Drive Slow Day!

There's someone in your passenger seat and she's marveling at how gray and autumn it is outside and she's marvelous. You're there, don't worry, she'd be lost if you weren't there with her. But lately, she's no longer scared you're gonna run off somewhere. So she's able to just stare out the window for a while and not moon over at you from behind her seatbelt every five minutes to let you know how wonderful she thinks it all is.

It's all wonderful. But now, wonderful is just another day. She knows it's going to stay that way, so she can stop trying to suck the marrow out of every single second of you and occasionally take in a sky that's all pretty and gray, a sky that's up above your head too.

Drive slow. Point at horses.

Happy Drive Slow Day!

(The following is what you were supposed to do yesterday and the day before that. Prettygirl hopes that you had a lovely yesterday and the day before that. If, by coincidence, your yesterday or the day before that adhered to the personal regression assignments below, write to prettygirl@girlsarepretty.com and tell Prettygirl how your day(s) went. The content of your email will not be reprinted on this or any other website, and your email will be deleted unread.)

Sunday, August 31, 2003

Go To His Rock And Roll Show Day!

He's a small boy with unpocked skin and adorably tousled, stringy black hair. He has an 8 1/2 by 11 inch flyer in his left hand and a scotch tape dispenser in his right. He's two back in line. You've already smiled at him. You recognize him.

A bagel sandwich has been paid for and the boy is now one back in line. He's not looking at you. He's making a concerted effort to stare deep into the case of muffins because he has something to ask you when it's his turn at the counter and he doesn't want to appear too eager. You're steaming a cappucino now and from around the corner of the machine you're able to make out a deep brown mole on his earlobe, looks like an earring, and you want it in your mouth.

A cappucino has been served and directions to the sugar counter have been given, and now it's the boy's turn. With the countertop between you, you're looking each other in the eye. But the floor behind the counter is raised three inches, which makes him three inches taller than you. Just enough. Hi.

"Hi. Can I put this flyer in your window?"

"What's it for?"

"It's for a rock and roll show. Tonight. My rock and roll band is in it."

"Go ahead," you say. He waits for an awkward millennium, and finally remembers how to walk away when you giggle a little.

He takes nine minutes to find a space in the window by the door, carefully tape the flyer to the glass, go outside to check that the placement is ideal, then step back in to catch your eye and shout from across the floor, "So, thanks."

"What's your band called?"

"The Evelyns. We're really good and I play guitar you should come tonight."

"Where is it?"

He doesn't answer. He just turns to the window and rips his flyer down, leaving four small triangles of white paper taped to the glass, and brings it to your counter before anyone can get in line for another bialy. He puts the sheet of paper in your hands. You make sure to never let your smile fade because he looks like he could easily be frightened away by a chance to second-guess. It's all written in rock and roll flyer sharpie scribble so you don't really read it. You'll read it later.

"You should come."

"I might."

He says okay and walks away with the flyer still in your hands. You should come.

Happy Go To His Rock And Roll Show Day!

Saturday, August 30, 2003

Put The Word "Love" On A Postcard And Mail It Day!

Tell her where you are, what's pretty about the trees and her, then put the word "love" at the bottom, just above your name. Then a "ps:" and something funny to dilute the terror caused by the "love" just a few centimeters up.

You won't have to worry about owning up to it for three more weeks. But you've still got four more cities to float through, and the next three weeks will be a lot less lonely if the word "love" is sitting in your handwriting on a bureau back home, a bureau that's held your wallet and keys and ripped up condom wrappers on more than a few wonderful nights.

A few wonderful nights when you kept her awake. When you and her watched dawn. And this way, from a distance of 1200 miles, you'll keep her awake at least that first night after the day she gets the postcard, and maybe a few nights after. She'll stay up all night, listening to that "love" hum from where it sits across the room on her bureau, and she'll argue with herself over whether or not to hum along or fuck Joe (he's been by while you've been away).

Put The Word "Love" On A Postcard And Mail It Day!

It's The Girls Are Pretty "Why Don't You All Try To Make Your Own Fucking Choices For A Few Days Instead Of Relying On Some Website That Yammers On And On About Drinking And Fisting All The Time?" Weekend!

Dear Readers of Girls Are Pretty,

Prettygirl finds you all decidedly loathesome and is certain that every last one of you is living with AIDS. Additionally, Prettygirl is going on a little "trip." And by "trip," I do mean "busride to bang-bang town." Normally, when things of this nature occur, your daily personal regression assignments are posted in advance. This time however, you can all go fuck yourselves. For those of you who have not already fallen into a corner to rock back and forth with your knees pulled up to your chin, it's going to be an exciting time of personal discovery. Because you never learn more about yourself than when you make the sort of undeniably horrible decisions you'll all be making for yourselves without much-needed guidance. On Monday, you can come back and find out what you should have done, if you are still alive or have eyes still. For now, here's today and today only. Remember, you matter to no one.

Love,

-Prettygirl

Friday, August 29, 2003

Hug A Puppy And Love It Day!

Go to the pet store and find the bin full of puppies and just pick up every last adorable wittle wuvvy dovey puppydog and hug it to your neck and your chest and kiss it and tell it how much you wuv the wittle baby puppydoggy.

Happy Hug A Puppy And Love It Day!

Chicago, IL Day!

You think you're attractive, yes you do. You think you are so irresistably pretty that all you have to do is take off your pants and there'll be a line around the block offering to paint your vestibule. You think that you can spend and spend and spend but don't worry because if you run out of money you can just shit some. You think that no matter what miserably boring thought you might have, if it's spawned in your head it's gotta be just the most brilliant idea since they decided to spell Froot Loops with two O's instead of a "UI" in the middle. You think that your the one who isn't going to have to die. You'll be the one who won't have to experience the heartbreak of watching someone you love walk out the door, waking up in the morning and finding out the one you love isn't going to be around anymore. You think that if you had two balls bouncing around inside your mouth you'd be able to just keep on winning at Boggle and making the best margarita your roommate's ever tasted because apparently when you were six you got touched the wrong way but just because you're you the wrong way turned out to be just right and so you can understand the plight of the black man and the frustration of being judged by your wardrobe and so what if there's a big brown growth under your armpit because you don't have the time to call your destitute sister and

Happy Chicago, IL Day!

Fuck Till You're Taller Day!

Three inches. It may seem impossible, and it probably is, but as long as you're going at it the way you have been this week, why not shoot for a goal.

Smarter seems way too out of reach and prettier is way too easy. Fatter, well, I just don't understand how that would work really. And richer implies whores.

So just keep it up for the next 18 to 96 hours, taking breaks to get up and put a line on the doorframe of course. If the line never moves, it's okay. You two are new to this and you both dig when one of you gets up and shows the other how you walk around and touch items around the room. Just tell her:

"Let's do this, you and me, till I'm six foot three."

"But I have to go back to work tomorrow."

"Let's do this, you and me, till I'm six foot three, or until one of us has to go back to work."

"Fine," she'll say. "That's fine," she'll say. She'll say, "Okay."

Happy Fuck Till You're Taller Day!

Jumper (Long Lunchbreak) Day!

Coming back from Subway today, you're going to find the street surrounding your building barricaded and a crowd of heads tilted back and eyes up high. Someone's on the ledge of your building, maybe 19 floors up. She's got her hand on one of the abutments just behind her. She looks like she's afraid if she lets go she'll fall.

Your department pays you for the time you're kept out of the building due to bomb threats and fire drills, and you're certain you'll get no argument when you submit your hours for this afternoon. So you're perfectly fine with this lady (you might have ridden the elevator with her once or twice, you can't tell) staying up there as long as she wants. Perhaps she has an ex-husband in Connecticut that's being driven in to talk her down. You might get to stay out in the sunshine for the rest of the--

Whoops there she goes.

Happy Jumper (Long Lunchbreak) Day! Back to work, baby.

Wish It Were Three Months From Now, But Only If The Next Three Months End Up Being Fucking Awesome Day!

Now sucks dick. Three months from now has got to be way fucking better than now. But if you've learned one thing, it's this: No matter how bad things get, not only can they always get worse, but while they get worse you'll probably get kicked out of your apartment or something. Which might just count as things getting worse, but when it happens, you'll see, you'll be thinking, "This is totally unrelated though! This is just a random kick to the nuts!"

So, it's okay to wish it was three months from now while ceremonially burying kittens alive, then stomping on the mound of dirt until the kittens stop their muffled shrieking, as Wicca dictates. But make sure you also wish that the next three months are way bitchin'. Because if you only wish it were three months from now and your wish comes true, you might find yourself in prison (you'll have finally wigged out and killed some hookers).

But what you're hoping for is that, if the next three months rule, you'll wake up and feel all better because you'll have just finished up three good months and you'll be on top of the world. Sounds good, but if you wish it were three months from now and that the next three months uniformly rule, there's nothing to say that those bitch-goddesses up in Wicca Heaven won't decide to let the three months you skip be the last three months of happiness you'll ever get to see and have you just wake up in a tub full o' pee with a rifle pointed at your head and some lady yellin' "Now splash around!"

I know you're just trying to get through something difficult, that you just wanna get it over with. But be careful when you make a wish. Wicca really works.

Happy Wish It Were Three Months From Now, But Only If The Next Three Months End Up Being Fucking Awesome Day!

Brother Alcoholic Calls Sister Alcoholic Day!

It's been 18 months since Jenny called Dave, 18 months of really good drinking.

"I used to call my brother every night just crying and threatening to kill myself. Drinking really sucked for me back then, I think it started after our dad died. It was just that kind of drinking where you drink until you can't feel anything anymore. Then you drink some more to try and feel something."

What changed?

"Not sure. One day, drinking just turned real good again. I met a guy, and I was afraid it all hinged on him being around. But that fell through not soon after we met and I came out fine. Just kept drinking most nights, and feeling pretty okay most days. Have a lotta friends now too."

What about your brother?

"I keep meaning to call him. I should, you know. Because I only called him at my worst hour of the night and I know he got so sick of it. It'd be nice to talk to Dave when I'm feeling okay. I can't this afternoon though. I'm away on a canoeing weekend."

It's been 3 weeks since Dave slept more than four and a half hours in a night.










