I’d play in fields with bunny rabbits all day, and the sun would be shining, if I only knew that that’s what I wanted to do.  But these soap bubbles fill the air, in this sterile Japanese laundromat, and I’m not sure that woman bathed today.  So where am I and how did I get here?  I’ll leave that for the train conductor to decide.  I’m merely here to read the paper while glancing at the other passengers.  Surely the doors will open at the last stop and I’ll have to get out there.  And if it’s fields with bunny rabbits once I walk up the stairs, I won’t complain.  It’s really the sunshine that made it happy; who really cares about the bunny rabbits?  They were our friends, to be sure, but they were sharing the sunlight, you see, they were sharing it.

Our desires get hidden in secret passage ways in the mansion of our body, and we didn’t even build those secret passage ways.  But then who did?  It’s my mansion, after all, and if I want to wake up in my bathrobe and walk down fourteen flights of stairs to the first floor every morning, well that’s my right.  And all my servants will be lined up, and I’ll have breakfast with them all, and we’ll all be civil and polite.  I’ll ask them one by one how their families are doing.  But all the time I don’t know that if I went down there and confetti flew all over my face and streamers were flying everywhere, and we all ate smashed up carrots with birthday cake for breakfast, and dear Frederick was laughing rapturously on the ground, that would be the best morning of those five years.  But I don’t know that.  And why don’t I know that that’s what I want to happen?  Because it didn’t happen.  Sometimes that’s the only way you know you want something.  If it happens.

And so maybe I do want the bunny rabbits after all.  Let’s just be kids in the experience, you know, and the glow of the sun was really the resurrection of our souls, like balloons rising in the background, because the world is two-dimensional.  It’s only three-dimensional if you start sinning, but who wants that kind of weather.  So we’ll dosey-do and I’m your friend, so summon the owl and the skies will do backflips you never thought imaginable.  I don’t want there to only be one other person, that’s lunacy.  What the Devonshire am I going to do with all these bunny rabbits.  They’re holding my hand and crying and it’s sentimental.  You can’t take them from me!  Why on earth would I want to leave them anyway, I just found out they are really what I loved.

For the world is madness on a string, rocking back and forth, until we’re asked if we’d like to take a cab.  Well I’ve never thought about taking a cab before.  Is that how life works?  I take a cab now do I?  That’s quite a fascinating prospect, a cab right here and now, at twelfth and Moonaroo, at 12:31 in the morning, in New York City, right after I’ve been to see my friend John MacIntyre for a beer that only he had at Grigsby’s just a few blocks away where we talked awkwardly about the days we sort of knew each other in college, and now I’m here and there’s this cab here and I might well take it.  Fascinating.  Well I guess I’ll jolly well get in the cab.  I had only been walking down the street trying to reorient my life after that horrible run-in with John MacIntyre.  See I don’t really know John.  Where is he? I’m not sure he ever let me know who he was.  But that was just geographical accident, and him being an idiot and not growing up with friends.  And that’s because we all thought we wanted to venture out on our own, and not together.  And why?  Because people didn’t force us to, you see, so it’s just like the confetti and the servants dying laughing. 

I don’t want my freedom anymore all of a sudden, but of course I do, of course I do.  These Persian carpets are fine, mighty fine.  I’m sure life means something.  Will you have another drink?

For writers all of life is a wordsearch.

Being around friends means having the freedom to be who you want to be.

You’re not the stories you affirm.  You’re the story you live.

There are two parts to every problem.  There’s the problem, and then there’s people who complain about the problem.

Wanting to escape means you will be in bondage wherever you go.

We all accept “Love your enemies” as right and good until we have a grudge. 

The life you want is a life of hard work away.

We must hope that doing the right thing never becomes popular, lest social approval become our motivation for doing it.

Elitism means something you can’t relate to. And that’s why I can’t relate to it.

The problem with children is that they are so childish, and the problem with adults is that they are so adultlike.

