I guess I used to be a romantic at heart?

I found these in some old papers when I was cleaning out my stuff this weekend.

That First Moment
When you're about to smile
I can see the sparkle in your eyes
And the whole weight upon you seems to float away
I want to live in that moment
When it feels like waking up, wrapped in a warm blanket
As peaceful as the snowfall on a winter's night
And as exhilarating as the wind on an autumn day
And happy. Oh so happy


untitled
i dreamed she walked by
gorgeous goddess of woman
her breath whispers through my spirit
like a thousand morning dreams
her beauty dances to my song
let the music be our sweet love
oh perfect little angel
red wine smile and eyes ocean blue
hair as deep and dark as the shadows
light me like the stars
as every evening i fall for you

Overheard

Sarah Palin's daughter is hot. I'd knock her up, too.

Overheard

It makes perfect sense; If I smell like cock, then he'll want me.

This was an email I got today

I am studying at espresso royale and this 40 year old overweight man with a mustache comes to sit at the table next to me, he turns around and he is wearing a furry leopard-print kitty tail attached to his butt that goes almost to the floor... no joke... think maybe he forgot to remove it from halloween? or it's just his piece of flair ;) nope, he just tucked it in his lap for easier sitting....

Texts From The Other Night

(217) Drunk before 3. gotta bad feeling about tonight !
(540) upset michigan, i think tonight is looking up for all of Champaign.

(217) i have concerns...
(540) No way your night is weirder than mine
(217) I hope you are right about that. have you been propositioned by a midget.
(540) No i'm at some loft party and there's nazi porn on the projector
(217) Okay. obviously we are going to have to exchange stories.
(540) Yes.

(217) Good lord made it home safe and by myself!

License of the Elderly

There was a waiting line for the lady at the desk, but he didn't seem to notice. He was too busy chatting with her, making small talk while she tapped at the keyboard. He seemed to be worried that his insurance premiums, since he paid for those premiums, would soon go up due to all those who don't pay for insurance receiving care. "Well, hopefully that won't happen," was all the lady behind the computer could think to say. "Mr. X---, take a seat and give this to the nurse when you get called." She handed him a printout and gestured toward the seats behind him.

He hobbled over to the chairs, one foot shuffling in front of the other, his age showing in his knees and back and legs. Grasping both armrests firmly, he eased himself into the seat and began waiting, his paper-like creased fingers intertwined.

Almost immediately, the door to the back room was opened and a young lady in a white lab coat looked up from her clipboard and called his name. He had chosen the seat directly adjacent to the door. He handed her the white sheet he was holding and then began the process of standing up. "I've been waitin there for half an hour," he smiled at the nurse with the mischievous grin of the elderly.

"Well you know what I think?" She pronounced I as aigh. "I think you're full of it." She had the smile and look in her eye of a young woman used to the flirting banter of older gentlemen. "I saw you checkin in..." And that was all I could hear before the door closed and they walked away.

Not Like Last Time

"Tyler, you want to see something classy?" she asked me eagerly.
"You know I do!" I replied, genuine in my excitement. She plunked her purse down on the barstool beside me and tipsily fumbled with the zipper. As she dug into the bag she explained further.
"So, I'm out of toilet paper at home, and rather than go to the store?" She tilted to bag towards me to reveal a familiar looking cylinder wrapped in paper with green writing. I laughed.
"No, that's hilarious," I told her.
"The other day at school there someone in the bathroom complaining about it being under lock and key. They were like 'what the hell, why would anyone steal toilet paper?' I just kept my mouth shut."

As we headed to the door the she turned to me. "I better not read about this on the blog."
I had to chuckle. "Don't worry," I assured her. "I won't use your name."

The Trick Is

If we're going to maintain our level of drinking, we have to come back like, three, four times a week.

Are we really going to be able to do that, now that you have a girlfriend?

See, my girlfriend is an undergrad; she's busy all the time.

Heh, you're right. Your girlfriend is an undergrad. I need to make fun of you for that more often.

Grammar

I don't usually use this blog to do anything other than tell stories, but I really enjoyed this article.

If you ever wanted to dork out and read about prescriptivism vs descriptivism, well, now you can.

I tend to lean more towards the descriptive camp, mostly because I get annoyed by people who correct other's grammar, who say "ain't" and "irregardless" aren't words, and especially those who get pleasure out of "knowing how to speak properly" -- a guise for "better than the next guy."

English is a fluid concept, an amalgam of languages, and never was there an Académie française to govern how people use it.

My Fortune Cookie at Lunch Today

Good things are being, said about you.

Perceptions

We slumped into the first set of forward-facing seats as the train doors automatically closed. Slouching down, lauging about some inside joke, we threw our feet onto the seats ahead of us and relaxed, waiting for the end of the line. In the Washington, DC Metro cars, the seats next to the doors face in, perpendicular to travel, and are generally taken up by elderly people, single moms with their children, or weary eyed federal workers with reasonable, comfortable shoes.

As the doors opened at the next stop, four or five people shuffled in and a middle aged gentleman took the seat in front of ours. Both of us, in deference to his presence, took our feet off the seat and sat up slightly. He smiled and nodded slightly, and I returned the greeting. As the train started to move, he struggled internally for a second and then leaned over.

"Excuse me," he started and I perked my eyebrows in the way that shows someone you are listening. "I was wondering if you two moved your feet just now because I'm black."

I was surprised. "Oh... oh no, because I know some people would think it's rude having your feet up."

"I think y'all should make yourself comfortable, I don't mind at all."

"Well thank you." I think I put my feet back up, I can't say for sure. But I kept thinking about the exchange later. My actions, I thought, had been innocuous, polite even. But if it looked like that to him, how could they have been?

No, I hadn't fallen victim to the Fear Of The Black Man On The Street In America -- it was because countless times I had been chastized by teachers to put my feet down, because you have to respect other people's space in public, because he was older than me.

At least, I think?

The Dame

She slinked into the barstool next to mine and threw a smile at the barback washing glasses. It was a smile that men find themselves hard pressed to forget. She laid her clutch on the bar and rummaged through, taking out her phone and flipping it open to check the time or her messages. I ogled her out of the corner of my eye, with nothing better to do.

"What can I get you?" asked the bartender, wiping his hands on a towel. "Hmm... I'm feeling summery... How're your mojitos?" She didn't speak the words so much as purr them. "Best in town," the bartender replied, tucking the towel into his back pocket. She flashed her smile at him and nodded and he went about fixing the drink. I took a swig of my beer and stole the chance to check her out more properly. Black hair, shimmering like the coat of a jaguar. And just as dangerous.

Overheard 7/14

So, did I grab the cock the other night?

I like how it's not "your cock" but rather "the cock."

So that's a yes? I feel like I owe you a motorboat. You can motorboat me.

Yet I can sleep through the building next door burning down?

She dropped me off at my apartment at 7:30 in the morning. I was still half asleep trying to open the door. My bed was calling. I dropped my keys on the table and plugged my phone in to charge. I collapsed on top of the mattress and closed my eyes, trying to fall back asleep.

Outside my window were a number of impediments to this goal. A jackhammer tearing up the sidewalk. A cement saw sectioning the sidewalk for the jackhammer's next project. Some sort of gigantic hammer pounding on steel i-beams. And a construction worker driving a machine that APPARENTLY ONLY WORKS IN REVERSE for some unknown, goddamn, beep-beep-beep-beepy reason.

I made coffee and ate breakfast instead.

Overheard 7/4

Wait, Ol' Dirty is dead?  (the inflected incredulity unfortunately does not translate to text)

Oh So Serious

"I don't get it, you don't want to hang out with me anymore?" I was walking her home from an evening out with my friends. It was a bomb out of nowhere.

"No, remember when we first met and it was your friends and my friends and we were all just hanging out? I think we should go back to that."

"That doesn't make any sense. You like me. I like you. We have fun hanging out together."

"I know, I just... it's..." She started over. "We've been spending a lot of time together, just the two of us... and I didn't intend for that to happen. I think we should go back to the way things used to be." I didn't remember the way things used to be. I only remembered smiling when I was around her. I only remembered catching her out of the corner of my eye smiling at me.

I couldn't understand. "Why?"

Her reasons didn't make much sense. I didn't think she was being honest with me. Maybe not with herself. It was a long walk and a long, drawn out conversation. I had made the unfortunate mistake of being chivalrous, insisting I would walk her home when she tried to get me to stay with my friends.

She wasn't going to change her mind. I wasn't going to try to change it for her.

Finally we made it to her door. We stopped walking and faced eachother, both staring at the ground so we didn't have to acknowledge the awkwardness floating between us. "If I see you, I promise I'll be congenial and I'll laugh at your jokes and I won't be jealous of the boy on your arm." "I don't have any jokes," she replied. I hugged her close to me and she left her arms limp at her side. "Give me a hug," I asked her. "Hmmm. You smell nice." She murmured and her arms hesitated. "That's making this really difficult for me..." It better be difficult for you. It's pretty damn difficult for me, I thought to myself. I didn't say it though. I kissed her on the forehead and said "goodbye" and walked away.

When she had stopped at my apartment earlier in the evening she had given me a mix tape. An actual cassette tape. When I got home I saw it sitting on the table where she had set it down. I picked it up and looked at the track listing written on the back. At the bottom she had drawn some hearts and xoxos. "This is bullshit!" I exclaimed to my empty apartment. I threw the tape down on the table and went to bed.

I woke up the next morning and remembered what had happened. "Bullshit!" I exclaimed to my ceiling. "This is bullshit!" I puttered around my apartment, feeling pissed off and not wanting to head to work. I picked up the tape and looked at the track listing again. It only annoyed me more. Songs I liked, artists I liked, from different eras, from different genres. I tried to put it out of my mind.

