Fine, you want me to write again, be it upon your own heads. My cunningly turned prose is a fearsome weapon and I am willing to point it this way once more. Why, oh why have I not furnished you with my amusing anecdotes and astonishing turn of phrase for so long? Well to be honest, here be pedants, that above all else but the wordsmiths are in a league of their own, but it’s the pedants, gods how I hate them.

Once upon a long time ago, this place used to be a thing of infinitely amusing stories and conversation that could stand and fight nine rounds without amphetamines. Today, well today you geeks stole it from the storytellers and the telltales, and we hate you for it. We shall hunt you down and tie your network cables together for what you have done to us, us and it.

For today I will remind you that there are stories here, tales that make the heart bleed and soul sing. When it turned into a place when we had to regurgitate facts to be here then it turned into a little amateur encyclopaedia, we already have plenty of those on the net so fuck ‘em and fuck you. Tell me stories and days and dreams and things which should be or could never be. Till that’s the thing to do this place will be a stagnant little pool of putrid linguistics.

More latter, I wore grey, as if you care.

Somehow, I feel like I've told this story before, but I don't know where. Anyway, this is the story of the most bizarre and amusing night of my life. It is the kind of story you cannot make up because no one would imagine this.

I used to have two good friends named Martin and Ed. Martin and I were like the dynamic duo, we had known each other since grade school and we were like brothers. Ed had been a friend of my younger brother's who hitched up with us because he felt he had more in common with us than he did with my brother. Ed was very intelligent and had a thing for computers before they became mainstream. He was also one of the most bizarre people I've ever known. When it came to music he was, for lack of a better word, "snooty." Whatever Martin and me were into, he could cite ten reasons why it was crap. Ed only listened to classical music and The Beatles. And Rick Springfield. He insisted Rick Springfield was a musical genius. This is the point at which you realize Ed is not some kind of highbrow finger-pointer. This is the point where you realize he is just insane.

Ed had this strange obsession with strip clubs and with porn in general. Despite being an attractive and physically fit young man, he was extremely nervous around girls, and while he had many girls throwing looks his way, he always found reasons why they weren't "right." The fact was that he was just very, very nervous all the time. So, whenever we got together with Ed, he either wanted to rent porn or go to a strip club. In many ways, he reminds me of Fez from That 70s Show, except he had no balls, he was just very, very nervous all the time (as I have already said, but it bears repeating for the purposes of dramatic foreshadowing).

Ed almost never drank alcohol. There were two exceptions. When we went out to a bar, usually a seedy neighborhood bar with a live band where everyone drank bottles of beer, he would insist on trying to order a frozen dacquiri or something on that level. No matter how many times we asked him not to do this, he did not see the problem. The other time he drank was when he had a party at his own home. At such parties he would freeze a bottle of absolut vodka and then drink the entire bottle straight before passing out on his living room floor. There was no rhyme or reason to his behavior except in his own mind. He would turn down a single screwdriver at someone else's party, but chug down straight vodka in his own home.

"Hello, can you tell me who the featured performer is tonight?"

There are several lines spoken by Ed that remain forever etched into my consciousness. This was one of them. Before going to an area strip club, he would call ahead to ask who the "featured performer" was. I suppose he thought maybe he might know her from his intensive porn movie viewing. And so, one night, after he announced that someone he knew and "appreciated" from porn movies was going to be at the strip club, he insisted we needed to go so he could meet her. This was his dream. A guy so nervous he couldn't talk to girls who were interested in him wanted to meet a porn star. This was his plan. He saw no problems with the plan. This was going to go perfectly. Martin and I just nodded and let him convince us to accompany him to the strip club in question.

Ed would never drink at a strip club. He would not even take a sip of beer. He had this obsession with "remaining focused," although Martin and I were sure we did not want to consider what he meant by this. We found a table and sat down while the "warm up" performers took the stage. Ed was chomping at the bit, waiting for his beloved porn star to take the stage, while we drank beer and did shots of tequila. He was driving and we were just amused, so we were taking it right to the edge. Then came the first moment of absurdity of the night.

The porn star Ed was so intent on meeting was standing directly behind him and she was almost completely naked, talking to two guys at the table behind Ed. Martin and I had a clear view of her and tried to inform Ed of what was going on without being obvious. He did not understand our signals, and even after this porn star's bare breast scraped across Ed's arm, he merely muttered a quick, "Excuse me," without looking, as if he had been bumped into by a man. At that point, Martin and I checked out. This was just too absurd to be happening.

