E-mail: Brian7Morris "at" hotmail.com Archives March 2002 April 2002 May 2002 June 2002 July 2002 August 2002 September 2002 October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 current Blogs Mandapants farkleberries Uranium City Records The C.M. Sienko Foundation Storyteller Musings Solotarian Views Lynne Wiora Tek Poker News Blog Some Biscuits Evil Eye Emporium Niggling Doubts Pressure Release Sara as Mommy runswithscissors Defective Yeti Afternoon Delight trancejen The Terrarium Bird Nird Slipperily Tofu Hut Stereo Gum Links Fixed Gear Gallery Get Crafty This is Grand Featherproof Books Gapers Block Chicago Bird Watching	No one must know my terrible secret... House of Noh! Sunday, December 29, 2002 I don’t think that I’ll call my apartment an “apartment” anymore. I just don’t think that term describes it because it’s not so much of a place as it is a habitat. To tell the truth, sometimes, especially late at night, it feels like a spaceship hurtling through space, but calling it my “spaceship” would just be plain silly so from now on if I refer to my “living module” you should be aware that I’m speaking of, what is known in common parlance as, “my apartment.” I decided this yesterday. I had the whole day to myself and drank a bunch of espresso, wrote some short stories about pooping and peeing, took out my trash, painted an old cow skull that I had lying around, and at about 2 o’clock or so I became fascinated with my sink. (Click here to view) I used to be ashamed of my sink. Some people would call it “dirty,” and until yesterday I would have believed them. But since my deconstruction of sink reality yesterday I’ve realized that our society’s view on what makes a desirable sink is merely a construct designed to enforce increased consumption of cleaning products and, further, has been intentionally perpetrated by the shadow government currently in control of our country so that we will fill our time cleaning sinks and showers and have less time to do bong hits, think revolutionary thoughts, and unravel the shadow government’s twisted scheme. I’m no longer fooled. I have pulled the brillo pad from my eyes and have cast that phoney sink value hierarchy system from my mind, and so, for the first time yesterday I was able to see the natural beauty of my sink. Ok, so this is what is cool about sinks: They are artificial constructs that make living in these tiny little living module spaces possible - fresh water comes out the faucet, mixes with my life, and then goes down the drain just eight inches below the faucet. And it all happens in this little half-sphere porcelain indentation. I can stay in my apartment. . er, living module, for days and days, sloughing my dead skin cells down the strain with acrylic paints dissolved from between the bristles of my brushes and my urine (giggle). Staying in my living module for so many days isn’t natural, but I can do it comfortably, probably more comfortably than being outdoors with the wind and the cold. It’s like I’m a fish in an aquarium or a plant under a grow light with an automatic watering system. And really, there’s not too far of a leap from sinks to small tanks to keep our brains in. So anyway, the sink is this little half-sphere of life in my living module and it grows like life - all sorts of stuff collects around the rim, like paper plates, toothbrushes, razors, empty coffee cups, paint cups and brushes and the porcelain becomes stained with paints so that I can tell what color scheme I’ve been working in lately by the appearance of my sink. It’s like a lush and wonderful jungle that’s grown up around an oasis in the middle of the desert. And to think, I used to consider all this richness of life “dirty!” I’ve seen people who have “clean” sinks. Usually they just have like a scented milled soap conch shell in a pristine dish or something and that’s all. How barren their oasis is! I feel sorry for sinks like that. Brian 1:48 PM Thursday, December 26, 2002 I’m back from visiting my parents’ house for Christmas. My sister has a new lab and it’s only a puppy but is already sixty pounds. We have to hold onto its collar whenever my Grandma is walking around so it won’t knock her down. “They [my sister and her friends] teach that dog to hump!” My Grandma postulated to me. And I have to admit, once that dog gets its groove on it’s pretty funny and definitely worth a doggy snack or two. “Does it make you feel dirty, Grandma?” I asked her. “No! It makes me mad!” She shouted at our assembled family. “That damn dog jacking off on me!” “Grandma!” I said, shocked, “We prefer to leave that part unsaid!” “That’s what we used to call it.” Grandma told us. “Jacking off.” Not only did my family make new memories like the aforementioned one, but we also relived old memories from times long past. For instance, my two siblings and I compared