Mostly Harmless

AN ESSAY

2012-01-24T01:56:00.003-05:00

My great-great-grandfather’s name was Isaac or Jacob or something. And he was from one of the Eastern European countries, the ones with a lot of Jews, probably with like a hard name to pronounce. His mom had a sweet blue apron that was all faded and his dad was a butcher or something cool. This was their homeland, and in the summer there were all these warm breezes smelling faintly of lavender that would shake this tree that my great-great-grandfather would sit under with his girl, whose name was Rose, and who died of some awful disease when she was young.

Anyway Jacob or Isaac or whatever came over to the United States on a big boat, or maybe his son did, regardless it doesn’t much matter. He came over and when he got here he got off the boat and said, “yes, America! This is such a nice place that I am now, better than that place I was in before that has that name that’s hard to pronounce.” Except he said it in broken English and his hat was like they had in The Newsies. And also he was so wrong about America! It is not like those things he said it was, it was really hard. For instance he was robbed as soon as he got off the boat, like right after he said how good it is here, and the robbers hurt him real bad and he went to the hospital, but then when he got to the hospital he was robbed again by the doctors. They took the gold Star of David he wore around his neck, and he said, “no, that was given to me by my girlfriend Rose, who died of some awful disease when she was young.” And the doctors were like, “yeah, whatever,” And they put him back onto the streets, which were now dark and it was raining too.

So my great-great-grandfather did a lot of stuff including inventing some stuff and meeting my great-great-grandmother, and they had babies and the babies had babies and eventually we got my mom, Ellen. She grew up in Brooklyn in a Jewish area though she often skipped Hebrew School to play at the arcade across the street. One time she was pushing a doll in a stroller and her sister pushed her and the stroller and she fell flat on her face and her nose got a little flatter, which is actually a symbol for her malleable feelings towards tradition and culture. They were so malleable that she married my dad, Dan, who came from Troy, New York and who was a Christian and who used Miracle Whip, which is also another symbol for how gross and weird his family was to my mom, who used mayonnaise like a normal person. But anyway they got married.

I was sort of an immigrant too, like my great-great-grandfather, except my immigration was from one suburb to another suburb and it was not an immigration at all really. I mean it was from Poughkeepsie, New York to Wayne, Pennsylvania, so come on. Those cities are very different in several substantial ways, for instance in my new house we did not have an above-ground pool which I am told was awesome. I say “I am told” because I only lived in Poughkeepsie for one year, specifically until I was one. Memories then were foggy like London fog gently rolling over London, which I say in the interest of providing beautiful imagery, etc.

When I was five we moved from Wayne to Belgium for a little bit for my dad’s job. My main memories from this period was showing my class the wooden sword I had for show and tell and also the time I smashed my teeth on the hard wood of the dining room floor when my stupid babysitter let my sister and I grab hands and spin in circles. My teeth were not a symbol for anything, though, and plus they were fine. I mean I never even got braces, which was probably not a result of that accident but you never know I guess. We moved home eight months after, which was good because I got to see all my kindergarten friends again except now we were in first grade.

School went on for a while and I found it pretty boring because I was intelligent but not very hard-working, and because of this my grades were bad and my parents and I fought. Doors were slammed, cars were crashed, urine was tested. Eventually I realized how much I love my family and we stopped fighting, though in the interest of not providing too much of a cliché ending on that front my mom and I fight still very rarely in a healthy way but I love her still, or possibly we never fight but our relationship is still not perfect, or maybe she got me the wrong color car for my most recent birthday. Also in middle school once someone called me ginger-balls and it was my first encounter with the racism I would face throughout my life but eventually I learned how to be proud of my heritage from someone significant like my dad.

My family would be best explored by examining one of our yearly traditions which is Christmas. Even though we are Jewish we still celebrate Christmas because my dad grew up Christian and we like presents. We used to go to my grandmother’s house for Christmas – I mean the one on my father’s side, we used to go to her house – but eventually we stopped liking her maybe so we started celebrating Christmas with my mom’s side. They are all Jewish though so they don’t really know what to do, like for instance we usually get a tree on Christmas Eve and then get rid of it on December 26. We don’t like it sitting around my house because my cousin is allergic to pine. We should really get a fake one but we are all pretty lazy. Two years ago I got a Wii, it was so sick, but also it is about family togetherness and stuff like that.

Anyway yeah and stuff, this is all about how I'm the same as my great-great-grandfather probably. You probably need to read more into the symbols or whatever.

BROOKS HOUSE: AN OKAY PLACE TO LIVE

2011-12-14T23:01:00.011-05:00

Taken From My Room
Aerial shot of the Williams Campus.

JESSE (V.O., nervously and as if reading from a script)
Are you looking for a place to live in Spencer neighborhood next year? Well look no further than Brooks House, on beautiful Route 2!

Cut to Spencer House on a beautiful spring day.

JESSE
This is Spencer House, next door to Brooks House.

To Weston Hall, again, on a beautiful day.

JESSE
And this is Weston Hall, which is on the other side of Brooks House.

Finally, to Brooks House, on a rainy and dark day.

JESSE
And finally, this is Brooks House, where you could live.

A beat.

JESSE
We actually took footage of all those houses on the same day, but there's this weird thing about Brooks where every time you take a picture of it it turns out looking miserable.

A shot of all three buildings from across Route 2 - Spencer to the left and Weston to the right appear to be under clear and sunny skies, but around Brooks it still looks horrible.

JESSE
The effect is unfortunately compounded when people are involved, as demonstrated here.

A shot of the walk in front of Brooks. Two girls smile while a friend takes their picture with Brooks (not in the shot) in the background of the photo. It is a sunny day.

Click. The photo is on screen with Brooks now in the background. The girls look sick, and their clothes are tattered. The weather is dark. The grim reaper stands in between them.

Onscreen over the picture: BROOKS HOUSE: AN OKAY PLACE TO LIVE

Cut to a wide shot of the house.

JESSE
Brooks was once a beautiful fraternity house that we think may have looked something like this.

Onscreen: a building of some sort.

JESSE
However in the fifties there was a fire, and, due to financial restrictions, the fraternity opted to rebuild a more economic and obviously considerably uglier model. While this may sound like editorial that was actually a quote from the commemorative plaque in the lobby of the building.

A shot of the commemorative plaque.

Jumbled shots of a party in Brooks basement.

JESSE
What Brooks lacks in appearance, though, it makes up for in its social scene. Specifically, the rugby parties in the basement every Thursday night. We got footage of that until a guy saw us filming and beat us up. This is all we have left.

A large man approaches the camera, yells, and punches the camera. The footage cuts out.

JESSE
Due to Brooks' excellent acoustics, the music playing at these parties can be heard loud and clear in each of the rooms until the hosts turn it off at 2:00 AM.

A shot of a dark room, the music is muffled but still clear.

Cut to a shot of the bathroom. The stall is closed and feet can be seen inside it.

JESSE
Brooks is also a very environmentally conscious building. For instance, the bathroom lights are on timers to save electricity. These timers, however, can be quite short - if you poop for even a mildly long time you will wipe in the dark.

The lights go off. The camera switches to infrared.

POOPER (V.O.)
God dammit.

JESSE
This also happens in the shower.

A shot of the interior of a room. Its occupants sit in wife beaters and boxers, sweating profusely.

JESSE
However, with the energy saved using this innovative technique, that means the college can afford to have the heat in Brooks up to near nuclear reactor levels - while giving no thermostat control to the occupants! Brooks rooms have been called by many the warmest on campus, which is perfect for those cold Williamstown winters.

A shot of a Brooks window.

JESSE
And of course because that means sometimes Brooks residents might like to open their windows to let some of the heat out, the architects of the building cleverly designed it so that, despite the fact that each room has a full wall-to-wall window, only a tiny portion of it actually opens. This prevents occupants from leaving their windows open but allows in plenty - some would even say blinding - amounts of sunlight.

Another wide shot of Brooks (again dark and rainy).

JESSE
Brooks also gives its residents a lot of experience in real-world living. For instance, Brooks sees significantly more theft each year than any other building on the Williams campus. No one forgets to lock their door after their laptop has been stolen!

A shot of a robber breaking into a brooks room.

JESSE
Brooks is also conveniently located on campus near such common student destination as the Office of Career Counseling, Greylock Dining Hall, and the Jewish Religious Center.

Wide views of each of these buildings.

JESSE
I know what you're thinking now - how can I sign up to live for in this wonderful place. Well interestingly enough Brooks is almost always chosen by those who have the last pick in the Spencer Neighborhood Housing Draw - but it doesn't have to be! Anyone can live in beautiful Brooks House. Heck, even I do!

A shot of JESSE and SAM, standing awkwardly in the middle of their room. JESSE reads from a script.

JESSE
Yes, me, your narrator, Jesse Sardell! I live here with my roommate Sam. But if you want to live here with us, you better pick in fast, as we are moving out before the spring semester into Dodd Neighborhood, which has private bathrooms and significantly better upperclassmen housing.

Someone behind the camera says something.

JESSE (to DIRECTOR)
What? Oh.

A quick cut to the same scene.

JESSE
Yes, me, your narrator, Jesse Sardell! I live here with my roommate Sam. We plan to stay until our senior year!

They stand awkwardly.

Over them: BROOKS HOUSE: AN OKAY PLACE TO LIVE

Setting Alarms (Rewrite)

2011-12-09T02:05:00.002-05:00

Alex Albright, 21-year-old Anthropology/Sociology double major, contemplates the sort of paper she could publish on the monster aliens that invaded earth and killed all her loved ones.

It would be about the little things, Alex decides, her head under her desk as one of them moves around her room in the dark. Writing sticky notes, taking photographs, setting alarms. That’s the sort of edge this paper could really bring to the table – the human connection. The sort of tendencies that span galaxies and exist in spite of an urge to exterminate all other sentient life. She could watch them from afar and note them giving each other high-fives with their tentacles and playing cards.

I mean you can't blame her for staying at school up in Vermont. When word first hit the college’s online forums, when the army was still trying to get it together, people started leaving and then never came back. She called her parents; they didn't call back. The city had already been vaporized. Where was she going to go?

And they - I mean, they – hadn’t been around these parts for so long. Only a couple weeks after the touch-down they had left, and she had gotten lonely and then accustomed and then sloppy. She turned lights on at night. She played music out loud.

Mostly, though, she knows it will be her watch alarm that does her in – every midnight exactly, just to remind her to take stock of her supplies. It was eleven forty-eight when she heard the footsteps outside her room, she has been trying to count the seconds.

It touches the bed that used to belong to her roommate. Alex remembers this, mainly: that they had a fight about whose turn it was to buy the milk and cereal that week and then Alex saw her get devoured on the lawn in front of the chapel. It was to say the least an unusual start to her spring term.

She thinks about her pocket-knife, on the bedside table feet away – she knows there isn’t time; they are so quick. She thinks about her parents because she misses them a lot of the time. She thinks about her dog and her old boyfriend. She thinks about the garden she was going to start on the football field.

And then there is a quiet beeping.

It looks down, where a small electronic device wrapped around one of its appendages is glowing. It taps something. The beeping stops.

It walks out and closes the door.

The Money Cut

2011-11-08T00:13:00.002-05:00

The riskiest play in ultimate is not the huck. People assume it is, but the fact is that if you're comfortable with a long throw and if your guy is open - and these are, of course, two prerequisites for throwing a huck - then there isn't an issue. Fake break side, wind back, step out, and put that shit up. It's not an issue.

The riskiest play in ultimate is the up-line cut - the money cut - and it goes like this. The disc is trapped on or near the line, and the dump - on stall four to six, maybe - takes a step towards the around and then busts up into the force lane diagonal to whomever has the disc.

And the throw isn't hard just because hitting someone running nearly straight away from you is tricky - it's hard because at the moment you have to let go - at the moment of release - your mark is in between you and your target. You get to see him and his defender a second before you make the throw, but for the most part you're blind. You watch the first two seconds of a five second race and have to decide who is going to win. You don't know what's on the other side - your handler could have tripped or it just could have been a fake. This has happened before - we've all seen it happen, that the disc is trapped on the line and then it gets thrown five yards up to no one because the dump changed his mind.

Worse still is that the money cut is a bailout throw - if you don't hit your money cut then you're on stall seven with a defender right in front of you in the lane and no dump at all. New players look off the up-line because it's scary and then end up getting stalled. Or maybe even the handler - a senior, the friendly and athletic captain of the team - shouldn't have made the cut. His man is tight on him and you don't know how much space he has.

So you put it up, maybe, high and sort of far because his defender has already laid out for a few d's, and he catches it and immediately throws a huck to a continuation deep. Or you don't, because, you know, sometimes you don't. The first player in the stack knows what he's doing, and you've always trusted your break throws. It might be worth a shot.

Notes

2011-11-01T17:00:00.002-04:00

As some of you might know I'm taking an introductory fiction writing class this semester, which means obviously most of my creative efforts have been directed away from my blog. That being said I'll do my best to post what I can here - what is below this note ("VICTOR RHODES") is a mostly-finished piece for that class. I encourage you to read it and leave me some criticism!

Also of note: writing for this blog the last three years has left me virtually unable to write a story longer than 250 words.

