The spinning of the Spanglemocumentary story is going exactly as I had thought it would, which is saying that it is just as hard to keep up with as I thought it would be.  It is an impossible task, really, to go toe-to-toe with the Spanglemonkey and attempt to offer thoughts and false insight on even just a small fraction of the profusion that pours from that place, let alone think that I can say something entertaining about each and every entry while at the same time introduce (and create on the fly, mind you) the completely fictional history of Dr. Robert Stevenson.

I am two weeks into the impossible project and so far only a couple of days behind, which isn’t bad given the holidays and all, but not as good as one might expect when you take into account that Jo herself has been a bit quieter than usual.  The real challenge will come when she breaks back into full stride.  Am I ready?  Hardly, although I have given some thought to the direction that I want to take Dr. Stevenson’s story.

If you haven’t been following along, here’s a recap as well as some hints of things to come:

1. Dr. Robert ‘Obtusi’ Stevenson, amateur anthropologist, has hidden away in the home of Jo Spanglemonkey for a one-year study of her and her family.
2. Dr. Stevenson believes himself to be the great-grandson of Robert Louis Stevenson, proof of which hinges upon his ability to prove the existence of an illegitimate child born in 1894, yet unnamed, born between RLS and Princess Kaiulani, heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Hawai’i before its overthrow in 1893.
3. Dr. Stevenson believes he is the rightful heir to the Kingdom of Hawai’i.
4. Despite any lack of formal training (or any training at all, for that matter), Dr. Stevenson seems to have something to say about nearly every aspect of human behavior.
5. Dr. Stevenson has an assistant named Rudy.
6. Dr. Stevenson, during the course of this study, will receive startling, eye-opening news regarding his true heritage.
7. Dr. Stevenson’s ties to a second, even more shocking illegitimate baby will throw everything into unexpectedly sharp focus.
8. Presidential secrets will be uncovered and revealed for the first time, resulting in a car chase, a sky diving incident that goes horribly wrong, an icy plunge into the San Francisco Bay, and the mysterious disappearance of Rudy.

Or maybe a week into January I’ll simply run out of steam and disappear along with Rudy.

It took me all day to clear off my desk.  All day.  One man, one desk, and at least two months worth of mail.

It’s safe to say I have lost touch with modern-day reality.  I have become economically unglued, falling apart at the seams, dust of dreams no longer recognizable.  If I am to see myself somehow, I must refocus.  The caricature of my life redrawn.

Tonight I am going to try and imagine the new year, close enough now that even someone as out of touch as me sees it there, pushing up against the present.

What can it possibly mean?

The role of children is to steal everything from the parents.  Eventually everything must be turned over to them one way or other, whether we like it or not.  That’s why the idea of inheritance was invented - a half-assed attempt to lessen the parental pain of being replaced.

I bump out my parents, my son bumps out his, and so forth and so on.  The only way to avoid the whole process is to not have any children, but then guess what?  You still get bumped!

My own son stole my biggest bookshelf from my office on Christmas Day.  Or maybe it was the day after, I forget, which is of course ridiculous since it’s only been one day, or two, depending on what really happened, but like I said, I’ve already forgotten.  Memory, you know, is also one of the things the kids steal, but we tend to think of that as one of the good things that comes from all the thieving.  We want the kids to steal our stories and traditions.  It’s really our only hope of being remembered, after all. 

Anyway, like I was saying, the boy stole my biggest bookshelf the other day, but - and I’m almost ashamed to admit this, especially about my own son, no matter if he is a thief or not - like so many kids these days, he’s just downright picky when it comes right down to it.  I don’t know what’s happening, but I’ve been looking around lately and I swear we’re getting bumped aside by what has to be the biggest bunch of finicky kids I’ve ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on.  But I won’t attack your kids, because, well, that’s your job, but my own son, he’s fair game.  The shelves, for example.  The boy stole my shelves but left all the junk!  Just piled it all up, right there in a big heap in the middle of the room! 

But I have high hopes for the day, don’t get me wrong.  I haven’t been completely replaced, not yet at least, so yesterday I started sorting through all that junk that the boy left behind and got most of it put away, even better then it was before, I think.  I shoved around the remaining bookshelves and reorganized most of my books by topic and if I do say so myself, got the place looking downright productive.  Like I said, I have high hopes.

