The dive

The ripples danced beneath my feet as if invisible fairies were flying over the pond and landing on the surface for a tenth of a second, and taking flight again. My pale bare feet dangled above the water. The four dark hairs on my toes pointed up at me, wiry and thick. They were so long and black. I could have easily plucked them, but I let them grow out. What was the point of plucking them? It's not like I had a jar to keep them in.

The breeze rustled through the trees lining the pond, a gentle whispering technique that nature was attempting to deploy as a soothing ruse. It wouldn't work on me; I was much too strong of mind to fall for a trick like that. I looked over my shoulder along the wooden dock. A few splatters of bird shit stained the dark wood in a white spotting design, like a Roy Lichtenstein painting. Beyond the dock stretched my parents' gravelly backyard, full of discarded furniture and trash, used up remnants of life.

Their home loomed in the distance, the home I had grown up in, the home I had grown out of, the home I seemed to be visiting with increasing frequency as my adult life fell apart. I was coming back more and more to escape something. Visiting this small town I had lived in as a child, I took comfort not in fond memories, but in any memories at all.

The sun was disappearing behind the trees, sucking any sense of warmth out of the evening. Shivering, I knew it was time to go back. I looked at the house, waiting to be motivated to want to go in.

My hair whipped across my face and I stood up on the dock. The damp wood felt creaky and good beneath my feet. I wiggled my toes, digging myself into the dock, trying to become it. I wanted to be the rotting wood. I wanted to hover over the pond. I wanted to be a place to sit and pretend to be pensive. Teenagers would come sit on me if I was a dock and they would make out and touch each other and pretend to have deep meaningful conversations and to share their feelings and I would be under them, sitting patiently waiting for them to get it over with.

I stood at the end of the long dock with my back to my house. My posture was tall and straight. My feet dug into the dock; my toes curled over the edge. My armpits were moist. I attempted to keep my trembling to a minimum as I would need the use of my muscles and some level of agility from my limbs. My knees were loose, not bent but not locked either. I took a deep breath.

Raising my arms above my head I jumped into the air. Midair I bent my body, flipping my legs up behind me in a pointed human leg tail. My hands came together, clasped themselves automatically, and pointed down into the water. I let myself slide through the air, cutting through space and time like a pointy dagger. All sound washed away. I closed my eyes and now my entire senses were being controlled by the tactile center. I could feel everything. I could feel all the particles of moisture in the air seeping in through my shirt. I could feel the emptiness sliding away.

My pointed hands hit the freezing water and I slipped easily through, making very little splash. The water was too murky for me to open my eyes, but I didn't need to at this point. I swam down farther, kicking my toes. I was speeding away from the surface, away from my day job, away from my friends and family, away from the rent I didn't know if I could pay, away from the ex boyfriend who cut me out of his life, away from the desperation and loneliness and desire for connection, away from putting my foot in my mouth, away from everyone I loved who I ultimately hurt and broke and disappointed, away from the smell of cheese.

Thus submerged I felt safe, hidden, and free.

The pond went deeper than I thought. Without feeling tired, I swam for miles, down into caverns far below our adorable fishing pond. Soon enough I didn't need to breathe. I had escaped. Opening my eyes finally in the darkness, the water was much clearer down here, which seemed counter-intuitive. A few yards from me I could see a tiny house underwater. It was pink, the size of a child's playhouse or a shed. It was resting in a tree, that had somehow grown underwater. I swam towards it.

When I got there I opened the front door of the tree playhouse and let myself inside. No one was there, not that I really expected anyone to be, not that my expectations of how normalcy worked had any weight down here. The house was barely tall enough to fit someone of my unimpressive height and size, almost as though it had been custom built for me. The walls inside were a rich green, my favorite color. Breathing, for the first time underwater, I could smell coconut and freshness.

There was a small table set up in the center of the house. It was lined with a tea set and some plates of plastic fruit. A stack of comic books rested on the corner of the table. On the floor lay a few old barbies and action figures. In chairs sitting around the table were two porcelain dolls and a big teddy bear. The dolls had glass eyes that stared at me through  the water with piercing shining brightness. The teddy bear had black button eyes that seemed to watch me wherever I moved around the house.

There was an extra chair next to bear. An empty tea cup sat in front of it. A small lacey doiley curled up at me, like a dead dry leaf rotting on the sidewalk. I sat down next to the bear in the empty seat. I didn't help myself to tea, but rather just politely looked down at my hands in my lap, occasionally stealing glances at Bear and the dolls to make sure they were enjoying themselves. They were. They remained frozen in time forever, underwater at this tea party.

Monologue Jokes Attempts

John Boehner said there's no such thing as the GOP's war against women. Said the still undeclared war in Iraq, "But if you believe hard enough, dreams do come true."


Karl Rove said Obama was too cool to be president. Oh, I get it now, Rove *wants* the country to be run by a hapless loser.


A 20 year old girl claims that Justin Bieber got her pregnant. Justin wrote an entire album about her. Said the woman, "Gee thanks, but all I wanted was $600 and a ride."


Beyonce was named People's most beautiful woman. "Good, good," said the scientists who put the soul into the giant barbie. "They think it is a People."


The Beach Boys are releasing their first new single after 20 years. It's going to be titled, "Just wait 3 minutes and we'll get back to the hits."


24 year old singer Rhianna said that her experiences with domestic violence actually empowered her as a woman. That's so horribly offensive to me as a woman, that she's younger than me.


 A 20 year old girl claims that Justin Bieber got her pregnant. Justin wrote an entire album about her. Which seems like overkill when all she really needed was help going down the stairs.


