last night, chris stuck this tree inside his jacket and that tinsel inside his pockets before proceeding to stumble, pressing against me in an effort to conceal our finds, past a big burly bouncer and into the night air. we had found this booty inside a closet at a bar, and walking along outside, i scooped up this milk crate. so now we have a little tree set up on a little milk crate, and now all we need to do is five finger discount a tree skirt.

good times.

last night, we met this girl, emily bergl, aka "carrie 2." while i didn't get her autograph, i did get her to give me a cigarette. two cigarettes. we bonded.

last night was awesome. i got to hang out with good friends, meet an actress who brought me a few degrees of separation closer to the likes of, oh, laurence fishburne, steal a christmas tree from the closet of a bar (with tinsel!!), and have various other bits of madcap zaniness ensue. then today, i got to call in sick to work. why? because i'm sick? no, of course i'm not sick. i just don't want to go to work.

more to come. stay tuned.

i feel like giving my two weeks notice today, even though i have yet to be hired at either of the two places i've been interviewing yet. i can live off my savings, i think. i can also take up a life of crime and start up that small business i've been meaning to. it's called "bungee jump america," and i already have the jump rope and insurance papers. i drew up the insurance papers myself. my lawyer advised me to take out the word "dumbass."

my horoscope for today told me to wear these particular socks and be sure not to mismeasure any bifocal heights, as was the fashion yesterday. that horoscope of mine sure is getting specific. yesterday it told me what my firstborn's name was going to be. i can't believe i'm going to name my daughter "cutty sark."

my job makes me want to stab a screwdriver into my wrist.

my job makes me want to drag that screwdriver up my arm and spell out, "i quit," in a big, bloody gash.

but if i quit now, i wouldn't have health insurance. and bloody gashes don't stitch themselves up.

there are a lot of ironies in life. irony helps us play.

some questions have no answer.

or, some questions have a lot of answers. but none of them sound exactly right.

some answers make you forget what that original question was.

other answers are the same for all sorts of different questions.

i vow to stop asking questions. don't you think that's a good thing to do?

i'm one of those suckers working in retail america today. worst. day. of. the. year. ever.

although last year i made a hundred bucks in commission. so maybe it's not *that* bad.

i've felt kind of sad the past few days, but i can't put my finger on why. maybe it's pms. maybe it's because i no longer am taking my paxil (i.e., crazy pills), or maybe it's because nobody likes me and i can't do a thing with my hair. it could be the weather; the shorter days don't do much for my seasonal affective disorder. self-diagnosed seasonal affective disorder.

but i do know what will make me feel better. instead of writing about it now, though, i'll write about it later- after it's already happened.

this shirt i'm wearing must have shrunk in the dryer. either that or gnomes replaced it with a child's version; it's comically tight.

the history of thanksgiving
by jaclyn f.

thanksgiving is a national holiday that was started in 1963 by a young polish-mexican couple named agnes and miguel juarez. 1963 was a year full of turmoil and economic depression. the demand for a more varied selection of "flesh" colored crayons far exceeded the actual supply of the one slightly salmon-tinted tan that was standardly supplied, and not everyone in america was able to afford more than 1 good set of flatware. agnes and miguel had their own personal problems as well. agnes had never lost the freshman fifteen from her college days and had actually gone on to gain a sophomore seventeen, a junior twenty, and an i-dropped-out-of-college-because-my-double-major-in-philosophy-and-refrigerator-repair-was-too-stressful-so-i-decided-to-become-a-waitress thirty. she had difficulties combining the correct shampoo with its complimentary conditioner, and nightmares about smack-talking cheese bricks haunted even her waking hours. miguel didn't have it so good, either. his first novel had been rejected by all of the publishers due to the fact that it was copied pretty much word-for-word from "the adventures of tom sawyer." he tried to argue that his book wasn't about tom sawyer; his character's name was tim sawyer, and instead of dating becky, tim really had it for a young boy named bucky. so maybe it wasn't copied word-for-word- but even miguel, during weaker moments, would admit that it was pretty close.

