Looks Like Jeff's Dead Day!

When she comes home, make sure you're sitting on the kitchen counter fanning yourself with the postcard. She'll stop in the doorway and she won't put down the groceries. She'll know something exciting is about to happen.

"Looks like Jeff's dead," say.

"Prove it."

Hold up the postcard from Sally. The one you're using to fan yourself. Let her see the photo of Yellowstone and she'll put down the groceries.

Looks like Jeff's Dead. Bears.
Need $800 to get back to New Jersey. Western Union.
I'll call.

"My daughter's coming home," your Mom will smile.

"I told you not to worry."

Admit it though, you were the one who was worried. You never liked your sister's boyfriends, and you thought Jeff was going to be the one to take her away from you forever.

Happy Looks Like Jeff's Dead Day!

She's In Blue Day!

Three desks away from you there's a vision of heaven with hell in her eyes. Cheating on her math test by peeking at some formulas scribbled on a crib sheet isn't helping. She's lost. She's gonna fail the class. She's in blue jeans and a big green sweater with a hole in the shoulder revealing a bra strap.

A bra strap. A pitch-black bra strap shrieking at her winter white skin.

"Girls take off their clothes. Girls take off their clothes. Girls take off their clothes. At night before bed. In the morning before they take a shower. In the locker room, twice, before and after gym class. Sometimes girls take off all their clothes, even their underwear and their beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful bra straps. Other times, girls just take off their shirts and pants to put on other shirts and pants but they don't take off their underwear and their yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee bra straps. Sometimes they take off their clothes just because they're home from school and…"

"Rodney."

"Yes?"

"Why all the chatter?"

"I was just whispering a little song to myself Mrs. Chenoweth."

"Well perhaps you'd like to get up in front of the class so that we can all enjoy your little song."

"You got it baby."

Slip out of your shoes and socks and take your mark in front of Mrs. Chenoweth's desk. Sing Milkshake.

Happy She's In Blue Day!

Drunk In Philadelphia Day!

Your rock band broke up two months ago so now you're hanging around with your best friend's rock band and they want you to be their singer. You've been drinking where you sleep, on the floor of an apartment in South Philadelphia, for sixteen days now. You haven't sung a note. You haven't written a lyric. You haven't kissed a lip. Not for sixteen days now.

There's always lots of people circling around you. The door opens, you wake up, you're introduced to at least three people you've never seen before, someone hands you a beer and tells you they're about to order dinner and asks if you want in. Then you sit on the borrowed comforter that comes between you and the floorboards and drink and talk for seven hours. Everyone else is scattered about on chairs and couch cushions, they're all up above. They're telling you they saw your old band play seven months ago and you're great. They're wearing shoes and socks but you're only wearing socks.

Things are good. When you're alone you're asleep. When you're awake you're drunk and you're craning your neck to look up at people who admire you. You eat when someone else does. You drink what's given to you.

You own nothing. You acquire nothing of your own volition. You attain consciousness only when someone pulls you from sleep. Your life is on the floor of someone else's life. One day soon, you're gonna write a new song.

Happy Drunk In Philadelphia Day!

Army Men Day!

You've been seeing a lot more army men walking through the main square of your town in full fatigues, armed to the hilt and looking at everything with that Thousand-Yard Stare™ stuff. Sometimes they'll just be waiting in line at the Dairy Queen to get a canteen filled up with water. Other times, they'll be lying flat on their bellies in the middle of the sidewalk, making bird noises at each other. And still other times, they open fire on anything that moves.

The next time you see one who doesn't appear to be too involved in any sort of skirmish, go up to him and tug on the ammo belt he wears around his shoulder. When he looks down at you, ask "Are you all ghosts?"

Happy Army Men Day!

Whole Body Day 3 And Final!

The TV is still sitting on the floor in the spot where it tumbled from the stand. There's a crack running diagonal across the screen. He has to walk around it to get in and out of the bathroom. Pete will carry it out to the curb eventually, when everything's finished.

Last night she said, "I love you my Pete." Her first full sentence in six days. It was after her bowl of cornflakes and fingernails. They'd made it to fingernails. Tomorrow, it would be hair. They were ahead of schedule.

Pete's in the bathroom, pouring alcohol where the meat was shorn and wrapping fresh gauze over the red plains of thigh and buttocks. He is calculating the costs of the impending purchases. New set of towels. Replace the broken window. Throw out the clamshell chair and maybe finally spring for a couch. New TV, that could wait. The shelving that fell he might be able to reattach to the wall. Though most of the picture frames and knick-knacks had shattered so they might not need any shelves for a while.

"Want the Pete! All the Pete!"

"Just a minute baby." He's just about got the bandage wrapped and fastened around his right thigh. That's the scrape that stings the most. He went too deep there. But the way she was at first, he didn't think he'd ever be able to give her enough.

He was already at the thighs on Day One. Not long after he got her tied to the clamshell chair, he grabbed the citrus knife and shaved a hunk from his left buttock and dangled it naked into her mouth from his lacrosse gloved hand. She took it into her throat without a single bite and her hunger turned furious. She was getting what she wanted, finally.

So he hit the right buttock and fed her again right away. She chewed that piece and calmed a bit. But it wouldn't last long if he didn't give her some more.

He had to distract her in order to stop at the thigh that night. So he first tacked the strip of skin and tissue to the wall behind her chair, making her crane her head back and snap her jaws up at the meat. She fought at the restraints but never took her eyes off the dangling slab while Pete, already naked from the waist down, climbed into the chair and slid inside her.

It turned her snapping and snarling to a steady growl, but she never took her eyes off the meat. With each thrust, her focus on the meat grew more studied. When he was ready to come, and when he thought she was ready for whatever could be interpreted as an orgasm in her state, Pete yanked the meat from the wall with his hand in the lacrosse glove and stuffed it into her mouth. She howled from behind the mouthful of flesh, let her head weave round and round on her neck, swallowed, and fell asleep with Pete in her pussy and her belly.

Before he leaves the bathroom, Pete takes a look in the mirror. He stares into in his own eyes to try to dull the throbbing in his head from all the alcohol. He has to be drunk to start cutting into himself. On that first day, there was only a quarter liter of vodka left in the freezer but he couldn't leave her alone long enough to go out for more. On the second day, during one of her sleeps, he ran out and spent forty bucks on whiskey and wine and for the past five days he's been drunk as New Year's. The hangovers are bleeding into the drunks, so he's cutting back today.

The stench doesn't help his head either. The pile of soiled bathtowels under the window has turned the room septic. She's sitting on their last towel and he's afraid to go in and find out if she's through with it. This is love unmitigated, set free of the bounds of continence.

"Moooore Pete. Love my Pete."

The second day took the limit of his buttocks and nearly half of his left under-thigh. But by nightfall she was willing to eat half a roll he'd pressed up against a wound and bloodied. Day three required a lot of sex. And he did thirty minutes on their exercycle then let her suck on the sweaty tee shirt. Dinner that night was a hamburger wrapped in the skin of his shoulder and thigh, fried. Days four and five weaned her from slabs of flesh onto real food with bits of Pete as a garnish (foot calluses and one earlobe, toasted). By the night of day five, last night, Pete was able to hug Jenna (still in restraints) without her snapping out at his neck or cheek.

They went home together the night they met. They had sex quickly and then stayed up all night, letting their hands graze along each other's inclines and crevices. She'd dance her fingers along the peak of his hip and she'd say I love this. She'd slide her fingers into the thick of his pubis and she'd say I love this. She place her palm flat on his cheek, bent crooked over his mouth, stiff over his eyes, each time she said I love this.

"Love it all," he said. "Take it all."

When Pete met Jenna, he had no use for himself anymore. He wanted to surrender to her all rights to his self. He told her that very first night. "From now on, I am not Pete. I am Jenna's."

That first night, had she asked that he chop himself apart and feed himself to her, he would have consented readily. But she didn't ask. She didn't want to rush things. And as time wore on, Pete's love for her and willingness to give of himself to her never faded. But it was forced to battle distraction. Obligations to his employer, his family and friends, the child to whom he'd volunteered to be a Big Brother, and to Jenna. Long released from the dizzy swirl of newfound love, Pete has his wits about him enough to know that he must keep himself in one piece in order to continue to love and care for Jenna.

But Jenna's need only grew stronger. She's less practical than Pete. She's less considerate of long-term consequences. He has to remind her that if she chops him into pieces and eats him up, when her plate's clean he'll be all gone.

"Pete?" She calls his name the way a human would. The way the people at the office do.

"Pete?"

Pete walks out of the bathroom and Jenna is looking in his eyes. Not like a predator. The need isn't gustatory. It's that need that no one can comprehend. The one that can hurt so much more than a hunk of flesh being shaved from the bone. It’s what he saw in her eyes the first night they lay in bed together.

He takes a step towards her, then remembers to put on his lacrosse gloves. She growls just a bit in the delay. The he climbs into the clamshell chair, settles himself in her spread open lap, and wraps his arms around her neck, taking care to brace his jaw against hers to keep her from whipping about and snapping into his ear.

But he feels no struggle in her jaw. Only the warmth of her cheek as it caresses his. The struggle is in her bound hands. He shouldn't, but he sets her arms free, keeping her torso fastened firmly to the chair frame.

Pete's frightened when her arms rattle around his back and pull him into a tight clench. But she doesn't grab him or twist him towards her mouth. She just holds him.

"Whole body," she whispers. "Whole body."

Her nails dig into his back a bit.

"Whole body," getting louder.

"You have it."

The nails recede.

"Whole body."

Pete whispers into Jenna's ear. "You have it."

They stay still there in the chair for a few hours, then have sex again. Tomorrow he will feed her his hair. He really liked his haircut, but her breathing is still erratic. She still needs a little more of him. Perhaps as early as tomorrow night, she'll want some ice cream.

Happy Whole Body Day 3 And Final!

Whole Body Day 2!