VICTOR RHODES, PRIMARY RANDOMIZATION EDITOR

2011-11-01T16:58:00.002-04:00

1.
The fan on his desk is the small, industrial kind – steel and gray and unreasonably loud – but Victor, like all his coworkers, keeps it on for the heat in the office. He is fairly certain someone has put in a request for quieter ones. He is also fairly certain he is starting to get another migraine.

The document in question is produced just before five o’clock.

His process is as follows: the randomization is created on a central server and sent to his desktop computer. If he determines it to be garbage (as nearly all of them are) he just deletes it. If it’s mostly comprehensible, though, he clicks advance and it goes to a higher-level analyst – one who decides if the idea itself makes any sense and to what sort of expert reader it should be passed on to if it does. Victor is averaging a little less than four documents advanced per day (out of nearly a thousand he sees), which is about right for readers at the lowest level.

This text, though, is different. Victor reads it twice and then blinks at the screen for a little bit.

He prints it out and clicks delete.

2.
The idea in the end was called Intentional Serendipity, and it went like this: let’s fake discovery. You’ll grant that most scientific advances can be expressed in a couple paragraphs, and who could imagine how valuable even a single page of a medical journal from one hundred years in the future would be to us now? So let’s fake it, let’s just fake the whole thing. Let’s make computers generate random strings of words and see if they make any sense. Sure, the ideas still need a little testing, but for every few million non-sensical paragraphs that are generated there is always that one that makes it to the real expert, who looks down his glasses at it and say, “you know, I think this would work.”

And we got our breakthroughs, that’s the thing. The nature of the process meant that a great deal of them were military – a field that was evidently lacking in creativity more than anything – but we cured a few diseases along the way, we came up with some new and innovative economic policies. According to a sociological test invented with the help of randomization number 7A4892F, we discovered that overall quality of life had improved since Intentional Serendipity had been implemented. There were even some published short stories written originally and completely by the computers – lyrical ones, flat ones, sad ones – and of course a wide range of visionary mathematical proofs. The human race had quit using what little light it had in trying to navigate the darkness of its existence, choosing instead to sprint through the night, eyes squeezed tight, hoping to bump into something that felt like it might help.

3.
TO: HUMANITY C/O VICTOR RHODES, PRIMARY RANDOMIZATION EDITOR
FROM: THE LORD YOUR GOD IN HEAVEN RULER OF THE UNIVERSE
THIS PROCESS IS FLAWED AND WILL CONSUME YOU.

On the train, Victor reads and re-reads the document, giving nervous glances to the other passengers every couple of minutes. It isn’t very long – by design, of course – but it doesn’t need to be.

Here’s the thing, though: statistically speaking something like this was bound to happen. Victor isn’t a religious man, but this - this?

At home, Victor puts the paper on his fridge and tries to put it out of his mind for a little bit. He makes a couple hot dogs and thinks about calling Hannah at her conference, but it’ll be just after midnight in Hong Kong and it’s probably not worth waking her up. If she were here she’d know what to do, he’s sure, but maybe it’s for the best that he makes this decision on his own. It’s not going to be a secret police job or anything like that, but making this public in any significant way means he loses his job for sure. With the economy the way it is and Hannah still in school he wonders if it’s worth it.

For the first time in two decades, Victor prays before he gets in bed. It’s sweaty and embarrassed and about half of it is plagiarized from movies and television, but it’s a prayer, at least.

4.
Victor worked in a lab before.

I mean he’s not bitter or anything because things worked out for the best – I mean, sure, he liked his old job. The thing is his mom was pretty sick so he went into research pretty much right away, but then when I.S. came around the lab shut down and his mom died, which was unrelated, he knows, but still.

And a couple months later – a couple months of Hannah waitressing to support them both – I.S. found a cure out of one of the randomization offices in the Midwest. It got passed up by a reader named Barton and in the very middle of the paragraph there was the word badger, but if you ignored that, I mean, it made sense and it was exactly right. The story got published all over, and always ended the same way, about how more low-level readers were needed. When Victor read it he cried, and then he applied for the job.

5.
In his dream, at the kitchen table with his mother and God.

Victor asks his mother: Why me?

His mother smiles and shakes her head in the way she used to.

Victor looks at God.

God clears his throat and takes a sip of water.

6.
At lunch, Victor talks with the office’s administrative assistant. Her name is Gladys and she’s like a thousand years old. Victor thinks she might have powers.

“Gladys, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, dear, what is it?”

He appreciates this term of endearment.

“If you got a letter that wasn’t addressed to you, you’d forward it to the right person, right? Or at least try to?”

“Sure, of course.”

Victor taps the table with the very tips of his fingers.

“But let’s say this letter - let’s say you read it by accident, and it had some stuff in it that you thought might be wrong. Stuff that, like, might even cause trouble. What would you do then?”

Gladys eats a thoughtful bite of her bran muffin. “Gee, that’s a toughy. The letter wasn’t addressed to me, though? Well, I guess then I would ask my husband Edwin what he would do.”

“But say you couldn’t ask him,” Victor says, “what would you do if you had to figure this out by yourself?”

“Well gosh, I just don’t know.” She sort of trails off in a way that makes Victor think she might come up with something, but then she smiles at him as if expecting another question.

He packs up his stuff. “Yeah, nevermind. Thanks, Gladys.”

7.
Disaster strikes just after lunch, when Victor moves the paper on his desk and it gets caught up in the fan’s draft - up, around, and then violently through the back of the blades. Victor sits dismayed as the holy confetti quietly settles around his cubicle. He then decides this is a good time to take a smoke break.

8.
Outside with his boss Nick, Victor lights up and looks up at the sun as if he might be able to figure out what time it is.

“Hey, Nick, you were a botanist before I.S., right?”

“Mmmhmm.” Nick nods.

“And then what’s your take on all this?” Victor asks, “How do you feel about quitting your job as a scientist for a career in middle management?”

Nick looks across the street. “I feel okay about it.”

“Yeah?” Victor says.

“Yeah,” Nick says.

There is a brief silence.

“Because I was in it for the discovery,” Nick says, “I wanted to figure out stuff about the world, and now we’re doing it this different way. I’m still helping. We’re all still helping.”

Victor squints at him. He takes a drag on his cigarette.

“If I deleted a document by accident, is there a way to get it back? If I just clicked the wrong button, I mean.”

“You clicked the wrong button? Your job is to click one of two buttons and you clicked the wrong one?”

Victor just stares.

“If you go to the server on your computer I believe there are records,” Nick says, “It’s so an employee can’t steal a good idea, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He puts out his smoke and turns to go inside.

Victor says, “Hey, Nick.”

Nick says, “What.”

Victor says, “We need new fans.”

Pets Die

2011-10-18T19:29:00.005-04:00

I wrote this song January 2011, and this is me performing it live for the incoming freshmen on the eve of their orientation hiking trips in September 2011. Enjoy, and sorry for the mildly poor quality.

Intersection

2011-09-21T19:33:00.004-04:00

The question is this: Show by example that the intersection of infinitely many open sets need not be open.

"The intersection of a finite number of open sets is always open," Georg explains, "but this is kind of an interesting problem. We have infinity under our fingers, isn't that kind of neat? We get to use an example that goes on forever."

Georg stares at the chalkboard for a little bit, and then he puts down his chalk and wipes his fingers on his sweater. At the table, Richard looks up from his phone. "No ideas?"

Georg shakes his head. "You?"

Richard puts down his phone and regards the board for a minute. They do their problem set on Wednesday nights in the small study room on the third floor of the library. It's the Western facing corner, and they always get there right after dinner - just in time for the sunset. It's kind of a centering experience.

Richard: "I've been thinking about signing up for the swim class."

Georg: "You don't know how to swim?"

Richard: "No, I do, but what if I just showed up and pretended I didn't know how to and then acted like I was the fastest learner ever? The swim girls teach that class to raise money for the team."

Georg looks back at the board. "Yeah, I guess."

The Remote: Part III

2011-08-30T02:22:00.004-04:00

Wide shot of the interior of the office. Suddenly, JOHNSON emerges from his cubicle carrying his monitor and yelling as he runs for the window.

2 - Ext. Office - Day - 2

The monitor explodes out from the window.

3 - Int. Office - Day - 3

JOHNSON turns from the hole in the window to face his co-workers, all staring from their offices and cubicles.

A beat. JOHNSON catches his breath, lifts the remote, and...

Suddenly, we're back inside JOHNSON's cubicle. His monitor is returned to its normal spot, and JOHNSON is sitting, still holding the remote like he was before.

Short montage here: JOHNSON smacks his attractive female co-worker's rear in passing, JOHNSON dances on his desk, JOHNSON watches his building burn from the parking lot.

4 - Int. BOSS's Office - Day - 4

Inside the BOSS's office, the BOSS at his desk. The inside of this office is just as the rest of the setting - gray, mostly. We see photographs on the BOSS's desk, but, instead of his family, there are pictures of his car and of him at the pool with babes. Also on the desk: a protein shake, several empty Red Bulls, and a bodybuilding magazine.

The BOSS himself is blonde, good-looking, and wearing an expensive suit. He works at his computer, until JOHNSON enters.

The BOSS stands up upon seeing JOHNSON, who strolls straight up to his superior and, before either one has time to say anything, punches him straight in the nose. There's an audible crack at connection.

BOSS (enraged)
Johnson, what the fuck is your problem?

JOHNSON pulls out the remote smoothly.

JOHNSON
Oh, no problem, boss.

He clicks the remote.

Nothing happens.

He clicks at again, and then again. His BOSS is still in front of him, dripping blood from a broken nose. JOHNSON, meanwhile, is at a loss for words - his remote is suddenly broken.

Cut to JOHNSON, still clutching the remote, then to the BOSS, his reddening face clearly showing his rage. The BOSS inhales and prepares to scream.

Freeze.

On-screen: THE REMOTE.

The Remote: Part II

2011-08-27T02:22:00.004-04:00

Back inside the cubicle, JOHNSON's phone rings. He reaches for it as he peruses a piece of paper from the stack, and, as he does so, he accidentally knocks all of the files and the remote onto the floor. He swears and picks up the phone.

JOHNSON (flustered)
Hello? Hello? No, I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong number.

He hangs up, frustrated, and leans down to pick up what he dropped. He picks up the remote first and tosses it on the desk, button-side down.

Insert: the remote hitting the desk with enough force to press the button.

JOHNSON leans back down to get the rest of the papers.

They aren't there.

He leans back up towards his desk, and, there they are - exactly how they were before he dropped them. He looks at the ground again, then back up at the papers.

A beat. JOHNSON continues to stare around. Was this a trick? Did anyone see? He back at his papers, and then notices, finally: the remote.

Another beat.

JOHNSON, now starting to understand what we've realized from the beginning, picks a pen from a mug on his desk and puts it carefully on the desk in front of him.

JOHNSON regards the pen. The pen regards JOHNSON. JOHNSON blinks, and then he presses the remote.

The pen is back in the mug.

JOHNSON stares. He stares for a while, I mean, because what do you do when you figure this kind of thing out, and then JOHNSON - God have mercy on his soul - JOHNSON smiles.

The Remote: Part I

2011-08-26T02:56:00.004-04:00

1 - Int. Office - Day - 1

Close-up of a small package neatly wrapped in brown paper.

Further out: the package is sitting on a gray desk in a gray cubicle. The cubicle itself is overwhelmingly non-descript - a computer, a stapler, a few file folders.

Further out once more, now from the outside of the cubicle looking in. The package remains visible.

ON-SCREEN: THE REMOTE

Enter JOHNSON, young, with dark hair, in a short-sleeved white shirt and a gray plaid tie. He glances at his watch to find he’s a little late. He puts his briefcase down next to his desk and then, as he goes to sit down, notices a massive stack of papers on his chair. He picks a sticky note off the top.

Insert: the note, which reads, “I needed these yesterday!!! Get them to me ASAP!”

JOHNSON sighs and crinkles up the note.

He picks up the papers and put them all on his desk, and then, sitting, turns to his computer.

Then he notices the package.

He examines it briefly, turning it over in his hands - it’s clear he doesn’t know what or from whom it is. He tears into it with his letter opener.

Inside the paper lies a remote, dark, with one small replay button and nothing else.

JOHNSON inspects the remote for a moment. We see him examining it from outside his cubicle, where a woman walks by in a dark pantsuit.

From inside the cubicle again: JOHNSON, finding nothing else to do with it, presses the replay button.

Nothing seems to have happened. He puts down the remote on his desk and turns to the stack of papers.

From outside the cubicle, though, we see the woman in the pantsuit walk by again - from the same direction as last time.

Jeremy Silverberg, 37, Upon His Graduation From Life

2011-08-10T23:06:00.004-04:00

Ah, er- I was just walking my dog in town, and the truck lost control, and I assume, well- I'm dead, aren't I? This is it?

[Laughter]

This is it. Wow.

[A beat, more laughter]

I'm just saying that it's the kind of thing you always hear about happening, but here I am. Does everyone get this? Is this heaven? What's even going on?

[The speaker leans from the microphone, some inaudible discussion between him and someone backstage]

Oh, I see. Well, like, don't take life for granted, spend more time with your family, and, uh-

[Last Pause]

Look, I just died or whatever, can I at least get a minute to make some notes?

