The House in the Woods

Every Friday, I am writing and posting an installment of a new children's story called The House in the Woods. Click here for previous installments.

To summarize: Melissa is running away. She has her bike and a "survival bookbag" and she's riding through the woods. On her way, she collides with a boy who was crossing a waterfall with two bags full of golf balls in his hand. Melissa feels bad, so she helps the boy retrieve his golf balls. The boy is very quiet, almost completely silent, but he reveals to her that he knows about a house in the woods. Melissa is intrigued. She convinces the boy to show her where the house is. He does, but only follows her inside when she steals his bags of golf balls. Once inside the creepy old porch, Melissa gives the boy's golf balls back but pleads with him to help her explore the house. He reluctantly agrees. She asks his name. He sheepishly tells her it's Courage. Then something moves suddenly inside the house, scaring them both and causing Courage to drop his bags.

Here is what happens next:


Melissa put her arm out in front of Courage, as if to protect him from whatever it was that had just moved or fallen or ran. Courage shuffled a step or two behind her, too scared at the moment to think about the fact that his golf balls were scattered across the floor of the porch, some finding their way into sticky spiderwebbed corners.

They stood that way for what seemed like a very long time, their hearts racing, ready to flee in a split-second should whatever monster was inside the house appear in front of them.

And then Melissa saw it.

"Oh," she said. "It's a cat."

"A cat?" Courage said.

"Yeah. Look." Melissa pointed to the far end of the room on the other side of the glass doors. And there, peeking around a corner, as deadly frightened of them as they had been of it, was a scrawny gray cat.

"I don't like cats," Courage said.

Melissa dropped her protective arm and stared at Courage. "You don't like cats?" she said, her mouth hanging open just a little in shock.

"Not really."

"Why?"

"They're dirty."

"They're not dirty. They're clean. They're the cleanest animals in the world." Melissa didn't know if that was true, but it sounded like it might be true.

"Well, that one's not the cleanest," Courage said, pointing at the cat.

That was definitely true. The cat was missing chunks of fur here and there, and Melissa was pretty sure the cat was also missing a chunk of its left ear. If it lived in this house, it made due with some dust and grime and who knew what else.

But it was still beautiful. Melissa loved it because it was a cat and she loved cats, but she especially loved it because of the swirling shades of gray and black in its coat. It seemed like a cat that used to be rich or famous, but was just down on its luck. Really down on its luck, if it was here.

"Let's make friends," she said.

"I don't want to be friends," Courage said. "It doesn't want to be friends."

"She's just scared," Melissa said.

"She?" Courage said. "How do you know it's a she?"

"I just do."

Melissa flipped her survival bookbag around from her back to her front. She opened the main pocket and began digging through the various supplies inside. There was a sturdy black flashlight, extra batteries, a coil of rope from the garage, a notebook, a blue pen, a half-used roll of duct tape, a couple of small bottles of water, and some snacks, including store brand chocolate chip cookies in a plastic bag and a big package of "steak nuggets."

Melissa took out a steak nugget, bit off a piece, and offered some to Courage. He looked at the steak nugget just like he'd looked at the cat, and he shook his head no. Melissa took another bite, leaving a small piece for the cat.

"Okay, let's go in there," she said, zipping her survival bookbag up and flipping it around to her back again.

Between them and the cat was a dark room with white walls. A large stone fireplace on one side of the room dominated the space. The carpet was thin and light brown and nasty-looking. In the center of the room was an old wooden coffee table with a glass top. There was no couch or easy chair or any other piece of furniture in the room. A rolled-up rug leaned against the far corner.

Courage scanned the room again. There was no visible animal life, aside from the cat. But there were a couple of doors that led deeper into the house. And who knew what was in there, and whether it would come out, and whether it would want to make friends with them ... or not.

Courage looked down at the porch floor and sighed.

"I'll help you pick them up," Melissa said. "Just come on."

"Okay," he said. "Okay okay okay." Quiet words seemed to push back the darkness of the room.

Melissa smiled. "Okay."

She reached for the door handle, opened the door, and Melissa and Courage entered the house.

Skinnydipping, Part 2

Part 1


I knew it. I fucking knew it.

Here we were, hanging onto the end of July, and we still hadn't gone skinnydipping. Part of it was I had forgotten about it, sort of on purpose at first just to get it out of my system and then on accident for a few weeks when we were just partying for literally like two weeks straight. People's parents just kept going out of town. Shit, when Warren went with his family to North Carolina for a week, he gave us the key and told us that we could party there but just not invite anybody else. The dumbass.

But we cleaned up afterward. Even though their place is such a shithole nobody would have noticed anyway.

After all that stuff it was already past July 4th. I started thinking about it again, and then telling myself to just get the hell over it already, we'd do it if we did it and we wouldn't do it if we didn't do it whatever. But that didn't work. Mainly, we actually did start hanging out with Hannah and Casey and them sometimes, like I'd hoped but didn't actually think was possible. Of all people, Mason got the fucking hookup with them. Just the friend hookup, not the hookup hookup. I think because he started smoking weed a month or two ago, even though he won't admit that it's a thing for him now. And so he has all these other stoner friends these days like goddamn Natty Matthew and Jason Piker and those clowns and they're friends with Hannah and them. I guess they're all alright.

Anyway, Hannah and Casey and Lisa Yi were over with a few of us in Quentin's basement. Mason was there of course and so were Jake and Trevor and Warren. We were watching fucking Degrassi, which I hate, but the girls wanted to watch it. I mean, we weren't really watching it though because we had some vodka that Jake had stolen from his parents and we were getting good. It was awesome, actually. It was one of those things where we were all a couple of shots in and just starting to feel it and you could tell that everybody in the room felt the same way. Really excited and laughing and not thinking about trying to get in the girls' pants or the other way around, just having a good old-fashioned time in Quentin's basement.

All of the sudden, I knew. I knew that if I suggested going skinnydipping right then that there would be no question. The girls would squeal and be into it, the guys would pretend to be like "I donknow" but then they'd see the girls and decide otherwise and we would run to the lake in Quentin's neighborhood and do it.

Then my brain sabotaged me like always. I started thinking about actually taking my pants off in front of Hannah and Casey and Lisa, but Casey especially because I had always had this kind of low-level crush on her but never did anything about it. I knew I would have trouble not staring and that I would probably get a boner and then I'd be worried about all that rather than just having a good time.

By the time I got through thinking about that, we'd already had another shot. I was starting to feel a little wobbly headed and sweaty, so I went into the bathroom. I did one of those classic fucking movie things where I stood in front of the mirror and started talking to myself and smacking myself on the skull to try and get myself to stop being a pussy. I didn't feel any less like a pussy, though. I just felt more like an idiot.

I went back out and flopped onto the couch, still not sure what I was going to do. And then Warren fucking said it.

"You guys want to go skinnydipping?" he said, with this big fake smile on his face like he'd thought of it out the fucking blue. Like he hadn't been waiting for this opportunity ever since I'd brought it up forever ago.

And then the girls squealed. But not in a good way. And Hannah said, "You just want to see Lisa in the nude." She said it loud and daring and drunk.

"What?" Warren said, still trying to hold onto his smile. "Shut up."

And Lisa told Hannah to shut up, too, but she wasn't smiling. Everybody knew that Warren had kind of an Asian thing and especially a Lisa Yi thing.