The best part though (and this is sort of my little secret to you) is that I did such a good job of organizing all that old junk I’m almost positive the boy will want to finally steal every bit it on his next pass through.  Get it all out of my hair, once and for all, and I can get on with things.  Important things, I suppose.  Important things that don’t involve junk.  Whatever that is.

Now that is what I call a good night’s sleep - eleven hours of peaceful dream bliss, one intermission, and several rather pleasant wake-ups followed by complete agreement to doze “just a bit more”.  I am rested, all of yesterday’s desserts seem to have finally found a corner to settle into, and I am ready to play a little catchup at the Spanglemocumentary.  My immediate concerns include a cup of coffee, some tunes for the Scrinecast, and helping Scrine lose his Christmas hat.

The boy is still asleep, the house is quiet.  I kind of like the low glow of the Christmas lights strung around the edge of the kitchen ceiling, and am considering leaving them there awhile.  What’s this?  A decision?  Am I on the verge of once again becoming a decision maker?

One of my highlights of the Christmas season included a small gathering at Jill and Keith’s (not the Other Keith sometimes found around here, but another Keith) house to sample some of Jill’s famous homemade eggnog, which I’m pleased to announce, lived up to its reputation.  Jill’s present from Keith - a beautifully refinished 1890’s pump organ.  You haven’t lived until you’ve heard Jill play Stairway To Heaven on a turn of the century pump organ.  A perfect bit of surrealism for anyone’s holiday season.

For Christmas I wished for more time and a good pair of shoes, so that I could walk all around the world, stopping at each and every one of your homes to knock on the door and give you all a big Christmas hug when you answered.

It sounds like a lot of work, maybe because of all the walking involved, but I think it’d be worth it.  And because I’m not magical or anything, I couldn’t get around to everyone on just one day, so while technically I’d be calling it a Christmas gift, some might want to think of it as more of a gesture, to avoid growing anxious while they waited for me to show up.

And I could start walking right away, or maybe later today, after lunch.  It’s just a rough guess, but I’m thinking I could be delivering Christmas hugs in Boston as early as the 4th of July, if I leave today.

So until I get to your house, Merry Christmas, my invisible friends.  May all your friends and family within reasonable walking distance wrap their arms around you today and every day, and hug you with all their might.

But not so hard that it hurts.  No one wants that for Christmas.

The Christmas Teeth is already high on Google’s list - 29 and rising - for those searching for “the meaning behind Christmas”.

Who was that first person who actually followed the link?  What did they imagine would be waiting for them on the other end?  Did they find what they were looking for?  Will they be back?

Two days until Christmas, and if you want to know if I am thinking of the Christmas Teeth the answer is yes.  I, too, feel their pull.

I answered the the phone a few minutes ago and it was Herman Melville.

“Hello.”

“My good man, I’ve been calling now for months without success.  Most vexing.  I’m afraid to say I had all but given up on reaching you.”

“You had?  Sorry.  Who is this, by the way?”

“Why, Mr. Herman Melville, my dear sir.  I’d heard you’d had a bit of run-in with that scoundrel, Dreiser.”

It’d been several months now since Dreiser had called.  While I do remember him calling, I’m more than a little ashamed to admit that I can’t actually recall what it was we talked about.

“I believe in the end, everything was worked out for the best,” I lied to Melville.  It does nobody any good to admit the failings of a spotty memory.

“Nonsense.  Now ask me your question and let’s be done with it.”

“Ask you my question?”

“Yes.  Ask me your question and I will answer it clearly and precisely using only quotes pulled from my work.  Better yet, I will let you choose.  You may choose from any piece other than Moby Dick.

Other than Moby Dick put me in a bit of bind.  I’m even more ashamed to admit that a list of Melville’s work was even more fuzzy to me than my conversation with Dreiser.

“There are simply no clear answers in that story,” Melville said.  “Now, choose.”

“I’m thinking,” I said, stalling for time.

“Perhaps you could ask your question while you think.”

“Good idea.  How about, ‘How will I fair in the new year?’ How’s that?”

