I don't know. Gross.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who was really an adult by any other culture's standards with a bad "Rachel" haircut and a bunch of band t-shirts with sweat stains on the pits. She thought she was beautiful in a secret kind of way because she was a fucking idiot and had yet to be crushed by the bloody gummy jaws of reality in the grown up world.

That little girl was me once.

It was late at night or early in the morning when I snuck into Brock's lab with the key I had stolen while he slept. The lab was dark and unfamiliar. I had only been there a couple times before, to visit him, to gain his trust, to bring him lunch or a coffee, to pick him up after work and bring him back to my place so he could boss me around in bed while I pretended I was somewhere else.

That little girl went to class every day and studied in all of her free time. She loved her boyfriend and her friends with all of her heart. She wore her hair in pigtails when she danced at the gym. She cried in the movie Garden State and in any movie where a short brunette girl cries. She really liked scrabble and didn't drink or smoke. She wanted to marry her boyfriend, my boyfriend, and live happily ever after.

I got to Brock's corner of the lab and crawled into the machine. There weren't any instructions or anything but I figured he wouldn't have made it dangerous and then strapped those poor little chimpanzees in. I taped the electrodes to my temples, closed my eyes, and let go of 2013, and disappeared from existence, or rather flooded everywhere into existence, falling backward, falling away.

I saw me longboarding through the quad in baggy capris and a Velvet Underground t-shirt. Halfway through the quad I jumped off my longboard and ran to hug a tall, handsome, half Asian man carrying a pile of books. He leaned down but didn't hug me back because his hands were full. 19 year old Barbara danced and laughed and tried to jump up to kiss him on the cheek. Not being tall enough, and not getting any sort of help on his end, she ended up kissing his shoulder. Then she longboarded away.

Mike continued walking in the opposite direction without looking back at 19 year old me.

I jogged into the quad and ran right up to him. He frowned at me from far away and stared at me hard as I got closer. I stopped in front of him. His brow furrowed and he hugged his books to his chest. His lips dropped open. He took a step back.

"Mike, it's me Barbara, well from the future."
"What is this?" he said. "Is this a joke?"
"No I swear. I'm Babs from year 2013."
"Babs?"
"I go  by Babs now."
"Gross."
"Kid, can we talk?"
"Don't call me kid, I'm older than-"
"Are you?"
"I don't know how this works."

We went quickly to the art building and entered an empty classroom. The classrooms were mostly on the basement level and the galleries were on the above ground level. This one had a bunch of long wooden paint splattered tables and smelled like old clay. I turned to face Mike as he adjusted his hoodie strings.

"I really came to warn 19 year old Barbara about you," I said.
"Why? Wait I don't believe any of this." Mike put his head in his hands. I gazed at his dark wavy falling over thick eyebrows. Under his eyes on his cheekbones were a sprinkle of freckles that I had missed. I paced hurriedly around the art room.
"You're going to break her heart into a million pieces. You're not that into her, but she's in love with you."
"I love her too."
"You what?" I stopped short, pivotted and looked back.
"I love her." Mike was staring at me intently with dark chocolate eyes.
"You never told her...me.... In three years you never said..." I breathed heavily.
"I never told her... you... that I did because I was so scared of losing her..."
"Well you push her away to the point that she has a nervous breakdown and doesn't eat for a week," I said pointedly.
"Hot." He walked toward me seriously.

I laughed in spite of myself. I didn't know what to do with this newfound information. I gazed at my college boyfriend. He was looking at me with sweetness and care in his eyes. How could I have never realized how much he liked me? I guess my low self esteem was getting in the way.

"Barbara..." He said, choking a little on the words. "I love you. I think you're wonderful and a genius writer and super weird and special and I do want to spend the rest of my life-"

I reached for his hand gently to comfort him. He grabbed my hand and pulled me into his chest. With his other hand he grabbed my cheek and kissed me deeply. My heart fluttered like it hadn't in five years. He lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He sat me down on the wooden table, kissing me, and began undoing his belt. I maintained eye contact while I awkwardly yanked my pants off. Within seconds we were one, together again, in love, and feeling every emotion and tactile vibration in our bodies and minds. He kept kissing me while I came hard in a room where I had once done a presentation about pictures of goldfish, or maybe that hadn't happened yet. He kissed me really hard and passionately and I felt more wanted than I had ever felt in my life. I could feel myself losing grip on reality and I could feel the time space continuum getting really annoyed at me. I looked up into his eyes and ached to tell him something, to beg him to do something, I struggled to cry out to him, but nothing happened and I just kissed him.

I slowly dissolved from the past, fading from Mike's arms, and reappeared in the future, crying in Brock's basement.

Mike gasped and fell forward, losing his balance on the empty table. There was nothing but air in his hands. He coughed and put himself back together.

Outside the art room door, a little girl sat listening through the wall, with her knees pulled up to her chest. Next to her sat a longboard and a backpack. She wiped her tears with her Velvet Underground t-shirt, got up, and ran away.

the perfect everything

The second bar we went to had red lights and portraits of angry dogs, which on some level puts people in the mood. I wasn't drunk, but it's not like I needed to be drunk to be okay in this social context. It was so loud that I couldn't have really spoken anyway. The band played another poorly derivative sad song replete with too many guitars and slightly ahead of the beat drums.