Ok, now I think I’ll go do some real writing.  Enough of this aphorismic nonsense!  Ho ho ho.  (That was a hearty belly laugh in case you couldn’t tell.)  I hope you guys have a super good day.  Yup yup yup, ok bye.

Sigh . . . I was hoping there would be a few more puns in the thread. In fact, I thought the whole thing would be puns. 

Oh well. 

Are you busy tonight? 

Yes, yes you are. 

You are busy thanking people.

Why is it that people are never busy writing ‘You’re Welcome’ cards?

Ok. Slow does not rhyme with plow. And I’m okay with that.

I naturally look at people’s feet. Let’s me know where they’re coming from.

But then you must look at the nose. Why? Nobody knows.

But that’s why mountains collide with one another. People who think car accidents are bad probably do not know about plate tectonic theory. 

In that case, they obviously need a crash course on it.

But on we go, never remembering Mr. Potato Head or his friend the bubble bath. But toys can’t swim, and so how many bawling six year-olds have had to bury Mr. Squigglesworth after an afternoon in the bath gone wrong?

That’s the last of the merry-go rounds. Now I guess we’ll have to actually go somewhere.

Perhaps turkeys should be happy that it’s just once a year people focus on killing and eating them. Turkeys should think, ‘At least we’re not cows.’

But that’s the thing about bubbles. They are the easiest things to disappear; even easier than people. Pop! And they are gone.

Get lost in the forest and you’ll find the meaning of life. Swim in the sea and you’ll see the depths of despair. Fly above the heavens and you’ll feel the wonder of existence.

But instead we’ll just suffocate in our inner tubes, but that’s okay, at least they are shiny. 

I like the moon.

To point out your annoyance is to say “I’m more important than you”.

To be around another person is quite a significant thing.  It’s like saying “it’s ok you’re here” when we hang out.  It’s a subtle appreciation of your being in reality.  I like to think of people I don’t know, “If I were with you, that’d be ok”.  To think that people wouldn’t like me is really depressing.  I’m always so sad, thinking, ‘But does this mean I’m on backwards? Should I not talk to anyone? After all, I shouldn’t annoy people. I should let people be how they want.’ 

And then I walk away sad, for I just want to be friends with everybody.

Things are never just as simple as intentions.  Sometimes, things get sticky because we have different views of things that clash. 

Sometimes it hits me all over again that the main premise for living in the world is that we stay in the same body for the entirety of it.  While talking with other people I’ll suddenly realize ‘They see my body, but I don’t – I’m in it’.  Then I’ll move around, and feel a little trapped, like I’m my eyes and whatever thoughts are behind it, and I couldn’t change this fact if I wanted to.  I will never be able to see reality from the body of another human.  That seems crazy.

This creates a deep wonder in me about why it is I’m a human, and what is going on.  Some people may talk about this intermittent wonder and say to ‘get over it’.  But the thing about getting over something is that it is to get to something else.  So there’s the assumption that there’s something we are eventually supposed to be getting to, and it is the biggest thing of all.  But what is it?  Is it not wonder at life’s mere presence, and the humility and love for others and gratitude for life it inspires?  Shouldn’t that be the big thing that life is?

Tonight was another night of staying up late for basically no reason at all.  After all, if nothing else makes sense, why should my sleep schedule?  I’m stressed about plenty in life that couldn’t sort itself out in these words if I had several weeks to do it.  But I suppose writing is good for keeping track of the stories, what questions there are, and so thoughts don’t have to feel that awful muffling sensation that accrues over time.  Silence is such a gag when you are anxious to live.

I want to say who I am, and for who I am to be because of who You are.

The world is cluttered with catch-22s. 

A friend and I were lamenting the fact that we had no lives, so we decided to form the No Life Club.  We then realized that by joining the club we would no longer be eligible for membership.

Similarly, it has recently come to my attention that it is impossible for there to be a party for cynics.  If a cynic was ever invited to a party for cynics, they would think of how unreliable people are and assume that no one would show up, and then not show up themself because they wouldn’t want to go to a lame party.  Thus, in that case there would be no party.  On the other hand, if all the cynics did show up to the party, that would prove they actually didn’t see the worst in humans, and thus weren’t actually cynics.  In that case, no cynic party either.  It is therefore impossible for there to ever be a party of cynics.

