slick graphics!
over the top reports live on location!
it's almost as cool looking as children of dune!
the spin stops right after you advertise your book.
baghdad at night looks like almost any other downtown.
doublespeakbuzzwordscatchphrasesblend t o g e t h e r.
how much of this is propaganda? you know it's there.
this is a diplomatic success?
don't wait! don't think! kill now! it's called being pre-emptive! it's a new policy!
it's sensational. it's ratings. its shock and awe.

where is the journalism?
where is the irrefutable?
the concrete?
the real?

we're being played.
fuck that, yo.

"i have a gun" she whispered close to my ear, like a lover.
her breath was warm and cinnamon sweet.
she pulled back from me, popping her gum and grinning.
fey to sly in a heartbeat, she narrowed her eyes and her smile.
"i'll show you. come on."
she bounded off, i followed. why?*
a blink and beep came from the cherry red mustang. of course,
a red mustang.
a physical sibilant, she sat, slid in and swung her legs into the seat.
i leaned into the car, into the shade of the tree.
she held it one hand by the grip, in her lap.
the other hand, her left, stroked the gun as if it were a kitten.
she looked up, expectant, grinning too many teeth.
my vision rippled and i saw
face too white
red red red lips
flat black eyes
fever red rimmed
gone sour and hungry
i recoil and°

---

*what? go back and look again.¹
°originally, i wasn't going to post this, because the structure is completely ripped off from this book about a house. however, the content is original and the book about the house may or may not exist, so who cares really?
¹ we have no idea where this was going or what it refers to. - Ed.

some graphics i've done the last few days, for one reason or another:

saturnalia desktop (green).

saturnalia desktop (red).

weird jester graphic that makes a quaint statement of paranoia and subversion.

the line break and the stripe i find very ominous.

me goofing off and putting myself over to the apple snobs (you know we are). partially inspired by a paragraph in one of thyrio's entries.

me starting weblog related gang warfare.

and now my final statement of the morning:
this is not a hidden message.

a message to all techno artists:
you guys have nice, expensive quipment and the talent to use it to make some really quality music.
please stop using it to make weird fart noises.
thank you.

i've been up since lightning and thunder rattled my house at 3.55 am. i could really use a coff of cupee.

before: the whispering whirring of the fan, the distant cicada hum of my computer. the tap of my fingers on the keys. my chair creaking. sibilants hiss through my head as i read this back to myself. slight sounds become deafening in silence like this.
my heart is fluttering like adrenaline rush.
my glasses rest uneasily on my face, a drunk businessman on a park bench.
the fan whispers on, becoming a distraction. i stare.
the way the smoke coils and disperses, caught in the circulating air distracts me.
everything becomes a distraction, eventually.

earlier: ill in the shower.
water hot enough to turn my skin sweaty flushed red. shoving my head against cold porcelain, i'm pushing back at the pressure inside. my eggshell skull is caught in the middle and the soap dish digs into my thigh. i'm hoping my muscles will give up their death grip on my spine. the shower is louder than the rain outside, loud like the sound of trains.

now: a nameless song, but i know who it's by. the juliana theory. my chest collapses and it reminds me. it's on a cd one of the hers from the past had made, thinking about me, someone in a different state, someone in a different state of mind. "you always say good night" the song sings to me. or at least, that's how it sounds.
maybe the misinterpretation just serves as metaphor.
"could you really make it alone tonite?"
all these songs, all these sounds...
i rest my face on the desk and just listen, falling in teary-eyed love with the past.

"looks like i picked the wrong week to quit sniffin' glue..."
- airplane!

i'm considering going mad for a bit and growing a beard. because without a beard, you're never insane enough. wearing my glasses more often. i can wear them with one arm off my ear and one lens smudged with blue greasy fingerprints and hair. i'm considering cultivating more bad habits, like sticking things up my nose and in my mouth. in that order. pennies and micromachines work great for this. considering formulating my own personal line of colognes, things people just shouldn't smell like. ozone, asparagus, wet feather pillow, muskrat, hamper & locker room (this will be my line of dandruff promoting shampoo), habitrail in the sun. habitrail in the sun, i like that phrase. i want a human sized habitrail, sans woodchips and rodentia. or a human sized hamster ball. no, not human sized hamster balls. that's sick. freak.
or maybe i'll adopt an innocuous, yet mildly offensive addiction. fish jerky would be choice.

"Insanity doesn't run in my family. It gallops"
- Arsenic and Old Lace


further proof of my hannibal lecter-ish propensity for dungeons & dragons style chaotic-good aligned acts of...ehhh...whatever.

an acquaintance of mine, while a nice guy, is without a doubt, the most anal person i know. he's the type of guy that will line up the handles of his silverware with the edge of the table and the tips with the edge of the napkin before eating. i've seen him do this. being the way that i am, this just tap dances on my nerves. think gregory hines, methamphetamines and soccer cleats and you're getting warm.
mildly inebriated one night, we start playing chess.
i am a fair chess player, i know some of the classic openings, some decent traps, and have an ok comprehension of strategy and placements.
we were pretty evenly matched, until i noticed how retentive he was being about placing the chess pieces.
heh.
5 moves later, half my pieces are off center, my bottle of beer is off the pattern on the table, the chess board is slightly askew, my wallet and keys are causing a feng shui trainwreck in this guys soul.
he's been driven to distraction. he's literally twitching wanting to rearrange everything.
i get checkmate. sucker.

"Chess is mental torture."
- Gary Kasparov

well, at least i had 6 days of being happy.
i am:
disappointed
hurt
sad.
i wish i had someone to talk to right now.
i wish i didn't need someone to talk to, if you understand.
i wish i understood.
gloriana_regina...i wish i did understand. i don't.
she's not ready for the responsibility of a relationship. i am, however, ready to get drunk.
so what's the lesson of this mess?
not to trust? not to try? not to have faith?
i have to wonder if somehow i've become repulsive.

i'll be rambling on and off all nite. stay tuned.
if anyone's here, i'm on aim: richard the jinx.

- pitiful boy.