So suddenly thanks to Warren and Hannah the whole mood of the room collapsed. And it didn't really ever recover. We just sat there watching more Degrassi, more quietly than before. Trevor and Jake went out for a smoke and I joined them. Warren came out too but by then we were already halfway through our cigarettes and when we were done with them we didn't stay outside to wait for Warren to finish his. It was kind of dick but that's how it always is with Warren.

We kept drinking and eventually things got more fun and talkative but also more flirty and competitive, especially since there were five of us and three of them, though I guess Warren didn't count anymore, if he ever did.

Later I made out with Lisa in the back of her car in front of Quentin's house, but I felt kind of bad about it, even when I was doing it.

Yes/No/Maybe: Insistent

(500) Days of Summer. I don't want to beat up on this relatively little movie, especially since I kind of liked it. But there were just so many things about it that bugged me (starting with those extraneous parentheses in the title)(btw, I can use extraneous parentheses because I am not titling a multi-million dollar film, Hollywood CALIFORNIA!).

Plus, some people seem enraptured with this thing and I am slightly perplexed by that!

(200) WORDS OF SPOILERS:

First of all, neither of these people is real. Tom's job as a greeting card writer (which plays a significant role in the movie!) is so fake that it's almost meta in how overtly plot device-y it is. His friends exist exclusively for comic relief. And his twelve-year-old-ish sister is a tough-talking relationship-advice prodigy from another movie entirely. (Better Off Dead?) On top of all that, Summer herself is basically the much maligned Manic Pixie Dream Girl, except the movie is film-educated enough to have fun with how common and silly that conceit is (but then proceeds to engage in it!).

All of this stuff would be fine (or at least acceptable) if this movie were actually as surreal or meta or post-whatever as its trappings suggest, but it aches to be so real. It aims to tell a story of a real relationship, and when it does that, it does that pretty well! But then the screenwriter or director or whoever decides that there has to be a dance number and it's like okay fine this is fun but where did that other movie go?

And the ending. Yikes. Ezra Klein makes the point very well, but basically: it betrays most of what proceeds it. It slaps a happy ending on a sad story. And then tops it off with one of the more gag-inducing final lines in memory.

Man! I came so close to liking this movie sometimes! The music was very good, I thought!

In the Loop. In contrast, here is a movie that knows exactly what it is and does not play games or become cowardly. In fact, it's almost aggressively cynical, as if to say, "See! Nobody is good." (In politics, at least.) Though In the Loop is not quite the most genius movie of the year as some seem insistent on proclaiming it to be, it is quite good. The dialogue is super-smart and funny and the acting is pretty much uniformly great. If I had to criticize it in some way (and I do), I would say that the jokes sometimes feel a bit forced and overly clever, as if the movie had suddenly become a real-life New Yorker cartoon. But then somebody (James Gandolfini, for example) really nails a whip-smart retort and you've moved on.

The Evolution of God by Robert Wright. The book's thesis--that the evolution of man's economic and political structures have been the primary factor in the evolution of man's concepts of God--is an intriguing one and often makes for engaging reading. But it is such a broad thesis, and Wright necessarily must cover so much history in such a relatively small space, that at times it feels as if Wright is winning his argument simply because it makes common sense and because we're willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Ultimately, this is a worthwhile read, but it is frustrating at times, especially since Wright is not the most electrifying writer when he's recounting historical facts rather than making an interesting point.

"Cormac McCarthy's Mr. Belvedere" at Yankee Pot Roast. Normally I am not a big fan of the "famous, respected literary figure meets contemporary, silly pop culture" brand of humor, but this piece over at YPR yesterday is a minor masterpiece of the genre.

This is a dog. Wearing sunglasses.

It's a dog wearing sunglasses.



[Via Buzzfeed]

About the Author

About the Author

God is the all-powerful, omniscient creator and ruler of the universe and the Lord and Savior of all mankind. He lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This is His first book.

Available channels on Space Radio, discount satellite radio

1 - Pop Hit Soundalikes

The best, chart-topping pop hits from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and today! These songs sound very similar to them!

2 - Classical Soundalikes

Do you like "Moonlight Sonata" by Beethoven and other songs by him and Bach and everyone? These songs sound very similar to all that!

3 - Train Soundz

The soothing soundz of a Train. Everyone aboard!

4 - Novels in the Public Domain Read Aloud

From Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin to Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain to books from the internet, we love to read. Hope you like listening!

5 - Storytellers

Did I tell you about what happened to me on Tuesday? Oh my god. You will not believe this.

6 - Ocean Soundz

Soothing soundz of the oceans and seas and even lakes.

7 - Basement Soundz

Soothing soundz from my basement and my neighbor's basement.

8 - Office Soundz

Soothing soundz from our office, especially near the printer/copier. Conversations, too!

9 - Pat Buchanan

We have an exclusive to Pat Buchanan. That's what he told me.

10 - Ideas for Songs That Someone Could Write

Just some thoughts. Right off the top of my and other people's heads.

11 - Songs Based on Ideas for Songs That Someone Could Write

Just some songs. Right from the top of my and other people's heads to our guitar strings and drums.

12 - Static and Sound Effects

Soothing static and sound effect soundz.

13 - Racist Radio Plays

Nobody airs these anymore. I miss them.

14 - What's the Weather Like Where You Are?

It's pretty hot here.

15 - Songs that Came for Free on Our Computers

Including "Buzzin'" by The Bratwursts. Pretty good song, actually. Give it a try.

16 - Just Lacrosse

I like lacrosse and I noticed nobody was talking about it on the radio. So here we go.

17 - Voice Software Connected to a Random Number Generator

My brother says he can listen to this for hours. The computer woman's voice is very nice.

18 - Politics?

I don't know. We can talk about it if you want. Just don't get mean.

19 - Voicemails

Leave a voicemail on our voicemail system. Talk about anything you want to. We'll play it on the air! As long as you don't cuss or something like that.

20 - Best of the Emergency Broadcast System

This is a joke channel.

21- Create Your Own Radio Channel

Turn your radio to this station and just start talkin' and playing your own music. It's like you're on the radio!

22 - Thanks!

Me thanking you for listening to Space Radio.

The House in the Woods

Every Friday, I am writing and posting an installment of a new children's story called The House in the Woods. Click here for previous installments.

To summarize: Melissa is running away. She has her bike and a "survival bookbag" and she's riding through the woods. On her way, she collides with a boy who was crossing a waterfall with two bags full of golf balls in his hand. Melissa feels bad (and also wants the bright orange golf ball she sees floating away) so she helps the boy retrieve his golf balls. The boy is very quiet, almost completely silent, but he reveals to her that he knows about a house in the woods. Melissa is intrigued, thinking maybe the house will come in useful. She convinces the boy to show her where the house is. He does, but he refuses to come inside with her. She steals his bags of golf balls and runs up the stairs that lead to the porch. The boy chases her.

Here is what happens next:

The Porch

"Give me those back," the boy said. He breathed heavily from having run up the stairs.

Melissa stood at the edge of the screened-in porch. She glimpsed through the old, tattered screen, trying to get a better look at what was inside, but she couldn't see very much at all. It was too dark in there.

"I will if you go in with me," she said.

"No." The boy was two steps below her. He stood with one foot on a lower step, as if he were expecting the need to flee quickly from the house. "Please," he added, quietly.

