Lips!!!!

I mis-posted earlier. The lyrics to the song were "Shut your lips. Shut your lips. Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips." It has been corrected. Thank you, sugar plum wife-o-mine.

Horsehead

We really weren't sure what to make of him, the chubby, late 40's, mustachioed man seated in a chair by the jukebox bobbing his head vigorously to the driving dance beats. Between games of pinball, Tegan ad I would take turns eyeballing him, as well as the rest of the room. At first we thought he was probably with a group playing pool nearby, but when they left and he remained, we had to reassess.

Maybe he was a new bouncer, his seeming ridiculousness merely a facade covering great experience. This theory was overturned by two points. First, as trouble simmering at another pool table began to become more heated, he paid very little attention, almost averting his eyes from the situation.

Secondly and possibly more importantly, he was regularly pumping several dollar bills into the jukebox to select music whereas employees wield a remote control. A group of very young girls were now shooting 9-ball, and his bobbing throbbing presence was causing an obvious anxiety.

I was almost certain that the songs were repeating, but their similarity made it difficult to be positive. Then over the thumping refrain, "Shut your lips. Shut your lips. Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips." my suspicions were confirmed. As I pondered the reference to Helen Keller (I guess the more accurate "Do the Helen Keller and redefine how society teaches individuals with aural/ocular impairments" wasn't very euphonious) a heavily tattooed man across the room thrust his finger towards the jukebox bopper and yelled, "Dammit, I can only handle hearing this fucking song 5 times in a night. Quit playing the same fucking songs!"

Mr. Mustache continued to nod his head nearly in rhythm to the beat, eyes half closed, as if simultaneously agreeing with and ignoring his assailant.

Some strange spell had been broken, and others began to adventure into the strange man's sphere and select music to play. The early Pink Floyd "Bike" began and the head bobbing became more erratic. The beat shifts and modulations broke down his disjointed self-confidence and he soon departed, leaving a group of early-20 hippies playing Grateful Dead. Their tastes were more varied than Mustache, however, because they also played "Don't you remember you told me you loved me, Baby!" and an early rap song with lyrics politely benign.

The Horsehead always has fun people-watching.

Too soon

I've been on a bit of a break from posting, enjoying the early summer with my newly liberated wife. Free from the shackles of higher education's encompassing schedule we have kept relatively busy. I barely find the time for simple tasks and they are starting to build up. For instance, I finally got around to cleaning out my wallet last night. Among the dust bunnies and moth carcasses was a receipt reading 'Thank you for shopping at Cash Depot: ATM. Green Bay, Wisconsin.' Shopping?

Speaking of shopping, the radio man says that Billy Mays, pitchman extraordiniare, has passed away this morning. Although it hasn't been announced, I suspect fowl play, possibly found asphyxiated with a Shamwow lodged in his throat. Oh Oh, wouldn't it be terrible if he was done in by his own products, like choking on several Big City Slider mini-burgers? Or maybe he collapsed under his own genius and swallowed a lethal dose of Oxy-clean.

I suppose it's too soon for this humor.

More stories soon.

Susan

Susan Hischman was a dour woman, with a sour pout perpetually residing below the long nose that some might call regal, while others would simply label "big". Her salt-and-pepper hair was cropped above her shoulders in a bob, shoulders draped in one of her closet's many plaid shirts. It wasn't with some mannish intent that her jeans rode so high upon her wide hips, but simply a side effect of pants with such an oil-lamp curvature.

The canine usually wheezing at her side was some mish-mash of dog DNA. Large lumps of benign growth gave his torso a mutant appearance but did little to distract from the unsettling fact that the dog's expression mirrored his owner. Children did not ask to pet Petey on the street. His frown seemed unnatural and disturbing, as if the muscles permitting such a human emotion had been surgically implanted.

And that is why, had the brown bulgy envelope been a living creature with eyes and awareness—some papery slug crossing the sidewalk, two frowns would have loomed down at it. Petey's nose left little wet spots on it before Susan stiffly stooped and snatched it away. Had it lain a foot away and not in her direct path, Susan would have passed it by. Like many grudging altruists, she would retrieve litter only when it presented itself so ineluctably. She crinkled up her long nose and gambled a quick peek inside, expecting some disintegrating mush of formerly edible substance.

