There is a glaze over my eyes. I am not here nor there. I have started building a fort out of my paper work. I will hide in it and take a nap. My shirt collar is a little too tight and my pants are doing a weird dance of riding, falling, followed by light binding. It is a dance that should be outlawed, it is unfit for a nice pair of pants to carry on this way. I want to run away and live in the woods where phones don't ring and I can't hear my coworkers breathing.

Words - N
Photo - N

I wish I was those rocks. I try and present a front that I am never eroding, that nothing gets to me. And at night, sometimes, I shake and can’t stop it from happening. Words escape my mouth that aren’t fully formed, like gibberish, and all I want to do is be those rocks and feel the water’s arms slamming into me again and again, cutting grooves of eras across my face. The only tossing and turning I do is between the sheets, unable to sleep.

Photo – N
Words - S

Someday, when you are all at each others’ throats, you should remember this day when all there existed was one another, the water, and the endless days at the end of summer.

Photo – N
Words - S

Every Tuesday after grade school, I had to go to religious classes. One time, I thought I saw a body behind the school and screamed. Everyone came running and the body was gone. I don’t know if there was ever a body to begin with. I would like to think that there was one and I was part of some magnificent scheme. Probably I was just a goofy seven year old with thick glasses and too big of an brain.

Photo - N
Words - S

Intrepid warrior on the path through the brook. Protector of those who run the kickball paths. Jumper onto the couch, always seeking true love. Long may you run.

Photo - N
Words - S

Adventure is where you find it. In the midst of the city that always sleeps, we find our fun amongst the holographic Jesuses and the giant rubber phalluses. We carouse through Chinese takeouts, we snap photos of gummi sharks, we almost get struck by cars as we discuss the original Lord of the Rings. The buildings may all be boarded up and dead inside, but here in the swampy heat, we reconfirm our existence one lunch at a time.

Photo - N
Words - S

I watch you over the rim of my coffee cup. Our diner booth a universe all to its own. The sugar, salt and pepper line up like planets. Creamer swirls like the milky way and I can no longer deny your gravity. We kiss. I see stars. Our heavenly bodies mix and mingle and a new world is born.

Photo - N
Words - N

There is a cemetery in the middle of downtown. They are coming. I hear them stirring under the grass and all the piegons have left the square. I hope the zombies don't rise during rush hour. It would make my commute murder.

Words - N
Photo - N

Midnight from the Inside Out

Sometimes when you shut your eyes tight and allow the music to flow through you, and the city and trains surround you, and you have your friends around you, sometimes, you can forget that tomorrow that you will go back to paying the bills and sitting in the chair that you don’t want to sit in anymore. The lights get all in swirls and people are all dancing and the smells coalesce into a potent mixture of grass and sweat. And you can pretend that your knees don’t hurt anymore and that you aren’t old anymore and that when you wake up you won’t regret staying up past your bedtime.

Photo – N
Words – S

As a postscript, we would like a chance to talk to the rock stars of the world. Because sooner or later, we are going to get our own band together and blow you all off the fucking stage. So in the interest of helping all of you, we’d like to give you some advice. We know that you all like to jam out, but we need to be at work at 8. So that means that, for now, until we start doing coke and hitting the road, we’d like to hear as many songs as possible. Not just drum solos. And the encores? We know you’re coming back out. Why not just play, take a break when you need to (really, we’ll be understanding) and then say, good bye when you’re done? And don’t clap for yourself. It all seems rather incongruous.

Anyways, you have a year or two to be rocking. Because that’s about when the two of us will get fed up with the direction of the way things are rolling and get together and be like, The Velvet Underground mixed with De La Soul. Or something. With lots of feedback and drugs.

The rain fell like tears. Big drops falling slowly. The book lay in
Tatters, dirty from years of thumbing and flipping. Dog eared pages and a faded cover. The irony of the situation was not lost on me. A weary book, reeking with despair and teeming with sadness. Wet in a quarter box on the edge of the West Virgina line. You ask where the irony is... well this book changed part of history. Its pages are filled with tales of woe about the very hills it is a stone throw away
from. Once upon a time, this book sounded the horn for the people of the Appalachia, causing millions of dollars of aid to be sent to the mountains.

Now, who will sound the horn for it? I tried, but the pages crumbled beneath my fingers and fell like the rain, finally resting in the mud.

