Marriage Day One: Sooooode Tired

Sunday, after a long wedding weekend filled with more wonderful moments and emotions than we could possibly recall, Lib settled on to the couch completely exhausted, and fell fast asleep. At eleven, when I tried to wake her for bed, she kept mumbling nonsense; all I could make out in her tired voice was "is everyone tying them in the front or just the bride?" My little wife, tuckered out from her long weekend had settled in to a deep slumber dreaming of more weddings.

A Wet Knot Is Harder to Untie

Seconds before the overcast let loose on the forest, just before we ducked into a small potting shed at Rutgers Gardens, there is a picture of Lib, only minutes my wife, in the mist, standing expectantly beneath a tree on a circle of stone by the coy pond, floating in her dress between ferns with a red sash tied around her waist--a picture that no one will ever get to see, but is preserved perfectly and forever for me.

Carpet Diem

After a long winter of Annie dragging her dog blankets around the house combined with those early puppy months last year, the house started to smell like dog as the weather began to warm up. We decided, since we didn't want our house to smell like animals, to rent the carpet shampooer, two weeks before the wedding, and get to work, last Saturday. Not that our house smelled like piss or anything, it just smelled like dog. It worked like a charm; we moved all the furniture and gave everything the once over. By the time it dried, the carpet smelled fresh and new.

A few days later, however, the house began to smell like acrid piss! Had we stirred up some ancient smell, or had one of the animals thought the place smelled too clean and left her mark? Either way, it reeked of piss. It made no sense, so I got on my hands and knees, put my nose to the ground and began to sniff out the stain. I noticed a slightly darker spot in front of the couch, and when I hound-dogged it, the smell of piss sent me reeling. A whole two days after slaving away on the carpet and we were way worse off than when the whole thing began. Not only that, but the piss smell was also at the top of the stairs leading from the sun room to the basement. It was an all out shock and awe-ful piss war!

I suspected there were hardwood floors beneath, and casually suggested that we rip up the carpet, but Lib would have nothing of it. I even peeked beneath the edge and saw the hardwood; Lib would not even look. I have always wanted hard wood, real hard wood, not this fake crap on the DIY channel, so was a little disappointed. Besides, the old woman who lived here before us carpeted the entire house with the same carpet; it would be nice to have some variety.

We soaked the stain, dried it, tried Spot Shot repeatedly, and nothing. So it was back to the grocery to get the Rug Doctor...again. I had to work, but Lib went over the carpet a number of times, but to no avail. Dumbfounded by the tenacity of the stench, Lib, in the little white dress she had worn to work, then proceeded to hound-dog the entire room searching for another piss stain, but could find nothing. The Seinfeldian stench would not leave the room, and even seemed to grow stronger with each day.

By Thursday, our spirits were broken. There was no getting rid of it. And then Lib said something about just wanting to rip out the carpet. I wasn't sure if she was kidding or not, but the switch in my brain, the same switch that flicks on when regular kissing might turn in to sex, told me that if I played this just right, we would rip out the carpet and expose the hard wood beneath. I walked over to the spot where I had peeled back the carpet a few days before in front of the hearth, and once again exposed just a bit of the shining hard wood beneath, and as Lib approached to give a peek, I pulled back just slightly more carpet so she could get a good look. That's all it took. Lib went down to the basement and emerged with two crowbars, a hammer and selection of small pliers--she was ravenous. She grabbed a corner of the room and went to town on it. Carpet and foam were flying out the front door; the neighbors must have thought we were tearing the whole place down. She couldn't wait till after the wedding. It had to be done now, and we both went at it for a couple of hours until there was nothing left to do but clean up and lie supine on the floor as the diminuendo of our hearts brought us back to earth.

The floor needs work, but Lib has decided, that it is probably too big of a project to sand and refinish this week, so we are going to show some restraint and wait till after the wedding, but I couldn't be happier.

Fair is Foul and Foul is Funny.

Ever since I have started dating Lib, I have been surprised at what she thinks is funny, and not just funny, but hysterical. For such an intelligent girl, she merely nods with a curt recognition at the wittiest of comments, and says, "funny;" case in point:

In our first year of dating, I had drawn a couple of tapeworms desegmenting on my dry erase board in order to explain how they reproduce for some unknown reason, especially since I teach English. Lib came in and added an entire army of them at the end of the day, all in different colors, all raining down their segments on the eraser ledge like multicolored confetti. I, entirely off the cuff, made a comment about her "ticker tapeworm parade," and she grinned and said, "funny." Fast forward a couple of months to Route 18 where I referred to the traffic jam as "C#^t-lick traffic," and Lib laughed uncontrollably for ten minutes. I guess that's why she loves me: my propensity to swear like a poet.

Case in point:

Just after I was explaining this to coworkers the other day, Lib was riffling through some ancient vocabulary flashcards, asking us to define words like "insouciance", "prolix", and "promulgate." When she got to "bathos" we were stumped, until she said I was a master of this, to which I replied that I was a "master-batho." Lib ejaculated a short burst of laughter, but immediately composed herself, and commented on how perfect my comment was because bathos, it turns out is defined as " a sudden and ludicrous decent from the lofty to the absurd; profound to profane," which evidently tickled her penchant for profanity, but also satisfied her reserved and decorous appreciation for the witty.

