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Book Recommendation- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

I think it is safe to say that I have a soft spot in my heart for immigrant fiction. Thats why I love this coming of age tale of a second generation American, Francie Nolan, who grows up in Brooklyn in the early 20th century. She reads a book a day- alphabetically. I wish I were so dedicated! And yes, like most fiction involving Irish-American immigrants, the family is poor and the father is an alcoholic. Despite those facts, Francie has a beautiful outlook on life, and I admire her for that. I also like this book a lot because the Irish and Brooklyn accents really do come out in the younger character's dialogs, which is really enjoyable. I would definitely recommend this book, and it is a pretty quick and easy read.

Book Recommendation: The Lovely Bones

This is one of my favorite books ever! I cried 3 times! The narrator is a little girl who has been murdered, and she narrates from heaven, while she watches her family cope with their grief, as well as watching her murderer carry on with his life. The movie is to be released this December, and the big name actors are Susan Sarandon, Mark Wahlberg, and Rachel Weisz.

Author Spotlight: Chuck Palahniuk

Known for his crude humor, satirical stories, and sarcastic characters, this is one of my absolute favorite authors! I saw him on his book tour for Rant, and he is so funny and nice! I just love him.

His list of fiction (* indicates a novel that I personally read)

Fight Club (1996) Yes it is a little embarrassing that I have not read his inarguably most famous book- but I have seen the movie with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton maybe 10 times. I don't have time to read everything people!

*Invisible Monsters (1999) This one is my personal favorite. I can't go into too many details, because like many of Palahniuk's books, it is full of crazy twists- including the book beginning near the end of the story- but thats to be expected in his books. Everyone should check it out- they are making it into a movie in 2010! I must say that makes me pretty excited!

Survivor (1999) Seeing as this book is collecting dust on my bookshelf as we speak, this will most likely be the next Palahniuk that I will read. From what I know about it, it starts at the end of the story- and it's about the last surviving member of a death cult (everyone else has committed suicide).

*Choke (2001) Though a movie was made from this book (...it wasn't very good...) this was not my favorite book. Sometimes I am not a big fan of how his books end. It did keep me laughing and entertained though!

Lullaby (2002) This is a really personal book for Chuck. He wrote this after his father's murder- and while contemplating his stance on capital punishment- and whether or not the murderer should receive the death sentence. The book is about a journalist investigating SIDS deaths. At each home, an African book of poems is found, opened at the same page. The lullaby has the power to kill people, and by memorizing the poem, the narrator becomes an accidental serial killer.

*Diary (2003) This is another one where I didn't love the ending, but I loved the story! It was creative, and it kind of reminded me of LOST. I would recommend it even though I thought the ending was a little weird.

Haunted (2005) Scheduled to be the next of his book to movies- this novel is interestingly written. It is comprised of short stories that tie in to the main plot line. After ever story, there is a chapter by the narrator. The short story "Guts" that I previously blogged about can be found in this book.

*Rant (2007) Oddly enough, this is the first Palahniuk book I read, and it was also the dirtiest! Haha! I loved it though, again it's a hilarious book. It is written in the form of interviews and the characters are all very different and interesting in their own rights.

Snuff (2008) One of his dirtiest novels, this is the story of a woman attempting to break the record for basically the most sexual partners in a porn, in one setting. If I remember correctly, there are 600 men attempting to be a part of this event. One of them is a relative... interesting and full of plot twists.

Pygmy (spring 2009) This book is scheduled to come out in May. It revolves around a foreign exchange student-terrorist that has a goal of blowing up millions of Americans with his science project.

Book Recommendation

I had to read this for a class I took this semester: Ghost Stories and context. It's great! It's not really about ghosts, more about the supernatural. It's cool because it has a nonlinear timeline and three different narrators. Despite that, it isn't that hard to follow. It's set on an island in 1980- and those living on the island are all descendants of former slaves. It's a matriarchal society and is heavily influenced by hoodoo. It sounds weird but it isn't really, it's just good!

Author Spotlight: JK Rowling

I wont lie- it makes me really mad when people wont read Harry Potter because they think it's stupid. The series has sold over 400 million copies worldwide, and the brand is worth $15 billion. I think that makes it worth checking out, right?

