Fish are not made of breadcrumbs, nor are they made of wool.
Bile rose in his throat as he examined his girlfriend’s latest expensive Sculptural Acquisition: a six-foot bronze casting of “Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of SpongeBob.”
I developed a love of hyperbole in adulthood during a period when many, many bill-collectors would call us, night and day; fighting down hysterical giggles borne of panic, I would weave fantastic tales about ten-car pileups or alcoholic payroll embezzlers.
Bob secretly yearned for an eraserless world.
i would spend it here.
If I had it all to do again, it would certainly require a lot of aspirin.
The phone rings whenever I sit down on the toilet, without fail, but because I’m behind on my bills, it also rings whenever I get up, so there’s really no escape.
You are like displacement so that when you are not with me, the water never quite reaches the perfect level to kiss that familiar and comfortable ring stained around the tub that no bleach can conquer.
It certainly cut into his mystique when they learned that Raoul the handsome pool boy was from Phoenix rather than Costa Rica, and his name was really Joe Peterson, but it wasn’t enough to fire him unless Homeland Security found out.
i have just plunked down another portion of my open credit card in order to become a certifiable 6-12 english teacher which, if we’ve been following along here, i had no intention of becoming, so why did i do this thing, you ask: they have no art certification fast track, i will have to add art on after i am certified in six months or so or, in other words, because it was there.
I know this can’t be a coincidence - I was just looking at my profile and realised wonderously that I’m now member number 8, which means that Keith not only noticed my fondness for the number 8, but remembered it and acted upon it when he set up new Scrine (thanks Keith)!
You’ve got your green with envy, and you’ve got your penis envy, but combine the two, and well, now you’ve got yourself something altogether different.
“God, you’re absofuckinglutely right,” said my therapist, suddenly sitting bolt upright in her chair.
“It’s like trying to sell shoes to a guy in Brooklyn.”
Lying blissfully in the kiddies pool under the shade tent she almost dozed off to sleep until - SPLASH - she found herself eye to well, thing with a man in a very brief g-string speedo.
Wine works a lot better than beer, but expensive drinks made by recent immigrants are the most effective of all.
Everything in Joan’s life on that epic day was deeply significant, though later she would always wonder what all those monster trucks tracks on her lawn meant, symbolically speaking.
What if before ever reaching that last breath something simply snapped, and the line from here to there no longer mattered and we just floated off, all the old familiar struggle, the heaps of memory, the cuts and the blood, the blurred vision and confusion and silence just slipping through our fingertips until it was no more?
Next time I travel interstate, I am definitely going to have to buy a packet of Ginger Nuts and try the difference for myself.
She prodded her heart, watching it pump the blood around her chest cavity, and thought “if this is real, I think I’m in a lot of trouble.”
“On account of my last mojo tooth fallin’ out,” Stick Leg Willie would say, explaining the reason behind his recent dry spell with the ladies.
Keith, is it possible to put a button on the screen that appears after the post is posted, so that I could go directly to scrine’s main page?
i’ve just broken into my scrine mailbox in desperation and found 103 (or so) messages; and to think i had been feeling neglected- i’m down to 59 now, and…and i love all of you (you didn’t see that beer i just took a slug off of did you?).
Trees are simply nature making a better calendar.
The official galactic rule was to introduce a new savior to the world every 10,000 years, although most people knew it was hardly ever enforced.
Monroe held up the flawlessly-executed handout, entitled “The Life Cycle of Legislation: From Idea To Law”, and realized it was exactly big enough to serve as a placemat for the dog’s dishes.
Bile rose in his throat as he examined his girlfriend’s latest expensive Sculptural Acquisition: a six-foot bronze casting of “Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of SpongeBob.”
After my completely and utterly disorienting nap, I’m suspicious that everything I know is wrong.
There is no room for shame in consumer packaging.
I was sitting quietly at my desk when I heard a young female voice say, “You know, I just HATE men who drink diet soda” and suddenly a chorus of other female voices chiming in their agreement.
“Christ, Annabelle - what are all of these dead monkeys doing in the crawl space?”
It is a little known fact that there is a John Cusack movie appropriate for every mood.
