A Very Brief Hiatus

I'll be in NC for the holidays. And, while I had high hopes of getting Chapter Four posted, I got busy and tired, so that's been delayed. Never fear. Chapter Four: The Battle Hymn of the Fifty-Foot David Bowie is well underway, and will be appearing here soon. However, I would like to briefly relate something, if I may. Poncho's is a real place in Asheville, NC, or it was. I don't know if it's still there or not. Anyway, it is/was a Mexican restaurant that features/featured a buffet. I don't think anyone ever played live music there. That's purely my invention. And, my Nanny and Pap-paw used to take me there often when I visited, and one time, when I was eight-years-old, we were there for lunch, and they had this fruit cocktail thing on the buffet. I remember that the fruit tasted a little odd, but kind of good too, and I remember getting really happy, then really sleepy. I found out later that the fruit had apparently been allowed to ferment, and that I had eaten enough before my grandparents could catch on to be truly drunk off my ass. That's right. Eight-years-old . . . Drunk off my ass. This reminds me of another time at the beach when my mom got her Pina Colada and my virgin one switched, and I got very happy and sleepy. That's right. Ten-years-old . . . Drunk off my ass. On that note, have a very HAPPY Whatever that you might be celebrating at this time of year. I'll see you soon.

Love, Amy

Another Installment of the Kadeezler Saga . . .

I must say, my poor male protagonist isn't coming off so well at this point. In truth, at this point, even I wouldn't follow him to the Trolley Market, let alone across the entire country. Oh, well. Mr. K. will get his chance to shine in the next chapter. And, I apologize for a significant lack of Dorf here. No worries. He figures prominently throughout the story. Just wait until they get in the car . . . Good times ahead. Stay tuned.
Love, Amy

Chapter Three: Mike Kadeezler, Purveyor of Nothing and Everything

And, where exactly was Mike Kadeezler during all this time? What was he doing? Mike Kadeezler was at home in his apartment, or Mike Kadeezler was at work in the mall bookstore, or Mike Kadeezler was at his other job in the comic book store downtown. And, Mike Kadeezler was always having girl problems. Lisa, beautiful Lisa, had been the bane of his existence since the day that he had met her . . . Five years ago. Now, they were “off again.” They had only been “on again” for about three weeks (with Lisa actually being out of town visiting relatives for two of those three weeks) before yet another giant battle between his lady fair and himself had happened, and Mike had emerged wounded, at least temporarily single, and not entirely sure as to what they had been fighting over to begin with. This was the way things had gone from the beginning of their exceedingly tumultuous courtship. Either Mike or Lisa had declared the “death” of the union thirty-seven times over the course of five years, with such “demises” lasting anywhere from one twenty-four hour stretch to an entire month before relationship resuscitation had invariably occurred.

It was day two of this, the most recent, “breakup.” Val had called that morning, eager to schedule a lunch date if it were possible. Lisa had contacted her the night before in order to tell her that Mike would be free, and Val was happy to be of service if her services were needed. Lisa and Val were friends. They were actually very close. And, when Mike and Lisa were “on the outs,” Mike and Val were even closer. It was an unusual arrangement to say the least. Jesse, the local anime-obsessed hermaphrodite, liked to say that Val’s fate would ultimately be to join the Philharmonic Orchestra, where she could play second fiddle for the rest of her life. Mike was aware of the fact that he was essentially being shared between two women, and he wasn’t quite sure as to how it had ever come to be this way. He never thought about the rightness or wrongness of the thing, or just the sheer stupidity of the situation. He lived within a small mountain community consisting primarily of college students. This kind of thing, in spite of its inherent perverseness (or maybe even because of it) seemed almost normal in that environment.

Mike had agreed to meet Val for lunch at Vincent’s Ear. He had only ever had tea there, but he had heard that they made a good hummus plate, and that girl might be there again. What was her name? Jen. Yes, Jen might be there. He didn’t exactly know what he might say to her if he saw her, especially with Val being there, but Jen had been stuck in his head for whatever reason, and Jen had entered into his thoughts more than a few times, and it might have even been possible that Jen had been at least part of the reason why he hadn’t put up much resistance when Lisa had called it quits with him this time. Maybe. Just maybe.

It had been a week since Jen had last seen Mike, one long week of pondering, speculation, hoping, fearing, and wondering. So, her heart jumped and sank, almost in one motion, as he walked in, then she walked in. Whomever she was, she was pretty in the way that pretty girls are typically pretty, with big brown eyes, simple, straight, honey-colored hair, clear skin, and very good boobs. Jen sighed. She simply hadn’t resigned herself to what her rational mind would have looked upon as inevitable. He had a girlfriend. Of course he had a girlfriend. She somehow managed to smile through her disappointment as Mike and his girlfriend apparent approached the counter. “Hey, fairy tea! How’s Life’s Rich Pageant been treating you?”

Mike grinned. “Hey, Jen. What’s up?”

He remembered. Oh, my freakin’ God, he freakin’ remembered. “My blood pressure.” Okay, that was stupid.

“Huh?”

“My blood pressure . . . Is up. I have exams this week for my first session summer classes. It’s been a little intense.” Jen belched up one of those nervous little twittery laughs that she absolutely despised, and immediately wanted to die. “So, would you like your usual?”

“Oh, yeah, you know it. We fairies gotta drink, right? And, uh, I’d like to try some of that hummus that you guys make, if that’s okay.”

“Sure. Do you want the veggies or the tortilla chips with that?”

“Let’s go with veggies.”

Finally, The Girl spoke. “Yeah, I’ll have the hummus too, only I’ll take chips with mine, and I’d love a Jolt with that. I too am doing the exam thing right now, and it’s kicking my ass pretty hard. You’re at UNCA, right? I know I’ve seen you around. Those are bitchin’ boots, by the way.”

Jen unconsciously looked down at her purple velvet Docs as she wrote up the orders. She smiled genuinely when she looked up again. She was glad that he at least seemed to have a cool girlfriend. “Thanks, and, yeah, I go there. I’m a biology major.”

“Oh, yeah? Pre-med?”

“Nope, just Pre-life, I guess. I don’t really know what I want to do yet, but I like bacteria, and there’s a lot of that in biology. What’s your story?”

“I’m doing a double in French and Business Administration.”

“Wow. Sounds like a recipe for success, to be sure.”

“Please. It’s just to make my parents happy. I really want to sing. I mean, I do sing, but, I’d like to, you know, get paid for it.”

Mike interjected here, “Hey, I pay you.”

The Girl rolled her eyes. “Right, you bastard. You pay me in beer.”

Mike laughed. “You’ve never complained before, you freakin’ lush.”

The Girl laughed. She punched him playfully. “Shut up.”

Mike playfully punched The Girl back. “Make me.”

Jen felt like now would be a really good time to be metaphysically challenged. “Okay, guys. I’ll go ahead and get your drinks, and your food will be out soon.” She finished writing out the order and started to turn towards the kitchen.

“Oh, hey.” The Girl was talking to her. “Like I said, I’ve seen you around, but I’ve never caught your name.”

