After the meal, Jon and his relatives walked across campus and, despite the clouds, brisk wind, and high crowds brought about because of "Blue&White" Weekend, decided to purchase some ice cream at Penn State's mildly famous Creamery. The Creamery is a cold room, with fans that blow sweet-cream scented air on the long line of sugar-anticipating customers that are lined up in orderly fashion from the cash register, across the blue and white tiled floor, out the side door, outside and alongside the building's brick walls. The ice cream purchase process is this: wait in line, announce the product you wish to purchase (cone or dish), step to your left to speak to one of the scoopers, tell the scooper your single desired flavor and, finally, eat the ice cream. The Creamery strictly holds to this process, line cutters are susceptible to being ejected from the store. The institution is not quite Soup Nazi-esque, but it certainly has a strict set of guidelines.

Jon's grandmother, a Pennsylvania Dutch woman to the best I can tell, in the true Pennsylvanian tradition, is indecisive. She had narrowed her ice cream selection down to two separate flavors, one with almonds, I believe, and something else. Jon's aunt told the scooper that grandma would like two flavors in a cone, if that's okay. The scooper quickly returned with rejection. He was sorry, but he just couldn't. Jon's aunt responded by asking if he could scoop two flavors, just this once, for grandma. Jon's grandmother even tried her luck to succeed in attaining both flavors, asking in grandmotherly fashion if she could have two flavors. Alas, the scooper would not succumb to the grandmotherly inquisition, Jon's grandmother would have to cope with a single flavor.

However, Jon told me that the resulting single-flavor ice cream cone was stacked higher than any ice cream cone he had ever seen. It was enough to be segmented and fill two separate ice cream dishes and still have enough ice cream remaining on the cone for a sufficiently large ice cream cone. Clearly this scooper felt terrible about not allowing Jon's grandmother a second flavor in her cone. Understandably a higher-up was more than likely breathing down the scooper's neck. One false move and the scooper was out on the street, perhaps it would even effect his college career as a Food Science major. Indeed, the fear of job loss was too much for this scooper to succumb to the wishes of Jon's grandmother.

Although it seems trivial, that second scoop could have change the outcome of that scooper's life. Jon's grandmother was in no way out of line asking for two flavors, other ice cream parlors do that sort of thing all the time. The whole event reminds me of an article I read today about the recent leak of Apple's new gizmo; the next generation iPhone. An unfortunate employee misplaced a prototype of the new device at a bar nearly a week ago. The device was found by a tech-savvy individual who recognized the small, almost insignificant, changes Apple made to the product and quickly "leaked" the product to various internet news sources. Though the bumbling, and perhaps absent-minded, employee was certainly down on his luck, he wasn't fired, nor was he nearly as unfortunate as another Apple employee who lost his job over a trivial mistake.

On Gizmondo.com, Steve Wozniak, or Woz for short, co-founder of Apple responds to the iPhone saga and sheds light onto the plight of a very unfortunate employee and a strict vale of secrecy enforced by Apple.

Steve Wozniak had bumped into an Apple engineer, whom he states "resembled myself and Steve Jobs when we were that age, and my younger son who programs for NASA. He's a kind of person I would always enjoy talking with." Wozniak realized the engineer was involved with the production of the iPad, and perhaps using the "not even for grandma?" approach, coerced the young employee to give him a test-run of the new iPad. What Wozniak hadn't realized is that this was no ordinary iPad that he was testing, it was the much anticipated 3G version of the device, a top secret gizmo. It seems implied that the employee was aware of the secrecy of the product, but could not resist the charm of Steve Wozniak, Apple's co-founder. The employee was, sadly, fired immediately.

However, should Apple really have fired someone for doing something so trivial? According to Wozniak, Steve Jobs even responded to the employee's actions with a "it's no big deal." Likewise, should a Penn State Creamery scooper be fired for providing an elderly customer with two flavors? It really comes down to the standards of integrity a brand has. Yet, this integrity often comes with the flip of a coin.