the “sex talks” we had received from our father. My sister and I couldn’t remember much about our talks. I was given the first talk because I’m the oldest and at the time our Dad had a tough time getting his thoughts together and imparting to me whatever lesson he had intended. My sister is the youngest and my Dad had already given two sex talks by then, but he had to modify his talk for a girl and so it came out garbled under the pressure of the actual talk. But when it came time for my brother’s sex talk my Dad peaked. In that moment he was the greatest and wisest orator of all time and lectured to my brother a poignant, succinct, and completely elegant sex talk. It was obvious that he had been rehearsing it for quite some time, writing and rewriting until his sex talk was distilled to its essence. Setting: [Before dinner. My Dad invites my brother into the den because he has something to talk with him about. My brother hesitantly follows my Dad into the den. My brother sits down and my Dad, standing, delivers his sex talk.] Dad: “Dusty, sex can be a beautiful and wonderful thing, but it also can be FILTHY and DEGRADING. All right, I’m glad we had this talk. Dinner’s ready, let’s go eat.” We all agreed, it was the GREATEST SEX-TALK OF ALL TIME. Brian 11:45 PM Sunday, December 22, 2002 Okay, I admit it. I’m no good at Christmas shopping. I spent all weekend shopping, and I can’t say that anybody will be impressed with the results. I hope that everybody on my Christmas list likes crocheted Rastafarian hats and those biblical glass candle-things that grocery stores sell by the Mexican food because that’s what everybody’s getting. In the interest of fairness, I’ve tried to pair the most cool hats with the least cool candles and vice versa so that everybody on my list gets a combined gift with the same overall coolness factor. For instance, Saul on the Road to Damascus (coolest candle) has been paired with the red and brown hat (least cool hat), and David hugging a sheep (least cool candle – it’d be a different story if he was, like, punching the sheep or something) has been paired with the green and yellow and red hat (most cool hat). I just don’t want anybody to be jealous. For a while I was kind of toying with the idea of asking somebody to help me come up with some Christmas ideas. But it’s tough to make friends in this city. The people are really reclusive. For instance, there’s this apartment right across from mine in the next building. They keep covering their windows with cardboard. I don’t know if it’s because they’re just completely unfriendly or they don’t like sunlight or what the deal is. I think about it sometimes late at night when I’m practicing my num-chucks next to the window in my boxer shorts. I just stand there and num chuck and think about what a lonely city this is as I stare out at the tiny cracks of light shining through the cardboard pasted over their windows. I mean, I really get into my num chucking and move around a lot, and my boxer shorts don’t have a button or zipper on the fly or anything and, you know, accidents happen every once in a while. You’d think I would the be one who needed the privacy! But I would never do something so unneighborly as, like, shutting my shades or something. Geesh! Brian 10:57 PM Thursday, December 19, 2002 You probably don’t know this about me, but it’s time to come clean. There is something that I need you to know about me. It’s this: I have very sensitive hearing. The holidays are always difficult for people like me. And it’s not all the lights that people feel the need to string everywhere (although I do find the lights extremely tiresome). Or even the oppressive loneliness that always seems to accompany the season. No, the thing that makes the holidays so difficult for people with my special “gift” (some might say handicap) is that wherever I go there’s some sick, sadistic son of a bitch ringing a bell as loudly as they can. Do you remember when Batman turned into a bat for the first time and he got those bat powers like super hearing and all of a sudden he could hear a faucet dripping in the next room except that it was so loud in his bat ears that he freaked out and he was like, “Ahh! That fucking faucet is so fucking loud it’s fucking freaking me out!” Well, that’s what I’m like trying to make it past those Salvation Army kettle beggars out in front of grocery stores this time of year. Normally I just bear that cross silently - I mean, after years and years I’ve grown accustomed to it, more or less, and I’ve moved that particular hardship to one of the back pages in my own particular book of woe, buried behind all my other more pressing hardships like that guy who barks like a dog and wears a thermos strapped to his body with twine on the “L” and my current shortage of clean undergarments. The only reason