24 Hour Laundromat

[The laudromat is just named “24 Hour Laundromat.” On a darkened street it’s lit up dingily. It is 2 or 3 AM. There are a couple people waiting, reading, closed up in themselves. In the very back, a figure is slowly folding laundry.]

[Lee, in a stained wifebeater, gym shorts, and stained, over-stretched bedroom slippers, is leaning against a washer across from the pair of machines where his burden spins, bouncing his butt against the machine in a way that suggests he’s unaware he’s doing it. He is resting a large rectangular white laundry basket against his belly, and mumbling to himself. We can't hear what he's saying. A young woman approaches. She holds an empty laundry bag. Waits for a moment. When he doesn’t seem to notice her, she speaks up. ]

Young woman: Excuse me. I've got to get --

Lee: Oh, no, I’m sorry, I’m just... taking up space.

[Lee steps aside and stands uncomfortably. He tries to hold the white laundry basket, one arm casually over it. He almost drops it. The woman starts to unload her clothes from the machine into the bag.]

Lee: Have I seen you here before?

Young woman: I don’t think so. I’m new to the neighborhood, actually.

Lee: Man, I tell ya, you’re lucky to have found this place on your first go. Trust me, I’ve used a lot of other laundromats around here and this one’s the best. Open twenty four hours. A little vending machine. Plenty of bleach. Everybody keeps to themselves...

YW: Uh, yeah. It seems --

[He talks faster and faster.]

Lee: Nobody looking over at your basket, asking IGNORANT questions, making STUPID comments about haha “oh I guess you must really like ketchup," "i guess you -

[The woman is silently putting her clothes in the washer. Lee is turning red. He struggles to regain control, to seem casual. ]

Lee: Well, you know, there are those times when something, um, spills, though... And you just can’t wait until the morning. And besides, you couldn’t think of sleeping, your adrenaline is jacked up so high, and all you want to do is sit in a room and watch something spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, what have i done, things will never be the same, what have i done, things will never be the same, what have i done...

[He trails off, and his mumbles meet the sound of the churning machines in the background.]

Lee: Maybe it’s just me but it's one of the best things about city living. Gotta love a good 24 hour laundromat.

[He waits a reply but she doesn’t look up.]

Lee: Then again, I can be a little obsessive about cleaning sometimes. Ha...ha...

[He looks down at this shoes. We see how filthy they are. And going up his body, back to his downcast eyes, we notice again at how entirely filthy Lee is, his stained shirt somehow seeming even more stained than before.]

[Sound of spinning machines.]

Plan A, Plan B, but do you have a Plan P?

We have little to no control over what happens to us. At any given point you could get hit by a bus or start to drive a bus or pee your pants on the bus and EVERYTHING WOULD CHANGE. Even if you bundle yourself up in bubble wrap and stay in your house and have water and food brought to you, there are a bunch of flaming meteors careening around space willy-nilly and one would probably fly into your house and blow you up.

 As they say, the best laid schemes of mice and men... Does anyone actually know how that quote ends?

One thing to do to take your mind off the infinite void before you, is to just think about the ‘future' a lot in addition to (or instead of) experiencing the present. 

Imagine you have two dice. Plan A and Plan B. They each have a set of variables based on your hopes and fears. The sides of each dice might be any combination of persons, places, pursuits. Just roll them around and, even though it’s utterly inconsequential, project possible outcomes based on your hopes and fears! Don’t be reserved. The more irrational the better. You can roll them about tomorrow or about ten years from now — infinite worrying! Infinite pining! Up to you! All useless!

The only problem with this game is it’s hard to quit playing. It’s like playing angry birds but the birds are pecking their way out of your eyes from the inside of your brain. (I’ve never played angry birds so I don’t know if that makes sense but I have to reference cell phone games or kids won’t read this. Right kids!? ha ha ha. Great to have you here.) But seriously. Even if you’re a totally intelligent, self-aware and grounded human being who has never played Angry Birds, it’s easy to get swept up in the projections and drown in the dingy swamps of your own manufactured anxiety. 

One thing you can do to make it less torturous is to add another dice. An “expansion pack” if you will. We can call this dice Plan P. It’s sides are all things that you could legitimately do that would just turn your life in a completely new direction. Things that would take you far enough away from your current set of possible futures as to make everything in dices A and B largely irrelevant.

For example: 

1. I COULD CHOP OFF MY FINGER

I could walk into the kitchen right now, grab the dullish bread knife from the kitchen drawer, and saw my way through the index finger on my right hand. (Would probably google some tips first that seems like quite a chore.) 

How many tiny things would be altered by this change? 
How many new futures would be brought into existence? 
(Thousands of futures? Millions of futures? How much future is there??) 

Would my art work, previously restrained by my brutally conventional number of fingers, suddenly attain the perfect off-kilter appeal to launch me into fame and stardom? Would I get a handicapped sign for my car? 
Would I park through life with an ease that made the blood (oh, god, the blood) worth it?! 

