And now a message that came to me via telegram...

Boy or girl, I don't care, I'm naming my first born

"Patsy Cline."

...methinks the second born shall be called "Carol Channing."

I've found my calling...it paged me on my beeper.

Dear World,

I've just discovered that my destiny dream job is writing captions for the dating reality show "Blind Date." Please send any show connections/networking opportunities/time portals to the 1990s my way.

Love,
Me

My Mother, the Buzz Kill

(starring a young Katherine Heigl)

Sometimes when I find something funny or I'm very happy about something (read: there's a big smile on my face) and I tell it to my mom, she interrupts me mid-topic-sentence and says, "wear your retainers!" and shakes her finger at me. She really does shake her finger; I'm not making that part up.

Suddenly, I'm not so tickled to tell my story anymore.

BEFORE

AFTER

The biggest downer is that I know she's right. Those retainers kill me.

So, what have we learned from this?

Mother knows best.

It takes pains to be comely.

Two clichés in one post. And they say I'm not productive.

Golden Memories and Platinum Prophecies

As a member of the lower school community service club, I spent my Friday lunch periods in seventh and eighth grade socializing with the residents of Mount Pleasant, a nursing home located five minutes from my school.

Despite the frequency of my visits, breaking the ice was always nerve-racking for me. Conversation was a gamble. I never knew whether the people at my table would even want to talk, and during conversations I feared I’d stumble into an awkward or painful subject.

During one memorable visit, I greeted the woman to my left by asking her whether she was enjoying the nice spring weather we'd been having.

Without lifting her eyes from the untouched fish in front of her, she sighed and said,

“I’m just waiting for the day they tell me I can leave this place.”

Still optimistic, I tried to rebound by asking her what her favorite season was.

This question prompted the woman to look up from her plate and stare at me, perhaps to verify that she was not speaking to a four-year-old. The look she gave me indicated that now she was waiting for someone to tell her that at least I would leave soon.

Slightly discouraged, I turned to the man on my right and asked him whether he was enjoying his lunch. The topic seemed safe enough, considering he was licking some stray breadcrumbs stuck to the back of his fork.

“I remember you,” he said with a smile.

“You’re Jewish. We talked a couple of weeks ago.”

This was the first time someone at Mount Pleasant remembered me, or at least thought they did, and I didn't want to contradict him.

After all, I was an eighth grader whose social life was experienced vicariously through the characters of TGIF sitcoms. The idea of getting to be someone else, even if only through the eyes of a bald octogenarian, had its appeal. So I murmured an "uh huh," and made sure that my gold cross necklace was tucked underneath my shirt.

When asked, I told him honestly that no, I had not had my bat mitzvah yet. I felt guilty that he was making such an effort to remember things about the girl he thought I was, so I shifted the focus of the conversation onto him.

Soon, he was telling me about how different life was when he was growing up. Some of his friends had faced a lot of discrimination.

"One man was a Jew, such as yourself.”

He leaned in as he said this and gestured toward me with his open palm.

"Yes, jewish..." I dopily replied, bobbing my head.

However, he went on to tell me, his true passion was dancing. Deep wrinkles formed in his cheeks as he asked me whether I knew who Ann Miller was. Not wanting to disappoint him, I told him that her name sounded familiar.

“I danced with her,” he told me proudly.

Once I had learned a little more about Ann Miller, I was able to appreciate the significance of that man's treasured memory.
Dancing was what he loved most, and he was able to do it with one of the best dancers of his time.

My own life isn't devoid of celebrity encounters: I've shaken hands with Jimmy Carter. My friend's aunt was a bond girl. Heck, once I hung out with two kids from ZOOM.

I've flaunted all of these encounters before, but I aspire to have my own "Ann Miller" experience, something I'll still be bragging about sixty years from now.

I can picture myself as an eighty-two year-old somewhere like "Space Mount Pleasant," talking to a nice catholic boy who visits me weekly. I'll admire his yamaka as I ask him if he's ever heard of William Hung. He'll lie and tell me that he thinks the name rings a bell, and I'll boast that we once sang a karaoke duet together.

Then, drifting away from reality, I'll smugly reflect on my proudest memories. Lost in my thoughts, I'll lift my glass of prune juice and say with sincerest gratitude,

"L'Chaim."

The Tracks of My Years

One of my family's favorite home videos is of me when I was about three years old. The video starts out just like many others with my father, the interviewer, asking me what I had done that day. I wobble in front of the camera, scratching the underside of my chin with the back of my hand as I contemplate his question.