that I bring up the whole bell-ringing thing is that just a few days ago outside a local grocery store I finally saw a Salvation Army bell ringer whom I actually wished to contribute to. I didn’t see her bell anywhere. Instead of ringing she was flailing about in the entrance way, cursing at the top of her lungs and spitting. The bell-ringer was quite a spectacle so I stood around and gawked for a bit, as I am wont to do. Through context clues, I gathered that somebody had just told the bell ringer to have a “Happy Holiday” but had said it with a nasty tone of voice. “Mother Fuckers!” The bell ringer shouted at all the shoppers. “Have a Happy Holiday? Fuck that shit you sons of bitches!!” She shouted. “I’ll show you some Happy Holidays! You don’t want a Happy Holiday from me!!” Then she spat on the ground and pointed at a guy trying to pull a cart out of the rack. “Happy Holidays!? I’ll fucking fill you so full of Yule-tide cheer that you’ll be pissing blood!” Then the bell ringer turned on an handsome but oblivious couple leaving the store with their bags of groceries. “I’ll knock your fucking teeth out!” Then she addressed the crowd. “You can put some money in my bucket, but you can’t say ‘Happy Holidays!’ you bitches. You can’t say ‘Happy Holidays’ to me! You fucking fuckers! Put some money in my bucket! Happy Holidays?! Shit!” The best part is that the bell ringer’s Salvation Army vest was all askew and she was standing right by the entrance and kicking and flailing her arms around so that people were having trouble getting in the store without being actually battered by her. There was no ignoring her. Shoppers had to wait for a while and analyze the situation until they saw a clear opening past her, and when they did people who you normally wouldn’t see running would run to get past the angry bell ringer and into the store without getting kicked or spit on. I really enjoyed the entire experience. If I hadn’t been afraid of getting punched, I would have put a quarter in her kettle. Brian 11:40 PM Monday, December 16, 2002 Sometimes I either overhear or participate in a conversation that just seems to blossom naturally. And when I think about it later I reflect that it was a sort of “perfect” conversation or interchange. They happen so automatically it’s like the conversation was already said at the beginning of time and was just hanging there in the ether all those years waiting to be spoken. I had a conversation like that a few days ago with a paralegal at work. Here’s the set-up: We were talking about cats. She told me that she has an automatic cat box. It hooks up to the water feed lines behind the toilet and is activated by the cat’s weight – so, after the cat steps out of the box water rushes through the special cat litter and flushes away the excrement. She said that it’s really handy except that it’s so loud during the night when it flushes that she always has to sleep with a fan on. “My cat uses the toilet!” I told her proudly. At first she didn’t believe me, but I impressed upon her how genuine my claim that Mr. Kitty uses the toilet was. “Is it hard to train a cat to use the toilet? She asked me. I assured her that it wasn’t. “The only inconvenient part about the whole process is that you pretty much have to dedicate a toilet to your cat for a few months.” I told her. “Wow, you’ve got two toilets in your apartment?” She asked. “No, I’ve just got the one toilet.” I told her. Then a perfectly uncomfortable moment of time passed as a look of concern spread across her face. “Please don’t tell me any more.” She told me. Brian 10:58 PM It doesn’t really bother me when “scientific” type people smirk at me and tell me that I’m wasting my time trying to levitate because it’s “physically impossible.” They think they’re so smart, but it just makes me laugh, and sometimes I laugh derisively. I mean, these science types generally all still think that Einstein invented shit way back when. How could be people be so naïve? They probably believe that the guys on the Bartles and James commercials actually owned the wine cooler company, Tony the Tiger is an Executive Officer at Kellogg’s, and Bathroom Duck has a MBA from Duke. I mean, really. Einstein? Sure, he’s cool, what with his crazy hair and penchant for playing his squeaky violin and his charmingly eccentric and absentminded harmless behavior. He’s like everybody’s favorite great-uncle. Even in the modern day, cartoonists draw heavily from his image when drawing scientists and the guy’s become synonymous with science. But the reason he’s still so popular is that he was DESIGNED to be popular. He’s just this guy who got the credit for new technology during WWII. When, in fact, those “inventions” were merely appropriated extraterrestrial technology, either captured, given to us, or my favorite explanation – traded for the