Flight of the Airbag

The sun was sneering.

The AP report was scant and so, becausely, nary a detail but then the gist of it being not just yet another fatality as a result of unintended airbag deployment, it was the accumulative 17 incidents of the same having been reported just since Tuesday afternoon that was breaking news. 
             From Boston to Seattle an additional 23 non-fatality incidences by Wednesday morning, 12 of which were reported as life threatening with the non-threatened majority, as you now would have to think or classify them, suffering injuries accusatory at the most. 
Saturation coverage ensued.

   Press conferences began to overlap from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, NHTSA, AAA, etc. 
There were, of course, bogus incidents of unintended air-bag deployment that didn’t make the news but were passionately reported to Employers, Dentists, Parents of Primary Custody, among others.

Local news channels offered their own “In depth look at the airbag crises” along with snide commentary from the chin-strapped elite militant bicyclists that included some fairly humorous quips and off color remarks.

There were video snippets of car owners carefully sliding into their cars from the passenger side and inserting the key with an ‘It’s-gonna-blow’ look on their turned away faces (4 of the minor injury UAD’s having occurring upon ignition).

Weber remained unconscious and upside down in his Carbon Black Aston Martin V12 Vantage secured to his seat by the Vantage’s six-point safety harness. 
The inverted status symbol near the bottom of a wooded slope just west of Aspen’s skeletal  Independence, the ghost town along Aspen’s winding mountain pass. 
The left rear wheel spinning freely but for the faint lathing of a pine branch caught up in the crimped underside of the wheel well and of course, the malfunctioned airbag partially deflated.

It stands to reason, everyone suddenly aware of the reasoning as it stood had said, that these things are going to happen, eventually things need to be replaced, things break, wear out and so on. 


A full ten day non-stop media driven freak out. 
In all there were 1,704 incidents and 381 fatalities, the number of deaths having dropped sharply after the 4^th day of "Airbagolypse".
 It (the drop in fatalities) having been theorized by the medias talking heads that because of the media attention (specifically you might or otherwise be nudged to conclude, the invaluable aforementioned talking heads) causing vigilance among consumers that most likely many, many – you’d want to say “untold” lives were saved.

             Said vigilance typified with a reared-back approach to driving around town with the backs of heads pressed firmly against the seatbacks and to the extreme right with arms stiffened straight grasping tightly to the wheel in anticipation of sudden UAD.


There was also a noticeable lack of the usual loud music emanating from certain vehicles in traffic.

The upsides were rapidly taking over the human interest aspect and jumping headlong into the consumer benefit and the corporate profit margins, e.g., a congressional inquiry to mandate tougher consumer safety laws, and, as it happens, a much needed economic shot in the arm.

One example being a spike in sales of remote-start equipment that resulted from the reported four, at-point-of-ignition Unintended Airbag Deployments. 
The jump in sales causing there to be a shortage of such systems and of course rapid inflation per unit – entrepreneurial speculators who’d immediately foreseen the demand and consequent spike in price of such equipment had bought up much of the available stock of auto-start systems which were previously widely available for under $200.00, now selling for $1200 – 2k on e-bay and other such online markets. The used car starting systems market also exploded as profiteers ripped their own equipment out to reap the huge investment turnaround - another obvious result being that systems were stolen, serial numbers ground off and sold on Craigslist.

Some anxious motorists had  placed a brick on their gas pedals and, usually hanging on to a friend or relative or volunteer, kicked their car’s gear shifter from the neutral position to D, the vehicles facing directly 10-12 ft away from a large tree or sometimes the rear-facing concrete block of their local shopping centers (as one of the many online how-to videos had instructed, showing that usually only minor cosmetic damage to the front bumper would result - less if pillows were tied to the bumper) in order to preemptively explode the deadly airbags as the wait list to get a car into the dealership or local mechanic just to have an airbag disabled was then at about three weeks. 


Backyard mechanics of dubious qualifications were making money as they’d say, “hand over fist” by offering to disable airbags for a small (cash) fee. Which usually meant driving to a park with an abundance of large-trunk trees – arborists on NPR and standing outside park entrances armed with informational  poster boards and inspirational coffee cups pleading to these people to stop the practice after numerous trees were designated to be cut down after so many pre-emp concussions had turned dozens of tree’s trunks into wobbly mushy pulp. 


Brake-Park interlock having no agreement or overriding authority on the letter 'N'.


Billboards were pasted and hotlines set up for those who were desperate to relieve themselves of the anxiety of driving around with a fickle bomb in front of their face advertising low cost resources to get their AB’s disconnected or "pre-empted". 

The whole thing was quite a boon for some small towns with local chatter including: “A blessing in disguise” -  “Gods will” -  “One man’s potentially fatal air bag is another man’s new deer stand” and so on.

Of course there were the few quiet diner and dark tavern conversations that attempted to put things into the proper conspiratorial context i.e., Population control/Alien invisible force- type things/laser pointers/Mass-transit Illuminati/the fact that car computer software was now developed and produced primarily in countries with large percentages of  Muslim population followed by the qualifier, “I don’t need to tell you what that means..”  the kind of statement that begs for some tellin’ of what that may or may not exactly mean although not the case (desire or need for clarification) for those in attendance.