Unable to believe this whole scene, Martin and I did more shots, drank more beer and joked to each other about Ed's general ineptitude. One stripper in particular did not much care for Martin or myself. As she did her thing, she called down to us, but we did not hear her. She wanted us to pay attention to her and to respond to her, but we did not care. Ed was eagerly trying to fulfill her demands, but she was ignoring him as much as we were ignoring her. After a while, the stripper in question became angry and demanded we be thrown out of the bar because we were ignoring her. The bouncer didn't know what to say and he wasn't going to force us to leave, but we were already too drunk to care and had not wanted to be there in the first place, so we agreed to just leave. Ed was disappointed. He wasn't going to get to see his beloved porn star on stage. It took us most of the next half hour to explain to him that her bare breast had been rubbing against his arm periodically for most of the night.

A disappointed Ed drove home, insisting that he would have known if this porn star was really rubbing against him. We laughed at him. We were completely drunk and just wanted to get home. Ed continued to insist we were wrong and that he wanted to go back, but we told him to just drive home. It was over. Well, actually, it wasn't. A few minutes later, flashing blue lights appeared behind us. We were getting pulled over by a cop from the town we were driving through.

"Do you know why I pulled you over, son?"

Martin and myself did some collective lip-biting. If you come from the dirtbag world we come from, being pulled over on your way home from the bar is pretty close to the worst thing that can happen, except that the guy driving was completely sober. This would be over quickly, after the police officer realized Ed was sober and no threat to anyone. Or so we thought.

"I don't know. I wasn't speeding, was I? Did I run through a stop sign? What did I do?"

Ed was stuttering and slurring his words. His initial response went from stupid questions to complete nonsense. Martin and I stopped biting our lips and instead started laughing. This was unreal. The cop was making Ed get out of the car. He was making him recite the alphabet forwards and backwards and making him walk a straight line on the state road we were driving on. Ed was completely, dead sober, but he was completely messing up the alphabet and he fell down twice trying to walk a straight line. You see, he was very, very nervous, all the time.

Drunk and watching this unfold from inside the car, Martin and I could not stop laughing. We were both on the floor of the car struggling to keep our insides from coming out. The cop was giving Ed a lecture on the dangers of drinking and driving, which we could hear through the open window of the car. Ed was apologizing and promising to "never do it again." Finally, at the same time, Martin and I sat up and started yelling, "Give him the breathalyzer!"

"Son, you've made a mistake tonight and your drunken accomplices are trying to make me put you in jail, but I think it would be better if you went home and thought about tonight and realized how much trouble it could be if you were to be arrested for drunk driving or if you got into an accident where you or someone else was hurt."

"I'm sorry, officer, it will never happen again."

"GIVE HIM THE BREATHALYZER! FOR GOD'S SAKE, GIVE HIM THE BREATHALYZER!"

I am reminded that I forgot the end of the story...

The reason why Ed did not profess his innocence and tell the police officer he was not drinking was because, he said, "I didn't want to get in trouble for liking strippers."

For Jet-Poop who made me realize this story was too long to explain via /msg. And the "featured performer" in question was "Keisha."

Fish'n'chips'n'vinegar....

Has my life been reduced to a senseless back-and-forth of work/school/drink/sleep/work/school/drink/sleep? Or is that an elevation? Sure, I can make you a wicked nice latte, but what the fuck does that have to do with anything? I realized this last night: what I really want to do - what I REALLY want to do - is master the art of the katana and wander Asia and Eastern Europe fighting my enemies. No interac, no Simpsons at 5 PM, no 950 ml. can of Molson Export at the depanneur after work. Just me, my sword, my hooded cloak and a whole lot of dead dudes. I think that if I could hack that, I'd be a lot more forgiving of my other shortcomings.

I always envy my colleague and ex-roommate cabin fever's nicely stylized writeups. Am I guilty of the sin of envy, or is his stuff really that dope? You decide. Between you and me, I think the guy has a way with words in a fashion similar to a glassblower's way with heated sand. All I can do is slap them down onto the old binary sheet. He turns them into acrobatic displays. I hate his guts.

Kant. How about him, eh? The rigorous old guy. Gosh, I would've loved to have taken him out for a beer and watched him fuss over his schedule being messed up. The more I read him, though, the more I'm behind his project in a lot of ways. Read the Critique of Judgment; the guy is onto something. Forget that son of a bitch Hegel and his quest for completed meaning, Kant understood and respected that gap between what we can say we know and what we wish we could. Not trying to become God is a worthwhile project. Let's work on the reversal of man, while we're at it. It'll be all that and an AK-47.

