July 2007
Identity crisis – When I was a kid I wanted to be a writer, then later I wanted to be a notorious collector of some kind (historically significant beakers and flasks?), then for a long time I wanted to be a subtly well
July 2006
Facial violence – I took a good hard look at myself, when I was shaving. I hate shaving, some people claim to find it a centering ritual or some bullshit like that, the liars, but I really derive no pleasure from shavi
The dream dies – Since I quit smoking the granularity of time will have to be acknowledged some other way, perhaps by living (thereby experiencing events), or by spending more time with my grandmother, whose vulgar me
July 2005
Affirmations – Next Wednesday I'm scheduled to receive flattery from a stranger. I'm penciled in. Not just flattery is involved, but flattery was promised and I will not refuse it. I am not in a position, just now,
Caught napping – We sleep in shifts, to guard the house and to make sure no one steals our large drowsy dog. Our neighborhood has suffered a flurry (3) of artless smash-and-grab burglaries, presumably the work of meth
Construction zone – Mornings the din is continuous, then intermittent till late afternoon. Catercorner they split a lot and a little house is being erected, or a luxury hotel/casino for dolls, or a habitat for rhesus mon
Darkness at noon – I've adopted the Boston Molasses Disaster as Sublethal's official historical catastrophe. A towering wall of molasses, a sweet sweet wave of blackstrap death. People killed, buildings destroyed, every
Do it for cochleae – I've been reading up on diseases of the cochlea. Never mind what for. Every part of the human body, it seems, is vulnerable to malady. Most people take the cochlea for granted and never think about it
Dreams of upholstery – My summer holiday festivities lean toward the celebration of avoidance and disgust. No beaches, those repulsive landscapes of misted flesh, vile meat splashing and children shrieking. I long to witnes
Embryonic disenchantment – I have a temperament but where did it come from? Like most people I've mostly invented my own backstory, combining bits of the truth with huge amounts of whimsy, crafting a narrative by emphasizing ce
I could do worse – There's a lot to despise about my neighborhood, mostly involving the commercial strip that forms its southern boundary. The Hawthorne zone of purposeless commerce and cuteness and heart-stopping pedes
Illogical toilet – The length of my hair is about the same as the height of these letters, and that's a few days after being cut, or rather buzzed. Sheared to millimeters by Sunbeam. For years it's been this length. Not
I'm the best thing that ever happened to me – Is it narcissistic to realize that what I really want is a friend like me? I think I'd enjoy my company for the most part, in small doses. Short bursts of me are enough, as I'd be the first to discove
Locked in – Sex and death are the primary human nouns, according to the cheerful and terrifying anthropomorphic oven mitt on the paper placemat lining my plastic tray at the Brother Theodore Memorial Arby's downt
Pleasures of Oregon birding – I flushed a grebe from a marsh with an oar. The pied-bill, Podilymbus podiceps. Have you heard this bird's eerie call? I found it disquieting. I went after it with the oar, to make it shut up. In my
Rude health – I am waiting for illness. I was adjacent to, behind, in front of, beneath, atop, and in a manner of speaking surrounded by B, and now B has a terrible cold, so naturally I am doomed. We're no better t
Unpromising primate – My thoughts and behavior are guided by obscure, implacable mechanisms. It's not my fault yet I'm responsible. Take perception. I can't help what I see, and once I've seen there's no unseeing. My belea
July 2004
"A Waldorf salad" – You might know someone who models his or her whole personality on Barbara Stanwyck in Statute of Limitations, especially the pie scene. Do you know the pie scene? Her appalling frankness and cool deme
Crimes briefly contemplated – When I think about transgressing social convention it helps if the imagined action is also illegal. To gleefully violate the norms of society is one thing, but to break the law in doing so is really a
Ear – My local video store, the thoroughly impressive Movie Madness on Belmont, is full of memorabilia, and not just crap third rate who gives a shit memorabilia but some really choice stuff, and they have
Husky or Maltese Whatever – In the lonesome back corner of a strip mall on SE Powell there's this restaurant that is apparently called Husky Or Maltese Whatever. This is the name of the restaurant. Are you understanding me? Husk
Jackpot – I'm no different, I have my lottery fantasies like anyone else as we drive past the big Powerball billboard, with its cruel digital update of the current jackpot value. My rational faculties go out th
Me right now – I looked at my nephew, three, as he sat on the floor engrossed in Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. He appeared to be deep into chapter 5, "The Priority of Paradigms." I glanced a
Niggling concerns – Unmarked open manhole, fatally large hail, accidently ingested poison due to careless mislabeling (paprika), hit by unconscious heavy bird, hit by bullet train while lost in thought (mentally spending
Put up with it – A perfectly valid reason for breaking up with someone is that you come to realize that you simply cannot abide their tiny square teeth that resemble Chiclets, it dawns on you one day that you've never
Signs of trouble – You announce to the room that you just don't feel like yourself today, and a small murmur of relief reverberates amongst your loved ones, including the cat and the dog, who look at each other and the
Trunk call – Yesterday I had to put a book down and find something else to do because the story had reached an emotionally wrenching moment and the loud noises coming from my guts were disrespectful and completely
Up for nothing – I am not a fun person, according to nearly any commonplace definition of "fun." I am not energetic (I do muster a basically dependable heartbeat and minimally necessary amounts of peristalsis) and I a
Upon waking – Random knuckle itch, a feeling of mild foreboding, a feeling of giddy optimism, scalp tightness, tingling in the extremities, ache in the joints, bladder slosh, thoughts burdened by a blunted dullness
Woes of summer – When the temperature gets high enough, standards of personal attire are abandoned. An older man in what is basically a pair of hot pants, children running around in a feral state. Everyone is dressed
You smell popcorn – The asphalt sizzles, the bees are fat. A conspiracy of the senses has robbed me of sleep. The heat, the early morning jackhammer, an appalling boglike odor that must have wafted in a poisonous cloud f
July 2003
Kicking Jessica's ass (armies of destiny) – The NYT did a story on the federal government's website on baby name data. It seems the ubiquitous Jessica has been in a death spiral since the mid-90's, her place at the top supplanted by Emily. I wo
This Is Also Just To Say (for William Carlos Williams) – I have not only eaten the plums I mentioned earlier but also I drank that magnum of Veuve Cliquot and don't even look for the large platter of shrimp puffs and other assorted hors d'oeuvres in the ic
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