Adding to suspicion was the hyper-fact that Opel was the only manufacturer who’s vehicles did not have any UAD’s and the underlining fact that it was a German company and that GM  before the rise of Nazism had bought in at a historic 80% (wholly owning Opel and it’s Brandenburg and Russelsheim manufacturing plants by '31)and continued to profit(GM) with this acquisition throughout  WW2(except the year 1945 for obvious reasons ) though much of that profit was derived from taking a write-off after the Nazi’s took control of operations as shown in the upfront accounting -  all other underreported ‘intheback’ accountings were funneled and skirted and laundered through the ever present financial management of JP Morgan. Post –Hollis/pre-Chase Manhattan.

Fly-by-night used car lots were humming with business, one such questionable establishment advertising a ‘Bill$ for Bags’ trade-in deal, the exact terms and conditions of the ambiguous proposition  were not explained but judging by the live KGOTV helicopter shots - it was working.

It was shortly after Weber was found and extricated from his overturned Black Carbon V12 Vantage and a series of CAT scans and MRI’s under the guidance of the physicians at Aspen Valley hospital were administered– which concluded that Weber had suffered only a slight case of whiplash and a broken mid-finger – that Weber held a press  conference outside of the main non-emergency entrance amid a brewing windstorm. Weber declaring that he had had a near death experience of the type that brought about a startling series of epiphanies and that effective immediately the Genocide Channel was no longer and he would assemble a team of theologians and  various biblical scholars in the coming days in order to give the world The Genesis Channel- wholly dedicated to the Book of Genesis after which he would expand into an entire network  he would call TOT TV and dedicate an individual channel to each of the books of The Old Testament. 
Game shows, talk shows, cooking shows, perhaps (he thought in the wilds of his mind) situational comedies. All based on and promotion for the Holy Bible, TOT - most likely KJV.

 To Weber’s right and from a perch on the third floor of Alpine Valley Hospital a flock of pigeons suddenly dispersed from the ledge that Weber alone noticed and took as a sign from god her/him omnisexual self.

Unnoticed and occurring in simulcast with Weber’s press conference was the perilously hobbling helter-skelter, hemipelvectomized  osteosarcoma patient on the same corner of the same building but four floors aloft on a ledge who, had (and purposley we think) fallen to his death thus causing the sudden avian departure.

The terminal man’s hospital gown-muffled scream and subsequent cringe worthy crushing splat onto the freshly seal coated pavement below having been drowned out by the applause of those attending the press conference – mainly media-types and crew and any hospital employee taking the opportunity to sneak another smoke break.

TGC’s board of directors were en route to the W. Washington street's corporate offices in a panic, watching in-Town Car the snippets of Weber’s  press conference that had now begun to flash on all the major network news channels redundantly scrolling across the bottom of the screens as well. Of course the board members were in complete agreement as to their thoughts in regards to the situation at hand - what wasn’t agreed upon and thus the purpose for the emergency board meeting was what to do about it – more specifically, what to do about Weber.

Several of the board members were already in contact with lawyers and medical experts in preparation to have Weber removed, at least temporarily, as CEO ipso facto the press conference causing TGC stock to plummet.

The CSO, CRO, V.P. and CAO (Administrative, not Analytics) were all, as it were, on board. The next several hours being of most importance. Not low on the list of priorities was to contact all sponsors/partners to assure them that Weber’s announcement was a result of delirium obviously caused by the injuries sustained and that they would make sure that Weber got the best medical attention to bring him back to ‘normal’ and that in the mean time it was absolutely without a doubt business as usual.

Story line Notes- Weber returns to his penthouse and from there sets up control and command of the soon to be defunct GC – a series of maneuvers from the BofD’s fails to wrestle control of the company from Weber who then  ? –also the feds inquiry into allegations of Weber et al pitting ethnic militant groups against one another(by funding both sides and etc,) was closed w/ some outside speculators floating the notion that this was all part of Weber’s bogus miracle jesus transformation from the start-  amid all the glowing attention begins to write his online AutoBio which soon encompasses all of his time and leads to his demise as described in arc of Weber

...!...

"What do we got here?"
                                   'Do you have to say it like that?'
"Like What?"
                           ' "What do we got here?" All CSI, David Caruso. Where's your sunglasses?'


"Jesus. Bad weekend? What'd ya want me to say?"


'I don't know, "Hey, Ray, what's goin' on?" - you know, like normal.'


"Fuck... Hey, Ray, what's goin on here?"


'I think it's the "here" part. I mean like, it's redundant. But you know I'm just fucking with you, kind of. Anyway, what we got here is a guy chained up in the backyard like a dog.'


"What's the guy say, any witnesses, do we have a perp?"


'No. Maybe. I don't know I just got here a few minutes ago myself. We're waiting on some bolt cutters to get here.'


"For what?"


'The chain's padlocked around his neck.'


"No one has bolt cutters?"


'No. I called for a wrecker.'


"Why?"


'They got bolt cutters.'


"They do, are you sure?"


*shrug*


"Not a Caruso fan, huh?"


'Are you kidding me? He's fuckin terrible.'


"I don't know, I like the show."


'I can tell.'




"Whatever, Ray. Nice backyard. 
Okay, so, guy's chained up like a dog with a frisbee folded in half  shoved in his mouth and secured with duct tape and mittens taped to his hands."


'Yep. Supposed to be dog paws, I think'


"You get a picture of this?"


'I'm not lookin for a lawsuit.'




"It's evidence, Petoskey. Nobody else here, around?"


'Nope. Except a dog.'


"Where's the dog?"


'In the house.'


"Is this his residence?"


'I think so. You mean the dog or the victim?'


"Both. I guess."


'I think so. Both I'd guess. Oh, I found this nailed to the siding.'


"Why didn't you say-"


'I forgot. It's kind of funny.'


"What, the note?"


