Josh Writes a Blog

A Life Blog about My Life, Dawg

  • pettygrove park, 9.28.17

    He smokes on a park bench
    By the stone garbage can,
    Scrolling mindlessly
    On his phone.
    Probably reading sports things.
    He looks like a guy
    Who reads sports things
    On his phone during his lunch break,
    And knows stats on all the players,
    Which he memorized in his “man cave.”
    The bald spot on his head
    Looks like he wore a
    Yarmulke too long,
    And the hair underneath
    Withered away.
    It’s perfectly circular.

  • pettygrove park, 9.27.17

    Man in suit
    standing amid park trees,
    between the two hill mounds,
    on the concrete
    where the Aztecs danced
    for the white people.
    Gray suit, nice suit,
    tailored and trimmed,
    blue shirt, no tie.
    Standing stylishly in the center,
    on hold, his phone to his ear.
    Standing stylishly because
    he is in the center
    and someone nice
    might walk by and look at him.
    Left hand in pocket,
    black eyeglasses, short spiked hair.
    Broad shouldered
    or just nice shoulder pads
    in his gray suit.
    He left, unable to reach his party.

  • 3 five-syllable sonnets

    CCXXIII
    dreaded emptiness
    fills my vacant lungs
    like absent ichor
    desperate for nothing–
    satiated by
    the vacuum of my
    loneliness. behind,
    an anxious beating
    heart continues its
    vapid advancement
    toward obsolescence.
    and submerged in this,
    a flailing brain, too
    self-absorbed to care.

    CCXXIV
    indeterminate,
    the beats of the heart,
    prior to your own
    death. impossible
    to count, they ravage
    onward toward ex-
    haustion, and with them,
    you. you had no say
    in this, no power
    over your own heart
    and its context. you,
    replete with feelings,
    destined for the dirt
    and meal for earthworms.

    CCXXV
    happiness eludes
    me, perpetual
    sand sifting through my
    outstretched fingers. i
    am obsequious
    to lingering doubt,
    held in position
    by neverending
    question, festering
    through languid meaning.
    i know nothing of
    happiness. i trudge
    through morose thickets
    in eternal search.

  • some thoughts concerning the latest game of thrones episode

    I’ve never done this before but goddammit I have thoughts. SPOILERS, obviously. (this is for S7E4, for when future me reads this and is like “WTF is wrong with me?”)