Melissa knew the boy was scared, and that she had done a mean thing by stealing his bags of golf balls. But she was scared, too.

"I'll give you one bag back," she said. "But you have to come inside with me to get the other one."

The boy just kept on looking scared and hurt. He was very good at that.

Melissa held one of the bags out toward him. "Just go in there with me," she said, nodding back at the porch. "That's all."

The boy looked over her shoulder at the house. "Fine," he said, looking at her again. "Just up there."

Carefully, he took the bag from her hand. He looked at her and waited.

Melissa realized that now she actually had to open the door and go inside the house. The idea of it had seemed so exciting, earlier--before she had seen the yellowed old thing. Even standing in front of it, looking at it, she had been eager to explore it. But now, the simple act of reaching out a grabbing the door handle seemed terrifying.

"Are you scared?" the boy asked.

Melissa knew the boy wasn't mocking her, but the question still made her blush. A feeling of hardness filled her chest. "No," she said, turning quickly away from him and yanking the screen door open. The springs made loud popping sounds and the hinges groaned like injured crows.

Melissa stepped up onto the porch. She held the door open behind her with her foot.

The porch floor was made of long planks of tan-colored wood. Old pieces of pine straw lay scattered across it. Two old, white-painted rocking chairs stood at the far end of the porch, with a small, glass-topped table between them. A small circular dish sat on the table.

A small colony of daddy long leg spiders clustered together on the ceiling above the chairs. Melissa was comforted by their presence. She hated most spiders. But daddy long legs were alright. She defended them when other kids tried to pull their legs out.

She took a couple of steps onto the porch, and she heard the boy step up on the porch behind her. She looked back at him and said, "Cool, right?"

The boy shook from being startled and he nearly dropped his bag. Melissa wished he had, since then he would have had to stay longer. She could drop the bag that she was holding ...

But no, she couldn't. That would be really mean.

"It's scary," the boy said.

"Yeah," Melissa said.

After that, neither of them said anything for a little while. Melissa could hear the quiet rushing of the waterfall in the distance, and maybe a bird or two. Otherwise, there was only silence.

"Okay," the boy finally said. Even though he had been quiet about it, Melissa had still jumped a little.

"Okay what?" Melissa said.

"Okay. I came up." He looked right at the bag she was holding. He had done what she had asked him to do.

But he didn't, she thought. Not really.

"No," she said. "You have to explore it with me."

"You didn't say that."

"That's part of the deal."

"No, it's not."

Melissa knew he was right. Again. Even if he had only taken one step onto the porch, that was all she had asked him to do -- come up with her. He had, and now he wanted to leave.

If he did, she would be alone.

She looked down at the bag, thinking again about dropping it on purpose, scattering the golf balls all over the porch and maybe even into that room over there that she couldn't quite see from here...

But, again, no. No no no. She couldn't do that. She had decided she wouldn't be mean anymore. That's why she had had to move in the first place. Being mean just made things worse.

"Please," she said, quietly. "You can go soon. I swear. Just ... I want to see what's in here. I want to see if this is a place that I can stay for a little bit." Melissa held the other bag of golf balls out toward the boy. "Here. Take them. You don't have to stay. But..."

Melissa didn't want to finish that sentence, so she didn't. She just let that last word--and the other bag--hang there between them.

The boy took the bag from her. "Okay," he said.

"Really?" Melissa said.

"Really."

Melissa smiled. She wanted to jump up and down and yell, but she stopped herself from doing those things -- they just didn't seem appropriate right then.

Instead, she simply said, "Awesome." And then she turned to walk toward the door that led to the inside of the house.

But then she stopped. She needed to know the boy's name. Before, it hadn't seemed important. Now, though, they were exploring this old house together. Knowing the boy's name seemed suddenly important.

So she asked him what his name was.

And he said, "Courage."

Melissa wasn't sure she had heard him right. "Courage?"

The boy looked down at the floor. "Yeah."

It was a strange name, Melissa thought. But she knew lots of people with strange names. In fact, her mother had once told her that she and her father had almost named her Calliope.

Melissa was glad they hadn't done that. Even though she didn't love being named Melissa, being named Calliope would have been worse. It was so girly.

But Courage was actually a pretty cool name.

"I'm Melissa," she said, also looking at the floor.

"I know," he said. "You told me."

"Oh, yeah." Melissa paused, thinking of something else to say. But there was only one thing. "Alright, let's go."

She turned to walk toward the door. Courage followed her.

As soon as they got a good view through the glass doors into the room, something fell or moved or ran, and there was a big crash. Melissa screamed. Courage dropped his bags, and golf balls poured out and rolled across the wooden floor.

Lazy Friday Video Friday: Wedding Entrance Dance

You've probably already seen this. If not, watch it.



Great.

Lazy Friday Video Friday: Facebook Status-Off

Lazy Friday Video Friday: Craigslist Missed Connection

Lazy Friday Video Friday: KFM

NSFW:



I really like where this goes.

[Via Apiary]

The House in the Woods

This week's installment must be delayed until Sunday. Until then, please enjoy this enchanting CATcerto:



[Via David M.]

Instructions for assembling your Ikea Escher end table

Congratulations! You have purchased the Ikea Escher end table. Please follow these simple instructions to build your end table. Refer to illustrations for further guidance.

1. Locate Connective Plank A. Lay it flat on the floor, with the connective insertion point facing upward.


2. Locate Connective Plank B. Using the insertion points, connect Connective Plank A and Connective Plank B, again making sure the connective insertion points face upward.


3. Using Tool 1, breach a hole in the fabric of the universe.


4. Using Tools 2 and 3, prop open the hole. If any interdimensional monsters (e.g. Flaesterbeasts, Vacuni-Daleandus Demons, The Ploss) begin to crawl through the hole, paralyze them with Tool 4 (and, if necessary, Tool 5). You will now have approximately four minutes to assemble the rest of the end table before another onslaught begins.


5. Locate Interdimensional Anchor Planks A and B. Attach Interdimensional Anchor Planks A and B to Connective Planks A and B as demonstrated in Illustration 5a. Then, by pressing the red button at the Anchor end of Anchor Planks A and B, activate their Universal Load-Bearing Capabilities.


6. Attach Anchor Planks A and B to each other and insert them into the hole in the universe. (Note: The Anchor Planks’ Interdimensional Wind Resistance should prevent them from being sucked through the hole. If there is a strong prevailing interdimensional wind, however, you may need to use Tool 6, the Anchor Anchor. Before using Tool 6, please wear Radioactive Protection Suit 1, and provide Radioactive Protection Suits 2 through 4 for anyone else within thirty meters.)


7. Locate Vertical Connective Planks A, B, C, and D. Attach each at the appropriately marked corner.


8. Hold on to your hat. (Just a little Scandanavian humor!)(Sincerely, though, you will need to prepare mentally for the next section.)


9. Locate Escher Planks A, B, C, and D. Have them ready.


10. Locate God’s Toll Receptor (i.e. the small, inflatable plastic bag with the tubes on each end). Have it ready.


11. Locate Lead Eye Coverings (i.e. the lead eye coverings, shaped somewhat like a facemask). Apply them to yourself and to anyone in the room. Quickly now. You haven’t much time.


