The Tree
We set up a fine tree this year. Did it up just right, and the...

The Gun Thanksgiving
It was a Gun Thanksgiving, once again. Yay! We just left the goddamn plates there...

The Clip-Ons
It is extremely bright here. The altitude, the low-story buildings, it all adds up. How...

FM-TV
I would like to hereby thank a program called FM-TV that showed on late nights...

The Meat Restaurant
In San Francisco I went to a meat restaurant. Handsome men parade around with various...

Sweaty Doldrums
Just got back from summer vacation and boy is my sunburn carcinogenic! AH HA HA...

Wherein I Stop Reading
OK so earlier today I resolved to stop reading. Reading was ruining me and making...

Boo Hoo Hoo
Just waiting for something good to happen. Just tensed and waiting. Anything good. And you...

Complicated Feelings About Mustard
We celebrated the Fourth of July by seeing the decidedly unamerican Howl’s Moving Castle (not...

On Flanging
“The name flanging comes from the original method of creation, which involved playing the same...

The Spirit Quest
I just got the best job offer: “The Spirit Quest project is the build of...

The Eyebrow
OK forget what I said before about living in a rustic house. Last night this...

Jelly Jars Et Alia
This space is not just for being maudlin but also for jotting down things for...

Two Thousand Songs
So last night I started making a music playlist, trying vainly to subdivide the swollen...

The B-Hole
Here’s me in the car today: “Choose a lane, you fucking b-hole!” Why would I...

Father's Day Cards
OK I’m over at the grocery store trying to find some decent Father’s Day cards,...

Berkowitz Heat
OK friend this is like David Berkowitz heat going on now. The cat looks dead...

Sunkist C'mon
Sunkist seriously why you gotta be that way. Why you gotta be there in the...

Your Lack Of Perfection
Tonight Alexis was saying how you learn artistic techniques to help cover up what you’re...

That Flashing Phone Light
My neighbors are the elderly parents of my landlord. The mom is basically deaf. Just...

Today For A Living
Today, for a living, I wrote a four-paragraph blurb which used the same key phrase...

Oh Lord Hold On
WTF. You know sometimes you’ll be listening to a song you’ve heard 10,000 times before...

Sit And/Or Spin
The day we haul the AC out of the basement and shove it into the...

Stab City
McNichol et al. in Stab City offer this Madriz quote: “Malus will hit its schedule....

Fantasy No. 1033
Sometimes I fantasize about refusing to accept a major award....

Voices I Find Comforting
Voices I find comforting: Alexis, Jesse, Peter Gabriel, Freddie Mercury, Bob Mould, Josh Homme, Black...

Whatever Disintegration
Everyone’s so nuts for Disintegration. And I can get it, I guess, but I’m not...

The Freshening
True story here about me sneezing just now? And wondering what exactly would happen to...

CHX
You know me and the chicken salad. You know because we’re like this. Oh wait...

Fetid
I have been sick all week. My eyelids are sealed shut. Swallowing is like being...

The Flywheel
What do you do on the weekends? Please post your response in comments SIKE!! there...

The Pullthru
Fyeah I pull through. Why would you think I do not pull through. Why would...

Chunks & Pouches
You know when great big chunks of brown snow get caught up behind your tires?...

The Kind Of Man I Am
People ask me hey what kind of man are you. What is your deal. And...

Shit From The Future
You know when you take a shit and it’s sort of gray and perfectly cylindrical?...

Multi-Party Conversation At Haircutting Place
VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT OF MULTI-PARTY CONVERSATION AT HAIRCUTTING PLACE (CONSTANT UPROARIOUS LAUGHTER DELETED) “You know what...

Dark Tidings At Payless
I want to bed my new double-thick insoles. The shameless sluts! So decadent! So indulgent!...

Running A Website For Eight Years
TWENTY THINGS I’VE LEARNED FROM RUNNING A WEBSITE FOR EIGHT YEARS The ladies go flat-out...

Only Four Months Till Leap Day
Only four months till Leap Day. I’m all distracted, only catching the middles of sentences...

Of The Farthingham Allens
People are always coming up to me and saying: “Josh? Josh Allen? Of the Farthingham...

My Perm Is A Total Disaster!
My perm is a total disaster! It smells like dead poodle for reals! I am...

