final easter notes

... you know, for those who may just be getting back to school from easter vacay...

I was telling my mom the other day how i was eating too much candy and will probably have a shite-ton of cavities by the time busy season is over. She responded by saying that I should be thankful for my beautiful teeth… thankful to my parents for dishing out the cash to get good dental care (which I am), and thankful to the government. For putting fluoride in the water.

which i am… so, here is my token of gratitude to the government, for giving me good teeth, even during Easter -- a pictorial homage.

Fitting, no? Mary Alice and I decided more people should be aware of this picture. I agreed. So, here I am, spreading awareness and showing my gratefulness at the same time. Call me The Great Multi-tasker. For instance, right now I am listening to an altogether pointless TFS (Tax Filing Standard…) call and writing a blog at the same time. TGMT.

t minus 4 1/2 hours till madness in char-town..

why american kids suck at academics

Straight from charlotte.com.. find the one that doesn't belong.

Easter Monday | What's open, closed?

Here's how the following institutions will observe the 2008 Easter holiday today:

• Mecklenburg ABC stores: Regular hours.

• S.C. package stores: Regular hours.

• Banks: Regular hours.

• CPCC: Regular schedule.

• Charlotte buses: Regular schedule.

• Charlotte city offices: Regular hours.

• Mecklenburg County offices: Regular hours.

• FedEx: Regular hours.

• Federal offices: Regular hours.

• Charlotte garbage: Regular schedule.

• Post offices: Regular hours.

• Charlotte schools: Closed Monday-Tuesday.

• N.C. state offices: Regular hours.

• S.C. state offices: Regular hours.

• Stock market: Regular hours.

• UNCC: Regular schedule.

• United Parcel Service: Regular hours.

-- COMPILED BY GERRY HOSTETLER

a few Easter church notes

i learned that i have no obligation to believe in god unless i have:
1) physically put my arm through jesus's post-resurrected side, or
2) seen an abnormal amount of lightning bugs in my backyard (preferably after struggling with faith and doubt).

we got there late and had to sit in the very back, but it was a queen's seat, really, because i had a sniper's view of the sign language lady, who keeps me slightly entertained and in awe of how she can sign and listen, sign and listen, sign and listen in this continuous loop so that she is always doing both at the same time. ASL superpowers, must be.

anyway, when we got to the closing, even-if-what-i-said-didn't-mean-anything-to-you-maybe-listening-to-this-pretty-choir-led-music-will-help song, she was still signing to her viewer, in time with the music. and i thought, that's kind of strange.. the words are right up there.. he can read them if he wants to.. (quick mental check of reasoning - yes, deaf.. not blind.. ok). and then i saw him kind of signing along with it too, and she was still guiding him along, and it clicked (finally) that, of course he can read it, but he has no idea at what tempo. and then i went through this quick sad/happy emotion, thinking about how much it would suck to never hear music, how unfair that was to him, how much i have taken and mostly always will take that privilege for granted. then, how cool it was that he could have this, that he could at least kind of hear the song through this nice lady at church, that he could come here every week and be provided these ears to a side of the world to which this god he believes in decided he was not privy.

i'm still not sure what i feel about churches as institutions, but at least there's that.. in the meantime, while i make up my mind.

also, my sister got me a stuffed animal duck that has a towel wrapped around its neck. one side says "SPLISH" and the other side says "SPLASH". and when you press its hand (er.. wing?), it butt-dances across the table/floor, and its cheeks light up all while singing the song. we made it fall off the stairs and laughed hysterically an embarrassing number of times.

also, I AM LOOKING FOR TICKETS TO THE SWEET 16 GAME THIS THURSDAY. TICKETS!! LOOKING! CHARLOTTE! EAST REGION! Thursday! Please!

a few busy season comments..

- tonight I ate a whole pineapple chicken fried rice from Soho. The whole damn thing. I don't know what got into me. I got halfway through and decided I could power through. PUSH, if you will. I know only those who have ever had a PCFR will be able to appreciate it, but that's enough appreciation to make it worth mentioning. I'm sure I will have a monstrous bout of heartburn in about 15 minutes, but it was worth it.. worth mentioning. I should do more things that are worth mentioning. Though this was arguably not worth mentioning. OK, this was not worth mentioning. Maybe I should be depressed that the battle i won over my dinner was the big news of my day. (that and the french woman who died who had esthesioneuroblastoma.. i mean, can you imagine some doctor coming to tell you you had esthesioneuroblastoma??? i most certainly would choose pronto death.)