Jen started to give a reply when Mike answered for her, “Val, this is Jen, purveyor of fine fairy tea. Jen, this is Val, purveyor of crap songs that I play for her because I’m nice.”

Val rolled her eyes again. “Great intro, troglodyte.” She put out her hand. “Hey, I’m Val.”

Jen took her hand briefly and smiled. “Jen.”

“Hey, nice name, nice tats.”

Mike interjected again, “Hey, watch your mouth! You just met the girl!”

Val punched Mike again, but significantly harder this time. “I said TATS, you perverted crapbag!” She rolled her eyes again. “Pay no attention to this bitch. He thinks he’s all kinds of funny. Whatever.”

Mike rubbed his arm. “Hey, that hurt.”

Another eye roll from Val, and, “Whatever, bitch.” She turned her attention back to Jen. So, Jen, what are you doing on Saturday?”

Forcing herself to direct all of her attention to the tasks at hand, It took a moment for Jen to realize that a question had been directed at her. She added the strawberry syrup to the tea, and put the cup on the counter. “What? I’m sorry . . . Oh. Saturday? I’m not sure yet. Why?”

Val leaned across the counter and smiled. “Well, THIS (She stuck her thumb out and back towards Mike’s general direction) guy’s band will be playing at Poncho’s, and I’m singing, and you should totally come.”

Jen’s brain had completely left the building at this point, and all she really heard was, “band,” so she fought hard to connect that with something, with anything. Putting a Jolt cola on the counter beside of the tea, she said, “My friend Dorf has a band,” and then she mentally kicked herself, because that truly had come out of nowhere. However, Mike seemed to take interest.

“Really? What are they called?”

“Um . . . Pus Filled Boil on the Shit Stained Ass of a Sweaty Dog . . . This week, anyway.”

Mike chuckled. “Nice. Very creative.”

Jen grinned. “Yeah. That’s Dorf. Creative would be a euphemism, but, yeah. He’s something.”

Mike was giving her his full attention now. “It sounds like you have very interesting friends.”

Jen had actually managed to start thinking again, and that made things significantly easier. “Well, I like to think so. Even if I’m not that interesting, I like to surround myself with interesting people. That way, I might at least be interesting by association, right?” Okay, Jen thought, That was pretty weak, but at least it was coherent. But . . . Jesus! How many times can I say the word, “interesting?” Christ. Get a fucking thesaurus, why don’t you . . .

Mike smiled at her. She noticed that he had a small goatee and very nice teeth, with just the slightest hint of an overbite. Good cheekbones. His eyes were nearly black. “Well, that’s a decent philosophy, but I'm willing to bet that you don’t need anyone’s help where interesting is concerned.”

Val interjected. “Hey, don’t mind loser boy, here. He flirts with everyone. If it’s got boobs, he’ll flirt with it, man boobs included. Hey, is that our food?”

It was their food. Jen shook herself from the Mike induced trance, and turned towards the kitchen. She took the two baskets from the window, turned back around, and placed them on the counter with the drinks. “Here you go. I hope the hummus lives up to its name. She then turned towards the cash register. Val took the food and went to find a table. Mike stayed behind, presumably to pay the bill. He handed her a twenty. “Keep the change.”

“But . . . Your total’s only--”

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Well . . . Okay. Thanks. That’s very generous of y--”

“You can show your appreciation by being there on Saturday night.” He took her hand, the one that wasn’t holding the twenty-dollar bill. His hand was warm. It was soft and calloused at the same time. Guitar calluses. It made sense. His eyes found hers, and, together, they shut the world out. “Poncho’s. Saturday night. We play at ten. You’ll be there, right?”

It wasn’t how she had planned it, but it was still perfect. She was at work. She was behind a counter. There was another girl there. None of it signified anything. She was there. He was there. They could have been in a field, in a tree, or surrounded by thousands of people in a train station in Tokyo. They were all that mattered when his eyes met hers. Jen wanted to stay like this forever, but the boy had clearly asked a question, so she answered. “I’ll be there.”

A Work in Progress

Hi, people. I present to you two chapters of a book that I'm working on. This all came about because I was in the shower one day . . . Okay, just so you don't start to doubt my personal hygiene habits, I'm in the shower EVERYDAY, but on this particular day, some interesting characters popped into my head. This happens from time to time. People show up in my head. Sometimes they're half-formed, sometimes they're almost fully developed, and they're usually composites of people whom I've actually known at one point or another. More often than not, these patchwork people are so mixed up in their bits that they're barely recognizable as being actual people who really exist. No, they take on looks and "lives" of their own. They get all unique on me, and they've all got stories to tell. Sometimes I listen, and sometimes I don't. Well, when Mike and Jen showed up, I listened because I could tell right away that theirs was a story that shouldn't be missed.
Now, keep in mind that this is a work in progress. It's too purple right now. I'm gonna have to go through and weed out the pansies. And, please forgive my abuse of the German language as well as my ineptness with dates and geography.

The Ballad of Mike and Jen: An American Love Story

By Amy Kari

There is a little house on a little street somewhere north of here and south of there. The little street is called Fascination Street, and it was named thus by the people who live in the little house, and these people are called Kadeezler, and it says as much on the purple mailbox with the yellow daisies painted on it that stands at the end of the little gravel driveway that leads from the little house to the little street. Purple crocuses line this driveway in the spring. Mrs. Kadeezler likes purple.
The Kadeezler house is painted white with black shutters. There is an upstairs and a downstairs, and the chimney is done up in purple to match the mailbox. Mr. Kadeezler paints the mailbox every year on the anniversary of his marriage to Mrs. Kadeezler. There are window boxes where violets grow when they are in season. A white picket fence encloses the small front yard that Mr. Kadeezler mows every Saturday afternoon when the weather is warm. He employs a pushing lawnmower that he labors behind in good humor, going at a leisurely pace while smoking his pipe and wondering what dinner will be. Mr. Kadeezler always wears blue jean overalls when called to this particular task, with a supply of tobacco tucked into the bib pocket. He never wears a shirt with his overalls, and he seldom wears underwear, in spite of Mrs. Kadeezler’s continuing vexation over this point. His slightly graying hair is, as usual, caught in a ponytail that reaches nearly to his waist.
On these days of outdoor exertion on the part of Mr. Kadeezler, Mrs. Kadeezler very often appears on the front porch, bearing a tray topped with Tupperware tumblers of fresh lemonade. Her leopard-print apron is always present and always tidy, and her dyed black hair is swept into a bun at her neck--the skull tattoo, her memento mori, just being visible between it and her starched white collar.
On these very regular occasions, Mrs. Kadeezler calls Mr. Kadeezler away from his efforts, and the two of them proceed to share the liquid refreshment from the wonderful vantage of their front porch swing, soaking in the sheer magic of the day and all of the luxuries that such a view as this one affords. “Mama K.,” Mr. Kadeezler says with a sigh, “there is truly, truly joy to be had.” “Indeed there is, Papa K.,” Mrs. Kadeezler answers with absolute contentment, “Indeed there is.”
But, as it may be guessed by you, dear reader, it was not always so. No, indeed. It was not always so. There was a time when things looked rather bleak for the future Mrs. K. It was a dark time for the human race in general because the universe knows when its fibers are out of whack, and it colors itself accordingly. And, for it ever to have been the case that this pair was split asunder is proof enough that there is something wrong with this world. At the very least, it may be reasonably argued that there exists in the world a kind of chronic tendency towards universal wonkiness. But, in proper defense of the world and the universe, there exists also a gorgeous potential for glorious rightness, because, as you will see, dear reader, (if the present author might be excused for compromising what might have been a suspenseful element) this story has a happy ending.

