Semicolons Have It Rough, Man.

Semicolon is getting real sick of this shit. People used to respect Semicolon; writers like Jonathan Swift used Semicolon like they had a tick, or an oddly specific Tourette's. Now Semicolon is mainly used by amateur writers before their high-school teachers cross his chest with obnoxiously lipsticky ink, insulting Semicolon like he's not even in the room. Semicolon gets a decent amount of work in legal documents and programming languages, but who the hell knows WHAT those are saying. Semicolon feels like a factory worker making parts for a machine he can't use and doesn't understand. And he's felt like that for too long.

Semicolon's parents are still getting good work, which drives him up the wall; Semicolon's dad, Colon, always speaks like the next thing he's going to say is something momentous and brilliant: and half the time, Colon just lists shit off, like complaints, or reasons, usually grievances, occasionally brief approval. Semicolon's mom, Comma, is fine with this, encourages it actually, and since she's the main breadwinner with the most incessant work, she never shuts up, always adding one more thing, never letting it go, talking, talking, and talking, on and on and on,  until Semicolon leaves or gets far enough away.

Semicolon's parents are always telling him that he can never finish anything he started, not that they can talk, but Semicolon can't argue with them; their mistakes were as clear on the page as his own. Semicolon never finished his relationship with Period, the man Semicolon hoped would end Semicolon; but instead, he just ended them. They had not nearly enough in common, and then there was the distance, and the fact Semicolon ignores as best he can that Colon doesn't know that his son is homosexual and already criticizes his femininity. And all Semicolon can think about sometimes is how he can never finish in bed, even when Period wasn't being a minuteman; how he's always on the brink of something, something greater, something powerful and brilliant and tangible and it will let him come, it will let him finish, it will let him become complete in a way Colon and Comma never were and Period always will be, but it and they and something, something will always be beyond him, will always be next but not now, never this moment but always visible ahead, the carrot on a stick that makes Semicolon, the ass that he knows he is, carry the words of others and never finish.

At least Semicolon sees those sluts "and yet" and "however" often enough. But Comma always has a way of walking in on them.

The Quiet Lives of the Organized

On this campus, people's blinds are open in a shallow relation to their personality. Half the time, their blinds are closed because they're too lazy to put a beer away, or to smoke outside, and if you knocked and seemed decent, guess what, they'll get you fucked up, because that's love or something. But then there are rooms like the one I walked past recently, where his window was wide open while he cleaned his room, tucked his pastel shirt into his pastel pants, the irony being that real paint is too messy and uncertain for him. Or so I assume; self-proclaimed writer that I am, liberties shall be taken liberally. And he didn't look out. And he didn't stop to play with the college-ruled decorations on his desk. And he didn't look comfortable in his own room.

Someone earnest should knock on all the doors in this dorm that never stay open longer than it takes a person to pass through. They should interview these people. I want the literary equivalent of post-secret, but from people who wouldn't elect to submit even post-secrets.

I talk too much. (Duh.) I take myself way too seriously, considering this blog's title is a stupid meta-joke that I only took because "easy to remember" was taken. And I want desperately to hear what this kid has to say about his life. About his mom, who cut his sister out of her life because her boyfriend didn't like this mother's daughter. About the idea he had for a webcomic about boats in ports shit-talking each other. About his views on forgiveness, on self-control, on how his first one-night stand told him to kiss like it was a popsicle, not an ice-cream cone, on how to throw out the hairclip she left, on how John Butler Trio is good, on how he realized that no one cares when he cries in his room and that's ok, you cry if you need to, someday you'll be on a stage and people will clap and community theater is OK, fuck the nay-sayers, just because it's small town small scale doesn't mean it doesn't matter, your friends care, think it's cool, and it is cool, you're doing something you love, live it, and to quote that band your roommate won't shut up about, whatever and ever, amen.

Someone tell me something.