Here are my favorite Harry Potter books, in the order from favorite to least favorite.

The Half- Blood Prince (6th)- I loved this one because it was dark and sad and I felt like the characters grew up the most in this book. And you don't know if Snape is good or bad, and by the end of the book you are convinced he is bad. Plus everyone starts falling for each other. I just love it.

The Order of the Phoenix (5th)-again, I loved this one because it was so dark. And who doesn't cry when Sirius dies? It's just sad, but I love it.

Prisoner of Azkaban (3rd)- like I said, I love Sirius. So when he escapes from Azkaban, and you don't know if he is good or bad- it's a page turner. And Hermione has the time turner in this book, which I thought was cool.

The Sorcerer's Stone (1st)- I mean it's the first book, it is where I got hooked. I dont have much more to say but that. Also it's short and you could read it in a day or two.

The Chamber of Secrets (2nd)- While this movie is terrible, it's a pretty cool book. I liked how Ginny was controlled by Riddle's diary- and this book is where you start learning more about Voldemort.

Goblet of Fire (4th)- After reading it this first time, and seeing the movie three times, I cannot possibly read this again. I tried and couldn't get through it. I hated to Triwizard Tournament. I thought it was super distracting from the plot.

The Deathly Hallows (7th)- Might as well be called The Extended Camping Trip. I thought it was boring until the final battle, I thought Ron was a little bitch, and I do not understand how they could possibly be making two movies out of this book. Hmph.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard-If you are planning on picking this up to learn more about Harry Potter, you are in for a disappointment. I read this in about 25 minutes, and it's just 5 fairy tales with commentary by Dumbledore. It sounds cooler than it is. But, the proceeds from the book go to the Children's High Level Group, a charity that JK Rowling started in 2005. The group benefits children living in institutions- whether they are orphaned or disabled. So in summary: good cause, not the greatest book. But if you are an HP fan, it would be great to add to the collection!

Book Recommendation

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

As a reader of the Twilight series by Meyer, I was intrigued to read her attempt at an adult sci-fi novel. I was not disappointed! While it is not a work of literary genius or even stunning with it's originality, it was a good, fun story. I wont lie, I even cried once. The idea of aliens taking over human bodies isn't original. I mean if you read the Animorph series as a kid, you already know the premise of this book. But in The Host the aliens are here to help rather than hurt. It is a story of survival, with a sci-fi, romantic twist. I would recommend it to any girl that has the time (it's a little on the lengthy side).

Author Spotlight: Joseph Conrad

This past semester I had to take a class that consisted of ALL Conrad, All the time. While I would not recommend it, I think this experience has given me a pretty valid opinion, so here goes. Also, for those of you that know that the enjoyability of a class is directly related to the personality of the teacher that instructs it, I would like to note that I LOVED this teacher. She was nice and understanding and I would have hated Conrad more had I not taken this class with her.

Here is the list of books I read for this semester:

Heart of Darkness (1899)
Lord Jim (1900)
Falk (1901)
Typhoon (1902)
The Mirror of the Sea (1904-1906)
The Secret Agent (1907)
Il Conde (1908)
The Secret Sharer (1909)
Victory (1915)

In my humble opinion, Conrad is one of the most boring, redundant, and dry authors I have ever come across. All of the books previously mentioned, with the exception of The Secret Agent take place at sea, on an island, ship, port, ect. There are generally some sort of tortured heroes, self-sacrificing women, and big storms. DO NOT read Mirror of the Sea. This is a collection of essays about sailing, the topics include: the importance of wind, the relationships between captains and crewmen, and the role an anchor plays on a ship. It put me to sleep every time I picked it up. If I had to recommend some Conrad, I would say that Victory was decent, and The Secret Agent was not unbearable. Hitchcock made a film about the later (Sabotage 1936). And lastly, for the record, Heart of Darkness is incredibly overrated.

stuff i want to read over christmas break

These are in Order

-I never had the time to finish it, so I'm going to reread it!
Hot Russian adultery at it's best

-I bought this because of that recomendation from JK Rowling and it has a cool first line:
"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink"
The narrator is a seventeen year old girl, living with her family in a castle, who wants to become a writer.
-Apparently this is really artsy fartsy, and critics say it reshapped American Literature. whatever, we will see.

