Two lovers were in a saw mill together, carving their names into a piece of wood to symbolize their love for one another. As you might imagine, love carved into oak is strong and steadfast, while love carved into mahogany is exquisite and special.

These two lovers were a little bit different and their tastes were less traditional. They chose pine as their wood of choice.

Pine is a soft wood. It smells quite nice and is pleasant to the touch. Small children enjoy pine cones and every year at Christmas people put up pine trees in their living rooms.

As you’re no doubt noticing the pine tree is very disposable and it’s disposability is very ingrained in all of us. It’s celebrated for it’s disposability while dressed up in decorations that are meant to last forever and always end up outlasting the tree itself.

So when she called that boy one night many months later and said she wasn’t in love with him anymore, you would think he would have recognized the disposable nature of the time they’d spent together.

Love is not like a pine tree. Not if it’s meant to last forever.

There was a little boy in my neighborhood with a lemonade stand, who I gathered thought he might make some money selling lemonade on a hot summer’s day.

Perhaps he should have consulted some business planners.

There was no sidewalk to his house, which was right next to a three way intersection, where cars were not likely to stop for a little boy selling lemonade on a hot summer’s day.

I decided that I was going to help out his situation and give him some business. It wouldn’t be right to see a local lemonade stand put out of business by a national chain moving in on it’s territory.

Lemonade stands are sacred institutions like churches and libraries and should command just as much respect as those institutions, if not more. Children are, after all, our future.

I walked down to the boy’s house from my own taking a dollar bill with me. I would have taken change, but I didn’t want my expectations of the quality of his lemonade to appear low.

So I walked to the lemonade stand with a dollar bill in my hand.

‘How much for a glass of lemonade?’ I asked the young entrepeneur.

He looked confused, but just smiled and said ‘I’m just playing lemonade stand. I’m not actually selling any lemonade.’

‘Oh,’ I said, my sense of purpose for that afternoon derailed like an Amtrak train. ‘I see.’

‘Thank you!’ he said and went right back to playing lemonade stand.

I nodded and walked home. I was thirstier than I had been when I set out.

There was a very old man sitting by himself on a bench in the park. He was a well dressed old man and it was impossible to not notice the flair in his style.

He was wearing a matching coat and pants, a white shirt, black tie, and meticulously shined shoes that shined the way spot lights shine from lighthouse towers onto beaches while waves crash into the shores at night. He had a cane with him that had a polished brass head in the shape of an elephant. It was encrusted with diamonds and lined with ivory.

Yes, everyone who saw that very old man noticed his flair for style.

He was feeding the pigeons buffalo head nickedls that he kept in a knap sack. As one would imagine, pigeons trying to eat buffalo head nickels end up finding themselves to no longer be pigeons in a present tense.

That is to say that he had a flock of dead and dying birds at his feet. Yet as he tossed out handfuls of buffalo head nickels, the pigeons would dive towards them, swallow, and choke.

The very old man would laugh heartily and slap his knee with his hand. This was comedy to him. Comedy gold.

As people walked by he would stop his game and pretend to notice the flock of (former) birds at his feet.

‘What’s happened to all the pigeons?’ people would ask that very old man. He was well dressed and kind looking, so asking him questions never seemed awkward or imposing.

His response would always be one of confused horror.

‘Oh my dear!’ he’d always say. ‘I didn’t even notice.’

The people would always stop to console him and they would, sometimes, for hours on end. The very old man would smile because someone taking time to spend time with a very old man is a kindly thing to do. He would do this, sometimes, for many hours of the day.

A little attention goes a very long way. Especially when there are so many pigeons in the city.

It’s amazing what one can still buy with a nickel.

A cat, a caterpillar, and a midget walked into a bar. The bartender eyed them suspiciously, but welcomed them in with open arms. They were, after all, (presumably) there to spend money.

And their money was green.

‘What can I get you?’ the bartender asked.

The cat cleared his throat, lit up a cigarette, and said ‘I’ll have a scotch and water.’

The caterpillar smiled and said ‘I’ll have a manhattan.’

The midget’s eyes were darting around the room like he was watching. He was a shifty little man to be certain. ‘Vodka and tonic,’ he said looking around the perimeter.

The bartender poured their drinks and took their money. The motley crew got a table in the back of the room.

‘This drink will be my undoing,’ said the cat.

