THE MEMORY SPECIALIST

“This isn’t a mallet in my hand, I’m just glad to see you.”

The guy behind the counter didn’t laugh. This was unfortunate because I did laugh, hysterically, so then it just looked like I was losing my mind. And then I snorted. Thus, my credibility was in shambles.

The reason I was trying to gain credibility in the first place was because the dude behind the counter was a whack job and I was trying to prove it to him. In the real world, he would be called a “carnie.” In the world I’m describing to you now, though, he was called a “memory specialist.” I know this because not only did he introduce himself as such, he also had a blazing red fireball on the front of his booth and inside the fireball, in yellow cursive letters, was, “TOM. MEMORY SPECIALIST.” I told him I thought he might try to snazz up the “Tom” part of that sign. He told me “Kim” wasn’t much on the snazz, so what did I know?

I thought he was a carnie because he stood inside a booth with stuffed animals hanging from the ceiling, most of them poultry, and he frequently called out, “Three tries, one dollar!” to the passersby. Occasionally, a loud beep would ring out and the lights on the back wall of the booth would erupt in primary colors. There was a water spout, set up to look like Buckingham Fountain, but it was broken.

Tom didn’t consider himself a carnie. Tom considered himself a memory specialist. At the time I met him, I just so happened to need a memory specialist. The week before, NASA erased my memories, on account of all the top secret secrets I knew and also because I kept crank calling NASA HQ and belching the alphabet.

So after a week without memories, I was kinda wondering who I was. I ended up at the carnival, where everyone should go when they can’t figure out who they are. I was at the fried-pickle-dipped-in-chocolate-and-sprinkled-with-powdered-sugar-on-a-stick booth. When I turned around, there was Tom, leaning out of his booth, waving me over. Or maybe he was swatting mosquitoes.

“Three tries for what?” I asked. Then I took a huge bite of chocolate-covered fried pickle. Then I gagged. Those things are gross, but they’re on a stick, so how can you not love them?

“One dollar, three tries for all the memories you can handle,” Tom said, in a voice that sounded strangely similar to Mr. Roark’s from Fantasy Island.

“I’ll take that deal,” and then I took another bite of fried chocolate pickle on a stick. That bite also made me gag. Tom pointed to the yellow square on the counter in front of me. “When I say go, this square will light up. You will see nine holes. Each hole has a trajectory of your memories that will manifest themselves into the shape of a basketball. It will be a clear basketball, you will be able to see inside it. The basketballs will pop out of the holes, you get to decide if you want to look at it, or whack it. Got it?”

I took another bite of fried chocolate pickle on a stick. I think the trick with those things is you gotta get to the middle, then it gets good. I mean, it’s fried and it’s covered in chocolate, you really can’t lose with that combo. Anyway, a bunch of chocolate ended up oozing off the stick and onto my shirt and perhaps there might have been a bit of powdered sugar on my chin and maybe I was talking with my mouth full. “You can’t herd my memories into basketballs and then play Whack-A-Mole with them,” I said to Tom. “You can’t eat politely, but you’re still eating,” he said.

The man made a good point. I gave him a dollar. He handed me an oversized mallet with a large foam head. This is when I made my extraordinarily funny joke about how there wasn’t a mallet in my hand, I was just happy to see him.

It was A MALLET with a LARGE FOAM HEAD. I’m sure you understand how difficult it was for me to refrain from punning.

Tom slipped the dollar into a tray on his left and then he whistled. Suddenly, the poultry hanging from the ceiling started doing a kick line, much like the Rockettes, but I could only really see their webbed feet and their knobby knees, so I’m not sure they were all smiley like the Rockettes, but they were in sync. The fountain in the back of the booth started sprouting water, which I think was really a leak from the shoot-the-boat booth on the other side of Tom’s.

And then the square in the counter in front of me lit up, just like Tom said it would. A basketball-like object popped out of the center hole and inside it there I was, in Monaco, sitting on a throne next to some prince-looking dude. I smashed the memory with the mallet. “That’s not mine,” I told Tom. I took a bite of pickle stick.

“Sure?”
“Yes. I’ve never been the princess of Monaco.”
Tom looked at the chocolate blob on my shirt. “No, I suppose you haven’t. Ready?”