I mean if you know me, I love The Catcher in the Rye. I mean I probably will name my kid Holden. And I have heard people say that this is even better. That's hard to consider but we will see!

Breaking Dawn- Book Review

Well. I purchased the book at 12:01 am on Friday and finished it at 4 pm on Sunday. Despite that, I was a little disappointed. The first book was a delicious guilty pleasure. The next two were enjoyable for sure. This one seemed a little cheap. I felt the same way about the last Harry Potter, but at least JK Rowling had some B list character's dying. I mean Hedwig, Mad Eye, one of the twins... all that was sad. Mrs. Weasley called Ms. Lestrang a bitch. Big fight scene. Everything was memorable. LITERALLY nothing too exciting happened in Breaking Dawn. Bella became a vampire like we all knew she would, she had sex with Edward, AND manages to get a baby out of it, which no one knew was possible. Even Jacob imprinted and Bella wont have to worry about not being able to be his friend anymore. A little cheesy if you ask me. Nothing was left out of order, and everyone got their happy ending. There was a huge battle that wasn't even fought, and the only character that died was one that I don't even remember from the previous three. All in all... I still read it in three days. I still enjoyed reading it... but I'm going to have to give it a B-. It just left a bad taste in my mouth as a wrap up to a series.

final remark: worth the read, but don't have super high hopes.

Previously on Lost

So, to keep everyone fresh on lost, even when the season is over, every Thursday I want to blog about Lost. If you are like me, you probably have noticed several biblical references in the show. These parallels are what interests me the most in the show. The following is taken from lostpedia.com:

Biblical References in regards to Jacob
-Jacob is a great-great-grandfather of Aaron (elder brother of Moses)
-Jacob married Rachel, who was apparently barren, but later amazingly gave birth to Joseph and Benjamin .She died whilst giving birth to Benjamin
-Another name for Tribulation is "The Time of Jacob's Trouble" Jeremiah 30:5-7
The tribe of Benjamin's women and children were all killed, and the remaining members of the tribe could not longer proliferate. The historical solution they came up with was to kill the men from another sub-tribe and take their women and children. Women are unable to carry to term on the Island, and the Others have been taking women and children from Oceanic Flight 815.

I just got...

a canon xti rebel


and took these (not edited)

(peacock feather)

Flowers



Boyfriend

American Idol

Girl Winner:


Boy Winner:



I think Kyle should have made it to 24:



But i am most upset that Josiah didnt make it

Les Miserables

Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God.

1984

"It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same—everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same—people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world."

The Tempest

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

The Catcher in the Rye

I keep picturing these little kids playing some game in this big field or rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean, except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I would go to my bedroom window and stare at my reflection in the glass and the trees behind it and just listen to the song for hours. I decided then that when I met someone I thought was as beautiful as the song, I should give it to that person. And I didn’t mean beautiful on the outside. I meant beautiful in all ways. So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them. And in this moment, I swear we were infinite.

Christmas Continued.

i need help!! my family is so hard to shop for. they either have everything they want or they dont like anything.

ok a few interests are:
-golf
-cooking
-flowers
-baseball
-scrap booking
-animals

these are all adults. ugh. i hate shopping for my family. i think they hate everything i get them.

Christmas Wish List

I never blog. Im sorry. I also never ask for anything that i actually do want for christmas, so Im making a list. Im sick of people wasting their money on me lol. If you insist on buying me stuff, buy me this stuff:

From American Apparel
$38- cranberry


From American Apparel
In mauve/army $28



From Delias
$52


From Delias
$24.50



From Target
$100


From Target
$59



From Target
$60



Thats all for now! haha

Good Causes

Inspired by previous blogs by Emily and Cameron... here are a bunch of cute t-shirts that donate the proceeds from the shirts to charities!

INVISIBLE CHILDREN

Proceeds will benefit the children of Uganda that are being forced to fight in war. Visit the store and support the cause.

To Write Love on Her Arms

Proceeds go to fighting depression. Goal for 2007 is to contribute $100k to the treatment, recovery and support of young people facing depression, addiction, suicide and self-injury. Help them by buying a cute shirt from their store!