How easy we forget our prizes. I look around at the people digging through bins of junk searching for treasure. Keep looking; it’s there – hidden messages, pieces of history, and long lost wishes rest at the bottom of the $1 bin.

Photo - S
Words - N

Where are you?

It's been awhile since we updated.

N has been working her butt off. I've seen it. It's disappeared and is flying all over the city. She's in class, she's helping young goth kids to stop their tears from decimating their makeup. She's a trooper.

Me, I've been working. Trying to figure out the grand plan and what I have to do to get off the giant spinning wheel.

We made this baby blog for all of you and sometimes, we neglect it. But like a wild child raised by pigs in the jungle, it will not die. It just laughs and crawls through the dirt, growing stronger.

Sure.

Maybe we really should do a real update sooner than later.

You're all in our prayers,
S and N

One day when I was 12, I sat in the woods and cried.

I looked out at the city and tears kept raining down my face.

Sad for just the idea of being sad.

I wish I knew now what I knew then. I wouldn't have been in such a hurry to grow up.

And I would have stayed in those woods.

Photo - N
Words - S

The legal district used to be Chinatown. But all the lawyers forced them out.

Except for one place.

And that place must be the toughest Chinese place in town.



They’re surly. Just look at how they put the black lettered poster out every morning, daring the lawyers to do something about it.

The lawyers are weak. They love the poo-poo platter and crab rangoon too much to do anything about the brazen Chinese chefs.

And to their chagrin, as they try in vain to learn how to use chopsticks, the cooks all laugh at them and their pitiful Western legalese ways.

Photo - S
Words - S (but really, N told me the story and I just made it a fake history of a real city)

It’s been winter a long time. And sometimes, I wonder if spring even remembers our name. Don’t forget to call, April showers. Come back soon, May flowers. My feet are permafrosted to the ground.

Photo - N
Words - S

I never want to meet my heroes.

When I was a kid, like every kid growing up here, Willie Stargell was my hero.

We used to wait after the games to see him.

I was in awe, there he was, “Pops,” coming out of the team room and walking toward the bus. Trembling, pen and paper in hand waiting for his signature.

He shoved me to the curb in the rush of people.

I was sad for a long time.

But now I’m wise.

And that’s why I never want to meet my heroes.

Photo – S
Words – S

I have no idea who wrote this and a vague idea of what it means.

I took the photo, but I didn't make the art. I just thought this was a great place to put it. The scary part is, it was in the middle of the street in downtown, off Forbes. It's a really busy street and I almost got hit twice taking this picture of the street.

You see new things in the city when you walk through it at 6 AM.

N, do you know what this means?

Photo - S
Words - S

The car represents freedom. Sure, the wheels have fallen off, but as long as I look outside and see it, I know that the two of us can get out of here any time we want. A few days work and it’ll run. We’ll roll down the windows and plot our course for Mexico. Or Michigan. Somewhere. Anywhere. Not here. Far away from desks and migraines and stupid fucking inflatable fish.

Photo – N
Words – S

I feel really cold now. I used to never feel cold. Or at least I didn’t worry about it. But today, I held the paper from the printer and it was so warm to my touch, it felt like it was keeping me toasty and safe as I stand in a frigid world.

I’m sure the paper wasn’t trying to tell me anything.

Photo - N
Words - S

Get motivated

Photo - N
Words - S

My past self watches over me now like Batman watches over Gotham. Meaning, I base a lot of my decisions on how the 16 year old me would view the 33 year old me. And right now, he’s been yelling at me quite a bit. Today, he’s grabbing me by the back of the head and slamming it repeatedly into my desk, screaming about how dare I give in to people. Every day, I sit here, with sixteen year old long haired black t-shirt and jeans wearing me laughing, cajoling, chiding.

Once, I met a class of kids about what I do, and they said, how do you keep from selling out? My answer was that, well, selling out gets different as you get older. You buy a house. You get married. You have to smile through shitty teeth to people you hate, from time to all the time, just to keep your nose above the sewer water.

16 year me has no idea what I’m talking about. Then I remember, hey, 16 year old me couldn’t even get a date t save his life. So whatever, kid.