1963 had agnes and miguel feeling especially low. miguel could never find two socks that matched and would often have to wear one black one and one just-a-little-bit-off-black one. "this isn't how a famous novelist is supposed to dress!" he'd growl, hitting agnes upside the head with whatever he could find, be it golf club, lamp, or the torn off bumper of a station wagon. it was this abuse that almost drove agnes to leave miguel, but she was always reminded of upcoming events they had to attend together, such as the birth of their first daughter monkey anne.

they thought about what they could do to make things better. miguel's idea was to organize a book exchange, to promote not only literacy but also to give miguel some fuel for his next novel, which was tentatively titled, "oliver twast." agnes had a better idea. "i'm hungry," she said. "let's make a turkey."

"i can't afford a turkey," miguel roared, throwing a coffee cup at her.

"then we'll get somebody else to make the turkey, " agnes offered meekly. "we'll tell them it's for a holiday and that everyone else is doing it, too. my mom will make me a turkey if i tell her it's for a holiday. she gets off on that kind of thing."

"yeah?" miguel said.

"yeah," agnes smiled. "what should we call this holiday?"

miguel lit up. "we'll call it 'national why-not-consider-a-threesome day!'"

"i told you how i feel about that," agnes mumbled.

"and i told you how i feel about that, "miguel responded, grabbing his crotch. "good. really good. but maybe your mother isn't that kind of lady anyway. so let's just call it 'christmas.'"

"we came up with that last year in order to get that sofa set," agnes reminded him. "and we did 'easter' the year before because you had it in your head that you wanted to sit on a rabbit's lap. so let's just call this 'thanksgiving.'"

"what a dumb idea," miguel sighed. "it's too many letters, and you know i can't spell all that well."

and that's what clinched it. agnes told her mom about 'thanksgiving,' who immediately got excited and told her own friends and relatives about it. nobody wanted to admit that they had't heard of it, so instead the grocery stores were jammed with a bunch of strangely confident, but secretly confused, housewives and mothers buying turkeys and cans of cranberry sauce. and, yes, it was a good day for all, that thursday in 1963, except for old man williamson who had a stroke sometime around noon and linda farnsworth of denver, who lost a hand in a terrible blending accident.

http://members.cox.net/impunity/endofworld.swf

so here i am, drinking a red bull for breakfast, over-cream-cheesing my bagel, and wondering where that strange smell is coming from. i've just made a very important decision. i am never going to discuss my feelings again. i rarely do so in this blog, but my life is a different matter. i'm like that girl in that story i once wrote, the one that ultimately got her mouth cut off for saying things like "i feel you feel that i feel i've lost that feeling...." except i still have my mouth. thank god, because that's where i keep my teeth.

no, but seriously folks. it really is better to keep those small little worries inside you, because eventually they'll have to go away on their own. or they'll build up and kill you, one of the two. also, voicing those small worries inevitably gets you "the sigh" or "the groan." you know how it goes. you say, "hey, by the way, i was justing thinking about this," and the response is the "GROOOOAN!" or "SIGHHHHH!" and both of these are loosely translated as "shut the fuck up, bitch, i'm sick of your whining." of course, this just causes more small worries. you think, "now i've done it. i'd better say something about how i'm feeling about THAT." it's like a regular paper mill inside of you, except instead of paper being produced, it's bicycle parts. oh, wait, that's not right.

so that's my advice, for both myself and for you, dear reader. just keep it inside, because it's obviously a stupid thought anyways! and nobody wants to hear it! why don't you make a witty observation about window treatments instead? that'll have them rolling the aisles.

we saw the movie "elf" yesterday. it was stupid, but it was great. some parts had me exploding with laughter, and what a mess that was.

one more day until thanksgiving, which is one of my favorite holidays due to the good food and, you know, not having to buy anybody any goddamn gifts.

p.s. to post below:

my recruiter called. they thought the paris thing was "cute." so i now have a second interview.