When I coughed (I was so embarrassed!) feathers flew out of my mouth: little ones, tiny ones, black and red, curving through the air, perfectly unbloodied and almost comical but, yes, entirely, yes, criminal because, you see, all those who were around me, and there were at least a dozen, stopped what they were doing and stared, all eyes on me, all black and no red, water still dripping from our beaks, amazed that I could cough (I didn’t know either! who among us can cough!) but distracted by the fact a murder came out of my throaty anomoly: little ones, tiny ones, black and red.
All of my problems would be solved with the purchase of a goat to mow my lawn
The circling of the wagons, the massing of the troops, the flocking of the….mere scriners are called to attend.
Once Jerry realized that a rift in time had formed within the men’s room, and that time halted as soon as he sat down, he began furtively taking armloads of entertainment with him every time he went in such as a can of Coke, a newspaper, his Blackberry, and a shaver.
I become Creepy Floyd.
Hungry for sentences, he scrounged without shame, his upturned legs kicking the air along the lip of the dumpster.
In the geometry of desire, pain is a given.
The garbage men have arrived once again and goddamn if they aren’t taking all that leftover stuff again.
Acronyms flew around the conference room like startled bats, but Josie had finally learned not to pause or flinch - even when a few got caught in her hair.
Charlie’s face wrinkled in distaste as he muttered under his breath, “That’s the last time, by Gawd, I have Kentucky Jelly on my English Muffin.”
It dawned on Henry one morning that finding a duck in his city had become easier than finding an innocent little girl; the call girl, lying in bed next to him, agreed.
Something flew across the air towards the innocent little girl (it appeared to be a boot).
Ah, Mom, next time you suspect me of sleeping in a pile of my own feces, please act surprised; I need to believe that I am not giving out a “likely to shit herself” vibe.
The television, at this very moment, is trying to sell my children auto insurance.
I’m putting Goliard in for the Spanglemonkey, “Sneaky as ‘mouse, and just as lucky with the random guessing of passwords and other secrety-secrets” award, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about that’s because you’re not supposed to, duh.
Think before you speak - that way if you are intending to upset someone you can do a much better job of it.
She looked at the blank piece of paper and it did nothing but look right back at her.
In case the al fresco all-you-can-eat lotus buffet was not sufficiently tempting, the wily lotus-eaters had other inducements to offer.
is the question on Janis’ mind now as they cross into some hellish backwater that reminds her of South Carolina, or maybe Georgia; she was so fucked up that particular night that her memory has transfixed into dream images and horrific still-pictures or unreliable chemicalized cocktails of both, it is with the same lack of clarity that she remembers his name is Leonard (who finds much more efficacy in the V8 transmission as Janis finds Cheap Thrills, out of the cd case and off the back of his hand, in an alternating manner).
If you have been following Mr. Debonair’s Travel Tips (available for $5.00, payable in cheque or Money Order in US funds, and accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope), you already have on your person the Indispensable Traveler’s Friend: a Cocktail Napkin.
Last week, the Universe commanded me to buy a journal - I mean a real, bound, paper journal - but to date, there’s been no word on what I’m supposed to do with it.
It wasn’t until late in life, after his skin had grown dry and loose and was beginning to sag, that Leonard really took notice of just how big his alligator bite scar actually was.
It was supposed to have been a day for answers; instead, the day brought question upon question, none of which she knew how to answer.
said the cowboy, and almost by instinct he ran to the back of the semi trailer and threw open the doors, out of which tumbled two Mexican men and a blue duffle bag; the men muttered, “Gracias, Asshole… Hey, what happened to the other guy?” and turned and walked off into the desert as the cowboy picked up the duffle bag and swung up into the back seat of the Explorer, next to Janis, who yanked at the zipper exposing six kilos of cocaine, neatly shrinkwrapped.
helped Janis into the passenger side, and noticed the Glock tucked into the back of her miniskirt, formerly hidden by her flowing baggy shirt: he was bound and determined to get that truck down the road and away from the man that he might’ve just beaten to death pure instinct and adrenaline screaming ‘Get Away, Quick’; but the determination wouldn’t keep the truck moving and it became obvious to Janis that they needed a new ride and she nudged him into pulling over and staying put as she jumped down in one fluid movement and stuck a well turned leg out onto the pavement toe in the air, heel on the ground, and then a thumb to the passing Explorer that was blissfully unaware, and thumping with the sound of a tricked out stereo system…
I seriously do not remember posting that last one.
good.
How many of you can see my fabulous new blog without the old one showing up?