Powers

2011-08-04T17:57:00.006-04:00

Something's coming, and I know you can feel it just as well as I can - in the way your top sheet is fitting so perfectly, in the bread that you've had for a month that won't run out or grow stale, in the electricity you feel under your fingers. You can pretend not to notice it all you want, but the fact is plain: science is dying and we're making out like bandits in the will. You have powers, friend. It might be time you decide how you're going to use them.

Easy Furniture

2011-07-02T23:31:00.004-04:00

The post office in is small; I remember you drove by it the first time you went to pick up stamps - the single-lane road it sits on (speed limit 50, cops strict and swift and frequent), houses a hundred yards apart and with driveways twice that length. Take McGuire Hill past the cemetery to US-1 and bear right. Mark your odometer. Six miles and on the left, just after the sign for strawberries. It has white vinyl siding, and the postmaster wears the same sort of boat shoes as your dad.

Lists: Camp Edition

2011-06-25T23:02:00.003-04:00

1. Sadness of the foreign, sadness of gossip, sadness of rusty nails, sadness of early mornings, sadness of cold nights, sadness of being left out, sadness of unanswered questions, sadness of lice, sadness of tradition, sadness of medication, sadness of rain, sadness of chicken pot pie.

2. Toilet, sink/mirror, trash/outside, box benches, porch (x2), sweep (x2), shades/shelves.

3. Ice cream, a normal sleep schedule, letters.

Herbert Dainer Knows The World is Ending Tomorrow

2011-06-11T03:04:00.004-04:00

Herbert Dainer knows the world is ending tomorrow.

I mean the guy isn't crazy. He's gone through life up to this point feeling sad for all those who prophesied about the apocalypse - feeling sad in a kind of superior way, but feeling sad none-the-less, I think. Regardless, though, the point stands: Herb knows the world will end tomorrow. He doesn't know how and he doesn't know why, but he knows. He knows for sure.

And what do you do about that? Knowing he's surrounded by reasonable and scientific people, what do you do? How do you make your son stay home from his sleep-over so you can spend the last hours you have as a family? How do you get your wife to come home early from a business trip?

Herbert takes a drive and thinks it over.

Family (Sketch)

2011-06-07T02:13:00.007-04:00

This isn't supposed to be my family, just for the record. This is mostly just to show off my awesome drawing skills, which aren't at all like a 12-year-old's.

Barton Shows Up Drunk To Her House

2011-06-04T02:52:00.004-04:00

Late August. On his 21st birthday, Barton shows up drunk to her house. They both are working for the same lawfirm this summer - he dropped out of school after a month three years ago and now does clerical work there full-time; she'll be completing her major in political science with a concentration in legal studies a semester early this coming December.

Barton? Sarah says.

Yep, he says in return - neck tilted down and back, lids heavy - and then he throws up on her doorstep. Doesn't even bother trying to turn his head a little bit, just all over the mat, just like that. And then he starts crying.

But her parents are out of town so what does any of it matter anyway? She'll never see him again after this summer, and it's not like after tonight they'll act anything different from the mildly friendly way they did earlier today. The story won't get mentioned so it might have never have happened, none of it - the way she takes him upstairs and cleans him up and puts him in her brother's bed, the way he keeps talking and she keeps quietly murmuring her assents, the way she brushes his hair back and kisses him kind of softly. We had to cheat to find these details out right, but it's a nice story, anyway.

Reasons to Lie Still in Bed

2011-05-15T16:31:00.004-04:00

1. You are in the back of a pickup truck, green and not too worn-in, wrapped head-to-toe in a blanket wrapped in a carpet and covered by garden tools and old violin cases and battered end tables. The darkness is consuming and warm, like felt, like warm felt. Your best friend is driving, his girlfriend sits shotgun, and they are approaching a checkpoint.

2. You are in a sledding race that starts on the top of a mountain so high it takes a day and night to get to the finish line. The sled is totally enclosed and designed to be ridden on your stomach - your head goes in front; there is not enough room to change position. You are approaching the portion of the race where the track is straight and the incline is easy - where the snow hums low under the wooden slats, where participants are encouraged to try to get some rest.

3. You are in your bed. The top bunk. Your roommate is below you and he has an early class.

Little Things

2011-05-08T02:59:00.003-04:00

This will happen to you too: after the hard part, after all the terrible dinner small talk and the name games, after you've given up on some high school friends and worked hard to keep a choice few, after you've lost your campus map. After all that, I mean, you will start to notice the similarities. The way the rugby captain - the one who let the team set fire to his car in honor of their victory at regionals - smiles in the same way as your eternally nervous finger-picking co-captain from knowledge bowl; the way that sophomore in your a capella group shakes you by the shoulders and grits his teeth after a bad pun just like your best friend from back home; the way the girl down the hall orders Subway like your ex: a six-inch meatball on italian with provolone cheese and nothing else, thanks.

Seasons, Drinking

2011-05-01T16:55:00.007-04:00

It's come to this.

1.
The fall is firework displays in colors bright and brash,
A veritable light show to be raked and hauled and trashed.
Yes nothing quite beats days that grow as short as they are cold.
If I said Fall was crappy I don't think that would be bold.

2.
Now winter, that's an easy one, with all the cold and ice,
And though you'll come by people who will say the snow is nice,
Whose eyes will sparkle listening of Santa and his elves
I think that all the car crashes can speak fine for themselves.

3.
The birds sing in the morning and you whine they wake you up.
I understand the problem given what was in your cup.
My friend and I discussed it and decided here's the thing:
These birds are just another reason why we hate the spring.

4.
And finally there's summer, days of heat, and dry, and sweat,
Of traffic jams on Fridays and of cell phones cracked and wet,
Of searing sandy sunburns and of sailboats lost at sea,
I guess the fact is frankly there's no season that's for me.

This

2011-04-11T02:02:00.003-04:00

One day I will write something with a plot and characters and everything, the works, a grand story arc about the nature of identity and love and coming of age in America, and I will take a photograph that is so related and beautiful it will just make you cry. In the mean time, though, I'm probably going to keep doing this random scene posts that are really and transparently just mildly exaggerated moments from my own life written in the third person,

he said.

AND THEN SHARKS ETCETERA.

March

2011-03-30T02:32:00.003-04:00

Tuesday night he goes out driving. It's spring break and no one's home and everything's closed and so something's got to keep him from picking at his fingers, anyway. He gets as far as the state line before he stops at the gas station to marvel at how low the prices of cigarettes are, and then he looks up and calls it a night. He's not going to get far enough away from the city for the ugly orange glow to stop blocking out the stars, so what's the point really?

He considers it again on Wednesday a little after midnight, but eventually he gives it up. A band-aid will do just fine to cover up that blister on his right thumb, and there's nothing wrong with staying inside for an entire day.

Briefly Imagined Conversations

2011-03-17T13:03:00.009-04:00

2:30 AM, a dark dorm room. SAM is getting into bed.

SAM
Alright body, it's pretty late and I have a midterm pretty early tomorrow. Time to go to sleep.

BODY
Nah.

A beat. SAM freezes.

SAM
What?

BODY
Nah, not really feeling the whole sleep thing right now.

SAM
What do you mean you're "not really feeling the whole sleep thing right now"?

BODY
I'm just not really tired. It's not sleep time.

SAM
It's 2:30 in the morning.

BODY
Yeah, I know, we'll sleep later. I got you, bud.

SAM
No, I have class later! We have to sleep now.

BODY
No, no man. Sleep later. This is the "lie horizontally in the dark and be alert and worrying about the future" time. Should last about forty-five minutes I'd say.

SAM
Forty-five minutes?

BODY
Yeah, and then we'll sleep for like a good nine hours. Shit will be so cash.

SAM
No, no, listen to me: we can't sleep later. I have to be up early tomorrow. This is when we have to do this.

BODY
No, remember that twenty minute nap you took at 4:00? That means we can't sleep for another 11 hours.

SAM
What?

BODY
Yep.

SAM pauses for thought. He turn onto his back. His roommate sniffs.

SAM
Okay, look: I'm just going to lie completely still until you get tired. Please, please, please try to do it as soon as you can.

Another beat. SAM lies completely still.

BODY
I'm hungry.

Yes Indeed

2011-03-14T02:20:00.002-04:00

Watched Triple X with my roommate, made this together, wanted to share it. Enjoy!

In Death, as in Life

2011-03-11T17:15:00.000-05:00

Mayford County, Georgia: In death, as in life, Gladys Lee Pierce wakes up early to make breakfast for her husband Joe.

There was an understanding between them that he would be the first to go - she was stronger; she was born to play the affable, white-haired southern matriarch - and so when she got run down in the Kroger parking lot down by 78 Joe was understandably upset. The funeral came and went, and, now, finally and weeks later, he runs out of the tuna salad and roast beef his children brought him upon his wife's passing. They fly home. He watches a lot of TV.

And then Joe wakes up one morning and there's an omelette in front of his spot at the kitchen table - ham and celery, his favorite. This persists for the next week straight: raisin bran with a banana cut in, oatmeal and brown sugar, french toast. No explanation, and yet it is undeniably Gladys' cooking.

On Thursday he sets an alarm and wakes up early and she's not there but there's a plate of grits waiting; on Friday he stays up late and when he finally passes out on the old recliner a strawberry shortcake sneaks onto the counter.

And I mean that's it. Joe never sees her again. He takes up fly fishing again, he spends his evenings at the billiards hall down the street. And when his family asks him how he's doing he tells them: I'm eating alright.

Office Hours

2011-03-06T18:23:00.002-05:00

Oh, Timmy! Please come in.

No, it's no trouble at all, that's what office hours are for. What part specifically were you having trouble with?

The blocks, of course. When I saw you knock down Clarissa's tower and then stomp on her juice box I figured you might be encountering some difficulties. Let's just take them out here and see what we've got so far.

Okay, see, right away, you're trying to start out with this triangle piece as the base of your structure. That's going to be a problem because- well, try to balance this other block on top.

Exactly! So what could you maybe use instead?

You know we don't mix the blocks and the play-dough.

Yes! The square block would be perfect. Give that a try.

Well, I'm just glad I could help you out. Is there anything else you wanted to go over?

Sure, we could do that. Let's just see what your notes look like, did you bring your- yeah, see, again, right away, Batman isn't a month. What could-

There's no need to be vulgar, Timmy.

The Bat-Mobile (Revisited)

2011-02-26T17:33:00.003-05:00

This is a pun I posted a couple weeks ago re-illustrated by the amazingly talented Molly. A lot of people didn't get the original because of my unbelievably poor drawing skills, so I asked her to draw me a new version. She took the time to do so, and I have to say that I really love how it came out. Thanks Molly!

A Great Flood

2011-02-18T13:08:00.006-05:00

Wednesday: Sam writes a story about Jesse which goes like this: a huge storm rages over the Berkshires for 40 days and 40 nights and the whole place ends up underwater. While his friends try to keep afloat, Jesse hovers above them inexplicably - they tread water, soaked and freezing and desperate, and he just looks down at them sadly - I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Thursday: It starts raining.

The Bat-Mobile

2011-01-31T01:38:00.000-05:00

Setting Alarms

2011-01-27T03:14:00.000-05:00

Little things, Alex thinks, her head under her desk as it moves around her room in the dark. Writing sticky notes, taking photographs, setting alarms. Do they do that too? Do they get frustrated when their sheets slip off in the night? Do they smile?

I mean you can't blame her for this, that she stayed. When word first hit the college's online forums, when the army was still trying to get it together, people started leaving and then never came back. She called her parents; they didn't call back. She stayed.

And they - they - hadn't been around these parts for so long. She had gotten lonely and then accustomed and then sloppy. She turned lights on at night. She played music out loud.

It touches the bed that used to belong to her roommate. Alex remembers this, mainly: that they had a fight about reading too late at night, and then Alex saw her get devoured on the lawn in front of the chapel. It was an unusual start to the spring term.

She makes a quick list: four generators, one pocket knife (in the desk above her, she knows it's too far away, it is so fast), one radio, one winter coat. There wasn't much point in even bothering. The clock was ticking, see, and she had set an alarm.

Wrapping Paper

2010-12-25T00:30:00.004-05:00

Merry Christmas, folks.

(If you don't celebrate Christmas, then Happy Holidays.)

Winter

2010-12-22T01:55:00.000-05:00

In the dark, mostly, Lewis paces in Persephone's room.

First, I mean, cold. That one is the most obvious, and what does it mean? Moving slowly. Being alone. Stale pizza. Death, of course, death, and dying, and also purity - that is to say of course freedom from impurity. Did you know they put menthol in Listerine to make your mouth feel that sort of icy feeling? Cold is clean, that is an easy one. Second, what? Light? This has always been sort of counterintuitive for me because the days are shorter but just generally everything is brighter, the way the sun reflects off the snow and the roads turn that dirty white with the ground-in salt. I want that to be about knowledge so badly, you know, illumination and stuff. I want that to be about precision. Winter is a time to cut so, so carefully. To think before you speak. Dryness. Winter is about sucking the moisture out of your skin and exposing you for what you are. Winter is about cracked fingers and raw palms, winter is a time to drop discs, because the bottom line here is that winter isn't on your side. Summer, summer will be your friend. Summer you could have a drink with, but winter is something to be fought, with hats and gloves and balaclavas. You'll never win, I mean, but it is a matter of just lasting, of letting it run its course, I'm sorry. God, I have never been much good with symbols, but seasons might be my favorite of all and what, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Persephone is working on her translations (she is always working on her translations when he is there), and so she flips to a new page - clean and white and fresh - and writes at the top and on the left and then holds it up for him to see: It is winter, and I am always cold.