At the apartment she shares with Pete, Jenna is completely naked in a clamshell chair. Using her index fingernail she taps out a tense rhythm on the wood frame of the chair. She moved the clamshell chair to face the front door, the recline of it providing a sort of launch pad. She swallows three times a minute to contain the rapid flow of saliva into her mouth. Jenna's ready to pounce.

Pete's late. Jenna has to pee. She considers whether she can just let it out, right there in the clamshell chair. The place is going to be pretty messy not long after Pete gets home anyhow. But she decides against it and goes into the bathroom.

It's hard for Jenna to pee because she keeps having to lean forward and fondle Pete's toiletries. His shampoo slash conditioner for dry to normal hair. His Mach 3. His nose-hair clippers and toothbrush. By the time she starts to pee she has all of his things resting in the crevice where her thighs almost touch. His toothbrush is in her mouth.

Back in the clamshell chair, his toothbrush still in her mouth, she's got her legs bundled up with her in the belly of the chair and she's bouncing a little, just letting her head jut out from her neck to the pulse of an old car motor. She whispers out a pant of "PETE PETE PETE PETE PETE PETE PETE," until she hears Pete.

The key goes into the lock, Jenna flies from the clamshell chair. The door opens and Pete and Jenna tumble into the hallway. Jenna's teeth hit Pete on the cheek and break the skin.

"The OW!"

A grocery bag that Pete was holding somehow ends up underneath his back. A box of angel hair pasta is crushed open and the pasta splays out onto the dirty tiled hallway like a fan.

Pete tosses Jenna off him and back inside, forcing her into a clumsy backward roll. Before he can get off of his back, her naked weight is atop him again. She gets his entire left ear in her maw. He yanks his head away before she can bite down. This time he throws her off him with enough force to send her to her feet running backwards into the apartment.

"Jesus, Jenna. You're—"

Naked, she growls. She runs. Pete pulls the door shut and she slams into it with a wet thud. He gets up and holds onto the knob she's now trying to wrench open to the beat of her dotted breaths.

With one hand on the knob, Pete tries to collect the groceries into his shopping bag with the other hand. He hasn't seen her like this since the first month after they moved in together.

"You should see her," Pete told his Dad (divorced, focusing on career) at one of their Wednesday lunches. "Always naked. Always running."

"Your mother."

Pete picked up a ketchup bottle and a pepper shaker to conduct an unnecessary demonstration. He bounced the ketchup bottle a casual few steps across the table. Then he bounced the pepper shaker bang bang bang straight at it, slamming into the ketchup bottle and knocking it onto its side.

"I like that girl. She loves my boy."

"She's biting me."

Pete's Dad whistled.

"Hard."

"I really like that girl."

"Aren't things supposed to get dull when you move in together?"

"Not at first. More than enough time for that," his Dad laughed. "For the first year or two your mother and I…"

"Seriously, go on."

Pete's father shook an incredulous smile onto his face. "We'd…every day and night it was…When we were just dating it was like we were looking through the fence at this fantastic playground. And when we moved in together, we hopped the fence and the playground was ours."

Pete smiled. It had been two years since his Dad moved out and he was just starting to talk about his Mom with some affection in his tone again.

"This doesn't feel like a playground. It's like she thinks time's running out."

"It always is." Pete's Dad likes to invoke defeat.

"But what kind of love is that?" Pete asked.

"The girl you love wants all of you and fast. Men have suffered crueler fates."

This left Pete quiet with a smile for a bit. Then he started talking again.

"My favorite part…"

"Seriously, go on."

Pete had to look down at the table while he said it. "Jenna's…Her pussy's real big."

Pete looked up at his Dad to find his face stone frozen into that of a man who is hearing something he never imagined he'd ever hear in his entire life. Pete looked back down at the table.

"I mean her…her labia. It's fat," Pete says. "When she runs at me like that, naked like that, panting at me like an animal. I imagine the panting's coming out of her pussy. Like she's breathing out of it. It growls and it's got teeth. And it's like 500 pounds."

After that, Pete and his Dad mustered up a strained laugh before either of them could get the chance to say anything else.

That lunch was over a year ago, two weeks after Pete moved in with Jenna. And three weeks after that was when Jenna lost all control. When Pete started having to yell and hold her back. When she started breaking the skin.

With his hand on the doorknob, and Jenna's 120 pounds thudding against the other side of the door, Pete tries to figure out what's triggered it all again. Things had been good of late. But if he had to put their relationship into a word, he'd choose "comfortable." Certainly not "primal." He might never know what sets her off. But he knows how to get her under control.

As he turns the knob and shoves through the door Pete thinks, "Maybe it's my new haircut."

Tomorrow...Whole Body: The Stupid Ending

Happy Whole Body Day 2!

Whole Body Day 1!

Jenna's gonna eat her boyfriend.

Pete, her boyfriend, likes to shout "That tickles hey!" whenever Jenna wraps her teeth around his big toe. He's real ticklish. But she can't help it. She's never had a boy like this before. A boy so very tasty.

"Every goddamn night there's this giant slab of the most beautiful flesh lying right next to me it's driving me crazy wanna bite it!" Jenna tells her Mom (divorced, dating).

"Your father."

Jenna waggles her head involuntarily. "I think about his belly and my lips rise to my gums. Feel my forearm muscles."

"Tense as a jungle cat, yes. Haven't we been through this? It ended badly." Jenna's Mom lets go of Jenna's forearm to light another cigarette. She lights one for Jenna. The only good thing that came out of her divorce was that she gets to spend these afternoons with her daughter Jenna.

While Jenna is with her Mom, Pete is sitting behind a receptionist's desk. He's on a three-month temp assignment at a firm that does marketing for non-profits. The reception area is a quietly lit burgundy. Perfect only for napping and letting your mind drift. Jenna's seen it.

"When can I see where you work?" Jenna pants every time Pete starts a new assignment. "I'll be thinking about you, and I want to get everything right. Can I sneak up tomorrow?"

When Jenna's Mom starts to tell a story, Jenna places Pete behind his desk, reading whatever novel she saw him stuff into his bag that morning, and her mind's eye flies all about him, up top taking in the cowlick of his hair, little lower to the bulk of his neck, down around that round sweet belly, legs she skips, arms with the shirtcuffs rolled up to reveal his forearms and his oh god—

"ARM HAIR!"

"Christ."

Jenna folds her arms on the kitchen counter and grinds her eyes into her skin.

"You scared me half to death."

"Soooooorrrrry." She shoves her face into the join of her arms with all her weight, trying to bust through.

"Jesus, you got it bad. Go home and eat him."

Jenna snaps up her bag and runs out the door.

To be continued...

Happy Whole Body Day 1!

Dan The Wastrel Day!

Dan The Wastrel has just been cast out of his own brother's wedding rehearsal dinner. "Your presence chips away at the value inherent in my union. Get someplace where I can't see your face," said Dan the Wastrel's brother.

Dan goes to the muddy beach of the creek running through the golf course. Luckily, he doesn't run into any teenagers getting drunk there. Teenagers often beat him up.

Dan climbs down the beach of the creek to a sewer drain. Secured with a rock against a dry wall of the drain is a book called, "Princess Van Salt And Her 12 Magical Unicorns." Dan grabs the book and begins to read, just as he's done so many other nights after being asked to go away.

"Take me away to your beautiful world, Lon Gloucester," Dan says out loud. Lon Gloucester is the guy who wrote "Princess Van Salt And Her 12 Magical Unicorns." Back in the fifties.

Happy Dan The Wastrel Day!

At The Whorehouse Day!

The girls at the whorehouse sit Indian style in a circle on the Persian carpet in the parlor. All the customers have left for the night, save one. Zach Baxter.

Zach's been a customer of Lila's for twenty one years now. Looking around the circle, he sees so many faces that have given him such sweet comfort.

There's Nina, who spent three whole days with him when he showed up one night with a pile of divorce papers bearing his signature. Nina waited hours at a time for Zach to finish crying. And when he ran out of tears, Nina cried for him.

There's Melanie. Melanie was Zach's favorite while he was drinking. She'd do the only thing Zach wanted out of a girl back then. She'd finish his bottles. When Zach put the bottle down, Melanie kissed him on the forehead and put herself back on the shelf.

And of course, there's Lila herself. Zach's first. His father brought him to Lila when Zach was fifteen. "He's having a tough time of it Lila. Thought you might be able to set him on the right track," Mr. Baxter had said before shoving Zach through a beaded curtain. Years later, Zach came to Lila when he thought his erection was gone. "You made me a man once," Zach had said. "Beautiful Lila, make me a man again." Lila shook her head. "I'm not the one you want," she said. "But I'll bring her to you."

And Lila introduced Zach Baxter to sweet Frida. Tiny, patient, with naïve eyes, Frida didn't just inspire arousal, she was the blood of the erection itself. There she is at the north end of the circle. A little older now and still most desirable, though not quite the force of nature that Zach remembers from that fateful night. But that sort of bloom doesn't last very long.

If he tried every minute until the day that he dies, Zach Baxter could never thank these women enough. And tonight, they've asked him for a favor.

"People respect you Mr. Baxter," Lila says. "You throw your hat in the ring and ain't nobody gonna put their money on anybody else."

"And you don't even have to win," offers Tatiana, a recent hire at Lila's. "Just put the issue on the table and it'll be struck before election day." Tatiana has had Zach wrapped around her finger these past few weeks. She knows she's got his ear, by way of his heart.

But Zach doesn't need to be manipulated. His answer was yes before he heard the question. "I'll do it. Of course I will," he tells the circle.

Lila rises and kisses Zach Baxter on the cheek. He will run for mayor in an effort to battle the incumbent's plans to level Lila's house and the surrounding twenty blocks to make room for a new sports arena.

Happy At The Whorehouse Day!

With A Snap Of Your Fingers You Can Make A Girl Cry Day!