Dave?

"What."

You don't look so good.

"I don't sleep lately. I'll drink enough to pass out right away, but then it's like after three and a half or four hours, my body's sober and my eyes just pop open."

Maybe you should take a break for a while.

"I need to. But the sleeplessness just leaves me feeling like I'm made of ashes. And I end up drinking at night just to end the day feeling a little different than I felt all day. But then I just feel like I'm made of wet ashes."

Any idea why it all started?

"No. Well, some friends, this couple that I was really close to. They split up and they're both moving out of town. So there's been a lot of goodbye things for them over the past few weeks, lotta staying out till 4. But I do that all the time. Just sometimes, I'll have a bad week for a while. It's like there's a switch that gets flicked and all of a sudden, drinking blows. And then one day, I accidentally flick the switch the other way and drinking's okay again."

Mmm.

"But a little lost sleep. This is nothing. My sister's the one who needs to quit. She used to call every night threatening to eat a bunch of pills. Haven't heard from her in a while though. I called her up the last few nights, just to see if she's doing okay, but there was no answer at her house. I was always there when she'd call me at 3 in the morning."

She's away on a conoeing weekend.

Happy Brother Alcoholic Calls Sister Alcoholic Day!

Impatiently Partying Day!

Soon the party will end and we can all go home and be with our wives and husbands, you're thinking. There's no reason to look at my watch again. I looked at it five minutes ago, and I know we've only been partying for five minutes since then because I've been watching every single second pass like a turtle through a yellow light, you're thinking. As long as I have to stand here and party, I might as well try to make the most of it, you're thinking. Look on the bright side, I may have to party all night, but there is free alcohol everywhere. And I can shout and dance, which are activities I might not have been able to catch up on had I not ended up getting stuck partying tonight, you're thinking. Why can't I ever accept the limitless possibility of every new moment in time, every word spoken to an unfamiliar face? Tonight, I might meet a man who needs my assistance in the murder of his wife, or a woman who wishes for me to cheat on my wife, or a 26 year old who doesn't know how to avoid making his girlfriend his wife, or a 34 year old who's just decided to make his wife his ex-wife, you're thinking. God, I hate my wife, you're thinking.

You're thinking of looking at your watch again, but you know what time it is. You just want to lift your arm from your side and look down at your wrist so that you can have something to do besides trying to muddle through all of this endless, tedious partying.

Happy Impatiently Partying Day!

Wanna Hear Me Sing? Day!

Drunk? Bitchin'.

Sitting next to somebody who's known you for more than eleven weeks but less than three hundred and eight? Cool.

Upset about not feelin' nothin' no more (couple years running now)? Sorry to hear it, but let's get started.

Say to your neighbor now, "Wanna hear me sing?" When he says Motherfuck Yeah! get up from your chair, pick up the ketchup bottle and hold it up to your mouth like it's a microphone, open your mouth as if you were about to belt out Moon River, then let all the muscles in your face go limp and bug open your eyes in terror.

Everyone at the table will understand. Even though they were really hoping to hear you sing, you saw yourself in the 3'X6' promotional Harp mirror spread across the back wall of the bar. You saw yourself looking 30 years older than you are, dressed in clothing you find unappealing, your nose different than you remember it, your hands someone else's, clearly, anyone would say so.

Your chest hair, showing. The air surrounding you, gray-green. The retarded blind dwarf a few feet to your right, talking shit about you. Your shoes, stupid and boring. The way you would look holding a first place trophy, incorrect. What you ordered, not what you craved. Everything you settled for, causing more pain than trying to get what you longed for probably ever would have. Everything you've ever kissed in love, amounting to a total of three. Everything that smells, including you. Everything that fails, claiming you. Everything that swells with pride over the achievements of a relative on the road to greatness, avoiding your eye contact. All that you don't want, staring back at you baby.

They'll understand if you just wanna sit back down. Don't. It'll ruin the next five minutes and the next five minutes are as important as those five minutes that started five minutes ago were. Blink your eyes and wipe away the gray that's clouding up your vision and sing the first thirty nine words of that Billy and the Beaters song. Everyone will love you for it and you'll be allowed to clench your eyes shut tight while you sing.

Happy Wanna Hear Me Sing? Day!

Know Anything For Certain, Anything At All Day!

Getting out of bed? Doubt it! Not unless you can say that you know a single thing to be true about your empirical universe. Get started!

"I see feet. I see them, right there at the end of those legs. Those legs that I am almost positively certain are mine. And the hips, the belly button, the big orange birthmark next to the nipple on the left. I can see it all. Those feet, they must be mine. But...but um..."

Good effort baby! Sadly, you still never once existed even for a second as far as you're concerned. So either get out of bed or don't. No matter what you choose, at the end of the day it didn't happen.

Happy Know Anything For Certain, Anything At All Day!

Fuck The Moon Day!

This evening, no matter how beautiful the moon may turn out to be, just keep fucking walking.

Whether your companion is a blind date going very very well or an ailing grandparent trying to get a last glimpse of things, when you hear the footsteps slow and the crimple of shoulder fabric bunching together as an arm is raised to point at the sky, just keep fucking walking.

Big, crescent, blue, white, bad and rising or lighting up a mile, tonight it's just a fucking moon. So when you hear someone say, "Check it out. Moon, ya'll," you are not only not obligated to stop, but you may actually sprint in your current direction of stride. If the little moon-freak shouts, "What up?" Slow yourself enough to say, "No time, Sagan. They ditch the reservations if we're fifteen minutes late."

Your companion will look at you as if you just said you're way into Hitler. Walk back and explain yourself.

"Look, motherFUCK the moon. It was there last night and it'll be there tomorrow. I'll look at it when I'm dead because when we die we all go to the moon." We do. That's where Jesus lives.

Happy Fuck The Moon Day!

Grandfather Clock Time Ya'll Day!

Pendulum swinging to and fro, just like your adoration. You know Leopold is the wrong boy for you. He's rich, angry, and gay.

But Wallingford, who always appears to be uncomfortable in his own skin, actually has a very contageous, irritable and incurable rash that covers his body from head to toe.

Why so fickle, little countess? You have only two to choose from. They are the only boys in town without syphillis (Wallingford hasn't had his stats updated, but he gives his word).

Countess, make it happen. Put on the blindfold, pick up the stick and hit one of the boys in the head. Him who is beaten will father your rich, angry, gay/lesioned, itchy, ill-at-ease babies.

Hit a boy, little girl.

Happy Grandfather Clock Time Ya'll Day!

I Am The Chief Of Police Day!

Today, if you are in an office, whenever you see someone with a blue tie, the first person who shouts "I am the Chief of Police!" gets to be the Chief of Police and he can walk around and demand that everyone give him a dollar pretending that he's getting a cut of their weekly take and he can also demand a little bit of everyone's cocaine. This will continue until someone jumps up and shouts "I am the wife of the Chief of Police!" and shoots herself because she can't take all the cheating anymore and she can't stop blaming herself for their son's suicide.

Happy I Am The Chief Of Police Day!

The University Of Florida Volleyball Massacre Day!

At 5 PM this evening, a group of 8 University Of Florida students (3 boys, 5 girls) will be killed. Their names are Jeff Borden, Nundanee Saba, Michelle Crawford, Kim Watts, Terence McCormick, Ann Park, Ahmad Atiq, and Laura Padilla. These 8 are winding down a week and a half of doing nothing but getting high, watching DVDs in air conditioning, and drinking vodka, tequila and MGD bottles. These 8 are Resident Assistants who volunteered to stay through the summer term, which ended a week and a half ago. At 4:10 PM, Kim Watts will suggest that they pack bottles into a cooler of ice and everybody head out to one of the sand courts across from the arts complex and play a few games of volleyball. Though the heat outside is oppressive, everyone will immediately agree, unaware that they are each about to be hit in the head with a hammer.

Once across the highway, they will begin their trek through the great lawn surrounding the complex. A hill will be climbed, and a wooden fence will have to be ducked under, but before they get to either obstacle, Laura Padilla will run up behind Jeff Borden and jump atop his back, demanding an impromptu piggyback ride. Jeff Borden will attain a precarious grab underneath her thighs and run a few paces before she starts to slide off. When she does, Laura Padilla will move her grip from around Jeff Borden's neck to around his midsection, holding his back close against her front. The two will walk like that for twenty paces, in a negative embrace and surprised. Jeff Borden has never kissed Laura Padilla and he never knew she wanted to kiss him. But Laura Padilla has wanted to kiss Jeff Borden for a few days now, and she will kiss him just before she lets go of him. Laura Padilla will kiss Jeff Borden between his shoulder blades, through his tee shirt, twice. Two very aggressive pecks to the shallow of his back, and she'll let him go and run ahead. Jeff Borden will be very excited for later that evening after the volleyball game. He'll already be thinking about people calling them "Jeff and Laura."

The killer will hear the laughter and he'll crawl out from underneath the fire stairs where he slept last night. His name is Clarke Watson and he'll never be captured. He was hired (illegally, the college is of course very union) for two days work putting up drywall for the "Dragons Great And Small" exhibit in the Zoology wing of the Natural Science Center. The hammer is his, he didn't steal it.

The sand courts are fenced in and the gates are padlocked. Ahmad Atiq will have the key, and he'll drape the chain and padlock in the fence by the gate. Then they will all crowd in and immediately start hitting the ball over the net like a bunch of klutzes. The ball will stay on the ground for a bit as everybody opens another bottle and takes a few sips before stubbing them into the sand on the outskirts of the court. Nundanee Saba will suggest they come up with a drinking game where whoever drops the ball has to down his bottle. The other seven will agree that it is a good idea but it will be clear that the drinking game will be forgotten before it hits its stride.

After a few volleys the 8 will already be feeling too beaten down by the heat to go for much longer. It will be in the middle of a volley that Clarke Watson will approach the court. The ball will be headed straight for Terence McCormick when he catches sight of Clarke a few steps from the gate. Terence will catch the ball and just stare at Clarke without saying anything. The other seven will turn and watch Clarke step through the gate, put his hammer in his pocket so that he can shut and padlock the gate behind him, then pull his hammer from his pocket, take three steps onto the sand court and swing the hammer down into Kim Watts' right ear.