12. Using Tool 1, breach another hole in the fabric of the universe. DO NOT REMOVE YOUR LEAD EYE COVERINGS.
    


13. A booming voice will demand your “toll.” Locate God’s Toll Receptor and insert one end in the hole of the universe, and the other end in your mouth. Exhale. (Note: You may feel as if part of your soul is being taken. It is. Just hold on a few seconds longer and the pain will go away. You can do this.)


14. When God announces, “You have paid the toll,” locate Escher Planks A, B, C, and D, and toss them into the hole.


15. A moment of profound and penetrating silence will follow. This is the sound of God assembling the Planks.


16. Warning: During this time, the interdimensional monsters may have returned. If so, DO NOT REMOVE YOUR LEAD EYE COVERINGS. You will have to fight the monsters while blind. Locate Tool 7, the Sword of Gabriel. When you grab the hilt, you will feel as though the flesh of your hands and arms has been burned off. Push through this pain and fight, goddamn you.


17. If you are dueling with Flaesterbeasts or Vacuni-Daleandus Demons, you should have no trouble beating them back. The Ploss are another matter entirely. Some recommend simply screaming, for the Ploss cannot bear the sound of the human voice. Others say that is untrue and the Ploss are undefeatable. We wish you luck.


18. Assuming you have fought off the interdimensional monsters for long enough, God will soon return, having assembled the remainder of your Ikea Escher end table for you. With a great bellow, he will frighten off any remaining monsters and retrieve the bodies and souls of any persons who perished in the fight. He will also take the Sword of Gabriel and your Tools.


19. God will attach the assembled Escher platform, and the completed product will precisely resemble Illustration 18a.


20. The breached holes in the universe should seal up. If they do not, call Ikea Customer Assistance and select the appropriate Help option.
    

We hope you enjoy your Ikea Escher end table for years to come.

Yes/No/Maybe: Hilarious when it talks

Bruno. You may have read or heard that some people think there are some problems with this movie! I guess I'm one of them! Which is unfortunate, because I was pretty excited for this movie a couple of months back. Now I feel sort of ... queasy?

Right away, I'd say my issue with this movie is not that it's homophobic. It's not, IMO. If anyone thinks Bruno is supposed to be an accurate portrayal of a gay person, then that person is bringing his or her own stupidity/ignorance about the Gays to the movie. Bruno is like Borat -- in one sense a caricature of a kind of person that a lot of people are uncomfortable with (gay, foreign, gay/foreign) and in another sense just a crazy person. Bruno is gay, but more importantly, he is incredibly deluded.

"Well, what is your issue with this movie?" I may ask myself in order to provide a transition device. I guess it's that I really, really don't like when Sacha Baron Cohen has to be a dick to people to get them to react to stuff, which is too frequently the case throughout this movie. What was so much fun about Borat is that people would react to the seeming innocence/idiocy of the character and that's where the best humor in that movie came from. Here, Bruno often has to pick and pick at people to get them to do something, which, especially in the scenes with the hunters, is just excruciating. They are pretty polite to this guy who is being a crazy asshole! And then Bruno finally pushes it too far and it's like, well, that was uncomfortable and not funny.

All that said, there are a lot of actually very funny moments throughout this movie, many of which hearken back to the old days of getting people to say and do silly things just by questioning them or acting foreign and oblivious. The Today with Richard Bey segment is a masterpiece. The interviews with the gay conversion guys are lovely. And there is something that talks that should not talk but is hilarious when it talks.

I am disappointed, but I'm glad I saw it.

The High Line. It's a park in the air! Sort of! No, let's just go with that: It's a park in the air! And there are wild grasses and old railroad tracks and some pretty kickass views and an area where you can sit down and watch cars drive up 9th Avenue as if you were floating above it on your hoverchair. Also: totally free. "Only in New York," it forces you to say at (beautiful) gunpoint.

Guns Don't Kill People ... Lazers Do by Major Lazer. What a weird album. I tend to groove to the M.I.A./Santigold-sounding tracks, not groove to the reggae-sounding tracks, be confused by the tracks that sort of combine both, feel like I'm in high school and sittingly uncomfortably in an amateur pot den in some guy's basement when listening to "Mary Jane," and be like "I enjoy this song but it sounds like it belongs on a different album, like maybe even The-Dream's album" to "Keep It Goin' Louder," and discreetly robot-dance to the whaaa-eh-eh-eh-oooh of "Pon De Floor." And I like it when they say "Major Lazer!"

Also: I am looking forward to this movie:

Exhortations

From the galley edition of The Peak of the Season by Tracy Kehler

Dear Reviewer,

When book editors and literary agents are asked what they are looking for in a novel, they often reply that they want a book so engrossing that it will make them miss their subway stop. It's an experience that many of us are lucky enough to have had -- to be so enchanted by a tale that it whisks our minds away from the drudgeries of everyday life.

Let me tell you: I will never forget the time I began reading Tracy Kehler's The Peak of the Season on my morning commute. The tale of two estranged sisters who must return to their parents' Florida orange orchard after their father passes away unexpectedly, it had me spellbound from the first delicious page.

I had just finished Chapter 1, in which, you'll find, Samantha Swardson receives the news of her father's death via postcard from her mother. So fully engaged was I by Kehler's gorgeous description of Samantha's complex emotional reaction that I not only missed my subway stop, I somehow transferred to a completely different subway line and ended up somewhere deep in the borough of Queens.

I was vaguely aware that I should instead be in midtown Manhattan, where my office is, but Tracy Kehler's tremendous eye for detail had me so entranced that I immediately began Chapter 2, unconsciously brushing aside the duties of the day. Of course, Daria Swardson was trying to do the same, having pledged in her mid-twenties that she would never again speak to her father after he rejected her for coming out as a lesbian. As I read her revealing, spot-on dialogue with her caring partner, Kimmy, I became somewhat cognizant of the fact that I had a revolver in my hand and was pointing it at the cashier of a bodega. As the middle-aged Latino man stuffed all the money in the cash register into a small plastic bag and handed it to me and I ran out the door, I read the heartbreaking, chapter-ending monologue by Kimmy, who demands that Daria get over herself and go to her mother's aid. With a tear in my eye, I seem to have hotwired a Nissan and fled the scene.

I tell you all this in retrospect! At the time, I was so utterly inside The Peak of the Season that I was moving through the "real" world as if controlled by some outer force. What a tale! What richness of character and voice!

I had to begin Chapter 3 immediately. As I propped the manuscript up on the steering column and evaded the five police cars lined up behind me on the highway, Tracy Kehler transitioned effortlessly into the voice of Marcia Swardson, mother of Samantha and Daria, widow of Tom, and new owner and operator of Swardson Orchards. In a poignant scene of unparalleled humanity, Kehler describes the first time Tom and Marcia met in college. Their rapid courtship put a smile on my face even as I began to realize that I had just successfully exploded a police helicopter by firing my revolver at its fuel tank. The power of great fiction!

Some part of my mind was insisting that I pull my attention away from the book, but I just could not put it down. The policemen's bullets whizzed by my head and I turned the page to begin Chapter 4. Now, take it from me, if you think you love this book in chapters one, two, and three, then Chapter 4 will quite simply steal your heart. Daria arrives to the house first and when she sees the home she grew up in and rejected so many years ago, she refuses to get out of the car. "Get out of the car!" I kept repeating in my head. "Get out of the car! You have to confront your past."

Of course, evidence now indicates that the police were demanding that I get out of the car at roughly the same time, but I maintain that it was the poignance of the moment that animated my thoughts and body, not the bullhorns of the NYPD.

