pg 48

edward sharpe-home
basia bulat-heart of my own
arcade fire-sprawl II
lcd-dance yrself clean

and then how bad it must have been for her to sit directly across, face to face, and all of a sudden decide: there’s no good here. afterward, what the ladies found most distressing was that they could not come to a clear consensus about what was more troubling and which was more likely. had it been a case of sudden genesis or instead that she was just trailing far enough behind to carve herself a niche in their blind spot? regardless, once ellen decided it was more than enough for this woman to be set alight by her own shortcomings and that was that.

Ellen’s pronounced english accent carving itself a place in the room no less subtly had the streets of london been running through her house.

she thought, squeezing the last remaining joy from the slice of lemon ever so graciously afforded her by the lady of the house.

a seemingly unending stream of darkness bursts from the oven as my baked not grilled cheese sandwich dies a fiery death. something has really caught hold of it and won’t let go- til both it’s dead and my kitchen is filled with smoke. the back door is open to accommodate it, the sandwich, the smoke. and I think, my, how I did not expect this-to have the sandwich calling the shots. i’ve taken a backseat it seems and so, being in the backseat, have decided to pass the rest of the journey looking out the window. will i see a cow? if so, can we honk and see what it does?

i wait and i wait and i wait. with the oven door open things should be alright. i hope i pray they will be. i don’t know, the garbage spews forth with spiraling grace. and so i send continual streams, of chalky sentiments designed it almost seems in their apparent never-ending search for all that is dirty and all that can be made clean with a simple set of feelings. why my house? where’s my helping hand?

when you start maxing out, when you’re realllly maxing out, you’ve got to let it out. pushups and prayer. togtether. it’s all that works, brings you back down. are you maxing out? i think i’m about to max out. that guy’s maxing out.

jerry’s subconscious was alll riled up like you wouldn’t believe. He had three daughters, one, two, and three and they were young. young enough to still want to be told stories before bed although maybe you never grow out of wanting to hear a story before bed, you just feel strange asking. jerry would only tell one story each night not one story per daughter. for a while he had tried that, striving to/initially succeeding in creating three fully realized worlds. before long, with the day’s work nearly but not forgotten, jerry would just recycle the initial story. a second draft for the second daughter and so on. the trouble jerry found was that instead of each telling getting better as second drafts do when they become thirds, it was more of a copy of a copy of a copy, each retelling gaining a smudge/losing visibility so that by the third time around the story was plagued/peppered with “no wait”‘s and “i forgot to mention”‘s.

so he came to gather all together in one’s room because, fitting for the first child, one’s room was the best. it had a high ceiling and an arch that split the room in two, bed, desk, chair, bookcase all on one side, couches and beanbags, soft colourful lights and a blanket tacked to the ceiling that lent itself well to (a) story settling(s). jerry fully realized that these times, this getting three birds stoned at once, were coming to an end. soon one would be finding herself with a later bed time, and then would grow to not want a story, or be out for the night at friends. and the chain would continue until he only told stories to sara? a near empty house? grandchildren?

one, two, and three preferred that the stories told to them were told in a certain way. more importantly, that their stories began in the same way-by random. after that it didn’t so matter if it was a family story, or a real story, or an adventurous one. the best story they made started like this:

pa, tell me a story. [pa they liked using]

ok but i need an inventory first.

fine, where’s that pen?

make the letters big, i can’t read them otherwise.

here:

-2 BUFFALOS
-SOCK PILE
-COUSCOUS
-SHADY TREES
-MONTREAL
-A MAP
-A BICYCLE ACCIDENT
-EAGLES

Best was that they had been to montreal that summer and loved the city/trip. two liked it so much she went to the library and took out french language instruction books/tapes and it had come present practice to find two and sara at the kitchen table each night, pouring over something, conjugating verbs and the like.
so that the variable was becoming a constant-the vegetables.