Act IV: The Conflagration

: Richard Burton is my true love!




: Unless you're doing a character voice, Ball, there's gonna be a beatdown.




: Careful, he is a soothsayer, which comes from the Old English. And means truth. Also, he believes in lucid dreaming and spontaneous combustion. So do I, come to think of it.


: I'm growing out my hair. Lizzie, did you hear me? I'm growing out my hair!




: There is no such thing as violet eyes!




: Okay, I get it. You're pushing my buttons. Attacking my mythology. Did Jon hire you?



: I don't need other people, Taylor. Frankly, you have insulted me. I'm going to go hang out in outer space for a while. Why don't you join me?



: He's baiting you, Lizzie! Don't--Lizzie? Lizzie? NOOOOOOO!

act III: the lumination

: i fell asleep in the tanning bed and woke up glowing. my eyes are so full of light!




: oh lizzy, you sparkle like one hundred galaxies! your head is a beautiful gleaming orb!



: be careful wit dat sheeeit, yo




: john, cram it. i have diamonds in my skin! diamonds!




: you shine like a nuclear holocaust!




: awww sheeeeeit

Act II, Elizabeth Taylor enters

: Eli, OMG, that sweater is gorgeous. I am so glad we bought matching sweaters at H&M the other day! Also, I'm happy to see you're wearing the BFF diamond heart pendant I gave you for V-Day!

: Oh shut UP and stop asskissing! We're just in a scene together, Wayne! And I also wish you'd stop following me into the tanning bed - there isn't room enough for the both of us in there. Also, for the record, before we begin this scene, may I state how much I hated Slumdog Millionaire? Its half-baked characters, flimsy plotline, and overall nauseating generic-ness? I found it quite yucky, particularly when the brother gets shot in the heavyhanded bathtub of money.

: Really?!?! I sort of loved it. That was sort of my favorite scene. But while we're on the topic of things we hate, I'll have you know that I was NOT at AWP in Chicago, although I did fly to Chicago simply so I could hang out in the hot tub at the Drake all during the conference and get all pruny. I was in that hot tub for 3 days straight. I feel fucking amazing!

: I think I'm more of a cornflower blue, rather than whale-blue. Or a suffocated-baby blue, perhaps? Ooh, that's morbid. Jon don't do morbid. Who am I, anyway? Why am I in a scene with two people who won't talk to me? Why wasn't I invited to read at AWP?

I'm in love with a playwright

You know me. I hate plays. I hate them even when people I love are in them.


But I have been reading Sarah Ruhl plays over the last week or so, and, heck, I think she deserves some serious Wayne Koestenbaums. I think I would like to watch her plays. I think I might even want to play peripheral characters in her plays. That is a weird feeling. Wait. I think I might want to write plays. Let's write a play! Oo, let's! Kathy, you can wear antlers and vampire teeth. Oh wait. Someone already wrote that.


Really though. I miss our collaborations. So I will start:



: You are blue, like a whale because blue whales aren't really blue.




: No, I'm really blue.




Your turn!

it's time to talk about nonsense

who thinks joaquin phoenix is being for real and who thinks it's some of kind of clever actor game. abby, you will know.

i thought maybe possibly he could just be going crazy until they interviewed casey affleck about it (who is making a documentary of joaquin or something) and he was like "...yeah, he's giving up acting to be a rapper. so what." this makes me think they are in the "cahoots."

what do you think.

Separated by handsomeness

Danny Boyle looks like Morrissey's less fashion-conscious older bro.

we need more poetry videos, here's one

Heart attack

Apparently women are dropping like overweight Persian cats due to heart attacks because there are all these new commercials to make us aware that our symptoms are different. Women who look like they are in their mid- to late-30s say things like, "I didn't even have any chest pain. I just felt kind of tired." And then they weigh an old woman, and show us that she weighs 120 pounds, implying that even if you are a skinny little bird a heart attack awaits. Which means...you (the abstract you, the "vous") are about to die.

I took my pulse like 400 times yesterday because I was home sick, the major symptom of my illness being extreme tiredness--I slept for seven hours yesterday during the day, which means that while I was awake my index and middle finger were more or less constantly pressed against my throat. The other major symptom of my illness clearly being paranoia.

This morning I continue to grapple with mortality. I am drinking enough coffee that my whole body vibrates a little each time my heart beats.

Kitties are Trainable, Too (Just not Mine)

Since it seems clear (Sorry Abby) that none of us will ever have children, I have a new plan for our cats when they are not reading classic novels--agility contests! I learned about them while watching my favorite public television show, Nature.

