Friday, January 2, 2009

Stuff Toy


I don't care
if you're a teddy bear
with one eye,
don't you dare
wink at me.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Year!


I hope I'll be as happy as I was in this picture forever.

New Year's Eve Like You're A 22 Year Old Expat All Over Again


I switch the channel to Animal Planet. Two sea lions kiss noisily. Fireworks whistle out the window behind them. Channel up: Meg Ryan makes out with less pretty guy. Internet pic of the minute: "I love my wife" tee on Portia de Rossi next to Ellen DeG grinning. The 10 Hottest Videos of Girls Kissing. Mom and dad treat Ninang Dolly and her baby's daddy to raisin bread, foie gras and cheeses. I'm not drunk. Aint there someone I could be getting drunk with? Cupcake on discrete webcam at work. I found my New Year's kiss. The screen can only kiss back in spirit. It will do. Dad finally opens the last present. "Mike sent me Sex and The City the movie. Want to watch it?"

Fruits Awaken


Bananas in pajamas: they're coming down the stairs.
Bananas in pajamas: they're gay.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Excerpts from a 25th Wedding Anniversary Speech


Isn't this fun?
...
Mom and dad, being on your twenty fifth anniversary you must have been married a very long time. At least twenty years. Precisely somewhere between twenty and thirty years. That's older than I am! Probably.
...
Amazing. A-mazing.
...
Mom and dad, your dedication to each other gives me the courage to let myself invest myself emotionally in women. Specific women. I'm confident that I will maintain successful relationships in all my future marriages.
...
Mom and dad, you are singular to me. I email you both at the same time and when I say mom and dad I don't address each of you individually, but the two of you as an entity.
...
Hello Ja ja!
...
I know you wanted to have two beautiful baby daughters, but I assure you if I were born a girl I'd have had a sex change by now.
...
Mom and dad, thank you for loving each other and loving me and Mike. It let us not worry about family stuff so we could develop freely into super kick ass awesome dudes like us.
...
Guys, I love you.

How Visiting Your Family Warps Your Brain

From: Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Dec. 29, 2008 -- Visiting -- or even just viewing photos of family members -- prompts brain activity that affects how you feel about them, your friends, and even yourself, a new study suggests.
The study is the first to compare brain activity associated with seeing relatives with that linked to seeing friends and strangers. It suggests our feelings about biological relatives are at least somewhat primal.
The findings may help explain everything from why our family can get on our nerves to why people who look like us can spark immediate feelings of trust, "but not lust," said Steven Platek, who co-authored the study with Shelly Kemp.
"We like to be around people that look more like us, but we do not find them as sexually attractive," added Platek, editor-in-chief of the journal Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience. "I think it is linked to our subconscious ability to detect facial resemblances so we avoid lusting after those that may be related to us."

Previously Written: A Violent Welcome


I have wonderful news, my takaw peoples. I was so impressed with a certain Jessika Aldridge's ability to create beautiful images with an effortless flow, and so touched by her work, which is packed full of emotion without becoming melodramatic, that I asked her if she would be interested in becoming a full time Crispy Pata author. It turns out she was just as excited with the thought as I was!


To celebrate, this week's edition of Previously Written features a collaberation between Jessika and I. About a year ago, we were reading a lot of Sean Thomas Dougherty. This poem is a cover of one of his that we worked on together.

Piano Violence

Can you break the keys
over her head in a rhythm?
To plink a tune like a monkey on a
coconut hanging in a window at
Barneys in New York City, with eyes
drooping like an elephants breasts
shortly after birth. Yes, I see sea foam
turn into diamonds off the coast of
Florida on a wintry morning, while shellfish
make love in the garbage.
Sailors poke their Linuses in the sails of the
ship and I wonder if they’ve ever eaten
crabs from the caves in France.
A dessert from the diner just outside of
San Antonio reminds me of bananas shucked from
beaten up pick up trucks by Canadians with
headbands. Frilly dresses of purple and yellow dance
while ukeleles play from a rooftop and
dogs lap at water dripping from a holey anaconda
consuming a fat woman.
You are a prisoner on death row, waiting for burnt
biscuits and sea fairing winds. Alcatraz mothers
you, and I try desperately to gather the sandpipers at
my feet. Your ship stinks off the coast of
Bombay; the cargo on board smells like tea bags and olives.
I give my last toothpick to an old man in a
mall, in Manila, and a little girl asks for a red fox in
sheeps underwear. I reply that foxes only live
in coral reefs and I have never ventured to Sydney.
I stroll to a bend in the road, and fight the
people who ate bread off a plate, plain and dry,
like a piece of sandpaper on my tongue.
I take the left side of the road, because that’s what side
the trees lean to, and I find a factory run by
the Holy Ghost and Mo Rocca. They specialize
in plastic chimneys and air fresheners that only work
next to mirrors in old buicks. I ask them for a flavor of
birch tree and rye, and they tell me that they haven’t
made that since you left for good. See, this is why I need the
phonecall. You were the only one that could keep
the house from rolling onto mice and men.
And when you pick up, you say to me
She is a little girl eating violins.

Outgrowing the band


Do re mi fa so la la la lalalalala

Monday, December 29, 2008

Man carrying over $70 chooses jail over $1.57 soda

Wonder how he felt when he sobered up?

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. – Eau Claire police said a man accused of stealing a soda worth $1.57 chose to go to jail rather than pay up, even though he was carrying more than $70. Police responding to the report of a theft recently say the 27-year-old man appeared drunk. An employee told officers the man had taken a cup from the counter, filled it and began drinking.
When employees told him he had to pay for the drink or leave, the man refused to do either.
A police officer told the man he could pay $1.57 or go to jail, and the man chose jail. The officer handcuffed and searched him, finding the money in his pocket.
The man was issued an ordinance citation for retail theft.

10 Things Women Do That Annoy Men

From iVillage.com

BTW: This is the most generic list I have ever read. Do men really feel like this?

10. Pretend To Be Virtuous <----What does that mean?
9. Criticize Other Women <---- Ok, I'll give you that one
8. Act Jealous
7. Become Needy <--- I want to know how someone "becomes" needy
6. Speak In Code with phrases like “What are you thinking”
5. Invade Our Personal Space & Groom Us
4. Become Too Emotional
3. Spend Too Much Time Shopping <---I'd say this is more rare than people think
2. Talk Non-Stop, Men Don’t Want All The Details
1. Use Sex As Weapon <----Does this mean, withholding?

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Antelope

She won’t understand these words Her ears are those of husks and caves with no
Echo
Her eyes are oysters hiding pearls of tears Her nerves are winged black birds
Echo
Her heart is the thump underneath my feet Her fingers twist my words into an
Echo
Her voice is the rising sun Hot with memories and feelings of him

And yet

I need for her to listen To the running antelope inside of me
Echo
I need for her to hug me To take what I say and drink it silently
Echo
I need for her to speak like I am someone A person who is not always going to
Echo

Her past.