Blood on the Rocks

Today, I expanded my rock climbing experience to actually climbing on real rocks as opposed to the fake rocks that I climb at the gym on a regular basis. Is it harder? Yes. Is it more fun? Yes. Is it scarier? Yes.

When I fall at the gym, I know that a six-inch-thick mat about eight feet long and four to five feet wide will catch me, and if I fall off that, I will fall on the floor beneath which is made up entirely of six inch mats...and, if I am upside-down on the overhang, I will land on an eighteen-inch mat. Outside, depending on how many people are around with pads, I have to fall on a three by five foot mat, six inches thick, that is on top of the hard, unforgiving earth, and often a rock jutting out of the ground just for spite. Granted, I have a spotter, but it is the spotters job to control the fall onto the mat, the hard slab of earth beneath. Since I was only climbing with my friend Tim today, we only had once crash pad; if we missed iy, we were screwed.

I started on an easy V2 called "Lazy Mayzie" and flashed it. No problem. Then I went to "The Lorax" a low but tricky and fun V4, and did pretty well for my first climb, but even after numerous attempts, could not stick the last hold; I was feeling confident, maybe even a bit elated, so we moved on.

We came across a creepy looking V2 called "Dislocator Roof,"which sounds very ominous, and it seemed easy enough, but the top out(where you climb to the top of the boulder to finish) seemed kind of tough because there was nothing to grab. But we set up shop to give it a whirl. Tim went first, and except for the last move topping out had no problem, so he just dropped to the crash pad to try again later.

I was next, and sent the climb easily...except for topping out of course. I breezed through the climb, found a great hold on the ledge, heal-hooked the top, and had most of my weight over, but had shifted to the right of the pad over a craggy outcropping of stone, and when I reached to use the texture of the rock, my body jolted, I heard a girl scream, my hands raked across the granite as a crystal sliced trough my thumb from the tip to the meaty lower half near the wrist, and I fell the twelve feet, fully expecting to land on a slab of granite, but Tim, the best spotter in the universe, guided my falling body directly onto the center of the mat; when I landed hard in the center of the pad, my first reaction was to pat him on the back and tell him what a great spotter he was, followed immediately by checking my blood-covered hand that was dripping all over the ground.

So I taped it up so I could climb the second half of the day. After trying another V4, "Andrew's Boulder Problem" to no avail, I was relegated to easier climbs, because I was tired, injured, and a little freaked out; I can't wait to go back...but maybe I'll invest in a crash pad to at least double our security or maybe I will buy five crash pads just to be safe.

These guys make it look easy and I wish I had thought to use the foot on "Dislocator Roof" like this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDCqL9_lpI8

Stamp of Disapproval (FUSPS)

When Lib and I began planning our wedding, we decided to save money anyway we could: use friends for photography and video, get a nice but affordable venue, and not only use an email for RSVPs, but also make our own invitations.

Lib did an amazing job on the invitations. After a few different incarnations, she settled on a nice grocery baggish paper and vellum with a cute dragonfly motif. She typed and retyped everything so it would be perfect, she maximized the use of each sheet of paper, and she slaved, feeding each envelope individually into a persnickety printer--not to mention her slow-ass computer--but she did it. Then she patiently cut out the different cards with a paper cutter borrowed from school, mounted the printed sheets on the background, and tied them all by hand with raffia (a light hay-like ribbon) and sealed them for shipping. Not to mention she had to hand type each address and format the dragonfly into each address label for the thank you cards. My assistance was negligible in this process. Oh, and did I mention that she stopped at the post office with a completed invite to make sure that she got the appropriate stamps?

Well, she did. The woman told her that standard postage would not do, and she would have to buy 64-cent stamps, but that was to be expected; a minor miscalculation on our budget--no big deal. The only catch, according to the woman, was that the envelope shape was abnormal, so we would have to hand deliver them to the post office because of some special handling. Again, no biggie. So, Lib went online, and after much deliberation and some half-hearted input from me, settled on an elegant monarch butterfly stamp. When they finally arrived in the mail today, she rushed them onto the envelopes, and she rushed into the post office at ten till twelve to hand them to the lady personally.

BUT. This was a different lady (I was in the car so this is second-hand) who immediately said that the envelope was too big and would be 88 cents, to which Lib replied something along the lines of "No, I came in the other day with a completed invite and the lady said I needed the 64-cent stamp." To which the lady replied, "No the envelope is too big," to which Lib replied something about how ridiculous the whole situation was, etc. And if you know Lib, at this point, since she had done everything responsible on her end and had been mislead by an imbecile who obviously didn't know her postage, then you know the exact tone she was using, to which the lady replied, thumbing the envelope, "oh this had a ribbon inside so it is a parcel. That means it will be $1.71 for the postage." Things got a little blurry here in her retelling, but I know she took the envelopes back from the lady and we drove the five minutes to another post office to reconcile the issue there.