So, they are just like the puppy agility obstacle courses, except for cats. And except that the cats don't want to follow the rules, and they climb over hoops rather than through them, or they get distracted and go check out something else when they're supposed to be competing. And except the owners aren't competitive at all. I bet there is lots of drinking at cat agility competitions.

I wish I had a picture of the Persian I saw attempting to run and jump--it was just like huge ball of fur sort of waddling along and occasionally lifting off to jump like a furry cloud.

Celebrity Crush #814

Rufus Sewell is sooooo dreamy. Here are the reasons why:

1. I cannot stop staring at his face. Abby says this is because he has a skeleton-face, and that is my type. I see why she would say that. This is true. However, I truly don't think he has a skeleton face, and if he does it is a beautiful skeleton face. So there.

2. He has a really good American accent. He is one of the new crop of English-masquerading-as-American-agents-of-the-law on television shows that air in the hour before the news. This is, by the way, the new formula for a hit show: Find an English dude and make him an eccentric genius with a female sidekick.

3. He looks like he's holding something back. He is coy. It is obvious that he has unplumbed (and possibly unplumb-able (?)) depths. His eyes say "I am telling the truth," but his mouth says, "Or am I?"

4. He looks totally different in period costuming. He looks like a dashing pirate, even in armored skirts.

5. Oh wait, his cheekbones are totally skeletal. Hot.

Chapter Three: Entry Day

Chapter one here.
Chapter two here.

I can’t tell if the tiny monkeys are growing, or if the plus-sized models are shrinking. I don’t know why the Howling Girl didn’t plan ahead for the eventuality of her head bumping and plodding along the linoleum behind her as she makes her way to breakfast. She should bind a pillow to her skull.

All I know is that cloudy days at The Pinch Punch are the worst because TYRA has a spoiled child’s version of seasonal affective disorder.

The morning Pinch-Punches are gray and reek of regret and liquid foundation. A profound melancholy settles on the residents, and they half-heartedly smack around billiard balls, hoping that someone watched something interesting on TV the night before so the silence can be broken.

Epileptic seizures abound in the lobby. It is an Entry Day, and a charming new guest’s melodic timbre haywires synapses amongst residents. There is nothing like an epileptic seizure for bringing you down. People say the pants-pissing is the worst, but I say it is bleeding-tongue.

There is a collective unconscious wish for harmonicas and sunglasses. The lights flicker, hiss, and sink. The Howling Girl finally shuts up. Everyone’s got the sniffles; their sleeves crust with mucus, their eyes crust with sleep.

Serious issue

Christian Bale yells with a scary voice. I think he has been working too much lately and might want to come pick me up for that vacation in the tropics we planned so long ago. I promise not to frustrate him.

k+ and I made American Psycho jokes, but so is everyone else. So here's a mash-up with Newsies instead:

NSFW F*ckin Newsies! @ Yahoo! Video

Pinch Punch Ch. 2: puddin’, Tragic Audiodiary I.

Chapter one is here.

“When I had journeyed half of our life’s way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray…I cannot clearly say how I had entered the wood; I was so full of sleep just at the point where I abandoned the true path,”

No wait, shoot, that’s Dante. It’s hard to make an audio-diary, but the note in my rollerboard said I have to record my journey or be banished to the Pinch-Punch vats. Crap. I hate the sound of my own voice and I can’t think of anything to say. Crap. Okay, let’s try that again:

How does one fall through a skylight into new life? In the dream I was knitting an endless afghan with which to cover the earth, in which to wrap it, to snuggle it, until all the icecaps I had always meant to scale melted, wetting the earth’s blanky like a baby. In the dream I was also the earth, and also the afghan, which was woven of scraps of paper sack, heirlooms from past centuries, barbed wire, and the fine blond hair of little sisters.

The sign did not say WELCOME. I would not have known this because I crashed through the skylight and landed face-up on the bar, faces of drunks looming above me like funeral flowers. I couldn’t tell if they were laughing or crying. They brutally brushed my hair, so that my scalp bled pleasantly. My whole body bled pleasantly upon my arrival, as if my old life were draining out of my body.

Whoa, audio-diaries are super-dramatic. I think I love audio-diaries. They make my life seem way more important than it is.

“What do you drink in your neck of the country, sister?” said the bartendress. “Cuz I know
you don’t come from ‘round here.”

