Devil's Punchbowl

She took him to the marine gardens, in the Devi's Punchbowl, on Otter Crest. It was between Linclon City and Newport, a twenty minutes drive, part of it on a highway full of one-way bridges. Each time they came to one she slowed and proceeded with caution, holding her breath as they crossed. His wasn't scared, he sat in the passenger's seat, firm and fixed.

At least it isn't night time.

He nodded.

The sky was grey, but it wasn't going to rain. The air was moist though, like the sky was sweating. She wore a dress, white with pink flowers that had a belt that tied as a bow. She wore jeans under the dress and sneakers on her feet. She brought a sweater with her. He just wore a t-shirt, black, with a tear by the hem, and jeans.

The staircase leading to the beach was steep and long and he held her hand as he led her down. Even though she was the one who brought him there, it was her idea. It was around six o'clock, low tide. They stepped onto the sand, moist and maluable like a comfort foam mattress. The beach strenched out before them, the coastline was a person's profile and the beach was the inset of the open mouth. When her feet hit the sand she started running and yelled back to him, come on.

She brought him inside the punchbowl. It was a large room, made out of rock, with openings on three side: the top was like a high ceiling with a huge skylight, if you looked up you could see the grey sky, the west, the ocean, and the north, up along the beach, the only way to get in without swimming or falling. At low tide the punchbowl was full of tidepools.

It's a sea anenome. She told him, pointing. Poke it. She touched her finger to the turquoise slime and the creature curled up on itself, like it was shy, like she had tickled it and it was giggling.

So this place is usually full of water? He looked up through the natural skylight then out towards the ocean.

Yeah, if it were high tide we'd be swimming right now. She saw him touch a starfish. You know that kills them, right?

No it doesn't.

You just killed that starfish. The starfish was purple and large, hugging a rock.

You touched the anenome, or whatever.

It's different. She balanced herself on the rock and kneeled by the starfish. I wonder if it's still breathing.

It doesn't breath.

Yes it does, and you stuck your dirty human finger in it.

He rolled his eyes and looked up through the top of the punchbowl again.
If we were here when the tide came in, would we float up to the top?

She shrugged. We could find out.

So they explored the marine gardens until the tide pools disappeared and waves came crashing into the punch bowl. Until they were waist deep in water, then chin deep, then he grabbed her hand as the tide came in and swept their feet from the rocks and they floated to the top, like icecubes.

word soup

Words that pull on the back of my throat and make my tongue feel heavy:

mercy
changes
landslide
give up
thyself
just
charlotte's web
squalor
lafayette
pardon me
tidal lock
window



Words that raise my eyebrows and drop my jaw:

buttons
mittens
pea coat
coconuts
whole milk
cluck cluck
e verdade
jinks
speakers for your house



word I made up: blogfrontational, someone who is confrontational through blogging.

the fundamentals

fundamentalism


n : the interpretation of every word in the sacred texts as literal truth

Any fundamentalist is strictly following scripture. That is the exact problem. Muhammad might have been a warrior, but that is not as important as what God is. Muhammad recognized Jews and Christians as people of "the book" and did not try to convert them. All three religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, have foundations in the same stories. Their God, is the same God as Christianity and Judaism. Islam is a continuation of the story, we are all "generations of Adam." The Islamic faith, as I know it, does not preach violence. It preaches self-defense in extreme cases, but not violence. Muslims are supposed to look at themselves as God's vicegerents on earth. They represent him, and the Quran, which to Muslims is the word of God, says that God is merciful and compassionate. As a Muslim, as God's representatives on earth, it is their job to act in this way. If Islamic fundamentalist see suicide bombings as a valid representation of God then he will carry out that act. Muslims believe in a judgement day, and you are judged on how well you represent yourself as God's vicegerent. I like to believe that when these fundamentalist die, and are judge, they see how wrong they were in interpreting the texts. Religion is not about violence.

This is from a lecture from Dr. Al Marayati, a Muslim, a medical doctor, and a very good speaker:

"9-11 has no foundation in Islam and violates all ethical principles of Islam."


It is not the scriptures themselves that are the problem, but the interpretations of them. God didn't mess up religion, humans did that.

I'm agnostic, for the record, I think.