1st post of day:

i had two interviews today. actually, one interview- the one that chris' sister actually got for me, god bless the bergers and all they've given me- was canceled because it wasn't convenient for the man who was going to deliver it. i see, i have to work around HIS schedule, because HIS time is obviously more valuable than MINE. he probably had to go have something waxed- i know how it is with these executive types and their hairy genitalia.

i just got back from the one interview that i did actually go on. it was another group interview, and let me tell you that the only thing they could possibly be judging us on is the size of our tits, because everyone in these groups gives the same exact answers. they asked three questions, and we went around the group and gave our answers. blah, blah, blah, barf. finally, the third question was "if you don't get this job, what's your plan b?" by this point, i was sick and tired of this whole process, so while everyone else said, "i'm going to keep pursuing, etc, etc," i stood up, stated, "if i don't get this job, i'm moving to paris and becoming a sidewalk artist." then i sat down.

the funny thing would be if they saw that answer as unique and creative and offered me the job on that answer alone. the more reasonable thing would be if they saw me for the non-achieving asshole that i am, burned my resume, then did a seance to try to clear the building of my presence.

anyhow, i'm tired of all this bullshit. somebody give me a job. i'm smarter than everyone. everyone. i'm more creative than everyone. everyone. well, okay, not everyone. but at least 25% ... of the lowest 25%.... fuck you.

today i talk about kansas



this is the "wow" mobile of kansas, "wow" standing for "words on wheels." what i think is funny about this van is that the driver probably thinks he's driving the "mom" mobile.



dr. crumbine of dodge city, kansas changed the face of public health as we now know it by stamping every fourth sidewalk brick with this "don't spit on sidewalk" slogan back in the early 1900s. because of this visionary, there was a lot less saliva on the streets, and if you dropped your bagel dog, chances were pretty good that it would be okay to go ahead, pick it up, and stick it right into your mouth. no germs to worry about there!!

i really wanted that job, and this is why i didn't get it. that and i went to the interview pantsless and with a parrot on my shoulder. the interview was a "group" interview; it was me and twenty-nine other fucks taking turns introducing ourselves and saying why we want this job. from this, the interviewers chose who got the job. unbelievable. i think i didn't get it because i talk fast when i'm nervous, and having to bear my soul in front of over two dozen idiots actually made me rather nervous. all they probably heard was "blahblahblah blahblah and, um, like blahblahblah." plus i was convinced i had food caught in my teeth, therefore making me not want to open my mouth too widely.

so my recruiter (yes, *my* recruiter) called me later and told me the awful news, then said, "well, i have another interview for you to go on. i'll email you the details." i checked my inbox when i get home; it's another fucking group interview. i should probably just stay home that morning and watch the travel channel. i think they're doing a feature on gary, indiana that i really don't want to miss. gary, indiana: the boarded-up window of america's midwest.

chris and i went to vic's karaoke thing last night. we were sitting at a table with some of vic's wife's friends, and the one guy looked like he had his arm tucked in his shirt. so, a little drunk, i joked, "what, are you armless or something?" his reply was, "yeah, i left it in the car," which was funny, until i realized that he really didn't have an arm, and therefore my abrupt little comment had made me look extremely insensitive and rather rude. i was mortified. it's not like me to pick on amputees, it really isn't. i wanted to buy him a drink, as an apology, but he already had a beer, and i knew that double fisting would not be an option.

oh man. i shall await my punishments.

i leave for a job interview soon. not to jinx myself, but i interview rather poorly.

interviewer: tell me a little about yourself.

me: (blank stare)

who knows, though. maybe today's blank stare will be the winning blank stare.

yesterday i went to the gladhound lounge, where my manager does his side gig as karaoke cowboy. check out his website; it's hysterical, but not intentionally so.

then today i went to work. and it too was also hysterical, but, like vic's website, not intentionally so. i want out of my optical. i'm too smart for this job. i've just recently realized this. i have the standardized testing scores to prove it.

i'm tired. and these pretzels are making me thirsty.

are amateur teenaged cheerleader nudes amateurs at being cheerleaders? are they really bad cheerleaders? worst human pyramid ever?

in other news, today i volunteered at the old folks' home. it was awful, sad and awful. the whole placed smelled like urine, and nobody seemed to understand who i was. but they all wanted to talk to me.

