Straight No Chaser

Five Hundred, Parts One and Two

part one.

this is me paying homage and wishing a proper goodbye to this thing. and also, trying my damnedest to fill it up to capacity. when you get bored, scroll down to part two.

"Epsom Salt" 

ever get all excited about finding something you wrote long ago, only to read the first three lines and immediately want to die? i went back and edited this and a few others, so i don't know when i actually wrote it, but eccccchhhhh, what a little shit i was then, hinting at things i didn't want to write about, being obnoxious about things that weren't happening anywhere but in my sleeping brain. if i could go back a year and find the shannon who wrote that tripe, i'd shoot her in the chest.

"Xyloid Dreams" 

here's where i start to wonder how sexually repressed i was, last year. "xyloid dreams" was, of course, a horny, ill-crafted play on words. xylo- is the prefix for wood, of course, which could refer to the trees in that entry, but doesn't. wood! erections! ha! horny, horny, horny girl.

"Words" 

still my favorite survey. since then i've been looking for others like it, prompts that seem really specific but that can inspire any range of responses. and i was really obsessed with myself for those images at the beginning. jade pendant between my collarbones. ruby under the rose petal and such.

i hate the thought that i'm only seven months older, now, than i was when i was that dumb.

but, oh, if anyone finds me another survey like that, i, will, um, name my firstborn for you. if i like your name enough.

"Veruca, Morton, Epsom, Other" 

i have absolutely no idea what this entry was about.

or, no, wait, i do. the "veruca, morton, epsom" thing was a reference to salts. i had probably just watched secret window, because that quote is from the director's commentary on the dvd. and i had my disgusting allergic reaction, and marcus was on his way, so i was probably panicked and hating life. oh, and that's when the benedryl was keeping me knocked out twenty hours a day, or whenever i wasn't at work. and emile was a turtle, one i'd seen earlier in the street that i thought might become roadkill.

encylopedia brown cracks the case again.

"Upside Down" 

i don't even want to know what i was upset about. it hasn't been that long; the wounds are probably still fresh.

"This Is Experimental" 

haha, that's funny, except, jodi, i don't remember what the experiment was, do you? i think it was after we found out what a crucial skimmer ernie is, and you said something like, "write an entry that calls him out at the end, and we'll see if he responds," and then he didn't! ha.

yeah, i'm really annoying.

"_ _ _ - _ _ - _ - _ _ _ _ _" 

it was "son-of-a-bitch." duh. i was mad that day. some of the stuff people guessed, hoo, i got a laugh over that one. everything but the obvious.

"Restitution" 

life was soooo good right then. that was when strange was new and ever-present, because i had her class for ninety minutes twice a week. i miss her. my signed copy of her poetry collection has been on my nightstand for about the past six weeks, and it hasn't once occurred to me to actually open it. i probably should, tonight.

that david copperfield thing, i wrote it down. if he ever says anything like that ever again, i'll probably just marry him. so he'd better not.

"Quotation Marks" 

when caroline says nice things to me, i get all warm inside. i called it a survey, she called it "cento," establishing herself as by far the worldlier, but then she complimented me anyway, and i was glad i did it. she is cool, and missed.

"i like shannon. her smells good."

i've only seen that cousin like once, since then, even though he doesn't live more than ten miles away. i should go see him, because i like him. him smells good.

"Packed" 

eggburgers, ewwwww.

finally, finally, we're getting into territory where i am not quite so annoyed by my own bad jokes.

"Olfactory Injustice" 

i think it's really unfair when people, especially those who should know better, smell bad. it is so, so, so easy not to.

thankfully, i don't remember what that fight was about.

"Nectarine" 

ooh, the fruits! i loved that exercise, because every time i skimmed through my entry list during that period, it made my whole mouth water. and also because it largely coincided with the second round of island stories. and kailani was damn adorable, at least in my mind; i think about her sometimes, left probably to die on an island with cadavers for parents, and i feel like there's more, particularly since no one understood the ending. but there isn't, it's over.

aaron, you know, don't you, that you're not allowed to give that name to any daughter you might have, ever? yeah, you know that.

"My Boyfriend Likes to Sing and Dance" 

i should do another ipod survey. even though no one likes them but me.

"Little Bits and Pieces" 

i still can't believe anne hathaway showed her breasts in brokeback mountain. i know she's an adult, doesn't want to be typecast, yada yada, but still. i felt the same way watching her bone that foppish fuck in the devil wears prada. i am not convinced by the notion of princess mia, of ella enchanted, as anything remotely sexual or slutty.

which, i guess, is why she did it.

"Kerplop" 

that was a good entry. in its way.

"Justice Prevails" 

life isn't fair. but, on a brighter note, i haven't talked to that roommate since the last day of the school year, and i probably never will again. when i was in atlanta last month, i called her on an impulse. she didn't pick up, and then i didn't pick up when she called me back an hour later. i was there to see marcus, anyway. it was sleazy of me, but i'm not sorry. she was nuts.

i'm still really proud of bruce wayne newton.

"Ick" 

speaking of cremating, it is my dad's opinion (and probably that of many other) that kenneth lay is neither dead nor cremated, but chilling on a beach somewhere in the caribbean. and i sort of think he's probably right. i don't trust that crowd.

"Hhh" 

haha. whatever i may have said, read this one to say, "i can't believe how immature this is; you guys are making me nauseous."

i try, i really do, to be diplomatic.

round two is still in session, so that's all i have to say about that one.

"Gotta Start Writing Longer Entries" 

read the title. that is, of course, the reason for endless entries like this one. i hate the idea of not filling this journal to capacity. which i won't, anyway, because i've got something like three hundred kilobytes to fill, and not nearly enough to say, nor the patience to say it. but i tried. i did.

at the close of that exercise, my reigning general thought is that i'm much less annoying, now, than i was a year ago.

i'm sure i'll feel differently next july.

part two.

an incredibly self-indulgent, narcissistic and not-so-easy quiz that you can take, partially take, ignore, whatever. it's for an as-yet-undetermined prize; first to a perfect score wins. and you can cheat. you can look. but you won't, probably.

here goes.

1. what is my middle name? (there are two; you can pick one.)

2. what is my favorite piece of music?

3. what are three things i hate?

4. when is my birthday?

5. why do i love marcus?

6. in the dream, what did we name the twins?

7. which lovely soul was my first-ever writing.com friend?

8. what does the title of this journal reference?

9. tell me something about my brother.

10. was i not incredibly clever for coming up with an x fruit?

11. true or false: i love alcohol!

12. what are some things we can teach kai, in spite of a marked lack of educational tools?

13. how many times did i see charlie and the chocolate factory in theaters?

14. name my most crippling allergy.

15. if i have a son and a daughter, what might their names be? (bonus point if you can throw in one of their middle names.)

16. what frightens me more than anything?

17. please take the time to pay a compliment to the lovely mr. depp.

18. would i fuck johnny, given the no-strings-attached opportunity?

19. who did i vote for in the last presidential election?

20. give your neighbor a hug!

again, shamelessly self-indulgent, shamelessly narcissistic, but at this point, who cares. i loved this journal, it was a blast to create, and it will be missed.

without further ado.

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