New Nikes, Shot into the Stars

When you think of the tall African boys in dirty white Michael Jordan T-shirts, or the way China halts communal production to watch "Dallas," why be surprised that the electronically amplified voices of pure desire would reach past the narrow bands of atmosphere into the great deep of background radiation?

If only that great cosmic blowhard, Carl Sagan, had survived to see these new, slippery, lanky things on the news, dressed in baggy pants and polo shirts, accessorizing with sunglasses and wallet chains, or dressed like skateboarders, with the skateboard balanced on the top of a coatrack body. All that romantic, hard-science bullshit about cosmic brotherhood and alien superiority would seem foolish, now.

We all saw the look in the UN Secretary's brown eyes, when he handed over the first of the thousands of "friendship packages." Was he proud of the interstellar desirability of earthly goods, or disappointed--for they gave us nothing in return, not even a tour of the ship. But the orders keep coming.

Truckload after truckload roll into the giant craft, three every hour. In New York, in Seattle, in Paris, in Naples, the ad agencies and public relations firms are rallying with military fervor, insisting that the utilitarian, black plastic boxes carry their products into the dark heavens. Free samples of shampoo and boxer shorts build the brand on distant, gaseous planets. Ads have appeared with photos of extraterrestrials wearing Nike Sneakers on its head, an Armani T-shirts worn as a necklace. Bennetton has gone out of control with its latest campaigns, showing an earthly woman engaged in intercourse with one of those slippery slug-things, both wearing Bennetton hats.

This powerful, extraterrestrial desire is not without cost. There was a terrible accident with some cologne, something the alien physiognomy couldn't tolerate. Pure vitriol--the sloppy, slippery skin melting like caramel, with pictures in the paper.

Of course, the business of the world is almost stopped, and the story of these visitors is in the papers, on the evening and morning news, the talk shows, and on the Internet. There will be miniseries in a couple of months, and a movie is being filmed. Not since the last war have people been so attached to the screen. Certain delegates for the United States are learning to speak a new language, as the delegates also try to teach our language to our guests--hoping that they will soon be able to explain the concept of barter and money, to explain the acronym ROI, and gain the knowledge to travel to the stars ourself, brochures in hand.

So, really, was it any surprise that when they finally came, when the strange animals sucking nitrogen through straws arrived in silent, zebra-striped crafts, they came not for peace, or understanding, but for Nike sweatpants, videotapes of "Santa Barbara," and Garfield toys with suction cups that stick comically to the windows of their faster-than-light spaceships?

Why can't murderers dispose of the evidence of their crimes? Or rather, why do they need to keep it around?

Example: Your girlfriend comes over and she starts to giggle uncontrollably at your penis, which, you must admit, does have weird purple coloring and look surprisingly like a little shaved stoat, but GODDAMMIT that's not her place to say, and after a feverish raging blackout (in which you just somehow found an 18 inch machete blade leaping into your hand), you dismember her. Whoops.

Okay, spend a little time calming down, because, let's face it, you're been feeling high strung, and you need a clear head for this one. You need to decide between the big two options: call the cops and wait for them to come arrest your ass, thus beginning a new and exciting life in the world of non-consensual sodomy, or dispose of the body thoroughly.

These are your options, but if you're the average deranged killer, you ignore them and keep the body around, thus defaulting to option one, the one where you're called "Buckeye" and forced to wear spats with your state-provided skirt. In fact, if you're the standard media murderer, you cut up the body and keep it in packages around the house. Why? Why do crazed lunatic killers do this? You might as well work for your prosecuting lawyer.

COP 1: Hey, Bob, can we come in and chat for a while?

KILLER: Sure, officer. I've got nothing to hide.

COP 2: Nobody says you do, Bob.

KILLER: (Already nervous) Ha ha ha!

COP 1: So nobody's heard from Marie in two weeks.

KILLER: Yeah, I'd like to know where she is, I really would.

COP 1: Heard you guys been fighting.

KILLER: Sure, but we were working it out, we really were. Not like her to just run off.

COP 2: (Looking querulously at Bob, then sniffing the air.) Hey, what's that smell?

KILLER: Oh, I just keep a lot of extra meat around the apartment in little boxes, you know. Little boxes, meat. You know?

COP 1: (Smiles at Bob.) Sure, sure...

KILLER: Yeah, it's an experiment in, uh, parthenogenesis, to see if maggots will spontaneously appear.

