i wish people wouldn't ring the doorbell.

in other news, yesterday was weird, and i wish it was tomorrow in england already so i could internet-steal the next episode of downton abbey.

there are two kinds of awkward people; the first is inherently, unwittingly awkward. the second, meanwhile, over-corrects any action he or she believes could even remotely be perceived as awkward by others; in other words, a self-fulfilling prophecy. i belong to the latter tribe!

"then, suddenly, amory perceived the feet, and with a rush of blood to the head he realized he was afraid. the feet were all wrong . . . with a sort of wrongness that he felt rather than knew. . . . it was like weakness in a good woman, or blood on satin; one of those terrible incongruities that shake little things in the back of the brain. he wore no shoes, but, instead, a sort of half moccasin, pointed, though, like the shoes they wore in the fourteenth century, and with the little ends curling up. they were a darkish brown and his toes seemed to fill them to the end. . . . they were unutterably terrible."

i think this frankenstorm is going to be bad.

i had to go to the museum of natural history today. i stared at the dinosaur skulls for a really long time and i didn't know whether to laugh or to cry.

soundtracking self-defense installment one.

i don't know how to turn it off.

i am weirdly serious about all of this.

i realized 2 days ago i am actually an anarchist.

everyone is buying drugs from the milkshake place next to my apartment. and i am imaging what it would be like if i could punch out the windows from all the cars parked on the street.

i had a dog once. i have one now, too, but i had one once, also. not anymore, though.

i will steal your lures and pretend they are mine. and you will know it but you won't mind. fishing fishing fishing. i won't do that again.

some people think that they are angela chase. but i KNOW that i am lindsay weir.

here is another thing i do all day sometimes.

i got a four dollar haircut in a basement in chinatown on saturday. the people there don't speak english so you have to pretend like you know sign language to tell them what you want. (i went when i was drunk so i was extra good at fake sign language.) then they say "okay ping ping" and they do this thing where they act like their fingers are scissors to show you that they understood. and even though it only took ten minutes i imagined what it would be like if they were my family. it would be nice i think.

everyone thinks it's so hard to be invisible, but it's really easy. you just have to shut off the part of your brain that looks people in the eye. and then you don't even need that coat from harry potter.

chronicling a compulsive liar part six.

"for some time i was a drifter, and to sustain myself i worked as a parental impostor. i would typically hang around elementary, middle and high schools i came across, seeking out the children whose parents were called in as a measure of disciplinary action; they would pay me with whatever money they had (usually collected from weekly allowance funds, but sometimes from odd jobs like working lemonade stands or shoveling driveways in the wintertime) to pretend to be their mother.

i had a few pieces of soulless clothing that i used to look the part, and then together we would attend meetings with teachers and/or principals who were concerned with my clients' behaviour. my charming demeanour worked to our advantage; i had a one hundred percent success rate, measured by the fact that no one received detention sentences, grade reductions, or other common means of punishment from that point on. it was only when i found work at the fortune cookie factory that i ceased to perform these services. as a retired parental impostor, though, i can tell you that children are crafty fellows who are not to be crossed."

it is the twenty-first century and we need more patron saints. like the patron saint of peanut allergies and the patron saint of auto-correct. and probably some other ones too i just can't think of them right now.

a band called the john candy lasagna death.

the sky is sort of pinkish-grey right now. i guess i am supposed to be excited about fireworks, but americans didn't even really invent those anyway. so i am eating chinese dumplings instead.

it's unfortunate that i find people so disagreeable. but i do. whatever.

i wish you could see this cloud out my window.

buckle-up

expulsive impulsive repulsive. pulse sieve.

i wish i was wearing sunscreen all the time.

i heard these things at this hotel one time and they went like this: "i am getting my hair blown out on thursday." and "i thought you weren't drinking tonight." and "my budget is ten thousand." and "what are you all dressed up for?"

but then my ears got all full of champagne. so i couldn't really hear anymore.

today i met grace coddington and her red hair. my internal organs ceased to function and my hands shook and my mouth was smiling while i told her things that made minimal sense. she said thank you. i said have a good day.