Chapter One: Fairy Tea Kicks Ass

Jennifer Lynn Quick first met Michael Norbert Kadeezler on the fifteenth of March, in the year of nineteen-hundred and ninety-four, at approximately two forty-five PM on a Tuesday in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. Because she was neither a Caesar nor an English Major, the date, at the time, held no particular significance for her.
Jen was at work behind the counter of Vincent’s Ear, a coffee shop that stood in all of its deconstructed, Bauhaus-y glory on South Lexington Avenue. It was a slow afternoon, and Jen was staring at a random page in a Botany textbook when Mike came in and ordered a cup of chamomile tea with lots of honey and just a touch of strawberry syrup. Jen barely noticed the tall young man. He was simply a blur of hair, corduroy, and flannel, just like half of the figures who ever entered the establishment. The other half were blurs of black vinyl, velvet, and metal (herself being a kind of hybrid of the two). She did observe that the drink she was making seemed fit for any given fairy or member of the pixie family, and she smiled, but the beverage was made and conveyed with little ado, and boredom and Botany were all that remained.
It was a different story for Mike. Indeed, the girl behind the counter was more than his tired mind wanted to grapple with on this particular afternoon, but grapple he must, because she was a vision to behold. She had black, straight hair that reached down to her waist, with Bettie Page bangs. She was small and slender, and her skin had an unearthly paleness seldom achieved by members of the non-embalmed community. Her garment was a gauzy, strappy, flowing prairie dress of sorts, pure white embellished with little black embroidered flowers all over. Reaching down to her ankles, (Mike noticed when the girl had walked far enough away from the counter as to allow him a full view of her person) the dress just barely reveled a tiny pair of purple velvet Doc Martens. Bare arms displayed a bounty of graceful, black-inked tattoos, and a leather, spike-studded choker completed the look of this pretty and diminutive hippy-goth who looked like she could have easily followed The Dead: both kinds.
Mike was smitten. The girl had barely spoken to him, but a small animal was still turning somersaults in his chest as he took his tea from the counter and turned to select a chair on which to rest his weary person. After he had taken a seat--at the most obscure table in the farthest corner of the room--he made a concerted effort to not look at the girl, but to his dismay he soon discovered that an image of her seemed to have been burned into his brain, possibly even into his soul. He wasn’t even entirely certain that he had a soul, but if he did, he was reasonably sure that this girl had managed to somehow trespass onto it. This was weird. Mike wasn’t used to feeling very strongly about anything, and especially not so quickly and so out of the blue. Apparently twelve hour shifts were doing bad things to his mental wellness. He turned his focus to the book that he had brought with him, and when Leonard Cohen failed to coax him back to sanity, he focused his thoughts on his girlfriend of five wonderful and glorious years. Lisa. Yes, Lisa, beautiful Lisa . . . Lisa would be coming back soon and all would once again be right with the world. By the time he managed to finish his tea and take his leave of the coffee shop, he had very nearly convinced himself of as much.
Mike visited the coffee shop again the very next day at very nearly the very same time . . . Because the tea was so good. This, he had told himself and told himself again, 100,000 times . . . Because the tea was so good. The tea was so very good . . . The tea was so very damned, freakin’ good, for the love of God, and for no other damned freakin’ reason was he coming back to this damned, freakin’ coffee shop. The girl was there again.
Jen noticed him this time. Mike was wearing his bright orange “Orange Crush” t-shirt, and the sight of it made Jen smile.
“Yeah, but have you got your spine?”
Mike was startled, amazed even. She had spoken. She had apparently spoken to him. Now, what the hell was she . . . “What? Um. I’m sorry . . . What?”
Jen laughed, and a little nervously. The boy was cute. The boy was very cute. “Your shirt. I like your shirt. It’s got the whole REM thing going on, right? I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my . . .” She gestured towards Mike’s chest.
He smiled. He made eye contact. “Oh. Right. Nice one. Yeah. Um, so . . . You like REM?”
“In excess.”
Fortunately for both of them, Mike was able to instantaneously translate the intended pun. INXS. The band, of course. Clever. He managed to respond appropriately.
“U2?”
It only took a split second to resister. Jen grinned with something very nearly like pure delight. “Yes. Well-played, sir. You rock. And, who would you be.” She reached a tiny, white, black-nailed hand over the counter. “I’m Jen.”
Completely charmed and a little dazed, Mike took the little hand that was offered. It was warm and soft. A current of electricity shot through his arm and exploded somewhere near the mitrol valve. He nearly wept for the pleasure of the sensation, and a snippet of a sonnet echoed somewhere in his brain . . . Shakespeare . . . “This told, I joy.” . . . So this is what it feels like to joy, he thought, as far as he dared to or was able to think. “Mike. I’m Mike.” Lisa. Beautiful Lisa. Beautiful, beautiful Lisa. Jen. Her name is Jen.
“Mike. Groovy..” Jen released his hand with a smile and a nod. “You actually do look a little familiar. Have you been in here before?”
“Um. Yeah . . . Yesterday, actually. I ordered a, uh, chamomile tea . . .”
“Right!” The fairy tea! Wait. That was you?”
“Fairy tea . . . ?”
Jen looked a little embarrassed. “Well, you know, with the honey and the strawberry . . .”
Mike laughed. “Okay. Granted . . . Fairy tea. Do I not look the fairy tea type?”
“No, that’s not it. I’m just surprised that I wouldn’t have thoroughly remembered you. I must have been really distracted.”
“Well, in your defense, I’m just not that memorable.”
The boy’s eyes sparkled. They glittered. Jen had never guessed that brown eyes could be so dazzling. These were. These were eyes to swear by and make promises to.
“So you say, sir, but I have my doubts.” Jen audibly cleared her throat, looked down, and tried not to be nervous, and, of course, in doing so, looked about as nervous as one might possibly look . . . Ever. For the first time in her life, she sincerely wished that she knew how to flirt. She glanced around the counter in order to see if anyone else had entered the shop and needed waiting on. There was no one. There was absolutely nothing within sight that might reasonably redirect her attention, and she was utterly torn between being happy or being horrified by this reality. Luckily, Mike soon came to her rescue.
“Those are some very impressive tattoos. Did Cain do those, by any chance?”
“Yeah, actually . . . Most of them. Do you know Cain?”
“Absolutely. I’m a fellow connoisseur of dude man’s work.” Mike turned around and lifted up his t-shirt and ponytail just enough to reveal a portion of what looked like a phoenix done in a sort of “tribal” style. It was an extremely well-planned and well-executed design, obviously the work of Cain Crispin.
Mike was turning back around. “The Mark of Cain, right?”
Jen smiled, happy to have something to talk about besides Mike’s extreme memorable-ness. “Yeah, that’s got to be the best name ever for a tattoo artist. Who wouldn’t want to score some ink at The Mark of Cain tattoo parlor? That’s a really nice one, by the way. It’s a . . . phoenix rising out of the ashes?”
“Yeah. It’s a little pretentious, I know, but it’s a symbol that I’ve always connected with for whatever reason.”
“Well, you know, a symbol of rebirth and renewal ain’t quite a heart that says “mom,” with a dagger pierced through it, but I guess it’s okay.”
Mike returned her smile. “You are clearly a woman of taste.”
“Hey, I try. Anyway, I’m clearly taking up your time. You came for more tea, right?”
“It is good tea.”
“That’s chamomile with honey and just a touch of strawberry syrup?”
“You know it. Fairy tea.”
“Hey. Fairy tea rocks.”
“Fairy tea kicks ass.”
Jen giggled, while being painfully aware of the fact that she giggled. She turned to make Mike’s tea, and Mike watched her appreciatively. She was cute, funny, and sweet, everything that he had feared she would be. That was okay. Sure. Why couldn’t he have a cute, funny, and sweet friend who happened to be a girl who made acute electrical explosions happen in his heart and his head all fuzzy? That was clearly a question for another day, and Lisa, beautiful Lisa, would be home soon, so everything would be absolutely and completely okay, and was it his fault anyway that this was the only coffee shop where he could get his tea just the way he liked it?
Jen finished making the drink, put the cup on the counter, and went to the cash register to ring up eight-five cents, plus tax. Mike paid with a dollar bill, told Jen to keep the change, than very casually dropped another dollar into the tip jar.
“Hey, wow . . . Thanks.”
Mike turned, winked, smiled, and pantomimed tipping a hat in Jen’s direction. “Much obliged, mamn.”
He turned and left Jen grinning helplessly from her place behind the counter. She noticed that he was wearing olive-colored corduroy pants and bright green Docs. It was definitely love.