United States government’s agreement to not interfere with a limited number of human abductions. Grey extraterrestrials. And as anybody who has been abducted by them can tell you, the greys are the evil ones (in contrast to the smaller, but more benign, brown extraterrestrials). It’s important to realize that the Grey’s technology is evil as well. Humans invent things like more efficient dryer lint traps and penile implants. Greys invent things like a bomb that will blow up an entire city and poison the land for years and years to come. But the government had to both explain the origin of this new technology as well as “sell” it to its people, and what better way then with gentle old lovable Einstein as their spokesperson. Einstein would never hurt a fly. He’d rather just stick his tongue out and act crazy and get his picture on whimsical t-shirts for science fans and shit. Surely the technology he gave us is harmless and good, in the long run? Right? I mean, come ON Science nerds!! I’m not going to listen to ANYBODY who believes that Einstein crap. And what’s with that E=MC squared bullshit? Yeah, I’m sure that Einstein did a lot of traveling at close to the speed of light. HELLO, extraterrestrial technology!!! It’s a bunch of bullshit anyway, if scientists keep fixating on that silly paradoxical “speed” formula they’ll never figure out space travel. No thank you, science nerds, I’ll just keep trying to levitate. Brian 12:22 AM Saturday, December 14, 2002 When I first heard that the U.S. troops were going to fight in Afghanistan I was concerned for them. Because hey, didn’t anybody watch Rambo III!? Rambo fights on the side of the Afghanistans. And, as we all should know by now, he’s an unstoppable killing force. It doesn’t matter how unevenly matched the two sides are, in terms of war technology or numbers, Rambo always wins. I mean, the dude can blow up a helicopter with a bow and arrow. But here we are, Bush moved on to Iraq months ago and still Rambo hasn’t made an appearance. I guess I understand Rambo not blowing up helicopters and shit, and frankly, I’m glad that he hasn’t. The reason I’m disappointed in Rambo is that through this entire conflict he didn’t speak up once. I mean, didn’t he learn to understand the Afghanistan people? Didn’t he come to respect this people living in the harsh terrain of the mountains of Afghanistan and constantly embattled by the Soviets, a force that outnumbered them many times over and whose war machine was so much more technologically advanced? Didn’t we all feel the same horror as we watched with Rambo as surprise Soviet helicopter strikes interjected death and terror into Afghanistan weddings and games of dead sheep polo? I’m disappointed in you, Rambo, either you were lying to us back then or you are lying to us now. Brian 12:12 PM Thursday, December 12, 2002 Sometimes people who are aware of my special dietary “needs” ask me if I’m still vegan and if I still think that cheese is a “fruit of bovine oppression.” The answer to both questions is Yes. And really, I feel the better for it. The only negative side effect of my veganism is rather unsettling. I’ve found myself lately producing two bowel movements in the morning. And I’m not talking, like, two loafs in one sitting or something. No, I’m talking two very separate and very distinct bowel movements. For instance, I’ll take a dump in the morning, and then fifteen minutes later I’ll have to take another dump and this second dump would emerge fully formed and regular sized. It’s uncanny. For a while I was in denial. I’d try to talk myself out of the second dump. I’d be like “Listen, dude (meaning myself), you just took a dump, there’s no way that you’ve got to grow another tail so soon! This desire to poop is just a phantom desire, a will o’ the wisp, insubstantial and passing!” But on those days that I refrained from my second dump I’d be at work sitting in my chair working away like at ten o’clock in the morning and I’d all of a sudden be like, “Holy Shit! I’ve got to take a major fucking crap!” And that wasn’t so bad, except for “everybody pee on the toilet seat” day, which, I’ve found, generally falls on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesdays and Thursdays are always pretty tough. But I’m not a very strict vegan, in case you’re wondering, so maybe I shouldn’t use the term to describe myself. For instance, I eat honey, which I realize is the result of the enslavement of bees. I just don’t think commercial honeybees have it that bad and besides, I don’t think bees should be rewarded for stinging people all the time. Also, I eat yeast. I realize that yeasts are animals, it’s just that I don’t really care about yeasts. I hate yeasts. If fact, if there was a yeast in my apartment right now I’d walk up to that yeast and punch it in its fucking face! Brian 10:38 PM

