Funemployment. How to do it right.

Chaska, Minnesota

                December 30, 2010 • (952) 448-2650

IMPORTANT Read this article carefully or have someone read it to you. Remember, you must read and understand this handbook. A Spanish version of this handbook is available upon request.
¡IMPORTANTE! Lea este manual con cuidado o consiga alguien quien se lo lea o interprete. Recuerde, usted debe leer y entender este manual. Una versión en español de este manual está disponible.
Merci.

Is this the new usual?

Congratulations, you're funemployed.
Unemployment isn’t fun, but you can make the best of it. Instead of moping, this is a good time to add to your skills, to catch up on things, and to explore what it means to be your own person. It can be a time to heal and to grow. Here are some positive things I have found to do when unemployed:

* Seek employment. [Your crappy small town] Workforce Center is a vital resource that will help you search effectively. It is a place to go to use a computer and talk to supportive people. They may also be able to help you find a course to upgrade your skills.

* Exercise. Part of the 50 hours a week you are not spending on a job can be spent getting enough exercise. A minimal routine is to walk at least two miles a day at least five days a week.

But all of that is stupid, you could tell at one glance and didn't bother to read it, that maybe because you're Funemployed! 

Def Do: 

• Catch up on your hobbies. Really, how effin long is that "scarf" going to remain half done in the back of your closet? Granted, it's too late to hoist off as a christmas gift but you probably know a Capricorn. And what of that model airplane you got three years ago? Why doesn't it have a wicked awesome flame decal, hanging majestically from you ceiling yet? 
• Party. I mean, not every day. But damn, you don't have any work to do. You should be joyous! Have a few drinks before you go out. Never pay a cover and metro home. You really don't need to spend more than 6 bucks to have a memorable night now and then. (Foggy nights cost exponentially extra) 
• Sexersize. Seriously, you're not overly tired, you're not too stressed out and YOU DONT HAVE A HEADACHE (!!) 
• Share. Look, son--I'm not saying give away your last 5 spot, but people dig others who share. Think of it as social credit. I accept all forms of sexersize as social credit and I am happy to pay in kind. 
• Stay up late. Creativity come to us in it's most honest when we explore our solitude. Plus, sleeping-in is half the fun. Truly, if these were in "an order" this would be number one, Maslow. 
• Visit. Go see someone you know in a far away place, (at least a different area code). Time your visit so that they are happy to have you and can afford to take you out to dinner and junk. Half the adventure will be in the travel to and fro[do]. C'mon, Bo may know baseball, but you should be ashamed to be less of a Took then any Baggins over or under hill. 

Def DON'T:

• Gripe. I mean really, this too shall pass. Do you really have to bring everyone down around you? 
• Penny Pinch.  Alright, so this is no time to be popin bottles at the club comma gettin slizzard. But I think we can agree that a 7 dollar lunch now and then with a friend isn't out of the question. If you didn't come here to have fun, go home and wait for the lights and gas to be turned off around you. 
• Start using phrases like 'wind-riffled.' Seriously, Funemployed does not equal poetic. Let funempolyment be your poetry. If you are busy sucking the marrow you don't have to say so, in fact someone already has.
• Go viral. I'm lying. Do just that. Do something that will get you paid on the internet that you were already going to do anyway, you silly ass. Get the Gregory brothers to give you more than half and run the damn talk show circuit. 
• Get it twisted. No one took your job: you lost it or you quit, either way move on. Please don't wallow, it makes you stale. (See also, Gripe) 

Work cited:

ALABAMA UNEMPLOYMENT AND WORKERS’ COMPENSATION MANUAL A GUIDE TO SIMPLIFYING ALABAMA’S EMPLOYMENT RELATED LAWS (2009)
http://www.ado.alabama.gov/content/media/publications/SmallBusiness/WCUCpublication728091.pdf

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE  Claimant Handbook
A Claimant’s Guide to the Requirements of the Idaho Employment Security Law
http://labor.idaho.gov/publications/ui_handbook.pdf

The Urban Dictionary, RE: Funempolyment.

A final note to all our satisfied customers, someday you'll have to work again. I know. I'm sad too. But it's really all about the balancing act we all must participate in to survive. But remember I'm not only the funempolyment president, I'm also a client. (That's what my mom used to call the crazy people she took care of/worked for.) Make of that what you will, I guarentee  it won't be money.

May the end of your year be as post modern as possible. (Read as debaucheous) It is too a word. This here is my talko.

You have read this article funemplyment / google / penny pinch / sexersize / the gregory brothers / the post modern talko / unemployment / urban dictionary / viral / YUP with the title 2010. You can bookmark this page URL http://trendcelebrity2014.blogspot.com/2010/12/funemployment-how-to-do-it-right.html. Thanks!

Half Elf Video Blog

Holidays aren't for haters.
                   Happiness isn't a destination.

We're gunna make a super sonic man outta 

              Y  O  U  ! 

You have read this article Cut Copy / Discrimination / Eberon / Half Elf / Post Modern Talko / Sex / video blog with the title 2010. You can bookmark this page URL http://trendcelebrity2014.blogspot.com/2010/12/half-elf-video-blog.html. Thanks!

Holidays Gone Wrong! (Blog Swap)

Hello my lovelies by inheritance, I am TOAR from Thoughts of a Randomista, but normal people just call me Lynn. Erin and I were supposed to join in on 20 something blogger's blog swap on Monday the 20th but as you can see, we are fucking rebels. I like to blog about everything from internet porn and hand jobs to dumb ass white people who don't know what the word "Killer" means. Yes, I am a raunchy racist but I can't help it. My mom is a white baptist and my dad is a black Muslim, I am bound to have an identity crisis. Right? Anyway, at Thoughts of a Randomista I like to create an open environment (Random Writing Chaos!) to talk about all these cliches and make fun of people. It's all in good fun so get your draw out of your ass. Lastly, TOAR is having a giveaway for it's 1 year anni-berfday! So follow TOAR to get more info! Now on to more important matters like crazy families drunk off their asses during the holidays. I give you: "Holidays Gone Wrong"
Every year during thanksgiving and Christmas, my family likes to have this huge get together (like most I suppose) to eat food and talk shit. Now, my family isn't the kind that just likes to fight amongst themselves, it's a different kind of holiday experience. My family is a bunch of hippies therefore, you never know what to expect! We don't plan anything because it is simple... Eat, Drink, and be Hippies!
My point is, there is so much to do to have the perfect holiday but in essence you are just fucking it up.
Why must there be the perfect pie? Let me tell you right now, no one gives a fuck! We are going to eat it and then go to sleep and shit it out later.
Why do you have to deep fry a turkey? You are asking for death to come and stab you in the face with his black-sword-stick-thing-amagig.
Why do we have to have 527282 different kinds of rum in our eggnog? Tequila and whip cream will do just fine.
Why must we gather in a huge circle around the dinner table and everyone has to say a part of the prayer? People?! We are hungry folks that are trying to look at the babies open their over priced presents. I mean of course we have to bless the food, but we do not need 50 people saying their own version of "dear lord, thank you for this food we are about to receive..." Just be done with it! "good food, good drinks, thank god, let's eat!" <-- SIMPLE lol. One person is just fine. Why can't we just get along? I know there are people out there who are as blessed as I am to have a fuck-awesome family like mine. They fuss and fight and bicker and it gives me a damn head ache. Let's not even talk about what happens in the kitchen! Women are so ruthless. I just want people to have an interesting and eventful Holiday. Do you have any stories to share? any of your Holidays Gone Wrong? ----------------------- View Erin's view on "Holiday's Gone Wrong" on TOAR. To Contact TOAR, email her at: thoughtsofarandomista@gmail.com

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From a time less caring

From a Time Less Caring 

The floor, sweat.
Pound, pound, pound, lights flashing, sweat.
Prague.

