Delving

I wrote something today. When I was done, I realized how much pleasure I’d felt during it. I thought about how I’d crafted sentences, rolling the words through my fingers, the ideas like paint I needed to smear on a screen. A very sensual, driving process.

Then I realized how much the remembrance of that visceral feeling of writing reminds me of drawing. I love to draw with charcoal. Because it feels like sculpture. I love to rub my hands into the paper, creating figures with depth and light.

Words and pencils and shapes and thoughts all create a form. Between the brain and the hands, I make something. And this is satisfying.

Really, it's all very much the same to me as sex.

A Simple Story, Told Half Visually

I once kissed a man down these stairs. His head was shaved and felt sturdy in my hands, and his tongue was harsh.


These flowers are across the street.

Summery. Frothy.

Mr. Ladyfriend's beer was perfect.

What's This Girl's Problem?

NZ judge backs girl over 'embarrassing' name

(CNN) -- A New Zealand judge has made a 9-year-old girl a ward of the court so that her name can be changed from Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii, the country's national news agency reported Thursday.

Family Court Judge Rob Murfitt listed a series of unusual names that New Zealand parents had given their children, and said he was concerned that such strange monikers would create hurdles for them as they grew up.

"It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap," the New Zealand Press Association quoted the judge as saying.

Among the names Murfitt cited: twins named Benson and Hedges -- after a brand of cigarettes; Violence; and Number 16 Bus Shelter.

Some parents had named children after six-cylinder Ford cars, the news agency reported.

The Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages said in a statement that it had rejected names including Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Stallion, Twisty Poi -- a staple food in Polynesian cuisine -- and Sex Fruit.

A lawyer for Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii said the girl is so embarrassed by her name that friends know her as "K."

Last month, an judge in the U.S. state of Illinois allowed a school bus driver to legally change his first name to "In God" and his last name to "We Trust."

But an appeals court in the state of New Mexico ruled against a man -- named Variable -- who wanted to change his name to a two-word phrase that contains a four-letter expletive and expresses opposition to censorship.

I'm Homophonic

Today I have written “think” where I meant “thing”

and

“hear” where I meant “here.”

The needle is officially off the record.

Dehumanization

There are indications that the Colombian army appropriated the International Committee of the Red Cross symbol in its rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and the American hostages held by FARC.

“Such a use of the Red Cross emblem could constitute a ‘war crime’ under the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law and could endanger humanitarian workers in the future, according to international legal expert Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association.” (CNN)

After listening to a “Fresh Air” podcast this morning interviewing The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer on her new book The Dark Side, which outlines how the U.S. has contorted the Geneva Conventions in order to torture prisoners in the “war on terror,” I’m full up wondering about the implications of subverting humanitarian principles for acts of aggression. Basically, it scares the crap out of me.

I get that I am talking about two slightly different things, but are they really all that different? Hamas entering Israel in trucks marked “TV” or “Press” in order to set off bombs; is that really so different from the U.S. using declarations of self-protection to justify torture of “enemy combatants”? Aren’t the good guys and the bad guys just getting all confused? Using the cloak of American righteousness…is it all that different from plastering your helicopter with Red Cross symbols and airlifting hostages out of a jungle?

Yes and no. One is an act of obvious subversion. The other is a twisted form of self-delusion. Both, in any case, take the concept of human rights and swing it around until it is little more than a knotted mess of misery.

UPDATE 10:38 a.m.

Feather Girl: I found my panties.

McBickle: Heh. Where?

Feather Girl: Under the sink.

McBickle: Are you kidding.

Feather Girl: Nope. I wish. But at least I put them somewhere out of the way of panty sniffers.

This Is a Tick-Tock

8:27 p.m.: The cocktail party is in motion. Tables are set with absurd amounts of beautiful food all made by Feather Girl, who, granted, works for a foodie magazine, but still:

There are mini banh-mi sandwiches. There are shot glasses of carrot soup with crostini.

There are fucking pickled carrots. HAND-pickled.

There are hibiscus-flower margaritas. Lychee-something yellow drinks. Recipes for Manhattans on little cards in case you want to mix your rye. I pour some neat into what looks like an egg cup.

Feather Girl tells me, in her purple dress and feather headpiece, that she is terrible at enjoying her own parties.

9:00 p.m. Ladyfriend and husband arrive. She is wearing a white dress cinched with a black belt and looks beautiful. She does not know what to drink. By evening’s end, I believe she will have sorted this out.

9:15 p.m.: My friend in from out of town is approximately 45 minutes late. I assume he has been swallowed in the subway. A Worldly European Photojournalist, one believes he can find his way.

9:17 p.m.: WEP arrives, dashing in white linen, we joyously hug and share a strangely large number of cheek kisses.

9:19 p.m.: WEP and I settle in for an evening of close chatting.

