fortune cookies

the stars are supportive of you

are they? but they don't even exist. when you look at them, all you're seeing is the cold ghosts of stars that aren't there.

i wonder if the ghosts of people are the same. just some weird twisty speed-of-light shit. an echo we see through time, and not really there in any real sense at all.

i wonder what else is like that. stuff that we perceive that isn't there anymore, but we see the shining echo of it. old love, maybe. passion gone stale.

the thing about love is, when it goes bad (WHEN LOVE GOES BAD!) you can't just trim the furry bits off, or pop it in the toaster or the oven to warm it up. cold is cold.

anymore than putting a person in an oven will bring them back to life.

people used to put little lambs in warming ovens, though, so maybe not the best analogy.

my dad put my hamster in the warmer. (she isn't dead, she's only sleeping, please wake up, please) she didn't, though. he buried her in an utterly butterly tub in the garden. i watched from the window. feeling like a coward because I couldn't face doing it myself. like a bad person because i let her go to her eternal rest with so little fanfare.

my daughter's hamster died last month. i buried him for her in an old shoebox, packed with hay and an old teatowel. (why do we want the dead to be comfortable?)

i didn't look up at the window. i didn't think her a coward. i didn't even remember my dad doing the same for me. i was too busy sweating over the shovel and the tangled grass.

let me tell you, it's bloody tricky burying someone, even a very small four-legged someone, when the lawn badly needs mowing.

good thing I wasn't burying a human person out there.

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this week you risk falling in love

is that a risk i'm willing to take? how would love, new love, upend my life? i can think of one person i'm hoping to avoid, a mistake i should have made in my twenties and got out of my system.

the mistakes i made in my twenties were off line. lucky me. i don't envy the up-and-comers plugged in 24/7, mistakes enshrined in code, building a brand instead of cultivating a personality...

...i say while engaging in an online community...

what a hypocrite i am

"hippogriff" is the word my daughter uses, which makes it sound a lot cooler than it is

if I were a hippogriff I'd have shiny blue-black feathers and amber eyes

my arms would ache something fierce from lugging my solid rump into the sky

my screech of proud triumph would actually be a shriek of pain

i think i'd spend most of my time on all four feet. mismatched as they are

beak and talons curved and sharp

i'd put curvy on dating apps

and laugh

a squawking laugh

#

a closed mouth gathers no feet

is a closed mouth such virtue though?

imagine if we all stitched our lips shut

what a desperately lonely and dull world that would be

i want to hear the stupid shit you say

let's laugh at what fools we are sometimes

learn from each other

imagine, if we all glued our mouths shut

would our ears shrivel up and fall off due to under-use?

that's mostly what we use them for; listening to each other

wouldn't we all look funny without any ears. contact lens sales would skyrocket.

we'd look even funnier in that in-between stage when they're shrivelling up

like a haircut growing out

an aural appendix

maybe the process is already begun don't ring me, text me

oh how i hate phone calls. i hate how my voice sounds. i hate voicemail.

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salt and sugar look the same

yes but have you heard how they smell?

i think this means not to take things at face value

don't trust just anyone, be cautious, not naive.

that chap on masterchef put salt all over his dessert, only realised his error when the top of the tart wouldn't caramelise

i think the lesson here is clear: be wise and wary, and when in doubt, use a blow torch.

liar liar pants on fire

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the most important thing you wear is your personality

I'll be sure to mention that when I'm arrested, thanks

nobody wears their personality

not the true one

the real version of themselves inside their own heads, behind their eyelids

we guard that version of ourselves more carefully than we do our junk

funny word for genitals, junk

rubbish, garbage, useless

is that what we really think of them?

seems unlikely

everyone seems quite attached to their own at least

imagine, detachable genitals

like mr potato head

we could use velcro

that might be convenient actually

i'm sure a lot of young fellas could get loads more stuff done without that distraction

and women could just open a little door on their bellies, take it out and pop it in a cupboard or something until it's finished shedding

olivia coleman keeps her oscar in a cupboard

imagine if she got up at night and went downstairs for a snack, and when she's walking by the cupboard she thinks, oh i'll just have a little peek

and then she opens the Cupboard, and instead of a shiny golden statue

there's a pulsing uterus

story idea: the something womb

poe got nothing on me

just you wait 'til I think of Something

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