I feel the squeeze of my jaw muscles and run my tongue along the inside of my teeth. It's an effort to unclench them, the constant pressure feels so good.  I nod my head to the heart beat of this club. Experience dictates, I will ache when I next wake, after coming down, again. A crescendo in the music and a shiver up my spine remind me how far away all of that feels. Taunni, in her silver v-neck half shirt, is suddenly connected to the hand giving me a bottle of water. It's cold against my clammy palms and a grin splits my face as I drink while bouncing to the music, mostly missing my mouth, spilling its cool traceries down my breasts, soaking the skin even of my belly. I hand it back, caressing her arm up to the elbow and then I'm lost again. The beat is all I know.

I wake up in a hostel. Not mine. He's still sleeping. Or he's faking. His pants are only half undone. My boots are still on. Someone is rustling a plastic bag. He shifts and slides his hand up my skirt. I close my eyes. I feel like being dead again for a few more hours and when I wake up again I'm alone except for the cleaning staff. They don't speak English but I know I'm to leave. My student card and koruna were shoved in the sleeve of my top, I find it tucked under the pillow. It's too early for my makeup to be this smudged and my stocking this ripped. I head to the laundry room of the hostel and pick through a tumbling dryer until I find something, ball it up guiltily, and change into the pants in a pubic toilet.

Taunni is still asleep in our room. I bang on the door many times before she answers.
"I told you to bring your key." She says sulkily. Her makeup is much worse. I hand her a pita stuffed with pickled vegetables, tan colored sauces and crushed falafel and fall on to our bed.
"Where did you get those awful pants?"
"No idea."
"You left without telling me again. I was busy with a couple of Spanish girls and I turned around and you were gone."
I move to the table where I had abandoned my own sandwich. As usual I was both terrified and fascinated to hear stories that I could not remember.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, one minute you had some shirtless Brit danced up against the wall and the next moment both of you were gone."
"What did he look like" I asked, all together too urgently. I took a bite, chewed it slowly, trying to reign my composure, my headache pulses as I slide back into a noncommittal interest.
"Some blond dude, with chops."
"Oh, barf. At least he wasn't the one."
"One what?"
"The one I woke up next to. He had dark hair, brownish and down past his ears." I rub my temples as I remember him.
"Sky, I keep telling you not to drink when you roll."
She sounded all together too frustrated, and even with a mouth full of food I said, "Hey, listen--no one asked you to babysit me. And don't fuckin act like you haven't left me in some club."
"Fuck you."
"No, I mean it. Denmark, fuckin first night there. Yeah. Thought I forgot, didn't ya? So get over yourself." I took a self righteous bite but it was all show. I felt sick from the inside out. She was right. We'd been traveling for over a month and a half now, seen the interior of so many clubs and churches. They all looked the same to my colorless eyes, and all though I had held her hair a time or two while she was sick, I still had nothing on her. It was getting to the point where I was encouraging her to drink more, take more hits, pop more pills because it annoyed me that I couldn't remember what she could. She held it over me and it could all be lies. I wanted it so badly to be lies or for her to be just as guilty.
Exasperated, I tore off my pants and headed to the shower stall in the corner of the room. I was starting to be bad for her, as I always eventually am.
I ignored her and myself for twenty minuets, scrubbed under my nails, shampooed my bush and shaved my legs. You could always feel brand new after you shaved your legs.
Taunni's pack was done up on the bed as I stepped wet-footed  up to my things heaped between the bed and the wall. She was leaning against the window there, scribbling in her journal.
"Is there any hot water left?"
"Should be." I shake out a crumpled top,  but trade it in for something with slightly longer sleeves. I glance at her sideways.
"You look ready to leave. I thought we'd stay on one more night."
"I'm all paid up."
My guts clenched, but I betrayed not even an eye brow's shift in concern.
"Well,  have you looked up the cost of new tickets to Budapest,  ours aren't till tomorrow."
It was funny how she could think of herself as the practical one and yet over look so obvious a detail.
"I'm not going on to Budapest. I'm going back to Paris to meet my sister."
I spun in frustration and made a small sound.
"I told you this could be an option, Sky. I told you I might head back if she got the position."
"Well, you also told me she hadn't, so I guess I just sort of pushed it out of my head."
"Sort of a skill of yours, isn't it? Pushing things out of your head."
I turned to face her.
"Your sister isn't. in. Paris."
"Are you calling me a liar?"
"Why are you going back?!" I raised my arms up big to match the sound of my voice. She bit her lip and shook pitifully, eyes filling with tears and in that moment I hated her for being so weak.
"I need a break." she said almost levelly.
"Well, good. Fine. Just take a break, then." I stomped over to the dresser and played with some change there. Was I so worthless that she would actually leave me over a little partying? She was the one who had cheated on her girlfriend. I still had that on her. She was going to be sorry, in the end, not me. But I tried a different tack, "Look, take a break. It isn't easy living with the same person for this long. Living out of suitcase, train to train..." I kept my voice soothing and calm as I walked back towards her on the bed,  "Having to share all the hard times and all the missteps." I pushed her bangs up on her forehead and when she didn't flinch I knew I was winning."We're making the kind of memories that most people never get a chance to share."
She pulled her face away from me violently and stood up.
"Memories, heh. At least you took pictures. Goodbye Skyler."
She flung her bag up on to her shoulders and then she was gone. Maybe I threw something at the door. It might have been my shoe or my sandwich. I don't care.
I went on to Budapest without her and then on to Pecs and yes, I took lots of pictures. Next I went back to Poland and met up with some folks from facebook but she never emailed me once. I didn't even see her at the start of fall term.  When I asked, her old girlfriend told me she had transferred to a different university.

You have read this article American Barbaric / Post Modern Talko / Prague with the title 2010. You can bookmark this page URL http://trendcelebrity2014.blogspot.com/2010/12/from-time-less-caring.html. Thanks!

Christmas Market

I am pretty sure I can't imagine a worse place on Earth to live besides Paris.....if you were starving. All the good smells from the cheese shops, bakeries and street venders, (chestnuts roasting over an open fire--for real)--make the food trucks in DC look like well, just about as unsavory as it already sounded. Say it again, "food truck"  --utilitarian at best.

As you well know I do my best to live in a deasert first universe and with that in mind I give you a short photo collection of the Christmas Market dans les Champs Elysées (You should totally click that link, Sebastien almost died of embarrassment when I played it.....ok so I had it up to 11.) Anyway, back to deasert--photos first, explication second. 