COP 2: Hey, Bob, that was disproved pretty soundly during the Enlightenment. I mean, even the Romans doubted it.

KILLER: Sure, but you know, the scientific method and all. Can't ever let that stuff sit. Gotta find out for myself.

COP 2: But you're an English professor, right? Why're you doing scientific--

COP 1: Just an amateur scientist, eh? What kind of meat?

KILLER: Just some venison.

COP 1: Hey, you hunt?

KILLER: No! I don't own any weapons, see, I just get the meat from my uncle. You guys know him--

COP 2: Whatcha sitting on there, Bob?

KILLER: What? Uh, this? Here? Nothing.

COP 1: It's a chest of drawers, huh?

COP 2: Nice looking, too. That's why I asked. Can I take a look? I'm always on the lookout for furniture. Keeps my Agnes happy. You know my wife, right? She's Marie's cousin.

KILLER: Sure, yeah, just don't...open it, it's just been, you know, varnished. This morning.

COP 2: Oh, I've got a light touch.

KILLER: No, don't, there's...

COP 2: (Backs off.) Sure, hey, no problem. That's like some kind of unscented varnish?

KILLER: (Brow furrows.) Yeah, I got it on sale at Channel. I mean, I don't have anything to hide.

COP 2: No problem. Be careful sitting on it, the varnish can rub off on your pants. You mind if I get myself a drink of water?

KILLER: Sure. (Can't decide between leaving his perch for the kitchen or staying put.) But do me a favor and don't get any ice? The freezer hasn't been working and I keep the door shut unless...

COP 2: Absolutely. Wouldn't think of it.

KILLER: I mean, there's nothing in the freezer you can't see.

COP 1: Nobody said there was, Bob.

KILLER: Ha ha ha!

COP 1: So, you have any plans for the holiday?

KILLER: Well, thought I might take a trip, maybe get on a plane, go south.

COP 1: Oh, I wouldn't do that.

KILLER: Why not? Why should I stay here?

COP 2: (Yells from the kitchen.) Hey, did you kill her, Bob?

KILLER: Wha--what? Huh? (Starts to shake.)

COP 2: (Enters the living room, holding a glass of water with ice cubes.) I said, "The air fare's a killer, Bob."

KILLER: (Eyes bug out at ice cubes.) Oh, sure is.

COP 1: That's why I wouldn't do it. Wait till off season, take it then. Unless you need to get out of the country.

KILLER: I really need a break, yeah.

COP 2: Hear you on that one. That her head in the freezer?

KILLER: What?

COP 2: Going to Florida? Hang out with the geezers?

KILLER: Something like that.

COP 1: Hearing okay, Bob?

KILLER: No, no, kind of bad, lately. Gotta get it checked.

COP 2: I hear that goes with a weasel dick.

KILLER: Come again?

COP 2: My hearing goes when I'm sick.

KILLER: Yeah, it's a head cold, I guess.

COP 2: Her head's pretty cold in the fridge.

KILLER: Huh? What did you--

COP 1: Nothing like a head cold. No wonder you want to go down to Florida. You read much? As an English professor?

KILLER: (Looks around the room at bookshelves, head twitching as he does.) You could say that.

COP 1: I was just reading this story by Edgar Allen Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart. I like the cops in that story. You ever read that?

KILLER: (Starts crying uncontrollably.) Jesus, yes.

COP 2: Bob, you're getting high strung. Something you want to tell us?

COP 1: If you're upset about Marie, we could leave, come back later. Sure, sure, let's get out of here, Mike.

COP 2: Before I go, you got any that venison not sitting around? In the fridge? I love a good venison steak.

(Bob leaps up and runs for the door; the two cops catch him and wrestle him to the ground.)

KILLER: She asked for it, all right? It's not my fault.

COP 2: Kind of suspected after I saw her head. I gotta tell you, you have the right to remain silent...

Bob had the incorrect approach to killing his girlfriend, and now he'll be the star bronco in the prison rodeo. First of all, he kept the body around the house. This is even more incriminating than if he had buried Marie in a shallow grave marked "ded murdar viktim kiled by Bob." He also began to cry in front of cops--and he taught English Literature, instantly casting him under suspicion (Ph.D. on the work of Norman Mailer, no less).

What else? He wore Marie's blood-covered dress around town right after the murder, posted an Internet confession to alt.dead.girlfriend, and called a local slaughterhouse, identified himself, and asked for their advice line. Killers, those calls are logged!

