Buying Magic in Crystal City
I buy magic spells. There's a guy with a shopping cart (full of spells!) and a sign that says "down on my luck, could use a hand." He sits outside pretty much all day and has very dark skin and a quiet voice. I bought him a hamburger and he said "I'll get cha back." Next day, I dropped my hamburger on the ground and an older guy walked over to give me a free hamburger coupon. Payback. I could feel the magic. Also I'm a dragon so ...

I give this fella a few bucks every couple of days. We're solid. Yesterday, I walked down to the magician and gave him a few bucks and he mumbled a low incantation, something about "effing livestock won't give nobody a change." Give me a love spell. He waved his arms and said "Get outta here, wer're done." Went to the gym. I think he confused my love spell with a stink spell. What should I buy next?

Sad Day for Magic
The stout magician at the bus stop was felled sometime early this morning by a choice bottle of screwtop wine wrapped in a brown paper bag. She gave that demonic brew all it wanted for the first three hours, but her poor constitution proved the undoing. I imagine she let loose with the finest and most profane magic ever witnessed by mere mortals. I hope she didn't open her bag of "dark magic" in a last attempt to win the battle, thereby losing with some dignity. Apparently the wine also took one of her shoes and scattered vomit before vacating the area. I know she fought bravely. If you know any magicians, witches, or wizards we have a vacancy in Crystal City.

Monday is Magic-day
The pet store by my house should be called "Sad, Sad Pets" instead of Most Valuable Pets or PetSmart or whatever. The gerbils and guinea pigs shrank back against the glass in fear, the birds openly sobbed, and two dogs were drawing an escape plan on the back of their cage. It said: 1) Look cute and get out of cage 2) bite child 3) run for it. Not a very good plan, in my view.

Met a magician at the bus stop. She was 4 foot tall and 300 pounds. Stout. She vigorously waved her arms to and fro before tackling an imaginary (?) foe. She spun around to face me. Thus she spake magic and extremely profane words - maybe her magic is rooted in profanity? I stumbled back and she laughed. The powerful emanation smelled of garlic and poo. I didn't share her amusement. I offered her a crinkled dollar bill for safe passage. She said "You're money is no good here." But she pocketed my buck. Then, she explained that she was a powerful magician sent to Crystal City to fight nefarious forces. I agreed she was powerful. I have only experienced such power once before - a sweaty cab driver in Dubai.

Revenge and Peter Rabbit
Interesting day. Got a sandwich from Subway and the plastic basket containing bacon was marked "Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit." I asked for some Peter Rabbit on my sandwhich. The sandwhich artist was not amused but the girl behind me laughed. Really, who would mix Peter Rabbit and turkey.

Went to see The Descent and it was interesting. Won't mention any gore, but if you don't want the storyline, skip the next two paragraphs. So, it was basically about the way women attack each other often behind each other's backs - in the context of bat-people in Appalachia. Is Appalachia the scariest place on Earth? Between this movie, Delieverance, and Wolf Creek - I never want to go through Eastern Pennsylvania to South Carolina. One girl whom I will call Adulturous Bitch (AB) is cheating with Sarah's husband (whom I will call A-Hole). The first scene is the pack of girl friends white water rafting and A-hole lends AB a helping hand getting out of the water. We, the audience, understand that they have a thing going on - otherwise known as adultery. Sarah's family is in an accident on the way home and A-Hole is impaled by a pole. Play with fire ... but the young daughter is also killed. Sarah survives and is traumatized.

One year later, AB gets the girls back together for the cave thing. Lots of stuff happens and all the girls die but AB and Sarah. As the are making their way out of the cave system, Sarah (see earlier found out about AB and A-Hole from her friend Beth) sticks her axe into AB and leaves her to be eaten by the bat-people. So, if you cheat without recourse and concern for the other person, you get impaled by a pole or eaten raw by bat-people in Appalacia. At least that's what I took from the movie. Revenge is served, although Sarah probally didn't do too well considering that her daughter died and her memory of her husband is tarnished by him and AB committing adultery.

There were two small kids in the movie and I wondered what their mom was thinking taking them to see The Descent. Afterwards, as the waiting for their mom to finish up in the restroom, I took them aside and tried to explain the context. I said that the movie was made-up to scare people and they shouldn't worry about the bat-people. "They'll get other acting jobs, really," I said. "What about the guy who played Golem in the Lord of the Rings, he found work being a bat-person." And what about Geena Davis? She's carved out a nice little career looking the way she does. I told the kids to not worry about bat-folk but rather leave a bit of cheese outside for them at night. Yes, they like cheese and live around you. I don't think they got me.

