfeld, I couldn’t have been more right. Anyway, tracking him down was no problem. Hrothgar and I rented a car using the credentials of one of the vampires and drove to New York. We had used the internet to discern the rough location of Seinfeld’s mansion, and drove lazy but strategic loops around the vicinity, until, one night, we spotted the infamous comedian speeding along in one of his many Porsches. We ran him off the road, pulled his living body from the wreckage and tossed him in the trunk of our rental. We escaped home without incident.
Pulling into the garage, Jerry Seinfeld bound and gagged in the trunk. I tell Hrothgar to be alert. He might try to distract us with his trademark observational comedy when we open the trunk and carry him into the back yard. I pop the trunk, get out of the car and walk to the back. Hrothgar asks how are we going to turn him back into a vampire. That’s for the vampires to worry about, I reassure him. Now help me with the legs.
I was a little disappointed that our cargo had passed out during the nine hour car ride and was still unconscious even as we haphazardly hauled him out back. Secretly, I was hoping that he really would try to distract us with some good did-you-ever-notice mojo. I used to watch his show all the time. Hrothgar brought me back to reality. He asked me if this wouldn’t be easier with some more help. Who, I ask. Oh, yeah, her. My girlfriend. She’s, uh, nice, but do you think she has the braun for this operation. No, best to just bite down and do it ourselves.
When the body was firmly lashed to the posts we had driven into the lawn, we went inside. I called for my girlfriend, to let her know we had returned, lest she didn’t hear us struggle from garage to yard, laden with comedian weight. There was no reply. I walked from the back door up a small flight of stairs into the kitchen. To my surprise, there was my girlfriend, splayed out on the kitchen table, a thick pool of blood covering the floor beneath her. In the corner, looming in the shadows like he was in a detective novel, a vampire. He waited for a moment, then skulked out of the shadows towards me. Where is our funnyman, he hissed. The funnyman’s in the back, I said. He hissed some more. If you don’t bring us our funnyman by tomorrow night, another loved one will suffer the same fate as your precious girlfriend here. But I said he’s in the back. Like, we already have him for you. The vampire hesitated, then menaced, in the same cautionary tone as before. Oh, I see. Sorry for the mess. He walked past me, down the stairs and out the back door. A few seconds later Hrothgar entered the kitchen. Hey, did you know there was a vampire in the house? I just saw him walk out the back do--holy shit! What happened here? They killed her, I said, as incentive to complete our mission in a timely fashion. Hrothgar came closer, put his hand on my shoulder. I’m so sorry, is there anything we can do? Don’t worry about it, I said. But, isn’t she going to turn into a vampire? No, they didn’t bite her. From the looks of it they drained her blood the toothless way. Hrothgar turned to face me. You’re necromancy! You can bring her back, just like you did to me! I said don’t worry about it, and walked to the kitchen window.
Outside, in the back yard, a cluster of vampires had gathered around their former kin. The body we recently secured to the poles in the ground rose from the grass, hovered a few inches off the ground. No shit, I said out loud, and made my way outside. Hrothgar, he stayed in the kitchen. Not much of a Seinfeld fan, that one. I sidled up to the vampires, ensconced myself in their midst. Vampire Seinfeld still hovered there, a pair of leathery wings caped out behind him. And what’s the deal with Dracula, he said. What’s he a Count of anyway?
This is the complete, unedited first draft. For this outing I tried not to get caught up in the editing process while writing, instead trying to get the story on the page as quickly as possible. Thus, the many plot/grammar/logic problems. Further drafts will be posted as they are drafted. I'm curious to see where this story goes.
I spend time in graveyards digging up recently deceased bodies. For, research purposes. And by research I mean experiments. Necromancy. I’ve been experimenting with necromancy, which is the practice of bringing the dead to life. Like some sort of zombie conjurer. Anyway, so I used to rent backhoes and dig up coffins and take them home. I’d take the bodies to my garage and try to bring them back to life, but the coffins, those I chopped into various sizes for firewood. Yes, I have a fireplace, and I use it often. Also, burning is a good way of removing evidence, and coffins. Turns out a lot of times firewood and anti-vampire stakes are the same thing, which, though I didn’t know at the time, would become immensely helpful in the future.
Go to my room and bring me my scarf, I told my girlfriend. She’s great, but she won’t be any help tonight. She doesn’t have the stomach for this kind of work. When she returned, I wrapped the scarf around my neck, pulled on my coat and picked up the sharpest of the firewood. I kissed her quick and headed out into my very vampire-dense front lawn. The battle was anticlimactic. Really, twenty blind vampires aren’t that hard to defeat. Turns out they don’t even possess bat’s echo-locative abilities. The worst that happened was one of them got his pale hand wrapped in my scarf and I had to slither out of it, to avoid tearing it. Other than that, though, piece of cake. The bodies I dragged to the back yard, piled them up next to the garage, being especially careful no to disturb the carefully placed stakes. Come sun-up I’ll have a nice pile of ash behind the garage.
It’s amazing, the ramifications of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This morning, for instance: everything was set for me to leave the house at the appropriate time, to catch the appropriate bus, until I tried to make my lunch. I got two pieces of fifteen-grain bread out of the bag in the cupboard, as usual. I got a knife out of the silverware drawer, as usual. I got the raspberry jelly out of the refrigerator, also as usual. However, instead of getting the vat of peanut butter out of the same cupboard as the bread, which I would have done way back when the bread was extracted from said cupboard, I got a small jar of all-natural peanut butter out of the same refrigerator containing the jelly. To be perfectly clear, I do not condone using all-natural peanut butter, under any circumstances. The oil has a nasty habit of separating from the food-paste, and unless you stir it constantly or refrigerate it, it is completely worthless in it’s binary state. But my girlfriend, she insisted that I make the switch from delicious, non-separating Skippy to this new, purportedly healthier demon. She’s pretty cool, but she knows nothing of proper PB&J manufacturing.
Anyway, so I have to refrigerate my peanut butter, which keeps it in a terrible, un-spreadable condition, and when I attempt to spread, it pulverizes the bread, rips wide gashes through the fifteen-grain matrix. I try to spread another dollop of the thick paste on the other piece of bread, with similar results. I glance at the stove clock, notice I’m four minutes behind schedule and curse out loud. Furious, I slap the two pieces of ravaged bread together, squeeze them into a ball in my fist, until the thick, un-spreadable peanut butter oozes between my fingers, and hurl the useless mass into the sink.
So now I’m on a bus, not the one I should be on, but a later, less timely bus. My hand smells like all-natural peanut butter. In five hours, I know that I will be sitting in the break room at work, angry and hungry. Worse than that, though, are the vampires. I expect them at any time, their pale noses hot on the trail of my peanut buttery flesh.
Strangely, it wasn’t my peanut butter fist that drew the vampires to the front lawn. It was my necromancing. Turns out one night I managed to return a corpse to the realm of the living. Except this particular corpse was less of a corpse and more of an undead vampire who was just resting in his coffin, and who, by being returned to the living world, ceased to be a vampire. Also turns out that this particular vampire was well liked in the vampire community. Something of a comedian, I guess. But the rest of the vampires, they weren’t too happy with me for stealing away their funny-man. At least that’s what I was told by one of the blind nighstalkers on my lawn, moments before I staked him. He might have also said something about unrelenting attacks on myself and loved ones, until I returned this undead Seinfeld, but I was too busy plunging firewood deep into his heart to ask questions.
Twenty blind vampires were only the first wave. The next night, there were thirty. And they had all the vision necessary for serious combat. As luck would have it, I still had plenty of firewood, and my good friend Meriwether Duval. Meriwether though, he’s no vampire slayer, but who is, really? Buffy, sure, but she’s not so much of a vampire slayer as she is Sarah Michelle Gellar pretending to be a vampire slayer. What I could use is a bona-fide, steak slinging, crucifix wielding bad ass. I’d settle for Sarah Michelle Gellar, though probably for different, less vampire-related reasons. None of that mattered though. It was just me and Meri and thirty goddamn vampires on my front lawn. Oh, and my girlfriend.
I called for her to bring me my scarf. Why don’t you just stay inside, she said, we spent all that money on the vampire-proof windows, we might as well use them. Vampire resistant, not vampire proof, I said. Now please be a dear and bring me my damn scarf. She’s all right, though I often wonder if Sarah Michelle Gellar would be of more use in these situations. When she returned with my scarf she asked me when I became so devoted to vampire staking and wasn’t I too scared even to close the blinds the night before. I told her Ripley was scared shitless in Alien but the didn’t stop her from kicking xenomorph ass.
Meriwether and I, on the front steps, stakes in hand. I instruct him to take the eastmost fifteen while I attend to the westerly fifteen. He stared at me blankly and I said just go wild, we’re Lethal Weapon 4 now.
It was bloodless, the battle, which isn’t to say that wounds weren’t inflicted nor vampires slain. It’s just that, though they consume blood, vampires don’t necessarily bleed it. That is to say, vampires are undead, so bloodflow isn’t required and therefore, when staked through the heart, they don’t bleed. I could never understand how heart penetration is supposed to kill something that is both already dead and independent of their cardiovascular system. I guess that’s just the way it is. But the battle, victory. Thirty dead vampires and not a scratch on my body. Meriwether, he didn’t fare so well. I can still say the battle was bloodless because the fifteen vampires he was responsible for teamed up and drained every ounce of his blood through their hollow pale fangs in no time flat. Sucked him completely dry. At least I was able to stake most of them while they were hunched over his body.
After a few days and many failed incantations, I was finally able to revive Meri. Within a week or so he was back at full strength and, aside from the many fang-marks, he was as he was before the battle, except now he demanded to be called Hrothgar. Of course, during that time I had to fend off countless vampiric hordes by my self. She was there, my girlfriend, and she’s okay, but she didn’t even help be haul bodies to the ash pile behind the garage.
That night, no less than one hundred vampires outside, I decided enough was enough and that I would give in to their demand. I opened the vampire-resistant window and called out to them. I told them I was sorry and that I’d do whatever it is they wanted me to if it meant and end to the nightly slayings. The leader of the vampires came to the front of the pack. So be it, he menaced, and proceeded to explain in excruciating detail everything they expected me to do.
Turns out the guy I accidentally brought back to life, yeah, Jerry Seinfeld. Been a vampire the whole time, since the beginning. So when I said earlier that he was some sort of vampire Seinfeld, I couldn’t have been more right. Anyway, tracking him down was no problem. Hrothgar and I rented a car using the credentials of one of the vampires and drove to New York. We had used the internet to discern the rough location of Seinfeld’s mansion, and drove lazy but strategic loops around the vicinity, until, one night, we spotted the infamous comedian speeding along in one of his many Porsches. We ran him off the road, pulled his living body from the wreckage and tossed him in the trunk of our rental. We escaped home without incident.
Pulling into the garage, Jerry Seinfeld bound and gagged in the trunk. I tell Hrothgar to be alert. He might try to distract us with his trademark observational comedy when we open the trunk and carry him into the back yard. I pop the trunk, get out of the car and walk to the back. Hrothgar asks how are we going to turn him back into a vampire. That’s for the vampires to worry about, I reassure him. Now help me with the legs.
I was a little disappointed that our cargo had passed out during the nine hour car ride and was still unconscious even as we haphazardly hauled him out back. Secretly, I was hoping that he really would try to distract us with some good did-you-ever-notice mojo. I used to watch his show all the time. Hrothgar brought me back to reality. He asked me if this wouldn’t be easier with some more help. Who, I ask. Oh, yeah, her. My girlfriend. She’s, uh, nice, but do you think she has the braun for this operation. No, best to just bite down and do it ourselves.
When the body was firmly lashed to the posts we had driven into the lawn, we went inside. I called for my girlfriend, to let her know we had returned, lest she didn’t hear us struggle from garage to yard, laden with comedian weight. There was no reply. I walked from the back door up a small flight of stairs into the kitchen. To my surprise, there was my girlfriend, splayed out on the kitchen table, a thick pool of blood covering the floor beneath her. In the corner, looming in the shadows like he was in a detective novel, a vampire. He waited for a moment, then skulked out of the shadows towards me. Where is our funnyman, he hissed. The funnyman’s in the back, I said. He hissed some more. If you don’t bring us our funnyman by tomorrow night, another loved one will suffer the same fate as your precious girlfriend here. But I said he’s in the back. Like, we already have him for you. The vampire hesitated, then menaced, in the same cautionary tone as before. Oh, I see. Sorry for the mess. He walked past me, down the stairs and out the back door. A few seconds later Hrothgar entered the kitchen. Hey, did you know there was a vampire in the house? I just saw him walk out the back do--holy shit! What happened here? They killed her, I said, as incentive to complete our mission in a timely fashion. Hrothgar came closer, put his hand on my shoulder. I’m so sorry, is there anything we can do? Don’t worry about it, I said. But, isn’t she going to turn into a vampire? No, they didn’t bite her. From the looks of it they drained her blood the toothless way. Hrothgar turned to face me. You’re necromancy! You can bring her back, just like you did to me! I said don’t worry about it, and walked to the kitchen window.
Outside, in the back yard, a cluster of vampires had gathered around their former kin. The body we recently secured to the poles in the ground rose from the grass, hovered a few inches off the ground. No shit, I said out loud, and made my way outside. Hrothgar, he stayed in the kitchen. Not much of a Seinfeld fan, that one. I sidled up to the vampires, ensconced myself in their midst. Vampire Seinfeld still hovered there, a pair of leathery wings caped out behind him. And what’s the deal with Dracula, he said. What’s he a Count of anyway?
This is the complete, unedited first draft. For this outing I tried not to get caught up in the editing process while writing, instead trying to get the story on the page as quickly as possible. Thus, the many plot/grammar/logic problems. Further drafts will be posted as they are drafted. I'm curious to see where this story goes.
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