Cynics thus are unable to have any fun; they are truly unmirthful specimens.  That’s all I see in cynics, and thus will never become one.

I thus choose to not be a cynic because of my cynicism.

Another catch-22 involves a pyschiatrist who feels he is going crazy and thinks he needs to do something about it soon or else he will lose it completely.  Thus he sets up an appointment with himself, in which he switches back and forth between being the patient and being the doctor.  In the end he assigns himself a prescription based on his symptoms, thus completing his journey to insanity.

This is a catch-22 to try at home.  If you are ever bored go up to someone and ask, “Want to play a game?” to which they’ll probably respond, “Sure.”  Then, as though just having the thought, snap your fingers and say, “How about this: first one to think of a game to play, wins.”  Typically it will take a few moments, but then surely and steadily enough your inevitable victory will soon dawn on their helpless and beartrapped mind like an anvil on a cartoon. 

Oh, and there are plenty more.  Just look around!  What a big and beautiful world it is!

Why is it that to live means to worry?

Relationships are very interesting because of all the different places they may sail.  Knowing different people shows us just how much one person can vary from the next; perhaps, of course, if we think in big chunks, they’ll all wind up the same: but that’s why it’s so wonderful our minds can slice up our experiences so finely.  By seeing people’s little desires here and there we notice who a person is way inside their head, since we all give ourselves away with our instincts.  I think of being at the beach with a friend when suddenly they wander off to follow a seagull.  Watching them closely, they are mesmerized by the bird as a mysterious creature and a potential friend, and they spend half an hour trying to get closer to it. 

People are so weirdly wonderful.

A silly person is someone who knows they are ridiculous, while a ridiculous person has no idea they are ridiculous. (Which, of course, is one of the reasons they are ridiculous.)

Sometimes a person should be seen as more than just what they think of themselves, or who they are when all the facts are in.  Maybe in part a person is who they are to us.  So my relation to my friend Alex is one in which he has allowed me to be a certain kind of person, and it makes me feel like less of an exiled harlequin to have him as a friend.  There’s a kind of relation between us that makes him “the person who accepts my ridiculousness”, and that’s more than just what he thinks of himself, but it’s still a fact about him.  Who we are I think is thus partly made up in what we mean to other people. 

I wonder who I am?

Part of the trouble in taking in all of the world is our incessant desire for control.  Because we want to control things by understanding them, we come to conclusions about life based on what has happened to us.  The problem is that a conclusion is such a definite thing, and thus sometimes we apply one to a situation, but then it blocks us from having a new experience that would have changed that conclusion.  So a group of friends want to get together a huge game of flashlight tag, but you remember “Those ideas are nice, but never work out”. 

Thus, instead of accepting new data and learning something new—and letting life change what it appears to be—we apply a past conclusion.  And that’s because we want control.

But as long as there is more life left to live, why think our conclusions are so certain?  Who knows what may happen? 

Life is so thrilling that we might just end up being wrong.

But to be flexible is to appear weak, because it shows no confidence in what will happen.  It is the only way to have an adventure—by accepting and spontaneously warming to the unexpected—but it also means shrinking, because now we are letting all of reality in the door.  The world is bigger than we can get our heads around.

Who follows the living God?  Many, including myself, follow God; but it’s implicit that there the word ‘God’ means our concept of God, which is about control.  It is so much scarier to really follow him. 

And because we hope that things will turn out well, this sometimes makes the future seem terrifying.  We have given up control; living now seems much more risky.  We are living in risk of finding out what the world is really like, and what that may mean.  And maybe that’s why I worry all the time. 

“So … where do you put the odds I’ve murdered someone?”  Great question to ask people when you first meet them.

Sure, they double dipped in the sauce at a party, and they shouldn’t have done that. But just think, would it not have been much worse if they had *skinny* dipped in the sauce?