For example, it's pretty much common knowledge that Apple employs overseas factories to assemble its hardware, certainly benefitting from child labor; a fact that is certainly avoided and never touted by Apple fans. Likewise, Penn State's Creamery's ice cream has such a high fat content that it is rumored that the FDA cannot allow it to be sold in grocery stores. Why is it that these businesses have zero tolerance for employee misgivings, yet commit themselves to atrocious misdeeds? (Okay, perhaps atrocious misdeeds is a bit much to be applied to the Creamery's fat content)

Well, I must say that I tip my hat to those Creamery Scoopers and Apple Engineers of the world. It's hard to sacrifice self dignity for the good of a company. Ask Updike's character in A&P; he couldn't commit to it. Yes, it is morally wrong to follow the will of a corrupt leader (Apple or the Creamery, in this case), but those who hold true to their companies standards also realize that it is not the company they stand for, but their own survival in a game designed for them to play.

Children cross the road, ones wearing red wool hats that go past their eyebrows. The snow piles on their tiny heads. The flesh of their hands turn bright pink from touching the snow. The children cannot help touching the snow, there is no self control in the youth, only natural impulse to beauty.

The sound of slush being tossed by car tires is muffled behind this large window, but it creates an alluring symphony. It reminds me of when I leave the television on when I sleep or reading to the hum of a space-heater. Silence is a man's greatest fear, the crushing of slush is his remedy in cold weather.

The sun is slowly setting, there will only be an hour until it has fallen behind the earth's rocky curtain. When it returns it will be tomorrow. It will be is Valentine's Day. It haunts me.

There is something to be said about any holiday that occurs in the center of the coldest month of the year. Particularly strange is that it is a holiday about love.

I bend my elbow on the counter and bite the skin above my knuckles as I write this. My glasses hurt the bridge of my nose and the smudge my finger left on the right lens is giving me a headache. I'm not used to wearing glasses, not yet. They weigh down my ears and disorient me. I can't talk when I have them on.

My coffee has gone cold and I really need to piss. But, I plan on leaving the café soon, so I choose not to use the restroom.

I look down at the bright cover of Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson, which I have never read and probably never will read. I came here to find a job, not to read. I came here to find a job, not to write. I came here to find a job.

My confidence had suffered a great loss of esteem that day due most in part to the poor review I had recieved from Prof. Lonney.

Lonney, being a thin and suirrelly man -- a vegetarian I am told -- is of the sort who undeniably had suffered from inadiquacy and great torment throughout his childhood. The top of his head seemed to me swollen and malformed. Assuredly his inadiquacy resulted in great pride and fefence ofver his positioned power as instructor and he would undoubtably berate any who feel their mind of the matter superior to his own.

It is for this reason that Lonney felt it necessary to defame my masterpiece as being unsatisfactory.

Had I been a new student, unaccustomed to composition or logic, I would have taken to heart his dissatisfaction with my writing. But, because I have confidence in my ability, I ascertained that such an insult was certainly a jibe at my own character. It is the weakest of men who assail the art of the man they loathe, yet whilst retaining an unmoving countenance.

Lonny, I know, had wronged by being, putting me in a mood of despondence, lost, questioning my own personage. What had he found so overbearing or threatening about me? I admit I put myself over other students with some leverage, but had I been too unjustly pomp?

In times such at this, I miss my home town, Gring's Mill. I wanted the embrace of my mother -- dead-- a pat on the back from my father -- insane-- or even something from my sister -- who has left with that man.

Gring's Mill owns a cool breeze even in the oppressive heat of summer. The soil of the place has always a dampness which smells of the aura of a newly sprouted basil leaf or the saltless smell of a river after most of its fish had dug themselves in. Trees are everywhere -- oak, maple, pine -- and make seeing the sun a task in the greener months. There is a river there -- now dwindled to that of a creek, but still known as a river-- called the Tulpehocken, an ancient native name, no doubt, which ran so plump with fishes and elderly men who wished to catch them in the summertime.

I made my way to the University's library, hoping to find some trace, some vision of home within its books. I asked the woman at the wooden desk, an old airy woman, whether any books existed with my desired information.

She had but one book concerning the history of the Gring's Mill region, which he admitted shamefully, but I was entirely satisfied of the existence of any book on the topic at all. In sixteen years, I had never known of any history of Gring's Mill. It seemed to me that what was, had been and ever will be.