Various dried fruits

Various dried meats

Chocolate in tile format

Tackie porch hangings

He's notta scarea you

This guy wants to do me, so hard. Break a few eggs, indeed.

Light-up flowers, maybe for your porch or other tacky place.

The dish towel is the perfect gift when you want to say, "kinda!"

Just once I want to go to a party and proclaim that I carved a snake with a chainsaw, IRL

I took all these photos just for you

Well, I'm also a creeper..

As well as an American in Paris

We had a really wonderful promenade. We bought three saucisson from the meat stall in picture two-- one with nuts, one with figs and one with a strong blue cheese. We had a big lunch before we left but it was still really hard not to buy savory crepe or a big Belgian style waffle smothered in nutella...but we did share a steaming cup of mulled red wine. Speaking of nutella, you should meet my new favorite cereal, regard! To the left you will see the cereal--click it, make it larger. To the right you will see the artistic rendering my enamel made based on my new diet. As you can see my teeth are a congress divided. Stupid Cry babies.

We might be in Paris for Christmas because the TGV is 80 euros for a one way to Alsace where his family still lives.
I don't mind at all.  Everywhere is home with him. The French love their outdoor markets and I was very excited to learn that I wouldn't have to wait until the spring to see them again.  There will be another Christmas market only two blocks from here on Saturday. Unless we finally get motivated, something comes up, we'll go to that too.

And finally super friends, it turns out I got the head count wrong. I live with two Italians, a German, a Bulgarian, three french girls and one French guy, who all speak both french and english as good or better than me. Stupid jerks.

You have read this article D.A.D.T / Joe Dassin / Natalie Dee / Paris / Post Modern Talko / Treasor with the title 2010. You can bookmark this page URL http://trendcelebrity2014.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-market.html. Thanks!

Life aboard the Kestrel

Hey there Pilgrims. I's me, Erin...Live from Paris where I no-longer seem to be dying of a dehydration induced fever. My landlord just left for Martinique with my six hundred euros in his pocket and he won't be back till mid-January. But I am not here to be a negatron! (well, not at least for mega-long)

 

We moved into our apartment  in the 10th Arrondisement,  last night. Its a 5th floor flat that we share with 6 other people. There are four Frenchmen, three girls and a boy, a Bulgarian and an Italian, both male. Last night was our first night here. Once we figured out how to make the IKEA bed work in ways no longer suited for a comedy routine, we slept soundly.

Our chamber has a balcony and those long planked-Parisian-parquet-floors people fight in line for. (Which explains the price) They've provided all the furniture but we're going to go today to try and get a coverlet that matches the curtains. The colors of the room are gold and white and natural wood brown so we were thinking gold, navy blue or brown would be best. But we'll see.

The last time I shared housing was in Toledo Ohio, I took a room for 100 dollars a month in an artist collective there. It was a beautiful building with a community concert hall, long dark wood passages and about 300 artists of every persuasion renting either studio space, sleeping quarters or both. I slept on a foam mat on the floor of my five by eight room. I painted the walls myself. My friend Zach said he liked the color I had chosen, that it was good for dreaming. I had a small fridge, a desk and I was finishing my first novel at the time. I took no pictures but posed in many.

I discovered Toledo because a friend of mine was living there in an old big windowed apartment, a lot like this a few blocks from the collective. She through the most amazing party of my life. There was drinking, singing, pretty lights and just this all around sense that I should be there. I woke up nude in a bed by a window. The silk soft of the curtains blew over the cream of my skin as a million church bells rang out in chorus. My band mate and I applied and then took up residency that fall.

We roamed abandoned buildings and made over night trips to Detroit, to see the artisan squats or shows at the 555. We went to the library at least once a week by foot and when I left I took many volumes of books that I never planned to return. For work and in between my band's weekly gig at a small jazz club, I built mountain dulcimers, parked cars, waited tables, sanded floors and worked an after school program to make ends meet.

Once in awhile someone of means would take us out to eat but I lived generally off of baloney, baby carrots, raw spinach and soy milk. Someone put free loafs of bread on the third floor and it was whole grain, too. It wasn't so hard. If all my plans fell through, it's the first place I'd go.

Sebastien and I haven't explored Paris much. Its different when you decide to live somewhere, you just sort of figure all the attractions will be there, should you want them. We are also reluctant to spend a lot of money until we secure work. I was planning also to join a gym but I'm not sure that will now be necessary with a five floor walk up and stairs all along the metro. If you think Georgetown is hard in heels, well it's got nothing on the calf, toe and thigh work I'm getting in now.

Well, I need a proper latte and we need to see which of these butchers to frequent, so off I go!

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Karaoke Cum Swap

 Remember when you first got into cum swapping and it was all you wanted to do? Well that's how I feel about this monthly Karaoke Blog swap we have going over on 20 something Bloggers, you can find my video montage and horrible song choice over here on Bianca's Blog: Bianca and the B-sides. Seriously, who doesn't love B-sides?

Speaking of things to love, we've got our swapper to introduce. She hails from San Fran and her blog is hella rad and innovative because she shares it with her partner and they both give their versions of events. (Kinda like the Vampire episode of the X-files) So go ahead and check out How to Survive Love: The Whole Truth, when you get a chance! 

Thanks, Erin! And thanks to all of Erin's devoted followers that are going to take the time to listen to me sing the last song you will ever hear until you decide you've had enough and want to rip off your ears. 

Well, I hope it's not that bad. You may, however, get that same feeling of motion sickness that you got when you watched Paranormal Activity. I was only trying to show you my gadgets and gizmos a-plenty, but I may have spun around too many times. I should probably explain what you are about to watch. 

I began this week with the full intent of singing I Can Hear the Bells from Hairspray. I even rehearsed and practiced it a few times. However, right before I was about to record the video, a light bulb of amazing went off when I realized The Little Mermaid was my true calling. My eyes widened, I jumped up, gave a shriek of excitement and began dancing and singing to Part of Your World. This was the song of my life childhood. I LOVE this movie. Oh, Ariel. I wanted to be her. I wanted her hair! I would sing this song in the shower and act it out. Yes, I really did that. Don't dare say this isn't a show tune! It's a

Broadway musical now, and that's all the justification I needed. So here it is...with an added bonus clip to show you how nervous that I was to begin the karaoke process. And if you want to check out December's blogger of the month, the real Mandy Moore gettin' her sing-on, hop on over to my blog.
Enjoy!

 

If your interested in participating in next month's Swap let our favorite cussy hussy know.  Try not to mention that she looks like a trucker lesbian in her video...she's kind of sensitive...

