Category: Uncategorized

i have posted several fifties advertisements.  i did them a year ago and am just now getting around to posting them.  they are all pulled from 1950s saturday evening post issues.  i have many more, but these were the ones that i was happy with.  i was going to color all of them in as well.  that won’t happen.  you may not get all of them.  this is okay; i am fine with that.

Good reasons to freeze to death
-eventually you’d probably go numb
-if you like the cold, freezing might be enjoyable
-your ears won’t get hot
-all you might want to do is go to sleep

Good reasons to burn to death
–

i think it’s clear who the winner is.

if you lack energy to clean up your house, i recommend putting on any album by hella.  it may make you start getting tremors, i know i have them now, but it will definitely make you clean up quickly.  i just cleaned a month’s worth of garbage in one and half hours, plus i rearranged all my furniture.  i probably won’t be able to go to sleep for another four hours though.

did you know you can clean your carpet with a mixture of one part bleach and one part red wine?

leaving my house for a week.  this is among the most menial and time consuming tasks i must do as an obsessive compulsive.  i will not bore you with the details, because, though they fascinate me, they will not fascinate you, i know.  but i did check my locks on my doors and windows six times, then turned my car around a quarter of a mile away to check them again. 

crap.  the bedroom window.  i’ll be thinking about whether or not i locked that for the next week.

if someone is watching me i pretend i am going up to get something.  then i have to bring something down, something of value, that i might need on a trip.  they don’t know i’m leaving for a week though.  but still, i bring something down.  just to look normal. 

i think about rob as i pack.  rob used to work with me.  he took three hour breaks.  he chain smoked every thirty minutes.  he was greasy.  he was creepy to girls.  he was fired.  people are fired all the time where i work, because we have so many employees.  these people moving in and out of my life.  it’s all like watching a stressful film where you only know the characters briefly, and then you never see them again.  i think about peresa, the girl who always sounded like she was on the verge of bursting into tears when she asked you for anything at all.  and then in the break room she always bursted into tears.  i think about amanda.  “manda” she wrote on her tickets.  i think about how much i hated her and how glad i was when i realized she was working her last day.

it’s been an odd summer. this album reminds me of being sad in the summer.

i saw a dozen men with large glasses walking around like humans today.  they weren’t very convincing, and i walked away from them as quickly as i could.  i walked to best buy, where a very annoying pre-pubescent-looking employee accosted me and tried to push warez on me like i was a tourist in a smog ridden city.  on a previous visit here, an employee asked me if i needed anything every two minutes.  honestly.  any time one of them saw me.  “can i help you with anything today?”  i wanted to throw a stack of broken CDrs in their face and shake them—the employees.  you might think shaking someone wouldn’t be a violent act.  but i know of someone who is in jail for six months for shaking a woman.  just shaking her.  nothing else. 

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.