Spherical Mirror

From my own inspection
There is no detection
Of imperfection
In my own unending reflection.
While here inside
There’s no need to hide
For on every side
I see myself with my own self replied.
I am infinity
With nothing to see
But an endless sea
Of me.

But out there, I suspect
It’s you I reflect
And in that respect
I may give you cause to introspect.
I am in full view
But I’m seen by few
Though you can’t look through
If you try you will see yourself in me.
I am opacity
For you can’t see me
In an endless sea
Of you.

I just finished chapter 3 of the book I’m writing, and here’s a brief excerpt. Enjoy!

*     *     *

“Sure, trust the crazy person,” I said. “You can’t make things much worse, after all.”

That must have stung, for he stood facing the library’s exit doors, but made no motion to go. “Can I tell you a story?”

“Only if it’s a true one.”

He didn’t answer, but began, “Once there was a man who lived in a prison. He didn’t know how he’d gotten there. Maybe he’d been born there, maybe he’d gotten amnesia from a blow to the head, or maybe he had been drugged and made to forget. Either way, the prison was all he knew. The prison, and the certainty that there was another place, a whole other realm he was not allowed to even see.

“The prison was not like any you or I know. It was immense—miles wide and miles long, and several stories in height. The prison might have towered into the sky, or been buried underground…the man could not say. There were no windows. Nor were there bars, gates, locks, wardens, or any other prisoners. Only miles and miles of walls—perfectly white, perfectly clean.

“The prison had many rooms. Some of them were living compartments, with beds and rudimentary bathrooms. Some of them were used for food storage, and there were enough supplies to feed the man for several lifetimes. And many of them were empty, awaiting a purpose or designation.”

“What exactly qualifies this as a prison?” I asked. “I’ve heard of countries that are smaller.”

“A country can be a prison if you’re not allowed to leave it. It was an existence bound by walls, and void of human contact. The prisoner went insane, as anyone would, but madness can serve as a buffer against reality for only so long, and thus his sanity returned, a reluctant prodigal.

“The man began to explore the prison. To thoroughly search even one of the levels took months, and he was very, very thorough. One day, at last, his thoroughness paid off. In one of the empty compartments, he found a way through to a new passageway, one which had no parallel on any of the other levels. This corridor ran the entire length of the prison, and there were similar entry points in several of the empty compartments. The wall across from these was blank, except at its middle point. At the center, there was a long hallway with a large, round, black metal door at the end, and the man knew instantly that this was the prison’s one and only exit.

“But he wasn’t out yet. The door was locked, held in place with thick steel bolts. The locks were coded to a numerical password entered on a keypad, one arbitrary number out of millions of combinations. He spent months at the door, sometimes trying to hammer his way through the walls or pry loose the bolts, but mostly just entering numbers into the keypad, one after the other, day in and day out.

“And one day, more than a year later, as he entered passwords on keys whose painted numbers had long since eroded, he heard a click, deep in the mechanism of the door. Silence followed, and he thought he might have imagined it, but then he heard the whooshing sound of air rushing to fill a vacuum seal.

“Next he heard metal grating, and the steel bolts receded, one by one, into the round, black door. There was a moment when the door seemed to be gathering its breath—and then it swung open on massive hinges.

“Frozen with awe, the man waited until the door had come to a standstill before stepping onto the threshold. He was blinded for a moment by the abrupt sunlight, but when his eyes adjusted and he saw at last the world he had been kept from for so long…he was filled with a profound and utter horror.

“You see, the building was a prison. There was no doubt about that. But what the man had never realized… the possibility he had never entertained…was that maybe, just maybe, he was already on the outside.”

I stood transfixed for a full thirty seconds before I realized he was no longer talking. “What—” I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. “What did he see?”

Steven shrugged. “That’s how the story ends,” he said. “Perhaps some things are better left to the imagination.”

“Uh-huh.” I understand the power of the unknown, but it didn’t make me feel any less cheated. “So what’s it supposed to mean, or is it just more cryptic nonsense?”

“You’re the English major…you tell me.”

“Enlighten me.”

“It’s about expectations, I suppose. It means…” He picked a book off the floor. “…that sometimes the seeming madman is sanest of all…” The book was propped open, its covers resting on his thumb and fingers, the pages falling to either side of the spine. “…that sometimes the hungriest wolf has the friendliest smile…” He raised the book until it was at my eye-level. “…and sometimes, you can’t tell when you’re outside a prison—” His fingers snapped the book closed with a sharp FOMP that made me blink. “—and when you’re not.”