I have no hilarious stories to share with you, e2. I am profoundly sorry. All I have is steps I've been retracing in my head all day. It's all just so much broken pottery rattling around in here. Forgetfulness makes me guilty of the sin of omission. I think a theme is developing here. Everybody should just listen to Scarub and forget about it. The fact of the matter is I'm a negative space surrounded by living breathing threads of active being. The fact of the matter is I'm tired of this sheeit. The fact of the matter is that the older I get, the more the facts matter.

Fondly,
MF Deluxe the melancholy recluse.

There is no more useless and annoying insect than a cricket. This is true insofar as I have been able to deduce from an hour-long investigation on the 'net and personal experience. If/when I ever stand before the Almighty, I think that I shall have a few harsh words with Him about His decision to plague mankind with these mindnumbing creatures- and I'm not talking about my fellow humans. Until I am instructed by a duly authorized individual, I hereby declare open war on all crickets everywhere. If I see one I shall stomp, spray (with Raid or some other like substance), burn, and otherwise destroy said insect to the point of absolute oblivion, may it never keep another person awake at night again, least of all myself.

I am now a live-in uncle. Living in what used to be my step-mom's art studio, which is adjacent and apart from the house proper and actually has running water, my older brother and his family have moved into the house that my parents have lived in for the last twenty years. Where did my parents go? East Nashville, just a few blocks away from where I used to live last year, so that they can be closer to my sister and her newborn daughter. At any rate, I am now in charge of keeping the swimming pool clean and mowing the 3 1/2-acre lawn on occasion. Rent is $50/week, which is bearable, and I've finally gotten myself a wireless router that is now connected to my brother's cable modem.

So I am housed, closer to family than I have been in almost a decade and relatively okay for the time being. This arrangement was set up so that I could get a job and save some money with the intention of moving out later and finally getting back on my own two feet. I don't know if the original "plan" will stick or if I'll stay here through the winter, but so far things seem to be pretty equitable. It's actually kind of nice to be around my brother's kids from time to time and my sister-in-law and I are, for the first time in almost ten years, finally getting to know one another.

I've been taking medication recently for depression. Lexapro. The beginning stages of taking the drug were, at best, a bit disorienting, but I have since gotten used to it and have found that there is a considerable difference between me as a depressed person and me as a person who is combatting depression. All the same old worries and concerns still rattle around in my head, but the weight and fear of them are no longer an issue for me, like I can think about them without having them drag me down. I can focus and work and... well, I'm feeling loads better about myself. But the dental work probably has a hand in that, too. Yeah. That's right. For those of you who've read my Halcion writeup, you might be interested to know that I am finally getting my teeth REALLY fixed. My two front teeth have been rebuilt entirely and, in just over a week, I will return to the dentist and get another pair of teeth rebuilt. Later on in the year I will have all the rebuilt teeth capped and I will finally be able to smile again without worrying that someone might think I've got something stuck in my teeth. Hello self-confidence, I hardly knew ye, but I'm glad we're meeting again.

I've got two new jobs now. I always said to myself that I wouldn't do that, work two jobs, but here I am. Fortunately, one of them is basically working for myself. The "primary" job is work as a clerk at a local Exxon Tigermarket- pretty hum-drum and droll. The other job, my self-employed job, is infinitely more interesting. I make 3D models of house blueprints, so that people who intend to build a house can see what the rooms will look like before they're actually built. In the 3D industry this is called "Pre Viz", which is short for "pre-visualization" and is, in my opinion, pretty self-explanatory. I like the work and it pays rather well, I think. I won't be buying any new cars, but it's a profitable job that uses skills I've been honing for the better part of two years, so it's definitely a personal vindication of sorts. I've had a sneaking suspicion that Mom and Dad never thought I'd be able to do anything with the 3D stuff. For once, I feel good about proving them wrong.

Hopefully the work will continue to come in and I'll be able to afford getting an apartment of my own soon as well as paying off some old debts/bills. As much as I like being closer to my brother and his family, I still would like to have my own place where I am responsible for no one but myself and don't have to answer to anyone else's rules. I've always been a loner and this situation, being a live-in uncle at the age of thirty-one, seriously underscores that personality quirk of mine. I need to be me. I also need a place to call my own for the simple fact that, soon, I will re-enter the dating world again and I'd like to be able to pursue a relationship without the scrutiny of my sister-in-law and her kids, whom I love very much but can take only in small doses.