PROJECT EDIN
FEED THE MODELS-SAVE THE WORLD

100% of proceeds raised from T-Shirt sales will support EDIN’s innovative eating disorder prevention programs. Visit the store!

XXXchurch

This organization helps people deal with their addiction to pornography, and also tries to help people in the porn industry. STORE

HOUSE

Cool! The cast of House encourages you to purchase a shirt-All proceeds from these T-shirt sales will go to NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness.) Get one at the store!

In Case you want a Good Cry

At work today we talked about super sad scenes from movies and shows... here's a few


Crash




One Tree Hill



The OC



The Family Stone




Er- SOOOO long ago, when Carter and Lucy are dating and she dies

Jim and Pam

Jaye sent me this
its very sad

This weeks postsecret

how do we feel about the mini movie?



i think i like the old way better

EEEEK

Laser printer's as bad for you as cigarettes?


this is not good new for the corporate world

i need you to love it like i do

Hairspray ( awful recording but YAY)





Favorite part of Newsies




LOVE Rent!

aw lamb

taken from perez hilton.

A lamb was born in New Zealand this past week that was so severely deformed that it was set to be put to sleep for it own good, a local newspaper reported.

The poor little creature came out with SEVEN legs - an extra set of front legs and three back legs.

The seven-legged lamb lamb was also hermaphrodite, and was missing a part of its bowel so was unable to pass feces.

It was this latter problem, rather than the fact it had seven legs, that meant the poor little lamb had to be euthanized.

“It’s quite a happy bright wee lamb, he’s just slowly going downhill really,” said a veterinarian that treated the animal. “To keep it alive is probably inhumane really.”

Sweet dreams little guy!

loves it

upon my arival, i either learn to swim or drown.
As i struggle for air, i see only water, and i reach for anything as a cry for help.
I feel my body growing weak, slipping away
It occurs to me, that my cries are worthless
Acknowleding death,I feel my body growing weak, slipping away,
and i begin to sing praises to the one
as I sink to my salty grave, I drown


Let it be a sweet sweet sound

have you heard about the cat..

that predicts death?
i kid you not.

Anna Karenina, Part I

Part One is only about 1/7th of the book, which is divided into 4 parts.
Anna Karenina does not appear until over half way through Part One.

So far, Dolly is married to this man that has an affair with their children's governess. She finds it hard to forgive him, but when her husband brings his sister, Anna, to the house, the women talk about life and love, ect. and the couple eventually makes up. Dolly's younger sister, Kitty, is about at the age where Russian women get married, and since she is so pretty she's getting a lot of attention from several men. She loves a man named Vronsky, and he sees her as a close friend but not as a wife. A man named Levin, who is Dolly's husband's childhood friend, is in love with Kitty and proposes to her, but she turns him down in hopes that Vronsky will propose to her.

Anna and Kitty meet, and Kitty is fascinated by her, and becomes close with her very quickly. Near the end of Anna's stay, there is a ball, to which the whole town goes. Vronsky and Anna hit it off, and Kitty realizes that Vronsky is already in love with Anna, and Anna has feelings for him as well (though she is trying to supress them, since she has a husband and child at home).

Ashamed of how she hurt Kitty, Anna leaves the next day to go home to her estate. Vronsky follows her onto the train to the city he lives in (Petersburg, I think..) hoping that he will run into her and have the chance to be with her.

More later. I havent been reading as diligently as i would like.

Look what was outside my door this morning

favorite singer, favoirte book

Mindy White, of Lydia, one of my favorite bands, is as big of a nerd as me.




im very happy about this

Enrique Gonzalez

He's a painter from Lexington, I have one of his pieces... its a blond girl dancing with an umbrella. i really love his paintings

this is the one i want the most

hottest dance ever?

Emo Girl

I would just like to know where she got her definitions of music genres.
but... go ahead and fast forward to the end... its funny.

Photography

I have a photography company
i only work with bands, but i love it.. so you can check it out and add me on myspace because i like having friends!!