At this point, the manuscript was ripped from my hands and I was placed under arrest. I cried and cursed and even, for about five seconds, escaped, but my outrage was more due to the fact that I was parted from Tracy Kehler's evocative prose than the prospect of being charged with a number of crimes that I was only then beginning to recall in full detail. I still do not entirely remember standing on top of the car and calling myself an "invincible god."

The trial was hell. I plead guilty to get a lighter sentence and to be able to get to prison more quickly, where, the authorities had promised, I would finally be able to return to The Peak of the Season. By that point, another editor at a different publishing house had already acquired the book. I didn't care. I just needed to find out what happened next.

Apparently no one else has had the same response I had, which I find curious and embarrassing, to say the least. In fact, the editor and the author and pretty much everyone involved with publishing this book was initially quite negative toward my proposal to write an introduction for The Peak of the Season. Then they learned that another publishing house was putting out a novel just a month before that was about three estranged brothers who return to their father's lobster fishing business after his headline-grabbing death. So the author and editor and everybody suddenly decided they needed all the publicity they could get!

I had no qualms about doing it, despite their initial reaction to my proposal. I mean, I love this book. I've read it eighty-six times. And I'm still finding deeper and deeper meanings in it. And I still cry.

So, you can believe me when I tell you: this book changed my life.

I hope it doesn't change yours in exactly the same way. But I think you'll like it.

Sincerely,

Hannah Dwyer
Former Associate Editor
NY State Inmate #399-22904

The House in the Woods

Every Friday, I am writing and posting an installment of a new children's story called The House in the Woods. Click here for previous installments.

To summarize: Melissa is running away. She has her bike and a "survival bookbag" and she's riding through the woods. On her way, she collides with a boy who was crossing a waterfall with two bags full of golf balls in his hand. Melissa feels bad (and also wants the bright orange golf ball she sees floating away) so she helps the boy retrieve his golf balls. The boy is very quiet, almost completely silent, but he reveals to her that he knows about a house in the woods. Melissa is intrigued, thinking maybe the house will come in useful. She convinces the boy to show her where the house is.

Here is what happens next:

The House

"Whoa," Melissa said.

The house was real and it was right in front of her. As she'd followed the boy across the waterfall and walked up the windy, overgrown path on the other side, she'd seen glimpses of the house through the trees. But here it was. All of it. At once.

She thought it was amazing. Obviously, the boy didn't make things up or imagine them different than they were like she sometimes did -- this was really a house just sitting in the middle of the woods. And not even a log cabin or anything. This was like a regular house. An old and ugly regular house, but still a regular house.

It was painted a faint yellow color that reminded Melissa of being sick. The house was only one story tall. All along the front of it was a porch that thrust out a little ways from the main part of the house. The porch was screened in, except where it wasn't: in some of the windows, the screen had detached from one of the corners and now it hung down like a floppy hand. Melissa wasn't sure if this was the front of the house or the back.

There was a set of stairs that led up to the porch.

"Let's go in," Melissa said.

"In?" the boy said.

"Yeah, inside."

"Well..."

Melissa's mouth hung open in shock. "You've never gone inside?"

The boy weakly kicked the dirt in front of him. "No."

Melissa couldn't believe it. How could you know about a house like this and never go inside it? Sure, it looked a little scary, but...

Melissa looked at the boy again and understood. The boy was too scared to speak more than a word at a time. How could he ever go inside a weird yellow house in the woods all by himself?

Well, now he didn't have to.

"Come on," she said, pulling the boy's arm as she started to walk her bike up toward the house. But the boy didn't move.

"I have to go back," he said, just barely lifting his bags, as if having two bags full of golf balls was obviously a reason to need to go back home.

Melissa was not going to go through this again with this boy. He had given her the house and that was incredible. But she didn't have time stand here and be nice to him and talk him into stuff anymore. He was coming with her or not. Because she was running away. She needed every second.

"One more chance," she said, gripping the strap of her survival bookbag with one hand and the handlebar of her bike with the other. These were her tools. These were all she needed to do what she needed to do. Anything else was just extra, and probably too much, anyway.

The boy looked up at the house. From this angle, it stood well above them on the hill. It looked bigger, and meaner, than it actually was.

"I can't," the boy said.

And Melissa dropped her bike and stole the boy's bags right from his hands. She ran toward the stairs. The weight of the bags made her waddle as she ran. She was already breathing hard.

"Hey!" the boy called after her.

Melissa held the handles of the bags tightly so none of the golf balls would fall out. She waddle-ran toward the stairs and thought about looking back to see if the boy was following her, but she didn't. She just kept on going.

And then she was running up the stairs. The cement was cracked all over from age, and patches of dark green moss grew in the cracks. She realized as she tromped up the steps that she wasn't actually sure that the house was abandoned. She had just assumed it from the way the house looked. So she might have been running into some weird guy's creepy old house. All by herself.

Then she heard footsteps behind her on the stairs. And the boy yelled, "Wait!"

Melissa stopped and waited for him.

Awkward Semaphore Conversations: Going around

Yeah, my friend Rachel said she was feeling sick a couple of days ago.

Mmhmm.

And now I'm starting to get this sore throat.

Oh.

There must be something going around.

Yeah, you're right. I mean, you know one person who said she felt sick and now you have a sore throat. There must be a real epidemic brewing.

You're a dick, Neil.

Yes.

Yes/No/Maybe: A well-functioning mind

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I saw this movie at 12:20 a.m. last night because I am a 26-year-old man with a day job. Man, I really did not remember how that book went! It's been a while! But it was fun to go along with the movie and be like, "Oh, yeah! Cool!" Anyway, if you liked the other movies, you will probably like this one even more. Everybody I saw it with did, and that includes myself. It's just ... better, for some reason. The screenplay? The cinematography? Jim Broadbent? Alan Rickman, delivering his lines as if each word were a pearl tossed before swine? Probably a bunch of these things combined, including brain fatigue! See it with or without a well-functioning mind.

(Bonus: Before the movie, you get to see the Where the Wild Things Are trailer. It's the exact same trailer that came out a while back, but it's on a big screen with big speakers for that Arcade Fire song. So frickin' excited.)

And Here's the Kicker. Mike Sacks, writer of one of my fave McSweeney's pieces, interviews some humor writing greats, including Stephen Merchant, Mitch Hurwitz, Bob Odenkirk, Robert Smigel, George Meyer, Jack Handey, and a ton of others. Basically, I am the target audience for this book, and they really shot me in the bull's eye, if you know what I mean. For comedy nerds, some of the information is familiar, but a lot of it is new or new-seeming anyway, and Sacks introduces young ignorant philistines like me to some of the more classic guys (and one lady) who were funny before I even started making fart jokes (around 2 months of age). There are some generous attempts at giving advice to aspiring humor writers but most of it basically amounts to "Work hard!" and "Good luck!" Which is as it should be, I suppose.

The UPS tracking number sketch. I caught part of a rerun of SNL the other night and this came on and I was glad. It's a rare sketch that actually rewards repeat viewings, with stuff that maybe gets lost the first time around really shining once you've seen it a few times (e.g. the fact that they "made love through their blue jeans" for years). Watch it. Again.

My girlfriend is perfect

My girlfriend is perfect. She's exactly like Ayn Rand.