Standing just feet from the dumpster her quick peek was masochistic curiosity, like opening the yogurt container plumbed from the depths of a refrigerator cleaning. What repelling repugnance might it hold?

As Petey spattered the blue steel of the trash bin with yellow, Susan's frown grew roots and bent to acrobatic depths on her chin. From the envelope bloomed the crinkled corners of currency. Hundreds of 20 and 50 dollar bills formed a thick wad between her finger-bones. She blinked, twice.

This new, deep frown remained rooted the whole walk home, holding the envelope at arms length like a particularly ripe doo-bag. She dropped it on her end-table, which was empty, clean, barren as a windswept desert. It's brown existence was like some animal dropping in the room's aesthetic. Petey was oblivious to the envelope's obtrusiveness as he slopped water ravenously from his chrome dish.

Susan abruptly decided it was time for bed, snapping away from the table and marching towards her toothbrush. Perhaps the morning's light would dissipate this illusion and return that sense of routine that fed her frowns. Those frowns that permeated even her dreams.

Happenings and Goings On

Updates:

Tegan finished her first year of nursing school and is plotting a barbecue bash tomorrow. Incidentally, that is the one day on the computer's weather forecast with a thunderbolt icon.

We opened a bottle of my father's 2004 plum wine and enjoyed it with out friends Sarah and Greg. It was quite tasty. We also have a 2005 plum wine still in our rack, as well as every other bottle of wine we have ever been given.

My free YMCA membership is about to run out, but over the last 3 months I've shed 12 pounds. Down to a sleek 177. Punched a few new holes in the belt. Still debating wether to pay for a membership.

Lots of new stories in the works, but nothing ready to publish.

I can't even get rejection letters from the places I apply to, except from Lane county, which seems to have consolidated all my rejections for the numerous positions I've jumped at into one flimsy postcard. I tacked it up on my wall, a symbol of the rewards reaped through perseverance.

Short

If he hadn't been there, the stiffness of his brown suit might still have held it upright, standing behind the yellow tape line like a mannequin behind a mime's window. His expression was rigid, so much that it might have been simply an extension of his starched shirt. Yet for all his stillness, a fire danced in his eyes.

Milo's mouth was too dry to speak, much less swallow. He felt his eyeballs being pulled, sucked from their sockets by the gravity of electric gaze pinning him. Breath he didn't realize occupied his lungs was now wheezing out in a disgorged, ugly laugh. "hhhhhhaaaaaaaaa..." His knees angled inwards causing his torso to swivel like a slinky on rubber hips. Milo saw an ocean, a blue billowing sheet of silk, as his head bounced on the linoleum.

The figure in the brown suit did not move. He waited for the next attendant to come along and contemplated what he would try next. His toes nearly touched the line, but remained separated. After all, Milo had told him to stay behind the yellow tape line. And a devil can only do what man allows him.

Roll them bones

On the first Wednesday of every month, the short asian bartender of the Knights of Columbus club knocks on our living room window to remind us that Thursday is Bunko night.

Bunko is a simple dice game, it's fast-clip driven by enthusiastic octogenarians whose competitive side flares every time the bell is rung. You rotate tables and partners, keeping the conversations fresh. "Working yet?" they will ask me, and I will smile and shake my head. "Get that unemployment," they will say. For a roomful of McCain/Palin votes, they don't seem too upset at my stint on welfare.

Some of the regulars get snippy if you are on a hot streak. "That'll do," they will say in their grandmotherly fashion, reaching for the dice prematurely. You have to watch when they keep score. There isn't any malevolence, just poor arithmetic, but sometimes their numbers don't add up.

The median age of participants is 74, and everyone is a member of the catholic church. The drinks are cheap and the potluck snacks abundant, so it really is a great deal for a $5 buy-in.

Most of the time the prize money is split 3-ways with the average prize being at least $30, but last night they attempted a new system. When the breakdown was complete (which took awhile, remember the poor math) some people got $2.50, some got $7. I think I was the only person who didn't win any money.

