DENVER, CO-

Rejection letters are always a drag; whether they are negative responses from job opportunities, university admissions boards or literary journals. However, there is nothing quite as spirit-crushing as a rejection letter received after submitting a poem. A short-story rejection slip is depressing, but not devastating. You manufacture a story in your head, create some characters and make them talk. Fine. So you didn’t like my characters. Their dialogue is unrealistic. Their motives are questionable. Fine. They aren’t me. But a rejection letter from a poem is, for me, the equivalent of standing out on a street corner naked and having passers-by hand you terse little notes reading, “Your penis is unconvincing,” or “You call those nipples?” or maybe, “You have an affected buttocks.” And that kind of stuff just breaks my heart. You pour it all into a poem: your skeleton, your bile, your oozing primordial remnant—your private parts. To be told that the fundamental you is not up to snuff—that’s hard murder.

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BOULDER, CO-

I just had the strangest massage experience ever.

This is saying a lot, as I have had some doozies.

There was the time I visited a rolfer who asked me to parade three times around the massage table in my totally inappropriate lacy boy shorts and demi bra so that he could “analyze my movement.” This was at his private home studio after I had just been encouraged to undress in the room in front of him for lack of a change area. I believe I played along because he was 50 something and seemed to be in touch with his feminine side.

The reason I went to see him was because I was having trouble breathing.

Apparently he needed to be in touch with my feminine side, too and ended the session by trying to massage the top of my pubic bone through the pink lacies, claiming it would loosen my lungs. (Am I really that naive?) (Yes. I think I am.) (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

When I first heard the words “bipolar,” I figured the shrink thought I lived on the North and South Poles. That may sound like bullshit, but I also wonder whether there really is any such thing as bipolar, except in the most obvious cases (you wake up and dress like Hitler, making speeches in town square, which no longer exists).

I just don’t know. Rapid cycling? I don’t ride a bicycle.  Doesn’t everybody have rapid mood changes?  Listenting to grocery story music can send me into a mini-depression during the length of one Elton John song. Sorry has to be the hardest word? No, “You’re a billionaire with the world’s worst wig” is not a word, but it’s much sorrier, and to pare it down to the analogy, I’m sure “wig” would do the trick for you. (more…)

WEIRTON, WV-

Without a doubt, gynecological visits have an untold capacity for humiliation, if not properly seasoned with a humorous attitude. Never mind, you men, about “turn your head to the right and cough please.” That’s nothing. Like measuring an inseam. A blush and then quickly forgotten. Maybe I’m misinformed, but men are never subjected to half the poking and prodding we woman are, all this occurring inside a room intended to induce calm: witness the flowery wallpaper and mass-produced prints of swans with a modest trailing of fluffy, white signets behind them…all next to a pharmaceuticals calendar advertising permanent contraceptive methods for women.

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BAKERSFIELD, CA-

There’s that one line from the new Dark Knight Batman movie that I keep stumbling on. It sticks in all the commercials. I hear it from my family. I read it in grafitti. It squeaks from comic book action figures: “Why so serious?” Maybe it’s because Comicon 2008 in San Diego is a place of spandex god worshippers who want their asses signed with celebrity lightning bolts. I mean, that’s gotta seriously hurt. (more…)

I’ve just moved.

Not just houses, but cities and entire lives. It’s exciting and new, a bit like the theme song from the Love Boat, but with no Gopher, no dancing girls and no stopover in Rio.

Bummer!

For posterity’s sake I kept a bit of a journal of my first week in San Francisco and have decided to share it as a peek into the inner sanctum of my life. I’d call you all voyeurs for reading, but in actuality I’m just a hideous narcissist who wants to show you photos of my closet.

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SACRAMENTO, CA-

Awhile back my boyfriend told me a story over dinner that pretty much put me off my food. I then proceeded to tell just about everyone I know about said story and then just as quickly forgot about it. That is until it came up again tonight.

And now I just can’t resist sharing it with you good folks. (more…)

PARIS-

The ad usually states something like “Apartment offered in exchange for services,” a banal phrase that for students and young professionals here in Paris might seem attractive.

After all, lodging anywhere in this city is expensive.

Why not do a little cleaning or errand-running, and receive a free place to stay?

But it turns out that a lot of unscrupulous landlords aren’t looking for someone to mop the floors.

