Vintage Polaroid Pictures

The planet is about 4.55 billion years old. Of course, that is the calculated age from the radioactive decay processes of some meteorites. The oldest known rock from the moon is calculated to be 4.5 billion years. The oldest rock on Earth is 4.4 billion years old.

If you were to perform a series of radioactive decay processes on me, you would calculate my age at a mere 25 years. 25 years, the equivalent of one picosecond in the span of the universe. Just to clarify, that’s a trillionth of a second.

The lifespan of an adult mayfly can vary from just 30 minutes to 24 hours depending on the species. Methuselah, a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva), is the oldest known living tree at 4,841 years old.

What’s the average life expectancy of a human? Life expectancy figures are collected by projecting current mortality statistics. Life expectancy is generally calculated for a person born in any given year. For example, according to the CDC, anyone born in 2006 could expect to live about 77.5 years. This is tricky, however, because life expectancy changes based on age and gender.

Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, my life expectancy is 75 years. I could potentially live to see the year 2060 – it’s perplexing to think in that context. Measured up to the mayfly, I am everlasting. Compared to Methuselah, I am the mayfly.

I’ve squandered much of my time on this planet. I’ve accomplished little, taken far too much for granted. You could argue that the average adult mayfly does more with its 30 minutes than I’ve done in 25 years. I’ve decided to change that. The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.

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For your consideration:

You are something of a mystery to me, a half-solved puzzle that has me at a loss. You fascinate me, and I want to know everything about you. Sometimes I think I could spend the next 50 years of my life getting to know you. But what does it really mean to know someone?

I imagine it means completely understanding their motivations and desires, their dreams and ambitions. It means recognizing their habits and faults - strengths and weaknesses.

More importantly, truly knowing someone means wanting to know these kinds of things. It means taking the time to learn and understand someone - the way one would delve into the study of a foreign language or a method of painting. It means, simply, being interested.

I’m more than a little interested, I must admit…

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I could put together a presentation, a series of charts and graphs that illustrate just how unique you truly are, but instead I’ll throw together a mishmash of words that fall short of proving my point:

She loves dinosaurs, her favorite being the Velociraptor. She wants a vintage Polaroid camera to take pictures with. She secretly enjoys nosebleeds and speaking Japanese.

She has a bookcase filled with paperbacks of "Battle Royale" and "1984" shoved in-between first editions of "Alice in Wonderland" and "Kamikaze Girls."

She stands in the checkout line at the Asian grocery store, singing along to songs she doesn't know the words to. She dresses up as Harley Quinn at comic book conventions. She loves Taco Bell. Every Thursday her customary order – Chicken Quesadilla and Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes.

She watches My Neighbor Totoro and plays World of Warcraft. She loves Freezepop and Ladytron, her iPod filled with Asian girls in cosplay outfits. She drinks bubble tea and Japanese soda pop in bottles made of glass, sealed with a marble.

A set of Japanese characters decorates her spine, in a sequence of ink that goes black, red, black. Altogether cute, the middle character means love.


I want to understand her motivations and desires, her dreams and ambitions. I want to recognize her habits and faults – and accept every strength and weakness. I want to know her.

If I could choose 50 years or 30 minutes, I believe I’d take the 30 minutes – if it were 30 minutes alone with you.

Stacey and the Remington Super-Riter

There’s an antique desk, a 19th century mahogany desk in the Gillows style to be precise. Pushed under this elegant piece of furniture is a Charles Eames office chair made of chromed die cast aluminum with upholstered lime green leather.

On the writing desk sits a 1952 Remington Super-Riter. To the left, a stack of 8.5" x 13" Eagle onionskin paper, complete with red legal ruling down the margins. To the immediate right of the typewriter, a crystal ashtray catches the midday sun slipping through the blinds.

Stacey is dressed in a white ruffle blouse – a crisp, cap-sleeve top shaped with flattering princess seams. Over it, she wears a cornflower blue cardigan. She walks from the office window to the Gillows desk, a lit cigarette held between her right index and middle fingers.

A wide-eyed, obsessive-compulsive ray of sunshine, that’s what Stacey is. Her ensemble is made complete by a black pencil skirt and a pair of patent leather pumps - yellow peep toes with a 3 1/4" heel. A raven-haired beauty, her lustrous strands are pulled back into two thick pigtails.

She raises the cigarette to her bubble gum pink lips and casually pulls the office chair away from the desk and takes a seat, pushing herself under the mahogany desktop. Stacey inspects the typewriter and its twin spool ribbon (#11422), which she just threaded the day before.

The ashtray provides a resting place for her cigarette as Stacey inserts a piece of the onionskin paper, lining up the red ruling margin. The familiar sound of typeface punching against vintage typewriter paper soon follows. Her blue-tipped fingers strike the keys with the rhythmic exactness of a prizefighter throwing jabs at a speed bag.

“Be bright,” the first line of text reads. Stacey pauses, taking a long drag from the cigarette she has nursed for what seems like hours. As she breathes in the nicotine and harsh chemicals, she considers her next keystroke. The next line, “Make the world squint,” is exhaled through her fingertips.

She sits back and thoughtfully examines this short, straightforward phrase. She finds it to be profound yet exceedingly simple (as most profound things are). Stacey Valentine, a steampunk secretary on the 4th floor of an office building on Kennedy Street – the most gorgeous would-be bestselling author in the world, and she doesn’t even know it.

An Act of Controlled Terror

Part One: An Act of Controlled Terror

“Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.” - G. B. Stern

Modern parachutes have a ripcord deployment system, which was first designed by Theodore Moscicki. A ripcord system pulls a closing pin (sometimes multiple pins), which releases a spring-loaded pilot chute. The pilot chute is then propelled into the air stream where the force generated by passing air extracts a deployment bag containing the parachute canopy.

What if the main canopy never comes out of the deployment bag? A whole host of unfortunate things could happen upon pulling your hand-deployed pilot chute. The main canopy could get tangled in the lines or the lines could snap; the canopy ripped to shreds.

For these truly horrendous situations, there’s a reserve deployment system. First, you have to cut away the main canopy. Typically, this involves reaching down and pulling a release handle located on one of your shoulder straps.

From there, one of two things can happen:

1. On some rigs, there is a cord called the reserve static line that automatically pulls out the reserve when you cut away the main.

2. On other rigs, you pull a second handle to deploy the reserve manually.

In either case, you are left praying that the reserve chute deploys cleanly. If it doesn’t, well you’re shit out of luck. Let’s face it: you’re hurtling 12,000 feet towards the ground at 120 miles per hour - pretty self-explanatory.

Each year, about 35 people die skydiving, and that's out of about 2 million parachute jumps. Given the odds, you're better off jumping out of an airplane than you are, say, shark-cage diving – so at least that’s comforting.

Part Two: A Modern Three-Ring Release System

“I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.” - William Stafford

I am the reserve parachute, a mere preventative measure. I am the flesh-and-bones equivalent of a “Plan B.” I’ve come to the realization that, throughout my illustrious career as a walking letdown, I’ve never really been anyone’s primary chute.

When it comes to relationships, I guess I’ve been more of an afterthought. In retrospection, it seems as if I was a placeholder - a convenience – to my partner for the duration of our time together. I’ve never felt appreciated really, never adored or cherished by a significant other.

I’ve never felt special to anyone else, aside from my family. At best, I’ve felt completely adequate. Often I’ve felt like lovers and partners would oblige in tolerating me – as if they were doing me a favor by entertaining my romantic feelings for them.

You know, I’m pretty happy with myself. I like who I am. I think I could be the best thing to ever happen to someone, but instead I always end up expendable – broken and tossed aside. Sometimes I get the impression that I’m not worth the trouble, that I’m nothing more than a renovation project to give up on after the damage proves beyond repair.

I wish someone could look at me and love me the way I love them. I wish someone could accept me for who I am and not make it her personal goal to fix me – because I’m never good enough.
I’m just the reserve parachute – deployed only in case of emergency. A reliable standby valued only when things don’t go as planned.

A Sleight of Hand

Sweden. 1950. A confidence man named Gustaf Raskenstam had relationships with more than a hundred lonely women, and had been engaged to many of them, often several at the same time. An old-fashioned counterfeit romance, and Gustaf Raskenstam was a veritable Prince Charming when it came to sweeping forlorn women off their feet (and emptying their bank accounts).

So what happens when thieves fall in love? One can only assume it’s nothing more than a scheme carried out by professional swindlers – one elaborate lie stacked upon an even more sophisticated ruse.

To the consummate confidence artiste, love is the perfect con. Imagine if you will, two professional thieves. The man, Gregor MacGregor, is an ace pickpocket with a fetish for plastic debit cards. The woman, a cat burglar by the name of Cassie Chadwick, has a thing for rare jewels.

Cassie is especially skilled at stealthy or undetected entry of a premises. MacGregor, an expert at card tricks, uses sleight of hand tricks and distraction to snatch the wallets and watches of his unfortunate targets. Both Cassie and Gregor are connoisseurs of subtlety. Cunning and devious, these star-crossed lovers are completely unaware of the deception they share under the sheets at night.

When they first met, on the subway train, Gregor had attempted to pickpocket Ms. Chadwick, who was too busy thinking of a way to steal Gregor’s diamond cufflinks. At that moment, they fell in love at first theft – a failed attempt that turned into an old-fashioned counterfeit romance.

Cassie, she took his breath away, and Gregor – well, Gregor stole her heart, still beating in her chest. But it was all a lie, the greatest con of them all. A lie that took the form of whispers in the dark – of kisses on each other’s eyelids.

They were star-crossed lovers with a knack for being double-crossed. Smoke and mirrors, a sleight of hand – quick fingers and quicker lips, love is just a game of confidence – and we’re all just trying to pull a fast one on the person sleeping next to us.

Top 50 Films of the Decade (1999-2009)

It's hard to believe it's already 2010. When I was a kid, I assumed 2010 would entail flying cars, time travel, affordable jetpacks, personal robotic servants, virtual reality and real working lightsabers. Sadly, none of these things have come to fruition. I'm probably a little behind on this, as most critics or writers or movie buffs have already painstakingly created a list of their Top 50 films of the decade - but better late than never, I suppose.

I'll be honest with you up front. I didn't put that much effort into creating this list - there's just too many things to consider, so many variables in ranking 50 films from the past 10 years. I decided upon a few guidelines.

First, I decided The Top 50 Films will be listed in chronological order by year of release. This way you can see a visual breakdown of the films from 1999-2009. Secondly, I decided to combine trilogies such as the "Star Wars" Prequels, "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Lord of the Rings" films as one entry. Also, on that note, I have combined "Kill Bill" Volumes One and Two into one entry - same goes for "Grindhouse."

Finally, these are my favorite films of the decade. I could have just as easily went through Wikipedia and pulled the five Best Picture nominations for every year and leave it at that, but the point of this list is not to be elitist or pretentious in my choices. So, with that being said, enjoy my Top 50 Films of the Decade:

1. American Beauty (1999)
2. The Green Mile (1999)
3. The Sixth Sense (1999)
4. Fight Club (1999)
5. The Matrix (1999)
6. Star Wars: Prequel Trilogy (1999 – 2005)
7. Memento (2000)
8. Almost Famous (2000)
9. High Fidelity (2000)
10. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001 – 2003)

11. Moulin Rouge! (2001)
12. Donnie Darko (2001)
13. Gangs of New York (2002)
14. Catch Me If You Can (2002)
15. Signs (2002)
16. Big Fish (2003)
17. Lost in Translation (2003)
18. Mystic River (2003)
19. X2: X-Men United (2003)
20. Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (2003 – 2004)

21. Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy (2003 – 2007)
22. Ray (2004)
23. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
24. Shaun of the Dead (2004)
25. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
26. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
27. King Kong (2005)
28. Junebug (2005)
29. The Departed (2006)
30. The Fountain (2006)

31. Apocalypto (2006)
32. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
33. Children of Men (2006)
34. Zodiac (2007)
35. Transformers (2007)
36. No Country for Old Men (2007)
37. Eastern Promises (2007)
38. There Will Be Blood (2007)
39. Grindhouse (2007)
40. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

41. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
42. Frost/Nixon (2008)
43. The Dark Knight (2008)
44. The Wrestler (2008)
45. Revolutionary Road (2008)
46. Wall-E (2008)
47. District 9 (2009)
48. (500) Days of Summer (2009)
49. Avatar (2009)
50. Up in the Air (2009)

If you're interested in a much more thorough look at last decade's greatest films, I suggest reading Clint's List.

The Fastback and the Falcon Pt. 1

The women in white coats
The men in black suits
They know what you've done
And they're coming for you

A '61 Ford Falcon; high gloss black finish. Ivory white interior; tuck-and-roll leather upholstery. A two-door sedan with a three-speed manual column shift. Under the hood, a straight-6 engine with a single-barrel carburetor.

The man behind the wheel squints as the sun shines through the windshield. He is silver-haired and handsome. He wears an Armani suit; thin, black tie loosened with studied casualness. His teeth are brilliant -- white like the starched and pressed shirt under his black suit jacket.

His skin is bronzed and flawless. His manicured hands grip the stirring wheel, right foot pressing down on the gas pedal. The Falcon barrels down desert highway at 95 miles per hour.