For Once, Regarding Friendship

2010-11-29T17:18:00.001-05:00

He lives in New England now and also he writes in the present tense and in third person, maybe so it is all fiction, maybe because it makes everything more real, regardless, I mean, here we go:

He lives in New England now, and, late at night and in her car, he is still marveling at the whole thing. In the Mid-Atlantic you can't see stars like this because it doesn't get dark like this, like here, where the sky is light and wispy and the mountains are silhouettes, black, formidable and poorly-defined, like in a poem you read one time that made you wish you went camping more. He wants to fall into that dark, but maybe another time - for now, they drive.

She pulls over just past the state line – a little after midnight in the town where his dad grew up – and they cross the road after trying not to look too shady for the dumpy blue sedan that represents the only other person awake in three miles. The moon is so bright that there is a ring around it, something about crystals in the air, I don't know, and they trek up the last hundred feet in the sort of way you trek up a hundred feet in the middle of the night wearing Sperry Top-Siders; she is leading, so sure-footed and with such poise, he is behind, breathing heavily because he can't even manage the workouts she could do in her sleep, and this is important: he is waiting for everything to be clear. The valley is there, they both know it for sure, but there are trees and bushes in the way of the view and she already knows the end of this but he doesn't. As far as he knows it is always going to be as obscured as this, this, like the piece of dirt you had in your eye and couldn’t get out, like the movie you watched that had a weird dark line down the middle of the theater screen, like the stars look too near that huge mall that you and he and she have all driven by. He wants to understand, he wants to take it all, and most of all he worries he won’t be able to except there is her and it’s a little bit of faith longer four more steps and he never saw it coming and then, suddenly, they are on a soft hill. The dirt is hollow. There are no trees. You can see forever, tens and hundreds of miles, and here is what he realizes: you can be friends with someone and also drive around with them in the middle of the night; you can stand on the top of a mountain in the moonlight and be unromantic about it and want no other company; everyone was wrong about everything. At the top of the mountain and in the dark there is the sort of clarity he is looking for. For once he is overwhelmed with friendship, and he loves it – in, you know, a friendly way.

He writes it down on the way home for Thanksgiving, and, as the looming Berkshire mountains and towns named for old Native American tribes turn to fields of distant apartment buildings and suspension bridges, the details start to go. He knows it wasn’t epiphany, but it was special, anyway. He lives in New England now, and he’s beginning to come to terms with it.

Snoverwhelmed

2010-11-08T22:50:00.019-05:00

They lie on the snowy flats, the only spots of color on an otherwise white landscape under a white dome with that sort of smell in the air like cold and wood and the bin full of scarves on the top of your closet. They are heavy with down jackets and snow pants and mittens and feelings, so many feelings, and also balaclavas which are not as weighty as feelings but still important. The snow is soft and fresh - we are in the middle of a storm here that is taking a break to perhaps catch its breath and it is calm for the moment with the sort of silence that comes after the world is covered in a layer of ice and tissue and felt. The trees are bare, you couldn't point to the sun if you tried, the mountains are dotted with the sort of houses your sister has always dreamed of retiring to, and they, they, they are on the ground, staring up at the sky.

She says: I want to tell you something important about myself.

He says: yes, do that.

She says: I have often thought about lying on the ground and having it snow like two feet at once, just like a huge thick pile of snow falling on me. Can you imagine what it would be like to be overwhelmed like that?

There is a beat in which they keep looking up, his hair messy and weird from the hat he had on, her eyes blinking with all the gray, and then he turns on his side and touches her sleeve with his mitten and that, my friends, is where it is too much for us, just too private to continue any longer. We are out of here, moving back to look at them from further away, tiny dots on the map. It starts snowing again.

Lists

2010-11-05T01:12:00.004-04:00

I'm sorry about this.

1. Sadness of knowing you can't win; sadness of knowing it is all your fault; sadness of missing; sadness of love; sadness of death; sadness of poorly-flavored crackers; sadness of a stuffy nose; sadness of mistakes; sadness of in-laws; sadness of cold fingers; sadness of injury; sadness of poor punctuation; sadness of lists.

2. One couch without two cushions, one drying rack, one TV (never used), one desk, one chair, three pairs of cleats, one pair of running shoes, one movie poster, one box from home, one small container of dish soap, one used band-aid, one old piece of fruit.

3. Sleeping in, successful layouts, warmth on cold days, riding bikes inside, playing a game you are too old for, original music, the xylophone, losing and feeling okay about it, laughter (of course), friendship, snow, kittens, inside jokes, rhetorically mindful text messages, inconclusion.

Weather

2010-10-22T00:38:00.006-04:00

She shuts the phone after the beep and steps through the chapel door onto the dark, empty quad, surprised to find that, outside, it is still late October in New England. The chances of his picking up were slim, and she knew it. Gritting her teeth against the cold, zipping up her fleece - she's from California, and this was never going to be an easy change.

Similes

2010-09-16T20:27:00.016-04:00

Here is what love is like: flowers. Flowers, love is like flowers because it dies, or maybe because it blossoms or because it is perennial, I mean I don't know. Just pick something, and love is like flowers, and also like lettuce, romaine lettuce, because it is hard to keep fresh and also it can leave a bad taste in the mouth and it is frequently green and served with too-salty dressing. Love is like hitting a baseball, because it is something that people think is ordinary but actually it is hard to do well. Love is like fine art, because it is often imitated but difficult to find the real thing, or it is framed and hung in a museum, what? Love is like the perfect huck, because people say it's not real but we've all seen it, once, or even twice, maybe, and because it takes practice and it is beautiful and it involves a lot of drive from the hips, more than you'd think. Love is like a nice pillow, comforting (of course), and soft, and sometimes a little cold. Love is like a pocket watch in that it seems pretty reliable but it is easy to lose, and love is like a mug of hot chocolate in that it is best when there is snow and the time is maybe 5:00,or 5:30. Love is like a rubik's cube because the goal is simple but the process is difficult and love is like aspirin because it makes stupid things hurt less, I don't know. I don't know. Love is like this: you don't know, I mean you don't know and you can't know. Love is like this: you want to summarize it but you know you can't, and I guess in that way love is like everything. Love is like similes because both are stupid and unnecessary and almost always inevitable. Love is not like anything. Love is not like anything.

Conversations after the End of the World

2010-09-06T00:23:00.014-04:00

1 - Day - Main Street - 1

In the small, post-apocalyptic New England town, things are quiet. The air is red and dirty, the sun is too hot, nothing moves saves the occasional plastic bag blown by a tiny, hot breeze. All human life has been destroyed, with two exceptions. They are about to meet.

Onscreen over the town: CONVERSATIONS AFTER THE END OF THE WORLD

Enter GIRL, from the town's grocery store. She's pretty in the way everyone watching her wants her to be, and her clothes are as dirty as everything around her. Her hair is long and tied back. Her hands are small. She has an eco-friendly grocery bag slung over one shoulder and a shotgun held low in her opposite hand. She wanders across the street, sits down at a bench, and digs through her bag for an old-looking orange. She eats it.

As GIRL continues eating her orange, a low rumbling is heard in the distance. It grows louder. She hears it and puts away her orange.

2 - Day - Town - 2

Overhead shot. A white, beat-up Escalade is speeding into town towards main street.

3 - Day - Main Street - 3

The GIRL, still sitting on the bench, looks down the street towards the barreling SUV. As it passes her, the occupant inside its blacked-out windows must spy her - it screeches to a loud halt thirty yards down the road from her.

A beat.

The door of the Escalade opens, and BOY steps out. He's on the short side and has the kind of face so forgettable you'd probably end up asking his name four times. He stands next to the car and stares at GIRL, who stares right back.

Another beat, then he approaches her. He sits next to her on the bench.

BOY
Hey, I'm Lot, what's your name?

GIRL
Jenny.

They sit awkwardly.

BOY
Where are you from?

GIRL
New York.

BOY
City, or state?

GIRL
New York state. Just outside of Albany.

BOY
Oh, really? My grandparents lived in Highland.

GIRL (vaguely)
Oh, cool.

Another pause.

BOY
So, yeah. How's the zombie uprising been treating you so far?

GIRL
Okay, I guess. You?

BOY
Yeah, pretty okay. I mean like it's not quite what I expected, but I'm adjusting okay.

GIRL
Yeah, yeah.

A beat.

BOY
Well.

The Nighttime Adventures of Huron and Victoria

2010-09-01T00:28:00.006-04:00

Here is something, Huron says to Victoria, there is no scientific distinction between a lake and a pond. It is night time, and they are both sitting on the tire swing next to the lake or the pond or whatever. You probably know the scene: they're close but not touching, her hair looks nice, he is not wearing sneakers. What I mean is you could call the Great Lakes the Great Ponds, did you know that? You wouldn't be technically wrong.

In the dark, Huron looks close at Victoria's freckles and thinks about kissing her cheek but decides against it. I mean he's not even sure if this shit is a date, and, with the moon behind the clouds like it is, things can get a little tricky to distinguish.

Notes

2010-08-29T23:49:00.001-04:00

With my leave for college impending, I will be discontinuing the regular posting policy and resuming the sort of policy in which I post whenever the inspiration hits me. I want to thank all of my loyal readers this summer for keeping up with the numerous posts and forgiving the multiple late posts.

Effective Communication

2010-08-25T21:25:00.002-04:00

This question is from the online driver's ed course I'm taking to lower my insurance premium.

Notes

2010-08-21T11:39:00.000-04:00

Due to a sudden illness I will not be updating three times this week. I will resume next week.

Two Weeks at Rokenbok Construction

2010-08-17T01:47:00.007-04:00

06-01
First day on the job here at Rokenbok Construction. Mr. Rokenbok seems nice if a little boring. I got in my dump truck and moved some balls around.

06-02
Was instructed to move around some more balls today. It was sort of fun but I got bored fast. After I delivered a few loads of balls today I noticed there were suddenly more balls in the loading zone where I pick them up. I wonder where they come from.

06-03
I am finding this whole ball-moving thing very difficult. The controls on the truck are hard to figure out; wish I had received training. Plus I can hold, like, four balls at a time, unless they are the red ones in which case I can hold five. What is the difference between the balls, anyway?

06-04
Moved some more balls today.

06-05
Today I noticed a lot of red balls and less blue ones. I moved them all around.

06-08
Monday! I miss the weekend, when I didn't have to move any balls. Today I moved some balls. We worked pretty late into the day and I noticed none of the lights came on. They didn't have bulbs, they were just plastic.

06-09
MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH:
I spent a few minutes today wandering around the site to watch the whole ball-moving process. THE BALLS DON'T GO ANYWHERE. I literally move them to one truck that picks them up and then dumps them in a machine to drop them back to my loading zone. What is going on here?

06-10
Noticed the city was taking bids for the road repaving project, and suggested to Mr. Rokenbok we give them an estimate. He said, "no, we move balls. That's what we do. Get back to moving balls." After that, I moved some balls, mostly blue ones.

06-11
Moved more balls today. After the fourth time today that I messed up dumping the balls into the other guy's dump truck he seemed to get frustrated and spent the rest of the day trying to push my truck over. It is good the fork-lift arm is so weak, like it is never used to lift anything but tiny bits of plastic. Weird but lucky.

06-12
I talked to Mr. Rokenbok again today, but he just told me to move more balls. When I tried to a few balls fell out of my scooper. Then a giant hand came out of the sky and put them back, as if some cruel god was sick of watching me try to push the balls against a sturdy, flat surface so that I might pick them up. After that I accidentally drove my truck off the ramp. We should make the guard rails out of something other than plastic; that seems dangerous.

You Got This One (Two)

2010-08-14T23:40:00.004-04:00

An aspiring beekeeper purchased a small hive and began producing his own product, which he stored in his basement. Things went well for a while, and he used his profits to buy more bees. A few months later, though, he had just harvested all of the honey and was having difficulty stacking it all in his basement. He had finally finished placing all the jars on the wall when he stepped back to survey his work. Suddenly, all the shelves collapsed! The glass jars fell and broke, and the bees outside in the yard sensed the delicious goods they had been robbed of. They flew through the cellar windows and stung the beekeeper all over.

Later, the beekeeper was talking about it with his friend. After he heard the whole story, his friend shook his head. "Well, you know what they say," he said.

A History

2010-08-13T23:59:00.001-04:00

Below you can find a history of this blog as chronicled from its beginning to early August 2010. Due to the way blogger formats its updates the posts are in reverse order - you have to start with the one at the bottom of the page and then move up. Good luck, and thanks for visiting Mostly Harmless!

A Historical Conclusion

2010-08-13T23:29:00.005-04:00

January started on a high note with the publishing of An Exposition, the script for a three-act film featuring hiccups, hijinks and Hannah Montana. I came up with the story idea on January 4 and wrote the script in the following three days. The only other really noteworthy post that month saw was With Apologies to Seth Zweifler, Editor-in-Chief, which attracted enough attention to earn me an invitation to write a school guest column. Though January didn't feature a whole ton of really awesome stuff, it was promising that I posted nine times. College apps were done, and I had more time on my hands.

