Author: chris

lidocaine hydrochloride is in the same family as cocaine.  it is a pain reliever. bactine, an over-the-counter spray-on pain relief and infection fighter, contains 2.5% lidocaine hydrochloride.  this is more than any other pain relievers i could find in the store.

i was looking for lidocaine hydrochloride because, as i was cleaning the grill at my work, which at that moment was covered in very hot grease (the grill registered at 400 degrees F), two of my knuckles fell onto the metal surface.  i watched as blisters formed and continued to close down the kitchen with my hand stuck in a glass of ice water.  what should have been a one hour job became a two hour job.

after work i went looking for the aforementioned bactine.  i found it, and sprayed it on whenever i happened to feel a burning sensation on my knuckles (about every three minutes for thirty minutes…several sprays, liberally coating the surrounding area with bactine.)  i became alarmed when i read the directions: apply small amount on area 1-3 times daily.  i can’t feel any change in temperature on my knuckles now.

i just posted crop dusters and their effects on limbs. people always ask me what i am trying to say with certain stories, or what stories mean.  this is annoying, and if you do it to any writer you shouldn’t.  but i will tell you what this one means.  quite simply, it is a comment on terrorists’ use of chemicals on an unwary public.  it is also an exploration of the durability of cotton garments.

i stared into the black black black, and you know i had to yell just to get my voice back. 

i guess everybody has their own thing that they yell into a well.

i have prepared and posted seven new no. images.  you can see them here.  if you have just joined us and are unaware of what the no. series is, you can click “about the no. series” located at the above link.  but i’m not sure that all people can understand the gravity of this series.  it is not your fault.  it is mine.  i cannot successfully convey its importance. but at least you have pretty pictures to look at.

the last seven images are all new.  well…i’ve had them for about three months, and have only now been able to post them.  but they are new to you.  as i look over them i am embarassed that i didn’t see some of them when i was collecting the first set; several of them are in exceedingly obvious places, and as i was looking for them i should have found them with no trouble. 

i found the cd that i am listening to, the cd set actually, at waterloo, used, like new, for ten dollars.  this brings me joy. 

my work is going well.  making good money, having healthy freak outs.  i worked at a coffee shop, called java ranch, a few years ago where we made sandwiches.  after working at cracker barrel, i realize how unclean java ranch really is.  compared to the cleaning procedures here, java ranch resembles a mildly cleaned toilet. 

if you have not learned anything from my post, please learn this: should you ever find yourself in fredericksburg, tx, you should not eat at java ranch.  sure it’s unclean, but the owners also have black souls.  black and tarry.

just when i think it’s time to throw in the towel, that i don’t have any more stories to write, something else comes out and i have to write it down.  so it is with how i learned to swear, my newest story i just posted.  it’s my favorite newest story–it makes me laugh.  i hope it makes you laugh. kind of.

i found a record at half priced books called “i eat kids” by barry louis polisar.  it’s a record for kids, but it’s kind of creepy, as the title implies.  another of his records that i got has a song called “never cook your sister in a frying pan.”  apparently he’s a very well known songwriter, a favorite of parents and children.  if only people could see that my stories are meant for a younger audience too.  please, share them with your children.

in closing, i have gotten a job at the cracker barrel as a cook, because that was the only place i could get a job.  i will get 8 dollars an hour, so they must be under the impression that i can actually cook.  i don’t know why.  would you pay me 8 dollars an hour?

a dream i had last night, written as i remember it:

dining on a school bus, insides stripped and remodeled to look just like a restaurant.  elderly people all around me, people i’ve met in my life, many of whom i know are dead.  outside i see about a dozen people: white people, black people, mexicans.  they chase a mexican down and attack him, beating him with whatever they have: bats, boards.  they stop when his body goes limp and looks like a ragdoll.  he is lying on his stomach.  another mexican gets on top of him and picks his head up.  blood and teeth gushout of his mouth and collect in a pothole beneath his head.  the living mexican slams the dead mexican’s head down on the the asphalt and it bounces once.  they all turn around and see us in the school bus, watching him.  an old woman in the front of the bus who i remember from kindergarten screams “they’re coming for us!” it’s a horrible shriek, and we try to start paddling the bus away from the mob, a gang actually, having their tuesday night party, but the water leven seems to have gotten incredibly low.  then i’m standing outside of a bar or a restaurant talking to a girl and guy, both of whom are in the gang.  we are smoking together.

