3.31a

(3.27, I think) Just found this on an old profile page from Steam. I didn't know I was that clever.

Sarcasm: the way I tell the world that it looks good in that dress.

She backed up and spun a little. "Honey, be honest with me . . ."

Nothing preceded by that phrase has ever not been a trap.

". . . does this dress look good on me?"

"Sure!"

"Be positive."

"I'm positive. It's great and your friends will be jealous."

She feels fine because she believes me. I feel like crap because I'm afraid I screwed up.

3.30

Upon losing inspiration:

When it doesn't hit you the first time, it seems okay. It comes back after a few minutes. You'll remember everything in due time. Don't worry.

When it hits you the second time, it lingers. Maybe you can't even write that whole day.

When it hits you the third time, you get nervous. Maybe you've lost your spark. Maybe you've run out of things you care to write about.

When it doesn't hit the fourth time, you know why. You don't even edge up to the chasm to see whether or not it will appear; you just assume that it's gone for good.

What you don't know can't help you.

3.29c

He pinned the medal to my shoulder.

My mother was crying because her little boy was everything she wanted him to be. My father was crying because he was so proud of his son. My brother was smiling because he knew I was happy. My sergeant was crying because I had saved his life.

I was crying

because

I didn't feel different

and

I didn't want to live under the shadow of my past accomplishments

and

I didn't want people to think differently of me

and

I didn't want to remember the war

anymore.

3.29b

Curtis is watching me write this post. I wonder, if I write about it for long enough, will he become embarrassed and look away, or just watch because he's committed to it now? Oh, he's coming over to be all up in my grill. I guess that answers that question. I should write something intensely personal to try to make him blush (but I dotrnr'ytut think that Curtis has ever blushed except by heat) and now he's touching my keyboard, which sounds dirtier the more times you say it.

He left.

3.29a

Properly 3.23. I have two days to write 6 things. Concision.

"Feathers have always fascinated me. I don't like them when they're on birds, by all means no. I like feathers when I find them on the ground. I like feathers when they have been taken from a bird by force, cunning, or gravity. Finding a feather all by itself is a great pleasure because it means that some bird has failed to keep track of all of his fluff and is now running around with less of it. I think it helps alleviate my jealousy and helps me remember that no matter how far some people climb, they still make mistakes. Every time I see a man better off than myself, I remember his feathers fall." He spun an eagle pinion in his fingers, watching it circle lazily.

She nodded sagely, wrapping his wife's bathrobe tighter around her waist. She wasn't being paid to point out his irony.

3.24c

The dancing monkey was getting on his nerves. Sometimes, he wondered why he had to work with it. Then someone dropped a coin into the hat in front of him and he remembered.

The monkey was good for something.

3.24b

This is properly 3.21, but I'm very slow and nonapologetic, so I'll catch up sometime, except I'm leaving, so I won't even catch up, but whatever, you get the drift, I'll catch up sometime.

He concentrated on the ball whizzing past him. THOP it went and disappeared into the soft cow of the catcher's mitt. STEEEEEEEE(the umpire took too much pleasure in this)RIIIIIIKE. He touched the bat to the corner of the plate, took a deep breath, and waited. THOMP a bit different this time, disappearing into the glove and a yell of STEEEEEEEEEEEEEERIIIIIIIIIKE from the ump and all was again right with the world.

He didn't know what the score was. His coach had told him to strike out on purpose, to put the team in a better position for Big Dave to clean three more team mates off the bases and make his RBI 3 higher and his batting average .004% higher, to make his chances of getting into state .6% better, to make his chances of getting into MLB 5% better, to make his chances of getting busted for steroids 27% better, to make his chances of losing a wife, a child, a career, a lot of money and his life 3% better.

The ball floated toward him. He swung and got a home run, but nobody felt good about it.

Big Dave eventually went to work at the factory and died in his sleep after telling his fourth great-grandchild about how his bid for MLB was sunk by Bobby McKensie and his stupid home run.

He died the next year in a car accident. He hit a tree. No one else was injured.

3.24a

I keep marking these "a" and then never doing any "b"s. So here's an idea for a story I had.

People don't fall in love. Teenagers fall in love. Thus my statement: teenagers aren't people. You may disagree if you wish, but watch any seventy year-old man wooing his sixty seven year-old mistress and you'll see. What they call love is more like a campfire, slowly burning in the obscurity of the blackness around it, fueled by a single cowboy in worn leather and flannel, trying to ward off the coyotes. People don't fall in love. That's a dabbling, a mere pittance of the fire and the passion and wild abandon that a human can muster. That's not falling.

Falling in love is more like the fire that lightning started in the forest which now threatens to consume the village where a teenager sits, reveling in the heat, glad that the winter is gone and completely vacant to the idea that his home is burning to the ground. It's like jumping off of something high up, into water, and realizing that the fall is longer than expected and having a moment of panic as the water never seems to arrive. Falling is not knowing what the heck you're doing but doing it anyway.

And to God I wish I weren't a teenager, but I am. So here goes nothing.

My name is Percy, and I'm a loveaholic.

3.22

I'm getting sick. I got advice from people. Sleep, vitamin C, nyquil. Finally, someone gave me the best advice in the world: blend two cloves of garlic into hot water, add honey, and enjoy.

