A brief introduction: I wrote this story to completion over the course of five hours, pausing only to bounce a few opinions off two friends. I wrote it with the intention of creating a story that was not simply witty or clever; I wanted to write a story that resonated, that could be felt. Whether or not it’s a success, that’s up to the reader. It’s nine pages and about 4,500 words.

—

Allan Lancaster Nguyen slouched. He straightened his back. He kicked out his legs, then crossed one over the other. He had learned how to cross his legs like a man when he was a child, from an interview of a British actor on the big-screen television in his parents’ home. He struggled, as we all do throughout our lives, to find some modicum of comfort.

The first and most obvious problem was that the seat was simply too small for his lanky frame. No matter how much he adjusted to the contours of the hard, metal skeleton upon which an extraordinarily thin layer of fabric had been affixed, he could not fit the right parts in the right places. It reminded him of his first sexual encounter, shortly after the end of high school, which in retrospect was completely and absurdly hilarious except for the fact that it may have irrevocably damaged his psyche in not-yet-understood ways. The encounter in question was a blowjob in a suburban alley between two houses that looked exactly the same: it had been an uncommonly cool and crisp summer evening and so there was a stiff breeze that had inspired the exact opposite reaction in him.

Allan Lancaster Nguyen stood up. He was not going to force himself to sit on a chair that had, so cruelly, reminded him of that adolescent farce. He tried to ignore the fact that he was still living the tail-end of that adolescent farce at the age of twenty-three. It was the tenth of October. In June, he had graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature from a mid-tier university. Shortly thereafter, he had found a full-time job performing data entry for a company. Over time, Allan realized that the company was not a “customer service and satisfaction information processing firm” as it claimed to be. It was a company that probably made it easier for online advertisers to annoy as many people as much as possible on a regular basis. This notion bothered Allan, but not so much that he felt like quitting. Not while they were paying him enough money and giving him enough vacation time to where he could do what he was doing now.

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Colby is a genius.

(6:10:46 PM) Colby: Mr. fish and chips
(6:10:49 PM) me: haha
(6:10:52 PM) Colby: Who is really realllllly greasy
(6:10:54 PM) me: Sir Fish and Chipsington
(6:10:58 PM) Colby: And has crooked teeth
(6:11:06 PM) Colby: And a monocle
(6:11:06 PM) me: cockney accent?
(6:11:27 PM) Colby: Sir Fish and Chipsington - hahahahahaha
(6:11:31 PM) Colby: So good
(6:11:35 PM) Colby: Yet so bad
(6:11:36 PM) me: haha
(6:11:38 PM) me: mostly bad
(6:11:42 PM) me: so bad it rolls over back to good
(6:11:50 PM) me: like a clock striking midnight
(6:11:55 PM) Colby: He can wear one of those black q-tip hats the queen’s guards wear
(6:12:06 PM) me: and sir fish and chipsington turns back into a chimney-sweep
(6:12:06 PM) Colby: !slightly askew!
(6:12:09 PM) me: and his carriage turns into
(6:12:18 PM) me: a bucket of tartar sauce
(6:12:29 PM) Colby: haha
(6:12:51 PM) Colby: And he forces his captives to watch marathons of 70’s doctor who episodes

NAKED JUICE (work-in-progress)

In retrospect I can’t be sure which was the more obvious sign that our relationship was falling apart: the sudden and irrevocable disappearance of the two hummingbirds that came to our tiny studio apartment window to feed on the ultra-premium orange juice that we left for them and didn’t actually drink ourselves, or when she asked me what I thought of threesomes.

First, let me explain the hummingbirds. They were miraculous. They were a tiny little miracle in the middle of downtown Los Angeles and they were for us and us alone. When we saw them for the first time, about six months ago, they were flitting around the window while we, she and I, sat on our little couch from craigslist and watched Japanese news on our little television from craigslist. Neither of us understood Japanese, so we had spent the forty-three minutes leading up to that point narrating over the news anchors’ voices. In the middle of assuming that the young, professionally cute Japanese woman standing at the scene of a recent murder in a fashionable Tokyo district had simply chosen that spot at random in order to retell the Brothers Grimm version of Hansel and Gretel, we saw the hummingbirds and we were incredibly excited. At the time I worked at an independent bookstore and she worked at an independent record shop, so hummingbirds were rather out of the ordinary, relative to our daily existences. Mostly we sold things to assholes, or were assholes selling things to regular people, and sometimes everyone was an asshole; just in slightly varying degrees.