Bob could have kept calm and pursued several sensible options. He might have moved to Montana, the only state with "Death's Well-Trod Doormat" as its state motto. He may have asked Agent Scully to help him fake his own death. And most of all, he could have disposed of the evidence, ferchrissakes.

Killing is wrong, but predictability is worse. Taking life should not be taken lightly; it's up to you to do it with panache, intelligence, and style. Let me know how it turns out.

It's a cheap dinner after work; I just grab a gyro from the vendor on 50th St after work. I eat alone, watching the Fox News ticker. Suddenly, a Black Pontiac, vintage 1983, pulls up to the curb and flashes its lights. I say:

"Hey, my God, how's it going?"

"Hey, well, Paul," he says, a little dented and scratched, the dashboard dark, but still his old self, "it's rough. I'm trying, but it's not coming

"Is there still bad blood with David?"

"Hasselhoff? He doesn't have time for old friends. I begged him--I'm not ashamed, I begged him--for a role on Baywatch, I could just motor up and they could throw some sand on me, something like that, or I could drive underwater and save a drowning kid, you know, anything. But David, now that he's so big, he says, 'KITT, talking cars are done with.' And hangs up the phone."

"You two used to be pretty close."

"Sure were. It's my own fault, leaving my contract because I thought I was too good for the show. What was I thinking, that I could make it in theater, as a Pontiac? Except for that revival of Grease I haven't worked a day. I could do Moliere, I could do Shakespeare, but people only see 'car'."

"Well, you saved up, you got some money out of Knight Rider, right? And you get some residuals?"

"I was never scale; cars don't get paid scale. And I made some bad decisions. Didn't take care of myself. Lost a lot of money."

"Drugs, KITT?"

"No, premium gas." He paused. "And wax jobs." His lights dimmed and something beeped in the dark interior. He paused, then said: "Look, I just got a call, I've got to go, I'm picking up a delivery for a guy--no, don't ask, I can't tell you. You still live the same place?"

"No, I'm in Brooklyn but I'm in the book. Hey, it was good to catch up," I said, smiling falsely as the black windows rolled up, the red LED on his front swishing its goodbye. I waved, without vigor, as he turned and drove down Broadway.

This is my Christmas Letter for 1997. If you'd like to receive a copy on paper, send me email.

Dear Holiday Friend,

Since you last heard from the Ford family, we entered the Federal Witness Protection Program and began new lives as cranberry farmers. We miss you all very much!

One night in March, 1997, Eloise discovered a half-shredded document that made shocking allegations about a high ranking Republican Senator. As a condition of our release, we can't say his name, but it rhymes with "Messy Elms," and he has some surprising sexual peccadilloes when it comes to olives. From this disturbing document, we learned that he has been working to turn the Christian Right into a private army.

It was like our very own Grassy Knoll. After presenting our findings to Food Workers and Straphangers 897, brown helicopters landed in the parking lot. (They reserve black helicopters for serious criminals.) We tried to run, but Eloise has high blood pressure, so we more or less just collapsed. We were immediately taken to a high security facility and debriefed.

Afer being released by the goverment, we thought we could return to a normal life, but it was not to be. In April, the paramilitary wing of Focus on the Family abducted Saber Tooth and Pisspot, our cats, leaving a note that read: "If you ever want to see them again, you will not speak to the press." It turned out that the our pastor at First Presbyterian was an undercover operative and informed on us. For the next six months we metamorphosed from pimento specialists to pawns in an international game of intrigue, traveling via boat, plane, and bicycle to places as far away as Ontario and Minneapolis. Exhausting!

Enough about us! As for the kids, Edgar does well for himself at Mt. Alyon Center for the Lamb of God. He recently made Underfriar of Herbs, with specialties in bloodwort, wolfsbane, and jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum). We communicate with him through a drop point.

As for Willy, all charges were dismissed (we knew they would be) and he's been living in Dover, Delaware, working as a veterinarian's assistant. He's also in a "techno" band called "Cat Parts." Look for his album on Oily Snail Records.

Well, all for now. If you'd like to communicate with us, place a classified ad in any Buenos Aires newspaper that begins with the words "El Gato Malo," and we'll get back to you ASAP.

Seasonal Cheer and Feliz Navidad,

Paul and Eloise Ford

Obedience

My roommate Max died three years ago in August. Kristen moved in a month later, bringing a three-week old Boston Terrier. We named him Cheese Boy.

