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.