****

I was driving to a nearby state park to go hiking when I played the tape for the first time. One time she had noticed that my car's radio had a tape deck, which was why she had recorded a tape rather than making a CD. Nobody still had a tape deck. I listened to side A on the way out and only got more irritated. Songs like "Your Love," "In Your Eyes," and "The Way You Make Me Feel" she would have chosen only if she liked me as I did her. At least, I thought. Maybe not. Of course so. Then why did she change her mind? I kept seething in my head, wavering one way and then another.

The last track on side A ended as I pulled into the park and stopped my car. The hike was long and hot; exhaustion was what finally stopped my internal diatribe as I returned to the car. Sitting in the driver's seat, I drank the last drops from my water bottle and started the engine. The tape deck made a series of clicks and whirrings, and side B began as I started to drive back home.

There was a shift in tone from A to B, or at least I thought there was. "Don't Let It Get You Down." "Find Out How It Ends." "Forever Young." "Boys Of Summer." Maybe it was the heat, or the exhaustion, or the sunset I was driving into, or the goofy way the sound was warping faster and slower, louder and softer. Whatever it was, I suddenly understood what catharsis meant.

I started to compose an email to her in my head. I listened to your mix tape... Thanks. I'm still a little pissed, but it made me feel better. I think I understand. Or maybe I'm misinterpreting, or maybe you didn't mean anything at all. Either way, I really enjoyed getting to know you. I had a lot of fun spending time together. I'll miss that. See you round.

A Belated Father's Day

And in that moment Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later. For the first time he realized that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps, love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life.

---From The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

I had that moment when I was twenty one years old. It was the first time I faced the realization that, as a friend of mine put it, "my dad was not Superman." It was the first time I had cried for years. It was the first time I truly realized that my parents would one day not be here.

It was the first time I allowed myself to think that I was an adult. That all there was to being a grown up was growing old.

I saw this when my oldest brother had children. He was still my brother. We still talked about comic strips and about physics. We helped each other out and we argued. Having children did not bestow upon him superpowers, changing him from my brother into something new.

I see this in my father now. My whole life I had seen him as always having the answers, as always being infallible. Now I see he has always been just a man. A man who did the best he could. A man who taught my brothers and me what he thought was right and wrong in the world. How to behave. What you should and should not do. How to treat other people. That you should always do the right thing not because it is the easy thing, or because you may be rewarded, but because it is The Right Thing To Do. These are the things that I carry on from him, the things I learned from him whether or not he knew he was teaching me.

Shopping List

I need to buy condoms, I thought to myself one day. I'll pick some up the next time I'm at the store.

A few days later I was on the way to a friend's for a small gathering. I told him I would pick up the beer. As I pulled into the grocery store parking lot I went over my mental shopping list: Beer, condoms.

There's no way in hell that's all I'm standing in line with.

I made another mental note. Pick some up next time I'm at the store AND buying more than just beer.

Apologies

It's been brought to my attention that I have been neglecting my blog lately.

My bad.

I wasn't really aware that anyone besides maybe two people read my ramblings. Apparently this is not the case. I will try to do better in the future.

The T-Shirt

It wasn't the first time I asked out a bartender, but it will almost certainly be the last. I had had a "server crush" on her for a while -- the kind of crush you have for a waitress or bartender, but know it won't pan out because you're just another customer. But in this case she was a friend of a friend's girlfriend and we were all hanging out one night. It was obvious she was flirting with me, and I was just tipsy enough to ask for her phone number. She was tipsy enough to give it to me.

We saw each other for a few weeks, but nothing really clicked between us. I kept calling her because she was cute and I wasn't seeing anyone else. We didn't see each other for a week or so because she went out of town and then I went out of town, and by the time we were both back she was busy with school. "I'm kind of swamped right now, why don't I give you a call when things settle down?" she told me over the phone. A thinly veiled guise if I ever heard one.

At some point I had loaned her a t shirt of mine. It was too small to fit me anymore, shrunk from years of use and years of growing. It had the date 1984 on it, and I can remember it being so large on me I would trip on the hem. It didn't fit me at all but it fit her quite well, and when I tossed it to her to try on she remarked on how soft it was. "I just might have to steal this," she (half) joked. "You better not; I've had that shirt for over twenty years."

I waited a few days to call her back and see if she wanted to have dinner. I left a voice mail. I mentioned how I'd like to swap my shirt for a shirt my friend had promised her and I had gotten from him. Life went on. About a week later I sent her a text message. I hate text messages. "So I get that you're not interested in seeing me anymore and I'm cool with that, but I was serious about wanting to get my shirt back." No response. I stopped going to the bar where she worked, figuring that avoiding awkward situations was for the best.

The story of my t shirt became a running joke for my friends: "so did you get your shirt back yet?" became a common greeting. "If Tyler would just man up and get his shirt back we could go back to that bar." Except for the principle of the theft, I stopped being bothered by the loss of my shirt. After all, it was just a shirt and it didn't even fit me anyway. Having the story became more interesting to me than having the shirt. "I wish you would just get it back already so I would stop having to hear about it!" one of my coworkers exclaimed. She didn't see the humor it it that the rest of us did.

Weeks and weeks had gone by and I had sucessfully avoided her since the theft incident. My boss, because of some good results at work, said he was going to take several of us out for dinner and drinks. Of course we had to go to the bar I never went to anymore. I knew she had been planning on moving away sometime soon, and I was fairly confident that that sometime soon was in the past by that point. Alright, I thought to myself, there's very little chance that she'll be there. I showed up after everyone else and walked up to the table.

"Awesome." I said to my friends who were in on the story. She was there working.

Overheard 5/15

My brother is over there, he really likes your shirt and he's hot for you.

But Three Wrongs Make a Left

So you want to come to work with me?

Can I bring a billy club and line up puppies for the gas chamber? I'll tell them they're just showers.

That is so wrong.

Ooh, I can make a sign for the kennels: Work will set you free.

Those are like the two things you're not supposed to make jokes about. Killing puppies and the Holocaust.

But see, when you combine the two it's okay. Like how two negative numbers make a positive.

Yeah, 'cause two wrongs make a right...

Overheard

So you really think she was into me?

Uh... yeah! Do you not remember her sitting on your lap, pouring shots down your throat?

Hmm... Not really. I guess maybe she was.

That Certain Rush

She's standing in her underwear. You didn't mean to just walk in like that, but you couldn't have known. You were gone for only a minute. You feel a certain rush. Like a little kid given a cookie. Like sledding down a hill. Like diving into a cool lake on a hot day. Like jumping off a swingset. You can't help but stare after you avert your eyes.

It doesn't seem to phase her though, her state of dress. She's slipping on a pair of jeans. She does that little jumping shifting dance to pull them over her hips. She turns around and smiles at you. Like an ice cream cone in the summertime. She pulls an old tee shirt over her head. I think that's inside out, you say. She says something you won't hear.

She bends over to tug on her sandals and you watch her hair cascading over her shoulders. Like a hot shower after a long run. She walks towards you, towards the door. Are you ready, she asks. Her palm reaches out and touches your cheek. Like waking up from a Sunday afternoon nap, refreshed, blissful. You just look into her eyes, replaying her routine in your mind. A little show just for you, a wonderful moment in time.

Really, you could not come back and it'd be ok

He had just arrived. I was supposed to make an appearance at a different location fifteen minutes ago. I felt pretty bad about that.

"I'm sorry; I told some people I would go grab dinner with them, but I'll be back. You think you'll be ok?"

He looked around at the table. Eight people. Three were guys and two of them were about to leave. He let out a single laugh.

"Don't worry about me; I think I'll be fine."

So this one time...

I want to have been punched in the face. But I don't want to actually be punched in the face. This is a distinction that many people don't get when I tell them this. The thing I really want is to have a story about the time I was punched in the face.

I fully understand that it would hurt. When I tell someone who has been in a fight, they inevitably say "it really hurts." Yes, I understand this. That's why I don't want to be punched. I want to have been punched in the face.

I've thought about this. A lot. Ideally, it would happen at a bar. Some guy would be drunk and think I was hitting on his girlfriend, and rather than try and resolve the situation civilly he would swing away. I don't want to get into a fight, so I wouldn't try to hit back. Somebody's friends (his or mine) would be there to defuse the situation and it would only result in a story about the time I got punched in the face.

I think this situation would qualify as a "good enough story." Some of my friends volunteer themselves to punch me --some more often than others-- but being hit by a friend just to have been hit doesn't make for a good story. It makes for a terrible story about being punched in the face.

When it happens, I think I'll tell people I fell down a flight of stairs. Then I'll laugh and launch into the fantastic story that I now have. How awesome would that be. I'd call that story The Story About The Time I Got Punched In The Face.

On The Road

As a child I spent a great deal of time, as did many younger siblings of my generation, riding in the backseat of the family car. My parents, in the sensibilities of the liberal middle class of the time, sent my brothers to a school 10 miles away; a school where conferences were held in lieu of report cards, teachers were never Mr. So-and-so or Mrs. Such-and-such but rather “John” or “Linda,” and in addition to the daily 45 minute recesses spent running through the woods there was a 15 minute “fruit break” when students could go outside and eat the fruit, yogurt, or granola snack their mothers had lovingly packed in a reusable lunch bag.

Being the youngest I would, on every carpool day, be strapped into the booster seat in the back of the station wagon and ride the 20 miles to and from my brothers' school. And when, halfway through kindergarten at the local school I threw a fit over coloring books masquerading as mathematics lessons and refused to go anymore, my parents decided I too should attend the same school as my brothers, I found myself in the backseat of the car for 20 miles every day.

And of course there were semi-regular weekend visits to my mother's sister in Washington, DC. The 5 hour car ride became familiar enough that to this day, stopping off I-81 in Woodstock and not going to the Hardee's with Norman Rockwell drawings on the walls for an ice cream cone feels unnatural.