In the passenger seat, a woman in a white double-breasted pea coat. Her long, slender neck is decorated with pearls -- her lips brushed with cherry red lipstick. She looks like Audrey Hepburn, a theatre-length cigarette holder held between her fingertips.

"Winston," she says. The driver's pearlescent blue eyes dart from her lips to the rear-view mirror in one smooth motion. In the mirror's reflection, a silver '68 Ford Mustang 390 CID Fastback closing in fast.

"I know, Eleanor," he says. "The Fastback is the least of our worries at the moment." Winston loosens the grip of his right index finger and points over the steering wheel. Eleanor follows his finger through the windshield to find a series of blue-and-white flashing lights across the desert horizon.

Eleanor remains calm, tapping her cigarette against the Falcon's built-in ashtray. A few smoldering ashes are knocked in as she re-evaluates the situation. "Turn around."

Winston turns the wheel sharply to the left, pulling the emergency brake with his right hand. The Falcon spins 180 degrees across pavement and desert sand and accelerates toward the Fastback at full speed.

To be continued...

A Cardboard Compilation

Corrugated cardboard boxes
Stacked to make skyscrapers
Empty pasteboard receptacles, used
To move materialistic treasures

A collection of cassette tapes
Heaps of hardback books
Stacks of vinyl records, and reels
of 35 millimeter black-and-white film

Categorized and carefully assigned
To corrugated cardboard boxes, labeled
with black permanent marker, stacked
outside my apartment door

Manila envelope, standard beige
Filled with take-out menus and matchbooks
From our favorite restaurants, the bars
Where you had too much to drink

All these things, assembled with care
A lifelong compilation of empty, plastic items
Nostalgic and sentimental, but altogether meaningless
Without someone to share them with

So I package them in pasteboard boxes,
With shipping labels from the post office
Delivered to your doorstep, 200 miles away
Filled with bubble-wrap and Styrofoam peanuts

Comic books and newspaper clippings,
Horror novels and science-fiction films,
Handwritten letters and Christmas cards
All of these things I give to you

My favorite films, the definitive
Works of others I've assigned
To my own lonely life, I'm dying
To share them with you

And what I want, more so than the
Heaps of hardback books, or reels
Of black-and-white 35 millimeter film
are your top and bottom lips pressed against mine

Please, let me get what I want

Amelie Sophia Beau

Her name is Amelie Sophia Beau, a French college student working part-time at Super Vidéo. Super Vidéo Store, Located at 251 Rue Marcadet in Paris, France, is the perfect part-time job for Amelie. It's close to her studio and, more importantly, she can watch films all day and get paid for it.

Occasionally she'll ring up a customer with a copy of "Delicatessen" or "Le Retour de Martin Guerre." Most of her time, however, is spent behind the counter reading. Amelie loves books. She reads stacks of books at a time, often starting new ones on a whim after putting others down. If she had her way, Amelie would do nothing but lock herself away from the world and read.

She is shy and often awkward in social situations. She keeps to herself, stocking shelves with new releases and making just enough small talk to get by - just enough so the customers don't think she's mute.

Amelie is fashionable. She has a collection of pretty dresses and cute shoes. Every lover of cinema who happens into the Super Vidéo Store falls in love with her. They look at her Staff Selections and swoon at her impeccable taste - the perfect combination of Kurosawa and Hitchcock classics with underground, independent films.

These men, of all ages and backgrounds, would tell you Amelie is beautiful. They would describe her as gorgeous - a woman made in the image of perfection. If you were to ask Amelie to describe herself, you might get "cute and quirky" or "pretty and shy" - and while all of these things are accurate, Amelie fails to recognize her own beauty.

On breaks, Amelie walks to the corner and orders her signature beverage from the local coffee shop - a blended white chocolate mocha with whipped cream. Amelie Sophia Beau sits at a small circular table in the corner of the coffee shop and reads for exactly 12 minutes before walking back to her work.

Amelie has jet-black hair with bangs cute across in a straight line just above her eyebrows. She often wears berets, solid colors only because patterns can be too distracting. She listens to "You're Going To Lose That Girl" by The Beatles on the radio and sips thoughtfully from the green straw leading down through the hillock of whipped cream to her beverage. She flips through a tabloid magazine as the time slowly ticks by.

Amelie lives alone. She has no lover, no family to speak of. Her old acquaintances are the films collecting dust in the Classics section, and her best friends are guilty pleasures she watches when she's sad - which is quite often unfortunately.

She often sits on a stack of books in her modest living room and stares outside at the cars passing by, wondering if there's a body for her to wrap her arms around - a set of lips to kiss lovingly.

But for now, Amelie reads her books and watches her films. She drinks her coffee and listens to The Beatles and occasionally rearranges the Staff Selections shelf - if only to persuade her fan club of cinema enthusiasts to spend their money on something obscure and glanced-over.

Cynical Optimist: Transformers 3

Deadline Hollywood reports that filming on Transformers 3 will commence in May. The third installment in the popular Hasbro franchise is set for a July 1, 2011 release. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the second film in the series, raked in over $400 million despite an extremely negative response from critics and fans alike.

With an overall rating of 20% from Rotten Tomatoes, Revenge of the Fallen is considered a "noisy, underplotted, and overlong special effects extravaganza that lacks a human touch." BINGO! That pretty much sums up the entire film in one well-structured sentence.

Here's the problem: Michael Bay doesn't give a shit if his next Transformers movie is good or not. Why should he? The second one was a messy, overblown disaster and it grossed $835 million worldwide! With that being said, I've been thinking of ways to make Transformers 3 a robot battle royale of epic proportions - something that will actually live up to the box office receipts it's destined to make.

So, without further adieu, I'm giving Michael Bay a point-by-point recipe for making a superior Transformers film. Here we go:

Please, for the love of God and explosions and everything you hold sacred, get rid of the twins! Skidz and Mudflap were simply awful. Why did you introduce potentially cool new characters like Sideswipe and Arcee only to have them take a backseat to these two bumbling, offensive fools?

You call this humor? These guys make Jar Jar Binks look like Zach Galifianakis - and by that I mean hilarious and awesome. Speaking of humor, you should probably re-evaluate what "humor" is and try interjecting it into your next film, instead of annoying, offensive stereotypes and cliches. Please - no more humping.

LESS is MORE. Strip down the amount of subplots, as well as the robotic rosters on both sides of the battle. What good are 40 robotic characters when you don't even introduce them properly or give them names. Hell, half the time you can barely tell who's who because of your insanely spastic camera movements. It's like a five-year-old with ADD is behind the camera.


Please God, lets narrow down the amount of human characters while we're at it. Sam's roommate was completely pointless and unnecessary - and honestly, I don't need to see John Turturro in a jock strap or Mr. and Mrs. Witwicky slapping each other's asses and munching on pot brownies.

I'll go a step further, I've got some ideas for you - a couple of rosters you may want to follow in bringing this epic trilogy to a solid conclusion:

Autobots:

• Optimus Prime
• Ratchet
• Ironhide
• Bumblebee
• Sideswipe
• Arcee
• Wheel Jack
• Wheelie

Decepticons:

• Megatron
• Starscream
• Soundwave
• Laserbeak
• Rumble
• Skywarp
• Thundercracker
• Shockwave

Oh, here's a suggestion - you'll need something to one-up Devastator, so why not bring the Transformers' own Death Star to the mix? Introduce Unicron as a threat to not only the Autobots and planet Earth, but the Deceptions as well.

Perhaps Starscream could split from Megatron and lead his own faction with Thundercracker and Skywarp by his side. Perhaps they seek out Unicron in order to take over the universe - you know, that old chestnut. Just keep it simple - one plot, please. Have all of the characters working toward the same resolution and thus, make the situation more grave and the stakes higher.

My final suggestion to you, give us more of what we want - character. Please don't make the same mistake of having Bumblebee take a backseat to idiotic characters like Skidz and Mudflap. Take some time in letting us get to know the new characters - make them distinct and for God's sake slow down the fuckin' camera so we can enjoy the special effects spectacle in front of our eyes.

Penelope Stamp and the Press Pot

She takes me by the hand and sits me down on this old forest green couch in her living room. She tells me a story, a story she's told herself one too many times.

"I've told this story time and time again, until it came true," she says. It's a story about a girl who found infinite beauty in any little thing – every little thing – she could even love the person she was trapped with. I listen, completely enchanted by her charming approach to storytelling.

She pours another cup of coffee for herself and I from the press pot and goes on with the story. "Now, did doing this help me escape a wasted life?" I am unable to discern if this is a rhetorical question or if she honestly wants my perspective. Before I can answer she confirms that it is, in fact, rhetorical. "Or did it blind me so I didn't want to escape it?"

She smiles and puts the coffee cup to her lips. I say nothing, I only stare into her big brown eyes and admire the way her jet black hair shimmers in the candlelight. "I don't know, but either way I was the one telling my own story..."

I want to kiss her, but I know that simply isn't possible. He'll be home soon, and I shouldn't even be here. She has played the victim with the subtle skill of a classically-trained veteran of the Shakespearean theatre. I am but a stand-in, an understudy delivering lines that should be coming out of his mouth - but he isn't here to take the stage.

I've practiced my lines, frontwards and backwards. I've imagined the moment where our lips meet, the big kiss that fades to black and cuts to an early morning scene. She's in my arms asleep; light filtering in through the bedroom blinds. And in this moment, he's nowhere to be found - replaced by the understudy who consistently out performed the leading actor in the role.

"Spider-Man: High School Heroics"

"With great power comes great responsibility."

I'm currently drowning myself in 16 ounces of Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee complete with two packets of Stevia Extract In The Raw. I've also stirred in some fresh, organic half & half I picked up at the local market this morning.

That's right kids, for this column I'll be pulling a page out of Clint's caffeinated playbook to talk about Sony's premature resurrection of the "Spider-Man" franchise, Fox's "A-Team" trailer and your typical slew of cynical rants and raves.

Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" was released on May 3, 2002. It was my senior year of high school, and I was preparing to graduate in a little over a month. Me and some friends had decided to skip school and drive to the next city over to see "Spider-Man" on opening day on the big screen while the rest of our friends sat and suffered through Advanced Placement English Lit

Not since seeing Tim Burton's 1989 film, "Batman," had I been swept up in the kind of anticipation and excitement of seeing one of my childhood heroes swing his away onto the screen. The film was a monumental success, raking in over $400 million domestically for a total of $821 million worldwide.

It's sequel, which I maintain is one of the best superhero movies ever, produced an equally impressive worldwide gross of $783 million. OK, so "Spider-Man 3" sucked. Honestly, in the long line of cinematic comic book blunders, "Spider-Man 3" takes a seat beside 1997's "Batman and Robin" and half-hearted films like "Ghost Rider" and "Superman IV: A Quest For Peace."

"Spider-Man 3" pissed me off. Let me get this straight, the fuckin' guy who killed Uncle Ben in the first film, didn't actually kill him? He had a partner who killed him - so Peter's vengeance was wasted on someone who didn't actually do the deed?

Spider-Man 2 wrapped everything up in nice pretty red-and-blue bow, and here comes "Spider-Man 3" to rip the package open, destroying every bit of wrapping paper into an indiscernible ball of recycled garbage. They purposely looked for ways to destroy Peter's relationships with others and then there's the whole ridiculous amnesia character-turn for James Franco's Harry Osborne.

And then there's Venom... Jesus Christ, Eric Foreman is playing Spider-man's most vicious and sadistic villain. What the fuck were they thinking? With that being said, I think most people would agree that the Spider-Man franchise was obliterated after the "Emo Parker" dance sequences and countless scenes of our heroes huddled around crying like school girls.

There's a part of me that fully agrees with the concept of rebooting the Spider-Man franchise, but then I look at the facts. We're talking about a trilogy of films from 2002 to 2007.

Now, I realize Ang Lee's 2003 disasterpiece, "Hulk," got it's own remake of sorts with 2008's superior "The Incredible Hulk," but this is something different. We're three films with their own established continuity and extensive cast of characters... and you're simply going to reboot the franchise?

Well, you've used up most of Spidey's most iconic villains so... does this mean we'll get to sit through the same villains and action sequences again? Will we have to witness the origin story yet again? Has anyone really thought this through, or are they too busy dreaming of the yachts and summer houses they'll buy with the profits from another blockbuster Spider-Man flick?

You want my prediction? I think Sony is planning to target this new Spider-Man series to the Twilight generation - the crucial demographic of pre-teens and teenagers who grew up with Raimi's "Spider-Man." Sony has made it clear that Peter Parker will be going back to high school in his next cinematic outing... and I have to wonder if that's more than a statement about the setting.

I have a feeling the cast will be comprised with familiar faces from "High School Musical" and Disney's never-ending cavalcade of child stars destined to get pregnant out of wedlock and become drug addicts. Just for fun, let's play the guessing game on the cast:

Peter Parker: Zac Efron

Mary Jane Watson: Miley Cyrus (or Hannah Montana?)

Harry Osborne: Nick Jonas

Gwen Stacey: Taylor Swift

Let's go further. How about some villains? Well being as vampires and werewolves are all the craze right now, why not get Robert Pattison in talks to play Morbius? That should rake in plenty of cash to make the plot of this film completely disposable. While we're at it - Taylor Lautner could step into the shoes of Man-Wolf!