She was a giantess, with gold fingernails like claws, or switchblades, or switchblade claws. She looked vaguely famous, but I wasn’t sure; I am a knitter; I don’t believe in television.

“Um, I was knitting an afghan in which to cover the earth?” I said.

“Caravaggio! You’re supposed to be barbacking! Paint me up a Pinch-Punch chaser for this freak-ass transient!” She tried to snap her fingers, but her switchblade nails just sort of clacked together.

“Fuck off, TYRA, or I’ll stab your tits,” said Caravaggio in a Boston accent.

He sat Indian-style atop a table in the darkest corner of the bar, wearing a purple wig and wildly patterned swimming trunks. He began fingerpainting a portrait of my dream. In the painting the earth was being smothered, not happily bundled; the earth was suffocating. He made suffocating noises as he painted to ensure that I understood this. He poured the painting into a frosty mug.

TYRA slammed a shot glass full of glowing liquid down on the bar.

“Um, is this a liquer? Because I’m a knitter, and I don’t believe in--”

“Drink up!” TYRA said. “Or Caravaggio will stab your tits.”

“Drink up or I’ll stab your tits,” said Caravaggio. “Cuz that’s what I do for a hobby, is stab tits and play my brand of bocci where I throw the balls at people’s faces. See that broad over there? The plus-sized one? Check out the number I did on her.”

“They call me Ye Old Blackeye of Bloody Tit now,” she said. “I used to be called Sunshine, after the bread.”

Everyone at the bar chanted “Pinch-Punch, Pinch-Punch, Pinch-Punch.”

I had never done a shot before; this one tasted like the sweat of tiny animals, namely teacup piglets. It kicked my ass right off the barstool and onto the floor.

The most amazing icicle. Ever.

We have an icicle hanging from our front porch that is almost touching the ground.

It looks like a cyclone and also like the tusk of something ancient and extinct.

I want to break it off. I am not strong enough. This frozen water has bested me.

Pinch Punch: Chapter One

The door is always latched at The Pinch Punch

Guests are permitted:

One (1) rollerboard filled with personal items.

One (1) typewriter, (electric preferred), which MUST at all times be kept in the communal bathtub. If someone needs to use the typewriter and someone else is bathing, toweling off must commence immediately. Should any resident become annoyed with the number of typewriters “littering” the bathtub, that resident will be painfully ejected by means of a kick to the pants from the roof deck.

One (1) FAUX fur jacket. Faux is not a creative way of spelling fox, ladies.

One (1) jumbo-sized tub of bulking agent.

One (1) tackle box to house and organize prescription medication.

One (1) carton of ULTRA LIGHT cigarettes (no more than one (1) carton may be imported across the border of The Pinch Punch per day). You’re going to smoke. I can’t stop you. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to make it easy for you.

One (1) small pet. Examples of small pets include: teacup piglet, marten, hedgehog, tiny monkey, cat WITH ITS PITUITARY GLAND REMOVED (see TYRA if you need this operation performed on a kitten). Examples of non-small pets include: pony.

One (1) item that has been appraised at a value of more than $1,000. You MUST surrender this item to TYRA for display in the pawn shop upon signing contract.

One (1) item of questionable existence. Examples of items of questionable existence include: plants that move of their own volition, perpetual motion machines, love potions.

One (1) bottle of Kentucky bourbon. NO Irish whiskey permitted. It is my one (1) weakness.

One (1) switchblade.

Visitor policy:

Only residents of The Pinch Punch are allowed at The Pinch Punch.

Contract variation (Tattletale clause):

Everyone has a slightly different contract, so IF YOU SEE SOMEONE DOING SOMETHING EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN IN YOUR CONTRACT DO NOT SNITCH or take the law into your own hands.

Showering policy:

Showers are communal and located in the bar. NO SHOWERING IN SWIMWEAR—EVEN BIKINIS. That is unsanitary. You must shower at least once a week.

If you have body issue problems, see TYRA to set up a counseling session or two.

Broken switchblade policy:

Wall-stabbing usually leads to broken switchblades. If you must stab, stab a pillow, a human, or a small pet. Those are soft. DO NOT STAB MATTRESSES as these are expensive to replace. If your switchblade breaks, see TYRA in the pawn shop. If there are no switchblades available, consider yourself defenseless.

Multiple switchblade-breaking incidents lead to revocation of switchblade privileges. You may break up to fifteen (15) switchblades throughout your stay at The Pinch Punch. TYRA keeps a running tally in a book that she keeps in a safe with an unbreakable lock, so do not even try to get around this rule.

