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77.
Bart reached for the handle; the door popped ajar.

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Along with the stomping freak who uses the flipside of my ceiling as a floor, the folks with whom I share walls cannot tolerate silence. No, they must blast on repeat any of Billboard’s Year-End Hot 100 singles of 2000 through their respective stereo’s speakers. This, in turn, forces me to blast all of my much less popular music to drown theirs out. It becomes a vicious circle of escalating sound. And perhaps the very point of loud music is to drown out all thought, fear, and pain. These days, who can bear to sit quietly and ponder life—let alone read a book? Indeed, the folks in this city—and perhaps the folks in every city—seemingly do whatever they can to stifle the natural inclination to think. At least, that is my impression. After all, the act of thought —the very act of reflection —necessarily slows production and consumption. And we mustn’t have that, no, no. Besides, we need not contemplate our lack of fulfillment or our actual worthlessness if we are too busy playing video
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Stu is home. He was not home before he sat down to type this. But he is home now. Stu is sleepy. Notice that he writes in the present tense and in the third person. Does he succeed? Observe how he avoids the use of contractions. Does he fail? Know that his real name is not “Stu.” Does it matter? Although Stu tends to stew he is never up this late or this early. And yet, and so, or nevertheless, apart from typing this , Stu finds the energy to stand on a chair and smear the north wall of his bedroom with the guts of some many legged bug. Yes, some many legged bug had the audacity to crawl up his wall. And now it is smeared: the bug, its guts, the wall. Well, smeared not ALL over his wall. Most bugs, in this day and age, are not so large. (Compared to walls.) Add to the lengthy list yet another completely valid reason for why Stu should have the walls of his room repainted. But he waffles. Why? Because waffles are tasty. No, he waffles because he does not want to lose his privacy to a pa
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