GIRLS ARE PRETTY

A Guided Tour Of The Homes Of Ordinary People Day!

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:00:25 -0400

You give bus tours of the homes of ordinary, everyday folks who live in your town. You’ve been doing it for years, and the same shtick rolls off your tongue day after day. You can pretty much recite it in your sleep.

This two-story house is where Craig and Nina Olsen have lived out the majority of their lives together. Craig is well-known on the block for his grilling expertise. Nina is an insurance claims adjuster. Their son moved to New York City to study dance.

The people take their snapshots and cross the house off their maps. They’re satisfied that they know the lives of the Olsens now, they know what it means to be Craig and Nina, to live in their home and watch their son head off to find his rhythm. And then you roll them on to another one.

Melanie Llanerch, a widow of 15 years after her husband Mario died on the floor of the plant in a mishap. Melanie’s annual Christmas party has been the source for quite a few local rumors, but it’s all in good fun. She’s very active in the neighborhood decorating committee, and there’s a long line of ladies who’d like to find a way into her book club.

Is that it? Is that all there is to say about Melanie? What are you doing, whoring these people’s homes out to be gawked at by paying strangers? You don’t know them. You make a living summarizing the existence of human beings. This isn’t where you wanted to end up.

Here we are at Pamela and Arthur Reed’s house. I could tell you all that Pamela works in finance and Arthur is a school teacher, but does that tell you even the slightest bit about them? If we want to know who these people are, what kind of lives they’re living, we’ll just have to go into their homes and watch them live it. Who’s with me?

You run out the door of the bus and the passengers follow you as you sprint across the lawn to Pamela and Arthur Reed’s doorstep. The door is locked. You throw your weight against it. Once, twice, a third time. The door flies off its hinges. Pamela Reed has a handgun. She aims at your heart. You die instantly. Two more shots are fired. One hits one of your passengers in the arm. The other hits the wood of the door frame. The rest of the passengers run for their lives. Your murder is ruled self-defense. Pamela had the right to defend herself from an intruder into her home. She had the right to keep you from knowing how she lives.

Happy A Guided Tour Of The Homes Of Ordinary People Day!

Girls Are Pretty on Twitter

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 18:55:06 -0400

Hey follow Girls Are Pretty on Twitter too. I’ll make sure to tweet out every time there’s a new story, and I’ll also fire off links to some of my old favorites.

https://twitter.com/GirlsArePretty1

You Can’t Feel Day!

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:00:24 -0400

You kept it off of your dating profile, you explain, because it scares guys away sometimes.

“Or it attracts the wrong guy,” you say. “Like the kind who doesn’t really like women, and would prefer to not have to communicate with a woman on an emotional level.”

He seems intrigued.

“I bet I could make you love me.”

“I’m telling you,” you say. “I can’t.”

“Bet I could make you eat those words.”

“Fifty bucks?” you suggest.

The two of you shake on it.

You spend the next fifty years together, him showering you in romance from dawn to dusk, bombarding you with flowers and serenades and trips to romantic B&Bs. He writes piles of poetry inspired by you, published even, on reputable presses, with nothing but your name as the title, in numbered volumes. He fills you with children, celebrates you at every turn, with every breath. Your life with him is more wonderful than you ever could have imagined, more wonderful, certainly, than you deserve.

He stays by your side to very end, when you’re on your deathbed. He refuses to leave you. He spends his days reading to you, telling you stories, putting ice chips on your tongue.

On your last night alive, when you know you don’t have any energy left to wake to another morning, you take your husband’s hand in yours and you squeeze it tight. When he pulls his hand away, he opens his palm and finds a fifty-dollar bill.

When he looks at your face, your eyes are closed, your breathing stopped. The money in his palm tells him his love for you was requited, but the proof isn’t in the fifty bucks. It’s in the fact that you cared enough to die before he could look in your eyes to find some seed of doubt.

Happy You Can’t Feel Day!

Vengeance For The Broken Hearted Day!