    • Jaime Fucking Lannister. Okay walk with me here. Here’s a guy, finest swordsman in Westeros, right, gets his fucking hand chopped off so early in the series I can’t even remember how good of a swordsman he was purported to be. This guy’s gone through some shit, alright? So if he fucking dies from drowning, I will, I don’t know, I’ll fucking move to Greenland, I don’t even know. If the Hound can end up alive, so can Jaime. (Also I presume Bronn or Dickon *giggle* saved him and will drag him to shore, where Dany will try to kill him but then Tyrion will be like “No my queen” and maybe they hold him hostage against Cersei who’s like “I don’t care about him, just kill him” and then maybe they kill him and THAT’S the saddest thing ever.) My point is, Jaime keeps getting shit on and I don’t like it.
    • I am not a Dany fan. I’m House Stark 100%, probably because I come from a lower middle class-to-downright poor family, and I suspect the Starks are like the “good ol’ boys” of Westeros, relatable by virtue of their northern England dialect. So watching Bronn shoot that fucking dragon was the best. I literally was saying “Shoot that dragon” as I watched the episode. Now look: watching Dany wander Essos for however many seasons we’re on now (12? 34?) meant a lot of buildup with little payoff, until now. Watching the Emo Riders of Rohan attack the Lannister troop was awesome, partially because–despite being told earlier in the episode–I didn’t expect Dany to come in on a dragon. I dug this because, again, she’s been thirsting for this for years and then everyone’s like “No you shouldn’t burn everyone up with dragons” and she’s like, “Why the hell else would I have dragons then, huh?” I think her ultimate weakness, though, is that I don’t think she can control what the dragons specifically can do unless she’s riding one of them, which means whenever she needs precision work it means she is vulnerable because she’s on it. But man when Bronn had that ballista out I was like Fuck Yeah Bronn you shoot the shit out of that dragon. (However, why did they have the ballista in the first place? Were they transporting it? Or were they just like “We better have this just in case”?)
    • It also was dumb of Jaime to charge a dragon but it was also kind of cool.
    • Davos Seaworth is the Yamcha of the GoT universe. I had mentioned this on Facebook before, but this show is turning into DBZ in the sense that you’ve got the big players (Jon Snow, Cersei, etc) making big moves, and then you have these people that had big roles who are falling by the wayside. Like Brienne, used to be major but now she’s like fucking Piccolo. And if that’s the case then Arya’s Gohan. Sort of. Just go with me on this. Tyrion is Krillin but only because he’s short.
    • I was really hoping that when Missandei was getting all smiley about the Unsullied, Dany would be like “What’s up with you?” and Missandei would say, “Oh nothing, just that Grey Worm ate me out like Chinese takeout the other night and it was amazing.” Would’ve been a nice bonding moment between them.
    • Where the hell is Jon Snow going to get all the people to mine that dragon glass? Also, dragon glass is just obsidian, right? If so, is obsidian in Westeros magical or something? I’m still unclear on that.
    • For real when Theon and Jon Snow met I was like, “I can’t even remember if Jon hates Theon or not.”
    • So one of Dany’s dragons is named Drogon? How did I miss that? It’s like, “Hey, that’s a beautiful cat, what’s her name?” “Cot.” “Cot? Your cat’s name is Cot?” “Yeah.” “Well okay.”
    • “What’s your dog’s name?” “Dag.”
    • “Lovely horse.” “Thanks, his name is Harse.”
    • I wonder if Aiden Gillen knows that his Littlefinger voice is quite possibly one of the most grating voices ever? I’m sure he does. I can barely listen to that guy because of his voice. He sounds like he’s constantly holding in pot smoke. Or like he’s constantly playing the bassoon but there’s no instrument there. He’s constantly doing “stage whisper.” Guy needs to use his diaphragm.
    • Jon’s like “Hey Dany there are some cave drawings in here and fucking Da Vinci drew this portrait of the Night King by the way.” I mean compare it to this cave painting we did thousands of years ago, of what appear to be a bunch of ETs hanging out with some bulls. I know the Children of the Corn Forest are supposed to be some kind of magical beings but did they study at the Rhode Island School of Design or someshit?
    • Brandon Stark is like that guy in high school who did shrooms one time and from that moment on became a scholar on mycology. You’d be like, “Hey Greg you wanna go to the beach party this weekend?” and he’d calmly say, “No, I must tend to my fungi,” and then occasionally you’d see him tripping at the grocery store, staring at the frozen peas like they were telling him secrets.

  • How U.S. Presidential Elections Work

    Every election cycle, people start talking about the Electoral College and how it works, and unfortunately a lot of you are deeply misinformed about the process, which can result in some nasty arguments and bad words slung to and fro. So I thought I’d shed some light and how electors actually work. Consider this a crash course in U.S. politics!

    In a presidential election, you vote for one out of however many candidates are on the ballot. This is called the “popular vote” because it counts every actual human being who voted. However, the Founding Fathers were concerned about the entire populace voting (mostly I think because they thought people were idiots), so they created “electors,” which are people who vote for a group of other people, based on population size within a state. Idaho, for example, has 4 electoral votes because the state’s population is small enough that they only get four.

    The electors are appointed by their party to vote for that party if a sizable amount of the population in their state also votes for that party. However, an elector’s “vote” is hardly that; instead of a simple ballot with a circle they fill in, the electors vote by writing down a recipe, typically one handed down to them by their mother or grandmother. This recipe must include at least three ingredients; this was clarified after the 1884 election in which one of Grover Cleveland’s elector’s recipes — for “cereal” — included only milk and corn flakes and was deemed, after a lengthy debate, to be not a recipe but just the addition of milk to a dry cereal.