I Have Successfully Sterilized Myself
Dear Doctor, is it true that I have successfully sterilized myself by not removing my...

Here's How My Day Goes
Illegible faxes have been pouring in. JOSH WHERE ARE YOU STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING...

It Was Just Lum-Lum
I was practicing standing very super still in the mirror last night while not brushing...

Unedited Intracubicle Conversation
ME: Hey, Happy Rocktober. NOT ME: It is Rocktober, huh. The Today Show was talking...

Newburyport Mass
I have to crawl out of my car through the passenger-side door. We listened to...

Dear Crazy Doctor
I have an ever-evolving imaginary band that I sometimes think about and invent songs and...

Do Not Read This
You know I have this thing about writing myself short, 1- to 4-word messages on...

One Email And One Dream
EXCERPT OF EMAIL TO KEVIN FANNING When I was like 11 I got some business...

The Morning News Thing
Went to New York City (I refuse to call it “the city,” as most people...

Holmes
Here’s you lying awake at night, frettin’ & cold-sweatin’: War, plague, relationships, family, global annihilation,...

On Ramble Tamble
I got a gift from my eighth-grade self the other day. Back in eighth grade...

Babies And Twin Dogs
Babies and twin dogs, waterlight, minor surgeries, ocular prosthetics, te amo le mas / Santo,...

The Present
“What a you, ape?” “Not ape.” “This present I make for you. Really look.” “I...

My Business Cards Are Nine-Pronged Shuriken
I just got out of a three-hour client meeting. I’m wearing a suit jacket over...

OUTATIME
I’m at a stoplight, behind this guy on a moped, and his license plate says...

The Kid Outside The Office Here
The kid outside the office here, chopping down the trees that line the street out...

What Of The Oyster Festival
At the Deli With One Brother On The Wall they are super pissed about the...

You Know Hey You Know
You know — hey, you know how when you decide to — well, first you...

Stupid Fucking Electricity
Stupid fucking electricity. And the stupids of Norwalk, CT who can’t drive even when the...

What The Hell Was That In My Sandwich
What the hell was that in my sandwich. Seriously. The sandwich was prepackaged, so I...

I'm Scouting The Local Delis
I’m scouting the local delis for contenders. Yesterday’s had five steel shelves embedded in the...

King Of The Office
A tiny key on the table catacorner’d from my cubicle, a table that was mercifully...

So Which Is Worse
Now I’m sort of concerned that if I do start using this hot new anti-spam...

The Maturity Notice
Oh, Black Pill (and I should note that I have never referred to my car...

O, Sweet Central Air
O, sweet central air, won’t you be my wife. The shiny new craptastica Wal-Mart air...

Genius Sex
My brain is a spanked beehive of activity for about fifteen, twenty seconds before I...

Default Humming Songs
I was about to name these two songs that have been stuck in my head...

The Bastion
The marina where I eat my lunch, a bastion of … please hold while I...

The Angel Of Inspiration
The automatic bathroom scent-spritzer is beeping. It needs refilling, man. My echolocation was fuckola’d the...

Pretty Magical Fairies!
Pretty magical fairies! This is me last night, hands clapped against my fat little cheeks,...

Exiled


Hollywood Star Lanes
Watching sex, lies and videotape last night—Last time I saw this was when it came...

Hooooooooo
The kind of weekend it’s been: on Sharpeworld’s Depression Poll one of the red flags...

Blue/Brown
Back across the country, funneled through the previously discussed asymptote of Concourse F at O’Hare,...

Still In Blackout


Today I'm Thirty
Today I’m thirty years old. Let’s take a quick snapshot: Portland, Maine. The only single-syllable...

Today I'm Twenty-Nine
So young vibrant alive, eyes lucid, skin clear, hair soft and clean, sinewy, lithe, let...

It's Zero
My fingers are cut up from the cold. It’s zero. There is snow in the...

I'm A Singing Cowboy
I’m a singing cowboy accompanying myself on a ghetto blaster made of serpentine, the song...

I Went To A Monster Truck Show
I went to a monster truck show in Oakland, Calif. It was the loudest thing...

I'm Playing Tetris
I’m playing Tetris and coaching an invisible crew of beginners, explaining the value of choosing...