Burger King pledged to not get meat from chicken raised in cages ever again. Because who needs cages when the evil wizard can keep them imprisoned in his mind?


Gingrich said he will leave the race but remain in the national spotlight. Said stage manager, "fire the guy doing the spotlight! He's clearly fucking around."


Scientists claim the mad cow outbreak is a random freak mutation, which is government doublespeak for yes, Virginia, there is a zombie god


Scientists claim that the mad cow outbreak in the US is a random freak mutation, which is government doublespeak for yes, there are zombies

More attempts at monologue jokes

At the Coachella Music Festival, Tupac Shakur was resurrected by means of an unnervingly realistic hologram. Foreshadowing the creepiest way to cope with losing a child.

Rumors have surfaced about the imminent release of an iPad mini, for when just you want that special someone to think you have big hands.

Reportedly, Nasa may have found life on Mars. "Oh my god, aliens exist! We're going to be attacked!" said the microscopic bacteria when Nasa found them.

The new iPhone case can stop a bullet, so if you're afraid of being shot, put the iphone in your front shirt pocket, so it'll be easier to steal.

According to a recent study, videogames are hurting the lumberjack industry because most people would rather play games than engage in a dangerous difficult profession. Following that logic, also hurting the lumberjack industry: literally everything.

Reportedly the new iPhone case is bulletproof, begging the question, why would anybody try to shoot your phone?

Marvel announced that they are not doing a Hulk sequel. Thank goodness. Nothing against the Hulk but he’s been in three movies in the last few years. Maybe it's time to do a super hero movie with a woman protagonist, hahahaha just kidding, let's make another Spiderman.

A man used Google earth to find his long lost mother after thirty years. So I guess we really can't run away from our mistakes forever.

Rumors surfaced that Mel Gibson may be in the new Sin City movie, working alongside Frank Miller, who came under controversy over some anti muslim comments he made about Occupy Oakland. Said Mel Gibson, “Wanna come to my slumber party? Bring your own sheet.”

Newt Gingrich hinted today that he is considering dropping out of the election, alerting everyone, that he thinks he's still in the election.

Reportedly you can now install a feature on youtube that will allow you to press an "I cried" button after watching emotionally moving videos. So your cries for help can be answered by a 12 year old calling you a f***t.


Today in China, Scientists cloned a sheep. And I think it's going to be so cute, when he does the chores for the original sheep.

untitled

Light filtered in through the slats on the wooden shutters in white stripes over the dark green painted walls. The sounds of my roommates echoed through the hallways from downstairs. The echo of their voices was thin like a string wrapped from an old sock and stretched throughout the whole house until it was strained and about to tear. The sound of jovial conversation emanated from far away but intermingled into it was laughter, mixed gently. The sea of adjacent but disconnected human interaction soaked the evening. It seeped under the doorway and lapped at my bare feet.

Leaning against the wall, I tried to catch my breath, but realized I wasn't out of it to begin with. The tension in my chest area only tightened with this realization, a dark cloud inside my torso, rising from my stomach. I felt like a dark tornado was spinning in a tight spiral beneath my rib cage, winding tighter into itself. Utter chaos and mayhem swirled deep in the pit, and yet when I looked up, my face looked calm.

In my reflection, my lips weren't trembling, they were round and parted, sticking out grotesquely like a fish's. My cheeks weren't damp. The gloomy grey light filtered in through the room illuminated my face in foreboding shadows. The cold light highlighted the bones beneath my skin, the angles that they created beneath the sack of human skin. It reminded me that ultimately I was a structure, a skeleton. Dangling loosely over the framing, characterizing walls were flaps of muscle, tissue, blood and skin hanging like sheets pulled over a tree branch to simulate a child's tent.

I looked normal but I didn't really look like me. My reflection was a robot that had been built to look like me, but was lacking something important, something deeper than the mechanics. All the parts were there, but the internal programming was jammed. The structure was sound but something was very severely broken, shattered with the soul. This terrified me and had become a more oft reoccurring thought that drowned out any other daydream, hope and even analysis.

Inside the external structure oozed a pit of bad things, swimming up and spoiling all the lovely perfect shiny knobs on the robot walls. I stared into my eyes, dark, scared, the only part of myself that oozed nervous energy right now. I took a deep breath and realized it was time to let go.

Leaning over I clutched my aching lower abdomen with one hand. My palm applied pressure. The tornado of anxiety inside of me danced with excitement at the imminent release of the storm. Nausea overcame me as the tornado screamed for escape from its prison. I swiftly flung my braided hair from the front side of my shoulders to my back. The braid fell thickly with a thwap against the winged jut of my shoulders, reassuringly sliding into place. I crouched like a track runner about to begin a race. Then my fingers drew to my lips.

It should be more difficult to do something like this, but it's so simple that I can't imagine why everyone doesn't. I used to feel crippled with guilt and shame for doing this, but now I feel so shameful and dirty when I don't do it. I opened my lips and out flew the tornado like a black winged bird into the quiet room. Soaring easily, the twister was a violent swarm of energy, tension, disgust, pain and failure. I heaved for a few minutes, coughing and spitting until I was free of it. It glided ethereally around the bathroom for a moment and then cascaded in a rushing torrent down into the toilet. Surprised I reflected that that the violent energy had a moment ago been brewing inside of me.