That shouldn't be read figuratively. No one's saying you always say the wrong thing or you're always toying with girls' emotions. The deal is this: The man you think is your father is actually not your father. Your mother had an affair with a cold, dark entity that took the form of her continuing education calligraphy instructor. Thankfully, your mother was a good woman and her spirit combated most of the evil that stirred inside her womb. But you did inherit some of your father's qualities. His good looks for one. His swagger. His drive to conquer, that's starting to show in your archery. And of course, his ability to make a girl cry simply by snapping his fingers.

Try it out and you'll see. Start at Rite Aid. When the girl behind the counter speaks to you in an absent, sleepy murmur, snap your fingers and watch her crumple into a sob. Next, do it to your mom. Call her on her cell and say things like, "Mom, I love you and I hope I'm making you proud. That's all I've ever wanted to do." Your mom'll assume you're drunk and will probably crack a joke about you being a sloppy little homo. That's when you snap your fingers and listen to her breath get choppy with tears. She'll say, "I'm sorry, I don't know what's come over me." You can tell her that she must have been overcome with emotion after hearing you speak so sincerely. She'll try to deny it, but you can just say, "Then why you cryin'?" She won't have an answer.

Next, do it to your girlfriend. Right after you beat her at thumb wrestling. Snap your fingers and watch her palms fly up to cup her face. Accuse her of being a sore loser. "And if there's one type of girl I never wanna go steady with, it's a sore loser!" say. She'll beg you not to go so don't.

Next, the ball's in your court. There's 18 million women on the planet. Which one do you wanna see turn into a blubbering mess? If the answer is no one, you're either a liar or a kind person.

Happy With A Snap Of Your Fingers You Can Make A Girl Cry Day!

Scissor Points Day!

People fall in love, hold each other waiting for train arrivals, buy ice cream for each other, smile at work, choose apartments together, fuck on couches, marry, keep scissors in the house.

People rent videotapes, pay utility bills, put gasoline in automobiles, worry over finances, recline into easy chairs and discuss making babies, gather up the hem of the warm blanket of domesticity, entertain offers of quick money to take out local dollar store shopkeepers' burgeoning competition, consider providing for babies and becoming men who can give their wives anything they request.

People pull away a bit, build themselves into a place alone to protect the ones they love from the acts they're about to commit. People plan and keep mum, stake out till all hours making notations and taking caffeine. People lay down late, wake up early, shout when asked to take out the garbage. People who are about to take a life resemble people unhappy with the life they've chosen.

People get suspicious, assume the worst, or at least the worst within a certain frame of reference. People know when they've been told a lie, when they're playing the fool, when everything wonderful is about come tumbling down through no fault of their own. People demand explanations and get no specifics. People decide all is lost and want vengeance.

People get on the same train as a dollar shore shopkeeper with a pocket full of money. People sit at the other end of the car. People pretend to read their newspapers, spying out the corners of their eyes, rise with rehearsed sighs to get off at the number of the stop that's circled in their notebooks.

People follow a dollar store shopkeeper from across the street, from half a block away. People approach the turn down a mostly industrial street at 3 AM. People run ten steps causing a dollar store shopkeeper to stop in his tracks. People pull a gun that's never been fired out of their pockets and people send three bullets through a dollar store shopkeeper's round left pectoral. People make it look like a robbery, take the cash from a dollar store shopkeeper's pants pocket, mentally attaching the amount to the number 10,000 to be supplied by a well-established dollar store shop keeper who doesn't tolerate his business being taken away.

People no longer wonder why a husband might come home at 5 AM without any explanation. People know where he's been, know that the absence of a scent of perfume only indicates the thoroughness of the betrayal. People pretend to sleep soundly, having made their decision. People wait for snoring, go to the sewing drawer, return to the bed and drive scissor points into the space just behind a voicebox. Done, people open the scissors, close them once, they're scissors after all. People wonder what just got cut in two.

Happy Scissor Points Day!

Jeff The Cripple Day!

Jeff the cripple can't walk and he's getting used to it.

"I have to admit, at first I was kind of jealous of the majority of my fellow man," says Jeff. "But then I remembered that I have a lot more money than a lot people."

Jeff's rich.

"I have thirty seven million dollars."

Jeff can't fuck.

"Oh yeah," says Jeff. "Yeah, that still kinda irks me. It makes me feel kind of…um…"

Jeff feels inadequate. A sad excuse for a man.

"Hey!" says Jeff.

Jeff likes to keep magicians around the house.

"I've always been a huge fan of magic. Houdini. Henning."

Jeff spent most of his life trying to earn enough money to destroy his father, a world-renowned financier who abandoned Jeff and his mother when Jeff was five.

"This accident was a big setback in my efforts to dismantle my father's empire and smile while I'm doing it," says Jeff. "Not that I need to walk to continue to amass wealth. But not being able to walk and…everything else…it just left me kind of depressed for a long time. I had to take a break to reevaluate things. Try to remember what's really important. In the end, I concluded that nothing is more important than taking my father down."

Jeff gets sad.

"I'd just like to be left alone for a while, if you don't mind."

Happy Jeff The Cripple Day!

About Norman Day!

We need to talk about Norman. He's stuck.

Norman was down the basement putting some laundry in the washing machine. He was emptying pants pockets of change and a quarter dropped to the ground and rolled out of sight into a nook underneath the stairs behind the beer fridge. So Norman slid the beer fridge out of the way, got on his knees and stretched his arm way back in between the pole supports holding up the stairs. He slapped his hand all over that dark dusty floor but couldn't find the quarter. So Norman decided he wasn't reaching far enough, so he twisted his shoulders up and shoved his whole head and torso up to the biceps in between those pole supports and started flapping his arm around like it was an amputated stump, one of those flipper arms. In that position, he was as far away from grabbing that quarter as he could ever be, so he tried to shift his position to get his palm to the ground. That's when he twisted his right pectoral onto the point of a rusty nail.

The steel ran deep. It's got to be close to an inch under his skin. And he's so twisted up in between the pole supports that he's not sure how to shift his weight to keep the nail from going in deeper. And he's not sure how deep the nail can go. All he can do is stay there arched over on his knees and try to hold himself up by the strength of his hips, which is just about physically impossible. He has to rest every minute or so, but that means letting himself just sink deeper down the nail.

Norman thinks he's going to die. And he's starting to say things. He's telling me secrets he's kept from me, some that he didn't know I already knew about. And then a whole lot of other things that I didn't know about. Disturbing things. He's trying to clean the slate but all he's doing is scaring me. No matter how many times I tell him he's not going to die, he just keeps on talking. And I'm afraid he's going to reveal something that'll leave him as good as dead as far as I'll be concerned. He's already come pretty close. Did you know about the "Gentleboys' Parties?"

I just need to get out of here for a while. I want to call 911 to have some firemen sent over or something. But honestly, when he gets set free I'm going to have to deal with all this information in some way and…I just need to walk it off a little I think. Can you go down there with him? Call 911 if you want. Just give me a headstart so I can walk it off a little. Thanks.

Happy About Norman Day!

Name The Baby Day!

Suggest Ray.

"Ray?" she'll say.

"As in Raymond. Like it?"

She'll get up and go to the window and start to cry. And she'll hold her palms to her big fat belly while she does it. Ask her what's wrong.

"Nothing," she'll say.

Tell her she can tell you anything. Even if it's about a love from her past that was so strong it nearly took her life. Even if it's about a boy who brought her halfway across the country with promises of opening up a little store in a little town that they'd run together, waking up together every morning to put out the newspapers and pour coffee for the men who wear orange vests to work. Even if it's about the apartment above the store that they were supposed to fill up with a daughter and a son and enough love to scare an enemy army.

Even if it's about a boy named Ray who took to drinking more than saving, took to shouting more than singing, took to lying more than not. A boy named Ray who could just as well have dropped her off by the side of an interstate for how quickly he abandoned her to her side of the bed. A boy named Ray who never got them out of the Salt Lake City boarding house they pulled up to when they finally hit the dot on the map.

A boy named Ray who never found that storefront to rent. Who filled their rented room with defeat and black words. A boy named Ray who left her four hundred dollars and no note goodbye the morning after he found out she was pregnant with a boy she wanted to name Ray.

She'll ask, "How'd you know all that?"

Say, "I didn't. Girls Are Pretty did."

"Girls Are Pretty?"

"Right over there. See?"

Then point to the empty doorway, where Girls Are Pretty was standing just a second ago, holding a hammer and some nails.

"Wait a minute," say. "I could swear I…"

She'll come and sit by your side. She'll put her hands on your shivering shoulders. And she'll whisper in your ear, "Shhh. Shhh."

That same beautiful sound is going to be floating through your newborn son's ears in just a few more months. With her whispering lips just an inch from your ear, you'll be so overcome with love for your wife you're going to have to sob just to get some air in your lungs.

"I believe you," she'll say. "Until the day that I die, even when you lie, I'm going to believe every word you say."

Happy Name The Baby Day!

Martin Is So "It" Day!

Martin and Elise are gonna fall in love. They don't know it yet because there are presently a great many distractions afoot. For example, there's the barback lying unconscious and bloody by the curb outside. Martin and Elise have a table by the window, so it's hard to keep the conversation lively when all eyes are watching to see if the barback comes to. The barback just got hit by a car.

"I have one of those jobs where people hear what I do and they say, Wow, I always wondered who does that!"

Elise says, "What? I'm sorry. His left hand is twitching."

Martin and Elise watch in silence as the barback's left hand tries to jump from the wrist.

"Wow. So anyway?"

"Right," says Elise. "Your job. I'm sorry. What do you do?"

"I change the light bulbs in street lamps."

Martin waits. Elise lets her head nod forward. Elise lets her brow furrow. Elise lets her mouth smile. Elise doesn't let herself look at the barback bleeding on the street.

"Betcha always wondered who does that didn't ya?" Martin gloats.