XO

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David a dit ca

Who would have thought I would be getting a chance to meet my favorite living writer? I was still working that silly temp gig in DC when I learned that David Sedaris would be in  an anglophone books store here in Paris this evening.
I knew he would be promoting and reading from his new book, but I had read that in early November, and it hasn't stayed alive in me the way some of his other books did. For those of you whom have yet to read Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, all the protagonists are animals.  It is amusing to see the categories of behaviors we all associate with animal grafted effectively on to portrayals of real people you might encounter at your local super market--anthropomorphizing at it's funniest. But it's also quite depressing as he touches on some of the worst tendencies in the human existence-- betrayal, deceit, despair, rationalization--sometimes all at once!
Nevertheless, hoping against hope that he would not just read from his new book, we weary Anglophones packed in to the Village Voice like so many sardines. I really wanted to hear something from  Me Talk Pretty One Day or Holidays on Ice--both feeling topical given the season and city. Sadly, I wasn't in the same room with him for his reading, instead I watched him live on a closed circuit TV right by the signing table. He read the title story and recounted the book naming process he outlined for me on the The Jimmy Kimmel Show and then again on the Daily Show making the experience more like a movie when I've read too many reviews and seen too many trailers. Thankfully, he read next from his personal journal and I have posted a short wobbly video of those below.

And then I got to meet him. He kind of treated me like I was at the dentist office, or as though he were Santa Clause. His tone wasn't condescending but accommodating in a familiar professional way slick with many shinings. It was only off putting in the least because it made clear that there was a He and then the rest of us.  I asked him to sign a copy of Naked and an insert from the New Yorker to hang on my wall. I think I'll frame it.
During the brief question and answer period that followed his reading David asked if we would tell him jokes and although I thought of many better ones after on the RER out of Paris, I could only come up with dead baby jokes at the time. He said that when he tried to tell a joke to someone and they stop him and say they've already heard it, that he feels punched or slapped. But being on a 58 city tour and having heard jokes at every reading we shouldn't feel accosted if he's heard ours.  The dead baby joke format is simple and crude. He said he'd heard most of them and even if he hadn't, once you know the equation they're easy to decipher.
ME: What's the difference between a pile of dead babies and a Camaro?
DS: I don't have a Camaro..
ME: In my garage!
DS: I've modified that joke.
ME: How?
DS: What's the difference between a Camaro and an erection?
ME:What?
DS: I don't have a Camaro.
He said it in this wonderfully creepy voice too.
"I couldn't be happier that you said that," I responded honestly as I deposited my new treasures in my bag. David asked me where I was from. I mentioned Cape Cod and of course he was familiar. I asked him in French if he had vacationed there. He said he had not, but that he had visited it for one day when his sister Gretchen was graduating.
It was weird for me to hear the name of someone I had read about from the person who wrote it. When he said her name a little part of me jumped up and said, oh--I know her! But I don't actually, just as I didn't actually meet David. But I did pay 14 euros for a book I once owned to have signed by his stage persona, a fair deal--as I could easily pay more than that to spend time with a person and only get sex. I by contrast got to meet my favorite author David Sedaris, practically a national treasure and he had just told me that he had an erection. I don't mean to create a false dichotomy, but I'm fairly certain he doesn't have a Camaro.

You have read this article Amy Goodman / camaro / Cape Cod / Daily Show / David Sedaris / Dead Babies / Holidays on Ice / Jimmy Kimmel / Me Talk Pretty One Day / Paris / Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk / the post modern talko / The Village Voice with the title 2010. You can bookmark this page URL http://trendcelebrity2014.blogspot.com/2010/12/david-dit-ca.html. Thanks!

various ridiculus things

At the partial behest of my lover boy I packed waayyyyyy more then could ever be considered helpful, useful, savvy, and or intelligent for our move to France..

A short list of the ridiculous

• 10 pairs of shoes (just for me and 6 pairs are boots!)
• 42 books. Yes, really. 42 books, in English to read before bed.
• 200 miniatures, many as yet unpainted
• 2 charlie cards for access onto the Boston T (Metro)
• 10 belts...only two of which are his
• 3 purses and 3 backpacks
• 2 sets of swimming goggles. 
• 1 pizza cutter

I said I would make it a short list so I'll stop there. But those are the things that came with us to Paris among our two hundred pounds of luggage. I am sure I brought at least twenty above the knee skirts which are wonderfully useful when it's SNOWING.  Paris in the snow...my sister thinks it so romantic. I'm like, the only thing romantic about us being in Paris so far is that neither one wishes the other dead.

This has been just another one of those times that show us what a strong match we are. We packed our stuff up, our entire apartment--mind, loaded it on to a truck and drove it to storage. In the morning, after having slept on the floor for 3 hours we unpacked the truck and loaded it all into a 15 by 5 storage space. We then caught a taxi cab for our international flight and got on the plane while they were doing their final boarding call. How many bags did we check? Well, as it turns out, the german air carrier we thought we were using was really being handled by United airlines. And as such, our weight limit expectation was different. (Lufthansa said 66 United, 50.) So now we have to redistribute all of our things to fit into three bags, pay BY CHECK 25 dollars for their crap bag and 50 dollars to have it on the air craft, which was better then 200 dollars per over-weight bag. Another bonus to almost missing our flight was that if your bags go on the plane last, they come off first!

So now we're here in Savigny-sur-Orges, just outside of Paris. We're staying with friend's of Sebastien's papa. They insisted we unpack all of our things until we find an apartment, which we now have done...which I am now weary of.. Comfort equals stagnation. It's been mathematically proven.

Now all that is to be done is work finding and habitat acquisition. Maybe dinner. I don't know if you know this but fat gained in France is not fat at all, just culturally sensitive.  

New Video Karaoke Blog swap coming up. I really think you're going to want to see this one so check minez out. The theme is show tunes, if you still want in contact Sara.
Ok party peoples I need some dinns.

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Video Blog TRIP

Sebastien and I just got back from a 10 day trip visiting family and seeing friends. Did we fight alot? Meh, only at the end. Here is the baby our make-up sex resulted in. Such a little angel!
Also, I made a video blog!!!


We leave for France in 10 days, OH JOY!

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Sea glass and ashes

Sorry I haven't been writing love letters to you, my dearest internet.
I've been pretty busy editing wikipedia. No that's silly, I've just been practicing my mantra. Just kidding, I've been indulging in a most engaging tryst.
Sigh.
Or, visiting family--which-ev.
Back to trysts though, I am really good at making out, just the other night I said, "One person in this bed thinks I kiss spectacularly, lets see if we can't make that two..." AND WE DID.
My fortune cookie tonight said, Worry not that no one knows of you; seek to be worth knowing.
(IN BED)
It's an extended metaphor people, roll with it.

We are traveling around the Midwest and New England until the 19th. I expect to meet up with a lot of folks back east but won't go into where or with whom because I don't want to regret it if it doesn't happen or over hype what would be cool. I am not totally against making plans, I let everyone know my dates of arrival and departure, even set up some rendezs, but pinning my hopes to my sleeves can leave me shirtless and cold.

We bought our plane tickets for France, we leave on December 1st. I'm on the last leg of my collection of books in english. Tragic how I am unable to reduce their volume without being a douchbag with a Kindle. Also, and you can be helpful here, I have no idea which clothes or boots to take.
Do I play up....

My prodrobe                 

My brodrobe 

       
                                                                                                                           My snowdrobe

There can be only one highlander. Choose wisely.

Sebastien and I have been working very well as a team and visiting his parents always feels like a honeymoon for me. Tonight the power went out. Talk about first world problems I kept reaching for the desk lamp as I noodled on the piano. I hope everything goes smoothly in Mass and things wrap up in DC as best they can. I will be 28 on Friday, a nice even number. I appreciate balance, unlike some people.