Chapter Two: The World According to Dorf

The sun was in the sky, the yuppies were filing in to get their fixes at the other coffee shop, and the Warren Wilson kids were out panhandling for kicks. All was right with the world. Another day. Another dollar. In addition to school and her job at The Ear, Jen was working two shifts a week at the public library. Dorf was the tech guru and her immediate supervisor at the library. Dorf was a fifty-seven-year-old, all black-wearing nihilist who drove a souped-up, cherry-red mustang and fronted his own death metal band on the weekends. Dorf sported a long, gray ponytail and a limp in his left leg due to some lingering Korean shrapnel that he unwittingly received into himself on an otherwise perfect day in May of 1952. Dorf was the freakin’ man. Jen and Dorf took smoke breaks together, one every hour and on the hour if possible. Jen didn’t smoke, but Dorf, who was a man of very few words, smoked more than enough for two people. Jen talked. Dorf smoked.
Another Camel non-filtered was pinched, packed, and placed. The old Zippo said click, and honest relief was had by one.
“Hey, Dorf, do you believe in love at first sight?”
Exhale. “No.”
“Do you believe in love, period?”
Exhale. “No.”
“Why not?”
Exhale. Shrug. Inhale. Exhale.
“Yeah, well, I haven’t given up yet on the whole thing. I’m as inclined to be as cynical as the next person, but I think it’s actually more interesting to believe in something, you know? And, you know, if you’re actually going to believe in something, you might as well believe in the big one, right? The really crazy one. I mean, why waste your time with the tooth fairy or Sasquatch, right?”
Tap ash. Pause. “Who is he?”
“Mike.”
Dorf breathed out heavily, tossed a butt in the general direction of the ash can, and drew another fag from the pocket of his trench coat. He glared at Jen over his very dark sunglasses. “Mike?”
“Yes. Mike . . . Probably Michael, I’m guessing . . . You know, as in The Archangel? I don’t know his last name because I’ve only seen him twice, and I don’t even clearly remember one of those times. He’s beautiful, he likes REM, and he drinks chamomile tea with honey and strawberry syrup.”
Exhale. “That’s disgusting.”
“Well, it is kind of an unusual drink.”
“Not the drink, the band. Stupid Stipe pansy.” Dorf snarled his revulsion into an acrid cloud.
“Oh, come on. Those guys are doing some really interesting things. They might even be fronting a whole new movement . . . And the way they incorporate poetry and philosophy into their lyrics is totally impressive. Whether their particular style suits your fancy or not, you at least have to admit that the band has some talent, right?”
“Stupid Stipe pansy.”
And, so it went. Life went on, but everything was, by turns, a little and a lot different for Jen now. Without warning, her heart would soar out of her chest and to lofty heights. Melancholy would occasionally seize her with threats of Mike walking out of her world just as suddenly as he had ambled into it, or even of “Mike” simply being a realistic and reoccurring figment of her imagination. Sometimes she just felt a pleasantly mild and all-over tingle, as if her soul were being tickled by butterfly antennae. Often, very often, actually, she was realistically aware of the fact that she had only seen the guy twice, and that she might be feeling feelings a wee bit prematurely to say the least. She might very well be out of her mind. Bonkers. Looney. Touched in the head. It didn’t matter, though. Her heart had been breached, her calm had been compromised, and she was all atwitter. Objective reality be damned.
She wondered when she would see him again. What would she say? What could she say? The idea of pursuing small talk now with her very own, personal Chosen One seemed, well, rather small. Had he been taken with her as she had been taken with him? It was possible. Anything was possible. Was he thinking about her right now? Maybe. Would he think she was crazy? Probably.
“Hey. You ever been bit by a dead bee?”
Jen started and gave a little yelp. “Huh?!”
Dorf twisted a corner of his mouth up. “Hey. Quiet, lady. This is a freakin’ library, you know.” And, before Jen could get her bearings back enough to respond, he was on his way again, hobbling efficiently towards his office.
Jen was embarrassed. She couldn’t even remember what she was supposed to have been doing. She would probably have been judged unfit for service of any kind that day. As she was chastising herself for acting like a lovesick twelve-year-old for the one-hundred and eleventh time that day, she had a vague recollection of being asked to relieve Helga at the checkout desk. She moved with some celerity in that direction, and an interesting idea occurred to her. She thought that she might have seen a book in Mike’s possession when he was at The Ear. That might mean that he was a reader, and if he was a reader, he might have need to visit a library from time to time. He might visit her library. Stranger things had happened. Now, with the thought in mind that every single library guest had the potential to be him, she moved with actual alacrity to where Helga, the Rhine maiden, was waiting a bit impatiently for her.
“Ja vol, vhere vere you?”
“I was on my way.”
“Ja vol, you are like das turtle, ach! Here is note for you from Herr Dorf. I go, for plans I am having!”
Helga went, her impossibly huge breasts leading the way. Jen looked down at her “note,” a scrap of torn off notebook paper on which was scrawled with a tell-tale lefty lean, “REM sucks my big, hairy balls. Love, Dorf.”
“Lovely, you big crass yard ape. Just lovely.” Jen spoke to no one in particular. Dorf might have heard her, and he might not have. He was notorious for kind of being everywhere at once in the library, and he was always where he was least expected to be. Business was apparently going to be slow today. It was extremely quiet, even for a library, and there were even vacant and completely available study carols. If he walked in now, she would have plenty of time to chat and be as utterly charming as possible. She was wearing her purple velvet “Juliet” dress with the truly impressive sleeves and black leather Frankenstein boots, so she was about as pleased as she ever was about her appearance.
Jen was thoroughly convinced that he would come . . . Any minute, he would walk through the front entrance and be there, right there, and entirely at her service. It would be poetically just, and it fell in perfectly with Jen’s own personal logic about how the universe worked. Jen believed that everything that happened in the world was plotted out by A Master Storyteller who generally favored happy endings. She was unquestionably devoted to optimism in all things, and tended towards the gothic in her tastes and dress because she trusted the dark as much as the light in its potential to produce and harbor good things, and she had an unconquerable sense of humor about herself that allowed her to see clothes as costume, and she truly loved the drama that came with velvet and leather.
A woman with a harried look approached her with a wry smile and an apology. She carried and armful of “Berenstain Bear” books and a screaming, writhing two-year-old. That was little Hannah, and she apparently had not had her nap that day. Not long after Hannah and her mom left, Patty came in to use the phone. Patty was one of the homeless people who made use of the library’s amenities on a daily basis. Jen thought that she had been looking particularly blighted lately, and worried that she might be using again. After Patty made her phone call and slumped off towards the restrooms, a lull of about half an hour ensued, during which Jen worked at perfecting her technique for making origami flapping birds. Then, Mrs. Teakwood, the gum-snapping ex-smoker who was in charge of the children’s section marched over, double-quick-time, in order to chastise her for not doing a task that actually wasn’t hers to do anyway. Jen nodded and tried to look contrite. She knew that if she continued to not do the thing, Mrs. Teakwood would continue to have something to complain about, and that would make her whatever the equivalent of “happy” was in Mrs. Teakwood World.
“Tiki” had been gone for about ten minutes when a young woman whom Jen reckoned to be about her own age wandered up to the checkout counter. She looked vaguely familiar and might only be described as ethereally beautiful . . . Blonde, glowing with confidence and perfect health, and completely bereft of physical blemish, she was both Galadriel and Gwenyvyre combined.
“Hi. Are you ready?” Jen greeted the pink-clad princess cheerfully and tried to place exactly where she had seen her before.
“Yes. Thank you.” A copy of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park was placed delicately on the solid surface that separated the two women.
“Ah. Mansfield Park. I thought that this was her most difficult one to get through. Maybe that’s just me, I don’t know.”
“No, that’s what I’ve generally heard, actually. This is the only one of hers that I haven’t read, so I definitely want to give it a try.”
Jen shrugged and smiled. “Well, it certainly ain’t “P and P,” but it’s still Jane Austen, and that’s all that it needs to be.” Jen took the library card that was offered for inspection, reading: Lisa Svenson. That didn’t ring any bells, but the truth was that she didn’t know the names of most of the people who regularly or semi-regularly visited either the library or Vincent’s Ear. She quickly completed the “checkout” procedure, and put the book back into the manicured hands that readily claimed it. “I hope you enjoy it.”
“Thank you. Have a good day.” Lisa Svenson turned and began to make her way towards wherever it is that earthbound angels go to read Jane Austen novels, leaving the slightest hint of vanilla-cinnamon scent behind her.
Jen made a mental note to take a copy of Pride and Prejudice with her when she left today. It had been a while since she had read the novel, and she suddenly felt an acute urge to revisit it. She glanced at the clock on the opposite wall. It was 2pm, so Dorf would be soon calling on her for their smoke break. Steve could easily watch the counter for five minutes or so. After she got back from said break, she would have less than one hour remaining on her shift, so dream boy had better hustle if he was going to figure neatly into her story.
Dorf showed up, punctual as ever, and the smoking ritual went as it usually went, with the possible exception being that Dorf was a bit more vocal than usual in his endeavors to further abuse the lead singer of REM. After Jen had reassumed her post, only more three people came to check out books before three o’clock happened, all three of these folks were decidedly Not Mike, so the afternoon ended in a whimper, and Jen went off to her 3:30 class quite certain that the Great Storyteller in the sky had at least temporarily lost the thread of her narrative.