Kill me now, seriously. I actually like Zac Efron, I think the kid's charming and he's got tons of potential. To me, he'd be a great Peter Parker and Spider-Man - but this film hinges on the screenplay and the director behind it.

At this point, I might say let's give "Spider-Man: High School Heroics" to someone like Marc Webb, director of "500 Days of Summer." Look, this guy blew my friggin' socks off with his first feature film, and I'd love to see what he can do with it.

Also, why not get Sam Worthington to play Venom. Can you imagine Sam Worthington and Zac Efron on screen together? The sheer size of Worthington would be intimidating... not to mention Worthington is a complete badass who could pull off the sadistic, brutal side of Venom.

The part that bothers me the most about this whole reboot thing is the idea that this "Spider-Man" will be a "gritty, contemporary" take on the story. When has the word "gritty" ever applied to Spider-Man? This dark, gritty spin has never been the appeal of the character! Sure, Spidey's been through some dark times but he's never been the brooding anti-hero who talks like he's gargling shattered glass...

"I love it when a plan comes together..."

While I'm still enjoying this hot, fresh-brewed maelstrom of sugar, cream and coffee beans, I'd like to comment on the recent teaser trailer for Joe Carnahan's big-screen remake of the 1980s television series, "The A-Team."

You may recall, a while back I did a script review on "The A-Team" and pretty much tore it to pieces. My review was subsequentely removed (Thanks FOX!) and while not too much of the plot can be discerned from this trailer, it doesn't look that terrible!

"The A-Team" actually looks like lots of over-the-top fun with plenty of big explosions and unfeasible action sequences. Also, I want to give it up for Sharlto Copley, who plays Capt. 'Howling Mad' Murdock. After seeing his performance in "District 9," I think Copley is going to be one of those guys you cheer for and want to see get the credit he deserves.

Bradley Cooper's abs take center stage along with Hannibal's cigar and B.A's signature mohawk. Though I previously suggested Tyrese and Ice Cube for the role, I think Rampage Jackson will do an adequate job of being the no-nonsense tough guy on the team and leave the acting to the professionals...

"Best Buy my ass..."

Finally, let's go out with a bang. Today two of 2009's best films were released on DVD and Blu Ray. I went to my local Best Buy to pick up "The Hurt Locker" and "Moon" on Blu Ray only to be greeted with a stiff kick to the groin in the realization that they were "completely sold out" of these items.

By "completely sold out," Best Buy means they only had five copies of each Blu Ray to begin with. Let me ask a question - what's the fucking point of going to a store if they don't have what you want? Honestly, every time I go to Target or Best Buy their stock is so pathetic, you'd have better luck finding what you're looking for at a flea market.

And while we're on the subject, since when did Best Buy have the fuckin' best buy on anything? The only place more expensive in terms of DVDs and Blu Rays are Barnes & Noble and Borders.

Sweet Jesus, why would I pay for $30 for a Blu Ray of "Moon" that you don't have when I can get it for $24 (with free shipping, might I add) on Amazon?

GET IT TOGETHER.

Interview: Cassandra Sawtell

From: Moviehole.net

Adam Frazier had the privilege of sitting down with up-and-coming actress Cassandra Sawtell to talk about her upcoming projects.

Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, 11-year-old Cassandra can currently be seen in Terry Gilliam’s highly anticipated film, "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus". Cassandra plays "Olga" alongside Colin Farrell and Lily Cole in the film.

“Olga’s first appearance is on this tiny little island,” Cassandra explained. “She’s found crying in a puddle of her own tears by Imaginarium Tony (Farrell) and Valentina (Cole). According to Cassandra, the couple rescue her with the promise of providing the young Olga with a better life – though things don’t go quite as planned.

Cassandra has been seen in twenty-five television and film projects, most notably Showtime’s "The L Word", Sundance Channel’s "Terminal City", The CW’s "Smallville", USA Network’s "Psych" and a lead role in the Lifetime movie, "Imaginary Playmate". You may, however, know Cassandra best for her starring role as “Madison Allen” on the critically acclaimed 2009 CBS series "Harper's Island".

What’s next for Cassandra? “Well, I’m going down to L.A. for pilot season, but I don’t have too much going on at the moment.”

After working with Terry Gilliam, a dream director for any aspiring actor, Cassandra has her sights set on working with Steven Spielberg. “I would simply love to work with Spielberg, Rachel McAdams and Neil Patrick Harris– he’s hilarious!”

*** Writer's Note: I tried so hard to imagine a dream project involving Spielberg, McAdams and Harris – so young Cassandra could go ahead and knock those three dreams out of the park on one pitch. Unfortunately, all of my ideas involved remaking "My Pet Monster". ***

When asked about her favorite films, Cassandra presents a surprisingly varied list. “Forrest Gump, for certain – let’s see, The Notebook and Lord of the Rings.”

While Cassandra prepares for pilot season, she’s certainly got a dream project in mind. “Fablehaven, it’s a children's literature fantasy series written by Brandon Mull,” explained Cassandra.

With numerous Children’s fantasy titles flying from bookshelves and into theaters, It’s not a stretch to imagine Mull’s fantasy series will eventually gain the attention of some writer or producer looking for the next Harry Potter. And hey, who knows, maybe Cassandra will be right there with Spielberg, McAdams and Neil Patrick Harris… sure as Hell beats "My Pet Monster"…

Hollywood Apocalypse

I couldn't begin to tell you how it all began. I can only imagine that, by some small miracle the human race survives, the whole series of events leading to our goddamn near-extinction will be explored in lengthy detail.

I'll tell you what I remember, though. It was as if the whole damn planet was cracked right down the center. Every kind of natural disaster you could imagine, like one of those blockbusters about the end of the world - except worse. There were floods of biblical proportions, great wildfires and earthquakes.

An ocean of fire, crushing waves of flames licking and lashing out at the forests of dead trees; the downtown metropolitan centers built of stone and steel. It wasn't before too long that the governments and so-called civilzations of the world faltered and faded away - leaving only the ignorant masses to form militias and makeshift war parties.

The whole world was in its final death throes, shaking and trembling under the weight of its own inevitable doom. When the world stops working, it's hard to keep up with the concept of time. I guess a lot of people would expect Armageddon to annihilate the planet in one, swift blow - just like in the movies - but it doesn't work that way.

No, the story I'm about to tell you probably doesn't find its beginning until ten years after the initial "shock and awe" of apocalypse. I began having these dreams. Hell, I wouldn't even call them dreams - they were more visions or flashbacks of a life I had never lived.

There was a girl, a young woman I should say. She had jet-black hair and porcelain skin - her cheeks scarred from acne, scars she could easily hide with makeup - of course that's when vanity held sway and a person cared more about appearance than survival. She was gorgeous though, perhaps the prettiest girl I had ever laid eyes on.

I heard her cry out in the darkness and it stirred me from my sleep. There was something about these dreams, almost like a voice in the back of my mind, that told me to go North - to find her. For weeks I dreamed of her, each time a sliver of shadow lifted to expose another clue.

It was a steady progression of checkpoints - at first it was little things like a mile marker or maybe an exit ramp number. Then it became more clear - a Virginia license plate, a series of street signs and stoplights leading to where she was.

I collected what little possessions I had left, a backpack filled with necessities for my great Northern adventure. Rope was important - you never knew when a path might be blocked or a road washed out. I had come across a few cans of food in an abandoned gas station a few months before, and I packed as much food as possible - of course you could never have enough. Anyone left alive was barely living - we were all dying of starvation.

The point of my story is not to illustrate the hardship and struggle of my journey, but I suppose there is a part of it that needs tellin'. I would occupy myself with thoughts of her - what her lips must taste like, what her name was. It had been months since I had even seen a woman - occasionally you would come across the corpse of a mother curled around the rotting skeleton of a child. That was a sight you'd walk five miles around to avoid, if only you knew it lied ahead.

It had been years since I had made love to a woman - felt her touch and tasted her kiss. Such luxuries were nothing more than wasted energy in a world where even the most simple tasks had become impossible. I thought about what she was before the world moved on, maybe a barista at some quaint little coffee shop or the cutest, most hip, librarian alive.

Those old creature comforts - soft drinks and fast food, 158 high definition cable channels on your 46" flat screen television and broadband Internet. These things are nothing more than fading memories of a time that feels less like the past and more like the dream of a wide-eyed child.

My visions became longer, more vivid. I saw her held up in a video store - a handful of dirty, half-starved survivors burning copies of "The Towering Inferno" and "Blade Runner" to stay warm in the harsh Virginia winters.

She couldn't have been older than 19 or 20, and yet she had taken to caring for a child - a youngin', made orphan from a worldwide disaster there was no explanation for.

I had never even held a firearm before the beginning of the end. I pulled the trigger of a pistol for the first time when a stranger pulled a knife on me. I shot him dead right there in the middle of the interstate highway on my way to her. It was somewhere in-between Elkin and Roanoke, as I recall. I found a child's bicycle in the back of a pickup truck and made my way through the concrete maze of stalled tractor-trailers and abandoned four-door sedans.

But the journey in particular, as I said, is not important. All that matters is that I eventually reached my destination. I came for her, and I found her. For the first time in ten years, I heard the sound of a bell chime as I opened the door to Hollywood Video.

Takin' a life seemed worth it to save her's - and that little boy under her arm. His name was Eli and he had shaggy brown hair and the deepest blue eyes I had ever seen. Her name was Winona, and she was from the coast - a town called Newport News.

We sat around the fire eating stale popcorn and hard candy, talking about the world before the wars - before the last time the sunshine broke through the ashen gray sky. Winona would sing the old songs, sweet little hymns I hadn't heard in ages. I found myself asking for an encore after the others had succumbed to sleep.

In these quiet moments I often considered telling her the truth - the whole story - that I had dreamed of her, and that these dreams were eerily accurate. That what little piece of God left choking on the ashes of apocalypse had put me on a path destined to cross hers...

But I didn't. I simply asked her every question I could think of. I came for her, to take care of her - and that's exactly what I did. I tasted her lips, felt her fingers on my skin. I made love to her, and all the while the dreams continued to plague my sleep.

Only these dreams had Winona cold and lifeless in my arms. The boy, Eli, there wasn't much left of him - his guts spilled out across the linoleum floor behind the counter of the video store. I found myself wondering what did that to him, if we had resorted to the unspeakable act that every starving person dared not think about...

I tried to pretend they were only nightmares... but I knew they too were visions destined to come true.

The Proper Paper

This little navy blue notebook, a Moleskine, has been slightly customized with the addition of a Lunchbox Records sticker slapped on the cover. The proper notebook and writing utensils are particularly important to an aspiring writer such as myself.

The masterminds of promotion behind Moleskine attract would-be novelists and screenwriters with the inspiring idea of being able to use the same notebook as “Picasso, Matisse, and Hemingway” – in other words, it's like being handed John Lennon’s guitar or Jack Kerouac’s typewriter.

Having the proper notebook is, in itself, inspiring. I find myself excited to have a fresh notebook to fill with neatly organized paragraphs of sentences. Case in point, at this very moment I am dedicating a college-ruled piece of notebook paper to writing about a notebook.


Occasionally I'll revisit these notebooks - I have whole stacks of them throughout my apartment - and tweak things, find a couple of sentences and expand them. To re-read a notebook from beginning to end is to time travel within the limits of your own existence and rediscover the thoughts and feelings you experienced on any given day. It's quite informative in the never-ending quest to discover one's self.

With that being said, I am approaching the final pages of this little navy blue notebook. I have already made my selection for its replacement, a Piccadilly notebook. It seems the champions of advertisement at Piccadilly believe a high-quality journal is a lasting token of expression, and as such they take care in crafting each one with precision.

I look at it's blank pages and dream of the words I'll commit to it in sincerity. I pray the structured sentences are worthy of being published - adequate enough to be considered a good use of paper. Perhaps the Piccadilly will be the equivalent of Luke Skywalker's lightsaber - a brilliant green blade that wields a power greater than Lennon's guitar and Kerouac’s typewriter combined.

On the first page, I spill some ink to spell your name. On the second, I fill every empty space with words that fall short of capturing your beauty. On the third, I find every reason to believe you are nothing more than a mere creation of my own overactive imagination. On the fourth, rest assured I'm more than familiar with the inner-workings of every drop of ink used to fail you.

On the fifth, I commit a prayer to the Gods of paper that you will someday read these words and find yourself in my arms. On the sixth, I realize this has all been a beautiful impossibility come to fruition, a conclusion I knew from the moment I first spilled ink to spell your name.

Top 10 Films of 2009

Top Ten Films of 2009

1. Up In The Air
2. 500 Days of Summer
3. District 9
   
4. Avatar
   
5. Inglourious Basterds
6. The Road
7. Moon
8. The Hurt Locker
   
9. Star Trek
10. This Is It
    

The Bottom Ten Films of 2009

• X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
  
• Terminator: Salvation
• Year One
  
• New In Town
• Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
• The Ugly Truth
  
• All About Steve
• Miss March

Honorable Mentions for Best Films of 2009

• The Hangover
• Watchmen
  
• Where the Wild Things Are
• Zombieland
• Public Enemies
  
• Coraline
• Julie & Julia
• Up
  

The Falling Action Boy

I am destined to fill these pages with nothing more than lessons learned - the trials and tribulations of a boy with a paper-mâché heart. Easily broken, a problem quickly remedied with paste, pulp and a few strips of newspaper.