He pressed a button and basketballs started popping up all over the place—the top right corner of the square in front of me, the bottom left corner, each one filled with very vivid images: me in a green dress accepting an Academy Award; me at the United Nations delivering a speech; me at the top of Mount Everest. I whacked each basketball and down they went into the black holes in the counter.

“Hey, man,” I said to Tom, “gimme my dollar back.” Pickle sticks were a dollar.
“You got one more round,” Tom said.
“Bring it,” I told him. I chomped down on the last bite of pickle chocolate stick goo, flipped the stick into the air, and readied my mallet. Out of the center hole, a basketball popped up and immediately, I smashed it because I have cat-like reflexes.
“Sure about that?” Tom asked.

I watched the basketball I had just smashed. It was slowly disintegrating and when I really looked at it, I could see the house I grew up in—Christmas morning, I was little, my Mom and Dad were holding an orange banana seat bike between them, both of them smiling. I could see myself in front of the bike, bouncing from foot to foot. If I remember correctly, the discussion I was having with my parents included but was not limited to how awesome it would be to ride my new bike down the sledding hill. I remember my Dad’s contagious, booming laugh; I remember how my Mom smelled like cinnamon when she hugged me. I remember being blissfully oblivious to how precious that moment really was.

And then it was gone. The memory disappeared down the center hole.

“I want that one,” I told Tom.
“Already gone. Sorry. Three more tries for a buck.”
“But I want that memory—the bike memory, Christmas, my parents, home, it was snowing that day, I rode my bike in the garage, we had ham sandwiches and watched parades on TV. I want that memory back.” I remember the snow on the gym set in the backyard—how it was piled in triangles along the monkey bars. I remember reminding myself not to put my tongue on a cold door/window/telephone pole.

I pulled another dollar out of my pocket. I remember summers with dandelions scattered like confetti, piles of orange leaves dancing around tree trunks, snow forts. The smell of pollen in the air. “Pickle sticks a dollar,” I said to Tom. “You want one?” Tom looked at my chin. I suspect he was wondering how to tell me about the line of powdered sugar draped there. “Yup,” he said.

Shoe Avalanche

Not a bad way to go.

DO VAMPIRES GET BLOOD CLOTS?

“Well, this is awkward,” I said to him.
“To say the least,” he said.

When I came to, I was floating on the ceiling of my southern gothic mansion. Once I registered where I was at, I looked down and saw myself, in mid-conversation with The Hot Vampire. He was standing just inside the doorway of the house. This did not surprise me as I have recently inhaled season one of True Blood and have been frequently falling into dreams about being somewhere other than where I’m currently at, often while vampires are present.

So there I was, in my southern gothic mansion, in the foyer—it was expansive, wood floors, marble carvings ingrained on the walls, crown molding, an elaborate parlor to my right, a Gone-with-the-Wind staircase rising into the darkness behind me.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I heard me say. I was wearing a white nightgown, of course, and I have to say, I was surprised I was pulling it off. White usually makes me look washed out. And I get really, really messy really, really quickly. Good thing I wasn’t drinking coffee. Or eating pasta with red sauce.

What I was doing in the foyer of my southern gothic mansion was standing there in a huff, my hands on my hips, just about to cluck my tongue. “I mean, really, you HAVE to be kidding me,” I said again.

Once I saw this PBS special on cuttlefish—they are excellent, they shimmer, they shape shift. The Hot Vampire’s eyes looked like shimmering cuttlefish. “No,” he said, “I’m really not kidding you.”

Since he was already standing inside, I assumed I had invited him in. Yet he was standing there as though he was about to leave. I touched my neck. Same old dumb neck I’ve always had. “It’s not contagious, you know. It’s just a blood disorder, which isn’t, like, transferable. Anyway, whadda you know about it, hot shot?”

“I know your blood likes to clot up when you’re not on blood thinners and runs like water when you are on blood thinners.”
“‘Blood thinners’ is a misnomer,” I snapped.

It is, you know, the blood thinners don’t actually thin your blood, they kinda just stop it from clogging up. But I had to admit, The Hot Vampire’s description of this tomfoolerytastic blood disorder was the best I’ve heard, and I’ve heard/read/researched a lot of descriptions about my blood disorder.

From the ceiling, I could see how The Hot Vampire stood in my foyer—feet shoulder width apart, arms hanging languorously at his sides, lips throbbing, complexion pale, eyes doing that shimmery-cuttlefish thing. This guy could pull off a waistcoat, alright. His was charcoal gray. His ruffled shirt underneath was crisp and not-messy. I bet he never washed a pair of red shorts with a load of whites. What a douche.

