The Good Word of Sprout

Sprout's Sexual Cafe: Braised Lamb Shoulder

2012-01-04T21:29:00.018-06:00

Welcome to another installment of Sprout's Sexual Cafe, the cafe where we sexualize food, which may or may not be better than gastronomizing sex. I'm your host, Sprout, but most adults call me Jon unless they have a sentimental attachment to the previous moniker, which is fine. My staff and I are all about attachments here, but unless invited to stay, you will be expected to leave after dinner, maybe wearing one of my shirts. If it's the nice one I want it back. But oh what a dinner we have for you.

Ingredients

2 pounds lamb shoulder, cut into your best imitation of 1 inch cubes, seasoned with sea salt and pepper
4 small yellow onions, quartered
6 cloves garlic, sliced (No one stinks of garlic if everyone stinks of garlic.)
4 stalks celery, 1 inch pieces (I know, everyone wants at least eight-inch pieces, but seriously, that shit gets limp in hot liquid.)
1 pound carrot nubs (Carrot nubs? Well, in this instance you can't call them baby carrots. And who knows, someone may have an finger amputee fetish.)
1 cup red wine (That leaves plenty for transforming personality defects into adorable quirks.)
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled, 1 inch dice (We'll find out if my potato is as sweet as your potato.)
zest and juice of 1 lemon (Fuck the juice, keep the zest.)
vegetable oil (no original joke available)
Sea salt, thyme (use twice as much if it's sexythyme), and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Good. Now it's business-time. Cube the lamb shoulder. I know, it can be frustrating at first. There are bones where you don't want bones, and instead of giving a sweet massage, your knife is constantly probing and poking. What is connective tissue and what is bone? Just keep in mind that the connective tissue, cooked low and slow, is going to give your dinner experience the tenderness and richness that you deserve, that you've always pined for.

Put some oil in a stockpot on medium high, let it get good and so hot, and sear that meat (this will all be flavor later) for about four minutes a side (totaling 8, despite the fact that a cube has six sides). Set the meat aside. You'll want to admire it, but don't touch it yet. It's not cooked through. Haven't you ever read (or been taught in high school) the meat-handling instructions?

Toss the carrots, celery, onions, and garlic in the remaining oil and lamb fat. Season and caramelize a touch, but don't go overboard. We're building anticipation here. When you can smell the garlic sweet with your nose in the lovepot, add the wine. Reduce by three-quarters or until you can no longer smell booze. I know. I get impatient too.

Add the lamb back to the pot, add water to almost cover, taste the broth for seasoning, and put a lid on it. Sorry, I mean talk with your eyes, talk with your body. Cook it on low for two hours. What you do for those two hours is up to you, but if were up to me...I'd stir it occasionally. And always taste.

After the two hours are up, add the sweet potatoes. A half-hour later, I would put that shit in bowls, maybe garnish with a crusty bread, and eat. Of course, if you're up to something more fun, let it burn. Let's burn this whole town down.

We didn't even use the lemon. Well, it's not like this is a lemon party.
---

On Mimicry

2012-01-03T20:32:00.004-06:00

If I listen and remember and feel, everything else will follow. People seek fun. Women surprise and delight me. Quietness in the mind and quickness in the heart serve me well. My eyes are beautiful.

Listen. First I receive, then I give. First I absorb, then I reflect. Maybe I have it backwards. Maybe the order doesn't matter as long as there's exchange. Each exchange starts anew.

Others play music on my emotions. I repeat their music in a different key at a different volume to a different person. Sometimes I warble. Sometimes I wah-wah.

Most people would rather listen to their own music.

A Morning in Kindergarden

2011-12-15T23:15:00.002-06:00

There are deep dark circles under my eyes. My hair is clean but uncombed. My voice reverberates around my hollow insides.

It's Bunny Day. The children hop around the room. They can wiggle their noses, but are not allowed to speak.

The notion of jumping or hopping is intolerable. So is the fluorescent light. So is everything but the children and the teacher. She is innocent like them. The snack is baby carrots.

The teacher offers me a paper cup of apple juice. I take it and wait. I don't know why I'm here. I might as well learn something.

It's an almost poem

2011-12-08T22:02:00.002-06:00

With breath control there is no idea, emotion, or object you cannot dissolve into the rest. It brings the white blankness where there is peace.

A bush sprouts tiny overnight. Soon comes its prime, its beautiful days -- days, days, days fragrant with musk. The worms have done their job.

A man walks his smiling, sharp-toothed dog, excitement on a leash, excrement on a leash, the cause and effect of sniffing.

One with nature, the homeless still aren't heard.

Why I write and why I need you

2011-11-29T21:57:00.003-06:00

It's your interest in my writing and your belief in my ability that keeps the inadequacies from swarming, those angry bees whose sting leads to sudden anger. I'm needy sometimes. I can admit that. But I can also pounce upon and devour small prey. I'm a cat. Give me a can of tuna or I will annoy you. I will trip you.

I draw from a reservoir of warm feeling. I fill myself with it. I bathe myself with my tongue, tongue meaning language (if only it didn't, if only through yoga). This enables me to balance base honesty (killing a rat) with a pleasant full life (playing with the rat carcass). It's love. I purr.

I've planted by hand a crop of ideas. They're my nip. I water them every morning because they are thirsty. We will see what flowers bloom and if they smell nice, and if they have psychoactive properties, and if I end up on the floor, hands in the air, giggling. That's what I write for.

Post Revisited (11/09) - On buying drywall screws

2011-11-14T22:40:00.014-06:00

The hardware store has a distinct lovely smell. Each aisle contains the potential of labor, the potential accomplishment of building or repairing, of cleaning or lighting or moving electricity from one place to another, hopefully avoiding the body as conductor or conduit and the taste of pennies. There is metal and wood and rubber and plastic. There is paint and paint thinner and solvents and solutions to any problem with a practical solution.

I wander, not knowing anything, imagining chain jewelry and chain weapons measured from spools, hats made of orange funnels, music in a drill bit, laughter from a ball cock. With knowledge and the right tools, any wish can be granted. In a hardware store, a man becomes a child, and a child with the right knowledge becomes a man, small but vast, knowing the absurd humor of any man who describes with his hands that he wants a pipe cut "this long."

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

2011-10-26T20:53:00.006-05:00

Problem: I can't articulate what love is.

Solution: It's like a flower.

Complication: Ugh, lame.

Solution: It's like a flower within a flower.

Complication: Well, for lesbians maybe.

Solution: It's like shower mold.

Complication: No, it's not like shower mold.

Solution: Are you sure? Think about it. They both sometimes spontaneously appear after warm moist activities. They can both be killed with bleach too.

Complication: Too much scrubbing.

Solution: It's like the swelling of a popular movement to overthrow a dictator.

Complication: Did you see the pictures of Gaddafi?

Solution: It's like Summer daybreak over the heart: a bare rose-tinged glow nurtured into bliss and wonder, growing hotter, searing, cloying, exhausting, consuming everything with its midafternoon heat, and then it slows, grows softer, pink and purple and orange, excruciating in its beauty, its inevitable exit intolerable, and then the last light and then nothing...

Complication: Hmmm.

---

Sunday (anticipated)

2011-10-22T22:37:00.006-05:00

I stand in the middle of the living room. The sun makes rectangles on the carpet, warm like a warm dog. This is the purity of the present.

I dream. I feel my stomach plunge, recognize my faults and my kindness. I cherish the confusion, the mystery of why I am. But I am hungry.

I grill sausages.

A Nicer Way of Saying

2011-10-17T22:58:00.004-05:00

The puzzle for today is...

__________ is a nicer way of saying __________.

Of course, this is the only puzzle game I run, and it's somewhat like those crosswords without numbers, only much easier and less pointless.

My solution today is "Would you like some cheese grits?" is a nicer way of saying "We don't serve bagels, and I hate you, Yankee."

The funny part is that I actually wanted cheese grits all along.
I just didn't know it at the time.

Now your turn.

---

Sprout's Sexual Cafe: Steaks and Potatoes and Corn

2011-10-10T22:59:00.014-05:00

A lot of bloggers like to write about what they cook. I do too. I'm like them. I conform. No reason to look twice at me. I'm not doing anything illegal or immoral or some other i-word. Interesting, maybe.

The reason for the title is one day I was olive oiling up some chicken breasts to be cooked, and I like to get into that shit, and to my friends something about oil and breasts evoked sex. Who knew? So they made a joke about how there should be this restaurant called Sprout's Sexual Cafe. So, in turn, this will be a new feature where I share my recipes and techniques to bring gastronomic delight and maybe other sorts of delights. Enjoy. Or don't.

Steaks:

1) Buy the steaks, grass-fed, for that is the right thing to do. Cows do not naturally eat corn.

2) Pick three spices at random, use only slightly compared to your use of salt and pepper. This will give you the illusion of being a gourmet. Massage the spices into the steaks as you would your lover's foot, if you were weird enough to use the word "lover" and/or eat a human foot.

3) Delegate the responsibility for grilling the steaks to the man with the most facial hair in the room. He will do a good job. If he does not, forcibly shave him. On the face, you pervert.

Potatoes:

1) Fetch the red potatoes from whatever obscure cabinet I've hid them in. Peel them, because they've no doubt grown buds from their eyes through my neglect. Quarter them, olive oil them, and place on parchment paper on a cookie sheet or rimmed baking pan. Salt and pepper and rosemary liberally.

2) Set the oven to 450. It seems hot, I know, and that's because it is hot. It's so hot I almost can't stand it.

3) Cook for 40 minutes or so, turning once or twice or thrice, depending on how compulsive you are. If you are very compulsive, seek therapy. After done, tent with aluminum foil to keep them warm. Save the aluminum foil to use as a hat.

4) The potatoes should be a little bit blistered. Blisters are delicious, but not so delicious that you should omit using an oven glove to remove those potatoes. Place them in a serving bowl and butter them until glistening.

