No Smoking, No Drinking, No Sushi

High on hCG an living on fear. Well, fear with the occasional chicken noodle soup, a flavor-blasted cheddar goldfish palate cleanser, and phenergan, for dessert. Criminal, those knots of terror you asked about? They're called constrictor knots and you are married to them now, if not to me, and your joy will always be tempered by them, by your vulnerability, by the slow or quick burn of mortality, and by the non-existence of immortality. But they are not altogether a bad thing: they are the sacred demarcations between leading a life worth staying alive for and one not; I've done both and I highly suggest the former. I should have volumes more to write but there are so many things in this life which words only serve to desecrate. Suffice it to say, I am nothing less than exultant to be carrying your child even if, at this point, it is sporting a tail.

I Thought I Was Going To Die (The "In Your Face" Edition)

"Inside of" -- as in, "I've never been come" or "I'm growing a baby" -- is redundant and I'm not sure that the value proposition of my parturient parts is enough to make him want to make me more, anyway. I'll adapt, whether I'm staked or only claimed, just as I always do, shape-shifting to satisfy the specifications of a sadistic scenery. What you want most will always walk behind the god of causality, the rules of this system, serpentine line like, like a switchbacked road, like the Bataan Death March. The universe kowtows to no one, not even to the clumsy supplication of a disharmonic iconoclast, a commitment junkie, a foregone conclusion and a fool's errand. So, that's why my plan never, ever changes: evolve, yo! All the while, I'll continue working hardish to be the best at building the better vanity card and all of the other things one does to get the things one needs: to justify one's existence. Scratch, scrape, stress: sapience. He smiles at me from underneath his arm which is shielding his eyes and I think to myself: what a wonderful world.

Funner Fucking: Exploding The Sunlight

So very many things to write about, like how I called that shit and ain't that some shit, but I'd rather bespeak the beauty of French bow knots around American wrists. Our tale of triumph on a marquee somewhere in the midwest, attractive actors and actresses who get the accents all wrong, a love story for all times: it all started with a set of genitalia and a dream and quickly transformed into utterly indefensible skin souvenirs from a cat o' nine tails.

I Play Music and I Write and I Also Steal Things

Dearest Thoughts, I wish you wouldn't leave me at all the wrong times. But its okay, I'm not the boss of you, and I understand you must be so very tired, what with impregnating the universal conciousness hither and tither. But, as an example, I really could've used you today when I was at that very important meeting (because I am very important I frequently have to attend very important meetings.) I was certain you were in attendance when, quite suddenly, I overheard myself saying, "Y'all sign here and them two will sign here," and I knew you had bailed. Next time, please don't disappear when so much money is on the line. You could've cost me my upcoming topless romp in Zihuatanejo. And my writing wouldn't exactly suffer if you'd show up once in awhile for that.

Enough of that gimmick -- onward to love, primal wounds, mortal fear, psychotic morosity. Tell me I don't know what you like. I had planned to purge other demons, vis a vis that old proverb: the dick that meets no resistance is the cow that buys the milk of experience. Or something like that, I forget it now, made sense earlier, you know how I am. But I've found something much juicier upon which to feast my mind's teeth. I give you:

An Abridged Inventory Of Things I Don't Know How To Do

1. Become indelible.
Because I am too realistic to become a stalker and I like my esophagus too much to become bulimic and I'm too sentimental too be promiscuous and I had too good of a childhood to be severely fucked up, so there really isn't anything left for me. I'm the cool girlfriend. The nice one. Reliable. Forgettable.

2. Make a man cry.
Because my tragedies are entirely too real. And I'm too rational to use suicide to make a point.

3. Drive.
Good, I mean. I don't know how to drive good.

4. Have conviction.
Issues are mostly boring to me. Sure, I don't like religion much, but that is because it is dangerous. Not because it offends me.

5. Lie.
Just kidding, that's a lie. I know how to lie. But it feels like I cheat myself when I do, so I decided to stop a few years ago. It was harder to quit than I care to admit.

6. Deepthroat.
At least, anything over six and a half inches and while I'm not under the influence of one or more depressants.

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Here are a few things I do know how to do, in a little piece I like to call:

An Abridged Inventory Of Things I Do Know How To Do

1. Close a deal.
For real, I do.

2. Write emails that are more lurid than something that is very, very lurid.
E.g., "Tonight, I want tied up, ate out, and double penetrated, k? Thx."

