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as my colossal case of writer's block enters the realm of aching drought known only to those who love the craft i find myself thinking about a suitable title for my book.

ive always been partial to "versus gravity" for the simple reason that it encapsulates the most effective release mechanism in my coping arsenal. i press more than a metal bar off my chest when i lift.

and by the way, you hackjob, cartage motherfuckers who dont bring the bar all the way down to your chest: youre a fucking disgrace to the sport.

throw your fucking gloves away, put your belt back in mommies house, lose the tank top, get off your cell phone for eight seconds, dont bring attention to yourself and do it right.

you know who you are.

another potential choice for my memoirs, you ask?

"as raindrops inexorably pound the earth."

i like carnage, chaos, contention and concatenation. i love films and novels about the demise of civilization, society and humankind.

if i was the last person on earth i would be the crazy motherfucker who meticulously plotted rube goldbergian ways of setting gigantic firework warehouses ablaze as i watched from the comfort of a plush, fully reclined la-z-boy. i would be stephen king's "trashcan man" as i made my merry way across the country dropping fuses in gasoline tankers whilst cinematically snapping my trusty zippo. i would launch everything i possibly could off the top of chicago's 'cock and watch the devastation unfold on high-speed camera film. i would see how quickly i could level a seventeen-story office building using nothing but wwii hand grenades and then i would watch as the building toppled like a lumberjacked oak tree.

i like snow that knows no woes. i like foggy october shadows. i like the rain that accumulates between wiper cycles. i like wind that flirts with the foundation of my house. i like storms that froth at the mouth. i like vacation footage of tsunamis and eruptions and earthquakes and typhoons and monsoons and wildfires and avalanches and mudslides and hurricanes and blizzards and tornadoes and floods, fires, frost and frippery.

i cant wait for earth to win.


i think ill throw one more candidate in the mix for good measure.

i was sitting in a biology lecture several years ago when i heard my professor say "where the xylem meets the phloem." the phrase rolls off the tongue like warm butterscotch.

i never had to etch the words on the back of my left hand because it represented one of those marvelous acoustic moments that all humans experience; its as if specific, designated neurons exist for the sole purpose of being entombed in glial concrete the instant a predestined consortium of words enters consciousness.

perhaps its your octogenarian grandmother telling you to have a strong will as she succumbs to the atrocities of pancreatic cancer. perhaps its the onomatopoeia of your baseball leaving a dent in the left field scoreboard. perhaps its the last few lines of a poem youll recite to your wife as you journey into the great wide open.

our limitless senses limit us as we seek meaning in a meaningless world.



and that, my friends, is where the xylem meets the phloem.