Weekly writing contest

www.wordsfordollars.com 

This website holds a weekly contest. The first place prize is 500 bucks. It costs 15 dollars to submit your writings on the given subject. This week the subject is winter. No more than 1000 words. I haven't made up my mind about giving money to strangers, given that they are brand new and haven't had any winners yet. Any thoughts?

The Farce

The woman walked across the window naked. Drying her hair in front of the closet cabinet. 

"What's the matter? Are you ashamed of your body?" She asked.

"No, but you sure do a lot of sit-ups. What's that saying?" I said, laying up in bed. 

"Well, its a matter of pride, I guess." She answered throwing on a robe and cleaning her ears. 

"Everyday people look at me,  and this is what they see." She waved her hand over her body. 

"One day you'll be unattractive. After that your dead." I rolled over and watched the patterns in the carpet mysteriously shift. "Everybody's got their moment, I know that." She adjusted her skirt in the mirror and dashed her bangs. 

"You sure do." 

Jersey makes me think of a sea turtle digging holes in someone's front yard in upstate New York. Are locations confusing me? I am not sure what I mean by "locations" though. I am confused by perception maybe. My dad saw a family of foxes running through the woods in the suburbs, "going from yard to yard." My friend saw a family of foxes playing, "like as if they were on the nature channel". That was in the middle of the road, I think. This is true: I got like ten emails over the weekend. 0% of them were written by actual humans, I think. I just want to do some collaborative work with someone. I need to insure my existence with meaningful relationships, in case I decide to act like an asshole for 95% of the next ten years of my life.

True, the earth moves under the stars. How do you explain the North star? I heard you cast your eye off the last star on the big dipper's dipper in a straight line to find it. But that Big Dipper is always in different places! Anyway, lighthouses are absurdly phallic. All the ones in Jersey have different light sequences so the sailors can tell them apart.  I found Bruce Springsteen's beating heart on the Jersey Shore and threw it back into the water. The guy from the Sapranos was attempting to drown himself next to me. Sea weed was stuck to his fattened breasts. 

Seems like lighthouses move only with the rotation of the earth
but stars don't move.

Lighthouses don't really move
but dolphins do.

Visitors

"That was terrible, holy shit," Matt says, falling to the floor. 

"Now you can write about it," Scott says. 

"This feels interesting actually...No. I don't even want to write about it - yet, anyway" Matt says. "I want a shot!"

Matt rolls over and knocks into the chair with wheels. The chair rolls a little. The box fan rattles a little. 

Scott's eyes widen. Matt and Scott's eyes connect visions. Scott moves his eyes around, then Matt does too. 

"Shots!" Matt says. 

Matt and Scott don't find any liquor in the kitchen and Matt goes to his landlord for some, who forces the bottle into his hand grudgingly. 

"Don't keep me up," the landlord says with close-cropped eyes.

Matt swallows a shot of gin and says "This all feels really good... man, I feel alive, bro," into the medium-space, before the off-white wall. 

Matt registers each of his reactions to the outside world as individual feelings, glowing distinctly in his chest. Hands scooping the circumference of color-coded orbs. He resigns knowing the despair will soak into his flesh and pours another shot.

"You're doing a good job," Scott says.

Matt moves his eyes over to Scott's without moving his head, which is fixed over the desk, the bottle and the glasses. 

"They were both just here, right? Did you see them there and hear their voices like I did?" Matt says.

Scott smiles at Matt, wildly a little. His hands in his pockets, tasting gin. He cannot feel any of his own problems directly. Matt touches his finger tips to the desk and begins moving his body rhythmically to the music.

 

a poem about the wildlife refuge in brooklyn

my life seems depressing. 

when i write about the things i do in real life i feel like i am fucked.

we all change as people, right. there are some bananas near me

and there are more bananas on the windowsill. 

i changed as a person, but still feel existentially frustrated,

and now i like to drink coffee and think about how societies are meaningless

constructs. the line breaks in the poem will drive home this winning argument - 

something, be post modern maybe.

my endocrine glands have been infected, i feel

and will require an injection

the doctor says. 

the serum they use is electrically charged, and seems sweet!

the anxiousness in my stomach is yellow and ice creamy. 

at night on a friday i feel like i took a nap and woke up extra oily.

i read some

sentences of short stories and then stopped after some sentences

and made pasta, ate it, 

rode my skateboard around at 5am and bought a huge cantaloupe

and dropped it, but it was fine and then i ate it

then i took the train to the wildlife refuge

where i walked around in a maze of bushes.

sometimes i came to mud and grass taller than small trees

and at one point felt completely surrounded by birds

but could not take pictures of any with my cellphone.

with my shirt off, sweating a little,

red lines and patches streaked across my chest and arms.

then, finally i felt too tired to keep up my an inner monologue or something.

forgetting, but imagining a little, 

i slept a little on the train ride back.

Whensday?

Lenny was thinking that American English was an ignorant language. His eyebrows were pointed and full of worry. He chewed the inside corner of his mouth.  Across from Lenny, George sat silent and whistled a lit match through his pipe. A grandfather clock chimed and tick-tocked through the room of daze dust and sun. George exhaled a cloud of smoke.

“How was Len-Fest?” George’s curious eyebrows and ears curled.

Brimming, Lenny stated, "A modern debauchery recalling the days of Caligula Rome." 

“That’s always good,” George unfolded his arms. A little annoyed about missing this "caligula" thing. 

“Well, besides the horses it was actually pretty legit.” Inserted Lenny. He thought about the party and about the seducer of his friend and the stained carpet. 

“Well I hope it wasn’t too tame.” Winked George.

“I had encountered much stress, offered Lenny coughing, 'but managed quite nicely. My brother wound up coming with some of his friends.” Lenny began a sip of beer but stopped… “ This friend of my brother's is some tragic disposable hero. Real 'live for the music' guy. Completely over the top. Quite sure he ripped into the PA he brought with a guitar.”

"Was he any good?" George asked.

"No, he partially cried while singing an original titled 'Basement Mother Blues."

"How old is he?"

"30."

"Wow."

"Yea."

“Did you play?”  

“Yea, me and my brother alternated on drums.” 