I'm just the boy in the back-right corner singing, "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want." And I've got this pen and some pieces of paper, slightly yellowed and college ruled of course. With the ink I write headlines in big, block letters. One-sentence summaries of stories that simply aren't true, like that time I kissed Summer Finn in the copy room.

I'm the boy with a compulsion for coping with heartache through the old song-and-dance of cinema and literature. It seems I find more in common with fictional characters than the living, breathing beings of my everyday life.

I listen to songs on a digital music player and put them in an order that only makes sense to me. Truth be told, I typically try to design these little playlists to follow the traditional fictional narrative. First there's the exposition, then the rising action. I guess every one's favorite part is the climax, the part of the story also known as the turning point - the big "shock and awe" moment where conflict strikes the hearts of our characters.

Then comes the falling action - perhaps the best part of any true tragedy. It's the point in the story where the full ramifications of the climax are taken into consideration. Everyone is made aware of the tragedy - the issue that needs fixing, and yet everyone is powerless in this moment.

I'm just a boy obsessed with tragedy - my entire life one big falling action, observing the consequences of such a catastrophe as my own birth. Maybe that's dramatic, but I'm also a boy obsessed with living a dramatization of my own so-called life.

Intoxicated by the promise of my expectations running parallel to reality, a promise impossible to be anything other than broken. I'll run down the stairs away from the rooftop where I watched you give yourself away, forever a boy with a heart made of paper-mâché.

And I'm beginning to believe love is just a made-up thing, the best lie I've ever told myself - the result of a life filled with romantic comedies and pop songs. And I'm so tired of lying to myself.

Questions and Answers

I have here, in this little green notebook, a collection of questions. Some of these questions are rhetorical, others simply curious in nature. There are even some questions I’ve asked myself – though I don’t expect to find the answers any time soon. For what it’s worth, there is no obligation to answer these questions. They’re merely questions, and not every question has an answer.

Is it my intention to steal you away from the complacent limitations of your Roanoke to Radford commute? Is it my objective to take you away from a young man who takes you for granted? Honestly, yes – this is my intention.

Does he ever surprise you? I wonder does he realize how lucky he is. How often does he tell you he loves you? Does he send you little messages throughout the day? Does he talk at length about your beauty and how perfect you are to him?

Does he long for you; lust after you with a passion that knows no end? Does he dream of you, and if so does he wake up with the smell of your hair on his sheets? And while all I have to hold on to are pictures of you on my cellular phone, I am left envious by his ability to touch your skin on a daily basis.

Does he pick up on your subtle hints? Did he get you what you wanted for Christmas? Did he ever mail you a set of graphic novels to your place of work? Has he ever shared a glass of wine over a system of Ethernet wires after Midnight?

Does he smile at the sound of your name? Does he make you feel loved and cherished? Does he take every opportunity to press his lips against such a pretty set as yours? Does he make you feel wanted and desired?

I understand that the bulk of these questions require only a simple “yes” or “no” response, however, the inherent reply to “no” in these situations would warrant an explanation in the form of “Why?” – yet another question that may or may not be answered.

The very thought of you sets off a series of flash bulbs in my eyes, if only you weren’t two hundred miles away I could make this a reality. I could answer these questions on your behalf, and put a check next to “yes” for each and every one.

On The Road

The forgotten structures of humanity's design; shopping malls and multicolored playgrounds liter a landscape scorched by cataclysm. The color palette of this planet, once lush with greens and blues and white, reduced to a million shades of gray and brown.

Cannibalism. The remains of a man in the middle of a street, his guts spilling across the concrete. His head, three feet removed, rests under the chassis of a stalled tractor trailer truck. The world is a quiet place outside of the occasional gunshot. There are no birds in the sky, no crows perched high in the branches of Earth's ancient trees.

Locked in the cellar of an old farmhouse, writhing bodies are kept in the dark. Their moans reverberate off cold cinder block, but fall on deaf ears. They lie on cots and tarps, freshly-sewn stitches from amputations - an arm here, a leg there - all that remains of a dwindling supply of food.

Five in the Wasteland

It's 5:00 a.m.

Fell asleep with the television set on again. Re-runs of technicolor Mary Tyler Moore in the background. The dawn spills in through the living room blinds and paints the walls a light and fragile blue. Outside the faint sounds of bird chirping; inside, presented in surround sound, the laugh track that compliments Ed Asner and Ted Knight so well.

It's a surprise I didn't burn the damn place down. Fell asleep with a Marlboro Red in my right hand. I remember drinkin' more than half a bottle of wine, bought for under nine dollars at the neighborhood grocery. A small price to pay for the luxury of forgetting - cheaper than a doctor's appointment co-pay, that's for sure.

Take a drag off the Marlboro and swallow down the last swig of Pinot noir, look at the clock and curse out loud. Put the cigarette out in the crystal ashtray on the coffee table. Smoke settles like an early mornin' fog on the Blue Ridge Mountains.

I open the blinds and let the sunlight in, vaguely disappointed to find that I'm not living in post-apocalyptic times. The freshly-cut green grass, the blue sky filled with fluffy clouds - it makes me sick. Or maybe that's just the nicotine on my tongue reacting with the alcohol in my bloodstream.

Fuck. Take a look in the mirror and I look as though I am a card-carrying member of the living dead. I'm as white as a bleached linen sheet and my eyes are bloodshot and swollen. I look like a vampire from one of those goddamn Sookie Stackhouse novels.

I feel like shit. I feel like a bloated, swollen, puss-filled bag of shit to be more exact. I feel like a goddamn grizzly bear hip-tossed me into a pile of shattered glass and cinder blocks. Fuckin' heart is still broken, I suppose part of it will always be under construction. Left lane closed, merge right. All of this emotion packed into half the space, a traffic jam of inadequacy and apathy.

Start the hot water and turn the cold knob a quarter of an inch. Strip off my clothes with the least amount of effort possible and stumble into the boiling hot steam. Can't even be bothered to stand up - just lie down in the bathtub and close my eyes. Take a few minutes to devote my brain to a daydream of watching the world become a wasteland.

Constructive Criticism

To you, I am nothing more than a mere fantasy. You seem to lose sight of the fact that I am, in fact, a living, breathing human being. I am more than the subject of a series of sexually explicit online erotica. I'm real you know, not just some hodgepodge of adjectives and colorful phrases that paint me as a sexual object, an action figure whose clothes are removed with the press of a lever on my perfectly sculpted torso.

I am more than a collection of piercings and tattoos and matching sets of seductive underwear. You know what? The crazy thing is - I want to be more than this to you. I want to be a part of your reality, I want to experience so much more of this life with you and yet you see me as nothing more than a placeholder for something better that has yet to come along.

You are a writer. You have a raw talent for composition, not to mention a serious grasp on humor. You have the ability to take a sad story - any sad story - and retell it to make anybody with half a brain laugh their ass off.

And all the while, as they're laughing their ass off, you communicate the sad elements of that story, the pain or the emptiness of life. You set it up perfectly, effortlessly it seems, and it makes sense. And it's life, because it's funny and sad and painful and all that pain and laughter brings people together and they listen to you, they connect with you. Their lives are made better in this way. I know, I've been there for these moments, I love to hear these stories.

So please, stop writing this shit. I am more than just your weekly wet dream. I am a living, breathing girl with feelings and as sexy and desired as you may make me feel - I demand substance. I demand something more than quiet whispers in the dark, the sounds of heavy breathing and the action of hands clutching at sheets.

Ashleigh in Orange and White

I’m sitting in a delightfully tacky, yet unrefined restaurant located in the heart of Uptown Charlotte. It’s 38 degrees Fahrenheit beyond the plate glass windows, and I am greeted warmly by a swarm of waitresses in undersized orange shorts and tight white spandex tank tops.

Ashleigh tells me to sit wherever I’d like, and so I pick a secluded table in the corner, away from the various HDTV flat panels and the hordes of frat boys and testosterone-fueled barbarians screaming at college athletic teams.

Ashleigh is a slender girl with long dark brown hair. If she weren’t on the clock, she would have the same combination of piercings as Stacey, a Monroe and a lip ring – in the exact same places even. However, because of policy, Ashleigh has clear retainers instead.

I open my messenger bag and pull out a small stack of notebooks. These are the same notebooks I carry everywhere – a large hardback black notebook and a smaller navy blue Moleskine. Ashleigh takes a seat beside me in the booth and begins the artful task of making small talk in an attempt to snag a few extra bucks from my wallet.

This is common procedure at this restaurant. The attractive waitress sits down beside the customer and seems genuinely interested in him or her, the prey in this scenario. She may compliment you or even touch your arm in a more-than-friendly fashion, as if she’s known you her whole life. Ashleigh has only been working here for a month, but already she is a pro at this technique.

She asks if I’m working, because it’s Saturday and I should be relaxing. I explain that I’m a freelance writer, and that I always carry these notebooks around with me. She talks me up, puts me on a pedestal and makes me feel like the coolest person in the restaurant. I go along with it, because it's my role to play in this whole make-believe scene.

I order a Landshark, even though it’s two in the afternoon. Truth be told, I place an order in an effort to get Ashleigh to leave the table – because as much as I enjoy the company of a lovely girl, everything about this feels fake and reeks of bullshit.

After putting in my order, the buxom young Ashleigh returns to the table for another round of “tip talk” as I write these very words in my notebook. She is now wearing a Hawaiian lay with a laminated sign around her neck that reads, “Pass the buck” and has a $10 bill on it.

I am surrounded by framed photographs of celebrities and professional athletes posing with young girls in spandex and tube socks and white sneakers. The idea of coming to this sports bar to get any kind of work done is preposterous, yet I see a few fellow patrons with laptops and legal pads.

I decide to take this imaginary conversation between Ashleigh and I and turn it into something more substantial. In this exchange of real dialogue I find that Ash is from Atlanta, Georgia. She used to work at The Tilted Kilt, a Scottish-themed competitor where girls dress like Catholic schoolgirls with little plaid kilts and tight white shirts. She didn’t like the girls who worked there, too much drama she says. She’s working full-time but wants to go back to school this summer, at least that’s the plan.

Ashleigh is playing dumb, I mean really dumb. I don’t think she’s unintelligent in the least, but maybe she has to play up this ditsy image to get tips. In any case, I just wish she could level with me. She says “like” a lot, and asks me questions about sports and the size of stadiums in Texas.

I wonder about the type of women who work at places like this. They seem to take no issue with being objectified, at least not enough to throw down their little black aprons and storm out. There are signs all around the restaurant that say things like, “Caution: Blondes Thinking” or “Hooters At Play!”

Obviously the lovely Ashleigh has no issue with her body, she feels completely comfortable in the skin-tight spandex and hose that accentuates every curve. I’m not complaining, I’m just making an observation. She’s a cute girl after all, I guess if you’ve got it, flaunt it.

An ironic turn of events unfolds before my eyes as Ashleigh goes to fetch the check. An elderly couple strolls past me, and a few waitresses stop to thank them for coming in. “Ya’ll have a Merry Christmas,” one of them shouts. At this time I notice the woman is holding the man by the arm, and he is walking with a cane – a folding blind cane to be more precise. Her husband is blind, and I have to chuckle at the irony of bringing a blind man to a bar known for it’s scantily-clad, busty waitresses.

Is this his wife’s idea of a cruel joke, or is it a sweet sentiment? I am unable to discern the difference at the moment. As Ashleigh brings the bill, we exchange one more set of pleasantries – and I leave a little message on the back of the tip for her, to fulfill my role as the attention-starved male who feels more complete having spoken with her.

I give her the address for this online journal. “If you want to read about yourself, give it a look tonight or tomorrow."

Little Secrets / A Moth's Wings

The girl with the peacock tattoo, a bird that rests its crested head on her right shoulder blade. Distinguished by brilliant blue and green plumage; lengthy feathers marked with iridescent eye-like spots.

Her name is Helena and she tastes like summer rainstorms. Her thick hair, the shade of an aged penny, hangs in loose curls about her shoulders. She looks at you with the innocence of a child, bright green eyes with big, black pupils the size of dimes.

She dances around the living room in her underwear, shaking her petite frame to the sounds of Del Shannon, Buddy Holly and Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids. Her seductive hipsters, turquoise with yellow polka dots – tiny pink bows the color of her lips.

“I’m only trouble if you want me to be,” she says with sincerity. I pull her close and up into my arms, her legs wrap tight around my waste like a Venus Flytrap capturing its prey.

Our lips touch like two super-powered magnets. She bites my bottom lip and introduces a fresh set of scratches to my shoulders and back. Helena, the girl with the peacock tattoo, sits on the fence of heartache and happiness.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is a weakness in the wrist that turns and twists her lovely shape like a skeleton key. With the proper leverage and applied pressure, she turns the rusted locks and finds her way into my heart.

Down on Elizabeth Avenue, I take photographs of her against the city skyline. A grid of high-rise office lights, bright and fluorescent, dot the sky like stars or satellites orbiting downtown Charlotte.

