the milwaukee art museum where
my boyfriend titles untitled paintings.
blue shelves. itchy suit.
spiderweb chandelier and
suitcase aquarium.
he gives a moment of concentration,
then a profoundly simple declaration.
so easy at finding words for nameless pieces,
he calls me honey, sweetheart,
babycakes, lover.

the highway is the simple answer of
how we got here,
the response he would surely give if
an envious stranger would dare to ask.
he calls it as he sees it
without pretense
gulping
sidestepping dances, and
here i am, the ex-
assistant manager in training of
complicating the straightforward.
he is the wetly inked line from a to b,
the strolling, shrugging, laughing, replying
"well, i don't get
what's not to get!"

portrait of the artist's sister, with stink lines,
he professed at the
chicago museum last year.
i might have struggled for hours with labeling it,
a working title only,
the depression of a young ballerina
caught without her tights
before the show
and her parents are
in the audience wondering.
he's got it down, everything, and
although i can ask him a million times,
those thrillingly easy answers
never change.

noises i have heard from my new upstairs neighbors as of last friday

1. the hammering together of furniture
2. what must have been jumping jacks
3. arguments over what the fu** to do today
4. the sounds of heavily jogged laps around the bedroom
5. nighttime barfing and retching
6. morningtime barfing and retching
7. sobbing mixed with barfing and retching
8. repeated toilet flushing
9. screams of either horror or joy
10. perhaps the rehearsal of a noisy broadway play?
11. bedsprings springing
12. more jumping jacks

i woke up this morning with a cut on the palm of my left hand. somehow, in the middle of the night, i had neatly sliced a part of the fleshy meat by my thumb- not enough to gush blood or require stitches, but enough to cause pain and a definite, puzzling irritation. what made the whole situation much more mysterious- and here's where it gets interesting- is that chris remembers me getting up in the middle of the night. i, on the other hand, recall no such thing!

so, what's all this, then? did i get up in the middle of the night, unbeknownst to myself, and proceed to make myself a bagel? during this sleepytime snack preparation, did i incur a bagel-related injury to my left hand, the very hand that would have held said bagel? then, after i cut myself, did i decide that i no longer required a snack and then stumble back to bed? the whole situation is very mind-blowing. it's like i've become a character in a horror novel- the girl that thinks she's completely innocent but is actually the killer who kills while asleep. or, let's say, the bagel slicer who slices while asleep. very intriguing.

if you would like to buy the rights to this story, please contact me immediately.

driving on the expressways on thanksgiving- or even christmas or easter- is like driving in a bizarro, alternative universe that is populated solely by the elderly or other elderly-like people who, for all intents and purposes, only leave their homes on major holidays. the roadways are filled not with the confident, lane-swerving, speed monsters of the normal 9-5 commute but these other timid creatures. they are white haired and nervous in their like-new, garage protected 1989 buicks, and you can spot them and their legions from miles away as they cautiously flick on their blinker and switch lanes a full two minutes later, as they dare to accelerate to a whole 45 mph once they maneuver their way into the left hand lane, and as they come to a near complete stop right before their exit, maps to the grandkid's house unfolded and trembling on the dirt-free dashboard. it really is a sight to behold; thankfully, though, it is a sight that occurs infrequently in nature- only on the aforementioned holidays.

i drove down to my parents house in the morning, stuffed my face with the kind of meal where every dish includes either a heaping portion of meat or cheese, and then loaded my blulging waistline into the car, where i drove back up to my apartment. then, chris got home from work, and we climbed into his car, where we hopped on yet another expressway and made our way to his aunt's veritable mansion out past the new outlet mall that i have yet to visit. (outlet mall, people! that's latin for who-cares-if-they-spelled-calvin-klein-with-two-k's-it's-only-ten-bucks!) there, i had a small side salad, noted how creepy chris' uncle's brother is, and drank two generous glasses of red wine. the wine stained my teeth; i did not smile or talk for the remainder of the evening. then we found our way back to the expressway and ended up taking a ridiculous long-cut that involved strangely named streets and towns. how i miss those aimless car rides of my youth, those gas guzzling, pointless drives out to nowhere during a period of my life when my friends and i were too young to get into bars and too old to feel content just sitting in somebody's living room. if only aimee mann or sarah mclachlin or tori amos had been on the radio- that would have really taken me back.

