Points in Case |
- My Vision Board Works, But Each Goal I Achieve Comes at a Terrible Cost
- List: Attention Rec Center Patrons, We’re Adding the Following Pool Rules This Season Because Your Shit Kid Is on Our Last Nerve
- A Guided Meditation for the Big Sleep
| My Vision Board Works, But Each Goal I Achieve Comes at a Terrible Cost Posted: 28 Apr 2021 10:00 AM PDT I always thought vision boards were just for New Age types. The kind of person who would prefer to shove a crystal up your ass rather than drive you to your proctologist appointment. But then one day I saw a Youtube video of Oprah explaining to Reese Witherspoon how she uses vision boards to manifest things she wants. I realized that there were plenty of things I wanted, like money and possessions. I decided to make a vision board myself, so I went to the 7-Eleven across the street. I asked the bodega clerk if he had any vision board supplies. He gave me a sad, grevious stare and pointed to a door in the back of the bodega marked, "EMPLOYEES ONLY." Even though I was unemployed at the time, I opened the door and entered a dark, musty room where I came upon an old man standing behind a fold-out table. He stared at me and took a long toke from an opium pipe. Finally, he asked me in a deep Brooklyn accent, "You here for the vision board supplies?" I nodded and the man gestured to the table. There was everything I needed—magazines, posters, even glitter glue. I got an armful of supplies and asked, "how much?" He just shook his head gravely. After about a minute of complete silence, I started slowly backing out of the room and left the bodega, unsure whether or not I had just shoplifted the items. I had done plenty of research on how to make a vision board. I knew I was supposed to glue pictures or words I cut out of magazines that represented realistic goals of mine for the next year or so. The half hour it took me to make it ended up being the most decisive minutes of my life. The next morning I woke up with car keys in my hand and a new Tesla in my driveway. It was the exact same one that I had put on my vision board the night before. Without questioning the situation for a moment, I got in the new car to take it for a spin. But after only seconds of driving I realized the car had no brakes and I crashed it. I nearly died, and it's still at the bottom of that river for all I know. The vision board got creative with manifesting the next goal, which was an image of a stack of money. It manifested like this: I was walking down the street and some punk valets from the science center shoved me into a tornado telephone booth that they had filled with a bunch of twenties. Though disoriented, I didn't know how this could go wrong. My vision board was finally paying off. But as I started to grab at the whirlwind of money, the high velocity speeds quickly overpowered me. I got tossed about the booth and swallowed about five hundred dollars in cash. A doctor had to surgically remove the bills from my stomach and then informed me they would not suffice as payment. He only took cards or checks. Now, I'm not a moron: after it became clear the board was cursed I tried to get rid of it. I threw it in landfills, furnaces, even the Atlantic Ocean. It would always end up back on that bathroom wall clean, pristine, and somehow drier than before. Finally, in desperation, I took a Zippo lighter to it, and within minutes my whole house had burned down. All that remained was the vision board, still in perfect condition. I picked it up out of the wreckage and saw an image that I only then remembered pasting to the board: a photo of a fire pit, from the damn Southern Living catalogue. The worst was yet to come. I had put a clip art tombstone on the board because it was a goal of mine to take more naps. I thought "Rest in Peace" was a cute way to express that. But now I'm sure the vision board will take that literally, as it has done with my other goals. So before my vision board murders me, I need to warn everyone about what is coming. Don't hate me, but when I made the board I glued a picture of a mushroom cloud onto it, simply because I wanted this year to be "bomb." I meant "good;" I can assume the vision board doesn't know that. In a similar vein, I also added a picture of the earth exploding. All I had wanted was a reminder to do my part to combat global warming. I meant it as, "Don't let this happen!" But now I see that this subtext was unclear. I'm certain that my vision board is planning on blowing up our beloved planet. I only pray this blog post gets to the government and NASA before it's too late. As for me, I only have so much time to live, and I pray to God that my vision board doesn't take the other eight billion of you down with me.  |