"how are you?" i asked one lady.

"i don't know," she responded.

"i have to go," i stated.

"no, you're going to stay," she said, and i think the word "forever" was silently implied.

when i walked into the room, everybody waved. "she's here for me!" one lady yelled. "no, she's here for me," screeched another. it was depressing enough to make me want to cry, if only i weren't trying so hard not to gag on the aforementioned urine stench. good lord. i repeat, do not ever place me in a home. just place me in a casket. i'll be fine on my own.

there's an ad on "the onion" for playboy.com, which declares, "see the women of wal-mart naked!" this may titillate a few of you at first, but let's stop to think about this. the women of wal-mart. the women of wal-mart. naked.

have any of you seen the women that work at wal-mart? is 57 year old bertha from the fabric section- spread eagled on the customer service counter next to the coupon books- going to get you off? if so, i guess i don't understand men at all.

my website's going to advertise, "see your optician naked!" i'll be standing there, a little embarrassed, while i clean off your glasses donning only my birthday suit. i don't know how the hell i'm going to keep my nametag on, though.

women of wal-mart. my god.

the following google searches yielded no results:

"time machine" + "crunchy style peanut butter"

"wisecracking alligator" + "toilet"

"jokes about lymphoma"

"milwaukee boob run" (i imagined this to be a breast cancer marathon of sorts)

"recipe for sweatsock stew"

"wolf blitzer" + "exposed penis on cnn"

"hug-a-thon" + "massacre of thousands"

how does google expect me to get all my research done? sheesh, that article for the "new york times" will never be completed at this rate.

i feel like i have nothing to say, only the very mundane. i could list my activities, but who really cares? i went here. i went there. i went back. i sat down. big fucking whoop.

every once in a great while, blogging loses its appeal. but don't worry; i'll be back soon. probably tomorrow with a witty observation on hot dog buns or something. i know you can't wait.

head of a woman, by joan miro. i am fascinated by this, especially by the length of the arm pit hair.

today i broke a $5,000 machine at work. it was an innocent mistake, but i do think i may need a lawyer. if they decide to deduct the money from my checks in order to make me pay for it, i'll have to look into other money-making options, such as selling unnecessary organs and maybe dressing up as a clown for my co-workers' childrens' birthday parties.

that wouldn't work. "what is this balloon animal supposed to be?" they'd ask, waving a long, unbent balloon in my direction.

"it's a snake."

ah, that old joke never ceases to make me smile. i wish it were mine.

on the topic of machines that don't work, my dvd player does not seem to play dvds. which makes me wonder if it has decided not to be a dvd player anymore. maybe now it plays tiny records or reheats small, perfectly circular pancakes. maybe it's become a printer or a telephone. if people make career changes in the middle of their lives, why wouldn't electronics?

i hope that machine at work manages to fix itself. it prints out detailed reports on a person's visual field, and after breaking it, i tried to handwrite that detailed report myself. i wrote, "everything looked fine," on a piece of paper, but the doctor did not seem impressed with my can-do attitude.

jackie teaches important spanish sentences for those travelling abroad:

Necesito encontrar mi lazo del salto tan yo puedo estrangular a su hermana.

i need to find my jump rope so i can strangle your sister.

Este licuador es llenado de caca.

this blender is filled with poop.

Si yo no voy a trabajar, entonces yo probablemente me tocaré apenas al mirar mucho "da la bienvenida kotter de espalda" repeticiones.

if i don't go to work, then i'll probably just touch myself while watching a lot of "welcome back kotter" reruns.