Summer vacations found us packed in the car, driving from Virginia to Chicago to Minnesota. We would split the journey to Illinois into two days, generally stopping outside Columbus at a motel. For long car trips, my mother would bring along a box of toys and puzzles and games, a specially designated box we weren't allowed in but during car rides for fear the toys would loose their appeal through familiarity and the trips would become even longer.

My mom's plan would work for a while, until we started to behave as brothers do, at which point she would use some trick from the mom manual, distracting us until the next rest stop. Sometimes she would read to us, exposing the three of us to the literary classics we would otherwise never read on our own: The Secret Garden, Anne of Green Gables, The Velveteen Rabbit. And some that we would have: The Jungle Book, A Wrinkle in Time, The Call of the Wild.

To this day when we get together, my brothers and I will sit around and reminisce about the times we spent traveling. When one of us discovered McDonald's only served small, large, or extra large drinks but not medium; Dave Barry columns we would read and find hilarious for the rest of the trip (that IS a big suitcase) and indeed the rest of time; the trip where we couldn't find a hotel because of the Little League World Series, so we drove from Chicago to Virginia in one night.

But one of my favorite past times, those times there was only my mother or my father and I got a window seat, was imagining I was a video game character running alongside the car as it sped down the road. Usually I was Mega Man or Mario jumping over signs, running up hills, doing flips in the air, and blasting trees out of the way. Sometimes I was a ninja, clad in white, slicing through entire forests, fighting off the black ninjas who were trying thwart me from my journey. And sometimes I was an adventurer, a la Indiana Jones or that guy from Pitfall, swinging through the air from whips or vines, evading snakes and lions and pumas.

Later in life I was reading a famous book by a famous beat author when one particular passage struck me. The two main characters, one from a privileged East Coast family and the other from a modest Western family, were talking about the time they spent in the car while growing up. The East Coast character told how he would stare out the window and pretend he was riding his horse beside the car, bounding along without restraint. The Western character admitted he did the same thing, running, running, running beside the car, the wind in his hair and freedom at his back.

Jurassic Private Eyes

By Ty & Clint
Narrated by Clint Compsognathus

It all started on a cold snowy day in August. Ty, Matt, and I were checking out a recent crime in our patrol car. The kids were throwing snowballs at us. I was driving, Ty was snoozing, and Matt was drawing on the window. We really are professionals, even though drawing on the windows is one of our favorite past times.

We were on our way to investigate a mystery at 1313 Thirteenth Street. Someone had been robbed. When we got there, I woke Ty up. Then Matt stepped out of the car, and got hit with a snowball. I had to use the bathroom. Ty was throwing snowballs at Matt, and Matt said,
"Of course you know, this means war!"
I quickly scrambled out of the battlefield. I told Matt and Ty to wait for me. I had to find a bathroom.

After using the john, Ty, Matt, and I knocked on 1313's door. To our surprise, the door opened by itself. A voice said:
"We don't want any."
We looked down, and saw an ant dressed as a butler.
"You sure are a skimpy thing," said Ty.
"I'm not skimpy," said the ant. "You're just big." Ty and I looked at eachoter, then at Matt. Matt was preparing a snowball.
"None of that," I said. Wait till we crack the case."
This bug was a real nusiance.
"Squish 'em!" Ty said.
"I'm warning you," said the ant, "I know tae kwon doe!"
"Cool! i know Ty too!!" Matt said.

Just then, the ant came up with a kick that knocked Matt out. Ty and I were furious, so we squished him.

Once in the mansion, we talked to Scott Segisourus, the owner of the mansion. "Good morning, private eyes," said Scott, "This is such a creepy mansion, I'm so glad you're here. I wanted to talk to you about a robbery that happened last night at about 12 am, or midnight, I can't remember which."
"Well, we're here to check it out!" said matt, who had just recovered.

So we all started looking for any signs of a criminal. While passing through the next time zone (Just goes to show how big the mansion was), Matt stopped to set his watch.

"Ah-ha!!!" Ty exclaimed. We all turned to see what it was. Davy Dilophosaur was lying dead in the middle of the platinum-plated gold cigar boxes collection room. Matt said,
"Cool, we can call him dead Davy Dilophosaur!"
Scott, who was searching with us, exclaimed,
"Oh-no!! My nephew's grandfather's brother's aunt's sister's boyfriend's roommate's girlfriend's x-boyfriend's father's best friend has been murdered!" Scott cried like it was his son, not that was to far off. Matt comforted him.
"It's okay, baby. It'll be okay."

After Matt stopped acting like a mommy, we continued our mystery.
"Now, how could Davy jsut die like that?" I wondered. It was clear Davy had met death gruesomely, he had been clawed and bitten.

We called the emergency number, which was 91111111111111111. The cops and ambulances came zooming up the drive.
"Whatza prob? I wuz watchin Barney!!" said one cop.
"Someone's dead! Someone's dead!" Matt cried, jumping up and down, waving his arms.
"Have a doughnut." Ty said giving the cop one.
"Gee, tanks"
"You're welcome."
"TANKS!"
"I said; YOU ARE WELCOME!"
"No, tanks, Army Tanks!!!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! We all yelled. The tank was about to crush us.

"Look who's driving the tank," said Matt, "It's our old nemesis, Roger Raptor!" Unfortunately, Matt was right.

Scott told security to catch Roger. After they had, we took him to court.

"Order in the court!" yelled the judge.
"Okay," said Matt "I'll have a large coke and medium fries."
"He means be quiet, I said, "He isn't very patient."
"But I want my coke!" whined Matt.
"Okay, okay. After the trial." I replied.

The Jurassic Jury finally came to a conclusion that Roger was guilty of attempted murder and assigned him 20 years in the slammer.

When we got outside, I got Matt his coke. On the way back to the mansion, Matt was burping because he drank too much of it. Ty put on a gas mask.

At the mansion, we searched on with Scott. All of a sudden, Ty exclaimed,

"AH-HA!!!" We all ran over to see what he had found (Yes, again).
"The butler!!!!!!"

I did find something. Roger had tracked mud all over the floor in the room where Davy was killed. There was a bloodstained toenail clipping on the floor. It was Roger's.

Well, Roger got jailed for life, and we had a snowball fight.

That was fiction. It was all fiction. So don't write about it. We already did.
NAHNEE NAHNEE BOO BOO!!!
WE BEATCHA TO IT!!!

THE END


My buddy Clint and I wrote this in the 5th grade. He recently found it, scanned it, and emailed it to me. I think it is awesome. I've tried to preserve the odd formatting we used, along with typos and misspellings. The only thing missing from this reissue is the sweet Jurassic Park font we used while typing it up in WordPerfect.

The Night It Started

The look on B---'s face said “are you fucking kidding me?” The words from B---'s lips said “are you fucking kidding me?” G--- finished passing out the shots and he and T--- stood conspicuously empty handed as their friends glowered. “There's no way I'm doing this shot. First, you're not a chick, and second, you're not hot.”

“Really? That's all it's going to take?” T--- raised his eyebrow. G--- and T--- looked at each other and smirked. “Wait just a second.”

FOUR MINUTES EARLIER

G--- caught the bartender's attention and leaned on the bar. “I need five lemon drops, a glass of water...” He looked at T--- inquisitively. “Water for me.” G--- turned back to the bartender. “Two glasses of water, and whatever those ladies want.” He pointed at two girls standing at the other end of the bar. “What was K---'s friend's name again?” T--- asked as the bartender went about mixing the shots. “I think maybe it was A---?” K--- was a friend of a friend who G--- had met a few weeks prior. K--- and A--- (if that was in fact her name) had just arrived and hadn't made their way to where the group was sitting. G--- and T--- watched as the bartender said something to the girls and pointed their way. K--- looked pleasantly surprised and mouthed thank you across the crowded bar.

“We need your help for just a minute,” T--- explained to the ladies. “Our friends won't do shots and we need you to convince them.” The two girls looked amazingly nonplussed at the request and followed them through the mass of people.

The table looked at their friends –impressed, astonished, puzzled, confused– as they returned with the two unfamiliar and attractive young ladies in tow. The bluff had been called and the table had lost. The shots were resentfully downed and revenge was quietly plotted.

There's Always A Dame.

I looked down through the bottom of my glass at the dingy bar, the grain of the wood distorted by what little whiskey remained. Rolling the coin in my hand over and over, I traced the outline of Washington's head. I could almost count the rivets around the edge of the quarter, if I didn't get distracted by the conversations nearby and the conversation in my head.

"Shit," I mumbled under my breath. I swiveled around in the brown leather covered stool, grasping the cool brass rivets as I pushed myself up and off of my perch. Squinting through the smoky atmosphere of the bar, I looked in the direction where I thought I saw the telephone when I walked in an hour and three Jack Daniels ago.

The black handset felt cool against my ear, flush from the effects of the whiskey. Dial tone. Haven't heard that sound in forever, I thought to myself. I dropped the coin in the slot and punched in the only phone number I'd memorized since high school. One of the characters at the bar stared at me, trying to make it look like he wasn't. I scowled at him and turned towards the wall. The phone rang three times before she picked up.

"Hey, it's me. No, I know. Look, I wouldn't have called if it wasn't... Would you just... I'm in kind of a jam here, I didn't have anyone else to call. What? Yeah, I'm at a bar. I don't know, maybe two. God, why does it matter? Would... Why are you bringing that up? Listen... No, I know... I know that. No. Yes. I need you to listen to me. I need some help."

The whiskey helped dull the feeling of my nose breaking as some thug grabbed my hair and slammed my face into the wall. I stumbled backwards and a fist hit my stomach like a freight train and I buckled over, gasping for breath. I could feel my face swelling and through tearing eyes I could make out the goon's friend grasping the phone, putting it on a collision course with my temple.