Corn:

1) Open a can of corn, drain, and put it in the microwave. Set the timer for two minutes. Allow your fingers to trace edges of the start button. Smile. Take the can of corn out of the microwave and empty it into a microwaveable dish. Warm that up. By that time your bearded friend should be serving the steaks. Ha! You've collaborated on a wonderful meal.

---

Toast

2011-10-03T21:46:00.002-05:00

This toaster makes the anticipation almost terrifying. My eyes wide, my pants tight, I tense. I shiver, I quiver, I revel.

POP!

I cry tears of laughter -- the ecstatic moment. So warm, so golden brown, so ready for butter.

I like bread.

Sunday Morning

2011-09-26T20:43:00.002-05:00

Sunday morning is best near a sunny south-facing window. The drink, something cheery with a cherry, olive, or twist, cools the throat as the sun warms the eyelids. The room is white even with eyes closed. The day is full of promise and there's no fear at all.

If you think you look ugly in the direct sunlight, I've seen you there and you're beautiful. It brings out your flaws, your innocence, and I melt. In that light to touch you seems a sin.

(I'll remember you said that when I need to be happy.)

Problem Solution Com-plication

2011-09-14T23:37:00.003-05:00

Problem: The Sun is disappearing again.

Solution: Consult the Farmer's Almanac.

Complication: Monsanto and Cargill have burned all of them.

---

Selections from the Box

2011-08-30T22:53:00.014-05:00

I keep a big black plastic container next to my computer. It houses the contents of an old Marshall Fields box into which I tossed pages and pages of printouts that I don't want to throw away, but for which I don't have any immediate use. From time to time, I like to share excerpts with you all. This is one of those times.

This is the highlight from a love letter to Emma (I don't remember writing a love letter -- obviously it didn't work), probably circa Summer 1998:

"...joy and despair coupled are infinitely more preferable than existing in a prolonged desensitized state. However, I do not wish to employ you as my therapist, so I'll get to my point. In the coldest periods of the past year, every once in a while your presence could make me feel the pure happiness that I used to be able to feel. However incidental this phenomenon might have been, the fact remains that I am indebted to you for being the only one with that ability. So thanks."

Wow, dude, that's really good -- fantastic effort young Jon. It's a touch clinical, or maybe I mean academic, or maybe I mean reserved, but I don't know if I could do it much better.

Well...

---

Three Links

2011-08-29T22:07:00.005-05:00

Wow, I haven't done one of these in awhile. It's Summer's fault -- the season, not the Sanders woman. The weather's been pretty much gorgeous here, the food's been great, and the company varied and intriguing. But, geez, I'm so sick of that. Let's get to the season of dying already. Right?

These are interesting bits, in no particular order, although there is no true random:

Once they get a taste of blood, you have to put them down.

On The Road, Nov. 19, 2010

happy new (fiscal) year!!

Okay, it's your turn.

---

At the pool

2011-08-25T21:35:00.004-05:00

On these hot summer days she splashes in the shallow end. Warm sprinkles leap and dance, but no one else gets wet. Her feet remain on the bottom. When it gets too hot she reclines against the wall, feeling the concrete rough against her legs, and lets the water lap over her.

The deep end is filled with large shapes hungry for baby-tender meat. She won't turn her back on it. She knows that one day she will have to go out there.

On the pool deck she wraps her wrap and puts on her big sunglasses, fashion being the meringue of personality, a way to explore the self without abject terror, revealing only what she wants to be seen.

In the Far Reaches

2011-08-08T20:53:00.001-05:00

In the far reaches of her mind, down beyond the twisting divide, a silken box bakes in haze. It holds her desire. It quivers, puddles, and bubbles at the top. It could burst, throwing hope limitless into the future.

He cannot quench her desire without giving himself to her, something he will not do. He does not trust what's inside of himself, an angry little boy.

How he fears that she gives herself to other men, ravishing them with her tongue, stroking with slender hands, her mouth on other hair, other flavors. How he hates.

He buys her desperate gifts. They, like their plastic wrapping, are destined to turn slow circles in the doldrums of the ocean.

---

On Schizophrenia

2011-08-08T20:42:00.002-05:00

My mommies, angels, cats, live all over the world. They get their heart-shaped chains from the Statue of Liberty. They make it so there's no black snowmen. Pepper is the opposite of salt.

If I'm not mistaken, if it's not dangerous and irresponsible speculation, there's nothing wrong with having a tree as a friend. Branches are like coral and porcupines. This is so.

On a conversation overheard in line at Trader Joe's

2011-07-21T23:59:00.004-05:00

I never thought I'd want to hear about a romance between a corporate lawyer and an investment banker that doesn't end in a murder/suicide pact. Well, that's still the case.

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

2011-07-19T00:06:00.003-05:00

Problem: The person you're dating kisses like a bird.

Solution: Get out of the relationship before he or she pukes in your mouth.

Complication: You're really hungry, and you're trapped in a pile of sticks, grass, and bits of fabric.

---

Albany Park

2011-07-06T21:54:00.004-05:00

Outside restaurants thick-featured men gesticulate, filling the sidewalk with smoke and guttural laughter. Mothers and aunts and children orbit strollers in bundles of chattering chaos. A hooded figure makes sounds to himself in a doorway. English is the common language, but not the most common.

Firecrackers send shocks through orange alleys, and cop cars flash to life, bursts of blue in the night. The bank sign gives the wrong time and temperature and the right CD interest rate. The rats continue to chew, one last meal before returning to the river. It's where I live. I sometimes call it the edge of civilization.

When I say something that white-devil ignorant, I feel ashamed. Even if what I meant by "civilization" is my own comfort level, people who don't look or act familiar are not barbarians. They don't eat babies. They bathe and shave, or at least wash and trim. Judging others from a position of ignorance is dangerous. There's a weakness of scope in my worldview.

On the street I instinctively assess the threat of any male not wearing a tie. I've turned my old suburban fear of brown and black and poor into a conditioned response by my choice of media and social circle. It limits me. I should introduce myself to people.

If I knew the poor as people, then I might stop enriching myself at their expense -- holding corporate stock, shopping at national grocery chains for the more sterile atmosphere and a few dollars savings, not advocating for citywide living wage. Then again, I might not. Luxuries become necessities. I'm not giving up my dishwasher. Others aren't giving up yoga class or expensive wine or cocaine and exotic parrots.

By not sharing wealth, by interpreting the American Dream myth literally, I perpetrate an act of violence against people. I'm the perp. That money earning dividends should feed and educate people rather than funding international exploitation. When it flows out of the community, that money takes away from those in need and gives to some jerk in Connecticut and his emaciated drunk of a wife (you can reverse the genders at your convenience). The money needs to flow into the community: jobs, taxes, infrastructure. Poverty fuels anger and desperation. Retaliation seems imminent.

This is a moral issue. Wealth is not a number on a piece of paper. You follow the green line straight to hell. It is a gift, a means to do something, to create health and beauty, to alleviate suffering, to send out waves of goodness. All it needs is a vehicle (not a yacht) and a vision.

When I walk the streets tough with poverty and commerce, lit by neon and adorned with litter, I am present in the community. I feel it living around me, its sounds and smells becoming part of me. I see the hard expressions on the faces passing by. I see past them. Our lives are entwined. Seeing this may not be much, but it's a start, a step toward love.

---

Three Links

2011-06-14T22:58:00.007-05:00

So it's pretty much Summer. I should be done complaining about the weather. Well, guess what? I am. This is the season to be alive, to be in the city. I am both.

These are interesting bits, in no particular order, and the sun has come, and I shall worship it:

1) Golden State

2) Life is For Expansion

3) Public Art Continues to Be Terrible, Amazing: Part 2

Enjoy, people. Don't think so deeply. The sun is warm.
___

On Knowing Better and Letting Things Go

2011-06-08T22:29:00.006-05:00

Beautiful and protected by the moon, I don't want her to end up as arm-decor for a rich. Some clever, happy rich, maybe that Rich, who loves boating and wine, wears yellow golf shirts, and has a parakeet named Alphonsus who he calls Baby. He says "Yes" instead of "Yeah, man." Sometimes he says "Affirmative."

Even if things get worse, I will not stoop to sabotage. She's her own woman, and she'll find out things. To watch this progress in the total absence of progress without taking action is a variety of tortures. But at least it's variety. My life is suddenly spicy.

How a Woman Might Be

2011-05-26T23:13:00.012-05:00

Around the house she wears a white tank top and no bra. Besides the mailman and the stray cat, she has no visitors. But just in case she keeps a light jacket on the hook by the door. It hangs there.

She likes to pass a mirror and be taken with a man's desire for her, strong and barely controlled. Always tall and olive-skinned with dark eyes, he never smiles, just lowers her to the floor. She can smell him. He smells like work.

She regrets sometimes not pursuing men, not wanting to seem needy or desperate, although sometimes she was. Most of those encounters would have been brief and ended in disappointment, but there might have been a few, with luck, that would have ended in agony. Now she's warm to compromise, and she knows she's more desirable than most, for the next several years anyway, barring accident. But even if the future holds no man, she knows who she is.

She flounces up and down the stairs, guiding the lemony rag across the bannister and up and down the spindles. She wonders if a baby's head could get stuck between them. The rich wood gleams. She smiles, a gap between her top two front teeth, and sings softly in French, "Hipopatame, hi-popatame."

As she eats she pages through a novel and swirls and sips her wine, admiring how the chicken nestles in the soft lettuce. A ripe tomato slice pokes out. She rereads her favorite passages, marked with great curvaceous brackets and tiny cryptic notes. She refills the wine.
---

A Nicer Way of Saying

2011-05-17T23:24:00.004-05:00

In my upbringing it was emphasized to say things nicely, and so was born my compulsion to be precise with language. You don't say "binge," you say "repeatedly indulge." You don't say "purge," well, actually you do say "purge," although you might follow it with "food demons." Huh. Society got that one right, er, wrong?

Here is today's puzzle:

__________ is a nicer way of saying ____________.

This is my solution, unrelated to bulimia, I mean, that's a serious issue for some people:

"Everything" is a nicer way of saying "Nothing."