9:42 p.m.: Mza arrives in a knee-length shift carrying a Tupperware container of Crystal Light and vodka that looks like slightly electrified diluted urine.

9:57 p.m.: WEP and I sit on the front stoop and greet the Cardinal, who arrives in a button-down shirt unbuttoned farcically far enough to reveal his chest tattoo of a dragon. Which is less revealing, one could say, than his usual wife-beater. Close on his heels comes Newly Divorced, dressed like a cracked-out pimp, with a gold chain and fedora.

10:38 p.m.: WEP and I escape to catch most of a concert by my friends. We are greeted from the stage as we enter. We are pleased.

12:21 a.m.: WEP and I return to the party to see louche partygoers lounging across the stoop. “The hostess is passed out somewhere,” they inform us.

12:23 a.m.: We go inside. It is loucher. Ladyfriend, Mr. Ladyfriend, My Fake Boyfriend, Stunning Very Young Friend and the rest are either dancing or sprawled on the couch. We continue to circulate in and out of the apartment, sharing cigarettes, finishing bottles of wine.

1:32 a.m.: WEP asks me when the New York subway closes. “Never,” I say. “Never?” he says. Never. He departs soon thereafter. I am sad.

1:52 a.m.: Mr. Ladyfriend attempts to negotiate a 15-minute nap before leaving out of Feather Girl’s brother. He fails.

2:00 a.m.: A group of us makes an egress to a local bar. Then quickly we retreat to another. There, we meet up with Mza and her party. “You again,” says one of its more handsome members. “Twice in one week.”

3:00 a.m.: You Again is soon attempting to get me to [REDACTED] him in the bathroom.

3:30 a.m.: I snag Seattle as he happens by the bar while I’m outside with YA. He walks the young lady he is with to the car and joins our roving band of absurdity.

3:44 a.m.: My Fake Boyfriend leaves arm-in-arm with the Stunning Very Young Friend.

4:04 a.m.: [REDACTED]

4:28 a.m. The view of Manahattan from the roof is twinkly and fresh.

5:07 a.m.: [REDACTED]

5:28 a.m.: Sleep.

12:19 p.m.: Phone. (Ignore.)

12:20 p.m.: Phone. (Ignore.)

12:54 p.m.: Listen to voicemails. “Hi, this is [REDACTED]. I think I left my camera at Feather Girl’s house. And, um, I think there are naked pictures of me on it?”

12:56 p.m.: Discover that YA sent a dirty photograph of himself to my e-mail at 5:29 a.m.

12:56 p.m.: I break into hysterical laughter.

…

This morning.

10:35 a.m.: I reassure Feather Girl that passing out at her own party was fantastic. She tells me she got up at some point and ended up at a bar till 6 a.m. “What bar?” I ask. “I have no idea,” she says.

10:42 a.m.: My Fake Boyfriend writes: “Yeah, her brother finally had the sense to tell us to leave, or we might still be there.”

10:45 a.m.: Mza writes: “I passed out on my bed with my dress and boots on.” Which, I will add, comes on the heels of a message from Mr. Africa on Saturday: “I must have had a good night. I woke up fully dressed, shoes on, hugging my bag.”

1:15 p.m.: I give up on this tick-tock. I laugh again.

...

UPDATE 3:27 p.m.:

Feather Girl: I lost my underwear.

McBickle: Noooo.

Feather Girl: Apparently I took them off.

Feather Girl: And now I can't find them.

Feather Girl: They were pink velvet.

McBickle: Noooo.

Feather Girl: And they felt too warm when I was drunk.

Feather Girl: My friend thinks someone stole them. For panty sniffing. This was around midnight.

Graffiti Artist O' My Dreams

(Courtesy And I am Not Lying.)

Mr. L.F. Eason III of North Carolina Is Awesome

He quit rather than lower flag for Helms

Ryan Teague Beckwith, Staff Writer

RALEIGH - L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he'd ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.

Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday, as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley.

When a superior ordered the lab to follow the directive, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms. After several hours' delay, one of Eason's employees hung the flags at half-staff….

He told his staff that he did not think it was appropriate to honor Helms because of his "doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice" and his opposition to civil rights bills and the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday....

Genius New Paradigm

McBickle: New paradigm: You will always want whatever your first pop culture crushes were.

My Fake Boyfriend: I always liked Lisa Lisa of Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam
so that makes sense.

Ladyfriend: Problem: I didn't have popular culture when I was a kid—I had PBS.

McBickle: That’s why you married Mr. Ladyfriend. Works.

Mza: I had a crush on Jack Tripper. Big time.

Mza: I wanted a big floppy awkward man of me own.

Mza: Who was pretending to be gay.

McBickle: Um, you still do.

Mza: True.

Mza: I mean if Judge Reinhold asked me out I wouldn't say no.

Mza: My crushes are telling.

McBickle: This is an amazing paradigm.

Mza: Judge Reinhold. Jack Tripper. I also liked Robin from Batman & Robin. The Underdog.

Mza: Who were they, yours?

McBickle: Wonder Woman, Han Solo. Then Kelly from “Charlie's Angels.”

McBickle: But I wanted to be them too. Still do. See? The paradigm holds.

Today's Crap-Ass Metaphor

Sometimes editing means combing through words as if picking nits out of hair. And sometimes you just have to shave the whole fucking head.

GREETINGS

My friend is a lawyer.

She is writing a subpoena.

She complains that lawyer-language is occasionally-most-of-the-time absurd.

Hm, what dost thou mean, I say.

She throws it down:

GREETINGS:
YOU ARE HEREBY COMMANDED, all and singular business and excuses being laid aside, to appear...

No, I say. This is not possible. Humans do not speak like this.

Bitch, she says. I shit you not. This is our office template.

And another day passes in which the world makes me want to pluck out my eyeball, dangle it in front of my other one, smile a little, put it back, intact, and move along.

In This Entry, I Make a Man Blush

Today, we introduce a new character to our series on IM chats. He shall be known as Another Man in Baghdad.

AMiB: Thank god for the Internet chat room.

McBickle: That sounds very early Internet.

AMiB: Not chat room per se (never been), but chat whatever this is.

McBickle: Window.

AMiB: [REDACTED NOUN] turns up in the strangest places.

McBickle: We're hanging out in the window.

AMiB: Window, whatever. Wow…

McBickle: Well, I'm not the strangest place.

AMiB: How country of us.

McBickle: True. You're wearing gingham?

AMiB: Poplin.

McBickle: Hot.

McBickle: I'm feeling the Internet window breeze on my legs.

AMiB: I'm chewing on an Internet piece of straw.

AMiB: And smelling your fresh blackberry internet pie on the windowsill.

McBickle: Cute. Although, I didn't make pie. You did.

AMiB: (Blush.)

More From the IM Archives

1.

[Ladyfriend has a new girl crush.]

Ladyfriend: She writes mystery novels.

McBickle: Nice.

Ladyfriend: And claims to have invented the term "yuppie"

McBickle: UM. Not so much.

[Turns out she really did. Maybe.]

2.

[Zohan is the son of Mza’s mother’s friend. She was forced to have coffee with him.]

Mza: Zohan has an idea for a science fiction book he told me about.

Serial killer kills people using special DNA-coded spray.

What does one say to that?

I was like, “Good idea. Um.”

3.

[I have a date with a man I don't know well. I fear something may be…off…about him. We had a text message exchange about where to meet and this is what he sent back:]

“you KNOW i got no problem coming out to [REDACTED], baby! and i come aaaall the way out there for you..."

McBickle: Is he going to KILL ME?

Mza: Hahahaha.

McBickle: I’m not kidding! This is NOT FUNNY.

Mza: It is though. Walk down the middle of the street with him, so you can flag down cars if anything goes down. Do not go with him into a wooded area.

McBickle: Hahaha.

Ladyfriend: He's not a serial killer, he’s just... dorkily enthusiastic.

McBickle: Are we sure about this?

Mza: No.

McBickle: NO? Fuck.

Mza: Smiley faces PLUS exclamation points PLUS unironic caps.

McBickle: Maybe you can come vet him for me.

Mza: I've never seen that before.

McBickle: UghUGH.

Mza: Well, he is older.

McBickle: He did once ask me if I text, which is an older person question.

Mza: Sometimes the oldsters go overboard on things like the text message (last two words said in Borat accent). Yes.

McBickle: “The olds.”

UPDATE:

[From One Man in Baghdad, who kindly replied on his BlackBerry from a restaurant:]

McBickle: Have a date with this guy later who might be a zombie waiting to kill me or something. Unclear.

OMiB: Wow, good cheese. Don’t get dismembered. Love.

Print Reporters: We Save It for the Kicker

Mza: Ha, this woman wrote me, reporter for [REDACTED], told me about an on-camera job. Haha. Ha.

McBickle: Ha.

Mza: Whoa. I need more helmet-y hair for that. I’ve seen those reporters, in Jerz. They do their own makeup before the shoot. Seems hellish.

McBickle: Yeah, saw them when I was reporting in [REDACTED].

Mza: But at least TV isn't going anywhere.

McBickle: One I knew from grad school—always hair-spraying on scene.

Mza: Yup. I don’t wanna end up on YouTube.

The Ladyfriend Does Not Mince Words

Toodle, toodle, I’m whittling away the afternoon, typing, typing, editing, editing and…

WHAMMO.

Up pops Ladyfriend.

Ladyfriend: Are you working?

McBickle: kinda.

What up?

Ladyfriend: Nothing.

I want sex.

McBickle: HahahahahahHA.

Ladyfriend: And I want it now.