Thick black eyeliner with silver shadow, she is a raven-haired beauty with electric pink streaks throughout. We share a seat on my Swedish-made couch, her legs stretched across my lap. My right arm twisted and held down by her left hand as she painstakingly paints tattoos on my wrist and forearm.

In the soft glow of the television screen, I take the time to admire the collection of bangles and bracelets that swing from her tiny wrists. Every color of the rainbow on display, like candy-dipped rings with stars and hearts and other lucky charms.

Resting on a flawless upper lip, her Marilyn Monroe piercing shines in the blue light. Our mouths move into each other like interlocking pieces and I run my tongue around the small silver ring in her bottom lip. She tastes like strawberries dipped in sugar, so sweet she sticks to my tongue.

The tattoo on my wrist consists of a woman in a tight black dress, a killer for hire with ruby red lipstick. She has a bow in her hair, the revolver pressed against her lips. She blows the smoke up into the air.

Nicole Monroe

It's snowing outside, and the parking lot is dusted in white powder that hides the lines where Stacey parks her piece-of-shit car. But Stacey, she goes by a different name tonight - for all intents and purposes of this conversation, her name is Nicole.

And let me tell you something, Nicole has the prettiest set of brown eyes I've ever had my heart set on kissing the eyelids of. I take her in my arms and place my hand on the back of her neck, running my fingertips through her hair. I peel the winter coat away from her gorgeous frame and taste her lips, sweet like summer strawberries.

Against the apartment door, I press my body against hers. My lips work their way down her neck - to her chest - and I feel her tremble beneath my touch. How I've dreamed of tasting every inch of her body, exploring every surface of her skin with my fingertips. My lips move to her navel, pierced and oh, so tempting. From there I travel to the spot in-between her thighs - our hands held tightly.

And Nicole, she's a pretty young girl with a Monroe piercing on the top right, and a lip ring on the bottom left. "You're driving me mad, I want you so bad." She whispers these words in my ear in-between breaths which quicken with every well-placed touch.

"I like it when you write things about me." She asks if I think she's vain, and I assure her that I'm flattered - that she's so gorgeous, writing pretty words about her comes easily. She knows it was against her better judgment to make the drive to this apartment tonight - but the offer was so damn tempting, and now I'm doing more than just writing about her.

She was worried she might be a disappointment, but that would be impossible. She's nothing but pure sex wrapped up in what I can only describe as the best birthday present I've ever received. I wish I could wake up every day with her in my arms begging to be unwrapped again and again.

A Voice That Only Whispers

Stacey is often terrified of waking up on days like today. At 7:50 a.m. the alarm clock startles her from sleep, like the shrill scream of a banshee cutting through the darkness of her bedroom.

Stacey’s aching body frees itself from a tangle of sheets in an otherwise empty bed. There's no one taking up residence on the other side, delivering a groaning chorus of "turn it off."

She drags herself to the closet and blindly assembles an attire for the day. Like a rotting member of the undead, Stacey shuffles her little feet inch-by-inch to the bathroom where she stares in the mirror. Her eyes are weak, strained and devoid of brightness.

She steps into the shower and the boiling hot water erupts from the showerhead, blistering and burning her pretty flesh. She stands under the waterfall of scalding liquid, hoping it will somehow reach the cold, empty spot inside her chest.

Clothes are tossed on without care and she drives to work in an intellectual coma, unable to provide substantial conversation to even her own inner-thoughts. Her senses are dulled, like a knife used too many times.

Behind the wheel of her piece-of-shit car, a familiar monotone voice whispers in her ear. “Something is wrong, isn’t it?” Stacey’s fake, plastic smile begins to fade. “You’re sad, aren’t you?” Her foot lifts gently off the pedal, distracted.

“Your friends all laugh and talk about you behind your back.” Stacey shakes her head and turns up the techno/trance music blaring from the speakers. “Shut the fuck up,” she mutters to herself.

“You’ve always felt alone, haven’t you?” Now she feels a stab in her chest, a piercing pain that penetrates deep down. Her fingers tighten their grip on the steering wheel as she steadily increases speed.

“Oh, I’ve really struck a nerve now, haven’t I?” Stacey’s jaw tightens, her teeth grinding against each other with the friction of two cinder-blocks rubbing sides . She tells herself that she’s truly blessed, that today is just one of those days she hates to open her eyes to.

“The ones you love so much; they will all grow to resent you and discard you in the end.” She screams, tears flooding down her cheeks. She slams on the breaks and over-corrects her steering, sending the car flying off the pavement and into the guardrail.

Stacey sits slumped over the steering wheel, covered in blood and tears. Her body bruised and broken, she listens as the voice laughs in her ear. “Look at the mess you’ve made, my dear,” it says. The pain is unbearable, and yet she welcomes it because anything is better than the emptiness and numbness that dwells inside her stillborn heart.

Upon impact, Stacey’s chest smashes into the steering column - leaving her sternum cracked. She touches the black, bruised area with broken fingertips and smiles. Stacey realizes at that moment that the cold spot inside her, the ice that never seems to melt, has finally cracked.

The Wasp and Tiny Pieces of Paper

Rebecca Stinson took one look at me and said, "Keep close all the things you hold dear." She took a drag off her Parliament cigarette and blew the smoke over her right shoulder. "Give away every ounce of love you've saved for the ones that never come, and give it all away to the strangers along the way."

I was sitting on the hardwood floor, my arms resting on the old mahogany coffee table. On the other side of the scratched and dented surface, Rebecca sat on her old green couch with legs crossed. As the smoke from her cigarette drifted to the ceiling, we stared at the fifteen hits of lysergic acid diethylamide, breathing in the possibilities of six to fourteen hours of altered senses, emotions and memories.

Rebecca Stinson was poppin' pills in the kitchen, in-between sips of cheap Cabernet Sauvignon - a mix of sleep aids and anti-depressants, what a fuckin' wreck she was. Stumbling over herself, dancing to the music in her head, she placed a piece of paper on her tongue and fell through the world.

I came tumbling after, like an astronaut on a space walk in the black oceans of infinity. I put a bullet in my brain, a slug of numbing pain reliever that popped like cheap, Chinese firecrackers - ricocheting throughout my skull.

The next morning, lime green paint slowly dripped down the wall behind us. Rebecca Stinson's face, so white and pallid like vampire flesh. A wasp crawled over her teeth and tasted the sweetness of her tongue.

The Bear and The Wolf

A fall from midwinter’s grace
A tumbling plummet through thickets
Of ancient Oak branches.
Limbs, dry and snapping
Under the dead man’s weight.

On the forest floor,
A fresh blanket of snow
Disturbed by warm blood
Seeping out from his skull.

The Bear and the Wolf
Make claims for the carcass
The smell of soft meat
Leaves their fur raised
And mouths watering.

Black and still,
Sightless eyes rolled back
In shredded sockets, stare
As the titans tear into one another

Snarling, guttural noises
That could boil blood
At intervals, the creatures
Gorge themselves on dead man’s flesh,
The meat and muscle underneath.

The Wolf, with saliva
Wet and slick, reveals a set of
Razor-sharp teeth that cut into
The dead man’s jaw, pulling away
The skin from his cheek.

And the Bear, with such
Strength, crushes the carcass
And picks about the remains
Blood running down its chin

Battery-Powered Boy From Texas

The boy was made from scraps, bits of metal and slivers of plastic and glass salvaged from the wreckage of one thousand airplane crashes. Inside his makeshift chassis is a heart held together with electrical tape and copper wires tied in knots.

The engineers down in Texas installed cracked camera lenses in the sockets on his face, a reel of 35 millimeter film spinning through a series of levers in his head. Everything powered by a 40 watt light bulb that glows and projects the moving images through his eyes.

The boy's mouth nothing more than a bed of hot coals and lava rock. His foot is inserted easily, but it's ejected immediately for fear of being burned by the spiteful words dancing on the surface of his tongue.

His back comes standard with knife wounds in tact, a chest riddled with shrapnel where bullets never seem to miss. He is an incomplete masterpiece, a boy with an irregular heartbeat powered by alkaline batteries and a sense of defeat - his brain function increased with every disappointment that he follows through with.

The boy is lonely. All he wants in this world is a companion, someone to complete the work the guys down in Texas began; someone to put all the screws in the right places and jump start his heart into beating again.

To Frank On His Birthday

My dad, Frank, is a simple man. Ask him what he wants for his birthday or Christmas and he might say, "socks" or "underwear" or "I don't need nothing." Every year I struggle to give him something with a little ounce of meaning, whether it be tickets to go watch professional wrestling together or something of the sort.

We've never been that expressive in our emotions toward one another. Hell, what father and son are? It's the way things - we go about our entire lives keeping things like love and pride and respect buried down deep, even though both parties recognize they are there and nothing needs to be said. But this year, on Frank's birthday, I figured it was about time for something to be said:

I sent my father an empty piece of paper, filled with all the things I can never bring myself to say. The invisible ink spelled out the love, respect and appreciation that I cannot communicate to him otherwise.

There is a deep gratitude that dwells in my chest and an abundance of pride I carry at the base of my spine in knowing this man is my father. He is a man I can only hope to become one-tenth of. And all of these things, they go unsaid, and can only be read on this empty piece of paper that I give.

I love you more than anything and I am so grateful and privileged to have a man such as yourself as my father.

She said, "Come here boy."

The lovely woman chases a glass of Smirnoff Vodka with 20 ounces of Diet Coke in a plastic bottle. She tried the wine, a cheap bottle of everyday red from the local grocery store, and handed the glass back to the man beside her.

"That stuff tastes like pure vinegar," she says. He laughs and playfully argues the point with her as she reaches for the Diet Coke. They talk for a moment longer, her sweet southern twang slurring with every sip of Smirnoff and artificially-sweetened soda she consumes. The space between them slowly disappears and soon their lips are touching.

He finds that she is, in fact, quite a good kisser as previously admitted. The kiss is a delicate dance of alternating from top lip to bottom lip, a rhythmic back-and-forth that creates a kind of magnetic bond where both parties push and pull against each other without breaking free.

The alcoholic beverages find their way to the little red coasters on the coffee table and his fingers find their way through her hair. His lips move below her right ear; finding that soft, supple spot between her neck and shoulder that he loves to put his lips against. Their hands move in a frenzy of motion, grasping and caressing one another on the Swedish-made couch the man put together himself.

His lips move to her chest, which is now flushed with red. His right hand slides in-between her denim-covered thighs as she digs nails into his shoulder. He feels warmth; an intense heat that makes the kiss deeper and the taste sweeter.

She takes the boy by the hand and leads him into the bedroom, as if she's done this before. He removes the tight black sweater from her curvy frame and throws it to the floor. Underneath is a red tank top that is removed before either of them can fully appreciate how good it looks on her.

The jeans that hug her hips are soon removed to reveal an appealing pair of silk panties, a lavender color with flowers in reds and deep passion purples. They spend the night together; sleep together even, but together they truly slept for an hour at most.

The next morning, he watched her slowly walk around the bedroom naked to collect her attire from the night before - one piece at a time. He wanted to reach for his glasses as to make out the perfection in the curved lines that made up her silhouette in the morning light, but he was too at peace to move a single muscle.

He walked her to the door at 8:14 a.m. and fell back into bed with a deadening thud, searching for the sleep he lost the night before, but instead only finding the smell of her hair on his sheets.

I-75 / Kentucky Bluegrass

On I-75, somewhere between Knoxville, TN and Lexington, KY, a tanker truck carryin' 7,500 gallons of Kentucky's finest whiskey has crashed and rolled across the four-lane interstate highway.

She pulls over the old beat-up car we borrowed from her brother-in-law and sit together on a grassy hill overlookin' the whole thing; liquor seepin' out onto the dirt and slidin' in between the cracks of the concrete.

Our backs to the sun, watchin' the cleanup crews haul away the twisted metal. Above our heads, the sky takes on shades of purple and red, smeared across the horizon like a preschooler's finger paintin'. She kisses me right on the lips and crawls into my lap and together we shed a few tears for the spilt liquor there on the Tennessee interstate.

And as the they sweep up the last of the shattered glass and broken plastic, we dream of ways to leave this goddamn strip of cement behind once and for all. But for now, we'll enjoy the sun while it lasts and make the drive back to a town we can't wait to leave for good.

Marla Sings The Blues

Broken and pulled away
The wings once connected
To your lovely spine
Covered in blood
On the linoleum floor

A can of dark turpentine
Took a brush and dipped it in
Applied a coat to the bones
Pushing through your skin.

But Marla Singer
Has to take the stage tonight
She's a lounge singer
At the Down n' Out Club

And her boyfriend,
He’s got needles sticking
In his arms, his silhouette behind
Her black-and-white shower curtain

But Marla's heart
Ain't so strong when
It's broken apart
In one million pieces

So we sit and cry
And collect the feathers
Smeared with blood
And with her help,
He pulls the needles from his arms.

All But The Things That Can't Be Torn

Kennedy in thigh-high nylons, white as snow. Her hair, cut with a straight razor, changes color like leaves from autumn to winter, but it always looks best in black.

