a pre-enactment

A

Hi! I'm _____, and I work with the Political Action Group of PPNYC.

B

I'm anti-choice. I hate PPNYC.

A

Oh, I'm sorry. Hey, did you know that being anti-choice sucks?

B

It does?! What?! No wonder I'm so angry! Can you tell me how to suck less?

A

Absolutely! First, I would start by taking off that fugly McCain pin.

B

But I like McCain!

A

McCain farts when he walks.

B

Oh crap! Get this off of me!

A

There you go.

B

Wow. That's amazing. The sky is blue again! Tell me more.

A

Well, as a pro-choice person, you get to hate people less and see the good in the world. As a volunteer, I get to change lives by telling people of the magic powers of pro-choicery.

B

Ooooo

A

Yeah. We help raise money to support pro-choice candidates and educate voters about important legislation like the Healthy Teens Act and the Reproductive Health Act.

B

That sounds difficult.

A

Not at all. It is work, but it's envigorating work. And we make it fun!

B

What else do you do?

A

We travel. To places like: Albany

B

Oooo

A

and Pennslyvania

B

Exotic

A

and Ohio.

B

I don't even know what that is!

A

With us, you will. And you'll get to help people and legislators stay informed about our issues.

B

That's awesome. Where do I sign up?

A

Right here. Congratulations. You are now well on your way to being a happy, healthy, pro-choice person.

B

Thank you, Planned Parenthood, for helping me get over being a shithead. I'll never go back down that road again! I love you, PPNYC!

A

And we love you.

A&B

The Political Action Group: We make you awesome!

After a million phonebanks and with a new group of activists about to be introduced to the several groups in the Activist Council, I had a loopy moment and wrote this script to introduce them to the Political Action Group.

coffin gems

ANNOUNCER

Are you tired of burying your relatives in the same boring coffin? Have people started talking?

FUNERAL ATTENDEE

Hey, Jack! Recession Model again? Two more and you get a free one. Hahaha.

ANNOUNCER

Are you looking for an easy way to spruce up that coffin without destroying your children's college funds? Well, now you can! with Coffin Gems.

Coffin Gems are the Bedazzler for your dead. No more boring burials. An end to dull deaths! An Absolutely Amazing Afterlife! Coffin Gems make you the hero of every funeral. You'll wonder how anyone every died without them.

Coffin Gems are not sold in stores. Call now and you'll get 2, that's right 2!, Coffin Gems for the price of one when you order in the next five hours.

BUYER

Wow! I'm calling right now.

ANNOUNCER

That's not all!

BUYER

It's not?

ANNOUNCER

No. If you order in the next five minutes, you not only get two Coffin Gems, but we'll include Tie-Dye Coffin Kit. Now your favourite dead hippy can be buried in the style they would have wanted when they were 20 and on acid - a TWENTY-FIVE DOLLAR VALUE! You get all of this for only $19.99 + tax, shipping, handling, and other associated fees!

BUYER

I can't believe it!

ANNOUNCER

I know. It's unbelievable. So call now: 1-800-872-3425 and get yours today!

DISCLAIMER

Coffin Gems should not be handled buy people willing to buy them and are only available while supplies last.

ANNOUNCER

Coffin Gems - call now!

I was grocery shopping with my parents for Xmas. In the parking lot was a white hearse with a Coffin Gems label on the side. I really really really want to bedazzle a coffin for someone or some pet now. Maybe a fish.

this is false

The hearth imploded.

My hands bleed on the rocks trying to halt the destruction. Gathering, stacking, forming, building. Bruises bloom on my naked body as the boulders tumbled over and over down my slope. Cracks creak at my feet and begin their exploration. I press my back harder against the hearth-rubble. Stop the avalanche. Stop the avalanche. Stop the avalanche. Walls moan and begin their descent. The ground bites into my flesh with a wide-toothed smile. The rocks, the hearth escape now – to the north to the east to the west and down around my southern body. Roof evaporates into sky, and I am buried.

Violated, pinned, and immobile in this new bed, I watch clouds chase each other. A face with chubby cheeks follows a bunny whose ears are much too short. A long tailed monster floats easily past the dog trying to bite that tail. Then one that refused to speak to me and kept its amorphous shape, demanding I see It. Screams bubble in my pelvis, travel the length of me, and explode into the world. They overtake one another, playing some perverted bunny hop until as one they poured from my mouth. An eternity of noise and white release. I lose my breath and give birth to my scream. Sound dominates the world, invading the smallest crevices. Every thing vibrates. I am exposed again and vomit white powder into the air.