'Well, yeah - I mean the whole thing's funny.The guy's tied up outside, the dog is in the house curled up on the bed with a water dish and a giant rawhide bone watching, I mean this fuckin' dog is watching, Animal Planet. And then the note, read it.'


"Maybe we should take the frisbee out'a the guys mouth first, see what he has to say?"


'Yeah but read the letter first. The guys been kind of hostile since we got here. Let 'em decide to calm down, you know, it's not our fault. It's Monday, you know, I don't feel like getting crapped on by a civilian, first thing.'


"No shit. Let's go in the house. Investigate..."










'Definitely a bachelor pad.'


"Of a teenager. Who keeps Hustler on the coffee table?"


'What's wrong with that?'


"The guy's like fifty. It's kind of creepy at a certain age."


'Pussy is pussy no matter how old you are.'


"Now you sound like a pedophile."


'Just read the note.'

“People of the city

You are on notice

I will do unto you

As you do unto your dogs

This is only the beginning

Signed –the Animal Avenger.

he wrote, ‘signed’ here.”

‘Yeah, I know, there.’

“Give it a rest.
 What’s this drawing?”

‘Aah, looks like a dog paw high-fiving a hand.’

“Christ.”

‘What?’

“We got ourselves a vigilante.”

‘Why’d he go with “Animal Avenger”? He specifically sites in the letter “what you do unto your dogs” Not, what you do unto your animals.’

“I’m not following you h- whadda ya mean?”

‘Well, why didn’t he call himself the dog avenger?’

“I don’t know. Dogs are animals.”

‘Actually they’re canines.’

“What, canines aren’t animals? Canine avenger doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue”

‘Either does “Dog Avenger”.’

“I wasn’t saying that. I’m fine with Animal Avenger. You’re the one who's got a problem with it.”

* ......... *

‘That’ll be the wrecker.’

“Let’s go cut this guy loose. See what he can tell us.”

‘What about the dog?’

*shrug&head-shake*

‘Come ‘re and check this out.’

‘Can you believe this shit?’

“I saw this episode. That guy bothers me. I mean, do you think if the cameras weren’t following him around 

he’d act like that?”

‘I never thought about it. He’s better than the girl, though. She’s so god damn nasally and talks down to everyone. Hey, boy. You a good doggy?’

“I’m gonna use the shitter real quick. Fuckin’ coffee.”

‘Thanks for sharin', I’m gonna grab the notebook for this interview.'

“Let’s just record ‘em.”

‘I like to take notes. You know, jot down some ideas or whatever.

“Whatever.”


'I mean like, thoughts I have.'


"That wasn't 'whatever' with a question mark it was like, 'whatever, I'm gotta take a dump here."





TO BE CONT....

Son like a Cyclopes

There was one eye.
Happy, a joyful eye. Sparkling.
There was one eye.
Dark, a dramatic, dark, terrorizing storm of doom.
Both eyes belonged to the same skull.
Attached to the same visual cortex sunk in the same brain.


The happy eye of joy and wonder and brilliance and glisten of morning dew as ascribed to children.
The other, plainly visible, the word was obvious; Hopelessness.


The mother of the eyes kept only photos of the 'good' eye. Excising from all collections any picture that included the other. Even if it's terrible loneliness was undetectable in-photo.


When they were out together, the eyes and mother, the child would have to wear an eye patch over the 'bad' eye - these were the days before when children weren't seen wearing sunglasses except the afflicted - as she was especially sensitive to the opinions, and subjected herself to the cruelties and critical voyeurism, of the general public.


Also, the mother of the diametrically opposing dissonance was warmed by the beholding of the 'good' eye.
It brought her such joy.


The 'other' being as frightening as a dentist's depiction of a rotten-black tooth.


Sometimes she would stare into it (the cherished one eye of the boy) for long minutes and the boy would sit there as something that was aware it was being examined would sit. And he looked straight ahead unblinking as she preferred, until his good eye dried and was painted, wet-semi-gloss, ten percent Gesso. Then she would feed his good eye a single Rolo.


After he finished chewing his Rolo and it's buttery chocolate ran down his throat and it's caramel clung no more she would tell him how tragic that he with his one sorrowful bad eye truly was but that he should make the best of it and by all means keep the patch on the god-awful thing if he ever expected to advance in life and meet a pretty girl. 


A  tear chased the last sweetness from his lips as the boy sat across from her in disparity of wanting to hug her breasts or throw her from her chair in the cluttered corner of the examination.


Because the full reveal of the 'other' eye in juxtaposition to the one 'good' eye on the same tender peachy face of the boy would, she continued, tend to make people feel a bit "put off".


Sometimes, if the grocery store checkout lines were extremely long, as they always were Sunday afternoons,   she'd place the patch over the good eye.


The bad eye, horribly unobstructed, terribly tortured (sometimes she used the word, 'haunting') sad eye, wide open - the green-blue hauntingly hazel iris choking the helpless deep black pupil into a corner, framed in a soft almond-shaped view finder - agape for everyone to see. For the people ahead of them to take notice, waiting for discovery like a public slow motion stabbing death.


The people, scanning the covers of periodicals that they'd never buy or admit to any interest in, squinting their eyes to read more headlines, more photo captions, see more expertly produced images of 'Stars' without makeup. Coveting the covers much more secretly than their children were coveting candy much lower on the carnival-taunts festooned  checkout lane racks before the term 'impulse items' had been coined.
Picking at the lint on the sleeves of their woolen dress goods, their full turtle-neck sleeves.