Exercise policy (“Tennis anyone?” clause):

You should probably just do some jumping jacks in the court yard. NO JUMP ROPES permitted.

Pinch-Punch policy:

Each day upon rising, come to the bar for your morning Pinch-Punch. I do not have to tell you what Pinch-Punch is, beyond the fact that you drink it, and it has mind-altering properties. It is a proprietary secret.

Each night upon discovering weariness, come to the bar for your evening Pinch-Punch.

Twice-daily Pinch-Punch-drinking is MANDATORY. I don’t care if you get a tummy ache, or if your old-fashioned traveling preacher of a father told you that’s how the devil gets inside you. You don’t imbibe, you don’t survive.

ALL Pinch-Punch recipes are top secret and kept in a SEPARATE safe with an unbreakable lock in an undisclosed location.

Friendship policy:

No one at The Pinch Punch is your friend. Not even your sister. If you forget this for even one second, it is EXTREMELY LIKELY that you will be stabbed. Acquaintanceships may be struck up, but they are not binding.

Stabbing policy:

The Pinch Punch will not be held responsible for any stabbing incidents. That counts for both stabbing and being stabbed.

Unlicensed doctor policy:

There is only one (1) unlicensed doctor in The Pinch Punch, and that is TYRA. If you are caught practicing unlicensed medicine, you will be grabbed roughly by your collar and waistband and unceremoniously ejected from The Pinch Punch roof deck.

Room and board policy (“What’s in it for me?” clause):

One (1) twin bed. If you strike up an acquaintanceship with another resident and need a larger bed, see TYRA. You will be ejected from the roof deck.

Two (2) Pinch Punches per day.

Three (3) pieces of advice from TYRA. These nuggets are dispensed over the course of your ENTIRE STAY and are recorded in a SEPARATE notebook, but kept in the same safe as the switchblade notebook (that one I mentioned earlier with the unbreakable lock.)

Unbreakable lock policy:

We do background checks. If you’ve ever cracked a safe, you will be ejected from the roof deck.

Roof deck policy:

Only TYRA and guests OF HER CHOOSING are permitted on the roof deck. A word to the wise: If you are invited to accompany TYRA on a roof deck outing, the chances that you are about to be ejected are high, but it isn’t by any means a sure thing. Sometimes she is just being nice.

Arbitrary rules policy:

From time to time, TYRA may find it necessary to make new rules. These rules will be disseminated in The Pinch Punch Weekly Newsletter or slipped over the transom of your room. IGNORANCE IS NO EXCUSE.

TYRA’s pet policy:

TYRA settles on one (1) resident to follow her around sort of like Igor or a teacup piglet until that person does something (stabbing mattress, practicing unlicensed medicine) to cool her ardor.

If you find you are that resident, watch your back.

PLEASE SIGN, DATE, AND FAX BACK TO TYRA.

Muffin Top Stopper

My friend Mindy is an inventioneer. Also, she can sew:

Do you feel bloated? Are you slightly pregnant? Then the Muffin Top Stopper(tm) is the product for you! Just button it on to your own pair of jeans for an extra inch of comfort.

Depression hurts

I am adding a second story to my house in my spare time (as soon as the pulled muscle in my index finger heals), to better entice you all to come live here. You may have to adapt your wardrobes for splinter avoidance--I'm thinking three-piece suits made of sandpaper--but otherwise it should be perfectly comfortable. Possibly a bit windy. But don't you agree that humans have become total wusses in terms of weather? Also, the floor will be really uneven because I am scared of what will happen if I cut off my roof. There are probably loads of mummified crazy people in the attic.

In other news, I got your hopes up about a museum of miniature horses. I read it wrong. It is a museum of miniature houses. That is seven billion times less fun.

The official sign of Venom Literati

It is Capricorn. If you are a member of VL whose birthday does not fall under this star sign, you should really consider having your birth date legally changed.

Other options include changing your first name to Cappy, growing a billy-goat beard, eating tin cans, and having a hoof transplant. Upsides: People might think you are a faun, or the devil.

New Favorite Animal

I have a new favorite animal, other than the Gato. He is the flying lemur! Really he is a Colugo. He doesn't fly, nor is he a lemur. He just appears to fly while gliding from tree to tree to tree. He can also climb the trees. He is awesome.

Happy people are people who are animals. Such as my parents' dogs, roaming the countryside and stalking squirrels and snakes and slow-moving vehicles.