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House of Noh!

Sunday, December 29, 2002

I don’t think that I’ll call my apartment an “apartment” anymore. I just don’t think that term describes it because it’s not so much of a place as it is a habitat. To tell the truth, sometimes, especially late at night, it feels like a spaceship hurtling through space, but calling it my “spaceship” would just be plain silly so from now on if I refer to my “living module” you should be aware that I’m speaking of, what is known in common parlance as, “my apartment.” I decided this yesterday. I had the whole day to myself and drank a bunch of espresso, wrote some short stories about pooping and peeing, took out my trash, painted an old cow skull that I had lying around, and at about 2 o’clock or so I became fascinated with my sink. (Click here to view) I used to be ashamed of my sink. Some people would call it “dirty,” and until yesterday I would have believed them. But since my deconstruction of sink reality yesterday I’ve realized that our society’s view on what makes a desirable sink is merely a construct designed to enforce increased consumption of cleaning products and, further, has been intentionally perpetrated by the shadow government currently in control of our country so that we will fill our time cleaning sinks and showers and have less time to do bong hits, think revolutionary thoughts, and unravel the shadow government’s twisted scheme. I’m no longer fooled. I have pulled the brillo pad from my eyes and have cast that phoney sink value hierarchy system from my mind, and so, for the first time yesterday I was able to see the natural beauty of my sink. Ok, so this is what is cool about sinks: They are artificial constructs that make living in these tiny little living module spaces possible - fresh water comes out the faucet, mixes with my life, and then goes down the drain just eight inches below the faucet. And it all happens in this little half-sphere porcelain indentation. I can stay in my apartment. . er, living module, for days and days, sloughing my dead skin cells down the strain with acrylic paints dissolved from between the bristles of my brushes and my urine (giggle). Staying in my living module for so many days isn’t natural, but I can do it comfortably, probably more comfortably than being outdoors with the wind and the cold. It’s like I’m a fish in an aquarium or a plant under a grow light with an automatic watering system. And really, there’s not too far of a leap from sinks to small tanks to keep our brains in. So anyway, the sink is this little half-sphere of life in my living module and it grows like life - all sorts of stuff collects around the rim, like paper plates, toothbrushes, razors, empty coffee cups, paint cups and brushes and the porcelain becomes stained with paints so that I can tell what color scheme I’ve been working in lately by the appearance of my sink. It’s like a lush and wonderful jungle that’s grown up around an oasis in the middle of the desert. And to think, I used to consider all this richness of life “dirty!” I’ve seen people who have “clean” sinks. Usually they just have like a scented milled soap conch shell in a pristine dish or something and that’s all. How barren their oasis is! I feel sorry for sinks like that.

Brian 1:48 PM

Thursday, December 26, 2002

I’m back from visiting my parents’ house for Christmas. My sister has a new lab and it’s only a puppy but is already sixty pounds. We have to hold onto its collar whenever my Grandma is walking around so it won’t knock her down. “They [my sister and her friends] teach that dog to hump!” My Grandma postulated to me. And I have to admit, once that dog gets its groove on it’s pretty funny and definitely worth a doggy snack or two. “Does it make you feel dirty, Grandma?” I asked her. “No! It makes me mad!” She shouted at our assembled family. “That damn dog jacking off on me!” “Grandma!” I said, shocked, “We prefer to leave that part unsaid!” “That’s what we used to call it.” Grandma told us. “Jacking off.” Not only did my family make new memories like the aforementioned one, but we also relived old memories from times long past. For instance, my two siblings and I compared the “sex talks” we had received from our father. My sister and I couldn’t remember much about our talks. I was given the first talk because I’m the oldest and at the time our Dad had a tough time getting his thoughts together and imparting to me whatever lesson he had intended. My sister is the youngest and my Dad had already given two sex talks by then, but he had to modify his talk for a girl and so it came out garbled under the pressure of the actual talk. But when it came time for my brother’s sex talk my Dad peaked. In that moment he was the greatest and wisest orator of all time and lectured to my brother a poignant, succinct, and completely elegant sex talk. It was obvious that he had been rehearsing it for quite some time, writing and rewriting until his sex talk was distilled to its essence. Setting: [Before dinner. My Dad invites my brother into the den because he has something to talk with him about. My brother hesitantly follows my Dad into the den. My brother sits down and my Dad, standing, delivers his sex talk.] Dad: “Dusty, sex can be a beautiful and wonderful thing, but it also can be FILTHY and DEGRADING. All right, I’m glad we had this talk. Dinner’s ready, let’s go eat.” We all agreed, it was the GREATEST SEX-TALK OF ALL TIME.