He made his way toward the door once more. “You promise you’ll come back?” I asked.

“Absolutely. I can’t tell you when…but I will be back.” I don’t know why, but I wanted to trust him. “One more thing,” he said. “What’s your favorite book?”

“What?”

“What is your favorite book?”

A favorite book? As a kid, I’d had favorite books, books that I would read over and over, never getting bored, but now… “I don’t really have one,” I admitted.

“Too few you like or too many to choose from?”

“Too many.”

“That’s good.” He nodded thoughtfully. “That’s very good. That should help a lot.”

I wanted to ask him what that was supposed to mean. I wanted to ask him so many things: What was he doing buried in books and quoting James Joyce? Why did he have to leave in such a hurry? Who was he? But I found that there was only one question I couldn’t bear to leave unanswered.

“That story you told, about the man in the prison…you made it up, right? It isn’t true.”

“Of course I made it up,” said Steven. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” He stood in the doorway, half-silhouetted by the afternoon sun. “All stories are true,” he said, with only the faintest trace of a smile. “It’s the only reason they’re worth telling.”

That Day That We First Met

Do you remember how you looked, that day that we first met?
Your makeup smeared beyond repair, your hair all soaking wet,
And then you flashed a smile at me I never could forget—
No other beauty could compare, that day that we first met.

Do you remember how you moved, that magic night we danced?
Your stumbling and missteps made the others look askance
But every little waver had me hopelessly entranced
And ballerinas looked like fools, when next to you they danced.

Do you remember all that happened on our wedding day?
The sky was blue and spotless, without any trace of gray,
And foolishly, we thought that it would all go off okay.
But then a groomsman made a joke
The pastor had a minor stroke
Your brother made a drunken rant
The best man wasn’t wearing pants
My mother called your dad a liar
Your wedding dress got lit on fire
The cake was dropped
We lost the rings
But I wouldn’t change a single thing
About that perfect, flawless day I gave myself to you.

Second Disclaimer: When the pronoun “you” is used in this post, it is referring to female readers. Feel free to read, guys, but don’t be weirded out by sentences implying that you have the hots for the Old Spice guy.

There’s a lot of preliminary talking, so if you want to go straight to the tips, scroll down to where the numbers are.

When looking up descriptions of action movies, one of the phrases that recurs is “A taut and sexy thriller.” Then, when I watch the movie, I try to figure out what part of it is supposed to be sexy.

Explosions? Not terribly sexy.

Gunfights? Not terribly sexy.

Sudden obligatory sex scene. Ah. I guess that’s the sexy part.

From a writer’s standpoint, “Sex is sexy” is just bad writing. You don’t say, “cats are catlike”–cats are cats, and “catlike”, by definition, should be used to describe something that is not a cat. In the same way, sex is not sexy–sex is sex, and “sexy” describes something that hints at sex.

Our media–movies, TV, music, magazines–all sends a message to women that the only way to attract men is to “show off whatcha got”. And so they think the only way they can get guys to notice them is to wear tight, revealing clothing. But is this actually sexy?

…

Well, yeah, obviously. Let’s not be so prudish that we say stupid things.

As guys, we’re very visually-oriented, and physical appearance plays a large role in initial attraction. But most guys (at least, the kinds you want to date), know that there’s a lot more to you than your body.

There is a time and place for everything, but the time and place for skimpy clothing is not “always” and “everywhere”. Remember, those pantsless leggings and plunging neckline may grab the attention of guys like this:

…but they’ll also get the attention of guys like this:

Now that you’ve finished peeing your pants, let’s get back to talking about se–

Hang on, let’s get some distance from that picture first.

Distance.

Distance.

Distance.

Distance.

Scrolling.

Scrolling.

Scrolling.

Scrolling.

Scrolling.

Okay, I think we’re safe now.

So, let’s get back to talking about sexy…specifically, tips on how to be attractive that go beyond hairdos, makeup, and clothes (or lack thereof).

Third disclaimer: These suggestions are based on my own personal tastes and experiences, what’s attractive will differ from one man to another. However, I hope that they will hold true for most guys.