At the next post office, the lady also seemed incompetent because a man who was asking her legitimate postage questions which she should have known was told repeatedly to just go check online. Little did she know, she would earn her money when Lib approached the counter. To the postal worker's credit, she did immediately say the postage would be $1.71 cents, even though it weighed less than the requirement for a standard stamp. It turns out, that the envelope was one centimeter too tall, and she kept showing us this on a template that showed it would take at least an 88-cent stamp, that plus the tiny raffia ribbon, so light that it would be carried aloft in a gentle breeze, meant that it would be $1.71.

This is where the supervisor was called in, and as much as she explained that it did not ruin our wedding, Lib would not be mollified--and who can blame her--$171!!! So Lib, raised her voice, and cried, and the lady tried to explain how the raffia creates and uneven surface, albeit one millimeter, so it would have to be handled by a special machine, and that machine is what was costing money, and Lib was upset because now her invitations would look dumb with three stamps, totaling $1.92, and the lady tried to placate her with a story of how she put a regular stamp on her invitations and they were all sent back, and then another supervisor came out and said that if the envelope were thicker but even, it would be cheaper than the raffia, and then another lady said something about opening each one very carefully and removing the raffia, and there was some crying, then someone else suggested adding tacky "celebration" stamps to the monarch stamps, and I made a sarcastic comment about boxing the invitations and shipping them flat-rate, and nothing got solved and we left, but not until after the original supervisor said that even the correct shipping would not guarantee their delivery in mint condition, so I got Lib the hell out of there.

Then we had to drive around to three different post offices to find the 64-cent monarch, and I shelled out the extra $120 to have the whole experience over with. We then sat in the car, and Lib and I put two more giant stamps on the envelopes, which are not even that big, and I took them back in, since she was done with post offices for the day, and hand delivered them as instructed by the USPS, to which the lady replied, "These are beautiful, but they are only 88-cent envelopes, who told you to use three stamps?" to which I replied, "There is a ribbon which makes them a parcel, so they are a dollar seventy-one." She then quietly took them from my box and transferred them to a postal crate quietly. But I couldn't leave it at that: "They are definitely a dollar seventy-one though right?" to which she replied with a not-so-convincing, "yeah." I did not tell Lib this part; I drove home.

The Memoirs of Remus Turlington III: Page 1

It is at a great crossroads in my life that I have decided, not only for my personal satisfaction, but at the behest of certain members of my family, and by family, I mean those closest to me through great joys and tragedies; I don’t limit relations to genealogy for the very reason that I have known drunkards, saints, highwaymen, philanthropists, carpetbaggers, and yankees, and have shared a drink with all of them on one occasion or another, especially the cork pullers; however, they don’t need an occasion to drink, merely a libation put in front of them paired with their predisposition; my predilections are more anecdotal and, I would like to believe, philosophical: the love of wisdom, a concupiscence for understanding, if you will, but I digress—It is with great reminiscence, more of the nostalgic than that of regret, with a fond remembrance that I look back at my life at my ripe, old age: the age I am, not that I act; the truth being that only my dear mother and father, God rest their souls, know the true date of my nascence, and because of the subjectivity of age and the ephemeral nature of life, I have decided that such subjects are irrelevant to these memoirs, which is why I have excluded, for the most part, any sentimental reveries of childhood, which are inevitably obscured not by what we, as grown adults, would have liked them to be, rather, what we think really happened seen through the limited vision of adolescence; nonetheless, I will begin at what I believe is the pinnacle of my younger days, while although I was still full of pith and vinegar, I had settled into a tranquil contemplative time in my life: the halcyon days, as I have titled them here, the time just before all the salt of life stirred me from my naïve stupor: the era of heartbreak, funerals, disappointments, failures, and broken trust: years I wouldn’t trade for all the riches of the Spanish kings of old; heretofore unmentioned in this anthology, for I merely used them for an allusion, not to be treated as their own subject of discussion, so it is with some perspicacity that I dip my quill, figuratively that is, in order to recapitulate, not adumbrate, for what greater tragedy is there than to truncate when a detailed account will only do justice to a life lived in anticipation of the every moment and savored like crawfish and cherry wine; do not mistake this for a mere trumpet blast, but rather a sonata that rhythmically excites yet sooths the reader, so with out further ado, I would like to dedicate this to my father: Arlo Turlington, a man of many words, but few of them articulated, on account he lost his tongue in the war; to my mother, Louisa May Sanders-Turlington, a woman of inexplicable beauty; to Eloise Apache Druthers-Turlington, my little wife who is, I might add, the reason for my very existence and the mother of my next dedication—to my thirteen daughters: Chloe, Eloise, Ophelia, Margarete, Kimberly, Allison, Faye, Gail, Jane, Cynthia, Clarise, Desdamona, and Dixie; the most important women in my life who are, without a doubt, as precious as they are pernicious, which is why I feel obliged to honor them, even Desdamona, who ran of with that colored boy from Yale, by committing every minute detail in these chicken tracks that follow the page much as our lives follow the footprints in the sand toward the inevitable passing of each precious petal of the late summer mums, that wilt like northern folk in the Mississippi sun, which blazes hotter than the fires of hell, a hell which can only be circumvented by true understanding of the manifestation of all virtue, which, in its purest form is the paragon of what the good Lord intended: charity, by which I mean not giving egregiously from excess for accolades and stature, but charity in the sense the we, as decent human beings attempt to find the one true meaning to our existence:

Supermoon

On Yahoo News:"Will March 19 'Supermoon' Trigger Natural Disasters"

On March 19, the moon will swing around Earth more closely than it has in the past 18 years, lighting up the night sky from just 221,567 miles (356,577 kilometers) away. On top of that, it will be full. And one astrologer believes it could inflict massive damage on the planet. Richard Nolle, a noted astrologer who runs the website astropro.com, has famously termed the upcoming full moon at lunar perigee (the closest approach during its orbit) an "extreme supermoon."

