On fight-or-flight

It dripped gasoline in your handwriting as it turned left. A generated action potential and arousal, increased blood flow to the muscles. I dragged the white paint all the way up, leaving permanent footprints. It drips blood in your dilated handwriting.

Red today, match on gasoline, see it through the windshield. Just past the lithium salts.

On shapes

It makes a white noise when it snaps, like kicking a pebble across concrete.

Fifteen things worth smiling about

1) Belle and Sebastian, particularly the tracks "Roy Walker" and "You're Just a Baby"
2) The Animation Show
3) Bustin' out the gee-tar. I'm an ever-amateur, but sometimes it feels damn good to strike a chord.
4) Spontaneous mid-day hugs on the streets of Athens
5) The occasional sporting of my spring/fall jacket
6) A lovely date with a lovely lady
7) "STOP TALKING TO FRUIT!"
8) Franzia in a box, and other discounted/discontinued wines
9) Lemon Jelly - "Nice Weather for Ducks"
10) Mile runs consistently between 7 and 8 minutes
11) Losing five pounds in a week (see above)
12) www.2SMRT4U.com - protect your internet virginity! I got my ring in the mail this weekend.
13) Academic success: Receiving the highest grades in the class on both of my most recent psych exams, and getting excessive praise on my writing from my English teachers. I'm not even a psych or English major - schwing!
14) Girl Talk (and scoring a last-minute sold out ticket because I'm one of the cool kids)
15) The anxious thrill of my newest impending tat - this one'll be hardcore.

"Tymps (The Sick in the Head Song)" - Fiona Apple

"Those boon times went bust
My feet of clay, they dried to dust
The red isn't the red we painted
It's just rust
And the signature thing
That used to bring a following
I have trouble now
Even remembering

So why did I kiss him so hard
Late last Friday night?
And keep on letting him change all my plans?
I'm either so sick in the head
I need to be bled dry to quit
Or I just really used to love him
I sure hope that's it

I knew that to keep in touch
Would do me deep in dutch
'Cause it isn't the rush of remembering
It's just mush
And that signature thing
Is only growing harrowing
I should have no trouble now
To keep from following

So why did I kiss him so hard
Late last Friday night?
And keep on letting him change all my plans?
I'm either so sick in the head
I need to be bled dry to quit
Or I just really used to love him
I sure hope that's it."

When I listen to the entire Extraordinary Machine album I'm convinced that Fiona Apple and I dated the same person.

I feel free, I feel free, I feel free

An excerpt from Margaret Atwood's Happy Endings:

"You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality.

The only authentic ending is the one provided here:
John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.

So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with."

D and C

Blackberry womb
Once ripened and stocked with
Goodies
Now a dainty, ethereal
Cloud
After the needle’s careen
I envy your canter,
Mother
Dashing, spurting life
I spill my ruddy crimson voice
“Happy birthday”
You’re barely scraping by,
Mother

"Full Heart Straining" by Virginia Schaefer

Your rescue squad is too exhausted

Sometimes, it happens.
What happens?
This.

A bigger imitation

They held hands before the snow fell. She’s dark and heavy in the winter. Twenty five dollars and then some. She felt her back tremble, her body naked against the windowpane. The smell from it lingers and he asks why she smells like Pez.

He spits his chewing tobacco on the ground between I love yous. She can’t remember the last time his mouth wasn’t full of shit.

She was light in the spring and didn’t like to be alone, but she was never alone; she slept on a hard mattress that left bruises on her hips. They kept her company. She was there in a dream, with a blurry face and tattered shoes and slender denim. There is rapport, folks. The good team won. The harder she stared at me, the harder I moved. The sky dripped white and she got splattered. She had to walk down the stairs with wet feet. Hot feet, ready to jump. Ready to drown.

You heard me talk about my shoulders. Not fair. I only saw yellow. I hate three. Let me sleep. We’ll meet at the white. Will you know me? You were born before me.

She picked at the glowing red muffins, sprawled out on her sofa. She’s glad she got away from the glass and the coffee. She slept like a baby, woke up too early, and bawled her eyes out all night. Everything falls at eight AM. She felt bigger because she was. Seven days is far too long to be heavy.

You wept, but your soul was willing

www.philosophersguild.com

I get giddy every time I look at this site. Things I would absolutely kill to own (had I money to spare):

Naughty Shakespeare Pillow
Freudian Slippers
Tickle-Me Freud
Screaming Scream Pillow
Giggling Mona Lisa Pillow
Axis of Evil Finger Puppets
Great Philosophers Finger Puppets
Great Writers Finger Puppets
Shakespearean Insult Mug
Poe Little Thinker
Van Gogh Little Thinker (with detachable velcro ear!)
Nietzsche Little Thinker
Dali Little Thinker
All the Little Thinkers
Shakespeare Scarf
Dali Watch

I wandered onto the snowy Athens streets at 7:30 AM this Sunday morning, clad only in sneakers, shorts, and a hoodie. The snow was falling fast, blanketing the vacant ground - no one is awake at this hour. It was only I, and I walked down the middle of Union Street, catching chunky flakes on my tongue.

It was only I, and I smoked silly cigarettes and went to silly places. Ping Recreational Center isn't open at 7:30 AM on Sundays, apparently. No one is awake at this hour, and I'm territorial - I needed to make the first white footprints Athens has seen in 2007.

"People are just people, doing the best they can do."