The key to being a good citizen

I have been writing a personal to-do list for the last week, and I am now officially way more organized than you. Nyah nyah.

I am also filled with that sense of personal satisfaction that has always seemed beyond my grasp. Happy people are people with calendars. They make precise check marks next to things they actually do.

I hope you are prepared for me to become the perfect version of myself this year. You will probably become very jealous. I will remain gracious and you will like me in spite of yourself.

A lion roared really loudly at me and Kathy

So, when Kathy came to visit, we ventured down a gravel road to see exotic cats in chain link cages eating horse legs and rib cages. It was muddy, our tour guide was a cross between hippie and teenaged boy (in demeanor, not age, if that can happen), who constantly was trying to draw the animals out, presumably to give us a show.

These were the disturbing things that happened:

1. We saw a full-grown lioness fall off of the giant equivalent of a kitty condo, hitting her back on one level and then landing sprawled on her side--because the dude was in a prohibited part of the cage.

2. He petted (pet?) a cougar. Around the ears. Like it was a harmless kitten.

3. A lion growled loudly at him ("He doesn't like me."), and then we all had to walk past the clearly very angry lion that was eating a huge bloody piece of meat with nothing but chain link separating us. He lunged a couple of times at other patrons, but not at us.

4. He was always ripping sticks out of the ground and pushing them through the fencing to poke at the lions and tigers and stuff.

5. He encouraged a stalking game with a tiger that culminated in the tiger lunging at full height, with all of his weight, against the chain link fence, multiple times.

I sort of loved it.

christmas is cancelled

hey you guys, i'm trapped in chicago! i tried to go home yesterday but they turned the bus around b/c the roads were closed because there was an ice storm or something. and now everything for today and tomorrow is sold out. why isn't the literati all iced in and in my apartment? come over.

"As I Said," #1 Chapbook Bestseller

Kathryn Regina's beautiful chapbook, As I Said, was just published by Publishing Genius.

Kathy is modest, so I have set a goal for her, which involves selling 1 million copies of her chapbook, thereby making it the bestselling chapbook in history, and making the folks at Publishing Genius instant millionaires.

Basically Kathy will become the next Stephen King or Dean Koontz or one of those dumb chick lit bitches, except she will be waaay better than them because she is Kathy, she is smart, and she writes things that are good. This chapbook will be a miracle! This chapbook will be like Barack Obama! There will be a coin made of this chapbook with Kathy's face on it--there will definitely be commemorative dishes and stamps as well.

All of this will surely make As I Said the first-ever chapbook selection for Oprah's book club, and Kathy will go on there and the whole audience will get free copies and Kathy will get a car (because I am tired of Kathy taking the bus everywhere). I feel like Oprah won't understand As I Said, but she doesn't read any of her book club selections anyway. She will get a good, funny feeling from the whale, whether she understands it or not. She'll want to know all about the whale in Kathy's interview, but Kathy will be too busy playing with her new car to discuss the whale.

People, seriously, let's make us some chapbook history.

You can't tell me what to do.

When someone's email says "Before printing, please think about the environment" at the bottom of it, I instantly get mad at the sender for preaching to me, even though I agree with the sentiment. I think a picture of a pretty little tree would be more effective.

The Uses of Columns in Literature

I'm kind-of reading a novel called The People of Paper, by Salvatore Plascencia. I don't know how I found this book; in the blurb on the back cover, George Saunders says it's reminiscent of Borges and Calvino, but it is reminiscent of neither of those. Really this Salvatore is no legendary anybody: he's just one of George Saunders' former students.

Anyway I thought this book was going to be experimental. I was excited about that. But really it just has a strange shape, and a voice exactly like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who I used to love but who I now just think is sort of boring--and it is especially boring to imitate his voice.

Also the text runs in columns down the page, like Hotel Theory. There are columns for each character, though--and you have to read them in order so I don't understand why there are columns. I think they are columns for the sake of columns, and for the sake of making something appear experimental.

One of the columns is brilliant, though: it is pitch black. It is the character of Baby Nostradamus, a baby whose mother thinks he will someday make predictions just like the original Nostradamus, but really he is just retarded. So there is an inside joke with the reader via the pitch-black column. I think I will read just that column from now on. It makes me giggle.

Also in this book are people who are made of paper, and a child who is addicted to limes, whose mother was also addicted to limes. I think that is supposed to make it surreal and experimental also, but so far there is nothing very interesting about the characters.