"Want to dance?" I squeaked. I pushed my glasses up my nose. Then I fidgeted, taking them off, rubbing my scarf with them, and then placed them on top of my head so he could see my eyes. I don't know if my eyes are my best feature but I think they convey the most vulnerability, which is probably my only attribute.

"No. I don't dance," he said.

I just smiled at him. Whether or not he was dancing with me, my heart was clearly dancing in my chest. He gave me a quick dimple heavy grin and looked above my head. He smiled and nodded at a friend across the bar. I reached for him, aching to be held. He rubbed my lower back with one strong confident hand absentmindedly and took a sip from his beer. I leaned into him, fitting the top of my head under his chin, and looked up. 

"Do you want to get out of here?" I asked. My voice was so high and annoying. I coughed. Think about Scarlett Johanson! I told myself. Deep and sultry. Think cleavage but for your voice.

"Joe just got here. You really want to leave?" He said.

"Um, sorry,  I meant, like no, but maybe later maybe go back to your place together..."

"Oh."

"Nevermind," I said. "I'm uh easy going."

"Because that's what easy going people say."

"Yeah. No. Sorry."

He left me at the bar for awhile and talked to a couple of his friends. I replayed different scenes from Pride and Prejudice in my head and fiddled with my hair, or in other words, was awesome. After a while, he slung his messenger bag over his shoulders and stood up. He looked at me over his shoulder and beckoned his head. His black hair slid over his eyebrows with the confident toss. He smiled a little bit with just his lips, raising one eyebrow.

I hurriedly pushed the two books I was reading into my purse, grabbed my wallet from where I had dropped it clumsily on the floor, like an adult, and hopped up to follow him. He was looking down at his phone and slowly walking out the door of the bar. I jogged to catch up at him and he didn't say anything. I reached for his hand. 

Stammering, I added, "Just-to-be-clear-I-was-inviting-myself-over-to-have-um-you-know-like-sexual-intercourse." 

"Gross! Dummy," he said. He kissed the top of my head. I loved how tall he was. He was like the perfect height, the perfect everything.

We got to the bus stop and waited in silence for a minute. I reveled in how much I liked this guy, maybe loved him. I reminded myself not to say anything like that in bed. When we got to his apartment he unlocked the door and let himself in first. I made a note that that was a thing guys who were into equality probably did. He was probably a super big feminist  I followed him in. Once inside, I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck and tried to kiss him.

"Wait here a sec. I need to go clean my room," he said.

"Buddy, I don't care if it's messy," I said, kissing his neck.

"I do. I just... I have to put some stuff away, okay? Stuff I don't need you to see..." 

He pried my arms away and went into a room, closing the door behind him. It shut hard and I jumped a little, even though I was expecting it. I walked around his living room. The shelves were filled with various stacks of books, videogames, and movies, haphazardly organized. The top shelves where I couldn't reach were lined action figures, little robots, and various toys. I pulled a book from the shelf. It was Eugene Mirman's book... not that this detail is important. I just don't want you to think I was trying to put on any airs here. Like I coulda grabbed that Dostoevsky book, but that'd be like an intellectual push up bra, right?

After about twenty minutes, the bedroom door opened. He came back out. I shut the book and hopped off the couch, twirling toward him with a giddy grin.

"Heeeeey-" I stopped short and immediately dropped the flute-like trill from my voice. "Wait what's wrong?"

He was looking over my shoulder, above me. He looked scared and confused. His eyes were wide, red rimmed, and twitching. Tiny droplets of tears streamed from the corner of his beautiful ocean blue eyes. He didn't say anything. He stared hard away from me.

I ran to him and threw my arms around him. "Oh my god what... are you okay?"

"I just... I don't know what I'm doing with ...anything..." he said, his voice high and shaky.

I stood on my tippy toes so I could try to caress his head. He stayed motionless like a really big tree. It was so hard to hold someone who was taller and didn't want to be held. "C'mere," I said. I tried to lead him to the couch and he reluctantly obliged.

"What's... what happened?" I said. I realized I was trembling. He wasn't. 

"I don't know... I can't do this." He wouldn't look at me. He started crying again.

I sat on his lap. "Can't do what?" I dragged his arms around my waist, linking his hands together.

"This... I'm sorry. I don't know. I think I just need to be alone tonight," he said.

"Wait what? I'm sorry. Did I do something wrong?" I ran my fingers gently through his hair.

He wiped tears from his eyes. "Can you go?"

"Do you um not want to um have sex first?" I asked.

"No."

"Um, maybe a little bit of kissing?" I kissed his lips but he didn't kiss me back. I wiped a tear from his cheek. He brushed my hand away.

"Please." 

"Sorry. I'm sorry if I made you mad. I'm really... sorry."

"You did nothing. I just need to be alone."
"Can I do anything?" I was crying now too. "I want to help. I'm so sorry. I feel awful." I kissed his hand.
"No."

 "You know, buddy," I said softly. "We're friends. You can talk to me about whatever is... going on. If you want to... I mean. I'm here for you. You can tell me anything."

"I don't want to."

"I know."

Reflections of a boyfriend of a manic pixie dream girl

Week One: Today I met the most amazing girl! She’s so quirky and weird. She has glasses and wears clashing hats. I want to marry her and sleep by her side forever! Wow, she has a high pitched stuttering nerd voice! She’s so accessibly vulnerably hot. I’m head over heels in love! And it’s all genuine; nothing about it is a character!