*     *     *

7 Ways To Be Sexy Without Taking Your Clothes Off (Finally)

1. Be Expressive

Eyes are the windows to the soul. But when someone’s eyes are dead and expressionless, it’s like there’s a painted backdrop in front of that window. Having a static facial expression, even one that appears interested, sends a message that your face is on autopilot and you aren’t actually enjoying the conversation.

You have muscles in your forehead for a reason. Using them to vary your expression makes your face more visually stimulating and appealing. Having an expressive face can turn prolonged eye contact from creepy to enticing.

If you find yourself afflicted with perpetual stony-face, don’t worry! It’s never too late to learn. First, find some facial role models. If you have friends with expressive faces, watch their mannerisms and reactions. When you watch movies with close-up shots of conversations, watch how the actors and actresses communicate emotions.

Then practice moving your facial muscles in the mirror. Exaggerate the movement of your features at first, and then gradually tone down the movement to make the expressions more subtle. Add them to your facial repertoire by trying them out in conversations.

Facial expressions are a visual vocabulary, and need to be used before they feel natural. It may feel awkward at first, but so does walking, writing, dancing, or anything else worth doing.

2. Relax

We live in a stressful, workaholic, caffeine-addicted world, and sometimes it’s hard to just relax. But letting go of that stress is important–both for yourself and for the people that you’re close to.

The right guy should help you to let your guard down and loosen up, and it’s important to let him know that. If all he sees is the side of you that is tense and tightly wound, he may feel like he’s contributing to your stress instead of helping you deal with it.

Practice doing nothing. Take some time every day to clear your mind of all the things that you have to do, and let go of your worries. Try some deep-breathing exercises to relax yourself physically as well as mentally. Enjoy quiet.

And when you’re in the midst of an activity you enjoy, focus on the present, instead of everything else that you think you should be doing instead. And when you are doing something that seems like a drudge, don’t stress or depress yourself by thinking of everything you’d rather be doing–get the job done and then enjoy the free time you’ve earned.

3. Be Confident

…but not cocky.

This kind of confidence is less about bravado than it is about self-esteem. Confidence and a healthy self-esteem are very attractive in girls. Not the hyper-feminist “I’m a strong woman who don’t need no man” kind of confidence–but the quieter confidence that comes from knowing your own self-worth.

Girls with low self-esteem are at high risk of becoming emotionally needy or over-dependent somewhere down the line in a relationship, which scares guys away. As guys, we want to supplement and reinforce your self-worth–not be your self-worth entirely.

Take some time to think about all your positive attributes and likable traits. Remind yourself that you are a great singer, speaker, pole-vaulter, cook, listener, joke-teller, writer, artist, doctor, barista, or friend, even when nobody else notices.

Remember–humility is recognizing the limits of your abilities, not putting yourself down or pretending you don’t have any at all.

4. Learn the Subtle Art of Wit

I hesitated to put this one on here. For one thing, I can’t find a picture to go along with this tip (How do you take a picture of “wit”?). Also, I don’t know exactly how to define wit. And lastly, I’m not sure wit is something that can be easily learned.

However, I cannot deny that wit is sexy. So I will try to cover this one…

As William Shakespeare said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” In some ways, I think wit is the art of saying as much as you can with as few words as possible. This can be done through wordplay, allusion, implication, and many other tools.

As far as how to learn wit…my best recommendation is just to play with words and ideas. Read the works of witty people, like Shakespeare and Winston Churchill, or examine the routines of intellectual comedians. Try to learn how their words manage to have such bite, and try to do the same.

You can also take the “brevity” route to learning wit. Listen to how effectively you use your language and try to streamline it. Think about abstract concepts and try to describe them in as few words as possible.

You might even try not speaking at all…

5. Become a Master of Artful Silence

Now it’s time to use those skills of expressiveness you learned earlier. Using only facial expressions, head tilts, eye movements, smiles, eyebrow raises, nods, and shrugs, see how much you can communicate without using words at all.

Supposedly, non-verbals play a bigger part of communication that our words do. Whether or not that is true, you can say a lot just by using your face.

Speaking silently can be fun, especially if it’s with someone you know. Find out how well you know each other by seeing how well you can read each other. Using non-verbal communication with a guy also allows you to send semi-private messages in a public setting, building a greater sense of conversational intimacy and creating the excitement of a shared secret.