"Iiiyuhh…"

I look up to the ceiling, find my answer, and gaze back into the camera.

"…peed in my underpants."

My blank stare tells him I'm ready for the next question. My father delves deeper into the topic, posing his second question, and I nail the answer: peeing in my underpants was "a bad thing."

I then open up about the rest of my day, revealing that subsequent events included wanting to play "Candy Land," playing ball, napping, "having another accident," and finally participating in the interview at hand.

In case you missed it, I'll recap: by three o'clock in the afternoon, I had already peed in my pants twice.

To me it had been just another day in my (supposedly) potty-trained life. To my parents, however, it was cause for concern, or at least further investigation.

First we went to the pediatrician, whose only suggestion that I can remember was that I try going to the bathroom backwards. This helped start a day-long trend among my fellow preschoolers who, thanks to our door-less bathrooms, were inspired by my backwards squat and decided to adopt my experimental peeing pose.

Although I may have gained cool points for my bathroom creativity, I gained nothing in terms of bladder control, and the next step was to have my kidneys tested.

The kidney scan was my first hospital experience since birth. I lay down while a machine with a ninja turtle sticker on it moved above my body, and then I peed when instructed to do so. Afterwards, I got pizza. The result of the scan showed that nothing was wrong with my kidneys, I just didn't like using the bathroom.

What finally got me off accidents and onto the toilet was the looming threat that if I didn’t improve, I’d have to wear diapers.

My parents had told me about these "cool underpants" I could wear while I slept so that I wouldn’t make a mess if I accidentally wet the bed. Excited, I had imagined an undergarment made out of bathing-cap material. Instead, I woke up and found that I was wearing a pair of Huggies “Pull-Ups” training pants. Talk about a horrifying wake-up call.

I’m still just as candid today about my past of peeing in my pants as I was in that home video. My friends tell me that I should consider being less open about that part of my childhood, but I don't see their reasoning.

“What?” I say, “It’s not like I had to wear diapers.”

Fun with Family: A Touchy Topic

Happy December, Blog!

Oh gosh. I feel like I have some ‘splaining to do because I’ve been away for a bit of a while. But, as someone once said, “excuses are like [mom won't let me type this part]: everyone’s got one and they all stink.”

So ta-dah. No excuses here. I lazy. I so lazy, verbs not typed. (“typed” is  a passive past participle. Did I have to specify that I meant action verbs? Damn you, grammar nerdzis….)

So, let’s catch-up. A lot has happened since last post. Several days, one holiday (two if you count Eid), and at least two family gatherings. Most notably, I’ve become a game inventor.

The idea came to me on Thanksgiving day, post meal. My family and I were all crowded into our family room, which was awkward, because normal post-feast protocol is that the grown-ups (my parents, my great uncle and his girlfriend, my dad’s cousin and his wife) go into the living room and do whatever it is middle aged people do (drink? sleep? break dance?) and we kids (my three siblings and three second-cousins) hang out in the family room, where we watch silly television and laugh at how Caroline and Brian fall asleep after two minutes. (Whew, run-on sentence. How do you like me now, nerds?)

Back to this year. Something in my dad’s brain must have short-circuited because he led the adults into the family room to (literally) rub elbows with we childrenfolk. Both my brother and I subtly and politely tried to alert him of his faux pas, Excuse me, old man, are you lost? but he brushed off our hints, mumbling something about letting old people lie.

Regardless of their additional company, Caroline and Brian quickly fell into their ritual stupors. With football as the only source of TV “entertainment,” I soon shifted my focus from the television to the most interesting spectacle in the room: my sleeping sister. What a monumental shift that turned out to be. One glance at Caroline, and I found myself eyes-to-nostrils with an opportunity to unleash my creative genius.

I’m no artist.  I want to show you what I saw, but my passion and desire to share my gift with the world are the only things (note lack of artistic training) that guided my hand as I attempted to recreate the blank canvas that lay before me.

Don't be scared. It's just a drawing. 

I called my vision "CGGenga" (pronounced C-G-Jenga) as an homage to both my subject and the classic family game "Jenga."

My siblings and I started the first round, taking turns touching Caroline's nostril. If someone woke her up, all players would exclaim "Jenga!" and the offending toucher would be declared the loser of that round.