This is not a nice review. I feel sad. It is winter. I hate when I get super excited about a book and then it disappoints me.

Over winter break I'm going to write a scholarly book called "The Uses of Columns in Literature." The sections will be called "Doric," "Ionic," and "Corinthian." The Corinthian chapter will just be pictures of Wayne Koestenbaum, who is the only person on the planet who can write an experimental novel that impresses me. Oh, and Selah Saterstrom. But I will save that so that I actually have something to post next week.

i think maybe i was trying to be kaitlyn but i'm not sure

last week i wrote a christmas-themed newsletter at work and it led to this recording. i originally posted it on my own blog but then took it down because i decided it was too dumb. but not too dumb for my venom literati!

you're welcome.

It is like you are in my head.

I am back to my old library plan, which consists of me going to the New Arrivals section and just choosing three or four books that look like they might be okay.

This is what I have read in the last three weeks, as a result:

Personal Days by Ed Park. This seems to be exactly the same book as And Then We Came to the End or whatever that other book that was written in first person plural was, except it's funnier. I award this book one Wayne Koestenbaum.










Truth and Beauty [a friendship] by Ann Padgett. This is the one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other book because it's non-fiction, and also not brand new, and read because of someone's recommendation. Also, it involves the phrase "[a friendship]" in the title, which makes it sound like it will be mainly about helping your bestie apply eye shadow and get through the tough times with manfriends. But it's actually pretty good because it's also about facial deformity and severe depression and heroin. Two Wayne Koestenbaums.










The Hotel Crystal by Olivier Rodin. This book is sort of homage to Georges Perec and the reason for the Wayne Koestenbaum rating system in this post. It is one part spy novel (sort of) and one part descriptions of hotel rooms. Enjoyable, and simultaneously boring and funny. Just like me. Three Wayne Koestenbaums.












Vacation by Deb Olin Unferth. This book made me feel sad. I liked it way too much. Three Wayne Koestenbaums.











Right now I am reading The Girl on the Fridge by Etgar Keret. It has a nice cover.

Useless in an emergency. Or a semi-emergency, anyway.

Last night I had a prolonged and almost insurmountable panic attack because my favorite kitty had a prolapsed rectum. (We took him on an emergency visit to the vet, and he's totally fine; he just has to eat pumpkin to help his constipation. Which of course he won't eat.)

It looked really weird, like a cross between an earthworm and a pencil eraser. Anyway, it made me think of that scene from Cremaster 3, where the guy's in the dentist chair, and then he basically poops out a flesh sack of teeth, which didn't make me think of partly-formed parasitic twins then, but it does now. There's a snippet of it in this trailer that I can't embed.

aimless

Last night Abby and I were talking about our fitness goals. I am aiming for a boys' size 10. She is aiming for infants' 12-18 months. Soon she will only wear onesies. We will save tons of money on both food and clothes and use that extra cash for IV drips and as-seen-on-TV products, so the fruit we buy and don't eat never goes bad.

Is it necessary for me to say I'm just kidding? Are we going to gain an eating-disorder-tween following? The internet takes everything so seriously.

the megabus is not as bad as being on a train bound for a concentration camp and you should feel bad about that

you guys, i totally cried in the lobby of a movie theater yesterday. the source of my sorrow was the megabus. it was weird. especially because i didn't feel embarrassed at all. people were looking at me and i was like, what? i'm crying. get over it.

everything is fine now, although the rides to and fro indianapolis were markedly unpleasant. here are all the things that went wrong on the way home: 1. they moved the bus stop without telling me so even though i was really early i had to run to the bus when i realized i was in the wrong place, and then i didn't get a window seat, which is key to bus comfort. 2. the passenger next to me had strikingly bad breath and yawned for four hours. 3. a man behind me talked on his cell phone the entire time. 4. it was cold 5. i was hungry. 6.the girl in front of me made her light shine bright in my eyes while she knitted all the way home. 7. someone kept farting.

whenever i am in an uncomfortable travel situation i automatically think of the scene from night by elie wiesel where he and his father are on a train to a concentration camp and everyone is naked and they all have to stand for like 20 hours because the train is so full that no one can sit down without being trampled and they're all pressed up against each other and i'm sure it didn't smell good and also a baby was crying. and then i think, this bus is not nearly as bad as that. and then i feel guilty.

i saw elie wiesel speak once. he won my heart. he was so calm and sad. he is like the absolute center of calm sadness. if i were ever to take to the rode and follow someone grateful dead-style it would be elie wiesel.