Undiluted Drivel

Titles of sto­ries I meant to write (the con­cepts of which, alas, are perished):

• 1. With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemas?
• 2. My Homework Ate My Dog.
• 3. … (There was a mul­ti­tude, but their titles now lan­guish in the same barren wilder­ness of my mind — that espe­cially murky ter­rain where the neu­rons grow thorns.)

Anyway. I had like three essays planned for this space. But I recalled a ter­ri­fy­ing whis­per which came years ago to assure me that we are all cursed to bear the afflic­tion of the thing that we most com­fort­ably dis­dain. I would usu­ally brush off these hairy whis­pers, but I look all around me and I see wise people — people I respect — falling into this yawn­ing pit. So I won’t be waxing elo­quent for a while; at least, until my life is fixed.

But I do want to feel my fin­gers fly again, with their won­der­ful ento­mo­log­i­cal busy-ness. I also want to use the many words I know but cannot pro­nounce, such as lan­guorous, and sati­ety, and effete. So watch out for them bombs.

Nike was a god­dess 
and now she’s just a shoe; 
another weary wit­ness 
to what an ad can do.

Is this how Meg Cabot makes her money? Inviting people to explore the cob­webs of another cra­nium? I sup­pose the mould does seem greener on the other side.

I know. I scin­til­late. (I pro­nounce that just fine, thank you.) In the ensu­ing pause, John del­i­cately trans­ferred his bowels to his other hand.

I have been extem­po­ris­ing now for about five years. It’s gotten to the point where I feel I’m cheat­ing if I don’t wait for a solid, impor­tant thought before open­ing a text editor, because I know I will make some­thing anyway. It’s a weird excuse for pro­cras­ti­na­tion, but there you have it.

“Wait — what?” Mary said, taking off her sun­glasses again. But the dis­play of menace was dulled by over-use, and Elsie merely blinked in that lan­guorous way so char­ac­ter­is­tic of flat­u­lent beeves.

Beeves means cattle. It used to be a thing people say.

No, ma’am — this poison is not indi­cated for periph­eral device control.

If I did this reg­u­larly, would I go viral? Maybe a fan would buy me a machine because they could­n’t bear to wait three weeks for the nectar of my neu­ro­sis. It is a tempt­ing thought.

Jane, this is Archibald. Would you believe — he also col­lects xylophones!

No. I will be strong. Next post will be a story (sen­si­ble? more or less) about ‘Gladys’.