Are things picking up for me finally? I honestly don't know, but I'd like to think that they're at least headed in the right direction.

A new outlook on killing time without recoil?

Well promises are one thing, and results are also one thing. I've just enumerated two objects to no great end. I've taken on some new duties which have proven both daunting and humbling, a potentially fruitful combination of adjectives I'd wager. The new 'job' (it hardly seems fair to combine 'Writing Assistant' under the same heading as 'Miner' but there's the problem with language down to the bottom!) makes me realize how much I take for granted in my native tongue. Explaining, or pointing out, why a "there" or an "as" is misplaced in a certain context is difficult, especially considering how uncomfortable I am with my own ability to swim in this language English. But it is interesting to see how different peoples' linguistic structures lead them to make different sorts of mistakes. So far the Russians have the most interesting difficulties with the copula and the Polish the most interesting difficulties with the article... I haven't encountered many Asian students yet so I'll report back on that in due time!

I'm on top of the underside of something awful...

A considerable turbulence has erupted in my life combined with a number of smaller ones. Girlfriend troubles combined with thesis troubles have made my calm demeanour less endearing and more of a handicap, for all concerned (and perhaps me especially!).

Play date anyone?

Well I've been killing time reading Kant and breathing air for the first time in a while. Leaving my warren only to find another one. I'm being cryptic but really its like this: I've changed my daily rhythms to fit a new place and now I've changed them again to fit into occupationality. It makes me feel strange and not just because of the late unpleasantness regarding the one I've failed to impress.

Book Club! Get Party!

Well, my Solzhenitsyn practice continues unabated, though perhaps a little slower now that I've dove into Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. A little bit of Nietzsche but read s-l-o-w-l-y this time instead of at the breakneck pace I'm accustomed to. I also picked up and am 30 pages into Philip Roth's already-hilarious book The Great American Novel. I fucking love baseball. In a different life I could have been a baseball scout, or maybe a first base coach. Nothing spectacular but something to hold onto.

And that's all you need. Purchase.

On the acquisition of knowledge

Well this week I've learned to turn a grudge into a gift. And I've learned to judge a life by it's own standards, and to judge those standards sparingly and with a pleasantness I'm trying hard to feign. I'm also experimenting with a form of 'brutal' honesty which hasn't really paid off yet; I think unthinking pleasantries have their place (we can't be creating ourselves every second of the fucking day, and we need to BREATHE).

How neatly you've segmented your life.
And how painful it proves to be.

And a parting shot, from the depths of self-appraisal:

dylan says: at my core is a desire for romance, and the odd bit of bloodshed.

End it someday
What's that sound?
In the someday
What's that song?

From Nirvana's 'I Hate Myself And Want To Die'

I am twenty-four years old, living with my parents and unemployed. But, I digress. I occasionally, when I feel human enough, or motivated enough, will leave the house to acquire necessities, like cigarettes, or food. Well, anyway, this one fine day I thought to myself, hey, wouldn't it be great if I went out and bought some stuff, especially since I had just come into possesion of a princely sum of about $39, from an odd job taken days earlier. Everything went well enough. Until the return trip. With a plastic bag stuffed with ice cream and cigarettes, and mouth full of Milky Way, I happened upon an Old Acquaintance, who also happens to be a neighbour. Oh, joy!

- What are you doing here?

- Just came back from the store... How about you?

- Me? I'm going off to work, you know, the usual. A bit late. Have to catch a cab.

- Oh.

- Aren't you working at that place? As a draughtsman? You're not working today?

- (At this point, I could lie or just avoid the question but I figure since everybody already knows anyway, I somehow or other manage to say,) Not today. Or tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or ever. I don't work there anymore.

- (Surprise) Oh god! What happened?

- (I shrug and mutter something inaudible under my breath)

- Oh my. Well, I guess it's hard to find good work these days. I got a good opening at this place, if you want.

- Nah.

- Oh.

We sit and bull for a second or two, just enough for a cigarette. The sun blinds me and makes my armpits sweat and I cannot stop grinning. My thoughts invariably turn inward and to the past. How I wasn't always stupid and and unemployed and uneducated. How supposedly smart people can get bad grades. How you believe your childhood will never end. How-

- Oh, well, have to keep going. See you around.

- Yeah. See you.

The End (or so I believe).