In the middle of the first chorus of screams, Clarke will swing down once to open the right side of Kim's head. Nundanee Saba will be just four steps away from Clarke and she won't have run yet. She'll just be staring at Kim and shouting out sobs without quite crying. She'll jolt upright and bend her knees to run backwards when she sees Clarke turn toward her, but she won't have lifted a foot before he lands the hammer in her stomach. She'll double over and Clarke will just keep swinging the hammer into that area, into her arms crossed over her midsection, he'll hit her in the right shoulder twice, and once in the right cheek. When she falls, he'll hit her in the back three times and twice in the top of her skull. There won't be any blood.

Terence McCormick at this point will have run up behind Clarke and bear hugged him. Clarke will hit him in the forehead with the pronged end of the hammer but Terence won't lose his grip. Clarke will then swing down into Terence's right thigh five times, and once in the right knee. Terence will fall and Clarke will leap towards him, swinging the hammer down into Terence's stomach, then his ribcage (two blows), and then over and over again into his throat. Terence will stop moving before Clarke finishes crushing his throat with the hammer.

The remaining five will be at the far end of the court. Laura Padilla, Ahmad Atiq, and Ann Park will be trying to begin the climb up the fence, but will keep slipping to the ground or just stopping to check where Clarke is at the moment. Michelle Crawford will be at the base of the fence, hiding behind Jeff Borden, who will be holding his arms out from his sides, facing Clarke.

Clarke will take quick steps towards Jeff, then when he's just a few paces away he'll run up and duck low, taking quick hard swings at Jeff's shins. Most of the blows will come off of the hammer's wooden handle. And Jeff will swing his clasped fists down into Clarke's back, trying to pummel him low into the sand.

Clarke will land one direct blow of the meat of the hammer into the upper plain of Jeff's bare foot. Jeff will retract the foot and fall backwards on top of Michelle. Clarke will throw himself on top of Jeff and pound the hammer into his face seven times, mostly in and around the eyes.

Some of the wild swings will bruise Michelle's face. She will do all she can to kick and shriek herself out from under Jeff's stilled frame. But Clarke will land several clumsy side-swipes of the hammer down into Michelle's left arm. Then he'll roll Jeff off of her and crack into her teeth with the pronged end of the hammer. And he'll keep hitting her in the face, below the eyes, like with Jeff.

Laura Padilla and Ann Park will by then be halfway up the fence and making progress. Ahmad Atiq will be near the top when Clarke grabs the base of the fence below the girls and begins to shake. The girls will stop where they are and just scream with all they've got. Ahmad will drop all the way down the length of the fence, hurting his ankle. But he'll pull himself up and fling himself at Clarke, who will have already begun a swing at Ahmad's cheek. The blow will send Ahmad to the ground with a twirl. But he'll immediately pull himself back up and launch at Clarke. His shoulders will take Clarke by the midsection into the sand. Ahmad will rise up in position to punch down into Clarke's face, but Clarke's hammer will land on Ahmad's temple before he gets the chance. Then Clarke will swing once into Ahmad's mouth. The hammer will get stuck inside there for a second. Clarke will have to wriggle the hammer out from Ahmad's broken teeth and torn gums.

The girls won't have moved from where they were on the fence, but their screams will have grown louder and more heartbreaking. Clarke will begin shaking the fence with a fury. There will be no one left to stop him, so he'll just put all his strength into trying to rip the fence from its posts. The girls will hold tight for two minutes. And Clarke will grow impatient and climb the fence, first toward Ann.

She'll see him coming and try to scurry fast to the top of the fence, but her footing will be too unconfident. Clarke will get close enough and he'll land one blow on Ann's left buttock. She won't have fallen yet, so he'll hit her in the center of her back. Laura will have dropped to the ground and run for the padlocked gate, but Ann still won't have fallen from under her blows. Not before Clarke slams a diatribe of swings into her back and shoulderblades as if he were Whacking-a-Mole.

When Ann finally falls, she'll just lay there with her arms up over her face. Clarke will drop next to her and swing three times into her face. The third will land directly on her forehead. It will leave a clean, wet red mark. Ann will shiver for a moment before dying.

With just Laura left, Clarke will not pause to savor the moment or march menacingly to her. Instead he'll sprint to where she is rattling the chained gate. He'll run across the sand and Laura will immediately recoil into the corner of the fence, bent into herself behind her forearms. When Clarke reaches her, the top of her head will be completely unguarded. Clarke will hit her once in the top of the head. In the center. Laura will grab the spot of the blow with her hands. Clarke will swing into the same spot, this time smashing into her clumped fingers. Her hands will drop and Clarke will hit the same spot, the top of her head, in the center, again. Laura will fall face forward and Clarke will open the back of her skull with five swings of his hammer.

After Laura is dead, Clarke will dip his hammer in the sand and pick some of the blood and tissue from the steel before slipping it back into his pocket. Then he'll try the gate and remember he'd padlocked it. So he'll climb the fence because he unfortunately will not have seen Ahmad unlock the gate, so he won't know to root through Ahmad's pockets for the key.

Happy The University Of Florida Volleyball Massacre Day!

Record For You Day!

There's a boy in his little tiny bedroom burning two compact discs on Hugh Street in downtown Milwaukee.

There's a girl who hasn't given a moment of thought to the boy in the previous sentence in about twenty four weeks. She lives on Wendyl Rd in downtown Milwaukee.

There's a boy who's in love with the girl on Wendyl Rd who can't wait to finish burning those two compact discs that he's burning and give them to the girl on Wendyl Rd. with an explanation.

"I know you'll love these as much as I do," he'll say. "They were kind of recorded for you, in my opinion," he'll add.

The girl on Wendyl Rd will scan the handwriting on the Maxell card and say, "For me."

"For you," the boy will confirm, and his voice will crack, though he's 28.

"And have you ever given these same recordings to another girl?" she'll ask.

"Nineteen others," he'll say.

Spit on the CDs is what she does then.

The boy is fine, relax. He'll say, "I wanted to give them to you ever since I heard the first note. But you were gone. So I spent my time proving that everyone but you isn't you. I'd give each one CDs and watch her react incorrectly. Then I'd get real high for, like, days. And eventually she'd say, Why are you so constantly stoned? And I'd just be like what do you care? Go listen to music wrong. Then I'd imagine you lying awake in bed waiting for me to send you compact discs and wondering what was taking so long. Then I'd lock myself in the bathroom until whoever I was living with would have a breakdown and move back to live with her parents. Then I'd think about calling you, but would get real drunk and fuck shit then move in with someone else before I got the chance. But I'd always be thinking, shit, I never sent those CDs did I?

Then the boy on Hugh Street and the girl from Wendyl Rd love each other until Thanksgiving of this year.

Happy Record For You Day!

A Dress Lands On The Floor Day!

It might be lighter than air, he'll think. You might be wearing it not only to make him believe in Jesus Christ, but because if you didn't have your arms hooked into the little sleeves it would just float away like a page of newspaper in autumn. He'll not really be certain. He'll think it looks like it's made of nothing, and he'll be about ready to put five dollars down on that. Take the bet and step out of the dress.

When it lands on his floor, you will be five dollars in the black, little baby naked baby.

Happy A Dress Lands On The Floor Day!

Give A Boy A Box Of Hearts Day!

You can make hearts out of anything. You can carve a heart out of soap, fat candles, apples, a sponge, a rubber ball, a block of wood, and a book. You can build a heart from paper, clay, lots of rubber, melted plastic if you're fast, cardboard, pills glued to a Chutes and Ladders playing board, human tissue, and human hair. You can steal a heart from a girl, a boy, a man or a woman. You can surgically remove a heart from pigs and kangaroos only. You can buy shirts with hearts on them in New York City. In February, you can buy hearts made out of chocolate. In January, you can draw a heart on the wall behind your pillow, lay down in bed below the heart pretending to sleep, and have a friend take a polaroid. In March, you cannot.

Take all the hearts you can build, buy, steal or lift from a chest cavity, put them all in a box and give them to the boy you think is cute. He'll think you're cute too.

Happy Give A Boy A Box Of Hearts Day!

Terrible Men Day!

Terrible men are outside, they're in love with you and they're outside. There's four of them. They're not dressed the same.

Terrible men hold letters promising their ashen hearts. Terrible men practiced all day in front of mirrors, practiced how far to drop their eyelids when the time is right to ask for your forgiveness. Terrible men are inebriated and they're sharing a bottle of liquor and they're swaying and yelling at your window. There's four of them.

Terrible men think most find them absolutely irresistable (many do). They are mean to female bartenders and they have secretaries (sometimes two). In a week of nights, terrible men will spend five alone, two with a woman, every week, without fail (it's true). Terrible men just threw a bottle of liquor at the wall next to your window (go to them).

When you open the door, terrible men, all four, they're fighting in the street. Then one of the four, he sees you (your nightshirt, your knees, the pee yellow light behind your hair) and he grabs at the others, tugging them into formation.

Terrible men brush the damp of the street from their suits and stand in a zig-zag. You look in their eyes and you know terrible men will die if you don't bring them in tonight. They say, four voices, in unison: Leigh. Please Leigh. I'm not gonna make it Leigh.

You wait just a moment, look away just a moment, just long enough to make terrible men boys. Then you lift your head to them. You warn them with your sigh that it can't turn out the way it will, not again. You step aside to allow the single file line of terrible men to climb the flights to your apartment. And you follow, shushing them when they raise their voices (the neighbors).

Happy Terrible Men Day!

Some Girls Are More Amenable To Committing Suicide Than Others Day!

You really really really want your girlfriend to kill herself. You've had the big day for your own suicide circled on your calendar for six months now. All that time, all you had to do is look up at that circle around September 20th, 2003, and think "Few more weeks and good bye to my heartache and misery and always having to pee at movies."

But then you went and fell in love and grew conflicted. You still want to die, no question. But this chick, she's way fucking hot and when she speaks it's like she's reading the story written on your soul and shit. When it comes down to it, you don't want to be without her. If you kill yourself and she keeps on living, she'll probably start seeing someone else and you can't handle that. But suicide is your lifelong dream. You can't stay alive just because someone else wants to. Follow. Your. Bliss.