I took the directed book in my private nook to read the work, and what I had found astonished me. For what a delight a man has when he grasps the knowledge he seeks and more!

Most of the book had been overrun by drab history, founders and businesses, rivers and fish. But its history of a local -- now forgotten -- legend is what quenched the void Lonny had dug me earlier.

It was the history of Ms. Polly Kiss, the daughter of Gring Kiss, the founder of the original Mill. I will recount... Nay, ENHANCE!... the story of Ms. Kiss, the legendary woman of Gring's Mill.

Polly was astirred from her brief and shallow slumber on the living room sofa by a loud knocking. Her bright green eyes opened to the tooth-white ceiling. There has not been but one day those men have stopped building, not even through the thunder storm last week. She rolled on her side, sighing.

"Must they, must they, must they keep up that racket? Could they not make a smaller footpath, like the one they have in Bern?" said Polly, dusting strands of her thick dark hair from her face.

"Polly, the men must do their work, do you not get enough sleep at night? And we need a large bridge because commercial vans hope to pass this way, and the commercial vans hope to pass this way, and the anthracite boats must be able to make their way down the Tulpehocken without scraping a bridge set in the way. It is a very big project, try to cope my dear, it will not be long til it is soon over." said Gring kiss, her father and owner of the mill by the river.

Polly swept to her back again, closing her eyes and squeezing her palms to her ears. The local boy children looked at her like a goddess. Her face as pale as pearls and long dark hair which swooped over her forehead. She curled her back making a small bridge of her own over the sofa cushion, letting out a loud yawn and collapsing bac into her beautiful half sleep.

She was well educated and, in fact, was the most intelligent person in the small town. She had attended two years of university in the city of Philadelphia, studying psychology. She had written a pamphlet there which was included in the University's curriculum and she was well paid for her insights. With her profits she purchased a camera, one of the first of its kind, and she hobbied herself by taking pictures of the Tulpehocken river and interviewing/photographing revolutionary war veterans in the nearby city of Reading, which was booming with commerce. Although she was disallowed to graduate from her university with a degree, she was still very highly regarded by the men of study and often received letters from them regarding, usually, her influential work in psychology.

However, it was one man, Dr. Peter Lonney -- coincidence, I am sure -- who sent her an occasional love letter:

"Polly, my love;

It has been now a year since you have replied to me. My dear, do you not see that I yearn? It is cruel that you leave me here, in Philadelphia, alone, to cry each night I cannot see your green budding eyes. To forget the love of a kind man is more than a venial offense, in my eye! Dear, it is for you that I weep, to hear you speak, even of your nonsense drivel of the brain, is all I ask! Please please, love, allow me to visit you, or come visit me, so that I can just be happy in seeing you again. Oh, I am reminded of your warm breath and it tries me so! Please, do not leave this letter, like the rest, without Reply.

Til then, I am, as ever, yours.

Peter"

Dr. Lonney's letters were kept neatly underneath Polly's bead. SHe read them when she felt alone, which was more often than not. Fear, however, thralled from inside her when she considered her father's reaction to her finding love, leaving him alone with the mill. She couldn't do this to the old loving man, but she also yearned for Dr. Lonney.

The two, as youths at the university, had shared their first kisses in the bell tower in old City Hall, where Peter had worked in order to afford the measly apartment above his uncles tavern. She had been afflicted to him ever since.

For months the thumping of the men's hammers had ceased when Polly had decided that she could no longer restrain her passion:

"Dearest Peter,

Forgive Me! For I fear that I have been far too restrained. Peter, I love you, I must see you again! Forgive me!"

Within the week, Dr. Lonney had arrived.

There was a knocking at the door.

"Father, I will get it. It is for me... a student... here to interview me." she opened the door and immediately pursed her finger over Peter's lips and pushed him slowly out the door, shushing him.

She closed the door and there he stood, tall and slender, with a bulging forehead with defined temples, draped with his thick, almost wet hair. He begun to speak, but she shushed him again and directed him to the bridge.

She returned that night paler and alone. Her father insisted she explain her absence, but she said nothing. Her head simply swayed side to side as her feet heavily clapped the floor.