The rain it raineth on the just, and also on the unjust fella - but chiefly on the just, because the unjust steals the just’s umbrella.
Something happened to me today that was so peculiar, so odd, so startlingly, precisely unusual that I can’t seem to do it justice by explaining it to someone else, let alone manage to explain it in one sentence.
The wind swang round to the south and she swayed backwards with the delightfully cool breeze; all the fission that had been occuring in her brain slowly reversed itself and she was, once again, able to think clearly.
“Back on 24th of January 2006 - I’ve Gone to Get Married!”
“Back on 30th of January 2006 - I’ve Extended the Honeymoon!”
No other shoe is equally at home at the elegant bar at The Palm in Buckhead – Atlanta’s tony entertainment district – and the shit-filled back alleys of Bangladesh.
Hot stones sound like excellent massage/relaxation therapy, but just see what happens when you swallow one.
He stood amidst the twisted, gnarled ruins that lay scattered on the blasted heath; whereupon his eye was drawn to a basalt slab that bore a legend, carven in ancient runes: “Another Useless Fucking Shopping Center.”
If only the quality of burning could be applied to each of us in turn could the anodyne of soothing peace be applied in the aftermath of our integral and individual conflagrations; we fail, we fail, oh so majestically we fail beneath the eyes of
“Whooh, look-it all the pretty coloured dots”.
As her traveling companion stared blissfully at his reflection in the side mirror, she relaxed her grip on the wheel, thought to herself, I will hurt him badly unless he navigates me to some goddamn pie and coffee already, and cranked up the volume on the extended dance mix of “Master and Servant.”
Reading a book that discusses the vain brain can really mess with your sense of self; you’ll find yourself wondering if you really are wondering about your self or just your idealised version of your self and then wondering if even that idealised version is real or just a wonderful made-up version of that same self.
The little girl sat on the scorched lawn, in front of the red verandah, with the garden sprinkler tik-tik-tiking away, when suddenly the wind changed direction and she looked up into the horizon to see the wind roar across the plains towards her; it smelt of abattoirs and salt, and it felt as though it would flay the skin from her tiny body.
It.s R. Stephens Tasmanian Honey, real leatherwood. it means she loves me more.
Detective Seamus Wong stepped into the Irish pub, nodded curtly to the barkeep, and surveyed the crowd with his slaintè eyes.
If eyes are the window to the soul, is it also true that that ears are the tent flaps to the id?
People had always told him he was too optimisitc and too willing to trust people, but the moment the trucker got close he knew that sour, evil scent and what it meant, so when the trucker moved around behind him as he looked under the hood, he sensed the blow coming, rolled to the side and took the smashing hit of the metal bar on his shoulder instead of his head; the woman reacted fast too, slamming the hood down on the trucker, leaving him unconscious or perhaps even dead.
Bob looked at the reflection in the mirror, contemplated the blackish-purple, sighed, and said to himself, “It’s going to be another bad eye day.”
he never noticed the southbound truck that she had her good eye on, until the air brakes squealed to a stop; and even then he expected this ‘good samaritan’, this nice boy with the dirty hands and buccaneer cap, to only offer help in getting them back on the road.
If no one talks to me and nothing whatsoever changes from this moment forward, I might just be able to maintain this unexpectedly good mood.
“Tubs of ‘Cactus Creek’ Margarita Mix - just add a bottle of tequila and freeze overnight for freezy margarita cocktails.”
“It is assumed that papers will include some form of original material, new research, or special insight into a topic, whether the topic itself has been researched in the past or not.”
“Papers are expected to sustain discussion; quality, scholarship and substance are more important than size.”
“You are *not* the Carton Wench!”
Always nice to venture out into the world and see people who are much worse off than myself.
As he reached out to open the hood she hopped playfully on it, crossed her legs so her miniskirt showed her left thigh to best advantage, leaned provocatively forward, and made playful, inviting puppy dog eyes at him, so she was a bit surprised when he looked right past her and said, “What’s that shiny thing over there under that tumbleweed?”
In the quiet she heard the cat clear her throat and say “Eh wot?” in her best cockney accent, which I must tell you was not very convincing.
she clasped the joint gently between her lips, expertly tilting her head to keep the smoke out of her eyes, and unfolded the battered map from the glove compartment; just as the car sputtered to a stop and he white-knuckled them safely off the deserted highway in a cloud of dust as she laughed with glee and suggested they needed time to polish that hood anyhow…
A lack of wind and a light snowfall can ease the soul immeasurably some days.
is anyone else deriving the beneficent fortitude i am from the apparent fact that we are all in our heaps o’ trouble here and that in our numbers, if in nothing else, there is solace?