Book Summary

I dont know about you, but I have a really hard time remembering what happened in a book about a year after reading it. Therefore, my blog is going to mainly be about book's and summarizing them...probably chapter by chapter. I'm mainly going to be doing this for me, and i will try to put up a big disclaimer so I wont give anything away if you wanted to read the book. yay!

In your face, lewis

The book outsold the movie the first day.
cameron and i were right
bitch

What if the 7th book

ended like this....




hahah
i would laugh

Abandoned House

So theres this abandoned house way out in jessamine county, right before the river...



courtney hamm and Idecided to explore it



outside there was a creepy shed



and the side pourch had a broken pourch swing and an old christmas tree



the first level had this coat hanging by itself right by the door



the light fixture on the ceiling was fallen down



and there were holes throughout the ceiling





there was still food on the counter, and dishes in the cabinents and in the sink



there was junk lying everywhere



and creepy babydolls



plus a dilapidated fireplace



and a game of life thrown about in the corner



upstairs the windows were broken, and the roof was rotting



there was grafitti everywhere



and the furniture was flipped on its side





gross and creepy huh

RATED R

THIS IS REALLY GROSS. MOST GIRLS PROBABLY WONT WANT TO READ THIS, ITS ABOUT MASTURBATION AND INTESTINES. THIS IS A BIG DISCLAIMER!!!

Guts
by Chuck Palahniuk

Inhale.

Take in as much air as you can. This story should last about as long as you can hold your breath, and then just a little bit longer. So listen as fast as you can.

A friend of mine, when he was 13 years old he heard about "pegging." This is when a guy gets banged up the butt with a dildo. Stimulate the prostate gland hard enough, and the rumor is you can have explosive hands-free orgasms. At that age, this friend's a little sex maniac. He's always jonesing for a better way to get his rocks off. He goes out to buy a carrot and some petroleum jelly. To conduct a little private research. Then he pictures how it's going to look at the supermarket checkout counter, the lonely carrot and petroleum jelly rolling down the conveyer belt toward the grocery store cashier. All the shoppers waiting in line, watching. Everyone seeing the big evening he has planned.

So my friend, he buys milk and eggs and sugar and a carrot, all the ingredients for a carrot cake. And Vaseline.

Like he's going home to stick a carrot cake up his butt.

At home, he whittles the carrot into a blunt tool. He slathers it with grease and grinds his ass down on it. Then, nothing. No orgasm. Nothing happens except it hurts.

Then, this kid, his mom yells it's supper time. She says to come down, right now.

He works the carrot out and stashes the slippery, filthy thing in the dirty clothes under his bed.

After dinner, he goes to find the carrot, and it's gone. All his dirty clothes, while he ate dinner, his mom grabbed them all to do laundry. No way could she not find the carrot, carefully shaped with a paring knife from her kitchen, still shiny with lube and stinky.

This friend of mine, he waits months under a black cloud, waiting for his folks to confront him. And they nev¬er do. Ever. Even now that he's grown up, that invisible carrot hangs over every Christmas dinner, every birthday party. Every Easter egg hunt with his kids, his parents' grandkids, that ghost carrot is hovering over all of them. That something too awful to name.

People in France have a phrase: "staircase wit." In French: esprit de l'escalier. It means that moment when you find the answer, but it's too late. Say you're at a par¬ty and someone insults you. You have to say something. So under pressure, with everybody watching, you say something lame. But the moment you leave the party....

As you start down the stairway, then-magic. You come up with the perfect thing you should've said. The perfect crippling put-down.

That’s the spirit of the stairway.

The trouble is, even the French don't have a phrase for the stupid things you actually do say under pressure. Those stupid, desperate things you actually think or do.

Some deeds are too low to even get a name. Too low to even get talked about.

Looking back, kid-psych experts, school counselors now say that most of the last peak in teen suicide was kids trying to choke while they beat off. Their folks would find them, a towel twisted around their kid's neck, the towel tied to the rod in their bedroom closet, the kid dead. Dead sperm every¬where. Of course the folks cleaned up. They put some pants on their kid. They made it look ... better. Intentional at least. The regular kind of sad teen suicide.

