Saturday, March 30, 2013

3/30/13: Seizures

You put a wallet in the jaws of a seizing person, if you didn't know.

I, for one, was ignorant of this trick -- until last week, when I read the Chuck Palahniuk novel, Invisible Monsters. I'd heard of putting sticks or other hard objects in there, but never a wallet. Makes sense, considering not everyone keeps a stick on hand.

Immediately after finishing Invisible Monsters, I started reading a new book: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (because in 1962, I wasn't alive). And, wouldn't you know, this book also mentioned putting a wallet in the jaws of someone having a seizure.

After going twenty-nine years without knowing of this practice, I'd read of it in two sequential books, bought separately and read in random order.

But that's not the kicker: not only did the respective books each depict a wallet in the mouth of the seizing person, they depicted sex with said seizing person. Yes, sex with a seizing person. One book had the wallet in the mouth before intercourse rather than after, but still.

Probably the world's only two books involving sex with the seizing, and I read them back-to-back. Where's my prize?

(Wait, hasn't this happened before?)

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

3/12/13: Plastic

"But people don't eat plastic!"

I read this in John Berendt's book, The City of Falling Angels. The quote was from a Venetian rat-poison manufacturer. Don't ask.

All that matters is, I read the passage just before lunchtime.

That day, lunch was rice and frozen vegetables. Yum. I made it as I've made it a thousand times before, with the expert touch necessary to boil rice and steam vegetables. It was a tough job, but I somehow ended up with a bowl of rice and veggies. Phew.

Then, when I sat down to consume this culinary masterpiece, I found something in it.

A little greyish triangle, it rested amidst my bowlful of white and green, contrasting the rice like a black sheep. Carefully, I excavated it by way of fork, as one might delicate surgery. I plucked the triangle from the tines, squeezed it speculatively in my fingers, and then set it down.

Plastic. A scab-sized triangle of grey plastic. But people don't eat plastic! I thought, in answer.

The best I can figure, I snipped it from one of my bags of vegetables while opening them, and it thereby migrated into my lunch. As it were, I've never before discovered any denomination of plastic in my food, in my twenty-nine years of eating -- and then this, not an hour after reading that prophetic statement.

Being a person, I did not eat the triangle of plastic.

Monday, March 11, 2013

3/11/13: The Witness

Find my psychological horror short, "The Witness," in The Darkness Within, a new anthology from Indigo Mosaic.

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Sunday, March 10, 2013

3/10/13: Birthday Gift

Find my humor short, "Birthday Gift," for free at Feathertale.

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Friday, March 8, 2013

3/8/13: Intangible

Begin reading my fantasy novella, "Intangible," in SQ Mag, released as a six-part serial -- for free!

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Saturday, March 2, 2013

3/2/13: Ciao, America!

My friend and I like thrift stores. We like them so much, in fact, we've made it ritual to visit them when we meet. Invariably, Things Happen when we visit these thrift stores.

Namely, things tend to repeat themselves.

Take, for instance, my friend's February 4th visit. We first went to a Goodwill store, in which we both noticed a book for sale: Ciao, America! Why did we notice it? There's no saying, but it stood out enough, for each of us, to have recorded it mentally.

Then, an hour later, we hit another Goodwill, located some twenty miles away. Interestingly, this one also had the book Ciao, America! My friend and I, both attuned to these recurrences, both noted the book being there also. We got a laugh from it.

But then, a month later, it happened again.

This time, it occurred some hundreds of miles away, in North Carolina's Outer Banks. It was my friend's next sequential meeting, and so we'd undertaken our usual sweep of the area's thrift stores, starting with a non-Goodwill. Well, it had the book, Ciao, America!

Three in a row. We laughed more.

Then it happened a fourth time.

Another Goodwill, now. We went there immediately after leaving the day's first thrift store, some miles away -- and it had the book. We marveled at it. Four in a row, a month and hundreds of miles apart.

Still, neither of us bought it. The book just didn't appeal to us.

(Note: it bears mentioning that Ciao, America! was only one of several recurring items between these and other thrift-store visits, to uncanny levels. If it was just Goodwills, I would say they got a stock of certain items and distributed them. But it's not just Goodwills ...)

Friday, March 1, 2013

3/1/13: Used Gravitrons

Find my bizarre short story, "Not Insane," in Issue #11 of Used Gravitrons, for free!

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3/1/13: Urban Occult

Find my paranormal-horror short, "A Kind of Love," in Urban Occult, now available for pre-order from Anachron Press. Order before March 4th to get special bonuses.

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