-- Mary, why would you have a Taser in your purse?
-- For protection. In case you haven't noticed, Sandy, the world's a messed up place.
-- I just never... Have you ever shot somebody?
-- Just Tommy.
-- Your ex?
-- He wanted me to. He wanted to feel what it was like. So I tazed him.
-- What did it feel like?
-- Me shooting him or him getting tazed?
-- Both.
-- He rolled around uncontrollably and screamed in unrelenting pain. Me, I'd have to say it was powerful, glorious and hideous all at the same time.
-- Damn.
-- Yeah.
-- Mary, you're a badass!
April 2, 2016
Tomorrow is Opening Day of the 2016 Major League Baseball season. I am currently making cinnamon rolls. Even if it wasn't Opening Day tomorrow, I would still be making cinnamon rolls today. By tomorrow, the cinnamon rolls will be gone - but then there'll be baseball, and the joy continues.
April 3, 2016
Someone said it doesn't matter what I write here because people are going to do what they do regardless. Well of course they are, but we don't live in a vacuum, we interact with all manner of things and there is no telling what will influence and alter a course as opposed to that which just slips away unnoticed, unheeded, unminded. So I'm going to keep at this because, well, you never know.
April 4, 2016
Goodbye love.
April 6, 2016
I was watching a movie where the spurned bro says to the cool girl who doesn't want him, I'm gonna make you love me, and I thought to myself, no way does that happen in real life, just in a bad script. 'Cause, I'm gonna make you love me, is right impossible, bro. You cannot make someone love you any more than you can demand respect when it's not deserved. Can't. Be. Done.
April 7, 2016
Was in a meeting with a man who had a completely different agenda from mine; apples and oranges. Surprisingly, I could see a way for both of us to get what we wanted in a win-win situation, so I laid it out. He said no, it was not enough for him to win, the other party had to lose. He wore a those-who-oppose-me-must-be-crushed look. Mine was probably a blank stare. Predictably, we ended up where we started; apples and oranges.
April 8, 2016
He said his name was Batty Barrold Jerrold. Randy Newman once sang, My ears must be clogged or somethin', and I felt the same as I asked him to please repeat it. Batty Barrold Jerrold. Was it a cipher? A joke? Was he in show business? Was he putting me on? Was his momma drunk? How in the world do you name someone Batty Barrold Jerrold? I'm gonna go with momma was drunk.
I can't believe you're playing the Van Norstrand Defense. Woof.
April 11, 2016
Overheard on the street.
-- How did your date with Grace go?
-- It was pretty awkward. We didn't mesh at all. It was over by 10.
-- Whew, that's not what I heard.
-- What are you talking about?
-- She's telling everyone that you guys had mad sex and that you were all over her. She was bragging, man.
-- That's so not what happened.
-- Your reputation is ruined.
-- Why would she lie?
-- Slut.
April 13, 2016
The radio played Stairway To Heaven three days ago and I have been singing it ever since. If silly songs can get stuck in your head, why not important stuff? Why can't you remember people's names or important dates? Why is it possible to sing along with Wooly Bully twenty-five years after you last heard it, but forget the name of the guy you just met? What exactly is music anyway? What is it about music that is both memorable and visceral? Why does someone love heavy metal and someone else classical? Gosh, these are my questions now. Later, there will undoubtedly be other things I want to know about other stuff.
April 14, 2016
He was in love. She, not so much. But not with each other, their cat. He had grown up in a house full of cats and loved having them around, so he got one. She was from a dog family and didn't much cotton to cats. When he suggested she get a dog, she suggested he get rid of the cat. Their relationship is, of course, doomed.
April 15, 2016
I am rereading a beloved book for probably the fourth time in my life. Only now I'm noticing things I hadn't before, the result of which is my previously unmitigated love for this novel has been lessened a bit. It's still good, but is it superb? I'll withhold final judgement until I finish it again. But so far, I don't see there being a fifth reading.
April 17, 2016
Overheard at the pub.
-- I'm just telling you, man, there are rumours that she's done nude photoshoots.
-- For who?
-- The camera club, others.
-- Have you seen any of the pictures?
-- No, but I've talked with plenty of people who have. I thought you oughta know.
Silence.
-- Um, those pics are now up on the Net.
-- What?! Where?
-- Reddit...Pornhub...
-- Oh, but you haven't seen them.
-- I wouldn't do that to you, bro. Look, I'm just tellin' you like it is. Don't shoot the messenger.
-- So everyone's seen her naked.
-- Pretty much.
-- Jesus.
-- I guess.
April 18, 2016
Uh oh, it appears someone wasn't very happy about the Stein-Korbell wedding.
Tony told Karla that they were going to have to break up because Tony's mother didn't approve of Karla being a single mom and Tony was too much of a pantywaist to go against his mother's wishes. Karla was furious. She sulked for a day and a half until she realized that Tony was a mama's boy and a weakling and a loser and here she had been willing to settle for the sake of her child rather than seek true love for herself. Karla realized that Tony's overbearing mother was a godsend because now she would be able to find happiness for both herself and her child, instead of compromising one for the other. But it wasn't like she was going to send Mama Tony a Thank You card or anything.
April 21, 2016
He was contented, right where he was. He was also told he was wasting his potential. Is a life of contentment running away from what others expected of him or was he just doing what he wanted to do, biding his time until he does something else? And why isn't a life of contentment at least as valuable a commodity as 'working hard'. It's infinitely more relaxing, that much he knew. The rest, he figured, was dross.
April 22, 2016
She was crying at the airport gate. She was crying through check-in and boarding. She cried in her seat for half the flight and then fell asleep against the window. When they landed and she was getting her carry-on bag from the overhead bin, she started crying again. She exited the plane, then the airport and grabbed a cab, crying the whole time. No one asked her if they could help, no one knew why she was crying.
April 23, 2016
Here are some words of encouragement: Please yourself. If you do that, all your decisions become easier, more intuitive and trustworthy. Pleasing yourself doesn't mean a descent into narcissism or unabashed selfishness, although I suppose it could, so let's rephrase that: Please yourself as long as your intentions are good. Or you have a good lawyer. There, that's tidy.
Studying his chips, Shadow was debating about whether to go all in when the sound of the can opener in the kitchen galvanized his all or nothing approach and he leapt from the table. They say that nothing beats a royal flush, but apparently tuna does.
April 26, 2016
In the grocery story I was stopped by a beautiful woman from Russia who was vacationing in the area and asked me if there were any clothing optional beaches on our lake. I told her I wasn't aware of any. She said, That's too bad because I look spectacular with my clothes off. I smiled. She smiled. Even my wife smiled later when I told her about it.
April 28, 2016
Overheard at the movies.
-- I want the biggest popcorn they got, at least three different kinds of candy bars and the largest Coke you can get.
-- Come on, Sherise, you know how overpriced everything is. I don't want to spend 30 bucks on junk food.
-- If I knew you was such a cheap ass date I wouldn't have gone out with you.
-- Look, I'll get you all this stuff if I was sure I was going to get mine later.
-- Get what later?
-- You know.
-- Fool, you think I'm gonna put out 'cause you bought me some popcorn?
-- And three different kinds of candy bars and the largest Coke you can get, plus, going to a movie I don't really want to see but you said you did.
Silence.
-- Ok.
April 30, 2016
Wrote a serious and worthy question to a company and got back a silly, frivolous reply. I clarified my question and tried a second time. Again I got back a ridiculous reply. What's wrong with these people? I wrote to the CEO of the company and told him of my problems in getting a decent answer to my original question and why was this an issue at all? He sent back a stock photo of a woman shrugging her shoulders. That was it. What?!
