Nobody's Interesting Life

A man is strapping explosives to his body with the full intention of blowing himself and hundreds of innocent men, women, and children to eternity. A boy in Africa is being forced to kill his parents and rape his sister. While these things were happening, I was contemplating the stiffness of my erection as it moved in and out of Madeleine. Madeleine's last name was Paquette. She was a Parisian woman of twenty-four. Her father was a Frenchman with direct lineage to the reign of terror, and her mother was an Iranian. Or, as she preferred to call herself, Persian. Madeleine had inherited all the best features of her parents. She had dark skin and perfect ears like her mother. She was five feet, six inches tall and had retained her father's green eyes. She was one of those women that commanded a second look if you passed her on the street. Undeniably striking. In addition to benefiting from her parents genetically, she was also the recipient of their immense wealth. I was...

I wrote to her, On fickle paper and meager hopes, Could it be? Over? It was. And nobody was listening, And perhaps no one ever does. So ode to you, Woman You broke my heart (tore it to pieces really). I ate your chocolate, And vomited all over the sidewalk, For nothing really. Nothing at all. Now you have every card, But don't play a single one Still, I wrap my hand around what's left. Not for you, But for me. No, it's for you.

When I was young, my grandfather would tell me this story: An old woman found a dollar. She wanted a pig. She said, "I can get a pig. I can get a pig with this dollar." So she did. As she was walking the pig home, they came to a stile. The old woman said, "Pig, pig, jump over the stile, or I shan't get home tonight!" The pig said, "I won't jump over the stile." And he ran away. The old woman ran after him. Along the way the old woman met a dog. She said, "Dog, dog, bite pig. Pig won't jump over the stile, And I shan’t get home tonight." The dog said, "I won't bite pig." So the woman went a little further and she met a stick. She said, "Stick, stick, beat dog. Dog won't bite pig, Pig won't jump over the stile, And I shan’t get home tonight." The stick said, "I won't beat dog." So the woman went a little further and she met a fire. She said, "Fire, fire, burn stick. Stick won't beat...

I was conceived by God before the beginning of time. Before my grandfather died. Before my parents' got a divorce. Before there was such a thing as before. Three years prior to their divorce, I was concieved by my biological parents. Nine months prior to the first day of the second month, I left my Father to visit my Mother. Leaving dad's penis with about one hundred million other well meaning sperm, I made my way through my mother's uterus, took a breather in her cervix and witnessed the passing of thousands of my fellow travelers. That was my first encounter with death. I continued on the red-eye, flying through mom's fallopian tubes, got into my first fight just outside her zona pellucida and won. Nine months later mother pushed me out of her vagina. I was a quiet baby, but that didn't last. I continue to maintain a complicated love affair with silence to this day. All this may seem extraordinarily dull, trite and unoriginal. It is, after all, the beginning of th...