I cut my hand on a stone and blood drips where the stone used to be. Another rock disappears under my fingers. Then underfoot. I trip. The remains are leaving. Are leaving. I am barren. Hands in front of eyes. Still there. The air is unbearable. The clouds are gone. The sky is pale and fading. The sun: faithful still. Folding, crumpling, the earth pulls away. No Will to inhabit space. Color and line drain and blur. No anchor. Nothing to hold. Not floating. Not anywhere. Landscapes and horizons gone and forgotten and desperately remembered. A non-sense of touch. Air and flesh merge. The sun has gone, but there is no night and there is no light. Air. All is air. Raw, unbreatheable air. Years of unbecoming. Looking to the end before it’s begun. Begin and end merge into eternity. Nothing will ever happen.

I am on the edge of crying where everything hurts but the eyes won’t well up and your eyeballs press forward seeking something, the mouth involuntarily frowns and the space between your shoulder blades tenses and it seems like you will never ever move past this moment and just be suspended in this torturous place forever. This destruction belongs to me. This destruction is my whole world. This destruction defines me. This destruction creates me. I am this destruction.

Infinite planes of thought and an aphysical smile. Here, alone, thought, nothing, lost distractions, blank, open, mine. What Where When Why How have no existence. The universe and I are thought and emotion. I try to travel through this place with tears and laughter, but travel, tears, and laughter do not exist. Direction has lost Its way. Thoughts try to define the emotion. Names are null. I try to invoke them anyway, to keep Possibility infertile. I cannot access my own skin, my own borders. I try to paint old worlds on to nothing and struggle against unending. Try to walk without learning how.

I want to be a bubble. I need even the flimsiest of boundaries. To know where I begin and end again is heaven. Fuck the angels.

Regret, Memory, Definitions. Still no knowledge of I. let go let go let go letgoletgoletgoletgoletgo let. go. Let go let go letgoletgoletgoletgoletgoletgoletgo letgo let go let go letgo let go let go let go let go let go

I fear the other side of nothingness.

I fear being nothing, and I fear the other side of nothingness.

My fear chains me to the comfort and terror of this non-existence.

I've been working on this piece for nearly two years. The images of beyond nothing are vivid, but I haven't been able to find an ending or a path to creation within the world yet. I am waiting.

random monologue

Was Columbus confused when Amerigo stole his glory?
Was he satisfied when he became household?
Did he mourn the red avalanche he started?
Does he know? Does he care?
Would I?
Has life become as different as we imagine it has? Or is it just how we define our lives? When did technology and comforts stop being the things that shade our lives but the colours themselves? Why did we not notice? A person’s death, when captured, becomes the whole of their lives. Our martyrs are no longer myth but digital realities. Does an unnoticed death negate an unnoticed life? Is a small person unworthy or just a casualty of the gluttony of information? Shouldn’t you have answers to these questions?
But then… Do you want to be a morbid celebrity, dancing your used corpse before a desensitized audience for nickels thrown at your feet? Some boob making lewd gestures with your limbs for unheard guffaws? Maybe you do. Five minutes to be remembered. Five whole minutes.

I had been working on a short script to deal with the death of a friend. This monologue was one thing that came out of it, but I'm not sure where it fits.

Dear Jesus, Please make us famous. Amen.

Brooke and Wes were born in the fantastic, fabulous year of 1981. They were not siblings, but there were born in the same town and in the same hospital at the same time. Kismet. It is said they came out kicking their little feet and wailing at the world. Normal for babies, but the nurses swear ‘til the cows come home they were singin' and dancin'. And they didn’t stop. Ever. So they were placed in neighboring bassinets. Their mothers met at the window when they came to say hi and became fast friends. And because each had big personalities and relatively dull husbands, they decided they should raise their kids together. They even moved next door to each other. Now that, that’s just crazy. But what’re gonna do? It’s the South.

Now the two children would wake up singin', dance any ole crazy thing to the bathroom (let me tell you, they left some MESSES in the toilet), and continue the rest of their day in pretty much the same way. Any song and whatever dance came into their little heads and feet. From cradle to crawlin' to walkin', just singin' and dancin'. Drove their houses to madness. And the neighborhood too. One summer day when they were seven years old, the radio one day introduced them to Dancing Queen, and bless my soul if the pair of ‘em weren’t inspired by the Good Lord Up Above. They demanded the cassette single. Then they locked themselves up in Brooke’s room for two weeks playing nothin' but that song and makin' odd stompin' and bangin' sounds (shut your dirty mind and just wait, Reader).

Brooke’s folks stayed at Wes’s house to avoid the commotion. Food was brought to the children at the appropriate times. School was not EVEN discussed. And the neighborhood had two weeks of peace (well, Mr. Chaundry ran off with his 20 year old secretary – typical – and Mrs. Johnston was arrested for God knows what and the two sisters on the corner declared that they were actually lesbians and that they were moving to Idaho to start a homosexual nudist colony, but that’s neither here nor there. And anyway, I’m not the biggest fan of potatoes – potatos? – potatoes.).

