Guess who just got himself a fancy schmancy new microphone? Guess who has been listening to audiobooks all month and said to himself, “I can do that.” Guess whose neighbors are tired of hearing him recite the same piece over and over again? Guess whose pets are staring at him in bewilderment? If you guessed me than your deductive reasoning skills are still working and you can check dementia off the list of possible neurological ailments you may be living with. Continue reading Guess Who Got Himself a Microphone?
Our Little Davey
Have you ever received a death threat? I have. I’ve received three.
The first came from a visitor to my (long since abandon) website God Hates Globes. The site was meant to be a satirical spoof on a website with a similar name. The visitor didn’t get the joke and gave us some spirited feedback. He was convinced that we believed the world was flat (and that Jonathan Swift actually wanted to eat babies). He wanted to rid the country of us close minded superstitious yokels. That time it was funny.
Bulletproof Cupid
My quarry shambles off the bus. His lanky frame is lost inside a long black coat. He adjusts his head cans, then buries his hands in his pockets. He nods to the beat. His feet stride with the rhythm. There’s a lovestruck couple up ahead of him. They take up both lanes of the sidewalk. He mounts the boulevard and breezes past. He doesn’t see the pedestrians for the people. The scope of his vision narrows to the crosswalk. He doesn’t bother to look both ways. He doesn’t see the traffic for the cars. Continue reading Bulletproof Cupid
Multiverse Man
The volume went up as the Guest of Honor stepped into the party. Then the lights went down. Scarves found their way to the banisters. Layers found their way to the floor. Buttons were undone. Belts were unbuckled. The Guest of Honor peered into the coat room. His was the coat that made the pile spill to the floor.
When he ambled down the hall, heads peered up. People watched from their blind spots. Arms uncrossed. Footing shift. The guests repositioned themselves to stand full front to him. Their guards went down. Heads began to nod. Eyes began tracking movement. The guests started to promenade from social click to social click. Everybody was open for business.
Compartmentalize
Wheels turn. Gravel pops. It takes a while for it to come to a complete stop. Something has been delivered to the main gates of your Imagination. Its snout casts a long shadow over your Ideas. Its wooden mange creaks in the breeze. It’s a three-story stallion looming over the birth place of your fiction. Guards report whispers from its nostril. They report the sounds of footfalls and metal unsheathing. Suddenly the horse, is all that your Ideas can focus on. Continue reading Compartmentalize
A Part I Was Conceived To Play
When I was in my mid-twenties, I wrote a lot of pieces like this. Positive affirmations that came from very dark places. Leave it to me to find cobwebs in the arch of a rainbow. There was a sincerity to being insincere. An acknowledgement of how I ought to think, had I not been governed by fear.
I’ve always been an introvert playing at extravert. This circa-2004 piece must have been written hung over, on the day after a party. I can only imagine what I had done to inspire it. Continue reading A Part I Was Conceived To Play
Breaking Up With Your Story
You clock out of work. The punch card weighs heavy in your hand. You go straight home. Your Story has been waiting up, pacing the apartment, peering through the blinds. There’s a pair of empty wine bottles in the sink. Incense sticks line the coffee table. They’ve been ashed all the way down. Candle wax has dripped across the varnish. Three empty sleeves of Girl scout cookies lay crinkled on the couch.
What It Sounds Like
In just a few days Minnesotans will be given the choice to amend their constitution to deny gay people the right to marry (a right they didn’t already have). Civil rights issues don’t usually get put to a vote. Imagine what would have happened if Brown vs. The Board of Education had been put to a vote. Do you think we’d have integrated schools today? What about if Affirmative Action had been put to a vote? I didn’t think so.
Open House
Follow the dolphins into shore
Follow the power lines into the city
Follow the spot lights downtown
Follow the breeze into me
The balloons dangle from every street sign
The streamers swing from every fence
There’s a landing strip of Christmas lights
I spared no expense Continue reading Open House
A New Faux Pas
I’m trying to find the name for a very particular faux pas. One that I’ve had far more experience with than I care to admit (I might have to switch perspectives from first to second just to distance myself from it).
This faux pas happens when you’re trying to impress new people with your sparkling whit. You decide to play stand up comedian and shine a spotlight on some unspoken truth, a universal thought that only you have the charisma to articulate. Then you realize you’re the only person in the room that this thought has ever occurred to. Continue reading A New Faux Pas