“Maybe I’m in love with you,” she said to the metal bird, whose only reply was to hand her a peanut butter cookie with one twisted and somewhat rusty claw.
It’s surprising how much pleasure can be derived from catching up with people you haven’t seen since before ‘a long time ago’ even came to be - and - other than the fact that they’ve grown up, had a family and “stuff”, it’s warming to find that the things you loved about them ‘way back when’ are the things you find yourself loving about them now.
As inspired by: Jo's An Odd Affair
“There’s only one peck missing,” the bird added, after giving her words considerable thought.
“I really shouldn’t be this happy,” Ron said to his best friend as they strolled contentedly through the park toward the bar where they liked to drink Guinness on Friday afternoons, “my wife is older, my whiskey comes in plastic bottles, I barely have beer money, and my horse… well, it’s a minivan and not fast at all.”
People are like pencils - some are sharp, some are blunt, some are well chewed on, some are virginal, some are lost, and some are just cracked.
As a person who hasn’t worked a “real” job in years, and whose last “real” job was teaching snot-nosed undergraduates how to write a finely-honed, five-paragraph essay, I have to ask; is it true that about a third or more of those people with “jobs” are actually sitting with their thumbs up their asses for eight to ten hours a day?
“Goodness,” she thought to herself when she saw the dropdown menus to the right, but shortly before she realized her error, “how interesting to put ‘display my member’ in a dropdown box!”
Today, I feel like I have all the creativity of a crushed grape.
Sam had all his great life experiences whilst stalking people: following strangers led him to exquisite restaurants and secluded bars, introduced him to fine art, multicultural festivals, churches of every denomination; sent him to listen to musical bands he’d never have dreamed of otherwise seeing; and portrayed for him the entire gamut of human emotions, from the happiness of a ridiculously over-the-top wedding affair, to the pathetic blubberings of a terminal cancer patient on the day the doctors finally abandoned chemotherapy…
“Well, your concept definitely has merit,” she told her son, “but I’m not sure how we’d get the antibiotics into a high-pressure hose in order to force them into your cat, much less hold him down for the process.”
For it must be remembered that at the time I knew quite nothing, naturally, concerning Milo Payne, the mysterious Cockney-talking Englishman with the checkered long-beaked Sherlockholmsian cap; nor of the latter’s “Barr-Bag” which was as like my own bag as one Milwaukee wienerwurst is like another; nor of Legga, the Human Spider, with her four legs and her six arms; nor of Ichabod Chang, ex-convict, and son of Dong Chang; nor of the elusive poetess, Abigail Sprigge; nor of the Great Simon, with his 2163 pearl buttons; nor of—in short, I then knew quite nothing about anything or anybody involved in the affair of which I had now become a part, unless perchance it were my Nemesis, Sophie Kratzenschneiderwümpel—or Suing Sophie!
The Riddle of the Traveling Skull (1934), Harry Stephen Keeler
Breaking into houses has never been the hard part; it’s the cleaning, rearranging, and reprogramming of the TiVo that take the most out of a person, and then there’re the library books to be taken out in the homeowner’s name…
A bit on the lazy side, Ted didn’t think much about sweating during the winter.
but here’s the latest: when last we visited, i had been scammed by a woman at a stoplight at the end of a freeway offramp, who threw on her breaks when the light turned green so that I might run into her, which i barely avoided doing since i take my foot off the brake when lights turn green, but still hadn’t put it on the gas, so i was able to avoid actual collision, just kissing the back of her bumper, which didn’t seem to matter to her since she still set up a hue and cry and called her husband on her cel phone and handed the phone to me while the sherriffs came to see why there was a snafu at the offramp and were so bemused they just moved her off to the nearest parking lot and handed her a form, since there was absolutely no damage, at which point i became more aware of things beyond the absurdity of the situation and used the camera i always carry for my art practices to take pictures of the rear end of her car, which had absolutely no damage, and filled out the papers and left, only to receive a call from my insurance company a couple of days later that she was not only claiming, but claiming bodily injury, at which i emailed them the photos of her car which i had taken at the scene and they sent somebody out to take pictures of my car, which also showed no damage, no marks at all really beyond what scratches one might expect in 2005 on the bumper of a 1999 car, which bumper is set to crumple completely at impact of merely 3 miles per hour yet showed no eidence of any hit at all, because there was none, and then i decided to forget about it because if this woman wants to sue there’s not much i can do about it, which turns out to be correct as today i got a message on my answering machine that my insurance company wants to talk to me before sending me a letter, which doesn’t sound good at all, and so i am prepared to have everything taken away from me for this thing i didn’t do and to be able, at last, to start again (again) from scratch somewhere else; please?
“And some nights she was a skank monster, violent and paranoid and gun-crazy.”*
Oh, that’s right, I forgot about PMS, goddamn it.