As it drained from me, into the toilet, I felt free and light. My abdomen shook, releasing the energy. The poison seeped from me like puss from a would. It leaked from me, an inner darkness that I was so happy to be rid of. The tornado consisted of tears, screaming, criticism, fighting, curling away into oneself to shut everyone else. The tornado was an amalgamation of hiding under the desk in your bedroom behind a pile of laundry and pillows after seeing your neighbors, together, on top of each other, yelling, sweating, shaking, while you cry and run back to your own house, unaware of what you saw or what you're doing or why you feel so dirty and ashamed and helpless. And that feeling was evacuated fully from me and replaced with the calming euphoria of absolutely nothing, for the time being.

I wiped my mouth with my hands and turned on the faucet, dipping my fingers into the stream, letting the cool liquild cleanse myself. I breathed for perhaps the first time in a while, a deep healing breath. I was empty of the anxiety. I filled the now clean and pure vessle of my torso with another deep fresh breath.

"Hello," said a voice.

I turned back away from the mirror and looked at the toilet. I jumped back in surprise and then rubbed my eyes and stared. Sitting on the seat was a small gnome-like creature. He had on black pants and a green sweatshirt. A long grey beard tangled over his tiny gnome face. His feet were bare, crossed one over top of the other, and swinging over the toilet edge.

"Hi," I said. I shifted my weight and looked at the toilet for a second and then at the door to the hallway.
"What are you doing?" the gnome asked.
"Getting ready for bed."
"Oh."
I looked around the room searchingly.
"Aren't you going to ask me what I'm doing?" the gnome asked.
"Sorry. What are you doing?"
"I don't know. I guess I'm getting ready for bed too."
"I see."
"May I come to bed with you?"
"No," I said.
"Just... no?"
"Who are you?'
"I'm your tornado."
"You're a gnome."
"Yes."
"I got rid of you. I voided you from me."
"You have a queen sized bed?"
"Double."
"Thought so."
"You can't... um... you can't sleep over," I said.
"I can."

I forced my feet to take a baby step forward. The linoleum was cold and harsh against my soles. My pajama pants hung long, curling under my heels and dragging behind me. I clutched my arms, hugging myself for comfort. Motionless, the gnome watched me. I reached out and with one shivering finger, flushed the toilet. The gnome was sucked down into the bowl. He spun around, his beard clotting in the toilet water, his clothing saturated. His eyes stared up at me, beady at black like marbles. He smiled at me just before he was sucked down into the pipe. His smile was the last thing I saw of him.

I turned the light switch on in the bathroom and then remembered I was leaving and decided to turn it off. I unlatched the door and padded down the hallway. One of my housemates heard me leave the bathroom and opened his door and walked into it. I wondered how long he had been waiting, if he had tried the door, if he had knocked.

I went back in my bedroom and fell onto my bed. The thick blankets easily wrapped all the way around my unsure form and I cowered under them. I shivered for a while and then rested back against the pillows and stuffed animals. The screaming in my head quieted to a dull roar. My housemates downstairs were turning in for bed. Gradually the sensations of light and sound grew dimmer. Something akin to comfort stroked my shaking back. The night overtook my eyelids like a gentle man in a faun costume masquerading as a prince. I was warm and for a split second right before I slid into sleep I almost convinced myself I was somehow safe from and not afraid of whatever was brewing like a tight tornado inside of me.

Another walk

The grey sidewalk curled under my feet, cracked and covered in filth. There was so much trash spilling from the cans, spills of someone's gargantuan hot dog oil splashed across the ground. The sidewalk was my insides, blurry and inconsistently visible as I stumbled along my path. People thought the city seemed attractive, or at least acceptable, but they were looking up. Everyone looked up at the lovely old buildings, the impossibly tall trees, the whimsical old lampposts glowing through the romantic comedy setting of a city. The tourists has their eyes trained on the horizon complete with ocean and fluffy clouds, while I kept my eyes trained downwards, avoiding the gaze of others, watching my own feet, pretending to be invisible, and taking in only the dirty sidewalk.

Trembling with the anxiety that accompanies being in a bar packed with human beings, it felt relaxing to be outside in the dark. I weaved across the sidewalk with uneasy feet. I passed men loudly yelling to each other in what sounded to me like anger, but could easily have been a friendly hug of the minds. I'm aware that I'm so sensitive to it that any display of anger or aggression or abrasive contrariness strikes me as terrifying and places me on the defensive. People who like being aggressive say that I fear assertive personalities because I'm emotionally repressed, but really I just grew up around anger and maybe I have a reason to be conditioned to fear that emotion. That night though, I was too drunk to really own my emotions, fear or otherwise.

I didn't need to look up to walk home. I knew my way via following the ground, drunkenly following the invisible breadcrumbs of social anxiety leading to the candy house of my loneliness. Couples sloppily kissed in closed storefronts, their arms wrapped all the way around each other and then some. Their pheromones this late at night excited me and nauseated me simultaneously.

My insides saturated with beer drowning the inhibitions, I halted my gate abruptly at a seemingly random point on the street. I looked up and saw the divey hole in the wall place. Through the lit window I could see the slices under the glowing warm heat lamp. Jarring neon alerted the drunk late night pedestrians that yes they were still open, obviously, and you, yes, you, are in fact their target demographic. Smells spilled out into the quiet darkness and I allowed myself to enter the green doorway.

Inside the tiny place was warmly lit with yellow orange light. The floor was black and white linoleum. The green little tables looked like they had been stolen from someone's trailer's patio. The soda machine hummed a hello to me and I nodded back to it. The greasy moisture of the air clung to my skin and hair and I breathed it in.