“How is Sal anyway? He’s married no?” George asked recalling Lenny’s brother. The tall bright guy. 

“Yea, couple years. New baby.”

“Oh shit, congratulations. “

“Yea, well that’s what happens.” Lenny winced. 

  

“He still at the plant?” 

“Nah. Laid off with a six month severance.”

“Fuck man, my mom got laid off too.” George offered. Lenny looked at George's screwy blue eyes.“Really? Sal’s wife also.” “Damn,”  George scratched himself. “My parents are pissed because Sal and Lena just went to Arizona for vacation and are now planning on Cabo.” Lenny snorted.

“I read about that in the paper.” 

“About my brother?” Lenny asked, questioning reason.

“About laid off people taking vacations . . .why not right?”

“Well the problem is each of them have debts the size of a house, and my brother’s wife got a job but first morning they called early to tell her the job wasn’t in the budget.”

"Damn."

"Yea."

Each of them paused. Lenny wanted to laugh, like when he did when his dog was being put down and afterwards seeing a new puppy on his way out the door almost winking.  George was thinking about yard work and a rubbish fire and crashing through the woods with a big stick. Then they both thought about the time when they were fighting a war in the desert. And they didn't want to talk about that. 

"Stupid clock." Lenny spat and dusted off the clicking grandfather clock. "You should get a cuckoo clock." George smiled and exhaled another cloud of smoke into a beam of sunlight.

"Nah. This is like a family heirloom." 

"Is it worth anything?"

"Not in dollars my friend." 

"Does it work?"

"Not properly."

"Get a cuckoo clock." 

"Shut up, George." 

Silence came over them and the ticking clock again filled the room. George and Lenny both felt terribly lonely. They wanted to speak hot and fast and laugh at something really funny but there was nothing. Lenny started to think about an Arab girl that reached out to him as she died. George put on the Television.

"Seinfeld's on."

"Yea."

I was/ You were

English grammar is arbitrary. Other than that I haven't much to say. I got drunk and woke up with some violent scabs on my palm and wrist. Apparently I refused the stairs. This morning I was in the hospital at the bedside of a stomach virus victim. Took a cloudy motorbike ride out to a beach on the weekend. Too early to re live it but last summer was the shit over there.

Distracted Party

It came apart all over my hands. Stacey scratches her eyelid with a stick, reaching for a plastic, purple egg. What a way to ruin an almost perfect day - the egg cake eaten in minutes. 

The internet said low of 35. I drove the shy kid home and quickly returned. What I did when I got back didn't look like what I was really doing. I'd have to explain the intentions of ten different people. What was important was that I woke up in my clothes again.

An image of a person with the impulse to bring their guitar somewhere entered my head. The image had my apartment in it. I was in my apartment. The easiest way to say it was to say that my apartment was floating. 

The party was a gathering of old friends from the hotel. No one expected Chuck to be drunk upon arrival. No one performed badly, though. In fact, Chuck had us all laughing in minutes. Whatever people felt before we got drunk was gone, but returning tomorrow. My friends are sleeping to the noise of a giant fan.

In minutes, I'll receive a memory, like a trinket. The thing had an interlocking, internal structure. One piece broke under a lot of pressure from my finger nail. My finger nail felt like a piece of paneling being pulled back, but the thing came apart first. 

The Sad Basketball Diaries

Yao Ming holds Nate Robinson over his head like a basketball. Steve Nash jumps off a small trampoline, makes his legs into a 'V' over Nate Robinson while grabbing Nate Robinson and does a front flip. Steve Nash then dunks Nate Robinson in an over-sized hoop. Steve Nash lands and Nate Robinson tangles in the net. Nate Robinson dies from strangulation by the ropes of the net. Steve Nash and Yao Ming leave Nate Robinson's body in the net and go to McDonald's. They order extra value meals with one dollar menu item each. They sit in the second story seating of the McDonald's, looking over Federal Plaza. Yao Ming says "I want to write an iconic book of poetry while I'm still young because that's the only way it's possible." Steve Nash says, "That might not be true. Anything is possible." There is a pause. Then Steve Nash says, "I want to enrich that girl's existence be sending her office supplies in the mail." Yao Ming sees the girl Steve Nash is talking about and says, "oh."

After McDonald's Yao Ming and Steve Nash go into the City Hall subway station. A W train comes by and Steve Nash gets on and sits down. Then Yao Ming gets on and sits down. Steve Nash says, "This is the wrong train" and runs off the train. Yao Ming runs off the train. Steve Nash says, "We should go to MSG anyway." Yao Ming says, "Yeah."

When they get to MSG, Steve Nash makes baked ziti in the conveyor pizza oven but with cut up pretzels instead of ziti. Yao Ming eats the ziti and says, "This ziti is dry." He throws the ziti onto the basketball court from the upper tier where they are. The ziti lands below Nate Robinson's dead body still tangled in the net. Steve Nash stares with a vacant facial expression at the hoop and the baked ziti splatter. Steve Nash says, "That is where famous bands played like The Rolling Stones and The Grateful Dead." Yao Ming says, "------- hippie."

New bands like My Morning Jacket, Kings of Leon, and Vampire Weekend didn't play at MSG because basketball and hockey seasons have been extended to year long seasons with no off-seasons. This caused players to spend a majority of their lives inside arenas. Players also traded teams regularly and recklessly; team loyalty faded with million dollar contracts and endorsements, which all failed due to the collapsing economy. Sometimes a player played on a team for only one game and then moved on to another team. Kobe Bryant once scored 100 points against the Milwaukee Bucks using only three-pointers and foul shots. On the backs of playing cards it listed the teams players did not yet play for. Some players played for each team in the league at least once, the older players sometimes twice. Carl Malone came back from retirement and played for each team three times as a publicity stunt. He lived permanently in a coach bus fueled by restaurant oils. He nurtured one large cat through obesity and back to average mouser weight.

