in a sparkling void.

The other day I was strolling in front of the sandwiches at Trader Joe's when a lady came up to me saying, "May I bask in your height for a moment?" Why not? I thought. "Okay." I was confused and just kinda stood there. I looked down at my basket, then up at her, folding my lips inward in my mouth. "... Oh." I reached up and grabbed the sandwich for her that she had been waiting for. Later, at a gas station, I stood patiently as gasoline jerked through the pump and into my car, waiting for a stout lady with frizzy hair to finish washing her windows so I could have something to do. Her mother sat inside staring out looking wet but was dry. The frizzy lady had just finished her routine and was walking toward the mini mart when a huge truck honked, a quick half-second mind-numbingly loud horn. She leapt into the air in surprise and shrieked "HOO woo!" And even later that day, I was walking on Hollywood Boulevard to get post cards, one of Disney Hall for my grandmother so I could say to her "this is where I work," the other post card for a class project. I peered into the window of a frozen yogurt store and saw a man dressed as "swamp thing" maybe. His whole body and face were covered in green paint and mossy stuff, and he'd be about eight feet tall if he were standing. He was licking his lips, moaning and enjoying a cup of frozen yogurt. I felt filthy, like I had seen something I wasn't supposed to. For my class I picked out a card of a giant cat sitting amid downtown LA skyscrapers fighting off helicopters and advertisement blimps. We're sending pieces of writing to each other on them, which together will conglomerate into a book. On the way back, the swamp monster was towering above me, expressionless, seemingly trying to camouflage himself against a lightpost.

I just sent a photo of my uvula and throat to some guy online who has a thing for it. I figure I'm not worth more than this, and that's not bad. I might as well at least give the beauty of my throat a purpose.

On Sunday Alex and I took a walk around our neighborhood here in Wilshire Center. It always feels funny when we do this, because we're both tall and emaciatingly thin, while the average passerby is at least a foot shorter. We walked into this really stinky pet store with gigantic bunnies. Two of them had a biscuit between them and were tugging bitterly from either side. We walked up a noisy wooden ramp into an even smaller room, obviously originally a different store but bought out for expansion. It contained parrots, cockatoos, a whole array of exotic birds the likes of some of which I had never seen. And chickens. All at once the entirety of the bird section sang for us. We stood in a half dome of chirps as rows of birds bobbed heads as rehearsed, synchronized and deafeningly loud. One man working there was whistling the tune of the bird chorus as he organized shelves. The birds stunk. Each section of animals had a different kind of poopy stench. It wasn't just because of the efficient use of space, the stacking of cages in all sections from the floor to the ceiling, which reminded me of the original Peale Museum. In the fish section I lost track of time staring at ones shaped like plates turned on their sides. How did they feel about being so beautiful in this rotting store? There were also fish who looked like whores. They had bold red lips and black around their eyes. After some close scrutiny, we concluded they had been drawn on, made to look like that, the bodies of some having flowers or lollipops depending on your preference, others with uneven stripes like a plastic toy car. Every now and again two of them would jump at each other and meet at the lips. It was truly a fish brothel. It wouldn't surprise me if the pet store violated animal rights laws on several counts. But a metaphor wasn't needed to prove to me the slutty undertones of a pet store.

Last night I was sitting at my computer when I heard a sound of a popping, like a paper bag being burst, except a hundred times louder, which shook the walls of our building. Then tires screeching, then the sound of air coming out of a deflating hot air balloon. I ran to Alex. "Did you hear all that? Let's go see." I told Alex we were obligated. "This is our neighborhood's version of dinner parties," I told him. Alex didn't hear the deflating sound, and I've been known to have auditory hallucinations late at night. There were two SUV-ish vehicles on Beverly Boulevard facing the same direction sitting side by side like twins, perpendicular on the double yellow lines. We determined they must have made the popping sound when their abdomens smacked, one of their tires deflating at impact. And also a car had run head first into a parking meter and was smashed in the back so that the back end's middle came to a point like a "v". I can't figure out what happened. Maybe the two SUVS crunched the little car from behind at either corner? I said the broken glass reminded me of rain, Alex said salt. Then I went on and on about how the misty air reminded me of zero-degree nights in New Mexico. Every car driving through had to come almost to a stop, their tires making sounds of crunching and popping over the chunks of glass and debris. We didn't talk to anyone, because we ran away when we saw police.

Why is it so popular to say you listen to funk, but then you actually listen to Maroon 5 or Hall & Oates or something? I listen to Parliament, Parlet and Funkadelic, and that doesn't make me any more real.

On YouTube there's a strong presence of having to know who beats who, mainly with animals but who knows the possibilities. What conclusions can be generated from a poetically organized list of all these potential battles of life forms and otherwise? I don't know, and I can't fathom bothering to paste them all here. I actually tried, but here's the abridged version. I love the comments, music, titles. It's funny how there always has to be a winner, and how some feel the need to declare the winning over and over like we couldn't see it for ourselves. I hope this list will clarify a new world order and an ultimate food chain.

Jaguar versus Caiman
Anaconda versus Caiman
Jaguar versus Anaconda
Jaguar versus Pig
Jaguar versus Fish
Jumbo Jet versus People on the Beach
Polar Bear versus Walrus
Grizzly Bear versus Caribou
Dog versus balloons
Tiger versus Crocodile (featuring 50 Cent)
Shark versus Crocodile
Shark versus Zombie
Shark versus Octopus
Bush versus Beyonce
Praying Mantis versus Mouse
Midgets versus Camel
DNA versus The Book of Mormon
Bear versus Caiman "Bear totally destroys and owns Caiman."
Bear cub versus Hyena
Hyena versus Seal Pups