6. Be Positive

What do Eeyore and Puddleglum have in common?

Neither of them is sexy. Pessimistic, negative, and depressing people are not very enjoyable to be around. And yet, it’s almost our default behavior to complain about the way life is going.

Positive, cheerful people are just generally more attractive than people who aren’t. Try smiling a little more often, and you’ll see what a difference it means to the opposite sex.

Hopefully this one is pretty self-explanatory. Try to find a positive side to the bad things that happen to you. And don’t dwell on things that haven’t gone right. Move past the bad things and enjoy everything that is still going well for you.

This doesn’t mean you should try and act as if nothing bad ever happens to you…just see the bad things as the exception, rather than the rule.

7. Be Creative

I’ll let you in on a secret…guys are boring. We like variety and new things, but we’re a bit lazy when it comes to actually creating that variety.

Personally, I think creativity is a very attractive trait in a girl. It shows a desire to add something new to the world, rather than just be spoon-fed pop music and television. Plus, seeing creativity on someone else’s part often sparks creativity in myself.

Sharing your creativity also shows vulnerability. It takes courage to show something that you’ve created–something that’s close to your heart–to someone else for their perusal and critique. But doing so helps build up trust.

And eventually, that creativity can be used on a more personal level–writing a poem or painting a picture for that special someone–which helps bring you closer together.

How do you become more creative? I think everyone is born with at least some creativity. To get more, you have to nurture what you’ve got. If you have the skills of an artist, make art! If you like writing, then write! If you make statues out of Q-tips…………………that’s nice, I guess. But whatever you do, keep experimenting and pushing the bounds of your imagination.

*     *     *

Well, I said I would give you 7 ways to be sexy, and I have, so I guess this post is about finished, except for one thing…

TIP NUMBER 8: Embrace the Unexpected

One of the biggest complaints women have about men is:

They. Don’t. Stay. Focused. On. One. Woman.

This is a big problem. As I said before, guys like variety, and often, they like variety in women as well. Some of this problem may be sexual, but I think the biggest factor is that mystery is alluring.

I’m not going to try and defend the distractability of guys’ eyes, but this post is for you, ladies, and things that you can do–and changing the way the male mind thinks might be a little out of your reach (or not…what do I know?). So all I’m going to say is this:

If you want a guy to stay interested,

stay interesting.

Routines are comfortable, but they are also restrictive. Look for ways to break out of your regularly scheduled programming and grab his attention anew. Become once more the sexy enigma you were when he first met you.

Fly a kite. Bungee jump. Take a car trip across the country. Shoot off fireworks in December. Find creative uses for leftovers. Write a short story. Make a website. Build a snow castle. Pretend to be a time traveler for a day. Learn a new language. Have a conversation made entirely of quotes from 80s movies. Play Russian roulette with a Nerf gun. Host a bake sale. Hide in a refrigerator. Moonwalk in the supermarket. Go on a fishing trip. Write a song for your answering machine message. Fill your room with balloons. Start a pie fight. Dance on tables.

And most of all, have fun. Maybe you’ll fall in love next week. Or maybe in thirty years. Either way, you don’t have to wait for a relationship before getting the most out of life.

Bazinga monkey crap.

Take that, Google.

Someone just subscribed to receive an email every time you publish a post at http://nathanbiberdorf.wordpress.com. Congratulations.

Sometimes I feel like WordPress is being sarcastic with me.

Apparently, though, Someone is the person’s name. That must have been an interesting birth. Imagine this conversation between his/her/its parents, Anyone and Nobody.

“You’re going to be a very special someone some day.”

“Honey, why can’t he/she/it be a very special someone right now?”

“Great idea, dear. Let’s call him/her/it Someone! What do you think?”

“Gurgh!”

“Uh oh…looks like Someone needs a diaper change.”

And when Someone grew up, he/she/it would have so many good nicknames, like Not Just, A Certain, and That Special.

Now I just need somebody called Everyone to follow the blog…

Zounds! thought I. Perhaps there were more readers than I thought burning the well-after-midnight oil after all. Further examination showed me that the bulk of the views had come from the next day’s late morning/afternoon. A visit to Facebook revealed the answer to my mystery once and for all. One of my friends and long-time readers had SHARED the post.

SHARING? DID SOMEONE THINK THIS WAS SESAME STREET? THIS IS THE INTERNET! WHAT’S NEXT? OPEN-MINDEDNESS? GOOD GRAMMAR? ORIGINALITY?

But after I ran out of capital letters, I realized that there was an upside to this: I was being spread by Word Of Mouth, or in this case, Word Of Facebook. Like the West Nile, I had gone viral.

As this furthers my goals of world domination, I thought it would be nice to reward my friend–and anyone else who promotes the blog. But as I am a poor college graduate, this reward must be–at least for now–symbolic.

And thus do I introduce…WOMPUM, short for Word Of Mouth Points of Uncertain Merit.

For passing on the post Celibacy…It’s Not Just For Waffles Any More, and for indirectly giving me the idea for this update, I bestow upon the user Chandler…the amount of 23.15 WOMPUM. (I know other people have shared before, but I couldn’t help but notice this one. Don’t worry, you’ll get your due.)

Let me be clear about one thing: THESE POINTS ARE ALMOST DEFINITELY MEANINGLESS.

But if you want them anyway…here’s how. If you like something on the blog, and you decide to pass it on, let me know, and I will award an arbitrary amount of WOMPUM. The amounts may be integers, fractions, decimals, irrational numbers, maybe even letters.

You can pass it on through Facebook, e-mail, Twitter, Reddit, Digg, Tumblr, StumbleUpon, Google+, hacking CIA’s computer database, or even literal word-of mouth. In fact, there are sharing buttons below each post that make it easier to pass them on.

Although the amount of WOMPUM, like your school grades, is arbitrary, it will tend to be bigger if I can see evidence of the sharing (via a link) and especially if I notice a swell of blog activity as a result.

If you want to keep track of your WOMPUM, you may, but I will also keep track of everyone’s WOMPUM on my home computer as well, to save you the trouble. After gaining a certain amount of WOMPUM (the exact amount shall not be revealed, and may in fact be made up on the spot), one lucky sharer shall become the WOMPUM King or Queen. This title will be as meaningless as the WOMPUM itself, but you are then allowed to declare yourself the WOMPUM King in your comments.

This person shall remain the WOMPUM King until another arbitrary benchmark has been passed, and someone else becomes the WOMPUM King. The former WOMPUM King may then refer to himself as Former WOMPUM King, Deposed.

If the WOMPUM King is a woman, then she will of course be the WOMPUM Queen, but I decided to be sexist for the last two paragraphs to make for less clumpy writing.

So there you have it. Let me reiterate: WOMPUM IS ALMOST DEFINITELY MEANINGLESS.

Unless I become rich and famous someday, in which case, it may earn you something silly that you can sell on the future’s version of eBay.

But before you go out there and start gung-hoishly spreading Mindless Productivity to all your friends and neighbors, I want to make one last stipulation:

Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, PLEASE ………….don’t be annoying. If you pass a post along by e-mail, just send it to people that will actually appreciate it…not your entire address book. And only share things that you think deserve to be passed on.

That being said…have fun!

Some of my friends from one of our sister floors made an enormous waffle one day. A pizza-sized waffle, as I heard it, and liberally festooned with whipped cream, Nutella, and other delights. Through a small slip of the tongue, this “Celebratory Waffle” became “The Celibacy Waffle”, and thus was born the edible symbol of sexual purity.

*     *     *

They say the average man thinks about sex every six seconds. They also say that chewing gum takes seven years to pass through the digestive system, people can get pregnant from swimming pools, and pigs have 30-minute orgasms, so forgive me if I wear my skeptical hat for this one.

Nevertheless, I would say that just about all guys think about sex at least a few times a day. And some more than that.

Anyhoo, I’ve been thinking about it lately…specifically, the lack of sex that will likely arise from my becoming increasingly like Henry Higgins: “a confirmed old bachelor and likely to remain so.”

Now, I’m really not looking for “Oh, you’re a great guy, you’ll find the right woman, blah blah blah” kinds of responses right now. I appreciate the sentiments, but that’s not what this post is about.

Because, honestly, though I may whine from time to time, my self-esteem is pretty healthy. Perhaps too healthy, if anything. I know I’m a pretty good guy, and if I put my mind to it, I’m sure I could wend my way into a relationship without too much difficulty (Let it never be said that a Psych minor isn’t good for anything.).