Steve Nash and Yao Ming were now in the visitors locker room of MSG. Yao Ming wears his Houston Rockets shorts and his Orlando Magic jersey. Steve Nash wears his Boston Celtics shorts with his New York Knicks jersey. At one point both Yao Ming and Steve Nash thought of themselves as iconic figures of the NBA. Now, you can see in their faces a sense of prophetic sense of loss. Yao Ming bounces a basketball off the top row of lockers that makes a very loud rattling noise. Steve Nash hands Yao Ming an avocado bowl. They both begin to eat avocado bowls sitting next to each other on a bench. The locker room smells like lemon cleaning products. A laptop on the end of the bench plays Journey To the End of the East Bay by Rancid repeatedly. When Yao Ming finishes he feels a little drunk though he is not drunk. He stands up on the bench and makes a 'man-gina' by tucking his penis between his legs. He calls Steve Nash's name and Steve Nash looks up at Yao Ming's exposed crotch. Steve Nash shouts "Nooooooooo" in an exaggerated tone.

Brooklyn, New Orleans

- Brooklyn's between-81 and 71-square miles contains 2.5 million people.
- New Orleans' 180 square miles contains a little more than 1 million people.
- New York state contains between 5,000 and 4,000 black bears in the Adirondacks, 2,000 and 1,500 in the Catskills, and 500 and 300 in the Allegany region.
- Louisiana contains 1.5 million alligators and .5 million of which are on farms. They contain between 1,000 and 500 black bears.

Orange monkey.

Left flat foot hot burning hurt for no damn reason other than taking another step on the long walk of life. Now it's bothering for two days. Let's see a doc. Stick needles in my foot. Throats also soar. Damn shame. No damn reason. Dogs got gas. Had to switch his food. Argument with a Georgia boy 'bout Pearl Harbor. Who knew. Makoli revelations. He should've had some. Other than that not much more than a fight for your money and life, just what everybody else got themselves  into. Told I have no rights. Performed a mid level office sit-in. Now I'm changing tickets. Moving out. Still selling my shit. Got a couch. Various chairs. Bass guitar and amp. Plants and towels free. Yoga ball and mat. What else. . . we'll keep you updated. I pretend to sound so tortured. But I think anyone who reads this is dying a rather oblivious slow death. Compare your life to the tragic victims of . . . 

michael earl craig

michael earl craig puts on his whooping crane-costume and gets in the triker plane. two other people with whooping crane-costumes open the gate of a large mesh-net-cage and 10 whooping cranes come out into the feild. the person who opened the gate begins flapping the arms of it's costume. michael earl craig starts the engine of the triker. he speeds down the grass runway. the whooping cranes run after the triker. the triker takes off above the pine trees. the whooping cranes follow michael earl craig's triker in a 'V'. michael earl craig flies over tennessee. the whooping cranes move their wings up and down rapidly, and animatronic-ally. michael earl craig turns his head to look at a whooping crane as it accelerates alongside the triker. the whooping crane stops flapping it's wings and glides, for a moment staying even with the triker, then falling back into 'formation'. as michael earl craig turns his head back towards georgia he pauses to look at the sun which is halfway below the green mountains. the clouds look orange to michael earl craig. michael earl craig thinks 'the clouds aren't really orange.' then he thinks 'that was the first complete sentence my brain produced since i got in the striker and thought 'turn the engine on'.' michael earl craig begins to feel nervous that all the whooping cranes are still following him. then he thinks, 'what if i took off my whooping crane-costume helmet?' rhetorically. 'i want to take off my helmet and show the whooping cranes i am a human. i would just make a crazy face and shake my cheeks so that they flap on my gums, smacking.' michael earl craig looks at his arms and legs stretching out towards the foot and hand controls of the triker. he thinks 'i'm a stupid human. i don't want to show them my face because it's the face of a stupid human who can't think for itself. i'm a numb stupid human. i want to write this down. i want to write 'i'm stupid' in emotionally affected hand writing.' then michael earl craig sees a field of long grass. he feels an urge to urinate in the long grass. he tells himself 'i have to urinate.' he nose-dives the triker and pulls off a miraculous landing. the whooping cranes land in the feild behind the triker and stand around confused and energetic. michael earl craig takes off his whooping crane-costume helmet while facing away from the whooping cranes. he slowly turns his face towards the flock. michael earl craig walks towards the whooping cranes thinking 'i want to touch their necks with my neck.' he gets close to one whooping crane and it jumps into the air. the whooping crane spreads its wings and draws its clawed feet towards michael earl craig. michael earl craig puts his arms over his face like a boxer, but it is too late. the whooping cranes are too intolerant.

There was a city street lined only with red and clear plastic tents. Some of them long as a fog-horn bellow and others short as a pop. They were all smoking, cussing up plumes of harsh charcoal and seared fish skin. Inside the tents, flames burned in the make shift kitchen. Old women cooked and cleaned. People sat around, late in the night drinking the clear liquor, laughing and smoking. A metal rim around the fire cookers sat the people. Other tables were scattered about which were white plastic, defiled and scratched by shoes and the wind. Cooking smoke and tobacco smoke lined the meaty tenor throats of youngish boys with gelled hair. The girls' conversations progressed in a flute-ish harmony. They were flowing together with the smoke, the tent plastic and the wind. Everyone swirled up into the salt laden blackness and laughing so hard their feet did not recognize the floor.

The old kitchen women bleated like a lamb and served the grilled eel in red sauce with lettuce and raw garlic. A shot of Soju comes right after swallowing the meat and garlic wrapped in lettuce. The meat is sauced smoky, lettuce clean, garlic like a violin on fire and finally, the clear liquor disinfects. 

It brought all the people back down to business. Grunting, touching and nodding were commands and requests. All the mouths were slopping up like mop buckets. Fingers licked and supped tasted like alkaline battery acid. The senses were being pulled and knocked around. None fit well together as sunshine and floral fragrance might, but there was a carefree balance.

People channeled out of the tents dirty with money and in search of taxis. They were ungraceful, unsymmetrical, un-admiral, uncivil heaps of flesh.

A taxi arrived yellow and dutiful smelling of dead flowers. It hummed as people entered. 

All the people vanished into compartments, sat quietly and fuzzed off. 

should i have standards for things i 'like'

sometimes i think why do i like that thing?

do i like things because i just want to say i like them

i think i could easily be more into billiards if i wanted

or birding; i've been to bird sanctuaries.

i was getting food from a buffet one time and i was going

through the books i've read recently in my head

i thought i like all these books, all of them.

do i like these books because they're linked to other books i like through style, or period, or tone, or something else that describes a book?

i think i like books that deal with emotional problems - relationship, or substance abuse problems.