“Hi, my name is Steve, I couldn’t help but notice you rode a bicycle awkwardly and fell down getting off of it. Would you like to go to dinner sometime?”

Week Two: This has been the best week of my life, that I can conceivably remember! We sang karaoke! Outside we danced in the streets under a lamp! She’s always giggling, playing ukulele, and running around like a fairy. It’s so sweet when she kisses the back of my neck when I’m working. I really am falling in love with this girl.

Week Three: This week has been great! She made me a cute mixtape on a cassette. She does things like cook food in her underwear and leaves her shoes everywhere. I mean, it’s fine, but like, everywhere. It’s adorable. She talks a lot in her sleep, which is childlike and endearing, not too annoying. I really like this girl.

Week Four: It’s going good. Well. I don’t know. She still plays her ukulele and kisses the back of my neck when I’m really trying to get work done. It’s like she’s from another planet where she doesn’t understand that Earth money is made from work, not drawing pictures of cows with stars for eyes. It’s so eccentric and charming... But when I sort of snapped at her for not giving me space she cried sitting down in the shower for an hour. She is really sweet. I think I’m starting to like this girl.

Week Five: Honestly it’s been really hard. It’s difficult to sleep next to someone crying in their sleep like an out of tune Bjork song on loop. She is in her late 20s and still acts like a kid. I don’t wanna fuck a kid! She wanted to sing karaoke the other night. Who likes karaoke? Idiots who wear cat cardigans to job interviews, that’s who. We were walking down the street and some bar was playing a song and she tried to make me dance with her outside in the cold. I told her I just want to go home and watch Game of Thrones, like an adult, and she asked me if I loved her and when I said I don’t know she just got on a random bus, a random one, without looking at the number. What a dummy. How does she even get her shoes on the right feet? I guess sometimes she has mismatched shoes, but, oh god, is that on purpose or not? Ugggh. No, I mean, I do think she’s cute.

Week Six: What kind of fucking adult makes cassette mixtapes? Everything is on spotify now and this grown woman gave me a fucking cassette tape wrapped in flowers and weeds she stole from a neighbor’s garden. I hope she got poison ivy. Just kidding. I think.

Week Seven: Stop talking to birds!

Week Eight: Oh. Oh, god, I’m so tired.

Week Nine: Are you serious? Nothing about this is a character?

Love Letters I'm sure got lost in the mail

From the Comic Book Store Clerk:

Hey, you. Let's stop fighting this. We both know how we feel about each other. We both have glasses and awkward cardigans. Let's just sweep these magic the gathering cards off this sticker clad counter and see where the night takes us.

PS. I'll make sure you're facing the Marvel rack.



From My Literature TA in College:

Dear Barbara,

I am writing to inform you, I am so utterly, completely  and hopelessly in love with you. I know we haven't spoken in four years, but alas, your thoughtful prose and clever use of wordplay slayed me eternally. I shall never be able to forget you. You are an amazing writer.



From My Therapist:

I like your personality.



From the guy I liked in college:

Hey, I'm so sorry for all the things I did and said. I clearly was totes in the wrong. I'm sorry I called you thunder thighs and left you at your doctor's appointment, driving off because I thought it was funny. It was funny, but in a mean hurtful way. I miss you so much. You are the most beautiful girl in the world and I know I don't deserve a second chance, but if you were altruistic enough to give me one, I would do everything I could to make you happy for the rest of your life. Also, you still have my Pixies hoodie. You can keep it.



From the guy I like now:

I was such a fucking idiot not to notice how special you are immediately  Let's have a picnic and do kisses in the rain to a Belle and Sebastian song and be in love forever, K?


From the last guy I intercoursed:

Yes, I left that t-shirt in your bedroom because I WANT you to smell it.


From the guy on the bus who looked like a bespectacled Michael Cera:

Yeah, I did just touch your leg with my leg. It wasn't exactly an accident.



From the barista at my coffee shop:

Hey kiddo, every day when you come in here to write, I try to get up the courage to tell you that you're gorgeous and interesting. I want to read everything you write and support you in your art. Here's a free latte.



From anyone:

You're really hilarious.



From my roommate's dog:

Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!

Morning after

The sun barreled in and woke me up from my night of empty flirtation with sleep. I rolled over in the strange bed and looked at the human being laying next to me. His long black eyelashes laid down over cheekbones, vibrating as his eyes rapidly moved like a hummingbird's heart beat. A tiny droplet of eye water leaked from his tear ducts and I gently wiped it away without waking him up. I pulled the Star Wars sheets up to my chin, closed my eyes, and sighed. I couldn't believe we were finally here after so much wistful doodling his name in notebooks and making mix cds for him that I never gave.

We laid there together, not in each other's arms, but close enough. Outside, cars drove by, and a train yelled at us from the distance. Eventually, Evan's alarm went off. He groaned and shut it off. I took this verbal exclamation of discontent as my cue to curl up and wrap my arms around him. I kissed his warm neck and snuggled into his shoulder. Evan rubbed his hand through his thick black hair. I caught his hand as it was coming down and wrapped it around my waist and then pulled it down farther. He opened his eyes and looked at me.

