Because every form and every website I’ve read this morning has either warned me that I MUST APPLY BY (date) or I MUST NOT APPLY BEFORE (date), all rendered in large threatening fonts, I have hypothesized that the time to submit one’s loan applications is a fixed, finite, perfect point in time; I surely do hope that I’m not in the tub when it occurs.
One can not ever give thanks enough for this peaceful place.
Every time he received his tenants’ rent checks, Julius shook his head at the amazing thing that is this concept “private property” and gave thanks that the silly peasants didn’t simply rise up.
I would enjoy knowing the ratios of girdles to women and sleeveless undershirts to men.
When I become Benevolent Ruler of the World, it shall be a capital crime to refer to Lower Manhattan as FiDi.
Beginning today, Scrine will buy on behalf of its members at least one Oregon Lottery ticket each week, and if (when) we win, the winnings will be shared based on sentence count.
For some unknown reason, I found myself thinking about Mr. Glacier, a geometry teacher at my old high school, who used to work Pink Floyd albums into his questions and was one of the few truly hot math teachers I’ve ever seen; one day, Mr. G decided he was no longer going to use the front door to exit his apartment, which was particularly entertaining since he lived on the second floor.
Miss Dillman was a crotchety 12th grade English teacher who shuffled around campus with a shopping cart full of homework assignments; she could have been an object of derision, but instead, she had scores of teenaged fans, and this is why: one stormy afternoon in class, while reading aloud a particularly frightening passage from MacBeth, she stabbed her finger toward the ceiling - and the lights went out.
“Here, Fate, here, Fatey, Fatey, Fatey, Fate - I’ve a great big Biscuit of Trouble-Brewing for you!”
There should be a word that means “that beautiful sound that happens when rain comes rushing down and thrashes against the awnings and fairly well beats the roof into submission.”
The student wrote so poorly that he actually tripped, fell down the stairs and wound up in a bloody pool of his own words.
There was a time when I would regularly go out of my way to spend as little time as possible in quiet contemplation of my thoughts, always slightly afraid of what I would discover, but that’s all changed considerably in recent years and with this change has come the kind of insight and self-awareness that tells me how very right I was to be wary of my mind’s sadomasochistic little rituals wherein it pokes and prods both the nooks AND the crannies, because the dangerous part about knowing yourself is that you really know yourself, which means that neither the nooks nor the crannies ever have any hope of relief and that the only thing insight gets you is a better understanding of this fact, Catch-22 anyone?
Of course I farted darling, I don’t smell like this all the time.
Vivian was starting to turtle up into herself despite what the world had to offer.
A mild disability forced Miss Dillman to walk with a slow shuffle around the high school, but she found ways to compensate - for instance, the walkie-talkie in her shopping cart always had fresh batteries (though heaven only knew who was talking at the other end).
I wrote “finish To Do list” at the start of my To Do list, whereupon the mighty goddess of the paradox appeared before me, brandishing her sword.
“If it weren’t for gentrification, I would never have tried chai latte,” remarked Jukebox McGill from the depths of the dumpster behind Starbucks.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the time of iPods and hip real estate acronyms, it was the time of handwritten cardboard signs and street corner regulars, it was the time of demise, the time of failing language, the time of false promise and useless hope—it short, it was the time of precarious balance, when looking the other way became the drug of choice, the only thing that kept the balancing act from collapsing under the crippling weight of its own imagined brilliance.
Everyone in that small, Minnesota rural town had a nickname, and I mean everyone, including the high school chemistry teacher, Sammy Stiff Neck, who limped around the classroom on account of his crooked spine and stiff neck; and while Sammy Stiff Neck couldn’t always catch you doing whatever mischief you happened to be up to, he wasn’t afraid to even the scales and keep you on your toes by shooting a large Bunsen burner flame at your head.
No one ever forgot the day Hoppy, the high school shop teacher with the one short leg, flung the hammer across the room and hit Lester the Molester square in the back.
Anyone who every laid out a newspaper the old fashioned way (with wax and with lewd comments written all over the galleys in photo blue ink) knows the great April Fools fun that comes from swapping out the photo-blue mark-up pens with not-quite-photo-blue pens.