*

i think i should be more of an asshole.

there's no point to thinking about why something is good or you like it.

i think i'll be too vulnerable.

it'd be funny if i took the books i liked and put them up to peoples faces

and then punched the other side of them so that it gives them bloody noses.

i just thought that this post seems hormonal, or emotional.

assholes can be little bitches too. assholes are little bitches with things for show - muscles, clothes, engines and drive shafts, or money.

summer shooting

a white shirt dipped in green 3-d words with gray shadowed reliefs hangs from the cuffed suspects back. he says his cousin called him to help him with a beef. he says he can't fight and doesn't own a gun. the blue eyed homicide detective says everyone there knows him, everyone knows why he was there. the suspect moves his head up and down. his eyes are a little sad. he's leaning forward. the homicide detective with spiky hair blinks slowly. the blue eyed homicide detective has as a gold-ringed finger on his lips. the suspect says he did not shoot the victim. the spiky haired homicide detective leans forward, sliding his blue sleeved arms across the table. he says the suspect can make this easy or hard on himself. he says something very wrong happened and that they need to make it right. the suspect feels small and sad. he feels like he's been alienated. he cannot remember the rage that surged through him when he shot the cito in the apartment. you're cousins says you had the gun in your hand says the blue-eyed homicide detective. what i don't get is why you'd want to kill this man. with the amount of money we found in you're trunk what did you have to kill a man for says the spiky haired detective with a confused look on his face. the suspect looks at the other detective with a more confused face. he's leaning forward. he's cuffed still. his eyebrows arch like bridges over the black rivers of his eyes. his eyes get wet. he says but the ghosts officer. he shakes his head like he's pleading with the officers. the ghosts officer. it's a hundred degrees out there, kid says the blue eyed detective. you're lugging around farm equipment, half a million in cash, and you pull over in the projects and knock off some guy named cito for nothing? we have enough to keep you for the night, kid. people make mistakes, kid says the spiky haired officer. the detectives leave the room with their manila folders. the suspect puts his head down on the table. he sees the green 3-d letters with the gray shadows on his shirt. the summer is depressing he thinks.

Stacy and Rick

STACY SLEPT WITH RICK LAST FRIDAY. This weekend (it's Friday again) she goes to her friend's house who's having a party later. She drinks with the friend and other friends, knowing Rick will come there later. She had told Rick to come in school but he would have maybe come otherwise.

Stacy keeps looking at her friend's breasts in their shirts while they drink. The other girls are looking at the beer and the cards and each other's faces and anticipating about boys and penises and also maybe noticing each other's breasts but maybe not as much as Stacy. Stacy's friend who lives down the block from the house they are in flashes everyone her breasts like it's part of the drinking game but not really, just something she'd been thinking and knowing she'd do because it was entertaining to her. The flashing prompts the buzzed girls laughter. Stacy laughs but thinks they're all watching her laugh. Her self awareness turns to reassurance or acceptance, maybe comfort. She thinks 'they're probably thinking about breasts as much as I am'. Later, after more flashing, and a few spilled beer cans, they move out back to the porch because they are expecting more people to be arriving, because a few have already arrived - boys.

The boys who arrive don't do a good job talking to the girls. They talk to them like they are still in the hallways of school. Rick arrives an hour later when Stacy is drunk. A variety of personalities at who arrive in the mean time distract Stacy from Rick. Stacy feels excited to see people she didn't expect to see. One group, who Stacy can picture Rick telling them he had sex with Stacy even though they don't call each other or go over each other's houses for non-drinking things, had one interaction with her friend whose house it is and then sat on the top of the hill behind the lawn and passed a blunt back and forth. She feels good that she is part of their relaxed substance abusing night.

Ricks eyes are black and wide when they contact Stacy's. Rick thought about Stacy before he got to the party. He expected Stacy to want to have sex again but thought that he didn't care if he doesn't have sex with Stacy, he likes Stacy but will contemplate how to have sex when he's more drunk. Rick walks up on the porch and says Hi to Stacy's friend who's closest to the stairs. Rick says Hi to Stacy from the distance of the other end of the beerpong table. Rick is wearing a tight shirt that makes Stacy picture his naked, hairless chest. She thinks about his small nipples and then thinks about her friend's puffy wider nipples which she saw earlier. Stacy goes back to talking and drinking with her friends, looking at their breasts, seeing the beer spills soaked tightly over them; sometimes poking them and laughing in retaliation from other pokes. When a girl named Kim comes out of the darkness around the corner of the house with her friends behind her the night pauses shortly like bands are changing stage at a show. They observe the crowd and go straight to Rick and his friends. Stacy never talks to Rick or even thinks she will after this. She sees Rick and Kim kissing under the porch later.

Eventually, the kids from the hill come on the porch. They are more high than drunk, but a little drunk. Stacy and her friend whose house it is play two of them in beerpong. Stacy pushes her breasts together and pulls down her shirt to show a lot of cleavage to distract one of them who's wearing sunglasses and a backwards hat as he's about to throw a ping-pong ball. Stacy's friend pokes Stacy's left breast with her finger and the ball hits her hand on the way towards the cups. "That's interference," says the other kid. The other girls laugh and hold each other's arms. Their heads fly back in a frenzy. Their hairs are everywhere in the porch light as they shout 'nooooo' tauntingly at the boys. Stacy's friend says, 'What, you can't handle a little distraction?'

The boys beat Stacy and her friend and her friend goes down to the overly populated lawn. Stacy leans into the kid with the sunglasses and backwards hat while they're in the kitchen. They kiss and she leads him upstairs to her friend's room. They close the door and fall onto the bed in the darkness. He puts his tongue in her mouth and rubs her ---- through her jeans. He unbuttons her jeans and puts his finger in her vagina. While they have sex a ceramic lady bug the size of blue jay falls on Stacy's head from the headboard. The boy puts his cell phone light to her forehead while his penis is still inside her. "It's okay, I think," he pants. "It's bleeding but it's just a red line. The blood isn't coming out."