when we got home, finally, i decided that i was thankful for everything.

the first snow of the year. sure, it's a pain in the ass to drive in, and it's deadly as hell if you get caught in it without a proper coat and set of mittens, but, boy, it sure is pretty.

by far, this is my favorite news story of the week.

i love virgin mary sightings, especially this one here, which occurred in a coffee stain. apparitions of the virgin mary are relatively common, as it turns out. my question is: what if it's not the virgin mary? what if all these sightings and visions are of some other peaceful-looking, robe-wearing lady? not the virgin mary, but, say the virgin rhoda or a different mary, like that one mary with the little lamb, whose fleece was white as snow.

speaking of snow, it's coming down over here. i'm surprised my mother hasn't called yet; more so when i was living at home, she would call me at the first sight of the powdery flakes, warning, "it's snowing out there. do you have a brush to clean off your car windows? how are your tires? drive slow, drive slow!" after i'd hang up on her, she'd call again, reminding, "take those turns carefully!" i'd hang up again. then, later, i'd get in my car and try to remember what she had told me. since i'm a moron, i'd pull out of my parking space without brushing off my windows and then, after speeding up, crash into the nearest tree.

or, at least that's what my mother would assume i'd do.

and now i'm going to go search for the virgin mary in a doughnut.

it's probably too late to become a rhodes scholar (you normally can't do these things on a whim), but i thought i would check out what the guidelines are.

1. literary and scholastic attainments

2. energy to use one’s talents to the full, as exemplified by fondness for and success in sports

3. truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for and protection of the weak, kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship

4. moral force of character and instincts to lead, and to take an interest in one’s fellow beings.

gee, i'm so close on this one. if only number 2 weren't such a kick in the pants. energy to use one talents to the fullest? nope, too tired. fondness for and success in sports? replace "sports" with "beer," and then we might be on to something.

i'm not saying i could have been a rhodes scholar, because, clearly, that was never the path i was intended to take in life. but do you ever look at yourself, or look back at your past, and think, gee, i probably could have done a little more? it's sad to be 24 and already think that so much has been wasted. it's even sadder to continue this wasting.

i love new art supplies, so, despite owning a large freezer bag of mostly unused oil pastels, i went out and bought some more. these came in a beautiful wooden carrying case, and i just couldn't resist the purchase, as i am quite the fan of carrying cases, cute containers, new buckets, things with handles, etc. i went home, sat down, and proceeded to sketch out a picture of the girl on tlc's "what not to wear," as that is what i began flipped the tv to. and i thought, why? why am i drawing this obscure celebrity? why am i bothering? what does it all mean, anyways? and while i didn't think about the rhodes scholar thing until much later, this is when i began, once again, to think of what i was doing, versus what i could be doing, or maybe am doing in some parrallel universe, where the icicles grow up, the children grow down, and jackie is on the front page of the paper once again.

ah, well.

tim "the tool man" taylor gets a hollywood star. unbelievable. first pee wee herman, now this.

the other day, my co-worker will and i went to the county courthouse the other day to register for our notary public commissions. soon, i will be notarizing everything from divorce papers to salad dressing bottles. we slapped our forms on the counter. "this is a big day for us," i told the clerk. "we're here to become notaries."

"yeah, and we'd also like to get married," will chimed in.

"i'd like to change my name," i added, "and maybe dispute a traffic ticket, too."

the clerk smirked. "one thing at a time," she said. "now, for the notary stuff, you two need to sign here, date here, and give me your checks for five dollars."

we signed and dated. the funny thing about becoming a notary public is that there are no real requirements beside just paying the bill for it. here's how it works. you fill out an application stating that you are (a) not legally blind and (b) have a working knowledge of english. you send the huckleberry notary company eighty dollars and proceed to make a series of jokes involving tom sawyer and the word "dingleberry." then, for a few weeks, you wade through all the junk mail from every notary-related company in the continental states. they try to sell you fancy stamps, leather bound notary journals, and memberships into exclusive notary clubs where you can have discussions with other notaries about the humorous things you had to notarize. finally, the county sends you your notary card and a bill for five dollars. then you and your coworker finagle your way out of work and head down to the courthouse, where your coworker seems to know all the guards and a few of the judges.

"this doesn't look like 'jaclyn' to me," the clerk remarked suspiciously, eyeing my signature. "it looks more like 'gah.'"