The Eighties Project
Unearthed a treasure-trove of classics today. A few weeks back I finally realized my dream...

Yeah I Got A Mole
Yeah I got a mole on my neck. That’s right. Some people have to get...

I'm Running Diagnostics
There was a stretch of time, maybe my eleventh year — lithe, no socks, Piers...

Trivia Boy
Mannitol — not quite as sweet as sugar and poorly absorbed by the body. It...

Albino Fairy Magic
Fine clouds of sparkling snowdust blown from the trees just now, like albino fairy magic...

That's The Only Option
If you’re a man who urinates standing up, and you live with a woman who...

You Bitches Don't Own Me
This is me at the drugstore. The sound system is singing a song I happen...

I Started Writing
I started writing online in 1995. Yeah I know I’m awesome. High five. Ladies, please...

Imagine My Surprise
Imagine my surprise when I flipped open this diary and saw only half a page...

Six Small Welts
On Thanksgiving morning I noticed six small welts on my arm, positioned in a circle....

Yesterday The Trees Were Encased In Ice
The wind blew and they creaked and cracked. I pulled a new Gore-Tex Unitard from...

I Tear A Hole In Heaven
I tear a hole in heaven with a pair of nail scissors, scraping my initials...

The Job Interview
Had my first job interview in over two years and was surprised by how different...

Back From Sacramento, Calif.
I took careful notes in Dietzgen Engineers’ Field Book No. S403V, bright orange, a water-resisting...

The Autarch
It rained all day on 3 September 2002, the first day of school. I’d slept...

Maybe One-Fifth
Xander. Topher. You Are Maybe One-Fifth As Interesting As You Think You Are. Is what...

The Dead Balustrades
I was grating a cylinder of colby when I remembered about half of what Trini...

The Thing Was She Was Suicidal Anyway
Or maybe not suicidal but she did say, on one occasion, sometimes I just don’t...

The Philtre Bee
I took a phone survey this morning, sponsored by the local soft-rock radio station. It...

A Week At KAGACON
My shag carpeting is littered with laminated badges (each sporting a different laser-printed nom de...

Ring Fingers Gone Numb
You know what that means, diary. War’s a-brewin. And something I’ll admit only to you?...

Goddamn Shady Krackit
Krackit saw the thing I cut into the bathroom wallpaper with my X-acto knife and...

The Woman Who Lances My Boils
I think I have a crush on the woman who lances my boils. It’s because...

This Is Brady College
I enter the classroom by stumbling backward down a long flight of cement stairs. The...

Five Seconds Of Me
I was on television last night, did anyone see it? Did anyone tape it? No...

I Give Myself Amnesia
I give myself amnesia maybe once or twice a week, I’m not sure. I scored...

Finch's Is Only Open From Seven To Nine
Finch’s is only open from 7-9 on the weekdays and you need an escort to...

The Firecracker Dome
Did you see the fireworks, diary? No, of course you didn’t, I keep you tucked...

I Have A Post Office Box
I have a post office box that I check on the first of each month....

I Like Mitch The Second Best
Out of all the men who’ve claimed to be my father, I think I like...

My New Compass Ring
Andrea called me in for a quick sit-down this morning. The enforced casualness of Andrea...

A Surprise Visit From Viola
A three-day weekend featuring a surprise visit from Viola. She used the code knock and...

The Black Eye
Workmen tearing up the street with giant mechanical wasps, wheezing, forest green. Shouts, and the...

I Lit A Candle At St. Barnabas
I lit a candle at St. Barnabas with my Masonic Zippo, clacked it shut, a...

The Poetry Box
Hannaford brought over his poetry box yesterday afternoon and, to paraphrase my father, when the...

Mary's Baby's Head
I finally met Mary’s baby last night. Mary’s baby and Mary’s baby’s huge-ass head. What...

Where's The Escape Hatch
You know what I’m talking about, Dear Reader, when a door closes and it’s as...

The Candlepin Lanes
Will and yrs truly at the candlepin lanes sharing draws from his mail-order KGB flask....

I'm Talking About Desalinization
What a day. Converted six gallons of stinking Atlantic ocean into pure, clean water. My...

The Image Generator
I’d just about forgotten that artificial snow falls faster than real snow. Absolutely no grace....