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 10:08:34 -0400

Henry broke up with Mary because he wants to go out with Susan now.

“He said he loved me,” Mary tells you.

“Then he’s a liar,” you say. “And we need to get revenge on him.”

Mary suggests she take the private chats they had and post them on Facebook.

“It’s real mushy stuff,” she says. “And there’s a lot of him apologizing for not being able to last very long in bed. It’ll be super embarrassing for him.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” you say.

After killing Henry’s family, grinding up their bodies and feeding them to Henry in a stew, you’re wanted for murder and so you decide go on the lam.

“Come with?” you ask Mary, leaning in her bedroom window. “We can live on the open road, killing what needs killing, stealing when we need a little dough, sleeping under the stars, just being free.”

Mary says no. You say cool, then you try to reminisce about the prank you played on Henry, how awesome it was to see his face when he found out he ate his whole family, but you notice the flashing lights behind you.

Mary shows you her phone. She secretly dialed 911. They heard every word.

“You ratted on me?” you ask. “After I helped you get revenge?”

You go to jail for life, thinking the whole time that all you’re guilty of is helping out a friend with a broken heart.

Happy Vengeance For The Broken Hearted Day!

Your Dad’s On TV Day!

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:44:00 -0400

Your dad’s on TV.

“Are you seeing this?” your sister asks over the phone.

You’re seeing this. He’s being interviewed by Anderson Cooper for rescuing puppies from a house on fire.

“I just hope my daughters will let me back into their lives,” your dad says to Anderson Cooper.

You tell your sister you don’t like the way this looks.

***

You’re on TV.

“Are you going to accept your Dad back into your life?” Anderson Cooper asks you. “He did something good for puppies.”

You tell Anderson Cooper that if he did something good for some dogs, but he never did anything good for you or your sister, that means he treated you and your sister worse than dogs.

Someone behind Anderson Cooper throws a tomato at you.

“Are you seeing this?” your sister texts you, forgetting that you’re the one she’s looking at live on her TV screen.

***

Your Dad’s on TV.

“I want everyone to leave my daughters alone,” he tells Anderson Cooper. “I did a lot of bad things in my life, and if they can’t forgive me for them, even after I saved some puppies, then that’s their right.”

Anderson Cooper says, “No, I’m sorry but that’s bullshit!”

“Anderson, take it easy,” your Dad says.

“I fucking won’t,” Anderson Cooper says. “I don’t normally do this, take sides and whatnot, but come on. Would they rather the puppies had died? Is that what they want?”

“Are you seeing this?” your sister asks from the other side of the couch. She moved in with you. Her and Stan are having trouble again.

***

Your Dad’s on TV.

“Until there’s definitive proof that that’s me on that video recording, I stand by my assertion that it’s not me,” he’s telling Anderson Cooper.

In the corner of the screen is a surveillance video of your Dad carrying puppies into a house and then setting the house on fire. Then he’s shown waiting around for some people to show up and turn on their smartphone cameras. Then he runs into the house and runs back out with the puppies.

“It really looks like you,” Anderson Cooper says.

“Well, I maintain that it doesn’t look like me. Look at me. Am I wearing a hat, like the guy in the video?”

“If it was you, I think your daughters need to know,” Anderson Cooper says. “They need to realize how far you’re willing to go to get them back in your life. I mean, you were ready to kill puppies.”

Your dad isn’t sure how to respond so he says, “Maybe?”

“That’s a lot to have on your conscience,” Anderson Cooper says. “If those puppies had died, you would have had to live with that, all because you love your daughters so much.”

Your dad says, “So whether I set the fire and rescued the puppies, or I didn’t set the fire and rescued the puppies, my daughters should let me into their lives again.”

“You’re goddamn right!” Anderson Cooper shouts before throwing his mic at the wall and stomping around cursing while your dad chases after him, trying to calm him down.

“Are you seeing this?” your sister asks Stan over the phone. They’re trying to work it out. You hope they do.

***

You’re on TV.