She whistles playfully in-between sips of [yellow tail] Merlot, drawing anime school girls in the margins of her chemistry notebook. A set of Japanese characters decorate her spine, in a sequence of ink which goes black, red, black. Altogether cute, the middle character means love.

She says that I always ask with my eyes, and that I should just tell her instead. She hates the little lies that I let slip from my lips; lies that trickle into her ear and down to her eyes where she spills them out in perfect little tears.

Lies that paint some picturesque dream-come-true straight from the pages of a cheap Harlequin romance novel. Things that can never come true, promises that I can never keep - but Kennedy, she takes another sip and presses her lips against mine and tells me that a lie is all she needs to get by tonight.

The Space Inside My Chest

I built us a two-bedroom apartment inside the bottom left quadrant of my heart. Decorated with memories and snapshots hanging in black picture frames, I painted every wall a different shade of her favorite color.

In my heart, I kept her safe. In the second bedroom I kept myself and wrote secret works she'll never read, and I loved her still, though we slept together more like best friends and less and like lovers.

After a while, the paint began to chip. The glass cracked and spider-webbed over our black-and-white faces. When everything had run its course, she packed her things and hung a vacancy sign on our old bedroom door.

Pictures were burned, frames broken down to fuel the flames. A fresh coat of black and blue paint to bruise the walls inside my heart. I boxed up all the memories and a catalog full of times I smiled and laughed; the times I cried. I put them all in cardboard boxes marked, "fragile contents inside."

Bedroom number one soon became number two, and I turned it in to an over-sized storage closet for you and the broken things you left behind. No room to rent, no space vacant in this overpriced apartment inside my heart. There's just a collection of junk and things that never seem to last.

And come spring, I'll make an effort to clean up the mess she left in her wake, the beat-up shape I've refused to seek help for, and maybe someday soon there will be room for someone who doesn't remind me so much of her.

But until then, I'll spend the winter time sharing blankets with beautiful girls who spend the night in bedroom number one while your ghost lingers on the other side of the wall. As I kiss this week's latest set of lips, I'll think back on all the arguments we had in the hallways and corridors of my heart.

Unfinished or Ruined

I'm writing in my favorite green notebook, a fresh pen with black ink to decorate the ruled pages with words. I'm drinking a glass of red wine, filled to the brim. With my left hand I hold the phone, and into my left ear I hear her voice. She's drinking one of those sugary malt liquor beverages that you buy at the gas station. It gets the job done, I suppose.

She's painting. We are both killing brain cells and yet stimulating our creative minds in an effort to bring life into something otherwise dead at the bottom of a bunch of words and brush strokes. She sends me pictures of her current work and I am in complete awe. It's a self portrait, which instantly lends to the watercolor composition's beauty.

She is bare, completely naked on the paper. On the left side of her chest is an over-sized heart, blood red with blue detailing. I am instantly drawn to this, and I feel a deep connection with her. I must have this. If I can't have her, at least I can hang her on my wall and study the fine lines she has made; the gentle oval of her green eyes and the straight lines that curve to create the shape of her lovely red hair.

We talk for nearly two hours as I write down these very words in my notebook and pour another glass of wine. We have a meaningful discussion about relationships, love and sex, the three types of attraction. We seem to mutually agree on the fact that we are attracted to each other in two of the three ways: physically and spiritually. As for mentally, well, she's not in the business of being committed at the moment and truth be told, she's done an adequate job at scaring me off.

But she is beautiful and creative and full of life, regardless of who is lucky enough to spend it with her. She tells me her paintings end up one of two ways: unfinished or ruined. She'll add an extra brush stroke, an extra swatch of color, and suddenly this amazing concept has been reduced to an overcomplicated mess.

I beg her to put down the brush and step away from this little work of art, as I continue to jot down meaningless little run-on sentences in the notebook. Almost half a bottle of wine tonight, and who knows how many gas station drinks she's had - we're both a little drunk, a little vulnerable - a little happy to be alive at the moment. It's 4 a.m. and I have to be up in three-and-a-half hours, but this has been a wonderful night that has lifted my spirits and granted me with a brief jolt of inspiration.

She Knows When The Keg Kicks...

Come on bartender / Won't you be more tender
Give me two shots of whiskey / And a beer chaser
Love will be the death of me / Love is so fickle
Cause it starts with a flood / And it ends with a trickle

- Regina Spektor, "Bartender"

When will the time come / I could hear a sad love song
That doesn’t speak to me / Will a time come
I could sing a nice love song / Using the word “me”

- Feist, "That's What I Say, It's Not What I Mean"


It is Monday night at 8:30 p.m. and we are at Common House, watching Monday Night Football at the bar with our fellow friends and bar patrons. The restaurant and bar is doing good business tonight, with plenty of people taking up seats and stools around the bar.

I unzip my hooded sweatshirt and throw it on the back of the chair as I pull my seat up to the bar. Natalie greets me with her signature smile and big, bright eyes. Natalie is a short, petite girl who has to stretch across to wash off the bar with a wet cloth. She laughs as she struggles to reach, and actually ends up putting her knee up on a crate to push herself closer to the edge.

She throws out a couple of black paper napkins and starts pouring my drink before I can even order it. Tim is a different story, however, as he takes a moment to decide what overpriced beverage he'll be indulging tonight.

She's super cute tonight, dressed down in jeans and the standard brown Common House t-shirt. Her hair is pulled back into a long ponytail and I take more than a few moments to take in her smile and the way she laughs.

The three of us talk about her father, an Army brat who spent most of his time in Denver and very well may be the world's biggest John Elway fan. We talk about cinematographers and the dumbass soccer players in her Introduction to Media Production class who aren't pulling their weight.

When it's time to leave, Natalie brings the check and I take the opportunity to set things straight. "Hey so, I'm sorry about not leaving a tip." She is quick to dismiss it. "What? No, it's no big deal."

"To be honest, I was a little drunk and so preoccupied with leaving that little note on the back of the receipt that I forgot I even paid with cash, and so I got home and realized I didn't tip you - felt like an idiot."

"Nonsense. I was so flattered, I wasn't even worried about the tip. And if I didn't have a boyfriend, I definitely would have called you."

I smile. She smiles. I finally get a chance to leave the infamous tip, and on the back of the receipt I write another little note - well, more of a comment actually. "Here's the tip, plus interest, Natalie."

I'm more than a little interested.

Leslie's kiss, or was it Ashley's?

I've been standing at the bar for a few minutes now, waiting on Suzie to bring me change for the green slip of paper I handed her. I take a drink of the beverage I've only just been handed when a cute young college girl bumps into me.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" she frantically tells me with a slight slur on every "S." She squeezes in next to me, Common House is packed tonight and it's standing room only. "I totally didn't mean to grab your ass!" she assures me, and I laugh. "Oh, you're fine, it's no big deal - I get that a lot."

She smiles and reaches into her purse, producing a few wadded-up dollar bills. She drops the green paper balls on the bar and her eyes are attracted to two silver coins resting on a black paper napkin. She's wearing a tight white sweater, striped with thick bands of charcoal gray.

She asks me, "Are those your quarters?" "Nope, I think someone left them as a tip." She stares at me, as if trying to process what I've just said. She thoughtfully studies the quarters and asks once again. "Are you sure? Thought you might throw one in the jukebox," she says with a slight laugh. I take the opportunity to point out this bar doesn't have a jukebox, to which she replies with yet another drunken laugh.

Before she can ask me again, I turn the tables. "Why? Are you planning on taking them?" She gasps and touches her chest with her hand. "What? Me? No! Are you saying I'm a thief?" She pretends to be insulted but she can't stop smiling, and I take a moment to recognize how beautiful her teeth are - how perfect her smile is.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying," I reply. "When you bumped into me and felt me up, I thought you might be trying to pull a pickpocket move on me." I smirk as her lips get closer to my ear, thank God for the atmosphere of a loud bar.

"Do I really look that untrustworthy?" I laugh out loud as she smiles, still pretending to be offended. "The pretty ones are always untrustworthy," I remind her. Right at this moment, Suzie grabs my attention and delivers the $3.50 she owes me.

I take one more look at the girl with dark brown hair and emerald green eyes and drop two more quarters on the same damp, black napkin. "There's two more for you, keep an eye on them for me."

I leave her at the bar and join my friends at a table in the corner for our final round of drinks.

20 minutes later...

The boys and girls are putting on their coats, all tabs paid and check cards delivered to their rightful owners. I see my opening and I slide in beside her at the bar, where I make it a point to interrupt some frat boy's lame attempt at hitting on her.

"Hey, where are my quarters?" She looks around and is shocked to find that the black napkin and the silver coins on top of it are missing. "You took them didn't you!?" I asked, another playful accusation between the two of us.

"No! Where'd they go? They were just here!" At this point, she takes my hand and gives it a shake. Her fingers are tipped with the same charcoal gray that wraps around her slender frame. Her handshake is soft and inviting, and I realize several minutes later we are still holding hands as we continue to converse.

I ask what her name is, and yet I am unable to remember it, though I've narrowed it down between Leslie and Ashley. It's one of the two, I'm sure of it. She asks for mine and then we exchange our points of origin.

"I'm from Michigan, can you tell?" she asks. "People down here say I have a crazy accent." I tell her the accent suits her well and holding hands soon turns to our arms wrapped around one another. My friends are on their way out the door, but her lips just found their way to my cheek.

"Well, I'm glad you got to meet me tonight," she says with a smile. "Yes, the privilege was all mine - but don't think wrapping your arms around me and giving me that sweet little kiss makes you any less untrustworthy."

She laughs and compliments the kiss on my right cheek with another one on the left. I tell her I have to go, that we've been here off-and-on all night and it's time to go to the next location. She asks where the next bar is and I tell her, "Sir Ed's, ever been there?" Of course Leslie (Ashley?) is drunk and probably can't comprehend the description and directions I'm giving her.

"We might be going there tonight," she says. "It's either there or Thomas Street Tavern." Having just left from Thomas Street before coming to Common House, I assure it's the last place she wants to be tonight. "There's nothing but frat boys and douchebags there, and none of them are as funny or interesting as me."

I simply let go of her hand and say my goodbyes. I could have asked for her number, I could have pressed my lips against hers, but I didn't. I couldn't even bother to commit her name to memory. She was attractive, but I've found in recent months that it's best to stay removed from these situations.

It's best I keep a safe distance from pretty girls at the bar whose inhibitions and decision-making abilities are as low-cut as the tops they wear around their necks.

Coming Clean: A Two-Part Strategy

Part I: My Favorite Memory

When I think of her, I see a blond-haired country girl who walks around the house in high heels. Her curvy frame is complimented by a tight white top and a black skirt her mother made for her; the print a never-ending skyline of colorful skyscrapers. She pours strawberry kiwi Country Time from a blue pitcher kept in the refrigerator and laughs with her entire body.

I think of her, sitting on a blue couch in her apartment on the light side of town, and I miss her. I keep wishing she was still around, but she isn’t. She changed with time, the way all of us change. None of us, it seems, have changed for the better.

Is it her fault? No, the ramifications of such things can never be traced back to one particular person or moment in time. However, decisions are made and in retrospect become mistakes, and don’t we all have a long list of things we wish could be undone?

Together we lie in pieces, broken and demolished after the respective four-car pileup that represents our lives. You would think by now we would have become better drivers; eyes on the road, both hands on the wheel – but distractions attract a more relaxed grip on the wheel and we are we left with? Busted windshield safety glass and the pain of fractured collarbones and broken hearts.

Maybe I was just in love with her for a week or two back in my senior year, but weakness disguised as complacency disguised as a high school sweetheart kept me from making myself her next big mistake.

I think that’s why I can no longer look her in the eye. I think that is why I have come to be so incredibly selfish and self-centered when it comes to our friendship. For whatever reason, I have become resentful of her – perhaps for making her own mistakes, which I know I have no control over. Perhaps I think, even way back then, there should have been something more to the two of us.

My next memory is of her in the passenger seat of my car. We went on a summer drive, just down the road to Blacksburg. With the windows down, we listened to music and stuck our arms out the windows, fingers spread – hands gliding in the wind.

She went with me to search for apartments, and the young man at Foxridge Apartments thought we were an item, a couple looking for a new place to stay. She had her big sunglasses resting on her head and her smile was so big and bright, it was almost blinding.

I thought for a moment that we just might be an item, if time would allow for such a thing. And so I stayed in Radford, and even though I had my own place, I spent enough time at hers to owe her a third of the rent.

I think a lot of people expected us to get together, but it never happened that way. She found herself back in the custody of a boy who never loved her the way she deserved – and I found myself back in the comfortable routine of being just a friend to every member of the opposite sex. She and I became like brother and sister, we felt as if we had each earned a spot in the other person’s life – a gray area where we could argue like siblings and impress upon each other our opinions. There was fondness, yet a confrontative resentment shared between the two of us.


Part II: Lessons Learned

You are correct in your evaluation of my emotional and mental state. I am full of anger and bitterness; increasingly jealous and resentful and I felt betrayed by everyone including myself.

This is not something remedied in a handful of autumn months, as I am sure you are aware. These are just the first few mile markers on a long road to recovery.

In the way you faltered and fell from the balance beam, it took some considerable time to find your footing again, and as I recall, didn’t a group of trusted friends rally to point out the mistakes you were making?