So, cheaters really do lose and are often eaten by bat-people. Subway serves Peter Rabbit for 50 cents or 1 dollar for a foot long. And Geena Davis was the first bat-person to work in Hollywood. And adulterous cheaters get dealt with. Hardcore.

der grosse konig

I am currently fascinated with the Nazi escoterism/occultism. The whole movement took its cue from H. Himmler and his search to form a Teutonic order to keep the motherland safe. Awesome. There is all kinds of stuff that reaches into this like Wagner's The Ring opera and the ancient struggle for dominance.

It gets good when Himmler starts looking for holy artifacts to use against the world. This has been explored in Indiana Jones, Katherine Neville's The Magic Circle, and many other works. Apparently, Himmler wanted to stir up der grosse konig (Great King) and a weasely little man named Hitler thought that sounded alright. Everyone knows that Hitler stole the holy lance (the lance used to pierce Christ's side at the crucifixation) from Vienna and used it to gain power. Simple history, gents. But did you know that the last bastion of the Nazi's lies in Antartica?

Himmler and others thought that the ancient Aryans were located in obscure places like Shangri La in Nepal or the South Pole. Big H and his peeps found an ice free mountain range in Antartica and named it Die Niebenglund or something. Also, 2500 smokin' hot Ukrainian women between the ages of 17 and 25 were sent to Antartica to meld with juicy Nazi manmeat to produce a new race of short men with block mustaches and women that love them. This was the first documented case of some shady guy hangning out at the metro saying "you wanna be a model?" Imagine the look of surpise as hot Ukrainian chick #1 looks around and comprenhends the grand scheme. I think I would've gone lesbian.

So upon Hitler's demise, the holy treasures like the holy lance were taken to Antartica to await safe repose from modern day German businessman. Maybe Dr Z from the car commercials was sent to Antartica to claim holy relics? Hmmm.

I will soon undertake my own voyage to the South Pole to check all this out. Maybe all those ultra hotties also have really hot grand-daughters.

Fatburner
Took some fatburner pills with my breakfast of nothing. Put my imagination into overdrive. Walked to the mall and semi-stalked some hot girl all the while wondering if people really only like the idea of extremely attractive people. I wondered if this chick was hot becuase of what she was wearing that day, if she was hot most every day, or if we all as citizens of the world have "hot days." I would like to believe in the latter. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone had a certain day of the week or at least a day of the month where they looked really good? Like, my optium attractive day would be Friday or something. Not that I would look significantly changed, but I would look as good as I possibly could on that day. Everyone deserves some love. Everyone should experience looking good at some time.

Which brings me to my seperated wife. Saw her yesterday and she looked really good. For a moment, I thought she looked good becuase I was no longer in her life, but I realized that it was just because I hadn't seen her in so long. I wanted to sweep her off her feet and kiss her passionately. I settled for hello. Sad, really. Maybe yesterday was her hot day. I wonder if she knows how much I miss that stuff.

Garden State
I never really identified with a movie until I saw Colin Firth as Mr Darcy in Pride and Predjudice. He reminded me of the way I went through life being aloof and not really trying to establish relationships. But I found another movie that sums up everything for me at this moment in my life.

I bought Garden State six months ago but never watched it. Everything in that movie works for me right now. I feel like I have mumbled through life. Things changed when I met my wife, but I lost track of what I wanted and what she expected. Now, much like the Zach Braff character, I want to fix everything. I want to move the cloud that has kept me down. He saw Natalie Portman's character as his catalyst. He wanted to change because of her, for her, and with her. I feel the same way with my seperated wife. I want to start over but I can't seem to make things get in line. I know what I want, just not how to get her to take the first step with me.

When they go to the junkyard and Braff asked his friend why they are there and what's going on, Portman says "he wants to protect me." I wanted to protect my girl. But I can't do that right now and it's awful. At the very end, Braff is deciding to leave and go back to LA or stay with Portman. For me, the ending made the whole story. Plus it has Iron and Wine covering Such Great Heights.

Trials of the Haircut
Got a haircut today. The nearest place was a salon called Bubbles. Seriously, what straight guy would saunter into Bubbles and not expect a permit up coif reminiscent of Justin Timberlake when he was with NSync. Bubles. Instead went to the Hair Cuttery and had a older chap named Doug cut my hair.

When I walked in, this heavy set and very tan guy with a Hawaiian t-shirt and loafers stood examining the "hair jellies" - per George Clooney in O' Brother Where Art Thou. I went to the counter and this guy stood directly behind me. Uncomfortably behind me. He said "Come on back" - I was a little weirded out. Turned out this was Doug. He immediately told me to call him Doug, although his name was Dudley. We embarked on a magical journey of discovery with me dumbly nodding to his eloquations on nicknames. His good girl friend - "not my girlfriend, but you know ... my best friend who is a girl" calls him DeeDee. His best party friend from the sixties calls him Dolly. His best "crazy-pyscho friend" calls him Roy. His words. His friends.