Ayúdeme como este bocadillo del dinosaurio. Pero toma primero lejos que matado, usted ejemplar anormal grande.

help me eat this dinosaur sandwich. but first take off that kilt, you big freak.

news items i like reading about:

products being recalled due to accidental decapitation of users

small town scandals involving ugly hookers

new drugs for insignificant problems with horrible, very significant, side effects

fifty-four year old man finds lost dog of youth

uncalled for nudity during popular sporting events

studies on studies, surveys about surveys

far away planets that may or may have once hosted either singled cells species or tiny foto-mats

anything with the word "freakish"

public apologies that end in, "so i really am sorry... but i still don't think i was wrong."

i want to marry this man.

a lot of people have been asking about the nature of my book. well, not a lot of people- mostly just janice. but i will pretend that she is a crowd of about 24 and now address said crowd, wearing my favorite turtleneck and clutching a martini.

"my book. thanks for asking. let me tell what you my book is about." short pause, sip of martini, quick pat on my head to make sure i still have hair. "my book. it has yet to be written because right now i'm working on my short stories. the short story that is demanding my attention now is a compellingly compelling tale of desperation, loneliness, kid-napping, diseases that affect the lymph nodes, and consumers that wish to consume more. all this takes place on the high seas." another short pause. "no, yes, you're right, it doesn't take place on the high seas, but imagine the pirate-speak if it did! argh, me mateys.

"my book, the one that is only in my head and continues to remain tangible only in the forms of single sentences saved on multiple floppy disks, smudged paragraphs scribbled out on cocktail napkins, and tiny doodles drawn in lipstick on the corner of my mirror (note to self, do not clean mirror). this is a tale of two girls that both remind me a little of my former self and of a good friend of mine whose name i choose not to reveal. okay, it's carole. another character is a boy who does not actually exist, except in memories that have been artificially created. the girls find different ways to embrace and reject each other's friendship, and a theme that runs throughout my story is one of "how to keep the world at an arm's length away" and another of "everyone will treat you the way you treat yourself." so you'd better damn like yourself. anyhow, i'd tell you more about the great plot devices i am going to employ, but i've already given away too much, so let me also warn would-be idea-stealers that i've already gone back in time to copyright this to myself, circa 1984. so fuck off."

long gulp of martini. "i would also like to mention that i am a performance artist. mainly, when i'm not working on my many literary masterpieces (or thinking of working on them), i impersonate trees, shrubs, ferns- anything botanical. i do this while banging my head against a drum. everybody likes drumbeats, no?"

last night, chris and i saw "jesus christ, superstar." i never knew there was that much singing in biblical jerusalem. or dancing. overall, a good time was had by all. i got the tickets for chris' birthday, which was about a week and a half ago. after the show was over, though, he told me that he liked the movie better. so i probably could have bought him the vhs and saved about fifty bucks.

ah, but i jest. a night at the shubert theater? we wouldn't pass that up even if somebody were offering us a lifetime supply of butter. (we could use it; have you seen our butter bill?)

straight plan for the gay man. mark your calendar.

every 3rd wednesday of every month i am volunteering at a senior facility. i use the term "volunteering" as loosely as i would use the phrase "yeah, i cleaned the bedroom." it's not as much volunteering per se as it is being told to go there without pay. it's not as much cleaning the bedroom as it is just pushing my junk off to a corner and maybe spraying a little garlic mist into the air as to break up the other unknown smells.

i will clean, adjust, and repair the glasses of the elderly. i will say silent prayers in the bathroom that i will not one day end up in such a place, my own eyewear in complete disarray and being held together by chewed on toothpicks and bits of denture adhesive. i will pray that the moth eaten cardigan sweater worn by agnes and the two-different-shades-of-black socks worn by henry will not one day be a mirror of my own outdated wardrobe. my pills will not come in a dixie cup, dear lord. i will not be alone in a temperature-controlled home playing bingo on tuesdays in order to earn an extra peach cobbler.

this is what they prayed, i'm sure, back when they were me. oh how depressing we can allow it to be.

i've never volunteered for anything on my own. in high school, we were forced to do 24 hours community service to graduate. i worked at "rainbows," which was a catholic group for children of divorced parents. they went here to cope, together, and to drink the kool-aid that i had poured and leave crumbs all over from the cookies i had dumped on the plastic serving platter. see, that was my major role at "rainbows." every once in a while, i escorted somebody to the potty.