Some pre-filling out checks still attached to checkbooks because it's in the interest of prevention of the entire store's population's jawed aghast. A check readied and waiting only on the inform of numerical amounts with long-hand forward-slant cursive reaffirmation. Pensive examination for i's dotted, t's...


And then of course in all their busy-waiting-work and distraction undoubtedly a normal set of undisfigured, bored, hurried curiously busy eyes would glance past and then dart back and 'zoom' in on the child with the patch covering the one (unkown to them) good eye the patch suggesting that the other eye was still further grotesque and unsightly as to be 'out of order'.


A sorry gasp escapes from old cracking lips drawing the attention of others who were so busy not really minding their own business in the sordid "Dick&Liz" on again/off roller-coaster of alcoholism, sex, drugs, betrayal and sworn eternal love and also available in 1.7oz perfumes.


Now these insatiable eyes are deposited upon the boy, looking at the eye that is looking steadfast askew into some immeasurable distance only the boy with the lazy, blood shot eye can see.


The heartbreakingly quivering  uni-sad eye and it's owner are rushed swiftly  to the front of the line and expedited with not one but two frail-white bag boys as escorts and bouncers to prevent further damage to these good Calvinist heroes in line, blessed with two good-clear eyes. 
Aglow they are in their minds reflection and heartened by 'its' misfortune, and their unequal luxury as chosen sheep. 
All apart of HIS plan. 
On a Sunday afternoon.

Witness

Sun like a technicolor x ray.              




 You always carry a dead 'pet' of some type in your car in the event you're pulled over (in the trunk is a variety of surplus). A hazard in your line of 'work' as of course, you are aware. The art with which you approach the role in concentrating on some big emotional upheaval in your life which then, you 'sincerely' but carefully (not dramatically) tell the officer, 'Cyrus' was hit by a car, is in some respects, amazingly aplomb and in others, chilling or both.


              The way you let or rather, make-happen, the blood flush from your face and trace your eyes in doubling half-circles is, without fail, the key to not only avoiding the risk of showing your ID to the officer (and the procedural 'running' of licence/registration which is why the snub-nose is wedged between the seat and center console) but also to (more often than not) drawing out a genuine emotional response from the officer and a brief story of their actual, real, sad pet-related story/memory, something or whatever, at which time you are not listening to the idiot anymore.




          The secret is that all emotion triggers a genuine response, the hard part is realizing that emotions are sophisticated manipulation instruments and, ultimately, are as paper and generic as manufactured 'special occasion' cards.




                An on-scene officer, as it is their nature/job description to snoop, will inevitably determine the(your) 'pet' is dead at which time you say, in always the same inauthentic way you later admonish yourself for, "Oh, my god.".


                     The following is of course, you'll recognize as, your heavily redacted (of course you can fill in the blanks) journal notes also known as;


 Evidence for Federal Prosecution: ("list" from evidence gathered 17 June 2008 suspects unregistered vehicle)


 Keep dead cat/small dog/ bird etc in vehicle - refresh as needed
 Deodorizers/ carpet fresh - with baking soda plastic
8mil duct tape
 tweezers
 US Weekly
Vitamin Water
Luna bars
NEW GPS!!!
 Practice tearing up 'on demand' think of tragedy/loss i.e. finding out (illegible) XXXX was also fucking XXXXXXX -
arrest/strip search/jail clothes- jail food - LYPO FUCKING ORDEAL! ______________________________________________




            One shaky almost-exception being the 'pet' squirrel you hastily employed out of sheer laziness not wanting to peruse the shelter's bio-waste bins or scout the neighborhood etc.


 Some things you can only get away with in Portland.

The Sun Was Omnipressive

Chapter: Visceral Assault

Mark Anthony Chediznek, AKA -  Mark Chamberlin, former member of The Pin Point Weather Team's  on-air personalities - TGN's lead Murderologist - stared down at what to him seemed to be, alien hands. Not his own, he, silently smothering an internal gasp, thought in the way that can only be described as metamaniameditation. 

His were not this purple hue and thick fingered. And in fact the 'skin' of the things felt thicker and the finger nails were line-etched (production line quality), milky in color. 

Unlike his own finger nails, peachy-pink plates blending smoothly into the lunula and otherwise unremarkable except for the yellowish  mounding eponychium

(cuticles being the lay term, however, cuticle is a term also associated with the superior-to-epidermal exoskeleton of roundworms and arthropods -Here then, eponychium)

Half of a genuine emotion burrowing inside, Molly, AKA - Puddin'/Pickle-Butt,  had suggested he make an appointment to address the unsightly and could do so at the same time she was in for a pedicure, after, she excitedly mused, having lunch together at Soup-R-Salad the boutique café she’s been dying to get him to try and inevitably  concur that it is the best soup and sandwich spot north of the International District, though she knew, as he often stated, Mark was a ‘Meat n’ Potatoes’ man, the promulgation offered as if such banality imparted some interesting 'characteristic' or point of pride and it’s here you’ll bother to note that:

Pride is one of the “Seven Deadly Sins” and also that “Character” is a misnomer of elevated status if you think about it in the right way, i.e., everyone has character it’s simply the tells of your particular personality or your modus operandi  - a thief when thieving is merely abiding to his character as it in his character to thieve –character/nature being interchangeable (trust me).