“Empty your pockets,” the corrections officer says to you. You watch yourself on the closed circuit monitor as you drop your keys and loose change into the bin. Then you walk through the metal detector and into the visitors area.

“I just wanted the chance to say I’m sorry,” your Dad says when you sit at the table with him.

You tell him that you accept his apology, and he shouldn’t feel the need to do more dangerous stuff just to get Anderson Cooper to convince you to reconnect with him.

“He parked outside my house for a week, spraypainting ‘Bad Daughter’ on my front door. It was awful,” you tell your dad.

“He gets results,” your dad says. “That’s why he’s the best reporter in the biz.”

Across the room, another inmate picks up his visitor and throws him against the wall.

“Are you seeing this?” your dad asks.

You put your hand on his. You’re seeing this. You’re right there with him, seeing this together.

Happy Your Dad’s On TV Day!

A Swollen Eye Day!

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 21:36:04 -0400

He’ll show up to work with a swollen eye.

“Looks like some girl’s boyfriend caught up to you,” you’ll say.

“He did,” he’ll say. “Yours.”

You don’t remember a thing. A few of you had rounds in the kitchen after you closed the restaurant last night, then you and he went to a bar to have a few rounds more. You vaguely remember arriving at the bar.

“You took me home?” you’ll ask.

“I didn’t think you would have gotten there otherwise,” he’ll say.

“Did we?”

He’ll shake his head.

“Did you try?”

He’ll say he didn’t get the chance. “You were on me by the time the door closed on the cab. I pushed you off and you went to sleep.”

He carried you into your apartment and tucked you in. Your boyfriend was waiting outside when he left.

“He followed us,” he’ll say.

“He doesn’t trust me. He follows me home from work,” you’ll say. “Because he knows I’m in love with you.”

“Godammit, we’re waiters,” he’ll say. “These diners are counting on us. How are we supposed to deliver their dinner if your heart’s getting in the way?”

“But if we weren’t?” you ask. “Waiters I mean.”

He laughs. “Might as well ask if the sky wasn’t blue. If up was down.”

A table for four arrives. You consider just throwing down your apron, walking out the door and waiting for him, waiting on the sidewalk for him to come out and love you.

But you see their faces. They’re hungry. They need you. And if you turned away from them, would he follow?

He’ll give you a look. “That’s your section.”

You’ll tear your gaze away from his. You’ll walk to the table, pulling your check pad out of your shirt pocket, the one right next to your heart.

Happy A Swollen Eye Day!

Ask For A Raise Day!

Wed, 01 May 2013 20:34:29 -0400

Say, “Boss I think I deserve a little more than what I’m getting, okay?”

Your boss will tense up, getting ready for a tough negotiation. “Okay,” he’ll say. “How much money you want?”

Say, “Don’t want no money. I just want to be touched.”

Your boss will look unsure of how to counter-offer.

“You don’t want an increase in salary?” he’ll ask.

“Nope,” tell him. “I just want to feel the warmth of your hand on my person sometimes. Nothing sexual, necessarily. Just in the morning, maybe you can rest your hand on my back when you stop by my desk to say hello.”

Your boss will hesitate, waiting to see if there’s a catch.

“And maybe,” you go on. “Maybe you could occasionally tousle my hair the way my dad used to. Oh and I want a five-second hug goodbye every single day. A five-second hug and a whisper in my ear that you’ll never forget the time we spent together each day.”

Your boss will think about all of your demands. He’ll weigh your recent job performance against that of your coworkers and try to determine if everything you’re requesting is within the realm of what he thinks you deserve.

Finally, he’ll come back with a counter-offer.

“A three-second hug,” he’ll say.

“Four,” tell him.

He’ll say deal. The two of you will rise and shake on it. Feel his skin, focus all of your attention on that touch. That’s two human beings right there, clasping each in the other’s grip, sharing a moment temporally and physically, reinforcing the belief that both of you really are right there, that this isn’t a dream, all of it is as real as the warmth of your combined body heat. That handshake, that’s all there is isn’t it? All those desks and file cabinets and all the money that comes in and out of that office, there’s nothing real to it. Nothing you can feel. Nothing as real as the touch of a man holding onto another man’s hand.