Even the way we met was like how Ayn Rand met her husband. I was walking out of the student center on my way to Intro to American Lit when I tripped and pretty much busted right on the cement outside. My hands were pretty scraped up and I was pretty pissed, but then I looked up and there was this girl. She had these enormous, gorgeous brown eyes. And she looked even more pissed than me!

She told me that I had run into her and I should apologize. Whoa, this girl was throwing me for a loop! But I realized she was right; I hadn't looked when I was coming out of the door. So I said I was really, really sorry. Then she told me I could make it up to her by reading this book that she was carrying. It was this really thick paperback book that was all creased up and had bent corners.

It was The Fountainhead. She had written her e-mail inside the front cover.

Of course, Ayn Rand didn't give her future husband Frank O'Conner a copy of The Fountainhead -- she hadn't even written it yet! Plus, there wasn't e-mail. But she did trip him on purpose because she fell in love with him from afar and that's how they met. I know all these things now because of Anne. She's my girlfriend.

Anne has changed my life so much, in so many amazing ways. Actually, let me say that again. Anne has helped me change my own life so much, in so many egocentric and ideal ways. One of the first things she helped me change was my major. I used to be an English major. I even kind of used to think about being a writer sometimes. But Anne looked at some of my essays and poems and then she did the virtuous and right thing: she told me the truth. Basically, she said I simply wasn't good at writing (as you can tell!) and didn't show any promise and that all that American "literature" was fogging my brain anyway.

She was right! I remember even when I kind of liked something we were reading, like The Sound and the Fury, that I also thought it had a really basically evil philosophy underneath it. The kind of thing that's all about how "feeble" and "stupid" and "parasitic" mankind is. Thanks to Anne, and Ayn, I realized how evil that was. I'm a Business major now. I'm going to start my own company when I graduate next year.

But I'm talking so much about myself! I mean, I should be, because my pursuit of my own happiness is my greatest virtue, and I like talking about myself, so I'm very virtuous when I do that. But Anne deserves so much of my respect. And everybody's respect! She is the single smartest and intelligent and independent and just really moral and respectable person that I've ever met. I bet that if Ayn Rand were alive today, she would really like Anne. She'd let her into the Collective, which was the ironic name for Ayn Rand's group of friends. Because she was for the individual, triumphant spirit of man, not the Communist collective so-called "greater good."

Anyway. Anne. She is very attractive to me. Her eyes are just so pretty and big. She's always looking at something! Figuring it out. Analyzing it. And then she'll make this really smart joke about it and I'll laugh. Sometimes I'll laugh even when I don't understand the joke, but I shouldn't do that. It's dishonest. It makes me feel like a parasite of her genius.

I need to earn her love. She's right when she says that. I told her that I loved her a few months ago, but she couldn't tell me it back because I hadn't earned it yet, even though I had hoped maybe she had already fallen in love with me like how Ayn Rand fell in love with Frank O'Conner just by looking at him.

But that's not how it is with us and it's my fault. I'm like Eddie Willers in Ayn Rand's incredible novel Atlas Shrugged. I just kind of go along with the flow and don't like to assert myself too much even though I know that I need to assert myself and get what I want because getting what I want in life is the moral thing to do, and we all should do that and not interfere with each other's lives and pay each other if we use each other's services. I need to be an individual for her. For myself. I need to be more like an individual.

She does enjoy what I can provide for her, though. She likes when I tickle her when we're in bed. She thinks I'm good at sex, which is something she really likes. She says I have a face like "Howard Roark's brother," and she'll never meet Howard Roark, so his brother is almost as good. Sometimes, when I'm feeling really relaxed or tired, I'll say something that just comes into my head and she'll give me this look like she's shocked and then she'll smile just a little bit. I know when I make her happy.

It's not as much as she makes me happy. Not even close. But I'll have plenty of time to make the balance right. I think we'll be together for the rest of our lives.

Dear UPS guy

Dear UPS guy,

Please leave any packages for Theo Haynes on top of the orange and white tabby cat sleeping on the porch. I just think it would be funny if I came home and my package was still sitting right on top of my cat.

Thanks for indulging me,

Theo

***

Dear UPS guy,

Okay, I know it was kind of an unusual request about the cat, but when I came home it was apparent you hadn't even tried to put the package on top of him. The package was sitting right outside my screen door, which is not where Wrinkle ever sleeps, so it's not like he got up and the package slid off of him.

If you're reading this, then my other package has arrived. Please, just do me a tiny favor and place that package on top of my cat's soft little body. He won't even wake up! That's the funny thing! He's a real sleepyhead.

Thanks a million,

Theo

***

Dear UPS guy,

Come on. Is it really that big of a deal? It's not like I'm going to get you in trouble or anything. I'm asking you to do this! And the thing is: nothing's going to happen. That's the whole point! Wrinkle doesn't do a thing all day. He just sleeps and sleeps, in that same spot. You know precisely what spot I'm talking about, too, because twice now you've seen Wrinkle sleeping there, thought about doing me just the tiniest possible favor to brighten my day, and decided against it.

Please. We've met each other a couple of times before when you delivered packages. Your name is Darius? You seemed like a good guy.

Just prop today's package up on my cat's torso.

Thank you so so much,

Theo

***

Marcus,

I'm sorry I got your name wrong. It's not a racial thing, if that's what you think. I just don't have a great memory.

You mentioned in your note that you "cannot comply" with my request because UPS practices do not allow "package placement that may result in a lawsuit." It hurts my feelings that you would say that. I'm not trying to get you in trouble, Marcus! In fact, I swear to you right now, I will not sue you or UPS. You can take this note as proof!

Let's not get ourselves tangled up in "lawsuits" and "cannot comply." This is just one man, Theo Haynes, asking another man, Marcus (what's your last name?), to put a box on top of a cat. It's as simple as that. Accidental rhyme (haha)!

Please,

Theo

p.s. I may have dropped a small amount of U.S. currency on my way out the front door this morning.

***

Marcus,

See that FedEx box on top of Wrinkle? That's funny, isn't it? Not kneeslappingly funny. Just kind of funny. Mildly amusing, you might say. Something to bring a smile to a chronically depressed man's face when he gets home from his job that he is too numb toward to hate anymore. That's all I wanted from you, Marcus.

But you refused. You wouldn't even take my money. Well, guess what, Marcus? I found someone else. Someone who doesn't mind placing lightweight or even somewhat medium-weight boxes on top of a cat if the cat owner requests it.

His name is Randall. He works for FedEx. He is better at his job than you.

I will not be having items delivered by UPS anymore.

Farewell,

Theo

***

Marcus,

Wrinkle is dead and it's all my fault. I know it's been months since you've been here. You probably were hesitant, maybe even frightened, to walk up my steps. I don't blame you. I blame me.

Randall did whatever I told him to do. At first, it was just one package. Then two. Then three. Then a tower of packages with Wrinkle at the top. Then a fort. Then a maze.

I was spending thousands of dollars a week on shipping alone.

Then, one day, when Randall was constructing a suspension bridge with Wrinkle in the middle, the whole thing collapsed. Wrinkle was crushed. Randall was fired. I was devastated.

You were vindicated.

I just wanted you to know that. Please forgive me for everything I said.

And please leave any packages for me right next to the screen door.

Thanks,

Theo

The House in the Woods

Every Friday, I am writing and posting an installment of a new children's story called The House in the Woods. Click here for previous installments.