Another friend of mine, a kid from school, his older brother in the Navy said how guys in the Middle East jack off different than we do here. This brother was stationed in some camel country where the public market sells what could be fancy letter openers. Each fancy tool is just a thin rod of pol¬ished brass or silver, maybe as long as your hand, with a big tip at one end, ei¬ther a big metal ball or the kind of fan¬cy carved handle you'd see on a sword. This Navy brother says how Arab guys get their dick hard and then insert this metal rod inside the whole length of their boner. They jack off with the rod inside, and it makes getting off so much better. More intense.

It's this big brother who travels around the world, sending back French phrases. Russian phrases. Helpful jack-off tips.

After this, the little brother, one day he doesn't show up at school. That night, he calls to ask if I'll pick up his homework for the next couple weeks. Because he's in the hospital.

He's got to share a room with old people getting their guts worked on. He says how they all have to share the same television. All he's got for privacy is a curtain. His folks don't come and visit. On the phone, he says how right now his folks could just kill his big brother in the Navy.

On the phone, the kid says how-the day before-he was just a little stoned. At home in his bedroom, he was flopped on the bed. He was lighting a candle and flipping through some old porno magazines, getting ready to beat off. This is after he's heard from his Navy brother. That helpful hint about how Arabs beat off. The kid looks around for something that might do the job. A ballpoint pen's too big. A pencil's too big and rough. But dripped down the side of the candle, there's a thin, smooth ridge of wax that just might work. With just the tip of one finger, this kid snaps the long ridge of wax off the candle. He rolls it smooth between the palms of his hands. Long and smooth and thin.

Stoned and horny, he slips it down inside, deeper and deeper into the piss slit of his boner. With a good hank of the wax still poking out the top, he gets to work.

Even now, he says those Arab guys are pretty damn smart. They've totally reinvented jacking off. Flat on his back in bed, things are getting so good, this kid can't keep track of the wax. He's one good squeeze from shooting his wad when the wax isn't sticking out anymore.

The thin wax rod, it's slipped inside. All the way inside. So deep inside he can't even feel the lump of it inside his piss tube.

From downstairs, his mom shouts it's supper time. She says to come down, right now. This wax kid and the carrot kid are different people, but we all live pretty much the same life.

It's after dinner when the kid's guts start to hurt. It's wax, so he figured it would just melt inside him and he'd pee it out. Now his back hurts. His kid¬neys. He can't stand straight.

This kid talking on the phone from his hospital bed, in the background you can hear bells ding, people scream¬ing. Game shows.

The X-rays show the truth, some¬thing long and thin, bent double inside his bladder. This long, thin V inside him, it's collecting all the minerals in his piss. It's getting bigger and rougher, coated with crystals of calci¬um, it's bumping around, ripping up the soft lining of his bladder, blocking his piss from getting out. His kidneys are backed up. What little that leaks out his dick is red with blood.

This kid and his folks, his whole fam¬ily, them looking at the black X-ray with the doctor and the nurses stand¬ing there, the big V of wax glowing white for everybody to see, he has to tell the truth. The way Arabs get off. What his big brother wrote him from the Navy.

On the phone, right now, he starts to cry.

They paid for the bladder operation with his college fund. One stupid mis¬take, and now he'll never be a lawyer.

Sticking stuff inside yourself. Stick¬ing yourself inside stuff. A candle in your dick or your head in a noose, we knew it was going to be big trouble.

What got me in trouble, I called it Pearl Diving. This meant whacking off underwater, sitting on the bottom at the deep end of my parents' swimming pool. With one deep breath, I'd kick my way to the bottom and slip off my swim trucks. I'd sit down there for two, three, four minutes.

Just from jacking oft' I had huge lung capacity. If I had the house to myself, I'd do this all afternoon. After I'd finally pump out my stuff, my sperm, it would hang there in big, fat, milky gobs.

After that was more diving, to catch it all. To collect it and wipe each hand¬ful in a towel. That's why it was called Pearl Diving. Even with chlorine, there was my sister to worry about. Or, Christ almighty, my mom.

That used to be my worst fear in the world: my teenage virgin sister, think¬ing she's just getting fat, then giving birth to a two-headed, retard baby. Both heads looking just like me. Me, the father and the uncle. In the end, it's never what you worry about that gets you.