"Hey!" I beamed.
"Hi," he said.
I inched forward, contracting my body like I was doing a sideways worm and kissed his warm full lips. He kissed me, and then rolled onto his back.
"I can't believe we finally... um... I'm just so so happy right now," I said.

Evan's cell phone rang and the Doctor Who theme song echoed through his tiny room. I giggled, even though nothing was funny, but just because I was so full of bliss I couldn't hold it in. He reached across me and grabbed it from the nightstand along with his thick black rimmed glasses. Shoving the retro frames over his nose, he looked at the phone and  then looked over at me. His eyes looked bigger behind the lenses, like a weird anime boy character. I involuntarily looked at the screen and saw the picture of a girl blowing a kiss over her shoulder.

"It's Joanie," Evan said.
"Oh."
Evan looked at me with big blue eyes. His lips curled into a grimmace.
"I didn't realize you guys were still, um... oh, nevermind," I said.
"Yeah."

He sent the call to voicemail and put the phone down. I smiled, thinking, oh this is because he likes me more, because I was an idiot. I crawled on top of him and kissed his neck and ears. He let his hands reach up to my waist.

"You're so handsome and wonderful," I murmured.
"No. I'm not."
Do you want to...?" I whispered.

Evan pushed me gently off and sat up in bed. "I don't feel very well. Kind of hung over."
"Oh," I smiled. "Wanna go get breakfast? My treat!"
"I think I'm too hung over even for that."
"You don't regret anything crazy you did last night, do you?" I teased with a giggle. I kissed his shoulder.
"I don't know, Babs."

I looked up at him. He grabbed his phone and stared at the screen a while. Then he started texting. His face was strained and lined with worry. I liked forehead lines on guys. It made them seem like a little bit older and smarter and brooding like a hot Charlie Dickens. I'm not like attracted to bad boys, but a little bit of misery seems to make for a lot of passion.

"You, um, okay?" I asked.
"Want me to look up the bus for you?" He said.
"I.... um... I mean.... would you want to go somewhere and work together, like maybe sit on your couch and write or draw or something? You don't have to talk to me, um, it would just be uh...."
"No. I need to get some things done."

I hugged him tightly. I just wanted to be held. Why didn't he lean into me? He continued staring at his phone. His messy hair stuck up like a cockatoo.

"I... I've liked you for so long," I whispered.
He didn't say anything.

I climbed out off bed and grabbed my bra from the floor. I always felt self conscious hooking bras in front of people. I do it upside down and then flip the straps up. I don't know if that's normal. I don't watch a lot of girls put on bras. It's not on my youtube fave list yet. I pulled on my panties. It's weird how many men have told me they hate the word "panties." I think it sounds childish, not dirty. Maybe that's the problem.

"I'm falling in love with you," I said.
"Jesus, Babs." Evan pulled on a t-shirt.

I looked over at him. This was the part where the guy takes you into his arms and says it back, right? The part where he quotes Mr. Darcy and his pacman shirt gets gets drenched in your tears when he tells you you're amazing and that he's never met anyone like you? This is the part where the Wilco-esque music starts playing and it cuts to a montage of the two of you laughing on a beach and riding bicycles and kissing in a park? ....Right?

I got dressed and waited outside for the bus alone. The wind was cold and I tried to calculate if I could walk home faster than the bus would take to come and how many calories that would burn. The sun laughed at me while I checked my phone again for text messages. By the bus stop, lying against the curb was a dead wet mouse. I screeched a little when I saw it, you know, like a grown up. I started walking, my feet numb and damp from a sneaker penetrating puddle. It was kinda raining, just enough to moisten my hair and face, but not enough to make a sound. I pulled my i-pod from my purse, but it's charge was dead, as to be expected.

Like living in a house

Every day after school I'm allowed to walk the first five blocks from school by myself, because I'm old enough now, and smart enough. Jenny used to meet me at the school front steps, which was five blocks out of her way, but now it's more convenient, and I'm an adult. Now I walk the five blocks and I get to have my me time, where I can talk to myself or sing songs or just think about how long my hair is, you know, me time. Then I get to five blocks where I wait for Jenny, who is coming from high school, to come meet me. One time I waited for a very long time. Jenny never came. That was the bad day. But now it's all good.

Today I left school, excited for my five block me time, but Sam Reynolds was there in his dumb hat. I pretended not to see him and walked by him. Sam was leaning against the fence, eating an apple, even though it wasn't lunch time. I hated him.

"Hey...." he said. "Can I walk with you?"
"I guess."
We walked for about two blocks in silence. I sweat through my sweatervest flannel shirt combo I had picked out. Just my armpits were sweaty; my back stayed good. Suddenly Sam looked up abruptly.
"So you live in the house on the hill on Mulberry Ave?"
I shrugged. "Yeah." I said.
"Oh."
We walked a little bit more.
"What's that like?"
"Um. Like living in a house."

We got to the rendezvous. Jenny was waiting in her cheerleading uniform and hoodie that she seemed to wear every day now. There was a stain on the top, kinda a brownish copper color. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail and her eyes looked tired. Her face was sickly white. I would have worried but I was used to it.

"Hi Brenda," sighed Jenny.
I smiled at her.
"Who's this?" she asked.
"Sam Reynolds," I said.
"What?" Sam asked.
"Your name."