“Sir, that is perhaps as vague a question as I’ve ever had the misfortune of laying my ears upon.  But asked, it will be answered as promised.  Now, from where shall the answers come?  Let’s get to it, man.  The sea waits on no man, as they say.”

“Alright.  How about Billy Budd?”

“I was more than hoping you would choose one of my poems.  The Tuft of Kelp, perhaps, where I would have then replied, ‘If purer for that, O Weed, Bitterer, too are ye.’ “

“Yes, I see.”

“But if you’re set on Billy Budd, then Billy Budd it will be.  Ask your question, and I will answer.

“How will I fair in the new year?”

“ ‘That is thoughtfully put,’ said Captain Vere.’”

“That’s the answer?”

“No, no, of course not.  I was just warming up.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Okay, how about this?  ‘...something in your aspect seems to urge that it is not solely the heart that moves in you, but also the conscience, the private conscience.’ Does that help clear things up for you?”

“Yes, thank you.  I feel much better now, knowing that.  I’m glad I finally answered the phone.”

“Yes, so am I, my good man.  So am I.”

The crowds pound against the store’s doors like angry waves.  I am determined, but not without fear.  I will have but one attempt, no more, to cross this ocean in my small cardboard boat.  An impossible task, but I am determined.  I will arrive in time, on the far side.  Christmas will be saved.

Now time is running out.  Five days, and it’s looking worse all the time that I’ll be able to come up with my Christmas story.  And yet, five days.  Five days is still a long time.

Back in my day I knew a man who could hold his breath for that long - well, to be completely accurate, I met a man once who could hold his breath for that long.  I’m serious.  Serious as I am about finishing that Christmas story of mine, and that’s serious.  Anyway, this isn’t about my story but about a man who really knew something about what a man could or couldn’t do with five days time on his hands.

His name was Tom Silvers, but he was known mostly around those parts as Silent Tom, on account of all the demand to see him perform this remarkable feat of his, which of course, meant that he spent quite a bit of his time saying nothing while people stood there, staring at him not breathing.  Most would watch him for an hour or two, maybe an afternoon, or sometimes a handful of old guys might set up a table right there next to him with a checker game going to keep them busy while they watched.  One time I watched him all day, trying to see if I could catch him cheating somehow, but Silent Tom would just wink at me every time I’d spin around to catch him, then just go on not breathing.

Believe it or not, people eventually began to lose interest in a man who could hold his breath for five days, and they stopped coming around so much to watch him, although the name Silent Tom stuck as long as I can remember, even though when he wasn’t holding his breath, Tom Silvers talked just about as much as the next man, maybe more.  And I couldn’t tell you why people stopped coming around, because personally, I remember thinking that being able to hold your breath for five days was just about the coolest thing I could imagine being able to do, and I’d lie in bed at night, practicing in the dark, although I don’t recall ever making it much past a minute or so.

Eventually five days turned into five years, then five turned into forty, and I moved far away from any place that had ever heard the name Silent Tom, and certainly knew nothing about a man called Tom Silvers, although I’d still ask people once in awhile, just in case.

I’m not sure what this has to do with The Christmas Teeth, most likely nothing, but tonight it seemed important somehow, kind of like the way I’d practice holding my breath as a kid, even though I never did become very good at it, or even improve for that matter.  Maybe it has something to do with my Christmas wish for everyone who comes around here - the wish that people would stop holding their breath for me, out there wherever you are, waiting on something that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do.

But if you’re still there, not breathing, you might take a look at my latest experiment with the written word, entitled WTF! - a Spanglemocumentary.  It is more of the same of what I’ve been doing all along - a blending of fiction and reality with the hope of spreading a bit of suspended disbelief throughout the world.  The difference with this little endeavor just happens to be that the reality part of it is pulled from the pages of another person’s weblog, Spanglemonkey.  Jo Spanglemonkey has boldly agreed to this little experiment of mine, with the promise that I will pull it all down should things happen to somehow go awry.

And after all that, you’re still holding your breath, waiting on The Christmas Teeth, I apologize.  I’ll keep practicing and maybe some words will come pouring out the way the words used to pour out of old Silent Tom after five days of not breathing.  The words smelled kind of funny after keeping them bottled up like that for so long, but man did they spill out, once they got going.  That’s what I miss about Tom Silvers.  Those funny smelling words of his, not the silence.  You can just go ahead and hang onto that silence if you’d like.  I’ve had plenty already.