The best part of Pearl Diving was the inlet port for the swimming pool filter and the circulation pump. The best part was getting naked and sit¬ting on it.

As the French would say, Who doesn't like getting their butt sucked? Still, one minute you're just a kid getting off, and the next minute you'll never be a lawyer.

One minute I'm settling on the pool bottom and the sky is wavy, light blue through eight feet of water above my head. The world is silent except for the heartbeat in my ears. My yellow¬striped swim trunks are looped around my neck for safe keeping, just in case a friend, a neighbor, anybody shows up to ask why I skipped foot¬ball practice. The steady suck of the pool inlet hole is lapping at me and I'm grinding my skinny white ass around on that feeling.

One minute I've got enough air and my dick's in my hand. My folks are gone at their work and my sister's got ballet. Nobody's supposed to be home for hours.

My hand brings me right to getting off, and I stop. I swim up to catch an¬other big breath. I dive down and settle on the bottom.

I do this again and again.

This must be why girls want to sit on your face. The suction is like taking a dump that never ends. My dick hard and getting my butt eaten out, I do not need air. My heartbeat in my ears, I stay under until bright stars of light start worming around in my eyes. My legs straight out, the back of each knee rubbed raw against the concrete bot¬tom. My toes are turning blue, my toes and fingers wrinkled from being so long in the water.

And then I let it happen. The big white gobs start spouting. The pearls. It's then I need some air. But when I go to kick off against the bottom, I can't. I can't get my feet under me. My ass is stuck.

Emergency paramedics will tell you that every year about 150 people get stuck this way, sucked by a circulation pump. Get your long hair caught, or your ass, and you're going to drown. Every year, tons of people do. Most of them in Florida.

People just don't talk about it. Not even French people talk about everything. Getting one knee up, getting one foot tucked under me, I get to half standing when I feel the tug against my butt. Get¬ting my other foot under me, I kick off against the bottom. I'm kicking free, not touching the concrete, but not getting to the air, either.

Still kicking water, thrashing with both arms, I'm maybe halfway to the surface but not going higher. The heartbeat in¬side my head getting loud and fast.

The bright sparks of light crossing and crisscrossing my eyes, I turn and look back ... but it doesn't make sense. This thick rope, some kind of snake, blue¬white and braided with veins, has come up out of the pool drain and it's holding on to my butt. Some of the veins are leaking blood, red blood that looks black underwater and drifts away from little rips in the pale skin of the snake. The blood trails away, disappearing in the water, and inside the snake's thin, blue¬white skin you can see lumps of some half-digested meal.

That's the only way this makes sense. Some horrible sea monster, a sea serpent, something that's never seen the light of day, it's been hiding in the dark bottom of the pool drain, waiting to eat me.

So ...I kick at it, at the slippery, rub¬bery knotted skin and veins of it, and more of it seems to pull out of the pool drain. It's maybe as long as my leg now, but still holding tight around my butt¬hole. With another kick, I'm an inch closer to getting another breath. Still feeling the snake tug at my ass, I'm an inch closer to my escape.

Knotted inside the snake, you can see corn and peanuts. You can see a long bright-orange ball. It's the kind of horse¬pill vitamin my dad makes me take, to help put on weight. To get a football scholarship. With extra iron and omega¬three fatty acids.

It's seeing that vitamin pill that saves my life.

It's not a snake. It's my large intestine, my colon pulled out of me. What doctors call prolapsed. It's my guts sucked into the drain.

Paramedics will tell you a swimming pool pump pulls 80 gallons of water every minute. That's about 400 pounds of pressure. The big problem is we're all connected together inside. Your ass is just the far end of your mouth. If I let go, the pump keeps working-unravel¬ing my insides-until it's got my tongue. Imagine taking a 400-pound shit and you can see how this might turn you inside out.

What I can tell you is your guts don't feel much pain. Not the way your skin feels pain. The stuff you're digesting, doctors call it fecal matter. Higher up is chyme, pockets of a thin, runny mess studded with corn and peanuts and round green peas.

That's all this soup of blood and corn, shit and sperm and peanuts floating around me. Even with my guts unravel¬ing out my ass, me holding on to what's left, even then my first want is to some¬how get my swimsuit back on.