“What do hummingbirds eat? Nectar, right?” she asked, sidelong, as she focused on their movements. The two birds were white and rust and her eyes were a very light blue but sometimes they were almost green.

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Introduction: Teddy is the name of my sister’s black Newfoundland/Labrador mutt. She adopted him as a puppy from a rescue shelter when she was living in LA, and at first, he was incredibly antisocial and very, very afraid of people. It didn’t take too long for him to get used to being loved, though. This is an example!

P.S. Yes, that’s an iPod on the floor.
P.P.S. My sheets are not bright red, they are actually blue, but I laid out a sleeping bag over them for Teddy to lie on.

I just spent the past few hours reading the webcomic Anders Loves Maria from start-to-current page. It’s a startling conflux of a powerful narrative, great characters, and always-interesting artwork. The premise entails two young people in a complicated relationship, and the best part about the story is how it constantly pulls at you, making you laugh or tugging at your heart, or sometimes dragging you by the collar into a dark alleyway to beat you up (but only just a bit).

It’s probably the most emotionally resonant comic I’ve stumbled across since A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible, yet it’s completely different in just about every category. What the two comics share is a deft attention to detail; ALM’s artist, Rene Engström, plays with style while maintaining tone and knows how to use simplicity/complexity to complement one another. Read it for yourself, and see what I mean!

NAKED JUICE (work-in-progress)

In retrospect I can’t be sure which was the more obvious sign that our relationship was falling apart: the sudden and irrevocable disappearance of the two hummingbirds that came to our tiny studio apartment window to feed on the ultra-premium orange juice that we left for them and didn’t actually drink ourselves, or when she asked me what I thought of threesomes.

First, let me explain the hummingbirds. They were miraculous. They were a tiny little miracle in the middle of downtown Los Angeles and they were for us and us alone. When we saw them for the first time, about six months ago, they were flitting around the window while we, she and I, sat on our little couch from craigslist and watched Japanese news on our little television from craigslist. Neither of us understood Japanese, so we had spent the forty-three minutes leading up to that point narrating over the news anchors’ voices. In the middle of assuming that the young, professionally cute Japanese woman standing at the scene of a recent murder in a fashionable Tokyo district had simply chosen that spot at random in order to retell the Brothers Grimm version of Hansel and Gretel, we saw the hummingbirds and we were incredibly excited. At the time I worked at an independent bookstore and she worked at an independent record shop, so hummingbirds were rather out of the ordinary, relative to our daily existences. Mostly we sold things to assholes, or were assholes selling things to regular people, and sometimes everyone was an asshole; just in slightly varying degrees.

“What do hummingbirds eat? Nectar, right?” she asked, sidelong, as she focused on their movements. The two birds were white and rust and her eyes were a very light blue but sometimes they were almost green.

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From tinymixtapes

Requested by: emma
Compiled by: Kate Lucksmith

01. Mirah - “Make it Hot” (Advisory Committee) youtube
02. The Secret Stars - “Some Sinatra” (Geneologies)
03. Comet Gain - “Record Prayer” (Record Prayer 7″)
04. Loveninjas - “Meet Me Here” (Secret of the Loveninjas)
05. Saturday Looks Good to Me - “I Would Find It So Beautiful” (Saturday Looks Good to Me)
06. Pavement - “Passat Dream” (Brighten the Corners)
07. Iron & Wine - “Love Vigilantes” (New Order Cover)
08. The Halo Benders - “Love Travels Faster” (The Rebels Not In)
09. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - “Graceland” (Graceland EP)
10. Beat Happening - “Sea Hunt” (Music to Climb the Apple Tree By)
11. Voxtrot - “The Warmest Part of Winter” (Demo) youtube (no video, just music)
12. Broken Social Scene - “Lover’s Spit” (You Forgot It In People) youtube
13. Peter Bjorn and John - “Up Against the Wall” (Writer’s Block) youtube (unofficial)

LOOK AT ME

Look at me
the way Orion’s arrows sling
cross- galaxy or apartment floor.
Satellite photographs cannot depict
your shelves of glass and chrome
but they suffice for the banns
pleasantly. Presently I touch
the diagrams for cabinets
and unfinished television
stands for the vise, adjunct
lacking fingerprints.
This is not a space.
But you occupy it without regard.
Look at me.
Craft out of me some thing
more than the night: the might;
the constellation kings; or
two beaten silver rings.