"I'm beginning to hate my own creation...now I know how God feels." -Homer Simpson

River

When I walk past the freeway it smells like summer, like burning cotton candy. But as I walk underneath the freeway it starts to smell like syrup. The sidewalk is dirty. There is actual dirt and then there are all those small pieces of paper and candy wrappers. When I walk past the river I stop and look down. The water is green, not like neon, but not natural looking, it flows between two concrete walls. This is my river now. My rivers before had banks made of dirt with vegetation and wildlife. Some of the banks were rocky, jagged and unnavigatable. Now my river is green sludge floating between two slabs of concrete. I am scared of the other rivers now. I have been living with green sludge for too long.

Livin' in a Hellhole

Hellhouses are these "haunted houses" started by this pastor in the midwest to show young kids what hell is like. They have become huge and the guy sells these kits so that other fanatical christian groups can set up a hellhouse and warn kids about gays, abortion, sex, raves, drugs...anything that resembles fun. So Hollywood felt the need to set up a Hellhouse. They use the same script as any other Hellhouse and on Hollywood Hellhouse's opening night the leader of all the Hellhouses came and checked it out and gave it an A for authenticity. So it is the real deal.

While we were standing in line a fat man warned us of the house's grahpic nature and if we are wearing something nice we probably don't want to stand too close to the front during the abortion scene. We might get blood on a our clothes.

When we first walked into the Hellhouse there where some devil worshippers who started out reading Goosebumps and then Harry Potter, then they were playing Magic, The Gathering. (This is the real script! Young Christians are led through these all the time.) The scene ended with them sacrificing some girl and drinking her blood.

The next scene was the abortion scene. Blood all over the walls, girl screaming in pain, doctor covered in blood, nurse telling the girl to shut up. I had read that in the kit sold for setting up a Hellhouse they teach how to make raw ground beef look like a fetus, so I was interested to see what the doctor was going to pull out of the poor, wayward sinner of a girl. It wasn't ground beef though, it was something plastic, that actually looked like a fetus. I was a little disappointed. I wanted to see how they make ground beef look like a fetus.

In the next scene a girl takes some drugs at a rave and is raped on the dance floor. In the following scene the devil's minions convince her to commit suicide.

In the next scene a boy listening to Marilyn Manson shoots his classmates and his teacher.

In the next scene a homo is dying of AIDS and a girl who took the abortion pill is bleeding internally. The homo dies because he won't accept Jesus because Jesus is the one who made him born gay (made sense to me). The girl accepts Jesus and is carried off by an angel.

Finally we meet the devil, he is played by celebrity that I recognize but cannot remember his name (last week it was David Cross). So Lucifer tells us we are all sinners and that we will all be seeing him in hell. During this speech he said something about gay people going to hell and this gay couple in the front yelled fuck you, I don't think this was scripted, although it was funny. So an angel comes, her name is BJ, and the devil runs away scared. Then we meet Jesus and he tells us that he will save us from sin if we accept him as our Lord and savior.

The Hollywood Hellhouse had this disclaimer that said they weren't making fun of religion, but that they were targeting fundamentalism. I liked this. It is the fundamentalists that give any religion a bad name. Islamic fundamentalist fly planes into buildings, Mormon fundamentalist marry 20 women and kill people and claim it as God's will, Christian fundamentalists beat up gay people. Every religion has them. It is strange how many faiths there are out there and how many different interreptations there are of each one, and how angry everyone gets about which one is right. It seems against what the founders of the differnt religions wanted. I don't think there is any religion (major religion, not some backwoods cult) that actually promotes violence. Most religious figures were pacifists. The Sermon on the Mount preaches loving your neighbor and your enemy, and if someone hits your cheek, turn the other. So from that I will love my enemies, the religous fundementalist, as I love my friends (all of them sinners), and hope I end up in hell. I don't think I'd last in heaven if there aren't any gays or alcohol.


This is such an appropriate entry for a Sunday. I feel like I just gave a little sermon. Amen.

