CNR #5

Monday Morning

I wake and wonder if today'll be a blunder,

if the spell I've been under will resurface or sunder.

The fact of the matter is the fog has been closing

and I'm choosing to let it with an effortless air.

To bring flares on a road trip or prepare for the boat

life jackets are just as restricting as hope

and flares can be dangerous even with good intentions

while the rules I once set are now constantly bending.

The straight line I once drew looks more sinusoidal

as long as it doesn't end up as a circle that traps in the bad

and keeps out the good and litters my life with no flames and just soot.

I've slammed and slammed my head and my foot on the floor and

I'm running down hallways of once open doors and looking for a window

or ladder to descend but the descent has been made

now I can't make the grade to myself I am Sade.

and while I'm suffocating I look down to my neck and just see my own hands.

Well I must be so full cause life gave me lemonade.

CNR #4

It’s All Reruns


At night I take pills and all day it’s all sandwiches.

I go to the beach which sand inhabits.

The sand, which in habit is colored like skin

From dead white to dark night sand and skin are akin.

Which brings me to say the point of these days

Is ambiguous to say the least and at least they hold interest

To a remembrance in my future rest and most futurest self.

Though the rest of my future seems on quite a high shelf.

I’m not climbing, not yet, though I’ve been set a net

And a fall would be meaningless, so the climb seems counterfeit.

Simulated imitation of what forefathers bared daily

And I stand at the beach and drink drink after drink

And think thing after thing, but things they do sink

Like sludge is my mind, a landfill of thoughts

So cover it up before I see my boss.

CNR #3

Things to Do Before You Die: An Essay by Rory

The other day I was thinking and I realized that someday we are all going to die. I tried to look up that day online but apparently it varies from person to person. All googled out, I went downstairs to mope and have a Pop Tart or two. Then while fishing the Pop Tart out of the toaster it dawned on me, light a spark! It was actually pretty intense because the fork flew from my hand and the hair on my head stood straight, and everything hurt. I had realized that there should be a list of things to do before you die. That way, you can complete the list and end yourself already, but you are happy because you don’t even need to be alive anymore.

Round two with google proved to be almost as useless as round one. I found a bunch of lists but they were full of things like “Sky dive” or “travel.” Let me tell you, diving is not only boring, but everyone makes fun of how your six-pack only has one squishy muscle and then you run from the pool and cry in the woods. This is when I had my third revelation of the day. I decided to make my own list of things to do before you die. That way, when I do these things I can’t say, “Who wrote this shit?” unless I am drunk and can’t remember. So, here it is, the list of things to do.

1) Drugs: If movies have taught us anything, it is that drugs are pretty great. The more expensive the drug, the cooler it is. When people are on drugs they do things like have sex, or do more drugs. These other drugs usually lead to more sex or maybe a platinum album. People that die from drugs are always important people too. You can try to argue but: name the last person nobody has ever heard of that died from drugs. You can’t!

2) Sex: Being a writer I usually get laid once, or even twice a day. Usually it is a passing girl who just takes one look at me, and just does me right there. Sometimes other girls join in too. It can get pretty crazy on the subway. Sex is always good, and when you don’t have a condom, make sure you don’t tell her your name, otherwise things can get messy.

3) Love: I forgot to mention that sex without love is a vile and evil act I do not condone or partake in. Although, now that I think about it, I can’t say I have ever been in love. In cartoons when you are in love, there are hearts all over your head or something and you float around. The closest I have come to love I guess would be seeing David Blaine levitate on TV. But I think I was just in love with the “idea” of him, or at least I heard that on Sex and the City one time. That show is very girly.

4) Child(ren): Having a child is something to do before you die for two reasons. The main reason to have a child is you can name it whatever you want. I tried to think of a really funny name for my child but I couldn’t so I just don’t really address it. I say things like, “hey you! Come here!” or sometimes I try out some names, “Jennifer!” or “Chris!” But the baby doesn’t really respond to any of these. Boooring. The other reason to have babies is because sometimes that’s what happens, although I guess technically that’s not a reason.

5) Flashback: This is one of the easier things to do before death because it usually happens right before death. What you do is you have a split-second flashback of your entire life and it eases your mind about the bullet headed your way, or the pill you accidentally swallowed, or the knife in your eye, or whatever. If you followed this list you might also have what google calls “acid flashbacks.” Those are different and not as calming.

I will soon upload this list to my blog so that within hours the whole world will see and follow this amazing list. Someday everyone will be efficiently completing their lives within maybe nine or ten years from birth! It will be a lovely world where no one has to live without love or really fast flashbacks. Sometimes death can be really funny, but then you feel bad. But then you think about that old saying. You know what they say: death is a funny thing, one minute it is here, one minute its gone.

CNR #2

How to Make Friends: An Essay by Rory

Some people think it is hard to make friends. They think that friends are never around when you are looking for them. I am one of those people. I am your average really good looking funny guy with practically a six-pack and everything going for me. I have a great job in the works and have almost gone back to school after my brief break to study what it is like to be in prison. In this essay I will explore how to make friends, obviously.

I first got the idea for this essay when I had no friends and wished there was a guide on how to make friends, and wha-la, now I am writing it. It is a guide that is mostly for me, but I guess others can use it too.

About a year ago I decided to try one of my ideas for friend making, that is, after the three-day waiting period. When I finally picked up my gun from the store they tried to sell me ammo, like what am I? A fool? I rolled my eyes around three times and said, “No thanks, buddy, I don’t need bullets to impress people.” Guns are all about image. If I stuff this gat in my sweatpants, walk into an airport, and try to pass security the beeper will go off. I would say, “Oh, I forgot about my gun.” I would pull it out, and everyone would have this impressed look on their face like, “Where did he even get one of those??” That was my first plan, but the airport was a little far. I ended up just showing it to a bunch of people in the park. The first guy ran away, and the second guy put up his hands in excitement, but then he also ran away. I thought the second guy and I were almost friends, cause I started to jog with him and I was like, “Do you jog with all your friends?” and I think he nodded, but it was hard to tell, he was really far ahead.

Anyways, the gun method had partial success but it mostly just got me arrested. This is when I decided to study what prison is like. Coincidently, I had to go there for a year anyway. It’s hard to know the real reason anyone does anything anymore. But while in prison I thought more about how to make friends. I remember one time I tried to pay someone to be my friend, but I think she wanted to be more than friends. But there are a lot of confusing parts about this method of friend attaining. I didn’t really get it; I don’t recommend it.

Another idea I had for getting friends was to order some. I had just ordered some nice soft L.L. Bean slippers off of Amazon, and I was ready to give them more business. However, now you will see a two star review next to Friends BluRay (whatever that means) because of many reasons. Number one: it is just VHSes of friends, like on the TV and (number two) they don’t even talk to you. But I did give them two stars because they were still really good friends.

My final and best idea for attaining friends is to simply to drink a lot of alcohol. Its funny, but I remember when I was fifteen I saw this movie with this girl. Anyway, some guy couldn’t get any action and then I think he drank a lot and something…. Maybe his father died? Oh wait, no- I have it. Never mind though, I was thinking of something else, it doesn’t matter.

The point is, I have reread this little guide many times and even typed it onto little note cards and put them in my wallet. I add new ideas to the note cards sometimes when I go out drinking alone, but in the morning I look at the paper and I am like “What?” My notes usually say things like "Make yourself a nickname like Moose or Jordan" or "friends don't want to see your calculator, buy a better one". The pick-up lines I have read online don’t work on people either. After you say them sometimes girls hit you and all the time guys hit you. You pretty much are going to get hit a lot in the plight to make friends. But the key is to roll with the punches, because when you do that you look like you are dancing which only further increases your “cool.” Now, I am not saying I am the master at getting friends, but I did write this guide.

All in all, friends are very important. Because if you don’t have friends you end up trying to get them, and it just looks pathetic. This guide I have written is pretty good, but I don’t know if I understand it yet. I just have to wait for that day where the words jump off the page and show me exactly how to make friends. I imagine the words would sprout some legs and make this strip club look similar to a perverted sesame street, you know, with the words jumping around, showing me how to make friends.

Note-Card Notes:

- Give yourself a cool nick name (maybe Moose?)

- Talk about cool inventions you wish were real (metal human wings, helicopter hats etc).

- Don’t insult the alpha-male to show dominance.

- Bring icepack (ask bartender to keep icepack in freezer)

- Don’t always show gun.

- Don’t show them the guide (assume they already have friends and are friend worthy)

- Keep blackouts to a minimum.

CNR #1

Humble Origins and Endings

I used to write quite a bit. I would spend hours at home toiling away with constantly erased poems in notepad. Too afraid to do something fun like start a game or even draw a mural but too bored to start my homework, I would sit and spit out whatever came to mind, much like now. And I guess that leads to now. I was hoping to have more written by the time I reached this point. A kind of bitter sweet ocean of ideas that flow through the brain like once forgotten letters found in desk drawers with scribbled jokes and drawings that may have been an artistic abomination but certainly serviceable to portray what tom cruise would look like if he actually did eat one thousand dicks. The point, though, is that I am browsing through all these ideas that I once thought would make good material to write about and share but none of them particularly grab me. In fact the one idea I keep coming back to is trying to not start all of these sentences with the word “I” and I’m not sure but I’d say three “I”s in a sentence should equal an “I” beginning and now I fear that I’ve fallen into a structural depth that I cannot escape from.

This all stems from my fifth grade teacher who, to give you an idea of his character, set me aside and apologized for pairing me with the ugliest boy in class for reading groups and was later fired for referring to a child as a Jew. Maybe not a Jew, but a jew. I wrote a paper that he did not take a liking to. I believe he thought I wasn’t a very good writer, which didn’t surprise me too much because I was in fifth grade. He took the green pen he used to correct (because he believed that red pen had a bad association, so now I think of green and red in a negative light though I am thankful he never discovered the ever flamboyant rainbow pen), and circled all the times I used “I” to start a sentence. “It’s a memoir!” I pleaded, but it wasn’t enough. After seeing all the circles I did kind of see his point. I I I am doomed.

Now that I’ve spent a paragraph writing nothing of relevance to anything I think I have set the mood for what this will be: A place for thoughts and other gay things. Instead of taking a seat on porcelain once a day, I think I’ll come here. It may seem silly but our sewers have much less shit than the world wide web, so to contribute to the www seems like a drop in the bucket and an nbd. Come, stay awhile, take off your shoes, read up on some info, and clean up that mess you just made. You could have at least aimed for a kleenex.