Finally the Twins…Almost (as they now called themselves) emerged with looks of slightly starved triumph on their faces. It was complete. Nervous, their parents asked what ‘it’ was. The twins yelled "Hit it!"

God bless me, but it was the most god-awful dance routine with off-key singin anyone has ever conceived, bless their little hearts. Momma and Daddy and Momma and Daddy smiled crooked smiles and clapped hesitantly. For the Twins…Almost, they had rocked it.

That night on their tin can phone, their prayers were extended. Tonight and ever more, the Powers That Be got the following synchronized message: Dear Jesus, Please make us famous. Amen.

This is a story that Art Club had come up with for a short film. We've all been distracted by life since then, but this is the start of story I wrote for it.

the spittoon

She found the spittoon at a garage sale on her way home early in December. It needed some work, but she saw what it could be and bought it. Back at home, she went to the work room in the backyard. She filled the piece with water and let it soak until the sun hit noon. Polish and elbow grease and time and aching shoulders and a sore back later it was done. The sun reflected off of the brass surface.

The house had to have the perfect place for it. She ran through each nook in her mind and decided upon the empty corner in the spare bathroom. Satisfied, she moved on to cleaning up the work room and the preparing dinner.
~~
The week had been beige. He hated beige. So he decided to buy something lovely for the house to make himself feel better and make her smile. The overpriced floral shop spoke to him, and so he walked in and grabbed the first medium sized bouquet that had daisies and left.

She was already home, but he heard her in the kitchen and decided to sneak to the back and set up the arrangement for her. A slight glitch: there were no vases in his room, in her room, in the bathroom, or the hall closet. He heard her heading down the hall, and he ducked into the spare toilet. There was the spittoon. Not perfect but it would work. He placed the flowers in it, added some water, and returned it to its spot.
~~
Dinner had ended. He had finished the dishes, and they were reading on the couch. She suddenly jumped up and ran to grab what she had wanted to show him all night. He smiled and waited for her return, but the smile faded as her footsteps clomped back into the living room. She glared at him, placed the spittoon in the center of the floor, dropped her skirts around it, and he heard the piss pouring from her. He screamed, but she only stopped when she was done.

The moral of the story:

You don't put flowers in a spittoon.

My grandfather had a spittoon in his bathroom this Xmas. Apparently my grandmother said that she would put flowers in it. My grandfather said he would pee on them, because you don't put flowers in a spittoon.

piddiddle, piddaddle

Characters:

LS – Little Sis

BS – Big Sis

Living room of a Brooklyn apartment. Like way out there Brooklyn. Like Bay Ridge or something. So you know, more space than normal.

BS is folding laundry on the couch. She is listening to the radio. The house is that “messy organized” that 20-somethings do. Or at least I do.

LS bursts through the door and lets it slam behind her.

LS

Oh my god, BS, I cannot believe what just happened. I just had probably the most amazing experience of my life. I don’t know what made me do it, but ahhh I’m so glad I did… I just… Oh my god, it was so fucking amazing. Amazing.

BS

(bored) What did you do?

LS

Do you want to know?

BS

Yes.

LS

Do you really?

BS

Yes.

LS

You aren’t just humoring me?

BS

No.

LS

Okay. … Ask me once more. With feeling.

BS

(fake smile, still bored) What did you do?

LS

I masturbated on the subway.

BS

(not so bored) You…

LS

I masturbated on the subway! During rush hour! I feel so free, so unconquerable. You know? Nobody even noticed! I mean, I know NYers are self-centered and jaded, but really I expected someone to think something was off and, you know, ruin the moment. But no one did. I just masturbated right there on the subway and totally got away with it! How fucking awesome is that? That was seriously the best commute I’ve had since I moved here. So relaxing. I think I’m going to do it again tomorrow. And you know what else? Towards the end, I’m pretty sure I saw god. Yeah. Oh my god!!! I can’t believe I did it! I’m so alive right now. I want to run a marathon or leap off a building! Oh. I’m definitely doing it tomorrow. Definitely. Maybe both ways. That way I’ll be nice and energetic [for work].

BS

You can’t masturbate on the subway!

LS

… Yes, I can.

BS

No. You can’t.

LS

Yes. I can. I just did.

BS

Well, you can’t do it again.

LS

Yes. I. Can. And you can’t stop me.

BS

Are you fucking insane?! Only crazy people and assholes do shit like that.

LS

And what does that make you?

BS

I do not masturbate on the subway! I wouldn’t even think of masturbating on the subway. How does someone even come up with something like that?

LS

I forgot my book.

BS

I … don’t even know what to say to that.