The thing is, I’m not sure I want to.

For one thing, I’m worried that if I jumped into a relationship, I would be using the girl to fill some sort of temporary emotional void, a relationship marked by co-dependency instead of love.

But perhaps the bigger reason is that I am a hideous commitophobe.

I don’t like committing to things…sometimes not even my own opinions. I used to be a planner. I would plan things out to the minutest detail, and then things would come crashing down left and right. Now I tend to throw organization to the wind, doing things on a whim, and somehow…somehow everything always works out. God showing mercy to fools, maybe.

But relationships, as far as I can tell, are non-stop planning. Planning dates, planning meals, planning weddings, planning homes, planning children, planning jobs, planning days, planning weekends, planning LIVES. Planning, coordination, structure…all the things I’ve come to avoid.

So these things have convinced me that I don’t want a relationship as much as I once thought I did.

But then there’s the whole sex thing.

Yeah, you thought I forgot about that, didn’t you? Thought I forgot about sex in all the self-analysis? Well, looks like another six seconds have passed, because sex is back on the brain.

I am of the probably fairly small minority of people that believes in keeping sex within marriage. Or, as an alternate way of looking at it, that sex is the initiation of a sacred bond between two people, and that marriage is a legal construct to enforce it. Too much to talk about on that…I’ll save it for another post.

Anyway, I don’t really feel like judging people who have different views on the subject, but that at least is the standard that I have for myself. What this means, though, is “no marriage, no sex.”

And that’s kind of scary. I never thought I’d be particularly good at sex, but I’d always hoped to at least give it a try. The thought of never ever having sex is intimidating, and it’s not an eventuality that anyone in the church ever prepared me for. Everyone told me to “Save sex for marriage,” but nobody told me I might have to “Save sex for NEVER.”

They probably know most teenage guys will commit suicide if they hear that.

Marriage is taken as a given in Christian circles, though I’m pretty sure it was never ensured in the Bible. “Blessed are the abstinent, for they shall have hot honeymoon sex.”

The upside to this is that Christian guys are very strongly driven toward marriage. However, the downside may be that Christian guys are very strongly driven toward marriage.

I’m not saying marriage is bad, but I’ve seen a lot of relationships that zoomed from “kinda hanging out” to “here comes the bride” without much downtime. And most of the Christian relationships I’ve seen start out at a level of commitment on par with engagement in the secular world. Only time will tell if these relationships will stand the test of time.

All this is to say, maybe we shouldn’t look at marriage as the only worthwhile state of the Christian. A celibate lifestyle is one that should be acknowledged and, when it is embraced, respected.

I, for one, have a growing respect for monks. I’m sure they have days when they think, “Man…I wish I’d gotten to have sex at least once.” After all, the pipes don’t stop working just because you don’t use the faucet.

For instance, a few days back, I was working the ice cream register at Ivanhoes, and a young woman walked up and ordered a shake. She then appeared to scratch an itch in…well, in a certain place that only women and extremely large men have. I politely looked down at the register and made myself very interested in the workings of my cash drawer, when I realized that she was holding out a five.

This confused me for a moment. She hadn’t moved her hand to a purse, or a pocket, or a wallet. So where had the money come fro—

Suddenly it hit me. She hadn’t been scratching an itch. She had been reaching for money, and it wasn’t in a wallet, or a coin purse, or any hiding place as wholesome as that. With a growing sense of horror and disgust, I knew. I knew where the money had come from.

It was boob money.

Let me say, right off the bat, that there is nothing sexy about boob money…in much the same way that there is nothing sexy about armpit money. And yet this form of money storage has been around since femme fatales used it in slightly seedy fifties noir films.

And the reason—or reasons—are obvious enough: Making a deposit or withdrawal is an easy way for a woman to draw a man’s attention to her…trust funds, but the money itself…well, it does not fare well from this arrangement.

I carefully picked up the five, trying to touch it no more than necessary. It squelched lightly between my fingertips and I dropped it hastily into the cash drawer, prodding it with a pen to shepherd it into the correct money slot.

At this point, I realized that the phrase “boob money” was irrevocably stuck in my mind. I had five more hours left on my shift, and I now had to watch every word that came out of my mouth, to make sure that none of them were “boob money”.

Being very careful not to say this phrase only made matters worse. If someone tells you not to think about Barack Obama doing the Macarena…well, you see what I mean, don’t you?

]]> http://nathanbiberdorf.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/boob-money-is-an-unfortunate-phrase-to-get-stuck-in-your-head-at-work/feed/ 7 nathanbiberdorf Never try to draw hands. Ever. In terms of money storage, cleavage is really just an extra armpit on someone's chest. That doesn't look like blueberry. Probably vanilla...or marshmallow. This punctuation may not be exactly kosher, but I really don't care. I like it better this way. Always pick easy hats to draw. And redraw. ... You wouldn't believe the time it took to recreate this image in exact detail. I made a swear. http://nathanbiberdorf.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/if-this-blog-post-makes-me-famous-my-writing-career-is-doomed/ http://nathanbiberdorf.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/if-this-blog-post-makes-me-famous-my-writing-career-is-doomed/#comments Sun, 22 Jan 2012 06:59:36 +0000 nathanbiberdorf http://nathanbiberdorf.wordpress.com/?p=373 Continue reading →]]> i can’t sleppe.

half an hour ago, i thought i was tired, but now it ma not

i know thats ront and the spelling and punctuation it s messed up but i donta crare right now. im just going to write and if yyou dont like ti athen poop on you.

i spend too much toime to look back and fix everything and i dontwant to do thatright now. im not even looking at what i wrote, because then i will ante to ccange it. i like resets, rewinds, fix all that went wrong, but in rel likef we dont have that. you live, and if you meess up you life with it, the consquetnces

i’m generally not a careless writer. i pay alot of attention to what and how i write and if ifix every little error as soon as i notiece it. but itm not so careful when i talk. when i talk things just come out when i don’t think ithalm all through carefully. somethinge that means i offenc people or say things that are insensitive or hurt peole’s feelings. onece it’s out, you can’t take it back. you already said it

i wonder if we would talk as much if we decided to be as acareful with our speaking as with our riting . maybe we soulsdn’t say anyhthing at all.

i’m not even looking at the keypboard, by the way. I have my hands on the keys and i know where they are on the keyboard most of the time, but sometimes i press the wrong one and sometimes i forget. i’m not eratsing anything i say. either, so i probably sound s like a retard right now. iw as going to erase retard because i realized that’s probably offsensive but then i mremebered i’m not erasing things so i didn’t. if i said that i real life i couldn’t evrase it.

so whch is betterL thinking abou what you say before you say it aor living on eimpulse and living with the conseeuance. some would say that the latter ione is just living life, really living life in the moment. and that the other one doesn’tlive at all but just stickes in the th rules and doesn’t have real life. others woudl sayh that the first one is living a wise life, and that people that just live by impulses oare foolish. i don’t know.

right now in mhylife ai’m living kind of both parts. lots of things i thingk through, but ai also have learned to be more adaptive and roll with the punches more.i can’t do that for wirting though. for writing. everhythign ins pretty much planned out before hand. i have rtitened a chapter or blog post in my head mostly before its ont he paper  im anemean mean on the internet. which is not paper. hahahahaha. anyway

anyway.

anyway. anyway,

I thintthis is a nwew isexperiment for me to see what it looks like if i djust write and don’t stop to think about what i’m writing. this is just like what’s in my head without any editing or even looking at what i’m writing. i pr

I probably wone’t be able to read some of thiss in the morning, but that’s okay. and i’m jsture most of you won’t be able to redad most of it either, but that’s okay too.

let me askt yhou a question.: do you live more in them moment and just kind of be spontaneous ora and to anything or most things that you jthink of, or do you like to be more planned aout and have everyhhtin buttoned down the hatches? which do you think is bettter, or which do you want your life to be like?

Another question: what do you say without thinking all the way through? does it sound like this stuff where you lok back and wonder why you said it’? maybe we should all thingk more cararefully about when we ware speaking to other people, but not so careful that we are afradid to show out emotions and be honest and vulnerable. maybe that’s part of the problem. we al

we all have these have these emotional walls that we build up because we don’t like to for other people to know about ous because then we i don’t know why we do it acutally. i guess bpoeple could hurt us is what we think in our heads, but most of the popele that we would talk about those personal emotional things wouldn’t want to hurt us anyway. so what is it then? Embarrassment maybe? is it worse to be embarrassed a or to never let anyone know how you feel ?j

my seweater is red, ir ran out of things to say for a moment there. hgang on getting back on track.

what if we could eread everyobody’s mind…and i mean what if you docouldn’t help it, but you just heard weverything that was in everyoone’s mind, but you could hear it clearly, not all confused and jumbeled because everyone is thinking at once. just that you knew what peole are thinking all the time. would we be more mean or less mean.?