Sam shook his head and frowned. After a beat he added bluntly,

"Brenda, let's go," said Jenny. She reached for my hand, but obviously didn't get it.
"Can Sam walk with us?" I stuttered through my teeth, trying to subtly let her know that she was embarrassing me.
"Who are you talking to?" asked Sam.
"Rude," said Jenny.
"Rude," I said.
"Okay I don't need this. I was just being nice to you because of what happened," said Sam.
"Um, whatever," I said.
"Let's go Brenda," said Jenny.
"You are really weird," Sam said.
"Don't listen to him, Brenda," Jenny said.
"I'm not. He doesn't get it."
"Who are you talking to?" Sam asked.

Jenny led me away. Sam stood at the rendezvous watching and then he left. We started walking up the hill. I could see our house peeking up over a fence, glancing down the gravelly road at us, like an angry old lady who really didn't want to buy girl scout cookies.

"So, how was school?" I asked.
"What are you, pretending to be mom?" Jenny said.
"Sorry."
"You're not mom, okay!"
"I know, Brenda."

Jenny started crying really hard. It wasn't fake crying like you do when you want mom to think you're sick so you don't have to do the dishes. It was fat slug like tears squirming out of her eyes, and her shoulders shook forward.

"Don't cry, Jenny, it's okay." I said.
"I didn't want this for you," she said.
"It's not your fault."
"No, it is. It really is. I got... too mad. It's my fault."

I didn't know what to say; I never do. I looked up at the house. The yard was filled with trash and old furniture we had thrown out. It felt like clambering through a playground. The house was in need of a new painting. Some of the outside was peeling. The front porch was dented. All the windows were dark. I squinted at a blurry shape near a shutter, wondering if mom was home. She would make Jenny feel better. I opened the gate and let myself in. The gate swung shut behind me. Still crying, Jenny walked through the closed gate.

I reached up for Jenny's hand. She couldn't hold it, but she let hers hover through mine. An icy shiver shot through my body. Goosebumps erected all over my neck, legs, and arms, and I knew I was loved. Hand in almost hand, we walked up the rocky pathway together towards our house.

My favorite Jokes ever

1. My mother says she wishes I’d never been born and I don’t think that’s true. Because then she’d have a 26 year old man living inside of her. –Dan Mintz

2. “I could never be in a porno because the director would have to keep yelling at me not to fall in love." -Mike Drucker

3. I discovered the cure for depression, here's what you do, you take a blue or black pen, draw a rabbit's face atop your own face. Make some rabbit ears out of paper plates or cotton balls, I don't know what you have. You make some fudge, which is pretty easy, from what I have read. You go out on your front porch and start yelling at people. Hey jackass! Want some fudge? Hey pretty lady! Oh a guy, sorry sorry, want some fudge? It gets you out and about in your community and shows everyone you need help. -Maria Bamford

4. “I’m a pretty shy person. My number one pet peeve is when my loud extroverted friends are like ‘No Aparna, don’t feel weird, I’m actually shy too, we all are a little bit.’ Don’t do that. Don’t take the one thing I have to cling to this world to in the fetal position preferably. If you say you’re shy you need the street cred to back it up. You need to earn it. Have you ever been kicked out of the library for being too quiet? ‘Sorry, miss, but you’ve been here for days.’ ‘But my friends live in the pages!’” –Aparna Nancherla

5. Travelling can be pretty lonely, wait, no not traveling, what's the word? Life can be pretty lonely. Have you told someone you're really lonely and they're like, oh we should hang out. That's not what I meant. -John Mulaney

6. It was so beautiful today I only watched four hours of law and order in my apartment. -John Mulaney

7. This woman wouldn't let me hold her baby the other day because she said I was too drunk. First of all, don't bring your baby into the bar. And second of all, if I'm drinking malt liquor on a playground, I call that a bar. -TJ Miller

8. She said, 'You're an unoriginal jerk. Everything you've said to me you've said to some other girl.' I felt awful but I was like, 'Yeah, of course.' There's only a limited amount of words in the English language that make sense to say to a female. If you can only use them once, you're going to run out and be like, 'Garbage truck banana boat.' -TJ Miller

9.  I was an altar boy when I was a kid, and the answer is 'no.' -Mike Birbiglia

10. “The easiest time to add insult to injury is when you’re signing somebody’s cast.” -Demetri Martin

11. "I don't know if Tyra Banks is a deep person. I bet she's never wondered, what would happen if I ate this piece of poop." -Rylee Newton

12. "I like sloppy seconds as much as the next guy." -Steven Wilber

13. "Everything is horrible. The world is a smoking ruin. Our dreams are but wispy tendrils upon the wind. And President Obama says what we should do to fix everything is to increase taxes upon the wealthy. I don't think we should do that. I think we should murder the wealthy in front of their children, so that their children become Batman." -Dan Telfer

14. "Being happy is like riding a bike. You're better at it if your dad didn't abandon you when you were two." -Morgan Murphy


15. "I read an article that said car accidents happen closest to home. Does that mean orphans are better drivers? If you think about it, it makes sense because they have more time to practice when they're not being loved by anyone." -Jon Dore

16. "I like drinking so much I can't tell if I love drinking or just hate myself." -Jon Dore

17. "If you visit Hiroshima, it's okay to be an optimist, just don't use the phrase every cloud has a silver lining" -Jon Dore

18. "My roommate said for a long time she thought you lost your virginity whenever your hymen broke and that's crazy. If that was true then I lost mine when I was like 12 at gymnastics camp when I slept with my coach." -Jamie Lee.

