Things That Take Too Much of My Time

1. Finding excuses to talk about robots
2. Homework
3. Fantasizing about being Jean Luc Picard
4. Laundry
5. Getting drunk and debating Heisenberg's uncertainty principal
6. Street parking
7. Trying to figure out who my ex may be having sex with based on blurry Facebook images, comments and tags having to do with how awesome that one show was last night
8. Cooking
9. Writing stories that begin "It was the year 2069..."
10. Obsessing about money
11. Updating blog that probably no one reads except that one guy from my writing workshop who smokes a lot of dope
12. Youtube videos of planking

Six Word Story V.1

Ravenous beast marries carnivorous plant. Babies.

The Ikea Cycle

Not unlike the carbon, nitrogen, or water cycle, the Ikea Cycle is a vital process serving the nature and nurture of our material well being. Unlike those other cycles, however, the Ikea Cycle has never been closely studied, nor broken down into its core stages until now.

Step 1: Buy furniture

i. Look around your apartment and decide what's missing. Allow yourself to sink into the void of material desire.

ii. Commute way out into the middle of nowhere (which is the only place where you can find Ikea). Spend 10 minutes trying to park between sloppily angled minivans despite the ridiculous size of the parking lot.

iii. Note the obnoxiously cheery blue and yellow facade with an enormous feeling of ambition and "getter done."

iv. Get lost trying to find the wheels to that chair you liked.

v. Try to find a dresser only to realize that they are all more expensive than you had expected. Settle on a cheap shelving unit of some kind.

vi. Get lost trying to find the faucet for your sink. Decide to have some Swedish meatballs in "the cafe" while you recover your strength.

vii. Forget what you came here for originally and start buying random cheap kitchen supplies whilst telling yourself: "But, it's only three dollars."

viii. Finally get to the bottom floor--the end--only it's not the end, it's aisle after aisle of cardboard boxes containing the things you just finished shopping for. Grunt while loading massive boxes with unknown heavy contents onto unwieldy cart.

ix. End up at the register only to remember that you forgot to get the legs to your coffee table.

x. Sheepishly fork over $500, wondering just what the hell cost $500 as you only got some book cases, shelves, and some cheapo kitchen crap.

Step 2: Bring furniture back to base.

i. Try to sort cardboard boxes into piles so you know which parts go with each other, only to find later that you've lost (or never grabbed?) that one box with all the nuts and bolts and stuff in it.

ii. Try to screw in thingy with allen wrench only to break allen wrench. Use allen wrench from other package.

iii. Break dowels and/or wind up with "extra" dowels. Yes, this was Ikea's fault. Not yours.

iv. Swear, curse, and blaspheme the stupid asexual Ikea blob thing who keeps pointing to some hole that doesn't exist but is supposed to apparently have a screw drilled into it.

v. Complete Ikea furniture with min. number of dowels necessary resulting in unwieldy furniture with incomplete appearance. Drink beer and take Tylenol until headache subsides using cardboard box as coffee table.

Step 3: Moving Out

i. List Ikea furniture on Craigslist. Note the excellent condition, full assembly and reasonable price.

ii. Wade through responses from lustful free section watchers who offer to take things off your hands for a maximum of $10.00 as well as random anonymous emails of men in leather chaps offering their BDSM services.

iii. Re-list all items at a mark down of 50%.

iv. Repeat step ii.

v. Finally, agree to sell two bookcases, some shelves and the kitchen supplies to some dude in Martinez for $50.

vi. Feel robbed and depressed. Drink beer and take Tylenol until happiness returns.

Step 4: New Apartment!

See Step 1.

Other People's Words V.2

[In a yuppie grocery store cafe. 2 ladies with identical short hair cuts]

Still with the laundry?

Yeah, he did it once.
And I was like,
I want to see you do it
every other week.

Yeah-

And then I passed out.

So you're going home for Thanksgiving?

[Segment missing about how pineapple gives one of them explosive diarrhea.]

How To Sympathize With A Ballpoint Pen

1. Steal as many ball point pens as you can fit in your pants.

2. Break the ball point pens in half using a sledge hammer in an inflatable kiddie pool.

3. Slosh around in the pool naked, on your front lawn, so that your neighbors can see and have to step away from the television and really hate you for it.

4. Smear the ink all over your body until you are covered in ink.

5. Throw yourself against the side of the house, leaving obscure marks that no one including yourself really cares about until all the ink is gone or you pass out.

6. Throw yourself in the trash.

QNA: What Is Empathy?

A temporary lapse of reason in which man mistakes the sufferings of others for his own.

Man then takes back his dollar and some change and goes and uses it to buy tiny razors to shave his butt hair.

Exorcise #1: Try To Make Sense of Everything Until Your Head Falls Off

Put two things next to each other and they start to explain each other.

Let them explain each other long enough and you'll start to get confused.

Start to get confused and stay confused as long as possible until you get frustrated.



Go watch TV instead.

Other People's Words V.1

[Overheard in the SF Public Library. 1/2 of a cell phone conversation.]

Do you want me to bring some cat food over?

Yeah I know I don’t have to but I will.

Did he sleep with you?

Did he sleep with you?

Did he see Sylvie?

Did Sylvie come by?

Sylvie comes by almost every day now.

Yeah, he’s starting to get attached to you.

Yeah, you’ve got two now.

Let’s just hope they’re both healthy. We gotta get Sylvie checked out.

Okay okay.

Yeah, tonight.

Ok sounds good.

You want to borrow a little bit of money?

A lot of things.

Ok. Bye bye.

[Optional Exorcise: Try re-reading this without the first sentence. Do you still think it's about cats?]