Mr. Kiss could hear his daughter clop up the stairs into her bedroom. She sat on her bed weeping. The high pitched shrieks she made when inhaling another breath strained into her maning whelps of agony. My poor dear, what types of interviews do tese universities hold? He rubbed his baled spotted head.

The next morning she had not emerged from her bedroom, nor did she for the rest of the day. She asked her father politely to leave her food by her doorstep and to not ask questions. He agreed and followed her instructions.

The next morning there was a letter outside of her door which she asked her father to mail. He agreed and followed her instructions.

He returned from the post office to find that his daughter remained in her bedroom. He asked why she remained inside, had she not felt well? But she was harshly apprehensive and scolded her father for asking questions.

Their days remained this way for many days, weeks. Some days she had letters, other days she had none. The university had stopped mailing her, perhaps she had bumbled up that interview.

However, after months of this ongoing lassitude from Polly, Mr. Kiss became irate. He called doctors and psychologists which she deftly refused to see. When a letter came for her, he quickly intercepted it. It read:

"Ms. Kiss,

Your theories lack merit and I will not forgive you for your brash actions. I wish to never see you again and I defy the day in which we have met. My love will not be taken for granted and I will not stand for a loony psychologist woman berating my studies with her photography! Art has no place in the studies, dear, and I wish you happiness.

Thank you for all,

Dr. Peter Lonney"

My daughter is heartbroken, I see! Thought Mr. Kiss. He accepted that there is little he could do to ameliorate his daughter's affliction. He became disconcerted with Polly's strife.

Polly stepped from her room for the first tim ein the winter. Holding in her arm a large basket and had a large scarf wrapping her head. It was past midnight so she stepped softly down the stairs and through the front door. She cautiously walked down the rocky street towards the red wooden planked bridge, shuttering at the sight of it.

Her eyes seemed to glow an unnatural redness and as she sucked her breaths in the spit beside her tongue gargled. She stepped with conviction, towards the red-wooden planked bridge, which was now well-travelled by vans carrying goods and passed by the anthracite boats in the river below. Altogether it was about thirty feet from the frigid waters.

The bridge was covered and there were bats making their horrid nests within. As she stepped the squeaking of these malformed creatures grew. The boards of wood moaned beneath her obviously larger frame.

She came to a white wood lined window and set her large basket on the wide sill overlooking the river.

From the basket, she pulled from the ankle one cooing baby -- newborn and small -- and immediately tears stemmed from the side of her still glowing eyes.

After carefully examining the child through the darkness, she began to man and moan, until she began to laugh. Then holding the baby by the ankle she dropped the small thing into the cold water below.

It let out a gasp just before its naked body hit the water. Just then hysteric crying was heard, not from the river, or Polly, but from the large basket she was carrying.

A second baby flown into wild hysteria. Somehow it knew its doom.

Polly shuttered as she saw a man with a lantern on the bridge.

"P... Poll... Polly! What in God's name are you doing?!" screamed Mr. Kiss.

But Polly wrapped the crying baby in her thick nightdress and lept into the frozen water below. Her laughter deafened the ears of her bewildered father.

It is said that when investigated, Polly's room was covered with photographs of her nude body, her breasts and stomach swelling as her pregnancy commenced. As well, there was a torn envelope with photographs of the foreheads of several local men with Dr. Lonny's name written upon it. There was also a journal with a tale benefitting the extent of her torture. Finally, after a sound was heard, the investigators found an emaciated and dehydrated baby with the greenest eyes and the largest, swollen forehead.

END

bodies dissipate as the white crowned caps

of the blueish sea roar mightily.

Upper stories of sky scrapers float helplessly

in the submerged current.

Hulls of drowned trees crack, sending

fish scattering all about.

Poison from the land has sickened the animals

and plants and green algae.

The eye sockets of a drifting man

pull inward with dark eyes.

His suit is ruined, his buttons untied.

The skin is pale; lips are purple.

There is no hair.

Only an open mouth.

Left to drift,

in the great Deluge.

I could have a beer, but I'll just have a water. I guess both are keeping me alive just as well, though.