“This dream fuckin sucks,” I told The Hot Vampire.
“Ha! Good pun!”
“That wasn’t a pun.”
“Yes it was. Though it may have landed better if you had said, ‘You fuckin suck.’”
“It wasn’t a pun.”
“Yes it was.”
“No it wasn’t.”
“Yes it was.”
“NO. IT. WASN’T. AND WHY DON’T YOU WANT TO SUCK MY BLOOD?”

We both stood there facing each other but not looking at each other, both of us shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.

Finally he said, “You look pretty in that, um, dress?”
“Don’t patronize me, bloodsucker.”
“No, I mean, you know, it makes you look thin.”
“Because normally I look fat? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Um…no. No, I’m sure that is exactly not what I’m saying.”
“I think it is.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“IT. IS. NOT.” He put his hands on his hips and started tapping the toe of his boot. “This really isn’t working out for me,” The Hot Vampire said.
“Well, it’s not working out for me, either,” I told him.
“Fine.”
“Fine.”

“I mean, it’s perfectly good blood, you know. It’s not like, you know, bad, you know,” I said.

I wasn’t so sure this was a true statement. Do vampires get blood clots? Is it kinda like eating curdled cottage cheese? Or maybe it’s way more dangerous, and I was proposing a fatal experience? Or maybe blood clots are like lumps in mashed potatoes, and some vampires like their potatoes with lumps and some don’t.

“I wish I didn’t just compare myself to mashed potatoes,” I told The Hot Vampire.
“You didn’t just compare yourself to mashed potatoes,” he said.
“Well, I did in my mind.”
“OK.”
“Aren’t you supposed to read my mind?”
“No.”
“No because you think my mind is wonky or no because vampires don’t read minds?”
“Yes.”
(If I was David Mamet, I would write “beat” here.)
“You know, you are not the romantic vampire I had intended you to be when I initially fell asleep on my couch.”
“Frankly, you are not the human I had intended you to be when I coerced you into having a dream about me when you initially fell asleep on the couch.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”

He started moving towards the threshold of the doorway. My southern gothic mansion had really beautiful stained glass windows in and around the doorway. The moonlight was slithering through the glass and painting prisms on the wood floor. It was a cool house. I should have a party there sometime. The Hot Vampire walked over the threshold and down the porch steps. It was a wrap-around porch. I love wrap-around porches.

Vampire fantasies really suck when the vampire rejects you.

ALIEN

I have this hatbox that I somehow commandeered from my mom. It’s very Audrey Hepburn. Maybe a little more intensely-patterned that Ms. Hepburn seemed to prefer, but it’s, you know, a HATBOX, which is cool in that 1940s, Vogue-cover kind of way. My hatbox is yellow and black, the colors splattered around the rounded exterior like watercolors. The zipper groans when you pull it. Also, it’s magic.

One night, when I was very busy Procrastinating, I found in my hatbox, among other things, a random stream of Post-Its, yellow, medium-sized, the second stuck on top of the first, the third stuck on top of the second, and so on, so that when I pulled it out, it draped down like a cat unfurling its tail. Here’s what some of the notes said:

Random note #1: Clean bathroom.
I am proud of myself for using correct punctuation on this note. Although, right now I’m transcribing my own notes, so I’m sure you can smell the conflict of interest here. In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that there wasn’t a line or resounding X anywhere near this Post-It, which means I didn’t actually clean the bathroom.

Random note #2: ATPBOYG
I have no idea what this means. I’m really glad I left myself a note to remind me to use an alien language. Although, the closer I looked at this one, the more I realized that it WASN’T EVEN MY HANDWRITING. This should’ve been unnerving, but I was riding a high from the previous, correctly-punctuated Post-It and I like to grab the good times when I can. In the interest of full disclosure, I frequently write my grocery lists as a list of letters. For example, it’s very possible “ATPBOYG” means, “apples, toilet paper, baby oil, yogurt, granola.” Except I don’t know why apples would be on that list, I’m allergic to apples.

Random note #3: Do Not Look behind You.
I’ve always had a hard time with headline-style capitalization. What is one to do with prepositions? When they run six letters, they almost demand to be capped, but they’re PREPOSITIONS, and everyone knows you don’t cap prepositions. But let’s face it, Random note #3 looks dumb with a lower case “behind.” In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I’m kind of a grammar geek, which at times prevents me from seeing the obvious.