now i have an obligation to volunteer once a month at this senior facility. i sure hope that it is indeed just working on eyewear; i do not, repeat *do not*, want to escort henry or agnes to the potty.

you leave me on a nightly basis, and in the morning i find you, no explanation attached.

i can figure out where you go; it's the opposite of where i go. i do not try to chase you, because that would require running. i just try not to talk about you to the visiting gnomes and only think about you as fondly as i might a vanilla dessert or a lost green t-shirt.

you're not allowed to keep doing this to me. both halves must make one decision, otherwise i will decide for everyone, and it sure as hell won't be pretty. or smart. it won't even have an okay personality.

i don't even want to go to sleep. there's an almanac i'm starting to read. i know everything there is to know about the dominant religions of meeker, oklahoma and how much rain tallahassee got in the year 1973.

there was a girl that i hate, and she was happy to see me. she wanted to hang out all the time; she was wearing horrible pants and wanted to go shopping for obscure font sizes. times old roman, 7.92. she had questions about you that i dodged as if she were tossing week-old fish. after a while, i turned the tables, and started asking her questions about the overly read, corduroy-hat-wearer in her life- even though by this point i had already slept with him.

i will never go rollerskating again. this is a promise.

sure, i want kids. everybody wants kids. who doesn't want kids?

yesterday, i realized i didn't want kids.

kids, with the touching, the breaking, the begging, the pooping. kids with the drooling, the hair-pulling, the staring, the burping. kids who can't reach anything on high shelves and need you to pour their cereal and show them what you can flush and what you DEFINITELY CANNOT UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO YOU HEAR ME flush. kids who want to know where babies come from ("see, when a man sticks his penis inside a woman's vagina...") and what god looks like ("i don't know- bob denver?") and how big texas is ("about the size of your toy box. can't you see how busy i am?"). kids. little pre-people depending on YOU for everything.

i hope they're not depending on me to teach them cursive. because i'm still not so good at that.

anyhow, i had this image that one day i would have kids- adorable kids with big brown eyes and wavy brown hair. i pictured that my daughter would wear a velvet dress everywhere, and in my visions, she's always sitting in a big chair, quietly coloring. in this image, she's managed to make herself dinner and also vacuum the hallway. i have a son who wears a propellor hat all the time and also sits in a big chair, playing video games with the sound turned off and putting himself to bed by about five p.m. this boy has also mowed the lawn and reshingled the roof. my kids, in my head, are well-behaved and quiet. they don't require my direction. they already know the answers to their questions. any waste that comes out of their bodies smells like a glade plug-in and is cleaned up before i even know about it.

in my realization yesterday, i saw that this would not be a likely scenario. in real life, my kids would spill and scream and demand things from me that i cannot give them- such as a vast knowledge on the topic of world politics. i have no knowledge of world politics. i also can't teach either of them to play the tuba.

i'd be a worthless mother. i'd lose my temper. i'd feed them at irregular intervals. i'd smother them or not talk to them enough. i wouldn't deal well with- hey, is this entry about how children are evil or i am evil? suddenly i can't remember.

the book i'm reading now is "the time traveler's wife." it's by a woman who teaches at columbia college, where i went. as far as teachers who have published good books, columbia's got a lot of them, such as this guy, who wrote a really cool book called "american skin."

now, the teacher i had for fiction will never publish anything. she was too nice to be a writer, and the only outstanding detail i can remember about her is that she had some problem with her cornea that impaired her vision and forced her to wear thick, unsightly glasses. this sucks, because it is my goal to learn under some great published writer. my other teachers were nothing to write home about, either. one guy spearheaded a potato campaign and another guy worked under the deceased chicago mayor harold washington. he had a lot of stories. "one time, harold washington and i got so drunk and decided to pick up some high school girls..."

another teacher handled the p.r. for some infamous plane crashes. he too had a lot of stories. "one time, when that plane crashed, i took a break from talking to the media to go find harold washington so we could pick up some high school girls...."

