Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Uncle George (by way of Richard Brautigan)

Your hat
Gone now these
Twenty one years

Your addictions
Gone now

Your hat
It's in a drawer

For your birthday
I take it out
Wear it around

Tipping it
At all the pretty ladies






Thursday, June 10, 2010

How To Prevent Asexual Assault

1. If someone is invading your space with a complete lack of sexuality, remember your elbow is the strongest point on your body. Use it!

2. Trust your gut. If you cannot imagine someone doing unspeakable things to you, NEVER let them into your car.

3. If someone who is happiest alone comes along and makes you feel uncomfortable, hold your hand in a stop position, scream “NO!” and back away.

4. When someone asks to borrow your pen, and you cannot place them on the sexual continuum, DO NOT hand them your pen. Instead, throw it on the ground and ask them to pick it up.

5. AVOID HANGING OUT IN BUSHES where individuals who reproduce by cell division, spore formation, fission and budding are likely to hide.

6. If you think you are being followed by someone who has no desire to have sex with you,WALK BRISKLY TO A THRIFT STORE, buy a sheer crop top, then step out and confront your assailant head on by turning your cheek and biting your lower lip.

7. Before leaving a party with someone you just met or don’t know well, make certain they are not an amoeba.

8. Never drink from an open container or punch bowl held by someone wearing an “Asexuals Party Hardest” T-shirt.

9. Understand that agreeing to go back to someone’s place can indicate a willingness to play Bananagrams so have the forethought to DRINK HEAVILY AND DRESS PROVOCATIVELY.

10. When a person attempts to tell you they are living happily and sexlessly ever after, force yourself to vomit on them. Remember you are the victim. You have nothing to feel guilty or ashamed about.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Stuff I Overheard and Jotted Down With a Giant Pencil

Tranny At Lucy's Laundry Mart, Sunset Blvd.:

"I’m going to stop by West Hollywood for a little while, maybe make some money, then stop by a bar and have a drink, then maybe go home and make some dinner.”


Sales Woman at a Chevron Station, Redding, CA:

" 'K, I'm gonna go smoke, an after that, I'm gonna cut meat, an after that, I'm gonna go home."


In My Own Head, Cuckoo's Nest Roundabout, CA:

"...Oh, god. Seeing chipped nail polish on a corpse is so sad because it makes them a real person who had pride in how they looked, or who didn’t--who let their polish chip and didn’t wipe it off or repaint it. That's it. I'm never getting on another plane. Well, if I do, I'm painting my toenails perfectly. But, are my toes still going to be on me after my plane nose dives 30,000 feet and bursts into a fireball? What's the point, what's the point, what's the point. Fuck."


Tuesday, May 18, 2010

If somebody would please let ME write the elevator warning sign.

If elevator doors fail to open, do not become alarmed. It's pretty unlikely that you will run out of air or are stuck in here with a someone who's never had the opportunity to act out their bloodlust. Chances are also slim that this elevator will start dropping uncontrollably. Simply keep ignoring the other person (or persons) in here with you and frantically press the button. Then say "Shit! Fuck!" when you realize you've been pressing the 4 button, not the Alarm button. Calmly begin repeatedly pressing the Alarm button. Now, look over your shoulder and exchange frantic expressions with the others--your shared trauma now makes it socially acceptable to acknowledge their existence. Next, step away from the Alarm button and allow someone else to violently stab at it since they can probably do it better. If you are pregnant, now would be a good time for your water to break. If you're a complete asshole with anger issues, and your monster only stays bound by societal constraints if your excursions into the world are brief and unruffled, then start coming undone in an alarming way that no one else can relate to (even though they are also trapped in an elevator). See that woman in the corner crying and hugging herself? Tell her she's making everything a thousand times worse. When she starts to cry even harder, shriek that no man could ever love her. Next, notice that everyone is now staring at you in various states of petrification and raise your arms above your head and begin thrashing them around as if you are grabbing invisible things and really trashing the place. Once you tire, retreat to a corner, slowly slide down it until you hit the floor of the elevator you are trapped in with a limited amount of oxygen, splay your legs straight out in front of you, and stare at everyone with an eery tranquility. If you are everyone else, pack yourselves like sardines in the opposite corner and direct your gaze at your shoes. Help is on the way.







Friday, May 14, 2010

An Open Letter To The Inanimate Objects In My Apartment That Just Sat There While I Was Heartbroken

Dear Inanimate Objects In My Apartment,

As you all have been completely unaware of, I fell in love, and she didn’t love me back. I spent four years trying to make the right kind of face for her only to realize she had been looking over my shoulder the whole time. Leaving her felt like disowning a vision of myself. But I did leave. And I went straight home to my parents and got in their RV and traveled around the country passing thousands of cows and people until I realized the world is a big place and I might as well try again. So, here I am—a smidge gin-besotted—trying.