The Hollywood Hellhouse runs up until Halloween. It cost $10 and it is a good idea to make a reservation. You should go, you might see Alan Thicke playing Lucifer. www.hollywoodhellhouse.com

a dirty shame

I don't think I have had enough Tracy Ullman in my life. When her show was popular I was only seven or eight, beyond knowing it ran the first shorts of The Simpsons, I really don't know much. But she is hilarious in A Dirty Shame. The movie lacks a plot, and all the gimmick gets old fast, but it is worth seeing for Tracy Ullman's performance. The story is a strange biblical satire about tolerance and sex addicts, and how we should tolerate them. Tracy Ullman uses the words, "hot pussy" a lot. My favorite line:

Have you ever masterbated when your hand's asleep. It's like someone else is doing it.

survivor

I think my legs used to be stronger. My feet too, and my ankles. They used to have a definition and I used to be proud of them. Back when I wanted bruises on my knees. Now my knees hurt and many ankles. And it is like riding a bike, you never forget, but my bike is rusty and old and the tires are deflated. It's weird when things that used to control your life no longer do. I wonder what type of person I would be if I continued, if I still allowed it to rule me. Am I really that different from the girl who drove an hour to go dance, with a packed lunch of saltines and peanut butter and carrot sticks. Or sometimes my mom would take me, and then go and kill time for five hours. She would go to Applebees and eat alone, then go to Border's and read travel books, taking notes. Then she would arrive, and have candy for us, and drive us all home. Sometimes the car rides would be silent, other would be rowdy and boisterous. All the time I've spent dancing. All the hours of my life, driving to class, driving home, going to dance competitions, and then the hours upon hours of class. I know I am not old, but I do feel like I know enough about the power of youth to miss it. and i feel good because i am still that girl i think. i just have more distractions.

I [heart] movies

Last night was the I [heart] Huckabees premiere. I worked at will call. Of course no big stars come up and get their tickets at will call. Nicole Kidman doesn't have to go to will call. Is will call one word or two? So I didn't see any of the huge names. I did see Mike White, which was exciting for me because The Good Girl is one of my favorite movies. I handed Spike Jonze his tickets. And Pedro, from Napoleon Dynamite. It was pretty cool, I guess. Oh, Julie Delpy's rep isn't very nice. Julie Delpy wasn't on the list so I told them that and of course she says, but we RSVPed. I just said sorry and she kept on looking at me like she absolutely hated me, like she thought if she looked at me long enough I would all of a sudden think she was important. And she had these really thin arms. She looked like she was made of nothing. She finally got her tickets anyway. The other people who were with her were embarassed by her attitude. Couldn't she see that? I just don't understand why people think they are better than me because they represent or assist some french actress who I've only ever seen in two movies. While all this was going on Julie kind of peeked her head in like if I saw her tickets would materialize. But I thought it was kind of cute. She was all french and shy. Working the premiere was like working at the movie theater (I worked for Laemmle for three and half years), people always complain about the same things, whether they are semi-famous or not. Movies are so weird. I mean, I love them. Everyone loves them, but its like the experience of going to the movies brings out the worst in people. They are also strange because they are something that people enjoy on such a personal level, like if you love a movie a lot, it is your movie and only yours because you have attatched it to your experience. But you can't really do that with movies, they aren't like books, you watch them in groups, in rows, with strangers. Imagine reading a book with the words projected on to a screen. I don't remember who said this, but it was mentioned in 405, that writing is a solitary profession because reading is a solitary act. It takes so many people to make a movie and to sell a movie, and promote a movie. But I think that people want to be entertained on a personal level. I like going to the matinee shows because it means less people. So why don't more people read?

turn off your radio

traffic was bad. i think that started it. then my english class was boring and i thought about how much money it was costing me per hour to be bored. i sat in my internship class and wondered why i felt like i as different than everyone else. because i felt different, but not stupid, just like these people weren't like me. then traffic was bad. i got a bagel with T but they wouldn't toast them because they were cleaning out the toasters. T told me Zach bought an apartment in New York and that he was dancing with Wicked. that sounded like the best life possible. T and I decide we don't feel like taking dance class so I drive home. traffic is still bad. on the radio they talk about the beheadings and how the british guy will probably be beheaded tomorrow. i start to shake thinking about that guy sitting in that prison knowing he is going to die because he knows, like i know, his government won't do anything to save him. and then my mom told me that i'll feel better tomorrow, and that i shouldn't listen to the news or watch tv. it is bad for your mental health she told me. if we let every news story affects us we would never feel good, she told me. i have to work at a movie premiere tomorrow and right now i really don't want to. i am afraid that while i am getting really excited because i am seeing naomi watts and lily tomlin and dustin hoffman up close and personal, that british man is going to be getting his head sawed off.

what ever happened to axel rose?