As in, "No, I disagree. You've got everything to live for."

It all depends on your life philosophy I guess.
---

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

2011-05-09T22:44:00.008-05:00

Problem: I spend my workday staring at a computer screen (when I'm not staring out the window), and then I go home and spend my evening staring at a computer screen (when I'm not staring at myself in the bathroom mirror -- it's a contest, you see).

Solution: When I come home, I locate the main circuit breaker for the apartment and turn it off. Soon after, I wonder, "What was that sound?"

Complication: I spend the evening hiding under a blanket. Also, my food spoils.
---

Baskin Robbins

2011-05-05T22:00:00.003-05:00

My mind is full of caramel, my thoughts sweet and slow. I got a bit of swagger, sure. I'm in no hurry. I stroll down the case and smile at all the flavors. There's a lady behind me who's going to want a lick of my ice cream. She's wearing sweatpants. Nice.

All those flavors sit in the cold. They don't really know me yet. My spoon is going to burn hot and slow, and make that ice cream wait until it can't stand it anymore. It's going to be a puddle by the time I'm done with it.

I'll sweeten its life with toppings. How many scoops? How many scoops can I eat? I hope four, but I don't expect it. But I'm ready. Damn am I ready to order.

Thought (from CBS 2's Late Late Night Programming)

2011-04-24T20:46:00.005-05:00

I couldn't handle the day-to-day responsibilities of a serial killer. I like to get up when I want to get up. I don't want to have to get up at 4:27 to sniff some socks or something.

---

A Story (sort of)

2011-04-21T00:21:00.003-05:00

Geeks crowd the basement bright with cool fluorescent light. Its glow does not forgive their bad skin and cowlicks, their jumpy eyes and shirts tucked into underwear. They cluster around monitors, eyes riveted therein, hand shoved in as many pockets. Someone smells like nachos. A nasal buzz fills the room.

The Executive and Raj appear on the monitors. The Executive smiles, his teeth almost disguising the evil in his eyes. He pats Raj on the shoulder.

Raj's expression does not change, but he does not recoil. They must have practiced.

"We need your genius here, Raj," says the Executive. "I give you carte blanche to assemble your team. Neither you nor your team will have any social obligations. Together we will make history."

Raj smiles and touches his mole.

The monitors go black. Someone farts, a loud gruff bark. There is giggling and whines of protest.

"Does this mean what I think it means?" a boy asks a girl.

The girl smiles and shrinks away. This is what happens when you say yes to things.

Overheard in a Deserted Subway Station

2011-04-14T21:05:00.003-05:00

Say hey! Bake my mind, kid. Gimme sum uh that mind bakery stuff. Put some frosting on that. Put some sprinkles on that. Why not bake a mind?

It's dangerous outside -- lots of crazy birds, crazy peckers. Be careful of those fixed false beliefs -- they got teeth. There's earthquakes in Japan. Soon you be saying doodle-doodle-do.

Outside! That's outside my mind, out in the ether-space with atoms and shit. Spinnin'. If I was in my mind, I would a word. I would speak a word. There's no word, like trusting my hips.

Random Tuesday

2011-04-13T01:29:00.003-05:00

It's Wednesday, but you get it. It can't be random if it occurs on the same day of the week. Well, actually it could, but the odds would be against it. It might be witchcraft.

In the tub I fill the bucket with loud water. The steam smells like minerals. The suds grow gold, bubbles inside of bubbles, clear and shimmery, diffracting. There are no words.

Random Thursday

2011-04-08T01:40:00.002-05:00

(Although it's Friday now)

In the interest of thinning these bits of life in my notebooks, I will be randomly selecting one every Thursday or so to keep us occupied. They are not perfect, as I like my writing, but they are something. Okay, here goes:

They spend their time convincing themselves that things are logical. We believe that everything is a cloud. Time is malleable. The points where we agree are where the wind picks up and blows us toward enlightenment.

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

2011-03-28T22:57:00.003-05:00

Problem: The cab driver doesn't know where he's going.

Solution: Decide between a) he's new here or b) he's completely mentally deranged. If "a," remain in the cab and give clear, explicit directions. If "b," tuck into a ball, open the door, and roll out of the cab before he has a chance to engage the child safety locks.

Complication: You decide he's both, or neither.

Solution: Flip a coin.

Complication: Tails.

---

Three Links

2011-03-07T22:12:00.005-06:00

March. I got excited a little bit when it turned to March. I thought maybe Spring was coming. My barber laughed at this notion, but I wasn't concerned about that, but rather the fact that I had an itchy cough while he was using the straight razor. Why shouldn't he laugh? Haven't I lived in Chicago before? I have, for several years, but you can't fault my optimism. Lions and lambs. Lambs and lions.

These are interesting bits, in no particular order, and the sun will come, just give it time:

1) Molestation in Mumbai

2) Vanessa & Ryan

3) (

Lambs and lions. Lions and lambs.
---

A Night with Me

2011-02-23T22:37:00.004-06:00

Let's never stop to think. If there is wine, let's drink it. If it's just us, let's drink it out of tumblers, refilling them to the top with glug-glug splashy pours. Let's turn off our phones and spew sparkling stream-of-consciousness until too much honesty blacks us out.

Let's wake up anxious, sure that we crossed some line, clothes and lips stained red, souls exposed and raw, and giggle at the absurdity of when things went gray and when things went black. Let's have a drink with breakfast to dull the dread, and then goodbye until next time.

Since I can't purge like this every night, I write to expel toxic thoughts and lighten the leaden mind. I don't call myself a writer because I don't want to face-sit and throat-shit the next person who asks me "What do you write?" What do I write? I write my soul. I write my pain. I write what's wrong with me. I don't ask you about your deepest inadequacies, at least not at fucking brunch. This cantaloupe is good though.

The tortured artist is a myth, but this myth shapes how I see the world. My insecurities become insecure stories, filled with pretty pictures, damaged women, and men jolted by deviance. My words soften. I know things I don't know I know. If she listens, I can turn a woman to me. There's something magical in here.
---

A Nicer Way of Saying

2011-02-18T21:33:00.026-06:00

Because I need more time to arrange the prepositions and articles in my notebooks, maybe today we'll try a new feature. This will of course require audience participation. (You) Participate! Yes, you. Who else would I be talking to? Jesus? Jesus. Jesus!

In my suburban upbringing, it was emphasized to say things nicely. Though it toes the line of passive-aggression, I've learned to like it because it demands exactness of language and tone and awareness of any possible double meanings. So here goes:

This is the puzzle:

__________ is a nicer way of saying ____________.

This was my solution this morning:

Polyamory is a nicer way of saying Nymphomania.

Of course there's flaws in that one.

For one, it is my understanding that Nymphomania, by definition, can only occur in females, whereas polyamory is a unisex term. What's Nymphomania for dudes? Satyr-something (Satyriasis, thank you Wikipedia), but I just don't think anyone would recognize the word. Adding "or Satyriasis" to my solution would destroy the brevity of phrase and cause confusion over its meaning. There should be a unisex word. Ah, it could be (hypersexuality, thank you Wikipedia). But "Polyamory is a nicer way of saying hypersexuality" doesn't quite have the punch. Why?

For two, that's an awfully skewed vision of polyamory.

But let's focus on what's at hand. Let's pursue the former line of thought. It appears that Nymphomania appears in the news a whole lot more than its male equivalent. In medical circles, it's a clinical diagnosis, but in the wider range of society, it's porn shorthand for easy marketable sex. It concerns me that I've internalized this. But if the joke is funny, let it be funny.

Well, we've run a bit long on time, but I have to emphasize that this feature will only work if the audience participates in solving the puzzle. This is a two-way street: you have to keep me amused also. If I get five solutions, I'll continue the series and probably the analysis. (You) Participate.
---

A Valentine's Post

2011-02-14T21:04:00.002-06:00

Happy VD everyone! Now I know that everyone doesn't celebrate VD. VD affects different people in different ways. It makes some people sad (it can be painful), but it makes others euphoric and light-headed, although that could be a side-effect of medication. Some people think VD is artificial, but I can assure you that it's very real.

I myself try not to let my VD affect my mood too much. I have my VD under control. It's a fact of life. It happens every February. And every March I go to the doctor, but those things aren't related.

Basic Journalism

2011-02-05T22:51:00.015-06:00

Who?

People

What?

Their faces

When?

When they eat a Butterfinger or pre-party with me.

Where?

They take me to a different place. A happy place where we are all one of many and one of the same. Sort of like religion, except, well, you know.

Why?

Why? Why are you asking that? This is not a place for journalists. We haven't kicked you out yet because you've been quiet and quite pleasant, but now with these questions? You got to leave.
---

Selections from the Container

2011-01-31T21:57:00.004-06:00

I keep a big black plastic container next to my computer. It houses the contents of an old Marshall Fields box into which I tossed pages and pages of printouts that I don't want to throw away, but for which I don't have any immediate use. From time to time, I like to share excerpts with you all. This is one of those times.

From a journal entry dated 12/30/98:

Meditations on a Lamp

What's with lamps? I don't understand why when you're drunk you have to act like one. And why is it called a lamp? It's not like you're plugging in a baby sheep. I think that the baby sheep would object to being plugged in, especially if the connection was rammed up its ass.

Not ass in the donkey sense, but rather The Colon's Cave, as I like to call it. And why is there a punctuation mark named after part of my lower intestine? Instead of two dots, it should be represented by a brown smear. That might be tough to convey on a typewriter though.

Typewriters remind me of my grandma's dentures. They both make the same sound, especially when my grandma coughs, and her dentures go skating across the floor. Usually she coughs because I've punched her in the stomach.

Note: I've since ceased making abuse of the elderly jokes, because, well, it's kind of real.
---

A day in the life of a vague writer

2011-01-27T22:34:00.006-06:00

Her mind's eye flickers as she shifts his lazy eye from left to center in the split second before she perceives him through the door, hat in hand. She interprets this corrective electrical impulse as evidence of his emotional depth and of the divine connection between them. She often thinks of this during prayer.