         

After the popularity of the preliminary rounds, cousins Olivia and Matt soon joined in on the fun, and my Great Uncle's 80-something-year-old girlfriend, Elaine, thought the game was a laugh riot. (Ah, Elaine. I knew I liked her.)

Unfortunately, Caroline didn't "get" the brilliance we had created, and deemed the game "disrespectful." Because of her pivotal role in the game, her disapproval has put any future rounds on hold. I've offered her a 20% cut of the profits, but she remains obstinate.

I'll get her one day, though.

Right now she is a sturdy tower, but I have the patience and strategy to win her over. I am Joshua, and she is my Jericho. Brick by brick, I shall work on her resistance, dreaming of the day when her walls shall come tumbling down, and my army and I shall exclaim triumphantly, "Jenga!"

It's the Most Wonderful Time for Some Tears

Oh my eggnog, how I love this photo.

I don't know if it's Griffin's look of stupefied shock as I bitterly clutch his hand and give Lydia one heck of a side-eye, or Caroline's perversely pleased expression as she watches her baby sister (seemingly) eat her own hand in horror. I can't pick.

Aahh, (sigh or scream? Your guess is as good as mine.) the holidays.

This reminds me, I hope I don't cry (like I did last year) when we attempt to take the family photo. It really throws off my 'smile for the camera.'

(Can't say my dad's "Margaret, stop looking so dopey" helped much either.)

Mo Mo Mo, How do you like it?

"Fun" Fact: The title of this post is what I wrote on the shirt I designed and wore to Mo's basketball game freshman year, aka the only Penn sporting event I attended during my entire college experience.

        Late Mid-Movember means one thing: it's pluggin' time, y'alls.

Mo, one of my dearest friends and fellow pennguists, has jumped onto the blogwagon. [Insert lame(ish) interjection like 'huzzah!' here]

Her posts will be a delightful combination of her two collegiate concentrations, Linguistics and Anthropology, not to mention her slammin' personality.

mo'phology = mo' fun

So check it/her out if ya' nasty.

The Foot, The Mouth, and The Apex

I have this habit, when my mind revisits past embarrassing moments, to uncontrollably mutter one or two words out loud to myself. Today I stood in the shower, trying to wash away who knows what, when out popped “crazy.” And with that, I was one word closer to becoming all the more so.

I think these involuntary verbal sputters are my mind's makeshift attempt to distance my present self from the unreasonable statements and butt-clench moments of my past. Some part of me figures that if time won’t do the trick fast enough, at least I’ll benefit from being [x] many more words away from a choice sentence’o’shame.

Of course, my logical side says sarcastically. Because talking is clearly the solution for your problem. You should really do more talking. 

Yet my optimistically verbose subconscious—a side of me that would probably describe Tourette’s syndrome as “cathartic”— somehow continues to prevail. At twenty-two years of age I’m rattling off interjections more than ever, as if my new words will one day bury all my regrettable past utterances.

So I let myself sputter, because if a word falls from my mouth but no one else is around to hear it, can it really do any damage?

As for the damage that’s already been done, I've noticed that most of my clench-inducing memories must wax humiliating until they reach an apex. After this apex, which is determined by some incalculable ratio of time elapsed to personal abandon, comes the point at which I can begin to forget the memory, or at least start to laugh.

But for certain memories, the apex feels like it’s located somewhere between Jupiter and Uranus. On rough days, muttering a thousand shower-time ‘crazy’s won’t render even a millimeter of space between me and the memory from which I flee.

In such cases, the best I can do is pretend that I don't mind the big toe that's gently pressing on my gag reflex, and hope that the embarrassments that hold my mind captive (or is it the other way around?) aren’t quite as memorable to any of the other people who witnessed them.

Mirror, Mirror on the screen

I worry I am just one bad face-day away from this moment:

High School TicTactics

When I was a senior in high school, the end of first semester was a time of high anxiety. Early application decisions were rolling in, and people like me ('the deferr-ed') were facing the final exam period of our high school careers that still potentially mattered for college.

I sought fun anywhere I could find it, provided it didn't distract my already attention-challenged mind. My solution? Little pellets of sugar.

Armed with my dad's label maker and bulk packs of tictacs, I made little boxes of "medicine" for each subject I had to study (as well as one for break time, for the sake of using all six flavors.)