Kristen and Max had disliked each other, and I think she was trying to stomp out his ghost by moving in. It didn't work. She and I quickly unearthed deep incompatibilities. She fell asleep before I came home. I adore computers, sometimes to the point of ignoring people who matter. She went to the bathroom with the door open. Two months later, with cold acknowledgement, we moved to separate apartments. She found a share in Noho and I went to a studio in Brooklyn. We continued to visit and sleep with each other, trying to keep affection from withering. Her share didn't permit pets, so I held on to the dog.

Boston Terriers balance the best doglike qualities. They're neither the emasculated, sweater-wearing type of dog nor mangy, pony-size hounds. In the new apartment, Cheese Boy slept in a cardboard box with a blanket in the bottom and one side ripped open for a door. I positioned him in front of the stove. He was quiet and friendly, and women stopped to pet when I took him out. I settled into a single parent's life, educating him in excretion etiquette, hand-shaking, and the fine points of sitting still while not begging. I left the radio on for company when I left for work. He developed into a a sturdy, cheerful puppy, grew quickly, and fit smoothly into the schedule of my life, until that February, when, as I worked on the computer, he began to bite my pant cuffs. When I spanked him and scolded "No!" he began to hack and cough.

It went on for several seconds, so I patted his black fur back, and said, "you okay, boy?" He shook his furrowed head, then looked up to me and growled, "rizrax."

He growled again: "Riz rax! Rix rax!" I backed out of my chair, away from him, scared.; I could only think of The Shining: "Red rum! Red rum!" He raised his growl, louder and higher: "Riz Rax! Reezus! Rax! Riz Rax!"

Something in the intonation hooked into my memory. I inhaled and looked at his deep black eyes. He said it over and over. I said: "It's Max?"

"Reezus Riced! Ran roo."

I looked at him for several seconds. "Jesus Christ. Thank you?"

The dog nodded, and said, "Res."

There was an awkward silence. There's no real protocol for that kind of conversation.

Cheese Boy rolled his eyes, like Max used to.

"Oh, shit," I said. "It's you?"

"Rud eye ret rum ruckin reel rood?

That took a moment. "Could I get some real food?" I repeated, still in shock.

He nodded.

"Sure," I said. My mind was jerking from question to question, but I stuck to the issue. "Reincarnation?" I asked.

He hunched his shoulders, a shrug.

"You want something besides dog food?"

Agitated head nodding.

"I could defrost some steaks..."

He barked, then said, "Res."

"I'm taking it well, aren't I?" I asked.

"Roor rakin rih reh? Rime a rukin rog rin roor rakin iweh?"

My brow furrowed, and I translated: "I'm a fucking dog and you're taking it well."

He lifted his right paw and nodded.

"Good point." I went to the freezer and pulled out some frozen beef.

Long conversations followed, and I learned to understand his growl. Max didn't know what happened; one minute he's driving a Chevy Caprice in a thunderstorm and the next he's emerging from a dog's womb. "Smelled damned nasty," he said. He began to realize it wasn't a dream when when Kristen came to the puppy farm and pulled him from the pile.

"No insult, but that was shit, having her pick me up and stick her face in my snout, and then you call me 'Cheese Boy', which is the stupidest name even she could come up with, and I'm laying there in the doggie bed while you two screw on the couch, trying to make myself not listen. It was rough on a puppy."

Indignant but sympathetic, I said, "If I'd known, I would have done something."

"I couldn't tell you," he grunted. "I wasn't allowed to. There's some inhibition on communication. Like you're at one end of the gym and the person's at the other, and it's crowded with basketball players between. I don't know how I willed myself into speaking. I just kept trying and trying and one day I could say 'It's Max'."

"Does this happen a lot? With dogs?"

"I don't know. I think it might be. I'm pretty sure the Shar-pei down the hall is Ava Gardner. That could be wishful thinking, though."

"It sucks, doesn't it?"

"Of course it sucks. I had a BS in engineering and a job with the state. Now I run a risk of worms and see in black and white. And suddenly I can smell chili cooking three blocks away."

"Your senses are that good?"

"Sure. I can tell that you went down on Kristen four days ago. It takes that long to wash off because she's a stink--"

"Shut up," I said. "Don't rag on my girlfriend or I'll get you fixed."

"Just don't give me any more of those Gaines Healthy Dog Patties. And don't get me fixed. My sex life is already nil. Women won't dig me anymore, now that I'm less than two feet tall and don't wear pants. And suddenly, I'm fantasizing about other dogs. And not always the right kind of dog, you know? Can I tell you something in total confidence?"

"Max, who could I tell any of this who wouldn't have me committed?"

"I'll be honest, I was strictly hetero before this, but now I see that big retriever in the park and I don't know."

"I think that's normal. Dog's don't get hung up on that shit like people. Remember that stupid joke, 'Why does a dog lick his own genitals?' and the answer's 'Because he can'?"

His eyelids pushed up into his bony head when I mentioned the joke--an unnerving effect. "I'd totally forgotten that joke. Can you give me a minute?" He trotted into the bathroom, nudging the door shut. A few minutes later, he staggered out on four paws.

"Holy shit," he said. "This may not be so terrifically bad. I can blow myself."

I forced him to promise good behavior for Kristen's next visit. She and I hadn't spent time in two weeks; our jobs were busy and the relationship was rocky.

She liked me best if I cooked, so I decided to do a whole chicken with rice and beans, and serve it on some new black plates I'd bought at Pottery Barn. I took Max for a walk on my way to get some acceptably expensive wine.

"Check out the haunches on that Weimeraner," he said. I now understood his so speech thoroughly that he could whisper. "I'm a haunch man. I always used to be breasts, but it's hard when they come in sets of six. I like a little hair but no shag."

"Good looking dog," I said.

"You're an amateur. That's the best looking dog in the park."

Kristen rewarded my dinner, and the wine, with smiles and hand-holding. After dinner, she and I stretched on the sofa and played with Max, who pretended to regular doghood and nipped at our feet. I kept forgetting to call him "Cheese Boy."

"Why do you call him that?"

"He reminds me of Max."

"I thought we called him Cheese Boy. It's strange to name him after your roommate."

"Cheese boy is still his name. He's still our dog. We share custody."

She looked at the little dog and gave a horizontal smile. "Oh, he's such a good boy." She dropped from the sofa to her knees and began to rub Max's head. "So good. Such a handsome puppy dog." Giving me a sideways glance, Max lolled out his massive pink tongue and luridly licked her face, trying to get his tongue between her lips. Kristen pulled back, wiping dog saliva from her mouth, her face wrenched with disgust.

"Goddamn you," I said to Max, "don't lick." I got up and gave him a solid swat on the ass. He barked.

"It's okay," she said. "Don't worry about it."

"He needs to be trained."

"Don't get upset. He's still our good boy. He'll learn."

"He's an immature hound." I gave him a cold glare. He sniffed the air and looked at Kristen, then wrinkled his snout in disgust.

"Enough about the dog," she said, slyly, wiping her mouth. She came across the sofa and sat between my legs. I saw Max slip out of the room; we'd made a deal that if he saw Kristen and I hooking up he'd go into the closet and take a nap.

I was lucky to get a full minute of fondling before Kristen suddenly yelled out, bit my tongue and pulled away. I tasted my own blood. "Jesus!" she said, jerking her leg up. "Your dog was humping my leg."

"He's our dog. And you bit my tongue," I lisped. "Where am I going to put the band-aid?

"Sorry," she said, reaching out to put her hand on my arm. Before she could touch me, she screamed, "Damn it, get off!" The dog was back at her leg. As she tried to kick him away, Max, in retaliation, bit her calf, hard. She screamed.

"Oh, shit," I said. "He's going to the pound. You hear me boy? To the pound." In the candlelit silence after my shouting, Max stood defiantly, slowly lifted his leg, and pissed on the carpet.

"I'm really sorry," he said. "I mean it. It was totally canine behavior and I apologize."

"It was sub-canine," I said. "It was an attack. You'd be in jail if they knew you were human."

"I'm not, though. Sometimes this inner dog gets the best of me."

"It's not very inner. Why did you have to hump her leg?"

"I got caught up in the moment. It was a practical joke, you know? It seemed funny."

"It wasn't funny. I like you being my dog, but I almost got laid, and you blew it for me."

"Why don't you hook up with that chick with the Weimeraner? Then you can get me alone in the doghouse with that piece of shag..."

"I like Kristen. I've liked her for over a year. Your opinion is not relevant."

"I've known you for six years and it's not relevant?"

"You sniff asses, I shake hands."

"I lick my own balls and you jerk off in the shower. Are we so different?"

"You're back on dry dog food if you don't shut up."

"I'll calm down. I've been feeling strung is all. Just take me for a walk?"

I hesitated. "Okay," I said coldly. "Get your leash." He ran to get it and returned with it in his mouth.

"Max, seriously, that can never happen again."

"No guarantees," he said, dropping the leash to the ground. "I'm a dog."

Despite my doubts, our friendship returned, and before long we worked out some good tricks. Max could howl out famous opera themes. He barked out the answers to multiple choice questions about politics. He proved his value as a roommate by dispatching the rats that snuck into the apartment. He even behaved around Kristen, tolerating her when she scratched his stomach, and hiding in the closet when she began to kiss me. Kristen forgave the bite, even though the scar stayed for months. My tongue healed.

This strange peace was interrupted in the next summer, during a walk through Prospect Park, when Max tore out after a squirrel. I only ever kept a token grip on the leash, and I lost him for a half-hour. When I caught him, he trotted up to me, shame-faced, and I grabbed his collar. "What the hell?" I yelled. People walking on the path behind us stared. "Why did you do that?"

He looked worried. "Take me home," he growled, "right now."

At home, he noisily lapped an entire bowl of water, then said: "I lost control with that squirrel. I couldn't help myself."

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"It's like before I could talk, when I was a puppy. I'm just watching but I can't manage the dog."

"Are there two of you in there?"

"I'm not even sure there's one. Lately I've been feeling the dog really get the better of me."

"What's that mean?"

"It means I may just be a Boston Terrier before long, not Max."

"Don't you think you'll stay like this? You haven't shown any signs before."

"No, I'm pretty confident Cheese Boy is winning out, here. It was an accident that I got to be Max, anyway. I'm going back into dog limbo."

"How soon?"

"I don't know, and I've been thinking, I don't want ten years of being inside of Cheese Boy's head. I don't want a life of vicarious shitting or leg-humping or biscuit eating."

"You haven't done much besides."

"No, I'm not joking here. I want you to take me for a walk in the next couple of weeks, and I'll slip the leash and run under a truck."

"Oh come on. I can't do that."

"I need you to. I can't handle being trapped in a dog. And the only other option is to bite Kristen or someone else, to force you to put me to sleep. Dying near you, under a truck wheel, is a good alternative to a needle jab by a stranger."

"I don't like any of this," I said.

"You're still six feet tall and relatively hairless; you see things differently. Ultimately, it's my choice, right? I could pretend I'm rabid, bite strangers, and they'll have to destroy me. I'm just asking for your help. As a friend."

I hated the thought of my old roommate trapped somewhere inside a dog's body, and after long thought, gave in. A few weeks after that morbid talk, we shook hand to paw, said goodbye, and walked to the Hamilton Expressway. Without warning, Max yanked the leash from my hand and ran beneath a 18 wheel truck. Tires squealed, and his black and white body folded under the wheels. I cried, and the truck's driver, burly and hairy, cried too.

"What was his name?" the driver asked.

"Max," I said. "He was a good friend to me." I said goodbye to the driver, told him I didn't blame him at all, and pulled some rocks, tied together, from my backpack. Careful to avoid spectators, I took Max's body and tied the rope to it, then heaved him into the Gowanus canal, a few dozen feet from the scene of his death. I walked home and sat on my futon and cried. It was hard to lose my closest friend for a second time. I called Kristen to break the news.

"Cheese Boy got hit by a car," I said.

"Oh," she said. "I'm pregnant."

That night, she and I lay on my bed, my hand on her stomach. Max's cardboard bed sat empty.

After some mutual promises and a month to think about it, she moved into my little place. I kept the sheets tucked in, kept my socks off the floor, and she speedily turned fat and half-luminous. I liked it, ignoring the city for my pregnant fiance, rubbing lotion into her stretch marks, feeling pride and little kicks as I did. I grilled cheese sandwiches on rye with ketchup for her; I read novels out loud. Six months into the pregnancy, I found a better job upstate. Our lives would be small, safe, quiet, and wooded. We called movers, rented a house, and fitted a room with a crib and yellow wallpaper.

After some discussion and disagreement, we named the baby Max. He was a healthy boy, 7 lbs 6 oz., with Kristen's hair. I came home each night as Kristen went to work, teaching English as a Second language at the local high school, and I spent the standard stupid hours mooning over the crib, changing diapers and dangling shimmering things above his face, gum wrappers and plastic rattles, ignoring the work piled in my study. (A house so big it had a study!)

