This is what the world will be like in 2011.

In 2011, I'll never make up the lyrics to songs on the elevator muzak stereo system, and when you are standing next to me, you won't be forced to drown out my singing lyrics to the songs on the elevator muzak stereo with wild, loud, intense gum chewing. This is one of the things I can promise you, world, about 2011.

In 2011, I'll never make risotto. Not once, not once, not once, not once. So I will never make a risotto where the rice is still not completely cooked. I won't do that because I won't even attempt the risotto in the first place. This, world, is one of the things I can promise you about 2011.

In 2011, I won't make you read a draft of some sort of poem that I have written that is about faulty brain chemistry. All my writing about faulty brain chemistry will be done in prose form. I will not even write about faulty brain chemistry in prose poetry form. This is my ironclad promise, world. This will not happen in 2011.

And that's it.

That's all I can promise.

***

I have twenty for thirty. Don't know about you. But if you've got thirty, I've got the twenty to return to you for it.

Hey, let's talk. Hey, let's get in touch about this later and some stuff.

Really, though. Hey, I've got twenty for thirty. You know?

Maybe you don't. See, and then once you do see, you don't see what you don't see. You only see what you do see.

And how limiting is that? Right?

Am I right?

Really. I'm wondering.

The comma or the period. I can't see the sentence for the punctuation, sometimes. It's all dash this and semicolon that. What good's to come of all this looking and looking and looking if the sentence gets lost in its stops and pauses?

That's what my priest says, anyway. That's what my priest tells me when I'm looking up at him over the edge of the silver dish.

Am I right?

Really. I just want to know.

***



Don't touch this man in 2011, you. Don't you dare do it. (You know who you are.)

***

Books I've Read This Year (Ongoing)

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt