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.

ellipsis

it’s dark, and canvas hangs on the walls. some beat up wooden and steel chairs loiter underneath. greasy hair curls in great quantity over cotton and polyester and all of the worn converse sneakers in the room speak to me in unison. they plead for assisted suicide. as i glance down, my three hundred dollar jeans seem slightly at odds with my seven dollar t-shirt and the forty ounce malt liquor in my hand. i sip slowly, as if i were savoring the bitterness. glances occasionally land on me but i pay them no mind. i only break from my trance when a girl asks to sip my drink. i reluctantly agree, deciding that art would have done the same were he here. it is a monday.

nothing (just one thing) on our minds

wednesday was the big meet-up among wandering friends, drawn back to the lead core of this radioactive city. i am not victor ward was there along with a girl who was certainly not chloe byrnes. the early part of the evening was spent drinking college-flavored rolling rock, with a gradual move to home-flavored mid-label scotch. i spent the night wandering, in search of something that wasn’t clear to me. first i followed the friends, then i followed rebecca. eventually i followed my conscience, and still the experience wasn’t quite right. passing out was a blessing, like an abrupt stop to a long train of thoughts going in circles.

meds

during my daily spiritual self reflection yesterday i pondered my current status in life. the “cool down” side of whitney houston’s greatest hits double album steered my meditation toward the social aspect. questions such as “why is it that i know many people but few if any know me?” and “what is love?” were thrown out by my subconscious. these musings led me back to a single thought, though. what is it that i am looking for? the best answer i could come up with clunkily follows: a man/woman who is an amalgamation of bodhi from point break, jane from the mysteries of pittsburgh, and jem from jem and the holograms, who is both spontaneous and fleet footed, and who can out drink me in a showdown.

the rest of the session was spent meditating on the true meaning of winter.

this and that

the difference between loneliness and freedom is mostly semantics. in fact, the two are mutually inclusive. i’ve experienced this in different levels, most recently in its purest form. it has allowed me to both wallow in the past continuously and listen to basement jaxx records while i drink diet rockstar and gin and complete sudoku after sudoku puzzle. naked. i am unsure at which level i prefer my loneliness. perhaps lower than now, but certainly never gone.

snap

i’ve lost it. i mean, i still have sanity in some capacity, but priorities have changed and closets have been cleaned. i no longer apologize for trimming my shrubs in a way that violates the homeowner’s association’s by-laws. i revel in being alone, and look adversity in the eye. he is the kind of guy you want to drink with and then beat up. i no longer fear death. i fear only thread timers in symbolic debuggers.

workaday

i spent a good chunk of this sabbath working at the office. as i was the only one there, i played some profane jams out loud and got hyphy in the halls. whenever my progress was halted by either fate or my own lack of intelligence i jogged around the building singing call-and-answer army chants. somehow time flew by in this manner; type, type, sing, sing, dance, type. in the end, however, i got the result i had been working toward for three weeks. whether it was isolation of the empty office or the cardio workout breaks that were responsible i can only guess. what is not in question, though, is that i pulled an eriq lasalle-in-e.r.-like punch of satisfaction move when i reached my goal.

winding

…and then i go out to the parking lot to find the vehicle adjacent to mine on the right is parked like four inches from my car. parking asymmetrically makes baby jesus cry. as i head home for another night of sudoku and coke blak, i consider how great it is that i can roll my window down in november. the semi-warmth of the evening dulls the urge to close my eyes and drive blind on straight stretches of road. owen’s harsh lyrics juxtaposed with his softie-like voice bring a smile to my face as i listen to “bad news”. as the world gets darker, everyone else’s headlights grow stronger but mine…

genesis reunion tour!

break out the champagne. although, i am a bit worried due to statements like this:

”Genesis has another side to it, a more complex area of music," he said.

i never really understood any of their work before nineteen eighty’s duke. it was too arty, too... intellectual. they had just better play "invisible touch".

increase my killing power, eh? let’s do it!

i have begun a cycle of creatine monohydrate in order to gain muscle that i lost when my shoulder broke. this compound is amazing, in that after three days on it i’ve already noticed marked improvement in my weight training. it also looks like coke, so i’ve been taking it to work in baggies and leaving it out on my desk to arouse suspicion. no one has asked me to sell them any yet, though, so i’m starting to regret cutting it with nutri-sweet.

losing the corpus

i attended a celebratory gathering in the late afternoon yesterday. as is almost always the case, the discussion around me devolved into booze and real estate. apparently, while my liquor collection is gaining value, my house is stagnant. i don’t even try to talk about music anymore as it is about as productive as having a discussion about which religion is the correct one (scientology). more disturbing, though, is that i was barely participating in the conversation. it seems my mere presence has begun to affect people, and my devil-may-care attitude and cock-sure stride may soon infect others.

speak when you're spoken to

the moments in the fall where a deserted, leaf-blanketed street seems to cry lightly with its dampness are perhaps more in number than this nation’s glut of emo boys deserve. after all, i just experienced two such moments this weekend. one of these was special, however, in that the background noise of the occasional wind gust was by-and-by infiltrated with the trebly notes of brassy depression-era music. as i found my footsteps falling in 4/4 time i considered walking back and forth for a while along that same strip of road. the main reason i decided against doing so was not because i would have appeared demented to any passersby, but rather because repetition corrupts memories.