As inspired by: Keith's Minimalist Jones, Again
Minimalist Jones met Mr. Cheevy,
And thought him much too chancy,
The iron clothes an assault on sense,
And certainly much too fancy.
As inspired by: Keith's Seasonals
“Someone, won’t someone, please talk to me about winter and all things cold and chilly”, she said as she held the frosty bottle of beer against the nape of her neck.
nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah, I got boot.
There are places on this earth that are never seen by human eyes, that are not included in someone’s “view;” places that are quiet, self-absorbed, and absolutely safe in their own inevitable logic.
Captain Cheddarleg’s joy at the money he saved quickly turned to dismay as he remembered how many rats lived on his pirate ship.
Having superpowers was not all it was cracked up to be with two crazy boys in the house; my super hearing just gives me a headache; my superfast speed only made me tired after cleaning up 20 times; and seeing through walls is no great feat, all moms can do that.
Someone ought to do something about everything.
If you were turned inside out, it wouldn’t be gooey and gross; it would put your bones on the outside, which would just be an exoskeleton, right?
As inspired by: grudknows's unemployment systemss
Jenny put the whirring machine down on the bathroom sink and turned this way and that in front of the mirror, thinking to herself “I wonder if 8 is enough?”
“Being in the unemployment system is so demoralising”, I sigh to my mother across thousands of kilometers of phone line before finishing the sentence that I’d started, “that I might have to consider prostitution just to pay the bills” a statement that is met as expected, unenthusiastically and tossed aside off with, “well, I’m sure something will come up and if you think job hunting is hard at your age, imagine it when you get to my age” to which I replied “yeah”, (sighing), “I have considered it and I’d *definitely* need to become a prositute then”, again she tried to brush off my temporary mostly-joking nuttiness with, “no one will want to pay for your services at that age, you’ll be too old” but I had her there too with, “Oh… there’s all sorts of sexual deviants out there, people are in to everything, someone will want to pay” at which point she gave up and I felt waves of motherly eye rolling before she handed the phone on to my father.
It’s surprising how much pleasure can be derived from catching up with people you haven’t seen since before ‘a long time ago’ even came to be - and - other than the fact that they’ve grown up, had a family and “stuff”, it’s warming to find that the things you loved about them ‘way back when’ are the things you find yourself loving about them now.
that goliard gave up the class, went back to her dorm room, rolled and smoked and joint; then began discussing how ‘the man’ was keeping them down with a passing girl whose boots she admired.
Where am I; like standing resolutely on the surface of a gas planet.
the mouse in the kitchen should’ve sent me running in blind fear; but i decided to turn the tables and pursue him relentlessly (after all, it was my crumb).
“Oh, sure, you remember Three-finger Pete—he’s the guy who thinks his food processor is a practical joker.”
However hard I tried, the candles were too much for my lungs, crippled by another year of age.
I’m trying to decide whether I like red better, or bright blue.
When it takes two bar-card carrying lawyers over four collective hours ($1000+ in billings) just to open a bank account to deposit a $250,000 check from a title company on behalf of their American citizen clients who have just sold a house, then the terrorists have won.
Remember how strange it was in the days just after Sept 11 that you didn’t hear any airplanes going over?
As inspired by: 'mouse's I’m going to punch the next Republican I see in the nose
“It would be far easier to rob this fucking bank than it is to deposit money here.”
Laced together, bound; image if we could not free our hands to draw our story together, would we become trapped and sterile, unable to touch the world?
The politican managed to remain composed and keep his look of grave seriousness as he announced that his platform was one of ‘mainstream values’ even though no one in the audience knew what, exactly, this meant; it was only when a child laughing, loudly pointed out the obvious, “Mummy, that man isn’t wearing any clothes” that they began to ask any questions at all.
It was a reluctant, slow sunrise, and in the grudging light she opened the back door and thought to herself, where the hell is my cat?
He slept well and dreamed of cookies.
Does the sentence make the story or the story make the sentence?
but it is a proven scientific fact that i will murder innocent commentary where ever i go, dead in its tracks. try me.
I’m not afraid of my future, by it sure turns my stomach.
From the multiple leaks in her ceiling making soft splashy sounds as they puddled on the floor, the silvery shafts of light dancing through the sheer curtains to her left and the occasional shark swimming swiftly but silently past the French doors, Rachel knew that something just wasn’t right.
Crossing the room, she rubbed her eyes not believing what they were telling her but hoping that their lies would be put to full examination under the harshed of lights once she opened the door.
Breaking into the Top 10 isn’t as easy as it seems when the words don’t want to seem to connect in a manner that is fitting.
There was a time when a man with a steady hand might be able to shoot his way out of troubles like these, then disappear into a land that was empty and void, hungry and raw, desperate to swallow him whole.