    These recipes are gathered and then sent to Congress, where a committee headed by the House majority whip read and review each recipe by having the congressional kitchen cook or bake them, and then sampling each concoction during what’s known as Washington’s Feast. The best recipe is deemed the winner. Typically, since the president with more electoral votes wins the presidency, more electoral votes also means a better pool of recipes with which to win, though there have been some upsets in the past: in 1848, for example, one of Lewis Cass’s electors provided a scrumptious recipe for “bread with meatballs” (the prototype for what later would be known as a meatball sub) which actually won the recipe competition, but was not enough to win against Zachary Taylor.

    Why was this? Well, once a recipe wins, the food is given to the current sitting president and his spouse, where they dine together one last time in the white house. During the dinner it is customary to allow some of the food to fall to the floor as scraps for the presidential pet. (This is why presidents have pets, by the way.) If the pet devours the scraps, then the dinner is considered satisfactory and the president approval means they believe the candidate should win. In Cass’s case, however, Zachary Taylor’s dog Erasmus refused to eat a meatball which plopped onto the floor; it was later discovered that Erasmus was suffering from extreme canine arthritis and refused to eat anything, and was shot on the white house lawn several days later.

    You’re probably asking: shouldn’t it be unlawful for the president to choose the next president vis a vis what their dog eats? The answer is: yes! The Constitution expressly forbids any pet of an elected official to choose the outcome of an election. What happens next is that when the president approves the president-elect, he then hires four surly men (traditionally sailors) to fight over whether the president’s approval counts. The fight is typically fisticuffs over a long weekend, though in recent days “fight” has been interpreted with debate, competitions, and even playing Call of Duty multiplayer.

    Whoever is left standing at the end becomes the winner, and thus becomes the “superelectorate.” The superelectorate’s job is to talk to the Presidential Oracle, which is located inside the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. The Oracle is a small bird, usually a robin or a sparrow, who nests inside the Bell and will only speak to whomever becomes the superelectorate. The superelectorate must tell the Oracle who the president has decreed will be the next president, and then sit next to the bell for three days and three nights; on the morning of the fourth day, the Oracle will tweet, and the number of times it tweets from dawn until the sun hits its zenith determines who will become the president. By the end of this part of the election cycle, the superelectorate will have gone certifiably insane and the Bill of Rights requires that they be released into the wilds of West Virginia. The superelectorate is at that point considered a feral creature for the purposes of social security.

    News of the election results is whispered by a series of goldfish in bowls set up in two feet increments from Philadelphia to Washington D.C., where the final goldfish speaks the results directly to an Asian man (no one knows why it must be an Asian man). The fish usually whisper, for example, “Hillary pres,” as they are encouraged to keep the message brief to not allow embarrassing, telephone game-esque blunders, like in 1908 when the last fish to reach D.C. proclaimed “Wilson Hambrand Taffy” the “Personmate of the You Neighed, Ted Stapes Purple Monkey Dishwasher.”

    Also, the last fish is typically eaten by the newly elected president on Inauguration Day.

    So, it may seem strange and weird, how our presidential election works, but in truth it couldn’t be more simpler: a party appoints an elector for a state, who submits a recipe to the Presidential Feast; the winning recipe is cooked for the president, and if their dog eats a scrap it means the president approves them; then the president has four sailors fight — the last one standing becomes the superelectorate and must sit under the Liberty Bell for three days until the Oracle (a bird) tells him who the winner is; then the superelectorate tells a goldfish who then whispers to other goldfish in bowls until the last goldfish in D.C. tells an Asian man who the president is.

    I hope you’ll keep all of this in mind as you send in your ballots this election season. Democracy is a right, but it does not come easily!

  • the state of things

    I gave up my blog for nearly a year so I could write a bunch of monologues. As with most of my ventures these days, it ended with a sense of ambivalence. I wrote some good stuff, I wrote some bad stuff. I pretended song lyrics were monologues during FAWM. I wrote part of a NaNoWriMo novel in first person, pretending those were monologues. I delved a bit into my own battles with depression, a thing I keep meaning to write about but end up not doing because, of course, I don’t think it’s worthy of your time. (Then again, this is my blog, and if you’re reading it then you obviously have devoted time to it.) It’s funny; in my teens and part way into my 20s I spent a lot of time being open and introspective about my own life. I’d write tons of material on Diaryland and LiveJournal–completely open for people to read (which got me in trouble a couple of times). I did it so much that I realized I was being repetitious and I guess I decided I didn’t like that. Not for me, per se, but for you, the reader, whomever you may be. My repetitions were usually negative in nature and being repetitious about how I’m bad at dating or how I suck because I don’t want to go out ever ground me down like a weathered rock on a riverbed. Polished, but dull, lacking edges. Same as all the other rocks.