2. I COULD ADOPT A BUNCH OF WHITE PERSIAN CATS AND DIE THEM ALL THE COLORS OF THE RAINBOW

(plus one white one because when I started drawing this I thought there were eight colors in the rainbow.)

I could go on to some internet cat store and adopt a bunch of white persian cats and die them all the colors of the rainbow. SO many things would change. We’d probably get famous and go on TV a lot. I’d probably get my own reality show. (POSSIBLE NAME “HALLIE’S RAINBMEOW”??) 

Even after all the cats were dead, ten years down the line (probably sooner due to all that dye, etc.) it’s not like things would go back to normal. No! I’d be a million futures away from my pre-rainbmeow futures. There would be no going back. No retreat! Only forward. 

3. I COULD CHANGE MY NAME TO “PENELOPE CRUZ” 

I could go to the courthouse. or the wizard. or whoever. and I could change my name to “PENELOPE CRUZ” !!!!!!!! 

My signature might look like this: 

or this: 

or this:

And when I said it out loud, like when I introduce myself, I could roll the ‘r’ a lot like “Hi I’m Penelope Crrrrrthththrrrruzzzzzzz” (wow if only there was an accent or punctuation mark that could indicate a rolled r!) 

I’d probably get comments about it all the time. From the grocery store clerk, or the cab driver, or whoever. All the time people would look up and be like “huh, how about that!” and probably they would go home and tell their spouses or houseplants about it later. “I met Penelope Crrrrrrthththtuuzzzzz today.” 

When I made reservations, restaurant staffs would get prematurely excited, and then, very disappointed. Perhaps I’d accidentally get some fan mail... Ooh! Or maybe I would accidentally divert one of the real Penelope Cruz’s psychopathic stalkers, inadvertently saving her life. And she would give me a diamond necklace or a beach house in gratitude. 

4. I COULD KIDNAP A RICH PERSON’S BABY (THE REAL PENELOPE CRUZ’S BABY?? WHAT IF I CHANGED MY NAME TO PENELOPE CRUZ AND THEN KIDNAPPED HER BABY AND SAY I THOUGHT IT WAS MINE???) AND HOLD IT FOR RANSOM

I’d definitely do it very clumsily and get caught right away (not much of a planner) and I’d probable get convicted (not *actually* crazy enough) and go to some women prison where I would finally learn to knit, make ceramic dildos, and probably become a lesbian?? I’d definitely get some tattoos. Imagine all the tattoos I would get in this possible future. 

Maybe some thuggish woman named Terry would give me a tattoo of a ‘peace dove’ but it would actually look like a sickly vulture:

 and I would say "that’s okay, Terry, I’m kind of more of a sickly vulture girl than a dove girl, anyway."

I’d probably start writing letters to the kidnapped child’s family (Penelope Cruz’s family maybe??) begging their forgiveness and they’d totally forgive me because they are Christians or Buddhists or whatever, and then me and the dad would write a book together and go on book tours around to different prisons and book stores and go on Oprah. 

5. I COULD GET A FACE TATTOO (OF, DARE I SAY, PENELOPE CRUZ? OF HER BABY? OF HER WHOLE FAMILY? WHO IS HER FAMILY EVEN I KNOW ALMOST NOTHING ABOUT PENELOPE CRUZ I ALWAYS GET HER MIXED UP WITH THAT OTHER SULTRY SEDUCTIVE LATINA ACTRESS IS THAT RACIST??) 

I could walk to the tattoo shop two blocks away and tell them do just go crazy, do whatever they want, just fill my face with tattoo shit. And maybe write the words ‘Penelope Cruz’ (maybe phonetically like "Penelope Crrrrrrthththtuuzzzzza”) across my forehead and if there was space maybe draw Penelope Cruz’s family??  

My life would DEFINITELY take a turn after this. I’d probably be unable to get like, any job. Even if I decided to stay inside and work from home, it would eventually become pointless, because why be inside if you’re going to hide your face like some kind of Phantom of the Opera. 

OOH. Okay. I could enter the theater and get only parts as phantom of the opera? And they could cover one half of my face with makeup and the other half could just be left as the tattoos? But the acting world is harshly competitive and superficial and I’d probably have some difficulty finding acceptance. But maybe since we’re working in the same field Penelope Cruz would hear about me through the grape vine and reach out to me and offer me a job as her family’s body guard because there’s crazy people out there, kidnappers and stuff, and they need protection, and my tattoo is like, a show of my loyalty to them. And then me and the dad could write a book together and go on Oprah. (That episode could be called “Phantom of the Oprah lol.) 

Anyway that’s how it’s played. The expanded version of the game is nicer to play than the original 2-dice version because once you play out a few scenarios you realize all of those projections you made in earnest were almost equally silly as the ones made in the 3-dice version. Destiny’s a crap chute and you should just stop all of this and try, in everything you do, to do it with totality. No dice required. 

okay bye! it’s my birthday! I’m gonna go make some ceramics! 