Happy Ask For A Raise Day!

Tell Your Dad He's Been Replaced Day!

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:03:03 -0400

“I met a boy,” tell him. “He’s everything you’re not.”

“Guess he’s not awesome then!” your Dad will say as you lift up your bags and walk out the door. He’ll run to the door, laughing, and yell at your back, “I said, guess he’s not awesome! Come on, that was awesome!”

You’ll keep walking to your new boy’s apartment, vowing never to see your dad again.

Three months from now your new boy will cheat on you and you’ll look up your Dad but he’ll be dead. When you go to his grave you’ll whisper, “You were right, Dad. He wasn’t awesome.”

The epitaph on your Dad’s grave will read, “I Die With Just One Regret - That I Couldn’t Have Been Born On A Planet That Could Handle My Awesomeness.” You’ll pray for him to find himself on that planet in his next life, then you’ll go back to the boy who cheated on you because with your Dad gone, all the remaining men are all the same.

Happy Tell Your Dad He’s Been Replaced Day!

Fist Bump Day!

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:00:47 -0400

Today when you fist bump people it means you once heard your mother tell a friend of hers that she regrets having you.

“Don’t you love your offspring?” you heard the friend ask your mother.

“I think he’s okay,” your mom said. “But sometimes when the phone rings I imagine it’s the police telling me he got in a car accident and died, and I get a little giddy. Then when it turns out not to be true, I get bummed out.”

You heard your friend tell your mom that she knew of a guy who buys kids. You were only eight at the time and the friend told your mom eight is the max age he’ll buy. Your mom asked what the guy buys kids before and the friend said she didn’t know.

“Do you care?” you heard the friend ask.

Your mom shrugged and said she’d think about whether she wanted to sell you, when you were almost at the age when you could run errands.

That’s what it means if you fist bump anybody today. That you heard your mom have that conversation. If you fist bump tomorrow, it goes back to meaning you’re afraid of strongmen tearing your hand off at the wrist if you engage in handshakes.

Happy Fist Bump Day!

Ask The Barista Day!

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:57:56 -0400

You like that brown-haired girl who always sits in the corner of the coffee shop working on her laptop but you don’t know how to say what you feel so ask the Barista to say it for you.

“Instead of her name, write what I tell you on the side of her cup,” you say to the Barista. He is an angry person with a turtle tattoo on his left hand.

“What’s in it for me you fuck?” he asks. You don’t take it personally. It’s coffee shop policy to address every customer as “you fuck.”

“I’ll drop two bucks in the tip cup,” you say.

He nods. You drop the bucks then you tell the barista what you feel. He writes it all down then he shouts for her to pick up her drink.

“You in the corner. The way your brown hair cascades over your laptop makes me wish I could be your laptop, that my body parts could be the keys on your keyboard, like that my penis was the space bar since you’d be hitting that one a lot, and I guess my eyes would be the bracket keys or something. Anyway, you’re the most beautiful girl in the coffee shop and I wish I knew what you smelled like but you sit so close to the bathroom. Come get your drink and let me love you.”

She gets up from her chair to get her drink and finds you waiting to give it to her. She takes it from you, reads from the side of the cup all that the Barista just shouted, then removes the lid and throws the drink in your face. Luckily, it was iced.

“Are you okay, you fuck?” the Barista asks.

You’re not. “I guess this is goodbye,” you tell the Barista. “I only came here so I could imagine my life with that brown-haired girl. Now that she’s given me her answer, I have to go to find another coffee shop where I can fixate on a new stranger.”

The Barista says, “I won’t let you go.”

He invites you into the back, where he knocks you unconscious and keeps you locked away for months. He keeps several other customers there too, customers who were thinking of frequenting other coffee shops. He’ll slowly poison you with ammonia dosed lattes. Your bodies will be found in a pile under some beans. Your Barista will escape to get a job serving coffee in a new town, developing new, indelible relationships with the regulars.

