Needs

Here's what we need: it’s those photos where two people are kissing a third person in between them. You’ve seen them, right? The pose three friends often fall into, where there’s a person in the center being kissed on either cheek? We need more of those.

In fact, what we need is one of those photos for every man, woman, and child the world over. That’s my suggestion, as far as world peace is concerned. I think if everyone had a photo of themselves like that, with a person kissing either cheek, it would do a lot for their self-esteem. It would make them feel loved. It would keep them from doing bad things, like shooting at moving cars from a highway overpass, or implying that someone is of a loose moral character when in conversation with friends and acquaintances.

What we need is a van to go from town to town throughout the world with a photographer who can take those pictures. Someone with a nice camera, maybe something digital, and a high quality printer in the van that is somehow run on solar power, or from the van’s battery. It would be better, I think, if it had some sort of solar component, just as long as the photographer didn’t make some sort of big deal about how environmentally sound they are. No one needs to be lectured to all the time. They just need to be kissed on either cheek, and they need a photo of that kiss.

They need to carry it with them, or have it in their cubicle.

They need that.

I'm going to get right on that. So, you know.

All together now.

No time to blog.

Over

Blogging is over. I was going to blog, but it's already over and I missed out.

And I can't do something after it's already over, can I?

And, I'm really good at jumping on bandwagons after those bandwagons have already broken down, and the band has gotten off, and found a new ride to the theater by hitchhiking or some such thing, and the driver of the bandwagon is staring at his broken down bandwagon, looking beneath the hood at what to him is an incomprehensible mess of greasy metal seashells and boxes and wires because he never bothered to learn how to actually fix his stupid bandwagon, and wondering why he didn't decide to do something better with his life than drive a stupid oompah band all over the fucking town!

Stupid, stupid oompah band. The worst of them is the tuba player. The tuba player is everything that is wrong with musicians all rolled into one giant, twisted brass tube. Did you know that? It's true. To hell with his huge, gaping blowhole, or whatever you call the big opening at the top of the instrument where the sound comes from.

There were choices to be made. There are always choices to be made. Make the right ones. That's what the driver of the bandwagon thinks after his bandwagon has once again broken down.

And to blog after it is already over is the wrong choice. So, I can't.

**

Thanks to The Reader of Cute, Happy Books.

Here's an update: The Reader of Cute, Happy Books has some new stuff on a website that you should really go and READ.

Way

Someone's in the way of my blog so I can't blog. Someone is blocking me. Someone's in the way.

I can't get to my blog, and I can't get the person who is in the way to push off, or to scooch over or anything, and now I can't get to my blog and I can't blog.

Someone's in the way.

That someone is playing the flute.

In fact, that someone who is standing there, in front of my blog, making it impossible for me to blog, is Eric Dolphy.

No, really. Eric Dolphy is blocking my blog.

I love Eric Dolphy. I can't just shove him. People keep calling me up on my telephone. They keep calling me up and asking if I'm blogging, and I say I can't because someone is in the way, and they tell me to shove him out of the way.

(Why do they all assume it's a him? I mean, it is a him, but why do they all have to go and assume? I don't get that.)

I can't shove him, I tell them. It's Eric Dolphy. I can't just shove Eric Dolphy.

Can I?

Eric Dolphy is playing his flute right now, making little bird calls, and then improvising on the melodies.

How could I shove him after that? How can I shove him while he plays bird songs? It's like, any second now, a bunch of birds are going to break through the window and land on his shoulders. And they'll pick him up, and carry him out the window. He'll keep playing, and birds will carry him off.

Then, maybe I'll be able to get to the blog.

**

The amazing Mike Topp now has a blog. You should spend most of your time reading Mike Topp.

Dancing

Can't blog. Dancing with some of my favorite writers.

Browser

I have this brand new web browser. It's the latest one, the one everybody is clamoring to get. It's the newest thing in web surfing.

It brings you out to the site you want to see, and then it shows you the page from below.

Below!

It shows you everything on the page from directly underneath. Isn't that an interesting perspective? Below?

And what does a webpage look like from below? Flat, actually. Empty space, line, empty space, line, empty space, line.

"Be patient, for the world is broad and wide," said Friar Laurence to Romeo. And Edwin Abbott used that as an epigram for Flatland.

Be patient, for the World Wide Web is broad and wide, and when seen from underneath, quite strange.

But, see, because I can only see the web from underneath, I cannot blog. I do not trust my ability to fill out the blogging post with perfect spelling. And I cannot check it. So, I cannot blog.

Bridge

I came home with a blog. And my mom, she said, "What's that?"

And I told her it was a blog.

And she said, "Why do you want to go and have one of those for?"

And I told her it was cool, that all my friends, they had blogs, too. Everyone my age had a blog.

And she said that thing—you know what I mean. She said that thing moms are supposed to say. She said, "Well, if everyone your age jumped off a..."

I don't even know if I can finish it. It's so...you know. It's just so...

Okay, so she said, "Well, if everyone your age jumped off a bridge, would you?"

And I said maybe. Kind of to maybe freak her out.

And she, then, got sort of quiet. She looked at me, and then at my stepdad.

"Really?" she asked.

And I said maybe again.

And she sort of nodded, and said, "Huh," real quiet-like.

Then my stepdad told me to go to my room. I went to my room.

At school the next day, I found a printout in my bookbag. It said teen suicide by bridge jumping was up. On the page, there was a little red "FYI!" in my mom's handwriting. And a smiley face.

And it was true. Next thing you knew, all the kids in my age group were throwing themselves off of bridges, and my mom, she was finding citations, and leaving them taped to my door.

At breakfast should would look at me (all disgusted) and say, "All the other kids are jumping off of bridges. Why the hell won't you?"

But, I wouldn't do it then, and I won't do it now, and I'll never do it. You hear me, Mom? I won't do it! Stop calling me.

I completely forgot about the blog.