Standing behind the counter was a pimply faced tall skinny man. I wondered how he was this thin and worked at a place like this. At the sound of the bell on the top of the door, he looked up from his phone and made eye contact to me. I slurred my order to him, fumbling over verbal language, which hadn't passed my lips since the beers. Unfased, he grabbed two slices of cheese and put them in the oven to warm them up. I should have told him not to worry, that by the time I got home they'd be cool anyway. I ordered extra tomato sauce, which I love so much I want to drink like it's thick sludgy tomato blood and I'm a tomato vampire.

Hesitantly I waited for my slices to come out. I stumbled around for a second and sat at one of the many open tables. I propped my elbows onto the table and leaned my chin into my hands, both unsure of what I was doing with my life and subsequently okay with it. I waited and waited for my slices to heat up. It was weird since they had been under the heat lamp initially, but they must have been very cold.

The bell above the pizza shop front door rang and in came a woman in a floral sundress, a clean neat cardigan, and high heels. Her hair was long, clean, and recently had been brushed. Her makeup was minimal but sweetly pretty. She held a purse that didn't have any holes in it almost mockingly. She smiled at me with a genuine pleasantness and went to the counter to order. Her heels clicked against the linoleum floor. I looked at my watch, unable to read it in my drunken vision. It was unclear where she was coming from or going to. I wondered if she wondered about me and reminded myself that no, probably not.

Dangling from her wrist was a long pink leash, attached to a fluffy mix-mutt of a dog. I think it was a boy dog but I nevertheless or perhaps subsequently found it very beautiful. I stared at it's thick white and brown splotched fur spilling over adorable ears and healthy dog muscles. It, he, it, had big blue eyes, peering straight into mine over his black nose and open, smiling, tongue flapping mouth.

The eyes were blue like a summer sky in a city with better weather than here. They seemed to go deep into the base of the dog's skull, and somehow also resonate outward toward me, reaching like bright blue fingers, grasping towards me.

"Hello," I whispered to the dog. The woman looked at me, raised her eyebrows, and looked away.

Inexplicably and also completely obviously expected, the dog stared right at me and started crying hard. It wasn't the occasional eye leakage that happens with dogs, but thick, continuous, weeping tears that fell down his beautiful snout, into his mouth, soaking his fur and paws and splattering onto the pizza parlor floor.

"Why are you crying?" I quietly asked, as if I wasn't supposed to be speaking to the dog, as if they would stop me from consulting with him due to a conflict of interest.

The dog didn't answer, but shook his head sadly. The woman picked up her to go box of pizza and headed out the front door of the shop, sending me one last pitying look as she exited. The dog followed, no longer crying. His tail was wagging as he went; maybe he was excited for the pizza. I wanted to tell him that dogs don't eat pizza, but I didn't want to be the one to disappoint him, not today, not here, but ideally never.

My slices were sitting on a box on the counter with my extra helping of marinara sauce. I tucked the small personal sized box under my arm and strutted out the door, not caring that the pizza would spill and smoosh against each other. I was making a secret mess no one but me knew about inside of the box. The cheese would get stuck together and the sauce would spill and the box would be stained with the grease and oils. When I opened it later I knew it would look like a cheesey murder site and it would be disgusting and shameful and delicious and it would belong to me.

bus ride

Belonging to both everyone and no one, I considered the seat mine for some inexplicable reason before I even sat down. I leaned back in my green linoleum seat, against the cold window. My eyelids drooped heavily down. The skin flaps swooped low over my throbbing pulsating globs of gook that oozed from my sockets. I wiped the snot from my leaking eyes and realized I had forgotten my glasses at home. I shrugged and curled into myself.

We jostled forward with a rhythmical rocking. The other passengers quietly huddled in their seats and looked at their phones. Some pulled out a book. I was too tired to reach into my bag. Across from me sat a woman with long blonde hair and black framed glasses. She was wearing lipstick, which seemed out of place. I never wore the stuff because it would inevitably get all over my coffee cups, water bottles, hair, bowties, sandwiches, leaving a sticky mess of sludge and make me feel like a dirty filthy freak. Nothing makes me feel more unclean and disgusting than a trail moist of apricot gloss on a clean white coffee mug.

I caught myself staring at the woman and shuddered, looking away abruptly. I looked down at my knees and imagined her expression, clearly uncomfortably freaked out by me, maybe switching to a different seat, maybe telling her friends later about the behemoth monster of a girl who had stalking, lovingly stared at her on the bus.

After staring at my pointy knees and anxiously trembling thighs, I became mesmerized with the pattern of my jean fabric worn unto itself. My jeans hypnotized me like a failed entertainer who's life is regaled to providing high school seniors with hackneyed amusement. My eyes sagged down. My chin slumped and hit my neck, my scarf swirling up to my ears, engulfing me in a blanket of things, comforting and dark, that I couldn't really feel or accept.

As sleep lured me away from the bus ride I felt that every time I closed my eyes, all the other passengers would leap up and start dancing. I imagined that as soon as I looked away, into my subconscious, they took advantage of the privacy and pulled out their musical instruments from under their skirts and behind their seats. Jealously, I opened my eyes and everyone abruptly re-assumed their posts of reality, looking blank, waiting for the bus ride to end.

Floating in and out of dreaming, I was vaguely conscious that I wasn't getting enough sleep to really make it worth it if I missed my stop, not that there would be a situation where that would be worth it. The songs of the bus passengers overtook me and I told myself I could sleep for three minutes and then I'd feel better, more rested, all day at work, that these three minutes were valuable precious sleep time.