- so, you remember that show, fraggle rock? well, our building is set up like a lot of other tall buildings, with elevator banks split up by several consecutive floors. Our bank goes from floor 26 to 37. pwc is on floors 35-37. floors 26-34 are owned by the Hearst Corporation (yes, the Hearst that publishes e.g., "CosmoGIRL!" and that owns 20% of ESPN). So... long story short.. don't let Hearst's repertoire of fashion magazines dupe you -- sometimes i feel like i live above my own little 9-story fraggle rock... where hairy, disfigured creatures roam about and snarf on showmars below..

eh, that's bad, but i can't help it.. i saw a parallel.

also, in the time between when i started to write this and now, i also ate a whole bag of skittles. i am afraid i'm slowly fraggle-izing.

also, happy birthday to the coolest person ever born on this day, corny stuff, etc.

jump into the CESSPOOL

This is your official invite to the Cesspool bracket.. I tried inviting everyone the official way, but apparently it's not working.. and then I tried sending out mass messages, but that was way too time-consuming. Join through the CBS tournament link. Then click on Groups and join mine. Brackets need to be in by 11am tomorrow.

gah, look what living in North Carolina has done to me.. I'm not sure what I should be doing right now, but I don't think it's: writing a blog inviting everyone to a facebook tournament pool.

rightio, then.

U Rock!

i don't have much time to write blogs these days (during THE season, as ashley so aptly referred to it), but an advert for this book was in my inbox from amazon.com:note that the subtitle is: How Smart People Brand Themselves for Business Success
wow, seriously?
and yes, it is in hardcover.

the 'artist' column of my 'going out' playlist

all these people are in town this weekend for the ciaa tournament:

fabolous
fat joe
gucci mane
jermaine dupri
bow wow (my class may remember him as lil bow wow)
omarion
keith sweat (oh, so twisted!)
r kelly
doug e fresh
yung joc
lil kim
biz markie

i mean, that is just kind of crazy to me.. i don't know what else to say about it. except that when the acc tournament comes, we'll probably be lucky to attract ashley judd. for the ncaa east, perhaps peyton??!!! oh my god, i'm just realizing i would KILL for some TN tickets..

i don't know?

wrote this about a year ago, 3/6/07.. found it scribbled in a notepad. i haven't progressed much since. unabridged version:

why do we give apples to teachers? why are there 4 seasons, not 5 or 7? why do decisions always seem important to have but undesirable to make? why is a question mark shaped so? who discovered ink?

why do things fall apart? do the people who built them know? why did the beatles cross abbey road? and why does it matter? if you erase something, did it ever really exist?

how far have we come? why is it easier for men to come? why are we so selfish? why do we invent so many jobs and governments and religions and relationships to persuade ourselves that we are not?

why did we run up the middle on 3^rd and long? why would I stay up to write this nonsense? why do we do what we do? what were anna nicole smith’s intentions? jesus’s? muhammad’s? saddam’s? britney’s? congress’s? what is style? beauty?

when flowers die, do they go to heaven? if they don’t, but we tell our kids otherwise to make them feel better, is that ok? if so, what % of the lies that have been told throughout the existence of mankind has been ok?

who framed roger rabbit? why, at 23, did in initially misspell rabbit just then? what do people really think of you? what do people really think about? why must embarrassment exist as an emotion?

do things come full circle? is there fate? does adding ‘such a thing as’ to that question add any value to it? if there is no fate, does belief in it rebound it into existence?

how much is too much? how much should you really tip the pizza boy? why is pizza so good – cold, hot, morning, night? night, yes, these – all good questions – that aren’t worth answering.

night.

you're really annoying

from an article entitled "Get Rid of Bad Work Habits" by Anthony Balderrama, this is the penultimate (a fated place for me) habit:

Bad Habit: Always being the funny one.
What you think: “People love me.”
What it really says: You’re really annoying.
What to do: There’s nothing wrong with being funny – most people do like a good sense of humor. Just remember that not everybody wants to hear your sarcastic quips and “Godfather” impersonations every five minutes.

copyright 2008 CareerBuilder.com

couldn't've said it better mahself.

ok, and yes, i do realize that we lost last night. just as well as i realize that we beat memphis on saturday night. and we're still awesome, and i still love b.pearl, and the vols will still be #1 in mah heart. :)

crazy silly beautiful cover girl

a v.silly things humans say:

deb: working out is just so hard!
trudy: i know, right?! but i mean, the hardest part of going to the gym is getting there. once i'm there, it's so easy!

hmm.. so you're saying.. so you're telling me that it's hard to get up from your down-filled, seude-covered couch, off your ass, in the middle of a particularly amusing rerun of 'friends' to go exert lots of physical energy? that with your left hand preoccupied with a beer and your right with a pizza, you have no leverage to push up?! that's the hardest part?

but that once you're in the middle of a public sweat fest, surrounded by treadmills and devil-red-LED-number-display scales and many attractive members of the opposite sex and, the worst one, mirrors, that it's easy? it's easy once you're there?