You know, there's not much to living. Do what you can when it's got to be done. I had a really good bagel today. Asiago cheese, that French stuff, and some veggie cream cheese. Real swell. A bit too much coffee on the side though. I make my own in a French press in the morning. I do this in order to dissuade myself from buying more during the day. But, sure enough, there I am buying some more.

Perhaps the secret of writing is just saying stuff that you'll never regret saying...

You see, there I go again, trying to perch myself above the rest. I have no theories to offer. Nothing I can say could ever resonate so well that I could take the wheel of your soul. I can trick you with a narrative of some sort, but you're smart; you see through that shit. So, let's put it all on the line:

The world is filled with rotton people. As a matter of fact, I've seldom met any good ones. To me, life is a series of being lonely and being occupied. Sometimes the phone rings, other times you sit there staring at it. Other times still you feel it ringing and you just can't stand being bothered, so you ignore it. In any circumstance you're never fully satisfied with your phone situation, because you're never quite happy with where you are. Through it all, all of the fleeting good times, you take time to consider that you've probably never really been loved, and if you have, you treat it as if it is nothing more than a heap of dog shit.

That's all the theory I can offer. I can't give a political forecast. I can't tell you how glorious any particular writer is. None of that encompasses my personal identity. I'm no politician. I'm an awful English major. I know it sounds bitter and ugly. It is bitter and ugly. I am bitter and ugly.

Some of my favorites are bean burgers, hard-boiled egg sandwiches & rice with onions.

This admission is simple, but it really makes life a great deal more enjoyable.

"This letter is an admission of failure in all aspects. Nothing I ever do will ever be completed and all of my goals are schams. It is best to continue living for mere experience, because nothing can ever be accomplished. "

"Stew"

That's what she read on his bedside dresser twelve years ago. No body ever turned up. She never dared call the police; her and Stew weren't THAT serious. He must have family, or someone else to love; surely he's not dead. Yet Carly, the brown haired photographer, hoped and dreamed that one day Stew, the only man she cared for, would twist the doorknob and embrace her once again.

Til then she sits and moans. She has met other men, but life, it seems to her, has become a swirling vastness of defeat and crumbling ambition.

She picks up the phone every so often to call her younger sister. It results in a formulaic conversation that has plagued her family relationship for years. Nothing of consequence has ever happened to anyone, ever. Not now, not ever.

"Goddamnit, shut the fuck up. I don't do this for you, Sid." said Claire.

"But, I'm the only one who ever comes." he paused, "The only one." He grabbed his jacket and started buttoning it up.

"No, Sid, stay." she bent over. "I was wrong, don't leave."

But Sid had already buttoned his tan overcoat and lit a light filtered cigarette between his yellow stained index and middle fingers. This was the last time he'd fall for a stripper.

"True love, Claire. I gotta find that true love." said Sid.

She continued to insist he stay, but he had none of it. He walked to the door leaving a trail of smoke bellowing from his head.

"Well, don't come back til you've found it, you meat head." she looked down at her nipples, perky and erect, "There's nothing for men like you out there."

--------------------------------------------

Sid didn't believe in love. He never had. Sensible men didn't bother with nonsense, and love was the most nonsensical. When asked by his mother why he had never found someone, he had no answer. He could only spit in his mouth and look towards the cloudy sky bitterly.

The next morning he walked from his apartment in a three story brick building, overgrown with vines and graffiti, to the small store on the corner. The store was run by asians, and he didn't feel comfortable asking them questions. The store wasn't convenient, the prices were high and the products were poor.

He picked up the city's morning newspaper and filled up a tall paper cup with decaf coffee from a stained coffee pot and set them both on the counter by the register.

"Five fifty." said the asian girl at the counter.

Sid clumsily tapped over the coffee cup, soaking the newspaper and the counter by the register with hot coffee. He cursed and quickly tried sopping the mess up with his newspaper.

"Oh no." said the asian girl at the counter.

"Gee, I'm real sorry miss. I don't know how to work my hands sometimes." he shuttered in embarrassment.

The asian girl at the counter ran into a back room of the corner store and returned with a full roll of paper towels. She began to sop up the mess.

"Let me help," said Sid, "It's my mess, I really should clean it up."