you've never really been very good at going out. you've also never really understood why people go to bars. you play darts because you are bored and you know that conversation never does it's proper job of passing the time. you order a bloody mary, extra dirty, extra olives. all you have eaten today is a mango and some dry toast. the bar is narrow, one long booth and the vinyl on the seat is cracked. you aren't very good at darts and no one tells you that but you know it anyway. everyone cheers you on, you're at a bar, they're drunk. you feel bad about being bad at darts though. a crossed-eyed man approaches you and offers to show you how. turn your body to the side, he says, take aim, and throw the dart, in a short explosive movement. you wonder how a man who is crossed could be giving you advice on a precision sport. you start to feel uncomfortable because strangers make you feel that way. thanking the cross eyed man you slink back to your cracked vinyl seat and finish off your drink. you don't really feel like getting another one and you don't really feel like leaving. so you sit, your back getting sweaty against the vinyl. you wonder how many push-ups you could do. how about that guy over there, how many can he do? once the bar is really jam packed you forfeit your seat and mosey to the juke-box. you play november rain by guns 'n' roses, but it takes five songs for yours to come on so while you are waiting you stand close to the women's restroom and judge every girl who walks out. one tv is playing nascar and the other everybody loves raymond. finally, november rain comes on and you take a seat at the bar and ask the bartender if he knows what happened to axel rose and whether or he was really boning stephanie seymour. the bartender says, i don't know, and runs to help a women who appears to have ordered a sour apple martini and you get mildly disgusted with how typical everyone is. with that you leave and as you walk past the women's room you trip the lady who is exiting and she falls flat on her face and you continue towards the street exit, smiling.

citrus

I think I might be a lemon. Like a car. Like my debt is greater than my worth.

Buoyancy

The woman ahead of me in line has a layer of fat sticking out of her belly. I wonder if she is uncomfortable in her skin like I am uncomfortable in mine sometimes. The girl behind the counter is skinny, but her jaw is fat, ape-like. I sit and listen even though I'm not really. I say yeah, and uh huh but I am thinking about the girl who stood next to me in line instead of getting behind me. I got coffee but it is hot out kind of, but I have been listening for so long that the sun is setting and it is actually getting cold. My hands tingle because my circulation is bad because I smoke. I think about misunderstandings and friends that i used to call my friends but probably never were my friends. I remember when you gave me that poem about the steps and for Christmas you gave me two hands praying, carved out of wood. I gave you the Te-Tao Ching because we were taking a class on eastern religion. It was hard back. If a tree is rigid, it will come to its end. I remember one time you came over really late and we talked for a long time. And then you left. I was worried about you and I went to your house because you didn't go to work and your mother cried and asked what was wrong with you. I think you know now. You said I look colorful and I usually look dark. People tell me I am very unenthusiatic and I guess I am. But those people are never around when I want to play freeze tag in the street by my house, or when I demand we go to the playground and swing, or when I do cartwheels into the pool. I know I am more afraid than I used to be though. I stand on the diving board and hold my arms over my and bend over and stare straight down into the water. At first the bottom looks close but then it is far away, fathoms away and the water looks huge and vast. So much bigger than me that I can't dive in. So I just jump, feet first, plugging my nose. And as my head pops out of the water I wonder when I started loving land so much. When I stopped wanting to fly and stopped wanting to fall. I think it happens when you lose control. When the wave knocks you over and when you get water up your nose or when you start spinning and almost hit a tree. When you can't regulate your buoyancy and you fall very slow and the ocean is like space, except blue. And the rhythm of your breathing is supposed to relax you but instead it makes you anxious. So instead of the deep breaths you are supposed to be taking, they are short and shallow and you know you are using your air too fast. You want to float to the top, but you can't, and you can't sink to the bottom, and the ocean looks even bigger once you are in it, hovering, using up all your breath.

Undergarments

He finally told her about the underwear. He had always called them the "ugly" underwear. She had never actually seen them. She had just been intrigued by them because he would never let her see him in them. Then he got underwear at Target, purple boxers, with black and grey stripes. After that he would let her see him in his underwear. But not the "ugly" underwear.

They were cleaning out his room, packing things up. He was moving into her apartment. She pulled them out of a drawer. They looked like normal while boxer/briefs, just longer.

"What are these?"

"Underwear."

"Are these the ugly underwear?"

He looked like he'd been caught, the cat was out of the bag, the beans spilled.