That's just crazy talk.

of course, i have said/agreed to this silly declaration numerous times previous. all americans have. i'm just making sure you again, this fine mid-february day, realize its silliness (wow, that's a weird-looking word. a v. silly-looking word).

caveat emptor

i found this e-mail train to be slightly amusing....

sent on 2/7/08, 8:40 AM:

Dear sir or madam:

Please see attached pdf file. As the 2 receipts show, I ordered shoes on 1/8/08 but had them exchanged for the rain boots, which were invoiced on 1/29/08. As the first receipt shows, I used $30 of Banana rewards certificates (received through use of my Banana Visa card), which were redeemed at the time. When my order was exchanged, however, the total charges of $64.35 were only credited by the net $23.58 (my credit card was charged for $40.77), instead of $53.58, which would have included credit for my initial rewards certificates. In effect, I lost the benefit of my rewards certificates in the exchange. Can you please remedy this?

Hopefully the attachment has all of the customer information that you need, but if not, please feel free to contact me.

Thank you,

----------------------

sent on 2/7/08, 12:47 PM:

Dear Laura,

Thank you for your e-mail. Unfortunately, we are unable to open attachments that we receive, for security purposes. However, we were able to locate the orders in question using your name. Our records indicate that order #129QTX1 was placed on January 8, 2008. We see that $30.00 in rewards were redeemed on this order.

On January 29, 2008, we received the order for exchange. Your new order #12VR1PN was then fulfilled. Please note, if you use a promotion code to make your purchase, we'll gladly exchange your shoes for the same style in a different size or color. If you'd like to exchange your shoes for something else, we'll apply your credit towards the new shoes at their current price. A previously used promotion code cannot be applied to the sale of a different shoe, as stated on our web site. We apologize for any disappointment this may cause.

Unfortunately, we cannot allow an exception to this policy. To remain fair and consistent in all transactions, we cannot allow an exception to one customer that we do not allow to all customers.

Additional questions? Contact us at customercare@piperlime.com or 1-877-PIPERLIME (1-877-747-3754). We are happy to help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Have a great day,

Glen
Customer Loyalty Representative

------------------

sent on 2/7/08, 1:17 PM:

Wow, that blows.

-----------------

sent on 2/7/08, 7:20 PM (after appropriate forwarding to the Customer Loyalty management and subsequent piecing together of various, tactful canned e-mails):

Dear Laura,

Thank you for your message to Piperlime regarding the exchange you made from order #129QTX1. We would like to apologize for the disappointment you have experienced with our exchange policy in regards to Rewards. Please know that our goal at Piperlime is to exceed our customer's expectations. We're sorry that, in this instance, we clearly did not meet yours.

We rely on customer feedback to monitor and improve our service. At this time, we have forwarded your remarks to the appropriate team for further consideration.

We hope that you will give us another opportunity in the future to dazzle you with our shoes and service.

Additional questions? Contact us at customercare@piperlime.com or 1-877-PIPERLIME (1-877-747-3754). We are happy to help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Sincerely,

Katherine
Customer Loyalty Representative

--------------

Not sent:

Razzle dazzle? like in Chicago??! I can't wait. For the low lo price of ..?!

P.S. I sent the rain boots back.

you don't need to know this.

Speaking of too much information, while i was driving to Tennessee last week for work (i know - bizarre; even more bizarre to be staying at a hotel in j-rock city (thanks claire); most bizarre to be staying in a nice hotel in j-rock city; would not have been bizarre if one of the receptionists had graduated high school with me), i was listening to NPR (i do sometimes try to interject my music listening (which, for me, consists of Jack White telling me that i can't be a pimp and a prostitute too and Alicia Keys singing a song in which 42.3% of the lyrics are "oh oh oh oh ohohoh") with phone calls and news).

(If you missed the point of all that because of my annoying overuse of paranthetical sidenotes, I really only said: I drove to TN and was listening to NPR.)