A Spot of Fiction

The Magic Mirror

Once upon a time, in a not so far away land, there lived a little girl who constantly complained about everything. The world was so unfair. The trees just would not be the proper shade of purple, the porridge refused to taste like anything but porridge, and every time she threw a rock into the air, it insisted on falling back down again with a thud . . . Every single time. She would stomp her feet, shake her fists in the air, and scowl at every passing dog. "Barking, are you?" She would ask with utter contempt. "Would it be so hard for you to say, 'Meow?' Don't look at me that way. It's not my fault that nobody does anything right."
And, so it went with every passing day that lasted for precisely twenty-four hours no matter what the sad little girl did or said. Finally, the child got so frustrated that she ran into the woods, and kept running, as far as her legs would carry her, until she was absolutely exhausted. She fell down next to an old oak tree, and with her head in her hands and with what little breath she had left, she sobbed her heart out over having to live in such a nasty world that was full of such unrelenting cruelty. "How could they?! How can they?! Why would they?!" She wailed to no one in particular, or so she thought. For, although she did not know it, the little girl was being watched by the cleverest and quickest of eyes. The owner of these eyes did not intend to spy on the girl. On the contrary, he called to her several times to make his presence known, but the child was making such a ruckus, that she did not hear his voice for well over an hour, so the stranger had to simply wait and watch until the little girl had calmed herself enough to be spoken to.
Finally, the girl stopped crying and heard the voice calling to her. She looked up and saw a man dressed entirely in black. "Hey," he said, "Stop crying." Startled, the child got to her feet and composed herself as much as possible. She smoothed out her pinafore and fussed with the ribbons in her hair. "Who are y- . . .?" She had not managed to get the words out before the man in black walked over to her and handed her a small object. And, before the girl could clearly discern what she had been given, he walked away without another word. Not knowing what else to do, the little girl examined her gift. It was a rather unremarkable looking mirror, but when she looked into it, she was flooded with amazement. This was surely a magic mirror, for in its reflection, she saw herself as she might look in perhaps over twenty years! Surely enough, the face looking back at her was indeed her own, but it was an older face. It was the face of the little girl as she would be someday when she was all grown up.
The girl carefully tucked the magic mirror into the deepest pocket of her red cloak, and she walked home slowly and thoughtfully, with quiet steps, and, for once, she was not complaining. She let the trees be as they were, she let the dogs bark, and she had no thoughts of porridge one way or the other.
Over the next few days, days that passed as they will, in twenty-four hour increments, the little girl looked often into the magic mirror, and every time she did, every time she gazed upon that aged face that was still her face, a new partial thought occurred to her. Finally, all of these bits of thoughts came together, and she realized that the world simply was the way it was, and that was the way it was, and it all actually had very little to do with her. And, while this thought did not exactly make her happy, it did force her to see that it was rather silly for her to complain all of the time and to do little else, so she was able to be significantly more productive. She cleaned her room, she did some gardening, and she even baked a blueberry pie. And, in an uncharacteristic moment of altruism, she decided to take the pie to her grandmother's house. The old woman had been ill, and the little girl thought that desert might cheer her up, or at least it would secure her a place in Granny's Will. So, into a basket went the pie, and off she went, down the road to Grandmother's house. And, after an otherwise unremarkable visit that was made somewhat memorable by a rather surreal altercation with a wolf, she made her way home again through the same woods that she had visited on that fateful day when she had received her magic mirror from that mysterious stranger dressed in black. On a whim, the little girl decided to look for the stranger. She did not know who he was or where he had come from, or if there was even the most remote possibility that she would meet him again, but she wanted to thank him. But, to her surprise and delight, the little girl had not been in the woods long when that very stranger came walking along. He was mono chromatically dressed as he had been, and she knew him immediately. She stared at him as he walked by, and as it was obvious that he had not seen her, she called out to him, "Sir! Excuse me, kind sir!" He stopped and turned to her. "Huh?," he said, then, "Oh, it's you, the crying person." "Yes," the girl answered, somewhat ashamed, "It is I. I beg your pardon, and I do not mean to be presumptuous, but are you the wizard of these woods?" "What?!," the stranger asked in a voice that the girl thought was just a bit too forceful. He looked at her strangely for a moment, then continued. "I work here. I'm the Park Ranger. What planet are you from?" The little girl was taken slightly aback by such an odd question, but she quickly recovered, found her voice, and began her statement of gratitude, "I . . . I just want to thank you for the magic mirror. While I am unworthy of such a gift, I am truly grateful, so again, whomever you are, thank you." She curtsied as her mother had taught her to do and smiled her most sincere smile, but the stranger only gave her the same, strange look . . . For a moment, then another moment, and another. Then, he said, "You dumb ass. That's just a regular mirror. I gave it to you because I just assumed that you didn't have one. Why else would a grown woman go around dressed like a ten-year-old?" With that, the Park Ranger shook his head, turned, and left. And, wearing a puzzled expression and an outfit that most people wouldn't be caught dead in, the woman quickly went home and changed her clothes.