Im’ glad you can’t hear what i’m thinking a lot of the time. sometimes i’m get bmad a t people, and other times i tjust think mean things, and sometimes i regret them after i think them and other times i don’t. i guesss that’s part of being jhuman i guess.

did i say i guess twice? i think i did. oh well, not erasing.

what if you could be both careful and articulate and very well0spoken, but also spnontaneous and in the momeny?

I tghiink think that’s why i like writing like when i tak to people on chat or stuff insetead of on phones. when i’m on the hpphone, i’ thimI’m thinking about whow i’m going to say stuff and i get frozen up because i might say the wrong thing and if you do you dcant’t take it back because it’s aout there. but when you write

but whenyou write on chat and like that, what did is ay if orgot cause it was thining about it

oh yes

but when you are on chat, you can look at what they sad and then mabye you think youy know what to dsay, and if you were on the phone, yu would have to say it, beause if they’res a pospause it gets awkward so you have to say something quickly so they like you. but on chat if you think about it and it’s not worth saying, then yu eras it and you think about it until it’s something really clever and then you type it sand thingk, oh, ho ho i’m such a clever fellow, by jove, eh, wot wot. and then they take some time to think of the best thing to say and then you go back and forth and its really good dialogue, like you’re on a movie or something.

and i like that. as a writer, i like for conversations to feel like they work well. i lik ewhen ppeople respond and it makes snese, and bthe sentendces pbounce off each other like ping pong balls off ping pong rackets or paddles i tuguess they are.

man ift it  it it it would be weired if someone wrote a whole book lik ethis, and didn’t even take out the spelling errors. ihave you read an finnegans wake by james joyce

? That’s some weird stuff, i’m telling hyou right now. it’s go lots of languages and wlong sentences and made up words i think very stream of consciousness.

what was i saying before that.

oh i ilikee that kind of chatting because it feels like good dialogue. maybe i should hpractice ore at having good convesations in real life and be the bsest at it and i can win.

who at just looked up at my word aocount and this is like moy most owrds i’ve ever written in a blog post . right now hits says 1321 wbut i know it’s more than that cbecause i wrote more words since then. and it hasn’t even been half an hour. i’m a very fast writer when i don’t care about thwthwhat i’m writing. i should have written papera like this in college…they would already be done.

i own the night.

I capitalized that just for you. i thought it did, but it didn’t after all.\

9 pwm tje miogt

i missed it

I kown

I own the night.

there we go.i kind of find it hard to believe that anyone read this far, cause looking back on it thats a lot of stuff that i wrote and its probably pretty hard to read except if i think about it i can actually write pretty clearly witout a lot of mistakes, but that could kind of impede the writing flow i guess a little bit.

if you read this far, you deserve a congratulations. good for you. gold star.

i want to end this with omsomething really smart or thought provoking.

this isntt it, but what is or what do you think of love, as defined by America, expecially movies.

do you think the kind of love we see in movies is as imprtant ast the movies have us believe, or is it just  or is it more cof a cultural thing. id on’t know. because it see everyone is all like you need to fall in love and then get married and stuff, but they don’t do that in other countries, and sometimes that works out fine. and lots of times bpople “fall in love:” but then they fall out of love too, and then thye hjust want to go get a divorce. if falling in love ins’t strong enough to hold a marriage together should that be what you base the relationship oin on in the first place? maybe you should

I don’t know i’m jsut talking.

this is bad writing, but on the other hand, it’s also kind of good writing. not in  a a writing mechangicas sense, of course, but in a n outpouring of your soul on tho the paper. this isn’t an act i guess like most ofther writing i do is, writing all up like walls aboaround to block out you knowing what i think, but just letting it all out so you can see.

i don’t think i’m going to do this often, thoug. maybe never again. but just this once. But just this once, it think maybe it’s good to let go.

See, on the inside i’m not so sane, . O tje IOOOn Pn the inside, I’m just as crazy as all of you guys. isn’t that a comforting thought?