So, NPR informs me that, basically, we owe China $1.53 TRILLION. Yeah, not in Remnimbi or yuan or adopted kids or rice grains, but 1.5 trillion American, U.S. dollars. ($1 trillion, written out in what the ancients called "zeroes" is: $1,000,000,000,000. ) This trade deficit increases by $1 billion every day, apparently. That is $11,574 per second. The other details are relatively boring: U.S. Treasuries, their currency pegged to ours, etc., blah, blah. You can read about it (also see previous blog post).

So, whatever. That's fine, whatever. But then, NPR also tells me (in what could have been the same half hour) that China was having something akin to their version of Katrina because of the winter storms impeding the Chinese from traveling home to their families for the Chinese New Year (a MUST there - kind of interesting). NPR then says, "Important Chinese Guy made this important announcement today at one of the airports where families have been waiting:

'Chowda, chowda chowdaer! Yinga yanga banga!'"

in a voice that i can only describe as a cross between the teacher from Peanuts and Alvin the Chipmunk. NPR didn't bother to translate the chowda banga until the speech was over, leaving me for 20 full seconds laughing hysterically (in my car, by myself), thinking that NPR had temporarily been taken over by Seth MacFarlane.

In any case, it was at that moment, when i realized that it was not a joke, that i determined i am very concerned that we owe China $1.53 trillion.

Yeah, we're definitely in trouble.

and of course..
Go Giants! and VOLS!
NY doing well in football, TN doing well in basketball.. who knew?

you need to know this.

Speaking of newspapers, I am slowly realizing that I am invariably overwhelmed by something that I really shouldn’t be overwhelmed by – information. There’s just so much of it. There are too many different sections of the newspaper… one telling me the current events and why somebody thinks they are important for me to know, a second about business and how it will affect me, a third about every sport with a spectator somewhere, the athletes I should note, their stats, a fourth telling me where i should travel and why, another telling me what I should eat and why, articles upon articles about how I should exercise and when and where and in what outfit and on which mountaintop while reading this newspaper while drinking non-bottled water and listening to XY artist (the first album, not the second), and don’t forget the cool down, oh and the warm up, and make sure your heart rate is within this range, stretch after, not before, lift weights rapido!, run slooow, walk if you want to, jump rope 42 times, and afterwards eat salmon (no) (yes) (good for brain) (too much mercury) (swims too close to the surface) (is a good color if you have to eat fish) (don’t eat the eyes) (eat it raw!) (nix that, now cows are in the IN again).

And there are websites for everything you never needed to know. Exact times of nude scenes in movies. Articles about nothing. Articles about other articles. Paris Hilton’s exact whereabouts at this very second (I don’t know if that really exists). Shopping via auction. Shopping via click and mortar. Shopping via social networks (no shit). Social networks. Shopping. Sales you need to know about RIGHT NOW because they only last THREE days and you have to enter this EXACT code which is case sensitive, time sensitive! Google, Froogle, Heroiusdfmoogle. BLOGS that ramble. my lord, the inundation!

I realize that I should just ignore the information that I don’t need. I do realize this. But sometimes, trying to get to the information that I do (think I) need, I get attacked by all this other information, sometimes in the form of pop-up or roll-down or unfurling, marching, machine-gun wielding ads. And it annoys me, because somehow, somewhere along the lines, information stops being privileged and starts being overwhelmingly burdensome. We’ve always known we’ll never know everything. Now the Internet keeps punching us in the face with it.

So, I’m just sayin. I don’t like being punched in the face.

oh ... i think i started off talking about newspapers. too many words. right.

hit me with your best

so, last night, after i was somewhat violently thrown back to the 80s (is there any other way to be thrown back to the 80s?), I fell asleep on my futon fully clothed (boots, too) and woke up in a 330am daze still drunk. And unfortunately, after a quick perusal of the night’s picture gallery, the conclusion (foregone) is that no pictures are post-worthy (I’m either shooting off into some random corner of the cab/bar, or it’s just plainly non-post-able, as my judgment has ruled after recalling the censorship pleas from my past photo-post combo victims). so, for this blog post’s Moral Ineptitude Lesson, you’ll have to just believe me when I confirm that the last shot, indeed, is always the worst decision. Whether it is the climax of a night full of previous bad decisions, or the denouement, or, at worst, the start of more bad decisions, it is always that shot that lets you climb over the flimsy line from the fun side to the oh-no side.

speaking of shots and bad decisions, I read a little blurb in the paper today (yes, that was basically my 1 new year’s resolution – to get the weekend paper… and yes, I realize I am the world’s (1) biggest dork, and (2) laziest resolution-er (maybe next year’s resolution will be to do more crossword puzzles)) about how this church in Ballantyne is going to put come-to-church messages in the bottoms of shot glasses. I think they’re going to say something like, “give us a shot”, along with the church’s name… [insert Jim Halpert face here]. The church minister (or leader – I think it is one of those churches that deems itself progressive by way of simplified monikers (‘message’, not ‘sermon’) and the proliferation of contemporary christian music) said something like, he is 100% positive it will be controversial. Well, I don’t know about the controversy (this is America - we can find a way to make anything controversial), but, considering that there’s only really one demographic I know of that would even stop to look at their glasses after taking a shot, I’m just concerned that that church is going to have to start dealing with a lot of homeless old drunks. yeah, good luck with that.

Also, go GIANTS.

housekeeping

in an failed attempt to do some housekeeping on my computer files, i found some pretty funny stuff i had written in the past:

in a file titled 'thought of the day' (an idea which i think i've tried to resurrect at least 4 times):
Life doesn’t remind me of anything. 10/10/05

in a file titled 'analogies':
But analogies are like pop songs: the bad ones are overplayed and the good ones are overlooked.
Life is like a UT football game.
(and after this groundbreaking statement, i somehow failed to expound.)

in a file titled '24':
and this writing is so ineloquent, so imperfect, so non-poetic; it’s just how I feel. are feelings always so raw and juvenile-sounding? I wish someone like Maya Angelou or Edith Wharton could tell you how I feel. it would sound so much better.

in a file titled 'june':
Modern day martyrs have to be the biggest cowards alive. er, dead.

in a file titled 'the strange thing':

Don’t give them a way to live, just a reason to.
Right?
Self-interest.
It’s a shit world.
But it can be so beautiful.

and , something i wrote that i don't look back on and cringe at its absolute triteness--
in a file titled 'thanksgiving 2003':
For my little brother who teaches me to step back from my little bubble and remember that it doesn’t have to be perfect to be right. For reminding me not to take anything for granted. For teaching me to be tolerant of differences because they are what makes life interesting and beautiful and worth it.

auld lang syne

Well, I was a bit of a bum in 2007, really. I wrote half as many blog posts, read half as many books, was half as satisfied with my job, probably drank twice as much. My second year in Charlotte was definitely akin to something sophomoric, a weird phase in which things (city, job, friends, myself) had a new familiarity, which is a strange familiarity, because the trick i think is to not be content with it but to dig deeper so that things aren't merely familiar but are known. It was a reconciling of things within, feeding off of the things without.

It was just time. A sun's revolution's worth of time. But if, through my interactions with them, more people (net, me included) are better off now than they were on the 31st of 2006, well, then it was time well spent.

I read these 2 decent recaps of 2007 in my hometown’s local newspaper (ap articles, of course) - 1 for sports and 1 for entertainment. I can't find them anywhere online, though, which simultaneously irks me and also reminds me of the intangible value of printed press.

Anyway, I had a lot of free time during my break last week (year, har har…), so I thought I would attempt to write my own recap of 2007. And I did. But, looking at it now, I don’t know if I want to post it or not. Could just do a picture recap. Because if a picture is worth a thousand words, and the picture is used to describe 365 days, i would've just written 365,000 words, right? The way newspapers are dumbed down these days, I'm a little worried that by this time next year, they'll all be written in hieroglyphics. I'm going to start writing work memos in pictures. ohhh, or smileys.

Dear >:-O :
If you waive the penalty, I will be :-D
If you do not, I will be :-(
You choose.
Kind regards,
:- /

Hey, it could happen. 2008 has already proven to be unpredictable. So it goes.

the strange thing

is that, undeniably, and with deliberate forward motion, I have moved from losing touch with high school friends to losing touch with college friends. Maybe not, though; I have actually kept in much better touch with some of my college friends than I did with my high school friends (and this week there was new hope for better in-touch-ness in the future with an old HS friend.. encouraging.).

But maybe what I mean is that I have moved from losing touch with high school to losing touch with college. And maybe what I really mean is that, undeniably, I have moved from losing touch with who I was in high school to losing touch with who I was in college. It's a weird habit of mine - to run away from who I've been rather than to run with it. It - those past me's? Haven't they all been me? Of course, but I'm not the same, not at all. In fact, what parts of me have remained unchanged? What is a person, an individual, if there is not a part of him that cannot be changed? If every part of her can be changed? So, I am the same, of course. But the person you meet now is vastly different than the person you met 5 years ago. 10? Unrecognizable. My name is the same, my lips; my size hasn't even really changed that much. Then what is it that gives a person her driving qualities?