A. S. K.
2008

The Aimless Part of Accurate, or, The Accurate Part of Aimless. Take Your Pick.

That's me, "fighting the good fight." What am I fighting? I'm not sure yet, but I'll probably need that thing that looks like a snow shovel, an odd critter wrapped around my leg, and most definitely that big-ass bow. It's all about priorities.
So, anyway, I was walking down Woodward Avenue this morning in my pajamas and a coat. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. Don't ask. Hey, at least I wasn't wearing the monkey pants. I had a head full of Bukowski (Thanks, Denise.) and Wallace Stevens. It was mostly Stevens because it's Sunday Morning, and I was thinking about oranges and peignoirs, although the line from Bukowski about angels sitting down to light your cigarettes has been on a continuous loop since I looked at it again last night. There's just something delightful in picturing one of those androgynous creatures from Papist iconography sauntering into a room with wings folded, copping a squat next to you, and offering you a Bic. Hey, we all want familiarity . . . Until it breeds contempt. It's human nature. We don't know what we want, so we fuss, fuss, fuss until we have a drink and get happy, fall in love and get happy, find God and get happy, read a self-help book and get happy, get therapy and get happy, take a pill and get happy, buy a house and get happy, have sex and get happy, watch TV and get happy, join a cause and get happy, decide that happy can just go fuck itself and get happy . . . Until. We wake up and realize that we're just not happy, so we blame someone else, or we blame ourselves, or maybe we jump out of a window. Maybe we curse and mutter through an entire day, wake up again with an epiphany, decide to make a change, feel empowered, whistle through the next day, wake up again feeling like crap, then repeat the process, maybe again and again and again, ad nauseum until the window starts to look more appealing or until we get old and just don't care anymore.
Maybe we go to the woods and live life deliberately. Are those folks happy? Who knows? If they're doing it right, they don't have phones, so we can't ask them. I daresay that they might have a leg up. After all, if you're chopping wood, finding and killing your own food, and just trying to generally survive, you probably don't have time to worry about whether you're happy or not. Maybe it really is all about priorities. Happiness is not getting eaten by a bear today. Or, think about it . . . You've been by yourself for five years, utterly bereft of human companionship, and one day a random person happens to wander over to your tent, cabin, cave, whatever, and wants to have sex with you! Big HAPPY! Until . . . That person starts to badger you about commitment, wants to put curtains up in your cave (even though you have no windows), and won't shut up about how much time you're spending in the woods. Then, you have to feed that person to a bear, and, that might make you feel a little bad . . .
I digress . . . Well, not really. I have two books that are signed by Orson Scott Card. In the one that isn't Ender's Game, he wrote, "To Amy: Don't get eaten by a bear." Maybe that's the soundest advice I've ever received. Out of the mouth of a creepy Mormon with an overinflated ego . . . Hey, you take wisdom from wherever or from whomever it comes from. Maybe I can even take it one step further: Don't give anyone a reason to feed you to a bear. Out of the mouth of a woman who wanders down Woodward Avenue in her pajamas for no apparent reason . . . On a Sunday Morning with a head full of poetry.

Am I, Are We . . . Irrational?

