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Another Big Dumb Object

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"James, can you take a peek at problem://7ac5e46f today?" "It's just another big dumb object. Seems low priority." "Escalated by the directorate."

Frank Meets Francine

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I interviewed in an hour and didn’t have an umbrella, so I ducked inside the next door I passed. It didn’t matter what they sold, I wasn’t there to make a purchase.

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 4

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That night we slept on the floor of Kirk and Maggie’s apartment and listened to them arguing all night about art and life and love. Ah, me, I sighed, the sad soul of America! I thought of Walt Whitman. I thought of Allen Ginsberg.

Of Cameramen and Death Squads in Tbilisi

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we share somewhat the same past he was bureau chief of ABC overseas

The Thrill of Sky Diving

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It's not that you want to be silkworm all your life. That's what I'm telling my on-again-off-again girlfriend aboard the plane. Her name is Phoebe as in that song about a girl who lived in her own world within the shell of another. Phoebe, I'm saying, to bridge distances…

Veld fire

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The crackling inferno sweeps across the ground Devouring all in its scorching path

A June Defection

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I came from the only flat region in the kingdom of mountains and fjords, and called the city “Down in the Dumps”. The beleaguering mountains smelled a flatlander when they saw one, and hated me right back.

With Ann Coulter on the Jewish Conversion Tour

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A little bony for my tastes–I wonder if she’s on the Lady Di diet. I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers, but it would be like sleeping with Eva Braun.

Joseph Campbell by the Aloe Vera Plants

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There was man from antiquity that sat next to me. His belief in the healing qualities of Aloe Vera so pronounced, that the house brimmed with such. He had no use for modernity in any of its forms but was fond of supermarkets. When in one he was overwhelmed with an…

Sees, Kindness, and Made

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SeesWe fell into this lake together and traced the clean soft lines straight back to ourselves, with a carefree laugh, ha ha ha-- an embarrassing ease. This small miracle does tend to put in orbit something high flying besides clouds into the sky inside of…

Samuel Stoltzfus’ Divining Plate

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It’s true that there are many accounts of fascinating Amish dinnerware, but none is more interesting than Samuel Stoltzfus’ Divining Plate, forged in 1881.

Blue Jeans and Black Leather

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I lock the last of the beer and wine doors and head back to the cash register. Our clocks are not on bar time so I only have a few minutes. I check the till. A stack of ones and three fives. Enough to break a twenty, but looking bare. The parking lot's empty. The air…

Proper Grammar

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Another thing about Dysthymia is how I get locked into a thought, a needle in a record of a song I can’t get out of my head, a song that drives me crazy until I hear it again, until I play it just the amount of times to where my brain is satisfied.

Something About Ireland (from FATHER MUST)

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That’s the way it went all day with me—didn’t get far, didn’t see much, just, with Mary, drank tea here and there. A fine day it was, too; not cloudy, not raining...

Revenge Is A Dish Best Served On Tiny Plates Along With Matching Pretty Teacups

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The Gothic-filigreed gate creaks as a guard closes it behind the little girl in the ruffled dress. Standing there in the morning fog, on the sidewalk outside the reform school, she looks remarkably like Shirley Temple. Dimpled, chubby face. Pretty, party dress. Her…

Beautiful Plague

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Jacob Obrecht, you are beautiful. Everything inside your head and everything you’ve ever made is beautiful and singing.

A Night Ride With the Girl Scout Legbreakers

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It’s two o’clock in the morning, and I’m lying in bed, wide awake, drenched in sweat. I know what I need–a Thin Mint cookie–but I don’t know where I’m gonna find one.

William

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The sun browbeat me relentlessly, like a one-eyed judge with an unforgiving heart.

writer’s block

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round & round this empty block again & again i go

The Thirteenth Sign

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I'm twelve again and

Black Coffee

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“I don’t see how anybody could do it.” “I could do it. I could do it because it ought to be done. When a thing needs doing, it’s best to go on and do it.”

What He Knows What She Knows What You Know

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next time i come around i want to be a redwood.

My Boogie Man

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We'd both done well to avoid crying before today and I couldn't stand to see him like this. I crawled on my hands and knees to the closet. “David, come out of there. I…I don't like this any more than you do. But you can't come to college with me.

Story

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For two days, I bashed out words with grimacing fingers, wrenching images from my whining consciousness – a weak, lumbering, uninspired piece – and now for what?

Confess another sin

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Telling Maybelline Jones

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Maybelline Jones is my sister, my friend, and I try to tell her the right way to be.

Lingering Over Language

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The mornings he comes in

Hoops

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Backs in the grass, legs straight, bare feet resting at angles, Rachel and I, both of us seven, looked up through the oak limbs that made black lightning cracks across a blinding blue sky. Three hula hoops sat trapped in the trees’ sprawled grasp.

How We Send to Anderbo

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She's always sitting in a soft chair watching television with little stars dotting her elbows and lightning bolts on her wrists.

"Changes" Isn't Just A David Bowie Song

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Erin Hoffmeyer Zulkoski. I was at work today, doodling on a piece of scrap paper. I often find myself writing my name, practicing my signature, for when I become famous. I have always written "Erin Zulkoski." Today, I wrote "Erin Hoffmeyer." This…