When I heard the creak behind me, I assumed it was the radiator, which is a sign of impending heat, which is awesome. I suppose my want of heat allowed me a moment of relaxation that I rarely indulge in, what with my superhero powers constantly at the ready, so when the voice behind me said, “You should pay attention to that one,” I jumped to the ceiling. Then I had to remind myself I had superhero powers, at which point I fell from the ceiling and banged my head on the floor. When I stood up, I turned towards the voice.

She was an alien. She was very tall and she had to stoop a bit to fit under the ceiling. She was green. She had three eyes, two red, the middle one yellow; four tentacles about chest high; and legs that looked like giant frog legs. Other than that, though, she looked pretty human.

“Oh,” she said, covering her three eyes with her left-most tentacle. “It’s just so EMBARRASSING.” Her mouth looked like a human mouth, but she had an orange tongue. “What’s so embarrassing?” I asked.

“All we were doing was coming to Earth for Halloween because we love it here, it’s like an amusement park for us, but man are you humans freaks about the green skin. Never saw any other planet freak out so much about it. So we usually come on Halloween, win a few costume contests, cruise home, no one’s the wiser. But this year, we overshot the planet and ended up showing up well after Halloween and look!” She thrust a magazine at me. Her nails were perfectly manicured.

The magazine was called GOSSIP! Just like that, all caps with an exclamation point. The cover had a bunch of thumbnail pictures of celebrities doing things like picking their noses or picking their wedgies, and the big picture, right in front, was a toe-to-head shot of the alien in my apartment, frozen in picture-time, in a moment just before falling flat on her face. Her eyes were bloodshot and glassy. She wore a purple scarf saucily tied around her neck. She had a martini glass in one hand. It looked like her giant frog legs were crumpling like paper towels. The tag line screamed: “Alcoholic Alien Finds Final Frontier!” And underneath, in small caps, “’Sobriety sucks!’ Alien says.”

“I like your scarf,” I finally said, handing the magazine back to the alien.
“I know, right? 100% silk. Five dollars.”
“No!” I said.
“I would not lie about accessories,” she said. “But that’s not the point! I know the royal purple of that scarf brings out the sparkle in my eyes, but I was not drunk! I wasn’t walking down the street with a martini! I don’t even like martinis!”

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. I thought it, too. It’s really hard to grasp the concept of an accessory-savvy alien who doesn’t like martinis. “Well,” I said, nodding at the magazine in her perfectly manicured tentacle, “on the upside, there’s nothing in your teeth.”

“But I look better with stuff in my teeth! What is wrong with you humans? You know what? This is ridiculous. Why we even come to this stupid planet, I’ll never know.”

“Well, you know, we do have the Grand Canyon on Earth, which is pretty cool, and—”
“Oh, shut up! The Grand Canyon reminds me that I’m afraid of heights.”
“I suppose that must work against you when you’re in outer space.”
“Oh, shut up! Your human logic reminds me that you infuriate me.”
“I was only making the point that—”
“AARRGGGH!!!!”

When she yelled like that, she kinda sounded like Marge Simpson, but louder. Could my neighbors hear her? “We’re through with Earth,” the alien said. “We’re not coming back. You humans are exasperating.”

“Well, some of us aren’t so bad. I mean, maybe a small number of us, but all in all, you know, blanket generalizations are a bit harsh, considering—”

But she didn’t wait to hear what was about to be an excellently-rendered speech about not passing judgment, she just huffed at me, wagged a tentacle in my general direction, then marched out my front door.

So, humans, looks like I scared the aliens away. This is unfortunate because now how will we have science fiction? I’m afraid I have simultaneously broken relations with a galactic neighbor and destroyed an entire genre of art. In the interest of full disclosure, I had no plans to do any of that when I woke up that morning.

COSTUMES

I can’t make costumes stick. This is why, each Halloween, I pretty much give up trying to come up with something creative and usually go as Kim Morris. Or, sometimes, Kim Morris in a Cowboy Hat. One year I wore all black, including a black cowboy hat, and I went as The Bad Guy. I’m pretty sure someone else suggested it. I suspect my aversion to costumes is a residual effect from the Halloweens of My Youth.

