Wednesday, October 31, 2007

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Growing up, I had a friend that told me, every single year, that he would dress up in these great costumes. He would plan them out and tell me how his parents were making it for him. My parents always made insane costumes for my brother and me. Maybe he wanted that.

Every year, he would dress as an old woman, wrapped like a mummy.

One year, he was going to be Gumby.

He showed up as an old woman.

His parents were divorcing and fought all the time.

He came to my house every day.

I remember that inside the trailer he lived in, he would build these giant cities and then, after a few days, we would have a disaster and destroy it. He loved disasters.

Next to their trailer, they had a house that was never finished. It was a monument to his parent's crumbling relationship. Once his dad got married again, the house was finished and he and his mom moved.

She got arrested a lot for drunk driving. She was a prostitute. She was the first woman I knew outside of my mother.

Happy Halloween, everyone.

Photo - S
Words - S

Great moments in black history

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I grew up in a small town where there are few, if any, black people. Prejudice was very alive when I was young. You will still hear the term colored used. Many people say, oh, I have many colored friends. Girls got called mudsharks if they slept with black guys. The Klan would meet, up until a few years ago, right down the street from where I am writing this.

Cabbage Patch Kids were all the rage. We couldn't find any, anywhere, until a shipment came in at the Montgomery Ward. The only problem, the lady told my mother, was that they were two black ones. We didn't care, we just wanted a Cabbage Patch Kid. I saw no color as a child, only a fad that I must be a part of.

Everywhere my brother and I went, we carried our black babies along. Until one day, I was at my grandparent's and one of their friends said, "Why are your grandchildren playing with nigger Cabbage Patch Kids?" I defended my non-living, stuffed, plastic headed black adopted child's civil rights. I got mad and spoke up.

Therefore, that is my moment in black history. Defending a toy versus someone who grew up racist. I wish it was something more profound, like helping a slave in the Underground Railroad or giving my seat up on a bus. However, this was my chance. And now, you have read my story.

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Words - S
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Today is Halloween.

My Halloween moment of the year is standing in a Walgreen's at 1 AM while an elderly couple argued for 10 minutes about how they were going to pay, either by check or debit card. I was exhausted and just wanted to buy my snacks. I walked around and just was like, please be done, I just want my chips. No...still, they stood in line yelling back and forth. At this point, "This is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas starts playing, so I sang and danced until they were done.

That's my Halloween, several days early.

Photo - S
Words - S
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This Pizza Hut has a little brother or sister that is shy and always stands behind it.

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Words - S
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No matter where you go, some of home, even if it's adopted, will come with you.

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Words - S

Hemmingway's cats

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Hemmingway wrote "A Farewell to Arms" in his house in Key West and also had several cats. They bred and bred and now, the Hemmingway House is populated by them. Most of them have six and seven toes. I just think its pretty awesome that cats have the run of this gigantic house. I'd like to hug every one of them.

ADDED: I just looked at the site and this cat's name is Simone De Beauvoir.

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Words - S

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

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They kept me for 8 hours. I walked the road, cut my hair, debated life, smoked cigars.

My car runs exactly the same.

I'll be able to drive it for another year.

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Words - S
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Usually, they have my name when I look for named items. Of which I have zero.

Olga, she's been looking for her name on something for so long.

Here it is. Enjoy your stuffed rabbit.

Photo - S
Words - S
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Nothing profound. I just want to show you how big pickles can be.

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Words - S
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I wasn't allowed to play D&D as a kid because people got possessed and would think they were really in the game and be found dead in sewers.

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Words - S
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I'm going as a fart for Halloween. How about you?

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Words - S
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This is the worst place to have a birthday party.

You get up on stage and sing with puppets in a broken down strip mall.

If I was a kid, I would be sure I'd be fondled.

Photo - S
Words - S
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I want to put my fears into coffins and bury them.

Starting with the clowns.

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Words - S

Monday, October 29, 2007

POST 500! WOW!

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Someday, we'll find the person who stole Baby Jesus. And we will kick the holy fuck out of them.

Photo - S
Words - S
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Floating. That's what I'm doing. And not good floating.

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Words - S

Sunday, October 28, 2007

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Welcome to the saddest place on earth.

I couldn't even light my cigar here. I set my thumbnail and fingers on fire.

This place threatened to overtake me.

Every day, I feel like that, but this place was it. And I walked away from it.

You won't live through this. But you will.

Photo - S
Words - S
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Sometimes, accidental pictures are the best ones of all.

It was Halloween and I didn't even want to dress up.

We saw pirates fight ninjas. And it made us laugh.

It was nice.

Seeing pirates and ninjas fight in front of a Boston Market.

Photo - S
Words - S
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How many conversations has this phone heard?

I didn't want to speak on it.

I don't want to add my voices to the din of sadness that have screamed into the air.

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Words - S
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Christmas stuff is out.

What the fuck.

They sell an official Charlie Brown tree.

That kind of defeats the purpose of the Charlie Brown tree, as that whole thing was about something different. As far as I knew.

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Words - S
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You sir, are no John Wayne.

Nor are you James Bond.

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Words - S
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Whatever happened to the kids who do pranks?

If you just took the C off this sign.

Where are the kids with the balls to do this?

Is a 35 year old man going to have to take his ladder here in the middle of the night?

Photo - S
Words - S
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I tried to make this one arty, I really did.

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Words - S
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Doing coke, getting busted by cops and showing his genitals, one assumes.

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Words - S

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

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It doesn't exist.

I try and make it real and conjure it.

Like an exploding homonucleus in my garage.

But it's not real.

Not yet, anyways.

Photo - S
Words - S

silly thoughts go through my head about the bugs and alphabet

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Swirl, head, swirl
mix it all up, mix up all the things
job life drinks pills
all one big cocktail
who needs thrill rides
when you got crazy

Photo - N
Words - S

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

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All I am now is pixels on a screen.
That's all I am.
I have transmuted my essence.
There is no physical me.
This is all there is.
Words and pictures.
Carried by the net.

Photo - S
Words - S
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I sit on a wet couch
rain drip drip drip into living room
my eyes too
drip drip drip onto red t-shirt

i love the rain usually
and tonight
i hate it
i despise it

I will go outside and scream
fuck you rain
fuck you night
hopefully my neighbors are cool with it

Photo - N
Words - S
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These are our if then whats.

Some days they are all I have to give the world.
Some days they are all that gets the day past us.
Some days they make me smile.
Some days they make my eyes turn colors stained by tears.

Tonight, I sit here and think of if then whats.

They aren't real.
But they are.
They are mists. Ether.

You can press them between pages.
Read them in pixels.
Come back to this page again and again as the day goes on.
I know you will.

Tonight, all I have is if then whats.

Little stories, not even finished sometimes
My fingers know when they are done.

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Words - S
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I have always worked past when people have. Or earlier, when no one is there.

I love offices when it is me and the office. After the other people are there, it becomes hard for me to love it.

I miss the intimacy of the office and me. Taking my shoes off. Having a drink.

Blessed silence.

Offices would be great if they didn't have work or people.

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Words - S
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If we look down the road, where we came from, we see different people waving back to us through the past.

Hello, there, past people.

They look blissfully unaware while at the same time, sad, as they look forward.

Hello, blissfully unaware past people.

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Words - S
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Tonight I sit in silence. Fuzzy silence.

If I wished for time to speed up, to take me past where I am, would it be so bad?

Why does life have to be such a fucking learning experience?

Photo - S
Words - S

Monday, October 22, 2007

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Sometimes the shark bites you.
Sometimes you bit the shark.

Photo - N
Words - S
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You always wanted to go where everyone knows your name.
Now they all do.
Isn't it nice?

Photo - N
Words - S

Thursday, October 18, 2007

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concentric circles as rocks hit water
small bucket of drip drop drip of our time
splash crash rock slam into
nothing really

i started as dust
thats what they taught me when they rubbed a cross on my forehead
and dust you will return
a religion obsessed with death, with blood, with the bread and body

knees on prayer rail waiting for mass to end
unable to mentally deal with thoughts of heaven

fingers graze keys as eyes fog
empty cans of soup, apple core
the world is dead at worst
asleep at best, after all its late

in the morning
these words will make no sense
to you or me or anyone really
but right now these words are all i got

fans of humidifier bleats
a stay awake song for the still awake

i hate horizontal looks
i despise silence
i fear the unknown
i hate starting sentences with I or repeating verbs

they used to call it pathos
i guess, those greeks
they also used to drink hemlock
to prove points, those wacky fucks

cat sleeps on address book
no one is getting a phone call tonight

its cold but after all its almost
november
can you believe it
the summer gave up a shit and died

i tried to string thoese rants
four sentences, repeat, then just a few
maybe i thought i had
something marvelously witty to say

the truth is, i'm tired
and simply out of things to say

Photo - N
Words - S

Well sloe gin fizz works might fast when you drink it by the pitcher and not by the glass

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I always wanted someone to push a beer down the bar and I'd catch it, all suave and cowboy like.

Someday, its gonna happen.

Photo - N
Words - S

Monday, October 15, 2007

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I hate Monday.

If we didn't have Monday, someone would invent another start to the week that I would hate just as much.

Monday is coming down from staying up all night and doing whatever you want. And more and more, Monday is to be feared, anxious worry, handwringing as I drive a car too fast on a road I don't want to travel down.

Can we skip a Monday every once in awhile?

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Words - S
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Polka dots appear randomly in your life. In your kitchen, on your leggings, all sorts of places.

They just want you to know that everything will be alright.

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Words - S
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Sometimes it feels like I am pulled in every direction. Other mornings, I wake up and feel like everything makes sense. I wake up a lot in the middle of the night and feel like that. I don't know if I have, for years, slept the whole night through.

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Words - S
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Let's start Monday with a chocolate milk.

Let's start Monday with a smile.

Let's make this week better than last week.

If we can, let's make every day the best day ever.

Photo - N
Words - S

Sunday, October 14, 2007

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I like how blankets feel. The one I am using is small and thin and I use it every morning when I lay on the couch.

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Words - S
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Sunday morning, I wish you could last forever.

Music playing from my speakers as I write. Cat at my side. Warmth.

I wish every day was you.

Photo - S
Words - S

Saturday, October 13, 2007

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Outlaw angel of the blacktop parking lot aisles of sugar snacks and mango rimmed drinks.
You look down on the sad boys and punch them in the arm and call them kiddo.

Photo - S
Words - S

Friday, October 12, 2007

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The Catholic Church has apologized and taken back all their words against the Knights Templar.

Only a few hundred years later.

Do you think in a few thousand years, they will understand the need for birth control and stopping people from having sex with children?

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Words - S

Life is worth living

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That's what Bishop Sheen said in every broadcast.

On the Dumont network and syndicated, he rallied against communism and spoke the word of God. I watch him all the time now, they repeat him, and it's amazing. Fiery and just over the top but inspired. He is set to be canonized, so he is now referred to as a servant of God. He has two miracles to his name.

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Words - S
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My OCD manifests itself as religion.

Every step I make is calculated. I cannot let go of decision or indecision.

As a child, I tried to round off infinity.

Today, I see everything as karmic decisions that are tied into webs, connecting all things.

At night, as a child, I drew numbers with my feet.

I only did things in even numbers.

My dad might have it. He jingle jangles the door when he closes the house for the night. I used to count it when I was a kid, loose door handle making sound in the dark night.

I want a life free of numbers and strings and sequences. I want a life that is not predestined.

They say that just a little handful will cure me, make me see things in the right light. And I worry, will this handful kill my visions? Do I want them? Yes. I want creativity.

Is creativity at the expense of sanity? I always wonder.

Today, my OCD comes out in shakes. In bursts of sentences.

I try and hide it.

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Words - S
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In a small club in Cincinnati, we drove all day to get there, and here we are. The band plays "Fountain and Fairfax." They never play that song live. So I know, then, that this is their last show. The first time I realized what that song meant, I had a moment of realitization. That whole album. Cross country while the wrong person for me slept next to me, sheer insanity looming in the days ahead. In a few scant weeks, I would be decimated and never put back together again. I would become something from IKEA, with pegs left over, only to fall every time you slam your door. I heard those songs and cried into the flatlands of Kansas, as cars barrelled past me, because I had no idea how to drive a stick. She would get it started and I would drive. It's kind of like how I can't tie a tie and I wear one every day. Mitch Hedburg said ties are like a weak man strangling you all day. He's dead now, way before his time. The last time I heard "Fountain and Fairfax," I could not listen.

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Words - S
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I haven't seen my new cat in a few days.

I wish she would come back.

She eats her food.

I never see her.

Where have you gone?

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Words - S
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As someone who does not believe in reality, to be faced with glaring unreality is hard and rough and strange.

To be woken to unreality, to deal with it in the best way you know how, is a challenge.

I advise all of you to be careful.

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Words - S

Thursday, October 11, 2007

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The thing I am learning is to be OK with uncertainty.

I feel lost a lot, but now, I know that's because I allow myself to be lost.

I'm looking for a way to shake hands between 16 year old me and 35 year old me. And balance them.

It'll happen. I swear.

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Words - S
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I call bullshit on Sweetest Day.

What is that?

Oh, Wiki, I love you so:

Sweetest Day is an observance celebrated primarily in the Great Lakes region and parts of the Northeast United States on the third Saturday in October. It is described by Retail Confectioners International, as "much more important for candymakers in some regions than in others (Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo being the biggest Sweetest Day cities)" and an "occasion which offers all of us an opportunity to remember not only the sick, aged and orphaned, but also friends, relatives and associates whose helpfulness and kindness we have enjoyed." Sweetest Day has also been referred to as a "concocted promotion" created by the candy industry solely to increase sales of candy.

I didn't know about it until I was 18. I was dating a girl closer to Ohio and we were having a nice date. In the middle, she broke down crying, sobbing how I forgot Sweetest Day. I had never heard of it. Never ever ever ever.

So I laughed.

Like, oh, you made up this holiday.

I learned. Quick. It was real.

So Sweetest Day is October 20. You know, you don't need a holiday to show someone you care.

These folks...

Let me quote:

"Old man and woman with their grinder. no they don't get paid they just come out because they want to see the smiling faces. their toy monkeys clap and dance with glee, happy to be in the sunshine."

That's sweetest. Not a made up holiday.

Photo - N
Words - S (and quoted N)