Theatre

Two Emergency doctors, Dr. M sitting and Dr. P standing, are in the ED outside the trauma bay.

Dr. M: His family’s outside; I have to go tell them. They know about the accident, but they think he just got hit.

Dr. P (looks at feet): God, five years-old? That’s rough.

Dr. Casanova and Dr. E walk into the ED and approach them.

Dr. E: Hey guys, I cut the shit out of my finger this weekend and have been bleeding like a stuck pig. I can’t get it to stop bleeding.

(Looks at Dr. M and Dr. P, who say nothing)

Dr. E: I figured, being Emergency docs, you might give me some ideas on how to stop the bleeding.

(Looks at Dr. M and Dr. P, who say nothing)

Dr. E: See, when I take the bandage off, it starts bleeding again.

(Takes off bandage, the wound does not resume bleeding)

Dr. E: You guys are so good; all I have to do is talk to you to stop the bleeding.

(Dr. E walks away to nurses’ station to fetch some bandages.)

Dr. Casanova: What’s wrong? You two look beat down.

Dr. P: M just pronounced a kid who got run over by a boat. The propeller went right through the abdomen. He has to go tell the parents now.

Dr. Casanova: Jesus, that’s rough. I’m sorry man.

Dr. E (returning from nurses’ station): Ready to hit the cafeteria for some breakfast, Casanova? It’s French toast sandwich day!


And… Scene!

And This Is My Typing Finger

I cut the shit out of my finger and—having taking aspirin all weekend—bled like a stuck pig.

Note the smaller cut on the ring finger also.

This has been a bicth to type, I am taking a couple of days off.

Big Fish

I have a cold and was out of my mind on cold medicines this weekend, so I went through 48 hours of napping and watching movies and random television. Last night I saw the movie Big Fish and I don’t know if it was just the pseudoephedrine induced stupor, but I found it amazing.

First—again, it might just be the pharmaceuticals talking—it wasn’t really as compelling as Tim Burton’s other movies. Many of the scenes, taken individually, were a bit staid. But I did find the concept story compelling. Ostensibly, it is the story of Telemachus trying to make sense of Odysseus and his stories. But perhaps more compellingly, it’s a retelling of Death of a Salesman, while refuting its tragedy.

But that is only its structure.

What made it so enjoyable and fulfilling for me was its celebration of stories, storytelling as well as a personal and social mythology. Refuting the notion that the facts and figures are what make a story important should not be revelatory, but Burton follows this to its logical conclusion, which turns out to be a revelation.

Anyway, if you care about stories and storytelling, I recommend it. Especially if you are waking up from a pseudoephedrine induced disrupted sleep cycle.

Family Identity Crisis, Part Two

When I was in Miami a few weeks ago, my sister, father and I were discussing some aspect of our family history, and there was some degree of confusion. So the next morning my dad sent us an email that detailed our history about five generations back. That afternoon, I said to him, ‘Dad, all these names sound very Jewish to me. Are you sure we don’t have Jewish great-grandparents?’

He kind of laughed it off, but then a few days ago, he carbon copied this email to me:

Do you have any light to shed on the Jewishness of the name [omitted]?

Your name came up when I googled "[omitted name] Jewish". My grandmother's maiden name is [omitted] and my older children thought we might have Jewish ancestors (with family names like [three omitted names]). I kind of laughed at my kids (a doctor and a lawyer) but then I saw the name on the list of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto on a PBS TV show.

In the 1840s my great grandfather came to the US. He came alone at 7 or 8 and was meeting his brothers. Putting a little boy on a ship alone makes more sense, if one considers escaping Jewish persecution.

Since most of my good friends are Jewish (which is a hard thing to do when you live in central Iowa), it would please me to think I might be Jewish. However, my brother and sister would be mortified. (In 1966, when I wanted to put in an application to go to Roosevelt University in Chicago, my sister told me I "wouldn't want to go there because it was a Jewish school." I already knew and liked many Jews and it struck me as an odd thing to say. My brother, the Republican that he is, has little snippy things that he says about Jews).

I thought it was weird that my father had a Jewish friend with my grandmother’s maiden name, and talking to him, found out that he did not. He found this person on the internet and then tracked down their email address. The response to what must have been a vaguely troubling email was, to me, priceless:

I'm afraid I may be the worst of all Jews for a liberal Christian who is looking for Jewish forbears. I'm a very rightwing Jew who would probably get on with your relatives who (with good reason) distrust Jewish liberals. [omitted name] is in fact a very widely shared family name. I've discovered Catholics who have the same name.

So the matter is unresolved. My father emailed me last night to say that this is not really a crisis for him, but simply interesting.

Family Identity Crisis

I escape hearing a lot of anti-Semitic remarks because many people assume that I’m Jewish. A German last name, in many Americans’ minds, equals Jewish. Ironically—in the Alanis Morissette sense of the word (can we start saying ‘Alanisly?’)—they feel free to bad mouth Cubans.

Anyway, at the Hospital the other day, someone asked me if I was a Jew. My friend Yuval, himself a Jew, answered, ‘Erik’s not a Jew, but he is Jewish.’

Which I interpreted to mean intelligent, witty, and committed to improving the world around me—not to perpetuate any stereotypes—and thanked Yuval for his inclusive acceptance of me.

I actually flirted with converting to Judism in my mid-twenties. The plumbing was all fitted correctly, so to speak, and I began celebrating Hanukkah, as a kind of low-impact religion. Or more precisely, all of the holiday, none of the religion. By my late twenties, I’d given it up, for relationship reasons. Given the choice of God or Sex, only a fool would choose God.

‘We are having a tree with presents under it and a ham, not a goddamn candelabra with spinning tops and a fatty goose.’

‘Yes, dear,’ I said, but still made latkes, which my Jewish doorman said were some of the best he’d ever tasted.


I think you can see where this is obviously heading. Recently something has unfolded that has my family wondering whether my embracing Hanukkah wasn’t prescient of…



Can you believe this weather? I’ll have to finish this up tomorrow. I’m going for a walk.

Uncynical Wednesdays

Did any of you see the sunrise this morning?

It was so fucking gorgeous I decided to take a walk rather than write a post.

~e

Happy One-Half Birthday, Mister Playing Doctor

Six months ago I started this thing and, going over my missives, all I can say is, hope you brought a book.

Good lord, what a boring, pretentious piece of overripened tripe this is.


I should apologize for my occasional thoughtless intimacy with the esoteric. Like a drunken office party where I spent fifteen minutes with my arm around Chris from accounting and suddenly thought, ‘Have I said more than two words to Chris in the entire past year?’

But there are reasons for this awkward intimacy.


Nine years ago, when I first moved to South Beach, I was riding in a white Corvette convertible down Ocean Drive and said to the driver, ‘I’m having such fun and this is the kind of thing that I would normally eschew.’

‘You would normally what?’

I soon learned to eschew words like eschew. Working in restaurants in South Beach, my vocabulary continued the trajectory toward Simpletown. I suppose that was some of the impetus for med school. I was a bit bored and needed stimulation: In South Beach, I learned the distinction between exciting and interesting.


Med school and becoming—playing—a doctor has been successful for me. It’s been both interesting and exciting. I spend time better understanding the minutia and intricacies of medicine, trying to figure out how to communicate both the simple and the complex to people whose lives can, literally, depend on grokking what I am telling them. I spend a great deal of time thinking about straight forward language and high impact metaphors that will help get those concepts and instructions across quickly and effectively.

So this is my escape from that vernacular. This is my escape from manipulating concepts that have medical sequelae, and instead playing with concepts that simply tickle my psyche. This is my reclaiming aspects of my brain that have languished. And maybe it's excising parts of my head that have fattened.


So here is your cake. Thank you for your indulgence.

Maps and Legends

So I am having dinner with a married couple the other night.

The husband talked about living in Guam for a year and a half. I’m a bit surprised, because he is the second person this month I’ve met from Guam. He says that he lived there before it became commercialized.

‘I didn’t realize it had,’ I say.

‘Oh yeah,’ he continues, ‘back when I lived there, it had a McDonalds, a KFC, a Tony Roma’s, and that’s it. Well, some Philippines had an Indian restaurant. And some people from Guam ran a Mexican place.’

I think he said ‘people from Guam,’ because I don’t know what to call them, and I think, if he’d said ‘Guamans’ I would have thought he was doing baby-talk for ‘Romans’ or thought he was saying ‘grommets,’ which would have confused me.

(Correct answer: Guamanian)

He continues, ‘Now, it’s the Hawaii for the Japanese.’