When I was growing up and Halloween rolled around, I was a fortune teller. Not just one year, many years in a row. The fortune teller costume was the ideal costume—long prairie skirt that I used to play Dress Up in, covering a pair of dirt-smudged jeans; a scarf tied around my waist with fringe that swayed and dangled whenever I moved; a pile of necklaces around my neck because somehow I figured necklaces gave me power to see into people’s futures; EARRINGS! A MATCHING PAIR! VERY GROWN UP! and another scarf, tied around my head, with more swanky fringe that gave me the air of someone who had been born in another century and knew All the Secrets of the World. My mom liked this costume because it took exactly four seconds to produce. Once I was the fortune teller, I would grab my candy bag, sprint out the door, and meet the kids from the neighborhood in the middle of the street.

First, we’d hit up the Hughes’s. The year I was seven, the Hugheses gave out secret spy masks. I mean, SECRET SPY MASKS! Upon receiving this gift, we thanked Mrs. Hughes, who was awesome because she never told my parents when I knocked over the plant on her front porch that one time during a football game, which was a stellar performance on my behalf because I totally pulled the ball OUT OF THE AIR and ran for a touchdown and no I was not out, don’t listen to anyone else on that one.

Anyway, SPY MASKS! Well, the only way to leave a front porch after having received a spy mask for Halloween is to dive roll over the front hedges. On Dorchester Drive, when I was seven, dive rolling was always the preferred method of extraction from a compromised position.

By the time I got to the Kodak house, the earrings were gone. And most of the prairie skirt was shredded and what wasn’t, I tied around my waist because it was making my getaways a bit of a hassle.

The Kodak house. Someone inside that house worked for Kodak, in some department that allowed access to and distribution of the coolest shit ever. One year, toy cameras. Another year, kaleidoscopes. The year I was seven, they gave out periscopes. PERISCOPES.

As I generally moved with the stealth of a tiger, positioning the periscope on my person was of the utmost importance. I devised a complex apparatus with my head scarf whereby through a series of intricately-knotted knots, I could secure my periscope on my back. This worked perfectly, though now my fortune teller costume was practically unrecognizable and it was unlikely I was going to be taken seriously later when, in all likelihood, I’d be summoned by the Queen to tell her her fortune.

At the Riley’s house, we got chocolate disks wrapped in gold foil. Gold coins were highly valued in our neighborhood-kid milieu. Obviously, this meant I had to untie the scarf from my waist and tie it around my face. Chocolate gold disks wrapped in gold foil demanded the delicate touch of a Wild West Outlaw. I was very careful leaving the Riley’s front porch—I imagined it as the saloon and beyond it, on the other side of the swinging doors, there would be my horse tied to the post and behind my horse, the sheriff and his deputy, waiting to have a talk with me about that bank robbery snafu.

Well, I was no dumb Wild West Outlaw, I’ll tell you, so my exit consisted of a few (admittedly secret-spy-esque) dive rolls, then a sprint to the curb, where I quickly untied my horse and took off down the street. What the Rileys saw before they closed their door was me dive bombing their front lawn, scraping my face with grass stains, then running to the street, jumping on an invisible horse, and galloping away with a high-pitched, “Yahoo!”

On my way home, I ran into Mr. Lesnewicz, who, judging by his facial expression, was astounded and in awe of my fortune teller turned secret spy turned Wild West Outlaw costume. I let him speak first, as that is the traditional way of greeting a masterminding-costume-producery kid. What he said was, “What the hell are you?”

One thing about Mr. Lesnewicz: he was not a big fan of the neighborhood kids. Apparently, he didn’t think our takeover of the yards during the International Ghost in the Graveyard Championships was justified.

“What does it look like I am?” I boomed.
“A mess.”
And then he walked away.

At this point, let’s recap the outfit: hair a nest of fuzz and curls with various forms of plant life stuck into it; a secret spy mask firmly clamped across my eyes; a scarf tied around the lower half of my face in a perfect ode to Jesse James; one lonely necklace desperately clinging to my neck; a t-shirt with grass stains and a dirty palm-print smacked on it; a prairie skirt shoved into the waist of my jeans; jeans smudged with more grass stains and more dirt. Most importantly, the periscope was still tied securely to my back, even though it was a bit dented after my last dive roll, which I took to be a clear indication that if I wanted to be a secret ops agent traversing a desert region, I could do so.

So, this is where I’m at now: how can I pick just one Halloween costume? What if I want to be a spaceship and I end up at a party where the king wants a divorce but the church won’t grant it? And then what happens if I get hungry, so I go to the Golden Nugget and order a hamburger and then I notice the baby blue 1966 Thunderbird convertible in the parking lot, which I would eye longingly while I mapped out an escape route to Mexico that would include empty desert roads and Brad Pitt? I don’t think a Henry VIII costume would be practical in that situation.

This costume-choosing thing is truly The Conundrum of Life, which is perhaps what I could be this Halloween, but I’m not quite sure what the physical manifestation of a conundrum is. Maybe there would be a magic wand involved?

Tonight! 2nd Story @ Red Kiva, 1108 W. Randolph, 7pm. GO!

COME ON OUT

Dear Alert Power Love Reader,
I'm telling stories all weekend this weekend--Friday at Strawdog Late Night and Sunday at Victory Gardens. Why don't you come on out and join in the fun and good storytelling, yeah? It will be grand. Grand, I tell you!

More info here.

One of my stories is on CellStories today.

CHECK OUT THE LIGHT

ALL THE WISDOM THERE IS

Recently, I saw a mountain. It was pretty big. I saw the mountain because Eric pointed it out to me from the plane window. We were on my private jet, returning home from a Formula 1 race in Monaco. I own a Formula 1 race team. Also, I am a world-famous Formula 1 race car driver.

As it turned out, we took the long way home from Monaco, so ended up cruising through the West Coast of the mighty USA, and that’s when Eric tapped my shoulder and pointed out the window.

Sometimes I like to jump out of the window of my private jet, climb across the wing, make my adjustments with my private-jet toolset, then jump back inside the plane and finish off the caviar. This works well for me because there is usually an excessive amount of caviar on my jet.

When Eric tapped my shoulder, I turned to see this majestic mountain, standing across the kingdom from me, so I lifted the window and climbed out to the wing. Then I took a running jump, flew like Superman through the air, and, when I reached her, stepped gracefully on to the peak of Mt. Rainier.

“Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” she said.
“It seems to me you possess All the Wisdom There Is.”
“Yes.” She was filing her nails, but stopped when she saw I was settling in for a chat.
“Tea?” she asked.
“No thanks, I’m a coffee woman.”
“Not surprised.”

There was an awkward pause, so I took a minute to glance around. Mt. Rainier sets up a comfy home. She’s got an eye for color. She watched me curiously, which was unnerving because her eyes are also caves, so I kept expecting people or bears to walk out of them. “Umm…okay…so, about that wisdom,” I nudged.

She kept quietly looking at me. The trees sounded like a deck of cards being shuffled. A large bird-like creature snapped its wings. Somewhere water was running over rocks. “I should talk less more often,” I told the mountain. She smiled.

Mt. Rainier’s mouth is also the opening to an active volcano. One of the important lessons I’ve learned while participating in my jet-set lifestyle is how to spot a social cue. For example, when an active volcano opens up, this is a cue to leave.

So I bid a gracious adieu to the mountain. I took my patented running jump from the summit into the air and flew Superman-like over to my private jet. Once I got there, I dangled off the wing for a bit because it reminded me of playing on the monkey bars at recess. Then I hopped back in and plopped down on my chaise lounge.

“Eric,” said I.
“Yes, world-famous Formula 1 racer?”
“I have just come back from talking to the mountain and now I possess All the Wisdom There Is.”

This is when Eric mentioned something about straightjackets, but I had to ignore the comment because straightjackets don’t flatter my figure.

Faces on the Wall

You Are So Beautiful to Me

This mountain's like, "Yo. I'm a mountain. Of course I'm gorgeous."

The Conundrum

Is this art or a mocha? More importantly, is there a difference?

The Importance of Punctuation.

2nd Story 800? What does that mean? Oh! 2nd Story @ 8:00 p.m. Alert Power Love Reader: DO YOU SEE THE IMPORTANCE OF PUNCTUATION?

Keep Portland Weird.

Amen.

'Sup, Portland!

Yer purty.

Wow.

Remember that Simpsons episode when Mr. Burns went grocery shopping and he stood in the condiments aisle with a bottle of ketchup in either hand and kept looking from one to the other, repeating, "catch-up, cats-up, catch-up, cats-sup"? That was funny.

Jet plane leavin'

Stay in love.