I could probably start telling you. I could recount the past 10 years and tell you the vast differences in my life now and then. But that would really turn out to be quite a bore, quite pedantic. I can only say that I really don't think we were ever meant to stay the same. No, not at all.

16-year low

This is funny.

Remember that this is an article in the v. serious Business section of the Charlotte newspaper (v. esteemed.. think Washington Post, except Charlotte. and Observer.), alongside v. serious articles such as, "Housing construction hits 16-year low", "Once-bucolic N.C. 73 in throes of growing pains", "Christmas clubs dying, not dead", and "EarthFare coming to Rock Hill".

4th paragraph down:

"This can be smart if the people on whom you are modeling your behavior know more than you do. But in many situations, no one knows very much. When you follow people who don't know what they are doing, and other people follow you, the resulting feedback allows small events to trigger huge and irrational changes in group behavior." [bold added for indication of favorite and most true part]

oh, society, wherefore art thou?!

penultimate paragraph:

"Yang said that although many investors recognize the problem of contagion and herding behavior, this does not keep them from following the herd, possibly because they feel less regretful about bad decisions if they know many other people made the same mistake."

I want to become a professor so I can make lots of common sense statements, and then be quoted in thousands of articles by underpaid journalists all across America. I will send out e-mails daily to a random selection of lucky journalists with ready-for-print quotes to supplement their paltry instant ramen diets. e.g.:

"Laura said that although many pigs recognize the problem of crap hanging from their butts and herding behavior, this does not keep them from following the crap-covered herd, possibly because they feel less regretful about being covered in crap if they know many other pigs are just as disgusting and ignorant."

As a professor, I will have lots of common sense to apply the same theories (sentences) across a variety of different issues. e.g.:

"Laura said that although many teenage girls recognize the problem of anorexia and herding behavior, this does not keep them from following the vomit trail to the bathroom, possibly because they feel less regretful about bad decisions if they know they'll one day be skinny enough to make even worse bad decisions."

first-name basis, you'd better believe it. only my friends are allowed to call me by my last name.

i'm not saying you're doing a bad job, but could you put a little more effort into it?

wow, that last post is even worse than i remembered. my poetry, it appears, is more forced and hackneyed than the advertising tactics used in local car commercials. And, because of the content of the poem, I can't edit it. Sad.

Anyway, I guess i was trying to say that i'm sick of trying to figure out life. i'd rather kind of just do it (hey, it's Nike's fault that that's hackneyed, not mine). But i'm not really sure how to do that either. which is v. stupid and backwards, that i think i have to figure out how to stop figuring out life. i mean, jesus christ.

Though last night (this morning), i dented my head on the glass door to my entertainment center trying to put in Scene It, so i'm not sure, really, that just doing anything is a good way to go for me.

long sigh

we are such a cursed being, I think, to have to think about what is, rather than to just be it.

the tv in the background.
tell it to play me something sweet
sweet surrender
to a metal box
not metal
more than metal now
materials I don’t know
don’t understand
how their collaboration
plays me something sweet

a holiday movie
the lifetime special
my sister’s favorite
why not
feel good, be good
be god
play god
pray to him
her?
it
[latin it]

ramblings
the tv in the background
playing
politicians debate
60 seconds
to answer an
unanswerable
thank you
sir
thank you
you’ve said enough
we’ve cast our judgment on you
god’s cast his judgment
its judgment
her judgment

not worthy
no second date
thanks for trying
thank you
you’ve said enough.

but we’re not done
I’m not done
I’m still here
asleep
awaken
rude.

ramblings,
noise
I’ve always hated poetry
bizarre
how bizarre
the pieces of our life
that come together

an old song
from high school
my old school
her new school
he wasn’t even in school
yet

can you edit
poetry?
seems like it would lose
its
charisma

Microsoft word
just uncapitalized
the ISMA in charisma
it also capitalized
Microsoft
(I did it that time)
and squiggled my
uncapitalized.
again.

dave matthews
is going to drop the
devil
to his
knees.

i
am going to drop the
gods
to their
knees

with my
tenacity
whatever that is.

I think I am going to make that first sentence, a thought that arose while reading page 296 of my Dial Press Trade Paperback version of Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions, the title to that poor excuse for a poem. Maybe I like poems after all. They’re v. quick to write.