The Flask
Just got back from Ana’s. Basically by the skin of my teeth. I’ve got an...

Fix Your Kerning!
Fix your kerning you son of a bitch! Spending the night in Baltimore tonight, a...

The Water Pipes
Something in the water pipes, Dear Diary. Dear Reader. Dearest Reader, both Constant & Easy....

The Mailman
The Mailman is ageless, always shifting. His face is malleable, the expression so neutral that...

Nina Garland
She’s been working on this movie since before I met her and I’m starting to...

The First Time I Saw Giant City
My childhood was eventful, as you know. It got a lot of coverage last election...

Two Vacation Notes
Yesterday I spent six hours playing Uno with A in a McDonald’s in Puerto...

The Mons
Finally made good on my resolution and started taking dance lessons up above the laundromat....

Shinkicker
My daughter, shinkicker is what her business cards say, so cute, made with the ditto...

The Minty Gel
G is applying a minty gel to my scalp and in the fogged mirror of...

When I Was Working The Coat-Check
When I was working the coat-check at Giant City — this was a few years...

Hops
(Constantly have dreams about people who are no longer in my life, either because of...

Two Smells
This deodorant is meant to smell like the greasy secretion produced in the glandular sac...

Self-Portrait w/Milk


Oh Ed
WD-40’d the shit out of those hinges and the door is absolutely silent. I open...

A Sunday Drone
Gray t-shirt with University peeling off in flakes, rock music from 1971, the silence at...

A Thank-You Card
I taught you how to play that song, spreading your fingers wide, slowing the tempo...

A Valentine
“And for what absurd, deluded reason are you keeping any kind of writing impulses at...

I'm Ice Fishing
Sean — sorry, Shawn — Shawn is telling me about the time he pulled this...

OK
There are things to find and collate and codify. There are things to build and...

The Story So Far
This personal history was cobbled together from sentences written on this site over the past...

The Jousting Match
The formula for Concourse F at O’Hare is z equals 1 over the square root...

A Strain 17 Reader
What follows is a series of sentences, one from each chapter in the So New...

The Holy Bible
A story I wrote in 1976, anatomically correct illustrations not included. From the dust God...

Greetings To You And Yours!
Wishing you the merriest of holiday seasons! Enclosed is a photograph of me and Mel...

Misdirected
We’re still celebrating monthly anniversaries, and although every month that passes without an implosive breakup...

You're Really Only Very Small
The world is atwitter with Compact Discs, still not widespread enough to debunk any rumors....

Oh Yeah Bravo
The switchover happened as I got out of her car and didn’t look back as...

The Knot Or Dragon Or Vine
We’re having Thanksgiving at somebody else’s house, some other family, the family of a girl...

Pour Dimes In Diamond Jim
Later I'd stumble outside, trailed by cigarette smoke and a dozen varieties of B.O., maybe...

Some Trajectories
Me and K go off a cliff together in my stepfather’s 1964 Thunderbird, backward, our...

Cunning Old Fury
I’m tackling a dual role in this play that is written in purple ditto ink,...

I Was Born In 1973
This was before doctors had refined their public image, when they were still brusque, still...

The Book
It’s four to six months away, and that’s just the preliminary testing. But still, it’s...

I'm Your Lout
Tough day at work, yeah got in a fight, a butterfly bandage right up next...

Attention, Interest, Decision, Action
They’re chewing up the street in front of our house with unbelievably elaborate equipment and...

Hang The Pundits, Me Included
There was an atypical silence that was way too brief, and then, maybe feeling around...

The White Lodge
I worked some crossword puzzles, ate some toast. She did some Gameboy, some work, I...

The Collapsing Armature
I’m at a party a couple of years ago, one of these too-well-lit parties where...

Facelift
I wish I was going back to school this week, lugging a new binder which...

The Subtlest Haircut
“Give me the Subtlest Haircut,” I said, and this was yesterday. Quiet tears poured down...

Don To His Friends And Paying Customers
DR. ALPHONSE: [indecipherable] ME: Eh? Hello? Doc? You there? DR. ALPHONSE: I know that voice....

Hydrocephalia
I’m printing up five-dollar bills in the basement and the newer of the upstairs neighbors...

Insomnia
No sleeping that night, a lethal combination of his cousin’s coffee-infused steakburgers and the unfightable...