I’m sure we were obnoxious in our unrelenting giving of opinions you didn't ask for, but I also know it did not matter. I’m sure it had little to no effect, because I have now been on the other side of the door. I have been the one making the same mistakes, the same poor decisions, and your attempts to dissuade me from doing so have gone ignored and unappreciated.

I have been a terrible friend. I have become a disgusting, deteriorating amalgam of resentment, animosity and spite. I am not happy with myself, and your words have helped finally break whatever false pretense I had wrapped myself up in to believe otherwise.

These words I write bring tears to my eyes, as the changes and separations seem more like irreconcilable differences that cannot be mended. As much as I wish I could move the clock hands backward and un-draw the X’s from every calendar day between now and then, I cannot.

I am left with regrets that I have disguised as fate; accidents parading about as destiny, and mistakes for which there is no coincidence, only consequences that could not have happened any other way.

With love I write these words, with humility I spell out every mistake I’ve managed to make. I apologize for taking you, and the rest of my friends, for granted. I've found that I collect heartaches like a scientist catalogs moths and butterflies behind glass display cases. I am selfish and self-centered - and now I work toward freeing my heart of the heavy burden hate and bitterness places upon it.

I am sorry, Rachelle. I am sorry, Jessica. I'm sorry Sean and Tessica, Lauren and Craig, Kelly and anyone who reads this that I've made feel less-than or unappreciated. I realize it is of little consolation, but I mean these words - and I give them to you with love and nothing else, because I have nothing else in my heart to give.

At Your Funeral, After The Wake

I wouldn't hesitate to send a bouquet of black roses to your funeral, wilted and withered like the body tucked inside your wooden casket. I apologize in advance for not attending in person, for I fear I would begin to laugh at the site of such a small crowd mourning the passing of spilled milk's human equivalent.

Truth be told, you've been dead and buried in my mind for quite a long time now. I spent the summer digging myself a grave, only to watch you throw yourself in head-first. And so I took a shovel and made haste in covering your remains with freshly-moved earth. I planted a patch of tulips over your tomb lined with clay and said goodbye to the life you helped make.

Shortly thereafter I did away with all the friends made of threads that bound me to your memory; cut free from ties that tangled me up in knots and kept me from being free. And though you're dead and gone, your memory lingers on - haunting the dark, dusty corners of my mind in the middle of the night.

Broken hearts can be replaced, but the empty space behind my eyes is not filled so easily. I've forgotten the sound of your voice, the smell of your sheets, the sight of your smile in the early morning light... but I can't seem to shake the devastating stabs you left in my chest.

When I think of you, all I feel is the relentless inadequacy you left me with. I see you as an ugly, selfish, shallow shell of a person and I can't seem to remember one single moment of happiness spent with you. That's the worst part.

The Curves on the Cliffs

I've had a few drinks, and I'll have a few more before we're said and done. The backseat is filled with empty aluminum cans, save for this last silver bullet sittin' between my legs.

We were asked to leave an hour too soon, 'cause I said something to the bartender that he didn't much care for. But it's fine with me either way, honey, 'cause I'm taking you home tonight.

And I can see that nervous look in your big brown eyes, you're afraid I'll take the back roads home, and your fears are completely justified. But don't you worry about a thing, I'm more than drunk enough to drive you home tonight.

The little white lines become a spectacular zig-zag that stretches across the blacktop, and I pray the impact of this car smashing into the cliffs ejects your ghost from my passenger seat.

I'm counting on the broken bones and shattered teeth adding up to something greater than the pain you placed inside my chest.

The airbag bursts open like a parachute, wrapping around my skull like cellophane. It steals my breath as my chest crashes into the steering column, and the seat belt pulls tight across my twisted neck.

But when the ambulances came, they found me breathing amidst the bent steel and busted glass. They strapped me to the stretcher and hauled me away from the wreckage, and I'll never forget the last thing I saw before they slammed shut the doors.

You were left there in pieces, with no hope of being put back together. And I couldn't help but enjoy the sight of your heart slowly breaking before my eyes swelled shut and they turned out the lights.

The Day That Never Comes

I am ill with the feeling of disappointment. I am left uneasy by the lack of warmth around my heart, the absence of a body occupying the right side of the bed in the dark.

She's out there somewhere. This girl of mine, she lies awake at night with the idea that she'll find me when she least expects it. Her name can't be placed, and so my tongue clicks against my teeth like a camera snapping a picture of something that has yet to happen.

I often give this lovely girl names that stick for a week or two. Simple yet beautiful names like Samantha or Natalie, Diane or Kelly. In the end, it's just a case of mistaken identity and I'm left with an artist's vague interpretation of what perfect looks like.

And so I make love to these memories that never existed, still frames and photographs from nights that never happened. I remind myself that happiness is not something you can always hold, it comes and goes as it pleases and belongs to no particular set of hands.

Everything I've come to cherish, I let it slowly slip away. Everything I've ever loved will someday disappear and fade away until all that remains is a memory that feels more like a dream that never happened, much less came true.

Fly Girls in Legwarmers

From the far corner of the bar, "Back Door Man" by The Doors plays on an antique jukebox. It's Halloween night, and Common House Neighborhood Restaurant and Bar is completely dead. Big, fat drops of rain slap the sidewalk outside, and only the crew and a few lone patrons drink tonight.

Drew wears a cowboy hat, blue jeans, boots and a red button-up shirt tucked in. He has a fake brown goatee, and for the life of me I am unsure of who he is dressed as. At first I ponder over the possibility of Yosemite Sam or even Toby Keith, but I give up shortly thereafter.

The Blues Brothers, a Nun and an '80s rock star take up residence at the bar - sounds like the beginning of a joke, right? "Goddamn, it's The Blues Brothers," says Drew in-between sips of his Pabst Blue Ribbon. He comes over to the table and chats for a while, and I take the opportunity to explain the incident last week with Natalie and my failure at tipping her.

"Oh, so that was you?" he replies. He goes on to tell me how much of a cool girl Natalie is, something I've already learned in the few hours I've spent with her. As I remove Joliet Jake's black hat and sunglasses, he explains that this lovely girl (who reminds me of Tina Fey) is currently living with her boyfriend.

I had already assumed she was seeing someone - a cute, genuinely fun and awesome girl like that is snatched up easily (and then often neglected by the guy who doesn't realize what he has). From Drew's drunken musings, it would seem that it was a bad situation - that she wasn't happy. It's a tricky situation, one that is not easily remedied. At this point, I can only hope for a continued friendship with the possibility of more to come. 

The group migrates to the newly-installed dart board, where we take up teams and begin blindly throwing darts with all the skill of a chimpanzee trying to pilot a rocket ship. Behind us, a familiar voice yells out, "Hey!" and I realize it's Natalie.

Natalie is dressed as a Fly Girl from In Living Color. She is wearing purple leg warmers, hot pink stockings, turquoise gym shorts and a yellow sweater, with the neck ripped. The sweater hangs over her shoulder to reveal her bra - a sight that my eyes constantly gravitate back toward. She wears a headband, big hoop earrings and lots of '80s glam-rock makeup. She's beautiful, glowing even.

Her friend, whose name escapes me, is dressed as Jim from The Office - though an incredibly clever costume as she is dressed as Jim on Halloween, when he went as a three-hole punch. This girl from Kansas is extremely cute as well, and actually she reminds me of Jim's former girlfriend, Karen Filippelli.

With this motley crew comes Earl, from My Name is Earl. He is drunk, walking around with a list and a pint of cheap beer. He tells us of his exploits, feeling up girls at The Philosopher's Stone; the benefits of being Earl. We all engage in conversation, speaking at length about weird topics like Joan Jett, Kathy Griffin, Brunch and the magical nature of Kristen Stewart and our friend Holly's uncanny resemblance to her.

I make no mention to Natalie of the tip or the phone number that was so foolishly given. Monday night is approaching and, as tradition dictates, Tim and I will be at Common House for Monday Night Football and buffalo wings. I anticipate seeing her again, and perhaps getting a peek behind what exactly is going on in her life - a glimpse of hope or a reaffirming slap in the face, either or.

The Girl From Greensboro

Natalie's fingernails are a dark, pastel pink. She is a bartender at Common House, a neighborhood restaurant and bar on the corner of Central Avenue and Hawthorne Lane. To paint a picture of Natalie's beauty requires many fine strokes. In the few hours I spend in her company, I am delighted by her infectious laugh and put at ease by her smile.

Natalie is a Creative Writing student at Queens University of Charlotte. We talk at length about her poetry; esoteric musings. She just finished writing a piece of flash fiction, which she found challenging. A friend at my table spoke up and mentioned that it's my specialty. If I have an area of interest or expertise, I suppose that would be the name for it. Maybe prose poetry.

The bar is relatively empty on a Monday night. A few patrons have gathered to watch football and eat buffalo wings, but Natalie finds herself coming by our table often, joining in on the conversation. She is a short girl with a lovely shape; square-frame glasses and pulled-back ponytail seem to go hand-in-hand with her bubbly, quirky personality.

Natalie is an adorable girl from Greensboro who made her way to Charlotte after a detour in Boone. She went to App State and found herself considering Journalism as a major, where I found the opportunity to chime in with my own experiences (or lack thereof, rather).

I order a Pabst Blue Ribbon, because I'm a gentleman, and she laughs. I remind her it was America's best beer in 1893 and is the choice of gentlemen and scholars everywhere. She laughs at this, and she is simply beautiful. As the night goes on, and more Blue Ribbons are tied on, our conversations become less intellectual and more absurd.

She tells me about a friend with a Transformers tramp-stamp, that is, a tattoo of Optimus Prime on the lower back - bordered by flames. We talk about America's Next Top Model and how we wish Tyra Banks would burn a slow, painful death while smiling with her eyes.

When the football game has finished and the last beer has been emptied of its contents, Natalie brings the checks. I pay with cash, which is something I seldom do (because I typically do not have said currency). Tim pays with his debit card and thus, Natalie leaves an ink pen for him to sign his signature with.

Without thinking I remove the change from the black wallet and quickly grab the ink pen from Tim's hands as he finishes signing his money over to the Common House. In this moment I am distracted by how sweet and special this girl seems, and I take a minute to write a little note on the back of the receipt.

"So, because I'm a gentlemen," I begin in black ink. I leave my name and telephone number and close the black wallet with the ink pen inside. It's not until I get home that I realize I didn't tip her. Yes, I was so caught up with trying to leave my phone number for this beautiful bartender that I didn't even think to leave a tip for the excellent service and wonderful night in her company.

Then again, it could be a good story. It could be a great first line. I like to think she'll call and ask me where her tip is, and from there I can suggest going out for coffee or something of the sort to pay her back. Worst comes to worst, I'll see her next Monday and I'll leave my telephone number once more, with her well-deserved tip plus interest.

Someone Like You

I certainly could use someone like you. In fact, I think about it quite often. I think of using you for nothing more than a pair of legs and a set of breasts underneath my bedsheets. I dream of taking advantage of someone like you, just so I can know how it feels to be on the opposite side of a long goodbye.

I dream of drunken kisses, little white lies that imply something more than harmless fun in the dark. I dream of being the one who is desired, the one who is chased - the one who has to sit her down and tell her that I meant nothing by it. I dream of breaking a heart before it's even been handed to me.

I want to take something from you, I want to use you up and leave you feeling empty and slightly broken inside. I want to taste your lips and put my hands on you, and I want to wake in the morning and see the sun shining on your skin. I want you to fall head-over-heels in love with me, and then I want to break you.

But in the end, we both know that won't be the case. The only one left broken will be me. I will be the boy who chases the pretty girls. I'll be the boy who is always the second best thing, the one that girls latch on to in their moment of need and use to quell their loneliness. I'm the one who is destined to be cursed by the poison of a gorgeous set of lips - the one who falls in love at the drop of a pair of polka-dot panties.

Lost Creek's Very Own All Hallows' Eve

Lost Creek, Texas. October 31st, 1978.

Werewolves, Ghouls, Ghosts and Demons of every variety roam the streets tonight. They've all descended on the usually sleepy town of Lost Creek, Texas, where Halloween and all of the holiday's strangest traditions are taken very seriously.

6:32 p.m. Central Time. A jack-o'-lantern sits on the steps of Old Man Stinson's house. Triangles for eyes, a grin carved with surgical precision. Candlelight light oozes between the jagged teeth and fills the pumpkin’s eyes with fire.

Four children approach the steps, giggling under their latex masks and homemade costumes. Kitty Jacobs is a wicked old witch, caked green makeup with a crooked nose covering her own. Johnny Thompson is a rather pathetic looking mummy, wrapped in strips of sackcloth held together by safety pins.

Bobby Rickson knocks on the door with his hook hand. He’s a pirate, a rather elaborate costume complete with wooden sword, black eye patch and a fake parrot on his shoulder. The door cracks open ever so slightly, and light from the kitchen spills out onto the colorful costumes.

Susan Stranger, who all the kids at school called “Suzie the Strangest,” is the first to yell, “Trick ‘r Treat!” out from under the plain white sheet draped over her head. Susan tugs at the sheet to adjust the eyeholes so she can better see her candy bag.