He is a vague writer. She fills in the holes in his prose with her own emotion and oxytocin. His generalities become specific to her. She marvels at his skill to speak to her heart. When she's alone, she reads his secret poems. She likes the first drafts better. They are worse.

Today to satisfy his vanity, his fantasy of a thousand swooning women at his book signing, he gets corrective laser surgery. Now he will have such penetrating eyes, no wavering of the pupil on the path to intimacy. No thought of her, no, no thought of her.

When he gets home and takes off his sunglasses, something is different. Something is flat. By dinner, he's doomed. He deserves it.

An Encounter in Business Correspondence

2011-01-20T23:19:00.005-06:00

She seals her letters with a shiny red heart peeled from a sheet of shiny red hearts. Maybe there are blue hearts also. No, there are never blue hearts. You can't buy those. My name and address float in bubble letters. In autumn, leaves fall across the back of the envelope and in winter, snowflakes, all similar but none the same.

In discussing Law, she spells perjury as if a cat lied under oath. Perhaps it denied walking on the kitchen counter or spitting up a hairball in the back of the closet or sitting on your face while you sleep. There is no honesty in those yellow eyes.

I imagine she smiles so simply. Girlish. I wonder how she survives in this mean city, in what corners of life her personality flourishes.
---

Three Links

2011-01-12T20:35:00.004-06:00

Happy New Year folks. It seems like it's going to be a good one, but who really knows? Did you make any resolutions? I did: to post at least one Three Links.

These are interesting bits, in no particular order, brought to you by my infinite resolve:

1) Public Urination Invariably Leads to Self-Inflicted Choking

2) Causes and the Gifford Assassination Attempt

3) (title unknown)

Hey, only about six weeks until we have weather that's not physically painful. Go Bears!
---

Oh Yeah

2011-01-06T22:33:00.012-06:00

My libido, yeah, radiates from my gut and my package in slow hot waves. It courses through clothes and presses your flesh gently but firmly, seeking. You feel my animal desire, my need for release. I'm dangerous.

My penis seeks to repeat past pleasures, triumphs saved in its muscle memory, but also to push forward toward where it points. It has no manners. Like a multinational corporation, it would plunder the world in pursuit of what it wants: a grasping immoral woman who wears red and smells like musk.

---

My folks read this. But there's no shame in biology. How else did I get here? I'm not so vain or crazy as to think myself the product of a virgin birth.

---

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

2011-01-04T22:54:00.005-06:00

Problem: Post-holiday letdown

Solution: Invent a new holiday. January 6th is now International Frostbite Day!

Complication: I miss my toes and the top half of my left pinky. I'll have to sleep in socks for the rest of my life unless I find someone with a very particular fetish. Well, toes are gross anyway, and I'll just put a cocktail weiner on my left pinky. Midnight snack available.
---

Recently acquired art

2010-12-27T22:04:00.005-06:00

A raccoon lives in the painting of a farmhouse that hangs on my bedroom wall. I bought it at a garage sale for six dollars, the cost of six scratch-off lottery tickets, which is about a dollar's worth of fun, but if fun in your life is at a premium, I see nothing wrong with the lottery.

Sometimes the raccoon fills the foreground entirely, warm and fuzzy and irate.

"What a cute mask," I say as I tap on the glass.

It hisses and gives a little raccoon bark.

"What a funny little nose you have," I say as I tap again.

It snaps, flinging rabies against the glass. The frame rattles and threatens to fall.

Even if it does fall, raccoon, I always have my art framed with plexiglass and extra tacks. You're in there for good, you two dimensional bastard.

You should know this about me

2010-12-21T21:21:00.007-06:00

From the editor: I save things, especially introspective writing things, but I need to get rid of the following. It represents a sort of viciousness towards myself that while linguistically delightful really serves no good purpose anymore. There is no need to revisit, revise, repackage this, but no need to waste it either. I feel reasonably good. So please excuse and enjoy.

As a child I craved approval. If I did not obey and excel, worry ballooned inside of me. The world grew larger and louder. I grew quieter. Praise made me less happy than relieved, like on Saturdays when my mom would put the vacuum away and I could release my knees from my chest, assured that its strange sentient headlight would not seek and mangle my toes. I shared this fear with the dog. I, however, was allowed on the couch.

To disobey and chance disapproval dizzied me with guilt. A raised voice or a severe tone struck me audibly, and after a stunned moment I'd cry. The deep warm sobs shamed me further, so I'd hide. If in the schoolyard, I'd hide on the other side of the big pine tree, circling to avoid the scornful curiosity of other children, who would ask me why I was crying. The why didn't matter in that moment. The why made it worse.

Still today I seek approval from attractive women, confident men, and anyone who seems in touch with the universe. It affects how I behave. It affects my sex, or lack thereof.

I want to be a man who can charm a woman into an easy smile, unfurling her beauty. I want to be a man who can lift her to tender new heights with his words and through his directness and character expand her elaborate fantasies and her plan for the future. This man has confidence. This man has technique. This man has testicles. Such testicles that he checks the water level of the toilet before he sits down.

I am not this man. Through deference I ask his approval. When in the company of an available woman, I do not compete with him for her attention. I retreat into my own thoughts in search of witticism, finding only weirdness. With hands in pockets, I watch him use words and hand gestures to be smart and funny and appreciative. Douchebag. But I fear his disapproval and hers, so I become a tag-along, an also-ran, a non-entity. I disapprove of myself. In bowing to fear, I have disrespected myself.

Deference is bullshit. I should assert my own sexual identity. I hate being used to emphasize the masculinity of another. As in the animal kingdom, rivalry is healthy, though it does favor big males. Among humans, though, biting to hurt is generally unacceptable, as is ass-sniffing, test-mounting, urination for territorial purposes, and charging the doorway when another man enters the room. We make pretty crappy animals. I guess that's why we have war.

I should be funny. Funny begs a woman for approval, even love, without seeming pathetic. It's just honesty about fear. It comes from pain, from falling down in front of people -- not getting the girl, not having a whiff of hope, only my own milky odor, being told "no" but in not so many words. If she laughs she understands, having had her own share of pain and disapproval. If she makes a joke, even better.

I like a funny woman because I like to laugh and I like her parts and if I ever want sex again, only to laugh with her parts, never at them. She shuns the niceties in favor of life. When I find someone who creates the right laughter in me, I'll bang her and spend years with her. Funny may be ugly, but laughter is beautiful.

---

Hear This, Businessman

2010-12-13T22:48:00.012-06:00

The people will rise. Up with people! Rich man, CEO man, we will allow you no more money or Lexi or diamond encrusted anything until you provide for those with no means to provide for themselves. We will not allow you to neglect them. It will be your privilege to redistribute. There is an alternative, and it's shiny and sharp.

Regardless of how ambitious you are in business, you will have to support lifestyles in conflict with your values, if you have any. If you want to grow wealth, surround yourself with luxuries, use people as commodities, you have a responsibility. Oh, you like talk of responsibility. Personal responsibility -- making good choices -- it's how you got where you are. But you won a rigged race. Society lay no obstacles before you. You cheated, and now you lie to yourself and us. We will temper your greed. That's what it is. Greed.

Now pick up the checkbook and step away from the lawyers. You'll find them useless here. Laws do not govern us, only compassion for the suffering and seeking to avoid the inevitability of the same fate.
---

Three Links

2010-12-09T21:31:00.006-06:00

Oh, it's cold. It's so cold. It's long underwear and extra undershirt weather. I don't love it, but I love to talk about it.

These are interesting bits, in no particular order, initially frozen and then jumbled by the thaw.

1) Mutual

2) The Underclass

3) Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving

I like the Christmas lights. I like the snow and the sense of wonder. I like you.
---

Only Colors and Flavors

2010-12-07T23:09:00.005-06:00

I was digging through the big black plastic container where I throw all my old writing and uncovered an essay which most likely was written in 1999. The whole copy can be obtained for $5, check or money order only, include $6.95 shipping and handling (mostly handling -- it's tough to handle, it's heavy, well not exactly, more awkward than heavy), blah blah blah. There is no date on this essay, but the paragraphs are marked with the time. This paragraph is from 1:26 A.M. Enjoy.

I'm going to a paradise, a world in which there's only colors and flavors. Big rainbow lollipops floating around in a dreamer's paradise. In this paradise, there are angels and saints and cherubs, each with a different flavor and color. You can taste them and see what they're like. These cherubs carry candy arrows with multiple flavors and colors. Some are orange and others are red. Some are blue and others are green. Each flavor makes you see colors and each color makes you taste flavors. Everybody floats around in a dreamy haze.
---

Basic Journalism

2010-12-02T23:43:00.006-06:00

Who?

Perverts.

What?

Enjoy the TSA's invasive pat-down policy.

When?

When passing through security checkpoints.

Where?

In American international airports.

Why?

The tingle in the scrotum, mainly.
---

Credits: The Brain Police for the joke, The Asshat Lounge for the phrasing.

---

Winter has come

2010-11-29T22:54:00.003-06:00

Winter has come. The wind howls. I would like to be Warmth and smell like fresh bread. People could huddle around me and lay their hands on me. Cold people, neglected people, those who have fallen through successive stages and continue to fall, the victims of social gravity, those who wear their clothes inside-out because the fleecy interior is so much nicer to touch, those who shun company -- I could accept everyone. If only I really could.

Out of body and out of mind while buying Winter street tamales

2010-11-16T21:51:00.034-06:00

At a stand under a giant umbrella

In my brain it's snowing. The flakes make even the illuminated pathways so slick that thoughts pinwheel desperately before falling flat with a thump. I cannot form an argument. People think I'm stupid and crazy. They try to charge me an extra dollar for tamales. A cold sweat breaks out.

All around me the pinwheeled thoughts scatter in a transcendent trembling wonder -- glitter ice everywhere. I'm glad to be alive. It's so beautiful. The vendor's cooler is full of tamales, pork and cheese and chicken, worth every extra dollar. Jalapeños melt everything.