"that's my signature," i said, narrowing my eyebrows. how dare she question a future notary?

the clerk handed me a reciept. i inspected it upon leaving the building; it was a list of different services and prices. the item she had checked off was "registering notary public commission, $5.00." the item below said,

"registering private detective, $1.00."

i could be a private dick for a buck? i pointed this out to my coworker, and we considered turning around and tossing the clerk our four quarters each. would she issue the trench coat and magnifying glass on the spot? or would we have to send away for our junior p.i. kits? we'd be notarizing detectives, roaming the land for clues which we would later stamp and sign.

becoming a detective would have to wait, though- it was time to get back to work. in the car, we flipped through our notary handbooks, full of dos and don'ts.

DON'T notarize any blank documents.

DON'T dispense legal advice to immigrants.

DO know that you cannot notarize blank documents.

DO understand that you cannot give legal advice to immigrants- or anyone else, really. you're just a notary, jerkbrain.

it's a big accomplishment, i know.

i happen to know that today is the two year anniversary of my friends dan and rachel. it's a little known fact that i am very good at remembering important dates of other people's lives. like scott bakula, i know all of his special anniversaries, special days, special minor milestones, etc. sometimes scott calls me to find out when he should buy his wife flowers, or when he should mail in his taxes. sometimes this talent of mine becomes a bit of a burden.

anyhow, two years. in another month, chris and i will reach our two year anniversary. in the span of about four weeks, dan and i both found our other halves, our standing dates, our fall-guys. it's strange; neither dan and i were ever that lucky in love, and, bam, the solutions to our problems show their faces in less time than one would have to allow for shipping from certain mail-order catalogs. i am still waiting for that power juicer.

of course, dan's solution (the lovely rachel) was staring him in the face for some time until things came together. i didn't see the face of my solution until the day that we count as our anniversary; it only took one date for me and the cheese to consider ourselves "going out," as the kids like to say. we met online and then, after a few emails and a couple months when the cheese had decided to pursue another cybergirl, we met face to face at a sushi restaurant. that first date took the cake, or maki roll, as far as first dates are concerned. the banter was witty, the laughter was plentiful, the kiss at the end was surprisingly pleasant. on our second date, he was already asking me to go to a wedding with him. not our wedding- he wouldn't ask that question until a year and a half later.

so strange. dan had pretty much sworn off dating before rachel, and me? well, there was a long period of my life in which i miserably reveled in a lonely future filled with cats, take-out food, and anonymous male escorts. granted, i do enjoy the take-out, but i have yet to become a cat owner or a frequenter of strange men who demand money for favors. by favors, i'm not sure if i mean sexual favors or simply smiling at my puns. then, after a while, i grew certain that i would eventually meet somebody, but, after a drawn-out series of dates, short-lived romances, and other lust-filled encounters, i was sure that this somebody would not quite fit the bill. i would not really love him, but merely use him for his connections with the lithuanian mafia. he would not really love me, but merely use me for my vast knowledge of ocular diseases and useless trivia involving the origins of font styles, pez dispensers, foreign cuss words, and french canadian limericks.

alas, the cheese never asks about ocular diseases or french canadian limericks. once, i think, we had a discussion about times new roman, but that was the end of that. and even when i fall asleep in bed first and then wake up because i sense him in the corner of the room, stealthily taking off his pants, and then when i start screaming because i don't recognize him and am instantly convinced that he's a psychopath who has broken into the apartment with the goals of raping and pillaging, even then, when i am short of breath and reaching for the nearest object i can use as a weapon, he still takes me in his arms and holds me tight and tells me he loves me. and even when i can't immediately understand him and nearly have a heart attack and start writhing around like i'm about to be murdered, even when i start babbling about lawyers and the cops and how-did-you-even-get-in-here,-you-crapface, even then, well, you get it.

anyhow, it's a nice little world we all live in.

i am appalled by 'urban outfitters.' clothes made to look vintage, made to look like you found that sweater for 45 cents down at the salvation army next to all the second-hand underwear, made to look like clothes that an economically strapped hipster might scrounge up, but, my friend, that sweater that looks like it's 45 cents actually costs about $80. on sale. what is wrong with everybody?

some of my programs at work are not functioning. i am essentially useless, more so than usual. you'd think somebody would just take pity and say, "why don't you take the day off and, also, you can take all of this mornings uneaten donuts home as well."

i find amnesia fascinating. and i love that, in movies and cartoons, it's the only disease you can cure by whomping somebody over the head with a globe or a flashlight or a conveniently, precariously placed cement anchor.

chris has a really nice butt. i have a really nice butt, too. it was like we were made for each other.

what a slow news day. my friend shane, who's spending a few months in england, says that the natives there put vinegar on french fries. i've never heard of such a thing, and i really hope that he's pulling my leg. you put cheese and ranch dressing and chives on french fries! you put vinegar on the floor, to get stains out. oh my.

i dyed my hair last night. i got dye all over my scalp, and now there are blue spots under my hair. it looks like strange, cancerous moles are growing along my hairline. this is not the image of myself i wish to project. hopefully a couple more shampoos will rid the spots. maybe i should use some vinegar?

i need to visit a foreign country. i need to taste and ultimately make fun of foreign food. i also need to exchange some currency. i've never had the pleasure of exchanging the almighty dollar for a bill containing prettier colors and pictures of royalty. alas, a girl can dream.

we watched "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" last night. sure took long enough, eh? what a great movie. makes you realize that the fights you have in a relationship aren't nearly as bad as the rest of the relationship is wonderful. plus, very clever usage of hair dye as a plot device.

i watched the movie "gummo" the night before. holy crap. that has to be one of the most disturbing films i've ever seen, even more disturbing than, say, "superstar" with molly shannon. maybe i didn't take away what i was supposed to take away from "gummo," but the whole experience left me grateful that i don't live in some hick town with a bunch of retarded assholes. not that every hick town is filled with retarded assholes, but, let me tell you, this movie did nothing for the stereotype. the real residents of xenia, ohio are surely up in arms over this movie.

i still have "scotland, pa" to watch in the next couple of days. i've never read "macbeth," so i wonder if i'll "get" this movie, all the clever references and jokes. in high school, we read "hamlet," "julius caesar," and "othello." then the folks at college made me read "hamlet" again. "hamlet," i can handle. it was when they made me read "the scarlet letter" again that i lost it. i fucking hate that book. who takes three pages to describe a tree?

i'm pounding away a story that i am happy with, a complete farce and parody and joke involving christopher-pike-like storylines. i realize that this is what i am good at- making fun of things. so why do i try so hard to be serious and deep and meaningful? what's the point of writing if it's not any fun? and i am having some fun- ain't that grand?

i will make it my life goal to mock every genre.

pancetta. if you had to guess what it was, what would that guess be?

see, i assumed it was a cheese, like some kind of pan-fried cheese, possible a pan-chedda. pan-cheddar. see how i came to that conclusion? actually, it is a kind of bacon. let me tell you how i feel about bacon and other 'breakfast meats' such as sausage. i hate them. i despise them. i feel that they compromise the integrity of the egg and cheese croissant, or the egg and cheese bagel. you have a good thing, why mess with it? why insert a greasy, fatty slab of miscellaneous pork products into it? damn it to hell.

now, i am not a vegetarian by any means. how i love a medium-rare steak, a big burger slathered in swiss cheese and mushrooms, a fried chicken leg, a faceful of cocktail shrimp. it's just something about the bacon and the sausage that makes me want to stick my head into the next available bucket and ralph until my very intestines come flying out.

salami's alright.

anyhow, i ordered a salad with pancetta. my lunch companions asked, "what's panetta?" and i blithely answered, "oh, a kind of pan friend cheddar." they did not question me. we all hate bacon, and then our salads are delivered, lousy with bacon. it was all we could do not to cry.

hey, but, you know, it wasn't that big a deal.

i found this old semisonic cd tucked away in my cd book. this is their first cd, and one of the songs on it is called "f.n.t." this stands for "fascinating new thing," and it raises the question, "why didn't they just call the song 'fascinating new thing?'" they never use the initials f.n.t. in the song, so, it's like, why bother acronyming the title? where they looking to start a new fad? "how's that boy you just met?" "great! he's my f.n.t." i'm sorry, i just don't see it catching on.

it's a horrible cd, with lyrics like, "temptation lives alone and she works all day." who's temptation? does she look good in a skirt? but, oh, how i love the bad cds. prince and shania twain and shakira. remember "frente?"

i do. what a year that was.

itchiest. sweater. ever.

wool. from freakin' old navy. who would have thought? i am in fabric hell. my whole upper body is red from all the scratching i've been doing. my neck is threatening to bleed if i scratch it one more time. i'm at work, where i normally don't keep spare shirts. and these next ten minutes are going to take an eternity to pass.

arghhhhhh!

it just makes sense!

i ordered a promotional video from the people at the see clearly method. apparently by devoting only five minutes a day to a series of eye exercises, i can reduce or eliminate my need for glasses or contacts. sound too good to be true? chances are there's a reason for that, although i suppose i'm in no position to bad-mouth these guys without giving it a fair chance. the thing is, i have awful vision. if i were to take out my contacts and somehow find my way into the middle of the street, i would not be able to discern a semi-truck barrelling down on me until after the bumper had knicked me. on days when i can't wear my contacts due to various eye infections (and i do seem to contract a lot of those, must be an allergy to oxygen), i get into the shower without my glasses (because who showers with glasses on?) and have so much trouble locating the soap and shampoo that i end up finally exiting the shower only after missing at least two meals and a handful of delivery men, some who come bearing pie.

anyhow, i watched this video and thought, what if it does work? i have no delusions that it would completely cure my vision, but what if it helps improve it? you know what that would mean? i'd be at the eye doctor every other week paying for eye exams and contacts of lessening strengths. the cost of all this would add up, not to mention the cost of the see clearly method. it doesn't seem economically feasible to have increasingly better vision. better to just have poor vision and pay for only one eye exam and one supply of contacts. am i right?

the visual aids that they include in the see clearly method do look enticing, though. what i wouldn't give to have a bunch of eye patches, eye charts, and a little see clearly helper monkey to get me through the tougher days. then again, i'd probably put the eye patch on the monkey as a gag, and then let him poop on the eye charts. then what would i be paying for? a half blind monkey and a bunch of shit-smeared charts? you really have to think these things through.

also, i could see myself getting cocky. "i'm on the see clearly method! i'm going to work without my contacts today!" then i'd stumble off to somebody else's car and try to open their locks with not a key but a breadstick. if i did make it to work, everyone would be wondering why i was wearing a sweatshirt with kittens on it, a pair of chris' pants, and mittens on my feet. "i had a hard time seeing," i might admit as i try to log onto my computer using a stray banjo. "but, don't worry. i have a helper monkey." cue the monkey, swaggering in with his eye patch and perhaps a bottle of rum.

"it just makes sense that it works," the optometrists in the video stressed a number of times as i watched. something was making sense, that was for sure. i slipped my contact away from my iris and stared at the television screen with only one blurry eye, my contact outfitted eye shut tightly. the world became a smear of color and abstract shape, and i nearly fell off the couch from lack of orientation. good times. i blinked my contact back into place, turned off the vcr, and decided that there were worse things than being nearly legally blind. like federal taxes and car trouble.

i get nervous when my dad looks at my car. even when he's just trying to diagnose a problem and not actually trying to fix it, i still get kind of anxious. my dad's the kind of guy that knows what he's doing when it comes to cars, but still somehow ends up with 'extra parts' left over after performing a repair or will take care of one problem and then inadvertently cause three much more serious problems. once, he changed my spark plugs and then we couldn't get the car to start for about two hours, making me late for a very important night of sitcoms and nachos with my cousin. another time, an oil change somehow resulted in a flat tire. later, refilling break fluid caused the power steering to act up and a bag of clothes to mysteriously disappear from my trunk. once, my dad just put his elbow on the arm rest and, boom, the cd player started skipping. he also cracked the case of my elvis costello cd, but i think that was mainly due to the weight of his arm on said arm rest, inside which was resting the elvis cd and also a pair of salad tongs.

yesterday we popped the hood because i have several things going wrong with the old cavvy. despite my anxieties over having my dad inspect my auto, i still let him do it. this is because i feel that his poorly executed knowledge is better than my complete lack of it. "so, what do you think?" i asked, biting my lip. "should i just buy a new car? start over fresh?"

"what you want to ask yourself," my dad said wisely, "is what will be the cheapest way for you to continue driving this year. will it be buying a new car... or getting a few things fixed?"

"like, what few things?"

he then rattled off a list of problems that he surmised from a quick once over, using words that i suspected were imaginary. i could see myself at the mechanic's, holding a hastily scrawled upon post-it note and asking, "yeah, is there anything you could about the 'riggamajigger?' what about the 'motorduck?'" i listened intently as he gave me a rough estimate of what i could expect to pay.

"parts might cost a total of about two hundred dollars. with labor?" my dad rubbed his chin, calculating with blinks and nose wrinkles. "well, with labor, it may cost you about four grand. but that's still more cost effective than buying a new car, right?"

"how do you figure?"

"i don't. in fact, i have no idea." he slammed the hood down and we stood there in the driveway. the air around us was silent except for the sounds of my frustrated sobs and occasional curse words. car problems upset me to a degree that is completely unreasonable; when something goes wrong with a transmission or radiator or steering alignment or even if i just spill a bag of cheetos in the back seat, i come to the conclusion that everything is pointless, that maybe there is no god, that i should just cut my legs off now because i certainly don't need them for driving my no-good-piece-of-crap poop mobile. i feel that somebody out there really hates me and is trying to make my life miserable for a reason unbeknownst to me, like maybe the bad karma i recieved from breaking the washing machine at my apartment complex, and then just slinking away like nothing had happened, like i'd never been there in the first place, like i didn't even own clothes that needed to be washed. damn. when car problems pop up, i'm ready to lay down and admit defeat.

"give me some good news," i pleaded to my father. "tell me that this will cost little to nothing to fix or that i'll go home and there will already be a financed new car waiting for me in the parking lot."

"i can certainly give you some good news," my dad assured me. "whatever you do, it will cost less than buying a private jet."

champagne all around.

chris works a lot of nights, so i spend a lot of evenings at home alone. this is good because i can watch as many 'sex and the city' episodes as i want to without being made fun of, but it's bad because, you know, chris isn't with me. sometimes i find myself talking aloud to myself when i'm alone, and this both scares and amuses me. "oh, jackie," i'll say as i flip through a magazine, "you have such lovely hands." then i'll thank myself and say, "please. you're much too much." i'll ask myself what i want to do next, i'll mutter quietly about a mustard stain on my socks ("how the hell did i get mustard there?") and while making dinner, i might pretend that i'm the star of my own cooking show, "microwaving for one."

last night, i did not want to microwave for one, so i thought i would order some food from the nearby family feedbag chain. i said to myself, i said, "you don't want to order just one meal, you'll look like you live alone with an apartment full of cats, like you're some batty old gal that talks to herself." so i had to peruse the online menu and order two meals. it started getting pricey when i considered to pretend like i was throwing a party for me, my husband, and our five children, so i did just stop at that one extra meal. i went to pick up my food and they made me sit at the bar to wait for my order to be completed. i made sure to check my watch frequently and huff with impatience as i fiddled with my engagement ring.

there was a lone guy at the bar, nursing a beer and watching a tv show involving men in ties discussing other men in ties. he was not afraid to sit there by himself. but me? i would have died. it's one thing to sit somewhere and have coffee alone, but dinner? drinks? i haven't yet matured to that level.

at home, i put one entree in the refrigerator and ate my other entree in front of my own tv. "no men in ties here," i remarked to myself. "just four women in new york badmouthing toxic bachelors."

what a depressing day, november 3. the presidential election results are in, and boy are they bad. i think i'm done with this country.

my 50,000 words are slowly coming along. i feel like the only thing i'm concerned about is the number of words and nothing else. there's no characterization, only flimsy attempts to tack on more words. instead of "corn," i write "buttery corn on the cob with plastic green corn holders from ikea." instead of having them live in a city with one word, like memphis, i'm having them live somewhere that sounds a little like "right in the heart of new york city, which is on the east coast, not the west coast, can i get an amen?" lord, someone should shoot me.

i have no direction. i never do have direction. even the things i want to do, i don't.

chris and i have been watching series 1 of "red dwarf." while not hysterical, it's amusing. maybe it's just the british accents that get me. i like comedies set in space. maybe instead of setting my story right in the heart of new york city.... i should set my story "on a space shuttle far far away near a planet even farther away, with a whole bunch of friendly aliens eating buttery corn on the cob with plastic green corn holders from an ikea in space." how many words is that?

the days are darkening earlier and earlier. i find myself getting tired by seven p.m. when it snows, i shall be suicidal. there is nothing about the approach of winter that i find attractive, not even the possibility of presents or egg nog.

i'm glad obama won. at least one good thing came out of yesterday.