What has to happen is you just have to come right out and ask her if she wants to kill herself with you. A lot of girls are into things you never would have guessed they'd be into. Approach the question with some caution, and if she says yes, don't act like she's some kind of a slut all of a sudden. But if she says no, take the circle off the calendar. No one who's in love ever kills himself unless he's in love with someone who doesn't love him back, or his parents are dicks about it. If she says no, you're just going to have to wait until you don't love her anymore 11 months from now.

Happy Some Girls Are More Amenable To Committing Suicide Than Others Day!

Zoo Date Day!

He's the boy with the wallet full of American currency, the one with a bottomless bucket of compliments to bestow upon your dresses, the kid with the sloppy lidded eyes and the smile that's always asking, "you still wanna hang out then?" He's the boy you've been waiting for, and today he's your clean pretty Zoo Date.

No boy before him has ever thought to invite you to the zoo before. Because no boy before him has ever been an absolute genius. At the zoo you will hold hands. He'll hold your right, you'll hold his left, and you'll each use your free hand to pet the snouts of ponies, zebras and perhaps even a rhinoceros. You'll pet the snouts and share a smile and move on down the path, never once letting your hands go free, except when you sit down to eat your six dollar personal pan pizzas.

This boy, this groundbreaking boy, this Zoo Date will appear to glow after a bit of time. His warmth, his sincere desire to keep you liking him, his magnificent ideas in the field of heterosexual courtship, so much good will all just billow up from his frame like an odor in a comic strip. You'll see the glow, it will be red and yellow.

Staring at the penguin pool, you'll wrap your arms around your Zoo Date's torso. You'll hold him tight and necessary to you, and he'll kiss the top of your head seventeen times.

Happy Zoo Date Day!

Oh Dear God, The Pain, The Pain, I Am Doubled Over With Pain, What Did You Ask me Just Now? Day!

You are clearly about to die. Use that. When someone for whom you care deeply asks if you care deeply for them, grab your belly and double over shouting, "Oh dear God, the pain, the pain, I am doubled over with pain, what did you just ask me?" Then fall to the ground and writhe. Then die.

Happy Oh Dear God, The Pain, The Pain, I Am Doubled Over With Pain, What Did You Ask me Just Now? Day! I think you just got away scott free again, baby.

Room For Rent Day!

Now that you've saved enough money, you can finally afford to move out of your Dad's apartment. It was fun for a while, him just recently freed from his marriage to your mom and coming up to the city to live the life he wished he'd lived. But then he just got really really depressed and didn't leave his room all that much. It sucks to have to pay rent again, but you just can't take it anymore.

Don't feel guilty. If you spend enough time around a Dad whose been broken, you're really gonna have problems erection-wise.

So go ahead and grab a number off one of the signs in the laundromat but don't call quite yet. Instead, go get drunk and just let your mind slow-dance with all the possibilities.

I wonder if my roommate will be a boy or a girl? Or a banker. An architect. A stripper whose trying to save enough money to fly her mother in from Caracas. What if my roommate dies and I get blamed for the murder. My, wouldn't that be an exciting turn of events! Or maybe my roommate will be the girl I fall in love with and marry! Or the girl who teaches me just how painful a broken heart can be! Or maybe my roommate will at least have sex with me for a while.

If my roommate offered me heroin, would I try it? I don't know. I've always been curious. And what if my roommate catches AIDS? Would it be my responsibility to care after him or would he understand when I decide to find another place. It was really depressing living with my broken father. I really don't wanna live with someone who has AIDS. I hope my roommate would sometimes ride bikes with me.

Roommate, roommate, roommate, what stories will we write together? What late night journeys will we embark upon just because we're feeling nutty. I hope my roommate gets broken up with so I can stay up and comfort him. And I hope my roommate likes late 80's industrial music just as much as me. Roommate, roommate, roommate. Roommates forever and ever, till the very, very end. Shower schedules and chore wheels and "Hey, who ate all my ice cream!" Hee hee.

Jesus.

Happy Room For Rent Day!

Claustrophobia Clint Day!

Today the building you work in will catch fire and many will be killed. You will be in an elevator when the fire reaches its peak, and the elevator will fail to drop directly to the lobby as it is supposed to do. Instead it will stop between the 22nd and 23rd floors. You will bang at the buttons and sound the alarm and try to pry the doors open with the bottle opener on your key ring, but to no avail. The car will fill with smoke and you will drop to the ground and think of pretty faces you're never going to see again. Then you will hear something.

A scratch of metal on metal. A pop and a racket. And then a shout.

"Take my hand!"

From the escape hatch in the roof of the car, an arm will wriggle down towards you. The arm of Claustrophobia Clint, a mythical urban hero who is overcome with a severe panic anytime he finds himself in small, enclosed spaces, but who for some annoying reason always seems to have to save people caught in small, enclosed spaces.

"I can't reach you!" You'll jump and fling your hand towards his but you'll never get closer than a foot below. "Come down and help me!"

"Fuck no! Jump higher!"

The smoke pouring in from the escape hatch will have completely filled your lungs. Your vision will grow faint and you'll fall to the corner with a cough that might never end.

"Oh fuck! I fucking hate this! Every fucking time!"

Claustrophobia Clint, who has tried behavioral therapy but never felt like he was making any progress, will shimmy through the hatch and drop to the ground. He'll grab your spastic frame from the floor of the elevator and sling you atop his shoulder, and then with one quick squat and a bounce the two of you will launch through the hatch and land on the roof of the car (he's a hero who can jump real high).

"Jesus that was terrible," Cluastrophobia Clint will say. "It really felt like the walls were closing in on me. God! Fuck! Fucking hell that was horrible."

Claustrophobia Clint will pry open the doors to the 23rd floor above you, and you will both climb out and find a stairwell to take you down to the ground. You will die on the 9th floor. Claustrophobia Clint will make it all the way to the ground and he'll live to keep on rescuing people from small, enclosed spaces. And every time he does, he'll wish he were dead.

Happy Claustrophobia Clint Day!

You Can Do Anything You Set Your Mind To Day!

Today, whether you want to quit drinking, quit smoking, quit daydreaming about pee, quit washing your 13 year old sister's hair, quit biting your fingernails, quit drinking, or quit drinking, you can do it. No matter what your goal is, all you have to do is set your mind to it and it's as good as done. At midnight tonight, this goal will be as unattainable as it was yesterday so make sure you have some beer, some cigarettes, some time to daydream about pee, a 13 year old sister waiting in the tub, some fingernails, some beer, and some beer lying around because after midnight you'll see no reason to abstain since you know you're gonna give in eventually because you're weak and most things are impossible.

Happy You Can Do Anything You Set Your Mind To Day!

Hit Your Boy In The Face With The Shallow Bony Center Of The Palm Of Your Adorable Little Hand Day!

You must be naked from the waist down but clothed from the waist up. He can be inside you or not, your choice. There is one thing that is not your choice however.

You must make his nose bleed.

Again, your cunt must be absolutely free of anything remotely close to clothing. Even if it's mere decoration, such as a little elastic belt with a few swaths of gauze that might flutter up above your belly button should they be caught in the gust of the air conditioner. You can, and should, wear a top. Whatever you like. A windbreaker even. And once more, whether the boy is inside you or not is irrelevant.

But you must slap the dead center of the palm of your hand down onto the poke of his nose with all the force you would use to murder a fly. And if his nose does not immediately gush with blood, you are no woman.

Recommended: The boy underneath you, the two of you stretched across the length of a bed, yours, the boy inside you (still irrelevant, simply recommended).

Also recommended: The boy with his back against a wall, you up against him, attacking the fool like a chunk of his cheek in your belly might offer you the secret to how some humans manage to love each other, the boy shirtless, the boy with defined pectoral muscles and untoned belly, the boy unfuckingcertain.

Non-Negotiable: Whether he's inside you or not, you must both be at the point whereupon it doesn't even matter anymore. Whereupon no one would even notice. Whereupon orgasms are for faggots. Whereupon you both are wondering if the other thinks your face is funny looking, like you're acting or something, because you both feel like you're making that fake fuck face but it's real, you both swear it.

Ultimately: Your little tiny baby girl hand will free itself of whatever it was digging its nails underneath, and your arm like a catapult will flip above your scalp and slam down fast like a rubber band in class and slap crisp, clean and stunning, dead center on the dent at the foremost tip of prettyboy's cave full o'boogie-snot. You will flatten his face. You will make him bleed from his face. You will blacken his eyes and fatten his upper lip and you will smother that boy in a puddle of blood and ugly.

If he doesn't like it, you did something wrong. Skipped a step or something.

Happy Hit Your Boy In The Face With The Shallow Bony Center Of The Palm Of Your Adorable Little Hand Day!

Steve Day!

Our apologies. Today is a special day. One year ago today, a promise was made and in keeping with that promise, today will be devoted solely to Steve, a dear, dear friend of Girls Are Pretty.

Steve, two of your friends have given birth to babies. One a boy, the other, a boy also. Steve, Kim is back living with her parents now. She's been gone six months and in six months more she'll be off to someplace else, probably San Francisco. Kim has an invitation to live there with your and our friend John and his new wife Alma until she gets settled (we all met Alma at Christmas. She's fantastic). Guess you figured Kim wouldn't be staying on in the apartment you two shared in Park Slope, Steve. Steve, the three of your friends who suddenly feel like they can do anything because they don't care about anything anymore are Lem, Christina, and Josephine. Steve, the two of your friends who feel like they can't get out of bed because they don't care about anything anymore are Lisa and Maureen. Don't worry Steve, we're all looking after them. Steve, Mark got another cat. It's a pretty little long-hair named Hilda. Steve, too many nights end with everyone just shaking their heads so crazily amazed at what a great fucking summer this is turning out to be. Steve, Sam and Moo are fucking again. And Leo and Beverly broke up, Steve, and Leo's seeing someone none of us have met yet, and Beverly is just coasting and coming out a lot more. Steve, Martha has a lot of money now. A ton of money. She said it was an inheritance from when her Dad died (Martha's Dad died, Steve). It's weird, Steve, having a friend who's all of a sudden rich. Martha doesn't buy drinks though, Steve.

Everyone went and had dinner at an outdoor mexican place last night and everyone had margaritas in their hands but no one toasted you Steve. In June a few of us got in Ray's car to drive to Philadelphia and Carrie was rooting through Ray's glove compartment for some cigarettes and she pulled out a picture of you. She held it up, we all looked at it, then she put it back in the glove compartment and continued looking for some cigarettes. Your birthday passed, and the anniversary of the day you and Kim met, the day you always threw a party, both those days passed without anyone saying a word. In the past year, I don't remember anyone ever saying out loud, God I wish Steve was here to see this, Steve. Steve, Jeff got a letter from your sister in March. He wrote back saying only that he hadn't heard anything either.

In short, Steve, everyone, every single one of us is absolutely beautiful in every single way. Whether we're smiling, fucking, crying, screaming, fighting, loving or drunk as God, we're all just the most beautiful people you ever did see. And you're nothing. You're not mourned, missed or reminisced over. You're just gone. As promised, today's Steve Day. Happy Steve Day, Steve.

Be One Of The Final Three Day!

There will be twelve to nineteen at the start. By around eleven, there will remain seven (three unemployed). By around 1:30, just four (two unemployed). At 2:30 AM, the final three will remain (one unemployed, two irresponsible). You three, you heroic, fearless fools with livers composed of layer upon layer of most glorious solid gold. You, the final three will tell each other secrets about your childhoods, your past and present loves, what you think is going to be the thing that breaks you in the end. You'll share secrets not so deep and not very dark, but secrets you're good enough to share at the end of the evening to do justice to a slurred conversation at such a horribly late hour. You'll stay till closing, proudly. You'll leave feeling there's something between the three of you that you can lord over the rest of the twelve to nineteen who're as settled into their good night's sleep as they are in their sedentary (read: Happy) lives. And the three of you will stumble from the curb with arms raised and shout at cabs that sail past without breaking stride. One will stop and either two of you or all three of you will share the cab but only two of you will get out together and screw. Try to be one of those two, too.

Happy Be One Of The Final Three Day!

Grandpa Misses Grandma Day!

Today, Grandpa feels like it can't get much worse, but he feels that way every day. Your Grandma died in her sleep a year and seven months ago and he's had no problem filling the hours. He's got money and he's been spending it (why leave it all for you?). But he just cannot stand not having Grandma with him. He keeps looking to his right. She's been dead almost two years but he keeps looking to his right to crack a joke.

And he sometimes gets really, really pissed off. That's why he got so wasted at your son's fifth birthday. He was literally angry at everyone in the family crowding together and running up to hug him and acting like they had a right to his attention. "Mona isn't here," the words kept running through his head. "Mona isn't here. I'm hers and I'll give nothing of myself to anyone but her." Then he stood up from the picnic table and fell down on the ground.

There's really no helping him out. When you're as old as he is, the cliche "time heals all wounds" only draws attention to the day you're gonna die. Just let him miss her, he wants to.

Happy Grandpa Misses Grandma Day!

Things The Song Did Day!

Today the song was played on a jukebox at a bar at 4:33 PM. The boy who played it didn't think it was a good idea to be in a bar alone at such an early hour, but the boy often acts on such ideas. He knows the bar well and the jukebox even better, but the boy had never known the song was in there, and he'd never before thought to look for it on that or any other jukebox. He found the song before he'd selected any others, but he didn't choose it immediately. He went looking for two other songs to play before it so that he'd have enough time to get back to his table and stare out the window and sigh a bit before the song came on. (He hated when his songs were wasted on him scrambling to pick out other songs). So the song played third and the boy had his legs crossed when it came on. The song made him play with his hair a bit, then he shook his head and laughed at himself a bit. Then he made a phone call to someone he thought it a bad idea to make a phone call to. The boy often acts on such ideas, but this time it wasn't his fault. The song did it.

Today the song woke her up at 9:43 AM. He asked if the music was too loud, and she didn't say "of course it is, it just woke me up." She didn't ask, "why are you playing music so early when your guest is clearly still asleep in your bed?" And she didn't ask if he was glad he'd brought her home with him last night (she knew he wasn't, they had that in common at least). Instead she said no, and laid back and listened to the song and decided to not move out of New York City. She would have to get ahold of her roommate and tell her she wasn't leaving, and she would have to wait until he went to take a shower before she could reach the few feet off the bed and push the button on the stereo that made the song play again. She knows choosing not to move means a lot more pain to come, but if it ever gets too hard she can always blame the song.

Today he hunted for the song like there was a bounty on its head. He looked in the pile of shit in the storage space above the closet but the disc wasn't there. He looked in the pile of shit he keeps meaning to sort out from underneath his bed but the disc wasn't there. He looked in the pile of shit he calls his CD collection but the disc wasn't there. So he got dressed and got in his car and drove (high, he'd smoked a half hour before) to Virgin and bought it. On the drive home (the song wasn't playing yet, stereo stolen nineteen months prior) he remembered who he gave the disc to (Clara). The song played at exactly 9:20 PM. It made him sing along in the mirror for the first minute and a half, then he had to go to the bathroom (not the song's fault). When he got back to his bedroom, he started the disc at the beginning because he felt there was something criminal in putting on a disc and listening out of sequence or skipping songs you don't like (Clara did that). The song played again at around 9:45 PM. It didn't make him sing again, though. He didn't notice it playing in fact. He was thinking about something else by then (Clara).

Happy Things The Song Did Day!

Assume You Dreamt It Day!

Today, if you stumble upon a horrible memory, whether it be having said the word "forever" in bed, or a man you hit with a car and left for dead when you were 17 and drunk, or the time you farted and got caught, or the time you got pregnant and had an abortionist suck the living, pain-experiencing, shrieking baby from inside your (God's) womb, or that whole "going to live with your uncle after your parents died and being forced to fellate him" phase you went through, or yesterday, in its entirety, assume you dreamt it.

But stay in bed. And don't answer the phone or check email or ever leave your bed. You dreamt it, it wasn't real, you'll be fine. (Don't go outside)

Happy Assume You Dreamt It Day!

Just The Night Then Day!

Let's say last night you held something in your arms that made you think you'd never held anything in your arms before in your life. No books, no cats, no grocery bags or laundry sacks. Last night was the night you learned what your arms were always meant to do. They were meant to hold something that's naked.

Today you're going to try to find out whether you can hold it again for as long as you can stand, for as long as you can keep from having to go to the bathroom. The answer might of course be "yes, of course" because of course you both know that's as the answer should be. Or the answer might be "no, not right now, not a very good time for me because I'm packing all my things and moving away to Washington State." Or the answer might be -silence-. And some waiting. And forgetting.

How to react:

yes, of course
Wash up, get on a train. Hurry fatso.


no, not right now, not a very good time for me because I'm packing all my things and moving away to Washington State
Say, "Just the night then." Hear, "Just the night then."


-silence-
Wait. A little longer. Say (to empty room), "Just the night then." Wait. Say (to empty room), "Just the night then." Wait. Say (to empty room), "Just the night then." Forget.

Happy Just The Night Then Day!

Where The Fuck Is My Dagger? said the man in the cloak Day!

Leonid Brasche was a Moscow plumber for most of his 20's and 30's. His position called for him to wear a cloak to protect his clothing from sewage should a clogged drain suddenly expel its contents without warning. And he liked to carry a dagger on his person at all times, firstly because it was handy for scraping congealed grime from the inside of drain pipes, and second, because when Leonid was 12 his father was murdered by a man to whom he'd lent some money. Stabbed he was, in the throat, out on the crowded Sunday street right in front of Leonid. His father had just bought bread and cream for that night's dinner. The food was on the ground in the snow. Dark dark blood surged from his father's neck into the white. The bread grew soggy with blood. Leonid stayed by his father until his breathing stopped. Then he ran home to fetch his mother. Not long after, dreams of revenge made him buy himself a second-hand dagger and carry it on his person at all times. He still has the same dagger.

When Brasche entered the spy game, he kept the old cloak because he saw no need to start spending just because he'd gotten a slight boost in pay. Plus, the cloak was helpful for spending nights in shadow. And though he had no real practical use for the dagger (he carried a gun, and he had no clogged pipes to deal with) he continued to keep it somewhere in his pockets. But Brasche was a forgetful man, often making himself late rummaging under seat cushions and into the bottom of desk drawers to locate the misplaced dagger. And many in the office would hear him bellow out his frustration with a "Where the fuck is my fucking dagger godammit!" Heads would turn and they'd see the man in the cloak behind his glass office walls tossing pillows in the air and lifting up chairs before eventually sliding his hand into one last unchecked pocket and retrieving the dagger with a shake of the head. This happened so often that when Brasche showed up to work in the morning, more than one person would shout out a jovial "Eh, cloak n' dagger! How they hangin'?"

And thus the words "cloak and dagger" would forever call to mind the world of international super-spies.

Happy Where The Fuck Is My Dagger? said the man in the cloak Day!

God Is So Into You Right Now Day!

God hasn't been able to take his eyes off of you all night long. Did you see how when that guy shot that arrow straight at your face God real clumsily intervened to make sure it killed the guy you've been sleeping with? And I swear, as soon as you complained of having forgotten to bring a sweater with you on such a chilly night, God made it like ten degrees warmer out. And how about when your mom called to say your grandmom just got up and started walking around her hospital bed, cleaning things. All because you got a little drunk and started crying about how you're scared your grandma might die soon. And you told me yesterday you just wish she would finally die so that you don't have to go visit her no more. You just wanted to cry about something in front of everybody again, didn't you? But God must not have known that because as soon as he saw a tear glint in your eye he made your grandma all better. He's a really chivalrous lover, God. He can't stand to see the girl he loves in the slightest distress. But he's also real jealous I think because he never would have made your grandma all better if he heard us talking the other day. I think God only pays attention to you when you're talking to other guys.

Anyway, you're lucky and I think you should give God some. I'd go crazy to have a boyfriend so into me that he'd, like, alter destiny and shit. I mean, people talk about considering the grand scheme of things. But as long as you have God pining after you, the grand scheme of things is gonna change every time you scrunch your brow.

Just don't play games. If you and God make it work, you're gonna be rich.

Happy God Is So Into You Right Now Day!

Reinvent The Wheel Day!

The wheel we have right now sucks. Reinvent it, goddammit, and this time give it the capacity to love. It's 2003!

Happy Reinvent The Wheel Day!

Waste Away The Day (Like You Have A Choice In The Matter?) Day!

Today, because you really couldn't imagine ever living your life in any other way, you should spend the day doing nothing at all productive and just sort of lay there. After a while, talk to your walls. Say something like, "Hello walls." If the walls say, "What up, ya'll?" or something, congratulations, your life has devolved to such a vague, insignificant existence that your walls perceive you as just another inanimate piece of furniture and so they think it's okay to shoot the shit with you.

Happy Waste Away The Day (Like You Have A Choice In The Matter?) Day!

Young Man, Pollute Me Day!

You like the dirty boy, he smells like laundry and he has a scratch of dried mustard streaking out from the corner of his mouth. He's younger than you, he's not as smart as you, and he doesn't really think he's going to amount to much. Fuck him tonight. Grab him by his belt when everyone else has left the table to smoke and say, "Young man, pollute me."

He won't be very good in bed, but you will feel full with a little boy's late evening filth, the filth that gathers after a day of playing outside, the filth that mothers ask little boys to wash from their hands before sitting down for dinner. You'll get what you want, you'll get to sit across from him next week and look at his raggedy form and think to yourself, "I have his grime inside of me."

He'll complain of hunger early tomorrow morning. Send him out with your key and he will bring you back some bagels. He is obedient. And if he gets coffee for himself or you, he will carry the coffee cup in the bag with the bagels, not caring that his pace will spill the coffee from the little airhole in the lid. And when he pulls the bagels from the bag, the bagels and their wax paper wrappers and the large pile of napkins will all be damp with a large black two sugars.

Happy Young Man, Pollute Me Day!

Your Supervisor Suffers From Pyromania Day!

It hits her every day around 3:30, when everyone else is getting ready for a group yawn. She slams her door shut, draws all the blinds, and then you see her phone line light up. You thought she was just making plans to see whoever she's cheating on her husband with. But she's not, she's very faithful, she's just calling her sponsor.

"I can see the flames flicker Harold. I can see them, Harold. They're just so motherfucking beautiful, Harold."

"Breathe."

Around 4:05 her phone line blinks off. And at 4:15, she comes back out and asks you to retype the memo you typed up earlier in the day. She's very calm then.

"Do you have any corrections?"

"It was fine I just....must have misplaced it."

You can sometimes smell the smoke underneath the sudden gust of air freshener wafting from her office.

While you fetch the memo from your hard drive, she goes to the window and takes sleek breaths, like she's smoking an imaginary cigarette.

She stays at the window until five, when you ask her if she needs anything else, and she dismisses you with a shake of the back of her head. As far as you know, she stays there all night. She did once.

Some nights, she stays until as late as nine or ten, when she's certain everyone has gone and the cleaners have finished their shift. She moves a copier from its spot on the floor and builds a small pile of documents and cardboard paper clip boxes and plastic report covers and a scarf or glove or some other item she might have worn to work that day and she lights a tiny blaze, tall enough get her blood into her ears, but small enough to stamp out after just a few moments before the smoke detectors sound. Then she sweeps the remains and the ash into a small trash bag that she'll toss into a dumpster on her walk home, and she'll slide the copier back overtop the scarred carpet. And the next day she'll know what's under there.

Wreckage. She did that.

Happy Your Supervisor Suffers From Pyromania Day!

If You Lay Down Long Enough, Someone Will Come By And Make Some Tea Day!

Hopeless? Sure! But that doesn't mean you're all alone. You've been staying in bed for a few days because it feels like no one cares if you ever get up and put some clothes on again, but that's right where you should be if you wanna get to the good stuff.

A lot of people don't know this because they get out of bed too soon. They either didn't crash hard enough or they felt guilty about people starving in far off lands so they say "ah fuck it you little baby" and they get out of bed and go to work and try to blend back into society (even though inside they just keep stabbing their own eyes out over and over again).

But you seem like you're in for the long haul. There'll be no get-up-and-go for you because you know for a fact that your pain, though caused by no identifiable occurrance, is the most horrible and sorrowful pain ever felt by anyone ever. A pain more palpable even than that felt by a Dad whose six-year-old just died. You're really sad and you ain't gonna budge.

That's why it's probably gonna happen today. You've stuck it out long enough, and sometime near evening there'll be a knock on your door. Obviously, you won't answer. So the door will just creak open and instead of it being your roommate asking if he can borrow your roll-on deodorant again, you'll see poke through the doorway the face of a mother.

Not your mother, mind you. The mother will look like either Vanessa Redgrave or Brenda Blethyn in Lovely And Amazing. The mother will shine her smile down upon you and say, "Are your dreams so entertaining that you'll not be coming down for dinner again tonight?"

You'll stay put (don't give up now), and you'll stay there on your side with your back to the mother who is opening up the blinds over the windows. You can't see her, but when there's a silence in the room, you can be certain she is standing in the middle of the floor with her head tilted to her right shoulder, offering the most sympathetic pout for her little baby. Then she stoops by your bed, kisses you on the back of the head, and she whispers to your hair, "I'll make us some tea. I haven't seen you in a while kiddo."

YES!

You pulled it off. In a few minutes you're going to be sitting up against your pillows and listening to the mother tell an inspiring story about how when her deceased husband (not your father, he looked like either Brendan Gleeson or a really old, fat Robert Sean Leonard) first met her, he was an awkward rude GI looking for a bed in her father's (not your grandfather, he looked like either Max Von Sydow or Jason Robards before he died) hotel in Holland. And he ate three dinners with the family before he asked her father if her could take his daughter back to the United States and make her his wife. He promised her father that she would never have an unhappy day for as long as she stood by his side, and he kept that promise.

When the mother finishes her story and her tea, she'll leave your apartment. That's your cue to get out of bed and try to find out where folks might be drinkin tonight.

Happy If You Lay Down Long Enough, Someone Will Come By And Make Some Tea Day!

The Blind Can Love Day!

Blind man walks into a park with a tap tap tap of one of those long plastic things. Blind man smells angry pant of breath from big dog mixed with especially hearty dollop of feminine perfume applied by a blind woman (blind women do that with their perfume) and concludes that said blind woman in same park is about to be attacked by big dog. Blind man on the scent, ya'll.

Tap tap tap goes the blind man into the middle of a jungle jim. The wind is heavy for mid-summer and he got thrown off the scent. But with a vigilant whiff he's back on track and he heads to the Five Corners just off Dog Run where he's certain that not a few feet away from him are a big dog and a blind lady sporting an odor that could only be concocted in the house of Claibourne.

The blind man dives into the airspace where he is certain the big dog is about to take flight straight for the blind lady's neck. He hears a guy say, "the fuck?" just before he thumps to the concrete and immediately lunges into the air from his spot on the ground to bearhug the big dog mid-flight before it can open the poor blind lady's neck.

The blind man grabs only damp summer air and falls back down again.

Tap tap tap goes the blind woman to where she heard the plop of person to concrete and she asks, "Did someone fall?" Blind man shouts, "The dog! The dog!"

Blind man and blind woman hear man say, "He's leashed. Settle down."

After enough seconds pass for a blush to fill a cheek and then fade, the blind man starts to giggle from his spot on the ground and the blind woman joins him with that laugh that only blind people can share, a laugh that says, "Holy shit does does living in a world of pitch black darkness suck or what?"

The laughter subsides and the blind woman gives a tap tap tap of her long plastic thing to the blind man's tummy and she says, "Hey hero. Buy you a beer?"

The blind man and the blind woman have a beer together and they fall in love and stay together for fifty thousand years never for one single second not loving each other with every inch of their long plastic things, and then the blind man dies and the blind woman waits to die for a while, happy that she got to love the blind man for all that time.

Happy The Blind Can Love Day!

The Raven Day!

The raven has been doing nothing but farting and fucking in that tree outside for the past nineteen years you lived in this house and every time you take a broom to the branch it just hops up one branch higher and continues about its business like it's perfectly natural for a raven in a tree to screw in plain sight of your kids and ailing mother-in-law. Shoot it. Blow the little omen-gone-gassy into a big burst of jet black down. And while you're at it, the azaleas haven't exactly been "churchly" of late.

Make all of nature pay.

Happy The Raven Day!

The Counterculture Day!

Today, the counterculture is feeling sleeeeeeeepy. Very sleeeeeeeepy. The counterculture can feeeeel itself falling asleeeeeeep with every word it heeeeears. And when the counterculture hears a snap of the fingers, the counterculture will believe that it is a chicken.

SNAP!

Happy The Counterculture Day!

A Cooperative Former Lover Day!

You slept together a few times, it was neither fantastic nor regrettable, but some words were said afterwards and you both decided it'd be best to cease all contact. Until today. You need his help.

No one knows safecracking better than your former lover. And you need the best. You've got the crew, you can get in and out of the basement no problem. But you need the magic key. You need a safecracker who can open that vault as if the combination was his baby daughter's birthdate. You need that guy you used to fuck for a little while to help you steal an amulet.

When he sees you standing there behind his screen door, that grin will flash across his face, that one that says "Well look who's back for another taste." In one split second, you can tell that there is about a 5% chance of the two of you fucking again before this job's done, and the only way that would occur is if the weather is pretty the night you all pull into the interstate motel you'll be using as your headquarters for the final leg of the job. That's the only night you can foresee having a few hours off. "I've got a job for you," say.

He'll get cocky with something along the lines of, you're offering me an opportunity? You need my help is what it is. I want 20%. You'll counter with 15. Then for the rest of the job, your crew will watch the two of you dance around the barely lukewarm haze billowing between you and think to themselves, "Those two might screw, but would it matter?"

Happy A Cooperative Former Lover Day!

Just Two Young Folks Thinkin Bout The Same Old Thing Day!

That's all. That's why he'll call. Just thinkin bout that thought in your head, the one that takes place with you in his bed. That's all. That's why he'll call. Just thinkin bout you thinkin bout laying down for a while. The only touch between you: your forearm across his belly.

It wasn't him who thunk it. All he was thinkin bout was you thinkin bout him and his smell. The way he chews ice cream. And the way his eyes look when they're only two inches away from yours. That's all. That's why he'll call. "Hello?" "Get your mind out of the gutter and get on a train and bring a lot of beer. We might be in for a while."

Happy Just Two Young Folks Thinkin Bout The Same Old Thing Day!

Cheese And Cigarettes Day!

Today you must only eat cheese and smoke cigarettes until midnight. You may not drink liquid, and you may not put the cheese in between slices of bread to form a "sandwich." You may eat the cheese sliced, or nibble from a large hunk, but by midnight you mustn't have let pass a thirty minute period without having both eaten some cheese and smoked at least one cigarette. If you choose to disobey, Girls Are Pretty has your wife and child and Girls Are Pretty will not hesitate to execute them. Be smart.

Now eat the cheese and smoke the cigarettes.

Happy Cheese And Cigarettes Day!

"Need To Get Out Of City ASAP. Please Help!" Day!

She can't be more than seventeen and she's covered in piercings. She's sitting with her back up against the wall of a bank, her face is in her knees and the sign is propped up against her boots. Just in front of the sign is a coffee cup containing maybe three dollars in change. Go to her.

"Are you in danger?"

No, she'll say.

"Do you have a funeral to get to?"

No, she'll say.

"A wedding?"

No, she'll say.

"The humidity getting to you?"

No, she'll say. Well, kind of, she'll say. But that's not it, she'll say.

"Then what is it? Why do you have to get out of the city so bad?"

Because I just can't take it anymore, she'll say. Please help me, she'll say.

Hold her. Tell her not to cry, that things are going to get better, and explain that you don't give money to panhandlers. You prefer to help the needy via legitimate charitable organizations. Then go to dinner.

Happy "Need To Get Out Of City ASAP. Please Help!" Day!

Dead Birds In The Corporate Plaza Fountain Day!

Get up a couple hours early, go up to your roof and kill five pidgeons with a baseball bat. Bag their carcasses, then go back down to your apartment and change out of your pajamas to get ready for work.

You should get to the office early enough that only a few people might be walking in with you, but not so early as to arouse suspicion from the guards. When you cross the plaza, ready the bag of dead pidgeons so that when you get to the fountain, you can casually walk nearly 200 degrees around the edge, every ten paces tossing a pidgeon into the water with just a flick of your wrist behind your back. When the bag is empty, stuff it into your briefcase and stroll on up to work.

You'll be taking a long lunch today. Leaving early enough to get some food and to secure the bench on the plaza with just that perfect view. And returning late enough to not miss a thing. Just sit back and watch as the secretaries and the middle managers set down on the ledge of the fountain for a nice meal of office gossip and panini, then stand back up when someone notices a bludgeoned pidgeon floating past them. The people a few seats down will wonder what the folks around the bend are looking at, but they won't have to when they spy their very own dead pidgeon swaying past like a elderly person on an innertube. Soon, the ledge will be empty and you'll hear murmurings of "Must be using some chemicals in the water" and "THOSE AREN'T CHEMICALS, THESE PIDGEONS WERE BLUDGEONED TO DEATH! DEAR FUCKING CHRIST ALMIGHTY!" Then work will close early so everyone can group into a pipe weilding mob and band out into the streets to find the motherfucker responsible. Don't join them. Go home and nap some.

Happy Dead Birds In The Corporate Plaza Fountain Day!

Happy As A Schoolgirl Day!

Today, something will come to pass that will make you feel just as giddy and lighthearted as a pretty little, ruddy-faced schoolgirl who shoplifts because she doesn't talk to that many people at school except to say "shut up" when they call her "Lesbionic," and who has been making a habit of downing the wine left in her parents' glasses when she clears the table every night, and who has been coming home later and later from school because she enjoys walking underneath the freeway ramps downtown, where the noise wrings out everything she's made of and fills her up with a steady static machine-made moan, and who didn't eat anything yesterday, and who daydreams about saving all of her classmates' lives when the terrorists bomb the school but just when she thinks everyone's safe and half the school is burning down, someone shouts "Look!" and pounding against the inside of a locked second floor bathroom window is Darrell, the possibly mildly retarded but oh so adorable boy who likes to spit on the schoolgirl's schoolbag when she passes where he and his friends smoke cigarettes after three. And so the schoolgirl scales the drain pipe up to the awning beneath the bathroom window, pulls her scrunchie out of her hair to wrap it around her fist for protection when she punches through the pane of glass and unlocks the lock that Darren didn't think to search for. And the schoolgirl swings over to the side and pulls Darren out and hands him down to the teachers waiting to catch him below. And the schoolgirl kicks herself out away from the building just one second too late when a cloud of fire gasps out to shatter the expanse of windows, and a hero ablaze and cut with shards she tumbles unconscious to the concrete below. When she awakens she is in a hospital bed in the center of her gymnasium and her eyes shiver open to see a 20 foot banner that reads "Three Cheers For Our Hero The Schoolgirl" and everyone starts shouting hip hip hooray and lining up to apologize for being mean to her in the past and to ask her out on dates. Some of the boys get into a fight over her.

Happy Happy As A Schoolgirl Day!

Kissing On The Lips Day!

Kissing someone on the lips is a really fucking stupid idea and you could get your goddamn head blown off for doing it, especially if when you first start to kiss you only have one hand touching the person's hip and you worry that it might seem like you're about to put your hand on the person's ass so you move it further up to just above the waste, and then you realize that the person you're kissing isn't going to back down and you're thinking, "Well fuck if I'm gonna be the one to pussy out of this," even though you are in fact really frightened. But you keep on kissing and then you end up putting your other hand on the person's other side, but after a few seconds you slide that hand slowly down to the person's hip as if to say, "Ass: Mine!" And the person you're kissing is like, "Think I give a shit?" And all of a sudden the two hands that were just on your shoulders are wrapped around the back of your neck and since you're both too stupid to think about your future, SLAM, your bodies squish up against each other in this big huge moomphal of flesh barely protected by dresses and dress pants and you just stand there wriggling and kissing and until you both are like, "Let's stop. We're getting our faces all wet." And so you pull apart just in time to take a nice long lingering gaze down the pitch black barrel of a motherfucking gun. Way to go, dickheads.

Happy Kissing On The Lips Day!

She's A Faker Day!

She's only saying whatever it takes to get you to pull her head to your chest. She's a faker, a cheat, and she'll swindle you into falling for her then she'll look downstage and take a bow. She'll blink her eyes and suck in her lips and start to sing a song to herself as if she forgot that you were around. And she'll call to say she had fun last night but she didn't, she can't, she's a faker.

She's a faker but she can't really be blamed all that much because she never ever felt anything real. She says what people in the movies say and she only cries when someone's around to watch. She's not trying to make money, this isn't a scam, and she doesn't have an ex-husband she needs you to kill. She just wants to walk, talk, laugh, cry, fuck, fight, sing, scream, leave, stay, go, stay please stay for just one more night, just like the people in the movies always do. She's a faker.

Around 10,000 Hours Day!

Today, if you can look back on a time in your life and shudder at the memory or pine for the loss or wonder what he or she is doing right now, that part of your life lasted for around 10,000 hours. Whether it was a marriage, a telemarketing job you couldn't quit, a first date gone perfect or wrong, a shit, or the night's sleep that followed an episode of absolutely and in every way correct sex, it took up around 10,000 hours that you'll never get back again. And all you can do is remember it and either shudder or pine.

Remember, it wasn't twelve years or eight months or "blind since birth," it was around 10,000 hours long. That's all.

Happy Around 10,000 Hours Day!

It's The Girls Are Pretty "Prettygirl Digs Booze" Thursday And Friday!

Prettygirl got way wasted tonight. Jealous? You're jealous.

Friday, July 11, 2003

Plants And/Or Figurines Day!

They were what you focused on whilst getting fucked up the ass. Either two dead plants that you imagined to be having a conversation about whether the war with Iraq was enough of a message, or the nineteen porcelain ballerina figurines surrounding one miniature porcelain world-weary farmer holding a rake. The farmer's shoulders were slumped and he was looking at the sky. And the ballerinas were his forewomen, commanding him to bring life to his scalp-dry soil but no matter how they swayed, how they bounced how they swayed he couldn't. He just couldn't. But the farmer wouldn't cry. Not while he was surrounded by the ballerinas. You knew he wanted nothing more, but his grizzled eyes wouldn't let shine even the sleekest glint of a tear. Not whilst you were getting fucked up the ass. The two plants and all the figurines were on the windowsill. There was a tree outside, but it got cut down because it was sick last fall.

Happy Plants And/Or Figurines Day!

Thursday, July 10, 2003

Perfect Milk-White Skin And A Tan Boyfriend Day!

You really and honestly can't see any reason why you should not take your life tonight because tonight you have absolutely and undeniably perfect milk-white skin. It's all over your body, not the slightest most miniscule flaw from your bottom lip to your anklet. But your boyfriend is tanned (how do some boys tan the way they do?), he is tan and he has a blemish near his ear. And you've spent three months, two days, and the large portion of a beautiful cool summer nighttime pretending it doesn't matter that he has a blemish near his ear but everyone on the commuter transit knows you are quite plainly furious.

Take your life. Forget the months, the nights, the days. The two hours tonight on commuter transit by his side was enough to conclude that the large part of the best of your life has been wasted with his hand on your thigh. Take your life.

Happy Perfect Milk-White Skin And A Tan Boyfriend Day!

Go To Your Roof And Watch The Girls In Their Party Dresses Wait For Their Taxis On The Street Down Below Day!

You thought the new nightclub up the block would bring a bad element to the neighborhood. Namely, an element that is found frequently in nightclubs. Granted, walking home at 11 PM past a lineup of blonde tipped men in open black tops can make you feel sad about being alive sometimes. But then there's 3 AM.

3 AM. When the Girls in the party dresses have decided to get out and get home alone in bed before they have that one last drink that might let them wake up someplace they don't recognize. The pretty Girls in black and white lycra scatter into twos, ones and threes along the block, all furiously hailing down taxis to get off the sidewalk before the drunk boys with the blonde tips start to bellow.