"Why wouldn't you show them to me. I mean, they are kind of ugly, but you didn't need to be ashamed."

"I wasn't ashamed. I just didn't want to explain."

"Well now you have to."

"I got them when I went into the temple."

"And you've been wearing the same pair ever since."

"No. I have more pairs. Once you go into the temple you are supposed to wear these underwear. Its an old ritual thing. Its one of those really old things."

"So, you have ritualistic underwear you are supposed to be wearing."

"No. But they have these symbols on them and they protect you, spiritually." He pointed to an embroidered spot on the shorts, just white thread in white boxers. "Its so you remember to kneel when the second coming happens."

"You won't remember in you new boxers."

He smiles at her.

"You're not supposed to let these touch the ground. They're sacred."

"Does your mom wear them?"

"Yes, but hers have ruffles."

"Everyday?"

He nodded and found a pair of scissors.

"You can't just throw them away. You have to cut out the symbol and cut it into small pieces and then you can throw it away."

"You're throwing them away?"

"I don't go to church anymore. I don't wear them anymore. I wouldn't even be allowed in the temple now."

He cut out the symbol, then cut it, with three cuts, into smaller piece then tossed them in the trash, the shorts followed.

"What did they do to you while you were in the temple?"

"They annoited me--"

"Do you know what the original meaning of messiah was?"

"No, what?"

"Annoited one."

"We also had to do a secret handshake that meant we weren't afraid of dying."

"What was it?"

"I don't remember."

Maps

in my room there is a whole wall full of maps. the largest is a map of the world, physical. this mean there are no lines dividing countries. there are only the physical attributes, the world's mountains and lakes and rivers. even the mountains that are in the ocean are shown. there is a very undetailed map of paris. there are big airplanes where airports are. the graphics remind me of the french driving game, mille-borne. there is map of "the mall" are of washington dc from 1860 to 2000. there is a map of the world of max fischer, from rushmore, and a map of the new york city subway system, a map of the pearl district in portland, a map of amsterdam, a map of the getty, some sky maps of the summer constellations, a cartoony map of the pacific northwest. my favortite map is the map of the tillamook cheese factory though. it is so simplistic and i often look at it and wonder why they even needed to make a map at all.

sometimes i like to press my fingers against an intersection on the map of "the mall" and imagine who i might be squashing if really tiny people lived inside my maps. or i walk my fingers across the cascade mountains and imagine eastern oregon. or i whisper something to the building on my pearl district map where my sister works and pretend that she can hear me.

More Mermaid

I did write at my designated time. I just didn't have a chance to post it.

More Mermaid Story:

I am not even sure what time it was when I called James just to ask if he felt good about himself. I took his silence as a yes and hung up. Then I went into the kitchen and cut up onions so I could cry. It felt good. I didn’t leave the apartment for three days after that. I spent the first day and a half in bed. I slept for twenty-two hours, then got up and ate four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and drank six glasses of milk. I sat on my sofa sucking bread and peanut butter off the roof of my mouth for a half an hour then I fell back asleep for ten more hours.
When I woke up I had no idea what time of day it was and my phone was ringing. I answered it groggily, while licking the crusted drool from the sides of my mouth. No one was on the other end though and I wondered how long it had been ringing before I answered.
I tried to masturbate. I tried to get off by not thinking about him and how not thinking about him would bother him. It didn’t work though and in order to make anything happen I had to imagine us sweaty and magnetized. I felt worse once I was done which I didn’t think was possible and I ended up seeing how long I could hold my breath for.
While standing in the shower trying to figure out what day it was she came out of my faucet. It was like the water mixed with some gasoline and became all shiny and iridescent, then she burst through with a splash. She was the size of a small child. Her breasts were quite developed though and she was topless. It felt a little indecent, like watching animals have sex. She looked up at me scared and made no attempt to cover herself while I was nearly slipping on the wet shower floor trying to cover up. She watched me flail for a few moments and then I gave up. I put down the shampoo bottle I was holding over my crotch, let go of my breasts and bent down to her. At first we just sat in the shower together, water running on us, around us, down the drain. We sat there for a long time. My fingertips became white, like colorless raisins and I felt that if I rubbed them together my skin would just peel off in large flakes until there was nothing left. I looked over at her hands; her fingertips looked soft and smooth. Water seemed to roll off of her like she was a polished stone.