i was never taught by anyone great. which is a shame, since knowing popular literary icons is one of my hobbies. that and collecting strange smells in bottles.

my new november's resolutions:

stop being bothered about the small things, and say "fuck it" about the bigger things, a la my mentor carole.

be on a reality series and ruin it for everyone.

try my hardest to look my hottest. stop laughing.

finish my short stories, start my novel. again, stop laughing.

learn to cook, but do it in secret so that it'll be a surprise for everyone.

delete that last one so it really will be a surprise.

speaking of which, i forgot that i put some wontons in the oven over fifteen minutes ago. the directions said "9-10."

check wontons.

publish pictures of myself on every porn site available. have good laugh at hilarity that will inevitably pursue

buy house and paint every room a different color. allow no two walls to match. collect ugly antiques. install bowling lane.

seriously look into going back to school. seriously check financial options. seriously try to read things instead of employing the old "skim and scan." pass tests not through logical elimation but extreme intelligence.

kick serious ass at karaoke; be approached by talent agent and promptly flown to new york.

win lotto, buy a lot of green beans.

say loudly, and out of nowhere, "i know you want me, but you cannot have me" to complete strangers, in church, while trying my hardest to look my hottest.

get root canal.

try to buy a jury's vote in a case that i don't care about.

wonder about loss of innocence. ponder about lack of soda.

whose idea was it to catapult carrots into fiona apple's face? not mine, but i participated eagerly and even accompanied one of the carrots with a nasty letter. i signed the letter with my own name and later when she asked if i had written it, i said, "no, that's not my name."

i walked to the library and called chris for a ride home. he said, "you walked there, now walk back." so i did, but we were living in a houseboat afloat in the sea and i couldn't find another boat to get me there. i did, however, attain a library card.

my sister was making pastries in the river. the river was filthy, but the pastries looked good. we put them in our purses and ate them in the shoe store. the shoe store had three glorious levels.

my mother became a cashier at wal-mart and my dad dumped her. because she used to be a famous actress. in tahiti.

a fly's eye has over 4,000 lenses. i would imagine that making glasses for *that* creature would take well over an hour. and a contact fitting? good lord.

lately, all i can think about is wanting to go back to school. not even in pursuit of my master's degree, but just to take some classes. it's odd; i'm not exactly what you would call a model student. when i am in a class, i tend to spend my time daydreaming, doodling, and mentally constructing outfits that i would like to own. during the five minute breaks, i sneak off to go home, and if for some odd reason i don't leave, i usually try to position myself behind a pole so that i can fall asleep without immediately being noticed.

and yet i really want to go to school.

it's not going to happen, because that would require money, time, and an ambition i don't possess. but it's a nice thought. in the meantime, i will continue to educate myself.

assuming that all the offspring survived, 190,000,000,000,000,000,000 flies could be produced in four months by the offspring of a single pair of flies. and if all those flies had poor visual acuity? damn.

p.s. if anybody knows why i'm recieving sports illustrated in the mail- IT'S NOT FUCKING FUNNY. UNSUBSCRIBE ME IMMEDIATELY.

i downloaded this game, mainly because chris told me to. and i played it, and now i've made an ass out of myself. i'm not good at fighting games, even when the characters are so damn cute. why can't we all just put our weapons aside and sit down for a good game of trivial pursuit?

with this attitude in my head, i will never win any wars. i'm glad they don't draft females. "private jackie, you've blown up your own platoon. again."

"gosh, i'm sorry. hey, where can i plug in my blowdryer?"

in my dream, i was in an anatomy class. it wasn't like my real anatomy class in high school, which i still have very fond memories of. in my real anatomy class, dan and i dressed up the mink we were supposed to be dissecting. we put a cowboy hat on its head, boots on its feet, and rammed a candy cane into it jaw as to make our mink "festive." i believe there was also a pillow that we put under its head, so that it would be comfortable as we sliced open its muscles. the best thing about our mink was that we were able to stick a scalpel up its ass and create a mink puppet that walked around and quipped humorous sentences such as "rectum? it nearly killed him!"