When your face appears in the paper as one of the dead, the brown-haired girl won’t recognize you.

Happy Ask The Barista Day!

The Bulbs In The Streetlamps Day!

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 00:20:17 -0400

Only one of your neighbors on the community board is still fighting you. Go see him today.

“I just want a month,” you tell him. “A single thirty days of red bulbs.”

“Too dangerous,” he murmurs. He didn’t even turn the TV off. You had to grab the remote and mute it.

“She loved red bulbs,” you say. “Her rose garden. Everyone marveled at it. She gave so much to this block, asking for nothing in return. Let me give something back to her. Let me turn the entire neighborhood rose-red for her.”

He snorts.

“What’s so funny?” you ask.

“I was you once,” he says. “When my wife died I wanted to scratch her name into the sky. I wanted to do what she ‘would have wanted.’ Soon you’ll accept that she wants nothing anymore. That’s the good part of death. The wanting stops.”

You both sit in silence.

“Unfortunately,” he adds. “You have to accept that she doesn’t even want you anymore.”

He cries in his chair, staring at a court show. You drop the photos on the table.

“I know you had your neighbors’ tree branches cut down,” you tell him. “It wasn’t the storm. You used the storm as your excuse and cut down the branches reaching into your yard while the Canters were away.”

He stares at the pile of photos without reaching for them.

“Approve the red bulbs at tonight’s block meeting,” you tell him. “Vote yes on turning the neighborhood red in honor of my late wife’s rose garden. Let me mourn my wife to the fullest of my ability. Or so help me God the photos of you shouting up at your tree surgeon will be on every folding chair at that meeting.”

You leave the photos there for him to peruse. Tonight, you can be sure you’ll get the votes necessary to give a proper goodbye to your sweet, departed bride.

Happy The Bulbs In The Streetlamps Day!

499 Days Day!

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:46:51 -0400

Today you got into a car accident. You changed lanes without looking first and you sideswiped a guy. The two of you pulled over and exchanged information. You have a good insurance plan and you told him he should be fine.

“I hope so,” he said. Then he asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

You said, “I’m going to be murdered in 499 days.”

He said, “I’m sorry to hear it.” Perfect poker face.

You said, “I wonder if you’re the one who’s going to kill me.” You looked at his information and added, “Arthur Douglas Prescott.”

He said, “I’ve never hurt anyone in my life.”

You told him we’ve all hurt somebody at some point. He said that’s probably true. He has broken a heart or two in his rear view.

“Sometimes needlessly,” Arthur said. “Just to prove to them that, by hurting them, they were wrong to have gotten involved with me.”

Arthur ran his hand through his weak scalp of brown hair. It was getting messy in the wind.

“I feel like we’d be friends under other circumstances,” you told Arthur.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Arthur said. “Or wait, is this insurance info for real?”

You told him yes, it was. It’s not that. It’s just, now that you’ve crashed into each other, you’re in each other’s orbits.

“Who knows how this will play out?”

Arthur seemed to size you up then. It’s like he was trying to figure out whether he could overpower you physically, or would he have to use a weapon?

“Maybe I’ll see you again,” you said to Arthur.

“Not if I see you first,” he said.

It’s moments like that one—and like the one you had later in the afternoon when you were cheating on your wife with a married woman, and her husband came home and chased you out of the house vowing to kill you if he ever finds you—that make you realize it could be anybody. Anyone you meet could be the person who takes your life 499 days from now.

Happy 499 Days Day!

You Just Left The Witness Protection Program Day!

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:02:58 -0400

The two of you sit watching the news. There’s a photo of you on the screen.

“I can change it.”

“No.”

You want to hear them say it. You want to hear them say that your life is in danger, that you aren’t a hero, or a villain. You want to hear them say that you’re just a living thing trying to stay alive.

“They keep calling me an informant. A rat.”

“They have to tell the story the way they know people want to hear it.”