"No," says Elise. "I never did. But ya know, now that I hear it, I'm thinking Gee, why didn't I ever wonder who does that?"

Martin's heart flutters. His eyelids sigh shut just a bit, then again open wide and smiling on Elise. "You're not like the other girls."

Elise's smile is coy. She wants to look at the barback in the street, but she knows that Martin wants to know the date is going as well as he thinks. To turn her attention from Martin might break his spirit. So she lays her hand over his and warms her smile. Martin's eyes rejoice. Elise's eyes scurry to the barback in the street.

"I think he's dead," says Martin.

"No he isn't. See? You can see his chest rising sometimes."

They watch the barback's chest fill up with air then deflate again. Once every eight to fifteen seconds.

Martin's looking at the barback when he says, "My brother's in prison for manslaughter."

Elise looks at Martin. He glances at her, then back to the barback. Elise squeezes his hand tight. Martin elaborates.

"Got drunk one night and went to his ex-wife's house to raise hell. Her brother was staying there with her. He tried to keep my brother from getting in. They kinda locked in a hold on the front steps and tumbled down. Her brother's neck broke. My brother got ten years."

At the end of the story, Martin looks to Elise to see how it went over. Elise puts sympathy on her face. Martin nods.

"Every family's got shit like that, right? Who needs a margarita?"

Elise smiles. They both turn to the waitress, who is just a few steps away from their table, staring past them at the barback. There are EMT workers in orange jackets hovering over him now. The waitress has her hands cupped over her nose and stale tears fogging her eyes.

"Could we uh??" Martin motions to their empty glasses. The waitress nods and goes to the bar.

Elise is glad she likes Martin. When a date is surrounded by wild circumstances like these, she knows it at least guarantees a second date. And more often than not, it's the start of something huge. Watching Martin swivel his straw around in the ice of his empty margarita, Elise lets herself imagine how she and Martin might inhabit something huge.

The fresh Margaritas arrive and Elise asks the waitress, "He worked here?"

The waitress blanches.

"I'm sorry. He? I'm sorry."

The waitress inhales, and when she exhales she coughs out a little sob. "He's our barback." She's staring at him. The EMT workers are guiding a brace underneath the barback's neck. "His name's Martin."

Martin says to Elise, "Same name as me." Elise wishes he hadn't said that, but she knew he was going to.

The waitress says, "Every night when we're setting up, he runs out to get everybody's cigarettes. Everyone here smokes, and some nights he heads out there with fifty bucks if we're all empty. Tonight he and I were the only ones who needed a pack. He went out for his Marlboro Lights and my Parliaments. And crossing the street that car just veered around the corner and God."

"Did you guys ever go out?" Elise asks.

Martin is taken aback, but the waitress answers without hesitating. "Early on. Not really. But some nights early on after I started here we'd end up going home. But not really."

The waitress goes to the bar and puts her arm around the shoulders of the hostess.

Elise and Martin watch the EMT workers lift Martin the barback on a stretcher and load him into the back of the ambulance. They sip their margaritas.

Elise says to Martin, "I took care of my mother for the eight months before she died. She had lung cancer. I didn't really take care of her. I mean, she had hospice care. But I left college and moved into the house and behaved as if it was my job to look after her. When really I could have stayed in school, and visited her every single day."

Martin asks, "Were you looking for a reason to quit?"

"No," says Elise. "I don't think I was at all. I started again two months after my mother passed. But while she was dying, in my head I just decided I have no choice but to devote all my time to her. When most of the time I was just sitting around waiting for her to come out of her sleep."

Martin nods. "You know, when my brother was on trial, I really let it eat up my whole life. It was a big deal for me, no question. But with the way it occupied my thoughts, I think I wanted to get caught up in something way bigger than me."

Elise is very glad she likes Martin on the day Martin the barback got hit by a car.

Happy Martin Is So "It" Day!

Waiting For A Policeman Day!

Mrs. Elizabeth Roundtree sits beside her husband on the front porch of his newly rented Los Angeles home at 2:45 in the morning. There’s a cigarette between her fingertips. Her husband’s fingertips are empty.

"I shouldn’t take this as a sign right?" she asks her husband.

The street is the emptiest they’ve ever seen it. Car lights travel towards them once every million years, driving slowly. Letting them hope for far too long that this is it, the police are finally here. They’ll take our statements. They’ll crack wise about there being no chance in hell of ever finding the guys who did this. They’ll get a call on their radio about "a 327 in progress" or some other number that stands for a far more exciting crime than a burglary. And they’ll rush off pining for gunplay.

"It's kind of lucky," says Daniel Prekop, Mrs. Elizabeth Roundtree's husband. "We needed something to talk about."

Elizabeth says that she feels "violated." Daniel says that his "whole life was on that computer." Elizabeth says that she's "surprised they didn't take the VCR." Daniel says that they must have been able to tell it was a "piece of crap." Elizabeth and Daniel laugh loud enough to drown out the word that's screaming through both of their heads. "Suitcases."

"Good thing we shipped your books ahead," says Daniel.

"'DOS For Dummies' is waiting safe and sound for me to arrive," says Elizabeth. "I wanna go inside for a second but I don't wanna put out my cigarette. Cool?"

She's already standing, ready to go in. Daniel smiles up at her; smoke where you wanna. Tonight is all about lawlessness. The hem of her dress is at his mouth. She always had real long legs.

They haven't had sex. Not since she moved in. But she walks around in her underwear and a tee shirt and his dick gets hard every ten seconds. He's been masturbating into the toilet twice, sometimes three times a day so they can continue to lay in bed together without him sliding his legs around on the sheets.

The day she moved in, Daniel put a folded bed sheet on the couch. It's still there, still folded. Even the burglars didn't disturb it. They want to share the bed. They want to fall asleep together and wake up together and they don't want to have to talk about it. It would be the saddest thing in the world to enter her these days.

Inside Elizabeth's kicked some picture frames and broken glass to make a clean circle on the rug where she can sit Indian style. She wishes it were messier. The way a house looks when someone's searching for stolen diamonds or microchips. Torn up chair cushions. Smashed open grandfather clocks.

Here, all she gets is some wires dangling where electronics were attached. Some tumbled knick-knacks. Muddy footprints and the aforementioned broken glass. A drinking glass that got knocked from the mantle. Just an accident. Sorry 'bout that. Love, The Burglars.

This stuff is all his so she can't break it. Two months ago it was still in their apartment. It was theirs. But now it's his, it's what he took. She can't sweep everything from atop the folding table, lift the table by two of its legs and swing it against the wall, toss it through the picture window. Even though they used to use it as a breakfast table. Now it's his desk.

She has to settle for this mess. It's good enough. It's comforting to sit amidst disarray. The air is good. It would be better if the burglars had been kind enough to piss on something. But she's breathing better tonight. She might even sleep without taking a pill.

"Bless this mess," she says out loud. She leans her head out beyond her calves and lets a wad of spit dribble from her lips into a little dark puddle on the carpet.

"Honey," Daniel calls. The policeman is here.

Daniel's on the lawn talking to him when she comes to the door. The policeman's black. Daniel's white. The policeman has a notepad in his hand. Daniel has Elizabeth's pack of cigarettes in his. She wants one.

"My computer. Um, the TV. My printer too. Two suitcases."

"Suitcases?"

Elizabeth takes the cigarettes from Daniel's hand and decides to enjoy herself. "I'm going to New York in the morning."

"In the suitcases? Just clothes?"

The smile Daniel gives his wife asks her what game she's going to play. He tells the policeman, "And three thousand dollars cash."

Elizabeth lets fly a belly laugh.

"Three thousand."

"I didn't want to forget it," says Elizabeth, taking a deep breath. "So I rolled it up and put it in the suitcase. There was also a um…" She lights a cigarette and drags deeply, Daniel knows, to keep from laughing in the policeman's face. "There was also a hair dryer. In the other suitcase."

"What time'd you get home?"

"Around 12:30," says Daniel.

"Where were you?"

"Dinner. At Mao Palace in the Valley."

"It was a special occasion," Elizabeth says, dragging from the cigarette.

"What's the occasion?"

Daniel's eyes beg her to stop. "Her um…Her New York trip. Tomorrow."

"Your name ma'am?" The policeman has by now decided to spend as little time as he can with these two people.

Daniel can see Elizabeth is holding back gale force laughter. Standing side-by-side with Daniel and talking to people has been troublesome for Elizabeth of late. "Mrs. Elizabeth Roundtree," she says.

"Mr. Roundtree, has your house been burglarized before?"

Elizabeth takes five steps away from Daniel and stands facing a bush. Daniel now has a very big grin on his face. "My name isn't Roundtree. It's Daniel Prekop."

"Your wife kept her name?"

"Yes," Daniel says. Tonight might be the last night he can see her laugh. "And she'll keep on keeping it too."

Elizabeth laughs so hard she's doubled over, coughing into the bush. Daniel watches her, smiling at her, keeping his eyes away from the policeman who has placed his hand on his nightstick.

"Go in the house. Drink some water," Daniel shouts at his wife. She runs inside.

The policeman waits. "Sorry," says Daniel. "We're getting divorced. She's moving to New York."

The policeman lowers his eyes to his notepad and writes something. Daniel peers over the pad to see what he's writing, but he can't make it out. When the policeman stops writing, he gives Daniel a card with a number to call and then drives away.

Inside Elizabeth lay in bed with a lit cigarette in her hand, resting on her forehead. She's done laughing. Daniel gets in bed beside her. He won't need to masturbate tonight. He's not going to get hard. Tonight's a special occasion.

"My money," Elizabeth says.

"I can take out five hundred tomorrow. I'll write you a check for more."

"But that's your money."

Daniel's hands are on his belly. "I don't need it. Pay me back if you want."

She puts her cigarette out in a beer bottle by the bed. She rolls over to face him, folding her hands in the space between them. "I will. I think I'm supposed to."

The light's still on. They're going to stay up. Only five hours left before they leave for the airport.