‘I thought Hawaii was the Hawaii for the Japanese,’ I say. Not to be confrontational, just to make conversation.

‘No,’ he says ‘because Guam is so much closer to Japan.’

‘How does that work?’ I ask, again deferring to him. ‘Isn’t Guam south of Hawaii? Is it that much further west?’

He talks for a while longer, revealing that he knows flight times, but apparently didn’t look at a map for a year and a half to figure out where he was.

(Correct answer: It really is that much further west. It is practically due south of Tokyo. It is much closer to Japan than Hawaii and receives over a million Japanese tourists every year.)


A while later, the wife says that the waitress reminds her of someone. ‘Do you know who Laurie Metcalf is? From The Rosanne Show?’

I confirm that I do. I don’t say it, but the waitress doesn’t bear much resemblance to her.

‘Kind of plain looking, you know what I mean?’ she says, scrunching her nose. ‘She’s on E.R. now. I watch her every week. I love her so much.’

I just happened to watch ten minutes of E.R. that week for the first time in about three or four years and was surprised to see, from Rosanne, Sara Gilbert. Now, I suppose it’s possible that they hired both Sara Gilbert and Laurie Metcalf, but feel sure that she has the wrong name of this actress she loves so much.

(If both are now on E.R., please someone let me know.)

I think about asking if Laurie Metcalf is related to Melissa Gilbert from Little House on the Prarie, but decide against it. I keep my mouth shut, realizing that I have become the conversational equivalent of the guy who yells at kids to stay out of his yard. Who cares about Sara Gilbert’s name or Guam’s location? I don’t.

Technically, the Guam comment was accurate. My annoyance was that he didn’t know where he had spent eighteen months of his life. How could you be in the South Pacific for eighteen months and never check a map?

My mother is the master of tolerating people who are babbling about subjects they don’t understand, smiling and saying ‘really?’ as her eyes subtly glaze over. I am still trying to learn how to do that trick.

(But Truth is the new black.)

The Place

What is the form is the gro-
tesquerie—the accident
of the moon’s light
on your face.

Oh love, an empty table!
An empty bottle also.
But no trick will go
so far but not further.

The end of the year is a div-
ision, a drunken derision
of composition’s accident.
We both fell.

I fell. You fell.
In hell we will tell of it.
Form’s accidents, we move back-
wards to love…

The movement of the
sentence tells me of you
as it was the bottle we drank?
No. It was no accident.

Agh, form is what happens?
Form is an accompaniment.
I to love, you to love:
Syntactic accident.

It will all come true,
in a year.
The empty bottle, the empty table,
tell where we were.

~Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley died a few weeks ago. I found this out yesterday from some random blog. He was my favorite poet.

Trifecta

My friend Damon and I were talking about requirements for second dates.

We weren’t talking about the whole trifecta for a long term relationship: Intelligent, Beautiful, and Interesting. Having any one of the three could probably get a single date, as long as the other categories ranked at least a neutral. I said you can rob one to pay the other in this equation. Ugly and Intelligent could get a date, if you add Interesting.

But for second dates, two categories are required with at least a neutral in the third. And not all categories are equal, for example, Interesting and Beautiful always outweighs Intelligent. And, as Damon pointed out, sometimes having interesting talents can count as being interesting, sometimes for up to five dates. Depending on what the talents are…



Here’s a game for you to play that continues the vein of my self-depreciation week: Match the lettered category of the attractiveness with the numbered description of how I would screw things up.

Good luck and no cheating!


(If you don’t understand Venn diagrams
review them first, or you won’t win.)

1. I’ll want to hang out with you all the time. One night when we’ve been drinking, I’ll get a little handsy. Then I’ll stop returning your calls for two weeks.
2. I’ll be charming and kiss you goodnight. It’ll take me an exaggerated effort to pull away from you and drive myself home. On a subsequent date, you will say something to make me jelous, like ‘I’m sleeping with someone else.’ When I pretend to be cool with that, you will dump me.
3. We’ll have many dates, each one with promise, and each one ending with an awkward peck on the cheek. The most painful category.
4. We’ll exchange a lot of playful banter. The lead up will all be in place, but then I’ll leave suddenly.
5. I’ll be aloof, but buy you drinks and invite you home for a nightcap.
6. I’ll be argumentative from the start. I’ll laugh at your joke, but ask why it’s funny. Then I’ll become visibly bored.
7. I’ll charm the pants off you at first, and then slowly shift into bizarre and psychotic mode until you stop returning my calls.