Lucid Dream

Lucid dreaming is being aware of your dreams while asleep, and controlling them.  I had been reading about it the past couple of nights.

This morning I was able to dream lucidly. Naturally, I chose to fly and have sex. 

I was having some other dream, about a distant cousin, whom I didn't know. It was his biography. He was on a boat, running from some thing. I was in some Parisian street when I realized it was a dream. I floated up. I was staring at a traffic light and made my way towards it by "swimming." I got close to the light, which was red, but found the swimming method sluggish and not all that effective. I tried using my mind. After several attempts and skimming the street a couple times, I shot up to a clock tower a couple blocks down. Then I was in black space. (I wasn't completely in control). I decided that it was a good time to have sex.  I saw a bed down below with a girl on it and came crashing down. 

I started thinking about another dream I had earlier about winning a wrestling tournament and lost focus. I wound up in a super market, back dreaming obliviously. Then I woke up. 

this is going on a website along with some other things by other people about NOLA volunteering

i remember seeing signs on campus for organized, one- or two-week trips to the disaster areas. a girl in class announced where you'd need to go to sign up and that anyone was eligible. it'd be over spring break. i told a roommate i wanted to go. i told someone else and they said if you're going to go some place go some place cool that's not fucked up. in the spring, in my public speaking class a student from tulane was introduced. the teacher said to help him out if he needed anything. i remember the question he asked after one of my speeches: 'so do you need to do anything to hike these mountains? or you just go and it's free.' i said 'yeah. you just go. you have to know where they are. you have to find the trail heads yourself.' during finals when i was walking into the library to study i saw a free standing cork board with pictures from the organized trips. a bunch of students had their arms around each other and were all smiling. there were fallen trees and destroyed houses behind them. the ocean was in some shots. they were doing work with gloves and buckets in other shots. 'i should have gone,' i said to myself. 'i can still go.'

in june, while working at my summer internship, i googled 'katrina volunteering,' or 'hurricane relief' - i can't remember for sure. a small non-profit came up first. the application looked easier than the habitat for humanity route. the people in the pictures seemed 'cool'. the questioning pointed towards cooking experience. i was wanted manual labor but applied anyway. my plane ticket was for the day after my internship ended. i stayed out with my friends until 4am the night before, drank beer, and smoked marijuana. i left the house while they chugged, danced and sang.

in new orleans my taxi cab driver had trouble finding camp hope. i didn't have good cellphone service. he showed me the water line on the houses. when i got to the front office of the elementary-school-turned-volunteer-compound (camp hope) there was a confusion about who i was volunteering for. there were three groups - e.c., habitat, and americorp. e.c. ran the kitchen. habitat and americorp did gutting throughout the parish. a woman wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots from e.c. showed me around. i put my things down on a cot in what used to be a classroom. i went to the kitchen and signed up to help with kitchen preparation. the kitchen was empty. two other new arrivals were shaving carrots. i went back to my cot and laid down because i was tired. i looked at the cement floor, at flies landing on it, and at the metal studs where the walls should be. wires snaked everywhere. an extension chord stretched into the middle of the room. i charged my cellphone. i thought 'everything is the same.'

i put on a bandanna and went to the kitchen. there were more people in there this time. more kept showing up. i helped with the salad. an americorp girl and i chopped things and put them in the salad containers. we worked up against the ipod stereo system while the rest of the kitchen hectically operated under the direction of a short girl wearing a bandanna and neat clothing. when dinner was all prepared, we carried and rolled it up to the gymnasium-turned-cafeteria. during this time i met a lot of the people that worked there, or i made eye contact with people and they must have thought: 'new person'. after dinner was ready i served food on the food line for about an hour. then someone took over for me. i sat at a table with some food. i stayed quiet and sat near the people i knew were also new. the people who had been there longer acted differently. they talked more, or ate very fast and went back to work - they talked to locals who they had friendships with. they looked comfortable in dirty clothes, had long hair, and carried themselves with the ease and pressure of routine. after i ate two plates at a moderate speed i returned to the serving line. a second wave of volunteers came to eat. a few straggling locals came to eat. then we just sat around behind the serving line and eventually no one else came.

we started hauling things back to the kitchen where the trays, bins, and pots had already started to pile up on tables near the dish pit. three people were working the dish pit. it could have been a younger guy who didn't get around to helping in the kitchen or a restless older woman or a random americorp person or a person like me who just felt comfortable and useful - in the beginning anyway. i helped wash while talking to the other people at each sink. the music had continued playing from dinner prep after being changed several times. someone put on paul simon very loud. the rest of the kitchen had been cleaned a little while after the dinner was sent off to the service line. around ten or eleven the kitchen was finally quiet and sat there waiting, desolate but comfortable... and random people would gather in it, or a single random person would come walking through looking for a cup, a snack. i learned that the kitchen would never really rest. i learned how different e.c. was from habitat and americorp though i was never really confused. people called each other baby, love, and were flirtations. or people were strangers.

in the days to come we'd be drinking in it. mixing of random flood liquor, sharing of foam cups of daiquiris happened frequently after hours during my two weeks. it was a good feeling when this was going on. sometimes when everyone wasn't joining it felt bad, excessive. for a few days there was actually a keg in one of the reefer trucks. half drunk off daiquiris i made my first phone call to a friend from home. i talked while lying in my tent in my classroom. i told them there were so many things i want to tell them about. it wasn't about destruction or anything because there wasn't much of that around. we had toured the 9th ward and things but to me inside camp hope was the most interesting. it felt good to be excited about something. when i returned two weeks later to my friends drinking and smoking to their mixed cds, as i had left them, i didn't have much to say. it wasn't worth describing at that moment anyway.

i worked in the kitchen most of the time. the days felt long. between meals i felt worthless. i never woke up early enough to help make breakfast but i got around to serving it and eating it; still, sometimes neither. taking part in making the meals was fun because they were such huge ordeals. sometimes we'd be short of help. you couldn't blame anyone. there was one time we ran short and had to act desperately. me and the person i helped make lunch with were at the back of the property smoking a joint with two other people. it had just down poured that morning. i felt bad being there, but i knew being high the rest of the day would be fun. there was a careless atmosphere in the mosquito tent. the couches and chairs we sat in were drenched. one person was pointing to something on a map to another person. one guy with long hair and tattoos was standing and telling a story that made me feel uncomfortable. a woman walked towards us from behind the reefers, calling out the person who was in charge of lunch. she was saying they were running out of food on the service line. we rushed into the kitchen and spread fish sticks out on five or six large baking sheets. he looked at me with red eyes and said, 'i'm so high.' i laughed. i thought 'whatever' and felt safe once the smell of the fish sticks reached us from the ovens.