On Online Diarrhists
Hi, I’m a freelancer writing a story about online Diarists for The Montreal Gazette. I’ve...

Jarvis Island
Jarvis Island, seven miles offshore from Giant City, a tidy scrap of land, 4.5 square...

A Plastic Knife And Spork
Dear Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Back in California, as you know, I spent most of...

Amish Do Not Allow Buttons or Zippers
(click for full-sized version)...

A List Of Celebrity Encounters
Mel Gibson, waiting in line to see movie at a multiplex in Los Angeles. Short,...

Saturnalia
01.She builds a ziggurat of self-lighting charcoal. 02.The man has a beard and a crooked...

The Church Of Thermodynamics
The neighbor (Milky?) has traps to catch the cute woodland animals that scurry through our...

The Tesseract Letter
Everything about you will increase — the good things and the bad things, your overall...

La Cuchara De La Mostaza
[A one-act play constructed from excerpts of emails I’ve sent over the past month, in...

Tape-Recorded Phone Conversation Between Fraternal Twins
ALLISON: Hey. HUGO: Hey. ALLISON: [pause, then quietly:] I’m waiting for her to leave. HUGO:...

Allez Cuisine!
I’m making burritos (which are like everything I eat: something wrapped in something else —...

I Give This Polka To You, Wisconsin
Another nice thing about Maine is how easy it is to become a major mover...

The Impromptu Weekend
This is Impromptu Weekend, so I’m already on the four-poster bed (looks so harsh and...

The Clothesline World Tour
I’m on the back porch, slouching. I pivot on my heel and face inward, making...

Euphonia
“I don’t think I have your right phone number.” “Gimme whatcha got, slim.” “555-JASH.” “That’s...

Reason
  UPS MAN: John Hancock right there.   ME: This pixelated scrawl is a poor...

A Balinex Anecdote
Simply trying to make my way to the drugstore to get my prescription for Balinex—...

Blind Stars Of Fortune
[discovered at 9:30 this AM written in erasermate on a roll of toilet paper] Dear...

After The Lunch Rush
I’m alone during the day, or maybe I’m Crazy Cat Lady during the day (it...

The Microclimates Of The Shrimp King
This past weekend, finally setting April aflame — the rattle of the bones, and chuckle...

Burgess Meredith As The Bored Novelist
I lock myself in the closet and jab fingers in my eyes to spark. I’ve...

Is That What You Call a Dalliance?
“Where’d you get that?” “What, this?” “Yeah, that. No, fool. That.” “Oh, I found it...

Serendippy
I feel like I’ve been carefully positioned, that my development has been appropriately synched up...

Ten Game Magnet
—ole idea of applying musical techniques to writing fiction, which I’ve read some about and...

Eightball'd
What do you think, you think I’m wired so emotional impulses are muted? Chart me...

The Twenty-Second Particular
Keep revisiting the same themes over and over, hammering away at the same concepts and...

A Menace To Liberty
We’re trying to have a peaceful goddamn dinner you know maybe for once? Maybe for...

My Keyhole Slot
In the hardware dep’t of Sears, or I should say Sears Tool Territory: Where Tools...

Beaster
I wake up on Easter Sunday with a headache — is it Jesus pounding away...

The Invisible Floor
I’m having a curious reaction to a life of liberalism and to the bottomless freedom...

Yslandia
It’s raining, and so I went downtown in my leaky shoes, and it’s hilly and...

I Live Above Lawyers
I have sort of a weird apartment at the moment. It sits atop two floors...

The Pinpoint Fireglobe
Chapter 001 The cracks started to appear in the glass of Krackit’s photographs the day...

Theophrenia
[This is the aborted beginning of a novel, FYI, so don’t get all excited for...

Emergency Comedy Routine No. 1
About a year ago, it was revealed that both Evany and I have the same...

The Year Of Dishonest Empathy
My Resolutions: I want to create a logo that will be used in connection with...

Threnody: Jos
I’ve got the platitudes and the cliches. Those are the things we’ve been hardwired to...

The Fireland Electromagnetic News Service
The ouija board spelled out F-I-R-E-L-A-N-D-Good-bye! all tickly beneath our fingers, this being Maia and...