He puts his hand on yours. You fall into his chest and cry. Then you’re kissing, crying into his mouth. Your blouse is on the floor. He’s carrying you to the bed. Will this be the last time?

“Why don’t they assign girl Feds to watch girls in safe houses?” you ask, after.

“They do sometimes. They send the Feds that the Feds running the case trust.”

You consider asking if he does this with every female witness, but you know he doesn’t. From the very first time, you knew this was as alien to him as it was to you.

“Could you protect me. Outside?”

“For a year. A few years. Then it’d be luck.”

You consider your options. Take down the entire organization, then go live somewhere in the middle of nowhere, with nothing, without him. Or.

“I choose you.”

“I love you. We have to move now.”

In an instant his clothes are back on and he’s got a bag packed already. He’s got wads of cash in a money belt around his waist. He’s spraying the house with gasoline so it looks like the two of you were firebombed. It’ll be days before they realize you weren’t there.

“You’re really going to throw away the bust of the decade for me?”

“Let’s not make a federal case about it.”

You both laugh because that was a joke since he’s a federal agent. You’re in the car now, a block away. Back at the house the match hits the gasoline. The rear-view mirror turns orange. You just left the witness protection program.

Happy You Just Left The Witness Protection Program Day!

You Just Came Out Of A Forty-Year Coma And You're About To Learn About The Internet Day!

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 09:07:18 -0400

There are news cameras aimed at you. Everyone wants to watch you learn about the internet.

Someone hands you a laptop.

“This is a personal computer,” they say. “Type something you want to look at.”

You type the words, Chicks peeing on guys’ buttholes.

“It’s magical,” you say as the search results scroll down the screen.

They suggest maybe you could type something else. “You can even write a blog post to get your own ideas out there,” you’re told.

They open a blog template for you. The title of your first post is, “9/11 Was A Joint Mission Of The CIA And Israel And Was The Result Of Airplane Shaped Robotic Missiles Remotely Controlled By George W. Bush.”

A reporter asks, “How did you even know about 9/11?”

You explain it was a hunch.

The cameras stop rolling. Everyone starts packing up.

“Wait,” your doctor says. “Try using the computer to look at an adorable video of a kitten.”

You watch an adorable video of a kitten. Then you ask if there’s a way to call the kitten a homosexual and tell it that you’d like to rape it. You’re directed to the Youtube comments section.

“Why’s everyone leaving?” you ask.

You’re told that everyone was hoping to see how the internet would be used by someone who’s never seen it before, but they’re bummed because you’re using it just like everyone else. You stop listening to practice the Harlem Shake.

Happy You Just Came Out Of A Forty-Year Coma And You’re About To Learn About The Internet Day!

At First Sight Day!

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 07:56:54 -0400

You have your hand on the back of his neck when he first sees her. You’re walking him to the exit. When a kid gets suspended you have to stay with him until he’s through the door, then it’s his parents’ problem. So your palm is on his skin, feeling the heat of his neck, when he first puts his eyes on her.

When you got assigned a high school, the guy at the security agency warned you not to become close with the students. These kids aren’t your buddies, he said. Told you you shouldn’t try to relive your high school years, thinking maybe you can get it right this time around, get the football quarterback to like you this time around, convince the head cheerleader not to pants you at homecoming this time around, get the yearbook editor to not mix up your senior photo with the janitor’s staff photo before he goes to print this time around.

They were afraid you’d get conned. Afraid the kids would cozy up to you, make you think you’re cool with them, and before you know it they’re running drugs and guns and smuggling exotic birds through the halls and you’re looking the other way solely because they promised to let you come to the big party after the game.

To be truthful, you do treat this job kind of like you’re back in high school, in that you try to keep your head down and avoid getting noticed very much.

At about ten yards from the doors, she comes walking in. The other kids have already cleared a path, rubbernecking to see the suspended kid get sent home, so when she enters the school and starts coming toward the two of you, you feel like you’re his best man, and you’re both watching the bride walk down the aisle.