I woke up, shaking and alert as I heard the driver announce a stop. Panicking I freaked out that it was my stop and ran out the front door of the vehicle. Something was different immediately but, still reeling from dreaming, I sorta accepted it and headed up the stairs like I thought I was going to my office. The steps were cleaner and closer together; the walls were golden as I climbed upwards. When I got to the to the top of the stairs the strands of sleep clogging my consciousness had been shaken off and I knew something was wrong.

"I got off on the wrong stop," I said apologetically to a man who couldn't have cared less. "Sorry," I added. He was wearing a big overcoat and he looked offended that I had the gall to speak to him. He walked off in a huff. I turned to head back towards the bus stop, to find a new bus, to get to work which I would indubitably be late to, wondering if I had subconsciously done this on purpose.

Down at the bus terminal the floor was black and white tiled with red pieces of paper tossed around like a smattering of dead wishes. Without my glasses the scraps of paper could have been rose petals, but upon closer inspection it looked like someone had dropped a load of red origami paper and not had a solid enough sense of shame to clean it up.

A metro worker stood at the bus stop, holding a clipboard. I approached him nervously. He was wearing a silver elephant mask that I thought looked pretty nice. It was just the top half of the mask so you could see his human chin and big happy smile when he turned to look at me. On top of his head was a small fez that I was jealous of.

"Hey, sorry, um, when's the next bus come?" I asked.

The elephant masked bus stop attendant dropped his smile. Behind the mask I could see his humanoid eyes (blue! green! I don't know!) showing concern. "Are you expecting someone?" he asked.

"No," I said. I looked down at my feet, my sneakers, peaking out from my too long jeans. I never bought pants that fit me because an act of that much responsible intelligence would involve shopping in the junior's department at the store and I was afraid of the juniors with their teenage attitudes and bold voices and weird confidence.

"I got off on the wrong stop."

"What's your name?" asked the elephant masked attendant man.

"Barbara."

"Barbara, you really need to take care of your eyebrows."

He handed me a huge sharp set of gardening shears and gestured to my brow. I let my fingertips go to my forehead and felt my eyebrows, long and flowing down my face, thick and wavy with a delicious curl. They were as long as my regular hair.

"But what if I like them long?" I heard myself say. I caressed my tresses with a loving stroke.

"I'm sorry, that's not your choice to make." He sounded genuinely regretful, looking at me with obvious sympathy. "Not here anyway."

Accepting the hedge shears, I obediently cut off my gorgeous black eyebrows and they fell to the tiled floor in long glossy locks. A tiny bird swooped down and plucked up my eyebrow hair in its beak. It flew away to add my DNA to it's nest. I wondered if the DNA from my hair would mix with the incubating eggs while the bird sat on them and create a Barbara bird. I wondered if the bird would just be like a regular bird but with my face and if it would sing like me, high and quiet.

"Beautiful," smiled the elephant masked man. "May I have this dance?" He wiped his already clean hand clean on a moist towellete and then politely held it out to me.

I hadn't heard the music until then, but there it was, loud, glorious, fun and charming. Mandolins, clarinets, harps blared in a circus-like song through the bus terminal. I obediently accepted the elephant masked man's hand and he placed his other hand gently on the small of my waist, the only four inches of my waist where I wasn't embarrassed to be touched, which was considerate of him. We began to waltz, which I didn't know I knew how to do. My feet found their spots, my hips found the rhythm. I held myself at a perfectly erect posture and smelled the stranger's warm neck, careful not to look up into his dark blue, creepily familiar eyes.

"I need to find another bus," I said softly. My voice was an insecure, unsure mumble. Did I need to find another bus? Why? What was the rush? Would the other bus have dancing?

A man in a lion mask approached us with a tray of champagne flutes and tiny seafood rolls. I took a glass of champagne and sipped it. I looked up at the elephant masked man and he was staring intently into my eyes, holding me tightly around the waist, watching my face and my thoughts with so much empathy that I wondered if he was inside of my brain. I gulped down the bubbly sensation.

"You can't take a bus from here. Some busses come to here but none leave from here. Arrivals only. You are here now." His voice was beautiful and deep. I found myself shyly dropping his gaze to look down at the floor, accidentally checking out the bulge, feeling my cheeks redden and my muscles tightened in horror and shame. I shook with the tension, feeling my breath constrict in my lungs.

"But I got off on the wrong stop," I stammered.

"There are no wrong stops," the elephant masked man said.

And before the words had dripped from his full lips, I already knew he was right. My scarf fluttered off my neck and into the middle of the bus terminal, a floating flag waving in the darkening tunnel, a flash of green against the golden walls and even though there was no wind it stayed afloat for forever.

based loosely on a true story

More Monologue Jokes

Newt Gingrich admitted that Mitt Romney is “the most likely” nominee, however he still refuses to drop out of the race, employing the well seasoned homecoming princess strategy of running as an underdog (who happens to be racist and crazy.)

Newt Gingrich said that running for President “turned out to be much harder” than he thought. "Gee, I wonder how hard it would be if he actually got the job," said none of the supporters he has left.

Gingrich admitted that he has no chance of being nominated but refuses to drop out, because it's cute how you can't even see Romney's lips move when the dummy stares at you with lifeless eyes.

Gingrich urged Santorum's followers to now support him, which is like saying, "Hey, you know how politics fooled you once?..."

The Lawyers for George Zimmerman withdrew as his legal council because he would not return their calls. Geeze I guess everyone has read He’s Just Not That Into You!

To mark the 100th anniversary of the titantic sinking, a cruise ship will retrace its original path. Said ghosts, "Hear that? They're just asking to be haunted."