    So later on I just gave up writing things. I decided to be introspective in my own head. Folks, that’s not the best idea. Ideas in your head roll around forever, they get stuck there, trapped in your consciousness until you let them out. And I’ve always been a man who needed an outlet, especially for my creativity, which tends to diffuse sadness or depression vis a vis working distraction. Taking my problems and internalizing them to the extent that I have been has only pulled me down, in ways I didn’t know I could be pulled. I’m still climbing out of that pit. Writing monologues was an excuse to be creative every day, to try and inhabit another person’s mind for at least an hour or two a day. Truth is, some days I forgot and had to make up for them later. Other days I didn’t want to get out of bed. And then around June my job got so busy that I didn’t really have the energy to devote to writing monologues, so I stopped prematurely. Not bothered by that one bit. I wrote 267 monologues! That’s nothing to sneeze at. (Sneeze at? Did I just make that up?)

    Point is: I think my goal for this blog now is to continue being introspective, to be honest with myself, and to write about my life in a way that, I hope, is accessible to everyone who cares to read it. Because I always want an audience, but I think the audience wants to see me be honest with them, and not hide. On the other hand: I hate when I talk about what this blog is about. Who fucking cares. It’s a goddamn blog. It could be about my favorite hot dogs, who gives a shit? Just write you big dummy.

  • CELEBRITY JEOPARDY: 2016 Presidential Election Edition

    CAST:

    WILL FERRELL as ALEX TREBEK

    ALEC BALDWIN as DONALD TRUMP

    JEFF GOLDBLUM as GARY JOHNSON

    DARRELL HAMMOND as SEAN CONNERY

    FADE IN on Jeopardy set.

    TREBEK: Hello and welcome to Jeopardy. As always I am your host, Alex Trebek. Tonight’s celebrity episode is politically-themed, in honor of the upcoming presidential election — and yet, looking at our contestants, I feel certain that this may be the dumbest Celebrity Jeopardy yet. Still, we saunter on. Let’s introduce our three contestants. First, Republican candidate and man of great words, Donald Trump.

    TRUMP: Alex, before we begin I just want to say that the other contestants here are worthless piles of human garbage who have never owned a thing of beauty in their entire lives.

    TREBEK: That is quite harsh, Mr. Trump.

    (TRUMP gives his smug sour face.)

    TREBEK: Next we have Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson.

    JOHNSON: Who?

    TREBEK: You. Gary Johnson.

    JOHNSON: Never heard of him.

    TREBEK (dumbfounded): Ah. Okay. And finally, we were supposed to have Hillary Clinton as the third contestant but she declined due to suffering from pneumonia during our taping.

    TRUMP (too close to mic): She has a terrible immune system —

    TREBEK: That’s enough, Mr. Trump. After Mrs. Clinton declined we offered the third spot to Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, but she also declined due to Mercury being in retrograde. We even tried getting a hold of Vermin Supreme, the presidential candidate who wears a boot on his head, but his calls went straight to voicemail.
    (sighs)
    And so, unfortunately, here’s Sean Connery.

    CONNERY: Ha ha! We meet again Trebek!

    TREBEK: Truly we are like the Sherlock and Moriarty of game shows.

    CONNERY: No, Trebek, I’m the Holmes.

    TREBEK: Is that so?

    CONNERY: The John Holmes! Ha ha! (grabs junk)

    TREBEK: Good lord.

    CONNERY (off camera, shouting): I HAVE A LARGE PENIS —

    TREBEK: We get it, Mr. Connery.

    CONNERY: Your mother got it last night —

    TRUMP: If I may interrupt, John Holmes had a very tiny penis compared to my penis. My penis, is huge. You’ll never see a larger penis than mine. It’s been documented.