The Vertical Brush
I worked at a car wash one summer back in high school, and this was...

The Day August Ate September
The water from the hose tasted like spiky minerals and it iced Alma’s gums straightaway....

The Mantis Is Also Entitled To Its Opinion
The whole trying-to-get-on-The-Real-World thing was just a joke at first because everyone knows that I’m...

x
And once upon a time what I wanted to know was that one story about...

HATE EIGHT TRIPS
People go outside on sunny Sunday afternoons and they walk slowly and they idly rub...

A Dilator In New York
By the time I received my bright yellow “New York Taxicab Information” pamphlet, standing in...

The Making Of Brainbox
Attentive readers will recall an old text product in which I discussed how my friend...

Judith McAvoy, Library Scientist
Judith McAvoy, library scientist, thirty-three, shares a birthday with the late Akira Kurosawa, divorced, unmother....

SXXXSW
I just read a magazine blurb about this French curator who held an art and...

The Angle
Yesterday was Valentine’s Day and I celebrated by drinking whiskey and pineapple-orange-strawberry juice (this is...

The Unedited Holiday Diary
12.22.98 [office computer] Today is my last day at work before going on vacation. You...

Official Resolution Memorandum For FY99
You might think there’s a lot of text tucked away in the dark recesses of...

Fifteen Stories
[I gave myself 24 hours to write 20 stories. I came up with 15.] 1....

My Affair With Transdermal Patches
It all started when I woke up with crippling back pain. It was just like...

Epileptic Aether
Dear Diary, I couldn’t get Kim to sever the nerve endings in my throat and...

The Pharynx Plums
Jefferson Heskell made all of the right decisions except for one, and this was opting...

The Eyebleeders
[Scene 1/1: A spacious conference room, complete with indirect fluorescent lighting, a lengthy and oblong...

The Flipbook Story
Roy wanted to make a flipbook but he didn’t really have the patience to sit...

The Vein
My prom night was almost entirely devoid of intrigue, molestation, or adventure except for something...

Bulletozoa
Nate’s dad escorted him into the backyard where the toolshed was squatting, hand-built from wood...

Private AOL Chat Transcript No. 16
F1R3LAND: hey hey whassup ELBO222: not much F1R3LAND: are you a girl? where do you...

My Adventures In The Rental Car
My Honda Accord, while a total chick magnet (literally, I mean; I know this guy...

Our Insidious Polymerase: A Novel
Chapter One In mid-1983, Cecile and Anthony decided they were ready to have a baby....

Web Hipsters Succumb To My Brainwaves
Are you sitting down? You mean you seriously stand up while using your computer? Is...

Sunday Afternoon, Pudendae Ablaze
This was Vivian: “Come over here. My stump is aching.” This was Marko: “Thirteen thousand...

Vocal Q
12: I have a question for you. 13: Don’t preface. 12: 13: Just go ahead...

Sinister Rex: The Early Years
My parents were big proponents of hydroponics and as a result they birthed me in...

Biomechanical Spiral Ganglion: A Love Story
Sally had two plastic tubes that went into her lungs via her mouth, feeding her...

I Can't Type With My Arms Around Jesus
I bought this new mouse for my computer. It’s made by Kensington and it’s called...

The Tubers Say It's 4:09 PM
Dell Pankow drummed his fingers on the woodgrained enamel of his superdesk. The resulting sound...

A Letter To Steel Rod, My Prison Pal
Dear Steel Rod, Hi! I know it’s been a while since I wrote you, but...

Today I Went To The Aquarium
(click for full-sized version)...

Dream Pants Comet IX
“I’m reading this book and it’s called Explore Your Dream-Heart.” “Could I, would you mind,...

The Voleurnym
Faye Dunaway was born on January 14, 1941 in Bascom, FL. C-section. She returned to...

The Aimless Forty-Five Minute Roadtrip, Part Two
Reader, I married him! No, I mean: Reader, I hit the road with all the...

The Aimless Forty-Five Minute Roadtrip, Part One
After my fifth consecutive day of lying motionless in my apartment, practicing circular breathing, being...

Two Tickets To Edelweiss
I don’t know about you, but I’m seriously feeling that moviemaking vibe. Maybe it’s just...