Not much to say about this one, but when does "one astrologer," not astronomer (actual scientist) mind you,get to speak for the rest of them? And what does it say about this one astrologer, Richard Nolle, that the million other crackpots who believe in astrology don't support him? AND! Why does he get a news article? I want an article that says "English Teacher Believes Dynamic Earth Will Cause Natural Disasters." Fortunately, most other crackpots have all put their money on 2012, so they can't jump on the supermoon, soopermoon, or supermun bandwagon at the eleventh hour--yes, I'm talking about you Syntaxin.

Rubes of Engagement

I had seen the story in the paper about the eclipse, but since it was from one in the morning until five, I pretty much resigned myself to missing this one, but when I woke up and checked my phone to see what time it was, I had a text from a friend that said, "Lunar Eclipse Tonight;" it was 3:45am. By the time I took some pictures, drank some water and pee'd, I was awake, so I made some breakfast and coffee and watched the remainder of the eclipse until Lib woke up.

I tried to get her to come see the last tiny sliver of shadow at the bottom of the moon, but she was groggy, and whined, "I can't see. I don't have my glasses," immediately followed by "Why didn't you wake me up?" in an equally cute and pathetic voice when I explained I had been up for a while watching it.

I did want to wake her, but she likes her sleep, without which she cannot function. I would have liked to propose to her at four in the morning, but thought better of it; I didn't want her to be too groggy to remember it, besides we were planning to exchange gifts after work since we weren't going to be together for Christmas.

So I waited...until 5:30 am, and suggested we open presents, not expecting her to agree so quickly, but she did...then I had to get the ring out of the workshop in the basement without being obvious. The box was too big to hide in my pocket, so I abandoned it--I didn't need it--the ring would be fine in my pocket.

The ring: I had chosen the ruby for her ring because she likes red, and as a test I pointed out a ruby ring at an antique store to see how she would react--she loved it. When I mentioned the "engagement" word in tandem, she seemed excited, so I decided on ruby.

When I went to the jeweler, he had to have the rubies shipped over because they did not have loose rubies in-store--some jeweler! Actually, the jeweler was great, but I chose the wrong ruby. The red ones were too cloudy and one had an inclusion, so I went with the more fuchsia ruby, and two days later I freaked out because I wanted to get Lib a red ring, not a pink one. After one frantic email about needing a red ruby, the time line, and making it perfect, the jeweler overnighted some more rubies, and I made my third "Top Secret" mission an hour away to choose a new ruby, and it was perfect.

When I handed Lib her first present, I gave her an wrapped-up ornament--every year we commemorate the significant events with clay ornaments we make: this year was our house and our dog--I made her a small hand with red nails and a ruby ring with two small diamonds on the sides and a tag attached to the ornament that read, "Will you Merry me?" By the time she read the tag, I was down on my knee saying the words, and she was nodding her head yes.

A Year of Firsts

The house. The first year of having a house with the person you love most in the world is a year of firsts, a year of enjoying your life together. So for this blog I should talk about how Lib and I put up our Christmas lights for the first time, and the neighbor was happy and shouted, "It's been twenty years since there were Christmas lights on the house!" It made us feel warm inside. I should write about how we had our first Thanksgiving with Lib's family at our house, about how her sister and she slaved all day in the kitchen making a ridiculous spread of dishes and deserts from scratch, and how delicious it was. And I should probably write about cutting down our first Christmas tree for the house on Friday, trimming it and whatnot, but I'm
not going to.

For the first time this weekend in our house, I was awakened by Lib who heard something moving around the house at two in the morning. She wanted to know if I had crated the dog, but I definitely had. She heard something moving around downstairs, but conveniently forgot to stress that it sounded like an animal running around; she said it sounded like someone was downstairs. I heard nothing. But of course, I couldn't just go back to sleep. I was awake, with my ears peeled. I regretted not keeping a baseball bat in the second-floor bedroom; it was in the farthest corner of the basement with our other zombie killer props from Halloween, including a machete and a field hockey stick, either of which would have been nice to have while I went to see what was going on.

My only option was the chair from Lib's desk, but that was way too unwieldy--I had to go bare-handed and hope the intruder was about five-five, a hundred and fifty pounds or smaller. On my way to the steps, I could see something on the floor in the dark, so I picked it up only to discover the small water bottle we use to "discourage" the cat, but I kept it any way because I guess it was better than nothing and kind of felt like a gun in my hand; besides, an unexpected, well-placed spritz could give me the edge I needed after the intruder heard me creak down every single step past a dark, crumpled-up shirt.

The living room was clear. My courage returned once I had a lamp on and I decided to slink my way along the wall into the kitchen where I could trade up for a knife. Once equipped, I checked the lower two bedrooms and the bathroom so I could be sure that it was clear for later use. Then it was down to the basement, which also cleared inspection--creeping along the basement is a hell of a lot easier without the creaking floorboards of the rest of the house. I made my way back to the workshop, and once again traded up for Lib's zombie ball bat with the bloody "Are we having fun yet" sticker on it, and was emboldened enough to give the house one more cursory inspection as I regrettably turned out all of the lights again and headed up to bed where I noticed the crumpled shirt was actually the cat, who had probably in a fit of anger, knocked over the spritzer bottle and resumed her midnight crazies, waking Lib, and convincing me to find a permanent spot for a baseball bat beneath the bed.

Residual Glee

While I can't say that in the last year and a half that my blog has really taken off, and while I haven't yet expanded beyond my loyal cadre of fourteen "followers," things are on the horizon.

It seems I may have unintentionally released a quip or two in the wind, where they germinated and eked out a meager life of their own on the web.

It turns out that a Google search of "Residual Glee" will bring up a link to The Daily Sentence of Dave where I commented on a post last year when he complained about children and bubbles. Kind of like when I typed in "fame" for an image and Taylor Swift came up--she must be so proud. Not so impressive? Well, how many of you have been responsible for being one of the top search results for a random phrase you wrote on the web? That's what I thought. It's only a matter of time really before there is a clever Google icon designed after yours truly above the search box on my birthday. They may even be spit-balling the idea of having another "Doodle for Google" contest for just such an occasion.

Oh...Ok--scratch that. This is a bit embarrassing, but I just checked the search again, as I have been every fifteen minutes for the past twenty-four hours, and it doesn't come up anymore.

It doesn't matter that now, a mere day after my initial fame, I don't show up as a top search result anymore; what matters is that for a few, brief, shining moments, anyone in the world could, and many of you probably did, type "Residual Glee" into a major search engine, and chuckle to yourselves while reading my scathing, sarcastic remark about how Dave hates everything that most people enjoy and celebrate. So I had my fifteen minutes, and now it's gone, but the residual hubris (that should get some search results) will last forever.

Scary Story

We had a scary story contest with some coworkers last night, and I won! This is that story (insert "Law and Order" sound effect):

Pray Bernice was raised Catholic, which conflicted with her more sinister desires, and since she could not in good conscience seek out their fulfillment of her own volition, every night, she would sleep naked with her ground-floor, bedroom window unlocked, the curtains half open and the red light of her alarm clock illuminating her sunset body in the hopes that someone might sneak in in the middle of the night to have his way with her. Harker was raised on generic bags of cereal, cable TV and second-hand smoke, and as much as he loved his late-night porn, he loved living across the street from Bernice on the third floor, because he knew that every night he could count on peering directly down into her window from his balcony, and while she was still too modest to undress with the lights on, he would wait to see her glowing red skin punctuated by the darkness of her nipples and pubic hair. Detective Williamson was looking at the body as objectively as he could, but he knew it would take more time for that to develop. On his first case, he was told by Soryal and the other veterans that "it" was not a person anymore; he tried to remind himself now, months later, but he felt little improvement. He inspected the body from the doorway as the last few photos were taken: "It's all yours." During the day Bernice was homely, puritanical although not altogether unattractive, but in the low crimson light of her bedroom, she was demure and curvy; her lithe body stretching across the mattress became proverbially seductive--when she felt this, she would give any would-be voyeurs what they were looking for. Harker waited for this moment every night, and once every few weeks he would get it. When he did, it was never enough--as much as he craved and enjoyed these moments, nothing came close to the flesh. He'd known enough women to know this. Deep inside, part of him knew at some point that watching would not be enough, but he always pushed the thought to the back of his mind and waited. Most nights she just fell asleep, but Harker would always sit, looking down into her apartment, his shelter dog, Stu sat next to him, not knowing what his master was looking at, but no less loyal and attentive. It was a cool October evening when he leaned into railings like jail bars and looked down that he noticed, in time with the breeze, the slightest flutter of her curtains from her slightly-opened window, and he made his way down to the street. The river of cool fresh air flowed over Williamson's face when Soryal finished printing the sill and frame and opened the window to peer outside. "He came in here. It wasn't locked. Not a smart move on the ground floor. It was still cracked a bit, too. It's no wonder they could smell it outside."

She loved the autumn breeze following her hands over her body, the heat of her blood flooding the tender flesh beneath her hands, and the air washing over her skin reminded her that nothing stood between her naked body and the street. She breathed in a deep, cooling breath of the night air, and felt the short crisp hairs between her fingers.

Harker buried his hand deep into his pocket; he appeared as if he were waiting for a cab, but he had his head cocked ever so slightly to the left listening to the faint mewling that escaped her apartment between breaths. In the darkness that came from the broken streetlight he could sense the heat of her supple skin and the light from her clock emanating from her window hot onto the back of his neck. His hand clenched tight, and he turned ever more slightly to the left.

"You gotta breathe, Williamson, man, if you want to find the killer." Soryal inspired by the crucifix on the wall above the bed, remembered a joke: "Did you ever hear about the flasher that exposed himself to the nun?" Williamson forced a smile and a shallow, stale breath, and planted his hands in his pockets, trying to look inquisitive.

She writhed in the play of light and fresh air on her belly. The man outside on the curb moving ever so slightly caught her eye, and she wrenched her knees over her breasts, pulled her comforter over her skin and shrunk into her headboard, frozen in the night air staring at the shadow in street. When she reached the kitchen, she steadied herself on the sink with one hand; her heartbeat pounded as she drank a glass of trembling water. She settled the empty glass and swaddled herself tighter, safer, into the duvet.

He noticed the air go still. Quiet.

Bernice had been waiting for this; she dreamt of it, but now that it was here, she trembled with fear and excitement. It was what she had always craved, but what she longed for deep in her heart did not match her modest wardrobe, the rosary on the headboard or the crucifix above her dresser--it seemed impossible, evil, and imminent.

Williamson welcomed the joke. It was an excuse to look away, if only for a minute. "He thinks she's going to scream or run off somewhere to pray. So the nun asks the guy if she can see it again, and he can't believe it, so he opens his coat again." The body was tied with the arms outspread at the sides, and the feet were bound together and tied at the center to the foot of the bed. He took a balmy breath to center himself but regretted the decision.

Harker loosed his grip, and looked into the window to see the tussled, empty sheets. The street was quiet and desolate, and the subtle, inviting light of her bedroom tempted him closer. The window slid open, and Harker could feel the heat from her bedroom on his face. The curtains were warm, soft and parted at his touch; Harker slipped inside and steadied himself with a deep breath, the perfume of her room surrounded him--he closed his eyes.

When the first uniformed officers responded to calls that death was emanating from the apartment, they found the empty sheets but no body. By the time Williamson arrived, the bed had been propped on its side, exposing its dark underbelly. He was still digesting the sight. Soryal paused his joke and quizzed him, "Why do this to someone?" Williamson tried to sound confident without breathing too deeply. "I don't know. Seems punitive," He looked at the crucifix. "but kind of intimate. Why the underside of the bed. It doesn't make sense." Soryal smoothed his tie, rested it back on his gut and offered his expertise, "Sometimes "who" is not the hardest part."

When she returned, Bernice closed the window. She regretted her indulgences. She hoped the stranger had moved on, but was reciprocally disappointed that he was not on the sidewalk anymore. It was foolish, dangerous, and above all, it was sinful. From her makeshift gown, she reached underneath her mattress and began to remove something, it felt good in her hand, but she stopped, looked at the street, crawled into bed and removed the duvet. She wondered if she could have done it.

The nipples were dark, cold and tight. There was always something unnatural and empty about the bodies; it never failed to perplex Williamson. He had been at this for a year, and it did get easier, but no less strange. When he started, he expected to see a lot of dealers, gang members, and criminals, and he did, but there were also the random vics: a pregnant woman with groceries who never made it home before the ice cream melted; the elderly man who obviously put up a good fight while being robbed, and the young boy whose evident last moments still haunted Williamson. One woman reminded him of his mother--no one was exempt. This is what bothered him the most. The pubic hair, dark and matted, seemed extraneous on cold flesh-- at the moment, this is what he found slightly unnerving. It was always something different.

Harker braced himself against the underside of her boxspring and felt the weight of her flesh compress the bed against him. He leaned out and peered up from the edge of the frame. He could feel her, hear her breath and smell her shampoo. He was afraid to move. In the partial, crimson darkness, between the mattress and box spring, sticking out from beneath the sheets, he could see where she had partially removed the hard protruding end, smooth and dark, and barely indistinguishable, but he knew what she kept there between her sheets, he'd watched her many times. His hand crept up the side of the mattress, and crested the top where her body radiated in the red light of the sheets.

The mattress held firm under her slow, tortuous undulations. Her warm and busied hand worked silently; her free hand slid across the sheets grasping the edge of the mattress next to Harker's hand.

He knew what she was reaching for--he had seen it before. From where he sat on his balcony, he could not get a good view of it in the dark, but he knew what it was used for, and he had seen it glint from time to time in the ambient rose light of her bedroom. He thought to himself that she would not need it tonight.

At first, the circumstances she had lost herself in were not altogether different from what was playing out in her room. A strange man, heedless surrender, and her iniquitous body. When he grabbed her wrist with his vice-like hands, she could not escape, and did not necessarily want to; she had hoped he was still there.

The body had been lashed to the underside of the bed, and hung there for some days. The blood had pooled on the ventral side of the corpse, leaving a black, demonic mask on the face and chest, and the flesh was taught with gases. Soryal, had seen everything he needed to see, but wanted to let Williamson do his homework: "So the third time, the nun asks the guy, 'I'm sorry sir, but do you mind if I touch it, it's just so--' and this blows his fucking mind, he's like 'Of course!'" The medical examiners office had arrived with the gurney, and Williamson prepared to remove the body. "Don't forget your gloves" Soryal interjected and then continued to pantomime the nun reaching prudently.