One night, thinking of my old roommate, winding the musical mobile above the crib, I looked down on my boy and said: "I hope you're not re-incarnated, too."

And thank God, he didn't answer back.

Deeply sexual dream about Cybil Shepherd, which is just funny, especially if you know how unstylish and fat I am. She grabbed my shirt and said, "I'm going to fuck your brains out."

I didn't disagree. Of course, like real life, we never actually did anything. The dream ended with her calling her agent and saying to me, "Just a minute! I still want to!"

I used to like her on Moonlighting; she co-starred with the barely-known Bruce Willis. I was in middle school. She had legs. All the conditions for a one-handed romance were met.

My friend Alex told me that he used to watch Friday Night Videos when he was about thirteen, in hope of seeing the Madonna video set in a peepshow. He would jerk off into a sock.

"I went through a lot of socks." he said. "Once, I went to a friend's house, my best friend Mike Adam, and he had Cinemax. I was...fourteen? I woke up at two AM for some reason; he was asleep and the TV was still on, and Cinemax had some bad softcore porn.

"What the hell could I do? You never see anything like that at home. To not jerk off would be wasting it."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"I tried to think of, you know, baseball, or old midgets, or cornish hens, or even my dad, but it wouldn't go away. So, finally, I went into his closet and jerked off into one of Mike's socks."

"That's just nasty."

"No, nasty is when my friend Tim comes to visit and jerks off while I'm asleep, and then he wakes me up to tell me about it. He's like: 'I jerked off and you were asleep.' Ulgh."

"Into a sock?"

"Yes," he said, "a sock."

Saw Boogie Nights tonight. Like Mark Wahlberg's character, Dirk Diggler, it was long and dumb. The lack of plot surprised me because the reviews are great. Mark Walberg is serviceable, Julianne Moore underutilized. How could someone make a movie about sex so boring?

Weak character development, too, with only-slightly-better-than-porn-flick dialogue, and it managed to rip off a lot of better films, from Reservoir Dogs to Raging Bull.

It played at a gorgeous theater in the East Village, on 12th and 2nd Avenue. I went with my friend Elizabeth. Our uncertain friendship doesn't have a platform for a sex conversation, so until we could come up with another topic we didn't say much. I did say, "I thought it was too long." Pause. "No pun intended." It really hadn't been. Pause. "Sorry."

"That's okay. Inexcusably stupid, but forgiveable." She frowned.

In other news, my bathroom hisses like a snake. I've placed my ear on every pipe and can only assume it's the heat coming on through the building. The hiss is worse in the second floor hallway, which calms my fears. I was convinced my apartment would explode. Now I'm convinced the building will explode, which is still bad but at least not my fault.

And now I realize I made tea three hours ago in my one-cup-single-guy-no-need-to-make-tea-for-two tea maker, and it's sitting there cold as a stone.

I went to lunch with a beautiful woman who employs me on a freelance basis. She is brightly attractive, smart, and good at her job. She deeply loves her husband. She came back after lunch to check out my office and look at the view over the Upper West Side. After she left, a nosy sales guy asked how I knew her. I told him she was my psychic counselor, examining the Chi energy of the company. It pissed him off.

It sounds like I'm sexually attracted to her, doesn't it? The truth is different: I'm impressed. I say, "My God! I hope I meet a person like her, some day, when I'm ready and grown up and taking good care of myself." Which, at the current rate, will take slightly less than 45 years.

Disregarding the lonely future, it was pleasant. After lunch my lungs still breathed the in-the-company-of-someone-lovely feeling. You don't get that often, and there it was.

Over email, we discussed a web site put up by a middle-aged hippie, and the feeling of nostalgia and honesty it evoked. There seemed to be a warmth and sense of history in her young life that we don't have.

My friend Laura wrote: "all we have is bad sitcom references & happy meals--and Kennedy (the vj)...."

I don't disagree, but I wondered about our sentimental attachments. Looking at my Macintosh screen, I decided that we'll see this early Internet and email as nostalgic, with its heaps of icons and screen savers.