Regardless of how they will split the money or how mercilessly they rib me about my seemingly endless unemployment, I look forward to the first Thursday of the month and our next match-up in the windowless cinder-block building across the alley.

stress relief

Were it possible, I would kick both of my dogs square in the nuts. They deserve it for all the worry and strife they cause. Of course Mudd's testicles were removed seven years ago and Crumb never actually had them (although she does have a strange pseudo-penis that Tegan refuses to acknowledge. In my opinion, she is a canine hermaphrodite.)

Um... that is all I really had to say. Internal mono-blog: Is it a good idea to blog about non-existent dog nuts? Probably not.

Tim: A True Story

Tim just walked past my window. His story will make a good post—a memory from our first days in Eugene that refreshes itself periodically.

We had lived in our apartment in the big yellow house for 3 weeks or so. My eyes were grainy with sleep as I opened the door at 8 AM. The knocker was a bald man, early thirties, with two huge satchels and an oil drum. The barrel had been modified with creativity, an oxyacetylene torch and no small amount of patience into a gigantic candle holder, the likes of which you can find, in miniature, at any number of hippie-trinket stores nation wide.

He stood there smiling, but nonplussed. "Is Steve here?" "No," I replied. "There is no Steve here."

"I just got in from Indiana, and my friend used to live here..." He seemed genuine, so I frowned and nodded sympathetically. "Could I leave my bags on your porch? Just for today. I will be back to get them tonight or tomorrow." Our porch was expansive and, at that point in time, fairly free of clutter, leaving plenty of room for his parcels. I looked past him at the driveway.

It might be noted here that a man lived in our driveway, his bunk set up in the back of a toyota pickup. It has little bearing on the story, as he rose early to procure McDonald's breakfast and dine on the riverbank and so had not been roused by the commotion, but it sets the ambiance for our situation.

Next to the Toyota was a Vespa scooter, red and dented with a front Indiana inspection sticker. There was a motor oil box bungeed to the tail. It was only then that I noticed the Indiana license plate affixed to one of the stranger's bags. He noticed my puzzlement. "It does really well on the flat, but going over the mountains... Man, sometimes I couldn't get over 25 or 30 miles per hour." I looked at the two huge duffles and oil drum again.
"OK," I said. "You can leave that box, too, if you want." "Oh no," he laughed. "It takes about a quart of oil every day." He pulled out in a big blue cloud of smoke and ruckus.

Three weeks later we sat pondering those bags. "Fuck it," our neighbor finally caved. "He's not coming back. I like the giant candle holder/lantern barrel, but what is in those bags?" He opened one and and shocked us all.

"Garbage." Nelson (our neighbor) emptied wrappers, cans, crumpled paper and finally a medium-sized oak branch from the duffle. "It's a bunch of fucking garbage."

Literally, as if scripted and on cue, the beaten Vespa pulled into our driveway trailing it's blue streamer. Tim dismounted and came up the steps. "Hey," he said. Nelson had successfully stuffed some of the trash back into the bag and was now holding it with a guilty look on his face. Tim took the duffle and opened it. He removed the oak branch.

"Oh, yeah. That's right, I was invisible..." He was congenial, smiling as he stuffed one garbage sack into the barrel and slung the other on his back. We watched as he roped the smaller sack atop the oil box and wedged the drum (second sack within) between his legs, turned a tiny key and vanished in a stinking blue cloud. Did I mention he had a sparkly red helmet? Well, he did.

So, as I said in the beginning of this story, I still see him regularly. He does not recognize me, thankfully, even though twice I have called him by name and followed with an explanation of how I know it. I have run into him everywhere, from our friend's rock and mineral shop, to catching him chucking trash into the street outside the dog-wash in the middle of the night. A few weeks ago he popped up at the tavern we frequent with an upside-down pentagram tattooed on his forehead and concentric circles above his eyebrows. I know now that they must have been either Henna or ball-point pen, because they are no longer visible.

He is not the craziest person we've met (I'll save "Medley" for another time) but he holds a special place in our memories.

Hook

"I'm going to start a pineapple farm."

