flashfiction

here is something i wrote for another blog. the method is called flash fiction, and the rules are that the piece cannot be more than three hundred words. i had twenty four hours to write down what the voices inside my head were saying. the theme was "the main character is trying to justify a lie".


“i’m sure you have a passion for something: dandelions, wit, keanu reeves? it all comes from the same place. it is balancing delicately upon purpose. without purpose fires burn less bright and edges cut less sharply. i think that energy once put into pursuit becomes stagnant with circular thought that goes something like, ‘i should be doing something. but what difference does it make?’ i felt the first twinges of this purposelessness in high school, around the time that i started questioning everything. i remember using the word ‘why’ more than anyone else in my classes. when i turned that curiosity upon myself the answer came back all-too-frequently…”

“because that’s the way it’s always been.”

“yeah. i got sick of that phrase pretty quickly. at first it felt like a great weight made of metal and uniforms and politeness had been lifted from me. we all crave freedom in at least some form, right? well i got high off it. my idea of happiness became entwined with freedom so much that everything else became background noise. but what i thought was contentment was only a thinly veiled attempt to justify complacency. i can honestly say that i was happier before i grew up. before i embraced the bleakness of existence. nihilism makes me think but it doesn’t make me happy.

“even so, i can’t believe in god.”

“i don’t either. but my children are christians.”

“huh. want to grab a martini?”

mental illness

i’m fairly certain that i’ve contracted orthorexia, the latest hip-to-be-square mental disorder. i’ll let you decide by my answers to this foolproof quiz:

1. Are you spending more than three hours a day thinking about healthy food?
is whiskey healthy food?

2. Are you planning tomorrow's menu today?
yes

3. Is the virtue you feel about what you eat more important than the pleasure you receive from eating it?
i get no pleasure from eating. so yes.

4. Has the quality of your life decreased as the quality of your diet increased?
yes, but i think it’s unrelated. the quality of my life has been decreasing since childhood.

5. Have you become stricter with yourself?
self flagellation is common.

6. Does your self-esteem get a boost from eating healthy? Do you look down on others who don't eat this way?
i look down on others, but food is only one of the many reasons for this.

7. Do you skip foods you once enjoyed in order to eat the "right" foods?
i never enjoyed food.

8. Does your diet make it difficult for you to eat anywhere but at home, distancing you from friends and family.
it’s hard for them to be any further from me. psychologically, that is.

9. Do you feel guilt or self-loathing when you stray from your diet?
i never stray.

10. When you eat the way you're supposed to, do you feel in total control?
birds do obey my command. so, yes.

creep

the playstation three commercial with the plastic baby is so disturbing that it has quickly become my favorite. it reminds me of a dream i used to have, the kind in which i didn’t know that i was dreaming. it is etched in my subconscious, appearing at lengthy intervals. plastic babies, i think, are this generation’s pet rocks. they are a symbol of our collective condition. as close to leprechauns as to humans, these unblinking idols incite as much fear as joy. their redemption is also their curse: sterility.

contrast

yesterday i returned from a decidedly adolph-lundgren- in-rocky iv-like training session (minus the steroids and contact). and i believe that, as far as maximizing the vividness of life, nothing beats contrasts (especially firsts). so i had no choice but to listen to the banjo-infused whining murmurs of hellogoodbye’s ”oh it is love” on repeat. as the song’s tender wussiness counteracted my adrenaline the world just seemed less dull. the moral here is that sometimes we must endure hardship in order to make the big picture brighter. and that’s really what it’s all about.

mouthwash

this weekend i finally reached the point where i am using ketel one vodka as mouthwash. this was in reaction to the disagreeable taste left in my mouth after mixing heineken light and candy canes. that idea stemmed from a chance perturbation of my holiday tree whose effect was fallen candy canes, and whose cause was me cheering when johnny utah caught his first wave in point break. i wouldn’t recommend living like me.

rufus, brint, and lohan

i normally don’t like making fun of our celebrity betters but these corrections to lindsay lohan’s incoherent email brought a smile to my ruggedly feminine face. they took me back to a time when red pen(cil)s ruled and i was derided for being smarter than everyone. already almost fully delveloped, my wit was met with blank stares and fists. and i was at one of the better schools. i weep for america’s education system.

thoughts at the salon

“…it’s december already. i’m not going to be back here until next year. i need to tip my stylist… fifteen, no, fifty per cent. wait, do i tip the owner? i don’t think so. but my stylist is the owner. this is a nightmare… just don’t panic, stress is bad for you. o.k., the eucalyptus shampoo feels great. why am i worried? always err on caution’s side. except during drinking games. note to self: pick up some bailey’s for my coffee table center piece. i really need a rug for my sitting room, not too traditional, not too modern. i’m not going to be able to decide before new years…. "

walk the sanity line

i keep watching that levi’s “walk the line” commercial over and over on my dvr… in the glow of my holiday tree.

i don’t care about lust, i just care about love… i don’t care about trust, i just care about love…

of course, i would never wear levi’s jeans. but even so, i keep a close watch on this heart of mine…

liez

i often wonder if we must lie to be relevant for any period of time. does the truth contain enough nuance to be a lasting bedfellow? take, for example, the medium of web logs. i relate my version of the truth to my two and a half readers, but not a day goes by that i don’t scribble down some fiction as well (i’m assuming that i can still distinguish between the two). it is sad that pitchfork, one of my favorite music review sites, seems to believe provocation is more important than honesty. from slate:

Altruism, though, doesn't necessarily exclude the possibility of a political agenda—a provocation aimed not at readers, but at the music scene at large. What else is a 3.3 review of an otherwise-lauded Dandy Warhols album than an attempt to poke holes in an established critical consensus? In this case, it's the numbers that speak volumes and not the writing. A recent post on the blog Crooked Timber opined thusly: "[Pitchfork's writers] want to preserve their own role as … arbiters of taste." Therefore, Schreiber must continually "inject certain amounts of aesthetic uncertainty into the marketplace, by deliberately writing reviews which suggest that bad artists are good, or that good artists are bad." In that case, there's only way to cancel out the Pitchfork Effect: Read a different Web site.