"No, no, this is my job. Don't worry about it, really." said the asian girl at the counter. Sid was stupefied at how well she spoke english. "See, all better." she smiled.

Sid smiled back. He pulled up the back of his overcoat and reached into his back right pocket of his old jeans. When he felt no wallet, a new sense of embarrassment took hold of him.

"Oh shit... hey, listen... umm," he squinted his eyes and peered at her inquisitively.

"Daiyi." she said.

"Daiyi... I've forgotten my wallet in my apartment. I live in the brick apartment building. Would you mind if I picked it up?" his face was no longer smiling, but now his lower lip was quivering over his upper teeth and his forehead was wrinkled up.

"Listen, ummm..." she said sarcastically and did the same peering gesture Sid had.

"Sid." he replied.

"Sid... Don't worry about it. I've seen you here plenty of times, it's nice to hear a peep out of you for once. Plus, who would want to pay for spilled coffee and a soaked newspaper? They are free, today." she looked away.

"Oh really? Thank you Daiyi, you shouldn't." his face tilted.

"No, actually I shouldn't. The owner of the store would probably fire me. But he won't know. The security cameras aren't real." she laughed.

"Not real?" he laughed, "Well, that's a shame. I'll have to keep that in mind the next time I choose to relive my days as a career criminal."

"Well, I'd like to see you try," said Daiyi," The owner would shoot you faster than you could say 'cash register.'"

Sid could feel himself smiling a bit too much now. Was he about to flirt? No... no. Time to leave.

"Well, I'll see you around Daiyi." he quickly muttered and tightened his overcoat.

"Yeah, take care." said Daiyi.

On his way back to his apartment, Sid contemplated his farewell to Claire. "There's nothing for men like you out there." But Daiyi was something. To Sid she looked just about the same as every other asian had ever looked. Her tits were nothing great. Her hair had the kind of swoosh that he liked. But there was nothing spectacular.

Yet, he felt drawn in. Twice on his way back to his apartment did he consider turning around and storming into the corner store just to embrace the tiny asian girl. Daiyi was the one for him, he knew it.

He clopped his boots against the carpeted stairwell in the stairway of his apartment. Three stories of smelly rooms with misfit people. He resided on top, the king of these deranged men and women. He rolled his hand over his slick brown hair down to his neck and opened his apartment door.

He stepped no more than three steps into the apartment before he froze. Suddenly a burst of energy blasted into his gut. It was like nothing he could describe. The urge was too much. He bolted back down the stairs, forgetting to close the door to his apartment. He nearly fell down the lowest flight of stairs, tripping, leaping and flying down those carpeted stairs.

The front door of the brick building exploded open with such vigor that the sound of it's metal doors could be heard from every corner of the street. It caused a wild dog on the second floor to bark in a foaming rage out the window into the cloudy sky.

Below was Sid, stumbling almost, like a beast running back down the tan sidewalk. Beside him waved the many marks of graffiti, images of jagged lettering and nonsensical shapes, names of gangs and imprisoned men. They all blew past Sid as his boots slammed on the pavement.

He finally reached the corner store and crushed his way through its glass door. The bell that sounded each time a customer entered rang so loud that it fell from his hanger, making an awful clunk as it hit the ground.

Sid, with a vicious look in his pale eyes, said, "Daiyi."

He blurted, "Daiyi. Daiyi, I must have you, Daiyi."

Daiyi, still behind the counter was shocked at the mans apparent hysteria.

Sid lept at the counter and spread his stomach over the countertop. "I love you, I love you."

Daiyi, frightened to her core, pulled her managers gun from under the cash regiester.

"Sid... Sid, now listen. I won't shoot you if you stop right there."

The music in Sid's head stopped.

"I don't know you. You don't know me. And now we have to keep it that way." she said with the kind of power a woman with a gun has, "Don't you ever, ever, step foot in here while I am working. I'm nothing for you to love. I am not going to deal any man telling me anything. Do you understand?"

"Do you understand?" this time she yelled.

Sid's eyes closed and didn't open until he was back on the street. He stumbled to his feet and waved goodbye to the store for a second time that day. It was the last time he'd ever go.

-----------------------------------------

Claire's eyes grew large when Sid came back into the club.