Pulling the Merry Berry Cranberry Cheese Bars from the oven, I could see the crumble topping rising and falling, like a creature asleep.  Kind of gave me the creeps.

However, I anticipate no trouble eating the beast.

Don’t let ‘em fool you, kid, when all hell breaks loose it’s in little chunks and not everything at once like they’d have you think.  Scared talk, that’s what that there is, scared talk to get you all riled up.  Hell no!  It’s little things you don’t much notice, like your truck actin’ up or your kid takin’ a poke at you when your back’s turned.  Or like that good bitch of yours getting killed last winter.  Ain’t no sense in a dog gettin’ stomped down like that by some fool horse; none at all, and that’s just what I’m talkin’ about here.  You listenin’ kid, ‘cause I ain’t got no time for nursemaidin’ some fool kid too stupid to listen.  Hell no I don’t!  I got problems of my own.  Real problem you wouldn’t know nothin’ about.

Fred would be the boy who married the girl with the beautiful teeth, but of course at the time, we didn’t know this.  Me, Fred, I’m sure even the girl didn’t see this one coming, although to hear her tell it now, thirty years later, you’d think she’d planned the whole thing all along.  I’m staring at Shelly’s mouth, watching her form the words, but still having trouble keeping up with the conversation.  I’ve never met a woman without perfect hindsight, I’m sure of it, and worse yet, sitting there staring at her mouth like that, I can’t stop thing about the Christmas Teeth. 

The truth is that I have no idea what I think I’m doing, other than I promised a Christmas story and now feel compelled to give one, which somehow lead me one way or another to a story about Christmas teeth.  Christmas teeth?  What the hell are Christmas teeth?  I’m here right now to tell you, dear readers, that I have just about as much of an idea as you do.  Yes, it’s true.  I’m afraid my Christmas story is going to turn out to be about something I know nothing about.

I’ll sleep on it tonight, and hopefully, dream about these so-called Christmas teeth, whatever they might be, and that in the morning, when the sun finally comes up on another day and the frost on the lawn begins to slowly give way to the green underneath, I’ll know just what it is I need to say; my path will be obvious, my story ready to be told.

Fred would be the boy who married the girl with the beautiful teeth, but of course, neither one of us had any way of knowing this at the time.

I don’t know if what I’m about to write down could be called a Christmas story or not, because I’ve never actually heard of a Christmas story about teeth, but I’m going to go ahead and tell it anyway, and for what it’s worth, I’m going to call it a Christmas story because, well, it’s Christmas time, and isn’t any story that happens around Christmas become a Christmas story**, much the same way that a bedtime story becomes a bedtime story simply because it’s read around bedtime? 

There are all sorts of Christmas stories out there - just about anything a person could possibly imagine, I’d guess - so if I tell you a story about teeth, I don’t see why we can’t all just accept the fact that what I’m about to tell you is a Christmas story that just happens to revolve around teeth, even though, thinking about it now, as I’m about to write it all down, I’m not sure is quite the truth.

The story happens to be about many things, not just teeth (which would be not only ridiculous but kind of boring), so I suppose you might say that it’s no different than all the other Christmas stories out there.  The story of Rudolph, for example, is about more than just a red nose, isn’t it?  And without giving anything away or spoiling the fun for any of the younger or more innocent readers out there, I’m sure there’s more to the whole Santa story then meets the eye.  Even the story of the baby Jesus is more then a tale of a baby born in a manger.  I mean, come on, look at the way that story takes off in every direction at once. 

So yes, while the story I’m about to share is about many different things, it somehow also happens to be a story about teeth, Christmas teeth, I guess we’ll call them, although at the time the story was unfolding, none of us would have known that what was happening was a story about Christmas teeth.  As a matter of fact, I think it’s safe to say that at the time this story was taking place, none of us even had a clue that it would become a story at all.  One day you’re living life, and the next you’re sitting there, talking about it, which to be honest with you, leaves me not quite sure what to believe. 