Mistakes

Okay. So I'm not going to lie. I missed my daily writing time. I am a little upset because I have been so good about it. Its not like I was even away from a computer. I was at home. I could have done it, but I didn't. I am not sure what I was doing instead. Probably watching reality TV. That sounds bad. But I did do something productive today. I swam some laps. I mailed a letter. I watched a good movie. I heard free time was the cultivating grounds for creative ideas. Oh, I did some reading for school and wrote my critique for 405. I had a dream last week that someone asked me if what I cultivated was bullshit, after reading my story. I thought it was a funny phrase. I want to write a good ending to Sleep and I am continually working on my Mermaid Story. It is the longest thing I have written, near thirty pages long and no sign of an ending yet. I'm sorry I forgot my writing time today. I hope tomorrow will be good. I'll remember things I have to do, and enjoy them. I'll swim a few laps. I'll work on Mermaids or Sleep. Oh...I got my first rejection letter today. Am I a writer yet?

Beauty in the Breakdown...

Joyce Carol Oates has written something like 40,000 novels. It's absurd. It's defeating.

I just got back from Border's. It is baffling how many books there are out there, how many blogs there are on the internet, how much stuff there is to read. I stood in front of the Joyce Carol Oates section for a while. I looked at her picture and got scared. Then I went over to Joan Didion. I looked at her picture. She looked cool, with her big sunglasses. Then I handed Daniel a copy of Nicholas Nickleby and laughed. At Border's most of the books aren't pressed against the back of the shelves, they are pulled out so they are near the edge. I walked around pushing the books back against the back of the shelves. The Garden State sound track was playing, that Nick Drake song where he sings the word, clock, like he is Apu. I went over to the Books In Foreign Languages section and found The Diary of Anne Frank in German, TageBuch. Then I found Der alte Mann und Das Meer by Hemingway and read the first sentence aloud in German and was suprised to find out I was pretty sure I new what it said, and I have never read The Old Man and The Sea.

I bought a book called, Under the Banner of Heaven, about fanatical Mormonism.

Sleep

It happened the day they took the mattress off the floor. What happened? They got a bed. They were off the floor, closer to the ceiling, level with chairs and the bedside table. They felt good about being higher up. They felt like they deserved it. But he was afraid of falling off the bed. Don't be, she told him. It is only a few inches off the ground. It could be higher. She told him as she held him tight and he looked over the edge. Look you can reach down and touch the ground. He reached down and touched the ground and felt it solid underneath his had and this made him feel better.

The night of sleep on the high bed was the best. It was the deepest, most complete sleep either had ever gotten. They awoke refreshed and energized, like they had never felt before.

Lets make it higher, she said, imagining how great they would feel with just a few more inches. So they made it higher, another six inches, and they felt even better than before. They felt like new people, they felt like God himself was rubbing their backs and caressing their hair as they drifted off to sleep.

She wanted it higher. We could sleep in heaven, she said. He was scared, reluctant. He didn't want to get too far off the floor, but he was drunk with content sleep. He felt complete and rested, like he didn't need the floor.

So they went higher. A larger leap this time, four feet. They needed a ladder. They slept like the dead. They slept like the dead who had died and gone to heaven. It became a drug. They were addicted to the sleep of the gods, and they wanted more. They wanted to transcend the sleep of the dead so that they were actually able to leave their bodies and live, while their minds sleep. They could sleep forever and live forever. If they could only build the bed higher.

They built it up so it was right by the ceiling, so their bodies were right next to the ceiling as they fell alseep.

Worse than '01

I spent last New Year's in New York. I wasn't anywhere near Times Square. First of all, that's not my style. Secondly, I promised my dad I would steer clear because he was sure someone was going to throw a grenade or something. I spent the turning of the clock at a dive bar called the Holiday Cocktail Lounge. The name seemed appropriate and it wasn't crowded, which was all we wanted to do, stay away from the crowds.

By midnight I was pretty drunk: quite a few holiday cocktails and my first shot of Jager ever. We left the bar shortly after midnight mainly because we were done but also because my friend was trying to start a fight by yelling, "KOBE!'. This doesn't fly in a New York City bar. No one likes the Lakers and Kobe Bryant is practically synonamous with Osama Bin Ladin: I mean he practically raped that girl, right? So once we stumbled onto the street, which was crowded, taxis everywhere, people in crazy hats; my friend, lets say his name is Billy, starts yelling, "9-11 '04, worse than '01!" and pointing at people. I was amazed because no one cared. No one blinked an eye. As we tried to pull him into a cab, which was hard because he dropped the entire contents of his backpack on the street, he yelled "9-11" over and and over again and pointed at people and everyone ignored him.