Concept by my friend Steven Bates.

A new dress

I got a new dress recently.

It is a long, theatrical plum-colored dress with a velvet collar.

Basically, it screams "murder me!" 

While others certainly felt the impulse,

they were all too polite to pick up the knife,

so I took up my pen and murdered myself on paper.

and the dress is perfect for the occasion.

Brian, open the door.

*

Hey Brian, pull over - looks like this guy's got some trouble with his bike. Yeah looks like he dented his tire and his paint job is kinda messed up. Maybe he needs a lift or something. Hmm... is he okay? Is he napping? He looks really tired. He didn't even take off his helmet. Haha, and he doused himself in gatorade - what an all-star! Aw cute, what kind of dog is that he's got with him? A bloodhound? A mastiff? Man, he's huge, he's as big as a bear! Look, Brian! Isn't that dog seriously the size of a bear?
Wow. God, I think I'd be a little nervous if I had a dog that big. But it looks like he's just sorta playing with him, huh? Just rollin' him around on the ground like that. Hey I've got an idea, why don't we go see if the dog knows any tricks? Here, I'll put some bacon in my pocket and I'll just step out and kinda walk towards him and look right directly into his eyes.
Brian, open the door.



(*art = an original sketch for this article)

La Fiesta

A few weeks ago a friend of ours brought a pinata for my brother Nick as an early birthday present. They hung it in the back yard and Nick found a pole (a long metal one usually used to gather spider webs) and proceeded to beat the pinata on the ground to collect its sweet guts. I was not there, but as the story goes, the tip of the pole snapped mid-pummel and flung up and went through Nick's lip and he had to go to the hospital and get four stitches. I went home for fall break after hearing this story, and found this pinata hanging in the back yard from a clothes line wet with raindrops. He was using colorful streamers to soak up his tears.
"It's okay little buddy," I said, "Nick was trying to tear you open and eat your insides. You don't have to feel bad that he got hurt in the process."

The Story of Bob Smiley and the Sailors

A carni stumbles to the port-o-potti. A hawk drifts above. Manure pools in the stables where pigs and other obese lie adorned with ribbons and trophies. At this, the Mercyville County Fair, Bob Smiley and the Sailors are scheduled for a reunion performance after six years apart. They had split because of Wayne’s pretentious move to Aspen with his family, which was only forgiven after he went bankrupt and moved back to Mercyville. (He was forced to sell his boat, though Garth, Wayne and Mark still refer to themselves as “the sailors.”)

With Wayne back in the clutches of middle-America, the quartet stands proudly outside the Festival Hall. Garth begins the bee-bopping the melody for Let Me Call You Sweetheart. Wayne snaps his fingers, and Mark starts in with the bass, and Bob, his voice like a snow cone to the teeth:

I am dreaming Dear of you, day by day.

Dreaming when the skies are blue, When they're gray…

They feel like a hundred dollars – like Disneyland in ’91, when they got paid a hundred dollars and used it all to ride Space Mountain as many times as possible until Mark threw up and they had to cancel the next day’s show…

Meanwhile, beside them, Tyrannosaurus Jones’ Jellyfish Trapeze has a trailer full of creatures the ingenious Jones has adapted in a laboratory and trained to perform elaborate acts: A monkey who can scuba-dive, a cat who sleeps a lot, an iguana who can tell if you have cancer and whether or not you are scared of lizards. It is a marvelous array, and not long into their performance Bob Smiley and the Sailors feel they are singing in the shadow of Jones and his surreal subjects. The crowd is clapping and hooting, all their attention on the vampire bat which Jones has trained to brush his teeth… Their reunion show is getting flimsy! Six years apart and an emptied retirement account can't yield such an emberassment! Bob Smiley and the Sailors really have to turn it up. They begin to sing louder and louder:

Birds are singing far and near, Roses blooming ev'rywhere

You, alone, my heart can cheer; You, just you.

And still they are unheard. Garth is growing aggressive. Bob is sweating, barely able to hold his harmonies as he glares over at Jones and his stupid vampire bat. Resentment swims through their old-timey tunes.

But Bob Smiley and the Sailors would be the focus of the show once again… The mutant rat (“Barnie”), which Jones has failed to train but still injected with a violent regimen of steroids, growing irked by the conflict of noise outside, breaks free of its cage and lumbers towards Mark and tears off his arm straightaway. Then the rat gnaws on Mark’s neck and blood spews and oozes from his fresh wounds. Suddenly the crowd shifts quickly from Jones’ demonstration to the scene of the ongoing massacre. In panic, the quartet has stopped singing and attempts to save poor, struggling Mark from Barnie’s jaws. But still, it is the four of them, the quartet, together after all this time. And still, the crowd screams and oohs and awes and gaspes. All eyes are on them.

This is it, they are at the top once again. Just like Disneyland in ’91.