I came to in the back of a van, with a bag over my head and a herd of wild animals running through it. My hands were cuffed behind my back and I could hear the rhythmic thump thump of the car driving over a bridge. The van smelled like cigarettes and BO: the scent of two men sitting for hours, waiting.

Waiting for what? For me?

I was in bigger trouble than I had initially thought. She must have something to do with this. Not the one on the phone. She wasn't the type of girl who knew goons like this existed outside the movies. It was the other one. The one who waltzed into my life three days ago. Three days filled with one thing after another, where having my face slammed into a wall and being kidnapped in a van didn't even come as a surprise.

Was she worth it? If I had known the turns my life would take would I have parachuted into that hurricane? Honesty, I probably would. She was one of those girls. One of those girls you'll do anything she says. Dammit.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

Midnight Storms

“Goodnight, dear,” she called out into the dusk as she waved goodbye to him. She stood in the doorway watching him leave, still glowing from their final kiss.

When he had disappeared out of sight she closed the door, sighing. She paused for a moment, leaning against the door with her mouth upturned in a slight smile and a look in her eyes as if her mind was far away. A look that conveyed for that instant she was not standing against the door, but instead lying in a green meadow, listening to the wind saunter through trees and the trickling tickling of a nearby creek while she watched the black silhouette of a soaring bird cut through the sparsely clouded blue sky.

The wind howled through an open window, bringing the crimson curtains to life. She regained her physical body as the cardinal wings toppled the vase on the windowsill. The single flower he had brought earlier that evening fell to the floor, water glug glug glugging into a puddle. She moved to the window with feline grace and shut it quickly. Outside the bony hands of the tree beckoned and the wind stumbled past the newly formed leaves as inside she sopped up the mess with an old towel.

As she prepared herself for bed, the rain began to fall. The pitter-pattering on the windowpane smeared the light of the moon as it peered through the gray clouds. She sat in front of the mirror, brushing her silky golden brown hair by the flickering light of a single candle and listening to the rain roll down the roof. She gracefully got up and cleared the several glasses and mugs from her bedside stand. Returning from the kitchen, she climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to her shoulders. She blew out the candle and watched the swaying tree shadows cast on the wall by the moonlight before drifting off to sleep.

She dreamt that night. Dreamt for the first time in several weeks. He had died on his way home, held at knifepoint for money and killed when he refused. She saw his lifeless body in a casket, surrounded with white lilies. She leaned over the chest, weeping uncontrollably, crushing the flowers underneath her. The limb of a shadow closed the lid on his casket and placed a hand on her shoulder in comfort. The touch was cold. She raised her head from her damp teary pillow to see the shadow bringing her tea in bed.

The crack of a thunderclap jolted her awake. The storm had not subsided but rather had intensified. Rain was beating against the windowpane. The skritch-scratching of the trees was silenced only by the explosion accompanying the searing flash of light that would momentarily light up the room.

She sat up in her bed, trying to escape from her disturbing vision. She brushed the hair from her forehead and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She went to the window and stood for a few minutes, just looking out at the storm.

Returning to the covers she reached for the cup of tea on her nightstand and sipped the warm liquid, letting the taste linger and savoring the tingling feeling it gave. Before dropping off she thought of his promise of a picnic in the late afternoon and hoped the rain would stop soon so as not to ruin their date.
The next morning the sun shown through her window, creating golden rectangles of light on the wall. Birds sang outside, chipmunks scampered to and fro across the moist green lawn. She lay on the bed, her golden hair flowing across the pillow and sheets.

There was a knock at the front door. Three sharp reports of flesh and bone against wood. The clock in the hallway ticked to break the first moment of silence and tocked to break the second. Tick… tock… tick… tock… tick… tock… Three more knocks at the door, answered only by the steadily swinging beats of the pendulum. The visitor tried the knob, just in case. It turned and the door slowly swung open. He paused, then walked through the doorway. His footsteps echoed slightly in the hallway, not yet accustomed to footfalls as heavy as his.

“Hello?” he called out to the emptiness. When no reply came he continued into the hallway, closing the door behind him. After moving through the kitchen, dining room, and sitting room, he came to her bedroom door. Gently swinging the door open, he saw her lying on the bed, cradled by the white sheets, her eyelids down.

He softly walked across the room to her bed, lovingly gazing at her form, not quite wanting to disturb her respite. Standing over her bed with a smile on his face, he reached for her hand to awaken her. The smile in his eyes faded to concern as his fingers touched her limp, chill hand. The concern spread to the rest of his face as he searched her wrist for signs of a beating heart. With panic coursing through his veins he shook her by the shoulders. Her limp head rolled from side to side at the end of her neck. He let go her body and stepped back from the bed, his hands cradling his face, the sound of sobs escaping through his fingers. He shook his head slightly, taking his hands down, and whispered softly.

“No…no… you just need to sleep a little longer…” he sniffed and wiped his eyes. “I’ll just be in the next room…” As he leaned down to kiss her ruby lips, a tear fell from his eye and rolled down her ashen cheek.

He closed the door to her room and dropped to the floor, his head between his knees, sobbing.

Mondays.

The first time I laid eyes on her I just knew there was somethin about her. It was this feeling I had, somethin indescribable, somethin I could feel from deep down inside me, just cryin out, “She’s not like anyone else. She is different.” I can remember the first time I saw her. It was a Monday morning. Springtime. I can remember because I was having my coffee outside. She was wearing a flower print dress, nothin fancy; she prolly picked it up at one of those discount stores. I looked up from the paper to see her walkin across the street towards me. Not that she was crossing to see me, just that she was comin in my direction. Anyway, she just kept walkin and turned the corner and just kept going.

I don’t know what about her grabbed my attention. She wasn’t that good lookin. It must'a been the way she moved. Some people, when they move, they just seem to glide along. Yeah, that’s it. The funny thing is though, she didn’t even check both ways before crossing. That’s something every American kid learns in elementary school: “Look both ways before crossing the street.” But she jus walked straight on across the road. Anyway, the way she moved… it was amazing. Absolutely captivatin. She must’ve been a dancer or something, I swear.

Like I said, she just walked across the street and onto the sidewalk and turned and kept walking. It was the middle of the block too; I didn’t understand why she didn’t just use the zebra crossing a couple of yards down. I mean, it’s not like she didn’t go by it. It wasn’t out of the way or nothing.

I saw her again the next Monday. And every Monday after that, to be sure. Doing the same thing. Cross the street without lookin, turn up the road when she got to the other side and keep walkin. I got to wondering about where she was going to. It seemed like she had something important to do, that’s why she had that serious look on her face. I thought up a buncha different stories for her. Like, she was going to visit her sick grandmother in the hospital, kinda like Red Riding Hood or somethin. Or maybe she was a war widow goin to visit her husband in the cemetery. Or she was a rich heiress goin to the bank to withdraw from the trust fund her daddy left her. Anyway, I dreamed up all these stupid ideas when I saw her cross that street. It kinda worked its way into a game for me. Each week I’d come up with a new character for her to be, with background and what have you. But I never really knew for sure, I just kept comin up with these ideas.

I suppose I shoulda wrote ‘em down somewhere. I coulda written a book about her with all the ideas I had, I swear. I’m always forgetting things, so I know I should write stuff down, but the thing is, when I do write my ideas down, I forget where I wrote ‘em at. But the thing is, I was only thinkin up stuff; I never knew for sure who she was or where she was goin to. Every week she would just walk across that street with that stone face of hers and then keep on walking.

I tried following her once, when my imagination was runnin like crazy and I just had to know where she was going. She walked a long ways, like four or five blocks, then turned and by the time I rounded the corner too she wasn’t in sight.

Up ‘till yesterday I figured I’d never know her name or where she was goin to or anything like that. I mean, I’m not the type a guy that people just come up to on the street and start telling all about themselves. But then yesterday… man...

I was in the same place that I usually am on Mondays. I saw her across the street, same place she always is on Mondays. She started walkin across, same way she always does on Mondays. But then somethin caught my eye. Somethin out of the corner of my eye, somethin moving. It was a butterfly, floatin along in the air. So peaceful. So beautiful. Just floating along in the air, graceful-like.

Then this guy in a truck lays on the horn. Crazy like. I swear, it really startled me. Anyway, I forget all about the butterfly to see what’s goin on. He’s about to run into her, nothin he can do, he’s right up on top of her. I dunno why he didn’t see her before, not like she wasn’t right out in the open or anything. And she had already crossed the first lane, the truck was up on my side of the street. Anyways, I look at her face, but she’s not at all scared. Like there’s absolutely no emotion there at all. Like she doesn’t even notice. And I swear, she was looking right at me. I could feel her eyes staring at me. You know that feeling when you’re in a crowded room and you know someone’s starin at you and then somehow you look right at that person? Well, that’s how I felt right then. But it was even weirder, because, I mean, she was about to get hit by a truck. Man, those eyes… I’ll never forget that look in her eyes. The way she was starin at me, it was almost like she was tryin to tell me something. Like she had this big secret and she was choosin me out of all the people in the world to tell it to.

Everythin else was a blur, but not those eyes. I hear she got thrown a hundred feet when that truck hit her, and she died just like that. But I swear I could still feel those eyes on me. Even after the ambulance showed up, it was like she was still there starin at me; I hadn’t moved an inch. I guess it was such a shock to see that happen. But it felt like time had stopped just where I was sittin and where she was standin but everything else around had kept goin. I don’t really know how else to describe it.

I’ll never think about Mondays the same way again, I swear.

Best Part of the Week

The first time they hung out - just the two of them - it was by accident. She came into the bar when he was there with mutual friends and she sat with them. Not completely an accident. They had seen each other a week before, had drinks with a couple where she knew her and he knew him, and they flirted the whole night. At least, she flirted with him the entire night.