His neck goes hot under your grip. You feel his goosebumps rise. You have to raise your arm as he grows taller, or maybe he’s floating a few inches off the ground.

You want to let go but can’t. Not just because it’s regulations to keep the offender in hand until he’s vacated the premises, but because you want to feel love’s birth. You never had anything but unrequited crushes in high school. You fetishized girls you couldn’t have, and knowing you couldn’t have them was the main attraction. It was never an honest love. Having your hand on that kid’s neck is as close as you’ve ever come to experiencing love at first sight. You feel the weather in his body change under your grip. Your palm is a layer of skin away from his brain-stem, right at the very instant when the chemical signals letting him know he’s fallen for someone have begun their transmission.

She walks past you, turns her head just a few inches and holds his eyes. As she passes, you both stop, you both turn, you both watch her walk away. As this kid falls in love, you two are one person.

She looks back at you once before she turns a corner and disappears.

At the front door, you let go of his neck. You turned and face each other, not knowing how to put what just happened into words. You’re only a few years older than him, but you feel like his father, like he has your blood running through his veins, and you have his. You feel like you need to say something wise.

“Enjoy your 5-day suspension,” you tell him.

He nods, then steps through the door and goes on his way.

Happy At First Sight Day!

He Fell Asleep In Your Sonata Day!

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 09:50:10 -0500

His intentions were good! He came to you to offer you his heart! And he waited on your doorstep for you to come home, he’d have waited all night if he had to! But he’d been drinking! And waiting was boring so he drank some more! He got tired and noticed your Sonata in the driveway so he climbed into the passenger seat to rest! While waiting for you! But you know how he has those night terrors?! Well he had one! While waiting for you! And his flailing arms must have knocked the gear out of park and into neutral! So the Sonata rolled out of the drive and down the hill and into an intersection where it got jackknifed by a bus! So he’s dead now! For you!

He died for you!

Sorry about your Sonata!

Happy He Fell Asleep In Your Sonata Day!

Pet Store Day!

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 20:24:30 -0500

Your mood was so cranky today that when you walked into the pet store all the pets committed suicide.

“Your ‘Say No To Life’ demeanor inspire my merchandise to bring about their own furry little ends!” the pet store owner shouted. “You’ll pay for those!”

You suggested that maybe the two of you could come to some other kind of arrangement. The pet store owner made love to you on a very large doggie bed. After the sex you told the pet store owner you love him.

“And I love being a pet store owner,” he said. “I can’t have you in my life if you’re going to fall into these moods that make my pet inventory die by their own paws. Will you go on medication?”

And that’s why you finally started taking medication and got a handle on your depression. For love, and for animals.

Happy Pet Store Day!

Your High School Love Is So Strong It Made Your Principal Abduct His Ex-Wife And Commit Grand Larceny Day!

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 09:35:00 -0500

You remind him what love is. He had your love once, with Denise. It was just as strong, he could swear it was. He watches you two walking around his school, the affection and desire you feel for each other is just a glowing force-field around you, like you’re walking inside a giant illuminated globe of love. He wants to be inside that globe again.

He’d become convinced that if Denise could encounter you and Jack, if she could see what he sees every day he passes you two in school, she’d remember what was possible. She’d remember the kind of love that was achievable because they’d already achieved it. If they hadn’t been distracted by the laser-focus on their careers, and the long dark period after Denise’s parents died, they might never have let it go.

Denise got the Honda Accord in the divorce. He got the Volkswagen Golf, but he still had the keys to the Honda. So one day after school he went to her office, got behind the wheel of the Honda, and when Denise came out he told her he wouldn’t get out of her car until she took a ride with him.

They started at the park. He drove the Honda up to the ridge overlooking the camp area down below. Lots of kids from the vo-tech trailers go down into that camp are during school hours to smoke cigarettes. Other kids go down there and hang out after school, get high. That day you and your boyfriend were down there, sitting on the trunk of a knocked down tree, making out.