Maybe in the end, that’s all a Christmas story about teeth can really be about.  You and I, sitting down together to share a tale as we try to decide what is real and what is not, because when you think about it, isn’t that what Christmas has always been about anyway?  Friends and family, mysteriously drawn together to share a bit of time, exchange a few gifts, and huddle around whatever obscure, distended Christmas story they happen to believe in.

This version just happens to be about teeth.

**This story also available in the popular, alternate version, The Hanukkah Teeth

. . . to be continued

from today’s Toothpaste For Dinner

“No, seriously.  You run like a bear, sort of hunched and lumbering along.  Pope Clement VI ran like a bear, too, you know.  I would chase him for hours around the place, just to watch him run.  Man were those good times!”

Forgive me, my invisible friends, for putting off something as timely as my heart warming Christmas story, but I have been visited by the Ghost of Christmas Bubonic Plague, or so he claims.  Personally, I don’t think he’s quite that ominous, but nevertheless seems to be able to conjure up quite a bit of pressure and snot inside my head and follows me around the house constantly.  I consulted Mr. Cooper’s ghost (who continues to remain trapped in the pickle jar), and he says he’s never met this particular shade, but has heard of him.  “That one’s got the attention span of a mayfly.  He’ll be out of here in a day or two.  Maybe three,” Mr. Cooper said.

“I thought mayflies lived one day, not two or three?”

“Give me a break.  There’s no money on the other side, you know.  It’s all true, you can’t take it with you.  But we make up for it with analogy.  Analogy crosses over.”

“He’s right,” the Ghost of Christmas Bubonic Plague said.  “Right as Pope Clement VI’s rotting birth control policy.”

”That’s your analogy?”

“I’m more of a take action kind of ghost.  Behold!” His hands and shoulders shook around a bit and my head throbbed even harder.  My nose started to drip, forcing me to run for the bathroom for a tissue.

“Ha.  You run like a bear,” roared the Ghost of Christmas Bubonic Plague.  He seemed to enjoy his job.

“Another analogy?”

“No, seriously.  You run like a bear, sort of hunched and lumbering along.  Pope Clement VI ran like a bear, too, you know.  I would chase him for hours around the place, just to watch him run.  Man were those good times!”

“When do you think you’ll be leaving?  I have a Christmas story I’d like to get to.”

“Day or two.  I have no interest in hearing your Christmas story, thanks to him.”

“Who’s that?”

“Christ!  Who else you think I’d be talking about?  Wandering around all day long, going on and on about being crucified.  And let me tell you, that guy is one analogy talking fool.  One after another until you can’t hardly make sense of what the guy’s saying.  Absolutely drives me nuts.”

“Crucifixion!  He should spend some time trapped in this jar,” Mr. Cooper’s ghost said.  “Trapped!  Like air freshener scent!  I’m afraid I’m growing weak in here.”

“I just want to tell a story about my friend, Fred.”

The Ghost of Christmas Bubonic Plague just shook his head back and forth, making my head pound.

“Don’t we all, kid.  Don’t we all.”

Curse the boy and that blast of warm, germy breath he blasted onto me while I slept last week.

I’ve tried to get out the heartwarming Christmas tale today, believe me, I have, but I am weak and ill, flopping around the house, moaning and suffering mightily.  Curse the boy and that blast of warm, germy breath he blasted onto me while I slept last week.  Curse him and all his kind - they will be the undoing of us, these contagious kids and their incubation dens known as schools.

And worse!  I have to go shopping tonight for a pair of black pants and a white shirt for the boy, so that he looks symphonic enough for tomorrow night’s concert.  He’ll be the one jamming on the bass, although I’m told he will be bowless.  “We haven’t gotten that far yet,” he says, which leaves a person to guess what kind of concert this is going to be.  I, of course, am imagining one of those Charlie Brown jam sessions, with kids dancing around the piano and the whole bit.

Almost three!  To the school, so that my germs can come around full circle, returning to the petri dish just in time for the holidays!

Whoa, whoa, whoa!  Let’s start that again, this time without all the bothersome parenthetical thinking.  Let’s also leave God out of it, because come on, God reading blogs?  Who’s going to believe that?  No one, that’s who, so let’s quit wasting time and get down to business, which was . . . ummm . . . oh yeah, me.