LS

Seriously, BS, I think you are making way too big a deal of this. I just closed my eyes and got to it. It was easy. No one got hurt. No one saw. And I had a great time. You know, I came straight home to tell you, because I thought you’d be happy for me.

BS

Really?

LS

You’re the one always going on and on and on and on and on about how masturbation is good for the soul. How it can clear out a lot of tension and stress.

BS

Yeah, but I never said you should [do it in public.]

LS

If you aren’t going to be happy for me, fine!

She pulls out her mobile and hits a speed dial.

BS

Who are you calling?

LS

Mom?

Throughout the call, BS tries to take the phone away from LS.

It’s me. Is Dad there? Yeah? Can you put me on speaker? BS, stop it!

Mom, Dad, I had the most amazing experience today. … I masturbated on the subway, and I’m pretty sure I saw god. Now, I know you think stuff like this is weird. But you always said you wanted me to be happy, and this made me extremely happy. Are you happy for me? …. Well? Good. Thank you. I’m glad to know that some people care about my personal happiness. Well, that’s all I wanted to tell you. Yeah, we’ll still talk this weekend. Love you. And BS sends her love too. Yes, I’ll tell her to call. Love you. Bye!

See? Not so big a deal, is it? You need to calm down.

BS

I can’t believe you just told our parents that you masturbated in public.

LS

Well, I did. Get over it. You know, you really should trust them more, tell them more about your life. You’d have a better, more open relationship with them the way I do.

BS

I am not calling our parents every time I masturbate somewhere new.

LS

Okay. But really you should call them more. They’d feel better. You’d feel better. You’d probably save yourself some hours in therapy.

BS

I … I can’t deal with you right now.

LS

You looked stressed.

BS

I am a little.

LS

Where’re you going?

BS

To my room.

LS

Are you going to masturbate?

BS

No. I am going to go to my room, lock you out, and meditate until I’m sure that this whole episode is a very, very, very distant memory. Like I don’t even want to remember [that you were ever born.]

LS

Meditate.

BS

Yes.

LS

... Oh my god what did I just tell our parents?!!!

BLACKOUT

After I took a meditation class, I kept thinking the word masturbate when I meant meditate. I figured at some point I would say the wrong one at the completely wrong time.

tree story

Once upon a time, there was a forest full of sentient trees. The trees, though rooted, could move around within the radius of their roots, and they would dance evenings when the stars calmed the world.

The trees had to be careful to not let any humans see them dancing. They had watched many species of mobile creatures taken from the woods live and dead and put to a purpose not their own.

So the trees danced slowly at first and listened with their roots for the vibrations of a human foot.

In the town close by, a sick woman was sleeping. Her 5 year old daughter sat next to the bed with her head on the quilt watching her mother. She didn't remember the days when her mom wasn't confined to the bed, when she would drag her lover into the rain and sway to beat of the raindrops.

Her dad told her about those days. The little girl always imagined a slow twirl and short hops in all of the new puddles the rain had made.

That morning she had heard someone say her mother would never leave the bed, so she sat and she watched.

She heard her father go to bed, and she crept out of the house and ran to the woods. Sometimes she saw her father talking to the sky about her mother, pleading, and she decided if she added her voice to his, maybe her mom would get out of bed.

She went to the edge of the woods and started talking to the air. Her entire life poured out of her mouth, and though it was a small voice and a short life, her tale moved the trees. And they moved for her.

With the voice of the wind, the trees told the little girl that the next night after her father had gone to sleep, she should bring her mother outside to their backyard. The task would be difficult, but they had faith that the little girl could do it. She told them she was frightened but she would get her mother outside when they asked.

The next night, the little girl waited patiently by her mother until her father's tell-tale snores filled the house. She jostled her mother awake and begged her to come outside.

Her mother, weak, tried to protest but gave in to the tiny girl's small demand. With her daughter's help, she rolled over and sat up and came to a wobbly stance.

Slowly, they made their way to back door in the kitchen. The little girl leaned her mother against the refrigerator and opened the door. There, not 20 feet away, the whole forest waited.

Her mother gasped. The little girl calmed her mother's fears, and the largest oak wrapped is leafiest branch around the mother and drew her outside among the trees.

And they danced. Every tree and the mother and the daughter.

The next morning when the little girl's father went to wake her up and check on his wife, he found and empty bed.

He ran through the house and found no one. Next he went to the front yard. Nothing. Then through the house and into the backyard.

There in the middle of the yard, laughing, was his wife and his child. His wife, though still weak, moved in the familiar rainy dances they had shared. His tears flowed freely when she told him "I danced." The trees in the woods heard through the wind their joy, and in the light of day, they danced unafraid.

this story was written for a co-worker who was having a bad day and needed to be distracted.