Photo – N
Words – S

The end of a party always makes me sad. The planning is over and all that remains is to still clear up. Sure, you’ll have plenty of potato chips and food as leftovers for days to come, but you won’t have the people that you invited. And worse, the people who you invited and for some reason, couldn’t make it. I have one friend, whom I consider one of my best friends, but every time you make plans with him, it’s kind of like you have to go through these elaborate hoops to have him attend your party. And then, he comes very late and leaves very early. It kind of makes me wonder why I even go to the trouble of inviting him. The entirety of his visit consists of him eating, talking on his cell, and text messaging. I find someone who text messages while I’m trying to talk to them to be ruder than someone who doesn’t show up or tell you they won’t show up to your party. Because at least then, there’s no physical evidence that they were there. It’s like, I showed up, but I have better people to talk to than you and I’m going to do it in nonlinear sentences and code while you put out all this spread and hoped people would have a good time. In truth, that sums up my friend: he’s always looking for a better party, a hotter girl, the next best thing. Maybe I settle. No, I don’t. I think, in truth, what I do is realize that there’s more to life than getting the next version of something. That certain things improve with age and use. Sadly, he’s too busy staring at the LED screen on his phone to notice.

Photo – N
Words – S

Every time I eat a pirogue, it makes me proud. And wistful. It reminds me that I’m tied to some part of my heritage. My grandfather used to make big batches of pirogues that blew anything frozen that you can buy today. It amazes me at times that someone so big and strong was so adept in the kitchen and grocery shopping. He didn’t try to teach me anything, but in the way he lived his life I learned a lot about the way that I should eat mine. I have also noticed that my pirogue consumption, over time, has lessened. Maybe that’s good for my heart. Because in my youth, I could easily eat two dozen. I try and make six my limit, now.

Photo – N
Words - S

Guest writer - Bree

Sadly, work has made a mockery of my writing in the last week or so. I promise to try and write some things today.

We do have a guest, though. I really like what she wrote. - S



words: Puddles. When I was younger, I loved puddles: the incredible sound of my yellow goulashes landing right in the middle of the tiny, temporary lake; the round spots of mud that ended up splattered on the backs of my pants or dresses for which my mother always scolded me; the just-hatched tadpoles we'd find, and catch, in the most stagnant pools on paths in the woods. Puddles were, in short, my childhood.

Now I walk around puddles; my black pumps would not protect me from the agony of 8 hours of soggy pantyhose, feet, and shoes. I stand here waiting for the bus. I see the city's reflection in the gutters below. Cars sloosh by, and I jump back at every pass for fear of being splashed. The mud would ruin my pressed suit. There are no tadpoles here. Just cigarette butts, gravel from the asphalt, and memories.

Photo - N
Words - B

I've been trying to find my voice, the moment is now. Say the things that need to be said. Shed this image of what you think I am, of what I have been, to become what I will be. I will be free. I open my mouth but nothing comes out. I stand frozen as time passes me by once again.

Photo - N
Words - N

There is a song called "What I Am." I generally like the song. The Edie Brickell version being the one I've heard. These are some of the lyrics:

"I'm not aware of too many things
I know what I know, if you know what I mean
Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box
Religion is the smile on a dog
I'm not aware of too many things
I know what I know, if you know what I mean, d-doo yeah"

It's the smile on a dog line that gets me. What does that mean? Is it slanderous to religion? Or quite the opposite?

My dog smiles and it's the thing that's gotten me through this week. I printed the photo and put it on my cube. Whenever I've gotten mad and frustrated, I look at the photo and have smiled. I feel at peace, I laugh, I realize that everything is ok because soon I will be at home. Maybe religion is like a smile on a dog. It makes people feel warm and fuzzy. Comfortable, not alone in this big crazy mixed up world.

Picture - N
Words - N

This shack sits on the back of my land and I never want to take it down. I love it. It reminds me that even in my attempts to be respectable, I will always remain low class. I wish at times that a man who smokes a corncob pipe lives there and he has a still that he shares rotgut whiskey with me as we sit around the fire, careful not to burn down his shack. I tried to walk into my shack once, but I became afraid, because I would rather live with my fantasy of what is in there than the reality that the only thing that lives there are bugs and dirt.

Photo – S
Words – S

My serenity garden has been used as an ashtray. Or, if you meet Buddha in the road, please don't kill him anymore.

