Ernie

Q: So what do write about on a day when no one really says anything interesting, or at the very least, if they do, you don't remember the specifics?

M: I think those days are sometimes the easiest to write about because I can just type whatever I want. Maybe write something artsy, (insert scene of someone walking in the snow, be sure to use the phrase bare tree limbs. Try bare limbs of trees to see if it sounds better. Include a part about people being lonely. try to show how lonely they are by talking a lot about the reflection of sky in puddles. People will understand that what you really meant to write was. He was lonely).

Q: Okay, but really, nothing? Like maybe you won a bet at work today on who was going to make it into the Bachelor's top six.

M: I'm an artist. I don't watch television shows. I stay up late at night and think about Proust. I use terms like signifier and signified.

M: Gia is my favorite. She's so pretty.

Q: What was that?

M: Nothing.

Q: Are you artsy enough to create a series of faux questions, which are actually just one part of your conscious mind interrogating the other?

M: I don't enjoy flim-flammery.

M: When you type this up later please don't include the part where I said flim-flammery. Say hijinks. Be sure to include the word literary before hijinks as well, so that the context is appropriate.

Q: Did you have to look up the word hijinks to even know that its usage would be questionable without including the word literary?

M: She seemed the most natural, which is obviously sort of an odd quality to value on a show that is based around being irreal.

Q: Irreal huh? Not sure that's a word.

M: Use the word liminality at some point as well.

Q: Spell check is really having a field day.

The above exercise is further proof that I need something to keep this blog going. Nobody seemed to excited about my idea to read 100 books in a year's time.

Q: You should probably insert something here about how people don't enjoy reading as much anymore. Use the word neophytes when describing them.

M: I'm not doing that tonight.

M: I'm now using the word tyro. I think people have heard me say neophyte enough times.

Q: So what you're saying is that in the event that nothing interesting happens you just talk to yourself?

M: Basically. Don't we all though. I mean, (and I realize I'm traipsing through familiar ground once again)

Q: Why with the parenthesis all the time?

I'm not actually inside anyone else's mind, but I assume that we all have these highly self-conscious monologues that run almost non-stop throughout the day. It's why I'm a fan of interspersing Eastern monastic traditions of meditation into traditional logic based Western spirituality.

Q: So you're basically just replicating that conversation right here? It's making a presumption that other people will find your inner monologue interesting.

M: I guess so. My real inner monologue is actually just a cartoon that I play over over and over in my head. It's the grandpa from the old Keebler Elves commercials, and he keeps asking Smurfette if she wants a delicious fudge cookie.

Q: You're just saying that to elicit a response in your (very small) reading audience that will satisfy you. I don't believe you've thought about the Keebler Elf guy for years and years. Though smurfette, you've probably recalled more recently, for obvious reasons.

I went to a reading tonight and washed myself with words.

Q: I've never understood poetry. You can't actually wash yourself with words. And what would it mean to do so anyway? I mean, I can tell you a thousand things, but if I don't show it to you physically, it means nothing right? Like if I tell you I love you, but then I shoot you in the gut, you might have some pretty serious questions about whether I really meant it when I said I loved you. I suppose its the sort of question you might ask someone who says, "God is love."
The punch line is (Don't think of Noah here, think of all the people who are drowning to death, the babies clinging to the breast of their mother's, the seaweed that connects their ever whitening bones) "He has an odd way of showing it."

M: Did anybody say anything interesting today or not?

Q: I don't remember. The day just kind of passed me by. How many more do I get?

M: I don't know.