Happy Waiting For A Policeman Day!

It's The Girls Are Pretty "What's That Ghost Trying To Communicate To The Living So That He Can Finally Be At Peace?" Weekend!

Now that the new year has finally come to pass, Prettygirl has decided to get a lot of overdue errands out of the way. First on the to-do list is to finally shut that ghost up who keeps turning on all the faucets in the house every night at 2:45 AM. It's not going to be fun. The last ghost who had some shit to settle made Prettygirl drive to a Blockbuster in Rhode Island and pay off some late fees on an overdue rental of Anaconda. This one probably won't be much more interesting, but it could be as time consuming. Which is why the next three personal regression assignments are going up today. As usual, scroll down to read today's. If you read tomorrow's today, you'll lose the gift of sight.

Prettygirl is relatively sure this ghost has some unsettled issues involving water.

Sunday, January 11, 2004

Drive-Thru Day!

You should have spent the night before getting real drunk and filling up a lot of water balloons with your piss. Today, when you're finished sleeping it off, get drunk enough to drive through some fast food drive-thru's without getting "the blindnesses." Place a giant order at each drive-thru. Ten items minimum. When you pull up to the window, your food won't be ready, so shout into the window "Let's go! I'm sittin' here with my dick in my hand! Let's go! Let's go!" over and over again. When the kid behind the window finally hands you all your food and asks for some money, say "You're about to meet my insides baby." Then slam the kid in the face with your balloon full of piss. Drive off without paying and repeat at the next drive-thru. Before long, you're going to be chased by policemen. You will either get away, crash your car and die, or go to jail for drunk driving, assault, and theft.

Happy Drive-Thru Day!

Saturday, January 10, 2004

Buried Alive Day!

Today, you and your lover should go out into the yard with some shovels and dig a six foot hole then flip a coin. If you called heads and the coin comes up heads, you get to be buried alive first. Lay down in the hole and smile up at your lover as he or she scoops the dirt overtop your most definitely alive and probably in love body. Once the weight of the six foot mound of loosened soil is atop your frame, crushing your lungs and defining your existence as a place that is only and ever darkness, take stock and you might find out a few things.

1.) If whilst buried alive you think to yourself, "Here I am happy because the dirt has clotted in my ears and there is no chance of ever hearing my lover's cold, condescending tone of voice anytime he or she refuses to admit that he or she is a monster who does monstrous things. Such peace," then you two have a few things to work out after you get dug back up, bury your lover alive, dig your lover back up again and go inside for cocktails.

2.) If your lover does not dig you back up, you can conclude that your lover is seeing someone else before you die of asphyxiation.

3.) If you get hard, I don't know man.

When and if your lover digs you back up, your lover should lay down in the grave and smile up at you while you shovel the dirt. Make sure to dig your lover back up or else he or she will find out about your affair.

Happy Buried Alive Day!

Friday, January 9, 2004

Puppy The Guppy Day!

Lewis has a ten gallon tropical fish tank, meticulously ornamented, and containing only one guppy. He's named his guppy, Puppy. From now until the end of time, it's Lewis and his friend, Puppy the guppy.

"Puppy doesn't like you. I'm afraid we can't keep seeing each other," Lewis has told several women he's dated over the years. "I'm sorry, it's not you. It's Puppy."

Puppy is very protective of Lewis. One might call Puppy possessive.

"Lewis is pretty awesome to me," says Puppy, "But when I think about him giving his attention to someone else, human or fish, I just wanna go ripshit." In a jealous rage, Puppy will often try to trash his fish tank, but he usually just ends up gently swimming into things.

"All I wanna do is make Puppy happy," says Lewis. "But I can never do enough it seems."

Puppy is presently not speaking to Lewis ever since Puppy caught Lewis updating his Nerve Personals profile.

"I'm a man. Puppy's a fish. He's the most important living thing in my life but I just need more." Lewis shakes his head. "This isn't going to end well at all."

It really isn't.

Happy Puppy The Guppy Day!

In Boats Day!

Your brother was strangled in a canoe. His body was chained up to some cement blocks and tossed over the side. The man who strangled him is still alive. He is a United States Senator.

Your brother was working for this Senator's campaign in 1994. Your brother found a document that implicated the Senator in a vast insurance fraud. Your brother had no intention of revealing the Senator's crimes. In fact, your brother loved the Senator. This was not good enough for the Senator.

Just thought you should know seeing as you've been hunting down your brother's murderer these six or seven years. Oh, and we got your brother's body from the lake. He's over there.

Happy In Boats Day!

Quicksand Day!

Today, there's a guy named Martin, though everyone calls him Quicksand, and Martin robbed one liquor store three years ago. He has an okay job right now, driving Xerox parts back and forth between office buildings. He took about 400 dollars from the liquor store that night. And within two months he was earning more than 500 a week driving Xerox parts back and forth between office buildings.

He chose a liquor store three towns over. He cased it for months, getting every last detail of the store's routine down in his notepad. The gun was his grandfather's. It had been left to Martin in the will. Never registered. And he would do it on foot so no one could tie him to a license plate. Martin chose the Freemont Liquors because of its location just off a freeway. Martin robbed the place one minute before closing, stepped outside with the money, and ran up the hill to the freeway (very little traffic, as he'd expected). He walked home through the wooded median of the freeway. It took him seven hours.

After the success of the Freemont Liquors robbery, Martin believed he had begun a profitable life of crime. He chose his next target immediately, a convenience store with a lottery machine. He plotted some escape routes and possible timeframes. But Martin just couldn't muster the enthusiasm he needed in order to sit in surveillance for the weeks and weeks it would take to leave nothing to chance.

He was more enthusiastic about his new girlfriend, Joyce. Martin would sit in his car for a bit, watching people walk in empty handed and walk out with small parcels and lotto tickets. Taking down the numbers, noting the busy times. And he'd be thinking about when he'd see Joyce later and what movie she'd rented for them to watch. Eventually, he'd cut the stakeout short and drive over to Joyce's apartment, telling her that everything looked to be on schedule with the next robbery. A few weeks later, the job driving xerox parts back and forth between office buildings came along and Martin took it. The hours were more conducive to Joyce's schedule. Martin doesn't plan to commit any robberies in the future, but he does wonder how far he could have gone in that sort of life had he not given it up. Martin is still with Joyce today. They're very happy.

Happy Quicksand Day!

Underwear Fantastic Day!

Lay down on your belly and read the New York Times Magazine. Sip some coffee and wonder if you're hungry. Look up and out the window and watch trash from time to time. Only wearing your underwear fantastic, you're not spending your unemployment check. The patch of blanket under your breasts must be bitchin'.

Happy Underwear Fantastic Day!

Most Games Aren't Fun Day!

Spin The Bottle is not "most games." Spin The Bottle is a game in which between three and eight players of similar sexual orientation sit in a circle surrounding an empty soda bottle on the floor of a basement. Each player takes turns spinning the bottle in its place on the floor. When the bottle stops spinning, the person at whom it points must accept the spinner's loving kiss. Players should be under the age of fourteen and hot.

Seven Minutes In Heaven is another game which can be quite fun. Seven Minutes In Heaven is a game in which two people of similar sexual orientation (if both straight, players should be male and female. If both gay, players should be of the same sex) enter a closet. Within the confines of that closet, for only seven minutes, all inhibitions of the everyday world should be forgotten and frantic fornication should ensue. When the seven minutes are up, the players are required to leave the closet and ignore each other for the remainder of the party and school year. Players should be under the age of 35.

Happy Most Games Aren't Fun Day!

Your Finger's Bleeding Day!

You got some on the polaroid. Worry about the band aid later. His eye's gone. And the pattern on his sweater's been interrupted. Place the polaroid on the desk, careful to keep it level so the bauble doesn't slide. Get a paper towel and try to dab it up but for God's sake hurry.

It's not going to be clean. Prepare yourself. You bled some of him away. You really should make a point of getting the important photos tucked away before you sew buttons back to coats.

Happy Your Finger's Bleeding Day!

Crossbows And Crow’s Feet Day!

Today you will join a marauding gang of middle-aged female land pirates and you will lay waste to contained areas of the American midwest using your top-of-the-line crossbows, leaving behind you a trail of blood, theft, and lady-rape (just kind of rub your pussy on folks). Get ready to become the stuff of legend, ladies.

Happy Crossbows And Crow’s Feet Day!

You’re A Beautiful Physician Rick Day!

It never works out she says it just leaves everyone feeling ruined. We’re doctors she says we’re here to help not to go grabbing after love. You don’t know me she says you’ll see I’m intolerable really. No she says no.

“Look, you’re a beautiful physician Rick. But I just can’t date anyone from the hospital anymore.”

We’ve had our fun she says can’t we just be happy with what we had. Don’t look at me like that she says you know what that look does to me. Please Rick she says oh please I just want to be right. No she says yes.

“Oh. You’re a beautiful physician Rick.”

Happy You’re A Beautiful Physician Rick Day!

The Ravishing Mrs. Ames Day!

Her mascara is eroding and she doesn't even care. The ravishing Mrs. Ames sits on an empty crosstown bus on her way to a beautiful bridge. (There's a driver on the bus. Otherwise, how would it move?)

She might prefer a crowd. The driver's eyes might keep to the road a bit more if they weren't so interested in what's up with the passenger who is quite ravishing but has recently wept. A face full of runny black streaks would blend in with bus folk.

As it is, she keeps her eyes on the passing streets outside, fingering the man's comb in her pocket. On the sidewalk, people walk alone with their faces pointed at the concrete. People hold each other as if in goodbye or "I'm sorry." People scream at the sky, they really do. You've seen them.

How many of them came to a conclusion tonight? How many made a discovery and a decision? How many are about to cut someone out of their lives? How many have a man's comb in their pockets?