Meanwhile, my state of consciousness cannot fund its programs. It's Illinois. It's Chicago. It's ineptly governed, but I live there, with a plastic bag full of corn husks and tamales. You can't get that so easily in any other state in any other city. I drool while I walk. Goo goo boo goo boo. Goo goo boo goo.

I eat on the street. The icicles are beautiful frozen goo. I'm happy. These tamales are delicious, maybe overpriced, but who can put a price on deliciousness. The corn batter is so soft and the pork so tender, or is that cheese? No, it's pork.

Once I've eaten, I'm okay again, and I'm not sure what happened earlier, but I'm greatly pleased with my choice of dinner. It feels like I've learned something. It does.

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

2010-11-08T23:26:00.006-06:00

Problem: Understanding the social outcast.

Solution: Empathy.

Complication: Ridicule.
---

Hey, A List!

2010-11-03T23:22:00.005-05:00

I have a party coming up. Because I don't have cable TV or any games besides Yahtzee (though, to be fair, Yahtzee is very much like life), I'm going to list some possible activities for the party, and you can vote for your favorites. You can even attend the party if you want to. At this party, there will be extensive drink and food and music. It will be absurd.

This is interactive! Vote no more than nine times. Top two will be gently forced upon the partygoers.

1) Uncooked macaroni and glue artwork.
2) Minute of gibberish (everyone gets up to a minute).
3) Poetry: Write four lines, recopy 10 times, modifying if needed. Post everyone's on the bulletin board. Make additional poems out of these poems.
4) Contest: who are the best thrusters?
5) Make it talk. (Make what talk? It.)
6) Finger painting. Finger painting on walls, maybe.
7) Shuffleboard. We'll use yardsticks and a frozen hamburger and tongs to handle that frozen hamburger as it spreads e-coli across the floor.
8) Bouncy ball from high up. I live three stories up. This is a fifteen second activity.
9) Bombs away! This is similar to #8, but due to indeterminate objects, more likely to lead to arrest.
10) Matless Twister. (Right hand carpet. Left foot couch. Right foot ceiling)

OK...vote!

Three Links

2010-10-28T22:08:00.007-05:00

What's the weather doing here? It's been windy, a lady got impaled by a falling tree branch (she's okay [relatively] as of the latest), and now it's cold. I expected that. As we move into November, the seasonal doldrums will begin to take hold. I expect you guys to get me through it, though I will make an effort too.

These are interesting bits, in no particular order, scattered, if you will, by the wind...and you will:

1) On Hidden Lives

2) Four

3) Whoops

So, enjoy the last of the changing leaves, those of you in regions which have seasons, and to those others, please understand that we like to get sad and gray and cold so later we can get happy and bright and warm.

---

Something from me to you this Fall

2010-10-21T23:35:00.006-05:00

Against the smoke-tinged wind I walk toward the square. Stray leaves tumble from the sky and skitter past my shoes down Lincoln Ave. Couples stroll arm-in-arm, sharing warmth, seeing the same scene and hearing the same bits of conversation. They peer into bright shop windows and each others' eyes. There are so many couples, like it's the most natural thing in the world.

The women wear the colors of the changing leaves. An autumn-colored girlfriend is fashionable this year. I want one -- a gentle black-haired woman who rubs my shoulders when I'm stuck at writing or at life. Her hair tickles my cheek. From next to my ear she whispers, "God is inside you, inside both of us."

And I see. By "God" she means the sublime mystery, not some massive double dildo that we pray will stop fucking us but never does.

"You know," she says, "our life is good. You don't have to carry around that much pain. You don't need to."

I nod. I don't like to admit that she knows what I need. I'd like to be light like her. It's a condition of her soul. It seems effortless, but it's probably not.

---

The sharp-edged moon cuts as it rises. It fills the basins of the dry fountain with silver. The air remembers summer and craves warmth, but there is not enough warmth in me to satisfy it. The clip of an unseen woman's shoes echoes off the brick. A door clicks shut. This Fall I want to to whisper "my woman," though more in prayer than claim of possession.

My woman smells like berries and tastes like salty berries. She taught me what hazel eyes are and what they can be. A big nose draws attention to her beauty, the Eiffel Tower of her face, where young boogers in love can gaze over the awe-inspiring curves of her shoulders and smooth navel. Between the two, her breasts remind me why I like breasts, and I like to be reminded.

Unlike with past women, I don't maintain a baseline blood alcohol level to blur and soften her features and chemically enhance my emotional interest to coax affection from my darkening heart. I like her. Sometimes she fills me with such pride and jealousy that I might rightly melt or explode. I don't like men who seem to know her, except for the special needs ones.

Most every night we eat ice cream in little red bowls. I eat mine on the cusp of brain freeze. She eats hers before it turns to hot soup and burns her. When she's done she leaves the bowl on the floor because it's too fucking hard to walk across the room, rinse it out, and put it in the dishwasher. Instead it sits there with its spoon-tongue sticking out until I kick it or trip on it and that fucking bitch ruins my ice cream afterglow and tries not to laugh.

Being close is her thing. She does what she wants to do. On certain Sunday afternoons we sit in the loveseat and do crossword puzzles. I help her with sports. She helps me with everything. She remembers things. We doze on each other. She doesn't seem to mind that I don't shower on Sundays, it being the Sabbath and all.

On her days off she gets me up. I slip from warm heavy comfort into warm heavy pleasure. Sometimes I don't know where I am or who she is, but I like it. In this near-dream she rides me, her head tilted back, her mouth open, her eyes half-closed. I will never have a better alarm clock, although her snooze button doesn't do what you'd think it would.

She creates me by giving me the confidence to create myself and the ability to take chances knowing that the important things are taken care of. I become more of a man, more infused with virtue, kinder, eager to help. I don't know how I went so long without this piece of myself. Or why.

---

Still the wind whistles in the empty square. I sit on a bench and pull my coat around me. Someone approaches, wearing the colors of the changing leaves, and I catch my breath.
---

Pear-Juicy

2010-10-12T23:37:00.010-05:00

"You weren't just looking at that pear, you were devouring it with your eyes."

"Yes. Yes. I was thinking that that pear has an appealing rose hue, like your ass."

"Don't compare my ass to a pear. You think it sags. You think it's spotty. You think it has a poisonous core. Poisonous seeds."

"Poisonous? Not in a bad way. Your ass is a pear in ripeness, ripe color. And in juiciness. Not in shape. It's not pear-shaped. It's pear-juicy."

"Pear-juicy?"

"Pear-juicy. Run-down-my-chin juicy. I'd like to bite into it."

"Too bad. I'm going to the store."

"For pears?"

"For tampons."

"Oh."

"For tampons and pears."

"Oh!"
---

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

2010-10-01T23:05:00.006-05:00

Problem: This Art is a piece of shit.

Solution: I won't have anything they call Art in my home.

Complication: Now he goes by Arthur.
---

The Drum

2010-09-28T22:46:00.005-05:00

The deep primitive drumbeat rises from the black earth and commands you to step in rhythm -- now faster faster until you are no longer you. Have you become Davy Jones (wait a moment) or Tom Selleck or John Malkovich? Yes, in fact you are all of them. You are the drum.

As it is in the beginning and ever shall be, you sacrifice your flesh and yourself to the beat of eternity. This is not so bad. The blessings of life, the people dancing with you, are your reward.

Advice from an old notebook

2010-09-24T22:32:00.005-05:00

Actually the notebook is less than a year old, and this entry was probably written in late Spring. I found it yesterday under the lava lamp. I guess I was trying to infuse it with the primeval and then forgot. But Spring feels long ago. It's chilly, and I'm wearing a fleece.

Write as if it's the last thing you will ever write, but do not use your own blood unless you have to. Do not disparage passion with cool -- cool becomes cold. Bust up the status quo. It's yellow. It's cowardice. Exit in a burst of stars.

It's okay to mourn the past, but impossible to re-create it, except through a bit of food and a song. Live your present moment and try to improve the future for those you care about. Do this through writing.

Good advice. Why not become a crazy person, or at least stop concealing it?

Admission, which comes first

2010-09-22T22:38:00.003-05:00

You are my muse, especially when you are silly and awkward, when you blurt out something truly mis-timed that silences the room. Old ladies shrink into their wrinkles. Sometimes I'm the only one laughing because I don't really believe in dignity. It's a form of frigidity.

For me, you are creative spontaneity. It's not something you control. It just is. You release euphoria in me: I am a spring flower. When I bloom, boundaries dissolve and we can all share each other. That's what God wants, I'm pretty sure.

Safety First

2010-09-15T00:27:00.004-05:00

A couple cocktails as I cook is safe, except when the recipe calls for me to drive or operate heavy machinery, like when I make tractor spaghetti, even though the meatball pile is just out back and the oregano can be harvested with one brief pass of a chainsaw, and you know I've been feeding the tomatoes Miracle Gro since February, intravenously. Abstention is a fair price to pay for getting to use my ceramic-lined superheated swimming pool.

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

2010-09-07T23:38:00.009-05:00

Problem: I've made steaks and roasted vegetables, two dips, four kinds of chips, and bought a thousand drinks, but no guests show up to the party.

Solution: Eat dips off my chest with chips, eat steaks in the bathtub, open a tin of anchovies, drink naked and talk to the moon.

Complication: The moon is a policeman's flashlight, and I was eating the steak off a Viagra kabob.
---

Three Links

2010-08-31T23:23:00.005-05:00

So it's the last hour of the last day of meteorological summer. That's a little sad, but the only month of meteorological summer I really enjoy is June. The rest is so hot, and pants have to be thoroughly sniffed before being worn on the second day. I'm ready for Fall and football and really unpleasant Mondays.

These are interesting bits, in no particular order (like the order of dreams):

1) Snooze, Lose

2) Throw Away Other People's Trash, or, How to Boost Your Self-Esteem

3) Miscellaneous stolen stuff

It seems to me that many of the blogs I read are drying up. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe they've moved on to greater things. Maybe it's the nature of the medium. So I'm open to recommendations.