The door opens a little more and a metal walker is pushed into view. A set of tennis balls have been slit and slid over the back two legs. The result is an odd screech, followed by a dull thumping noise – like dragging a dead body over hardwood floor.

Old Man Stinson greets the children with a warm smile and reaches into the big black cauldron of candy beside the door. Unlike most elderly folks on the block, Earl Stinson is a staunch proponent of trick-or-treating. You’ll never leave his doorstep disappointed.

No toothbrushes or raisins or Necco wafers are given to the kids on his watch. Earl’s giving out the name brand stuff, and not any of that fun-size junk either. We’re talking King Size Reese’s cups, here. We’re talking pumpkin-shaped chocolate pops, giant Pixie Sticks and marshmallow ghosts; a young child’s sugar-laden fantasyland.

The kids are quick to lift their treat bags and receive Earl Stinson’s holy communion of All Hallows’ Eve. The old man compliments each ghoul and goblin on their costumes and drops a gracious fistful of candy into their bags. The children bubble with excitement and hop down the steps toward the next well-lit, overly decorated house on Ford Street.

Earlier…

4:13 p.m. Central Time. On Earl Stinson’s kitchen table sits an amateur chemistry set. It’s made of cheap plastic and glass, the kind of kit you might see on the back page of an Archie comic book and send away for.

A metal tin labeled, “Potassium Cyanide,” can be seen on the kitchen counter. The table is covered in glass vials and dropper-bottles of colorless liquids. Earl Stinson’s hands work with the composed meticulousness of a watchmaker.

Using an Xacto Knife, he makes a small incision in the candy wrapper. Next he carefully removes the Milky Way bar from its plastic prison and cuts down the length of the chocolate as if he was performing a Cesarean section.

Old Man Stinson slowly inserts a razor blade into the delicious mixture of chocolate, caramel and nougat using a pair of tweezers. Before you know it, he has successfully implanted the cold metal and sealed the chocolate bar back into the wrapper, as if it had never been touched.

Next he uses a syringe to inject a marshmallow ghost with heroin, a guaranteed surprise for the little tyke unfortunate enough to bite into this haunted treat. Earl’s favorite concoction, however, is the introduction of crystallized Potassium Cyanide into Pixie Stix. He marvels at how similar it is to sugar and how it is completely unrecognizable unless chemically tested.

Earl looks at the clock on his kitchen wall, a black cat with a swinging tail, and realizes it will be dark soon. He rushes to finish preparing his goodies for tonight’s festivities and works diligently with a smile on his old, cracked face.

Roslyn Rides The Lightning

Just around the corner there's a heartbreak waiting to happen. It stands 5'7" with pretty blue eyes and blond hair pulled back into pigtails. She wears a Metallica t-shirt, the cover art for Ride the Lightning screen printed on a black cotton/polyester blend. She wears a purple mini skirt and white knee socks, like a heavy metal catholic school girl.

She looks like your typical barely legal Hot Topic trailer trash, trying so hard to stand out, only to blend in with the rest of her attention-deficient generation. She's a student at the local community college, taking long drags of a Virginia Slim with black-tipped fingernails. Her makeup looks as if it was applied by a porn star, her hair streaked with hot pink and neon blue.

I ask her for a light and we strike up a conversation in line, I spend the entire time staring at her thighs. She tells me she has 15 piercings, but I only count 12. She tells me the other three are hidden under black lace undergarments as she licks her lips and reveals piercing number seven.

I want to take this girl home tonight. I want to use her. I want her for the story; the experience. I want her for no other reason than having her for one night, or maybe two. I am no longer a boy who longs to fall in love. Instead, I am looking for all the life I missed out on being miserable with her.

She's pure sex wrapped up in a Metallica t-shirt, and I'm taking her home tonight. In the car she removes the rubber bands that hold her pigtails in place. I put on some old punk rock record and she head bangs to the sound of guitar and drums. She's had a couple of drinks, and I'm about to have a couple more. We're going to share a bed tonight, and I'm going to discover the remaining piercings she's yet to reveal.

Death Rides Through the Badlands

Death cuts a path through the Badlands on a horse whose name cannot be uttered by human tongue. He rides to us all, black hooded cloak ripping in the desert wind, the hooves of his pale steed floating over the dirt and gravel. No dust clouds. Not one single grain of desert sand unsettled.

No shadows are cast, the moon does not shine on nights when Death rides through the wilderness plains. All that can be seen in the pitch-black night is the white-hot glow of his eyes and the ancient grime etched upon his ancient teeth.

His horse never tires, its gallop fast and resolute. Death rides on a pale horse, and he comes to us all. Past the abandoned weigh stations and stalled tractor-trailers, Death does not stop to take in the sights of deserted four-lane interstate highways, nor the deer that graze freely in the tall grass.

When Death arrives at his destination, he slowly climbs off his saddle made of prehistoric bone and moves effortlessly to the foot of your bed. He stands there for six hours or more, without so much as flinching. And when you stir in the middle of the night, it is Death running his greasy finger down your spine, begging your soul to unravel from the mortal coil it clings to.

As eerily graceful as a spider crawling about its web, Death cracks a skeleton grin and welcomes you to his cold, rigid embrace. And when he holds you, you feel the worms and centipedes under his cloak, crawling in and out of the slots in his decaying ribcage. Death whispers in your ear, and in that moment you cease to be.

Death took your mother and then your father, and while the doctors told you they felt little to no pain, rest assured Death had his way with them. He empties the bodies of the living and leaves them hollow, the light leaves their eyes and their blood turns black. He lets all the good parts become memories left for the living, and the rest he takes back to Hell on horseback.

Death knows little of God, and less of compassion. Death only knows of time and when yours has come to an end. And when he whispers in your ear, he does not answer your questions. He does not give an explanation or a reason. Death only whispers the name of the pale horse on which he rides, a name you can never say.

But sometimes, Death drives a white Cadillac with black leather seats and tuck-and-roll upholstery…

Like a Southbound Train

In the midst of Tuesday evening's typical confusion, she pushes past me and says, "Come on, baby." I follow behind her without a word, taking in the sights of such a pleasant view. Tight denim hugs her curves, she is a dangerous woman.

In the elevator, among our peers, I say something that creates a burst of laughter and she lightly pushes me on the shoulder. I smile and she laughs as the doors open on the lower level. We walk across the cracked asphalt of the adjoining parking lot to grab a bite to eat.

We exchange small talk: what we did last night; how things are going today. I wonder if she remembers the kiss I left on her right shoulder, right at the base of her neck. Perhaps she feels the same as me and chalks it up to a half-drunken memory.

She is not a girl you fall in love with. She is a girl you lust after. She speaks with a sweet country twang that brings me to my knees. Her skin is pale and dotted with freckles, her hair the perfect shade of red. She has a tattoo on the small of her back, which naturally attracts my eyes to the sway of her hips when she walks.

She's a down-home kind of girl, the kind without a family to keep her in line. The kind you don't bring home to mama. She's as pretty as a bouquet of dogwood flowers in the summer sun, but she's a dangerous country girl who ain't the kind to fall in love.

Girl Next Door / Fuck You

She looks like the girl next door in a John Hughes film. She is a plain Jane with big green eyes and the most sarcastic of smiles. She shakes like a neurotic, caffeine-addled little child. She is a walking attention disorder, but she is beautiful.

She has me thinking thoughts I shouldn't be. She has me questioning whether or not this is a good idea, and while all signs point to no I have to believe we can survive by keeping it casual. I'm not sure where we go from here, but a drunken kiss sounds like a solid start. Maybe just the two of us, alone in the dark, following the nerve-endings that let us feel each other's touch.

We could keep it a dirty little secret, a secret only whispered underneath my bedsheets. And maybe this is out of spite, maybe it's an excuse to put another body between hers and mine. And is that fair? I suppose it's not - but goddammit I'm tired of doing what's safe and what's always right. I would do anything to forget your name. I would sell my soul to gain my sanity. I would kiss her on the lips if only to forget your face.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

For 24 years straight I've thought too much about things I have no control over. I've dedicated hours every day to dreaming up scenarios that simply cannot be. I've spent nights in bed wide-eyed and awake, worrying over the microscopic, meaningless moments of my day.

But today I felt all of my worries fall away, and the fear that keeps my heart prisoner began to subside. I realized it had to be one or the other; confidence in myself or trust in you. And all I lost was you, but I gained everything instead.

Now I'm free to live life on my own terms and when I'm gone, whether it's Austin, Texas or Cupertino, California, I'll look back down the dusty dirt road and laugh at all the effort I put into loving you.

I've been handed cell phone numbers, jotted down on notebook paper. I've got offers to meet pretty, young things for drinks at the bar. I've been invited on weekend escapes to cities in different states. I've been asked out on dates by girls I haven't seen in ages - girls that know what they've been missing.

And so there's no point in letting the lingering memories of you control my life. And I'm sure it won't be completely out of spite, his lips posed so close to your cheek. I wish I would have never wasted my time on you. I regret every breath I allowed you to take.

Derby Girl

It's 8:37 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. There is a knock at the door, a playful rap I've been expecting for roughly seven minutes now. I answer the door and Sheena dashes past me with a brilliant white smile. On her feet, a whirl of black and electric pink, and she skates through the foyer and into the kitchen.

She unstraps the hot pink helmet and tosses it on the coat rack. I ask her about practice, and she tells me it was "bitchin'." She hops up on the kitchen counter and I help her with her skates. We kiss as I unlace the pink shoelaces and slide them off her feet. I look into her eyes. She believes there's no such thing as too much black eyeliner, and it never hurts to add an extra application of LashBlast. I sit the skates in the foyer as she runs past me into the bedroom.

It's 8:45 p.m. Eastern Standard time. I open the cracked bedroom door and catch a glimpse of her changing. The tattoos that cover her arms represent a collection of pretty things; stars and half moons; autumn-colored leaves falling from a twisted old tree; the Muppet Babies.

She takes the piercings out of her ears and places them on the dresser. Next she carefully removes the skull-shaped stud in her nose, and finally the neon green ring in her right eyebrow. As she undresses, my eyes concentrate on the black-and-blue bruises that decorate her thighs like merit badges. She calls them her "war medals," and she displays them proudly - constantly inviting friends to view a case of rink rash or her latest scar.

She wears boy-cut underwear, striped like candy canes. With her back to me, she removes her top and the sports bra under it. At this moment, she looks over her shoulder and catches me stealing a glimpse. She laughs, slightly blushing, and tells me to come in.

It is 8:52 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. She turns around and runs her black-tipped fingers through dark purple hair. She smiles and presses her body against mine before pushing away and walking to the mirror. She grabs my old Ramones t-shirt and throws it over her head.

She walks past, making a motion with her finger to follow. She steps out into the living room, bruises peeking out from under the bottom of my tee. She drops the needle on a piece of vinyl she recently acquired from a local flea market. She pulls me close and kisses my lips, then my cheek, making her way to my ear lobe. She bites it gently and growls playfully.

In the background, the raucous blast of punk rock swells and engulfs us. Three chords played in steady succession, the sound of sticks breaking against drums. She jumps up and down, doing a punk rock version of the twist and shout. I take her by the hands, still stamped from a night at The Warehouse last week, and we dance across the carpet.

It is 9:03 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and I am in love with a roller derby goddess. Sheena is a punk rocker, a fistful of mayhem in a pretty package with green-and-white striped knee socks that hypnotize me. She's a badass bitch with venom in her veins and acid on her tongue, but she loves me with all of her heart - the only part of her that isn't bruised.

She Kissed Me At The Festival

At least once a week she browses the electronic aisles of Craigslist, hoping to find a description of herself in the Missed Connections section. It makes her feel all warm and fuzzy, just thinking she caught someone's eye long enough to leave a lasting impression.

Her favorite food is soup and a sandwich, preferably grilled cheese. If she makes this for you, it's because she loves you. This beautiful girl can think of few things cuter than sharing a bowl of tomato soup, eagerly dipping her half of a grilled cheese into it. She likes the way it warms her body (and soul) when she's curled up under an old blanket with you, watching a movie you've seen a hundred times.

She dreams of being a regular somewhere. She talks at great length about walking into a place and saying, "Hey Joe! I'll have my regular," and get her regular order and small talk with the locals. She wants to own a record store, like the one in High Fidelity, or maybe a quaint little coffee shop / bookstore. She wants to sell good books and music to friends and make amazing Italian Cream Sodas and sandwiches.

She's so cute, such a sweet little thing. Her conscience is abnormally strong, she can barely tell a lie. In fact, she can't remember the last time she did. She can't be mean or short with people without hating herself for the next month.

She is a lover of words, she should write a book. She wants to be a writer, but it seems impossible for her to finish a novel. Her pretty little head is full of great thoughts, but she struggles with putting them on a notebook page. She is a lover of words, and a well-versed lover she is.

All she wants out of life is a little house with enough room for her cats and a dog, a garden in the backyard where she can weed in her skirts, a front porch swing where she can read and drink tea in the lazy afternoon sun, and a boy who wants nothing more than to share his life with her.

It doesn't take much to make her happy, hold her hand and she's smiling for the rest of the day. buy her a hot dog or just text her because you were thinking about her and she's quick to love. Run your fingers through her hair, gently kiss her cheek and she whispers three sweet little words in your ear.