Your principal and his ex-wife watched you for about a half-hour. Your boyfriend’s hand went up your shirt. Both your hands would go down each other’s pants sporadically. Occasionally you’d just stop and nuzzle your heads against each other’s necks like animals keeping warm, like your principal remembered he and Denise would do when they first fell for each other.

You didn’t see him in his car when you climbed back up the ridge because you weren’t looking anywhere but into each other’s eyes. Had you peeked inside you would have seen your principal’s ex-wife crying. Your principal was right. The strength of your love affected Denise. She saw what he saw. She remembered how they felt when they first fell in love. But it didn’t give her any hope of rekindling that love. It just made her sad for all that was lost.

Your principal’s ex-wife explained to him, “It’s like being forced to attend a second funeral for a loved one I’ve already mourned.”

Denise’s lawyer later explained that if they ever wished to press charges, his entering the car without her permission, and driving the car without her permission constitutes larceny. And even though she got in the car of her own volition, without being forced physically, she did so under the threat of not getting her car back otherwise. That constitutes kidnapping (though it would be harder to make stick).

They filed a restraining order against your principal, no phone or email contact except through an attorney. No face-to-face except by appointment, arranged via an attorney. Denise has been cool enough to get her lawyer to refile in such a way that the order is part of the divorce filing, so a restraining order doesn’t show up when future employers Lexis your principal.

And it was all so your principal could drive his ex-wife around town and watch you make out with your boyfriend.

Happy Your High School Love Is So Strong It Made Your Principal Abduct His Ex-Wife And Commit Grand Larceny Day!

February Man Day!

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 22:29:36 -0500

Today, you’re February Man. No matter what challenges might face you, no matter what evil might be lurking in your city, waiting to do harm to your neighbors, you have the power to say, “Fuck it it’s February fuck you if you want me to do shit it’s too fucking cold Jesus how can this be the shortest month of the year I wake up every morning in pitch black darkness using all my strength to not drink a bottle of bleach and you expect me to try this month? If you get in trouble in February it’s your fucking problem, not fucking mine. I’ve got my own fucking February to deal with. I’m fucking February man. Jesus, how many more days of this? I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I just can’t.”

They’re going to write comic books about you one day, February Man.

“Who gives a shit? Fuck you. I can’t. I ca—”

Happy February Man Day!

Walking Home, Listening To Some Songs Day

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 22:46:48 -0500

You have 90 blocks. Approximately seventy minutes. Time for approximately 12 to 15 songs that celebrate you having just said hello to your ex and his date.

It’s cold. The bones of your ribcage, you feel them all, each one colder than the next, like you’re nothing but skin wrapped around a fancy party’s ice sculpture. But you’re not getting on a bus or a train or hailing a cab. You have songs you need to listen to.

You’re the soundtrack to his evening. It’s important to you that while he’s still at the bar, having a third-week-of-dating conversation, you’re walking through his city, listening to the songs that take your broken-up-after-two-years heartache and scream it over organs, pedal steel guitars, and sad atmospheric, electronic dirges. You’re dragging your frozen bones along miles of icy sidewalk while he’s warm and unsure whether he should put his arm around her in front of his friends. Are they there yet? He doesn’t know.

Your walk home takes place on one half of an imagined split-screen, your ex and his date smiling and drinking on the other half. You’re bathed in the glow of a Don’t Walk sign waiting for the light to change as a singer howls for something lost, while your ex is laughing politely while his date tells a story. You’re leaning into the wind while slow drums build under a sparse guitar line, and your ex is telling his date that not very revealing story about a high school teacher who believed in him. Your eyes are on the moon as the lyrics in your ear wish a departing spouse well, and your ex is playing with his date’s hand in across the table.

He has no clue that the two of you shared this night. No clue you’ve DJ’d a 70-minute soundtrack to his evening, a musical storyline playing out concurrently with his quiet date in a booth at a bar. Send him the playlist maybe. Songs For The Sadness You Inspire, maybe. Or, Songs To Walk Away From You To.

Happy Walking Home, Listening To Some Songs Day!