Like a giant, rabid moth beating it's powdered wings frantically against his apple-shiny cheeks, the makeup girl made no discernible acknowledgment of his comment. He was but simulacrum seated before her, one of many light-bulbs against which she could bash her talcum talents into exhaustion. Certainly her metal had been honed by richer, more idolized figures. Her disinterest interested him. He swallowed a lump in his throat that was his pride.

He had the intense urge to say something outrageous just to get a reaction — like, "Your mother mentioned something in bed last night..." Her stoic gaze and carefully metered patting was almost animatronic. She didn't even apologize after slapping her dust-bunny into his open eye when he had flinched at a sweat bee sting. After all, he was the one who jerked. He was the jerk.

A man in tight shimmering pants strode past carrying a xylophone mounted to a harness. A very disenchanted llama followed behind him, which of course evoked the question: Who was that harness was for? Did the llama play xylophone? Did it dance as the man in shiny pants played? What was the hook?

Sitting in the make-up chair, his hook was obvious, as it was a foot long 7/8th inch tapered piece of curled chromoly jutting from his right wrist. The hook itself was not the hook, however. That proxy had held his hand's place for nearly 22 years. The reason CBS executives thought people would want to see him on television was entirely unrelated.

The audience wouldn't want to hear about when he was twelve and the boat carrying 40 cuban refugees, himself among them, had broken apart 25 miles off the Florida coast. His mother had drown along with 28 others.

The crowd didn't care about his daughter's courageous fight against Melanoma, surviving numerous rounds of chemotherapy and skin grafts, never allowing her fear to surmount her will. She was at home in bed, dreaming.

All those people watching had no interest in his struggles, inspirations, affirmations, insights — in him as a human. He was a grinder monkey, a nameless automaton with a flawed nasal canal that allowed him to whistle through his ears. He would close his eyes and blow, people would clap, and he would slink back off into obscurity.

Suddenly overwhelmed, a tear ran down his cheek. Which, consequently, finally got the make-up girl to acknowledge him, and in her startling husky voice, she said, "Shit."

Unfinished yarns

Earlier tonight, as the recliner I perched upon pitched north (quite expectantly... since reclining is what recliners do), I watched a shabbily encased cord unwind from its chrome enclosure as the lamp I was attempting to repair (while plugged in) was further traumatized. After stabilization, the frayed weaving and electrical components protruding from the lamp's base illustrated a greater deficiency.

This particular fixture exudes robust durability. It's trifecta of positional lamps appear bomb-proof. When one of the illuminating colanders popped from it's pivot last week, both my spouse and myself were baffled. Since the hour was late, my response was to deal with it later.

It is later. So now, attempting to calm my racing heart after nearly electrocuting myself and/or pitching strait off the chair and out the window, I discount the allegorical substance in those frail and frazzled wires jutting like guts from a steel pole. This experience was about the moment...

I remember thinking, as the chair shifted beneath my stupidity, "Don't do anything stupid, like kill yourself." This was not a magnanimous revelation. No, I was thinking of myself and all the stories I have started and not finished. I've got too many ridiculous tales that are already, in one way or the other, preserved as lasting legacy yet need major overhaul. To surrender those yarns like tadpoles into the trout stream, immature and incomplete, would be my warped vision of a true tragedy.

A story about a bridge

Standing alone in the dark, brittle and bleached, the old structure still allowed safe passage over Willup Creek. It's reliable fingers plunged down, perpetually testing the tepidness of the waters. Headlights would crawl across it's splintering beams less and less frequently as the night spooled past. Cars that carried strangers, lovers, dreaming children, quarreling parents; It's shivering timbers supported them all alike.

The sweethearts who stole kisses below it's weathered canopy would etch their epithets into it's beams. And each scribe would step back with their pocket-knives, absorbing all those letters and hearts, the cluster of identities, and feel a ring of guilt. Smooching here, below their vandalism, would no longer feel so secret or spontaneous. One small act of graffiti had amputated that small piece of youth, whittled it off with a dull drug-store edge.