There's a trash truck blocking the road. If the bus never makes it to the bridge, she could stay married forever. Always the ravishing Mrs. Ames. Never again, Madelaine. It's a thought that makes her shiver. Forever married to a man, Mr. Ames, who recites witticisms from magazines as if they were his own concoctions. A man fond of money, and those who have just a little less of it than he. A man who combs his thinning hair in the bathroom, in the car before getting out, in restaurant restrooms and shop windows, in lake reflections. A dull man who, the ravishing Mrs. Ames discovered tonight, sleeps with a dull young woman who is most certainly not ravishing. His comb is in her pocket.

A twenty minute walk to the middle of the bridge. The traffic is extraordinary for midnight. Leaning against the handrail, the comb is to her nose. She smells his hair. Remembers when he had so much of it. Remembers that she fell in love with him when he fell on some ice. His hand was in hers and then it wasn't and he was on the ground. She saw him there where he fell, his arms still in the air with the drop, one leg upraised. It looked to her like she was watching him fall from an airplane. From that moment on, her heart was his. And now, watching his comb fall from a bridge, just a few seconds before the black night swallows it, Madelaine's got her heart back.

Happy The Ravishing Mrs. Ames Day!

Live Through It Day!

Stay alive 73 days. Then 31 more. After that, go twelve more years, breathing. Then a day. Then play it by ear. Anytime you think you can't do one more day, say to yourself, "People sometimes give you brownies when you're alive, but not when you're dead. Also, I think I look pretty in skirts. If I died, my eyes would bloat up and go black as 8 balls and I would never get the chance to put on a skirt and check my own shit out again." It won't help, but it'll stall you for a little while.

Happy Live Through It Day!

Everyone's Sitting In The Windows Of Bars Day!

Every bar you pass, sitting in the window is someone else you know. Matthew, your friend who's cut himself off from you, he's in the window of Cafferty's with four people you don't know. They're all laughing hysterically at a story he's telling them with big hands. Down the block, at the Hi-Life, there's your boss in the window making out with a very young woman. It's horrifying. Your parents got the table by the window at Jake's. Your Mom is staring through the window, watching the snow turn black. Your Dad is trying to get the waitress' attention. His glass is empty. Keep walking. Sarah is aglow in the window of Drinketeria. Sarah is your ex-girlfriend. Len is her new boyfriend and he's sitting across from her, talking through a big smile. Keep walking. In the window of Lord's Lounge is a clown in full makeup who once was hired to entertain your ninth birthday party. You were too old for a clown. The clown was upset by something that day. Just above his pint, he looks pretty upset about something today. But not as upset as Gilbert the Auto Mechanic who used to fix your Mitsubishi back when you were still commuting from your wife's place. Gilbert has the booth by the window at Ralph's. Gilbert has in his possession an active cell phone, into which he is apparently shouting, and five empty hi-ball glasses, each of which he'll occasionally pick up to drain the final drops of melted ice at the bottom just before not catching his waitress' eye yet again. All these people sitting in the windows of bars, not one of them has spotted you. Unless they saw you and just didn't wanna say hi.

Happy Everyone's Sitting In The Windows Of Bars Day!

A While On Friday Day!

Just a little while though. Just a little bit alone and a whole lot bewildered.

He's in Tucson. He's writing you sometimes, yes, but he doesn't write as well as he smells when he's lying right next to you. Next to you there on the sheet where your hand glides nice and free through all those uncrushed folds.

He likes his job and he's looking forward to coming back to see you five Fridays from now. You don't have a job and you're doing all you can to keep him in your thoughts, for five Fridays from now.

You're digging your nose into the pillow, searching out his smell. But you smoke too much and everything stinks the same as your jacket cuff. You don't take enough pictures. You've seen these six. He's very pretty, but only six times. Five whole Fridays remember.

Push him out of your thoughts. If you don't let him in your head you won't know how hard it is to keep him there. You can go without a single thought of him for five whole Fridays then feel the near virgin rush when he's back beside you in your sheets. Panic. Race to call up the day he fell asleep on your shoulder in a cab. If you let him out of your thoughts, what if you can't get him back?

That was a great day in the back of that cab. One of your favorites. You should really save that one for emergencies, but you have other favorites you can call up when you need them. As many as...four. Five Fridays.

Get dressed to meet your friends but don't enjoy yourself too much tonight. You've been enjoying your friends a little more since he's been gone. But that'll go away five Fridays from now sure.

Happy A While On Friday Day!

Before You Fling Your Shit Around The Room Make Sure To Turn Off The Ceiling Fan This Time Please Day!

You ask, "But how will my shit coat every nook and cranny of the room? How will it slap upon everyone who answered my invitation to come on up and watch the shit fly? Dear God, how will this place feel in the morning if it doesn't stink to high heaven of this giant wad of shit I'm about to send soaring into the air?!"

You're right, I was wrong. Lemme get my poncho I guess then.

Happy Before You Fling Your Shit Around The Room Make Sure To Turn Off The Ceiling Fan This Time Please Day!

You're Gonna Go And Get Your Heart Broke Day!

Note: Today's Personal Regression Assignment is simply a rewording of the same Personal Regression Assignment that has been issued about two hundred times over the year and a half or so since Girls Are Pretty came into existence (albeit with slightly different plotting. Sometimes it's about a boy digging a girl. Other times, it's about gays). However, it is nonetheless as valid and urgent an assignment as Stand Up And Swirl Your Turd Around In The Toilet Bowl With Your Pee Stream Day or whatever the hell yesterday's was. This is because you keep on having to go out and get your heart broke again and again and a motherfucking gain. You never learn. You never will learn. You find the rush of pain and hysteria following the loss or denial of love far more interesting than the love itself. Don't get fined or banned from a bar.

Today, what you're gonna do is you're gonna go on and head out to where Mr. Prettyface is kissing someone special and new and you're gonna go up to the two of them and you're gonna say to him, "Can I talk to you for a second?"

He's gonna roll his eyes and apologize to Special 'n New and you're gonna realize that this isn't gonna work out at all the way you imagined it would in your head. You can do one of the following:

1. When he joins you by the Megatouch machine, ask him if he's dead set on digging into Special n' New or if he wants to come on back to the sweet-sweet you have waiting for him in the fridge. He'll say no. You'll walk home over a bridge.

2. When he joins you by the Megatouch machine, don't ask him anything. Tell him you're gonna tell him something and then you're gonna walk away. Tell him that you don't want him to say anything after you say what you have to say and you walk away. Then tell him that you still love him and you don't think you're gonna ever stop and that being without him is making you double over with severe stomach pain about 1000 times a day. Then walk away imagining that he could give a flying fuck. You'll walk home over a bridge.

Happy You're Gonna Go And Get Your Heart Broke Day!

Cats Curl Up Together To Keep Warm And To Love Day!

They don't need you. You can feel free to watch them cuddle their way through their nap, but don't try to get involved. There's is a love that will last as long as your couch is luxurious. Sit in the rocking chair and finish your Cutty Sark. The love between your cats is honest and completely of the moment. Your cats don't close up their hearts the way you do. Your cats aren't you. They're thankful for this fact.

When your bottle is empty, pee and go for a walk. Let the love between your cats go untainted by your presence.

Happy Cats Curl Up Together To Keep Warm And To Love Day!

Where Handguns Come From Day!

You were born before your Dad went to Viet Nam. You were born before he lost his legs and developed an addiction to opiates. And you were born before your Mom snuck you into your Grandma's back yard in the middle of the night, told you to sit at your Grandma's picnic table, then disappeared forever.

You sometimes see your Dad. He works as a Wal-Mart Greeter three towns over. Occasionally you have to head over to that Wal-Mart when you need a new drill bit for that weird drill your kids got you for your birthday years back. You don't know where they got that drill because you haven't seen it in any other stores, and only that Wal-Mart sells bits that'll fit it (though they don't sell the drill). When your Dad greets you from his chair, you're just another customer. He says welcome to Wal-Mart and you say thanks.

The first time he greeted you, you stopped in your tracks and stared at him. He had said "Welcome to Wal-Mart." You looked him up and down. He had prosthetic legs that looked like they were just for show, not like they could walk him around. You rested your eyes on his and tried to hold onto the shock you felt so as to not let on to any pity. Your Dad said again, "Welcome."

You waited for an acknowledgement. He gave you one. He nodded and let his eyelids fall just a bit. That's more than the other customers get, you decided. You nodded back and went about your shopping.

You never missed your Dad. He might've been a better father to you than your Grandma and Grandpa maybe. Who knows. They weren't that great. They kept a handgun in the linen closet, top shelf. You fired it once when you were fourteen. You went out into the yard and shot the garage window into nothing. One gunshot, no more window, then no nothing. No neighbors came looking. No one called the police. Just you holding a hot handgun in a throbbing teen's hand. After a half hour of standing in the yard looking from the window to the pistol in your hand, you went to the linen closet, replaced the bullet you shot, and put the gun back at the bottom of the box full of gift bows and ribbon.

Your Dad probably would've kept a handgun in the house too, if he could've afforded one. Your Dad seems kind of messed up in the head though, a little retarded. It was probably better you were raised by your Grandparents.

Happy Where Handguns Come From Day!

Engaged Day!

He thinks he knows what's best for you. Lately he's become convinced that what's best for you is him.

"Oh my God that's so great!"

They check the ring. They hug you to their shoulders, your friends. You haven't even glanced at him. You don't have to. He's slumped into the easy chair, a whiskey in his left hand, and just the most smug and condescending smirk on his lips.

"Congratulations. Hey everybody, we lost another one!"

You tell them about the walk on the jetty. How he knelt down onto a low bed of rocks and the crashing waves made it so you couldn't even hear him propose. How you scraped your knee on the way back. You tell them quietly. If he hears this story, he will offer one of his miserable, joyless, one-beat chuckles and it might make you put a plastic fork through his eye.

"Have you set a date?"