3. Use bold and justification functions properly.

4. End things abruptly.

I Win, You Lose, Now You Have A Big Bruise

Playing with her, it youths me, back when time was my friend and the complicated things were simple. There is more, like the aliveness that surrounds me in their breathing and in the familiarity of their blinking and in the fingerprint-like patterns of their intonation. But there is so much less, like the choke collars and the yelling and the money making and the matters of opinion. I get bored of my feelings, bored of my fears, bored of my needs, but I will never tire of the heart of a man who is never too busy to kiss a girl goodnight; I need not be that girl. The privilege of observing kindness is enough for me. I see a joy in sacrifice. To have loved someone; once.

One You Will Love So Much

Should've drafted, and I don't mean like the dodge kind. I should be tied up right now but maybe its a date night deal, not really sure how its going to pan out, he's the decider, you know, the dom to my perignon, if perignon is French for sub, and I cross my heart I will write about it; when the lacerations heal. Speaking of which, thanks Tommy, for saving this woman's life for pennies on the co-pay, and to the other two, who remind me why I even bother to get up in the morning -- what I said to Tommy goes double for you, because you make me glad I never killed myself, nor got myself killed with reckless behavior, like not stopping before the tracks, and others. There is not so very much to me, you know. But someday when I am stupid rich from either working my ass off or being born well, I will buy you a sizable tract with a house and a pond and a barn and a pool and a cistern and five bedrooms and an art studio and a special-purpose room for television and certain illicit smokeables. River frontage is contingent upon you continuing to fuck like a god.

Dolly Bankrupt

As in, gots no cap-i-tal, Cap-i-tan; squirts, too. Choking on what? Wasted years? Yeah, me, too. Some things can't wait forever and the sex is like omg and the sheets are like whoa and the pregnancy tests are like negative, for now. Catch the drift, win a blowjob (not transferable, may not be substituted for or redeemed for cash, participating locations only, odds of winning are 1 in 6,700,000,000.) He plays and I play and he watches and he laughs and I laugh and he saves me from my fill-in-the-blank philosophies; whatever they may be. Sure, I've got a date with a doctor but I don't understand what it means to be deserving nor who decides on it; but I get the concept of comeuppance. And I will be your wife.

See ya next time, frace fans, you neck-braced scapegrace tax base.

Specifically, The Female Condition

Ultra-classic, but said like a thing trying to sound like a dick. Its not that, its just that I get this thing, I mean I have this thing, this tic, this dog track in my mind, this endless running, chasing that fake bone on a real stick; at worst, trying to get put down before my time, at best, adopted in, rescued, by a charitable soul, not that I believe in such a thing, I mean a soul of any quality, not the charity part, I'm just saying. I'm just saying that my idea of a romantic getaway pour deux is St. Helena Island because its all assholes and elbows in this exile, Son. Well-dressed but such an emotional slob, warring factions of rationality and surreality, a bloodless fight or flight, nature neutering nurture, superlatively evolved; this strange juxtaposition of a thing to a thing: irrelevant, like what we would've done ten years ago but that we do different now, like staying instead of skating, a not-so-subtle way of saying that you're settling for convention, but sputtered with spit, vitriolic as one can muster, feel free to take creative license with the crescendo. What do I want? To be lovable. To be a good mother. To inspire a man. Crazy? Sure, but such a dazzling repartee, plus he likes me this way, and I don't know no better.

My Dishonest Analog of a Dialogue (Beware the Superglue Coup)

What would you say to the people you've loved who are dying or dead? Or just dead to you? Keep your answers to yourself, Class, because I believe that self-deception is a motherfucking sacrament and I don't want to be a party to anything bearing a passing resemblance to truth. Now pass your goddamn papers forward so I can grade you on your virtue and punctuation; and jade myself further into lonely inner-space oblivion. Affection whore? Some, spelled like sum, and the mind boggles at the things that get you yelled at 'round these parts. Me? I'm the original lampshade; easy, like eggs over, and I go out of my way not to make sense in my spare time, since all my claimed hours are filled with proof of my rationality. I'm lippy, that's a truth, and its ugly, another truth, but not ugly enough, because no amount of make-up can make up for that degree of degeneracy. And just because I don't always cry foul doesn't mean I don't notice. I do. Notice. Its that my tolerance is high; conditioning is a bitch. So you paint your bone and I'll pass that ass and during the many hours that you don't require my attention, I'll devise a way to train myself not to care. Like the old days when I drifted from blue to black to the tune of a sad violin's last refrain, orchestrated by my disappointment which masqueraded as my detachment; principally fucked. I bet you could never throw her picture away and sometimes I think you might be using me, but then I remember that I am not pretty nor rich enough, not nearly, and I have a problem with keeping my goddamn mouth shut and you have a problem with escapism and I am not really sure which stone will kill both birds but I know that I will never get what I want with this kind of attitude. He says he doesn't want someone that is fake but I think he secretly does. Hello, Bullets!

