September 2005
Blow to the head – Unlike many people, I do not have an unfettered imagination. I thought I did but I don't. Of course my thinking this way might itself be imaginary, in fact this bizarre notion might be strong evidence
In the morning it begins again – Hypersomnia's looking better all the time. Why not sleep life away? I dream of sleeping. I fight to sleep, I struggle to achieve the sleep plateau. Falling asleep is a violent personal ordeal. I scrun
Maybe later. Maybe never. – That would be my response to every request, small and large, if I could get away with it. Not that I wouldn't do some things soon, or even immediately, and with pleasure, or at least a proper sense of
Pillow talk – Deep in the earth's interior is a core of solid iron, spinning in a molten chamber. The crust is trimmed, except for some parts they missed. The protective atmosphere is membrane-thin. The watery part
Realm of treats – It's a pleasure to imagine being sucked someplace, like into the earth (presumably the bowels), into outer space, into another dimension. It's always been too easy for me to feel childishly ill at eas
Shocker in gloomtown – As Mr. Beckett said, don't wait to be hunted to hide. For the genuine recluse, it's not enough to simply prefer one's own company, one must be always recoiling from, hiding from, eluding, wedging ones
September 2004
Beard of bees – In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I am not in fact a person but rather a motley collection of cardboard boxes stacked into a clumsy pyramid in the spare bedroom whose ideal us
Explosions of disgust – I'm eating some delicious mac and cheese from Bistro Montage down under the Morrison bridge. For years I couldn't eat macaroni and cheese because the worst case of intestinal flu I ever had was inaugu
Muse – To the curious and indecisive friend: If you're going to straddle the fence then I would very much like to be the fence. How we love to be the reason people do things, the more ridiculous the better.
My Alexis – I am in love with Alexis from Barbet Schroeder's film Our Lady of the Assassins, based on the excellent novel by Fernando Vallejo. Alexis is doomed but painfully sexy in a teenage hoodlum sort of way
Photon disgrace – You should've been here when I pitilessly mocked a beam of light that was streaming through my window. I really pilloried that ray. I was in a particularly foul mood, just sitting at my desk with my h
Submerged in urine – Sometimes when I'm in one of my transient but periodic black moods I'll hear someone urinating in the bathroom that's a few feet from the door of my so-called office, I'll hear someone go in the littl
Surprise party – I have always wanted to be cremated. After my death. Actually not always, when I was little I firmly rejected it as an option since I was horrified by the idea that anyone would voluntarily subject th
Twilight nap – When I fell asleep it was light and when I woke up it was dark. Historically this is trouble. The sleeping part's okay, the falling asleep and the waking up are fraught with hazards. These accidental
September 2003
Aerobics of personal defeat, loser calisthenics – The career treadmill Shaking your fist at destiny Twisting in the wind Hitting rock bottom Repeatedly bending over Crawling back on your hands and knees Jumping through hoops for the man Throwing you
Ah, the smooth rich taste of Laramie – Surely we've reached the saturation point in anti-smoking education/propaganda. At this level of bombardment and legislation, the only people who will take up smoking are the ones who really want to,
Can I get a witness – For a long time I've entertained an elaborate fantasy of engaging in a breathless three-way with a pair of comely young Jehovah's Witnesses. But then, who hasn't? They'd ring my doorbell, hearty enthu
Cinema of the Pre-Raphaelites – The Unbeknownst: A Highly Aesthetic Murder. In this heartpounding suspense thriller with chilling supernatural overtones, several members of the nineteenth century Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood find them
Close to the knives – I had an interesting, exhausting dream in which a sinister performance artist pursued me around a primly manicured suburban yard for what seemed like hours, saying things to me, trying to grab hold of
Comfort zone – I am told I lack self-confidence, which may or may not be true, I don't really trust my own judgment, but self-confidence in others I find distasteful. People with stalwart faith in themselves are ann
Department of awkward hugs – Everyone, including easygoing individuals, come-what-may types, is continuously susceptible to the irksome wrongness of other people. The things they say or how they say them, the things they do or fa
Dial C for concupiscence – The ache of desire is real even if the object of obsession is unreal, or only partially real. It's absurd. One of the hallmarks of obsession is that you burn to possess something but don't even know w
Events keep occurring – I wonder if I should put more autobiographical material here. They say that years later you'll appreciate the record of events, the daily minutiae. While I value minutiae, I don't see any reason to fa
Failure sheaf – All my abandoned projects, look at this bulging accordion file. Started and forgotten. Look at this one, my search for the yeti. That one barely got off the ground, I never even made travel arrangemen
False noir syndrome – In my dream, I am sitting at a craps table in a luxurious but somewhat gone-to-seed foreign casino, presumably Rio. I'm thinking this comes from a recent viewing of Mulholland Dr., since in that movie
Guy stuff – I don't high five. I'm not comfortable with high fiving, I think it's stupid, it looks stupid and it feels stupid, and neither will I engage in multi-part hipster handshakes, which also look and feel
In the midst of life – I am practicing attitudes of death. I've done a stately death mask, I've done Pompeii victim. I need to work on nuclear blast. I used to do a mean Han Solo encased in carbonite, even though technicall
In typical fashion – In typical fashion, things stopped being wholly themselves and took on additional duties as horrible reminders, as they're usually called, mournful memory triggers. Anything, a cup or a street. He did
In which I introduce the pillow to an alien culture – We arrived in Maryland when I was eight years old. We'd driven cross country from California, leaving my father behind, waving from the driveway at dawn. It was my first time away from the west coast.
Leg trouble – On 38th Street near Stark, I often walk by a particular parked car, a beat-up Honda hatchback, and it's got all this junk in the back seat, including a pair of flesh-colored female mannequin legs. I'v
Lost and found – The problem with losing something and then finding it again is that you're usually sort of forced to acknowledge that perhaps it wasn't all that important after all, let alone crucial, and I don't mea
Love is all around – I am baked on the premises right here in our own ovens. My flavor is baked right in. I am cooked in my own natural juices. I am crisp and golden brown. I am sure to satisfy your cravings. I am char-br
Madison Avenue embraces anguish, the final marketing taboo – This is really the second in a series of advertising campaigns centered on the unexploited target market of People On The Edge. Of course, all advertising implicitly exploits the unacknowledged emptin
My problem with fun – Sometimes I wish pleasurable or "fun" experiences could be gotten over with so that they can more quickly become fond, hazy memories I can enjoy from the comfort of my living room, alone. The buildup
No poise – I have no poise. Where is my poise? My lack of poise bothers me. I lurch along. I have no breezy self-assurance, my bearing is vague and unsettled. The world and I do not have an understanding, a fact
Notes on microwave ovens – In movies, one lazy visual shorthand that's often used to indicate "domestically indifferent bachelor" is to have the character come home to his spartan apartment, loosen his tie, and take out a froze
One of us – Here's something you can do at home. On your kitchen counter, collect all the necessary ingredients for making delicious chewy brownies (not the cakelike brownies which everyone knows are for losers).
Our lady of perpetual bile – The Hospital For Historical Ailments is a specialized institution for patients stricken with maladies of prior historical periods. It's difficult enough, after all, to have dropsy or the vapors withou
Portland spleen – Ten suggested new mottos for the city of Portland, Oregon: "Portland: Where lesbians come to die" "Compost or get out" "Portland: Singlehandedly shoring up Subaru's stock price" "A great mass transit
Repugnance – I'm too easily disgusted. My cringe meter is in shaky equilibrium, ready to dip into the eww zone at the slightest provocation. It's a problem. I want to be made of stronger stuff, it's rather emascul
Sidewalk mystery – You know those doublewide baby carriages, the ones designed for twins? How odd to peek into one as you pass it on the sidewalk and notice that it contains a baby and a chimp, holding hands. Or a baby
Tackysphere – My trips to Wal-Mart are infrequent enough to allow me, mercifully, to forget how much I hate it there, but once I hit the parking lot it all comes flooding back. As soon as you walk in the door you e
The awful burden of documents – I needed the phone number of a long-ago friend, which meant I had to delve into The Box. It's a plastic file box in which I keep all kinds of old papers, mainly financial, but there's some personal st
Two-wheeled contrivance – Today, a long bike ride around town with my honey. Perfect weather for me, a world-class sun-hater, overcast and cool. As a lifelong pedestrian, I'm still not used to this bike thing. I can carry it o
Where the bees suck, there suck I – I like to go for walks, and every day I take a stroll through Laurelhurst Park. I usually start sneezing right away, as soon as I enter the park, then it runs its course and I'm fine. There are always
Where you'll find me – I've been browsing through these colorful pamphlets I picked up from a rack in the lobby of a Holiday Inn Express. Wow, every part of this country has so many options for fun and personal improvement,
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