(Answers are posted as a comment.)

Uncynical Wednesdays: The Pickle Jar

If you liked
Horses
You will love
The Pickle Jar

My old roommate Tilden loved pickles. When we lived together she would eat them with abandon. But when she moved out to the countryside, halfway between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, she quit eating them.

‘I can’t open the jars,’ she’d say, her lip quivering, asking me to open the jar for her.

I thought she trusted me because I had told her my man-versus-pickle-jar story.

When I was nineteen, I was helping my mother prepare for the annual Fourth of July picnic. Everyone in the family was invited and my mother prepared a huge spread of hamburgers and hotdogs. As the guests were arriving, she was setting out the various condiments: cheese, onion, tomato, ketchup, mustard and mayo. Suddenly a look of panic flashed in her eyes.

‘Where are the pickles?’ my cousin gasped.

‘We can’t go to the store for pickles! It’s already closed for the celebration!’ my uncle shrieked.

My mother charged into the kitchen, frantically tearing through the back reaches of the upper cabinets. Soup cans and teabags went flying as she ransacked the shelves, hoping against hope for a jar of pickles.

‘I found them’ she yelled, producing a rusted, discolored jar of pickles.

‘But it’s been back there for years,’ my sister lamented. ‘No one will be able to open that jar.’

‘Someone has to try,’ my grandmother said, before collapsing onto a heap on the yard.

While everyone rushed to her aid, I approached the pickle jar…

I circled the jar and took it in my left hand and pulled—hard. The lid was rusted and dusty. I twisted with all my might, but the lid would not yield to my strength. I reached across with my right hand, grabbed further up on the jar and yanked laterally, twisting the jar back and up with everything in me. I was sweaty and panting. The jar gave in and twisted open.

The burgers were just coming off the grill, and the paramedics were helping my grandmother off the ground. Had that jar not opened at that moment, the picnic would have been ruined. My heart was thumping so hard in my chest it was almost painful.

Though now scared shitless and bleeding from my fingers and hands, I wasn’t about to give these pickles the satisfaction of not being eaten. Despite their sogginess and faint metallic aftertaste, I piled them onto my hamburger.

Though it’s not a story that I often tell, Tilden knew it. I thought that was why she gave me the pickle jars to open. One time though, she explained her rational.

‘I just want to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome.’

Arrogant Secretary's Syndrome

Arrogant Secretary’s Syndrome (ASS): noun. The tendency to assume that some knowledge or ability should be universal and that people who do not have it are worthy of contempt. [Note: This is not limited to secretaries. Like the Philadelphia Chromosome or Christmas Factor, the name is based on where it was first described.]


When I was nineteen, I worked for a temp agency and did a four-day filing assignment. The office had seven secretaries, whose chief function was to receive people who came in to fill out forms.

Throughout the day, many people would fill out the wrong form. Again and again the secretaries would point out that the wrong form had been filled out and exasperatedly point out the correct form. There was a large display that held all the forms and described who should fill which forms out.

‘I don’t know how some people make it through life,’ one would say.

‘I can’t believe these people, taking our time to explain to them what is written right there.’

I sat in the back, moving files into the office’s new cabinetry, observing them.

At the end of the second day, I stopped at the display to look it over. At the top, in big black letters, it instructed people to fill out Form A. At the bottom, in small letters, it said that if they had exception 1, 2, or 3, they should fill out Form B instead.

On the drive home, I thought about how so many people made the same mistake. Time after time, people came in and filled out Form A, when they needed to fill out Form B. The secretaries all agreed that the issue was people’s intelligence, but all manor of people were making the same error. The people who filled out the correct form were people who had been in the office before. Those people greeted the secretaries by name. This, to me, was clearly not a question of intelligence, but simply of experience. The secretaries, upset or jealous because they had a rather meaningless, dull job, sanctified themselves by priding in their mastery of which forms to fill out, while lawyers and engineers were simply too stupid to do it right.

I realized that if the sign were slightly modified, most people would fill out the correct form, saving the secretaries a lot of trouble, but costing them a lot of superiority. I resigned myself to completing a job with sanctimonious people who were more vested in their own superiority than helping people.

That night, I read Thoreau and was well content.