    (CAMERA cuts back to TREBEK, who has loosened his tie and is opening a bottle of cheap whiskey. He takes a swig.)

    TREBEK: Let’s just get this over with. Here are our categories for Double Jeopardy: “U.S. History,” “Cars That End With ‘-ord’”, “Trebek Answers” — in this category, if you choose it, and I hope you do, I will read the clue and then also answer it and you will win. It’s really that simple — “Potent Potables,” “Current Events,” and “ ‘Ripoff’ Art”. This category is about famous artists and the art they stole from.

    TRUMP: What is Led Zeppelin.

    TREBEK: I haven’t even begun, Mr. Trump.

    TRUMP: They stole all their music, Robert Plant told me personally backstage in 1975 after a six hour cocaine binge. (Sniffs loudly.) It’s all over the news.

    TREBEK: Great. Mr. Johnson, you have control of the board. Might I suggest picking “Trebek Answers”.

    TREBEK: Mr. Johnson.

    TRUMP (to Gary): He’s talking to you, Gary.

    JOHNSON: Oh. Me? Yes. Ah, ha ha, of course. (sticks tongue out briefly) If I am elected president I will ensure that our civil liberties shall not be infringed upon —

    TREBEK: I’m sorry, Mr. Johnson, but this is not a presidential debate. It’s Jeopardy.

    JOHNSON: What is that?

    TREBEK: It’s the television show you agreed to be on.

    JOHNSON: “Television”?

    TREBEK: Just … please pick a topic from the board in front of you. Hopefully “Trebek Answers.”

    JOHNSON: Ah, uh … I’ll take “Current Events” for $200.

    TREBEK (reads): “This event, currently happening in the U.S., has its Election Day on November 8th, 2016.”
    (No answer.)
    November 8th, 2016. I’ll give you a hint: you’re in it right now.

    (TRUMP buzzes.)

    TREBEK: Mr. Trump.

    TRUMP: Miss America pageant.

    TREBEK: No.

    TRUMP (close to mic): Wrong.

    (CONNERY buzzes.)

    TREBEK: Mr. Connery.

    CONNERY: What is my penis?

    TREBEK: No.

    CONNERY: But I’m sure it’ll be having a big erection on —

    TREBEK: Mr. Connery that is enough.

    CONNERY: It wasn’t enough for your mother, Trebek!

    (JOHNSON buzzes.)

    TREBEK: Thank god. Mr. Johnson.

    JOHNSON: Who?

    TREBEK: You.

    JOHNSON: Me?

    TREBEK: Yes, you.

    JOHNSON: What about me?

    TREBEK: What is your answer?

    JOHNSON: To what?

    TREBEK: To the clue I just gave you.

    JOHNSON: What clue?

    (“Too late” buzzer sounds.)

    TREBEK: Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore. Mr. Johnson, you still have control of the board.

    JOHNSON: The what?

    TREBEK: The board.

    JOHNSON (tongue sticking out): Tha wha?

    CONNERY: Ah, trying to impress Trebek with your tongue length. We’ll see about that! (Sticks out tongue.)

    TRUMP: Listen, I have the longest tongue, Sean Hannity knows I have the longest tongue, he’s seen my tongue, it’s a good tongue, you can call him, he’ll tell you. (Sticks out tongue.)

    (All three of them have their tongues out.)

    TREBEK: Somebody check the tapes, but I am pretty sure this is a new low for Celebrity Jeopardy: three grown men with their tongues out. Gentlemen. Please keep your tongues inside your mouths at all times.

    JOHNSON: Our whats?

    TREBEK: Your TONGUES — oh nevermind. Mr. Trump, pick a topic.

    TRUMP: Picking topics I am great at. It’s the greatest thing I do. I’ll take “Trump” for one million.

    TREBEK: There is no “Trump” topic.

    TRUMP: Yes there is.

    TREBEK: No there’s not.

    TRUMP (close to mic): Wrong.

    TREBEK: Mr. Trump, please just say “I’ll take ‘Trebek Answers’ for $1,000.”

    TRUMP: I never said that.

    TREBEK: I … I know. Just say it out loud, right now.