Bonus link: BOOK REPORT: Caboose Mystery
---

A Human among Humanity

2010-08-20T22:13:00.006-05:00

Even in the dream-clouded dawn when the air is cold and my bones are heavy, my life is a gift of possibilities. I'm a human among humanity. It might have been easier to compromise, to marry young, to abandon the global for the local and become another rube in a minivan who runs a stop sign at 6 A.M. for a thrill and doesn't tell his wife for fear that her mouth will make that wrinkly "O" shape after "How was your day?"

There's something more for me, a giving of myself. I feel it when I walk the streets, bathing in curious urban dialect. It's in the smell of sewage and the savage scream of someone's child who wants pancakes at 6 P.M. Really, why not pancakes at 6 P.M.? I could provide that. I like pancakes. I haven't any syrup, which might bring another savage scream. Powdered sugar and fresh fruit are not good enough.

Maybe that something isn't for me, but if it isn't, it's for someone who knows me. It's always there. Some days it's heavy, an obligation. Other days it's light and bright and zooms me forward out of a vacuum. It might be God, but it's probably just life.

Fall Fashion Statement

2010-08-16T23:00:00.013-05:00

Too much corduroy is like too much garlic -- it's not too much until it makes me physically ill. How is that possible? Wait, you'll see.

I've got my corduroy pants, corduroy shirt and jacket and boxers and homemade condom (from a swatch of an old pair of pants stitched to a rubber band -- it's ribbed for her pleasure). But corduroy is not latex. Fluids seep and microorganisms too. Given the rest of my wardrobe, however, chances are I'll stay perfectly healthy and won't impregnate anyone.

A Socialist Outside City Hall

2010-08-12T22:45:00.005-05:00

Sitting on the stone bench outside City Hall in my red T-shirt, I watch for police. They will come, for I represent disorder, but for now only trash blows down the street.

With a pen in my hand and social justice in my blood, I am obnoxious. I ask questions. I agitate. It's my job to hold your ass to the fire, no matter how terrific or powerful your ass, no matter how much shit it can spew and how fine-smelling that shit. I believe in the people. Your example corrupts their essential goodness. You call it rugged individualism, but I call it selfishness. I call it exploitation. I am right. You are wrong. You want duality? You got duality.

Think you can bribe me? I keep a coin in my pocket to remind me what money can do. I keep a condom in my pocket to remind me what sex can do. I like to press the coin into the condom's circle. Money, sex, humanism.
---

Admit Something

2010-08-03T22:40:00.004-05:00

I like the idea of what goes into hot dogs. It satisfies my desire to avoid waste.
---

Eulogy for Jason Z.

2010-07-29T22:05:00.003-05:00

Finding it geographically inconvenient to stalk, service staff were the only women in his life. He made scrapbooks to remember them out of napkins and crumpled receipts, like that morning with Thalia when he dropped the fork and she picked it up and then she dropped it, and it bounced not once but twice and she smiled and her apron was black and so was her hair. Slippery Fork Morning. He prayed that she liked him as more than a customer, having known him over bunches of brunches. But no. One day he will be back, with a different name and a different face to try again.

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

2010-07-26T21:23:00.006-05:00

Problem: I deny death in day to day life. When it happens, it's shocking to an unpleasant degree.

Solution: I address the terror first. Death is the ultimate unknown, but trillions have done it. From the other side, I'm sure they'd say it's no big deal. It's always there. It's natural.

Complication: If it happens to me, I'm going to poop myself.
---

Ode

2010-07-22T22:06:00.007-05:00

Using the mind without the heart, it could take several lifetimes to understand her simplicity. From her we learn devotion to the things that make us more human. We learn selflessness. She gives. Like art, she changes us.

We bask in the warm light that surrounds her and bend to her soft vital power. She whirls tender and furious, fueled by a small piece of Hell itself that has always been there and has always hurt.

Men pursue her in search of erotic delights and well-cooked meals -- tender flesh and fresh vegetables. She's dangerous to them, and she senses that. Her inner wildness fuels a man's insecurity. Failure to dominate her crystallizes inadequacies and lights his long fuse of self-doubt. She can forestall the explosion, but she can be capricious.

Even at 4:55 A.M., even before she brushes her teeth, she adds to the beauty of the world. It's in how keenly she feels. It's in how she makes us feel. As people turn toward her they become more themselves.

Without her, we are the new moon: heavy and without light, magic, or romance.
---

Three Links

2010-07-19T22:33:00.004-05:00

It's hot. I could fry eggs on the hood of my car, and they'd be seasoned with street dirt, peeling paint, and whatever birds like to eat plus white goop. I'll call them Parked Car Eggs or Huevos al Carro Aparcado.

These are interesting bits, in no particular order (well, in the divine order, which none of us can know):

1) 12th and Moore

2) Meditations on Grilled Cheese and Gloomy Mondays

3) Since I'm too lazy to go back and link, this was from InStyle

I'm so brown right now. I wish brownness to everyone, unless you're in Arizona, where it could cause complications. If you're there, definitely call them "Parked Car Eggs" and keep your documents handy.
---

On Crying

2010-07-15T21:57:00.006-05:00

The refrigerator hums over the silence. My reflection, transparent on the glass coffee table, stares back at me. My eyes are pools of oil, but somehow beyond petroleum. A bubble strains against my chest and rises into my throat. It hovers there as I try to think tragic thoughts, then it fades into summer darkness. No tears come.

Until recently men were not supposed to cry, tears being the enemy of reason, a problem instead of a solution, potential aggression wasted. It's hard to hunt while crying. It's hard to cry while hunting.

Now, however, a family's greatest danger is the tyrant within -- a concealed mental illness exploding a payload of unexpressed emotions. Only a fragile and selfish man equates tears with weakness. A strong man cries to prove his excess of strength and his ability to thrive in a more emotionally nuanced world.

I must let tears cleanse my face and give pain its respect. Sometimes I need help crying. It's work to get to those emotions. There are blockages. So I pour myself a gin and tonic. The ice cracks. I squirt the lime slice at my eyes and miss. On the couch, I drink deeply. My iPod plays "America." Ah, Paul Simon, I too am empty and aching and I don't know why.

I've lost many people who I loved and who loved me, some for years, some for just a day or a tender night. Some I chased away and some just disappeared. They're gone forever and so am I as I used to be. Forever. Those simple happy days will not return. Never.

A warm wet wave rises. My throat catches. Huzzah! I sob, and salty poison drips from my eyes and nose. It stops being poison when it hits the air. I'm lighter already. I am. A little more of this and I could seduce a cloud and make it rain, sticky umbrellas everywhere.
---

From the Diary of the Writer-as-Creep

2010-07-08T22:57:00.004-05:00

I study her writing technique, her phrases, how she uses commas, and internalize her voice. If I think as she writes and write as she thinks, it will confuse our inner monologues, our identity lines soon indistinguishable. Once realized, we are either soul mates (lovesexlove) or long lost siblings (sexguiltsex).
---

Fun Things

2010-07-01T23:31:00.002-05:00

Hey, a list!

1) outdoor comfort with live music
2) sex, sexual proclivities
3) having written
4) not fearing deportation
5) cooking for hungry people
6) flying dreams
7) adding crazy to crazy
8) bowling
9) when I guess a woman's thought
10) talking about my blog over coffee

Encounter at the Beach

2010-06-28T22:28:00.004-05:00

Here comes that twirling fool again. With his arms outstretched and holes in the ass of his jeans, he kicks up red dust. Even in this heat, he smiles his simple smile with his big too-blue eyes and says "Gee thanks mister" when I give him a cup of water. It's just water and don't call me mister.

Minus the patchouli and blue eyes, I used to be that fool until I made some choices, gave up some freedom for some comfort. Now I can never go back, at least until dementia sets in. An innocent smile is a rare commodity. It expires.

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

2010-06-22T21:46:00.014-05:00

Problem: The structure of contemporary American society is such that things that are culturally male and culturally white are, by the nature of the system itself, given higher value than those things that are not male and not white. I am a white male, and it is sometimes difficult for me to personally identify with the struggle of those who the system oppresses.

Solution: I am short. I would contend that society has an inherent structural bias against the short (I have no sources other than remembering reading something that men over six feet five earn significantly more than their shorter counterparts). But this allows me to join the fight, to fight the tall, to ally myself with the feminists, the anti-racists, and all those groups who refuse to accept the cruelty of the system that through its very existence diminishes their value as human beings. There can be no true equality until we are all equal. I will do my part to make the short taller by making the tall shorter.

Complication: I don't know what to do with all these shins and feet I've removed from the sleeping tall. My freezer is full. It seems a shame to throw them out.

---

I can't take credit for these ideas. Please see Maggie Jochild's post, Morning Manifesto. And of course, the fight is against the system and the thought processes that perpetuate it, not particular people within the system. Unfortunately, the joke doesn't work without amputations.

---

Young Poem

2010-06-16T23:15:00.006-05:00

I was digging through the big black plastic container where I throw all my old writing and garbage writing and scraps of paper with incomprehensible ideas -- I think of it as composting -- and in a folder whose cover features a white seal holding the Earth between its paws and another white seal peering cutely outward, both beneath the aurora borealis, I came across this poem, which is dated 1997 (putting me at 17 or 18):

Ladies

The ladies want a big meaty man:
Bold, juicy, and flavorful.
He should strut about and boast of his protein content
So people will ignore his saturated fat.
Call me rice pilaf.

I laughed.
---

Three Links

2010-06-14T22:11:00.009-05:00

Here it's almost summer in the city. The back of my neck gets burnt and pretty.

These are interesting bits, in no particular order (Am I lying to you? I am lying to you):

1) Quite possibly the most patriotic thing I've ever done

2) Shooting Stars

3) that one time I went speed dating

A happy Summer Solstice to you. I'll be visiting the live poultry store to get my sacrifice on. I hope you will too, but the chickens don't.
---

Prose as music: pro and con

2010-06-07T22:14:00.012-05:00

Prose can be music if arranged just so in rhythm and tone. I've sat transfixed, bound by the rise and fall of cadence. I've been touched in the music spot by the sound of a voice projecting pictures and people into my mind. I've melted into the author.