To mark the 100th anniversary of the titantic sinking, a cruise ship will retrace its original path. Geeze, I hope these guys aren't in charge of the challenger anniversary.

Monologue Jokes

Sometimes I attempt to write monologue jokes....

This week Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion. Now, maybe someone can take an artsy vintage picture of that money and show it to a starving child.

Reportedly, The Hunger Games may be seeking a new director for their sequel. Which is like saying, (said in a voice like you're calling a kitty): Here, Peter Jackson, here Peter, c'mere, who's a good boy!

According to a recent study, some homophobic bullies may be acting out because of an attraction to the same sex or parental pressure. Said victims, "oh good, I was hoping you had a tortured psychological excuse for being a douchebag."

Pizza Hut is introducing a pizza with hot dogs injected into the crust. For when you want your body to know how much you hate yourself.

A group of scientists have designed a plasma light device that can kill bacteria normal soap can't touch. "Gee, that seems kinda personal," said bacteria.

A new law was passed in New York instigating the removal of all sex offenders from online games. Because we wouldn't want anything creepy to happen in MMORPGs.

Recently Apple delayed a game's release because they were worried the teddy bears in the game were recruiting tools for pedophiles. Which is like saying, hey, pedophiles, we don't call the police for things like that, but watch out we might delay your game release a few weeks!

Parents everywhere panicked when a three year old boy found a live grenade during an easter egg hunt. Which is so upsetting and scary, that he found the christmas presents eight months early!

A new law was passed in New York instigating the removal of all sex offenders from online games. Said sex offenders, "But... we have nowhere else to go...so... cold."

Recently, a New Jersey man survived a metal nail driven through his heart. Maybe he should have watched a single episode of Buffy before attempting the stupidest vampire suicide ever.

A Las Vegas industry is commercially marketing an IV that reportedly can cure hangovers. But a numbing medication can't remove all of last night's mistakes.
Key: Picture of diapers.

For more jokes of this ilk follow @barbara_holm on twitter

the island

My beach was beautiful; I'm not bragging it's just an obvious, accepted fact. The sands were clean and white and devoid of seashells or litter or anything. The wind had been ethereal, carrying sweet fresh smells and sounds across the bay. Birds sometimes scratched love notes to me in the sand and then flew up into the endless horizon, across an ocean that went on into the distance forever. But that was so long ago.

Now birds never came to my shores. Fish didn't even want to swim close to me. I was/am alone and I felt utterly helpless and locked away from everything. Trash lined the previously pristine natural beach. The trees had been cut down and replaced with ugly huge condos.

The waves rushed against my sides, with nourishing but chastising strokes. They caressed my ribs firmly and I tasted the sea salt as the water splashed up over me. I kept my eyes closed and my heart closed tighter. Tiny streams of oil and petroleum oozed through the massive ocean and inched towards me. I tried to squirm away from the grease as I floated through the disgusting sludge of this new world.

I felt their feet before I really saw them walk across me. And then I heard their voices, sharp and shrill, screaming to fill the silence of their minds and my shores. Why do humans have to be so loud just to drown out any potential for a genuine thought? Why are they such chatterboxes? What would be so bad about just sitting and listening to the sounds of the ocean, their thoughts, the beach, the bird shit splattering over the gravel man-made path, the grumble of cars in the distance, the wail of horns and music and television and everything of the city, the crying of babies as they overpopulate themselves, destroying the planet and the air and their minds, the screams of murder victims- okay nevermind, I get it now.

The humans walked across me. The female human took off her shoes and laughed at nothing important. She kicked her shoes into the sand and looked back at him, her hair in her face, the wind twirling her skirt over her calves. The man's temperature rose when her shoes flew off and his heart beat faster. He reached his hands around her waist. She froze at his touch. He pulled her to him and smelled her hair.

She turned back to him and pushed him gently away. He looked down at her and she looked up at him, quizzically, beggingly. She asked him a question. Her voice rose up at the end. Her eyebrows met each other. She paused and hesitated near him, hovering in hope and also despair. His heals dug into me and his weight shifted.

He brushed her arms away from his, dropping her hands, and muttered something downwards into the sand, something defensive, something cruel and selfish, something in his own best interest, lacking empathy for her.

She screamed something horrible and cruel as loud as she could, hitting as low as possible, cutting as deep into his self esteem as she could, something catty and filled with malice. Her voice was high and angry. Her hands crossed each other breasts, her arms tight against her nipples. Her eyes narrowed.

He threw up his hands and turned from her. He walked back towards the parking lot where the sludgy gas guzzling suv sat waiting, warm and nestled in dependence. As he walked away from her, his footsteps made no sound in the soft malleable sand. With his back to her and the sound of the sea below, his angry muttering was all but drowned out.

She sat on my sand and breathed out heavily, a humanoid pant, she gave into the wash of the waves and the feel of my solid ground and let her self escape into tears. Sobbing and shaking, she sat alone on my once beautiful beach.

Dedicated to Ross Parsons.

Untitled Thing

The clouds swam outside out the window, pooling in a frothy mug of cloud foam. I tried to imagine sucking them into the room with my mind, in through the open window, and slurping them up into my nostrils and coughing as they absorbed into my brain. It would be cold and icy and feel like a refreshing drink, stinging my eyes. Would the other children drink the clouds into their brains? Or would it all be for me? I don't think they would get any clouds. They would have to sit and watch in fear and jealousy while I sucked them into my skull.