Now, I know some folks just dote on those Upper Colonics, but just how twisted do you have to be in order to give yourself an enema in a public restroom?
“Oh-oh” thought Becky, as she was sucked down the dark, narrow and, above all, fluffy tunnel, “those trees are just not going to fit in here”.
The broken glass made interesting spider-like patterns, captivating her in an unexpected way; surely the shock would set in soon?
‘Welcome to the real world,’ he said and carefully peeled away the corner of the house to reveal a path of crushed bones leading down into an area of the canvas where the artist had yet to properly complete the shading.
As she drank yet another cup of green tea and ate yet another desultory New York deli breakfast, her mind danced with visions of creamy scrambled eggs, oatmeal with golden syrup, toast with thick-cut marmalade, a single round of bacon and black tea so tannic you had to bite it in half to drink it properly.
“This can’t be good,” she thought, as a gust of wind blew the back of her coat over her head.
A poor satellite feed caused the television image to jink and fractalize, turning the sports announcer’s face into an hallucinogenic nightmare of misplaced eyeballs, shattered teeth, and a multiplicity of noses.
I once freed a woman from a solemn vow of marriage in exchange for a batch of chocolate chip meringue cookies.
Wouldn’t you rather your hot dog was 15cm than 6in?
Habitat for Humanity is making money on the discarded body parts of washed-up starship captains.
As woman is to shoes, man is to a) fish, b) bicycles, c) MP3s.
Since most things in life having to do with the concept of “comfort” also have to do with the tongue and other organs of base bodily sensation (skin, for instance) it makes no sense at all that important peace conferences and political debates don’t always take place in hot tubs while eating delicious bon-bons.
The top was down on the dusty old Mustang, and as she passed him the perfectly rolled joint and took a sip from the bottle, the wind blew her hair back, exposing her long neck and the sharp line of her collarbone which he imagined would smell slightly of desert sage.
In the county of the deaf…the one-eared man is king.
Keith, in all your spare time, could you think about designing (or telling me how to use/place if it’s aready do-able) a feature like Jo’s doing at Spanglemonkey—I too want to keep a record down the side of ‘mouse of all I read as I read it, and it’d be just fine with me if you show me how to code Amazon links for each linkable book in the way that you’d get paid in the unlikely event that my notes ever lead to any click-through purchase and referral business.
A cowboy headed east, pursued by his responsibilities and a monitor lizard holding a grudge; pushed on by the mysterious hitchhiker squeezing the bottle of tequila between her bare thighs while rolling a joint on the dashboard.
it seems i am become ignatius reilly.
While the ability to ignore dead rodents isn’t necessarily the most attractive personality trait a person can have, it does, from time to time, come in quite handy.
I woke with a start and was mildly disappointed to discover that enormous trolls were not battering my house, but merely 80mph winds.
The exploded remains of the cow sogged purpily about the place and Becky knew, she just knew, that this time the potato snake was on the scene.
Big Al sat there, in the room full of vampirous victims, sipping his stout and wondered whether beer really is good for you after you’ve donated blood, or was it something to do with the people in charge?
For firefox:”A small beer icon appears in the status bar of your browser which periodically alerts you to the time until beer o’clock: “17 hours ‘til beer o’clock”; messages are not just displayed in hours and minutes [o, no!] but other time-frames that may be more relevant to you.. .”
I can post clearly now the rain has gone, Keith has removed all obstacles in my way, gone are the dark clouds that had me blind, it’s going to be a bright, bright sunScriney day.
A good pie crust is nought but Flour and Grease…but oh, so flaky good.
Get in that Exact Change lane, and you can make book on there being at least one Gaping Asshole who will either have nothing but a Double Sawbuck, or who will rummage throughout the entire cabin of his or her vehicle, looking for the exact change that they almost certainly don’t have.
I could make a list of many thing that I hope you never have to do at the office; listening to your boss discuss on the phone with his son said son’s diagnosis with the same type of cancer that said boss had 10 years ago would be near the top.