Occasionally the vibrations of tires would shimmy a knot from it's hole, releasing it to plink into the ripples like some old fashion bobber. Damsel flies would use it as an island, a ship, as it bumped it's way along the water path, eyed by fish and craw-dads, eventually to sink or rot or be swept beyond what could be imagined. Tiny bits of a bridge whose sole purpose was to be solid and stationary, immobile, would drift off on epic adventures.

And the night that it collapsed, sending all those planks and lumbers to join their departed parts, all those carved proclamations of love and fidelity to rush into the blue, it was vacant. The next morning people of the community gathered to view what wasn't there. They looked at the hole in the road leaving air over the maw of the river. They looked at the air and thought private thoughts. And while it was agreed that the bridge had obviously been an antiquated bit of unsafe infrastructure, it was missed.

An industrial grey overpass replaced it, sturdy and uninspiring. The only bits of itself to break loose were pebbles that would plummet into the sediment to be buried and forgotten. The only graffiti it would accept came from an aerosol spray-can, the passionless mischief of hooligans. Most folks found themselves taking the long loop to town. When they looked at the new concrete fixture, all they saw was a hole. All the imagination and fallibility had washed away.

Underpants Update

Several months have passed since an absence of regular tagless Hanes medium size boxers forced my purchase of the premium variety. It's stingy 2-pack left a wanting of value, therefore I expected the quality to be tops. Would I be disappointed after the proper breaking-in period? Here is an update.

Lets begin with the positive points. Comfort: The soft cotton cloth and comfy waistband proves luxurious. Despite having a tag sewn into the back, it is unnoticeable. Fashion: The bright striped pattern provides the piece of mind that should there be some nightmarish episode involving the loss of trousers, I can blush confidently.

But now the negatives. First of all, they seem to shrink after washing. Granted, they return readily to their stretched state soon after their rare laundering. So it's a minor flaw which is easily sidestepped by not washing them.

My main problem is with the button on the fly. Underwear, in my opinion, should be free of hardware. A simple ungapped over-flap is sufficient for its basic function. To stand in front of a urinal, fumbling through the fly-hole of one's blue-jeans in an attempt to re-fix a fastener not only looks foolish but seems redundant.

So there you have it, interested parties. Weigh the evidence for yourself before dropping $20 on two pairs of boxers. For my part, I will stick to the $15 three pack of regular tagless.

Exactly true

The diner served dry hamburgers. The false fifties memorabilia (Route 66 signs, wide Chevy grilles, a cornerless jukebox) weren't distraction enough for the two men crammed into the red and white pleather booth, so the dry hamburgers certainly weren't helping. Thomas set his seeded bun down next to his cold crinkle-cut fries.

"I killed a man once."

This wasn't exactly true. To say he killed a man, actively ending his existence on this earth, removing him from the 6 cubic feet (or so) of specific space he occupied in time, was inaccurate.

Thomas referred to a night two years earlier. Walking to a free concert, he passed a man sprawled on the concrete in front of a 7-11. The unnatural angles of his limbs paused Thomas' gait. He cleared his throat, unnecessarily. He said, "Hello." There was no motion from the figure splayed on the stoop. Thomas poked him gently with the toe of his shoe. Nothing.

And so Thomas stooped, noticing on his decent the scuffed paper cup perched on the curb, it's insides stained with the coffee or tea that it had once held, now encompassing several coins. He placed his fingers on the transient's jugular. Nothing.

The flesh wasn't cold, however. Thomas had thought about CPR, about the cup, about those chapped lips and his own. He abruptly stood, and after depositing 17 cents into the cup, briskly walked away. It was only several hours later, after the concert, after seeing the coroner at the 7-11, after thoughts of phone calls and emergency medical personnel and their wages and society's burdens; only after all the whores in his mind had peddled their wares did Thomas realize he might have held a role in this timely passing.

Russell looked at Thomas across the faded red diner table. He found himself trapped in a small corner booth with a person who might be capable of terrible things. "What was it like?"

"I get a boner thinking about it." Thomas tried to act nonchalant, picking up a soggy potato wedge and wondering why he had divulged that truly intimate bit of information. He felt some strange camaraderie for this person he had met online several weeks ago. It was true; his arousal at the memory of that night and it's obvious violence. Even though his participation was limited to the possibilities of his inaction (his neglect, indirectly causing death which might have been delayed), he felt very pivotal.

