Lulu’s Loose Screw

*The only recurring dream I ever had was when I was in elementary school. The following story is that dream. But to me, it was always more like a nightmare.  She pops up like those fuzzy clown figures in a carnival game. She is cardboard. There are several versions of her—just like in that carnival game. The hallway rises in hills, and dips down, each ditch five feet away from the last one. There are several versions of her—one standing at each mound of the hallway. One popping up at each mound of the hallway. I am on a date at a fancy French restaurant. He is across from me. We sit by the doors to the kitchen, which slams him in the back as each server pushes the swinging door, and the bathroom, which people walk through behind my back. I excuse myself because now I have to go to the bathroom, and he says he will order for me. I open the door that was behind me as I sat, and enter a long and narrow corridor. There are rooms on each side of the hall...

I sit down on a burgundy couch next to a man with scary-spice hair a wide nose and jutting teeth. I turn to face him and smile and he says hello. I say, “Are you Gene Simmons?” And he laughs and says yes through slobbery teeth. We both agree on an autograph. My hands dive into my bag then and I find a pen but no paper except for a pregnancy flow chart from my job. I say, “I can’t believe this! I’m a writer and I have no paper.” He finds this funny, and also finds my fumbling amusing. Finally I unfold a plain piece of computer paper from an inside pocket in my bag. “This should work.” I stand up. I do not want to read over his shoulder like a lurker on a subway, and I want to be surprised with his writing. Under two minutes he hands me back the signed and crumpled paper, I refold it and replace it in the inside pocket of my bag. Two teenagers have been sitting across from us this whole time and now one of them gets up and jumps on the left of Gene, smashing his belt buck...

*Real writers write with crooked handwriting on envelopes with sharpies or eyeliner. (not on mini moleskine notebooks in the subway) *If I were a diehard number one fan of someone I would be worried. I would also wear a #1 foam finger when around them. *Make your own happiness, and horoscope. *Blowing out in a pool sounds like pop-up videos.  Pop-Up Video Theme Song More scribbles to come...

You know when people say, you’re a pig and a half ? What do they mean by that? And what half of the pig am I exactly? And why am I always a pig in these scenarios? Either I am being a pig, making a pig of myself, or I am pigging out. Or my room is in constant mockery for being a pigsty; like Jillian Jiggs I hear, “ 'you look like your room has been lived in by pigs.' ” Not that I am complaining because pigs happen to be my favorite animals—but those people mean pig derogatorily, so I take offense. Then you have those other people, or similar people, or exactly the same people who say, I am so hungry I can eat a horse!  I imagine these folks chowing down on a whole horse—knife and fork jutting out of the horse’s midsection—like the ShelSilverstein poem about the girl who eats the whale: And sadly that is all I have for you on the subject. Leftovers (for if you are still hungry):