Ahem.

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Karaoke Blog Swap

Ok party people,
I think it's time we start seeing other bloggers. If you still wanna see me come on over to the Tsaritsa Sez and check me out. But first, check out my lovely lady Risha hailing from Epitaph for a Heart.
Take it away, Risha!

Thanks Erin, you know I've always admired how wide you can open your mouth and so now I'm doubly glad to hear you sing! Speaking of which, here is what I sang and why: 

Chumbawamba- Tubthumping (I Get Knocked Down) 

France '98 World Cup. Need I say more? Ricky Martin may have been all La Copa de la Vida and thrusting his hips at you; but you know you were yelling this one out loud! As I recorded this at 0200, I get to whisper-shout it! 

Spice Girls- Stop 

I cannot conceive of the 1990s without the Spice Girls. For real. Did you watch the Spice Girls movie? You know what I mean then.

Also, this "dance" that I do for you? My best friend and I used to do it as we crossed the roads…and the cars wouldn't stop for us. Yeah, we were insane awesome like that. 

No Doubt- Don't Speak

Gwen Stefani used to be cool. I, however, shouldn't sing Gwen Stefani songs because a) I sound like a cat screeching, and b) I look far too fucking pained for some reason. 

Manic Street Preachers- You Stole the Sun From My Heart

I absolutely love this song. That's all.

Boyzone- Picture of You

So, I was a big Boyzone fan. Really, really big. Like huge. And even though they did a bunch of covers and weren't that great or anything, and hardly even famous, I couldn't not mark them. 

And? RIP Stephen Gately. <3

VLOG- Karaoke Edition from r n/a on Vimeo.


Thanks once again for that cussy little hussy Sara Swears A Lot for setting this all up!
-E

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Short Story (framboise soup)

Strawberry Soup: a Cautionary Tale

 Cheer for Kurn Hattin, to us so dear. We'll strive for the standards set for us here, we'll cherish fond memories--though far we rove. Cheer for Kurn Hattin, the school we love!

Sometimes I miss the Homes. That's me over on the far right, and behind that group of my friends is the cottage where I hung my hat for 5 years. By the time I became a student there, Kurn Hattin had been serving children in need for over a century. They had a narrow approach to discipline, one concerning hard work, sports, extra chores and church- the final being a big disappointment to the Catholic kids who left an hour before the Protestants but came back for lunch after them.

With out question, one of the best dishes Kurn Hattin prepared was strawberry soup. The sheer novelty of a cold soup that tasted like desert was much enjoyed and much coveted. Said simply—for a room full of 12-year-olds, strawberry soup was Nintendo but edible. I’m talking seconds, thirds, and possibly fourths if you asked a different adult and were particularly speedy.

The kitchen staff demanded respect, mind. The head chef had this song he would always sing as we slid our trays along accepting or eschewing proffered spoonfuls of this or that, the tune may have changed depending on his mood but the lyrics stayed the same: ‘You don’t like it, you don’t eat it; frankly we don’t care.’ Richard was his name; he favored a lampshade mustache and a baseball cap with Taz on it.  His salads always contained too many kinds of leaves, I would rather pass than puff on the quiche and he never did manage to cook the chicken all the way through. But this story isn’t about him.  It’s about one of his workers, Izzy.

She was German, elderly and amusing to chat with.  A pot once fell during grace and she loudly alleged the existences of ghosts. She was thick in a grandma sort of way, big flaps for arms and a hooked nose that could have seemed witchy on anybody else. Probably the most interesting thing about her was that she had a glass eye. She would take it out and "stare" it at you but this she would only do after several whiny pleas. More commonly you could expect to see a plastic gloved hand correct it while you waited in line. She was much talked about.

Fifth grade science class, my first year. Ms. Smith was doing her section on water testing and pH balance. I won't say I punched my lab partner in the face for contaminating our sample, but I will say I was a Foe-Hammer in the name of the scientific method.  I socked her once in the nose and it was over. No, it would never be over because it was a political hit. I outranked her, sat further back in the bus, had been there longer. She, however, would continue to test my authority as long as it appeared siege worthy. Champion for the method as I was, she fell instead to the ground, bleeding like a burst dam all over her shirt and her failed hypothesis. I was beyond shocked. Nervous waves of guilt and glee shot through me. Without a word Mrs. Smith made her face spell out disappointment and by the wrist to the office I was lead. It was awhile before I would get to see anybody who had the authority to hand down punishment and I could already hear my class moving towards the lunchroom.

Given the time to think I suddenly remember my cottage mates saying what lunch would be that morning at breakfast. We had all boasted about how many bowls we would consume. But here I was locked in one of those little rooms again. Five paces across. Four paces deep. White walls. No windows. A single desk—screwed shut. The familiar suspended ceiling I had once scurried through to escape this room's twin halfway across campus. Thought it was the water damage that did me in, they made me pay for every tile I broke. Still worse, it took months for it to not hurt when I laughed after my falling out over Mr. Quinny’s desk.

After some begging, the secretary with the drawn-on eyebrows informed me that my lunch would be brought to me here. I would not get seconds. More than likely, I would get a half portion so that the soup wouldn't spill on it's way over here.  I could think of nothing else as I paced. Its creamy pink constancy, those bits of almost thawed strawberry--the fact that I couldn’t have it right away! That settled it. It was to be my greatest accomplishment; I was going to score myself a secret bowl—on top of what they would send me! I'd play the bathroom card. Everyone needed to go, she’d buy it. Word travels fast at such a small school.  They must know by now that I had finally put Ginny Ga-rah rah in her place and now even she knew that I wasn’t “all talk” as she had claimed boldly in front of others.

I made my way to the lunchroom, trying to keep my head down. I knew better then to appear proud of my actions in public. All the teachers ate lunch in that cafeteria and I loved Mrs. Smith.  In the end I decided going right in there would cause too much of a ruckus. Instead I went out the front door via the coatroom, circled around the back so that no one in the lunchroom could see me, came in through the trash-out entrance and shuffled in behind Izzy.  I had been gone 3 minutes already.  If I didn’t get back soon, they would start to wonder—and if the secretary saw me I would be looking at 2 to 3 days of extra in-school suspension on top of whatever they wanted to give me for Ginny.

Izzy didn’t notice me as I hid my size in the length of her shadow. She was dropping a pan and talking to herself about the ghost who'd done it. I got around her noiselessly using her clamor to mask my own smaller sounds. I looked over her shoulder and then aghast all around--seemingly the last pan of strawberry soup was making an ugly little beautiful, spreading out over the tiles as from out the pan she fished HER EYE!

I could have eaten my fist. Okay, maybe I was overreacting; it may not have been the very last pan. No time to check now. No time for anything now. People were  filing in to point. I had to get out of there! I risked my freedom for some soup that I couldn’t trust her not to serve even though it had clearly been contaminated. I ran back to my cell, through the auditorium, behind the curtain,  used the back stage door that lead into the music room--up the stairs and down the atrium that no student was allowed to use. My heart forgot it’s rhythm as I ran. If only I had gone to the bathroom like I said I had. Fool, Erin you always do this to yourself. There was no way I was going eat the soup when it came to me. How could I? That dream was spilled like so much strawberry soup.