Staring at himself in the mirror, it hit Rudy that his mom had been absolutely right - the world just didn’t need any more Elvis impersonators.
“She looked at the sky full of wheedling birds…” she stopped sudenly, almost swallowing a lungful of water “wait on, is wheedling even a word?”
Yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow.
With his wallet empty and his belt stretched to the very last hole, Keith couldn’t help but wonder - had he eaten all the money?
It’s kind of odd the way the world spins faster when I turn my head quickly; are you all feeling it too?
Am I the only one who finds cars completely unlikely?
A mutually agreeable solution was eventually worked out between the villagers who lived at the foot of the mountain and the giants who lived in the mountain city above them - the giants would reroute their sewage to the far side of the mountain (which pleased the villagers very much, even the old ones who no longer had to work sewage patrol), and in exchange, the villagers promised to allow the giants to eat all their old people (which, of course, didn’t go over quite as well).
Leftover fried chicken is the perfect breakfast for people who have no intention on living forever; you know, guys like me.
Inspired by: Goliard’s blog entry
Which came first, the death of the phone booth or the death of Superman?
As inspired by: Keith's Abraham Jones
The sweet little girl with the unusual name,
Whose father, some whispered, was slightly insane,
Asked very few questions and was exceedingly quiet,
Except for just once, when she started that riot.
I like Schadenfreude better when I’m on the Freude end instead of the Schaden.
Stupid Karma—showing up on the arm of sweet Serendipity, but going home with that bad boy Ironic Twist.
As inspired by: steve's schadenfreudian
Sigmund secretly hated when the other kids called him a freudy cat.
As inspired by: http://eezblog.scrine.com/index.php/e/and-another-thing/
invariably it is someone whom i don’t know, yet is still deficient enough in phone manners to, simply because they want to speak with me, demand “is this (my name, often mangled unrecognizably)”; may i help you, i chirp?; “is this (my name, often mangled unrecognizably)”; may i HELP you, i warble; “is this (my name, often mangled unrecognizably)”; i’ve asked you politely three times if i may help you, if you don’t respond to that i won’t help you; “but is this” and i hang up.
Gertrude restudied each of the clues carefully, sorting and filing details into her inbuilt filing system and concluded that she knew she knew the truth and at the end of the day it really made no difference to the world - so went back to studying her green and purple nails, wondering if she should have perhaps gone for one colour rather than listening to, and taking, all advice offered.
This sentence is not inspired by anyone; it stands here proudly on its own.*
* Sponsored by the Committe To Reduce or Nearly Eliminate the Use of “Inspired By”
When I find myself yelling at the TV, it’s never a good sign but I guess electoral campaigns will do that to you; as a swinging voter who votes on policy not party it’s always a bit daunting to realise there’s no clear choice and the process of elimination is the only way to go - it makes you doubt your own ability to make decisions until, that is, you are faced with a question about finger buns or skinning scrine or preview options, then life is pretty straight forward.
If you get up early enough, you get to utter the first sentence of the day (she said to the cats, who disagreed but didn’t say so out loud.)
She did not appreciate the seven-dollar twenty five cent an hour offer he put on the table, but she did like his ass, the way those pants hung, the way that watch fit; and the smell of him.
“I’ve become a middle-aged marsupial, pouch and all,” she declared as she stood naked before the mirror.
“Damn winter,” Henry said as pee splattered off the thin sheet of ice that had formed in his toilet.
“Keith, send me your snailmail address,” said the woman with the crazy hair, strapping on her fake wings and rollerblades during a well-earned pause in the incessant hoots from those damn howler monkeys.
Tom realized the foolishness of his decision the moment the truck rolled over his toes, and then again, when the trailer did the same thing.
Gertie thought she could get used to the rude nurses and the bland food, and even thought she could get used to the little people that appeared along the edges of the curtains and the foot of her bed as she tried to sleep; “If they’d just stop jumping around,” she’d tell the doctor when he’d stop by to check on her, “and there weren’t so damn many of them.”
The clock on the wall says there’s over an hour until Beer o’Clock, but by special dispensation, St. Bakerina has blessed this earlier hour Choc o’Clock.
“Well, she’s not much use like this” said Miss Jane angrily, to which Becky replied “Fly, caterpillar, fly!”
Each doctor prescribes something new, adds it to my shaker, and queries: “do you want this straight up?”
The First Annual Scrine-Crazy, Crazy-Person Contest was well attended, and was considered by most a huge success, although from the very start, it was clear to everyone that determining a winner would be impossible.
There is nothing so far away as that which involves the tedious passing of time.
beauty is in her golden glossy form,
evernescing in it’s frothy coldness,
everyone should have one or two or three or more,
run, all of you, run to her heart of glass.