The next day, I sat filing and listening to them working and occasionally, faux-patiently explain that the people needed Form B, not Form A. I was doing my best not to injure eternity. About a half hour before lunch, one whispered to me that it was Harry’s last day and they were all going to lunch at the cafeteria down the street. She said that I could join them, if I wanted.

It was a 1950’s style cafeteria, where you go down the line, point at things you want and put them on your tray, then pay the cashier before you sit down. When I got to the front, my total was $5.47. I only had four dollars in my wallet. I started to look at my tray to figure out what I could give back, when one of the secretaries behind me said, ‘I have it. Don’t worry.’

She paid for my whole meal. I knew from comments they had made how tight money was for them, and while five dollars seems a laughable amount to me now, at the time, it was not.

No one spoke of it at the table, but on the way out another one came up to me and said, ‘I remember how tough it is when you’re starting out. Do you have enough money to get yourself home?’

I did, told her so and realized that we all suffer some form of ASS.

Return to Atlanta

1

I had so much fun in Atlanta last month that I decided to go again. The traffic was a nightmare and my arrival time was three hours later than my ETA of ten pm Friday night. My friend Toph and I went out for a few beers and met LT and Chandler for Chinese.

2

On Saturday night we were getting ready for a party

‘We’re running a little late,’ Toph said into the phone, trying not to sound annoyed, ‘Erik’s found my charcoal masque and is running around the apartment pretending he’s Nightcrawler.’

“{BAMPH}” I yell, leaping into the living room, bounding off the couch and behind the dining room table.

‘Erik, we need to go. Get that shit off your face and let’s head out.’

‘Yes, Herr Professor,’ I say, then yell “{BAMPH}” and get ready to somersault into the bathroom.

‘And no somersaulting, you’ll trip and get that shit all over the carpeting.’

‘Yes, Herr Professor,’ I say, dejectedly walking into the bathroom.

3

At the party there was one small dog and lots of people. There was one guy who was an even bigger amusing asshole than me. There are plenty of people who are more amusing than me and plenty of people who are bigger assholes than me, but the combination of the two is a delight to find. He was handing out scissors and talking people into cutting their LIVESTRONG bracelets off and then give him the yellow rubber pelts. His name was Ian and he grew up in Guam, or so he claimed. I hope to run into him again. I'll let you know if he does more amusing things, because there is not enough amusement in the world.

4

Before I began the drive back on Sunday morning, Toph, LT and I had brunch at some restaurant that had something to do with ‘Gone with the Wind.’ Toph gave me two suggestions for offensive business names to add to my collection:

Dry Cleaners: Drop Your Pants and Jacket Off

French Café: That’s a Load of Crape


So I had a good weekend in Atlanta.

Those That Can...

When I was in high school I was convinced that I was smarter than most of my teachers. Many of you probably had the same conviction.

When I started college, I realized how arrogant I had been in high school, and figured I had just not appreciated their intelligence.

By the time I was finishing college and had met numerous education majors at parties, in bars and, rarely, in the library—you could spot them in the library because they only carried one book: “Those That Can…Teach”—I realized that I had, in fact, been smarter than most of my teachers in high school.

And you probably were too.

If you are smart, and I know you are, consider quitting your job and start teaching.

We need smart teachers.

My friend Chris has done this. He quit his tech job and has joined Teach For America.

If you dont want to quit your job, you could volunteer to come to the school and give a lecture or share some knowledge, but only do this if you are smart. The last thing they need is some idiot running his mouth. They already have a principal.

Venn Diagram of the Month

Most Cynical Television Show in America

I first became aware of the problem several years ago. I was telling my neighbor that the air conditioning repairmen were coming to my house and not to be alarmed if she saw men in my backyard.

‘Ohhh,’ She said, alarmed, ‘Be careful. They’ll pee in your backyard.’

‘Miss McManus,’ I said, ‘First, I pee in my backyard. Second, I offer anyone who comes in my door a glass of water and the use of the restroom. Third, who told you that this was a problem?’

The answer and winner of today’s contest?

Primetime Live

This particular episode was done years ago, clearly with the intent of catching repairmen doing damage to the units. When they did not find that, they did a huge, meaningless story on peeing.

Six of the past seven stories done recently seemed specifically designed to make people fear their fellow man.