But now she had come into the bar and sat with him and the rest of the table had gotten up one by one and the two of them were left alone. They talked for two hours, until the bartenders called last call and turned on the lights. They put on their jackets and moved towards the door. "It's cold out... and I'm a girl," she subtly suggested. "Come on, I'll walk you to your car." They walked to the parking lot a few blocks away. "Well, good night," he said, starting to walk away. "Are you sure you don't want a ride?" She was looking at him as though he were slightly crazy. "Nah, I can brave the cold." He thrust his hands into his pockets. "Are you sure?" "Yeah." "Are you sure?" "Yeah, it's really not that cold." As he was walking back the wave of realization hit him and he swore to himself.

They ran into each other the next week. He was drinking rounds with his friend when she came in and sat with them. Just before ducking out, his friend bought a extra large bottle of Chimay as his round, to be devious. Encouraged slightly by the high percentage ale, this time he accepted the offer of a ride home. She parked the car in front of his apartment and turned to him, hands in her lap, expectant. Go for it, he told himself. "Can I take you to dinner sometime? Tomorrow -- the next day?" She smiled and batted her eyes slightly. "Of course." They exchanged phone numbers and he decided to push his luck. He leaned over and kissed her goodnight. She returned it, pulling him back when he started to end it.

Their date went fine, the two of them obviously having a good time after the initial nervousness wore off. He, so worried about calling her that he didn't even consider having to leave a voicemail went on in a rambling message that ended with "ok, this is getting to be an awkward message so I'm just going to hang up." She, so worried about her outfit and annoyed at being, in her eyes, so girlish about it, ended up calling 15 minutes after the appointed time to say she would be there soon and after managing to decide on shoes and run out the door, showing up 10 minutes after that. When the date ended he walked her to her car and she drove him to his. Their kiss lingered slightly, imbued with the expectations of next time.

Which came soon, at the same bar, on the same day, at the same time as their first chance encounter. He walked her to her car once again, saying "you giving me a ride home has become the high point of my week." To which she smiled and would have blushed, would she allow herself to do such a thing.

As she pulled in front of his building he felt butterflies in his stomach. "So, can I get a second date, or did I ruin my chances of that already?" "No," she replied. "I think with what you said earlier you pretty much guaranteed a second date."

The butterflies quieted a little. "You know, I wasn't entirely telling the truth when I said that. Getting a ride home isn't the best part of the week; this is." And they drew close for the kiss that would make him smile for days.

Water Shower

I breathe
Smell it as it falls through the air.
It seeps into me, through my nose, my mouth, my pores.
It flows through my veins, pumped by my softly beating heart.
The sounds of a thousand drops hitting the ground
echo like the footfalls of a thousand tiny faeries
joyfully dancing on a drum.
The beat of my heart quickens to the music, tries to catch up and sing along.

I see a thousand sparkling diamonds making their way down, falling, falling.
They sparkle and shimmer as the light dances around and off and through.
The rush of the air
desperately trying to get out of the way, being pushed down and around,
roaring like a thousand voices whispering all at once.

I step into the downpour and I collide with the droplets.
Sliding across my skin,
rolling down,
tracing the contours of my body like a thousand chilly finger tips,
melding into my skin,
it is me.

I lean back into the cascade and close my eyes.
I can feel it dash in between the thousand strands of hair on my head. I run my fingers through my wet hair
and feel myself drip away.

I open my eyes
and I can see myself rolling off the skin,
being washed down, down, down

2 AM

The night is mine. There’s nobody else around to hear my footsteps as I walk down the street. Sticks underfoot crunch, and I’m the only one who hears it. The few dried leaves left on the trees are rustling in the breeze. The wind is conducting a symphony and I’m the only one in the audience. Not a cloud in the sky. The stars are out, little pinpricks of light and only I am looking up at them. I’m standing, pondering. The world is out just for me.

The moon is in its waning phase. I understand a little about its orbit, why the phases exist, how you can only see one side, the large splotchy seas. But that doesn’t add to the feeling I get from looking up at the moon, shining just for me.

It feels almost like walking at night after a snowfall. Everything is at peace, there’s not a sound except the wind and my footsteps. The world outside is so beautiful and I’m the only one who can see it.

I put on my hat before I left. My coat was hanging on the doorknob in the hallway, and I tied my scarf after I locked the door on the way out. It is cold outside, but that just adds to the feeling. The cold and the dark cover the night like a blanket. They’re a pair. The atmosphere wouldn’t be the same without the cold, and the clear crispness that comes with.

I don’t even feel the cold though. I’m thinking about her. About the time she and I laid on the grass and looked at the stars. The time we stood on the bow of a boat in the pitch black, in silence because the wind was blowing so hard, and watched lightning flash in the distance. The first time she leaned over and kissed me, and the second time when I leaned down and kissed her. It’s not that the thoughts of her make me feel all warm inside. When I’m thinking about her suddenly it’s summer and we’re lying on the grass, we’re in the middle of the ocean, we’re lying next to each other in her room.

The night isn’t mine anymore. It belongs to me and my thoughts. The wind, the darkness, the cold, the leaves, the solitude. They’re giving me this present. Giving me my memories, making me happy. I’m with her even though I can’t be.

saturday SATURDAY SATURDAY!

Today I watched a giant mechanical beast devour and destroy an Acura. The massive creature picked up its automotive prey with crushingly strong pincers and tore into it with fierce steel teeth. The wreckage fell from its mouth and clamored to the arena floor, misshapen metal branches laying among the creature's locomotive treads. After witnessing such awesome metallic carnage, I decided my life has reached its apex, and from this point can only get worse.

“Soo... I take it you all had fun at the monster truck show?” K--- asked. She was back in town for the first time in several months and we had made it a point to all see one another after the greatest show we had never seen.

B--- and J--- nodded as I went on to explain. “It was pretty sweet, the announcer kept going,” I held an imaginary microphone and did my best announcer voice. “'Champaign Illinois, would you like to see some MONSTER TRUCK FREESTYLE!??' and before tonight I never even knew such a thing existed, but now that I know it does exist; yes, yes I would like to see that.”

Everyone chuckled a bit and the conversation moved on. “So I hear you're going to be back in town for the summer?” J--- asked K---. “What are you going to be doing?”

“I've got this job lined up at a cancer hospital over in X----. I'll be like the on-site minister there.”

“Wow,” we all seemed to silently exclaim. “That's gotta be pretty fucking intense!” B--- managed to put to words what each of us was thinking.

“So on a daily basis you'll have to deal with basically the most horrible maladies anyone could possibly have?” J----managed to be a little more eloquent than B---.

“Yeah,” K--- answered. “I'm already working for a hospital back at seminary doing similar work. I've got some pretty heavy patients now. There's this one lady in particular. She's from Vietnam and doesn't speak a lick of English. She moved here to escape her abusive husband, started dating this guy, accidentally got pregnant, and then found out she has stage 4 cancer. She can't undergo chemo or radiation because of the baby either. So now she's just waiting for the baby to develop enough so it can be born.” All of us had looks of disbelief on our faces, amazed and aghast at the situation this young woman now found herself in. “But she's the most positive person ever, you know. I'll see her and she say something like 'only a few more weeks left before I get to meet my child!' But the thing is as soon as the baby is born she's pretty much going to die.”

We were speechless. “Wow. That's the most depressing story I've heard in months." I paused for a second in incredulity. "So remember a few minutes ago when I joked about how my life was all downhill after the monster truck show? Yeah, definitely come true.” I awkwardly laughed at my own joke. “I couldn't imagine doing what you do. See, that's how I deal with serious shit. I change the subject to something trite and meaningless.”

To Do Before I'm 30

go scuba diving
see the rainforest
build a porch
walk around Europe
visit Australia
move to another country
quit my job
sail to a deserted island
write something i want to share
draw a picture worth framing
buy drinks for the whole bar
hike the Appalachian Trail

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

She turned off the TV and looked at me. “We need to talk,” she said.

“Can I fold my laundry while we talk?” I asked.

“No,” she shook her head timidly. She was leaving in two days, could she be feeling the same way I was? I put down the t-shirt I had in my hands and sat on the sofa beside her.

“So this weekend while I was driving I had a lot of time to think,” she started. The hesitance in her voice, the worried look in her darting eyes, I couldn't help it. I started to smirk. I knew exactly what she was about to say. “Wait, why are you smiling?” she asked.

“No, nothing, keep going.” I couldn't be the one to say it; she had already started.

“Anyway, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, and I just don't think it's going to work out between us.” She stopped wringing her hands and looked up into my eyes, expectant.

It took me half a heartbeat to consider my next words. I took a deep breath.

“I'm so glad you said that.” I couldn't believe she was the one breaking up with me. I had been going over this moment in my head for a week, trying to figure out how I could have this conversation without it ending up with her in tears. I didn't want that, I didn't suddenly hate her or wish her harm. I had come to the same conclusion as her: we just weren't going to work as a couple any more.

“Wait, what?” she asked. I must have mumbled, I always mumble when it comes to important things.

“I'm so glad you said that.” Almost two years of dating, of being best friends, of driving and flying and traveling over the country to see one another, of sharing in triumphs and commiserating in tragedies, could come to a close with such a simple exchange?

“Huh. I don't know what I was expecting, but I certainly wasn't expecting that.” Her hands were shaking almost imperceptibly and I could tell she was fighting back tears. The good kind, not the type I had been dreading before.

We laughed a little, slightly uncomfortable and awkward laughter. “So you're not mad?” she asked.

“No, why would I hate you for breaking my heart? I always told you you were a ruthless heartbreaker.” Nothing could have been further from the truth. “Can I give you a hug? I feel like all this weight has been lifted off my chest.” We embraced, the warm embrace of two friends who haven't seen each other in a while, and she lightly kissed my cheek as we moved apart.

“How long have you....?” She asked, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

“Probably since last weekend, when I was driving to that wedding and I had a bunch of time to think in the car.”