"Give up? Already?" she said, removing herself from whatever sexy position she was currently in.

Sid said nothing.

"You know," she stepped down from the stage, stark naked with large erect nipples and long brown hair which reached the tips of her shoulder blades, "you never need more than a friend, Sid. If something's got you down, you know where I am."

He looked beside himself at the nude woman rubbing his shoulder. He pushed his hairy face above her breast and wept. Life's not fair, it's never going to be. But for what it's worth," he blurted with some tears silently crawling down his wrinkled cheeks, "It's always a pleasure to see you." he postured himself a bit and wiped his cheeks with his overcoat sleeves, "and your big ass."

They both smiled and nothing of the event was ever brought up between the two.

Six years later they died in a car accident, but neither felt so bad. At least they were together.

I took a walk in my hometown today. It was cold; about 20 degrees outside. Walking around bundled up on the sidewalks reminded me of walking trips I took in elementary school. I wasn't sad or too upset about anything then. Elementary school wasn't a series of concessions or upsets, it was just plain existence, a whole lot like a painkiller.

I took a nap and came out of it with a character. He is some kind of spy man. What I know is that his first memory was of an old black man who washed the windows of the sky scraper his father worked at. The boy had no mother, so his father had to take him along to work. The window washing man came once a week and washed the windows of the tower. He remembers one day thinking that this huge thing must have fallen from the sky. Turns out it was the window washer.

Very bad idea. I dunno what you call a writer who works on a simple four-page essay for 6 hours, just to delete it and start over. An egoist, perhaps? Regardless, let me tell you what, after 6 hours of writing, there's very little inspiration left in your fingertips. But, it's due tomorrow. So you trudge and craft until it makes sense. You get two pages in, and it's perfect. Now how do you bullshit those next two?

Writing holds the same properties as children's building blocks. A great work is made with the proper pieces; they contain the correct shape, color and size. There are usually working parts. It is seldom ever stationary. Yet, when it is stationary, like a tower, there is always more joy in breaking it down than building it up. Crude people often knock down the writer's towers without permission, or in a bullying way. Yet, there are infinite ways to crush a beautiful block tower— some with grace, others with sloth. There is never a princess stranded on the highest block, nor is there a beautiful pot of gold within its winding basements. The only enemy a block tower has is time and wind.

As a child, the writer is handed building blocks, such as Lego Bricks. As an artist, the writer must learn to create blocks. He must craft them for particular functions; shape, color and size. The blocks can change, particularly blocks that represent character as they are the most sporadic and unpredictable. After this, the writer must learn to create mortar and be mindful of his style in doing so. The writer's tower is only as strong as his mortar; a loose brick could result in failure and cause the whole thing to come tumbling. Finally, the writer must learn to build his tower from the bottom up and to never have complete plans for any tower before it is finished. The writer's result is often catastrophic and nearly every writer fails in ever creating a stable tower. The writer who never builds outside of his means and understanding always has the greatest success.

I could use a bit more of home and a whole lot less of these strangers.

The album itself is pretty good. "Keepers of the Funk." Produced mostly by K-Def and Marley Marl. It surprises me that I like it; I don't often dig Marley Marl and I've got nothing else K-Def has done. The emcees, Mr. Funky Man and the other guy, are particularly bland, despite their unique vocals.

Looking at the general play count of the album, I realize that I always stop listening after the track "No Pain." I know this track, unfortunately. Bad tracks are often skippable, but sometimes a track becomes so bad that you must simply discard the entire album. This is one of them. It also doesn't help that the songs following are painfully boring, it becomes impossible for them to regain the listener.

The album does have strengths. I really enjoy that it embodies the early-to-mid 90's hip-hop sound. It is remarkably 'good,' despite having so very few highlights. Steam From Da Knot is without doubt the best track. The beat is pretty serious. It actually makes for great inactive listening; great for a hip-hop chill out session.

Regardless, I can't say that I'd recommend it, especially to a fan who doesn't appreciate classic-styled non-canonical boom-bap.

I have finished my cup of water and I should drink another, but I am too lazy to make it to the kitchen right now. I'm going to bed. I'll just have to deal with being groggy in the morning.