there were different things too. we hung out on bourbon street one night - fifteen closer local bar we went to two different times. it was just past the giant oil refinery. the ominous, giant, evil oil refinery. there were ultimate frisbee games in the muddy field. one of the dogs got lost. we rode bikes to a near by park. a local gave us a tour of some of the areas of the native people, the islanos. we loaded and unloaded trucks of palates of food. we tried to catch an alligator with store bought chicken. we fished for crabs with store bought chicken and made a crab gumbo. i had lunch downtown and walked around the french quarter. i gutted a house with some habitat for humanity volunteers. some of the time i was bored. i'd walk through the kitchen, out back around the basketball courts and generators, around the reefers, through the empty hallways with graffiti on them, through the empty gymnasium-turned-dining-hall. at night sometimes i'd sit outside the hallway door and stare through the barbed wire fence into the woods smoking a cigarette or a joint. one night a few of the volunteers got a band together and jammed. that night i got into one of those conversations with this guy who just sort of hung around with the e.c. crowd. i still remember him saying 'control breeds more control, man. you see?!'

on my second to last night - maybe, i don't know - we went to the place called the warehouse just beyond the refinery. i had had a few drinks during the day already. it was one of those random nights when suddenly everyone is in a mood to celebrate. i think a few people were actually celebrating their birthdays. i could afford like two drinks then resorted to drinking neglected drinks on the tables and bars. other people were scrounging for drinks too. half of our crew danced on the dance floor. i sat at a table with a few people i hardly knew, smoking cigarettes. people were drunk, smiling, and hugging each other, dancing. one guy i had worked with unloading one of the trucks had been dancing with a beer bottle in each hand. his pants were sagging showing his tan-line and white butt. eventually some locals wearing football jerseys started a name calling match with him. it was over and the guy said he wanted to go home because he had to work early. i said i'd go with him. i felt depressed because i was leaving louisiana soon or wasn't drunk enough. before we could leave midnight came and someone else's birthday became important. the person was sleeping in a trailer outside until his son dragged him in. he danced on the dance floor with is bare feet while the crowd of kitchen workers sang into the microphones on the stage. as we rounded up to leave outside the bar, the man whose birthday it was hugged his son. his son said, 'i love you pops.' the man looked sad and red faced. girls with dreads i'd never seen before were standing around him, hugging him, saying, 'you're going to be fine,' and 'go to tennessee with laura and you're gonna get cleaned up and have a nice breakfast and you'll feel better.' i think he said he didn't want to leave or something. we crammed into an RV. the man's son, the guy who was dancing with two beers and some other people and i rode back towards camp. the man's son was telling a story about an old lady who trolled through flood waters in a fishing boat looking for her horses. one horse drowned and the other was shot by a sheriff where it was tied to a bridge safe from the storm waters. this story was disputed heavily during the ride. they were shouting over the music. i was fascinated until i decided i heard enough. i sat in the back across from a girl in a black and white patterned dress. she was smiling at me. i looked out at the refinery passing under the orange lights. i thought about all the bullshit everywhere. i felt relaxed.

i felt more and more eager to leave as my time came near. some people talked about extensions to their stays. i saw that some people weren't going to leave. i think i recognized an older guy who worked there for a month with his wife on the subway last fall. he got off in brooklyn, before me. i was surprised and happy to see the people i did when i returned to an e.c. kitchen (goin' home cafe) in the 9th ward eight months later. when i think about why i went there and did those things with those people i feel confused. i feel nostalgic. i think it helped me during periods of aimlessness. i don't know really.

Tears of a Clown.

With the help from my friend Dale I re-discovered the music of the 60s band "The Grass Roots." They are one of the most underrated bands of that period. I reckon because of all the great talent coming out at that time. 

Dale is one of the most passionate people I've met. He's always spilling his heart and tearing his hair out about some girl, or just madly drunk and fearlessly dancing. He has a tongue for fast food and cheap poison booze.

The other night we were at my apartment along with our friend Ook singing Beatles songs, laughing over whatever, and drinking beer. Dale's "future wife for the moment" called him up so she and a couple of her friends joined us. Dale is mad about this girl. Last week he was torn apart when she didn't respond to a text message. We went out for coffee and he explained she was the 'one.' How many times have you seen her, I asked. twice, he responded. 

So she came along with a couple friends, (one being an awesome singer/songwriter ala Damien Rice).  Dale suggested I play "Wait a Million Years" by Grass Roots so he could sing it. (This song he was listening to over and over when he was waiting for her message the other week). 

I started playing the intro and chords and Ook was laying down the bass. Dale comes in full blast belting out these words about 'waiting a million years for the girl to hold him' and whatnot. He was getting really theatrical, reaching out and making fists and beating his chest. The whole time his eyes were closed. I was pretty amazed, not by his singing per say, but just because other than fucking around with those Beatles tunes I've never heard him sing. But there he was, as if on stage in front of a million people.  I looked around the room. It was quite obvious he was singing for this girl. The lyrics leave nothing unturned about longing love. He's singing, practically falling over:

    "Pacing the floor, detest

     sweat pouring down my chest,

     still I can't love you less.

    Its worth all the pain and pride

   Baby, I just can't hide what I feel inside."

The girl looked pretty freaked out. But everybody clapped when it was over and Dale wiped his brow and smiled around. 

Some people get burned by that intensity. I had told him over coffee coming full on probably isn't for every girl. But thats his nature. I'm sure this drama will continue whenever she doesn't pick up a phone call and he will throw himself around an apartment and philosophize. She's moving to Australia in a couple months anyhow.  