Now that I’ve plastered a picture of my mug right there on the front page for God and everyone (yes, God reads blogs (although I hear cheats by using one of those RSS feeds (stop and smell the roses, why don’t you?)))…

Whoa, whoa, whoa!  Let’s start that again, this time without all the bothersome parenthetical thinking.  Let’s also leave God out of it, because come on, God reading blogs?  Who’s going to believe that?  No one, that’s who, so let’s quit wasting time and get down to business, which was . . . ummm . . . oh yeah, me.

I’m not much of a picture person.  No, that’s not right.  I like taking pictures, which is one of the reasons I decided to work them back into the site design.  Little revolving pictures that would appear randomly so that you and I can enjoy little bits of my enthusiasm for picture taking.

No, that’s not right either.  I can’t go around saying I’m enthusiastic about taking pictures because I just don’t do it all that often.  I might go on a picture binge once in awhile, but that’s a far cry from enthusiasm.  Enthusiasm is one of those things that you either have or you don’t.  If you have it, you either hang on to it or it hangs on to you.  It’s one or the other, I can’t remember which.  It’s one of the sustainable forces of nature, like cheerleader bounciness, for example, and I can’t sit here with a clear conscience and tell the world that I’m bouncy for photography.  Bouncy?  I should have said pep.  That’s what I meant.  Cheerleader bounciness just brings up all sorts of wrong connotations.  But I’m getting off-topic again, it seems.  Yes, I’m definitely off topic.

What was the topic again?  Something to do with me and my picture, but I can’t now for the life of me imagine what I was possibly going to say about that.  Someone commented on what a handsome picture it was (or maybe they said “nice”, but let’s just go with handsome, which everyone knows is the photographic synonym for the word nice.

Did I just call myself handsome on the Internet?  That’s a good one.  What’s handsome about that picture was my ability to make myself look thoughtful and caring without exposing my double neck or excessively receding hairline.  Or maybe “nice” is the right word, after all, as in, Thanks, Keith, for not showing us your double neck.  That was nice of you.

Anyway, enough about the stupid picture.  I’m planning on replacing it anyway with an advertisement of some sort.  Or maybe a webcam of my beard stubble and call it The Beard Cam.  Oddly enough, the world seems filled with people who are interested in just that sort of thing.

Are you getting the feeling that I don’t actually have anything important to write about tonight?  No, I’m not either.  I was going to write something down about my thoughts regarding the motivations for the site’s new design, but that started sounding a little too bouncy, not to mention boring.  It’s not like I’m one of those power hitter design guys floating around out there.  Who are those guys, anyway?  And who pays them to sit around writing about computer crap all day?

I know I mentioned that I’m writing about a hermit, but did I tell you that I think I’m starting to become one?  Seriously.  I think I’m going through some sort of hermitic growth spurt or something, because I’ve realized that it’s getting harder and harder to make myself leave the house.  But I’m not growing a hermit beard yet, if that’s your worry, but then you’d know that, wouldn’t you, if I had The Beard Cam going.

Enough of this nonsense.  Tomorrow I should tell you the real story about a lost soul who found his way to this site the other day and recognized me from my picture, even though the two of us hadn’t seen each other in thirty years.  True story, I kid you not.  Thirty years and I haven’t changed a lick.  Now that’s what I call good photography.

A sample for IE users showing one of the things they’re missing.

Change is good, and I have much to say about it.  Later.

The new design works in Safari and Firefox.  Not yet tested in Internet Explorer, but I’m imagining some ugliness.

I bet not far down the road we’ll be able to have credit card chips surgically implanted.

Christmas is the perfect time to say you’re busy.  Better yet, too busy.  It’s a great excuse, accepted in just about as many places as the American Express card, unless of course you’re talking about mine, which times being as they are these days, seems to have lost all of its magical buying power.  I may even take it out of my wallet, or maybe I already have, I can’t remember.

You know, I bet not far down the road we’ll be able to have credit card chips surgically implanted.  They already have those tiny little cards you can clip onto your key ring, but come on, who wants to lose their keys and their credit cards all at the same time?  I suspect the implanted cards will be attached somehow to the lower intestines, so that when things go sour the company can deactivate it and the thing will just flush right out of your system.  There’ll be phone calls first, naturally, warning you that you are at risk of being financially embarrassed.

