FireVaney

NOVEMBER 18, 1996 ; TWENTY-FIVE-ISH MILES NORTH OF CHICAGO, IL: I live in a second story walk-in closet with a window and a toilet. The window and the toilet are at opposite ends of the space. Is it ironic that there’s nowhere to hang clothes? And, no, that’s not a phone booth next to the toilet, it’s a shower stall. There’s a “kitchenette,” too. It’s more “ette” than “kitchen.” It’s an all-in-one sink / stovetop / minifridge. If apartments got any narrower than this one, you wouldn’t be able to sleep on your back. I think of it as a walled-in Winnebago wannabe. The floor holds up the ceiling of Arabica Love. (Unless the ceiling of Arabica Love holds up the floor.) Below your feet you can hear the hiss and scream of a steam wand frothing milk; you can hear the grinding of coffee beans; you can even hear old man Holstein shout, “You call this a bagel?” And he still comes in every day—not to buy a bagel, but to complain about it. (To be clear, he buys the bagel and, in so doing, he purc...

MARCH 21, 2001 ; CHICAGO, IL: The janitor pounded on my door yesterday afternoon. At the time, I was sleeping off a tough, early morning shift of steaming milk and brewing espresso shots. The tough part isn’t pouring mochas, lattes, and cappuccinos. The tough part is ignoring the angry eyes of caffeine addicts who gather around the espresso machine and lean over the pickup counter. They’re commuters, late for work, who haven’t had their morning bump. They want to blame the barista for their grogginess, the alarm they forgot to set, their bad hair day, the knicks earned from a rushed shave. Hours of gimlet eyes can wear you down. I cope by sneaking hits of crushed Oreos, chopped Snickers, diced chocolate mints—anything that’s intended to top the fancy-schmancy espresso drinks. This is how I’ve paid the rent for the past six years. I’m on my third coffee shop. But I’m not moving up. I’m moving sideways. I have gone south, though…by about twenty-five miles. What’s clear why my alma mate...

NOVEMBER 17, 1996; CHICAGO, IL: I’d like to ask this girl out. But there’s a problem. She’s with this group. They like to stop street traffic and commuters on subway platforms during rush hour. They’re out there to spread “The Way to God.” I admire the effort. It takes pluck to slow down people who do not want to stick around. This girl, though, she’d correct me. “Not pluck,” she’d say, “faith.” And that’s great. Only there’s one little snag. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I don’t share her faith. I’m supposed to be Jewish. Just between you and me, I’d prefer to be Jedi. I’m not trying to convert you or anything, but the Force is real. I know what you’re thinking. It’s not like you see in the movies, though. Hollywood tends to glamorize. The real Force isn’t about rearranging the furniture by closing your eyes, sporting a shit squeezing face, and waving your fingers in the air. No, on this planet, the real Force is more about… charisma. As far as my family is concerned,...

In Atomic Habits , James Clear advises the reader to: “Work hard on the things that come easy.” This is a dangerous proposition for a person like me. I’m a lazy bum. Given the option, I could easily squander the rest of my life stuffing my face with warm chocolate chunk cookies while catching up with Doctors Phil and Oz, along with the ladies of “The View,” “The Real,” and “The Talk.” But this raises a question: Can one “work hard” chomping junk food and nursing from the boob tube all the livelong day?  First of all, I wouldn’t want to “work hard” eating cookies the way Joey Chestnut crams hotdogs down his gullet. I’ve a real beef with the “sport” of competitive eating. Though, in fairness, if swallowing large quantities of food at record speed with minimal chewing is your calling, your God given gift, your honed-to-perfection skill, then please, do not let me or any other snooty blogger stand in your way. Which reminds me: The bakery down the street holds an annual paczki eatin...

Here’s what’s curious: At the bottom of the page, Rupert wrote, “Throbs account for too much inspiration.” But did he mean “throbs” in general? Ask him now and he will probably say, “Possibly.” Whatever he meant, he made the initial observation nearly a year ago.  At the top of the page, Rupert wrote, “He’s got an eye throb and a tooth throb this morning, but these are nothing new.” We suspect he was expressing himself in the third person. Rupert smiled wryly and/or coyly when we put the question to him; i.e. we asked, “Were you referring to yourself when you wrote “he’s” or “his”? Ask him a question about any of his writings and he’ll smirk (wryly/coyly) and/or he’ll wink.  “Said throbs manifest from his right eye—his weaker eye,” Rupert wrote, “and the left, upper rearmost molar in his mouth.”  Rupert confessed to us that he hasn’t seen a doctor since the cassette tape fell out of fashion.  “Said throbs are not a daily occurrence,” wrote Rupert, nearly a year ago...