Brian 11:45 PM

Sunday, December 22, 2002

Okay, I admit it. I’m no good at Christmas shopping. I spent all weekend shopping, and I can’t say that anybody will be impressed with the results. I hope that everybody on my Christmas list likes crocheted Rastafarian hats and those biblical glass candle-things that grocery stores sell by the Mexican food because that’s what everybody’s getting. In the interest of fairness, I’ve tried to pair the most cool hats with the least cool candles and vice versa so that everybody on my list gets a combined gift with the same overall coolness factor. For instance, Saul on the Road to Damascus (coolest candle) has been paired with the red and brown hat (least cool hat), and David hugging a sheep (least cool candle – it’d be a different story if he was, like, punching the sheep or something) has been paired with the green and yellow and red hat (most cool hat). I just don’t want anybody to be jealous. For a while I was kind of toying with the idea of asking somebody to help me come up with some Christmas ideas. But it’s tough to make friends in this city. The people are really reclusive. For instance, there’s this apartment right across from mine in the next building. They keep covering their windows with cardboard. I don’t know if it’s because they’re just completely unfriendly or they don’t like sunlight or what the deal is. I think about it sometimes late at night when I’m practicing my num-chucks next to the window in my boxer shorts. I just stand there and num chuck and think about what a lonely city this is as I stare out at the tiny cracks of light shining through the cardboard pasted over their windows. I mean, I really get into my num chucking and move around a lot, and my boxer shorts don’t have a button or zipper on the fly or anything and, you know, accidents happen every once in a while. You’d think I would the be one who needed the privacy! But I would never do something so unneighborly as, like, shutting my shades or something. Geesh!