19. "I was looking for porn and I didn't know what to look for and I just started googling 'Hot dudes who care about me.'" -Heather Thompson

20. "When I finished high school I wanted to take all my graduation money and buy myself a motorcycle. Buy my mom said no. See, she had a brother who died in a horrible motorcycle accident when he was 18. And I could just have his motorcycle." -Anthony Jeselnik

Airplane Story

Leaning back in my seat, I pushed my finished comic book away and closed my eyes. It was so almost impossible to sleep in the middle seat. I could sleep like a baby if I could just lean against the window. And the girl in the window seat wasn't even taking advantage of the comfy freezing cold wall right next to her! She was reading some book about science. It's hard flying to LA because all the girls on the plane are all the prettiest girl in the universe, and then they all know how to read. Like, that's supposed to be my one thing, right? Ugh, if I can't rely on my witty personality then I'm gonna have to make friends by selling my armpit juices in a sweatshop. (That's what sweatshops are for, right?)

The flight isn't long but I have three coffees and a bottle of water. I'm writhing in bladder constriction pain. I don't want to get up to use the restroom because I hate the idea of disturbing the girl in the aisle seat. She is working on something for work with grown up work papers. It seems serious.

At the end of the flight, I still haven't urinated yet, and I'm getting ridiculously anxious, which is actually my natural state so I'm kinda comfortable in it. I'm in the back of the plane so when everyone stands up and is gathering their overhead baggage, it seems like it'll take 500 years for the line to move and me to get a chance to get off the plane. I hope up and down in my double hoodie comfy flying uniform and make a executive decision.

With a couple of excuse me's on my part and corresponding dirty looks, I weave through the one row behind me to get to the back of the plane. I let myself into the restroom and hover over the seat, careful not to touch what is probably just as clean as my home bathroom toilet. I pee for about ten gallons and it almost hurts it feels so good. The liquid and toxins and coffee dump out of me like a vibrant dark yellow-orange waterfall of Amazonian glory. As I finish, I wipe, you don't need to know the details. And then I stand up, and promptly and naturally hit my forehead on the sink, and slump to the ground unconsciously.

When I wake up, maybe minutes or days later, I forget where I am. Waking up from being knocked out is not the same as waking up from a good night's sleep, it's even more anxiety inducing. I shake off the tendrils of nightmares and wipe try to wipe away my the images of bloody men who have been skinned and wear their muscles on the outside. I look around and see the white, tiny room, a little bit bigger than a coffin, and I scream.

Outside the bathroom door I look out over the empty plane. I guess no one had noticed me, which is not a novel realization. I see my backpack and ukulele sitting in my empty row, and dizzily I become aware that we are moving.

The windows are white with clouds and I can see mountains miles and miles below us. I look around for a flight attendant or a passenger or anyone, but I don't see one. I'm a bit relieved; I'm not sure what I would say anyway. That kind of "I fucked up and I'm sorry and help I'm the worst" conversation is not a comfortable one. I sit back down in my seat in the back of the plane, resigned to just get off at the next stop, explain what happened, and hopefully get a flight back home from there. Yeah, it sucks, but what else can I do? Then I decide to move to the window seat.

After an undetermined period of time sleeping against the window, my growling stomach woke me up. I hadn't eaten yet that day, which wouldn't have been a problem because I was supposed to land before ten, but now I didn't even know what time it was. I put my hand over my abdomen and cringe. I wasn't enough of a grown up to pack snacks in my backpack. I looked out over the aisle and decided there must be some crew somewhere. I walked past row and row of empty seat, that seemed to go on for hundreds of meters. At the front of the plane, a woman was sitting in a little chair wearing a flight attendant uniform. She was playing a videogame on her DS but she jumped, startled when she saw me.

"Who are  you? How did you get on this plane?" She asked. She looked up and her face was white and thin with deep cavernous eyes.
"I'm so so sorry," I said. "I was on this plane earlier from LA to Portland and then I guess I passed out in the bathroom, not like in a gross way, well maybe in a gross way, but I woke up and the plane was moving..."
"That's impossible," she said.
"Well, it's improbable and weird," I corrected. Why did I need to correct her? She wouldn't give me a peanut bag if I was a snarky know it all. Keep that crap hidden!
"No, we haven't touched down in  years."

I shrugged, knowing she was wrong. "Do you have any snacks aboard?" I asked.
"Er, yes." She rifled in a cabinet and pulled out a tiny packet of green pebbles that looked like dried wasabi pees and tasted like nothing. They filled me up though. Airplane food keeps getting weirder, am I right?

"Thank you," I sat next to her and felt instantly nutirtionalized and full from my snack. "Do you know when we touch down again?" I asked.
"We stop in an hour in Glocomm."
"Huh... Is that a big airport? What state is that in? I'm just asking to see if I can get a flight back to Portland."
"State?"
"Yeah. Are we still on the west coast?"
"I don't know or remember the states of ancient America," she said apologetically. "I know we learned them in school but I guess I forgot some of that trivial knowledge."
"Fine."