According to recent news reports, young women are being asked to prostitute themselves for a place to stay.

Sadly, women have answered these ads in droves. (more…)

BAKERSFIELD, CA-

How many people do you know go to bed at night and wake up to an alarm clock? Of these people, how many, including yourself, have woken to the equivalent of roller coasters zooming through ears? Is this something you like? Is it a routine? Are you hung over everyday? Tell me, why are people turning these alarms up so loud? Are you innocent in the matter? Are people’s alarm clocks troubling you? Are they, or you, difficult risers, heavy sleepers, sedated drug users, loud-noise addicts, alcoholics, insomniacs or closet water-boarders who have to torture everyone even while sleeping?

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LOS ANGELES, CA-

I got inside of another taxicab last night and was stunned when, about three quarters of the way through the ride, the cabdriver started asking me about my innards.

“You know what a bladder is?” he said to me.

“A bladder?” I said.

“Yeah, a bladder,” he said.

My wife was seated on my left, and she repeated my question aloud for the sake of overall clarity.

“You want to know what a bladder is?” she said.

“Yeah,” said the cabdriver. “I want to know, like, where it’s located in the body.”

“I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that before,” I said. (more…)

SACRAMENTO, CA-

I’ve noticed lately that I think a lot more about my health in real terms.

I don’t just think about the cold I have or the weird pains in my legs as something that will cure themselves in the next couple days. Instead I find myself wondering what the cause is, what it means in the long term.

Most of the weird things I see happening to my body lately can be traced directly back to birth control pills. The pain in my legs, which I swear is hypertension or blood clotting, is listed as a possible side effect of the pill. So is the melasma, or sunspot, found on my upper lip that makes me look like I have a mustache.

Maybe these things are also just caused by a poor diet and general aging. I’m not so sure though, so I’ve decided to do an experiment. I’ve decided to go off the pill. And in this decision I realized that, holy cow!, I’ve been taking birth control for nearly 10 years. (more…)

MIAMI, FL-

Hello boys.

Does this post even need words????

Personally I don’t think so, but that doesn’t mean I won’t add some. Stringing words together is a compulsion of mine, and when they occasionally make sense I go bananas with joy.

Let’s try.

Nudity- n, (noo-di-tee, nyoo-)

1. the state or fact of being nude; nakedness.

2. something nude or naked

Hold on a minute, dictionary.com!! Nudity is not just a state of undress, dudes, it’s a frame of mind.

Being naked is freedom, a release, an abandonment of insecurity and self-consciousness.

In a world gone mad with prudish behavior and political correctness, a world where bare breasts are taboo but dressing like a slut is permitted for eleven year olds, I propose a new way, a fresh perspective… a return to a more natural state.

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SARANAC LAKE, NY-

1. People Watch in an Airport

Envy sits a shoeshine chair in the Louisville airport in the form of an attractive woman wearing a brown sweater, short dirty-blonde punky pigtails, and a cowboy hat.

The childish air I read in this woman is not immaturity; rather, it is a focused fascination with the world in front of her.

She smiles in fits, hikes up the pant legs of her jeans, admires the
cowboy boots she’s presented to the shoe-shine man, and cocks her head (more…)

By R Kent

ARUSHA-

Irony is often cruel.

In my case, I love to travel.

So naturally I am stricken with horrible motion sickness.

Though I have been nauseous countless times in cars and on the occasional small Russian plane, my bête noire is the boat.

Whether in a canoe off the coast of Santa Barbara or an ocean liner in the Mediterranean, I know the slightest chop in the water, the merest ripple on the sea, will set churning my insides like a milkshake maker at Baskin-Robbins.

When traveling by boat, I have two options: knock myself out with pills, or vomit to the point of physical exhaustion.

Since neither of these actions interests me much, I usually do all I can to avoid boat rides altogether.

But as luck would have it, the last three Decembers have found me on islands, most recently that of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania’s mainland. (more…)

PARIS, FRANCE-

Although it’s not listed as a national sport, I’d have to say the preferred national past-time of the French is smoking.

In Paris, women smoke cigarettes while taking their babies on walks, pushing the stroller with one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other.

Children take smoking breaks during recess.

And every cafe has a haze of cigarette smoke loitering at the bar. (more…)