Posts

More Gall

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Pop spent his 96th birthday in hospital room 4132, recovering from the removal of his gallbladder. His dinner tray came with a frosted cupcake he couldn’t eat. Why? Well, he’s lactose intolerant. That aside, in honor of his birthday, the doctors cancelled the liquid-only diet he’s been on since last Wednesday. Pop’s birthday was yesterday (Sunday). Today is Monday (duh) and I really hope he’ll get to go home. By the way, I learned a new word a few days ago: “sundowning.” According to one of the nurses, this happens when an elderly patient forgets where they are and hallucinates that they are anywhere else. As you might’ve guessed, it often occurs around sunset. Nobody really knows for sure, but it might have something to do with “circadian rhythms.” Supposedly, thanks to “sundowning,” all new hospital rooms are required to have a window. * Last night, in room 4132, Pop kept asking me for the time. Repeatedly, he wanted to know how much “this house cost to rent.” Again and again, he’d ...
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The Gall

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His helplessness makes me mad. Where they operated, where they removed his gallbladder, it hurts like nothing else, it hurts like it’s the end. All that morphine they gave him, and it still hurts. Just this morning he was bragging about all his childhood fighting, bragging about all those bones he broke. Tell him he’ll get through all this pain, too, and he’ll reply at you by wincing more pain. Ever the accountant, he’ll tell you his estate is in order. Tell him the market went up today and he’ll try a smile, but then his body jerks in more pain. He tells you he’s wiped out, he tells you he’s got no energy left—and then he tells you he’s got to get out of bed. Because he feels like vomiting and urinating and shitting all at once. But, thank God, none of that actually happens.  10 August 2005
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s tr EA m #5 5 (ABS Draft 1)

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The following notification is a production of Automated Break-Up Systems. Please visit our website for our Back-To-School Break-Up Notification Specials. Act now, for our Back-To-School Break-Up Specials are available for a limited time only. The following notification is a production of Automated Break-Up Systems. Please listen carefully as this notification may be tailor-made to suit either the breakup-er and slash or the break-up-ee. The following notification was sent via email, text message, standard phone communiqué on [INSERT DATE AND TIME HERE]. Please note: across all platforms: Standard rates apply. The following notification is intended for Mr. or Ms. or Mrs. [INSERT BREAK-UP-EE NAME HERE] only. Please hang up or delete this notification if you are not Mr. or Ms. or Mrs. [INSERT BREAK-UP-EE NAME HERE]. Dear Mr. or Ms. or Mrs. [INSERT BREAK-UP-EE NAME HERE], one Mr. or Ms. or Mrs. [INSERT BREAK-UP-ER NAME HERE] is breaking up with you. He or she is breaking up with you becaus...
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Foot!

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At first I thought it was the shoe, but now I think it’s the foot. My foot. My right foot. The bottom of my right foot. Because the shoe was new. One of a pair, of course. But then I bought yet another new pair and the same sensation occurred—that is, on the bottom of my right foot. No issue with the left. To be clear, I feel it—on the bottom of my right foot—whilst running. It feels like the sock has bunched up—right under the ball of my right foot. But often the feeling runs halfway down the middle of said foot. The feeling starts at the ball. “Ball,” isn’t that what you call it? Should it be plural? Balls? Balls of my foot? Balls of my toes? But only whilst running. That isn’t to say one ought to refer them as “balls” whilst running. Rather, I’m referring to the feeling, the sensation. Whilst running. Or walking quickly. Said sensation occurs exclusively whilst upon the treadmill— any treadmill—and only whilst said treadmill is in motion. O, how I wish the word “whilst” would c...
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ennui

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…and yet,  how self-deceitfully  easy  it is  to slip  back  into the dull,  monotonous,  thudding-along  of  life… 31 October 2005
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“The Shit”

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BOB Does it matter that a guy goes his whole life thinking he’s “the shit” when he’s not—and he’ll never have a clue that he’s not?  JOE Why should it matter?  BOB Cuz he’s a loser. He’s never gonna get anywhere staying on the track he’s always been on. JOE So long as he thinks he’s “the shit,” doesn’t matter. It’s been said before, many, many times, but it’s true: Life? Perception. ‘S all about perception.    BOB But if you’re fooling yourself—  JOE Doesn’t matter. People told Hemingway he was the greatest American writer—and he still blew his brains out. Obviously he didn’t think he was “the shit.” Even though he WAS, he didn’t believe he was. Well. Maybe.  BOB I’ve never read any Hemingway.  JOE Me neither. Not the point.   13 August 2002
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temerarious me

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See, I keep knocking things into the wastebasket betwixt the matching wood desk and dresser in my Aunt Redacted’s childhood bedroom. These knocked over things, they’re my things—the pens, the keys, the stapler, the bibelots and baubles that tend to clutter one’s desk. The wastebasket, too, that’s my wastebasket—a metal Chicago Bears wastebasket. Other than being cluttered, it’s kinda neat, this desk. It literally fits into the corner of the room. It would neatly fit into a 90 degree corner of any ordinary bedroom. Suffice it to say, this desk, my Aunt Redacted’s childhood desk, now my desk (for all intents and purposes), its surface is more triangular than rectangular. To be clear, it’s a small room, but still, in and of itself, fairly rectangular. Regardless, things keep falling through the space betwixt the desk and the matching wood dresser, falling into the wastebasket, or rather landing in the wastebasket, because I keep knocking them over into it. So what do I do? I move the ...
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s t r e aM # 5 4

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There is no way that I’m going to choose the path which will lead me toward prune juice. There are things I will tolerate, and there are things that are just things. They are thingy things. They exist to collect dust. They are not the things you want to bother about, they are just things to be things to sit on a shelf and collect dust. They are things to toss against the wall when things are not going well. They are things to toss. They are tossible tossables. You say that “tossable” and “tossible” aren’t legitimate words. I say, go fuck yourself, you KNOW what I mean when I use these “illegitimate” words. If something is tossible/tossable, then they are able to be tossed. That’s all. They are garbagible garbagables. Fuck you. You are not going to control my vocabulary. Not any more. There are things – thingy things – sitting on my shelves that are garbagible/garbagales tossable/tossibles. I know what I mean, and that is all that matters because nobody else is reading. FREEDOM (is lone...
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"The most urgent film of our time.”

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In a nutshell...

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“We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eye watered .” - Guildenstern from  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by  Tom Stoppard
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