The one thing I’d bring to the desert island, besides all my prescriptions, my special pillow, a steady supply of lattes, and access to a library: Scrine.
“While membership in The Young Virgins Club has certainly waned over the years,” said long-time club president, Esther Tuttle, “I’m very happy to announce that calendar sales are at an all time high.”
“Caffeine is time’s Viagra” (Mark Morford)
“It’s Time who’s the culprit,” I told the barista who insisted on apologizing for my luke-warm drink, “not you; Time’s so ruthless it even has to screw with our coffee.”
Okay, thought the cunning linguist, it’s easy for a person to say, “Who do I have to blow to get some service around here?” when talking about men, but how would you best phrase the same sentence when the business is run entirely by women?
The fact that the bull elephant had broken out of its pen and killed two keepers didn’t worry Jim nearly as much as what would happen to him when his wife came home and found the beast tromping around in her peony beds.
The responsible and loyal sheepdog looked at the timid sentence and wondered if just one little edit of “boot rules the universe” would be hurting anyone.
As inspired by: Orionoir and Bakerina
“I suggest that you try fellating a candy bar in front of a group of assorted analysts and corporate titans whilst covered in salad dressing, and then we’ll see how red that face of yours can get.”
“You can make a lovely hat out of previously-used aluminum foil.”
Bakerina stops blogging to create a store full of jammy goodness, adorned with mouthwatering berries and fruits and gleaming jars of sticky delights.
There’s something touching about a person who’s damned to hell for eternity, wishing you luck with your ticket out of pergatory - most a**holes would much prefer to drag you down with them.
“Yes, I understand you’d like to see more diligence,” Henry told his boss, “but I like to think you’re referring to the late 17th century French carrosse de diligence, and that what you’re telling me is that you want me to become the company’s ‘coach of speed’, which if I’m reading this right, and I think I am, Mr. Nichols, is that you want me to coach the company softball team this summer, which of course I’ll be happy to do.
I’m not as young as I used to be, so after a couple of hours of firing a machine gun at my son, my trigger finger is usually a little tired.
Upon her entry into the most famed icon of computer geekery, the Apple Store located smack dab in the bellybutton of Silicon Valley, she realized that at last she had fulfilled a set of childhood dreams: a candy store, adulthood, and nearly unlimited credit.
e, venturing down under, decided that she must try all forms of local cuisine even, she decided, if it meant eating a pie floater.
I’m in the menstrual part of the menstrual cycle and have a not so unusual hankering for chocolate (but not just any chocolate, it must be a crunchie, thanks to Scrine), meat pie (even I don’t know where that one came from, perhaps the smell wafted past as I walked), chick flicks (yes, a sad place to be indeed, but the hormones are a mess and I seem to be able to appreciate them in this state) and someone to just curl up with when I go to bed.
When faced with either leaving out precious saffron soaked in milk or startlingly fresh grated nutmeg, what would you choose?
Near the end of his life, Donald would sometimes tell people the story of the time he was staring into a bowl of cold tomato soup and he realized that he had become an expert on emptiness, and that it was clear from that moment on that he would spend the remainder of his days perfecting this particularly lonely, but profound expertise; sometimes, near the end of his story, he would say that the soup was nothing more than a visual device he’d come up with to help the listener to understand what had become of him, that it was nothing more than an attempt to draw them nearer the edge of his empty world, giving them a chance to see as well as hear back into time, to that exact moment of self-realization, because as he described it, “there is nothing quite as lonely as a bowl of cold tomato soup, staring back at you,” but then at other times, he was quite adamant that the bowl of soup had been, in fact, very real, and that he was only now, near the end of his days, coming to realize how much time he’d lost, thinking about the soup.
Among the words I hate the most is the word “gluten.”
How can I possibly tell boot what the shipping charges would be to ship jam from my neighborhood to hers if you keep sending mailerdaemon notices back to me?
“I never once had murder in my heart,” Bob would later tell the police, “but I think it might be accurate if we say I was murderously grumpy.”
The angel staggered, collapsed in the gutter, vomited violently, pulled himself up to his feet with the aid of a nearby park bench, and tried once or twice to begin a sentence with something that sounded like ‘Got comet’, before finally getting the words out: “God is coming. We’re all fucked.”
It was a Sunday just like the any other, the romaine and greenleaf were shredded, the potatoes twice baked, the chicken bryan topped with goat cheese and sun dried tomatoes: and last but not least the red cami push up bra and thong; and all he wanted to do…all he wanted to do…was work on my putting.
Reaching into his book bag and fearing the worst, Trevor discovered that the smelly wetness was not caused by some random prank by the overly testosteroned football players that called his school home but instead was a direct result of his own forgetfulness in leaving the other half of last Monday’s egg salad sandwich stashed away in a side pocket.
I suppose I’ll get the hang of it, just like everyone else.