Prose cannot cross language barriers. It cannot inspire bodies to move together in sexual pantomime or better. It is a more confined art -- less in scope, a degree removed -- that must reach the spirit through thought and memory. It cannot mainline joy.

On Writing and a Woman

2010-06-04T22:15:00.010-05:00

I keep pens in every room to capture the "A-ha" moment of a pleasing set of words before they dissipate. I collect them. Perfect phrasing is an accident. Good writing is an accident compounded.

Once I met a woman who teaches kids art or kids teach her art, I forget which. She's a little crazy, and I'm okay with that. She keeps colored pencils in vases and sometimes waters them. Crayon mobiles hang from her ceiling, the sharp ends filed down. There are magic markers tucked in with her silverware. She says they encourage spontaneous art. There is joy in spontenaity.

I'm tempted to remove all her yellow writing utensils and keep them in some yellow drawer never to be opened. Drunken epiphanies, phone numbers, and friends' addresses all disappear in yellow on white. But she loves to draw the moon. She loves the moon, especially the crescent moon. I sometimes wonder if she's an Islamist.

Black bores her, so she gives me colored pens. She would have my notebooks look like they fell from a nine year old girl's backpack. The pens sit in a desk drawer, grouped into warm and cool colors. You see, I don't want to dot my i's with hearts. I don't want to have a crush on my best friend's older brother Nick or experiment with writing his last name after mine. I don't want to write mean things about the fat girl in gym class. Although maybe I am the fat girl in gym class. Or the second-fattest.

She likes it when I write poems on her naked body, as if it weren't a poem already. She closes her eyes while I read them to her and trace the words with my fingers. That's a muse. I've spent years trying not to smear the ink. Smearing the ink is the best part. Fuck yeah it is.
---

Apple Juice

2010-05-24T22:36:00.003-05:00

I was on a train from St. Louis to Chicago the other day. There was apple juice in the cafe car. I like to drink apple juice, but I fear people will think I'm drinking my own urine. And then I fear that even if everyone around me is a urine drinker, that they will think that I'm drinking someone else's urine. That's taboo in the urine drinking community. Maybe. I think.

Why do I fear this? It's simple. Whenever I see a man drinking apple juice, I think to myself, "That guy is drinking urine." And I laugh, because he had to take that apple juice bottle to the bathroom to pour it out and fill it up, no doubt thinking, "Geez, I hope my urine is dark enough to look like apple juice. But if it isn't, I've brought food coloring. Three drops of yellow, one of green, one of red. It's not healthy to have red in your urine. Tee-hee."

And then, "But what about the steam on the inside of the bottle? Well, I'll just shake it. Shake it after I've shaken it. Tee-hee."

There are some strange people on trains.

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

2010-05-14T23:00:00.009-05:00

Problem: I can't dance.

Solution: I let the music give me more joy, so much joy that I can't help but move my hips whenever I hear it, and everything else follows. It's harder than it sounds.

Complication: Peeing at concerts. Or, for that matter, in the shower (I like to listen to music in the shower. And now I can dance!). I need a shower with a ceiling-high door, not a curtain. And God help anybody else who uses the soap.
---

Celery

2010-05-12T21:17:00.004-05:00

Those who endure the imperfection of celery are trapped in a painful semi-consciousness, not knowing whether to chop or throw away the only part left -- the flaccid yellowing pieces toward the center. Salads of great beauty flow through their minds, but their minds cramp up, unable or unwilling to commit to adding less than a perfect crunch to tuna and mayonnaise and maybe cumin, chicken and mayonnaise and Dijon mustard, even beans. Even beans.

Then there is no salad -- no salad at all. The great salad architects have become saladless, dry, and it's a chore to eat. They have not yet discovered that they are seeing their own faults, their own imperfect textures, through a magnifying glass with a handle of celery and a celery-colored lens.

Three Links

2010-05-05T21:08:00.004-05:00

It's getting very warm and green here, and that makes me worry about how to both dress comfortably and conceal my needle-bruised arms. Three-quarter sleeves, I suppose. But then I remember that I don't inject drugs or own a three-quarter sleeve shirt. I wonder why I'm worrying about that. But then again, why do I worry about the war in Afghanistan?

These are interesting bits, in no particular order (what affects one of us affects us all):

1) In case you want a little more attention in public

2) "Of Images And Reflections..."

3) A Softer World: 553

A happy day and night or night and day to everyone.
---

The Idea

2010-05-03T21:14:00.006-05:00

The idea still is to celebrate life and its sensations. Keeping the smell of Spring, this idea must remain even beneath the weight of self-doubt, that skinny squinting interrogator whose bony fingers pull me down by my nose hairs (then clip 'em, fool). But no matter how short they are, he always gets up in there. That's what he does. That's his work, and he's good at it, and if it serves to underline my ignorance, that's okay. Life's zip must remain, and I should never assume that I know anything until it feels exactly right.

If done right, life makes the sensitive parts tingle to the point of pain, the feeling that, as the chainsawed, neon-vested city workers approach, maybe motivates the sparrow to sing of its home, "Tree-tree-joy (I sing and fuck, I sing and crap in my) tree-tree-joy." Then the cruel work of the saw, acceptably crazy because you gotta keep the power lines clear.

There will be loss, displacement, and its great sweeps of emotion freeze me, but soon I get back to hammering. I hammer words and chip off more than I should. It's crude, but it's my work. Work is important to a man. In a vulnerable moment, my work allows a clear view inside to anyone who's looking, who has been bitten and not yet dead within.

The idea is I can dance. I just keep the hips loose and keep the mind away. That feels good.

The idea is I can fly. Rather, I can survive a fall.
---

A Shooting

2010-04-30T21:52:00.011-05:00

A man was shot yesterday across the street from my home. He didn't die, or hasn't died, and I hope he doesn't -- at least until he gets a chance to realize some more dreams. It was a drive-by, around quarter to eleven, and the police apprehended one of the suspects and found the gun and the vehicle used, driven by the other suspect. I came home about a half hour afterwards. There was a lot of police tape and blue flashing lights, but that's not uncommon. It didn't arouse a particular curiosity, other than with the flashing lights, which is purely aesthetic.

How do I feel about this (you, the therapist, ask)? Well, it's disturbing, but I'm not alarmed. The threat of death energizes my life. Is that cold to say that in this context? (You sideways nod.) Well, it's the city -- there is violence and people get shot, and those people have families, and getting shot is probably more bad luck than life decisions. I just hope that if we can't stop shootings entirely, that no one I know gets shot.

"Do you feel you know yourself?" you ask.

"Do you?" I ask.

"Yes," you say.

"Good job," I say.

I imagine it would be different if I witnessed the man getting shot, thumping the ground and bleeding. Or even if heard the shots and the screams, which I would have through my open window if my social life wasn't intermittently active. Thank God for friends. They've preserved a certain innocence.

Eulogy for my dog

2010-04-20T22:57:00.005-05:00

No need to offer condolences, she died a year and a half ago. There was no funeral, although there should be, at least for Golden Retrievers.

Maggie tried to be a good dog, she really did, but her tail got the best of her. A red-gold blur whipping back and forth, she'd bring me a present, her heaviest toy, a plastic-composite bone dense as stone. She'd drop it right on my bare foot. In her world, weight meant value, as with gold, no matter a broken toe.

Over my mother's protests, she'd wipe her nose on the carpet until it made her sneeze, and then she'd have to wipe it again to rid it of dog-snot. Then again a sneeze, and again a "Stop it," and again a wipe, and again a sneeze. Dogs are the best. She taught me how to defy my parents and that there's a sustainable alternative to facial tissue.

When in need of anything, she'd nudge my elbow with her snout.

"Hey, hey, hey," she said. If not acknowledged, the nudges became blows.

She was an inside dog, but she'd always try to run out the door, intoxicated by the smells of the world -- grass and shit and deer. Oh, how she hated deer. They offended her. How dare these short-tailed herbivores infringe on her turf. I will bite them, she thought, I will bite them good. I will bite them on their nose, I will bite them on their hooves. They'll taste so much better than Iams. They'll have a better chew.

She loved me unconditionally. I miss her tail, the belly rubs, her joy, our joy. I miss the gross licking and having to wash my hands and my face. I miss the fights, when she wouldn't go to her room after shredding a toilet paper roll. She would growl and snap and I would tackle her and bite her on the scruff of the neck. That was news, I suppose.

I miss the mornings. She'd leap into my bed at seven and I'd say, "Get the fuck out of here," and shove her the fuck off the bed. Fucking dog. Then we'd share a banana for breakfast, and she would catch her half unless I threw it really high.

I taught her to sit. She taught me more.

Tone

2010-04-13T22:34:00.011-05:00

It's the tone that hits the reader square. One chooses a tone by choosing a mental state. For fucking instance...

--- Getting Cash at the Bank ---

Paranoid

Teller: How would you like your cash?
Me: Unmarked. Who do you work for?

Horny

Teller: How would you like your cash?
Me: Singles, but you can have it back. Please stand on the counter and gyrate. I like your conservative skirt.

Depressed

Teller: How would you like your cash?
Me: I don't care.
Teller: Twenties okay?
Me: Nothing is okay.
Teller: Okay...
Me: No. Not okay.
Teller: Tens?
Me: I don't care.
Teller: Tens, then.
Me: Tens become fives, fives become ones. Ones become lonely, then nothing.

Insane

Teller: How would you like your cash?
Me: Strawberry ice cream.
Teller: Excuse me?
Me: Trash bags, trash bags. God fucks birds.

Well, I think that pretty much covers it. Good night.
---

Nightmares

2010-04-09T21:57:00.005-05:00

The yelling in the middle of the night alarms the neighbors and probably terrifies my lover(s). If only I could stop dream-rodents from sneaking under the sheets, if only I could stop their squeaks, their little heartbeats, excited to bite my immobilized body, with just a psychological tweak.