It's the ones in groups of one you watch from your rooftop. The ones whose friends all paired off away from them. The ones who just couldn't say yes tonight. Who smiled at all the hamhanded attempts and handed out the phone numbers, some real, some fake, she can't remember which one's which anymore. The ones who get on their cell phones to cry to their girlfriends or proposition ex-boyfriends or call the sitters to say they're on their way home.

Like that one, in the lime green spaghetti strap mini dress you swear you've seen before. "You must've wore that last week," you say out loud with an exhale of cigarette smoke. She's on the phone dialing the one she's going to think about during her cab ride. You always fell for a girl with something you can't quite place on her mind. And you swear you've seen that lime green spaghetti strap mini-dress before. Then your cell phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Guess who!"

"Oh my God. Are you back in town?"

"I am."

"Are you wearing your lime green spaghetti strap mini-dress?"

"I am. Can you see me?"

"Um...What do mean? Where are you?"

"I'm right outside your building. On 108th and Amsterdam! I'm waving up at your window. Do you wanna let me up?"

"Um...I moved. To...um...to Jersey actually."

So you watch her stop waving then you move inside the stairwell so the two of you can catch up without the risk of hearing the same passing police siren coming through each other's phones. Nice to hear from her but she's still pretty out there. Good thing you "moved."

Happy Go To Your Roof And Watch The Girls In Their Party Dresses Wait For Their Taxis On The Street Down Below Day!

Immerse Yourself And Your Girlfriend In The Christian Faith Day!

Things have pretty much cooled down between you and your girlfriend, and now you're certain that it's only a matter of time and circumstance before she starts cheating on you. But what can you do about it? Girlfriends cheat on boyfriends, they've done it ever since 1996.

But there is a special kind of girlfriend who won't cheat on her boyfriend. She's a christian! And she's been taught that if her skirt ever hits the floorboards of an unknown apartment, she's going to rot in hell when she dies. That'd keep me from handing out my pussy to any pair of khakis with enough spare change to pay for my Michelobe Ultra, lemme tell you Kenneth. Jesus saves.

Christianity will also cut down on your girlfriend's stealing. And I'm not just talking about shoplifting. She'll even believe that taking twenties out of your pants while you're asleep will sentence her to an eternity trying to get a good night's sleep on a bed of hottest hellfire.

But if you really want this to work, you're going to have to pretend that you're way into Christ yourself. A lot of lazy boyfriends have tried to avoid the whole going to church and studying for conifirmation quizzes thing by just saying to their girlfriends, "I sure wish I could honey. But Christianity is a women's religion." Eventually your girlfriend will remember her grandfather saying grace at Thanksgiving or something and she'll know she's been punk'd.

Happy Immerse Yourself And Your Girlfriend In The Christian Faith Day!

Rip It To Pieces! To Pieces I said Day!

You've finished Atonement by Ian McEwan and found it to be quite enjoyable, often moving. Now rip it to pieces! To pieces I said! I said to pieces!

When you're finished ripping Atonement by Ian McEwan to pieces, phone friends to tell them that you've just finished Atonement by Ian McEwan amd found it to be quite enjoyable, often moving.

If a friend says, "I loved that book!" Say, "Mm," and hang up so you can call another friend. If a friend says, "Hey, you think I could borrow it?" Say, "No." If your friend says, "Why not?" Say, "Because I ripped it to pieces! To pieces I said! I said to pieces!"

Happy Rip It To Pieces! To Pieces I said Day!

A Gardenhose Aimed At Your Big Sister Day!

Walking home from the movie your big sister takes you to tonight, you're going to pass some boys in the grade above you who are frightening. When they catch sight of the two of you, the boy who actually lives at the house, having agreed to the dare of "Dude _____ Clemens is wearing a white tee shirt go turn on your garden hose and I bet we'll see nipple yo," will run across the lawn to unravel his father's garden hose, loosen the spigot, and then run for the edge of the lawn and unleash a barrage of water upon your sister's upper frame. True to form, your sister, dripping wet and in fact showing nipple, will march across the lawn to the gathering of boys, and she will bark a great deal, including the following excerpts:

fucking faggot cocksuck

get a good look so you can suck each other's dicks later when you

knew your older brother Reesey and if I told him about this

should fucking...lick yourselves faggots

my little brother

nothing to say? Of course not you little tiny lacrosse

The boys will say nothing, though two of them will look directly at you as you and your sister continue down the sidewalk. The exchange will raise your sister on high in your esteem, and it will leave you terrified of being pummelled for the next two years of high school, though you will in fact graduate unharmed. High school fistfights happen much more rarely than one would imagine. Over 17,000 die every year in grad school fistfights gone wrong, however.

Happy A Gardenhose Aimed At Your Big Sister Day!

Already Been In Love Day!

You remember it seemed like all the booze was free. You remember there was brown hair for as far as the eye could see. And you remember there were always more cats, no matter how many died there were always more cats that the two of you could find in the classified pages. Things were nice.

But it's good you got it out of the way. If you were still in love, or if you fell in love again, you'd probably never get around to refastening the shelves that fell off the bathroom wall last winter you'd be so happy. And you might not be taking the steps you're currently taking in an effort to become as famous as God. Also, you would be able to pretty much kiss your teeth bleaching regimen goodbye. Everything would be headed straight into the shitter.

Lot's of people think that true love only comes around once in a lifetime. It does. You don't have to worry about that anymore. Now go buy a television!

Happy Already Been In Love Day!

Where You're From Day!

Today, you were born on an intercontinetal flight, halfway across the Atlantic Ocean. Your mother was being deported back to Brussels after your father was secretly executed by the NSA. In the dimmer hallways of American National Security, it was understood that the death of your father meant life for the status quo of misinformation. But your mother made a stink as to his disappearance, and she made headlines. The issue of your father's little girl and her inevitable vengeance against her father's assassins was something no one wanted to chance. But murdering your mother before you were born was considered far too high profile a disappearance. The louder she screamed, the more her name appeared in the papers. If she went silent, there would certainly be an inquiry.

So they decided to make it harder on you by forging some documents to get your mother's citizenship called into question. You were not to be born on American soil. But your mother, a clever woman, bore down a thousand miles offshore, which is why your manifesto, issued from whatever bunker has been harboring you and published by an underground and now-defunct publisher, is titled "I Have No Country."

Tomorrow, you're from Dayton again.

Happy Where You're From Day!

Elevator Action Day!

When you finally arrive at the 21st floor, the doors to the elevator will spread and the gunman will immediately open fire. So right now, you should climb up through the emergency hatch in the ceiling of the elevator. Do it now.

Do you have stable footing on the roof of the car? Great! Get yourself as close to the wall of the shaft as you can without getting snagged on anything jutting out from the wall as the car rises. Once you come to a stop, wait for the gunman to let loose with his barrage of bullets, then waste no time climbing up onto the foot-ledge of the exit to the floor just above you. Once he stops shooting, he'll realize the only way you could have escaped is through the hatch, so he will first shoot up at the ceiling of the car, which is why it is important for you to get on that foot-ledge. That is too tough an angle for him to hit you. And, it will give you a positioning advantage when he climbs up through the shaft after you so you can jump down and snap his neck before he even sees where you were hidden.

Okay, did the gunman open fire? What do you mean, No? He had to have.

You're on the ledge of the exit to the 22nd floor right? Where's the car now? It went back down to the first floor? Oh fuck. And the gunman never opened fire?

Wait, are you at 30 Penn Plaza or 30 Penn Place? OH shit. No no no. You're wife's being held on the 21st floor of 30 Penn Place. 30 Penn Plaza is about to blow. Sorry, yo. Abbreviations.

Okay, you have 30 seconds to get out of the building. Wait for someone to ride the elevator up to the 21st floor and hop back onto the roof, climb into the car and ride back down.

Has the car moved from the lobby yet? No? How about now?

You now have nine seconds to wait for someone to ride the elevator up to the 21st floor, hop onto the roof, climb into the car and ride back down. Has the car moved from the lobby yet?

Mm... Well, I'm out of ideas.

Happy Elevator Action Day!

Dandelion Day!

You had a girlfriend when you were sixteen and her name was Ellen. When Ellen moved to Florida with her parents, she asked you whether you thought the two of you would stay in love forever, even though she was moving far away. You said to her only, "When you're thirty-six, mail me a dandelion."

Ellen has been thirty-six for eight months now and you've been checking your mailbox every day with a swiftly growing dread. No dandelions.

She could never have forgotten. Something, or someone, is keeping her from contacting you.

"She could be dead," your father suggested.

"The dead have executors to carry out their wishes posthumously," you say. "No. I think she's being held captive by someone or she's trapped under something. What if she's hungry?"

"Find her," your mother said.

"But my administrative assistant position. I could be fired if I take off from work for too long."

"Oh yeah," your mother said.

You have a three-day weekend starting tomorrow, and you often get let out early on the day before a three-day weekend. Find her. But first, get a search running.

Happy Dandelion Day!

Forget The Words Day!

If tonight, when you sing for your sold-out crowd, you appear to have forgotten the words, stranger will look to stranger to shake their heads like synchronized swimmers. And from the stage you will hear them say "Bun bwah bun bwah bun bwah bun bwah."

Translation: "Our beautiful one is gone. Another idol has fallen. Word will soon spread that the magic has died, and we were here to see it. I have never been so glad to have spent 65 dollars."

But give a stern flap to your glttery cape, shout "Oh the hell with it" and launch back into the chorus, forcing your band to chase time, and your sold-out crowd will rise to their feet in celebration of your soldierly spirit. And stranger will look to stranger to compare their knowing smiles and from the stage you will hear them say, "Lo heen lo hem lo heen lo hem lo heen lo hem lo hem."

Translation: "I knew our hero would come back for us. So brave. Such a survivor. She would never leave her flock behind, and I love this song more than ever now. And I love this song more than you do."

You've been at it too long, everyone knows the songs, you have to give them a reason to have shown up tonight.

Happy Forget The Words Day! Now see if you can make the strangers do it!