At a friend’s party last night, when someone noticed the beads around my wrist. She was instantly enthralled, and started talking to a friend and it slowly dawned on me, from their conversation, that she thought that the colors and the random way they had ended up around my arm held some sort of mystic significance. I just liked the colors, I thought in my head (where I often think).

She wanted to make a strand of beads for me (perhaps my aura spoke to her…or something). She measured my wrist and then asked me, “What are you trying to manifest in your life.” She spoke with her arms as well as her mouth.

I opened my mouth to answer, but I had no planned words to come out of said orifice, hoping something would interrupt and save me from baffled silence. Something did. And now I’m left wondering…what am I trying to manifest? I don’t know. Dark mischief maybe? A sardonic grin. A voodoo doll smile.

I’ll just have to wait and see what she manifests with beads…

A 6-foot-tall, 275-pound bearded man crashed a children’s birthday party in Oak Forest, identified himself as “vengeance,” then helped himself to a piece of cake, police said.

Read the full story HERE

Now that I have my computer back, I have a treasure trove of past writings. I used to have the good habit of running to my computer the moment I woke, letting my fingers fly, writing whatever came to me, and to keep writing until I was forced to make the regular, morning bathroom rush. Well, I usually only get about a paragraph in, but strange things come out of you when you are that close to you’re subconscious. And now I’ve forgotten where much of these things come from and they are out of context, so it’s like reading someone else’s weird writing. I’ll post a few…

IMORTAL CANDY
The coupon said, “Imortality with every purchase of $5.00 or more.” There was no expiration date. “What have you got to loose,” she said.

“Five bucks,” I replied.

I went to the address, a rundown candy shop. A grotesque clown leered at me from the sign. “Are you the gate keeper?” I asked. It did not respond. Unchallenged, I went inside.

PUZZLE
Stars shine in the eyes of men who know the truth. Voids shine the abyss in the eyes of the ignorant. Where do I go? How will I know? Who has my answer, to crossword puzzle line 42? What’s an infinite lettered word for the meaning of life?

RUNNING IN A DREAM
Go. Then stop. Hide. Wait. Peek. Run. Chase. Pain. Cry. Second wind. Please. Wake. Up.

Lenore has eaten yet again…so judges, let’s have the official count…

LENORE’S DEATH COUNT: Hey kids! Stewart Little says, “That monster Lenore has eaten 14 mice and she’s coming for me next. What did we do to deserve this? Was it my sequal? But Ebert gave me three stars! Three stars!!!”

And finally, your word of the day:

Skullduggery n (ca 1867) : a devious device or trick; also : underhanded or unscrupulous behavior
On the Chicago streets, folks marveled and laughed at the skill and skullduggery of the Flim-Flam man playing Three Card Monte – slight of hand on the windy streets. They did not laugh, and would not laugh, at the skullduggery they did not see, perpetuated by his pick-pocket partner while they were distracted.