I dream about plane crashes too, but I'm never on the plane, and there are no snakes. I'm just watching from the ground, approximately level, give or take. And I think, "That plane is flying too low."

Then, "Oh, shit!"

Blow!

The plane explodes in a blackened pit, and I run away from the flaming falling debris.

It's usually about three. See?
---

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

2010-04-06T20:29:00.005-05:00

Problem: My tax dollars are being used to fund a war machine.

Solution: Stop paying taxes, go to prison.

Complication: Fashioning an ass-chastity belt out of spoons and dental floss. And something for my mouth too.
---

Roadside Event

2010-03-28T19:44:00.003-05:00

I was already late when I swerved onto the shoulder. The sun beat on. Heat rose from the dashboard, and the air conditioner coughed. Metallic saliva filled my mouth. I spat out the window onto the hot asphalt. There was no way I was going to waste seven layer salad, ribs, twice-baked potato, and German Chocolate Cake.

My stomach turned. Swallowing, I got out of the car. Traffic whizzed by. I spat again. My mind pictured a Denny's Grand Slam breakfast. My mind is a sadist.

Out it came, in courses, in reverse, very recognizable.

I sat down cross-legged beside it. Fluid ran into the grass. I readied my spoon and began to put it all back. A place for everything, everything in its place.

Three Links

2010-03-21T19:39:00.004-05:00

It snowed yesterday, so here comes Spring, but not before a finger or toe turns purple, then black, then falls off, and then an irritated hospital staff informs you that you would not want them to reattach it, despite your continuing insistence that "I kept it cold."

These are interesting bits, in no particular order (unless you believe in predestination):

1) 7 Games You Can Play With a Brick

2) Patience is the Deepest Sense of Knowing

3) Fun Fact

A happy week to everyone. Let's not lose any more digits.
---

Look at me

2010-03-16T22:15:00.003-05:00

I do not typically introduce posts, preferring rather that the reader bear the brunt of interpretation. However, I feel compelled in this particular instance to advise that following post does not reflect my present mental or emotional state, or even that of my past. It is something I've been working on, an experiment in writing, an obsessive concentrating. It is something that has grown by dark bits and pieces, assembled as in mosaic for emotional impact rather than accuracy. But now this something has begun to overshadow the writer I want to be, the person I want to be. I want to set it loose. It casts a shadow. I want the sun. I want to set this piece loose before the vernal equinox, my New Year's Day, when life in these latitudes begins again and improves. I will be happy this year.

Look at me. Okay, stop looking at me. It probably shows that haven't seen a therapist lately. In conversation I drop my eyes so people won't notice that they don't smile along with my mouth, that they remain blank, trained inward. When things are going well, smiling is not a concern.

Things are not going well. I begin my day limp and defeated. Something cold and heavy sits inside me. My many gifts seem inaccessible, frozen in ingratitude. I am a weight pulling down those around me. I'm scared that they can see this, that when we meet they can hear this when I talk, and that I might be contagious and should cover my mouth when I speak. I feel excluded and betrayed by my community and reduced to a child when they offer help. And they do offer help. I feel unloveable, and it is a trick of my mind. I know I am not unloved. I am never unloved. I will never be unloved. I am always loved.

Love? I don't talk about love. Love? I stare at a woman's ass and feel a low primitive longing, infatuation without lightness. Desire drips thickly from a dark inner reservoir. That ass looks fucking fuckably soft, an upside-down valentine, jiggling, jiggling in yoga pants. I wonder if it's got a mole, and if out of that mole grows a single wispy hair, and if that hair would like to be plucked with my teeth. Leering like I do, she would never let me touch her. My confidence is so rotten I can smell it. I won't even say hello.

Being near a fine-smelling woman gives me a stomachache. I fear that she will intuit my pain and pity me, touching me on the head and giving me the same sad smile as she would a dog with no back legs. I won't be pitied. I'll drag myself along.

Unwilling to be vulnerable, I've become a self-attracted man, cultivating my own prettiness. I admire my delicate cheekbones and keep moist my slender arms and graceful hands and fingers. I stroke them as I would a woman's. In bed, I drag the tip of my tongue from the inside of my elbow to the inside of my wrist and then give it a wet broad lick. It feels good. It tastes good. I feel awful.

Regardless, one must have joy. I borrow it from late night shows and video game sports. I giggle at the same jokes night after night. David Letterman is my friend. I yell and dance around the room, arms raised, when I score a game-winning goal or touchdown. I have accomplished something. I am better than a computer.

I will not sit alone with my thoughts. If not drowned out, these solitary thoughts tell me that something is wrong and to ask for help in fixing it. Instead I fall asleep on the couch without having brushed my teeth, the television man narrating dramatic nature scenes.

I cry out while dreaming, often due to rodent bites or the imminence thereof, but come the morning I huddle protected beneath the covers, making excuses to return, again and again, like "It's cloudy." I prefer my dreams to my life, and they're energy efficient. In my dream life, I'm somebody. I'm the dreamer.

My universal spirit struggles for release. It lies buried under indifference, irony, and good manners. Booze makes a handy shovel, but it uncovers confessions one after the other in wild, reckless euphoria, the spirit desperate for air and connection. The next day I remember a blur, and the deliberate defiance of social conventions has caused me such anxiety that I must bury the spirit deeper to rebuild the false front. The process fuels itself.

As it is naturally light, I could allow the spirit to rise and shatter the mask. What lies under the mask terrifies me with its naked brightness, but the mask is both terrifying and grotesque. I can do this. I should allow feelings and epiphanies to bubble up, discover that which captivates me and takes me beyond myself, in dance and laugh. No one can tell me how to live. I decide. I decide who and what to love.

In devotion to something greater, let's call it writing or God, I will listen, trust, and the light will shine through me, sometimes only a pinpoint, but even that is enough. I will increase the aggregate good. I will let go, unclench, and stop attacking myself, turning my eyes back outward so that they will smile too.
---

Somewhere

2010-03-10T20:07:00.030-06:00

Somewhere we are all thick and full of happy hugs, an airport arrival gate inside the chest. Stop! Drop your bags, friend, drop the hate, and drop that old lady behind you. Send her falling, flailing into our waiting arms. We'll squeeze her, but we won't get fresh, no 1960's Marrakesh, also without the bugs. There will be plenty of fresh back at the Home, old-fashioned charms, backrubs...at intervals with rest. In this air-conditioned space, we'll embrace her, kiss her face, and best mind her brittle bones. She's probably cold. She'll make old lady tones, and cackle, "Careful sonny," and give you a glare and give us a hard candy to share. It's sunny here. It was cloudy there.

We will, however, get fresh with you, maybe grab your ass. We'll grab your ass. It's been a while since we seen your ass and grabbed it as a treat. We'll embarrass you in front of strangers, share our body heat, but you know you crave that thickness, you know you love when we spread that joy. It elevates a man to boy. It's the meat. You like the meat. We all inside, though try to hide, really like the meat.
---

On Writing

2010-03-04T22:39:00.006-06:00

Writing is a pressure valve. Without it, I would be taut with unexpressed feeling only loosened through sex, violence, or (bottom) half-naked dancing around a fire in front of a good New England couple who, after locking themselves in the panic room, wondered how I ever got into their house. Yeah, the help doesn't really like you. I do like those fireplaces that go through the wall from the kitchen to the living room. Dancing around them is certainly aerobic (oh, here he comes again).

Writing establishes an equilibrium. It is a method of resolving that limitless burning within, not as fun and no safer than sex, but available with less compromise, though I do sacrifice brunch, and the testosterone rush is a bit weaker.

In the Chapel

2010-03-02T20:57:00.003-06:00

I kneel before the altar lit with dim yellow bulbs. The quiet in the chapel stretches unbroken except for the occasional echoed footsteps of some sinner passing through the church, having done a poor job of urge control. With head bowed and eyes closed I clear my mind with a prayer. Though I can't see him, the marble Saint stretches his arms toward me in blessing. I think Saints should always be posed in ready-to-hug position, and maybe be plumbed with warm water. I want a warm Saint hug.

Right, back to the prayer.

Those who see God are psychologically released and then sometimes confined to a treatment center. My God lives inside, so far inside that it could be outside. I focus on the small and the small becomes large: humility, the collective, me.

Advice and Noses

2010-02-27T00:53:00.007-06:00

Instead of judging, a friend suggested I might be happier just describing.

"As in your nose," I said.

"Yes," she said, "what about my nose?"

"It's so capable of of gathering and distributing a vast quantity of olfactory memories. Memories of your grandmother's house, memories of that night I adopted a baby skunk and later that night disowned it for sassing me."

"Are you saying my nose is big. Too big? You think my nostrils are giant repositories? Do you think...are you going to sell me to Dyson?"

"I don't think Dyson would buy you. You don't suck enough."

Not funny, apparently.

"Your nose is wonderful," I said. "I love it."

"That's judgmental."

"No, that's descriptive."
---

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

2010-02-22T20:54:00.005-06:00

Problem: It's cold, and my long underwear bunches.

Solution: Constant clandestine adjustment.

Complication: The inescapable notion that pantyhose may do a better job.
---

Exploring sandwich delivery

2010-02-17T21:28:00.011-06:00

The scratchy compassion in her voice comforts him, especially when he's mad with drink. He takes a breath and life lightens. She understands that he feels empty, that he is hungry, and that a pepper and egg sandwich will ease his pain, his pangs. She calls him "sweetie," and he feels better. Someone listened. Someone cares.

When the buzzer rings he stumbles down the stairs and meets the deliveryman halfway. He pays and tips and vaguely worries that he reeks and that his eyes are red and half-shut.

All worry ceases when he opens the sandwich and takes that first greasy bite: the pepper is the squirting phallus and the egg the ovum. He makes sounds that he only hears in internet movies and at the end of PBS cooking shows.

Oh, green pepper!

Oh, oh, egg!

Does someone have a towel? This napkin won't suffice.