    TRUMP: It’s always the same, the liberal lamestream media, always wanting to put words into my mouth that I never said. Sad! Hold on I’m gonna tweet that. (Goes to tweet.)

    TREBEK: … Mr. Connery?

    CONNERY: I’ll take “Rip A Fart” for $300.

    (CAMERA on “ ‘Ripoff’ Art.” Then to TREBEK’s face, CONNERY laughing in background.)

    TREBEK: That’s … Ripoff Art.

    CONNERY: Yes. Rip a fart.

    TREBEK (overenunciating): Rip. Off. Art.

    CONNERY: If you say so Trebek! (Farts.)

    TREBEK: Good god almighty.

    TRUMP: Hey, I happen to know for a fact that Sean Connery’s farts are awful and pale in comparison to my excellent farts. I have the best farts, you can check the tapes. I eat gold-flaked caviar every day for lunch. Check this out. (Farts.)

    CONNERY: Ha, you call that a fart? (Farts again.)

    TRUMP: Now this is the type of debate I like! (Farts.)

    (They start a farting war. TREBEK sounds an AIR HORN multiple times until they stop.)

    TREBEK: FINAL JEOPARDY.

    TRUMP: Wait. We need to check Gary’s farts.

    TREBEK: No we don’t.

    TRUMP: It’s only fair Alex. You give one candidate time to fart you gotta give equal time to the other candidates. That’s how it works. Gary, give us a big wet one you weird-looking dude.

    JOHNSON: What?

    TRUMP: You look like a claymation golem under a heat lamp. Give us a fart.

    CONNERY: Rip a fart! Come on you bloody coward!

    (JOHNSON hesitates, then lets off a squeaker. CONNERY laughs wildly, TRUMP makes his sour face and does a “so-so” gesture with his hand.)

    TRUMP (close to mic): I’ve heard better, Alex.

    (CAMERA on TREBEK, who has a pistol to his temple.)

    TREBEK: I’m going to do it. I swear to God I am going to do it. If we do not get a correct answer in Final Jeopardy I am going to murder myself live on air. It truly will be a “Final” Jeopardy.

    TRUMP: Now that’s great television.

    TREBEK: Your Final Jeopardy clue is: “Draw a shape.”
    (as music plays)
    That’s right, draw a shape. Any shape. A circle, a triangle, if you are feeling brave even a square. Anything that is considered a shape will win. Any shape at all.
    (music ends)
    Mr. Trump, you are first. Let us see, did you draw a shape?

    (On TRUMP’s display: “TRUMP”.)

    TREBEK: Ah. (to JUDGES offscreen) Judges, would you consider the enclosed loop in the R or the P a “shape”? It’s kind of like a circle, flattened on one end, wouldn’t you say? Please understand that if you say no, I will murder myself, and my wife will be a widow.
    (Beat.)
    I see. Life is meaningless. Mr. Trump, your answer is incorrect. How much did you wager?

    (On TRUMP’s display: “STEAKS”. CAMERA on TRUMP, he’s holding a vacuum-sealed steak.)

    TRUMP: Trump Steaks are the greatest steaks you’ll ever eat. They are from the best beef in a tiny impoverished village in Cambodia, or Colomba, something like that. I have kids working overtime to slaughter these cows. We slaughter so many cows. We’re the best at it.

    TREBEK: You … wagered your own steak.

    (CAMERA on TRUMP, making his sour face with the steak close to his face.)

    TREBEK: Okay. Mr. Johnson, what — where is Mr. Johnson?

    (CAMERA on JOHNSON’s podium, no one is there.)

    TREBEK: Mr. Johnson seems to have left the stage. Oh well. What did he draw?

    (On JOHNSON’s display: nothing.)

    TREBEK: Of course. How could I be so stupid. The wager?

    (On JOHNSON’s display: “Aleppo”)

    TREBEK: I … I want to say goodbye to my wife Jean, and to my two children, Matthew and Emily, whom I love very, very much. Daddy is going to a better place, I promise you.
    (to CONNERY)
    Mr. Connery, my arch-nemesis. Only you can save me from the loving embrace of permanent death. What did you draw?