“why did you remember that they were both mexicans?” the girl asks me.

“i don’t know,” i answer.  my alarm then wakes me up.

i just posted a machine.  it’s not my best, but i like it.  i realize it’s very kurt vonnegutty.  i don’t know why, it’s been a year since i read anything by him.  anyway, that is why the character is eating wheaties.  (breakfast of champions…i….nevermind.)

the weekend was spent on a lake, a cold lake.  rode a jetski on which i crushed my genitals when i hit a wave i was not expecting.  you know, after a while you really can’t feel anything.  the house in which we stayed is laura’s father’s.  we haven’t been in 2 years.  we rode down to the rich part of the lake, joking that the “slums” were where we were (where lots with no houses run about $150,000-350,000 depending on view and size.  here i am thinking i’m splurging when i spend twenty dollars on a cd.).  we rode past an aol fat cat’s house and i tried to pee on his dock, but the jetski abuse made this impossible.  the rich lake house owners wave in a rather friendly manner from their porches, yet if you step one foot on their lawn they’ll have you arrested and beaten in an instant.  fascists.

have you heard the new beck album? better than sea change, not close to odelay, and i always picture skinned pigs running and screaming in a pen when i listen to it.  was this beck’s goal? i should hope so.

my computer ages as a human ages, only much faster.  it no longer starts up as quickly as it used to, as it did three years ago when it was new, and when it does, successfully load it is often very slow and confused, not understanding what it is exactly that i want it to do.  i don’t blame it; it’s running windows, and any computer running such an inherently erred piece of programming is bound to see its end prematurely.  for instance, the reason for its latest upset is because i loaded the newest update for windows xp–the update crashed my computer.  i just wish i had more time with it. 

in any case, i am using the computers at the public library for the time being.  i’ve been spending a little time here; i ride a bike, and it’s on the way home, and the lighting feels very welcoming and sterile.  being here, i’ve realized that i don’t actually hate people per say, but rather college students.  few college students come in here; they usually go to the campus library, or, let’s be realistic, a bar or keg party.  when a college student does come in, i like to glare at them.  they don’t belong here.  i may be a college student, but i am not like them.  they need to be ostracized like sex offenders. 

i am embarassed at my lack of posting on my site.  did i tell you i had 7,043 hits last month?  some of those people must think of me as a lazy fool, a sloth-like procrastinator who doesn’t even have enough will to make himself appear unslovenly.  and they’d be right.  i have about three stories ready to type and post, but they are not with me, and i don’t like posting them on public computers.  i also have about 6 more photos for the no. series, but i need to edit them.  i will try. try try try.

i don’t like people, so they often die in my stories.

i’ve posted a new story, skin buzzards.  laura (did you know we’re engaged now?  since january.) said it reminded her of the crippled scholar.  this is ludicrous, as the first is about a specific type of buzzard and the latter is about flies.  i think she only pretends to read my stories and says she loves me for my collection of books.  for shame. [when laura read this last paragraph she took a small pipe and beat me with it.  when i came to she told me i had to make a note explaining that i was only kidding.  so i am.  -ed.]

“I give [the watch] to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it.  Because no battle is ever won he said.  They are not even fought.  The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.”

-The Sound and The Fury, William Faulkner

Game Over.  The ones in bold are the ones nobody got.

Game, stolen from blindeinstein:

Step 1: Get your playlist together, put it on random, and play
Step 2: Pick your favorite lines from the first 20 (er…21) songs that play
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song the lines come from
Step 4: Cross out the songs when someone guesses correctly
Step 5: No cheating (typing the lyrics into a search engine to find the song)