"her voice always sounded as if it were falling in drops, not of water, but of mayonnaise."

i heard there was supposed to be a general strike today, so i went bowling and lit matches and went prospecting for oil and gold. but then i found out that it just means that you're supposed to do nothing, which made me glad because i'm not very good at baseball.

i gave some french people directions today.

the government owes me seven dollars.

today i went to tompkins square park and like seven hundred people asked me for spare change, probably because my shoes were so shiny. i said no i didn't have any, which was true because i used up all my nickels and dimes and like two quarters to pay for an iced coffee. but even if i did have money i probably wouldn't have given them any, mostly because i was reading 'atlas shrugged' which makes you hate people who need things for free.

i am tired of people asking me questions.

the hells angles: a math gang story.

chronicling a compulsive liar part five.

"i worked for some years in a fortune cookie manufacturing plant. while i initially lacked the qualifications necessary to become successful in such an enterprise, i was able to fake my way through the job interview. speaking not one word of mandarin chinese, i'd picked up a handful of words off the back of a can of chop suey vegetables and, after correctly stringing them together to form a convincing argument for my employment, i was hired on the spot.

i started at the very bottom of the fortune cookie business hierarchy, spending long hours scrubbing the floors of the factory and polishing the machines that made mass-production possible. through that experience, i was able to see how each piece of equipment functioned, and, using bits of scrap metal i found in nearby junkyards, i replicated the machinery on a smaller scale in a corner of my one-bedroom apartment.

i kept my job at the factory to continue researching the production process. i was given promotions regularly for my hard work, but the ladder was complex, and i had many rungs to climb on my way to the top. this was a good thing, because it allowed me to experience each component of fortune cookie creation first-hand. at home, i applied the techniques i learned in the factory to create some of my own custom prototypes.

eventually i was promoted to the position of a fortune writer. they gave each of us a special typewriter, about the size of a deck of playing cards, which was designed to print the generic fortunes on tiny, individual strips of paper. the machines took some skill to use, and fortunately my abnormally slender fingers were advantageous in this regard. i quickly mastered the art, producing ten times the amount of fortunes as the other employees. though they were reluctant to lose my natural talent in this department, it was recognized that i was deserving of another promotion, and i was eventually made the head of the sales department.

this coveted position came with a variety of new responsibilities, one of which was maintaining the customer database. i learned the final destinations of our finished products, some of which being as far away as finland, though those fortunes had to be translated in a special department before shipping. i took note of the names of each restaurant on our roster, and spent a great deal of time researching which ones were frequented by important figures like movie stars and big-shot politicians. using my in-home machinery, i began producing fortune cookies made specifically for these influential characters.

i stayed late once a week under the guise of having to work out figures and sums in my office, and after the last employee left for the night, i'd swap out the factory's cookies with my own, each with a predetermined destination. my endeavours soon paid off, no one being the wiser; among many others, my long list of victories included the resignation of a corrupt foreign minister, the creation of a successful new currency, the rescue of an endangered people in the far reaches of the amazon from the brink of extinction, and the return to air of several television programs that had been canceled in years prior.

i eventually quit working at the factory, much to the dismay of the board of investors. my responsibility to the well-being of humanity had become too taxing, and i found there was no choice but to resign from my position.

i still own the fortune cookie machine i built all those years ago, and occasionally i make a limited batch of product for the enjoyment of my friends and family."

as with most things, i blame the sports fans.

"presented with just two choices, many americans vote not for who they see as president, but against the one they don't like."

yeah, but we still have to go all the way to the polls to do it. CAN'T I JUST TEXT MY VOTE LIKE ON AMERICAN IDOL OR SOMETHING?!

there's a car glowing outside my window.

everything about this bears repeating.

i like the deli. not the one next to my house, but the one a block past that on the corner. everyone who works there is creepy and mean, and they tell me i look like a teenager even though i saw some grey hairs on my head one time. and you can buy some peanuts for a quarter, too.

"the claim seemed to have the form of affection, but it was a form which he found harder to endure than any sort of hatred."

today i walked around the east village for two hours, but only on the shady side of the sidewalk. i was still sweating anyway though. and i saw a lot of weeping willows and old men without shirts on.

there's a jelly donut where my heart used to be.

good thing don quixote never read the bible.

i saw the vardøger of my mom's toyota one time.