“Hmm. Makes sense.” The conversation moved on to how each of us had known, how we were going to tell our mutual friends.

“I feel so grown up; we handled this like such adults.” She said later, as I was standing up.

“I know! I was not expecting it to be this easy.”

The next day we went out to dinner before she left town. It was relaxed, comfortable. We had each rediscovered the friend we hadn't seen for months.

When I told a friend a few days later, he had already heard the news through the grapevine. “I figured you were ok,” he said. “Not too many couples go out to dinner together the next day to celebrate their breakup.”

Call me Ahab.

She makes me nervous. Just being in the same room other women disappear and there's one set of eyes that watch me without looking, peering past my defense, my facade. It makes me uncomfortable, knowing that there's someone like that. Someone who knows so completely that she has my number and takes such delight in it.

Her eyes are really what do it. Kind, yet malevolent. The eyes that the mouse sees right before the pounce. I stare into them and I'm captured, rapt in my spot, unable to think or talk or act. There's only the butterflies in my stomach and the cotton in my mouth. There's a billion nerves firing at once, out of control. I can see everything happening around me but nothing except her is in focus.

My friends think it's just that she's good looking. Beautiful. Hot. Yes, she is. Her lips make you want to believe every word that passes between them. To kiss them would be the kiss all other kisses were practice for. Her hair, her figure, her hips, her breasts – all defy description. A muse would need her own muse just to try. All this I know, I can see, but it's her eyes that make me weak in the knees.

Her eyes, when she looks in yours, tell you that she knows something that you don't, something about you that you've never even considered. It's the type of look that makes you forget about everything else, everyone else but her. Knowing full well that she could be your demise, the obsession that will lead to your downfall, you let the flirtation drag on. You let it drag on because in those moments –in those looks– you feel drugged, you feel alive, you feel.

A white shark is like a white whale, except the shark hunts you instead.

One Twenty

The gates were scheduled to open at 9am. They arrived at 8:30 to a massive mob of people already in line. By 10 o'clock, not having moved significantly, tensions were high and people were getting upset. The bitter cold did nothing to dampen the soaring spirits; rather, a sense of shared discomfort, of group experience, knowing that everyone was equally frozen, and all would be able to tell their friends and loved ones about the day, warmed the fingers and toes and noses and hearts of one and a half million people.

"Are we going to be let in?" "It's supposed to start at noon." "I've been waiting my whole life for this day, I'm not going to miss this." "Why haven't we moved in two hours?" Whispers that swept back and forth like the tide. "They haven't told us anything." "What's the point of tickets if they don't use them?" "Doesn't assigned seating mean you're assigned a seat?"

The frustration finally reached a head. Crowds always know how to chant, what phrases will work, and what captures the emotion of the moment.

"WHAT'S GOING ON? WHAT'S GOING ON?"

He Who Fights With Monsters

Have you ever had a moment when you look in the mirror and notice that the person looking back isn't you? Did you wonder who the hell that man was? Did you become him, or did he become you?

Did it scare you when you realized that you're a complete stranger to yourself?

I've looked in the mirror and I've seen that man. I've looked in the mirror and not seen me.

I know the terrible nightmares that exist in my mind. The things I push away when my imagination runs free. I used to think those things weren't a part of me. That non me -- the mirror me -- I don't know about him though. I think those things are all he has.

That's what keeps me up at night. Thinking that he might truly be the bogeyman. The fairy tale, the campfire ghost story, the lies they scare children with. What is he capable of? What's holding him back?

They say if you stare into an abyss it stares back at you. Sometimes you gaze at a mirror and you don't gaze back. Sometimes it's the abyss.

Reaching

At the time I told myself it was because we were both young. Despite the fact that I had figured it out for myself years before, I convinced myself that he and I were confused. And didn't know what was what. Every time we saw eachother I could see it in his eyes, the confusion, the self-hatred, not knowing how to express his feelings, fighting against decades of indoctrination against what the two of us had.

It was beautiful, too. What we shared together. Words don't have the capability to describe it. I know many have tried to use words to capture the feelings you experience at that age, when you fall truly in love with someone.

We would see eachother in secret. I tricked myself into thinking that was for both of us, but thinking back it was really just his secret we were hiding.

Afterward, I would pretend to be asleep while listening to his sobs of self loathing from the other room. I hated that. I hated lying in bed listening to that. He would always leave and shut the door, thinking that I wouldn't be able to hear him crying, thinknig that I was sound asleep. I could hear him, though. I knew it was the self hatred that I myself felt at first, the self hatred that I've since come to despise about the young me.

Why was he not able to shut that out and just accept who he was? Why was I so comfortable, and why couldn't he feel the same way? Did he not know that what the two of us shared was spectacular, a once in a lifetime feeling? Why couldn't he come to the same realization that I had?

That was me speaking after the fact, of course. After my months of self examination, of self loathing, of soul searching, and finally self-acceptance. He should have been in the same place that I found myself. That I convinced myself I wasn't in. Because of him.

He never did come to terms with who he was. That's why he left. At least, that's what I tell myself now. Maybe that's just who I wanted him to be. I don't think so, though. I don't think so.

(Flailing Robot Arms)

"Z--- majors should come with a warning label."

"They do.  It's called 'Hi, I'm so-and-so, I'm a Z--- major.'  From then on you know what you're in for."

Marbury v Madison

"So... I don't really like to judge people..." He paused for a second, to consider what he was saying. "Ok, so I actually do like judging people very much. I do it all the time. I just don't like admitting that I do."

"Fair enough," his friend laughed.

"So just going by what this guy off to my right is wearing, I'd be willing to wager that he's gay."

His friend looked at the man in question. Bedazzled fitted t-shirt, tight jeans with fancy stitching on the back and fraying on the front.

"Hm. Either that or douchebag."

Socks

DAYTIME INTERIOR

THREE GUYS SITTING AT LUNCH

M---.
I really hate doing laundry. Especially socks. Socks are the worst.

W---.
My problem with washing socks is that I feel like I have to ball them up. (makes sock folding motion with hands)

M---.
I just do the one fold. I don't like having to ball them up.

H---.
See, I don't bother sorting or folding socks anymore. They all just go into one big pile. I pick them out as I need them.

W---.
How many different types of socks do you have though?

H---.
(ticking off on fingers) I've got short socks, long socks, and dress socks.

W---.
I don't mind folding them, really. I figure I'm going to sit and watch TV anyway.

M---.
Man, there's nothing like the feeling of a new pair of socks.

H---.
Yeah, I really should replace some of mine.

M---.
I think I do a complete swap out of my socks at least twice a year. I love a new pair of socks.

W---.
(looking around, as if for cameras) Are we in a Seinfeld episode?

Anticipation

I rang the bell, not quite expecting to get an answer. And if I did, then what? What was I setting myself up for? Was I expecting her to welcome me with outstretched arms after this long? I hadn’t bothered to send even a postcard from time to time, just to let her know I was still alive. It had been a rough parting too, when I saw her last.

I rang the bell a second time. There didn’t seem to be anyone home, but I hadn’t come all this way for nothing. If there was any chance that she was here then I had to find out if she could forgive me. I had left her because I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t ready enough. I wasn’t mature enough. But between then and now I had realized how much I needed her. How much she meant to me, and how special she was to me.

This time as the doorbell sounded there was evidence of someone at home. A light turned on, and I could just barely hear the muffled sounds of someone getting up to answer the door; footsteps, stocking feet across bare-wood floors. As I stood there listening to the footfalls approaching, a queasy feeling bubbled in my stomach. Why did I decide to come back? What did I expect from her? A warm greeting: Good to see you again, glad you came back. What’s that? You’ve changed your mind? Oh that’s superb. Don’t worry that it’s taken you this long to realize it, I completely understand. In fact, I’ve been waiting for you this entire time. Was this what I was looking for as I walked up the stairs to the front door of the woman who has meant more to me than anyone else in my life?

Butterflies inside as I heard the deadbolt being thrown and the chain sliding back. I could feel my hands grow cold and clammy. A queasy feeling as all the blood rushed from my head. This was a bad idea. This was a bad idea. I want to say “Sorry, wrong address,” and turn and leave as fast as I can. This was a bad idea. I can’t move. The butterflies are a swarm of locusts and I can’t move. I shouldn’t have come here. What in the world was I thinking?

And then the door is open and I see her and I know exactly why I came back. There, in a sudden blast of memory, came the countless hours we spent talking, the priceless treasures we shared, the beautiful things she opened my eyes to, and the times I was able to show her something wonderful—I could see all the reasons that I had fallen in love with her the first time, and I knew, seeing her again in that instant, I had fallen in love again.

She answered the door with the same slight smile on her face and twinkle in her eyes that allows her to become friends instantly with anyone she meets. I opened my mouth to say something but I couldn’t think of any words. At all. The twinkle evaporated as recognition came, and in those deep, frustrated eyes I could sense a thousand questions. Why had I left her? Why had I never written? Why had I never called? Why had I come back now? The smile faded to expressionlessness and she blinked twice at me.

From the time I had heard the door latch click to this moment less than five seconds had passed, though it had felt more like fifty. And though my pulse had been racing in anticipation as if I had just finished running a marathon, for those five seconds while we stood under the dim porch light opposite each other the thumpthumpthump of my heart suddenly slammed to a crawl, only bothering to send blood to my poor dizzy head twice in a slow thump…thump that I could feel in my fingertips as they dug into my sweaty palms.

And suddenly my heart was racing again and everything was moving at a regular speed. I realized that my cheek stung like hell and that her arm was hovering in the air, shaking. It took me a few more heartbeats before I figured it out. She had just slapped me... I was elated.

For in her eyes, behind the shimmer of tears, I could see it buried.

She still cared.

Fuzzy Memories

"Of course I'm not here by myself," I exclaimed into the phone. "L--- is here, B--- is here, a lot of people are here. I'm not alone." L--- was the bartender. B--- I had just met 10 minutes ago. It turned out he and I grew up not too far from eachother.

"Ok, W--- and I are on the way. I just wanted to make sure that you were still there." I hung up with S---.

The next thing I knew, I was throwing up in my toilet. I was wearing my pjamas and the trash can from next to my bed was next to my knees. I wiped my mouth, flushed the toilet, and got to my feet. Stumbling back to the bedroom I noticed my wallet and keys were sitting where I always put them when I walk in the door.

In the morning I rolled over and smelled that stomach churning combination of sweet and rancid that can only come from beer vomit. At least I had only thrown up on one side of the bed. I rolled back over and went back to sleep.

When I saw S--- next I asked if I needed to apologize to anyone. "No, you didn't do anything embarassing." I was relieved. "Well, at the end of the night you did start walking the wrong way down the street. I think you went to puke."

The Ballad of S--- and T---

The text simply said "there are girls dancing in cages here." C--- had been trying all evening to get us to join him.

"I think he managed to convince me. Finish your beer." W--- said to me.

We had practically just arrived at the concert. The cover charge benefited a worthy cause, so I didn't mind paying to get in. About forty minutes earlier we were playing beer pong at H---'s apartment, and left shortly after Z--- had showed up. Now H--- and Z--- had joined us at the concert and we were about to abandon them again.

"I hate you guys." Z--- said after I told him we were going to another bar. "You know why? Because every time I show up to some place you guys are leaving."

"OK, fair enough. But there are girls dancing in cages there..."

And on the bar apparently. In a tshirt and striped underwear. Then in a skin colored bodysuit with strategically placed black censored cutouts. Then with white scarves which she twirled about her body.

In the back people gyrated on the dance floor. Girls filtered into and out of the giant cage against the wall. We found a table. Drinks were flowing. Shots were downed. More rounds. The censored girl came over to talk to the group. I was left speechless and agape as she commented on the girly appearance of C---'s and W---'s drinks. People left the table to go towards the back and dancing. I ducked into the bathroom to escape.

I came out and surveyed the crowd. Cute girl, cute girl, gay couple, out of place middle aged woman, couple making out, creepy dude, cute girl, wait.... was that? Yes, yes it was.

C--- in the cage. Dancing. in. the. cage.

There's No Crazy Like Stripper Crazy

They had met when he was at a strip club with some friends and she sat down next to him. "You're gay, aren't you?" Because he was being polite to the girls and was wearing a clean shirt, she had come to that conclusion. That was their very first interaction. She sat talking with him for at least an hour before he said "Shouldn't you be working?" and the trance broke and she went to work the room.

When he was putting on his coat to leave, she ran over and asked for his number. Stunned, and not exactly thinking about the situation, he gave it to her. Two days later she called and they went on a casual date. "Dude, she's a stripper. You have to see her again," was the advice his friend had to offer. "I know it can only turn out bad, but you have to."

She called him from IHOP, inviting him to join her and some of her friends for dinner. Pancakes were always a favorite of his, and their company was perfectly enjoyable. Three of her coworkers and one of their boyfriends were there. "We're all going back to my place, wouldn't you like to join in?" asked her friend, while becoming quite friendly with his thigh.

The last time that they were on anything resembling a date he joined her at a bar to see a band. One of her coworkers was there, moonlighting as an escort and trying to set up an appointment with a gentleman at another table. She decided he was not worth the hassle he was giving her and rejoined the group. The gentleman was slightly irate and came to express his displeasure. Before he knew it, he and the gentleman were being escorted out by bar security and met by police at the door.

When she left a note on his car, parked at the grocery store, along with a single rose, he decided that getting a restraining order was called for. Thus, with a shot at being included forever in the annals of guy hood, he ended his great experiment in dating a stripper.

Carpet Cleaning

The party had finally started to wind down around 2:30, and by 3am I had shut the door on the last straggler. My roommate was grabbing blankets for his out of town friends or clearing a place for their sleeping bags, and my girlfriend, G---, had just a few minutes before gone to my room to get ready for bed. I said goodnight to my roommate and his guests, then shut the door of my bedroom behind me.

She was lying on the bed, curled up in a ball and facing away from the door.

“You asleep already?” I asked. She just shook her head quickly, not looking in my direction. Shit. I could tell she was livid. I had seen this body language before, and even if I hadn't – she didn't exactly need a translator when she got like this.

I don't remember how long it took for me to get it out of her that she was mad at me because “she couldn't trust someone who would talk about her behind her back.” That wasn't what I was expecting. A few minutes before she had gone into my bedroom happy and buzzed. How could she have possibly gotten this mad this fast?

Thank you, internet. This was before I stopped using instant messenger, and indeed this is part of why I stopped using instant messenger. Earlier that evening I had left my friend S--- a response to some conversation we were having via IM-tag. She would leave me a message while I was away, and then I would respond while she was away, and the cycle would keep going. I don't think the conversation we were having had anything to do with my girlfriend, but of course G--- was curious and decided to read the backlogs for S---'s screenname.

They had met about a month earlier, over winter break. I was crazy about G---. She had never met S---, and I was eager for them to like eachother. A few days before, I had had an IM conversation with S---, saying something along the lines of “I really like this girl, but sometimes she's kind of reserved around new people; please give her a chance.” This was apparently one of the last online conversations I had had with S---, and therefore one of the first to show up in the chat log when my girlfriend decided to play private eye.

Not much of the ensuing fight remains in my memory. I do remember it getting to the point where I said that since she wouldn't get out of my apartment then I would. I grabbed my coat from the hall closet, nimbly dodged some sleeping bodies, and was out in the hall with the door locked before she could stop me.

I must have walked for two hours and ignored 14 phone calls. Ignored 14. A few calls I actually picked up, and aside from telling her to leave my home, I'm sure I said things to deserve being yelled at, but my response was to just hang up because I couldn't deal with her. Finally, in a sobbing voice mail, G--- told me that I could come back because she had gone home. I walked back to my apartment, unlocked the door, and went in. Oops. Unlocking the deadbolt was so automatic for me that I didn't realize my mistake until it was too late.

The fight continued for who knows how long. I tried to leave again, but she grabbed my arm and I ended up dragging her outside. I started to walk away across the parking lot, but she sprinted after me and held on.

I think it finally ended because we were both just too tired to fight anymore. It could have been that I just gave up because I couldn't take it. For some reason we went to her apartment to go to bed, and in the morning we both went back to my apartment to help my roommate clean up. One of our friends had thrown up at the foot of his bed, so we had to rent a carpet cleaner. We figured as long as we had the cleaner we might as well do the entire apartment. The carpet was never cleaner the entire time we lived in that apartment, including when we moved in.

The Dumbest Thing Ever Said

"So what's the dumbest thing you've ever said?" G--- asked the group as we walked down the street.

"I think it would have to be 'Thanks, I hope I see you around.' But that's just off the top of my head," I replied.

"I remember when you said that. That was not your finest hour," Mike chimed in.

"Mine can top all of yours," proclaimed S---. "'Hey, I got a blow job in an alley near there.'"

"I don't get it, why is that so dumb?"

"It was on September 11th, and I walked in on friends watching TV. That was the first thing I said when I saw the twin towers," S--- explained.

"Wow," was all most of us could say.

"Well, at least you know that for the rest of your life you can't possibly say anything stupider."

The Rules

"So this girl gives me her number, right? Like, semi out of the blue. This isn't something that happens to me every day, so I don't really know what to do. It was like a Tuesday or a Wednesday, and Friday night I'm out at the bar with a friend of mine, telling him this story and guess who's there?"

"The girl, I'm assuming."

"Of course, otherwise this would be a pointless story. She walks by on the way to the bathroom and says hi to me. Only it's not just like a head nod acknowledgment, she does the arm touch and smile thing. When she comes by again, I ask her if she wants to do something tomorrow and we make plans. I'm supposed to call her. So Saturday I call her up, and she has a migrane, and the next few days aren't any good because she has to work, so we kinda make vague plans for some other time."

"Dude, you dropped the ball on that one."

"Well, kinda. But there's more to the story. I see her again at the bar a few days later, and I say 'Hey, are you busy tomorrow?' And she goes, 'Naa, let's hang out.' So we go to dinner and a few days after that we're supposed to maybe do something but she never calls me back. So I just figure, whatever, you know? She's not really into me. No big deal."

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

"Exactly. But the other day I got this text message from her just saying 'hey what's going on?' and we texted back and forth a couple times. So now I'm wondering, does she want to be friends? does she want to hook up? does she want to date? I have no idea."

"There should be a rule about that: 'I cannot read minds. I don't know what you are thinking.' It would save so much hassle."

"No kidding."

"That's going to be a rule. I'm going to make that a rule."

The 300 Game

It was a Wednesday night, and the lanes were abuzz with the business of bowling. The sounds of pins falling and the aerosol scent of shoe spray filled the air. Popcorn bags were being crumpled and thrown into the trash and pretzels were being doused with nacho sauce. Most of the bowlers at the lanes that night were from the university intervarsity league. All friends with eachother, they were too busy chatting to notice the series of strikes being marked on the overhead at lane six.

J--- was in the zone. Whispers started to pass through the crowd, spreading as a rumor from person to person. His friends were keeping score, diligently marking every frame with an X as J--- bowled. His concentration locked, he hardly looked up at the small group of people who had gathered to watch.

His friends from the bowling league were amazed. Whispers of excited disbelief could be heard every now and then. J--- was a fine bowler, but he wasn't the one everyone expected to be having this type of game.

Nine X's were marked on the overhead. It was J---'s turn to bowl. He picked up his ball, adjusted his grip, and settled his gaze down the lane. Step, step, step, throw. Silence in the lanes, only the sound of J---'s bowling ball sliding down the finely waxed hardwood. A thunderous racket as the ball struck and all ten pins were thrown about.