Sex will be different in thirty years, probably more complicated, equal, strange, and open at the same time. Fibers and colors will itch less and stay brighter. We'll have forgotten Bud Dwyer, who blew his brains out on TV. The Human Genome Project will be finished, and whatever Golems shall come from its spiral loins will begin arriving. We'll remember ourselves as wild and lonely, lamenting our squandered twenties. We'll know how foolish it was to feel guilty about kissing a drunk girl; we should have felt more guilty about eating cheese and bacon in the same sandwich. We'll remember the raw state of medical science, the diseases we could get today that would have killed us thirty years ago, in the 1990's. We'll remember our parents and grandparents as their hair grayed and their faces folded up like napkins, and finally the green cold of their Pennsylvania funerals. We'll remember college with a feeling of heavy warmth in our chests and a little longing. We'll wonder why we never really grew up, never ended up as adults, like our parents did. Our children will grow up and wonder why they never grew into adulthood like their parents did.

The Challenger explosion. Eating popcorn with real butter and parmesan. Watching cable at 2 in the morning, alone, barefoot and blanket-wrapped. When my ten year old son screams "I hate you" to me, over and over, throwing his futuristic electro-toys, I will remember lonely, difficult years as wonderful and free. Our movies, like "Titanic" or "L.A. Confidential," or "The Breakfast Club," will turn into dated classics. Our histories will be annexed, contextualized, written down, remarked upon, and added to the empty march of decades that swell the shelves of big bookstores: The 90's: a History. The literary classics of our decade will appear in anthologies. College students will wear our old clothes to theme parties. Sharp photos will look dim and faded compared to the imaging technology of the future. This web site will be an electronic cave painting.

That's the short list. It's a big switch, yesterday for tomorrow, and today usually gets lost in the move.

Despite yesterday's entry 11-jan-98, and the way it disparaged text analysis, I spent a good deal of Friday night creating some custom electronic tools for the analysis of text.

Eventually, my tools will analyze the dialogue and narration of novels, and the speaking styles of play characters, because that's the sort of thing that interests me. But last night, making baby steps, I asked my program to tell me the number of characters, number of words, number of sentences, and the top 200 words by usage in a text file. The program is tentatively called "Word Fucker 2.0."

I started with my own work, and analyzed December's journal.

First of all, I wrote 75 pages in December, according to the 250-words-per-doublespaced-page rule, and 1608 sentences. My average sentence was 11.2773631840796 words long, give or take a few nanosentences. That's a healthy, brief length, probably skewed to the short end by my propensity for short chunks of dialogue. Henry James wrote sentences 650 to 8000 words long, so I'm about 65 to 800 times away from the literary endurance of my hero Hank. Until I reach his level, I'll just model my sex life after his.

The linear meat of the output is found in the "word order" section. After "the" and "and," "I" came in at a robust 554 mentions, and "me" at 117, for a total of 671 personal pronouns. I'm an egotistical bastard; my readers take up less than half as many thoughts: "you" shows up 229 times. "He" shows up 98 times, "his" 80, and "she" 79, and "her" only 61. You might then suppose that I am male. For the time being, you'd be right!

My writing includes 1.14:1 ratio of dogs to hippos. I also equate "Paul" with "God," since both show up 15 times, but "sex" and "head" beat them both off at 16. Jesus finds second billing at 14, and most of those mentions were sacreligious. I'm going to hell. Further proof of my damnation came when I saw that "woman" appears before "religion" and "church."

"People" are more important than "work," and while "insurance" is more important than "family," "family" ranks over "Brooklyn." "Dad" and "Son" end up near the top, because of the Career Development series.

Looking at these inconclusive results, I thought it might be interesting to write the quintessential Paul paragraph, ala yesterday's "perfect historical sentence." Here it is, culled from the top 0.5% of December's journal:

I gave Jesus some good Brooklyn sex. "Great head," he said. "But am I insurance for the ill religion?"

"Its Christmas," I said. "We are always trying."

There you have it--the culmination of four months of nightly writing and almost 100,000 words of text. Now that I've given this compressed text to my readers, I can quit writing this fool journal. So I close these months with a nod to John Baldessari, and report: Quality Material, Careful Inspection, Good Workmanship: All Combined In An Effort to Give You A Perfect Sentence.

You're welcome.

From Rant to Reason

This began as a rant against Ted Rall. Ted Rall is the best editorial cartoonist alive, but he wrote a heap-o'-shit essay that pissed me off.

First, I advise you to read his column about the death of "cool" New York. Check it out online, then come back if you want to.

Now, here are some amusing excerpts from my spontaneous, raging rant responding to this column: