The Halloween Face

When it appears over my bed tonight it's not so scary, but every other day of the year I sleep with the lights on.

While crossing the river

The river, liquid and solid, like oil and marble, flows slow tonight. On another bridge, two blocks north, I hear voices.

"Look, ducks, Pa!"

"They're ducks. The green one's the man. The brown one's the woman. Oh..."

"Look, Pa, duck sex!"

"Yep."

"I didn't know ducks had penises and vaginas."

"Just like people, son."

"Ducks sure like to bite each other, don't they Pa?"

"Yep."

"Do you and Ma..."

"Hold it right there, son -- the answer is yes...the answer is always yes..."

It rains lightly. The voices fade into the night, drowned out by my shoes' squeak and a very loud quack.
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Basic Journalism

Who?

Shadowy, carnivorous predators

What?

Chase me without provocation

When?

On cold autumn nights

Where?

In the prism-landscape of my dreams

Why?

I sleep in a bunny costume.

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Problem/Solution/Com- plication

Problem: I can't read.

Solution: I become a great painter.

Complication: I can't read.
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Too Bad

It's quarter to two in the morning. It's raining outside. I'm not sleepy, which is too bad because I have a very comfortable bed, and the temperature is perfect for a sweat and shiver free night. I'm not hungry, which is too bad because I have a refrigerator stocked with the finest meats and cheeses. I'm not horny, which is too bad because I have an internet full of pornography.

It's ten to two in the morning. The cool wind blows in through my kitchen window. I'm not thirsty, which is too bad because I have a giant bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin and seven cans of Busch Light. I'm not constipated, which is too bad because I have fifteen unread magazines and a toilet. I'm not lovesick, which is too bad because I have envelopes and postage stamps and no real need for my little toe.

It's five to two in the morning. My apartment is quiet except for the drip from the bathroom sink. Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop. I am not lonely, which is too bad because I have at least one friend who will answer the phone. I am not alone, which is too bad because Grandma's ghost can be a little scary. I am not paranoid, which is too bad because then I could sit hooded in the park until the first morning jogger tries to run me down and cut out my kidneys.

It's two in morning. I'm bored.

The Roaches and Me

Unless you have company over, it is only sporting to kill a cockroach with a rubber band. It has been nine or ten shots since my last direct hit, but I feel that using a rolled up newspaper, gasoline and matches, or a suitcase full of sex toys gives me an unfair advantage.

To arrive at this conclusion, I had to deal with my instinctive fear of the little brownish-black aliens. On Saturdays, around four in the morning, I would stagger into the kitchen for a cold grape Gatorade only to find a living blotch on the floor. I would jump into a murderous hysteria, flinging books and magazines at him to remove his plague-ridden insect consciousness from my home. Then, once killed, I would slide his body-goo under some other garbage and begin to forget him. This is what an upper-middle class upbringing did to me -- until, through repetition, I became somewhat desensitized to the roach's brand of ugly.

And I discovered this:

As a human, I have access to poison gel bait. I can kill a hundred cockroaches at will. But they, as a species, are a nearly invincible opponent, so it becomes unnecessary and impractical to kill every roach I see. Where there is one roach, there are a thousand. Killing is superfluous. Maiming, maybe not. Maybe maiming with a rubber band sends a chemical message to the other nine hundred ninety-nine. A chemical message of my machismo.

After all, it takes skill and luck to maim due to the cockroach's sheer speed. A quick, smart one will give me one good shot with a good thick rubber band, and if I miss, even by an antennae-length, it's under the radiator or under the stove before I can pull the second rubber band back.

They are God's creation, like me.

And so our rubber band dance goes on and on...
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Problem/Solution/Com- plication

Problem: No clean boxers, no clean briefs

Solution: Saran wrap with a johnson hole

Complication: Taco Bell for lunch

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Historical Sprout

If anyone is curious what I looked/acted like in the not so distant past, please check out this post on Sethwerks.

Mr. Scruff and the lady in heat

Mr. Scruff, the chipmunk, popped out of his hole. A dry wind swept the field, carrying a strange, familiar chirping shriek that reverberated inside his tiny head and stirred inside his tiny loins. He shivered. He lowered his head and licked the red blotch on his front paw. It tasted salty and metallic and filled him with a hazy shame over some undetermined struggle the previous night. His friend, Petr Rabbit, had no doubt bitten and ejected him from his den for defiling it in some way, through vomit or urine or humping Petr's lame drunk (soft, bunny) cousin/den-mate to climax. Or all three. Rotten apples always made Mr. Scruff act that way.

The wind died down, but the chirping shriek remained. It tugged at him from the nearby orchard. He hobbled towards it. It grew louder, resonating in his skull with such intensity that he had to lie down, easy prey should a fox or hawk spot him.

"Fuck a fox or hawk," he thought.

He closed his eyes. His heartbeat quickened. His underbelly tingled, and its white hairs stood up on end, and that was not all that stood up on end. The shriek, in swirls of sound that would make more sense if they were colors, continued.

Mr. Scruff vomited apple peel onto a patch of crab-grass.

Half-conscious, he had a vision. He lay trapped in a corner of his childhood burrow with his sick and patchy-haired brother, under a dead leaf, unable to come out, unable to play any games, lest his mother nip him. That same shriek sounded off the walls, along with another sound, a deeper, male squeak. Then a musky stench and hours of interminable quiet, and finally peeking out from under the corner of the leaf, he saw a fat stranger with a big fat stripe nibbling on his mother's ear. Was he going to eat her?

Mr. Scruff tried to vomit again, but there was nothing in his stomach. The shriek had stopped. A fat, younger chipmunk scurried past him without acknowledgment.

"Asshole," Mr. Scruff squeaked, and wandered into the orchard in search of a rotten apple.

Up next: Mr. Scruff prepares for winter

Basic Journalism

Who?

A sailor.

What?

Dreams of his ship, battered by the Atlantic, salt spray changing his face from white to red.

When?

Whenever the foghorn blows, wistful for land, wistful for women.

Where?

New England.

Why?

Nighttime incontinence.

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One Sentence on Blogging

Blogging, I suppose, in the event of my death, leaves something tangible, and that is its appeal.

What Jesus doesn't want you to do

Love your enemy
In the ass
With a zucchini.