i don't know if we ever actually made the mink say that. it would have been hard to convince anyone that the mink was speaking, what with aforementioned candy cane in its mouth. but, you know.

anyhow, in this dream, my project was to create a collage of the human body with magazine clippings. i made a kidney out of a photograph of a shoe. a heart out of a picture of an apple. a cranium out of a dollhouse. and when i woke up, my first instinct was to get my collage out and hang it on the fridge. but, alas, it didn't really exist.

at least it doesn't exist yet. i need to buy glue and find my scissors.

i ended up going to the museum of sci & industry with chris yesterday. my favorite part of the museum is the mold-a-rama machines. too bad the mold-a-rama sculptures stink so much. i want a mold-a-rama in the shape of a dinosaur getting conked in the head by another dinosaur holding a beer bottle. not a mold-a-rama in the shape of a goddamn train. what am i going to do with a train? stupid wax train.

today i'm going to the baha'i temple in wilmette. starting my own religion didn't work out, so i'm going to latch onto this one. "the earth is but one country and mankind its citizens." haven't i always said that myself?

i'm not trying to say that catholicism has failed me, mainly because i know a lot of money was spent on my confirmation and communion parties, but let's just say that catholicism has failed me. there's just too many rules that i don't understand. you can't eat meat here. you can't have sex there. you can't worship false gods here. you can't commit murder there.

plus, have you ever tried to read the bible? while there are quite a few stories of adultery and intrigue, most of it is a family tree. and have you ever tried to read a family tree? it's tiring.

my dad always said, "never trust anyone who's overly religious." then again, this is also the man that said, "what do you mean i can't wear black knee socks with shorts?"

who can you believe? i mean, really.

my dreams were of people in costumes fighting over whether or not to kill the person dressed as a bull because they were all convinced she had spiked the punch with raid. and yet, oddly enough, they all continued to drink this punch while arguing over their options.

today i got an email from a guy that i went out on ONE date with an entire year ago. he just wanted to see how i was doing.... obviously, he can't get me out of his mind. obviously he's still hoping that i'll have his first born son and dance with him at our 25th wedding anniversary. obviously.

yes, i'll gag you.

my other dreams involved my three year old daughter, my handsome husband, and the mob. my handsome husband and i had moved to houston because the mob was threatening to steal our three year old daughter. of course the mob found us because that's how the mob is- always finding people. and my handsome husband and i had to run with our three year old daughter through a game show set to try and get away from the mob, who brandished not guns but breadsticks.

i'd like to go to a concert. it's been a while. who wants to go?

somewhere in an alternate universe, there's a jackie that didn't take a hangover pill with her first drink. that alternate jackie- bizarro jackie, if you will- probably has her head stuck in an alternate toilet. not this jackie, though. because i did take that pill, i'm only *thinking* about putting my head in the toilet. but, as you can see, i'm not actually doing it.

i wonder what the other alternate jackies are doing. popular science, and the tv show "sliders," will tell you that there's an infinite number of parallel universes. surely, i'm in a good percentage of them. but what am i doing in them? where do i live, who am i with, how much money do i make? what's my favorite sandwich? what shoes did i wear last thursday? am i leading any communist regimes? am i an olympic ice skater? what are all of my favorite colors?

nobody says brown is their favorite color. somebody so wisely observed this. i think i'm going to be the exception from now on; my favorite color is brown. those are the m&m's that i'm eating first. fuck you and your reds and blues.

i can't believe it's 2:30 already. to think i almost had to work today.

i'd like to speak in nothing but song lyrics. the only thing is, it would take me three hours to construct a paragraph out of song lyrics. and if somebody asked for directions to my cousin's house, i'd have a hard time finding a song that mentioned interstate 294.

today is halloween for us. i have yet to put on my costume, and i think i may try to put it off for as long as possible. maybe i'll put it on in the morning after everyone's left. i'm a trampire, which is like a vampire, only trampier. like, i'm not only going to suck your blood but also your....

oh god. the ghosts from my catholic upbringing are planning to push me into a canyon, i can tell.