I coordinated colors and subjects based on my flavor preferences and studying priority; my weakest subjects were paired with my favorite flavors, and "break" was given my least favorite flavor. However, I will admit that the flavors for U.S. History and Irish Literature weren't exactly in accordance with this system, and based on patriotism more than anything else.

Silly? Sure. Tacky? Maybe so. A waste of time? Possibly.
But for all I can tell, it worked.

Two Cents & Three Words

An assignment from a college writing class: create and define three words. Please feel free (encouraged) to submit any of your own.

Tempmature (tεmp mə tʃər) adj. At the point in one's life where one has completed one's education but has yet to attain or pursue their dream profession, e.g. working for a temp agency.

“Although Ryan’s rented apartment was sparsely decorated and several miles outside of Boston, his ideal location, it didn’t cost much and thus suited his tempmature lifestyle.”

Impalsiveness (ɪmˈ pæl sɪv nεs) n. A rash tendency to cling to one's comrades, often in an intense and possessive manner and regardless of whether one has only known the target friend for a short period of time.

“Two weeks into their friendship, Jennifer impalsively grabbed Linda’s elbow and said with a puppyish half-frown, ‘You’re like, my best friend.’”

Pennsimistic (pεn səˈ mɪs tɪk) adj. A Penn student's view of the collegiate and academic world, marked by a wariness of competition from and inferiority to other Ivy Leaguers. A perspective characterized by a continuous resentment of being "second (or seventh) best."

“Alan didn’t want to get his hopes up about the scholarship. Despite his 4.0 GPA, he remained pennsimistic. He was up against eight other students, half of whom went to Princeton.”

You ain't never caught a rabbit, but you are a friend of mine.

Left: My muse. Right: Claude Monet by John Singer Sargent

Ho ho...my. 'Tis the first post of November. Why? Well, because it's time to put something-- anything--down here, and I'm tired of a cats video being top dog on this site. I hate looking at my archives and seeing months during which I only eked out a measly 3 or 4 entries (yeah, I'm calling you out, June and September.)

So here I type without much of a plan, just a vague two-thirds-hearted desire to write, to verify that my head is full of thoughts instead of gas, to see what my fingers can pull from my messy mind.

I've been wondering lately how many words I say each day, or at least how much less (much less? Does that work?) speaking I do now than I did this time last year. My daytime involves minimal verbal interaction with others, as my sister is at school and my parents are busy working. I'll run errands and attend the occasional yoga class, but even then my talking just covers manners and conversational necessities. You know, "please, thank you, excuse me, debit, it's just a rash, hope you have a good day," the basics.

My most consistent companion is Bailey, hands/paws down. He’s my little shadow, following me wherever I go, always trying to sneak his head underneath my hand.

I’ve never been one for pet (ha!) names, but lately I’ve been calling him “Baby.” It’s hard not to treat Bailey like a person sometimes. He has such a wide range of emotions, spanning from happy, to yearning, to begging, to sleepy. I have moments when I look at him and feel like I’m gazing into a mirror.

I love how, when he gets really excited, his tail wags so hard that his whole body shakes as he walks. Like the one time he crossed the forbidden line between the top of our staircase and the second floor, he was practically shimmying as he moved slowly toward us, so thrilled by the brave new world he had discovered (and from which he was immediately evicted.)

On the way to yoga the other day, I walked by a woman pushing two babies in a stroller. She noticed my yoga mat, and as she passed me I heard her say to her two pint-sized charges,

“Momma doesn’t do yoga, Momma does piiiih-laaah-teees.”

She sounded it out, like “pilates” might just be their first word, lest “antioxidant” or “jojoba” be too complicated. I almost wanted to catch up to her and say,

“Hey, loud lady. We’re not so different, you and I. You talk to these adorable bundles of drool, and I talk to my dog.”

But then I realized that one day her audience will respond with actual words. I, on the other hand, could talk to Bailey till I’m blue--nay, indigo--in the face and the best response I can ever hope for is his inquisitive head-cocked-to-the-side “is that food in your mouth?” look.

So I said nothing and kept walking. Someone else can bridge the gap between the Yogis and Pilatis(?) and until then, gangs will be gangs.

That night my dad and I were chatting while I got ready to go to a friend’s house. As our conversation wrapped up, he glanced at Bailey and asked me,

“What’s that black stuff on his face?”

I looked at the dog and saw nothing, but my father insisted.

“The black stuff! Right there.”

He flailed a hand in the dog’s general direction, then told me to "wash his face," and headed off to take a shower. I dismissed his command as silly old Dad ‘pretending to be crazy' again, chuckled, and started to say goodbye.