Several years ago, my middle brother went to get a haircut at some innocuous place across the street from his apartment. He was the only patron and the haircutter or stylist or whatever really took a shine to my brother. "what music ya listen to?" My brother - "Lots of stuff." Silence. Silence. Haircutter - "I gotta van, ya got any friends who want to go to Cincy to see a concert?" My brother - "I think that's short enough, actually I'm gonna let my hair grow out." He put some money on the counter and left. He had a great time at the concert.

I thought about my brother's experience as this odd fella snipped around my ears and eyes with sharp implements. Doug's own hair was a gray permed ball of thin little hairs. Looked like a really old poodle's hair. A little mangy and matted. I went to my happy place. It turned out ok, but he double checked my address in the computer. I shall double check my locked door tonight.

Pigtails
Met a friend for lunch today and decided to write a relationship book. The narrator is the pet koala bear named Rusty. His owner is the guy of the relationship and he is trying to get back together with his longtime girl, we'll call her "Aphro" short for Aphrodite. Of course she has a gigantic blonde afro, which allows for lots of odd introductions at parties. We can call the guy Ed.

Rusty keeps us up to date on the relationship ups and downs. He alwasys liked Aphro, but knows something is different. He compares Ed and Aphro's relationship to his love of eucalyps leaves. He knows he loves them, that they are his favorite, but he wants to make them better. He comes up with different recipes but ultimately decides that he likes the leaves best when they are raw and uncooked. Which seques into Ed's life, as he kills and eats Aphro when she changes her hair to pigtails. Raw and uncooked.

That got grim pretty quick. I really didn't intend to go that direction but what are you gonna do. The girl in my video game quickly forgot her dead boyfriend and shacked up with some new guy. I made her jump off a building. A few times. Then I accepted it and saved the world from a fat man connected to the collective subconsciuos through wires and machines.

I bought my younger brother's nintendo ds a few weeks ago. Since I'm taking dating/relationship advice from anyone from Tyra Banks to Stuffy Shortcake (made up name for my stuffed animal), I bought a ds game called Sprung. This game is a decision tree system where you play as Brett or Becky and go for the love connection. Maybe I will learn something. Sounded good at the time, at least Stuffy thought so.

Playing as Brett, each of my decision options included a wimpy response, angry response, and tactful response. But the best is when the game let's you pick "go for it" which translates to "let's get it on." Brett makes a face like he's had 15 shots and "goes for it." Usually the girl jumps back and the screen tells you that "___ is horrified and slaps you so hard your teeth rattle" or something suitable vertive.

There is a hippie girl who turns into a cow once you take a hallucingen, a whip packing grannie who gives you her underwear, and a southern belle who faints without candy. Odd. Of course, Brett really wants to date his long time friend and resident hottie Becky. Maybe I should try being friends first? Who says video games rot the brain.

Tyra Banks told me to move on. I watched the Tyra Banks Show this morning because the topic was people who can't let their ex go. This one girl was married with a child and told her husband they needed to seperate, which they did. After two months, the wife said she wanted to fix their relationship but husband already had a new chick! He told her he didn't love her anymore.

Another girl was living with her boyfriend of two years when he said "get your stuff and leave." The boyfriend played his guitar as this poor girl hauled all her stuff out of the apartment all the while pleading with her boyfriend to talk it out. I watched this show because I'm having a hard time letting my "ex-wife in the making" go ahead and leave. I miss her and I don't understand why she doesn't miss me the same way. Maybe cause she has a boyfriend and I'm still by myself. I think 5 years is the magic number for some people. They freak out and think that they are missing out and something needs to change. Not really what happened to me, but the effect is the same. One person is ready and one just dies.

Everyone should have a special phone where it only rings if you are in deep trouble. My phone started ringing in November. I just couldn't hear it and didn't know what to change. For my ex, I hope her phone is ringing and she answers it. I don't think she'll call.

I watched the Simpsons last night and found out that Homer is only 39. That disturbs me greatly as I am 31 with a birthday this fall. Not alot of room between me and ... Homer Simpson? Maybe everything falls apart after 35? Maybe some guys just fall apart and the age is irrelevant. Just for good measure, I added 15 more minutes to my daily run.

Andrew said that a person can't drink a gallon of milk in one hour, that hurling is a foregone conclusion. Everyone doubted his ascersion, but he was disturbingly vehement with this idea. Yeah, he was a little drunk but it sounded like a personal life or death struggle to defeat bovine juice - I'll leave him to it.