I sat in the wooden desk, running my hands over the grainy lines. The table top was attached to the back of the chair and I felt locked in like a roller coaster. My eyelids grew heavy and hung low like the thick curtains in my grandma's house. They were long dark curtains that each weighed as much as me. My grandma hated the sunlight and attempted to shade her living room enough block it out. She wore sunglasses when she went outside. When I was little I had thought she was a vampire. Now I mainly thought she just was from Alaska and that's what she was used to: darkness. Could one become accustomed to other types of darkness besides lack of sunlight? Could one become accustomed to being shrouded in emotional darkness, heavy curtains cloaking the windows of the mind? Could darkness of the heart just become another thing I was used to, like brushing my teeth and having to sit by Peter on the bus, just part of my routine, part of my identity to be in the dark?

My eyes fell shut and my chin dropped to my chest. I knew I was falling asleep in class and would soon be scolded. I was aware of it as I slipped from consciousness but the thirty seconds of napping still sounded like it was worth it. I fell from reality, through the cracks in the classroom and retreated deep into my mind. There was a long hallway. My feet were bare but I was in jeans and a t-shirt, which is weird because I wore a dress that day to school. But the dreamers can wear whatever they want in their dreams. I could wear a bunny suit. I could make everyone else wear carrot suits. But there was no everyone else; I was alone.

At the end of the hall stood a man in a tuxedo. He wore a monacle and a top hat. I thought he was very pale and white at first and then I realized he had no face, that his top hat was levitating in the air and his monacle was resting on nothing. The white I thought was his skin tone was the wall behind him. I reached out to touch his face and my hand slid through where his head should have been. I waved my hand around like i was trying to feel the air. Accidentally bumping his monacle, I yelped and took a step back.

"Sorry for bumping your monacle on your lack of face," I said.

"Happens," said the man out of no mouth whatsoever.

"Do you know where we are?"

"No."

"Do you know what happens now?"

"No."

"Oh."

"What would you like to happen now?"

"I think I'd like to be held now," I said.

"Okay."

The man with no face nor head reached his arms around me. The tuxedo sleeves rubbed against my arms. His hands gently cradled my back. He pulled me in with a softness, not like he was trying to hurt me, but just like he was there and I was there and he was with me. I started crying thick sheets of tears, falling from me like a printer shooting out paper, page after page of the neverending novel love story that some author thought was really heartfelt and was actually just commonplace.

The tears fell hard from me, cascading down and soaking my t-shirt. How could there be that much salt water inside of my body? I wasn't a big woman and I didn't eat that much salt or even drink that much water. Yet my body continued to produce tears until I was shaking, throbbing with exhaustion. I laid down on the floor of the hallway, curled into the fetal position in a puddle of my own tears, and fell asleep. A teddy bear climbed up into my arms and I was okay with it. The man with the monocle and the top hat stood over me, watching quietly.

More attempts at monologue jokes

Sometimes I attempt to write monologue jokes

Reportedly simply watching dance activates a muscular response. So that's why standing against the wall by myself at the party leaves me so sweaty.

A New York man and son were arrested for burying a 26 foot long stolen truck. Which is ridiculous. Now they'll never get their magic truck tree!

AFA foods is facing criticism for using "pink slime" to disinfect meat. Which I agree, is a dumb way to promote Ghostbusters 3.

French scientists report that people feel sexier when holding a glass of alcohol. Said glasses of alcohol, I know, me too, but we can never be together, we are of two different worlds, but please just lay here and hold me for a little bit longer, Jack?

Consumer spending for Easter is up 11 percent from last year. Wow, can you believe the price increase in shovels to dig up undead deities? I don’t know what Easter is.

This week Bruce Willis became a father to his fourth child. Which is so adorable that the number of daughters matches that of die hard movies

A new study suggests that people who have sleep breathing problems have a higher risk of depression. Duh, if you stop breathing in your sleep you'll feel much less depressed.

Florida legislature overturned a ban on dying animals different colors. I know, I know, it's really fucked up... that anyone would even try to ban the creation of carebears.

President Obama said if the Supreme Court overturns his health care law it would be “judicial activism.” Oh, cool, “judicial activism” must be a new vocab word for idiotic.

A cat in New York City attacked his owner and ran away by smashing through a glass door. "Don’t make me adorable, you won't like me when I'm adorable," said hulk kitty.

Astronomers reported that in addition to the moon, there are always two 1-meter asteroids orbiting the Earth. Which is what we get for having a black president.

Levi Johnston, the father of Bristol Palin’s baby, may have gotten his new girlfriend pregnant. "Sure give him all the credit," said Johnston’s basement full of African fertility statues.

Mitt Romney said Obama was out of touch after “years of flying around on Air Force One, surrounded by an adoring staff of ‘true believers.’” Because apparently the president's job description mirrors that of a cult leader.

Yahoo is cutting 2000 jobs, or 14 percent of its workforce. I wonder why they're having so many problems? Maybe I should goog- oh.

New York City Police warned everyone to look out for a new bracelet that with a plastic handcuff key. Because they are like so hot for the new fall line! Can you get that at Forever 21?

For more monologue style things follow @barbara_holm on twitter

Waiting for Dinner

I sat on the wall of the darkened room, scanning for any sign of movement. My six eyes grew heavy with exhaustion and I blinked hard, squeezing them into the flaps of my face muscles. Even with my eyes closed in the dark, I could see everything clearer than most people could. My feelers twitched above my head and I tapped one of my long hairy limbs against the white wall. I accidentally scratched some of the paint off, and self-consciously moved a centimeter away from the spot.