"Hold it!”

Dad paused in the doorway and explained (in so many words) that I was the only one in on the ‘crazy’ joke.

“Wash his face, then you can go.”

Slightly puzzled, I walked over to the sink with Bailey in tow. Wash his face. Like a human's?

As I knelt down and began to gently caress Bailey's face with a wet towel, he seemed confused at first, then slid his legs down to lie on the floor.

“Good boy,” I murmured. “Make yourself comfortable, Baby.”

Had I followed by flossing his teeth, he probably would’ve gone along with it.

However, I was sobered mid-stroke when I pictured how we might look to an outsider.

On the hardwood floor of a kitchen, a large blond dog lies in the lap of a twenty-two year-old woman. The two share a moment, the dog closing his eyes as the young woman coos to him, gently wiping away the invisible black marks that sully his face. 

He yawns loudly and she wonders, “did he just say 'Mom'?” He stares back at her then licks her hand, and she knows she must leave right away. 

Do you go to the cat scratch club?

I had to share this.

Oh, [I'm a] Dream Maker, You...

...Heartbreakers of my childhood got me thinking.

Maybe I can use my love of shoddily editing myself into photos (a love that I've actually kept hidden from this blog until now) to make some of my older sister's childhood dream (boats) come true. Yes. How productively unproductive.

You're welcome, Caroline.

Also, I had to fulfill one of my own dreams too.

Because Sex doesn't sell, Embarrassing does.

For many years now, I have classified certain instances as "butt clench moments" regardless of whether or not my partner(s) in conversation are familiar with my coined classification. Right now, I'm feeling considerate (or is that listlessness? eh.) so I'll be more thoughtful than usual and take the time to clarify.

butt clench moment, n. /bʌt klɛntʃ ˈmoʊmənt/
1. Occurrence when a person is embarrassed, either vicariously and/or personally, to the extent that he or she cringes so much that his or her butt clenches. (Toes might also curl, but not a requirement.)
Etymology: 2000, MHG coined the term to describe the way she felt when the boy cast as Joseph in that year's Christmas pageant started crying on stage after a failed attempt to warble his solo. 


Now that we're all the wiser, I'd like to share the source of some of my personal BCMs.
A list of my celebrity crushes throughout the years after the jump.

Autumn in New [England] (Brief Followup)

Mistakes were made.

There was a spill.

The candle threw up.

poor thing.

Autumn in New [England]

Yesterday and today I took afternoon walks ("constitutionals," as the old folks say these days) on the minuteman bike path that reopened my eyes to the beauty that is fall in New England. This isn't to say that I'm just one wood cabin away from writing Walden: The Sequel. Not at all. I still love you, television. But really, Autumn. It's never been my favorite season for reasons I can't justify. Something about this time of year has always put me in a funk. My dad says it might have something to do with a discordance between the lunar and solar calendars. Any explanation past that is over my head. (Actually, that explanation is already over my head.)

Funkiness aside, the beauty of the season is undeniable. Even the name, Autumn. It's like butterscotch. And I love how the stress shifts from the first syllable to the second when the noun becomes an adjective. Autumn to autumnal. Although, I feel like Will Ferrel in his "loovvaaas" character would say, "autumn" to refer to the season.

In case you are not familiar:

Here sit the lovvaas in the hottub

Something about the imminent cold and blusteries outside seems to awaken my inner warm and fuzzies. I want to spend a day in Concord or go reaal crazy and hike out to Salem for a scare or kiss Plymouth Rock (oh, wait. I was thinking of the Blarney Stone. Common Mistake.) Maybe I'll even take a weekend trip to Sturbridge Village. Okay, no I probably won't. But maybe I'll talk about it as a possibility if someone asks me what my weekend plans are.

The advent of Halloween makes me want to go somewhere where I can pretend that the times we're living in aren't nuclear or digital, they're colonial. (So types the girl on her laptop as she microwaves a bag of popcorn.)

Unfortunately, I think this sudden seasonal enthusiasm and desire for simpler times seeped into my baking this evening. I lit a "pumpkin spice" candle and  decided I was going to make pumpkin sugar cookies from scratch. "I'll just eye it, like I did in highschool," I said foolishly.

