EARNED LEADERSHIP. [GMT-7 LOS ANGELES]
—-
her lips spread wide across her face
as she smiled at my joke,
—-
and whispered
“take me
to your leader.”
—-
I followed her out of the bar,
I introduced her to herself.
—-
REVOLT. [GMT-7 LOS ANGELES]
April 17th, 2012
Dear Diary,
Today we flew back home to Maine, but first I saw a man naked. We were standing in the line at the airport and then I looked up and there was a man there without any clothes on! I repeat: no clothes at all. It was really scary because who goes to the airport without any clothes on? I didn’t know what else he might do. I started crying but I don’t know why.
My parents talked about the man the whole flight back, but maybe that’s because they knew I was crying about it. Like I just told you berfore, I don’t know why I was crying. Maybe it is because he was fat and old and when I think of a naked man I think its going to be Zac Efron, but now I will always think of old fat man. His butt was flabby and moved even when he was standing still, and I don’t really get that. Also but the worst part was his front side. That hair there was everywhere and looked like my grandmother’s head, and his pee pee was sticking out of there too. It was like a little wrinkly nose. When we were in Port Land we went to the Zoo, and there were these naked mole rats there and it looked like a naked mole rat. Not just because of the name naked though! Because it also was wrinkly and looked like a naked mole rat who couldn’t see anything and was really scary because it had these big teeth and the teeth were the first thing that knocked into each other when the mole rats scurried around in their tubes. The pee pee was like that it was frightening and always seemed like it went first before everything else like a mole rat biting its way into things with its tiny teeth.
Mom and Dad didn’t know I was listening but they said they heard the fat old man say he was “humiliated” when the security people felt him for bombs. I don’t know cause shouldn’t he be even more humiliated after he took his clothes off and was naked? I’m going to go to sleep now, but I can’t stop thinking of the naked mole rat and the teeth.
Love,
Jennifer
Twitter: @BenBenCaro
I’ll say it once
I’ll say it again
I’ll say it a few times
I’ll say it several more times
Have you gotten it yet?
Now you think of it in the shower
You think of it on your way to work
While in the grocery store
What was that again?
Why did you have to tell me
How could you forget.
Let me remind you
While driving
Or taking public transport
Or watching your stories
Or listening to other songs
You hate that you know it
It’s stuck
As it should be.
Thank goodness it’s gone now.
The square-jawed office manager looks at the red, blue, yellow and green squares between his fingers. Elbows planted on his desk, he peers through his rectangle glasses at the Rubik’s Cube. The air is still in his office. Four live ficusses sit in each corner, doing their best fake plant impersonations.
John knocks on the door. “Hey Phil, you busy?” Phil blinks hard at the cube, then sets it down. His eyes adjust at John, something large and blurry standing in the doorway.
“What do you need?”
“Just wondering if we can turn up the A/C in this place.” His left hand twitches, and it catches Phil’s eye. John’s nervous, though his eyes stay fixated.
“Yeah, no problem. I’ll take care of that in a bit.” Phil leans forward over the desk, and lifts up the Rubik’s Cube. John backs out of the doorway.
John catches Gary’s eye as he walks down the hallway past the rest of the cubicles. He shakes his head no at Gary, sighs, and walks back to his desk.
Gary turns around. “I don’t get it.” He throws a dart at the picture of Richard Simmons he has pinned up to the felt side of his cubicle. “What does that guy do all day?” Sheila, sitting at the neighboring desk, grunts, then checks Facebook. “I mean,” he says, “This office is going to hell. The plants are dying, it’s way too hot in here. I don’t know why we’re sitting near each other. We don’t even work together.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, you’re right about that.” Gary continues.
“And all that guy does is sit there at his desk, thinking he can do anything he likes because he has his own room. He’s probably drinking beer in there. He’s probably drunk.”
“I wish I was drunk,” says Sheila. “It would make your complaining a little more bearable.”
Gary ignores her, or never heard her. “I think I’ve had it. How many times have you put in a request to move desks away from me? It’s time you’ve said something.” Sheila gets up to use the copier without looking at him. He taps on his desk a couple times, looks around his cube. “I’m going to say something.”
Phil furrows his brow at the cube. He just can’t twist it right. Each column connects to another. The entire array falls apart for one desire to fall into place. There’s the part you brace yourself for, and then there’s the part you never saw coming.