Did you even notice that, Recycle Bin? No, you didn’t, just like you didn’t notice or care that you’ve been so overflowing with empty beer bottles for the last month that I’ve started lining them up around you. This could’ve made your neighbor, Galvanized Metal Trash Can, feel cramped or at least inadequate if it was filled with anything more sensitive than yesterday’s congealed beans. But, it’s not just you two. All of my inanimate “friends” are guilty of doing the same thing: nothing.

Websters II New College Dictionary, did it ever occur to you that I kept desperately trying to redefine love? Bag Of Frozen Peas, I know you heard me when I got off the phone with her, and shouted “I want to hang up and not give a shit about you! To forget you like frozen peas in the back of my freezer!” Extra-Long Body Pillow, don’t tell me you didn’t feel a little used and abused. Same with you Porcelain Shower Tile, but you did a great impersonation of her, remaining cold and unmoved even when kissed passionately.

Ceramic Coffee Mug That Some Lesbians In Santa Fe Sold Us Cheaply Because They Thought She And I Were A Cute Couple, how can you even stand yourself when you know you stood for nothing at all? Pair Of Seven Jeans, Various T-shirts and Toothbrush, every morning I woke up at her place, I found you all stacked neatly on top of each other by the door. Did you honestly think she was just organized, or did it occur to you that you were all a part of the great pyramid of how much she didn’t want me getting comfortable in her life?

Allow me to give you all a brief lesson in the human condition. Humans are about 70% water, and the rest is guts, bone and minerals. But, because we are highly evolved animals, we tend to think of ourselves as fat, dull, empty and stupid. We are such a successful species that there are currently 6,792,256,639 of us on the planet—all of us frightened of being alone. We cannot be left on a shelf to sit, like you Wide Slot Toaster. When I leave you way up high on a shelf and forget about you and reach up and dust all around you but never touch you (not even once!!) you still have a purpose: making toast. When this happens to a human, that person forgets their purpose and goes around letting all the wrong people touch them.

I’m sorry, I’m getting off track. If it isn’t plainly obvious, I’m jealous. Inanimate Objects, you never have to worry that you weren’t given the proper parts to make it through life. You were. They’re factory installed, and if not, they’re sold separately, possibly with free shipping. And, one of the greatest things about you is when someone decides they no longer want you and sets you on a curb, you could still be someone else’s treasure. Best of all, when your machinery stops, it just stops. Have you ever seen an old man who can’t tell you what a shoe is but his legs carry him aimlessly around his neighborhood searching for his childhood farmhouse?

I just reread this, and I’m getting the idea that this is probably one of those letters people advise you to write for yourself and never show anyone. Oh well, it’s been therapeutic. Of course, I know reprimanding you guys for the intolerable pain in my chest is even more idiotic than stubbing my toe on your cords and screaming “fuckface!” at your little switch noses and your red blinking eyes. It’s just that these days I feel like a grandmother’s old leather suitcase, so sad and heavy and filled with things that are no longer useful in the world.

I’ll get better. I guess all you inanimate thingies can really do is be there for me. Be there or be square. Be there and be square. Just be there, because the world’s platter of hope and despair can be a bit much, especially when you don’t know which one you’re reaching for. And, trust me, sometimes it’s just comforting to clock out and stare at the platter.

Sincerely,

Stef Willen (I bought you)

P.S. Pinecones, my apologies for keeping you slightly off center on top of the TV for so long. Similar apologies to Cow Vertebrae, for making you into cool candlestick holders. Please understand, when people need a big break from love, they start doing all kinds of things for artistic reasons.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Sex On The Beach, A Haiku (except for one line)

You're about to lose your
virginity to a guy
named Sven--then lights dance

across your legs, in a
flashlight way, accusatory.
There's sand in your face,

his dick retreats from
inside you, from Spring Break, all
the way to his room

where he'll brag about you,
surrounded by plastic stuff;
commemorative

baseball cups caked with
dried beer foam, and you're alone.
A gun's at your head.

Two Mexican cops
want money so you give it,
and you don't loose your

virginity--you
go straight to being a whore,
your sandal's slipping.

You don't hate men, you
just walk back like your world's suddenly
half off to one side.







Thursday, January 21, 2010

A Man Who Is Not Old Or Young Watches TV

After his wife has gone to bed, the man who is not old or young pours himself a shot of the good stuff and tracks a little bit of mud into the living room, but he’ll hear about that tomorrow morning. Before then, he decides to see if there's anything about dinosaurs on TV. Of course there’s something about dinosaurs on TV! And when some long-haired paleontologist is talking about how a giant asteroid crashed into the Yucatan 65 million years ago creating a globe-spanning debris cloud that killed off the dinosaurs but started life as we know it, the man who is not old or young can’t help but think about how all the cataclysmic events in his own life never really changed anything too much. Getting a degree, getting an advanced degree, getting married, having children, having children leave home, having an RV and being mostly retired; none of this ever started his “life” as he knew it.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Online Dating, A Brief Synopsis

I sit on my couch
and wink at you.
The wink goes into space
then back to your computer,
balanced on your fat stomach,
which you've cropped out
of all your photos.