Underneath his massive force, Bernice could not escape, but for all her struggling she didn't really want to. She did not worry what he would do with her; her concern was that he might discover her secret. She wondered if he had seen the protrusion between the mattresses, and she wondered what he thought of her--in the middle of it all she was surprised to find herself self-conscious. He must have seen it. He was powerful, and forceful. She wanted only to free her hands, to indulge herself on her terms without the sight of it sticking out of the sheets haunting her, but his grip was heavy and metallic. Harker had already removed his belt, unzipped and was exposed. She wrestled franticly with her arms, but her legs never fought back, and he was surprised at the ease with which he found himself in her thighs on the cusp of her body.

"So she's just feeling his balls, and loving it the whole time, and the flasher is having the time of his life!" Soryal continued to fondle the imaginary flasher as politely as any nun would. Williamson, helping the medical examiner, held fast to the rope and wrist so when the binding was cut, the body would not fall to the ground. It had been there a while. He made the rookie mistake of grabbing the upper arm for support, and when the body shifted, his thumb popped through, pierced the flesh and slid between the bicep and bone; although he had his gloves, he could feel everything through the latex: it was dark, cold, wet, smooth and viscous.

He released his grip when she began to move in time with his body. It was criminal, passionate, and uncertain. He wasn't sure if he would go to jail. He'd never done this before, and while it was, for all intense and purposes, what it was, it was also nothing like he had imagined would actually happen when he crept through her curtains, but more like he had dreamed from his window, playing out like a dark porno. He wasn't sure how she'd react when it was all over.

Williamson had prided himself on never once getting sick, but ran for the door tearing off the sludge covered thumb of the glove from his wrist. Soryal interrupted his joke to laugh, and then continued so the uniform cop standing at the door and the medical examiner wouldn't miss out.

Harker thought for a second that he loved her. The smell of her body. Its subtle tastes and textures. He could have ended it any number of times, but he paused and waited, absorbed and savored it.

Still recounting the tale of the nun and the flasher, Soryal lowered the bed to its normal position and found the murder weapon had slipped out of from between the mattresses onto the floor. He pinched the handle between his thumb and forefinger, inspecting the long, lean blade dangling below the smooth girth of the ribbed hilt, and he made an off-color remark to those present about not knowing which was the "business end."

She arched, freeing her hands. Her chest heaved, exhaling across his forehead and she stretched her arms, coming just short of the blunt end between her mattresses. She twisted and grasped and scratched at the sided of the bed. Moaning and straining, she could not budge beneath his pressing torso. She lunged and searched, finally wrapping her fingers around it just below the knobby end in the clutch and tussle of muscle and sweat. She had been waiting a long time.

The perp was in the back of the squad car in cuffs. The policemen who had arrived first at the scene did not have to look very far to find the killer watching over the body.

From three floors up, across the street, Harker had never noticed the way her front teeth showed just below her upper lip as he did now. He decided he would kiss her when he finished, feeling her lips and the slight press of her teeth on his mouth--she lunged and swung her arm around his neck--he bellowed like a great beast--a wave surged from his lungs, down his spine, through and around his torso, and into her body as he grasped the outside of her shoulders.

She clasped her legs around him and squeezed the handle of the blade tight to his neck as Harker's life weltered over her. His blood coursed across his back as she clung to him pulling him close to let it cascade over her. It was everything she had ever wanted but was too afraid to give into, every urge she had restrained and played over time and again in her mind. He bucked, heaved, sputtered and gurgled in her grasp, and finally, he exhaled. As he slacked in the wet, pooling sheets, she felt satisfied and clean. She released her body beneath him, felt his weight and warmth on her tired frame, and slowly withdrew the hard, blunt handle of the sacrificial dagger from his neck; she held him, exhausted and complete--the red light of the alarm clock shining black over their blood covered flesh. He was her first, she was his last. They were wed forever in this bed. She fell asleep in his embrace.

In the back of the squad car, she prayed incessantly into the handcuffs, the perfect bruises of Harker's grip visible beneath the metal bands. Williamson still didn't understand if she was punishing him, and if she was, why she would sleep over his suspended, putrefying corpse for days--the human heart was still a mystery to him. Soryal walked out next to the gurney, speaking in his old nun's voice and acting out the end of the joke for the cop and the examiner, two imaginary balls in his closed fists, smashing them together to the staccato of the punch line: "DON'T--YOU--EVER--DO--THAT-- AGAIN!" They chuckled. In the apartment across the street from the balcony, Williamson heard a dog crying.

Pound for Pound

I've been going to the rock climbing gym for some months now, and I have markedly improved. I have also seen other nascent climbers come and go, and I have noted the dedicated climbers who are regulars; I have even made some friends. I have scaled the bouldering ranks from lowly V0 climber to a semi-respectable V3 climber, though I cannot do them all; however, I did ascend a V4- the other day. Pound for pound, you have to develop your skills based on your height, weight and agility, and a tall thin guy can climb better than a guy who is jacked; I have developed as a 5'7" medium-build guy, and I have impressed myself on some days. I have even been invited personally on two outdoor expeditions by other climbers, but all of it meant nothing, until today.

When I walked into the gym and put on my shoes, I was met by a gym employee who greeted me with a fist bump. That's right! When you get to pound "the rock" with a rock gym employee, you've crossed the line from leisurely climber to respectable climber. It's like the secret handshake of a secret and exclusive club, an esoteric club with terms like, flag, barn door, campus and gaston. What else could the fist pound mean? I will admit, I'm not that great; I have a long way to go, but I guess I have reached the point where I have earned enough rock creds to deserve a fist bump. Maybe it was my mastery of the V4-, or maybe it was my scaling and controlled descent of the campus board--I don't know, but I gotta say, it felt good to pound the rock, not only upon entering, but also upon leaving.