This morning, right after Hannah woke up, she spotted her black, shiny "Sunday Shoes," and decided that she needed to wear them . . . Now! She proceeded in an attempt to put the things on her feet, but because they have tiny little buckles, and she's three-years-old with the fine motor skills that "3" entails, she was having trouble getting them on. So, she screams, "Mama! I CAN'T get my princess shoes on!" I was trying to go about doing other things, getting her breakfast being one of those things, so fancy foot wear was among the least of my concerns. "Hannah," I said, "I don't think you need princess shoes to eat breakfast." I got, "YES, I DOOOOOOOOO. I NEED MY PRINCESS SHOES, NOW!" This was followed by kicking and copious tears. Then, my response, "Why is this so important to you? It makes no sense whatsover!" Of course, I know that Hannah is a child, and that she's pretty much ruled by her emotions, so however irrational and futile her requests may seem to me, they're important to her. So, I often have to take a deep breath, count to ten, and remember that I'm not dealing with an adult, and to act accordingly . . . As I did earlier this morning.
Then . . . I rather sheepishly remembered a request of my own that I made not too long ago. I said, "Just call me and tell me that you're too tired and don't want to talk to me right now." Oh, my. And, the point of that would be . . . ? Yeah. I know. Give me my princess shoes. NOW.
I'm thinking of a scene in "As Good As it Gets," where the Jack Nicholson character is asked by a young woman, "How do you write women so well?" With his characteristic smirk, Jack responds, "I think of a man, then I take away reason and accountability." Okay, Jack, yeah, you're funny. Hardy-har-har. But . . . Sometimes I wonder. Am I goverened to a ridiculous extent by my varying emotions? Sometimes. Yes. I must be. Otherwise, things like the above mentioned request just wouldn't come out of my mouth. Hindsight informs me of the stupidity of some of my actions, and sometimes I learn things that inform my future actions, but what about foresight? Shouldn't I be able to think before I say certain things, "Why is this so important to you? It makes no sense whatsoever!" No. Probably not. Not always, anyway. I suppose that I've answered my own question. Yes. Sometimes I am ruled by my emotions, and I make irrational requests, draw unreasonable conclusions, and only realize my mistakes later. Ugh. So, yeah. The Jackie quote is probably more true than I want it to be. It's humbling for me to think that for men, sometimes (only SOMETIMES!) dealing with my sex can be more than a little like me dealing with my toddler, but I'll own the truth in that, if, in fact, such is the case.
Now, I know that I can't entirely change my stripes, but I don't have to mix them with polka-dots, or . . . Something like that. Knowledge is half the battle, but only HALF. If, in fact, this is one of the more inconvenient things that just comes with being female (I guess there has to be a certain price to pay for the super powers; reading minds, making babies, multi-tasking, etc.) there's only so much I can do to change the situation. If my conclusion is correct, than this is a thing that's woven into my very nature. It's part of my freakin' DNA.
So, to the men, I have this simple advice. Try to remember that when irrationality takes hold of your beloved lady friend, wife, mother, sister, etc., that it's a little like when you were a kid and were afraid of the thing under your bed, in the closet, lurking outside of your window, etc. Objectively, the thing wasn't real in the least, but you thought it was real, so the fear was entirely real. That irrational horror felt just as authentic as it would have if you had been confronted face to face with a machete wielding maniac in a hockey mask. Try to be kind to a certain extent. I'm not saying that we get carte blanche, and never should be held accountable for our "crazy girl stuff." Hardly. Call us out on the stupid shit that we pull, but, at the same time, try to be a little sensitive to our shortcomings. God knows, we sure as hell are to yours.

Paralysis

It's a day when it feels like I could produce a 100,000 words, all strung together prettily, perhaps even eloquently, and all of it would still only add up to nada. I had intended to post something about powerhouse corporations eating the little guy, and how all of us have to do our bit by neglecting big chains in favor of small, privately owned businesses. Yes, patronize that quirky little coffee shop that you swear you love before it's too late. Buy your kid one thing that means something for Christmas instead of all of the plastic crap that they're pushing at you on the telly, and, chances are, you won't have to go to Walmart. There. I guess I've said what I wanted to. I can't feel those mental muscles that usually flex so well for me, but I guess that they're still there, functioning on autopilot, and getting done what needs to be done.
Joyce says a lot about mental paralysis in Dubliners. I hate that book, but it's probably not the book's fault. It's probably a little like hating the mirror on a day when you're feeling aesthetically challenged. It is what it is. Either change whatever it is that you think you don't like, or stop looking.

Resume, or "A Working Title"

This picture has little to do with this post. I googled an image for "working girl" with the intention of finding something depicting a posh looking chick in business attire. I got those, sure, but I also happened upon a photo of this gal who must have been 102-years-young wearing a skimpy saloon girl costume, complete with fishnet stockings and pleather boots with spiked heels. Naturally, I saved the image to my files immediately, seeing as how it was probably the most inappropriate thing that I could ever hope to find. However, when I got around to actually starting my post, I had second thoughts. It's hard enough to get people to actually read this thing, and the last thing I want to do is assault you visually if you have taken the time to take a peek at the land of Amy. So . . . I was looking through my collection of images, and there was sweet Eddie looking at me. See? He's looking at you now. And, I thought, if I had a fairy godmother who could wave a wand and give me the job of my dreams, this is what that fairy godmother would look like . . . I hope. So, there. That's that.
Ah, yes . . . Job of my dreams. I want that, so I'm working on my resume. This hasn't been an easy task for me because I'm uncertain as to which job experiences I should share and which ones I should just keep to myself. My work history is varied and colorful, so I've got a lot of material to choose from. Let's see . . . I've worked in a greenhouse. That was my favorite job ever. I frolicked around an indoor garden and got paid for it . . . Not much, mind you, but I was happy, so it didn't matter. I left that job to work for an obsessive compulsive optometrist who was also a diehard Southern Baptist. I probably don't need to tell you that he was perfectly beastly. He eventually fired me when he found me reading a Harry Potter book on my lunch break. Harry Potter? Please. If I had to do it over again, I would have been wearing sequined devil horns while reading ALOUD from the Satanic Verses while watching something involving donkeys and big-busted Cubans on the office computer.
Before all of this, way back during my early college days, I briefly worked for clearly insane people at an herb shoppe. The proprietors of said shoppe mixed and sold foul-smelling concoctions that they chose to package in beer bottles. They didn't even bother with pulling the labels off, which leads me to suspect that their "method" for "sanitizing" these bottles was dubious at best. They also sold things with dried flowers stuck to them. This is where I came in. Apparently, the lady half of Lord and Lady Whackjob, what with all of the tasks and responsibilities that go along with being a fullblown nutcase (i. e. hosting naked poetry slams, making recordings of electric saws running across sheet metal, having friendly chats with Janice Joplin through a conch shell, howling at the moon, etc.), she was simply too busy to bothered with sticking dried flowers to shit, and that HAD to be done. It HAD TO BE DONE. Okay. So, I was hired primarily to sit in a room that smelled like licorice, ass, and Budweiser and glue dried flowers to seeingly random objects; hats, styrofoam cones, coffee cups, porcelain cats, etc. Hey, it was a job, and I was a poor college student who needed money badly. What I didn't know upon taking the job was that these clearly insane people were the sort of clearly insane people who didn't believe in the exchange of money. They believed firmly in the barter system, so when my first "payday" rolled around, I was presented with the collected works of Anais Nin, 12 jars of lemon verbena jelly, and three boxes of Wheat Thins. I didn't need to run that song by The Clash through my head before making like that Seagulls song for the door.
So, yeah. I should probably leave this one off the resume, but I'm still not sure. You see, I want a job in a place that values creativity, and wouldn't any potential employer who appreciates a creative streak be thorougly impressed with the knowledge that I once got paid in jelly for gluing a dried out piece of flora to a porcelain cat's butt so that the kitty looked like it was pooping out a 102-year-old chrysanthemum? I think so.
See, here would be a fun place to insert the picture of the old broad that I mentioned WAY up at the top, but I won't do that to you because I play nice . . . Most of the time. My mind immediately made the connection between a dried out 102-year-old chrysanthemum and the plumed and garter-belted fossil in the photo, even though I didn't ask it to. It's just how the thing works. Funny.

