Joel F

Asshole

Every day my cat wakes me up meowing while he rubs his nose all over my face. I usually keep my eyes closed and grab a hold of his tiny body. He purrs for a while, escapes, walks in a small circle and goes for my face again, but I don't even notice because I'm dreaming. I stay in my dreams, knowing to anticipate a cold, spongy nose-kiss every few minutes. After a while, Moxie gets fed up with his cloudy-headed owner and starts trying to break something.

This morning I was still in a painless drunk, having somehow found the exact center of comfort on my air mattress. My body formed a T-shape in the middle, with both of my arms stretched out. I began to sink. My head became barricaded in a storm of puffy pillows. I was facing the ceiling, so I couldn't see my lower body, but I sensed that I was lying underneath one more comforter than usual. My legs felt weighted. I was floating below sea level.

I woke sloshed in the rubbery puddle of my air mattress. To the right of me my cat was using his one unclipped nail to puncture my blow-up bed. I must have completely missed the morning kisses, sending Moxie right into a morning tantrum. He pushed his weaponized paw again and again against the rubber, like he's morsing a telegram into my dream, telling me that he is hungry for some white-flake tuna. I guess the little green eyed devil had achieved puncturation because there was clearly air missing beneath me. Oh well. Better get the tuna.

Writing Exercises Chapter 3 Page 19

I found these three writing freestyles on crumpled up pieces of paper in one of my notebooks from last year. The exercise involves following up a short, juicy quote from one of the texts we read with your own musings. Go until the voice runs out.

"Oh brilliance of being a beautiful thing in a world of beautiful things.... Oh world, hold us up to this light." - Reach the angels at the top of Christmas trees so we may be blessed with presents beneath. Oh the house cat who shares her milky caviar with the family dog, while wearing perfectly printed lipstick. Cinnamon sticks and apple trees inhabit licorice factories that hand out candy filled buckets to the homeless with missing teeth. Rubbing babies, whose coos rhyme with chocolate flavored dandelions, with powder so they never get diaper rash. Brush your teeth twice before you sleep because it's fun to play in watery sinks. Make funny faces in the mirror so you know how to perfect photos senior year. Cherish the baby's bonnet atop Grandma's head because there is brilliance in being a beautiful thing, alive or dead.

"Mistaking me for someone else, he asked me to marry him." - When I said "yes" he recognized I was not who he thought I was. His brown dotted white eyes gasped and his goofy ears with flapping detached earlobes turned blood red. This man in front of me coughed up his swallowed pride, snapped the black velvet ring box shut, and reverted his daring bended knee position into two legs standing straight. "I said yes," I told him with the flirtiest smile I could stand. "You are not her," he said.

"I'd have been the jewel to your thief, little sin, and never forgiven myself for that kiss." - Or the kisses that would follow minutes later in a darkened room, as my conscience cowers in the corner, praying a kiss is all I'd let you steal. We would kiss years later when I'd feel vulnerable enough to be anyone's handful of pit pocketed jewels. That kiss would turn my stomach into a rotted pumpkin carriage, delivering us a daughter. She would have your face. I'd give her far too little because I trust that she will steal like her father. We'd be living in a house of thieves, guilty of robbing me of my life. Little sin, little sin, think again.

From the Beacon in Apartment 131

What do I want the world to know? I want it to be known that you have to become an ace at your game. You can't become an ace, however, until you figure out what game you are playing. Once you know, play your best and see how far you can go. It's an incremental process of game playing improvement. Keep building beefy game-winning skills until the game is over. Surprise yourself. Awe others. The ride is satisfying.

Precious To Hear

Wiggity word from down south. I moved into my apartment and now we have a cat. Her name is Moxie because her spirit mirrors Julie Cooper's. Instead of calling my cat by only one name I am going to allow her to respond to up to seven nicknames. So far Mox, Zelda, and Sheik are in.

Here she is fresh out of the vagina.

Here is one using camera phone technology

I also have one in black and white

And the close up

We feed it a can of kitten food every day.

Everything else has been great. I'm enjoying parental freedom and have resumed my daily routine of 100 push ups a day and rocking the bball courts like an exploding star.

I'm drinking a lot so I can get into The Streets' new album and I just downloaded Radiohead's set from Bonnaroo. I love the song Arpeggi.

My new address is:
131 Highland Lake Circle
Decatur GA 30033