I ran inside of the hotel on the corner and asked the guy behind the desk if they had any tape.  He gave me a dirty look, but pulled out a roll just the same.  I was paranoid I’d miss her, which is ridiculous, but in my hurry I dropped the paper on the other side of the counter.  The clerk behind the desk picked it up and then gave it a once over.  He smiled at me for a second, but then handed it back without saying anything.  I started to walk away when he called out behind me.

“Her name is Margaret.”

Needless to say, it stopped me dead in my tracks. Read the rest of this entry »

I was up late walking last night.  It was sweaty and hot in midtown.  I couldn’t really think straight, but I was happy to be out of work, unemployed, sweating at my own pace, not worried about waking up, and zombie walking my way into an air conditioned coffin.  As I got to the corner of 36th and Lexington, this woman, older, in her late 40′s walked by me, pushing her bike.  I looked at her for a split second longer than I should have and she smiled at me.  I am easily 15 to 20 years younger than she is.  My mothers friends look like this woman.  She was wearing a flower petal patterned dress with a sweatshirt tied around her waist and sunglasses resting on her head.  Her skin looked tired, but I instantly wanted to spend the rest of the evening with her. Read the rest of this entry »

I am waking up. Or rather, I can’t sleep. It’s almost two o’clock in the morning. I can imagine what I look like, were someone to creep into my cramped 6 floor walk up. I’m sweaty, naked, dried cum staining my underwear. A real peach of a picture. I get up, and go to the bathroom, rinse my face. I’m older than I think I should look. Jesus, was I always this…ragged? My stubble has gotten past the point of casual insouciance and is too short to be a beard.

I look like a hobo. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s raining.  It’s raining uptown.  Julia comes to her window, and sighs.  She’s been waiting for something to happen, anything really.  This week has sucked.  Monday, wake up, work, early dinner, and the straight to bed.  Tuesday, same.  Wednesday…you get the idea.  It’s Friday and she’s really hoping, or rather hoped, something would surprise her, and break up this pattern.

But it’s raining.

No one is going out.  No one is calling her.  There is just the giant silverfish in her bathtub under a pot.  That’s the excitement for the night.  She goes to her phone, and starts to flip through the numbers in vain.  Who do you call when you don’t want to talk?  Who should you dial when you want a surprise?  She gets up from her couch, which is ratty and worn from where her former roommates cat scratched it apart.  Living alone had some perks but this nagging sense of loneliness was not one of them.

“Maybe I’ll get drunk” she thought. Read the rest of this entry »

Rob is sitting behind the counter.  He is bored.  He looks bored.  Working at 7/11 is boring.  He is thirty two.  This is too old for Rob to be working at the cash register of 7/11.  He know this.  In ten minutes the highlight of his day will happen. Read the rest of this entry »

Kristen Bellweather is being stood up.  She doesn’t know it yet, but as she is putting on her expensive lipstick and pointy shoes, covering her body in Oil of Olay, soaking in the tub for an extra ten minutes, Mike Willford is getting asked to work late.  She will go to the bar in the West Village that they agreed to meet up at, and try to be casually late, but it’s hard, because Kristen has been waiting for this date all week.  So instead of getting there about 10 minutes late, she’s actually early.  She’ll walk by the book store and stare in the window for a few minutes, making a mental note to read more, and not just gossip magazines, before she decides she’s kept him waiting long enough.

Mike is sitting at his desk, trying to finish up his last report for the day, when his editor comes in and gives him a “scoop,” a real live hot story.  Before he has time to even think, “I have a date,” or “this is bad timing” his boss hands him a dossier and the company card to cover his expenses.  ”Good thing you were here right now, Willford, or I would have given this story to John.” Read the rest of this entry »

Before we get started on pills, let’s make a checklist of things to consider:

Price: is your chosen method gonna cost you an arm and a leg?  Because if so, you’re getting ripped off.  Consider this as an idea: the best things in life are free.  Does this apply to your method?

Ease of use: Let’s face it, if it’s too difficult, your probably gonna give up like you did with that ikea shoe nook.  Suicide shouldn’t take all day, nor should it give you a headache.  What’s the point of choosing the easy way out if it’s a pain in the butt?

Pain factor: Is it gonna hurt?  A lot?  For a long time?  This sounds a lot like life.  If your alternative to life is painful, and does’t involve awesome things like cookies and naps, why bother?

Cleanup: This is only for the hyper considerate, but vanity can also play a part.  If you shit yourself, will it have the desired effect of showing that certain someone how much they screwed up by letting you go?  If there is vomit everywhere, will it detract from how much people will miss you?  Yes.  It will. Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, so another obvious method of killing yourself is the Jumping Off of Tall Things track. One thing we failed to mention in regards to guns is the cleanup factor. Not to be a jerk, but isn’t it just a teensy bit inconsiderate to leave your loved ones one final annoying chore to take care of? If you’ve ever seen Pulp Fiction, apparently cleaning brain and bits of skull is sort of a cluster fuck. But maybe you have no loved ones, hence the suicide idea to begin with. Even still, do you really want to be remembered as the person that Chuck from sanitation was cursing at when he fired up the utility hose?

No, of course you don’t, which is why people have been jumping off of tall things for centuries.

Where to jump?

The benefit of jumping off of a tall thing is that you can do it anywhere and at no cost.  And if you are have roommates, it won’t leave a terrible mess that would force the landlord to keep their security deposit.  That being said, picking the place to do it is important. Read the rest of this entry »

© image courtesy of Gasworth!

So a fair amount of information exists on reasons both pro and con for suicide. Let’s presume you’ve already read the The Myth of Sisyphus, and you are on board with killing yourself. Sometimes when I read existential literature, I want to kill myself too, so I can see the rationale.

But now here comes the tough part. How to kill yourself?  There are practically millions of ways to do it, and any entrepreneurial person can figure one out, even on a budget.  That being said, there are a lot of practicalities to consider.

Number One: Guns!

This is sort of a no brainer, as the primary use for guns is killing people.  You can also use a gun as a hammer if you are in a pinch but I don’t recommend it.  The problem with guns is that, first of all, they are expensive.  Granted, you probably won’t have use for that money when you are dead (I feel like there is a moral in here somewhere) but what if you don’t have that money to begin with?  Maybe that’s why you want to kill yourself, because you are poor: totally understandable.  Or what if, you are too young to purchase a gun.  Then where does that leave you?  Alive.  And that is unhelpful for your purposes, possibly poor, young friend.

But let’s just say you can afford to purchase a gun.  Read the rest of this entry »

Continued from here.

For the next few days, after that fight with The Hot Dog, I worked late at the office.  Or to be more precise, I said that I was working late, but really I was just watching old episodes of The Office.  When I would come home, Debbie would already be asleep in bed.  I’d crash on the couch, which was uncomfortable, but made me feel as if I was proving a point, to both the Hot Dog and myself.

So, in short, it took me much longer than it should have to notice that Debbie was sick.  Like really sick. Read the rest of this entry »