 Chamberlin is and certain in and without a dog's doubt, noticing not only the odd appearance of these alien hands but that they may not even be real hands of any species, that is, inorganic props, Perhaps a product of rubber or wax and if he hadn’t given up smoking recently, again, he’d step outside to ponder and inhale and perhaps try to burn or melt these clumsy paws (with but how, more internal flinching - eternal internal gasp/flinch/panic?). Something he would think more about as he lowered his head and affixed his perfectly moisturized lips to the rim of the recyclable 10% post-consumer waste coffee cup - containing his third quintuple-shot Venti Spiced-Mocha cappuccino. 

Alien heliotropish fake/dead hands sitting thickly still – fingers of unknown origin slightly apart, resting on his cobalt blue Dockers under the previously examined(and Chamberlin’s essence depleted chewing gum affixed to underside) pressed pulp cherry wood veneered orbicular café table, (orbicular being a word Mark had remembered from the gifted desk-calender - word of the day and definitions)  their freakishness (the inexplicable hands) obvious to anyone who cared to notice.

And then the orbicular table and I were breathing as one, were one.

"Mark, helloo - I'm still here, you know, Mark?"

"There, you see?"

"See what Mark?"

Chediznek drags his alien/inorganic/and/or/inorganic 'things across the 4 and one half inch engineered glass touch screen

"I can't do anything. Look - scroll, apps, nothing. It's obvious here, Moll. These 'things' are not real"

"Mark, please stop this. For me, Allen -"

"There's a sty in my eye 'Molly' and it's name is 'Allen'.

Allen Anthony Abscess."

 "It's not his fault."

"Oh, I know that, Plump Puddin'. It's my fault...why are you always calling me 'Mark', not 'sweety', 'dear', 'babe'? Nevermind, 'Molly'. Can we think about me , now, for just a minute. What am I supposed to do here."

"M - , it happens all the time. Just take the back cover off, remove the battery then put it back together and turn it back on. That's what I do."

"How am I supposed to do that -huh?"

Chediznek lifts his arms off of the table and raises them in the air, 'wave' style' in a show of...

"You're moving them right now"

"I'm moving my arms, Molly. I still have my arms. These 'things' are attached to my arms but they're fucking [teeth clenched and cracking here] useless.

Directly across the street or rather, at Marks 2 o'clock, a man waiting for the bus steps off the curb just in time for the bus to strike him dead in a horrendous splatter almost entirely covering the white appliance of paint outlining the symbol. His inside stuff expressed, pressed, thrust and thrown and spat out on to the bike lane. 

You, belatedly grasping your Dolce Gabbana 'carbon' umbrella, immediately begin the internal process of determining which is the closest possibility for securing salt and running tap water and never mind the authorities questions already fumbling around in their detecting brains, there's at least a dozen be-splattered witness to fill those reports.

TPPFH- 1,2 &3 - 2nd draft

Sometimes I imagine there's a parallel universe where she and I are still holding each other's hand. Sometimes I'm absolutely certain of it as the only escape from drowning in a viscous pool of what is now and what once had been.

A diversion to slip out of that straight jacket just before they strap me down to administer another round of EST as I run head-long and armless, crashing out the emergency exit doors.

The reality is that she and I are no longer together and, it seems, never will be again. While I fully understand that it would never 'work' if we were to be reunited, I'm not really ready to concede that point, altogether anyway, not at this time - part and parcel of the above mentioned dissonance.

The crux of the whole thing is that I felt, I knew and I believed that she was The Perfect Person For Me. 

A ghost past from the haze and fog of childhood or beyond, miraculously appearing before me. And then in my arms. And then on my lips. The sweetest sickness.

I decided that I was and would prove to be The Perfect Person For Her. Maybe she already knew I was the perfect person for her but in these situations it's best not to leave anything to chance. There was nothing else I wanted to do. 

One of the first things I did, all lovestruck and afflicted, was to send my cat to the animal shelter. The Perfect Person For Me being allergic to cats, cat hair/dander in particular as far as I know she's okay with the animals, not like she hates them. It might seem a terrible thing to do  but not if that cat was adopted by a loving family. Or a lonely old lady who'd been searching for just such a cat (think Meow Mix cover-girl cat). And that is what I had to tell myself and still do, occasionally, as I'm reminded by myself. That's just the kind of Person I am.

And not that I want to dwell on the subject or, "protest too much" but really, honestly I wasn't home at all to take care of a cat, I was just never home. ("Never" is a slight stretch of the reality but I really was busy, especially all the work I put in to being The Perfect Person For Her)

Also, I had to move to an apartment building which wouldn't allow pets - I assumed (assuming because it was a new, more or less 'upscale', in my opinion, building and although it was more than I felt comfortable in spending on an apartment that I was semi-never there to enjoy but how would it look or how could I "cheat" TPPFM by staying in some dilapidated other place - truly hard if not impossible to find an apartment in this town without some painted over moldy smell), as it fit in with my adjectives. 

What I found out later was that they, apartment management, did in fact have a fairly liberal cat policy(but a total anti-dog stance) and although I momentarily considered after the liberal cat policy discovery upon reading the lease agreement in it's entirety after already signing and moving all my things in minus of course cat paraphernalia that perhaps, maybe I was a bit hasty in dropping the cat at the shelter.

(I have to re-iterate that the Perfect Person For Me was and not minorly so, allergic to cats. That should about square things)

When I arrived before dawn, slowly creeping up the street and coasting to a stop and gently, breath witholdingly opening the door so that I might sneak out, run up and toss the furry problem over the fence, I there found and much to my shame, a little gate with a little sign that read: Please do not leave your abandoned pets outside of kennel - use door. With a big red arrow pointing to the latch. 

(There was the matter of an additional pet deposit of $200.00 so, you see,  there's skepticism to be had in so far as "liberal pet policy" The truth is I was more of a dog person by that time, people change)

 Additionally, the cat wasn't very nice, kind of mean. To certain people just a real cunt of a cat, that's why my ex-wife left it with me.

The Perfect Person For Her lay in a pool of vomit of the purely alcoholic type and unfortunately was supine on his face and therefore was unable to choke on his vomit.

Nothing is more romantic than tragedy striking new lovers. anything short of obliterated pure bliss is the mad, slow decomposition of 'love' tested and failed, tried but untrue that most people have to endure. You should fall in love near the edge of a windswept cliff or teetering atop  a meat grinder.

I'm more honest than I was at any age previously except of course as a child, an infant. So from there to here, before the time of this writing, I've been a fairly secretive liar and manipulator. Just like most people.

Now, the natural thing for me to do is just be completely honest. Especially when  I feel apprehension, tension and nervousness - this is when I should be completely honest in the most complete way unlike those other times e.g., Often I would preface a conversation or a diatribe with the familiar "To be honest with you..." when, truthfully (really) I was only being partially honest because if I were being completely honest (technically I never said "To be completely honest with you..." as I've heard done, then I'd have been a bonafide liar and telling you this , you'd have to admit, is  really showing some personal growth and maturity on my part) my "honesty" was in pair with a motive to or an attempt to denigrate the person I'm about to be  honest about. Usually an attempt to coerce or persuade the person I'm talking with to agree with me and side against, even, a person or persons position on a matter or personal decision that person had recently decided which was an obvious mistake, in my opinion.

( and it's always being 'honest' about a person, myself including, never do I like ya' know say, "To be honest with you, Starbucks..." also I noticed, just there when I corrected a typing error of no import to bother to mention but it was a comm,a misplaced that when announcing my preface to my thing/agenda it's almost as if I'm saying without actually using the words just sorta implying "I usually lie my ass off when speaking with you in general but...") 

Wholly out of the way of where I was going with this but anyway it was bound to come out and, after all, I think it's important to be thorough.

Before meeting The Perfect Person For Me I hadn't thought about it (see; next paragraph-'it')  or even could remember a time when it'd come up, so when shed mentioned it almost as if not even mentioning it I took notice. That's one of the things you should do, it's one of things I wrote down and in fact it's #14 right between clean under finger nails and 'do not hock up lugies' (#'s 13 & 15 respectively- #15 being a particular habit not so easy to break so I'd do them really quietly when I just had to. You know, it's probably a fact that some change occurs after so many years a real physiological change caused by the constant sucking back of nasal cavity mucus into the throat and 'hocking up' of the mucus sucked back and of course the whole wad of saliva and mucus has to be spat out- I've nearly choked after several lugie hocks in a row and so that also was a reminder to cutback besides the fact that TPPFM found it to be completely disgusting.) on the list of reminders I'd made for myself as part of my strategy of becoming and/or maintaining status as TPPFH.

But and whatever, I did notice when she'd kind of no-big-deal sort of way mentioned it to me in regards to my utterances or rather, lack there of, during sex. You see now the reason for obfuscation and tactics of delay here. Its not like the whole thing is going to go this way, I can really focus when I'm comfortable and normally aspirated. she was quite oral in her part, you could say, vociferous, on occasion. Although not so much as time & "us" wore on, wore down.

Regardless, I then felt compelled and called to duty, pressure, on some level to start incorporating some auditory accompaniments such as, "God -" "Feels good" "Yeah" stuff like that and notch taker-uppers such as "Aah yeah, suck it", "Fuck me", etc. I have to say it never felt natural to say these things. It was only out of PP self-consciousness that I did so - I've always found sex pleasurable enough without a lot of verbal interaction or whatever.

To be honest with you, the first time I heard her say, "Oh Yeah" I almost laughed. The equivalent to me then, I suppose, is making noises while you eat and commenting a bunch beyond you know, "This is really good thanks" - it seems kinda of piggish to be a "gurumpher" or "gulper" but maybe that's the attraction(?).

Although, if during, she had said, "This is really good, thanks." The laughter would have been uncontrollable..

I carried on with it the whole thing the rest of the time, each time feeling more forced and awkward and like saying "Hi Janice" and "Thanks Janice" before & after "Janice" speaks at an AA meeting, if you know what I mean. I think I even, yes, I know even, that once I'd said "I'm gonna cum" which is just hilarious you know, as a guy, as it is. and I'm not the type of person to say "gonna" or "gotta". 

But she wouldn't have mentioned it if it wasn't  something I need to work on, to fix, to change - striving to be TPPFH.

But to be completely honest with you (sincerely this time), all of this voice over  work was made more difficult because what she didn't know, absolutely was unaware of (and I would know) was that during our sexual relations where in she would, for the majority of the thing, have her eyes closed when facing me or then otherwise she was draped over a sofa or some other thing or her head stuck into the corner of the room where it meets the floor(not where we started, these things often the result of several hours of binge drinking) 