On Friday, February 5, 2010, visitors to Mostly Harmless were greeted not by a story or photograph but with an announcement. The weekend forecast was calling for several inches of snow, and I planned on staying inside and blogging 12 times - more posts than I'd ever written even in a single month since December of 2008. I scheduled my posts faithfully; I had agreed to publish at 2:00, 6:00, and 10:00 every day, AM and PM. In the end I was left with what the marathon produced, which included two puns, one poem, and an original ukulele cover of a mildly popular indie rock song. The posts were not of incredible quality, but they were decent enough to consider the weekend a success.

March was another groundbreaking month for Mostly Harmless. A friend had recently convinced me that what my fiction really lacked was symbolism, and so my stories this month were stuffed to the brim. I was even giving my characters real-deal literary names: Azrael Pearlman, for the angel of death and a bass drum company, and Euterpe, for the muse of poetry and music. This was deep stuff. It was in March that I also wrote Storage, one of my favorite posts that didn't seem to catch on with many of my readers. March closed with On The Final Knight, a gut-wrenching tale of heartbreak and poorly-planned chess strategy. I guess that happens.

On May 1, I embedded Three Breaks onto my blog, an entry for my high school's film festival. Its script was based on the aforementioned An Exposition, and the movie itself won "Best Writing" at the contest, which was funny because anyone who glanced at the script would have known half of the lines were ad-libbed.

The summer after I graduated I decided to post every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. This policy soon just became a general "three times a week", as I don't have the follow-through to actually post on time for that long. Though the first post of this adventure was a pretty good one, the demand for quantity soon meant a decrease in quality. Though I managed to scrape together a couple love stories towards the end of July, by mid-August I had resorted to writing a history of my blog.

More History

2010-08-11T23:45:00.001-04:00

January 2009, and I mean we are talking months ago here. This is recent past. I was trying to do something differently, but it was pretty clear that I didn't know what: I stopped on the street to take people's picture (I forgot to tell them not to smile), I finished serials, I wrote scenes and stories and essays. Things genuinely improved around here.

I reached a slight peak in creativity around March and April. My stories were about all sorts of ideas that I'd always wanted to write down, and I was finally finding that I had a voice to do it with. Of note were The Key Card and I'll Change For You, two reader favorites.

The second of these stories, though, was the last before a creativity dry spell that lasted pretty solidly through the summer. May saw the creation of my first and only "Guest Week" series, which further facilitated my not having ideas, and in July I wrote three posts total - a number I hadn't been down to for nearly a year and a half (though one of these posts was The Kayak Bandits, a personal favorite).

August marked a slight improvement, featuring the first of my puns (the trapezoid one doesn't count). Besides that, August had a nice photograph, a Frisbee-related pantoum, and not much else.

This terrible period culminated in September, when I posted about the frustration I felt about my lack of ideas, and then, days later, I sat down and wrote Ball Golf, a fan favorite for those willing to read the whole damned thing. The ball was rolling again. The puns kept coming, and I managed six posts in October and another six in November. The stress of college applications forced my December count down to two, rounding us off with 75 posts for the whole year - my lowest ever. 2009 wasn't a great year number-wise, but I like to think I grew in other, less tangible ways. I was ready for 2010 and the finale of the thrilling conclusion of A HISTORY OF MOSTLY HARMLESS, to arrive later this week.

A Brief Interruption

2010-08-07T23:56:00.003-04:00

I thought Tim was just being paranoid about the whole Dove chocolate wrapper thing, but this is getting ridiculous.

If you don't read Tim's blog, Looks Like A Tangent, I'd highly recommend it. It's also worth mentioning that he in no way endorsed this picture.

An Even Further History of Mostly Harmless

2010-08-06T02:10:00.000-04:00

The dawn of 2008 finds itself in the middle of my sophomore year, and, in between time spent discovering ultimate frisbee and racking up hundreds and hundreds of hours on Team Fortress 2, my blog is suffering. January and February had a total of five posts containing a total of two original stories and two photographs. I had lost my camera charger very promptly, and so the pictures were just not happening. My memory can't account for the weird, emo poetry, but whatever the cause, it was there and that was that.

In March, I broke down and bought a new charger, and, by April and very suddenly, my posts were photographs and stories and the stories were not gross and violent anymore. This seems silly to say, but these posts were the first ones on this blog that I'm not generally embarrassed about. April 2008 - I discover my format. Let's write this somewhere important. It only took me two and a half years.

The first fish-eye tests showed up mid-July curiously around my birthday, and it quickly became an addiction. I managed to give it up in August, and, although I didn't realize it at the time, this move marked a pretty decent change in direction for the blog. I began focusing less on the photographs and more on the stories. I was influenced by what I read (noticeably The Things They Carried) or I came up with better ideas or I did something, something. I wrote essays and scenes and stories of love, love, love, for friends and for words and for writing utensils, whatever, I wasn't picky. Love was in the air, apparently, and I wrote it down.

On November 12, I posted my first round of scenes, which were just little vignettes I thought would be interesting enough to read. In December I posted four scene posts in a row, which is ridiculous by any standard. Luckily after that I wrote a three-post long story about a guy that kills himself, so, you know, problem solved. That story, along with The Anti-Jeff, were my first real attempts at multiple-post serials. For a brief time I toyed with the idea of putting all those miscellaneous serials on one blog, but it proved to be more effort than it was worth. Miscellaneous Serials is now all but abandoned.

As the year drew to a close, questions remained unanswered: would my stories ever gain in depth and intelligence? Would the downward trend in photograph quality continue? Just who is this masked man, and why has he never been photographed together with 6-year-old millionaire playboy Calvin? FIND OUT NEXT TIME ETCETERA!

A Further History of Mostly Harmless

2010-08-02T01:06:00.008-04:00

When we left off last time, our intrepid hero had just changed his blog's name to the one that would stick for more than five months. It was June of 2006: Pixar had just released Cars, gamers were actively awaiting the soon-to-be-released Wii, and Sam Austin was still busy posting lengthy paragraphs of boring nothingness on his dark void of a blog.

Noteworthy during this period was less what I was doing and more what else was happening in the very tiny blogosphere in which my friends and I spent so much time. The Guest Blog, an experiment I had tried with my friend, had pretty much officially failed, a couple of friends and I were trying a team blog called Triple Threat (which would later be deleted), and The Vanquisher of Anonymous-ness was beginning to become a regular on our comment threads. I only mention this shady loner because of the inspiration he provide me with - I wrote Anonymous in December and Ideas Are Bulletproof in January of the next year. Both of these extra blogs were pretty terrible, but I like to think of them as important stepping-stones down a path that would lead to what is now my world-famous and award-winning blog.

In September 2006, I started posting photographs with every post. They weren't fantastic pictures, but I still had some favorites. This went on pretty well for the whole time I spent in ninth grade, but, a year after the photographs started, a slump in the picture-taking process immediately preceded the mysterious loss of my camera. Between July and December, my posts became sparse and irregular. I started writing The Propagandist again - a story I had started in February - but stopped after just a few chapters. I dreamt up the briefly aforementioned Bloggies, but lacked the follow-through to actually give the winners the trophies they could put on their blog.

Chapter 2 of this exciting account ends with New Year's Eve of 2007, when I wrote an appropriately upbeat post about the wonderful new camera I had received for Christmas a few days earlier. With this gift I was prepared to fight back the demons of apathy and laziness to revive my blog. Would it be done? Would I be successful? Would Mostly Harmless survive to one day possibly see its thoroughly uninteresting history chronicled in multiple-post format, possibly, like, after its author graduated high school? Find out on Thursday, when the thrilling HISTORY OF MOSTLY HARMESS resumes!

A History of Mostly Harmless

2010-08-01T01:15:00.001-04:00

It's been two months of posting three times a week, and before I start one more grueling set of 12 posts, I figured it would be an appropriate time to take stock of the five years I've been writing this blog. For those of you that have just stumbled upon Mostly Harmless, this probably isn't a bad place to start.

The first post of Sam's Blog was written on December 13, 2005. It was the second effort at starting a blog that day, as the first post on the first blog I started insulted my math teacher and was therefore vetoed by my parents. I was 13 and in 8th grade at the time, and, evidently, I had far too much time on my hands - there were only 19 days left in that first month, and I wrote 29 entries. The posts were rambling and mostly about the process of writing the blog, and by far the most interesting ones were by my sister Rachel. For this reason, the blog quickly became something of a team effort and was renamed Four Years Apart. This development lasted for five months pretty successfully due mostly to the constant commenting of my friends, who were apparently as bored as I was. I regularly received as many as 20 or 30 comments per post, which was obviously justified when you considered the awe-inspiring quality of my posts. Take, for example, this artful haiku from the post after post 115:

Anticipation
It seems as though it won't come
But I know it will
I assume the Pulitzer was lost in the mail.

May 2006, though, and, somewhere between deciding she wanted to go to Johns Hopkins and actually picking out the best egg-crate foam for her mattress, my sister decided to give up posting. I changed the name of my blog to "I HEART IRONY" because I'm just that cool. Every post featured a daily irony, a facet of my blog I enjoyed writing substantially more than my readers enjoyed reading. Those were dark days.

This sad time in everyone's life lasted for a little over a month until my post on June 18, 2006. When I checked the comments the next day, I found I had received a particularly one from Sri, a friend I had before I read his hateful, hateful comment:

This is why your LAST layout was better. Your posts are beginning to suck. No offense.
Can I just say very briefly that 100 percent of my blog back then was just rambling? I sat down at the computer and typed random shit, and somehow that shit had become shittier because I changed the already shitty name of my blog to another (and apparently shittier) one? What the shit.

This obviously poorly-conceived comment, though, precipitated what would be a defining moment in this wonderful experiment. On June 20, I gave up on irony and changed my blog's name to Mostly Harmless. Though that was a foggy time for me, I vaguely recall a choir of angels. We were off to the races, and, though we didn't know it back then, our whole lives would something something something something.

****

This history will be continued in Part 2, to arrive TOMORROW, AUGUST 2nd. I apologize for the lateness of this post.

How To Write a Love Song

2010-07-26T10:28:00.007-04:00

Tuesday night at summer league, Sara catches the disc on an in-cut, takes one look, and then turns to dump to Joe, except she gets hand-blocked, which is like super amateur and she feels bad about the whole thing.

While sitting with her accordion afterwards, she thinks about him, the boy she's known since he was on her team three seasons ago who can throw hucks like it is his job and who found her keys for her when she dropped them after the fourth game and who is just a cool guy, you know, the sort of really nice-looking handler that any city club team or recently graduated 22-year-old Spanish Econ double major would be lucky to call their or her own, respectively. She wills her fingers to come up with a song that could express exactly what she feels about him, which she isn't even sure of herself.

Thursday night after the game she calls him on the phone to ask if he took her disc by accident. He puts it into his backpack and bikes it over to her and ends up staying and talking for three hours until 12:30, which is the sort of hour at night we all know you can only talk until if you are in love or discovering love or at least involved in a pretty serious bromance. They are both tired the next day at work, and with every futile cup of coffee they think: this was worth it.

Saturday during finals weekend the team is in the red zone and Sara jukes in on the the force lane, takes three steps out until her defender bites, and then cuts towards the break side endzone corner towards Joe, who knew where to put the disc as soon as he saw that first fake, flip flip flip, his arm comes up - this is the amazing part, his arm just comes up, not across or around, and he lifts it to the spot where she runs it down.

He drives her home and she gets out her accordion again when there is already something of a melody in her head. She knows she'll have trouble rhyming with "huck", but for the first time she finally knows what to write about.

You Got This One

2010-07-24T00:00:00.001-04:00

Two nuns are walking around their abbey when one nun notices that the other nun's cloak is trying to steal her wallet.

"Hey," she says, "your cloak is trying to steal my wallet."

"Oh, shoot!" the second nun replies. She immediately takes off her cloak and punts it away.

"Why did you do that?" the first nun asks.

The Ascent

2010-07-22T01:50:00.002-04:00

At the bottom of the observation tower, they are debating the climb.

"I have been on an airplane before," Edmund says to his mom, "I do not need to see the world from higher up."

"Airplanes go very high in the air. This is much lower. It is a different view."

"Airplanes have to go low first before they go higher."

Hillary tips her water bottle up to her mouth and watches Edmund wipe his rec specs with a lintless cloth. After a second: "But they go over a runway or whatever. This is a state park! Don't you want to see a state park?"

"I can see the pictures on Flickr. I'll make one your desktop background," Edmund says.

His mom sighs dramatically. "Oh, I knew you'd be too scared. It's probably too high for you anyway."

"I'm nine, mom. That doesn't work anymore."

He is not a bad kid, and they get along fine. This isn't a fight - it's genuinely a debate, and one Hillary knows she can win.

"Have fun biking home, then. I'll see you tonight." She turns smartly and marches briskly over to the observation tower.

Edmund laughs and rolls his eyes. "Okay, mom, whatever."

He pales a little when he realizes she is showing no signs of turning around.

"Mom?"

She disappears through the heavy concrete doorway.

He drops his helmet and runs after her, calling: "Mom! Mom!"

At the top, he is reconsidering his original position. "It's nice and breezy up here. I like the smell of the ocean and stuff. You should have mentioned the breezes."