“Mr. Ecklund, not only will your credit rating be adversely affected, but your charging privileges will be revoked.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“And are you aware of the flushing process that will occur?”

“No, not exactly.”

“It happens right there in the store, while you’re standing at the register.  It can be very embarrassing.  Have you ever lost control of your bowels in public before?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“Well, if you’d take the time to read over the credit agreement that . . .”

“I don’t shop much.”

“Well, according to my records here, it appears that you once did.”

“I’ll just have to take my chances.”

“I’ll also remind you that all registers are card-sensitive, meaning that they detect the presence of a bad card, even without attempting to use it.  Even using cash won’t save you from potential embarrassment this year, I’m afraid.  Have you completed your Christmas shopping yet this year?  Perhaps you’d like to make a payment now, over the phone.  The funds can be withdrawn from your Life Force account, you know.”

“What’s the current exchange rate?”

“30.2 days per $1000.  That rate is expected to drop, so you may want to act now.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“You’re young, Mr. Ecklund.  Only 44.  Plenty of exchange years left in you.

So much for the future, what about the present?  Well, right here in Salem the other day, a man attacked a car with a samurai sword.  Felipe T., 19, told police that he noticed a man following him closely, and that after becoming scared, he decided to run a stop sign in order to escape the man.  The man, 48 year old Vernon S., also ran the stop sign, at which time the two cars crashed into each other.  Witnesses report that Vernon S. then got out of his car with a three-foot long samurai sword and began attacking the window of Felipe’s car, quitting only after the sword broke into two pieces.  The car window was not broken.

“I kept trying to pass him,” Vernon S. later told police.  “I was flashing my high beams at him and kept following because I wanted to ask him why he wouldn’t let me pass.”

Vernon refused to explain about his sword.

So it seems another Snake Oil Monday rolled into view while I was sleeping last night, which I guess is no big surprise.  Good for what ails me, right?

I need to roll that boy out of bed here in a minute or two and poke him around the house a little.  Seems the older he gets the slower he moves, which is of course true for all of us, I guess.  I’m certainly no exception, although I still continue to pop out of bed rather early, no matter what time I go to sleep at night.  Fear of missing something, I guess.

Later today perhaps I’ll tell the story of what may or may not become of my Costa Rican brothers - those little brown bambinos whom I’ve never seen and, ashamedly, whose names I can never seem to remember - who may be packing their suitcases this very minute.  My dad sent my brother over this weekend as official family emissary to plead the case.  “Dad says to answer your phone,” my brother the diplomat told me.

I won’t spoil the story now with brevity, because I see that it’s time to rouse the boy from his slumber.

In other news, I’m having fun running my radio station, even if there are no apparent listeners.  It makes perfect sense to me, playing music that falls on no ears.  It’s just like writing.  Anyway, I thought it’d be fun to give Scrinecast its own site, so that’s what I started working on yesterday.  It’s not quite finished.

I never finish anything.

The minute after you start broadcasting music twelve hours or more a day is just about when you realize the size and variety of your music library leaves something to be desired.  You’ve got all these grand ideas floating around inside your head just looking for something to grab hold of, which more and more these days, seems to be some sort of software related greased ghost of a thing.  But the Scrinecast is underway (with many thanks to my good friend Other Keith for all his help with the testing), and hopefully I’ll be able to figure out the software enough to actually get around to doing some of the things I had in mind in the first place.  Like Scrine members reading their own sentences, with those sound files being incorporated into the playlist.  And me, combining music with my own fiction somehow to create something I see in my mind, but don’t quite know how to explain, or create.

Some days are so clear, aren’t they?  Others so vague that it hurts.

The feelings passed, but not the memories, and that forlorn pounding grew inside of him of everything that’d been lost or abandoned, until finally the inside of his head felt coated with layer after layer of failing paint.

At night he would lie in his bed wondering what had become of the windows and the light, barely remembering what brightness had felt like.  Yes, it’d been so bright once, he’d think, picking at chips of the peeling paint, chewing on them one by one, poisoning himself.

Some experimental spoken Word Shadows