"What does it mean?"

The boy's voice startled Melissa. A sound like "Wah!" jumped out of her throat before she could stop it, which made her mad. How had the boy just snuck up on her like that without her hearing? Sure, she had been busy double-checking the contents her survival bookbag, but...

"What?" Melissa said, spinning around to face him. She put her fists on her hips for emphasis.

In answer to her question, the boy simply pointed to her bike.

And with that, Melissa had had it with the silence thing. It was one thing to be quiet when you were angry because somebody had spilled your golf balls. It was another, totally obnoxious thing to be quiet after you asked that somebody a question that didn't make sense.

"Say it," she said. "Say what you mean."

The boy squinted at her and tilted his head to the side, as if he were trying to figure out if she was crazy. Then he let out a big breath through his nose and looked down at the ground. "Girl Exploder," he said, putting the emphasis on the word "girl."

Melissa felt suddenly off balance. "What about it?"

"What does it mean?"

Melissa realized she didn't know. She had never thought about what "Girl Exploder" meant, and her mother had never asked her. It just was what it was: awesome.

"I don't know," she said, putting some annoyance in her voice.

"Does it mean you explode girls? Or does it mean you explode?"

"I. Don't. Know."

"I was just wondering because..."

"Gah! I wish you'd be quiet again," Melissa said, wrapping her arms her chest.

The boy looked like she'd just kicked him in the privates. Then his eyes narrowed and he turned away from her and started to run back where they'd just come from -- the pond at the bottom of the waterfall.

"Wait!" Melissa said. She ran after him. She was a fast runner, but he was fast, too, and shorter, so he ducked easily under branches that scraped her face. Melissa kept saying "Stop!" and "Ow!"

The boy didn't stop until he'd returned to the edge of the pond. His two plastic bags full of golf balls sat upright against a tree. He walked over to one, yanked a ball off the top of the pile, and threw it right into the pond, just as he'd done with the orange ball when she'd gotten it back for him. She didn't know much about this boy, but she knew that when he threw golf balls into the pond, that meant he was pretty angry.

And this time it really was completely her fault.

"I'm sorry," she said.

The boy stared at the water.

"I'm sorry, okay?"

The boy ignored her again.

Melissa wanted to just say "Fine!" and leave. She didn't even know this boy's name. And he was acting all upset like a girl.

But if she was going to do this thing that she had planned to do, she would have to be nice. She couldn't be like the way she was back in her old city, before they'd moved. She needed people to help her. She needed people to like her. She needed to be ... nice.

"I'll give you your orange ball back," she said. "Okay? I'm sorry." She tossed the orange ball toward him. It landed on the dirt next to his shoe and rolled a little ways in front of him.

"I can't even use that," he said. At least, that's what Melissa thought he said. But it didn't make sense, so maybe he'd said something else. He was still looking away from her.

I tried, Melissa thought. I tried.

She had apologized. Three times. And she had given him the orange ball back. It was all she had. And it was a lot, especially from her.

Melissa started to turn away, resigned to finally just leaving this stubborn, silent, weird boy by himself with his two bags of usable white golf balls and one unusable orange one.

Then she realized she still had something. Something big.

And he still had something she wanted.

"I'll tell you a secret," she said.

The boy turned his head just a little.

"It's a good one," she said. "I'll tell you what it is if you forgive me."

Slowly, the boy turned back around. The look on his face suggested he thought she was going to throw something at him.

"Okay," he said.

"Do you forgive me?" she said.

"Yes."

"Okay. I'll tell you my secret."

The boy nodded.

Melissa said, "I'm running away."

"No," the boy said. But his eyes said that he believed her entirely, and that he was in awe.

"Yes," Melissa said, smiling. "Now you have to show me where that house is."

Faile

Click through the picture to vote for my first and only Failblog submission! I'm serious!

[UPDATE: So, I misinterpreted the Failblog upload instructions and apparently the people behind Failblog have to first post this photo on the Vote page before you can officially vote for it. But then why is there a cheeseburger ranking system on the link that's currently available? I will notify you if/when you can actually vote for it (if you want to).

I suppose all of this counts as an actual Fail.]

Yes/No/Maybe: Some idiot's overblown music reviews

LP by Discovery. Most reviews I've seen refer to this as a "great summer album," but I want to go on record as stating that this is probably a great album for all seasons, with the possible exception of Autumn. Time will tell, I suppose! I mean, I get why people think of this as a summer album: the album is being released in summer, and it's fun and light and poppy. I get that. But a beautiful pop treat like "Osaka Loop Line" or "So Insane" is valuable during Spring ("When the world is a-bloomin'" - Nobody), Summer (when you find yourself on a rooftop drinking a Bud Light), or Winter (when it's cold as shit outside and you want to warm your soul up). In fact, you should probably abstain from listening to it during Fall so that when you scroll through your music selections in January, hoping for something to pick you up, and you find Discovery just sitting there waiting to be listened to, it'll pack even more of a punch.

[Additional Note: There is a remix of "I Want You Back" on here that predates MJ's death. When I first heard it last week or so, it struck me as kind of gross. I mean, "I Want You Back" is already a perfect song, so why would you fuss it up with Autotune? But when I stopped being dumb and began thinking of it as just a different version of the song rather than an attempt to improve it, my assessment of it really skyrocketed and now it's one of my favorite tracks on the album. Check all the tracks before you buy them, if you're the kind of person who likes to make up his or her own mind rather than trusting some idiot's overblown music reviews.]

Far by Regina Spektor. This album is Regina Spektor being really Regina Spektor-y. If that sounds like something you'd like, check it out. If that sounds like something you wouldn't like, I don't blame you. If that sounds like something you don't understand, I don't blame you, either. (That was a lie: I do blame you. Just a little bit, though.)

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!: Seasons 1 and 2. Usually when people use the word "Lynchian" or the phrase "It's like a David Lynch movie," they just mean something is weird and/or frightening. And those adjectives are certainly applicable to a lot of the sketches and segues on this show. But this show really is Lynchian in how it focuses on the psychological terror of the inexplicable and the soul-killing aspects of television/commercials/movies. That to me is one of the more interesting aspects of this show -- how much it plays up the darkness that is inherent in the best humor, to the point that it sometimes overwhelms the humor.

That said, there are some really hilarious sketches throughout this show. "Spaghett!" is just ridiculously funny, as is Zach Galifianakis as the Snuggler. THAT said, there are a lot of sketches that met my expectations of this show, which were Weird = Funny, which I don't think is a true equation without a few more variables (I'm a math genius and a metaphor genius). Ultimately, though, I think these dudes really have done something new with comedy and deserve the comedy nerd praise I have resisted for quite some time now.

Blast off

[Via Buzzfeed]

Big Gulps

You're not the only one who can push a pretty stroller around to a dentist's office soundtrack

[Via Buzzfeed]

Brevity

If you're not in the mood to read a kinda long piece about apocalyptic fireworks (see below), please check out Yankee Pot Roast, where they re-published several (relatively short) Founding Fathers-inspired pieces, including one of mine, this past Independence Day.

The Sixth of July

I'm still in the basement. I can see a little sunlight coming through the tiny window over in the corner. The smoke must be settling, finally.

My watch says it's 7:06 a.m. July 6th. 2009.

I wanted to write this down so that people will know what happened and who was responsible for what. I was there the whole time. I saw all of it.