She ruffles his hair even though she knows he hates that.

With Apologies to Daniel Handler

2010-07-19T00:00:00.000-04:00

For example, you could break the ice by purchasing a hammer and then using it on the lake down the street, or you could break the ice by telling that nice-looking night-shift cashier at the hardware store about your passion for swimming in the very cold water in the dark, or you could break the ice by purchasing a hammer and then asking if the cashier wants to come down to the lake with you to go swimming, and there may be situations in which the ice is broken and the ice isn't broken, like if there are big cracks in the surface of the lake but if the thought of the two of you floating naked in the freezing water makes everyone a little uncomfortable, or if the hammer turns out to be too small but she is laughing at your jokes, and if you're really into breaking the ice you could try breaking the ice with the ice, by making jokes about ice or by picking up a big chunk of ice and throwing it at the ice or even by talking to the ice as if to make pleasant conversation, in which case you could break the ice with the ice with the ice, perhaps by asking the ice what it is like to be ice, and though I would not recommend breaking the ice with the ice by breaking the ice with the ice, you could still try it, it might be nice.

Amy Vanderbilt and the Rude Zombies

2010-07-17T00:41:00.009-04:00

ONSCREEN: AMY VANDERBILT's eyes, looking fearful. She walks forward.

NANCY (V.O., whispered)
They can't know you're not one of them, Amy.

Flashes quickly: MALE ZOMBIE 1 - who appears perfectly human - spitting on the sidewalk.

AMY keeps walking. We see her now from the shoulders up. The street around her is full of people, wandering aimlessly and in a very rude manner.

NANCY (V.O., whispered)
Our old world, that's gone now. You have to understand this. You have to blend in.

Flashes quickly: MALE ZOMBIE 2 yawning in a business meeting. He fails to cover his mouth.

AMY keeps walking.

NANCY (V.O., whispered)
We look the same. At least there's that. You can do this. They'll never know.

Flashes quickly: FEMALE ZOMBIE 1 receiving an inappropriately garish gift from MALE ZOMBIE 3. She does not tell him how inappropriate it is.

AMY turns the city corner and walks into a ZOMBIE.

AMY
Excuse me.

A beat.

All the ZOMBIES attack.
ON SCREEN OVER BLACK: AMY VANDERBILT AND THE RUDE ZOMBIES
ON SCREEN OVER BLACK: COMING SOON

Variations

2010-07-15T01:53:00.004-04:00

Apologies for the poor artwork and late update, and, of course, please don't read too far into this post. It is merely a bit of wordplay. I in no way endorse long-handled gardening tools and/or immoral pleasure seekers.

This Isn't a Love Story

2010-07-12T00:09:00.001-04:00

1.
On the phone with her friend, Jenny discusses her new coworker, Oliver - an attractive college graduate like herself. His interests include model airplanes and skinny ties. I cannot get enough of guys in skinny ties, she says to her friend, who wants her to get a number.

2.
In a letter to her friend Jenny writes, this isn't a love story, just because she hates all that cliché nonsense and she knows she will never meet an attractive man at an expensive hotel in Paris. Girls meet guys all the time and they don't fall in love.

3.
Jenny runs into Oliver at the post office when she goes to mail a letter. Do you want to come with me to fly this new plane I got? Oliver asks. Jenny says yes. She throws out her letter.

How to Play Frisbee in the Rain

2010-07-10T00:00:00.001-04:00

It's hard, man, because you want to relive memories through your talking about them. You want to write facebook statuses and tell stories about these things you did that were so different - sports in the rain and sprinting in the middle of the night, you want to write about how you have to think about gripping the disc in your fingers and describe the feeling of the track on your bare feet, but it is never the same - you can't go back; that layout is never as good the second time around.

Brevity!

2010-07-08T00:00:00.003-04:00

Friday: he has long since abandoned describing his characters or the setting, he has eliminated foreshadowing and symbolism (except for allusions to chess; he just loves those), and, in his quest for minimalism, he has finally arrived at an important question: how much can you strike?

Saturday: he writes a story about a nameless character in a blank room without a chess set.

Notes

2010-07-02T17:46:00.002-04:00

I'll be taking a brief hiatus for the holiday. I will return to my usual schedule of posting this coming Thursday, July 8.

Very Angry Commercials

2010-07-01T00:00:00.001-04:00

1 - Int. Train Station - Day - 1

The ATTRACTIVE MAN looks across the track and sees the ATTRACTIVE WOMAN in the car opposite himself. It's not his train, but he's in love, and what can you do? He whips out his phone in a way that makes it very clear that all is not lost. He quickly hits the giant "change ticket" button, and then he's picked up his bags and he's off.

2 - Int. Train - Day - 1

Inside the train, the ATTRACTIVE WOMAN stares wistfully out the window whil ethe doors close with a whoosh. The ATTRACTIVE WOMAN turns to her purse in the seat next to her, but then, suddenly, at eye level: the bottom of a familiar green sweater!

ATTRACTIVE MAN
Is this seat taken?

3 - Ext. Train - Day - 3

Through the window: the ATTRACTIVE WOMAN moves her purse, the ATTRACTIVE MAN sits down next to her. The train rolls slowly out of the station.

4 - Int. Train - Day - 4

The ATTRACTIVE MAN and ATTRACTIVE WOMAN are having an attractive conversation.

ATTRACTIVE MAN (continued)
And that's when I found five dollars.

ATTRACTIVE WOMAN laughs hysterically. She wipes away tears.

ATTRACTIVE WOMAN
I've only known you for thirteen seconds, but I already feel very comfortable with you, as evidenced by my easy laugh.

ATTRACTIVE MAN
You will make our children delicious sandwiches. I will take out the garbage. You will give me knowing smiles as I leave for work in our attractive car.

The CONDUCTOR wanders over.

CONDUCTOR
Tickets, please.

The ATTRACTIVE WOMAN smiles and hands her ticket to the CONDUCTOR. The ATTRACTIVE MAN takes out his phone.

ATTRACTIVE MAN
I used my phone to change my ticket.

CONDUCTOR
What?

ATTRACTIVE MAN
I used the "change ticket" button. It was so big I felt like an above-the-shoulder camera shot could have seen it! Gosh.

CONDUCTOR
That's not- you need a physical ticket. Have you ever ridden a train before?

ATTRACTIVE MAN
Of course. Didn't you see my travel-worn duffel bag in the overhead bin?

CONDUCTOR
You need to have a ticket! What is wrong with you?

ATTRACTIVE MAN
I told you, I pressed the-

CONDUCTOR
We don't have a change ticket button. Last minute cancellations cost, like, seventy dollars, and you can't make them on the platform with your phone.

A beat.

CONDUCTOR
This is- massively- this is so inconvenient. Why would you do this to us? Why- forget it. I need you to get up.

Another beat.

CONDUCTOR

Dammit.

Nights

2010-06-28T00:00:00.000-04:00

Nights, and the graduating class has taken to staring at the clock on their microwaves and picking at their fingernails. They're on a precipice here, and the slower that summer goes, the better.

Why Would You Tell Me That

2010-06-26T00:00:00.000-04:00

One in twenty games I don't feel hungry afterwards. Nearly all of the time I come off the field demanding burgers and pizza and fishsticks with custard, but after five percent of matches, just five percent, my friends and teammates go out for Wendy's; I go home and catch up on my webcomics. I take a shower. I read a book. I think about how I played.

And then right when I am about to go to bed - in fact, right when I am about to brush my teeth - I get hungrier than I've ever been, and for cereal, cereal, cereal. I pull on sweatpants and go downstairs to lay waste to the cabinet next to the sink. I've eaten whole boxes of Multigrain Cheerios and Raisin Bran. I drink water - room-temperature, in a glass - and I eat more cereal than I ever could in a week of usual breakfasts.

And here is my question: why do I want you to know that? Why am I interested in telling my friends that sometimes I like eating cereal late at night? What possesses me to tell people the water's temperature? This is a boring story. This is a then-I-found-five-dollars story. This is unworthy of recounting.

At night, I could shuffle my day's anecdotes into those worth telling and those that should not be repeated. It could never be an exact science - if I have a forgiving audience I might tell one of the less interesting ones - but it is a procedure that I like to think could be performed in a fairly accurate manner. If there's anyone out there that does this, please let me know. I'd like to hear how and when you started, if you think that would be an interesting tale to repeat. At the very least I could take a look at your filing system.

Evidence, Evidence

2010-06-24T00:00:00.002-04:00

It was a problem you can only come up with if you are never worth anything but the designer suits you wear: he needed evidence of himself. Evidence, evidence, evidence. He filled a house with all of his receipts, because he could afford to. He wrote his name in the books he took out of the library and the ones he gave to charity. He gave money to colleges he didn't attend so that he could be on plaques in front of wings and libraries and auditoriums. He was the sponsor of scholarships that were for interest in nuclear science and others that were for the deconstruction of every nuclear power plant in the world. He got speeding tickets so cops would write his name in their little books. He was bad at parties; one time he met this girl that was kind of cute but he never worked up the nerve to ask her number.

One Cloud (Underwater)

2010-06-21T00:00:00.006-04:00

Scenes 12

2010-06-19T00:00:00.001-04:00

One:
When I tell you to lift me up above the crowd at the party, you ask how high. That is awesome. Really awesome.

Two:
You ask me to kill that bug. I mean it is a scream, frankly, or at the very least a shriek. Afterwards, I realize I used your Mensa day-to-day calendar. Forgive me. It was so close to making it under the armoire, and I didn't really have time to look for a newspaper or anything.

Three:
I hear you have serious ass cancer; I hear it's fatal.

Track

2010-06-17T00:00:00.002-04:00

The sky is brown and bright and hot and a thousand gnats buzz around the runner's face as she looks up from the shadows of the empty classroom across the courtyard. There were trees here once, four months ago, but then things got hot and people got angry and now the trees are dead and the runner can see all the way across the flat, dead grass to the door that serves as her finish line. She used to run real track. She could fly, man.

Coach gave her this advice: "It's about 70 meters, and you'll have 8 seconds from the time the gun goes off. After that, it's no promises. I'll tell the starter to try to cover you. The baton is on the desk through the door; you have to break the biohazard glass."

They - they - sit inside unless the courtyard motion alarm goes off. It's cooler there, and that's the route the senseful unwary would take. They don't waste energy. They sit still.

She touches the edges of the window where the glass is broken, and then steps up into the frame, crouching, as close to a real starting position as she can get.

Her earpiece buzzes with static. Break, break. It's a regular thing.

Then the shot goes off, and she runs.

All Snared Up

2010-06-14T00:00:00.000-04:00

Onstage before the Fourth of July concert, things were going to hell.

"I have this tradition," said Tom to Belle, the other percussionist. The strings were busy tuning up. "It's sort of to get me pumped up. Get some energy out there, you know."

Belle smiled nervously, glancing around at the tiny flags and the freedom-themed streamers and watching while Tom dug through his pocket. He took out a little boxcutter.

Tom said, "I think that's important to have before a concert. Energy. You know that head-pounding, blood-pumping feeling? It makes my rolls sizzle better." He walked over to the snare drum.

"What are you doing?" Belle asked, "is this a joke or something?"

Tom glanced at his watch. "I told you, it's tradition." He touched the tip of the blade to the drum's tight mylar skin. Belle shouted, "Stop! What are you doing?" A couple trombones turned around to look what was going on. From the wing, the conductor straightened his tie and nodded to the kid pulling the curtain. The blade dug in further.

"No one has ever objected before," he said. Then the curtain opened, the conductor strolled out graciously, and, over the applause in the dark, stifling auditorium, no one heard the quiet snapping noise from the back of the orchestra.

Three Minutes from the Day it Rained Watermelon

2010-06-12T00:00:00.003-04:00

11:13 AM
B_____, Delaware

MARY
What's happening?

COLIN
It's raining watermelon. I mean watermelon.

MARY
Like the fruit?

COLIN
Yes, the fruit.

11:14 AM
W_____, PA

GEORGE
Fluffy! What- how did this happen?

FLUFFY
(whimpering noises)

GEORGE
This is terrible. Is that watermelon? Jesus.

11:15 AM
A_____, NY

ELEANOR
Gosh, it's really coming down out there.

LARRY (from bathroom, shaving)
Oh yeah?

ELEANOR
Yes. Plus, that's definitely watermelon.

LARRY
Don't call me melon. And what else would it rain?

So Many

2010-06-10T00:00:00.002-04:00

There were so many, it was like drowning in a swimming pool full of cats and let me tell you why: water is cold and silent like a giant block of solid carbon dioxide carved into the shape of a serial killer, but cats squirm around so much that would just be an unpleasant death. Can you imagine that? Kittens in your mouth? I once had an aunt who snored and she told me once her cat crawled into her mouth and she almost bit it. A cat crawling in your mouth, I mean come on. That is as unexpected as a bat getting caught in your hair while jogging and then having it turned into a novel which is turned into a movie which is turned into a tragic broadway musical love story entitled "AT BAT: HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW", which is a major hit and wins several Tony awards. The Tony awards part, that is the most unlikely, especially when you consider the musical's most well-known songs, including "White Nose Syndrome Took My Baby Away (Fungus Ain't Fun)". Gosh that song is terrible.