What I'm getting at was that the added self-conscious nagging task, the conversational or guttural grunting or whatever it is she wanted, she wasn't exactly specific but I could tell that she was concerned that perhaps she thought something was wrong and so I didn't want her to feel bad like I thought it wasn't good or was lacking something which wasn't the case at all its just kind of a odd or was for me to be making sound effects and saying things like "I love your pussy" or "Your pussy is the cats vagina" or whatever but also and finally, the key point was, is, most of the time I was busy making faces at her, when she wasn't looking or incapable of looking although there was this one time I thought she wasn't looking and I had puffed out my cheeks and sneered wildly with just one eye bulged (very hard to do if your not naturally skilled at independent-eye bulge, it took me several attempts over a week of intercourse to really get it down), I trained my one-bulger on her face and, unexpectedly, her eyes were agape, her left leg swept across my torso and bent around my left side and I thought she'd seen me making this face  only to realize that she'd been watching my penis slide in and out of her vagina(she couldn't actually 'see' her vagina from that angle but it was the general area and undeniably by sensation she knew it was her vagina I was penetrating but so whatever the fact is if she'd seen me making that face or any of the other silly strange-faces I'd been making at her during our sex times it's safe to say the sex , the whole thing, would be over and honestly if she was okay with it I'm fairly sure It'd be over for me. I mean it's not that I've looked it up or anything but its got to be some sort of humiliation thing I was doing to her which would fail in its desired effect if she was aware and okay with the face making, quietly laughing at her. If she'd discovered it but tolerated it with a lot of protest and pleading would I be okay with it? Probably, maybe. If the pleading and distaste was genuine, I'm sure, I think I could allow that. Although there is the possibility and all the outward signs point to this; I was really just being funny, goofy, having fun with the whole thing I mean sex is really extra stupid on some levels , feels good - super goofy. So I'd make these faces and laugh to myself which is selfish to keep all the 'fun' to myself but I was generous and selfless in so many other ways.

And sometimes I couldn't conceal the laughter very well, especially if i could catch my face's reflection at certain times and then I'd launch into a fake cough to which she sometimes stopped in mid-thrust if I was coughing (laughing) alot and then I'd say yeah a tickle in the throat or something. I really didn't like lying to her but what could I do? So if, really, it was just this humorous thing and not any kind of Freudian humiliation trip I still have to stand by my previous determination that if she was okay with it, (for example here, I would make these faces sometimes a whole set or 'series' -  like I'd try to do all of the Marx brothers, obviously Groucho and Harpo were easy but Chico was, I don't know, like the dark side of Harpo (but what's darker than a silent comedian?) and Zeppo didn't even come into the what you'd call 'the picture', he was a throwaway an also ran, I didnt care for him, in fact I cant even conjure his face up right now as we speak , (Gummo? come on...)but if  TPPFM was into that or okay with it in a fun goofy way well I think I know, I'm fairly positive, it just wouldnt work for me and matter of factly, she wouldnt have been TPPFM of course. But maybe now you think neither one  of us is TPPFEO, however, I would argue that point.

144 days before epic tragedy

When I am reading I am 'listening' to a voice in my head that is narrating. Not a 'voice' voice, as in "Voices in my head", outside influence. I mean that I create a narrative voice to read the text 'aloud', if you will, in my head, that I happen to be in control of, being as it is that I'm the voice, actually. Of course you 'get' it.

A multitude but probably not more than 3-4 other 'voices' of conversation not pertaining to the 'narrator reading text to me' are overlapping and butting in and being distracting in general. Being this so then the 'narrator etc' begins to escalate his volume in relation or reaction to the other 'voices' thoughts or random asides (sometimes it's like a pack of Wild Cats tossed into the fire - obviously I'm referring to fireworks here, analogously) taking place and at some moments my 'narrator' is having to yell, which is startling to me (as I'm totally engrossed in the whole book narrative - I really get lost in a book as some annoying people posit, the saying.) and it's then I have to stop and kind of play 'coach' or 'boss' - lay down the law, straighten them out you know, people skills stuff.

Then what happens, I suppose I'm really just taking a 'stab' at it, this, but here it go:

What allegedly happens is that all the other voices and/or conversations/random asides/not so-random insinuations/newly deducted(deduced?) implications of guilt, etc. do a sort of end-run-around my narrator of the previously mentioned engrossing novel's text by convincing myself as well as my tenacious guardian narrator that I'm incredibly tired and can't keep my eyes ajar for one more word or incongruous author aside.

So, then (any good writer [any writer who's happened to read the Oxford book on proper or essential this and that stuff on rules etc knows not to begin a sentence with "So" - unless it's a conversation and then maybe perhaps follow up with (sic) when quoting this improper usage but anyway...]) I close the book and turn over and slip my hand beneath the pillow case to retrieve my 32nd doctor-recommended mouth guard (actually it's a 'tooth guard' as it prevents me from literally destroying the rest of my teeth), slip it in my mouth and tuck my left arm up under the pillow to raise elevation of my severly sleepy head, just enough to keep the acid out of my throat and or we hope, esophagus (that, by the way I've been paying the makers of Prilosec a weekly stipend to handle w/mostly uncharted or unchartable results - I don't want to keep bothering my health insurance with these issues as their disinterest is currently at a palpable level these days).

And now then we get to it - my allegedly 'zonked out - super-tired brain' all nestled for a solid 2-3 hrs of uninterrupted sleep - those talkative bastards kick on all the lights and throw out the volume control. 

I just have to ignore them, try and be the 'grown up' in these situations and just let them run themselves ragged. I just always hope they don't leave too much of a mess behind. 

Oh, my jesus of the cross, I've forgotten to pick up more creamer. 

Vanilla caramel cream to be exact. I pronounce 'caramel' as it's obviously supposed to be, TPPFM says, "Carmel". That's okay, I guess.

Hello, journal!

What a night, honestly I think, well...

Today I made her a cup of coffee, pre-warming the mug as I usually do (winter in the mid-west cupboards) and as I opened the refrigerator in my usually peppy, super-fast multi-task style, I remembered what I had only hours ago remembered and then again in all the hoopla forgot, I'd forgotten to pick up more cream yesterday.