    (On CONNERY’s display: a circle with a dot inside.)

    TREBEK: Oh my god. Mr. Connery, you’ve done it. You drew a circle. You drew an actual circle! You drew a shape. Oh thank god.
    (to CAMERA)
    I’m so sorry Jean, Matthew, Emily, I’m so sorry I’ve worried you. I’m coming home tonight. I’m coming home.
    (to CONNERY)
    What was your wager?

    (On CONNERY’s display: reveals the circle is the head of a cock and balls. CONNERY laughs wildly.)

    CONNERY: Told’ya I’d have a big erection! Ha ha! Ha ha ha!

    (TREBEK pauses, then lifts gun to head. STAGEHANDS run in and grab his arms.)

    TREBEK (as they drag him off screen): That’s all the time we have. Jean I’ll see you at the hospital. Good night.

    FADE OUT.

  • 267: ulryaeus, exhaler of the north, bringer of peace to the nearly dead (padora)

    [hokoran, inhaler and high priest of padora, lays unresponsive and dying on an altar covered in fresh white linens. ulryaeus stands behind the altar, and in front of him is a packed amphitheater full of padorans and civilians alike. ulryaeus speaks with grave solemnity.]

    my name is ulryaeus, exhaler of the north, bringer of peace to the nearly dead. i am here in the breeze of padora’s breath to release the breath from high priest hokoran, inhaler and beacon of light and justice for our people. i have known hokoran for many decades now, many days providing for our sects, many nights arguing philosophy and theology of our goddess. hokoran’s voice was free from pain, free from suffering, as he believed all suffering in this world was merely a tool toward greater enlightenment. for that he is the utmost exhaler in my opinion, but he refused to agree, stating that his enlightenment was directed toward the greater good and the preservation of mankind, and that to await padora’s final exhalation was to find pessimism in a world which required none. in him i found the balance between our faiths, and the true representation of padora–as a divine source of inspiration, and as a living force which feeds us all, no matter if she is breathing in, or breathing out. in her breath we are alive, and in her breath we should choose to live.

    it is with a heavy, heavy heart that i remove the breathe from my long time friend and compatriot. hokoran’s duty to padora will be hard to fill. peace be with you brother, and may your own breath mingle with padora’s winds for all eternity.

    [ulryaeus raises a dagger and slides it into hokoran’s heart. the amphitheater breaks out in traditional songs of mourning.]

  • 266: courtney (body language)

    i am very conscious of your body language, trevor. i see you hunched over like that, brooding, like “the thinker” except you’re leaning sexily against a wall. cigarette dangling from your lip. trying to damn hard to make me want you. you give off this aura of mystery, like you’re some kind of enigma, but we all know, especially when we go to bed with you, or when we go to dinner with you, or even five minutes alone at a bar–we know who you really are; a nervous, anxious wreck of a man desperately clinging on to some semblance of humanity. it’s tremendously obvious, and it’s almost funny how dead-set you are on trying to hide it. it’s like trying to hide the stench of body odor with dab of water to the armpits. your energy permeates you, it infuses you, it anchors every aspect of your being to the earth. and we see it. we all see it. we watch you wallow in it while you attempt to give off this concept that you’re okay. well, you’re not, trevor. none of us are. so drop the bullshit and just talk to me.

  • 265: sally (the raise)

    did anyone see that meteor in the sky last night? god it was huge! and so bright, it nearly lit up the sky like daylight for a second there. amazing. what do you think it means? i’m not, you know, into astrology or any of that, but a meteor is a special sighting. it’s gotta mean something. maybe it means i’m finally going to get that raise i’ve always wanted. maybe the light from the meteor entered mr. perkins’ eyes and showed him just how good of an employee i am. maybe at any moment he will walk into my office and say, “sally, you are the best employee we have. here’s a 10% raise.” yeah, that’s gotta be it. this is the cosmos telling me my time is now, that i have opportunities to chase and grasp, that i have people to find and use for my own success. that sounds awful but it must be true! it must be. i have to go, i need to get back to my desk so that mr. perkins will find me and give me a huge raise. i’m sorry i implied you were worse employees than me! bye!