Russell nervously pushed catsup around on his plate with a fry. "I've, uh... I've never killed thing."

Which also was not exactly true. From a lawyer's standpoint maybe, it was asphyxiation and traumatic spinal injuries and internal ruptures that had caused the deaths of 12 men he had met at various diners over the past six months. Russell watched the waitress lean on her hip after forcefully smacking the chrome ringer. She chewed gum, so Russell watched her chew it. He did not become aroused thinking of his violent trysts. He became aroused during them.

And so the strangers exchanged inexact truths for 45 minutes before mounting the nerve to retire to a hotel room with their perversions. Later that night, one would leave.

Personal Anxiety Exposition

There is a bubble inside of me. A marble. A swollen, pregnant orb that dives and floats. It bumps against organs. It's filling of cold gas causes twitches and flutters of the guts and heart and epiglottis as it ascends toward the brain, only to end up slithering southward again; redundant in reverse.

Some suggest a chemical cure. Pills, well... we all have our irrational phobias. No pharmaceuticals shall quell my jitters due to a very complex jigsaw puzzle of personal predisposition. Tablets and capsules and caplets shall remain piled in their powdery bins, across town, across the street, elsewhere. I choose my frets and fusses over them.

It's like looking at a picture of a stranger standing with hands on hips. You look at his yellow jacket with it's strange fringe and the angles of his geometry. His eyes are downcast, yet he is you, in a jacket you do not recognize on a street you cannot place. The more you stare at this figure, this self-effigy, the more uncertainties you fight.

So the clothing is not familiar, the street nameless... Things are lost occasionally. But then, who took the picture: A forgotten lover? A passer-by? Why the look of resignation, the feeling of defeat? Why is this image in your hands, anyway?

Searching for answers, for certainty, only mounts questions upon questions. Your back itches in a place you cannot reach, so you ignore it as best you can.

There you have it: what my anxiety is like.

Why do I delve into these ridiculous tirades about personal psyche instead of just posting the actual tribulations of my day-to-day existence? Well, I need to write this down. Why publish it in digital public instead of just journalling privately? Well... I need an excuse to make it worth reading.

Nothing

It was beautiful.
That dangling bead of drink, suspended by a microscopic friction between liquid and follicle.
It lingered for eternity, elbowing the beard hairs on either side, trembling on it's prickly precipice. Sour and acidic, the droplet resembled the obvious tear.
It was something.
Nothing. Nothing. Leonard rustled his paper purposefully. It was 4 in the afternoon and he was working though his second gin, scanning the print which blackened his fingers, waiting for the phone to ring, for a knock at the door that would rouse the dogs.
For something. He wiped the drop from his beard.
He focused on his own quiet breathing, listening to it's rhythm as his eyes languished on the page, on the sentence "... dragging the river..." "Notify next of kin..."
A fly buzzed and flitted and landed on the thin edge of the paper. Leonard watched it rub it's front legs together, like a greedy cartoon character anticipating some ill-gotten plunder. He stopped breathing. It was something, that insect perched there, praying or plotting or preening.
Leonard sucked in wind forcefully, causing the bug to jump and the dogs to prick up their ears. He exhaled and waited for something.
For the next something.

Those teeth

Thom Skree's teeth conjured both predator and prey. They blinked briefly from beneath his mustache; the thin, long dentition of a carnivore that evoked bones blanched in the sun. He tapped his finger on the desk, or rather on the manuscript laying before him, breaking Harold's transfixion.

"Mr. Bansay. Harold, may I call you Harold? Good. Now..." Skree went on speaking as Harold slipped away again, staring at the movements of the face across the mahogany table. He was not alone, neither on his side of the desk or in his staring, as his mother beside him was equally preoccupied.

'Those teeth,' Harold's mother thought.

'That mustache,' Harold thought.

"Harold," Mr. Skree's voice cut into Harold's reverie. "Please understand, your piece is... unique. Provoking, but..." Skree's fingers emulated his teeth in length and impeccability. Their cuticles brushed invisible lint from his lapels. His tongue ran over his incisors, bulging out his mustache like a mouse under straw. "Given your recent... difficulties, our publishing house has policies regarding business with anyone involved as a defendant in pending felony charges."