All day, before it started, people were scared. But they tried not to show it. The Barkers and the Inlights and the Natts all had BBQs with all the fixings and burgers and all of that. Seth and I snatched like six Coors Lights from the Inlights' cooler when nobody was looking.

We needed it because we knew what was going to happen. Seth told me how his dad had gotten on a flight to Asia somewhere--he didn't even know where, specifically, because his dad wouldn't say--just to stock up. I had been telling him for weeks how my dad had sealed off the basement, the basement I'm in right now, and went down there at night. Whenever I saw him come out, I'd try to look angry, but he always just smiled, like he understood why I was angry but he didn't care.

None of the dads cared. Every year, they started spending more and more money and time on these insaner and insaner fireworks to the point where it wasn't even fun anymore. It was just dangerous. And I'm not even a wuss about that stuff. Last year, that little girl Breanna got the tip of her ear burned by a flying rocket. That's serious.

People were getting super-drunk, almost like they were trying to pass out before everything started so they wouldn't have to go. Seth and I jumped from BBQ to BBQ and you could start to see people's moms getting really freaked out just by how much they were talking and how they were laughing like they were literally crazy.

It started to get dark. The lightning bugs hovered and blinked. Seth squashed a few of them until I told him to stop. Normally, I wouldn't care, but it just felt weird that night.

By sunset, everybody on the whole street was gathered in the usual spot in front of the Jenkins' house. I don't know why it's always been the Jenkins' house. But this year, instead of people talking and whispering all excited and people handing out sparklers and maybe even shooting off a couple of bottle rockets just to give people a little scare, everybody was pretty much just silent, pretending like they were having a good time. Everybody appeasing the dads.

Mr. Jenkins started, as usual. He clapped once and the sound echoed between the houses. Then he yelled, "Alright, let's do this!" A couple of people clapped. Mr. Jenkins and his little son, Greg, dragged a red wagon to the center of the street. The wheels creaked so loud. "This one's called 'Independence Day'!" he said, and then he brought the stove lighter to the side of the box inside the wagon. The fuse started to spark and he ran away. I bit my lip and crossed my arms over my chest.

It was one of those multi-stage boxes of firecrackers and there was a lot of stuff flying off into the air and popping noises and the wagon rocked a little bit from the force of it all. But it was so normal compared to what everybody was expecting that we all just started to laugh and clap. The dads weren't going to kill everyone after all.

Then Mr. Nicerty started dragging something down his driveway. He and Mrs. Nicerty and their daughter, Simone, who's like nine maybe, were pulling this big box by these ropes that were attached to it. It was so awkward to watch but nobody helped them. We realized that Mr. Jenkins had been an exception, that he was maybe trying to stop people by setting a weak first example. But obviously there were a lot of explosives in the Nicerty's box, and they were going to blow them up no matter what Jenkins did.

Finally the Nicertys dragged the box--it was as tall as Simone--to the middle of the street, and Simone and Mrs. Jenkins speed-walked back to their yard. Mr. Nicerty turned to everybody and said, "Everyone please take a few steps back." Most people did. Seth and I didn't. None of the dads did.

Mr. Nicerty pulled a long tube out of his pocket, inserted it somewhere in the side of the box, and lit the end of it. The whole time he looked like he wanted to be already running away. Finally he did. "This one's called the Light!" I think he said. The fuse glowed bright green at first and changed to gold as it moved toward the box. Then it disappeared and, for a couple of seconds, nothing happened. People were just about to start laughing at Mr. Nicerty's box when a big white light like a powerful spotlight shot straight out of the top of the box. People shielded their eyes, but we didn't. It didn't hurt your eyes. There was a whining sound.

Then the light stopped and the edges of the box opened up and there was a dark form that looked like a demon or an angel. It was hunched over and naked, I guess, and there was a dark red haze around it. People were absolutely dead silent. I was frozen. I couldn't even look at Seth right next to me.

The thing spread its wings. They were enormous and scaly and had little claws at the ends of them, I think, so I figured it was a demon right then. Everything was still completely quiet. And then the thing opened its jaws and screamed. I was sure I was about to die with everybody else.

Then it flew over to the Barkers' pickup truck and started ripping apart and eating pieces of what was in the back of it. Most people were running away screaming, but Mr. Barker and his brother started yelling at the thing, telling it to stop tearing apart the "Dragon Machine Gun." I remember thinking how fucking stupid that was, that they were yelling at a demon instead of running away from it.

I heard Mr. Thierry yell, "No, you don't!" Then he ran back to his yard and drew the blue tarp back from the big hole he'd been digging for months. Everybody had assumed it was yard work. But I guess it was actually some kind of portal. These dark blobs with sparkles inside of them floated out of the hole and Mr. Thierry pointed in the direction of the demon and said, "I command thee to strike." The blobs sort of joined together into one big sparkly black blob and shot across the street toward the demon. "See how you like Earth Spirit Stars!" Thierry yelled.

I didn't see how that turned out because right then there was a huge explosion down the street. A fireball--a real goddamn fireball taller than a house--bloomed into the sky. I couldn't tell where it came from. At this point, everybody was running except the dads and Seth and me. I figured it might be time to run. I turned to Seth to say so. Then I saw that he was on the ground. His eyes were wide open and there was a rocket in his chest, still sparking from the end. I don't know how I knew for sure he was dead, but I knew for sure he was dead.

Then I saw Dad. He was carrying something that looked like a small vase. He ran to the center of the street, set the vase on the ground, and stood up. "Behold! The Igniter of Dreams!" he yelled over the sounds of destruction. Then he realized nobody was there except me. We looked at each other and I tried to communicate with my eyes--because I knew I wouldn't be able to speak words right then--that I really didn't want him to do whatever he was about to do.

"I'm sorry," he said. Then struck the vase with a hammer. It broke open with a crash. Then the tops of all the trees in the neighborhood instantly went up in flame.

I ran inside. There was shouting and whooshing and crashing and exploding all behind me and everything smelled like smoke. The basement door was open, for the first time in months. I ran down in there, shut and locked the door behind me, and waited for my mom and sister to come and knock on the door. If my dad had come, I wouldn't have opened it.

But nobody came. Not that night and not all yesterday. There were more explosions and even yelling sometimes yesterday morning and afternoon, but then all that stopped. I decided to sleep in here. I think I got a few hours of sleep, but it felt more like I was wide awake.

My watch says 7:28 a.m. If I'm going out there, I should go now. I found this old backpack I used to use and filled it with the bottled water and trail mix that was down here. And a flashlight and batteries. There isn't much else down here that would be useful.

There are two vases standing on Dad's workshop bench. They are simple, light brown vases made of some kind of fragile clay. One has a red dot on it. The other has a black dot on it. I don't know if I should take them so they don't fall into the wrong hands or if I should just leave them here.

Anyway, if you're reading this, whoever you are, now you know who's responsible. Not that you can really do anything about it probably. But it kind of helps to know, at least. Or maybe it doesn't.

I think I'm going to just leave the vases. Maybe you'll know what to do with them.

The House in the Woods

Due to the July 3rd Pre-Holiday, there will not be an installment of The House in the Woods this Friday. But click here next week to join Melissa, the still-unnamed boy, the orange golf ball, the Girl Exploder bike, and the house in their ongoing adventure.

(Photo courtesy K. Curtiss Photography)

Exhortations

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