I turned on the little tv on one of the seats in front of me. I scrolled through channels. It was all two and a half men, reality tv, reality tv, two and a half men, reality tv, weird creepy alien fake news show, reality tv. I flipped back to the alien fake news show and watched for a few minutes. It was just a green humanish extra terrestrial reporting fake news stories. It wasn't even funny. I frowned, sighed, and turned off the tv.

"So  where did you say you were coming from?" the flight attendant asked.
"LA."
"I don't know it."
"Los Angeles? City of Angels? The city that people mistakenly think is the capitol of California? The place where Buffy spinoff Angel is set?"
"No, sorry."

I turned the television back on. Something felt weird, like I was in a play but I had accidentally gotten the wrong script, so I was dressed as a pumpkin when everyone else was dressed as a mouse. I looked at the flight attendant abruptly. "What's the date?"

"December 14th," she said.
"Oh my god. I was passed out for a whole day? I was sure it was only an hour. I can't believe I missed a day!" I yelled.
"Year 2195," she added with a shrug.

I felt light headed and I asked her to repeat herself. Then I threw up. "I was passed out for 183 years." She thinks I am insane at this point. Sitting there with vomit all over me, starting to cry, and babbling, I do nothing to correct her. "Everyone I know and loved is dead."

The flight attendant brings me some Kleenex, some future Kleenex, and some sort of warm drink. I sit quietly in my seat and she watches me fearfully, like I might attack her, perhaps rightfully so. I buckle up when the sign tells me to and we begin our descent.

Out the window, the city of Gloccum is brown and war torn, smoking and overrun with screaming people in tattered rags. There are people everywhere, running through the streets and fighting, hitting each other with mallets. I don't know what I was expecting, white and silver buildings, floating cars, ipads for boyfriends. We lower into a violent burning decrepit town.

"Is it like this everywhere?" I ask.
"No, some places have more acid rain," the flight attendant offers.

The fasten seat belt sign blinks off. I get out of my seat and go to exit the plane. The attendant directs me to the emergency exit, where I go down stairs onto the runway. There is no fancy airport with a hundred starbuckses and bookstores. There are just planes, lined up on flat ground, and rats running around the feet of the angry mob of pedestrians. Cockroaches squirm and look up at me expectantly.

I hop down from the last step and a tiny golf cart pulls up to us. The flight attendant nods at me and two men hop out of the golf cart and place handcuffs on my wrists. They usher me into the cart with gentle soothing voices. I look out, crying and weak, wishing I had been brave enough to pee when I had had a chance.

UFO

I sat in the living room in my pajamas, late well into the afternoon. The couch conformed under my flannelled buttocks. My laptap grew hot against my thighs and I flicked through the television. Behind me, a light glowed outside the rain splattered window, and a spaceship landed in my backyard.

At first it was an unidentified flying object, but then I identified it, using contextual clues, and thus it became a flying object identified as a spaceship.

I muted the television; I didn't need to see a rerun of How I Met Your Mother more than this. I sat up on my knees on the couch, leaning over the back and looking outside. My messy unbrushed hair clumped in a thick scarf-like hood, getting in my mouth, smelling of old shampoos and coffee.

The spaceship was larger than my mom's car, but smaller than a sad mom's car (ie: suv.) It was white but it wasn't that clean. There were no discernible windows or doors. Four metal poles propped it up on our lawn, which would probably have to be refertilized after this. A circular hole opened in the spaceship, widening until it was about four feet in radius. A pair of black shoes attached to thin long legs swung out and a person fell to the ground.

I opened the backdoor- my parents called it the kid door because when we were little we were told to go in through that door so we wouldn't get outside dirt in the front hallway, but now we were allowed to go through any door because we were adults sort of and we played in dirt less.

A few neighbor ladies were looking over the edge of their fences into our yard. A couple dogs were barking. They thought it was weird I had a mental breakdown and had to move back in with my parents, the neighbor ladies, not the dogs. The dogs were cool.

Ignoring the nosy neighbors, I walked barefoot into our yard and helped the strange man to his feet. He was wearing black pants and a long sleeved black shirt. Maybe he was an artist. His skin was green, which I thought was kind of artsy. His hair was black and curly. As he leaned against my shoulder to get up, I noticed the curve of his arm muscles and his long, elegant, flat and compact torso. My cheeks grew warmer. The green man vomited violently at my feet.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "The landing still gets me a bit spacesick."

Oh, it's okay, I thought. Then I realized I hadn't said it out loud. I hadn't been talking a lot lately and my social skills were a little worse for the lack of use. "It's okay," I said. "I can imagine the ride must be jarring."

"Do you have any... I think you humans call it sprite?" he asked.
"Yeah... well something. Maybe it's fresca, but yeah."
"Oh, lovely."
"Uh-huh." I was aware of my annoying tiny black mustache hairs that were coming in.
"May I have some?"
"Yeah, sure."

My parents were away at work. I invited the alien in. I had accidentally locked the kid door behind me when I came out to check on him so I had to make him wait while I crawled in through the dining room window and then ran to the living room to let him in. He didn't seem annoyed or awkward with that at all.