"the vardøger or vardøgr is a spirit predecessor, from scandinavian folklore. stories typically include instances that are nearly déjà vu in substance, but in reverse, where a spirit with the subject's footsteps, voice, scent, or appearance and overall demeanor precedes them in a location or activity, resulting in witnesses believing they've seen or heard the actual person, before the person physically arrives. this bears a subtle difference from a doppelgänger, with a less sinister connotation. it has been likened to being a phantom double, or form of bilocation. the word vardøger is a norwegian term defined as 'a premonitory sound or sight of a person before he arrives.' in finnish lapland the concept is known as etiäinen."

lifelong recurrent dreams about tornadoes.

l'enfer c'est les autres. l'enfer c'est les touristes.

i tried to reintroduce colour into my wardrobe yesterday. the closest i got was a grey headband.

fictional brunch conversations or something.

me: were the eggs procured organically from cage-free golden geese?
waiter: no.
me: were they originally used to conduct a series of critically important gravity tests in outer space and now, upon successful reentry into the earth's atmosphere, have found a renewed sense of purpose in becoming my breakfast?
waiter: no.
me: are they endorsed by malachy, the champion pekingese?
waiter: no.
me: will i gain superpowers if i consume them?
waiter: no.
me: are they cadbury eggs?
waiter: no.
me: is the chef going to cook them using any special and/or magical techniques, including but not limited to telekinesis, laser beams or something cool like that?
waiter: no.
me: so like...okay. why are they $16, then?
waiter: because.
me: oh, okay. that's fair.
waiter: so are you ready to order now?
me: yes! i will have the water, please!

i will sit in the dark and kill mosquitoes.

i like these old people who smell like cigarettes and spit in the street.

some more things i do all day sometimes.

i woke up at two eleven this morning. i was pretty thirsty but the water wasn't cold so i had to drink some skim milk instead. it wasn't so bad. then when it got light out i got dressed and went to central park for a while. and i said hello to all of the dogs but none of the people.

here is how a beautiful television works.

you talk the talk but can you walk the walk?

well, i don't know. maybe. what kind of walk did you have in mind? like a speed walk? or more like a tip-toed walk? because i can do the second one really well, but only in the sense that i can walk on my toes to myself appear taller. if it's a quiet walk you're after, though, then no, i probably can't walk that kind of walk.

here is a thing i do all day sometimes: part two.

i passed this place on eldridge yesterday when i was walking around trying to find sweet potatoes for $0.49/lb. i thought about getting some dumplings but i don't like to go on the weekends because you have to stand in line with people who have never been before. and they're skeptical and they make jokes and they take too long to order and then they get really surprised when the food is so good. anyways, i didn't get any dumplings on eldridge and i just kept walking instead. and i passed this place with a sign in the window that said "welcome to ghost." i didn't really know what that meant or if it was a bar or a funeral home or what, but i passed it and kept walking. then i passed it one time again later when i had to go get chinese five spice and there was a fat guy with glasses coming out of there yelling about something. he looked like he was maybe drunk but then he stood by a van for a second and i thought maybe he was just always like that. there were a lot of people inside the windows and i felt like asking them if that place was haunted or if they knew any good ghost stories or why it was called ghost at all, but then it started to smell like that incense i really like that wafts out of this one apartment on the corner all the time. it's kind of like corn tortillas but not at all and it makes you feel like you love new york city when you actually probably don't. so i took deep breaths and all my words i was going to say before that got shoved in the back of my nose and behind my eyes and i got on the train instead.

here is a thing i do all day sometimes: part one.

on friday i went on a wishing trip. which is kind of like a fishing trip but you need pennies instead of worms and you don't really catch the wishes so much as you let them float in the air for a while. they're invisible so it's hard to tell if they decide to land on your head, but if they do, you'll know because things will start happening. i like to make my good wishes vague and my bad wishes very specific. if i wish for something bad to happen, i immediately tell someone about it so it won't ever come true. (that's a good trick, you can use that if you want. it works when you're blowing out the birthday candles, too, but it's not my birthday for another three hundred days, so i had to be more proactive.) and so i went to like seven different fountains and thought of vague good wishes and threw all seven of my pennies into the water. people looked at me weird, but they probably just didn't know that this is a really great time to enter the wishing market. (i read that somewhere but i can't remember right now.) anyways, i think one of them (the wishes, i mean) came true because the train came right when i got up to the platform and i didn't even have to run or anything. and there was a mariachi band on there too, which i kind of like even though some other people get annoyed because they keep hearing things like "amor" or "querida" instead of their ipods and their kindles and things like that. but i like it because they wear those nice shirts and hats and the guitars are all different sizes. i never give them any money though.