I made it back safely and few moments later someone brought my tray with two bowls of the suspicious stuff. They were smiling and I couldn’t help but wonder why. I spooned through the first trying to find some sign. A nice sized drip splashed on my lip as I examined a small sample but I did not lick it away. All the strawberry parts reminded me of that junk I saw floating around that jarred sheep’s eye in the science lab—what a sucky lunch.  I ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead, one side wheat, one side white. I was suddenly feeling very remorseful.

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Fantasies of Yore

I really want to share my fantasies of now, but because they are mostly about having sex with people whom for ideological reasons won't have sex with me......(It's clearly ideological--who could resist?)  ...then I'll just share with you some of my old(er) fantasies.
I should mention these are still mostly about having sex.



There I am, back from the peace corps. I look exactly like Ani Difranco except that my height and eyes are still my own. Let it be said that I have her dread locks, nose ring, elf-chin and guitar skills. But for some reason I'm eating Chinese. My chop stick handling is really what it's all about. (SN: I think I started this back at the end of high school, when I ate with almost nothing but a spoon.) I've met up quite by chance with one of those hot guys who can't seem to find the road leading out of his hometown..As yet he doesn't have two ex wives, back problems or a beer gut, buuuuut, he's into me! In fact he's very taken with my chopstick technique, sort of, you know, intimidated in an alluring way.
"Oh this," I muse, "just a little something I picked up in the Orient." OK so, I didn't used to know that was a bad way to say Asia.  Nor could I have imagined that basically every American ever would learn how to use chop sticks eventually.  Whatever.  AHEM. Moving on.

I was always sort of vague on the details from here on out, our conversation probably highlighted my many success in south east Asia or Africa or both and that of course, with the salt of age his boyish charms would have given way to dreadfully witty and amazing in bed.  He'd want to marry me but you know,  its not you, its me. Ok I'm lying. It's your GED.

Here we are, in space. Its the future and I am the  neurolinguist on a mission to colonize Europa.  We wear a lot of Under Armour shirts and mine really bring out the blue in my eyes. They likewise highlight the buldging pectoral muscles of all the adult males... (In the future all adult males will have them.) I basically look like doctor Sattler from Jurasic Park except that I don't have a stupid mid-90's wavy-perm-bangs thing goin on.  I've noticed a name CCed on all my  mission related emails but didn't figure that the "One that got away" was also a top ranking acoustical physicist because I read that periodical, uh, periodically and never see his name.
At the pre-mission meet and greet however I find him next a huge tray of chocolate covered strawberries and we have our little, I think we've met before moment when some one tries to introduce us. It's more awkward then fiery. I respectfully break eye contact and do my best to harness Scully's sense of professional distance (circa season 1, 2 and 3)  Most importantly, his partner can't go with him on the ship. Don't ask me, I don't make the rules! There  just isn't enough space, we'd have to do a fuel dump, we might not make it and she accuses me of setting this whole thing up. I nobly attempt to be removed from the mission and let her go in my stead but naturally my leaving will throw off the launch calculations and no one neurolinguicizes quite like me. I mean, I'm The Chair. (That's academic for "the shit") It takes us a few years, but we are going to colonize a planet, so we eventually get over our guilt and totally make babies.

The last one I want to share with you is set in post apocalyptic America...Lets call it New Vegas or something. Anyway, I'm totally a raider combing the bad lands for fresh water, new drugs and people to rob. I'd be extra good at night watch and I'd finally have the ass I've always deserved. Check out my Pip-Boy...you were looking at my Pip-Boy, right?
Atanyrate, the future is an amazing and bright place. I can't wait to get there. I think I'll go look for it now.
Nite!

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Filler

                Hey there my beautiful batmans,  I just got my hands on a copy of New Vegas so I plan to be very, very busy for awhile. In lieu of a proper post I thought I would share an article I was quoted in... Sorry, I kinda effed up the formatting when I cut and pasted it. Enjoy! 

Harvard study indicates that data entry may be a significant factor in why time travel is not yet possible

Cambridge Massachusetts, home to the top shops in the biotech industry, leading engineering firms and like many large metropolis,  also a bastion for a growing class of highly qualified, seemingly unemployable graduates at every level of education.  Pushed to the edge of desperation, and swearing they  won't spend another wasted summer as a paralegal for their father's former all-state lacrosse buddy, unemployed twenty-somethings are turning to the temporary work sector.  Dr Shelina Riker of the Field Board division at Harvard and her team of tenure-hopefuls took a closer look at the larger factors of market inflation, increased life span and the effect of the global economic downturn in the first world, all of which, she feels,  have had dramatic impact on why time travel is not yet a thing of the past, future and present. 

                         "When  you control for the aggregated unimportance with which this generation views walking to work uphill--both ways in the snow-- we begin to see trends emerging, not only for why they are forced in to the sweatless labor of a M-F 9a to 9p, but also why they haven't used their unquestionably expensive genius to developed a functional vector for semiclassical gravity--let alone ponder the timescales implicit in the foundations of the statistical mechanics inherent to all known occurrences of the Nambu-Goto approximation."  In lay terms this means these nepotistic short stacks really just need a smart board and a sweet loft in Soho to Pinky and the Brain that shit..

As we can see the crux of Dr Riker's compiled data mirrors heavily the infinite monkey theorem wherein given enough time a group of untrained chimps could rewrite Shakespeare. It follows therefore that given enough "me" time to really think things--you know, over, a room full of above-it-all post-grads could, in mathematical terms, almost surely answer the question of what makes time travel possible.

Concerned parent and former foreign codependent Michel Lower has cast serious doubt on the findings, "Sure, I mean everyone has read Shakespeare, but how many chimps can say they've really read Shakespeare, huh? That's something that is almost impossible to do without a single malt whiskey, a poet's soul and a stack of Cliff Notes." 

This was a belief held inlike by renowned scientist Stephen Hawkins when he posed this Socratic gem, "Why don't we see more time traveling tourists?" Sagan had a cutting and ultimately un-autotunable retort that has thusly been lost from all public record and Chomsky for his part presented us with a wall of text as a comment we will neither read nor re-post. 

Nevertheless, while some remain sceptical, other participants in the study were not at all surprised by the findings, "Sure I could do what's-a-thingie with the whatchamacallit face in space," say Gina Daschle from behind both her thumbs and corresponding blackberry,  "... if I wasn't so busy complaining on Facebook about how an algorithm could accomplish my job."  

