Never got to post this. The topic was “Home Depot”

The Lighting and Paint Departments of Home Depot inspire our lives

For proof, I cite

Exhibit A:

My brother purchases a haunted mansion with a grandiose chandelier above his mistress’s bed.

Exhibit B:

I, on the other hand, have orange café lights swaying over my private bar.  “Cranberry Isle” covers the walls above the honeyed floors. I appear in a “midnight black” pantsuit and pretend to be the man of the house while doling out drinks- many of which happen to be lit on fire.  

Exhibit C:

Dad, who doesn’t like the Home Depot, makes foil sconces for his walls.

I used to drink two cups in the morning. Black.

Throughout the day I would have a pre meal cup and a post meal cup. A dessert espresso. I didn’t like chocolate covered coffee beans and still don’t. I do like coffee icecream. Flavored coffee is a cop out. Espresso isn’t

Why does this matter to me?

 Other people are smokers, dedicated to their camel reds or menthols. I, however, used to be a coffee drinker. Devoted to Colombian fair trade beans or shade grown coffee. The Alta Gracia down at the Middlebury Market Cafe. Speeder and Earl’s Middlebury Blend at the Juice bar: “mild acidity, full body, notes of chocolate”

Yes. I could taste the difference.

I was the coffee  equivalent of the chain smoker. By now you’ve probably noticed that this is written in the past tense, a story of a former coffee freak.

I can’t tell you what happened. I don’t know. I woke up one morning and released my normal cup of coffee from the dining hall vats. I couldn’t, however, bring myself to drink it. My stomach made it perfectly clear that this cup of coffee would not have safe passage to my “hello I’m awake” neurons.

I haven’t had a full cup of coffee in a month. I’m not strung out, but almost wish I was because it  sucks to have broken this addiction. I  can’t hold my own in cafes any longer. I feel banned from my comfort zone.

Comparison for emphasis- then and now:

Then 

Barsita: What can I get you?

Alex: double tall soy latte

Now

Barista: what can i get you?
Alex: mint tea

Which sounds more polished? academic? frenzied yet chic?

Better put your money on the first one.

I have a couple of unanswerd questions:

Is it best to do late night laundry or tomorrow laundry?

If you fall asleep during the last half hour of a movie should you ask about the ending?

Or watch it again?

Sleep or talk?

Evolution, adaptation, hesitation, reexamination, exultation, procreation?

Does I-5 go town to Mexico?

Should I get this college thing the hell over with and become a bank robber?

or a blues guitarist?

Do you own a megaphone?

Can I have it?

What time is dinner time?

Will you call me soon?

I’m bored.

Yo all-

You want to read the EPIC? Click here

Dear Blog,

 If you were a person I would apologize for neglecting you. As you are not, however, real, I’ll refrain from dialoguing with inanimate objects.

But are you really inanimate? You hyperlink when you get emotional, and I’m sure PMS would make it worse. Image as proof is your way of winning the argument, isn’t it Blog?

And when you spring up onto my screen it is always with a little snigger of derision.  WRITE, you snarl. I DARE YOU. publish… you whisper, welding your circutry to my lungs. Press PUBLISH! PUBLISH!!! 

You are the second voice in my head. I move my fingers to type into your lovely little cerebrum when I’m walking around campus. People must think I’m crazy, walking around perpetually typing on your  keys even though I am absent from the computer. I’ll just write mean things about them- like you, yes you! That boy in the ugly pee colored jacket. I saw you looking! My girlfriend wouldn’t appreciate it (even if she is digital)!

Oh dearest blog, I was so infatuated with you in the beginning. You were a beautiful example of January, wearing your widgets and header picture so frosty but innocent.

And then I defiled you with my crazy stories, drinking tea and typing. I made it all warm in your URL, HTML, and other code…. you couldn’t help but fall for the zany author filling your free web space.

Now, I’m afraid we’ll have to break it off. Spring comes, and so do classes. And then Study Abroad. Dear lord, where will I find the internet? DON’T MAKE ME DIVORCE MY BLOG FOR NO GOOD REASON!!!

In the end, Blog, bloggy bloggy bloggy blog- I will try and keep you well informed of my movements round the campus, through intellectual theory, and in the world.

Don’t make too many new friends without me.

Love,

your Grammaticus

Furniture is clutter and sentiment.

You know- that pull in your gut when you have to throw it out?

Because the Adirondack chair brings back

The smoke on her breath as she shot blanks from her mouth

into the air over a concrete sidewalk-

 Ripping out

The slurp the slip downwards

At the corner of her lips

Leaning back into the nestle and hum of a chair 

In this instance wood is bones

And the cradle of her rib cage is

supporting my back

September is still warm

The wicker is less comfortable.

I’ll keep the chair until it truly festers on the front porch

I’m going to use my multimedia piece and develop it further as a huge comic scheme/ story. At this point i really want it to be Alison Bechdel-esque- a personal/ autobiographical comic. I need to 1) revise the writing 2) rearrange the pieces 3) study the layout of comics more. It will be rather non traditional- I want it to be zine esque. A little ragged, but cleaner than it is in it’s present state . I want it to express the ONE moment that I’m describing- the moment that I rummaged through my mum’s bookshelves and found… uh oh!  Erotica.  I would also like to expand it past the one short snippet I’ve written into a larger piece- but the drawing is so time consuming that I’m not sure I can. As an adendum to this- I’m going to scan it in and see if I can play with the effects/ layout easier that way. 

 Now- for the 100 word version.

I rummage through their bookshelves secretly when they’re out of the house. I’ve touched upon Toni Morrison and Gender Theory, books on family, a medical guide, and Jane Austen. These books aren’t mine- so I steal them, a lick of pleasure because I shouldn’t have them.

I once stumbled upon a pink book entitled Who Was that Masked Woman?. It ended up being my induction to the world of erotica. I hummed through the dust as she took off her girlfriend’s shirt. I left the room and sat- head to the cool tile, trying to wrap my head around SEX.   

Wanted:

First kiss, first date. 

Must drive blue convertible and wear a leather jacket.

Thank you!

Song: Indigo Girls- Romeo and Juliet (cover of the Mark Knopfler origninal)

Wanted:

Functioning turntable and classic records.

Do you want to switch to CDs? I don’t….

 Song: Bob Dylan- Desolation Row (Highway 61 revisited)

“Dad 

Black-capped Chickadee

are you coming?”

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

He looks up from the birding scope

Ruby eyed Kinglet

bad hip out 

Pelican

and lets the dog come to me

Cormorant

“Go ahead”

Red-winged Blackbird

He has a life list

Snowy Egret

of over 500 birds native to North America

Canadian Goose

and another list that details

Blue-footed Boobie

his sightings in Mexico, Ireland- places off of our continent

Mockingbird

He’s famous in birding magazines

Starling

For sighting a “mega-rarity”

Steller’s Jay

a Redwing- native of Eurasia-

Great Albatross

that happened to land in his backyard

Winter Wren

I had a list once, but lost interest.