Systems

2010-06-07T00:00:00.002-04:00

What she said a lot was I need to get this out of my system, like there was poison in her and she had to talk it out, like it would be a gross and messy death if she didn't say what was on her mind: That whistling is driving me crazy, and I really like that shirt. Her friends would recommend something like this: that when you hear her say that, you have to imagine the tiny versions of herself inside looking at the screen and thinking, Keep this, Keep this, and then, No. This has to go. Get it out.

So she just talked things out - little things and big things and happy things and sad things, which was an issue because they all became poison, they all became things she had to get out of her system, until over time she was just talking to save her life.

Swing That

2010-06-05T00:00:00.002-04:00

In case you guys didn't hear, I'm experimenting this month with updating regularly every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday at 12 AM.

Love and Videogames

2010-06-03T00:00:00.002-04:00

Curtain opens very tight on two desks, two chairs, and two computers - a small portion of the Friday night LAN party at a local internet cafe. PLAYER 1 is at the left computer, playing a game. He faces the audience.

Beside both of the desks are two large televisions hooked up to the computers, displaying what's happening on the computer. PLAYER 1 is doing pretty well on his game. The other screen is a screensaver.

PLAYER 2 walks on and sits at the other computer. He stares at the monitor. PLAYER 1 looks at him, then turns back to the computer.

PLAYER 1
What's going on, man?

PLAYER 2
I've made a huge mistake.

PLAYER 1 keeps playing.

PLAYER 2
You know that girl who comes here sometimes? She plays, like, sick pyro and everything?

PLAYER 1
Sure.

PLAYER 2
I was just talking to her, right? And last time we were kind of joking around about her bringing me a Mountain Dew for me to drink this week while I'm playing.

PLAYER 1's character dies. He sits back from the computer and waits for the respawn.

PLAYER 1
Speaking of playing, do you want to, like, play? I could seriously use some medicking here.

PLAYER 2
Medic - that's not a verb. You could use a med-

PLAYER 1
Yeah, okay. I could use a-

PLAYER 2
I'm just saying, maybe you could use some healing or something.

PLAYER 1
Just stop griping and get on the damn game.

PLAYER 2 grumbles a bit about verbs as he turns to his computer and opens up the game.

PLAYER 2
So anyway, we're talking about this Mountain Dew thing.

PLAYER 1
I'm on the server we use all the time.

PLAYER 2
The server we use all the time.

PLAYER 1
Yeah, I'm on that server.

PLAYER 2
You're saying the server we use every time - all the time - one hundred percent of the time. You're on that one. That's the one you want me to know you're on.

PLAYER 1 (clueless)
Yeah, man! Connect or whatever!

A beat. PLAYER 2 connects or whatever. There is some silence as his game loads the server. He selects his class - not a medic - and begins playing.

PLAYER 2
She forgot the Mountain Dew, though. That's the thing. She forgot it.

PLAYER 1
Huh?

PLAYER 2
The Mountain Dew she promised me last week. She forgot it.

PLAYER 1
Oh yeah, right.

PLAYER 2
So she says, "oh," you know, like, "I forgot your soda. How can I make it up to you?"

Silence. A spy saps one of the engineer's buildings on PLAYER 1's screen.

PLAYER 1
Spy! Spy, there's a spy. That soldier is a spy.

PLAYER 2
"How can I make it up to you?!" That is just asking for it! I could have just said you can go on a date with me on Friday. Why didn't I say that?

PLAYER 1
Right, man, you've got to- the spy is going to get away. He's cloaking hit him hit him! Ax, man! Use your ax.

PLAYER 2
I just said you can bring me one next week.

PLAYER 2 kills the spy.

PLAYER 1
Good, good, now, can we get some more people around here? [Shouting to the surrounding, off-stage LAN partiers] Can we get some more people around me and player 2? We're going to go for the flag and we need a few more people.

Murmurs of assent from off-stage, but no one is appearing on screen.

PLAYER 2
I don't even like Mountain Dew. What is wrong with me? You can just bring me some next week.

PLAYER 1
Hey, alright, I don't see anyone here. Where are you guys?

PLAYER 2
I bet that could have been something sweet she could have found out about me, that that whole Mountain Dew thing was just an excuse to talk to her.

PLAYER 1
Seriously, no one?

PLAYER 2 (suddenly paying attention to the game)
Let's just go without them.

PLAYER 1
No man, that'll never work. It's safer to wait for a few more guys.

PLAYER 2 starts to run his guy out of the base.

PLAYER 2
I'm sick of doing what's safe! I always just do what's safe! I want to take a risk!

PLAYER 1
What are you talking about, man? Where are you running off to?

His character is running out the door.

PLAYER 2
I want to go! I don't want to be cautious. I just want to-

In the daylight, outside his base, PLAYER 2 is sniped like a n00b. The respawn screen turns on.

PLAYER 1
I told you that would happen. Hey, listen, will you switch classes? I need someone to medic me.

Blackout.

That's So Right

2010-05-21T00:28:00.004-04:00

"Is it okay that we've been driving around this much?" Raymond asked, "do you want me to give you gas money?"

Carver answered, "it's no problem. I have my parents' card."

He tossed the disc over the fence, and then they both hopped over awkwardly after it. Carver thought about that a lot, that he wished he could just vault over it like other kids from school. He was short though. That was the problem.

The sun beat down. It was Saturday.

They both stepped cautiously down the hill to the turf football field below, feet turned sideways. Raymond slipped a little. He didn't fall.

"Gosh, I can't believe Burk was trying to invite himself to come with us after lunch today," Carver said.

Raymond shook his head a little. "He's a nice guy, but he's just so boring. It drives me crazy."

"That's so right," Carver said.

On the field, they stood thirty yards apart and then started tossing. Forehand, backhand, hammer. It went like that. There were no words.

After a few tosses, Raymond's hammer slipped up and went the wrong way.

"Sorry," he said.

"Don't worry about it," Carver responded, "I mean, it happens to everyone."

In December, Drinking Horchata

2010-05-17T00:25:00.003-04:00

I sing in chorus, also: camerata.

Whoa!

2010-05-12T23:38:00.006-04:00

"It is stupid to just write a story to make people sad," she said, "I am leaving you."

Then some kittens died.

Technical Fowl

2010-05-09T18:38:00.002-04:00

This May represents my upcoming second annual Readers' Week! Please email me your stories, photographs, and puns. I'll post 'em up here for all to see.

THREE BREAKS

2010-05-01T23:27:00.003-04:00

Based on my script for "An Exposition", published in January.

The Waiting

2010-04-28T23:43:00.010-04:00

Sometimes, after I have missed several easy hucks or if I'm in a long line or at a school concert or listening to a boring speaker - in short, if I'm faced with a long and unbounded wait - you will hear me make a joke that goes something like this: "eventually, I will make an actual catch," and, "the potential longest we could have to keep doing this is until we die, right?"

The joke is just exaggeration, a way of expressing that terrible feeling when you are at a bad place and you could be there for much longer.

But it is worth mentioning that it is not just a joke. Sometimes what I am saying is that this wait sucks but that it will not be much longer and that things will improve, what I am saying was recently and expertly explained to me as Thorton Wilder's message in writing Our Town: that ordinarily life is beautiful, even if you've got a weird chorus of ghosts following you around, and I'm saying that there will be time for us after this wait that will have made it worthwhile, and that it will not be too much longer before this is over. Everything ends some time, and the wait was never that bad in retrospect. I heard this last song is pretty short, and you can take off your bow tie on the ride home if you want.

April

2010-04-18T20:19:00.003-04:00

THE PROSPECTIVE STUDENT
I was accepted to nineteen schools.

The stage is suddenly lit brilliantly, harshly. The AUDIENCE winces and blinks. THE PROSPECTIVE STUDENT stands in the middle of the stage in front of a long, plain table with nineteen identical glasses of water in a row. He's holding a manila file folder.

THE PROSPECTIVE STUDENT
I went to nineteen different sleeping bag preview weekends and stayed with nineteen RA's and listened to nineteen different presidents tell me not to come to their school if I only wanted the brand name experience and that I wouldn't hear that anywhere else. Nineteen tour guides told me to tell them if a car was coming, nineteen sets of people watched me awkwardly wander in late to the information session, nineteen College Prowler Off The Record books are on my bedside table.

THE PROSPECTIVE STUDENT walks upstage to stand behind the table. He places his fingertips on its surface.

THE PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS
I have nineteen glasses of water here. They're from nineteen different taps from nineteen different freshman bathrooms I visited on nineteen different college tours, and they're numbered.

A beat.

THE PROSPECTIVE STUDENT holds up his folder.

THE PROSPECTIVE STUDENT
I also have a spreadsheet.

Another beat. He puts down his folder.

Then he starts drinking. The AUDIENCE realizes what's happening now, and they hate it. He drinks every drop from the first glass and then breathes and then puts it down and moves to the next one. There are no pauses, just bottoms up and for god's sake don't spill. It's clean. It's mechanical. The AUDIENCE's quiet murmuring turns into nervous chatter. Onstage, it is bright and still. THE PROSPECTIVE STUDENT is on his twelfth glass and shows no signs of stopping. People begin vomiting in the crowd, and then the screaming starts. It's chaos.

The PROSPECTIVE STUDENT finishes the last glass of water. He stares for a second, and then he opens the folder.

Kilmer? I Hardly Know 'Er!

2010-04-10T23:12:00.007-04:00

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as frisbee,

A sport with hucks thrown outside-in
find Steve, whose mark was fronting him,

A sport where swing cuts are divine
to get your handler off the line

A sport that I in summer play
A pick-up game most every day

Upon whose fun does not rely
On sunny days, e'en rain is fine.

Yes, poems may bring you fame and glamour,
But nothing ever beats a hammer.

On the Final Knight

2010-03-30T00:31:00.009-04:00

Here is the problem, he said, moving the pieces around, letting the soft, heavy bases bump deeply against board. Your skewer is good, and it makes me make the move I did (more clicking here, she loved that sound) But after that, it's done. The rook is protected, and it's not worth sacrificing anything for. Take advantage of the position you're in.

She blinked at him and then stared at the board some, and after a while she moved a knight to fork the rook and his white-square bishop, a long queen's fianchetto back in the opening - he liked those indirect occupations.

No! She noticed he almost yelled now, and the way he touched his hair and then his ear, struggling, frustrated. He moved his rook and looked back up at her. The rook can move now, you have to-

She took his bishop and handed him the note, and then she left, because sometimes you just have to give up on a good thing.

Storage

2010-03-24T01:14:00.001-04:00

1 - Ext. Storage Facilities - Morning - 1

An early August morning - hot and humid. You know this kind of dawn, when the dew gets in the grass deep and your shoes get as wet as your armpits and the sun rises fast and ugly before six.

2 - Ext. HANK's Car - Morning - 2
HANK's 1989 Aries is parked outside the site's chain link fence. Its blue paint is faded and chipping.

3 - Int. HANK's Car - Morning - 3

HANK's cargo shorts are sticking to the driver's seat, his Hawaiian shirt soaked with sweat, a woven fedora doing little to conceal his shiny scalp and thinning, wispy hair. He's talking on the phone.

HANK
Listen man, you'll get the stuff or my name isn't Hank Havner.

A pause.

HANK
I know. I would have paid the rent last night if you had given me the cash, but now we lost the storage and I have to bid just like everyone el-

He is cut off. He listens. Whoever he's talking to doesn't sound happy.

HANK
Sorry - yeah - okay. I know, it's totally my fault. You don't have to do that.

A further pause.

HANK
I'll win the auction. It's all in boxes, and they're not allowed to open anything. No one will know any of it's mine or that it's worth anything. As long as I act casual, I'm just another bidder on some random crap.

A shorter pause, then:

HANK
Yeah, listen, they're about to start. I gotta get down there.

4 - Ext. Storage Facilities - Morning - 4

Wide shot. HANK gets out of his car and hustles down through the gate down towards where a crowd is gathered around outside of one the storage units.

Overlay on screen: STORAGE
Overlay on screen: FEATURING...

5 - Ext. Unit Eleven - Morning - 5

HANK approaches a group of around twenty or twenty-five people milling around outside storage unit eleven. He slows to a walk and examines the crowd. JAMES is standing on top of a milk crate right next to the unit's door, a head above the crowd.

Freeze frame on HANK. Overlay on screen: HANK HAVNER as THE PROTAGONIST.

On resuming: HANK bumps into LESLIE, who gives him a dirty look. She's a teenage girl with a prada purse and a scowl that could kill a plant. He doesn't notice and doesn't apologize.

Freeze frame on LESLIE, looking annoyed. Overlay on screen: LESLIE BRADFORD as THE OPPOSITION.

On resuming: JAMES glances at his watch.

JAMES
Okay everyone, settle down.

Freeze frame on JAMES. Overlay on screen: With JAMES SHURGARD as THE AUCTIONEER.

On resuming: WAYNE, a maintenance man at the storage place, strolls by at the back of the crowd. He looks over at JAMES.

Freeze frame on WAYNE: Overlay on screen: And WAYNE HUGHES as THE TWIST.

WAYNE walks on away from the crowd.

JAMES
Settle down folks! I'm not going to ask you again.

They settle down. JAMES looks pleased.

