...

People are dying. I don't say this to be hilarious, it's just a fact. A human brain parasite can alter fear. It can create symptoms of schizophrenia. It can't kill you by itself, but it can make you kill yourself, if that doesn't get you, the medication for chronic hepatitis c that should save you might give you a stroke. 

A fourteen year old son can lose his mother because no one believed her. 

A woman can watch love dwindle to the loss of life.

A young old man can get multiple myeloma and die.

Go watch Harold and Maude. I've got nothing for today.

Rest in peace P.

Who doesn't want to start at least one story with a dark and stormy night?

Sometimes, when am I afraid of something or someone it helps to write a piece from their point of view. ...

It was a dark and stormy night in los angeles. The moon shone through the apartment like a flood light someone had forgotten to turn off. The street was as cold and silent as death and the windows were bare. It was easy to see her. I watched her move through every room. Wandering, jumpy. A dog barked and she looked like she might jump out the window. She had no idea I was there but I know she could feel my eyes by the way she kept looking out into the night. I reminded myself how lucky it was that she had a circular apartment with so many windows. So many chances to see her. 

She seemed so nervous that night. She had been alone for two days. I knew I had only one more day to make my move. I half hoped that she would spot me and invite me in for tea, that would make it so much easier. I always hope that and they never do. If only she knew how easy she could make it on herself if she would just come to me. If she could just admit how she feels about me, instead of leaving me shivering, cowering with the hydrangeas. How could she do this to someone she so clearly loves? I wrote her a letter once. It was beautiful. I used all the best words and phrases. She cried when she read it. She showed it to her boyfriend. I could only imagine her showing him the letter and telling him that she had found her one true love and that it was over between them. He put his arm around her, comforting her, then he took off in his van, leaving her life wide open for me. But how could she still leave me out in the cold? 

If only she would have given in then the police would have stopped bothering me and we could live happily ever after. Oh how I loved a hard headed dame like this one. I was sure her insides were as beautiful as her outsides. I couldn't wait to split her open. I wondered silently if the noodles she had for dinner would come spilling languorously out along with her intestines like little worms. 

Sadly, I never got the chance to find out. I didn't know it, but when the dog barked, she got suspicious and called the police. I heard it before I felt it. The sickening thud when the officer hit me on the back of the head with his club. There is no echo when a blunt object makes contact with your head. There is no bouncing back. Just THUD. 

As I sit here in my cell I can still feel the knot from where he hit me. I drew a picture of it and sent it to her but she hasn't responded yet. I'm sure she is too distraught to even read. I saw her crying when they were dragging me away. I know the scraping of my heels along the asphalt was too much for her to bare because she ran inside and slammed the door. I think of her every night. Only a few more months until we can be together again and everything will be alright.

*I no longer live in that apartment...

checking out

You have one ball. Now you have three balls. You are doing pretty well with the three that you have. then someone throws in twelve more balls and an elephant. How's that for juggling?

this is it.

Fasting makes you dumb. Well, maybe it doesn't make you dumb, but it makes me dumb.

Tomorrow

You wake up but you don't get up. What's the point? It's just today again. It's been today for the last three hundred and sixty five days. You can't remember anymore your last yesterday. You can't imagine your next tomorrow. It's dark outside. The dark is so bright it burns your retinas. You put the sheets over your head to block it out. You can't see for the brightness. It's so airy that you have to suck and struggle for breath. You don't want to die under here in such bright darkness, even more than that you don't want to live under here. You get up. It's been days. You woke up this second. You woke up today. The second today of the week that does not exist. You are not alone. There are others who are stuck on today. Some celebrate it, some try to out run it, some question it. They look at the calendars as they burn them and scream, "Why meee?!!" The calendars look back and smirk.

"Why not you?"

There's really not point to it all. There is no point to any of it. Today, tomorrow, yesterday, it's all in what you call it. It's all the same thing. Last year, next year, semantics and a few more wrinkles. You perch on the edge of the vast pink couch like a hippopotamus in a tutu. You look in a mirror, you contemplate today's wrinkles. They are deeper than today's. Today's will be deeper than today.

A wee part of your brain triggers and a thought runs through and it's gone. you caught a flit of it. it looked like letters. You think you recognized a "y". An extra "y". A "y" in front? It's too much. You make toast. You make a note to buy more bread today. You wonder how on earth you are going to choose which pre-made pre-frozen, labeled dinner to eat when they all say today. Who made these frozen treats? You might remember her today, you might not. She is from those past yesterdays.What are yesterday's? Now you've gone and confused yourself. You find an old picture from today. There is a woman smiling at you. She's holding a puppy. Today you are alone. You open up the calendar to today. The page says it's tomorrow. You wonder how it can already be tomorrow. You turn to the next page. It too says tomorrow. 

She's coming home tomorrow. You remember. Tomorrow she gets home. Or maybe she leaves yesterday. Either way it is finally tomorrow. you shake your head and move into action. You better hurry up, you don't want to fall behind. The future's already happening, whether you want it to or not.

I've been asked...

about my process and revisions and drafts. While I won't give everything away because that is no fun I will say that what ends up here is, for the most part, completely rough and unedited. As for fact or fiction. look to your right. see that column right there? read it. 

Most of what I write is based very loosely on something that actually happened if not to me then to a friend of mine... or inspired by something I heard or read. I recently wrote a story, that isn't here, that came out of listening to a certain record over and over again and while it's extremely personal, it never happened to me. 

Today

You wonder who put salt under your eyelids when you weren't looking. You think they may have slipped some pepper in there too. You walk into the living room that might be yours and you notice that something is missing. The dog is accounted for, no kids to worry about. You wander around the tiny apartment. You check the freezer. There, as always, she has left you enough complete, frozen homemade meals to last you through the two weeks that she will be gone. She has been doing this for years. You don't even talk about it anymore. They are just there, like her.

This might be the day you shake hands and tell her your name. It might be the day you renew yours vows. Either way, time is relative. As you think about time you settle yourself deep into the shallow pink sofa like a deep sea fish comfy in a tide pool. You think that maybe time has gotten confused. She will walk in the door at any minute and announce that she had a wonderful trip. She's not even on the plane yet. She's been gone for a year. 

You put your head in your hands and imagine that if you sit that way long enough it will come to you. What will come to you? You have no idea. You just wait. You have six more cups of coffee. It's been six years. She's not coming back. It's been six minutes, your children have disappeared. 

It made sense yesterday. It will make sense tomorrow. It will never make sense today. You wonder how you keep missing today. You circle it on your calendar, you make lists titled, "Things to do Today" but, still, you always miss it. You tell yourself that when today comes, you won't miss her anymore. You wait for today. You realize, suddenly, that it's tomorrow. You missed it again. You start to think that,maybe, without her, there is no today.

She isn't gone yet. She isn't going anywhere today. Tomorrow, yes. Yesterday she left. You open the calendar to tomorrow. The page says it's today. All the pages say it's today. You were so sure you missed it, but now it's all there is.