He hears a knock. “Phil,” says Gary. “Stop playing with your damn cube. There are real problems here. How many times have we asked for you to move us. And all you do is sit there.”
“I’m trying,” says Phil.
“Bullshit. Get up. Get up off of your desk. I’ve got to eat a sandwich before I do anything stupid, but when I get back here in fifteen or an hour, you better not be here. There better be some changes in this office. Things have better be different.” Gary would’ve slammed the door if the door wasn’t always open.
Phil stays absolutely still, listening to his own uneven breath, until the sound Gary’s footsteps diminish completely, and he can think. Phil lets out his breath, and brings the cube up to his eyeglasses. He closes his eyes, and thinks about a perfect world. Twist. Sheila’s desk slides twenty feet toward the far wall. Twist. Gary’s cubicle moves into her place. Twist. John’s cubicle rumbles up to Gary, where the air moves more freely.
He doesn’t let a drop of sweat distract him. People will always need, and the cube never fits neat.
So I’m walking down the street and I hear this bang, this huge freakin’ bang, and I’m like “what was that?” Then this bird falls right onto the top of the storefront. I look up, feathers floating down everywhere. It must’ve ran into the building.
A bunch of us gather around this bird that’s lying on the ground, not dead at all. Its eyes are wide with terror. Something seems different about this animal. I kept thinking it was looking at me. A few people were asking if we should do anything, if we should call anybody. Who is there to call? When somebody offered to drop it in the trash, all he got was dirty looks, so he walked away.
I couldn’t handle all of that, what to do and all of that, so I ducked into the store. I don’t know why I didn’t just leave. It was some florist that I never knew existed. They had a modest arrangements of flowers outside, but nothing that stuck out to me. There was just a little man in the back behind a counter, and he could hardly see me it was so stuffed in there. The smell of cleaning fluid and plant permeated around me, and I began to calm down I think.
People began to disperse outside. I brought my hand to a soft pink-colored carnation, the edges turning red like the blood insides of a peach. I leaned in and took in the smell. Such a small thing. I felt a lot better.
My wings are getting tired. My eyes burn with the raw wind ripping by. Usually, I land this time of day, but I’ve had it. The flock’s gone out. The lady’s lost it. I keep seeing some nice tree on the outskirts of town, phone lines, skyscrapers. But I just can’t do it anymore. Goodbye, cruel world. I’m not going to land.
Is there love in drugs?
Shit…
So what is there? I mean I’m asking.
And I’m tellin’ you. Every mother-fuckin’ dope fiend out there is chasing somethin, and never quite getting there.
So what are you chasing, Curt?
Man, let me tell you somethin. When you get that first shot of dope, it’s the best mother fuckin’ feeling in your life. It’s better than sex. And every time after that, you’re looking for the first time. Over and over again.
And?
*Look of shock, then disappointment. Sighs, then starts walking away slowly using a cane. He looks back, shakes his head, laughs to himself, then walks on.*
-From HBO miniseries “The Corner”
REJECTED WORKING TITLES FOR THE SHOW “HOUSE M.D.”
Home O.T.
(they were afraid people would mistake the show to be “Homo Tea”)
Apartment Fellow
Mom’s Basement Intern
Garage Gynecologist
Loft R.N.
Mansion Resident
Teepee T.L.
Boathouse Colonoscopist
Peanut Butter Tower
A stack of anywhere from four to twelve different types of peanut butter jars, attached via adhesive, capable of distributing various kinds of peanut butter. As opposed to a traditional jar, the condiment must exit through the side.
Unfortunately, the peanut butter tower can only be used once until it becomes a complete mess and a waste of peanut butter.
On the plus side, there’s nothing cooler than a stack of peanut butter that tall and impractical.
Myspace
2003-2008
Killed by Facebook and a dirge of sexual predators. Due for reanimation by Dr. Timberlake in the coming future.
My Childhood
1988- 2001
Animated TV series Action Man is cancelled after 2nd season. New after school hobby: nap-taking.
Hidden Treasures
1993-1995
A short-lived corn cereal that was filled with different flavors of fruit filling. Every puff looked the same, yet you could never be sure. Survived by a similar cereal that Trader Joe’s introduced around 2009, then again, several months later, discontinued.
“It’s not rocket science”
1960s-2011
I can’t think of anything more retro-sounding than “rocket science,” so I’m declaring this phrase dead. Survived by, in suggestion: nano-technology, macroeconomic finance, Anthony Weiner PR.
