"Why were you in jail last night?" Phineas looked at the guy who'd asked him. He was sitting at the bus stop. The voice sounded familiar. "For pinching a tick." "I got things need

Not doing Jabberwocky anon, my Scottish brogue went awry and sounded tinny an Irish to my tin ear. Buzah you heathen monkey shiners! The moment to prove your nuts is nigh!

The long planned sortie, at last done. To find the mission unaccomplished. Sally forth again, heuronaut. Sally forth. They trimmed their jib jagged like a ravaged sea hag begging.

Like a drugstore cowboy, flinging oxycontin, xanax, percoset and condoms to drug mules for hand jobs in Mini Coopers. I didn't see the brochure for that on Career Day. The skillset

One of these day a key plot point on some TV show will be someone being found out by making a reference to MySpace or Friendster. Or Altavista.

The storm of '95 had washed out the underlying support and the cave in rendered the area unfit for cultivation. They found Tina's car in the fold there last week. AOL floppies were

"Is that a zip drive in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" "It is a zip drive and it is a pleasure to meet you. Hence the tumescence. Did you bring the signed Ox Baker?"

At some point the truth wouldn't be able to hide from itself anymore. A confrontation was sure to ensue. Cly and Beebox hoped to add to the commotion and punch up their mission for

Cy was thinking that maybe Kill Bill was Tarantino's reworking of Dante's Purgatorio. He practically pokes us in the eye with it by naming the Bride, Beatrice. A last temptation of

Lax morals. That is what it was. Lax morals. We're all guilty of it. Tolerance was taken for granted, in some circles: taken advantage of, in others. It might be where the shadow

Zorba! The Greek. "What about him?" "He's here for his money." "Tell him that I don't know which is his because they all look the same to me. Then give him a coupon for yesterday.

a lick of the flame sets alight the night, bets the fight is right. might just might.

Your pox pus puts putz past persnickety properly, Prudence.

the thought hit. could I redo til blip? I was no Paul Menard; or Cervantes, for that matter. I'd have the advantage that I'd shared the same headspace with myself for a long time.

I was talking about tack. Then I realized that it is both a nautical and a cartographic term. Which made think about the commonalities of the two realms. Both involve position and

Tack is also an equestrian term. Tact was another animal I was not familiar with. At the end of the first day of school, my mother asked me, as my teacher was handing me over, "Hot

Sword fights meant something else when I was a kid. They didn't typically require a third. Of course, I never found much use of having studied Agrippa, either. I'm intrigued by it.

If you walk away from this story feeling edified, then you didn't get it. The happy ending you think you saw was anything but. Everybody got what they wanted without much ado about

We threw out words around as we threw away our youth. Having spent it willy nilly, often at the demands of our willy wally, should we be, now, confused by what it costs to do anew?

The electricity welled up to a quiet crescendo behind my ears. The tendrils had emerged. Two of them. Pristine, moist, white, seeking. I've been caught unaware, flat footed. I need