I'm excited because I love garlic. I go to the store and buy garlic. I bring it home and eagerly peel it out and begin chopping. I crush the garlic and spoon it into my hot water. The smell of garlic is invigorating. I lick my fingers and . . . oooh. Yummy.

I drink half of the water and reach the point where it has saturated through my skin. Every breath melts the things it touches. I'm nauseated.

I set the bottle down. Garlic seeps into the plastic.

I can't drink any more, or I'll throw up.

3.21a

[This isn't literary. It's an exploration of a phenomenon that Curtis is wholly confused by.]

So Curtis and I watched the Office last night. If you love the Office and don't love spoilers, then don't read unless you're also good at guessing. Because I won't outline the plot specifically, but it will still make you go "AH WHY DID HE TELL ME THAT?" So I guess what I'm saying is read at your own risk.

Erin and Andy have been caught in the spiraling whirlpoolofdeath that is a new-forming relationship. I'm pretty sure that Andy is about to be sucked all the way down in, never to return. So, when Erin did something nice, he said "Rit-dit-dit-dow," all soft-like. Curtis didn't get it at all, but seeing as how I identify with Andy perhaps a little more heavily than I should, I got it immediately. That's the sound he makes when he's happy. Remember when he made a sales call with Jim? "RIT-DIT-DIT-DOW anda give me the people gonna free my soul, wanna get lost in the rockandroll and drift away . . . DOOT un DOOT un DOOOO! Rit-undoo-doo-doo!" It's his happy sound.

And I don't think that Curtis will ever get it.

3.18

I tried to describe it. I wrote it seventeen different times in my head, but it never came out right. Adjectives are too tame. Adverbs don't encompass the scope. Verbs aren't explosive enough. Words don't have enough pop.

I erased it all and started over.

I suddenly realized I can't describe it. Words are my power and they have failed.

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

3.17

His cereal crunched in his mouth, sharp and crisp. It wasn't sogged down by the milk yet, but it was at that perfect mixture of moist and crunch. He bit his lip, so hard he could hear a crunch and he doubled over in pain and cried out. He dropped the bowl on his foot and stared at the just-right cereal layering his toes and the cold milk soaking into the carpet.

He could taste her perfume every time he breathed in. It tasted like one too many flowers in a bouquet. It fit: she looked like one strand too many on a Christmas tree. His hand slid into hers. He gasped at the ice of her fingers, and the perfume stuck to his tongue and the back of his throat. It tasted like a cup of extra sugar in a cake. He didn't care.

He yelled at the sky for an hour or so about all the problems in his life. God could hear him, of that he was sure. Of what he was not convinced: that God cared. He could feel his voice box vibrate with each guttural sob. Soon, his voice was so ragged that his wordless yells became more air than voice. He finally stopped when he couldn't continue, forced to early completion by his inability to make angry noise. Nothing had changed. He felt better.

3.16c

(3.15, and I'm not doing a "d" edition)

She looked at him from the corner of her eye. He was ranting, like always.

"Literature is ruined! I've formed my opinion, and I'm sticking to it. The two people who have done the most to destroy the state of literature today are ONE Walt Whitman and his vague attempt at poetry, and TWO James Joyce and the popularity of Ulysses. Everyone tries to emulate it and . . . dare I say that they improve upon the originals by failing?"

He was weird.

"She pulled through the stopsign like it was so much Yield sauce spread on a biscuit and then given to the dog--and I don't even know what that means. Really, lady? A rolling stop? Does the safety of yourself and your children mean nothing?"

He had an opinion about everything.

"No, really? You think we could live on mars within this lifetime? Consider that the sun is weaker there, there are few-to-no natural resources, and your precious terraforming could take centuries. The likelihood that humans could even set foot on mars within our lifetime is so low that it makes it a virtual impossibility that we could ever stay there!"

Some days, she wished that she could be like him. Mostly, though, she was sane.

Mostly.

3.16b

When he was five, he had been bitten by his neighbor's horse. On-the-fly, full-mouth, shirt-tearing bit by a horse. It scarred him. Cows? Fine. Alpacas? They smell, but whatever.

Horses?

No.

He finally decided to face his fears. He hopped the fence into his neighbor's yard and walked slowly to where he knew the horses would be. He stood near the edge of the enclosure so he could run if he had to. He raised his hands in an open gesture and waited. The three horses perked up as they noticed him. The younger horses approached and snuffled his fingers, looking for apples or candy or whatever he believed horses ate. They soon lost interest in food-less hands and started eating near him.

The third horse was the oldest. It was the horse that bit him. They stared at each other for too long. Why was he afraid of this horse anymore? It was old. He was tall. The horse was probably worried that he would come and take its food. So he just nodded at the horse. He turned around and walked away.

3.16a

She held it as the life soaked into her pants leg. Maybe if she kept it warm and still, it would survive. It was either calming down or getting weaker, because the kicks came less frequently. So she bit her lip and prayed. It blinked and shivered.

"It stopped moving," she announced to the empty room. She didn't want to hold it any more, so she put it in a shoe box, and carried the shoe box to the kitchen. She looked at the box for a long time, and then walked back to the living room.

She didn't cry.