Keep the Unhallowed in Halloween

Some of you might remember my post about keeping Christ in Christmas, but this year I am championing the cause of another holiday, one that some may not even consider a holiday: Halloween. While it may mean All Hallow's Eve, it's more sinister, pagan roots tend to shine through in practice. Now, "holiday," literally means "holy day," which it is in the church, but in the secular world, it exists as more of an unholiday, and that is what I am here to defend.

I was in Lowe's the other day, looking for some hardware, and I noticed that even though it was October 11, they already had their Christmas ornaments on sale en masse. October 11th. I haven't even begun to construct my costume for this year, and those of you that know me know how important my costume is. I cannot allow that while I was in the outdoor, garden area, a midi version "Joy to the World" was plinking over the p.a. system before the leaves had even changed, much less fallen to the earth. Don't get me wrong, a cold, crisp December night driving through the light-stranded suburbs of New Jersey to a good production of "Silent Night" still has the power to make me weep, but before that kind of warm-hearted grace can wash over me in a wave of goodness, I need some evil.

I need my day of death--all souls day. What better way to take the macabre and celebrate our moribund existence bedizened in palor and gore? It's like a New Orlean's funeral. That's a town that knows how to do things. Take Mardi Gras for instance; before the ascetic practices of Lent, everyone indulges themselves in a hedonistic, gluttonous orgy of T and Alcohol before forty days of self deprivation and eating fish (probably just lots of crawfish--and pork), but I'm sure some people do it by the book. My point is: what better way to harken the season of the birth of our savior than by accenting our damnable nature in nefarious garb. As much as we spend the rest of the year posturing like upstanding, moral members of the human race instead of descendants of Cain, we should dig deep into the heart of darkness and bellow; and before we deck the halls with boughs of holly, we should deck ourselves in the trappings and suits of the unholy so that by the time "O Holy Night" comes on in the grocery, I am penitent ready to embrace my fellow man, even if he is holding up the checkout line. Happy Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeen!

Hiatus Is where the Heart Is.

Where the hell have I been? Well, lets just say buying a house and moving in is a project, and between work and the house, I haven't exactly been inspired to write. It's not that there hasn't been anything to write about either, it was just that after a week of not writing about the house, all the ideas I had had formed into a giant unmanageable monster that looked much like Justin Timberlake's media files in that commercial, so it was a bit daunting to then pick where to start.

So let's boil this experience down to it's purest and simplest form: what is it like having a house? Well, It's like this:

And, it's like this:

And it didn't take long to become like this:

Then it soon became this:

So, if I had to sum things up in one word, it would be:

"This"

Love you Lib!

A Tough Question

I won't say much about this one, but just ask yourself if you would eat this: 3:00pm randomly placed in the parking lot outside of Target? It's in perfect condition, and seems to have been delicately placed in the mulch by someone who cared about it; maybe they really wanted it but couldn't possibly eat anymore. I thought it looked like it was left for me. I won't tell you if I ate it or not. The real question is, "Would you?"

Rocky Raccoon

Yesterday, while putting down a little mulch at Mrs. Morrissey's, Jorge noticed a couple live traps in her back yard, one of which contained a raccoon. Mrs. Morrissey informed me that she was actually trying to catch a groundhog, that lived under her porch, but had only caught four raccoons so far, and every time she caught one, she had to pay the company to come remove the animal, and it was getting pretty expensive. She said that they did not kill the animals, but that they released them into the wild; I half expected her to describe a farm where the raccoons could play with all the other woodland creatures and eat their favorite foods out of their very own personalized garbage cans, if you know what I mean.

It was about 92 degrees and humid, and I realized that maybe Rocky's (the raccoon's) placid demeanor was probably not because he was patiently awaiting his trip to "Critter Acres," but maybe he was really just thirsty and hungry. Mrs. Morrissey explained that he had been there for almost two days, and the company had not come to collect the trap yet. I decided to get him a drink. Every day, I take two bottles of frozen water to work, and one was about a quarter thawed, so I set out to give little Rock (the raccoon) a drink.

If you have ever heard a threatened raccoon snarl and growl, then you know that as I poured a little water into the cage and he freaked out, I nearly shit my pants. An angry raccoon sounds much like a wolf and a bear at the same time; nonetheless, he did settle and start lapping up the couple drops remaining.

Before we left, I wanted to make sure little Rock's thirst was quenched so he would be more comfortable waiting for his "ride," so I affixed my frozen water bottle to the top of his cage between the bars so it would drip for a couple of hours, and he could not only have a nice cool drink, but some activity to kill...scratch that--pass the time. Jorge left him a couple crackers, and we were off to the next job.

I would say, based on the above photo, that my little contraption worked pretty well. This blog would be much cuter if I could upload the video on my phone with his rather long tongue flicking in and out rapidly, but this pic will have to do. God speed, Rocky, and enjoy that farm. Maybe some day I'll come see you.