I'm missing one of the tools, so instantly, my serenity garden has stressed me out.

N says that I should use the rocks to symbolize people.

I make a path and that path is covered with rocks in my way.

The serenity garden, sadly, is half full of sand.

Photo - S
Words - S

I think that you become more aware of your body once you share it with someone. More invested in how you breathe. You definitely notice your skin. Unless your skin is dry, you never notice it. When you’re against someone, you pay attention. To the sweat, to the way that it wraps around your muscles and knuckles and knees. When you’re walking down the street afterwards, you gain an almost intimate; pardon the pun, knowledge of the condition of each part of your anatomy. Every fingernail scratch, every pulled hair, every tender bruise is now a story that you were the central character of. Feeling your heart in your chest, trying to catch your breath, eyeing your eyes in the mirror.

The problem with movies is that happy endings aren’t real. Things don’t get resolved in two hours. You may go through your entire life without knowing who you are. You may never learn what you really want. Or you may find yourself unable to take it when it’s right there in front of your face. You may not even be the hero. Or worse, you might not even be the villain; you’re an extra in your own boring movie that you just want to walk out on.

Picture – N
Words – S

Mr. S was offered a cube beside a window and he turned it down. He wanted more desk space instead. He is very dedicated to his craft. Me, I can't get any work done because I sit in my cube thinking about how great it would be to have a window.

Words – N
Photo – S (N’s idea, though)

What makes a pet amazing is that one day, you didn’t know them. And the next, here is this little person, depending on you, sleeping at the foot of your bed, and when you look in her eyes, you see unconditional trust and love. There’s no human feeling that compares to when you reach down and rub a furry little head. To hear a murmur of contentment, to see the playfulness when they hit a full speed run, to witness the simple joy of devouring a can of food.

Photo – N
Words – S

The city exists in a seemingly endless cycle of destruction and aborted rebirths. Beeps, whistles, and loud smashing noises echo down block after empty block, heralding the smoky end of another landmark.

Photo – N
Words – S

We can copy anything.

Even what you use to make copies.



Nothing you own is original. Or yours.

Photos – S
Words – S

I don’t know where I’m going today. I feel like I’m falling down a hill, the kind of falling you get when you can’t stop running and the ground under your feet won’t slow you down. Reaching out for branches, hoping my feet can stay on the earth but knowing one of the next moves will propel me face first, then upside down, unable to stop.

Picture – N
Words – S

They say that if you light a red candle you are inviting love into your life. She lit the candle and waited. Time passed, minuets crawled into hours but still she waited. Fidgety in nature, she twiddled her thumbs, made some origami, and eventually rolled the hot wax in between her fingers. Little balls turned into little hands, little feet, until she had a little figure on the table. Now the sorts of people who believe that a red candle brings love are usually the types who believe that dolls and human likeness can be used to cast similar spells. The night slunk on and soon she found herself asleep on the table. She woke to find herself being carried in the arms of a very handsome man. Granted he was a firefighter, and she had burnt down the house by knocking over the candle, but wishes do come true.

Photo – S
Words – N

There used to be so many pay phones. Now, no one really has a need for one. Except me. I don’t want a cel phone. I don’t need to be easily acceptable and more to the point, I don’t want to be found. It’s kind of like the same reason I won’t take antibiotics. When the superflu comes, I alone will wander the vast wastelands of what was once called Earth. Kind of like Vincent Price in The Last Man on Earth or Charlton Heston in The Omega Man. They’re both based on the same story, after all. I was thinking, now that pay phones have fallen out of favor, I guess that the HIV addicted drug users in urban legends that dispose of their used needles by putting them into the coin slots (infecting unsuspecting victims) have to find something else to do.

Photo – S
Words - S

Most rubber ducks are made out of vinyl, not rubber. So right from the beginning, they may be comforting you, but they’re really liars.

Photo - N
Words - S

The Hidden Language of Coats

Your jacket has been everyone you have gone, but it never gets to have the fun you do. You throw it on the floor, you give it to the coat check person, you forget it on the back of a chair. Lying on a bed, intermingling with everyone else’s coat, sleeves inside one another, waiting for you to leave early. Or a couple to fall upon a canopy of overcoats and capes. Your coat keeps you warm and it doesn’t ask all that much of you; the least you could do is wear it inside once in awhile.

Photo – S
Words – S

Inside the walls of this city are secrets. Gargoyles, gods, and symbols do not litter your landscape without purpose. To paraphrase James Shelby Downard, “Never assume that the dead and deadening scenery of the American city-of-dreadful-night is so utterly sterile and devoid of mystery.” That is, to say, nothing exists without meaning. I don’t believe things are there simply to be aesthetically pleasing; there aren’t any coincidences. There are reasons for everything being there and everything that happens. It just depends on us to have an honest eye and the ability to see something for more than it is.

Photo – N
Words - S

She’s the kind of girl who doesn’t believe in margarine. She only worships at the altar of butter.

Photo - N
Words - S

Lately, I’ve been experiencing moments for which I have no words to describe them. Today, I felt like I was running and being pushed on every side. Someone left today and it felt like waiting in the hospital for some distant relation to finally die. And other times, I’m overcome by an overwhelming feeling of perfect lining up of facts, a kismet, a wonder that everything is all riding on this moment. It’s like I’m in a movie and the audience just wishes I’d make my move. But I don’t have words for these dramatic fugues that make up my life. I can only pour my heart into my keystrokes.

Photo – N
Words – S

I’ve never heard anyone swear at a bird so ruthlessly as Ms. N did when she took this photo. People having their eyes plucked by ravens are nicer to them. As the bird flew off, she screamed one last epithet, bounced, turned, hands at sides and then up to a clap, with a smile that overtook every image of her, and said, “Let’s eat some fried chicken!”

Photo - N
Words - S

The maw of the yellow bridge stares back at me, reminding me of the times that I had to ford across it. Crossing a bridge in the winter is unlike any other experience; it’s the farthest thing from pleasure that I can imagine. When I see the bridge, I’m reminded of the street it leads to and from. Where it goes, I don’t really have many good memories of. But the bridge is, at best, a marker of my bearings downtown. I measure everything in distance from the bridge; in terms of steps but mostly, in regard to where I am in life.

Photo - N
Words - S

Where we lived is being razed and taken down for something else. Maybe not something better. Just something else. Now, the sides of buildings go into nowhere and lead to anywhere, with doors that open to the open air and walls that just stop short. No one has any plan. Not even us. We just float from day to day, hoping our paths will cross. But most of the time, all that we see are letters burned into our screens.

Photo - N
Words - S

Three Miles

This patch is three miles
But it feels like forever
It always feels like I’ll never
Drive far enough or fast enough
I just keep coming back to these three miles

And you keep
Looking out that window
where there's nothing for days
I watch you watching
Nothing I can see
And your breath makes the window
Fog in the very worst ways

I thought I could
Maybe make the quiet shut up
Make the silence silent
But all I could ever hear was
The radio’s low din
Some song I never wanted to sing.

Picture - N
Words - S (with an assist from N)

The big experiment

Here’s a little behind the scenes on how we make it happen here at “ifthenwhat.” I, S, have some stupid little plan to be a rock star, so I’ve been writing a whole bunch of songs. They don’t have any music and they don’t rhyme, but I really could care less. Generally, N is the only person that gets to read these sketches of songs. Yesterday, I send her a few verses of one that I was working on with the idea that we switch it up and words came before the photo, as generally, the words are inspired by the photo. That’s why photo is listed first. If it’s the opposite, we’d list words first, but I believe this is the first time that this has happened. I could be wrong, as it’s just the two of us doing this and also trying to do our real jobs and e-mail one another to amuse ourselves throughout our exciting days of sitting at desks. My desk is much bigger and nicer. And I will never be allowed to forget that and the tears that it has caused. Also, many of these pictures were taken in traffic, while N was on the cel phone with me, so she risked her life to bring you all some fucking art, so you better respect that.

Without any further ado, our words first, then photos taken as they were inspired experiment.



Song #4



Spin your wheels
In fast forward
Slow motion
Waiting to wait
Meeting to meet
Broken chairs, twisted cords
Tired eyes staring



My fingers itch
and burn
sometimes
And the letters in my mind
end up being different on
cathode ray screen
And other times
I just stay dizzy



Styrofoam vessels of
brown foamy caffeine
whispered threats
and unseen hands
that grab my neck
throttle me to the ground
and someday inside it