We spoke briefly with serial temp Erin McCarthy from her current data entry position in Washington DC via Skype. "I mean, what do you expect? My bachelor's degree is from an unaccredited university specializing in gayness. I'm lucky [Politemps] acknowledge my ability to group single digit sums. My mom doesn't." When asked what she would do when her  contract was terminated after the midterm elections she mused,  "I don't know, bum around." She then added more reflectively, "Sometimes I want to boldly go where no one has gone before, but I'll probably just move to a country with socialized medicine. "
Others in the industry, don't feel as lucky. "I just still don't get it, ya know?" the four-year sculling champion and top of his graduating class at Yale, Todd Stridefell remarked between sips of his latte, "Here I am,  MBA with high honors, magna cum laude,  president of my fraternity and I just can't make the time to complete my flash animation on the suitable geometries of space-time, you know? It's just like, where's my MacArthur award?" 
Furthermore, upon hearing that a renown jazz pianist, third generation stone carver and an off- Broadway theater director were three of 2010's recent recipients of the MacArthur fellowship he demanded to know what sorts of idiots these judges were, smugging off to his tennis match mumbling, "A fresh look at, Our Town, really?" 

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As I sit here aging

Good, now on to retirement. I predict that my life shall be a long one and I always sort of figured I would end up habitating alone. Before I met my partner I pictured myself living in southern Vermont and occasionally riding my snowmobile into town to use the library. My hair is long and grey in this fantasy and furthermore, there are still libraries. After the climate craps out on us, southern Vermont may no longer be ideal. Sometimes I suspect I may end up in a Spanish speaking country...

But wherever in the world I am and no matter how close the zombie apocalypse is, I want to have a homestead. I want a few fruit trees, maybe one or two nut producing varieties. A pig (one per year) a few hens--never more than six, lots of berry briars, a small veggie garden (good for freshies and canning) and maybe some rabbits. (Someone else is clearly going to have to kill those for me.) Ok, forget the rabbits. I would only want to eat them once in a great while and everyone knows they breed like, well...rabbits.

Two things have happen at this point in the story, I'm either wildly famous or not. If famous then I am living out here to escape the hub-bub of every day life, if not, I am out here to escape the hub-bub of every day life...But I also work at a food co-op. The food co-op is so cloth bag home grown that I'm glad I didn't grow up here. I think of myself more as a Linda by now and my hair is kind of wavy in its steely greys and whites. I finally need glasses and they go great with the big rain boots I wear into work.  I'm holding out for Vermont cuz I looks so cute in layers. Plus  I prefer apples and peaches to mangoes and limes...but only marginally.

Perhaps I won't have time for the co op if my coffee house is still running. Here is what I knew about it back in may 2007

If I owned a coffee shop it would be near a college I liked, in town that didn't suck. With lots of big windows and full spectrum lights.
I would commission murals to be painted by local artist and black and white photographers would have to book my wall space months in advance.
I would reward people for having their own mugs. There would be no drive-through.
Things would be organic.
And cool young people with tats and green hair would cut your bagel.
I would carry local band's cds and have an open mic night at least once a week (minimum).
The sign would be flipped to "open" at 11Am and flipped again at 12Am.
 the Wifi would be free and near the door would be several 15 min computer terminals.
Over the years we would acquire an old thinning cat that accounts for half the charm of the place and many plants who will have very particular names.
I'd be saving for a solar panel or a wind mill and we'd only do fair trade.
I can't decide if I want checkered tiles or varnished planks on the floor around the raised stage, but I do know I would have a whole wall for book shelves full of pamphlets and all sorts of radical stuff. Chess sets and graffiti safe space bathrooms.
Everything would look slightly half-assed in that rebellious,  pointed manner. We'd be broke. But the array of found couches and curb side squishy chairs would sing up dust when you sake into it circa 19 70 somethin super fly ugly style.
In the basement there would be practice and studio spaces for rent.
And I havn't named it yet, but I trust it will be a pun...I dunno, sumthin perky.
If I owned a coffee shop it would be near a college I liked, in town that didn't suck. With lots of big windows and full spectrum lights.

Were I to include my baby in that dream I would say we could also have a role playing game night--no fourth ed. Sorry. And also a MMO night where folks could come in and play EVE, Starcraft or whatever else them crazy kids would be playin by then. Wouldn't it be fun to name sandwiches? How much would you love coming up with a logo?
...man, I can't wait to be old. My kids will like me (again) by then! I might even have a car.  I plan to be a forrunner in AI rights, but only to curry favor.  Atanyrate, you know I'm just being silly. I'll never ever be a Linda and I promise to make my kids hate me forever. But mostly, I fuckin hate snow and robots will have no use for me as I am not a technsion. Its cool though, I feel like a bike ride anyway.

Later, Gator.

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Video Blog 4

Featured in the Post:
   Aging geekfully     Neil's Youtube        Billy Apathy      I dream loudly


Consistency Sucks      Is it too early for a martini?     American Dropout 

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It gets better, but is it getting better?

Yes, that is my cup of tea.

I have been diluting myself into thinking that it is easier to be a gay teen in our country. I have insulated my world and surrounded myself with r radical fairies, fags, dikes, sex pots, bi-serious queers, lezzies and trans folk. People at my work place and in my friends and family circles have come out to me personally and I personally came out out to my mom. It went something like this, "I'm a gay boy on the inside, mom. Didn't you know?" This was the middle of college, I think.

My story is a lot less dramatic then it could be. I knew I was gay because everybody told me I was. In fact the entire bus once chanted "Erin's gay" on repeat when I was coming home from school in kindergarten. I cried the whole time and remember thinking that I wanted to be dead.  What really hurt me most was the fact that my bus driver, with whom I had a loving and friendly rapport, did not defend me. Despite the volume of their group hating,  she didn't think it was her responsibility to rise to my aid. She failed me just as we are falling our children today.
Now, I'm not gay. But I am queer and this is only one story out of many I could share about my experiences growing up in the wrong body. In truth, not being able to be in the cub scouts and the various other minor indignities I suffered are all at once nothing when compared with having your arm broken for wanting to be on the cheer-leading squad, or your town being so disgusted with you wanting to take your girlfriend to the prom that they hold a separate one in secret. REMEMBER: These are just the stories we hear about. Consider also, that there have been a brash of young suicides lately that have nearly cut my insides out. I carry the pain, not only for the children who felt death was the only escape, but also for their survivors who will surely blame themselves.  

I've always thought adults took themselves too seriously when they said words like bullying or still worse "cyber bullying" but lets face it, young people can be wicked mean. We need more allies like Will Phillips, a young man who refuses to say the pledge of allegiance until all people in our country do have liberty and justice. Examples like that make tears of pride come to my eyes. (It's like watching MILK, all over again) And I want to believe that minds will change, that people will stop being so scared. NF: Having a gay roommate at college does not mean that your roommate is going to hit on you. You're just not that hot. Sorry.

I have many angry words I could share for those who use hate speech, and those who don't defend against it. It is not about being politically correct and it never has been. Its about respecting each person's individual nature and their right to enjoy a life free of other people's insecurities being thrust back at them. That is why I am telling you that I am gender queer...I mean, like if you didn't figure it out on your own...because as I read today in my facebook feed, 

"Being visible saves people. If I can be open and proud of who I am, that is an invitation for anyone and everyone to be proud of who they are. These kids don't have to believe that they are alone. They're not. None of us are. " OP:

 I may change the body that I have someday, right now, I'm just building a different box--so someone down the line will have a chance to think outside of it.