God forbid my folks see my dick.

My one hand holding a fist around my ass, my other hand snags my yellow¬striped swim trunks and pulls them from around my neck. Still, getting into them is impossible.

You want to feel your intestines, go buy a pack of those lambskin condoms. Take one out and unroll it. Pack it with peanut butter. Smear it with petroleum jelly and hold it under water. Then try to tear it. Try to pull it in half. It's too tough and rubbery. It's so slimy you can't hold on.

A lambskin condom, that's just plain old intestine.

You can see what I'm up against.

You let go for a second and you're gutted.

You swim for the surface, for a breath, and you're gutted.

You don't swim and you drown.

It's a choice between being dead right now or a minute from right now.

What my folks will find after work is a big naked fetus, curled in on itself. Floating in the cloudy water of their backyard pool. Tethered to the bottom by a thick rope of veins and twisted guts. The opposite of a kid hanging himself to death while he jacks off. This is the baby they brought home from the hospital 13 years ago. Here's the kid they hoped would snag a football schol¬arship and get an MBA. Who'd care for them in their old age. Here's all their hopes and dreams. Floating here, naked and dead. All around him, big milky pearls of wasted sperm.

Either that or my folks will find me wrapped in a bloody towel, collapsed halfway from the pool to the kitchen tele¬phone, the ragged, torn scrap of my guts still hanging out the leg of my yellow¬striped swim trunks.

What even the French won't talk about.

That big brother in the Navy, he taught us one other good phrase. A Russian phrase. The way we say, "I need that like I need a hole in my head...," Russian people say, "I need that like I need teeth in my asshole......

Mne eto nado kak zuby v zadnitse.

Those stories about how animals caught in a trap will chew off their leg, well, any coyote would tell you a couple bites beats the hell out of being dead.

Hell ... even if you're Russian, someday you just might want those teeth.

Otherwise, what you have to do is¬you have to twist around. You hook one elbow behind your knee and pull that leg up into your face. You bite and snap at your own ass. You run out of air and you will chew through anything to get that next breath.

It's not something you want to tell a girl on the first date. Not if you expect a kiss good night. If I told you how it tasted, you would never, ever again eat calamari.

It's hard to say what my parents were more disgusted by: how I'd got in trou¬ble or how I'd saved myself. After the hospital, my mom said, "You didn't know what you were doing, honey. You were in shock." And she learned how to cook poached eggs.

All those people grossed out or feeling sorry for me....

I need that like I need teeth in my asshole.

Nowadays, people always tell me I look too skinny. People at dinner parties get all quiet and pissed off when I don't eat the pot roast they cooked. Pot roast kills me. Baked ham. Anything that hangs around inside my guts for longer than a couple of hours, it comes out still food. Home-cooked lima beans or chunk light tuna fish, I'll stand up and find it still sitting there in the toilet.

After you have a radical bowel resec¬tioning, you don't digest meat so great. Most people, you have five feet of large intestine. I'm lucky to have my six inch¬es. So I never got a football scholarship. Never got an MBA. Both my friends, the wax kid and the carrot kid, they grew up, got big, but I've never weighed a pound more than I did that day when I was 13.

Another big problem was my folks paid a lot of good money for that swim¬ming pool. In the end my dad just told the pool guy it was a dog. The family dog fell in and drowned. The dead body got pulled into the pump. Even when the pool guy cracked open the filter casing and fished out a rubbery tube, a watery hank of intestine with a big orange vita¬min pill still inside, even then my dad just said, "That dog was fucking nuts."

Even from my upstairs bedroom window, you could hear my dad say, "We couldn't trust that dog alone for a second...."

Then my sister missed her period.

Even after they changed the pool water, after they sold the house and we moved to another state, after my sister's abortion, even then my folks never men¬tioned it again.

Ever.

That is our invisible carrot.

You. Now you can take a good, deep breath.

I still have not.

Anathallo

Anathallo, one of my favorite bands, has a blog too!

check it out!

This is One of my Favorite Songs ever

from the Chariot DVD

Postsecret

Due to the lack of updated postsecrets this week, here are a few old ones that I saved from previous posts...