‘This drink will be my religion,’ added the caterpillar.

‘This drink will be my salvation,’ intoned the midget.

‘You are beatified,’ said the cat.

‘You are sanctified,’ promised the caterpillar.

‘I’m just getting started,’ said the midget.

He ordered the trio a round of shots and a beer a piece as chaser.

‘Where did you get this kind of money, friend?’ asked the cat.

‘How’d you get this kind of money, brother?’ asked the caterpillar.

The midget shrugged and drank. Sometimes magic is much more ordinary than one would expect it to be.

‘All in a day’s work, I guess,’ he said. ‘All in a hard day’s work.’

‘A hard day’s night,’ offered the cat.

‘I’ve been working for so long,’ added the caterpillar.

They continued to drink. The cat lit up another cigarette and blew a ring in the smoke. The ring was 24 karat gold and loaded with diamonds.

‘I cannot marry you for I do not love you,’ said the caterpillar.

‘I cannot marry you because I am not a homosexual,’ said the midget. ‘Besides, there’s laws in this state against that still.’

The cat shrugged and inhaled again. This time he exhaled a picture perfect rendition of the Mona Lisa, followed by a silohuette of Mickey Mouse, several Salvador Dali paintings, a Jackson Pollock, and a Van Gogh.

‘How did you do that?’ asked the bartender.

‘The boy is blessed,’ said the caterpillar.

‘The boy breathes talent and farts out wonder,’ said the midget.

‘I also like oil pastels,’ said the cat.

The bartender shook his head in disbelief. ‘Amazing. Truly amazing.’

‘A tad bit commercial,’ said the caterpillar.

‘I liked his older stuff better,’ said the midget.

‘I was shacked up with a woman who kept me full of love, food, and expensive wine when I made those,’ explained the cat. ‘There was no suffering. No starving. The critics only like suffering and starving Successful artists are to live like they did when they weren’t so successful.’

The bartender was dumbfounded.

‘Prole!’ shouted the caterpillar.

‘Philistine!’ shouted the midget.

‘Another round!’ shouted the cat, throwing a fistful of bills at the bartender.

That was his language of love and the bartender reciprocated. Love was once again distributed around the table.

‘Love is all you need,’ said the cat.

‘Love is a many splendored thing,’ said the caterpillar.

‘Love hurts,’ said the midget. ‘Be strong.’

They toasted to love and the bartender shook his head. Such characters this crew. They were entertaining at least.

‘When I was a kitten,’ said the cat, ‘I hoped that one day I would grow up to be an important individual. I suppose I have failed.’

‘When I was but a pupa,’ said the caterpillar, ‘I hoped one day to find myself a butterfly, But at the end of the day, I know that when my time comes I will only find myself a moth.’

‘I wanted to be a professional basketball player,’ said the midget, ‘But I’m too fucking short.’

‘I wanted to be an interior designer,’ said the bartender.

The entire crew looked at his dumbfounded, but he didn’t notice as he was staring off into space wistfully.

‘What?’ asked the bartender.

They shrugged. There wasn’t much else to say.

‘I’ve lived a life much like my art,’ said the cat. ‘Sporadic and wisftful. I’ve wasted my life.’

‘Your art has inspired me,’ said the caterpillar, who smashed a beer bottle and carved himself into pieces, green insect blood spilling everywhere. He crawled across the floor in a pile of broken glass until he finally stopped moving.

‘My life is worth something,’ said the cat.

‘I’m inspired,’ said the midget.

‘I am not cleaning that up,’ said the bartender. ‘Fuck you guys!’

The midget only nodded, turned into a butterfly and flew away realizing someone else’s dream was his own.

The bartender and the cat were all that remained in the room.

‘What the hell just happened?’ asked the bartender.

‘Everything has happened as was ordained,’ said the cat. ‘All things wise and wonderful, all creatures great and small, all things simple and beatific have come and passed.’

‘Huh?’ said the bartender.

‘I hope you take Visa here,’ said the cat.

The bartender shook his head. ‘One musn’t go anywhere without American Express.’

‘Damnation!’

The cat lit up another cigarette and spoke.

‘That which has been before may not always continue to be. Journal dilligently, compiling details, events, times, dates, names, and places as it has been written before and will be written again, forever and ever, amen.’