Tragic hero English chum. You'll be missed. 

i did this this weekend

- grand central to beacon, crowded train, wall street guy, make-up-ed girls, dark skinned, distracted reader, guy punching things making noise that sounded like conductor, wrote in journal, read/sleep/read
- picked up by dad, ate curried couscous something from lifethyme, 'who will run the frog hospital?', slow ride, sleep, traffic, precipitation, sleep, called for directions
- aunt judy's ate food, drank wine, planned trip, slept on air mattress, woken up by squirrels in the walls, finished 'who will run the frog hospital?' by head lamp
- started 'quartet' by jean rhys, rented skies, skied to split rock, ate lunch, skied back (nice down hill at the end), skied onto lake champlain, stopped at bakery, fell asleep in front of stove reading, woke up, played with cats, ate dinner, drank beer, planned next day, laid on air mattress, read by head lamp, wrote in journal, read by headlamp, fell asleep, heard squirrels in walls, maybe dreamed
- woke up, drank coffee/ate pancakes, took pictures of birds/cats, skied to owls head peak, awesome downhill at the end (at times dangerous), returned skiis, drove to aunt diane's, ate ravioli, chips, drank cranberry juice, watched superbowl (first half), drove home

confused about the sentence including '=' but 'haha' maybe

my stupid brain takes a piece of one sentence and incorrectly fuses it with another. i'm writing poetry to solve my internal problems. i feel like emotions in the form of steam are bending logical transitions of energy. a state of detachment will help me break the perpetual cycle. i will do that once i squeeze my emotions into a metaphysically indestructible compartment. my ability to run long distances never wavers. the time it takes is painful however. i want to either write well or have a meaningful conversation. that way i will be more productive. sometimes i think i'm reading something, i'm thinking, if i'm thinking i'm working = good. i collaborated on jurassic park stories when i was 8 or 9. . . and 'petri' stories, and 'universal soldier' stories when i was a little older. in middle school i played basketball, took piano lessons, drew action/adventure characters, and got into nine inch nails. the frogs in the hospital waved their whiskey glasses unanimously. after three coors lights i feel like writing prose is the funnest. you learn language control. i mean just random stuff. the skater showed his mistakes in his backyard. i can't discover the emotions, and desires of other people from my bedroom. i can loosen what is too tight for you. we're harnessed in to climb some fake rocks. the mad doctor's ideas were selfish until they worked. the way the world's story goes, i don't mind an eternal gum-ball machine. the world isn't a story though. i'm not accustomed to myself yet. the world's a lot of little stories. they talk about the world rhetorically and chase cats with hunger. you go to jamaica if you can't handle
the cardboard.

Saturday Evening a Year Ago

"Life isn't working. It's just stopping. Everywhere," he says. He says, "Everywhere," again to them. A beat comes in. A house falls on a small hill. The hill is open. The hill wants the house. The house has ten small flowers vibrating from the impact. "I'm trying," he says. He plays the song again. They all look at him. Jack grabs her face. Her eyes look afraid of Jack. Jack sheds twenty dollar bills on the floor. The lights are bouncing in the room. The room has it's Saturday night. The people are trying to enjoy the Saturday night. "Jack, if you can't write your thing tonight, you're not going to write it," she says. A huge green light bounces and two people collapse. "I just want life to work," Jack says. "It's going," she says. "It's going but it's not working," she says again. Another giant green light squeezes through the mail slot. They are having the end of their Saturday night. A thin man named Tim stands up and on his pipe. He waves the pipe in a circle. No one is paying attention anymore. She gets up from the bed and pulls the string on the lamp. It's just stopping. Jack wakes up on Sunday morning. He feels his jacket riding up his back. His ipod phones tighten around his neck. He frees his neck. He looks towards the window. He sees Robert twisted in the quilt. She's rolled up like a rabbit beneath a pink blanket. There are seven people elsewhere, discernible. The morning light falls on the whole building. Jack grabs his things. His book bag weighs less than usual. It's weight is so little it feels insignificant. The hallway pulses with thick heat. The building residents are cooking invisible soups. A dark room of twenty candles burns despite the daylight. "This is about me," Jack sighs and thinks. He thinks and hovers in the elevator. The door makes ten different noises. The people of Saturday night are counting. They are counting and hoping for it to stop. The noises of the door happen too fast. The house falls but Jack cannot see it. Life isn't working.

chat with my friend john

Johnny: Rossinger

me: bee bop bop bado boop

Johnny: What's up brotown?

me: kicking it

Johnny: Noice

Sunday funday

me: yeah kinda

what you doin?

Johnny: I'm riding the rail right now

Train to the brain

me: ah nice

coming to the city

business school

Johnny: Just leaving the city actually

Yeah had orientation today

Good deal

me: sweet. is it cold out? i was thinking of getting some ice cream.

Johnny: Anytime is good time for ice cream.

But it is pretty chilly if you have to walk far to get it

me: 3 blocks

Johnny: Doable

For sure

me: what are you on iphone?

Johnny: What kind of ice cream

Blackberry

me: americone dream!

Johnny: Hahaha

Is that the kind with the little cones that have chocolate inside?

me: vanilla, caramel swirl, chocolate covered cone chips

Johnny: Oh yeah

I need a scoop of something now

Sent at 5:05 PM on Sunday

me: hitting up windham tomorrow

it's gonna be like ten degrees

Johnny: Ugghh lucky B

Yeah that's cold

I was up in montreal last weekend...-20 without the wind

me: did you carve it up?