Brian 10:57 PM

Thursday, December 19, 2002

You probably don’t know this about me, but it’s time to come clean. There is something that I need you to know about me. It’s this: I have very sensitive hearing. The holidays are always difficult for people like me. And it’s not all the lights that people feel the need to string everywhere (although I do find the lights extremely tiresome). Or even the oppressive loneliness that always seems to accompany the season. No, the thing that makes the holidays so difficult for people with my special “gift” (some might say handicap) is that wherever I go there’s some sick, sadistic son of a bitch ringing a bell as loudly as they can. Do you remember when Batman turned into a bat for the first time and he got those bat powers like super hearing and all of a sudden he could hear a faucet dripping in the next room except that it was so loud in his bat ears that he freaked out and he was like, “Ahh! That fucking faucet is so fucking loud it’s fucking freaking me out!” Well, that’s what I’m like trying to make it past those Salvation Army kettle beggars out in front of grocery stores this time of year. Normally I just bear that cross silently - I mean, after years and years I’ve grown accustomed to it, more or less, and I’ve moved that particular hardship to one of the back pages in my own particular book of woe, buried behind all my other more pressing hardships like that guy who barks like a dog and wears a thermos strapped to his body with twine on the “L” and my current shortage of clean undergarments. The only reason that I bring up the whole bell-ringing thing is that just a few days ago outside a local grocery store I finally saw a Salvation Army bell ringer whom I actually wished to contribute to. I didn’t see her bell anywhere. Instead of ringing she was flailing about in the entrance way, cursing at the top of her lungs and spitting. The bell-ringer was quite a spectacle so I stood around and gawked for a bit, as I am wont to do. Through context clues, I gathered that somebody had just told the bell ringer to have a “Happy Holiday” but had said it with a nasty tone of voice. “Mother Fuckers!” The bell ringer shouted at all the shoppers. “Have a Happy Holiday? Fuck that shit you sons of bitches!!” She shouted. “I’ll show you some Happy Holidays! You don’t want a Happy Holiday from me!!” Then she spat on the ground and pointed at a guy trying to pull a cart out of the rack. “Happy Holidays!? I’ll fucking fill you so full of Yule-tide cheer that you’ll be pissing blood!” Then the bell ringer turned on an handsome but oblivious couple leaving the store with their bags of groceries. “I’ll knock your fucking teeth out!” Then she addressed the crowd. “You can put some money in my bucket, but you can’t say ‘Happy Holidays!’ you bitches. You can’t say ‘Happy Holidays’ to me! You fucking fuckers! Put some money in my bucket! Happy Holidays?! Shit!” The best part is that the bell ringer’s Salvation Army vest was all askew and she was standing right by the entrance and kicking and flailing her arms around so that people were having trouble getting in the store without being actually battered by her. There was no ignoring her. Shoppers had to wait for a while and analyze the situation until they saw a clear opening past her, and when they did people who you normally wouldn’t see running would run to get past the angry bell ringer and into the store without getting kicked or spit on. I really enjoyed the entire experience. If I hadn’t been afraid of getting punched, I would have put a quarter in her kettle.

Brian 11:40 PM

Monday, December 16, 2002

Sometimes I either overhear or participate in a conversation that just seems to blossom naturally. And when I think about it later I reflect that it was a sort of “perfect” conversation or interchange. They happen so automatically it’s like the conversation was already said at the beginning of time and was just hanging there in the ether all those years waiting to be spoken. I had a conversation like that a few days ago with a paralegal at work. Here’s the set-up: We were talking about cats. She told me that she has an automatic cat box. It hooks up to the water feed lines behind the toilet and is activated by the cat’s weight – so, after the cat steps out of the box water rushes through the special cat litter and flushes away the excrement. She said that it’s really handy except that it’s so loud during the night when it flushes that she always has to sleep with a fan on. “My cat uses the toilet!” I told her proudly. At first she didn’t believe me, but I impressed upon her how genuine my claim that Mr. Kitty uses the toilet was. “Is it hard to train a cat to use the toilet? She asked me. I assured her that it wasn’t. “The only inconvenient part about the whole process is that you pretty much have to dedicate a toilet to your cat for a few months.” I told her. “Wow, you’ve got two toilets in your apartment?” She asked. “No, I’ve just got the one toilet.” I told her. Then a perfectly uncomfortable moment of time passed as a look of concern spread across her face. “Please don’t tell me any more.” She told me.

Brian 10:58 PM

It doesn’t really bother me when “scientific” type people smirk at me and tell me that I’m wasting my time trying to levitate because it’s “physically impossible.” They think they’re so smart, but it just makes me laugh, and sometimes I laugh derisively. I mean, these science types generally all still think that Einstein invented shit way back when. How could be people be so naïve? They probably believe that the guys on the Bartles and James commercials actually owned the wine cooler company, Tony the Tiger is an Executive Officer at Kellogg’s, and Bathroom Duck has a MBA from Duke. I mean, really. Einstein? Sure, he’s cool, what with his crazy hair and penchant for playing his squeaky violin and his charmingly eccentric and absentminded harmless behavior. He’s like everybody’s favorite great-uncle. Even in the modern day, cartoonists draw heavily from his image when drawing scientists and the guy’s become synonymous with science. But the reason he’s still so popular is that he was DESIGNED to be popular. He’s just this guy who got the credit for new technology during WWII. When, in fact, those “inventions” were merely appropriated extraterrestrial technology, either captured, given to us, or my favorite explanation – traded for the United States government’s agreement to not interfere with a limited number of human abductions. Grey extraterrestrials. And as anybody who has been abducted by them can tell you, the greys are the evil ones (in contrast to the smaller, but more benign, brown extraterrestrials). It’s important to realize that the Grey’s technology is evil as well. Humans invent things like more efficient dryer lint traps and penile implants. Greys invent things like a bomb that will blow up an entire city and poison the land for years and years to come. But the government had to both explain the origin of this new technology as well as “sell” it to its people, and what better way then with gentle old lovable Einstein as their spokesperson. Einstein would never hurt a fly. He’d rather just stick his tongue out and act crazy and get his picture on whimsical t-shirts for science fans and shit. Surely the technology he gave us is harmless and good, in the long run? Right? I mean, come ON Science nerds!! I’m not going to listen to ANYBODY who believes that Einstein crap. And what’s with that E=MC squared bullshit? Yeah, I’m sure that Einstein did a lot of traveling at close to the speed of light. HELLO, extraterrestrial technology!!! It’s a bunch of bullshit anyway, if scientists keep fixating on that silly paradoxical “speed” formula they’ll never figure out space travel. No thank you, science nerds, I’ll just keep trying to levitate.