Sixteen pages into my screenplay I realized that even though I had to fire the Mothra puppeteers, dressing a guy up in a rubber dinosaur suit and having him stomp Tokyo was superb drama and needed nothing added to keep an audience at the edge of their $7.50 seats.
Warren Buffet often dreamed of becoming a parrothead and living an expatriate life somewhere past the equator, eating cheeseburgers, drinking margeuritas and singing back up for his twin brother Jimmy.
Having, in the ten seconds between parking the car and heading for the building, forgotten completely about the little technicality of feeding the parking meter, Juan concluded that until he caught up on his sleep he should stay away from sharp objects.
Speaking with James the office manager felt more like an attempt to self-inflict blunt force trauma than it did a conversation.
Electric Appliance Water Polo will not be seen tonight in order to bring you Barbara Striesand Live at the Hollywood Bowl.
The atmosphere at the Vatican dry cleaners was tense ever since it was discovered that the Shroud of Turin had been washed with a load of red tee shirts and, while some of the trainees found this funny, no one was laughing out loud because the pope was still pissed about someone turning his new cotton underpants pink the week before and he had been doling out 1000 Hail Mary’s to any unlucky soul who happened to walk into his confessional.
here, boot, this roo’s for youse
.
One can not ever give thanks enough for this peaceful place.
While to some it may seem like laziness, I know that my cat spends 22 hours a day on the same cushion of the couch in pursuit of her dream to be the first animal/fabric molecular fusion.
“It was at that moment that I realized that my undergraduate degree at NYU was the most expensive beer coaster I ever bought.”
Vivian was saddened that there weren’t any chocolate-based holidays scheduled for a long time.
Dear ATA Airlines: Fuck you, fuck your mother, and fuck the horse your mother rode in on.
As she gracefully walked down the steps of the plane, stepping around the heads of the airline, Miss Jane noticed how perfectly the blood trickling down the steps contrasted with her delicate beige shoes.
Now that the next ten days are wide open for you and your family, if you’d like to spend those days over here in Gomorrah-on-the-Hudson, I’m sure that my landlord would understand if I told him we’ll need to knock a wall down so as to provide the most comfortable accommodation possible for you and your family; of course, the tenant in the apartment on the other side of the wall might not be as enthusiastic, but I’m sure I can negotiate an acceptable solution well before you get through baggage claim.
I am totally unqualified to run my own life.
As inspired by: Br. Ezra, Pam, Scrine, Friday morning, etc.
Not every child who kills and eats puppies grows up to be a serial killer; this one grew up and became the guidance counselor at my daughter’s school.
Realizing that in screenplays one page is equal to approximately one minute it seems that I may have created a new genre for people with ADD: Run for your lives Godzilla is eating Tokyo…hey, is that one of those new Prias….I could really go for banana split….this under wire is really digging in….I am dying….ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
It was a simple, honest life, requiring but a single pair of pants that he washed and dried at night while the demands of the world slept.
Einstein thought that since he was a big fan of the Rocky movies he might vote for Clinton - he especially appreciated the candidates willingness to compare herself to the great prizefighter - but Shrodinger’s cat, always one to notice subtle ironies, reminded the physicist that Rocky got beaten by a black guy too.
Everyone’s an alien after you watch too much scifi; some, more than others.
Luke found that if he sat so he couldn’t see the people behind the counter, he could spend half an hour at the donut shop drinking his coffee and believing he lived in a world of white people.
Lucy found that if she sat so she couldn’t see donuts on the counter, she could spend half an hour at the kitchen table drinking her coffee and believing she lived in a world where donuts didn’t have their overwhelming mind control powers.
Donuts found that if they sat so they couldn’t see Lucy looming over them at the counter, they could spend half an hour in their box believing they lived in a world where they weren’t about to be eaten—to death!
Quick, somebody grab his gun!
I thought I’d miss Charleton Heston, but when his giant stash of bullets turned into words and started flying out of my son’s mouth in all directions, I dove for cover, cursing the man for having owned so many automatic rifles.
It is a rare bird that can spend all Saturday in heaven simply by attending a knitting conference with knitting classes and a vendor market.
Clearly the move to the Midwest has been a bad idea; I just watched Redneck Comedy Hour and laughed my ass off - it’s all downhill from here.
Most sundays there’s nothing I’d rather do than change the oil in the car and a little gardening.