The Fireland FAQ v1.4
SECTION 0: FAQ FACTS 0.1: FAQ History Version 0.89: Never released to the public; 2,500...

Lick My Literary Ass, You Vile Fucks
So I didn’t get into Stanford. They have this program where they give you money...

The Oscar Predictions
Welp folks, it’s that time of year again, when the birdies emerge from their amniotic...

Februaries Are Always Bad
One time in high school I was talking to Stephani Pierce (I won’t explain who...

The Quarter-Century Sellout
Thus I squat, back twisted into a permanent hunch (“permanent hunch” sounds sort of like...

The Dilation
My bicycle’s tires were getting a little flat, especially the back one, so I skid...

The Case Of The Missing Vowel Girl
Lightning! Martin jolted and already had one foot on the antiseptic hotel carpet before he...

Hot Liquid
[A car is parked somewhere. APRIL is behind the wheel. JUNE is crawling into the...

Fireland At Two: A Dissection
So Fireland turned two on Halloween. Actually, when you get down to it, I can’t...

Diabolico!
Darmon Alexander was born on the warm, vibrating hood of an ‘83 Honda Civic, stalled...

I Kind Of Wish Visual Problems Upon Myself
It all started a few weeks ago when I happened to try on a co-worker’s...

The Unabridged Encyclopedia Of September
An A-Z tour of the past month, featuring personally biased entries. Andersen’s Pea Soup:A family...

The City Of Industry
So this weekend our old friend Jim Park got married. Regular readers of this space...

I Am Smut Queen, Hear Me Roar
My official title at WebTV is “Smut Queen” (and I’m sure if I’m ever given...

CNET: My Temptress, My Nemesis
Back in 1995, I was a lot like CNET (and P.S. there is a lot...

The Best Email I Ever Got Ever
I’ve gotten a lot of emails (P.S. I’ve started writing “e-mail” sans hyphen these days...

Fun Game Variations
Molotov Checkers Place an ordinary Chinese Checkers game on a stove, crank the burners to...

The Tragic Hours: A Comedy In One Act
The Story Game, and you probably know this, goes like so: Someone starts a story...

Beedle's Gambit
[A stuffy conference room on the sixth floor of an office building.] MR HOWLEY: I’ll...

Top X Lists
Top X Snapple Flavors[X = 4] Raspberry Flavored Iced Tea Peach Flavored Iced Tea Lemon...

Apartment Hunting In SF: A Haiku In Five Parts
Before I begin my mini-epic, let me provide a bit of context. First, POP QUIZ:...

So I Was Laid Off And Went On A Roadtrip
It was not directly my fault, but the San Francisco branch of UMI InfoStore closed...

I Wish I Had An Obsessive Personality
You know, whatever. I think it would be an enormous relief to be completely focused...

Mister Rotunda
Mister Rotunda was going to be this century’s most striking abstract painter until he was...

The Ellipse
My family history is pure tedium except for two big days, and recently I’ve decided...

I Have Too Many Keys
It takes three keys to get into my apartment. One to get my mail. One...

Resuscitation Theatre
For Coach, the key was the interrupted kiss. This was in Act III, Scene 4,...

Hugo's Uranium Bullet
They looped the rope around his belt buckle and tossed him off the side of...

Science Is Hate
I had that tired-out awake feeling that coffee gives me. My body felt flushed with...

Hate Drop 1
“OK. I need your opinion. I need your male perspective.” “I think I’ve explained this...

Non-Dualism And The Great Bliss Queen
Anna had her book of numbers that was going to cause the collapse of the...

Why The Web Will Soon Become A Black Hole
It’s all a matter of collapsing infinities, which no one really wants. Yes, “collapsing infinities”...

Threnody Chapter Beginnings
Here are the first lines from each chapter of a novel called Threnody that I...

Why I Like Gunshot Wounds
Gunshot wounds are what America is all about and I’m nothing if not a patriot....

Post-It Poetry
On August 8 and 9, 1995, I made two little books of things I scrawled...

A Recipe For Zesty Living
Hey you! Get off that duff and start wagglin’ that tired soul of yours in...

Business Is The Triumph Of The Trivial
What I’m doing is of essential importance to: My colleagues My superiors Their superiors My...

What Love Is
On Friday, January 14, 1994 my girlfriend and I hotwired a car and held up...