Whoever said that baking is a science might be right. Whoever said that eggs are a necessary ingredient in cookies is definitely correct. Whoops. The cookies were on minute 4 of 15 when I had my epiphany. I was about to warn my sister about eating the raw left over dough because of the salmonella and then I realized, warning not necessary. Whoops. The result was like a crunchy, sugary, butter. (If you must know, I ate three.)

Like a rock.

Happy autumny'all. I don't care if that doesn't work.
(I'm too busy still trying to make "fetch" happen.)

It's Trippy (Memory Lane)

Oh. Muh. Gaaah.
I can't describe how amazing I feel when I look at this picture.
It's like...sparkle meth.

This sensation isn't just visual. I take just one cuh-suh-ree glance and my mouth fills with the hint of a cherry-flavored plastic, like I'm trying once again to eat Caroline's Cherry Merry Muffin doll, or sucking on a "Nurse Barbie" prop lozenge. My olfactory memory whiffs back to birthday celebrations of yore, to those party supply stores and goody bags that smelled like smarties candy and conical cardboard hats.

WIZARD.

When I was a wee lass of four years, my two best friends (Mariah and Elizabeth) and I were obsessed with The Wizard of Oz. It was cooler than milk-water. We each had our own pair(s) of Ruby Red Slippers,* and discussed at length--well, as lengthily as our cavemannish vocabularies would allow--the perfect way to coiffe Dorothy pigtails. The verdict? Begin two side french braid pigtails, ending each right as you tuck under the ear lobe, then curl the free flowing 'tails into spirals. (You're welcome, lazy 'trix or tease'ers. Oh, and respect Dot, won't you please? Put a shirt underneath that gingham apron-dress-hybrid.)

*I know the original shoes were silver, but I think your average four-year-old girl would take Judy Garland's fashion advice over Frank Baum's. Ignore the fact that they're both dead, please.

During my very first sleepover, held chez Elizabeth, she and I decided to watch the Wizard of Oz. Well, I don't know if "decided" is the right word. It was more of a ritualistic act, a shared practice of a beloved and never-questioned Saturday night custom.

"Blessed be thou, O Wizard of Oz,

who gives us the yellow brick road."

...you know, that sort of thing.

As the movie started, we began to bicker about who got to wear her Dorthy shoes. Hellooo, I was the guest. (And, yeah, I had left mine at home--I know: iiiiiiiiidiot.) When our fighting took a turn for the nasty Elizabeth's mother had to intervene, and eventually we came to the agreement that we two gollum-itas would take turns wearing the preciouses.

Me or Elizabeth. (Okay, probably just me.)

So throughout the screening Elizabeth's mother would set the kitchen timer for 15 minute increments and we'd watch the movie, pausing every so often to pass the sweaty little slippers off to the other person. The arrangement seemed perfectly level-headed to me at the time, but I understand now why Elizabeth's mother looked like she was hiding a smirk.

  LET ME TAKE YOU 
DOWN

I think that part of the reason people enjoy drugs (specifically everyone's favorite leafy gateway) is because drugs make you stupider--stupider, like when you were young. When I was little and my brain was still developing, I would get lost in anything that sparkled or contained a wide array of colors. (Hence my smeaghoulish lust for ruby slippers.)

For example: I hated going to the dentist (I was such a unique little girl) but every year the dentist's office would send us this reminder postcard that had seven toothbrushes fanned out against a black background. Each toothbrush was a different color of the rainbow, and each toothbrush head had a perfect 'S' of toothpaste squirted on it whose shade matched the color of the given toothbrush exactly.
You follow? I'll try to illustrate.

+
SSSSSSS 
Bah. This hardly compares to the original.

Oh my heavens, it was amazing. My parents would see me studying the postcard and say something to the extent of,

"Aha, Marg. Hyuk hyuk, You know what this means..."

Then they'd look down at me and promptly try to shake me out of my trance. Heck, they probably could have spanked my bare baby bottom and I wouldn't have noticed, provided they didn't break my gaze in the process.

When I finally did connect the dots between 'pretty postcard' and 'drill-in-mouth-is-gagging-me time,'  I'd whimper and steep in my self-pity until the hypnotic missive worked its magic once more and soothed me back into a pseudo-psychedelic stupor.

...aand that's how kids got high off household objects
when I was growing up.

What Ever Happened?

Maybe I'm just clinging to the past, but things seemed simpler then.

Stories didn't need sensationalism to be great.

Whose culture is this and does anybody know?

That's an ending that I can't write, 'cause I've got you to let me down.