You're hoping for June a year and a half from now and you don't expect it to be in the city. 'But you'll all be invited,' you say it loud enough to get him to his feet. He goes to his girlfriend and puts his right hand in her left. Only then can you stand to give him your eyes. Only when he has his dimwit by his side.

He's looking at you. He's got her hand in his hand and he's looking at you. I think if you avoided him for the entire night he'd keep this expression trained on your face, waiting for you to catch it. It's so awful you go to him. He lets go of her hand and the two of you meet in the kitchen.

So.

So congratulations.

Shut up.

No I--

Can't you pretend that I'm dead or something?

We just started trying to pretend you're engaged. One thing at a time.

Fucker.

How could you?

Easy. He's not you. He's wonderful.

I'm going to have to think about how to deal with this. I might not be civil.

A million responses flood your head, but none of them are words. You choose the 34,327th. You punch him in the belly. When he doubles over, you take his whiskey glass from the counter and smash it over his head. The shards rip your hands open, but it doesn't hurt yet. So you reach low and slap your palms with their jagged slivers into his face. You grip his cheeks in your palms and you drag them over his skin. You can feel the tug when the slivers catch on his face and tear open the skin. People begin to pull on you from behind, so you push him to the corner of the kitchen, into the cat dish, and you kick him in the face, aiming for the throat, with your high heeled shoes. You get in four good kicks before you're dragged away.

Happy Engaged Day!

This Guy You Were In Love With. Through Some Binoculars Day!

You hit the road five years ago and you completely cut yourself off from everyone who loves you and everyone you've ever loved. Necessary, you thought, in order to successfully locate and exact vengeance upon your father's assassin.

But you still think you see people you used to know. You're constantly doing double-takes, primarily at tourist attractions where people hold still long enough for you to look twice and declare the match a false positive. Is it a need you have, a longing for the life you left behind that you think you see it in the face of every midwesterner with a fanny pack?

Well, it wasn't a longing that put Patrick there on the lip of the Grand Canyon today. The funny thing was, when you saw his shape, you thought it could be Leonard, your old supervisor at Strauss and Strauss. So you borrowed the binoculars of the little boy to your left and there he was. The boy who once ate a lot of pills to get you back (it worked). The boy who you proposed to, and who accepted your proposal (you never told anyone you were engaged). The boy who stole away your appetite for a year and a half after he left. While your love for Patrick might have been the most groundless and immature love you've ever felt, never will you feel so consumed by a trick of the heart again. The both of you are lucky to be alive.

And Patrick is lucky to be holding a little girl in a baby pack on his belly. And Patrick is lucky to be holding the hand of a little boy standing to his right. And Patrick is lucky to be taking a soda from the hand of a woman you've never seen before, a woman holding a cooler and handing out sandwiches to her husband and children.

And you're lucky to be looking through a pair of borrowed binoculars.

Happy This Guy You Were In Love With. Through Some Binoculars Day!

The Putrid Stench Of Happiness Day!

It's all over your body and all over your coat and people can't even smell the thousand cigarettes you smoked today because you smell so motherfucking happy. There's gonna be some action taken. Your friends are going to kill you. They're going to murder you tonight. At the bar. In the men's room. Wire hanger around your throat while you pee. Make sure you show up and get killed because you smell horrible, Happy McJoyfulgrin.

Happy The Putrid Stench Of Happiness Day!

Two People's Worth O' Skin Only Fifty Cents Day!

For today only, you can get all the skin on those two in that bed over there for only fifty cents. Only fifty cents for all the skin contained in that embrace. For ten cents extra, we'll stun them still, right there in that embrace, and we'll strip the skin from the two of them while they still have their arms round each other, her with her left middle finger midway through an absentminded stroke across the clifftop of his right hip. Only fifty cents. Nipples included and belly buttons tied like the day they were born. Only fifty cents. Looka that mole. Only fifty cents.

(Smiles of eternal contentedness will unfortunately lose some degree of radiance upon removal from the skull, due to the draining of all the lovin lovin blood)

Happy Two People's Worth O' Skin Only Fifty Cents Day!

Still Life With Cocksucker Day!

It'll finish the triptych. A bowl of apples. A rocking chair with a hat and coat draped over the back. And that cocksucker Brian. In his stupid ironic golf sweater and that fake "I'm pensive" look on his stupid fucking face fucking cocksucker. Paint him really skinny and AIDSed out.

Happy Still Life With Cocksucker Day!

Boxing Match Day!

Today, you're going to fight your ex-wife's new husband in a boxing match for charity. The proceeds will benefit deaf children. Your daughter is deaf, you're in love with someone new, and you really like your ex-wife's new husband. You're very happy for them both.

Keep it clean.

Happy Boxing Match Day!

You Kissed His Nose Day!

He saw you. He asked you for your itinerary. You couldn't go home with him. He silently vowed to be dead by dawn. You kissed his nose and promised tomorrow. He lives still.

Happy You Kissed His Nose Day!

Tom Misses Ruth Day!

He wrote it down inside a wobbly circle on the bathroom stall. "Tom Misses Ruth - Forever And Always". He wrote it on the bathroom stall inside the staff men's room at the restaurant where he waiters.

A lotta staff come and go through Chez Tagritte. But Tom had been there ever since college ended 18 months ago. The only other waiter who had been at the restaurant nearly as long was Mark, who is presently sitting on the toilet reading Tom's sharpied lament and shaking his head.

"Man, let her go," Mark thinks.

Mark gets up from the toilet, flushes, stuffs his shirt back into his pants and ties his apron around his waist, and begins his march onto the floor to find Tom and tell him just that, tell Tom to forget all about his Big Sister.

Mark's stride is broken by a camera crew that stops him for a few questions.

"Tom hadn't seen her in about three years. And back in November he got a letter from one of the program administrators that Ruth had taken her life. Where is this gonna air?"

"Tom feels like he owes her a lot. When he was signed up for Big Sisters, he was apparently in a pretty bad place, thinking of suicide himself. I don't know though, I guess Ruth took him to the zoo and shit and made him feel better."

"I just think he should forget about her. She got something out of the relationship too. Tom where you going?"

Mark spies Tom behind the camera crew walking to the restaurant exit. Tom stops and gives Mark a calm smile.

"I know what to do," says Tom. "I have to paint a mural in her honor on a hot air balloon and sail the balloon around the world."

Tom leaves the restaurant. Mark shakes his head and looks into the camera. "See what I mean?"

Happy Tom Misses Ruth Day!

Used Cars Day!

Used cars all contain the ghosts of their former owners. Randy didn't know that, which is why he kept bringing his 93 Accord back into the shop.

"Every day at 4:35 the radio dial spins on it's own catching just a word or two from various stations until it forms the same barely coherent sentence. 'Don't. Kiss. Him. On. The. Mouth.'"

The mechanic would shrug. "I can rewire it for you again. It'll cost you 250, like usual. But if you'd just believe..."

"In ghost stories? C'mon Ramon. Just do what you do best and save the hocus pocus for your dinner theater act."

So Ramon the mechanic would rewire the Honda, as asked. And later that night when the curtain rose on The Amazing Ramon, Mentalist Extraordinaire, he would tell the story of the man who wouldn't believe. The man who returns again and again to pay money to have the unexplainable swept under the carpet for a few hundred dollars at a time.

"This man wants a world of equations and fair transactions," the Amazing Ramon would say. "No matter how obvious it is that the former owner of his Honda was in love with a prostitute and had become obsessed with her, followed her on her tricks, waiting to see how she treated her other Johns, whether she gave them the same tenderness, whether she kissed them on the mouth. And he eventually killed himself behind the wheel of his vehicle. No matter how obvious it may be, this man wants no part of it. He wants to pay someone money and have everything be the way it should be."

The Amazing Ramon would then ready his table for the first reading. "That's the way it's supposed to work isn't it?" Ramon would then send an intense gaze out into the crowd. "Well?" he'd ask. "Isn't it?"

Then the best show in the world would begin.

Happy Used Cars Day!

The Widow's Song Day!

Chopping up some carrots for her rabbit stew, the widow decides it's time she started being evil.

"I've been without a husband for like ten months now," she thinks. "Who am I being good for? The fern? Fuck this."

The widow retires to the bath to masturbate and think about how her evil should manifest.

"I could sell dope. I could lock kids in my basement until they starve to death. Let's see..." She plays with her sponges a bit before it finally hits her. "Of course!" she splashes. She climbs out of the tub and towels off, taking a moment to admire her naked body in the mirror and lament that there's no husband around to take a crack at something so finefine. "Goddamn waste."

The widow drives to the shopping center where she buys a Casio keyboard for $429. On her way back to her car, she spots a flyer that reads, "Learn to play a keyboard or something." She rips off the phone number and drives home and calls and makes an appointment for keyboard lessons and learns to play the keyboard in six months.

When the widow has learned to play the keyboard, she unleashes her evil upon the world via the following original rock and roll song:

Death's Dark Heart
by The Widow

Fog
Creeping 'cross the land
To take
Another unlucky man
Rain
Drizzling from the sky
To wash
Away another life

You thought you hurt me
Nothing can hurt me anymore
Nothing can make me weep
Death's dark heart
Death's dark heart
Death's dark heart (yeah)
Death's dark heart

Snow
Streets all painted white
Off
Goes another light
Sleet
Icing up the ground
The Dutchess
Lost without a sound

You thought you hurt me
Nothing can hurt me anymore
Nothing can make me weep
Death's dark heart
Death's dark heart
Death's dark heart (no)
Death's dark heart

Happy The Widow's Song Day!

Choppers Day!

You slept under a bramble to keep out of the lights of the choppers. He's still asleep, but you're wide awake, listening to the marshalls' shouts and twig snaps getting louder, getting closer. You don't know these woods. Getting out would take some pathfinding. And you'd probably end up stumbling right into their hands.

He's in your arms. Four months ago he promised you that he would never let either one of you be taken to jail. He made the promise at your demand. You owe him the same duty. Kiss his forehead and slit his throat before he wakes up. Then cut into your own. This is how love plays out in a life of crime.