JAMES
The unit up for auction today just defaulted yesterday. I'm going to open up the doors here in a second, but I'd just like to remind everyone of the rules.

A collective groan goes up from the crowd, except for HANK, who looks more confused.

JAMES
You can't touch anything. Bid on what you see. After you win, you have until nine to get organized and clear everything out. Everyone understand?

There are murmurs of agreement.

JAMES
Good. I'll give you a few minutes.

JAMES jumps down to open the garage door to unit eleven. As it slides up, the crowd quiets down. There finally settles upon them a stifling silence. They stare.

Inside: boxes. Boxes and boxes and boxes, all stacked and closed and sealed sight.

And labelled, too. Every one of them, in thick black sharpie and all caps: "HANK HAVNER".

The crowd wanders into the unit. There is not much to see - just more boxes. They whisper quietly.

HANK follows, hanging towards the back.

6 - Int. Unit 11 - Morning - 6

The fluorescent overhead lights flicker on. Another CUSTOMER meanders over by HANK. Both are taking stock of the boxes.

CUSTOMER
Weird lot, huh?

HANK (indicating the rest of the crowd)
Oh yeah, these guys? Yeah, the weirdest! Is this your first time also?

CUSTOMER
I meant the lot that's up for auction.

HANK
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

There is an awkward pause.

HANK
What exactly do you look for in a... lot?

CUSTOMER
Well, different stuff. If everything's messy, it means the owner had a chance to rush through it before they lost the locks got changed. Containers with locks mean valuables sometimes. I have no idea what to expect with these, though. The neatness will drive the price up a little, I guess.

HANK grimaces. The CUSTOMER continues.

CUSTOMER
Sometimes you get lucky and get some jewelry or something, but for all we know this is some guy's collection of old newspapers. Well, not some guy. "Hank Havner," whoever that is.

HANK nods and wipes some sweat off his brow.

Over on the other side of the, LESLIE, on the phone, laughs loudly.

HANK (indicating LESLIE, to the CUSTOMER)
Who's that girl?

CUSTOMER
Leslie Bradford, daughter of the guy who owns the First Federal Bank down on Broad Street. She's not here to resell any of the winnings. She just likes pawing through people's old stuff. She's turned a lot of people off coming to these auctions because the only ones she loses are the ones she's not interested in. If you'll pardon my French, that girl is a real female dog!

HANK laughs weakly, nervous.

JAMES, from the outside, calls in.

JAMES
Alright, guys! Let's get this thing started.

The crowd moves back outside.

7 - Ext. Unit 11 - Morning - 7

JAMES
As usual, we're starting the bidding at a hundred fifty dollars, increments a' ten going up. Do I hear 150?

Someone raises a hand.

JAMES
150, do I hear 160 - 160, we have 160. 170?

HANK bids.

JAMES
170. 180? Who wants 180?

The bidding continues like this for a little while. As it reaches around 250, HANK turns to the CUSTOMER again.

HANK
What do - ah - what do most lots go for usually?

The CUSTOMER ponders the question.

CUSTOMER
If nothin' valuable's in sight, I'd estimate probably around three or four hundred dollars.

HANK raises his hand.

HANK
Four hundred dollars!

JAMES is surprised.

JAMES
Four hundred dollars! We're up to four hundred dollars here, do I hear more?

The crowd grumbles at JAMES. A few people walk off.

LESLIE
Four hundred fifty.

HANK is bothered.

HANK
Five hundred!

LESLIE (on his heels)
Five fifty.

There is a pause. HANK and LESLIE make tense eye contact, then turn to JAMES.

HANK
Six hundred.

LESLIE freezes. She looks over at HANK again.

LESLIE
What do you know that we don't, guy?

HANK laughs nervously.

HANK (weakly)
Oh, just curious, that's all.

LESLIE (to JAMES)
Seven hundred dollars!

JAMES
Eight hundre-

WAYNE (interrupting)
Hank?

There is silence. HANK looks around. WAYNE is standing outside the storage site's offices, dressed in his uniform, looking at disbelief at the crowd.

WAYNE (yelling, running over)
Oh my gosh, Hank! I thought I saw you. Jeez, man! I haven't seen you since high school. What are you doing back? I thought you moved.

HANK looks down, around, anywhere but at WAYNE, who is now walking right up to him.

WAYNE (mock-scolding)
Don't pull that on me, Hank Havner, I'd know that little red face anywhere!

HANK looks at LESLIE, who is open-mouthed with shock and joy.

WAYNE (incredulous, shaking his head)
Hank Havner. I don't believe-

Freeze on WAYNE, overlay: STORAGE.

Cymbalism

2010-03-18T22:12:00.012-04:00

Roland Meinl was always good with his digits, but when he switched from clarinet to drums his fingers jammed up and the math wouldn't slot quite right in his head. 12-8 time was the biggest problem - he had trouble getting the cymbal strokes tight. He knew what it should sound like, but he couldn't fit it in when he was doing everything at once.

In the mean time, though, he is focusing on his fiction.

"Just throw some symbolism in there," Euterpe says, settling down at the table across from him with a pop, "English teachers love that kind of stuff." She plays double-flute and used to sit next to Roland in the select band before he moved to the back with the rest of the hitters. They hang out in her kitchen a lot.

Euterpe hesitates. "Sorry. I don't mean to sound crass or demeaning or anything. I don't write much. I'm just saying it's about consistency. Pander to your audience."

That night, Roland tries to compose in his head while he works out that damned rhythm: tap-rest-tap-tap-tap-rest-tap-rest-tap-rest-tap-rest. After an hour his wrist is sore and his head is aching but he's somewhere, at least.

Redacted

2010-03-11T23:41:00.010-05:00

So here’s my advice: burn everything. Burn it all. Enjoy high school while you’re here, get the most out of it, and then get all the papers you wrote and learned from and just burn everything. Reasoning from history was always a bad idea; I don’t care what Alexander Keyssar says. I imagine the good stuff will stick with you, but don’t bother with evidence and for God's sake don't leave a legacy.

Azrael Pearlman: Harbinger of Death

2010-03-07T12:50:00.002-05:00

In March, Azrael Pearlman plays percussion in the pit orchestra for his school's production of Into The Woods. He likes the bass drum part the best - during the second act, when he shakes the earth with the giant's footsteps, when he crushes protagonists held so dearly in the hearts of the audience. He sees imperfection in the witch's character, trying to remain distant but growing attached regardless. Even the giant has its reasons for destruction, but those feet - those feet remain as unfeeling and detached as the fuzzy mallets that sound them out.

In April, Azrael's life returns to normal. He is glad for the extra time in the afternoons, but - and though he'd never tell you - he misses all the dread and silence that that drum brought in its wake. It's the kind of power you'd never give up if you didn't have to.

Notation Jokes

2010-03-05T11:31:00.004-05:00

Fianchetto was a beekeeper by trade and lived alone on his father's farm. After many years of solitude, he decided to teach his bees to play chess. There were too many of the insects to teach individually, of course, so he just showed the rules to a few and then let the word spread.

A few weeks later, Fianchetto played a game in which his opponent, a youthful worker drone, castled incorrectly on his king-side. The beekeeper knew that the older bees knew the rules very well, but he made a mental note to tell the Qb2+ on the younger ones.

Dear Snow, II

2010-02-16T19:35:00.002-05:00

I left a box of your sweatshirts and mixes on the stoop outside my house. I thought I could melt your heart, you frigid, flaky bastard. Don't call me.

Dear Snow,

2010-02-15T22:20:00.008-05:00

At 6:10, there is this moment where I do not know where I am. I have been sleeping on my arm and so won't move correctly, I don't know why I'm awake even though the radio is on, and I am under a small mountain of down comforter that smells like clean laundry. It's dark; I am perfect. Understand this, friend: this is perfection.

At 6:11, there is this moment where it all ends. I have to get up for school. The floor is cold. I cannot find my pants. The man on the radio is talking about the temperature outside, and I think I heard something about the low 20's.

Please, please - you do not have the power to change 6:10, it is already perfect. But 6:11 you can change. You can make 6:11 a moment of euphoria as great as 6:10. Let me roll back over and go to sleep. Let me contemplate the joys of waking up at 9:30 to a winter wonderland empty of state-sponsored doldrums. Please, please, please.

Your Loyal Friend,
Sam

P.S. Please.

Scenes 11: Marathon Edition

2010-02-07T22:00:00.001-05:00

One: Friday
I have never gotten out of the parking lot faster. Thank you for being a part of that.

Two: Saturday
There is never a way we're going to get three people on that sled, but I think we feel it is worth a shot anyway. I mean what have we got to lose, besides our lives and stuff?

Three: Sunday
It turns out I look psychotic in a balaclava.

Twist Endings

2010-02-07T18:00:00.004-05:00

MONICA smiles.

MONICA
Do I have to say something?

A beat. SAM types.

MONICA (chuckling)
I guess that means yes.

She stares at SAM, possibly annoyed?

MONICA
This is a lot of pressure, Sam. Also it's not a conversation. You're just typing... what I say.

Silence.

SAM
I am iron man!

CUT TO CREDITS, CUE AWESOME HARDCORE ROCK MUSIC.

Physics Library

2010-02-07T14:00:00.002-05:00

If anyone is interested in listening to the original Diplomat's son, go to VampireWeekend.com and then just click on the song you want. It's a very different flavor.

Death Comes to Tulson County

2010-02-07T10:00:00.004-05:00

February 8, 2010; 8:37 AM: Death Comes to Tulson County, Pennsylvania

It's warm for February, and he's driving on the interstate.

8:49 AM: Death Leaves Tulson County

He thought the toll prices were very reasonable.

This Is True

2010-02-07T06:00:00.004-05:00

Snakes are the sort of wild animal you do not see a lot of, and I have been thinking. Squirrels you see a lot of, birds you see a lot of. Deer you see a lot of, too, even if you wouldn't know it from how people stop their cars and stare out the window like aliens have touched down. But not snakes.

I found this snake one day in December after school on a two-hour-delay day. He was languishing in the snow next to the spot in the driveway where I park my car. I tortured him with a stick for a bit, grabbed my camera to snap a few pictures, and then went inside promptly forgot about him.

The snow melted a few days later, and I found him dead under a bush in the yard.

Snakes are the sort of wild animal you do not see a lot of, and I have been thinking: it might be because they crawl under bushes and die.

Chapters

2010-02-07T02:00:00.005-05:00

ONE: I DESPISE LEMON TEA

Yeah, I mean this isn't just not liking lemon tea. He despises this stuff. Lemon tea drove to his house and killed his mom.

TWO: SLEEP TIGHT

It seems like something you would do loosely. I mean like tight is sort of the opposite of relaxed. What was the plan here?

THREE: WHEN IT GETS WARM WE COULD PLAY ULTIMATE AND THEN EAT REESE'S AFTERWARDS I WAS THINKING MAYBE HOT SHOWERS FOLLOWED BY A GAME OF BOGGLE

Yes. Absolutely yes.

One Poem, Two Minutes

2010-02-06T22:00:00.004-05:00

When indeed I buy a steed
I'll name her Alligator Lead
and buy her Eucalyptus plants
and cargo pants and army ants
And though she'll one day run from here
(Of this I'm certain; I asked a seer)
I'll never look to bring her home

For every horse is meant to roam.

Grounded

2010-02-06T18:00:00.006-05:00

They were the kind of kids who could have flown but were too worried future employers might see them trying to learn.

Mostly Harmless

AN ESSAY

BROOKS HOUSE: AN OKAY PLACE TO LIVE

Setting Alarms (Rewrite)

The Money Cut

Notes

VICTOR RHODES, PRIMARY RANDOMIZATION EDITOR

Pets Die

Intersection

The Remote: Part III

The Remote: Part II

The Remote: Part I

Jeremy Silverberg, 37, Upon His Graduation From Life

Powers

Easy Furniture

Lists: Camp Edition

Herbert Dainer Knows The World is Ending Tomorrow

Family (Sketch)

Barton Shows Up Drunk To Her House

Reasons to Lie Still in Bed

Little Things

Seasons, Drinking

This

March

Briefly Imagined Conversations

Yes Indeed

In Death, as in Life

Office Hours

The Bat-Mobile (Revisited)

A Great Flood

The Bat-Mobile

Setting Alarms

Wrapping Paper

Winter

For Once, Regarding Friendship

Snoverwhelmed

Lists

Weather

Similes

Conversations after the End of the World

The Nighttime Adventures of Huron and Victoria

Notes

Effective Communication

Notes

Two Weeks at Rokenbok Construction

You Got This One (Two)

A History

A Historical Conclusion

More History

A Brief Interruption

An Even Further History of Mostly Harmless

A Further History of Mostly Harmless

A History of Mostly Harmless

More Love Stories

How To Write a Love Song

You Got This One

The Ascent

With Apologies to Daniel Handler

Amy Vanderbilt and the Rude Zombies

Variations

This Isn't a Love Story

How to Play Frisbee in the Rain

Brevity!

Notes

Very Angry Commercials

Nights

Why Would You Tell Me That

Evidence, Evidence

One Cloud (Underwater)

Scenes 12

Track

All Snared Up

Three Minutes from the Day it Rained Watermelon

So Many

Systems

Swing That

Love and Videogames

That's So Right

In December, Drinking Horchata

Whoa!