Their titles:

• What to Do If You Become a Stalking Victim
• ‘Pill Cities’ Part of Southern Steroid Scare
• Man Savagely Beaten After Police Officer Party
• Teen Killer Has No Remorse
• How Abductors Get Willing Victims

(And the story I deemed ‘not overtly cynical’ was titled: Inside a Maximum Security Women’s Prison.)

It’s the kind of show that parodies itself, so I won’t bother coming up with titles even more sensational and pointless than theirs.

Hey Quiñones, I know you report ‘on such diverse topics as the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case, the plight of conjoined twins and the ongoing search for the notorious Zodiac killer,’ but you might try to include a story on how your show is damaging Americans’ faith in one another.

And Sawyer, have you ever considered doing an exclusive, tearful interview with yourself about how your career has denigrated into frightening people’s grandmothers?

Pablo Picasso Was Not an Asshole

I have written before about saying things that I have regretted. Things that have hurt people. But occasionally, I give in to the dark side of the force and insult someone while having them thank me for it.

Jedi Mind Tricks are all in the timing and intonation.

• At dinner, someone says, ‘Let me order the wine. If I can say something pretentious: I took a wine course at a community college last year.’
  
  ‘I don’t think that’s pretentious,’ I say.
  
  ‘Well, maybe just a little pretentious,’ they say, proudly.
  
  I think about saying, ‘not even a little pretentious,’ but decide I am pressing my luck and say nothing.

• At a nightclub someone says, ‘I don’t know why I’m still single. I think people underestimate me.’
  
  ‘I don’t think people underestimate you,’ I say.
  
  ‘Erik, you are so sweet,’ they say.

No. No, really I’m not.

‘This is not the asshole you are looking for.’

Isn’t It Ironic?

I listen to two children talk too much as they bob in the water. I have lain myself down next to the pool. My book lies on the table next to me, unopened.

“But there is no Queen of America.” I hear the boy say. He is seven.
“I know,” the girl responds. She is six and speaks with a British accent. “I was just pretending.”
“Are you from London?” The boy asks.
“How did you know?” The girl giggles, sounding surprised. Her compliment is the perfect complement to her manor.

“I just guessed.” He seems to consider the conversation that preceded this point before deciding how to proceed “What brings you to Miami?”
“We are visiting my cousin.”
“Where does he live?”
“She lives half in Miami and half in New York.”

I realize I will have to move farther from the pool, if this goes much further.

“That’s impossible. They’re very far apart. It takes hours to fly even using my dad’s jet.”

Though they have mutual interests between them, they are not common among the three of us.

“Well, she drives a Maserati which is, like, practically the fastest car in the universe, so maybe that’s how she does it.”

They are so affected, it has effected a feeling of nausea within me.

April Fool's Day

April Fool's day

The Chocolate was nothing but delicious.


Here's what happened.

I was sitting in my living room on Wednesday night and, after opening the box and carefully inspecting the foil wrap, began eating the bunny rabbit. Ears first.

I wait. Feel anything? No. Check my pulse. No discernable change. Examine my oral mucosa in the bathroom mirror. No irritation. Wait.

Then eat the head and neck. Still delicious. Still no change. Begin eating the shoulders and ribs, but this is a big bunny. At this point, I have eaten a half pound of chocolate. I feel fine but am starting to get a bit bored. It also occurs to me that if I do have a reaction, no one will see it. If I slump over dead and don't post the next morning, everyone would think it was a joke.

So, fearing for my life, I went out for a beer.

When I got home several hours later, I was not really in the mood to eat more bunny. Since the poison could be lingering in a single area of the rabbit, I could not say with any certainty that the bunny rabbit had not been poisoned.

That was when it occurred to me to hold off on posting. I also thought it might be useful to see if anyone would call to check on me after I had let them know that I had put myself in harm's way.

So I have been MIA for 40 hours now. I called my family on Wednesday afternoon, a little freaked out that someone posted my middle name in the comment section, asking if they had done it. No one had, and they all feigned concern quite well.

My beloved sister has been the only one to call and check on me. As far as I am concerned, I could be trapped, lying on the living room floor, paralyzed but fully conscious because of the tetrodotoxin, waiting to become someone's zombie.

Thanks, family and friends.


So I ate the rest of the bunny rabbit last night. I feel fine and it was delicious.

Thanks, Pensacola Una-bunnier.




And Thanks to Dan, who tells us about shame, enlightenment, and shows us his ass.