Happy Choppers Day!

Throw A Knife At A Tree Day!

Where do you have to be? Where? Are you a surgeon? Do you help poor kids or something? Meals on wheels or shit?

Face it, you are useless and no one needs you. So go down to the park or the elementary school front lawn and practice some knife throws for three or four hours until it's time to get loaded and fight.

You should hold the knife by the blade, in between your index finger and thumb. And you should flip it through the air at a tree. The best way to throw it is so that it sticks in the tree. When it sticks in the tree, there is nothing more satisfying in all the world. Way better than winning prizes. If it bounces off the tree and clatters to the ground you'll wanna kill yourself it'll suck so bad. So make it stick in the tree.

If you throw for like three or four hours, that's about 478 individual throws. At least 25% of the time, the knife will bounce off of the tree and clatter to the ground. Which means, today, you're going to want to kill yourself at least a hundred and nineteen times. Have fun throwing a knife at a tree and wanting to kill yourself a hundred and nineteen times, fuckdick.

Happy Throw A Knife At A Tree Day!

Couple Eyes, Couple Lifetimes Or So Day!

Just a couple eyes. Two of em. Not gonna ever let you go or nothin'.

Couple eyes that, like, that are there right in front of you. Like, even when you're alone and shit. Even when there's a couple other eyes in the way and shit. Couple eyes that, like, that you made cry over and over and over and over and

Couple eyes that could probably talk if they ever thought you were worth talkin to. Couple eyes that could make you do anything they ever wanted you to do. Couple eyes that probably got arms, pretty little arms, stronger than yours, keep you still, keep you where they want you to be.

Couple eyes that got a lotta money, you can tell. More than they'd ever need. Really really rich millionaire eyes that don't need to throw it all around cause they got class. It's earned money, hard-earned, but it ain't new money. Class.

Couple eyes, sorta blue, swimming in trim too, probably. Eyes that get more pussy than a fuckin' no-kill shelter, pretty eyes. Couple eyes just one look make you harder than a goddamn quarry, pretty eyes. Couple. Two of em.

Couple eyes got a car leave the door unlocked all night long nobody fuck with it. Couple eyes got a family big one cousins nephews and sons take care of em all die for em when it's time for it. Couple eyes got friends in high places get shit done get your fiance citizenship they think she worth it.

Couple eyes blink once make you die, right there. Make you sing, make you say everything you want em to hear, right then and there. Couple eyes the prettiest thing you ever gonna see, forever, never anything else better. That's it for a couple lifetimes or so probably I'm bettin.

Happy Couple Eyes, Couple Lifetimes Or So Day!

Candlelit Breakfast Day!

Strange men you bring home at 3 AM never want to wake up at 6 AM like you do. You stopped asking when you were 25.

You slip out from underneath whatever limb he left on top of you when he passed out. You put on some underwear and a shirt. You go to the kitchen and you start coffee.

Your thick white bowl always has yesterday's oatmeal stuccoed to the sides. It's cold now in the kitchen in the morning and it takes hot water and a butter knife to get it good as yesterday. You pour in today's oatmeal, close the door on the microwave, push a button. The coffee is done and your cigarette is lit and in your fingertips.

You must have sleepwalked for a bit because the next thing you remember you're sitting at your table, the cigarette in your hand in the air by your head, your face taking in the steam over the full black of the coffee cup. The Oatmeal is hot in front of you. You need to do something to make sure you're awake. You get up and get a spoon.

A few spoons of Oatmeal. A cup and a half of coffee. In the middle of your second cigarette, he wanders in. This happens sometimes.

"Coffee?"

You smile the way you smiled at 3 AM and you wave your cigarette to the coffee maker. He finds his own cup, finds his own spoon, looks for milk but finds none, the sugar is already out. He stirs, sips, sits. Across from you.

"Mm." He's not going to say a whole lot. Just some sighs and murbles and slurps.

"How you feeling?" Asked the way one asks after the recently bereaved. You nod. You smile the way you smile at 6 AM.

You haven't taken any more spoons of oatmeal and you don't plan to. He's making his way to the white of his coffee cup. There's nothing to say. No newspaper to read. No cat to watch do stuff. But there's half a candle on a candlestick holder sitting right between the two of you. You pick up your cigarette lighter and you light the wick.

Of course he's confused. You smile the way you smile when you want to allow something you did to be funny. He laughs one short hmph.

"Romantic," he says. You smile the way you never do.

He gets up with lots of grunts and goes into the bathroom. You sip your coffee. He flushes and shuffles into the bedroom. You put your finger to the surface of your oatmeal. He returns to the kitchen dressed in his clothes and overcoat and tells you he has work to go and get to. You get up.

You walk him to the door. Someone says "again." You kiss him and shut the door behind him and listen against the door to his footsteps on the stairs. Then you go back to the kitchen to sit and watch a candle burn at 6:23 AM.

Happy Candlelit Breakfast Day!

The Lady In The Lake Day!

You and The Lady In The Lake have been dancing around each other since the summertime. Any time she popped up from the surface of the water to bestow upon you a blessed assault rifle or some gum, you'd make small talk to stall for time as you racked your brain for someplace fun to invite her. Sometimes you'd make excuses to yourself as to why the timing was inconvenient (I have to work in the morning, I'm all dirty from warfare, It's chilly out and she's always real wet with lake-water so if we embrace I might catch cold). And other times you'd invite the Lady In The Lake to a friend's gallery opening or The Track, and she'd decline because she had prior commitments. But she always made it pretty clear that had she not had an undersea engagement, she would very much enjoy your company.

Well today you have to go and return some blessed "The First Season Of 24" DVDs she bestowed upon you last Thursday. Why not ask The Lady In The Lake to come out with you and see Big Fish. Tell her, "It's supposed to kind of blow. But you know, it's Tim Burton." If she says yes, tell her she's welcome to come back to your place first and towel off if she'd like. That way, you and the Lady In The Lake might be able to get the mm mm out of the way and you'll enjoy your film viewing all that much more.

Happy The Lady In The Lake Day!

Captain Barometric Pressure Day!

Today Captain Barometric Pressure is going to save someone who is about to walk into an open manhole. He'll do this by wrapping his rubbery right arm around the trunk of a Redwood Tree, and he'll reach his left arm out across light years of space to grab onto the perimeter of a particularly obstinate galaxy. This will force the world to stop spinning and effectively stop time.

Captain Barometric Pressure will then stretch his right leg the 75 feet down the avenue to where Ronald Deveer is walking towards an open manhole while reading the latest issue of Lucky. Captain Barometric Pressure will place his ankle directly in the path of Mr. Deveer, and then he will let go of the galaxy and allow the world to spin again, starting it up
with a little whirr like he'd just pulled his thumb off the record on a spinning turntable.

As soon as time resumes, Ronald Deveer will continue in his walk and immediately trip over Captain Barometric Pressure's ankle, landing Deveer with his eyes peering down into the manhole that was about to lay claim to his life.

Deveer will look up and see Captain Barometric Pressure hovering over him, his hands in fists on his hips, his leg reclaiming its shape.

Deveer will say, "Wow, thanks Captain Barometric Pressure."

Captain Barometric Pressure will say, "47% chance of rain. Watch yourself kid."

And then, Captain Barometric Pressure will leave!

Happy Captain Barometric Pressure Day!

Careful With Those Firecrackers Day!

John never leaves the house without a dozen firecrackers wrapped up in a ziplock bag and stuffed inside his jacket pocket. "Just in case," he'll say when you ask.

John's a Catholic. He was brought up in the religion rather lackadaisically. But lately he's been making an effort to embrace it. "I have this entire belief system right at my fingertips," he'll say. "I'd be an idiot to never try it out and see if it's the right road for me."

If you don't blow your fingertips off with those firecrackers you keep in your pocket, you'll say. You'll high five Amrit and laugh. John won't laugh. He'll just play with the bacon on his plate with a fork.

"You know who loses fingers to recreational explosives?" John, suddenly quite grave, will ask you and Amrit. "Little kids and drunk Dads, that's who. I have respect for these firecrackers. When I finally light them, there won't be the slightest hint of danger. Only perfection."

When are you gonna light them? you'll ask John.

He'll say the words one at a time, like he's holding them up in front of your eyes for you to take a good hard look. "When. I. Have. No. Choice."

He'll stare at you. Then, "When I find myself in a moment that demands such a punctuation."

Just then, John will get up from the table to go and meet with a Deacon.

Happy Careful With Those Firecrackers Day!

A Magnificent Head On Your Shoulder Day!

She's asleep. Her head's on your shoulder. Probably gonna stay there till the end of the busride. She's as unconscious as a baby, contented as a baby, as unaware of herself as a baby. Call her "Baby" from now on.

As in, "C'Mon Baby, we're gonna be late for dinner." Or, "Aw Baby."

Lean your nose away from your book about a writer having trouble writing a book to kiss her scalp and breathe in the smell of her skull for ten minutes. Her skull contains her brain, and her brain is what reminds her that she's in love with you. You owe her brain big time, so give it some kisses. About ten minutes worth is adequate tribute. Then go back to reading your book about a writer having trouble writing a book.

Happy A Magnificent Head On Your Shouilder Day!

96 Hours Alone Day!

Tonight at ten, you'll have done it. Four days without coming in contact with another living thing. You smell a little worse for the wear, sure, but it's been worth it. Because around 3 PM yesterday, you took your old scale and discovered that you weigh the exact same weight as your dictionary, all of your pants, a carton of cigarettes minus one pack, your cell phone and charger, your wallet, a plush toy giraffe, an ibook, 11 bricks, a silver framed photograph of your nephew, your dog, and seven five pound bags of sugar all piled high. The pile is four inches shorter than you, not including the inch and a half height of the scale.

Congratulations. Now get on a train and go to your brother's funeral.

Happy 96 Hours Alone Day!