Demolicious

I've noticed that there are at least two glaring typographical errors in my response to my only comment to date on this thing, and that bugs me. I am a selective perfectionist, and I can't figure out how to edit my responses to comments, so grrr! I say. The one that rattles my chain the most is my obvious omission of a question mark at the end of a sentence that clearly is meant to be a query. This drives me particularly crazy because of the irony. It's always the irony. You see, I have this speech related quirk that causes many of my intended declaritive statements to sound interrogative. There's this sort of inflection that comes out from time to time that makes me sound like I'm asking a question when I'm not, and it's embarrassing. I like to think that it's a product of my Southern upbringing and not some mark of insecurity that I'm carrying around with me, although I suspect that my confidence may be a little misguided. I've been known to apologize for existing, so I've kind of shot myself in the foot when it comes to making any lofty claims about my "high self esteem." I digress.
I will get to whatever it is that I want to talk about at some point or another, but first I want to mention meat. Meat. I went through a long spell of time proudly reffering to myself as a "vegetarian." I consumed no meat at all, and I was happy. Recently, I've started to consume animal flesh again, and I've been happy. I didn't eat meat today, and I had a good day, so I'm guessing that my consumption of flesh is in no way directly affiliated with my contentment level . . . Nor, I've come to understand, is abstinence from carnage. I may very well eat meat tommorow. I may not. I may once again go for years without eating meat, but I will never again call myself a "vegetarian." Whether I eschew flesh or not, I will eschew labels. I like options, so consider me "undeclared" in terms of dietary camps from here on out.
Okay, so I've decided that I like the term, "demolicious." I don't care if my ass is too small to carry off anything that ends in "licious." Of course, my dream of being a demolition expert experienced a quick demise. I would love to bring violent destruction down upon the strip malls and other architectural atrocities of the world, but those are unfortunately the things being built, so there's not a lot of demand for their obliteration. Pity. I could have been a contender. I'm still very much in love with those beautiful structures that are being demolished all too quickly. Even these fading, crumbling husks in Detroit . . . Yeah. I love 'em too. I wouldn't touch a brick in their trembling facades. However, as I said, I would still love to demolish a strip mall or two if such an opportunity ever surfaces. I'm also very much in favor of steamrolling over idols, ideals, preconceived notions, and stupid, knee-jerk reactions. So, destructo-girl still has her fodder. She is content for now, or she would be . . . If someone would just tell her where they keep the good explosives.

Niche, you say?

First of all, I want to report that as I was looking up "niche" just to be sure that I'm spelling it correctly (I was pretty sure, but overconfidence in my "command" of the English language can be the bane of my existence if I'm not careful.), I came across the word, "nipplewort." Now, because I apparently have a 13-year-old boy lodged in my brain somewhere, my eyes always lock upon anything that might be even vaguely smutty in the dictionary. As it turns out, "nipplewort" is a plant. It was used in "folk medicine" to cure breast tumors. Practitioners of folk medicine are/were concerned with breast tumors? Interesting. Anyway, I digress.
Secondly, I want to commend this blog thingy for being so easy to use. A monkey could make this thing work. Hey, I'm doing it, and that says something.
Thirdly . . . Oh, yes, first things last. What was I doing here, anyway? Oh, yes. I want to whine about being a "writer." That should be riveting. If you're still reading, you must either be my mom or someone who's just too damned nice. I have no problem with the latter. I'll exploit your altruism for all it's worth. Keep reading.
Stop. Mental tangent: I just wonder, because I just can't help but wonder, when did I stop being interesting to one of my very favorite people in the whole, wide world? I wish I knew the precise moment. It would be fascinating, in a sad kind of way, to note the very time and the very place that such a transition occured. Suddenly, I, myself, am not fascinating. I am not precious, nor a thing of even remote lovliness. I just started to be annoying, and I get more "annoying" every day, even though I'm the same person who once "deserved" undeserved attention. Does familiarity really breed contempt? Am I only good in very small doses? The world may never know, and I don't know if I want to know. Yes. Yes, I do. I'm just that masochistic.
Anyway, here's with the niche thing. I want to write. That much has been firmly established. Okay, great. What precisely do I intend to write? Well, I like to construct these humorous little essays about my own life that I find funny, and I have these quixotic hopes that others will find them funny as well. Yeah, I know, I'm not David Sedaris, and he seems to have this particulr "niche" all sorted out. On the other hand, I'm NOT David Sedaris, so what I have to say might be interesting in ways that differ from the ways that his stuff is interesting, so maybe there's room in the niche. Maybe I'm looking for a niche that's similar to his niche, but not entirely the same. Hmm.
I'm also hacking endlessly away at my poor, entirely unsolicited fiction. Now, here's the problem with this particular enterprise, I want to write popular fiction, but I don't usually read popular fiction, so would I even begin to know what readers of popular fiction might want? The last thing that I read that qualifies as "popular fiction" is a novel by Max Brooks called World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, and it's bloody brilliant. I want to shout from the rooftops, "Please, please, for the sake of whatever Entity makes you feel guilty on any given morning, Sunday or otherwise, please read this book! It's amazing, and your life will be better for having let your eyes feast upon these pages! So, yeah, there's obviously some good stuff being written these days. Will my stuff rank among the good, the bad, or the just plain ugly? Hard to say. I would like to think that what I sweat over possesses at least a modicum of merit, but what do I know? Like I said, I generally don't read the stuff on the lists . . . Any of the lists. I should probably start doing that, but that would take away good writing time, and, some place that you might have aspirations towards getting to when you die knows that I'm not getting any younger.
So, anyway . . . I write. I hope for an audience. I hope extra hard for the mental fortitude to finish the things that I've started, simply trusting seemingly beyond the limits of trust that these things have merit and will be received well by people who actually still care about the printed word. It's a tall order, I know. Sometimes I wish that I had developed a fervent desire to be a civil engineer at a very young age. Wouldn't my life be lovely?

A "Proper" Introduction

Okay, I don't really look like this. I don't look like Death either. For the non-geeks, or, in my world, the tragically ill-informed, I'm referring to my profile picture, which is "Death" from Neil Gaiman's most excellent graphic novels. I'm not nearly that hot. But, in my defense, she's a drawing, and I'm a real person. Clearly, she has an advantage. Sometimes, I do look like death, but, luckily, due to good genes and a penchant for at least semi-regular exercise, those times, at least for now, are few and far between.
I've never liked the stream of consciousness narrative, which just goes to show you how much the irony bitch likes to fuck with me. It's how I write, and I like to write, so I'm forced to eat my words, quite literally. I've traditionally been anti-Joyce, but I fear that he is destined to rank among my heroes. It is my lot, and I accept it, but I'll be damned if I'll like it.
And, I have a problem (This is related, so bear with me.) I seem to possess no mental editor, so whatever goes through my head inevitably and invariably comes out of my mouth. This makes relationships hard, to say the least. The people in my life are always doubting my sanity. I, of course, don't entirely trust my sanity. Why should anyone do such? After all, the crazy person is always the last one to know. However, I am fairly sure that I'm harmless, and that must count for something. And, I'm reasonably certain that I'm actually sane. I'm just ridiculously truthful, for some reason or another. I found myself saying the other day, "Okay, it's honesty time," and I nearly laughed out loud. Isn't it always "honesty time" at the house of Amy? It was a ridiculously redundant statement on my behalf, but it seemed to be appropriate at the time. That's the thing with me . . . It seemed to make sense at the time! And, well, later . . . Yeah. That editor thing would come in handy. Until that time when such is miraculously installed, I remain yours, ever faithful, ever truthful, and brazenly uncouth,

Amy