As a cloud, I could scud around the world, look down (with cloudy eyes) and see what’s happening everywhere. I’d have a bird’s-eye view of the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, Mount Everest and thousands of bikini-clad women. But truly, as a cloud, I wouldn’t take an interest in any of those things. Instead, I’d marvel at the sun and the distant stars. I’d feel sorry for the moon, since it has no clouds. Most of all, I’d yearn to break free of Earth’s atmosphere and its orbit, so to drift across the cosmos on my own.   But this assumes many things.  Suppose for a moment that clouds can take interest, marvel and yearn. Allow that clouds are inexplicably sentient in ways that defy current scientific understanding.    Say we could interpret the behavior of clouds. Is fog, for example, little more than an asshole of a cloud? Or is fog a clingy, depressed cloud? Maybe fog is a cloud that simply wants to cuddle. 

Good evening,   In response to your query, I have just reviewed the first hour of a VHS recording titled, “Brickstone Family Video 11/24/2000.” Doss, Sol, Bernie, Nate and Bill are interviewed by Marilyn and an unidentified gentleman (possibly Chucky) who apparently doubles as the cameraman. It is possible, however, that somebody else is operating the camera, and the unidentified second interviewer is simply sitting somewhere behind said camera. Millie, Betty Brickstone, Betty Koupos, and several other people I cannot identify are seated in the background. Allie, Ben and another child make cameo appearances. The setting is one I am not familiar with. It might be a finished basement area of some sort, or possibly somebody’s family room. The wide floor-to-ceiling wood panels that cover the walls are interrupted by curious shutters that might befit a medieval castle.   Doss shares stories about her parents (Ida and Samuel), how they met, and what life was like ...

She bends over the bathroom sink for the entire three minutes, forty-five seconds she allots to the task of brushing her teeth. Scrubbing her central and lateral incisors, she holds the toothbrush still and shakes her head vigorously from side to side. Her eyes stay fixed, as much as possible, on the grimaced reflection of herself in the mirror. Note how she enjoys this furious cranial oscillation. It makes her dizzy; sets her stomach on the cusp of tossing up last night’s salmon burger. It even gives her a “touch” of whiplash. As she later explains over cocktails, this “process” provides the little “bump” she no longer gets from a fourth shot of expresso. 

Bass-O-Matic :  What happened to that girl in the building who gave you the cold shoulder for no reason? FireVaney : Whenever we cross paths, she just glares at me. I usually step aside and look to the floor. Fortunately, she keeps to herself. I rarely see her at all. Bass-O-Matic :  Next time she glares at you, why not pretend she has heat vision?  Just scream and pretend to melt.  You could even lament, "What a world, what a world!" FireVaney :  Speaking of the Wicked Witch of the West, I just finished reading Baum’s book. Other than being a good title, I don’t know why it’s called  The   Wonderful Wizard of Oz . The Wizard has very little to do with the story. Anyway, I read it because I recently sat through a high school production (largely adopted from the MGM feature film). The early Kansas scenes dragged on a bit, unlike the novel—where, from beginning to end, Dorothy is in Kansas for less than five quick pages. Bu...

Operation Dessert Storm is a week old. [ Sic .] I gave Kev a lift home. He lives on the Fort. Driving into and through the Fort is normally a piece of cake. But this time, at the gate, a guard with an M16 around his shoulder pointed to the parking lot ten feet away. That was as far as I could go. Kev told me about a Chevy that went further. It was a small Chevy and it blew past the gate. Three guards opened fire until it stopped. Somehow, the driver was not injured, but the Chevy was riddled. Does Allstate cover a military assault? I couldn’t solve the last four problems of my algebra final, so I looked up from my desk and gazed over the gym—the structure of it, the rows of desks, the risers, the scoreboard, the banners, the painted sports figures on the wall, the large chart of record breaking track and field athletes. A voice in my head kept saying, “This is your school. Make of it what you want.” But I feel like I’ve failed my school—and myself. Anyway, I’ve never felt the ...