One of the onlookers started to cheer. "Don't. You'll break his concentration," hushed his friend. Another X was marked up on the board and everyone was on pins and needles waiting for the ball return.

One more time a collective gasp as the crowd held their breaths and J--- sent the ball down the lane. One more time all ten pins came tumbling down.

They were going to see a perfect game. He was one strike away from giving them all an incredible story to tell again and again when they gathered for tournaments or hit the bar after league practices.

The final roll, everyone's eyes locked on lane six. It was a textbook roll. The approach, the release, the spin on the ball, the fact that no pins were left standing.

A roar rose up in the alley. J--- turned around, his eyes wide, his forehead furrowed.

"Uh... guys?" He started to say, motioning for quiet. "Yeah... I actually had my friends marking the real score on paper. They put strikes on the overhead no matter what. I just happened to roll the last three strikes."

A Bird In The Hand

It was our first date, and since I didn't have a car (this was back when I was an undergrad) we stayed on campus. We went to dinner on Green Street, and then walked around the quad together.

We stopped at the eternal flame (which has always bothered me as it is neither eternal nor a flame) and sat on the bench talking. The conversation varied from the mundane to the obscure, and we were both enjoying the company when she stopped mid sentence and cocked her head to the side.

"Did you just hear that?" she asked.

"No..." I replied, trying my hardest to listen for whatever it was. "Wait... What is that?"

Just then, a guy and a girl fell out of the tree behind us, both naked.

Always Pack a Swimsuit

Mike and I were at a hotel, traveling in our official position as Synchronized Skating Team Managers.  The day's work had ended, and we had retired to the room.  It was the dead of winter, and the competition schedule found us in Michigan in the middle of a snowstorm.  With no car, our entertainment options were limited to the hotel, so we decided to check out the pool.

Neither of us had thought to pack a swimsuit, but we noticed the pool had a hot tub, and figured that just going in underwear would be OK since we wouldn't actually be swimming.  And it would have, but for the middle aged gentleman who was already relaxing in the jacuzzi.  Going on the assumption that it would be more awkward for us to just leave, and having nothing better to do, we decided to just go for it. 

Of course, when you're sitting in a hot tub and you're by yourself, you sit in the middle and enjoy all the space.  When two guys who obviously know each other and are obviously just wearing boxer briefs join you, you may be a little dumbstruck to think about moving to one side and letting them sit together, thus forcing them to sit on either side of you, increasing the awkwardness level.  Keep this in mind, and move over, if ever you find yourself in the same position as that poor man.

The man decided to quickly head back to his room following several minutes of forced and uncomfortable conversation with the two of us.

Which is why, if you are going to stay at a hotel at any point in your travels, you should pack a swimsuit, just in case.

Casino, part one?

He had made a series of unfortunate decisions that day, beginning with how he dressed himself in the morning. An extra baggy blue plaid short sleeve shirt --the last button undone to show off the new gold chain he had gotten for Christmas-- pleated front tapered leg khakis from JC Penny's, and white Reebok court shoes.

He had spent 20 minutes in front of the mirror with a bottle of hair gel and a comb, trying to get his hair just right. That was ten minutes more than he usually took, and when he was finally satisfied he made a mental note not to go to the Supercuts on Third again. That queer stylist he got stuck with last time always made him uncomfortable. How he took too long for the hair cut, like he was lingering on purpose, or how he seemed to fuss just a little too much when he was brushing off the smock. But it wasn't a homo thing, he said to himself, he had no problem with the gays, it was just that Monica, his preferred stylist, always did a better job. Well, what did it matter who cut his hair last time? He always managed to make it look good with some extra gel. And today, he told himself, he looked good.

His general appearance was the first of his series of unfortunate decisions that day. The next, which led into several more, was going to the casino with his step father. It had seemed like a good decision this time because he had been playing cards with his friends on Tuesday nights lately, and they all agreed that his was the best poker face of them all. But poker with your buddies is not the same as poker at the casino, and by mid afternoon he had lost around $300.

This casino didn't even serve free drinks, only the soda was free, and drowning his sorrows from gambling was rubbing salt in his wounded pride. The more it cost him to drink, the more it reminded him of how much he had lost, which made him want to drink more. He had ordered a $17 Casino-tini once before deciding to switch to the more affordable Miller Lites, the number of which he had had, he had long since lost count. He had left his stepfather was out on the floor to come sit at this bar. The last time he had seen him was at the blackjack tables, chatting with the couple from up North seated next to him.

Bleary eyed, he looked out at row upon row of slot machines and cursed his bad luck at the tables earlier. He would try playing a few slots next, he decided, in order to win back some of his losses. Just as soon as he got another beer. As he turned around in his seat to order, he noticed a blonde woman standing next to him, waiting for the bartender's attention. "You don't sound like you're from don-cha-kno-Wisconsin," was the pickup line he found himself deciding on.

He made a pair of unfortunate decisions in hitting on this woman, one of which he could not have known about, and the second of which was entirely his fault. His company, or so he found himself saying, was a scientific research company located in Florida that worked with fuel cell technology, and he was a 49 percent owner (his father owning the remaining 51 percent.) The blonde woman was able to converse on this topic for several minutes, and intelligently, he thought, which was not something he expected. In trying to impress women by telling stories about his scientific technology company, he had inadvertently chosen what was --with all likelyhood-- the sole female aerospace engineer in the casino.

The second in the pair of unfortunate decisions was that he had forgotten to look at this woman's left hand. Sitting clearly upon her ring finger was an engagement ring: a large blue sapphire flanked by smaller stones. On either side of the engagement ring were matching wedding/anniversary bands: white gold with inlaid diamonds. He only noticed these after the woman casually mentioned, "Oh, I've never been here before, but my husband came up here for his bachelor party and had a great time."

Suddenly, he found the desire to try his luck at the slot machines.

Breakfast At McDonald's

“You know what would be a great idea for a book?” I asked, blowing at my coffee through the slot on the plastic lid.

“Hmm?” she murmured. I could tell she was only slightly interested.

“I go around interviewing the old men who eat breakfast at McDonald's every morning. I could go all around the country.” She set down her McMuffin and actually gave it some thought. No, she was just switching hands, reaching for her milk.

“Hmmm. What would you call it?”

“I dunno. Breakfast at McDonald's. It doesn't matter. It could be like a Tuedays With Morrie type book.”

“That's not a good title. I don't think I'd read that.”

“But with more than one Morrie.”

“You'd have to come up with a better title than that.”

“The 6am crowd. Morning stories.”

“Naa....” She was looking off, watching the three little girls sitting behind me.

“Look, the title doesn't matter. I know those are crap titles, I just came up with them on the spot. Someone else can come up with the title; they have people whose entire job it is to come up with titles.”

“Really?”

“I don't know. I just made that up. Isn't that a good idea for a book though?”

“I guess so. The thing is you'd have to wake up real early.”

“Yeah. I'll probably never actually do it.” The little girls had finished picking at their breakfast happy meals and started fidgeting. The two mothers were locked in conversation, and their daughters found the door to the PlayPlace.

“That little girl does not like the ball pit at all. Look at her face,” she laughed. I looked. The girl looked petrified. I was still thinking about my book.

“Everybody's got a story to tell. Take that guy.” I nodded at a elderly man across the room who had just sat down with his order. He was wearing a black baseball cap with “USS Something” in gold stitching. His buddy had a red, worn-in Marine Corps jacket on. “He was in a war when he was my age. He came back home, had kids, grandkids. Now he goes to McDonald's every morning for breakfast and chats with his friends. That's what I want to do with my life when I retire.”

“No, that's what you want to do with your life to right now.”

“Well.... Ok. You're right.” She knew me pretty well. But to be honest, it wasn't too hard to figure that out about me. I was lost, trying to figure out what to do with my life. College had ended a year ago, and all I had done since was travel around, dodging questions about what I was going to do next, telling the same story over and over, and trying to decide what I actually wanted in life.

“Heh. Those two were shacking.” A couple about our age was coming through the door.

“Where?” She looked around.

“Right there. The girl in pajama pants and the guy with the rumpled hair.” Everything about how they were dressed broadcast that they had just rolled out of bed. “I wonder if people look at us and think the same thing.”

“Your hair isn't sticking up.”

“That's because I'm wearing a hat.”

“Yeah, I wondered about that; you never wear a hat.” I had one last swig of coffee left.

“You know how the new ad campaign says how they'll add the cream and sugar for you?” She nodded. “I've been to like three different McDonald's since that started, and they've never asked if I wanted any. Not that I really care.” I always drink black coffee. I crumpled up the paper from my sausage biscuit and threw it on the tray.

“You ready to go?” I nodded in response.

As we were walking out to her car I put my arm around her shoulder and she nestled against my body. She cocked her head to the side, as if something important had just occurred to her. “You know, I think that was the first time I've been inside that McDonald's in years.” We were staying at her mom's place, down the street.

“Well good thing I woke you up early so we could have breakfast.” She elbowed me in the ribs lightly. Her jaw was slightly open, feigning indignation in her eyes. I laughed.

She had woken me up that morning. Well, not at first. She saw I was not about to wake up, slipped under the covers with me, and fell back asleep herself. By the time we finally woke up it was debatable if we'd still make it McDonald's before they switched from breakfast to lunch.

“You did not want to cuddle earlier when I got in bed.” She rolled my arm off her shoulders. “This is what you did.” She began to imitate me sleeping on one side, turned over, her eyes half closed and yet somehow able to roll, sighed, then turned back to the original position.

“Really?” I laughed. “I'm sorry about that.”

“It's fine, I thought it was funny.”

I looked at her smiling; the way the corner of her eyes crinkled at me made me smile back.

“I don't know why you put up with me sometimes.” I blew her a kiss over the roof of the car. “I love you.” And I opened my door and slid into the seat.