You may now shake hands with the bride.

Some people buy paintings for hundreds of millions of dollars. But the joke’s on them, the image is online.

Every commercial is a funny commercial when I think about how much money they used to advertise a product I will never buy.

One night something funny happened at 1:01 so even the clock was lol’ing.

I think green lights should be smiley faces. Really would emphasize the happiness of the moment.

I want to dress as a pirate to a fireworks show, and then once the fireworks go off stand up and yell “CANNONFIRE!” and run away.

I am allergic to friendships; whenever I get in one I break out in high fives.

When my daughter brings over her boyfriend for dinner for the first time I am going to use a sword to cut my steak. I feel like that would clear up any lingering doubts he had about respecting her.

I find scare quotes very scary.

I like kissing the necks of dead girls. I am a neckrophiliac.

People who think I’m not very strong should have seen what I did to a cardboard box at work one day. Raw power.

I wonder how many bitter and angry CEOs who fire people all the time go home and sleep with their stuffed animals.

With stalkers, you never have to feel alone.

I plan on being a super hero in old age. “Quick! To the Oldsmobile!”

UDF: Neither united, nor dairy, nor farmers.

I like grass, because every grass blade is friends with all the other grass. They have to be with how much they get walked on.

North Korea has no Seoul.

I’m not thinking clearly, but that’s at least better than times when I’m clearly not thinking.

I was up all night and had started wondering when the sun was going to come up. Then it dawned on me.

Millions of granola bars are killed every year. 

She told me my obsession with Star Wars was the deal breaker. “Search your feelings,” I said. “You don’t want to break up with me.”

We sat on a hill
a wingless bird and me
we sat in silence
and watched the geese fly by

We sat on a hill
just the king and me

we looked over his lands

as he began to cry

We sat on a hill

the whole world and me

we looked up at the stars

our arms stretched out on high

We sat on a hill

only you and me

but you materialized

just as I went blind

On that hill we sat

my wingless birds and me

just listening to the night say

that we would never fly

And it’s all because

your eyes are a one-way street

no matter how hard we try

Ok . . . so the following is a hypothetical situation which may or may not be based on real events.

So let’s say you’re in a library where you’ve been reading for about an hour.  You’re in a leisurely reading area that consists of a circle of extremely uncomfortable couches and a few bean bags  You have not have much to eat that day; since morning, only a bagel, and then for lunch, a smoothie.  And you only got the smoothie because you had a giftcard since, despite their deliciousness, smoothies are quite overpriced.  Not to mention the fact that smoothies, as we all know, are not real food: they are pretend food.  If anything, they are made by sacrificing real food to the blender god so as to make tasty pretend food.  So you’re living on a long-ago eaten bagel, and a smoothie, which was consumed many hours ago.  Not to mention the day has been hot, and you have been walking all over the place doing errands.

And thus, there you sit.  A belly aching, pining for sweet, life-giving food as though a child that lived inside you.  It wails and looks around at the unmerciful world of unconcerned pedestrians, hoping for a friendly, compassionate face to take notice of you, say ’There there, you poor thing’, and then take you to the store so you can pick out your favorite yummy foods, upon the eating of which you will finally be able to giggle all over.

But this doesn’t happen.  What does happen, however, is this: you are rolling around on the bean bags, changing reading positions, when suddenly you notice a small white bag suddenly appear right by your face.  Curious at this unexpected discovery, you glance around to see if anyone is watching and then innocently peer inside. 

THERE IS FOOD IN THE BAG.

More specifically, there is half a bagel, and half of a sandwich.  And remember, you’re hungry.  Food is all theory until you have an empty stomach.  Inspecting closely, both the half bagel and half sandwich look relatively untouched.  And no one has been around for at least an hour.  By all accounts, it has been officially deserted.  The food is clearly from a library cafe: very expensive food, unless, you have now realized, it is discovered after already having been bought.

I cannot stress enough, you are extremely hungry.  So be real with me here.  What do you do?  Do you eat the food?

Again, this may or may not be based on true events.