| Posted: 28 Apr 2021 07:00 AM PDT We've had it up to here with Nathan and his bullshit, so maybe these new rules will teach him and all his shit-kicker friends that the Elkhaven Rec Center Aquatics Staff is not to be fucked with. No drinking Mountain Dew like 20 minutes before you come to the pool. Mrs. Hunt, you can't just keep doing this and then leaving Nathan under our jurisdiction to tire himself out. No fast walking on the pool deck and then saying, "I'm not running, I'm fast-walking," when we tell you to stop running. The lifeguards have radar guns now and if we clock you at more than three miles per hour, YOU'RE GONE. No getting the railings on the diving board all sticky after eating ice cream. In fact, we just cut off the railings. No more railings. Guess you'll fall. No dunking (unless you're dunking Nathan). We will not budge on this one. No jumping in the pool and then immediately getting out, rolling around in the grass until you're green from head to toe, and then telling the younger kids that you'll eat them if they don't give you their cheese fries. Plus they're starting to realize you won't actually eat them. No more pretending to drown just so you can spit in the lifeguard's mouth when they give you CPR. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thirteen times over the course of two summers… YOU'RE GONE. You gotta stay at least five feet away from the jets from now on. Come on guy, you got a left arm. Use it. Everybody else can do backflips off the diving board now, except for Nathan. If I see anything more than a pencil dive, I'm blowing the whistle. From now on, we're only letting Nathan in the pool for twenty minutes at a time. Fifteen on weekends. Fuck it, no more Nathan. Who are we kidding? He's not gonna follow any of these rules anyway. From now on if you even look like Nathan, YOU'RE GONE.  |
| A Guided Meditation for the Big Sleep Posted: 28 Apr 2021 05:00 AM PDT Welcome to this nighttime guided meditation: The Big Sleep. If you're listening, you probably don't have long. You're about to be bumped off. Snuffed out. Stuffed in a trunk or a shallow grave, shoved into the drink with cement shoes. Wherever you might find yourself, your mind is likely reeling with an intense inner dialogue of recriminations and unanswered questions: why did I sing? Why did I keep the dope in the couch cushions when they looked so obviously lumpy? Who the fuck is Mikey Elbows? You might have reactions to this violent chatter, and then reactions to these reactions, and before you know it, your mind is a snowball rolling downhill, and not the China White kind either. The purpose of this meditation is to step outside of this little chit-chat you're having with yourself and gently ease into the inevitable darkness that awaits. First, close your eyes and allow yourself to settle into as comfortable of a position as the situation allows. If you are bound or gagged, or both, do not fight it. Fighting it will only induce panic, or piss off your captor, or both. Simply notice your surroundings. Feel the course fabric of the trunk, the cool dirt in which you lay, the bugs crawling over your skin. They will be your only friends. Take a deep breath. In through your nose, out through your mouth. If duct tape or wet rags make this impossible, don't worry, it will all be over soon. Allow yourself to sink. Let your body feel heavy. If you are in fact sinking, down, down, down into the murky depths, congratulations: you're almost there. You might notice that your mind is still racing, wondering, perhaps, why this had to happen to you. Wondering why you took the oath in the first place. Wondering: what will happen to my wife and my mistress? My VIP booth at the Dancing Bare? My Lexus IS 350 with the keyless entry and buttery leather? The condo in Key Biscayne? These questions are all perfectly normal. The answers, of course, do not matter. Soon you will be enveloped by the deepest blackness you have ever known. But you are not alone. To rat is to be human. A weak, spineless human. Remember: you share this pain with millions of others who, for some transgression or another, have drawn their number at the butcher shop of death. Breathe deeply. Breathe evenly. If your limbs happen to be unbound, try placing a hand on your abdomen, feeling your belly rise and fall. Feel the breath escape your body. It can be helpful to count the breath, focusing especially on your exhalation. You only have so many left. Appreciate them. It is said that when you are nearing death, your life flashes before your eyes: blowing out the trick candles at your fifth birthday party, the rough leather of your first baseball mitt, the silky taste of a fine Brunello, the sweet laughter of your children, the weight of a Glock in your hand. You might find remembering these details difficult at the moment. This is because you sang like a canary. Your life is hardly worth remembering at all. Still, you might find it helpful to recall a moment of loyalty. When this family actually meant something to you. When your word was bond. When a kiss on the cheek meant brotherhood instead of betrayal. Feel the warmth, the security of a time when the blood that flowed through your veins was not just yours, but that of a generational bond. You might remember a time when you carried out the contract on Baby Shanks because he wouldn't can his yap. A time when you were cool as a monk when the heat came knocking. A time when you completed the count without sampling so much as a pinch of horse. Feel this warmth envelop you. Let it fill your body, or whatever parts are left of it. It feels wonderful to let go, to rest in the glow of knowledge that you will never again have to feel the hot barrel at your skull or the cold blade at your throat, that you will sink deeply into the soft and forever abyss, never to worry, never to snitch again.  |
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