The room was empty and cold, save for my warm body, the only source of life in my apartment. There was a vacant chair in the middle of the room, and that was the only furniture. At one time she had sat there and I had crawled into her hands, into her lap, and we would talk for hours. I used to tickle her arm with my leg and she would giggle quietly. Now the chair was dusty and a layer of my own webbing blanketed it's antique wood.

I could feel my temperature dropping slightly as I became more malnourished. I couldn't remember if she was supposed to come today to drop off food. She came almost every other day with a meal for me. Why did she still come? What was in it for her? While we no longer bonded, it was still a genuinely pleasurable experience to see her, to know that she was doing something for me out of kindness, love, fear, guilt and obligation.

The hours and days ran together. I would just wait for her to come. There was no one else. No one even knew I existed. I was really, genuinely alone in my predicament.

It hadn't always been like this. When she first found me, she had told her friends and they had come to see me. They were other humans like her, with skin and only four limbs and only two eyes. They didn't drink the blood of flies when they were thirsty. They were freaks. I couldn't believe she would bring them to me. One of them pulled out a small black box and it made a clicking noise and flashed a bright white light directly in my eyes. I had screamed and cried in pain, unaccustomed to light after years of nocturnal seclusion. I reached out one of my legs and scratched the human's weak, flimsy face skin. The humans began yelling and hitting each other and ran for the door. A splash of the human's red blood landed in a puddle at my feet. She watched me in regret and then slowly turned her back on me.

I looked out the window, careful not to show my face to anyone outside. Bored, I watched as humans pushed carts with smaller infantile humans in them, the smaller ones being the leaders. I watched small adolescent humans pulling at their canine counterparts. I assumed that humans mated with canines. I watched them make that joyful purring breathing noise they call laughing. I knew I couldn't do that.

Bored, I tried to guess the time based on the number of feces I had left against the wall today. To cheer myself up, I crawled down the wall and tried to work up the energy to do a nice frantic scurry. The hard wood floor was covered in layers of dirt. I tried to brush it off with my furry leg, but really there was no point.

Smaller spiders than me would occasionally come visit, but they never stayed long. They simply wanted to look at the legend, the majesty of the loneliness of my existence. They gazed upon my giant limbs and round, black, fur covered body in awe of my emotional, physical, and mental imprisonment. I was their revered god and I was also the thing they feared becoming.

The day swam into evening and my thoughts grew quiet and repetitive. I began to weave a web absentmindedly. My urine stained the white wall in a muted splatter the shape of a cow's head. I named it Johanna. I had nothing to do all day, all week, all lifetime, but to wait around and think to myself.

The knob door finally creaked with the force of someone turning it's rusty elderly hinges. The door flung open and she entered in a flourish. She wore a knee length white skirt with no leggings underneath. Her peachy skin was hair compared to other humans, and exposed beneath the loose linen. Her sneakers paced gingerly over the defecation splattered floor. She tightened her pink hoodie around her long yellow head hair, as if in protection. She smelled like everything, like the outside world. She was a buzzing ball of glowing energy, flitting through the room like a fly I could never kill.

"Arachnid?" She called.

I scurried toward her but didn 't dare touch her. My feelers burned with the desire to wrap my web around her, but I knew that if we were to become intimate again, she would have to make that move. I stared up into her two brown eyes, and she set the dinner on the floor for me. She smiled wordlessly and turned to leave the apartment. I wanted to call after her, but my desire for nourishment overrode it. I looked up when she closed the door behind her, with a heavy slam, and locked it twice with both deadbolts so no one could get in or out until she reappeared with the key. I slurped up the mottled fly guts and gobbled it down into my gullet. I listened to her footsteps clack softer and softer as she ran down the stairs and let herself back out of the building. She probably took a fresh breath of freedom air as soon as she was outside, or maybe did a lighthearted dance to herself and I would swallow, close my eyes, and restart the clock as I waited for her to return.

Dedicated to Andy Palmer (he's not dead he just inspired it) (I just knocked on wood.)

More Monologue Jokes

Sometimes I attempt to write monologue jokes....

Research shows women can have an orgasm from exercising, but it doesn't feel as good as the one you get from lying in pizza grease and masturbating to Buffy.

A Brazillian man dressed as Batman to fill his community with inspiration that maybe someday they too could be the cause of their parents' death.

According to a new study human noise affects plant life... In the plant's defense the human was screaming, "No, I won't feed you, Seymour!"

Research shows women can have orgasms from exercising, but they don't feel as good as the ones you get from being in a loving relationship with porn.

Reports say that the average teen texts 60 times a day, which is ridiculous, that anyone in high school has that many friends.

A new frog species was discovered in New York that is completely different from any other frog species. For example, most frogs aren't covered in that much smudged lipstick.

According to a new study popcorn is healthier than some vegetables. So now I have to throw buttered carrots at children who won't shut up in the movies.

According to a new study human noise affects plant life... But that's nothing compared to how a human reacts when a plant says "whats up."

A Dumb and Dumber sequel is in the works and I'm so excited that now I'm old enough my dad can't forbid me from watching it! Because he's dead.

According to a new study, green coffee beans may facilitate weight loss. But still I won't try it in a box, with a fox, I don't want your green coffee and ham, sam I am!

Bee populations are dropping, becoming increasingly endangered. Said everyone, (shrug) "Good."

Bee populations are becoming increasingly endangered. Said dying bees with their last breath, "Don't say we're dropping like flies!"

If you like one liner things I write for more jokes like this follow @barbara_holm on twitter