Brian 12:22 AM

Saturday, December 14, 2002

When I first heard that the U.S. troops were going to fight in Afghanistan I was concerned for them. Because hey, didn’t anybody watch Rambo III!? Rambo fights on the side of the Afghanistans. And, as we all should know by now, he’s an unstoppable killing force. It doesn’t matter how unevenly matched the two sides are, in terms of war technology or numbers, Rambo always wins. I mean, the dude can blow up a helicopter with a bow and arrow. But here we are, Bush moved on to Iraq months ago and still Rambo hasn’t made an appearance. I guess I understand Rambo not blowing up helicopters and shit, and frankly, I’m glad that he hasn’t. The reason I’m disappointed in Rambo is that through this entire conflict he didn’t speak up once. I mean, didn’t he learn to understand the Afghanistan people? Didn’t he come to respect this people living in the harsh terrain of the mountains of Afghanistan and constantly embattled by the Soviets, a force that outnumbered them many times over and whose war machine was so much more technologically advanced? Didn’t we all feel the same horror as we watched with Rambo as surprise Soviet helicopter strikes interjected death and terror into Afghanistan weddings and games of dead sheep polo? I’m disappointed in you, Rambo, either you were lying to us back then or you are lying to us now.

Brian 12:12 PM

Thursday, December 12, 2002

Sometimes people who are aware of my special dietary “needs” ask me if I’m still vegan and if I still think that cheese is a “fruit of bovine oppression.” The answer to both questions is Yes. And really, I feel the better for it. The only negative side effect of my veganism is rather unsettling. I’ve found myself lately producing two bowel movements in the morning. And I’m not talking, like, two loafs in one sitting or something. No, I’m talking two very separate and very distinct bowel movements. For instance, I’ll take a dump in the morning, and then fifteen minutes later I’ll have to take another dump and this second dump would emerge fully formed and regular sized. It’s uncanny. For a while I was in denial. I’d try to talk myself out of the second dump. I’d be like “Listen, dude (meaning myself), you just took a dump, there’s no way that you’ve got to grow another tail so soon! This desire to poop is just a phantom desire, a will o’ the wisp, insubstantial and passing!” But on those days that I refrained from my second dump I’d be at work sitting in my chair working away like at ten o’clock in the morning and I’d all of a sudden be like, “Holy Shit! I’ve got to take a major fucking crap!” And that wasn’t so bad, except for “everybody pee on the toilet seat” day, which, I’ve found, generally falls on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesdays and Thursdays are always pretty tough. But I’m not a very strict vegan, in case you’re wondering, so maybe I shouldn’t use the term to describe myself. For instance, I eat honey, which I realize is the result of the enslavement of bees. I just don’t think commercial honeybees have it that bad and besides, I don’t think bees should be rewarded for stinging people all the time. Also, I eat yeast. I realize that yeasts are animals, it’s just that I don’t really care about yeasts. I hate yeasts. If fact, if there was a yeast in my apartment right now I’d walk up to that yeast and punch it in its fucking face!

Brian 10:38 PM

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