Sometimes I'd imagine her saying the very words you are TPPFM with a lot of spit and 'acks' and 

really, quite hard to comprehend because I'm choking her and I'd say, in this imagining, "what, 

what are you telling me?" and bless her collapsing windpipe she'd try again and ag- 

then having literally squeezed the life out of her I'd sit back and do those carpal tunnel hand stretches I'd 

looked up on the internet when I was sure I was succumbing to carpal tunnel which seems to have subsided 

or not yet become quote "full blown" unquote carpal tunnel syndrome and it would be then that, imaginarily, I'd

realize, pieced it together as I say, that she was acknowledging that I was TPPFH to which 

realization I'd alternately laugh or cry (for obvious reasons respectively) sometimes at once. An experience that left me feeling 

exhilarated in the non-imaginative real world.

With just enough creamer to make her the perfect cup of coffee - as I usually did, 5-6 days per week - I decided to forgo the cream myself and settle or sacrifice and just put the 2% milk in mine (if you're a cream in your coffee person you know that's like practically akin to adding water you just rinsed a goat hair paint brush in after touching up the god damn base board again) which then, necessarily because the amount of milk (let alone 2%) required to even get a cream-like consistency or color is actually a hold-on-to-your-hat 1/3rd of the cup (I am, not exaggerating here in this instance) I have to 'nuke' it a foreverish 1min,30.

I'd also decided, without even consulting her, to split the amount of cream so as to afford her a second cup as was her usual and I then presented this first lack-luster cup of coffee with profuse apologies for it and the following cup yet to be for being, as they were, so not perfect. 

TPPFM  said it was no big deal. Sometimes I think she just doesn't get it.

AKA The Hircismus Hyphen System

           Todd Hircismus knew that certain things needed to be invented and that he could invent them. 
Invention ideas flowed to him in his brain without even trying. 
What he didn't know is if this flow had traveled to someone else,  previously, somewhere, it could be a locality thing for all Todd knew. 
           Like as in our heads are all antennae terminating at bulbous points and our brain is there not really-so-much-to-think-of-things-but-to-receive-things. 
And of course for general motor skills like positioning oneself correctly to receive 'things' not unlike a satellite receiving dish before the integration of Geo-synchronous orbiting satellites and so forth. (In which the very same type of receiving dish that Todd had passed out in once at a home of a schoolmate who's parents were wealthy enough to be one of the early-adopters-of satellite television hence the 6ft diameter revolving dish that would rotate either left or right in accordance with the viewer in command of the remote control channel changer. It was not known to Todd at the time if vomit covering much of the receivers dish would or could in some way affect signal).


And so, What if someone else had thought of the very same invention as he?
       Todd Hircismus was not a gambler or a competitor or an out and out leverager of things. He didn't want to nor was he the type of person to waste any time.


The solution was to Google search key words pertaining to his inventions. However, as Todd Hircismus had pointed out to himself, there was no way of knowing (that he was aware of at the time - at least the invention hadn't popped up to him even with his brain having been naturally bent-for-invention) if someone had invented a way, likely a devised  software program, to steal invention ideas by fishing or 'phishing' (Todd is unsure of the proper nomenclature in regards to...) internet search queries such as "mini-clip-on reading light/emits yellow-incandescent or white light/easier to see(as opposed to the weird blueish light which seems to be the industry standard at least as displayed in popular book stores [LED light is really not fabulous nor is it new and in fact it's as revelatory and useful as say, neon-light reading lights although, admittedly not as long lasting or comparable in any way of volume or luminescence as compared in the 'candle power' rating which is as silly as 'horsepower rating ' a thousand horses can not launch a rocket - at least there's no internet searchable references to or plans of patents etc pertaining to actual horses launching rockets and neither then do candles project light in a concentrated beam as in a flash light that always on the package lists or boasts its 'candle power' - the whole point being they're both fairly quaint and antiquated terms to describe modern technologies, as Todd put it - and of course all preceding in parenthesis was, obviously but so not to confuse anyone, not a part or included in the aforementioned search query) "


     The Phisher/Fisher could possibly, if existing, 'catch' this query and steal this idea or invention for himself. A chance, Todd Hircismus was unwilling to take and so,
 he did nothing, ever, beyond some initial notes and drawings and day dreaming which involved -meetings with Ron Popeil, driving by the homes of people who'd slighted or underestimated Todd earlier in his life demanding the limo driver "lay-on-the-horn!" etc. -


Todd Hircismus is the holder of hundreds of non-existent patents of probably non-existent inventions. 


The cruelties and Ironies of the world did not escape the attention of Todd Hircismus. 


He counted them all. 
And as rejoinder, he'd taken more than a few mental notes and lengthy far-off-gazes on a clever invention of his that actually collates, automatically by news feed, all known and suspected cruelties and ironies with a complex system underpinning the whole multi-layered-extremely-intricate and not unlike the US Gov's own NSA creepy-in-scope information collection system, Echelon. 
But was ultimately, on it's surface for practicality and implementation purposes, user friendly.


An on-the-surface interface, we might and do so note, based not too accidentally on or along-the-lines-of the Dewey Decimal system.
 But of course utilizing no decimals.


Allegedly, Todd Hircismus had hinted hitherto the possibility, the likelihood, of 'hyphens' being the very-foundations-of his improbable and unfulfilled and, as-far-as-we-know, unnamed system for the collection of cruelties/ironies, et al.