Those "difficulties" played through Harold Bansay's daydream as he gazed at Mr. Skree's upper lip. The first, several weeks ago, involved the server at a creperie. According to the police report, the dust-up originated over a dispute of billing, but Harold knew better.

The second, only yesterday, was, in Harold's view, more of a misunderstanding. A miscommunication, really, a folly that under other circumstances would have been a forgettable nonevent easily laughed off, had the other party not been a member of the greater metro police force.

"And," Skree continued. "To be perfectly honest, this isn't really marketable. It's not really Sci-Fi, not suspense, well... We just don't know how to sell this."

Sweat beaded on the bridge of Harold's nose and nostrils. His mother shifted in her seat uncomfortably.

Skree cleared his throat. "Inventive as it is, a story about people who's mustaches control what they say is... AHHHHHHH!" Skree's calm demeanor was shattered as Harold suddenly vaulted across the desk, a glimmering strait razor glinting in his fingers.

Harold's poor mother was aggressively shoved aside as two burley men appeared from nowhere to subdue the ranting author. "I can cut it off, Mr. Skree! You don't know what you're saying! Let me cut it off, Mr. Skree! It's making you say these things!"

After the disarming and forcible removal of Harold from the office, Skree and Mrs. Bansay sat silently contemplating one another. "Mrs. Bansay... Um, I believe your son will be at the police station on 3rd and Morris." He offered a pained smile of consolation. "May I validate your parking?"

'Those teeth,' thought Harold's mother.

Figments

Outside, winds lift skirts and debris. Men with hard livers wipe their faces as they exit dim rooms of pungent air. Branches lash at their supporting trunks, agitated by ghosts and figments and dreams.

Inside, isobars coast in smooth tandem over the pull of a vibrant map. Their brilliant shift and sweep chart dark disturbance, predicting the hereafter. Specters in this box of lights and the shade in my thoughts leer.

The rock-stars of my youth have been sucked into the maw of their muses. Left to rattle my windows, the wraiths of their hot deaths howl like wolves in the wind. The world through the window tilts with the gusts, yet it feels like I'm the one leaning; being bent akimbo by haunts.

Dogs bark in my dreams.

Zippers & Nuts & 8 & 0

Tegan and I went to a Squirrel Nut Zippers concert last night. We (Tegan, actually) was able to procure the signature of both singers and founding members, Jim Mathas and Katharine Whalen.

We approached Jim as he mingled between opening acts, haranguing women with his disarming southern charm. He turned to us with the reek of malt. Obviously plastered, he scrawled "Tegan, *scribble* 2009" across the front of our cd liner. We recoiled to a safe distance.

Katharine was sitting alone after the show. She was gracious and genuinely nice as she put her name on her picture in the booklet. Looking back, we regretted not asking her to accompany us for a drink.

It was 80 degrees here yesterday. Tegan got a sunburn. I wonder if there is still snow on the ground in Wisconsin. Probably not much.

Hazel

What is the essence of a comfortable chair?

Is it the consistency of it's stuffing, the supportive lift of it's foam flesh? The specific way it buttresses our posteriors?

Perhaps its the upholstery. Leather (or faux) is durable and stylish, yet sticky on the backs of legs and occasionally inhumane. Plushy fuzz is delightfully soft on a bare bottom (tee hee) yet acts like a sponge for filth, which is, of course, the reason one should avoid seating the bare bottom upon them. Suede scuffs like an infant's skin, and is best avoided where boisterousness may ensue.

Maybe comfort is in the color. Do we revel in seats shrouded with scintillating stain? Or possibly we picture ourselves as others see us, seated on our fashionable accessory. Fashion screams wealth, which is why so many good folks want $300 for a used La-Z-Boy on Craigslist.

My chair is comfy, and I know why. From it's vantage, I am assured my favorite view: my wife's eyes. Whether they grace me with the steeple brow of tired patronization or squint with frustrated confusion, I will see them from my chair. Rest assured, in a troubled world. And that is comforting.