you're asking for a big time out, mister

in a perfectly quiet room, no one is talking. one boy suddenly blurts
out, "you know, the popcorn button on a microwave makes life so much
easier."-d.l.

"i heard he had a boil on his butt."-j.s.
"yeah, i heard he calls it susan."-jeran
"look, tip's laughing so hard he's got tears."-j.s.

"i still can't believe your sister is pregnant."-b.h.
"i still can't believe it's not butter."-n.g.

"my mom always wanted a potbellied pig."-ghost
"i want a penguin."-t.b.
"do you know how much you'd get laid if you had a penguin?"-d.j.
"dude. i'm not screwing my penguin."-t.b.

"what is that, griffin?"-ghost
"i didn't want to draw anything trashy, so i did this."-the asian
"you didn't want to draw anything trashy, so you drew a gorilla
sitting on a toilet?"-ghost
"well, when you say it out loud..."-the asian

"why can't frogs have ears? they are so boring."-a.b.

i walked into the hall between classes and the first thing i heard
was, "no, i do not want to suck your toe."

"if you get paint on my teddy bear, i will rip your f*cking cheeks off."-b.h.

"i googled it. it said it can ruin your sex life."-jeran
"you have a tickling addiction?"-r.b.
"i think i do."-jeran

"i was so drunk i thought my finger was going to fall off. i woke up
with a bunch of band aids on my fingers and someone else's shirt
on."-b.h.

"that's sexier than socks on a rooster."-a.b.

"you're so f*cking cute i just wanna beat the sh!t out of you."-jeran

ghost

sunday night consideration

of course i remember the last time i was really smitten by a girl. it
was amy, eight years ago. and that smiting led to a true love, though
a true love you and i both now know was not reciprocated. what i don't
remember are the butterflies and the feelings of being smitten, of
falling in love. do you? remember the euphoria, the essence of
everything in your world humming in a sort of perfect harmony? there's
a sense of a sort of immortality that comes over you, if i recall.

i get impossible crushes on the fairer sex from time to time. i don't
pursue them because they are impossible, and i think perhaps that is
why i get them. they are safe. and if they were not impossible, i'd
lay money on them not giving me the time of day.

i had a crush on this one girl back in school. for the sake of this,
we'll call her jen. i fell for her in seventh grade, and those
feelings grew into a sort of love between then and now. i do still
Love her, and we are still great friends, but the love is no longer a
romantic longing. those days are long past. i never made a move, and
our lives are in much different places both in a physical geographic
and metaphysical sense. but then, i always did love her from a
distance.

there was another girl, a girl i knew as pixie, not to be confused
with my little Pixie the love of which i feel for her, no romantic
love could ever compete. pixie had purple hair and seemed to think i
was the man who hung the moon. we were really all wrong for one
another in hindsight, but when i kissed her for the first time back
when i was nineteen, it was like what S. Morgenstern described in The
Princess Bride. "since the invention of the kiss, there had been five
kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. this one
left them all behind."

i hope i haven't grown out of it. those kinds of kisses, by their very
nature, don't happen every day. but let there be one, just one more.

sometimes i think i don't believe in love anymore. but then i realize,
i do. somewhere deep down inside me there is a hopeless romantic you
can't beat the idea of true love out of, no matter what you hit me
with.

ghost

what i've been up to

recent paintings. except the one with the kids. i did it years ago, but recently dug it out so i could donate it to an auction to benefit a sick friend. 

 

ghost

fisherman

in an old land, a salty sea churned beyond the shores. there was a man
who fished the waters of that sea. every day, he woke before dawn and
set out in the darkness, out into that broad expanse to cast his nets
again and again all day long. between the time he cast his nets and
drew them back in, he dreamed. he dreamed with his eyes wide open,
understanding they were only dreams and nothing more than the air of
his mind. he dreamed of never having to wake up before dawn to set out
on the ocean, never needing to cast his nets and pull them in, that he
lived far inland in a great mansion and that every need could be met
with a snap of his fingers. he dreamed this every day.

the man had a wife and a son, but he never talked to them of this
dream. time passed. he grew older, and his son grew old enough to join
him. when the boy joined him, the man had no time to dream. anytime he
started to drift off, the boy would ask him what he was thinking
about. embarrassed, the man would always answer that he was thinking
of the boy's mother. then he would change the subject, and he and the
boy would talk about this and that.

as the days and weeks passed, the man felt a change come over him. he
didn't mind waking up before dawn so much, did not mind going out to
fish, because he had his son with him, and whenever he was about to
drift off into dream, the boy would draw him back and they would talk
about this and that.

one night, he had a dream, but not the old one. the old dream had
faded away. instead, he dreamed he was out in the ocean with his son,
and they were fishing. when his eyes started to drift away, his son
asked him what he was thinking, and they talked about this and that.

and the man couldn't tell if he was dreaming or he was awake.

ghost

brain toaster

damn, simple existence has me brain fried right now. but it's a good
kind of fried, ya know? evenly cooked. no burned corners. light and
crispy. well balanced and still retaining flavor. warm to the touch,
but not too hot. just right for melting butter. and maybe syrup.

now, where's my brain-spice seasoning packet?

ghost

storm on the horizon?

trouble is brewing. i might be scarce for a little while i assess and
manuever my ship. forgive me, and if you're the praying sort, send a
few up for me. i need them.

ghost

an apparition, perhaps

silence is the loudest nothing you will ever hear.
silence is to walk where millions have traveled and left no footprints.
silence is time laid bare, when time is its most mysterious.

ghost

taking jokes too far

my friend, she's playing therapist. tells me no wonder i don't have
any friends after i make some off color remark.

"friends, what would i need those for?" i joke. "friends to bail when
i need them most? to tell me when i'm doing it wrong, to find the
cracks in my greatness? i do that to myself, why would i need someone
else around for that?"

"that's a bit snobby. and i never took you for a snob," she says.

fast forward twenty minutes and she hits something soft, something
unarmored, something undefended. a nerve perhaps.

"everyone leaves. they say, you won't be alone forever. or you deserve
so much better. or just give it time. who are they kidding? everyone leaves, and i am left to be lowest common denominator again."

the conversation expires, and we drift away from one another again.

ghost

two things from saturday

Tank eating chic fil a after his soccer game. he sticks a fork in a
nugget and dances it across the table. "fork riding chicken." then he
flips it over and says, "or chicken riding fork?"

and later tha evening, Pixie came and sat down by me on the couch
while Dimples and Tank played in the back room. she looks up at me and
asks, "who is your mom?" i explain to her that my mom died when i was
young, and i show her a picture of her. "she's so pretty. i love your
mom, daddy." "she would have loved you too, sweet pea. no doubt about
it," i replied. "i'll see her in heaven when i get bigger," she said,
and then jumped down from the couch and ran back to rejoin the others.

you know, so i'll remember.

ghost

*soul soup spill

i picked up another clue. now i'm walking on halos, tripping on
daisies, kissing angels, and stealing their clothes.

memories still occasionally dominate my view, but i'm lighter now,
smiling now, a new creature now, sleek and powerful and hungry. long
leaves of various shrubbery leaned by the wind blowing through its
courses seem to bow to me as i pass. i am looking for the perfect
purple flower. i want to honor my debts.

Hope, she has come back to me.

trace the outline of this soul and perhaps that's the whole thing, all
there is to see. maybe all i am is the outline of a person, after all,
a simple contour drawing. i still need to be filled in, details need
to be added, shading and shadows and the appearance of depth. which is
kinda sad, realizing how old i am. Desperado, you ain't gettin' no
younger.

i have cartoon dreams. strange things still happen. dream a little
dream of me. i'm the guy screaming, "cut!" before he gets the girl.

ghost

* five minute writing assignment/thought flow