Johnny: Got me siiick

Yeah half day at tremblant

me: i haven't been sick in years broham

Johnny: Great snow

Impressive

I wish I could say the same

This was first time in a while

Alright bud ... My stop

Catch you later

me: later broigator

Sent at 5:14 PM on Sunday

fully vegetarian, maybe + ethics of opinions, maybe

i feel like my conversion to vegetarian has completed. the last time i ate meat was when someone made me a salad and put turkey slices into it. i had tried to be a vegetarian in the summer of 2007 and it only lasted two months. i got drunk one night and the next day ate a cheeseburger that was delicious, more delicious animal based meals followed in a depression aleviating manner. the following christmas my cousin gave me eeeee eee eeee as a gift. i read an interview with the author, tao lin, and felt immediately inspired. i also had a close friend who was a full vegetarian conversion for over two years at the time. that person lives in a different state so i couldn't share many meals with them. from the beginning of 2008 until the end of that summer i was primarily a vegetarian except for the occasional chicken cutlet, burger, meatball pasta which were always free or prepared by a family member at a meal to which there were no other choices. during early fall i started buying animal oriented meals again. for some reason i was being reckless and out of control. i didn't care any more. there would still be weeks or even a whole month, maybe october was that month when i'd choose against animal based meals. around christmas i bought bacon breakfast sandwiches, mcdonald and burger kind meals, long chicken club heroes, and my mom's seven fishes christmas eve tradition. after a recent trip to the super market i feel confident i won't spend anymore money on animal products. i've read ' the way we eat, why our food choices matter' by peter singer. i find healthy meal patterns that are good tasting and entertaining to follow. i'm accustomed to a wide range of vegetables and i eat fruit at the right times and regularly. i know where to get protein and i do so regularly. my only dilemma is the occasional opportunity to eat animal based meals that are free and available. at my job there are frequent occasions when 3 free meals are catered to the entire office. it is my chance to eat animals that i did not support the death of. it is my chance to take part in not letting pounds of food go to waste like they sometimes do when meals are prepared with hundreds of people in mind. i also rarely spend money on things like paper towels, garbage bags, and toilet paper. my roommate buys them and i use them regularly. where does the separation occur between my using of the thing and my support of the purchase and further existence of that product being profitable to it's manufacturers. i feel like the most effective way to overcome the existence of something negative is to concentrate on the problem that thing presents. i sort of feel like, for an example, me telling my roommate 'lets not buy anymore paper products except maybe toilet paper which we should use very conservatively' would aggravated the problem and one day create an overhaul production of paper products. i think one day i might say something aggressive about thousands of chickens being electrocuted, sliced, and having their blood drained while im on the food line in my work's lunch room when there is breaking news because a plane crashed into a school full of children. when everyone looks at me i'm going to be smiling wildly.

Matthew Rohrer

I'm at work feeling paralyzed.

Eating 12 avocado / cucumber rolls

I watch youtube of Rodney Mullen from the 80s.

I search for Dow Mossman, and Matthew Rohrer.

The tv is on very loud. WHY!?!

I want to read twenty to thirty pages of something without stopping.

A quiet atmosphere would be better.

A soft yellow light on the side of the camera

shows no audio being 'picked up'.

When it is 8pm most of the office will be empty.

I could watch an hour long television show while my eyelids

mechanically drop.

Once I am home I will feel a wave of energy.

I will eat ramen noodles with cayenne pepper, maybe broccoli

asparagus or brussel sprouts.

I feel anxious I don't want to do more with my time.

Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys. Good Morning, Midnight.

Jean Rhys describes an English woman's life in Paris. The woman lives in a room, cries in public places. The people that the person interacts with cause negative feelings for that person. The woman, Sasha, hides in her room. She describes houses as monsters, a room as a protection from wolves. Her memories of her jobs are negative.

'What the hell is she doing here, that old woman?' 'What is she doing here that stranger, the alien, the old one?' She drinks with some Russians. She contemplates getting her hair dyed. She cries to her boss. She remembers spending time with a young man who's good at cards. She almost cries when she hears them say that while she's in Theodore's. She gives an old woman money for bread. She's aware of her 'extrovert', calling the couples in Theodore's 'individuals'. She vindicates what the woman said about her in Theodore's by imagining smashing their little heads with a hammer. She's supposed to meet the Russian guys somewhere at four, after she possibly dies her hair.

There's a flashback to when she's pregnant. She looks at her dead baby in the hospital. 'No wrinkle'.

A lot happens. No like major things happen though. She hangs out with Russians. She goes back to before she came to Paris. Some of the sections end like this: I'm in Paris. . . in Paris. . .

There's a part where someone spends time in her room with her. A younger girl. The girl came out of nowhere. I liked when the girl was there. I like what Sasha Jensen thought and said about the girl.

My favorite things about the book are how her emotions fluctuate within the shortly framed sections, how the paragraphs are short and the sentences are short. I could sense the voice of the character steering the emotions. This feels like parody and makes it apparent she worked on the novel for a nourishing amount of time. I think that the sentences make her more depressed; conceving them and rereading them. By expressing the energy in them they self-perpetuate despair. The whole idea of the book feels like a well documented period of inward reflection. Something bad happened and then all she wanted to do was write a book about living in a room in Paris and just the idea of that is depressing so it's like an explosion of depression. I like how it's short. There were no major climaxes. I liked when she went after the gigolo.

Sasha's drinking style, in the book, seems good. The descripitions of drinking aren't accessive. She indicates how her emotions are affected by the drinks. She doesn't 'over-do' blurry vision, vomiting, tastes, and or smells. It seems 'light' on the stomach but 'heavy' in the head. I feel like my own drinking affects my stomach before I can appreciate its effect in my head. I'm worried about my digestive system. I should conserve the use of my digestive system because it could get run-down and become infected or cancerous.

Enno. Rene. I like this book. The style was unique. Lavados. Bidet. Morocco.

Sasha holds her arm over her eyes because she doesn't want to see things that she knows will happen. She purposely stops herself from being affected by things her brain tells her are happening. She goes from happy to sad, sometimes in one short paragraph.

I'm afraid because I can't take insanity or depression seriously. I can't feel anything. Snowboarding is fun. Sometimes it can be lonely and more trouble than it is worth. The chairlift is sometimes boring.

I wonder how much of these things actually happened to Jean Rhys. I always wonder that about fiction writers and their work. Then sometimes I feel like I don't care about the writers lives. I think maybe she put the old bald woman in their because she's afraid of baldness, or maybe she thinks baldness is good and funny and she was parodying the social implications of baldness, or maybe she just saw a bald old woman before she was writing that day.

Someone wrote that they feel like Jean Rhys wrote is in despair and edited it in agony on goodreads. I like that prediction. It doesn't really matter. Maybe she was really happy when she wrote it and was looking back on a period of despair and agony.

The end made me think about what it's like for a woman to have sex, which I'll never fully know, but have thought about before (specifically when someone said they always have wondered what it's like for a woman to have sex while I was waiting with that person outside of a dormitory for a drug dealer five years ago).