well i thought you said dowsing rods not dowelling rods. so now the wedding cake is kind of haunted, but it's okay because people can just eat around the supernatural bits.

talks you have when you're a proper pauper.

me: so it's just you and me this month.
brain: ...what do you mean by "just you and me"...
me: i mean you, plus me, minus everyone and everything else.
brain: but like...what about alcohol? what about cigarettes? or what about pecan pie, she can't be THAT busy?
me: nope. they're all being held hostage by the bills currently.
brain: oh well that's easy enough...why don't you just rescue them by setting the bills on fire like that one scene from RENT?
me: it doesn't really work like that in real life.
brain: pffffft. yeah, real life...like that's even a thing.
me: i know, right?
me: but seriously. it's just you and me.

it's too much it's too much it's too much.

i will tell you a thing about new york city.

it's highly overrated.

here is a thing i do all day sometimes: foreword.

yesterday i went to a bar where the lights were all red and no one was there but me, so i got drunk and wrote stories. today i went to the beach. it was cold but sunny, and i found a family of hermit crabs. i also skipped stones and seashells into the ocean for a while. then i went to this giant graveyard, but you could only go in if you were deceased. and i wasn't, so i left. then i went to chinatown and took pictures of dead fish because they were pink and i liked the colour. now i'm at home drinking a heineken, but i'd rather be drinking a manhattan instead.

the cat is knocking shit over. I DON'T CARE.

the robot whisperer part one.

i suppose it would be easier to call myself a repairman, but this would imply that i am something i am not. i can certainly fix your computer, your toaster, your record player, but not because i possess a wide array of tools or know-how. rather, i have an innate ability to communicate with electronic devices. this ability became apparent to me rather early in life; i found it difficult to fall asleep whilst my parents watched television downstairs, not due to the volume as they kept this quite low, but because i could hear (or at least feel) the high-pitched frequency the box emitted while in use. other people have told me that they, too, are able to detect this frequency, but i have not met any who can understand it. with the exception of myself, of course.

chronicling a compulsive liar part four.

"i removed all sources of calcium from my diet around the time of my eleventh birthday. i'd heard a lack of calcium-rich foods was a suspected cause of the degenerative bone disease osteoporosis; birds' bones are hollow and well-suited for flight, and as i hoped to one day acquire the ability to levitate, i made a conscious decision to try to lower my bone density by any means possible. this has been an ongoing process, and there are a variety of other elements that i've been concentrating on to achieve my goal, but i can confidently say that i am quite close to being the first non-magical human capable of auto-aviation."

times when reality is thinner, installment one.

sidewalk. springtime. 4:30pm. cloudy. might rain. breeze. grass moves. gravel sounds.

maybe not though.

i will go to central park tomorrow morning.

business venture #74: imp(i)erealism.

remember that time i wanted to open up a frozen treats stand inspired by famous communists called hammer and (pop)sickle? okay well now i want to open up a pie stand called imp(i)erialism where we will only sell pies that are named after famous conquerors and/or imperialists. here is the menu:

ghengis pekhan
charlemagne meringue
ashokanut cream
corchess
pizarrhubarb

all pies will be served a la mode with a scoop of atilla vanilla.

the english language should have fewer rules.

thoughts on photographing living things.

i don't like taking photographs of people or animals. i like taking photographs of rocks and plastic and graffiti because these are more or less concrete. these are things that will last. these are things that are meant to last. people, animals, mobile living things, are meant to exist fluidly, fleetingly. the present exists for a few seconds at best, and to try and preserve those few seconds is not something i fully understand. in a way, it seems reminiscent of frankenstein; it's trying to make immortal that which is inherently mortal. and that, specifically, i suppose, is what i find difficult to understand.

thoughts on why shopping malls exist.

we buy things so we're not alone in a room with ourselves. that's why it's scary being minimalist. see also: that's why i am minimalist.

i drank like seventeen cups of coffee today.

things nobody asked me but this is the answer.

interviewer: do you know what your brain is made up of?

me: yes. corn syrup, sugar, modified corn starch, dextrose, water, gelatin, tetrasodium pyrophosphate, artificial flavor and blue 1.

interviewer: if i'm not mistaken, those are the ingredients in marshmallows.

me: yes.

i can see it's all happening and nobody knows.