Why is Miami University in Oxford, Ohio?
In the middle of fantasizing about strangling the OBSCENELY loud cackling teenagers sitting next to me on the subway with my ipod cord, I stopped to wonder how many calories I would burn.
Seeing that the Employment Department form had no space for him to explain why he’d spent so many years thinking he was the master of time, space and dimension, Peter reluctantly gave in to the notion that he was in the right place at the right time.
twice in the past 24 hours have i, yet again, attempted to figure out two separate but equally enticing portals to our brave new worlds, second life and the olpc community, only to be summarily, albeit inadvertantly, rebuffed, left behind by each at their very gates, not passing go but still banging on the doors nonetheless, abjectly, pittiably sniffling “whaaa?”
Almost too late into her adolescence to do her much good, Muriel finally learned to differentiate between teen angst and her jeans being too tight.
sing, o bird, with wild abandon toward the day your epigones might but whisper “i’m going to miami in the morning” and lo! appears there scriner-suggested songs of diverse and dizzying duration, any of which might be swiftly set upon the clueless antemillennial traveller’s ipod, to keep her company on the voyage.
words. words.
High maintenance is only one of the many things you might call her; don’t call her irritating, or she’ll start yelling again.
The Jewish Hillbillies seem oblivious to the fact that their very existence may foreshadow the age of the Messiah although some are concerned he might just be too embarrassed to show up, but even more importantly who wants a to inherit a world where even the most blatant racists are too lazy to be original.
Jerry’s grandmother rocked quietly in some dark corner of the families ancestral estate, knitting and watching eternal reruns of Hee Haw on DVD, unnoticed by the younger generation except for the occasional scent of menthol and Emaraude perfume masking the ravages of time on her withering body.
people who want to live in the garden of eden for less than a hundred bucks a month should consider seriously moving where i am as i see myself going broke just contemplating the control of the vines—which seem to be, quite possibly, the main support for the house—and i am seriously considering agent orange.
go here and search for “4914 Wishart Blvd, Tampa, FL 33603” without the quotes (this is not my address, but tell it to the satellite) then hit street view and squooch the viewy thing west across the street until you’re smack in front of the brick house back behind all the gnarly trees, and come on in for a piece of warm bread and a sock or two: studio inside!
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I own a cell phone for MY convenience, not for YOURS - a point you may wish to ruminate over before hitting the re-dial button for the nth time.
My god…it’s a Harvey Wallbanger cake…from scratch, even!
Brad found divorce attorneys to be the most frightening of the B-Movie Zombies because even decapitated they were unstoppable; their hunger for raw human flesh made a dinner date with Hannibal Lector preferable to ending up in their long fingered and razor nailed clutches.
the daily boule
In a world ruled by chickens one young steer must find the balls to save all bovine-kind from extinction.
A professor sent an email telling people that he’d be out of his office because he’d forgotten about ‘a doctor appointment for [his] daughter [he] didn’t know about’, and while I admired his being so forthcoming about his past, it seemed a little overboard.
As inspired by: e's para docks
Perhaps it was because my grandmother was hard of hearing or maybe grandpa had an aversion to yard work, but every spring he would look at his front window and mutter, “ah kudzu” under his breath which was always followed by grandma saying, “bless you dear.”
Every time she heard a horn she said “excuse me,” a joke that never, ever got old.
Under the gun and out of his gourd, Henry felt like an unwilling accomplice to the crimes of his own idioms.
I promise, if you let me live through the night, I will never, ever drink again so help me God…Amen!
my eyes were opened by my ears to the vital importance of scansion when, as a teenager in a restricted box seat i’d just recently swept in the old barbary coast gilt-edged Geary Theatre, i boggled to the command of Mr. Ball, the Founder of Our Feast, who, while giving one of his midnight symposia designed more than anything to create out of whole cloth his own audience, ended his tour de force demonstration full-face, declaiming:
“speak the speech, i pray you, as i pronounced it…..”
and then, the other shoe still firmly afffixed to his foot, jumped off the apron, strode up the aisle and out of the house.
Pastor Darko’s sermon on the lamentable death of the comma took an inordinately long time to deliver.
What can be said about a society where it’s more economical to make whole the victim of a theft than it is to go after the thief?