Salmonella for the Soul (a lifetime of perfection)

Salutations! (said like Charlotte) I hope this finds you high on the hog or on a horse, depending on if you're creating-a-friend or building-a-bear, kids jokes, all. Kids games, too, but played by played-out adults, or those so legally called, pitching conniptions; sooo bullshit, I call. And even as adults, there are some games still that are still fun to play, like swallow the stick or bury the bone or other euphemisms. One of my favorites is that one where you hiss, "Shut up. Shut up! Shut the fuck up!" through that set-steeled jaw look that you adopt when you are supporting your weight with your left hand on the headboard and with your right palm flat against my turned cheek. Much sexier than it sounds, by far. But I'm not here to sell it -- it sells itself; and I'm getting hard just remembering it. I suppose I could've written about the transcendental afterburn but I am one tracked, almost always, and if you can't get what you want, you can significantly soften the crush by changing the way you think of things; or remembering what it felt like before you wanted it. So, tell me, what is your idea of hilarious? And is your heart lined with lead? Because I know that most people don't talk the way that I do but I will not be sorry for it, not ever, for hanging on by a thread or a butt crack.

This Girl Has No Faith In Medicine: the marvel of modern titles (the 'Life Is Just Like' edition)

Force majeure meet labia minora; now shake on it. You gotta admit: not everyday you find sweet-smelling panties in the glovebox. Lucky, you know, like a penny; and you could wager a dollar, even your bottom one, that I'm going to write about love and heartache, the universal currency. Currently, I'm spending more time in the love camp but I'm fiercely independent and never needed no man (to break my heart, do it on my own dime and without much help, thankyouverymuch.) Speaking of men, did anyone ever figure out a way to make them fucking act right? Without neutering them, I mean? Because someone really should get on that. Me? Oh, no, I'm sososorry, I don't volunteer anymore; bad experience with ARC when I was a kid, you understand, and anyway, I'm just too very busy, trying not to try mine's nerves, by (over)stating the obvious or just driving real bad. Pick an excuse, any excuse: heredity, biology, drug addiction, drug withdrawal, circadian's out of rhythm, overworked, underfucked, what the fuck have you? You have a fuckin' bulletproof plausible deniability, now available in kirkland-size for the responsibility-shirker in all of us. Now feign surprise and cue pretend shame while you wave goodbye to the fancy of your youth, like. It finally occurred today that any man that I love will always have to have a compelling and rational reason to make me his wife because I just lack that requisite x-factor that inspires the kind of adoration that makes a man reckless; should've washed my face more. Don't scowl or suspire, I am not as piteous as I make myself sound; and I've made plenty of boys cry, but I am mostly guileless and play with my cards face up; never learned to bluff. Its just that today I had that crystalline moment of realization, like when you realize that the beauty of your youth has faded and that now you are just weird-looking, but you find some measure of confidence in knowing that there are always weirder. Its realizing that you are that tree: sprouted in a most geographically inconvenient location, right near the breakdown lane, dancing an awkward forced limbo under a live wire; slavishly contorted but still surviving. But everyone loves trees, right?

Gold Metal Phrases (Reactionary Reagent)

Whatever it takes; to win the day, she says prosaically. Oh, dearest hostile reader, you'll forgive my lack of candor this evening, but my interest in getting laid supersedes my interest in writing what I would otherwise, like wondering what kind of punishment I'm due for punishing him. Of all the me's there are to like, defeatist is probably not the least likable, if you remember maudlin me, who incessantly repeats monotonous expressions of affection, as if somehow I can win your love down like erosion, or even worse, the gestures too late me, the one that appears while I'm driving and trying to draw attention to various points of boring, points of interest being entirely too generous. So should we get married or break up, and is it ever really that straightforward? I've had this persistent headache all day, not like a hangover, but like caffeine withdrawal, but I'm done boiling, not like water, like blood, over the simple acts of character building that are the pollution of this new century.

And now I shout out to my peeps.

Criminal: Everything is poison. Only the dose makes a thing not a poison.

Ray: God bless you!

Mom: God is dead.

God: May you rest in peace and will you stop taking credit for all of my achievements?