If you are queer and would like to share your story with me, privately or publicly, I welcome the opportunity. Thank you to all the allies out there, please feel free to share also. Thank you to the secure ones who understand equality. Thank you to the folks who are actively trying to chose another phrase over  "that's gay." or other derogatory speech. This is an important step to changing your views on these issues. Your sensitivity could literally save lives.  From our hearts and minds must the change we wish to see in this world come. And as ever, cum as you are.  Happy weekend, everybody..I need to go snuggle my partner to sleep.
Be well.

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Erin is a hungry face; email her!

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Short story 2

Karma and Monsters

Jack was a small boy, always short for his age, with big dopey ears and straw brown hair that wouldn’t comb straight. He moved like a Muppet, bobbing up and down, big silly mouth open as he walked, and if you saw him at a distance you’d have expected his eyes to be blue, not the harsh grey green of the harbors he haunted. Despite his short stature, or perhaps because of it, he was Bart Simpson at the lunch table, the Zack Morris of the halls. 

Natalie was by contrast tall, but with a pudgy face and a mop of tangled straight blond hair. She was 90 percent legs, but boyishly managed to embody discomfort when she was forced into a dress, hands oft times dirty being that there were far too many hours on Saturday between lunch and dinner.

She believed her Nana Bassett must have been as wise as everyone said, cause’ if you laughed too much before you went to sleep, you did end up crying. The children held this belief in common. Likewise, big smudges of brown freckles cascaded across each face come summer as Jack’s mom would take them to the beach almost every day. She would use the tips she had made the night before at the bar to pay the toll at Hardings Beach or Cockle Cove. She sometimes brought friends, and they would drink and sleep on the beach while the children diligently tried not to get sand in the popcorn or saltwater in their eyes.
 Jack’s mom was Natalie’s sister, and Jack was her nephew. They would feel special when they told people this, not awkward or strange, for it had never occurred to them that they ought to. To Natalie, having people mistake her big sister for her mother was something altogether silly, but their mom had her first at 16, Natalie’s sister was now barely 19. So for people seeing two small children looking so much alike and playing together, siblings was the natural conclusion. 

They all lived in a small village right on the coast that had a big hotel where rich people went to play golf and get grass stains on their boat shoes. These people wore bibs when they ate lobster, mispronounced the word scallops, were baffled by rotaries, and like all seasonal tourists believed buying a tee-shirt and really wearing it out, would some how make you a local. 

It was slow and grey in the winter there, but in those August days, when red tide didn’t make it that far into the bay, there was money to be made—bushels of it. There was work in any field you wanted, as long as you knew how to hold the tool and didn’t expect your summer tan to go all the way up the back of your arms. Jack’s mom and Natalie had brothers who crewed ships bound for George’s Bank and back, hunting cod, scrod or sand shark on the long lines or by their gills. They scraped the beds down Monomoy for cherrystones and topnecks, and the straights down Jackknife for quahogs and mussels. They were young for men but big for boys.

Nat and Jacky, as the grown folk called them, caught the tail end of a long  swimming lessons tradition  down Oyster Pond.  With their cut feet and stinging eyes they would crowd up on the beach just after  to eat Italian Ice or Screwballs when the ice cream truck came to park on the piles and piles of cigarettes butts and imported sand.  The two children would entertain themselves with digging for China—the other side of the world, an escape—but they always hit the water table first.

They had a big family and that was fine mostly; between the fights, at least. A lot of bad things happen before Jacky and Nat were ever born. There was a lot of raw feelings and horrible holidays no one liked to talk about unless they were shoving and drunk. Told back to the pair it sounded like an ugly Lifetime drama where wads of money get stored inside books and children are better ignored then elected hostage. Jack’s mom in particular had a lot of problems because someone who she should have been able to trust hurt her very badly when she was still a little girl. Jack and Natalie had never met the monster, but they talked time to time about killing him, even when they were very young, because they had always known. The whole town had always known. Quietly, this is what hurt them all most.

When Jack’s mom went to the hospital for hurting herself, the whole family visited her. They took turns going in. Jack and Natalie went in together. The story of how the police officer had pulled her over for speeding after washing down 32 sleeping pills with a too many glasses of wine was hard for the children to swallow. She still had a ring of charcoal around her lips from the stomach pumping when she tried to explain why she was there to her little Jacky. It wasn't Oreo cookie, and she wasn’t allowed to keep the flowers they had brought her, so they left them in the big parking lot where they could be squatted next to while everyone cried.

Years later, Jack would go in and out of that same hospital for problems of his own, and when he took his own life, Natalie would think of the monster that hurt her sisters, her mother and her brothers. She would play one song over and over again breathing in and out all of the ugly, most of the sad, half of the sorted truths brought  on by anger and the drinking, and even as she hated herself for crying over it, she would remember the monster she never been aloud to meet, or to kill and she would clench her jaw and both her fists over how it could have all been different.

♫"Hello hawk, come pick me up.."♫

The call came on weekend. She had slept in. Natalie thought Jack was in jail or something, hardly reason enough to wake her at nine—jail at least would have been a half life. Instead, she heard the truth from the floor, on her knees, where she landed, when she fell with her mouth open screaming, “He’s not dead, he’s not dead. You have to be wrong. He’s not dead.”

Everything came together and back to her in pieces. He was dead.  But he had be so alive! Perhaps an unfair amount of alive had once lived in Jacky. His smile had been an infection to spread through a room.

At Christmas you could always make up with him eventually, thanksgiving too. No one stays mad forever. They say he had the biggest showing at Nickerson Funeral home in 4 generations.  But Natalie remembered him humming his own theme music whenever they would do something dangerous. She doubted anyone else had ever even noticed. They say that guys who jumped out of planes along side him came round for a spell, but Natalie had roof tops to remember, and tree tops too. They say there were people and pictures everywhere that night. Supposedly, the line was out the door and around the block. But  Natalie wouldn't be caught dead at a wake. She held on instead to zip-lines, bikes in the rain and a thousand fun summers with pirates and Indians.

“I’m tired of being kicked in the balls.” He had texted to his mother right where he smoked his last cigarette, and only moments before he put his hunting rifle into his mouth and kissed the world goodbye. The police found him around three that morning, less than a mile from their old house, his truck parked a little ways off the street. The moon was full, and it had been such a lovely night for driving, reflecting, and apparently, fighting with his wife. Jack had wanted his own family harder then anybody else, and maybe he was getting better at staying mad on Christmas.

He was cremated in his Red Sox hat, so that when the family pressed their hands to his icebox cheek, all painted and false, they could pretend not to notice the exit wound. But his neck had been at an odd angle, and he couldn’t fake sleep without smiling. Not Jacky, not to save his life. He had been such a brave boy, once.

She thought again about killing Him, the monster that had robbed them all of everything that mattered in a small town. He was an old man by now, he had to be. Natalie’s older brother, the good one, told her that the monster had called him and had said that the monster would soon die. Natalie’s brother felt riotous in telling him about Jack and about how the monster had ruined everyone’s lives. Natalie’s brother told the monster he was happy he would die.

He said, “I guess Karma’s a mutha fucka” You could hear him smile through the phone when he told it back to you.

And when the monster died, Jack was still dead.

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