He came in and sat on a chair at the table. I poured him a glass of fresca, made myself a coffee, and ten I sliced up a tomato and put it on a plate in between us. The alien politely helped himself to a slice of tomato and chewed thoughtfully.

"Thank you so much for the soft drink and the fruit slices." he said.
"Not a problem. My mom bought them."
"Ah."

I looked around. The television was still emanating silent storylines and bright colors of pretty people doing silly things.

"So, where are you from?" I asked.
"It's called Drozquaid. You probably haven't heard of it. It's just like 30 light years outside of Frehman."
"Oh, uh-huh."
"Yeah, you know Frehman?"
"No..."
"Hmm."
"So what brings you to Earth?" I asked.
"Earth?" He looked up, alarmed.
"Yeah," I said. "Why are you here?"
"This is Earth? Galaxy 12700? The Gestarian county?"
"Um... I think? Maybe?" I said.
"Oh god. What year is this?"
"2012."
"Human years... ugh... the conversion of human years is so difficult. You'd think you guys would use the same unit as the rest of the galaxy, but no, you gotta be special."
"Sorry."
"Not your fault."

The green man pulled a tiny notepad from a pocket I hadn't noticed in his sleek outfit. He began working out a math equation. His color faded to mint and he gasped to himself.

"What's up?" I asked.
"I've already said too much," he said. He was getting up. He threw his dishes in the sink, which really wasn't necessary. "I need to go. Something terrible is going to happen to the lifeforms on this planet and I can't be here..."
"What's going to happen?"
"Nothing major, it will only affect humans and most earth animals and plants."
"I'm a human."
"Yeah. No important species to existence will be affected."
"Can you take me with you?"

He looked at me, startled by the question. "Why?"
"I don't want to die... Can we take my family and go pick up some library books for the trip too?"
"No, I don't want to disrupt the history line of time and space. You better stay here."

I grumbled and rolled my eyes but pretended like I understood. The alien rain his long thin fingers through his black hair and smiled kindly at me. "Thanks so much for the snack."

I smiled back at him. He let himself out the backdoor and climbed back up into his space ship using a little white ladder that extended downwards. I didn't walk him to his ship, but watched from inside, on my sofa. I turned the volume back up on the tv and microwaved my coffee. He gave me one last look from the opening. His smooth skin tightened up into what looked like a frown. Then the space ship was closed again, a smooth white egg. The metal legs retracted back up into it and it floated for a moment in out back yard and then it was gone.

tunnel

The rocky pathway crackled under her shoes as she walked beneath the dying trees. The noises ran away to hide in little pockets of sleeping children and snuggle with lint and discarded feelings. A few cars rolled along nearby but out of sight roads. Their roar permeated her ears and sang the song of loneliness.

Every day when she walked home, she passed the tunnel, jutting out of the old rock cliff. It was dark, overgrown, leaking smelly liquid over it's lip like black drool. The tunnel had fallen asleep over the drain pipe, comfortable, and loving, and oozing spitty drool over it's lap.

She looked at her cell phone, which was blank. The walk back from the bus stop to her mom's house lengthened each day. Her legs stretched and tingled as the brisk air whisked through her jeans. She stopped and played with her hair. Living at home was convenient and cheap, but lonely. She rubbed her aching head. The fluorescent lights in her cubicle gave her migraines. The buzzing of the elevators hurt her temples.

She reached in her purse and reached around for her pipe. She desperately craved one of those montages where the protagonist gets high and plays on bumper cars and dances in a daisy field and runs around barefoot and kisses some tall boy with blue eyes.

The movies always show those montages with the girl being quirky and the guy saying things like, "I've never met anyone like you." And it's the best montage and you cry for the protagonists. But they never show the montage a month later when the guy is saying things like, "You're an adult, get out of the bumper cars. Put on some shoes. Learn how to pay a bill and wash your feet for goodness sakes."

In the beginning the audience is like "Oh, she doesn't brush her hair and she mediates in DMVs. She's so goddamn quirky." And the plot escalates and reaches a turning point, then they're like "She doesn't brush her hair and she falls asleep in DMVs. She needs an intervention."

And then the tall boy with blue eyes invariably leaves for someone who understands him better and has her life together and "is attractive because she knows who she is." Despite the fact that the protagonist's inability to understand people and her messy life etcetera had kinda been like super hot initially.

So the protagonist starts drinking and smoking more and she loses her job and she gets a dead end worse office job and she moves out of their apartment and moves back in with her mom. And there is no happy endings or any endings.

The tunnel calls out to her, a soft whisper at first, a gentle verbal inquiry that sounds like her name. She turns and looks at the jutting pipe. Her imagination must have been playing tricks on her. Tunnels couldn't talk. Unless maybe inside the tunnel there was an animal or a person or a baby or a cassette player with a an audio tape of her name. That's ridiculous. The tape player would have run out of batteries.

At home was her bed covered with stuffed animals and her childhood pajamas and boxes of unpacked belongings from their old apartment. There is the family cat sitting in the living room, curled in front of the fire. Her mom would be up in bed, but listening for the front door. There was a bottle of half drank wine in the fridge.

The tunnel whispered, a futile song into the wind. What was the point? There was nothing in the end, just a rock wall. There couldn't have possibly been anything, no light, no air, just darkness. And the beginning was a struggle, a climb, a crawl. The middle was unknown. The ending didn't exist.