I sit and shine this green lazer (‘lazer’ looks cooler than ‘laser’) into the sky from my friend’s apartment on the 10th floor of a building in Bangkok. Little do I know, I just triggered a series of events that have tens of people scrambling, excited to finally prove the skeptics wrong. They are receiving contact from another world, another intelligent civilization. How can this signal be decoded? Is it encrypted? Who created and transmitted this beam of light? What are they trying to say? Are they peaceful? What do they look like? Does the capability to interact with them even exist? Is this simply some drunk kid playing with a ฿500 laser pointer that his friend bought off of a little old lady with a basket full of novelty toys on Khaosan Road?
I talked to a friend recently who said that if she was asked as a child what superpower she’d want, she’d say to be able to know every language so she could speak to anybody.
If I could choose a superpower, I’d choose to be able to time travel. That way I could tell my stupid ass friend to pick a better superpower since everybody’s going to know English anyway.
TV PILOT: “Throw Forward”
GENRE: Supernatural police procedural
SLOGAN: How far would you throw?
CONCEPT: After a night of drinking and a morning nursing himself on quiche lorraine, homicide detective Gary Kessler realizes that his upchuck consists not of items previously eaten, but of things he will be eating in the future. Using this knowledge, Gary is able to pinpoint his next day whereabouts by puking and locating the approximate crime scene of a murder yet to happen. As Kessler spirals deeper into an ever more dangerous case of bulimia, he must try to stop the impending murders in his own cases. In a world where crimes might be halted before they could ever occur, Throw Forward asks the question, what if you could predict the future through your vomit?
…And how far would you throw?
My sweet breakfast:
First, prepare a nice mug of hot chocolate with cinnamon and pepper. Please fry some bacon and keep the fat on the side. Then, prepare a slice of white bread with beans and tomato’s jam and on the top serve the bacon. In order to everything goes well, please add the bacon’s fat to the milk and mix it until it gets an orange color.
Be red, yellow, then pale.
The chef
Kari asked Paul a question. “Why is there always some crust around the side of your mouth?” He’s told her about his skin condition before. “It’s from that thing I told you about. You already knew about that.” He brought his hand up to his face and rubbed his mouth. “Thanks for noticing,” he said, glibly. “What?” she shot back. “I was just asking.”
Hector posed Theresa a thought. “I wonder if your mother would make more money if she was white.” This was a weird thing to say, thought Theresa, as Hector’s mom was white. “I don’t know. We weren’t all blessed with your varied heritage,” said Theresa, the emphasis on “varied” smothering, protecting a wound. “What?” he said. “I was just wondering.”
Jacob told Charles a joke. “But then she wouldn’t have tried to break up with you!” he said. Charles’ face dropped, and he was suddenly very disappointed in his friend. He’d had a rough day, a few drinks at the end that didn’t help. He gave Jacob a look that told him he was not happy. “Oh, don’t be a baby. I was just kidding.”
“So if you’re kidding, I shouldn’t take it seriously?” Jacob thought for a moment. “Yeah.” Charles: “And then it wouldn’t hurt.” Jacob again answered, “Yeah.” “Okay, well, you promise not to take this seriously?” Jacob shrugged. Couldn’t see the harm. “Sure.”
Charles told Jacob a joke. He promptly punched him in the face with a fist like a rock. Jacob reeled in his stool, grabbed hold of the counter to keep from falling. “What the fuck?” he yelped. “Oh, don’t be a baby,” said Charles. “I was just kidding.”
There are three men on the Amtrak Acela Express at 10AM. One of them is an political analyst and one of them is a Senator and one of them is a lobbyist.
They have just left Washington DC and crossed into the border of Maryland and they look out the window to see a liberal hippie with a sign that reads “Down with this sort of thing.”
The political analyst says, “Look, the hippies in Maryland are unemployed.” And the Senator says, “No. There are hippies in Maryland of which at least one is unemployed.” And the lobbyist says, “No. There is at least one hippie in Maryland, of which one side of the sign appears to be promoting the unemployed, which supposes that he has not been affected by government final consumption expenditures.”
And this is funny because political analysts are not real scientists and because Senators think more clearly, but lobbyists are best.
[Re-imagination of Mark Haddon’s “Three Men See a Cow”]