The cat disapeared in a puff of smoke, leaving the bartender alone and confused.

He picked up the empty glasses, emptied the cat’s ash tray into a coffee can, and closed the bar early that night.

“You’re a leo,’ she said. ‘The Lion. That means you’re independent. A leader.’

‘I’ll never trust an astronomer,’ I said.

‘Astrologist.’

‘Whatever.’

‘You’ve heard the story of the Lion who was afraid of the mouse?’

‘Are you that mouse?’

‘I’m a great white hunter.’

‘I didn’t know this was going to be about sharks.’

‘It’s not.’

She reached her hand to the sky and pulled down the moon and poured it into two pint glasses. The moon had a rough taste to it like metamucil. Fiber, I suppose.

My lip curled and I set the pint glass down. I wasn’t trying to offend my host but the moon was not easy on my stomach.

‘Can I offer you the stars in the sky?’ She asked.

I thought about it. They looked like big white light bulbs.

‘I’m allergic to phosphorus.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘No, it makes me break out in hives.’

I don’t believe that she trusted me, but by that point it didn’t matter anyway. We sat there at the table, talking, and she finished up my glass of the moon. She also told me all about the circus.

1945 had been a strange year for her. She had gotten her first rocket car and had a robot dog sidekick named Warren. They spent their time together solving mysteries and having adventures.

I nodded my head realizing I needed to leave.

Kids these days just don’t understand. They have no respect. They’re wild. They don’t listen to rules. They don’t respect their elders. The newest news isn’t news at all.

She polished off the pint of the moon and showed me the door.

‘This will get you into the back of my mind,’ she said. ‘Don’t catch your ass on it on the way out.’

‘Your mind?’

‘The door.’

‘My ass?’

‘Don’t be rude, I’m older than you are.’

And this was very true. She was 200 years old. She didn’t look a day older than 87 though. I wouldn’t put it past that woman to lie about her age.

I walked through that door into the wildest garden I have ever seen. She was growing fetuses on a vine that wrapped all the way up a wooden fence. There was celery in gigantic, leafy purple stalks, and at the center of the garden was a very large crop of cannibas.

‘That’s medicinal!’ she shouted from the porch.

I laughed and snapped one of the purple stalks of celery off of it’s plant. It tasted all right. Sort of like iodine though.

Towards the back of the garden was a fountain with a statue of Huckleberry Hound. In my mind I could hear him singing ‘Oh Susanna’, for in the back of my mind I was singing the same.

‘I’ve come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee.’

There was a girl sitting stark like a cigarette on the lip of the fountain. She was waiting for a light.

‘I’m allergic to phosphorus,’ I offered.

‘Bullshit,’ she said.

I shrugged.

‘It makes me break out in hives.’

She shook her head testing my patience.

‘Do you have the time?’

‘Which one?’

‘You know what I mean.’

I shrugged.

‘Well?’

‘I think it’s time for lunch.’

‘I want to make love.’

‘I’d like a sandwich.’

‘Wouldn’t you rather make love?’

‘Does it involve pastrami?’

‘That could be arranged.’

‘Then I’m game.’

She opened up two slices of Rye bread and we crawled in. We covered up in a slab of pastrami and made love.

‘I like that,’ she said.

‘I could use some kettle chips,’ I replied.

She nodded and took a bite from the pastrami. I chewed the scenery. It was good. We finished the sandwich and climaxed together. We were lying on a counter top.

‘That was delicious,’ she said.

‘Indeed.’

‘Are you going to tell me your name?’

‘Is that important?’

‘Marginally.’

‘I’m Captain Carl Hancock. I’m with the Navy.’

‘What’s your real name?’

‘I’m Jason Wagner, Pro-Bowler and Public Defender.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘Is this an interrogation?’

‘You’re under the lights, stoolie.’

‘I’m allergic to phosphorus.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘So they say.’

She scooped me up in a ladle and dropped me off in a bar with a Saint Bernard named Jose. The Saint Bernard was drinking brandy.

‘What’s yer poison?’ he asked.

‘Anything but the moon. It tastes like metamucil.’

‘They only have the moon here.’

‘Then I guess I’ll have nothing.’

‘That isn’t an option.’

‘Then I guess I’ll have the moon.’

‘I guess you will.’

The moon tasted different this time, to my suprise. The taste was pleasant and I drained the glass quickly. The Saint Bernard ordered me another glass of the moon and I drank it down just as fast. At the end of the night I had drank seven pints of the moon.

‘This isn’t that bad now, I wonder why?’

‘You’re older now,’ said the Saint Bernard. ‘Things will grow on you like that.’

‘I guess you’re right.’

‘Of course, I’m right.’

The bar closed and the Saint Bernard got in a cab. I just kept walking.

‘There’s lights in here,’ he said motioning to the back seat.

‘I’m allergic to phosphorus,’ I said.

‘Bullshit,’ he barked.

‘That’s what everyone says,’ I said. ‘But it gives me hives.’

‘I know I’m right though.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because you’re made of filament.’

The Saint Bernard rode off and I kept walking, not sure what I would find next, but feeling fine about that. I walked into the sunset like a cowboy in a spaghetti western.

It was four seconds to the end of the world, when General Ryan McKnight ran into the War Room at the Pentagon screaming.

“STOP!” he cried. “WE’RE NOT GOING TO ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING! WAR DOES NOT SOLVE PROBLEMS!”

The other Generals were moved and disarmed the warheads and called for a total cease-fire. The European Allies congratulated the United States on its bold and daring move. Russia televised a ceremony of congratulations, and the Middle East took a break from it’s thousands of years of horror for just a brief moment. For moments it seemed as though people were finally getting it and going to get along after all.

It was then that the small, undeveloped, African country of Djibouti fired its missiles and set the whole world off. Everyone was shocked.

“Where the fuck Djibouti get the bomb from?” they asked.

You silly bastards- everyone has the bomb nowadays.

Start.

Pause.

Play.

He’s 19 and his head is in the clouds. This girl is so different from anyone that he’s ever met. When he thinks about her his stomach cramps up and a lot of the time, when he tries to talk to her, he comes across as a babbling moron. He can’t control his tongue because when he looks her right in the eyes, he doesn’t want to know anyone else. They sleep together once. It’s not that great. They never talk again.

Rewind.

Fast forward.

Tracking.

Tracking.

Tracking.

College seems so long ago that when he thinks about it, it seems like he was a completely different person. Come to think of it, he was a different person. He was younger and stupider. He was more impulsive. He followed his gut even when his gut had shit for brains and he never once doubted himself. He wants to get that enthusiasm back, but where did that part of him go? It’s been so long.

Rewind.

Pause.

Play.

It’s 3:30 AM on a saturday morning. He’s stumbling home from a party, alone, as he’s just walked another girl home. She kissed him on the cheek. He’s thinking about her and smiling, and hoping to hell that a gas station is open because he’s dying for a cigarette and smoked his other pack already. He’s whistling a tune and snapping his fingers in his coat pockets, as it’s cold out, and even though he’s drunk and that’s taken a lot of the bite out of the cold, activity just makes him warmer. He thinks about the kiss on the cheek as he’s heading into the L&M*.

Camel lights, please.

Fast forward.

Pause.

Cue position.

Continue.

Working isn’t what he expected it to be. He left work tonight feeling completely sapped of all energy and feeling very alone. He hasn’t felt this alone in a long time, and surrounded by people it doesn’t always go away. He’s been thinking about simpler times again lately. He’s trying not to think about the bills and expenses, and think about the times he had nothing better to do than walk downtown at night looking for something to entertain him, a friend to hang out with, or a party to hit. He thinks back fondly and smiles. He misses that.

Rewind.

Stop.

Rewind.

It was very cold for March, and it was the first time he’d seen her since January. Stopping back in his hometown for a week, while not something he was really looking forward to was pleasant only because he would see her. They met up for coffee and talked for hours, eventually walking 7 blocks down to a park. It was 20 degrees out and they were wearing hats and gloves and big coats, and when they walked hand in hand she had her hand in his coat pocket. It was warm. They sat in the grass by a lake and watched the stars, huddled together for warmth. She kissed him. He kissed her. The way her eyes looked locked with his made him feel warm all over. She was intense. She was spirited. He longed after her, and the idea of leaving again was too much for him. That girl was amazing.

Stop.

Fast forward.

Skip.

Skip.

Skip.

It’s winter again, but not nearly as kind as previous winters have been. He’s drinking a lot more and much more frequently. He’s at the bars three nights a week, and drinking whiskey at home alone if he doesn’t go out. His mother knows something isn’t right with him, and really, he does too but he’s too afraid to say it. So he drinks and says nothing. He starts keeping a flask in his glovebox so he can take hits of whiskey on his cigarette breaks at work. They don’t notice. Or they don’t care. He isn’t sure. He’s hungover so often that he forgets what it’s like to wake up without a headache. He eats hardboiled eggs for breakfast because his stomach can’t handle much else. He’s reading too much Bukowski and hating himself more everyday. It’s a pretty dark time for him, and his friends don’t seem to realize it. Or maybe they’re caught up in their own problems. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t ask those questions anyway.

Rewind.

Pause.

Start.

Pause.

It’s hard to pinpoint when the last time he totally felt fulfilled about his life was. He remembers feeling nervous and self conscious since adolescence. He always thought it would pass eventually, but he’s just turned 20 and it still bogs him down. He’s got a lot of potential, but this school has completely overwhelmed him. He stops going to classes, even when he’s awake on time. He’s almost sabotaging himself, manufacturing his downfall, and ultimately he doesn’t really give a shit because he’s not happy and doesn’t know any other way to do it. His father talks to him on the telephone late one night urging him to just hang in there but pep talks aren’t helping this boy. He’s taken to sleeping on a mattress on the floor and started storing things he doesn’t use on the frame of his loft. He goes to bed around four AM every night and wakes up around three in the afternoon daily, just in time to go work.

Fast forward.

Fast forward.

Stop.

Play.

He quit drinking a month ago. Sort of. He has occasional drinks here and there, but he can’t sympathize with drinking away problems anymore. Mainly because the problems don’t go anywhere, and it’s starting to feel like there’s a hole in his gut. He’s been eating antacid like a meal for the past six months and his friends look concerned whenever he goes hunting for antacid. His stomach is a little more at ease though. He’s on medicine right now and can’t drink. This unusual spree of sobriety has been good for him. His head is a lot more cleared up and he’s willing to deal with things more. He’s remembering how to laugh and finding the ability to create again, and this gives him great joy. But he gets off the medicine and for another month falls back into old patterns, though not as harshly as before. He’s been out of the loop for a month, and is finding a sort of peace in solitude.

Rewind.

Rewind.

Rewind.

Stop.

She chased after him, and he was flattered. He was more than flattered. He was confused. She was older than him, and she made him feel very young. He didn’t like that very much. But she was aggressive. And she was cute. Four years later he’s still shaking his head when he thinks about how he pushed her away. That girl was special. He sometimes thinks about her.

Fast forward.

Pause.

Pause.

Pause.

He asks himself too many questions. He daydreams too much. He isn’t very good at reading people. He can read when they’re being sincere, but he isn’t very good at non-verbal cues. He’s pretty timid, really. People confuse him. This has been true for years.

Rewind.

Stop.

Start.

Stop.

Start.

They walked on the roof of the dormitory and she told him about her family. The roof had a series of walk ways and paths that was quite interesting and fun to walk along. She was younger than he was, but not by that much. She was very special. He had taken a special interest in her, and had actively pursued her, even going so far as to introduce himself. This was very out of character for him. They became comrades more than anything else, having an awkward understanding of each other. It was better that way for both of them. He still talks to her.

Fast forward.

Stop.

Rewind

Cue.

Play.

He’s in his room listening to records. His room mates are watching something on tv that he couldn’t concentrate on, so he decided to lie down for a bit and just lose himself in music. Burned-out wreck on the beach (a symbol of my life) how can I believe in books when my heart lies to me?

I’m full of shit.*

Fast forward.

Pause.

Play.

Stop.

Switch tapes.

*a gas station in Iowa City, IA

**the Minutemen, Self-Referenced

God is my second favorite fictional character, and I do mean fictional

in a literal sense. Or perhaps a better word is ‘literary’.

Number one is Dean Moriaty followed by Tom Sawyer, Holden Caulfield,

and Jay Gatsby. Maybe Major Kurtz and Simon Dedalus make the list.

Rick Deckard. Bruce Wayne. Henry Chinaski.

You might say I’m interested in other people’s lives even if they

happen to be fictional characters.

Case in point: Lionel Ward, age 37.

Lionel is an accountant with a large investment firm. He’s been there

for 17 years. He has a wife, Janie, 34 and two children (Bryce, 13

and Annie, 9).

It’s a good life with a four bedroom house, a dog named Max, and a two

car garage. It’s a nice suburban neighborhood with nice suburban

people.

Very suburban.

It’s about this time in the story that Janie catches Lionel in bed

with their next door neighbor Arnold.

As you can imagine, it’s curtains for the comfortable life. That

illusion was all smoke and mirrors. Janie divorces Lionel and a week

later he hangs himself in the shower of his hotel room.

His suicide note was only one word long.

That word was faggot.

Now why would he do that?

See, Lionel isn’t a real person. I just made him up. He has no

family, no job, and no friends. He is of no physical substance. He

does not exist. He is only a figment of my imagination and nothing

more, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t see a line of his mourners today

or read about him in the papers.

What a world.

Janie went on to write a book about the entire ordeal and it was

adapted into a Lifetime Original Movie. After that, she developed an

addiction to muscle relaxants and died by Age 39.

Bryce went on to become a minister and lived a life of relative

boredom in general non-offensiveness. It was quite nice for him.

Annie learned to resent her mother, forgot about her father and

finally at 25 years of age took four people hostage in an inner city

McDonald’s, shot them all in the head execution style, and was found

curled in a fetal position in the women’s rest room singing ‘Mary had

a little lamb.’

Her fleece was white as snow.

Now why would she do that? What a world.

The reality of unreality is that it can be just as insane and bitingly

real as it’s real life brethren.

Take for example the case of Barney Rockport, another man that I have

just invented.

Barney’s brains were never his strong suit and he’d spent most of his

adult life lifting and setting down boxes in a warehouse.

At age 38, Barney took a part time job wearing a chicken costume at

Grandma Jessie’s Chicken Shack. He did this without missing a day

every friday and saturday night for the next seven years.

Barney was 45 years old, unmarried, and for the most part pretty

harmless. He would often joke around with the high school girls who

worked in the restaurant.

And that’s how he got in trouble.

Barney got slapped with a sexual harrassment lawsuit. A life long

asexual, he was completely innocent of any wrong doing, and his joking

had not been flirtatious, innapropriate, lewd, or sexual. But that’s

not what the 17 year old, drop-dead-gorgeous, blonde, cheerleader

said.

And who believes a 45 year old loser in a chicken suit?

The papers had a field day. Barney lost his job. His home was

vandalized. No one would talk ro him. They found him in a shower in

a homeless shelter a year later. He’d hung himself.

His suicide note was only one word long.

That word was martyr.

Now why would he do that?

Now it’s time for my story. 55 years old. 12 years at the job. Day

in and day out I lived and breathed that place.

I came into work late that day because I knew my time with the company

was running out. I knew I wasn’t going to get my vacation pay, a

severance check, and my benefits would be cancelled with one phone

call later that day.

I swallowed my pride and signed the termination papers without using

my full name. I used two words instead.

Those two words were I understand.

And even with a two security guard escort, I walked right up to the

boss who was ten years my junior, and popped him right in his

smirking, ugly face. And they showed me the door.

Now why would I do that? What a world.

“Alan, I’m concerned that you’re not focusing on the real problems that you have. You tend to lose focus and not look at the big picture.’

Alan nodded his head, not quite sure how to respond.

‘I’m not so sure, y’know.’

‘My feeling, Alan, is that you’re not dealing with your alcoholism. I think that would be a big step for you.’

Alan was nervously folding and unfolding his hands. He took a sip from the glass in front of him.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Well, mainly because it’s 11:15 AM and you smell like scotch.’

Alan took another pull at his glass.

‘This is a bar.’

‘Hey, I’m just trying to help.’

‘You’re not even a psychiatrist.’

I was out for my walk this morning and I got rained on. It was a very relaxing rain, and at parts would start to downpour and then drizzle off for a few minutes. It continued like that for about 12 minutes. It was relaxing. I haven’t gone walking in a rainstorm in a long time. The last time I did that was on the beach in Costa Rica when I went there with the Spanish club after tenth grade. We threw on our trunks, put our wallets in zip lock bags, and went down to the shops and the shore to see what we could see.