When your nine-year-old son turns to you in the personal hygiene section of the grocery store and asks “What are those for, Mom?” you must try very hard to keep a straight face while promising to explain it all after you get home.
I should hire myself out as a secret weapon.
There is no such thing as “sweet cream buttermilk.”
“You are showing all the initiative and forward motion of a houseplant.”
Disturbingly human, they looked – almost as though they were men encased in white, waxy, living sarcophagi.
Julie noted ruefully that there is a meaningful difference in the intensity of the hangover from drinking four martinis over the course of a long evening compared with what happens when you drink the same amount of gin from a water glass 15 minutes before going to bed.
Older-style $10 bills remind me of my mother.
If the whole world became Vegans, would there be a feral cow problem?
“Listen, you can’t call me up, call me an asshole, and expect me to know who you are.”
thank you, keith for this beautiful birthday present and i certainly hope its wondrous beauteousness will convince the rest of the club to get their very own scrine blogs faster than you can put ‘em up!
Dammit (me either) - I tried to write a smart alek reply but alas the commentary wouldn’t be accepted and I was left with yet another blank comment screen - oh well…
Crayons taste like purple :)
Come about the razor shore to witness along the piers cheering people who do not see you on the mast in continual decay but themselves in continual ascension.
Let me just say it’s very e xciting to hear noises that there will soon be more company in the nest.
Becky stood at the edge of the world and swayed her arms left and right, fingers outstretched and grinning from ear to ear and as the colours of the rainbow streamed down below her, each person burst into a giant lollypop, a traffic cone, a sunflower, a fern, a small nebulae, an elephant or a chocolate.
As the evening breeze stirred Dalia’s hair and whipped the edge of her sarong around her legs, she looked around and thought “well, it’s an empty street and it’s very dark anyway…”
testing testing, whoop?
“Just right,” said Poppa Bear, and he ate her all up.
just checking. haven’t heard anything since saturday and then mouse said you “changed the rules.” there were rules?
I just thought you were busy…
Sometimes you’re the bug. (Dire Straits)
“You would find the standards you set for yourself unduly cruel if applied to others.”
What might be good for what I anticipate to be upcoming months of sheer hell, might be some kind of library I keep for myself of Things That Would Cheer Me Up, No Matter What.
i heard this morning, on the radio no less (albeit on a holiday, but then the university owns the radio station) that the university from which i recently was separated just fired three people, a director, assistant and clerk, from a department that, erm, misplaced six figures’ worth of checks amounting to more than half their yearly budget, where “misplaced” means, um, well, misplaced: the checks were found, expired from cashability, stuck in folders and under various things probably for the better part of a year or more, i would imagine from my intimate knowledge of the way things work there, this being the place that “downsized” me because i was too inflexible and “old school” and they wanted to do it their way, remember.
Spent the first part of the week mourning the frogs’ passing, and now I understand that the polar bears are on their way out, too.
Why does it make me so sad to realize that my children share none of my memories of them as babies?
You’d think a week of nothing would lead up to something, but it doesn’t.
check yer blogrolls: i have it on good authority that two (2) scriners—one with a much coveted camera complete with the associated skills and the other with a small rabbit—are, this very weekend and probably even as i type, evacuating southward into the bay area to escape le deluge for awhile: 1)search mission, 2)meetup and reconnoiter, 3)post pictures (i’ve always wanted to observe reconnoitering.)
I’ve begun to crave simple boredom.
that little cursive squiggle e is how i sign my name, and how i started getting called e in the first place so it looks like this is a good place for me (or, when i was stuck on the m-less keyboard that would have come out a good place for e, which amounts to much the same thing.)
After the fifth conversation of the day in which the replies she received bore little or no relation to the statements she gave, Jen began to wonder if she had suffered some form of quiet brain damage, and if what sounded like normal discourse in her mind was actually so much gibberish in the ears of the world.
You might think that it would be a good idea to make a maple-walnut pie using your best pecan pie recipe, substituting walnuts for pecans and extra-strong maple syrup for the Lyle’s golden syrup, but it really is not.
Just call me mint sauce.
It’s a nasty little trap, there’s nowhere you can run, no one you an call for help and no way to leave your own trap; indeed, there is no solution for our hero… or is there?
You know where this one’s leading…
This is fun.
Since mouse stole my ‘boot on foot’ idea, I thought I’d try this one on for size.