I'm glad you can get away with anything on New Year's. I'm glad Billy tries. And I am glad that his prophecy did not come true.

Mermaid Story

Here is a something I am working on:

When I got home from the bar I went straight into my apartment. I completely forgot about the mermaid in my car. When I sat down to go to the bathroom though, she was lying in the tub, submerged in water. Her eyes were open and when she saw me she stuck her hand out the water and I reached out and we pressed our palms together.

I felt such a large sense of relief that she was still there. I began to feel guilty for leaving her in the car, but she looked okay. She was smiling, her hair levitating around her face. She was so self-reliant and I began to feel ashamed that I assumed she even needed me or wanted me.

The next morning I poached some eggs. When I got up the mermaid was still lying in the tub. She would basically eat anything. At first I thought she would only want fish or seaweed. There was a knock at the door and I felt this strange sense of hope. Maybe it was James, maybe he was sorry, maybe he was being romantic. Deep down I knew it wasn't him though because people only show on other people's door steps unexpectedly in movies, and James isn't romantic, and this isn't a movie.

don't dream its over...

Shugga. Shugga. Shugga.

When I was little I had this reoccuring dream where I had to drive a car from Newberg to McMinnville. This is a distance of about 20 miles. In the dream I was never old enough to drive. I could barely see over the stearing wheel. I would drive though, for a few miles, and then I would see a cop and I would get scared and jump in the back seat to hide. Now, if I'm in the back seat, who is driving the car? No one. The car would drive itself and the cops never stopped it and I would lounge in the back seat, occasionally peeking out of the windows. I always woke up before I got home. I actually never got out of Newberg. Maybe that is why I always considered this dream a nightmare; I was stuck in Newberg. Newberg is a small town near the small town, McMinnville, that I grew up in. I have always harbored an unexplainable hatred for it. Maybe it's because the traffic is always bad, or the fact that they have a drive-in theater and McMinnville doesn't, or the fact that it is twenty minutes closer to Portland.

Now, in my older age, my reoccuring dream invovles my dead grandma. It is usually Thanksgiving and the whole family is together and my grandma is there visiting, back from the dead. The fact that she is dead usually comes up. We whisper it to each other while doing dishes, "Isn't she dead?", "How long is she here for?", "Why is she here?". But mostly we are happy to have her back and even though she is dead, everything is relatively normal. She is normal, like nothing ever happened. She never says anything about being dead or what it's like, or where it is. We all just sit and eat and talk and be happy. These dreams are never nightmares.

I tried to write a story based on this dream. A story about a family Thanksgiving in which their dead grandma shows up. It was hard though. I couldn't figure out the POV. First it was in third and then I wanted it in first, but I couldn't figure out whose perspective to do it from. I settled on the dead grandma's perspective but it was hard to write. Do dead people have feelings, nerves? Should I make her look normal or should I make her look dead, like a zombie? These are some of the problems I ran into. I went the route of having the grandma look dead, but it was so grotesque, imagine a dead body at the table, who is talking, and eating turkey. That was another thing, do dead people eat?

Mr. Rogers

I am watching Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. He and Mr. McFeeley (or is in Feeley, either way, it is an odd name) are watching a tape on that TV that is built into the wall, with a picture frame around it. It is a tape about how red construction paper is made. It is actually quite interesting. At one point in the process the paper looks like vomit, but kinda of like fake vomit you would buy in a joke shop. I think it is strange how many things there are factories for. There is some factory somewhere that makes red construction paper and there is a factory somewhere that makes fake vomit for joke shops. And someone, somewhere, has the job of working in the factory that makes the fake vomit and someone has the job of running it. The factory is probably in China.

On another episode of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood he watched a tape about a jean making factory. He was watching it and there was a shot of some woman slaving away behind a sewing machine and Mr. Roger's says, "I wonder what that woman is thinking. I bet she is thinking about how happy the future wearer of those jeans will be." Poor Mr. Rogers, always the optomist. The end song does make me feel pretty good though.