Is it hypocritical to admonish a woman for smoking while pregnant, while supporting her Right to Choose?
Google’s “street view” camera cars really should drive around playing a distinctive ice cream truck-type sound so we could all run out on the street and wave and pose.
i’m so delighted at re-reliving reading/hearing winter’s tale that i have decided to add the character of mrs. gamely—with her 600,000 word vocabulary (“escambulent, tintinex, wallatonian, smirchew, and fuckhead”) and her pet rooster, jack, in her arms—to my online personae, as mee grows lonely, not to mention ill-appropriate for every occasion; i, of course, will be a miz.
*takes sun from sky* she thinks this will make it better; i don’t think it will, but it’s the only thing she wants right now other than her little girl
The sun fell from the sky and lay sparkling at her feet.
If you don’t get to work on time, but you’re still the first one there, are you really late?
As inspired by:
Her current adventures begin at Feb 26, 2008 if you decide to catch up. Before that, her funny stuff.
“I just wanted someone to love me without being disappointed in me when I turned out to be human.”
I notice how watching people fall due almost exclusively and inevitably to the train-wreck of human nature is akin to sitting in a field and watching a meteor shower, each person ironically burning brightest as they descend, but unlike space rocks, once terra firma is met the choice becomes to either get back up or become rubble (not Barney) and that those who rise again are always more worthy for having fallen.
I really need a new butler; the butling around here has really slacked off as of late.
In the event that one finds themselves in the backseat of an automobile whipping firecrackers at the driver and calling him ‘Toby’ when his name is not ‘Toby’, it’s important for the firecracker-whipper to stop and consider that taking part in another’s angst is simply a way to avoid dealing with their own, and that perhaps if they spent quality time dropping firecrackers at their own feet and calling themselves ‘Toby’ they’d find out that it’s no use running, because the disease is inside of them.
Now that I’m truckless for the first time in more than twenty years, I’m wondering if I’ll be more susceptible to spam promoting better manhood.
On Saturdays it’s best to let sleeping children lie.
Muriel continued to honor her resolution to make more female friends, though slogging through gaggles of candidates who disliked Star Wars and loved the Oprah Book Club was morally exhausting.
When I complain that I can’t give myself away with a free cellphone, the correct response is NOT, “Well…what kind of minutes plan are you offering?”
As inspired by: Bunni's Bunni’s Conversation Tips for Men
When your wife agrees to perform beautiful acts of love with you, do not refer to the moment as “Bulky Trash Day,” not even if the department of sanitation has indeed scheduled bulky trash pickup in your neighborhood that day.
If you are bragging to your coworkers about the hot sex you had with your wife last night, don’t expect them to be impressed when the story ends with “…and I didn’t even wake her up!”
Lesser-known superstitions hold that Sunday the 13th is the day when God wants you to picnic, or else.
If you should receive the honor of being kissed by Bunni, call her the next day or risk having your tongue cut out and then forced to gargle with salt water.
She sat cross-legged blowing bubbles in the air, swaying happily from side to side, and with each gentle sway the colours spread gloriously before her, and the bubbles lifted higher and higher until they turned into the stars of the night sky.
She is colour, she is movement, she is laughter, she is the air, she is the sky, she is my soul.
Okay, so I don’t know him personally, but I do remember his work as a police reporter on my local news of choice, where he showed impressive research and reportage skills, and now here he is, winning Emmys and writing books described by my little monchichi Jon Stewart as “phenomenal!”
You know it’s time to quit drinking gin too close to bedtime when a dream about Grudknows in a San Francisco(ish) trolly car in a huge earthquake leads to a game of H-O-R-S-E with Kareem Abdul Jabar and then meeting, and subsequently hooking up with his girlfriend who is a crush from 7th grade whose long-forgotten last name suddenly appeared in my head for the first time in at least 25 years.
How am I supposed to stalk get in touch with my 7th grade crush, who had a very distinctive name, if she’s gone and gotten married, dammit!
When will it finally end?
“If I ever make enough money to have to pay taxes, I won’t whine about paying my taxes.”
They call it tempered-glass, but what good is it if it can’t stand up to my temper, thought Ralph as he picked shards of glass from his bloody fist.
Toodie and Lorrit came to regret having built their nest in the swaying palm tree; months went by, yet they could never quite gain their sea-wings.