The morning walk has become very important to my daily routine, as has exercise in general. I don’t really feel lazy anymore. I’ll wake up between 8 and 8:30 and go out for my walk. I find this to be a very relaxing yet active way to wake up. For the first few tenths of a mile I’m still groggy and blurry eyed, but when I’m finally awake, it’s usually fairly sunny and nice out. I’ll get back about a half hour later, and then shower, shave, and eat breakfast before I head off to work around 11:15. For some reason I feel the need to be awake for a couple hours before heading to work.

Last week I had to be at work at 8 AM for 4 days. That meant I got up at 5 AM to complete my schedule. And I did it. I’m glad it’s over, but I did it. It’s made waking up at 8 AM not feel remotely like a chore this week.

I’m glad Ben brought home the treadmill when he did. That’s been good to me as well, since that’s where the bulk of my exercise is actually done at. I do that every night when I get home from work. I’ve found that no matter how shitty my day was, a half hour on that sucker makes me forget all about it. Yesterday, for my last hour and a half of work, I was on the phone with a woman who was by all rights the biggest bitch in the entire world. She was such a huge bitch that I’ve used italics to point this out. Or something.

Anyway, she insisted she’d called us 40 times over the last two days and been hung up on forty times. I showed 5 calls in to us, and that she’d hung up on 5 techs after giving them a lot of grief, not listening to suggestions, and basically being the biggest bitch in the entire world. My job description has changed a little bit since the training I got, and I can now hang up and call customers back, call their DSL provider for line tests, setting up appointments for the customer, etc. I needed to do things like that 4 times during the call, and she’d insist I wasn’t going to call her back after I’d hang up. I called her back 4 times. Eventually, we figured out that her service was in fact up and running.

Her problem was that she was unable to browse websites. I did some tests with her and we found that we could infact send and receive information from command line on her computer. She had no firewalls installed. We cleared her cache, cookies, checked for proxy settings. She wasn’t on a router. The list goes on and on. She then added that frequently Internet Explorer turns into a solid white page with a blue bar that says ‘not responding’ across the top.

So, I had her pull up Netscape which was installed on her computer. And wouldn’t you know it, she could browse fine with it. When I told it was her installation of Internet Explorer, she was furious. Eventually she hung up on me. I’m hoping my calls with this woman were monitored, because I was more than polite and professional with her.

Needless to say, I was fifteen minutes later at work than I should have been, and not too happy when I left. But I came home, busted out two miles while watching Da Ali G Show with Ben and Matt, and put it all behind me.

Now though, I need to go vote against Andy Meredith and Janene Headen, as my parents are both Council Bluffs Community Schools teachers, and don’t need self-serving law student pricks and crazy women on the school board.

I’ve found that ever since I got my new(er) car in February, that I enjoy making mix cd’s quite a bit again. This is probably because it has a cd player in it, and making mix cd’s can be a lot less work than making mix tapes. While some would argue that making a mix tape is an art, and requires extra time, etc. etc. I would like to point out that sometimes making mix cd’s requires copying songs to mp3 format before arranging them and burning a cd. This is by no means always a fast process. In the case of the mix cd I am offering in this entry, it also involved uploading the entire thing to my FTP space, and that was certainly not a fast process.

But let’s not argue semantics and get down to the goods, eh?

What I wanted to do was make a mix cd for whoever pays attention to this little bit of the web that I inhabit (well, I guess that’s not quite the right word).

So here you have it. I made you a mix cd. All you have to do is download the songs and burn them to cd, or just make a playlist out of them. Included in the extended entry is some cover art if you so desire. You’ll have to forgive me if it appears to be a little rushed because, well, it was.

And here we are:

01. Lifter Puller- Secret Santa Cruz

02. Jimmy Soul- Get An Ugly Girl To Marry You

03. Simon Joyner- Ruby Slippers

04. Jonathan Richman- True Love Is Not Nice

05. godheadSilo- Friend Island

06. fIREHOSE- Brave Captain

07. Lightning Bolt- 13 Monsters

08. Sebadoh- Brand New Love

09. Leonard Cohen- Suzanne

10. The Magnetic Fields- Love Is Like A Bottle Of Gin

11. The Cyrkle- Red Rubber Ball

12. The Murder City Devils- Dancin’ Shoes

13. Camper Van Beethoven- Oh No!

14. The Broker Dealer- Sophomore Slump

15. Dos- Do You Want New Wave Or Do You Want the Truth?

16. Pavement- At and T